John Lisnik, a former state representative described as “a tireless advocate” for the University of Maine System during his 25-year career as its liaison to the State Legislature, has died. He was 73.
The circumstances of Lisnik’s passing were not immediately disclosed, but he had been battling cancer, according to a Friday statement from UMS Chancellor Dannel Malloy and University of Maine-Presque Isle President Ray Rice.
Lisnik, a Vietnam War-era veteran who served with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, was one of the university system’s biggest backers as Assistant to the Chancellor for Governmental Relations from 1990 to his retirement in 2015. He helped secure grants from the Legislature that improved education in Aroostook County and the rest of Maine, Malloy and Rice said.
“Few people who have spent their careers in and around politics are as well-respected and well-liked as John remains to this day,” according to their statement. “The affordable access tens of thousands of Maine students have had to our public universities is owed in large part to John’s highly effective representation of our system in the State House.”
Lisnik helped the system to secure a $49 million workforce infrastructure bond even as he received treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston in 2018.
Construction will start this year on a new engineering education classroom and laboratory building at UMaine for which Lisnik helped secure $50 million in state support, the largest one-time public investment ever made in the University of Maine System.
Lisnik most recently served at UMPI’s Board of Visitors. The Presque Isle native was honorably discharged from the military in 1968 and graduated from UMPI in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in education. He taught social sciences at Caribou High School, earned a master’s degree in government from Notre Dame University and served as an adjunct faculty member at UMPI and Husson College.
His other work included a stint as director of Northern Maine Regional Approach to Improved Health Services through Education, a non-profit entity that provides in-service training, professional growth and development seminars and education to area health-care facilities in Aroostook.
In 1980, Lisnik was elected to the Maine House of Representatives, where he represented Presque Isle and served as a member of several committees. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, he helped fund the Northern Maine Technical College and the University of Maine at Presque Isle and was instrumental in obtaining funding for a new courthouse in Presque Isle and for an Alzheimer’s program at the local hospital.
Lisnik left the Legislature in 1990 to serve as the university system’s chief lobbyist. He lived for many years in Presque Isle with his wife, Donna, and their two sons, John and Eric, and daughter, Allison. His wife was an accomplished educator who also taught at the high school.