Washington State's longest-serving and most innovative treasurer, Robert O'Brien, died last week at the age of 88 following a long illness.
The Democrat retired in 1989 after serving six terms, which began in 1951. Several current employees in the state treasurer's office remember Mr. O'Brien from working for him in the past, most notably current Treasurer Michael J. Murphy.
"O'Brien hired me back in 1972 as a junior staffer," Murphy said in a telephone interview. "He took real good care of me over the years, I worked hard and he promoted me. And he encouraged me to go into politics, so when there was a vacancy at the Thurston County treasurer's office, he encouraged me to run."
Mr. O'Brien began his 38 years in public service as treasurer of Grant County, serving for three and a half terms before being elected to state office, where he streamlined the way the state treasurer's office still conducts business to this day, Murphy said.
"He wasn't afraid to try something new, so there were numerous times we were leading the nation in terms of innovation," Murphy said.
Mr. O'Brien converted all of the state and local governments' payments into digital format way back in 1977, using electronic funds transfer. The move reduced paper usage at a time when such improvements were really cutting edge, Murphy said.
The electronic payments went hand-in-hand with Mr. O'Brien's creating state treasury accounts at literally every bank in Washington so that state agencies could deposit revenues at their nearest local branches and have the proceeds go directly to the state treasurer's office for redistribution among the localities as needed.
Another improvement for municipalities came from Mr. O'Brien creating a local government investment pool in 1986 as a reaction to a national scandal involving fraudulent overnight investments from certain brokers in the repurchase agreement market.
"In the first year of our investment pool we had an average balance of $180 million and that's grown to $5 billion today. We had about 150 municipalities initially and now we have over 400, pretty much all of the cities and counties in the state," Murphy said.
Also, Mr. O'Brien spearheaded quick zero-interest loans to eastern Washington municipalities and small business owners during the aftermath of the Mount St. Helens Volcano eruption of 1980.
The state treasurer's office provided stopgap funding while the districts awaited Federal Emergency Management Agency grant money to the districts, and similarly while small business owners anticipated federally guaranteed loans.
