Our Team
Alice Friberg (she/her), Executive Director
Alice grew up on a small goat farm in Whitefield, Maine, where the native plants in the surrounding fields and forests counted among her earliest childhood friends. She earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies from Colby College, then returned to the farm to spend her first decade of adulthood rearing Animal Welfare Approved pastured hogs and producing a variety of fruits, vegetables, and field crops on over a hundred acres. She served on the board of directors of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association for eight years, where she advocated for the expansion of services to family farmers, helped establish the organization's endowment fund, and helped design new structures, policies, and leadership roles as the organization expanded. She joined Fedco Seeds (a cooperatively-owned agricultural supplier in Clinton) in 2014. There she wore a variety of hats including department director, marketing chair, and CFO. When she is not “nerding out” on strategic planning and financial management she is either reading, writing, or painting at home in Pittston, or behind her husband on their Triumph Rocket III motorcycle heading for some destination of natural or historic interest.
alice@wildseedproject.net
Be Simon (they/them), Seed Stewardship Coordinator
Be grew up in the Sonoran desert, fell in love with all things botanical while living in the Pacific Northwest, and found a feeling of home under the big skies and ocean air of the Atlantic coast in Maine. A diverse background in botanical studies, habitat-supporting garden design for people and their neighboring wildlife, education, and customer service brought them to Wild Seed Project as a volunteer before joining the team in 2024. Be loves cooking for their family, taking walks, and marveling at the cross-sections of fruit and vegetables with their partner, friends, and beloved god-dogs. The only thing they love as much as being outside studying flora and fauna is making art and music inspired by the balance, beauty, and abundance of the world around them.
b@wildseedproject.net
Caitlin Marshall (she/her), Education Director
Caitlin joined Wild Seed Project in 2024, and delights in every opportunity to help people learn about and connect with the greater world around them. Caitlin holds a B.A. in Peace Studies from University of San Francisco and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Unity College. She has served on the board at Cultivating Community and is an active member of the Portland Climate Action Team. She lives in Portland, where she enjoys cooking with her two kids, taking big walks, and watching all the flying, hopping and crawling creatures that visit the garden.
caitlin@wildseedproject.net
Emily Baisden (she/her), Seed Stewardship Director
Emily brings an extensive background in native horticulture and environmental education, and focuses largely on using native plants to support food webs and biodiversity. She holds a BS in Environmental Science from the University of New England and an MS in Entomology from the University of Delaware, and worked previously as Entomologist and Educator at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. She is an avid birder and has a lifelong goal of being able to identify all the flora and fauna in Maine. She lives in Brunswick, where she spends most of her time adventuring with her partner and their dog, and establishing wildlife habitat in her yard.
emily@wildseedproject.net
Jess Gildea (she/her), Communications Director
Jess brings over fifteen years of experience designing high impact, community-led projects and partnerships in nonprofit spaces. At Good Shepherd Food Bank, she worked alongside over 400 schools and colleges statewide to increase food access for Maine families. In 2020, she created the Community Redistribution Fund at GSFB, a community-led grantmaking program focused on increasing access to culturally important foods through grassroots efforts. Prior to moving to Maine, she served as the Curator of Education for the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase College, and has worked in a range of programmatic capacities in nonprofit art spaces in the greater New York City area. Jess served on the Board of Directors for Birth Roots, and lives in Westbrook with her spouse and their young child, where she is slowly restoring her 200-year-old home and tending to an abundantly chaotic garden.
Margaret McCollough (she/her), Administrative Coordinator
Prior to joining Wild Seed Project in 2025, Margaret pursued her passions for good food, sustainable agriculture, and environmental science through both hands-on and academic work. She brings a rich blend of experience from the food and beverage industry, her time as the owner and operator of an organic vegetable farm, and her work as a research scientist specializing in weed ecology and management. Margaret holds a M.S. from the University of Maine and a Ph.D. from Aarhus University, where her research has explored a wide range of organic weed control strategies including cultivation techniques, thermal weeding, nutrient management, weed seedbank depletion, crop-weed competition, and innovations in robotic weeding. She is driven by a deep appreciation for the complex relationships between plants, people, and the environments they share. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring the woods behind her home, scouring local flea markets for hidden treasures, and dabbling in a wide array of creative pursuits.
margaret@wildseedproject.net
Maura Sanchi (she/her), Seed Stewardship Coordinator // Volunteer Coordinator
Maura received a B.S. in Environmental Science and a graduate certificate in Emerging Women’s Leadership from the University of Connecticut. As an undergraduate she lived and worked at Spring Valley Student Farm, a student-led vegetable farm, where she helped grow food for the dining halls. There she gained an appreciation for the native plants that took over empty fields while they lay fallow during the early stages of the pandemic. She loves exploring the gorgeous beaches and local trails and appreciating the environment of Maine.
maura@wildseedproject.net
Nell Houde (she/her), Manager of Nature-Based Education Programs
Nell brings dedication to climate justice to her work doing experiential ecology with young people. As part of this role she is co-chair of the Nature Based Education Consortium’s Climate Education Advocacy Working Group. Before joining Wild Seed Project in the summer of 2022, she worked in the world of environmental and outdoor education in Maine — as an Island Fellow on Peaks Island establishing an edible schoolyard, as the Outdoor Educator at St. George Elementary School, as a Naturalist in the AMC High Mountain Huts, and as the Garden Educator at the Reiche Elementary School in Portland. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Bates College. She calls Maine home, and can be found exploring its woods by foot, its roads by bike, and its waters by boat (or sometimes, in a wetsuit).
nell@wildseedproject.net
Rachel Getz (she/her), Operations Director
Rachel joined Wild Seed Project in 2023 following seven years of experience in the culinary industry. She honed her cooking skills at Fore Street restaurant in Portland and worked a variety of production, marketing and design roles for Maine Crisp, a small food business dedicated to crafting products using Maine-grown buckwheat. She currently lives in Portland with her partner and spends her time hiking, cooking, gardening, and exploring Maine.
rachel@wildseedproject.net
Tyler Refsland (he/him), Manager of Applied Ecology
Tyler has an extensive background in plant ecology, forest management, and climate change. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he studied the effect of forest management practices on drought resilience and carbon storage capacity in oak-hickory woodlands. Prior to his role at WSP, Tyler was a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, working in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to develop seed collection and planting strategies to promote climate resilient forests in the Great Lakes region. He lives in Portland with his partner, their two children, and dog Harriet. On the weekends, Tyler enjoys hiking, woodworking, and slowly converting his yard into a wet meadow.
tyler@wildseedproject.net
Our Founder
Heather McCargo (she/her)
Heather founded Wild Seed Project in 2014 and served as Executive Director from 2014 to 2021. Inspired by her decades of work with native plant propagation and gardening, and a belief that a wide range of people are needed to restore our environment, she set out to create with Wild Seed Project a grassroots movement to connect people to the seeds and skills needed to grow our region’s native plants.
During her time leading Wild Seed Project, Heather authored the original content for the WSP website and blog. She created the Maine Department of Transportation native plants handbook, and was lead author of the first WSP guide, Native Trees for Northeast Landscapes. She served as the founding editor of Wild Seed magazine and launched the annual guide series in 2021. To get more native seeds into the hands of gardeners, she established our flagship program distributing hand-collected native seeds, which now includes over 100 species. She now focuses her work on expanding our Native Seed Center, and serves on the board of Wild Seed Project.
Heather is an educator with 40 years of expertise in plant propagation, design, and conservation. She was the head plant propagator at the Native Plant Trust’s Garden in the Woods during the 1990s, worked in landscape architecture/planning firms specializing in ecological design, and has been a contributor to research projects with USAID, the National Gardening Association, Maine DOT and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. She has lectured nationally and is widely published in journals and magazines. She was featured in 2021 in the New York Times and in Downeast magazine in 2022. Heather has a B.A. in plant ecology from Hampshire College, and an M.A. from the Conway School of Landscape Design.
Board of Directors
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Abby is a serial entrepreneur with a deep passion for the creative process, community building, and growing gardens for food, medicine and pleasure. Currently, she is the owner of an independent, herb-inspired wellness shop that she runs while she trains to be a community herbalist, with a focus on the cultivation and use of native plant species. When Abby is not eating, creating, or formulating with the wild world of plants, you will find her organizing community cleanups, playing out on Casco Bay or exploring New England on her road bike.
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Andrea has a background in biology, ornithology, horticulture, entomology, and education; has developed and taught courses at colleges and universities; and has worked for a variety of nonprofits. She currently works as site manager for Friends of Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. Most of her work life and volunteer time revolve around native plants, habitat restoration, and connecting people to environmental stewardship. Andrea loves birds, gardening and visiting gardens, cooking, walking and botanizing, and spending time with family and friends. She especially loves quiet moments in the morning for meditation and calm.
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Andy was born and raised in Connecticut. He graduated from the University of CT with BS and MS degrees in Environmental Horticulture and Plant Science respectively. For 27 years, he was employed at Broken Arrow Nursery in Hamden, CT where he was the nursery manager. In March 2018, Andy joined the staff at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden as Curator of Living Collections and then was named Director of Horticulture in 2021. In September 2025 joined the staff of the Mt Desert Land and Garden Preserve as the Head Grower/Greenhouse Manager. He is an avid naturalist and cofounder and past President of the Connecticut Butterfly Association. He has put his interest in native plants to use as a volunteer for the New England Plant Conservation Program where he has helped monitor historical sites of endangered native plants. He has spoken to groups throughout the northeast on a range of topics including native plants, new and unusual ornamentals, butterfly gardening, butterflies and their life histories, and increasing biodiversity in landscapes. Andy also has an Instagram account, @andyjbrand, a page dedicated to encouraging everyone to slow down and appreciate the smaller details found in nature.
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Ayumi Horie is a full-time studio potter from Portland, Maine. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Maine Craft Artist Award from the Maine Craft Association and is featured in the PBS show, Craft in America. In 2015, she was awarded a Distinguished Fellow grant in Craft by the United States Artists and is the first recipient of Ceramics Monthly’s Ceramic Artist of the Year award. This year, 2020, she was awarded an Honorary Member at NCECA for “outstanding contribution” to the field. She has taught workshops and given lectures at many universities, art centers and residencies in the U.S. and abroad, including the Archie Bray Foundation, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Greenwich House Pottery, Penland School of Crafts, Peter’s Valley, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, the Northern Clay Center, and the International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark. She has served on the board of directors at the Archie Bray Foundation, and American Craft Council, and is currently a trustee at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Her work is in various collections throughout the US, including the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.
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Beverly was lucky enough to grow up with a large organic vegetable garden and a trout stream in the backyard. Those interests led to a degree in biology and a certification in computer programming. Her career was in biological research and small scale manufacturing. After retiring, Beverly moved to Scarborough and her gardening interests expanded to plants that benefited wildlife. She became a Wild Seed Project member in its second year. Beverly recently received a certificate from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Native Plants and Ecological Horticulture.
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David grew up in New Jersey, where a high school job at a nursery sparked a fascination with plants and gardening. Since then, he has been employed in Naval Engineering, Mathematics Education, Information Technology, and finally, as an actuary with Sunlife. Balancing out his largely technical career path, he lives in North Yarmouth, Maine on his 1.6 acre “test orchard” where he experiments with fruits, berries, and perennials to try to create a diverse, productive, and beautiful landscape for his family. In the past 2 years, he has been learning from the Wild Seed Project about how we can better steward the gene pools of our native plants (and the ecosystems that rely on them) by growing and planting for genetic diversity.
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Judy Robertson is an artist and WSP volunteer who grew up in Massachusetts and Maine. She moved back to Maine in 2021 after living for 25 years in Miami Beach where she has had her career as an artist, and was an enthusiastic tropical gardener and community activist. Recently retired, she is eager to learn more about the plants of her native New England, and support the contributions that Wild Seed Project makes to community and environmental restoration.
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Julia is a landscape architect and longtime WSP volunteer. Her new design practice, Julia Frederick | Field Work, is rooted in the joys of ecological abundance. Her prior work with STIMSON design collective has earned national recognition from the American Society of Landscape Architects, including Honor Award-winning projects Florence Griswold Museum in Lyme, CT and Pulaski Park in Northampton, MA. Julia earned a B.A. in History from Yale and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She lives in Freeport, where she, her daughter, and their dog love digging in the garden and exploring the local forests.
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Karl Alamo was raised in the rural coastal woods of Boothbay, where the people’s intimate connection with the coastal environment is foundational to their small fishing community. Karl gained recognition at the University of Rhode Island in his studies of landscape architecture and community planning, and served as President of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) student chapter. After working in botanical garden horticulture for nearly four years, Karl transitioned back into landscape architecture with Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC. Outside of work, Karl enjoys competitive swimming, collecting and tinkering with ocean discards, and continuing to explore the vast coastline of Maine. You can always find Karl by the water.
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Kea is a freelance writer and editor, media specialist and activist based in Maine. Her work has appeared in a variety of outlets including The Atlantic, National Geographic, Sierra Magazine, Wired and more, and has been anthologized in Best American Science and Nature Writing and Best American Travel Writing. In addition to writing and editing, she teaches workshops at Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and is a member of the Portland-based women’s activist group, Groundswell Collective.
Kea comes to Wild Seed Project by way of her own curiosity of the natural world and her belief that it is our greatest teacher. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now spends her time in the woods around Falmouth and on the Sheepscot river in Edgecomb with her young family.
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Lily is a WSP volunteer with a background in regenerative agriculture and conservation works. She has a strong interest in systems and efficiency and is very passionate about the mission of WSP.
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Maggie has worked for many local nonprofits as a Marketing and Communications professional, including the Portland Museum of Art and Greater Portland Landmarks. She currently works as a Project Manager for Green & Healthy Maine HOMES magazine. While she is a novice gardener, Maggie is excited to apply the lessons of Wild Seed Project to her first home garden and share what she’s learned with friends and family. She wants to spread the word that incorporating native plants into yards, decks, front stoops or fire escapes is an easy way to help in the fight against climate change.
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Sara Thomas was born and raised in Topsham, Maine, where she developed a deep appreciation for the natural world at an early age. Much of her childhood was spent exploring the woods, learning about native plants and wildlife, and gaining firsthand experience in conservation and land stewardship through her family. Her father is a Maine Guide, and her grandfather is a third-generation farmer, both of whom helped shape her understanding of the importance of balancing farming, conservation, and the protection of native species and ecosystems.
Sara has worked in the banking industry for nine years and currently works at Androscoggin Bank, an organization whose values around community impact, sustainability, and environmental responsibility closely align with her own. She is passionate about supporting local communities and believes education surrounding native plants, pollinators, and ecological restoration is more important than ever.
Staff headshots (c) Dan Comly.