Douglas Rooks, Mitchell Center Talk Series, 2/6/2017

TITLE: George Mitchell: Building Consensus on Taxes, the Environment, and War

SPEAKER: Douglas Rooks, author of "Statesman: George Mitchell and the Art of the Possible"

Douglas Rooks is author of the first full-length account of the life and career of Senator George Mitchell, one of Maine’s most notable citizens, and a public figure of national and international standing. Statesman traces Mitchell’s path from his humble beginnings in Waterville, one of five children of an Irish-American laborer orphaned at birth, and his wife, an immigrant to Waterville’s close-knit Lebanese community. Statesman has been praised by former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe and former Congressman Tom Allen.

Douglas Rooks is a career journalist who worked at weekly and daily newspapers for 25 years. He was the editor of the Granite State News in Wolfeboro, N.H., editorial page editor for the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, Maine, and editor and publisher of Maine Times. Now a freelance editor, writer and author, he covers Maine state government, specializing in environmental issues, public education, municipal affairs, business and tax policy. He currently writes an op-ed column for several daily newspapers. His writing has earned awards from the National Newspaper Association and New England Press Association, and he has been named best opinion columnist three times by the Maine Press Association. Rooks is a graduate magna cum laude of Colby College, and a former board president of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Augusta. He lives, with his wife, in a 210-year-old farmhouse in West Gardiner.

For information about the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, go to https://umaine.edu/mitchellcenter/.