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 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.
 Our Secretary, Sally Daggett, is a shareholder at the Portland law firm of Jensen Baird Gardner & Henry, where her practice is concentrated in municipal law and litigation. She grew up hiking with her family in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island. Sally did not discover Baxter State Park until after college, but even after backpacking
trips to the Jotunheimen in Norway, the Dolomites in Italy and the Canadian Rockies, the Park remains her favorite place to hike and camp. She also coaches a variety of sports for Cumberland County Special Olympics. She lives in Portland.
 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.
 Our Treasurer, Don Hudson, is the President of the Chewonki Foundation. He made his first trek through the Park in 1963. Graduate studies in Arctic and alpine botany followed a dozen years later. Don studied the reproductive biology of an Arctic plant on Katahdin, and followed up that work with studies of old growth forest and alpine areas, as well as a delineation of alpine plant communities on Katahdin. Don continues to serve the Park
as a member of the Director’s Scientific Advisory Committee. He is a founding member of the Friends of Baxter State Park. He lives with his wife and two sons in Arrowsic.
 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.
 Board Member Charlie Jacobi, is a Natural Resource Specialist at Acadia National Park, whose focus is visitor use management issues. His work includes planning, social science and visitor impact research coordination, visitor use and impact monitoring, and Leave No Trace education. Charlie came to Acadia in 1984 after two seasons of work in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and made his first visit to Baxter State Park in
June of that year. On his third Park visit that fall, he surprised a pine martin at the summit of South Peak. He has not seen another one near there since, but he looks every year. When not enjoying Maine’s woods and waters, Charlie is likely traveling overseas to visit national parks and reserves in other countries. He is a founding member and a past president of the Friends of Baxter State Park. He lives in Bar Harbor.
 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.
 Board Member Howard Lake is shareholder at the Winthrop law firm of Hufnagel & Lake. He practices in the areas of estate planning, real estate, land conservation and business law. He is past Chair of the Maine State Bar Association's Real Estate and Title Section, having previously served as Chair of the Title Standards Subcommittee. Howard is a longtime winter and summer user of Baxter State Park. He is a founder and current director of the Kennebec Land Trust and serves on other boards including Maine Woods Forever and the Winthrop Area Chamber of Commerce. He is a founding member of the Friends of Baxter State Park. He lives in Readfield with his wife and two sons.
 Board Member Linda Rogers McKee is a retired high school English teacher who served eight years in the Maine Legislature from 1996 to 2004. As House Chair for four years of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, which has oversight of Baxter State Park, Linda became very interested in the protection of wilderness values in the Park and became a strong advocate for the Park in the Legislature. She also served four years on the
Natural Resources Committee. During the summer, she and her husband retreat as much as possible to their cottage at Camp Phoenix on Nesowadnehunk Lake on the western boundary of Baxter State Park. From there they can access the Park easily and are fast becoming acquainted with the terrain. She and her husband live in Wayne
 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.
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