Newburgh, Maine native Beth Andrews’ early career history doesn’t seem to convince you she wanted to be a clinical social worker. She majored in East Asian Studies and learned Mandarin Chinese during her undergrad at Middlebury College in Vermont. She worked several jobs after that before becoming a bartender and settling on social work at NYU. She know co-owns and operates a private practice in Yarmouth called H.O.P.E. Counseling Services where she is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and licensed drug and alcohol counselor (LADC). Continue reading →

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Vaughn Woodruff is a sixth generation Mainer who wanted to become an engineer, but was also drawn to the outdoors (like many of us are). After graduating from UMaine Orono, he went into the world and worked out west in California, Colorado, and finally Montana. While in Montana, Woodruff started Insource Renewables, a solar energy contracting firm and it is where he met his now wife Holly. He convinced her that Maine is the best place to raise a family so they packed up their home and business and moved everything back east. Continue reading →

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Mike Rancourt is a first generation American, born and raised in Lewiston, Maine where his father, a Canadian immigrant, learned to hand-sew loafers and shoes to make a living. When the owner of the factory retired, Rancourt’s father purchased the operation and so began a family tradition of contract manufacturing of hand-sewn shoes made right here in Maine. Continue reading →

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Dick Durost grew up in the County in Mars Hill on a dairy and potato farm so no one can say he’s not a true Mainer. Durost always knew he wanted to get into education, but looking back on his career he didn’t actually know he would get this involved. He’s been a teacher, a coach, an assistant principal, and athletic director, a principal. Now he’s the Executive Director of the Maine Principals’ Association, a professional organization for Maine’s Principals and Assistant Principals, and a supervisory association for Maine high school athletics and activities. Continue reading →

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Alan Caron has been an entrepreneur and small business advocate for over thirty years. He also writes weekly columns about various “Maine” topics for the Portland Press Herald, Waterville Sentinel, and Augusta Kennebec Journal. His goal is to “unlock the potential of Maine by promoting an economy that is driven by the state’s entrepreneurs, innovators and doer, and that taps into the resourcefulness and tenacity of Maine people.” Caron is the President of Envision Maine where he works daily to achieve his goal and to better Maine’s economy. Continue reading →

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Steve Levesque was born and raised in the Lewiston-Auburn area and joined the Marine Corps after high school. That’s how he got out of Maine. While enlisted he was able to get his degree in Urban and Regional Planning which he used in a few communities in California. He, like many Mainers, wanted to return home to settle down so he sold his business and picked up a jobs with the cities of Lewiston and Portland before taking a position with the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development. He is now the Executive Director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, a “quasi-state run organization” tasked with finding new, resourceful, innovative ways to bring business back to the old Brunswick Naval Air Station, now known as Brunswick Landing. Continue reading →

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Don Thibodeau is a Mainer in every sense of the word. He was born and raised in “the county” and moved to Fryeburg in 1977 with his wife to farm potatoes. He inherited the land from his father, a salesman who wanted to farm the land with a friend. When Thibodeau’s father’s friend passed way, his father lost interest in the land , leaving Thibodeau to take over. Now, Green Thumb Farms has 300+ acres of heirloom beans and thousands of acres of potatoes. Not only do the potatoes from Green Thumb Farms end up on our dinner tables in Maine, but also our vodka: Thibodeau is a co-founder of Cold River Vodka, distilled from potatoes grown at Green Thumb Farms. Continue reading →

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Drew Dumsch is from “the palm” of Michigan and graduated from college with a degree in English so he’s not exactly the type of person you would think would found a supplementary educational school focused on sustainability and ecology on the beaches of Maine. Twelve years ago when the school based at Ferry Beach in Saco was at risk of going away, Dumsch took it over and re-branded it as “The Ecology School at Ferry Beach” and it’s grown and expanded every year since. As of 2016 they have officially outgrown their campus and have official plans to move inland to an old farm property in Saco. Continue reading →

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Writing is not Jeff Ryan’s day job. For most of his career, the life-long Falmouth resident was a copywriter for L.L. Bean catalogs. Like many Mainers, Ryan grew up with a love for the outdoors. When he started his career copywriting, he had the opportunity to test out new apparel and gear to best write the descriptions. This connection worked out well when he and a college friend hike the Pacific Coast Trail while testing Bean’s new Gore-Tex and Polartec products. He recalls that when a pack he was testing broke in Oregon, Bean’s first tested shipping with FedEx and got his replacement pack to him within days. Continue reading →

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Local author Paul Doiron joined us in the studio for an update on Mike Bowditch and to talk about the upcoming release of the 7th novel in the series, Widowmaker. In this installment, Bowditch finds himself in the middle of a search for a missing professional skier who may or may not be his half brother on Doiron’s fictional ski mountain, Widowmaker. Doiron chose the name “Widowmaker” after an old logging term for a dead branch that is likely to fall and hurt someone. He uses this as an allusion to an attack of Bowditch in this most recent novel. In this interview Doiron also talks about what it’s like to get over 90,000 words written in one year and how to keep his character’s details straight. Continue reading →

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