Martha McLeod
for State Senate: NH's North Country Voice
Biography
Martha McLeod is a North Country native. Growing up, she and her siblings worked alongside their parents and learned a strong work ethic running a local inn and restaurant. After graduating from high school in Littleton, Martha completed a bachelor’s degree at the University of New Hampshire in nutritional sciences. She is currently a Registered Dietitian, licensed in NH, and has also earned a graduate degree in adult and vocational education from UNH.
After moving back to Franconia several years ago to care for her mother, Martha worked at the Northern NH Area Health Education Center, recruiting and retaining doctors and other health professionals in the North Country. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the North Country Health Consortium, a non-profit rural health network devoted to improving quality and access to health care here in the North County, which has brought over $10 million to the area over the last nine years for issues like professional education for rural doctors and nurses, technology updates for health care facilities, substance abuse prevention, parenting programs and oral health services. Martha also serves on the Board of a newly formed three-state entity that recently received funding from the Federal Communication Commission for a total of $24.7 million to bring affordable telecommunication infrastructure to rural health providers.
A health care professional, educator, not for profit director and activist, Martha McLeod has dedicated her life to putting people first. As a Representative to the NH House for Bethlehem and Franconia, she has provided a strong voice for rural issues and for accessible, affordable health care in the North Country.
In the House Martha sits on the Finance Committee where she works on Division III, the Health and Human Services budget team. During her first term, Martha was on the Commerce Committee and worked across party lines to repeal the law that had doubled and tripled health insurance premiums for small businesses in the North Country. This session, she worked with Governor Lynch on legislation to provide a Coos County Tax Credit to help create good paying jobs in the North Country and co-sponsored a successful bill to cap the annual interest rate on payday and car title loans to protect New Hampshire consumers. Martha also wrote a bill establishing a focus in the Department of Health and Human Services on bringing health professionals to rural areas, and sponsored Governor Lynch’s school funding constitutional amendment that would target state funds to communities with the greatest need.
Martha was appointed by the Speaker of the NH House to serve the State on the Cannon Mt. Advisory Committee where she is working to make improvements to the infrastructure at Cannon Mt. and develop skiing terrain at Mittersill. She was appointed by Governor Lynch to the Mt. Washington Commission and the Technology Advisory Board (TAB) of the Department of Resources and Economic Development, serving on the subcommittee that is just finishing up the Broadband Action Plan for the State. Martha also chairs the legislative Task Force on Expanding Access to Affordable Healthcare Coverage.
Martha has been granted much praise for her work, receiving the Maggie Terninko Award from the NH Dietetic Association – for legislative and public health leadership – and being named the 2006 Legislator of the Year by the Ski NH Association.
Martha lives in her childhood home in Franconia with her husband of 31 years, Richard, and their dog, Nobel. They have two grown daughters, Kristyn and Carrie. Kristyn is a graduate of Connecticut College and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business and currently works as the Budget Director for Governor John Lynch. She is engaged to be married to Colin Van Ostern, a student at Tuck. Carrie is a graduate of the University of NH with a degree in Outdoor Education and the NH Technical Institute with a degree in Nursing. She currently lives and works in Steamboat Springs Colorado as an Emergency Room Nurse.
