What prospect could be more delightful than that of becoming a Board member of the
Belfast Coop? What could be more impressive, amazing, and even astounding than a small,
high-quality, community-oriented food resource that has earned an honored place on one of
America’s premiere gourmet byways (the foodie highway rolling from Portland to Mount Desert)
while becoming the year-round favorite grocer for our discerning mid-coast clientele? What
could be more enticing than an opportunity to serve this excellent organization?
During its first half-century, our Coop has zoomed to success, but the years ahead will
bring challenges as well as opportunities. The Coop is a “community” organization, but Maine’s
communities are diverse and evolving. Keeping pace with community changes—advancing the
culinary and nutritional aspirations of customers from Rockport to Ellsworth, not to mention
those who come and go from our much-visited area—requires energy, vigilance, and
responsiveness. As the future unfolds, the Coop must promote not only community but also the
values and processes that create community. Building a food-respecting community begins with
thoughtful curating of local and general food products and other merchandise; development of
education and outreach programs that include but also extend beyond the established Coop
customer base; and sponsorship of fun activities such as pop-up sampling events, culinary
demonstrations, and guest-chef showcases. No organization, not even an altruistic one, can
avoid real-world economic processes. Operating and maintaining a Coop is costly. Our Coop
can increase its revenue stream by expanding its offering of high value-added products,
especially in its café and prepared-food areas. There is also much to be done in the area of

incentives, efficiency, training, and evaluation of Coop management.
The Coop Board is charged with the development of a vision for our beloved store. My
extensive public service in large educational organizations has helped me develop talents and
skills that could be useful as we escort the Coop into its promising future. Over the course of ten
years as the elected president of the faculty senate of a major research university and as chair of
the faculty council for its eight satellite campuses, I participated in the full range of management
and fiscal activities: budget supervision; labor relations; program and mission development;
physical plant planning; fundraising; Board relations; government affairs; media relations; and
more. Working daily with Human Resource Management, I gained insight into the needs and
rights of employees, eventually spearheading a drive to unionize our professional faculty and
staff. These activities have given me an understanding of the workings, needs, difficulties, and
potential of public-interest organizations. Better, in private life, I have cooked, baked, and
generally reveled in food activities all my life, from a childhood spent in my family’s taverns and
restaurants through my and my wife’s exploration of the food culture of our hometown of
Camden and on to my recent completion of the advanced curriculum in sourdough baking at the
King Arthur Baking College—an employee-owned organization whose products appear on Coop
shelves!

To these visions, values, and projects, I bring my strength of will, enthusiasm, and passion, my ability to synthesize information and ideas, ask needed questions, look at broader perspectives, and reach for greater possibilities than what we currently accept and believe in. I am excited to be involved in an organization that is so central to the community that its reach and potential feels limitless.