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| > Home > Who We Are > Advisory Council > Maine NY VT NH ME | ||
Advisory Council Members - MaineThe geographic locations of our Maine Advisory Council members are indicated by the highlighted towns below. Clicking on the darker purple towns will lead you to our current AC members.
Don Cyr has been an activist for cultural and historic preservation in the Saint John Valley in extreme northern Maine for the past twenty years. These interests have spilled over into economic development as Don sees cultural tourism as an answer to the economic stability of the Saint John Valley region. Don was born in Edmundston, New Brunswick and was raised in Presque Isle, Maine in central Aroostook County. He moved to northern Aroostook, the Saint John Valley in 1974 and has resided there ever since. In 1978, he moved to Lille, 12 miles north of Van Buren where he bought a Presbetery and became involved in the preservation of the church, Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, next door. In 1984 he helped found the Association culturelle et historique du Mont-Carmel (caps are correct) which was given the church along with its contents. Since then Don has been restoring the building. Thus far he has raised over $625,000 toward that end. He has become involved as a board director in a number of granting agencies and has helped bring much support to the Valley. In 1997 Don started working for the National Park Service as coordinator for the Maine Acadian Culture Project. This has resulted in the creation of the Maine Acadan Heritage Council which consists of all of the municipalities, chambers of commerce and the historical and cultural organizations in the Valley.
Judy Merck has lived in Dover-Foxcroft and Blanchard, Maine for the past 29 years. She has a 97-acre woodlot in Blanchard, and 13 acres in Dover-Foxcroft. Now fully retired, Merck spent 45 years as a physical therapist. She is actively involved as a charter member on the state board of directors of the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM); Middle Ground, an educational group dealing with the north woods of Maine; and the Maine Woods Coalition as an observer. She is also active in domestic violence prevention, Pine Tree Hospice, and the Piscataquis County Extension. Last year she ran for the Maine State Legislature. Merck has lived in a many different places ranging from large cities to small towns to unorganized territories, and has experience with diverse community needs and different modes of decision-making. Her participation in church, political, and volunteer groups contributes to her ability to work with many kinds of people.
Richard Silliboy values the forest primarily for its beauty. He has lived and worked in and around the woods of Aroostook County, Maine for most of his life. He has farmed, worked in mills, and logged, enjoying it all, except for the mosquitoes. Richard’s mother brought him, and his seven elder siblings, to Aroostook County when he was only two. They moved to have better access to the brown ash trees they used to make baskets, then in high demand for potato pickers. Each family member was responsible for a specific task in assembling a finished basket. They could make one basket every six hours, about 120 a week, receiving fifty cents per basket. As Richard grew older, he worked on farms and in mills, finally moving to an urban environment to seek employment. He only lasted a year or so before moving back to northern Maine, where he worked for the Micmac Tribal Council from 1983 to 1993. During that time the Tribe achieved federal recognition. Richard is proud of the good relationship that the Tribe has with both state and federal agencies as a result of the recognition process. While working for the Tribe, Richard noticed that brown ash basket making was dying out. Elders were unable to obtain the wood they required, and the youth were uninterested in such a labor-intensive activity. He made a commitment to relearn the art. He’d never made a whole basket by himself before, but he knew that if he were to interest others, he would have to be able to do it. Gathering knowledge and experience from elders, Richard sought new markets for the baskets beyond the potato fields. In 1991, after finishing his work for the Tribe, Richard started Three Feathers Native Baskets and Crafts, a wholesale business with a retail store in Holton. He is a member of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, a marketing and educational vehicle for four Maine tribes- the Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Maliseet, and Penobscot- living in five communities. Every year, the Association hosts basket-making workshops in each community and attends various fairs around the state. Richard’s main concern for the Northern Forest is forest health. He worries that while we may have more acres of forest than in times past, many of the trees are of poor quality. This decline affects the well-being of all our communities because "forests are the lungs of the world."
I am originally from Northern New Jersey and graduated from the University of Maine in forest management in 1966. I began my forestry career with International Paper in 1968 in the Company Forest Survey Office in Chisholm, Maine as a timber cruiser. I worked throughout northern New England and upstate New York for one year. In the fall of 1969, I was transferred to Speculator, New York as a district superintendent in charge of approximately 100,000 acres of Company lands. My duties consisted of working with the local logging contractors, handling the company’s recreational lease, company spokesperson in the area, and above all to ensure that the company lands were managed on a sustained yield basis. In 1978 I was transferred back to the Company's new region office in Augusta, Maine. I worked in Augusta as a manager of fiber planning and logistics in the wood procurement department. The Augusta Region Office covered all of New England, upstate New York, and Pennsylvania. In addition to my regular duties, I was heavily involved in the Company's landowner assistance program. This program provided forest management assistance to private non-industrial landowners. I took early retirement from IP in 1999, and immediately started my own forestry consultant business. I am an active member on the Maine Tree Farm Committee; Tree Farm inspector on the state committee as well as for the National office in Washington, D.C.; currently on the board of directors for the Maine Forest Products Council; lifetime member of the Northeastern Loggers Association; member of the Small Woodlot Owners of Maine (SWOAM), and Member of the Pine Tree State Arboretum. I am also a member of the Society of American Foresters since1969, and a licensed Maine forester since 1981. I am involved in the local boy scout troop as committee chairman. My wife Linda is a sixth grade teacher in Albion. We have three grown children and four grandchildren. A daughter and her family live nearby in Waterville, a daughter and family in Idaho, and our son is currently attending graduate school at the University of Montana at Missoula. I enjoy woodworking, hunting, snowmobiling, gardening, and canoeing. Above all my wife and I enjoy visiting our children and grandchildren.
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