Letter: What’s next for Vail Symposium
Vail Symposium is in the midst of our Summer/Fall season. Many members of our community have had an opportunity to experience our programs so far, and we hope to see you all during the rest of the season as well. Even though we remain vigilant on the COVID-19 front, we have had a strong resurgence of in-person programs. We are proud of what we have done and look forward to our next great program on Thursday, Sept. 8, with Chris Whipple, author of The New York Times best-seller “The Gatekeepers.” He will moderate a bipartisan discussion on White House governance with two former White House chiefs of staff. We have seven other strong programs coming this fall so please check out our website for program descriptions and tickets.
For this season of programs, we partnered with five different local nonprofits on various programs to bring the best and most diverse programs on important issues. We started a new series in June that we are extremely proud of: “Conversations on Controversial Issues: Moderated by Clay Jenkinson.” The first was on the Supreme Court; last week’s program was on Immigration. We plan to produce four per year with the next two covering “the status of fair elections” in early February and “the status of education on handling contentious issues” in late March.
There are also some changes in the works. We recently announced that Kris Sabel, our executive director, will retire at the year’s end. Kris has provided outstanding leadership for the organization in his more than six years of tenure. We have more than tripled the average program attendance and significantly improved the professionalism of presentation and the quality of programs. Kris is retiring at the same time as his wife, Ruth Johnson, president and CEO of Roundup River Ranch, but Kris has given us enough time to find and train a replacement for a smooth transition.
We are now looking for our next executive director, someone who has the intellectual curiosity, leadership, and management skills and energy to take the Symposium to the next level of opportunities. Those candidates interested in the position, or who would like to send the job listing to a qualified candidate, should visit vailsymposium.org/jobs to learn more. The deadline for applications is Sept. 16.
I look forward to seeing many of you at our next program on Thursday, Sept. 8.
Support Local Journalism
Dale Mosier
Vail Symposium Chairperson
