By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY — One of the first stories that appeared in the Ocean City Sentinel about Michael Hartman was in 1997, when he became an Eagle Scout. Over the 20-plus years since, he has appeared many times, associated with theater or running events for the city of Ocean City.
This story is about a new title Hartman acquired, one that takes him away from the resort. He won’t be cutting all of his ties to the city, though.
After the Nov. 3 election, Hartman accepted a job as chief of staff for newly elected Pennsylvania state Sen. Carolyn T. Comitta, D-19th. His background, from theater to organizing events to becoming an Eagle Scout, is helping him now in his new role running Comitta’s staff and helping her support and connect with her constituents.
Hartman runs the day-to-day operations of Comitta’s staff, leading the district office in West Chester with six staff members and the Harrisburg office with two more staff members.
“I’m basically the right hand to the senator,” Hartman said. “I give her advice on things, I’m her sounding board, I come to her with things she needs to be aware of. She has leaned on me a lot to be out there for her and that’s been really neat for me, to represent her and her office at various Zooms (online meetings).”
He said he can be in on three different Zoom meetings a night whether it is meeting with hospitals, dealing with COVID-19 vaccine rollout or conversing with local organizations, such as the West Chester NAACP.
“I’m out there and I report everything back to her and our team,” he said.
Scouting a great start
He said he learned leadership through the Boy Scouts of America.
“Because of Scouting, I was quickly given the tools to know what it’s like to lead,” he said.
Hartman learned about leading because of the entire Scouting experience.
“It was understood what a leader was. It cultivated the qualities you need to be a good leader,” he said.
During his Scouting career he was a counselor for a Cub Scout Camp, a patrol leader and he got to go to a national Scouting jamboree and represent this area.
“Stuff like that is where I really succeeded in Scouting — learned time management, communications — it’s really where I got my foundation to be successful with class council. At Ocean City (High School) I was voted ‘done most for my class.’”
“Ironically when I gave my resume to Carolyn and to HR she said she didn’t know I was an Eagle Scout,” Hartman said. “It’s something I’m very proud of. In my position here, I will often go to Eagle Scout ceremonies. It’s funny how Scouting is still in my life.”
He met the senator about a dozen years ago when he was running the Miss West Chester University pageant and invited her to make a presentation. At the time, she was mayor of West Chester. She kept coming back as mayor and as a state assemblywoman.
Theater taught new skills
The connection with theater and productions and the skills it required were among the things that attracted her to him as a chief of staff candidate and a person.
Hartman earned his diploma from Ocean City High School in 1998 and graduated from West Chester University in Pennsylvania in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a minor in theater.
After he got out of college, he formed the Ocean City Theatre Company, first more as a concept, with him helping run joint productions with the Ocean City Pops orchestra and theater camps for the city’s Recreation Department.
The theater company is now in its 13th year as an official nonprofit, but it was “in its beginning stages five or six years before that,” Hartman said.
“For me, the theater company was and still is the best of all worlds. I was an education major so I get to work with kids. I get to propel the arts, which I think is crucial in Ocean City and southern New Jersey to be on the leading edge of performing arts,” he said. “My vision of taking ‘profession theater,’ which features professionals working in the industry and students, and combining that into one mission is hopefully going to be my legacy in Ocean City.”
That will remain his tie to Ocean City even though he is living in West Chester. He has kept his apartment in the resort.
He will continue to be the artistic director. During the five years or so that he worked for the city of Ocean City, he had to give that up as a paid position but kept volunteering, along with his parents, Janice and James Hartman, who moved to Ocean City 10 years ago after living in Upper Township.
Now that he doesn’t work for the city, he can “transition back to being the frontman for the company,” something Sen. Comitta wholeheartedly endorses.
“When I interviewed with the senator, she asked, ‘What about the theater company?’ She knows how much Ocean City means to me.”
“I thought she was going to tell me I was going to have to give up the theater company, that I couldn’t do it all,” he said. “She said, ‘No, that’s not what I meant. You’re going to still do it, right? Michael, that’s your baby and if you’re doing the theater company that will make you happy. And if you’re happy, you’re going to be that much better at your chief of staff job.’
“I thought that was pretty cool. She knows the theater company means a lot to me.”
He’s excited about balancing that with his chief of staff job.
Together again
Knowing Comitta for so many years, he asked her to co-officiate his wedding to Jonathan Kreamer just more than three years ago with Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian.
She was thrilled to oblige.
“I’m sorry to take him away (from Ocean City) but also happy he is with Jonathan,” the senator said. “It was the best wedding ever. My husband said that was the most fun, the best wedding ever. It was great.”
Kreamer is choir director at Henderson High School in West Chester. The two met when they overlapped a little bit at West Chester University, but they didn’t really connect until after college when they were both living in West Chester and their circles of friends united.
Kreamer helped out with the fledgling theater company.
“He would come down to Ocean City to direct the shows in the summer even before the theater company was official. He was part of the production team,” Hartman said.
Comitta’s comment about Hartman and Kreamer being together now is because after they married, they spent much of their time apart with their respective jobs in West Chester and Ocean City.
“We spent the better part of over 10 years together in two different states,” he said, noting that changed during the pandemic because of remote learning but has become permanent with his new job.
“During the school year during the week we would not be together,” Hartman explained. “The holidays we often were not together because I would have to do things like Easter Fashion promenade, Jon was a musician and was at churches.
“The fact we’ve made it this long and haven’t killed each other being under the same roof I think we’re going to be able to get through it,” he laughed.
He felt the change the first week he was on the new job. Even though he was working nonstop, at the end of the day he could go home to be with his husband.
“After the first week I told Jon I don’t know how we did it. It was so nice to have dinner together every night and live a normal life. By the end of the week it seemed like it had been like 20 years. I couldn’t even remember what it was like being apart.”
Looking back, looking ahead
Hartman said he was ready for a change when he got the job offer, but was especially proud of how far things came along in Ocean City with special events at the Music Pier, working with Mayor Gillian and Michael Allegretto.
“There have been a lot of great things happening at the pier,” he said. “We put entertainment front and center.”
The pier, he said, has never lost its charm.
“One night we’re having Vanesa Williams there and the next morning it’s taffy sculpting. We have Dance Place kids dancing on the same stage that the Beach Boys were on. … Though I’m proud we stepped up the quality of the entertainment, it never lost its home feel.”
“I got to work with some incredible people,” he said, mentioning the city team and city council members.
He said he loved doing the pageants, which he believes are more like academies for young women, encouraging leadership skills.
He enjoyed working with the pageant queens, including Miss Ocean City, Junior Miss Ocean City and Little Miss Ocean City, who acted as a de facto staff with their volunteerism at city events.
“They were like daughters to me because of being together so much,” he said.
He also loved being in the community, collaborating with businesses and organizations, more skills he will put to use as Sen. Comitta’s chief of staff.
Saying he was called in a new direction, to work on a bigger stage, Hartman believes in the senator’s vision of building a coalition, getting all the information and being inclusive in the decision-making process.
“It’s a unique leadership style that she has. She’s a Democrat and when she ran for a House seat, she flipped that seat. But it’s a pretty even county (politically), so she’s got to build a coalition,” Hartman said. “I think she could teach our federal people a lesson on how to work together. That is really reassuring.”