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BowenFriends of Merrymeeting Bay Speaker Series 2007-2008. Speaker Bios.
The
author of Thin
Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest
Mountains
,
Mark Bowen is a scientist, mountain climber and photographer with
ascents in most of the major mountain ranges in North America as well
as in the Himalayas, the Andes, and the Caucasus. He climbed Mount
Kilimanjaro in Tanzania four times on ice core drilling expeditions.
Thin Ice is about the career of paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson, whose work with ice cores has documented the disappearance of mountain glaciers around the world as a result of global warming. It was named Best Science Book of 2005 by National Public Radio's weekly environmental news and information program Living on Earth.
Mark’s articles have appeared in National Geographic Adventure, Natural History, Climbing, and other magazines. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and speaks on climate science and global warming, with an emphasis on mountain environments and the retreating glaciers and ice caps all over the world.
For more information about Mark Bowen and his speaking topics, experience, fees and availability, please call our toll-free number, 866-658-4848.
Bud Warren, a native of the coast, knows Maine well. For nearly forty years he’s led heritage tours of the area for Smithsonian Associates, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Elderhostel and other significant groups. He’s studied, written and lectured about the region’s maritime history, its geography, its environment and culture. He works by poking behind the scenes to understand Maine’s people and their way of life and then finding ways to share that appreciation with visitors.
As a youth he lobstered some. He’s climbed Maine’s peaks and rowed and sailed along much of its coastline. After Yale, he taught for twenty years in independent schools (Massachusetts, Hawaii, and at Hyde School in Bath), worked fourteen more at Bath Iron Works - even did a stint in a lumber mill. He was active for more than a quarter of a century as a teaching volunteer and staff member at the prestigious Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, where he developed and conducted a successful coastal heritage cruise program.
Bud has researched and lectured extensively on maritime topics such as the 19th century guano trade, the ships of the Sewall fleet of Bath, and the tide mills of New England. He co-produced a popular video about the history of Bath. He has been active in several archaeological explorations of Maine’s colonial sites, including the recent successful verification of Fort St. George, the first English settlement in New England. As president of “Maine’s First Ship,” he is currently heading up an effort to build a replica of the 30-ton vessel built in 1607 by those colonists.
Veteran, Activist, Organizer, 1952–
“The role
of the U.S. in the new world corporate order is going to be to export
security. That means endless wars and weapons in space. The Pentagon
will send our kids off to foreign lands to suppress opposition to
corporate globalization. How will we ever end America’s
addiction to war and violence as long as our communities are
dependent on military spending for jobs? We must work to convert the
military industrial complex to sustainable technologies like
windpower, solar, and mass transit.”
When Bruce Gagnon
was vice president of the Okaloosa County (Florida) Young Republican
Club, he volunteered in Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential
campaign. Today, as co-founder and coordinator of the Global Network
Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, he fights the reach of
corporate greed into space, which pits him against most Washington
officials.
Gagnon has worked on space issues for more than 20
years, first as state coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace
and Justice. Valuable resources on the moon and planets form the next
battleground for corporate profit, he says, and “defense”
programs such as “Star Wars” actually are conceived as
offense. “The U.S. intends to control…and dominate space
and deny other countries access,” says Gagnon, adding that the
means for seizing such control are nuclear, threaten everyone on
Earth, and divert funding from the common good.
To raise
awareness of what is at stake, Gagnon speaks internationally and has
written for publications such as Earth Island Journal, CounterPunch,
Z Magazine, Space News, National Catholic Reporter, Asia Times, Le
Monde Diplomatique, and Canadian Dimension. He has produced two
videos, Arsenal of Hypocrisy (2003) and Battle for America’s
Soul (2005) and he published a book, Come Together Right Now:
Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire (2005). He is host of This
Issue, a cable TV program that airs in five communities in Maine, his
home state. In 2003 Dr. Helen Caldicott named Gagnon a senior fellow
at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, where he also serves on her
advisory board.
Gagnon’s work does not yet draw the
attention it warrants. Television’s 60 Minutes did tune in to
his Cancel Cassini Campaign against the 1997 launch plutonium into
space. But Project Censored (based at Sonoma State University in
California) found articles by Gagnon to be among the most censored
stories of 1999 and 2005. Remembering that his own shift in
consciousness began with a handful of Vietnam War protestors who
stood outside the Air Force base in California where he was
stationed, Bruce Gagnon perseveres—and finds new ways to enlist
others’ concern.
Rob was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated in 1969 from Harvard College with a degree in English Literature. At Harvard he took a couple of courses in drawing which changed the direction of his creative life --- from the written word to the image. Also, during this time, he was very active in Civil Rights and in the Anti-Vietnam War movement.
After college and
moving to Maine in 1970, he taught himself drawing, printmaking, and
painting. While trying to become proficient in printmaking &
painting, he illustrated widely. For twelve years he did the
editorial page drawings for the Maine Times newspaper, illustrated
National Audubon's children's newspaper Audubon Adventures, and
approximately 30 books.
Now, his paintings & prints are in
collections all over the U.S. and Europe. A collection of his
drawings & etchings, Speaking Fire at Stones, was published in
1993. He is well know for his series of 70 painted etchings
based on William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, and for another series of
50 painted etchings reflecting on the metaphor of the Annunciation.
His painting tends toward the narrative and the surreal, and he has
not been, until this time, a portrait painter.
Robert
Shetterly lives, with his partner Gail Page, also a painter, in
Brooksville, Maine.
Jamie is Program
Manager for the ArtVan, a mobile art therapy program that brings the
arts to individuals in need, received the 2006 Bowdoin Spirit of
Service Award in a special ceremony at Bowdoin this week. The ArtVan
is a program of Volunteers of America Northern New England. The award
is presented annually to a community member who embraces such a
commitment to improving the lives of others through service that
their life speaks strongly, even though they remain humbly quiet.
Jamie has brought her energy and enthusiasm to the Bowdoin
campus first as a recipient of a 2005 Common Good Grant Award and
more recently as ArtVan has become a host program for student
volunteers. Jamie has served on several campus panels, speaking with
students about the challenges local non-profits face and sharing her
spirit of service by meeting the needs of youth in a unique way.
“Bowdoin students bring a newness and freshness to ideas and
projects” says Jamie Silvestri. “They think out of the
box and remain very open minded to the creative process.”
Additionally, the ArtVan was recognized by Tam Do, the 2006
recipient of the Lydia Bell Award for Student Initiative in Public
Service for his work in founding smART – a mentoring program
where Bowdoin students work one-on-one with youth through the
exploration of art. Tam contributed his $100.00 award to the ArtVan
Program. “In many ways, it has been my connection to the ArtVan
and the public schools that has heightened my awareness of the needs
of youth and the non-profit world and cemented my commitment to
both,” says Tam of the Service Award.
The ArtVan
Program was founded in Bath in 2004. The staff of the brightly
colored van provides hands on creative opportunities for
self-expression, personal growth and healing to people of all ages.
An art therapist who has worked with at-risk communities for 17
years, Jamie has seen the power of art help transform lives. For more
information, please call Volunteers of America at (207) 373-1140.
Tom was born in Cincinnati, Ohio – 1959 and has lived in Long Island, NY, Marblehead, MA, Georgetown, Washington D.C. and Greenwich, CT. He grew up on an apple orchard on Long Island and worked in greenhouses and the nursery industry since 1974, starting in CT at Bridge’s Nursery where he really learned how to graft. Tom attended George Washington University, University of Bridgeport, CT (left with a A.S. in Mathematical Logic) and the University of Maine at Orono where he graduated in 1987 with a B.S. in Plant & Soil Science.
He graduated High School in 1978, and finally came to Maine 1981. Built wood & canvas canoes in Grand lake Stream, cut on various woodlots in Washington County, ran orchard pruning and grafting crews, helped develop and field test three blueberry hybrids for the Maine Blueberry Commission, was assistant head grower at several nurseries, taught 7th grade science and math for ten years, is presently the Bath City Arborist & Tree Warden, and has been for the last 10 years.
Tom is a member of MOFGA, MeLNA, ME Arborist Association, the International Society of Arboriculture, the Society of Municipal Arborists and the Bath Community Forestry Committee. He serves on the Executive Boards of the Maine Arborist Association, the New England Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, and the Maine Forest Service Project Canopy Leadership Team.
Leon (Lee) Cranmer is staff historical archaeologist with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. He has a BS from Richard Stockton State Collage, a BA in anthropology and a MA in history/historical archaeology, both from the University of Maine. Lee has been conducting archaeology for the state for the past 19 years, and prior to that, spent two seasons in England doing archaeology. He has written one book and numerous articles on Maine historical archaeology and is currently working on another book on the French and Indian War period Fort Halifax in Winslow, Maine. Prior to his archaeology career, Lee spent 7 years in the Navy, is a Viet Nam vet, and then worked as a splicer for Bell Telephone for several years. He lives in Somerville, Maine, with his wife of 35 years.
Hillary Lister lives in Athens and Waterville, Maine. She works with the community group Citizens Against Pollution in Town (CAPIT) and Maine Independent Media Center. She helped to research, educate, and organize to stop a toxic waste incinerator in Athens and a private landfill on the Angdroscoggin River in Lewiston, and is continuing to research and work for environmental justice with community groups around the region.