Randolph
The conference, hosted by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy at Vermont Technical College, used a series of workshops to help give attendees practical advice about how to start businesses, negotiate better salaries, and craft a social media presence that would help them to be more marketable.
But Mary Alice McKenzie, whose career as an executive includes four years as general counsel for Vermont State Colleges, focused her remarks on more fundamental needs: battling poverty, providing a good education, and connecting young women to professional careers.
“I learned that the unfairness I might have experienced in my life pales in the light of what poverty does to children,” McKenzie said.
In response to a question from the audience, McKenzie offered a strong critique of Vermont’s education system, which she said is in need of a complete overhaul.
“I see a system that was well-designed for the 1800s that disenfranchises kids from low-income families, kids who have come from other places. Anyone who is not considered mainstream is going to have a really rough go,” she said.
McKenzie, who recently concluded 10-year stint as executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Burlington, said children in poverty suffer under the current system
“My kids went through high school and had a great experience,” she said. “Their experience bears no relation to what I saw for the kids in the Boys and Girls Club.”
McKenzie advocated for a public school system that starts earlier in a person’s life, continues later, and which smooths the boundaries that segment one phase of a person’s education from the next.
McKenzie’s speech drew a standing ovation, and received high marks from some of the attendees.
“That spoke to me, because life is like a roller coaster. You can have, and have not,” said Jessie LeBlanc, a Rutland resident, who came to the conference for some business advice. She said the focus on issues like poverty are important for everyone.
“Not as a woman. As a person,” LeBlanc said. “I don’t see gender.”
And gender-specific issues didn’t seem to be a big topic of discussion in some of the 14 workshops designed to help attendees fully realize the economic opportunities available to them. LeBlanc, a brain cancer survivor who is trying to launch a nonprofit that would help her to provide support to those who suffered head injuries, said she was impressed by the advice she received during a session titled “Start Here Before Jumping Into the Social Media Mud Pit.”
“I just need to redo my LinkedIn page now,” she said.
In another classroom, Debra Boudrieau, a business consultant with the Vermont Small Business Development Center in Brattleboro, Vt., was walking a group of two dozen aspiring and established life coaches, pain management experts and nonprofit fundraisers through a workshop entitled “Pitch the Story of Your Business.”
She invited them to think of consumers as petulant toddlers, unwilling to parse complex language, and driven by selfishness.
“They’re babies,” she said. “It’s about them, not you.”
Entrepreneurial book-binder Elissa Campbell said she was having a difficult time writing an ideal summary to describe the handcrafted sketch books, journals and photo albums she makes from her Montpelier-based studio.
“You’ve got an opportunity to be a lot more lyrical,” Boudrieau told her. After a short back and forth, Boudrieau wrote her suggestion on the classroom marker board: “A beautiful place to gather your memories.”
Campbell said she liked it, and Boudrieau encouraged everyone in the room to make sure their public images reflected the words existing customers already used to describe their businesses.
When Leahy addressed the full crowd, he related the messages of the day’s speakers to national policy, which he said has suffered under President Donald Trump.
“We’re seeing efforts to roll back years of sound policy making,” he said. “All we see is efforts to roll it back. That’s not America.”
He credited women who participated in January in a national march on Washington, D.C., and a smaller march in Montpelier, with changing the tenor of the discussion. “I can’t tell you the effect this had, women who would not stand for losing ground, economic or otherwise,” Leahy said.
“Many times, things look bleak,” said Leahy. “But I’m here to fight for you. I want to take two steps forward. Two steps forward. No steps back.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.