A wide-ranging committee of six, including two representatives from the Portland Press Herald, spent hours in March combing through the many terrific applications for the first-ever Source Awards. The discussions were smart, informed and respectful; the decisions were hard. Two judges joined us by telephone; those of us in the conference room were sustained by excellent pastries – locally made, of course.

CHELSEA CONABOY is features editor at the Portland Press Herald, where she oversees coverage of food, farming, arts and health. She came to Maine after three years as health reporter for the Boston Globe; she previously worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Concord Monitor. Conaboy, an award-winning journalist, has a bachelor’s degree in journalism, Spanish and international affairs from the University of New Hampshire.

PEGGY GRODINSKY is the editor of Source and of the Food & Dining section at the Portland Press Herald. Previously, she was executive editor of Cook’s Country, a Boston-based national magazine published by America’s Test Kitchen. She spent several years in Texas as food editor at the Houston Chronicle. Grodinsky has taught food writing to graduate students at New York University and Harvard Extension School. She worked for seven years at the James Beard Foundation in New York, spent a year as a journalism fellow at the University of Hawaii, and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Oberlin College.

GUILLERMO HERRERA teaches microeconomics and environmental and natural resource economics at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He has a bachelor of arts in biology from Harvard College; and a master of science in quantitative ecology & resource management and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington. Herrera researches commercial fisheries, focusing on the interface between natural biological systems and the human communities that use them. He has researched connections between lobster, herring, and groundfish resources in the Gulf of Maine; helped design and implement a sustainable system of local governance of small-scale fisheries in the Dominican Republic; and is now researching Maine’s rivers – developing surveys and models for estimating the potential benefits and costs of river restoration policies. Herrera is an adjunct scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

ODESSA PIPER is the founder of L’Etoile, a pioneering farm-to-table restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, which she established in 1976 and ran for 30 years. During that time she helped create local supply networks that enabled her to cook primarily from her region through all seasons of the year; she was ahead of her time. She was named Best Chef: Midwest by the James Beard Foundation in 2002. Now resettled in her native New England, she continues to advocate for the gastronomy of the snowbelt – its seasons, farmers and artisans.

KAREN VOCI is president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, the corporate philanthropy of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. For the past eight years, she has focused the foundation’s strategic initiatives on preventing childhood obesity, raising the visibility of employee giving and service, and promoting the foundation’s expertise in healthy equity; she has also overseen the expansion of the foundation’s work to include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Before joining Harvard Pilgrim Foundation, Voci served as senior vice president of programs for The Rhode Island Foundation. Voci is on the Board of Overseers of Boys and Girls Club of Boston (BGCB), and on the boards of the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and the American Heart Association.

FIONA WILSON is an assistant professor of strategy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship at the Peter T. Paul College of Business & Economics at the University of New Hampshire. Her research and teaching focus on innovative entrepreneurial companies with business models that are good for “people, planet and profits.” Wilson is also a faculty research fellow at the Sustainability Institute and a faculty fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy, both at the University of New Hampshire. Wilson spent 15 years in the business world, ultimately as VP of marketing for CMGI (the publicly traded Internet investment and development company) and before that at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in London and Barcelona. Wilson serves on the boards of trustees of the Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation and Meridian Stories.

Meet the Source Award winners.