Annie Hopkins
Chris Bartlett
Annie Hopkins
Mike Boardman
Annie Hopkins
Pete Colman
Annie Hopkins
Becca Cusick
Annie Hopkins
Sandi McRae Duchesne

Chris Bartlett

Chris Bartlett has served as the Marine Extension Associate for Eastern Maine of University of Maine’s Sea Grant since 1995. He works closely with coastal organizations, researchers, and resource managers on issues pertaining to commercial fishing and finfish aquaculture. Chris coordinates training and workshops, provides technical field assistance, and offers organizational support for groups engaged in commercial fisheries and aquaculture management. His interests also include collaborating with regional school groups to engage students in marine research and monitoring programs.

Mike Boardman

North Yarmouth, Maine based artist and Maine Master Naturalist Michael Boardman uses field sketching as a way to inform and connect with his wildlife subjects. He’s been fortunate to be accepted for numerous artist residencies in Maine and Alaska, including Acadia, Glacier Bay and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he explores the connection between conservation science and art.

Colin Brown

Colin Brown is the Executive Director at Downeast Coastal Conservancy. He has a passion for connecting children and adults to the outdoors and has worked as an environmental educator and naturalist in many parts of New England. Colin has a BA in Sociology from the University of Connecticut and in his spare time enjoys hiking, camping, kayaking, birding, gardening, playing music, and spending time with his family.

Susan Cline

Susan Cline has lived on Campobello Island all her life. Since a young child, she has been curious about the natural world around her. Since 2006 Susan has been a summer employee at Herring Cove Provincial Park, enabling her to continue expanding her knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Island. Since 2012 she has particularly focused on identifying birds and learning their songs and behavior.

Becca Cusick

Becca Cusick is a naturalist and the term biological technician for Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, where she assists refuge staff with the execution of various inventory, monitoring, and habitat management projects across the complex.  Becca started her interest in birding through participation in the Rhode Island Nature Conservancy’s annual BioBlitz as a teenager, which contributed to the completion of her degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Maine.  Since then, Becca has professionally and recreationally assisted with various facets of bird monitoring, from Christmas Bird Counts across New England to wild turkey trapping in Nebraska.  This is her first year officially guiding for the festival, but she is looking forward to meeting, teaching, and learning from fellow birders visiting the Downeast Region this spring.

Bob Duchesne

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Bob Duchesne became interested in birds in the first grade. Interest grew to passion, and today Bob is a chapter board member and frequent field trip leader for Maine Audubon. He spearheaded creation of the Maine Birding Trail, which launched in 2009, and is the author of Maine Birding Trail: The Official Guide to More than 260 Accessible Sites. Currently, Bob writes weekly birding columns in the Bangor Daily News and produces YouTube videos about birding in Maine and beyond.

Sandi McRae Duchesne

Sandi McRae Duchesne is an avid birder - and coastal Washington County is her favorite place to go birding in late May!  She has guided for the Down East Spring Birding Festival almost every year since its inception in 2004.  In her 30+ years as a board member and past President of the Penobscot Valley Chapter of Maine Audubon, Sandi has also developed and led numerous single-day, weekend, and week-long birding trips in Maine, eastern Canada, NH, and south Florida.  She is a retired civil engineer and Navy officer, and currently serves on the Maine Audubon Board of Trustees.

Woody Gillies

Woody Gillies has had an interest in birds since his mother introduced him to backyard birding at an early age. When he was in junior high, he tagged along with his older brother who was taking a field ornithology course in college. Woody is a retired Professor Emeritus from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY where he taught chemistry for thirty-five years. He was a member of the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club and of Mass Audubon, and past president of Fundy Audubon, a local chapter of Maine Audubon. Woody has birded in the Canadian Maritimes, Central America, Australia, and Europe. As a Downeast regional coordinator for the 2018-2022 Maine Bird Atlas and Winter Bird Survey, he has spent many hours birding lesser-known areas of Washington County. Woody has been interested in nature photography most of his adult life and has photographed birds wherever his travels take him.   

Fred and Linda Gralenski

Fred and Linda Gralenski left their secure jobs and their home in the Boston area (Fred was a project engineer for Raytheon Missile Systems and Linda was a medical secretary at Mass General Hospital) and attained their dream in 1988 by building a log home on the shore of Cobscook Bay on land that they could almost afford. They had been involved with nature even before they got here with MA and NH Audubon societies, and they continue; with birds, amphibians, reptiles, and Lepidoptera being their favorites. Mammal study, botany, photography, and other entomology are not far behind. In her spare time Linda is heavily involved with hospice and the Board of Directors of the Calais Regional Hospital, and along with Fred, puts in many hours a week at the Pembroke Library. Fred is president of the Pembroke Library and also writes the “Quoddy Nature Notes” column for the Quoddy Tides newspaper.

Captain Butch Harris

Born and raised in Eastport, Captain Butch Harris has been a seafaring man all his life as a fisherman, boat builder, and boat captain. Butch has fished for lobsters, scallops, and urchins, has worked in the farmed salmon business, and has been taking fishing parties out to sea for decades. During the summer, he captains nature cruises on the Pier Pressure, a classic lobster boat. He also captains his whale-watching boat and dinner cruises.

Shaun Haskins

Shaun Haskins joined the Cobscook Institute team in August 2022. As co-director and director of development, his role is to ensure that Cobscook is clearly and effectively articulating its vision and its mission, and to connect with partners in the community who can help us execute on that mission in a sustainable and impactful way. That mission aligns powerfully with Shaun’s previous work, which has always been based on a philosophy of local community empowerment. In practice, this has included facilitation of community conversations on the sharing and gift economy, leadership of autonomous collectives, and work as a communications team member for the Occupy movement in Eugene, Oregon. He has also built up a portfolio of educational, administrative and management skills as a teacher and higher education administrator over the past two decades, serving most recently as a business operations manager at the University of Oregon.

After growing up in central Maine, Shaun took off to explore the world, landing in Boston; South Korea; Nashville, Tennessee; and southern Arizona.He eventually settled in the Pacific Northwest for more than a decade before returning to Maine with his partner, their child, and their two black cats Edith and Humphrey. Shaun is a lifelong learner and loves reading and watching videos about theoretical physics, astronomy, political philosophy, and more practical topics like woodworking (he’s making good progress in setting up his home workshop). He also thrives in the outdoors, whether hiking, canoeing, foraging, or cycling, and is excited for the huge range of outdoor opportunities that Washington County presents.

Doug Hitchcox

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Doug Hitchcox, a Maine native, grew up in Hollis and graduated from the University of Maine in 2011. Throughout college Doug worked at Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center, and he was hired as Maine Audubon’s staff naturalist in the summer of 2013. He was also the Outreach Coordinator for the 2018-2022 Maine Bird Atlas. In his free time, Doug volunteers as one of Maine’s eBird reviewers, and he’s the moderator of Maine’s birding listserv and rare bird GroupMe. He also serves as a York County Audubon board member and is a voting member of the Maine Bird Records Committee.

Anne Shields Hopkins

Pronouns: they/them/theirs

Anne/Annie Hopkins is the Programs Coordinator at Cobscook Institute. They made plans for their first date with their husband at Ricefest 2008. That winter they lived on Commissary Point and taught arts classes to homeschooled youth. Their life brought them across Kapskuk to Eastport and in 2020 their family of 5 moved home to North Trescott. In 2021 Anne taught artistic empowerment courses here at Cobscook Institute and was hired as Programs Coordinator in 2022.

Anne is thrilled to be part of the team here at Espokehkitimok Kapskuk. They truly thrive when they are able to creatively support multi-generational community events. Anne absolutely adores doing this work as part of an institution that prioritizes distributed leadership, diversity and sliding scale educational opportunities.

Bill Kolodnicki

Bill Kolodnicki, a retired Refuge Manager with the U.S. Fish and  Wildlife Service, was stationed at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge from 2004 to 2016. Previously he was at the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, Long Island NWR Complex, and with the National Audubon Society. He has been a bird watcher all his life and his graduate work dealt with colonial nesting water birds.

Cathy Lookabaugh

Cathy Lookabaugh joined the Downeast Coastal Conservancy team in February 2020 as the Membership and Outreach Director. Originally from New Jersey, she first moved to the state to attend the University of Maine in Orono, where she graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and a B.A. in Mathematics. Her passion for outdoor recreation and her love for sharing nature with others led her to become a Registered Maine Recreation Guide and gain a certification as a Maine Master Naturalist. Cathy lives in Lubec with her husband Ian; you might run into them hiking on local trails or out kayaking in Cobscook Bay.

Spencer McCormick

Spencer found his passion for boating in 2016 while earning his Adventure Recreation and Tourism degree at Washington County Community College in Calais, ME. He can be found sea kayaking and sailing around Cobscook Bay or at the Calais Skatepark teaching skateboarding lessons. He is the Cobscook Shores Outdoor Education Program Coordinator where 12 Cobscook Bay area schools explore local parks via hiking, biking, paddling, x-country skiing and snowshoeing.

Spencer holds a Maine Guide license in Recreation and Sea Kayaking, ACA Level 2 Tandem River Canoe Instructor, ACA Level 3 Coastal Kayak Instructor, Leave No Trace Outdoor Trainer, Wilderness First Responder, and is a Certified Athletic Trainer.

Spencer finds great joy in empowering individuals to overcome personal challenges in unfamiliar environments.

Maurry Mills

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Maurry Mills is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and has been stationed at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge since 1985. He is one of the original founders of the Downeast Birding Festival and has served on every planning committee since the festival’s beginning. During his 49-year career with the National Wildlife Refuge system, he also has worked at the Rachel Carson Refuge in southern Maine and the Great Swamp Refuge in New Jersey. He is the state coordinator for the annual American Woodcock Singing Ground Survey and the Breeding Bird Survey. One of his specialties is geospatial technology: He is responsible for maintaining databases and  generating maps and reports for the Northern Maine Refuge Complex using GIS and GPS applications.

Maurry has been watching birds and other wildlife since the early 1970s. Although his primary interest is in migratory birds, he has also worked with mammals, herps, and vernal pools, and managed forest, wetlands, and grassland habitats for a wide variety of wildlife species.  He has also conducted numerous environmental education, interpretation, and outreach programs. He was the handler and caregiver for Bart, a permanently injured Bald Eagle, for 15 years. During that time he visited all the grammar schools in Washington County and other events throughout the state of Maine, presenting programs on the history and life cycle of the Bald Eagle.

One of his current assignments is finalizing Moosehorn’s Habitat Management Plan, which will guide the Refuge’s course of management over the next 15 years. He is also a licensed amateur radio operator with a station capable of providing emergency communications worldwide during events when standard radio and telephone systems are inoperable. During the first few years of his life, he lived on a family farm on land that is now part of the Great Swamp NWR’s Wilderness Area. He currently resides with his wife Beth, and their French Brittany Sadie, in Dennysville along the Dennys River.