I recently heard some positive news about a 2008 Rangeley Lakes Regional School graduate, David Raymond. Son of Sheila and Christian (Chris) Raymond, David now lives in Freeport with his wife Natalie and works at Lanco Integrated in Westbrook.

Rangeley folks don’t agree on everything but there is one thing we all agree on and that is that we care very much about our young people. This time of year, we congratulate the ones that have graduated from high school and we give them as much encouragement as we can. Scholarships are given and there are many celebrations and various ways the community tries to show their support. I sincerely believe that all of the graduates know how we truly wish them all the very best.

Post graduation however is a mystery. So that’s why it’s so nice to hear some news about how they are and what they are doing. It is also why when I received word of Raymond’s work at Lanco Integrated I gave him a call.

First, I caught up. After graduating from RLRS, he went to study mechanical engineering at the University of Maine in Orono. There he met his future wife Natalie Koenig of Durham, Me. He graduated in 2012 and went on to work at Biddeford at Fiber Materials Inc. where he worked for about four years.

There he designed the equipment that made carbon fiber composites as well as some machine design, but mostly materials design. More recently, for the past three and half years he has been working as a mechanical engineer at Lanco Integrated.

This past year however has been the most momentous. On a personal note, David Raymond was happily wed to Natalie Koenig who is now a marketing executive for Kennebec Pharmacy & Home Care in August. David and Natalie were married in one of the most beautiful locations a couple could marry, (Rangeley of course!) on August 31st, 2019. (It’s kind of my job to stalk people on Facebook, we call it “research”, so I found some pictures, and might I say, beautiful wedding and beautiful bride!) Furthermore, the newlywed couple did not sit idle, but built a brand new beautiful home (Again, Facebook tells all- house looks fabulous!). He and his wife built the house in Freeport with of course, the help of his dad Chris Raymond of A-One Builders.

Bringing us up to date, most recently, Lanco Integrated, the company Raymond works for came up in the news because he and his team were asked to design the machine that designed and assembled the COVID-19 test kits in a very short manner of time.

David Raymond However daunting the task became, Raymond, the Project Engineer, or lead designer, who usually had upwards of about a dozen people in his crew under him at a time on different machines, is proud to say they met the challenge. It took them about a week and half, one quarter of the time it usually would take to finalize the design. The word “machine” doesn’t quite express the enormity of the task. This is a 60 foot long machine that weighs about 8 tons and is able to produce 125,000 kits per day!

“It’s definitely something we are all proud of”. He continued, “This is one that we kind of went above and beyond all of our timelines and expectations. Our team is very proud of what we’ve done on this machine.”

In addition, in a work interview prior he explained the importance and need to complete the design quickly, “Customers need these machines so they can fulfill the needs of our population to be able to successfully test and get assurance on the corona virus outbreak.”

Seems like a long time ago from when he was a student at RLRS  but Raymond recalled the days fondly. For one thing he was the catcher for the 2008 Class D state champion baseball team which was a nice way to end his time at RLRS. In addition, he recognized the connection between who he was then and what he has become- “I did take a lot of advanced mathematics and advanced science classes which is a lot of what sparked my career path. A lot of the teachers there were very good giving us hands on projects.” I hope  at least two of his former teachers, HS Math teacher Seth Laliberte and HS Science teacher Darlene Woodman happily read this.

COVID-19 has affected all of us in one way or another, but it sure is nice to know that one who has hailed from Rangeley is making their much-appreciated contribution. Great news! We need it and are grateful for it. Nice going David!

 

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