License director had high-ranking pal, rose swiftly

Ex-commissioner's friend vaulted from trooper to top role

By TRENT SEIBERT
Staff Writer, Tennessean.com
February 28, 2006

First there were the long, frustrating waits to get your driver's license renewed.

Later came Operation Crooked Highway, in which federal agents charged state workers with taking bribes in return for driver's licenses and immigrant driving certificates.

Last Friday, the state suspended its "driving certificate" program because it was such a mess.

But one person has gotten little attention: the man in charge of issuing driver's licenses.

Larry Large, 57, spent 10 years as a state trooper and was an old friend of then-Safety Commissioner Fred Phillips when the Bredesen administration gave him the title "driver license issuance director" in July 2003.

He has remained in that position through the ouster of Phillips and two other top Safety Department officials in early December in a scandal involving cronyism and cover-ups.

When interim Safety Commissioner Gerald Nicely held a news conference earlier this month to unveil FedEx's report on how to reduce wait times at driver's license stations, Large wasn't present.

When Nicely held another news conference last Friday to say the state was suspending its "driving certificate" program for noncitizens, Large's deputy director, Tiffany Taylor, stood with Nicely at the podium and answered questions.

Asked to explain Large's absence Friday, Nicely said only, "I'm not going to comment on personnel issues."

Through Safety spokeswoman Melissa McDonald, Large declined two requests to be interviewed for this story.

Safety's Driver License Issuance Division issued 1.3 million licenses in fiscal year 2004-05, and issued 36,000 handgun carry permits, according to the department's annual report. The unit's allotment in next year's proposed state budget is $21.9 million.

Being promoted from trooper to director, Large would have been propelled from supervising no one to supervising 300 state workers in 44 locations statewide. He was paid $68,978 last year, according to state records.

Republican state Sen. Mark Norris, who has been holding a series of hearings digging into cronyism in the Department of Safety, said he was concerned about Large being appointed to the post without top-notch qualifications.

Without the very best managers at the Department of Safety and other departments, Norris said, when it comes to safety and security of the state, "you don't have much of an emergency management plan."

Phillips had known Large, who is from Kingsport, Tenn., "for decades and decades," McDonald said. Phillips was from nearby Washington County, and the two men knew each other through local law enforcement circles.

According to state records, Large spent more than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force and retired in 1990 as a master sergeant, a noncommissioned officer's post that would have given him leadership experience.

His primary specialty was as a training instructor, and he had 15 years' experience in the field, according to his discharge papers.

Soon after leaving the service, he was hired by the state as a prison guard, then as a driver's license examiner. By 1994, he was on the road as a trooper in the Highway Patrol.

"From day one you have been an exceptional employee at every stage …," Sgt. Walter Owenby wrote in 2001. "I can say without reservation you are the all-around best employee I have."

But according to state records, one of the few management roles Large had in state government before his appointment was filling in for the station supervisor "numerous times" as a license examiner, and serving as a "field training officer" for new troopers doing on-the-job training.

"He is rather conventional and conforming and tends not to take risks or to make waves," wrote Dr. Warren Thompson in a 1993 psychological exam given to Large when he was hired as a trooper.

"He is generally passive and unassuming and is more a follower than a leader."

The job he holds now is a political appointment and not subject to state civil service rules.

"Larry Large … Kingsport … 10 years as a Trooper w/o promotion. Safety requests to promote him to the executive service job of Drivers License Issuance director at $64,700. This is a BIG job," Deputy Personnel Commissioner Nat Johnson wrote in a July 2003 e-mail to Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley.

The e-mail was obtained by the newspaper under the state's public records law.

A printout of the e-mail, including "yes" handwritten in black marker, was among documents in Cooley's files made public by the governor's office in recent weeks.

"I believe he had quite a bit of military experience," Johnson, now acting personnel commissioner, said in a recent interview.

"I believe he had some pretty good jobs in the military. I can't remember exactly.

"I think he had a fairly impressive military resume."

Not long before the Johnson e-mail was written, Phillips outlined to the governor what he saw as problems in the driver's license issuance division.

It needed to improve customer service, he wrote in a May 2003 report.

In addition, the state needed to beef up its technology to speed license renewals, and to reconfigure the locations of license stations to stop the majority of residents from flooding just a few stations in populated areas.

Three years later, the problems were still there, if not worse than before.

This month, Memphis delivery giant FedEx, at Bredesen's request, released its study on how to increase efficiency and decrease long lines at driver's license stations. The study was indirectly critical of the management overseeing issuance of licenses.

"Many actions required of the examiners do not directly support a goal of quickly serving the customer," according to the report's executive summary.

"Many stations exceed rated occupancy."