Landis Hudson
Landis Hudson, Executive Director
Landis has a graduate degree in forestry resources management from the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College. She has worked for Maine Audubon, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Earthwatch Institute, and the United Nations. She lives near the Royal River in Yarmouth with her husband and their twin daughters.
Maine Rivers Board of Directors
John Banks
John Banks
John Banks is the Director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation, a federally recognized Indian Tribe in Maine. Mr. Banks has served the Penobscot Nation in this capacity since 1980, following the enactment of the Maine Indian Land Claims settlement Act of 1980. As Natural Resources Director, Mr. Banks has developed and administers a comprehensive Natural Resources management program for his tribe, which advances an integrated management approach, in recognition of the inter- connectedness of all things in the natural world. Mr. Banks has a BS degree in Forest Protection from the University of Maine, where he was awarded an Indian Fellowship from the office of Indian Education in Washington DC. Mr. Banks has served on many local, regional, and national organization boards including the National Tribal Environmental Council, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, National Indian Policy Center, and the Tribal Operations Committee with USEPA.
Nick Bennett
Nick Bennett, Maine Rivers President
Nick is the Staff Scientist and Watersheds Project Director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry. His professional background includes work in PCB contamination; wetlands delineations; wildlife surveys; and analysis of fish, soils, surface and ground water. Prior to working at NRCM, Nick worked at an environmental consulting firm, the Center for Marine Conservation, and the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole. Nick resides in Hallowell with his two crazy dogs, Atlas and Perseus, and is an avid duck hunter.
Curtis Bohlen, Maine Rivers Treasurer
Curtis Bohlen is an ecologist with a lifelong interest in all things aquatic and semi-aquatic. He is the Executive Director of the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership at the University of Southern Maine. Curtis has worked as a restoration ecologist with Trout Unlimited in Augusta, his past peripatetic, interdisciplinary academic life included a stint as a Congressional Science Fellow on Capitol Hill, a period working on ecological economics at the University of Maryland, and eight years at the Environmental Studies Department of Bates College In his spare time he reads to his kids and rows on the Royal River.
John Burrows
John R.J. Burrows
John works for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, an international non-profit dedicated to the conservation and wise management of the wild Atlantic salmon and its environment. John works on fisheries conservation and river restoration issues across Maine. John graduated from Gettysburg College and also has a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Yale University. John enjoys fly fishing, hiking, paddling, and photography.
Jeff Clark
Jeff Clark
A reporter and editor residing in Bath, Jeff has investigated and written about almost every conceivable subject in the state of Maine from arguments over development in York Harbor to the proper size of a Grade A potato in Agatha. He has written about pollution of the Androscoggin River, dam removal on the Kennebec, and Ed Muskie, the father of the Clean Water Act. Jeff and his wife live in Bath.
Laura Rose Day
Laura Rose Day is the Executive Director of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, a not-for-profit organization working to create sustainable native sea-run fisheries on the Penobscot River for people and wildlife. Laura holds degrees in wildlife management, as well as in environmental and energy law and has worked on behalf of the public’s interest in water resources for nearly twenty years, including as Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Wildlife Federation’s Lake Superior and Biodiversity Programs, and as Watershed Program Director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Dusti Faucher
Dusti Faucher
Dusti Faucher is a founding member of Maine Rivers and is the President of Friends of the Presumpscot River (FOPR), a grassroots organization that works to restore and protect the Presumpscot River. She is a board member of the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership and has volunteered her time on committees such as the Comprehensive Plan Committee and the Natural Resources Commission in Windham where she previously lived near the Presumpscot River. She grew up in Conway, NH, near the Saco and her love for rivers started as a young child swimming in the river nearly every day during the summer. As the campaign coordinator for the Presumpscot River Renewal Project, she works to restore migratory fish species in the river through the installation of fish passage on six of the river’s eight dams. FOPR intervened in the FERC process and advocated for dam removal as well as fishways. They were successful in getting the new licenses for five dams to include provisions for fish passage, defeated challenges to these license provisions all the way to the US Supreme Court and are now working towards achieving fish passage on the first non-hydropower dam at Cumberland Mills. Along with her husband, Ron, she likes to travel in their RV, which is their home, and does her best to visit as many rivers as possible during these travels.
Betsy Ham
Betsy Ham
Betsy grew up as the daughter of a dam keeper on the headwaters of the Androscoggin and now lives at its confluence on Merrymeeting Bay. As a child she lost several row boats down through the dam because she forgot to pull them up and so she switched to a lighter craft, the canoe, and enjoys paddling throughout Maine and in Canada both flat-water and whitewater. Betsy coordinated Maine Rivers back in its early days when it was a part of NRCM. She now works for Maine Coast Heritage Trust as part of the land protection staff. She is married and has 19 year old twin daughters. In addition to canoeing she likes to ski, bike and row (she has not lost a boat in many years).
Mike Herz, Vice President
Before coming to Maine, Mike spent 20 years protecting San Francisco Bay from polluters as the founding S.F. BayKeeper and as Executive Vice President of the Oceanic Society. He has a Ph.D. in Biopsychology from the University of Southern California and was Associate Professor in Residence at University of California, San Francisco. He was appointed to the Alaska Oil Spill Commission to assess the impact of the Exxon Valdez spill and has served on National Research Council, Department of Interior and State of California technical advisory committees. He is a board chairman of Friends of the Earth, U.S., past president and current board member of the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association (a land trust that also protects endangered Atlantic salmon) and former board member of Maine Initiatives and Friends of Maine Seabird Islands. Mike is an avid river paddler and ocean sailor who has cruised over 20,000 miles on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and sailed single-handed from San Francisco to Kauai.
Rick Lawrence & companion
Rick Lawrence
Rick Lawrence owns and manages a tree farm along a mile of the Fifteenmile Stream, a major tributary of the Sebasticook River. He uses the river in all seasons, for swimming, skating, skiing and paddling. Rick retired from teaching after 33 years. He has strong interests in conserving rural ways in Central Maine, including forestry, agriculture and recreation.
Dan Marra
Dan Marra
A long time board member of the Kennebec Valley Chapter of Trout
Unlimited, Dan lives on the Sebasticook River and can frequently can
be found fishing in, or paddling on, one of Maine’s rivers or steams.
A graduate of Colby College and the University of Maine School of Law, Dan practices law in Waterville.
Lia Morris
Lia Morris
Having grown up on Mount Desert Island, Lia Morris developed an early connection to all things outdoors. This led her to obtain a graduate degree in Natural Resource Planning from Tufts University and an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and Biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Lia most recently worked for the Penobscot River Restoration Trust and has worked and volunteered for organizations including Environmental Defense, Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, and private consulting firms. Lia currently resides in the Kennebec River watershed with her husband and two children.
Jeff Reardon, Secretary
Jeff Reardon is the New England Conservation Director for Trout Unlimited, currently overseeing the permitting and design of the Penobscot River Restoration Project. He is a graduate of Williams College who has been working on river conservation in Maine since moving home to Maine in 1994. Since 1999, he’s been working full time for TU.
Laura Sewall
Laura Sewall
Laura Sewall has worked as a furniture maker, fish farmer, boat captain, researcher, professor, writer, watershed coordinator and conservationist. She earned her doctorate in visual psychology from Brown University and a master’s degree in environmental law from Vermont Law School. Laura is the author of Sight and Sensibility: The Ecopsychology of Perception and numerous articles on the relationship between visual perception and human behavior toward the environment. She currently lives on the coast of Maine where she serves as the Director of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, gardens and surf kayaks.
Bill Townsend with his daughter Eliza Townsend, courtesy of the NRCM
Clinton “Bill” Townsend, Maine Rivers President Emeritus
Bill’s passion for the environment is rooted in his deep love of fishing and Maine rivers. He has been awarded the River Network’s “River Hero Award,” Gulf of Maine Council on the Environment Visionary Award and Down East Magazine’s Environmental Award. Bill currently serves on the boards of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Maine Council of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, and Somerset Woods Trustees, Maine’s oldest land trust. He has served on the Boards of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and the Maine League of Conservation Voters. He served previously as United States Commissioner to the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, and on the Land for Maine’s Future Board and the Land Use Regulation Commission. Bill practices law with the firm of Perkins, Townsend, Shay and Talbot in Skowhegan.
Sharri Venno
Sharri Venno spends most of her water time on Penobscot Bay but has spent the last fifteen years of her life thinking about the health of the Meduxnekeag River in Aroostook County as an Environmental Planner for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. In her spare time she helps her family maintain Hiram Blake Camp on Cape Rosier, and hangs out with her sister’s children. Sharri joined the Maine Rivers board because “John Banks from Penobscot Nation roped her into it” ….and adds “it’s a good group of people with a wonderful mission.” She brings a northern Maine perspective into the mix.
