Community Heart & Soul Trustees
Jody Fried has been the Executive Director of Catamount Film & Arts in St. Johnsbury since 2008. Jody began his career in Colorado working in healthcare management for a large national corporation before deciding to move back home to Vermont in 1998. His work in the rural Northeast Kingdom, as both an entrepreneur and as a volunteer, has included owning multiple private businesses and serving as the current President of the Board of Directors of the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative, as a Corporator of both Passumpsic Bank and the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, and as the past President of both the Burke Area Chamber of Commerce and the Northeast Kingdom Travel and Tourism Association. He has also served in various statewide leadership roles including as the current Chair of the Vermont Creative Network, Director of the Vermont Leadership Institute at the Snelling Center for Government, as a Governor-appointed member of the Vermont Travel and Recreation Council, as well as having previously served as a founding member of the Vermont Tax Advisory Board.
Janice had a twenty-five-year career at The Vermont Country Store in Manchester, Vermont, where she was Head of Retail and Head of Merchandising for catalog and web sales. She represented the company in numerous community activities and events including the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company in Weston, Vermont, and youth organizing through the West River Sports Association in Londonderry, Vermont. Janice’s recent philanthropic activities include the Manchester Community Library building campaign and the campaign for the Burr & Burton Academy Mountain Campus in Peru, Vermont. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Saint Michael’s College.
Lyman is Proprietor, with his sons, Cabot, Gardner and Eliot, of The Vermont Country Store. The retailer employs more than 600 and sells through two stores, catalogues, and the web. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and was a Planning Commissioner in his hometown, Weston, Vermont, and experienced divisiveness of residents over a proposed animal amusement park on the side of a mountain north of town. The scars on the mountain healed far faster than the divisions in town, which prompted Lyman to conceive Community Heart & Soul. This practice focuses on what residents have in common, engages all voices in town, identifies those things that matter most, and articulates its heart & soul as a guide to decisions about its future. The numerous cities and towns that practice Community Heart & Soul have experienced renewed energy, optimism, a can-do attitude, increased volunteerism and resident engagement, self-driven economic development, and more people moving in. They are now better places to live and raise families.
Tony is Executive Director of the Ittleson Foundation. He was Chief Program Officer at the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and worked at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. He was adjunct faculty of the Preservation Program in the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He served in lead roles of numerous preservation organizations including Preservation League of New York State, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Partners for Sacred Places, Historic Districts Council of New York City, the New York Preservation Archive Project. He holds a master's in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois and a bachelor's from Kenyon College.