Spend some time around Doug Willmore, and you find he's not nearly that stuffy. Still, with the business consultant-turned author at the helm, it's clear the grown-ups have taken over scandal-ridden Salt Lake County.

The political pedigree is there. Willmore's father served as chief of staff for the late Idaho Sen. Frank Church and later worked for President Kennedy. What's more, the son - a 45-year-old Washington, D.C., native with his nearly bald pate - could easily be mistaken for cocky consultant James Carville.

But unlike the garrulous Ragin' Cajun, Willmore is measured, even taciturn - while being quietly demanding.

"Most progress comes from being unreasonable," he says with a wry smile.

Willmore marvels at the county's dichotomy: a place loaded with talented, competent people, but mired, he says, in a management culture that "definitely needs to be replaced."

That same duality can be pinned on the county's new No. 2. A buttoned-down executive by day, who hits the gym every morning at 6 o'clock, he's intent on rapid-fire reform. But Willmore also is an amiable prankster with a Southern drawl, who captains his backyard wood-fired pizza grill in sandals, while sipping the inexpensive wine some devotees refer to as "two-buck chuck."

Sheryl Ivey, special-projects director for Mayor Peter Corroon, calls the top aide and father of two, Doug "The Whip" Willmore.

"His ability to grasp the issue from the government viewpoint and the people's amazes me," she says. "You would never know he hasn't done this for a long time."

But he hasn't.

Spanning 20 years in the business world, Willmore has had only brief brushes with politics. He's worked on both coasts and even internationally, but never run for office.

"There is some naiveté in terms of the politics, which I find absolutely perfect for the time," says veteran politico and County Councilman Jim Bradley. "We don't need political hacks right now."

Bradley says Willmore is bright and engaging. But more important, "not a patsy for the mayor."

That may be because they barely know one another.

In 2003, Willmore sold his shares of a successful pathology company, earning enough in his mid-40s to consider retirement. He planned to stay at home and write business books.

Then, during last November's mayoral campaign, Willmore cold-called Corroon to offer help.

"I always knew he wanted to get into politics," says Willmore's wife, Kris. "I just wasn't sure this was the job for him."

But the men clicked, and after Corroon's surprisingly easy win, Willmore was asked to head the transition team. A month later, over coffee at Starbucks, the mayor asked Willmore to run his office.

Corroon acknowledges his right-hand hire lacks a bureaucrat's background, which is sort of the point.

"He's a mechanic of change," the mayor says.

Willmore is a Westerner at heart - he loves to ski, golf and play tennis, and both parents are from Idaho - but he spent his formidable years in the D.C. Beltway. He earned a bachelor's degree in public administration from George Mason University before landing in Utah, where he and his brothers struggled for years trying to buy, then sell, failing companies.

"It was a good laboratory," he remembers, despite the anxiety over making payroll and, to save money on lodging, sleeping on the floors of their company offices.

In 1985 Willmore bolted to Belize, in Central America. Employed by the State Department - hence the CIA jokes - he helped guide infrastructure decisions in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

After three years he returned to the Beehive State, launched a business-consulting firm, met his wife and later completed a master's degree in public administration at the University of Utah.

Before long, Willmore was crisscrossing the country, helping to trim the fat at behemoths such as AT&T, General Electric and Lucent Technologies. His specialty: reinventing management culture, a subject he currently is penning for a soon-to-be-published book.

In the 1990s, he also did two stints as a hired consultant with mayors, perhaps highlighted by the time he and a new mayor of one East Coast city discovered a locked room crammed with yet-to-be-processed tax returns. Most still had checks dangling from paperclips.

"We knew we had a problem," he says, eyebrows arched.

Willmore inherited another mess when he signed on to manage Salt Lake County. Within weeks, he was hearing from whistle-blowers, calling for criminal probes and rewriting rules. Loose financial controls and mismanagement appeared rampant between fleet and personnel and elsewhere.

Facing the firestorm, the former hired gun has never resisted reform.

"His job is to step on toes," says Councilman Joe Hatch. "Every elected official has to be the good cop to someone's bad cop. Doug is Peter's [Corroon's] bad cop."

As such, he's not without critics.

Willmore has clashed with fellow business consultant and Republican Councilman Mark Crockett, who notes their competing agendas have made things difficult.

Another Republican, Councilman David Wilde, says Willmore is far more open than Nancy Workman's gang, but worries that can go too far.

"He has said things to the press that have kind of ticked me off," Wilde says.

For his part, the runner who is training for a triathlon, acknowledges it has been a steep learning curve.

"I hope I'm respected, not feared," Willmore says. "But I haven't asked around to find out."

With that, Willmore and the family dog trot back to the outdoor oven. It's days before school starts, and he has homemade pizza to serve.

djensen@sltrib.com