Age: 73

Running for: House District 128

Party: Republican

Residence: Scarborough for seven years

Family: Husband of Mary Pickard, two grown children

Education: bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Brown University, some graduate work in mathematics at University of Maryland

Occupation: Retired from IBM

A native of Illinois, Artemas Pickard “fell in love” with Maine as a frequent visitor and decided to move to Scarborough permanently seven years ago. However, he has issues with how the state’s government is run and would like the opportunity to help fix some of its problems as the representative from House District 128.

“I really think that the government of Maine is broken. We keep adding more and more things we can’t afford. We keep raising our taxes we keep raising our fees,” he said. “We are outrageously taxed.”

Republican Pickard, 73, retired after working for IBM for 40 years. He lives with his wife Mary, who has ties to the town through the family who owns the Bayley’s lobster pound.

If elected, Pickard’s primary goal would be to reduce taxes, and, there’s only one way to do that -“prioritize and reduce spending,” he said. He doesn’t know where exactly, yet, but imagines there would be programs in both education and the Department of Health and Human Services that could be cut.

One tax that Pickard takes issue with is the new beverage tax, which is supposed to help fund Dirigo Health – a program Pickard thinks was a good idea, but ended up “costing much more than was ever intended.”

Another recent initiative, the school consolidation law, is something that Pickard supports.

“I don’t know whether the details are good or bad, but the concept is wonderful,” he said. “The idea of consolidating anything is good.”

Pickard said it’s a concept frequently used in the business world and should be applied to the management of the state. Just like in businesses and even households, money that doesn’t exist can’t be spent, and Pickard believes that concept has been lost in the state’s government.

“People in their own lives prioritize how they’re going to spend their money,” Pickard said, offering the example that he’d love to go on vacations to foreign countries, but because can’t afford it, he doesn’t.

“Unless we stop the spending, the taxes have to go up,” he said.

Pickard said he loves the people in the state, and those in Augusta are no exception.

“Most people up there, you’d love to be at a cocktail party with, including the governor,” he said. “He’s a really nice man, but he’s not a manager.”

Artemas Pickard