William Harper and Robyn Stanicki have joined the the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments (KVCOG) team as new Community Resilience Coordinators. Together, Harper and Stanicki will work to deliver technical, planning, and administrative assistance to municipal and regional entities, small businesses, nonprofits, and other stakeholders.

These new positions have been made possible, for the next two years, through CARES Act funding KVCOG received through the U.S. Economic Development Administration.  

“I am thrilled to have William and Robyn join the KVCOG team in this capacity,” said Laura Cyr, executive director of KVCOG, in a news release. “They both bring with them expertise and experience and their work together will help to prepare the region to move forward from this pandemic in a meaningful way.”

William Harper and Robyn Stanicki both joined KVCOG in September of 2020 as a Community Resilience Coordinators.

New programming, under the direction of Harper and Stanicki, will include individual consultations and workshops on topics such as disaster recovery and strategic innovation. These positions are responsible for planning and providing emergency preparedness, response, and recovery coordination services to KVCOG and the community to build resiliency and be better prepared to plan, respond to and recover from emergency events.  

“I’m excited to be joining KVCOG at such a pivotal time,” said Harper. “However, amid this pervasive uncertainty is a compelling invitation for change. My ambition is to focus my skills and those of my colleagues towards affirmative resilience, adaptation, and transformation opportunities in our municipalities and across the region.” 

Harper comes to KVCOG after earning a BA in sociology and working for nearly a decade in nonprofit housing management. He has also attended USM and earned a Master’s in Policy, Planning, and Management. He is interested in regional governance, in rural planning, and in integrating spatial and data science into these fields. As a part-time student he is also pursuing a second Master’s in Spatial Informatics. 

Stanicki comes to KVCOG from Dartmouth College where she focused on quality improvement in healthcare and coordinated a research study improving healthcare screenings and access to treatment for patients with substance use disorders. She has a background in social work, policy, and research methodologies.

She graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in sociology and social work, and completed Master’s programs in Human Development and Higher Education.   

At KVCOG, she is excited to work with municipalities to explore new resources and solutions to help communities thrive, according to KVCOG.  

“Since the beginning of the current Pandemic, I have been looking for ways to insert myself into conversations on recovery and to contribute to these efforts in my own community,” said Stanicki. “I believe that we can use this global event to spur change and ideas that allow us to bounce forward rather than bounce back, and to envision recovery and define what it means to move forward in new and exciting ways. KVCOG is ideally positioned to work with its member communities to come up with a vision for economic recovery and even, prosperity in the years to come. I’m so glad to have a chance to be part of it.” 

About the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments (KVCOG) 

KVCOG is a private, non-profit organization established in 1967 as membership organization and is owned and operated for the benefit of its members. The Council is enabled by state statue.  

KVCOG provides a coordinated approach for planning and economic development at the local and regional level and has been a leader in economic development, environmental, land use and transportation planning with a wide array of professional talent among staff for the past 50 years. 

With its office located in Fairfield, Maine, KVCOG serves 62 municipalities, several unorganized territories, 5,251 square miles, and a population of ~182,000 throughout the Kennebec Valley region of Maine within Kennebec, Somerset and western Waldo Counties. Our region is connected by the Kennebec River and includes the state capital of Augusta as well as the cities of Waterville, Gardiner, and Hallowell, as well as many rural towns. (Municipal population ranges from 42 to 18,972). 

Learn more on our website www.kvcog.org, or follow us on Facebook (@KennebecValleyCOG) and Instagram (@kennebecvalleycouncilofgov).