LEADERSHIP

New Hampshire is a small state where those who are involved in business and the community tend to run into people they know all the time. Lately, though, people might find a few more new faces than usual, or at least familiar faces in unfamiliar roles.

Within the last two years, more than 140 businesses and nonprofits in NH had new leaders, and about half a dozen are actively looking for one. Some of those changes are due to baby boomers retiring, while others resulted from prior leaders moving on.

And then there are the political changes. Included in this feature is a profile of U.S. Senator-elect and former Governor Maggie Hassan, who is making history for joining an all-female Democratic Congressional Delegation in Washington D.C.

Each January, Business NH Magazine has taken a look at leadership in NH in different ways. We have run The Most Powerful (both business and politics), The Influencer Index and New Nonprofit Leadership, to ring in the new year.

Given the changes over the past two years, we decided to profile some of the many new leaders in the state. While building the list, the number of new leaders became so overwhelming we simply did not have room to profile all of them. We will be running profiles of many of them in the coming months.

Alan Chong

Director and CEO, Currier Museum of Art

After leading the Currier Museum of Art for 20 years, including overseeing a major expansion in 2006, Susan Strickler retired in 2016. Alan Chong, who began serving in September 2016 as the 9th director in the museum's 87-year history, plans to build on her legacy.

Chong says he inherited a strong collection, good staff and beautiful building from his predecessor. The museum averages about 40,000 to 45,000 visitors annually but Chong says, "We want to expand on that audience. It really is a regional museum. We do a great job with special exhibitions, from historic to contemporary." He wants to expand on programs that, like the museum's after-hours cocktail program, encourage people to drop by on a more regular basis. "We want to see people coming for the permanent collection, music and programs," he says.

He also wants to attract more young adults to the museum with contemporary exhibits, including one in February, "Deep Cuts," that highlights paper cutting- sculptures addressing social issues using everything from fast food bags to money, Chong says. It will feature the works of 30 contemporary artists. "One of our goals is connecting the past to the future. We have a great connection with the old masters. We have to remind people that the spirit of creativity lives on," he says.

Chong previously served as the Lia and William Poorvu Curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston from 1999 through 2010. Exhibitions he curated there were also shown in major museums in the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom. Chong then became the director of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore in 2010, where he oversaw the construction of new wings.

He sees the museum continuing to play an important role in the evolution of Manchester.

"Manchester is a city on the rise and I want the museum to contribute to it and draw from it," Chong says."We need to reach out to people who have not been part of the Currier family," Chong says. "It's a big challenge."

Lance Turgeon and Alison Perrella

Managing Partners, Howe, Riley & Howe

One of the largest accounting firms headquartered in NH is now headed by two new managing partners who plan to expand on the firm's success.

Howe, Riley & Howe, with offices in Manchester and Portsmouth, rang in 2016 by appointing Alison Perrella and Lance Turgeon to lead its operations. They replace Peter J. Kiriakoutsos, who had managed the firm since 2006 and who continues to be a principal.

Perrella, a practicing CPA for more than 25 years, specializes in tax planning compliance, especially individual trusts and estates. She has been a board member and officer with the NH Estate Planning Council and the NH Society of Certified Public Accountants and two of its committees and joined the firm in 2013.

During her first year as a managing partner, Perrella has worked on "reaching out to younger employees and energizing them" during a time when many NH businesses have found it difficult to recruit and keep talent. She also takes pride in her work to strengthen her firm's ties with BKR International, a global alliance of accounting firms that can serve as a resource for clients, and for helping to grow its outsourced accounting practice, EnCompass, which provides virtual bookkeeping services.

Building on relationships like that with BKR International and expanding services like EnCompass are among the firm's continuing goals.

Turgeon joined the firm in 1995 and became a partner in 2008. A CPA in the state since 1996, he is a member of the NH Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "Every day is something new, and I'm always learning something new and using that to help clients," he says of his first year as a managing partner. He agrees that maintaining a happy staff, while servicing client needs, is a key accomplishment and a continuing challenge.

Both managing partners are also involved in other "upward" pursuits. Perrella has been hoping to add to the list of 4,000-foot mountains she has climbed in NH. Turgeon has already hiked all 48 of them-twice. "If there's one thing accountants love, it's lists," he quips.

Maggie Hassan

Democrat, U.S. Senate

When Maggie Hassan heads to Washington this month to begin her term as U.S. Senator, she does so with an all-female, all Democratic NH delegation. She also does so having defeated Kelly Ayotte, a former NH attorney general and rising star in the Republican party who found herself in political hot water regarding her lack of support for President-elect Donald Trump.

Hassan was first drawn to public service as an advocate for children with disabilities, like her son Ben, being fully included in their communities. She later joined the NH Senate, where she served six years and was Senate majority leader before serving two terms as NH governor.

During her tenure as governor, she worked to expand Medicaid to 50,000 low-income adults in NH, froze tuition at state universities and lowered tuition at the community college system. She also helped pass same-sex marriage during her time in the Senate.

As a U.S. Senator, she has pledged to encourage innovation, make college more affordable, safeguard Social Security and Medicare, and protect women's rights to make their own health care decisions. Hassan will be one of the most senior freshman senators given her gubernatorial service.

David McGrath

President, Managing Shareholder, Attorney, Sheehan Phinney

Promoted: January 2015 from chair of litigation department

Recent Accomplishments: Guiding the firm through a new strategic plan, implementing alternative fee arrangements and investing in technology. "We are at the cutting edge of electronic discovery, allowing us to synthesize, sort and store astounding amounts of information in exponentially less time and client expense than would have been required even a few years ago," says McGrath, who is vice president of the NH Bar Association.

Future Goals: "There are fewer students entering law school, and the competition for the very best and most promising young lawyers has never been greater," McGrath says of the need to attract new talent.

Scott A. Cooper

President and CEO, Granite Bank

Granite Bank has slowly been expanding beyond its original roots in northern NH and now has new leadership to build on that growth. Scott A. Cooper took over as president and CEO of Granite Bank, formerly First Colebrook Bank, on Jan. 1 of this year, replacing Loyd W. Dollins, who retired after 17 years with the bank.

Cooper began his employment with the bank in March 2016 as executive vice president and COO.

Granite Bank, first established in Colebrook in 1889, has grown to include offices in Amherst, Concord and Portsmouth. "Short-term, we will continue to focus on growth opportunities that exist in our current markets and then seek profitable expansion in markets where we identify additional opportunities," Cooper says.

This requires a difficult balance of retaining and motivating employees, retaining existing customers and identifying new customer opportunities "in areas where there may be too many financial institutions."

David Van Rossum

President and CEO, Service Credit Union

The largest credit union in the state isn't done growing yet. "Growth is something we will continue to focus on," says David Van Rossum, who became the fourth president in the credit union's history in August 2016 after being promoted from chief administrative officer in 2015 and then to interim president prior to his permanent appointment.

The Portsmouth-based credit union acquired Guardian Angel Credit Union in Coos County in 2015, which added branches for Service in Berlin and Lancaster. The credit union has $3 billion in assets, over 50 locations and more than 230,000 members.

Throughout its growth, he says the credit union has never lost site of its primary mission to serve its members, who are also owners. "Our focus is to be a hometown banking solution," he says.

New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp

There has been several mergers and acquisitions in NH's banking community in the last five years as small banks struggle to find a way to remain viable. New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp (NHMB), a mutual holding company, was formed in 2013 when two NH-based community banks, Meredith Village Savings Bank (MVSB), based in Meredith, and Merrimack County Savings Bank (the Merrimack), based in Concord, formally affiliated-the first relationship of its kind in NH. MillRiver Wealth Management joined as a third subsidiary of NHMB in 2015, combining the financial advisory divisions of MVSB and the Merrimack. NHMB combined assets total nearly $1.6 billion.

Changes at the organization include numerous new leaders in the last two years. Samuel L. Laverack became president and CEO of NHMB in January 2016 following the retirement of Paul C. Rizzi Jr., whom he previously worked with as co-CEO. Paul Provost is now president of MillRiver Wealth Management, having joined MillRiver from The Merrimack when it became an NHMB affiliate. The two banks also have new leadership: Philip B. Emma as president of Merrimack County Savings Bank and Richard Wyman as president of Meredith Village Savings Bank, both of whom started in January 2016.

Laverack is now looking to build on the strengths of the affiliations. "This growing relationship has made way for the banks to expand their service areas, increase lending capacity, mitigate growing regulatory and technology costs and offer more career opportunities to employees," he says, adding the wealth management division offers additional services to customers.

Ronald Magoon

President and COO Franklin Savings Bank

It's difficult in banking to stand out based on products alone as banks essentially offer the same things. That is why Franklin Savings Bank has been focused on differentiating itself with service, says Ronald Magoon, who was appointed president and COO in December 2016. And it's working as the bank has been able to grow beyond its geographic base in the Lakes Region.

From the smile squad where employees go into the community to offer random acts of kindness, to a debit card where bank customers get extra points for shopping locally to a millennials team focused on how to attract millennials as customers and employees, the bank finds unique ways of providing service. It has also donated close to $1 million largely from its Fund for Community Advancement to nonprofits over the last 20 years and gives 20 to 30 college scholarships to local students and children of employees.

"Each generation has been shaped by whatever significant events happened as they were coming of age ... For the millennials, it was the financial crisis. All banks were vilified in the financial crisis when in reality it was a few large Wall Street firms. But everybody kept saying it's the banks. For us, as an institution, we have to find ways to tell our story a little differently to engage this generation as both current and potential customers, and as employees," Magoon says.

Franklin Savings Bank, based in Franklin, now has seven branches, with an eighth opening in Merrimack in 2017. With the Lakes Region market stagnant due to slow population growth, the bank looked south and carefully grew its footprint.

H Kathleen Reardon

CEO, NPI Center for Nonprofits

HIred: January 2016

Why Here: "I believe that nonprofits are integral to our daily lives and the vitality of our communities. I have long been a champion of the Center's work and saw this role as a unique opportunity to build upon my professional skills and experience, while advancing a mission I care so deeply about."

The NH Center for Nonprofits in Concord is a statewide association with 700 nonprofit, corporate and individual members. It offers a range of leadership, management and skill building educational programs, along with resources and tools for nonprofit staff and board leaders.

Previous Position: Senior vice president, director of corporate giving at Citizens Bank in Manchester.

Top Priorities: Provide a relevant array of programs and events that address key issues for the nonprofit sector and deepen member engagement; launch the first Nonprofit Sustainability Institute, a new program designed to help nonprofit organizations advance their strategic business practices.

Kathy Sevigny

President, Altos

Kathy Sevigny first joined Altos, a digital marketing agency in Bedford, in 2011 as director of client development. She left behind a decade of closed-book management and a large corporate culture she disliked for the open small company environment led by Founder Tony Matos. "Unbeknownst to me that Altos' success would soon become my professional life's passion." Sevigny was appointed president in January 2016.

In the coming year, she plans to keep a close eye on technology to make sure the agency has the most cutting edge solutions and plans to continue building a people-focused culture even as the agency grows. Altos has increased from seven people to 17 in the last five years.

David McGrath

Executive Vice President and General Manager, NH Motor Speedway

While NASCAR drivers compete to see who can make it around the NH Motor Speedway track in Loudon the fastest, David McGrath is focused on how the Speedway can go the distance. McGrath, who took over as executive vice president and general manager of the Speedway in October 2015, is working with his team at ways to make the Speedway a fourseason attraction in a state known for its tourism.

"With 1.100 acres, our goal is to bring cool new events to this property on a year-round basis," McGrath says. To that end, a new museum celebrating racing in New England is set to open there in spring 2017, and the Speedway recently signed a five-year deal to host a Tough Mudder race each August. The first one held in 2016 attracted 5,000 participants. "We're the largest sports entertainment complex in New England," McGrath notes, adding the Speedway contributes $400 million to the state's economy during the two NASCAR race weekends it hosts. Since 2008, the Speedway has invested $16 million in improvements, including establishing a trackside hospitality center on Round 3 of the track that has enhanced race experiences for corporate sponsors.

"We have to find new ways to enhance the fan experience," says McGrath, who has been with the Speedway since 2011, most recently as vice president of corporate sales.

Douglas A. Bechtel

President, NH Audubon

As president of NH Audubon, Douglas A. Bechtel wants to celebrate the state's considerable environmental riches as well as the people who enjoy them.

"We are going to continue working to make sure that New Hampshire is a great place to be among healthy wildlife habitats. 1 know this sounds like jargon, but New Hampshire Audubon has always focused on making sure people have a place to enjoy nature and I want to celebrate that during my tenure here," says Bechtel, who became president in June 2016, replacing the retiring Michael J. Bartlett.

Bechtel has extensive experience in conservation leadership, both in NH and elsewhere, and most recently served as executive director of Audubon International before accepting his current position. For 15 years, he worked at the NH chapter of the Nature Conservancy, primarily as director of conservation science.

Now, he oversees NH Audubon's four centers: one each in Concord and Auburn, the Amoskeag Fishways in Manchester (in partnership with the NH Fish and Game Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Eversource) and a seasonal center in Hebron on Newfound Lake.

He's preparing his first annual budget for the organization, which must be approved by the board in March. "One of the most challenging 'firsts' for a new leader is learning the fiscal nuances of an organization and developing a responsible budget," he says.

A high priority is "to expand our reach and grow our influence in the state," through NH Audubon's four key missions: conservation science, advocacy, land management and environmental education, he says.

Bechtel has a passion for NH's robust natural assets. "My love of birding has driven most of my time outside, from skiing in the mountains to paddling the rivers, lakes and estuaries," he says. And it's those habitats he and his organization seek to protect. "New Hampshire's environmental challenges are not unique," Bechtel says. "However, we are concerned about both global and local challenges such as climate change and habitat conversion."

Liz LaRose

President, Monadnock United Way

Liz LaRose spent her career forging collaboration, a skill she is now using as the new president of the Monadnock United Way, which has worked with other stakeholders in the Monadnock Region to identify three main areas of focus: child well-being, educational attainment and economic opportunity.

Before joining the United Way, LaRose worked as the marketing and communications director for Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center since 2010.

"I was responsible for marketing plus public relations and internal communications," she says. "But it was a large organization with a lot of moving parts, and I really worked to bring the organization to a place where marketing was a part of the culture."

To do that, she says, took bringing teams from each department together to do the marketing as a whole.

LaRose says building those collaborations is exactly what she needs to do as the Monadnock United Way moves toward a collective impact model, one based on bringing the entire community together to address social needs.

"And so if you look at a collective impact model, that would mean bringing together not only the Monadnock United Way and the partners and agencies that we support, but the entire community," LaRose says. "So this could be school systems, this could be other businesses, this could be nonprofits outside of those that we are partnering with and funding, it could mean local and regional government and interested citizens. But the idea is to bring them together to form coalitions to answer those needs."

Donnalee Lozeau

Executive Director, Southern NH Services

After serving three terms as Nashua's first woman mayor, Donnalee Lozeau returned to Southern NH Services, where she previously worked for 15 years, this time taking over as executive director in January 2016 from Dale Hennessey upon his retirement. The community action agency provides social service programs designed to assist low-income people, including the elderly, in a number of ways including retaining employment, access to education, health and housing services and working to remove barriers which block self-sufficiency.

Southern NH Services is undertaking a pilot program with a group of families that uses a two-generation approach to assisting families out of poverty. "Essentially, the approach brings together resources which provide job training, asset-building and income supports for parents, along with high quality early care and education for children," she explains. If successful, the organization plans to expand it.

Robert Boucher

CEO, Wheelabrator Technologies

During the past two years, Wheelabrator Technologies, a waste-to-energy provider, was acquired by a new owner, recruited a new CEO, moved its headquarters to Portsmouth and began building waste-to-energy facilities in the United Kingdom-all with an eye toward going public.

"Everything we do here is around installing the oversight, rigor and discipline needed to have a public company," says President and CEO Robert Boucher, who joined the company in July 2015. He expects the company to pursue an IPO by the end of 2017 or in 2018.

The new path was chartered in 2014, when Energy Capital Partners, a private equity firm, closed a $1.94 billion deal to acquire Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. from Waste Management in Hampton, making the division its own corporate entity.

Wheelabrator then recruited Boucher, and for good reason. Boucher, a Dover native, has worked in the solid waste industry his entire career. He most recently served for two years as the CEO and executive director of Transpacific Industries Group Ltd., a publicly traded waste management business in Australia. Before that, Boucher served as executive vice president of operations for Republic Services Inc. in Arizona, the second largest waste company in America behind Waste Management, where he oversaw 31,000 employees.

Under Boucher's leadership, Wheelabrator took some big steps. In August Wheelabrator moved its headquarters from Hampton to the Pease Tradeport in Portsmouth. The move allowed it to brand itself in a modern office building and consolidated operations from four floors to one, allowing for greater collaboration.

That month, the company also received the green light to construct a new 606,000-ton per year energy-from-waste facility in the United Kingdom, a $426 million project expected to be online by 2019. The U.K. is a growth market for Wheelabrator, which plans to construct four plants there in the next 38 months, Boucher says. The U.K., Boucher says, is running out of room for disposing of trash and has placed a moratorium on landfill expansions and levies for disposing into landfills, creating a market opportunity for the company. In addition Wheelabrator continues to grow locally with 10 open positions in NH and expectations to hire 10 to 20 more employees this year.

Greg Knight

President and CEO, GT Advanced Technologies

Greg Knight has a long history with GT Advanced Technologies, experiencing the company's high points and now leading it out of its lowest point as it emerges from bankruptcy. "If I didn't feel GT had a future, I wouldn't take it on," says Knight, who has more than 15 years of experience in the photovoltaic (PV) industry.

GT was producing advanced materials and crystal growth equipment for the electronics, solar and LED industries, and was on an upward trajectory. That is, until it entered a deal to produce sapphire screens for Apple mobile devices, built an Arizona production facility and then the deal went south. That sent GT into bankruptcy, and in 2015, CEO Tom Gutierrez resigned and was replaced by David Keck, who ran GT's solar divisions. Knight was tapped to lead GT in September 2016. He looked at what GT still had for assets, which included some critical talent and technology, unusual for a company in GT's circumstances. The company has begun hiring again after a massive layoff during the bankruptcy. GT is now down to 79 employees as of mid-December but is expecting to grow to 111 in 2017. He expects the company will be profitable again in two to three years.

Kent Devereaux

President, NH Institute of Art

Kent Devereaux had never set foot in NH when the search committee called him about the position of president at NH Institute of Art in Manchester. "Then when I visited Manchester and saw the incredible potential at NHIA, I was sold," says Devereaux, who started in January 2015. He previously worked at Cornish College of the Arts, an urban college in Seattle.

The art college, located in downtown Manchester, serves more than 2,000 students annually on two campuses in Manchester and Peterborough. In the coming year, Devereaux is looking to increase awareness of the school outside Manchester as it is "the oldest and largest nonprofit arts institution in New Hampshire, yet 1 doubt many people have even heard of us. We're set on changing that."

Ian Grant

Director, UNH Peter T. Pa Entrepreneurship Center

So an art student, a techie and an engineer wannabe walk into a building ...

If the building happens to be at the University of NH, it's likely all three have come to see Ian Grant, who has made it his mission to bring together students from different disciplines to brainstorm, learn creative problem-solving and, perhaps, become entrepreneurs.

Grant is the first director of the Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center, commonly called the ECenter, which-though just a year old-has grown rapidly. Created with financial assistance from Peter T. Paul and the Wildcatalysts Network, the center has seen interactions with students, faculty and alumni grow from 2,000 its first semester to more than 4,000 in the second semester.

The center is unique in that it is independent of the business school, and students who use it receive no academic credit. Rather, they, as well as university faculty, staff and alumni, can avail themselves of free coaching from experienced entrepreneurs, boot camps on multiple subjects, "hackathons" on problem-solving and a variety of grants to help fund potential projects.

Students also have access to the center's makerspace with laser and vinyl cutters, 3D printers, sewing machines, tools and more to help bring ideas to fruition. It also has an Idea Connection Board where seekers use old-fashioned index cards to connect ideas looking for people and people looking for ideas. Grant says the board is intentionally low-tech to encourage students to interact.

Grant embodies the entrepreneurial spirit. A high-energy entrepreneur who sleeps just five hours a night, "my most productive times are from 1:30 to 3 a.m.," he says.

He founded or co-founded three companies that were acquired and led innovation projects within Fortune 500 corporations.

Many students are following suit. Plaques on one wall of the center show logos from the businesses started by student entrepreneurs. Other plaques feature the logos from some of the 3,600 UNH alumni who have founded, co-founded or started their own businesses.

Grant says he likes to have such reminders for students and others that "it's okay to get out of your comfort zone."

Eric Anthony Spieth

Executive Director, Enterprise Center at Plymouth

After working at the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence and Development in Bend, Oregon, Eric Spieth moved across the country to help spur business innovation in the Plymouth region.

In April 2016, Spieth became the executive director of the Enterprise Center at Plymouth, a joint partnership between Plymouth State University and the Grafton Regional Development Corporation.

The Center provides business workshops, accelerator services, incubator services, coaching and mentoring, professional services, business resources and office space to help entrepreneurs launch startups and existing businesses to expand.

Spieth is excited to further such support of entrepreneurial efforts in the Plymouth region. "There is a rare and genuine sense of community in Plymouth, a palpable sense of collaboration, dedication and pride towards building an enduring legacy," he says. "The position offers all of the factors that I cherish in my own life and work: service to the community, service to the university, collaboration, integrity and impact."

Dr. Donald L. Birx

President, Plymouth State University

Since taking the lead at Plymouth State University in July 2015, Donald Birx has implemented a new way for students to leam based on clusters across majors and interactions with area businesses and the community.

He is dramatically transforming PSU by eliminating 24 undergraduate academic departments in three colleges and graduate studies program, and replacing them by September with seven strategic theme-based interdisciplinary clusters: Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Arts and Technology, Education, Democracy and Social Change, Tourism, Environment and Sustainable Development, Exploration and Discovery, Justice and Security, and Health and Human Enrichment.

"I took this position because of the opportunity to create a new model for higher education [and] the strong support from the University System of New Hampshire system to do so," Birx says.

Prior to joining Plymouth State, Birx served as the chancellor of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, in Pennsylvania, an institution serving 4,500 students within the Penn State system.

Matthew Slaughter

Dean, Tuck School of Business

While nestled in the bucolic Upper Valley, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College is committed to making sure its students are prepared to enter the global economy. Matthew Slaughter's background as an economist with expertise in the economics and politics of globalization positions him well to lead that mission as dean of the Tuck School.

While he has been with Dartmouth since 1994, he became dean in 2015 and spent his first year and a half rearticulating the school's mission statement, and making sure students receive a global education. Tuck is now one of two business schools in the top 10 MBA programs nationwide with a mandatory global experiential learning course. The Class of 2017 will be the first required to go through the program, traveling to their choice of 30 countries for two- to three-week intensive business and cultural experiences with Tuck professors familiar with that country.

"It is part of our refined strategy to provide educational experiences that are personal, connected and transformative," says Slaughter, who served on the Council of Economic Advisors from 2005 to 2007 and is the founding director of Tuck's Center for Global Business and Government, which helps students explore the intersection of business and public policy.

This June, Tuck is launching a bridge program with the Thayer School of Engineering to create a summer program for women and other minorities interested in computer science, most of them Dartmouth students. Tuck is also expanding on a business bridge program traditionally offered in the summer to students from across the country and this time focusing on Dartmouth undergrads to teach business skills. "The news of the world continues to show the Facebooks and Googles and Amazons still have a way to go to diversify their labor force across gender and ethnic lines. This very intensely focused program for undergrads hopes to help change that somewhere along the way," Slaughter says.

Mike Decelle

Dean, UNH Manchester

For years, the University of NFi Manchester has been considered the commuter school of UNH Durham. Not anymore. The new dean, Mike Decelle, is branding the college as what he says it really is-the urban campus of UNH Durham, with the same admission standards and unique programs.

And just as UNH Manchester is not your typical NH college. Decelle is not your typical dean. A former tech entrepreneur and UNH alumnus, Decelle was drawn to the Manchester campus specifically because it is within walking distance of some of the most influential and fastest growing businesses in the state.

"I'm not an academic. I spent my career developing tech for large and small companies. To me [the school] looked a little bit like a startup company," he says, explaining UNH Manchester was trying to figure out how to achieve its next stage of growth, the kind of products to offer and how to attract the best students.

In 2015, the campus signed an agreement with the NH Institute of Art to house some of its students in the Manchester art college's dorms. The University has also been working to increase enrollment, which Decelle says is one the University's top priorities. He says progress is being made as there was double digit growth this fall over last fall, with 750 enrolled.

Edward Fox

General Manager, Hanover Food Co-op

Edward Fox likes it when people shop at the Hanover Food Co-op, but what he likes even more is when people know why they are shopping there. While the coop provides an array of choices based on price and quality, it engages shoppers as co-op owners and as consumers and community members wanting to know where food comes from, says Fox, who was hired as general manager of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society in September.

"The member or the shopper can say, 'I think I am going to buy that and I know why,' and that was really, really important to me," says Fox, explaining that co-ops provide more information about what food and products are offered, and their source, than traditional stores.

Fox has a background in manufacturing operations, most recently with B&G Foods and then volunteering at the Vermont Food Bank, where he worked with staff to help them understand that even though they are a nonprofit, they were still a business and needed to operate as such.

"The food bank had a mission to feed food-insecure people in the state of Vermont, but it was also a food distribution business," Fox says. "So it had an operational side that needed to run like a business."

The experience helped him to better understand food insecurity, a cause about which he is now deeply passionate, having worked as director of operations at a nonprofit in Boston addressing homelessness and low income before coming to the co-op.

While Fox says he's not planning any large-scale changes yet, he'd like to develop an even stronger member engagement philosophy and plan for the 25,000 plus co-op members.

He also wants to invest more in technology and training "so there's more time freed up for them [employees] to work with the customers and do customer service and customer engagement. And they already do great with that every day, but it's always nice to do more of it."

Kim Mooney

President, Franklin Pierce University

Kim Mooney is only the sixth president to lead Franklin Pierce University-and she was the first alumna and the first woman to hold the position when she began in August.

"1 think what speaks to me about Franklin Pierce, and what has always spoken to me about Franklin Pierce, is the way we work with students and the value we place on that work," says Mooney, who succeeded Andrew Card. "We have always had this fundamental belief in the potential of every student. And that excites us."

Mooney served as a trustee from 2001 to 2008, interim president from January to June 2009 and was appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2009, a position she held since then.

As provost, she spearheaded programs that integrated the university's two colleges-the undergraduate campus in Rindge and the Graduate and Professional Studies Centers-by creating "the pathways program," which provides a direct path from undergrad studies to graduate degree programs. She also helped oversee the introduction of a new general education curriculum, the start of a Health Sciences major and the development of the university's 2014 strategic plan.

She says one of the university's objectives will be to boost its relevance regionally, particularly when it comes to building relationships with businesses near the university campuses in Rindge, Manchester, Peterborough and Goodyear, Arizona.

"Our goals are both pragmatic and aspirational," Mooney says.

Susan D. Stuebner

President, Colby-Sawyer College

Across the country, small rural colleges are feeling the squeeze from declining enrollments, forcing college presidents to make some tough decisions. Among them is Colby-Sawyer College in New London, which saw enrollment drop from 1,500 four years ago to 1,100 this year, resulting in an operating loss of more than $2 million for the past two years and a projected loss of $2.6 million this academic year.

It's a less than ideal scenario for a new president to come into, but it's a challenge Susan D. Stuebner has met head on since becoming the college's ninth president in July 2016. In early December, the college laid off seven faculty members, eliminated 11 staff positions, reduced hours of 11 more positions and decided not to replace 19 positions where faculty and staff had planned departures. The reductions and restructuring will save the college more than $2 million over the next three years.

"I think Colby-Sawyer is a college that can thrive," she says. "We have to focus on some of the fundamentals of budget and enrollment." Most recently, the Minnesota native served as the executive vice president and COO at Allegheny College in Meadville, Penn.

Colby-Sawyer is now undergoing a strategic planning process, which should be completed by spring, to figure out what is the right size for enrollment and what degree programs should remain. "We're trying to figure out the programs where we can deliver transformational education," Stuebner says. The college is also working with a consultant to build the application pool. It is also in the midst of a $60 million capital campaign that began before Stuebner's arrival.

Kevin W. Donovan

President and CEO, LRGHealthcare

Hired: June 2016

Why Here: Kevin W. Donovan has lived in NH for the past 18 years, but his jobs have sometimes taken him out of state, so when he was offered the job as CEO of LRGHealthcare in Laconia, he jumped on it.

LRGHealthcare has two hospitals, Lakes Region General Hospital, with 132 beds, and Franklin Regional Hospital, with 35 beds, as well as affiliated medical practices. Donovan previously led Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center in Vermont.

Top Priorities: Implement one single electronic health record in all environments of care, solidify the organization's financial performance to guarantee its ability to meet the long-term mission of providing services to the community and collaborate with community organizations to meet health and social service needs.

Sharon K. Schilling,

President Mount Washington Observatory

Having spent a large part of her career keeping an eye on the weather as a commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, Sharon K. Schilling is changing her perspective, and altitude, as president of the Mount Washington Observatory in North Conway. She oversees operations of the observatory on the 6,288-foot summit of Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. Schilling worked for 15 years as a manager at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Virginia, a nonprofit that develops and commercializes technology. She started her new role at the Mount Washington Observatory in September 2016.

While Schilling has "been to the top of Mount Washington every possible way except being dropped from an airplane," many people have not, and she has a dual goal of bringing more people to the mountain and bringing the mountain to more people.

The observatory has a $ 1.9 million budget and provides a range of research and education services, including a weather museum and an observatory staffed with four to five people at any given time. This winter, a new program, called Arctic Wednesdays will bring local grade school to high school teachers to the summit to bring lessons about weather back to their classrooms. The observatory also launched Facebook Live a few months ago, where staff deliver a live broadcast about the weather on Mount Washington when something notable happens and answer viewers' questions.

Michael Coughlin

President & CEO, Crotched Mountain Foundation

Making a difference, specifically by serving the most vulnerable people, is something Michael Coughlin finds rewarding and hopes to continue as the new president and CEO of Crotched Mountain Foundation in Greenfield. Crotched Mountain Foundation provides school and residential services to people of all ages with disabilities.

"Crotched Mountain is like no other organization, perhaps in the nation, for the diversity of its programs, all focused on serving our most vulnerable neighbors," says Coughlin, who joined the organization in March 2016. "I have great respect for the former CEO, Don Shumway, and jumped at the chance to succeed him."

Coughlin previously led a turnaround effort at Tri-County Community Action in the North Country, a nonprofit that was in financial trouble and provides numerous vital services including Head Start, Meals on Wheels, dental services, transportation and home weatherization and assistance with heating bills. In the coming year Coughlin intends to expand the impact of Crotched Mountain's programs in the region and broaden its national exposure.

Genella McDonald

President, Stibler Associates

When the founder of the company sits you down and says she's handpicked you to be her successor, this usually elicits a feeling akin to excitement. For Genella McDonald, the feeling was, well, not that.

"I was like, 'are you insane? Are you crazy? I can't do your job,"' McDonald says with a big chuckle, remembering that first conversation with her boss and founder of Stibler Associates, Phyllis Stibler. While McDonald was confident in her interior design ability, she was also raising her kids and working. But after working with Stibler for a couple of years, she took the reins in January 2015.

"Somehow I've been doing it and the business has been going great guns. The business has had its best two years from a financial standpoint on record, we're approaching our 35,h anniversary in 2017 and we just moved our office."

McDonald says among her goals is to help people realize interior designers do much more than just make paint color suggestions. "We can really bring them more than just a pretty space," she says. "It's all about work function and aligning how the work space works, what the work space looks like and what their goals and priorities are, integrating their branding into the space."

Craig D. Amoth

President and CEO, Greater Nashua Mental Health Center at Community Council

Hired: July 2015

Top Priorities: Increasing access to care and addressing issue of statewide provider shortage. This includes integrating primary care into the center's behavioral health setting and behavioral health into the primary care settings around Greater Nashua. The center will also increase its community crisis stabilization offerings to reduce visits to local emergency departments.

The Greater Nashua Mental Health Center has four locations and more than 200 staff to serve between 5,000 and 6,000 clients annually. It provides an array of behavioral health services and programs including specialized services for children, adolescents and families; elder services; deaf services; substance misuse services; and vocational services.

Why Here: "I was impressed with the depth and breadth of services that GNMHC offers, the dedication of the staff, as well as its willingness to try new and promising approaches ...," says Amoth, who previously served as president and CEO at Behavioral Health Services North in Plattsburgh, NY before taking over the Nashuabased center in July 2015.

Ken Gordon

CEO, Coos County Family Health Services

Ken Gordon has dedicated most of his professional life to making sure rural residents have access to affordable health care and social services, and now he has brought that expertise to Coos County Family Health Services (CCFHS), based in Berlin and Gorham.

In February 2015, the agency's board of directors named Gordon CEO, replacing Adele Woods, who had spent 26 years at the helm. Prior to his new job, the Missouri native spent 12 years as executive director of the Area Agency on Aging for Northeastern Vermont, which serves older adults and family caregivers in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, then became executive director of the Littleton-based North Country Accountable Care Organization, one of the first advanced payment accountable care organizations in the country, he notes.

"I really love rural places and small communities so I have spent the bulk of my career in northern Vermont and now New Hampshire, and I really value the close connections that are possible in small communities," he says.

Coos County is the poorest county in NH, and Gordon says one challenge is finding ways to address poverty, poor housing, employment, education and other factors that can impact health, but over which health care providers have traditionally had little control. Another is to help consumers and providers navigate the changing mies in the health care system. CCFHS offers a broad range of health and social services, regardless of income or insurance status, including primary care, pediatrics, women's health, behavioral health, oral health, and helping survivors of domestic and sexual assault.

John Marzinzik

President and CEO, Frisbie Memorial Hospital

After 21 years at Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester as CFO, John Marzinzik was promoted to CEO of the 112-bed acute care hospital in January 2015.

Last fall, Frisbie Memorial Hospital opened the Rochester Community Recovery Center to support individuals struggling with alcohol issues, drug addiction and mental health challenges.

Marzinzik says it is one of the first recovery models including a medical model in the state.

The hospital is also committed to population health management as one of four NH hospitals to join Benevera Health, a partnership between Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the hospitals to leverage data to provide higher quality and lower cost care.

Looking ahead Marzinzik will continue to address substance abuse and opioid issues in the community and expand mental health services. The hospital is also in the process of installing Meditech, an electronic health record system.

Warren West

CEO, North Country Healthcare

Hospital affiliations are common, but North Country Healthcare is different, as it is an affiliation between four small critical access hospitals within the North Country. That is one of many reasons Warren West, who spent the majority of his career at small hospitals, was excited to take over full time as CEO of North Country Healthcare in Whitefield last July.

"We are trying to solve the issue of access to care in the North Country on our own. It's very unique, very exciting and very challenging," says West, who formerly led Littleton Regional Health Care and stresses this is a local. North Country solution. "No one has done what we have done by building size and scale among critical access hospitals only."

Together the four hospitals-Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin, Littleton Regional Healthcare in Littleton, Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital in Colebrook and Weeks Medical Center in Lancaster-have gross revenues of $300 million, 1,300 employees and about 100 beds. "That makes us either the 5th or 6th largest health care system in the state, which is another interesting fact when you think about the North Country," West says. At the same time, the individual hospitals all have new executives (Michael Peterson, president of Androscoggin; Robert Nutter, president of Littleton as of this month; Scott Colby, president of Upper Connecticut Valley; and Michael Lee, president of Weeks), either due to executives moving to jobs elsewhere, or in the case of Littleton and Androscoggin, the executives moving to work for North Country Health, including West as CEO and Russell Keene as president and CFO.

West says his goals for the new system are to maintain financial viability for the long term and allow each hospital to retain its own entity and provide services locally. While West says each of the hospitals is the biggest economic engine in their respective communities, reimbursement changes from fee-for-service to value can mean lower reimbursements and make it hard for the individual hospitals to remain financially viable.

Since the affiliation became official in April 2016, the new organization has been working to centralize services and administrative needs and align technologies. For the fiscal year beginning October 2016, the new organization negotiated with insurers and saved $300,000. Also two home health care agencies were combined into one.

Looking ahead. West says the organization plans to combine lab services, a move that could result in operational efficiencies that he hopes to manage as much as possible by attrition and switching people to new roles. Other priorities include combining payroll, standardizing reporting and credentialing processes and combining back office activities.

Chris Wellington

CEO, Grafton Regional Development Corporation

For Chris Wellington, community and economic involvement has been a driving force throughout his career, from his time in the Manchester Economic Development Office to serving as a business development officer for the NH Division of Economic Development. Now he is using those skills as CEO of the Grafton Regional Development Corp (Grafton RDC), a role he started in April 2015.

"I love economic development because I see it more as community development than economic development," says Wellington. "Economic development is all about creating a foundation to support small business and large business to be successful. But at the end of the day, all the people they are serving are our friends, neighbors and community members. Hopefully helping businesses grow means you have more jobs, and people can move up the ladder."

The Grafton RDC is a regional development corporation that has provided $12 million in grants to support economic development in Grafton County in the last decade and provides loans ranging from $1 million to $475 million. It also co-owns two business incubators, the Dartmouth Regional Technology Center in Lebanon and the Enterprise Center at Plymouth, which opened in 2013.

This year, Wellington led a rebranding of the organization that led to a new website and its new name, Grafton RDC, along with hiring a marketing specialist. He also overhauled the program options from repeating the same programs with staff to bringing in business owners as facilitators and industry experts to add value. The center offered 24 workshops to more than 200 small businesses between July 2015 and June 2016. "For a business owner to take an hour off, it is big time commitment so I feel compelled to make it worth their time," he says, adding he is continuing to expand programming.

William Rider, CEO

Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester

William Rider has continued to foster growth at the state's largest outpatient provider of mental health care services, even while grappling with such daunting challenges as the opioid epidemic and staff shortages.

The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester not only serves some 11,000 individuals annually but boasts a research department that focuses on modern evidence-based treatments and on training the workforce of tomorrow. It offers consultation and education workshops on such issues as reversing the stigma surrounding mental illness and on recognizing the signs of distress. It recently launched a new mobile crisis response team.

But the center faces numerous challenges, according to Rider, who was named president and CEO in February 2015. Chief among them is underfunding by the state, especially since 2006. and "the ever-increasing administrative load" put on providers. The center has also seen many qualified employees move elsewhere, resulting in shortages of social workers, mental health counselors, psychiatric social workers and psychiatrists. In response, the center started a telemedicine program, allowing staff members who moved elsewhere to continue to serve longtime clients via secure technology. Rider has also built on the legacy of retired president Peter Janelle who, over 15 years, took the organization from a net operating loss to net assets of $11 million, now $13.3 million under Rider.

Jeff Scionti

CEO, Parkland Medical Center

Jeff Scionti is not exactly a new CEO at Parkland Medical Center in Derry having served as interim CEO of the hospital not once but twice during his 30-year career before becoming CEO in September 2016. He previously served as COO of the hospital since 2007. Over the years Scionti led many projects at the hospital, including serving as project manager in 2002 when Parkland, one of the two for-profit hospitals in the state owned and operated by the publicly traded Hospital Corporation of America, expanded its emergency room from 15 to 26 beds. He also executed a joint venture with Salem Radiology at Parkland's new medical office buildings in Salem, and coordinated approval and construction of Parkland's Center for Emotional Wellness in 2015, a $3.5 million voluntary inpatient behavioral health unit. In October, the hospital launched a separate program for outpatient psychiatric treatment.

He says the 14-bed inpatient unit generally has 11 to 12 patients at any one time and recently has been full, as it has a mix of private and semi-private rooms.

Dean M. Carucci,

CEO, Portsmouth Regional Hospital

After holding executive positions at several hospitals in the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) network, Dean Carucci was promoted to CEO of Portsmouth Regional Hospital in August 2015.

The first major challenge facing Carucci was annual employee turnover of 20 percent, well above the industry average of 15 percent, he says. He attributed the high turnover to the administration's lack of engagement with employees. "I put plans in place as to how to re-engage the staff," Carucci says, including making sure the executive team is present for staff meetings and doing rounds to be accessible on the hospital's floors. Voluntary turnover dropped to 11.5 percent. "We were number one in HCA for employee engagement improvement" between 2015 and 2016, Carcucci says. The hospital also recently opened a freestanding emergency room in Seabrook.

Cheryl Coletti-Lawson

President and CEO, Hope for NH Recovery

Everyone has important dates in their lives, often their wedding day and the birthdays of their children. Cheryl Coletti-Lawson has those too, but for her Feb. 14, 2012 is equally important as that was the day she had her last alcoholic drink.

And everything about that day has led her to her new role as the first president and CEO of Hope for NH Recovery, based in Manchester. Having spent 25 years in the for-profit world building, developing and selling companies, Coletti-Lawson quit her job last spring to take on this role-without compensation.

While the opioid crisis regularly makes the news, Hope for NH Recovery deals with all addictions, including alcohol, which she says silently affects more people than opioids, especially in the workplace.

Hope for NH Recovery opened its first recovery center in July 2015 in Manchester and now has six centers, a staff of about 30 people and a projected budget this year of $ 1.3 million.

The organization provides peer recovery support services, support to businesses in dealing with workers addicted to substances and helps connect people with resources to recover.

Since opening its doors, more than 21,000 people have visited or received services at Hope for NH Recovery, which now has 1,600 members in active recovery coaching.

Last March it became the NH affiliate of Face it Together, a national organization based in South Dakota. Through that affiliation, it gained database capacities, access to grant research and a workplace initiative to help employers address addiction.

Yvonne Goldsberry,

President, Endowment for Health

Yvonne Goldsberry has spent her career making communities stronger and healthier and in her latest position, she is setting up the Endowment for Health to do just that.

The Endowment is shifting its funding focus from programs to more broad-based advocacy work, Goldsberry says. Its top funding priorities are children's behavioral health, early childhood, health equity, elder health and health policy. "We're focusing on systems and policy work," Goldsberry says, in order to spur the "conversations that need to happen to have a healthier population." Goldsberry was promoted from vice president of programs to president in September 2015.

Among those conversations is a discussion about race in NH and increasing equity. The Endowment for Health has engaged leaders of color about their thoughts on what needs to happen in NH. The Endowment has also engaged cohorts of white leaders to explore the issues of race, white privilege and the role they can play in combatting systemic racism. That work is leading up to a symposium in the spring focused on race and developing a shared vision for the state when it comes to equity. "Over time our state will become more diverse, so let's do it right," Goldsberry says.

The Endowment for Health has been working closely with the NH Charitable Foundation and the HNH Foundation to fund advocacy work in health care and early childhood education, including closing the opportunity gap in early childhood through the NH Tomorrow Campaign to promote funding full-day kindergarten and quality early childhood services.

"We're purposefully combining dollars to have higher and better impact," she says. "It's community building with other funders."

William Brewster

Vice President and Medical Director, NH Market, Harvard Pilgrim

William Brewster and his family know all too well the toll of the opioid crisis. His son was addicted to heroin for a decade as the family tried to help, with his wife, a nurse, even changing jobs to have more stable work hours to be there for their son.

His son is now three years sober and enrolled in premed at the University of NH Manchester. And as head of the NH market for Harvard Pilgrim as of March 2016, Brewster hopes sharing his own family's struggle will further the conversation about how to address NH's opioid crisis. "I am not going to be quiet about this, and I'm not embarrassed. We don't want to point fingers of blame. We want to point a finger to solutions," Brewster says. "It's being up front and telling my story and affecting change." To that end, Brewster serves on a state committee charged with examining substance misuse in the state. Harvard Pilgrim pays for physicians to screen patients for alcohol and drug misuse, but last year in the four New England states Harvard Pilgrim covers, there were only 147 such claims as a result of screenings. "We should have 147 referrals in Manchester alone," he says.

Before joining Harvard Pilgrim four and half years ago, Brewster served as medical director at Seacoast Redicare, Well Sense and for the Physicians Association of Rochester. He played a critical role in forming Benevera Health with Dartmouth Hitchcock, Elliot Health Systems, Frisbie Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital. Benevera is a partnership among those hospitals and Harvard Pilgrim to contain health care costs while improving the quality of health care. Benevera, which launched in January 2016, will hire 45 new care coordinators and support staff by the first quarter of 2017 to work at provider sites to coordinate care.

Brewster is concerned about the rising costs of pharmaceuticals. He points out that Harvard Pilgrim was the first insurer in New England to sign pay-for-performance contracts with a major pharmaceutical company. While the future of the Affordable Care Act is uncertain, Brewster is not intimidated by that uncertainty. "I have a choice every morning when I wake up. I can be anxious or excited. I choose to be excited," he says.

James Key-Wallace

Executive Director, NH Business Finance Authority

Funding opportunities to help organizations grow has been a hallmark of James Key-Wallace's career, having previously served as senior investor at the NH Community Loan Fund in Concord to his new role as executive director of the NH Business Finance Authority, also in Concord.

The BFA works with NH's banking, business and economic development sectors to expand access to credit to create jobs and grow NH's economy. Clients include businesses and nonprofits, both small and medium sized. Key-Wallace took over in November 2016 with the retirement of Jack Donovan, who led the organization for 23 years.

Key-Wallace plans to visit banks and economic development lenders in 2107 to communicate how the BFA can help produce more business loans, and create more jobs. Also among his priorities is identifying new ways to foster the early-stage ecosystem in NH.

"This position allows me to help make an impact around the state, focusing on growing both small and large businesses in local communities," he says.

Barret Cole

President, Sanborn, Head and Associates

These days you hear a lot about people switching jobs every few years to find the right fit. Barret Cole can't relate to that-at all. Cole joined Sanborn, Head, based in Concord, right out of college and has been there ever since. At age 44, he became president and COO.

"This company has been from day one about being a generational company. The owners weren't interested in building a company to sell. It was something they wanted to pass on as a legacy. That commitment has always been very appealing," says Cole. "I always aspired to do my best, and I figured if I did my best, I would rise to the place where I would be most useful."

Sanborn Head, a technical engineering and consulting firm, has historically served three main industries, each of which accounts for about $5 million in annual revenue: industrial, solid waste and development projects related to site development and infrastructure. Its newest area, energy, generates about $ 1 million in annual revenue, but Cole expects that to be twice that amount in the not-to-distant future.

Cole says the energy services area is about three years old and continues to grow, including a fair bit of work in designing natural gas and solar generation facilities.

A hydrogeologist by training, Cole specializes in the intersection of groundwater and rock, specifically how chemicals and pollution travel through bedrock and groundwater. As president, though, his focus is as much on culture as engineering, and he sees no reason to change the culture that has fueled the firm's success, only to advance and evolve it. Sanborn, Head just launched Edge, an employee engagement program that gets away from annual performance appraisals and instead focuses on developing employees, goal setting and recognizing successes on a more regular basis.

"There is nothing better than for me to come in and see people working hard and succeeding at their goals," Cole says. "The empowerment and pleasure that brings them really [motivates me]."

Richard Grogan

State director, NH Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Richard Grogan has a plan to make the free services the SBDC offers rival that of any big consulting firm with much deeper pockets. "I really think it's important for us to see ourselves and talk about ourselves as a high-end management consulting firm might," says Grogan, state director since April 2015 after Mary Collins retired. "I am determined to make sure we look that way and act that way and operate that way even given our limited resources and given that all our services are free."

The SBDC, based in Durham, is a cooperative partnership between the Small Business Administration, the University of NH Peter T. Paul School of Business and Economics, and the NH Department of Resources and Economic Development. It assists about more than 1,000 small businesses annually through advising and educational programs. Since 1984, SBDC has helped nearly 80,000 entrepreneurs.

Grogan began his career on Wall Street managing large pension funds and later got a PhD in organizational sustainability and came to Keene to teach at Antioch University New England. Grogan eventually left Antioch to become the Keene regional manager for the NH SBDC for two years before being promoted to state director.

Valerie Rochon

President, Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce

The Portsmouth Chamber celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2017, and it will do so with a new president. Valerie Rochon, who served as the chamber's tourism director since 2010, was appointed interim president in January 2016 after Doug Bates retired for health reasons, and was named president in May to lead a chamber with about 800 member businesses.

"As the chamber will celebrate our 100th Anniversary in 2017, we have embarked upon on an eightmonth process to create a strategic plan that will guide our organization in new directions to be phased in over the coming years," Rochon says.

The chamber is focused on finding solutions to the workforce shortage, and addressing the associated issues of education and training, affordable housing and public transportation infrastructure. It also plans to step up efforts to promote the Seacoast as a destination for multi-day vacations and day trips for tourists.

Steven Camerino

President and CEO, NH Electric Cooperative Incorporated

Steven Camerino went from addressing legal issues for utilities to running one when he left the McLane, Middleton law firm to become the president and CEO of the second largest electric utility in NH in March 2015.

New Hampshire Electric Cooperative in Plymouth is owned by the people and businesses it serves and provides service to 84,000 members in 115 communities throughout the state.

Among Camerino's top priorities is developing and launching pilot projects for battery storage technology, and implementing an incentive program to support NHEC members interested in purchasing electric vehicles.

Robert G. Boschen Jr.

CEO, Tri-County Community Action Program

When former CEO Mike Coughlin left to lead Crotched Mountain in Greenfield (see profile), Tri-County Community Action Program in Berlin promoted COO and CFO Robert G. Boschen Jr. to lead the agency in April 2016.

Tri-County Community Action Program is a multi-program social service agency covering more than 4,455 square miles of NH with 48 service center sites in its primary service area of Coos, Carroll and Grafton counties. The agency employs more than 250 people and serves more than 27,000 NH citizens annually with the help of over 500 volunteers.

Among his top priorities is performing an assessment of the communities and the agency to ensure it is meeting the needs of those it serves.