Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power and VSECU are teaming up to offer GMP customers access to VSECU’s VGreen loans, with interest rates as low as 4.9 percent. The financing option will help more Vermonters transform and switch to hyper-efficient heating and cooling systems that can save energy and reduce a home’s carbon footprint.

Vermont Business Magazine The House this afternoon failed to get a vote on a re-worked Governor Scott's veto of the budget, despite stripping out what the Democratic leadership called all areas of contention regarding funds for public education. As VPR reported yesterday, Speaker Mitzi Johnson and Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe amended the budget, which passed the Appropriations Committee without dissent. However, needing 101 to suspend rules in the House to allow a vote on the re-worked budget, Johnson could muster only 82 votes to 52 against. If Republicans hold together they hold enough votes to prevent a two-thirds majority to suspend rules or succeed in an override. The governor wants to use $60 million in surplus funds to offset any need to raise the property tax, while Democrats maintain that using one-time money for an ongoing expenditure is bad policy and misuse of those funds.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and Senator Patrick Leahy were joined by local, regional, and state partners to celebrate the ground breaking of LEDdynamics’ new home. The new 27,600-square-foot facility will allow the rapidly growing Randolph-based manufacturer of Light Emitting Diode (LED) products to double its workforce. The governor and senator announced nearly $1.5 million in state and federal assistance to support the project, the largest being a $1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to the Town of Randolph. The federal grant will help Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation (GMEDC) purchase the Beanville Road property and build the new facility, which will be leased by LEDdynamics when finished in Spring 2019.

Vermont Business Magazine The Northern Vermont University-Lyndon coworking initiative in downtown Lyndonville is moving forward to stimulate the local economy with the support of a $125,000 gift over five years from NorthCountry Federal Credit Union. NorthCountry CEO Bob Morgan will present NVU President Elaine Collins with a check at an event 3-4 p.m. Thursday at the former Bag Balm building at 320 Broad St. in Lyndonville, where the coworking space will be located. The event is open to the public.

Vermont Business Magazine The State of Vermont, Department of Economic Development, has awarded FoodScience Corporation an education and training program grant worth over $100,000. Williston-based FoodScience Corporation will match the grant and invest in developing employees. For over 30 years, Vermont Training Program (VTP) has been offering performance-based workforce training grants. This is the first year in FoodScience’s 40-year Vermont history that they have applied for and been awarded a grant from VTP.

“Attracting and retaining talented, hardworking Vermonters is a critical part of my Administration’s efforts to rebuild our workforce, which makes programs like this – which invest in employees – so valuable,” said Governor Phil Scott.

by Robert Keren; Photos by Todd Balfour, Brett Simison, and Yeager Anderson The Middlebury College Class of 2018 gave a standing ovation to author Isabel Wilkerson for her stirring Commencement address on May 27, 2018, in which she called on the graduates to express radical empathy in their lives.The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist said basic empathy does not go far enough in the "dangerously fragmented world" we live in.

Vermont Business Magazine Goddard College, a pioneer in progressive and innovative education in Plainfield, has launched a master’s-level concentration in Embodiment Studies. This concentration honors the intelligence of the body and its capacity for insight and liberation with respect to lived bodies, social bodies, and the living earth.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Lake Monsters fans will be cheering on the starting pitcher at every home game to see how fast he can throw and how much cash a lucky CHAMP’s Kids Club member will get in a 529 college savings plan. Vermont Student Assistance Corp is teaming up with the Lake Monsters to help families get a start on saving for education and training after high school. How much VSAC will deposit into a 529 college savings account will depend on how fast the first pitch is – say it’s 92 mph, then a lucky CHAMP’s Kids Club member will get $92.

Vermont Business Magazine iAnthus Capital Holdings, Inc (CSE: IAN, OTCQB: ITHUF), which owns, operates, and partners with licensed cannabis operations throughout the United States including a plant in Brandon, with plans to open a second dispensary in Williston, has announced its financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2018. All amounts expressed are in USD.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Agency of Transportation (VTrans) continue to investigate detections of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in groundwater in and around the Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport in Clarendon, they announced in a statement early Wednesday.

Vermont Business Magazine Ben & Jerry's doesn't usually let our whole fan community know every time a Scoop Shop gets a new scooper – unless they're part of a certain famously dysfunctional family, that is. We're excited to announce that Buster Bluth, the notoriously over-coddled Bluth sibling of arrested development fame, joined the Ben & Jerry's team for a day on May 17th at our Burbank Scoop Shop where he whipped up his very own sundae creation, The Bluth Banana Stand Sundae.

Vermont Business Magazine US Senator Patrick Leahy and Governor Phil Scott today joined housing and transportation advocates, local and state officials, Montpelier Mayor Anne Watson and many others to celebrate the summertime groundbreaking of the 1 Taylor Street project. The site, currently a parking lot, will become home to a ground-level transit center to provide public transportation throughout the city and the region, and serve as the Greyhound bus hub for Montpelier. In addition, 30 mixed income apartments will be built above the transit center, providing needed housing in the core of the downtown.