David's Story

Growing Up in Old Town

David was born in Bangor and raised in Old Town by his mother Gail and maternal grandparents, Alfred and Pauline Pelletier Baillargeon. David’s father John, an Army veteran and AFL-CIO organizer, died in 1968 at the age of thirty-one due to hazardous work he had done as a teenager.

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The grandson of French and Irish American shoe, textile, and railroad workers. David, like many in Maine, was the first in his family to attend a four-year college and to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree – having worked his way through the University of Maine, George Washington University, and London School of Economics and Political Science.

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A Career of Service

David has more than thirty years of senior-level state, local, and federal government and non-government experience.​Inspired by participating in picket lines as a boy, David became active in politics in his late teens.  Leaving college at the age of nineteen, David served on Senator Ted Kennedy’s national field staff in 1980. He subsequently worked on two additional national presidential campaigns and locally on U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Maine gubernatorial campaigns into the early 1990s. 

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David served as a top aide to Maine Secretary of State Bill Diamond in the early 1990s, helping to develop and implement elections, campaign finance, and motor vehicle administration and safety reforms.   Between 1993 and 2001, David worked primarily abroad for the U.S. government (USAID), responding to political, humanitarian, and economic crises in conflict-torn Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania. 

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In the early to middle 2000s, David served as a top aide to the Mayor of Baltimore directing collaborative efforts to improve the City’s schools and address the needs of Baltimore’s at-risk children, youth, families, and communities.  

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Between 2007 and 2011, David worked as a senior aide to the Governor of Maryland, managing state efforts to devise and implement cross-agency plans and programs to achieve ambitious job creation, crime reduction, workforce development, student achievement, substance abuse treatment, environmental protection, clean energy, and sustainable development goals.​​​​​​​​​

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From 2011 - 2015, David served as a Deputy and Acting Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) helping to manage MDE’s 1,000+ employees, various programs, and $380 million annual budget. In addition to his government work, David more recently directed two non-governmental climate action projects in Maryland and served as an interim climate and clean energy program director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM).

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Family

David resides in Brunswick with his wife, children, and beagle Stella.​

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