Snelling Center for Government

Vermont Leadership Institute designers ascribe to the belief that the wisdom and knowledge needed to explore or address even the most complicated issue facing Vermont can be found among the Associates in any given class. Our goal is to create and support a learning environment and curriculum that is extraordinarily conducive to exploration, learning and growth.

Toward that end, we work with a number of core faculty, gifted at defining and engaging Associates in a specific concept, theory or tool. Most are Vermonters and many are program alumni themselves.

Vermont Leadership Institute Core Faculty

John Campbell
John is the Executive Director of the Vermont Ethics Network. He has over twenty years of experience and leadership in managing non-profit organizations. He was the Executive Director of the Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging for ten years and was Executive Director of a Massachusetts Home Care Corporation. As an active member of VEN since 1986, John has served as the Rutland County Coordinator for the organization, as a community discussion facilitator, and as a founding member of the Rutland Area Bioethics Committee. Since 1989, he has taught courses on bioethics at the Community College of Vermont. John is a graduate of Yale University and lives in North Chittenden with his wife.


Doug Dows (VLI '05)
Doug was born in Schenectady, N.Y., the second of five children. His father was an engineer with General Electric and, before he started school, the family was transferred to suburban Philadelphia. In his early years, Doug struggled with school. While Math and Science were his best subjects, Language Arts was a constant challenge. With considerable help from his mother, he was able to graduate from high school. College was a different story. Perhaps because he was out from under the shadow of his genius older brother, Doug excelled at Lock Haven State College. Having participated in athletics all his life, he pursued a degree in Health and Physical Education. He was even elected Treasurer and President of the student government organization. This led to a position as a lobbyist for students in Harrisburg, PA. From there Doug moved on to Vermont to pursue a graduate degree at UVM. After receiving his M.Ed., his first job was with the Vermont State Association of Youth Service Bureaus. While in this position, he was appointed by Governor Richard Snelling to the Juvenile Justice Advisory Board. This would be the first of several gubernatorial appointments by four different governors. In 1979 he purchased a small farm in Panton, VT. To finance the mortgage, Doug worked as a farm laborer on Jim McBride’s farm and then taught Health and Physical Education at Vergennes Union High School. His daughter Jessica spent her formative years on the farm. Doug has served his town in many capacities, first as a representative to the waste management district, then as a member of the Select Board. He has also served as the Town Health Officer and Zoning Administrator. Doug has been a canoe trip leader for many summers and has competed in several marathons. Most recently, Doug has taken an interest in reading first person accounts of growing up in Vermont and books about Vermont history, culture and environment. Doug is also the Vice-President of the Queen City Pool League and a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute Class of 2005.

John Everitt (VSLP ’03)
John Everitt serves the Montpelier School District as Superintendent. He has worked as an elementary school teaching principal, high school math teacher, director of a program for children with emotional disturbances, computer consultant, special education teacher and administrator, elementary school principal, and assistant superintendent for curriculum and staff development. John was born and raised in Texas, did undergraduate work in Colorado, and received his Master's degree from the University of Vermont. He is also a 2003 graduate of The Snelling Center for Government Vermont School Leadership Program. He is the President-Elect of the Vermont Superintendents Association and on the boards of the Vermont Council for Quality, the Central Vermont Workforce Investment Board, the Snelling Center for Government, and the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust. John lives with his wife Sandra in Berlin, VT and has two sons and a daughter. He is currently doing his UVM doctoral research on Vermont policies for public funding of early education.

Steve Gold (VLI '03)
Steve Gold was very recently appointed Deputy Steve Gold was very recently appointed Deputy Secretary of Human Services after serving for one year as Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Administration. Prior to that, he was Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections for two years, and Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Employment and Training (DET) for four. As Welfare to Work Programs Director for the Vermont Department of Social Welfare, from
1993 – 1999, he was intensely involved with the design and implementation of Vermont’s welfare reform initiative. For the 20 years before his DSW work, Steve worked in the alcohol and other drug abuse field in Vermont. He is committed to the theory and practice of prevention in the public sector services. Steve is a graduate of Haverford College with a Bachelor of Arts and earned his Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Massachusetts. On the community level, he serves as a Board Member and President of the Turtle Island Children’s Center of Montpelier. Steve is a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute’s Class of 1996.

Bea Grause (VLI ’03)
Bea became president of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems in November 2001. Bea received her Juris Doctorate in May 1991 from Santa Clara University School of Law and her BSN from Boston College in 1979. Before moving to Vermont, Bea worked in a variety of health care positions in Washington, D.C. Bea worked as professional staff to former Congressman Norman Y. Mineta and then former Joseph P. Kennedy II. After leaving Capitol Hill, she spent the next five years as Senior Director for Federal Affairs for the Massachusetts Hospital Association and the Tennessee Hospital Association. After Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 she was recruited to the Washington office of the Boston-based law firm, Foley Hoag LLP, where her practice focused on Medicare legislative and regulatory issues.

Prior to entering the field of law, Bea worked for ten years as a Registered Nurse primarily in the Emergency Room and Intensive Care areas. Bea also served as President of a local independent nursing association for three years prior to entering law school. She lives in East Montpelier with her husband Mark and son Blaine. Her primary professional goals at VAHHS include: to strengthen Vermont's health care system, to increase and empower the nursing workforce and to help create a vision for health care reform in Vermont.

Cheryl Hanna
Professor Cheryl Hanna is an expert on constitutional law, the United States Supreme court, criminal law, and women and the law. Much of her scholarship focuses on social status of women and girls in America. She has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, as well as by the national media including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Glamor Magazine, and Fox News. At Vermont Law School, Professor Hanna has taught Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Evidence, Women and the Law, and a seminar on The Seven Deadly Sins. She is also active in training leaders throughout Vermont and elsewhere on ethics and decision-making.

Professor Hanna received her B.A. degree in sociology and anthropology, magna cum laude, from Kalamazoo College in 1988 and her J.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1992. Upon graduation, she served on the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and then as an assistant state’s attorney in Baltimore City before joining the Vermont Law School faculty in 1994. She has also been a visiting professor at the University of California-Hastings College of the Law.

Among her many accomplishments, Professor Hanna received the Irving R. Kaufman Fellowship in 1993 for young lawyers who hold significant promise in public interest lawyering. In 1998, she received the Vermont Women in Higher Education’s Margaret R. Williams Emerging Professional Award, and the Vermont Law School Student Bar Association Faculty Award the following year. In 2004, she received the first Phenomenal Woman Award given by the Vermont Women’s Law Group as well as an Honorary Schweitzer Fellowship for work with the Schweitzer Fellowship Program. In 2001–2002, she was a fellow at the Snelling Center for Government, Vermont Leadership Institute. Active in both the local and national legal communities, Professor Hanna has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section of Law and the Social Sciences, as an adviser to the Vermont Judicial College, and as a member of the Vermont Gender Bias Study Implementation Task Force. She has also served on the board of trustees of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and on the policy advisory committee of the Snelling Center for Government. She is a frequent legal analyst for WCAX-3 News, and her commentaries about law and its role in our everyday lives can be regularly heard on Vermont Public Radio.

J. Churchill Hindes, Ph.D.
Church is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Visiting Nurse Association of Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties as well as an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Administration at The University of Vermont's College of Medicine and the Masters of Public Administration Program. Previously, he served in senior management roles at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and was Chief Financial Officer for the University Health Center. He served as Commissioner of Budget and Management for the State of Vermont during Governor Snelling's third and fourth terms and Governor Kunin's first and second terms. He also served as Deputy Administration Secretary for Governor Kunin. Church is a graduate of Saint Michael's College and received his Masters and Ph.D. from The University of Iowa.

Steve Kappel (VLI ’07)
Steve Kappel has been involved in the development and evaluation of health policy for over twenty years. Currently, he is Associate Fiscal Officer for the Joint Fiscal Office, specializing in health care. JFO provides financial and policy analysis for the Vermont legislature. Previously, he has worked for the Vermont Department of Health, Vermont BlueCross BlueShield, the Vermont Health Care Authority, the Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration (BISHCA), and most recently, at the Vermont Program for Quality in Health Care, serving as Executive Director. Steve received his Masters in Public Administration from UVM in June of 2003. In his free time, he wanders around in the woods.

Tom Little (VLI '97)
Tom Little is the Vice President and General Counsel at the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation in Winooski, Vermont, and is a partner at Little, Cicchetti & Conard, P.C. in Burlington. He is a native Vermonter, born in Burlington and a resident of Shelburne since 1982. Tom received an A.B., magna cum loude, from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and his J.D. from Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York. He served as Law Clerk to Honorable Albert W. Coffrin, U. S. District Court Judge (Vermont). Tom was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1992 through 2002, with service on Committees on Fish & Wildlife, Ways & Means, Judiciary, Judicial Retention, Joint Fiscal, and interim study committees. He was the house floor manager during the Civil Unions legislation in 2000, and he is member of the Vermont Leadership Institute Class of 1998. Tom is currently a member of the University of Vermont Board of Trustees, The Snelling Center for Government Board of Directors, The Converse Home, and the Vermont Center for the Book. He is Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, and Chair of the Lawyers Caucus of the National Conference of Higher Education Loan Program. Tom has served on, and chaired, the Shelburne zoning board, was a member of the board of trustees for the Visiting Nurse Association, and has served on the boards of the Cathedral Square Housing Corp, the Ethan Allen Club, and the Commission on the Future of Vermont's Justice System. Tom is married to Susan M. Keelty of Shelburne and they have two daughters and one son.

Dick Mallary
Richard Mallary is a long time participant and observer of government and politics in Vermont. He came to Vermont at age 13 and received his education at high school in Bradford, Vermont and then at Dartmouth College. He started his political career as selectman in Fairlee in 1951 and went on to twelve years in the Vermont legislature including two terms as Speaker of the House. He served as Vermont’s lone representative in the U.S. House from 1972 – 1974, and served two governors as Vermont’s Secretary of Administration. Outside of government, he was a successful dairy farmer and Holstein breeder for his first 20 years after college and ended his career in the electric utility industry as president and C.E.O. of Vermont Electric Power Company. After many years as Chair, Dick currently serves on the Board of the Snelling Center for Government.

Meg O’Donnell (VLI ’01)
Meg, an attorney by profession, has lived and worked in Vermont since 1988, when she moved here from New York City to clerk for Justice Ernest W. Gibson III of the Vermont Supreme Court. She practiced law in Burlington for several years after her clerkship, leaving in late 1992 to become counsel to the newly-formed Vermont Health Care Authority. Meg spent the next seven years working for the Authority and its successor, the Division of Health Care Administration (part of the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration), helping to develop health policies and oversight programs. Meg currently serves as the Director of Government Relations for Fletcher Allen Health Care, a position she has held since September 2001. She was also named an Assistant General Counsel in 2002. In addition to her work at Fletcher Allen, Meg is an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences, where she co-teaches an undergraduate course on the U.S. health care system, and at the UVM Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, where she has been co-teaching a graduate-level course on health care policy since 2001. She also serves as a faculty member for The Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute program, with a focus on health care issues. Meg is also a graduate of the 2001 Class of the Vermont Leadership Institute.Meg earned a bachelor of arts degree from Oberlin College, a master of arts degree from Columbia University, and was graduated magna cum laude from New York Law School.

Sue McCormack (VLI ’05)

Susan McCormack recently joined the Snelling Center for Government staff as Director of Leadership Development. Sue has been on the Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute faculty since 1999 and is a graduate of the VLI class of 2005. Until recently, Sue was a Program Director for the Study Circles Resource Center, a national non-profit operating foundation. Sue continues to work as a Senior Associate with SCRC where she assists many kinds of people and communities around the country who are working to create and sustain public dialogue and problem solving. Prior to her work with the Study Circles Resource Center, Sue served a variety of public and private clients as a meeting facilitator, program developer, and researcher. During this time, she focused on framing policy issues for public discussion, and fostering constructive dialogue among citizens, policy makers and community leaders. From 1995 to 1997 she served as project director for the Vermont Commission on the Public's Health Care Values & Priorities. Sue holds a bachelors degree in English from Skidmore College. She lives in Essex Junction, Vermont, with her family.

Patricia Pedreira
Patricia received her BA in painting at Marlboro College and her MA from Lesley College in expressive arts therapy. She worked in several Boston area communities developing multi-disciplinary arts programs for at-risk youth, and in an art therapy program for families and for trauma survivors. Pedreira is Executive Director of the Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE), which she helped found in 1992 to provide arts education, performance, and exhibit opportunities throughout the community. Under her leadership VAE has been central not only in the expansion of arts opportunities throughout the community, but has also become known for its community development initiatives that place he arts at the center of economic development, historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization.

John Perry
John G. Perry has been the Director of Planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections for 25 years, and has worked in Corrections since 1978. Prior to this he was a guidance counselor and teacher in rural Vermont. He is the author of the Bureau of Justice Assistance Corrections Options grant to restructure corrections in Vermont, creating a set of sentencing options and integrating the concept of reparative justice, and is the author of “A Job and a Place to Live,” a $2.0 million grant from the Justice Department. He has written several articles and edited the book, Repairing Communities through Restorative Justice. The Vermont Reparative Probation Program was selected as a winner of the Ford Foundation’s 1998 Innovations in American Government award.

Matthew Perry
After graduating from Swain School of Design with a degree in Graphic Design, Perry established his own advertising studio with a focus on design and illustration. This work has appeared in several regional and national publications. Perry’s paintings and sculptures are inspired by his surroundings whether in Vermont or through his travels to Portugal, Brazil and Central America. These works have been exhibited in galleries throughout the Northeast and in England and Brazil where he has held residencies. In 1989, he created the cartoon strip “Cyrus & Ida”, which appears weekly in the Vermont News Guide. In 1994, artist Matthew Perry and his wife Patricia Pedreira, co-founded the Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE), a non-profit community arts organization, which brings the arts and art education to people of all ages, abilities and incomes. As artistic director, Perry oversees the year-round programs, performances and exhibitions as well as teaching classes in the visual arts for youth-at-risk, the elderly, and the general community. Along with his wife Patricia, son Maxwell, four cats, two dogs and a growing flock of chickens, they reside in a renovated brick factory along the Paran Creek in North Bennington, Vermont.

Raymond Proulx, EdD
Ray began his career in education as a teacher and coach at Vergennes High School and Barre-Town Elementary School. He then served the Orange-Washington Supervisory Union as Curriculum Coordinator, Assistant Superintendent, and Superintendent. He was also the Superintendent in two other districts, Barre Town and Essex Town, before moving to higher education as Associate Professor and now Professor of Education at The University of Vermont.

In 1996, he joined the Northeast Regional Lab at Brown University to broaden his work with educators throughout New England. Ray serves on a variety of local, state, and national boards, has presented dozens of professional development and school leadership team workshops, and teaches courses at The University of Vermont and St. Michael’s College. He conducts research on education policy analysis, development, and implementation, and is the author of several articles. Ray earned his BS at Johnson State College, his MA at St. Michael’s College, and his CAS and EdD at The University of Vermont.

Lawrence Rossini
Lawrence Rossini is president of Rossini Associates and a management consultant with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field of leadership and organization development. He has worked with senior leaders in the public and private sectors, helping to build individual and team leadership skills, assessing organization capability, and working as a partner to help create a culture of commitment and top performance. Dr. Rossini held leadership positions in Human Resources Development at Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of Hewlett-Packard). He was a director at McBer and Company, a behavioral science consulting firm that developed management tools for government agencies and private corporations. He was also a Senior Vice President of Manchester , Incorporated. Dr. Rossini holds a doctorate in psychology from Harvard University. He has held faculty positions at Boston College and the University of Connecticut. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Vermont School Leadership Project, Snelling Center for Government at the University of Vermont. He is a fellow of the Massachusetts Psychology Association, and a licensed psychologist in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He serves on the Board of Directors and is a founding member of the Executive Coaching Forum, and is a member of the New England Society for Applied Psychology.

Michele Vitti

Michele Vitti is founder and principal of Sunata Consulting, a firm that specializes in leadership development. Michele’s expertise is in helping leaders sharpen their inner edge; that is, building their capacity to know and use their unique talents; to understand, motivate and influence others; and to navigate through organizational culture and political dynamics.  Michele is a visual artist as well as a coach and consultant; she brings both conventional and creative approaches to her work with individuals and teams in both corporate and not for profit organizations.
Before founding Sunata, Michele was a Senior Partner with Camden Consulting Group, where she led their team coaching practice, and provided design and delivery of leadership and team development services for professionals from a broad range of industries. Prior to Camden, Michele’s career included career coaching, clinical counseling, and teaching at the college and high school levels.
Michele is an adjunct faculty member with Smith College Executive Education for Women and she serves as a Master Coach and the Practicum Leader for the Graduate Coaching Certification Program at Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. She was a founding member of The Executive Coaching Forum, and co-author of their publication Standards and Guidelines for Executive Coaching.
She holds a Master’s degree in Psychology from Lesley University, an undergraduate degree from SUNY, and has done extensive study in studio art. She is a member of The Boston Club for Executive Women, the International Leadership Association, the Boston Facilitator’s Roundtable.

Judy Warriner Walke
Judy Warriner Walke is an organization development consultant and facilitator, based in Montpelier, whose work has been energizing inspired teams and reflective leaders since 1993. She designs and hosts retreats, workshops, and essential conversations for a wide variety of organizations, companies, and communities. She has been associated with The Vermont Leadership Institute since its inception in 1995 and has contributed to other Snelling Center programs for leaders in education and nursing.

To her work with groups Judy Walke brings fifteen years’ management and planning experience in manufacturing with Digital Equipment Corporation, where she led her 60-person production group from a traditional hierarchy into a network of successful self- managing teams, with substantial increases in business results and employee morale. Judy holds an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and an undergraduate degree in history of art from Smith College. She loves travel, reading, singing, tasteless jokes, and outdoor sports of all kinds.

Karrin Wilks (VLI ’97)
Karrin Wilks is the senior vice president for the Vermont State Colleges. She oversees system wide strategic and academic planning, information technology services and human resources. She serves as the VSC liaison to state planning and public policy initiatives, particularly those related to k-16 partnerships and workforce education and training. In prior positions, she was a curriculum developer for IBM education and training, an academic coordinator at the community college of Vermont, and an English teacher at Middlebury Union High School. She has taught educational psychology and communications courses for the University of Vermont, Johnson State College, and the Community College of Vermont, and has offered organizational change and leadership workshops for audiences throughout Vermont and beyond.

Karrin received a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College and a Master of Education and Doctorate in educational leadership and policy development from the University of Vermont. She was a member of the Vermont Leadership Institute class of 1997 and completed the Harvard Institute for Educational Management in 2003. In 2004, Karrin was granted the Jackie Gribbons Leadership Award by Vermont Women in Higher Education. She has three children and lives in Bristol, Vermont.