Inside the ‘simple job’ in government that Graham Platner held before challenging Susan Collins

Two years before he ran for Senate, Graham Platner raised his hand to take on a different role in government.

The job didn’t come with even modest authority or policy making heft. The pace of work was sporadic, the pay so minimal as to be a formality. For the most part, duties entailed diving into paperwork, or, occasionally, the brisk waters of Frenchman Bay.

But for Platner, that position — harbormaster of Sullivan, Maine — was a satisfying one. From January 2024 until a month after he launched his campaign, it was Platner’s responsibility to maintain the harbor in his small hometown, population roughly 1,200.

In an interview with the Globe, Platner called harbormaster “a very, very part-time job” but “one that I enjoyed immensely.” He called it a way for him to lend his experience and skills to benefit Sullivan, a place where he said “people pitch in where they can.”

Platner has also invoked that position as a key part of his biography as he positions himself as an outsider, working-class voice to shake up Washington.

The job of harbormaster is one that few understand outside coastal towns, but it has lent an air of humble roots and Downeast credibility to his campaign. The role comes with an annual stipend of $3,000 paid out quarterly.

“Three months ago I thought harbormaster of Sullivan, Maine, would be the extent of my political career,” Platner said when he first started running for Senate last year.

For Platner’s political opponents, however, the topic is offering another opportunity to undermine his biographical narrative and argue he’s dishonestly played up his credentials.

A recent report from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, drew on public records that painted the role as not only clerical in nature, but possibly unnecessary. Before Platner took the job, Sullivan municipal officials considered getting rid of it altogether.

Sullivan is hardly a bustling harbor: it currently has around 20 moorings, which are anchors for vessels in the harbor, said Town Manager Ray Weintraub. Other nearby small-town harbors have hundreds more moorings, but are still relatively sleepy assignments.

As harbormaster, Platner was primarily responsible for ensuring that moorings were properly registered and paid for, and for mediating any disputes among boat owners. He had to be well-versed in state rules around activity on the water, but he was not personally responsible for policing boaters’ conduct.

Weintraub affirmed the role is important for the town. And he said Platner did a good job, in large part because of an added skill he brought to the job.

“Since he dives, he’d also do inspections on moorings. Normally, people would have to pay for someone to do it,” he told the Globe. “He was definitely an asset in that case. Those are things that help out these guys on the water, make sure your boat doesn’t dislodge from its mooring in a bit of a storm.”

Other harbormasters near Sullivan, however, have eyed Platner’s invocation of his experience as harbormaster on the campaign trail with a dash of salty skepticism.

Fred Backman, the harbormaster of nearby Winter Harbor, called the role a “simple job” and noted Sullivan’s reputation as a quiet harbor. “It’s nothing too major up there anyone’s gotta do.”

“If he’s bragging about being a harbormaster in Sullivan, Maine . . . he’s got to get back to the drawing board,” said Backman. “It’d be different if he was doing Bar Harbor or Portland. But saying, well, ‘I’m harbormaster in Sullivan, Maine,’ whoop de do.”

In Sorrento, the other town that shares small, tucked-away Flanders Bay with Sullivan, Lou Southerland Jr., is the longtime harbormaster. He knows Platner: in fact, Platner’s oyster farm technically sits in Sorrento’s waters. “As far as I know, he was fine,” Southerland said of Platner’s performance as harbormaster.

But Southerland did say he “kind of laughed” when he first saw ads noting Platner was harbormaster. “Especially when you’ve only been doing it for two years.”

His fellow harbormasters’ amusement that the role is getting any play in a Senate race, said Platner, “goes along with my amusement.”

“What I hope people take from it is that I’m someone who very much believes in the value of community, the value of people pitching in together to help each other out and take care of the communities that they live in,” he told the Globe.

Since his days as harbormaster, Platner has rapidly transformed from total unknown to national lightning rod in his battle to defeat GOP Senator Susan Collins and help Democrats achieve a Senate majority.

In the process, Platner’s life has become an open book to the entire world: details about his marriage, his past relationships, his internet comment history, and his bare chest — which until recently was tattooed with a Nazi symbol — have been revealed and scrutinized widely.

In contrast, Platner’s performance in the office of Sullivan harbormaster, a far less dramatic narrative arc, has received scant attention.Still, it offers a window into the immediate years before the Senate hopeful’s rapid political rise — and into a world that is quietly integral to the state Platner is hoping to represent.

“People often look at a harbor in Maine, like tourists come up, and they look out and see the lobster boats, and they’ll all think, ‘How quaint,’ ” Platner said. “What they don’t understand is that it is a planned out, functional thing. . . . Our waterfront works, it’s not just there to be cute.”

There are over 200 harbormasters across Maine, a state with 3,478 miles of coastline and a longstanding emphasis on town-level government. State law stipulates towns should appoint a harbormaster to maintain harbor-related infrastructure, and generally make sure that those using the water are following relevant ordinances.

In some towns, the harbormaster is a law enforcement officer who carries a gun; in other towns, however, harbormasters focus mostly on paperwork and maintenance. (The state requires harbormasters to take a short training course to be certified for the job.)

Being a harbormaster is a “jack of all trades job” that “really depends on the jurisdiction you’re in,” said Daryen Granata, the harbormaster of Cape Elizabeth, who also serves as the vice president of the Maine Harbor Masters Association.

In Sullivan, the role complemented Platner’s existing work on the water as the proprietor of his small oyster company. Plus, he was a trained diver and had been servicing moorings as a “side hustle,” he said.

At a Harbor Committee meeting in April 2023, members discussed whether a harbormaster was necessary, given that, “for the most part, operations in the Harbors are handled by those who use the Harbors without disputes to date,” according to meeting minutes.

Platner agreed to serve as harbormaster if needed; he officially took on the position in January 2024. He did attempt to shake things up: he moved to take the process for obtaining and renewing mooring permits online, along with other harbor services.

The problem was that many townspeople didn’t know how to use it. Ultimately, as the system experienced a few growing pains, the town decided to return to the entirely paper-based prior process.

“We still have a lot of folks who don’t even use email,” Platner said. “The system was actually pretty good, but . . . it just got, I would say, people are used to doing it a certain way.”

After he was recruited to run for Senate last year, he reluctantly left the job.In doing so, Platner became almost certainly the first person to ever give up a harbormaster title to seek election to high office. His fellow harbormasters aren’t eager to follow in his footsteps.

When asked if he was ready to pursue higher office, given his 25 years of harbormaster experience, Southerland, the Sorrento harbormaster, laughed.

“I think I’ll pass,” he said. “I won’t even run for select board of the town.”