Two Join Business School Advisory Board
Contact: Jonathan LaBonte, (207) 581-1976, George Manlove, (207) 581-3756
ORONO — Two prominent business leaders have joined the Maine Business School’s board of directors.
The addition of Jeffrey Sosnaud of Portland and Richard Gleason of Auburn brings membership of the advisory panel to 15 and increases the depth and reach of the board, which brings to the business program insight about trends in the business community and about the educational needs of tomorrow’s business leaders.
Sosnaud is deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development in Augusta and a former interim associate dean and faculty member in the UMaine business school. Gleason is president of Gleason Media Services in Auburn and a graduate of the University of Maine, where he earned bachelors and master’s degrees in business administration in 1969 and 1970 with an emphasis in marketing.
“We’re very pleased to welcome Jeff and Dick to our board as advisors,” says Dan Innis, dean of the College of Business, Public Policy and Health. “Both are intimately familiar with the business climate in Maine and the needs of our constituents throughout the state. Their background and experience will be of great value in helping us to continue to respond to the educational, research and development needs of the Maine business community.”
As deputy commission of DECD, Sosnaud manages the operations of the department and assists Commissioner Jack Cashman in implementing the policies of the Baldacci Administration. He has extensive experience working with, developing and promoting Maine businesses.
Sosnaud was the founding executive director of the Maine Small Business Alliance, a statewide nonpartisan advocacy organization. A former Bangor resident, he also served as a Bangor City Councilor and chaired the council’s economic and community development committee.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the bar in Maine and California. In addition to practicing law, Sosnaud formerly headed his own conflict resolution firm, where he mediated cases for business, government and nonprofit clients. He is a past president of the Maine Association of Dispute Resolution Professionals.
In the 1970’s, Sosnaud served as an assistant to civil rights leader Charles Evers, mayor of Fayette, Miss., where he helped design and implement the town’s economic development strategy. During the Carter Administration, he was an assistant to Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, and worked on a groundbreaking urban parks and economic development initiative.
Gleason has been a part time marketing instructor for the University of Southern Maine’s college in Auburn in the early 1980s, and through Gleason Marketing Services has helped businesses build sales and recognition since 1977.
Over the last 30 years, he has established, owned or managed six AM and FM radio stations in western Maine, including WTOS-FM on Sugarloaf Mountain. In 1987, Gleason also opened Computers and Electronics, a Radio Shack dealership in Oxford, which he developed into one of the largest dealerships in Northern New England. The company bought it back from him in 1999.
A former U.S. Army Reserves infantry captain, Gleason has a long history of community service and civic volunteerism. He currently chairs the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce, with more than 1,200 members, and has served as an advisory board member for Central Maine Community College and is a recipient of the Maine State Senate’s Business Cornerstone Award. He also has been president of the Oxford Hills Area Development Corporation, the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce and was the founding president of the United Way of Oxford County in 1989.
The advisory board, which usually meets three times a year in Orono and Portland, “plays a critical role for not only the Maine Business School, but the university as a whole,” according to board chair Jack Lavery, an economic forecaster and founder of Lavery Consulting Groups, and former chief economist for Merrill Lynch.” As a collection of Maine business leaders and prominent alumni of the institution from beyond the state, the board offers insights on programming as well as opportunities for advocacy on behalf of the Maine Business School.”