Color-coded maps hang on walls, a bank of computers line tabletops, cameras are prohibited and an ID is required before a visitor is granted entry.
Welcome not to a war room at the Pentagon, but to the Maine office of the U.S. Census Bureau in Portland, where a retired lieutenant colonel, Patrick H. Burke, 60, of Gorham, is in charge.
On Monday, Burke will deploy 800 census workers to officially begin canvassing Maine communities to validate street addresses. It is the first step toward the U.S. Census Day, April 1, 2010.
Burke, whose Cumberland Avenue census office is the only one in Maine, has five assistant managers in addition to office staff and hundreds canvassing the communities.
“I’m the lion tamer. I keep them in the same ring,” Burke said with a laugh.
In October, similar offices will be opened in Augusta and Bangor.
“Right now, I own the state,” said Burke, who reports to an area manager in Boston.
When the hiring process for employees began, Burke hoped to have 3,875 applicants by April 1, but hit the goal at the end of January. By Feb. 28, some 7,000 people from across Maine had taken the written test to work for the census. Those hired had to pass a background check.
Training for the workers took place this week. Staff hitting the field Monday will be equipped with a handheld computer with a global positioning system.
“The map is built into the handheld computer,” Burke said.
It marks the first time that handheld computers would be used in the field in the census. Every house with a street number and name will be listed. Burke said all living quarters in the state would be counted during this process, which ends June 26.
Those canvassing will have an ID badge and a bag clearly marked U.S. Census Bureau and a seal. Police chiefs and municipal managers have been notified that the census workers will be roaming through communities.
The census workers have been asked to do a courteous knock on doors, but they are not doing any interviewing.
The U.S. Constitution requires a census be taken every 10 years. The first one was in 1790 and the latest was in 2000. The Census Bureau won’t conduct the 2010 census by e-mail or the Internet.
Census surveys, which will ask for names and other personal information, will be mailed next year before April 1, and everyone is required to participate.
“Our mission is to count the number of people living in the United States on April 1, 2010, Burke said.
The count will be delivered to President Barack Obama by Dec. 31, 2010.
Burke said surveys for this census ask less personal information compared to the previous census. It will ask each person 10 questions, including name, age, birth date, gender, race and phone number, and will ask for a count of how many people live in each household.
Burke said the information remains private.
“We don’t share data,” said Burke, who added that it is not even shared with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and Internal Revenue Service.
“No one gets our data. You’re literally a statistic,” he said.
Burke built a home in Gorham in 1978, and he and his wife, Karen, have long ties to the community. Karen Burke is a former teacher at Gorham Village School and a former assistant superintendent at School Administrative District 6. Their son, Michael Burke, who graduated Gorham High School in 1997, was a standout athlete and is coaching in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Burke began his military service with the Maine Army National Guard and once taught ROTC training at the University of Southern Maine. He retired from the military in 2004 after 34 years, including service in the Pentagon.
He spotted the advertisement for the census job on a government Web site and applied.
“I got bored out of my skull,” he said about retirement.
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