BRATTLEBORO-Kerry Secrest has been a successful business person, a civic leader, and someone who never misses an opportunity to lift up her community.
Now Secrest adds one more accolade: She is the 2025 Brattleboro Regional Chamber of Commerce's Person of the Year. She received the award Sept. 11 at the Chamber's annual award mixer at the Brattleboro Country Club.
"Like many women," Secrest said, "I don't have a singular commitment. I haven't done 50 years of one thing. It's about balancing together family and friends, work, community, hopefully some leisure, and then all the daily tasks that help life keep moving forward."
Those many things include her Brattleboro-based business, Watershed Coaching, which specializes in executive coaching, team development, organizational development, and women in leadership. Her clients include national and international firms, both commercial and non-governmental organizations, as well as Vermont-based companies.
Secrest also founded the Women's Leadership Circles of Vermont in 2011. Each year, over the course of six months, the Circle convenes up to 12 women for a program designed to enhance personal and professional leadership.
Past participants now hold leadership roles in Vermont organizations that include Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, New Chapter, the Windham Regional Commission, the Vermont Legislature, the Vermont Community Foundation, the Vermont Foodbank, and Seventh Generation, to name a few.
"This year, The Women's Leadership Circles completed its 16th Circle and has now served 173 women in all 14 counties across the state of Vermont and is set to expand to Keene, New Hampshire, in 2026," said Nick Dubois, Chamber board vice president.
"Our Person of the Year said this about the women who participate in her program: 'Each one of these women is making an impact in their own personal, powerful way, and it matters.' The same can be said of our honoree."
In accepting the award, Secrest said that "one of my mottoes has been to bloom where you're planted. We chose to plant ourselves in Brattleboro in Vermont almost 25 years ago, and therefore this is where I wanted to put my energy.
"And I also happened to be born of Lithuanian descent, and so I've put energy of the underdogs fighting for freedom from Russia, and tragically, history is now repeating itself in Ukraine. What continues to amaze me is how many people in this small town have stepped forward, helping build a bridge from Brattleboro to the frontlines of Ukraine. Sometimes all we need is a way to turn our care into real impact."
Secrest closed her remarks with what she called "a thought for these deeply challenging times."
"Those who know me know I'm a natural organizer of events," she said. "But I've come to see it as more than event planning - it's a form of political action.
"Because when we gather for a barbecue, when we meet downtown for a happy hour, when we show up for an event instead of staying behind our screens - just like we are doing here tonight - we are reweaving the fabric of society. These relationships are the fuel for creating what we want our communities to look like.
"And that is our greatest strength, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it."
BCTV, Putney Diner owner honored
Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) was honored with the Chamber's Member of the Year Award. It will be celebrating its 50th year in 2026 as Vermont's first community-run television station.
Since starting in 1976 as an all-volunteer committee looking to bring Brattleboro Selectboard meetings to cable TV, BCTV has grown into what Chamber board member Steve Wolf called "a fully staffed, independent community media center, serving all of southern Windham County, winning national awards and considered one of the flagship community media stations in the state of Vermont."
"We're really fortunate to be at the point where we're able to do this with this really cool staff that we have, and to keep things fresh [and] new and to always be serving the community in whatever ways they want to be served," said BCTV Executive Director Johnny Gifford.
Putney Diner owner Eleni Maksakuli was named the Chamber's Entrepreneur of the Year. Chamber board President Jonas Murray called Maksakuli "a successful business owner and a force for good in her community."
In January, Murray said, Maksakuli "took a leap and relocated her restaurant from the space that served as its home for decades to a larger location across the street. It was a big step: not only expanding the seating capacity of the restaurant, but with it, adding a dinner menu five days a week and a full bar."
Murray praised Maksakuli's "patience, skill, and determination" to achieve her dream as well as the help she provides to neighbors through community service during difficult times.
During the pandemic, the diner provided delivery service to the those isolating at home, and on many other occasions it has donated food resources to local organizations.
"This is an honor for me, and I'm very grateful for this recognition," Maksakuli said. "But it's not only me. I have a great team behind me - my family - and, above all, I have a great, great community."
A remembrance, a special honor, and a name change
Before the awards were handed out, attendees raised a toast to Greg Lesch, the Chamber's former executive director, who died in February at age 62 after a battle with cancer.
"I know he is here with us in spirit," his predecessor and successor Kate O'Connor said. "Greg was the heart of the Chamber for 22 years. And the last four, he was the executive director. And if any of you ever visited the Chamber, you know that Greg was often the first person that you saw, which in many ways made him the face of our community."
O'Connor said Lesch loved the annual awards gathering "because it is a celebration of community and the people who make it special."
Shirley Squires of Guilford was honored for a pair of milestones.
In May, Squires exceeded a lifetime fundraising total of $500,000 for the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont's annual Walk for Life. O'Connor said Squires started raising money for the walk in 1993 when her son, former state Rep. Ron Squires, died from the disease in 1992.
"That first year, Shirley raised $1,000 and she hasn't missed a walk in the last 32 years," O'Connor said. "To honor Shirley's significant contribution, the AIDS Project has renamed the annual fundraiser the Ron and Shirley Squires AIDS Walk. As if fundraising a half a million dollars wasn't enough, Shirley turned 95 in August."
O'Connor also announced that the Chamber's Board of Directors changed the name of the organization to Brattleboro Regional Chamber of Commerce in July to better reflect its mission to "represent and bring together all the towns in our little corner of southern Vermont."
A new logo will be unveiled soon, she said, and a revamp of the Chamber's website at brattleborochamber.org was launched a few months ago.
O'Connor said the chamber is "going to turn 120 years young next year, so we've got a lot of exciting things that we're doing."
This News item by Randolph T. Holhut was written for The Commons.