Candidate profile: Glenn Lawrence for Selectman

At its heart, Glenn Lawrence says his campaign for the open Board of Selectmen seats is truly about giving back to the community in a “civic” sense.

“I just want to put myself forward as somebody volunteering and willing to serve the community,” Lawrence said, adding that he believes his life experiences, vocational experience and education would be valuable on the board. “If the community feels that the best place for that investment would be the Board of Selectmen, I simply wanted to stand forward and make myself available.”

Lawrence and his family moved to Massachusetts for his job about five and a half years ago, and they spent time carefully choosing where to live. Ultimately, they chose Wareham. 

At the time, Lawrence realized he wanted to go into the public service sector. He was new to Massachusetts politics, so people in town recommended he join some committees.

Lawrence has served on the Finance Committee since 2016. He also has an extensive education background. He has an associate’s degree in business from Mercer University in Georgia and a master’s in business administration from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. After realizing he wanted to pursue a career as a town manager or town administrator one day, he began pursuing a master’s in public administration from Anna Maria College in Massachusetts.

He is now just weeks away from earning that degree via an online program.

If elected, Lawrence said he hopes to preserve the reasons why he and his family were drawn to the community — while also continuing to provide services. 

Locally, he said that means people want Wareham “to stay Wareham” and not become a city like Brockton or Taunton. At the same time, however, he said the town needs to “find ways to promote revenues that you need to provide public services.” 

He said that has been his main focus during his time on the Finance Committee, and he would “like to extend that” to the Board of Selectmen. 

In his role as a senior supply chain specialist at a global manufacturing company based in Walpole, Lawrence said he is used to having plans and goals for one, five and 10 years into the future, for example. Moving forward, he said he’d like to see the town act more proactively than reactively — especially where development is concerned.

“I would like to see the town concentrate on areas where there are already existing assets,” Lawrence said. “So focusing on Main Street, where there’s already infrastructure in place that might have deteriorated.”

In Lawrence’s words, part of a selectman’s role is to “be finely attuned to what the community wants,” which doesn’t mean “chasing after every economic opportunity.” 

In addition, Lawrence said he thinks his 25 years of experience as a pastor — which required working closely with people — equipped him with skills that would be beneficial for a selectman to have.

“I think I can bring a certain sensitivity and ability to listen to people and to understand and appreciate the different needs and the interests that they have,” he said. 

Lawrence had ideas for improving the board’s communication with constituents as well, including a centralized Facebook page — with limited ability to comment — that would contain accurate, clear information from town officials and zoom classes on how to navigate the town’s sometimes-complicated website.

Lawrence said he didn’t choose to run for selectman because he was upset with anyone, but rather because he “wanted to expand or broaden” the service he provides to the town. In fact, Lawrence said he welcomed the expansion of the race when write-in candidate Tricia Wurts threw her hat in the ring.

“The more the merrier,” he said. “The way I look at it, give people as many choices [...] and then trust them to make the choice that’s best for the community.”

Voters who want to get in touch with Lawrence before the election can reach out with questions or concerns with direct messages on his Facebook page “Glenn Lawrence for Selectman” or by email: glennlawrencewareham@gmail.com.