Mayor Carolyn Broullon

It took Mayor Carolyn Broullon a bit more time than she would have liked to get to know all her neighbors because of her own work schedule.

But the Mayor said, “I’m proud that now we’re not just neighbors but good friends.”

The Mayor has told her story many times, how she discovered Highlands, why she first got on council, why she started a business here, and how she worked her way into the mayoral position as a “newcomer” who simply fell in love with the century old town.

“I discovered Highlands in 2002 while looking for a vacation home,’ she starts, launching into her personal time of discovery. “After a few months, I realized what an amazing town this is and so I got rid of my New York City apartment to live here full time.” It was because she continued to work in Manhattan and wasn’t around for 12 hours on workdays that it took so long to get to know her neighbors.

Then came Hurricane Sandy, she said, noting that she and many of those neighbors now friends. “were either living out of town or simply couldn’t make it up the hill to go to council meetings.” Not one to take things easy, she said “my wife, Donica, and I signed up for a free uStream.tv account, bought a USB microphone and started streaming the meetings from our Mac laptop. We felt it was important for those displaced to have a way to see the council meetings, to participate in our future.”

At the end of the summer of 2013, a group of residents came together to try to help the town move forward by re-introducing non-partisan elections to Highlands. “We met as strangers with different ideas and party affiliations but banded together to make our town more than just Democrats and Republicans,” she said. “After knocking on doors and educating residents on how non-partisan elections work, we successfully changed how we elect our council people in Highlands. This is now a direct process in which political party leaders do not choose who is on the ballot, Highlanders do.”

The mayor feels her own professional background has prepared her well to serve the borough and its residents. She has worked in market research since 1992, coordinating international fieldwork, conducting focus groups, and managing staff. She started in research at Data Development, now known as Radius Global Market Research [one of the largest independent market research firms in the US], then on to Research International, now a part of TNS in the WPP Group [one of the top five market research firms in the world]. She then had her own research business and became Vice President at Gazelle Global.

That was in 2006. Throughout the time, Broullon said she has honed a number of skills along the way that help her in her mayoral position. These include budgeting, staff management, contract negotiations, and conflict resolution. “Most of all,” she added, “ my training has given me the tools to listen to people and transform those thoughts and ideas into action.”

Eight years ago Broullon and Donica embarked on a new venture, purchasing the former A&P building on Miller Street and Bay Avenue, extensively renovating it to its 1940s décor and opened Feed & Seed, a pet food, supply, and general store in 2017.  Two years later, she left Gazelle Global and again started her own research consulting company .

“My education,” she admits, includes “one of the most important things I learned from 12 years of Catholic school was patience. After graduating from Notre Dame Academy, I took a year off to just be. I went on to get my bachelor’s degree in business with a concentration in marketing from the City University of New York, Sunnyside campus. Although I worked full time and took classes full time on nights and weekends, I managed to graduate with many terms on the Dean’s List.”

Broullon is aiming to continue the improvements she has made in the borough through the successful application for numerous grants, through her practice of seeking the opinion of the residents either informally or at formal sessions where she encourages questions and provides professionals with answers, and in the open door policy at Feed and Seed where residents feel comfortable and welcome in stopping in to ask questions or give opinions.

And she’s not shy about showing her sense of humor and pride in her family name. “ Broullon is pronounced brew-yawn. Just think: You brew coffee, so you don’t yawn.”

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