Carden Welsh - Town Council

CARDEN WELSH - Town Council
3 Fairchild Drive

Education: 

Bachelor’s Degree, Economics – Tufts University, 1975
Masters Degree, Business Administration – Columbia University, 1977
Course work completed, but no thesis written, toward a Masters Degree in History, University of New Hampshire, 2007

Occupation: 

Retired; former businessman

Years as Durham Resident:  

My wife Ann and I have lived in Durham for almost 30 years, since 1991.  During that time our three children and foster daughter have attended the Oyster River School District and received an excellent education.

Previous Service on Governmental/Community/Civic Boards: 

Durham Town Council – 6+ years
Durham Zoning Board of Adjustment – 6 years
Council Representative to the Durham Planning Board – 3 years
Council Representative to Durham’s Economic Development Committee and Integrated Waste Management Advisory Committee – 3 years total

New Hampshire Trust for Public Land Advisory Board - 5 years
Treasurer, US Congressional Re-election Campaign – 2 years

Reason for Interest in Running for Elected Office:

My wife and I love living in Durham and feel blessed to have been able to raise our family here. There are not many communities where someone can watch a fisher cat stroll through their back yard, learn from distinguished professors, listen to owls caterwauling at night, walk to world-class college hockey games and enjoy a variety of restaurants and hiking trails. Now in retirement, we are both active in supporting this uniquely wonderful community.

I am running for council again because I feel that the town can continue to benefit not only from the skillset developed during my business career, but also from the comprehensive knowledge I have gained from many years of work on the council, the ZBA, the planning board and other committees. In addition to committee work, my understanding of the town has been enhanced by extensive volunteer activity including maintaining recreational trails, pulling invasives, preserving public land, running elections, selecting new police officers and providing data by counting both migrating eels on the Oyster River and empty parking spots downtown.

In my first year on council I suggested we add an “economic goal” to the town’s list of objectives. Since then, the town and the council have worked hard to flatten what was then a rising the tax rate, while at the same time improving and extending the services provided to our citizens. Every year I have pored over the budget requests and worked long hours with other councilors as we attempted to meet important town needs in a cost-effective manner. We have dramatically increased our support of the library, built the new town hall, refurbished the police headquarters, expanded our park and recreation services, added both a part-time economic development director and a land stewardship coordinator, as well as a full-time community police officer and a second town engineer, all with a very small increase (below inflation rate) in the town tax rate. I would plan to continue this work, and attempt to balance the conflicting goals, responsibilities and costs of town services as efficiently as possible.

Looking to the future, we need to preserve the best aspects of our heritage as a small town/academic community in a beautiful rural, natural environment, yet at the same time carefully manage the excitement of future growth.  In my past terms on the council, I have endeavored to support policies that would focus on the “common good” and maintain an attractive balance of residential, commercial and university life – a goal that has admittedly been difficult to achieve. I hope that my work has served as an effective bridge between disparate community interests.

Additional background information. 

My professional background has been in business. Since 1977 I have worked for a variety of companies, including Trans World Airlines (remember them?) and PepsiCo, in a variety of capacities. In 1991 we moved to Durham when I joined the Timberland Company, the outdoor brand of boots, shoes, apparel and accessories headquartered in Stratham. Over the period from 1991 to 2011, the company grew from a small regional company into a well-known international brand.

My field of expertise is finance, analysis, and planning. I was happy to work with plans and spreadsheets, but over time I took on more general management responsibilities including overseeing Timberland’s international sales and marketing operations, and later its centralized corporate functions, including human resources, legal, finance, strategy, and, for a short time, the supply chain. In 2009 I was elected to Timberland’s Board of Directors, and served on the board until the company was acquired in 2011.  I have found that this business background has been a very effective “training” for my work on town council.

Parenthetically, in 2003 Timberland established an environmental award, named in my honor, which was given each year to the employee whose actions led to a sustainable improvement in Timberland’s environmental footprint.