Press Release: Nominations Sought for Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders
2025 Marks Ninth Annual Cohort to Be Recognized
SOUTHERN VERMONT – The Southern Vermont Young Professionals (SoVTYP) and Shires Young Professionals (SYP) are seeking nomination for this year’s Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders awards, which honor community and professional leaders in all fields who are between the ages of 21 and 40.
“Our communities are full of extraordinary individuals who are working to make a difference,” says Jack Spanierman, SoVTYP program manager and workforce education specialist at Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). “We love how people really come together to help honor and celebrate the next generation through the annual Emerging Leaders Awards.”
Nominations are due March 14 and can be submitted using a brief online form at www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.
Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of BDCC) 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 170 local leaders have been given an Emerging Leaders award since the beginning of the program, and 38 of those have subsequently been recognized statewide through Vermont Business Magazine’s Rising Stars awards as well.
“With the type of demographic transition that Vermont is facing, celebrating upcoming local leadership is that much more important,” says SYP chair Carolyn Gilbert. “Our region has a lot to be excited about when it comes to new faces with new experiences and backgrounds to help us face new challenges in Southern Vermont.”
For more information, visit www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders or email Rachel Shields Ebersole at rsebersole@brattleborodevelopment.com.
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.
About Shires Young Professionals
The mission of the Shires Young Professionals is to help young professionals and families create deep roots in our community that encourage them to stay and build a prosperous life in the Shires of Vermont. SYP looks to engage, emerge, and empower young professionals throughout the region. SYP events, programs and gatherings are open to all people, but the group’s programming focuses on young workers in their 20s through 40s in Bennington County. More information at www.ShiresYP.com.
About BDCC
The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) is a private, nonprofit economic development organization with the mission of investing in the drivers of the regional economy so that people, businesses, and communities in Southern Vermont can thrive. BDCC serves as the State of Vermont’s certified Regional Development Corporation (RDC) for the greater Windham County area (including Windham County and the towns of Readsboro, Searsburg, Winhall and Weston). BDCC is one of 12 RDCs throughout Vermont. BDCC activity is made possible in part by a grant from the State of Vermont through the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. For more information visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com.
About SeVEDS
Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) is an affiliate of BDCC that grew from a 2008 grassroots effort, initiated by BDCC, to understand and create long term strategies needed to reverse the economic decline of the Windham Region and plan for the economic impacts from the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. In 2014, after multiple years of regional input, education and data gathering, SeVEDS received federal approval for the Windham Region’s federally recognized S.M.A.R.T. Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). SeVEDS partnered with Bennington’s Regional Economic Development Group in 2018 to develop the 2019 Southern Vermont Zone CEDS. For more information visit: www.seveds.com.
