Current News

Vermont Gas has announced that Beth Parent has joined the team as Corporate Communications Manager. Parent joins current Director of Communications Steve Wark in guiding the company’s public relations, communications, and serving as a spokesperson. Parent has over 14 years of journalism, communications and public relations experience and is a familiar face in the community. She spent nearly 10 years as an anchor, reporter and producer at WCAX-TV.

“This is an exciting time for me to be transitioning onto the Vermont Gas team,” Parent said. “Vermont Gas has an unparalleled history of safety and service – and an exciting future of energy innovation – and I look forward to showcasing all of the good work the company is doing through a variety of earned, digital and social media channels.”

Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross is encouraging all Vermont dairy farmers to enroll in the Margin Protection Dairy Insurance Program (MPP) by Friday, December 5, 2014. “Dairy farming in Vermont has many risks, the Margin Protection Program is a means to manage the risk of dropping milk prices and rising feed costs,” said Secretary Ross.

The USDA Margin Protection Dairy Insurance Program provides dairy farmers a risk management tool similar to crop insurance that can insure the margin between milk prices and feed costs. The funds available after covering feed costs are used by farmers to pay veterinarians, farm labor, energy bills and other farm expenses.

“Milk prices have been strong throughout 2014 but predictions for 2015 show a potential decline of over $8, this insurance program can help farmers prepare for these changes,” said Ross.

The White River Valley Chamber of Commerce and LEDdynamics are pleased to report commercial quality solar powered holiday wreaths will grace Main Street in Randolph this year. Believed to be the first of their kind, and designed specifically to meet the community’s need, 40 solar powered wreaths are being tested this year, with the hopes of creating systems for more towns and businesses in the future.

“Randolph’s holiday decorations had come to the end of their useful life, and we were striving to find something that was environmentally friendly, and did not require the use of extension cords, light bulb strings, or rely on power from town street poles,” explained Emma Schuman, Director of the White River Valley Chamber of Commerce. “Every company we called told us the technology was just not available yet.” As a result, last January, the Chamber contacted Bill McGrath, President of LEDdynamics, an innovator in LED technology located in Randolph.

by Jeffrey R Wakefield, UVM The top floor of the Davis Center was a hive of activity on November 18 as 55 members of the Vermont House and Senate and 11 state agency representatives rubbed elbows and exchanged ideas with more than 50 University of Vermont faculty and a half dozen administrative leaders. The occasion was the second annual UVM Legislative Summit, which this year focused on climate change.The goal of the legislative summits -- the topic of last year’s inaugural event was education -- is for UVM faculty to share their expertise with decision-makers to help them create informed policy for the state.

Origin Consulting LLC has announced the implementation of the Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Program Management module at Green Mountain Power (GMP). The program management solution was purchased in February 2014. Increased access to information through multiple channels and devices has raised consumer expectations around the customer experience. Customers want to control when, where and how they interact and expect their utility to provide the same level of service that they receive from other industries.

Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing new Program Management Module helps meet this need with the functionality to better manage the entire customer service and product life cycles. It provides end-to-end process management to segment and target customers and execute campaigns for specific programs and services.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office is continuing its efforts to enforce Vermont’s Home Improvement Fraud statute. Contractors who intend to defraud the homeowner and enter into contracts but do not perform the required work or repay homeowners for down payments may be investigated for potential criminal charges.

Since January 2014, the Attorney General’s Office has obtained Home Improvement Fraud convictions in the Vermont Superior Court, Criminal Division against:

Robb Brunelle, of Richmond, VT
Donald Richards of Milton, VT

The Office has filed criminal charges in Chittenden County against the following individuals:

Ralph Bassinette, of Burlington, VT
Randy Bouchard, of Jeffersonville, VT
Robert Billings, Jr., of Swanton, VT
Robert Witham, of Colchester, VT (Registry Violation)
Ron Bryan, Jr, of Richmond, VT

The employees of Vermont Computing in Randolph, Vermont, are purchasing the business from its founder and will be operating it as a worker cooperative. Founded in 2003 by Jeremy Lesniak, Vermont Computing specializes in computer sales and repair, graphic design, and website creation. The purchase of the business by the cooperative’s four founding employee-owners was finalized on November 1, 2014, and financing for the deal was secured through a collaboration between the Cooperative Fund of New England and the Vermont Employee Ownership Center’s Vermont Employee Ownership Loan Fund.

Dynapower Company, the global leader in energy storage inverters based in South Burlington, Vermont, has announced that it has signed a strategic agreement with Black & Veatch, one of the world's largest engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies. Through this partnership, the two companies will provide expertly engineered, manufactured and installed energy storage systems of all sizes based on various storage technologies and in support of multiple applications. Dynapower employs 175.

The Vermont Office of Health Care Reform today released the first in a series of web videos designed to highlight the often unfair, complex and hidden way in which health care is currently funded in Vermont. The intent is to launch a weeks-long conversation about the inequities in the current health care financing system and ways to improve it. Before the Legislature convenes in January, the governor will release his proposed benefits and public-financing proposals for Green Mountain Care, a universal, publicly financed health care system for Vermont.

"Access to quality, affordable health care is a something all Vermonters need. But how we pay for it today is not simple or fair,” said Robin Lunge, Vermont's Director of Health Care Reform. “Fulfilling Act 48's goals of a universal, publicly financed health care system in Vermont would allow all Vermonters to receive health care based upon ability to pay."

Comcast Business has announced that its full portfolio of Ethernet services is now available across five communities in Bennington County, Vermont. Capable of bandwidth up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps), these services are specifically designed for businesses, schools, hospitals and other organizations requiring more bandwidth, looking to network multiple locations together, or planning to connect their offices to a third-party data center.

With this expansion, the communities of North Bennington, Old Bennington, Pownal, Shaftsbury and Woodford can now take advantage of four different types of Comcast Business Ethernet services, including:

- Ethernet Private Line – point-to-point connectivity between two customer sites for bandwidth-intensive applications.

by John Herrick vtdigger.org The Shumlin administration wants Vermont Gas Systems to halt eminent domain proceedings related to a 41-mile natural gas pipeline extension. The governor’s office sent a letter to Vermont Gas on November 28 asking Vermont Gas to suspend condemnation proceedings until March 2. The company has agreed to hold off for now, but did not commit to the March 2 date.

“To create trust between the parties and allow for constructive progress to occur on these easement issues, the governor supports the landowners’ request that [Vermont Gas] agree to a pause in easement legal proceedings,” Liz Miller, the governor’s chief of staff, wrote to project manager Jim Sinclair.

More than a hundred lenders from financial institutions throughout Vermont gathered at the Capital Plaza in Montpelier Tuesday for the Small Business Administration’s Annual Meeting and Awards Breakfast. The event recognized the leading lenders with rankings based on total SBA dollar volume and loans made during fiscal year 2014.

The Vermont District Office recognized People’s United Bank as the 7(a) Lender of the Year, Vermont 504 as the 504 Lender of the Year, and Community Capital of Vermont as the Microlender of the Year. The SBA also recognized National Bank of Middlebury, Community National Bank, Lake Sunapee Bank, KeyBank and Opportunities Credit Union for their various efforts supporting SBA loan programs.