A warm welcome to Bill Regan

I am pleased to announce that Bill Regan has been appointed to a four-year term on the paper’s board of directors.

After a distinguished career in the federal government, Bill and his wife, Nina, moved to Charlotte in the summer of 2019. Soon after arriving in town, Bill was looking for ways to get involved in the Charlotte community. He joined the Trails Committee because “I was very interested in getting to know Charlotte and doing what I could,” he said. “I love to hike and bike so the Trails Committee seemed like something that would promote those activities, increase community spirit, and be environmentally responsible.” Last spring, Bill was appointed chair of the committee.

Currently, Bill is a Senior Fellow at the Energy Action Network in Montpelier, which provides non-partisan analysis of Vermont’s energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions for governments, businesses and consumers. In addition, he has provided management and leadership training to the staff at Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington. Separately, he is finishing up a strategic planning project for Local Motion, the state’s leading advocacy group for walking and biking.

For his whole life, Bill has been an avid outdoor enthusiast, enjoying cycling, hiking, kayaking and cross-country skiing. Through his business, Regan Leadership LLC, he now teaches clients how to improve their outdoor recreation skills. This time of year, he is focused on teaching cross-country skiing at local areas. like Trapp Family Lodge and the Catamount Outdoor Family Center. His passion for teaching has also led to opportunities indoors. He teaches a graduate seminar at Tufts University and guest lectures at UVM and Middlebury College. “I love being in the classroom and encouraging students to consider public service,” he said.

In a Dec. 16 opinion piece written for The News, Bill described himself as “an avid consumer of local, national and international news, whose first career was devoted to researching and writing about foreign affairs, and then managing staff writers and editing their work. In short, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what stories are told and how writers tell them.”

He went on to write, “The goal of The Charlotte News should be to help inform the public’s understanding of the issues that impact them and help inform the Selectboard and the town’s various commissions and committees so they can make better decisions.”

Upon his appointment to the board, Bill said, “I am honored to join The News at this time. Our community—as well as our country—needs high-quality, objective and dispassionate journalism to help citizens and decision-makers navigate the complex challenges facing us. We also need mechanisms like vibrant local papers to bring us together as a community. My goal is to help The News deliver both.”

We’re looking forward to working with you, Bill. Welcome aboard.