Current News

Hayes Group, an integrated marketing, advertising, strategic planning and public relations firm located in Williston, Vermont has won two coveted, 2002- 2003 Golden Web Awards given by the International Association of Web Masters and Designers.
The Golden Web Award is presented to those sites whose web design, originality and content have achieved levels of excellence that are deserving of recognition. Voted by the Internet's leading IT and Web professionals, the IAWMD serves more than 135,000 members and affiliates in more than 145 countries.
The Hayes Group won for its own web site: www.hayesgroup.com and for the web site the company designed and built for Quadra-Tek, www.Quadra-Tek.com of Arlington, Vermont.

With the addition of web compression services, PB Publishing has become a well rounded interactive web and video shop.
"From scripted and narrated slide shows to 360 degree cubic vr panoramas of products or attractions, to data driven web sites, hosting and shopping carts, PB Publishing has become a true one stop internet and video shop," states PB Publishing president,Timothy Palmer-Benson.
PB Publishing's high quality work recently won it an award for an interactive tour of Quechee. "The entire production from photography to sound track, scripting and narration was produced in house," says Palmer-Benson. "When you keep all the ingredients under one roof, the result is usually a better product with less overall production time and lower cost for the client."
To see PB Publishing's recent web movies and panorama productions, go to http://www.pbpublishing.org

Artistic Digital Sound & Photography (http://adsp.com) announces the availablity in Vermont of affordable digital video productions released on DVD. Everything and anything from marketing messages to personal milestones can now be captured and preserved and shared for decades to come.
Owner and sole-proprietor, Andre de Saint Phalle has previously produced marketing videos for the Stowe Mountain Resort as well as the Stratton Mountain Resort. For Stowe, he shot and edited an 11 minute video presenting the resort's signature Triple A's program, which seeks to make guests and employees cognizant of the importance of their Attitude, Awareness and Accountability. "It was a fun project to do, despite the serious nature of the content. We managed to throw in a fair amount of hi-speed thrills and spills to keep the audience from falling asleep!"

FreshTracks Capital, L.P., of Middlebury, VT announced today the completion, along with three co-investors, of a $750,000 round of financing to enable the re-launch of EatingWell: The Magazine of Food and Health, based in Charlotte, VT. Joining FreshTracks Capital in the Series A investment are Boston Community Venture Fund, Village Ventures, Inc., and EW Partners, LLC.
“We are enthusiastic about funding the new EatingWell Magazine,” said FreshTracks Capital Managing Director, Charlie Kireker, “because the founder/ publisher has re-assembled the original team to revive a brand that attracted a paid circulation of 650,000 in the mid-1990’s”. Publisher James Lawrence believes “the combination of an experienced locally-based investor group and the growing national awareness of the vital inter-connections between nutrition, good food and personal health provides a great opportunity to provide readers with the news and recipes they need”.

Vermont Venture Network serving the entrepreneurial community since 1989
May Monthly Breakfast Meeting
Thursday, May 23, 2002, 8 A.M.
Michael H. Gurau, President, CEI Community Ventures, Inc. 36 Water Street, PO Box 268, Wiscasset, ME 04578, Tel: (207) 882-7552, E-Mail: [email protected]
CEI is a non-profit community and economic development organization founded in 1977. CEI’s latest initiative is CEI Community Ventures which is a community development venture capital fund formed pursuant to the SBA New Markets Venture Capital Program. CEI Community Ventures is eligible to invest in all of Essex and Orange counties in Vermont plus 24 other census tracts, including Burlington.
Randee Fagen, Vice President Sales, Marketing and Customer Services C3Gateways Services, Inc.
5005 Jean Talon West, Suite 200 Montreal, PQ H4P 1W7
Tel: (514) 908-2400
“Multi-Tasking CRM”

Vermont State Colleges (VSC) professional employees voted to unionize with the American Federation of Teachers' Vermont affiliate,
United Professions of Vermont (UPV).
In two elections administered by the Vermont Labor Relations Board, a majority of employees who voted, voted to be represented by the United
Professions of Vermont/AFT. In a 75 to 28 vote the Professional, Administrative, and Technical employees voted in favor of unionization and
in a 30 to 14 vote the Supervisory employees voted for the union. The election took place at the four campus based State Colleges: Johnson State College, Lyndon State College, Vermont Technical College, and Castleton State College.
United Professions of Vermont/AFT already represents all the full-time and part-time faculty at the Vermont State Colleges.

Vermont Business Magazine presents the 2002 Vermont SBA Small Business Person of the Year Awards to be held Wednesday, June 12, 2002, from 4:00pm to 7:00pm on the Green at Vermont College of Union Institute & University in Montpelier. The Vermont District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration announced the winner of the Small Business Person Award and various Advocacy Awards.

The SMALL BUSINESS PERSON OF THE YEAR winner is: Clint "Jito" Coleman, President Northern Power Systems, Waitsfield, VT.

Brattleboro, VT, April 18, 2002 -- The Vermont Supreme Court recently affirmed the judgement entered in favor of Chroma Technology Corp. that the Chroma defendants did not violate any legal obligation to their former employee when they founded a competing business in 1991. In so doing, the Court clarified the law in the State of Vermont on the important issue of when and how employees may go into direct competition with their employers. Prior to this decision, no case in Vermont had squarely addressed the issue since the early years of the 20th century.
Heidi Harvey, of the firm of Fish & Richardson P.C., Boston, MA, was lead
counsel for the Chroma defendants at trial and on appeal. She observed, "This decision is an extremely important statement of the modern law in
Vermont on one of the most difficult issues that faces employees and employers - who has the burden of drawing the line between the employees'

C & S Wholesale Grocers, based in Brattleboro, announced April 1 that it would move its headquarters to a campus-like setting in Keene, NH, by the end of 2003, taking with it 300 employees.

C & S is the third largest wholesale grocer in the country and expects sales to reach $9.5 billion in 2002. It is also the largest Vermont-based company and ranked 20th by Forbes for privately held companies in the country. On Vermont Business Magazine's Vermont 100+, C & S has been the largest Vermont-based company for over a decade, and the first to ever reach $1 billion in annual sales, accomplished in 1995.

Green Mountain Power (NYSE:GMP) proposed a series of innovative programs that would pay its commercial, farm and water heating customers to reduce electric loads during peak usage periods in order to protect electric reliability and to save money for all energy users.
The Company filed with the Vermont Public Service Board Monday five new programs that it developed as part of a statewide and regional effort to develop “load response programs” designed to reduce peak loads when wholesale power prices spike during the hot summer months.
Green Mountain Power made its proposals in a Vermont Public Service Board proceeding initiated to develop statewide load response programs. Green Mountain’s proposals will now be reviewed by the Vermont Department of Public Service and the Vermont Public Service Board, the state's two utility regulatory agencies.

Triple Peaks, LLC, the company formed by Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow, was informed March 27, 2002, by the American Skiing Company of Bethel, ME, that they were not going to proceed with the closing of the sale of the Steamboat Ski and Resort Company in Steamboat Springs, CO.
"We are quite surprised and disappointed at this action," said Tim Mueller. "Contrary to some reports, we have been ready, willing and able to close this transaction for some time. We had accommodated ASC's request for a temporary postponement, never having an inkling that they were going to breach our agreement. We are presently exploring with our attorneys the best course of action, before formally responding to this outrageous turn of events."

Dramatically broadening its appeal to target
the corporate meeting and wedding market, The Equinox has broken ground on construction that will create 3,200 additional square feet of flexible, state-of-the-art function space by fall 2002, just in time for the popular fall foliage season.
The centerpiece of the project is The Rockwell Room, named after the internationally renowned New England painter, Norman Rockwell, whose work