BREAKING NEWS: Maryland agriculture extension professional named new SWH town manager
SOUTHWEST HARBOR, July 23, 2024 - An agriculture extension director at the University of Maryland, with a background in purchasing, human resources and even bankruptcy, was unanimously approved tonight by the select board to be the next town manager.
Karen D. Reddersen, area director of the college’s agriculture extension in five counties in Maryland’s Eastern Shore, will start Sept. 18.
She will replace Marilyn Lowell, who is retiring after serving as town manager since December 2021 and town clerk before that since 2013.
Her Linked-in profile stated that Reddersen manages facilities and office operations for three locations, provides onboarding, mentoring, supervision and evaluation of 28 staff and faculty; manages fiscal operations of federal, state, local, grant and 501c3 non-profit funding sources exceeding $1.3 million.
She also is “responsible for public relations/marketing efforts and work with faculty to develop programs based on community and state-wide needs assessments, identifying local and state community partnerships and assisting faculty with local, state and federal grant submissions.”
Her family owns land in Southwest Harbor. She’s familiar with the town and had planned to locate here someday when the opportunity arose, select board members said.
According to her profile on the college’s website, she worked as director of internal services for the City of Salisbury in Maryland From August 2006 to August 2010, managing all the human resource functions, including recruitment, position classification, benefits and grievance procedures, and all procurement functions as the City’s Contracting Officer. She supervised a staff of 18.
Earlier, from February 1998 to September 2003, she worked in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland where she was responsible for hiring and evaluating performance of staff, leave usage, and allocation of resources.
She oversaw cash received by court, uploaded financial data, prepared bank deposits, counseled employees regarding work performance and conducted training programs.
She earned a Master of Science in Management (Human Resource Track) from the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland, in 1998 and a Bachelor of Arts in English-cum laude, George Mason University at Fairfax, VA in 1991.