Photo: Zoe Contros Kearl, Shaftsbury Selectboard Chair, is one of several 2025 Emerging Leaders whose work focuses on civic leadership. 

When Zoe Contros Kearl takes her seat as Chair at a Shaftsbury Selectboard meeting, she is focused on more than policy details. She is tracking how zoning, infrastructure, budgets, and long-term planning intersect—and how those decisions shape daily life for residents and businesses alike.

Alongside Tara Parks and Nate Fowle, both from Pownal, and Samantha Page from Bennington, Kearl represents a group of young adults working to strengthen the local governance systems that underpin economic stability and community trust. Through town administration, planning, and public engagement, their leadership supports transparent decision-making, effective use of shared resources, and the long-term viability of Southern Vermont’s communities.

These four leaders are just a handful of 27 young adults honored as 2025 Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders by Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Young Professionals and the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce’s Shires Young Professionals. Nominations for 2026 are now being accepted at sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.

Holding the Whole Picture

Zoe Contros Kearl served on multiple town committees in Shaftsbury, including the Development Review Board, Planning Commission, and the ad hoc Community Center Development Committee, prior to being elected to the Selectboard last March. Her nominator describes her as “an energetic young addition to our community who brings to us a keenly focused mind, an incredible facility with words, and a deep passion for everything community.”

On the Community Center Development Committee, her nominator continues, Kearl worked, “to create and maintain a culture of exploration, research, and open-minded debate, while also using her extraordinary facility with integration of material to regularly remind the committee and the public of all the factors that have been considered and how they intermingle.”

Kearl notes that Vermont faces many of the same challenges as communities across the United States. “But,” she says, “I believe Vermont is uniquely positioned to confront these challenges head on,” based on the state’s long history of  practical collaboration, shared responsibility, and local problem-solving.

“The way forward is community – food pantries, investment in small business, strengthening of infrastructure, and radical kindness. It’s key to note, I think, these days more than ever, ‘we got us.’ Vermonters have lived this way forever, independent, resilient, stalwart, and I’m proud to do my part.”

Pouring Love into Town Governance

In Pownal, Tara Parks, the Town’s executive assistant, has become a central force in translating civic interest into action in her hometown—often behind the scenes. 

“Tara has a hand in virtually everything that gets done in Pownal,” writes one nominator. “She is the workhorse that carries out all of the decisions made by the select board, she supports many of the Committees and Commissions, and takes on all of the random projects that come up that nobody wants to deal with. Her experience and expertise are wide ranging, she works harder than anybody that I know, and she still has the energy to reply to all of my silly questions via email.”

“She takes very impactful actions in the background and never asks for credit,” another nominator notes. 

Thoughtful land management and community input have become increasingly important as towns balance recreation, conservation, and long-term economic use. Among Parks’ recent tangible accomplishments are managing the town forest and helping revive the Pownal Conservation Commission. 

One nominator recounts how, after a community meeting sparked interest, “Before we knew it, she had gotten it on the selectboard agenda to revive it, and people were applying to join.” The commission’s creation coincided with major progress on the town forest—work that “would not have happened without Tara.”

“The opportunity to compel change and create positive outcomes for my community motivates me into taking the initiative that is necessary,” Parks says. “I believe a successful leader models the change they want to see, and I try to reflect the love and dedication I have for Pownal in the work I do.”

Planning That Invites Participation

As a planner with the Bennington County Regional Commission, Samantha Page works closely with communities across southwestern Vermont. In her work, she recognizes that inclusive planning processes help communities align housing, transportation, and infrastructure investments with long-term goals.

Page’s own perspective has been shaped by experience with civic systems through her volunteer efforts in Williamstown, MA, where she lives. “Many of our systems for engagement are not easy to navigate; experiencing many of those barriers to participation first-hand has continued to inform how I think about community engagement.” She adds, “I really value the opportunity to facilitate conversations with community members about how they envision the future of their town or village.”

Page recently led community outreach for Bennington’s town plan updates, ensuring a process that included voices that may not have been heard before. She facilitates a working group focused on recreational pathways in the region, and has led large community planning projects in Manchester Village and Rupert. 

Her nominator describes Page as someone who “has quickly become a go-to source for planning-related questions from planners and administrators in several towns and she is steadfast in providing quality, accurate information to those inquiries.”

Finding Common Ground

For Nate Fowle of Pownal, civic leadership is rooted in listening—especially to people who have felt excluded in the past. Through his work with the Pownal Parks and Recreation Committee and Conservation Commission, Fowle played a leading role in shaping how his hometown’s new town forest will be managed.

He led an outreach effort to gather input on permitted uses and stewardship, organizing focus groups with hunters, ATV riders, hikers, bird watchers, educators, and others. Importantly, he also made a point to include people who had felt left out of previous town discussions. Across those conversations, participants found more shared ground than expected.

His nominator underscores Fowle’s approach succinctly: “He’s never come across a problem he couldn’t find a creative solution to, or a person with whom he couldn’t find common ground.”

Fowle himself comments, “The nature of a volunteer run government is that many of us (myself included) have little to no expertise in running a town. I am learning that my job is really just to solicit input from residents on what they want (whether or not I agree with them), and to solicit help from experts who can guide us on how to achieve those goals. As a town, we need to be humble enough to both ask for and accept help whether it comes from inside or outside of our community, and seek to push forward projects that we can all agree on.”

Governance That Works for Communities

These four leaders are strengthening civic life through their careful attention to helping neighbors understand how decisions are made, how voices are included, and how shared resources are stewarded.

By making public process visible and participatory, Kearl, Parks, Page, and Fowle are working hard to ensure that governance here remains something people can recognize, trust, and take part in.

About the Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders Awards

Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation) and the Shires Young Professionals have sought to highlight and honor young adults in their roles as leaders and change-makers in the Southern Vermont economy and community through the Emerging Leaders awards. Over 130 local leaders have been given an Emerging Leaders award since the beginning of the program, and 40 of those have subsequently been recognized statewide through Vermont Business Magazine’s Rising Stars awards as well.

Nominations for the 2026 cohort are now open. Read more about other awardees and submit your nomination at www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.

About Southern Vermont Young Professionals

The Southern Vermont Young Professionals is a workforce initiative of Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). Our mission is to attract, retain and support Young Professionals in Southern Vermont by providing engaging opportunities and networking through social and educational events, and volunteer opportunities. The YP initiative is increasingly important to Southern Vermont’s businesses and communities as a strategic approach to growing the size of the region’s workforce and increasing the number of younger households in the region. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/sovtyps/