Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont residents are the 5th-best at managing money in the US, according to a new CreditCards.com report. Vermont’s average credit score is 19 points better than expected (based upon the state’s median income). Vermont also has the nation’s 3rd-best credit score despite a median income that’s just 7 percent above the national median. Overall, Montana residents are the best at managing money and Marylanders are the worst, according to the CreditCards.com analysis. The study compared each state’s average credit score with its median income. Vermont's average credit score is 696 (best in New England, third highest in US) and average credit card debt is $4,371 (second best to Maine).

“Conventional wisdom is that people with more money have better credit scores, but we found this is not always the case,” said Matt Schulz, CreditCards.com’s senior industry analyst. 

by Mike Faher/The Commons, Brattleboro The next round of job cuts at Vermont Yankee has been scheduled for May 5, when 150 employees — roughly half the remaining workforce — will be laid off. Also, around that same time, plant owner Entergy will be vacating its offices on Old Ferry Road. Administrators are “looking at [their] options,” which could include selling the property, a spokesman said. Both the job cuts and the corporate relocation are directly connected to federally approved emergency planning cutbacks at Vermont Yankee. But company administrators are offering assurances that those changes don’t mean the end of safety measures at the shutdown nuclear plant, which ceases operation in December 2014.

“There will be an emergency-response organization,” Entergy VY spokesman Marty Cohn said. “It’s just that it will be reduced.”

Vermont Business Magazine Applications are now being accepted for the 2016 Governor's Awards for Environmental Excellence. The annual awards honor the actions taken by Vermonters to conserve and protect natural resources, prevent pollution and promote sustainability. The deadline for applications has been extended to Tuesday, March 15, 2016.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department says preliminary numbers show 12,710 deer were taken during Vermont’s 2015 deer hunting seasons. Reports from big game check stations indicate hunters had successful deer seasons in 2015, taking 3,398 deer in archery season, 1,277 in youth season, 6,592 in rifle season, and 1,443 in muzzleloader season.  The 12,710 deer brought home by hunters yielded more than 630,000 pounds of local nutritious venison. “Compared to the previous three-year averages, harvest numbers increased slightly during the archery and rifle seasons, but decreased during the youth and muzzleloader seasons,” said deer project leader Nick Fortin. “The legal buck harvest of 8,294 was nearly identical to the previous three-year average of 8,286. 

Vermont Business Magazine Saint Michael’s College physics professor John O’Meara has teamed with researchers Neil Crighton and Michael Murphy from Australia in the recent discovery of a distant, ancient cloud of gas that may contain the signature of the very first stars that formed in the universe. O'Meara, a co-author on the study, presented the results at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Kissimmee, FL, in early January. The gas cloud his team discovered has an extremely small percentage of heavy elements, such as carbon, oxygen and iron – less than one thousandth the fraction observed in the sun. It is many billions of light years distant, and is observed as it was only 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang, say the researchers, whose observations were drawn from data from the Very Large Telescope (VLT), operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.

Vermont Business Magazine The Atmospheric Sciences program at Lyndon State College will be awarded the 2016 New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) Vermont State Merit Award at an award ceremony March 4 in Boston. “We are very proud of this award,” said Lyndon President Joe Bertolino. “LSC’s atmospheric sciences program has evolved to be one of the top programs in the nation. This award speaks to the caliber of the program’s students, faculty, and alumni as well as the excellence of the program itself.” Students choose among concentrations in broadcasting, national weather service/military, private industry, and climate change. The rigorous and modern curriculum makes Lyndon State a leader in New England and around the country in undergraduate meteorology/atmospheric sciences education.

Vermont Business Magazine Northern Power Systems Corp (TSX: NPS), a next generation renewable energy technology company known for its stand-alone wind power systems, today announced that its flagship distributed generation wind platform is available to businesses, farms and other property owners with a compelling financing solution. Northern Power Systems is now offering a lease program to allow users to take advantage of wind energy with 100 percent financing, and no increase of payments during the lease period. According to the US. Energy Information Agency (www.eia.gov), US electricity prices are forecasted to increase every year by at least 2.7% in the next 20-30 years, surpassing the expected rate of inflation.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont is seeking 15 small business owners to participate in the Small Business Administration’s Emerging Leaders Initiative that will give them a three-year, tailored strategic growth plan for their businesses. The SBA’s Emerging Leaders Initiative is free and its the only federal training specifically tailored for small business executives poised for growth. The program provides firms with the organizational structure, resource network, and assistance needed to build a sustainable business of size and scale. It begins in April 2016 at Vermont Technical College in Williston and class is held in the late afternoon every other week through October.

Vermont Business Magazine Valener Inc (TSX: VNR)(TSX:VNR.PR.A) has announced that it has requested a withdrawal of its Standard & Poor's corporate credit rating following a methodology change that resulted in what it views as an unjustified downgrade by the rating agency. Valener is the investment vehicle for Gaz Metro, which owns Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas Systems. As a result of the application of new criteria set forth by S&P when rating companies with one or two non-controlling equity interests ("NCEI"), Valener's corporate credit rating was downgraded from BBB+ to BB+ earlier today.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Youth Conservation Corps just received a $3,500 grant from International Paper Foundation in support of youth development and conservation programming. VYCC has been offering employment and training to youth, ages 16-24, since 1985. Young people work in small crews on public lands across the state. They learn to work as a team, to take personal responsibility for their actions, and to value the importance of environmental conservation through high-priority projects. Many of these projects improve the health of Vermont’s watersheds. The International Paper Foundation has consistently supported VYCC programming since 1997, as a result of the Ticonderoga Mill operation on Lake Champlain’s western shore. Frequently, funds go towards projects that directly improve the health of Lake Champlain. 

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont wild turkey hunters had safe and successful spring and fall hunting seasons in 2015, according to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. A total of 5,874 turkeys were taken by hunters during Vermont’s three hunting seasons – the spring youth hunt, the regular May spring season, and the fall hunt. Young turkey hunters mentored by experienced hunters took 510 bearded turkeys, which are almost always males, during the youth turkey hunt on the weekend before the regular spring season. Hunters took 4,460 bearded turkeys in the May 1-31 regular spring turkey season. Fall turkey hunting during October and November produced 904 male and female turkeys.