It may be the highest compliment that can be paid to anyone in public service in North Carolina, but Martin Lancaster has earned it. His stewardship of the state's community college system calls to mind the service and the substance of William C. Friday, who presided for 30 years as president of the University of North Carolina system.

Like Friday, who's certain to be recorded as one of the two or three most respected North Carolinians of the 20th century, Lancaster -- retiring in May of next year as community colleges president -- is a man of humility, grace, personal kindness, intellect and accomplishment. Professionally, his colleagues now and in a public life of over 40 years respect him. Personally, he is a fellow who retains and nurtures old friendships, whether they date to his days as a chief page in the state legislature, to his service there in the House, to his four terms in Congress (Goldsboro area), to his tenure as assistant secretary of the Army, or to his decade plus with the community colleges.

A little story that my grandpa might note "says a lot about a fella" would be how Lancaster would make the acquaintance of the guys who happened to be exercising at the Hillsborough Street YMCA when he took his morning turn on the treadmill. Some of those who'd pass the time with him would be astonished later when they were informed by someone else of the highfalutin' position Lancaster had in state higher education. He has never come across as someone who demanded a certain level of recognition because of his professional importance.

That kind of personality has been just the ticket for the community college system, which is, to put it mildly, "loosely knit." What that means is that although the 59 colleges are indeed part of a "system," they possess great independence. Individual presidents don't really take marching orders from a central office. Local boards of trustees are fiercely protective of their authority, and they don't like the idea that a central command would be telling them what to do. And in many smaller communities where the colleges thrive, officials of the college are the biggest dogs in town.

Erskine Bowles, who to his credit saw the value of aligning himself with Lancaster when he took over as president of the UNC system, oversees a group of universities that also have a measure of autonomy -- but at the end of the day, he retains a good bit of agenda-setting and budgeting authority.

Lancaster built the influence in his office by signaling to the college presidents early on that he saw his role as supporting them, helping them with the General Assembly where his political career had been quietly successful. He took time to build friendships, to travel the state touting the virtues of individual campuses and the system itself.

Today, the system is held in high regard, and Lancaster has well-served all of the institutions by making it clear to legislators that community colleges are a key, perhaps the key, to the state's economic growth and recruitment of jobs.

Many colleges stand ready to train workers -- North Carolina workers -- for all sorts of jobs, most if not all of them higher-paying than those that might have been tied to manufacturing work that has vanished over the last 10 years. This is a very big deal, and in many parts of this state, the community colleges stand as monuments to hope for hard-working citizens who have been put out of jobs through no fault of their own. In a community college, they can learn something new. They can make a a better, maybe much better, living for their families.

That is thanks to a lot of people, of course. But if over this last 10 years the community colleges had not had a modest and skillful advocate with no interest in self-promotion and every interest in public service, progress might not have been as steady and amazing, really, as it has been.

Lancaster came to the job after a stop in the Clinton administration, which came about after he lost his congressional seat in the Gingrich revolution of 1994. It is a hard thing to be rejected by voters after you've been under the impression you were doing a good job and thought they agreed with you. Some people never get over it. Some remain bitter for a long time. And some move on and hope for better opportunities down the road.

That's how it's been with Martin Lancaster, who followed political defeat with victories for the cause of community colleges that in the long term will be important for the people of this state. Yes. Yes, the compliment stands.