Bob Swadell, a consultant who had a hand in the Mountain Falls development, is credited for helping with the widening of Highway 160 to Las Vegas, was instrumental in the drafting of a bill to grant 280 acres for a community college and many other projects, died Sunday. He was 77.

Swadell never ran for office but was a fixture leaning against the railing outside the Bob Ruud Community Center, advocating projects with local officials. His widow, Mary Swadell, said services are being planned for sometime after Easter at the convention center in Henderson.

A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served in the Korean War and received a Bronze Star in Vietnam, Swadell went on to work for the Central Intelligence Agency after his 21 years in the military.

Bob and Mary Swadell moved to Henderson where they built the Boat Barn in 1974, a mini-storage business. Bob Swadell had four patents hanging on the wall, his wife Mary recalled -- one for pontoon boats, another for Geisha lighting, still another for an aircraft landing system.

Swadell was a member of the Henderson Municipal Facilities Construction Committee, which honored him by naming the Robert A. Swadell Justice Facility in his honor, after he helped save the city money on construction costs. Swadell and Hal Smith worked with a veterans group to get a veterans memorial wall built in Henderson.

Longtime developer Tim Hafen recalled, "It was during the year 2000 that he came to Pahrump originally. He brought out three or four potential developers, and what he wanted to build was a three-step, assisted living community. But he was the driving force for Al Collins, who finally bought, in the year 2000, what was the beginning of Mountain Falls, and he helped author the first development agreement in Nye County and that was Mountain Falls.

"He provided the contacts and the background, the people, the movers and shakers that persuaded the Nevada highway department to build a four-lane highway instead of just building shoulders on the two-lane, existing road," Hafen said.

"He also knew how to work to get the Clark County commissioners, the Nye County commissioners, the Legislature, to move the Clark County-Nye County line two miles east so all the private land in Pahrump would be in Pahrump."

The county line used to be on CAAS Road but was moved to the southeast in 2001.

"He had the ability to draw on a multitude of resources to make things move. He was probably the most resourceful person I've ever known and had a brilliant mind to make it happen. He's going to be missed by a huge variety of friends, and I'd say there's never going to be another resource like Bob," Hafen said.

Mike Cosgrove, a former Pahrump town manager who went to work for Collins as manager of Mountain Falls, said, "He believed in good local government and quality of life. That's something he emphasized. You could always trust his word. He had the community at heart.

"This past Friday he was still on the phone, people were calling him for advice."

Swadell was honored with the 2008 Great Basin College Community Service Award. He testified in the Legislature in 2007 in an appeal for funds to build a Pahrump community college campus.

Carl Diekhans, president of Great Basin College, who flew into Elko for the presentation in May 2008, said, "Bob is the type of person I enjoy working with. He's truly dedicated. I've never seen anyone who's so selfless in his desire to get the college here and started."

Swadell never got the chance to see the college, his final project, come to fruition. But Bill Verbeck, director of the Pahrump Great Basin College Campus, predicted the bill donating 280 acres for the college campus introduced by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will be passed later this year.

"There are very few leaders that would call a senator directly and meet with him on that bill and have the political clout to make this happen," Verbeck said.

Perhaps his last comments to the Nye County commissioners came during debate on the development agreement for the federal detention center Dec. 16. Swadell warned commissioners they would drive away business prospects by using a development agreement as a last-ditch tool to defeat a project that already had gone through the political process.

Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky called Swadell, "a cornerstone in the Pahrump community for more than 10 years. Many people liked him and some didn't, but still, everything he did was to make Pahrump a better place to live."

Borasky said Swadell was a strong supporter of the Desert View Hospital before it was built.

"Bob helped me through many hard times in my short political career by saying, 'Keep your head held high,'" Borasky said. "He told me, 'Do what you think is right no matter what others say.'"