Lamoille County upbeat on business and the economy

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 2003 by Edelstein, Art

"The quality of life in the county is wonderful," said Stritzler. "I think we have a very strong entrepreneurial bent and we can attract entrepreneurs with the kind of lifestyle the county can offer."

He likes the relatively low real estate prices. "You can still buy a fair amount of home and property at reasonable prices if you want to start a business." He said the many forms of recreation are a plus to attracting entrepreneurs and Copley Health Center ranks as a fine hospital. "Stowe is a beautiful town to eat and shop in," he noted.

"You have to weigh this against the more business convenience of Burlington and we do have people who work in Burlington and live in Lamoille for the lifestyle."

"I think it's a good place to do business," said Joe Allen in Stowe. "It's a supportive business community and people are here because they want to be here." He owns Powershift Online the only county-based Internet provider.

The company has 10 employees and is located on Route 100.

Powershift has 6,500 customers in Vermont, the US and internationally. It does web site hosting for companies located in Mexico and Canada.

He said Powershift was in a growth mode. "We have more customers, employees and revenues."

Allen described the dial-up Internet as in "a mature stage."

"Most people have Internet access so we pick up customers from the national services, such as AOL and Earthlink that don't provide the quality of service we can provide," Allen explained.

The company provides dial-up numbers to over 3,000 locations in the US.

Locally, he said, "a lot of people are going to broadband, SDSL in Stowe and Morrisville as well as fixed wireless."

"It would be nice if everyone could get affordable high speed access in the county," said Allen. The cost is currently about $50 per month for the home user in the county.

"We're behind in the telecommunications area in the county," he said. The county lag is due to geography and population density. "People are spread out in the county and the equipment costs are the same regardless of the number of customers," he said.

One of the weakest aspects of telecommunications here, said Allen, is cell phone coverage. "You can't get it in many locations and where it is it is spotty." The solution, he said, "is more cell sites."

While Allen is generally happy with the atmosphere for business in Lamoille Co., he would like to see some solution to traffic on Route 100. Traffic outside his window, "is getting stressed."

"It's amazing to me how much more traffic there is since I located here in 1995," he observed.

"We're very healthy," said MasonAnderson at the chamber. The chamber has 260 members and she's had "very few folks come to me with financial problems."

She thinks the county is strategically located for both business and recreation purposes. "We're close to Burlington, and Montpelier we're in the middle, we have a lot of people coming through here."

Morrisville, said Mason-Anderson, is the county commercial center while Stowe is a big tourist draw.