This week, we’re finishing our series highlighting the award winners from our BBRC Annual Awards Dinner held in March. The past four weeks we’ve highlighted our Large Business of the Year, Darling’s Brunswick Ford; our Small Business of the Year, Midcoast Humane; our President’s Award recipient, Bob Langworthy; our Director’s Award recipient, Charleen Foley; our Young Professional of the Year, Mandy Reynolds; and our Citizen of the Year, Sherry Plunkett.

If you’d like more information on these winners, you can log on to the chamber’s website to read their full profiles. Each Friday, you can find the videos that were shown on March 10 (produced by Sturdy Production) on our Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber Facebook page and YouTube channel.

This week we’re highlighting our final award recipient, who was honored with the Harry C. Crooker Lifetime Achievement Award, John Hodge. Fittingly, before we do that, John wouldn’t mind as an avid golfer having us remind you about the chamber’s golf tournament coming up next Friday.

The 11th Annual Hacker’s Ball is coming to the Brunswick Golf Club Friday, May 12. This fun-filled tournament is designed for golfers of all handicaps, as the field is split into two divisions, so you’re competing against golf teams at your level.

There are still some golf team spots available and even some individual golfer slots available — but not many. Additionally, we have room for a few more hole sponsors, 19th hole sponsors and golf bag inclusion items. Contact anthony@midcoastmaine.com if you’re interested.

Now, here is a story of tremendous community impact:

Harry C. Crooker Lifetime Achievement Award – John Hodge

In trying to tell the story of John Hodge, I find myself coming back to the concept of servant leadership. This style of leadership was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in an essay first published in 1970 titled “The Servant as Leader.” Here is a brief excerpt from the homepage of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership website about what it means to practice servant leadership:

“The servant-leader is servant first … That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions … The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

If you know anything about John Hodge’s story, you can clearly see that nearly every word speaks to the work he has built his career on. John Hodge is the epitome of a servant-leader, and that makes him a very deserving recipient of the 2023 Harry C. Crooker Lifetime Achievement Award.

John began his career in housing in 1987 with the Portland Housing Authority. Peter Howe, the longtime executive director there, hired John after a 15-minute interview; John credits Peter as being a vital early mentor. Peter taught John the ins and outs of housing and policy but also gave some life lessons, too.

John is the executive director of both the Brunswick Housing Authority (since 1997) and the Topsham Housing Authority (since 2005). During his tenures, he has helped expand housing opportunities for the homeless, disabled, working families, seniors and first-time homebuyers through various local housing initiatives.

John learned early on that the housing authority was helping many families dealing with various obstacles and issues. He recognized that it is so easy for some people in society to diminish, blame or label families in these situations, and John knew just how unfair that was.

“The struggles people have, whether that’s mental health or substance health or anything else — that’s no reason dismiss them,” John says.

Under John’s leadership, the staff makes it their job to do all they can to understand the client’s situation without judgement, so they can also help figure out how to serve them best.

“I’m motivated by doing something that’s helpful — wanting to do something that is right — not recognition, not money,” John says. “When you undertake a project and build some housing and you see people move into their new home … I don’t need them to thank me. I just like to know I made a difference in their life.”

John’s been doing that his whole life — and not just with housing. When his children’s sports teams at St. John’s or Brunswick Junior High needed coaches, there was John, on the baseball diamond, the soccer pitch or the basketball court. When Mt. Ararat was taking on the colossal task of a new high school, they needed a chairperson for the Mt. Ararat Design Committee. Superintendent Brad Smith was more than happy to accept John when he volunteered.

When the school presented the final designs in Augusta, one of the Department of Education people asked what grades his children were in for the new school. They were taken aback when John said his kids had already graduated. When they asked him why he is the chairperson without a student in the school system, he said, “Shouldn’t everyone in our community care about quality education and not just those with students? I want every student to succeed.”

Yes, that is a servant-leader, all right. John has spent his career helping hundreds of families find homes, all while voluntarily leading dozens of initiatives to help our region grow. What a lifetime achievement, indeed.

John thanks his wife Theresa, his children and his incredible staff for all their support.

Congratulations to our 2023 Harry C. Crooker Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, John Hodge.

Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber of Commerce.