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Who We Are |
_____________ Island Astronomy Institute |
WHO WE ARE
The members of our board share strong community ties with Mount Desert Island, as well as a love of astronomy.
Board of Directors
PETER W. LORD, President/Director
(Stanford University, MLA, 2002; Syracuse University, BS Mechanical Engineering, 1984)
A passionate observer, writer, and lecturer for over a decade, Peter received his master's degree in Liberal Arts from Stanford University in 2002. His thesis, Dante's Guiding Light: The Astronomy of the Divine Comedy, reintegrates the act of observing the universe within the origins of the classical humanities.
A veteran aerospace engineer with twenty years of experience, Peter holds four patents for spacecraft antenna designs, and was the lead systems mechanical engineer for the Sirius Satellite Radio constellation.
Peter and his wife Linda operate a guest cottage at Meadow View Observatory at their home in Tremont. He is currently a consulting Senior Satellite Systems Engineer with Stellar Solutions in Palo Alto, CA.
JAMES W. CORMIER, Vice-President
(U.S. Air Force 1987-1991; Maine Air National Guard, 1991-1996; Brown's Communications, Radio Systems Technician, 1997-Present)
A communications specialist for Brown's Communications in Ellsworth, Jim is responsible for public safety radio and commercial two-way communications in Hancock County, including police, fire, EMS, federal government, and private sector voice and data wireless systems.
A veteran deep-sky observer and astrophotographer, Jim has been studying, teaching, and "doing" astronomy for well over twenty years. Jim has produced some stunning astrophotographs and knows his way around the heavens. Several of his photographs are featured on this site, and he has posted many more at Nightfly Astrophotography. You can find him out in his observatory under the relatively dark skies of Sullivan, Maine, with his wife Kerri, and two daughters Jacqueline and Maria.
JAMES R. B. SNOW, Treasurer
(Snow2 CPA, Southwest Harbor)
Jim has over fourteen years of experience in public and corporate accounting. Having grown up working in the marine industry, he has since worked in manufacturing, distribution, and service companies in a variety of industries. Prior to rejoining the practice on a full-time basis in 1999, he was the Director of Finance for Martin's Point Health Care in Portland, a physician group with revenues in excess of $50 million.
Jim lives in Southwest Harbor with his wife Susan and two boys.
DWIGHT M. LANPHER, P.E., Secretary
(Lanpher Associates Inc., Design and Consulting Engineer; University of Maine, BS Electrical Engineering)
Dwight is a professionally registered electrical engineer actively working in the fields of lighting, power, acoustics, and computer systems. His primary work consists of lighting and power systems designs for commercial and domestic applications. He designed Acadia National Park's first Dark Sky lighting projects
He has been involved in the design of several fiber optics data lines. He is experienced in acoustics and does analysis for the treatment of acoustical spaces and designs for high fidelity sound reproduction and sound reinforcement systems.
A native of Mount Desert Island, Dwight is a resident of Northeast Harbor.
Board of Advisors
Craig currently is Senior Consultant to the Great Maine Schools Project, housed at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute in Portland. He advises high schools in Aroostook, Washington, Penobscot and Hancock Counties. Craig graduated from College of the Atlantic and Bridgewater State College, and earned his doctorate in science education from the University of Maine in 1997.
Prior to his present position, Craig has served in a number of positions in public school teaching and administration. He was also the Director of Education at Teton Science School in Wyoming, and Assistant Professor of Biology and Science Education in Arkansas. Craig lives in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island with his wife and two children.
A Master Teacher at Pemetic Elementary School in Southwest Harbor, Anne teaches 3rd and 4th grades. In 2005 she was selected as a finalist for Maine's Teacher of the Year Award. Anne lives in Southwest Harbor.
KYLE BISSELL
Kyle is the Director of Adventure Education for Camp Beech Cliff, where he works with local schools to design and facilitate adventure-based learning activities that promote character development, resiliency, and a consciousness based in peace. He has a degree in Leisure Resource Facilities Management, with a minor in Adventure Recreation. He was the Director of Adventure Programming for Green Mountain College, pioneering their first co-curricular adventure programs.
In 1996 Skiing Magazine included Kyle among the nation's Top 75 Ski Instructors for Children. He is a Leave No Trace Master Educator, ME Sea Kayak Guide and Wilderness First Responder. He has trained outdoor leaders since 1999, and ecently taught an Adventure Education course for the College Of the Atlantic. Kyle has also worked for the Harvard University First-year Outdoor Programming office, leading over 125 trips, which included cycling across the US, backpacking, canoeing, snow shoeing, winter camping, top rope rock climbing and sea kayaking.
Kyle has a deep appreciation and natural curiosity for all of nature's wild places. One of his fondest memories is of sitting on granite stones in the 100 Mile Wilderness here in Maine, with a small group of teens he was leading, and watching the night sky come alive with the Perseid meteors.
MAUREEN ELLERTON
A resident of Tremont, Maureen is retired from the Columbia County (NY) Department of Human Services, where she was Deputy Director for Administration and Fiscal Program Planning for twenty years.
RUTH GRIERSON
Ruth is Nature Columnist for the Mount Desert Islander, and has authored several books on the natural wonders of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. Her natural history pursuits have taken her up and down the East Coast of the U.S. and Canada, as well as to the rain forests in Central America, the remote hills of the British Isles, and special birding areas in Europe.
A native of Connecticut, Ruth moved to Mount Desert Island in 1972 and is a year-round resident of Bass Harbor. She is also a violinist and violist, and participates enthusiastically in musical activities on MDI, including the Teahouse Trio. She has a B.S. degree in music from Westchester University.
PETER K. HOMER
(Flagsuit LLC, B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, M.S. Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Stanford University)
Peter is an award-winning inventor with over ten patents and more than ten years' experience designing aerospace hardware and systems for Grumman Aerospace, General Electric Astro Space, and Lockheed-Martin Commercial Space Systems. In May 2007 he won NASA’s $200,000 Astronaut Glove Challenge for a design that outperforms the current Space Station glove.
Flagsuit LLC was founded in 2007 to commercialize technology developed for Peter's winning entry in the Astronaut Glove Challenge. Based in coastal Maine, the company is focused on streamlining the production of "Made to Fit" elements for suborbital and future planetary space suits.
Peter’s problem-solving skills have led to successful private enterprises in magazine publishing, real estate management, technical consulting (including over five years' experience in non-profit leadership), finance, and fundraising. Peter lives in Southwest Harbor with his wife and three children.
See our special report on Peter's award-wining space glove design.
Linda co-founded Island Astronomy LLC in September of 2003. She manages the popular guest cottage at Meadowview Observatory. Her support and financial sacrifice made possible the founding of the Island Astronomy Institute.
Linda has a long history of accounting and office supervision at such large organizations as the City of Sunnyvale (CA), Stanford University, and Litton.
JOSEPH SNIDER, Ph. D.
Joe received a Ph. D. in experimental physics from Princeton University in 1961. After eight years of teaching and research at Harvard, he joined the Physics Department at Oberlin College in Ohio. He and his students at Oberlin built a solar telescope to measure the sun's rotation rate and spectral effects produced by the Sun's gravity. They also did research at Kitt Peak National Observatory and Mount Wilson Observatory, using equipment that they built at Oberlin.
In 1990 Joe founded a summer astronomy program for college students at Mount Wilson Observatory. He also helped to run summer institutes in astronomy and space science for teachers, in a project funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of California in Berkeley.
In 1999 Joe moved to Southwest Harbor, where he had been a frequent visitor since childhood. He has taught summer courses for teachers at the College of the Atlantic, as well as short courses at the Acadia Senior College. He is particularly interested in developing astronomy demonstration equipment and other teaching aids.
DAVID WESTPHAL
Trained by the United States Marines, David is now an independent film maker and photographer living in Somesville.
JAMIE HAGEDORN
Jamie Hagedorn (D.M., Northwestern University, 1984) is a musician and Web designer who moved to Ellsworth in Spring 2006. Maine's dark skies were a factor in her decision to move here from Chicago. She became involved with the Institute after a board member read her bio in a concert program, where she described herself as an eclipse-chaser (the Caribbean in 1998, the Black Sea in 1999, Zambia in 2001, and Egypt in 2006). She formerly taught in the Voice & Opera Department at Northwestern University, and now teaches piano and voice at home. She conducts the Acadia Choral Society and the Acadia Children's Chorus, she is also the music director of Somesville Union Meeting House (UCC) and the pianist for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society.