Speaker Bios for the 2010

Ron Beard is an Extension Professor for University of Maine Cooperative Extension, based in Hancock County, where he focuses on community development and public policy education. He helps staff and volunteer leaders of non-profit groups develop the capacity of their organizations. Over the last decade, he has assisted some 200 non-profit and community groups. Ron has been active in Mount Desert Island Tomorrow which is credited with the advent of the propane-powered Island Explorer Bus system. He built a partnership between Cooperative Extension and community radio station WERU, which now offers twice-monthly interview and the call-in program "Talk of the Towns." He is also a member of Marine Extension Team. In 2004, he was elected to the Board of Trustees of College of the Atlantic, where he has served as an adjunct faculty member since 1989. Ron holds a B.S. in Wildlife Management and an M.S. in Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Monique Bouchard is a designer with more than a dozen years of experience and a background in public relations, marketing, and journalism. Prior to starting Monique Bouchard Design, she worked with the Maine nonprofit community as the graphic designer for BHC Consulting Group, LLC, and Gary Friedmann & Associates, designing web and print pieces for many organizations and working with the media to promote events. As part of WHCA's resource development team (now Down East Business Alliance), she advised and assisted dozens of small business owners with graphic design, marketing plans and assessments, media kits and public relations strategies. She holds a degree in Mass Communication from the University of Maine Honors College.

Barbara Brady DESIGN is a full service design studio specializing in business communications. We work with companies and institutions to help build and maintain a consistent foundation of visibility and credibility for a wide range of target audiences. We have extensive experience (28 years) in the design and production of print and web communications ranging from logo design, product or service brochures, advertising campaigns, posters, websites and more. Our clients represent a broad cross section of industries from small music studios, to healthcare organizations, colleges and manufacturing. Some of our clients include: Eastern Maine Community College, Freshwater Stone & Brickwork, Inc., Friendship Cottage, River Music, Gallery 170. For more information and/or samples of our work, please contact moc.eniamdim@ngisedydarb

Tessa Burpee is the Executive Director for Heart of Maine Resource Conservation & Development. She has extensive experience coordinating and carrying out projects, assisting organizations with strategic planning, organizing events and managing the operations and finances of a non-profit organization. Tessa administers the NxLevel "Tilling the Soil of Opportunity" business planning program for farmers statewide, in partnership with the Maine Department of Agriculture. She grew up on a family farm in Aroostook County and is passionate about helping farmers be more sustainable, both environmentally and economically. She is excited about her role in developing the Farm Fresh for ME project, which has been established to assist consumer food buying clubs connect with local farmers through the creation of an online ordering system.

Deb Burwell is a grassroots organizer at heart who runs a facilitation business specializing in strategic planning with non-profits and small businesses. She is also a co-facilitator of Paddling the Rapids, a strategic forum for executive directors of non-profits and their boards. Deb is committed to exploring power dynamics and how women use their voices in service of what they care most fiercely about.

This exciting two part workshop, lead by a national public relations practitioner with years of experience in forestry and agriculture, will help participants to develop their own marketing plans. Dick Dyer has presented this workshop to USDA Conservation Training Center in West Virginia and numerous corporate and non-profit entities throughout the United States. Each participant will receive their own workbook to aide in note taking and development of their plan. Dick Dyer operates Dyer Associates public relations and marketing out of offices in Winthrop, Maine. You can visit his web site, www.dyerpr.com, for more information.

Shannon is the Executive Director of Waterville Main Street and the Maine International Film Festival (MIFF). She has taken Waterville Main Street from a struggling start-up to a fully-fledged organization that has earned a place at the table in every conversation about the future of the Greater Waterville area. Her tenacity has successfully allowed her to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to help put Waterville back on the map. The largest Main Street program in the state, Waterville Main Street has made a significant impact on the community by starting the highly successful farmer's market and the brand new year-round Barrels Community Market, creating the Freshwater Arts School, coordinating a year round calendar of special events, and securing nearly $1 million in grants, the most recent of which is a $500,000 Downtown Revitalization Grant, just to name a few accomplishments. Under Shannon's leadership, the Maine International Film Festival, a 10-day, 100 film event, has become a nationally recognized festival and attracts thousands of visitors from all over the state, the region and beyond.

In Shannon's spare time, she has been a founding member of three organizations: KV Connect, which connects young people age 21-40; the Waterville Arts Council, of which she is the treasurer; and the Maine Film Center. She serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Maine Downtown Center Advisory Council, Kennebec-Messalonskee Trails Board, the Waterville Regional Arts and Community Center Board, the Waterville Development Corporation Board and the Maine Arts Commission. She is also a past recipient of the very prestigious Ken Curtis Leadership Award and was name to Maine Biz's NEXT list in 2008.

John has 22 years experience working as a farmer advocate and resource contact for the Maine Department of Agriculture. Prior to that John spent a total of 12 years as a farmer and small fruit researcher, managing the 256 acre Highmoor fruit research farm for the University of Maine and Cornell's 20 acre grape research farm in Fredonia, New York. He currently manages grant programs in agricultural marketing and water source development and administers a low interest loan program for the department. He teaches a farm business planning class and advises farmers on bookkeeping and financial management. He is involved in ag marketing policy development and recently completed a major market report on Maine's local agricultural sector. John's passion is small fruits and has a degree in horticulture from Penn State and a master's from Cornell. In his spare time he runs a cranberry nursery/greenhouse business with his wife Deb, in Mount Vernon.

Extension Educator, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Jane brings over 20 years of experience in the design and implementation of experiential community development programs for youth and adults. Over the years she has launched several innovative Extension programs, from Voices, a school-based enrichment program for teens, to the Mid-Coast Home-Based Business Conference, the first statewide conference for home-based business owners in Maine, to producing and hosting Doing Business, a live, public affairs radio show.

As a result of her community facilitation work, her latest innovation is the collaborative creation of Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Levels 1 and 2. The Training Series is designed to help local citizens as well as professional staff learn how to get work done more effectively and efficiently in group meetings. Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 1 has been used to train hundreds of volunteers and staff from over 30 organizations in Maine, and is now being used to train new Extension staff as well as citizens in other states. It has been identified as a curriculum by the National 4-H Learning Priorities to Build Effective Organizational Systems.

Jane is working collaboratively to research the societal impact of having skilled community facilitators. She is a member of the International Association of Facilitators and the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals.

Jim McConnon is an Extension Business and Economics Specialist and Professor of Economics at the University of Maine. He joined the faculty of the University of Maine in 1989.

Dr. McConnon's work is primarily in the areas of small business management, entrepreneurship and retail trade. During the past 20 years, Jim has conducted hundreds of educational workshops and seminars across the state on topics related to business development such as marketing, pricing, business planning, customer service, and financial management. More than 7,000 Maine people have participated in his educational programs.

Jim's research has focused on topics such as: regional retail trade patterns, economic impact analysis, economic importance of home-based and micro-enterprises, and small business development. He was recently a co-investigator on a Maine Department of Economic and Community Development funded project to enhance the business support infrastructure for micro-entrepreneurs in Eastern Maine. He has made presentations at many regional and national conferences and has published his work in a variety of outlets including the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of the Community Development Society, the Maine Policy Review, the Journal of Travel Research, and the Journal of Applied Economic Letters.

Jim was selected as the 2001 Home-Based Business Advocate of the Year for Maine and the New England Region by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In 2007, he received the Outstanding Public Service Award from the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture at the University of Maine. In 2008, he received the Excellence in Community Development Programming–Team Award from the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals.

Rep. Wendy Pieh serves as the Chair of the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry. An experienced legislator, she previously served as a member and chaired this committee during the 118th and 119th Legislatures. Professionally, Pieh and her husband own and operate a farm raising cashmere goats. Pieh has also worked with Outward Bound and traveled all over the world with similar educational leadership programs.

Pieh and her husband, Peter Goth, M.D., live in Bremen. They have one child.

The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) concept has really taken root in the local food community and no fewer than 150 farms are reaching over 6,000 Maine families through this innovative and metamorphic approach to marketing. Come learn about different CSA models in Maine and consider how you might incorporate one into your farm's marketing strategy.

Melissa White Pillsbury is the Organic Marketing Coordinator for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). She began the Maine CSA Directory in 2007 which is the only comprehensive and up-to-date resource of CSA Farms in Maine. She works with farmers on developing their individual marketing strategies, helps individuals and businesses source food from Maine producers, and strives to increase and strengthen the local markets for Maine grown food.

John Piotti is executive director of Maine Farmland Trust, a statewide non-profit that has helped over 150 Maine farms remain viable and helped preserve over 20,000 acres of Maine's best farmland.

John has worked on agriculture issues for the past 15 years, having created and managed a wide variety of programs for Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), Maine's premiere community development organization. His work with agriculture has included service as chair of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) and a director of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. In Maine, he's been appointed to the Millennium Commission on Hunger & Food Security, Maine's Farm Vitality Task Force, and two different Dairy Task Forces.

John also serves in Maine's citizen Legislature, where he is the current House Majority Leader. He is past chair of the Agriculture Committee.

In 2005, John was one of only eight Americans awarded a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship. He spent time in Sweden and Brussels exploring European models for using agriculture as a vehicle to advance sustainable community development.

John holds three degrees from MIT, in engineering, public policy, and management.

He lives in Unity with his wife Susan, and children Anna (15) and John (12).

Hal Prince is Director of Division of Quality Assurance & Regulations for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food & Rural Resources.

Hal grew up on an apple farm in Turner where he and his siblings were the ninth generation to work the family farm. In the late eighties the apple industry had turned the corner and the decision was made to abandon farming operations and lease the orchards out.

Hal began work for the Department of Agriculture in 1990 as a Weights & Measures Inspector, soon to be reclassified as a Consumer Protection Inspector. After working as a field inspector for several years, he accepted the newly formed position of Inspection Process Analyst. In this position, he dealt with the enforcement issues in the office and worked with the Inspection staff in the field. When Stan Millay decided to move on to the Maine Milk Commission, Hal stepped in as Inspection Program Manager in acting capacity and was later hired to fill that position permanently.

In 2005 he left the Department of Agriculture and moved to Palm Beach Gardens Florida where he worked as an Inspector for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In 2006, due to family obligations (and homesick for mud season), Hal returned to Maine and began work for the Department of Public Safety. When the opportunity arose to return to the Department of Agriculture he jumped at the chance!

Chris Roberts, who hails from Bar Harbor, Maine, grew up in a family of restaurateurs. Being the first in his family to venture outside of the food business and into the recording industry, he found himself working in studios in Nashville recording songwriter demos for publishing companies, both large and small. Maine, however, pulled him back to its shores and into a kitchen. He decided to craft a snack for his dogs using ingredients that he could obtain directly from farmers in Maine. The treats that became known as Barkwheats were designed to have minimal impact on the Earth. Barkwheats are now found in more than 300 stores across the country, and the company continues to grow every month.

Amy Vaughn is director of Healthy Peninsula, a Healthy Maine Partnership serving the communities of the Blue Hill peninsula, Deer Isle, Stonington, and Isle au Haut. Among other public health initiatives, Healthy Peninsula is working on creating community based support for healthy eating. Amy lives in Deer Isle with her husband and three children.

Cheryl Wixson grew up on a dairy farm in Winslow, Maine. She is a third generation graduate of the University of Maine, and is the University's first woman agricultural engineer. After 10 years in the pulp and paper and telecommunications industry, Wixson founded a catering company and small restaurant that served international cuisine featuring organic Maine products. The last meal served at her restaurant was a nine-course meal featuring Petunia, Wixson's pig, that achieved international notoriety when code enforcement determined it was residing illegally in the same neighborhood as novelist Stephen King. Cheryl then retired from the restaurant business to bake cookies and raise crops, rabbits and three daughters on her organic, urban farm in Bangor. In 1999, Wixson built a state-of-the art kitchen and educational facility dedicated to teaching people the joys and benefits of healthy eating and cooking utilizing Maine products while supporting a sustainable environment. Cheryl is a food columnist for the Bangor Daily News, consults with restaurants from Maine to California, develops recipes for food manufacturers and hosted two Maine Public Television series, the latest being What's for Suppah?. She has studied food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine, is a master composter, and teaches kindergarten children that food comes from farms.

Enid Wonnacott has been the Executive Director of New England Organic Farming Association - Vermont since 1987. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from St. Lawrence University and her Masters in Natural Resource Planning from the University of Vermont. Enid was raised on a small farm in Weybridge, VT and spent most of her childhood dreaming about becoming a large animal veterinarian. She now lives on a small farmstead with her family in Huntington.