Every once in a while you get lucky and you meet someone who is actively making change for the good. This is a story about two such individuals who are, in their own ways, making Vermont and the world we live in a better place. I don’t think they know each other or travel in the same circles. In fact from the outside, they are pretty different: One is a leader in the sustainable agriculture community and the other is an officer in the Vermont National Guard. One could be considered a liberal crunch muffin and the other a conservative joe, but dig a little deeper and you will find two men who have remarkable similarities. Both detest political labels and both are cleaning things up in their own way.

Steve Gagner. Photo courtesy of Alexandra Jump.

I met each of these guys doing what they do. Tom Gilbert was at the Highfields Institute Compost site doing a mortality compost workshop, teaching folks how to compost dead livestock instead of dragging it out to the back 40. Steve Gagner was at the Green Mountain Pug Rescue social as a first-time vendor selling his 2nd Home Soaps. He has been giving the soap away for a couple of years and finally decided to sell some of it to cover his costs.

I sensed each one had an interesting story and each agreed to be interviewed. Neither knows he will share the story with each other, but I don’t think they will mind; they are both in good company.

Tom Gilbert is a thirty-something Vermonter by way of New York City. He has brains in abundance. His thinking is the kind that goes deep into an issue, turns it around a couple of times to see the different sides, then comes back out with an opinion. He is very articulate in the issues of sustainable communities and very passionate and direct about the local food movement and closing the food loop. He is an organizer, a connecter to others in the field and a teacher. He is a natural leader, who looks for the common ground to make a stand and move things forward.

Tom grew up in the south end of Brooklyn Heights and attended a progressive school that fostered his drive to become a changing force in the world. As a youth, he participated in a writing project with Rosa Parks and thought about the New York City garbage barges that floated around the oceans because there were no places left to dump the trash. These early influences in social and environmental issues teased up his interest and his mother influenced him by example as a recycler before it was cool or trendy.

Says Tom, “My mother was a depression baby and she would save rubber bands and take hangers back to the stores and would take bits of paper and put them into little books to use as scrap paper before any of that was socially OK.”

His older siblings added to his education by involving him in whatever social causes they were focused on, so a mini activist was born. Spending a summer in Kansas on his uncle’s wheat farm he realized how disconnected our food systems have become.

There on that 4,000-acre farm, the family traveled up to two hours to do their weekly grocery shopping because the local food system no longer existed and shopping options were in large supermarket chains a good drive away.

These salient moments, coupled with the realization that while he was protesting the destruction of an old growth forest in Washington state, he was munching on deep-fried chicken nuggets, brought the concept of individual action straight home.

There was little economic or intellectual deprivation in his direct life and remarkably, instead of taking the easy path towards becoming entitled and full of himself, he turned outward. He found a home with other like-minded, out-of-the-box individuals while out at Evergreen College in Washington State. There he studied composting, sustainable agriculture, community development and practiced organizing groups for social change.

Fast forward a decade or so and you will find Tom up in the Kingdom, running Highfields Institute, sitting on the board of The Center for an Agricultural Economy serving as the cice chairman for the Vermont Composting Association and teachinga class or two at UVM as an adjunct faculty member. Tom is all about the whole, cleaning things up, restoring balance and bringing folks together in stronger communities.

Steve Gagner, also 30-something, Steve is a native Vermonter from Swanton and he is tenacious as all-get-out. He chose Norwich University and attended for three semesters, ran out of college funds and enlisted in the Army full time. He was stationed in South Korea then returned home and continued his studies at Norwich. He was in class on September 11th. Steve was later deployed to Iraq with the Vermont National Guard as a platoon leader. He transferred back to the States to a unit in Mississippi because they needed a senior lieutenant. Retuning back to Vermont, he chose to stay with the military fulltime in the Vermont National Guard and took a station position in Rutland.

This job was a couple of hours away from his wife Nicole, and daughter, Madison. Living part-time in an apartment away from his family presented Steve with choices of how to re-acclimate to community.

Steve explained, “I could sit around by myself and drink beer at night, or I could learn to do something and put my energies forward into something positive.” Making his 2nd Home Soaps interested him and giving his soaps away always put a smile on the face of the folks that are lucky recipients. Steve also enjoys making soap as a tool to teach his daughter about making things from scratch. He uses simple ingredients like honey, oats and cinnamon; making the products as natural as possible.

Steve is most proud of a soap he made to illustrate recycling to Madison, by taking bits and pieces of soap leftovers and reconstituting them into a new hodgepodge bar of colors and smells.

He said his buddies used to tease him about his ventures.

“They would bust on me pretty bad, but then I would say, when your wife is using my soap in the shower and enjoying how it smells and feels, they will be thinking of me not you. That just shuts them right up.”

Steve is a man’s man, a true leader, analytical and willing to take a risk or two. The metaphor of creating a cleaning agent as a way to put back into the balance his time in Iraq is profound. Steve’s plan is to continue with his soap venture when he returns from his next deployment with the Guard as they plan to head out to Afghanistan for an 18-month tour. The Vermont National Guard will work along with Afghan soldiers and policeman to train, mentor and assist with security.

These two men from Vermont, different with their paths but both leaders, smart and dedicated are doing their part to build community. They are coming at issues, both personal and global, in different ways, but similar in the need for cleaning up.

Alexandra Jump lives in Morristown.