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This commentary is by Roxanne Vought of Weybridge, executive director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.  Talk to any business owner today and you’ll likely hear the same refrain: They’re struggling to find workers. They’ve tried everything: raising wages, sign-on bonuses, creative recruitment strategies, and they still can’t fill their openings.  Some are eliminating product…

This commentary is by August Burns of Middlesex, who has had a three-decade career in women’s health and rights. She has had a clinical practice in Vermont with Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Health Center and a private practice in Waterbury. She was a clinical consultant for U.S. AID, special adviser on cervical cancer for…

This commentary is by Howard Fairman of Putney, a native Vermonter and an independent voter who does not personally know any former, current or potential member of Congress. A century since Vermont women were first allowed to vote (19th Amendment, 1920), “Vermont has never sent a woman to Congress” is loosely stated.8 Four states have…

This commentary is by Gina Campoli of Craftsbury. In 2017 she retired from a 33-year career in Vermont state government with a focus on environmental policy and planning. She is now a part-time grant writer, coaches cross-country skiing, serves on community committees and is one of the transportation leads for the Vermont Climate Council’s Cross-Sector…

This commentary is by Patrick Lacroix, who is connected through family and research to central Vermont. He is the author of “John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith” and a scholar of Franco-American history. His work on the Barre granite strike of 1922 appeared in the Vermont History journal in 2020. He now lives…

This commentary is by Lewis Mudge, a member of the Charlotte Selectboard who is the Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. This commentary was written in a private capacity. Just before the holidays, I took the long trip from Burlington to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. The country has been wracked…

This commentary is by state Reps. Felisha Leffler, R-Enosburg Falls, and Barbara Rachelson, D-Burlington. One of us is a lifelong Democrat, who ran in the past two elections as a Democrat/Progressive; the other is a Republican. We’ve stood across the aisle from one another on most debates and rarely ever voted the same way on…

This commentary is by Elena Mihaly, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation in Vermont.  I chose to become an environmental lawyer because I wanted to protect the environment. But I’ve learned throughout my career that “the environment” means a lot of things.  It’s the wild undeveloped places in the mountains, deserts, or river valleys.…

This commentary is by Don Keelan of Arlington, a retired certified public accountant. We usually think of nonprofit organizations as the local food shelf, summer stock theater, libraries and the local hospital.  I intended to take a sabbatical from writing about the Vermont nonprofit sector until I came across Vermont Business Magazine’s recent issue, the…