Main Street, Manchester Center PHOTO BY HUBERT SCHRIEBL

From high tech factories, to main street stores and offices, to individual workshops and farms, the intelligent, resourceful, and responsible people of Bennington County ply their trades. Yankee ingenuity and industry are not forgotten.

Some of the things that make it easy to do business are:

• Communication and utility infrastructure for a complete range of business.
• Workforce of well-educated, loyal, and willing individuals who have chosen to live here with their families.
• Top-notch technical, professional, and practical support
• Easy access to transportation and urban centers
• Safe, clean, and scenic environment
• Active, collegial, and ethical business community

Local business sucess stories

Abacus Automation, Inc.. Contract manufacturer of industrial machines: design, assembly, software, robotics, testing, servicing. Grew from two-man idea to 40 employee firm servicing Fortune 500 firms' needs.

Air Now. Rapidly growing specialty express air delivery service with national fleet of airplanes.

Bennington Potters, Inc.. Nationally renowned homegrown wholesale and retail pottery featuring work of the legendary David Gill.

Energizer. Manufacturer of Miniature Alkaline and Zinc Air Hearing Aid Batteries, in Bennington for over 61 Years. And parent company of Schick-Wilkinson Sword, the second largest manufacturer of wet shave products in the world.

Hemmings Motor News. World famous "bible of classic and antique cars", this unique publication offers simply everything you want to know on the subject.

K and H Products, Ltd.. Locally-owned world leader in professional film and video camera bags, sporting the familiar Port-a-brace brand.

Mace Security International, Inc. Locally headquartered originator and manufacturer of the famous self-defence pepper spray.

Mack Molding Company, Inc.. A leading private contracting manufacturer of injection plastic molding and electronic assembly.

National Hangar Company, Inc.. A successful, growing indigenous manufacturer of clothing hangars.

Krone Optical Systems, Inc. A fast-growing specialty manufacturer of fiber optic cable.

Orvis Company, Inc.. Legendary makers of fishing rods and accessories, as well as outdoor clothing and accessories. Tom Peters, locally resident author of "In Search of Excellence", named Orvis rods No. 1 Best Made Product of the U.S. in the 1980s.

T & M Enterprises. A successful manufacturer of custom molded plastic parts.

Tansitor Electronics, Inc.. A rapidly growing, leading manufacturer of tantalum capacitors for the electronics industry.

Vermont Composites. An expanding, locally owned manufacturer of carbon fiber composite structures for the medical and aerospace industries.

Vermont Country Store. The original store opened in 1946, reviving the best of yesterday for common sense use today, based on nostalgia but also function. Offers a variety of products through its retail catalogue, its web site, or in-person.

William E. Dailey, Inc. An indigenous, state-of-the-art manufacturer of pre-cast concrete structures.

Sample available sites and buildings

Note: Contact BCIC. Buyer and seller broker commissions will be protected.

Infrastructured land:

• Shields Drive Industrial Park. 45 acres of premier umbrella-permitted property, with views of mountains, valley, Bennington Monument. Zoned and fully infrastructured for manufacture or large-scale office facilities. A few blocks from Route 7. Available as a whole or in smaller lots. $40,000 per acre. Incentives given for new jobs. Three quality tenants on site to date. Fiber optic cable and extra fiber conduits on site. (Broadband available on site from two fiber-based telecommunications providers.)

• Morse Industrial Park. Infrastructured industrial zoned lots located near Route 9 exchange.

Industrial, office, and commercial buildings or space (sale or lease):

• BCIC mixed use incubator building. Flexible affordable space for startups and growing businesses. Business counseling, conference room, and other support services included. Rent currently set at $5.29 per square foot per year including heat.

• Benmont Paper Building. 125,000 square foot historic building in strategic location available for lease or purchase.

• 210 South Street Building. 38,000 square foot historic building in heart of downtown Bennington. For sale.

• Roberts Building. 38,000 square foot industrial building available for lease or purchase. Owner asking $975,000.

Workforce

The Partnership's vision is of "a Bennington County with a superior workforce and a community that values and supports learning for its own sake for all community members. This includes an outstanding coordinated system of education, training, counseling and information — with employers, education and training institutions, and concerned officials and community representatives planning and monitoring the learning and workforce development processes. The community thus anticipates and actively pursues opportunities to promote high quality jobs and increased competitiveness for area employers through responsive training and education activities."

The Partnership was formed in the mid-1990s. It grew out of a strong sense that business and education leaders to should work together to nourish the area's evolving workforce so as to ready it for the new century.

The Partnership saw the need to center around a single "address" all umbrella organizations related to workforce development. This included the BCIC, Bennington County School-to-Work Initiative, the Bennington County Adult Education Council, and the Bennington County Career Development Center Regional Advisory Board. The active role of the local Department of Employment and Training was critical, as was the active support and participation of the public school districts, the Community College of Vermont, Southern Vermont College, Bennington College, the Learning Institute, the Tutorial Center, the local Department of Social Welfare, and similar organizations.

We quickly forged a common structure, and began supporting existing efforts to improve the workplace relevance of K-14 school activities, deepen and broaden all adult education activities, make welfare-to-work real, and strengthen technical education content and governance. Engagement of business expanded.

In carrying out its initial workplan, the Partnership and its members — with only a one-person fulltime staff — have in the last two years supported:

• Advocacy and input on productive regional use of hundreds of thousands of dollars in training and education grant funds
• Extremely successful high school field study programs with area employers
• Student mentoring and job-shadowing activities with area employers
• Professional development for school teachers and administrators with direct impact on improved institutionalized school-to-work programming
• Compilation of best practices manuals for school-to-work activities
• Development of student portfolios having direct relevance to after-graduation activities, whether work or secondary education
• Development of a career pathways database covering and linking area educational resources on all levels
• Computer education and training on various levels
• Facilitation of specific training solutions with individual firms

In addition, the Partnership has begun an ongoing process of strategic workforce development planning. The process initially focussed on getting first hand information from area businesses on workforce needs. The Partnership has extensively used the information gleaned from this dialogue in giving input on whether various proposed state grants and programs meet regional workforce development needs. A countywide education and training plan has now been drafted. The Partnership is also regularly called upon to review or directly administer various workforce development grant and subgrant activities directly involving business and education or training providers.

The Partnership workforce training and education plan focusses on the most critical workforce needs of the county's economy. The premise is that workforce development directly responsive to the needs of employers helps not only businesses and the economy, but individual careers. Our aim is to help schools and training institutions do their job more effectively.

There is wide consensus in the community that the following are strategic sectors of our economy: manufacturing, information-based business, hospitality and tourism, health and human services, and education. The plan thus addresses specifically the workforce needs of these sectors, as well as those that cross many sectors. One resounding conclusion of the study underlying the plan is that this community's traditional work ethic, productive workforce, and access to hundreds of thousands of workers in the region is a major advantage of doing business here.