He's wired in City Hall - and Washington.

Gilbert Ray, first black to work up to partner at O'Melveny & Myers, is a heavy hitter in civic circles

The most exciting weekly event in Mansfield, Ohio, this fall will be the local high school football game. And after football season, it will be the high school basketball game. Most men in this blue-collar Midwestern town work swing shifts at the local steel factory, clocking in at 8 a.m. one week, 4 p.m. the following week, and midnight the week after that. In between, they go fishing and hunting.

This wholesome heartland Americana has remained virtually unchanged since Gilbert T. Ray grew up there decades ago. He was one of six children born to a lower-middle-class African-American family headed by a father who sweated off five to seven pounds each factory shift, pouring molten steel into lathes.

Ray didn't go to work in the factory like his relatives and friends. And today, he never sweats on the job. He saves his sweating for daily pre-dawn jogs along the manicured lanes near his Brentwood home, or for his tennis matches at the exclusive Riviera Country Club, where he is a member.

Ray, the only member of his family to attend college, is one of the most influential and sought-after people in Los Angeles. Since first coming here in 1972, when he became the first black attorney ever hired by O'Melveny & Myers, the bluest of blue-blood L.A. law firms, Ray has seen his career blossom. That career was personally nurtured along by O&M Managing Partner Warren Christopher, who is now U.S. Secretary of State.

Today, Ray is a partner specializing in securities law at O&M, working out of an immaculately tidy 17th-floor office in a Bunker Hill tower in downtown L.A. But it's Ray's civic involvements that have brought him the most acclaim.

When furor swept the city after the Rodney King beating, Ray was appointed executive director of the Christopher Commission, which investigated the Los Angeles Police Department and issued recommendations for police reform. When Mayor Tom Bradley's involvement on the board of Far East National Bank erupted into a conflict-of-interest controversy a few years back, Ray was selected to serve on the five-member Cowan Commission, out of which grew the city's new ethics laws and full-time Ethics Commission.

When Mayor-elect Richard Riordan earlier this year was faced with the daunting task of installing a new city administration for the first time in 20 years, and the bulk of that work had to be done in the three weeks between election and inauguration, Riordan tapped Ray as one of 10 "transition team" members to pull it off.

So impressed was Riordan with Ray's performance that the mayor was determined to get Ray to head the Police Commission.

"I moved heaven and earth on behalf of the mayor to apply those skills (of Ray) on the (police) commission. But he said he had to turn that down," relates William Wardlaw, who was a colleague of Ray's at O&M for 12 years and who is now the most powerful of Riordan's "Three Bills" inner-circle triumvirate. "I think it is fair to say the Riordan administration will continue to look to Gil Ray on a number of subjects because we respect his judgment," Wardlaw adds.

When asked why he turned down the chance to head the police commission during what will likely be its most important term ever, Ray says, "I had just taken a considerable amount of time off to work on the Clinton campaign. And to do the job (heading the police commission) necessary would have taken too much time. To impose on my partners like that would not be fair. However, I hope to be involved with the (police) commission and to assist the chief on an ad hoc or other type of basis."

That involvement will likely come sooner rather than later, because Ray and other members of the Christopher Commission have been invited by Riordan to join together once again to put on an orientation for the newly appointed police commissioners.

While Ray is a lifelong Democrat, he actively and enthusiastically supported the mayoral campaign of Riordan, a Republican.

"I think the city is at an interesting crossroads, and my support of Riordan was based on who had the best skills," he explains. Ray quickly adds, "My Democratic credentials are still well in place, however. I headed a function for (Democratic New York City) Mayor Dinkins when he was out here the other day."

Ray also has ties to another prominent Democrat, Bill Clinton. "I've met him (Clinton), and I guess I have as much access to him as anybody else, with Warren Christopher (being a member of Clinton's cabinet)," Ray says. "But I'm not like Bill Wardlaw, who was state chairman of the Clinton campaign, or his wife, Kim, who's a partner with me at O&M. She's the one who took Dick (Riordan) back to Washington" for his highly publicized jog/van ride with Clinton.

Ray concedes he wouldn't mind eventually going to Washington himself. "I'll never replicate Warren Christopher. ... But I would be interested in a federal position at a sufficiently high level - an appointed position that requires Senate confirmation. Something that would utilize my skills in finance and transportation."

Hmmmm. Like possibly U.S. Secretary of Transportation? After all, the current head of O&M's Washington office, William Coleman, held that exact post in the Ford administration. Ray does have high-placed friends in Washington and, since the youngest of his two children entered Harvard University a year ago, Ray and his wife, who is an elementary school teacher, have been empty nesters.

Ray scowls and appears agitated when pressed about his federal ambitions -- one of the few times during a 90-minute interview that he diverts from his trademark poised-and-polished persona. In fact, virtually everything about Ray appears flawless -- from his starched-and-monogrammed dress shirt to his meticulously trimmed mustache.

"No, no, no. Play that part (federal ambitions) down," he insists, waving his hands. "It (a federal appointment) is not something I'm seeking or expect. I'm not circulating my resume."

Publicity is not exactly something Ray has been seeking, either. Compared to most other influential African-Americans politicos in Los Angeles -- Tom Bradley, Stan Sanders, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Cecil Murray, Danny Bakewell, et al -- Ray has maintained a very low profile.

"I have trepidation about this (press interview)," Ray admits. "Maybe it's more a personality style; lawyers tend to be more conservative. But it gets harder (to keep a low profile). The more things you do, the more you're pressed to talk to the press."

Ray adamantly asserts he has no aspirations to be a leader of the African-American community. "Others have talent to do that, and I am very supportive of their efforts," he says. "I try to make myself a resource available to them. My skills are much better suited to an advisory role."

Besides African-American leaders, others seeking Ray's advice include the heads of major corporations, Wall Street investment firms and government agencies. Among his current clients at O&M are: Parsons Corp., Citibank, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles Unified School District, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs & Co.

So, how did the son of a Midwestern steel worker grow up to become one of the most influential people in the nation's second-largest city?

"I've been very lucky," he says. "I graduated from law school No. 1 in my class at a time when major firms were just beginning to hire African-Americans in a major way. I wanted to do corporate transaction work. And there are only a few cities where hot-shot, major-league deals were being done -- New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a few others.

"When I came out to L.A. in 1972 to interview with O'Melveny & Myers, none of these huge office towers had been built yet. It was my first time in California, and Los Angeles had a smaller-town feel with a big-town practice. I had no idea how long I'd stay."

Snapshot

Gilbert T. Ray

Age: 48 Native of: Mansfield, Ihio Resident of: Brentwood Education: B.A., Ashland College, Ashland, Ohio, 1966; M.B.A., University of Toledo, 1968; J.D., Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., 1972