Nathan Webster Michaud

BANGOR - Nathan Webster Michaud of Bangor, a community development specialist and administrator who helped develop an Internet-based method of tracking Maine lobsters that gained national attention, died unexpectedly Tuesday, July 29, at his home. He was 36. He was born June 23, 1972, in Brunswick, the son of Gerald P. Michaud and Linda McRea Michaud. He attended schools in Turner and graduated in 1990 from Leavitt Area High School, where he was active in athletics and drama. He was a fullback and defensive end on the varsity football team at Leavitt and a forward on the varsity basketball team. In 1990 he played in the first Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Classic, which features all-star football players from throughout Maine. Michaud spent time traveling in Spain and in 1990 attended Emerson College in Boston for a semester. He later transferred to the University of Maine and studied for a year at the University of Alaska in Anchorage before graduating in 1996 from UMaine with a bachelor's degree in English. He received a full scholarship for a master's degree program in American Studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., which he attended in 2000 and 2001. The focus of his graduate studies was rural development in coastal communities. Michaud had a varied work career. From 1997 to 1999 he was a sternman on a lobster boat in Frenchboro, fishing 800 traps year-round. In mid-2001 he accepted an internship at the Island Institute in Rockland and conducted research on Vinalhaven, where his family has had a home since the late 19th century. Michaud initiated a comprehensive planning process for the town of Vinalhaven and conducted interviews for living histories for the Vinalhaven Historical Society. "I first met Nate when he was an Island Institute Fellow on Vinalhaven supporting the comprehensive planning process when I worked for the State Planning Office," recalled Mary Ann Hayes, a former colleague and boss of Michaud's. "Nate's ability to understand community needs and translate that into powerful writing was outstanding. The State Planning Office used his Vinalhaven Comprehensive Plan Preliminary Assessment as the 'gold standard' example of excellence." In 2001 Michaud was hired as a community planning and development officer for the Island Institute and later devised, along with his colleague Chris Brehme, an innovative method -- using a Web site with interactive maps -- to track lobsters caught off Vinalhaven through the global marketplace and introduce consumers to the lobstermen who caught them. The initiative, called "Lobster Tales," gained widespread acclaim and was featured in stories in The New York Times and on CNN. Michaud also wrote numerous articles and columns while at the Island Institute and from 2003 to 2004 served as its programs director, responsible for an annual budget of about $500,000. "My true initiation into small community life came when I lived and worked on the island of Frenchboro (population 40 or so) for two years and, later, on Vinalhaven (1,200 people year-round)," Michaud later wrote. "Living in these two communities, I learned two things which have shaped my career more than anything else: that the truth about any community comes from within it, and all aspects of community life are interrelated and cannot be fully understood independently." In 2004 and 2005 Michaud worked in Damariscotta as the outreach and evaluation manager for the IGERT National Recruitment Program, an office funded by the National Science Foundation to provide student recruitment and retention support for 126 interdisciplinary science PhD programs nationwide. In 2005-2006 he served as coordinator for the Institute for Molecular Biophysics, an interdisciplinary research partnership of UMaine, The Jackson Laboratory and the Maine Medical Center Research Institute. He was responsible for managing an annual budget of $3 million. From March 2006 to May 2007 Michaud was the "innovation coordinator" at Maine Rural Partners, a rural development program at UMaine. While there he spearheaded development of a rural community-building program that included the highly acclaimed "Washington County: One Community" coalition. He also guided research and analysis for the Northern Forest Sustainable Economy Initiative. "Nate's energy, enthusiasm and dedication inspired many to work together toward common goals," said Hayes, his boss at Maine Rural Partners. Michaud worked briefly at Eastern Maine Development Corp. before being named, in August 2007, executive director of the Challenger Learning Center of Maine, a NASA-inspired nonprofit organization in Bangor that educates schoolchildren and the public about space exploration. "Nate did a lot to bring stability to the operation of the Challenger Learning Center," said Susan Jonason, who coordinates fundraising for the center. "He was very committed to its mission to inspire students about science, technology, engineering, math and space exploration. He was very excited about seeing all the kids come through there and watching their excitement." Michaud enjoyed literature and music, especially jazz, and played the saxophone, sometimes at impromptu musical gatherings on Vinalhaven. He was a member of the Bangor Rotary Club. On June 2, 2001, Michaud married the former Christie Lynch at a ceremony on Vinalhaven. They had two children, Charlotte Winifred Michaud, who was born in 2004, and McRea Rose Michaud, who was born in 2006. Michaud was predeceased by his father, who died in 2005, and his mother, Linda M. McRea, who died in 2007. Besides his wife and daughters, he is survived by a brother, Corey P. Michaud and his wife, Jessica Mahalingappa, of Takoma Park, Md.; two sisters, Sarah Charland and her husband, Matthew, of Fayette, and Maggie Haines and her husband, Jay, of Bangor; a grandmother, Barbara Webster McRea of Bangor; a grandfather, Hermel Michaud of Augusta; his mother-in-law, Norma Lynch of Enfield, Conn.; his father-in-law, Burke Lynch of Vinalhaven; his stepfather, Timothy Allen of Bangor; and several nieces and nephews. The family plans to hold a private funeral and burial service on Vinalhaven. An informal gathering of Michaud's friends and colleagues is being planned at the Challenger Learning Center of Maine. For more information, call 990-2900. Those wishing to honor Michaud's memory may contribute to a fund established in his daughters' names. Checks made payable to Charlotte and McRea Michaud may be sent to University Credit Union, 977 Union St., Bangor, Maine 04401.