tappingtech

maximizing vermont’s creative brainpower

brought to you by

[Link]
 Vermont is known for its lush countryside,
stellar ski slopes and delicious maple syrup.

i
f you think Vermont industry is just about dairy farms,
Ben & Jerry’s and Burton Snowboards, you might
be surprised to learn that high-tech products
accounted for 75 percent of Vermont exports
in 2008, according to the national Trade in the
Cyberstates Report, commissioned by the Tech America
Foundation. high-tech exports brought $2.8 billion to
“tapping tech” is brought to you by the Vermont Software Vermont in 2008. Yes, billion with a “b.”
Developers’ alliance. this five-year-old trade group was
Large, national companies such as IBM and GE
founded by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, to foster
a healthy software industry in the state. its mission has
Healthcare account for a sizable portion of those exports,
expanded to include working closely with the Vermont but there’s much more to the story than Big Blue.
bioSciences alliance and other knowledge-based industries. “Tapping Tech” will introduce you to a dozen local tech
the VtSDa created this publication to tell the story companies and entrepreneurs. They’re located in office
of the state’s growing tech sector, which is one of parks, renovated factories and post-and-beam farmhouses
Vermont’s best-kept secrets.
that dot the rural countryside. Some are established
[Link] firms, others are growing start-ups, some are dreamers
with a desire to build something of lasting value in
their communities.

© chee-onn Leong | [Link]

 Finding a niche
06 [Link] (burlington) the national leader
in creating web marketing solutions for car
dealers

but the green mountain State is 08 Vermont Systems (essex Junction) a software
company that supplies parks and recreation
also home to some remarkably software to nearly 300 u.S. military bases
innovative technology companies. worldwide
09 physician’s computer company (Winooski)
a national leader in pediatric practice-
management software

going mobile
12 green mountain Software/all that Jazz, LLc
(colchester) a veteran mobile software
developer with more than 70 projects already
under its belt
13 empower mobility, LLc (essex Junction)
an experienced sole proprietor who’s ready to
ramp up his mobile computing software shop
14 tiger Style (huntington) a video gaming studio
that developed the top-rated iphone app of 2009
15 the Data Farm, LLc (hanksville)
a programmer and author with a different kind
of mobile appeal — she works internationally

building bioscience
18 chroma technologies corp. (rockingham)
The individuals profiled in this book work with new an employee-owned firm that designs and
manufactures precision optical filters
technology, but their stories should be familiar to anyone
19 biotek instruments, inc. (Winooski) a life
who’s heard of Tom Watson, Rich Tarrant Jr., Ben Cohen science company that’s one of the leading
& Jerry Greenfield or Donna & Jake Burton Carpenter. manufacturers of microplate instrumentation
Or, for that matter, Thaddeus Fairbanks.
The jobs their companies create are exactly what
business leaders, educators and elected officials say is i n F ra st r u c t u r e
needed — high-paying jobs by Vermont standards architects
with a low impact on the environment. Many of these
22 competitive computing (c2) (colchester)
companies work with mostly out-of-state clients,
an award-winning it company that helps
which means they’re bringing money into Vermont, Vermont organizations take their businesses
and spending it here. Best of all, many of these jobs to the next level

can be done from anywhere with a reliable internet 24 7th pixel (montpelier) a web designer
helping Vermont artists and entrepreneurs
connection. stand out online
In the following pages, we’ll explain, in layman’s terms, 25 north country communications (newport)
what these companies do, why they’re here, what they an northeast Kingdom native who wants to
bring broadband to his neighbors
bring to the state — and what you can do to help them,
and companies like them, succeed. read on…

ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r 3
For every 1 software developer hired,
tech companies add an additional
6 nontechnical supporting positions.
VtSDa

“information technology (it) is the fastest growing sector

in the economy, with a 68% increase in output growth
rate projected between 2002 and 2012. employment
opportunities are expected to be good in the it industry
as demand for computer-related occupations increases
due to rapid advances in computer technology, continuing
development of new computer applications, and the
growing significance of information security.”
u.S. bureau oF Labor StatiSticS

$
60,000
average wage for a
$
52,111
median household
software company job income in
in Vermont Vermont, 2008
VtSDa SurVey oF Vermont uSDa economic reSearch SerVice
SoFtWare companieS
 Finding a niche
How do you build a successful
software company in Vermont? Find a market
no one else is serving and dominate it.

[Link] Vermont phySician’S

Burlington SyStemS computer
Essex Junction company
Winooski
 mike lane

d eale [Link] m

I
f you’ve bought a car recently, you

matthew thorsen
probably researched your options
online. More than 80 percent of
car buyers are using the web to
make decisions, according to Mike Lane,
the 34-year-old cofounder and chief oper-
ations officer of [Link]. “Anyone who
sells cars has to be online,” he says.
That’s good news for the 11-year-old,
Burlington-based company, which helps
car dealers market their inventory, and their
services, on the web. [Link] has be-
come the national leader in its industry; 80
percent of the nation’s top automotive deal-
er groups use its software, according to the
2009 Automotive News list of the Top 125
Dealer Groups. [Link] boasts 13,000 Specialty Filaments, which closed in 2005. [Link]
clients across North America, most of whom are car remade the facility into something you’d expect to see
dealers. The firm also works directly with companies in Silicon Valley, with an indoor tennis court and fitness
such as Chrysler, Subaru and Acura. center and an organic cafe. More than 300 employees
[Link]’s 63,000-square-foot, LEED-certified toil away in brightly colored cubicles, and the company
HQ used to house a brush manufacturing company, is still growing. “We will add 100 people in 2010, and

6 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r
matthew thorsen

“We will add 100 people in 2010,

and we plan on adding 100 more
each of the next two years.” Mike Lane

The early years were rough — Lane says

the five founders worked 20 hours a day out
of an office in the Maltex building. Their
first customers were Vermont’s Greensboro
Garage and a Lexus dealer in California. But
the hard work paid off, and they eventually
started hiring others to work for them.
Burlington wasn’t exactly teaming with
matthew thorsen

highly skilled programmers with auto in-

dustry experience. “We had to figure out
how to invent that skill set,” Lane explains,
so [Link] partnered with Vermont
we plan on adding 100 more each of the next two years,” HITEC to train a few dozen new employ-
Lane says. “We don’t think we’re anywhere close to our ees, some of whom had been laid off from IBM. Dealer.
maturity yet.” com provided the facilities, potential employees volun-
How did Vermont, a place not known for automo- teered their time, and the state paid the trainers. The col-
tive or tech innovation, end up hosting this booming laboration worked, and it gave the company the momen-
start-up? The company grew out of a conversation be- tum it needed to get started. “We wouldn’t be here today
tween Lane and [Link] cofounder and CEO Mark without it,” Lane says. [Link]
Bonfigli that came about, appropriately, while Lane [Link] has since moved this type of training in- creates internet
was trying to buy a car. In 1998, Lane, who grew up in house. All new employees attend a two-week boot camp marketing
Georgia, Vt., visited Bonfigli’s Earth Cars dealership in to familiarize themselves with the company, its products solutions for car
Williston. This was during the dot-com boom, and Lane and its culture. But attracting those highly skilled em- dealers, including
was working in Boston as a consultant for technology ployees is still a challenge, despite benefits that include websites,
start-ups. The two men went from talking about cars to in-house massages, free, on-site tennis lessons and half- inventory
talking about computers. “Mark understood the poten- price season ski passes to local mountains. Lane says marketing
tial of the web,” remembers Lane. [Link] is currently hiring for 30 positions, many and lead
Their discussion soon morphed into a plan: Create of which have been open for months. “Very specialized management.
an easy-to-use web platform designed specifically for car people are hard to find in Vermont,” Lane laments.
Founded
dealers that tracks and displays inventory and manag- That’s one reason that [Link] is considering ex-
1999
es leads. They researched the competition, determined panding its operations in California, where high-tech
it was lacking, and decided they could do a better job. workers would be easier to find. Lane insists the com- HQ
So Lane and three friends, [Link] cofounders pany isn’t planning to move away from Vermont, but it Burlington
Rick Gibbs, Ryan Dunn and Jamie LaScolea, “got the might conceivably add jobs elsewhere. “The reality,” he
biggest UHaul they had,” says Lane, and moved up to says, “is that businesses have to make smart economic Staff
Burlington. decisions.” 320

finding a niche 7
 © marK hryciW | [Link]
v erm on t s yst ems [Link]

V
ermont Systems is a military contractor, but city was so happy with the result that Vermont Systems
it doesn’t make armaments or machines. The was invited to present at a national conference. “We got
25-year-old family firm supplies parks-and- that national exposure,” he says, “and we were off.”
recreation software to nearly 300 military bas- A chance, positive encounter with an Air Force rep-
es worldwide. Its computer programs help manage the resentative at a trade show in San Antonio led to a con-
military’s golf courses, bowling alleys, tennis courts and tract in 1992. Business with the other branches of the
equestrian facilities.
This is a complicated job, explains Vermont

JorDan SiLVerman
Systems President Giles Willey. Vermont
Systems’ software handles a wide variety of
tasks, from scheduling leagues to renting lock-
ers to reserving tee times. When 5000 sailors
arrive in a port wanting to use the recreation-
al facilities at a nearby base, Vermont Systems’
software prints out their tickets, and uploads
their reservation information to a PDA that
helps officers keep track of who is scheduled “We got that
where and when. Currency exchange is par national exposure,
for the course. “Somebody can show up at
a golf course on a base in Japan and pay for and we were off.”
their round of golf in yen,” Willey says. bob WiLLey
Forty to 45 percent of Vermont Systems’ busi-
ness comes from contracts with the Army, Air
Force, Navy and Marines. The rest derives from John WiLLey, Kate mitcheLL, giLeS WiLLey, bob WiLLey
1000 municipal clients spread across the coun-
try. The parks-and-rec departments of Burlington, South service soon followed. The company grew from five peo-
Burlington and Montpelier all use the company’s software. ple in 1990 to 87 in 2010, eight of whom are Willey fam-
The roots of this high-tech, international operation ily members. Though the family still runs the company,
are surprisingly rural. Bob Willey, Giles’ father, is the Vermont Systems is now 100 percent employee owned.
Vermont founder and chairman of Vermont Systems. Bob Willey Bob points out that personal relationships have been cru-
SyStemS
grew up on a farm in Essex and studied agriculture at the cial to the growth and continued success of the business.
sells and services
University of Vermont before going to work as a sales- When hiring new employees, Vermont Systems doesn’t just
parks-and-
man for the Burroughs Corporation in 1960. Burroughs look for tech cred. In fact, says Giles, “No one here was hired
recreation
sold business machines and, later, computers. The elder with a computer degree.” All of Vermont Systems’ software
software for
Willey saw an emerging need for software, rather than developers spent their first few years at the company in the
municipal and
hardware, so he broke off and started his own business customer service department, because being able to com-
military clients.
in 1985. His son, Giles, and daughters, Laura and Kate, municate with tech-challenged clients is key. “The reason
hQ joined him in the venture. None of them had any train- we hire that way is because you have to have a conversation
Essex Junction ing in computer software; they learned on the job. with an actual human being,” says Giles.
At first, Bob Willey says, they did “whatever it took” Bob Willey notes that some of their employees in re-
FounDeD to get by, writing software for banks and fuel oil dealers. cent years have come straight off Vermont farms. “They
1985 He says the company found its niche by “accident.” In know how to work,” he says. One man joined the com-
1987, an acquaintance in Connecticut asked the Willeys pany nine years ago after working on his family’s farm in
StaFF to develop a parks-and-rec offering for one of his munici- Hardwick. “He’s in Osan Air Force base in Korea right
87 pal clients. It was a long process of trial and error, but the now,” notes the chairman, “updating our software there.”

8 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r
 mattheW thorSen
physician’s
c o mp u t er
c o mp a n y [Link]

V
iruses are generally to be avoided in the
computing world, but they helped launch
Physician’s Computer Company. The
Winooski firm got its start in 1982, when a
Vermont pediatric practice wanted to computerize its
immunization forms. Their medical software provider
wouldn’t design a program for them; a nurse suggested
that her son might be able to do it. So the docs hired
19-year-old South Burlington resident John Canning
and his friends, Jay Schuster and Ari Shinozaki, to create
software to track immunizations and computerize bill-
ing and scheduling.
When other pediatricians began requesting their ser-
vices, they realized they’d found a market. Today, their
clients include nearly 200 pediatric practices around the
country, with offices in 43 states. PCC provides support
24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their clients are car-
John canning
ing for sick kids; technological delays are not an option. anD chip hart
PCC is located in the Champlain Mill, in a space for-
merly occupied by a Mexican
restaurant and, before that,
by textile workers. Its found- “For every programmer that we hire, ultimately we will
ers established the compa- hire up to 10 customer service and support staff.” John canning
ny in Vermont because they
grew up here, but the location
also makes practical sense — the University of Vermont’s is the chair of the board of the Young Writers Project,
medical school is home to Dr. Lewis First, editor-in- also located in the Champlain Mill, and has been active
chief of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American in promoting the Vermont Youth Orchestra.
Academy of Pediatrics. Consequently, Burlington is a PCC’s big project right now is transitioning its clients
hub of pediatric scholarly activity. to Electronic Health Records (EHR). PCC has installed
Though PCC was started by software developers, its EHR software in 10 offices so far, most of them out of
Canning explains that there are only seven of them, him- state, with another four expected to come online in the
self included, on staff. Most of PCC’s employees work next few months. “Ten offices sounds small,” says Hart,
directly with customers. “For every programmer that we “but when you think about the fact that each of them phySician’S
hire, ultimately we will hire up to 10 customer service is covering thousands of children, it seems a little more computer
company
and support staff,” he says. And those employees tend to impressive.”
grow with the company. The receptionist they hired 20 creates pediatric-
Hart and Canning add that PCC’s growth over the
years ago is essentially their Chief Operations Officer. specific software
past few years would be more impressive if the company
Chip Hart, PCC's Pediatric Solutions Manager — had better access to financing. Demand for their EHR solutions for
who graduated from Burlington High School, and lat- software is outpacing the company’s ability to provide clients around
er Middlebury College, before joining PCC 20 years it. Canning says that local banks have had a hard time the country.
ago — adds that PCC hires English majors and liberal- understanding their business, because PCC is not buy-
FounDeD
arts grads. “You can teach smart people to do IT-related ing anything that could be used as collateral. A loan that
things,” he says. “But someone who doesn't communi- would have helped them hire more staff fell through last 1983
cate well is never going to be a valuable employee for a fall, as lenders clamped down during the credit crunch. hQ
company like ours.” Canning says PCC is still going to grow, but it’s going Winooski
To that end, PCC works to develop a well-rounded lo- to do it slower. “If there were funds available for a busi-
cal workforce by donating $50,000 a year to arts and ed- ness like ours to help with cash flow,” he says, “it would StaFF
ucation programs aimed at kids. Additionally, Canning be a tremendous help.” 47

finding a niche 9
“the smartphone surge, it seems, is a case of a
trading-up trend in technology that is running
strong enough to weather the downturn.”
From “the Smartphone’S rapiD riSe From
gaDget to tooL to neceSSity,” neW yorK timeS

“We are just at the beginning of a new

wireless era, where smartphones will
become the standard device consumers
will use to connect to friends, the
internet and the world at large. the
share of smartphones as a proportion
of overall device sales has increased
to 29 percent for phone purchasers
in the last six months, and 45 percent
of respondents to a nielsen survey
indicated that their next device will
be a smartphone. if we combine these
intentional data points with falling
prices and increasing capabilities of
these devices, along with an explosion
of applications for devices, we are
seeing the beginning of a groundswell.
this increase will be so rapid that by
the end of 2011, nielsen expects more
smartphones in the u.S. market than
feature phones.”
nieLSen Wire, march 2010
 going mobile
These Vermont entrepreneurs are taking advantage
of emerging opportunities in mobile computing...
and global commuting.

green mountain empoWer tiger the Data

SoFtWare/ mobiLity, LLc StyLe Farm, LLc
aLL that Essex Junction Huntington Hanksville
Jazz, LLc
Colchester
 JorDan SiLVerman
green
m oun tai n
s o Ftware /
a ll that
j a zz, llc
ann pettyJohn anD Lou Krieg
[Link]

W
hen Green Mountain about a mile from where Krieg grew up. Today, several former employees
Software president and work with them as independent consultants; Krieg and Pettyjohn are the
founder Lou Krieg went to company’s only salaried employees.
the MacWorld trade show Over its 16-year history, GMSW has developed more than 70 applica-
in 1993, he had an epiphany: Apple’s tions for the Palm operating system (OS) and the Pocket PC — and now
hand-held computer, the Newton, for the iPhone OS, which also runs on the iPod Touch and the iPad. Its cli-
brought it on. “I just went, ‘Mobile ents have included nationally known firms such as Palm Inc. and United
computing is the next wave. This is go- Technologies, as well as New England-based Pro-Cut International and
ing to be huge,’” he recalls. Coffee Lab. GMSW has produced everything from an appli-
It took longer than he ex- cation that measures quality of life for lung cancer patients
pected — Apple discontin- to software that processes restaurant inspections for St. Paul-
ued the Newton in 1998 — based Ecolab. “If you’ve eaten in a fast-food restaurant,” says
but it turns out Krieg was Pettyjohn, “chances are its food safety inspectors are using our
right. Mobile computing is software.”
now taking off, thanks to To take advantage of emerging opportunities in mobile com-
web-enabled smartphones puting, Krieg and Pettyjohn are spinning off a new company
and hand-held devices. “The this year, called All That Jazz Software LLC; as much as they
appLe neWton
consensus is that growth in mp2000 liked their Vermont-y moniker, they didn’t think the name
mobile computing, led by would cut it, from a branding perspective. All That Jazz prod-
Blackberrys and iPhones, is ucts will have “JAZZ” as part of their name, making them easy
really going to dwarf the PC to identify.
revolution,” he says. The company will focus on consumer apps for the iPhone OS.
Krieg has been well posi- That’s where the growth is now, says Krieg. “There are 45 to 50 mil-
tioned to take advantage of lion iPhone OS devices,” he says. “All of the other operating systems
this growth since he and his iphone 3g really sort of pale in comparison.”
wife, Ann Pettyjohn, found- The numbers aren’t the only attraction — Apple has also
ed GMSW 16 years ago. The made buying and downloading software for the devices as
two met while working at easy as downloading music. “It’s estimated that consumers will
Motorola in Massachusetts spend $6.2 billion on mobile apps in 2010,” says Krieg, adding,
green in the 1980s — Krieg as “I think that’s probably conservative.”
mountain a director of product de- Not surprisingly, Krieg says he’s already seeing business ramp-
SoFtWare ing up to deal with increased demand. “We’re getting very busy,”
velopment; Pettyjohn as
develops custom a senior marketing pro- he says, “and everyone else we know is, too.” He and Pettyjohn
applications for fessional. Krieg returned plan to have their first JAZZ products in the App Store in
mobile phones to Vermont in 1989 and ipaD 2010. They’re planning to have outside offices again, and en-
and hand-held Pettyjohn followed in 1991. vision the company growing to a staff of 20 over the next few
computers. By 1995 their company had an office years, hopefully including some new college grads — Krieg is a University
FounDeD
in Colchester and eventually grew to of Vermont alum with a degree in computer science.
eight employees. Their biggest challenge right now is raising capital. “Because we’re deal-
1994
But mobile development stalled af- ing with intellectual property, it’s very difficult to do business financing,”
hQ ter the dot-com bust, and the post- Krieg explains. He would like to see some sort of quasi-governmental au-
Colchester 9/11 economic slowdown forced the thority created to help software entrepreneurs access financing to grow.
couple to regroup. They laid off their “There are a lot of creative people in Vermont,” he says. “Maybe they can
StaFF staff in 2003 and reinvented the com- do for software what they did for captive insurance. The software industry
2 pany in a home office in Colchester, is just the best type of industry for Vermont to have.”

12 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r
 em po we r m obi li ty, llc [Link]

T
om Jaros was one of the employees Green applications. He also helps clients move their software
Mountain Software let go when it downsized from one platform to another.
in 2003. He had been with the company al- After leaving GMS, Jaros won a contract to perform
most seven years, and had risen to the position that service for Mars, Inc. in Pennsylvania, which makes
of principal engineer. He had been laid off once before, candy bars. Mars had software it was using to track its
from a short-lived stint at a tech company in Burlington products in vending machines. The program did inven-
in 1996. That time, he thought seriously about leaving tory management, warehouse tracking and route man-
the state. But by 2002, he was more established in the agement, and synched up with desktop computers. Jaros
community, and had just bought a house in Essex. moved it from a Palm-based system to Windows Mobile.
“It was really tough,” he remembers. “You could apply The job “rekindled my spirit,” he says.
to IDX, or IBM, but there weren’t a lot of smaller devel- Jaros says he’s been “really busy” the past several
opment shops that could meet the kind of salary I was years; he estimates he’s done roughly a million dollars in
looking for.” business since 2004. After 2008, his best year yet, he’d
How did he make it through? By striking out as a con- planned to rent office space and hire a small staff, but his
sultant and starting his own company. He’s been work- 2009 business was off by about 40 percent, so he stayed
ing from home ever since, first under the name Jarosoft, solo through the recession.
Things have picked
up in 2010. Jaros is
jordan silverman

converting a game to
the iPhone operating
system for a client in
New Jersey. “I can only
say that it’s a remake
of a popular ’80s game
for the Mac,” he offers
coyly.
He’s also devoting a lot
of time to the Vermont
Software Developers’
Alliance; Jaros was elect-
ed to the board of di-
rectors in 2007, and
currently serves as the
nonprofit’s vice presi-
“I want people to know that dent. For the past two
there’s top-shelf mobile years, he’s been on the Empower
organizing committee Mobility
development here.” Tom Jaros of the Vermont 3.0 Tech develops software
Jam, which promotes for mobile
the state’s growing tech platforms,
which he changed in 2005 to Empower Mobility. sector. “I’m really trying to raise awareness of this industry including
The name suited him, he explains, because “I do exact- in Vermont,” he says. “And the tech jam is one of the ve- Windows Mobile
ly what my business says.” hicles for achieving that long-term vision.” and the iPhone
Jaros was still in college when he started working Jaros points out that there are “tons” of people like him operating system.
with software for mobile devices. The Connecticut na- doing business in the state for out-of-state clients. He gets
Founded
tive studied computer science at University of Vermont, frustrated sometimes by the perception that Vermont is
2005
but he spent the summers of 1992 and 1993 intern- just about cows, cheese and maple syrup. “I get jokes all the
ing at a Connecticut company, Asset Management time: ‘Do you have power in Vermont? Do you have run- HQ
Technologies, Inc., that was on the forefront of using ning water?’” he says. “I want people to know that there’s Essex Junction
handheld computers to track inventory, medical speci- top-shelf mobile development here. I want to spread the
mens, and even cow milk production. word that there are classy, talented shops in Vermont, and Staff
Jaros’ specialty is programming custom mobile you should do business with them.” 1

G O ING M O B I L E 13
 mattheW thorSen
ti g er st yle [Link]
“Video game design is a lightweight
“You are a spider. One day, you discover an abandoned mansion.
Who lived here, and why did they leave? In search of answers, industry. it attracts smart young people.
you must adventure from room to room, building webs to trap it reverses the brain drain.” ranDy Smith
insects, and uncovering secrets in every dark corner.”

S
o reads the description of “Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.” It’s the made it possible for indie stu-
first video game from Tiger Style, a new indie gaming studio based in dios such as Tiger Style to
Randy Smith’s home in Huntington. The action takes place in a lavishly compete.
illustrated Gilded Age mansion straight out of rural Vermont. Smith says this is a great
You don’t need to buy a PlayStation or a Nintendo Wii to play the game — if time for Vermont to start
you’ve got an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you can download it from iTunes for thinking about courting
$2.99. More than 120,000 people bought Spider within the first couple months of gaming studios — espe-
its release; in the spring of 2010 it was sell- cially given the presence of
ing at the rate of 100 downloads a day. The Champlain College’s new
game has generated $350,000 in income Emergent Media Center,
for Tiger Style so far, some of which has which is recruiting col-
been filtered back to Vermont contractors lege students to study
who helped produce marketing materials. game design. “Video
Not bad for a game that cost $15,000 to game design is a light-
make. weight industry,” Smith
Spider has garnered industry awards, as notes. “It attracts smart
well. It was a finalist for two 2009 Game young people who then
Developers Choice Awards, including stay to raise families. It
Best Debut and Best Handheld. Apple’s reverses the brain drain,
App Store recognized it as the top-rated app of 2009 — a big deal considering which Vermont is suffering
that more than 100,000 apps were available. And the Independent Games Festival from right now.”
named Spider the Best iPhone Game and Best Mobile Game in 2009 — Smith lik- Just a short drive north, in
tiger StyLe ens winning the latter award to snagging the “Best Picture” Oscar. Montréal, the gaming industry
is a video gaming Spider’s success is driven by Tiger Style’s creative team of game designers, artists is thriving. “They have guar-
studio that creates and musicians, many of whom live out of state. Several of them, including Smith, anteed business loans of up to
games for the are game industry veterans. The 35-year-old founder and native Vermonter grew $75,000,” he says, “and they
iPhone, iPod up in Sheldon before leaving to pursue a computer science degree at Rensselaer give tax breaks for all of the sal-
Touch and iPad Polytechnic Institute. He designed video games for Looking Glass in Cambridge, aries of people employed local-
platforms. Mass., and later moved to Los Angeles to become a creative director and lead de- ly. They’re kind of handing you
FounDeD
signer for gaming powerhouse Electronic Arts, where he was collaborating on a money to go there.”
2008 game with director Steven Spielberg. Vermont is not in that
But funding for his team was cut during the recession, and Smith decided to league, but Smith finds the
hQ leave the company. He returned to Vermont in December 2008 and started talk- state’s socially responsible
Huntington ing with his friends about forming an iPhone studio. business culture attractive,
“In the past, I always wanted to come back to Vermont,” he says, “but I thought, and thinks others would, too.
StaFF I can’t work there.” Mainly that was because there are no major studios in Vermont, “Small and medium sized
1 full-time, and few opportunities for talented, ambitious designers. But that’s changing, in studios could easily find a
14 part-time part because the industry is no longer focused solely on console games, which re- home here,” he says. “You
contractors and quire considerable infrastructure and investment to produce. Mobile platforms could wind up with a nice
collaborators such as the iPhone have made games accessible to a wider audience, and have industry.”

14 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r
 mattheW thorSen
the data Farm, llc
[Link]

D
espite her corporate moniker, Julie Lerman
doesn’t work on a farm, though her Hanksville
home is down the street from one. One day,
her neighbor’s cows slipped the fence and
strolled up her driveway. She took a few photos of them
ambling by her home office and posted them to her blog,
Don’t Be Iffy. The snapshots illustrate one of the fun-
damental realities of software consulting today: The job
can be done from just about anywhere, as long as there’s
an internet connection.
Lerman is in Vermont because she loves to ski. She
grew up near Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Wells College.
She lived for years in or near New York City. In 1989, Lerman is also a natural networker, and she’s hap-
she left a full-time programming job to become a consul- py to share her expertise with the local tech com-
tant. At the time, she and her boyfriend (now husband), munity. She has been on the board of the Vermont
Rich, were traveling to Vermont frequently to ski. “One Software Developers’ Alliance, and has been a mem-
time, we were camped out in a big van in the parking lot ber of Champlain College’s Software Engineering and
of Mad River Glen for the annual Telemark Festival,” she Emergent Technology Advisory Board. In 2002, she
recalls, “and we thought, ‘Why don’t we just live here?’” founded Vermont’s .NET user group, to meet other pro-
In 1999, they made the move to their rural digs. grammers. Two Microsoft representatives spoke to the
group at its most recent meeting, which drew 50 people.
Even more participants — 85 — turned up for a day-
“i brought maple syrup from long “Code Camp” she helped organize in September
my neighbors to bill gates.
ates. 2009, at the University of Vermont.
Lerman says the local programmer pool is growing
i feel like the geekette slowly but steadily, and she sees more of her peers strik-
ambassador of Vermont.” ing out on their own. “VTSDA should take out full-page
ads in ski magazines saying, ‘Like skiing in Vermont? the Data Farm,
JuLie
ie Lerman
You could work here, too,’” she suggests. LLc
Lerman consults with software developers who work As much as she loves Vermont, Lerman has been trav trav- Julie Lerman
with Microsoft’s .NET applications — many of them eling a lot lately. Last year, O’Reilly Media published her is a .NET
large corporations, such as Logitech. She travels to their book, Programming Entity Framework, which has be- programmer and
offices when she can; she recently spent three days with come a must-read for many Microsoft programmers. It es- consultant who
a 10-person team from CIEE (formerly known as the tablished her as a worldwide expert on the topic. In 2009, mentors software
Council on International Exchange) in Portland, Maine, she accumulated 60,000 frequent-flier miles presenting at developers at
helping them design software to manage their study- and conferences in Poland and Sweden, Los Angeles, Seattle, companies all
work-abroad programs. Las Vegas and Toronto. She’s headed to the Norwegian over the world.
When Lerman can’t interact with her clients in person, Developers’ Conference in Oslo in June 2010.
she connects with them on the web, via a DSL connec- When Lerman travels, she often hands out Vermont FounDeD
tion provided by Waitsfield Telecom. “This week I spent maple syrup. In 2007, for example, she was one of eight 1989; moved to
two and half hours on Skype and GoToMeeting with a guy tech bloggers who spent a day at Microsoft headquarters VT in 1999
in Paris,” she says. “I work with people all over the world. previewing the company’s latest technology, and spend- hQ
Hardly any of my income comes from Vermont.” ing the final hour of the day with Microsoft founder Bill Hanksville
But, she points out, that’s where almost all of her mon- Gates. “I brought maple syrup from my neighbors to Bill
ey goes. “I pay taxes here and I spend money locally,” she Gates,” she says. “I feel like the geekette ambassador of StaFF
says. “I’m a total localvore.” Vermont.” 1

gOing MOBiLe 15
“there are more
than 90 bioscience
companies in Vermont.
employment data shows
that bioscience firms
and research provide
nearly 1100 direct jobs
in Vermont. a study of
bioscience employment
showed that this sector
supports another 3000
indirect jobs in our
state, with job growth of
seven times the annual
rate in the Vermont
economy as a whole.
and these are good jobs
that pay well above the
state average.”
Vermont bioScienceS aLLiance
building bioscience
IBM isn’t the only high-tech manufacturer in Vermont;
like many of the state’s bioscience companies,
these two firms combine cutting-edge technology
and high-quality Vermont craftsmanship.

chroma bioteK
technoLogy inStrumentS,
corp. inc.
Rockingham Winooski
 CHROMA Technology Corp. [Link]

C
hroma Technology Corp. helps its customers see things differ- “We put stickers
ently — literally. The southern Vermont company makes optical
filters for microscopes. “We take white light and break it into its that say ‘Crafted
various colors,” explains president Paul Millman.
Chroma’s filters allow scientists to examine biological material, wheth-
in Vermont’ on the
er it’s a cell, a chromosome or tissue, Millman says. A scientist studying boxes we use to ship
the optic nerve of a fruit fly, for example, might stain the nerve with a
substance that glows green under blue light. One Chroma filter would
our filters, because
block all but the blue light from hitting the specimen; another filter people believe that
would isolate the green light.
Millman sounds like a scientist when he’s detailing how Chroma’s
Vermont is a place
products operate, but the Brooklyn native ended up in the optical filter where craftsmanship
business by chance. Millman had worked as a teacher and a bartender
before coming to Vermont in 1988. He was looking for a place to live
is still valued.”
that was close to New York, and where he felt comfortable. An unapol- Paul Millman
ogetic liberal, Millman was a member of Students for a Democratic
Society while a student at Antioch College in the 1960s. “I thought,
Vermont, they got hippies there. I know hippies,” he recalls.
Millman visited a state employment office, hoping to find a gig
tending bar. The counselor recommended he apply for a sales job
with Omega Optical, a company that makes precision optical
filters in Brattleboro. He got the job, and worked there for
three years, learning the business, studying the product
line and the market — before he was fired.
A few months later, Millman and six other former
Omega employees founded Chroma. Today, 90 employ-
ees work at their 28,000-square-foot facility in Rockingham,
carrying out the product manufacturing, testing, sales and market-
ing. Another six employees work for 89 North, Chroma’s engineering sub-
Chroma sidiary located in Burlington’s Chace Mill. The company also has a sales
Technology office in Germany, and hopes to open a similar office next year in China.
Corp. images (clockwise from top):
Millman says there’s an advantage to having Chroma’s design and man- paul millman, epithelial ducts,
is an employee-
ufacturing taking place here in Vermont. “Being from Vermont means chromosomal rainbows
owned company
something in very many places in the world,” he says, citing the state’s
that designs,
progressive politics and reputation for quality. “We put stickers that say
manufactures
‘Crafted in Vermont’ on the boxes we use to ship our filters, because peo- He points out that North Carolina’s
and sells precision
ple believe that Vermont is a place where craftsmanship is still valued.” Research Triangle took off when the
optical filters and
Vermont is also a draw for the kind of smart, enterprising individuals that National Institute of Environmental
related products.
Chroma seeks to employ. “I think that for a large portion of what Richard Health established itself there as an
Founded Florida calls the ‘creative class,’ Vermont is the best place to be,” he says. anchor. He’s heard that U.S. Senator
1991 That said, Millman says Chroma is unlikely to expand its filter busi- Bernie Sanders is working on attract-
ness much more in southern Vermont. He expects most of the company’s ing Sandia National Laboratories to
HQ growth to come from new divisions, and subsidiaries such as Burlington- Vermont. “Eventually there’s this kind
Rockingham based 89 North, which is developing new products for the life-sciences of pyramiding effect,” Millman says.
industry. It’s difficult, he says, to attract a highly educated, highly skilled “And all of a sudden you have a lot of
Staff workforce to the Rockingham area. “We don’t have even one full-service biotech and drug companies coming
90, 6 at a restaurant in Bellows Falls,” he notes. in and such. I think that having Sandia
subsidiary in Millman suggests one way to bring even more life-sciences jobs to or somebody like Sandia come into
Burlington Vermont: Get a sizable business or government entity to set up shop here. Vermont would be very helpful.”

18 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r
 “Vermonters believe in doing great things and, more importantly, that great
things can still be realized. As a people, we dare to dream.” Adam Alpert

b io T ek I n strum e n ts, Inc . [Link]

M
icroplate readers don’t look all

andy duback
that exciting to the untrained
eye, but don’t let their boxy,
cash-register-like appearance
fool you. Doctors use these devices to test
blood and tissue samples for diseases such
as cancer, HIV and avian flu. Microplate
systems are essentially super-efficient test
tubes: highly sophisticated detectors that
look for reactions in hundreds of biological
samples at once. These life-saving machines
are designed and manfactured at BioTek
Instruments, Inc. in little Winooski, Vt.
BioTek is one of the global leaders in mi-
croplate instrumentation, with sales and
service offices in China, Singapore, France,
Germany, India and the U.K. But the fam-
ily company remains firmly rooted in the
Green Mountain State. Dr. Norman Alpert
founded BioTek in 1968 while working as a adam and briar alpert
physiologist at the University of Vermont
College of Medicine. Before the days of benefits and profit sharing. Last year, the Lake Champlain Regional
government regulation, Alpert identified a Chamber of Commerce chose BioTek as its Business of the Year.
need for equipment that tested the safety Other states have tried to lure this fast-growing company away
of instruments used in hospitals. Patients from Vermont with lucrative tax breaks and financial assistance.
could get electrocuted in their hospital beds Adam Alpert, Vice President of Business Development, insists
because a bed motor wasn’t grounded prop- BioTek remains firmly committed to Vermont, but adds that do-
erly. So he tapped his network of university ing business in the state can be challenging. “Vermonters succeed
colleagues to develop quality as- both because of and in spite of the state they live
surance products that would en- in,” he says. “In terms of tax, investment, and de-
sure better safety. Then he hired velopment policy, we have to acknowledge that BioTek
a workforce to engineer them. Vermont is not as ‘business friendly’ as some Instruments,
Inc.
His sons, Briar and Adam, run states.”
BioTek today. Training can be an issue, too. Many BioTek develops,
The company introduced its staffers came from larger companies, such as GE manufactures
first microplate reader in 1981. and Digital, where they benefitted from formal and sells
In 2002, BioTek sold its biomed- training programs. BioTek is too small to develop its microplate
ical division to focus exclusively on own curriculum for specific technologies. That means instrumentation
microplate instrumentation. Since then, that the company has to rely on local educational institu- and software.
BioTek has more than doubled its sales, out- tions for continuing workforce education, which is not ideal; the Founded
pacing market and competitor growth rates. programs offered aren’t necessarily designed with BioTek in mind. 1968
The firm boasts a staff of 250 housed in two Nonetheless, the company expects to add 10 more jobs this year.
buildings in an office park in Winooski, As for the employees he’s got, Alpert can’t say enough good things HQ
with another 80 or so employees overseas. about them. He cites their loyalty, strong work ethic and sense of Winooski
BioTek had its best sales year ever in 2008. idealism. “Vermonters believe in doing great things and, more im-
In 2009, Vermont Business Magazine named portantly, that great things can still be realized,” he says. “As a peo- Staff
it the Best Place to Work in Vermont — the ple, we dare to dream — how else can using an old gas station to cre- 210 in Vermont,
company's average employee tenure is 12 ate an ice cream empire be explained? This translates into wonderful 30 in other states,
years, thanks to its family atmosphere, good creative, entrepreneurial successes every day.” 40 overseas

building bioscience 19
“computer systems design and
related services is expected to
be among the fastest growing
industries in the economy.
Job opportunities should be
excellent for most workers,
with the best opportunities
occurring for computer specialists.”
From the u.S. bureau oF Labor StatiSticS

11,500
number of Vermont jobs
supported by the tech sector
traDe in the cyberStateS 2008 report
 inFrastructure
architects
Vermonters in all corners of the state need access
to the internet, and help leveraging its power.
These three businesses offer a helping hand.

competitiVe 7th pixeL north country

computing (c2) Montpelier communicationS
Colchester Newport
 c om p eti ti ve c ompu ting (c 2) [Link]

E
mployees of Competitive Computing (C2) Edwards and Thieret are two of C2’s four founders.
enjoy a spectacular view from their office on The others, Melissa Dever and Todd Kelley, are also part
the top floor of an office complex on Water of C2’s senior management. All but Kelley grew up in
Tower Hill in Colchester. Coincidentally, the Vermont. They met while working for Digital Equipment
same building houses MyWebGrocer. But unlike the on- Corporation, and founded their own technology con-
line grocery biz, which aims to have a national reach, C2 sulting business after being laid off. “We got the ‘entre-
is more locally and regionally focused; on a clear day, C2 preneurial nudge’ from Digital,” quips Edwards.
employees can practically see many of their customers Initially, C2 had eight employees and continued
— including NRG Systems, Seventh Generation, Green to work for Digital in a consulting capacity. Its first
Mountain Coffee Roasters and St. Michael’s College non-Digital customer was BioTek Instruments, Inc. in
— from their lofty headquarters. “We work with a lot Winooski, which is still a client. Edwards estimates that
of Vermont companies,” explains President and CEO C2 has grown 10 to 15 percent annually. Even in the re-
Carolyn Edwards. “Given our background and the tools cent “kind of tight” years, “We actually grew some,” she
we work with, we’ve been able to help those organiza- says. C2 has hired two new employees so far in 2010, one
tions reach a new level.” of them a former intern from the University of Vermont,
C2’s offerings include content-management systems, now working as a systems engineer.
collaboration platforms and eCommerce solutions, as C2 was able to hire another new employee at the end
well as infrastructure solutions and services. C2 can also of last year by taking advantage of a program offered
design its clients’ physical IT infrastructure, to make it by the Vermont Department of Labor. The individu-
more efficient, and more “green.” C2 recently worked al C2 hired had limited formal education in the tech-
with Seventh Generation to reduce its number of servers nology field. The state paid for part of his training, and
by more than 50 percent, which cut costs as well as the that, coupled with on-the-job training at C2, has en-
company’s carbon footprint. In 2009, ComputerWorld abled him to fill a newly created insides sales job
selected Seventh Generation as one of the top “Green at the company. This has allowed C2 to
IT” companies, partly as a result of that change.
C2 employees are certified to work with a
wide variety of software tech-
nologies — the com-
pany boasts top-tier
partnerships with
most major IT indus-
try leaders, including
Microsoft, Dell, VMware,
HP, Citrix, Mediachase and
Sitecore. They use these tech-
nologies to build specific cus-
tomer solutions. For exam-
ple, Marty Thieret, Founding
Partner, and head of Enterprise
Infrastructure Solutions, ex-
plains that C2 recently creat-
ed a collaboration portal for a
client that enables its nation-
al sales and marketing staff to
manage statistics and sales
materials, and communi-
cate efficiently, rather than
shooting emails back and
forth.

22 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r
matthew thorsen

“We work with a lot of

Vermont companies.
Given our background and
the tools we work with,
we’ve been able to help
those organizations reach
a new level.” Carolyn Edwards

LEft (l. to r.): melissa deveR,

martin thieret, todd kelley,
carolyn edwards
opposite: The c2 office on
water tower hill
below: intranet for NRG Systems

expand its hardware and software offer-

ings, and it’s given the employee a prom-
ising new career path. As a condition of
this workforce grant, C2’s new employ- Competitive
ee had to be making 150 percent of min- Computing (C2)
imum wage within six months. “We’ve designs IT
achieved that,” Thieret says confidently. systems and
Adds Edwards, “That program helped creates software
us get off the ground with a new line of solutions for
business. We’re thinking, ‘How can we large- and mid-
do that again? How can we do that five sized businesses
times?’” throughout New
Edwards notes that analysts are pre- England and the
dicting the IT industry is about to start East Coast.
a seven-year growth cycle, so C2 is pre-
Founded
paring for more aggressive growth in the
next few years. Thieret points out that 1993
some of that growth may be regional — C2 does work choose C2? “We’re a Vermont business working with and HQ
with clients outside of the state. But he also hopes that serving our fellow Vermont businesses, to achieve mutu- Colchester
more Vermont companies will enlist C2’s services. The al goals,” he says. “Our long-term relationships with our
company occupies a unique niche in Vermont; most of clients are crucial to our success.” And, he adds, “Having Staff
its competitors are out of state. Why should a local firm that face-to-face experience is important.” 57

infrastructure architects 23
 “if you don’t reach out with some kind of presence on the web,
you’re really relying on a finite market space.” gregg banSe

7 th p i x e l
[Link]

V
ermont is known for
its high-quality arts
and crafts, and fabu-
lous local food. 7th
Pixel owner Gregg Banse is us-
ing the web to promote both,
and teaching others how to do
it, too.
The native Vermonter stud-
ied engineering at Vermont
Technical College, and had sev-
eral high-tech and consulting
engineering jobs before found-
ing a company called Blueberry
Publications in 2003; that’s the
corporate name of 7th Pixel. “My passion has always been Vermont food and crafts,” in time for the 2009 holiday

Jeb WaLLace-broDeur
he explains. In his spare time, Banse serves as one of 30 moderators of Webmaster season, but the grant didn’t
World, a global news and discussion forum for web professionals. come through until October,
Banse wants to help Vermont’s artists and small businesses embrace the web be- so he missed the peak gift-
cause it allows them to connect with a global audience. “You can present your buying season.
products and your message to customers you might not find otherwise,” he says. Banse is working with lo-
“If you don’t reach out with some kind of presence on the web, you’re really relying cal arts organizations to
on a finite market space.” build momentum. To meet
His primary business is designing and building websites for small and mid-sized the conditions of his grant,
companies in Vermont. He does some out-of-state work, but he’s pulled back re- he needs to create or save 31
7th pixeL cently to focus on the local market. “That’s where my heart is,” he says. Clients jobs in central Vermont by
is a web design include the Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery; Hawkridge Furniture in St. the end of the year. A busi-
and development Johnsbury; Bon Temps Gourmet, a soul food catering business in Worcester; ness planner is helping him
firm that helps and singer-songwriter Patti Casey. He also built a Local Growers Guide for the figure out how he might
Vermont-based University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies. Visitors to the site can search scale up.
small and mid- for locally grown food in Addison, Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle, Rutland and Ultimately, Banse would
size businesses Washington counties. like Market Vermont to lead
leverage the Banse has also presented at conferences, and run workshops and tutorials for au- to a series of mobile web por-
power of the diences who want to learn about things like Facebook, Twitter and search engine tals aimed at tourists. “You
Internet. optimization. Some entrepreneurs want him to explain everything, while others should be able to go to a
want to pay him to do it for them. Often, he finds, people just want to sit down town and pull up informa-
FounDeD
with someone who can explain what these new tools are, and how they can boost tion on that town on your
2003
business. “I pull back the curtain,” he says. “That’s what I’ve focused my entire busi- phone,” he says. Of course,
hQ ness around.” first the state has to improve
Montpelier Increasingly, Banse is spending time on a project called Market Vermont. cellphone coverage. “There
He won a $99,000 grant from the USDA to create the site, an eCommerce portal are definitely dead zones,” he
StaFF for Vermont artists and craftspeople that markets their goods to tourists and oth- says, “and some of those spots
1 ers with an interest in the Vermont brand. He had hoped to have it up and running are prime tourist areas.”

24 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g V e r m o n t ’ S c r e at i V e b r a i n p o W e r
n o r t h c oun try c ommu nic ations
[Link]

D
erek Niles, founder and Chief Niles has actually been supplying wireless web
Technology Officer of North access to downtown Newport and the shores of
Country Communications, is a the northern parts of Lake Memphremagog
man on a mission. The Newport since 2007, free of charge. A search for Wi-
native is determined to deliver broad- Fi in the area turns up
band Internet service to his rural Northeast Niles’ “Joe’s Pool Hall”
Kingdom neighbors. He wants them to be network. Users who join niles saw an
able to watch videos, use Skype, shop online and it are instructed to call
telecommute if they want to. Niles’ phone number to opportunity for a
Niles is not inventing new technology; all he wants gain access to the web. small company to
to do is bring his corner of the world into the 21st “I get calls all day long,
century. “My goal is just to get broadband to people every day,” he says. He deliver access and
as soon as possible,” he says. “We’ve all been promised reports that 1000 com- support services
this for a number of years, and there are still people puters logged onto
doing without.” his network in the to rural areas
The 32-year-old father of six grew up in Newport, last year. It can that comcast
studied electronics at Vermont Technical College, accommodate
then moved away for seven years. He tested micro- about 100 users and Fairpoint are
processors for IBM in Essex Junction, and worked in at a time, but missing.
Massachusetts for Lucent Technlogies, and Calix, a typically has
communications equipment supplier. He returned to about 10
Newport in 2005. “I went out, saw the world, and de- to 15 on during the day. Clearly,
cided to come back here to raise my family,” he says. he says, there’s a demand for his
Niles has worked with other broadband provid- service.
ers in the Northeast Kingdom, including Kingdom Since founding NCC, Niles
Connection and Great Auk Wireless. He teamed up has applied for a commercial
with NCC CEO Dave Kickert last fall because he saw data circuit, which will allow
an opportunity for a small company to deliver access him to start charging for Wi-Fi.
and support services to rural areas that Comcast and He plans to offer tiered options. “For
FairPoint are missing. people downtown who don’t have room north country
communicationS
All Niles needs now is some towers. He plans to put in their lives for a $50 Comcast bill, I
provides
one on a hilltop behind his house; he’s in the process want to give them basic access for $10 a
computer repair
of buying the land. A tower at that elevation could pro- month,” he says.
and training
vide wireless broadband connections to approximate- In addition to providing access to
services, and
ly 500 households to the south that now have limited the web, Niles will also repair custom-
seeks to bring
or no access to the web. ers’ computers and get rid of spyware —
broadband
It would also give him something he does already.
Internet access
line-of-sight access to He has big plans for his nascent tech
to remote parts
to 15 major mountains. company. If he can secure more funding
of the Northeast
He’s been offered a spot to buy hilltops and towers, Niles esti-
Kingdom.
on four of them already mates he could turn NCC into a 10-per-
— if he can raise mon- son operation, and he’s already got his FounDeD
ey to develop the sites. team picked out. He knows plenty of 2009
With those addition- people looking for work.
al towers, he’d be able “There’s not a lot of high-tech compa- hQ
to reach towns such as nies up here,” he observes. “There’s not a Newport
Coventry, Brownington lot of anything up here.”
and Irasburg. But, he says, “Build it and they will StaFF
come. I’m a firm believer in that.” 2

infrastructure architects 25
now it’s time to...

complete
the circuit
Vermont’s tech companies
are diverse in their aims,
and in the services they
provide, but they share
some common needs.

Several themes recur

when talking with
these entrepreneurs:
It’s difficult to find qualified
employees in Vermont.
Some companies, such as [Link], are looking for specific technical workers and are having
trouble finding them in the local talent pool. [Link] and others say they find it difficult to
attract employees from other states because of the high cost of living in Vermont, and the high
cost of health care.
Not surprisingly, tech entrepreneurs say they would welcome an increased focus on STEM
education — science, technology, engineering and math — in Vermont schools, but better tech
training isn’t the only need. John Canning of Physician’s Computer Company notes that he
needs skilled communicators. PCC frequently hires English majors and liberal arts graduates.
“I want kids graduating from school with communication and problem-solving skills, who have
experience working in groups,” he says.

Tech companies in Vermont have a

hard time finding business financing.
Many tech companies are dealing with intellectual, rather than physical, property, which can
make it difficult to secure collateral for a large loan. Other states and provinces have created
incentive programs to attract these high-paying, low-impact jobs to their communities. Maine,
for example, created the Maine Technology Institute, a state-funded nonprofit corporation. It’s
run by a governor-appointed board of directors made up of industry leaders and representatives
from key public agencies, and its mission is to offer early-stage capital and commercialization
assistance for research and development of tech projects that will create high-quality jobs in the
state. For every dollar of state funding, MTI leverages an additional $14 of private and public
financing for companies in Maine.
Lou Krieg of Green Mountain Software suggests that Vermont create some sort of quasi-
governmental authority of this sort, to help software entrepreneurs access financing to grow.
“There are a lot of creative people in Vermont,” he says. “Maybe they can do for software what
they did for captive insurance.”
“The software industry,” he adds, “is just the best type of industry for Vermont to have.”

Vermont needs more technical

infrastructure to compete.
This seems obvious, but it bears repeating. One person interviewed for this publication confided
that many of his clients couldn’t get cellphone coverage in Vermont. “We have people who travel
here from all over the world, and they can get coverage everywhere they travel, except here.” he
says. “It’s kind of a running joke.”

ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r 27
 V
ermont has grown more tech-friendly in recent years,
thanks to the efforts of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority
and the Vermont Economic Development Authority, but members of the
VTSDA believe the state needs to go much further to truly tap the tech sector,
and maximize its potential.

By working together, and investing in Vermont’s future, we can keep these high-
paying, low-impact jobs in the state, and attract even more in the years to come.

Vermont Compani e s tha t a r e “ T a p p in g T e c h”

7th Pixel Montpelier
89 North Inc. Burlington VBSA
Acute Technology Morrisville
Adaptive Engineering, LLC Richmond VBSA
AllEarth Renewables Williston
Allscripts South Burlington
American Healthcare Software South Burlington VTSDA
Appleseed Solutions Underhill VTSDA
Ascendo, Inc. South Burlington VTSDA
Astute Computing, LLC Waterbury
Battig, Michael Colchester VTSDA
Bear Code, LLC Montpelier VTSDA
BiaDiagnostics Inc. Burlington VBSA
BioMosaics Inc. Burlington VBSA
BioTek Instruments, Inc. Winooski VBSA
Bluehouse Group Richmond VTSDA
Brandthropology Burlington VTSDA
Breen Systems Vergennes
Burlington Telecom Burlington
Burton Snowboards Burlington
Catamount Research and Development, Inc. St. Albans VBSA
CEDO Burlington Burlington VTSDA
Chroma Technology Corp. Rockingham VBSA
Coaching Center of Vermont Winooski
Competitive Computing (C2) Colchester VTSDA
Comport Consulting Vermont, LLC South Burlington VTSDA
Corey Mechanic Burlington VTSDA
Creative Microsystems Waitsfield VBSA
CSL Software Solutions Burlington
Data Innovations North America South Burlington
Data Systems, Inc. Burlington VTSDA

28 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r
[Link] Burlington VTSDA
Digital Bridges 2.0 Middlebury VTSDA
Dinse, Knapp, McAndrew Burlington VTSDA
Dympol, Inc. Waitsfield VTSDA
Dynamic Business Solutions, Inc. South Burlington VTSDA
East Street, Ltd. Essex Junction
Egan Media Productions, Inc. Colchester
Empower Mobility, LLC Essex VTSDA
EpikOne, Inc. Williston
EQ2, Inc. Burlington
EWA Government Systems, Inc. Montpelier VTSDA
Fairpoint Communications South Burlington
Freshtracks Capital Shelburne and Middlebury VTSDA
Galen Healthcare Solutions Burlington
Gallagher, Flynn & Company, LLP Williston VTSDA
Global Classroom Burlington
Goehlert & Associates South Burlington VBSA
Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC) Burlington VTSDA
Green Mountain Antibodies Burlington VBSA
Green Mountain Coffee Waterbury VTSDA
Green Mountain Linux East Topsham
Green Mountain Network Burlington
Green Mountain Software / All That Jazz, LLC Colchester VTSDA
Greensea Systems, Inc. Shelburne
GW Plastics, Inc. Royalton VBSA
Haematologic Technologies, Inc. Essex Junction VBSA
Hendrickson & Associates, LLC West Glover VTSDA
Image Softworks Fairlee
ImmuRX Inc. Lebanon, NH VBSA
Interlock Software Burlington VTSDA
ISystems Colchester VTSDA
Jim Winter Consulting Hinesburg
KGS Software Engineering, LLC South Burlington
LabPas Business Unit, Phase it Forward Montpelier VTSDA
Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce Burlington
Lee River Software LLC Jericho
Logic Supply South Burlington VTSDA
Maklad, Carl Williston
MBF Bioscience Williston VBSA
Medimation Hinesburg
Mergus Analytics, LLC Burlington VBSA
Merritt & Merritt & Moulton Burlington VTSDA

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ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r 29
 Vermont Compani e s tha t a r e “ T a p p in g T e c h” continued

Metaink Technical Communications, LLC Montpelier VTSDA

Microcheck Northfield VBSA
Microdesign Consulting, Inc. Colchester VTSDA
MicroStrain Williston
Mincar Consulting Richmond
MyWebGrocer Colchester
NEHP, Inc. Williston VBSA
NetHarmonix, Inc. Middlebury
New Breed Marketing Winooski
North Country Communications Newport
Northeast Sports Network Lyndonville
NRG Systems Hinesburg
Object Computers, LTD Charlotte VTSDA
Omega Optical, Inc. Brattleboro VBSA
OnClick Solutions Northfield
P&C Software Services, Inc. Jericho
Panther Internet, Inc. Burlington
Phase Forward Montpelier
Physician’s Computer Company Winooski VTSDA
Piematrix Burlington VTSDA
Polhemus Colchester
Pragmatic Technologies Burlington VTSDA
Precision Bioassay, Inc. Burlington VBSA, VTSDA
Propellar Media Works, LLC Burlington
Qvault, Inc. Burlington
Rachel Morton Associates Winooski VTSDA
Radius Network LLC Monkton
Reading Plus/Taylor Associates Winooski VTSDA
Red Leaf Software, LLC Colchester VTSDA
Renaissance Information System Jericho VTSDA
Research Proteins, Inc. Essex VBSA
RETN Burlington
RingMaster Software Corporation Burlington VTSDA
Roger Tubby Stowe VTSDA
Seiler, Christoper Colchester VTSDA
Seven Days Burlington
SoRo Systems, Inc. South Royalton VTSDA
SoundToys Burlington
Springer-Miller Stowe
Standards Technology Group Williston VTSDA
Sterling Valley Systems, Inc. Stowe VTSDA
Stone Environmental Montpelier VTSDA
Stromatec Inc. South Burlington VBSA

30 ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r
System Solutions & Support Corporation East Hardwick
Systems Ideas Montgomery Center VTSDA
Tag New Media Burlington
Technical Connections Burlington VTSDA
TekSystems Essex Junction
Teljet Longhaul, LLC South Burlington VTSDA
Tertl Studios, LLC Montpelier VTSDA
The Data Farm, LLC Hanksville VTSDA
The Silverbeard Corporation Fairfield VTSDA
The Tech Group, Inc. South Burlington VTSDA
Tiger Style Huntington
Timberline Interactive Middlebury VTSDA
Times*Sign Hinesburg
Union Street Media Burlington VTSDA
Upper Valley Writing Services Chester VTSDA
UVM Office of Technology Transfer Burlington VBSA, VTSDA
Vermont Clinical Study Center Burlington VBSA
Vermont HITEC Williston VTSDA
Vermont Information Consortium, LLC Montpelier VTSDA
Vermont Information Processing Colchester
Vermont Systems Essex Junction
WH Group Richmond
Working Set, Inc. Burlington
Yizri, LLC Burlington VTSDA
Young Writers Project, Inc. Winooski VTSDA

A c ade mic Members and Fr ie n d s

Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Colchester VBSA
Burlington College Burlington
Champlain College Burlington VBSA, VTSDA
Community College of Vermont Waterbury
Marlboro College Graduate Center Brattleboro
Middlebury College Middlebury VBSA, VTSDA
Norwich University Northfield VTSDA
St. Michael’s College Colchester VTSDA
University of Vermont Burlington VBSA, VTSDA
Vermont Law School South Royalton VBSA
Vermont State Colleges Castleton, Burlington,
Johnson, Lyndon, Randolph VBSA
Vermont Technical College Randolph VTSDA

ta p p i n g t e c h : m a x i m i z i n g v e r m o n t ’ s c r e at i v e b r a i n p o w e r 31
VtSDa is an organizer and major sponsor
of the Vermont 3.0 tech Jam. this popular
annual tech-sector expo attracts local
employers, job seekers, entrepreneurs
and students. it’s a great place to recruit
employees, engage in professional
development, learn about innovative
local companies and network.

the next Jam will take place on

october 15 & 16, 2010

at the main Street Landing performing
arts center in burlington.

Find more information at

[Link]