In Short from Oct. 20, 2008 | A roundup of new hires, promotions, accolades and appointments from Maine's business community

New Hires

Anna Ray was recently hired as fashion design assistant for Brook There, an independent clothing design company based in Portland.

Perkins Olson, a law firm in Portland, recently hired Kerry Kimball as its managing attorney of the new title company Maine Coast Title. Kimball is the former president of East Coast Title.

Baker Newman Noyes, a regional public accounting firm based in Portland, recently hired the following: Stuart Lyons as international tax senior manager; Patrick Cianciolo as help desk analyst and Patti Bleech as tax processing secretary.

United Way of Androscoggin County recently hired April Caron as director of development.

Larry Waitz was recently hired as field sales manager for Nelson & Small Inc. Waitz recently served as eastern U.S. sales manager for a German-based solar company.

The Human Capital Resources Group in South Portland, an employee benefits brokerage and human resource consulting firm, recently hired Don Legere as a member of its sales team.

Howell Laboratories Inc., a manufacturer of shipboard machinery in Bridgton, recently hired David Douglas as director of sales. Douglas was previously director of fleet services at ARINC Engineering Services LLC, in Annapolis, Md.

Tilson Technology Management, an IT consulting firm based in Portland, recently hired Karen Simonds of Saco as its office manager.

The Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health in Brewer recently hired the following: Roger Phipps as first department head and Xiong Li as part of the institute’s bone genomics and cancer team. Both Phipps and Li are biomedical research scientists.

Maine General Medical Center in Augusta recently hired Terrance Flanagan as a member of the active medical staff in the emergency department.

Consigli Construction Co. Inc.’s Portland operation recently hired Brenden Gilmore as an assistant superintendent. Gilmore spent the past two years with Shawmut Design & Construction in Boston.

HealthReach Community Health Center in Bingham and Strong recently hired Lawrence Jacoby, a dentist and ready responder in the U.S. Public Health Service. He will provide dental care at both the Bingham and Strong locations. HealthReach also hired Wendy Cowles as nurse practitioner. Cowles previously worked as a consultant, educator and member of the medical team in several hospitals in India.

Sheepscot Valley Health Center, a practice of HealthReach Community Health Centers, has hired Sarah Hurley as a physician assistant. Hurley recently finished her education at University of New England.

Allied/Cook Construction in Scarborough recently hired the following: Don Skeffington as pre-construction manager and Jennifer Gerrett as marketing director. Skeffington is an active member in the Maine chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Gerrett is a member of the board of directors for the Maine Public Relations Counsel.

Malone Commercial Brokers in Portland recently hired Mike Miller as vice president of the industrial division. Miller came to Malone Commercial Brokers from The Dunham Group in Portland.

Belgrade Regional Health Center, a practice of HealthReach Community Health Centers, recently hired the following doctors: Julie Hurley and Amy Madden. Hurley and Madden recently completed residencies at Maine Dartmouth Family Practice.

Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project recently hired Tzeitel Aimée Waldron as immigration clinic paralegal and Andrea Weisman Summers as legal program associate. Waldron previously worked in Quito, Ecuador as an English instructor.

Weichert Realtors recently hired Alex Elizabeth Taylor for its sales team. Taylor was an account executive with the Portland Radio Group and serves as vice president of the Camp Ketcha Board in Scarborough.

iCST, a software solutions company in South Portland, recently hired Bill Martin as director of business development.

Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth recently hired Kevin Swanson as food and beverage manager. Swanson served most recently as operations manager for Wolfgang Puck Catering in Los Angeles, Calif.

WCSH 6/WLBZ 2 of Portland hired Maureen O’Brien as news director. Maureen recently was the executive producer at WPTZ in Burlington, Vt.

Portland Water District recently hired Ben Davison, who will educate homeowners about septic systems and lake-friendly projects, and Camilla Fecteau, who will bring her wildlife biology training to schools in the area.

The Allen Agency, an insurance and financial firm with offices in Camden, Rockland and Saco, recently hired Jeffrey Lewis as a commercial lines agent.

Springborn Staffing of Falmouth recently hired Dawn VanDyne.

OEST Associates Inc, an architectural company in South Portland, recently hired the following: Sergio Gadder as senior architect; Claire Pineau as intern architect; John Pickarski as graduate architect; Kyle McKague as CAD operator; Craig Smith as architectural CAD operator; Javier De Juan as a graduate architect; Mark Anderson as architectural designer; Seth Klenk as survey technician.

Martin’s Point Health Care in Portland recently hired Tracey Fox-Bartels as nurse practitioner.

Strong Area Health Center recently hired Barbara Lajoie as dental hygienist.

Promotions

The University of New England in Biddeford recently promoted Megan Rochelo to the position of director of the Coastal Health Communities Coalition. Rochelo previously was citizenship service learning coordinator and adjunct faculty member at the CHCC.

Unum Group, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., and with offices in South Portland, recently promoted Liston Bishop III to executive vice president and general counsel. He previously practiced corporate and securities law at Miller & Martin PLLC, located in Georgia and Tennessee.

Day One, a South Portland agency that deals with teen substance abuse, recently promoted Michele Hylen to interim director of prevention and intervention services. Michele joined Day One two years ago as director of juvenile justice programs. 

Appointments

SPIRAL Arts, an arts organization in Portland, recently announced the following appointments to its board: Linda D’Alessandro, trust associate at KeyBank; Paul Gebhardt, assistant professor of Art/Art Education at the University of Maine in Fort Kent; and Liz Smith, senior associate of marketing and communications at United Way of Greater Portland.

David Van Slyke, an attorney with Preti Flaherty in Portland and chair of the firm’s environmental law practices group, was recently nominated as a fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers, based in Portland, Ore.

Jeffrey Thaler, a lawyer with Bernstein Shur in Portland, was recently appointed president-elect of the American College of Environmental Lawyers at the group’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif.

The Maine Center for Enterprise Development in Portland recently appointed Mark Kaplan, managing director at CEI Ventures Inc. in Portland, to its board of directors.

Day One in South Portland has appointed Dennis Carrillo, an attorney at Lambert Coffin in Portland, to its resource development committee.

Spotlight

The University of Maine’s Bureau of Labor Education recently updated the Maine Guide to Employment Law, which covers a myriad of statutes that deal with work and employee-employer relations. Over time, these laws have evolved through political, administrative and judicial processes at state and federal levels. The new guide addresses a number of employment laws in a question-and-answer format, and includes a comprehensive index. Some of the issues explained in the guide are state and federal laws as they apply to employment discrimination, occupational health and safety, work-related injuries and diseases, unemployment compensation, and organizing and collective bargaining in the public and private sectors.

Company news

Richard Kuhlman, a Los Angeles actor and director, traveled to Dover-Foxcroft to direct the upcoming Slightly Off-Center Players production of “Sylvia” by A.R. Gurney and taught acting workshops for children and adults.

Construction recently started on the new Orthoeast offices in Scarborough. Currently, Orthoeast is headquartered in Westbrook. The new building site is located in the Enterprise Business Park off of Route 1 in Scarborough.

The Marine Systems Training Center in Thomaston celebrated its opening at the Thomaston Academy on Main Street with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speakers, self-guided tours and light refreshments.

University of New England professors Matthew Anderson and Catherine Frank of the Department of English and Language Studies were recently awarded a $165,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to hold a 2009 summer institute called “The Rule of Law: Legal Studies and the Liberal Arts.” Their five-week summer institute will explore the origins, meanings, and expressions of our national attachment to the rule of law and the idea of law as a discipline of the liberal arts.

The developers of the eMonitor in Maine, Nielsen van Duijn and Carsten Steenberg of Powerhouse Dynamics in Blue Hill, and the nine employee-owners of RainWise in Bar Harbor are looking for local individuals and businesses interested in investing in their eMonitor so they don’t have to move to the West Coast. The eMonitor gives consumers a detailed picture of electricity usage and suggests the best ways for them to conserve power based on data from their individual home or business.

Creative Work Systems in Portland and Men’s Warehouse, based in Texas, recently teamed up to organize a National Suit Drive campaign. The drive encourages people to donate men’s professional clothing to give underserved men a chance to make a positive first impression during an interview.

Robbins Lumber, a green-certified lumber mill in Searsmont, recently unveiled its family-friendly and environmentally-friendly game, “The Ultimate Spinner.”

Gardiner-based Blue Marble Geographics’s new all-in-one Geospatial Data Definition and Transformation Desktop is now available. The product combines the power of a new version of their raster tool, Geographic Transformer 6.0, with a new version of the Geographic Calculator 7.1, which allows users to work with all of the features of both applications in a single interface on a combined license.

Thomas College in Waterville and Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield are collaborating to allow students who complete 62 credit hours and receive a two-year associate’s degree of applied science in the Pulp and Paper Technology program at KVCC to continue their education at Thomas College and pursue a bachelor’s of science in management with a concentration in pulp and paper technology.

Camp Sunshine in Casco has received a $35,000 grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation to help sponsor additional families at Camp Sunshine each year. Camp Sunshine provides a camp vacation at no charge to children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick marked the beginning of construction on a $21 million addition with a groundbreaking ceremony in August. The expansion will include a larger emergency department, 18 private inpatient rooms and a bigger diagnostics department.

M. Curt Sachs, an architect and planner, recently relocated from New Jersey and opened his practice in Portland. Sachs holds a masters of architecture degree from the University of New Mexico and is a licensed architect in Maine, New York and New Jersey.

Maine Initiatives recently announced that it is launching a new grant program to fund organizations working for social, economic and environmental justice. The new program, Grants for Change, grows out of the foundation’s 15-year-old major grants program. Grants from the new program will range from small one-time grants to three-year grants totaling $75,000 each.

College of the Atlantic’s marine mammal research arm, Allied Whale, has announced the receipt of $92,308 to continue its marine mammal stranding response. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency recently awarded the Bar Harbor college’s Marine Mammal Stranding Response Program the grant to cover Maine’s Mid-coast/Downeast region for the next year.

Bonhag Associates, headquartered in Lebanon, N.H., recently opened a branch office in Winthrop. Bonhag Associates provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and energy consulting engineering services for clients nationally and internationally.

Due to the popularity of its Orbee-Tuff Produce toy collection, Planet Dog recently expanded the line to include the new Orbee-Tuff Raspberry. 

The Federal Transit Administration has awarded the Maine Department of Transportation $776,000 in funding to help with construction of the maintenance center, storage and office space for Downeast Transportation, the operator of the Island Explorer and year-round transit services in Hancock County. 

Accolades

The Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau announced the winner of the final round of the 2008 Ultimate Chef Competition. Chef Ryan Campbell of the River Drivers Restaurant in Millinocket earned the title of Ultimate Chef 2008.

Solo Bistro in Bath has been named by Santé magazine as the New England 2008 winner of the magazine’s “Innovative Culinary Hospitality Award” in the magazine’s annual awards program. This year’s winners will attend an awards ceremony in Napa Valley, Calif., from Nov. 1-4.

The Best Western Senator Inn & Spa was recently voted the winner in eight categories of the annual Market Surveys of America Best of the Best Survey for Augusta. The property won Best Hotel/Motel/Inn and Best Banquet Facility for the 14th consecutive year, along with Best Conference Center. The hotel’s Cloud 9 Restaurant was voted Best Dining Excellence, Best Brunch and Best Wait Staff, and the spa won Best Day Spa and Best Facial/Skin Care.

Harriman, a full-service architecture and engineering firm with offices in Portland, Auburn and Manchester, N.H., recently received an Honor Award from AIA Maine, the Maine Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, for its design of the Maine Heart Surgical Associates office building in Portland.

Forty-four lawyers from Portland-based law firm Verrill Dana LLP were recently included in the 2009 edition of “The Best Lawyers in America.”

Sherry Quimby, a home health aide at Kno-Wal-Lin Home Care and Hospice in Rockland, was awarded the 2008 Excellence in Long Term Care Award by the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a nonprofit organization for long term care consumers based in Augusta. Kno-Wal-Lin Home Care and Hospice, owned by Pen Bay Healthcare in Rockland, also announced it has been awarded a 2008 OCS Vision Award from OCS Inc., a Seattle, Wash.-based company that provides information on post-acute healthcare providers. The award recognizes providers that utilize the company’s data to improve patient satisfaction and organizational performance.

The readers of Meetings East magazine, a trade publication for U.S. and Canadian meetings markets, recently named The Cliff House Resort & Spa in Ogunquit one of the best meetings destinations in the East. Facilities chosen were rated based on quality of meeting space, guest rooms, guest services and amenities, food and beverage service, the efficiency and helpfulness of staff, availability of technical equipment, recreational facilities and activities, and overall value and appearance.

Rev. Scott Planting was recently presented the annual Community Health Leadership Award at Franklin Community Health Network’s annual meeting for “getting people to work together to solve community problems and to uplift who we are.” Also receiving recognition was Wallace Duffy, who had a surgical practice in Farmington from 1955-1976.

The Village Cove Inn in Kennebunkport has been selected for the 2008 Best of Kennebunkport Award in the hotels category by the United States Local Business Association. The USLBA Best of Local Business award program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country.

Officials at the 2008 World Dairy Expo Championship’s Dairy Product Contest, held annually in Wisconsin, recently said Kate’s Homemade Butter of Old Orchard Beach was presented with the First Place award in the unsalted butter category.

Suzanne Miller, a health services coordinator at Quarry Hill Retirement Community in Camden, was recently named Pen Bay Healthcare Employee of the Year for 2008. The Employee of the Year, chosen from among the Employees of the Month in the current fiscal year, receives a gift of $1,000 and a commemorative plaque.