Current News

Recognized as the second largest bakery-café company worldwide, French-based Groupe Le Duff has announced the creation of Le Duff America to manage its North American café brands, which includes la Madeleine Country French Café, Vermont-based Bruegger’s Bagels, Timothy’s World Coffee and Brioche Dorée. The new organization will allow its North American brands to combine their expertise, maximize synergies and better position them for future growth. Le Duff America will serve as the umbrella organization and provide overall expertise and support in areas, such as human resources, purchasing, finance, franchise development and real estate, allowing the bakery-cafés to focus on delivering an extraordinary experience for their guests.
In addition, Le Duff America also named its new leadership team, which will be led by co-CEOs, Claude Bergeron and Jim Greco. Members of the new executive team include:

Governor Peter Shumlin today declared October 22 the first-ever ‘Vermont Clean Up Day’ inspired by the generosity of Vermonters helping the state recover from Tropical Storm Irene. Modeled on its springtime sister event ‘ Green Up Day ‘ the newly created Clean Up Day will ensure all Vermont families and communities impacted by the storm are prepared for the upcoming winter season.

‘I want to start by saying thank you for everyone’s outpouring of support, incredible generosity and patience at this difficult time,’ Gov. Shumlin said, speaking at a Richmond kick-off event with organizers and volunteers involved in Irene cleanup work. ‘None of us imagined the magnitude of damage Vermont would sustain but all of us knew that once the rains eased, we would all join together to begin the response, recovery and eventually rebuilding of our state.’

Darn Tough Vermont, domestic manufacturer of premium all-weather performance socks, has been awarded a contract to supply the United States Marine Corps (USMC) with 450,000 pairs of its Extreme Cold Weather Merino Wool Boot Socks, a style in the company’s Tactical sock line. The contract is worth about $3 million. According to Ric Cabot, president of Darn Tough Vermont, this latest award represents the company’s largest Tactical order to date and demonstrates its commitment to creating uncompromising products for U.S. warfighters.
US Senator Patrick Leahy, who secured a $1.6 million military contract for Darn Tough in 2008, said he was very pleased to see how Darn Tough leveraged that opportunity to create a major clothing line with a growing fan base among deployed troops fighting in harsh environments.

Derby Green in Derby, Vermont, is a small, 23 bed nursing home with a big, positive reputation that grows with every passing year. And that reputation recently grew again on May 17th when the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living (D.A.I.L) awarded the home with it eighth Quality Award since the department first awarded the honor in 1999. No other nursing home in the state has earned this prestigious award so many times.

The Blood in This Town,’ the documentary about Rutland, Vermont’s grassroots efforts to revitalize itself, travels to Capitol Hill this week for a screening and revitalization forum, bringing the plight and promise of America’s ailing small towns to the attention of national leaders and advocates. The event is hosted by the Northeast-Midwest Institute in cooperation with US Rep Peter Welch’s office, the Rockefeller Foundation, Great Jones Productions and the German-Marshall Fund. It will take place on Thursday, October 13 from 6:00 - 9:00pm at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

Control room operators began removing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station from service Saturday night (October 8) to begin its 29th refueling and maintenance outage. The shutdown of the Vernon plant will mark the completion of the plant’s 29th operating cycle. The plant began commercial operation in 1972. According to published reports, the fuel will cost $65 million and the work will cost another $35 million for a total cost of about $100 million.

As Vermont’s climate becomes warmer and wetter, and in the wake of extreme weather events like Tropical Storm Irene, elected officials and policy-makers are increasingly asking for predictive tools to inform policy and land-use decisions.
At a press conference held Oct. 7 at the University of Vermont, US Senator Patrick J Leahy joined UVM president John Bramley to announce a new grant from the National Science Foundation to Vermont EPSCoR that will bring innovative, cutting-edge research to decision-makers, placing Vermont at the forefront of states focused on skillful, informed public policy creation and judgments in a changing world.
The $20 million competitive grant, the largest in UVM history, centers on the Lake Champlain Basin and brings together Vermont higher education institutions, state agencies, non-profit groups and the private sector through Vermont EPSCoR, the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

The Vermont Department of Labor is pleased to announce that the US Department of Labor has approved Vermont’s request to extend the filing deadline for Individual Disaster Unemployment Assistance to November 21, 2011.
The previous filing deadline for individuals for individuals in Addison, Bennington, Caledonia, Chittenden, Orange, Rutland, Washington, Windham, and Windsor was October 7, 2011 and for individuals in Franklin, Lamoille and Orleans Counties the deadline was October 21, 2011. The US Department of Labor notified Vermont today that they have approved Vermont’s request to extend the filing deadlines for all of the counties that were declared a disaster area as a result of the effects of Tropical Storm Irene.

The US Small Business Administration announced today that a recovery center will open at the Brattleboro Development Credit Center inBrattleboro on Tuesday, October 11 at 8 a.m. to assist individuals and businesses affected by Hurricane Irene.
"Due to the amount of physical and economic losses caused by Hurricane Irene in Vermont, we want to make it more convenient for victims to get assistance by opening a SBA recovery center. Survivors can meet individually with SBA representatives and find out how a low-interest disaster loan can help them recover," said Frank Skaggs, director of SBA's Field Operations Center East in Atlanta.
The Center is located in the following community and open as indicated:
Windham County

Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation
76 Cotton Mill Hill, 2nd Floor
Brattleboro, VT 05301
Opens: Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Hours: 8 a.m. ‘ 5 p.m., Monday through Friday,
until further notice.

Vermont Business Magazine issued the following correction related to a story on FairPoint Communications in its October 2011 issue:
‘A photo caption from 2009 was mistakenly attached to a photo on page 43 in the October 2011 issue that indicated that regulators are questioning FairPoint's continued operation. That is not the case. The accompanying article discusses FairPoint’s response to Tropical Storm Irene and its future plans and should not have contained outdated and incorrect information. We regret the error."
Timothy McQuiston, Editor. 10.7.2011

There were 572 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance last week. This is a decrease of 36 from the week before, as new claims fell for the thrid consecutive week following a two-week spike in claims resulting from Tropical Storm Irene. The week prior to the storm saw a seasonal low of fewer than 500 claims. Altogether 5,787 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 194 from a week ago and 1,475 fewer than a year earlier. The Department also processed 1,412 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 31 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 722 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is 5 fewer than the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development today awarded two grants in Vermont totaling $449,987 to Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity and Vermont Legal Aid, Inc to assist people who believe they have been victims of housing discrimination.
Nationally, HUD awarded $28 million. The grants announced today are funded through HUD’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) and will be used to investigate allegations of housing discrimination, and work to promote equal housing opportunities. (See below for breakdown of VT funding)
‘The Obama Administration is committed to ending housing discrimination, and these grants enable local fair housing and community organizations all over the nation to help HUD enforce the Fair Housing Act, and make people more aware of their fair housing rights,’ stated HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.