Linda Hughes-Belford, D.O.
Growing up, I spent most of my summers visiting family on Cape Cod, and I learned to sail on Long Pond in Wellfleet at the home of my Aunt and Uncle.
As a young adult I attended Smith College for 3 years, studying Psychology, Religion, Math, and Education. I left Smith for a brief tour of duty in the U.S.Navy, where I worked as a Hull Maintenance Technician. It was fun learning how to weld and put out fires, but was not to be my lifelong career.
I went on to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, while completing the necessary requirements to obtain a teaching certificate in secondary mathematics. I then taught High School math for 2 years in the Kansas City Missouri area, and ultimately chose to apply to Medical School in Kansas City.
Following Medical School I completed a residency in Psychiatry, served as Chief Reident my final year, and went on to complete a fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry. I spent the bulk of my career in State Hospitals, Prisons, and Community Health Centers, and served for 2 years as the medical director of a methadone clinic run by a federally qualified health center in Kansas City, Missouri.
After 22 years in Kansas City, I spent the next seven in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. While there I was able to hone my sailing skills at the Hoofer Sailing Club of UW Madison.
In 2013, I returned to Missouri, this time Saint Louis, for the final 5 years of my career, working at a State Forensic Hospital, and a Community Health Center. I moved there to live with my future wife, and in 2017, while visiting the Cape, we were married at sunrise on Nauset beach in Orleans. We chose to retire the following year and return to the Cape full time.
By this time, my parents had both passed, and I had been maintaining the home on Bakers Pond for seven years. The Orleans Blue Pages, and pamphlets from the Orleans Pond Coalition taught me about good stewardship of the pond, and the Department of Conservation taught me how to care for the property. I embraced my “Cape Cod lawn,” and became passionate about preserving our waters and wildlife habitat for future generations.
In my free time I enjoy hiking, biking, singing in the Outer Cape Chorale and gardening at the Hopkins Community garden. I have done some volunteer work for the Animal Rescue league and for Wild Care, Inc.
I look forward to the opportunity to helping the Orleans Pond Coalition achieve its goals, and am eager to put my organizational skills to work as the Membership Chair and Volunteer Coordinator.
Rick Porter
Rick has been a year-round resident of Orleans since retiring to the Cape with his wife Kate in April 2020, but he has been enjoying the natural beauty of our hometown area as a regular visitor for almost 30 years.
Growing up in Alberta, Canada, not far from the Rocky Mountains, Rick has always been an outdoor person and a nature lover. Living on a small freshwater pond on Beach Road, Rick has a strong concern for the health of his pond and all our local waters. He channeled these concerns, and his experience as a Grant Director for a watershed association in New Jersey, into volunteering last year as a fundraising consultant for OPC.
Among the many ways Rick wants to help OPC grow, he is looking forward to working on developing new funding sources to support our programs that educate our citizens in the many ways that they can responsibly steward our lands and waters.
Emily McKhann
Emily’s background is in strategic marketing and public relations for global non-profits and large consumer brands. She headed NY-based communications consulting firms for over 25 years.
David Herrick
David has worked primarily in the Financial Services and Technology sectors over the course of his career. He spent many years with American Express in Europe, leading two of their five businesses across the region-the Merchant business; working with merchants both small & large and The Corporate Travel business; providing travel services to business customers across 17 countries. At American Express, he also led marketing and co-branded credit card initiatives with European airlines, hotels and large retailers. Following American Express, David launched a startup digital business within Barclays Bank in the UK, using customer data to drive the right products and services to the right customer through an online retailer called the Barclaycard Digital Marketplace.
Upon moving back to the New England area, David joined Flywire, a mid stage payments fintech and launched their second vertical business in healthcare. Most recently, David managed the US early stage startup programs across the US and the later stage Boston based HealthTech and FinTech programs for MassChallenge, a large non profit startup accelerator. David is passionate about helping to develop and build the Cape Cod small business economy and preserving the beauty of the Cape through climate and environmental initiatives. He lives in Orleans with his wife Ellen.
Fitzhugh C. Pannill, MD
My wife and I discovered the Cape’s many natural beauties camping with our young kids at Nickerson Park every summer for over 15 years: Clear freshwater ponds, miles of bay and ocean beaches and great fishing. I don’t think there were cyanobacteria blooms back then (1998).
Captivated again as soon to be retirees, we bought a house in South Orleans in 2018 and have spent almost every day since hiking, canoeing and kayaking. But the fishing isn’t as good as it was and now there are red tide and cyanobacteria closures of beaches and ponds.
I am convinced that unless Cape residents do something quickly we will lose these precious water resources which are the foundation of our economy and which make the Cape an idyllic place. I want to help preserve the natural beauty and pure water and our community’s existence.
I have a BA in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1973. I completed pre-med courses, but my major academic interests were in Ecology, Biochemistry and Environmental Science. Throughout my career in primary care medical practice, research and teaching, I approached patients’ problems from a holistic and non-specialist perspective, which harkened back to my interests in Ecology and Biology. Using my strong science background and research experience, I want to help OPC interpret and present scientific data to support our positions and convince people action on environmental preservation and remediation is critical.
Looking at the Cape as a small contained ecosystem, it is obvious that we have to take a holistic and ecological approach to our environment, ponds and oceans. All of our activities here have more immediate impacts than if we lived in a larger state or were not surrounded by water. When I return to Texas (about as different from the Cape as you can get) today, the disastrous effects of unbridled growth and overuse of water, land and natural resources are shockingly obvious. On our winter canoe trips in Florida we have seen millions of fish and dozens of Manatees killed by toxic algae, because of huge fertilizer releases, year after year. This is the Cape’s future too unless we act now.