The Camden Conference is run by a very active volunteer Board of Directors, many of whom have lived in foreign countries and had foreign service experience.

Skip Bates is Vice President of Business Banking at Bangor Savings Bank. He speaks Japanese fluently and in 1995 earned a master's degree from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, where he studied U.S. - Japanese relations. He is a 1991 graduate of Amherst College where he majored in English and Religion, including a semester of study in Bodh Gaya, India. Currently, Skip is on the board of Midcoast Magnet and United Midcoast Charities. He is a recent graduate of the Midcoast Leadership Academy and is enrolled in the University of Maine MBA program.

John Bird spent the last eighteen years of a forty-eight year career in the non-profit world as a leadership and management consultant to non-profit organizations across the country. He retired as President of a ten-partner firm, Educators' Collaborative, in July 2007. Before beginning his consulting career in 1989, John spent 29 years in independent education, five years in full-time teaching, five years as a senior administrator and teacher, and 19 years as a head of school. John has also served as a trustee and board chair of several non-profit boards in the fields of education, health care, the environment, the arts, and religion. Locally, in addition to the Camden Conference, he serves on the boards of the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Lincoln Street Center for Arts and Education, and the Island Institute (which he chairs). John grew up in Rockland, Maine, received his B.A. degree from Bowdoin College and an M.A. from George Washington University. John and his wife of 47 years, Mary Alice, now live in Spruce Head, Maine. The Birds have three grown children and six grandchildren.

Dan Bookham serves as the Fundraising and Communications Director for Broadreach Family and Community Services in Midcoast Maine. The son of a Royal Air Force serviceman, Dan was born in England and raised throughout Great Britain and Europe. Dan attended the University of North London where he focused his studies on the emergence of the modern Middle East, graduating with honors in 1994 with a B.A. in Modern History. Since immigrating to the United States, Dan has worked in the marketing, broadcasting and chartable fields. He is a member of the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations, the Midcoast Development Council and the FMC BioPolymer Community Advisory Board. A graduate of the inaugural Midcoast Leadership Academy, he currently serves as its co-coordinator and is also active in local economic development efforts. Dan is married to a Maine native and, together with their daughter and dogs; they make their home in Rockland.

John Enright has spent a long and productive career in strategic planning and information technology as a consultant supporting the Departments of Defense, Treasury, State and Justice. He brings skills in understanding the effective use of modern technology to expand outreach and education. In addition to serving on the Camden Conference Board, he is also a Director of the Camden Area Futures Group and a Board member of The Community School. Previously, he served on the Camden Blue Ribbon Economic Task Force. While in the Washington, D.C. area, he was an elected City Councilman and an appointed Planning Commissioner for Northern Virginia. He is a veteran, having served in the Air Force Intelligence Service, and a graduate of Tufts University.

Sam Felton, a former business executive, is currently publisher of the Strategic Management Digest. He is a director of Acadia Senior College and a trustee of the Southwest Harbor Public Library. He is a reviewer and contributing editor for Strategy & Leadership, a bi-monthly international business journal. He has been published in several business journals, including the Harvard Business Review.

Will Galloway is the Dean of Students at the Watershed School in Rockland, Maine where he also teaches U.S., Chinese and European History. Prior to working at Watershed, he was a founding partner in the mediation firm of Charbonneau & Galloway, providing a wide range of conflict management services to individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations. Will studied British History at the University of St. Andrews in 1986, graduated from Bowdoin College in 1988, served in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1988-1990 and earned a M.A.T. from Colgate University in 1992. In addition, Will was a teaching fellow at the secondary level through the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University from 2005-2007.

Brewster Grace recently retired as director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and as its representative for the World Trade Organization and the International Labor Organization. Prior to joining the Quaker UN Office, he served as Quaker representative in Southeast Asia and then in the Middle East. He has also worked as a correspondent for American Universities Field Staff in Southeast Asia and Geneva where he reported, respectively, on Southeast Asian politics following the Vietnam war and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He is a graduate of Colorado College with a B.A. in Political Science and Colombia University with M.A.s in Public Law and Government and East Asian Studies.

Charlie Graham is a retired international banker and consultant who, during his twenty-nine year career, traveled widely in Europe, Middle East, Canada and North Africa, writing on international business topics for publications in Chicago and Maine. He has served on the boards of several non-profits, including the Mid-American Arab Chamber of Commerce (Chicago), the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce, the Camden Congregational Church, and the Penobscot School of Rockland, where he was Board Chair. Charlie speaks several foreign languages, including French, German and Italian and Spanish. Raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Graham has degrees from Bowdoin College and the Thunderbird Business School, and served in the US Army Security Agency in Germany from 1961-1962. He lives with his wife, Dorothea, in Camden.

Bob Hirsch retired in December 2004 as Global Managing Director for DuPont’s Intellectual Assets & Licensing Business. Primary markets were China, India and the Middle East. He was also responsible for DuPont’s New Venture Fund. He is currently an executive consultant in licensing and intellectual property commercialization, as well as in R&D and business management. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of yet2.com, a global licensing corporation, and redE4, a venture fund investing in technology-based startups. During a 30+ year DuPont career, Bob held a wide variety of executive positions, serving as R&D director for three businesses and running five worldwide businesses. He holds a master’s degree in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia. He has published numerous papers in a variety of fields of physics. Locally, Bob is on the board of Habitat for Humanity, and on the Knox Waldo Regional Economic Development Council.

Kathleen Hirsch taught in public school systems in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. While living in North Carolina she worked as a guardian ad litem representing the interests of children before the courts in the Foster Care System. Following a move to Pennsylvania, Kathleen coordinated the efforts and training of 300 volunteers as an employee of the American Red Cross in the area of blood donation services. She currently does volunteer work in the Wyeth office of the Farnsworth Museum, having previously volunteered for the Wyeth office at the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, PA. Kathleen and her husband, Bob, moved to Owls Head in 2005. They have two married children and two grandchildren.

Dave Jackson divides his time between his business as an event organizer and his volunteer commitments to the Midcoast area. Dave is currently Director of the Conservancy for Camden Harbor Park and Amphitheatre, and serves on the boards of the Coastal Mountain Land Trust and the Coastal Workshop.

Ron Jarvella serves on the Advisory Board to the Hutchinson Center and the Executive Board of the Hutchinson Center Senior College where he also teaches. A teacher for over thirty years, he holds a B.A. and M.A. in History. Ron has returned to the Camden Conference Board of Directors after serving on the Advisory Council and also serves on the Board of the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations.

Jean Lenderking is the President of LRA, Inc., a founding sponsor of the Public Sector Industry Council within the national Labor and Employee Relations Association, and first Chair and founding member of the Interagency Labor Relations Forum. As former Labor Relations Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Transportation, her leadership in strategic labor/employee relations is recognized throughout the federal sector. Her diverse experiences enhanced DOT's focus on performance and acclaim in strategic planning. Recent consulting and journal publications address strategic and tactical aspects of constructive change management.

Jim Matlack served as Director of the AFSC Washington Office from 1983 until 2003, during which time he traveled to Central America, Europe, and especially the Middle East and hosted foreign visitors and delegations. His earlier career included 12 years on the Board of Directors of the American Friends Service Committee and was part of the first Western NGO delegation into Cambodia after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Jim holds degrees from Princeton, Oxford and Yale universities.

Betsy Mayberry currently works as a social services consultant in New York City. Prior to this, Betsy served as the Executive Director of Louise Wise Services, a child welfare agency, Director of Services at the Children's Aid Society, another non-profit in New York City and as the Administrative Director of Operations of New York City's public child welfare organization. A graduate of Cornell and Columbia, she and her husband, Jim Mushlit, have a house in Northport.

Sarah Miller edits the publication World Gas Intelligence, mainly from the home in Camden she shares with her husband, David Babski, and is editor-at-large of the Energy Intelligence Group. She is a co-convener of the Camden Philosophical Society and helps moderate the Camden Conference’s annual Energy Symposium. She moved to New York to edit Petroleum Intelligence Weekly in 1990, after reporting for McGraw-Hill World News in Brussels, Washington and London.

Ralph Moore retired in 2007 after 11 years’ service as Rector of St. Peters Episcopal Church in Rockland. He holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University, an M. Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York and a D. Min. from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For thirteen years, he directed the Protestant Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife served five years in Episcopal Church projects in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, where their son was born. He is currently a teacher and trustee of the Watershed School in Rockland.

Pat Mundy retired to Spruce Head, Maine after forty-three years as a marketing consultant teaching corporate executives how to develop short and long term strategic business and marketing plans. He currently teaches American History at the Maine State Prison in Warren sponsored by the University of Maine and serves on the Board of the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations.

Bob Rackmales spent a 32-year career in the US State Department, moving into increasingly responsible positions in Washington, Africa and Europe. In the mid-1980s, he headed the Office of Human Rights, and his assignment as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d'Affaires in Belgrade, for which he received a Presidential award, coincided with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the outbreak of war in Bosnia. In other incarnations, Bob chaired the Tenant-Landlord Commission in Arlington, Virginia, and taught local history in the county's adult education program. He and his wife Mary moved to Northport in 2004.

Sarah Ruef-Lindquist , JD, CTFA, is Senior Consultant and founder of Planning for Good, providing organizations with planned giving expertise and support. She was previously Vice President and Senior Administrative Officer in the Trust Department of Union Trust Company and was Vice President for Southern Maine at the Maine Community Foundation. She has extensive knowledge and experience in planned giving and endowment management, and has facilitated many seven-figure and larger charitable gifts. She is a member of the Maine State Bar Association, New Hampshire Bar and American Bar Associations, the American Bankers Association, Maine Estate Planning Council, and past President of the Maine Planned Giving Council. She serves on the boards of the Maine Bar Foundation, Georges River Land Trust, Atlantic Challenge Foundation, Maine Philanthropy Center and Spannocchia Foundation. She is involved in a myriad of other fund-raising activities for non-profits throughout Maine.

Louis Sell served as Executive Director of the American University in Kosovo Foundation (AUKF) from 2003 to 2007, helping establish the American University in Kosovo, which opened its doors in October 2003. A retired Foreign Service Officer, Louis Sell worked for 28 years with the U.S. Department of State, including eight years each in Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union and Russia. He served as US representative to the Joint Consultative Group in Vienna, as Director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis, and as Executive Secretary of the US delegation to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.  From 1995 - 1996 he served as political deputy to Carl Bildt, the first High Representative for Bosnian Peace Implementation. In that capacity he attended the Dayton Peace Conference and participated in the first year of implementation of the Dayton accords. In 2000 he served as Kosovo Director of the International Crisis Group. He speaks Serbo-Croatian, Russian, and French. He has a B. A. from Franklin and Marshall College (1969) and an M. A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Affairs. Mr. Sell's political biography of Slobodan Milosevic, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, was published by Duke University Press in 2002. He is currently at work on a book on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine at Farmington and lives with his family in a 200-year-old house on a Christmas tree farm in Whitefield, Maine.

Seth Singleton holds degrees from Harvard and Yale. He has taught courses in international relations, American foreign policy, globalization and development, China and East Asia, and Russian history and politics. He was a Fulbright Scholar and has taught at universities all over the world.

John Snow lived in New Hampshire for 30 years working principally in the banking business, John and his wife Ann retired to Port Clyde in 1998. He also serves on the PLEA board of the Rockland Public Library and as an emeritus Overseer of Bowdoin College.

Maureen Stalla lived twenty-five years overseas in Jordan, Oman, Sri Lanka and Peru, with husband Stan and their four children. A "Jill of many trades," she was the National Tennis coach in Jordan, taught English as a Second Language for the British Council in Oman, taught middle school in Peru, college English in Sri Lanka, and served on embassy charity boards.

Michael Wygant (Mike) grew up in New Jersey and attended Dartmouth, graduating in 1958. After a brief stint in the Army he was commissioned into the US Foreign Service the following year. During his 32 year career with the State Department Mike had overseas postings in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), Togo, the USSR, South Vietnam, The Gambia, Australia, and the Micronesian islands of the Pacific. In 1987 he was appointed by President Reagan to be the first chief of mission to the newly independent Federated States of Micronesia. Following retirement from State in 1990, he and his wife Lee moved to Scarborough from which base he assumed a second diplomatic career serving in leadership roles with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at various posts in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. He has long been active in the World Affairs Council of Maine, serving as Board member and Program Chairman. Also a long time attendee (and one time participant) at Camden Conferences, he had been on the Advisory Council for some years prior to joining the Camden Conference Board.