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The Vermont Democratic Party announced today the winners of this year’s David W Curtis Leadership Awards. The recipients are Chittenden County State's Attorney TJ Donovan; Agency of Transportation Secretary Sue Minter; and Rutland County Democratic Chair Kathy Hall. The presentation will be on June 19th at the 16th Annual David W Curtis Awards at the Burlington Sheraton with special guest speaker DNC Chair Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL 23rd District).

Thomas J. Donovan, Jr

Vermont SBA A woman’s clothing store located on Main Street in Montpelier has been opened for about a year and its owner is only 27 years old. Sarah DeFelice started Bailey Road, named after her grandparents’ farm in Northfield Vt., because she wanted something to call her own and felt she had the experience to do so.

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has been recognized with six awards from three separate organizations to honor achievements in health care marketing and communications. In April, BMH and its partnering agency Jennings Health Care Marketing won a Gold as well as a Silver Award at the 32nd Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards, sponsored by the Healthcare Marketing Report. The awards recognized BMH’s “Rapid Care” campaign for the hospital’s Emergency Department.

“We were fortunate to have the chance to work with a high caliber organization and have our work recognized in this distinguished healthcare award competition,” said Dan Dunlop, Principal with Jennings. The Healthcare Marketing Report’s competition is the oldest, largest and most widely respected advertising awards competition in the country and one of the ten largest of all advertising awards. BMH’s campaign was chosen from a pool of 3,500 entries.

The University of Vermont Medical Center has received a record nine awards to recognize its leadership in practicing environmentally responsible health care from Practice Greenhealth, (PGH) a leading national association devoted to that mission. Runner-up was the Cleveland Clinic with seven awards.

This is the 6th year in a row UVM Medical Center has been selected by PGH for its top awards, which recognize health care facilities that set the highest standards for environmental practices. Special recognition was given this year to “greening” operating rooms, energy efficiency projects and sustainable food service. (See full list of awards below.)

Highlights

Green Mountain Power & NRG, a Fortune 250 company, today opened a new public electric vehicle charging station in Rutland to help electric vehicle owners save money and charge up more quickly. The chargers are conveniently located downtown on Cottage Street and are the first “Freedom Stations” to be installed in Vermont in partnership with NRG EVgo, and represent the first comprehensive electric vehicle charging network in New England. GMP and EVgo plan to install 12 Freedom Stations statewide this year, increasing Vermont’s energy independence and contributing to cleaner air and lower carbon emissions.

VTel today introduced 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) Internet available to every VTel home. VTel’s new 10 Gig residential Internet has been made possible by an $85 million VTel telephone network award from the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS). This RUS project is expected to be complete by June 30, 2015, on budget and on schedule, VTel said in a statement.

“We were proud four years ago to initiate first-in-Vermont 1 Gigabit Internet, at a billion-bits-per-second, at $35 a month” said VTel Chief Technology Officer Justin Robinson. “We’re even more delighted today to announce first-in-Vermont 10 Gbps Internet.”

Governor Peter Shumlin today signed into law consumer protection legislation to crack down on rent-to-own enterprises that target lower and middle income Vermonters. Rent-to-own stores market to lower and middle income individuals with troubled credit histories by promising a no-interest, hassle-free way to own consumer electronics, furniture, and other household items. The rent-to-own model works by giving consumers products upfront in exchange for a small monthly rental fee, which, if paid for the duration of the contract period can result in ownership. That small monthly rental fee can add up, however, inflating the cost of some products by 300 to 400 percent. And with only 25 percent of rent-to-own transactions actually leading to ownership, many consumers may find themselves paying full price or more for a product they won’t own.

Representative Peter Welch (D-Vermont) has joined 21 House colleagues in urging the US Food and Drug Administration to compel manufacturers to more clearly convey the serious risks associated with the use of opioid pain relievers. Currently, only extended-release and long-acting opioids have prominently displayed warnings, known as “black box warnings,” that indicate the significant potential for abuse, overdose, addiction, and neonatal abstinence syndrome. Welch and his colleagues asked that these same warnings be placed on immediate release opioids, which have the same risks and accounted for over 90 percent of the opioids prescribed in the United States in 2009, according to FDA.

Perk Perkins, CEO of The Orvis Company Inc, today announced the selection of William R McLaughlin as the outdoor retailer's new president, to succeed Raymond G McCready who will retire later this year. A former PepsiCo executive and CEO of Select Comfort Corporation of Minneapolis, McLaughlin will assume the post July 27.

"Bill is a proven leader with a passion for brand-building and customer-centric retail experiences," Perkins said. "He fits our company culture like a glove. Bill's leadership style, personal connection to the outdoors, and commitment to innovation and customer service all beautifully align to our company's purpose, personality and guiding beliefs."

by Governor Peter Shumlin Dear Friends, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the support you have shown me. It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as governor of Vermont.

When we started on this journey four and a half years ago, this state was a much different place. Unemployment was on the rise, businesses were shedding jobs, and Vermonters were struggling. With your help, I was elected on the promise that together we would get tough things done to turn this economy around and make it work for every single Vermonter.

STORY: Governor Shumlin will not seek re-election

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced bipartisan legislation to extend and significantly improve the job-creating immigrant investor visa program, known as EB-5, which is set to expire in September. Leahy introduced the bill with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

The American Job Creation and Investment Promotion Reform Act would reauthorize the EB-5 Regional Center program for five years and provide an overhaul of reforms to improve the program’s integrity. Since launching in 1993, the EB-5 Regional Center program has generated billions of dollars in capital investment and created tens of thousands of jobs across the country. Leahy said that although certain projects have experienced problems in recent years, it is worth fixing the EB-5 program as it has transformed local economies in impoverished areas as well as in rural states like Vermont.

Vermont was recently approved by the New England Board of Higher Education to join the New England State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (N-SARA). Vermont joins 23 other states nationally (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming) as a member of SARA.

SARA is an initiative that will make distance-education courses more accessible to students across state lines and make it easier for states to regulate and institutions to participate in interstate distance education.

"Vermont will be a critical part of an expanding network of proactive states that are working together to benefit students, to strengthen institutions' online program provision and support quality assurance and consumer protection," said NEBHE President and CEO Michael K. Thomas.