Lydia (she/her) joined the BTLT team in June 2021. With a BA in Conservation Biology and Environmental Sustainability from Hampshire College as well as a graduate certificate in Food Studies from USM, she has a deep passion for our earth and all that it provides for us. She has professional experience working in outdoor and environmental education, food aggregation and redistribution, marketing and communications, wildlife husbandry, and event planning. Lydia is originally from eastern MA but has lived in Rhode Island, Vermont, North Carolina, and Australia. She now calls Lisbon Falls, Maine home with her partner and two cats. When she’s not working, she can be found baking, beach walking, log turning, or eating pasta.

Garrett (he/him) joined BTLT in May 2022. Previously he spent nine years living semi-nomadically in the Appalachian Mountains. That time began with a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, continued with five thousand more miles of hiking, and concluded with six years working in GIS and land stewardship for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. He values good and well-organized data, and can often be found immersed in spreadsheets or collecting even more data. When not at work, Garrett is most frequently found building his house or tending the gardens and woods of the homestead he started in Warren in 2020. When actually not at work, he enjoys hiking, kayaking, and finding a good pizza.

Margaret (she/her) joined the Land Trust in 2016 having previously worked for Maine Island Trail Association and Maine Coast Heritage Trust. She oversees and implements the stewardship work of the Land Trust by working with landowners and volunteers, planning, building, and maintaining trails, and managing the natural resources on the conserved lands in the community. She is a certified volunteer wildland fire fighter and enjoys gardening, kayaking, rock climbing, and skiing in her free time. She lives in Freeport with her partner.

Kristi (she/her) joined BTLT in January 2019, following a 6-month family adventure on the West Coast. Prior to that, she was the Executive Director of Arts Are Elementary, a school-based, arts nonprofit in Brunswick. She served on the Brunswick Recreation Commission, the Access Health Advisory Board, is a past Council Chair of Brunswick’s First Parish Church, and presently serves on FPC’s Development Committee. She grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine, and is a graduate of Skidmore College and William & Mary School of Law. After stints on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and at a large firm in Boston, she was thrilled to return home to Maine in 2005. She lives in Brunswick with her husband and two daughters.

Jamie (she/her) joined the Land Trust in spring of 2018 as a contractor, eventually shifting into the role of Program Manager responsible for overseeing the Land Trust’s community programs and events. She most recently worked as the Managing Partner of a restaurant that worked with schools to provide internship opportunities for children pursuing non-traditional educations.  In this role she founded the business, oversaw the day-to-day operations and developed their educational programs and partnerships. Jamie previously worked for MOFGA on the Common Ground Fair team, worked in local agriculture and spent years working in the veterinary and hospitality industries respectively.  Jamie is also the Wellness Coordinator for the  Merrymeeting Food Council and volunteers with the SNAPMatch Program at the Bath Farmers’ Market, as a Big with Big Brothers Big Sisters, with the Harpswell Community Garden and with the Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener Volunteers. She lives with her husband in North Bath.

Brad Babson

Doug, a resident of Topsham, Maine, is a semi-retired educator. He currently provides consultations to not-for-profits on issues of governance. He served as President of Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana) from 1997 to 2011. Before that, he served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the American Council of Learned Societies (1994-1997), as Provost at Reed College (1989-93), and as Professor of Political Science at Temple University (1973-1989). He was educated at Haverford College and Yale University and is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He has served on governing boards and committees for Haverford College, Friends Seminary (NYC), Germantown Friends School, Friends Association for Higher Education, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the American Friends Service Committee. He is married to Ellen Trout Bennett and has two sons, Tommy (born 1984) and Robbie (born 2003).

Bill Ferdinand has resided in Brunswick with his family since 1994. He served as Chair of the Brunswick Conservation Commission for many years and has been involved with open space planning, comprehensive planning, land conservation for subdivisions, and land acquisition by the Town. Bill is an attorney with Eaton Peabody, where he represents a variety of clients on public policy issues in the Maine legislature and regulatory matters in state agencies and municipalities. He has been involved with land conservation and land use policy for many years. Prior to Eaton Peabody, he was a Senior Planner with the Maine State Planning Office where he worked on environmental policy issues and economic development initiatives. Bill was educated at St. Lawrence University, Tulane Law School, and Vermont Law School. Bill really likes to spend time with his family and friends exploring the oceans, mountains, lakes, rivers, and forests of Maine and beyond.

Averil Fessenden has lived happily in Brunswick for just over 40 years. She loves the natural beauty of our area and the ease of moving between town and country. We are fortunate to be able to arrange a personal mix of time with people and events and times of more solitude in natural areas.

As a social worker, Averil worked with children and families for many years toward solving problems and creating fulfilling lives. She maintains a deep interest in how human communities and nature enhance individual lives. She also has been involved in a variety of educational projects over the years, including teaching English in the Peace Corps in the Ivory Coast. She has a BA from SUNY Binghamton and an MSW from Boston College, and is a Cooperative Extension Master Gardener. She is a life long lover of nature and activities in the out of doors – skiing, walking, cycling, gardening and kayaking, especially with her family of husband, daughters, son in law, and granddaughters.

Rol worked at LL Bean in various positions for 30 years, and in the last 15 years he created and then ran their world-wide supply chain organization. In that role he was responsible for extending LL Bean’s partnership ethic to suppliers all over the world, ensuring that quality standards were met, and enforcing Bean’s human rights standards. Bean was a founding member of President Clinton’s factory human rights initiative in the 1990s.

Rol has volunteered for various organizations, including Brunswick Town Planning, Maine Department of Education, Mid Coast Hospital, Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and others. He served on the AMC board from 2009 to 2019, and was chair of the board from 2016 to 2019.

Rol loves to be active, and he loves to be in the outdoors, whether it is daily walks with Averil or mountain climbing and backpacking with friends. The outdoors is where he goes to find healing.

John is a professor emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Bowdoin College. While at Bowdoin, he served as Director of Environmental Studies and conducted research on the effects of elevated CO2 on forest ecosystems, the ecology, history, and biogeochemistry of Merrymeeting Bay and Maine rivers, and most recently, ecological recovery in coastal Maine. This recent work examined the ecological links between Maine’s rivers and the marine food web supporting Atlantic cod and other groundfish species. At Bowdoin, he taught classes in community and ecosystem ecology, environmental science, and biodiversity and conservation science.

John has interests in restoring and maintaining functioning local ecosystems as well as in local agriculture and sustainable fishing operations. He has been a member of the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust for several years.

Mers, retired recently as a Senior Leadership Gifts Officer and as Secretary of the College Emeritus at Bowdoin College. A Bowdoin graduate, Mers served in the U. S. Army and received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Wesleyan. He was lured back to Bowdoin as an assistant director of admissions to help the College become coeducational and diversify the student body. Since then, he has run the communications office, the president’s office and board of trustees operations, and even coached women’s basketball for six years in its formative days. Today, he works part-time for the Ecology School of Saco, a residential learning center for children between 3rd and 8th grade.. After residing 25 years in Harpswell, he moved to Brunswick where he has been for 19 years with his wife Bette Spettel, who founded the Bowdoin College Children’s Center, son Kyle, and daughter Ellie. He is a longstanding member of Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, Harpswell Heritage Land Trust, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Friends of Casco Bay, Island Institute, Maine Island Trail Association, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine and is inspired and honored to assist BTLT as Chair of the Development Committee. He has also served six years on the board of directors at Curtis Memorial Library and has twice kayaked to Portland from South Harpswell under a (summer) full moon.

Jeff grew up on a small multiuse farm in Massachusetts and graduated from Brown University with a B.S. in engineering. He then worked as a research scientist at M.I.T. He and Ann married and moved to Ludlow, Vermont where Jeff worked in manufacturing for GE and where their children, Todd and Sarah, were born. While in Vermont Jeff was active in VT Audubon and the Ludlow Fire Department. They then moved to Bedford, NH with GE, and, after retiring, Jeff obtained his M.S. in conservation biology from Antioch University. Both Jeff & Ann were among the founders of the Bedford Land Trust in 1990 and stayed active in leadership/board roles. Jeff served on the Bedford Conservation Commission for many years and was a long-term volunteer with the Audubon Society of New Hampshire while serving multiple terms as a Trustee. Jeff and Ann moved to Highland Green in Topsham in October 2006. They enjoy exploring and appreciating the ecology of mid-coast Maine.

Keisha has been managing Bowdoin College’s sustainability office since 2001. In this role Keisha has focused on both engaging faculty, staff, and students in Bowdoin’s sustainability efforts as well as ensuring that Bowdoin integrates sustainable practices and policies in operations across campus. Initiatives she has implemented or overseen include significant waste reduction efforts during student move-out, food waste diversion programs, Bowdoin’s transition to single-stream recycling, alternative transportation programming, developing one of the first EcoRep programs in the country, and focusing on efforts to reduce the college’s greenhouse gas emissions. Keisha received both a bachelor’s degree in Geography and Environmental Studies as well as a master’s degree in Community Planning and Development from the University of Southern Maine. She is also a Senior Fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program. Keisha enjoys spending her free time gardening, running, hiking, boating and spending time with her husband, two teenagers and their dog.

Tom is a professor emeritus of the Biology and Chemistry Departments, Bowdoin College. He has BS and MS degrees from Ohio State University and a PhD in biochemistry from North Carolina State University. He has published over 30 scientific articles and a textbook in the areas of immunology and microbiology. In addition, Tom has been active in many areas of agriculture in Maine. And served on local and state wide committees focusing on production, processing and marketing of Maine produced agricultural products,. He served as Vice Chair of the Governor’s Agricultural Advisory Council from 1979 to 1987, he is co-founder of the Downtown Farmers Market in Brunswick and along with his family operated a sheep and vegetable farm in Brunswick from 1970 to 2005. He has been a long time member of the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust where he has served on several committees and twice as president. He has kept his roots in Brunswick by continuing to own and manage farm and tree growth land while living in Yarmouth.

When he was two, Sandy’s father and mother carried him into the foothills of the Sierras in a backpack. He’s been going to the mountains and woods ever since. Wherever he is, he hopes for a daily trail and some time on it. At home in Brunswick, that often takes him out to public lands.

Beginning in 1986, he’s written for and/or edited (for 10 years) the Appalachian Mountain Club’s journal, Appalachia. At the same time, he became a teacher, drawn finally and centrally to the work of Henry David Thoreau and to the sentence-by-sentence teaching of writing. The 17-year-olds he taught were ideally suited for the explorations both subjects asked.

Other Life Facts: English teacher, coach and dean at Concord Academy, Concord MA (31 years); AMC member and editor/writer (30+ years); author of Critical Hours — Search and Rescue in the White Mountains (UPNE, 2018); once upon a time, a tennis pro. Current: writer, trail-ambler, sea-kayaker, on Brunswick Conservation Commission. Married to teacher and writer, Lucille Stott.

Emily is business manager of Pine Island Camp, a boys’ camp that has been in operation since 1902. She has a B.A. in history from Sewanee: the University of the South and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She served on the BTLT board in the early 1990s, when she was involved in the capital campaign for Crystal Spring Farm. She served on Brunswick’s first Comprehensive Plan Committee and more recently was a member of the Downtown Master Plan Committee. She is an avid bird watcher and traveler and particularly enjoys traveling with her three children and her husband Ben.

Jamie Tatham is a CPA and is the Vice President for Finance and Assistant Treasurer at Bowdoin College. He recently served on the Board of the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program where he helped launch and manage the “Backpack Program,” which provides supplemental weekend groceries for chronically hungry children. Jamie has always enjoyed the outdoors and has spent countless hours fishing, mountain bike riding, snowboarding, boating, and whitewater rafting (he became a registered Maine guide in 1995). Jamie joined the BTLT Board in the summer of 2017. He lives in Brunswick Maine with his wife and two children.

Lloyd retired from his internal medicine practice in Maine. He worked on the staff of the Bowdoin Medical Group, which he helped to found in 1994. He currently serves on the board of Midcoast Health Services and was a past president of the medical staff of the hospital. He has been on the BTLT Board since 1995 and was president of BTLT from 2002-2008. He lives in Brunswick and is an avid sailor, hiker, cross-country skier, and music lover.

Nick grew up in Texas and New Mexico, spending childhood summers between his ancestral family farm in Auburn, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. After high school, he headed east to attend Middlebury College for three years before leaving to pursue farming in Auburn where he grew organic vegetables with his wife, Laura.

In 1982, after the family farm was sold, Nick and Laura moved to Topsham where they raised their two awesome sons, Ben and Dan. Still living in Topsham, Nick is now fortunate enough to to play stand up bass in a band with his sons.

Most of Nick’s working career has been as the founder of Morningstar Marble & Granite, a countertop and tile business in Topsham. Some of you may also know Nick as the “Pepper Man” from summer pepper roasting as a member of Whatley Farm. Nick, Laura, and their eldest son, Ben, are partners in the certified Organic farm, growing vegetables and raising pigs and ducks, where Nick can indulge in his passions: care of the land and best possible treatment of animals. You can find them at the BTLT Farmers’ Market at Crystal Spring Farm and the Brunswick Farmers’ Market.