Have I told you about my vision for Bangor?” John Rohman asks as he walks through the downtown offices of WBRC Architects-Engineers.

Rohman, who is the “R” in WBRC, describes this vision like a floor plan. Think of a mall, he says. Any successful mall has big department stores – anchors or magnets – that bring in customers. As these customers walk from anchor to anchor, they stop at the smaller stores, grab a bite at the food court, get a haircut or pop into the arcade. The customers may come to buy a TV at Sears, but they end up spending money at the Gap and My Maine Bag, too.

The way he sees it, the same holds true for Bangor. But instead of commercial anchors, there are cultural anchors – Penobscot Theatre Company, the Maine Discovery Museum, the Bangor Public Library, and eventually, the University of Maine Museum of Art – that lure people downtown. As they walk from place to place, they may stop at the Whig & Courier for a cheese steak, pick up a gift for Mom at Rebecca’s, or stop by the Clark House Gallery to see the latest show.

In Rohman’s vision, everyone benefits from culture and the arts. They’re the magnets that pull in businesses to formerly empty storefronts – the reason why people come downtown in the first place. This summer, the arts will draw thousands of people downtown, and to the waterfront, when the National Folk Festival rolls into town Aug. 23-25. And it’s no surprise that the former mayor and current festival chairman was an integral player in getting the National to come here.

“I think this particular event is a really great fit for Bangor, and John saw that, he recognized that,” said Julia Olin, associate director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, which produces the festival.

Part of what Rohman, 57, recognized was the festival’s potential to bring economic benefits to the region. While many people feel uncomfortable talking about art and money in the same sentence, Rohman has no qualms about mixing the two. He knows that when people go out to the theater or to a concert, they often go out to dinner beforehand. While they’re downtown, they may do a little shopping, too. And that injects money into the local economy.

“Bangor is one of the leading examples of how arts, culture and commerce can commingle in a very effective way,” said Alden Wilson, director of the Maine Arts Commission, of which Rohman is the vice chair. “John’s regard in the area of art and commerce goes well beyond Maine. … That’s really a national movement, and Bangor’s at the forefront of it.”

Rohman’s drive to promote the arts in Bangor springs from his love for his adopted hometown. When he was in high school, the Delaware native moved to Augusta, where his father was stationed at the naval reserve center. He went on to study engineering at the University of Maine, and worked at an earlier incarnation of WBRC, Higgins and Webster, after his graduation in 1968. After a year of service in Vietnam, he returned to Bangor, and he’s been here ever since.

“I love this area,” he said. “I love being a big fish in a little pond. I love having the ability to impact change in the community – people in this community can do that.”

It was in the early ’80s that Rohman really found his passion, and in turn, this is when his ascension to “big fish” started. Previously he had done much of his work behind the scenes, but he began doing more and more interior design, which put him in closer contact with his clients. It was a combination he loved, and he decided to pursue the design side further at the Boston Architectural Center. But he wanted to take a few art courses locally to prepare.

He ended up taking nearly every studio art class the University of Maine offered, and he fell in love with watercolors. So much so that when he and his wife, Lynda, moved into their Broadway home, he incorporated a studio into their renovations. As his interest in visual art blossomed, he became involved with the Maine Crafts Association, eventually serving as its chairman.

“I really started to see what an impact art and design can have on people and really on a community,” Rohman said.

By “art,” he isn’t just talking about paintings. On a trade mission to St. John, New Brunswick, Rohman shared a bus seat with a man named Mark Torres, who had a vision of his own. A vision that involved Shakespeare.

“I didn’t know him from Adam,” Torres recalled, laughing. “This architect suddenly became interested in the idea of a Shakespeare festival.”

When they got back to Bangor, Torres set up a meeting with Rohman.

“The funny thing about John is he is a right-now kind of person,” Torres said. “He says, ‘You know who can help?’ Then he reaches around [for the phone] and calls the guy.”

A phone call got the ball rolling, but Rohman didn’t stop there. Days before the inaugural Maine Shakespeare Festival performance, he was there on the waterfront, pounding nails into two-by-fours to help Torres build a stage.

“He is a win-win guy,” Torres said. “He looks for a way for everybody to get their thing. He’s as behind the Shakespeare festival as he is behind the folk festival. In some ways they are competing events, but he finds a way to support both.”

Rohman’s support of the arts – all arts – has been tireless in the last decade. While serving on the board of the Chamber of Commerce, Rohman instituted the Bangor Region Arts Council. In the past five years on the City Council, he has actively courted cultural institutions, such as the University of Maine Museum of Art, to move downtown. When he served as mayor in 2001, people called him “the arts mayor.”

“We all in cocktail conversation can talk about how important the arts are, but he lives and breathes that,” Wally Mason, director of the UM art museum, said. He’s always trying to find a way to weave the arts into the daily life of Bangor.”

When Rohman heard about the National Folk Festival, he thought it would be a great way to do just that. It would expose the community to a wide variety of music and traditional arts, but it would also introduce thousands of people to the city he loves.

During a visit to the National’s last host city, East Lansing, Mich., Rohman had a lot to say about Bangor. It was enough to lure East Lansing’s mayor, Mark Meadows, and his wife here in August to volunteer at the festival. Then they’re planning to spend part of their two-week vacation Down East.

“He’s a great ambassador,” Meadows said. “Everybody in East Lansing loved him and his wife.”

The National is a family affair for the Rohmans – John is the chairman, and Lynda, who is the director of volunteer services at Eastern Maine Medical Center, is serving as the festival’s volunteer coordinator. At a recent Rotary Club meeting, Lynda talked with the Roving Rotarians, a group of volunteers who will shuttle people around the festival grounds on golf carts. John was on hand to drum up enthusiasm for the event, and as he fielded questions from the audience, he addressed each member by name. And he’s not even a member of the noontime club. (He’s a morning Rotarian.)

“One reason I believe he’s been so successful in all of the projects he’s tackled in Bangor as a public servant and a private citizen is that he’s so enthusiastic and likeable that people just want to jump on board and help him,” Julia Olin said.

“He’s not really one of those people who’s looking for praise, he’s looking to make something happen.”