He’s 3 months into Hilton Head’s top job. Where Marc Orlando sees the island going
Marc Orlando’s arrival on Hilton Head Island wasn’t subtle. Certainly not anonymous.
After 12 years working on the mainland as Bluffton’s town manager, he was brought to Hilton Head to fill 26-year Town Manager Steve Riley’s shoes when Riley retired at the end of 2020.
His name was never tossed around in the national search for the position, and when the island’s Town Council announced around the Christmas holidays that it planned to hire him at a $200,000 salary, it came as a shock to an island expecting another drawn-out, national search.
The editorial pages of this newspaper railed against the back-door entrance he took to the island’s top job. Business owners knew he’d overseen explosive growth across the water. Council leaders sang the praises of the manager they’d stolen from their neighbors.
In short: People knew Marc Orlando.
On an island where thousands of people show up each day to make a life or a living, Orlando doesn’t get the chance to go unnoticed.
He’s here, and he’ll tell you he’s here to stay.
As the town heads into its busy, lucrative summer season, its new town manager, 50, reflects on his first three months in the job and shares where he thinks we’ll go from here:
Hiring a team
Where town leadership was often accused of being reactive and passive on island issues, Orlando’s style is to plan for the future and address issues before they boil over at a public meeting.
He demonstrated that philosophy with an 84-slide budget presentation during the May 4 Town Council meeting. Town Finance Director John Troyer has traditionally played the more public role in presenting the budget, but Orlando said he wanted to make clear that he could answer for the decisions in the $96 million plan.
Orlando is also drafting a strategic plan for the town, which he hopes to deliver in the next two months.
He has announced several high-profile promotions for top staff members Angie Stone, Shawn Colin, Jennifer Ray and others. In the shuffle, he’s launched national searches for a community development director and an infrastructure services director.
“I really wanted to understand the organization, not come here and say how it was somewhere else,” he said. “But the angst has settled down, and I’m happy to have this team assembled of true servant leaders.”
Josh Gruber, who was a divisive figure during the national search for Riley’s replacement and whose employment was not guaranteed by the Town Council, remains deputy town manager. Orlando said he has high expectations for the two of them and said they work well together.
Asked his goal for year’s end, Orlando said he hopes the town will be fully staffed with a strategic plan in place that the council understands and supports.
Hilton Head beaches and parking
Orlando said the island’s relationship with its biggest asset, tourism, will be at the forefront of his work in the next year.
“We used to have seasons here,” he said. “Now the season is 11 months and 29 days.”
He said he plans to work quickly to get a paid parking program in place that goes beyond ticketing and towing cars parked illegally. By next summer, Town Council hopes to implement the parking recommendations it received from Walker Consultants. That plan includes converting the island’s largest free lot at Coligny Beach to a pay-to-park space.
The plan is supplemented by beach ambassadors, for which the town is advertising.
Six ambassadors, likely young adults, will work in beach parking lots and help people find places to park legally, hand out information about the island and its wildlife, and welcome visitors to the island.
Hilton Head’s own police force?
In his previous position, Orlando oversaw a $7.6 million police department that responded to 92% of the calls for law enforcement in the town limits.
Meanwhile, Hilton Head doesn’t have its own police force.
Orlando walked into the town’s powderkeg relationship with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office after lawsuits were filed over how much Hilton Head should pay for law enforcement services. The matter is before the Beaufort County Court of Common Pleas.
Orlando, like his predecessor, doesn’t think the town should get its own police force.
“Hilton Head doesn’t need its own police force,” he said. “I’m not thinking the relationship (with the Sheriff’s Office) is broken. Time will fix things.”
Hilton Head taxpayers are on the hook for an extra fee to Beaufort County on this year’s tax bills due to the disagreement over policing. This year, the town budgeted $2.4 million for public safety, including polices and lifeguard services.
Moving to the island
Although Orlando was well known in the Lowcountry, his departure to Hilton Head took local leaders by surprise.
“It was a shock, and I had no idea,” Mayor Lisa Sulka told The Island Packet at the time. “This is where he feels he needs to grow, and if he’s happy, we’re happy.”
Still, he looks back on his time on the mainland fondly, and said his send-off included sweet notes and mementos from the town where he cut his teeth.
One of the more brow-raising gifts he got was from the Police Department. When Orlando left the job, the department transferred a service handgun to him as a parting gift, public records show.
He didn’t want to talk about that gift.
“It’s nothing I asked for,” he said.
Though he holds the top job, Orlando does not yet live on Hilton Head.
He said he and his wife, Jaclyn, and their two kids Amelia, 10, and Ben, 8, plan to move to the island in July. He’s required to establish permanent residence within town limits by December, according to his contract.
There’s a different kind of residence he’s established recently, too.
On March 2, the Canada native became a U.S. citizen. That wasn’t a requirement for the job he said, just something that had been in the works for a long time.
Of Hilton Head, he added, “my life is here. This is really the only home I’ve had.”
