Lisa DeSisto was last on our show in 2014, so she joined us recently to update us on the goings-on at MaineToday Media and the Portland Press Herald. She had been in Boston before moving to Maine, but found that lifestyle to be “soul crushing” and it was sucking the joy out of her life with her husband. When the opportunity presented itself to move to Maine and help run the Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, she jumped on it and hasn’t looked back since. She’s helped build the brand to be better focused on communications with subscribers and to create an online presence that has helped to keep the paper current. Continue reading →

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Brewer native Doug Farnham never had dreams of serving his country, he just wanted to get out of Maine for awhile. It’s not an uncommon motive for many young Mainers. So Farnham joined the US Air Force. He had no real interest in aviation or the military, but he wanted to be challenged and he wanted a new opportunity. Farnham always knew he wanted to come back to Maine, though. He wanted to be a part of the 4th generation to run his family business, Getchell Brothers, Inc. Continue reading →

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Running out of beer is one of those “good problems” for a brewery to have. Bissell Brothers Brewing, known for it’s 3-B’s logo and hop-filled IPAs, officially opened it’s doors on December 7th, 2013 and hasn’t been able to turn out enough beer since. While Peter joined us in-studio to talk business, it was Noah Bissell’s goal to start the brewery. He started home-brewing while in college and realized the potential of a craft brewery in Portland while staying with Peter in the summer of 2010. The following fall, Noah shared a new home brew with the family. Peter remembers it tasting distinctly like “licking an ashtray,” but many of Noah’s other recipes had been good and in 2012 Noah and Peter really started considering the possibility of owning and operating their own brewery. Continue reading →

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GrandyOat’s Aaron Anker came to Maine in 1998. Originally from upstate New York, Anker attended the University of New Hampshire where he met classmate Nat Pierce. The rest of the GrandyOats story isn’t exactly “happily ever after,” but it’s close enough. Continue reading →

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Growing up, Leif Oxburgh split his time between Scotland, where he went to high school and Sweden, where he got his Ph. D. In 1999, he received an opportunity to study in a lab at Harvard and moved to the states. He studied the influenza virus until 2004 when he was ready for a new endeavor. In 2004, when Maine Medical Center’s Research Institute was still in it’s infancy, Dr. Oxburgh accepted a position as a Faculty Scientist and began his research on nephrology and stem cells and the possibilities of growing or assembling a lab-created kidney. Continue reading →

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Heather Davis moved to Maine because it seemed like a good place to raise a family. The self-declared “bookworm” found her calling while teaching a creative writing class to kids in Harlem. From there she co-founded a writing center in Texas called the Austin Bat Cave. After the birth of her daughter in 2007, she and her husband decided to move back to the east coast to be closer to family and decided Portland would be a suitable place to live. She discovered Portland’s The Telling Room, a non-profit writing center for school-aged children and knew it was the place for her. She has been the Executive Director since 2011 and was crucial to helping the organization win a National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award along with a grant for $10,000. Continue reading →

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Have you ever seen the stacks of shipping containers at the end of Commercial Street in Portland and wonder where they came from? So did Maine artist Justin Levesque. After arriving home from an Icelandic vacation, he recognized Eimskip’s Icelandic name and started thinking about why they were here. Levesque holds a BFA from USM where he specialized in the critical analysis of images and their impact on social norms and community expectations. His ICELANDx207 project will ultimately focus on portraits of Icelanders in Maine, the revitalized shipping industry in Portland, Maine and a podcast of Levesque’s journey aboard MV Selfoss from Portland to Reykjavik. Continue reading →

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What do you do when your locally-made, custom-ordered apparel start-up company needs employees and there’s no one in the area capable to do the work? If you’re Ben Waxman and Whitney Reynolds, you partner with other local companies to recruit and train the workforce you need. American Roots, owned by Waxman and Reynolds, is the sister company to Old Port Wool and Textiles, owned by Waxman’s mother, Dory Waxman. They are a custom-made fleece apparel company based in downtown Portland and their orders are coming in so quickly, they’re fast outgrowing their Danforth Street shop. With business-to-business orders keeping them busy through the summer of 2016, this new Portland business is already looking to grow – and fast. Continue reading →

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It’s been over 100 episodes since Paul Bradbury last joined us on TideSmart Talk and a lot has happened at our favorite jetport. Since the $163 million renovation, Portland International Jetport was named #7 on Condé Nast Traveler’s Best Airports in America. It also had it’s best year with the most annual travelers to date. Bradbury shared all the good news and some other fun facts with us on this visit to the TideSmart Talk studio. Continue reading →

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Joanne Crepeau has been a Mainer her whole life. She has also been a girl scout her whole life. With a career background in non-profit management, she seemed like the perfect fit to lead the Girl Scouts of Maine when the position became available in 2003. Since then, she has been leading the group of 14,000 members. Continue reading →

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