The Space On Main currently has one employee, Monique Priestley, our Executive Director. The Space On Main’s Board of Directors hail from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Washington. The directors, as well as area advisors, provide the necessary framework, expertise, support, and guidance for The Space On Main, Inc. to be successful.
Executive Director & Founder | Bradford, VT
Monique (she/her) is a designer, gamer, geek, and connector. She graduated from University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media program and holds both a Bachelor of Arts in Digital Media and an Associate of Science in Graphic Design from Northern Vermont University – Lyndon.
Monique is Executive Director for The Space On Main, which she founded as a nonprofit in 2017 and opened it in 2018 in hopes that it could promote a greater sense of community and connection for people living and working in the Cohase Region (Northern Upper Valley) of Vermont and New Hampshire. Monique has been working in technology-related positions since 2001 doing network administration, database management, web design and development, social media marketing, digital communication strategy, and customer support. She is the Director of Digital for CampusCE Corporation in Seattle, Washington, an EdTech company she has worked for since 2010.
Monique believes strongly that everyone has a responsibility to give back to their communities. In Bradford, Monique is a Justice of the Peace and serves on a number of town commissions (e.g. Planning, Public Safety, Resilience). She is a director of the boards for Vermont Council on Rural Development, Community Capital of Vermont, Bradford Business Association, and Cohase Rotary Club (Rotary International). Monique serves on the steering committee of the Vermont Creative Network (Vermont Arts Council), the cabinet of EMERGE Vermont (EMERGE America), and the Future of Vermont Action Team. She served as board chair of Vital Communities and Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation until she stepped down to run for State Representative of Vermont Orange-2.
Monique was a member of the 2018–2019 cohorts of Leadership Upper Valley (Vital Communities) and Vermont Changemakers’ Table (VBSR & High Meadows Fund) as well as the 2019–2020 cohort of Vermont Leadership Institute (Snelling Center for Government, Marlboro College). She received Cohase Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year Award (2018), was featured by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office as March (2019) Vermonter of the Month, was recognized as one of Vital Communities’s Heroes & Leaders (2019), received Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission’s Volunteer of the Year Award (2020), and was recognized by Vermont Business Magazine for their Rising Stars (Top 40 Under 40) Class of 2020.
President | Corinth, VT
Brian Carroll is a project/program manager with 14 years of clinical research industry experience. He and his wife moved to Corinth, VT in 2016 and immediately became entrenched in the tight knit community in the Upper Valley. Brian was a selected as a 40 Under 40 Rising Star by Vermont Business Magazine in 2021.
In addition to the Space’s board, he also serves on Bradford’s Park and Rec task force, the Corinth Community Coalition, is a volunteer admin for the Bradford listserv, and serves as a board member and lift volunteer at the Northeast Slopes. He has also held a series of other community and arts related positions in his time in the area.
Brian is also a filmmaker, a photographer, an illustrator, an audio engineer, founder of Red Line Roots – a New England based Roots/Folk publication and a musician/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist himself. A purveyor of many things and a wearer of many hats.
Vice President | Sutton, VT
Evan is currently a partner and Director of Product & Business Development at Whiteout Solutions, a geospatial technology company based in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He brings more than 18-years of digital product design and development experience at high growth media companies and tech startups. After founding two startups of his own, Evan has gained a deep understanding of the challenges of operating an early-stage startup and the importance of finding product market fit. He also founded Do North Coworking alongside Northern Vermont University which now hosts the Forest Product Business Accelerator. Additionally, he is a founding member and chair of NEK Broadband, a communications union district bringing universal fiber internet service to 55 of the most rural towns in Vermont.
Evan is an alumni of Snelling’s Vermont Leadership Institute, a 2019 Vermont Business Magazine 40 Under 40 Rising Star and holds a bachelor’s degree in Interactive Media Design from the New England Institute of Art.
Secretary | Seattle, WA
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.
Director | Burlington, VT
Kirstin Boehm serves as the Director of Career and Education Outreach at the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Across her career, Kirstin has been dedicated to serving students who are experiencing structural and systemic inequity and exclusion. She is passionate about leading innovative teams that invest in ‘opportunity youth’ and her experience and expertise is focused on the intersection of the labor market and higher education. Boehm has over two decades of international and U.S. experience in higher education policy, college access and success planning as well as expertise in financial aid policy and managing federal grants, from proposal through implementation. She was a member of the 2019–2020 cohort of Vermont Leadership Institute (Snelling Center for Government, Marlboro College) and lives in the South End of Burlington with her husband and two sons.
Director | Newbury, VT
Brynn Cole works remotely for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Innovation Ecosystem as a designer, facilitator, and storyteller: she’s on a mission to make healthcare more human, relevant, and relatable through practicing and facilitating the art of human-centered design. Brynn began her VA career in 2006 at the White River Junction VA in her home state of Vermont, before transferred to San Francisco in 2010, and returned to her beloved Vermont in 2016. She’s been and active and grateful member of The Space on Main since day one, and is excited to bring member perspective to the Board of Directors.
Director | Montpelier, VT
Paul Costello served as the Executive Director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development from 2000 to 2021. VCRD runs an annual Rural Summit and conducts “Community Visits” that help rural communities build priorities, set action plans, and build connections to resources. It also provides facilitation on rural development policy at the local, regional and state level, including more than a dozen major rural policy council efforts, and has built significant programs to advance the digital economy.
Paul attended UVM before earning a PhD in intellectual history at McGill. He has served on boards ranging from corrections education to cooperatives, libraries and Governor’s commissions, including co-chairing the Climate Action Team and chairing the Local Support and Community Action Team of the Vermont Covid-19 Recovery Task Force. He is past president of the national community development association, Partners for Rural America.
Director | Newbury, VT
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.
Director | Lyme, NH
“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.”
