When Tim Bannon walked onto the Yale University campus as a freshman in the late 1960s, he unknowingly embarked on a lifetime of chance opportunities that would profoundly shape his life and career.
In his second semester, he met another low-key, unassuming freshman named Garry Trudeau. Bannon was soon co-editing the Yale humor magazine with Trudeau, but there was no way of knowing that this young freshman - who had plenty of artistic talent - would become the creator of the internationally known "Doonesbury'' comic strip.
Bannon later found himself depicted briefly by his friend as a character in the famous strip -- as T.F. Bannon, a lawyer in the same profession as the real life Bannon.
Fast forward 30 years.
After decades of jobs in and out of the political arena, Bannon was working as a lawyer in Stamford and struck up a friendship with the city's longtime mayor, Dan Malloy. On his second attempt - and after six years of campaigning - Malloy won the race to be Connecticut's next governor. And one of Malloy's first decisions, even before he won on election night, was to ask Bannon to be his chief of staff.
In the same fortuitous way that he obtained key positions for Gov. William A. O'Neill, state Treasurer Denise Nappier, and U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, Bannon's chance to work with Malloy came only because of timing and circumstances.
"It was all unforeseeable,'' Bannon said in an interview. "That's been a lot of the excitement. It's been a career by epiphany rather than a career of design. ... It's been exciting. I have no regrets.''
Malloy recently quipped that if he had won the governor's race in 2006, he would have picked Bannon then as his chief of staff. But Bannon says that was news to him.
"He hadn't shared that with me,'' Bannon said, laughing.
Bannon is now working seven days a week -- "seven full days'' -- as he scrambles to help set up an administration that has so far announced the hiring of a chief of staff, a budget director, and a transition press secretary. Bannon's Blackberry chirps constantly during an interview as job seekers and Malloy supporters try to reach him in his other position as co-director of the transition team.
With degrees from both Yale College and Yale Law School, the 63-year-old Bannon could have worked for the same law firm for 30 years and lived a happy, lucrative life. But he never took that route. Instead of plotting out a long-term corporate career, he answered the call numerous times from high-level Democrats and gained a reputation as a governmental trouble-shooter.
"All of us knew Tim was going places -- we just thought it was Washington,'' Trudeau said in an e-mail exchange. "But he loves the state. When you're local, you can feel the direct impact of what you do. I think he enjoys that.''
Trudeau and Bannon worked hand-in-glove on The Yale Record, the humor magazine that Bannon led as chairman with Trudeau as the editor-in-chief.
"To this day, he addresses me as chief,'' said Trudeau, who recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of Doonesbury. "The Record, like most college publications, had some 20 names on the masthead, but was usually written and assembled by three people in 48 hours four times a year. Tim and I were often among those three people, so we rose to the top swiftly.''
Government Service
Bannon has been moving toward the top of state government through a decades-long career that allowed him to investigate the various nooks and crannies of key state departments. That will provide him with a deeper vision as Malloy's chief of staff because he has studied some of the departments that he will now oversee.
His trouble-shooting career started with the O'Neill administration. Bannon held a variety of positions, fixing problems involving the operations of the departments of motor vehicles and corrections, along with the workers compensation system.
Through his friend, attorney James Wade, Bannon got his initial introduction to O'Neill when O'Neill was still lieutenant governor. Several years later, in January 1985, Bannon, then 37, was helping to write O'Neill's State of the State Address - after Ronald Reagan had won a national landslide and the Republicans had gained control of both the House and the Senate in Connecticut. That was a sensitive speech, with O'Neill trying to reach out to the Republicans, who controlled the House for only two years before O'Neill won re-election in a landslide in 1986.
The young speechwriter and troubleshooter eventually rose to commissioner -- overseeing the state tax department for O'Neill.
"As a lawyer, I had an understanding of tax law,'' Bannon said. "It was extraordinarily satisfying because I had been parachuted into various agencies, but now I had a chance to be helpful from being there full time, every day of the week, in a leadership capacity.''
But, as usual, Bannon did not stay long. It was a two-year stint. He later worked for O'Neill as a special counsel and served a total of six years with O'Neill until the administration ended in January 1991.
When asked to name his favorite job after working for more than 40 years, Bannon said: "That's a hard question to answer. Some jobs are just ripe for the moment in your life, and you think of them at the time as your favorite job. I tend to like jobs that are really challenging, where you're not just stepping in to continue someone else's practices.''
Succeeding Moody
When he takes over in the corner office in the governor's suite after Malloy takes the oath of office Jan. 5, Bannon will have one of the most powerful jobs in an administration that has vowed not to simply continue the past practices.
The chief of staff -- depending on the amount of power given by the governor -- can be the second most powerful person in the state. Under Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Chief of Staff M. Lisa Moody was widely acknowledged as a hugely influential supervisor who gave orders to commissioners and managed the public message that went out regarding the popular Rell administration.