Open road for Leavitt

Ex-Utah governor's Cabinet post ends with Bush term

"I've got some options, public and private, but I'm most interested in getting as much done with my current title before Jan. 20, then we'll see," Leavitt said. "I've learned life isn't scripted, change is constant and you never know what twists or turns are coming. I've just tried to stay open to things."

Whatever the opportunity, it's not likely to be out of the blue like his last two appointments. Leavitt said he was as surprised as anyone when President George W. Bush called, and called again.

"I've found that opportunities, especially the daunting ones, follow the willing, and I like to think I've been willing to step up, even when I had strong urges to step aside," he said.

Going from Wayne County to the White House by way of the governor's mansion might be a journey the poet Robert Frost would regard as a road less traveled.

"It's not what the path foretold, certainly," Leavitt said, "but accepting tasks that have been extremely challenging and never comfortable has made all the difference."

When Leavitt ran for and won the governorship the first of three times, he hadn't spent five minutes on the campaign trail thinking about the health and human services sector of state government, let alone have a notion that one day he would head the same but vastly larger programs for the entire country.

"I'd come to the governor's office knowing there was some talk of health and welfare and child-protection reforms, but I can't say I was viewing them as huge parts of my agenda."

A month after taking office in 1993, they were at the top of his agenda as the defendant in a class action lawsuit alleging the state was endangering foster children in custody. David C.V. Leavitt was officially dismissed just this past Wednesday, after 15 years in federal court and about $55 million in state spending to improve the state's child-welfare system.

That was a tough thing to hear, especially in a state that considers family and children a hallmark more enviable than having the greatest snow on earth. Leavitt initially fought the charges, and the standards imposed in the settlement agreement. "It was all about procedure and process but not about progress."

Things eventually worked out, and the attorney who filed the suit said last week that Utah now has an "excellent" system for children in state custody due to abuse at home.

"David C. was the challenge side of the governor's job that has had the real reward of Utah having a model child welfare system," Leavitt said.

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