Transcription of Wellness on the Water #195
Speaker 1: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle. Recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.lovemaineradio.com for details. Now here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
Aaron: There are a lot of ills in the world right now and the opportunity to be in your metabolism is usually the thing that can bring you back to center.
Brianne: Everyone has their role. There is so much going on. It’s really fast pace. You’re changing direction. You’re changing everything depending on the wind. If you could imagine how quickly the wind changes and how sensitive these boats are, everything is moving. It’s all moving parts. To have 5 people on a fairly tight boat, you certainly need to know, not only your job but what everyone else is doing so you’re out of their way. Everyone has a very specific job and you have to be efficient at it.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Berlin City Honda of Portland, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 195, Wellness on the Water, airing for the first time on Sunday, June 7th, 2015. In each issue of Old Port Magazine, our active life piece features people who are successfully integrating wellness activities into their busy lives. Many manors find their wellness and simultaneously make a living from the water. Today, we speak with speak with 2 such manors, Aaron Frederick, former director of Rippleffect and Brianne O’Donnell Fisher, a realtor with The Swan Agency and avid boater. Thank you for joining us.
Our next guest is an individual who I’ve known for several years. This is Brianne O’Donnell Fisher who is a realtor with The Swan Agency, an avid boater. Brianne lives with her husband, Alex in a newly renovated 1903 John Spencer home on the Portland Peninsula. Brianna, it’s great to have you here today.
Brianne: Thank you for having me.
Lisa: I love that what you do in your life is so much about the water. You and I, and we’re talking about the work you do with The Swan Agency, the types of houses that you sell, you know, your passion for boating and even the fact that you’re in here today wearing your water boots and you have apparently ducks in your front yard because of the rain, but everything is so water-based. Tell me about how this started for you as a child?
Brianne: Sure. Well, when I grew up, I had a very active family and we had camps on Sebago Lake. We had a little island on Tacoma Lake and so I grew up around lake sports, tubing, and wakeboarding and waterskiing. Then as I moved to Portland … Officially I was born here but officially my first department, and running the boulevard, and getting out and seeing Casco Bay, I just started being more of an ocean person. I was skiing one day at Sugarloaf and a friend of mine, Cain Smith said, “We’re looking for a fifth on our J/24 sailboat.” Of course on top of the mountain on Sugarloaf, why not, it’s so far away. It’s in the spring or whatever.
We went. A couple months later, he reminded me that I had this binding contract. I went down and we just started sailing. You just jumped in and figure it out but we did and this will be the fifth season. We race out of Portland Yacht Club and on Wednesday nights is the J/24 Regatta. There’s probably, I don’t know, 14 to 18 boats in the regatta, so it’s good. It’s a great crew, a lot of fantastic people. I think you certainly meet just very interesting people from every aspect but mostly downtown Portland professionals and that’s really been a cool part of it. Wednesday nights we race out of there. They also do a Thursday night series as well so that was really it. It was by invitation and then just getting immediately hooked.
Lisa: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Brianne: Two brothers, so one older and one younger. I have the middle child syndrome.
Lisa: Middle child and a girl.
Brianne: And a girl, that’s it.
Lisa: Wow. That’s actually really interesting. Did you have to keep up with them in any way or …
Brianne: Yeah. I think that’s also part of being so physical. My brother’s played sports so I played sports. I mean, I was just what everyone did in the household. There wasn’t really any doll time. It was more baseball mitts.
Lisa: Where did you go to high school?
Brianne: I went to Lewiston High School, a little back up. I was born in Portland. My father is in Portland. My mother remarried and moved to Lewiston. I was back and forth but Lewiston.
Lisa: You definitely have the lake sitting there. You have the interior Maine but you also have the coastal Maine. You really have gotten to know the waterways and lots of different …
Brianne: Right. The house I was born in is on Baxter Boulevard. I think I always had it. I mean, I remember learning how to ride my bike which was a strawberry shortcake big wheel on the Baxter Boulevard. I mean, I just have these very vivid memories of it.
Lisa: Well, I’m thinking about my own experiences with big wheels and I would imagine that if you’re a small child and there’s this enormous body of water and you’re thinking wow.
Brianne: It’s the ocean. It’s exactly, right.
Lisa: It’s mine. You probably figured this belonged to you and it belonged to your family.
Brianne: Right, absolutely.
Lisa: Tell me about this J/24 Regatta. I’m only barely a sailor. I mean, I’ve only been in a few, sunfish, widgeon, a few people …
Brianne: Have fun. It is fun.
Lisa: … sailed me around. What are the J/24s?
Brianne: That is the style of boat. A J boat refers to the style of the hull. There’s J/70s. There’s different J’s. On Wednesday nights specifically, in order to be in this Regatta, you have to have a J/24. It just keeps it out. It’s just a style of racing, whereas Thursday night you can maybe mix it up with a few other difference. A little less we did there. It was J/24. It’s a very popular, very sleek, very fast sailboat.
Lisa: If it takes 5 people to race this boat, does each of you have a specific job that you’re doing?
Brianne: Yes, certainly.
Lisa: How is this organized?
Brianne: Right. Everyone has their role. There is so much going on. It’s really fast paced. You’re changing direction. You’re changing everything, depending on the wind. If you could imagine how quickly the wind changes, and how sensitive these boats are, everything is moving. It’s all moving parts. To have 5 people on a fairly tight boat, you certainly need to know, not only your job but what everyone else is doing so you’re out of their way. I mean, that’s not only to be smooth and get a better time but also not to fall off the boat and not to get hurt. I mean, so it is really fast paced. With 5 of us, everyone has a very specific job and you have to be efficient at it.
Lisa: What was your job?
Brianne: It changes depending on the day but I am mostly in the front of the boat, so dealing with jib which is the sheet in the front and you stand on the bow. You’re the closest to the bow.
Lisa: The other people … I’m imagining there’s also another larger sail that’s behind the jib, so other people are doing …
Brianne: The main sail is the big one. Then the jib sheet is in the front. Every person, like I said, has their own role but one of the biggest roles is at the helm and you’re steering. You’re at the back and you’re steering because you’re paying attention to what everyone else is doing. That’s the managerial position, if you will. You’re there, you’re at the helm and you are dictating the direction but also you’re realizing that something up in the jib sheet and the front of the bow needs to be adjusted so you tell me that or things like that. That’s probably the biggest role, the most important role but like I said, they’re all pretty important.
Lisa: It’s a little bit like the quarterback of the sailing crew?
Brianne: Yeah. I would say that, the quarterback but there’s a lot of receivers out there too.
Lisa: Then we can only go this far with sports and everything when it comes to football because that’s about all I know. If you do these every Wednesday night between May and October, then how far are you racing and you’re racing out of the Portland Yacht Club so that’s right in Casco Bay. Where do you go?
Brianne: It depends on where the wind is coming in which is the cool thing. I mean, you’re looking out into Casco Bay which is essentially your backyard and you can pick either between the Hussey Sound, and between Clapboard and Long Island or if the wind was coming in from a different direction, you would go more towards The Brothers or in between Diamond and The Brothers. You just have to see where the wind is coming in off of the ocean.
You go out and I mean it’s not … I mean, it’s a couple of miles but it’s close enough that you can usually get about 2 races in, sometimes 3, hopefully 3 between the hours of 5:30 and 8. You get in as many races as you can before the daylight leaves. That’s basically it. You go by Mother Nature. She tells you when you’re done with your race, or sometimes the wind will just stop and so we’re all sitting in the middle of Casco Bay saying, “Okay. This is going to be a slow race. Maybe we’ll only get one in today.” That’s also the cool part of it is you never know every day is different.
Lisa: Is this something where … I’m just trying to picture this because this is so foreign to me that I’m trying to get a sense for. If you’re racing, does somebody go out and say, “Okay, race up to here and then race over here.” Somebody goes out with their boat and they race to that point. Then they time it or how is this done?
Brianne: It’s race committee and of course sailing is been around for so many years. It’s such a beautiful sport. There is a lot of rules. A lot of … I don’t know. There’s just silent rules that you just need to know. The race committee is what’s it called and so it’s a boat that goes out and drops the buoys which are blown up large, orange buoys that you go and you race around. When you are on course, you can look a mile ahead or a mile-and-a-half ahead and you see this big orange floating beacon. When you go up, you go around. Someone everyday as we said it changes according to the wind. Every day the course is set by race committee and that is changed all the time.
Lisa: Do the sailboats go out at the same time or do you …
Brianne: Yes. It is certainly timed. There is a starting line. There is a gun that goes off. Everyone crosses over the starting line, hopefully at the same time. That’s really the fun part, is in the beginning because everyone … When you have, like I said, 14, 15, 16 boats crossing the same finish line, it gets really intense and essentially you’re fighting for air because there’s the wind coming and if a boat cuts in front of you then they take your air. It’s an element of it. It’s scientific as well that you just have to see how things are coming and feel and read the wind. It’s certainly time. It’s definite, finish line at the end, same thing when you crossover that horn sounds and they write down your time.
It’s definitely timed and there’s fouls. You can’t hit other boats. You can’t hit the markers themselves. The fun thing is a lot of times if you do … for a lack of better word, foul. Then you have to do a turn. Your boat, you have to do a 720 turn and then keep going again, so it’s fun. You definitely get penalties. When you get in to it, there’s certainly a lot to it that keeps you more competitive than just a breezy sail through the ocean.
Lisa: They’re keeping track of these throughout the seas and so by the end of the season, does somebody win every week and then at the end of the season there are bigger week winners?
Brianne: Right. At the end of every week, we all come in and we put our boats away. Then we have a bite to eat and shake hands and tell bore stories and we give away prizes which are always very fun and some silly. It’s good. It’s good comradery.
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Lisa: You work a lot in your job with The Swan Agency with Waterfront property. You work a lot with the islands. Do you have some favorite islands that you work with?
Brianne: Well, yeah. I’ve been with this one agency, Sotheby’s for … I’ve been with Sotheby’s for 7 years and with Kim Swan for 4 years. She’s based out of our harbor and so very coastal there which is why it works for me when we decided to tam up to do the Portland version of the coastal real estate focus. In focusing on a lot of coastal Casco Bay properties, some that I did that were most interesting I think is Clapboard Island East. We sold that to Maine Island Heritage Trust. That was just a really good, feel good piece because it was 17 acres and it was going from private sail and the owners have been in the family since 1898, so I mean it wasn’t public.
The trails were beautiful but no one could really experience them other than the family. That was really a feel good. I remember at the closing when the brokers said to me that they went out and the coolest feeling was taking down the sign that said no trespassing, private, no trespassing and basically saying, “Welcome, enjoy.” There’s eagle’s nest, there’s osprey nest. I mean, there’s just … It’s really … There’s 5 different beaches that you can now kayak too and go in and take a walk. That was really a fun one that I think that my business, my real estate influence on Casco Bay did make a difference.
That helps you make you love your job even more. We currently have a property on Sturtevant Island for sale. I sold some property on Peaks Island and that’s just fun to say that you’re going to a building inspection and I’m going to take my wheel and I’ll meet you there. Something like that. It’s really neat. Then just coastal properties immediately, Chandlers Wharf for instance. I do a lot of sales there in condos but also boat slips. It’s real estate really works for me because there is just a lot you can do on Casco Bay in a lot of different ways whether it be downtown Portland and condo or 17 acres of trails.
Lisa: Do you also like the aspect of the historical value of the house or the renovation of the house? It sounds like you did quite a lot of work on your own house, the one that you just moved into.
Brianne: Yes, 1903 captain’s home. Very cool, high ceilings, great porthole type window. It’s this octagon, big but it looks like porthole window. You’d feel captain. You’d feel nautical when you’re in it. When I was doing the building inspection, I had my building inspector put a ladder up so I can go up on to the roof which at the time was an unfinished roof and I was wearing heels. He said, “I don’t know that I should. Okay, whatever, Brea, go ahead.” I demanded it. I was like, “I have to see what it will look like out there and it was amazing.” Of course we ended up putting a roof deck on.
It looks like it was there all long, a very appropriate widow’s walk scenario to a captain’s home. It was a big renovation but it was certainly worth it. You walk in now. We kept everything to period. I think very tastefully so but it’s also brand new. That’s the nice piece to it is it’s bright and it’s sunny. Everything that it should be as far as modern amenities but we kept the marble and we kept the stairwell. We kept the doors, the hardware and the doors and the molding. We didn’t keep the original but we replaced it with something very similar too. It was really fun renovation.
Lisa: Did you come about knowing that this property was on the market because of the work that you do?
Brianne: Yes. I approached it. We put an offer in and then came back again. Almost 6 months later it was still on the market and that’s because I was watching it and seeing what it was doing. To have that ability keep your finger on that pulse was helpful and so we got it 6 months later which was neat. It was one of those meant to be as well. You feel like all right, now we can really take it and feel good about it.
Lisa: Did you work with a local interior designer to create the … to do the renovation or did you do a lot of that yourself?
Brianne: No. My husband, Alex Fisher, really did a lot of the interior design. He is himself, a fantastic interior designer. He’s done projects like El Rayo Portland, El Rayo Scarborough. He and his partner started Portland lobster companies. You still see a lot of that element that he put in place and of course Planet Dog, the retail store in town but also in all the labels and in the design of those products. He uses a lot of friends and a lot of artists and a lot of vendors but ultimately it’s his vision that is the interior design of these places, this house.
Lisa: Having been to El Rayo and Planet Dog and some of the Portland lobster company, there’s something really fun about the design. There’s something very light hearted but also artistic. It’s really wonderful that he’s able to combine all of those elements. I’m imagining that that works really well for your step daughter. You have an 8-year-old stepdaughter?
Brianne: Yes. I think she has the coolest room in the world. She has a swing in the middle of her room. That’s because dad thought it would be cool so he did it. It does help because it’s very modern and it’s very tasteful and artistic but it’s also as you said, it’s whimsical and young. It certainly works for an 8-year-old.
Lisa: Now, does Alex share your love of the water?
Brianne: Yes. We own a few boats. One of them is a lobster picnic boat. It’s a Webber Cove and we are out on that boat 50% of the nights and the summer because it’s a sleep area. We have a bathroom in it and a bed. We prefer to be out there and so do our dogs. We’re on the water all the time. Most of the time we’re trying to catch fish which is more fishing than catching, for sure, but that’s just something that we love to do. We both love to do it and that helps.
It’s a release for both of us. After a busy day, after big meeting or just all the stimulus that you have on your daily life, it’s really nice to have a partner that has that same outlook. Grab a book, grab a towel and head down to the dog and then you can fully release. Because of that, that helps our compatibility a lot is that we both have the same hammock, if you will.
Lisa: When we asked you in our questionnaire coming in today, what place in Maine you love? First you mentioned Casco Bay out in the water, that makes sense but then you also said or on the front porch of the Chebeague Island Inn.
Brianne: Yes.
Lisa: What’s so special about that place?
Brianne: I don’t know. I think they’re just a cool energy. If you are ever out and I’m sure, I know that you are. It’s probably close to your new house, right?
Lisa: Yeah. We Actually live in Chebeague Island.
Brianne: Look at it, yeah. I thought you must be close.
Lisa: It’s a great place.
Brianne: It’s fantastic. I mean the building itself is just so epic and historical. I don’t know what year it was built but you walk in and just the bones feel like they’ve been there for hundreds of years. When you go out on to the port and the sun sets, there is just this energy that just Zen’s me out at least. It’s that or the martini but one of the two. When I’m sitting on the porch, I’m like, “This is amazing.” It’s just one of those places that if you live in Maine, you should do it and you can. There is a ferry.
Even if you’re not a boater or even if you feel that it might be out of your price range, it’s not. You can get on a ferry. I believe it leaves out of Yarmouth and go over. It’s a restaurant that’s a fantastic restaurant. I mean anyone can go and show up and go and sit on that porch. I mean, I just think it’s really quintessential Maine but specifically Casco Bay, beautiful experience. That’s available to everyone so I think I’m giving them the shout out but everyone should do it.
Lisa: I agree. My daughter and many of her friends actually work there and they enjoy working there. I go see Abby.
Brianne: Tidwell.
Lisa: Tidwell, exactly. It really strikes me that you are living a life that you love that you have a job that you love that you have past times that you love, with a partner that you love and it seems to be that you’ve somehow managed to surround yourself with people who do have this great energy that you referred to having met Kim Swan and hang out with her several times. I mean, she just … There’s something about her.
Brianne: She’s a hot ticket.
Lisa: She really is a hot ticket and I think that that just of makes it possible to just really be happy in your life. Is this intentional in your part? Are you seeking out all these happy energy people or do you feel lucky or how did that happen?
Brianne: Maybe it’s 50-50. I think that I’m certainly lucky. I feel very blessed all the time. In fact most of my quite times during meditation, I’m just thinking about being grateful and gratitude and things like that because so much of it just seems to fall in, in your lap so to speak, but the other 50% is because I am grateful and I do take the time to think about it. I think that you are making a conscious choice to be around people that feed your soul, don’t take away from your soul. I think that some of it is luck maybe but most of it, I think is just when you’re positive person, as you know, you want to surround yourself with positive people.
When you’re in tuned with your body, you know when energy is draining you and that’s something that you don’t know until later on in life but I certainly have learned it somewhere along the line and continue to learn more about it and just go with that gut instinct that we all have. You have this basic instinct inside of you. If you just probably listen a little more than not, then life becomes a little less hard and a little more copasetic.
Lisa: Wise words.
Brianne: Thank you.
Lisa: I agree. For people who are interested in learning about sailing, do you have any suggestions?
Brianne: Yes, Sail Maine is an amazing organization. They were down on the east end but now they’re being moved, I believe over to the west end underneath the bridge on Commercial Street. Anyway, Sail Maine, you can go, call, check out the website. They give lessons. You can buy a gift certificate for your friend who’s always wanted to but hasn’t quite done it. Then just get him a gift certificate. Make him go down and check it out. They have a youth program. A lot of times when you look out on Casco Bay and you’ll see, it seems like 15 to 20 little boats going around and there’s the youth programs and some adults as well but it’s just a really cool, again, very attainable way of getting on to Casco Bay and learning how to sail, Sail Maine. Check them out.
Lisa: Brianne, how can people find out about the work that you do with The Swan Agency?
Brianne: Well, I think we advertise in Maine Magazine and things of that sort. Sotheby’s has an amazing marketing outreach just with Sotheby’s Corporate. It’s literally an international outreach. I think a lot of awareness of The Swan Agency, our group is socially and locally but in large majorities it’s also online through Sotheby’s International Realty. I mean, it’s a huge and brilliant company to be with for sure.
Lisa: They have a website, I’m sure.
Brianne: Yeah. I say crème de la crème. I mean they have very high standard which is nice and I hold everyone to it so it’s a consistent high standard and so go those their magazines, Reside Magazine and some of their more global magazines. It all is just a really nice package that’s very easily accessible to the consumer for sure.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Breanne O’Donnell Fisher who is a realtor with The Swan Agency and an avid boater. You’ll also be able to read about Breanne in Old Port Magazine coming up. I really appreciate you coming in and inspiring me to get out in the water and so some sailing. It’s really fun. Thank you.
Brianne: Good. Well maybe I’ll you see you sailing.
Lisa: Maybe you will.
Brianne: Good. Thank you.
Lisa: As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: When was the last time you took a break from what you were doing, from the work that was piled up on your desk and just looked up. I know that during the course of my days I often forget to take a moment or two to just breathe, look up at the sky and dream. Terrible that I have to remind myself to breathe, but when I do I feel energized because in those moments I’m able to let go of the daily grind and think more about what I want to accomplish, how I want my business to grow, sometimes those are the aha moments.
If we all took a few moments out each day to stop what we were doing and dream a little about our business futures, not only would we feel a great sense of calm, but we may come to realize that these dreams can in fact come true. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of Love Maine Radio is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at ourheritage.com.
Lisa: I always really enjoy writing a piece for Old Port Magazine called Active Life where I talk to people who are actively engaged in living their lives fully. Not just in a physical way but intellectual, emotional, social. The individual I’m going to interview next is Aaron Frederick who will be featured in our upcoming Active Life for Old Port. Aaron is the co-founder and former director of Rippleffect and spent 10 years establishing a 25-acre campus, an island school promoting leadership and community development through learning adventures. His most recent venture is Heroes of Humanity events set in a variety of urban, suburban and wilderness areas which combines disciplines of multiple sports. Participants can run for whatever charity they choose to. He was also recently hired as the executive director of Friends of the Presumpscot River. You have a lot of things that you’ve been working on and are still doing. Thanks so much for coming in.
Aaron: Thanks for having me, Lisa.
Lisa: Talk about an active life. Wow, you’re out there. You’re doing things and convincing other people to do things and getting people excited about really engaging in the Maine environment, so it’s good stuff.
Aaron: It feels contagious. Once you get infected with the passion for being outside especially in the May to October window, it’s easy to spread the love. I’m also very active person in the winter but those transition seasons are rough for all of us, I think.
Lisa: That’s very true, last winter being so rough. I think all of us are just so happy whatever the things changing and we got warm weather and breathing a big sigh, collective sigh of relief.
Aaron: Indeed, yeah. Leaves in the last 2 weeks, our property has exploded. We’re on the north side of a hill, so it takes a while. We’re a little bit of a lag between here and Gorham where we live.
Lisa: That’s actually really great. I was noticing when we were flying back in that the trees have started to kind perk up a little bit. Then when you get on the ground, you can actually see that there’s green. We were in Savannah so down there everything is green, enormous leaves and spring has been there for a really long time. We love Maine here and that’s why we’re here. We’re going to talk about what you’ve been doing with … What you are doing with Friends of the Presumpscot River and why you thought Rippleffect was the first place to direct your energy? Tell me about Riffleffect.
Aaron: I’m one of the co-founders of the organization. Ted Regan was my partner and he and us small team of 5 others gathered in Portland where Ted was located. He started to convene this group to join him on an AIDS awareness expedition in 1999. Just getting out of USM with an art degree, I knew that I wanted to go out and seek my fortune and some way, shape or form and Ted’s invitation to a group of middle school students that I was working with was to get out there and go seek adventures, set healthy goals in your life and avoid some of the pitfalls that he was seeing with his friends.
He had lost 5 friends to AIDS in the ‘80s and even early ‘90s. At the end of his presentation at Windham Middle School, he said, “I’m looking for anyone who might want to join the trip. If you know of anyone please, please let me know. I immediately knew that this was intriguing and I was likely to do something with him. I called him the next day and their short story is that for the next 10 years, I have built an organization back here in Portland. Our original expedition was from the Canadian border at Lubec all the way down to Key West, Florida.
It was 212 days of paddling. The team was together until New York City. We did a lot of fundraising events and raised about $40,000 for AIDS awareness organizations and treatment facilities between here and Philadelphia. Then when we got back, we were really revaluating the mission and it was because the AIDS epidemic was certainly not wrapping up but it was cooling slightly and we realized that the best way to engage youth was to really connect them with the outdoors, give them a clear sense of place.
Unlike the Outward Bound or NOLS trip where you would take a student, bring him to say, from Chicago out into the Rocky Mountains, introduced them to this extraordinary … We called it the pink cloud location where they would find themselves. They would find connection with place, then they go back to whatever they live. What I was seeing in my work as an experiential educator is that students are having a really hard time embodying the change that they experienced in the field.
My passion became trying to find ways to do that to connect youth to the environment in their home place and within themselves so that there was a more lasting impact. It’s how I went up for a sail a year after we started. The journey shifted from let’s work with these social service agencies to holy smokes, let’s set up an eco campus on a 26-acre island that was a military installation a hundred years ago. That was a daunting task so we were raising about half a million dollars a year to cover our programs and then in additional half a million to try and build a school.
I use that term intentionally. Our core goal is to build something that was more than a summer camp. It was impacting … Not that summer camps are not deeply impacting for young people but we wanted to go even deeper into this developmental work as opposed to just educational work. 10 years later, every year or so, I said, “Okay, maybe 1 more year I’ll to this organization,” and the years kept ticking by. Goals toward education, goals toward world travel.
2009, I really felt that the board was strong enough to survive the founders, both founders leaving. Ted had left a couple of years prior. I left the organization in great hands. They’ve done an incredible job in growing the organization from that place to what it is today which last year they were the beneficiary of the Beach to Beacon and I was just so proud and excited for the organization.
Lisa: Now, you’re working with the Friends of the Presumpscot River as the executive director.
Aaron: I am, I am. That’s anew gig, as of April 1. 5 years out of the non-profit space, working as a consultant and in grad school, I ultimately did go back to school. I’m so happy to be working with a non-profit again especially one with such incredible, deeply rooted mission. I grew up in South Portland. I graduated from Windham High School and the Presumpscot River flows from Sebago Basin in Windham all the way down through Standish and Gorham and Westbrook, Falmouth into Portland Harbor and ultimately out past, Portland Head Light and through South Portland.
It feels like a river that I have strong connections with. It’s been hard use for almost 280 years. It was one of the first dammed rivers in the US. It is one of the most heavily dammed rivers in the US and a lot of the ground fishery challenges were seeing out in the Gulf of Maine can be traced back to the herring, those river fish that swim up the river every year and then ultimately provide the food source for cod and haddock and those things that we love to eat. Going to sleep at night with this clear mission that I’m trying to create an active lifestyle for young people in my past non-profit work and create a more active lifestyle for a bunch of fish in this current incarnation has been exciting.
The group of people, the working board that has been carrying the organization for almost 23 years is just an incredible team. 4 of them have been there, 20 plus years. A lot of the rest board members have been there for more than 5 so a great group and hopefully the listening audience will be hearing more from us. They’ve been fairly close and private entity because of the nature of the work, a lot of legal advocacy and that kind of thing. Really hoping to create, draw bigger circle and start educating these surrounding communities, the river communities about this resource that they have in their backyard so excited.
Lisa: What about Heroes of Humanity?
Aaron: Heroes of Humanity is the real life video game that a partner and I created before taking the job. At Friends of the Presumpscot, I thought … Actually, I should backtrack and say at Rippleffect, I looked out at the chart of Casco Bay and I saw these islands. They use to call it the Calendar Islands so it’s hundreds of islands, one for everyday of the year out in the bay and the history of pirates and treasures, it’s hard to run a marine based youth development organization and not get pulled in by pirate mythology.
Treasure is a huge part of that and you go out to these old bunkers and forts and I always thought that the combination of geocaching which is using a GPS device to go and find a cache, a hidden box and an actual treasure hunt would be really fun projects. I built a course for Rippleffect students and hid the directions to those boxes out on Cal Island and a handful of those boxes are in place. I know that some students have gone out and actually found those.
There’s one on Jewel Island, there’s one on Little Diamond Island and there’s one on Cal Island. I got talking about a year-and-a-half ago with a friend of mine who was very successful in the commercial solar space and he was at a pretty young age quasi retired and said, “I’m thinking of doing something fun.” Have you heard of Hidden Cache?
Lisa: I have not.
Aaron: It is a wealthy philanthropist in California who’s hiding wads of cache under mailboxes and under bridges and in strange places. Then tweeting directions to the treasure. He got exacted about that. I was still on my island base treasure hunt kick. We combined this notions and Heroes of Humanity is the result. It’s a geocaching treasure hunt for charity. It allows all the participants to pick their beneficiary, their non-profit of choice. They go out either solo or in teams and run around the landscape, looking for what we call gates. Those are just checkpoints in the fields.
It might be a footrace, it might be a combination of running and mountain biking or it might be like the event we have July 18th in Portland where you have a short course or a long course. For those who just want to run around, we’re actually partnering with the tall ships so they’re will be 14 tall ships in Portland Harbor and there will be treasure stashed on the tall ships. If you’re more interested in the adventure race multi sport angle, there will be a paddle bike run component to the thing as well.
It really is as you were saying a chance for people to get out, to get off their butts in a new way, hopefully a fun way and to give none profits having been involved and struggling to pay the bills all the time. Not every organization can afford to host their own athletic event benefit, or benefit events. Being the event producer and giving them the opportunity to raise some funds as a recruiter and then also win a match gift to anything that their heroes win, seems like a potential win-win model. It’s an experiment. We are in the very early stages of this thing. It remains to be seen how well it will work but that’s the theory.
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Lisa: How old are you, Aaron?
Aaron: I’m 41 now. Why do you ask?
Lisa: I was expecting when I saw this very … Well, first of all, people who are listening. If you’re listening, you don’t know this person who’s sitting across from me who looks so youthful. When I looked at all the things that you have done, I was expecting a much older person. At 41, you have done so much and so much for it sounds like fishes and people and hopefully yourself to keep yourself healthy. Tell me about growing up. What was in your tender years? How did you end up being the person that got so motivated to do all these things at such a young age?
Aaron: The quick answer would be my dad and mom. They are incredible people. My father was an adventurer turned armchair adventurer when his second, third, and fourth children were born. I think the demands of being a dad, pulled him from his exploits in the field to fostering the exploits of his children and yet that passion for adventure lived on in him and lived in all the books around our house and all the magazine, outside magazine was a standard presence in our place. We did a lot of hiking. We spent a lot of time outside.
We live in a an amazing place for my high school years and win them right on the Pleasant River which flows into the main tributary of the Presumpscot River. There was a lot of space in South Portland. We had the forest behind the Calvary cemetery and you we used to go out and cause trouble back there. The shift to Windham at 12, 13 years old, was a pivot point for me from a suburban life to a much more woodsy oriented upbringing, my parents homeschooled my siblings. I was not homeschooled but a lot of my 3 younger siblings were.
I got to experience a bit of a bubble in our home and in the space around us that allowed me time to connect with land and that’s carried on for me. I really feel a very strong connection to the geography of Maine, to the waters of Maine. That sounds corny but it’s a daily dose and I need that to stay healthy as I’m sure most people who live in Maine have some form of depression or another trying to whether the dark, cold and that connection with the outside is the thing that really pushes me and pulls me through, hence, wanting to foster that for others.
That there are a lot of ills in the world right now and the opportunity to be in your metabolism is usually the thing that can bring you back to center. We just have seemingly few and fewer opportunities to do that. You really have to elbow the space out in a life for that health and for the inactive life as you’re calling this call, I guess. My mom spend a lot of years in a very spiritual space and ultimately found the practice of homeopathic care and treatment.
For 25 years she’s been practicing homeopathy and her commitment to health and her ability to dig so much deeper than most western medical practitioners have the time to dig in her relationship with her patients gave me an eye toward how I view my own health and my own sense of equilibrium. Those were hugely formative influences for me.
Lisa: Describe a typical day as you’re trying to elbow out the space for your own wellness. What does it look like and how do you get in this? I know you’re out on the water quite a lot so how do you fit that all in?
Aaron: That’s tricky. Being on the water is difficult. I have a 15 month old son. He’s named after Thoreau’s wilderness guide when Thoreau came to me and to write the Maine woods, Etienne is his name which is Penobscot name. Etienne is my current connection to the outdoor as walking 3 times a day to take a nap. I still run. I guide a Maine sea-kayak guide and so there a bit of time there with the Friends of Presumpscot relationship, I paddled the full length of the Presumpscot River, but I’m not much of a recreator.
My relationship with physical activity is also a direct connection to work. I live 11 miles from Portland in Gorham, I commute by bicycle to Portland then home and sometimes one way depending if I can catch a lift but the bike commuting. We heat our home with wood and so there’s some wood splitting in there that gets done regularly but on top of that, I have a standard weight regiment that I do to try to keep the synovial fluid moving through my joints and have a yoga practice at Lila East End Yoga that I try to keep up with.
The throwing elbows I guess is the appropriate term. It really is about what I call the snack workout where when you have that 20-minute to half an hour window, it’s enough. It’s about bringing my metabolism to a place where I feel invigorated and alive. That’s about what I can squeeze in these days. Maine summer is still Maine summer and we work very hard, my wife and I to create space to be on the water, to be with friends at the beach. We have home in Castine that we rent out from much of the year and we carve out sometime up there to just stop.
Lisa: What about your wife, what does she do?
Aaron: Emilia Dahlin is a singer/songwriter. She has been a touring professional musician for 15 years now. She is regional representative as well for Columbia College Chicago and spends about 4 months easier as a road warrior driving throughout the northeast representing an incredible school. It’s the largest private art school in the country and almost everyone that works in the admission department is working hardest as well. She has this family of people who really understand where she’s at and that there’s a balancing act between the identity of the artist and the identity of the employee.
During the day we grind. They’re good surrogate family for her. She’s today teaching 450 students at Ocean Ave Elementary School here in Portland how to write songs. She does that through the Maine Academy of modern music. I think this is the third or fourth year running. She keeps herself busy and is still writing and creating. She dropped her guitar the other day and we’re hoping that’s not some sort of omen or sign about the creative summer she’s about to have. We’re not reading too much into it.
Lisa: You also have a brother who is participating very actively in the Maine and national music scene as a bassist for Jason Spooner band.
Aaron: That’s true. Jason may be surprised to hear this. Maybe not but Emilia and Jason Spooner were neck and neck musicians being born out of the Portland creative scene 15 years ago and Emilia for … I think partly because of our relationship and our travels and the number of things we were doing, she stopped touring to the degree that she had been touring. I may have to take some responsibility for that but Jason turned up the volume and he really started to put himself out there. Emilia would hear Jason’s name.
The other important component is that Adam, my brother was bassist for both Jason and Emilia. There was this tug-of-war trying to yank Adam back and forth. He really is a creative powerhouse and he and Katy, my sister-in-law are a great team. They’re now heading to Montana, I believe to play some tunes.
Lisa: Well, there are lots of things that people who are listening will want to know about, one of them will be Rippleffects. I would direct them to that website. How can people find out about the Friends of the Presumpscot River?
Aaron: That is presumpscotriver.org. That’s the website which we’re in the midst of redoing. It’s probably the best resource for the organization.
Lisa: Heroes of Humanity?
Aaron: Heroes of Humanity is weareheroesnow.com. You can also find us on Facebook. Both those organizations are on Facebook as well.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Aaron Frederick who is the cofounder and former director of Rippleffect now the executive director of Friends of the Presumpscot River also father to a 15-month-old. Congratulations. Husband to Emilia Dhalin, singer and artist. Thanks so much for all that you do and for being willing to come on the show and talk about how you incorporate all this to your very active life.
Aaron: Thank you, Lisa. It’s been great to be here.
Lisa: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 195, Wellness on the Water. Our guests have included Aaron Frederick and Brianne O’Donnell Fisher. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit lovemaineradio.com. Read about our guest in Old Port Magazine. Love Main Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes.
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Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors, Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Berlin City Honda of Portland, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank. Love Maine Radio is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Our Executive Producers are Susan Grisanti, Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our Content Producer is Kelly Clinton. Our Online Producer is Andrew Cantillo. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes, see www.lovemaineradio.com or the Love Maine Radio Facebook page for details.