Angus King's former chief of staff joins Sewall Co. as outside director
Courtesy / James W. Sewall Co.
Kay Rand, former chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Angus King, has joined the James W. Sewall Co.'s board of directors as an outside member. Sewall President George Campbell told Mainebiz that Rand's appointment advances the company's strategic goals.
James W. Sewall Co. announced today that Kay Rand, who recently stepped down as U.S. Sen. Angus King’s chief of staff, has joined the company’s board of directors as an outside member.
Her appointment at the Old Town-based company took effect on Jan. 28.
Sewall Co. President George Campbell Jr. told Mainebiz in an interview Wednesday that he sees Rand as a key addition who will help the engineering, survey and natural resource consulting company advance its strategic goal of better assisting communities, the state and industry face new infrastructure needs.
“To assist the company’s efforts in developing and sponsoring U.S. commercial infrastructure for the transportation, municipal, state, university, and health care sectors, Sewall needs guidance from a known leader who deeply understands government and infrastructure,” Campbell said. “Rand’s extraordinary experience in state and national public policy, coupled with her wealth of knowledge in business consulting for Bernstein Shur, will provide unparalleled talent and leadership that can help move the company and our state forward.”
In a sit-down interview Wednesday at the Mainebiz office in Portland, Campbell and Rand shared personal anecdotes of the many ways their professional careers have crisscrossed and overlapped for more than three decades.
“Angus stole her from me … from the Maine Alliance. She was my VP,” Campbell said with a broad grin, relating how King tapped Rand in 1993 to manage his successful gubernatorial campaign as an independent. She then served as King’s policy director and then as chief of staff until the completion of his second term as governor in January 2003. Rand managed King’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2012 and served as his chief of staff in Washington, D.C., from January 2013 to January 2019.
Rand stepped down as the senator’s chief of staff this January, earning a tribute from him delivered on the floor of the U.S. Senate in which King stated: “Kay reflects all the important aspects of good leadership: vision, teamwork, empathy, management, communication, optimism, decisive, doing homework, integrity and character.”
Returning to the private sector
Rand said her decision to join Sewall’s board was driven by her appreciation of Campbell’s efforts since becoming Sewall’s president last May after it was purchased by Treadwell Franklin Infrastructure Capital LLC, a privately owned and managed company focusing on investment opportunities in the infrastructure sector. Campbell, the advisory board chairman of Treadwell Franklin, was named president of Sewall on May 1, 2018, concurrent with the acquisition.
“Sewall and its new owners, Treadwell Franklin Infrastructure Capital, have formed a new company structure to address the real world issues of today and tomorrow: the effects of climate change and aging infrastructure on communities and businesses in our state and beyond,” she said. “Not only can Sewall supply a robust team of accomplished traffic, civil and structural engineers, surveyors, and geographic information specialists to help solve these problems, but with Treadwell Franklin, can also bring the investors who can fund the solutions. I am excited to be a contributor to the re-emergence of Sewall’s long-standing legacy of business leadership to Maine.”
Campbell said that since the acquisition, Treadwell Franklin has been working to build on the Sewall’s strengths so that it can better meet the needs of clients grappling with complex, and often expensive, infrastructure projects.
“We want to give our clients a full range of solutions,” he said, explaining that Treadwell Franklin’s expertise in financing infrastructure projects is now coupled with the Sewall Co.’s long-standing reputation as an engineering firm dating back to 1880 that offers geospatial, engineering and natural resource consulting services to a diverse range of clients.
“We needed the more professional bandwidth that Sewall Co. has to support us in our efforts” at Treadwell Franklin to develop and sponsoring the commercial infrastructure of the United States.
Campbell said that Rand’s experience in municipal, state and federal government will make her a particularly valuable advisor both to him personally and to the company in general as she assumes her role as an outside director.
Rand said she is excited to take on that new role.
“I grew up professionally with George,” she said, adding that in the world of municipal government “Sewall was the company you could always just count on to problem-solve.”
A native of Ashland in Aroostook County, in addition to her many years of working with Angus King, Rand worked for the Maine Municipal Association for 11 years representing towns and cities before the Maine Legislature. Between her stints working for King when he was governor and then as U.S. senator, she became managing director of Bernstein Shur Government Solutions, the consulting arm of the law firm.
Rand said she will work out of her home in Bar Harbor, as well as Sewall headquarters in Old Town and the Treadwell Franklin/Sewall office in Yarmouth. She can be reached at kay.rand@sewall.com.
“I’m happy to be able to work with George again,” she added. “He’s one of the more agile public servants I’ve every worked with.”
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