From the board to CEO
Photo / Tim Greenway
Yellow Light Breen, president and CEO of the Maine Development Foundation, in Portland.
The Maine Development Foundation has hired a new president and CEO with long experience in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.
Yellow Light Breen took up his new duties on Aug. 10, ending a period of uncertainty at MDF that included the departures of two leaders in two years.
“It’s a really interesting and diverse organization,” Breen says. “I like to say, ‘If the Maine Development Foundation didn’t exist; we’d have to invent it.’ It’s an important catalyst and connector.”
Breen, of Holden, came to MDF with a varied background. From 1999 to 2003, he was director of special projects for the Maine Department of Education, where he supplied much of the planning for what became the state’s laptop initiative. He spent 12 years at Bangor Savings Bank, most recently as executive vice president and chief strategic officer. Breen was responsible for strategic planning, community development, community relations and philanthropy and integral in guiding the bank’s statewide expansion.
MDF is a non-partisan nonprofit that supports economic, workforce, leadership and community development across Maine, a broad mandate currently executed by a staff of only seven people, and limited resources. Breen has a great deal of experience with MDF, having served on its board and also chaired Realize Maine, an ongoing MDF initiative that supports regional networking groups that attract, retain and support young professionals. He also served as chair of both the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education and Educate Maine.
MDF, as a unique partnership of for-profit, nonprofit and government entities, provides a perfect opportunity for Breen to exercise his expertise in all sectors on behalf of MDF’s core work around the economy and leadership.
“It might look to some like a big change, but for me it’s a continuation of my personal passion for improving Maine’s economy and educational opportunities, and a commitment to doing that statewide,” he says. “One of the commonalties between Bangor Savings Bank and the Maine Development Foundation is their statewide reach. It’s really important to me to work on behalf of the entire state.”
Breen is driven by his passion for educational and economic equality throughout Maine.
Educational advocacy has been a constant in Breen’s life. Growing up in rural Maine, he witnessed first-hand the lack of educational equality and opportunity in communities that struggled with poverty, where many didn’t have the aspiration, or the support, to go to college.
“We have a strong education system in Maine, when you look at us compared with other states,” he says. “And within Maine, there’s always been tremendous pockets of excellence, amazing dropout prevention programs, partnerships between colleges and high schools. I think our challenge is to figure out how to spread that work, so that the pockets of excellence become the norm. That’s hard. It involves figuring out how to boost the skills of thousands of teachers so every teacher is exploiting best practices, and supporting them with the right tools and professional development. At the same time, they’re also teaching. It’s the whole ‘fixing the airplane while flying’ that sometimes makes it hard.”
In 2003, Breen moved from public policy and state government to Bangor Savings Bank due to his “insatiable desire to learn.” He realized it would be useful to get an understanding of how the private sector works. He also soon discovered that a company like Bangor Savings Bank — headquartered in Maine, with 700 employees scattered across dozens of communities — could have a huge impact on the well-being of communities.
“So from the beginning, I never felt I‘d given up the chance to make change and be part of the bigger issues. It was just doing it from a different seat,” he says.
With only two weeks on his new job at the time of this interview, Breen was getting up to speed on the inner workings of MDF’s programs. But he says he’s excited about the opportunity here to continue to set the stage for long-term investments in Maine’s economic future, particularly in growing a highly-skilled workforce and in R&D.
“The success of our work in the future will continue to depend on strong relationships with partners such as the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Maine Community Foundation and other foundations and nonprofits,” he says. “The most important element is convening the right players and then working together in a persistent way over the long haul to have an impact. MDF is uniquely positioned to make that happen.”
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