ADRIAN — To Adrian’s new city administrator, Chad Baugh, forming relationships is a crucial part of what his job is all about.

“Building relationships, strong partnerships, friendships — that’s important to provide services to our citizens,” he said.

Baugh, who started his new role in Adrian on Sept. 22, is a native of Dearborn and was raised in Brownstown Township. His dad was a skilled tradesman and worked for General Motors, while his mother was a teacher.

He went to Southgate Aquinas High School to play football and then got his undergraduate degree in criminal justice from Madonna University and his graduate degree from Eastern Michigan University.

He then went on to serve in law enforcement in Canton Township for almost 30 years, working his way up through the ranks to become the township’s highly regarded director of police services, and also coached both football and girls lacrosse at Dearborn Divine Child High School.

Even though he’d never actually lived in Adrian, Baugh was nevertheless no stranger to the city when he put his hat in the ring to become city administrator.

“There are memories associated with this town,” he said. For many years, his family has spent time regularly at Loch Erin or Lake Somerset, coming into Adrian to eat or shop, and one of his two daughters got her undergraduate degree from Siena Heights University.

He believes that his tenure as a police chief gave him a valuable skill set for his new job in Adrian: experience in what he described as “systems and structure.”

“We’re used to an environment of systems and structure and decision-making,” he said, “and within that environment, people are allowed to grow.”

Plus, in his leadership role with the Canton Township police force, “I spent a lot of time with the city administrator solving community problems,” he said. “It really sets you up for a nice transition.

“But there’s a balance. City departments can’t be run like a police department, and all departments are different.”

Of course, a career in law enforcement definitely had its low points. As a young patrolman, he was on the scene when a fellow officer was killed, and as chief he dealt with a wide range of difficult issues and definitely got his share of middle-of-the-night phone calls. But Baugh thinks those experiences also shaped his ability to help people.

“The failures in the past, the wins in the past — they help you grow,” he said.

The chief’s job also came with its administrative challenges, especially finding and retaining good people as police officers. 

“We had to market differently to find folks that met our standards of serving our citizens. But we did it,” he said.

Working in Canton Township meant being part of a highly diverse community, but “people understood that the service we provided was for everyone,” he said. “We served a community of 100,000 people, and moving the service level to the highest possible level was the highlight of my career.”

In his first few weeks in his new job in Adrian, Baugh has spent a lot of time meeting with a wide range of people in the city, including the department heads, Adrian Public Schools superintendent Nate Parker, the mayor, and the city commissioners. He’s also gotten to know his counterparts in Tecumseh and on the county level, Brett Coker and Kimberly Murphy.

These and other interactions have shown him that “here in this county, you have stakeholders who love Adrian,” he said, “and even if they’re on opposite sides of an issue, they’re not that far apart.” 

And, he added, “we have some very talented people who work for the city.”

It all makes him very optimistic for what lies ahead. “There are so many opportunities for the future here. Everyone has done great work.”

Among Baugh’s major immediate issues are to work to bring a solution for the Adrian Mall situation and to deal with Siena Heights’ University’s impending closure to try to ensure its buildings aren’t just sitting there vacant.

He’s also intent on ensuring that the city brings “the highest level of service to all citizens and all visitors,” and added that his focus will always be both on that service and on “finding solutions and building relationships.”

“I want to know what people want and to bring some type of solution,” he said. “That’s who we work for: the citizens.”