Organizers

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.

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.

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.

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.   

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

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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.

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.

Daphne Loring

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Daphne Loring is the Cobscook Center Manager and Cobscook Institute Co-Director and Director of Partnerships Innovation. She studied Human Ecology at the College of the Atlantic with a self-designed concentration in globalization and community resilience. Before she joined the Cobscook Institute team, Daphne’s work focused on supporting communities in developing the connections, social infrastructure, and public policy to facilitate and support economic, social, and environmental well-being.  Much of her work has focused on supporting projects visioning new models for economy and sustainability. She has worked as a community organizer, a grassroots legislative director, a cooperative development consultant, a popular educator, a farm manager and an assistant teacher. She is a founding board member of Land In Common Community Land Trust.

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.

Bridget VerVaet

Bridget VerVaet is an environmental educator working at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. She primarily works with school and youth groups, along with teaching the occasionally adult education program or leading member bird walks. Originally from South Bend, Indiana, she has lived in Maine year-round since 2019 and has grown to absolutely treasure spring migration in Maine (but she loves a bird that you can find any time of year as well!).

Before moving to Maine, she studied biology at Indiana University Bloomington where she took an ornithology class that put a verb to what she already liked to do: birding. Up until then, it was all just bird watching sans binoculars – which was good too! In her free time, Bridget loves to be outdoors soaking up nature, crafting (especially crochet and other textile arts), cooking, dancing, or reading.