A Castine man who works remotely for the state of Massachusetts is one of three finalists to be Ellsworth’s next city manager.
Charles Pearce is the only one of the three who has agreed to be publicly identified as a candidate for the job, according to Casey Hanson, an Ellsworth city councilor who chairs the city’s human resources search committee.
Pearce is expected to be at City Hall at 6 p.m. Friday to meet members of the public who might be interested in learning more about him and his interest in holding the city’s top administrative post.
Pearce, who serves on the Castine Historical Society’s board of trustees, spent summers in Maine growing up and has lived in Castine since 2020, according to a bio posted on the society’s website.
Pearce currently works remotely as the director of strategic engagement at Massachusetts’ Department of Economic Research. He previously worked for that state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, after being appointed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker as director of communications and customer outreach.
While working in the labor and workforce development office, he received the Manuel Carballo Award for excellence in public service for his work “scaling and redesigning workforce systems” in response to the COVID pandemic-driven unemployment crisis, according to the bio.
Pearce has also worked on state and national political campaigns, including Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, when he traveled nearly every day with Romney managing logistics.
Pearce said Monday he is interested in the job because he is in Ellsworth every week, either shopping for groceries, eating at local restaurants or visiting other businesses, and that he thinks it has a lot going for it.
“I feel like it is one of the premier cities in Maine,” Pearce said.
Pearce said that, if he is chosen for the job, he’ll have no problem working with his predecessor. Glenn Moshier, Ellsworth’s current city manager and police chief, is stepping down as city manager but plans to remain as police chief — though he is on leave as police chief pending the outcome of an investigation, the reasons for which have not been disclosed.
“That doesn’t bother me a bit,” Pearce said of the possibility of working alongside a previous Ellsworth city manager. He said he values institutional knowledge and would see Moshier’s continued employment with the city as an asset.
“It’s about the capacity to get the job done,” Pearce said.
Pearce also is a registered Maine Guide and last spring received a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of government, according to his LinkedIn profile.
