Vermont Public Radio has elected three new members to its Board of Directors to serve three-year terms.
Brad Robertson, Essex Junction
Brad Robertson moved back to Vermont in 2013 when he joined MyWebGrocer as senior vice president digital marketing services after nearly 20 years with the Gannett Corporation in a wide range of successful roles from publisher of the Burlington Free Pressand advertising vice president at The Des Moines Register.
Previously before moving back to Vermont, Robertson was the founder of GannettLocal, a start-up inside of a Fortune 300 Company that specialized in best-in-class local digital marketing services. He oversaw all aspects of strategy, product development, pricing, marketing, sales and channel management, operations, and talent acquisition/development. Over the four years of Robertson's leadership, GannettLocal grew to over 250 employees serving thousands of local businesses across the U.S.
He holds a BA in Communications from Northern Illinois University. Robertson and his wife live in Essex with their two kids and their bearded collie.
Garrett Graff, Burlington
Garrett Graff is a former editor at PoliticoMagazine and former editor-in-chief at Washingtonian Magazine. Garrett recently returned home to his native Vermont.
Born in 1981, Graff was raised in Montpelier. While attending Harvard, he was the executive editor of the Harvard Crimson. He served as deputy national press secretary on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. He went on to work at multiple media outlets in the Washington D.C. area.
For seven years, Graff also taught social media and magazine writing to undergraduates and graduate students at Georgetown University. He is the author of multiple books including The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House and The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror.
His next book, entitled Raven Rock, tracing the history of the government’s nuclear Doomsday plans during the Cold War, is set to be published in 2017. He and his wife, Katherine, were married in Barnard, Vermont, in 2013.
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Montpelier
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell is the recently retired president of Marlboro College (2004-2015) where, during her tenure, she helped form the Windham Higher Education Cooperative among Windham County's six colleges and the exchange program among the Association of Vermont Independent Colleges.
Formerly, McCullouch-Lovell served as chief of staff to Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy for 10 years. Under the Clinton administration, she worked as executive director of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, deputy chief of staff to the First Lady, and deputy assistant to the President and advisor to the First Lady on the Millennium Project.
Previously she served on the board of the Fleming Museum and is currently a member of the Windham Foundation Board of Trustees and Chair of the Advisory Council for the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
2017 Officers
Peggy Williams of Johnson was elected chair of the board, succeeding Charlie Kireker of Weybridge. Williams served for 11 years as the first female president of Ithaca College. Prior to that, she was president of Lyndon State College for eight years.
Williams is a citizen of both the U.S. and Canada, having lived in the United States since 1968. She began her career as a social worker, and upon entering the field of higher education she held various faculty and administrative positions within the Vermont State College system and at Trinity College in Burlington.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto, master of education degree from the University of Vermont, and a doctorate in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University.
Charlie Browne of Barnet was elected vice chair of the board. Browne is director emeritus of the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, following a 35-year career at the museum, including 21 years as executive director until his retirement in 2013.
He served as a founding board member of the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance and was its president from 1987-1991. He also served as a director of the New England Museum Association (NEMA), including service as treasurer (1994-1996) and president (1996-1998); on the American Association of Museums as an accreditation peer reviewer (received Excellence in Peer Review Award, 2006); and as a member of the National Program Committee (2007-2009).
Browne’s initiatives at the Fairbanks Museum included the popular Eye on the Sky weather program, installation of the new digital Lyman Spitzer Jr. Planetarium, the creation of the Balch Nature School for preschoolers and the Museum’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The positions of treasurer and secretary are currently filled by Bob Young of Proctor and Scott McArdle Starksboro, respectively, whose terms in those positions expire in September 2017.
VPR thanks departing board members Tom Johnson, April Cornell, Perez Ehrich and Peter Swift for their dedication and years of service on the Board of Directors.
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.
“The VPR Board has an incredible depth of experience in governance, business, digital, content creation, philanthropic development, arts and culture, and leadership,” said VPR President Robin Turnau. “Board members are passionate about VPR, and inspire the organization to be innovative and devoted to our mission of public service.”
