A Bigger Voice: The Creative Trailblazer: Beth Wallace

Beth Wallace is accustomed to blazing new trails. In her twenty-plus years in early childhood education, publishing, and coaching, she has never held a job for which she has been educated, and she has never been hired for a position that anyone has filled before her.

In 1990, Beth became the founding director of Ben & Jerry’s Children’s Center, an on-site early childhood center for the children of employees from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade ice cream factory in Waterbury, Vermont. In two months, she created a brand-new child-care program for forty families, including managing a complete renovation of the building, hiring a team of ten staff members, enrolling families, and establishing a model curriculum. The program included an anti-bias component and had a nationwide reputation for excellence.

In 1997, she became the first in-house development editor at Redleaf Press in St. Paul, Minnesota. In eight years at Redleaf, Beth acquired and developed over seventy-five titles for early childhood professionals, almost eighty percent of Redleaf’s list. Books that Beth acquired and edited have been translated into more than ten languages, and are used as the standard for early childhood programs around the world.

In 2005, she left Redleaf Press to work as an independent editor and writing coach, and completed her training as a personal coach at the Coaches Training Institute. As a writing coach and development editor, she works with people who are struggling to put their big ideas into print. In her personal coaching practice, she helps people get unstuck in the midst of big life changes.

Since 2006, Beth has also been the first editor-in-chief of Rainbow Rumpus, the online monthly magazine for kids with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered parents. In this role, she edits children’s fiction and non-fiction, nurtures a constantly growing community of volunteer staff members around the U.S., and is responsible for the magazine’s editorial and production planning and systems. In 2007, during its first year of publication, Rainbow Rumpus was recognized by a Dot Org award from the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits.

Beth has deep experience in nonprofit organizations, both in staff and governance roles. She served on the founding board of directors for the Family Center of Washington County (Montpelier, Vermont) as the center transitioned into an independent nonprofit organization, and as the first board chair for the Child Care Fund of Vermont. As a member of the Family Center board, she took part in the Vermont Community Foundation’s yearlong Organizational Development Institute, an intensive training in nonprofit leadership.

Beth has a B.A. in French and Education from Carleton College. She has studied environmental design for children with Anita Olds at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, children’s literature at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, and educational leadership at Bank Street College in New York. Beth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she tends a large vegetable garden, plays fiddle, and plans hiking trips to the mountains.

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