Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Castleton University student journalists are teaming up with University of Vermont students to provide news stories for local papers that otherwise might not get written. Funded by a $2,000 grant through UVM, Castleton students will be working with Castleton resident and former New York Times freelancer Martha Molnar to report and write stories that will be published in the Rutland Herald, Mountain Times, and Lake Region Free Press. The stories will also be published simultaneously on the Community News Service web page on the UVM website.

Vermont Business Magazine As demanded by Burlington Miro Weinberger, CityPlace Burlington developers have met the city’s first set of demands to get the long-delayed project back on track. Brookfield Properties (BTC Mall Associates LLC), at the City Council meeting Monday night, presented a new, sketched-out development plan that they say is less expensive than the $220 million plan previously proposed by former Developer Don Sinex. The scaled back plan also drops the controversial height of the project from 14 stories to 10. It also retains the former Macy's building, which will be redeveloped as a mixed use commercial/retail/office space. The existing mall space, which is largely vacant and accesses Church Street, also will be redeveloped but will remain a mall, if much smaller than before. Meanwhile, the envisioned reconnection of St Paul and Pine streets will continue to be part of the new plans.

​Vermont Business Magazine Super Thin Saws (STS), a Waterbury-based tool manufacturer, recently received a grant totaling $39,839.75 from the Vermont Training Program (VTP). The funding from VTP will be used to help prepare the company for the retirement of two key salespeople. STS has unique product offerings and a niche customer base, making finding qualified applicants within the state a challenge. STS will train 22 of its employees in areas of leadership development, growth planning, and principles of lean manufacturing. Through these trainings, employees will receive the technical experience they need to help the company continue to grow.

Vermont Business Magazine Smugglers’ Notch Resort enters its 15th year being recognized as exceptional for family-forward vacations, according to the prestigious SKI Magazine Reader Resorts Survey. Readers attest Smugglers’ kid-centric activities and gentle slopes with on-hill lodging, combined with some of the East’s best, steepest, and most-expansive tree skiing, make for the perfect harmonization of ski and snowboard opportunities for pleasing the vacationing family’s dynamic. The Resort also brings home the top award for Service and Local Flavor, as well as remaining the number one resort Overall in the Eastern United States.

Vermont Business Magazine NBT Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ: NBTB) reported net income and diluted earnings per share Monday for both the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019. The Board of Directors of the Norwich, NY-based bank also approved a fourth-quarter 2019 cash dividend of $0.27 per share at a meeting held Monday. The dividend, which represents a $0.01, or 3.8%, increase, will be paid on December 13, 2019 to shareholders of record as of November 29, 2019. They also authorized a stock repurchase plan of up to 1 million shares. NBT has branches in Northwestern Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine ReArch Company just announced another $5,000 donation for 2019, to the United Way of Addison County. ReArch has donated $5,000 per year since 2016. Owner and founder, John Illick resides in Middlebury and served on their board for several years. 

Vermont Business Magazine Montpelier-based National Life Group, one of the nation’s fastest growing group of life insurance companies, has enhanced its suite of industry-leading indexed universal life (IUL) products. The new FlexLife IUL is designed to meet the needs of consumers in middle America, the most underserved market in the country. And the complementary PeakLife product is designed specifically for larger policies and in many cases the needs of business customers.

Vermont Business Magazine MC10, Inc, the developer of BioStamp nPoint, an end-to-end system for physiological data collection and analytics, announced today a collaboration with the University of Vermont, a leading academic research institution. This initiative will utilize BioStamp nPoint’s biometric data captured from the lower limbs and the University of Vermont’s biomedical engineering and data science capabilities in creating methods to quantitatively track and analyze changes in gait patterns across a spectrum of disorders, including Huntington’s Disease.

New Cancer-Fighting Pond Hockey Tournament Debuts in Fairlee in 2020

Put Cancer on Ice, the newest Lake Morey Resort Pond Hockey Tournament, will support cancer research and patient supportive services at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC), a nationally recognized cancer facility serving the rural population of northern New England. This new winter event will be held on Saturday and Sunday, February 8 & 9, 2020, with check-in, a shoot-out, and entertainment starting Friday night, February 7.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Governor’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities (GCEPD) on Monday announced that Art LaPlante and Mark Royer of Barton’s EM Brown & Son Inc as the winners of the 2019 “Spirit of ADA” Award, highlighting the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in their employment practices.

“Giving every Vermonter the opportunity to pursue a meaningful career benefits both workers and employers,” said Governor Phil Scott. “EM Brown & Son has created a workplace culture that supports all employees and leverages each person’s strengths, and this award is well deserved.”

Eligible employers must meet the following criteria to be nominated:

·         Recruitment outreach and equal accessibility in the application, interviewing and hiring procedures for people with disabilities

by Don Turner I’ve previously written about how our unfunded pension liabilities are Vermont’s sleeping giant. We owe our state employees and teachers about $4.5 billion more than we have in the bank. We’ve seen two credit-rating downgrades in one year. Our “funded ratio” (the ratio of assets to liabilities) is only about 64.3 percent, below the national average. We’ve lived through years of underfunding where, until 2008, the state made payments as low as 38.4 percent of what was recommended by professional actuaries. We’re forced to spend hundreds of millions on required principal and interest that would have otherwise gone towards higher education, child care, or any number of meaningful programs. And the projected rates of return on our pension investments are still far below actual returns. These are the facts.

Vermont Business Magazine Community and business leaders turned out today for an open house at the city’s first food shelf, thanking volunteers and fundraisers for the outpouring of support to help their neighbors who struggle with hunger. The South Burlington Food Shelf opens to the public Noember 1 and expects to serve many of the households that struggle to put enough food on the table as possible.

Today’s celebration marks an unprecedented 8-month effort to see that Vermont’s second-largest city has its own food shelf for our neighbors in need, said Patrick Leduc, president of the Faith Influenced Leaders Corporation, which has spearheaded the campaign for the new food shelf.