Kevin Kelley

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.

Keeping a business all in the family allows for continuity and consistency, but it can also present challenges. Consider the case of Preci Manufacturing, run for all 32 of its years by Marcel Grunvald and, in recent years, by his sons as well. Lloyd Grunvald serves as general manager while Jeff Grunvald handles sales and office operations.

With commercial and residential construction at a virtual standstill, “these are scary times” for Vermont builders, says the chief financial officer for one of the state’s biggest general contractors.

Even in a good year for its industry, BioTek's 10 percent sales growth in 2009 would be viewed as impressive. But 2009 was not a good year for the bio-analytics instrumentation and software sector. In the recent past, says BioTek President and CEO Briar Alpert, his company and its main competitors were expanding at an annual rate of 6 or 7 percent. Last year, Alpert adds, the industry contracted by about 10 percent as the recession hit hard. What accounts for the ability of the Winooski-based firm to take market share from some much larger businesses?

Vermont's Upper Valley region has so far managed to withstand the global recession with comparatively few job losses. The unemployment rates for Orange and Windsor counties – 5.5 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively, in September – were significantly lower than the seasonally unadjusted statewide figure of 6.4 percent for the same month.

With fewer than 30,000 residents, Orange County ranks among the smallest of Vermont’s 14 counties. But unlike the three even more thinly populated counties that make up the Northeast Kingdom, Orange enjoys relatively low unemployment as well as a steady influx of newcomers. Its 5.5 percent joblessness rate in September was almost a full percentage point lower than the statewide average, and Orange County’s population has grown faster than that of Vermont as a whole in the decade now ending – 2.4 percent versus 2 percent.

Vermont lawmakers must not count on Washington to rescue the state's unemployment insurance fund from insolvency, Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden warned in an interview last month.

Vermont lawmakers must not count on Washington to rescue the state's unemployment insurance fund from insolvency, Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden warned in an interview last month.