‘Development is my thing’: Melinda Moulton and Main Street Landing – Vermont Biz

Moulton has restored, built or rebuilt some of the waterfronts most iconic structures, including a stunning restoration of the 1916 Union Station at the foot of Main Street. All the while, she has been proving that you can do well by doing good really.

However, life sometimes circles round and bites you on the butt. Long an outspoken champion of commuter rail, Moulton is now fighting the railroads to preserve her legacy.

Moulton, 69, is the CEO and co-founder of Main Street Landing, which is owned by her business partner and co-founder, Elizabeth Lisa Steele.

Melinda Moulton, Michelle Obama and Lisa Steele. Courtesy photo.

Lisa is the owner and the president of Main Street Landing, Moulton explained. She owns the company and the property. I am the CEO. We are both co-founders and have worked side by side for over 35 years together. Our motto for our work is Two Women with a Vision Creating a Place for All People. Neither one of us could have done what we have done without the other.

Since 1983, Moulton and Steele have created close to $30 million of built environment running alongside Lake Champlain. Their 25-year incremental redevelopment master plan has added 250,000-square-feet of office, retail, restaurant, apartment space plus a performing arts center to the downtown area while at the same time introducing a new, female-inspired development model with a healthy dollop of social justice.

Our method of development was based on creating beautiful places for people to live, work, and play, Moulton said. We knew that if we built buildings that were beautiful, and healthy, and affordable to rent, that we would be successful. Our success depended on more than just financial return, although that worked out positive for us, too.

The partners have a close working relationship; Moultons office is in Union Station and Steele works at home. They get together once a week to discuss the business.

She was more active early on, when we were doing a lot of the building, Moulton said. But since 2005, its really been mostly managing the company, managing the leases. She doesnt come into the office very often. My job is to protect her property and maintain the buildings and care for them and keep them full and generate an income and do good through the community. Shes involved and shes a dear, dear friend.

Main Street Landing manages about 100 leases, has a staff of eight and earns approximately $3 million a year in revenues. It owns and manages five buildings and has two more lots with growth potential.

Before there was Main Street Landing there were centuries of a working waterfront in Burlington, followed by a long period of advanced decline complete with homelessness and rats. That was followed by a string of ultimately failed development projects. When the dust settled, it turned out that Steele owned a lot of developable waterfront land and Moulton, who had been a back-to-the-land hippie when she first arrived in Vermont, was ready to turn herself into a developer.

In Moultons mythology of development, Burlingtons Main Street really begins on the coast of Maine.

And it becomes Route 2, Moulton explained, as she sat in her spacious office with views of the Lake and the Adirondacks beyond. And then it becomes Williston Road and then Main Street. And all this energy from the ocean powers through this road until it comes barreling down Main Street and explodes at this building.

You could say the same thing about the chic jackhammer that is Moulton. Congressman Peter Welch calls her a gift to Vermont.

He met her when he rented office space from her for his gubernatorial campaign in 1990, and he continues to know her through her involvement in progressive politics, especially womens rights issues.

Anyone involved in Vermont politics knows Melinda Moulton, whether they want to know her or not, he joked.

Then, getting serious he said, Its hard to keep up with her. Shes had a sustained focus and effective career with green development at a crucial landscape. Green buildings and public access down at the waterfront are a legacy that she and Lisa should be proud of. Youve got to deal with many different people and interests simultaneously, meanwhile getting plans approved, coordinating with contractors to keep the cost in budget, dealing with people who have competing views of what should be done. Melinda and Lisa took a decrepit railroad industrial waste site and turned it into something the whole state is proud of. It took skill and effort. Shes also been a major supporter and fierce advocate for womens empowerment. Shes determined, vocal and persuasive as an advocate and a leader in the business community.

Former governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean calls her a powerhouse. Others who have worked with her on development and social justice issues (shes been on almost every board in Vermonts non-profit world) speak of her passion, her heart, and her soul.

Governor Douglas cracks up Governor Dean, TJ Donovan and Melinda Moulton in this 2012 photo.Photo courtesy of the Lund Center.

The words trailblazer, people connector and incredible force for good are used frequently. These are not words normally associated with developers.

Yet NBC News once called her a Fleecer of America for her support of rail.

Blonde, smart, elegant, voluble, entertaining and dynamic, Moulton frequently lectures around the country on developmental and environmental issues as well as feminist concerns.

She has been a stalwart of Planned Parenthood for many years, sits on the board of PPNE, and co-chaired a 50th anniversary, $25 million fundraising campaign that exceeded its goal.

She was a founder of the 2017 Vermont Womens March that brought 22,000 people to the Statehouse to fight for womens rights it was so big, it shut down the Interstate.

It was a huge highlight of my life, she says. This year she testified in favor of H57, the law that protects Vermonters rights to abortion.

Moulton describes her success as the power of navet.

People, especially women, are afraid to do things because they dont know if they can, Moulton said. But when I talk to women or mentor women, I say that if somebody opens the door, youve got to walk through. You may think that you dont know how to do it. But if somebody has the faith in you, and thinks that you have the ability to do something, dont second-guess yourself. Walk through the door! Give it your all! And Ill bet you that 95 percent of the time you can do it. Youll figure it out. I did. I figured it out.

For figuring it out, Moulton was honored by the Burlington Business Association with the Nathan Harris Award in recognition of her contribution to the economic vitality of downtown Burlington.

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibilities gave her its honored Terry Ehrich Award.

Professionally, her development properties have won the Energy Star for Small Business Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Hertzel Pasackow Award for Architectural Excellence, the Chittenden County Historical Society Award, the Burlington Historic Preservation Association Award, the AIA Excellence in Architecture Wards, and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver (LEED) Award from the US Green Building Council.

Moulton refers to herself as a back-to-the-lander who figured out the development business by herself, but she was born and raised to do what she has done.

My father and his family for three generations were general contractors in Pennsylvania, Moulton said. They built office buildings, churches, and commercial buildings. My mothers father was a residential builder who built many of the homes in the town she grew up in.

Moulton learned building by osmosis, shadowing her father in his office and accompanying him to ribbon-cuttings. By the time she got to Vermont, she already had many of the tools she would need later in her life.

She was also by then a graduate of the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School, which she entered when she was 17, getting an associates degree and learning how to run the most important offices in the land for some of the countrys most successful men.

You had to wear a suit and a hat and gloves, and your hair had to be above shoulder length, Moulton said wryly. There was a sense of propriety in the way that you held yourself. We studied accounting and investing and all sorts of business courses. The beauty part of Katie Gibbs is they placed you in extraordinary positions. You would get a job as an administrative assistant to the president of big corporations or magazine editors. People wanted Katie Gibbs girls. The Gal Friday was always a Katie Gibbs girl. So after I finished school, I got a job at Harvard University.

Like just about every Hallmark movie, love brought Moulton to Vermont. She met her future husband, award-winning filmmaker Rick Moulton, in Boston. The pair, inspired by the story of Scott and Helen Nearing, built their stone house by hand, stone by stone, in a high meadow in Huntington.

The couple have two children and four grandchildren. In Moultons spare time she plays piano and writes music.

Shes very smart and shes done a lot of wonderful things for the community, said Governor Dean. I know her well because she was a big force in revitalizing the waterfront. She seems to have this incredible drive. Shes really interested in social justice.

Moulton was on the VBSR board from 2001 to 2017.

She was always a voice on behalf of the environment, said Jane Campbell, VBSRs executive director. Businesses create change. And Main Street Landing uses an approach that focuses on sustainability. She was an early voice for rail in Vermont, to cut back on some of the fossil fuels. Shes always been a proponent of downtowns. Shes always been a voice on behalf of women. Main Street Landing could have been developed in many ways, but it was the first LEED building. Thats unusual for a female developer. Shes been outspoken. When she talks in a room, people listen.

Tom Torti, the president of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, has known Moulton since the 1990s, when she was beginning to develop the waterfront and advocating for renewed train transportation.

It was community sustainability through economic development, Torti said. Melinda brought heart, soul and passion to development in a sustainable way, a way that fit into the community. Even so long ago, she recognized that our reliance on fossil fuel was not going to be sustainable. And she has been proven right. Today were talking more and more about public transit and building commercial retail and residential in proximity. These ideas seem common and normal today, but they were a bit out of the norm back then. Shes absolutely a trailblazer. She went in a different direction and set a standard for how we think about urban development. She proved you can make money by doing things with people and place foremost in mind.

Torti praised her mentoring abilities.

She takes the time to give advice freely, Torti said. Its easy to have a conversation with her. We may come at an issue differently and disagree, but we can do it without being disagreeable. Its the kind of discourse we should be having in our public engagement. She seeks to understand someone elses perspective, and we need more of that.

Everyone is welcome in Melindas universe said John Killacky, former executive director of the Flynn Center in Burlington and a current member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

Killacky joined the Flynn in 2010.

I found in Melinda the most supportive colleague, he said. She welcomed me. She was a collaborative colleague. She was someone who I could ask advice from. We became dear friends.

Even though Moulton built a theater into one of her properties, Killacky never saw her as a competitor.

We were not competitors but collaborators, Killacky said. If something was at the Flynn or at Main Street Landing, it was a win-win for both of us. The world was plentiful. We didnt function from a scarcity mentality. Often things were scheduled the same night. Competition? None of that!

Every winter Main Street Landings Performing Arts Center picks a nonprofit to benefit from its classic film series.

One year they offered it to the Flynn, Killacky said. It was such a lovely example of her partnership. And I watched her weave that tapestry with the whole community. That is exemplary of her great leadership. Ive been to her theatre many times for films, theater, memorial services and fundraisers. All those partners were embraced by Melinda.

When Meagan Gallagher came to the presidency of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, she found Moulton already on the board.

She helped me know New England, Gallagher said. Shes such an incredible force for good. She so deeply believes in people and in better places and in progress and peace and love. Its amazing to watch her drive this agenda of love. Shes unlike anyone Ive ever met before. Shes results-oriented. Her role in a group is to keep things moving forward. She burns with passion for reproductive rights and womens ability to drive their own futures. You cant help but want to go along with her.

Sue Minter, former gubernatorial candidate and current executive director of Capstone Community Action, met Moulton in 1996 when they were working on train issues. Moulton went on to support Minters candidacy when she ran for governor in 2016, and even found a job for her once the election was lost.

Shes an extraordinary person, Minter said. Shes a businessperson and a visionary. She brings others into her vision. Im in awe of her ability to dream big and make big things happen.

Moulton comes from Allentown, Penn., where her familys roots stretch back 150 years. She is the third of four children.

Her mother was involved in theater.

She studied acting in New York and she was the president of the Lyric Theater in the town, Moulton said. She belonged to a lot of community organizations. I remember as a child going around the neighborhood with an envelope to collect money for the Red Cross and for M.S.

Moultons father was a successful general contractor. She said she believes she was his favorite child. He worked six days a week, and on Saturdays he would take her to the office with him.

None of his employees would be there, Moulton said. He was able to catch up on his work. He taught me how to use the big accounting machines. And I learned how to use the phones. And I studied with him. Id go to all of his estimating bidding meetings. I was pretty close to my dad and I watched him in his business.

When she was 10 years old, Moultons parents divorced. Two years later her mother died.

Then we went to live with my father and his new wife, Moulton said. I think if my mother had lived, I might have been a doctor or I might have continued to study music. She always saw the softer side of me the arts and sciences because thats where my strengths were. But with her death, a lot of the dreams I had for my future kind of went out the window, because she was the one who encouraged me in those things. I think my father always saw me going into business and maybe even contracting.

Her father moved the family to a farm where he raised American Saddlebred horses, cows for beef and different kinds of birds.

He was a gentleman farmer, Moulton said. I became a rider and showed Hunter class. I would go down with him to Kentucky and keep his breeding books. When it came time to go off to college, I really wanted to study medicine. And he said to me, I want you to be able to always work, so that if anything ever happens to your husband, you can support yourself and your family. So he took me to New York City to the Pan Am building, and we went up to the floor where Katharine Gibbs was. We met with the schools president.

When she was 17, just out of high school, her father dropped her off in front of the Barbizon Hotel for Women on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

In an era of student rebellion, even the proper Katherine Gibbs students were becoming a bit rebellious. One incident stands out for Moulton.

It was after tea, and a bunch of us walked out of the building, Moulton said. Everything was quiet. There were policemen lined up on the street at every corner. We walked up to one of the policemen and I said, Whats going on. And he said, Look down the street towards Harlem. There are fires burning. He said, Martin Luther Kings been murdered. You need to get back to the Barbizon. And I think in that moment something snapped inside of me. My activism took root. So I finished my year in New York and transferred to Boston. I wanted to be in a more hip town, and I felt like New York was kind of lonely and impersonal. So I forged my transfer papers and told my father that I was going to be going to Boston in the fall.

Moultons father was not happy about the venue change, but she held her ground and finished up her degree at Katherine Gibbs in Boston. The degree got her a job at Harvard University working for Mark Ptashme, an associate of Dr James Watson.

I became Marks right-hand person, Moulton said. I worked for him for probably a year and a half, maybe two years. While I was there I started taking courses in finance and business and writing and the things that I just really wanted to study and be a part of. And that rounded out my education.

Then friends introduced her to Rick Moulton.

He was leaving for Europe and was gone that whole next winter, she said. I forgot about him. But I must have stuck in his head. He came back in the spring and we dated for probably a month before he asked if I would come to Vermont and live in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of his friends and just be with him.

She said yes.

I fell in love with him, Moulton said. I asked him why he came back to me and he said, Because I knew you had potential. That life with him was off of the beaten path. It was not where my father wanted to see me go. But it was the Sixties movement. We moved to Vermont. We lived out in Westford with about 12 other people in this big farmhouse. I slept in a hammock in a sugar house and fell more and more in love with this man.

In the fall, Rick decided to finish his degree at the University of Denver. Moulton went with him.

We packed up my little Fiat sports Spider and drove out to Denver and rented a little house, she said. And that October, I became pregnant with my son. Eli was born at the University of Denver hospital and our doctor was Dr. Robert A. Bradley, the man who wrote the book on husband- coached childbirth. I had a very long birth. It was traumatizing. Dr. Bradley told me I was the worst patient he had ever had.

Five months later, the couple moved back to Vermont to be closer to his family, who lived in Shelburne.

We packed everything in a big moving truck even put the car in it and drove back to Vermont, Moulton said. We arrived on Christmas Eve to the surprise of his parents. They had no clue we were coming. It was like, Hey! Were here! Yay! And they announced that they were moving down to Florida in three months. And we were like, Oh wow, thats a big bummer. Because we wanted to be close to grandparents. But they were out of here. So we rented a house in Starksboro. Rick got a job at ETV and I got a job at the University Health Center, which was at that time about 12 employees.

UHC was creating an administrative and financial arm, and Moulton was part of the team developing it.

Folks like Bob Hoehle and Rich Tarrant were developing the billing; it was at the beginning of their career in the medical billing field, Moulton said. They were testing everything out on UHC. I got a job working as the administrative assistant for the director of financial administration and the director of operations two men. I went for that interview in my overalls with my son on my back and they hired me. Thats what Im saying about Katie Gibbs. I always got the job.

Moulton loved the work.

All the departments doctors now had to be under the umbrella of the UHC for all of their billing, all of their collections, and all of their customer service, Moulton said. And I was the right-hand person. It was an exciting career and an education. I was there for probably three or four years, but I wanted to have another child. And I couldnt get pregnant because it was such an intense job. And my husbands working as a lighting director at Vermont ETV, and we were living in a farmhouse.

The couple then bought land on top of a hill in Huntington, using money Moulton had inherited from her great-grandmother. It was 1974.

It was just this meadow, Moulton said. We started building this stone house while I was working. So we were living in tents, and I would wash myself in a bowl of water, get my baby washed up, get my toddler and take him up to daycare. Then I would go to work. At night, I would pick him up and bring him back.

Moulton knew that building a house stone by stone can take a long time.

But I heard the story of the three little pigs, Moulton said. And I was like, Im building a stone house in case that wolf ever comes to my door. Seriously. My job was to put my son on my back and drive to Starksboro and pick up stones all day long and pile them into this truck. Then Id pack up the truck and drive it back and unload the stones.

During the summer, friends came from all over the country to pitch tents in the meadow and help with the building.

We didnt get our permit until July 1, Moulton said. So we started building with all these wonderful friends who drank an awful lot of beer and smoked probably tons of weed. Together we put up the walls of this little tiny stone house.

The couple got an FHA loan for $16,000; their monthly mortgage was $86.

When fall came around, everybody went back to college, Moulton said. And then there were the three of us trying to get past the second floor so we could get a roof on. I was still at the hospital working, and Eli had an ear infection, and it was late fall and it snowed one night. When I opened up the tent in the morning there was about four inches of snow on the ground. I turned to Rick and said, I cant do this.

Moulton packed her things, slung the baby on her back and moved in with a friend in Malletts Bay. About three days later her husband came by and promised her a roof by Easter.

And by God, he did! she said. He worked and he went down to the house every day, and he got the roof on by Easter.

A pipe came through the floor, filled a black masonry tub and provided the house with water. The second floor was an open space. Sheets of plastic covered the windows. There was no phone. They heated with wood. They had a bunch of chimney fires. But it was their home, and it only cost $86 a month.

Weve been working on that house now for 45 years, Moulton said. Weve done some additions to it. My son, who built a house more quickly than we did, will come in and say, My gosh, when are you going to get that fabric off the wall? Its been there since 1974. His model planes are still in his bedroom, hanging from the ceiling on dental floss. A couple of months ago, when I was with my grandchildren, I said Im thinking of redoing that room so that guests could stay here. And my little granddaughters cried and said, No. You cant do that, because we want to be able to come and see what it was like when our parents lived here. And I thought, Im good with that.

After living and working together for 16 years, Melinda and Rick Moulton finally married in 1987.

Our son was 16 and our daughter was 9 when we finally tied the knot, Moulton said. Our son gave us away at the top of our snowy meadow on Valentines Day with 200 friends on cross-country skis. It was 25 degrees below zero, no wind and a bright moon. He said, I have known these people my whole life and if ever there were two people who should be married its my parents.

Moulton got pregnant with her second child a month after she left UHC. Rick was working at home on a film called Legends of American Skiing. Moulton began working with him.

I became his executive producer, she said. I had my Selectric typewriter and carbon paper and we started raising money. I am forever indebted to Victor Swenson and the Vermont Humanities Council. Victor gave us a grant which was basically the core of that funding. It allowed us to go out to all the wealthy skiers around the country and ask them for funding. I think we raised about $250,000. So that was my focus for the next five years. We were on food stamps, I was raising my daughter, making the film and being a stay-at-home mom.

Its a nice image: Moulton living in her pajamas, breastfeeding her baby, walking her son down the steep driveway to catch his school bus, eating homemade yogurt, granola and bread by the wood stove, raising money for the film.

The neat thing was that for five years, my children had two stay-at-home parents, Moulton said. Rick was traveling all over the country, filming and meeting with people and putting together this pretty extraordinary documentary. It has won many awards. It was just recognized by the National Ski Hall of Fame and the International Ski History Association as one of the top ski films ever made. Its a glorious film. It was on PBS. They show it all the time. Vermont Public Television shows it every winter.

When Moultons daughter started school she applied for a job with a development company and was hired over 100 other applicants Katherine Gibbs had struck again.

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'Development is my thing': Melinda Moulton and Main Street Landing - Vermont Biz