New hire

JOHN SPEIGHTS After 56 years of visiting Port Aransas as a tourist, John Speights finally is going to move here full-time.

Speights, 61, of Austin, has been hired as the town’s newest building official, responsible for plan reviews and field inspections of single-family and multifamily residential structures.

“I’m excited about this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to it,” said Speights, who currently is a residential building inspector for the city of Austin. “I’ve been a part-time summertime fishing type of person visiting Port Aransas since I was five years old, and man, that’s years ago. So, I really look forward to it. I look forward to the challenge of the job. It’s a city poised for the future, I think, and I’m delighted to be a part of it.”

Speights’ salary will be $60,000 a year.

City officials have been on a search for a new building official since shortly after the last employee in that position, Joe Lamb, died apparently of heart-related problems on Dec. 9.

Interim City Manager Dave Parsons said Speights came highly recommended by those who knew his work.

“He responded really well (and seemed) able to diffuse any issues out in the field,” Parsons said. “And he’s evenkeeled, kind of jovial. He seems like he’ll fit in really well.”

About a dozen people applied for the building official position. The applicants were narrowed down to a top three candidates by committee made up of Parsons, Finance Director Darla Honea and City Secretary Esther Arzola.

The other finalists were Rudy Cantu, a specialist supervisor, special projects coordinator and senior plans examiner with the City of San Antonio; and Thomas Stephenson, construction inspector and project manager on the Mission Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve construction project at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

The decision to hire Speights (rhymes with “gates”) ultimately rested with Parsons, but all three on the committee agreed Speights was the best choice, Parsons said.

Parsons made the hire on Thursday, Jan. 28.

Speights is certified to sign off on plan reviews and field inspections of single-family and multifamily residential structures, Parsons said. He doesn’t have a commercial certification, but he is working on getting one, Parsons said.

Lamb didn’t have a commercial certification either. Port Aransas has used an Ingleside building official for commercial inspections and can continue doing that until Speights is certified, Parsons said.

Speights said he is one of four “mcmansiontrained” building inspectors in Austin. A mcmansion is a large home built on relatively small acreage.

“I currently have the largest area, numbers-wise, for inspections in that area,” Speights said. “I’m noted mostly for my customer service. I hang my hat on that. It’s really important to me that all this gets done to the satisfaction of the code, safe and sanitary, and to make it an enjoyable experience as well.”

Speights said he doesn’t plan any big changes in the way the building official’s work is done in Port Aransas.

“I intend to do it just like my predecessor did,” he said. “I know he was very well-respected and liked by the community. I am not going to reinvent the wheel.”

Speights was born and raised in Houston. He moved to Austin in 1966 to go to college and spent most of his adult life there afterward.

Speights said he plans to start in Port Aransas by March 1 at the latest, and possibly earlier, if he can. He has a wife, Sheri Speights, three grown children and three grandchildren, one of whom was just born Jan 29.

“All are avid fishermen,” Speights said. Well, maybe not the newborn baby. Yet.