 Our president, Barbara Bentley, is a retired teacher of French, Spanish, and English. She began her yearly adventures in the Park during the 1950's at Camp
Natarswi on Togue Pond and led the Junior Maine Guide Program there ten years later. She carries on to this day a life-long family tradition of annual trips to Russell Pond each August.
Town government and numerous volunteer causes keep her very busy, but she still finds plenty of time for walking the woods and hills, rock and ice climbing, white water canoeing,
and skiing. A Founding Member of Friends, she has been our Administrative Manager and the Newsletter Editor. She lives in Hope with her husband Bill,
also a Founding member and former Board Member, whose photographs portray the splendor she experiences in the Park.
 Our Vice President, Ken Spalding, serves as Maine Woods Project Coordinator for the private non-profit conservation group RESTORE: The North Woods. He retired from the State of Maine after 29 years of service in conservation, including time with the Maine Forest Service, the Bureau of Public Lands,
the Department of Conservation (Assistant to the Commissioner and Coordinator of Legislative Affairs) and the Maine Conservation Corps (Director for 16 years).
Ken has served on the board of a number of Maine conservation groups including Maine Appalachian Trail Club, Maine League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club,
Natural Resources Council of Maine, Friends of Bigelow, Dirigo Alliance and Kennebec Land Trust. He has served Baxter State Park by participating in ad hoc committees
and by coordinating MCC projects in the Park. He has enjoyed recreating in the Park since 1970, including winter ski trips since 1982. He is a founding member
of the Friends of Baxter State Park. Ken lives in Wayne with his wife and two sons.
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Denise Clavette served as a Parks and Recreation Director for 20 years in several communities, including the City of Portland, where she oversaw 1,200 acres of parks and open space, including Baxter Woods.
She is currently President of the Maine Chapter of the National MS Society Hiking in the woods at her family home in Daigle Pond in northern Maine inspired her passion for the outdoors. Her love for Baxter State
Park was sparked by relatives, Ivan and Virginia Roy, rangers at Daicey Pond for 15 years. This helped shape her decision to obtain a bachelors degree in parks and recreation. She continues to hike Katahdin and
other mountains in Maine and NH. She provided leadership for friends groups and commissions as President of the American Park and Recreation Society, and has presented at conferences on the subject.
Denise was project manager for over 40 park and facility projects, guided community needs assessments, and co-authored grant proposals for trails. Denise lives in Scarborough with her fiancé Larry Mead,
and three children Caitlin at USM, Christopher at UM, and Seth at Scarborough HS.
 Our Treasurer, Al Howlett, has been climbing Katahdin since he was a boy. He had a career in international development that started with the Peace Corps in Chile as a forestry volunteer, then with the United Nations in Brazil and Paraguay, and for many years with the World Bank in Washington, DC working on Latin America and Asia. While living in Northern
Virginia he was active in the Nature Conservancy in West Virginia. Al and his wife Lois have two grown children. They now live in Yarmouth, where Lois is a naturalist and a yoga instructor.
Al is active in the World Affairs Council of Maine, the Partners of the Americas -- Maine/Rio do Grande do Norte Brazil Program, and he sits on the town's Recycling Committee. Al and Lois enjoy outdoor activities -- none more than their trips to the unsurpassed beauty of the wilderness of Baxter State Park.
Board Member Philip “Chip” Ahrens is the senior partner in Pierce Atwood LLP's Environmental Practice Group in Portland, Maine. Much of his practice is spent counseling clients on complex,
significant permitting and enforcement matters primarily before State of Maine and federal environmental regulatory agencies. Prior to joining Pierce Atwood as a partner in 1990, Chip spent over
12 years in the Natural Resources Division of the Maine Attorney General's Office, serving as Deputy Attorney General and Division Chief for the last 8 years. While in the Attorney General’s Office,
he supervised the State's environmental enforcement efforts and litigated major cases in all of the State's environmental laws. He also provided legal advice and representation to the Governor's
Office, the Legislature and the State's environmental agencies, including Baxter State Park and the BSP Authority. After leaving the AG's Office, Chip served for more than 10 years on the BSP Advisory
Committee and continues to serve on the BSP Scientific Forestry Management Area subcommittee. Chip lives in Yarmouth with his wife, Joy. They have 3 grown children and one grandson.
Chip and his family have been fishing and hiking in the Park since 1975.
Jonathan Milne is former Director of Outdoor Education at Colby College and now a stewardship assistant with the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. His previous work experiences have
included natural resource management with the Department of Interior in Oregon, ten wonderful seasons as a field ranger in the north end of Baxter Park, environmental consulting focusing on
forestry management and wetland analysis and outdoor education management and planning for the United States Navy and Colby College. Jonathan’s further devotion to conservation is
evident in the pursuit of his Masters in Environmental Studies from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. Jonathan and Julia and their sons Noah and Nathan reside in Sidney, but hardly
a season goes by without seeing them exploring the woods and waters of the South Branch area of Baxter Park.
Board Member Anne Huntington most recently has been teaching local and natural history at the elementary level. She is also a member of the Maine bar,
although she does not currently practice law. She is active in the Androscoggin Lakes Improvement Corporation and a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals
in Wayne. Some of her earliest memories are of watching the wind sweep snow off the summit of Baxter Peak from the very drafty windows of the farm in Patten
where she lived before she started school. Her family continues to return to the Park frequently, and she always looks forward to the early morning discussions
with the moose from the far back corner of the Chimney Pond lean-to. She lives in Wayne with her husband and three children.
Ralph Pope received a BA in Economics from Bowdoin College in 1969 and spent most of the following 30 years building and managing a printing company in Woburn, MA. In 2000
Ralph sold his printing company and begin an Environmental Studies Master’s program at Antioch University New England. Following his graduation from Antioch in 2003 Ralph
wrote a book on alpine zone lichens (featuring several Katahdin photos) and taught botany courses at Antioch until he and his wife Jean moved to Arrowsic in 2006. Ralph has served
on several non-profit boards, is currently board Secretary for the Maine League of Conservation Voters, and serves on his town’s Conservation Commission. His connection to BSP dates
to 1957 when his Dad wisely stopped a Katahdin hike after hitting nasty weather above Chimney Pond,provoking tearful complaints from 10 year old Ralph and his big brother.
Fortunately his Dad was game to try again successfully in 1958. Through the years Ralph& Jean have maintained an interest in the Park and have fortunately been able to spend
more time there since moving to Maine.
Board Member Lester Kenway is Program Coordinator for the Maine Conservation Corps, developing outdoor conservation projects and hiring, training and putting teams of mostly young people to work on those projects. Lester has supervised teams on trail work for the past 33 years. He was the Trails Supervisor in Baxter State Park and served the Appalachian Trail as a volunteer in many ways over the past 35 years including coordinating the Maine Appalachian Trail Club’s trail crew for 18 years. Lester operates his own business, Trail Services, designing and building trails and
selling trail equipment. He travels around the country training national non-profit and federal agency personnel in trail work. He has also worked for the Land Use Regulation Commission in enforcement out of their Greenville office. Lester is a founding member of Friends of Baxter State Park and lives in Bangor with his wife Elsa.
James St. Pierre (Founding Member #40) has visited Baxter Park scores of times since the 1960s, and co-led more than 25 winter trips.He has been involved in many Park issues, including supporting the West Branch and Katahdin Lake additions, stopping trapping in the sanctuary, and arranging regional and national awards for former Park Director Buzz Caverly. He participated in the organizational meetings of Friends of BSP. Jym earned BA and MPS degrees at UM. He has held senior
positions in Maine in the Dept. of Conservation, The Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club. Since 1995, Jym has been Maine Director of RESTORE: The North Woods, and other public interest positions, such as Citizens to Protect the Allagash (Founding Chair), Maine Public Lands Policy Advisory Committee, Maine Development Foundation's Leadership Maine Program, Maine League of Conservation Voters (Co-founding Director), Maine Forest Biodiversity Project (Steering~Committee), Kennebec Land Trust (Founding President), and Capital Area Camera Club (President). A Maine native, Jym is a published author and award-winning photographer.
 Board Member Rex Turner is an Outdoor Recreation Planner for the Maine Bureau of Lands and Parks. He has also worked as an Interpretive Ranger at Acadia National Park, a Historic Interpreter at Old Fort Western, an Environmental Educator, and an Earth Science Teacher. Since 2004, Rex has been a contributing outdoor columnist for the
Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel. In addition to being a practicing Registered Maine Guide, Rex is also an active member of the National Association for
Interpretation (he is a NAI Certified Interpretive Trainer). Although there are numerous places and experiences within the Park that have inspired him, Rex lists fall hikes
on the Traveler, a winter ascent of Katahdin, and a canoe trek across Webster Brook and Grand Lake Mattagammon as favorite Park memories. He also serves on the Augusta
Conservation Commission and coaches baseball at Cony High School. He and his wife live in Augusta
Board Member Howard Whitcomb is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. His 35-year teaching career included a fellowship at the U.S. Supreme Court, collaboration on several books, the latest published in 2005, and a specialty in constitutional and administrative law. He is on the faculty and the board of Midcoast Senior College. Howard first climbed Katahdin in 1952 and continues to enjoy hiking in the Park. Howard is a Founding Member of Friends and worked for three years compiling and annotating Baxter source materials pertaining to the legal foundations of Baxter State Park management. This four-volume work is now complete. (Click here to view.) He and his wife live in Georgetown.
 Board Member Chaitanya York is a humorist (known as "Henry Bascomb") and a handyman. He has over 28 years experience with natural resources and organizational development, including positions as president of Maine Conservation School, executive director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, director of Maine Department of Agriculture's Division of Resource Development, and founding director of Common Ground Country Fair. He has
served on numerous boards and two Governor's study commissions. Chaitanya has hiked extensively in the park, canoed most of the ponds, and for 20 years acted as volunteer coordinator for a men's team specializing in carpentry projects one weekend annually. He enjoys exploring old discontinued trails. Chaitanya said, "The Maine Woods was my day care center where my woodsman grandfather took me, starting when I was three years old and where I first embraced wildness."
Board Member Henry Beeuwkes is presently on leave of absence as Director of Technology at Thornton Academy in Saco to further his education. He has grown up spending summers, and more recently occasional winter vacations, at his family's camp on Togue Pond. With the Park at his doorstep, he and his family enjoy hiking and camping in Baxter throughout the summer and have introduced many friends to Katahdin. The camp, in the family since the 1920s, was purchased by his grandfather Tom Clark. Tom inspired a love of the Katahdin wilderness and a respect for nature that has been passed down through four generations. Indeed, any suitor to an heir of Tom's must pass a "Camp Test" to be taken seriously! Henry served for many years as a technology educator in Maine schools. He is a past board member of the
Maine Association of School Libraries, a volunteer with Maine Handicapped Skiing and is a Trustee of the Eastern Trail Alliance. He and his wife Peg are the parents of Claire, a college sophomore, and live in Saco.
Milton Wright is a former teacher and teacher advocate who retired as Executive Director of the Maine Education Association. In retirement he has just completed a two-year term as President of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club which oversees the maintenance of the 270 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Grafton Notch at Route 26 to the summit of Mt. Katahdin. He served for many years as Chair of the Readfield Planning Board and then served as Chair of the Readfield Select Board. He has also served on many non-profit boards including Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed, Training and Development Corporation, Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, Fee Arbitration Panel of the Board of Overseers of the Maine Bar, Readfield Trails Committee, Old Fort Western and various other non-profit groups. Milt first summitted Kathadin in
1949 at age 10 with his father and a sister. He continued to hike to the summit of Mt. Katahdin for 58 consecutive years. And it isn’t only Mt. Katahdin, but the beauty of the rest of the park and its wildness that holds his fascination. Milt lives in a circa 1791 house in Readfield, Maine.
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