Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Three of the country’s leading healthcare architectural firms, including one of Vermont's largest architectural firms, have merged: MorrisSwitzer Environments for Health (Williston, Vermont), Ascension Group Architects, and daSilva Architects are now Environments for Health Architecture (E4H). Each firm has focused exclusively on healthcare design, and has a history of innovation, agility, and state-of-the-art technical expertise specific to the healthcare sector. MorrisSwitzer is the firm designing the new $175 million University of Vermont Medical Center inpatient building in Burlington.

by Rob Roper For over a decade we have been following the goal of the VTNEA (the teachers union) and their allies in Montpelier to expand the public school system by two years to include three and four-year-olds. The next steps in this very expensive long-term play are underway right now. First, a brief history of how we got to where we are today. In 2006, the legislature passed Act 62, which made “Universal Pre-K” programs for three and four-year-olds eligible to draw down education fund dollars. This was sold as a voluntary program for school districts, and public schools were encouraged to partner with “qualified” private childcare businesses — “if convenient” — to provide 10 hours of “quality” childcare per week.

Vermont Business Magazine King Arthur Flour, an employee-owned company headquartered in Norwich, Vermont, was named the 2016 ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) Company of the Year by The ESOP Association. The award was presented at the Association’s 39^th Annual Conference in Washington, DC on May 18, and accepted by several employee-owners on King Arthur Flour’s Ownership Culture Team. The award recognizes a company that shows a strong commitment to employee ownership—which includes promoting employee participation, wealth creation, and individual dignity and worth. 

Vermont Business Magazine At its May meeting, the UVM Board of Trustees approved a three percent tuition increase, and continued its commitment to offset rising tuition by increasing financial aid 7.7 percent. Approximately one-half of all tuition increases goes toward increasing financial aid. As a result, the net revenue tuition increase is only about 1.5 percent for FY 2017. For instance, this year financial aid gifts lowered the sticker price for tuition, fees and room and board for Vermont students from $27,918 to $18,469 with 43 percent of in-state students paying no tuition. Board materials show that UVM has the next to lowest average tuition and fees increase (3.1 percent) over the past three years among a set of comparator private and public colleges and universities. The board also approved an FY 2017 general fund budget of $348.5 million.

Vermont Business Magazine Union Bankshares, Inc (NASDAQ – UNB) has announced the results of voting at the Company’s 125th annual meeting of shareholders held on May 18, 2016. Approximately 87.74 percent of the Company’s outstanding shares of stock were represented at the meeting. Incumbent directors Steven J Bourgeois, Kenneth D Gibbons, John M Goodrich, Timothy W Sargent, David S Silverman, John H Steel, Schuyler W Sweet, and Neil J Van Dyke were reelected to a one-year term. Dawn D Bugbee, a current director of Union Bank, a subsidiary of Union Bankshares, Inc, was elected for the first time by the shareholders to the Union Bankshares Board of Directors. Election of directors was by plurality vote.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin today signed a law to help Vermonters who have had their license suspended and seen the debt pile up to the point where, in many cases, they can no longer afford to pay the fines to get back on the road legally. It is estimated that around 50,000 Vermonters have suspended licenses due to failure to pay non-criminal traffic fines. The governor signed the law just over a year after he and Chittenden County State's Attorney TJ Donovan launched a series of Driver Restoration Days to help Vermonters in this situation. The new law makes further Restoration Days unnecessary. 

Vermont Business Magazine E. Berton (Bert) Whitaker has been named interim CEO of Gifford Health Care in Randolph. He will be working with Gifford’s board of directors and Sr. Leadership team until a permanent chief executive is in place. A national search to replace former CEO Joseph Woodin, who left after 17 years at Gifford, is anticipated to take six to eight months. Whitaker, who is from Chattanooga, TN, was selected from a pool of eight applicants. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky and is a Fellow in the American College of Health Care Executives.

Vermont Business Magazine Once again Vermont specialty food producers shone brightly at the annual sofi Awards bringing three golds back to the Green Mountain State.  The sofi Awards, which stands for “specialty outstanding food innovation,” are the most prestigious awards in the specialty food industry and honor excellence across a variety of food categories, from vinegars to vegan snacks. Vermont’s winners were Big Picture Farm, Jan’s Farmhouse Crisps, and Vermont Creamery.

Vermont Business Magazine The Stowehof Inn & Resort in Stowe has been sold to an affiliate of Saltaire Properties Inc, according to Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, which helped broker the sale. Terms of the deal were not released. The Stowehof Inn & Resort is a well known landmark in the Stowe community situated on 26 acres high upon a hill with views of Mount Mansfield and the Green Mountains. The Edson Hill Road Inn was built in 1949 by eccentric architect Larry Hess, who was instrumental in developing the Inn into one of the most unique, old world style Inns in the United States. The Inn was used as the setting for an Alan Alda film, "The Four Seasons," in 1981. Until this recent sale the Inn was owned by the Grimes family. Saltaire specializes in acquiring and repositioning mid-sized independent hotels in cultural, coastal and mountain markets with an emphasis on an authentic sense of place, design quality, and customer experience. In Vermont, Soltaire also owns The Shire in Woodstock.

Vermont Business Magazine Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) received an “A” ranking for hospital safety from the Leapfrog Group, a national patient safety watchdog which operates in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The hospital safety scores assign A, B, C, D and F letter grades to hospitals nationwide and aim to provide a complete picture of patient safety in the U.S. health care system.

“Every one of Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s 1,200 employees is tasked with patient safety,” said SVHC’s President and CEO Thomas A. Dee, FACHE. “It is this team effort and the willingness to identify and resolve sources of concern that makes our hospital among the safest in America.”

Vermont Business Magazine A report released Monday, May 23rd by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) says the U.S. is on the verge of a “major expansion of its senior population.” The report holds that most older adults want to age independently in their homes and communities, yet most homes and communities can’t safely and affordably accommodate this desire. Recommendations include increasing the availability of service-enriched housing (like Vermont’s Support and Services at Home model) to improve health outcomes in seniors while cutting the growth in Medicare expenditures.

Vermont Business Magazine The Kingdom County Forum, an Irasburg citizens’ group, today (May 30) announced the Kingdom County Debate, to be held in Irasburg on Wednesday, June 29 at 6 p.m. Candidates Matt Dunne, Peter Galbraith, Bruce Lisman, Sue Minter and Phil Scott, the major-party candidates for Vermont governor, have all agreed to take part in the debate.

Reporter Jon Margolis, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and current political columnist for VTDigger, who now lives in Barton, will serve as moderator.

The Orleans County Democratic and Republican Committees are co-sponsors of the event.

"I applaud the organizers of this debate,” said Orleans County Republican Committee Chair Chet Greenwood.  “It gives the residents of the Northeast Kingdom a unique opportunity to submit questions and be a part of the election process as they listen to the candidates debate the issues concerning Vermonters and especially the NEK."