PATTEN, Maine — The Katahdin Collaborative has hired Megan Marquis as its new coordinator. She started work with the region on July 1.
The Katahdin Collaborative goal is to create a positive environment to facilitate communication, leverage resources and foster collaboration among regional community members, volunteer groups, businesses, non-profit agencies, institutions, and municipalities, working towards the revitalization of the Katahdin Region.
The hiring process was driven by the skills and experience identified by community members as key to accomplishing regional goals and supporting the vision outlined in the Katahdin Gazetteer, according to Jon Ellis, a member of the Katahdin Collaborative steering committee.
As the new Katahdin Collaborative Coordinator, Marquis’s role will be to build and strengthen communication and work to connect people to the necessary resources to move work forward, Ellis said. She brings experience as an organizer and educator, building an iPad-based bilingual science curriculum that works offline to preserve the Native language while teaching survival skills in Alaska and working with the Urban Ecology Center in the Midwest to provide equitable community resources to those in need.
Marquis is a Mainer, raised in the lake region of Maine and currently lives in China Village, where she supports her mother in the care of her grandfather. In her spare time, she volunteers with the Friends of China, as they help to keep byways clean and provide residents with needed resources in the community.
Marquis said she looks forward to meeting the many people working to implement the six “Big Ideas” outlined in the Katahdin Gazetteer. Those ideas are: Fostering vibrant villages that enhance the region; Making Katahdin the premier four season outdoor destination in New England; Being a place that supports and attracts all ages; Cultivating local jobs and a new regional economy; Growing the next wave of forest product manufacturing; and Future-proofing the region.
