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Vermont Business Magazine Manufacturing Solutions Inc (MSI), a full-scale contract manufacturing, logistics, and commercial properties leasing company, has announced their firm has been tapped to produce DC Invents’ Quickeeze Sleeve Strap product. DC Invents, based in Hardwick, VT, has created a new product that makes work easier, faster, and safer. MSI provides comprehensive services up and down the supply chain, and will provide DC Invents with assembly, quality control, and unit-packing.

by Mike Smith Last week North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. President Donald Trump tweeted, “North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?” Let me answer that: “No, Mr President, he doesn’t.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is determined to develop the capability to strike the United States with nuclear weapons. My question to the president is this: “What’s our strategy to stop someone that is so focused on our destruction?”

In April the president tweeted, “I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will! USA.”

But just last week the president tweeted, “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try.”

So what happens now?

Vermont Business Magazine What can universities learn from the maker movement about teaching biology to undergraduate students? Can the world of making help universities get more creative students excited about careers in biology? The National Science Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to a team of faculty at The University of Vermont to find out.

Vermont Business MagazineTwo University of Vermont-affiliated research teams have been awarded SPARK-VT grants by the university to help commercialize their work and move it a step closer to the marketplace.UVM PhDalumnus Ryan McDevitt; his doctoral adviser, Darren Hitt, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences; and Patrick Lee, an assistant professor in the department, won for the cost-effective propulsion system for small satellites they have developed, which is poised to address the coming revolution in the miniaturized satellite market. A second team, led by Jason Botten, an assistant professor of medicine in UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, was recognized for its work to create the first therapeutic for preventing and treating a life-threatening disease caused by hantaviruses.

Vermont Business MagazineVermont tax revenue collections for the month of May 2017 were ahead of targets and the year-to-date numbers have nearly caught up with one month left in the fiscal year.The Vermont Department of Labor reported in June that the seasonally-adjusted statewide unemployment rate for May was 3.1 percent.Vermont skier visits finished this past season at nearly 4 million, well over the previous season's disappointment of 3.2 million. Falling just below 2016's record level, this past season's maple syrup production in Vermont of 1.98 million gallons is still twice the size of any other state and 46 percent of the entire production in the United States. AND MORE...

Vermont Business Magazine The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) has received an $18,000 grant from the Vermont Community Foundation’s Innovations and Collaborations grant program. This grant will help further CVOEO’s mission by supporting the Financial Empowerment for New Americans Project. Jan Demers, Executive Director of CVOEO said, “In these uncertain times for our New American neighbors, we’re grateful for this funding support, and we’re committed to continuing to scale up our services to ensure that all Vermonters have opportunities for bright financial futures.”

Vermont Business Magazine In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday, Attorney General Donovan, and a bi-partisan group of 30 Attorneys General are urging the federal government to adopt rules that would allow telephone providers to block illegal robocalls. The FCC has requested public comment on rules that would allow providers to block several types of “spoofed” calls, in which a call appears to be coming from one number, but is coming from a different number. Scammers frequently use spoofed calls to hide their identity and to trick consumers into believing that their calls are legitimate.

by Senator Bernard Sanders The Trump-Ryan-McConnell "health care" bill currently being pushed by Republicans in Washington is one of the worst pieces of legislation to ever pass the US House of Representatives in the modern history of our country. This legislation would throw 22 million Americans off of health insurance, cut Medicaid by almost $800 billion, significantly raise out-of-pocket health care costs, defund Planned Parenthood and do away with protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Meanwhile, it would provide $500 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent, insurance companies and drug companies.

I will do everything I can to defeat this bill.

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont Health Network has proposed an increase in commercial insurance rates of 0.72 percent for Fiscal Year 2018, following a series of historically low requests in recent years made jointly by the UVM Medical Center and Central Vermont Medical Center. This is the second year in a row the request is under the rate of inflation, and the lowest request made by either hospital in at least 15 years.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott, Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman PEter Welch joined employees of Revision Military in Newport celebrating its five-year contract to provide up to 293,870 helmets to the US Army for a total value of $98 million. The contract, which awards manufacture of the Army’s Advanced Combat Helmet Generation II to Revision, was first announced in March. Since 2013, Revision’s Newport facility has expanded by 16,000 square feet and employment there has doubled to about 190 employees.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan joined five other state Attorneys General seeking to intervene in a lawsuit to force federal action on a toxic pesticide, Chlorpyrifos. Chlorpyrifos, a widely-used pesticide on food crops – including those consumed by infants, young children and pregnant women – has been shown to negatively impact proper development and functioning of the central nervous system and the brain.

The Attorneys General are seeking to join a case, which is before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to compel the EPA to take final action on a petition submitted by a coalition of environmental, human health and farmworker non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to revoke all chlorpyrifos “tolerances” - or permitted residues - on food.

“Vermont deserves safe food. Our children deserve safe food,” said Attorney General Donovan. “Vermonters’ health is at risk by continued exposure to this pesticide on food.”

Vermont Business MagazineVermont PBS will host a special international edition of “Vermont This Week.” Premiering Friday, July 7 at 7:30 pm, the new episode will be originate in Montreal at the studios of the CTV and will zero in on the hot-button cross-border issues facing Canada and Vermont.
Joining guest host Peter Hirschfeld of Vermont Public Radio for discussion and debate will be a panel of leading Canadian journalists.