Covey seeks second term on select board

Jane Covey will seek a second three-year term on the Harpswell Board of Selectmen at the March 12 election, the sole candidate for the position.

“I enjoy working with everybody — my colleagues, the administration, the volunteers,” Covey said of her decision to run again. “I think I still have more to contribute and hope to do it.”

The select board and the town administration work well together and the town has “a lot of strengths to build on,” Covey said.

For two of her three years on the board, the town has had to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, but that has not prevented progress on a variety of issues.

The town has invested in its infrastructure, Covey said, citing 2021’s construction at the recycling center as an example. In 2022, she hopes to see the construction of a boat launch at George J. Mitchell Field.

In her next term, she wants to devote attention to issues like affordable broadband and housing.

Covey grew up in a military family that moved often, living in Japan during the post-World War II occupation and in Iowa and Ohio before the Air Force sent her father to the Pentagon. She attended high school in Arlington, Virginia.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in community mental health nursing from Yale University, where she met her future husband, Dave Brown.

Covey worked in public health and taught nursing to college students before they started a family. She then earned a second master’s degree, this time in business administration.

She worked as a corporate consultant before the couple took over a nonprofit called The Institute for Development Research. They ran the organization for about 20 years, traveling the world and working on issues of international development.

After they left the organization, Covey continued to work in nonprofits until the couple retired to their home on Cundy’s Harbor Road in 2009.

Brown’s grandfather bought the property in the 1920s. He has come to the property throughout his life, Covey throughout their marriage. They often vacationed there while living in Boston.

After the move, Covey took a course to become a master gardener. The program had a volunteerism requirement and the Harpswell Community Garden at Mitchell Field opened around the same time, so it was an obvious choice to fulfill the requirement. In addition to rental plots, the garden has a common area where volunteers grow food for distribution by Harpswell Aging at Home and the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program.

After a couple of years of involvement with the Community Garden, Covey joined the town’s Mitchell Field Committee, which develops recommendations and projects for the property. She would go on to chair the committee. In 2019, with encouragement from past members of the select board, Covey ran for the board and won her first term.

Covey has two adult children and two teenage granddaughters. She enjoys gardening and reading.