BY STEFANIE BOWMANN
Eastern Shore Post
Before longtime Exmore resident Robert Duer became town manager 11 years ago, the funds in the town’s bank account were low and employee morale was lower.
Ethel Parks, who was town clerk for 19 years and retired alongside Duer in December 2024, recalled uncertainty at times about whether the town would meet payroll.
The staff turnover rate when he was hired was 80%, Duer said.
But he met with the key players on his new team — Parks; Taylor Dukes, director of utilities and zoning, Angelo DiMartino, police chief; and the late Mike Johnson, director of public works — and told them, “We’re going to be all right.”
“It’s easy to coach good people,” Duer said.
He praised the team for making Exmore what it is today: a hometown that has a population of nearly 1,500, around $5 million in the bank, a police officer for about every 200 residents, and a new sewer system that has unlocked the town’s growth potential.
His motto is a quote from President Ronald Reagan, which Duer kept posted on the wall of his office for over a decade: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
Duer’s leadership style was not to micromanage employees but to give them whatever they needed to get the job done.
He was able to provide by being a good steward of Exmore’s finances through simple practices such as avoiding making unnecessary purchases and carrying checks to the bank but never touching the money, he said.
The effective management of the town was accomplished through many such “little things,” like ensuring the water meters were read on the same day every month, Duer said.
Along with overseeing Exmore’s daily operations, the town manager also was a problem solver.
Duer’s educational background served him in this role. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Randolph-Macon College and a master’s degree in agriculture from Clemson University, and he specialized in plant pathology — the study of disease in plants.
“It’s the scientific method … problem solving,” he said.
Duer also possessed the gift of circumspection. He could look at any possible scenario and “tell you in two minutes what will go wrong,” he said.
But the job was about more than just crunching numbers and making predictions based on data — it was about the people, both Exmore’s employees and residents.
“I went to every water leak … so that the guys (in public works) knew someone cared,” Duer said.
Exmore residents with questions or concerns were always welcome in his office, where the door was closed maybe a dozen times within the last 11 years, he said.
Whatever anyone needed, Duer was the point of communication, DiMartino said.
He said Duer’s networking skills were instrumental in enhancing the quality of life in Exmore over the last decade, from the expansion and improvement of the town park to the hosting of events like car shows, Juneteenth, and Shakespeare in the Park.
Along with Dukes, who is now town manager, Duer also worked to negotiate Exmore’s partnership with the Hampton Roads Sanitation District to construct, operate, and maintain the town’s new sewer system.
The complex process that involved corporations and politicians made Duer feel like a “one-man army against the world.”
He fought for Exmore, where everyone is more than “just a number. Here, you’re a person,” he said.
“This is my hometown. … We all live here. We had to make it work,” Duer said.
A middle child, he was born in Nassawadox on May 1, 1953. He has lived in Exmore nearly his entire life. His mother and father were Martha Duer, a homemaker, and Grayson Duer, a produce broker.
Robert Duer attended Exmore and Willis Wharf elementary schools and Broadwater Academy, of which his father was a founding board member.
He has fond memories of growing up in Exmore: never locking the house, riding his bicycle wherever he wanted, and playing baseball and other sports with his friends every day.
“We had a great childhood,” Duer said.
And despite coming of age during the Civil Rights era, he experienced “no racial problems” in Exmore. “We all worked together in the grader sheds,” Duer said.
Having “done nothing but work” for the last 40 years, Duer is unsure if he is ready to explore recreation and leisure options or if he will seek a new employment opportunity.
For now, the tenacious town manager who helped put Exmore on the map will focus on adjusting to a new routine and caring for his two canine companions, both bull terriers.
Duer said he gets along well with the dogs because “they have the same personality as me … stubborn to the core.”
