Executive Committee

Sierra Club Maine's 2024 Executive Committee Members:

Jacob Stern, Pownal, Chair
Since 2014, Jacob has been organizing and leading progressive grassroots campaigns at the state, regional, and local level. He's worked on political campaigns in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Jersey. From 2017 until 2021 he served as a staff member at the Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter, most recently as Deputy Director. In 2020, he co-founded the Sunrise Boston Political Team, fighting to elect climate champions in the Boston area. Jacob is thrilled to bring his experience as an organizer, activist, lobbyist, coalition-builder, and communications professional -- as well as his commitment to economic, racial, and climate justice to the Maine Chapter. A Maine native, Jacob is equally at home in both the state's granite mountains and on the cold waters off the coast. You'll find him one place or the other most weekends. Jacob currently lives in Pownal with his partner Madelyn and their dog Ziggy.
Sue Levene, Phippsburg, Co-Vice Chair
Sue has enjoyed serving on the Sierra Club Maine’s Chapter Executive Committee this past year. In the middle of the year, she agreed to step in and become the acting chair of the executive committee. Sue has been working hard to improve our outreach and communications efforts as well make it easy and rewarding to volunteer to help move forward the important issues that we all care about. She looks forward to working together and continuing to build our chapter and make progress on protecting our environment, resolving our climate crisis and supporting a more equitable and just society for all. Sue lives in Phippsburg and is an avid outdoors-person. She enjoys hiking, paddling and cross-country skiing and is currently our Chapter Outings Team Leader. She also enjoys playing music with the Bath Municipal Band and the Hallowell Community Band. Sue is also an elected member of the Town of Phippsburg's 3 person Select Board. And, she has spent over 25 years as an engineer and IT professional.
Philip Mathieu
 
 
 
 
 
Philip Mathieu, Portland, Co-Vice Chair & Council of Club Leaders Representative

Philip Englund Mathieu (he/him/his) is a MS Data Science student at The Roux Institute, Northeastern University’s campus in Portland, ME. He currently works as a Software Development intern for Kelson Marine, an ocean engineering company based on the Portland waterfront that specializes in design and simulation of offshore structures. Prior to starting his master’s program, Philip worked in conservation, most recently as the Program Coordinator at the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust. He also hosted and produced Ecology is Everywhere, a podcast about careers in environmental education and adjacent fields.

In addition to his studies, Philip is a volunteer co-lead of Sierra Club Maine’s 30x30 team, the chapter's representative to the Council of Club Leaders, and a member of the Executive Committee. He is also Vice Chair of the Portland Rent Board. When not juggling all the above responsibilities, he enjoys gardening, playing and recording music, cooking, home brewing, and skiing (both alpine and Nordic).

Ezra Sassaman
 
 
 
 
 
Ezra Sassaman, Bar Harbor, Secretary

Ezra Sassaman (he/him) is the Advocacy and Organizing Coordinator at Maine Youth for Climate Justice (MYCJ). Working at MYCJ has furthered his knowledge of the inextricable links between climate justice and social justice. Ezra recognizes protecting the climate must also mean overcoming unjust and unsustainable hierarchies such as colonization and capitalism.

In his MYCJ role, Ezra has supported MainePERS divestment implementation, the Pine Tree Amendment, tribal sovereignty legislation, and funding climate education in public schools. He is currently helping organize MYCJ’s offshore wind speaker series, where experts in the field share their perspectives and answer youth-led questions about wind power in the Gulf of Maine.

At the local level, Ezra serves on Bar Harbor’s Warrant Committee, which approves the annual town budget and makes voting recommendations for land use ordinance changes and citizen’s petitions.

Ezra believes it is past time for everyday people to take back the power that has been concentrated for far too long in the hands of the few. We know the status quo is not working, so let’s be uncompromising and bold about the future we know we can create!

Hira Zeeshan
 
 
 
 
 
Hira Zeeshan, Treasurer

Hira Zeeshan joined Sierra Club Maine as Treasurer in March 2024. She is also a student at Northeastern University for MSc in Biotechnology. In her free time, she loves to do arts & crafts and train for long distance running. Hira is excited to serve her community for a better tomorrow. 

Becky Bartovics, North Haven
Becky is a grandmother, farmer/gardener, networker, community and environmental activist. Working in alternative energy and water conservation, and as a teacher, she has long been involved in promoting energy and water conservation, in Massachusetts as well as Maine. Formerly President of Penobscot Bay Alliance, she became involved with Sierra Club Maine through the Sears Island Planning Initiative during the Baldacci Administration. Ever more concerned about her grandchildrens’ future, she has become increasingly involved in climate change activism and protecting biodiversity. Serving on the Sierra Club Council of Club Leaders, Legislative, Climate Action, Political and Advancement Teams, she has been involved in most aspects of the Chapter and its growth. 
 
At home, she has participated in the Comprehensive Planning Committee for North Haven and has been an elected member of the North Haven Planning Board and the North Haven Budget Committee. Founding member of a new group on North Haven to address significant invasive intrusion, she has been experimenting on her farm with livestock, primarily eradication followed by cover cropping. Collecting native seeds and starting a native plant nursery, the goal is to create a biodiversity found on this island only during the time of Indigenous habitation.
 
When not on zoom or working on Sierra Club Maine programs, she can be found midwifing a flock of dual breed sheep, broad forking the market garden, laughing at chicken antics or pulling grandchildren in the garden cart. She firmly believes that activism is empowering and inspiring.

Laura Berry
 
 
 
 
 
Laura Berry, Bar Harbor

Laura Berry is a climate justice advocate working at the intersections of democratic engagement and the climate emergency movement. As Sustainability Coordinator for the Town of Bar Harbor, she leads planning, outreach, and implementation of projects in support of the town’s goal of zero emissions and energy independence by 2030. Laura also serves as the Director of People’s Voice on Climate, a national nonprofit network working to elevate deliberative democracy as a key pathway forward to addressing the climate crisis. In 2021, she led the planning and implementation of the Washington State Climate Assembly – the first-ever citizen’s assembly on climate change in the United States. In her former role as Research and Policy Director at the Climate Mobilization, Laura helped lead the development climate emergency movement in the U.S. and abroad, including designing the climate emergency resolution framework now adopted by over 180 governments in 25 U.S. states, including Bangor, Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Saco, Portland, and South Portland. 

Whether facilitating public forums to support community engagement in local climate planning or designing effective legislative campaigns, Laura brings an interdisciplinary perspective, backed by over a decade of experience in climate advocacy, community-owned renewable energy, social justice organizing, and environmental policy, to her work. She is excited for the opportunity to serve the Sierra Club of Maine as a member of the Executive Committee in support of the vision of a democratic, zero emissions Maine, where equity and justice are central tenets of climate policy and environmental protection. Laura holds a MSc in Global Environment, Politics and Society from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic.

Scott Cuddy
 
 
 
 
 
Scott Cuddy, Winterport

Scott Cuddy joined Sierra Club Maine's Executive Committee in 2024. He ran because, "I’ve had to explain to my two boys why the world they're going to inherit will be so different, and more difficult to live in, than the one I grew up in. While I have the time, talent, and strength I will do everything I can to solve this problem. Climate Change is the single largest threat to us and the Earth, and we need to fight it with that level of urgency."

Scott was born and raised in Winterport. He eventually bought the house he grew up in from his mother, who then built a house next door and helps Scott and his sons every day. He's been a union electrician with IBEW 1253 since 2005. His union affiliation and service on the RSU 22 School Board made him realize many of the changes he wanted would need to be made in Augusta. Scott ran for State Representative, winning in 2018 and then again in 2020. He was endorsed by SCM in 2020. He chose not to run for re-election in 2022 because he could not financially afford to serve.

Scott has served on the board of the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP), Food AND Medicine, RSU 22, and the Eastern Maine Labor Council. He was recently re-elected to the RSU 22 School Board and appointed to serve on the Board of Occupational Safety and Health.

Scott shares, "I hope to be an integral part of continuing the kind of cooperation between organized labor and the environmental community that creates an unstoppable force for the good of the state. That collaboration recently won incredible legislation to move floating Offshore Wind forward in Maine, and there is so much more that we can do!"

John Fitzgerald, Sedgwick

John is an attorney and advocate, working primarily with non-profit conservation groups and think tanks.

John has served on Sierra Club Maine’s Executive and Political Committees since early 2022 and co-chairs the Legislative Committee. He is a Council of Club Leaders Alternate, and serves on the Conservation Policy Advisory Committee of National Sierra Club.

A part time consultant, he is the legal advisor to the Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund, a new group that will help scientists prepare environmental assessments in advance of field tests of safe, controllable climate interventions such as methods of destroying or sequestering greenhouse gasses. He served from Autumn 2020 to August 2023 as Legal and Government Relations Counsel to Methane Action which
merged with Spark Climate Solutions in 2023.

He is Vice President of the Board of the Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative founded by Climate Scientist Jim Hansen and his Policy Advisor, Dan Galpern and allies.  John is also a member of the Board of the Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO based in the US and the UK that documents and works to end environmental crimes world-wide.

As chief counsel at Defenders of Wildlife from 1984-94, John was a leader in the Endangered Species Coalition, crafting strengthening amendments enacted in 1988, and returned again to the Coalition when he was Policy Director of the Society for Conservation Biology from 2007 to 2013. At Defenders, he prepared and coordinated numerous lawsuits including the one that ended United States agencies’ assistance in building the Three Gorges Dam in China. He helped strengthen the Marine Mammal Protection Act, served on the Northern Right Whale Recovery Team and drafted the original dolphin-safe tuna labeling law. He also drafted the amendment to the Lacey Act that banned imports and interstate trade in illegally harvested wood. John helped to strengthen oil spill legislation in the United States and sanctions against nations that undermine international conservation agreements.  He helped to negotiate the Convention on Biological Diversity, and helped to prevent several attempts to weaken the treaty as it was being drafted and at the United Nations’ Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992.  Before joining Defenders he served as a legislative aide and subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 1979 to September 1984 helping to staff the Solar Energy Caucus, to write a strong Superfund law and close loopholes in the Ethics in Government Act.  

His methods for ranking nations’ stewardship of natural and human resources helped shape a foreign assistance initiative, known as the Millennium Challenge Corporation while he was in the Policy Bureau at USAID. He was featured as an Earth Champion by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who represented him in a successful whistleblower challenge of the Bush Administration’s elimination of his position at USAID for briefing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others on their Treasury Department’s continuing violations of the Pelosi Amendment regarding environmental impact statements for World Bank projects. He worked with Speaker Pelosi, Senator Leahy and others in Congress to strengthen the law that she originally championed in response to those violations.

John received the 2012 Brock Evans Award presented by the Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) for his long-standing work to protect endangered species and the Distinguished Service Award from his college preparatory school alma mater, Northfield Mount Hermon School, for his service to the public.

 
David Gibson, Morrill

David has over a decade of experience implementing climate solutions. He serves as the Director of Energy at College of the Atlantic, where he is leading the campus-wide transition off fossil fuels by 2030. With SCM, he was the primary organizer of the June 2020 green bank summit, and in 2021 led successful legislative efforts for LD1659 to create the Maine Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator (Green Bank) under Efficiency Maine and for LD99 requiring the Maine Public Employee Retirement System to divest from fossil fuels. Previously, David led the development of Envirolution's "Project ReCharge," a training program for middle and high school students in Reno, NV from 2009-2014. From 2014-2016, he implemented efficiency programs statewide in Nevada for the Governor's Office of Energy, where he helped create a program for low-income seniors, and developed over $50 million in self-funding performance contracting projects for public buildings. From 2017 to 2020, David designed solar and heat pump systems for ReVision Energy. He is a resident of Morrill, and has transitioned his home, a post and beam farmhouse built in 1828, entirely off of fossil fuels.

Isidora Liliana Muñoz Segovia
 
 
 
 
 
Isidora Liliana Muñoz Segovia, Bar Harbor

Isidora is a multidisciplinary Chilean and Spanish environmental activist. She has been involved in environmental activism for 8 years and during the last 5 years she has been studying environmental politics among other focus areas like indigenous knowledge and sustainable agriculture as a Human Ecologist. Her work on environmental politics brought her to attend COP25 in Madrid in 2020 and COP26 in Edinburgh in 2021. At these UN Conferences of the Parties she followed indigenous and agricultural negotiations as well as assisted different groups with civil actions. During the COP in Scotland she also supported Demand Climate Justice as a spokesperson at the Presidential Stocktaking Plenary making a statement demanding tangible actions on real zero and accountability for the nations that have historically contributed the most to our current climate crisis. 

After her experiences in the international realm of environmental politics and climate change, she decided that she wanted to put her energy to support grassroots work. In 2020 Isidora was part of the Agroecology Lab at the Universidad de la Frontera in Chile where she researched the overlap between western science and Mapuche indigenous practices while also learning about indigenous environmental activism. This experience broadened her scope when thinking about how we can incorporate different ways of seeing the world. As a part of her senior thesis in 2022 Isidora developed a movement practice where she wove together different ontologies from the south like indigenous Mapuche Kimvn from Chile and the Sentipensar philosophy from Colombian coastal traditional knowledge with western modern science communication to encourage education and action regarding climate change. This practice is MOASSE (Movement As a Seed for Change) and it was first brought to life at COP26 in Edinburg with more than 200 participants. Recently MOASSE has evolved to focus on Maine coastal communities' relationship with resilience. In March of 2023 MOASSE was part of the Cambalache International Conference of Autonomies in Practice in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, where Isidora and her collaborator presented their theory and praxis in the context of anti-capitalist/anti-colonial arts. 

She is excited to continue exploring the potential to create bridges among different communities when it comes to not only to imagine but to embrace a thriving future for all. She is currently one of the Rural Youth Organizers with JustME for JustUS where she is focusing her work to uplift coastal communities and in particular young fishing communities’ vision on climate actions in Maine. She is also committed to strengthening partnerships among environmental groups and the Wabanaki tribes in Maine. She believes that only when we allow space for people to express and listen to themselves we can start feeling the strength of our communities. 

Isidora has also been part of the IV Latin American Congress of Political Ecology in 2022 as a panelist on “Human Ecology inside Political Ecology”. She was also a guest speaker at Colby College presenting “Exploring Ontologies in our Current Climate: Stories from Chile, Scotland, and Maine” as a part of the World Beyond Human course. Isidora was part of the panel on Women & Gender Expansive Roundtable Discussion hosted by Maine Youth for Climate Justice in 2023. In 2022 she was also nominated to the Brookies Award for her environmental leadership.

 

Anna Siegel
 
 
 
 
 
Anna Siegel, Yarmouth

Anna Siegel (she/her) is the Advocacy Director of Maine Youth Action (MYA) and a founding member of Maine Youth for Climate Justice (MYCJ). She goes to high school at Waynflete in Portland, Maine. Anna is a volunteer with the Sierra Club Maine Political Team and works with them each electoral cycle to elect climate champions. On a municipal level, she is a member of the Yarmouth Committee for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability and the Yarmouth Climate Action Taskforce. In 2019 and 2020 she served as the Maine state lead for the global climate strike efforts and worked with MYCJ to organize actions that spurred over half a dozen climate emergency declarations in municipalities across the state. During this time she was also a member of a working group of the Maine Climate Council. Anna’s work since then has included legislative initiatives, more municipal policy, electoral advocacy, and other grassroots campaigns. She is particularly passionate about climate finance, conservation-oriented forestry, and building power through successful action models. In 2022 she was named a Brookie Awardee by the Natural Resources Council of Maine and a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awardee. Anna also worked in 2022 and 2023 as a Coach for The Climate Mobilization, advising local groups on movement-building. 

Anna first became interested in climate advocacy because of her love for birds. She is a proud member of the Maine Young Birders Club and worked in the summer of 2022 as the Outreach Lead for the 30-Year Bird Project. She hopes to engage more in bird-related research. She enjoys birding, hiking, and writing poetry.