Gwendolyn Hallsmith most recently made national headlines with her work in Vermont to ask Town Meetings to consider public banking. On March 4, 2014, 18 cities and towns in Vermont voted to endorse a resolution directing the state legislators to create a State Bank for Vermont. Thanks to the media expertise of William Boardman and Matt Stannard, the national media has picked up on the story, and there have been now over 20 interviews and print stories about this movement.
Gwen is the author of several books on sustainable communities and economic reform, including her most recent book with Bernard Lietaer entitled Creating Wealth: Growing Local Communities with Local Currencies. She has been an advocate for economic reform for over 25 years, and has implemented new currency projects at the local level in her recent position as the Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Montpelier. Her work spans the globe –- in addition to her work with towns, cities, regions, states, and provinces in the United States and Canada, she has worked in all the major world regions.
She recently accepted the position of Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute (PBI). Her vision for PBI expands their horizons to include many other aspects of a public monetary system, everything from strengthening the possibilities for local investment that the new SEC regulations allow to fostering and supporting local and regional complementary currencies as a means of exchange. She has a deep commitment to local action.
We have included here, two representative videos and a radio interview. The first videois a very recent interview by Laura Flanders on GritTV. The second is a talk on the subject of complementary currencies at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics of the University of Vermont in 2011. The radio interview is with her along with Mike Krauss, by our own Craig Barnes.
Laura Flanders interviews Gwen Hallsmith, 2014
Gwen Hallsmith speaks at the Gund Institute, 2011
Craig Barnes interviews Gwen Hallsmith and Mike Krauss on Our Times with Craig Barnes, 2014
http://www.craig-barnes.com/discourse/radio/2014/sep/X/