Current News

The J Warren and Lois McClure Foundation, a supporting organization of the Vermont Community Foundation, has awarded a $50,000 grant to the Community College of Vermont to expand access to CCV’s Introduction to College Studies (ICS) course. Last year the Foundation supported course delivery and transportation to ICS classes for students in rural parts of the state. This fall, the J. Warren and Lois McClure Foundation awarded additional funding to expand delivery of the program in regions where access to college is a significant barrier for students.

Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation, has been removed as director of the company and his employment has been terminated, according to a spokesperson for the company. The story was first reported by www.greenbiz.com.
Chrystie Heimert told Vermont Business Magazine that the board of directors announced the decision regarding Hollender on October 26. The closely held company is employee owned. Heimert said Hollander and his wife, Sheila, who will remain as an employee and on the board, are still major shareholders in company. Hollender had helped start the company 20 years ago, took it public, then engineered a plan to return it to a private, employee-owned company.

Senate President Peter Shumlin, a Democrat from Putney, was elected governor by a narrow margin after a long, expensive and occasionally contentious race against the Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie of Essex.
‘I am extraordinarily humbled and grateful,’ Shumlin told supporters at a rally just after noon in Burlington. ‘We have hard work to do.’
Dubie called Shumlin around 9:30 this morning to concede the race.

The Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce held their 112th Annual Meeting on November 1st. Dan DiBattista, Plant Manager, Rutland GE-Aviation and his employees were named the 2010 Business Persons of the Year. In his remarks Executive Vice President Tom Donahue noted ‘GE Rutland recently added a 27,000 (square) foot expansion to Plant 2 and have invested $60 million into this plant within the last four years,’ Donahue said, ‘and will be investing another $10 million in the next year with a substantial portion of that total investment in machinery and equipment.’ Donahue also highlighted the benefits of having GE-Aviation in Rutland, GE's commitment to the region, contributions to the community and the superior leadership of Dan DiBattista.

Driven by reliability and transmission improvements and increasing power costs, Central Vermont Public Service has asked the Vermont Public Service Board to authorize an 8.34 percent rate increase under the company’s alternative regulation plan. The change would leave the company’s rates among the lowest of the major utilities in New England. It would take effect with bills rendered starting Jan. 1, 2011.
The bill for a residential customer who uses 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month would rise from $78.11 to $84.54, a difference of $6.43. By comparison, the same customer would pay as much as $121.80 elsewhere in New England, according to the Edison Electric Institute.

Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie called Senate President Peter Shumlin this morning to concede and to congratulate him on his election as Vermont’s next Governor. The race was decided by only two percentage points, according to the latest figures.
‘I am so grateful to the thousands of Vermonters who supported this campaign,’ Dubie said. ‘We had a tremendous outpouring of support in every corner of this state and hundreds of volunteers who worked tirelessly to share my vision of creating more opportunities for Vermonters. I want to encourage all of them to continue to be active participants in our democracy and work toward making this great state of ours an even better state. This was an extremely close race. Voters have made their choice, and it is now time for all of us to unite as Vermonters and work together to move forward.’

Northwestern Medical Center (NMC) successfully went live with its new fully integrated electronic medical record and enterprise-wide computer system on October 1, 2010 in conjunction with the start of the hospital’s new fiscal year.
According to Kelly Barland, NMC’s Chief Information Officer, the Meditech implementation has been on an aggressive nine month implementation schedule. The project earned final approval by the State of Vermont in December of 2009.

Thanks to cold temperatures, the power of the world’s most extensive snowmaking system and a dedicated mountain operations staff, Killington Resort kicked off the 2010-11 ski and snowboard season today (Tuesday) at 10 am.
Killington will offer upper-mountain skiing on four trails in the North Ridge area from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The K-1 Gondola will provide uploading/downloading, while access back to the top of the K-1 Gondola from the North Ridge area will be via a 5-10 minute walk on the new Peak Walkway.
‘The new Peak Walkway accomplishes our goal of utilizing our upper mountain snowmaking resources to build early-season momentum, offer our season pass holders and dedicated guests an outstanding experience on deep base depths and remain open for the season, conditions permitting," said Chris Nyberg, Killington president and general manager.

Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS), an international communications and information technology company, was awarded a $14 million contract by the State of Vermont to deploy a statewide radio system for public safety first responders and state agencies. The system meets Vermont's specific requirements for regional and cross-border communications - connecting local, state and federal agencies within the state, and providing interoperability with agencies in neighboring states and Canada.
"Vermont's vision for our public safety communications is clearly addressed by the Harris P25 solution, which also allows us to leverage our existing infrastructure," said Chief J. Paul Duquette, Chair, Vermont Communications (VCOMM). "When completed, the VCOMM system will be a modern and reliable system for Vermont public safety agencies that meets federal mandates and will support Vermont's growing public safety communications needs well into the future."

In Vermont USDA Rural Development is investing over $228.8 million, of which $106.4 million is funding small businesses, water and wastewater infrastructure, community facilities like libraries and community centers, and housing. An additional $ 122.4 million has been awarded for broadband infrastructure to bring better service to rural communities.
USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager issued a report on October 20 about how the agency’s distribution of loan and grant funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery) has helped rural residents throughout the nation. Rural Development has awarded $21.2 billion in Recovery funds through 95,000 loans and 2,500 grants. The report estimates that millions of business owners, agricultural producers, Internet users, and thousands of homeowners will benefit, and over 300,000 jobs are being created or saved.

Vermont-SBE, Inc of Barre and Vermont HITEC have announced they will start recruitment for a new training program on November 1st, with the launch of their job recruitment website. Through a partnership with Vermont HITEC, the Vermont Department of Labor, and Central Vermont Community Action Council, SBE is now enrolling applicants into a newly developed program that provides free education and on-site training at the company’s facility in Barre, Vermont. Successful completion of the program will lead directly to full-time Process Technician positions at SBE.

Online advertised vacancies rose 113,700 in October to 4,409,800, following an increase of 59,900 in September, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLineâ ¢ (HWOL) Data Series released today. The nation's Supply/Demand rate stood at 3.44 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in September (the last available unemployment data), a figure that is down from a peak of 4.73 in October 2009. Nationally, there are 10.5 million more unemployed than advertised vacancies.
In Vermont, there is slow economic growth that mirrors that of the country. As a result of increased labor demand as a whole, the state's unemployment rate dropped slightly from 6.0 percent in August to 5.8 percent in September. The following are some more national statistics:
-- The economy has continued its moderate upward trend in labor demand with online vacancies by 1.1 million since the official end of the recession (June 2009).