Current News

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.

On May 1st, International Workers’ Day, hundreds of people from Vermont’s labor, disability rights, climate justice, migrant justice, and human rights movements will rally and march on the Vermont State House. March begins at 11:30 am at Montpelier City Hall. Participants will march to State House for a rally on the lawn.

Participants are denouncing Vermont’s political leadership for its failure to equitably address the revenue shortfall and healthcare crisis, instead choosing to attack state workers and cut funding for public services for the most vulnerable. The organizations are calling for a grassroots-led transition towards real democracy and an economy that works for people and the planet.

Featured at the rally, dairy farmworker leaders with Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante will publicly launch their “Milk with Dignity” campaign, calling upon large dairy corporations to commit to a set of human rights standards in their milk sourcing.

Montreal-based Gaz Métro inc (GMi), as General Partner of Gaz Métro Limited Partnership (Gaz Métro), has announced that Gaz Métro completed an equity offering by issuing by way of a private placement 8,181,818 new units from its treasury at a price of $16.50 per unit to GMi and Valener Inc. (Valener), pro rata based on their respective share of units outstanding, for aggregate gross proceeds of $135 million. The proceeds of the offering will be used for the re-establishment of its capital structure and for its general corporate purposes. Gaz Metro is the parent company of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas Systems.

GMi financed its subscription of new units by way of issuance of common shares to Noverco Inc for gross proceeds of approximately $96 million.

Overview of Valener

Crowe Horwath LLP, one of the largest public accounting, consulting and technology firms in the U.S., has reached an agreement with Saslow Lufkin & Buggy, LLP (SLB) to have its partners and professionals join Crowe on July 1. Based in Simsbury, CT, with an additional office in Burlington, Vermont, SLB is an accounting and consulting firm serving clients throughout the country, mainly in the insurance industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Established in 1999 by Richard A. Buggy, Glenn D. Saslow and Robert F. Lufkin, SLB is one of the nation's leading providers of accounting, tax and consulting services to the property and casualty insurance industry. The firm, which has 90 professionals, including eight partners, also serves a variety of New England healthcare entities and hospital systems and has a well-developed employee benefit plan practice.

President Obama signed into law on Thursday Representative Peter Welch’s (D-Vermont) energy efficiency bill. The bill was sponsored in the House by Welch and Representative David McKinley (R-WV) and in the Senate by Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). Below is a transcript of the President’s remarks from the bill signing ceremony in the Oval Office.

The Energy Efficiency Improvement Act (H.R.1802/S.535) certifies the energy performance of commercial rental properties, removes a regulatory barrier to the use of large scale water heaters, and encourages energy efficiency improvements in federal buildings.