WHO WE ARE

Wayne Hobson is a retired academic who moved to Rockland from southern California in 2005 and has been a year-round Maine resident since his full retirement in 2010. He has been active in the Rockland Shakespeare Society and currently serves as its president. He served his entire academic career in the American Studies Department at California State University, Fullerton, which he joined after earning his PhD from Stanford University in American History, with a secondary field in African History. During his thirty-seven years at Cal State Fullerton he taught both undergraduate and graduate-level courses. His research and writing interests shifted over the years. Much of his research and writing was on aspects of the history of American legal culture, with a particular interest in celebrated criminal trials. That interest ultimately evolved into the broader study of public memory. Wayne was very active in the California American Studies Association, serving a term as its president as well as many years as that organization’s secretary-treasurer. He also served six years as chair of his academic department, four years as the director of the university’s honors program, and one year as the university’s director of academic advisement.

Bio to come

Jim Hengerer grew up in Albany, NY. After medical school, he served in U.S. Navy for nine years while training in Ear, Nose and Throat. He practiced in Lynchburg, VA for 35 years and retired to Rockland four years ago with his wife, Judy. They have spent summers in Maine on Echo Lake for many years. Jim also serves on the United Midcoast Charities Board of Directors and is a member of UMC’s Development Committee and Grants Committee. 

Don Abbott has been coming to Camden in the summers since childhood. He has a degree from Kenyon College in chemistry and earned his MBA from Wharton. He has had a career working with international corporations on the financial side and he and his wife, Penny lived in Brazil, Spain and Mexico over the course of his career. They have two married sons who live on the northwest coast. 

Don and Penny moved to Camden full time for retirement. Don served on the town development committee for several years as well as being treasurer on the YMCA board. He is an active fly fisher and served as Chair of the Maine State Trout Unlimited organization. And in the summer there is boating on Penobscot Bay.

Dwight Blue, a longtime fan of the Conference and the student volunteer coordinator at The Strand, has been teaching English at Oceanside High School in Rockland for 20 years.  Originally from Lincoln, NE, he moved to Maine in 2000 after graduating from the University of Nebraska. Prior to that, Dwight spent three years in the U.S. Army, including a one-year deployment to Bosnia in 1996. Dwight resides in Warren with his wife, Maggi, and their son, Atticus.

George Cooke has spent summers in Maine since childhood and, along with his wife Laura, became a permanent resident of Lincolnville in 2019 following his retirement from an active legal practice in the media and entertainment business. After graduation from Dartmouth on an NROTC scholarship, George served on destroyers tracking Russian submarines in the Med and did an in-country tour north of Danang as an advisor to the South Vietnamese coastal patrol force. The GI Bill enabled him to continue his studies at Cambridge University and Harvard Law School. Between stints at Boston and LA law firms, he had the good fortune to work for 20 years at HBO, where he had a front row seat to the burgeoning of pay television and the internet. George continues his involvement with film as a Board member of the Points North Institute, organizer of the Camden International Film Festival. 

Karin Look is a retired national security professional. Following education at Sweet Briar College, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and UVA Law School, Karin held positions at the Central Intelligence Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Department of State. During her career, she wrote and negotiated treaties controlling nuclear weapons, led the removal of nuclear and chemical materials from Libya, led consultations with NATO on conventional forces, and led for the State Department renewed U.S. thinking about controlling biological weapons. Since arriving in Maine in 2012, Karin and her husband, George, have immersed themselves in the restoration of their 1813 federal house and barn and created extensive herb and vegetable gardens. They embrace the use of natural methods, emphasize native plants and are ever-conscious of the needs of bees and butterflies. While in Maine they have supported Maine Preservation and local land trusts, team-taught classes at the Belfast Senior College, presented at Pecha Kucha, started a lunch-time discussion group on global issues, and adopted two cats. In addition to her work on the Program Committee, Karin serves on the Town of Montville’s Planning Board, and the Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations’ Speakers Committee.

Nick B. Mills taught journalism at Boston University for 26 years. In the 1980s he trained dozens of Afghan journalists in Peshawar, Pakistan and founded the Afghan Media Resource Center, a full-service news agency. In 2004 and 2005 he worked in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and collaborated with Karzai on a book, "KARZAI - The Failing American Intervention and the Struggle for Afghanistan."

Vee Sheehan began her career as a staff writer for daily newspapers in Louisville, KY and Exeter, England. She has also served as an editorial assistant for The American Scholar quarterly and public information specialist for the New Orleans PBS affiliate, which produced programs on local culture that were distributed nationally.

In the early ‘80s, Vee worked in marketing for financial institutions in Louisiana, first in-house then with an advertising agency.

She and her husband Fred, a former city planner, have lived full-time in Maine in the ‘70s and since 1986. They have deep roots in Tenants Harbor but now live in Portland. They have close relatives in Sweden, Germany and France and been fortunate to have internationally experienced friends who have assisted with extensive travel in Turkey and Syria.

Vee has been active on Boards of the Saco River Corridor Association, Greater Portland Landmarks and Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She holds a B.A. in English and French from Bryn Mawr College.

Charlotte Singleton has worked as a director of nonprofit organizations at home and abroad for more than 30 years. She has been a member of the Camden Conference Program Committee since 2013. For 11 years, she served as executive director of the World Affairs Council of Oregon, the largest international affairs organization in the Pacific Northwest. She also has served as a board member and president of the National Council of World Affairs Organizations in Washington, D.C. Most recently, Singleton served as Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society. Singleton and her husband, Seth, who teaches international relations at the University of Maine, have lived and worked abroad in many countries, including Ecuador and Vietnam. Seth and Charlotte Singleton live in Mount Desert.