If voters were choosing the smartest man in Anne Arundel County on Sept. 13 instead of the Democratic nominee for county executive, Robert Agee might win a landslide.

The Crofton resident is universally described as bright, imaginative, an idea man, a problem solver. For more than 20 years, elected officials have turned to him to unravel the knots of county and state government.

But Mr. Agee, vice president of Chaney Enterprises, a Southern Maryland sand and gravel conglomerate, has always toiled in the shadows. During the 1970s, he was an aide to the county delegation to the Maryland General Assembly. He was chief aide to former County Executive O. James Lighthizer from 1982 to 1990.

Critics say that Mr. Agee was a valued No. 2 man, but that he has yet to prove that he can handle the burdens and responsibilities of being out front, of being a leader.

"Bob Agee has never taken a vote in his life," said state Del. Theodore Sophocleus, one of Mr. Agee's four competitors and the Democrat's 1990 nominee for executive. "He's always taken direction. . . He's described himself as a policy wonk. Well, that's what he is, a policy wonk."

On the contrary, said Maryland Secretary of State Tyras S. "Bunk" Athey, one of Mr. Agee's campaign managers.

"Bob knows what's involved with being a leader," said Mr. Athey, a former state delegate from Jessup. "He's just never had that opportunity to do it."

Mr. Agee, who grew up in Glen Burnie, slipped quietly onto the scene in 1967 as a college intern working for state Sen. Ted Bertier, and, after he graduated from Western Maryland College in 1970, as an aide to then-state delegates Athey and Joseph Sachs.

When Mr. Athey became chairman of Anne Arundel's delegation, Mr. Agee's duties expanded to researching and drafting legislation for all the county's delegates and senators.

Everywhere he has gone, Mr. Agee has generated ideas that have made others look good, Mr. Athey said. When it became apparent in the 1970s that schools were graduating students who could not read their job applications, Mr. Agee helped craft the standards that allow teachers to hold students back if they cannot not read at basic levels.

And, when jet noise became unbearable at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Mr. Agee was instrumental in getting the state to purchase the homes hardest hit and to finance the sound-proofing of other affected homes, Mr. Athey said.

In the late 1970s, Mr. Agee was hired as executive director of the Anne Arundel Trade Council, a county-wide business coalition. He also settled in Crofton, rising to the board of directors of the Crofton Improvement Association, and for a short period serving as Crofton town manager.

There, he met Secretary of Transportation Lighthizer, who was then also a Crofton board member. When Mr. Lighthizer won the 1982 county executive race, he hired Mr. Agee as his chief of staff.

"It started as a staff management position, but he evolved into the idea guy," Mr. Lighthizer said. "He's a very good strategist. He can define the issues. He can anticipate what moves opponents will make."

During the administration's eight years, Mr. Agee authored a 13-point growth management plan that led to controversial fees paid by developers to pay for schools and other amenities. He also brokered a compromise with the residents of Hillsmere that allowed the county to build Quiet Waters Park, a regional recreation center outside Annapolis.

Mr. Lighthizer wanted an amphitheater; the community feared the noise and crowds it could draw. Mr. Agee listened to the residents and drafted a compromise that allowed the county to set up a temporary amphitheaters for small concerts.

"Quiet Waters would have gone down the drain without that," said County Councilwoman Maureen Lamb, an Annapolis Democrat.

In part because of his relaxed sense of humor, Mr. Athey said, Mr. Agee "can deal with people. He can go into a hostile room, and work with the people there. He may not be able to make them 100 percent happy but he can work with them."

Mr. Agee excelled at another of his assignments -- pushing administration proposals through the council, Mr. Lighthizer said. Although the votes were close, the administration lost few initiatives, he said.

"Lighthizer always won his battles thanks in large part to Agee," said former County Councilman Michael Gilligan.

Mr. Agee impressed the council with the soundness of his arguments.

"He used to say that I didn't pay attention to him," Mrs. Lamb said. "Sometimes I did; sometimes I didn't. One time I didn't was on the pension.

"He said it was a bad piece of legislation and that you'll be sorry if you vote for it, and I was."

The Lighthizer administration proposed sweetening the pension for appointed and elected officials in 1989 to keep top officials from jumping to the private sector before the term's end. The changes allow certain officials -- including Mr. Agee and Mr. Sophocleus -- to retire at 50 or after 16 years' employment.

The council unanimously approved the plan that year. Recently, auditors have discovered that the pension is underfinanced by $14 million. It has been closed to new enrollees.

"Agee is really the only guy who came out against it," said Mr. Gilligan, a Glen Burnie attorney and member of Mr. Agee's campaign committee. "He was in a bad position because the administration was pushing it, but the people who asked he told he opposed it."

Mr. Agee recalls a "bitter" internal debate within the executive's offices; Mr. Lighthizer does not.

"Bob was not an opponent of that pension plan," Mr. Lighthizer said. "There was nobody in that administration that I can recall who said, 'Boy, I wouldn't do this.' "

After Mr. Lighthizer left the executive's office in 1990, Mr. Agee worked briefly as his aide at the state Department of Transportation. In 1992, he became vice president of Chaney Enterprises, based in Charles and St. Mary's counties.

Since joining Chaney, Mr. Agee has worked to bring government and the business community there closer, said Charles County Commissioner Murray Levy.

Confronted with his company's need to reclaim old gravel pits and the county's need to replace wetlands destroyed by new roads, Mr. Agee proposed the county pay Chaney to convert the pits into wetlands.

"It was a perfect fit," Mr. Levy said. "He took essentially an abandoned gravel pit, turned it into an environmental asset, made money for his company and saved money for the county."

When Mr. Agee committed to the executive race in June, he raised eyebrows among those who worked with, and against, him during the Lighthizer administration. They wonder if he can escape voter animosity toward the rising property taxes of the 1980s that led to a property tax cap. And some wonder that he would even want to step forward.

"He's been the strategist, the king-maker; he's never been a risk-taker," said a former elected official from Anne Arundel. "It seems out of character for him."

"Just because you've been a co-pilot doesn't mean you've given up on being a pilot," Mr. Agee, adding that he must not let the election become a referendum on Mr. Lighthizer.

Many Democratic officials and activists -- particularly those he worked with prior to the Lighthizer years -- have rallied to his side.

"I like his imagination, his creativity, his brain," said County Councilwoman Virginia Clagett, who supported Mr. Sophocleus four years ago. "I feel Bob is a good alternative to the faces that people have been lukewarm to over the years."