Board of Directors

Maria Gallace (Chair of the Board) Maria is Events and Charitable Giving Director for East Brown Cow Management, Inc., Portland. She holds advanced degrees in education and has worked professionally and as a volunteer in schools in the Boston area and Maine. She serves on the board of Maine Public Broadcasting Network. Maria lives in Cape Elizabeth.

Edward Simmons (Vice Chair of the Board) Ed has lived on Cousin’s Island in Yarmouth for the past 30 years. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a M.S. from the University of New Hampshire and a Ed.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Having begun his career as a teacher for Lawrenceville School in NJ and the American International School in Vienna, Austria, Ed became headmaster first at the Dunn School in California and later at Sun Valley School in Idaho. In 1987 he became a Senior Vice President at Merrill Lynch in Portland.  He is a partner at Hightower Advisors in Portland. Ed is an active outdoors person who has volunteered his time with a variety of organizations including Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation, Friends of Casco Bay, and Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program.  He is a summer resident of Rangeley.

Bill Meserve (Treasurer of the Board) Bill is a retired partner from the law firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston. He recently moved from Massachusetts to Maine (Falmouth), but he has spent summers on the coast of Maine for much of his life. He serves on the Bingham Foundation Advisory Committee, on the Board of Advisors of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and over the years has been a member of numerous other boards in New England and beyond. Bill has degrees from Tufts, Harvard Law School, and the London School of Economics. He has been an enthusiastic advocate for protection of the Maine Woods and for various other NRCM initiatives. Bill has spent significant amounts of time on all seven continents and the world’s largest island (Greenland), has a glacier named for him in the Antarctic, and has twice hitchhiked across the United States.

Amy Scott (Secretary of the Board) lives with her husband and three children in Greenwood, Maine, and is a Program Manager at the Northern Forest Center. She brings expertise in facilitation and community engagement to her work, drawing on her experience as program and development staff with nonprofits including College of the Atlantic, Western Mountains Alliance, the Bethel Area Nonprofit Collaborative, and CORE. She worked as an associate with Good Group Decisions in Brunswick for several years, consulting with both nonprofit and business clients. Amy believes in the power of authentic relationships and the theory that “we are better together.” She is a Maine Network Partners Fellow and actively applies network theory to her work with communities.

Lucy Abbott of Bethel is a long-time Katahdin Circle member, retired 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.

Aaron Anker of Cape Elizabeth is owner and Chief Granola Officer of GrandyOats. He grew up in upstate New York, near the Adirondacks, and has been a life-long participant in outdoor activities. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire in 1994 with a focus on hospitality, he managed hotel restaurants and vegan cafes in Baltimore, Maryland, and Aspen, Colorado. He then moved to Maine and worked for Fresh Samantha Juice Company for two years before he joined with Nat Pierce to purchase GrandyOats. Aaron enjoys paddleboarding, cycling, swimming, Nordic skiing, and ice skating. Each year he and his family try to hike and explore as many places as they can. Six years ago, he and his business partner installed 288 solar panels at their new granola bakery, an abandoned elementary school that they renovated. It was one of the first food production facilities in the country to go solar. They also removed all the fossil fuels from the premises, earning them an EPA merit award in 2017. During the process of building out the facility and installing solar, NRCM asked if Aaron would testify at the Maine State House in favor of new solar legislation that NRCM supported. He did this and was happy to write letters of support. Aaron is excited to build upon this experience and help NRCM and its mission.

Emily Beck is a retired attorney who moved from New York to Seal Cove in 2005. From 2006 until retiring in 2017 she was an owner and partner of Young Beck LLP, a general practice firm concentrating in Trusts and Estates Planning and Administration, Real Estate, Business and Nonprofit law, and Land Use and Conservation. From 2006 to 2014 she served on the board of directors of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, for which she also edited the annual magazine, Chebacco. She recently concluded 14 years as a director of Friends of Acadia. Currently, she is a member of the board of directors of Maine Coast Heritage Trust and serves on its MDI Lands Committee. Emily holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and a Certificate in Environmental Law from Pace University School of Law.  She loves sailing, hiking, downhill and cross-country skiing, all things Italian, gardening, pottery-making, and the great state of Maine.

Michael Catania of Portland recently retired from the position of executive director of Duke Farms (Hillsborough Township, New Jersey), which serves as a model of environmental stewardship and sustainability. Previously, he was the founder, president, and general counsel of Conservation Resources Inc. (CRI), a nonprofit conservation group that provided financial and technical assistance to the New Jersey conservation community. Michael graduated from Rutgers University and Rutgers School of Law and began his career with the nonpartisan New Jersey Legislative Services Agency, where he drafted many of the state's landmark environmental laws. He spent a decade as a VP with The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey, and has been Deputy Commissioner of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, among other positions. He currently serves as Chair of the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust, as Trustee and Environment Committee Chair of the Victoria Foundation, and was recently appointed to the Portland Parks Commission.

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.

Seana Cullinan of Portland studied art in college and worked as a jewelry designer in New York City and later in Peterborough, NH. After a horticulture internship at Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, NY, she ran her own landscape and garden design business in NH before enrolling in The Conway School, receiving her Master’s Degree in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design. Seana moved to Maine in 2013 and opened Larkspur Design, a design/build landscape company that combines all of her favorite things by focusing on boosting biodiversity and creating connectivity for wildlife by re-introducing native plants into developed landscapes. She imagines that each will become part of a growing network that will weave its way through Southern Maine and beyond, providing food, cover, and connectivity for the insects, birds, and animals of New England.

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 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 for youth as well as the environment. In 2013, she co-founded Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) Midcoast, which successfully achieved ordinances restricting polystyrene foam foodware and single-use plastic bags in Brunswick and Topsham. She is an active member of the Citizens Climate Lobby and loves hiking, skiing, skating, biking, and kayaking in Maine’s fabulous outdoors.

Dennis King was CEO of Maine Behavioral Healthcare. From 1999-2015 he served as the CEO of Spring Harbor Hospital in Westbrook. He was the founding CEO of The Acadia Hospital in northern Maine. He has an MPA from the University of Maine. He and his wife, Sandra, have a camp on Green Lake in Hancock County and have been NRCM members for more than 20 years.

Norton H. (Buzz) Lamb, Jr. of New Gloucester, returns for his third stint on the NRCM board, after reaching his term limit last year. A former computer consultant, Buzz has served on numerous nonprofit boards over years, but still finds time to work several hundred acres of woods and fields. He also shelters horses from an equine abuse center and raises heritage chickens, turkeys, and bees. He has a strong interest in the protection of the North Woods, transportation policy, and land use management. Buzz holds a bachelor degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Peter Millard of Belfast is a family physician and epidemiologist. He grew up in Windham and spent many years working in the Bangor area. He also worked for eight years in southern Africa (Zimbabwe and Mozambique) and is soon to retire from Seaport Community Health Center in Belfast. He lives with his wife Emily in Belfast. They have three children and three grandchildren. He is also on the boards of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Friends of Baxter State Park. He has degrees from Amherst College (BA), University of Vermont (MD), and University of North Carolina (PhD). In another lifetime, Peter competed in the US Olympic Trials in the marathon and now enjoys biking, cross-country skiing, swimming, adventuring, and anything else that gets him outdoors.

Sadie Lloyd Mudge of Waldo brings professional experience in municipal planning, energy efficiency, nonprofit fundraising, and energy planning, and has been a leader in municipal energy planning (particularly solar development) in Maine. She holds a Master’s Degree in Planning from the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Maine, where she conducted research on state demographics and climate change planning. Sadie grew up in Waldo County and currently serves on the board of directors for the Solar Energy Association of Maine as well as on multiple committees for Coastal Mountains Land  Trust. She was a founding member of the NRCM Rising Leadership Team. In her free time, Sadie runs a small business and is an avid adventurer.

Kathryn Olmstead of Caribou is a former journalism faculty member and associate dean at the University of Maine in Orono. She edited Echoes magazine, a quarterly journal of rural culture, from 1988 to 2017, and the anthology Stories of Aroostook: The Best of Echoes Magazine in 2020. She was editor of the weekly newspaper in Caribou, regional representative for US Senator Bill Cohen, and columnist for the Bangor Daily News. A Michigan native and graduate of the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin, she moved to Maine in 1974. She is the author of Flight to Freedom: WWII Through the Eyes of a Child and True North: Finding the Essence of Aroostook. She serves on boards of Maine Public (Broadcasting), the Penobscot Theatre Company, and the UMaine Board of Visitors.

Liz Rettenmaier of Bangor moved to Maine fifteen years ago, and can't believe her luck. She moved from Portland to Bangor ten years ago, spends any winter weekend she can skiing, works from Boothbay Harbor for the summers, and enjoys exploring local hiking trails in the spring and fall. She currently sits on the Bangor Historic Preservation Commission and the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club board of directors. Liz has more than twenty years of policy development, facilitation, and communications experience focusing on environmental and natural resources management and land use. After college, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, and has been looking for opportunities to explore ever since.

Sarah Short is development director at the Mitchell Institute. A native of North Carolina, Sarah spent her summers on Mount Desert Island and always wanted to live in Maine full-time. Prior to moving to Maine, she worked in fundraising at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She recently participated in the Lift 360 nonprofit board member training and chose NRCM as her mentoring organization. She is also active with NRCM Rising. She has a BA from Amherst College and an MBA from Yale University.

Stephanie Smith of Camden has lived full time in Maine since 2016 and started spending summers here in the 1960s. She serves on the Knox County Homeless Coalition Board and has served on the Camden Conservation Commission where she headed up the local ban on plastic bags and polystyrene. She has been active with land trusts both here in Maine and in California. She is a graduate of Bucknell University and Wheelock Graduate School and holds a Bachelor’s and Master's degree in Education, as well as post graduate work specializing in hospitalized children. Her career included close to 20 years as the Director of the Child Life Department at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and 18 as the Director of Parent Services at Matrix Parent Network, a federally funded parent training and information center serving 4 counties north of San Francisco.

Ben Whalen of Windham hails from Massachusetts. He first gained an interest in agriculture working on a cattle ranch in California. He has since worked on farms in Colorado, Vermont, Massachusetts, and now Maine. He prefers his guitar turned up to 11 and loves the scent of lavender. His spirit animal is a Kodiak Bear. Roar. Ben is co-owner with his wife and another couple of the eight-acre Bumbleroot Organic Farm in Windham. On the farm, Ben does everything from seeding greens to weeding and harvesting, and he handles all of the fence-building and accounting for Bumbleroot. On his days off you can find him building a house for his wife Melissa and his dog Bowie, or playing video games. He is involved with MOFGA, Maine Farmland Trust, and the Young Farmer’s Coalition.

Anne Winchester grew up in Brunswick. Like many Mainers, Annie was introduced to the outdoors at an early age. She has camped in the Maine woods, climbed Katahdin (17 times!), and paddled innumerable lakes. After a career spent as a commercial lender in Boston, Annie and her husband, Jock, returned home to Pemaquid, Maine, more than a decade ago.

Bonnie Wood is Professor Emerita of Biology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI). While at UMPI, Bonnie focused on reforming science pedagogy, coining the term “lecture-free teaching” and publishing a book with that title. Her B.A. in Biology is from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior is from the Cornell University Medical College. After living all over the United States, she and her family settled in Maine in 1979. She currently resides in Brunswick where she enjoys anything out-of-doors.