'I'm going to miss this place': Steve Kent looks back on 20 years in politics

Steve Kent won't celebrate his 40th birthday until next May, but healready has two decades of political experience under his belt.

• PC MHA Steve Kent named new top bureaucrat for Mount Pearl

Kentspent the weekclearing out hisoffice at Confederation Building as he gets set to move on from elected office."I'm going to miss this place" he told CBC Here and Now's Anthony Germain, who stopped by Kent's office on Tuesday.

It's a really, really tough decision to walk away.- Steve Kent

"I've got mixed feelings about leaving," he said while packing up pictures.

"It's a really, really tough decision to walk away."

But Kent isn't exactly walking away from public life. He recently announced that he's moving back to Mount Pearl City Hall, where his political career began.

He has been hired asthe city's chief administrative officer ajob that comes with an annual salary ofover $190,000 a year, about $100,000 more than he was makingin the legislature.

"I wasn't looking for a job," Kent said when asked if he did this for financial reasons. But he went on to say family and finances are always a consideration.

"If it had been any other job, Iprobably wouldn`t have considered it,"he said.

Where it all started

Steve Kent made national headlines 20 years ago, when at the tender age of 19,he became the youngest elected official in Mount Pearl's history. Garnering the highest number of votes in the 1997 election, he automatically became the deputy mayor.

Six years later,in 2003, Kent became mayor of Mount Pearl when DaveDenine stepped down to run for the Progressive Conservatives.

In 2005 he won the mayor's chair by acclamation. His tenure as mayor would last only another two years, though, when heset his own sights on a seat in the legislature.

The provincial scene

In 2007, voters again gave Kent a stamp of approval, electing him as theirMHA in Mount Pearl North.

He sat as a backbencher for the first few years, but eventually ended up in Kathy Dunderdale's cabinet, serving in a number of portfolios.

• First seat, then baby for MHA Steve Kent

By 2014, the 36-year-old, now a veteran of the game, ran for the leadership of the party, but came up short, eliminated on the first ballot in a race eventually won by Paul Davis. It was Kent's first loss as a politician.

One year later, the PCs lost the general election, but again, Kent managed to hang on to his seat in a hotly contested battle against another Mount Pearl political heavyweight, Randy Simms.

Despite his party's loss at the polls and the public's anger over the soaring cost of building Muskrat Falls, Kent still says the project is good for Newfoundland and Labrador.

"I still believe that decades from now the province will reap the benefits," he said.

Putting politics aside

In recent months, Kent had been testing the waters to see if another run at the leadership of the PC party was in the cards, but that is clearly now off the table.

So how will a career politician put aside his political bias in his new job? "I believe Ican do it," Kent said,but admitted, "It's going to be a major adjustment."

Kent, who has three young children, saidhis new role will allow himto be an even better father and husband. That said, he didn't rule out a return to politics.

"It's a long road ahead," he said.