Born to serve Leadership has more to do with duty than power, says Charles Bragg, 2nd

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Part 2 of a 6-part series

Sitting in his tidy house, in casual slacks and cardigan sweater, Charles Bragg 2nd chuckles at the thought that he may be considered a powerful force in Bangor.

Yet, if power is defined in part by influence, one would argue that he is.

Forty-five years on the library board, 24 years as a trustee at the Bangor Theological Seminary, decades on the board of Community Health and Counseling Services, chairman of New England Home Healthcare, chairman of Eastern Maine Charities, to name a few.

But at 91, the patriarch of the Bragg family, owners of N.H. Bragg and Sons, sees leadership as a responsibility of any citizen, and responsibility is something he takes seriously. Civic leadership, Bragg says, has much more to do with commitment and duty than with power.

“It’s simple really,” he said. “You want to have nice things in your community and someone has to do the work to get those things done.”

Bragg has been getting things done in Bangor for decades. Whether it has been building a new high school, expanding the library or securing the financial health of some of the city’s biggest nonprofit agencies, he has been not only involved, but many times in charge.

“I don’t really understand it myself,” he said during a recent interview about his role in the community. “It seems that I’m not on a board for more than a year or two before I’m chairman.”

Or sometimes less than that, as in 1951 when he joined the board of Mount Hope Cemetery and became its president at the same time. He remains on that board today.

Some may compare it to cream rising to the top, but he sees it another way.

“I don’t ruffle any feathers,” he said. “Because I don’t say much, I don’t offend anybody.”

Bragg was not only born into the family business, but also into a life of community service. His father, Franklin E. Bragg, who was also president of N.H. Bragg and Sons, was one of the city’s “go-to people” when something needed to be done.

Bragg’s grandfather and namesake, Charles F. Bragg, was the mayor of Bangor in 1890, almost exactly a century before Bragg’s son, John, now president of the family company, became mayor of the city in 1992.

A member of the Bragg family has been on the board of the Bangor Public Library for nearly 100 years, a fact that Bragg, a scholar at heart, is most proud of. When Bragg retired from the board after 45 years, his son Dr. Frank Bragg of Bangor took his seat and remains there today.

Community Health and Counseling Services, a board upon which Bragg sits today, was formed nearly 20 years ago when two social health agencies merged. One of those agencies was the Bangor Family Welfare Society. Bragg was president of that board when the merger occurred. His father was on the board in 1904, and his grandmother before that.

“We’ve had a Bragg on this board for more than 100 years. I think that shows the level of dedication of that family,” said Joe Pickering, the agency’s director.

Bragg’s father was a founder of the Bangor Rotary in 1917 and Bragg himself has been a member since 1946.

Born in 1911, Bragg was reared with his two older sisters in Bangor.

He skipped two grades in grammar school and was on target to graduate from Bangor High School at the age of 16.

Instead, his parents pulled him out and sent him to Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. He attended the school along with his best friend, the late G. Peirce Webber, who became one of Bangor’s most generous philanthropists. He graduated from Philips Exeter in 1928 and four years later from Amherst College in Massachusetts with a degree in history.

After declining his father’s offer to send him to Harvard Business School to further his education, Bragg returned home to work in the warehouse at N.H. Bragg, a company founded by his great-grandfather, Norris Hubbard Bragg, in 1854.

“I told him I thought I could learn more from him here than I could at Harvard, and I’m pretty sure I was right,” Bragg said.

N.H. Bragg & Sons originally supplied blacksmiths, selling coal and forges, anvils and hammering tools, steel and buggy parts. Today the company sells industrial and contractor supplies and safety and janitorial supplies as well as welding gases and equipment.

Bragg started in the warehouse and worked there until he fell off a ladder, hitting his head on a steel beam. He advanced to the customer counter.

He became president in 1951 and led the company as it expanded until he retired at the age of 70 in 1980.

“That I was in the family business also allowed me to devote a lot of time to community projects,” Bragg said. “People can sometimes only do as much as their employers will allow. When it’s your business you have the ability to attend meetings during the day and such.”

As he and his wife, Anna, raised their three children, Bragg led the family company and spent many hours guiding the agencies of the city through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Today, widowed with eight grandchildren, Bragg figures he devotes about 20 hours a week to community boards.

His institutional memory and legendary attention to detail continue to make him one of the most sought-after board members in the city.

“I’m a pain in the neck to every secretary of every board I serve on,” Bragg said. “I confess that I’ve been known to mention the omission of a comma in the minutes of a meeting, but I truly believe that the devil is in the details and I was raised that it is important to get things right. … At the same time I don’t think I make a habit of fussing over something that’s not important.”

A small man with glasses and a trademark bow tie, Bragg does not impose the traditional image of a powerful leader.

He laughs easily and grumbles about appearing to boast when asked how he has managed for more than 50 years to wheedle volunteer work out of lawyers, judges, bankers, politicians and accountants, and perhaps more importantly how he got them to work together toward the community good.

“I guess I’m fairly amiable. I don’t pound tables or anything like that. My father never did and I don’t. I think people like me so they accept my ideas sometimes. The other thing, and it’s an important piece of it, is that I have a say about who is going to be on these boards sometimes and I try to make sure that they are people who will work hard and put in the time and effort,” he said.

Tim Woodcock, a Bangor lawyer and president of the board of Community Health and Counseling Services, told Bragg recently that he would have made a good lawyer.

“He’s exceedingly methodical, in a manner that is commonly associated with the law,” Woodcock said. “At each board meeting I ask for the approval of the minutes from the last meeting and we all turn to Charlie. It is common practice that if Charlie doesn’t question the minutes then no one else does.”

Unlike some lawyers, Bragg tends to speak only when he has something meaningful to say.

“If he speaks, what he says is worth listening to. You know that he has studied the issue more thoroughly than anyone else in the room. On top of that he has the institutional memory and the analytical ability and judgment to make a wise decision,” Woodcock said. “And though he can be very powerful, forceful and emphatic when he disagrees with something, he never has to raise his voice.”

Norman Minsky, a Bangor lawyer who has served with Bragg on the board of the Bangor Public Library, said Bragg has the patience that few others have.

“If you had 22 pages of statistics to go through, you can be sure that Charlie will sit down, read them, study them and be able to talk of them intelligently. Therefore everyone else better be prepared. He raises the bar. He has the patience to do things that others would never do,” Minsky said.

Pickering of Community Health and Counseling Services said it was Bragg’s sincere commitment to the area that makes him such a valued leader.

“He once called me at 10:30 at night because he was sitting home worried that our fund-raising campaign was not going as well as it should be. He wanted to discuss what could be done to ensure we reached our goal. Now here’s a 91-year-old man sitting home late at night worried about that. He’s worried about it because he so strongly believes in the services we provide and that’s it. That’s the bottom line for him. He knows the importance of our mission and he’s committed to his role in that,” Pickering said.

John Bragg, who himself sits on at least seven boards and is a former mayor of Bangor and commissioner of Penobscot County, said his father raised him not with a harsh or stern hand, but simply and quietly, by example.

“For example, every year I received the attendance award at Sunday school. I very distinctly remember learning that if you sign up for something you do it. If it’s a weekly meeting then you are there every week. If you raise your hand and agree to do something, then you do it. It’s not just about belonging. It’s about commitment and active participation,” John Bragg said.

John Bragg points to his cousin, Clif Eames, who is the son of Charlie Bragg’s sister and another leading civic leader in the Bangor area. Eames was president of N.H. Bragg following Bragg’s 1980 retirement. Eames handed off the post to John in 1992.

“You see this in Clif as well. It’s something that has been passed down through generations. It’s taught to the whole family.”

But bringing that up is bittersweet to Charlie Bragg, who acknowledges the unlikelihood that any of his eight grandchildren will make their home in Bangor.

“I suppose it’s doubtful,” he said solemnly, gazing through the picture window of his home. “Young people are leaving and I don’t know what we can do about it.”

Perhaps the truest and most personal indicator of Bragg’s fortitude and commitment sits beside his bed and fills a drawer of a bureau in his home.

Since 1935 he has kept a line a day diary. In it he jots down notes about the weather and people he has met. The wedding of his best friend Peirce Webber and Peirce’s wife, Flossie, is in there and so is a trip the two men took to Florida before each married.

Family births and deaths are recorded and of course thoughts on the countless meetings he has attended throughout the decades in Bangor.

The books are in five-year intervals. On Dec. 31, he completed the fifth year of one book and bought himself another.

“It was a bit of a joke in the family whether or not I really needed a new five-year diary. I think I just might.”

Tuesday: “When you work for nothing, everybody wants to hire you.”