Out in the Open Executive Director to Receive 2023 Con Hogan Award

Eagle Times Staff
MIDDLEBURY, VT — The Vermont Community Foundation and the Con Hogan Award for Creative, Entrepreneurial Community Leadership organizing committee have chosen HB Lozito for this year’s award. Lozito is the executive director of Brattleboro-based Out in the Open, which is working to build a multi-issue, multiracial social justice movement of rural LGBTQ+ people.

The annual award, established by a group of Hogan’s colleagues in 2015, celebrates his life’s work by recognizing a community leader who shares his vision of a better Vermont. The awardee shows deep community involvement, generosity, enthusiasm, a collaborative approach and a focus on data and measurable outcomes in their work, the Foundation said in a statement announcing the award.

Through Lozito’s leadership, Out in the Open has expanded what it means to be part of the rural LGBTQ+ community, the announcement stated. For more than a decade, Lozito has been instrumental not only in creating safe and thriving places for rural LGBTQ+ people but also in building long-term visibility, knowledge and power in the community, searching out previously uncollected data to support this work.

Originally from rural Maine, Lozito became interested in organic gardening and farming but grew up during a time when LGBTQ+ people were told they needed to move to cities to find community and safety. For Lozito, it was not the LGBTQ+ community that needed to move, but rather the rural narrative that needed to change. Lozito has spent more than 20 years organizing in the rural LGBTQ+ community.

Lozito moved to Washington state in 2002 to attend Whitman College, majoring in environmental studies and politics, which included a study abroad in India. Lozito worked on a community organic garden in college, on bioregionalism in Portland, OR, and on food justice in Oakland, CA. But Lozito’s love of rural life drew Lozito back to Maine and an organic farm in Freedom. Moving to Brattleboro in 2011, Lozito immediately began work in Vermont to bring visibility to the rural LGBTQ+ community, help people find each other and create welcoming events and spaces.

Lozito will receive the $15,000 Con Hogan Award at a ceremony at Vermont College of Fine Arts at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 11, in Montpelier, VT.