Hello again, classmates! I hope you are all doing well! At the time of writing this, it’s starting to get a little hotter and we are starting to have some nice days in Maine, so summer is not far off! I’ve got my first family vacation scheduled with my husband and 3.5-year-old daughter. We are heading to the Outer Banks for a week. Wish me luck!
A few classmates were able to give me some updates for this column. Our peers are up to some really cool and fun things! Nicholas Craig and his wife, Heather, just took a three-day weekend getaway to the Tampa area for a quick break. They cashed in on a present from Nick’s mom that included some babysitting hours for their son, Ezra, and some getaway money! They had a great time! Nick is putting his survey engineering degree to work as a survey technician at Haley Ward and lives in Milford, ME.
Andrea “Annie” Bisacre Grant worked on campus as a student for the athletics department as part of the athletic event staff. She has continued to grow in the athletics department and is now the coordinator for athletic facilities and special events. She and her husband, Matt Grant, live in Bangor with their two children, Madison (10) and Carter (5). They are looking forward to the summer so they can swim at the lake, go whitewater rafting, and go camping. UMaine Athletics is lucky to still have Annie as part of their team!
In November, Aislinn Sarnacki, an outdoor journalist for the Bangor Daily News, lectured on campus about conservation in Maine. She got her start in journalism at the Maine Campus and has been with the BDN for over a decade. In her recent lecture, she discussed the impending fears around popular natural areas, specifically Katahdin and Acadia. Her goal is to limit the amount of population in given areas and discussed “leave no trace,” an environmental idea made up of seven principles that minimize the human impacts of time spent outdoors. Be sure to check out Aislinn’s weekly columns and her three hiking guidebooks!
The American Council of Engineering Companies of Maine elected officers for its board of directors in August of 2023. Andrea Dickinson of Haley Ward was elected as a state director. Congratulations, Andrea!
The Maine College of Art and Design has also appointed new board members. Gimbala Sankare was named a trustee. He has held a variety of positions including vice president and talent acquisition for the National Basketball Association, head of global talent acquisition and diversity at WEX, founder and CEO of StashUp, and is currently the head of human resources at Preti Flaherty in Portland. That’s quite the resumé, Gimbala! Congrats!
Laura Callnan Berube wrote to let me know what her life since graduation has been like. She has been working for over 14 years at the environmental consulting job that she started just two days after our graduation in 2010! She loves the people and the office dogs that she works with and loves that she gets to do meaningful work that she cares about. She has two healthy, hilarious children and is married to Eric Berube ’11, ’14G, ’17G, the love of her life who she met at UMaine while studying in the wildlife ecology program. A Bear Pair!
In college, Laura was and still is great friends with Kelly Anderson Weisslender. Kelly lives in Windham and works at Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE). She and her husband are trying to visit as many national parks as they can. They recently got back from the Great Smoky Mountains! I’ll have to ask her for each column if they have been to any new ones!
I think that’s all for now, but certainly do send me some news or a few sentences about what you’ve been up to! It’s always great hearing from members of the amazing Class of 2010!