“IN NATURE
NOTHING
EXISTS ALONE”

Kay is one of the original founders of Mad River Canoe Company and was the company's president until 1998. After moving on, she and her husband created the non-profit, Northern Forest Canoe Trail, to protect the 740-mile water trail that follows historic Native American travel routes and provides access for paddlers to enjoy the northern rivers and lakes of upstate New York and New England.

Kay is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Business School. A former board member of American Rivers, the New England Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of the Environment, the Outdoor Industry Association and Maine Island Trail Association. Kay currently serves on the board of Maine Outdoor Brands and Girl Scouts of Maine. She is also the current president of the Maine chapter of International Women’s Forum. In 2008, Kay was selected as one of L.L.Bean’s first Outdoor Heroes for the breadth of her work in northern New England on behalf of recreational paddling.

Jenna is a brand strategist with extensive experience in marketing, creative development and integrated campaigns. A true brand advocate, she loves bringing brand stories to life in fresh and innovative ways. As a 17-year veteran of the outdoor industry, she has worked with a variety of outdoor and lifestyle brands, and as an avid outdoors-person, road biker and skier herself, she deeply understands the outdoor customer. Jenna is an experienced leader, brand strategist, creative director, multi-channel campaign developer and writer. She’s successfully led high-profile, complex projects, winning numerous industry awards for catalogs, digital experiences, and integrated campaigns. She thinks holistically about marketing, using numbers, research and data to drive innovative, customer-focused solutions across all channels.

Jim is an entrepreneur, thinker and maker. He is forever curious and relentless in his pursuit of big ideas — Maine Outdoor Brands being one of them. The vast majority of his career has been spent at the intersection of advertising, product development and marketing—crafting compelling selling messages, designing multi-million dollar products and strategizing how companies can best improve their relevance in driving sales, particularly in the outdoor space. Jim spent a decade at L.L.Bean as its creative director and director of product design before founding Blaze Partners, a full service advertising/brand strategy firm, with two partners in 2015. He was MOB’s first board president, passing the torch in 2021. An empty-nester, Jim lives in Falmouth with his wife, Jenny, and counts the days till he can get out on the water each summer.

Over the past eight years, Charlie has contributed to many areas of L.L.Bean as Vice President/General Manager of Retail Merchandising, Vice President/DMM of Hunting, Fishing, Travel, and Home, and most recently, as Vice President/General Manager of International and Wholesale. A customer-obsessed, brand builder, Charlie is known for focusing on product and selling strategies that resonate with consumers, drive customer engagement, and build brand loyalty. Before joining L.L.Bean, Charlie held senior level positions at Wolverine Worldwide, Timberland, and Abercrombie & Fitch. He moved to Falmouth in 2014 with his wife, daughter, and son. They love exploring Maine’s outdoors year-round, spending time together fishing, hiking, golfing, paddling, mountain biking, disc golfing, snowshoeing, and skiing.

A County native, Jen is the second-generation owner of the Red River Camps in the Deboullie township. She has been active in advocating for the sporting camp and outdoor industries since she took over the business in 2009, serving as the president of the Maine Sporting Camp Association for five years, as a member of the Aroostook County Tourism board, and as a member of advisory and steering committees for Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and Land Use Planning Commission. Jen is a registered Maine guide, certified wilderness first responder, and licensed professional engineer, and she has also taught at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics. She spends her free time exploring and enjoying all that the Maine outdoors has to offer, from hiking, sailing, and SCUBA diving in the summer to snowshoeing and kiteskiing in the winter.

Ponch Membreño started his career in the outdoors as an outdoor educator and wilderness trip leader. He later applied those leadership experiences to work in business and management on the business side of the outdoor industry.

He has been the Wilderness Trip director at Merrowvista, a Senior Manager at Toad&Co and recently teamed up with the founder of Intrinsic Provisions, an outdoor lifestyle shop that connects consumers to socially conscious and sustainable brands.

Ponch moved to Maine in 1985 to attend Colby College and currently resides on Peaks Island, his “rooted place.” He is known as an innovative leader, strategic connector, and mentor. He is inspired by nonprofits and companies that can find success while doing good.

Taki has alternated living in Japan and the US throughout his life. He first landed in Maine to attend Bates College, where he was introduced to rock climbing on the gritty urban rocks of Great Falls in Lewiston. He was hooked and continued to look for boulders any chance he got and was a regular at the Maine Rock Gym in Portland.

Since then, Taki has climbed throughout the world, putting up first ascents in Peru, Patagonia, and the Wind River Range of Wyoming, but he has an incredible soft spot for New England climbing. After working as an outdoor educator for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and then as a business attorney for Morrison & Foerster, LLP, a major law firm in Tokyo and New York for seven years, he moved back to Maine, married his sweetheart, Natalie, and started working on his dream that is Salt Pump Climbing Co., which opened in 2015. After leading and building the team at Salt Pump, Taki returned to the practice of law at Pierce Atwood LLP in Maine, where he stayed for three years. Beginning this year, he is back at Salt Pump focused on its further growth.

Martha Bentley owns MMB Collaborative Leadership LLC, a values-driven practice specializing in short term or fractional leadership, innovation & entrepreneurship, & collaborative solution design. Under this umbrella, she serves as the Executive Director of the Osher Map Library Foundation and the founder of Proprietor, a digital solution for matching buyers and sellers of very small and local businesses.

Martha previously served as Director of Economic Development Coordination for the State of Maine and as the Director of Innovation Infrastructure for the Maine Technology Institute (MTI). Prior to these roles, she owned her own consulting company specializing in economic grant program design and management, with MTI as her primary client. In these roles, Martha managed $200M+ in technology-based economic development funding, including the Maine Technology Asset Fund, the Maine Alliance for the Marine Economy Fund, and the Maine Biomedical Research Fund. She also was the program and operational manager for Blackstone Accelerates Growth, which became Maine Accelerates Growth, a networked approach to Maine’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Martha has a BA from Davidson College and a MA from the University of South Carolina. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Four Directions Development Corporation. When not on Zoom, you can find Martha on the waters of Horseshoe Pond and Cobbossee Stream in West Gardiner, Maine.

Kevin Haley is a commercial and IP partner at the law firm of Brann & Isaacson in Lewiston, where he has worked since 1995. B&I is a well-known firm in the direct-to-consumer retail space-representing hundreds of catalog and ecommerce merchants around the country. It is the primary outside counsel for L.L.Bean, Inc. and has been so since the late 1960’s. Kevin’s personal responsibilities in that space include trademark, copyright, and branding issues, as well as commercial relationships particularly in the advertising and marketing areas.

Kevin is a native of Fort Kent, Maine, and an alumnus of Bowdoin College (’89) and the University of Maine School of Law (’94). He has been actively involved both as counsel and as a board member with a number of non-profits-notably as counsel and a board member of the New England Mail Order Association. He has just ended a 10 year stint as a board member of Teens to Trails, a Maine non profit focused in increasing youth access to Maine outdoor opportunities. His board service for Teens to Trails culminated in a 3 year term as chair of that Board.

Kevin’s outdoor pursuits including backpacking, canoeing, and skiing. He lives in Cumberland.

Devin McNeill was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and is a graduate of Portland High School and The University of Maine. While in college Devin helped found Flowfold. What started as a company selling a single wallet made out of recycled sailcloth has grown into a mission driven brand offering bags, backpacks, totes, pouches, and dog gear made out of recycled material. In March of 2020, as hospitals faced shortages of PPE, Flowfold made a decision to suspend normal operations and fully commit to the manufacturing of Face Shields, and ended up producing 1 million face shields for the hospitals, schools, businesses, and consumers that needed them. Devin lives in Portland with his wife Erin and their three young boys.

Marshall's passion for the outdoors ignited in college after taking elective outdoor leadership classes and leading trips of students backpacking and climbing. Leadership and outdoors have remained central to Marshall's career. For more than two decades, he has thrived in progressive merchandising leadership roles at leading outdoor retailers, including Eastern Mountain Sports and Recreational Equipment Incorporated. In his role as Divisional Vice President at REI, Marshall led product strategy first for footwear and subsequently for the hardgoods half of the business. As the merchandising leader for racial equity, diversity, and inclusion, Marshall launched REI's Greenlight program--a portal where entrepreneurs can gain direct access to buyers. This program contributed to a significant increase in product brands founded and run by people underrepresented in the outdoors.

Today, Marshall runs an advisory firm, guiding product brands and retailers of all sizes with profitable strategies for growth. He lives in Scarborough, Maine with his wife, two sons, and dog. Marshall enjoys cycling, hiking, and canoe camping plus anything his boys enjoy doing outside, including mountain biking, skiing, pickleball, and disc golf.

Sokunthy Yean is the Vice President of Operations and General Manager at Sea Bags, LLC. As one of the company’s first employees, Sokunthy has used her strong community ties and background in finance to help steward manufacturing through rapid growth over the past 13 years. In keeping with Sea Bags’ mission, she has forged strong relationships with Maine and New England suppliers and manufacturers keeping sustainability at the forefront of the operation.

Originally from Cambodia, Sokunthy came to the US to attend St. Catherine University where she earned a BA with a double major in International Relations and Financial Economics before moving to Maine in 2009. She has an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University with a finance concentration. Sokunthy was recently named one of Mainebiz’s NextUp 40 under 40 for 2023.

She lives in South Portland with her partner and two young children.