Jennifer Mayhew
39 | Owner, Principal Consultant, Vermont Healthcare Consulting, LLC
Residence: Chittenden
Career highlight: The achievements I am most proud of are earning my Master of Public Health from the University of Vermont and building a small business of my own. My parents never graduated high school and my grandfather never learned to read or write, so becoming the first in my family to graduate college was never a given. Earning my graduate degree and later founding Vermont Healthcare Consulting felt like the next steps in the same story of generational change. That path led to being named the 2026 SBA Vermont Woman Owned Business of the Year, and it allowed me to build a career devoted to helping clinicians serve the communities they come from. I carry my family’s story into that work every day.
Community involvement: Community service has been part of my life since high school, when I earned the President’s Volunteer Service Award by logging more than 500 volunteer hours. I have joined service trips with nonprofits to Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Lebanon, and Kentucky, and I served on the boards of the United Nations Association Columbus chapter, Tarleton Castle Arts, and Capstone Community Action in Barre, where I was appointed by a Vermont State Representative. In Vermont, I was appointed by the Deputy Commissioner of Health to serve as Co Chair of the Intervention, Treatment, and Recovery Committee within the Division of Alcohol and Substance Use Programs, completed training as a Certified Peer Recovery Coach, spoke at Recovery Day at the Vermont Statehouse, and served as Board Vice President of the Breadloaf Section of the Green Mountain Club.
More recently, I serve as Vice President of Outreach for the Project Management Institute Champlain Valley Chapter, and I have volunteered my time advising small business founders across Vermont, with a focus on women owners, throughout 2025 and 2026. I also volunteered to co facilitate a workshop for nurse practitioner entrepreneurs at the 2026 national conference in Tampa. This September, I joined a panel at the University of Vermont Health Equity Summit on clinician ownership as a pathway to rural health equity.nt includes
Motivation for living and working in Vermont: I thru hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2010, 2,200 miles over six months, and the trail introduced me to Vermont. In 2014, I joined the VA Medical Center in White River Junction as the AmeriCorps Strength to Serve Program Leader, where I built a grant funded self management program for veterans and caregivers. That experience affirmed my love for creating and fixing health systems, as well as living close to the Appalachian Mountain Range. I married a Vermonter, have two VT kids, and have now called Vermont home for more than 14 years.
What would most people be surprised to learn about you? While studying at Ohio State with a minor in Middle East studies, I traveled to Lebanon in the summer of 2006, just as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted, and I was evacuated from Beirut aboard the USS Nashville by U.S. Marines. Anthony Bourdain and his production crew were on the same ship, and their evacuation became the Beirut episode of No Reservations.
Favorite Vermont escape: Solitude in the mountains along the Long Trail or the AT. I love to put up a tent with my kids and have a fire at night.
Career goal(s) would you like to accomplish in the next 5-10 years: Over the next five to ten years, I want Practice Launch 90 to become the household name for clinicians who want to start an independent practice, with at least one client in each of the 50 states. I am passionate about combining efficient operating systems with empowering clinicians to practice in a space they decide for themselves.