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Vermont Business Magazine You’ve heard of a barn raising, but how about a bat condo raising? That’s what happened today in Colchester, when Green Mountain Power partnered with Vermont Departments of Fish and Wildlife and Forests, Parks, and Recreation, and ctiizens, to install a new “bat condo” to give endangered little brown bats a safe habitat and help their recovery in Vermont.

The bat condo was designed and created by Joe Gardner, who funded, built, and donated the structure, with assistance from Barry Genzlinger, bat house designer and licensed bat rehabilitator. It looks like a monitor barn set on top of power poles and will provide shelter to thousands of bats, provide a spot for raising young and provide safety from predators.

Vermont Business Magazine The Safari Club International (SCI) Foundation recently awarded the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department a $50,000 grant in support of an ongoing three-year study the department is conducting on the state's moose herd. The organization awards grants to "projects with strong potential to contribute to the sustainable management of natural resources or the advance of constructive wildlife research." SCI Foundation has supported other moose research in the Northeast, including New Hampshire's initial project.

Vermont's moose herd has faced an outbreak of a parasite known as winter ticks in recent years, challenging moose conservation efforts in the state. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department initiated study in January to investigate death rates and causes of mortality of cow and calf moose, and to compare their results to similar moose studies in New Hampshire and Maine.

Vermont Business Magazine BioTek Instruments will be recognized as a 2017 Vermont Business Growth Award winner at a ceremony to be held September 12, 2017, at The Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center, in Burlington, VT. This award is sponsored by Vermont Business Magazine and KeyBank, and is presented to the five Vermont businesses that have experienced the greatest growth over the past five years in various business categories.

BioTek will be recognized as one of the winners in the Technology category for the company’s 28.3% growth over the past five years. This is the sixth time that the company has received this award.

Vermont Business MagazineThe Brattleboro Retreat has appointed Arthur WNichols as the hospital’s new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). “We’re excited to bring in a person of Art’s caliber,” said Louis Josephson, president and chief executive officer. “The Retreat is getting a great leader who I know will play a key role in helping us achieve the financial goals we have set out in our new strategic plan.”

Vermont Business MagazineGreen Mountain Power has partnered with Vermont Departments of Fish and Wildlife and Forests, Parks, and Recreation, and ctiizens, to install a new “bat condo” to give endangered little brown bats a safe habitat and help their recovery in Vermont. The bat condo was designed and created by Joe Gardner, who funded, built, and donated the structure, with assistance from Barry Genzlinger, bat house designer and licensed bat rehabilitator. It looks like a monitor barn set on top of power poles and will provide shelter to thousands of bats, provide a spot for raising young and provide safety from predators.

Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims slightly again last week to a typically low summer-time level. Claims had been running higher than usual for the summer, but as of last week are lower than they have been for close to two months. Claims also are lower than they were the same time last year, which had been the usual case for most weeks in 2017 until recently. For the week of July 22, 2017, there were 376 claims, down 69 from the previous week's total and 263 fewer than than they were a year ago.

Altogether 3,922 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 404 from a week ago, and 678 fewer than a year ago.

Claims during the summer usually hold at a relatively low level because of vacation hiring, until the next transition when school resumes in September.

As expected, by industry, Services reported the most claims (44 percent of the total). Manufacturing saw an increase to 24 percent of the total.

by Randolph T Holhut & Jeff Potter/The Commons, Brattleboro Months of turmoil that led to two weeks of crisis at the New England Center for Circus Arts was resolved last week with a new leadership team and the reinstatement of the nonprofit’s founders, whose firing precipitated a public outcry and a stalemate that brought NECCA’s operations to a standstill. The selection of the new leadership team was one of the key demands of a group of coaches that resigned shortly after the July 10 decision to terminate cofounders Elsie Smith and Serenity Smith Forchion.

Vermont Business Magazine Mach7 Technologies, Inc has signed a contract with Radiology Associates, PA, (RAPA) of Little Rock, AR. RAPA has served the Arkansas community for nearly 100 years, making it one of the oldest continuously operating medical practices in the US. Supporting 19 hospitals and more than 50 clinics throughout south, central and northwest Arkansas, RAPA performs over 800,000 exams a year. Looking to expand their services, RAPA wanted a solution that could scale to enable growth, fit into their existing infrastructure and provide a consistent radiologist experience.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thursday helped steer through a funding bill that rejects efforts by the Trump Administration to eliminate housing, transportation and infrastructure programs vital to communities across Vermont. The Committee Thursday approved the fiscal year 2018 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which maintains level funding for the Essential Air Service, Home Investment Partnerships, NeighborWorks and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) programs – all programs the Trump Administration’s “unbalanced and misguided” budget, according to Leahy, would have eliminated.

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont Foundation, in partnership with the UVM Medical Center Foundation, secured a record $135,692,313 in total new commitments pledged during the fiscal year that concluded on June 30, 2017. This achievement marks the fourth year in a row that the UVM Foundation has set a new institutional record for total commitments to support the University of Vermont and the UVM Medical Center.

Commitments include new gifts, pledges, bequests and gifts-in-kind documented during the fiscal year. The prior record at UVM for commitments was $76,758,513 (established in fiscal year 2016), representing an increase this year of almost 77 percent.

Cash receipts – new one-time gifts, payments on pledges and realized estate gifts – in fiscal year 2017 totaled $46,917,902, the second-highest amount during the Move Mountains capital campaign.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott has requested federal disaster funds to assist communities in up to seven Vermont counties in paying for repairs to public infrastructure damaged in severe storms on June 29 through July 1. Communities in Addison, Bennington, Caledonia, Orange, Rutland, Washington, and Windsor counties sustained damages that meet or exceed minimum thresholds to qualify for a Public Assistance disaster declaration.

“I commend state and town road crews for their hard work on repairs to ensure safe passage for Vermonters and visitors,” said Gov. Scott.“The bill for that work will be significant and, in many cases, would be detrimental to annual public works budgets.This storm has clearly placed a financial burden on towns and a federal disaster declaration is warranted.”

Vermont Business Magazine The initial budget submissions by Vermont’s 14 non-profit hospitals continue the trend toward aligning health spending more closely with general economic growth, according to data made public today by the Green Mountain Care Board. This fiscal year, FY18, the submissions of an aggregate Net Patient Revenue (NPR) of 3.6% (just over the 3.4% target set bythe Board; the difference equates to $4.7 million or .19% of a $2.5 billion
hospital health care system in Vermont) indicate historically low rates of growth, a continued downward trend, and are in line with the GMCB's hospital budget instructions for FY18. The proposed weighted average of 2.4% is the second lowest submitted growth rate in 17 years, and follows last year’s historic 2.2% submitted rate.