The Chesapeake Film Festival (CFF) is delighted to announce six new members to its Board of Directors. The new directors—all Talbot County
Residents—have immediately assumed their seats in preparation for the 2018 Chesapeake Film Festival to take place from October 11 – 14 in Easton, St. Michaels, and Cambridge, Maryland.
The new board members will facilitate new collaborations that are expected to increase CFF’s local and national outreach. Their experiences also add to CFF’s bench of marketing and fundraising capabilities. More information about the Festival can be found at www.chesapeakefilmfestival.com.
Richard L. Calkins is retired from managing international organizations for forty years in Washington, DC, and Europe. For nearly ten years, Richard served as Executive Director of CINE in Washington, DC., which provided a platform for short and documentary filmmakers, including student filmmakers. CINE worked with the USIA to provide content internationally through their network of television stations and theaters. Its Golden Eagle competition and awards are well known in the documentary community. While during his time with CINE, it was required to win a CINE award to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Short Documentary, Feature Documentary, Animated Short Subject, and Live Action Short Subject categories. Richard was a regular judge at film festivals in Parma, Italy; Toulon, France; Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, and in Paris, and estimates that he has judged and watched some 600 documentaries annually.
From 1974 – 1986, Richard was Dean of the American College of Switzerland (which moved in 2010), and a consultant and VP of Special Projects for Nestle, based in Vevey, Switzerland and Paris. His annual business travel was to 40-45 countries on four continents. From 1995 until his retirement in 2007, Richard was Executive Director of the International Student House in Washington, DC.
Since retirement in 2007, Richard has served on the Board of the St. Michaels Community Center as its Vice-President and Chair of the Development Committee. In 2010, he joined the Board of the Talbot County Democratic Forum, became its President in 2011, stepped down in 2015, and is now chair of its Communications Committee.
Sandy Cannon-Brown, founder and president of VideoTakes, Inc., is an award-winning environmental filmmaker whose work has taken her to Central and South America, West Africa, the Northern Great Plains, and the Everglades. She was an associate director for the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University, honored as CEF’s first senior scholar in 2013 and named AU’s adjunct professor of the year in 2011. Among her other honors, Women in Film & Video DC (WIFV) honored Cannon-Brown as a Woman of Vision. She served as WIFV’s president 2011-12. Since 2012, Cannon-Brown’s films have focused on issues facing the Chesapeake Bay. Her latest film, in partnership with writer Tom Horton and photographer Dave Harp, is High Tide in Dorchester. This trio previously merged talents to create Beautiful Swimmers Revisited, a documentary inspired by William W. Warner’s 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay.
Bill Dennison is a Professor of Marine Science and Vice President for Science Applications at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Bill’s primary mission within UMCES is to coordinate the Integration and Application Network. UMCES is comprised of three laboratories distributed across the watershed of Chesapeake Bay within Maryland: Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Solomons and Horn Point Laboratory on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay near Cambridge as well as Maryland Sea Grant College in College Park, Maryland. UMCES also operates an Annapolis Liaison Office. Bill Dennison rejoined UMCES in 2002 following a ten-year stint at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He originally started at UMCES (then the Center for Environmental and Estuarine Science) in 1987 as a Postdoctorate/Research Assistant Professor based at Horn Point Laboratory. In Australia, Bill developed an active Marine Botany group at the University of Queensland with strong links to the Healthy Waterways Campaign for Moreton Bay. Bill obtained his academic training from Western Michigan University (B.A., Biology & Environmental Science), the University of Alaska (M.S., Biological Oceanography), The University of Chicago (Ph.D., Biology), and State University of New York at Stony Brook at Stony Brook (Postdoc, Coastal Marine Scholar).
George A. Nilson practiced law in the public and private sectors in Maryland from 1967- 2016. Highlights of his law practice at DLA Piper LLP US (1968-1973; 1983-2006), include the representation of The Rouse Company in its development of Columbia and other new town developments; halting the interstate expressway in Baltimore City’s Leakin Park. His environmental litigation includes stopping the construction of an oil refinery on Chesapeake Bay in St. Mary’s County; closing two controversial landfills in the Baltimore metropolitan area and assisting an Eastern Shore county in continuing and eventually relocating its landfill. Other work includes representing amicus in a case enabling public funding of Camden Yards sports facility; successful representation of Washington Redskins in a suit to block their stadium construction; and representation of Maryland Stadium Authority in legal representation disputes. Prior to his retirement from DLA Piper, he represented as either Legislative Agent or counsel several private and public clients with significant and highly visible issues pending before the Maryland General Assembly.
In 1973, he began his public sector for nine years in the Office of Attorney General as an Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General where he briefed, argued and won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Early in this time, he served as counsel to the General Assembly, creating modern-day office of counsel to the General Assembly. Additional highlights include serving as lead counsel for State in original school financing litigation and a landmark MARC case establishing right of all special needs children to free, appropriate public education.
George concluded his legal career serving as City Solicitor for Baltimore City from 2007-2016.
Carol Peach-Woods is the Director of Sales and Marketing at the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, MD. The Inn at Perry Cabin by Belmond is a global collection of exceptional hotel and luxury travel adventures in some of the world’s most inspiring and enriching destinations. Carol manages a team of 8 and oversee 2 public relations agencies covering domestic and international markets—with the goal of broadening multi-generational appeal and expanding the drive market from 2-hours to 5-hours.
She oversees all transient, group and golf sales as well as meetings, events, and festivals for the 5,000 square feet of internal space and outdoor events on the 25-acre property and 18-hole Pete Dye golf course. Her team leverages social media and technology to create new business opportunities. Carol has doubled destination wedding revenues. She was instrumental in gaining accolades to include Conde Nast 2017 Readers’ Choice Award, #1 in resorts New York State and Mid-Atlantic.
Nancy Tabor has more than 25 years of marketing, promotion, web management, and event planning experience. She has held senior marketing and event planning positions at T. Rowe Price, Zurich Insurance Group and University of Maryland, Baltimore. In 2004-06, she was the marketing chair of the annual fundraiser for the Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. She has won top awards from the International Association of Business Communicators, The Insurance Marketing Communication Association and the Maryland State Department of Education.
Currently, an Adjunct Professor teaching Communications at Chesapeake College, she has taught Communications, Public Speaking, and Oral Interpretation at various Maryland Colleges. They include Salisbury University, Notre Dame University of MD, University of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, Stevenson University and the Community College of Baltimore County.