Transcription of Love Maine Radio #340: Marshall Taylor and Paul Cousins
Speaker 1: You are listening to Love Maine Radio, hosted by Dr. Lisa Belisle and recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician and editor and chief of Maine, Maine Home and Design, Old Port, Ageless, and Moxie magazines. Love Maine Radio show summaries are available at lovemaineradio.com.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 340 airing for the first time on Sunday, March 25, 2018. Today we speak with Marshall Taylor, artistic director of Quisisana Resort. We also speak with meteorologist Paul Cousins who is the founder, principal, and CFO at Atmos Forecast. He has been analyzing weather in the northeastern United States for more than 40 years. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Portland Art Gallery is proud to sponsor Love Maine Radio. Portland Art Gallery is the city’s largest and is located in the heart of the old port at 154 Middle Street. The gallery focuses on exhibiting the work of contemporary Maine artists and hosts a series of monthly solo shows in it’s newly expanded space including Inken Georgonson, Brenda Cirioni, Daniel Corey, Jill Hoy, and Dave Allen. For complete show details, please visit our website at artcollectormaine.com
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Marshall Taylor is the artistic director at Quisisana Resort, a summer resort in western Maine that specializes in musical entertainment. Thanks for coming in today.
Marshall Taylor: Good morning.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You actually had a little bit of a journey to make it in to visit with us.
Marshall Taylor: About an hour and a half on 302.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It’s a strong hour and half. You can’t rush that.
Marshall Taylor: It depends who you get behind. It wasn’t too bad this morning.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’re not originally … You don’t live in Maine full time.
Marshall Taylor: I wasn’t gonna tell.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: We consider you a Mainer anyway because you’ve been coming here for how many years?
Marshall Taylor: It’s been almost 30 and I feel like a Mainer, certainly all summer long. I’ve been here four months of the year for 30 years, so you do the math. That’s a few years.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I think we’ll count it.
Marshall Taylor: But I’ve never seen the winter. I think that’s what makes me a damned out of stater.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I guess, although, you live in New York.
Marshall Taylor: I do, I do.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You get winter down there too.
Marshall Taylor: I see your snowfall up here and I get a little jealous.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You originally are not from New York.
Marshall Taylor: No.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’re originally from a snowier place.
Marshall Taylor: Wisconsin, farm country.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It’s probably smart of you not to move up to Maine full time because you know what the snow is like.
Marshall Taylor: I think I would like to try it once.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Anytime you want, we’re here.
Marshall Taylor: Thanks. Thanks.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You know where to reach us.
Marshall Taylor: I’m glad I’m welcome. Thanks.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Tell me about the resort. It’s a very unique place.
Marshall Taylor: It’s a very old … it’s a throw back. Our guests come and stay a week and they’ve probably been doing it many, many years. Some of our 10 years guests consider themselves as newbies. A lot of people come as children and grow up and bring their own children. They come a week, they stay the same week, they sit at the same table, they stay in the same cottage. It’s a bit of a home away from home. They can pretend they’re Mainer’s too I guess. Every night we have entertainment. That’s really my area of involvement. I hire the staff, I audition them, and I put together the shows. But, they all work jobs too so I sort of have my finger in the dining room and the maintenance department, the dishwashers. All those people are performers. I find myself overseeing that too, but you asked about the resort, not about me.
It’s on a beautiful lake, Lake Kezar is one of those fortunately still very clean, clear bodies of water. It’s in the mountains, almost New Hampshire. We’re Steven King’s neighbor. We have great food. What else? The entertainment is often surprising. Here I get back to my own area, but I think the guests who come are surprised at the quality. A lot of our kids have either been on Broadway or find themselves working fairly soon after they’ve been with us, which is a blessing. I often worry how will we find a cast to top the last year’s cast. Fortunately, it’s never been a problem.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When we went out to visit, it was really wonderful to be talking to a very pleasant member of the wait staff who brought over some sort of blueberry dessert and then not too long after see them up on stage doing incredible things musically and theatrically.
Marshall Taylor: They can really turn it on. You imagine how pleasant they are, that is key. They’re a family for themselves and for the week that the weeks are there, the guests are part of that family as well. It really does extend beyond the service relationship. Once they step on stage, it’s kind of unforgettable. For little people, young people, it makes it even more exciting when they see their friend, their buddy up there singing an opera or something they never dreamt they’d want to see.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: That was something that did surprise me was the opera piece. You’re not just doing Broadway show tunes, which is also great. You’re doing really a full spectrum of I guess we’ll call it entertainment.
Marshall Taylor: The opera is more traditional to the resort. The Broadway is the part that’s grown. That’s the new kid in town. The original owner, Ralph Burg, had a music store in Boston and his friends were classically trained musicians and they would come up and entertain. There was a long heritage of opera and art song, a lot of Boston Conservatory students and alumni would come. As times have changed a bit and we’ve gotten our productions to be a bit more lavish, I use that word lightly, the Broadway part is new, but I remain committed to the opera. I have that background myself. I love to introduce people to that.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: The day we were there, there was … I think it was interesting because 207 was out taping, our local TV show. You had brought in different people to represent different types of work that are done throughout the week. There was a couple that had partnered together to sing opera and I could’ve been in Boston. I could’ve been in New York listening to the highest caliber performance and it was in this nice little lodge on the shores of the lake.
Marshall Taylor: Right. We were very lucky to get that couple. They came as a package deal. Jeremy, the tenor, had worked for us last year and did the tenor lead in Carmen. He met Samantha and she wanted to come back this summer. We were thrilled to have them. Their home is New Jersey, so I was going to say you might have even been in New Jersey hearing that opera. It’s nice to have people of that age level too. Younger singers, college age kids are just not as developed. They’re wonderful, but we’ve sort of found a niche of young, emerging performers who are beyond college and beyond the young artist programs. They also need to have experience and make some money.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: The way that I understand that it works that throughout the course of the season, you are offering a different type of performance every night-
Marshall Taylor: Every night.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Of the week. The beginning if the season, you start the practicing and the performing of a certain performance say on a Monday. By the end of the season, you’re still performing that same thing on a Monday.
Marshall Taylor: Every Monday. We’re a repertory. Every Monday night is our musical. Every Tuesday is our piano concert. Our opera night is Wednesday. We have about 10 days of rehearsal before our first guests come. Those are crazy days. We have to get the resort ready, so everyone is working their day job until 10:15 when they have to run to rehearsal and learn some choreography or some French aria. Then they have lunch and they are back to twigging and raking until their next rehearsal is scheduled or costume fitting or whatever is on the docket for the day.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: In addition to being the artistic director, you actually have other multiple day jobs. You run the gift shop.
Marshall Taylor: I have a little gift shop. I do all the things that an artistic director might do. I’m not a designer, but I have my hand in the cabins and picking the fabrics. I worked with owner of Court and Honor for a long time on trying to upgrade the cabins before I was artistic director. I’ve sort of kept that in my bag of tricks as I’ve gone on.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When we had lunch with the current owner, she told us you spent a significant amount of time buying for the gift shop-
Marshall Taylor: That’s the great fun.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Down in New York.
Marshall Taylor: That’s the great fun. Winter is my slow season and I can scout out things and shops and I go to gift shows. There’s a New England made show that is in the spring up here. At this time in the year, it’s down in mass. I may go down to that because I do like to have local artists represented. It’s a luxury to have that kind of time because the store is only open for 10 weeks. I’m not in it year round like some shop keepers have to be.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When you were growing up in Wisconsin, did you ever think that this would be your job and your life? It seems like a pretty nice combination of things that enable you to do things that you love.
Marshall Taylor: When you grow up and you want to be a performer, there are so few pictures of what success are. You imagine yourself as a big star or working on Broadway. I think originally wanted to be a country singer, but I’ll let that go for now. No, I didn’t image this and I can’t imagine a better balance for myself because I do get to do a lot of things. I run the payroll. That doesn’t fit with an artistic profile in any way in my estimation, but I love to do it and I love to interview the kids and hire them. I love the guests. I spent a lot of time, a lot of the days during the season are just spent listening and talking with them and finding out what their year has been like and keeping them in the family and letting them know what the new kids are up to and what their backgrounds are in case that would spark an interest. It’s a great fit for me. I guess I have a short attention span.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Family is very important to you, because the current owners of the resort are a family.
Marshall Taylor: They are a family. They are the Orans family. I am not an Orans, but family are the friends you make along the way. They’ve adopted me few years after I started there. I felt very much a part of the family. Jane has one son who works there fully, but most of the guests assume I’m her son as well. It’s a family.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It’s an incredible thing to think about her story because she was a young woman when her husband died and she had children. This resort that they had been coming to up here in Maine and she was a preschool teacher.
Marshall Taylor: She had no experience at all. What I had never realized when I busboy there all those years ago was how frightened she was. She had been doing it just a few years and really didn’t seem to think she knew what she was doing. From my point of view, she had all the answers. She was very firm about her opinions. She started out with several partners and little but little, they fell to the side and she emerged as the one. It became her life when she needed it most and it kept her going and she kept it going as well. The place wouldn’t be there without her. It’s a bittersweet time of year because it was right after their week at Quisisana, the last week of August when he went home and her husband died very shortly thereafter. The summer ending brings a lot of feelings for her I’m sure.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: She’s a pretty strong lady.
Marshall Taylor: Yeah, refiner’s fire. She’s had to struggle through a lot, but she’s always able to keep giving. She doesn’t take anything for granted and she loves the staff. She is so concerned about their experience for the summer. In her mind, it’s a lot like going to summer camp even though their working. She wants them to make the most of it and have a personally great summer. Each year, she manages to make it even a better experience for them. The living conditions are better, the work is probably a little less hard, the money is better. Each year, we sort of have a better group who are more cohesive and can foster each other in a better way. That’s all her doing. She’s made that the priority.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You go to various places around the country to find the people who work at the resort with you. Most of these places are places that you actually have a personal connection to.
Marshall Taylor: It’s true. I go back to my alma maters. It’s nice to have a connection at a school, so I can find out a bit more about each student that I hire. That’s not saying I won’t hire someone that I can’t investigate that way, but it’s a great advantage when I can speak to their teachers as my colleagues and friends. I also go to schools where some of our alumni have gone on to teach, which is great. They’re at great schools, Cincinnati Conservatory, it’s very nice. My alma maters are so illustrious, but I’m loyal.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What do you look for in a performer when you’re auditioning for someone to come who’s really going to play, again, multiple roles. Maybe they’re raking up the water front or maybe they’re life guarding or maybe they’re wait staff, but they’re also going to be singing opera or performing Broadway, show tunes or … What do you look for?
Marshall Taylor: You have to see the talent first, otherwise, the door isn’t open at all. Close behind the talent is the person. They have to be flexible. They can’t take themselves too seriously. Obviously, they have to be very friendly. Somehow I’ve developed a sense … I’m not always right, but I do manage to get a lot of kids who are pretty perfect for us. That sounds like I’m full of it, but either they come to Quisisana with a great attitude or it’s in the atmosphere and that’s set by their peers. Everyone knows that they’re not above picking up trash or picking up sticks or washing dishes. There’s no job that is too low. There were many years when she and I cleaned cabins together and she insisted on doing the bathrooms. She said that was her department. When the management or when the owner is setting a tone like that, it’s hard for the staff not to pick up on. In auditions, I find myself trying to picture this person who is probably dressed to the nines because it’s an audition. Kinda picture them in a uniform or kinda picture them with a rake or worse. I am looking for all of that, but if they don’t have the talent, we never even get to that step.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I don’t want to make Jane uncomfortable or out her in any way, but she’s got some years.
Marshall Taylor: 81. She’ll be 82 very shortly.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When we were out there and she said, “Hey, hop on this golf cart and I’ll show you around,” it was impressive because she was taking her time out of her busy schedule and driving us all around and showing us the place. She was a pretty funny lady.
Marshall Taylor: She’s very funny. I think the Boston Globe referred to her as a salty whit or something like that. I’m just glad you were in her golf cart and not her car. That can get scary.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: she didn’t offer us that. She did say she was stealing the golf cart I think from her granddaughter.
Marshall Taylor: Right, that makes sense.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It’s not normally her golf cart to show us around.
Marshall Taylor: She loves to show the place off. It’s her baby; she’s created it. Even though it has a long tradition, I think anyone would admit that she’s had a huge impact. The lake in the mountains, she won’t take credit for, but everything else, she’s-
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I know her son and her daughter-in-law are there, along with you, full time for the entire summer.
Marshall Taylor: Right. They are indeed. It’s her life. I don’t know what she’d do in the morning. Even 12 months of the year, she wakes up thinking Quisisana. The office in the winter is in her home outside of New York City. The phone rings and it’s, “Good morning. Quisisana,” every day of her life. It takes that kind of dedication I guess, any family business. I’m not sure how many others would have stuck it out because I don’t think there’s much money coming in, not as much as goes out.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It really is a labor of love.
Marshall Taylor: It is, yeah. Yeah. She said, “I don’t buy jewelry. I don’t buy fancy clothes. This is my hobby.”
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Her son and her daughter-in-law actually met there.
Marshall Taylor: Yes, Natalie started as a soprano. She’s still a soprano. In the early mid-90s and her first job was in the office. She was a bubbly little thing in college at Hartford, Connecticut, in their school of music and an opera singer. Although, at her age, she found herself mostly in the musical theater stuff for a while. She and Sam hit it off right away. They had a long engagement. I believe in 2000, they got married at the end of the summer at Quisisana and now have two great kids.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: One of the things that I think is really nice about the location of the resort is the sense of openness and also this lack of wireless access. You go there and your phone probably isn’t going to work. You can get onto the internet, but you have to go to the main lodge.
Marshall Taylor: You have to seek it out.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: There’s only a few places.
Marshall Taylor: Right. Even then, I would say it’s not the world’s fastest system. I think when cell phones were new, it seemed just awful to everyone that they couldn’t get on their cell phone and call out. We’re going so far in the direction that you can’t hide anywhere, that it feels better and better as the years go by to find a place where you can unplug for real. There’s no TV. There’s a TV in the lodge, but there’s no TV in the cabins. There are no telephones in the cabins. The last thing you want to do is hear somebody standing next to you who are having one of those loud conversations. We’re lucky we don’t have to make the announcements before the shows, “Make sure your cell phones are turned off.”
Dr. Lisa Belisle: In fact, I think it was only pretty recently that you even had air conditioning.
Marshall Taylor: That’s very true. The nights used to be cooler I’m afraid. At some point after watching somebody walking on stage sweating, they decided to put an air conditioning in … At first, it was the public areas, the dining room, the theater area. Then one year Sam just said we’ve gotta put it in all the cabins. The only downside is people close their windows and night and don’t hear the loons. They often say to me, “I don’t hear the loons anymore. What’s happened?” They’re still there.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It also used to be that people would bring their boats to the edge of the water.
Marshall Taylor: Right, we do close the windows in the hall now and we’ve lost part of our public audience. It was quite a tradition. You knew which people loved which kind of music because you’d see their boats out there every night. That was a real sight. If it got boring, you knew when they left.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: After you’d been doing this, how old were you when you started as a busboy?
Marshall Taylor: I turned 25 my first summer.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This has really been-
Marshall Taylor: This is my life.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Your life. And you keep doing it year after year.
Marshall Taylor: Because it’s my life. For a long time, I had an off season job, things that were more on the school calendar. As my process at Quisisana evolved, I don’t have to … I have a full time employment by them now, which is a blessing. I’m in my early 50s and I’ve had one job. I’m so lucky, but I think who would look at a resume when it has one job for all that time. That’s not the world. I guess I’m a throw back too.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I think that there are people who do things for that amount of time. Maybe not as many nowadays, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
Marshall Taylor: No, no, I don’t think it’s a bad thing either. I think it’s a wonderful thing; it’s just not the norm and it doesn’t make for great cocktail party conversation.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What was your favorite performance this summer?
Marshall Taylor: We did a wonderful children’s piece called Dear Edwina, a musical. I have a real love for children’s theater and music I think because I didn’t have that as a kid. Literally, my music classes were on the radio because we were so remote in Wisconsin. I think it’s so special to reach kids. We had this, like I said, Dear Edwina. There’s moments of truth. It was a questions and answer, people were asking her advice. It’s all a musical. It just has a sweetness and an innocence that always captured me, and the cast was incredible. That was my favorite for the summer. Thrilling moments and other things, we did sometime Into the Woods. We had some great voices in our operetta. My heart always was won by that first Monday morning every week.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Do you know what you’re gonna be doing next year or is that still in the works?
Marshall Taylor: That’s still in the works. I take the fall to listen. I do consider things that are a little bit far off field. I try to stretch myself and think, “Would that work? Would that work?” Then I listen to the former cast members to see what they’re thinking about for the next summer. I do like to have a few aces in the hole when it comes to casting. I don’t commit until January 1 every year. Now I put it on Facebook. Soon thereafter, we send a postcard to the guests. I have a bit of time to consider it.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I appreciate your taking the time out of your schedule to come in and talk. As we’re speaking, the resort has just finished up, and you’re still there for a few more weeks before you head back to your other home. I’ve been speaking with Marshall Taylor who is the artistic director at Quisisana Resort, a resort in western Maine that specialized in musical entertainment. Thank you for bringing this wonderful joy into the world.
Marshall Taylor: Thank you so much for spreading the joy. It’s been a pleasure.
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Dr. Lisa Belisle: Paul Cousins is the founder, principal, and CFO at Atmos Forecast, a meteorologist consulting company based in Portland. He has been analyzing weather in the northeast for over 40 years. Thanks for coming in.
Paul Cousins: You’re quite welcome. I’m still analyzing, and I hope to get I right someday.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It seems a little bit like my field of medicine where you’re always going to be learning new things and technology is going to change. It’s probably never a place where you’re gonna get to say, “I know everything about this.”
Paul Cousins: That’s right. The learning curve, there’s no end in sight.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Which is excited.
Paul Cousins: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why weather? Why were you interested in this in the first place?
Paul Cousins: I’m sure it had to do with my youth and my large family, many brothers. The myth is I was baptized in my crib during Hurricane Carol. I’m dating myself again, the 50s. My grandmother’s house, the roof leaked. I was baptized by a hurricane. As a very young child, my mother was always kicking us out of the house because she needed some space. We were always playing outside, any sports or on the beach. When the weather turned inclement, my father would rope us in to get us out of harms way. I recall as a very young sprite, he would sit us on his knee, and we’d watch storms roll across the bay on the south shore of Massachusetts and watching lightning strikes pink the surface of the bay and everything just turned white, the oriel of charged water. I thought that was fascinating. Every time there was a thunder storm, we’d say, “Dad, porch, view.” That’s where it all began. Then of course everything we did outside was weather dependent, summer sports, winter sports, skating, you name it. I was very highly attuned to the local day to day weather.
I was I think in junior high school, I was a budding, young science nerd. I was fascinated with the weather, and I took a mentor in commercial television. The boss his name was Don Kent. He was one of the first broadcast meteorologists in the country, and I took quite a liking to the way he presented weather. To make a long story short, I struck up a relationship with him, and he became my mentor. I would visit him once every year in the studios of WBZTV in Boston. We talked shop, and we became really great friends over about a 10 year period. He said, “Paul, what are you gonna do with yourself? You’re gonna graduate from high school.” He said, “Go into solar energy.” Back in the day, that was a crazy thing to do. That was almost heretical. It was a concept. I said, “No, I want to do what you do, Don. I want to be a television meteorologist.” He said, “Paul, it’s crazy. It’s 40% and 60% show biz.” Of course, I thunderstruck, pardon the expression.
I went to Middlebury. I was a geophysicist and enjoyed it, but I graduated and worked for the US geological survey for a year or two. I said, “I miss weather too much.” I went back to school and got a degree. The circle became very short within a few years of obtaining a degree in meteorology. I was contacted by the news director at WBZTV in Boston and they wanted me to come down and audition because Don can’t. My mentor was retiring. Low and behold, I got the job. Here, my childhood mentor was retiring, and I was going to make an attempt to fill his shoes, which was virtually impossible. We had a ball for two weeks and his retirement party. He and I were on the air together every day. Talk about a dream come true. The rest is history. I just stayed in the industry, never regretted it for minute.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Geophysicist, that’s sounds like quite a hefty scientific major.
Paul Cousins: It was. The calculus just about killed me, but there’s a lot of math in physics. I was working for the geological survey at the time when the United States was considering leasing the eastern shelf to oil companies for exploratory drilling. You can imagine that environmentalists were quite concerned at the time, still are. We were charged by the Bureau of Land Management to do a lot of research out there to see how stable the continental shelf was because they’re gonna put oil rigs out there. What are the waves like? What’s the bottom like? We found out it was a very turbulent area. There were sand dunes 20-30 feet high that would migrate across the continental shelf. Can you imagine what that would do to an oil rig? To say nothing about 100 year storms, which turned out to happen every couple of years. Sandy was not that unique. That was five years ago. It was cutting edge science back in the 70s. Fascinating. We’d spend weeks at sea doing exploratory drilling to find out the stability of the strata and monitoring currents and waves. Work with a lot of redneck crews from the bayou. They were hoots. I learned a lot from these crews from the deep south at sea for weeks at a time. Anyway, it was a fascinating time with the US geological survey, but weather was still burning a hole in my back pocket, so I left and went back to school.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It seems as though weather, at least broadcast weather, has changed a lot in the last 30 years.
Paul Cousins: Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn’t speak with total accuracy as how it’s changed, but when I was in the business, we had two and then three news casts a day with hours in between. I multi-tasked. I did a lot of radio work on my own volition. Now from what I understand from my associates who I still chat with from time to time, you have five or six news casts a day. You’re working for two or three television stations. You’re blogging. You’re maintaining other websites, doing radio. It’s non-stop. I guess it’s 9 or 10 hours straight, barely enough time to tie your shoes.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You were with WCSH?
Paul Cousins: Initially.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Initially.
Paul Cousins: Then I went to Hartford and Boston and then came back to GME.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why decide that you wanted to do something so different for yourself with your current position?
Paul Cousins: My consultancy?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Yeah.
Paul Cousins: Actually, when I began my stint at GME in the 80s, I launched a large radio clientele. I launched the weather column in the Portland Press Herald. No one was doing it. I was enjoying the freelance work. I was also advising a lot of municipalities and large construction companies and Bath Iron Works, Central Maine Power, weather sensitive industries. It became quite a full boat. It was fascinating and I was an entrepreneur. I was my own boss. I thought, “You know, this television industry, it’s great, but it’s changing. I think I should make room for some young blood.” My consultancy was certainly well fleshed out, so I could pursue that as a sustainable profession.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What about the broadcasting piece of it do you miss?
Paul Cousins: The comradery, without a doubt. Miss that a lot because I work for myself in my own office with a very simple broadcast studio. There’s no one there but me, the microphone and I. The bulk of my work is really consulting for industry, and the energy companies and our litigious community. I do a lot of consulting for attorneys and insurance companies, which I never thought would be so engaging.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Tell me about that. What does it mean to be someone who consults on the weather?
Paul Cousins: The term is called a forensic meteorologist. A lot of it is weather event reconstruction. Let’s say someone slips on a sidewalk. Was someone negligent in not sanding or salting or plowing. The far more interested cases I’ve had, I think it was when Hurricane Floyd passed through Maine 20 or 15 years ago, a fellow had a deer herd up in Jefferson. The allegation was that lightning bolts struck a pole near where all the deer were congregating, and they were electrocuted, and they died. The owner quickly buried all the deer in a mass grave so that it would not infect the rest of the herd. The insurance company say, “Nah, just wait a minute. First of all, was there lightning that struck your yard, deer yard?” I was charged with determining with whether or not that happened. They also brought in a veterinary. They exhumed the deer and found out the deer had some illness prior to the date of this storm. It turned out that this fellow was actually trying to collect insurance proceeds for something that was not a natural cause. The deer were sick and died from this disease. That was an interesting case. There have been many others, but that happened in Maine. I testified in superior court in Vermont. There have been a lot of very engaging things that have happened.
The funny story when I was in superior court in Vermont. This high powered row of attorneys from Boston were representing the [inaudible 00:38:25] and I was representing the defendant, a small construction company in northern Vermont. They’re laying out their grand case, and the judge is sitting there. He turns to me, and he looks at my resume. “Would you happen to know this professor at Middlebury?” I said, “Yes, he was the greatest guy.” He started talking to me in sidebar. The attorneys from Boston were flabbergasted, “What’s the judge doing talking to this witness on the stand?” Many, many funny things have happened in and out of court and on and off the air.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I’m interested in this person that attempted to get his dead deer paid for.
Paul Cousins: Insurance fraud. Pure and simple.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: But the idea that in this day and age, you could actually claim that something weather related occurred and think that nobody else is going to know whether you’re right or not. Is that a common thing or do most people accept that with the technology we have, we can reconstruct things?”
Paul Cousins: That’s an excellent question. There are skeptics who don’t want to believe the data. Then you can say the data can be interpreted in a number of different ways.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: There’s still … Even if you testify that for example there was lightning strike or there wasn’t a lightning strike, you can still have people who can question whether you are accurate in your statements.
Paul Cousins: Right. Did that gauge really catch every lightning strike within a 10 mile radius? Anything can be questioned.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why forensic meteorology? Why that as opposed to other types of meteorology?
Paul Cousins: That’s probably one third of the time I spend. Most of what I do is push a very sharp pencil for a lot of utilities in New York, Connecticut, and Maine. Energy providers, they need to know heat and degree information. That’s the day to day gist of what I do and Maine Public Broadcasting. That’s the entertainment mouthpiece.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What types of things do these energy companies need to know?
Paul Cousins: For example, Bath Iron Works when you have 5,000 employees and they’re looking to shift changes and so forth, they have to plan ahead both in terms of maintaining their physical plant, when to call in shifts early, let them go early, water levels on the Kennebec. They need to know about that. Occasionally they have sea trials they want to ping on me to determine sea state and so forth and visibility ranges. It’s fascinating. For Central Maine Power, it’s wind, lightning, icing, all the concerns that have been very real this winter again.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How accurate are you able to be?
Paul Cousins: I would be disingenuous if I said I was better than 90%.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: But that’s still pretty good.
Paul Cousins: I hope so. They renew my contract from year to year, so I guess that speaks for itself. I’ve been doing this now for 30 years.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: There’s some amount of looking at the information that you have access to and then there’s-
Paul Cousins: Oh, it’s phenomenal.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: There’s also some amount of your experience that enables you to translate that information, correct?
Paul Cousins: I would like to think so. I think the biggest challenge for a modern day meteorologist is to decide which information to review and digest because there’s a plethora of data out there, simply overwhelmed, on a 24/7 basis, which is marvelous. One thing I do miss are a set of eyes to actually see the weather and record it. We used to have thousands of weather observers that were a part of Noah’s Cooperative Observing Program. There’s still several dozen out there, but most of them have retired. Now we rely on telemetrics, sensors. Never as good as a pair of eyes, but that data network is actually more robust than the actual physical observer decades ago. Nothing replaces a pair of eyes and observing what is actually transpiring at any given location. I use that data a lot for weather event reconstruction.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: We recently spoke with Robin Alden who worked for 40 year with fisherman off the coast of Maine. One of the things that she talked about was this idea that people with their eyes could make observations that really nicely complemented the science that was out there.
Paul Cousins: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It seems as though we could find benefit from both. Do you think this will ever come back?
Paul Cousins: I highly doubt it for two reasons. Man power is expensive and the technology for these remote transmitting devices continues to improve. We have a dozen buoys out on the gulf of Maine that transmit wave heights, wind direction, speed, gusts, sea water salinity, currents, a plethora of data. They’re really good.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’re saying that we might not actually need these eyes?
Paul Cousins: Well, I just don’t see it happening. I would love to see observers return. We used to have ships out there who’d report in every hour what the sea state was and how much freezing spray there was. Now we have to make an educated guess based on the telemetry that radioed in, in some cases every 15 minutes. It’s really quite remarkable.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You have an interest in the water. You actually … When we asked who you think we should recognize for the job they do in our community, you said the Friends of Casco Bay.
Paul Cousins: They do a terrific job.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Why in particular that group? You must work with so many groups around the state, but you think that they are worthy of recognition in particular.
Paul Cousins: I think it’s probably an area, which I really cherish having been boating on this bay for 30 years. It’s really a jewel. Every time I sit out there quietly at anchor, nothing’s moving, nothing’s turned on and just see the splendor really how fortunate we are to have this 15 minutes from my doorstep and people travel across the country to see this beautiful body of water, which now is burgeoning with agriculture. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. My concern is now with climate change and the warming and the green crab invasion and the acidification of the water, we’re losing soft shell clams. These are all manifestations of climate change.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When people out there say that climate change is not real, I’m not one of these people but I know it is being said, how do you kind of mentally work with that?
Paul Cousins: First of all, I gauge the tenor of this individual, how malleable are they or impressionable? Believe it or not, 30 years ago, I was a skeptic. As a geologist, I had seen through paleo-climate logical records the climate on this earth change dramatically over millions of years. We’ve known about ice ages coming and going for millions of years. All of North America was under ice millions of years ago. I thought, “Hey, it’s a natural change. It has to do with the sun’s radiant energy and the tilt of the earth and all those other pieces.” Over time, listening to professionals who know much more about the intricacies of our global circulation system, I said, “There’s just no way I can deny this anymore.” Just look at the carbon dioxide trace in the last 40 years. We’ve been on from 360 to 400 parts per million. That’s not natural. That’s purely anthropogenic forcing, burning fossil fuels. There’s no question in my mind.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Does it ever frustrate you when you hear people suggest that we shouldn’t pay attention to this because it’s just pretend?
Paul Cousins: Certainly, but if they don’t believe that climate change is occurring, I’m not going to take up that argument. You pick your battles, right?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You and I share a connection in that your family from many generations ago was actually responsible for founding or at least being an early of Cousins Island and I live off Cousins Island. That’s a really special connection that you have with the state of Maine.
Paul Cousins: Yes.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You originally … You told me that it was a great-grandfather-
Paul Cousins: Eight great-grandfather.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Eighth great-grandfather was originally off of Cousins. His last name is obviously Cousins and somehow was too friendly with the Native Americans and sent up the coast and originally landed in Ellsworth, but then found his way to Bar Harbor. Is that right?
Paul Cousins: That is correct. He was booted out of one town from another. First in Plymouth colony, Mass Bay colony, he was too friendly with the Indians. “John Cousins, go.” Settled in Cousins and the locals said, “John Cousins, go.” I think when he got up to Ellsworth, he decided, “Hey, this Bar Harbor’s a pretty nice place. I’m heading down there.” Then he stayed and then the family generations rippled on and on and on.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Isn’t that a strange thing to think about that one could be too friendly with the Native American population?
Paul Cousins: I think he must have been some sort of ambassador or he’s trying to strike up commerce. Who knows what his agenda was?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It was some sort of a threat to people who were coming in later to settle the land.
Paul Cousins: Maybe he was just trying to pave the way for colonization. I don’t know. No one has ever written the history or the treatise of John Cousins and his ambassador tendencies.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I find this all very interesting because I just wrote a story for Maine magazine about Turner Farm, which is located on North Haven. They found evidence of the group they’re calling the Red Paint Indians from 7,000 years ago. We have this very interesting and old history of our state that I think a lot of us don’t often ponder.
Paul Cousins: 7,000 years ago, these preceded the Norwegians and the Vikings then, the Norseman?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Absolutely.
Paul Cousins: Wow.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This about the extent of my background. I just thought it was very interesting that this is … We think of colonization as going back a few hundred years, but there were colonies that already existed. They just were before the people who came over on boats.
Paul Cousins: Didn’t you wish you had bought a couple of acres back in the day?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Well, I’m happy to …
Paul Cousins: You’re in a great spot if you’re near Cousins Island. That’s spectacular. As I told you, I think Casco Bay is a jewel.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It is a jewel, yeah. Are you happy that you ended up coming back to the state that your family was originally from?
Paul Cousins: I’m happy to be here because of the quality of life. It’s just [inaudible 00:49:41] that none of my relatives … Actually, I think I have a great-aunt who lives near Southwest Harbor, but otherwise, I don’t have any living relatives in the state any longer.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How is the quality in life different here than in where you’ve lived in other places?
Paul Cousins: When I grew up outside of Boston … I grew up outside of Boston, came back to Boston as a professional. It fun to think that I was actually coming home. I just found the intensity of the lifestyle and the congestion unpalatable. I couldn’t get from my home outside of Boston to the water in 15 minutes nor could I get from my home to Sugar Loaf or Sunday River in 15 minutes. It’s a lot closer in Portland that it is outside of Boston.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’ve been skiing you said in Sunday River from …
Paul Cousins: When they had T bars and one tiny little base lodge.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: That’s a few years ago.
Paul Cousins: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How have you seen Maine change? You talked about living outside of Boston. Obviously there was a lot of changes over the years as a result of the people coming in and living and working. How is Maine changing?
Paul Cousins: It’s certainly becoming more populated. I used to be able to zip downtown in 10 minutes, now it takes half an hour. Obviously everybody wants a piece of the pie. You can’t blame them, spectacular. Fortunately where I live, it hasn’t changed much. There are neighborhoods going around, but the schools are still pretty much the same. In fact, I occasionally substitute in schools. Some of the teachers that taught my two children are still there, which is just phenomenal.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Tell me what your favorite I guess weather activity has been over the last we’ll give it five years. Just must have some weather activity I mean, events, things that we have all been impacted by.
Paul Cousins: Oh boy. Well, we missed Sandy here. That was a near miss for Maine. I think Irene was pretty impacting, even though, again, that affected western New England more than Maine. That was a pretty significant storm. Of course, when these storms are approaching, I’m on DEFCON 4, full alert. My clients just can’t get enough of me, which is great because I feel like I’m contributing to storm preparation and so forth. I’m mitigating loss of property and so forth. Obviously, the major storms are a rush. Is that the question your asking?
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I guess even as I said it, I realized saying your favorite storm is probably kind of weird because a lot of people are-
Paul Cousins: People’s least favorite events.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: A lot of people really are impacted negatively by these storms.
Paul Cousins: Absolutely. I don’t discount that for a minute.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What is it about these major storms that energizes you in some way?
Paul Cousins: I mean just to see the atmosphere throw us such a curve ball and to see all of these elements come together in concert to create such a dramatic natural environmental calamity. You gotta think that the forces of nature are just insurmountable. We really are at the mercy entirely of mother nature.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Is that something that you think we forget?
Paul Cousins: In our very technologically advanced and insulated life style, I think a lot of people have lost touch with the fact that weather events are significant. Due to climate change, they’re going to become more extreme and more frequent and we should prepare for that.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: We are just coming off of what was called I believe it was a bomb cyclone, a major weather event.
Paul Cousins: Mm-hmm. Bombogenesis. We’ll see more and more of those.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Talk to me about that.
Paul Cousins: As the climate warms, air temperatures rise, sea surface temperatures rise and ocean temperatures rise, we’re enabling the global climate to harbor more energy, more potential energy with these higher temperatures. When we have the right, what’s the word, collusion of weather elements, you’re gonna get a bigger play.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This is something that impacted not only our part of the world, but really was all the way down into Florida where they got snow.
Paul Cousins: Snow in northern Florida this last week. That’s pretty rare. It’s snowed in southern Louisiana, what did I see, the first time in two decades. Weather extremes are going to become more prevalent, both hot and cold, wet and dry. Look at all these fires in southern California.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: That would make it very hard for us to stay prepared if you are in northern Florida and you haven’t really needed to have snow plows or sanders. Now you’re going to have these extremes of weather. That could be a very costly and difficult situation.
Paul Cousins: I can only imagine.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What do you see the next phase of your life looking like? You’ve done so many things over the past 30 years in this field. Is there anything new and interesting that you’d like to tackle?
Paul Cousins: I’d like to have more time playing the piano. I used to play daily, but now when you work for yourself, you’re 24/7 even though I don’t work non-stop. I have less time that I know that I’m going to have free and clear. I’d also like to learn how to play the saxophone. I think that’s one of the most sensuous instruments out there other than the piano. I couldn’t be a three man band on the drum, the saxophone, and the piano. I really enjoy music and I enjoy both jazz and classical piano. I used to play in the piano bars here in Portland years ago. I’d just walk in and say, “Is someone taking that piano?” They say, “No, go ahead and play.” I would play until the patrons would come in and sometimes they’d start to tip me. I’d say, “No, no. Don’t bother.” That was fun.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I hope you have the chance to do that.
Paul Cousins: I do too. It could happen.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Yeah, it could happen. I’ve been speaking with Paul Cousins who is the founder, principal, and CFO at Atmos Forecast, a meteorologist consulting company based in Portland. He has been analyzing weather in the northeast for over 40 years. Thanks for taking the time to come in and for all the work you do.
Paul Cousins: My pleasure.
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Dr. Lisa Belisle: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 340. Our guests have included Marshall Taylor and Paul Cousins. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit lovemaineradio.com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as Dr. Lisa and see our Love Maine Radio photos on Instagram. Please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them hear. We are pleased that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for sharing this part of your day with me. Now, you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is brought to you by Maine Magazine, Aristelle, Portland Art Gallery, and Art Collector Maine. Audio production and original music are by Spencer Albee Our editorial producer is Kate Gardner. Our assistant producer is Shelbi Wassick. Our community development manager is Casey Lovejoy. Our executive producers are Andrea King, Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. For more information on our production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us at lovemaineradio.com.