NWA Dining Dialogue: A Maine Diamond

For someone who has a management style that includes the “Treaty of No Surprises,” John Diamond has a few surprises.

Long before his current gig as vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Arkansas, Diamond dabbled in journalism and politics. His interest in journalism was possibly innate. At age 6, he convinced his father to buy an old mimeograph machine so he could begin a neighborhood newspaper – the Bangor Bugle.

“It was a combination of fiction and non-fiction,” Diamond said of the content in his first news publishing foray.

Yes, he comes from Maine, where the red life form of choice is the lobster, not a Razorback. And he eventually studied journalism, receiving a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1977 from the University of Maine. (He would later receive a master’s degree in speech communications from the UM.)

In his early 20’s, he took a break from his nascent journalism career to help a former professor run for Congress. The election was lost, and Diamond assumed he’d would return to journalism.

THE POLITICAL ANIMAL
But in 1980, he was talked into running as a Democrat against an incumbent member of the Maine House of Representatives.

“I was to be the sacrificial lamb,” Diamond said during a recent interview with The City Wire. “I wasn’t supposed to win.”

It was the election cycle that would soon be known as the Reagan landslide. Diamond already had a job lined up after the election, because his chances of defeating the incumbent and capturing the Maine House seat were slim.

But the then 24-year-old won the election.

“I must have appeared older and wiser than my years to some people,” the modest Diamond noted.

He kept getting re-elected, and at age 30 was elected by his peers to be the House Majority Leader.

“At that point, I was the youngest majority leader in the country,” Diamond said.

THE LOVE BUG
Fast forward a few years and Diamond and Marcia surprise each other in what was an almost love-at-first-site romance. She was a rising star in Washington D.C., serving as the assistant press secretary for U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, who was the powerful Senate Majority Leader.

When the romance moved to plans for marriage, Diamond and Marcia surprised their friends and family by phasing out of politics. They had seen firsthand the difficulties of raising a family when one or both parents were deeply involved in a political career.

“So we said that when we get ready to have kids, we were going to get into something else, and what we decided was education,” Diamond explained.

Diamond was briefly employed as a journalism professor at the University of Maine. He served on a media watch panel, and helped produce for Maine public broadcasting a series of documentaries on the political process. But with his political background, he was promoted in 1992 to direct public relations and advocacy for the University of Maine.

“One of the areas we actively advocated for was to bring more R&D (research and development) dollars to the university,” Diamond said.

In 2002, Terrence MacTaggart, the chancellor of the University of Maine system asked Diamond to handle public relations and advocacy for all the institutions in the system. Diamond enjoyed the work, which included being engaged again in the political process without the burden of holding and preserving an elected position.

THE ARKANSAS MOVE
But in mid-2010, the Diamonds would have yet another surprise for friends and family. They had reached a point, John said, where they “needed to have different experiences” with careers and location.

The Diamonds had a niece and nephew who had moved to Northwest Arkansas to work for the big company based in Bentonville. The kinfolk had high praise for the area, and the praise overlapped with the University of Arkansas seeking to hire a vice chancellor for university relations.

“They (niece and nephew) had been raving about Northwest Arkansas, about how great it is, and when we came down, we just fell in love with the area,” Diamond said.

The UA hired Diamond and by September 2010, he was a Razorback. Not long after, his wife was hired as the K-7 principal at St. Joseph’s Catholic school.

Diamond admitted that they “miss the ocean,” and attempt to return to Maine each year for what they call the “12 days of seafood.” Not only do they miss the seafood and ocean, but the Diamonds were well entrenched into the various communities and organizations in and near Bangor, Maine.

“It was tough. It was very difficult for both of us to leave,” Diamond said. “But we’ve really found some great friends here and the university is really on the move.”

THE TREATY
Part of that move has been Diamond’s effort to incorporate his “Treaty of No Surprises” into the many communication outlets and employees at Arkansas’ largest university.

The treaty, Diamond said, was the policy of Chancellor MacTaggart at the University of Maine system. Diamond, who directly manages about 30 people and works to coordinate communications from and between the various university departments, said the treaty helps with his primary goal to “engage and communicate with the key constituencies of the university.”

Continuing, Diamond said of the treaty: “It’s a very collegial way of helping everyone remember that we can’t be effective as a university if we are not working together as a team.”

Diamond said the biggest challenge of the job is to avoid “mission dilution,” and remain focused on directing communication policies that help the university work toward overall strategic plans.

One of his biggest surprises has been the ongoing support he receives from university officials in the acceptance and promotion of new communication ideas.

Fortunately, Diamond said he has not been surprised by the quality of the staff he supervises.

“These folks are just as good as anybody I’ve ever worked with.”