Brunswick, ME — February 25, 2021— Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) announces the appointment of two new members, Jeanette Andre and Devin Cook, to its board of directors, and the addition of three new staff members, Azenaide Pedro, Linnea Patterson and Peter Piconi, to its team.

Jeanette Andre is the president and CEO of Maine Philanthropy Center. She brings her passion for advancing equity and centering community to her board service at CEI. Her previous experience includes positions at the Lenny Zakim Fund and Social Ventures Partners. Andre currently serves on the executive steering committee for the implementation of the Maine Economic Development Strategy 2020-2029. She received a BA from University of Florida and holds a certificate in nonprofit management and leadership from Tufts University.

Devin Cook is associate director at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and co-founder of the IDE’s Inclusive Innovation Challenge. She brings a strong devotion to entrepreneurship and economic development to CEI’s board of directors. Ms. Cook is also a board member of Maine Women’s Fund and serves on an Advisory Board for Humans for AI. She earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Azenaide Pedro is the CEI’s workforce solutions team’s new program specialist. Originally from Angola, Pedro came to Maine three years ago from Johannesburg, South Africa, where she received a BA in public health from Monash University. In 2020, she was one of the first individuals to apply for the pilot cohort of CEI’s Child Care Business Lab to learn how to help five women, who immigrated to Lewiston from Angola, start a cooperative child care center. The co-op is scheduled to open in May. In her new role at CEI, Pedro will focus on growing additional child care options in Lewiston’s Tree Streets neighborhood, one of the state’s most diverse areas, with the densest population of children in the state. During recent listening sessions in the community, she confirmed the need for culturally appropriate, high quality, affordable child care that is responsive to around-the-clock work schedules. Pedro is pursuing an associate’s degree in business administration and management from Central Maine Community College.

Linnea Patterson returns to CEI as lending program specialist in environmentally sustainable enterprises, with a focus on renewable energy. She is a former three-time CEI intern, having worked with CEI’s lending and food systems teams at different points during college. Her passion for philanthropy and clean energy has brought her back to Maine after working at Fidelity Investments in Boston as part of their capital markets division. This experience gave her an excellent foundation in business and financial systems implementation that she is eager to put into effect. Patterson holds a BA in biology and environmental studies from Bowdoin College.

Peter Piconi joins the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) team as a business advisor for the Waterville office. Piconi brings a breadth and depth of business advising and business ownership experience to this role. Originally from Southern California, Piconi worked at his family’s winery in Temecula and also started his own retail saltwater fly fishing business in San Diego, which he operated and grew over the course of 15 years. His business experience led him to the Midwest where, he was a key project lead for a recirculating aquaculture (RAS) startup within a budding network of investors. This work allowed him to serve as event manager for Kern and Associates, responsible for planning, managing, and launching large scale agriculture industry education and promotional events. In 2018, he joined the Island Institute as community development officer – business development specialist, and manager for the Aquaculture Business Development Program. This work established key partnerships, built a collaborative network of farmers throughout Maine and is where he first intersected with CEI’s lending and fisheries and aquaculture teams.

About CEI

Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) helps to grow good jobs, environmentally sustainable enterprises and shared prosperity in Maine and in rural regions across the country by integrating financing, business and industry expertise, and policy solutions. CEI envisions a world in which communities are economically and environmentally healthy, enabling all people, especially those with low incomes, to reach their full potential. More at www.ceimaine.org