As the threat of apocalypse closed in, Stephen Moore packed up and moved from Connecticut to western Maine. A former police officer, he saw the state as a place to retire. Then he became a general in an America at war.
Moore, a character in a book by Edward Pocock III, has a lot in common with the author, a man who is now Limestone’s new town manager.
Pocock had never been to Maine when he penned “American Calamity,” the first in an anticipated trilogy of novels set in a dystopian America. But early this summer, the retired police captain and U.S. Air Force veteran left his longtime home in Connecticut to move to northern Maine. Now, he wants to lead Limestone into a new era of growth.
“I’m going to do whatever is necessary to bring tax dollars, commercial and industrial tax dollars into the town of Limestone,” Pocock said.
Limestone has been long defined by what it once was: a booming military town that contained the former Loring Air Force Base, a strategically crucial installation during the Cold War that boosted the town’s population to more than 13,000 in 1960.
The base’s 1994 closure sparked a decline the town has struggled to recover from. Between 2010 and 2020, no Maine town had a higher rate of population loss — from roughly 2,300 residents to 1,500, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. As of 2023, just over 1,100 people live there.
Pocock is Limestone’s 14th town manager in the last decade, a period filled with conflict and what interim Town Manager Alan Mulherin called a lack of accountability.
But Mulherin began to right the ship. He found and solved a multimillion-dollar imbalance that had been in the town’s books for more than 15 years and created an organizational system that set Pocock up for a running start.
“He set the keystone. He left it where I can start putting bricks in the wall,” said Pocock, who said his biggest focus is economic development and increasing the town’s non-residential tax base to benefit all sectors.
Pocock is and has been many things: an internationally ranked sniper, firearm instructor, town council chair, board of education member, water district president, Connecticut legislative candidate, a lecturer at the University of Louisville and freelance writer. He is also a director at Next Bridge Hydrocarbons, a company with nearly $120 million in oil and natural gas assets.
“My wife always likes to say to me that I’ve led like three lives,” Pocock said.
Those experiences will all influence his new role, which he began June 2. He’s been evaluating how to grow Limestone — but not too fast.
Most of the town’s developed area for business is within the 3,800-acre Loring Commerce Center. That means Pocock must work with other regional authorities to help revitalize the space.
“Ed has been a breath of fresh air,” Loring Development Authority President and CEO Jonathan Judkins said. “He brings a no-nonsense, open mindedness that makes him both approachable and defines him as a leader … the collaboration between Loring and Limestone is a level that is productive for the first time in 20 years.”
The ongoing construction of the Taste of Maine Potato Chip plant and the potential arrival of two national aerospace companies underscore the effort by the LDA and others to attract businesses and jobs to the base.
But Pocock wants businesses to be able to thrive when they put roots in Limestone. That means creating and waking up services to support workers.
“Basic questions: where’s the laundromat? Where’s a realtor? Where’s a vet?” Pocock said. “My biggest fear is explosive growth in this area, because we’re not ready for it.”
It’s a sentiment he expressed to Maine Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman during a county-wide labor panel hosted by the LDA on Aug. 5. Pocock believes in the future of Loring. He also believes that years of mismanagement in Limestone and “neglect” from the state has the town’s services lagging behind. It has to be ready to support new residents, because when growth starts happening, it will happen fast.
“When this toothpaste starts coming out of the tube and people start seeing Loring for what it is, an awesome place to locate your business, you can’t stuff the toothpaste back in the tube,” he said.
That foresight makes sense for a former SWAT sniper who placed fourth in the world among military and police peers in a 2005 Hungarian competition. But serving the public is foremost. He tried other occupations, but nothing equaled the mental stimulation of public service, he said.
He retired as captain of the Southington, Connecticut, police department in 2014 and entered the corporate world, eventually landing on the board of directors at Next Bridge Hydrocarbons, where he owns more than $2 million in securities, according to SEC filings.
But the feeling of accomplishment wasn’t quite the same. One day, as Pocock sat on his porch smoking a cigar, he realized he was “dying inside.” He had to return to public service.
He applied for Limestone’s town manager opening and was hired on a three-year contract with a salary of $89,960 per year with no benefits.
Pocock is full of praise for town staff and called Judkins “phenomenal.” One of his first acts on the job was to establish a community service award, akin to a key to the city, to reward those who represent the best of Limestone.
“The bad news always comes,” Pocock said. “But the ability to tell somebody that does things around the community that nobody notices [that]… ‘No, we’ve noticed. You’re worthy.’ That’s what this was designed for.”
He hopes it’s the start to a tenure marked by growth, overcoming some of the town’s troubled past.
“My goal now, with the leadership that’s up at LDA, is to try to not look in the rearview mirror, to look over the hood,” Pocock said. “Because if you’re looking in your rearview mirror, you’re just going to hit things. But over the hood, you get to the destination quicker.”
