Gov. Janet Mills named the first director to lead Maine’s Office of New Americans on Wednesday, marking an important milestone in the launching of a new effort to better track and respond to the arrival of immigrants to Maine.

Tarlan Ahmadov, who currently oversees statewide employment programs at the Maine Department of Labor and who has more than 20 years of experience in employment, immigration, refugee and social services, will begin his new role of director at the Office of New Americans on Jan. 21.

Tarlan Ahmadov. Photo courtesy of the Maine Governor’s Office

“I am honored to lead Maine’s Office of New Americans and grateful to Gov. Mills for the opportunity to advance its mission,” Ahmadov said in a written statement released by the governor’s office. “In this role, I will strengthen workforce integration, support immigrant entrepreneurs, and foster welcoming communities across the state.

“I look forward to collaborating with community leaders, employers, state and municipal agencies, nonprofit, foundations, and other partners to build a stronger, more inclusive Maine where everyone can succeed and contribute to our collective success.”

The Office of New Americans, approved by the Legislature earlier this year, is charged with making Maine a home of opportunity for all, strengthening Maine’s workforce, enhancing the vibrancy of Maine’s communities, and building a stronger economy.

With Maine facing a shortage of workers across regions, professions and skill levels, the state must focus on improving how it connects new Americans to employers, the governor’s office said.

“Tarlan Ahmadov’s deep experience helping new Mainers adjust, step into jobs, and contribute to our state has prepared him well to lead the Office of New Americans,” Mills said in the statement. “Tarlan’s leadership will ensure that our workforce and economy can fully benefit from the valuable skills, knowledge, and work ethic of new Americans who make their home in Maine.”

Ahmadov has worked as director of the Division of Programs at the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Employment Services since 2022, and before that was Maine’s state refugee coordinator with Catholic Charities Maine from March 2017 to July 2022.

He also previously worked in education and the nonprofit sector in Azerbaijan. He has a master’s degree in history and social sciences from Baku State University in Azerbaijan and is pursuing a doctorate in public policy at the University of Southern Maine.

Ahmadov will earn an annual salary of $110,073 in his new role.

Mills signed an executive order in August 2023 directing the Office of Policy Innovation and the Future to come up with a plan to create a state office to assist the growing number of immigrants in Maine.

Rep. Deqa Dhalac, D-South Portland, introduced legislation on behalf of the governor to create the Office of New Americans, and the supplemental budget approved in April funded two positions in the office.

The governor’s plan for the office includes strengthening English-language acquisition opportunities; building support for entrepreneurs and workers; improving coordination of organizations and entities that support immigrants, including communities, schools and employers; working on federal immigration policies to benefit Maine; and improving Maine’s data about its immigrant populations.

With the establishment of the office, Maine became the 19th state in the country to join the Office of New Americans State Network, a consortium of states with dedicated offices or staff for coordinating immigrant integration.

The network, which has since grown to 22 states, is coordinated by a partnership of two organizations, World Education Services and the American Immigration Council, and is expected to help provide Maine with expertise from around the country on developing successful policy approaches related to immigration.

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A national gun safety advocacy group has upgraded its rating of Maine laws following a historic legislative session in which lawmakers passed expanded background checks and a 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting.

Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence released its annual gun law scorecard for states around the country on Tuesday. The center gave Maine a C+, which is an improvement from last year’s D- rating and made Maine the most improved state.

“Following the tragic mass shooting at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, Maine enacted important improvements to its gun laws,” the scorecard said. “However, there are still basic gun safety measures which are missing, putting Mainers at grave risk.”

Following the mass shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 others injured last year, lawmakers expanded background check requirements to include private, advertised sales and implemented a new 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases.

They also updated the state’s yellow flag law to make it easier for police to take someone into protective custody in a step toward restricting their access to weapons, and set aside millions of dollars for mental health and violence prevention programs.

The budget passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Janet Mills in April included funding for establishing an Office of Violence Prevention at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an expansion of crisis receiving centers to help people experiencing mental health or substance use crisis and additional money for the mental health assessments that are part of the yellow flag law, among other things.

Still, the state still lacks fully universal background checks for gun purchases and a red flag law that would give family members, in addition to law enforcement, a path toward restricting access to weapons for a person in crisis without a mental health evaluation.

“Additionally, Maine passed a reckless permit-less carry law in 2015 that allows residents to carry loaded, concealed handguns in public without a permit or background check,” the scorecard said.

Gun safety was a major topic of this year’s Legislation as lawmakers were met with public demands for action in the wake of the Lewiston shooting. While it remains to be seen what initiatives will be taken up in the coming year, the Maine Gun Safety Coalition is trying to get a citizen’s initiative for a red flag law before voters, and said last month that it was close to getting the necessary number of signatures needed.

This story will be updated.

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PORTLAND, Maine — Ross Adam is two people at once.

By day, as a gray-and-blue-clad mailman, he has trudged the same Deering neighborhood route on foot for nearly a decade. He stuffs letters through mail slots, scans bar codes, takes care with the occasional aggressive dog and deals with the weekly flood of Saturday fliers that make his satchel extra heavy.

By night, dressed in his trademark tartan trousers, Adam packs pubs and venues all over southern Maine with his brand of high-energy, multi-instrumental folk music. Adoring fans and strangers alike hoist their glasses and sing at full volume, eager to forget their troubles and revel in the tattooed, Scotland native’s relentless charm.

But late night music gigs and early post office mornings aren’t a friendly fit, and maintaining the balance is nearly impossible.

Increasingly, like many artists with day jobs and successful side hustles, Adam feels like he must make the difficult choice between one or the other.

Adam is a responsible father of two children with college expenses. He’s got a mortgage, a wife and a future retirement fund he’s nearly vested in.

At the same time, he recently released a popular new album and secured a music manager who is helping him get better-paying gigs. He’s about to embark on his first international mini-tour of Ireland, using vacation time.

He has the nagging feeling that at age 36, it’s now or never for becoming a full-time musician.

“You only get one life,” Adam said. “It’s so sacred. You’ve got to be able to look back and be happy with what you did with it.”

Growing up in the small Scottish town of Burntisland, Adam didn’t come from a musical family. He discovered music as an eight-year-old while sheltering from a rainstorm on a family camping trip inside a music store.

There, he picked out the melody to “The Skye Boat Song,” a traditional lullaby his mother sang to him, on a piano. His astonished parents soon bought him a small keyboard.

At 11, he and a friend wandered into a free bagpipe lesson. Adam stuck with it, coming back every Wednesday night, learning the pipes and life lessons from older men he recalls as being “big, tough guys.”

The band was called the Burntisland and District Pipe Band, and Adam was soon traveling, marching and competing with it, all around Scotland and England.

“When I joined that pipe band, it changed who I was,” he said. “It was my whole life. It gave me discipline.”

High school rock bands followed but, at the same time, Adam was fascinated by folk musicians who could get a crowd of distracted pub-goers all singing together. He was especially impressed by Alex Killin of the Kingdom Folk Band.

“He could get everyone singing — old people, young people, even the bartender,” Adam said. “I always thought it was a cool superpower.”

Adam was soon emulating his hero, playing solo gigs and doing whatever it took to get a crowd singing. But, as a young adult, grownup realities also started to take over. He earned a social work degree, worked with at-risk youth, married an American woman, moved to South Portland and started a family.

Crossing the ocean, he left his professional musical ambitions behind. Instead of gigging, Adam got a good job at the post office with decent pay, union benefits and a retirement plan.

But a subsequent divorce and what turned into a new marriage changed all that.

Shortly before the pandemic, he went on a blind date that morphed into a bonfire party with friends. There, Adam pulled out his guitar and entertained the gathering the way he would have, in a pub back home.

“I knew I was going to marry him after about the first 10 minutes,” his blind date and now spouse, Shannon Adam, said.

Enamoured and encouraging, she urged Ross Adam to take his talents seriously and booked him for a St. Patrick’s Day show at a pub. The gig was a success, and his music career took off.

At a recent show at RiRa in Portland, it was standing room only with all eyes and ears on Adam as he commanded the room. Using special, sound-looping pedals, he played guitar, fiddle and banjo at the same time while stomping another pedal creating a drum sound — which made the crowd clap along to the beat.

At one point, wearing a wireless headset microphone, Adam left the stage and asked the rowdy crowd to be quiet while he sang them a tender song about whiskey. Almost like magic, the hushed room stayed silent as he walked among the audience like a revival preacher, singing, patting children on the head and laying his hands on shoulders.

Then, as Adam finished the a capella song, he raised his pint and released the audience with a toast. The crowd burst into whoops and applause while he remounted the stage and got the party going again with traditional Scottish and Irish songs, as well as the hip-hop classic “No Diggity.”

A few days later, on a gray, snowy morning, Adam pulled his postal van up to the sidewalk on Stevens Avenue, and he stepped out of the sliding side door. There was no applause as he started his route, mail satchel slung off one shoulder, his steaming breath hanging in the air.

Adam said he genuinely likes his post office job and cherishes the connections he’s forged.

Down one side street, he found Steve Robnett, standing in his driveway. After handing Robnett his mail, the two chatted for a while. Robnett said he knew all about his mailman’s other life.

“We’ve actually had him play two house concerts here,” he said. “We love Ross.”

Further on, at the Rwanda Bean coffee shop, manager Alexa Kelly said Adam has always been more than just a mailman and helped her as she struggled through a messy divorce.

“He was one of my biggest rocks,” Kelly said, “I didn’t have anyone else in my life who knew what I was going through.”

To this, Adam mostly shrugs.

“You leave a trail wherever you go,” he said, “so I try to be good to people.”

But, as his music career blossoms and takes up more time, Adam has a decision to make. A recent bout of pneumonia exacerbated by exhaustion made it even more clear: one job or the other has to give.

Right now, he’s leaning toward full-time music. There isn’t anything which makes him feel more alive or in the moment.

“There’s nothing like it, even in a small pub. It feels incredible when people sing along. It’s almost like they’re part of the band — it’s magic,” Adam said. “I feel like I was made for this.”