Introducing

Mike Scott is always on the move. On a recent day, Lee County's new sheriff helped authorities in Hendry County defuse a developing labor strike crisis, spoke to a government watchdog group at a local hospital and led election poll workers through a swearing-in cere-mony. That's in addition to a full slate

of regular meetings and day-to-day administrative duties that come with managing more than 1,100 employees and a $100-million budget. Less than three months after taking office, the man who promised to trim fat and increase efficiency at the sheriff's office hasn't had much time to enjoy being the most visible cop in the county.

"One thing the election taught me is that, in this country, nothing can replace hard work and focus-and that's a big part of the job," says Scott, recalling his surprising landslide victory over incumbent Rod Shoap in a Republican primary last August. He easily won the general election against a write-in candidate. "I didn't have a campaign man-ager, there were no paid consultants, no professional polling. We just walked the precincts, knocked on 6,000 doors and got out there with a lot of hard work."

Scott has exhibited that work ethic and willingness to hit the streets from the moment he took office last New Year's Eve.

That night, he was already patrolling local roads in a sheriff's cruiser. Scott regularly makes rounds on Friday nights, starting at about 8 p.m. and often working past midnight. To those who know Scott, the extra duty comes as no surprise.

"He's committed to doing the best job he can, and I would say he has a coaching-type management style," says Larry Hart, a former Fort Myers chief of police. Hart has observed his friend's career path since Scott worked as a probation officer in the late 1980s. Scott later served as a traffic deputy then a public information deputy with the sheriff's office, becoming a familiar face in Lee County with his morning traffic reports on NBC-2. He resigned to run for sheriff in 2003.

"He keeps his radio on all the time because he still wants to know what's going on in the community," says Hart.

"He's got more energy than most, and now he's continuing the goals he always talked about-more deputies on the streets and more visibility in the community. They're getting there."

While Scott remains true to his roots as a traffic officer, his background in business and a promise to pare a top-heavy administration helped him win office. Scott, who holds an M.B.A. in public administration and has worked as an adjunct instructor at Southwest Florida College, has kept his word. He has already trimmed the number of deputy sheriffs from four to one, and the number of majors who head the office's bureaus from nine to five.

"I find people I can trust," Scott says of his streamlined approach. "My job depends on them and, because I'm an elected official, their jobs depend on my success. Of course, they all have the résumés and experience and have been well decorated. But first and foremost, they're all people that I trust."

With trust and teamwork comes accountability, says Scott. Accounta-bility can be elusive in the public sector, but it's crucial when running such a large organization. "It's a business practice you have to use," he says. "If you're running a business based on profit and loss, there's a certain quality control built in. We don't deal with profit and loss, but by decreasing the number of top administrators, you increase their accountability. Nothing gets lost in the shuffle and you can do more with less."

"Doing more with less" is a familiar phrase when listening to the sheriff talk about his work. Lee County's explosive growth and recent federal cuts in law enforcement spending pose the biggest hurdles to placing more deputies on the roads and maintaining good response times, says Scott. Considering the ramifications of growth also brings the scope of the sheriff's work into perspective.

"Any growth the county sees, whether business growth or residential permits, we have to grow with it," says Scott. "For every home that's built in Lee County, there's potential for a domestic (incident), for theft or burglary, for an alarm activation. The same is true for every new vehicle or boat registration. Just like the schools and roads, we need to keep up with growth-do more with less."

With all his ambitious plans to streamline operations, Scott hasn't lost sight of the day-to-day police work that first attracted him to the sheriff's office. Cutting waste makes good business sense. But in the end, it also improves the safety of Scott's employees as well as the public.

"The first thing to recognize is that this is a business, but it's a business like no other," he says. "We carry guns, we chase and apprehend suspects, and we basically take their freedom away when we put them in lockup.

"You have to wear two hats. I can't lose sight of the fact that I'm a law enforcement officer, or lose track of our frontline position." GB