Current News

Okemo Mountain Resort is this year’s recipient of the Vermont Governor’s Award for Outstanding Workplace Safety in the Service Sector. This is the sixth year of the Workplace Safety Award that recognizes Vermont employers for outstanding achievement in workplace safety and health.
“Workplace safety is crucial for the health and well-being of our workforce and for the vitality and productivity of our businesses,” Governor Douglas said. “With changes in technology and business practices, employers are constantly challenged to keep their workplace safe. We are pleased to recognize employers who are committed to safety.”
Okemo’s management staff works hard to increase safety awareness and decrease workplace accidents by building a strong and sustainable safety culture. The resort’s philosophy on workplace safety begins with its first corporate Value - Safety.

Montpelier. 5.14.2010. The Vermont Speaker of the House, Shap Smith, offers his view on the legislative session that ended Wednesday night.
"Vermonters can be proud of the work the legislature did this year under very difficult circumstances. The legislature, working with the administration, put in place policies that will create new jobs and restore our state’s fiscal health while avoiding devastating cuts and new broad-based taxes.
To guide our decisions, we followed the long-held Vermont values that allow our state to remain the safest, greenest and healthiest state, known for being a great place to raise a family. Despite the worst economy in a lifetime, the legislature refused to compromise on the investments that make Vermont a place we are proud to call home.

A dozen rural communities across the state will receive digital tools and in-depth training as the initial participants in the new e-Vermont Community Broadband Project. The twelve will benefit from the expertise and resources of e-Vermont’s statewide partners as the local groups develop ways to take full advantage of the Internet for job creation, school innovation, providing social services, and increasing civic involvement. e-Vermont is a new, $3.8 million initiative to help rural Vermont towns take full advantage of the Internet and advance a wide variety of local needs including economic development, school innovation, job creation, downtown marketing, community engagement, and e-commerce.
The 2010 communities (selected from over 40 applicants) are Brighton, Bristol, Canaan, Cambridge, Grand Isle County, Ludlow, Middlesex, Newport, Poultney, Pownal, Sunderland, and West Rutland. [1]

Tough economic times require business and government leaders to rethink public policy and not only change the ways in which we deliver public services, but to build capacity for future success. According to Bill Stritzler, Managing Partner with Smugglers’ Notch Resort, and chair of the Vermont Business Roundtable, “Investments in education should be our first economic development strategy.”

Are we a nation at the mercy of a food system that has co-opted common sense with the lure of endless and ever-available combinations of fat, salt and sugar? David Kessler, M.D., Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Presidents Clinton and Bush and author of the 2009 The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, thinks we are. Giant corporations and restaurant chains, he argues, feed on our biological drive for foods that lead to obesity and disease. Kessler will be at UVM to talk about this "conditioned hypereating" and how America can take control on Monday, June 7 at 5:15 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel. The lecture, followed by a book signing, is free and open to the public.

The Vermont Clean Energy Development Board will award grants and low-interest loans supporting fifteen projects for a total of over $3 million from the Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF) to renewable energy projects throughout the state.
The awards will be made public at a press conference held on Friday May 14th at 1:30 at the Dynapower factory in South Burlington. Speaking at the event to announce the awards will be US Senator Patrick Leahy, Governor James Douglas, Robert Dostis, for the Clean Energy Development Board, and two grantees: Aaron Pollak from Dynapower Corp and Nancy Kane from Kane s Scenic River Farms.
The Clean Energy Development Board is pleased to award $3.37 million for solar, wind, farm methane, and biomass energy projects throughout Vermont, said CED Board co-Chair Robert Dostis.

In the spirit of cooperation, Copley Hospital and the United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5109 have renegotiated its contract. The newly extended three year contract will create a savings of nearly $300,000. A tentative agreement on the contract was reached on Tuesday, May 11, and confirmation made on Wednesday, May 12. The original contract was supposed to run through 2011.
“I am very impressed with the members of UNAP,” says Mel Patashnick, President of Copley Hospital. “In approving this contract, they demonstrated their understanding of how Copley is affected by the difficult economy. Their care for the long-term well-being of Copley is apparent in the tough decision they made at a time it needed to be made.”

The US Department of Labor has unveiled a new tool to help employers and others understand how to comply with requirements under the H-1B visa program, which allows for the temporary employment of foreign workers in the U.S. in certain specialty occupations.
An online “advisor,” available at http://www.dol.gov/elaws/h1b.htm, describes the program’s standards and provides detailed information about employers’ and workers’ rights and responsibilities. It outlines notification requirements, monetary issues, worksite issues, recordkeeping, worker protections and enforcement.

Adding to a long list of environmental firsts, Central Vermont Public Service will become the first utility in the country to abandon traditional fossil-fuel chainsaw bar and chain oil, removing thousands of gallons annually from Vermont’s environment.
“Every drop of bar and chain oil ends up in the fields and forests,” CVPS spokesman Steve Costello said. “We’ll be taking the equivalent of a thousand five-gallon pails of oil out of the environment every year. This decision will pay big dividends for Vermont plants, birds, animals and amphibians.”
Starting June 1, dozens of CVPS-contracted tree-trimming crews will be required to use a new biodegradable chain and bar oil made from animal fat. The product, GreenOil, is produced by Green Earth Technologies, which has developed a series of new oils as alternatives to fossil fuels. CVPS uses seven different tree companies and typically has up to 55 tree crews working statewide at any given time.

The Williston Rotary has donated $3,500 to the Patch Chit Split the Ticket Program. The money will provide fuel help for next winter. The Patch Chit fuel assistance fund was established by the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association more than two decades ago to provide a safety net during the cold winter months. “We thank the Williston Rotary for providing Vermonters in need with another place to turn,” said VFDA Executive Director Matt Cota.Vermont heating fuel dealers are, for the most part, small family-owned businesses that live in the same community where they work. They see the need first-hand and are often the first to respond in a crisis. There are many Vermonters who are in need but do not qualify for heating assistance programs, and for more than 20 years VFDA’s Patch Chit program has been there for them.

The Smithsonian’s National Design Museum has selected an "Eco-Machine" created by John Todd, professor of ecological design at the University of Vermont, as one of the winners of its National Design Triennial.Built at the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, in Rhinebeck, New York, Todd's Eco-Machine is an advanced waste-water treatment system that mimics nature, using an integrated series of tanks filled with microbes, algae, plants and even fish to clean water and break down sludge.Part of the new exhibition, "Why Design Now?" Todd's Eco-Machine, with 125 other winning projects, was selected by the curators as one "the most innovative, forward thinking designs at the center of contemporary culture in the previous three years."The exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum http://www.cooperhewitt.org in New York City, May 14, 2010 and will be on view through January 9, 2011.Todd's Eco-Machine exem

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture is very pleased to announce the beginning of a new benefit for Dairy Producers and their Families: FARM FIRST (FFP). The FARM FIRST Program was developed and is operated by the Invest Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in collaboration with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, the University of Vermont Extension, and the VT Farm Health Task Force. FARM FIRST now partners with dairy producers to provide information and counseling services that are tailored to their unique and changing needs.
FARM FIRST is intended to improve mental health and productivity among farmers and family members on Vermont’s dairy farms. The first of its kind in the country, FARM FIRST takes the valuable Midwest farmer hotline model to a new level with the addition of statewide licensed clinical staff prepared to confidentially assist with any concern. Farmers’ concerns currently being addressed include: