MSHub Staff & Board Members

Staff

Board Members

Ann Shedd

Ann Shedd

Ann Shedd is a retired physician who moved to Keene in 2007; her family roots in Keene go back three generations, and she has a life-time love for the region. She served on the Keene Conservation Commission for 5 years and on the Keene Energy and Climate Committee for 6  years.  During her tenure as Chair of that committee the City adopted 100% renewable energy goals, and 2 years later adopted a Sustainable Energy Plan to move the community toward those goals. She is pleased to be part of the collaborative regional efforts of the Monadnock Sustainability Hub.

Dori Drachman

Chair

Dori Drachman, Chair

Dori spent most of her career as an educator. She founded a school that organizes its curriculum around environmental education and was a classroom teacher for more than a decade. After earning her masters degree in environmental education from Antioch University New England, she worked as a teacher/naturalist for the Harris Center for Conservation Education. After years of taking kids into the woods with the goal of inspiring them to care for our planet, Dori decided that we actually couldn’t wait that long. So she helped re-start the Peterborough Energy Committee (PEC) and became its Chair. The PEC is a founding member of the Monadnock Energy Hub.
Photo of Patsy

Patsy Beffa-Negrini

Patsy Beffa-Negrini

Patsy lives in Nelson, holds a doctorate in nutritional sciences, and is a retired Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist who directed the Keene State College Dietetics Program and the Online Master of Public Health in Nutrition Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After retiring, she led community power aggregation efforts in Nelson and currently participates in Nelson Clean Energy. She also enjoys maintaining websites for the NH Network for Environment, Energy, and Climate and their Plastics Working Group’s Ten Towns • Ten Actions Toolkit to rethink plastics.

When she isn’t reading, hiking, kayaking, or Nordic skiing, Patsy enjoys exploring the myriad links between personal health and the health of the Earth.

Amy McIntyre

Amy McIntyre

Amy is the Managing Director of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), and has been in that role since 2004. She holds a B.A. from Alma College (MI) and a M.Ed. in Counseling from UNH.  Amy has been a resident of Keene since 2001, and previously worked with the Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture and the New England Center for Civic Life at Franklin Pierce University, and prior to that at the Children’s Museum of Portsmouth (now Children’s Museum of NH). She also served on the board of the Cheshire Children’s Museum from its founding in 2010 until 2019.

Matthew Myer Boulton

Matthew Myer Boulton

Co-founder and creative director at SALT Project, an Emmy-winning film production company based in Keene, New Hampshire, Matthew Myer Boulton is an author, teacher, filmmaker, and proud papa of Jonah and Margaret.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Harvard Divinity School, and the University of Chicago Divinity School, he has served on the faculty of Harvard Divinity School and seminaries in New England and the Midwest. Much of his teaching and research focuses on the intersections of the sciences and the humanities, with an emphasis on ecology and sustainable forms of human life. He also co-coordinates the grassroots Clean Energy Team in Keene, New Hampshire.

 

Catherine Owen Koning

Catherine Owen Koning

Catherine Owen Koning is Professor of Environmental Science at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH, since 1993.   She received her B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College, her M.S. in Ecology from the University of California at Davis, and her Ph.D. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin. Her interests are in wetland ecology, watershed management, conservation biology and sustainability.  She has served on the Board of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, the NH Association of Wetland Scientists, the New England Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists and the Peterborough Conservation Commission.  Catherine has been active in campus sustainability efforts, and is a founding partner of the Franklin Pierce Climate Action Institute. She is excited to join the Hub and assist local groups in implementation of meaningful changes in response to the challenge of climate change. 

Gerald Burns

Gerald Burns

Gerald Burns recently retired from the English faculty at Franklin Pierce. He received his BA from Notre Dame and his PhD from Yale. At FPU, Jerry helped to found the Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture, and participated in many of its projects, including the 2016 documentary film From Hurricane to Climate Change. More recently he partnered in the establishment of the University’s Institute for Climate Action. Within the local area, he is a member of the Citizens Climate Lobby and the Marlborough Energy and Community Power Committee, and can usually be found Friday mornings at the Climate Strike in Jaffrey.

Jerry is focused on climate change in part owing to a lifelong fascination with the weather. Given his background in the humanities, he is especially interested in the human factors both impeding and empowering effective responses to the crisis. He takes as a practical challenge the acknowledgement in the Hub’s strategic plan that awareness of climate issues is growing in the Monadnock Region, “but not fast enough.”

 

Peter Wotowiec

Peter Wotowiec

Peter is a carpenter, farmer, community volunteer and supporter of the many local eco-action groups working for a sustainable world for generations to come.  He joined the Board to support the vibrant clean energy and sustainability programs underway.   Peter resides along the Cold River in Langdon where he and partner Trish Stefanko grow intensively using regenerative agriculture practices.

Peter Hansel

Peter D. Hansel

Peter received a BA from Princeton University with a major in Environmental Studies. He worked briefly for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council before joining a family owned manufacturing business, Filtrine Mfg. Co., in 1973.  After five years in California as a salesman for Filtrine, he moved back to Keene, NH in 1979 with his wife, Bridget, where they raised four children. He helped Filtrine become more energy efficient, most recently installing a wood chip boiler for heating and a 793 kWh solar array on its roof.  Peter recently retired as the President of Filtrine and continues to serve on its board.

Peter has served as a Keene City Councilor, Chairman of the Keene Conservation Commission, Chairman the Board of Directors of the Harris Center for Conservation Education and President of the Friends of Open Space in Keene. He also served on the board of Antioch University New England.  Peter is a member and past president of the Keene Rotary Club.  He also currently serves as Chair of Keene’s Energy and Climate Committee and the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship and is on the board of the Greater Keene and Peterborough Chamber.

John Treat

Treasurer