Peggy Schaffer

Executive Director
ConnectME Authority

Peggy Schaffer is the executive director of the ConnectME Authority, Maine’s program to expand broadband to unserved areas of the state. She performs the normal duties of a director, including budgets, grant processes and public outreach. But also critical to Maine’s program, is the understanding of the continually changing landscape of broadband and creating strategies to meet those challenges. State programs are a continuous process-improvement effort. This past year, Schaffer has led ConnectME in developing a verification and validation process for infrastructure grants, a broadband intelligence platform, and a structure to support communities in the development of Broadband Utility Districts.

Prior to joining ConnectME, Schaffer was the small business advocate in the secretary of state’s office and served as the co-chair for the Maine Broadband Coalition. Using her 20 years of political work from serving as the lobbyist for the Department of Economic and Community Development to chief of staff in the Maine State Senate, she brings an understanding that this work requires multiple strategies to be successful, including a good sense of humor.