Sam Drazin is a certified elementary educator and former elementary school teacher. He holds a Bachelor of Education from Goddard College. Currently, he is the Founder and Executive Director of Changing Perspectives. Sam was born with Treacher Collins Syndrome – a rare congenital disorder resulting in both facial anomaly and hearing loss. Sam underwent seven surgeries as a child while attending his local public school. Sam’s experiences, both as a student with a disability and as a teacher working in an inclusive classroom, made him recognize the importance of improving awareness and understanding of disabilities. Sam continues to be amazed by the positive impact that disability awareness initiatives are having on students and teachers around the country.

Samantha Sheehan is the Communications Manager for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, a state wide business association that advocates for policies which are good for the people and environments of Vermont. Samantha is committed to supporting sustainable economic growth throughout Vermont. She has a passion for education and service, and enjoys working directly with small business owners.

In addition to working as VBSR’s Communications Manager, Samantha is the owner of Valley.Works Coworking Space in Waitsfield. She also works as a freelance designer and social media marketer for a variety of Vermont businesses and non-profit clients. Samantha also volunteers on the leadership team of the Vermont Creative Network, serves at the Chair of her local Planning Commission and Vice Chair of the Hancock School Board of Directors.

She lives in Hancock Vermont with her husband and two dogs, Benny & Maybe.

Lia is a native Vermonter, now living in Addison County. She has many years of accounting, financial, grant management, and banking experience, including years spent at Opportunities Credit Union. She began her college experience at Trinity College in Burlington, then graduating magna cum laude from CCV with an A.S. in accounting after the closing of Trinity. Lia has worked as a volunteer at many non-profits, including 13 years at The Ronald McDonald House in Burlington, 5 years at The Haunted Forest, and minor projects for Vermont Center for Independent Living. She has donated 7+ gallons of blood, and is a registered marrow donor. She has tirelessly donated many hours to assist friends and family with financial/accounting needs, and/or computer hardware/software support. She believes that the good karma from these acts, no matter how small, will help lift everyone.

In her rare bouts of free time, Lia can be found kneading bread dough or playing board games with friends.

Alex is a maker, gamer, and cook in Seattle, Washington. She recently completed a degree in Environmental Science at University of Washington Bothell, after several years in restaurants and software. She currently works for Elliott Bay Engineering, where she enjoys drafting, procurement, soldering, and final assembly of custom engineered electrical control products.

“I am, for lack of a better description, a professional grokker. I read, I listen, I digest information, then pick out the most salient pieces and figure out how they go together. As Director of Communications at Emphatic Thinking, I typically do this for tech companies, assisting with strategy, communications, marketing, and sales enablement.

I hold a Ph.D. in Communications, with an emphasis on argument, rhetoric, and media ecology, the last of which is the study of how and why technologies succeed or fail, what sort of content works best in which media, and how these different media environments shape social reality.

I am also surprisingly good at Halo.”

Ken holds a B.A. in Communication from Wake Forest University, an M.A. in Speech of Communication from the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from the University of Georgia. Ken taught for the University of Washington’s Communication Leadership program until 2016. The Communication Leadership Program at the University of Washington is a terminal degree program offering Masters of Communications degrees with a focus on either Digital Media or Communities and Networks. He taught courses on Media Disruption, Network Analysis, Gaming and Game Design, and the Ethics of Digital Media.

Currently, Ken is a principal at Emphatic Thinking, a consulting agency that solves Go-to-Market problems. There he runs the Positioning and Strategy practice group, as well as the Research practice group, Emphatic Research, which focuses on understanding Go-to-Market challenges.

Alison Fiorito is a video producer in Seattle, Washington. Alison has served as a Producer & Project Manager for several of Microsoft’s largest products including Xbox, Skype in the Classroom, Bing in the Classroom, and currently Windows 10 Education. Her experience includes working in various production capacities at a national level on commercials, entertainment, and marketing campaigns; perhaps most notably the 2004 Emmy Award Winning opening sequence for Six Feet Under and the 2013 Xbox One launch campaign. Before that, Alison produced more than 70 documentary-style marketing pieces for the Microsoft Corporation, including videos used in keynote speeches for Bill Gates and other leaders at Microsoft. Her specialties include pre-production, crafting client stories, interviewing executives, overseeing editing through post-production, and the strategic inclusion of videos and commercials on web, television, at conferences and events.

She is a graduate of the University of Washington’s Master of Communication Digital Media program and holds a BFA in theater from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Alison is originally from Arkansas and still has family there, however she has made Seattle her home for many years. Alison has worked in film and video production for most of her career, and has a passion for education, environmentalism and the arts. She is also the coach of her son’s robotics team, Error 404: Page Not Found. The team builds competition robots during the fall and winter and underwater robots during the spring and summer. Alison’s version of Orpah’s favorite things list are being with her family, hanging out with her dogs, coaching the robotics team and hiking.

An employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs/Veterans Health Administration of over 10 years, Brynn Cole currently serves as the Director of Programming for the VHA Innovators Network (iNET). In this role, Brynn’s primary focus is coordinating training + events, managing alumni relationships, facilitating iNET’s annual Spark-Seed-Spread Innovation Accelerator program, identifying + meeting the learning needs for both Innovation Specialists + Investees at the 37 VA sites of care (VA hospitals all over the country) that make up the VHA Innovators Network. Brynn is energized to bring together people and ideas to act as a catalyst of positive change, and as an antidote to the “can’t do” attitude that some believe inherent to the federal government.

Brynn earned her Bachelor of Arts from Johnson State College in Johnson, VT, with a focus on Gender Studies and Sociology and has recently returned to her native Vermont after years in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is obsessed with her snug cabin on 11 acres of Vermont mountainside, enjoys rambling around in the woods with her nieces and nephews, 12-year-old Golden Retriever (Angus) and two bobtailed cats, which makes for quite a scene! As both a member and Director of The Space On Main, Brynn is grateful for the opportunity to both support and benefit from such an incredible community resource.

“I’m currently on an entrepreneurship journey that includes renting food trailers and trying to solve education finance-related problems in emerging markets such as India. Prior to this journey, I spent over a decade leading the Career Development Office at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth where I helped Tuck MBAs with their careers and job placement. Prior to moving to the Upper Valley, I worked in corporate finance and investment banking with Coopers & Lybrand and Alex. Brown & Sons and initially cut my teeth on entrepreneurial efforts with Strategic Capital Resources and as the first employee of a technology start-up Revbox. I did my undergraduate studies at Harvard University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. Somewhere along the line I met my wife on a bus in Mexico and we have two daughters. I live in Lyme, NH and really enjoy running up and down the hills as exercise.”

Marvin retired in 2018 after a 31 year stint in community banking (primarily consumer, mortgage and commercial lending) with the Wells River Savings Bank, the last 21 of those years in the Bradford office across from The Space On Main. He is a charter member of the Cohase Chamber of Commerce (18 years) and has been actively involved with the Bradford Business (fka Merchants) Association along with numerous boards and committees associated with education and workforce development.

Like so many, his long work career (10 years working in manufacturing prior to banking) was a very different path from his BS in Education from SUNY Cortland, but it appears to have all worked out! He is excited about The Space On Main and its ability to bring together such a powerful and interesting cast of characters on Main Street at a critical time in Bradford and the Cohase region’s future.

“I am a 2010 graduate of Lyndon State College aka Northern Vermont University in where I completed my B.S. in Business Administration. After leaving college, I found my first real community banking opportunity in Claremont and since then my career has led me full circle back with Claremont Savings Bank in a commercial lending role for the Upper Valley. I have a strong passion for helping entrepreneurs grow and support our local vital communities. I am an active member with a few financial committees within the industry and state association, as well I am the VP of a board that focuses on Mental Health Rehabilitation Services. When not working or involved with my non-profit associations, you can find me on the golf course, with family or at the gym.”