Town Manager
Jerry Douglass
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Hello Durham Residents, I would like to introduce myself to you, the community. I was born in Bath, Maine, and attended Bath area schools graduating from Morse High School in 1984. From there I worked 12 years for a general contractor in residential development. In 1996, I enrolled at the University of Maine at Orono, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Management and a Bachelor of Science degree in Parks, Recreation & Tourism. In 2000, I started working with the Maine Department of Transportation at the administrative headquarters building in Augusta.
In my 16+ years working for that state agency I gained valuable experience working with Federal, State and Local officials. The majority of my career with MaineDOT was spent as the Program Manager for Maine Local Roads Center where I served as a trusted resource for municipalities. This is where I gained valuable experience working with city and town officials on local issues and problem solving. After working and collaborating across the state with many cities and towns, I decided to take my education, training and experience directly to a municipal city by going to work for the City of Gardiner.
As Gardiner’s Public Works Director, I was in charge of two departments, ten employees, developing and managing a 2.1-million-dollar budget. Being one of seven department heads and working closely with the Finance Director and City Manager, I gained valuable experience learning firsthand the challenges and complexities of running local government and developing budgets with limited resources. After several years of working in the transportation sector and a couple of years holding a department head position for a city, I felt like I needed to do something more in my career development. This is why I applied to be the Town Manager of Durham. When I applied for the position, I knew the Town was going through a transition and thought it would be exciting to be part of that process, knowing that it would be challenging and also rewarding.