BOARD APPOINTMENTS

Julia Bassett Schwerin

Julia Bassett Schwerin has been elected a director of the Greater Portland board of Realtors, a chapter of the Maine Association of Realtors. An active member of the sustainability advisory group, she has been a green broker designated by the National Association of Realtors since 2011, along with being a full broker and teaching accredited classes to Realtors. Bassett Schwerin has been associated with Coldwell Banker Realty since 2005.

Roger Charest

Mohamed Awale

Dorcas Ngaliema

Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Maine has launched a new diversity, equity, and inclusion program, beginning with the election of three new board members who are recent alumni of the organization. They include Roger Charest, who attended the Auburn/Lewiston Boys & Girls Club. He graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in applied math. Roger is currently a store manager for Hannaford. Mohamed Awale, who attended the Portland Boys & Girls Club, also has joined the board. He received a promise scholarship to attend USM and graduated with a degree in political science, currently works for Progressive Insurance and hopes to one day pursue a career in performance art. The third new board member is Dorcas Ngaliema, who also attended the Portland Boys & Girls Club. Ngaliema graduated from Southern Maine Community College with an associate’s degree in political science. She now attends USM with a focus on social justice and hopes to attend law school and ultimately work in immigration law.

Colleen Hilton

Daryl Cady

The Home Care & Hospice Alliance of Maine has welcomed two new board members to serve the 2020-2022 term. Colleen Hilton will serve as president and Daryl Cady will serve as vice president. Hilton, a resident of Westbrook, has served as senior vice president of continuing care and president of Northern Light Home Care & Hospice since 2003, and previously served four years as vice president of the home care and hospice board. Cady is the CEO of Hospice in Southern Maine and has served on the home care and hospice alliance board for more than 10 years. She is a resident of Scarborough.

NEW HIRES

Maine Medical Partners has announced the hiring of four new physicians. Dr. Jason Patregnani has joined the division of pediatric intensive care medicine as the director of pediatric cardiac intensive care medicine after completing fellowships in pediatric cardiology and pediatric critical care medicine at Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Abtin Kevin Farahmand has joined the practice in the areas of endocrinology and diabetes. After completing his residency in internal medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, he followed with a fellowship in endocrinology at the University of Colorado. Dr. Aimee C. Welsh has joined MaineHealth cardiology as a clinical cardiologist specializing in preventive cardiology, plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine, and cardiovascular imaging including cardiac MRI, echocardiograph and nuclear imaging. Prior to moving to Maine, she served as assistant professor in the division of cardiovascular medicine at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Dr. Joshua Cowgill has joined MaineHealth cardiology in its Rockport office. He is board certified in internal medicine and has been active in the cardiovascular care clinical transformation project with the Maine Medical Center department of geriatrics. His clinical interests include all aspects of noninvasive cardiology, including echocardiography and nuclear cardiography.

AWARDS AND HONORS

Jessica Brunacini

Jessica Brunacini has been selected as the Margaret A. Davidson graduate fellow for the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. Brunacini, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University, will explore the role of public participation when coastal communities are deciding how to respond to the impacts of climate change. She has worked as an environmental educator in New York, Alaska and Malawi, and has experience integrating local observations, indigenous knowledge, and western science to improve the transmission of climate change information to citizens.

Sophie Halpin

Sophie Halpin, a financial advisor at Back Cove Financial in Falmouth, has become the second advisor in Maine to obtain the Chartered SRI Counselor designation, or CSRIC. The CSRIC is a graduate-level program for advanced financial planners that provides a blend of foundational knowledge and scenario learning to work with sustainable, responsible, and impact investments for a variety of clients. Back Cove Financial is an independent, locally owned wealth management firm in Falmouth.

Barbara Heller

BerryDunn’s parks and recreation practice lead, Barbara Heller, was selected to speak at the National Recreation and Parks Association virtual annual conference last week. Heller’s presentation, “Why Parks and Recreation Are Key Factors in the Support of Mental Health Initiatives,” with co-presenter April Chambers, vice president of National Alliance for Mental Illness, was one of only 65 out of 800 sessions chosen. Fifty-three percent of adults in the United States reported that their mental health has been negatively impacted because of worry and stress over the coronavirus pandemic.