Senior Vice President and Chief Strategic Officer, Bangor Savings Bank

Age: 34

Home: Holden

FUN FACTS

Favorite band:
The Who 

Favorite place in Maine: 

Borestone Mountain 

If you had 24 hours to live, what would you do?  

Play with my kids, maybe go skydiving, and try to make sure I remembered to tell everyone I love, that I love them. 

I want everyone to know... 

We CAN change the world.  And we will. 

Where are you from and where did you go to high school?

I was born in Troy in Waldo County on a small hippie commune, but grew up in St. Albans and went to high school at Nokomis in Newport.

You went to college and law school at Harvard University. What was that experience like for a person who grew up in a small town in central Maine?

Initially it was like being a kid in an intellectual candy store. I certainly felt that I had a lot to prove - that I not only belonged there but could excel there. There was just an unbelievable range of opportunities, and a lot of that centered around the chance to interact with an amazing, diverse and talented group of other students. I had roommates and friends from all parts of the country and from different parts of the world.

On the flip side, I think the opportunities and the wealth that Harvard and many of its students had made me realize even more deeply the relative lack of those opportunities for young people growing up in rural Maine. And I think the contrast, as positive as my experience was at Harvard - I wouldn't trade it for the world - the contrast between that environment and the community where I grew up made me even more appreciative of a lot of the strong points that I took for granted about small town Maine. I came to appreciate the natural environment that we have. I came to appreciate the simple candor and neighborliness of small town people. So I actually developed a deeper appreciation (for Maine) every year I spent at school out of state.

How did you decide to return to Maine after finishing with your schooling?

When I left for college, my primary goal was to do something in the international sector. But, by the time I graduated from college, I had definitely changed perspective towards really wanting to make a difference in economic and educational issues back in Maine.

Before joining Bangor Savings Bank, you worked in the Department of Education in the administration of former Governor Angus King. You were heavily involved in the groundbreaking laptop initiative in Maine public schools. How has this program positively impacted Maine's future workforce?

I got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get involved in that program - helping to design it, roll it out, and convince the Legislature and the public that it was an idea worth pursuing.

We thought that the program was a no-brainer because technology is so ubiquitous in the workplace and in higher education. You wouldn't expect to go into any major professional services-type company and expect to see single person behind a computer.

It generated tremendous controversy when we proposed to have one computer per student. People thought we were proposing something radical and futuristic when in reality we were just trying to bring the schools into the present relative to technology in our society and in our economy.

The number one thing was never teaching people about how to use computers, but to make computer technology second-nature for them as the seamless tool in figuring out how to research, how to analyze, and how to present critical information and ideas, whether it be history, science or mathematics. I think like any program, success has varied across different schools and different classrooms. I think for those schools that have been able to use the technology successfully, it has improved tremendously students' ability to access information.

As chair of REALIZE!Maine, you oversee the broad effort of attracting and retaining young people here. What are the key strategies for making Maine a viable place for young working-age people to choose to live and work?

The number one thing and the cornerstone of all our efforts is to engage, listen to and empower young people, so that we know that we are building strategies that are not based on assumptions and perceptions of what young people want and need to thrive in Maine, but are based on hard data and constant feedback from young people themselves.

I think fundamentally there are two prongs of what we are trying to do. One is to connect and engage younger people who are already in Maine to work on strategies to make our communities and our economy even more viable for them to succeed and to stay. The second prong is to continue to expand those opportunities and communicate and market those opportunities to the many people out of state who might be attracted to come to Maine.

Weíve been told that the resources and information that does exist is not well-targeted to reach a young professional or entrepreneur to try to figure out how to make a go of it in Maine, and we'd like to change that.

It will take many years and a sustained effort to significantly increase the pool of young workers in Maine. Looking into the future, who will be the key partners to help REALIZE!Maine accomplish this goal?

One critical component is the grassroots network that has emerged across the state in the last three years. It is based almost entirely on local, passionate volunteer efforts. This initiative has grown from 200 people at a statewide meeting in 2004, to nearly 2000 young people involved with either the statewide efforts or with half a dozen strong regional groups.

Many of the initiatives and strategies that REALIZE!Maine needs to champion already have organizations and leaders who are active and who are necessary collaborators. Examples include groups such as the Maine Downtown Center, the Creative Economy Council, state and local Chambers, state agencies, and business attraction efforts such as Maine and Company, to name just a few.

One absolutely essential set of partners will be media in helping us to get the word out on how folks can engage in it, and what it will take to make it a success. And we will definitely need additional resources from the public and private sectors to implement our strategies successfully.