Our Board of Directors
Skip Bates, Chairman of the Board
Executive Coach, Clearrock
Skip Bates is a certified executive coaching and leadership development professional with ClearRock, a Boston-based company focused on executive coaching, leadership development, and outplacement services with a concentration in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Prior to ClearRock, Skip spent 17 years at Bangor Savings Bank in various roles, but most recently as Senior Vice President and Director of Main Street Banking, where he and his team supported small businesses in Maine and New Hampshire. Skip has been actively involved in supporting Maine’s economy through non-profit leadership, having served as Treasurer of the Maine Venture Fund, President of the Maine Development Foundation, and currently as Treasurer of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs. Skip is a graduate of the Midcoast Leadership Academy, has a certificate in Leadership from Wharton, and is certified in Executive Coaching and EQ 2.0.
Susan Ahern
VP- Innovation, MaineHealth
Susan Ahern was hired by MaineHealth to lead its new Innovation Center in March 2020. The Innovation Center is a business incubator designed to serve a cohort of innovators affiliated with MaineHealth. Susan quickly forged a partnership with the new Northeastern University’s Roux Institute in Portland and led an innovation cohort of inventors who have addressed critical needs during the on-going Covid-19 health crisis. Prior to her current position, Susan led the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center in Boston, and a technology accelerator for Canadian businesses in Boston launched by the Canadian Consulate General. Susan has a BA degree in Business Administration from Colby College and has a certification in small business entrepreneurship from Boston University.
Jake Daniele
Department of Economic and Community Development
Jake Daniele advocates for small businesses and entrepreneurs through his role in Maine’s Office of Business Development. Jake travels the state assisting businesses with resource navigation, works on investment attraction, and acts as state government’s small business ombudsman. Prior to working for DECD, Jake started two promotional products companies and was a recipient of a Libra Future Fund grant before earning his MBA from the University of Maine. Jake operates Martial Arts programs in Cumberland and Freeport and is a former Freeport Town Councilor.
Doug DeAngelis, Treasurer
Founder, Past President, CTO, Lynx System Developers, Inc. & Isolynx, LLC
Doug DeAngelis founded the sports technology company Lynx System Developers while in graduate school in 1992 and spun out athletic tracking pioneer IsoLynx LLC in 2010. Doug grew up in Orrington, Maine, graduating from Brewer High School in 1984. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from University of Maine and a Masters in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT.
As a competitive runner at Brewer and at the University of Maine, Doug saw an opportunity to use high speed digital line-scan technology to produce faster and more accurate photo-finish results at sporting events. Today, the Lynx camera is the most popular system of its kind in the world, having been used at all levels of competition from the Tour de France, Kentucky Derby, NASCAR, Winter Olympics and World Championships in Athletics to thousands of high schools across the US. Doug sold a majority stake in Lynx to a private equity firm Dominus Capital at the end of 2021. The IsoLynx technology that was spun out of Lynx is used to precisely locate athletes in the field of play and was the first system of its kind to be sued to track all athletes in an NFL game. Between Lynx and IsoLynx, Doug is a named inventor on over 200 patents worldwide. He is also deeply engaged in land conservation in the Northeastern US/Canada and New Zealand.
Cal Hancock, Secretary
Founder, Past President, Hancock Gourmet Lobster Co.
Cal Hancock founded Hancock Gourmet Lobster Co. in 2000. She grew, managed and then sold the company in 2019. Hancock Gourmet Lobster Co. is an award-winning, premium seafood brand and winner of more than 15 food industry prizes from the International Fancy Food Show and the Specialty Food Association (the Oscars of the specialty food industry). The company specializes in sales direct to consumers via their website and to wholesale foodservice customers. Products have been featured on the Food Network including winning a Lobster Mac & Cheese Throwdown with Bobby Flay, on Oprah’s “list of favorite things” seven times running in addition to being featured in other publications like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Food & Wine Magazine. Prior to founding Hancock Gourmet Lobster Co., Cal spent 25 years as an executive in the healthcare field. Cal has an MS degree from The Ohio State University and a BS degree from Colby-Sawyer College.
Steven Kydd
Co-Founder and President, Tastemade
Steven Kydd is the Co-Founder, President, Head of Business Development & International at Tastemade, an independent media company that engages a global audience of millions of monthly viewers on all major streaming and social platforms and creates award-winning video content and original programming in the categories of Food, Travel, and Home & Design. Kydd oversees the company’s business development activities and international expansion – including serving on the Board of Directors for Tastemade’s two joint ventures: Tastemade Japan with Mitsui, and Tastemade Latin American with Ole Interactive. Before Tastemade, Kydd was a part of the founding team and Executive Vice President at Demand Media, a digital media company that had an IPO on the NYSE in 2011. He has also held executive roles in the US and internationally with Yahoo!, eTour, 20th Century Fox International, and Macro International. Kydd has lived in France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong throughout his career. He was born, raised, and educated in Maine, and now serves on the Board of Directors for the Maine Center for Entrepreneurship. He graduated with a Business degree from the University of Maine with study abroad in Grenoble, France, and the Free University in Berlin, Germany. In 1992, Kydd was one of 50 Americans selected for the Congress-Bundestag Exchange for Young Professionals; including a work/study program at the Treuhandanstalt in Berlin, the agency that privatized former East German enterprises.
Dr. Susan MacKay
Senior Program Manager, UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center
Dr. Susan MacKay is a Senior R&D Program Manager II at the UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center. She has 25 years’ experience in materials chemistry, product development, and manufacturing at both large corporations and early-stage companies. Prior to joining UMaine, she was the founder and CEO of Cerahelix, Inc. where she led the commercialization of their ceramic nanofiltration technology based on a patented DNA ceramic nanotechnology coating.
Thomas Marlow
CTO, Black Hills AI
Thomas Marlow is the CTO for Black Hills AI and President of Black Hills IP Renewals, where he works to drive IP legal services into the age of AI and automation. Relying on data wherever it can be found, Tom and the Black Hills team build products for the legal profession. Tom began his career working in private practice as a patent attorney in Minneapolis. He soon moved to Maine to take a corporate leadership position driving global IP operation and strategy for Fairchild Semiconductor.
In addition to maintaining a portfolio of several thousand patents, Tom managed patent development, licensing and acquisition across the globe. Around this time, Tom coauthored a desk reference for patent attorneys that provided an indexed analysis of appeals decisions for use in prosecuting patent applications (which is now in its 12th edition). Tom is a registered patent attorney and electrical engineer with a passion for IP systems. After his time with Fairchild, he was cochair of the Patent Analytics and Portfolio Management Department at the Minneapolis patent firm Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, PA. Tom has advised companies from startups to household name multinationals on IP strategy, operations, and policy and has spoken before a diverse audiences from patent attorneys to C-suite executives to engineers to startup founders on patent management, analysis, strategy - including the important intersection with business strategy. Tom has also been personally involved with several startup companies over the years in founder, advisor and director roles. He holds a law degree from Franklin Pierce Law Center and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.
Anthony E. Perkins
Shareholder, Berstein Shur
Tony Perkins is a shareholder at Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, a 110-attorney firm with offices in Portland and Augusta, Maine, and Manchester, New Hampshire, where he is a member of the firm’s Business Law Practice Group, Intellectual Property & Technology Practice Group and Food & Beverage Group.
Tony’s work includes day-to-day counseling and transactional assistance to start-up, growth and established businesses involved with product development, intellectual property protection, national and international commercialization and distribution agreements, angel and venture capital financing, joint ventures, and company sales and merger transactions in a variety of industries.
Since the late 1990’s Tony has assisted numerous clients with raising angel capital, venture capital and other private funding and advise and assist many clients with sales to private and public company acquirers. Many of these engagements involve transactions that cross state and national borders.
Daniel Piltch
Managing Partner, Broad Sound Partners
Broad Sound Partners is a lower middle market equity firm focused on facilitating investments in and management of early-stage and growth-stage technology-centric companies in healthcare, IT and software industries. Prior to Broad Sound Partners, Dan started, grew and sold two companies and acted at CTO for many other startups. As co-founder and CEO of Freeport Metrics, Dan lead a team that designed software solutions for small businesses, large enterprises, governments and startups. Client projects included crowd sourcing platform design, creating interactive business intelligence system design and a wide variety of special app developments. Dan is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering. Dan also attended University College London, University of London.
Burak Sezen
Co-Founder, Partner, 6IXTH Event
Burak is an entrepreneur and investor with a focus on the space where deep socio-economic drivers meet emerging technologies. His firm invests in AI tech, Internet of Things (IoT), reinventing careers, and a range of opportunities tied to millennials. Prior to founding 6ixth Event, Burak was Co-founder & CTO of Sprigley [Acquired by Eliza, 2009]; and Co-founder & CTO of RowdMap, Inc. [Acquired by Cotiviti, 2017]. Burak was named an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. His work has won praise in Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, Bloomberg, & US News. Burak was named an CMS Innovator. Burak is a graduate of Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Andrea K. Suter, Esq.
Pierce Atwood Law Firm
Andrea Suter represents start-ups, family-owned and established companies in a wide range of businesses and industries. Her practice focuses on commercial transactions, contracts, mergers and acquisitions, finance and general corporate law. Prior to Pierce Atwood, she worked at highly respected law firms in the California Bay Area and New York. Andrea has a Juris Doctorate in Law from the University of California, Berkley School of Law, and a B.A. in Art History from University of California, Los Angeles.
Julie Viola
SVP, Commercial Banking & Small Business Manager, Maine Community Bank
Julie is Senior Vice President, Commercial Banking Officer and Small Business Manager with Maine Community Bank. She is responsible for leading the Small Business Banking team, as well as managing her own loan portfolio. With her solid background in commercial credit, she’s helped establish the Small Business Team as a leader in the marketplace.
Julie began her corporate career at Seafax/Gofish.com in Portland where she worked for 11 years prior to joining Gorham Savings Bank in December 2001. A Portland native and graduate of Portland High School, Julie holds a B.S. from Bentley University and MBA from Thomas College.
In December 2024, Julie was recognized as the Volunteer of the Year at Gorham Savings Bank. Currently, Julie serves on the Board of the Maine Venture Fund as their Treasurer. She also volunteers for Score Maine as a Subject Matter Expert and is a Co-Presenter for their quarterly workshop, “Funding your Business.” She is the past Board President of Portland Economic Development Corp and was named SBA Star Award Recipient in 2021 by the Maine SBA District Office.