As a community land trust, the Champlain Housing Trust’s Board of Directors are elected annually by the membership at our Annual Meeting in January. Any member living in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties can be nominated and be elected to the Board. The Board is made up of one-third public members, one-third general members and one-third resident members.
PUBLIC MEMBERS
Jessie Baker, Vice President
Helen Head
Mike Loner
Gillian Nanton
GENERAL MEMBERS
Naima Dennis
Joan Lenes
Kathy T. Luce
Sarah Robinson
Jeff Smith, Treasurer
RESIDENT MEMBERS
Antoinette Bennett-Jones
Ian Boyd
John Olson
Rachyl Phillips
Bob Robbins, President
View Champlain Housing Trust Bylaws – PDF
Jessie Baker is the City Manager of Winooski, Vermont. Jessie has held municipal management positions with the City of Somerville, Massachusetts and the City of Montpelier, Vermont. Jessie grew up in Waterbury Center and is a graduate of Harwood Union High School. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and anthropology from Columbia University and a Master’s degree in planning and policy from Tufts University. Jessie sits on the boards of Champlain Housing Trust, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the Vermont City and Town Management Association, and Vermont Women Leading Government.
Antoinette Bennett-Jones was born in Miami, Florida. She moved to Vermont in 2001. She is the mother of two amazing children whom she calls her heroes. She is a member of the AmeriCorps Everybody Works team at ReSOURCE, where she serves as the Workforce Development and Outreach Coordinating Assistant. She is a former Community Kitchen Graduate, Community College of Vermont graduate, and has history in various sectors of the medical field. Her passion is to give back to her community and help others. Antoinette lives at CHT’s Avenue Apartments in Burlington.
Ian Boyd has been a member of the Champlain Housing Trust since 2009 and the proud owner of a beautiful CHT home since January 2012. Although not a Vermont native, Ian has been living in Burlington for the last 17 years. He has worked for the Community College of Vermont in Winooski since 2006 as an academic advisor focusing on outreach to new college students and local businesses and organizations. He lives with his wife, Georgia, and two children in the Old North End.
Naima Dennis is the Senior Assistant Registrar for Technology at the University of Vermont. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Naima moved to Burlington in the fall of 1992. Upon her initial arrival in Burlington, Naima experienced various stages of housing insecurity. As an original member of the Thelma Maple Co-op, a CHT property, Naima has benefitted first hand from the opportunities made available through CHT. There is a long history of discriminatory housing practices that target the BIPOC community. CHT’s work on combating racism in the housing sector, and ensuring that safe, affordable housing is available for all populations aligns with Naima’s values. Naima lives in the New North End of Burlington with her family.
Helen Head has focused on affordable housing issues for many years – in legal aid, shared housing, and the legislature. From 2003-2019, Helen represented Chittenden 7-3 in the Vermont House and became chair of the committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs in 2007. She now serves as co-coordinator of Small Potatoes, an interfaith food initiative, and is a volunteer for both hospice and a prisoner/community reintegration program. Helen is a board member for Emerge Vermont and is co-presiding clerk of Burlington Friends Meeting (Quaker). She and her husband, Tom Mercurio, have two grown children and live in South Burlington.
Joan Lenes served in the Vermont General Assembly, representing the Towns of Shelburne and St. George from 2007-2017. She was a member of the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. Joan currently is the Chair of Emerge Vermont and an elected justice of the peace in Shelburne. Joan currently serves on the Age Well Board, Vermont Children’s Trust Foundation, the UVM Continuing and Distance Education Board, the UVM Nursing and Health Science advisory board, and Wake Robin Board of Directors. She is a member of Charlotte/Shelburne/Hinesburg Rotary Club and Shelburne Business & Professional Association. Joan is a former member of the UVM Board of Trustees, former longtime CVSD school board member; and she was a founding member of Robin’s Nest Children’s Center. Joan previously taught in the Center for Service-Learning at UVM, and owned and operated Climb High. She has two grown children and lives in Shelburne with her husband, Helmut.
Mike Loner is a public member of the CHT Board representing Hinesburg where he is currently serving as a Select Board Member. Mike is a licensed Real Estate Agent working with Greentree Real Estate of Monkton. Prior to obtaining his real estate license, Mike was the Executive Director and CEO of the DREAM Program for over 13 years. Mike is a long-serving member of the Governor-appointed Children and Family Council for Primary Prevention and the current Chair of the Ethnic and Racial Disparities Committee of the Council. He and his wife Vicki live with their daughter Alexandria and dog Ellie in Hinesburg where he is actively involved in the community as a soccer coach and local volunteer.
Kathy Tyrrell Luce is a Partner and Vice President at Maloney Properties, Inc. She oversees the management of a large, diverse portfolio of mixed income senior and family housing in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts that are either owned by the residents through a limited partnership or have strong resident participation in a nonprofit ownership structure. She has worked extensively as a consultant to nonprofit housing organizations and resident ownership groups. Kathy is a current Board Member of the New England Resident Services Coordinators (NERSC). She lives in Charlotte with her husband Dan.
Gillian Nanton is a development manager with more than 25 years of combined economic development experience. She serves as Assistant Director for Opportunity and Engagement in the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) with the City of Burlington. Prior to joining CEDO in 2015, she served as Chief of the Caribbean Division at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York, before being assigned to Jamaica as the UNDP Resident Representative and Resident Coordinator for the United Nations. Gillian holds an MBA from Rutgers University and is twice a graduate of the University of the West Indies where she earned a BSc in Economics and Master’s in Social Sciences. She serves on the boards of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center and South End Arts & Business Association (SEABA).
John Olson has been a resident/owner at the Flynn Avenue Co-op Homes in Burlington since 2005. He works for the Vermont Department of Health, managing federal grants to support small rural hospitals, clinics, and health care workforce. At the Flynn Ave Co-op, he served as a Board Member and as Treasurer from 2010-2014. John has also volunteered as an usher at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts since 2003. He received an inter-disciplinary Master of Education degree from UVM in 2000. John grew up in rural Minnesota and moved to Burlington in 1988 after graduating college.
Rachyl Phillips is a former professional ballet dancer. While Rachyl and her husband Steven have both traveled and worked extensively abroad, they fell in love with Vermont and are proud to call it their home. They originally moved here to start a performing arts school. Unfortunately, Rachyl was soon after diagnosed with a serious, rare genetic disorder – Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome – that required the couple to put their lives on hold for the past several years for her treatment. Nevertheless, in spite of her medical limitations, Rachyl has remained active in the community – her own way of trying to “give back”. She enjoys writing and blogging, she manages a couple of websites, and she coordinates a unique, inclusive spiritual community online with her husband. She happily considers herself a “tech-geek’’ and continues to raise awareness of the medical condition she fights.
Bob Robbins served on the BCLT and then CHT Board in the 1990s and early 2000s and served as President of the Board for part of that time. He has been an active member of CHT and a happy community land trust homeowner since 1995. Bob has worked with the Grounded Solutions Network as part of a group of resident ambassadors advocating for affordable housing and working together on leadership development to make everyone more active in local communities. Bob is presently a freelance consultant to a French bookseller, married to a hard-working member of the Child Development Division for the State of Vermont, and proud parent of two grown children.
Sarah Robinson is the Deputy Director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, a statewide non-profit organization committed to uprooting the causes of violence. Sarah was born and raised in a small town in southern Vermont and has a deep appreciation for the strength of Vermont communities and local innovation. She served for four years as a City Councilor in Winooski and is an adjunct faculty member in the Social Work department at the University of Vermont. Sarah lives in Burlington with her husband Colin and finds her greatest source of both joy and humility as the co-parent of her two young daughters. Colin and Sarah purchased (and sold) their first house through the Champlain Housing Trust’s Shared Equity Program in 2008.
Jeff Smith has lived in Burlington since 1998 and volunteered in some capacity with the Champlain Housing Trust for over 17 years. He works at NorthCountry Federal Credit Union as the Senior Vice President of Lending. Previously, he worked at three different Community Development Credit Unions throughout the country in their efforts to serve people of modest means. He holds an undergraduate degree in Accounting from James Madison University and an MBL from the University of Vermont. He has been on the board of the Burlington American Little League for 12 years. He and his wife have two boys and a daughter.