Coffee By Design Owner Honored for Farming Ties in 8 Countries
The council also gave its new Citizen Diplomat Award for the first time to Khaled Habash, whose Scenic Route Tours guides visiting global leaders.
The World Affairs Council of Maine gave out its 2026 awards at a Portland gathering marking the nonprofit's 49th year, recognizing two Maine business owners for work linking the state internationally. Mary Allen Lindemann, who has run Coffee By Design for more than three decades, won the council's Bea Chapman Minott Award, presented since 1994, for building the Portland coffee company's buying relationships with farmer cooperatives in eight countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia. The council also created a new prize, the Citizen Diplomat Award, and gave it for the first time to Khaled Habash, whose company, The Scenic Route Tours, has driven and guided groups of visiting international leaders through Maine for several years. Council executive director Allison Hodgkins said the honorees showed that "Maine is a small place with a wide welcome mat and an outsized impact on the world." Global Ties U.S. president Katherine Brown also addressed the gathering. The Portland-based council, founded in 1977, partners with the U.S. State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program and says it connected Mainers with visiting leaders from more than 40 countries over the past year.
This story was first reported by Bangor Daily News.
