Oklahoma Lottery: Oklahoma lottery commission urged to keep moving
After hearing his new bosses debate the definition of rules to govern the newest state agency, Oklahoma's lottery director issued them a gentle reminder.
If the Oklahoma Lottery Commission hopes to make a self-imposed October deadline for its first ticket sales, "we've got to move," Executive Director Jim Scroggins said.
It was Scroggins' first meeting since beginning his new job Monday.
At previous meetings, the lottery's volunteer commissioners have held lengthy discussions on how to hire outside legal counsel, the procedure for securing employee background checks and how to line up financing and office space.
Commissioners finally agreed to let Scroggins borrow from other state lotteries' rules and report his suggestions to them at another meeting.
After the meeting, Scroggins said he wasn't concerned by what appeared to some observers as commissioners' discussions of minutia.
"They have to work those things through to the point they feel comfortable," he said.
On Scroggins' advice, the commission hired Rollo Redburn as director of administration and finance, Beverly Hughes as head of marketing and sales and Jerry Havener as operations director.
Each will be paid $110,000 a year.
Redburn, 52, has been on loan to the lottery commission from the Office of State Finance, where he was deputy director. He has been there 29 years since starting as a budget analyst in 1976.
Hughes, of Atlanta, is part-owner of a copying business. She has extensive experience working with lotteries, Scroggins said.
Havener, 65, has helped eight states begin lotteries as a consultant, most recently in Tennessee two years ago. He said he has helped launch "22 or 23" lotteries worldwide in a 27-year career.
He said he expects to stay in Oklahoma about six months until a permanent operations director is found.