PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The CEO of Nickerson & O’Day, the construction company that built the new Sargent Family Community center, has donated $30,000 to support youth programming in Presque Isle.
Karl Ward, the CEO and owner of Nickerson & O’Day, donated $30,000 to the Presque Isle Recreation Department’s youth programs.
The funding will be distributed over the course of five years, said recreation director Chris Beaulieu. There are “no particular plans yet for it, but it will provide us opportunities for some significant improvements,” he said of the funding.
Ward said he made the donation in an effort to support youth with some of the same benefits he received growing up, to which he credits his success as an engineer and businessowner.
“Growing up, we didn’t have much. My mother got a 1-year secretarial ‘degree’ in the ‘50s and my Dad quit high school to join the Navy and fight in WW2. He never did earn his diploma,” Ward wrote in an email. “They were rich in work ethic and common sense and they built a small business, Wards Auto Body in Medway together, but we scraped by most years, living in a trailer park and then in a perpetual fixer-upper that, by today’s standards, may have been condemned when we moved in.”
“I could never have made it without the mentoring, advice, and scholarships given to me by forward-thinking and caring people in this great state. So, whenever and wherever and however I can, I do what I can to support the youth of Maine.”
