Jack McDonald has spent more than 30 years in athletics; he was planning his retirement party when he saw a press release from the University of New England stating that they were planning on adding women’s rugby and football to their sports program by 2017. He inquired about the new sports and President Ripich followed up by asking him for his advice, as well as when the school posted the Director of Athletics position. McDonald couldn’t resist, he’s now the Associate Vice President and Director of Athletics at the University of New England.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed UNE’s Director of Athletics, Jack McDonald (at right).

McDonald was born and raised in Braintree, Massachusetts, he was the oldest of 11 children. His father was a football player and tried to instill the importance of athletics in all his children. In an attempt to honor his father’s wishes, McDonald tried out for football and was unfortunately cut from the team; he then tried out for basketball and was also cut and this continued when he tried out for baseball as well. He was determined to participate in athletics so he joined the track team. Becoming a runner helped shape McDonald’s career as he credits his time coaching Track and Field/Cross Country to helping him become a good leader. He says athletes of all types are welcome to join those teams, and coaching athletes of all types was a good learning experience.

His first full time coaching position was at Boston College when the women’s track team became a NCAA sanctioned sport at the school. If a school enrolls 70% women then 70% of athletic spending needs to go toward women’s teams. This is called Title IX, which means that an enrollment percentage of men-to-women needs to be the same for athletic spending. Stevoe asked McDonald about how Title IX has affected his career, his immediate response was “I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for Title IX.” At the DIII level there are no athletic scholarships so spending is solely dedicated to the teams and not the individual athletes.

McDonald has spent his whole career at DI schools (staying busy trying to elevate DII schools to DI). Instead of retiring he accepted the position at UNE, a DIII school, he feels that DIII athletics are more “wholesome and clean” because the athletes at these schools aren’t playing for the money. The NCAA has a marketing campaign that states “there are over 380,000 student athletes, and most of us go pro in something other than sports.” At a DIII school like UNE this is especially true; athletes at these schools participate because they love the sport, the athleticism and the camaraderie.

McDonald is looking forward to this atmosphere after spending his whole career in DI athletics where media buys, getting the big games aired on TV, scholarship money, and politics takes precedence over the athletics and athletes themselves. He does believe that the NCAA does a great job keeping athletes in school, however with some DI schools education becomes secondary. Thankfully, this shouldn’t be an issue at UNE.

To connect with UNE Athletics, visit athletics.une.edu.

Follow UNE Athletics on twitter @UNESports.

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Glen Brand is a Florida transplant who was brought to Maine for love (which is a great reason to come to Maine). He has been working with the Sierra Club since 1998 and has headed up the Maine chapter since 2012. The main focus of the Club is to “explore, enjoy, and protect the environment.” It was founded in 1892 in California as a “hiking club” with the goal to conserve and dedicate land for outdoor exploration.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Director of the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club, Glen Brand.

As conservation and ecological issues grow and shift priority, so do the goals of the Sierra Club. Brand explained that while not totally responsible, the Sierra Club and it’s volunteer-based “grassroots organizing” helped to create the National Parks system (with a focus on Yosemite) that other countries now mimic. In the 1940’s and 1950’s when focus pollution was a big conservation issue, it became the focus of the Club; in the 1960’s when conservation and sustainability started to become political platforms, the Sierra Club took the opportunity to publicize their goals to gain support.

While Maine did not have it’s own chapter until the 1990’s, the volunteers were part of a bigger New England based group. There are over 14,000 volunteer members in Maine (with more than 2 million nationwide). The focuses of the Maine chapter are: climate change and solutions/adaptability, conservation of Maine’s land and forests (including issues such as tar sands and destructive dredging), and passenger travel around the state (e.g. electric vehicles, widened train system).

The Maine chapter of the Sierra Club is currently focusing on Climate Action Teams, or CATs. There are CATs located throughout the state – all with different goals and events. The Maine chapter is holding a Maine Grassroots Climate Action Conference on October 17th at Unity College. For more information, visit sierraclub.org/maine.

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Pete Brown was born and raised in Maine and now he’s working to make it a better place for young adults with developmental disabilities. He’s been working with PSL, the agency that supports the STRIVE program, since 1998. Now, as the Program Director, Brown oversees the ever-growing program list for the agency’s ~900 clients.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Pete Brown, Associate Director of PSL/STRIVE(at right).

PSL is an agency that is partially funded by the office of Adults with Cognitive and Physical Disabilities and the Office of Adult Mental Health Services. Although PSL offers many privately paid services, such as Friday Night Socials and a Wednesday Night Education series, Medicaid pays for their residential program, STRIVEU. STRIVEU is a two year residential program that gives young adults the opportunity to receive a post-secondary education while also teaching them life skills, home skills, and how to be an active member of their community. Brown stated that for every STRIVEU alum, the government saves ~$50,000 versus a similar person who may live in a group home or utilize more social programs.

They try to offer programs that fit the needs and wants of their clients and the community – programs that the state is unlikely to offer or pay for. Brown says when PSL comes up with an idea that benefits their clients, they’ll make it work regardless of whether or not they have the funding. If they won’t receive government support for the project, then they will go out and raise the money themselves. The STRIVE Rocks! Dance Marathon, held annually at the Maine Mall is one of their bigger fundraisers. Currently, PSL is trying to raise money to purchase their office space on Foden Road in South Portland and to support a new program called TOPS (Transitioning for Preparing Students).
For more information about PSL’s programs, how to volunteer, or to donate to PSL/STRIVE, visit their website at pslstrive.org.
They’re also on Facebook (facebook.com/STRIVEnation) and Twitter (@STRIVE_PSL).

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Paul Andrew Mayewski is a scientist, an educator, an explorer, and a climatologist. Born in Scotland, Mayewski was raised and educated in New York and has been working as a scientist and climatologist ever since. He has been the Director of the UMaine Climate Institute since 2000.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed the Director of the UMaine Climate Institute, Paul Mayewski (at right).

As the Director of the Climate Institute, Mayewski is leading one of the oldest groups in America to be studying climate change. There are over 130 staff and faculty members, which is split pretty evenly between graduate/post-graduate students and and faculty/staff. While there has been more focus on climate change in the last few years, the group at UMaine has niche research that “ranks” them above many other research groups.

With over 375 peer-reviewed publications and 55 research expeditions led, Mayewski is well read and well traveled. He has been to some of the most remote parts of our planet including multiple trips to Antarctica, the only internationally managed land in the world. In order to visit the continent, you must get permission from your home country as there is no one group that manages travel to and from Antarctica. Mayewski describes the scenery as silent and beautiful – a place where sometimes the only thing you can hear is your heart beat. A few miles from the coast, there are no animals, just mountains and crevasses. It’s in these parts of the continent where the ice can get up to 10,000 feet thick (with an average thickness of 6,000 feet). It’s in these places where Mayewski takes core samples from the ice to study the history of the climate. He says that with one ice core he can perform over 100 measurements and he describes them as the “most robust indicator” of the climate over time.

Mayewski and Stevoe discussed how climate change is going to affect Maine and Mayewski says it’s not all bad news. While other parts of the country (e.g. California) are going to continue to experience extreme droughts, Maine and the northeast is going to experience and uptick in precipitation. While the precipitation may come during any season, it will create a better environment for crops, encouraging “climate refugees” to migrate to our region. This is obviously not all good news: This could also mean we get more snow and more ice in the winter and possible flooding in the spring and summer. An increase of population and precipitation in the area would mean that municipalities would have to focus on updating infrastructures to handle the extra people and increased chance of flooding.

For more information about Maine’s climate future, applying for graduate school at UMaine, the Institute’s upcoming trips and more, visit their website: climatechange.umaine.edu.

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Portland City Councilman Jon Hinck has had an interesting career leading up to his current position. He has been a lawyer, a legislator, an Attorney General in the Republic of Palau, a director for Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International, and now he’s working in local government. Among his other interests and passions, he is currently focused on the minimum wage issue in Portland and how to attack the budget challenges, the city’s high property taxes, and making Portland more enjoyable for walkers and bikers.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Portland City Councilman, Jon Hinck (at right).

Hinck had no real intention of becoming a lawyer earlier in his life. He spent time selling advertising, managing a movie theater and eventually booking/buying the media for the theater. He then saw an job post to “sell advertising for a good cause” for Greenpeace and while he didn’t disagree with any of the organizations objectives, he wasn’t passionate about them either. After 10 years working for Greenpeace, it became who he was. He eventually became the Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA and went back to law school at 33.

After an absence of almost 10 years, Hinck took another position with Greenpeace: Campaign Director of Greenpeace International, where he started an initiative to emphasize protection of the world’s ancient forests and to focus more on the dangers of climate change. He has also done work as an attorney representing working class citizens in class action cases, commercial fishermen in the Exxon-Valdez suit, and the state of Maine against tobacco companies. He has made his career on environmental issues, but is now focusing his attention on Portland’s latest issue: raising minimum wage. Hinck has been a public supporter of the $10.10 per hour minimum wage (increasing to $10.68 in 2016 and raising with inflation every year following) where the rest of the council has been supporting an increase to $8.75. Both plans are subject to a referendum in November to increase the minimum wage in the state to $9.00 per hour for 2016 with a $1 increase yearly until it reaches $12.00.

Hinck is currently in the middle of his term and is not up for re-election for another year and a half.

You can follow him on Twitter @JonHinck.

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Holly Seeliger is a woman of many passions. She is a political blogger, a producer of burlesque shows, an activist, an environmentalist, and the District Two representative for the Portland School Board. She is a product of Maine’s public schools: she grew up and graduated from North Berwick’s schools and earned a Political Science degree from the University of Southern Maine. She is a big believer that in order to enact change, we must “think globally; act locally.”

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Portland School Board Member, Holly Seeliger (at right).

Holly Seeliger considers herself an artist and activist. Her passions are all forms of expression for her. She first was inspired to become involved in activism and politics in 1992 when her elementary school class held a mock election and she fell in love with the process of voting. She has since graduated to participating in political events such as Occupy Maine in 2011/2012. She then took local politics into her own hands and ran for a Portland School Board seat at the encouragement of her neighbors in the West End.

Seeliger won her seat over a candidate with kids in the district who out spent her by more than double. Seeliger went door-to-door and painted her own signs to get her name out there. She was elected in 2012 and spent most of her first year learning about the process and becoming accustomed to her new role. She is the representative for the West End, Parkside, and Libbytown neighborhoods.

Her campaign ends at the end of this year and will be running for re-election. For more information about Holly, or to connect with her, she has a website (hollyseeliger.com) and is on twitter @hollyseeliger.

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You would think that the Director of Tourism in Maine would be a native Mainer, but maybe it’s more fitting that it’s someone who experienced Maine as a tourist first. Carolann Ouellette is “from away,” but was recently profiled as one of “50 Mainers Boldly Leading Our State” in Maine Magazine. She grew up in New Jersey and summered in Maine. She graduated from Cornell’s Hotel Administration program and moved to Maine to become the owner/chef of a restaurant in Jackman. Her passion for the outdoors (skiing, snowmobiling, fishing, hiking, etc.) has taken her all the way to her current position: Director of the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT).

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Director of the Maine Office of Tourism, Carolann Ouellette (at right).

Carolann Ouellette has always had a passion for the outdoors so after moving to Jackman and opening her own restaurant, she also ended up getting involved with outdoor companies such as New England Outdoor Center, Sugarloaf, and eventually became a board member of the Maine Tourism Association. She took her experience from being a tourist and working in the industry and applied for the position of Deputy Director of the MOT in 2007. In 2011, she was promoted to Director, where she’s been since. The MOT consists of seven employees who’s goal is to make Maine a “premiere four season destination.” While many Mainers may consider the state as such already, the focus is to pull more people into the state in the winter months and also to direct them to parts of the state that aren’t as affected. As it stands, tourism in Maine has a 8 billion dollar impact on the state, with 5.4 billion dollars in direct spending (lodging, travel, recreation, etc.).

Ouellette talked about how they advertise in other markets in order to get people here. She said that most of the state’s tourists come from Massachusetts, with the other New England states following closely. The next biggest market is the Mid-Atlantic region (Virginia/DC/Baltimore) and greater New York City, where they have just started advertising in the last couple years. This last year, their marketing has reached as far as Charlotte, NC. She finds that many visitors come from Eastern Canada where many Mainers also visit, but they do not market in Canada.

The newest marketing campaign for the MOT is that Maine is the place to “follow your inner compass and completely be yourself.” The campaign is focused on story telling, which they call “Telling My Maine Story.” Stevoe pitched his “Maine Story,” talking about his favorite part of the state (Bar Harbor) and the seemingly endless miles of snowmobile and ATV trails. Many people may not know that almost all of Maine’s trails are maintained by volunteers and many are on private property that the owners have allowed the trails to cross. Ouellette stated that there are over 14,000 miles of snowmobile trails alone.

For more information about tourism in Maine, visit the MOT website and subscribe to their quarterly e-mag, “The Maine Thing Quarterly.”

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Greg Dufour was born and raised in the Old Town area. He jokes that he spent most of his life in college as his father taught at UMaine Orono and went to preschool on campus. After graduating UMO with a Business/Finance degree, he and his wife decided that there was more to life than Old Town and they moved to Texas so Greg could get his MBA. Like many Mainers, he realized after graduation that there’s no place like Maine and they moved back immediately and Dufour started working for Fleet Bank.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, sits with President & CEO of Camden National Bank, Greg Dufour (at right).

Dufour has worked in banks all across New England, but has been working for Camden National Bank since 2001 when he was hired as their CFO. The bank has had a goal to grow within the communities of Maine, but to do it methodically and strategically. When the Bank of Maine gave notice that they were looking for bids to buy out the company, Camden National Bank (CNB) found that it was the perfect opportunity for growth. With the buy-out, which they’re calling more of a “merger”, CNB will become the largest locally owned bank chain in Maine. There will be over 400 employees serving more than 60,000 customers.

Camden National Bank was founded in 1875 by a board of six members and grew slowly along the mid-coast in its first 90 years in business. They’ve been operating from the same location since they’re inception and will continue to do so after the merger. The banks focus has always been on the community and Dufour believes that the strength and growth of the bank will only be as strong as the communities they’re in. Because of this, CNB has started community programs, like their “hope@home” program that promises to donate $100 to homeless shelters in Maine every time someone finances a home purchase through them in 2015. Dufour says that financial literacy is so much more important than people realize, so employees take the time to make sure customers understand their finances while working with CNB.
Finally, Dufour and Stevoe discussed the future of the $10 bill. Dufour said that if given the opportunity to choose the woman to replace Hamilton, he would choose Margaret Chase Smith and I bet most other Mainers would agree.

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Eliot Cutler has a long, storied political career. He worked for decades in Washington, DC under Senator Muskie and continued to his work in DC overseeing policies and budgets for multiple agencies. After two gubernatorial campaigns in Maine, Cutler is taking on a new project: creating a professional graduate center that will combine the UMaine Law program, the USM and UMaine Orono MBA programs, and the USM Muskie School of Public Service.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, recently welcomed former gubernatorial candidate, Eliot Cutler (right).

Cutler joined Stevoe recently to discuss his new endeavor, named the Maine Center for Graduate Professional Studies. The idea was sparked during one of Cutler’s speeches on education in January 2009. It then caught steam as the Chancellor of the UMaine System, Jim Page, decided to see if it was feasible. Cutler was brought on board as the CEO of the new center earlier this year. His job, until September 2016, is to create a business model, find funding, and to work out how the center would operate.

The main idea behind the graduate professional center is to give students a more well-rounded, community focused education. The schools were finding that the law graduates had little business experience and the business students had little law experience; knowledge in both areas is crucial for students to succeed in their careers. Cutler hopes the center will bring faculty and students together so they can learn from each other: students will explain their needs to the professors. Nowadays, students are more aware of what employers are looking for in potential hires, where the professors are less aware.

The schools will all work together to make education affordable and accessible to Maine students. Cutler believes that in order to increase business in our state, it has to start with well educated, well rounded, well prepared students and that is the goal of the Maine Center of Graduate Professional Studies.

The idea is still new and information is still limited, so for more information keep your finger on the pulse this fall to hear more.

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Paul Doiron has always wanted to be a writer. He was born and raised in Southern Maine and like a lot of young people, he felt like he had to “get out.” After some traveling and working and experiences, he ended up back in Maine, like a lot of young people, at his parent’s house. Being back in Maine reminded him what he enjoyed the most growing up: the outdoors and writing.

Host of TideSmart Talk with Stevoe, Steve Woods, welcomed Maine author Paul Doiron (right).

Doiron eventually found himself at Down East Magazine where he started as an Associate Editor, moved up to Managing Editor, and eventually was the Editor-in-Chief from 2005 to 2013. In 2013 he decided that it was time to pursue his dream full time and left the magazine to become an author. He remains and Editor emeritus at the magazine to this day.

“The Precipice” is Doiron’s sixth novel (of seven contracted novels) in his Mike Bowditch series about a game warden in Maine. The stories are crime-mysteries with this latest book set in the 100-mile wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail. The story is about two young female hikers who go missing and without giving away too many details for those who haven’t read the book yet, Doiron describes the rest as “grizzly.”

A game warden was chosen as Doiron’s main character because he has always found them to be interesting. Many people don’t realize that they are officers of the law that are often involved in the same cases as police officers and they’re located everywhere throughout the state.

Doiron talks about the business of writing and his approach to it. Because of his background in journalism, he is a firm believer of writing a little bit every day, but it also comes pretty easily to him to do so. While he’s used outlines in the past, writing for Doiron is a journey. He knows how he wants his stories to end, but the path to get there is as much of a mystery to him as it is to his readers. His advice to writers who tend to get stuck? Just write it down. Even if it’s lousy writing, just put words on paper. It can always be edited later.

He also discussed what it’s like to see his works published. Doiron receives the finished product at his door and says there’s nothing like the moment when he opens the box full of his own work, no matter how many he’s published before. “The Precipice” is on sale now at book stores everywhere. Support your local book store!

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