About Us
"WE HELP BUILD LOCAL, SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY AND COMMUNITY IN NEW ENGLAND-- WORKING ALONGSIDE FARMS AND BUSINESSES AIDING DISTRIBUTION, INFRASTRUCTURE, COOPERATIVES AND MORE."
Nancy Heselton
Founder
Nancy is an artist, beekeeper, backyard biodynamic gardener (vegetables, herbs, chickens, fruit, flowers), a founder of a school gardening program, and a member of the Board of Directors of Gaining Ground in Concord, Massachusetts.
Gaining Ground grows organic produce for hunger relief with help from volunteers of all ages and abilities ("In short, we grow food and we give it away to people who need it. For free.") Nancy has studied Biodynamic Agriculture at the Pfeiffer Center, and the beekeeping techniques of Gunther Hauk of Spikenard Farm. In addition to her artistic and agriculture activities, Nancy has raised three wonderful children, and worked as a certified massage therapist, a commercial potter, a bookseller, a children's gardening instructor and much else. From a family that has lived in Maine for generations, Nancy inspired the formation of Whaleback Partners with our first investment, which helped launch Maine's Own Organic Milk Company (MOO Milk), a venture that illustrates the promise and the challenge of this work.
Jeff Clements
Founder
Jeff is an attorney, author, investor and experienced executive. In addition to managing Whaleback Partners, Jeff is president and CEO of American Promise, a national organization connecting and empowering Americans working to win the 28th Amendment to the Constitution so that people, not money, govern. He is the author of Corporations Are Not People: Reclaiming Democracy From Big Money & Global Corporations.
Jeff has served as Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Public Protection & Advocacy Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. As Bureau Chief, he led more than 100 attorneys and staff in law enforcement and litigation in the areas of civil rights, environmental protection, healthcare, insurance and financial services, antitrust and consumer protection. Jeff also served as an Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts from 1996 to 2000, where he worked on litigation against the tobacco industry and handled a wide range of other investigations and litigation to enforce unfair trade practice, consumer protection and antitrust laws.
In private practice, Jeff began his legal career in Portland. Maine, and has been a partner at a large Boston law firm and in his own firm. Jeff has helped start up and been a board member of several dynamic non-profit organizations. Today, in addition to the board of American Promise, Jeff serves on the Vestry of Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord, Massachusetts. He has participated in Slow Money, Investors Circle and the Patient Capital Collaborative for many years.