Meet Ed
Rep. Crockett is a born Mainer, an experienced public servant, small business owner, and father serving the people of HD 112 in Augusta.
I was born the youngest of eight children in Portland and raised on Munjoy Hill. After graduating from Portland High School in 1979, I attended the University of Maine at Orono (UMO) and double majored in Journalism & Broadcasting.
While still a senior at UMO I was encouraged to audition for the weekend anchor position at WABI-TV in Bangor, Maine. I got the job and spent my senior year weekend nights doing the 11pm newscast at Channel 5. By far my biggest break at UMO was meeting my future wife, Martha, a fellow Portland High alum while there.
Although I enjoyed being on air, I was more intrigued by the business side of television. So I decided to hang up the microphone and enrolled in the Boston College MBA program. I had fun, learned a ton and found my passion, a career in sales/marketing management.
Before embarking on our careers, and shortly after graduating from Boston College, Martha and I got married in Portland. We spent our first few years moving around the country, living in Beverly, MA, Houston, TX, and Hawthorne, NJ. Although we were fortunate to live in and visit new places, our hearts ached for home. In the summer of 1990 I accepted a position with Lepage Bakeries in Auburn, ME, and we built our home in the same North Deering neighborhood where Martha was raised.
Thirty-two years later we are still there. We stayed because it was an ideal place to foster our family. Our three children all grew up there and thrived while attending Portland Public Schools. Martha has been an Education Technician at Lyseth Elementary for over 20 years. We love greater Portland and now that I’m able to give back, I’m excited to serve my neighbors in the legislature.
I’ve had a wonderful and dynamic career, leading initiatives for iconic Maine brands like Country Kitchen, Hannaford, Oakhurst Dairy, and Capt’n Eli’s Soda. I’ve negotiated hundreds of proposals, encompassing millions of dollars and resources to find the best solutions. I believe in win-win solutions and can facilitate similar success for our great state. However, the road hasn’t been easy.
As a child my mother had serious health issues which limited her employment opportunities, while my father was a raging alcoholic who spent my entire youth living on the streets of Portland. The family was destitute and became “products of the state” (a commonly referred to term for welfare back in the day), dependent on social services to survive. Although my mother had little financial or material means, she encouraged us to get an education believing it was the
most plausible path to a brighter future.
I documented our life in a recently published memoir, The Ghosts of Walter Crockett, published by Islandport Press, Yarmouth, ME. The book examines my father’s afflictions and how those left behind dealt with them all. It proved to be an inspirational tale since my father found sobriety, reconnected with his children, and mentored hundreds in AA.
Politically, I’m excited to be a strong bipartisan voice for education, business development, health care, and more. It’s paramount, otherwise opportunities to make a real difference on critical initiatives cannot be realized. Partisan anything, never mind politics, doesn’t result in the best of anything. It shouldn’t be about blue or red, but about what is best for the majority of constituents. Partisanship
stymies compromise. If we aren’t open to compromise, the status quo remains, and we don’t move forward.
We need leaders to be thoughtful, respectful and disciplined. We need to listen to all ideas, decide what will work best, and act confidently. In business we always have contingency plans. If something isn’t working we change it. I’ve seen the process be much slower in politics, sometimes coming to a halt. That is unacceptable.
I am committed to working together to get the work of the people done. I look forward to making a positive difference in Augusta.
