Leonard Usher Wilson, 89, passed away peacefully in his home in East Montpelier on July 31, 2016. He was a committed public servant who worked quietly, but effectively, to help protect the natural beauty and rural character of the state he loved. He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1927, the son of Grafton Lee Wilson and Dorothy Usher Wilson. He graduated from the Putney School in 1944, served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946 and graduated from Harvard College in 1950. In 1954, he married Priscilla Litchfield in Camden, Maine.
Early in his career, Len worked as a journalist, eventually serving as a managing editor at the Bennington Banner. In 1958, he took the position of director of public relations at Bennington College. In 1960, he ran for lieutenant governor of Vermont on the Democratic ticket. While not successful, he was enthusiastic about the experience, which predated, by one election cycle, the dramatic breakthrough by Philip Hoff, who became the first Democrat to be elected governor of Vermont. Len initially worked in Washington, DC, for the state department and then in Geneva, Switzerland, as a liaison at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during a period of intensive international trade negotiations. In Switzerland, he was able to pursue his love of skiing and mountain climbing. Though later he would sometimes wryly recall hikes "trailed by a string of sullen, mutinous children," his example prevailed and many of his descendants are avid skiers and hikers. In 1965, he and his family moved to Virginia and he worked in trade negotiations for the executive office of President Lyndon B Johnson.
Len returned to Vermont with his family in 1967 to work in Governor Hoff's administration. For the rest of his career Len primarily focused his energy on state government and politics. He was an environmentalist, a conservationist, a dedicated steward of the land, decades before it became fashionable or politically correct to be so. In his quiet, unassuming way, Leonard was a teacher and a mentor to the Vermonters who chose to listen to him. He was a lifelong believer in land use planning, an unabashed advocate for thoughtful, organized use of all of Vermont's natural resources.
Len worked under five different Vermont governors during three decades of intense change and development pressure in Vermont. He was deeply involved with the development and implementation of the state's landmark land use and development law, Act 250. He was director of planning for governors Philip Hoff, Thomas Salmon and Richard Snelling, chairman of the state environmental board under Governor Richard Snelling, secretary of what was then the Agency of Environmental Conservation under Governor Madeleine Kunin and a member of the Public Service Board under Governor Howard Dean. He left state government for several years to work as a project director and senior research associate for the Council of State Governments, based in Kentucky, from
where he traveled widely through the western United States, working primarily on issues related to range land management. He also worked for several years for Robert Burley Associates, a Waitsfield architecture firm. He served from 1973 to 1979 as a trustee for the University of Vermont.
Len spent childhood summers in Grafton, Vermont, where he and his brothers continued to meet for years for enthusiastic tennis matches. Throughout his life he loved hunting, skiing, hiking and camping with friends and family, especially his children. He and his family lived in Waitsfield from 1967 until 1989, when he and Priscilla moved to Montpelier and eventually to East Montpelier. In his later years, he retired from public life but continued to travel widely, indulging his love of mountains. He enjoyed visiting family in New Mexico, hiking trips in Europe, family vacations on the Maine coast, reading, rebuilding the old stone walls around his house and daily walks around his home. He loved to watch the changing of the seasons, spot animals in the fields and comment on the antics of his grandchildren from the comfort of his favorite swinging porch chair. He will be remembered for his intensely blue eyes, curiosity, enthusiasm and a dry sense of humor that revealed a keen intellect and a lifetime of experience and learning. He passed on to his children a love for mountains and a heartfelt appreciation of the unique qualities of Vermont life. He will be sadly missed.
He was predeceased by his three brothers, Lee, Roger and Douglas. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Priscilla Wilson; his three daughters, Molly Wilson of Westminster, Vermont, Sarah Aycock of Gallup, New Mexico, and Alice Wilson of Stowe, Vermont; and a son, John Wilson, Waitsfield; as well as 10 grandchildren. A memorial gathering is planned for a later date yet to be determined.
