Archive

Jim Rousseau is the business manager and co-founder with Bob DeSorbo of Nowirz, (www.nowirz.com), a wireless networking, service and consulting company with offices in Waitsfield. Rousseau graduated from Champlain College in 1994. He worked for Engelberth Construction in Colchester for seven years, then Shawmut Design and Construction in Boston, followed by a few years in California before retuning to Vermont to start Nowirz in 2003. He is married and has four children ranging in age from 5 to 13.

While FairPoint's bankruptcy declaration in October has clearly damaged the company's brand, the move to seek protection from creditors could ultimately prove beneficial for Vermont's largest provider of landline and DSL services.

While Burlington Telecom remains embroiled in controversy, with its former director now charging that $14 million in BT funds cannot be accounted for, some of the antagonists are softening at least the tone of their positions.

The introduction of AT&T’s 3g network in Vermont brings the state closer into sync with many Americans’ expectations of how a mobile broadband network should work. “Everything now is about the speed at which you can move data,” said Vermont Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien. And AT&T bills the enhanced version of its data transmission system as “America’s fastest 3g network.” It’s “bigger, better, faster, stronger than what came before,” said AT&T spokeswoman Alexa Kaufman.

It was June of 2008 and Kelli Corbeil had it all going on. The bubbly, buoyant honey-blonde with the open manner and easy laugh had a successful career in banking, two young children and a loving husband who was living his dream in local radio. By July of 2008, it was all crashing down.

This has been a difficult month for those of us who support extending the contract of Vermont Yankee. The nuclear power plant located in Vernon was in enough hot water before tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, was discovered in a monitoring well January 7. Things have only gotten worse since then as the level of tritium has gone from a trace to varying levels to above federal safety levels. An underground, concrete trench was subsequently found to contain higher levels of tritium plus two other isotopes that are of greater concern: cobolt-60 and zinc-65.

After an increase of 1.6 percent in October, sales abroad from Vermont's exporting companies soared 5.2 percent in November. The $14.3 million monthly leap in foreign sales from the previous month brought exports to $288.4 million in November, adjusted for seasonal variation. On an annual basis, the latest trade numbers show that state exporters posted gains in foreign demand for goods made in the Green Mountain State. In November of 2009, foreign consumers and businesses bought $10 million, or 3.6 percent, more goods made in Vermont than in November of 2008.

John Becker died over the Christmas holidays. Most Vermonters today probably don’t recognize Becker’s name, but he had his finger on the pulse of Vermont for more than 20 years. From the 1960s through the 1980s the Boston-based Becker Research was the dominant polling firm in Vermont. He worked for a number of candidates, did polling for WCAX-TV and for a number of business groups. Becker himself was responsible for one of the first major political television ads in a Vermont campaign, one that is now a legend in the national political world.

Technology happens and cottage industries are spawned. It happens all the time. Take radar guns for instance. Those are the devices that are used to measure motor vehicle speed.

On B-Day, December 28, 2009, it took longer for the clouds of smoke, rust and paint to settle than for the 500-plus shaped charges of MRX high explosive to cut enough weakened steel beams to bring down the Champlain Bridge. In its place, work on a new bridge is expected to start this spring. In the meantime, a new ferry located at the same spot was expected to begin operations by the end of January.