The Bristol Works! Team
Bristol Works! LLC is a partnership of area residents and business leaders, committed to a common sense approach to the repurposing of the 5 ½ acre business park that was most recently home to Autumn Harp Inc., a natural skin care company. Read more about the people who make up Bristol Works! team:
Kevin Harper, Managing Partner 
Kevin Harper is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Autumn Harp, a natural cosmetics manufacturer he founded in 1977 and now located in Essex, Vermont. Kevin grew the Bristol company from a “kitchen sink” startup, to over $10 million in annual sales and 75 full time employees. After several years of rapid expansion as a global supplier of plant- based cosmetics and OTC drug products, the company was sold in 2001 to a local entrepreneur. Today, the Vermont-based company has continued to grow with over 175 employees and is one of Vermont’s most successful enterprises.
Upon the departure of Autumn Harp Inc. from the Bristol site in 2010, Kevin led an effort to organize a small real estate partnership of local investors, called “Bristol Works!” for the purpose of purchasing and redeveloping the 5.5 acres and its 55,000 square feet of commercial space. The purchase was completed late in 2010.
Kevin is a founding member of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, a statewide, nationally recognized, business trade group. He was also a founding member and long-term Chair of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF), a statewide non-profit, sustainable economic development organization. In 1993, Kevin was named “Vermont Small Business Person of the Year,” by the Small Business Administration. In 1994, he was elected by the Vermont business community to represent the State as one of 15 delegates to the White House Conference on Small Business, and served as Co-Chair. In 1996, Kevin was invited back to Washington by President Bill Clinton to participate in the first-ever White House Conference on Corporate Citizenship.
Since leaving Autumn Harp, Kevin has been active on numerous Boards, including the Vermont Community Foundation, the Vermont Forum on Sprawl (now Smart Growth Vermont), the Bristol Downtown Community Partnership, and the Peer to Peer Collaborative, a small, statewide, business consulting group under the management of the VSJF.
Robert Fuller, Partner
Robert Fuller, a trained chef and well-known regional restaurateur, moved to Vermont in 1976 and has run his own restaurants in Burlington since 1982. Robert is the owner of the famed Burlington eatery, Leunig’s Bistro, the founder of Bristol’s popular Bobcat Café, and was the lead partner in the redevelopment of Cubbers and 
Snaps restaurants, two of Bristol’s well-known eateries. Robert has also been involved in Bristol’s Dunchee Block renovation, Mountain Greens Market, and the Bristol Bakery and Cafe. He served on the Mt. Abe School Board and the Hannaford Career Center Board for 5 years.
Robert loves the sense of community in Bristol, the vibrancy of the people and the natural beauty of the area. He also recognizes that Bristol’s deep sense of community is the result of the vision and efforts of many talented, hard working individuals doing their part. He enjoys doing what he can to help things along.
David Blittersdorf, Partner
David is the founder of Hinesburg-based NRG Systems, a global leader in the development and manufacture of wind measurement devices. He is also the founder and President/CEO of AllEarth Renewables, a company in Williston that designs and manufactures grid-connected solar tracking devices and residential-scale wind power systems.
Directly involved in every aspect of AllEarth Renewables' day-to-day operations, David brings to that company a lifetime of passion for, and a career’s-worth of experience in, bringing practical, economically sound on-site renewable energy solutions to homeowners and businesses. In 1982 when the wind industry was in its infancy, David founded his first entrepreneurial venture, NRG Systems, that grew into an internationally recognized leader in wind measurement technology. Twenty-two years later, David stepped down as CEO of NRG Systems to kick-off his second entrepreneurial venture, AllEarth Renewables, a start-up company dedicated to the development, manufacture and deployment of residential-scale, grid-connected renewable energy systems.
AllEarth Renewables began as Earth Turbines, a small research and development company producing an innovative and durable residential-scale wind turbine currently installed at 20 test sites across Vermont. In 2009, Earth Turbines introduced the AllSun Tracker, a pole-mounted, turn-key solar array that actively follows the sun from dawn to dusk. Now covering wind and sun, the company reintroduced itself to the industry as AllEarth Renewables.
David grew up in Pittsford, Vermont near Grandpa’s Knob, which happens to be the site of the world’s first commercial wind turbine. In high school, he tinkered with paper-cup anemometers and experimented with wind-generated electricity to light his sugarhouse during springtime evening “boils” of maple syrup. His curiosity for renewable energy became a dedication to helping transition the US economy away from its dependence on fossil fuels in 1973 when he got his driver’s license during the Arab Oil Embargo and watched gas prices sky-rocket.
David went on to build a wind turbine as part of his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, which he earned from the University of Vermont in 1981. Still committed to practicing what he preaches, today David's family home relies on net metering to produce all of its power. The grid-connected home includes a 6000 watt fixed solar photovoltaic system and solar hot water system on its roof, a wood pellet stove for heating, and a 2500 watt Earth Turbine on a 115 foot tall tower shares the backyard with a 4000 watt AllSun Tracker.
In addition to his duties as CEO, David makes frequent public speaking engagements on our energy future and also maintains several institutional commitments: He is board member and treasurer of the Small Wind Certification Council (SWCC), a non-profit formed to certify small wind turbines. He served as treasurer of the American Wind Energy Association for 16 years, until the spring of 2010. He is a board member, founding member and past chair of Renewable Energy Vermont (REV). David is also on the Board of Advisors for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, the SUNY-Canton Engineering School, and the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center (VMEC).
David and his wife Jan (President/CEO of NRG Systems) have two grown children, Alyssa and Evan. In his spare time, David enjoys “wind power” recreationally, in the form of hang gliding and sailing.
Tommie Thompson, Architect
Tommie D. Thompson II is the Principal of Twenty4D Architects in Bristol, Vermont. Tommie and his staff are designing the campus master plan, building renovations, and housing units for the Bristol Works! project.
Thompson incorporates his 25 years of experience utilizing a design-oriented approach to public buildings, alternative energy systems, adaptive reuse, sustainable construction, historical renovation/retrofit and small house construction. Thompson is a regional pioneer in adaptive reuse projects and the utilization of alterative fuel sources in commercial, residential and civic projects. He has also designed America’s first BOCA (Basic Building Code of America) approved building incorporating straw bale insulation.
The Bristol Works! project allows Thompson to utilize his diverse skill set within a mixed-use, historic village context. The opportunity to transform this cluster of concrete and metal buildings into a cohesive and contextually-viable mill/factory complex is not only an appropriate historic model, but is actually the historic reality of the site, and Twenty4D Architects plans to embrace the possibilities. “We have the great charge of resurrecting both what was, and what could have been on this site, while integrating with, and celebrating, the richness of village life and the neighborhood that surrounds the property.”
Kelly Laliberte
Kelly Laliberte, a longtime Bristol resident, lives next door to the BristolWorks! site with her husband, Lance, and two young daughters, Reese and Tatum.
She is active as a realtor in both the Champlain Valley and the Mad River Valley and works with her mother and father, Claire and Tom Wallace, in their family business, Wallace Realty.
Kelly has also held numerous key positions in the hospitality industry region wide, and for many years has managed the iconic Bristol landmark, the Village Creeme Stand.
Kelly serves on the local School Board, the Board of Directors for the Bristol Family Center, and the Bristol Revolving Loan Fund Committee. Kelly regularly delivers Meals on Wheels to community members in need.
Given the day-to-day demands of a mixed-use redevelopment project , Kelly’s role as an assistant to the Bristol Works! partnership is invaluable. Her personable and professional style is highly effective in her role as a Bristol Works! liaison with utility companies, on-site contractors and BW!’s tenants. She also provides valuable bookkeeping and office management services, scheduling and working with vendors and other professionals who work with the various BW! project teams. Kelly and her husband also keep a close eye on the campus from their kitchen window.
She is very excited about the Bristol Works! project, and looks forward to helping it evolve into a community oriented, neighborhood asset.