Jono Anzalone | Chair

Jono is the Executive Director of The Climate Initiative (TCI), a nonpartisan organization that inspires to educate, empower, and active 10 million youth around climate action by 2025. He joined TCI after a long tenure as both a Red Cross, where he started as a youth volunteer in 1994 in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Most recently, Jono served as the Head of Disaster and Crisis, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for the Americas and Caribbean region, based in Panama, Panama and also served as the Vice President of International Services at the American Red Cross based out of Washington, DC. Jono’s hundreds of national and international disaster assignments with the American Red Cross, IFRC, and ICRC have led him to serve in places such as Mexico, Belize, Suriname, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Liberia for the Ebola crisis, and Haiti, to include being detailed to the United States Agency on International Development (USAID) during the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and assigned to their Response Management Team to lead the agencies donations management activity. Jono served as the Advocacy Committee chair for the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (National VOAD) from 2012-2015 and is currently the Vice-Chair of the Craft Relief Emergency Fund (CERF+).

Jono graduated from Creighton University with a BA in Political Science, the University of Nebraska with an MS in Economics, a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Higher Education at the University of Nebraska, and the Harvard School of Public Health and Kennedy School of Government National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, and has earned the International Association of Emergency Management Certified Emergency Manager (CEM®) credential and was awarded the Meta-Leader of the Year from Harvard School of Public Health and Kennedy School of Government National Preparedness Leadership Initiative in 2017. Since 2003, Jono has held teaching appointments in economics, disaster management, and leadership at colleges and universities across the country.

Jono and his husband Andy, a Maine native and Gender Equality Advisor at Save the Children, moved from Panama, Panama in September of 2020 to live in Maine with their Golden Doodle, Penni.

John Banks | Secretary

John Banks retired on 9/30/2021 from the position of Director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation, a federally recognized Indian Tribe in Maine. Mr. Banks had served the Penobscot Nation in this capacity since 1980, following the enactment of the Maine Indian Land Claims settlement Act of 1980. As Natural Resources Director, Mr. Banks developed and administered a comprehensive Natural Resources management program for his tribe, which advances an integrated management approach, in recognition of the inter- connectedness of all things in the natural world.

Mr. Banks has served on many local, regional, and national organization boards including the National Tribal Environmental Council, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, National Indian Policy Center, and the Tribal Operations Committee with USEPA.

Mr. Banks has a BS degree in Forest Protection from the University of Maine, where he was awarded an Indian Fellowship from the Office of Indian Education in Washington DC.

Mr. Banks has been awarded the 2019 Distinguished Alumnus from the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources.

Margaret Sewall Barbour

Margaret “Maggie” Sewall Barbour is the former President of the Sewall Foundation, Member Emeritus of the Board of Directors, and daughter of Elmina B. Sewall. Maggie grew up in Kennebunk, Maine, attended Stephen’s College for two years and then graduated from University of Southern California as a business major. She spent 12 years as a buyer for Bullock’s department store (which is now Macy’s) and 11 years as a resident buyer with a large Los Angeles buying office. Maggie has been a Southern California resident since her college days. She is a great supporter of animal welfare organizations and senior services and volunteers at her local animal shelter and senior center. Maggie’s favorite sport is ice skating and she loves to travel, read, do puzzles and stitchery.

Rotha Chan

Rotha Chan is a Director of the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation. In 1985 when he was 13 years old, he, his mother and siblings were resettled in Biddeford, Maine as refugees, having survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia. He received his BS degree from Boston University with a major in International Relations and concentration in Rural Economic Development. He is a founding member of The Killing Field Survivors’ Society, a founding member of the Asian-American Heritage Foundation, has served on the Diversity Committee of United Way of Greater Portland, and on the Board of Tax Assessment Appeal for the City of Saco, Maine. Rotha has served several financial institutions in Maine and New Hampshire and has been in banking for twenty years. Rotha is the Commercial Credit Manager with TD Bank in Portsmouth, NH.

Autumn Fitch

Autumn currently lives in Yarmouth with her two sons, Vahn-Russell and Marcus. The three of them enjoy board games, traveling, movies, and outdoor adventures! Originally, Autumn is from the Passamaquoddy reservation Indian Township. Her tribal community and heritage is a fundamental part of her life. Autumn believes in caring for all people, animals, and the environment and those values align with all aspects of her life. Her business degree has a sustainability focus and she is currently working at K&A Engineering contracting for CMP’s solar power production and acquisition team.

Leslie Hill, Ph.D.

Leslie Hill is living her “Third Chapter” after retiring from the Bates College faculty, where she was a member of the Politics Department and the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program teaching a range of courses, many of which addressed gender and racial justice in both domestic and international settings. For a time she worked with staff and faculty across the College as Special Assistant to the President for Diversity and Inclusion. Currently, as Faculty Fellow at Bates’ Harward Center for Community Partnerships, she develops faculty learning opportunities aimed at building instructors’ capacity to address racial inequity and advance social justice in community engaged learning projects.

Her own personal community engagements include helping to design Maine Initiatives’ community grantmaking program, “Grants for Change” that focuses on challenging impacts of exclusionary systems and discriminatory policies while supporting racial justice and equity work in the state. For the past few years, Leslie has joined grantmaking committees at the Maine Women’s Fund as it pursues its mission to transform the lives of women and girls. Learning about philanthropy’s roots in oppressive practices and intrigued by efforts of some foundations today to learn about and address systemic inequities, she is eager to think with thoughtful philanthropists to foreground policies, perspectives, and practices that foster racial, economic, and gender justice.

Dale McCormick

Dale grew up in Iowa where she raised sheep with Old Testament names and showed them at the County Fair in Boys 4-H. In 1975, after becoming the first woman to complete a carpentry apprenticeship with the carpenters union, Dale started her own construction company; wrote 2 books about carpentry; and founded Women Unlimited, a program that successfully trained women on welfare to compete for high-paying jobs in trade and technical occupations.

Dale co-founded the Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance in 1984; was elected to the State Senate in 1990 and served 3 terms; became Maine’s first female Constitutional Officer when she was elected State Treasurer in 1996; directed the Maine Housing Authority for 7 years; and was a city Councilor-at-Large for the City of Augusta.

Dale has a BA from the University of Iowa and three daughters two of whom are twins and she is very proud of all of them. Dale lives on a tiny urban farm in Augusta Maine where she raises peaches, blueberries, tends her vineyard and plays her cello.

Vendean Vafiades, esq. | Treasurer

Vendean served as the Chief Judge of the Maine District Court and as a District Court Judge for ten years, the first woman Chief Deputy Attorney General for the State of Maine and a Commissioner on the Maine Public Utilities Commission.She was in private practice at Bernstein Shur and was a lobbyist for the Maine Women’s Lobby.

Vendean worked as the Special Counsel to the Chancellor and Board of Trustees of the University Maine System and she served as the University of Maine System Chief Counsel prior to becoming a judge. She continues her work as a consultant to executives, higher educational leaders and boards of directors focusing on strategic positioning, leadership and organizational development.

Currently, Vendean is the Co-Chair of the Maine Attorney General’s Office Deadly Force Review Panel. She is a graduate of the University of Maine School of Law and continues her support of access to justice organizations serving disenfranchised individuals living in Maine.