Blaine Grimes is the Chief Ventures Officer of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. This new initiative supports the incubation, acceleration and funding of business ventures and partnerships to leverage private sector market opportunities where GMRI’s involvement, leadership and investment can accelerate positive social and economic impacts in the Gulf of Maine.
In this capacity, Blaine leans on her prior sixteen years heading GMRI’s development team and career concentration in the science and technology sectors. She brings deep experience in fundraising, product development, marketing and sales, and operational process design to assist startup companies with market and technology innovations within the wild and farmed seafood supply chain. Blaine’s role is to draw on GMRI’s institutional knowledge and ocean climate expertise to advance business ideas, coalesce investment, and lead partnerships that will contribute to the New England marine industry’s economic health and development.
Having lived at the intersection of private, non-profit, and public interests, Blaine is passionate about exploring the continuum of financial and social outcomes within the “blue economy” at the intersection of impact investment and venture capital.
She is a former trustee and board chair of the Maine Venture Fund, a current board member and treasurer of the Portland Development Corporation and serves on the board of GMRI’s two for-profit subsidiary companies, Gulf of Maine Sashimi and New England Marine Monitoring.
Before joining GMRI in 2005, she held senior management positions at IDEXX Laboratories and The VIA Group.
Blaine received her undergraduate BA from Amherst College and her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
Gustav E. Karlsen | by Bob Martin
We lost Gus Karlsen this week. Gus joined Rotary in 1976 and became a member of Portland Rotary in 1992. He was a Paul Harris Fellow. An active sailor, he pushed the club to sponsor the annual Regatta to raise funds for Muscular Sclerosis and his boats always won. He carried an infectious joy around with him and any conversation he was a part of was delightful and interesting.
Born and raised in central Connecticut, Gus moved to Norway with his parents when he was fifteen, after his father retired. Gus attended school in Norway, then returned to the U.S. to finish high school and went to college at Uppsala College in New Jersey. After graduating with a BA in French, Gus went on to the Navy’s officer candidate school, and was commissioned an officer in 1961. He was assigned to the USS Little Rock where he eventually took charge of the ship’s antisubmarine warfare operations. After four years on the USS Little Rock, Gus was assigned to the staff of the Military Sea Transportation Service and stationed in London, which afforded him the opportunity to visit often with his father. After his stint of active duty, Gus remained in the Naval Reserve. He worked for the U.S. Post Office for 23 years before retiring.
Gus and his wife Ann moved to Maine and lived on Peaks Island. In 2007, he provided an oral history to the USS Little Rock Association, and commented:
“I have lived in Maine for probably thirty-five years and just really it, it’s still unspoiled. You can’t characterize it as the mad rush, rat-race kind of existence that you find in other places. It’s fairly laid back. The people are good, kind people. Although they don’t get excited very easily, you can tell that they’re, for the most part, capable at whatever they do, and I like that. They’re laid back and usually pretty square shooters.”
“My wife and I now live on an island that provides us with a wonderful lifestyle. Looking out on the water in the morning when we get up is just very soothing and just a great life. We’re very fortunate to be there.”
Gus retired from the Reserves in 1985, but stayed on the water. He carried a 100-ton master’s license, and sailed as a relief captain on the 72-foot John Alden schooner in Portland, taking for himself the title of Commodore.
The best way to remember Gus Karlsen’s spirit is to know that he loved playing in the Peaks Island Ukulele Band and recognized the happiness and joy that brought. We will miss him.
We will share information about a memorial as we receive it.
Recovery Task Force - Backpack Project
September is Recovery Month and The Rotary Club of Portland's Recovery Task Force is teaming up with the Portland Recovery Community Center to fill backpacks for people beginning their recovery journey. If you would like to contribute items to fill the backpacks, please review the items listed at this link and click on the items you would like to donate. You may choose to donate as many as you wish.
Our goal is to get all the items by Friday, October 1st at 5:00 pm.
There are also opportunities to donate funds to buy Hannaford Gift cards and bus passes. Cash donations are welcome and will be used for Hannaford Gift Cards and metro bus passes. To make a cash donation, please send a check to Portland Rotary Club at PO box 1755, Portland, ME 04104-1755.
Items may be dropped off at Portland Recovery Community Center, 102 Bishop St, Portland, or at John Curran's office at 233 Vaughan Street, Portland. If you would like to have your donations picked up, please contact Bruce at brucevmoore@gmail.com.
Bits and Pieces | by Ben Lowry
President Bob Martin called the meeting to order August 27, welcoming 30 Zoomers, and acknowledging members who we had not seen in a bit, including Julie Chase and Bob Traill.
* Juliana L'Heureux provided our invocation in the form of a poem by Beulah Sylvester Oxton, a Bar Harbor native who had written the poem for Maine's centennial celebration back in 1920. The poem, entitled "Maine: The Union's Aroura" still holds up, one hundred years later, as Maine celebrates, belatedly, her bicentennial.
* Our club's newest committee, designated to help preserve our fragile and ever-diminished environment, has become quite popular within committee assignment requests, reports chair Ellen Niewoehner. The first project for the committee, our club and, in fact, the entire district, will be held on Friday, September 17th from 9:00 to noon as we plan to meet up in South Portland, at B Street and Waterman Drive, for our first annual Bay Cleanup, wherein attendees will scour the waterfront and clean up trash and debris. We'll hear more about this in the coming weeks but mark your calendar now and take this opportunity to invite friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. to help with this project. President Bob pulled up photos of brightly colored tee shirts that will be offered to those in attendance. The shirts will be emblazoned with the slogan "Rotarian at Work" to add to our community visibility. Thanks to District Governor Dick Hall and our own Paul Gore for making this happen.
* President Bob reports that club member Alan Levenson is recovering from surgery and doing much better over the past week. Our thoughts go out to Alan and his family.
* Jim Willey gave an update on our club's monthly visit to the Cedar Unit at the Long Creek facility, where a hearty group of members shares a meal and plays games with troubled kids. Our efforts there are very meaningful to the young men and we hope to continue our affiliation with the center as it undergoes widely publicized changes.
All Hands Hold Books Project Update
Liz Fagan reports on the literacy project in Kosovo:
My team in Kosovo has just received what is described as "a LOT" of books and therapy materials. The donations were made by SLPs and audiologists in my US professional group who paid the large shipping fee. They are sent to the non-profit Psycho-Social Medial Research Center in Pristine so there is no fee to get them out of customs. Our Rotary club did not incur any expenses.
Each of our international projects has a point person. All Hands Hold Books has a point person. Granit Haliti works at the research center. He is one of the 7 students that I mentored on site 3 years ago. He has just finished the first year of his MS in speech-language pathology. It was not in the program that I developed at Heimerer College in Pristine as that is a private school and, come to find out, not affordable. Live and learn. Granit is moving to Albania for his second year. I am not sure if this means our efforts will expand to or shift to Albania. Either way, the network is in place and productive.
Flags for Heroes
Charlie Frair reports that the setup of flags at Maine Mall went without a hitch. A team of 14 Rotarians showed up to raise the flags, which were sponsored by 53 people, resulting in $5,300 in donations for Rotary projects. The remaining 47 flags were dedicated to service members, past Rotary presidents, and others.
High Stakes in Myanmar | by Bob Martin
Tom Andrews, former congressman from Maine’s First Congressional District, and now UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, spoke to Portland Rotary on August 27. Saying he would prefer to join us in person, Andrews said that he was particularly happy to join a group committed to service, the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace.
Andrews explained that a “rapporteur” is a person appointed by the UN to provide an independent vantage point on human rights. There are 24 UN rapporteurs who look at different situations, and eleven report on specific countries. “I am ‘in’ the United Nations, but not ‘of’ the United Nations. I was elected to a six-year term by the Human Rights Council and I do not answer to anyone in the United Nations bureaucracy, so I am able to speak my mind.”
Andrews said that while Myanmar is not front and center in the public mind right now, it’s important to pay attention to because over one-third of all the people in the world live in a country that borders Myanmar.
Andrews talked about the path he took from being a Representative in Congress to becoming a UN rapporteur. In 1990, he said, the people of Myanmar held an election, and the people of Myanmar thought they had won the election, but they went down to a sound defeat. The elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy, won over 80% of the seats to the Parliament. “The military, totally out of touch with the people of Myanmar, responded by declaring the election null and void, and if you were on the winning side of the election, you had a choice,” he said. “Walk away from your seat in Parliament, go to prison, or get out of the country. So in 1990, I got to go to the US Congress and represent the First District of Maine, and Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues went to prison or went into exile. That made me quite angry, and I vowed to do whatever I could to help my duly elected colleagues in Myanmar and voters in Myanmar defend their country and their democracy and their nation from the injustices of a military dictatorship.”
Since leaving Congress, Andrews said he’s been fortunate to serve as a consultant to emerging countries around the world and that gave him an opportunity to work with exiled leaders from Myanmar.
In tracing the rise of the junta’s authority in Myanmar, Andrews said the military leaders came up with an interesting approach whereby they agreed to elections, but engaged a scheme to insure their lock on power. In 2015, even though Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won, the generals retained unchecked authority over the military and unchecked control over the businesses and industries that controlled Myanmar’s vast natural resources. They put in place a veto over any Constitutional amendment the parliament enacted. He said the junta have murdered over 1000 people, displaced hundreds of thousands, stifled freedom of expression, charged journalists, civil leaders, cut off food water and medicine, and engaged in brutal attacks on villages, including taking hostages from families to curb dissent and exercise control. On top of all this, COVID-19 is ravaging the country, and the junta is even hunting down and arresting doctors and nurses. There are over 250 documented attacks against doctors, and 600 warrants are out for the arrest of medical professionals. Doctors treat patients in underground clinics to avoid detection. “The danger isn’t COVID, it’s the junta,” one doctor told Andrews.
Andrews said there is almost universal belief that the junta is illegitimate, and there is a widespread boycott against the junta. He has been coordinating international assistance into the country. “I’ve been meeting with resistance leaders on a regular basis by phone, and can hear gunfire and soldiers outside of these people’s homes,” he said. “There are daily acts of heroism on the part of these people. Many have lost hope that help is coming and are forming their own defense forces with homemade weapons. The junta responds with grossly disproportionate force. The people of Myanmar are desperately trying to save their country, and that’s where I come in. The UN General council has met, but has not taken any action because the Security council requires consensus among the five permanent members which isn’t going to happen. The brutal fact is that the longer it takes to get coordinated international action against the junta, the longer these people will suffer.”
Andrews said he is in the process of drafting a report to the UN Security Council, which will reiterate a call for an emergency coalition to help the people of Myanmar with focused, strategic action. He noted, “we know with virtual certainty that if the rest of the world continues on its present course, there will be significant harm to the people of Myanmar.”
Andrews believes that economic sanctions will impact the military junta because of their need for funds to support the military—“If we cut off their income, they cannot continue to fund the military.” Economic sanctions by the US and others will help, but they lack the coordination and focus necessary for success. The oil and gas sector has not been touched at all, but it supplies the junta with all it needs, he said. The coalition can outlaw arms; coordinate investigations against the junta; can dramatically increase humanitarian aid; and can work together to deny junta claims of legitimacy, including their false claim that the junta is recognized by the UN. “Paralysis is lethal to the people of Myanmar. The current path leads to greater threat to humanity. I’m afraid that the international community is failing the people of Myanmar. Now, more than ever, we must summon the courage of the people of Myanmar and help. The time is short, the stakes could not be higher.”
Speaker Schedule September 17 | Blaine Grimes, Chief Venture Officer, GMRI
September 24 | Rita Heimes, Chief Privacy Officer, IAPP
October 1 | Emily Isaacson, conductor
October 8 |Dick Hall, District Governor
October 15 | Henry Beck, Maine Treasurer
October 22 |Dan Brennan, Maine Housing
October 29 | Dana Eidsness, Director, North Atlantic Development Organization
November 5 | Leigh Saufley, Dean, Maine Law
December 10 | Paul Mayewski, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
September is Recovery Month and The Rotary Club of Portland's Recovery Task Force is teaming up with the Portland Recovery Community Center to fill backpacks for people beginning their recovery journey. If you would like to contribute items to fill the backpacks, please review the items listed 
