OLEAN — For nearly 46 years of governmental operations in Cattaraugus County — through major technology changes, new building projects, historical celebrations and world-changing events — the one constant has been John “Jack” Searles.

“I believe, at this point in time, I’m the longest tenured employee in Cattaraugus County,” Searles told the Times Herald Friday. “We had a gentleman in public works who beat me by a month, but he retired a couple of months ago, so I’m the last man standing.”

But come June 28, Searles will be stepping down as county administrator, a position he’s held since 2003. His deputy administrator, Kelly Reed, was appointed Searles’s successor starting June 29.

Currently in his 22nd year as administrator, Searles is only the second person to hold the post. He served as deputy under his predecessor, Donald Furman, who was appointed in 1986, and before that was director of the Department of Aging.

With about two weeks to go before embarking on a whole new series of adventures in retirement, Searles said that he’s happy with the decision and is ready to pass the responsibilities on to the next generation.

“Upon appointment the last time (in 2023), I informed the legislature I was probably not going to be here for the full term,” he said. His current term would have ended in September 2027. “The intervening factor that prevented me from going earlier was COVID-19, and the county’s response to COVID-19 and getting past the backwash of all that.”

Two decades earlier, then-deputy administrator Searles was witness to another life-changing event — he was a block away from the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I actually watched the second place hit the tower and was looking up as the debris was coming down,” recalled Searles, who was in Manhattan with two other county officials, Joe Keller and Tom Livak. “We certainly saw a lot of different things that were going on. One of the big takeaways associated with that was that I really saw that this was, at its core, an attack on the financial institutions of the U.S.

“While I might not be able to handle or be engaged with or make a difference in the finances of New York City or New York state or the federal government, I can damn well be involved with the finances of the county,” he said. “That then laps over into a philosophy that interfaces with the whole approach that we’ve used.”

A SELF-PROCLAIMED “Navy brat,” Searles was born in the Panama Canal Zone and spent time in every U.S. state except Alaska and Rhode Island, as well as several countries overseas, prior to entering high school.

Eventually settling in the Rochester area, he graduated from a parochial high school and was accepted into St. John Fisher College, where he met his wife, Kathy. Graduating as a dual major in psychology and anthropology, Searles said he came to a crossroads — pursuing a Ph.D. program at Syracuse University in anthropology or a master’s program in psychology at St. Bonaventure University.

“You think back on the moments and the things that drive you,” he said. “St. Bonaventure offered me a full assistantship, which basically means they paid for all my classes.” The two things Searles had to do in return were teach a statistics class and care for the animal lab.

While earning his master’s at St. Bonvanture, Searles was hired by the county in 1979 as a therapist for the community services department. Not long after, he transitioned over to the Department of Aging, working just about every job there was before being appointed the department director. Then, a deputy administrator’s position opened up with the retirement of George Peters.

“At that time, there were two deputy county administrators. One was responsible for human services and the other was more responsible for operations,” Searles recalled. “I was appointed first of all as the deputy administrator, and soon thereafter they did away with the second one.”

Stepping into the county administrator role when Furman became ill and ultimately passed away, Searles said he’s seen over 20 county budgets come and go, become very familiar with every facet of the county and how it operates and even been part of the hiring process for many employees and department heads.

“I’ve known lots and lots of legislators. My time with the county actually goes back to soon after they were dealing with the remnants of going from a board of supervisors to a legislature,” he recalled. “I joke with the legislature that I was probably the only one in the room who could go around the chambers and name everybody who was in all the pictures.”

A MAJOR PART of the administrator’s role in the county is knowing where the funding is coming from and where it’s going each year. Billions of dollars in spending have passed Searle’s desks over the years — the 2025 spending plan, the county’s biggest ever, is over $277 million.

“I’m exceedingly proud of the budget process in the county and our ability to maintain taxes,” he said.

Searles said the county had already been delivering reasonable budgets long before the state’s tax cap law came into effect, and they haven’t had to go above the tax cap yet. “We’re also very proud of being able to maintain and actually increase the bond rating of the county, which is really a measure of the ability of banks to rate your credit and your ability to pay back.”

Searles said the county established a fund balance policy several years ago that keeps about 15% of the general fund as an undesignated reserve — enough to roughly cover two months of operating expenses during unforeseen circumstances.

“We’ve always wanted to be very conservative in our approach, and we didn’t want to find ourselves being the first ones down during a worst-case scenario,” he said.

The other side of continually producing successful budgets is being sensitive to what the taxpayers in the county can handle. When building the budgets in years past, Searles said he remembers walking through the Olean Center Mall when it was a commercial center for the area and asking himself if each person he passed could afford the tax rate in their city or town.

“And if the answer to that is no, we have more work to do,” he said. “Those are mind games we play with ourselves, but they translate into real connectedness — of try to be very sensitive to what’s going on.”

NOT ONE TO CLAIM credit for the many successes in the county during his time as administrator, Searles said he’s happy to have been a part of a large team of officials who have worked together to make those successes happen.

“Under my tenure, we built a new nursing home in Machias, we built a new DPW building in Little Valley, we built a new Franklinville highway barn,” he said. “I’m very proud of the whole Jamestown Community College partnership and the whole Cattaraugus County campus. Again, I don’t take credit for that. I was just there in the background with a role to play, but very happy and positive with the outcome.”

Comparatively, a number of natural events have shaped the county during Searles’s time, from extreme winter storms to floods to tornadoes — not only the Great Valley incident from earlier this month, but one in July 2010 that did significant damage in Randolph.

And then there are the joyous celebrations — most notably the county’s bicentennial in 2008, which featured a full year of events, such as the street-spanning arch and grand parade in Salamanca, that Searles said was a great opportunity to bring the whole county together.

One memorable incident involved the wagon train making its way across the county. At the same time that a leg of the train was making its way down Route 16 from Franklinville to Olean, the Rally in the Valley motorcycle run was going to be heading north on the same highway.

“It was like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen?’ We had to tell everybody in the rally not to rev their motorcycles when going by the horses,” Searles recalled. “The only incident we had was somebody on a motorcycle who was gawking at the horses ended up going off the road.”

The amount of economic development and growth in tourism in the county has also been a badge of pride during Searles’s time as administrator, from the Great Lakes Cheese plant in Franklinville and Cimolai HY coming to Olean after Dresser-Rand’s departure to making Ellicottville and the Onoville Marina destination locations.

“It was really controversial when we put in place the occupancy tax, but I love the solution,” he recalled. “We split that occupancy tax with the three certified chambers, and then part of it goes to activities in the county around tourism.”

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION has continued to push the county’s operations and what it can do forward. When he started as deputy administrator, Searles said he had to beg his boss to allow him to get an internet account.

“The bandwidth speed was terrible, the dropped signal and all that and then the limited capability of what you could do with it, but the county administrator agreed to allow us to try it as a trial,” he recalled. “Now, how do you even contemplate dealing without that technology?”

Searles said the introduction of the first cellular phones to the county was also a big deal, and it was so comparatively expensive that the legislature had to approve each new purchase individually.

“Those are certainly two pieces of technology that, as you move forward, what does it look like?” he said. “With regard to how that changes things, the next iteration is artificial intelligence, and where does that go and how is that integrated? I think the county is always going to be looking at new technology.”

A memorable incident with technology came with Y2K, the widespread concern about computer glitches at the turn of the millennium. Searles said an astounding level of organizational effort went into months of checking every piece of equipment that may have been affected and coming up with an alternative solution to handle them.

“Some of those systems are tied to public benefit cases where people are getting checks,” he said. “If all of a sudden your systems are down and you lose the ability to issue checks, what are you going to do? Rediscovering manual abilities to be able to provide that backup was what we had to have in play beforehand.”

The role of government is something Searles said the county has had to look at and address throughout his career as well, and will have to continue to do so going forward. Each new legislature that comes in, the staff changes that take place and the services that become available from other organizations in the area all play a factor, he said.

“Across the state, every county administrator is different, and their responsibilities are different,” he said. “It’s all unique when meeting the needs of the locals.”

WITH RETIREMENT fast approaching, Searles said the first few months are going to be the Honeymoon phase as he and Kathy — who is also retiring this year from the Olean City School District — love to travel and have a number of trips in the works.

“I can’t ever remember during my whole career of going on a vacation longer than five days,” he said. “And every one of those vacations, I was called into work for something.”

With family in North Carolina, the Searleses have spent time in recent summers in the Outer Banks and are looking forward to getting down there again this summer. They’re also planning a trip to Panama in November that will include time both on and off the water, a 50th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii and a genealogy-driven trip to Ireland and Scotland to discover their roots. Places like Toronto and Puerto Rico have become like second homes over the years, he said.

“I want to see the aurora borealis, and there’s a couple ways to do that,” he added. Making a number of side trips to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in recent years, Searles said they could make their way farther north to Newfoundland and ultimately the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. “But, as part of that, you can see the northern lights.”

Back home in Olean, Searles said he has some personal goals he wants to focus on in the coming years — decluttering the house, becoming more involved at church, increasing physical activity, volunteering more in the community, continuing education in various topics and spending more time with family. He’s also an avid stamp collector.

“At any given time, I have over 6,000 lots on eBay. I’m an active seller and an active collector,” he said. “I made a promise to my wife: she doesn’t want to have to deal with that after I leave, so part of that is I gotta move it on.”

As for the administrator’s office, Searles said he’s fully confident in Kelly picking up where he leaves off because they’ve worked well together for so many years, meaning there’s been plenty of time to pass along words of wisdom.

“She always jokes that there are always ‘Jack-isms.’ I can’t think of anything in particular because she’s already heard it all,” he said. “Just keep real and keep tied to the needs of the public. Try to do the best you can with the resources you have available to you.”

Throughout the decades, through the highs and lows and the ebbs and flows, Searles said the operation of the county has always been larger than the individual, and it will continue to do good things for the residents.

“It’s time for a new generation and a new set of ideas,” he added. “There was a philosophy a while back: you always need to keep your eye on the horizon.”