BAR HARBOR — Charles Hewett has lived in many interesting places, such as Alaska and Ireland.

But the neatest place the Jackson Lab executive ever lived was in a tin-roof wagon in a canyon called Tabiag in southwestern Utah.

It was the spring and summer of 1973. Hewett was rounding up sheep with a Navajo Indian.

“He had sheep spread out over 800 square miles and my job was to help with the roundup and trail them from Utah to Craig, Colorado. It was pretty cool,” he said.

Now 61 and living in Holden, Hewett held a variety of jobs in a variety of places before returning to his home state of Maine. He is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Bar Harbor-based Jackson Laboratory.

Hewett grew up in Auburn and Winthrop. His dad worked for Central Maine Power Co. and his mother was a teacher and secretary who worked for Maine School Management Association.

Hewett attended Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., and has a doctorate degree in resource development and a master’s degree in forest science from Yale University.

In addition to his Utah job, Hewett as a young man worked as varsity ski coach at Williams College and at the National Park Service in Alaska. He spent most of his time at Lake Clark National Park, helping design master plans for proposed parks and working with river study teams.

In 1983, Hewett moved back to Maine. He was executive director at Maine Audubon and then CEO at renewable energy company Swift River/Hafslund. Next, Hewett lived four years in Cork, Ireland, where he helped found Nycomed Ireland, a Hafslund-affiliated pharmaceutical company.

Around Christmas 1994, Hewitt returned to Maine to be former Gov. Angus King’s chief operating officer.

He then took a position at Pittsfield-based construction firm The Cianbro Cos., where he was vice president and helped develop an electric transmission cable from New Jersey to Long Island.

Hewett joined Jackson Lab in 2004, and now shares chief executive responsibility with Robert Braun, associate director and chair of research. A search is under way for a successor to former CEO Richard Woychik, who stepped down in January.

Hewett had interest in being the next CEO, but said he has not interviewed.

“The board is quite insistent that they want a genetic scientist (to lead) the organization, and that’s not my background,” he said.

Hewett’s wife, Jackie, works as a manager and developer at Epstein Properties in Bangor.

He has three children: Elizabeth, 27, just started work as a physician at Children’s Hospital Boston; Samuel, 25, is assistant master electrician at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., and an aspiring theatrical lighting designer; and Nathaniel, 22, graduated from Williams College and has a job at consulting firm Bain & Co. 

Jonathan Hemmerdinger can be reached at 791-6316 or:
jhemmerdinger@mainetoday.com