Q&A: Bill Stenger: President of Jay Peak

Vermont Business Magazine, May 01, 2003

All the ski areas in Vermont and the other travel people are about 25 percent of the employee base, as are manufacturing and agriculture. But agriculture, in addition to providing 25 percent of the employee base, also supplies this incredible landscape that is our brand.

So, we try to use Vermont products wherever we can, we try to do whatever we can for our farming community We have free skiing days for the farmers in our community, and last year we had 1,200 farmers here. It was the 15th year that we've done it. Little things are symbolic, but if we're going to develop the state and our brand and the community, we have to have a broad vision and an inclusive vision of what the components are.

VBM: If I own a company that I'm thinking of moving up here because of the quality of life in Vermont, I'm going to be looking at all those things. My employees won't want to move here if they can't get a good education for their kids.

Stenger: Sure. Absolutely. What kind of education is there? What kind of recreation opportunities? What kind of housing is there? What kind of transportation is there? What's the beauty of the state like?

VBM: The perceived quality of life here is a massive selling point for Vermont.

Stenger: The quality of our countryside is superb, but the quality of our lives, in a lot of places, is not. In Orleans County, I can tell you, there are a lot of people in pain because of any number of socio-economic difficulties. There's only one county in the state where the youth of the county stay, and that's Chittengen County, because there are enough jobs, and enough energy to retain the youth of the community.

More kids leave Orleans County, and kids are leaving our state. If you look at the demographics of Vermont, there are lots of guys your age and my age, but there are not a lot of 20 to 25 year olds because they graduate from college and they can't find the kind of job they want and they go somewhere else.

They may long to come back. I have a son in Denver, and he's probably going to move back because he's a contractor and he's stepping out on his own now. But he went to Colorado State University and he stayed out there. My other son went out there to Colorado State and then moved back here, and my daughter works in Burlington.

So I've seen it both ways. A lot of kids leave and don't see an opportunity to move back here and that happens up and down the state.

VBM: Yes. I had one son move to Phoenix, I have another son in San Diego and my daughter is on the Cape. My older son has moved back from Phoenix, but I doubt if the other two will come back.

Stenger: Lots of the kids want to move back, but they don't feel they can afford to, or that they can find affordable housing, and that's not right. I know a bunch of guys in Burlington who are in the construction business, who are developers, and they could develop affordable middle income housing, which is our biggest shortage in the state. The $125,000 home with three bedrooms and a garage.

Those aren't out there, and the developer can't get through the permit process affordably, so the $125,000 house is all of a sudden $179,000, because of all the crap they have to go through.