Gloria Bruce lives in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom where she works as the executive director of the Northeast Kingdom Travel & Tourism Association. Additionally, she serves as a Board Director for the Northeastern Vermont Development Association, the NEK Collaborative and the Incubator Without Walls program. Her career focus has found her engaged in resort and hotel management, marketing, tour operation, destination development and community economic development. Her primary focus in recent years has been to employ tourism to the benefit of the region by assisting in the development, marketing, and execution of experiential tourism products which both honor and sustain that which the residents of the Northeast Kingdom value most about their home. This approach has resulted in enhanced communications and development between the tourism, arts, agricultural and educational communities to name just a few. When she is not engaged in her work efforts she enjoys spending time at home with her husband, daughter, dogs, horses, cats and fish.

"We have to be deliberate and strategic in our approach as a state, as a region, as individual communities and as individuals to explore how each economic sector might benefit the other." The time for working in isolation has come to pass. We have to make time to connect our resources, missions and efforts to the benefit of all Vermonters. This includes the creation of deeper connections within tourism, the arts, agriculture, education, community development and more."

David Carris lives in Marshfield and is a Senior Financial Advisor and Vice-President with a national financial services firm. His professional career has spanned the arts, community, and economic development.

In the 1980’s he worked with historic preservation organizations in Vermont, Philadelphia, and Connecticut. He returned to Vermont in the late-80’s to develop community design and planning programs as a Council staff member and also taught in UVM’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. At the VAC he founded the Vermont Design Institute, directed the initial Art in State Buildings projects, and worked to help start the Vermont Crafts Council. He has been either on the board of or employed by nonprofit community organizations since high-school. He holds a B.A. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. in Historic Preservation from the University of Vermont.

“This is an exciting time to be a VAC Trustee. The Council is uniquely positioned to help grow the bonds between artists and the places where they live and practice, between teachers and students, between visitors and residents, and between neighbors. Arts are unmistakably economic drivers as well as a deeper ingredient in thriving communities.”

Ed Clark is an art dealer and appraiser and President of Look North, an Inuit art gallery dealing in sculpture, painting, prints, and photographs, with locations in Guildhall, VT and New York City. He is a graduate of Ruskin College at Oxford University in England, the former chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts College of Art and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Frost Place in Franconia, NH. He is an accomplished fine arts photographer and co-founder of Collective Vision, a Boston-based photography collective. Mr. Clark has worked and lived in both the United States and Europe and brings diverse managerial level experience in the arts, banking, government, and labor relations to the Council.

He now lives full time in Guildhall, VT with his partner, Laura Wilson. His pastimes include hiking, raising and training Belgian Sheepdogs and dog sledding in the eastern Canadian Arctic.

“Art is a necessity almost as old as humankind and is an indispensable means of uniting the individual with society. State involvement in and patronage of the arts is nearly as old. The work of the Vermont Arts Council is crucial to the enrichment of all Vermonters.”

James Clubb is a partner with a large professional services firm working primarily with global wealth managers.  He grew up in rural Colorado and has since lived in three countries outside the United States (Luxembourg, Switzerland and the United Kingdom).   Additionally, for the past ten years he has traveled on a regular basis to over 20 countries giving him the opportunity to develop a wider appreciation of the diversity of art and artistic pursuits.   Jim's interests include both the visual and performing arts.   He also has a keen interest in architecture and historic preservation. Jim holds degrees from the University of Denver and the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London).

"I am very interested in the role of art in the community beyond the economic impact and the way it helps to define our state.   This includes the objects, designs and performances that enrich our lives on a daily basis.    It also includes the diversity of perspective that artists bring as residents of our communities."

Ann DeMarle is an associate professor and director of the Emergent Media Center (EMC) at Champlain College. In 2010 she founded and now directs the MFA in Emergent Media. Founder of the Game Development and the Multimedia and Graphic Design degrees, she launched the EMC upon the receipt of the Perry Endowed Chair, supporting innovation, change, and entrepreneurship.  Completed projects include: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Games for Health grant, Massachusetts General’s Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology Emergency Response training simulation, student partnership with America’s Army, and an IBM virtual world project. Her current project is BREAKAWAY; an episodic, global game sponsored by the United Nations with the goal of eliminating violent behavior against women.

In 2009 DeMarle was appointed as a National Endowment for the Arts review panelist for “Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth: Media Arts”. She was also was elected to the prestigious IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors becoming a Golden Core Member. In 2008 she received an IBM Faculty Award. In 2004, DeMarle was recognized as an Apple Computer Distinguished Educator. She is the founding director of the Governor's Institute of Vermont in Information Technology for outstanding high school students. She trained Vermont teachers on integrating art and technology as an instructor and mentor for the WEB Project and as an organizer of Champlain College/VITA-Learn Dynamic Landscapes program.

DeMarle holds a BFA from State University of New York at New Paltz and an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology. Before entering academia she had a long career in computer graphics that included creating media for corporations such as Eastman Kodak, Lotus, AT&T, Lockheed Martin, and IBM Research.

"In the past 30 years, my career has mimicked the evolving nature of art production–from working as an oil painter and potter, to freelancing as a computer graphics artist working with internationally, to teaching at Champlain College and working with creative students and partners to create a free-to-play electronic, global game for the United Nations to end violence against women and girls. All of this from the hills of the beautiful state I call my home – Vermont.

My opportunities as an artist have been due to the broad reach of the technology. From a studio or stage in Vermont, it is now possible for local arts to be shared internationally, artists to reach new markets, creatives to embrace new forms of expression, and conversations on art to reach broader audiences. However at the same time these technologies are challenging our ideas of authorship and creative expression, and radically altering the roles of long-standing organizations, institutions, and businesses. I believe that as a premier leader in the Vermont artspace, the Vermont Arts Council should embrace this shifting landscape to promote Vermont’s vibrant Creative Economy and showcase its unique artistic spirit. To do so thoughtful dialogue with local communities, future-forward strategic plans, and powerful partnerships are a must.  As a member of the Arts Council, I would look forward to this work, believing it would “open the door” to Vermont arts; positioning the state as a mecca for art audiences and growing economic opportunities for our art communities."

Irwin Gelber is a resident of West Barnet.  He served as the Executive Director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum from 2006 to 2010.  From 1999 to 2006 he was an Adjunct Professor at Lyndon State College teaching a core curriculum course entitled “Experiencing the Arts”. He served as a Trustee for The Vermont Arts Council, Montpelier, VT from 2000 to 2006, and served as the Council’s Chair from 2003 to 2005.  He also served on the board of The New England Foundation for The Arts, Boston, MA and the Paul Pantano Scholarship Fund, Boston, MA.

From 1987-2000, he was a member of the piano and chamber music faculties at The Boston Conservatory where he also served as Director of Special Programs; an administrative umbrella embracing applied education, community outreach, public presentations and summer institutes.  From 1984-87 he was at Newbury College in Brookline, MA as Director and Faculty Chairman of the Culinary Arts department. While at Newbury College, he hosted a radio talk show called “The Restaurant Show”, broadcasting twice weekly from station WTTP in Natick, MA.

Educated at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City where he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees, Irwin Gelber attended the Akademie fur Musik in Vienna, Austria, as a Fulbright Scholar. His career in the performing arts as a performer and teacher spans more than four decades and includes solo and chamber music recitals throughout the United States and Europe.

His piano works for children have been published by Henri Elkan, Philadelphia and Carl Fischer, New York and he has authored three books on international cuisine published by Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.

“I was first asked to serve on the Vermont Arts Council’s Board of Trustees more than a decade ago. It proved to be one of the most rewarding experiences in my long career as an advocate for the Arts.

For many years, as a performing artist and educator, I sat on the opposite side of the table as a potential recipient of public arts grants. I never realized that, for the funding organizations, there are monumental difficulties in delivering support in a fair and meaningful manner. The Vermont Arts Council has painstakingly developed ways to equitably disperse its limited funds over an extremely broad range of services to the community. Its efforts might very well serve as a model for other community service organizations.

In the four years since my first term as a trustee and Board Chair I have had the honor to serve as Executive Director of one of Vermont’s most distinguished institutions, the Athenaeum in St. Johnsbury. And, once again, I moved to the other side of the table. If elected, I believe this recent experience will be helpful in furthering the work of the Arts Council as it confronts the formidable challenges presented today.

My previous involvement with the Vermont Arts Council was a privilege, and I look forward to continuing the work with my fellow trustees and members of the Council."

Elisabeth W. Gordon is currently the Arts Program Coordinator at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, a position she has held for nine years. As coordinator, she curates the Medical Center’s permanent collection of art, organizes rotating art exhibitions, manages the live performance schedule, oversees the Creative Arts Program and advises the institution on matters of aesthetics. Prior to coming to DHMC, Gordon worked at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College in a variety of roles—as the Exhibitions Assistant, an educator and an educational program coordinator. She is currently enrolled in a Certificate Program for Arts Administration at Boston University’s Metropolitan College.

She has served on the board of the Upper Valley Arts Alliance and is currently a Montshire Corporation member. Her professional affiliations include The Society for the Arts in Healthcare, the AVA Gallery and Arts Center, The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing and has published short stories in The Chaffin Journal and The Nassau Review. Gordon lives in Hartford, VT and has two children—Catherine, 20 and Connor, 17.

Carlos Haase

Over the last few years, Carlos Haase has worked for various non-profits in Vermont, going from Goddard College’s Community Radio Station, Focus on Film’s Green Mountain Film Festival, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, to most recently, the South End Arts and Business Association (SEABA), best known for organizing the South End Art Hop in Burlington.

Born in Mexico City, he came to Vermont to pursue a BA at Goddard College.  By the time he had graduated in 1999, he had deeply grown to cherish and embrace the collective Vermont culture in which social capital and quality of life take top priority.  This world view has translated into policies that support our relatively speaking, clean environment, safe communities, and of course, vibrant arts and cultural activities. 

Through his jobs as the Managing Director of the Green Mountain Film Festival, and later as SEABA’s Executive Director, Carlos has been fortunate enough to directly participate in art and economic activities lately referred as the “creative economy.”  Consequently, he has been able to learn about the successes and challenges that each of these organizations, their constituents and their host communities face when trying to implement these new models, which ultimately contribute to the bottom line of our Vermont social capital and quality of life.

"Mexico City will always hold an important place in my life.  For that reason I enjoy visiting family and traveling throughout Mexico as much as I can.   Every time I return to Vermont however, I also feel proud and lucky to live here and despite the cold winters, I remain excited about the many opportunities that we have for continuing to make of Vermont the place in which we all love to live and work."
 

Stephanie Jerome

Stephanie is the co-owner of the Visual Learning Company with her Husband Brian Jerome.  Visual Learning Company is the producers and distributors of science programming for students in grades 3-14.  Visual Learning is unique in that it is a total production company: writing scripts, filming original footage, producing animations, employing its own salesforce and shipping its products – all from its Vermont headquarters.  It employs a staff of nine talented people to accomplish the tasks at hand.  The company has specialized in the production of high-quality, core-curricular, and visually appealing science videos since it first production in 2000.  Each video is accomplished by an extensive teacher’s guide, which saves the classroom teacher countless hours of prep time by providing assessments, lab activities and cross-curricular activities.  The programs are sold throughout the United States to individual schools, media centers, educational consortia, television stations, and to state departments of education.  In addition, there is a growing interest in Visual Learning’s core-curricular programs in Europe, Latin America and Asia. 
   
The visual Learning Company is proud of its ability to stay at the forefront of educational visual media.  Its first productions were in VHS and then progressed to DVD, and all broadcast formats.  Now, all productions are available in H.264 and WMV, and in formats compatible with viewing on iPods and other hand-helds.  In addition, middle schools videos are available in Spanish language narration, and all programs are closed captions or subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing.  All teacher’s guides are available in .pdf, as well as hard copy.  The website www.visuallearningco.com details the earth, life, physical science, health, biology and integrated science programs that have been produced, as well as provides clips of the videos, sample teacher’s guides and journal reviews. 

Stephanie lives and works in Brandon, Vermont a small town of 4,000 people nestled in the foothills of the Green Mountains.  Here, she and her husband, Brian Jerome, have raised their children, ages 15, 13, and 10.  Their science programs are used in the local elementary, middle and high school, which their children attend.  They are incredibly busy keeping up with their children’s academic, musical and sports activities.  In addition, they are active in the local Nordic ski community and teach 40 children to cross-country ski each Saturday, having started the local Bill Koch league three years ago.  Each summer, they take an extensive filming trip with their children, and also travel and film throughout the year.
   
In Brandon, Stephanie and Brian have totally renovated an 11,000 square foot “Granary” into 14 working artist studio spaces.  This circa 1900 building had been used as a grain mill, long underwear factory, and woodworking manufacturer during its long life.  This ongoing renovation currently house the Brandon Arts Guild’s off-site salon space, as well as jewelers, weavers, painters, sculptors, photographers, fabric artists, and poets.  “The Granary” has become a hub of the local arts community.   

Statement: "I am looking forward to the opportunity to serve on the board of the Vermont Arts Council.  As an active member of the Brandon business, arts and education community, it would be my pleasure to serve on a boader statewide level.  Over the past ten years, I have witnessed the economic benefits. civic pride and townwide enthusiasm that the arts can bring to a small rural community."

Sarah Wendell Launderville has worked in the disability rights movement since 1997, and has a psychiatric disability. She is the Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living. She has a MS from Springfield College in Human Services, Organizational Management and Leadership. She serves as the President of the Disability Rights Vermont board of directors, is the co-founder and co-chair of the National Council on Independent Living’s Women’s Caucus. She is a member of the Vermont Statewide Independent Living Council, Vermont Coalition of Disability Rights, the Vermont Statewide Rehab Council, and ADAPT. She has three young children and spends her free time wiping paint off surfaces her creative young children paint and draw on.

“Seeing others express their creativity through the arts gives me a warm feeling of pride and sense of community. The Vermont Arts Council plays a vital role in making sure everyone has access, and can witness the imagination and talent of others, that gives inspiration to find the creativity within oneself.”

 Barbara Morrow has had a rich, lesson-filled career as an administrator in many kinds of nonprofits, including hospitals, higher education, and economic development. She is a former commissioner with the Vermont Commission on Women, an organization she continues to champion. Barbara is currently the development officer for Sterling College, where her values for environmental stewardship, education, and philanthropy converge nicely. While not an artist (although she comes from a long-line of writers and can spew out a few cogent sentences herself sometimes), she understands the power of the arts for Vermont’s economy, families and individuals, and disenfranchised populations. Barbara has a Master’s degree in Education, and has taken a turn or two at teaching on the college level in addition to having a small consulting practice, Equilibrium.

“Beyond their intrinsic value, I respect the arts for the voices they strengthen and the transformation they inspire. (I adore “outsider” art!) A life or a healthy society is not possible without them. From a practical perspective, participation in the arts challenges and sharpens so many parts of our brain, our thinking ability. They are essential to us as fully functioning humans dealing with complex social, economic, scientific and interpersonal issues.”
 

Gayle Ottmann is a Vermonter, born in the Northeast Kingdom.  After high school, she attended Boston University and Hesser Business College. She has been Executive Director of the Quechee Chamber of Commerce for 19 years; completing 11 years on the Hartford Board of Selectmen; served five years on the Hartford Zoning Board as Chair; Hartford Development Corporation Board, CCV Citizens Advisory Board.  She also serves on the Upper Valley Food & Farm Steering and Outreach Committee, the Connecticut Rivers Joint Commission as a Vermont Commissioner and Connecticut River Scenic Byway Steering and Marketing  Committees, and sits on the newly-organized Upper Valley Regional VSO Advisory Board. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Upper Valley Arts Alliance (an organization that came out of the Creative Economy Initiative

She is a 2000 graduate of the Snelling Leadership Institute; I received the Vermont Travel Person of the Year Award in 2005 as well as the Rotary Club’s Citizen of the Year Award in 2006 and 2008.

She likes to spend her “down time” in the garden, entertaining, being a grandmother, reading, golfing, walking, enjoying performing arts and all forms of music.

“The most exciting economic development to come to Vermont in many years is the creative economy initiative.  Its diversity covers the widest range of entrepreneurship and is bringing, for the first, an awareness to the general public of the value of Art in all its forms.  Vermont is the perfect setting for the Artist – whether on its mountain tops or valleys, its small villages or urban communities, its farms or historic sites, its galleries or its classrooms.  Art creates a sense of place for this generation and those to come.”

GERALD W. "GARY" REIS of St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Republican, born in Brooklyn, NY, on October 4, 1935 moved to St. Johnsbury in 1976 to work for EHV-Weidmann Industries In 1999, he became Director of the local Welfare-to- Work program. Retired since 2003, Gary received his education in the New York area and his B.S.in Industrial Management from Adelphi University on Long Island in 1964. He has two sons; a daughter, five grandchildren and a Black Lab. Gary’s past and present memberships have included St. Johnsbury Select board (vice chairman) and Planning Commission, St. Johnsbury Kiwanis Club (past President) Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce ( past President), Northeast Kingdom Youth Services (past President) Lyndon State College Foundation (past Treasurer), Town, County, and State Republican Committees and the St. Johnsbury Development Fund. Religious preference: Catholic. Member of the House: 2009-2010. Home phone: 748 8132, E-mail: greis2kingcon.com. Post Office Address: 1640B Main Street, St. Johnsbury, VT 05819-1851.

"God is a showoff! First He creats all this beauty around us, then He endows people with special talents to interpret His beauty. It will be a privelege to do whatever I can to help the Vermont Arts Council make all forms of the arts available to all Vermonters, and to promote the creative economy."

Gerianne Smart is owner/president of Smart Communication, Inc. which is an advertising sales and marketing firm located in the greater Vergennes Area. Her main client is Vermont Life magazine where she serves as the publication's director of advertising. Her firm also represents Middlebury College's alumni magazine and they also provide marketing, PR and advertising services to a variety of clients throughout Vermont. Gerianne was the President of the Vergennes Opera House during the theater's most intensive restoration phase (1994 through 2000) and is pleased that today the theaters has an executive director and plays host to a myriad of performances both local and national as well as serve as a venue for weddings and special occasions. Gerianne is also producing a full length feature film, "The Summer of Walter Hacks" with George Woodard of Waterbury (the film's director). The duo plan to release the film to the film festival circuit this summer.

"I believe the arts, in all its forms, touches people's lives in a non discriminating way and in a way that can resonate for a lifetime. I am delighted to be part of an organization that supports and nurtures the arts and encourages creativity to be a part of our every day lives. In Vermont, true wealth lives in the heart of the artist."

Steve Swayne teaches courses in art music from 1700 to the present day, opera, American musical theater, Russian music, and American music. He has received fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His articles have appeared in The Sondheim Review, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, American Music, Studies in Musical Theatre, the Indiana Theory Review, and The Musical Quarterly. He has contributed to commentaries on Sondheim developed by the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., and the Chicago Lyric Opera. His first book, How Sondheim Found His Sound, was published in 2005, and he is currently at work on a study of the life, times, and music of William Schuman. He is an accomplished concert pianist, with four nationally distributed recordings currently in release and a performance with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas to his credit. In addition to his work at Dartmouth, he has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at UC Berkeley.

"My days as a composer and concert pianist appear to be mostly in the past, but I remain keenly interested in the roles that performing artists play in the life of their communities. I look forward in expressing that interest as I serve on the Vermont Arts Council."

The arts have been a core component of Caro Thompson’s life since childhood. Taking piano lessons, singing in choirs, acting in plays and studying dance in college established her lifelong joy in the performing arts.  A degree in Art History from the University of Rochester, New York, added a deep respect and appreciation for the visual arts. Special studies there in dance film and video led to her career in video production and communications.

Since her move to Vermont in 1988, Caro has captured the spirit, history and rural activities of Vermont and New England as an independent television producer and documentary filmmaker. In Days Gone By and Barns: Legacy of Wood & Stone received Boston/New England Emmy nominations.  Other programs include New England’s Great River: Discovering the Connecticut, Noble Hearts: Civil War Vermont, and the Rural Free Delivery series. Her most recent documentary, Champlain: The Lake Between, garnered a 2009 Boston/New England Emmy award for historical/cultural documentary and that year the Vermont Historical Society honored her with its Richard O. Hathaway Award for research on Vermont.

Through her company, Broadwing Productions, Caro also does communications consulting on media relations, web content and promotional videos.

"In my perfect world, everyone would be encouraged to sing, dance, draw, and write without judgment. People would participate in art on a regular basis… not just look at it or listen to it.  Art and life would be intertwined, bringing joy and satisfaction and contemplation into living rooms large and small.  With this broad foundation of shared experience, individuals who choose the rocky path of Art as a way of making a living would find the support they need abundantly near at hand."

For the past 20 years, Greg has provided a place for hundreds of craftspeople and artists to show and sell their works. He and his wife, Susan, own and operate Vermont Artisan Designs & Gallery 2 on Brattleboro’s Main Street. Additionally, Greg has been active in community affairs. He recently stepped down from the Brattleboro Selectboard after serving for 12 years, two as chair.

Greg was a founding member of Brattleboro’s Gallery Walk, a monthly celebration of the arts which has grown to include more than 50 venues that feature art-related openings around town on the first Friday of each month. He also helped found Building a Better Brattleboro and the Creative Communities Council of Windham County, organizations that have helped stimulate the town’s economic and aesthetic activities. He has been an active member of the Vermont Crafts Council, the Vermont State Craft Center Overview Commission and CRAFT (Craft Retailers Association for Tomorrow), organizations promoting American-made craft and artistry.

Before owning Vermont Artisan Designs & Gallery 2, Greg worked as reporter, photographer and assistant managing editor of the Brattleboro Reformer. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, the Defense Information School and the University of Vermont’s Snelling Leadership Institute. He enjoys photography, reading, motorcycling and finding art.

“Throughout my years in our state, it is increasingly apparent that Vermont has a special attraction for artists and thinkers. To be part of a Vermont Arts Council which brings these people together with those who appreciate their talents would be my goal."