Bill Kennerson's Beau Ties

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2004 by Marcel, Joyce

"In our company, less than half of the people need it," Kenerson said. "Everyone gets the $750. It's better than not giving them a thing. But small companies in Vermont can't afford insurance. Particularly in Vermont, where you've got insurance companies leaving every other year. You dont have too many choices left."

Kenerson does not believe that eliminating community rating, allowing insurance companies to fix premiums according to age and health, would bring more insurance companies into the state.

"The problem in Vermont is the number of people," Kenerson said. "You couldn't run a bow tie business selling to Vermonters. I think health insurance is the same way."

Beau Ties has offers other benefits besides the medical savings account money.

"Deb and I try to run this company like we were working for it," Kenerson said. "We try to help our people grow, we try to pay them properly, and we've been slowly getting the salaries there. We have a sixmonth illness for exempt people, so if someone's out and can't work for six months, they get paid. We had a key player who was out from last Christmas to April. She luckily survived, and we paid her the whole time. We do six weeks for our hourly-wage people. We had two use the full six weeks of fill pay. Life-threatening illnesses, both of them. And they both came, back."

As a former economic development director, Kenerson has some ideas about how to grow the state's economy.

Governor James Douglas is doing a good job, Kenerson believes. He urges Douglas to keep an eye on Canada as an excellent place to recruit new businesses.

"Canada was the great place to put businesses from when the exchange rat was the right way," Kenerson said. "Once the "change rate went in favor of the US we lost the ability to attract companiese from Canada. But there were some goo immigrations, if you will, from Canada. It' ripe. Particularly the companies in the French-speaking zone, because there's discrimination. French speaking versus English speaking. There are a lot of companies that would want to move. I think that's the right way to go, and I think they're putting emphasis in that direction.'

Most of all, Vermont should concentrate on helping companies which have started and grown inside the state, Kenerson said. He also supports Douglas' efforts to change the permitting process.

"The state has some pretty dedicated bureaucrats, particularly those in Labor and Industry, at least when I had dealings with them back when I had a ski lodge," Kenerson said. "They didn't care whether they closed your business or not. No compromise, no 'see if we can work with you and help you work this out.' I think Jim is working on that. Not to make it a giveaway, or an unsafe place to five and work, but to stop the bureaucratic t-crossing and i-dotting. Think for a minute about all the delays you can put in front of any project. Think about the road system in the United States that Eisenhower put in, and ask yourself if it could possibly be done today."