Hello, all ’73ers.
Lions Club International awarded Guy W. Piper the Senior Master Key for sponsoring 25 members during his career as a Lion in the Monmouth Club.
Mark Skinner wrote from New Jersey that he and his wife, Evan, are moving back to Maine in a few years to split time between Portland and Littlejohn Island in Yarmouth. Mark is mostly retired as board chairman of Daybright Financial, a company he founded. They have four children and six grandchildren. He has stayed part of the University of Maine community through a capstone program in the Graduate School of Business for a select group of MBA students who act as consultants for businesses in Maine or wanting to come to Maine. They have consulted on a wide range of large and micro businesses, from retail to aquaculture to NASA.
Craig Shinn shared that in June, at spring commencement at Portland State University in Oregon, his last two doctoral students, Kelly F. Sherbo and Christopher T. Page, received their degrees in public affairs and policy.
“Kelly’s dissertation, and special area of interest, focused on Special Districts. These are the almost 40,000 governments closest to the people: utility districts, conservation districts, irrigation, flood, drainage, and pest control districts. And in urban areas they include urban renewal districts, fire, police, recreation, and library districts. Her dissertation looked at how such special districts work together.
“Chris shares my long-standing interest in environmental governance from an institutional perspective. His particular focus is in how Indigenous people make sense over time of governance processes. He used anthropological methods and historical analysis to understand these dynamics in the Columbia River Basin.
“One can find their dissertations online. If someone is interested in either of these topics more generally, there is related content in Foundations of Public Service, 3rd edition, Morgan, Green, Shinn, Robinson and Banyan.”
Craig says he is “working hard at retirement” spending time with their children and six grandchildren, painting and making pottery, and traveling about in their pint-sized RV, a red Solis.
John Irving retired to Cape Cod after a long career designing, building, and operating electric generating plants fueled by coal, oil, natural gas, wood, and nuclear fuels.
Steve retired at the end of June from California American Water after 52 years in the wastewater/water business. (YAY!) He can now join me on extended trips to visit two of our girls and their children in England and beyond. We celebrated the birth of our fifth grandchild in July and will travel to meet him and see our other kiddos and a side trip to Belgium on our way home.
Please consider dropping me a line to let our classmates know what you are up to.