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From his third-floor office window, John Rohman has witnessed the renaissance of downtown Bangor.
And though he’s modest about taking credit, the 61-year-old president and CEO of WBRC Architects and Engineers has been right in the middle of the revival. Through his service on the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce, the city council, and numerous civic organizations, Rohman has helped bring together the arts and business communities, to the benefit of both.
“If you look at where the city was 10 or 15 years ago,” he says, “there was no University of Maine museum, no children’s museum, no expansion plans for the history museum. And all these things created a ripple effect that brought in restaurants and decent shopping opportunities. This would not have happened without a city council that understood that the arts can be important to building a business climate.”
Rohman was instrumental in bringing the National Folk Festival to Bangor for a three-year run beginning in 2002, and in establishing the American Folk Festival in its place. He sits on the board of directors for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the group that produces the National Folk Festival, which next year will be held in Butte, Montana, near where his grown daughter, Amy, lives. Rohman plans to attend.
“To me, the folk festival was perhaps the most selfish thing I’ve done,” he says. “I really wanted to listen to some good zydeco, Cajun music, Celtic music. I knew that I would love it, and I thought that other people would love it, too.”
History has proven him right. “We hoped to attract 45,000 people that first year, and we got 60,000,” he says. “Last year’s festival drew more than 150,000.”
Rohman’s interest in the arts has been a mainstay of his life and career. He is chair of the Maine Arts Commission, former chair of the Maine Crafts Association and the University of Maine Museum of Art advisory committee, and served on the board of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. He is now also president of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the national group that works with all state arts commissions. One of his own paintings—a semiabstract Southwestern scene—hangs in his office.
“I had the luxury of having partners who allowed me to go back to school in my early 40s and study interior design,” says Rohman, who had previously earned degrees in civil engineering and business administration from the University of Maine and Husson, respectively. As part of his interior design studies, he was able to take four art classes at UMaine. But in 1997, his painting, which he mostly did in the evenings after work, gave way to the city council. Rohman served for six years, including one as mayor.
Born in Delaware, Rohman came to Maine with a military father, attended Cony High School in Augusta, and, after the University of Maine, served in the infantry in Vietnam. “Before I went into the service I didn’t intend to stay in Maine,” he says. “I wanted to come back and regroup.”
He cites as a mentor the late Eaton Tarbell, the architect who designed the Bangor Auditorium. The V-shaped roof, which saves the cost of heating 235,000 additional cubic feet of interior space, was Tarbell’s innovation. “He was a really avant-garde architect,” Rohman recalls. “And we had a young office, with about 10 people, only two of whom were over 30.”
Rohman himself belies the idea that energy and fresh ideas, whether in community development or architecture, are the realm of the young. Under his leadership, WBRC, which employs more than 70 people in Bangor, Portland, and Sarasota, Florida, produces a perennial crop of innovative projects, such as the new Bangor police station, pictured above.
And though he’s modest about taking credit, the 61-year-old president and CEO of WBRC Architects and Engineers has been right in the middle of the revival. Through his service on the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce, the city council, and numerous civic organizations, Rohman has helped bring together the arts and business communities, to the benefit of both.
“If you look at where the city was 10 or 15 years ago,” he says, “there was no University of Maine museum, no children’s museum, no expansion plans for the history museum. And all these things created a ripple effect that brought in restaurants and decent shopping opportunities. This would not have happened without a city council that understood that the arts can be important to building a business climate.”
Rohman was instrumental in bringing the National Folk Festival to Bangor for a three-year run beginning in 2002, and in establishing the American Folk Festival in its place. He sits on the board of directors for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the group that produces the National Folk Festival, which next year will be held in Butte, Montana, near where his grown daughter, Amy, lives. Rohman plans to attend.
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“To me, the folk festival was perhaps the most selfish thing I’ve done,” he says. “I really wanted to listen to some good zydeco, Cajun music, Celtic music. I knew that I would love it, and I thought that other people would love it, too.”
History has proven him right. “We hoped to attract 45,000 people that first year, and we got 60,000,” he says. “Last year’s festival drew more than 150,000.”
Rohman’s interest in the arts has been a mainstay of his life and career. He is chair of the Maine Arts Commission, former chair of the Maine Crafts Association and the University of Maine Museum of Art advisory committee, and served on the board of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. He is now also president of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the national group that works with all state arts commissions. One of his own paintings—a semiabstract Southwestern scene—hangs in his office.
“I had the luxury of having partners who allowed me to go back to school in my early 40s and study interior design,” says Rohman, who had previously earned degrees in civil engineering and business administration from the University of Maine and Husson, respectively. As part of his interior design studies, he was able to take four art classes at UMaine. But in 1997, his painting, which he mostly did in the evenings after work, gave way to the city council. Rohman served for six years, including one as mayor.
Born in Delaware, Rohman came to Maine with a military father, attended Cony High School in Augusta, and, after the University of Maine, served in the infantry in Vietnam. “Before I went into the service I didn’t intend to stay in Maine,” he says. “I wanted to come back and regroup.”
He cites as a mentor the late Eaton Tarbell, the architect who designed the Bangor Auditorium. The V-shaped roof, which saves the cost of heating 235,000 additional cubic feet of interior space, was Tarbell’s innovation. “He was a really avant-garde architect,” Rohman recalls. “And we had a young office, with about 10 people, only two of whom were over 30.”
Rohman himself belies the idea that energy and fresh ideas, whether in community development or architecture, are the realm of the young. Under his leadership, WBRC, which employs more than 70 people in Bangor, Portland, and Sarasota, Florida, produces a perennial crop of innovative projects, such as the new Bangor police station, pictured above.
