Thriving economy offsets bad weather for farmers

Barna, Ed

At the turn of the millennium, Addison County is a region in transition, a place where "agricultural" and "rural" are becoming less and less synonymous.

The wide open space of "the Great Plains of Vermont" are beckoning to homebuilders and manufacturers seeking sites, as well as to farmers. Especially in the northern part of the county, around Vergennes and Ferrisburgh, spillover effects from the economic boom in Chittenden County are having perceptible effects on the both landscapes and streetscapes.

Telecommunications have shrunk physical distances and shifted the boundary lines between one business and another, often dissolving old corporate ties. It has become a commonplace strategy for business owners, entrepreneurs or skilled independent contractors to seek natural surroundings and small-scale, historic community settings, often while remaining in touch with urban and hightech work zones.

The more polluted, overheated and socially dysfunctional other regions of the nation become, the more places like Vermont appeal to second home owners and retirees, who sometimes bring strong business skills and an interest in making volunteer contributions. Addison County gets its share of them, and more than its share of former Middlebury College graduates, who are already aware of the cultural resources that the institution adds to the county's lifestyle advantages.

What hasn't changed is Addison County's mix of sectors, with manufacturing, farming, forest products, extraction (OMYA's Middlebury marble quarry, sand and gravel operations), tourism, retailing, professional services (especially at the Porter Medical Center) and education (Middlebury College is the county's largest employer) all contributing. Except for agriculture, the drought of last year has been replaced by supersaturated conditions this year, the region as a whole remains an example of the national economic-boom rather than an exception to it.

Not that business and community leaders are taking anything for granted or leaving matters to chance. In all three population centers county seat Middlebury, upland Bristol and northerly Vergennes/Ferrisburgh - proactive measures to support and enhance growth have been among the year's leading developments.

LOOKING UP

The basic labor force statistics for this year convey a lot of energy in the economy. According to Department of Employment and Training statistician Michael Griffin, the 2.4 percent unemployment rate of last June dropped to 2 percent.

At the same time, fewer people are working inside the county, something Griffin said could reflect people taking jobs in Rutland or Chittenden Counties, rather than actual number of workers declining. Reports of stores reducing their hours, and farms going back from three milkings to two milkings each day, suggest that perhaps wage earnings are rising rather than falling, as well as there being an acute shortage of workers.

In any case, the 20,000 people employed in May of 1999 dropped to 19,900 for May of 2000, and in June, the comparable figures showed a drop from 19,550 to 19,350.

At the National Bank of Middlebury, the larger of the county's two independent and locally owned banks (the First National Bank of Orwell is the other), president

Ken Perine said the regional economy seems to be hitting on most cylinders.

For small businesses, the year's wet start did affect some, but others seemed to have benefited - especially in the amount of purchases, Perine said.

"Perhaps the rain has been driving people indoors," he said. Hospitality businesses seem to be having "an average or a better-thanaverage year so far," he said. The labor shortage has been a problem for everyone, he said.

As far as industry goes, "the firms we're talking with are having good years, and profitable years," Perine said.

Probably the hardest hit, aside from the farmers, have been service businesses, Perine said. Cleaning firms, cosmetology shops, bookkeepers and so on are "climbing all over each other," competing in a way that makes it impossible to increase their level of pay, he said.

As for the National Bank of Middlebury itself, "We're having a good year," Perine said. Their 58 full-time-equivalent positions, which number about 65 employees, are now spread between Middlebury and a Bristol branch, which is in the process of moving across Main Street to larger quarters, he said. Lending has increased faster than deposits, pushing the bank to find other ways of supplying capital, Perine said, but "those are good problems to have. The profitability is still on track with where we want to be."

UNREAL REAL ESTATE, WITH REAL ESTATES

One strong source of business for the National Bank of Middlebury has been the residential real estate market. Sources among the county's real estate brokerages confirmed that real estate is booming, along with new home construction.

Asked about the current market, 13-year veteran George Brewer of Lang Associates Realtors in Middlebury first said, "Oh, my gosh." After thinking a bit, he said that was probably the best summary, because, "It's been unbelievable."

For the first time, he's seeing properties selling in 24 hours. Sometimes, again for the first time, two or three or even four bids compete for an offering. And the fast action is coming all across the board, from "the average Joe looking for a piece of land where he's going to put a small house or a doublewide (mobile home)," on up to $500,000 estates.

Middlebury College is having an effect, less on retirees in Brewer's experience than on the tendency of people in their 40s or 50s to relocate, once they've reached a fairly high plateau in their careers.

"Most of them can work at home with their computers. It's not a second home, it's becoming a first home," he said.

Brewer doesn't see the so-called "wealth effect" of surging stock prices as a significant factor. The vast majority of the deals still require financing, which the banks are quite willing to provide, and which seems feasible for buyers, even with rates going up to nearly 9 percent. In fact, the banks are out in the market looking for new business, and are offering new products that are proving beneficial to the buyers, he said.

The Chittenden County effect is more potent.

That region has nearly used up its open and available land, and "now people are looking at Vergennes," Brewer said - and at Monkton, Starksboro, Bristol and other towns along "the de facto (Route 7) bypass" of Route 116.

That hasn't yet put housing costs in the Vergennes area out of reach of average buyers, Brewer said, because that market had been depressed before the

recent revitalization movement.

"Now the prices have gone up just enough so they're reasonable," he said. Even along the Lake Champlain shoreline, listings ranged from $24,000 for a mobile home to half a million dollars.

But the supply and demand factors are definitely pushing prices upward, Brewer said. He checked the Middlebury area listings: 23 as of July 19, compared with 57 at the same time in 1999. From his contacts with the homebuilding industry, he said that sector. too, is straight out.

"It's nearly impossible to find a contractor who isn't booked a year and a half in advance."

Another market shift that impresses Brewer is the degree to which potential buyers arrive with knowledge of the properties in question, gathering from the Internet. Homestore, the Internet business with which Lang Associates is affiliated, just passed the million mark in the number of real estate agents - not customers, but agents - that use their site and its three-dimensional viewing capabilities.

Brewer's advice to fellow real estate professionals is, "If you're not ONline, you're headed for the BREAD line."

At Coldwell Banker Bill Beck Real Estate in Middlebury, Tom Walsh, a 19-year veteran, said, "We're seeing a strong market everywhere." New homes and resales are both strong now, he said, though he doesn't know of any construction on speculation. No need: too many people already wants houses.

In the Vergennes area, which he covers, Walsh said Chittenden County has influenced sales there for years, and that continues. Like Brewer, he is seeing an influx of Middlebury College graduates, and some retirees who are choosing the area. For those who aren't moving, "a fair amount" of remodeling is taking place as well, he said.

A few larger-scale project have emerged. One on Route 22A expects to build out to 30 houses, Walsh said. Another proposal, which he expects will have to be scaled down considerably, would use the last piece of farmland within the city limits of Vergennes to add about 100 homes.

Outlying real estate dealers are busy, too. Tom Wallace, of Wallace Realty in Bristol, said, "It's been a pretty good year," though some commercial properties in that area are still not finding takers. Generally, a buyer's market has turned into a seller's market, and the biggest problem is "we're lacking inventory to sell to people."

At Peden Realty in Shoreham, Jim Peden made the same comments about this being a seller's market, and inventory being down.

"It's hard to find anything good to sell. We essentially need more listings."

Wallace and Peden both observed that the $100,000-200,000 range

has become far more active than in the past. Peden said he sees the

telec ommuting scenario playing out more and more. He's also

observed that people are working so hard to pull in those big pay

checks that they want some serious recreation to balance their lives.

That kind of wealth effect, Peden said, is behind a surge of interest in vacation properties. The pattern is most visible along the Lake Champlain shoreline, where properties up to $1.5 million (with 500 feet of shoreline) are in the mix.

Vermont's "Great Lake" may be participating to some extent in a larger trend toward shoreline development.

A July article in USA Today stated that "Sixtysomething retirees and aging baby boomers, aided by fattened stock portfolios and flexible work arrangements, are settling on the coast full-time or snapping up vacation homes for retirement later."

It quoted Edward Hill, a professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University, as saying "We're in the midst of an amenities movement. Improved technology, greater wealth and better transportation are giving people more choices about where to live. They're choosing the coast."

Recently, Peden and his wife and partner Susan Peden acquired a boat large enough to travel on Lake Champlain, and they got to see something that is hidden from people driving along the highways: the scale of the estates that are taking shape by the lake. He said, "There are some really big ones there."

In general, however, "this is not what you would call traditional

wealth," Peden said of the more affluent out-of-state buyers. "They

are basically professionals with 10 to 15 years of experience in their

professions."

Unlike a past generation of affluent transplants to Vermont, who came from city centers and often expected to have the same kinds of services from small

towns, this wave arriving from suburban environments is noticeably different. To a large degree, they chose Vermont because there is more community life and a chance to become involved, Peden said. Rather than fleeing from crime-ridden and crumbling Urban centers, they can foresee what is likely to happen to their towns in 10 years, and want to maintain an active, involved lifestyle, he said.

"I believe these immigrants are going to be very good for Vermont," he said.

BUILD IT, THEY'RE COMING

A long-term interest in Vermont often begins with a visit, and many of the same amenities that attract visitors double as lifestyle enhancements for residents. That makes the tourist industry of wide concern for Addison County, among other places. Lately, things have been going well.

Not only have the travel and tourism statistics been good for a year, despite gasoline prices up 50 percent, there has also been enhancements in the attractions and facilities related to the travel trade. Heritage tourism, which tends to appeal to an older group (read: Baby Boomers) in particular seems to be rolling along in the Champlain Valley.

Mount Independence in Orwell, for example, not long ago was a neglected collection of fields - and the least-disturbed major Revolutionary War site in the country. Now its museum, enhanced last year by a high-tech talking sculpture that conveys the area's history to visitors, is in a synergistic relationship with Fort Ticonderoga across the lake, as well as the Carillon historic cruises that start at a nearby landing, the Chimney Point Historic Site up a few miles on the east side of the Champlain Bridge, and the Crown Point Historic Site across the bridge in New York.

Senator James Jeffords' efforts to get the area included in a National Historic Corridor have met with strong resistance on the New York side, where the Adirondack Parks Agency has already aroused the ire of property owners. But a National Park Service study of the concept and talks between the related parties have promoted the idea of marketing the region as a whole, with or without an official designation.

This year, Jeffords was able to obtain $300,000 for improve the interpretive trails on what has been called the country's most intact Revolutionary War battlefield, and to increase access for disabled visitors.

Louise Ransom, president of the volunteer Mount Independence Coalition, said those developments "will be a great asset to the economy of the region through cultural tourism. In addition to the wonderful historic resources, the trails give access to lovely natural features and striking views of the Southern Champlain Valley."

Jeffords said in a press release that he hopes more funding will become available in the near future for other sites along the Lake Champlain corridor.

Beverly Jacobson, a board member of the Coalition, said visitation is holding its own this year, surprisingly, given that there were only three days without rain in June. As of mid-July, there had been 1,898 visitors, compared with 1,804 last

year, and they had spent $5,858, up from last year's $5,323.

At Chimney Point, which documents and interprets Native American and French history, manager Casey Carmolli said June saw 361 visitors, up from last June's 319.

Farther up the Champlain coast, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is booming, sometimes literally, with a reproduction cannon on its re-created Revolutionary War gunboat.

Nautical displays, information and artifacts related to Champlain's underwater wrecks, historical models and dioramas recount the history of several wars. The boat collection, a history-oriented blacksmith shop, and a professional restoration lab, plus a full summer schedule of workshops and seminars and entertainment events, have made it a place to visit for a half or full day, not just a stopover.

Peter Oxford, formerly a downtown Middlebury bicycle shop owner and now a full-time associate at the Maritime Museum, said they seem to be adding new buildings at a rate of one a year. Like Mt Independence, they benefit from enthusiastic local volunteers - as well as the nearby presence of the Basin Harbor Club and its private grassed airstrip.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GO DOWNTOWN

Speaking of downtown Middlebury: the Sheldon Museum is now the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History, a name change that acting director Annie Perkins said reflects the depth of their archival resources, the broad range of their programs, and the way their exhibits go beyond the family items of a typical "house museum."

It's been "a fairly good summer," she said, with a noticeable increase in the number of people using their research center for genealogy and other purposes.

Also in the village area of Middlebury, on Court Street, the Vermont Folklife Center has moved from its cramped quarters in the basement of the Painter House to two floors in the former Masonic Building, which it shares with the increasingly prominent Vermont Community Foundation. Expanded exhibits at the new folk arts and crafts gallery are attracting more visitors, along with the archive, which needed more room for the Center's growing collection of oral history tapes and videos.

An upcoming streetscape enhancement project at Cannon Park, which the Sheldon faces, is part of Middlebury's recognition that its historic waterfall area, with Mill Street (Frog Hollow) on one side and the Marble Works Complex on the other, is a key to attracting visitors. The first steps have been taken toward rehabilitating a former powerhouse next to the falls as a visitor access point following Planning Commission rejection of the idea of putting a highly visible restaurant with a wraparound observation window at that point.

Vergennes, of course, also boasts an impressive falls. Visitors can now use walkways on an island in the Otter Creek

that on its north end divides Vergennes Falls. Boaters continue to stream up the placid stretch of Otter Creek below the falls (attracted in part by the chance for free water and electric hookups), and continue to help support the resurgent downtown business district, according to Planning Commission Chairman David Austin.

North along Route 7 in Ferrisburgh, philanthropist entrepreneur Terry Allen and his wife Debbie have accomplished

their goal of turning the disused Spade Farm and its former owner's ragtag collection of historic buildings and artifacts into a major visiting attraction.

On a recent Thursday evening, dining guests packed the Starry Night Cafe. The cafe is among a line of refurbished structures that includes the former Ferrisburgh train depot and a cider mill, which came from Cider Mill Road in Cornwall. Connecting those with the Ferrisburgh Artisan Guild gallery (where 140 juried artists and artisans are enjoying strong sales, according to Allen) there is the covered bridge that farmer Sam Spade once rescued from destruction when a modern bridge was erected in the Hollow area of Ferrisburgh.

Allen said that when he turned management of the place over to his daughter and son-in-law, he saw that their business plans foresaw 20 to 25 people in the cafe even on slow nights. "Be prepared for nights when no one comes at all," he warned the young out-of-staters. But so far, he said, "There haven't been any."

Up in the Green Mountains, at the Blueberry Hill Inn and crosscountry ski area in Goshen, owner Tony Clark said, "The season started off quite slow," especially in wet June. "It's kind of like the summer that never happened," he said.

But July, August and September look to be "extremely busy," going by the bookings, and "that will make up for the poor start," Clark said. At one point, there will be seven weddings in a row, each booking the entire inn for an entire weekend of diverse fun, he said.

Clark said he and area inn owners continue to work with the Green Mountain National Forest and others to promote the upland Moosalamoo region as an attraction, with fair success. The boom in country weddings, a business that he and the Brandon Inn and Lilac Inn in Brandon tap into through a common Web site, could give the Blueberry Inn many more than the nine or 10 they usually plan - but, "I want to take care of my regular customers."

Both the winter and summer business vary with currency values, as well as with the weather, Clark said. The strong dollar, versus the euro, has opened opportunities for Americans to travel to England, Spain and Germany, and he believes those choices have affected the Goshen establishment's bottom line. "It's cyclical," he said.

On Lake Dunmore, over looked by Mount Moosalamoo, "other than the slow start, it's been pretty average," said Micha Flores, assistant park manager at Branbury State Park in Salisbury, which has solved its employee problem through a contract to have it run by the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps. Lakeside, the labor shortage is not a problem," he said.

Heavy rains in mid-July, which resulted in flooding in many areas and caused Addison County to be declared a disaster area, could affect tourism if they touch off a major mosquito hatch. There was a

bad spring hatch, brought on when the Brandon-Leicester-SalisburyGoshen Insect Control District's hired crop-dusting plane failed to start due to a defective motor part. This time around they have hired a helicopter to drop the biological larvicide that has proved effective in preserving the tourist season in other years.

HISTORIC TOWNS

If Boardwalk is popular this year, so is Park Place. Along with Vermont's forest, fields, lakes and streams, intact, historic downtowns appeal to visitors and re-locators.

The three downtown business districts in Addison County are all seeing positive flows of investment capital. While Bristol and Vergennes haven't yet reached the commercial intensity of Middlebury (which has a downtown taxation district and this year achieved state designation as a historic downtown area), these zones are no longer threatened by increasing commercial vacancies and building deterioration.

Vergennes especially has seen a remarkable turnaround. Ever since a community coalition met the seemingly impossible goal of returning the Vergennes Opera House to use as a cultural center in time for the "littlest city" 1997 Centennial, one investment has leveraged another in the classic National Main Street Center pattern of renewal.

Real estate agent George Brewer, looking at the phenomenon from his Middlebury perspective, said, "They're doing a great job up there." A few years ago, properties in Vergennes were difficult to sell, partly because of run-down buildings along Main Street. But in the past two years, businesses have been moving to Main Street and "they're on a tear up there. Now people are looking to Vergennes."

David Austin of Main Street Footcare is one of them. An expert in sizing feet and ordering special shoes (something like being an optician in relation to the prescriptions of optometrists and ophthalmologists) would have allowed him to find customers at almost any location, he said, but he chose Vergennes.

"Most retailers in Vermont are somewhat dependent on tourist traffic," Austin said. "I believe that tourists who come to Vermont prefer that type of city. It's authentic. It's a real downtown."

Where Fishman's department store once anchored the business district to some extent, the new Lyndonville Savings Bank building has added a similar kind of reliable traffic (Addison Outfitters now occupies the once vacant corner location where Fishman's did business). Austin had high praise for some of the specialty clothing and gift shops that local entrepreneurs have developed, with good success.

This summer, much of the civic action will be around the town green, which will include constructing new sidewalks, putting electric and water lines underground, and adding topsoil to help plantings.

New Mayor Sue Clark, who is also a recruiter for the Northland Job Corps Center in Vergennes, used her contacts with similar centers around New England to arrange for a Grafton, MA, trades education program to do about $20,000 worth of concrete-related labor at no cost to the city.

A new power line will make it possible to put a spotlight on the green's statue of Commodore Thomas Macdonough, who built a fleet at the base of Vergennes falls that decisively bested a British fleet on Lake Champlain near the end of the War of 1812. It will be a small civic improvement, but of such small steps has Vergennes crafted a real revival. A related project - related by history - will expand walking trails and add picnic benches in the falls area.

The city's businesses and landlords will be among those shouldering most of the local cost of a $1.9 million upgrade of the city sewer plant. That project is stated to begin this month.

Also, there will be a state-funded $400,000 rebuild of West Main Street, the local name for Route 22A. The many fuel-carrying and hazardous materials trucks that go through the downtown continue to be an issue, but so far talks on a possible bypass remain at an early conceptual stage.

In Bristol, municipal manager Bob Hall said several projects are under way there, too. The National Bank of Middlebury, for one, is building a new branch office on Main Street, across from the one they presently occupy.

Ken Perine, the bank's president, said they have done very well in Bristol after starting a branch in that direction, and wanted more office space. Also, the new facility will have a drive-through window, he said.

Hall said a local group led by Tom and Carol Wells, who own downtown Dearleap Books, is in the process of buying a major Main Street business block from its current owner Barry Meader. That ch ange of ownership would preserve the current mix of businesses on the ground floor and apartments above.

A gas station and convenience store, Bristol's third, finally won approval this summer after contentious proceedings brought a reduction in store size, a cutback in the proposed hours of operation, and elimination of a proposed canopy for the gas pumps. An appeal is still possible.

The town's hopes for a sizable industrial park were dashed when New Haven, which owns part of the site, declined to participate last year. But Hall said they did pick up 30 acres from the state for $1, and an in -ground common septic system, given the 100-foot-deep gravel there, should eventually make it possible to put a scaled-down incubator business park there, he said.

Damage from a 1998 flood has been a continuing concern for Bristol, and for Lincoln above it, with so much road and bridge damage that disaster aid (75 percent federal, 25 percent shared by the state and the towns) was the only hope of restoration. Lincoln lost its local library

collection, but a remarkably successful fund-raising campaign brought in the money to construct a new building at a safer location. Bristol lost two bridges on Route 116/17 (the two roads run concurrently), but Hall said residents were glad to see circumstances advance them on the state's priority list. One has been replaced and the other is due for replacement next year, he said.

A few days after the interview with Hall, and on the same day that the new Lincoln library opened, the skies unloaded again and the New Haven River rose eight feet in a few hours. Roads and bridges were washed out in Lincoln, and sandbags were needed to keep the overflow out of the building where the library had once been. Ripton, to the south, suffered severe road damage. A preliminary estimate put damages at about $300,000, excluding some bridge repairs.

It was far from being as severe as the 1998 flood - but the millennial hurricane season had just begun.

In Middlebury, concern over the downtown business district's future was brought to a head when two companies proposed 80-room motels for Route 7 just south of the village area.

A group calling itself Businesses for Middlebury, which included the Middlebury Inn and other village-area lodgings, argued during hearings that the proposals would run counter to the town plan, which sought to protect the business district from undue adverse impacts. Business was so tight that having even one of the chain lodgings (names like Holiday Inn, Travelodge and Comfort Inn have been mentioned as suitors for occupancy) would drain off so many customers that tourist shoppers wouldn't come downtown in the same numbers, especially if a downtown mainstay like the Middlebury Inn closed, the oppone ts and their consultants argued.

On the other side were KW Associates, who wanted to build on the current site of the disused Maple Manor Motel. Also, a partnership involving Chittenden County developer Tony Pomerleau and local landowner and businessman Toni Neri sought to build next to a large Rite-Aid that had been constructed in recent years opposite an existing shopping center. Through their consultants, they argued that lack of a branded hotel or motel means Middlebury is losing potential stopovers when people looking for such predictably safe lodgings go on to Rutland or Burlington.

In the end, the Planning Commission came down in the middle, saying there would be an adverse impact on downtown businesses, but not an undue adverse impact. However, both applicants were shot down on another criterion, that the area south of Court Street is meant by the town plan to have a village, pedestrian-oriented character - something not possible with a multi-story, blocky building next to a large parking lot.

The two applicants both continued their efforts, but in very different ways. Pomerlau worked closely with the Planning Commission to address their concerns, scrapping a restaurant and splitting up the structure into two smaller buildings and adjusting details of roofs and windows. He won approval, and if the project survives an appeal to the Environmental Court (testimony has been completed, and a verdict is expected soon) he will build in the near future. No operator has yet been selected.

KW Associates chose to fight the neighborhood character issue at the Environmental Court level, aiming a barrage of testimony at the town during eight days of court proceedings during the past half year. For instance, to show that Court Street was not an area characterized by pedestrian traffic, they took photographs of footprints after a snowstorm - and the town attorney countered that the photo merely showed that people had stayed indoors on a winter day. And so on.

In that case, too, an E-Court verdict should come soon. But the proponents and opponents have begun private talks to see if there can be some compromise on their differences.

One way or another, Middlebury

could wind up with two large motels, both with small conference facilities. Like a successful small company that faces a stock-related takeover, the town's success has made it attractive to large,. outside interests - a pattern that seems likely to continue in various ways into the next century.

In the long run, a larger number of transient beds may make sense, as both private and nonprofit sources of growth are doing well in industry. Few towns of under 10,000 people in Vermont have as vigorous a manufacturing sector as Middlebury, and that in turn is related to the existence of Middlebury College, which supplied the 100 acres for a recent industrial zone expansion.

INDUSTRIOUS ACTIVITY

Some areas of the nation, including some in Vermont, try to promote industrial development by putting together databases of unused industrial spaces and their features and making them accessible to potential clients. It's much easier than trying to create new industrial parks, incubator spaces or buildings.

But Jamie Stewart, the executive director of the Addison County Economic Development Corporation, said their situation is just the opposite. There are very few vacant spaces, but there's a lot of land where new sites can be developed.

The Development Corporation, which six years ago was a committee. of the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, is not under pressure to build tax base.

"Our focus is on existing businesses, working with people who chose to be here and supporting their efforts," he said - though, as will be seen, a new international component has strong potential to enlarge the scope of those companies' business relationships.

To help serve existing businesses, the Development Corporation links clients with the services of the Vermont Small Business Development Center, USDA Rural Development, the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center, the Service Corps of Retired Executives and an Agency of Natural Resources permit specialist available through their office on Route 7 South.

Partly because so many manufacturing companies are visually secluded on Middlebury's Exchange Street, there is strong acceptance of industry in one of Vermont's three most heavily agricultural counties, Stewart said. A survey distributed at the polls in Middlebury two years ago found that "about 85 percent supported additional industrial development," he said.

That was fortunate, because there has indeed been more industrial development lately: - A $20 million whey processing facility being added to the AgriMark/Cabot cheese plant should help the co-op's farmer owners by processing valuable proteins like lacto-ferrin from what would otherwise be a waste from the cheese operations. Helping to make that possible is Middlebury's new wastewater treatment plant, located in the expanded industrial park.

- Stewart said a number of high-tech businesses are doing well, such as VEMAS (electro-mechanical assemblies), Serix (sensors), the Bowles Corporation (medical and biomedical products), and outside Vergennes, BF Goodrich (sensing and monitoring systems and other products) and Nathaniel Electronics (contract electronic manufacturing). Across from BF Goodrich, the Development Corporation is working on more sites in its 45-acre industrial park, where Nathaniel Electronics is a lead tenant.

- The Otter Creek Brewery and the Vermont Soapworks continue to prosper, and to double as visitor attractions. (They and the rest of the firms in this list are on the Exchange Street area in Middlebury.)

- The building vacated by Concentrated Knowledge when it was sold and moved out of state (formerly it had moved from Bristol, where it had been Soundview Executive Book Summaries) now houses Retail Vision, a marketing-related firm.

American Hard Cider and Questech, which uses a resin and powered

metal substitute to create metallicappearing products, both are expanding their operations.

- A successful recruitment in 1999 brought Beau Ties (yes, it makes bow ties) to a 6,000-square-foot building.

The Development Corporation has helped with many aspects of industrial development, from strategic planning to drafting grant applications, Stewart said. They operate two revolving loan funds, both started by borrowing money from the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program: A microlending program, making loans from $5-20,000 range; and one for larger companies, offering loans. from $20-$75,000.

When it comes to competing with the advertising, promotion and business assistance budgets of larger states, figures like that aren't even in the ballpark. 'But Addison County has leapfrogged that level of competition, and is looking for business partners abroad through the Vermont Technology Initiative (VTI).

VTI began was a collaboration of the Addison County group, the Rutland Economic Development Corporation, nine companies in those counties, and the Vermont Department of Economic Development, using money from the state's Sustainable Jobs Fund. This year, VTI assembled data on 20 Vermont companies from six counties, and took it to Hannover Messe 2000 in Germany, the world's largest trade fair (5.5 million square feet of display space housing 40,000 companies and organizations).

"The Messe is where the international manufacturing community meets, and it continues to provide a unique opportunity for developing, successful marketing strategies aimed at strengthening our local industries," a Development Corporation newsletter summed up.

Stewart said Vermont's excellent labor force - the ace in the hole for many manufacturers in Addison County -, makes US operations attractive for some European firms saddled with archaic, union-related work rules.

"Our human capital continues to be our greatest strength," in Stewart's view. The many Addison County businesses that have pro-employee policies (membership in Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is very high) help maintain that advantage, he said.

"Small and medium-sized companies in Europe traditionally seek to grow through strategic partnering, in many ways mirroring the needs of Vermont's small and medium-sized firms," Stewart wrote at one point. The networking that began in Germany continues, at one point this year leading to a dinner at a Middlebury restaurant with a German delegation looking for biotech partners.

Autumn Harp in Bristol has given other businesses an example of what is possible internationally. Its relationship with the Body Shop, based in the United Kingdom, helped it become a contract manufacturer of natural and non-allergenic personal care products (its own line of lip balms proved unable to shoulder its way onto the shelves of chain retailers).

NON-PROFIT BENEFITS

No account of Addison County's economy would be complete without reference

to the non-profit sector. School systems add their wages and purchases throughout, and in Middlebury the educational enterprises include "the town's college," as it is sometimes called. And there is the Porter Medical Center, which Middlebury College played a major role in founding.

College public affairs director Phil Benoit said the last comprehensive study of the institution, s impact was several years ago, but the general patterns haven't changed. Meanwhile, the school is well on its way to increased enrollment - from below 2 000 to a new total of 2,350 (there are about 2,200 students now), with a commensurate increase in faculty and staff.

There were 1,330 employees in 1996, and the total school payroll was nearly $36.5 million. Of the employees, 96.2 percent were from Addison County, and of these, about two-thirds came from Middlebury. The latter accounted for 20.7 percent of Middlebury employment, and for the county as a whole, the college provided 11.6 percent of the jobs, making it the largest employer.

Currently, two very large construction projects are in the works, following up on the completion of its massive Bicentennial Hall science center. The previous science center is slated to be partially removed (its seven-story tower was a major problem for the residents of a previous era) and then added on to as a new library.

Ross Commons, one of five residential, dining and social complexes that will try to provide small-school intimacy on a large campus, has won approval and will soon start construction. A large trench extending the steam heat tunnels already gives evidence of the Ross Commons plans.

Helping to support Middlebury College's ambitious construction projects has been the growth of its endowment,

which Benoit said now stands at more than $600 million. Investment growth, at around 12 percent a year, has helped it as well as more donations, he said - venture capital opportunities being more important than the stock market for Middlebury.

Realizing the way such financing could help Vermont companies, the college is now talking with a Middlebury developer who wants to organize a way for venture capitalists to benefit the state, Benoit said. In any case, the expansion now planned is projected to add 542 jobs and $1.4 million in payroll, he said.

At the Porter Medical Center, Ron Hallman, their vice president for public relations, said they have about 600 employees and a $40 million annual budget., The number of employees would be even higher, he said, but in the current labor shortage, many workers find they can get as much money in restaurants or other commercial service jobs. The Helen Porter Nursing Home has particularly suffered from employee shortfalls, he said.

At a time when medical treatments are moving away from long hospital stays, Porter has several renovation projects in the works that should enhance operations, Hallman said. Its two 25-year-old operating room's will be supplemented by surgery I areas set up to handle the faster procedures more appropriately, he said. Two operating room technicians have already been hired, as well as four special process nurses, he said.

Community support helps keep the hospital in good financial health, Hallman said, and about 250 volunteers come to contribute their assistance. The volunteer program at Porter is, as far as he can tell, "one of the best in the state," he said.

VIRTUAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

There is no lack of business organizations for small companies to join in Addison County, starting with the Addison County Chamber of Commerce. Its resources, under long-term executive director Linda Stearns, are well enough developed that the organization is working to help develop computer protocols for Vermont's tourism-business database.

But there also is an online community, a place where low rates for Web pages and other services have kept Internet presence affordable for small businesses and entrepreneurs. James Peden, who began the Middlebury Network about three years ago, said most Internet technicians have abandoned small businesses, realizing that major Web sites for large corporations bring higher pay - but as a small businessman himself, he remains committed to fellow Addison County mom-and-pops, startups, and so on.

More than 100 interests are now represented by middlebury.net/~, Peden said. True non-profits get reduced rates, and play a role on the commercial side by attracting "hits" and site visits.

"The sad thing is that Vermont is always going to be at the bottom of the electronic food chain," Peden said. But in the same way that he stubbornly refuses to put up a real estate agency sign outside his house, he is determined to let Addison County make itself better known to the world by hosting Web sites on a server and making Web pages financially accessible.

HYDROPONIC FARMING

In mid-July, Vermont meteorologists observed an unusual phenomenon, something that had not happened since the middle of April. There had been three days in a row without rain.

For Addison County, where farmers live with the tradeoff between the fertility of clay soils and the impossibility of working on them during wet spells, the prolonged mud season was one more blow in an already hard year. Already affected by high gasoline prices, high energy costs, low milk prices, and the labor shortage, the last thing they needed was to have only six good days available for field work through June 25.

The situation was serious enough so that at the end of June, Commissioner of Agriculture Leon Graves made an aerial survey of the county (with the help of state Representative Connie Houston of Ferrisburgh, they flew out of Middlebury State Airport with Byron Danforth of East Middlebury). Seeing the progress being made on planting corn, he was quoted in the department's publication Agriview as having said "Providing the rest of the summer remains relatively normal and the growing season extends into fall, farmers could harvest a reasonable crop."

"Could" was a big "if" for a year that has seen many unusually cold nights as well as rainy days, and might well experience an early frost. Graves noted that the feed value of hay grown under such conditions can be compromised in quality as well as quantity, so that farmers could find themselves having to purchase additional supplies.

"Farmers should keep accurate records and report any shortage to the US Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency," Graves cautioned.

At Depot Farm Supply in Leicester, 18-year owner Rick Dutil summed up the hay and haylage situation with the words: "a lot of poor feed." Protein content plummets in a wet year, and "it's a doubleedged sword, because the energy content goes down even more than the protein."

The situation is had. but would be even worse if last year hadn't seen much higher milk prices, Dutil said. Farmers set aside money and bought feed, seed, fertilizer, etc, months ahead, anticipating the way milk prices fell more than $4 per hundredweight between December and January. Decent beef prices lately - a heifer that fetched only $100 last year is worth about $300 now - have helped the bottom line, he said.

But now those advance-purchase contracts are running out, and the same factors that make cull heifers more valuable

are making replacement cattle more expensive, Dutil said. When milk haulers pay more for gasoline, that cost gets passed along to the farmers. And the going price for milk, about $12 per hundredweight, comes far short of the $15 needed to at least pay the monthly bills and keep rolling along.

The nationwide labor shortage hits hard on farms, where the pay is far from rock bottom but the work is often arduous.

"It's pretty hard to find help," Dutil said. A few farmers, perhaps taking a cue from the apple growers' use of Jamaican pickers, have hired Mexican laborersthat country having a dairy industry of its own where workers have acquired the necessary skills.

If it were easier to sell farms, or if walking away from one didn't mean leaving behind six-figure equity stakes, more farmers would probably just get out, Dutil said. On farms with no real estate debt load, he is seeing the owners cut back the size of their herds, because the more cows they have, the faster they go into the hole. As long as they can pay taxes, "it doesn't matter if there's a cow in that stall or not."

Not having good forage crops, and perhaps not good corn crops, farmers have bought more grain. There, the going prices have given them a real break, Dutil said.

But everyone knows that some other farmer grew that grain, Dutil said. It's hard to enjoy a situation that means someone else is having a hard time paying their bills, he said.

"Most farmers would just like to go to the checkbook at the end of the month and pay their bills and have enough dollars to live off and not have the bill collector at their door," Dutil said. The root problem is that where farmers used to get about half of what was paid in the store for milk, now their share is down to about 30 percent, with milk on the supermarket shelf selling for the equivalent of about $42 per hundredweight, he said.

"I won't give up the shop," Dutil said of his independent dealership. "I'm not discouraged. But I think the farmers deserve better."

Dairy farming in particular, with its massive inputs, outputs, land areas and structures, has a substantial ripple effect in Addison County's economy. Checks with farm equipment and supply dealers found that there had been a noticeable dropoff in purchases this year.

At Huestis Farm Supply and Hardware Store in Bridport, owner and "main gofer" Richard Huestis said hardware sales - to farmers, not to home remodelers - are helping to make up for a falloff in equipment sales. The company, which he has run since 1986 and which started in 1971, is going to survive, he said but "it's a struggle."

Make it do or do without. One farmer had come in to buy a forage wagon, because his old unit had broken down and "he was desperate," Huestis said. No one is making major capital purchases such as 150 and 200 horsepower tractors and manure tankers, and the sales of power takeoff generators, which had accelerated prior to a possible Y2K disaster, have almost ceased now, he said.

At Green Mountain Tractor in Middlebury, veteran sales associate Dale Logan said that in addition to the milk prices and weather, interest rates and gasoline prices are affecting the equipment sales picture.

Last year, equipment could be financed at single-digit rates, Logan said. This year, unless the manufacturer offers better terms, purchasers have to pay 12 percent - the result of the Federal Reserve hiking rates to fight possible inflation.

The fuel costs obviously affect what a farmer must pay for milk hauling, but also can influence what equipment and supplies cost, Logan said. Recently, Green Mountain Tractor brought in a truckload of purchases that cost about $2,500 for transportation, not the $1,800 that it would have cost last year, because

gasoline costs a third more.

And there's the weather. "As I look out the window, it's raining right now, Logan said.

Difficult to quantify, but also part of the picture, is the way wet weather has caused home gardeners to scale back their plantings. That in turn has affected a variety of horticultural businesses.

HOW'S THEM FOR APPLES?

Wet weather can also threaten apple growers, and in the Champlain Valley areas of Addison County, orchards have long been an important part of the commercial landscape. The Shoreham Apple Cooperative, with its low-temperature and low-oxygen storage facility in that town, accounts for a substantial part of the state's harvest.

As of mid-July, prospects remained good for a strong -apple crop, according to Don Selvy, the Shoreham Co-op's manager. There was one fungus disease that had to be sprayed, but with plenty of rain and enough days of sunshine in July, we're not doing too badly," he said.

The worst weather for the industry has been macroeconomic rather

than meteorological. Air shipment of foreign produce, and major

plantings by the state of Washington, have both cut into the strategic

value of storing Vermont apples and gradually shipping them off

season to obtain higher prices. A recent Associated Press article

describing the woes of Hudson Valley orchardists, who experienced

severe hail damage, spoke of "a worldwide glut of apples."

Two years ago, the Shoreham Co-op tried closing the packing line section of its building, and switched to using Vermont Apple Orchards' more automated facility in Westminster. The hope was to do the job cheaper and quicker, and to do a better job of sorting grades and sizes of apples for particular markets.

But last fall, the members switched back to using their own packing line.

Selvy said one factor in that decision was the damage caused to the fruit during the trip across Vermont. Also, "It's important to growers to visit and see their apples being packed," he said - something that the 100-mile trip to Westminster made impractical or costly for many members.

In spite of the ongoing labor shortage, the packing line found just enough workers last fall, and seems likely to be adequately staffed this fall, SeIvy said. Rural areas have the disadvantage of a smaller labor pool (one reason for hiring Jamaican apple pickers to supplement the Vermont workers), but have the advantage that some people want to find work close to their homes and families, he said.

By making scheduling accommodations, like allowing mothers to work between school bus runs, the packing plant kept going. That has meant work for between 13 and 20 people, depending on the demand, SeIvy said.

The new collective septage disposal system that the town of Shoreham is installing should make operating the plant easier, Selvy said.

However, no one should assume that the apple industry isn't struggling to survive. There may not be orchardists pulling up their trees this year, but "you never know," Selvy said. "It's tough, emotionally and financially."

LAND OF MILK AND WHATEVER

"The land of milk and honey," Addison County is sometimes called. This year, the verroa mite has hurt the honey industry and dairy farmers are on the ropes.

But to use another Ag analogy, it's a region that believes in not putting all its eggs in one basket. As a result, it continues to offer a diverse landscape and a variety of opportunities that add up to a high quality of life - elements that should survive even the complications of the Champlain Valley's climate.

Copyright Boutin-McQuiston, Inc. Aug 01, 2000
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