I am sitting across from the most powerful public official in Washington, D.C., in the eyes of veteran TV reporter Tom Sherwood. Guess who?

He’s wearing a stylish tie, he’s in great shape, his head is shaved. Mayor Adrian Fenty? Wrong.

It’s Neil O. Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development. Albert is presiding over the largest redevelopment of District land since Alexander “Boss” Shepherd paved the capital city’s streets and welcomed developers after the Civil War.

By Albert’s count, the construction projects in the pipeline are worth $13 billion. He’s scheduled a news conference this morning to show off how much property he’s put in play. Which raises the question: Is Neil Albert giving away the District’s jewels?

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Albert, 47, was born in British Guyana, on the northern coast of South America. His father, an accountant, came to the United States in 1960. He grew up in Brooklyn and went to New York public schools.

After he got a graduate finance degree, New York Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani asked him to help fix troubled agencies; he did similar work for a foundation, where he was working in 1999 when a friend asked him to help run D.C.’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

“Nothing in D.C. could be half as bad as what I’d seen,” he was thinking. “Was I in for a surprise.”

The department had no capital budget, untrained entrenched workers, TVs to entertain kids in its 21 child care centers. He became director. “We weren’t perfect,” he says. “But we made progress.”

He also made friends with a council aide named Adrian. The two got closer when Fenty became a council member chairing committees overseeing Albert’s agencies. Albert left the government in 2005 to start EdBuild, a consulting firm. When Fenty was elected mayor in the fall of 2006, he asked Albert to be his economic development czar.

Why take a huge pay cut? “I wanted to bring development into the neighborhoods and build affordable housing,” he says. “I had a mayor who would back me.”

What makes me think Albert isn’t making bad deals for D.C.? He’s backed up by a team of professionals. He’s well-educated and experienced in finance. And he took that fat pay cut. Is he the most powerful man in town?

“I’m just a public servant,” he says.

Serving up billion-dollar deals here and there.

hjaffe@washingtonian.com