By Tara Fischer
Staff Writer
(March 12, 2026) After 16 years on the job and nearly 50 years in the industry, Town of Berlin Electric Utility Director Tim Lawrence is retiring, with an official end date of June 1.
Lawrence’s retirement news was announced at a Berlin mayor and Town Council meeting on Monday. The utility director was hired to the role in 2010 with over 30 years of previous experience. And now, come June 1, Lawrence will step down.
Even though Lawrence said his official retirement date is June 1, his last working day will likely come sooner in late May.
Officials said that during Lawrence’s tenure as the municipality’s utility director, the town had experienced significant electric enhancements.
Tim Lawrence
“He led the Town of Berlin through some substantial improvements in the electric utility,” Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall said. “There was a time when Berlin’s outages were very frequent. Our reliability was unreliable. Tim, your leadership and your team under your leadership have really brought the electric utility to a place where it is reliable, it is something the citizens can count on often now.”
Tyndall said that despite last month’s unprecedented snowstorm that left some Town of Berlin residents without electricity for upwards of 20 hours—a problem that plagued other Worcester and lower Eastern Shore communities—any power issues are typically resolved quickly and effectively.
“I always say, ‘You don’t need a generator in Berlin.’ Because our outage times are so short, like, why are you going to make the investment?” the mayor added.
“…Generally, Tim, that is the rule of thumb. You all operate such a well-oiled machine that our service is very, very reliable compared to our peers. The cost for electric utility in Berlin is much lower than our competitors, and a lot of that is through your leadership.”
Lawrence said that when he came to the Town of Berlin 16 years ago, “there were a lot of issues.”
He noted that outages seemed to occur nearly every other day, and his priority was to address this instability.
His time with Berlin also included joining American Municipal Power (AMP) in 2015, a nonprofit service supplier that manages and provides competitively priced wholesale power to its member municipal electric systems.
“AMP was a big change as far as our purchase power contracts and that type of thing,” Lawrence said.
Also during the director’s tenure, an apprenticeship program was created within the electrical department. The project was initiated via a partnership with the Maryland Apprenticeship Program, which offers job seekers the opportunity to learn skills while earning money. The venture includes classroom instruction to bolster the students’ career preparedness.
Lawrence’s certification process is about four years long and mandates 8,000 hours of on-the-job training.
“It’s been a really good 16 years,” Lawrence said. “I’ve enjoyed working here, with the mayor and the council. What makes the wheels turn is the crew itself. I couldn’t do it without them.”
Town of Berlin officials and community members expressed their gratitude to Lawrence on Monday night.
“I have watched the perspective of the public change related to Berlin electric since Tim has been here,” said Dean Burrell, council vice president. “Tim talked about his improvements. And I believe Tim when he says he has a great crew. But I want the public to know that that crew, in Tim, had a great leader. Tim came and modernized that company. He established expectations and benchmarks for operations that are second to none…Tim, you will be missed greatly in the Town of Berlin.”
Palmer Gillis of Coastal Ventures Properties was present at this week’s meeting. He also thanked Lawrence for his service.
“Our company has worked with this gentleman for quite a long time…he’s done a great job,” he said. “The town wasn’t always that way, and it has shown remarkable improvement over the years. Thank you, Tim.”
The utility leader now gears up for a new chapter—retirement.
“I’ve been in the business 47 years total,” he said. “It’s time.”