Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The Brattleboro Retreat announced today that Tom Huebner, recently retired President of Rutland Regional Medical Center (RRMC) and Rutland Regional Health Services (the hospital’s parent corporation), has been elected to the hospital’s Board of Trustees. Huebner joined RRMC in 1990 as Vice President overseeing systems development and planning. From 1997 to March of 2018 he served as the Medical Center's president. Prior to that he served as Executive Vice President at Choate-Symmes Health Services, Inc in Woburn, MA, also held positions as Senior Consultant for the Massachusetts Hospital Association and as Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Public Health in Massachusetts.

Vermont Business Magazine Widely hailed as a key victory for transparency and open access to information, Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports will be made freely available to the public for the first time beginning Tuesday. The change in policy was directed by appropriations provisions authored by Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). The Leahy legislation was signed into law in March.

A legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS issues or updates more than 3000 reports each year on topics ranging from the structure of government agencies, to summaries of legislative proposals and other policy analyses. Previous restrictions prevented these taxpayer-funded reports from being directly distributed to the public, but third-party for-profit companies often made them available to lobbyists for hefty subscription fees.

Vermont Business Magazine The family of Janet Jillson recently presented the Foley Cancer Center with a generous donation in her memory. The money was raised through the second annual Janet Jillson Memorial Golf Tournament that took place on August 14^th at the Skene Valley Country Club in Whitehall, NY. Members of Janet’s family gathered together at Rutland Regional Medical Center on September 14, 2018 for the official check presentation. To date, the tournament has raised a total of $25,000 to benefit the Foley Cancer Center.

“We are very grateful to the Foley Cancer Center for the wonderful care they provided to Janet, and wanted to give back to them,” said Jay Jillson, Janet’s husband.

Vermont Business Magazine The Agency of Education this week announced its endorsement of the National Center for Construction Education and Research’s (NCCER) “Introductory Craft Skills” curriculum (www.nccer.org). The NCCER curriculum is used across the nation in education and training programs, by schools, colleges and employers’ in-house training programs. It culminates in stackable credentials and is being implemented this fall in all regional career technical education (CTE) center construction trades programs as part of a larger state initiative to develop career pathways in construction.

​Vermont Business Magazine This month Gifford’s Kingwood Health Center became the first Orange County distribution site for free naloxone, also known by brand name Narcan, the medication that, when taken properly, saves lives by rapidly reversing opioid overdoses. Opioids, which include heroin as well as pain relievers like oxycodone and morphine, are highly addictive drugs that can cause death by overdose. Last year, “there were 101 accidental and undetermined opioid-related fatalities among Vermont residents,” reported the Vermont Department of Health, “up from 96 in 2016 and 74 in 2015.”

Vermont Business Magazine For decades, firefighters had been using a certain type of foam to fight fires. While this foam helped save lives, state regulators recently discovered per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Type B Aqueous Film Forming Foam, known as AFFF. PFAS is a toxic chemical that impacts human health and the environment. To protect firefighters, communities, and drinking water supplies, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Division of Fire Safety are working alongside fire departments to safely dispose of this foam and transition to a new foam.

Any Fire Department with less than 220 pounds of foam (approximately five 5-gallon pails) can make an appointment to drop these containers off at any of the following locations:

Vermont Business Magazine Raising Expectations, a report released Monday by the National Partnership for Women & Families, gives Vermont a grade of “B” for providing basic workplace protections that go beyond federal law to allow working people to meet their personal or family caregiving responsibilities. The new report analyzes state laws and regulations governing paid and unpaid leave in the United States and assigns grades to 50 states and the District of Columbia. Half the states got a "D" or "F." The study determined that those states are doing little or nothing beyond what federal law requires.

Vermont Business Magazine After parting ways with Procter & Gamble on July 1, Paul and Barbi Schulick, founders of the P&G subsidiary New Chapter, have announced their next venture, byOM life, LLC in Dummerston. Thirty-five years ago, Paul Schulick's vitamin and herbal formulations initiated a paradigm shift in the natural products industry towards fermentation and whole food supplementation. Now, Schulick plans to use the brand byOM to radically innovate botanical skin care while simultaneously preparing for a return to the nutraceuticals market in the summer of 2020.

Vermont Business Magazine Kinney Pike Insurance has acquired Parker Insurance Agency located in White River Junction. As part of the merger, Parker Insurance Agency will relocate to Kinney Pike’s White River Junction office at 1011 North Main Street. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vermont Business Magazine More than half of Vermonters own something worth tens of thousands of dollars buried in their backyard, yet most never lay eyes on it. These unseen treasures lurking just below the surface are wastewater treatment systems, commonly known as septic systems. Acknowledging that it is easy to flush it and forget it, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is kicking off Septic Smart Week September 17-23, 2018. The entire week is dedicated to uncovering the valuable role these systems play, not only for individual homeowners and business owners, but for local community swimming holes, drinking water wells, and statewide water quality.

Vermont Business Magazine All 10 Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), on Monday urged Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to postpone Thursday’s vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, to allow the FBI to investigate Christine Blasey Ford's allegations and follow up on what they describe as Kavanaugh’s false and misleading committee testimony. Ford has accused Kavanaugh of physical and sexual assault, an accusation he vehemently denies.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont State Police barracks across Vermont will begin accepting “bump-fire stocks” from the public effective immediately following passage of new firearms-related laws earlier this year. Act 94 amends Vermont state law to prohibit the possession of bump-fire stocks. Under the new law, possession of a bump-fire stock is punishable by up to one year in prison and $1,000 in fines.

State statute defines the devices as “a butt stock designed to be attached to a semiautomatic firearm and intended to increase the rate of fire achievable with the firearm to that of a fully automatic firearm by using the energy from the recoil of the firearm to generate a reciprocating action that facilitates the repeated activation of the trigger.”

The law directs the Department of Public Safety to collect bump-fire stocks from persons who want to voluntarily and anonymously relinquish bump-fire stocks.