Vermont Public Radio has elected four new members to its Board of Directors to serve three-year terms in FY2020.
“We’re excited to welcome these four new members to VPR’s board,” said Charlie Browne, chair of VPR’s Board of Directors. “They represent all parts of our state and bring a diverse set of experience and expertise that will strengthen VPR as an organization.”
Molly Lambert, Swanton
Molly Lambert is a principal at Lambert Mediation and Consulting. She previously served as Director of the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, President of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association and State Director of USDA Rural Development for Vermont and New Hampshire. Following her full-time career, she became interim Executive Director of the United Way of Northwest Vermont and also filled a similar role at Building Bright Futures, a statewide organization dedicated to improving the lives of Vermont children and families. In 2018, the Vermont Council on Rural Development presented its Community Leadership Lifetime Achievement Award to Molly and her husband, Hank.
Robert Allen, Dorset
Bob Allen was a senior executive of the Vermont Country Store for 25 years, and named President and CEO of the company in 1994. During his time at the company, it dramatically expanded, with the number of employees growing from 50 to more than 600. After retiring from Vermont Country Store in 2005, Allen worked as a business consultant and interim president of the Direct Marketing Association in New York City before joining the Windham Foundation. From 1995 to 2007, Allen served on the board of Champlain College, which he chaired from 2005 to 2007. He headed the search committee that brought former College President David Finney to Champlain in 2005, and was the co-chair of the College Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. Allen was selected as president of Green Mountain College in 2016 until its closure in Spring 2019.
Orly Munzing, East Dummerston
Orly is the founderand Executive Director of Strolling of the Heifers in Brattleboro. Previously, she served as a learning specialist with the Windham Central Supervisory Union for 24 years and ran a private consulting business, training teachers in cutting-edge educational techniques. Drawing on this background, she gathered a group of volunteers in 2001 to help focus attention on the difficulties of small family farms in the Brattleboro region. Under Orly’s leadership they organized the first annual Strolling of the Heifers in 2002. Since then, “the Stroll” has expanded to a full weekend which is annually rated one of Vermont’s Top Ten Summer Events (and was rated one of North America’s Top 100 Events in 2014). The Stroll is more than a parade! It has great success in encouraging and facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship in the farm/food sector, and supporting the development of stronger local food systems and resilient communities.
Lane Fury, Barre
Lane is a Loan & Outreach Officer with the Cooperative Fund of New England, supporting worker- and consumer-owned cooperative businesses in Vermont and New Hampshire to access flexible financing and technical assistance. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Lane graduated from the University of Washington in 2012 with degrees in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies and American Ethnic Studies. Lane is a member leader with Resource Generation, working as a young person with class privilege for the equitable distribution of wealth, land and power, and sits on the steering committee of the Vermont Freedom Bail Fund. In addition to regenerative economics, Lane loves reading intersectional feminist speculative fiction, following insects through the woods of Vermont, and knitting past their bedtime.
The Vermont Public Radio Board of Directors is the entity legally responsible for the governance of VPR as a nonprofit corporation. It also holds the FCC broadcast licenses for the radio stations operating as VPR.
Board members are selected for their commitment to the mission and goals of VPR, and for their expertise in various fields. The individual directors serve as volunteers, and they meet in formal session each year at various locations around the region.
