Rich Smith, vice president and business insurance client adviser at Hickok & Boardman Insurance Group, was named the Stowe Area Association's Stowe Business Person of the Year at the group's annual meeting and dinner June 27.

The award recognizes an SAA member in good standing who is involved in the community with town projects or sits on a town board; is an ambassador of Stowe; and is involved in the tourism industry. Nominees were unanimously selected by a nomination committee made up of past winners.

Vermont Land Trust recently welcomed Sasha Vaut, former director of philanthropy at the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, as development director, and Maggie Herrick, who has spent the last decade in operations roles within the food sector, as bookkeeper.

Vaut has worked for 16 years in the fields of philanthropy and nonprofit management, supporting the Vermont arts and health-related organizations in the Boston area. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and a certified fundraising executive.

Meg O'Brien of Stowe, principal of client service at Champlain Investment Partners, and Paige Church of Wenham, Massachusetts, a self-employed neonatologist and developmental behavioral pediatrician, have been elected to the board of trustees at Lund, a social services agency in Burlington. The board also named current trustees Lucy Abair, Julio Thompson and Darren Springer to its executive committee, beginning in July.