In mid-August, Andrew Hart, of Camden, traveled to Sunday River for the New England Management Institute, an annual professional gathering of municipal officials who are members of the Maine Town, City and County Management Association. Little did he know that his peers had selected him as the 2025 recipient of the Linc Stackpole Manager of the Year Award.

And he was even more surprised when family popped out of a side door just as MTCMA President Scott Morelli, who is also South Portland's city manager, handed Hart his plaque.

Hart's wife, Sherri, had told him that she was staying at home in Camden that weekend, Aug. 15, with their new puppy; but out of the blue, there she was in Bethel, along with Hart's brother Dan and his sister-in-law, Julie, to celebrate Andy.

The MTCMA was hosting the 79th annual New England Management Institute Aug. 13-15 at Sunday River's Jordan Hotel, with 150 in attendance. The Institute provides three days of workshops and conversations amongst municipal administrators, engineers, attorneys and economists.

The Manager of the Year award was bestowed in recognition of Hart's, "continuing contributions to the public management profession."

Hart is current town manager of Carmel. Prior to that, he was Knox County's administrator for 16 years, and before that, Union's town manager for 15 years. He previously served on the MTCMA Executive Board and was president of MTCMA. He also served on the Maine Municipal Association Executive Committee for two terms and was a member of the MMA Legislative Policy Committee.

The annual manager of the year award is named for the well-respected Lincoln Stackpole, who was Machias Town Manager from 1970 until he died at age 55 in 1977.

"The Manager of the Year award is named in Linc Stackpole’s honor; it is to honor him, and to memorialize the standards he set for all managers to follow," the MTCMA states at its website.

"One of the most difficult aspects is to recognize the managerial strength in one’s own community," the nomination form stipulates, in its description of the Manager of the Year award. "It is one of the pitfalls of our profession: how do you really measure performance? In the private sector, the CEO can be judged by the bottom line—the profit margin. How do you determine success in the public community? Low tax rate? High tax rate? Good roads? Happy citizens?

"If it is difficult to measure performance from within a community, it is considerably more difficult to measure performance from outside of a community. A Public Administrator may be doing a marvelous job, but his peer in a neighboring community might not be aware of it. Even if he/she is aware of it, it might not be quantifiable. The Linc Stackpole award should seek to recognize good management performance and the criteria seeks to identify that performance. The criteria also includes recognition of contribution to the profession and to one’s fellow Public Administrators, items more clearly identifiable."