Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone
Committee Report

Report to the Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, the House
Committee on Commerce and Community Development, and the Senate Committee on Economic
Development, Housing and General Affairs: December 1, 2015

 2

Foreword
The Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone was created by the Legislature during the 2015
session. The Zone is comprised of the forty-four towns within the boundaries of the Windham Regional
Commission and the Bennington Regional Commission. The legislation created a nine-person Southern
Vermont Economic Development Zone Committee,1 which was charged with submitting a report on or
before December 1, 2015, to the Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development,
the House Committee on Commerce and Community Development, and the Senate Committee on
Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. The legislation directed that the Report should
include proposals:
(1) To establish an integrated investment strategy for retaining businesses within and recruiting
business to the Zone;
(2) to establish an implementation plan for the Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and
Marketing Project created in 2014 and contained in the Windham Region’s federally
recognized Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy;
(3) to outline the benefits and obstacles within the Zone involved in integrating internship and
career exposure programs, workforce development programs, and young professional
activities;
4) to propose an organizational and operational structure of a public-private partnership with the
mission of aggregating capital and coordinating investment in small- and medium-size
businesses located within the Zone; and
(5) to recommend whether and in what configuration the Study Committee or other group
should continue and its mission.

Our Committee’s Vision for Southern Vermont
Southern Vermont will be a place that attracts visitors and new residents who will be drawn by not only
the beauty of our hills and valleys, but by the energy and excitement that comes from our dedication to
building communities, businesses, careers and successful families and lives. We believe that a strong
economy is a vital determinant of the quality of life in the region, essential to the household income
security of all who live here.

Introduction
Southern Vermont is in trouble. Its population is declining and aging. Tourism has not recovered from
pre-recession levels; residential construction is at half the level of 2006; retail sales are down. Between
2000 and 2013, the under 18 population in Windham and Bennington Counties dropped nearly 20%. We
must reverse current trends and retain and grow the population, lower the average age, raise the
average wage, and promote and embrace greater population diversity. In essence, we need to
repopulate southern Vermont. Urgent action is required.
1

For more information on the Zone Committee including membership, see Appendix H.

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The Committee concluded that economic growth in the Zone requires not only strategies that will
“retain and attract businesses,” as the legislation directs, but also strategies that will grow businesses.
We believe the best way to do this is to focus on expanding existing businesses and to help
entrepreneurs and emerging businesses get up and running.
The Committee also recognizes that the Zone has significant assets. The Windham Region
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy is built upon assets to be leveraged, and existing and
emerging business clusters to be strengthened, cultivated and grown. The Southern Vermont
Sustainable Marketing Strategy is based on what the Zone has to offer to visitors and those who want to
move here permanently. Perhaps as important, the Strategy is a reminder of the need to market these
assets to ourselves. The Windham and Bennington Regional Plans identify myriad economic, social,
cultural, geographic, natural resource and other assets and set forth policies to guide development.
Most towns have plans that similarly identify the assets within their boundaries and their vision for their
future. The need and opportunity exists for even greater collaboration and coordination among those
entities tasked with development within the Zone to continue to identify the assets we have, to build
upon those that are strong, to strengthen those that are at risk of being lost, and to promote what we
have not only to those outside the Zone but those within it as well.
The Windham Region has begun implementing with urgency coordinated regional strategies and tactics
to reverse current economic trends. Windham has undertaken this work through its federally
recognized Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy and regional action networks. But the
success of the Windham Region will remain limited unless the Bennington Region can act as a partner.
Bennington has not yet developed the tools that have enabled Windham to advance. Therefore, we
recommend with urgency that the regions develop, in cooperation with the United States Economic
Development Administration, a coordinated, Southern Vermont Comprehensive Economic Development
Strategy (CEDS).
We recognize that there are multiple critical issues that require attention. While the committee was not
able to comprehensively address all relevant issues in this report, we provide an overview of some of
the most pressing challenges and opportunities. For example, with an unemployment rate of 4.1% for
the combined region, hiring from among the population already present in the region is very difficult.
That means that bringing workers and their families into the area is a critical priority, including those
who have left but would like to return, but employers in southern Vermont have no collaboration
vehicle for recruiting workforce, and existing methods are inadequate to the task.
Other issues include the costs and availability of adequate housing, and a perceived lack of value for
taxes; the lack of an investor base and reason to invest; workforce reputation; connectivity; and
transportation (in the western portion of the Zone).
Detailed descriptions of all findings and recommendations can be found in the appendices to the report.

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The Committee found that challenges include:
● Lack of coordination across the region (particularly in Bennington County)
● Access to capital
● Workforce development
● Housing
● Broadband and cell access/connectivity
● Awareness and marketing
● Limited transportation
There are more than 20 organizations involved in planning, promoting and executing economic
development programs in the Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone. There has been a strong
and healthy movement towards coordination in the eastern portion of the Zone through the creation of
the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategy (SeVEDS), but more needs to be done.
Attaining the goal of “retaining businesses within and recruiting business to the Zone” will require a
multi-faceted approach. The key word is “integrated”.
The integrated approach that we recommend would:
● organize networks, and align the development efforts already underway through a federally
recognized CEDS for the Zone;
● put an effective marketing plan into effect;
● create ways to attract capital investment into the Zone, including new federal dollars;
● bring a combination of public and private resources into the effort to develop the economy, and
● set targets and benchmarks that can be monitored to gauge progress toward objectives.

Recommendation 1: To spur business development in the Zone through an integrated
strategy
1A: Create a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) under the auspices of the federal
Economic Development Administration (EDA), covering the Southern Vermont Economic
Development Zone.
The CEDS is a formal instrument used by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) based on
a planning process that brings together inputs from a multitude of sources. A CEDS is more than a plan;
it identifies population dynamics, assets to be built upon, challenges to be overcome, investments to be
made, infrastructure to be built and maintained, and private-public partnerships through which specific
actions can be taken.2 Equally important, a CEDS can open the doorway to federal funding for economic
development in the Zone that far exceeds the capacity of the State of Vermont. The EDA is accustomed
to working with regions that are comprised of multiple counties that may even transcend state
boundaries. The development of a CEDS that covers all of southern Vermont should be viewed favorably
by the agency.

2

More detail in Appendix A

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The Windham region already has a CEDS.3 The Windham Region CEDS guides the economic policies,
strategies, and actions of both the regional development corporation and regional planning commission.
Since 2011, the Windham Region Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS)
initiative has attracted over a million dollars in implementation and operational funding from local, state
and federal government entities, as well as the Windham region private sector. The Bennington Region
does not have a CEDS, but has intended to develop one. The SeVEDS Committee has indicated a
willingness to expand the Windham Region CEDS to encompass the entire Southern Vermont Zone area,
provided that Bennington County is willing and able to act regionally and to provide matching human
and financial resources.
A CEDS for the entire Zone will provide a mechanism to coordinate the work of the chambers and other
economic development entities in the Zone, including, for example, the results of the just-completed
Northshire Economic Study and the several promotional and marketing efforts underway or planned.
Next steps:
● We recommend that the two Regional Development Corporations and two Regional Planning
Commissions work together with SeVEDS and interested parties in Bennington County to create
a Southern Vermont Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).
● The Committee recommends that the State of Vermont should provide a $50,000 grant from the
Vermont Enterprise Fund to the Bennington region so that Bennington can develop capacity and
do groundwork necessary for the successful completion of a southern Vermont CEDS.
1.B. Improve State interagency communication and cooperation in the Zone.
Southern Vermont would benefit significantly from increased integration at the State level as well. At
present, the state government is largely organized into silos, with integration occurring at the top, if at
all. Economic development is the charge of the Agency for Commerce and Community Development,
but advancing the economy of Vermont requires significant engagement by other agencies, including
the Agencies of Natural Resources and Transportation, the Department of Public Service and many
more.
Next steps:
● The Committee recommends that the Governor and the legislature improve overall integration
and coordination of the actions and policies of the myriad state agencies involved in economic
development. Specifically, we recommend the creation– by executive order or legislation – of an
interagency council in the Zone that would interface with businesses attempting to move in or
grow, thereby creating a simplified approach and streamlining the development process as the
Brownfields Economic Revitalization Alliance (BERA) currently does for brownfield sites.

3

Completed in 2013 under the guidance of SeVEDS and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation.

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1.C. Develop a feasible and sustainable plan to meet Vermont’s 2014 telecommunications goals in the
Zone
In the words of the 2014 Vermont Telecommunications Plan, “the importance of high speed Internet
access to Vermonters cannot be overstated. Internet access is a prerequisite to participation in our
nation’s information economy.” The Zone Committee agrees: High speed broadband service must play
an important part in our efforts to improve the economy of southern Vermont.
The legislature has set an ambitious goal of universal symmetrical 1 gigabit broadband service by 2024,
but there is no strategy or financing plan in place to achieve that goal.
Universal cell phone service is another important part of economic development policy. Cell coverage in
the Zone is inadequate, and there is a lack of accurate information about the exact extent of the
deficiencies. Current efforts and needs in southern Vermont’s telecommunications are detailed in
Appendix C; the Committee’s recommendations are below.
Next steps:
● The Department of Public Service should have a fiber financing plan that meets the 2024 goal
ready in draft for comment by December, 2016.
● In developing a CEDS for the Southern Vermont Zone, consideration should be given to creating
one or more Communication Union Districts in southern Vermont as a way to “fast track” fiber
to the home and businesses in our region, using Vermont FiberConnect or other vendors.
● The “middle mile” capacity of the SoVernet system should be marketed to attract and retain
firms and organizations that could best take advantage of that resource.
● The Department of Public Service should expand the mobile device mapping program initiated
by the Vermont Telecommunications Authority to present a more accurate picture of cell phone
coverage.
1.D. Create incentives and policies that will produce a mix of housing options to attract younger
populations and allow older residents to remain in their homes as they age.4
For the Southern Vermont Zone to retain and attract businesses and workers there must be an ample
supply and a wide variety of housing types for people of all incomes. We have an incomplete
understanding of the housing needs and current situation in southern Vermont. There are hundreds of
residences – both primary and second homes – on the market and an uncertain number for rent, but
little analysis has been done of the match between available housing and the needs of the regional
workforce – both current and prospective. However, we do know that southern Vermont’s has a
shortage of quality housing for year-round residents. Approximately a third of the housing stock in the
region is “seasonal housing,” which translates to second homes, and nearly another one-third of the
region’s housing stock was constructed prior to 1940.

4

See Appendix C.

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Next steps:
● Building on the research and work of the Windham and Windsor Housing Trust in Brattleboro,
Wilmington and Bellows Falls, and Shires Housing in the Bennington Region, the Southern
Vermont CEDS should undertake a foundational study of the present and future real estate
market and the implications for retaining and attracting businesses and new people to the Zone.
● The Southern Vermont CEDS should seek funding to complete water and wastewater needs
assessments and wastewater feasibility plans for communities with the desire and the potential
to increase density at their centers, and to develop means for financing such plans.
1.E. Identify, support and grow Industry Clusters within the Zone.5
A cluster is a regional concentration of related industries in a particular location. As described in Cluster
Mapping, a project of the EDA and the Harvard Business School:
Clusters emerge naturally in the market process, providing productivity benefits to companies as
they grow in size. They become attractive to companies looking for a new location and grow
through the performance of companies already located there. Companies in clusters gain access
to specialized regional suppliers, service providers, and institutions, and can also benefit from
deep pools of skilled employees and shared infrastructure dedicated to their needs.
The Windham Regional CEDS identified several potential clusters in southeastern Vermont, based on the
assets in place in the region. Significant work is underway to refine the opportunities and focus
resources in those clusters. Preliminary priority clusters in the Windham and Bennington regions include
the Green Building and Services sector, technology driven precision manufacturing and healthcare. Food
manufacturing and higher education are other promising and growing clusters.
Next steps:
● We recommend that in building the Southern Vermont CEDS that is the core recommendation
of this Report, a major effort be made to further identify and support sectors that provide the
greatest promise for growing good paying jobs in southern Vermont.
● To encourage the number of visitors to the Zone, there is a need to recognize and connect the
cluster of diverse tourism attractions – ranging from outdoor recreation to shopping and
entertainment.
● Given the growing diversity of the population of the US, recognize the importance of promoting
the Zone to a greater diversity of potential visitors.
1.F. Enhance the arts and cultural community of southern Vermont.
We have paid particular attention to a cluster that is often overlooked: integrating the many arts,
culture and entertainment offerings that help define the Zone region, attract newcomers and help
retain those already here.6 Southern Vermont has myriad arts and culture activities and places of
entertainment. However, the challenges facing this community are many. First, to a large extent these
5
6

See Appendix D
See Appendix E

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assets are hidden in plain sight. By their very nature, many are independent of each other and do not
see the strength they have in acting together.
There is a need for imaginative, coordinated and effective marketing to bring them to the attention of
out-of-state audiences in the big city areas in the northeast. There is also value in identifying what gaps
exist not only to better retain and attract working age people, but to also identify new business
opportunities in the arts and culture sector. Once attracted to what southern Vermont has to offer, it is
to be hoped that many visitors will return and venture further afield.
There is at present an opportunity to be transformative. In the past few years there has been real
growth in arts and culture in southern Vermont. Achieving further success, and thereby benefiting
Vermont as a whole, will require imagination, leadership, energy and financial support.
Next steps:
● In developing the Southern Vermont CEDS, the arts and cultural organizations in the Zone
should be surveyed to develop a better understanding of that cluster and seek to create ways in
which they might cooperate to enhance the Zone’s reputation as a destination full of
extraordinary creative talents and programs.
● Ensure that town and regional plans include an arts and cultural section and policies. Use these
plans as a basis for greater collaboration in support of arts and culture, including competitive
applications for grants.
● We recommend the establishment, where appropriate, of town arts committees following the
example of Brattleboro.
● When, as we recommend, the Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and Marketing
program is implemented, it should include an appropriate portion of marketing dollars from the
arts, culture and entertainment opportunities in the Zone.

Recommendation 2: Implement the Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and
Marketing Project.
Without a comprehensive marketing and recruiting strategy, our area is too often viewed as depressed,
with few job opportunities, limited growth potential, and “not much to do” for families, professionals,
and young people. Outside investors can see southern Vermont as a monoculture; “miles of nothing
stashed in between a few ski resorts,” lacking diversity of people, culture(s), and opportunities. There is
low scalability potential due to modest and shrinking population size (Vermont’s entire population is less
than one county in many states).
Post-recession hospitality and retail sales revenues have not rebounded in southern Vermont as they
have in some other areas of the state, reflecting very slow recovery in the number of visitors to the
Zone.
The Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and Marketing Project was well researched and
designed by employers and chambers of commerce across the region and led by SeVEDS, the regional
development corporations and regional planning commissions to address two main challenges:

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●

●

Bringing workers and their families into the area is a critical priority, but employers in southern
Vermont have no collaborative vehicle for recruiting workforce, and existing methods are
inadequate to the task.
While there is some collaborative tourism marketing taking place in the southern Vermont, it is
generally limited to local collaboration. There are no collaborative marketing programs that
span the Zone.

The marketing project resulted in a recommendation for a multi-faceted marketing campaign aimed at
bringing people to southern Vermont, using “Become a Vermonter – for a weekend - for life” as the
theme. The recommendation was supported by the Bennington and Windham county planning and
development organizations, all of the region’s chambers of commerce and a cross-section of area
businesses and other organizations. The project has been stalled due to lack of start-up capacity
funding. The estimated start-up cost is $130-150,000 for hiring of a project manager, office set-up and
website creation.
Next steps:
● This project should be prioritized for any applicable local, state or federal program funds to
finance the start-up of the sustainable marketing program.
● The Governor should approve using the Vermont Enterprise Fund for a $75,000 grant to
Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation to support the advancement of this Zone-wide
marketing and recruitment effort, on condition that the grant be matched by an equal amount
from the private sector.
● With the joint leadership of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and the
Bennington County Industrial Corporation, the Recruiting and Marketing Program should be
based on a private-public partnership of businesses, chambers of commerce, economic
development organizations and the State of Vermont. Ongoing program costs should be funded
by a mix of private businesses, grants, and matching funds, including match dollars from the
Vermont Department of Marketing and Tourism for advertising.
● We recommend the Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and Marketing Program be
scaled to achieve significant impact, with a minimum $250,000 annual budget to begin.
● We also recommend the development of a smaller-focused marketing team available to help
fledgling businesses develop marketing strategies and help entrepreneurs with technical and
research-based approaches to market themselves in the internet age.

Recommendation 3: Integrate workforce, education, internship and career development
programs.
The Committee surveyed existing reports on workforce and economic development in the Zone and
found many shared problems, but few integrated solutions. No group has yet surveyed existing
workforce development efforts to gain a full sense of the problems and opportunities present in the
region. Focused collaboration among existing organizations could open pools of resources and talent
which are otherwise too fragmented to work optimally. Data-gathering and alliance-making on the scale

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demanded by the situation are beyond the committee’s scope. This work would be an essential part of
the Southern Vermont CEDS.
The Committee found that:7
● No comprehensive vision exists for the development of southern Vermont’s workforce.
● Many of southern Vermont’s young workers lack critical career skills.
● Southern Vermont is not attracting the outside workforce it needs.
● Vermont Career and Technical Education Centers are unable to react in a timely fashion to
changing local economies.
Next steps:
● We recommend the Southern Vermont CEDS support the creation of a southern Vermont
workforce/education assets and needs map.
● We recommend a multi-region effort to develop a comprehensive visible pipeline approach to
integrating employers and employer perspectives throughout the P-20 trajectory, giving
students age-appropriate exposure to the world of work—locally and generally—from the very
beginning of their schooling.
● The supervisory unions of the Zone should create a system for identifying and responding to
workforce demand in the Zone.
● The Windham Region’s Internship Program should expand to include apprenticeships for both
high school students and mid-career and early career adults. These programs should also be
expanded to include the Bennington County Region.
● We recommend creating a local approval process for tech centers. We also encourage
increasing flexibility in tech center enrollment. Southern Vermont can be a pilot region for tech
center reform.
● We also support continued expansion of dual college-high school enrollment opportunities
available to students in the Zone.
● We encourage expanded work by the Community College of Vermont and Vermont Technical
College in sponsoring or hosting development workshops in entrepreneurship.
● Recognizing national and regional demographic trends, we encourage employers to create a
work environment that reflects the need to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

Recommendation 4. Create a private-public partnership to attract investment capital to the
Zone.
Members of the Committee reached out to several sources of information and opinion to better
understand the issues involved in attracting capital and interest in investment to southern Vermont. 8
Primary internal challenges:

7
8

See Appendix F
See Appendix G

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●

●
●

Southern Vermont has yet to put forward a strong value proposition or business case for
competitive advantage. There is not yet a comprehensive vision, an implementation strategy,
and/or benchmarks to measure results.
We have few relationships with site selection companies.
We have not yet undertaken a consistent, well-funded recruiting and marketing strategy, as
proposed in the Southern Vermont Sustainable Recruitment and Marketing Project.

Primary external challenges:
● There are too few compelling reasons to think of southern Vermont, given the State’s lackluster
business reputation.
● Without a comprehensive marketing and recruiting strategy, our area is viewed as depressed:
few job opportunities, limited growth potential, and “not much to do” for families,
professionals, and young people.
● Outside investors often view southern Vermont as a monoculture, lacking diversity of people,
culture(s), and opportunities.
● There is low scalability potential due to a modest and shrinking population size.
Capital is attracted to regions with a strong vision, and well-planned and executed initiatives. Much of
the work to attract capital to the Zone falls to southern Vermont, but the state has the ability, and
responsibility, to help here as well. The Committee has found that there is appetite in the region for
investing both in companies to retain them, and in start-ups by investors who take the longer view of
the investment.
There is also some potential for “municipal philanthropy,” whereby charitable donations might be made
to towns with significant debt loads (such as Brattleboro) to reduce town debt, lower taxes and help
make the region more attractive.
The Committee believes a formal Southern Vermont Economic Development Alliance or Partnership
could attract capital to the Zone if there is a clear commitment to long-term thinking of the total region.
There should be one entity with a mutually shared vision and latitude in the tools and instruments used
to identify and attain goals. The Southern Vermont CEDS can be an implementing tool for this effort.
This will require rethinking what we are and how we operate; creating a long range five or more year
development strategy based on a private-public partnership with targets, benchmarks/scorecard and
accountability.

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Next steps:
● The Windham Regional Commission and Bennington County Regional Commission will continue
to explore opportunities for collaboration and coordination on projects that will benefit
southern Vermont as a whole. One example could be promoting transportation access to the
Zone, such as the frequent Amtrak passenger rail service from Albany to New York City, which
provides convenient travel for business people between southern Vermont and New York, and
the proximity of the Zone to major airports in Albany, Hartford, CT, and Manchester, NH.
● Existing entities in the Zone should build and expand on the Southern Vermont Business
Innovation Accelerator.
● The regions should encourage more collaborative co-working spaces and programs for
entrepreneurs, students, and professionals, building on the model of the Lightning Jar, located
in downtown Bennington.
● The regions should draw from the process of US regions that have established economic
development alliances, focused entities working as private-public partnerships attracting
investment capital to recruit and retain businesses, support entrepreneurship, and attract and
retain young professionals and a diverse workforce and entrepreneurial base.
● The regions should explore relationships with area universities and research departments
aligned with emerging industries, technologies, and markets, including those outside Vermont’s
borders.

Recommendation 5: Define the role of the Committee and/or other groups in continuing the
work and its mission.
This Report is being delivered to the Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community
Development, the House Committee on Commerce and Community Development, and the Senate
Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.
Next steps:
● The Committee will expire on July 1, 2016. Prior to its expiration, the chair will be ready to assist
in assembling representatives from Committee to testify before the legislature and to follow up
on the Committee’s recommendations with the public, the administration, the Agency of
Commerce and Community Development and other state agencies.
●

The Committee believes that the existing SeVEDS model is the appropriate process to establish a
CEDS for the Zone. In order to apply for and successfully complete the Zone CEDS, the
Committee recommends that its members from the Bennington region should convene a
subgroup to assess potential leaders and points of contact to understand Bennington’s interest
and ability to partner with SeVEDS and other entities within the Zone to develop the Southern
Vermont CEDS. The findings of this subgroup will be provided as an addendum to the Report
before the expiration of the Committee on July 1, 2016.

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Appendix A: Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS)
In response to the purposes established by the statute for the Southern Vermont Economic
Development Zone, our Committee has adopted as a core recommendation the development of a biregional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) to build private-public partnerships
and actions to improve the economy of southern Vermont. As described by the EDA:
A comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS) is designed to bring together
the public and private sectors in the creation of an economic roadmap to diversify and
strengthen regional economies. The CEDS should analyze the regional economy and
serve as a guide for establishing regional goals and objectives, developing and
implementing a regional plan of action, and identifying investment priorities and
funding sources.
While this Report recommends some new initiatives, we also recognize the usefulness of building upon
the statutorily-defined structures, organizations, human resources, plans and strategies that already
exist. One such existing economic development tool is the Windham Region CEDS, which was completed
in 2013 under the guidance of the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS)
and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. The Windham Region CEDS guides the economic
policies, strategies, and actions of both the regional development corporation and regional planning
commission. Since 2011, the Windham Region SeVEDS initiative has attracted over a million dollars in
implementation and operational funding from local, state and federal government entities, as well as
the Windham region private sector. Implementation of three major initiatives outlined in the Windham
Region CEDS is underway: development of an integrated workforce center of excellence, a Green
Building Cluster Study and the startup and operation of the Southern Vermont Business Innovation
Accelerator.
The Windham Region CEDS was developed through direct engagement with the region’s business
community as well as the general public as a whole. Building the comprehensive strategy embodied in a
CEDS was facilitated by the regional planning and development organizations, and is being led by a
Strategy Committee which represents the main economic sectors of the region, and includes senior
business leaders from those sectors as a majority of the Committee. The balance of the Committee
includes public officials, community leaders, representatives from higher education, and private citizens.
Clearly, expansion of the highly effective SeVEDS CEDS Strategy Committee is an example of the kind of
public-private partnership envisioned for the entire Zone. The Windham Region CEDS is effective until
2019. The SeVEDS Committee has indicated a willingness to expand the Windham Region CEDS to
encompass the entire Southern Vermont Zone area provided that Bennington County is willing and able
to act regionally and to provide matching human and financial resources.
We know the two regions have much in common when it comes to the myriad economic, demographic,
physical, social and cultural elements that inform the development of a CEDS, and the two regions have
a track record of effective collaboration. For example, in 2012 a collaborative effort among the
Windham Regional Commission, Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, the Bennington County
Regional Commission, and the Bennington County Development Corporation successfully competed for

 14
a $470,000 Disaster Recovery Grant to support working with individual businesses on recovery from
Tropical Storm Irene, on village and downtown revitalization planning and on the creation of the
Southern Vermont Sustainable Marketing Strategy for southern Vermont as a whole.
Creating a CEDS for the entire Zone would have the benefit of providing a mechanism to help coordinate
the work of the chambers and other entities in the Zone, including, for example, the results of the justcompleted Northshire Economic Study and the several promotion and marketing efforts underway or
planned. An additional potential benefit a CEDS for the Zone would be improving the competitive
position of southern Vermont in its pursuit of resources from the EDA. The EDA is accustomed to
working with regions that are comprised of multiple counties that may even transcend state boundaries.
The development of a CEDS that covers all of southern Vermont should be viewed favorably by the
agency.
We believe the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies effort (SeVEDS) provides a
strong model for a public private organization. Founded by the Regional Development Corporation,
Regional Planning Commission, municipalities and CEOs in the Windham Region in 2011, this
organization is responsible for the regional thinking, planning, acting, and fundraising that is ongoing in
the Windham Region. We recommend that the two Regional Development Corporations and two
Regional Planning Commissions work together with SeVEDS and interested parties in Bennington County
to create a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) for southern Vermont. The
Committee recommends that the State of Vermont should provide a $50,000 grant to the Bennington
region so that Bennington can develop capacity and do groundwork necessary for the successful
completion of a southern Vermont CEDS.
Appendix B: Telecommunications
Over the past five years, over $175 million in federal funding has been and is being spent to improve
internet service in Vermont.9 As the Windham Region CEDS states, “looking around the Windham region
today, it is clear that the telecommunication landscape is forever changed. For the first time in our
state’s history, we occupy the enviable position of being ahead of the curve in deploying both robust and
comprehensive capacity. Connectivity, particularly in concert with other quality of place factors, may
prove to be a defining competitive advantage. However, strategies for leveraging this advantage are not
fully formed.” The same conclusion would apply to the Bennington Region.
The legislature has set out an ambitious goal: to achieve universal symmetrical (that is, same speed up
and down) 1,000 Mbps (1 gigabit) broadband service by 2024. It is generally agreed that reaching that
goal will give a huge boost to Vermont’s economic development efforts. It is also generally agreed that it
9

VTel received a $81.7 million broadband stimulus grant to build a state-wide wireless broadband system called
WOW. A federally-guaranteed loan of $35 million enabled VTel to complete high speed fiber availability to its
telephone customers in 14 towns in southern Vermont. With $33 million in federal funding and $2 million from the
State of Vermont, Sovernet has built a 733-mile fiber optic “middle mile” network (Vermont FiberConnect) that
connects to more than 340 “community anchor institutions” (schools, libraries, municipal buildings and the like).
Fairpoint has announced it will be receiving $53 million in federal support over 6 years to expand broadband in
Vermont.

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will require bringing fiber optic broadband the so-called “last mile” to every Vermont address. The
middle mile network of Vermont FiberConnect can play an important part in that work. And the VTel
wireless WOW system, while impacted by line of sight issues, can also be part of the solution. But, as the
Windham Region CEDS notes, strategies for leveraging this advantage are not fully formed.
The cost of such an effort is estimated by the Department of Public Service to be around $1 billion, but
the 2014 Vermont Telecommunications Plan is silent on the subject of strategies and plans to
accomplish the financing.
Universal cell phone service is another important part of economic development policy. Cell coverage in
the Zone is inadequate, and there is a lack of accurate information about the exact extent of the
deficiencies.
The Department of Public Service should make every effort to articulate a plan to fund the cost of
achieving the 2024 goal of fiber to every address, giving consideration to the role of private enterprise,
municipalities, investors and State institutions, including VEDA and the Municipal Bond Bank. The
Department of Public Service should expand the mobile device mapping program initiated by the
Vermont Telecommunications Authority to present a more accurate picture of cell phone coverage.
Appendix C: Housing
A healthy economy requires a sufficient supply of housing. For the Southern Vermont Zone to retain and
attract businesses and workers there must be an ample supply and a wide variety of housing types for
people of all incomes. Communities benefit when employees are able to live close to their workplace,
young adults can afford to buy or rent where they want to live, and elderly residents are able to remain
in the community where they have family, friends, and history.
Southern Vermont’s housing situation faces some particular challenges. Approximately a third of the
housing stock in the region is characterized as “seasonal housing” which translates to second homes,
and nearly another one-third of the region’s housing stock was constructed prior to 1940. The region
has seen significant losses of multi-family residences, and the gains seen in other multi-unit categories
have mostly occurred in resort areas.
While single-family homes may continue to be the preferred type of housing in the region, we need to
provide a mix of housing options. There is no “one size fits all” in housing. Some will seek open spaces
for agriculture and outdoor recreation. Younger populations will be attracted to housing that is in the
center of social and employment opportunities, including quality rental housing. Older people may want
to retain their connections to communities, friends and families, or be in locations with easy access to
community facilities, shopping and health care.
For the young and older populations, the region’s villages and downtown centers can provide many
preferred amenities, especially through housing development located in proximity to employment and
transportation, ideally being located in denser settlement areas. More opportunities for ownership and
quality rental housing in downtown centers would be welcome and could help add to the diversity of

 16
housing options. However, barriers to this type of development do exist in the form of high costs for
bringing older buildings up to modern accessibility codes as well as a lack of public infrastructure in the
region’s villages.
One way to bring down per unit construction costs is to increase housing density, thus enabling the
kinds of compact village centers and downtowns that are a historic tradition in Vermont. A major barrier
to this type of development is the availability of public sewer and water infrastructure.
Appendix D: Industry Clusters
Clusters are geographic concentrations of industries and associated institutions, consisting
of companies, suppliers, and service providers, as well as government agencies and other institutions
that produce similar products, and also provide specialized training and education, information,
research, and technical support. They can be for-profit firms or not-for profit institutions. In the simplest
definition, a cluster is a regional concentration of related industries in a particular location.
As described in Cluster Mapping, a project of the EDA and the Harvard Business School, “Clusters
enhance productivity and spur innovation by bringing together technology, information, specialized
talent, competing companies, academic institution, and other organizations. Close proximity, and the
accompanying tight linkages, yield better market insights, more refined researches agendas, larger pools
of specialized talent, and faster deployment of new knowledge. “Clusters exist where the economic
activities in a set of related industries in a given location reach critical mass.”
The Windham Regional CEDS identified several potential Clusters in southeastern Vermont, based on
the assets in place in the region. Significant work is underway to refine the opportunities and focus
resources in those clusters. Establishing a CEDS for the entire Zone will expand the identification and
support of clusters into the Bennington region as well.

Appendix E: Arts and Culture
Defining arts and culture in its broadest sense and as a single and seamless industry sector, the arts and
culture for-profit businesses and non-profit activities in southern Vermont contribute significantly to the
unique lifestyle of the region and to its economic health and vitality. Whether as artists and artisans
working independently or groups operating together in the performing arts of music, dance and theater,
they add high aesthetic and monetary value to southern Vermont, including as attractions for weekend
visitors, vacationers and potential homebuyers. For those who choose to live and work away from big
city life, Vermont connotes quality, integrity, respect for the environment and a sound sense of place,
and arts and culture are an important part of that picture. Furthermore, surveys indicate that
entertainment options are significant to the retention and recruitment of working-age people.
The arts and culture sector of Windham county and its economy is large and diverse, with over 1000
individual artists, artisans and performers who make some or all of their living in the arts, crafts and
performance arts. In the Cotton Mill, Brattleboro has an active incubator for young businesses and it has

 17
been the start of several successful arts business ventures. In 2010 Windham County embraced 80 nonprofit organizations, 40 historical societies, libraries and museums, and some 100 for-profit galleries,
sellers of art supplies and other professional and media services directly involved with the arts. It has
been estimated that together the non-profit and business efforts in the county have a direct wealth
producing product of over $35 million. Brattleboro has a Town Arts Committee that is well linked with
Town government and in 2012, focused on its rich art endeavors, Brattleboro was designated as ‘One of
America’s 20 Best Small Towns’ by Smithsonian magazine.
In Bennington County the arts and culture community is healthy and vibrant, but not as well organized
as in Windham. There are no town arts committees as such and no mechanism similar to the Arts
Council of Windham County. Visitors and homeowners are able to choose from a rich menu of arts,
culture and literary options, particularly in the summer, including the Bennington Museum, the Vermont
Arts Exchange, Old Castle Theatre, Sage City Symphony, the Dorset Theater Festival, the Weston
Playhouse Theatre Company, multiple crafts festivals, and frequent events at Bennington College, the
Northshire Bookstore and the Manchester Community Library throughout the year. However, as yet no
inventory has been made of the arts and culture assets, both for-profit and non-profit.
Southern Vermont has myriad arts and culture activities and entertainments. From pottery and
ceramics, glass-blowing and stained glass, photography and film, cabinet makers and wood workers,
artists in oils and other media, instrument makers and repairers, authors and poets to the many
involved in the performing arts of theater, music – classical to folk – dance, opera and circus, all
participate in creative pursuits that provide enjoyment, jobs and economic income. In addition, through
the professional and other services they use, the restaurants, shops and hotels and other
accommodations, the arts and culture sector indirectly provides much assistance to other sectors.
However, the challenges facing the community are many. By their very nature, many are independent of
each other and do not see the strength they will develop by acting together.
There is much to be said for the establishment, where appropriate, of town arts committees following
the example of Brattleboro. Such committees would raise the profile and value of arts and culture to
their respective town governments, and could serve as the agents to compile local inventories of arts
and culture assets. Town and regional plans should include an arts and cultural section, and the CEDS
should address this subject.
Additionally, a substantial number of individuals and many of the organizations and businesses in the
arts and culture sector often lack the business experience and expertise to reap the highest return on
investment for themselves and their community. There is a need for training, mentoring and business
education and support services specifically geared to bring positive returns. This effort should be part of
our workforce development programs.

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Appendix F: Workforce Development and Education
The Committee found that:

10

●

No comprehensive vision exists for the development of southern Vermont’s workforce. There
are many hardworking individuals and organizations in southern Vermont striving to address the
region’s broad workforce concerns, but their efforts suffer from a lack of coordination in
resources and services between and within the two counties. We also need to understand what
workforce training Vermonters may be seeking and obtaining in the adjoining states of
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York.

●

Many of southern Vermont’s young workers lack critical career skills. Employers in Bennington
and Windham Counties report that they find it difficult to fill open positions, citing applicants
who come to them lacking core skills including ability to communicate well in speech and
writing, reading for information, personal initiative and dependability, personal appearance,
problem solving, customer service, and technical aptitude. These are large categories of learning
which must be taught over the course of students’ time in school and likely extend into postschooling careers.

●

Southern Vermont is not attracting the outside workforce it needs. The region’s employers also
have trouble attracting and retaining qualified candidates from outside the two counties.
Barriers to those who might wish to move to southern Vermont include scarcity of attainable
housing (including quality rental housing), perceived lack of employment opportunities for
would-be workers’ spouses, and lack of information about living and working in the region
available online. In the Windham Region, there is evidence that employers are utilizing hiring
services based in New Hampshire rather than in Vermont.

●

Vermont Career and Technical Education Centers are unable to react in a timely fashion to
changing local economies. The 17 Vermont Career and Technical Education Centers, including
centers in Bennington and Brattleboro, serve high school students and adults in their respective
regions. The tech centers, generally speaking, are slow to adapt to the changing local economies
across the state due to a burdensome Agency of Education approval process regarding
modifying or introducing new curricula.10 While there is more flexibility on the adult side,
populating and sustaining those programs has proved to be difficult. The high school population
offers a higher probability of success in developing a future workforce, but the regulations are
more difficult and time consuming regarding new or modified curriculum at that level. This has
created a negative incentive for tech centers to react to local workforce needs. Additionally,

For example, the Bennington Technical and Career Center’s building trades class constructs wooden sheds for Habitat for
Humanity homes. Vermont Timber Frames, a growing local business in Bennington, offered to show the students how to timber
frame some of the sheds, with the idea that this would contribute to the local workforce strategy. Six months later, the
modification to the curriculum is still ensnarled in the state approval process.

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high school students are currently unable to move easily (or at all) between educational
opportunities in the tech centers and educational opportunities in local high schools and other
school environments. We recommend significant tech center reform so that communities can
maximize this important resource. Southern Vermont can be a pilot region for tech center
reform.
Workforce development is more than education. We need to ensure that employees in southern
Vermont are able to build sustainable livelihoods in the region. In order to advance a culture of livable
wages, we recommend collecting information on the benefits that increasing compensation can bring to
individual companies and the regional economy, as well as comparative data on how the Zone fares
compared to its surrounding area. One first step might be to seek out trade groups, educational
institutions, and state-sponsored forums to discuss raising wages with southern Vermont businesses.
●

As a first step, we recommend the Zone CEDS support the creation of a southern Vermont
workforce/education assets and needs map.. Comprehensively survey the Southern Vermont
Economic Development Zone and map all existing organizations, programs, and assets that can
be utilized to develop the workforce. Also identify what resources the workforce and employees
are utilizing outside of Vermont, and any significant gaps that remain. Make this map available
to those working to develop the region’s economy, to serve coordination of strategic planning
and program provision as well as pooling of resources.

●

We see a need to increase work awareness into the school systems of the two counties.
Research shows that many students who drop out of high school have already begun their
movement toward this path in middle school. Southern Vermont should explore early
interventions to retain students and expand the academic and career possibilities they can see
for themselves. Building off of the emerging work in the Windham Region with their four middle
and high school programs as well as some existing programs in the Bennington Region, we
recommend a multi-region effort to develop a comprehensive visible pipeline approach to
integrating employers and employer perspectives throughout the P-20 trajectory, giving
students age-appropriate exposure to the world of work—locally and generally—from the very
beginning of their schooling. Southern Vermont could be a leader in this approach.

●

We believe there is valuable work to be done to strengthen the relationship between employers
and schools. The supervisory unions of the Zone should create a system for identifying and
responding to workforce demand in the Zone. This could take the form of a regional convening
of education and business representatives to discuss need and opportunities in the workforce.

●

We recommend expansion of the Windham Region’s Internship Program to include
apprenticeships for both high school students and mid-career and adult. These programs should
also be expanded to include the Bennington County Region.

●

We recommend creating a local approval process for tech centers. Simplify the process by which
tech centers may change and add to their curricula to allow for new private-public partnerships
in workforce training, especially at the high school level. We also encourage increasing flexibility

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in tech center enrollment. Training in valuable technical skills should not be a resource limited to
only those students who transfer out of high school and into Career and Technical Education
Centers. The Committee would propose that the state of Vermont reevaluate the tracking
system which currently structures technical education, and examine options for making tech
centers a resource to be drawn on concurrently with students’ high school education.
●

We also support continued expansion of dual college-high school enrollment opportunities
available to students in the Zone. This will allow for a broader scope of educational opportunity
for high school students, give them better ideas of what college can be like and how they might
fit into a postsecondary environment, and allow them to get head starts on their prospective
college careers.

●

Enhancing entrepreneurship is also part of workforce development. We encourage expanded
work by the Community College of Vermont and Vermont Technical College in sponsoring or
hosting development workshops in entrepreneurship.

●

Recognizing national and regional demographic trends, we encourage employers to create a
work environment that reflects the need to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

Appendix G: Encouraging More Capital Investment in Southern Vermont
Members of the Committee reached out to several sources of information and opinion to better
understand the issues involved in attracting capital and interest in investment to Southern Vermont. We
summarize our findings as follows:
First, there are internal challenges: There is not yet a comprehensive, compelling vision, an
implementation strategy, and/or benchmarks to measure results. Southern Vermont has yet to be
known for a strong value proposition/unique sales proposition/competitive advantage. We have few
relationships with site selection companies, and as noted elsewhere in this Report, although there are
many good first steps, we have not yet undertaken a consistent, well-funded recruiting and marketing
strategy.
Other issues include the costs and availability of adequate housing, and a perceived lack of value for
taxes, the lack of an investor base and reason to invest, workforce reputation, connectivity, and
transportation (in the western portion of the Zone). Too often, there have been demands for “quick
fixes” and proposed academic versus business-based solutions.
The external challenges start with the problem that there are too few compelling reasons to think of
southern Vermont, given the State’s lackluster business reputation. Without a comprehensive marketing
and recruiting strategy, our area is viewed as depressed: few job opportunities, limited growth
potential, and “not much to do” for families, professionals, and young people. Outside investors often
view southern Vermont as a monoculture; “miles of nothing stashed in between a few ski resorts,”
lacking diversity of people, culture(s), and opportunities. And there is low scalability potential due to
modest and shrinking population size (Vermont’s entire population is less than one county in many
states).

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The Committee has found that there is some appetite in the region for investing in companies to retain
them and in start-ups by investors who take the longer view of the investment (e.g., Eastern New York
Angels, Fresh Tracks Capital) if government administration were limited and the investments were as
Reg D or private placements, avoiding need for SEC registration.11 Local banks will need applications for
specific projects; a limited number of other investors will look at broader opportunities. In all cases it
depends on a rigorous plan.
There is also some potential for “municipal philanthropy,” whereby charitable donations might be made
to towns with significant debt loads (including Brattleboro) to reduce town debt, lower taxes and help
make the region more attractive.
The basic question is whether a formal Southern Vermont Economic Development Alliance or
Partnership would attract capital to the Zone. The Committee believes the chances are good if, but only
if there’s a commitment to seeing the glass as half-full by thinking of the total region and thinking longterm. There should be one entity with a mutually shared vision and latitude in the tools and instruments
used to identify and attain goals.
It will require rethinking what we are and how we operate; creating a long range five or more year
development strategy with targets, benchmarks/scorecard and accountability. It has to be an initiative
that private sector resources buy into and help fund, impeccably packaging the region’s assets, and
focusing on markets and opportunities.

Appendix H: Legislative Mandate and Zone Membership
The law establishing the Zone states that “the General Assembly does not intend that the Zone in current
or future years will be a recipient of General Fund appropriations. Rather, the intent of the Zone is to
coordinate targeted investment through public-private partnerships from other funding sources if
available and to facilitate economic growth through regional cooperation”. Recognizing this restriction,
the Committee believes the recommendations for $50,000 to accelerate the creation of a
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy for the Zone and $75,000 to match an equal amount
of private support to implement the Sustainable Recruitment and Marketing Program are appropriate
candidates for support from the Vermont Enterprise Fund.
The Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone Committee is charged with assisting “the General
Assembly, the Governor, and partners within the Zone in establishing a replicable framework for regional
cooperation by and between public sector and private sector partners concerning economic development
initiatives; workforce training, retention and recruitment; and sustainable business investment”.
The Committee was not provided with funding; the public members served without compensation or
reimbursement of expenses.

11

We understand that the Securities Division of the VT Department of Financial Regulation is working on more flexible
regulations to allow Vermont’s citizens to invest in Vermont companies; that will help.

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The Committee members are:
● Governor's appointee: Wayne Granquist, Weston (Committee Chair);
● Speaker’s appointees:
○ from Bennington County - Michael Keane, Bennington;
○ from Windham County - Lisa Sullivan, Wilmington;
● Senate appointees:
○ from Bennington County - Dr. Mariko Silver, Bennington College;
○ from Windham County - Tom Cain, Brattleboro;
○ from Brattleboro Development and Credit Corporation - Adam Grinold;
○ from Windham Regional Planning Commission - Chris Campany;
○ from Bennington Regional Development Corporation - Peter Odierna;
○ from Bennington Regional Planning Commission - Bill Colvin.