Abusana “Micky” Bondo, mother of 5 children, was born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, educated and trained in Belgium where she holds advanced degree in Biochemistry with research in sickle cell and also two associated degrees in Business administration and Education. Micky runs the non-profit In Her Presence, an organization she co-founded with Claudette Ndayininahaze, that is focused on empowering immigrant women. Ms. Bondo also serves on multiple Boards: The Opportunity Alliance, The National Board of Maine League of Women Voter, The Statewide Coordinating Council for Public Health and is involved with the United Way and Thrive2027. She is a Coalition Parent for Portland Empowered, a platform funded by Nellie Mae foundation, which bridges the Public School, parents and community to create a strong pathway for students success and encourage the Student centered learning program beyond the high school. And, as a member of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation Speaker Bureau, she travels across the country, offering a variety of perspectives workshops from community advocates and parents to lend their voice and leadership in advocating to make learning more student-centered. In 2018, she was elected as the first Congolese-American for Public Office to serve at the School Board of Education Rep District 1 in Portland, Maine.

Julie Chase is the Dean of Business and Community Partnerships at Southern Maine Community College.  She has been with SMCC for almost thirteen years in roles supporting workforce and economic development.  Prior to joining SMCC, she was a small business owner and was among the first employees that helped establish York County Community College.  Julie serves on Boards for Coastal Counties Workforce Inc. and the Greater Portland Economic Development Corporation and is a member of the Education Committee for the Manufacturers Association of Maine. Other community leadership roles include being a member of the New Mainers Resource Advisory Board, The Greater Portland Workforce Initiative, and various other committees that help connect businesses and individuals to the higher education community and resources that can help them thrive.  A graduate of the Leadership Maine program through the Maine Development Foundation, she is passionate about linking resources to support the economic vitality of Maine.  Julie loves volunteering in her community as well as on service trips to Guatemala, most recently bringing a team of business people, SMCC students and staff to work in a remote village.

Tony Cipollone is former President and CEO of the John T. Gorman Foundation, a Portland-based private foundation dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged people in Maine. Now retired, he joined the foundation in 2011 and since then has helped advance a range of new investment strategies aimed at improving results for children, youth and families. Prior to that, he was Vice President for Civic Sites and Initiatives at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where he worked in senior leadership for over 20 years and helped develop and lead numerous initiatives related to education, community redevelopment and policy advocacy, including Casey’s national KIDS COUNT project. Tony received his doctorate in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Anne Dalton is the Special Advisor to the CEO, Historian with the Association  of Junior Leagues  International  Inc. (AJLI). The Junior League is an organization  committed  to promoting women's  community  and civic leadership  through  volunteer  service. There are 292 Junior  Leagues collectively  in the US, Canada,  Mexico and the United Kingdom, comprising 150,000  individual  members. Anne joined AJLI in 1983 and has been involved  in consultative  services, training  and senior management  ever since.

Currently,  Anne manages  the Strategic Transformation Rollout which  is a comprehensive  change  initiative focused  on redefining  Junior  League governance  and management  systems, community  program strategy, and the membership  model to strengthen  the ability of each League to advance the Junior  League  Mission.  In addition, Anne  provides strategic  consulting and training  in governance  and community impact,  manages  the affiliation process and is a member of the senior leadership  team.

Previously, Anne was Girls Club of New York's Executive  Director,  Henry Street Settlement's Director of Youth Employment  Services  and Senior Planner with the Vera Institute of Justice.

Anne holds a BA in English from Cornell University,  an MSW from Hunter College and is a graduate  of the Carver  Policy Governance Academy  and the Lift360 Leadership Intensive.  She is a sustaining  member of the Junior League of Portland,  Maine, a member  of the Board of the International  Policy Governance  Association  where  she serves as Secretary,  a member of the Board of the United Way of Greater Portland where she serves on the Community  Impact Steering  Committee and the Board Development Committee, and a member of the Board of the Portland  Public Library.

Wendy Estabrook is the Vice President of HR Shared Services at L.L.Bean, a company recognized not only for its outdoor sporting specialty products but also for being a great place to work. Wendy began her career in retail management, working for Jordan Marsh before joining L.L.Bean over 30 years ago. She was part of the team responsible for opening Bean’s first stores outside of Maine and worked for a period of time as Director of Stores. After serving in a series of leadership roles across multiple disciplines of Human Resources, Wendy rose to the position of Vice President, adding responsibility for the company’s Health/Safety/Wellness areas in 2019, just months prior to the beginning of the global pandemic. Wendy, who had co-authored L.L.Bean’s pandemic plan 15 years prior, also stepped in to lead the company’s cross-functional pandemic team.

Supporting the broader community, in the mid-2000’s Wendy co-led the Maine Council on Aging’s Workforce and Employment Workgroup to develop best practices for employers related to caregiver and aging worker policies. Most recently, Wendy was a member of the Maine Commission to create a Paid Family and Medical Leave Program.

Wendy earned her undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Management from Bentley University and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern Maine.

Joe currently serves as the President & CEO at The Opportunity Alliance (TOA) and has been at the organization since 1998. He has extensive experience in the field of health and human services as well as non-profit management. Joe has been working in the industry for nearly three decades and has held both clinical and administrative roles.

During his tenure at TOA, Joe provided effective leadership in the mergers of three legacy organizations, Ingraham, Youth Alternatives, and PROP (Peoples Regional Opportunity Program). He has a great deal of experience in the area of program development and has designed and implemented numerous behavioral health and social service initiatives. Joe has secured over $25M in revenue though State and Federal funding opportunities. Further, he was the principal driver in the development of critical statewide programs including 2-1-1 Maine and the Maine Crisis Line.

In addition to overseeing strategy development and implementation, he has led the implementation of the Results-Based Accountability™ framework at TOA, evaluating and improving agency impact and program performance. Joe holds a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Toronto.

James H. Gailey is the County Manager of Cumberland County, Maine. He began his career working for the City of South Portland’s Parks and Recreation Department as a teenager in 1987, and went on to work for the city as a tax specialist, planner, community development director, Assistant Manager and was named City Manager in 2007. During his time in that position, Jim reorganized South Portland’s government into an efficient, flexible and modern municipal operation. He developed a Sustainability Office, moved the city into the digital age by going paperless in several departments and with the City Council, and worked collaboratively with the community to create a resource hub in the Redbank affordable housing neighborhood. Jim also worked to develop one of the state’s first public/private municipal broadband projects in 2015, and a public wireless mesh network around the city downtown and park in 2016.

In July of 2016, Jim accepted the Assistant Manager’s position for Cumberland County. A year later, Jim became the County Manager, overseeing 400+ employees and a 45M budget. In 2017, Jim took on the role of overseeing the Cross Insurance Arena, a 7,000-seat arena, as a new department with county government. On the belief that regionalization of government services is the most efficient way of to provide them, Jim today works with the twenty-eight communities within Cumberland County to explore ways of providing regional service delivery to the over 292,500 residents who reside within the county.

Jim earned a BA in Geography from the University of Maine at Farmington in 1994. He earned his MA in Planning and Policy Analysis from the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine in 2001, and is a Xi Class graduate of the Institute of Civic Leadership. He was named Manager of the Year in 2014 by the Maine Town, City and County Management Association and was a 2017 Paul Harris Fellow with the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. He is the co-creator of the state’s first regional municipal employee Leadership Academy, and participates in a variety of regional boards and committees.

Bio Coming Soon

Liz Rickett is senior vice president of Client Success for Unum, one of the world’s leading providers of workplace financial protection benefits.

The Client Success area is responsible for ensuring Unum’s clients have a best in class experience from onboarding through administration. The organization includes employees on three campuses (Chattanooga, TN, Baton Rouge, LA and Portland, ME).

Previously, she served as vice president of Field Operations where she led efforts to redesign the Field Offices which included creating new roles and organizations. Rickett joined Unum in 1988 and has held various positions supporting the Field organization.

Liz was born and raised in Portland and graduated from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. While working at Unum, she also coached high school girls’ basketball for 9 years at Catherine McAuley HS. She and her husband Peter, live in Portland and have two sons, Matthew and Karl.

Bio Coming Soon

Kris is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of child welfare and organizational improvement. She has advised state, territorial, and tribal governments from Maine to American Samoa.

Kris brings a commitment to improving the lives of our most vulnerable citizens to the development and application of objective criteria in evaluating and implementing public policy. Examples of her broad portfolio of work includes developing policies and management systems in American Samoa; implementing a post-Katrina hurricane recovery and reform plan for the Louisiana Office of Community Services; and facilitating the creation of strategic plans for integrated children’s health, mental health, and human services in over a dozen states. Her approach to reform is focused on the design, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-informed policies and practices that are grounded in research, outcome-driven, and responsive to the needs of vulnerable children, families, and communities.

Kris has authored publications on strategic planning, public agency management, and child welfare and is often asked to speak about the issues to which she has dedicated much of her professional work: working with state and national government leaders and communities to develop long-term solutions for complex social issues. Kris brings this same commitment to her role as Director of the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy; she has served as Principal Investigator on two multi-year projects funded by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Organizational Improvement and the Northeast and Caribbean Child Welfare Implementation Center.

Kris teaches graduate courses at the Muskie School of Public Service on various topics, including Public Health Policy for Children and Families; Managing Change in Child, Youth, and Family Policy and Programs; and Child and Family Policy and Law. Kris attended the London School of Economics and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of the District of Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts degree (with honors) from New York University.

Commissioner Michael J. Sauschuck came to the Department of Public Safety from the City of Portland, where he worked as the Assistant City Manager. He started his law enforcement career with the Portland Police Department in 1997 and was promoted through the ranks of that agency, ultimately becoming the Chief of Police for the department in July 2011. At the Portland Police Department, Commissioner Sauschuck was responsible for the executive command of 163 sworn officers and 60 civilian employees, and for administering a law enforcement agency with an annual budget of 16.6 million dollars. His philosophy was geared to creating partnerships with those he served in order to develop long-term solutions that help citizens thrive. He is a former United States Marine Corps Machine Gunner, and he has held specialties as a Field Training Officer, a Special Reaction Team Member, a Crisis Intervention Team Member, and a Weapons of Mass Destruction Team Member. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Maine, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology. Commissioner Sauschuck lives in Windham with his wife, Mary.

Liz assumed leadership of United Way of Greater Portland in January 2015. As President & CEO, she guides United Way’s strategies that achieve community change in the areas of education, financial stability, and health to improve people’s lives.

Liz started her United Way career at United Way of Dane County (Madison, WI) in 1998 after working for four years in other nonprofit organizations including KaBOOM!, Up with People, and the Partnership for National Service/Points of Light Foundation. She served as Campaign Director in Dane County until December 2000, when she left to pursue graduate studies.

Upon completion of her master’s degree, Liz joined the management training program at Deere & Company, more commonly known as John Deere. During her six years with John Deere, Liz became a trained Examiner for the Iowa affiliate of Baldrige National Quality Program while she served in marketing and strategic planning roles in Moline, IL; Cary, NC; Zweibruecken, Germany; and Johnston, IA.

Liz returned to United Way in Des Moines, IA in January, 2009 and until December of 2014 led United Way of Central Iowa’s Advancement Division, which included corporate engagement, grants, individual engagement, and marketing staff.

Liz serves on the Board of Directors of the Portland Community Chamber of Commerce.

Liz grew up in Waterville, Maine, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University. Liz and her husband, Michael, have two school-aged daughters.

Bio Coming Soon