Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Funding is now available from the Innovations and Collaborations grants program at the Vermont Community Foundation. One of a number of competitive grant programs at the Community Foundation, Innovations and Collaborations supports projects that help nonprofits collaborate across sectors and regions to develop common solutions to community needs. Typically, applications are accepted from one lead organization in association with one or more additional partner organizations. Grants range from $10,000 to $20,000 and multi-year funding is available but not guaranteed.

Letters of Interest for the second grant round of 2016 are due May 25, 2016. Visit www.vermontcf.org/IC to learn more or apply.

Vermont Business Magazine As part of an ongoing commitment to give consumers the confidence and tools they need to be fiscally healthy, Citizens Bank announced today that three nonprofit organizations across its footprint will receive $42,000 in contributions as part of the Citizens Helping Citizens Manage Money financial literacy initiative. Leveraging the financial expertise of its bankers and its partnerships with local nonprofits focused on financial education, the Citizens Helping Citizens Manage Money program this year includes $1.3 million in donations to 77 nonprofits and volunteer outreach by more than 400 trained Citizens colleagues.

Vermont Business Magazine The Burlington Business Association announced its winner for the Tim Halvorson Award for Business Person of the Year at its annual dinner Thursday night. This year’s winner is Brigitte Ritchie, Director of Public Affairs and Community Relations at KeyBank. Prior to rejoining KeyBank, Ritchie was director of Public Affairs and Community Investments for Citizen’s Financial Group. She also worked as vice president and commercial real estate lender for Citizen’s Financial Group. Ritchie originally joined KeyBank in 1991, serving as vice president and commercial real estate and small business lender.

Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims rose last week and are ahead of numbers from the same time last year. For the week of April 2, 2016, there were 738 claims, up 99 from the previous week's total and 137 more than they were a year ago. By industry, claims fell steeply for construction as that season is starting a little earlier than usual because of the warmer winter, in contrast to Services, which was up, likely due to the same reason, as the winter hospitality industry suffered and closed early. 

Vermont Business Magazine Burlington-based Mach7 Technologies and 3D Medical (ASX:3DM) today announced the completion of their merger. The combined company will bring advanced medical image management solutions to customers across five continents. Mach7 Technologies Limited begins trading on the Australian Stock Exchange under the symbol M7T. The new company will maintain its headquarters in Burlington.

Vermont Business Magazine Despite an unusually warm winter in the Northeast, Vermont sugar makers are saying that 2016 has been a successful year for producing maple syrup. They have cited ideal weather conditions once the taps started running as a primary reason for the successful spring. Vermont sugarhouses produce more than 1.3 million gallons of maple syrup annually, topping more than $300 million in sales. That amount represents more than 40 percent of all the maple syrup produced each year in the United States.

Vermont Business Magazine In an Associated Press story published Thursday, the US Government Accountability Office "found significant cybersecurity weaknesses in the health insurance websites of California, Kentucky and Vermont that could enable hackers to get their hands on sensitive personal information about hundreds of thousands of people." In the story related to a report issued by the GAO last summer, Vermont health care reform chief Lawrence Miller is quoted as saying that Vermont has since changed vendors and the state has "ensured correct controls were in place" to meet a federal standard. That did not keep Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott from issuing a blistering response late Thursday.

Vermont Business Magazine Lyndon State College’s Center for Rural Entrepreneurship has created a Hospitality and Tourism Business Management Certification Program. The program is designed to meet the workforce needs related to the hospitality, tourism, and recreation industries that are important drivers of the area’s rural economy. The new certification program aims to close the divide between employer expectations and motivated employees looking to move to the next level. The program offers the opportunity to upgrade hospitality and tourism skills without the commitment or expense of a full degree program through certification trainings online, on-site with employers, or in LSC’s state-of-the-art classrooms.

Vermont Business Magazine As part of its ongoing effort to promote Vermont to Quebec-based companies and networks, the Vermont Quebec Enterprise Initiative (VQEI) welcomed over two dozen companies from the Sherbrooke region to Vermont for a two-day event at Jay Peak Resort. In partnership with CQI, an economic development organization from Sherbrooke, the program featured a panel of local business leaders from the Northeast Kingdom that offered specific advice in areas of banking, trade compliance, insurance, logistics, and more. 

Vermont Business Magazine X-rays have long been used to make pictures of tiny objects, even single atoms. Now a team of scientists has discovered a new use for X-rays at the atomic scale: using them like a radar gun to measure the motion and velocity of complex and messy groups of atoms. “It’s a bit like a police speed trap — for atomic and nanoscale defects,” says Randall Headrick, a professor of physics in the University of Vermont's College of Arts and Sciences who led the research team. The new technique was reported on March 28 in the journal Nature Physics.

by Patrick Leahy Senate Republicans are creating a toxic dynamic that ensures outside interest groups have the floor to themselves. Rather than rolling up their sleeves and considering Chief Judge Merrick Garland’s record for themselves, Republicans have outsourced their job to moneyed interest groups whose only goal is to smear the nominee’s admirable record of public service. These outside groups are not accountable to the American people. Nor do they have the American people’s interest in mind. They are private, powerful groups whose only goal is to advance their own special interests at any cost.

Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Vermont Health Access (DVHA) today published a Request for Proposal (RFP) to contract with one or more Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to provide certain Medicaid services. The goal of the RFP is to continue to build an integrated health care system that improves the quality of, and access to, care for all Vermonters. The RFP furthers this goal, the DVHA said in a statement, by creating the opportunity for health care providers to get paid in a way that rewards quality, care coordination, and early intervention. 

Specifically, the RFP seeks to make a regular, predictable, and prospective payment to ACOs for Medicaid services.  Rather than being paid for every service, an ACO would be paid in advance for their entire population.  Predictable payment should allow providers to focus on quality of care, innovation, and making long term investments in their practices.