Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Florida-based Architec Housewares announces two strategic acquisitions - Madeira Housewares and South Burlington-based Starboard Collection - set to help expand the scope of the 16-year-old company and establish their niche as the company renowned for its innovative product development and unique ability to balance a boutique sensibility, for retailers small and large. Starboard operations will move to Delray Beach, FL. Financial terms were not released. Starboard designs and manufacturers durable, outdoor dining products. Starboard had five employees, one of whom will remain as a consultant.

Vermont Fish & Wildlife With most hunting seasons just around the corner, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department is urging new hunters to sign up now for a hunter education course. F&W is also offering small game hunting tips and free fishing clinics. And it announced that Vermont's annual auction of five moose hunting permits closed on August 10, with $28,916 taken in from the five winning bids. The auction helps fund Fish & Wildlife Department educational programs, such as the Green Mountain Conservation Camps for youths.

Vermont Business Magazine New York hedge fund Maglan Capital LP is calling for FairPoint Communications to remove four directors and to undertake a strategic stock repurchase plan. Earlier in the month it urged a repurchase and requested FairPoint appoint a person of its choosing to the board. Maglan is one of the largest and longest-term shareholders of FairPoint Communications, Inc (Nasdaq: FRP), with beneficial ownership of approximately 7.5 percent of FairPoint's outstanding shares of common stock. Today it delivered a letter to Paul Sunu, FairPoint's Chief Executive Officer, and to the other members of FairPoint's Board of Directors, describing what it calls a complacent board that has not heeded Maglan's previous requests. It requests that four directors be removed.

Vermont Business Magazine Dr Bob Arnot, founder of Daktari and Dr Danger Coffee, donated $5,000 this last month to the Nderi Sacred Heart School and Children's Home. The direct beneficiaries of this donation are 82 children and youth who range from preschool to university age students, as well as 69 home residents. Some of the greatest challenges faced by this school are a lack of water supply systems, inappropriate sanitation systems and the lack of staff and teachers. The funds donated by Arnot's Daktari and Dr. Danger Coffee will be allocated for food, water and school fees for university, tech nical college and secondary students.

Vermont Business Magazine This Saturday more than 300 first-year University of Vermont students led by 80 upper class peer leaders will  begin their UVM experience as part of TREK, a unique first-year enrichment program sponsored by the Department of Student Life.  For 37 years, UVM’s TREK program has sent new students across Vermont to explore the wilderness, develop leadership skills, and work on community service projects. TREK is one of the biggest and most diverse new-student, collegiate, community building programs in the region.

The TREK programs offer first-year students diverse experiences and self-directed opportunities to learn about themselves, future classmates and student life at UVM. Working in small, cooperative groups with 2 upper class leaders, TREK gives students with similar co-curricular interest an opportunity to develop teamwork skills, meet new friends, build community and make transition to life at UVM.

Vermont Business Magazine Online job finder, zippia.com, has developed a list of the top 100 highest paid professions in Vermont for 2016. Zippia, which bills itself as the career expert site, used  Bureau of Labor Statistics data to aggregate the information. Zippia looked at the BLS’s data set for all 514 job classifications in Vermont in order to identify those that get paid the most. Here's a hint, get into health care.

Vermont Business Magazine The inaugural Maker Places Conference in Burlington last week involved over 40 attendees, ranging from local makers to representatives of towns and cities across the state of Vermont. Even a couple from Sydney Australia attended, so they could learn how to build a maker space in their community. Others attended from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  There were tours of Burlington’s makerspaces, numerous workshops led by invited speakers, a showing of a Maker-centric film and three outstanding keynote speakers. 

Vermont Business Magazine SymQuest Group, Inc, based in South Burlington and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA, Inc, and regionally based IT and document sales and service provider, is proud to announce the addition of two nationwide data center environments to its cloud services offering. As part of the company’s commitment to innovate and provide world-class IT services and support, SymQuest is expanding its cloud services offerings with two highly secure Konica Minolta environments located in data centers based in Chandler, AZ, and Ashburn, VA. The Tier 3 data centers, powered by CyrusOne and Zayo, provide redundant internet, power, and multi-level security including biometric authentication, and 24/7 on-site monitoring. SymQuest customers included in the newly added environments will be supported.

Vermont Business Magazine The Newport City Renaissance Corporation (NCRC) Board of Directors has appointed Cynthia More as executive director and she started her new responsibilities on Friday, July 29, 2016. A graduate of UVM, More has experience with leadership, communications, publicity and outreach.  She is currently working as a book publicist and event planning manager.  Along with her husband Gene McCormick, More co-founded the Newport Vermont Jazz Festival (NewportVTMusic.com) in 2015. After working for a book publisher and living in Rochester, Vt for over two decades, More purchased a home in Newport in 2012 within walking distance to Main Street and Lake Memphremagog. 

Cynthia More

Vermont Business Magazine The Lamoille Economic Development Corporation has identified website development and a successful marketing strategy as key components in the success of our small and medium sized businesses. Any Lamoille County for-profit business, with at least one potential full-time employee, who does not already have a website of their own, is eligible to apply to LEDC for the Website Development Grant. Business recipients work with an LEDC marketing consultant to develop the materials they will need to create their site. The next step is the development of the website, followed by training on how to update and maintain the site. Once the website is ready, a marketing plan for promoting the site is created by the business owner and LEDC marketing consultant.

Vermont Business Magazine A CNBC study has scored all 50 states on 51 measures of competitiveness developed with input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. States received points based on their rankings in each metric. Then, CNBC separated those metrics into 10 broad categories, weighting the categories based on how frequently they are cited in state economic development marketing materials. That way, CNBC study ranks the states based on the criteria they use to sell themselves. Vermont finished 36th in 2016, up from 42nd in 2015 and 2014. Vermont is best at Quality of Life (3) and Education (7) and worst at Workforce (47) and Access to Capital (49).

Vermont Business Magazine Last night, the City Councils of both South Burlington and Burlington have approved a settlement agreement that draws to a close a dispute over property taxes paid to the City of South Burlington by the City of Burlington for the Burlington International Airport (BTV) property. The Airport is located in South Burlington, but is owned and operated as part of the City of Burlington. The 10-year deal lowers the assessed value of the Airport ($52 million from $77 million) and related properties, but gives both sides clarity in what is owed and paid. For the current fiscal year, Burlington will pay de facto property taxes of $717,000, most of which will go to the statewide education fund. South Burlington will net $238,000. This ends an approximately five-year dispute between the two communities over the assessment of the BIA property that ultimately landed in Vermont Superior Court. The Councils took this action almost simultaneously at regular meetings held the evening of August 15^th.