Gartley named new postmaster

Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
NEW POSTMASTER — Henry Gartley was officially named Postmaster for the Houlton post office Saturday.
By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — The town finally has a new postmaster following Saturday’s announcement that Henry Gartley has assumed the top spot at the United States Postal Service in Houlton. The town has been without an official postmaster for nearly two years.
    Gartley has been employed with the post office since June 2003, starting out as a rural carrier associate, which served as a substitute for a full-time rural carrier. He also helped out as a town carrier and occasionally filled in as a custodian. Suffice it to say, Gartley has experienced nearly every job the U.S. Postal Service has to offer.
    “The only thing I haven’t done is be a [window] clerk,” he said.
    Before coming to Houlton he worked in the Caribou branch of the Postal Service working with Lisa Cantafio.
    “I really learned a great deal from her,” he said.
    Prior to that, Gartley worked at Houlton International Corporation for 20 years.
    His appointment Saturday was ceremonial in nature, as Gartley has already been serving as the “Officer In Charge” at the local branch for more than a year. His duties as the new Postmaster will not change from his prior role as the OIC.
    Mail carriers in Houlton serve five rural and four city routes on a daily basis, along with sorting mail for more than 1,000 post office boxes. There are 21 employees at the Houlton branch.
    “We have 14 satellite offices that we service from Sherman to Easton,” Gartley said. “We have to sort all their mail and make sure it gets out to them. It’s my job to oversee the entire operation of this branch.”
    Gartley said he has seen numerous changes to the postal business in just his eight years.
    “The volume has decreased a lot,” he said. “We still have a lot of packages we deliver. We actually have more packages than some of the larger Postal Service offices down state.”
    His biggest challenge as the new postmaster will be working to contain costs, matching workload with work hours for his staff.
    Nearly three years to the date, Gartley succeeds Fred Workman, who was installed as postmaster July 23, 2008.