FREEPORT (NEWS CENTER Maine) — Alan Caron says he’s running for Governor to help Maine create “the 21st-century economy”.
For Caron himself, the campaign is the latest step in a remarkable life journey that has taken him from poverty to prison, and ultimately to great personal success.
Caron grew up in a low income, working-class neighborhood of Waterville in the 1950’s and 60’s. He says that during childhood, a fall from a rope swing caused head injuries that resulted in five years of seizures and many more years of medication.
Gubernatorial candidate Alan Caron through the years
“During (that) time I was in a complete fog,” he told NEWS CENTER Maine.
“So I ended up dropping out of high school, going to work loading tractor-trailer trucks at Harris Baking, (and) worked in a mill in Augusta. But I went from being an energetic, bright kid in fifth grade to not being able to function at all because of the medication.”
That eventually led Caron to trouble with the law, and eight months in prison for receiving stolen property. He says those months were “an extremely low point” in his life, but also a forced time of reflection.
“I determined I would come out of there and lift myself up,” Caron said.
He managed to do just that, finding work, starting a printing business and becoming a leader of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association in Portland. That led him to apply for a master’s degree program at Harvard, where he was accepted despite having neither a high school nor college diploma.
Degree in hand, Caron started a consulting business that worked on various citizen campaigns. He also became involved in business consulting and economic issues, including the Brookings Report on Maine’s economy in the early 2000’s.
Caron wrote books about changing Maine’s economic priorities to fit the changes being forced on the state but neither major political party embraced his ideas, so despite being a lifelong Democrat, Caron says he became an independent and decided to run for Governor himself.
He touts the books and his ideas as the keys to growing Maine jobs and incomes to meet the needs of the coming decades.