Episode 1 — Rural QueenB, He and They
Guest: Kevin Chu, Executive Director, Vermont Futures Project

What does it actually mean to build a life — and a business — in rural America? In this debut episode, Julie Kelley sits down with Kevin Chu, the data-driven force behind Vermont's economic future conversation, to explore what it feels like to bet on rural when everyone else is looking the other way.

Kevin's story starts with his parents — Chinese immigrants who landed in Vermont in 1986 with one social connection and a leap of faith. From there, Kevin traces a path from being driven to soccer practice by neighbors' parents, to competing in track and field at Middlebury, to choosing Vermont again and again when his peers left for Boston and New York. He calls it curiosity. It looks a lot like courage.

The conversation gets real fast. Vermont is one of the oldest states by median age. Two jobs exist for every one job seeker. Housing prices are high — not because people are leaving, but because people want in. Kevin breaks down what the data actually says: this is a moment of choice between economic hospice and economic healing. And he believes Vermont — and rural America broadly — can be the model.

They also tackle the harder stuff: the "Don't Jersey Vermont" bumper sticker mentality, the unconscious association between rural and whiteness, and what it looks like to build communities where anyone who shows up and contributes gets to call themselves a Vermonter.
Kevin ends with a quote from Calvin Coolidge after the 1927 flood — and it lands like a mission statement for every rural community fighting to matter.

This is the conversation rural America needs to be having out loud.