Emily Brackett is a resident, business owner, and swimmer in Portland. Professionally, she is the founder and president of Visible Logic, providing branding and content marketing to tech businesses. Having grown up around a family quarry, she has always loved being in the water. While you’ll find her doing laps at the Y, she prefers open water swimming in Maine’s beautiful ocean, lakes and rivers. She recognizes that water safety goes hand in hand with enjoyment of swimming, boating, and other water-related activities and is eager to support Maine Community Swimming’s mission to provide inclusive, accessible programming so others can safely experience the wonder of water.

Carolyn Fernald is the Head of Marketing at Passerelle, a North American data systems integration firm based in Portland, Maine and Montreal, Quebec. Carolyn’s professional focus is on partner development, content strategy and delivery, field marketing, and brand management. At Maine Community Swimming, Carolyn will help with strategy and communications. A lifelong swimmer, Carolyn swam the 200 Fly and Sprint Freestyle at Rollins College and has completed many triathlons, open water races and the Casco Bay Swim Run with a smile on her face. Carolyn believes every person in Maine should feel comfortable and safe in the water, and that the right to swim is a public health mandate.

Clare E. Hannan has over 30 years’ experience as an executive leader in operations and finance in non-profit organizations. Most recently, she served as Vice President and COO at Maine Public, the statewide public broadcasting network. With candor, clarity, and levity, she excels at consensus-building with multiple stakeholder groups, while ensuring that all participants feel seen and heard. She’s passionate about mission-driven work and achieving strategic goals in collaboration with key partners and constituents. She seeks projects that are impactful, values-based and meaningful. She’s an executive and leadership coach and truly enjoys helping others reach their full creative and untapped potential. Her work is rooted in the belief that what we do for work and how we live our lives must be aligned with our values.

Though much of her time as a kid was spent in the dance studio, she’s had a lifelong love of the water. From swimming lessons at the Dakin Public Pool in Bangor, to recreational lap swimming in pools and lakes around greater Portland, she is at home in the water. And as an extension of that, she’s come to embrace ocean-dipping in the Atlantic year-round. Her early experience volunteering with MCS to assist its incredible, brave, and joyful participants has been awe-inspiring. Clare finds helping others feel safe and calm in the water to be a privilege and believes that all citizens have a right to acquire those skills.

Amelia MacDonald has been a competitive swimmer since 2016. She is currently a student at Casco Bay High School in Portland. Amelia joined Maine Community Swimming because she has had a life long passion for water and wants everyone to have access to the same experiences she has had.

Nyamuon “Moon” Machar is a Maine-based community wellness leader, creative producer, and advocate whose work centers immigrant communities, healing, and belonging through storytelling, outdoor access, media and culturally grounded programming. She was recognized as one of the Press Herald’s “Top Ten Mainers To Be Thankful For,” was selected as a 2026 recipient of the “Courage is Contagious” Award through the University of Maine School of Law’s Justice for Women program, and joined the Maine Community Swimming board in March 2026.  

Karen Shibles is a long-time educator in Portland Public Schools with a deep passion for teaching and mentoring. As a former collegiate swimmer, Water Safety Instructor (WSI), and lifeguard, she is dedicated to promoting water safety and ensuring children have access to swimming lessons. Through her work with Maine Community Swimming, she hopes to raise awareness about the distinct risks associated with swimming in lakes, rivers, pools, and the ocean. Karen is the mother of two grown children and she resides in Westbrook with her husband Scott and labradoodle Brewster.

Jennifer Southard learned to swim by joining a community swim team in Ohio as a child and has enjoyed swimming and playing in the water ever since. She regularly volunteers with Maine Community Swimming and loves to see people who previously didn't have access to the water be able to play and swim safely in it. Most of her professional life has been working in the nonprofit sector including at the Maine Community Foundation and Maine Association of REALTORS' Foundation as well as volunteering with local organizations including Portland Community Rowing Association, Portland Public Schools, and the United Way of Southern Maine.

I’m Paige Teller. I was born in Connecticut as the younger sister to Brooke Teller and on the chase ever since. My early career portfolio included roles in lifeguarding, swim instruction, and pool management. My past 15 years have been committed to providing high quality breast care in South Carolina, Massachusetts and Maine. General surgery trained here in Maine, I was drawn back to this community, its mountains and waters 8 years ago as a practicing breast surgical oncologist and medical director of breast surgery.

I recognize my privilege of being so young when introduced to the water I have no recollection of learning how to float or swim. It was a gift of safety, a sport for acquiring a sense of self, team and achievement and a lifelong source of physical fitness and mental health that I still rely on today. My commitment to Maine Community Swimming is to see that everyone is afforded access to the gift, this life skill, and that opportunities are available for exploring its rewards.

Let’s Get ME Swimming!

Breen Whelan lives in Portland Maine and is a current student at Portland High School. She has been on the Portland Porpoise swim team since 2016, she teaches swim lessons, and is Lifeguard certified. She has always loved being in the water and everything to do with being outside, specifically hiking and spending time at the beach. Breen is passionate about our mission of water safety, especially when living in a coastal city. She also believes the ability to swim and feel comfortable in the water adds so much joy to people’s lives. 

Advisory Board Member Anica Spencer is a student at Portland High School and later plans to major in biology on a pre-med track. Currently, she works as a swim instructor during the year and is an overnight camp counselor in the summer. She has been swimming competitively for seven years and has been teaching for the past three. Anica believes that the ability to swim should be a right not a privilege and hopes that her work with MCS has a large impact on swim education in Maine.

Advisory Board Member Kaia West is a senior at Portland high school, and has been involved in swimming for as long as she can remember. She has been swimming competitively for going on ten years, on club teams and her Championship-winning high school team. She has been serving her community as a lifeguard for two years, and as a Water Safety Instructor for over one year. Being involved in and teaching lessons as a part of MCS has been deeply fulfilling for her because advocating for accessible water safety lessons and preventing further drownings in a region where there has been too many is something that Kaia is very passionate about.