- March 29, 2025
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If there was a Longboat Key trivia contest, Susan Phillips would win by a landslide.
Alongside the personal mementos in her office is a miniature town archive. Filled cabinets hold aerial photos from the 1970s, drawers contain flyers from the town’s 50th anniversary celebration and tucked away are old town plans pushed off and shelved for safekeeping.
For 27 years, Phillips served as the town manager's assistant, a job that included a wide range of responsibilities like scheduling meetings, organizing events, helping to fundraise, public information and supporting the town manager with any necessary odd job.
But as she prepares to leave her chair, she clears some things out. As she does, though, she leaves a few things behind — a large painting in her office, her 50th anniversary flag that’s framed in town hall.
“When I walk through town hall, it’s like I live here,” Phillips said. “I see my fingerprints everywhere.”
The belongings left behind are a part of something she said she never thought about deeply until now — her legacy.
Before Longboat Key, Phillips worked on St. Simons Island in Georgia. There, she managed a family restaurant that sat 800 to 1,200 people, depending on the occasion.
In 1996, a fire in Phillips’ house left her with nothing. She lost everything she owned, and her life changed as she became mobile, only having her car.
About a year later, her boyfriend at the time was living in Longboat Key. The two of them decided to get married “because we were young,” Phillips said, and she moved to Longboat Key with her first husband in 1998.
Three months later, she started working for the town.
Phillips spent 27 years in her town position, a post that developed over the years from administrative aid to assistant to the town manager.
“When you grow, the position grows with you,” Phillips said.
On paper, Phillips is the town’s “assistant to the town manager,” but it’s impossible to distill Phillips’ job description down to a single sentence. Over 27 years, she tacked on more and more responsibilities.
Whenever there was a need, be it organizing an art gallery or helping to lead fundraising, Phillips was the answer.
But that’s what made the job exciting — the multiple roles, responsibility and the fact that no two days are the same.
“Every time the phone rings, the day changes,” Phillips said.
Over the years, she worked under four town managers, and there was also a two-week period when Phillips herself served as acting town manager following Bruce St. Denis' departure.
During her 27 years, there was plenty of progress she saw happen around the island — The Colony fall and redevelopment, the new Publix, a new town hall building.
One of the pinnacle points of her career, though, was her involvement with the art scene on Longboat Key. She had an active hand in the town’s involvement with the former north-end arts center and organized art receptions there.
That art focus continued in other ways after the arts center, including the artist displays in town hall, the historical photo collection around town hall and decorating the town commission office.
These things were “odd jobs” that became a part of Phillips’ job.
Her tenure also included the inception and progression of Longboat Key’s emergency alert system, Alert Longboat Key, which she noted as one of her biggest accomplishments.
Out of everything, Phillips said community was key.
That includes answering the phone with compassion for every resident who called with a problem and working with other town staff members, whom she praised as having unbelievable professionalism.
“Everything about making this job work is about relationships,” Phillips said.
There were many things she could have picked as a highlight of her career, but one was in November 2023 when she helped coordinate a Veterans Day event that included a $35,750 donation to SRQ Vets and the dedication of the Karon Family Pavilion.
The one that stuck out the most, though, was being selected as the grand marshal for Longboat Key’s Freedom Fest in 2018.
“I was very humbled by that selection,” Phillips said.
In 2012, Phillips remarried to Steve Branham, a rear admiral in the U.S. Coast Guard.
One of the main reasons behind Phillips’ departure is that Branham recently fulfilled his goal of becoming a town commissioner.
Phillips said they worried there could have been a perceived conflict of interest because of her involvement in the town, so one of the deciding factors for her retirement was to allow her husband to do something he wanted to pursue.
“I really wanted him to have that opportunity,” Phillips said.
Plus, Phillips, who turns 67 this year, said, “You have to step down sometime.” She felt like now was that time.
Her official last day in her chair is March 31, but she’ll slowly transition out of the town through June.
The transitional period will focus on training. Because of everything roped into her position over the years, there won’t be just one person taking on all of those responsibilities.
Deputy Clerk Savannah Cobb will become the new executive assistant to assist Town Manager Howard Tipton and Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman. She will assume the bulk of Phillips’ responsibilities.
But some of her responsibilities will transfer to other staff members, like Tina Adams. Adams currently handles information and outreach for the fire rescue department and now will take on information for the police department and the town.
“They’re retiring my number,” Phillips joked, adding that Tipton said the town will no longer use the title “assistant to the town manager."
After retiring from the town, though, Phillips won’t sit around. The first project she’s looking forward to is redoing Bicentennial Park with the Longboat Key Garden Club.
She assured her successors she would be a phone call away, eagerly waiting to serve the town again in whatever way she’s needed. Phillips foresees it will be tough for her to sit idly by as a resident during events like a storm activation.
“I won’t know how to be still. I just hope they call me,” Phillips said.
