Waking up early, getting the three kids ready for school, squeezing in a quick workout before meeting his campaign team about the daily schedule, video conferencing as part of his job for Google from his office in White River Junction, having a discussion about job creation over coffee with a potential supporter or community leader, e-mailing and editing position pieces during rides to and from where he needs to go, and hosting a fundraiser before heading home around 11 p.m.

That’s a day in the life of Matt Dunne, who is running for governor of Vermont for a second time. He made the announcement on October 5, 2015, in Barre.

“If Matt the candidate has half the energy that Governor Dunne will bring to the table, then he will definitely get the job done,” said Fauna Hurley, the Dunne campaign finance director.

Dunne lives with his wife, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and their three children, Judson, Abe, and Cora, in Hartland, where he was born and raised. After graduating from Brown University with a degree in public policy, he was elected to serve in the legislature at the age of 22 and later represented Windsor County in the Senate. As the director of AmeriCorps*VISTA, which empowers people to get out of poverty, he managed 6,000 people.

Dunne is a veteran campaigner, having run for governor in 2010. Among other things, his previous campaign taught him to get started early. So far, he’s been to 20 community forums in 15 counties despite still working full-time for Google.
“That was a really valuable process,” he said about the forums.

The main community concerns that emerged from those visits were the economy, poverty, and homelessness. “The issues confronting our state are interrelated,” he told Vermont Woman.
His solution? Investing in the economy, health-care reform, and early education, among other things—and women are at the forefront of many of his strategies.

Matt Dunne with his daughter Cora speaks to a supporter at his announcement kick-off event. photo: Dave Gibson

From Community to Economy

Dunne’s mother, Faith Dunne, was a major influence in his life. She was a teacher, the first woman to be given tenure at Dartmouth College, and she taught gender equality and education, he said. When he was 13, his father, John Dunne, a civil rights activist and lawyer who helped found the Vermont Land Trust, died of cancer, making her a single mom. That gave Dunne a front-row seat to the struggles of single moms.

“That’s when you really learn to appreciate community in Vermont,” he said. Dunne’s community in Hartland supported his family, giving him and his brother rides to school, and offering prepared food. “We didn’t cook for weeks,” he said.

Dunne believes in the power of microenterprise and proposes to build a program that offers small loans to build small businesses, or microenterprises. The program would allow women, the people most likely to apply, to control their own destiny by making their own schedules, being their own bosses, and creating sustainability, he said.

“Matt understands the vitality of women building a sense of confidence and independence through economic opportunities, and the importance of female role models and leaders to help inspire growth in those areas,” said Marguerite Dibble, CEO and president of Gametheory, a company based in Burlington. “Looking outside of technology I believe his support of small businesses and female entrepreneurship in all fields is vital for the growth of the state.”

Dunne’s idea is to offer small loans that would be administered by a network of community development credit unions and to invest in strong support services to help loan recipients succeed. “It’s something that can become self-perpetuating,” he said.

Microfinance companies that work that way already exist, but there isn’t access to that kind of capital in Vermont, he said. The idea is a long-term solution for people in poverty and displaced workers. There are a growing number of women over the age of 55 who are unemployed and who would be great candidates for his microenterprise loan idea, Dunne said.

Improving broadband access throughout the state is an important aspect of Dunne’s economic rehaul plan. It would give workers the added flexibility of staying home.

“Matt offered me a position working from home with my new baby, which is an offer most moms (and dads) are not frequently afforded,” Hurley said. “He believed that I should not have to sacrifice important time with my infant for my career and vice versa.”

Six months of paid maternity leave and, to a lesser extent, paternity leave are important to him too. Google has a comprehensive employee benefit plan that Dunne was able to take advantage of when his children were born.

“It was great,” he said about his six weeks of paternity leave. He was able to use his paternity leave to be home six or seven weeks into his newborn’s life, when sleep deprivation for parents becomes a real problem, he said. “It was a real gift,” he said. “It’s something that’s fantastic for the retention of employees.”

To tackle homelessness and housing problems, Dunne recommended making a $100 million energy-efficiency fund that would cut utility costs in housing, schools, and public buildings while giving work to contractors.

In keeping with his conviction of the essential role women will play in revitalizing the economy, Dunne believes there should be a statute stating the importance of equal pay. There’s no reason women get paid 72 cents for every dollar a man makes, although Vermont is doing better than the rest of the country, with women being paid 90 cents for every dollar men make, he said.

“I want to make sure that when Cora grows up, there’s zero reason for that,” he said.

To him, it’s partly a cultural issue. “Women not negotiating for higher pay is a real thing,” he said. Women need to ask for appropriate compensation, so teaching negotiation in schools as early as possible is crucial, he said.

Boosting the Economy

Dunne’s ideas on how to improve education tie into his plan for economic development. “We need to make sure affordable childcare and early education is available so that it’s not a choice,” he said.

“The highest return on the dollar comes in the earliest years, and there is a lot of evidence to back that up,” Hurley said. “[Dunne] would eliminate the Act 46 caps that would prevent [that] kind of investment.”

Since 1984, there’s been a decline in women working in coding, and tech companies are aware of the trend, so they have an obligation to act, Dunne said. He helped roll out CS First and Code Corps, a program that turns low-income girls in grades four, five, and six into competent coders.

“As a female CEO of a technology firm, it’s really important to me to help women see how they can thrive and succeed in this area and other STEM fields,” Dibble said. “Matt has always been a staunch ally in that mission.”
In the entire state, there are only about 3,400 sixth-grade girls, he said. “We can do this.”

Dunne visits Elm Grove Farm and confers with Fred Doten. photo: Nancy Nutile McMenemy, photosbynanci.com

Health-Care Reform

“Women’s right to choose is nonnegotiable,” he said. He recommended free long-term birth control be provided to every woman, calling it “an economic issue.”

“Paid sick leave is critical,” Dunne said.

In about one month, he will no longer be covered by Google’s health benefits plan. At that point, health care for his family will cost $1,100 per month for a $9,000 deductible, he said. “To me that is not a solution,” he said. “We have to do better. That’s bankruptcy for most people.”

Dunne serves on the board of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He is more confident than ever that the current system is, at best, not sustainable and, at worst, insane, he said. He estimated that health-care costs increase daily by $650,000.

When Dunne’s brother suffered from a stroke, he had been working two part-time jobs, neither of which offered health-care benefits. When the crisis occurred, his family wasn’t about to shop around for the lowest cost option, Dunne said. Without a primary care physician to quarterback proceedings, the family was left to figure out what was going on, he said. At one point, his brother flat lined, and there was no one there to answer questions, he said.

Dunne thinks universal primary care is the solution to rising health-care costs. Health-care reforms have been hindered by a clunky health exchange website, he said. That needs to be fixed to gain back Vermonters’ confidence.

Tackling Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a serious problem in Vermont, he said. Aside from the need to have sufficient front-line staffing to deal with such problems, Dunne recommended a crisis text program that is built around the fact that younger women and girls more likely to text than to call. The system would receive texts and respond, and Vermont could be a pilot, he said.

“When a woman is in a situation of risk, time is of the essence,” he said. “A text is a quiet and fast way to send out a call for help.”

Nathalie Gagnon-Joseph is a journalist working in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.