Contact us

Sean Charette

Museum Director

A Maine native, Sean has been at the Wendell Gilley Museum since 2017 after moving with his family from Williamstown, Massachusetts. There he spent two years working with three local museums (The Clark, Williams College Museum of Art and MASS MoCA) exploring how the museums could connect with local schools. For the prior eight years, Sean was on the left coast with the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, working internationally with museums and their historic collections. He holds a Masters Degree in Conservation from the University of Durham in Northern England. 

Sean enjoys the flexibility of running a small museum. What he enjoys most about his job is the wealth of creativity that is part of his day with a full-time master artist on staff and a huge community of artists, members, and young people that are the unique Mount Desert Community. Watching certain distinctive seaside birds, like Cormorants and, in warmer climates, Pelicans, is one way Sean connects to nature. He also enjoys hiking, camping, and taking walks with his family and two Rough Collies.

sean@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Julia Conway

Visitor Services Associate

julia@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Diana Malcom

Office Manager

Diana lives in Southwest Harbor with her husband, Blair. They recently moved to Mount Desert Island from State College, Pennsylvania, where Diana provided senior administrative support at Penn State University's Child Maltreatment Center.

She and Blair enjoy spending time with their adult children: Lydia, who lives in the Pacific Northwest; and Wilson & Ellinor, who live in Sweden. Diana's favorite place is the outdoors, where she spends a good deal of time; and in the kitchen where she loves to create. 

diana@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Lynda Millar

Carving Instructor

Lynda joined the Museum in 2023 as a seasonal visitor services associate, a job she did when not engaged in her full-time job of teaching French at Conners Emerson School in Bar Harbor.

She has been a professional teacher for more than 30 years. She is also a talented artist, working in several media. So in 2025 she became the Gilley’s on-site carving instructor along with teaching other art classes as well including wood-burning and paper-cutting. Lynda works full time in the summer teaching all three, and part time during the school year.

lynda@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Tammy Packie

Store Manager & Head of Visitor Services

As the Gilley’s store manager, Tammy strives to find interesting items to help visitors remember their time at the museum, on Mount Desert Island, and in Maine. She enjoys interacting with visitors to the museum and sharing her knowledge of Wendell Gilley’s story, the museum’s collection, and information about our island communities, including birding locations and other great places to visit.

Tammy brings a varied background to the museum with her education, work experience, and hobbies. She holds three degrees in art, radiology, and human ecology. In addition to managing the Gilley’s gift shop, Tammy works at two hospitals and spends as much time outside as possible observing nature. Photography is how Tammy captures the world, including highlighting events and unique aspects of the Gilley, and has earned high accolades for her projects. As for her favorite bird, Tammy enjoys watching the Great Blue Heron hunting in a marsh. In addition to its pre-historic gracefulness, the arrival of the heron signals for Tammy that another winter has passed. Taking slow walks with her camera is Tammy’s favorite way to connect to nature, but with two dogs in tow the walks aren’t always slow!

tammy@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Asher Panikian

Visitor Services Associate

asher@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Melinda Rice-Schoon

Director of Engagement & Communications

Melinda Rice-Schoon joined the Wendell Gilley Museum in 2020. As Director of Engagement & Communications she is responsible for workshops and classes, press relations and marketing, social media, the website, and community engagement. She has more than 25 years of writing and editing experience at newspapers, magazines, and as a freelancer, as well as at nonprofits, along with more than a decade of experience in events planning and fundraising for nonprofits.

As someone who was a sea kayaking guide and instructor for more than a decade and spends as much time out of doors as she can, often birding, Melinda is excited by the museum's mission to inspire artistic creativity and engagement with the natural world through art.  She lives on Mount Desert Island with her spouse and dogs, serves on several non-profit boards, and loves being part of the MDI community.

mel@wendellgilleymuseum.org

Mae Wyler

Director of Development

Mae brings a Bachelor's of Business Administration in Accounting, and extensive experience in municipal finance to the Museum, along with a wealth of volunteer work in nonprofit fundraising and wildlife conservation.

An avid naturalist and citizen scientist, she enjoys playing trivia; birding; watercolor and acrylic painting; running 5Ks with her husband and their black lab mix, George; and exploring her interests in British history, herpetology, and of course, ornithology. She lives on Mount Desert Island.Julie Crane is a multimedia artist who has been pondering the concept of bandwidth. By depicting microscopic elements swirling around and through subjects in amplified scale, the questions about what is unseen in our midst is approached. DNA, diatoms and other phytoplankton erupt from the background as an accompaniment to creatures one might encounter while out and about. Her work brings up the question of how we are impacted by the influencers we can’t see.

mae@wendellgilleymuseum.org