Customers at Grace Cottage's Messenger Valley Pharmacy are seeing a new face on the other side of the counter, that of Pharmacist Greg Dean. Although he's been working at the pharmacy for less than two months, Greg already fits right in, meeting and greeting customers with a broad smile and a willingness to answer any questions.

A native of Woodland, Maine ("it's way out in the boonies," he says, "up on the Canadian border"), Greg began helping out at the local pharmacy when he was a teenager. This inspired him to get his Pharmacy degree, which he completed at the University of Connecticut. He then returned to the pharmacy in Woodland for six months, but found that he missed Connecticut. He took on an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, and ended up working there and at an affiliated clinic for twelve years.

"I met my wife, who is a psychiatric nurse, while I was at Mount Sinai," said Greg, "and we were married in 1991. Her twin sister lived in Townshend at the time, so we came up here to visit a lot, and ended up buying property in West Wardsboro. We'd planned on moving up here three to five years from now, but then I heard about the job opening at Grace Cottage, and I knew this was what I wanted to do. Fortunately, we'd finished building our post-and-beam house up here in Vermont last November!"

Greg had left Mount Sinai and was working as the pharmacist at Shaw's Supermarket in Manchester, Connecticut which, he says, was not as busy as Grace Cottage's pharmacy. "I've really enjoyed the people I've met here," he said, "customers and co-workers."

Greg and Jill have optimistically purchased ski passes at Stratton (did somebody tell him that this job came with time off?), and are looking forward to doing lots of other outdoor activities, including hiking and motorcycle riding. Greg's not-so-secret dream for the Messenger Valley Pharmacy is to add a soda fountain, like the one in the pharmacy back in Woodland, Maine. Root beer float with that prescription, anyone?