VINS enters its third decade with notable accomplishments and exciting plans. Follow our tracks to see where we've been, and join us as the future takes flight.

"It all started in 1970 when one of my patients heading the regional planning commission asked me to head up a study of the Ottauquechee River because my office was right on the river," recalls Dr. David Laughlin when asked to describe the beginnings of VINS. Others joined Laughlin in the effort, which led to the first water quality litigation in the state.

This group, a bit bruised from the public struggle to clean up the water, pondered how to do things differently. "At the end of the fight, Sally [David's former wife, Sally Laughlin], Rick Farrar, June McKnight, and I were having dinner at our house on Hartland Hill," David says. "There has to be a better way,' we said, and we came up with the idea of an environmental organization aimed at kids." That organization became the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, better known as VINS.