Lucy Abbott
Lucy Abbott (Board Chair) Lucy is a long-time Katahdin Circle member, living in Bethel after retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service. She grew up in Africa and has since worked all over the world. Her decades of experience covering energy and environment issues around the globe have convinced her that petroleum products and production, despite their unprecedented contributions to economic development, are the root of many of our current challenges, from corruption to consumerism to pollution and climate change. Lucy has served on the boards of the Bethel Rotary and Bethel Library Association. And on a lighter note: Since moving to Bethel, she has been a pioneer in developing gardening and home maintenance techniques for the weak, thrifty, and slothful.
Sam Lavallee (Vice Chair) has spent his career focused on clean energy. Since 2022, he has served as Chief Financial Officer of ReVision Energy, where, prior to that, he worked in Project Finance. In that role, he delivered Power Purchase Agreements to schools, governments, and nonprofits so they could decarbonize their electricity supply and save money on their electricity costs without an upfront investment. During his 10 years in this position, Sam earned a post-graduate accounting degree (Southern New Hampshire University) and a Master’s (Villanova) in Business Administration. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & Political Science from the University of Vermont. In addition to his professional skills in financial planning and information technology, Sam’s interests and experiences are in the fields of leadership, vision, and strategic planning. Sam sees serving on the NRCM Board as another opportunity to devote his energy, passion, and skills to the protecting Maine’s environment for future generations.
Karen Herold (Secretary) draws on her legal background and a lifetime of hiking, biking, and paddling to promote sound environmental policies and to protect Maine’s natural areas. A Maine Master Naturalist, she is keenly aware of the importance of older growth forest and undeveloped lakes to the well being of Maine’s ecological health. She has served on a number of boards including Maine Conservation Voters and Maine Conservation Alliance, and served previously as a member of NRCM’s Board of Directors. She lives in Cumberland.
Kevin Kobel (Treasurer) has considerable experience in financial and organizational management. He recently retired from Accenture after a 30-year career. In the last 20 years, he was a Senior Executive in its Growth & Strategy group and collaborated with numerous senior Accenture leaders on growth strategy, market/competitive assessment, financial planning, and operational improvement. Prior to that, he consulted with Global 2000 Clients in the Telecommunications and High Technology industries. He is a graduate of Babson College with a B.S. in Business Administration and earned his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Kevin enjoys hiking, camping, biking, skiing, and boating. He is passionate about preserving and protecting the natural world in Maine. He and his wife Rebecca (who was raised in Maine) moved to Cape Elizabeth from New York City in 2000 to raise their twins Hannah and Christopher.
Sarah Cotton of Hope is passionate about keeping our water clean and clear and protecting natural spaces. After earning her B.A. in Environmental Studies at the College of St. Benedict (MN), Sarah volunteered with AmeriCorps in northern California working on water quality in coastal redwood forests. After enjoying California for a few years, she moved back to her home state of Minnesota and worked for a Soil and Water Conservation District where she coordinated its education and outreach efforts to help landowners take action to conserve natural resources. After visiting Maine several times to see family, she moved here with her husband in 2019. Sarah works in the Admissions Department at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School where she is involved with their custom programs; she works with students and their parents to prepare them for their courses. She loves exploring the many places in Maine to hike, canoe, and sit by the ocean.
Sam Day grew up in the Kennebec River Valley, and after leaving for a few years, returned to build a home in Dresden with his wife, Anna, and their bird dog, Hank. He owns a small construction company, specializing in energy-efficient remodels and new construction. Sam has a long history of advocating for Maine’s environment with NRCM, Trout Unlimited, Say No to NECEC, and others. He served on the board of Maine Rivers prior to joining NRCM. When he’s not swinging a hammer or writing testimony, Sam can be found wading up a trout stream or following his dog through the grouse woods.
Francesca Galluccio-Steele of Portland is a retired elementary school principal with her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Throughout her career she also served as an educational researcher and a lobbyist for the National PTA and the National Education Association in Washington, DC. Prior to moving to Maine, she and her family lived in many parts of the country, enjoying the natural world each place offered. Francesca has served on the Maine Audubon board and has served as a family court mediator. Presently she is on the boards of Greater Portland Landmarks and Sea Change Yoga. She is an award-winning photographer, avid gardener, and inveterate world traveler. Preserving the natural world and working to limit climate change are her passions.
Marcia Harrington is a survey researcher specializing in evaluations of program effectiveness for government, private, and nonprofit organizations. Her passion, however, is advocacy and community organizing to protect the environment. In 2013, she co-founded Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) Midcoast, which coordinated with NRCM’s staff to successfully pass ordinances restricting polystyrene foam food ware and single-use plastic bags in Brunswick and Topsham; this measure is now statewide. In 2022, she helped lead a group to preserve a large parcel of varied habitats that drained to Maquoit Bay. She is an active member of the Citizens Climate Lobby and loves hiking, cross-country skiing, skating, biking, and kayaking in Maine’s one-of-a-kind outdoors.
Nancy Hasenfus grew up in rural Maine and has been concerned about environmental issues since a young age. She got a Master's in Education and then a PhD in psychology from the University of Maine, and went on to get an MD from Tufts. She practiced primary care Internal Medicine for 33 years. She was the governor of the Maine Chapter of the American College of Physicians from 2010 to 2014. Now in retirement, her main concerns have been expanding access to healthcare and promoting effective environmental legislation. She lives with her husband in Brunswick and is a member of the MaineHealth Board, the Maine Behavioral Healthcare Board and ALIC (the Androscoggin Lake board). Most of her volunteer effort in recent years has been through the Citizens' Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan group advocating for a carbon fee and other environmental legislation.
Al Manville has extensive experience working in the conservation and wildlife management arenas both as a 23-year federal employee (National Park Service Ranger Naturalist, USDA Botanical Research Assistant, and Branch Chief/Senior Wildlife Biologist for USFWS) and from his 19 years working for conservation organizations (Vice President at Defenders of Wildlife; Executive Director, Adirondack Mountain Club; among others). This work includes extensive fundraising and constituent engagement. Al continues to teach part-time as a Senior Lecturer/Adjunct Wildlife Professor at Johns Hopkins University, including in Acadia National Park. He holds a B.S. in Zoology from Allegheny College; an M.S. in Natural Resources and Wildlife Management from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point; and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology and Management from Michigan State University. He has testified on more than forty occasions before Congress and related bodies. He has conducted numerous research efforts globally, is a widely published author, and has been a go-to for media. A Certified Wildlife Biologist, Al is also a private pilot, wildlife photographer, kayaker, and dog owner. He and his wife Sandy Scholar have co-owned a camp on Moosehead Lake for 31 years—his favorite wildlife retreat.
Liz Rettenmaier moved to Maine in 2002 after calling the DC area home for most of her life. She is the Vice President of Council Oak, a small woman-owned public policy consulting firm, with more than 25 years of experience working as a senior facilitator supporting water resources and natural resources policy and program development for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of the Interior, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With master’s degrees in Natural Resources Policy and Urban Planning from University of Michigan, Liz moved to Maine to work for the State Planning Office in 2002, until she returned to the life of a work-from-home consultant. Liz lives in Bangor with her husband and two teenagers and can be found in Boothbay Harbor for the summers, exploring local hiking trails in the spring and fall, and probably at Sugarloaf most weekends in the winter — enjoying the splendor of Maine from one end of Route 27 to the other. After college, Liz was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, and has been looking for opportunities to explore ever since.
Sarah Short has been a member of NRCM since she moved to Maine over a decade ago. She is most passionate about finding and implementing solutions to climate change, and also has also strongly supported NRCM's other priorities as a member and as a board member from 2015 to 2022. Professionally, she has worked at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Mitchell Institute, Buckingham Browne and Nichols School, and Portland Public Schools, primarily in fundraising. She has a BA from Amherst College and an MBA from Yale University in nonprofit management. Even when she has not lived in Maine full-time, she has always spent summers on Mount Desert Island. Sarah currently lives full-time in Portland with her teenage daughter.
