Nancy Rowden Brock, former chief financial officer (CFO) of several Vermont companies, including Green Mountain Power and Chittenden Corporation, joined Saint Michael's College as vice president for finance this month.
"I'm ready to move into higher education," Brock said. "The position content interests me, the broad brush of responsibility, endowment investment, and the reputation of the school all attracted me to this position ... I was also very happy to be working with Saint Michael's President Jack Neuhauser," she said.
Brock's areas of responsibility include accounting and budgeting, but also student aid, student accounts, purchasing, summer programs, and facilities. "The CFO is kind of like a catcher on a baseball team," she said. "You're in on every play; the batter's going to miss and you're going to have to catch it. You're looking at the game from a different perspective from all the other players."
"I want to be part of something that matters," Brock said. "What could be more important than shaping leaders of tomorrow?"
Brock's career history highlights include CFO of Rock of Ages Corporation, Barre, Vt. 2005 to 2007; Director of Finance and Administration, Vermont Agency of Transportation, 2005; Consulting and Interim CFO of Vermont Pubic Radio, 2002 to 2004; CFO of Green Mountain Power Corporation,1998 to 2002; CFO of Suss Advanced Lithography, South Burlington, 1997; CFO Chittenden Corporation, 1984 to 1996; various finance positions in the Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Mich., 1977 to 1984.
Degrees
Brock earned her bachelor's degree in economics, minor in Italian, from Dartmouth College, graduating cum laude in three years in 1977. She earned an MBA degree, concentration in finance and accounting, from the University of Michigan in 1981.
Brock has served on a number of boards, including Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS); Visiting Nurse Association, Vermont Community Foundation; the sale committee of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Corporation; the Governor-appointed Public Oversight Commission; Vermont Teddy Bear Company, SmartWood, and others. She is director of Vermont Heritage Fund/Worth Mountain Capital Partners. She chaired Associated Industries of Vermont for five years. She has been a lecturer and Executive-in-Residence in the UVM business school and an instructor in the ABA Graduate School of the University of Delaware.
Brock received a year-long fellowship, 1996-97, from the International Women's Forum Leadership Foundation of Washington, D.C., to pursue professional and leadership issues, including seminars at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She also completed a three-year American Bankers' Association program at the Stonier Graduate School of Banking in Newark, Del., 1989.
Nancy Rowden Brock and her husband Thomas Brock reside in Waterbury Center, Vt., with their golden retriever, Sophie Maria.
Ms. Brock is the daughter of Dean and Louise Rowden of Rygate, Vt. She graduated from Blue Mountain Union High School.
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report rankings.