 So, hi, folks. Welcome. I'm here today with Lise Verano, who is just retired, one month of retirement from the city of Burlington after working for 58 years in the city. I don't know if there are many people who can just claim that distinction. Lise, tell me a little bit. What was the title that you had within the city of Burlington? My last title was finance and technology for fire and police department. And we first met a few years back. I think I was asking you for some advice around careers and I just was struck, who is this woman who's like put together, organized and commands the respect of so many people in the city? And you were working then inside the police department. But tell me a little bit about how you got started. Well, my first job was actually a microfilm technician at the Burlington Police Department and I was recommended to take that position. It was brand new, something that hadn't been done before in Vermont. In law enforcement, there was a federal grant and I jumped to the occasion and learned how to do microfilm, developing all the archives, filming all the archives in the police department at the time and developing the film, putting it in the sleeves and it was a three-year project. And what year is that? That was 1973. That's why May of 2023 was my 50 years and special for me. And it was a good number. So I did that for three years and then a position at the fire department came on. It was a business office position and I was really it was an opportunity to just create the office because it didn't really exist that way because of the times it was a lieutenant that had the position and he had left where he was asked to leave. And it was an embezzlement situation and they were looking for a finance person to come in and organize. And I actually didn't get the job because I was a woman and they had never had a woman in the fire department before and I remember doing the interviews and it was back in the day when all kinds of questions that were being asked would not be asked today. And I answered the question, would your husband think about this? Are you gonna have kids? All those kinds of things. And I didn't get the job and I remember being in the interview room right outside of the chief's office when the commission was doing the interview at the time. That's how they hired and there was all these men and five other guys that were there applying for the job and one of them had gone in the job and unfortunately he went out and celebrated and on Monday morning he wasn't able to come to work. He was in jail. Oh no. Celebrated. He was celebrated a little too much so the fire chief called me up and he goes are you still interested where you come up and my boss at the police department was like least go just walk down the street from 82 Southwoods Bay Avenue to 136 and you know walk in the door and they needed payroll and they didn't have payroll set up and I didn't know what how to how to take care of it so I had to figure it out you know just look at what was done before and pay the people the firefighters and that was the beginning of the fire department career and I did that for a solid 25 years and as well as going over then to the police department because I was asked to do that. So it must have been about 1976. And who was your boss then? Pat Brown. Pat Brown was the fire chief. Okay but who was your boss at the police? Mary Campbell. Mary Campbell. She was supportive of you. Yes she was very supportive. She actually hired me. She had worked with the high school to get some candidates that were business candidates and I was highly recommended with a friend of mine from the class and she did it for about a year and then she decided it wasn't for her and then I helped hire her replacement at the police department to do the grant so she saw that I wanted to get the job done I want to do a good job and bring new good people in and she says you'd be good at organizing the fire department business side of things that they needed you know it was just a different time so it's not no reflection on them it's just the way things were. Sure yeah and so you came out of high school you went to Burlington High School. I went to Rice. Rice High School. In the business program. Okay and tell me a little bit about who you were in 1973. Oh my goodness. And what you grew up in the area right. I grew up in Nalitz Bay on the lake right outside Lakeshore Drive and I. French speaking Well very French speaking that's where my whole French side things comes in. They were both from Quebec my parents they got married and moved to a country they did not speak the language all within a month had a child the next year and my father there's a whole story with my father I don't need to go into that but he he came to this country not having knowing how to speak to English he was hired at General Electric because of his meteorology skills helping fix the Gatlin gun and airplane propellers that were cracking in in flight and he basically walked in says your ovens too hot and your metal mixture is not correct I can help you fix that all in French to this guy he met at the gas station anyway so he got the job so I grew up not speaking English and I wasn't till I was in second grade that I was able to start communicating well and because we were only allowed to speak French in the house and we didn't have neighbors for the closest neighbors like half mile away and there was a French speaking mom there so she helped us transition and being the second oldest when one of six kids and I'd grown up with three brothers and three cousins the male cousins so I was around a lot of a lot of boys and just that was normal for me so I think that's why the the higher the police department and the higher at the fire department was just a natural it didn't it didn't faze me that I was amongst that male population yeah you know how to navigate so there are four of you growing up I'm gonna fix your mic real quick there you go you're fine there are four of you growing up in Mallon's Bay at that time there there were actually actually there were that's right there were four and then my youngest sister was born in Burlington and so now we had three brothers you know three girls and three boys and yeah so I went to you know Mounts Bay school there was no high school that's why I ended up going to Rice so 1973 I had just gotten married I met my husband at the police department or through his father who was a corporal there and we had just gotten married and you know I was looking to move on one career wanted to be a business person and these opportunities came up and what were you doing when you're talking about doing the microfiche that's 73 to 76 and the police tomorrow what what were you doing your oh so we had so Xerox and Kodak came in with the equipment yeah the camera equipment and there were upstairs at 82 Sousa Avenue there were all these files cabinets and evidence and and and reports were all kind of filed together and what they wanted to do it filled up a whole room and they actually had a pool table there as well but that's the only other thing it was in that room and they needed to get the files digitized and so Kodak and Xerox came in and showed me how to run the equipment the photography equipment and we actually filmed each piece of paper and had to code it and you know give it a name a file name and then we developed I developed the film and then I had a different machine that I had to feed the film into the microfilm sleeves and then the sleeves went into a another Rolodex kind of an old word but a Rolodex cut piece of equipment for people to retrieve the documents so did you recognize something about yourself in doing that work what did you what what did you recognize as your strengths you know I was this eight-year-old kid who brought the neighborhood together there was kids in the neighborhood and I would have a class in the basement of my house my father got me a chalkboard I was eight years old and I loved organizing things space projects I think I've always so I saw the microphone project as learning something new really excited about that and making a difference right it was meaningful work meaning they had to empty out all that space you know in the files and I just love the process I'm my family calls me the process engineer that we're all electrical engineers they're all electrical engineers and mechanical engineers in my family and I my degree was not in engineering was in business and so I just realized I enjoyed creating things so when I went to the fire department it was creating an office right from scratch right I mean the file cabinets were not really well organized you couldn't I couldn't find anything and I said you know what we're gonna start from scratch and I know how it's supposed to be I'm just gonna do it and the chief was just thrilled and within months he was you got this you just tell me what you need yeah tell me what you need to do your job and you're doing finance and payroll and sort of general systems management yeah we did we would call operations operations yeah business operations for sure and I was the one that actually would call people for job interviews I was sat on the interview boards for the fire department for the firefighters I would be the one that did the billing for ambulance ambulance service actually I brought one of the old very original onion paper because it was all typewriters back then it wasn't it wasn't computers right matter of fact one of the first personal computers in the city because Burlington Electric was well set up and the city of Burlington was had a main frame but I had a personal computer because the chief at the time from New York City so we need to get a computer I was like I know $8,000 some ridiculous amount what year is that 19 19 was a probably 1980 yeah I'd have to have my cheat sheet in front of me I don't want to misspeak and you're adult doing DOS oh yes oh yes oh yes and so anyway but before that we was all done on paper yeah and carbon paper yeah so you'd be sending out pills doing these over and over and over again it made no sense so when the opportunity to to update how we did what we did came up I jumped on that as well and created a program with Champlain College later on to do the actual accounting like an accounts receivable program I created a budget system that had encumbrances because not everybody was looking at encumbrances back in the early 70s I mean of course they did later right and I helped buy the city's first you know system but I always pride myself in seeing what needed to be done to improve things and then helping make a plan to execute the plan and make things better and then you have to refresh you have to look at it again you know a few years later and then update it again so that was a constant and how do you feel you were received by the people around you in doing that well two things first of all at the fire department it was hard because they'd never had a woman in the building and the wives of the firefighters were not happy about having a female work in there now I understand why they didn't hire me to begin with but I was focused on is doing good work fixing things making it better and making the organization accountable because that's how it broke it wasn't as accountable as it needed to be and I wanted to make sure there was a good cross-check system in place and so the firefighters were not all thrilled about the phone call saying hey you've been out for two days this is before keeping my this is before a lot of rules about what you cannot do so I would be the one calling up and say hey you've been out for two days because I have to do a payroll and you're going on your third day you you know are you coming back what's the plan where's your doctor slip so I was an HR I was H I was HR but I was also aggravating people for making those calls but as some people will tell you I was also the one calling I'm say hey you haven't interview you haven't responded saying that you're going to come and show up for the interview for a firefighter position are you still interested and and I've had a couple people saying if it wasn't for your phone call I I might not be a firefighter today so you know you you know you did your job when people years and years later will say thank you for those phone calls we ended up working the contract the fire contract I was on the negotiation team with the city of Burlington and the fire union and I always said the fire union the unions have to be communicating well with the administration in order to get a good contract that it works for both both the union already established when you the union was established at the fire department and police department wasn't that you know it had been a relatively newly established in 60s in the 60s but working with the the union and the firefighters and the chiefs you know just knowing what the agency needed and helping make the rules the regulations the contract policies did a lot of that in the early years the first maybe 20 years no there was no union and so when I came in I was the first civilian yeah I was the first civilian and I was the first female yeah and asked me was the union body because I was the only one and I voted to for myself to not be so when I hired start hiring staff there was a billion then we had to vote again yeah and at one and then at that point the choice to join the ask me union was made I was never union because I was management yeah from from the beginning so you when you're describing that you're describing a lot of human resources management tasks operation systems do you consider yourself in that a leader I never looked at it as being a leader but I I am told that that's exactly what I did the fire chief from New York that one that got the first computer made possible at the fire department he had promoted me as operations assistant which was a title that caused more problems because operations it's you're not a firefighter you're not I even thought about taking the firefighter exam I was training in the martial arts at the time I'm gonna make this I can carry the body across the line yeah exactly what the test was because when we do the firefighter entrance exam there was a physical fitness component to it yeah and I knew what it was I was already ready for it at home just from other things I mean on as an aside did you ever feel that that physical fitness test was biased towards certain body types or physical types because in in martial arts you learn how to use your body yeah and it's all about your logistic I was sure I'm short I'm a short person so for me the hardest thing was I was concerned about was the ladder putting the ladder on the truck yeah cuz even on my tippy toes yeah I didn't I would have to toss it yeah I just didn't have the height yeah so I never never pursued that angle but I just wanted to make a point it took a long time and I think they had to change the exam right to have the first I don't think the exam well there's a lot of there's a lot of history there I was a proponent of this was anyone who's first female fire yeah so yeah but but I was a proponent of not changing anything because it doesn't matter what your gender is whether you you just need to do the job can you physically do the job and if you can then you should do the job that is needed pass the tests that demonstrates the physical fitness requirements you know so I was never a proponent of changing it that happened years later and early on we had a female firefighter that was hired you know and again that there's it's just it's a cultural shift yeah I'm pleased to see some women female leaders in the fire department now and I'm excited for the future what that might look like but I don't I always believe people should be able to do the job do this the tasks and as I said I didn't feel I was gonna be able to do that latter thing and sure somebody else could accommodate and help alright that's not the point well interesting that so you know interesting to think about the ideas of leadership and leadership qualities and you've made it through I mean these are again staff positions management positions at your serving at the will of you the fire chief or the commission but you've been through multiple mayoral tenures multiple police chiefs multiple fire chiefs so talk a little bit about that what have you seen let's just focus on your your immediate supervision leadership what of the changes been like um I always just did what I felt needed to be done and looked at what needed improvement and so it didn't matter who the chief was I felt my job was to establish communication and the style of communication is based on an individual not a title respect had to be there obviously but I always found a way to work with the different leadership styles I was facing to make them successful and that same with the mayors you know and knowing what was needed in the city at the time talk can you just get into that a little bit when you talk about leadership styles can you give a little well sometimes people come in so you know I've had a lot of fire chiefs a lot of interim fire chiefs I had a lot of police chiefs a lot of interim police chiefs yeah so you know there's a small number of actual people that made the list right but everyone comes to the table with their own I don't know if it's an agenda but certainly their own mission what they like to accomplish in three to five years I think it's three to five years basically that's pretty much what the turnover is so what do we need now and the person that's hired because I hired I help hire with being on the interview boards for several of the fire chiefs and when I did that I was look what do we need now what type of skill set that we need to bring to the table because it changes why it could be administrative it could be operations it could be just basics it could be community relations it could be you know what is it we need so for me it was helping them identify the low-hanging fruit to make them successful to make it them be bought into the organization because not everybody always agrees right who should it be but for me my job I saw as make it work yeah no matter who it is make it work make them successful and that obviously makes the higher-ups that the mayor would be successful you know and working with the city attorneys and HR and the budget side of things of course which is a big deal yeah it's a big part of what so it's yeah at some point you move from the fire department and then it becomes a position where you are working for both the fire department and the police department talk about that when did that change happen well that was in in the works for almost eight years before it actually happened and there were a lot of iterations of how to merge fire and police you know fire and police administration public safety officer that is fire and police and there was years of turmoil about all that and then came a time where they asked me specifically to go over and probably four years after they had asked me I wanted to make sure the air was right for the merge of administration to work and Elena Ennis was hired as was the first female police chief at the Bernalton Police Department and she said at least you know I need you to come in and do that's before Kevin Scully was right after Kevin Scully right after Kevin Scully okay right after Kevin Scully okay yep Kevin Scully was there for a long time and she's I'd like you to come in and do for the police department what you did for the fire department those are the words and I was like well I can do that and and she goes what do you what do you just like Pat Brown what do you need and and how is this going to work and I pretty much established the parameters and she took me to IACP I came wearing that pen International Chiefs of Police Conference the very first year I was there in 1990 1999 I should say and that opened up a whole new world for me and it gave me resources and tools and people to just tap the shoulders on about each little thing that I thought could be improved but one of the things we were trying to do is dispatch on fire police dispatch and just that was always a hard hard area to address so I do a little bit of work with that and there's a list I talk in terms of consolidating in terms of well the consolidating simply meant well it simply meant I would now be responsible for both the fire budget and the police budget fire technology and police technology and there's a lot of situations around all that and take too much time to talk about it but the point was it was in one person so I was the one person I'm sorry I keep talking to my good and I was comfortable with that because to me I had the mission I had the vision I had a plan for each of these aspects and I said I needed a team I brought my assistant from the fire department but it's part of the merger plan anyway although now it's gone back okay so you know what it's oldest new again kind of thing it happens a lot that's okay so she came over with me and then I hired the specific people for specifics task I hired the very first network administrator there was no now a lot of people did a network administration work but there was always an add-on to their jobs and I said we need someone just focused on this and because again there was some some history that needed to make sure it was never repeated and this is making sure your network systems your infrastructure infrastructure works yeah so well that's actually as part of it so the hub grew into a network center yeah and I wanted to make sure it was well designed well protected well redundant there are redundancies you know that we have at One North Avenue that we didn't have before and people probably think it was always there but it wasn't and that's why you'd have networked down in collaboration with the state of Vermont the state of Vermont was leading the the CAD RMS records management and dispatch world and there was a lot of changes that happened through that we now have a product that's called Val core that was developed through Burlington Police Department a chief Mike Schirling at the time was instrumental and then now it's a statewide system and that collects data and it's what you were out on your I know we had it on the chief was doing their report because we record the Burlington Police Commission meetings and he does reports they are using that Val core system to tell the story the data yeah to tell the story of response police response and resources right the way that works is that the dispatch center gets the call goes into the system the dispatches is assigned to officers fire you know fire and police have their own right now but then it becomes an incident and then what you see here on your screen was the incident data I think we forget and I think you know one of the things that I just think is so amazing about you Lee's is that you can help tell the story of how these systems really there's policy there's like there's leadership that makes policy on this level and then there's the systems and then there's people the operations decide how you know when you put a street and it decides how people are going to move down that street if you put a sidewalk are people in a safe or not so just like you know I'm just how have you come to embody that from that eight-year-old who's teaching classes you learned along the way so on the fire department side the first cat or a mess system was well I shouldn't say cat or messes it was a records management system was reporting to the state with reports to the federal government I was one of the people that helped design the very first DOS base D base system again with Champlain College who offered some support services and and then it got your your impetus then was to report on what you needed to report to the federal government or the state better better more efficiently bringing efficiencies to manual systems yet I just said that so probably that's what I did yeah and then to take to make sure that the data was easy enough for people to put in to make it accurate you know everything goes through learning curves yeah even today the brand new systems people have to learn a new system got to make sure it's not you know garbage in garbage out is not not a good thing so I did that so I came to the police department with that having done that way back and so when the idea of the canned systems that were available we're not doing what we needed to do for reporting for operations for the chiefs for the battalion chiefs or the deputy chiefs for that matter at the police department we needed to we that's how Valkor came to be is that we just need to design our own you created your right because Burlington was was pretty diverse with its population with its schools with it's just like a big city and a tiny little place and we needed to do more at that time than what maybe a lot of the smaller communities needed to do that they could use a system that wasn't as elaborate and so we keep even today we are still trying to improve the systems and how do you learn about those those pressures where do you learn about those pressures how do I improving those systems I hear people I hear people will complain about how cumbersome something is how time-consuming something is or or if I I listen I guess I listen to what people are saying and watch what they're doing or questions that are being asked that can't be answered easily I'm like there's an answer for that we just we just got to figure out how to get the data get the information and build the system if we have to yeah so let's just take a couple of minutes to talk about your your tenure through the city for the last 50 years through multiple mayoral ten years and is there anybody that stands out to you or anybody that you had that anybody that you want to remark on well I think there's some interesting fun stories I'll never forget when Bernie Sanders was mayor and I was at the fire department and I was wanting to do a ambulance fee increase and I and the mayor and the city council needed to approve those things and I remember going up into his office and he said it was such a casual person yeah keep talking he was such a casual person different from what we had had before and so out of respect for him and trying to help him be successful he didn't wear a suit and tie oh no he did not wear a suit and tie and Bernie I hope if you see this you forgive me I remember walking into his office and he had his feet on the table on his desk crisscrossed he had holes in his sneakers his socks were pulled up his hair was the way it is and I'm sitting here talking to him I'm trying to be I'm trying to be me I'm more formal that way right I'm just being respectful and I'm am I am I getting through and he goes yeah whatever you think wait well yeah I know but mr. mayor this is important that you understand this means an increase to the tech to the citizens when they get a transport by ambulance yeah and I want you're gonna they're gonna call you and complain that the fee went up I want to make sure you okay no I understand you know and he was very clear but very relaxed about the whole thing and basically I think what it came down to this is while you've been doing this a long time I'm sure this is gonna be fine I said okay so then I went to the treasure and let the treasure know as well what was happening and of course the chief was already way behind me with it was he hadn't thought about increasing my increase but I'm looking at the budget I'm looking at hadn't been done for like 10 years and it's time yeah so so that was an experience that I'll never forget yeah and what did you learn I mean what did I tell you I think I learned that people are going to are themselves and they have different styles it doesn't take away from the role that they play the responsibility they have and my job is to help the community at large right at the end of the day it's the community at large that I was trying to help just because I raised it in an ambulance rate it had because I wanted to keep the ambulance in service I wanted to make sure it was operational and supplies and everything else you know everything was going up the other mayor that really and I'm and this is kudos to Morrow actually because he when he came in as mayor he was the first mayor that came to the fire station and asked questions of the command staff and was myself in the chief and he was probing questions wanting to understand after he'd been elected already yes after he had been elected but it was it was not common for a mayor to come walking in and saying I want a meeting in your office ask those questions so I give him a lot of credit for researching and listening at you know to what what we thought that had never happened before and so over the years you know when there was a big change about to happen it was it's comfortable enough for me to talk about those things and what it meant here's the pros here's the cons you make the decision and that's just not the mayor is the chiefs the deputy chiefs whoever was in charge of taking action my I saw my job is informing them giving them the information of if you do this this can happen these are the choices this is the risk assessment you know this is the potential downfall at the end of the day it's your decision yeah so you know again with those those big leadership changes in 50 years you must have seen things that propelled change either for the good or the bad or there are other moments in time that you felt like we were getting things done in a good way or getting or you know there's been falling back yeah there's been several of those I mean that's life right those five-year cycles I tell you about I mean a marriage is like that too sometimes you know you've got the really good years you got that's not good and then you get a year you're really insane that's a smooth that's nice a community is I think I think the hardest one for me and I'm afraid this is sort of political now and I don't tend to do the politics side of things but it was really hard when the defund the police happened I didn't understand it I didn't I didn't I wish I could have had more conversations with the people who felt so strongly about wanting to do that but it's almost like there was other forces at work and I remember telling the the police officers in a meeting in a row and roll call and the chief's meeting saying this is this is a phase we've been through really tough times before and we've come out of it we'll be okay and a year went by and I'm like man this is not getting better this is getting worse so that was scary that was that was really hard to to be wrong to be wrong about my rose-colored glasses being solid and that things would get better it took a long time I think we I think there's some shifts happening now that put us on a better path but when something breaks down it's like a bad habit you know you it's easy to start a bad habit it takes twice as long to undo a bad habit right whether it's smoking whatever it is and people don't realize how fragile a good system is if you if you bring it break it down so much that it's got to really start over yeah so you felt like the you felt like the folks that were calling to defend the police and then the decision of the city council was the the negative impetus yeah and was there anything that was learned during that time as well during the I'm not I think people are still learning unfortunately I don't think it's I don't think it's fully recognized people are starting to reckon people who felt strongly about why they wanted to defend what was sad about that is by doing that they took away the very programs that they wanted they said they then said they wanted and needed and now the program was was decimated and there weren't people to do the work so that's sad that's very unfortunate and then rebuilding it in a different way is what's possible now and I always look at what is possible what's the future you know the possibilities are out there we really have to work together talk understand not just talk but understand where you're coming from why what is exactly you know if we could have gotten really good answers about that as opposed to pointing to the rest of the world the rest of the country because Burlington wasn't that and yet it was in people's minds and therefore fighting that that that fighting that yeah and this is that this is the place between the sort of the political leadership where policy happens the operational and management who understands and then the people who are doing the work and there's you know where's the place that those all come together you know in in certain ways it's in a person like you in that job but how do you make that institutional wow wow they're like life lessons right the people doing the work do not forget everybody that does anything is a part of the solution and they typically are doing their job 100% every single day doesn't mean somebody doesn't make a mistake doesn't make some you know stuff happens but they're doing the work the and the management is just trying to organize people and give them direction when when the two don't when the two don't come together in a clear way that's when you have this lack of lack of focus and direction so it would be best if and I believe there is a future where everybody is communicating well and clearly about the mission and break it down into pieces go with the low hanging fruit it always works you go with the lowing fruit because establishes relationship and possibilities and all of a sudden you're talking to someone you didn't think you had anything in common with but you do and I do this on my personal volunteer work every single time you bring the right people together there's a conversation that's going to happen and people may see something in someone that didn't see before but you have to have your eyes wide open and if you're only focused on an agenda because of the sake of the agenda then I actually don't have a lot of time for you just because that's just not going to be helpful I want to be mindful that I want to talk about your volunteer work which is you know first of all you were the president of the Burlington Rotary and the Burlington Rotary just celebrated its hundredth anniversary and I imagine you're still involved yes Rotary and then you're also the honorary consul to France as part of the Burlington sister city well in your work as part of Burlington sister city with Henri France so can you just talk about that a little bit your Rotary work your volunteer work and your counsel you know sure let me start at the short let me start again four minutes four minutes two minutes so so in in Burlington in the city of Burlington with my work I was actually asked to translate for Russian fire chief that was coming to Vermont to Burlington he was going to go to the 911 center in Montreal and I was the one that spoke French and the mayor had asked me then if I would be his and the chief asked the fire chief and the fire chief asked me if I would be his translator for a week and so I did and we took him to Montreal well that became the way you know the girl that speaks French the person that speaks French in the city and then a group bob kiss term had gone to well there's a several pieces there but people have taken making a trip to all Fleur France and all Fleur France is where Samuel Champlain came from and so they said we should have a sister city that's a port city it's on you know Burlington's on the port so we created the Burlington sister city in 2012 I was asked to go to a meeting and by several people and then I was nominated president of the all Fleur sister city and I said what am I supposed to do what does this mean she goes oh no you'll figure it out and we'll do it and that's what we did so I was the president of the all Fleur sister city and we've been doing a lot of good work take me too much time to talk about all that although I'll come back to you later and tell you about what's going on taxed okay another time and then in 2017 I was nominated I was made night I was knighted by the French government in France the president of France knighted me I'm not quite sure who put me in for that but thank you and and a couple years later Ernie Parmel had been honorary consul to France for 17 years and I had been partnering with him since 2012 and he said we see you're next you got this I said I don't know if I could do so we'll partner now he took care of the fun part I took care of organizing things so I was made honorary consul and and that's where I am today as far as my volunteer work I was with the Alliance Française for many many years I still am I'm a lifetime member now thank you Alliance Française and I was on the board and bringing French culture to Burlington to Vermont and I do that now I recognize some World War II veterans in Montpelier with the governor last year it was a really nice proclamation in Montpelier with the international flag raising done that for many many years thank you the Burlington fire department police department for the color guards that did the best presentation and in New England because we actually raised the flag we had the honor guard and the consuls in France and Quebec Canada just love doing it in Burlington because we had such a good presentation so all those things come together again there's a team behind every single one of these things I'm talking about these are sister cities amazing group of people that he has Française is actively working to get on the marketplace I could only get someplace to keep our cart but a lot of good work a lot of future projects Rotary and in fact is working with Brunner Rotary and on Fleur Rotary working together to do a sailing for Crohn's disease awareness like they did with polio the eradication of polio with Rotary like to do that with Crohn's disease it's a disease nobody wants to talk about it's very personal and so there's a young sailor sailing from on Fleur to Quebec to United States stumbling to Burlington on June 16th and we will be at the community sailing center and he'll talk about his life story of living with Crohn's disease so and yes we did the 100th anniversary of Rotary I had been the art I signed up to do the archives again archives are in my my history right there's the Lumiere project with a 180 Flynn Avenue trying to get France in to recognize the Burlington Lumiere North American factory right here right here in Burlington so there's a lot of good stuff happening. Well that is you know I did have the honor of getting to attend your retirement celebration at copper and I have a couple of videos here that we're gonna play at the end of this conversation we'll append them the mayor read a proclamation making Lee's Verano day. I love my middle That's right and we have a statement from Ernie Palmerlow to you as well that we'll share. I just thanks for sharing some of this you know I feel like we've just scratched the surface of who you are Elise but I really appreciate you taking time to share your story with us. Well thank you for giving me an opportunity to reflect a little bit I'm glad you were asking all the questions because I wasn't sure what we're gonna talk about so. Yeah and you have time now to spend with your family. Yes I have I have a son and a daughter one of my sons in Colorado my daughter's here in Williston with two grandkids here and two grandkids and so definitely looking to make more time with them my husband who probably has sacrificed the most because I you know I just I now have eight hours a day that is for me I'm trying to not fill it. You were probably working more than eight hours a day. I know I know well the eight hours comes from the eight hours a day or more 60 hours a week I was putting at the police department where my work my paid job and so now I have a little bit more time to just just slow down relax a little more about how much I want to do but I'm always going to be looking to what I can do to network people connect people with projects and opportunities and that's what I love to do is to watch people evolve just because you put them in touch with each other and you know I can see oh wait if you talk to someone so that will take that will roll come back let me know how you're doing I'll give you another I love doing that I don't think I can stop. Well thanks please fair or no thank you for joining us and if you've enjoyed this conversation or you'd like to watch other programming on town meeting TV you can stay tuned to the cable channel that you're watching on or you can find us at www.cctv.org and take care. Leaders roles are here with us today. Thank you. Where as the early years of her time with the city leads lead men first in the Merlin through fire department not only herself as the person we're going to play she created the first purchase order incumbent systems she secured the first computer and she purchased the first fire EMS system. It is quite remarkable the scan of operations releases presided over. Where as leads was instrumental to the police department's consistent success and ensuring balanced budgets and conceived and guiding projects such as the vehicle replacement plan and portable radio replacement plan and put her staff on the development of policy communication infrastructure and where as these oversaw the merging of the fire department of police department business operations and organized new business systems for the fire department sorry the police department which have included building a bridge between BPD in the state of Vermont Department of Public Safety to work collaboratively with technology supporting public safety communications infrastructure and supporting public safety IT and where as these contributions to the city have extended far beyond the workplace as she has devoted her free time to advance initiatives that promote collaboration and strength in community and where as these has led the own floors to see relationship the city of Burlington promoting our city's relationship with France from her involves of friendship and respect between our cities and supporting initiatives to benefit French American communities alike for which she was awarded by the president of France through the general of France in Boston in the rake of Chevalier for years of work on various French initiatives in Vermont and internationally really quite remarkable space and whereas these is dedicated and a dedicated member of the point the Rotary Club including serving as president I see so many members thank you so sorry I cannot be there today but I wanted to put in a few words to celebrate your 50 years which means you would have had a start when you were three I believe but anyway I just wanted to celebrate with you and all the people that are there to thank you so much for all of your support you know working with a consul general in Boston and working with Alliance France's and creating the sister city connection and all the things that you do for you know the French community at the city the fire the police you've been a right hand person for me for years working from the time we did the quad centennial and my position is honorary consul of France of Vermont and then turning the keys over to you so now I'm your right hand person so anyway you've done so much for the city you've done so much for me personally for the French community for the sister city relationship and all the things that you're the detailed person I was the fun person we made a great team and we will continue to support each other so I just wanted to say congratulations a few people have that length of time and this legacy so congratulations and all my best and when I joined the fire department almost 25 years ago at least was there her office was in the back where I'm training with now and she was there for everything she was she's probably between Lisa that's the first two people that I saw walking in the door and I knew instantly I was in good hands so when I promoted to the fire chiefs position just this past March one of the first people to reach out to me was Lisa and she just wanted to make sure that I was squared away by any questions please reach out and I did and we sat down and I just always appreciated Lisa for her knowledge and for her history of the city we had a bagel for coffee recently and she she entrusted me with some very important part of our artifacts full city reports rules and rights manuals handwritten by past fire chiefs like really cool stuff that she entrusted me with that magnitude of that is not awesome so from everybody in the fire department I want to thank you for your leadership over the years and I'd like to present you with a actually what could get me black so thank you for the great honor and recognition and dedication dedicated service in the fire department