Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Camus Energy, Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC), and FlexCharging announced today a new electric vehicle (EV) management program to expand demand flexibility and protect critical grid infrastructure. By integrating FlexCharging’s telematics and recruitment capabilities with Camus’s grid orchestration platform, VEC aims to engage 75% of its members’ electric vehicles in the utility’s managed charging program, lowering costs for all of its 33,000 members across 75 communities. The new program launched this month and complements VEC’s existing EV charger installation and enrollment program with a more flexible, lower-cost approach. The use of telematics expands the range of eligible vehicles to 23 electric vehicle manufacturers and reduces EV enrollment costs for the cooperative.

Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center Training and learning events enhance performance, innovation, engagement and motivation. Our publicly scheduled events have been designed to boost you or your teams’ skills for a variety of manufacturing-focused opportunities. Launched last summer, the Supply Chain Optimization and Intelligence Network (SCOIN) expands the MEP National Network’s scope from working primarily with individual companies to taking a more comprehensive approach to manufacturing supply chains. The initiative will help establish new MEP service offerings to provide manufacturers with what they need to improve existing supply chain networks and fill gaps in the supply chain.

Vermont Business Magazine Blue Spruce Health is opening a Direct Primary Care (DPC) office in Williston. Building on the success of existing offices in Newport and St Johnsbury, Blue Spruce Health's expansion aims to offer Vermont residents convenient access to quality care. Scheduled to open its doors in March at 31 Market Street, Suite 2, the Williston office is located at the Union Bank building.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott, the Department of Economic Development (DED) and the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA) today announced the first round of Venture Capital Program investments thanks to Vermont’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). The Venture Capital Program is allocating nearly $29 million to venture capital funds to help Vermont entrepreneurs and business startups. Venture Capital Program recipients will use the SSBCI funds on seed fund investments; leveraging accelerator programs to make small investments in rural, pre-seed stage companies; and investments in high-growth, technology innovation companies in the healthcare sector. 

Vermont Business Magazine ZymoChem, the biotechnology start-up developing bio-based materials for everyday products including hygiene items and textiles, announces new investments from the Dudley Fund and the Vermont Center For Emerging Technologies. This support will contribute to job growth and the development of ZymoChem’s Burlington satellite division. ZymoChem is redesigning manufacturing with ingredients that do not come from fossil fuels, require carbon-intensive production, or persist for hundreds of years. The announcement comes as part of ZymoChem's recent closure of a $21M Series A funding round, led by Breakout Ventures with investments from Toyota Ventures and lululemon athletica, inc. Previously, ZymoChem has secured several grants from the U.S. government, including their most recent $4M award from the Department of Energy in November 2023. 

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont State Police Trooper Michelle Archer has been selected as one of four finalists across the United States and Canada for the International Association of Chiefs of Police/Motorola Solutions Trooper of the Year Award. The prestigious award “recognizes four state troopers and provincial police officers who have demonstrated bravery, courage, leadership, and professionalism in the previous year,” according to the IACP. Trooper Archer was nominated by Vermont State Police Director Col. Matthew T. Birmingham following her lifesaving rescue in December of an 8-year-old girl who had fallen through thin ice into a pond in Cambridge. “I can think of no one who is more deserving of this honor than Trooper Archer.”

Vermont Business Magazine Today, State Treasurer Mike Pieciak stood with Governor Phil Scott; Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Executive Director of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence; Ari Menard, Advocate from Cricle Vermont; and Heidi Stumpff, Vermont Regional President of M&T Bank, to announce a financial literacy partnership to support survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Governor Scott issued a proclamation recognizing Feb. 5 to Feb. 11 as Domestic and Sexual Violence Awareness Week. 

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), released today a new report detailing the rigged system that allows 'Big Pharma' to charge Americans the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. The HELP Committee Majority Staff uncovered how three U.S. pharmaceutical companies — Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb — profit at the expense of the American people. The report documents how these companies make billions of dollars by charging Americans the highest prices in the world. The profits they make selling some drugs in the U.S far exceeds the money they make in the rest of the world combined. 

Vermont Business Magazine With the average cost of full coverage car insurance increasing 26 percent over last year, you may be shopping around for a new policy. Bankrate has calculated the "true cost" of auto insurance in all 50 states and the top 26 metro statistical areas (MSAs). Vermont ($1,353) had the fifth lowest true cost in the nation when median income was factored in, while having the lowest overall average auto insurance premium ($1,353). Massachusetts (1.76%) had the lowest true cost while Louisiana (6.53%) had the highest. Florida had the highest average annual premium ($3,945). The national average cost for full coverage car insurance is $2,543 per year, or $212 per month. Drivers with minimum coverage pay an average of $740 a year, or $62 a month. 

Vermont Business Magazine Mack Molding, a leading custom plastic injection molder and supplier of contract manufacturing services, announced today the Company has expanded the press fleet at its Cavendish, Vermont, facility. The addition of a 240-ton Milacron Electric Roboshot E240 press with a shot size of 10.6 ounces, and a 125-ton Milacron Q110 Hybrid press with a shot size 9.6 ounces, brings the total number of presses at the Cavendish plant to 20. Mack’s investment of approximately $325,000 included the presses, robotics and essential infrastructure support.

by Mike Del Trecco, CEO of Vermont Association of Hospitals & Health Systems For our hospitals, the core mission is simple: preserving and increasing equitable access to quality care in rural Vermont. Meeting this mission is the tricky part. We are attending to older and sicker patients with fewer resources to meet the demands for health care services. This is the time for creativity and teamwork. To succeed at meeting this mission, our hospitals need a robust and ready workforce along with effective community providers including long-term care, skilled nursing, mental health and more. It is no more complicated than that. If we fall short of this, there is no bill or payment model that will magically solve the challenges we are all attempting to make progress on. From building our budgets to building new partnerships, everything we do as a hospital system, one that is fully non-profit, focuses on how we get closer and closer to meeting our core mission.

Vermont Business Magazine Rutland Regional Medical Center has been designated as a Blue Distinction Centers for Maternity Care by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont (Blue Cross VT) as part of the Blue Distinction Specialty Care program. The Blue Distinction Centers play a key role in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s (BCBSA) National Health Equity Strategy aimed at reducing racial health disparities across the care spectrum and improving maternal health outcomes. Based on data from the current designation cycle, facilities designated under the Maternity Care program demonstrate higher-quality care compared to non-Blue Distinction Center facilities, with overall average rates of 26% lower episiotomies, 60% fewer elective deliveries and 17% lower cesarean births—all of which point to healthier outcomes for birthing patients and their babies.