Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Hill Farmstead Brewery has been named Best Brewery in the World for the year 2017, as well as Best Brewery in the United States and Vermont, by RateBeer, the world’s largest, most popular beer review and rating website. This is the fourth year in a row and the fifth time in the past six years that the brewery has been honored as Best Brewery in the World, United States and Vermont. Hill Farmstead was the only Vermont brewer to make the Top 100. Eight Hill Farmstead beers were included in the Top 100 beers in the world. The Alchemist's Heady Topper was the only other Vermont beer so honored for 2017.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center and many of its resource partner are hosting ExporTech Spring 2018 from March to May at the Hampton Inn in Colchester. ExporTech provides three full-day classes, plus individualized coaching and a review by experts of the customized EXPORT PLAN that will be developed specifically for your company. This program will help accelerate profitable export sales, save you many hours of work and help avoid unnecessary costs and potential headaches.

Vermont State Police On January 30, 2018, Troopers from the Vermont State Police, Rutland Barracks conducted a motor vehicle stop on Vermont Route 103 in the Town of Mount Holly (VT) for a speeding violation. The operator was identified as Kevin Burnham (49). Troopers also identified Deana Burnham and Keeghan Burnham (25) as passengers in the vehicle. (VSP did not identify the relationship of the Burnhams).

Troopers obtained consent to search the vehicle to further their investigation into the possibility of criminal activity. Based on the information obtained during the traffic stop Troopers authored and subsequently were granted a search warrant for Kevin Burnham’s residence in Proctor.

Renewable Energy Vermont Residents of the Green Mountain State are committed to self-reliance and clean energy, however, a keystone program enabling Vermonters to generate their own renewable energy and keep their dollars local has languished, resulting in lost economic opportunity. Net metering allows Vermonters the freedom to generate their own renewable energy while also supporting their friends, neighbors, and communities. Following a major overhaul to the program in January 2017, Vermont is seeing a dramatic decline in new net metered solar projects.

Vermont Business Magazine Some of Vermont’s largest and oldest office buildings are now also among the state’s greenest. In late December 2017 the United States Green Building Council awarded the State Office Complex in Waterbury, Vermont its highest honor: LEED Platinum. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, commonly referred to as LEED, is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. The points-based system evaluates buildings across several categories designed to improve human well-being, reduce our environmental footprint, and save building owners money.

Vermont Business Magazine We’re a little less than a week away from the 2017 Census of Agriculture response deadline of Monday, February 5th. Producers should respond online at www.agcounts.usda.gov or by mail. The online questionnaire offers new timesaving features. Every five years brings an important event for Vermont farmers and the agricultural community across the country. Conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the census aims to get a complete and accurate picture of American agriculture. The census results are then used by farmers, ranchers, trade associations, researchers, policymakers, and many others to help make decisions in community planning, farm assistance programs, technology development, farm advocacy, agribusiness setup, rural development, and more.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Electric Co-op (VEC) is seeking members in several towns in and around Chittenden County to help test a cutting-edge energy management technology that’s designed to make the electric grid cleaner, cheaper, and easier to run. Under the pilot, technicians would install a device – developed by Vermont start-up Packetized Energy – on members’ water heaters that would tell the water heater to heat water when electricity is plentiful and to avoid times when it’s scarce. The technology, contained in a device a little bigger than a soda can, does not change the supply or availability of hot water to VEC members.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Foodbank and Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf (CEFS) are excited to announce the 24^th graduation ceremony for the Community Kitchen Academy (CKA) program in Burlington. Through this intensive culinary job training program, students develop and apply new skills by cooking with donated food from the community. They work closely with instructors to transform this food and create meals that are then distributed back to neighbors facing hunger, all while gaining valuable job skills.

“Each student is passionate about food and that is reflected in their cooking,” says CKA Chef Instructor Jim Logan. “I am confident they will have an impact on the community.”

Since its inception, Community Kitchen Academy at CEFS has graduated 167 students and boasts a 91% success rate, which is defined as students graduating and finding employment or going on to further educational opportunities.

Vermont Business Magazine The bitter arctic cold snap that hit this month has many Vermonters thinking about keeping their homes and businesses warm with wood and pellet stoves, but did you know that the Vermont State Archives, home to the Constitution, is also heated with wood? Last fall the Department of Buildings and General Services (BGS) replaced the aging boilers in the State Archives in Middlesex with two new automatic Froling wood pellet boilers. This heat plant will use regionally sourced pellets to provide heat to the building that houses vital records, including the State’s constitution. It is the first part of an efficiency overhaul at the archives. The new boilers will displace 180 metric tons of CO2 equivalents annually, that’s equivalent to taking 38 cars off the road! The State will also save nearly $40,000 each year by switching from oil to pellets.

Vermont Business Magazine Norwich University officials will celebrate on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, at 12:45 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house, a complete renovation to one of the oldest buildings on campus, the College of Liberal Arts’ academic building, Ainsworth Hall. The public is invited to join President Richard W Schneider, along with Provost Dr Sandra Affenito and College Dean Ted Kohn, PhD, who will give remarks and invite faculty back into the building after seven-and-a-half months of construction costing $4.8 million.

Ainsworth Hall houses faculty offices and classrooms for Norwich’s Academic Achievement Center and the Peace and War Center as well as the departments of History and Political Science and Justice Studies and Sociology.

Senator Patrick Leahy Under this President, the State of our Union is suddenly tenuous, in many ways. President Trump can say he’s for uniting instead of dividing the nation. He’s said it before. But after a year of intensely divisive actions, petty insults and disgraceful race-baiting, those words ring hollow by now. Nor does doubling down on his broken promises to help struggling Americans sound as convincing as it once might have.

Vermont Business Magazine At the opening of the 2018 Legislative Session, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) charged each committee with working on legislation within their jurisdiction that lessens Vermont’s dependence on fossil fuels and sets Vermont up for a stronger, more resilient future. She called for solutions that work for our economy, and that protect low-income and rural Vermonters. Today, the House preliminarily approved H410, The Appliance Efficiency Bill on a vote of 137-4. This bill proposes to amend current Vermont energy efficiency standards for appliances and equipment to include additional products that currently do not fall under federal energy efficiency standards.