Our Story

Donnie & Lee Thibodeau grew up in Aroostook County, the northernmost county in Maine and home to the state’s staple crop – the potato. Their father, Larry “Tib” Thibodeau, was a legend in farming circles and founded Maine Farmer’s Exchange, which at one time was one of the nation’s largest potato sales offices and commodity traders. Early on, Tib and his wife Audrey instilled in their children a respect and passion for Maine farming and its heritage.

After working for the Maine Farmer’s Exchange in Presque Isle, Donnie moved to Fryeburg on the southwestern border of Maine in the 1970s. There, he and his wife Brenda purchased Green Thumb Farms, taking the business from a struggling farm to one of the largest suppliers of tablestock potatoes in New England. Their farm now supplies potatoes to major supermarket chains, institutional wholesale distributors, and processors across the Northeast. Donnie is Vice-Chairman of Maine Distilleries.

Since 1988, Lee has been practicing neurosurgery in Maine. In addition to his duties as a surgeon, Lee is the Chairman of the Board of Maine Distilleries and is active in several start-up biotech ventures.

Bob Harkins is a native Mainer who brings his business experience to Maine Distilleries and Cold River Vodka. He attended the University of Maine at Orono, where he and Lee were fraternity brothers. After college, Bob decided to pursue skiing as a career and eventually became a coach for the US Ski Team. After living and training for several years in Park City, Utah, he returned to Maine in the late 1980s to take a senior management position at Sunday River Resort and the American Skiing Company. He remained there for 15 years until he decided to partner with the Thibodeau brothers to launch Maine’s first super-premium vodka.

Chris Dowe grew up working the tobacco fields of Windsor, Connecticut before moving to Maine in 1986 to marry his wife Jean, the daughter of northern Maine potato farmer Victor St. Pierre. A career as a brewery consultant grew from his hobby of home-brewing beer, working for some of the most prominent brewers in the state. He has studied the art of brewing here in the United States as well as at Durham University in Durham, England. For the past decade, Chris’ business designing and building breweries has kept him busy traveling back and forth across the country, and he now looks forward to concentrating his energies at home in Maine.