 It's nice to see so many people here today. I'd like to just, we're going to start with, I want to invite Mike Hogan, who's Khan's brother, and he's a member of the Board of Trustees, just to make some opening remarks. First of all, I'd like to introduce some people who many of you know, probably know certainly better than you know me, because I'm rather new to the Board. That's a whole story in of itself. It was one of those conspiracies that Brother Khan put together. It happened before I knew it, knew the difference. So what I'd like to start out and introduce Khan's wife, Jeanette, who's here today, daughter, Ruby, her husband, Beau, and her daughter, Olivia, is a great basketball player, son, Neil, Neil's wife, Becky, my partner, Bonnie. So on behalf of the Board of Trustees and our interim president, Leslie Ward, and the faculty and staff of Vermont College of Fine Arts, I'm really happy to extend to you a warm welcome from the college. We are very proud, and me personally, but the college is very proud to once again host the, because this is the fifth annual Khan-Hogan Award. This award, really, from the beginning has had a close relationship and association with the college. Our outgoing president, Tom Green, was very close to Khan. And I know firsthand how much Khan listened to and respected his skills and ideas as the founder of the college. And this college, in every respect, is indebted and has been a beneficiary of that relationship. Now, as has been announced, Khan is my brother. And it's still very difficult, very hard to believe that it's been just over a year since we lost him. I remember sitting with Khan and Jeanette and her family at the presentation of the first Khan-Hogan Award in 2015. And I don't really think he was prepared for all the glowing and wonderful things that were said about him that day, especially when Sister Janice announced that Khan needed a new kidney. It's an understatement to say that he was moved by all the kindness that we showed to him. On the way out that day, I recall trying to have a little fun with him and told him that he should not let all those glowing accolades go to his head. After all, I knew the truth. And Khan gave his typical laugh that we're all familiar with, but then he said this. You know, those people in that room today, they are Vermont's best. And I haven't forgotten that. So I'm especially honored to offer you a warm welcome. And my congratulations to the Vermont Community Foundation, to all those who have supported and continue to support this award, as well as this year's award recipient who you will meet shortly, who is surely, in Khan's words, one of Vermont's best. Welcome. I'm Paul C. Lowe. I'm the president of the Public Assets Institute. And I'm a member of the award committee. And first, before we get into the program, I'd like to just have a round of applause for Floten Krobar, Susan Reed, and Leeds Brewer for their performance for us in South America. We can tell them we did that. So on behalf of the award committee, I'd like to welcome you to the presentation of the 2019 Khan-Hogan Award for Creative Entrepreneurial Community Leadership. We're delighted that you could all be here today. The $15,000 annual award to be used, however the recipient chooses acknowledges a community leader who shares Khan's vision of a better Vermont. Seizes the responsibility for making that vision real and demonstrates deep community involvement, generosity, enthusiasm, collaboration, and a focus on data and outcomes in their work. Responsibility, deep community involvement, generosity, enthusiasm, collaboration, focus on data, and not data simply to justify investments of time and effort, but data to guide and evaluate those investments so that they produce results. Individually, these are laudable personal characteristics. But together, they combine to create powerful and effective leadership. Leadership built on respect, optimism, and the belief that an individual not only can make a difference, but that they must. This is the kind of leader that Khan was and the kind that we raise up with this award. In 1973, as a UVM student, I was a university year for action intern, similar to AmeriCorps at the Vermont Department of Corrections. That's where I met and worked with Khan for a year. That experience, anchored by Khan's moral values and intellectual rigor, helped define my life's work in policy consulting, the legislature, and now at Public Assets Institute. I want to take a couple of minutes to briefly cite words of the four previous Khan-Hogan awardees that reflect their individual thoughts about these values and leadership. And you can hear these individuals in their own words and videos on the Vermont Community Foundation website. So the first Khan-Hogan awardee, Ellen Kaler, who is here tonight, where's Ellen? There she is. She is the executive director of the Sustainable Jobs Fund. Revealed the foundation of her leadership style in her 2015 acceptance remarks. She said, quote, cultivating a culture of kindness requires us to understand a fundamental truth, that we are interdependent. She went on to say, fundamentally, we need to build the culture of care, kindness, abundance, and connection rather than perpetuating a culture of indifference, fear, scarcity, and disconnection. In 2016, awardee Michael Monte, Chief Operations and Financial Officer at Champlain Housing Trust, talked about how fact-based and community-based leadership brings new ideas to life. He posed this formula. What is the problem? How do we break the problem down to smaller parts and then not let the typical things get in the way? Not to think so hard that this is the way things are, that we can't dream about the way they should be. In 2017, Holly Morehouse, executive director of Vermont After School, said, there's nothing I've never done that I've done in isolation. Everything we work on at Vermont After School is surrounded by, filled by, informed by, collaborators. She added, the issue is critical. We can't afford to mess around or miss opportunities because we're talking about the lives of young people. So for the decisions that we're making, we need to know that they're based on research and data. And last year's awardee James Baker talked about his time as police chief in Rutland, cleaning up a department, dealing with scandals and accusations of racism. He said, what became clear was that the resources to address the challenge were in the city. They were in place. We needed a new way of measuring progress. We began to address root cause issues and often resolved issues without using enforcement activity. We saw pride come back. Once it started, it was contagious, all driven by data, measuring data, and identifying root causes from data. As Mike said, this is the fifth annual award event. And each year, the committee selects one individual to honor from a collection of impressive nominations. There are many unheralded people doing amazing things in Vermont that we learn about each year when we review these nominations. And from across a variety of areas, agriculture, arts, education, human services, environment, social justice, health care, housing, and more, reviewing these nominations is inspiring. Because these are people who make things work in our state. They take responsibility for advancing a vision of a better Vermont, work collaboratively, exude generosity and enthusiasm, and use data and outcomes to guide their work. So I want to introduce the other award committee members that are here today. And I just ask you to stand up so that people can identify you. Will Belongé, Steve Dale, who's already standing, Libby Johnson, Scott Johnson, Ellen Koehler, Cheryl Mitchell, Philippe Rivera, Diana Waller, Linda Wheatley, Jane Kimball. Thanks. If we could just acknowledge what you made. So at this time, I'd like to invite Ruth to come up and make some reflections about her father. Where to start now? The program says I should have reflections of Khan in 10 minutes or less. But I can't do that. But I'll give it a try. I promise it won't be as long as some of dad's speeches were. And it definitely won't have statistics. One time I had to make a deal with dad about one of his speeches. He had a health incident at home. And mom and I wanted him to go to the hospital. He refused, because he had already committed to speaking that evening at the Washington County Mental Health Anniversary. I finally had to say that I would read the damn speech if he got in the damn ambulance. He went to the hospital, but not before handing me 20-page speech that I read that night. Also paraphrased a lot. While I was preparing for this event, one of the folks that I spoke to was Scott Johnson. He told me one of the stories that he and his colleagues remember from dad's memorial service was one that I told about how I got my first nice horse. I'm an equestrian by profession. I'll tell it again, because it's actually when I finally figured out dad. I was 17 and a student at UVM. While looking for a horse for my younger brother, Neil, we saw a horse that I felt could help me make my mark on the equestrian community. After spouting off my desires to have this horse and getting nowhere, dad told me to put it in writing, make a business plan, and prove to him what kind of outcome he could expect and how it would result in furthering my career in the equestrian community if he loaned me the money. I finally got it. I finally learned that arguing with my dad or trying to convince him of something was useless. If I wanted to win or convince him of something, I needed proof, real proof, real data, real numbers, real prospects, and real commitment. And those lessons helped forge me into who I am today. But everybody who knew dad already knows that about dad, and they've known it a long time. And this is my little prop. This is an article that I have had, I'm not sure when I took it out of mom's office. But the date is September 5th, 1999, when dad retired from the human services agency, State of Vermont. It could have been written then. It could have been written after his memorial or now. Human services chiefs leaves a void. He set the standard for public service. Hogan, a tireless advocate for Vermonters in need. I'm not sure when mom gave this to me, but it's been sitting directly behind my computer screen for a long time. I'm going to read a few paragraphs from the article. And the headliner of this first section I'm going to read says, the departure of Con Hogan is a serious loss to Vermonters. Now I need my glasses. During Hogan's distinguished eight year career as secretary of human services, he has taken a state agency whose task is to care for a broad spectrum of Vermonters in need. And a broad consensus developed a set of operating principles and metrics to which he urged the administration, the legislature, and Vermonters themselves to hold them accountable. Who among us would have the courage to set a high bar and then ask our constituents to hold this accountable for jumping over it? Hogan's willingness to be accountable for Vermonters and results, his willingness to ask for help, wherever appropriate, and wherever help was to be found, his patience with the ruminant process of government all contribute to his substantial legacy in Vermont. That's just the first paragraph. Those paragraphs surmise why this award was created in the first place, to encourage and reward other folks to embrace the same persistence and commitment to their communities and fellow Vermonters as my dad. And this is why the award tonight is going to be presented to Jan. She owns and acts on the same values and commitments that my dad did to his fellow Vermonters. The quote, help bridge gaps. I've read that everywhere. I read it in the brochure. I read it in this. I read it everywhere. And it's been described for both Jan and my dad. I don't think that's actually entirely accurate, because in reality, both of them have actually built the bridges. And then they've encouraged people from both sides to walk towards each other and solve problems. Maybe in dad's case, he would build the bridge and then gently shove people. Jan has for many years been bridging the gap and leading teams of others from different agencies and communities over that bridge. And I hear she doesn't like to take any personal credit where it's due, same as dad. But that's also being a part of being a good leader is to embrace your team. My last quote is also from this article. And I believe it was from Bill Schubert. And this applies to dad and Jan DeMires. They not only do the right things, they do things right. Thank you, Jan, for continuing dad's work. Good afternoon, everybody. What a great group, the best of Vermont. I have the privilege. My name's Steve Dale. They asked me, what do you want on your name tag? I am a former human services manager. I also work with school boards. So I know some of you through both of those hats. I have had the privilege of serving on the Conn Hogan Award Committee. I worked with Conn off and on for 45 years, starting in 1973 when I came to Vermont to be the juvenile probation and parole officer for Windsor County. That time, Conn was the deputy commissioner of corrections. I had just come here from New Jersey. And then I later worked with him much more closely as commissioner of corrections and as in when he was the secretary of human services. He was the most outstanding leader I ever had the privilege of working with, an incredible man. This award was established to honor Conn's contributions and to call attention to his approach as an exemplary leader and manager. And my job up here is to share three very brief anecdotes that give a sense of what that leadership looked like. As everyone has already mentioned, first of all, Conn focused on results. He was an action guy. But all of you who knew him know that he did not engage in mindless action, anything but. When he became secretary of human services in 1991, there had been a lot of internal bickering over the structure of the agency. You know that whenever government is in difficulty or there's not enough money or there's other things going on, one of the best ways to distract the world from all those bad things is to reorganize or to look at the structure. So in what time? His first act was to end that conversation. I remember him saying, we're not going to keep talking about structure. There's too much to get done, major difference. So he immediately shifted the focus to identifying the results that we all desired. And one thing a large group of people can agree on who are well-intentioned is what it is the world would look like if we were to achieve what we desired. A system was put in place to gather key data related to community well-being. And a whole set of local community partnerships were created to bring a local focus on improving those outcomes. It immediately changed the conversation from who is in charge to a focus on why are we here and who can contribute what to achieving better results. And this included state people, such as myself, this included private non-profits, it included schools, businesses, local officials, a wide array of people. And it ushered in a time, a decade, of incredible collaboration toward improving the situation of citizens in all of our communities. The approach was revolutionary. And I have to say, boy could we ever use an approach like this now in our nation. Second, kind of had high expectations of those who worked for him. And you knew what those expectations were. But he also believed that you had to trust people to do their jobs. During the blizzard in 1974, I was informed that a probationer who was under my charge had been drinking in violation of probation conditions and it threatened his girlfriend. And he really needed to be removed from that situation for everyone's safety. At that time, the Department of Corrections had a policy that a probation violation could only be done with a signature from the commissioner. I'm talking, no internet, no scanning, it was you know, you gotta sign. So despite the fact that the statutes allowed a probation officer to actually authorize that kind of action, the department policy required that I had to drive from Windsor, Vermont in this blizzard to Montpelier in a blinding snowstorm to get a signature from the commissioner. The only person in the central office that day was Ken Hogan, that's where we met actually that moment in time. He signed the document and he said, this is nuts, we pay you to make these judgments. And the policy was changed the next week, allowing those decisions to be made locally. A man of action, but also a man of principle. And the last thing I'll mention is that despite his drive for results and his very high expectations, Ken was an incredibly sensitive human being and he was interested in the individual. On Christmas Eve, early on in my career, I ended up as the regional probation and parole manager. And in 1976, the phone rang on Christmas Eve. Back in those days, we didn't take, we didn't get a holiday on the day before and the day before and the day after. It was, you know, you sort of were expected to be there until the end of the day on Christmas Eve. I'm sitting there in my office in the phone ring. And it was Ken on the phone. And he was calling to simply thank a young manager who was still in deep figuring out the world. For the hard work that had been done over the previous year and to wish me well for the holidays. And, you know, it was one of those very small things and in the scheme of all the contributions that Ken made over his years, it was, it's one of those small things that I remember vividly 43 years later. So it's my pleasure to be honoring Ken's legacy today. Jen, we are delighted to be honoring you today in the spirit of Ken's approach to leadership. And I think at this point, we're gonna get on with it. Paul? Thank you for the point, Steve. So at this point, we wanna hear from James Baker who was the 2018 kind of open award awardee. Unfortunately, Jim could not be here for actually being physically present. But he did send a video that we're gonna play for you that will essentially have Jim's thoughts on this day, a year from when he was presented with the Con Hogan Award. Good evening, my name is Jim Baker and I'm the 2018 Con Hogan Award winner. I am sorry I'm not able to join you tonight for the 2019 award ceremony. I needed to be in New York City for medical treatment. First, I wanna say hello to Mrs. Hogan and the Hogan family. It is so important that the legacy of Con Hogan lives on through this award process. I want you to know that I've put my best effort into carrying on Con Hogan's legacy through the work that I've done in the past year on the Vermont First Responder Wellness Project. I wanna say hello and congratulations to Jan DeMeers from the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Development. I hope that at some point we can meet and talk about the significance of being recognized as a Con Hogan Award winner. As the Rotten Herald described in an editorial after Con passed, in your life you will likely will never meet someone as dedicated to public service as Con Hogan. Jan, that's a tall description of a man that you now get to be in the company of his legacy. Congratulations to you. It's hard for me to believe that a year has passed since I was blessed to receive the 2018 Con Hogan Award. I still remain in awe of such an honor, especially considering my background and the path that I took in my career. I have given great thought to the honor and the importance of paying forward. The generous $15,000 stipend supported by the Vermont Community Foundation was important to me on several levels. First, as many of you know at the time of the war and now I'm fighting cancer. I travel every three weeks to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City where I receive treatment. I am thankful for good health insurance, but the out of pocket expense are still high and the stipend went a long ways to easing the burden of my ongoing medical expenses. I'm happy to report that the treatment is being effective and I continue to live a productive life. I did put some of the money from the stipend aside to pay forward. As a result of being called to action by the Con Hogan Award. After receiving the award in October of last year, I deliberated for several months about how I could pay forward and carry on the legacy of Con Hogan. I wanted my efforts to have meaning, be impactful and make a difference in people's lives. After careful thought, I decided to create a coalition entitled the Vermont First Responder Wellness Project. I have for a good part of my career dedicated to myself to working on the issue of wellness for police officers, in particular, mental health wellness. In America, we lose more police officers to suicides than officers who die in the line of duty. In Vermont, there's been several suicides in the past few years, the latest last summer. There's a significant exposure of officers to trauma, often resulting in adverse impact on officers and their families. As I began this process of talking to individuals who work in this space in Vermont, I realized that the exposure to ongoing trauma is taking a toll not only on police officers, but the rest of the first responder community to include fire, emergency services, and the Vermont Department of Corrections. The approach and access to support is sporadic, ranging from well-running programming to no access or support at all. As a result, I decided on working towards awareness, education, coordination, collaboration, and advocacy on behalf of the first responder community. I began working with the Vermont Ligs of Cities and Towns on conversations with stakeholders to raise awareness and build energy and synergy. One step that we're planning is to hold a first annual conference to identify the gaps in services, raise awareness, and begin the conversation about how to fill those gaps that leave our first responders exposed. We have now formed a comprehensive coalition representing all disciplines of first responders. There's an agreement that this collected effort is needed to address the critical need of supporting first responders. To date, there's been a significant amount of work done by the coalition, moving forward the concept of better wellness for first responders. The work started at a kickoff meeting in June of this year, where representatives from various disciplines met for half a day in Pittsburgh, Vermont, and started the framework of where we are today. One of the areas discussed and now being addressed is the need for more clinicians who are familiar with and the functions of first responder agencies. The culture and first responder community is much different than other organizations. From the, we started meeting through conference calls with clinicians, and from those conference calls, we have begun to develop a standard of practice and creating a coordinated training model that will bring the various peer supporters into the conversation. It could grow the depth of clinicians who support first responders. Again, the goal being that the playing field gets leveled for all first responders to get access to wellness support. The next step in this conversation is to get the various peer supporters around the state together to start talking about drawing up on best practices and experiences to support the first responders in the state. Much more coordination in this area needs to be done. Two months ago, I met with Senator Dick Sears from Bennington County, when presented with the statistics from around the country on first responder suicides to include emergency medical services suicides, fire service suicides, and Department of Corrections suicides. He agreed that there needs to be awareness and assistance in supporting the wellness of responders. He has directed us to the legislative council to draft legislation to create a commission on first responder wellness. The vision is to have a commission that is structured in legislation that meets several times a year and generates a yearly report on the status and the needs of wellness support for first responders. In this conversation, we realized recently that we overlooked the critical part of first responders and that is our emergency communication dispatchers. We recently added those dispatchers through the conversation so they can be considered part of the first responder community and support them in the future. A group has been working on creating the first ever conference focused on first responder wellness. The first conference will be held on December 9th of this year at the Capital Plaza in Malpere. The day will consist of an opening speaker who has suffered from PTSD and went out on disability as a result of that disabling PTSD. A series of panel discussions will follow that are centric to Vermont and a keynote speaker will address the conference at noontime and there'll be time for questions and answers at the end. My focus would never have been turning to supporting first responders and their needs if I was not fortunate enough to be honored with the Con Hogan Award last year. It was a call to action for me and I wanna thank the committee for the work that you do. Your efforts to carry on Con Hogan's legacy will now turn to the support of first responders. Thank you. Jan, as I sign off, I wish you the best in your efforts to serve those who are most in need. Thank you for what you do. Good night. So Jan, Jan grew up in Burlington, graduated from Rice Memorial High School in the University of Vermont, my alma mater. She's done every kind of job that you can imagine and some that even Jan had not imagined herself doing. She was a milk tester in Groton. She was a substitute teacher at Morristown Elementary. She was an educator at the Memorial Area Vocational Center. She was assistant to the Morristown Select Board. She was executive director of the Memorial Valley Chamber of Commerce. She worked in sales for the American Management Association. She directed domestic violence intervention services for a community action agency. She was executive director of a five county hospice and palliative care agency in upstate New York. And that's not the entire list. Jan's can-do spirit and commitment to community have served her and the state well. She brought these qualities and her extraordinary breadth of experience to her current job at CVOEO and the results show. Jan oversees 10 programs at CVOEO which provide services and advocacy from fuel assistance to head start to tenant organizing. Its tagline, bridging gaps, building futures is a good description of the vision that guides her. One example, in 2014-15, she established the first low barrier winter shelter in Burlington offering safety and dignity for the area's most vulnerable residents. Low barrier shelters accept homeless people as they are with no requirements that they be drug-free, sober or have personal identification documents. But a roof and a bed for one night is not the end of the work. Many of those who receive temporary shelter were helped to find permanent housing. Jan has also worked with other organizations in Chinton County to adopt the data-driven assessment process that triages those in need to the most appropriate services and tracks outcomes. Responsibility, deep community commitment and involvement, generosity, enthusiasm, collaboration, focus on data. So I'm pleased to present to you the 2019 Conhogan Award recipient, Jan Demers. My first thought when Paul started saying that is, my goodness, that woman can't keep a job. It's wonderful to name this talk as a reflection and to follow the tribute that Ruth and Steve gave to Remembering Conn. I would start my reflection being grateful for the love and remembering my own. From our gallon and for saying that my greatest dreams came true in the people that are Joshua Allen, Sarah Marie, and Michael Samuel. So thank you for this opportunity to be here today and for the many amazing people who made this possible. And I'll name a couple, Joan White, Meg McCausland, Christopher Boget, Ricky Padgett, a CVOEL board member, Sarah Phillips from the State Office of Economic Opportunity, who all put this nomination together without my knowing. And for all the people from CVOEO that are here and my family, I really consider this a love letter from home and as such I am humbled and most honored. In Mr. Hogan's honor, I start with two bits of history that shape my thinking. The French Revolution lasted for 10 years, between 1789 and 1799. The poor, the oppressed, and the learned French rose up and fought back with determination, spilt blood, and a coup and stormed the places of privilege. At the same time, there was great poverty in England and yet the results were not a bloodbath but the building of hospitals, schools, and orphanages. There were those that listened to the real needs of the people. There were those that went down into the coal mines that entered the ghettos. Two countries changed, one through destruction and one through care. Closer to our day, in the 1960s, there were dark days in America. The federal poverty level at that time was 20%, 20% of Americans lived in poverty. President Kennedy sent his brother Bobby to the South to investigate the malnutrition, high infant mortality rate, low academic scores, and other results of poverty. After John Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson instituted changes and opened a period in government where strong women and strong men stood up and created policy and programs that brought about a great society. They did this during a very confusing and hate-filled time. It was during our first involvement in the war of Vietnam and during a time of race riots, broken storefront windows, and marching in the street. But when these women and men in our nation's capital stood up, here are the results. In 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act was passed which brought about the birth of the Community Action Network, as was the Civil Rights Act, the Food Stamp Act, Job Corps, Vista. And in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Social Security Act that created Medicare and Medicaid, the Peace Corps, and Special Olympics came into being. And seven years after those governmental programs were put into place, the federal poverty level was at 11%. People say that the war on poverty didn't work, but look at the data, look at the facts. This history drives my days. Listen to the people in need, look at the numbers, study the facts, and stand up, never alone, but with the multitude who are ready to help. Vermont was the first state in the nation that created an Office of Economic Opportunity under Governor Philip Hoff in 1964, and CVOEO was one of the five Community Action agencies that were created in 1965. Today, CVOEO employs approximately 195 people. We have 10 programs in four counties, programs that address crisis, three food shelves that include the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, now known as Feeding Chittenden, housing assistance, crisis fuel distribution and warmth, the volunteer assistance program, and voices against violence. We have programs that address stability, Head Start, weatherization, fair housing, Vermont tenants, and the mobile home program, and programs that are avenues out of poverty, our Financial Futures program, and Community Kitchen, which is a 12 week workforce development program teaching culinary arts with a resulting nine college credits. We use Khan's result based accountability metrics, or RBA, and results oriented management, and about, and accountability. Then we are monitored, audited, and looked at, and gain more performance measures. CVOEO completes a comprehensive needs assessment every three years, and here are the results of the data this year. We reached families in every town and city in the four counties we serve. When you look at the census numbers of those living in poverty, and in the people we served, the difference is 263 individuals. In other words, CVOEO served 23,384 individuals in FY18, in comparison with the poverty estimates of the census, showing 23,647 persons living below the poverty level in CVOEO's catchment area. The numbers do tell us where we need to spend our time and our efforts. The highest number of households served by CVOEO in household incomes are those in the 50% level of federal poverty. That, with the number of households we serve who had no reported income, 669 households, that emphasizes the continued need for crisis services of housing, food, and fuel. When comparing the top 10 concerns from CVOEO's community needs assessment survey and the customer satisfaction survey, it is glaringly apparent that the control of financial assets is the key to wellness. This continues to fuel our determination that a significant key to ending poverty can be seen in the financial capability, building work of CVOEO's financial futures program. The majority of people we serve are renters. Both the Vermont tenants program and the mobile home program offer strong supports for those we serve and offer affordable home ownership. This work is bigger than one person can do, but not insurmountable for those who are called to the work. I work with those who are dedicated and called to the work of bridge and gaps and building futures. I would like to say and like to think that perhaps I might have met Khan in one of his many published works, met along the way, also met along the way, or perhaps finally met along the way. Perhaps it was when I was running from farm to farm in the Northeast Kingdom testing cow's milk, tagging the ears of newborn heifers, carrying 50 pounds of milk, not daring to spill a drop before it was weighed. Maybe it was when I was riding in the police cars or in the truck of the highway superintendent in the town of Morristown and working with the select board listening and learning about town business at every level. It could have been when I sat with a domestic violence victim who was rocking back and forth in grief because she was losing everything that she had, but she didn't lose her life. She could start over again. Was it when at High Peaks Hospice and Palliative Care when I learned that we live until our last breath? But it might have been that I met Khan that night at the Burlington Warming Shelter taking off Michael's shoes and covering up as he laid on a cot. He was far from sober, but he could sleep safe from the cold and get up the next day to face another day. And every night that he was with us, he slept in clean sheets with blankets and a pillow provided by the UVM Medical Center. The Agency of Human Services asked if I would start a low barrier shelter in Burlington and I said no. They asked again and I said no. And all the while I was thinking, this isn't our business. The third time they asked, I said yes because it was the right thing to do and because CVO's mission is to bridge gaps and build futures. I can still remember the very next day I said to myself, what have you done? It was a good decision. It was the right decision. And we learned much and we did much to help build futures. And we keep building futures. I feel that I met Khan along the way. Thank you. Celebrate Jan, this year's recipient of the Conhorgan Award for Creative Entrepreneurial Community Leadership. Let's give a round of applause for the committee for the Conhorgan. You know, this award does recognize the legacy impact Conhorgan has had on our state. The award goes beyond the man celebrates and promotes the power of leadership in improving our state. And I think we just heard that about that. Leadership that is needed to move our communities forward. So, you know, I'll leave you with this. Find your passion, stand up and lead. Thank you all.