Goodbye and Hello

Here at Scratchpad, we run a pretty tight operation. We’re a team of three “do-ers” plus a handful of advisors from UMaine and MTI.

Up until last Friday, the do-ers—Jason, Jesse, and Jennifer (aka “J-Cubed”)—created a hard-core, tight-knit team that has seamlessly worked together to plan Scratchpad. Jesse assigned us the labels “Whip Cracker” (Jason), “Head Cheerleader (herself)” and “Task-Master” (me), which reflected our unique skills and how we balanced each other out.

But like life, our team faced change and had to adapt.

One of our do-ers, Jesse, was offered a job opportunity elsewhere that she couldn’t refuse. Her last day was Friday. Jason and I thank her for her aplomb and grace as she maintained her 110% energy and dedication up to the very last minute. It is was with much sadness that we say goodbye to Jesse.

Certainly there’s no replacement for Jesse (anyone who has met her knows this is true), but we set out to see who we could find! We met with several amazing people, and our the biggest challenge was to tease out skills that did not duplicate the ones we already had.

We think we did it!

It is with much excitement that we open our arms widely and welcome Lisa Liberatore to the team. Lisa is the owner of Lisa’s Legit Burritos of Gardiner and Augusta fame, and former owner of Baxter Tea Company. She recently completed a term as president of Gardiner Main Street, an organization that fosters Gardiner’s downtown economic and cultural vitality as well as a term on Gardiner’s City Council.

Lisa has more ideas stored in her pinky finger than most of us have in our brains in a lifetime. And she’s not afraid to get down in the trenches and get her hands dirty.

Even though the team’s not “J-Cubed” anymore (we’ll have to come up with something new), Jason and I are excited that Lisa has joined us, and we’re grateful that our Head Cheerleader is still rooting for us from the sidelines.

Welcome and hello, Lisa!