Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Darn Tough Vermont, the American manufacturer of the fastest growing collection of performance outdoor and lifestyle socks, proudly announces 2015 annual earnings have increased by 52 percent year-over-year.  Equally significant, Darn Tough has been able to match explosive consumer demand through investments in resources - both people and infrastructure. “Celebrating our successes in 2015 and ensuring the brand is positioned for continued expansion in the new year and beyond is definitely a priority. We’re extremely fortunate to have very strong partners across multiple points of distribution and a passionate, dedicated internal team to support them,” said Ric Cabot, Darn Tough Vermont President and CEO. “Our continued growth has allowed us to invest in our team, our partners, and our community.”

Over the course of 2015, Darn Tough has achieved several major milestones including:

Vermont Business Magazine New York residents pay the most for basic health insurance and Vermont is second, but has the highest monthly premium at $469 a month, compared with New Mexico, which has the lowest monthly premium at $181 a month. New Mexico pays the least for basic health insurance, according to a new study released today by leading personal finance website GOBankingRates.com. The study compared silver plans ― the most popular plan according to the Department of Health and Human Services ― offered through the national or state-level insurance exchanges administered through the Affordable Care Act.

The lowest-cost silver plans for each state were ranked based on the favorability of the following cost factors:

Vermont Business Magazine Champlain College, winner of SC Magazine’s Best Cybersecurity Higher Education Award, today introduced its new online Master of Science in Information Security Operations. It is the first advanced degree designed to elevate the practitioner’s strategic planning abilities in the prevention and response to cybersecurity incidents such as data loss and cybercrime, while increasing technical skills and industry acuity.

“Cyberspace and infrastructure vulnerabilities are constantly evolving and addressing those weaknesses is critical to enterprise-wide security,” said Dr. Mika Nash, Academic Dean, Division of Continuing Professional Studies at Champlain College. “Champlain College’s new online M.S. Information Security Operations degree program prepares our students to face problems with sought-after expertise and enables them to effect change at the operational level.”

Vermont Business Magazine Revision Military, a world leader in protective eyewear solutions based in Essex Junction, has developed and patented a laser dye for a dual-band laser protective lens that blocks 99.9% of green laser energy and over 99% of the most powerful Near-Infrared (NIR) component of commercially available green lasers. Revision’s patented dye is used in the company’s new LazrBloc GF-8 Laser Protective Ballistic Lens. The LazrBloc GF-8 lens is a unique ballistic lens that blocks green laser emissions and the high-risk NIR energy that exists outside the visible spectrum. Importantly, this lens delivers greater visible light transmission and color recognition as compared to other laser lenses on the market, making GF-8 lenses ideal for day or nighttime use.

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine Vermont state tax revenues are running about where economists expected them at this point in the fiscal year, now more than half over, but they announced today that they are downgrading projections for the year as a whole based on both a slight softening of the national economy and on continued uncertainty here in Vermont. They expect revenues to be lower by $4.7 million in fiscal year 2016 and $9.1 million in FY2017, than previously estimated.

Governor Shumlin said, “While this news makes our job a bit more difficult, it is manageable. I look forward to presenting a balanced budget to the Legislature and Vermonters on Thursday.”

That uncertainty has mostly to do with tax changes in the last couple of years, as well as the poor start to the ski season and how both personal and corporate incomes will come in in the fourth quarter of FY 2016.

Vermont Business Magazine Green Mountain Power announced today the year-end operational results for Kingdom Community Wind (KCW) in Lowell. In 2015, the 21-turbine project generated enough electricity to power 26,700 homes for a year. That’s an increase of 7% over the previous year or enough energy to power an additional 1,800 homes. Thanks to the strong power generation at Kingdom Community Wind, five Northeast Kingdom towns will receive more than $201,000 this month from the Good Neighbor Fund payments, up $75,000 from two years ago and up $13,000 from last year. The Good Neighbor Fund is part of GMP’s commitment to give additional value to surrounding communities by sharing with them the benefits of KCW. Payments are made annually and can be used to lower property taxes or support local initiatives as designated by the town.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Community Loan Fund and longtime partner the Champlain Housing Trust collaborated on two affordable housing projects in the fourth quarter of 2015, helping create and preserve 38 Vermont homes to remain affordable in perpetuity. Winchester Place in Colchester, operated by the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) and Housing Vermont, stands as one of Chittenden County’s largest and most critical affordable housing properties, providing 166 rental units for lower-income Vermonters. Until 2015, Winchester placed occupied land leased from St. Michael’s College; at the expiration of the lease, the structure was slated to become property of the college, leaving the future of a large stock of affordable homes uncertain.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Kombucha brewing company Aqua ViTea has expanded its production to Middlebury. Since 2012, the company has based its operations out of an 8,000-square-foot brewing facility located at the Bristol Works complex in Bristol, VT. Consecutive years of increased production and significant growth have escalated the company’s infrastructure needs and necessitated new equipment investments. Middlebury’s burgeoning Exchange Street corridor offered a local solution. When Aqua ViTea Founder and Owner Jeff Weaber learned that the Middlebury-based Vermont Hard Cider Company (VTHCC) was opening a new cidery, he inquired about the use of their old facility at 153 Pond Lane. On the lookout for local growth potential, Weaber recognized this as an opportunity to keep his company’s business and jobs close to home.

Vermont Business Magazine In 2015, the Chittenden Solid Waste District received a grant worth $72,650 from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to help fund the hazardous waste management program in Chittenden County for that year. The grant is part of a $411,000 solid waste assistance fund provided by the state to help towns uphold the state-wide ban on disposing of hazardous waste in landfills. The grant is awarded annually to towns by the DEC, an arm of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

Vermont Business Magazine In preparing for the possibility of an antibiotic onslaught, some bacterial cultures adopt an all-for-one/one-for-all strategy that would make a socialist proud, University of Vermont researchers have found. This finding, published January 13 in the journal Scientific Reports, could have application for how persistent infections like those associated with cystic fibrosis are treated. The paper's conclusions are based on a series of time-lapse videos showing that single cells within a community of bacteria randomly use a cascade of proteins to become more or less antibiotic resistant, even when the community is not threatened by an antibiotic. A bacterial colony can regenerate if only a few cells survive antibiotic treatment.

by John McClaughry An intriguing battle is shaping up in the legislature, over industrial wind power. On one side is the Shumlin administration, wind developers, and pro-renewable energy lobby groups like VPIRG. The Governor has been a consistently outspoken advocate for renewable energy. He issued an edict in 2011 that Vermont must be made to obtain 90% of its total energy from renewables by 2050, in the name of defeating the menace of “climate change." Last year the Governor asked the legislature to pass a Renewable Portfolio Standard (renamed RESET) to mandate utilities to steadily increase their purchases of wind, solar, hydro, wood, and landfill methane power, until 75% of their power comes from these sources by 2032.