The new president and CEO of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, announced today, came under fire at his last job for running a 41-branch library system in Minnesota remotely out of his California condominium.

Chad S. Helton, who became director of the Hennepin County Library System in 2020, moved back to Los Angeles a year later under a temporary county policy that allowed him to work remotely during the Covid pandemic.

He resigned from Hennepin County (which includes Minneapolis) in early 2023 after library staffers and union representatives complained that he was rarely available, even through video conferencing.

As part of his agreement to step down, Helton got a $75,000 settlement from Hennepin County for “emotional damages” and legal fees after his lawyers threatened to sue the county.

Today’s press release by the Pratt Library does not mention the residency flap. Instead, Helton, 46, was praised by Christine Espenshade, chair of the board of directors, as “the right leader for the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s next chapter.”

She said Helton was unanimously approved by the board after a national search to replace Heidi Daniel, who resigned earlier this year to head the King County Public Library in Washington state.

“Chad has more than 15 years of leadership experience in both public and academic libraries, including leading major institutions such as Hennepin County Library in Minnesota and the Los Angeles Public Library in California,” she said.

“His proven ability to manage complex systems, direct large teams and lead through times of change will be instrumental in helping the Pratt Library continue to evolve and serve Baltimore’s diverse communities.”

Librarian’s Life Story

Helton told The Baltimore Banner today that he has already moved to a downtown neighborhood and planned to walk to work at Pratt’s Central Library on Cathedral Street.

His $275,000-a-year salary in Baltimore is a $92,000 jump from his prior job.

A major factor in swaying the board in Helton’s favor was his life story, which Espenshade characterized as “exemplifying the power of libraries to transform lives.”

Born in a small southern town, Helton dropped out of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill due to “the pressures of being one of the rare Black kids from my community.” He said he spent the next 10 years chronically underemployed and occasionally homeless.

His life began to turn around when a friend helped him get a job delivering books to satellite libraries in a golf cart.

“I started to see the importance of the library, and what the library means, and what the library has to offer,” he said in a video message (below) included in today’s announcement.

His life began to turn around when a friend helped him get a job delivering books in a golf cart.

Helton went back to school, graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009, then working at two UNC libraries as an evening and weekend shift supervisor, according to an online CV.

In 2012, he moved to California, spending 13 months at the University of California Davis library as head of circulation services and 16 months at Stanford University as manager of evening access library services.

From there, he jumped to the Palo Alto Public Library for 11 months, followed by 22 months as Contra Costa County’s deputy librarian.

His big break occurred in 2017 when he was named director of branch services for the Los Angeles Public Library.

According to his resume, he “supervised the overall staffing of 654 supervisorial, librarian and clerical staff, and implemented and oversaw the departmental budget of over $114 million.”

Complaints in Minneapolis

The LA branch position was his seventh job since graduating from college in 2009.

In August 2020, he moved to Minneapolis to take over the “re-opening strategy” for the Hennepin County Library during the pandemic as well as to create emergency homeless shelters in vacant library space.

Among the accomplishments he cites in his CV were establishing a youth library board and implementing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a library facilities master plan.

In the summer of 2021, he moved back to his condo in Los Angeles with the permission, he says, of the Hennepin County deputy administrator and board of commissioners.

Although it was never stated at the time, one reason for his return to Los Angeles was a medical emergency.

“I had no plan of working out of state until I went blind in my left eye,” he said when asked about his move to LA two years later.

“I needed to have eye surgery with the top eye surgeon for my particular issue in Los Angeles,” he explained at an October 2023 event covered by the Nashville Banner. (A finalist for the CEO job at the Nashville Public Library, Helton faced questions at a public forum; the Nashville position remains open.)

“I had no plan of working out of state until I went blind in my left eye”  – Chad Helton on why he moved back to LA.

Even after two surgeries at UCLA, his sight was still not restored, he said, and he needed to go through more surgeries.

There was no word today from Helton or the Pratt board on the status of his eye condition.

In the fall of 2022, after the union representing library staff complained that he could never be reached, Hennepin County revised its remote work policy, requiring Helton to move back to Minnesota by January 31, 2023 to remain library director.

He didn’t and was placed on unpaid leave in February 2023, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, after he was identified as one of the finalists for the top job at the Seattle Public Library system.

Helton resigned from Hennepin County within days, leading to cheers by some library staff, while he also learned that he had been turned down for the Seattle position.

He formed Chad Helton Consulting LLC In March 2023, and Hennepin County paid for his health benefits during the rest of 2023.

Vision for Baltimore

Espenshade cited Helton’s recent experience as a consultant to Richmond, Calif., which is renovating its main library, as one area that attracted the Enoch Pratt board to the candidate. Another was his ability to connect with library staff and the public, according to his references.

In today’s video message, Helton vowed to go to each of the 21 library branches in Baltimore, hold town halls for the public, and meet with every Pratt employee (there are currently 448 of them) “so I can hear directly from the people in our city what it is they want from us directly.”

His vision for Enoch Pratt Free Library includes enhancing digital and physical infrastructure as well as expanding outreach to all of Baltimore.

Initiatives like Peer Navigators, the Lawyer in the Library partnership with Maryland Legal Aid and the Pratt Free Market, which helps those facing food insecurity, are ways the library can provide community support.

Remembering how a library job had turned around his life when he was “homeless and a drop-out” made him “appreciate what I had” and to strive for what he could become.

• To reach a reporter: reuttermark@yahoo.com