Maine Community Foundation hires former Kellogg Foundation CEO as interim president

Maine Community Foundation said Thursday it has hired the former head of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to be interim president and CEO.

Sterling Speirn, who started this month, steps in for Steve Rowe, who will retire after six years at the helm. Speirn, who has degrees from Stanford University and the University of Michigan Law School, has also led other foundations and even worked at Apple Computer Inc. in the late 1980s, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He led the W.K. Kellogg Foundation from 2005-13, and most recently has served as a senior fellow for the National Conference on Citizenship.

A search for a new president and CEO will start this fall, the organization said. 

Maine Community Foundation ranked No. 2 on the list of Maine’s top 15 foundations, published last September in the annual Giving Guide. It had annual giving of $27.18 million for fiscal-year 2018, the most recent year available, and assets of $524 million. 

Along with hiring Speirn, the Maine Community Foundation elected three board members and appointed a new chair and vice chair of the board.

Gregg Collins, a Caribou resident and vice president of S.W. Collins Co. in Caribou, becomes board chair.
 
Adilah Muhammad, who lives in Lewiston is is president and founder of The Third Place in Portland, has been named vice chair. 

Both are veterans of the board.

The three new board members are Julie Mallett, an attorney for Legal Services for the Elderly in Bangor and broker and consultant at Mallett Real Estate LLC; Claude Rwaganje, founder and executive director of ProsperityME in Portland and a member of the Westbrook City Council; and Ben Sprague, vice president at First National Bank in Bangor and a former member of the Bangor City Council.