Deep in the current Graeme Martin has been described as everything from a compassionate, principled, visionary genius to an inflexible, stubborn, demanding taskmaster. Bruce Munro examines pieces of the puzzle that make up the influential, complex and soon to retire chief executive of the Otago Regional Council. "I shan't forget a very large fist waved very close to my face" Graeme Martin says. He is sitting in a comfortable chair in a corner office with city, harbour and peninsula views. Three hundred and sixty kilometres and 45 years separate him from what happened that day in the Addington railway workshops. But there is no denying the edge to his voice. "A fist waved in my face because I was working too hard." It was an important lesson for the young man, but more of that later. When Mr Martin closes the office door behind him on November 2, he will be six months shy of 20 years as chief executive of the Otago Regional Council (ORC) and the second-longest serving regional council chief executive in New Zealand. He'll also be a week shy of 64. Regional councils nationwide were in their infancy when he took up the role in the first quarter of 1993. Since then, the ORC has grown to become an organisation with assets worth $430 million, including the $271 million Port Otago, and an annual budget of more than $32 million. Its 10 elected councillors plus a chairman and 130 staff and the chief executive oversee policies