New House leader heeds his 2nd calling Ex-volunteer firefighter became Maine legislator

AUGUSTA – John Richardson’s dad and grandfather were firefighters, and so were both of his brothers. So it was no surprise that Richardson had the same calling from the time he was 6. As a young man, he too became a volunteer.

“I loved it. I thought there was no higher calling than to be a firefighter,” Richardson recalled. Something that happened since then may account for why Richardson – Maine’s new House majority leader – now prefers political brush fires to the real kind.

When he was 19, Richardson was badly burned while helping to put out a fire in a building.

“It made me more serious about life,” the 45-year-old Richardson said as he held up a hand marked with scars from the flames. “It made me grow up in a hurry.”

Richardson decided to follow another childhood ambition and become a lawyer. The Washington, D.C., native became the first member of his family to graduate from college, earning a degree from the University of Maryland in 1983.

Richardson got his law degree from Creighton University in Nebraska six years later, and with his new wife was soon on his way to Maine – or back to Maine.

Raised in Prince George County, Md., Richardson spent the summers of his boyhood at his grandparents’ camp along Bottle Lake near Springfield in northern Penobscot County. He played baseball in Springfield and grew to enjoy the rustic surroundings and local characters.

He recalled his mother’s father giving him a dollar to endure rides through what was then a smelly papermaking town known as “Stinkin’ Lincoln,” and friendly arguments his granddad had with his pals at Smith’s General Store in Springfield, the little town where his grandmother taught school.

“I loved Maine and always thought a lot of Maine,” he said, “but I never thought I’d come back to live here.”

Back at home, his mother worked at the University of Maryland and his father, an air traffic controller in Leesburg, Va., became a charter member of the controllers union.

As a volunteer firefighter, Richardson’s father was chief of the local department for 25 years. Richardson traces his interest in politics to those days, hearing local political issues being aired around the fire station.

After his firefighting injury, Richardson re-evaluated his goals and went to college. Before attending law school, he worked as a management consultant in a public accounting firm. While he was at Creighton, he was introduced to Stephanie Grohs, who would become his wife.

The couple traveled to Maine, where she served her medical residency. They started a family and Richardson opened a law practice, where he concentrates on personal injury litigation, labor relations and criminal defense. Richardson and his wife, an obstetrician-gynecologist, live in Brunswick and have three children.

Richardson has negotiated collective bargaining disputes and represents Newspaper Guild and other labor units at the Blethen Maine Newspapers, as well as state police and municipal police organizations.

Richardson counts himself among the “multitudes” who have roots in Maine, left, “and have had that calling home.”

“When I moved to the state in 1990, the only orientation I had was to northern Maine,” Richardson said as he sat at a table in his State House office.

After serving two terms in the House of Representatives, he was propelled to seek a leadership post, hoping “to live up to what my dad did.”

“I watched as my father gave of himself selflessly to that community” back in Maryland, Richardson said. “My father was always there for those people.”

He recognizes the road ahead will be difficult, with a budget shortfall approaching $1 billion facing the new Legislature. Priorities include evening out the state’s revenue base and lowering what he sees as an inordinate amount Mainers pay in property taxes.

“We’re operating a 21st century economy with a 19th century tax code,” said Richardson, who was elected to his leadership post by fellow House Democrats on Nov. 13.

Richardson wants property, sales and income taxes each to account for a third of the total tax burden Mainers bear, without raising taxes overall. Cuts in some services may be necessary, he said.

Richardson sees Maine’s economy in transition as manufacturing jobs disappear and believes continued investments in education, economic development and research and development are musts.