BBA Announces Brigitte Ritchie as 2016 Business Person of the Year

We are proud to announce that the 2016 Tim Halvorson Business Person of the Year Award Winner is Brigitte Ritchie, Director of Public Affairs and Community of Relations for KeyBank.

Brigitte Ritchie is based at KeyBank’s Vermont District headquarters in Burlington, VT at 149 Bank Street in Burlington. Prior to rejoining Key, Ritchie was Director of Public Affairs and Community Investments for Citizen’s Financial Group. Ritchie originally joined Key in 1991, serving as vice president and commercial real estate and small business lender.

An active member of the community, Ritchie has served as Chair of the Board for the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS) and on the bards of the Greater Burlington YMCA, and the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce Workforce Investment Board. She has also managed the United Way’s loaned executive program. In 2009 she received the Vermont Bankers Association Award for Excellence and the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Community Excellence Award. In her free time Ritchie runs Golden Huggs, “a very small group of volunteers who have made it our mission to find loving, suitable homes for (otherwise) displaced, abandoned, or stray golden retrievers and golden mixes.”

“Brigitte Ritchie is an amazing member of the Burlington business community. She understands in a deep way the important role our local business plays in keeping or economy vital and our social safety net strong,” says BBA Director Kelly Devine.

Formerly the Nate Harris Award, the Tim Halvorson Award was established in 2009 and acknowledges an individual’s “outstanding contributions to the economic vitality of Burlington.”