NORTHWEST VERMONT — Just before the New Year, Gov. Phil Scott, the Vermont Department of Labor and the McClure Foundation announced their release of a list entitled “Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs.” 

The list includes over 50 occupations expected to pay a median wage above $30 an hour and have at least 300 openings between 2022-2032. This brochure is reconfigured every two years as the product of research updated through a partnership that’s been ongoing since 2014. 

With tens of thousands of job openings in the state, Scott believes it’s more important than ever to ensure Vermont youth, adult Vermonters seeking new careers and job seekers interested in moving here are made aware of “good-paying, in-demand opportunities here in the state.” 

Alongside the brochure, the foundation offers easy-access mini-grants to schools, libraries, and community organizations using this information with job seekers and young people. The full list is based on the VDOL’s Long-Term Occupational Projections, released in September of 2024. 

The brochure intends to serve as a career exploration resource, aiding folks with easy access to reliable information about “high-demand jobs that pay well.” It’s organized through values-based categories to help folks find careers in Vermont that fit their own values, interests and lifestyle.

But how accurate are these median wage predictions? How well-supported are some of these careers? And what other day-to-day surprises lie between the lines of the text on the brochure? 

We spoke with four people representing a sampling of careers across Northwest Vermont about what they do, what they love about their work and what the challenges and caveats are. Careers represented below include teachers, head chefs, nurses and plumbers. 

Here’s what they had to say. 

Stacey Mead: First-grade teacher at Essex Elementary School

Soft piano music and an array of colorful and encouraging wall posters surround Stacey Mead’s 15 first grade students at their classroom work tables. Her students are building a foundation for math, literacy and social emotional learning skills, growing and progressing a bit each day. 

“It’s one of those jobs that is a science and an art,” Mead said, after helping her students gear for recess. “It is kind of intangible. It’s challenging every single day, it’s different every single day, and that’s one of the things that makes it kind of exciting.” 

“It’s also one of the things that makes it exhausting,” she added. 

Asked if she was surprised teaching was a “most promising job,” Mead said that although teachers will always be needed, the field is changing a lot. 

“Nationwide, we have a massive exodus of teachers from the field,” she said. “We’re also in some really tough budget times in the state of Vermont, where we are looking at massive cuts to try to just offset the way schools are funded. It’s an interesting thing to highlight as a profession in that kind of an environment.” 

Gov. Scott’s administration recently released a proposal to consolidate all of Vermont’s school districts into five and has generally been a proponent of tightening education spending. 

Nearly every public school building in the state has openings right now but many of those positions are expected to be cut in the next few years as the state looks to increase class sizes and close schools to save money.  

“We have had to say goodbye to some teachers last year,” Mead said of her own school building. “And probably we will again this year across the district, in just trying to navigate a really tough budget climate.” 

Student support personnel remain a need across the Essex Westford district, she said, but those tend to be tough positions to fill, as they can be tiring and emotionally draining. But when the right people do take those jobs, student outcomes are phenomenal, Mead said.  

Mead is currently in her 20th year of teaching and said the landscape is continuously shifting with different academic and social-emotional expectations. 

Asked if she would recommend the job, and to what sort of person, she said it is important work that requires someone who understands the full responsibility. 

“Do your research,” she said to prospective teachers. “Talk to teachers who are in the field, have a comprehensive understanding of what it is, boots-on-the-ground, to do this job.” 

Mead started her career with a very heavy focus on academics and differentiated instruction, where she and her colleagues held themselves to a very high standard of meeting every single learner where they were at in every single subject they had to teach, and moving them forward. 

“And all of that is still important,” she said. “While also teaching social emotional learning and teaching children how to regulate their emotions and behaviors. Those components were always important, and they are now at the forefront.”  

Today, educators realize students need to have certain emotional and behavioral skills before they are ready to receive academic instruction. 

On the side, Mead is also a consulting teacher for the Center for Responsive Schools, a workshop that teaches educators all over the world about developmentally responsive teaching practices, implementable regardless of subject taught or the age of students. 

She also spent about half of her career teaching upper elementary students, where she spent a lot of time fixing things and helping students unlearn certain behaviors from early childhood and relearn others, like what it means to come together in a supportive community at school. 

A big part of why she repositioned herself in early elementary education — beyond the desire for a change of pace and scenery — was a desire to do that work of building strong cores from the beginning, and seeing the continuous growth of students who learned those skills earlier on.  

Occasionally, she’ll hear from former students about the difference she made in their lives, which can be highly fulfilling. 

She’s been in the field just long enough that some of her initial students are now married, and it can be neat running into former students out and about in the community. Her own kids are also in the district, which makes for other fun connections.  

But the aspect of teaching she finds most meaningful is getting to observe the hysterical sense of humor the kids have, and witnessing them wear their emotions on their sleeve. 

“They are not able to hide their emotions,” she said of the younger kids. “And when something is funny, it is wildly funny. It is belly-laugh funny. And I have those moments every single day, so I really look forward to that probably more than anything else.” 

Anyone looking to go into the field should be ready for anything, she said, and know that they will have to bring the job home with them — that it doesn’t shut off when the bell rings at 3 p.m. 

“Kids are human beings, so we are all unique, we all come from our own experiences, all of those are valid,” she said. “So be ready for students to show up with any and all human experiences, some really positive, some really negative, some super surprising.” 

Mead chose not to share her personal salary for this story, but the EWSD master agreement shows the range of salaries for district teachers. She believes the dollar amount on the “most promising jobs” list of $67,717 seems like a reasonable median salary projection statewide. 

“We need teachers now more than ever,” she said in closing. 

Charlie Suksinpaiboon: Co-owner and head chef at Thai Kitchen 

Thai Kitchen in Milton is quietly bustling in the mornings as its staff prepare to take orders for the evening. Serving takeout six nights a week, the business has become a huge hit with the local community ever since it opened in August of 2024. 

Every weekend, co-owner and head chef Charlie Suksinpaiboon drives all the way down to Boston, Ma. to source fresh ingredients and seafood for his menu. Having purchased the entire property already, and with additional space to spare and no shortage of motivation, the hope is to eventually expand from take-out-only to also offer dine-in options. 

“It’s so important that people eat at this kind of restaurant, simply because we provide them with real food,” he said. “You see what you eat, it’s not a situation where you don’t know what’s in a nugget… You can see, this is chicken, this is shrimp — this is very healthy, and it’s very important that people recognize that. They say, ‘It doesn’t leave me with bad feelings, bloated.’” 

He also provides gluten-free and vegan options by request, to accommodate various palettes. 

Suksinpaiboon has been in the restaurant industry for nearly three decades. At 15, he started a seafood business with his sister in Thailand in an effort to save up money. He sent himself to school in New Hampshire, then moved to Los Angeles, Ca. where he met his partner “in life and in business,” Wit Phakaket. 

Asked how he found entrepreneurship, he simply said he had to. 

“I wanted to come to study here or in England at the time, and my mom said, ‘We don’t have any money, what are you talking about? Make money. You want to go? Make money,’” Suksinpaiboo said. “So in four and a half years, I made tons.”  

But despite his wide range of experience in different sectors, Suksinpaiboon said of all of them, the restaurant industry has been the best fit. 

“This thing is really moving,” he said, of Thai Kitchen. “I’m running around, walking, running, non stop. It really suits me. I have too much energy — bursting.”  

When he landed in New England 40 years ago after having lived in Bangkok for so long, although it wasn’t the America he anticipated, living in Vermont and running the restaurant in Milton has become the most beautiful experience imaginable, he said. 

Because there is so little Thai food around, his mission is to share generous portions of healthy, delicious, fresh, authentic Thai food at low prices with the locals of the area. 

“You should see our Google reviews, people really, really dig us,” he said. “They love us and we love them back.” 

He cleans non-stop as he works to keep his station sanitary and ready to go at any moment. Suksinpaiboon makes all his sauces fresh each day and keeps them beside his grill, with loads of vegetables, shrimp and other ingredients in a fridge below the countertop just behind him. 

He and his partner do most of the actual cooking as well as the operations, although they also employ local high school students part-time at a rate of $25 per hour, to help pack orders. 

Suksinpaiboon works weird hours, he said, typically going to be around 11 p.m. and beginning work at 1 p.m. doing prep, cutting veggies and preparing to take orders throughout the evening. To ensure the freshest, highest quality, Suksinpaiboon avoids deep frying or pre-cooking his food. He works to build quality menus and also takes time for outward-facing customer relations. 

He likes to work a lot, and wishes it made sense for the size of the town to be open more hours. 

Suksinpaiboon said he can spot someone who would make a good chef right away. People cut out for the job demonstrate a welcoming attitude, show they love what they do, compensate for their mistakes, and work for recognition, he said. 

“The heart has to be in it, they really have to love to cook. They really do,” he said. 

He says this despite knowing from experience that he could be making more in other lines of business, in some cases with less effort. The money is okay; the people are fantastic, he said. 

Suksinpaiboon said his business brings in roughly $2,000 per day in total, before taxes. He and his partner pay themselves accordingly and invest a good deal of earnings back into the business: equipment, ingredients, staff wages and more.  

Thai Kitchen has only been open nine months, so he said it’s hard to say what his “salary” will shake out to be — but his salary as a business-owner will likely differ from the salary of a head chef who doesn’t own their own restaurant. The median figure for a head chef listed on “Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs” pamphlet is $65,144 per year. 

“But it comes with a lot of responsibilities, because you’re dealing with the public,” he said. 

Betsy Hassan: Director of Nursing Education and Professional Development at the University of Vermont Health Network 

The University of Vermont Health Network is the largest health system in Vermont, comprising six hospitals, including Fanny Allen Campus in Colchester, as well as the largest hospital in the state, UVM Medical Center in Burlington. 

Betsey Hassan, a certified registered nurse who did more traditional patient care in her early career, now serves as a nurse leader at the UVM Medical Center, heading nurse education and professional development programming for one of the biggest employers of nurses in the state.  

Listed on the “Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs” brochure are licensed practical nurses, RNs and nurse practitioners. Hassan oversees onboarding and orientation, annual competencies, nurse residency programs, emerging nurse leader programs, specialty certifications and continuing education opportunities for nurses in all of these categories, as well as a pathways program specifically for licensed nursing assistants continuing their education to become RNs. 

That program in particular offers paid study time of 12-24 hours per week to LNAs so those folks can maintain full-time pay and benefits as they study, and they work the remaining hours, one-two shifts per week — plus, they receive tuition reimbursement and some additional services such as tutoring, in exchange for a commitment of continued employment with UVMMC. 

The UVM MC is currently recruiting its fourth cohort for that right now, with about 40 people coming up from within that pipeline to become registered nurses.

“For a lot of people, it’s been really life changing, because they haven’t been able to have that opportunity before without having a program like this,” Hassan said. “They need to work full time, but they also can’t go to school full time, and so this program allows them that ability to do just that, because we support them with that paid time.” 

Hassan has been a nurse since 2009, and in her current role since 2021. 

“I really like the medical center in this particular role, because it’s all about supporting individuals and being in the role that they want to be in, or obtaining the job that they want,” she said. “It’s all about support, and developing someone’s career. So I feel lucky to be in this job.” 

Nursing as a field is very different depending on the given person’s specialty, she said, whether they’re in the operating room, labor and delivery, the emergency department or elsewhere. Most inpatient nurse shifts are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or vice versa, but the emergency department runs 3-3. 

Most nurses who work full-time work three 12-hour shifts, or 36 hours, per week. Some clinic settings run more traditional eight-hour days, five days a week, and a few other specialty areas like the operating room might instead offer 10 hour shifts.  

There are also many ways to become a nurse, and at many different stages in life, rendering it a great fit for many. 

“What I think is really great, is that nursing is kind of an option for everyone,” Hassan said. “I’ve known so many great people who have found nursing as a second career and later in life, or who have come into nursing mid-career, as a career change because they want to do something meaningful.” 

She said to be prepared for a really rigorous, fast-paced academic setting with a lot of coursework and a lot of clinical time, but that in the end it’s all worth it. There are a variety of paths to entry and a variety of funding opportunities available. 

“I think if you have an interest in building genuine relationships and caring for people, if you like science, then those are all good things that lend themselves towards nursing,” she said. “There are so many paths into nursing. Whether it’s your first college experience or your second.”  

“For me, this work has been gratifying just in the way that I’ve been able to connect with people,” she said. “Knowing that you’re helping your community through this work. I think that there’s also, you see that directly, when you leave at the end of the day and you’ve helped a patient or you help their family.” 

But sometimes nurses are helping people through a really difficult time in life, and nurses sometimes take on some of that distress, which the field refers to as moral injury. Losing patients can be very challenging too.  

In addition, UVMMC has also seen an increase in workplace violence, particularly from patients or their families in the ED lashing out at healthcare workers. 

These are some of the most challenging realities of entering the field, Hassan said. 

“But really it’s about coming in, getting your patient assignment, meeting with your off-going nurses and getting you know patient report, finding out and prioritizing your day and really understanding what patients need your care first, and how to manage  that as well as managing everything that is going to come and interrupt your plan for the day,” she said.  

Almost always, there’s a change in patient status, a new admission or another interruption, keeping nurses always on the balls of their feet. 

“It’s really fast paced, it’s really a difficult job, it’s a physical job, but it also is about caring for people,” she said. “And I think that’s where, you know, a lot of people feel compelled to do the work… It’s a really extraordinary profession.”  

The “Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs” list provides median wage estimates for nursing in Vermont at a range of $32 per hour for LPNs $66,538 annually, $42 per hour or $87,117 annually for RNs, and $63 per hour or $131,837 for NPs.  

Hassan said these figures are probably accurate for statewide figures, but that the pay range seems a little lower than current wages and salaries under her employer for all three roles. 

“Particularly in Vermont, nursing is a career that you can count on and that you can really be confident in,” Hassan said. “That you’re going to have not just a job, but really a career, that there’s lots of growth for you.” 

Whether that be in a clinical route and pursuing an advanced practice degree, like becoming a nurse practitioner or pursuing leadership or academics by teaching in a school of nursing. For all of these reasons, Hassan believes it’s right for nursing to be on the list of promising jobs. 

“I just think there’s so much opportunity in Vermont in particular, that this is a great place to become a nurse and to practice as a nurse,” she said. I’d really encourage folks to explore the career. If they haven’t thought about it before, maybe they should.” 

“And to reach out and talk to a nurse about what they do every day, and why they love their job,” she added. “Because most of us do.” 

Andrew Abair: Plumber and Owner of Elite Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning 

Andrew Abair was first mentored in the trade 14 years ago when he began working for a local St. Albans plumber — from there, he went to work in Burlington at the biggest residential plumbing outfit in the state, before returning to St. Albans as a business owner. 

Abair has led Elite Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning, for five years now, regularly taking calls from people he knew growing up. That network of connections has helped him build up his client base. 

“I wouldn’t change it for the world,” he said. “Although chasing money is a pain in the butt.”  

“Sometimes you call me and your water heater busts, so I’m going to show up with the water heater to replace it, and I do the work,” he added. “And unfortunately, sometimes, after I replace their furnace or water heater, they’re like ‘Sorry, we don’t have the money to pay right now.’” 

These situations can pose a big risk to a company, but there isn’t often much that can be done aside from requiring an up-front down payment for larger jobs.  

Despite the instability nonpayers can pose for his business, over his interview at a Dunkin’ in St. Albans, Abair said once each week when he used to train in Burlington for work, he’d pay for the coffee or breakfast order behind him, always valuing generosity regardless of his circumstance. 

“My mom’s big into that,” Abair said. “You never know how you’re going to impact someone’s day. And now, doing what I do as a plumber, I get to help people every day.” 

It was quite the journey going from apprenticeship to fully-certified plumber and business-owner, he said. Traditionally, as Abair did, you have to find a plumber who will take you on as an apprentice in order to get certified for the job — and the schooling for just the first stage of plumbing licensure, becoming a journeyman, takes a full 4,000 hours recorded over the course of four winters followed by a test. 

After a year of holding the journeyman’s license, you can take the master’s test. Becoming a master plumber requires a total of 9,000 hours on the books and masters need to be recertified every couple years — and it’s all been more than worthwhile, Abair said. 

“Someone has to take a chance on you,” he said, of apprenticeship. “They have to pay for your credential, they’re paying you to work and then they’re paying for your schooling… You just have to ask somebody to take a chance on you, and your word is everything.”  

A lot of the jobs that are available don’t pay enough to teens that are trying to find upward mobility and live on their own, he said, rendering trade school incredibly powerful in contrast. 

Abair’s 19-year-old step-son, Orian Ward, has been going around with Abair to jobs and helping out, learning on the job and trying to decide whether plumbing is the right career path for him. 

Although college is popular and important fundamentally, Ward has friends who are headed off to college without much of a plan at all, pursuing fun over strategy, which Abair said worries him. 

“Kids grow up like, ‘Yeah, I want to be a firefighter, a policeman, or, you know, all the famous ones, doctor, lawyer, veterinarian,” he said. “College is important too, in a big way. But if you don’t go to college and chase a six-figure salary, there’s no point in going because of the loans.”  

One of the only other drawbacks to plumbing, Abair said, is you don’t get to clock out at four or five for the evening, or for the weekend — his phone is constantly ringing, and he builds his schedule around other people’s plumbing and HVAC emergencies more than anything else, rarely taking vacations. 

It can also be hard on your body, he said, recalling a recent experience having to haul an old-school 700 pound boiler out of somebody’s place.  

“That’s the only issue around it,” Abair said. “I wish I could shut it off sometimes, but in a way, it’s a blessing. I tell my customers all the time, ‘Without you guys, I don’t have an income, I don’t have a career.’ You know, there are a lot of ‘jobs.’ But plumbing and heating is a career, really.” 

“And when you enjoy what you do, like I said, it’s not work to me,” he added. “The ‘work’ is when I go home and then I have to bill people. That’s the only part that I feel like is work.” 

The median annual wage for plumbers and pipe fitters, according to the “Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs” list, is $63,000 annually or $30 hourly, which Abair said is accurate in terms of union pay, although working for himself he said he makes more. 

He grossed $125,000 last year, and that’s before taxing and without re-investing back into the business.  

Abair would recommend his job to other young Vermonters, but said folks have to consider the time and sacrifice it takes to get into this line of work. He advises people to dream big but to be patient, and focus on small, reachable goals day by day, which will ultimately add up.  

“The goal is to always make your time worth more money per hour, so educate yourself — knowledge is power, knowledge is money,” he said. “Just hang in there and stick with it, even when it feels like you’re just standing there sweeping floors. Pay attention to what the plumber is doing and ask them questions until they don’t want to answer you. Read the manuals.” 

“For young youth, now — if you have a slight interest in something, chase it and see it to its full potential,” he added. “If you have the slightest bit of interest in a job, go for it and try to see it through.” 

Published materials about ”Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs” can be found here, both digitally or by request for a free printed brochure, and to view translations beyond English, or learn more and access job seeker resources or connect with a local VDL specialist here.