Trustees and Staff

Founding Director from 1996 to 1998, Nathaniel Philbrick wrote Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890 for Mill Hill Press, an affiliate of the Egan Maritime Institute, in 1994. He followed its success with the international best-seller In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, for which her received the 2000 National Book Award and Sea of Glory: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, which was awarded the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize for maritime writing. His most recent work, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, details the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony and was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History. Nat has degrees from Brown and Duke Universities and is a Research Fellow in History at the Nantucket Historical Association. He has also written several books about sailing. He has lived on Nantucket with his wife and two children since 1986 and continues to guide Egan Maritime as a member of the Board of Trustees.

Operational Staff

Executive Director Jean Grimmer joined the Egan Maritime Institute in 2004. Prior to that she served as the Associate Director and Director of Development for the Nantucket Historical Association for six years and managed the Capital Campaign to restore the Whaling Museum and Research Library on Fair Street in Nantucket Town. Jean was educated in Great Britain and graduated from Stover School for Girls and the College of Commerce in Bristol, England. She has held senior management positions at the Capital District of upstate New York’s PBS affiliate and at Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. Jean has been visiting Nantucket since 1974 and became a full-time resident with her husband in 1998.

James C. Lansing, Curator of Collections & Sites Management, joined Egan Maritime in June 2008. He started his infatuation with the water as a boy while spending   summers at the Jersey Shore and at his grandparents' home on Culver Lake in Northern New Jersey. After high school, James enlisted in the United States Coast Guard where he was a Marine Science Technician performing meteorological and oceanographic duties. He later earned his bachelor's degree in creative writing at East Stroudsburg University, and his masters in education at the University of Arizona, which led to teaching high school English for over 18 years. As a member of the Prufrock's Coffeehouse Collective, a fine and performing arts community in Scranton, PA, he was managing editor and art critic for Ergo Magazine, a monthly cultural publication, and wrote for The Scranton Independent, a weekly newspaper. He was also gallery coordinator of Prufrock's, live music booking promoter, and performed as a musician as well.  James decided to make the arts his career and completed his masters in museum studies at Seton Hall University. While at Seton Hall he spent his internship in curatorial studies at Scranton's Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science, and Art. He lives with his wife, artist and educator Jean Benfante,  and Stella, a standard schnauzer.

Richard Duncan, Editor of Mill Hill Press, has been a summer resident of Nantucket since 1981, and a full-time ‘Sconseter since 2000. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he served in the Navy as Gunnery Officer on a destroyer before going on to study Journalism and International Relations at Columbia University. He worked for the Associated Press and then became a correspondent in the Time-Life News Service, Chief of Correspondents, Assistant Managing Editor and finally Executive Editor of TIME. He edited several books published by TIME during that period, and also oversaw the development of TIME.Com and other online sites for Time, Inc. Since retiring to Nantucket he has edited “Voices of the Village,” an oral history of Sciasconset by Nancy Newhouse, and serves on the board of the Mill Hill Press.

Michelle Cartwright Soverino is an island native who joined Egan Maritime in September of 2007. She received her undergraduate degree from the American University of Paris, France where she was a European Cultural Studies student with a concentration in philosophy and comparative literature. Ms. Soverino has sojourned in England and Slovakia, and attributes her passion for travel to her native Nantucket ancestors who made their livelihood at sea. 

Albert F. Egan, Jr. & Dorothy H. Egan Foundation, Inc., a 501 (C) 3, Private Operating Foundation, operates as the Egan Maritime Institute.

Egan Maritime Institute
Board of Trustees

President
Robert A. Egan

Vice President
Philip W. Read

Treasurer
Alan F. Atwood

Secretary
Jessie M. Glidden

Trustees
Paul J. Crowley
Charles M. Geschke
Jean H. Grimmer
Peter E. Hoey
Eric S. Holch
Bruce D. Miller
Marlin Miller, Jr.
Nathaniel D. Philbrick
Robert M. Rosenthal
Donald B. Shackelford
Stephanie Bredin Speakman