Meet Karen

Karen, Stephen, and Maddy Herrick

6 Year Select Board Member, Past Chair, 2 time Vice-Chair and Secretary

Karen reveled in the grassroots effort to work together with other like minded residents and businesses to achieve something that improved Reading in such an inclusive way while staying mindful of fiscal realities. Karen spent her childhood in Lynn, MA attending the public schools, while both parents worked. Part of the so called “latch key” generation before cell phone monitoring - she learned early on to be a self-reliant, problem solver and later attended Boston College and completed an MBA at Bentley University.

Karen has spent the past 6 years tacking Reading’s biggest challenges with this same philosophy; continuously asking, “What are the biggest challenges facing the community and how can assemble local talent and resources and also leverage state level support to meet our goals?”

Karen has been proudly serving as Reading Select Board member since 2020. She was elected after serving 18 years as a Town Meeting member and 5 years as a Finance Committee member. Her earliest volunteer efforts involved the Wood End school planning and advocacy while balancing pregnancy and career demands. When it became apparent that the newly completed school needed a playground - she and husband, Steve jumped in with both hands, fundraising, planning and literally assembling the Town’s first accessible playground with neighbors. The success and satisfaction of engaging as a Town meeting member to win approval for matching funding was an inspiration for her future work in PTO’s, and numerous volunteer committees.

Among her proudest moments:

  • Changing our grant philosophy from avoidance to empowerment to support our fiscal and capital budgets

  • Championing like minded residents to push for carbon reduction and climate resilience in and with RMLD, our new Killam school and senior center (RECAL)

  • Fostering regional collaboration with the Mystic River Water Shed to transform the Maillet-Sommes, & Morgan land into a stormwater management and conservation showplace

  • Insisting for accountability on Town Meeting approved projects and reducing the impact on taxpayers

  • Approving Juneteenth, Pride and Human Rights resolutions and supporting the efforts of the Office of Equity and Social Justice