Ted Keon Retires After 27 Years As Chatham’s First Coastal Resources Director

CHATHAM – When Ted Keon arrived in Chatham as the town’s first coastal resources director, the eastern coast was still in a state of flux following the 1987 break in North Beach. Officials were scrambling to come up with a dredging strategy to deal with inconsistent shoaling that plagued mariners, including the town’s commercial fishing fleet.

 His experience as chief of coastal planning at the Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District came in handy; he was able to work with the Corps to bring the hopper dredge Currituck into Chatham Harbor to clear shoaling for the first time. 

 “I would talk their language,” he said of those early dealings with the Corps.

Keon, who retires Friday, April 18 after 27 years with the town, had in fact been following the developments in Chatham since that first breakthrough, not only professionally but from a personal standpoint; his wife Dianne was from Orleans and the family often visited there (they now live in the house across the street from where she grew up in East Orleans). Chatham, he said, was considered “the poster child for coastal change” because of the unique processes that shape its coast.

 “I remember watching fishing boats trying to get over shoals into Aunt Lydia’s Cove,” he said in an interview last week in his office at the annex. “I thought, ‘Wow. This going to be a challenge.’ Things were moving so fast.”

Things got even more complicated in 2007 when the North Inlet formed in the outer beach. “It was like an Etch-a-Sketch rewriting the whole book,” he said. Realizing that the inlet would remain open, he understood that the town would be dealing with the issues of shoaling and erosion for a long time to come. That wasn’t evident at the time, so establishing his position was “farsighted” of the town, he said.

Keeping up with shoaling — not just in Chatham Harbor but in other town waterways, particularly the Stage Harbor entrance channel — proved to be a challenge. “The system was so dynamic,” with shoaling constantly changing locations, he said, and navigation channels moving outside of previously dredged or permitted locations. He came up with the idea of obtaining a town-wide dredging permit that would allow the town to dredge where shoaling cropped up rather than having to apply separate permits as shoaling moved around.

 “That was the first time it was done in the state,” he noted. 

Chatham recognizes the importance of its maritime industry, devoting time and money to maintaining navigation and upgrading coastal infrastructure, which constantly needs attention, he said. 

 “People like to see our harbor, they like to see our boats,” he said. “They like a working waterfront.”

While the town has devoted resources to its coastal infrastructure, as with the 2007 break, nature has a way of doing the unexpected. With the possible exception of the Perfect Storm in 1991, “we haven’t obviously fully felt that yet,” Keon said. “Are we ready for that? Not really. You almost can’t prepare for those events. You can’t protect everything.”

Keon grew up in the Philadelphia area and attended the University of Delaware and Arizona State, where he met his wife. The couple and their three children — now all grown — ended up here after Dianne took a teaching job at Nauset High School. Not long after that the Chatham job came up, and he was hired by then-town manager Thomas Groux. 

 “From my perspective, the timing was good,” Keon noted, adding that coming into the job was a bit intimidating at first, given the complex issues involved.

 “I know I drove [then harbormaster] Stuart Smith crazy asking thousands of questions, but it was very good to have him to guide me,” he said. He enjoyed working for the town, where he could see a project through from inception to completion, something that rarely happened at the Army Corps. “Projects I worked on for 15 years I never saw go to construction,” he said.

Keon has had a major impact on the town, said Town Manager Jill Goldsmith. 

 “Ted has a done a tremendous effort to address what he coined as Chatham’s ‘Sand Problem’,” she wrote in an email. “His work throughout his tenure on dredge permitting and dredge projects literally reshaped Chatham’s coastline, making navigation safer and restoring erosion-prone beaches at the same time. His efforts to secure grant funding for a range of projects have saved our taxpayers millions of dollars, and his recent work on the trap dock and 90 Bridge St. has expanded and strengthened our working waterfront facilities. We are incredibly grateful for Ted’s vision, dedication, and the legacy he leaves behind after years of outstanding service to the town.”

 With Keon’s retirement, the coastal resources director job is being slightly retooled. The new title will be coastal resilience director, and it will be similar, “but with a stronger emphasis on resilience, reflecting the town’s commitment to integrating it into all of our projects,” said Natural Resources Director Greg Berman. Officials are currently reviewing applicants for the position.

 Keon’s advice for his successor? 

 “Things aren’t static here,” he said. “You’ve got to be flexible and plan for how things might go, and they probably won’t go that way, but there are trends…and a reasonably good sense to back up how things might go.” There are many conflicting interests in town — commercial fishermen, recreational boaters, shorefront homeowners — he noted. “You’ve got to balance all of these.”

 Keon said he’ll be on call should the town need to call on his expertise. Between himself and Smith, who retired last year, there’s a lot of institutional memory that shouldn’t be lost, he said. His wife retired two years ago, and while the couple plans to do some traveling, they won’t be leaving the area, especially with two grandchildren here. 

 “It seemed like a good time,” he said of retirement, “while I’m still healthy and spry enough to do things.”

 A coffee reception for Keon will be held Friday, April 18, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at the annex. The public is invited to attend.