John Cashwell, president of Seven Islands Land Co. of Bangor since 1992, has retired. Longtime employee John McNulty of Dover-Foxcroft has taken over as president. Cashwell will continue as managing director of Seven Islands subsidiary Portage Wood Products on a less than full-time basis. Seven Islands is a land management company given stewardship over nearly 800,000 acres of family-owned forestland in Maine. Along with the land owned by the Pingree family, Seven Islands subsidiary Orion Timberlands LLC manages 370,000 additional family-owned acres. Speaking on behalf of the Pingree family, Steve Schley expressed his thanks for Cashwell’s efforts. “John’s visionary pursuit of sustainable forestry certification and northern Maine hardwood market development solidified our reputation and position in the world of exemplary forest management,” said Schley. During Cashwell’s years with Seven Islands, the company helped start up Maine Woods Co. LLC, a hardwood sawmill in Portage, and Portage Wood Products LLC in Portage. Cashwell was mayor of Calais in 1985 during his six years serving on the City Council, and was mayor of Bangor in 2006 during his three years on the City Council. Cashwell was director of the Maine Forest Service from 1987 to 1992. He was a helicopter pilot for Georgia Pacific in Washington County from 1979 to 1987.

RainStorm Consulting of Orono announced that Web programmer Jeremy Knope received the Technology Innovator of the Year award at TechMaine’s 2008 Technology Awards Gala. Knope earned the honor for his efforts as co-creator and lead programmer of SiteTurbine, RainStorm’s custom suite of Web-based applications. SiteTurbine modules for news, e-mail marketing, photo galleries and e-commerce power academic and business Web sites in Maine and 20 other states. Knope also was acknowledged for his contributions to the Mac software development community as well as his work with open-source server architecture.