Maine Semiquincentennial Commission Members

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is Maine’s 50th Secretary of State, sworn into her first two-year term in the position on Jan. 4, 2021. Secretary Bellows is Maine’s first female Secretary of State.

Bellows previously served two terms in the Maine Senate from 2016-2020, representing 11 towns in southern Kennebec County. In the Maine Senate, she served as Senate Chair of the Labor and Housing Committee and served on the Judiciary Committee.  She was a 2020 presidential elector in the Electoral College.

Bellows led the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine as executive director from 2018 to 2020. Previously, she owned Bellows & Company, a nonprofit consulting business, where she worked with organizations such as the Sierra Club’s Maine Chapter, Consumers for Affordable Healthcare and the Maine Women’s Lobby. She also served as interim executive director of LearningWorks. In 2014, Secretary Bellows was the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in Maine.

From 2005 to 2013, Bellows was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. She was a member of the first Right to Know Advisory Committee and the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition. She served on the Executive Committee of the 2009 and 2012 ballot campaigns to pass marriage equality in Maine and co-chaired a successful 2011 statewide ballot campaign to restore same-day voter registration. She was an original member of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting.

Bellows grew up in Hancock and is a graduate of Ellsworth High School. She holds a B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College. She volunteered with the Peace Corps in Panama and AmeriCorps VISTA in Nashville, Tennessee. Secretary Bellows lives with her husband, Brandon, in Manchester.

Christian Cotz moved to Maine in 2020 to lead Augusta’s start-up First Amendment Museum as its first CEO and developed the museum’s audience, board, donor base, and digital footprint. He started his own museum and nonprofit consulting business in 2023 and was invited to act as the interim Maine State Archivist in January 2025. 

Cotz pushes teams to evolve ideas beyond anticipated outcomes to create relevant, innovative, and impactful institutions that provoke critical thinking and positive change. His 20-year tenure at James Madison’s Montpelier witnessed an infant historic site grow into a mature, cutting-edge institution. While there, he exponentially expanded Montpelier’s public programming opportunities and developed extraordinary insight into visitor expectations and experiences. Over those two decades, Christian helped forge Montpelier’s relationships with the descendant community and his work culminated with his direction of the award-winning The Mere Distinction of Colour exhibition which catalyzed the National Summit on Teaching Slavery that produced The Rubric for Engaging Descendant Communities, projects he also coordinated.

Lori Fisher has served as Maine’s State Librarian since December 2022. Prior to this, Fisher was the Assistant State Librarian at New Hampshire State Library for four years, and Director of the Baker Free Library in Bow, New Hampshire for 11 years.

In addition to Fisher’s experience at the state library she is active in several professional organizations. She is currently Treasurer of the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), the only national professional organization for state libraries in all U.S. states and territories. She has served on various committees for the American Library Association (ALA) such as the ALA Committee on Legislation, the ALA Committee on Library Advocacy, and the United for Libraries Intellectual Freedom & Advocacy Committee.  She was selected to be a member of ALA’s Policy Corps in 2019 and continues to work with that group on national policy issues that affect libraries. 

Fisher also has received recognition for her work within the library profession, including the 2017 New Hampshire Library Trustees Association Library Director of the Year award, the 2017 Ann Geisel Award of Merit from New Hampshire Library Association, the 2020 New Hampshire Library Trustees Association Dorothy M. Little award, and the 2021 Impact Award from the New Hampshire School Media Library Association.

Bernard Fishman has served as the Director of the Maine State Museum since August 2021. A native of New York City, Fishman received a B.A. summa cum laude in American History from Columbia University and a M.A. with honors in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania. Trained initially as an Egyptologist, Fishman worked for three years recording and deciphering ancient texts in Luxor, Egypt. Subsequently he became the director of a small art museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He next became the founding director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore, where he worked for 13 years. After a four-year directorship at the Lehigh County Historical Society in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Fishman moved to the position of executive director at Rhode Island Historical Society, where he worked for nine years.

Fishman has served as an advisor or consultant to museums nationwide. He has written and lectured widely on archaeology, architecture, art, historic preservation, education, vintage photography, scientific analysis of ancient materials, institutional development, and a variety of historical topics.

Julia Gray has worked in museums for more than 20 years, becoming the Wilson Museum’s executive director in September 2021. Her background in archaeology and anthropology drew her initially into roles in collections and exhibits at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and the Abbe Museum. After leaving the Abbe Museum in 2017, Gray ran her own consulting business working with museums, land trusts, and other organizations across Maine. She is a graduate of Bowdoin College and the University of Arkansas. Gray lives in Orland with her husband and two dogs.

Richard LaBelle is currently the Town Manager of the Town of Norridgewock, a town rich in history, located in southern Somerset County, and nestled among the Kennebec and Sandy Rivers. Born and raised in Maine, LaBelle is the seventh generation of his family to live on Jamaica Point in Rome. He earned a BS in Business Administration with concentrations in Management and International Business from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and he earned an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University. 

LaBelle served four terms on the Rome Select Board, including three as chair, and has been a member of the town’s Budget Committee for seven years. He has also served as President of the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments. LaBelle is currently the Vice President of the Belgrade Lakes Association; he was elected to its Board of Directors in 2016 and serves as the Chair of the Invasive Aquatic Plant Program. In his spare time, he is an alpaca farm hobbyist and enjoys spending time on Great Pond.

Abbe Levin is a passionate and experienced cultural development consultant committed to fostering positive community change. She began her public sector career as the Special Projects Coordinator at the Maine Arts Commission, where she led the Creative Economy Initiative in collaboration with statewide cultural leaders.

Working with arts organizations, state government, community groups, and Tribal entities, Levin specializes in designing and implementing impactful cultural initiatives. She believes in the power of cultural development to transform communities, build bridges, and advance social justice.

Currently, Levin serves as a state government contractor, working as the Cultural Heritage Tourism Specialist for the Maine Office of Tourism. She recently acted as a strategic advisor to the Drucker Institute, supporting the launch of a statewide lifelong learning platform.

Levin serves on the Abbe Museum Board of Directors and the Maine Downtown Center Advisory Council, and is a founding member and past board chair of the Cultural Alliance of Maine. Additionally, she has volunteered as a mentor with the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute. She is a graduate of the Phi Class of Leadership Maine.

Peter Merrill retired in 2022 from the Maine State Housing Authority where he served as Deputy Director. He was with MaineHousing since 1995 and served on MaineHousing’s Board of Commissioners in the late ‘80s. Prior to joining MaineHousing, Merrill worked for the Maine Oil Dealers Association, Merrill Industries, the National Association of Housing Co-operatives, and The George Washington University Medical Center. Merrill has served on a number of civic, charitable, and professional boards, including as Treasurer of the Maine Bicentennial Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of the Maine Historical Society, Chair of the Maine State Cultural Affairs Council, and on the Maine Health and Higher Education Facilities Authority board. Merrill has a BA from The George Washington University and an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University. He is the father of two adult children. Merrill and his wife Leslie live in Portland. 

Marcia Minter is a seasoned creative professional, dedicated arts advocate and community leader deeply committed to social and cultural activism. Her work on numerous boards represents the interest of underrepresented voices, talents, and citizen constituents. She has spent her professional career as an Executive Director for some of the world’s most iconic brands. Her curatorial work focuses on photography, symposiums on the intersection of art and social practice, and exhibition planning and implementation. Minter she serves on the Maine Arts Commission and is a Trustee of the Portland Museum of Art and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. 

Kirk Mohney serves as the Director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, where he has been employed since 1986. He is also Maine’s State Historic Preservation Officer. Prior to assuming his present position on October 1, 2015, Mohney served as the Assistant Director for fourteen years, and before that he was the coordinator of the National Register of Historic Places and architectural survey programs. 

A native of Western New York, Mohney holds degrees in history and historic preservation planning from the University of Rochester and Cornell University, respectively. He is the author of Beautiful in All Its Details: The Architecture of Maine’s Public Library Buildings, 1878-1942, and the editor of Along the Rails: A Survey of Maine’s Historic Railroad Buildings. Mohney also contributed two chapters to From Guiding Lights to Beacons for Business: The Many Lives of Maine’s Lighthouses (Historic New England, 2012).

Jamie Kingman Rice is the Deputy Director for Collections & Program at Maine Historical Society (MHS). She holds a master’s degree in library science and archival administration from Simmons, and an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Southern Maine, with coursework abroad at King Alfred’s College in Winchester, UK. Rice started her professional career at MHS in 2004, first as project archivist for the Gen. John Marshall Brown Collection, followed by a decade in research and public service. She joined the administration in 2013 as Director of Library Services, later Director of Collections & Research. In her most recent position since 2021, Rice oversees MHS collections and content including research, curatorial, and technical services; publications; preservation and access for MHS’ archival, library, and museum collections including the Wadsworth-Longfellow House; and digital projects, notably the Maine Memory Network. 

With a specific interest in military history, Rice’s work includes extensive research and curatorial work pertaining to World War I and the War of 1812, and a second edition for Maine in the Civil War: A bibliographic guide (2015). 

A native of Portland, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. attended Deering High School, Colby College, and Boston University and was the recipient of honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, Colby College, and the Maine College of Art. He became architectural historian for the Maine Historic Preservation Commission in 1973 and director in 1976. He retired from that position in 2015. Shettleworth has lectured and written extensively on Maine history and architecture and has served as Maine State Historian since 2004.

• Governor Janet T. Mills, Ex-Officio Member
• Senate President Matthea Elisabeth Larsen Daughtry, Ex-Officio Member
• House Speaker Ryan D. Fecteau, Ex-Officio Member