Lane County’s Greg Rikhoff recognized as outstanding public employee

Presenter: County officials started their day April 29 with Administrator Steve Mokrohisky recognizing Lane County’s outstanding public employee:

Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County, administrator): The Lane Council of Governments each year recognizes different individuals and teams and elected officials for outstanding work.

[00:00:18] This year, our assistant county administrator, Greg Rikhoff, who also serves as our director of Community Justice and Rehabilitation Services, was recognized as the Lane Council of Governments’ Outstanding Public Employee.

[00:00:32] They had an event in Cottage Grove on March 7 of this year, and we had the ability to recognize Mr. Rikhoff.

[00:00:39] But just an incredible career in public service, spanning work with the city of Eugene, with the University of Oregon, and over the, nearly the past decade here, with Lane County and so it’s our pleasure—we had to drag him here because he did not want to get recognized, doesn’t want to be in front and be the center of attention.

[00:00:58] But I reminded him that as much as individual recognitions are about the person we’re recognizing, it’s also about lifting up the example to others of what we value and hold dear in great examples of what public service looks like in our community. And Mr. Rikhoff is that.

[00:01:15] He’s a go-to person for, as you all know, for people across our organization, who trust him, who rely on him as a trusted voice to go to with questions and challenges. I will tell you that I lean on Mr. Rikhoff all the time.

[00:01:35] I think one of the comments I made at the LCOG dinner was that he is like a ‘human whisperer,’ that, you know, he has this incredible ability to work with people particularly through really challenging situations and come out the other side even better.

[00:01:47] And so I oftentimes have thrown some of the biggest challenges at Mr. Rikhoff, particularly personnel-related challenges or people issues that are really complex and thorny, and he just has a masterful job of respecting different perspectives and understanding the goals that we’re trying to achieve. His background in mediation and dispute resolution have come in handy for sure in that regard.

[00:02:10] And so I could go on and on, but we just wanted to lift up Mr. Rikhoff for his incredible work here at Lane County and his commitment to public service over the past several decades.

[00:02:20] Presenter: LCOG Outstanding Public Employee, Greg Rikhoff:

[00:02:23] Greg Rikhoff (LCOG, Outstanding Public Employee): Chair Loveall, commissioners, thank you very much. This is difficult for me, and they did surprise me, one would say trick me, into attending the LCOG dinner to recognize the elections team, which is very worth recognizing.

[00:02:39] As I’ve shared with Commissioner Farr on numerous occasions since our careers have run in parallel, this really has been the most remarkable organization I’ve ever had the chance to work for. And I have greatly appreciated these days. It’s humbling to join the other individuals who’ve received this award.

[00:03:01] And as I said, recognition is very difficult and I’m grateful for it and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This is a great organization with remarkable people, great leadership, and yeah, I appreciate this very much.

[00:03:21] Presenter: Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

[00:03:23] Commissioner Laurie Trieger: I know you hate this and I know we couldn’t surprise you today. I was surprised that the LCOG dinner stayed a surprise until the moment, because you are so of so many things. I was like, ‘How did he not learn of this?’ Because you seem to know so much before it happens. So that was great.

[00:03:42] We often use the word collaboration when what we mean is cooperation. We’re just sort of working together and cooperating. True collaboration is when you create a thing that literally could not exist without all the people or organizations working together to create the thing. It’s a unique something.

And you have been part of true collaboration, and that takes patience and vision and a real commitment to a set of values and principles around justice and getting it right, and I just see you exemplify that in small and large ways every single day. And I’m so grateful that you do that for us here at Lane County. Thank you.

[00:04:23] Presenter: Commissioner Heather Buch:

[00:04:25] Commissioner Heather Buch: Congratulations. I was there at the LCOG dinner, and it was perfect. They’ve gotten away from surprising people, but they got back to you to surprise you, and it felt really good to see you recognized.

[00:04:39] You quietly go about doing the good work here at the county and you’re extremely humble and exude a caring quality that I know everybody recognizes and appreciates.

[00:04:56] So thank you so much for doing all the good work that you do and we know like this is just a few examples of what you do over the years but it is your style and that’s what’s needed here in the county, so thank you so much.

[00:05:15] Presenter: Commissioner David Loveall:

[00:05:17] Commissioner David Loveall: Mr. Rikhoff, as Commissioner Trieger said, it’s amazing that someone can hide things from you. But I’m thankful that you don’t hide your talents from us, because you’ve done very well for the county.

[00:05:26] And I’ve learned a lot about you and about conflict resolution and that soft, ‘Wait and see, let’s navigate this peacefully and equitably’ voice that has taught me a lot as a commissioner in my short time being here. So I appreciate you and thank you for that, sir.

[00:05:40] Presenter: Commissioner Ryan Ceniga:

[00:05:42] Commissioner Ryan Ceniga: Mr. Rikhoff. We’ve gotten to know each other through the Public Safety Coordinating Council. And it’s an honor to be on that board, and especially with great talents, such as yourself. That board has often times come across some tough budget woes. And there’s oftentimes awkward silence in the room as we’re just reflecting, ‘Where do we go from here?’

[00:06:05] And Mr. Rikhoff is always the one to break the room and to refocus and to keep everybody, keep everybody’s spirits as high as we can. And yes, we’re on tough times but we’ve got a job to do, let’s do it. You are that motivator… So thanks, Greg. Appreciate everything you do. We really do. Thank you.

[00:06:24] Presenter: Commissioner Pat Farr:

[00:06:26] Commissioner Pat Farr: Greg, I’m looking around the room and I think I’ve probably known you longer than anybody else in this room. It’s been quite some time. I’m thinking back to February 1995, when I was attending my first Eugene Human Rights Commission meeting, and I was in the room, it was a crowded room, busy room, and it was full of people like James Dean (Poynor) was there, and Francisca Leyva Johnson was there, Chuck Dalton was there, ready to give lessons.

[00:06:49] And in the middle of the room was this one individual who seemed to be in charge of everything—knew everybody, was friends with everybody, compadres with everybody, accomplices with everybody. And that one person looked over at me and said, “Councilor Farr, I’m Greg Rikhoff.”

[00:07:03] And at that moment I knew that I was a compadre, a friend, an accomplice, and we’ve been working together closely since then. It was a pretty amazing Human Rights Commission we had back in 1995, a very different Human Rights Commission than we experience today and one that really, you led into some really great areas.

[00:07:22] You know, later, you were in Dave Frohnmayer’s office and amazing things happened there. And it’s just—Greg, to work beside you, when Steve Mokrohisky said, ‘Greg Rikhoff has come in to work with us,’ it was like when Dennis Erickson went to coach the Beavers. He’s like, what? What happened? Nobody knows what that means, but it was a big deal.

[00:07:42] But Greg, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to spend your time here in Lane County doing the things that you do.

[00:07:50] Presenter: County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky:

[00:07:53] Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County, administrator): One other comment I failed to mention, that Mr. Rikhoff was actually nominated by a member of the community. So I find it always, I think it’s a wonderful thing when our employees are recognized for their outstanding, particularly from folks in the community, for his work in the deflection program.

[00:08:13] And I wanted to note that because on Friday, at the graduation. Was it the second graduation that we’ve had at seven individuals? (Yep.). I mean I was in tears. I don’t know if there was a dry eye in the room. But you had seven individuals, you had our district attorney, you had court staff, you had Clint Riley, who’s our deflection manager.

[00:08:35] These seven individuals who have in different ways engaged with law enforcement in the course of the last three or four months been in the deflection program.

[00:08:44] This is a new program that was created after the reform work for Measure 110, right, to create a higher level of accountability for individuals that are engaging in lower-level offenses, but to get people connected with services. So these seven individuals were being recognized for graduating from this program, anywhere from 90 to 120 days in the program.

[00:09:06] Their navigators, the individuals that work with them, that engage so that it’s not just law enforcement and corrections facilities that people are dealing with, but they’re actually getting connected to services.

[00:09:19] And I would encourage folks, because it is open to the public, we’re doing these quarterly, you know, inquire about it. Because I’ll tell you: It was the best part of my week last week was to hear the stories and to see the impact on the lives of these individuals who made a mistake but were given an opportunity to rectify it, to turn their lives around. They were given the support necessary to do it and now they’re on a better path.

[00:09:43] And so it’s one of those win-wins.

Creating a program like that—it was established by the legislature, funded by the state, and other counties are trying it. No other county in Oregon is doing it like we are.

[00:09:57] And that’s just a fact, ’cause when we go and meet with everyone else, they’re saying, ‘Well, it’s not really,’ and our people are like, ‘We are killing it,’ because of the people, the people like Greg, the people like Clint Riley, the engagement with the District Attorney’s Office and law enforcement agencies, it’s really—so I could just go on and on about that.

[00:10:14] But it’s those types of initiatives that we don’t talk enough about, and it is important because trust in government, I think as I mentioned last week, it’s sort of a historic low, and yet there’s really incredible work that’s happening by the people that are serving in government, like Mr. Rikhoff.

[00:10:31] Presenter: Commissioner Ryan Ceniga:

[00:10:33] Commissioner Ryan Ceniga: We’re talking about Clint Riley. You don’t talk guys like Clint Riley out of retirement without talent like Greg Rikhoff. You know, you were the right person to go and talk to him.

[00:10:47] Presenter: At the end of the day’s meetings, recalling a recent Local Government Advisory Committee, Commissioner Farr:

[00:10:54] Commissioner Pat Farr: I was chairing the LGAC meeting, the Oregon Health Authority LGAC meetings. And Greg Rikhoff and our program here came up in that meeting.

[00:11:01] And just before that graduation happened, we were talking about our diversion program in Lane County and how it really is beginning to be a model for other regions and other counties because of some of the things that Greg was talking about, some of the things that you talked about, Steve, this morning.

[00:11:16] And not the least of which is having someone like Capt. Riley on the job. So I think I wanted to say that and you know, I’ll pass it along to Greg that I hope his ears were burning because he was being talked about.

[00:11:27] Presenter: Lane County on Tuesday recognizes Greg Rikhoff, named outstanding public employee.