Born and raised in Melrose, Hamilton’s ties to the community span four generations.  His great-grandparents, Herbert and Ruth Hamilton, moved their family to Melrose from Revere in 1907. "Since then, four generations of Ward’s family have gone through the public schools and graduated from Melrose High School. Ward attended Auburn University as an undergraduate and earned a Master's degree in 2012  from UMass-Amherst. He has been married to his wife, Andrea, for twenty-nine years. They are the proud parents of five children: Hannah, Joseph, Grace, Johanna, and Seth.

 

Hamilton is the owner of Olde Mohawk Historic Preservation on East Emerson Street, a business specializing in masonry restoration, traditional roofing systems, and architectural woodwork. A mason by trade, he got his start in construction with the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. Ward has been fortunate to work on some great buildings, but his favorite projects involve adaptive reuse. By repurposing existing buildings for affordable housing and other uses, Ward believes we can prolong the useful service life of structures that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

 

Hamilton is the vice president of the board of directors at Congregational Retirement Homes, a non-profit that owns and oversees one-third of the Affordable Housing stock in Melrose. In 2020, he was elected to represent Melrose on the Northeast Metro Tech School Committee. In 2021, as the school embarked on its plan to build a new $317 million dollar high school, he was selected by his peers on the Committee to serve as its treasurer. He is also the treasurer of the Friends of Melrose Football, a position he has held for over a decade.

 

Ward’s motto is, 'Be of service to others.”  Ward has a strong sense of civic responsibility and cares about what happens in Melrose." In the past,  he has served on the Melrose Historical Commission, including two and a half years as its chair. In 2020, he was appointed to the Superintendent of Melrose Public Schools Screening Committee. He has also served on the Melrose High School Site Council and the Melrose Public Safety Building Committee and coached middle school football for several years.

 

Ward believes good government is about good stewardship. The people of Melrose deserve to be represented by elected officials who will follow best practices in allocating and overseeing the City's resources. As some in the community vie to advance special interests and promote their own agendas, Ward remains laser-focused on being fiscally responsible, caring for our aging infrastructure, and delivering services to our residents.