Longtime UMM fund-raiser takes new job

MACHIAS – A woman who for more than 30 years served as one of the linchpins at the University of Maine at Machias has said goodbye.

Susan Palmer, who for the past two years has been UMM’s director of advancement, has accepted a job as development officer with the University of Southern Maine.

Friday was her last day.

Palmer grew up in Whitneyville and is a UMM graduate. Her mother, Blanche, was Whitneyville postmaster for 52 years, and her father, Arthur, was a railroad man. Her mother was also a graduate of the university.

“This place has always been in my blood,” she said.

Palmer began as a clerk-typist for the Machias college’s public relations director. She graduated in 1972 and had two children.

“I wanted to stay in the area and I loved being on the campus,” she said. UMM was called Washington State College in those days.

Shortly after she was hired, Palmer became assistant to then-President Arthur Buswell.

While working for the president, she picked up public relations duties when that position was eliminated.

President Frederic Reynolds nurtured Palmer’s public relations career. “He really gave me the opportunity to do more with it,” she said. “It gave me a chance to expand my writing skills.”

Palmer embraced all challenges. “I haven’t been afraid to try new things and I’ve also not been afraid to do what was expected and more, and I think that has a lot to say about someone’s success,” she said.

Under UMM President Paul Nordstrom, the university kicked off a $4 million campaign to build the Center for Lifelong Learning. The director of development hired to run the campaign quit. So Nordstrom asked Palmer to take on the duties.

“In the later part of the campaign, they advertised for a director of development, and I applied for that position,” she said. “I found through almost default a new position that I really enjoyed.”

The Kresge Foundation had given the university a challenge grant. Palmer and her tiny staff of volunteers had to raise an additional $125,000 within a short period of time.

“The last day of that Kresge challenge period, we were under by something like $25,000 that day and we had until noon,” she said.

They made it.

“The volunteers made it happen. My telephone was ringing off the wall that morning. Some of the team was coming by and saying, ‘Here’s a pledge card. I have another five.’ It was just infectious and I loved it.”

The center, which has a large swimming pool, exercise room and other features, was not an easy sell. The project divided the campus and the community.

“I eventually found myself running on a treadmill beside people who hadn’t bought, it but I knew it was right from the start and sometimes people have to be convinced,” she said. “This campus needed it if we are going to compete as an institution for students. They have to know they have a life on this campus.”

Nordstrom retired, and, from 2000 to 2003, John Joseph served as university president. He was taking the university in new directions when he died suddenly of a heart attack just minutes before graduation exercises. Palmer, who was the university’s director of advancement, was devastated. Joseph’s plan was to build educational programs around the county’s rich environment and natural resources.

“I loved working with John Joseph,” she said. “He brought a level that was pushing us forward in a necessary way.”

Since Joseph’s death, Palmer has watched as several interim presidents have come and gone. The university is looking for a permanent president.

It has been a rocky road since Joseph’s death. Last year the University of Maine System unveiled a controversial plan to combine leadership staff and other programs into three universities. That plan later was aborted.

“It was another time that this institution had to justify itself as an autonomous entity,” she said. The university was established in 1909. “Over those 90-odd years there’s been several times that the university has risen up and said, ‘We deserve to stand alone. We deserve our own president and our own leadership,'” she said.

Although she is looking forward to the challenges of a new career, Palmer knows that she is leaving behind a major piece of her life. “I’ve never known a day I truly didn’t want to come here to work,” she said. “It hasn’t always been easy, there have been some difficult days. Yet it has been home and family. It’s a wonderful place to be.”