As city auditor for 21 years during 11 consecutive terms beginning in 1988, Phil Wood became the longest-serving elected official in Tulsa, Okla., history. His office made more than 1,000 recommendations on financial efficiency (more than 90 percent were adopted), including Tulsa’s first ethics standards, first financial-disclosure requirements, and checks on sales-tax remittance that in two years identified $1.2 million the city would not otherwise have gained.
In 1946, Phil and his wife were among the couples who pioneered veterans’ housing in Brown Hall and then the Harrison Street project before he joined Union Carbide’s plastics division in 1948. Cities Service Corp. hired him in 1966 to launch its plastics business. Upon his retirement there, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer. He next spent five years teaching at the University of Kansas School of Business.
Phil served on Oklahoma arts-organization boards and held season tickets to chamber music, symphony, opera, ballet, and Broadway shows.
At the time of his death Nov. 20, 2013, Phil was survived by his wife, Emily; daughter Martha; sons Arthur, Benjamin, and Warren; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. The class proudly notes that Phil was (as Tulsa’s mayor said) “a remarkable man who always put the interests of citizens first.”