Senator Richard Bennett Contact information

Senator Rick Bennett is a Maine native and has family roots in Oxford County going back more than two centuries.

A former President of the Maine State Senate, he has 14 years of public service in the Senate and House where he earned a reputation as a reformer and staunch advocate for fiscal discipline, balanced budgets, term limits, governmental accountability, election integrity by limiting foreign influences, and Maine’s precious outdoor heritage.

Sen. Bennett represented western Maine for four terms in the Maine Senate from 1996 to 2004, and was elected again in 2020 before winning his second term in 2022. With a partisan tie in the Maine Senate in 2000 that many said would mean gridlock, he was elected unanimously as President of the Senate in a unique power-sharing agreement that gave a voice to every member, regardless of party. He also served two terms in the Maine House of Representatives from 1990 to 1994.

Previously, he served on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the Government Oversight Committee.

As a business innovator, Sen. Bennett has led the turnaround of several Maine-based enterprises.

From 2006-2014, he was CEO and then Chairman of GMI Ratings and its predecessor, The Corporate Library, an investment research firm headquartered in Portland, Maine, with offices in New York, San Diego and London. Under his leadership, the firm grew from a money-losing start-up to a profitable global enterprise employing approximately 50 people in its Maine office.

As co-chairman of Quoddy, the storied footwear brand based in Lewiston, Sen. Bennett led a restructuring that saved local shoe-making jobs and created a platform for the company’s growth.

He has served on the board of directors of Biddeford-based GWI, a leading telecom and internet company, for the past 20 years and helped GWI adapt and grow in a volatile, fast-moving market. The nation’s only Certified B Corp telecom, the company is now building miles of high-speed fiber direct to homes and businesses in western Maine.

​He is currently President and CEO of ValueEdge Advisors, a firm he formed in the summer of 2014 to hold big companies accountable to their stakeholders.

Sen. Bennett served for several years on the boards of the Maine Heritage Policy Center – now called the Maine Policy Institute – and Maine Conservation Voters. He was appointed by then-President George W. Bush to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships in 2005 and served on the Commission until 2009. More recently, he was a trustee of Hebron Academy from 2010 until 2019.

​​He received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Harvard University in 1986 and his MBA from the University of Southern Maine in 2000. He is an active member of the First Congregational Church of South Paris and currently leads the Church Council. At home, he enjoys long-distance running, having completed 13 marathons and two ultramarathons.

Sen. Bennett lives in Oxford with his wife, Karen, who works in the community as a home health therapist. Together they have two adult children, Abby and Nate, and one cat.