Rutland Herald
By Gordon Dritschilo, Staff Writer Mar 6, 2026
BROC Community Action was prepared to lose its executive director long before he ran for mayor.
BROC President Christopher Hoyt said Friday that when Tom Donahue steps down from the organization to become mayor at the end of next week, he will be succeeded on an interim basis by Director of Development and Marketing Vicki Loomis, a contingency already laid out in BROC’s emergency transition plan.
“We had a plan in place,” Hoyt said. “If he got hit by a bus or something, we didn’t want BROC to suffer. … We hoped Tom would stay forever. … Change is change, and we want it to go smoothly. … Our loss is Rutland’s gain.”
Donahue, who has run the organization for a decade, said Loomis has his full confidence.
“She’s been here for six years and has been truly my right hand,” he said. “She has great capability for running this organization, including leadership and temperament. … One of the traits you have to have here is leading with the heart. It can’t just be business acumen. … You can’t do any of this work if you don’t have passion for the people we’re helping. She has that combination.”
Loomis said she is ready. “I’m pretty well-versed in what’s going on over here with our programs,” she said. “I’m excited.”
BROC provides a variety of community services in 45 towns across Rutland and Bennington counties. Those efforts include the fuel assistance, the state’s weatherization program and the food shelf, which Donahue said distributed 550,000 tons of food last year — a number he said has gone up 50 tons a year for the last three years.
Hoyt said the board would begin discussing a search process to fill the job permanently at its next regular meeting, at the end of the month.
“(The Office of Economic Opportunity) has offered whatever technical support for the search or training the new hire,” he said.
Loomis said she intends to be a candidate. “It’s my job right now to show them I’m capable,” she said. “It’s just making sure operations can continue to run smoothly. … The community won’t see a change.”
