The Community Leadership Award was established by our Board of Directors to recognize and honor businesses or community leaders who exemplify the leadership and commitment needed to build and suppport a caring and healthy community. Honorees are selected for their involvement in business, civic, philanthropic, artistic, or cultural activities that enhance the quality of life and wellness of our citizens. 

Congratulations to our Community Leadership Award Winner: 

Rick Minard

    

Rick Minard has devoted most of his 50-year career to public service, primarily in New Hampshire and Vermont.  He grew up in Alstead, NH, graduated from Fall Mountain Regional High School, and has lived in Bow since 2000 with his wife Susanna Iritani Minard.  Rick retired last February after serving for seven years as executive director of Building Community in New Hampshire (BCNH), a Manchester-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping refugees and other New Americans build safe, healthy, productive, and prosperous lives in New Hampshire.

Rick started his career in Keene as a reporter for The Keene Sentinel and then served for five years as editorial page editor of the Valley News in Lebanon.  He was appointed Vermont State Planning Director by Gov. Madeleine Kunin, a move that led him to a focus on energy and environmental policy.  He created the Northeast Center for Comparative Risk at Vermont Law School, with funding from the US EPA, and subsequently became associate director of the Center for the Economy and the Environment at the National Academy of Public Administration in Washington, DC.

In 2000, Rick became co-executive director of the NH Center for Public Policy Studies, publishing research on the growth of the state’s prison population, school dropout rates, SB2, and property-tax inequity.  He then commuted from Bow to Cambridge, Mass., to serve as executive director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.   He ditched the commute to become the president and CEO of New Hampshire Audubon and subsequently vice president for policy at the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund.  Governor Maggie Hassan appointed him deputy director of the NH Office of Energy and Planning, where he focused on helping low-income residents with weatherization and fuel assistance.

In December 2018, BCNH was in debt and leaderless.  Rick agreed to try to bring it back to life. Starting part-time, he restored the organization’s strength and impact over the next seven years.  Early in that process, he partnered with the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester to hire a Congolese case manager who would also encourage New Americans to seek mental-health services.  BCNH became the first refugee organization in the state to hire Afghan, Ukrainian, and Haitian staff members when those communities began to grow and require services in Manchester, Concord, and Nashua.  The NH Center for Nonprofits awarded BCNH its Nonprofit Impact Award in 2021.

Outside of work, Rick has been an active volunteer in various organizations, including Bow Rotary, Leadership New Hampshire, and the Concord Chorale.  He has served three times as a mentor in the NH Center for Nonprofits’ Hoffmann-Haas board-leadership training program. He is currently the treasurer of the NH Public Health Association.

Rick graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1977 and was named a Littauer Fellow when he received a Master of Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1994.