John Barstow

John brings nearly 30 years of experience in the publishing world to the Foundation. He was raised in a small New England village (pop. 2,500), and those formative years shaped his values and interests. After graduating from college in 1977, John was a reporter for a small daily newspaper. Over the following 12 years he worked for several national magazines, including Fly Fisherman, Blair & Ketchum’s Country Journal, Horticulture, and Harrowsmith Country Life.He then turned to book publishing, acquiring and editing nonfiction works first at the Atlantic Monthly Press and then at W. W. Norton & Company, both in New York City. Most recently he was Editor in Chief of Chelsea Green Publishing, an independent press committed to publishing books on the politics and practice of sustainable living. John’s interest in community development was sparked in 1996 when he co-founded Citizens for Middlebury, a grassroots group formed to oppose big-box strip development. John has served on his town’s Planning Commission since 1998, and as Chair since 2002. He has also served on the town’s Committee for Economic Development Initiatives and on the Board of Directors of the Champlain Valley Greenbelt Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to protecting view sheds along U.S. Route 7 in Vermont. He lives in Middlebury, Vermont, with his wife, artist Kate Gridley, and their two sons, Charles and Angus.