ecomaine presents annual
eco-Excellence Awards

PORTLAND — Municipally-owned recycling facility, ecomaine, recently presented the annual eco-Excellence Awards to a group or individual from each member community.

In the Forecaster’s Northern edition area, Cumberland Public Works employee Daniel Burr, Falmouth High School student Chadwick Prichard, Freeport Community Services organization, and Yarmouth school nutritionist Becki Schreiber were honored for their contributions to preserving local ecology.

In the Forecaster’s Southern edition area, South Portland business-owner Sue Ellen Whitmore, Cape Elizabeth High School’s Environmental Club, and Scarborough volunteer Paul Austin earned the 2010 eco-Excellence Awards.

In Portland, the eco-Excellence awards were presented to Frank Kehoe’s carpentry class at the Portland Arts and Technology High School, and Elliott May from Reverb. Additionally from Portland is ecomaine’s 2010 Grand Award winner, the Portland Waste Reduction Group.

The Portland Waste Reduction Group, nominated by Ed Suslovic, is a coalition of parents, waste managers, school committee members, teachers and department managers that came together to implement projects that will change the policies and habits of how the Portland School District’s trash is managed. The group, which formed in February 2009, has implemented a pilot project at Lincoln Middle School that replaces Styrofoam lunch trays with recyclable, compostable trays.

A luncheon was held at the ecomaine offices where the winners were presented with a framed award and a fleece jacket made from recycled plastic. The grand award winner received a white rocking chair made from recycled plastic lumber by Conversion Products of Biddeford.

Bowdoin Music Festival
receives national award

BRUNSWICK — Chamber Music America recently presented Lewis Kaplan, the founder and director of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Adventurous Programming Award in the “large presenter” category at a ceremony in New York City.

The award, given annually by Chamber Music America and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, recognizes ensembles and presenters/festivals whose programming demonstrates a commitment to music written in the past 25 years.

Awards

NUA Advisors, LLC, of Portland, an investment advisory firm specializing in non-traditional investing within retirement accounts, was named a 2010 Five Star Wealth Manager for expertise and overall client satisfaction by Crescendo Business Services, an independent research firm.  
 
Yankee Magazine “Readers’ Best of New England Choice Survey,” has identified Freeport as the favorite shopping town in all of New England, out of 70-plus choices.

Portland Symphony Orchestra presented the first ever PSO Corporate Partnership Award to the Portland Research Group in recognition of support the company has given the orchestra, including a research project conducted every year for the PSO at no cost.  

The University of New England presented a plaque to Michael Radke, Cities Readiness Initiative Program Coordinator for the City of Portland for recognition of his service as a member of the UNE team that developed and implemented policies and processes for emergency preparedness related to the H1N1 pandemic.

Portland Trails, a non-profit urban land trust and trail building organization, presented Steve Aylward with the Kay Wagenknecht-Harte Award for Volunteer Service in recognition of his contribution of coordinating and leading the volunteer work effort on the Riverton Rail Trail.

The Maine Real Estate & Development Association (MEREDA) presented its annual recognition awards at its annual forecast conference in Portland. The Robert B. Patterson, Jr. Founders’ Award was given to David Cook, president of AlliedCook Construction in Scarborough. Gary D. Vogel of Yarmouth, a shareholder in the law firm of Drummond Woodsum, earned the Volunteer of the Year Award. MEREDA presented the Public Policy Award to Darryl Brown and Main-Land Consultants of Livermore Falls. The President’s Award was presented to Mark Bergeron of Topsham, an engineer with Sevee & Maher Engineers.  MEREDA is an organization of commercial real estate owners, developers and related service providers, whose mission is to promote responsible development and ownership of Maine real estate.

New Hires, Promotions

Career Management Associates, CMA, a Portland-based human resources and management consulting firm, has hired Greg Fall as vice president, promoted Audra Becker to director, HR consulting, and has expanded into New Hampshire with an office at 264 South River Road, Suite 546, Bedford, N.H. 03110.

Martina Duncan of Bath was promoted to director for the Harriet P. Henry Center for the Book, the programming arm of the Maine Humanities Council. Duncan is the assistant director of Maine Humanities Council, working with teacher enrichment programming.

The People’s Regional Opportunity Program, PROP, has announced that Catherine Fellenz of Kennebunkport was selected to serve as interim president & CEO of the agency until a permanent, full-time CEO has been found, which is expected to take six months to a year.

Coastal Studies for Girls, the Freeport-based residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls has welcomed new faculty and residential life staff to their administrative team. The new hires include, Rachael Bates and Jules Copon, resident interns; Laura Dougherty, humanities faculty member; Vanessa Jones, head resident; Loraine Kohorn, science and math faculty member; Johanna Sorrell, admissions assistant; Noel Thibodeau, French and Spanish faculty teacher; and Gail Todd, food services director.

SMRT, a full service architecture, engineering, planning, interior design and commissioning firm in Portland, has hired John Beaumont, member of the company’s mechanical engineering practice; Steven Florenze, structural drafter; and Abigail Cram, architectural designer.

Legacy Publishing Company has hired Ginny Marvin of Portland as the online marketing manager.

Shiloh Theberg has been hired as an associate attorney in the Portland office of Fisher & Phillips LLP.

Michael Abbatiello of Falmouth has been hired as chief operating officer at Counseling Services, Inc., a local community mental health agency.

The Portland Regional Chamber has hired Laura LeBrun of Portland as the new marketing and communications manager.

Landscape architect Jennifer Claster of South Portland has joined the civil/infrastructure engineering practice group at the Portland office of Wright-Pierce.

KeyBank has named Stephen deCastro market manager of Key Private Bank for the Maine District. Most recently, he served as senior vice president, city executive and private client advisor at U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management in Portland.

Sidebar Elements

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Grace Valenzuela was presented with the Paul Harris Fellow award by the Portland Rotary Club in recognition of her substantial contributions to the education of immigrants in Portland. The Club wanted to honor Valenzuela,  who is the director of Portland Public Schools’ Multilingual and Multicultural Center, and her 20 years of work  in the field of English as a Second Language, bilingual and multicultural education.  Pictured here are Rotarians Amy Chipman, on left, and Mark Millar with Grace Valenzuela.