Add his current post to the list.
When he met his new staff on his first day running a division of the state Department of Commerce in 1995, three of them announced they had no assigned duties.
He assumed his next job in 1997, as an executive with the community college system, and found his division had overpromised businesses on the amount of job training the schools could provide.
Now Ralls is being bashed in some quarters as timidly handling the controversy over whether the state's 58 community colleges should admit illegal immigrants.
Gov. Mike Easley called Ralls' decision to prohibit their admission "odd," and criticized the community colleges for changing policy before getting the legal clarification they have requested. University of North Carolina system President Erskine Bowles said the state's universities would continue admitting illegal immigrants, referring to "considerable legal disagreement."
In an interview Friday, Ralls expressed some frustration in emphasizing that the latest move is a question of following legal advice from the state's attorney general and not a matter of setting policy in stone.
"People are looking towards me as this is my decision based on what I think about immigration," he said. "I don't necessarily set the policy. I follow the law, and I administer the policy."
What is his personal view, though?
"I'm an educator at heart," Ralls said. "I believe a broadly available education has much greater benefit than it does cost."
The debate over illegal immigrants has hijacked the media attention focused on him at a time when he is trying to spell out long term strategies for the colleges.
"What can be frustrating is that being the center of the storm, which you're really not in control of," Ralls said during an interview at his Raleigh office Friday. "You hope that doesn't take away from what you really feel like the mission needs to be."
Ralls, 44 and a native of Charlotte, has lived in every region of the state, moving around as the son of a Methodist minister. He once had a map, legendary among his friends, marking every barbecue restaurant where he had stopped. He guesses around 75 of them.
He's partial to Jimmy Buffett and has been young for most every job he has held. Some time after starting at his last post, president of Craven Community College based in New Bern, he exchanged greetings one day with a local official who wondered aloud whether Ralls were the son of the new community college president.
The furor over admission for illegal immigrants erupted in November, before Ralls was named the new president of the system. The colleges' then-top lawyer dispatched a memo saying all of the schools should admit undocumented applicants. In December, the community college system sought further guidance from Attorney General Roy Cooper's office, which this month said the schools should not offer admission, based on federal law.
Ralls said this week that the schools would follow that advice until he gets more information.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, oversees immigration law and officials there told reporters they have no authority over community college admissions.
Ralls said he asked Cooper's office to get clarification from that agency.
Friends and colleagues describe him as trying to settle an issue he didn't raise -- an educator trying to navigate the labyrinth of the law.
He has taken his lumps. Some critics questioned why it was necessary to close the door to illegal immigrants when the law remains unsettled, noting that the UNC system chose not to bar them.
"We have become the poster children of why there needs to be federal clarification on these issues," Ralls said at his first state board of community colleges meeting as president this week.
Even some board members, while expressing support for Ralls, worried aloud about the controversy.
"It really does paint a bad brush on our reputation," said Chairwoman Hilda Pinnix-Ragland of Cary.
Allen Wellons, a former state senator from Johnston County and board member, said the schools "look like we're stepping back."
Ralls said the decision was not about policy but whether to follow Cooper's advice.
"We want to educate all the residents of this state," he told the board, "and we want to follow the law."
Friends and colleagues said Ralls is not avoiding ownership of the issue but approaches his job with a balance: staying above the gnashing of the conflict but also remaining involved just enough to effect change.
"I have never seen Scott Ralls seem timid or shy away from difficult issues," said Cindy Hess, executive vice president at Craven Community College. "He's evaluating the situation and, as in most leadership positions, there are pieces of it that are inherited and pieces that you can appropriately demand and guide the change."
Joe Stewart, a lobbyist for the insurance industry and longtime friend of Ralls, said a politically charged and legally ambiguous battle is raging around someone who is neither a politician nor a lawyer but an educator.
"What's motivating him more than anything," Stewart said, "is a fierce desire to make education available to every single person who wants it."
Scott Ralls
AGE: 44.
CAREER: President of Craven Community College, vice president for economic and workforce development at N.C. Community College System, director of workforce development and training for N.C. Department of Commerce, also positions in the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Labor.
EDUCATION: Ph.D. and master's degrees in industrial and organizational psychology from University of Maryland; bachelor's degree in industrial relations and psychology from UNC Chapel Hill.
FAMILY: Wife, Lisa, and sons Benjamin, 9, and Lucas, 6.
FAVORITE TV SHOW: "The Office."
