Advisory Board

The Advisory Board is a dynamic group of individuals with diverse skill sets who bolster Midcoast Conservancy efforts by lending knowledge, expertise, and perspectives toward fulfilling  the mission of the organization.  The Advisory Board's role is to advise, advocate and inform the organization so as to assist in shaping its agenda, and its capacity, to achieve its Vision and accomplish its Mission.

Janet McMahon

Janet McMahon is an ecologist who works with land trusts, conservation organizations, state agencies, and private landowners to identify, understand and design landscape-scale conservation areas. She has developed regional conservation plans for the Medomak, Sheepscot, and St. George River watersheds, the Blue Hill peninsula, and the Great Pond Mountain region, and is currently working on an ecological assessment of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

 She studied biology and geology at Colby College and has a masters degree in plant ecology from the University of Maine.  Her thesis and map, The Biophysical Regions of Maine, is used as a framework for many landscape-scale conservation efforts in Maine and her report An Ecological Reserves System for Maine:  Benchmarks in a Changing Landscape provided a blueprint for a statewide ecological reserve system and led to ecological reserves legislation in 2000.

 Janet served on the faculty of Watershed School in Camden, where she taught courses in Global Climate Change and World Geography.  She was a founder of the Medomak Valley Land Trust, and now serves as a scientific advisor for Midcoast Conservancy.  She was a member of the Maine Forest Sustainability Council,  Allagash Wilderness Waterway Advisory Council, Maine Conservation Task Force, and currently serves on the Maine Ecological Reserves Scientific Advisory Committee.

William “Buck” O’Herin

Buck O’Herin has worked in the education and conservation fields for more than 35 years. He was a board member of the Sheepscot Wellspring Land Alliance beginning in 1999 and was the group’s first executive director. He taught semester-long environmental field study programs with the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute and Sterling College, and environmental and outdoor recreation courses at Unity College. From a young age he was drawn to the wild fringes of the built environment and has continued these sojourns in widening circles that eventually included the Arctic and deserts of the American southwest.

For ten years he ran a guiding business that offered wilderness canoeing and backpacking trips around the U.S. and Canada. He is a founder of the Waldo County Trails Coalition (WCTC) that in 2016 completed the 46-mile Hills to Sea Trail from Belfast to Unity and he is currently the part-time coordinator. Buck has a M.S. in Environmental Education and a B.S. in Secondary Education. Buck is a former President of the Midcoast Conservancy Board of Directors, and serves on the Lands Committee. He lives in Montville with his partner Lisa Newcomb and daughter Zaela.

Susan Reid Russell

Susan R. Russell’s 45-year career as an executive, consultant, and board member has been devoted to strengthening non-profit institutions in education, healthcare, the environment, social services and the arts. Her involvements have ranged from national organizations with multi-million-dollar budgets to start-ups. Russell now resides in mid-coast Maine, having previously lived in Nashville, TN, Washington, DC, and Buffalo, NY.

In Maine since 2002, Susan has served in leadership positions for several boards of directors. She was the founding president of Midcoast Conservancy and is a former board chair of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and Kieve-Wavus Education Inc. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum and the Junior League of Portland. She currently serves as President of the Piper Shores Resident Association.

In Nashville from 1986 to 2002, Russell was CEO of the Saint Thomas Foundation, Executive Director of The National Association of Bank Directors, and Director of Leadership Giving for Vanderbilt University. She served as board chair for the Nashville Symphony, Nashville Public Radio, Family and Children’s Service, Leadership Nashville and was a founding board member of The Land Trust for Tennessee. In Washington from 1979 to 1986, Russell was Director of Institutional Relations for Resources for the Future and Vice President of Youth for Understanding. A native of Buffalo, Susan was President of the Association of Junior Leagues International headquartered in New York City and CEO of the Washington-based National Alliance for Volunteerism.

Russell majored in history and journalism at Syracuse University, from which she graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and received the Arents Award. Her major spare-time interests include fly-fishing, music and gardening. Widowed in 2022 with the death of her husband, Professor Emeritus Clifford S. Russell, Susan has a son, daughter in law, and two grandsons.

Joanne Steneck

Joanne graduated from the University of Maine School of Law in 1987 and spent her legal career with the state regulatory agency, the Maine Public Utilities Commission. She was an attorney with the Commission until 1997 when she became General Counsel. As such, she supervised the legal division and was a member of the senior staff advising the three member commission on gas, electric and telecommunications matters. She oversaw the connection to the internet of Maine’s schools and libraries and was the manager of the first in the nation project providing laptops to all Maine seventh and eighth graders. Joanne retired from the Commission in October 2014.

Joanne has lived in Whitefield, Maine along the Sheepscot River since 1981, with her husband Robert, a professor of marine science at the University of Maine. She was a board member of the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, a Midcoast Conservancy legacy organization, since 2008 and served as the Chair of their Lands Committee. Joanne is a former Vice President of the Midcoast Conservancy Board of Directors, and serves on the Lands Committee.

Lissa Widoff

Lissa Widoff is a philanthropic consultant with a deep background in ecological science and environmental policy. She served as Interim Executive Director of Midcoast Conservancy from 2020-2021 and Executive Director of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation that supports graduate student environmental leaders with fellowships and training until 2019.

Lissa currently serves as Program Advisor for the Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust and is on the Board of Waldo County Bounty, a local food council that grew out of a response to increased food insecurity during the pandemic. She has worked to protect thousands of acres for the Land For Maine’s Future Program as its first staff person and has advised conservation groups and foundations working in Maine and beyond. She lives in Freedom Village with easy access to hikes on Midcoast Conservancy preserves in the Sheepscot Headwaters region.