Meet Mike

Middlebury has been my home since 2008. I came here with my wife Lisa, three children Ethan, Anna, and Jules, cat Grace, and golden retriever Maia to work at Middlebury College. I grew up in Manchester, Connecticut, raised by my father, a grade school teacher, and my mother, a community college history teacher and state legislator. 

I arrived in Middlebury through a circuitous path. I studied philosophy at Dartmouth College and ran on the track and cross country teams there. After some adventures traveling in South America, I ended up at Duke University on my way to a PhD in American Literature, only to take a life-changing detour into technology and digital publishing that led me into computing and library jobs at Harvard University, Wesleyan University, and Kenyon College. I finally landed at Middlebury College, where I served sometimes as Library Dean, sometimes as Chief Information Officer, and sometimes as both. 

In my career I have developed what I jokingly call “soft skills for hard problems.” I learned how to manage projects of all kinds, and then eventually how to manage portfolios of projects. How to do strategic planning and then how to set goals to achieve results. Much of the work in library and IT has to do with service, figuring out the needs of the community, and then designing solutions to meet those needs, all within the constraints placed by budgets, time, and the limits of what is technologically possible. I’ve learned how to balance my natural attraction to innovation and experimentation with a keen understanding of and deep respect for the importance of maintenance. I have also always looked for ways to collaborate within and across institutions in order to do things faster and more cost effectively. 

These skills and dispositions have served me well in my life outside of higher education. I have volunteered, served on boards, and played leadership roles for a variety of non-profits and town committees in the Middlebury community, including the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County, Homeward Bound, the Henry Sheldon Museum, Charter House Coalition, Middlebury Regional EMS, and the Town Energy Committee. This volunteer work has certainly taught me more about Middlebury — the town and its people — than I learned during my seventeen years at the college, and helped me to grow to cherish the town in all its complexity.

Things have changed considerably in my time here in Vermont. Climate change isn't a future problem anymore. We now regularly have 100 year floods. Otter Creek Falls in Middlebury dried up last summer. Smoke from Canadian wildfires has made it unsafe at times to go outside. In addition, Washington has abruptly stopped being a place you can count on for help, and is often something closer to a threat. The current federal government is more likely to make our seemingly intractable problems of housing, healthcare, and jobs worse rather than better. 

If we are going to create a Vermont where we all thrive, we are going to have to do it together, with state government cooperating with non-profits, local governments, grassroots organizations, and businesses. Solutions will need to come from Vermont, built the way I've spent my career building things: figuring out what people actually need, understanding root causes, finding partners and collaborators, and together doing the patient work of delivering results.