Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont PBS is honoring National Recovery Month this September by bringing two poignant local films by Bess O’Brien to air: the award-winning The Hungry Heart, which looks at the often-hidden world of prescription drug abuse through pediatrician Dr. Fred Holmes and his patients, and Here Today, which addresses the ravaging effects of heroin addiction on Vermont families. These films will be part of a network event called The Opiate Crisis: Stories and Solutions, that will utilize these films as a way to convene discussions around the tragedy of the opiate addiction crisis and together with the Vermont community, seek solutions.

Vermont Business MagazineNational Life Group and its employees have mobilized this week to offer assistance to the people of southeast Texas in the midst of the ongoing floods caused by Hurricane Harvey.National Life is based in Montpelier and has a long-establishedoffice in Texas. The company is donating $50,000 to charities in the Houston region that are addressing immediate needs. And many of the 250 employees in the company’s Dallas office have signed up to volunteer in the relief effort, particularly at evacuation sites that have been established in north Texas.

Although National Life’s Texas operations are based in Dallas, the company also has employees and many agents who live in Houston.

Vermont Business Magazine Marathon Health, LLC, a Winooski-based provider of onsite health centers that enable employers to optimize the health of their workforce and business, today announced the addition of behavioral health counseling to its suite of services. The offering will provide mental health and wellness care to individuals, couples, and families at its worksite health centers across the country.

Vermont Business Magazine This past weekend, Governor Phil Scott attended the 41^st Annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG/ECP), an inter-regional, bi-national, trans-border organization between the six New England states and the five eastern Canadian provinces. Governor Scott served as co-chair of the three-day conference alongside Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan, and was joined by his Secretary of Commerce and Community Development Michael Schirling, Secretary of Natural Resources Julie Moore, and Commissioner of Public Service June Tierney. Vermont will host the 42^nd Annual Conference in 2018.

Vermont Business Magazine Mamava, the Burlington-based expert in designs for mamas on the go, creator of the Mamava Lactation Suite for nursing and pumping, has installed banners in the South End celebratingNational Breastfeeding Month. Mamava collaborated with Solidarity of Unbridled Labour, graphic design and brand strategy studio, and The Karma Birdhouse, the community of professional and creative culture at 47 Maple street -- home to 25+ innovative businesses.

Vermont Buisness Magazine The University of Vermont today announced the launch of its new Healthcare Management and Leadership Professional Certificate Program, with the first session of the five-seminar series taking place this fall. The program is designed to prepare health and human services professionals with practical hands-on tools, techiques, and templates to succeed in this dynamic field.

“Informed, innovative leaders are needed more than ever to help identify ways to promote healthcare affordability and ensure that Americans have access to needed care,” said Catherine Hamilton, Ph.D., instructor in UVM’s Healthcare Management and Leadership Professional Certificate Program. “Strong healthcare managers are essential in shaping a better future for all the stakeholders of the healthcare system, and UVM’s Professional Certificate program is a critical resource for leadership and scholarship in the field of healthcare management.”

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Foodbank has released The State of Senior Hunger in America in 2015, a study about food insecurity among seniors in the US produced by Feeding America and released in partnership with the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger (NFESH). The report shows that nationally, 5.4 million seniors age 60 or older (8.1 percent) were food insecure in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. In Vermont, 7.5 percent of seniors were food insecure. Food insecurity refers to the lack of access to enough nutritious food.

Vermont Business MagaineThe FDA is right – when it comes to disease culprits, cigarette smoking tops the list. While recognized as the number-one cause of preventable disease and death, it’s an incredibly tough habit to break due to the addictiveness of nicotine. New research from the University of Vermont (UVM) and colleagues suggests that reducing nicotine content in cigarettes may decrease their addiction potential in especially vulnerable populations and suggests how regulatory policies could shift preferences to less-harmful tobacco products.

The study appears inJAMA Psychiatry.

by John McClaughry Among the most notable martyrs to the Clean Water Act are names that few recall: Ocie and Corey Mills, John Pozsgai, John Rapanos, and most recently, John Duarte. All of them were dragged into years-long battles with the Federal government – notably the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency – over making their own land more productive.

Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972 to regulate actions that affect the “navigable waters of the United States”. The Connecticut River and Lake Champlain are clearly navigable waterways. Environmentalists would argue that Kirby Brook, which runs from Kirby Pond into the Moose River, then into the Passumpsic River, then into the Connecticut River, is by extension a part of the “navigable waters of the United States”.

Vermont Business Magazine Community Health Centers in Vermont were recently recognized with Quality Awards from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) based upon high levels of performance in one or more of the following categories: Improving Quality of Care, Increasing Access to Care, Enhancing Delivery of High Value Health Care, Addressing Health Disparities, and Achieving Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition. The median award among the 10 Federally Qualified Health Centers receiving awards was $45,000.

“The Health Centers invest in their ongoing commitment to delivering integrated primary medical, oral and mental health care in their local communities. As designated Patient Centered Medical Homes, the Health Centers meet the most rigorous standards of care,” said Tess Stack Kuenning, CNS, MS, RN, President and CEO of Bi-State Primary Care Association. “We are proud of their well-deserved recognition.”

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation (GMEDC) was awarded a Rural Business Development Grant from USDA to create a Revolving Loan Fund for businesses affected by disasters. GMEDC closed its first loan of $15,000 on August 25^th in Hartford, VT to DJ Enterprises/AC Lawn Mowing following extensive storm damage July 1. Water, mud, stone ballast and debris from the railroad embankment above their property on Old River Road in White River Junction crushed their main building, forcing cancellation of their business operations and vacated several tenants. The well-known local owners, Chuck and Alicia Gordon, were visited by Governor Scott and Commissioner of Labor Lindsay Kurrle the next day to view the devastation first hand. They assured the Gordons that Commissioner Kurrle would remain in contact afterward to work with federal, state and local agencies and help get them back on their feet.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott today issued the following statement: “Six years ago, Vermont faced one of its most impactful natural disasters when Tropical Storm Irene caused major flooding across the state.