Marianne Jackson, M.D., MPH, served the North Country as an Ob-Gyn for 26 years until completing a Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of North Carolina in 2010 where she worked in patient safety and quality improvement. She returned to the Mt. Washington Valley in 2015. Marianne served on the Board of the Gibson Center for Senior Services for six years and served as Executive Director from 2021 to 2024. She co-coordinated the 12-town Age-Friendly Community initiative that used the AARP/WHO model of Livable Communities to bring improvements in Housing, Health, Transportation, Community Connections and Outdoor Spaces to the region. The MWV Age-Friendly Community Action Plan received the Northern New England Planners Association award for Plan of the Year in 2019. Marianne received the Governor’s Joseph A. Vaughan Award for exemplary volunteer efforts on behalf of New Hampshire’s older adults. Marianne is also dedicated to making conversations about end-of-life decisions a natural and comfortable topic for families. She serves on the state’s Health Care Decisions Coalition which is part of the NH Hospital Association’s Foundation for Healthy Communities. She attended the Governor’s Commission on Aging with an ear toward end-of-life and age-friendly issues. She is an advisor to the New Hampshire Alliance for End-of-Life Options. She now splits her year between Durham, North Carolina and Madison, New Hampshire.