PRESQUE ISLE, MAINE— An Aroostook County native and graduate of several University of Maine system colleges who also has held down high-responsibility positions with the U.S. Army will be returning to his roots this fall to be the new superintendent of the local school district.
Brian Carpenter , 60, superintendent of RSU 20 in Belfast, signed a contract with SAD 1 in Presque Isle after the school board unanimously voted to enter into a contractual agreement with him on March 11, Jim Bubar, vice chairman of the SAD 1 board, confirmed Tuesday.
Carpenter said he signed the contract on Monday and his last day in Belfast will be on June 30.
“Presque Isle is a good school system, and I know the area well,” he said Tuesday. “I am from Ludlow. I am looking forward to it.”
SAD 1 serves the communities of Presque Isle, Chapman, Castle Hill, Mapleton and Westfield.
Carpenter will take over for Gehrig Johnson, who announced in 2013 that he intended to retire after 30 years, but agreed to stay on until a new superintendent was found.
RSU 20 serves Belfast, Belmont, Frankfort, Morrill, Northport, Searsmont, Searsport, Stockton Springs and Swanville.
Carpenter received a degree in civil engineering from the University of Maine and one in social sciences from the University of Maine at Presque Isle before launching a career in education. He began as a science teacher at East Grand High School in Danforth and continued on to Mars Hill High School and Madawaska High School.
He then earned a master’s degree from the University of Southern Maine and became a school administrator.
His first stint with the Army began right after he earned his first degree and couldn’t find work as an engineer. He spent nearly three years serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and was trained to go to Vietnam, but the war ended in 1975, before he was sent there.
The Army reservist was working as principal of Hermon Middle School in 2003 when he was deployed to an active-duty position with the Army operations center at the Pentagon.
“I was involved in sending out orders to combat commanders in the field,” he said in a BDN interview in 2012. “It was very intense. A big change from middle school principal. There was more responsibility.”
After returning to his job back in Hermon for a couple of years, Carpenter was deployed again in 2006 to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he did computer simulations of how many people and what types of weapons would be needed for combat operations. Then he went back to the Pentagon, where he worked as the chief of staff for the Army’s Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate.
“As chief of staff, I dealt with people on the hill, answering legislative questions,” he said in the 2012 interview. “I dealt with deployments. I dealt with foreign area officers, diplomats and visiting dignitaries. … I got to meet a lot of great people. I had a great time.”
After his stint ended, he held a few more teaching and administrative posts in Penobscot and Washington counties before beginning his post in Belfast in 2012, succeeding retiring Superintendent Bruce Mailloux.
Carpenter announced in December 2014 that he would resign at the end of June 2015 when his contract ended.
He said Tuesday that he had negotiated a salary with SAD 1, but preferred the information be announced by the district.
That financial data was not available from the district on Tuesday.