maine
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John T. Leonard and the Price of Trust
John T. Leonard arrived at MEMIC weeks after it wrote its first policy. Over the next 24 years, the veteran insurance executive helped turn a company financed with a line of credit into an East Coast insurer - and kept returning to the question of what people could expect from it.
Melany Robinson and the Arithmetic of a Bigger Crowd
A neighborhood yard sale, a name that outgrew its joke, and a career spent making introductions. Inside the practical imagination of Sprouthouse founder Melany Robinson.
Melissa Smith and the question that followed her off the farm
A Maine childhood taught Melissa Smith to ask “Why not?” At WEX, that question has carried her through an IPO, a long climb to CEO, and a new chapter of shareholder scrutiny.
SaviLinx makes the complicated call.
A benefits question can become a staffing problem, a cash-flow problem, or a language problem. Heather Blease built SaviLinx to work through all three.
MEMIC bets on the accident that never happens.
Born in Maine’s workers’ comp crisis, MEMIC built its business around preventing injuries. Its expansion across America puts a simple idea to a bigger test: help employers avoid the claim in the first place.
Jonathan Bush and the art of starting over
He helped build athenahealth, lost the company he led, and returned to the work of founding. Then Jonathan Bush took his appetite for reinvention into Maine politics.
Eliah Thanhauser and the education of a mushroom business
Before North Spore had a Portland laboratory, Eliah Thanhauser and two college friends had oyster mushrooms, reused buckets, and a lot to learn. Their next crop was a business that helped other people become growers.
Maine’s $600 Ticket to a Bigger Business
The Maine Center for Entrepreneurs puts veteran operators, retail data and a roomful of peers within reach of small businesses. The real work begins when a founder has to act on the advice.
Nick Wilkoff
Nick Wilkoff is the Chief Marketing Officer of L.L.Bean, the 111-year-old Maine outdoor brand known for its lifetime guarantee, Bean Boots, and Outdoor Discovery programs. A Middlebury environmental policy graduate who started his career as a Forrester Research analyst, Wilkoff leads brand, marketing, and customer engagement for a company doing roughly $1.7 billion in annual revenue. He champions an outdoors-for-everyone philosophy, pairing L.L.Bean's heritage of quality and durability with a modern, inclusive, community-first approach to keeping a legacy brand relevant.
Benjamin Chesler
Benjamin Chesler is the CEO of North Spore, a Portland, Maine company that sells mushroom grow kits, spawn, sterile substrates and fungi wellness products to home and commercial growers. Before mushrooms, he co-founded Imperfect Foods, the grocery delivery startup that rescued cosmetically imperfect produce and recovered more than 250 million pounds of food. A Brown graduate and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, he is a self-described systems thinker who got his start co-founding the Food Recovery Network as a college student and later helped build startup programs at Northeastern's Roux Institute.
North Spore
North Spore is a Portland, Maine company that makes growing mushrooms at home approachable for everyone. Founded in 2014 by three college friends - a mycologist, an organic farmer, and a photojournalist - it sells grow kits, spawn, substrates, lab supplies, and mushroom wellness products direct to consumers. With more than 350,000 growers served and a 25,000-square-foot production facility, North Spore has grown from a tiny mushroom farm into one of the most recognized mushroom-cultivation brands in the United States.
Reid Christian
Reid Christian is a General Partner at CRV (Charles River Ventures), one of the longest-running venture firms in Silicon Valley. A former college basketball captain who grew up on a dirt road in rural Maine, he joined CRV in 2017 after stints at Battery Ventures, Symmetric Capital, and startup Salsify. Reid focuses on early-stage B2B companies - particularly developer tools, security, infrastructure, and vertical SaaS - and has backed breakout companies including Vercel, Postman, Tailscale, Factorial, Squire, and Clerk. His investment thesis centers on founder-market fit and the expanding role of developers as enterprise buyers.
Alyson Watson
Alyson Watson is the CEO and Chair of the Board of Woodard & Curran, a Portland, Maine-based integrated science, engineering, design-build, and operations firm specializing in water and environmental challenges. A Stanford-trained chemical engineer and licensed PE, she became the firm's third CEO in 2021 — and its first woman to hold that title — after more than 20 years leading water resources projects and building environmental consulting teams across the western United States. A self-described 'water brat' with roots in the industry, Watson is a passionate advocate for clean water access, outcome-based contracting, and employee ownership, guiding a firm of 1,300 people across 27 offices nationwide.
Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson is a Boston College historian who turned American history into a daily newsletter phenomenon. Her Substack 'Letters from an American' has nearly 3 million subscribers, making it one of the most-read independent newsletters in the world. She connects current political events to historical patterns with a clarity that has made her one of America's most influential public intellectuals - all from coastal Maine, where she lives with her lobsterman husband.