Craig Seymour - Trustee of the Trust Funds

CRAIG SEYMOUR - Trustee of the Trust Funds
110 Durham Point Road

Education:  AB - Brown University;  MBA – University of New Hampshire

Occupation:   Consultant (Economics & Real Estate); Principal Broker – Durham Realty Group LLC

Years as Durham Resident:  Since 1977

Previous Service on Governmental/Community/Civic Boards, Commissions, Committees, or Organizations:
Town Charter Committee (early 1980s)
Planning Board (mid-1980s)
ORYA (early 1990s)
Trustees (since 2001)

Reason for Interest in Running for Elected Office:
I have served the Town as a Trustee and as chair of the Cemetery Committee for the past two decades.  During my tenure I transformed the financial recordkeeping for the 70+ trust accounts, over which the Trustees have fiduciary responsibility, from a time-consuming and mistake-prone paper system to a spreadsheet system now overseen by the Town’s finance office. Over the past 10 years, the Trustees have instituted an investment policy using a professional third-party advisor, resulting in much greater returns on the funds entrusted to us. We have also established sustainability (ESG) as one criteria for the portfolio, maintaining an above average Morningstar rating (3.7 for FY21) without sacrificing returns.  We have also made great strides in making the Doe Farm – for which the Trustees are the fiduciaries for the original Olinthus Doe Trust – into a valuable recreational asset for the Town. 

As Chair of the Cemetery Committee, I serve as the point-person for the Town’s municipal cemetery, responding to inquiries regarding the purchase of burial plots, maintaining accurate records of all purchases and burials, and overseeing operations and maintenance.  I have also digitized the cemetery records making it much easier to find and record important information, and to respond to inquiries from residents and others.