This week, we’re continuing with our series highlighting the award winners from our BBRC Annual Awards Dinner held last month. If you missed last week’s column, we highlighted our Large Business of the Year, Darling’s Brunswick Ford, and our Small Business of the Year, Midcoast Humane.
If you’d like more information on these winners, you can log on to the chamber’s website to read their full profiles. Each Friday, you can find the videos that were shown on March 10, produced by Sturdy Production, on our Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber Facebook page and YouTube channel.
This week we’re highlighting the President’s Award and Director’s Award recipients. These two awards have no criteria and are given at the discretion of the president of the board and the executive director of the chamber, respectively.
Bob Langworthy – President’s Award
For those that don’t know him, Bob Langworthy is the founder of Management Accounting, which began 14 years ago, and is now a thriving 10-employee CPA firm based in Brunswick. With the support of his loving wife Mei-Ning, and their four children, Bob built his business from the ground up.
The local chamber intrigued Bob because it fit two roles for his life. Engaging with the chamber would help him undoubtedly meet business leaders, but also, it was a great avenue for him to volunteer. Bob grew up in the church, and he has been volunteering his entire life. He knew the personal fulfillment he could get from serving in the community, and with the added bonus of professional networking opportunities for his growing business, it made sense to put his volunteering efforts there.
Bob jumped on the chamber board in 2013, helping on the Finance Team and becoming the eventual treasurer. Shortly after joining, the board was faced with a restructuring of staff following the departure of the lead staff member. The board took the time to evaluate the organization soup-to-nuts to figure out what they wanted the chamber to be.
Bob describes it this way: “It felt like it was crucial for the business community to have this organization continue — an organization that could pull together events, provide networking forums, give us a voice at the state — and we felt like there would be a tremendous hole in the business community without the chamber, and we needed to find a way to move forward.”
So that’s what Bob did, along with about two dozen others. The board needed a level-headed pragmatist who could evaluate the right moves financially, set achievable goals, while also taking into account the needs of the businesses, when selecting which programs and events the chamber would continue with. Bob became a critical member of the board and helped navigate the uncertainty.
During that time, the Midcoast Edge Board president had a seat on the chamber board, and that person was Nick Favreau. Nick is the last remaining board member from those years, and before he left his presidential duties behind, he chose to honor Bob with this award.
Bob’s intelligence, moral fortitude and kindness helped set us on the positive course that our chamber is on — and we won’t soon forget all of his work.
Congratulations to Bob Langworthy, the 2023 President’s Award recipient.
Director’s Award – Charleen Foley
This year, I’m using the award to recognize a salt-of-the-earth, service-minded community leader who is the best partner I’ve ever worked with in my 16-year chamber career on any collaborative project. This year, I get to honor my friend, Charleen Foley.
The thing about Charleen is her contributions to the community make her eligible for several of our award categories on their merit alone. She is a key figure in our region and someone many people rely on.
After moving to Maine in 2008, Charleen got involved, becoming a Sunday School teacher, PTA member, home health service worker, Rotarian and nonprofit volunteer. By 2015, All Saints Parish was looking for an event coordinator, and Charleen’s husband Paul encouraged her to apply. Her first project was to help finish raising $4.7 million for the vision that would become the St. John’s Community Center in Brunswick.
That community center is where I met Charleen because of the Chamber Awards Night. In 2019, we needed a new venue for a sit-down meal, and Kevin Clark from Sitelines connected me with Charleen. In fact, our Chamber Awards Dinner in March 2019 was the first community event at the center.
A month after that, Stephanie Hanner of Spectrum Generations had a coffee with me. She wanted to know if there were organizations in town that may be interested in partnering on a fundraising tree festival, and I knew our chamber had room for a large event in November. When she asked about a venue, I told Stephanie that I’d just done an event at this great new space, and that Charleen was wonderful to work with. And thus, the Midcoast Tree Festival was born.
The MTF has been a partnership between All Saints Parish, Spectrum Generations and our chamber since day one, and it has grown into one of the premier events in the region in just four short years. In that time, we’ve worked with several different outstanding leaders at Spectrum Generations, but for our chamber and All Saints, it has been Charleen and I.
Our work styles meshed almost immediately, and the things I’m not great with, she is, and vice versa. The festival has had its share of ups and downs — from state regulation changes, to having to go all virtual in our second year — but we handled each frustration with a little bit of humor, and we always supported each other.
In some ways we’re very different people, but we view community, service and supporting others in similar ways, and that binds our partnership. I’m thrilled to call her a colleague and proud to call her a friend.
Congratulations to Charleen Foley, the 2023 Director’s Award recipient.
Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber of Commerce.
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