Our paths first crossed in 1983 when he was a temporary employee for Norrell Temporary Services, owned by Marlene Cummings who would later go on to become Secretary of Regulation and Licensing under Governor Tommy Thompson. The Madison Urban League was undergoing a leadership transition. I was helping out with the transition as a staff member. The Urban League contracted with Norrell for Eugene to become the interim CEO of the Urban League.

Bill Beckett was the chair of the board at the time. Bill worked for the WI Department of Development. Due to the weakness of the Urban League’s financial position, the board decided that only one of us could be retained. Bill had a position open at Development and so he said that whomever left the Urban League, he would hire them in the position.

It was Eugene’s call and so his decision impacted my life. Eugene took the Development position and I was the interim CEO until the late Betty Franklin-Hammonds was hired as the next CEO in May 1984. I served under Betty for the next eight years until she focused her efforts full-time on The Madison Times in 1991.

I left the Urban League in 1994 and I wasn’t able to secure a management job and so I started working for myself doing whatever came my way including multicultural training, proposal development, updating the case plans for AIDS patients among others. It was hard to establish myself. And I had kids who were dependent on me.

Eugene was the director of WisDOT’s DBE Programs Office by then and he took me on as an independent contractor and then later as an LTE employee of the office. In some ways, I was a hired gun. One of the first anti-civil rights cases was handed down, the Aderand case and the legal counsel for WisDOT wanted to get rid of the DBE Programs office. This was in the late 1990s. Well I helped the office develop its strategic plan, which was used as a shield against the legal counsel’s efforts to get rid of the program.

Eugene had helped me out once again and I was always appreciative of that. When I left WisDOT, Eugene and I always stayed connected. I have to smile when I remember Eugene. It was his trademark to always wear his tie slung over his shoulder. He did this whether or not he was eating a meal

While I was at WisDOT, my email was gramljon@aol.com. Eventually, Eugene began to affectionately call me gramljon, rarely calling me Jon. I still have to smile at the memory.

We had a good connection. I might not see Eugene for 2-3 years, but when we saw each other, it was like I had just had a conversation with him the prior week. Eugene was a very good human being who practiced what he preached.

As a man of deep faith, Eugene could almost take the loaves and fish and make them multiply so that he could serve his parishioners. When he first started Madison Pentecostal Assembly, I think they met in the living rooms and basements of the handful of parishioners’ homes. Eugene was a businessman and was very frugal with the church’s money. He had an MBA after all.

And within a few years, he purchased land on Nygard Street in what was then the Town of Madison from Betty Franklin-Hammonds and her husband Dave Hammonds. There were skirmishes to be fought with the neighbors and the banking system, but Eugene and the congregation prevailed. And before you knew it, a new church building arose on the property.

Eventually, through Eugene’s guidance, the church bought their present church building on Buckeye Road. They also bought some undeveloped land in the Town of Cottage Grove that waited for urban development to come to it. Eugene was a very spiritual man, but he was also a very shrewd — and ethical — businessman. He shepherded the people — and the resources — of Madison Pentecostal Assembly.

Eugene had come to Madison for Elder Norm Davis’ installation as MPA’s new pastor earlier this year. I didn’t make it to the service. I will forever regret it. There will be hundreds and hundreds of people who will mourn Bishop Eugene Johnson’s passing. I count myself as one of them.

Rest in peace Bishop Johnson!