Lincolnshire village manager to retire this summer

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Lincolnshire Village Manager Bob Irvin speaks during the Greater Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce monthly lunch Jan. 10. Irvin plans to retire from his post this June. | Ryan Pagelow~Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 27, 2012 8:33AM

Lincolnshire Village Manager Bob Irvin is retiring.

Irvin, who has led the village’s day-to-day operations since 1993, will step down June 30 to pursue other career goals.

“I don’t want to stop working, but I want to pursue some other interests that I have,” he said Monday, declining to elaborate on what they are. “Doing that now gives me the opportunity to pursue another career before it’s time to retire-retire, for real, from the workplace.”

At its meeting tonight, the Lincolnshire Village Board is scheduled to discuss hiring a search firm to help find Irvin’s replacement.

He will leave his current workplace in good order. In its 2012 budget, Lincolnshire began restoring a few of the services it had to cut since the recession began. Longtime Village Trustee David Saltiel said Irvin deserved much of the credit for the municipality having about one year’s operating budget in its reserve account.

“I think what Bob has done a fine job on is the financial eye,” Saltiel said Monday. “The past few years have been difficult for municipalities, revenue sources have gone. He made adjustments on a routine basis.”

A Baltimore native, Irvin said growing up near the nation’s capital gave him an interest in the federal government, until he got a taste of it. He interned with Congressman Clarence Brown from western Ohio, but found that the office was too far removed from everyday people.

“I thought that it would turn me on more to be working in federal government,” Irvin said. “It actually did the opposite.”

That encounter reminded him of his family’s history in local government; his father had been a firefighter. Irvin moved to the Chicago area, and met Stan Kennedy, Wilmette’s village manager.

“It really looked like something that I might want to do,” he said. “It turned out to be a really good career.”

But, as he plans, not his final one.

“I have some interests outside of local government,” Irvin said.