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Vermont Business Magazine Gubernatorial candidate Matt Dunne said Thursday that his first priority as governor would be to rebuild trust in Montpelier through significant transparency and ethics initiatives. Dunne’s plan includes establishing a strong ethics commission, eliminating direct corporate contributions to campaigns, establishing monthly campaign finance reports, requiring assets disclosures for all legislative and statewide candidates, instituting a two-year cooling off period before state officials are allowed to lobby or work in the sector they were overseeing, and reforming the public financing system to encourage candidates to use low dollar contributions to fund their campaigns.

Vermont Business Magazine Valener Inc, the public investment vehicle in Gaz Metro Limited Partnership (Gaz Metro is the parent company of Vermont Gas Systems and Green Mountain Power), today reported adjusted net income attributable to common shareholders of $32.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2016, unchanged from the second quarter of fiscal 2015. However, the relatively warm winter and lighter winds drove down net income from the Vermont operations to $20.5 million, or 8.1 percent, from the same period last year.

Vermont Business Magazine Norwich University will celebrate commencement and commissioning with ceremonies on Saturday at 2 pm and Sunday at 9 am. On Saturday, May 14, at the 2 pm commencement ceremony, former Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno will deliver the university’s 2016 Commencement address to more than 450 graduating seniors. Both ceremonies are free and open to the public and will be livestreamed.

Vermont Business Magazine The Community College of Vermont will hold its 49^th commencement ceremony at Norwich University’s Shapiro Field House on June 4, 2016. The ceremony will begin at 2 pm. This year, over 500 students from across the state will be awarded associate degrees. Students representing all 14 Vermont counties will be graduating along with students from 12 other states and 18 countries. Also among the graduates are 41 veterans and active duty military. The youngest graduate is 17 and the oldest is 66.

Vermont Business Magazine Britton Lumber Company announced today that it has agreed in principle to acquire the assets of HG Wood Industries located in Bath, NH, to which it will move its sawmill operation. Its sawmill on the Connecticut River in Fairlee burned down last year. Britton said in an emailed statement to Vermont Business Magazine that it could not reasonably rebuild on the same location and determined that the acquisition of the existing operation made more business sense. HG Wood is a premier manufacturer of Eastern White Pine lumber and has been operating a sawmill, planer mill, and kilns on approximately 38 acres in Bath since 1972.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Thursday applauded the Senate’s action to advance a key spending bill that provides critical funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC), a program that has delivered more than $2.8 million in federal grants to Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and $3.4 million in total to Vermont. With Leahy’s leadership earlier in the debate, the Senate blocked a move by a Republican senator to strike all funding for the program and others like it across the country. First established in the 2008 Farm Bill, the NBRC awards grants to development projects in economically distressed Northern Border counties in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and New York.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin has ordered flags around Vermont to fly at half staff in honor of Steven L. Lapierre, a longtime firefighter and fire warden who passed away in the line of duty last week. The Vermont flag will be lowered Saturday at sunrise and will return to full staff Tuesday at sunrise. The governor will attend calling hours for Lapierre on Friday in St Albans. Governor Shumlin issued the following statement.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Housing & Conservation Board announced today that it has made funding commitments totaling $4,067,320 to 10 organizations to carry out projects in Burlington, South Burlington, Barre, Montpelier, Bennington, Arlington, Shaftsbury, Putney, Brattleboro, Athens, Rockingham, and Westminster. The VHCB funds will be used to construct or rehabilitate 172 affordable apartments, provide affordable homeownership to five households, conserve nearly 80 acres of land, and to restore an historic building.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain College and Audubon International — two organizations at the forefront of advancing sustainability — have announced a partnership to promote environmental stewardship and make sustainability education programs available to all. Staff at Audubon Internationals’ vast network of environmentally-responsible facilities will receive discounts to enroll in GMC’s cutting edge, online graduate curriculum in one of four sustainability disciplines. Graduate students at the Poultney-based Green Mountain College can apply their place-based education by exploring and implementing Audubon International’s programs alongside professional staff.

Vermont Business Magazine Hydro-Québec's power exports avoided the emission of 7.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2015, the equivalent of 25 percent of the total emissions of New England thermal generating stations in 2014. These figures are from Hydro-Québec's newly released Sustainability Report 2015. With 99.8 percent of its output generated from water, Hydro-Québec's net GHG emissions are "very positive" for North America. Vermont signed a roughly 20-year, 20-megawatt power purchase agreement with Hydro-Québec in 2011. Hydro-Québec has used export contracts, with their higher rates, to help pay for the development and expansion of the Hydro-Québec system. Over 50 percent of its exports are sent to New England, or nearly 15,000 gigawatt hours of electricity.

Vermont Business Magazine Kids VT, Vermont’s free monthly parenting magazine, took home the General Excellence award, as well as six other awards, in the Parenting Media Association’s 2016 Design and Editorial Awards Competition. The national competition recognizes excellence in journalism, photography and design in regional parenting publications that are PMA members. The PMA announced the honors at its convention in Indianapolis, IN.

Vermont Business Magazine Cabot Creamery Cooperative has been recognized with a 2016 U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award for Outstanding Dairy Processing & Manufacturing Sustainability. The cooperative was selected for its Real Farm Power program which is the latest in a series of sustainability projects pioneered by the 1,200 dairy-farm families of Agri-Mark dairy cooperative, owner of Cabot Creamery Cooperative. The program takes a closed-loop approach, recycling cow manure, food scraps and food processing by-products to produce renewable energy on a Massachusetts dairy farm.