The Vermont Standard: Health foundation elects new board president

The Ottauquechee Health Foundation (OHF) has elected a new president, Annie Smith-Jones, to lead its board.

Although Smith-Jones is new to the organization, as she joined the board just a few weeks before she was selected to head it, she has a long history of working with nonprofits and in healthcare. After getting a bachelor’s degree in elementary special education in 1975, Smith-Jones went straight to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn a master’s degree in social work. She then spent nearly half a decade working at a community health center.

In addition to her career, Smith-Jones has also dedicated significant time to working with nonprofits. Most recently, she served for four years as the chair of the Seabrook Island Utility Commission in South Carolina and is the current treasurer of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America’s board of directors.

Following her election, Smith-Jones has been working to find her footing and get oriented before committing to a path forward.  She does, however, know where she wants to focus at least a portion of her efforts. “OHF started a lot of things with their past board that still need [to] come to fruition,” said Smith-Jones. She says she’s committed to seeing them through. One example is the organization’s dental van program, and she also noted that she wants to prioritize restoring OHF’s building, which is suffering from some deferred maintenance.

The impact of a new president will only be emphasized by the number of recent additions throughout the rest of the organization. Five of the board’s 11 members joined within the last two years, and OHF’s executive director started just last March. “We’re all still learning, and I don’t think I’ll do any drastic changes, certainly not within the first year or two,” said Smith-Jones. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’ve also got real, new energy here. Our team has the hope and promise of being able to move forward and accomplish some potentially great things.”

For more on this, please see our May 16 edition of the Vermont Standard.