Jo Ellen is a bookkeeper with over 35 years of experience in financial services. After working in banking early in her career, she took an interest in bookkeeping and began working with a construction company as an assistant bookkeeper. After her father left work with the State of Maine Parks & Recreation to start his own Civil Engineering firm, she worked with him as a bookkeeper, survey assistant, and specification writer. Jo Ellen has worked with a wide variety of small businesses from engineering & architecture, interior design, accounting & business consulting, golf course development, social services organizations, property management, retail, agriculture, consulting services and the non-profit sector. She especially appreciates the opportunities she has had to work closely with and learn from Accountants and other financial services professionals as she is a hands-on learner and loves to dive into a challenge. Having a wide variety of interests, a keen desire to learn, and strong organizational skills, she enjoys tackling a business’s needs and streamlining their bookkeeping systems to be most useful.
Jo Ellen also has a strong interest in the design, construction and preservation of buildings. She has volunteered for many years working with the Regional Building Committee/Local Design Construction of Jehovah’s Witnesses constructing and remodeling Kingdom Halls around Maine and New Hampshire. The timber frame home she grew up in was built in the late 1700’s, originally part of a large dairy farm. Her family has worked on preserving and maintaining the home and farm buildings since before her birth and is something she still is very much engaged in. After living in the Portland area for a few years she and her husband decided to move back closer to their families in Winthrop. Jo Ellen designed a timber frame home that they built on a portion of her parents’ farmland. They undertook much of the construction themselves, learning from their family members with experience in the construction industry, as Contractors and Engineers. The construction of their home has many fond memories as a family project with help from several family members and friends.
Jo Ellen has traveled to 27 states in the US, Canada and Colombia. She loves to explore and see the variety of natural beauty found in different areas. Maine is most dear to her, but Montana and Wyoming are strong runner ups.
Jo Ellen and her husband are animal lovers and share their timber frame home with their pups and cats. They greatly enjoy mentoring young people and love to share their home with them as a second home. Sharing their home as a gathering place for friends and family to play and relax also brings them great joy. They enjoy designing and building furniture with milled wood from their land. They have a strong love for the outdoors and enjoy gardening, making and maintaining trails on their family land, exploring, and hiking and camping with their pups, Barkli & Brewski.