Raia leaves his mark on Planning Department
Using a plat from the 1950s, Johnny Raia points out Houston growth since he joined Planning & Developement in 1955. Photo by John Perry. |
By Dave Schafer
A wristwatch didn’t seem appropriate. Not significant enough.
So Planning & Development gave retiring Johnny Raia a conference room.
“For Johnny, it had to be something special,” said Director Marlene Gafrick, a 27-year Planning Department veteran who wasn’t born when Raia started with the city in 1955.
Now, the large conference room on the sixth floor of 611 Walker bears several long, rectangular plaques designating it, in golden letters, the Johnny B. Raia Conference Room. The room was dedicated May 29, the same day Raia retired as the fifth-longest serving city employee ever.
“I was stunned when they told me,” said Raia, 78. “Here, we’ve had hundreds of directors in the city, and they’re naming the room after me.”
Employee number 62
Despite what his co-workers said, Raia wasn’t here to greet the Allen brothers when they arrived on the shores of Buffalo Bayou.
He joined the city after leaving the Army at age 26. He had an architecture and art degree from the University of Houston, which had placed him with the city.
His first day, he was met at the door by three friends who had never told him they worked for the city.
The city was a much different and smaller place then. City maps ended at the Barker and Addicks reservoirs. Roy Hofheinz was mayor and planning was a small, informal department with about 12 employees and no ordinance to guide it, Raia said.
As a draftsman, employee number 62 hand drew new subdivisions onto the city map.
Raia served 10 mayors, seven department directors and one acting director while working his way up to senior planner and unofficial troubleshooter.
“The department is like Johnny’s family,” Gafrick said. “We really care for him. He loved helping customers, and he would work through lunch or late to provide great service if he needed to.”
“Johnny was always a fixture here,” said Margaret Wallace, a 20-year employee. “We often worried because he didn’t have a life outside of here. He didn’t work 80 hours a week, but his job was everything to him.”
Still surveying the department
“We always said that when Johnny left, nobody would know where anything is,” said Suzy Hartgrove, administration manager. “He probably knows the city platting better than anyone. If you asked him a question, he went into the file room and knew where to find exactly what he wanted.”
Raia had no intention of retiring. Then cancer struck and dragged him away from his desk.
“I never wanted to work anywhere else,” he said. “I loved my job. But then these little demons attacked me.”
He has work left unfinished. He’s feeling better, and he can’t quite shake the itch to put in hours for the city. He’s hoping to continue a project he was working on when he was interrupted.
“We’d certainly welcome him back as a volunteer,” Gafrick said.
The conference room that bears his name recently got a fresh coat of peach-colored paint. It has cloth tack boards on one wall and dry erase boards on the opposite wall. On the far end, opposite a plasma screen used for videoconferencing, a digital print portrait of Raia’s smiling face surveys the room, keeping up with department happenings.
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