Editor’s note: This story is by Kirk Kardashian, a freelance writer who lives in the Upper Valley.
Mark Snelling has a lot to live up to. His grandfather, Walter Snelling, is credited as the discoverer of propane and the founder of the liquid-propane-gas industry. His father, Richard Snelling, was elected governor of Vermont five times. His mother, Barbara Snelling, served two terms as lieutenant governor. Diane Snelling, his younger sister, is a state senator from Hinesburg.
Now Mark, 60, who’s devoted much of his life to business ventures and public service at numerous nonprofit organizations, thinks it’s time to follow his mother’s footsteps into the lieutenant governor’s office. He’s one of two Republican candidates for the job, and he hopes to bring his brand of old-time conservatism to the post, focusing on long-term economic growth without sacrificing the integrity of Vermont’s environment.
Mark’s parents moved to Vermont from Philadelphia in 1953 and settled in Shelburne, where Richard soon formed a brass-wire products company called Shelburne Industries. The company specialized in cup hooks — the question-mark shaped hooks from which you might hang coffee cups. Richard then bought spring companies in New York and New Jersey and a zinc and aluminum die-casting firm in Philadelphia. By the time Mark was 10, Richard was serving as a representative in the legislature and Barbara was the chair of the Shelburne School Board. Aside from the usual fodder for dinner table conversation — How was your day? — “we were always encouraged to talk about public policy,” Mark recalls, “and we had to make sure to back up our opinions with facts and knowledge.”
Mark went to high school in Shelburne and then transferred to Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. From there, he attended Harvard, graduating in 1974 with a degree in government. He returned to Vermont that year to help his father at Shelburne Industries, working his way up the managerial ladder, and when he was 28 he was in charge of the business, which “grossed tens of millions of dollars in sales and employed 225 people in two states,” according to Mark’s campaign website.
Today, Shelburne Industries is defunct and has morphed into the Shelburne Corporation, which Mark describes as a real estate holding company. Mark’s primary job is as the president of Greenleaf Metals, a purchaser and distributor of brass and copper wire. Based in Shelburne, Greenleaf is a sort of virtual business that’s run over the phone and Internet, mostly by virtue of the contacts and knowledge Mark has built up in the metal industry over the years.
“We rarely touch the goods ourselves,” he says, adding that he’s a middle man between producers and customers, the latter of whom seek his advice on the best metal manufacturer for, say, grounding rods for water meter boxes, or automobile starter systems.
Mark’s experience with government and public policy began in earnest in 1976, when his father first ran for governor. From then until 1990, Mark helped run Richard’s campaigns and authored position papers. When his mother campaigned and served as lieutenant governor from 1992 to 1998, he played the same role.
He also developed his own interests in affordable housing and land conservation. Mark became intrigued by the housing issue in the mid-1980s, a time when rapid growth in Vermont was driving up real estate costs. He first realized the problem when he noticed that some of his employees were showing up late for work, or not making it in at all. When he asked them why they were late, “they told me was that they were driving so far to work that they couldn’t get here on time, or that their car would break down,” he says. It wasn’t that the workers enjoyed plying Vermont’s country roads; they just couldn’t find affordable housing within a reasonable radius of the factory.
Madeleine Kunin was the governor at the time, and she created the Commission on Vermont’s Future: Guideline for Growth to investigate a proper solution to the growth issue. Mark offered to serve on commission and Kunin agreed to the appointment. “He wanted to contribute,” she recalls, “and I wanted bipartisanship.” Kunin remembers Mark as a “positive Republican. He wasn’t critical simply because he was a Republican and I was a Democrat,” she says.
While serving on the commission in the fall of 1987, Mark met Darby Bradley, an executive at what was then called the Ottauquechee Land Trust, but is now the Vermont Land Trust. They traveled the state together, holding public hearings at night twice per week for seven weeks, listening to Vermonters talk about growth and development. When the commission issued its report, Kunin was surprised by its recommendation: that the state make a $20 million investment in the housing fund, which was for affordable housing and land conservation.
“Mark was the one who put that number on the table,” Bradley recalls, and “he said he would have suggested $50 million but didn’t think anyone would listen to him.”
When asked how he reconciles Mark’s passion for land conservation and affordable housing with Mark’s Republican party affiliation, Bradley invokes the Republicans of the previous generation: Richard Snelling, Bob Gannett, Deane Davis, Arthur Gibbs, James Jeffords, and Richard Mallary.
“Conservation and conservative come from the same roots,” he says, adding that the aforementioned Republicans ushered in Act 250 and Vermont’s environmental protection laws. “These were leading lights and very thoughtful people,” Bradley says, and “I think Mark is like that — someone who takes a practical approach and is willing to lean across the aisle.”
After the Commission on Vermont’s Future had finished its first assignment, Mark joined the board of the VLT, bringing his business-oriented perspective to the role. He advocated for the fine line between responsible land conservation and reasonable economic development, while helping the organization grow into more of a statewide player.
“I love factories,” he says. “I grew up in a factory and think that manufacturing jobs are some of the highest paying jobs in Vermont, and I wanted to make sure those opportunities still existed.” In other words, Mark wanted to protect open space, but make sure there was still room for industrial development. Perhaps it was that balance that led Gov. Jim Douglas to appoint Mark to his Council of Environmental Advisors, a post he holds today.
Conservation and environmental quality are still important issues for Mark, but as lieutenant governor he says his core focus would be long-term economic development. “How do we make sure that there are, in fact, well-paying jobs for Vermonters,” he asks, “and that we make Vermont an affordable place to live, where people can raise their families in a safe and welcoming environment? That’s what I’m concerned about. But it goes hand in hand with my concern for the environment. I don’t want to sacrifice one at the altar of the other.”
Vermont’s main problem, he asserts, is that the overall tax rate is one of the highest in the country. He points to data from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation that seems to corroborate that: Vermont’s combined state and local tax rate is estimated at 10.3 percent of income, the eighth largest in the United States. “That makes us far less competitive when people make decisions about where they want to site a facility or apply their capital,” he says.
In order to reduce taxes, Mark explains, the state must reduce spending and start planning in seven to 10 year cycles, with the knowledge that recessions often come every seven years. “We do a very poor job in state government of understanding that,” he says, adding that a 1.5 percent shift in spending over 10 years can have a large outcome, which will allow a build-up of rainy day funds and the room to reduce taxes.
When you lower taxes and market Vermont in state and out of state, his logic goes, Vermont becomes an attractive place to start and run a business. That increased economic activity will bring more revenues “that will allow us to have the kinds of programs we would like to have to take care of Vermonters without breaking the bank,” he says. For a while now, he asserts, politicians have been talking about different ways to allocate the pie that is the state budget. “What we ought to be looking at is, how do we get to be divvying up a larger pie?” he says.
The job description for lieutenant governor should allow Mark a lot of leeway to work on that goal. The main constitutional duties are to preside over the Senate and fill in for the governor when he or she isn’t available. The statutory salary is $63,701. And since Mark’s mother held the job twice, he believes he knows what’s involved. “Over the years, Vermonters have come to expect a lot for their lieutenant governors,” he says. “They want somebody who actively participates in statewide issues, working with legislators, businesses and nonprofit organizations on pressing public policy issues.”
Mark doesn’t see his lack of state government experience as an impediment to his political success. “My perspective since age 14, when my father first ran for governor,” he says, “has in fact been statewide.” Nor does Joe Acinapura, a Republican representative from Brandon who has endorsed Mark’s campaign. “He’s had an affinity and a relationship with government for a long time,” he says. “He has a positive agenda to create jobs, reduce taxes and reduce spending, and I think he’ll work well with the governor and the legislature on that.”
Mark seems well aware of the tough choices inherent in his plan to cut spending, but appears passionate about the prospect of a fiscally and environmentally healthy Vermont, a place he clearly loves. “It’s something that gets me up in the morning and puts me to bed at night,” he says, “wanting to see a Vermonter have an opportunity to spend their life in Vermont, raising a family and having the economic wherewithal to enjoy the beauty that surrounds us.”
Editor’s note: Kirk Kardashian is a freelance journalist who lives in Woodstock, Vt.
