About
Sean P. Murphy Paddy D. Murphy
It all started when…
The Maine Lighthouse Trust is an undertaking of Sean Murphy. Sean, who is a United States Coast Guard (USCG) licensed master captain, has charted the coast of Maine all his life. After watching his local lighthouse, Wood Island Light, fall into disrepair after being unmanned in 1986, he knew he had to act. He reached out to the American Lighthouse Foundation and formed a local chapter to save Wood Island Light. After seventeen years, the property that was on Lighthouse Digest’s doomsday list has been totally renovated inside and out. The group has raised well over half a million dollars and has provided thousands of tours to the offshore island aboard the group’s custom-built landing craft that Sean designed and operates.
The idea of a Maine specialty license plate has been a dream of Sean’s for over ten years, and now that he has retired from a decorated twenty-five-year career as a state police sergeant, he has decided to advance his dream of helping the greater Maine lighthouse community.
In addition to the hundreds of hours donated to Wood Island each year, Sean, who is trained as an army combat engineer, volunteers for various veteran’s groups and has been a big brother with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. He is a court-recognized expert forensic photographer and a tactical photographer whose images have been recognized by Time Life as the best images of the year.