Current News

National Small Business Week 2015 celebrations kicked-off today in South Florida. The annual event is hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and designed to recognize the nation’s top small businesses, entrepreneurs, and business advocates. The week-long event will continue through Friday, May 8, with SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet hosting planned national events in Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York City and Washington, D.C., where festivities will conclude with recognizing national award winners and the selection of the national Small Business Person of the Year.

In his proclamation declaring May 4-8 as National Small Business Week, President Barack Obama declared America’s small businesses “the backbone of our economy, employing half of our country’s private sector workforce and creating nearly two out of every three new jobs in our country.”

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the senior student loan notes at 'AAAsf' and the subordinate student loan notes at 'Asf' issued by Vermont Student Assistance Corp Series 2013-1. The Rating Outlook on the notes, which is tied to the sovereign rating of the US government, is Stable.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

High Collateral Quality: The trust collateral is comprised of 100% of Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans. The credit quality of the trust collateral is high, in Fitch's opinion, based on the guarantees provided by the transaction's eligible guarantors and at least 97% reinsurance of principal and accrued interest provided by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Fitch currently rates the U.S. 'AAA' with a Stable Outlook.

The April Northeastern Vermont Development Association progress report offers the following updates to the EB-5 development projects under way in the northeastern part of the state. AnC Bio Vermont: Developers will begin construction on the 84,000-square-foot bio-tech research and manufacturing facility on May 14, 2015. The Peak CM Construction project is expected to take 14-16 months.

Q Burke Mountain Resort - Construction Updates

Note: All visitors and workers are required to sign in at the PeakCM construction trailer before entering the construction site. Safety orientation and full PPE are required for all site visitors. If visits after normal business hours are required, permission to enter the site must be arranged with the site superintendent beforehand.

Project Highlights - April

The following statement is being issued by Block & Leviton LLP, Finkelstein Thompson LLP and Green & Noblin PC regarding the Drywall Antitrust Litigation. If you purchased Wallboard INDIRECTLY from one or more of the companies listed below, your rights may be affected by proposed Settlements. Proposed class settlements totaling $10.5 million have been reached with two Defendants in In re Domestic Drywall Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 2437 and 13-MD-2437, pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Vermont Tech is pleased to announce that a team comprised of Alyshia Jones from Randolph, VT, David Cacciamani from Hyde Park, VT and William A. Moore IV of Milton, VT placed first in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Structural Engineering Institute’s (SEI) Student Design Competition. All three individuals are 2014 graduates of the Architectural Engineering Technology Bachelor’s program at Vermont Tech. The project submitted for the competition involved selection of an appropriate structural system, determination and application of appropriate design loads, and development of construction documents and plans illustrating how the system would perform.

This is the seventh year that the Vermont State Treasurer’s Office has held the finance tournament for high schools to select a Vermont Treasury Cup Challenge champion. The purpose of the competition is to promote student interest in and knowledge of personal finance, economics and consumer affairs topics. Four-person student teams will compete against each other in a quiz-show style contest that tests individual and team knowledge. Prizes include: $500 college savings accounts for each member of the winning team (6 students for $3,000); $250 college savings accounts for each member of the 2nd place team (6 students for $1,500); the Champion wins the right to display the large gold traveling cup for one year; and individual student trophies for students on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place teams. Our thanks to TD Bank for underwriting the event and VSAC for donating the college savings accounts.

Melting snow and drying mud: It’s the time of year when everything rises to the surface. As spring takes center stage throughout New England, homeowners and contractors alike are using Vermont granite to beautify, reinforce, and redirect the forces of a long winter. Garden accents, courtyards, pool areas, outdoor dining patios, and walkways in neighboring states are the product of Swenson Granite Company LLC, the parent company of Rock of Ages Corporation in Barre, Vermont. Vermonters manufacture much of Swenson’s landscaping items at Swenson’s Barre facility; Swenson’s Woodbury, Vermont, quarry is the source of its gray granite landscaping material.

by Anne Galloway and Morgan True vtdigger.org Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has signed legislation designed to keep guns away from dangerous criminals and people with severe mental illness. The governor has said that he doesn’t believe Vermont would benefit from new gun laws, but Friday he called the bill he signed a “shadow” of what was originally introduced, and said that it “makes common sense changes.”

An earlier version of the legislation would have required universal background checks for all private sales or transfers, except those between immediate family members. That provision was controversial and drew the ire of pro-gun groups who rallied their supporters to oppose the provision.

Kenneth Wheeling, the former director of the Shelburne Museum, has established a new UVM scholarship exclusively for Vermont students from Monkton, Vermont. The gift was made in honor of Wheeling’s late parents, Kenneth John Wheeling and Loretta Marie Wheeling. The estimated value of this endowment is $1 million.

“I owe them. I owe them big time,” Wheeling says of his mother, and his father – a doctor who practiced OBGYN at Saint Francis Hospital in Port Jervis, NY. “They saw that I got educated, and my brothers and sisters. And who remembers?”

Wheeling, the zoning administrator for the town of Monkton for over 40 years, with more than 30 years as Monkton’s town moderator, feels strongly about giving back.

“I hope some deserving students from Monkton will benefit,” he says. “Maybe not just yet,” he siad, “but some day.”

Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims continue to spike and for the week of April 25, 2015, surpassed 1,000 for the first time this year. The transition from the end of the winter recreation season is resulting in a seasonal increase in unemployment claims. There were 1,087 new, regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance in Vermont, an increase of 107 from the previous week's total and 101 more than they were a year ago. Claims had been running below last year's numbers.

Altogether 7,111 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 97 from a week ago, but 909 fewer than a year ago. The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), the same as the previous week.

The US Small Business Administration (SBA) is reminding small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small aquaculture businesses and most private nonprofit organizations located in Caledonia, Essex, Orange, Windham and Windsor counties in Vermont that June 1, 2015, is the deadline to apply for a working capital disaster loan as a result of extreme temperature fluctuations, excessive cold, frosts and freezes from Dec. 1, 2013, through April 30, 2014.

"These counties are eligible because they are contiguous to one or more primary counties in New Hampshire. The Small Business Administration recognizes that disasters do not usually stop at county or state lines. For that reason, counties adjacent to primary counties named in the declaration are included," said Frank Skaggs, director of SBA's Field Operations Center East in Atlanta.