Dare GOP selects retired Nags Head businessman to succeed Boswell

By IRENE NOLAN

A retired Nags Head businessman, who is also treasurer of the local Republican Party, is in line to replace former commissioner Beverly Boswell, who resigned from the county Board of Commissioners on Jan. 3 to fill the District 6 N.C. House seat vacated by Paul Tine.

Since Boswell is a Republican, it fell to the local Republican Party Executive Committee to recommend a replacement to the Board of Commissioners. The committee met Monday night and chose Rob Ross from a field of six candidates.

Dare GOP Chairman Browny Douglas told the Outer Banks Sentinel that Ross was selected from a “very qualified group of people. I was very pleased” with the field of candidates.

The Board of Commissioners will have a special meeting at 8 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 27, at the Outer  Banks Visitors Bureau to appoint Ross to Boswell’s District 2 seat and to swear him in as the sixth Republican on the seven-member board.  The only Democrat is now Danny Couch of Buxton, who represents Hatteras Island.

During the meeting on Friday, the board will also “engage in a retreat for the purpose of discussing issues facing Dare County and taking such action as may be needed.”

The announcement of the board’s special meeting says one of the items may be the compensation and classification study  of Dare County employees that was presented by the contractor to the board on Jan. 3.

“The board may take action on the salary study and other items that are discussed,” the meeting notification said.

This afternoon, Ross said that the appointment will be his first venture into politics, but that he looked forward to it.

“I consider it a high performing, very effective Board of Commissioners,” he said in a telephone interview.

He said he has been active in the Republican Party since he and his wife, Charlotte, moved to their Nags Head house full-time four years ago.

Several people, Ross said, had approached him and suggested that he should throw his hat in the ring because of his extensive background in finance.  He added that he was friends with several members of the board and “like and respect” them, so he decided to apply for the seat.

Ross is a 1974 graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and received an MBA from Xavier University Graduate School of Business  in Cincinnati in 1981.

He began is career with Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati in 1974 in the financial management program.

His resume also includes an impressive list of financial management jobs with Shasta Beverages, a division of Sara Lee; Taco Bell, a PepsiCo Restaurants Division; Kentucky Fried Chicken, also a PepsiCo division; United Industries Corporation as vice-president for finance and chief financial officer; Carlson Marketing Group as chief financial officer — just to name a few.

He retired in 2010 as chief financial officer for business development for Limited Brands International in Columbus, Ohio, where he was involved with the launch of both Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works in markets around the world.

Ross said he taught for a brief time at Ohio State University, but eventually he and his wife decided to move full time to the beach house they bought in 1992 after several years of vacationing on the Outer Banks with friends.

Ross will fill the District 2 seat on the board until November 2018 when he will have to run for election.