Nicole was born and raised in the scenic town of Fort Kent, Maine where her family ran (and continues to run) the local hardware store.
She attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine where she graduated with honors in 2003 with a major in geology and a secondary concentration in French.
She continued her education at the University of Maine Fort Kent where she majored in Secondary Education and French, graduating with honors in 2005. While attending UMFK, Nicole worked for Le Club Français to organize a regional French library and the Québec-Labrador Foundation gathering information for the Voici The Valley Cultureway.
Upon graduation, Nicole moved to Vinalhaven, a beautiful Maine island where she worked in partnership withProject CO-SEED and the Island Institute on hands-on, place-based education projects with Vinalhaven School. It is during this time that Nicole found an interest and aptitude in helping teachers and students understand technology and began experimenting with social networking on her own personal blog.
After two years on ‘the rock’, Nicole moved to Ellsworth in the fall of 2007 to work for The Ellsworth Americanand Mount Desert Islander newspapers on their website. She not only learned about the technical workings of websites, but also recruited bloggers, created podcasts and photo galleries, edited video, designed internet ads, sold website advertising, used social media to promote content, and wrote news stories.
Nicole began the Breaking Even blog in October 2007, which became a daily blog in January 2008. It was around that time that a local business woman asked Nicole for help with her blog, and Breaking Even Communications was born. The internet marketing and web content creation company grew and Nicole was able to take the business full time in May 2009.
Nicole currently lives in downtown Bar Harbor with her Corgi mix, Gidget.
Let’s Be Online Friends