Who We Are

	Ethan K. Strimling Board President Ethan Strimling founded A Rising Tide in 2004 and has served as its Board President since then. For 12 years Strimling has served as the Chief Executive of Portland West, a non-profit agency that works with at-risk kids and low-income families to eliminate poverty and strengthen community. Before that, he ran Dale McCormick's campaign for U.S. Congress, and has worked extensively on campaigns both nationally and in Maine. From 2002 to 2008, Strimling represented the city of Portland in Maine's state senate.
	Joanne D'Arcangelo Board Vice-President Joanne D'Arcangelo, owner and principal of JD'A Consulting, Inc., is a policy and advocacy consultant with over twenty years' experience in public policy development, civic engagement, legislative advocacy, voter education, and civic and political leadership development at the local and state levels in Maine.
	Anthony Buxton Board Secretary Tony Buxton is a partner at the law firm Preti Flaherty, where he serves as chair of the firm's Energy and Utilities Practice Group. Tony creates solutions to business energy problems, including the challenge of high-energy costs. Prior to joining Preti Flaherty, Tony served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army (Armor) and worked for future U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.
	Dennis Bailey Board Director Dennis Bailey is the President of Savvy Inc, a public relations and strategic communications firm in Portland, Maine. Bailey has been working in, with, and around the local and national media for more than twenty years. Forging a prominent career in Maine journalism and politics, and known for his comprehension of public policy issues, Bailey worked for several Maine newspapers. Bailey also served as Communications Director for Governor Angus King.
	John Oliver Board Director John Oliver currently serves as the Vice-President of Public Affairs for L.L. Bean.
	Betsy Sweet Board Director Betsy is the Principal of Moose Ridge Associates, one of Maine's leading progressive lobbying firms since 1990, specializing in governmental affairs, lobbying and grassroots advocacy. She has also served as strategic consultant on numerous state and national electoral campaigns.
	Stephanie O'Brien Board Member Stephanie O'Brien is a Bachelor's prepared Registered Nurse, educated at Southern Maine Community College and the University of Southern Maine. Having worked for the Maine Health system for over 10 years, she is passionate about health care and it's future. A graduate of one of A Rising Tide’s earliest classes in 2005 as well as the Paul Wellstone campaign trainings, she is active in state & local politics, including working on various issue & candidate campaigns. Stephanie has volunteered much of her time towards helping Rising Tide with recruitment and facilitation of seminar group exercises. Additionally, she also traveled to Bangor to speak to a crowd of almost 400 sixteen-year olds at Dirigo Girls State about Rising Tide and civic engagement. Stephanie currently lives in Portland’s West End with her husband Robert & baby girl Caroline.
	Dr. James P. Melcher Board Member James P. Melcher is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine-Farmington where he has taught since 1999. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, he is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (majoring in Political Science and Geography) and the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1995. His doctoral dissertation concerned candidate endorsements by state political parties. He has won six teaching awards, including two at UMF, and is listed in Who’s Who in America. He has presented papers at numerous conferences including the American Political Science Association and New England Political Science Association Annual Meetings, and has published in such journals as PS: Political Science and PoliticJournal of Economics and Politics, American Review of Politics and The Southern Maine Review. His 2006 APSA paper was about "A Rising Tide” and he has had students in the program since its very first class. He is the new pre-law adviser at UMF, and already was adviser to the Political Science Club and the College Democrats at UMF. His students at UMF have gone on to positions in a wide range of political organizations across the political spectrum. From 1999-2007, he served on the Vestry of Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Augusta, and continues to be Cantor of its choir. He and his wife, Nancy Finnegan, live in Augusta.
	Corey Hascall Executive Director Corey serves as Executive Director of A Rising Tide. Under her leadership the organization has graduated almost 200 Mainers who have contributed over 15,000 volunteer hours of community service. For over 6 years Corey has provided strategy, media relations, operations, planning, and communications work in a variety of settings including Ethan Strimling's campaign for U.S. Congress in 2008 and CasinosNO! in 2003. Before that, Corey worked as a Communications and Campaign Consultant at Savvy Incorporated, one of Maine's premiere public relations firms.

The History and Purpose of the ART Trainings

A Rising Tide… was founded in 2004 as a non-partisan, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with a few cornerstone values — our emphasis on community service, political engagement, and education to enrich and improve the lives of Maine’s young people. We know that our state’s young women and men need a step up so that they can live and work in a healthy Maine where they contribute first-hand to building a stronger economic, political, cultural and social community.

ART’s… mission and focus, unlike any other organization in Maine, is to train young people who are interested in civic and political engagement to become effective community activists by teaching them how to organize a successful grassroots campaign. ART... sponsors and facilitates intensive 3-day non-partisan training seminars that take recruits through the fundamentals of building and executing an effective grassroots organizing strategy. ART’s… campaign training seminars occur quarterly at various college campuses across the state. We ask our trainees to volunteer for the candidate, campaign, community service project, or social cause of their own choosing.

ART... focuses on recruiting and training three groups of young Maine people aged 16 to 35;

1. Those who are interested in running for office and would like to gain the tools and the skills to make that happen… and win!


2. Those who are not interested in a career in politics but want to be civically engaged and more effective volunteers on issue/candidate campaigns, or do community based volunteer work.


3. Those who are interested in becoming professional campaign organizers but may not have been exposed to campaign work before.