Adam Howard: Active, Enterprising, Self-sufficient, Involved

Nov 292011
 

Winter 2011 – 2012
Vermont Life Magazine
Profile: Q & A

 

Every Vermonter Has a Story

Adam Howard: Active, Enterprising, Self-sufficient, Involved

 

Though he lives off the grid in Cambridge, Adam Howard could hardly be more connected to life in Vermont. As the editorial and creative director of Height of Land Publications, a company he co-founded, this former builder and ski patroller works in Jeffersonville producing such adventure sports magazines as Backcountry, Alpinist and Tele-mark Skier. Howard also helped found the Cambridge Historical Society and the Brewster River Mountain Bike Club; he sits on the Cambridge Development Review Board and, at 37, is one of the youngest members of the state’s House of Representatives. Howard is something of an anomaly in the capitol — a libertarian Republican in a Statehouse controlled by Democrats — but he says his life is more Vermont than it is either right or left. The father of two lives with his wife and family in a house he built himself, on land his ancestors settled nearly two centuries ago.

VL: What do you know about your family’s origins in Vermont?

AH: As best I can tell, I had ancestors who fought in the Battle of Bennington; and in the town of Sterling (no longer in existence), there were a lot of Revolutionary War [land] Grants, which is why, I believe, they came to the area. The town of Sterling was essentially Smugglers Notch, itself: Spruce Peak, Sterling Peak, Madonna, the Adam’s Apple on Mount Mansfield, et cetera. Not very inhabitable land, but certainly the valleys below were pretty nice.

VL: When did you first take up skiing?

AH: I started skiing when I was probably in the first grade. My parents had skied, but really, it wasn’t a lifestyle for them, it was a pastime. So I didn’t start super young, like I started my girls skiing when they were 18 months and 2 years old, because that is what we do. We are a skiing family.

VL: Have you skied every mountain in Vermont?

AH: No. I think in Vermont we are very territorial. We tend to know where it is going to be good and when it is going to be good, and we’re pretty protective of our local haunts. So Mount Mansfield is my playground, and when it is good, that is where I am going to be.

VL: Is there anything about skiing that has directly informed your political views and interests?

AH: Absolutely. With skiing you get absolute freedom and absolute control, and you are the master of your destiny, from turn to turn and from mountain to mountain, and it is hard for me to not want to take that freedom and apply it elsewhere in my life. I live off the grid. I am a libertarian. I want less government control over my life and the lives around me, so I think there is a very strong parallel that can be drawn there.

VL: How long were you a builder?

AH: I was a builder from 1995 to 2002. I wanted to build my own home and wanted to learn the skills to do it, and that is what I did. For so many of us here in Vermont, it has been a great way to make a living.

VL: What motivated you to build your house off the grid?

AH: We did a cost analysis of what it would cost to bring power to our site and applied that cost to the installation of our system, and the numbers worked. If we could tie into the grid tomorrow, I don’t think we would choose to.

VL: Would you consider yourself an environmentalist?

AH: No, I wouldn’t, but I think anyone who knows me might have a different take. To me, it is just being a Vermonter. I think most country people tend to be environmentally minded just because that is how they have to exist to survive. When you live on the land, right, you’ve got to take care of it.

VL: Do you get all your power from wind and solar?

AH: For about 10 months of the year, we get all our power from wind and solar, and then in December and January, we have to run a generator about once a week.

VL: What moves you to be so involved in your community?

AH: To me, if you grow up in small-town Vermont, where out of necessity your family is involved in the functions of the town you live in, you can call that politics, but it is really more community service.

Melting Worries Away

Nov 292011
 

Winter 2011 – 2012
Vermont Life Magazine
Feature: Outdoor Recreation

 

Melting Worries Away

Undaunted by winter, hardy runners say icy treks clear the mind

 

There is, perhaps, no more a peaceful time in Vermont than the predawn hours of a midwinter day. The air is light and clean. The sky clear.  And the density of a three-foot snowpack dampens back the noise.

It is 5:30 on just such a morning and Tim Noonan of Montpelier is up and out of the house, silently passing through the ice-slicked streets of Vermont’s small-town capital.  The occasional car eases past. The odd window light of an early riser stretches out across the snow. It is cold and dark, and echoing off the house fronts is the plodding thump of Noonan’s footfalls on the road — a rhythm he has set for more than 35 years.

Noonan, 55, is a long-distance runner and about as serious a runner as one might imagine. He took up the sport in college and has rarely since missed an opportunity to train. He has run 67 marathons, including 14 at Boston — the preeminent race for any runner — and, all told, has clocked an estimated 70,000 miles in his lifetime, the equivalent of nearly three times around the earth.

Bundled in multiple layers, ski gloves and often wearing a facemask, Noonan defies the worst of Vermont’s winter weather to keep up on the sport he loves. Boston looms in early spring, and through the winter, Noonan faces his most rigorous months of training, pushing out 35 to 40 miles a week, which means, for Noonan, early mornings, cold starts and a personal motivation that is as steely as the stiffest, northeast wind.

Sure, there are challenges — the dark mornings (and dark nights), the ice, the snow. But there is also something different, something special that draws runners, like Noonan, out day after day, even on the bitterest days of the year.

“The crisp air, a clear day without wind … it is invigorating to run in the winter,” Noonan says. “I love to run. I like to be out there. And if you dress for it, you can protect against anything.” As for Noonan’s limit? It is 20 degrees … below.

“Most people think you’re a little crazy,” Noonan admits, though he insists that, in actuality, the opposite is true: Running, especially in the winter, is one of the ways he maintains his sense of well-being. “I think it is crucial to be outside in the winter, in Vermont, for mental health issues,” Noonan says, echoing the sentiments of many winter sports enthusiasts.

A few miles away, in Barre, elementary school teacher Andrea McLaughlin is also up and out of the house and meeting with friends along a country road near her home. For McLaughlin, 48, the sport of running has offered a hearty list of benefits, the most important of which are the friendships she has developed and maintained through the sport.

It was 15 years ago that McLaughlin took up running, under the encouragement and guidance of then-acquaintance Lori LaCroix, who unrelentingly plied the younger McLaughlin with fliers for various running events. Later, McLaughlin held a two-year term as president of Central Vermont Runners — a group of about 150 runners who organize regional road races — and the two women, along with several additional friends, continue to run together every Tuesday and Thursday in nearly any weather.

“Running is a great stress releaser,” McLaughlin says. “It is a whole attitude adjustment for me. It is an adrenaline rush. And it is just about the only time I get to see my friends. And you know what? If I didn’t know somebody was out there waiting for me, I probably wouldn’t get up.”