The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) and Bennington County Regional Commission (BCRC) announced guest speakers from around the country, state and region for May 20 at the 8th annual Southern VT Economy Summit, held at Mt. Snow Resort in Dover, VT.
The agenda and speakers for the event are now live and can be found at www.sovermontzone.com/summit, along with a link to register.
Keynote speaker Josh Wright of Lightcast, a global leader in labor market analytics, will open the day by presenting findings from the recent report, “The Rising Storm: Building A Future-Ready Workforce to Withstand the Looming Labor Shortage.” This report helps us situate Vermont’s ongoing experience of demographic and workforce trends in a national context and provides insight into trends and solutions that will help us adapt ahead of the next bands of this demographic ‘perfect storm.’ Following the keynote address, hear from local experts in the healthcare, construction and education sectors as they speak about how their industries are already making key adaptations to the current workforce realities.
Morning breakouts will feature a panel moderated by BDCC Executive Director Adam Grinold, on forces that shape and define rural economies. VT State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, VT Futures Project Director Kevin Chu, UVM Professor Emeritus Arthur Woolf, and David Bradbury from the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies will focus on how local leaders can foster capital investment and entrepreneurial ecosystems to build local economies.
In the afternoon, we welcome many other guest speakers, including St. Albans City Manager Dominic Cloud. Cloud will speak about several projects in St. Albans that successfully brought together public and private entities in order to complete projects for transformative change.
Other afternoon panels will investigate multiple aspects of our regional economy, including a data presentation from Commissioner Pelham of the VT Department of Tourism and Marketing, a robust discussion about sourcing and using data for business development and community projects featuring guest speakers from the UVM/Leahy Center for Rural Partnerships, and a workshop on working with multi-generational teams led by Sarah Blizzard, EdD.
Representatives of our federal delegation have been invited to update participants on the latest from Washington, D.C. as part of the Summit closing reception.
BDCC and BCRC host the Summit on behalf of the Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone. The Summit is part of the Southern Vermont Economy Project, which helps build capacity, expertise and resources in the Zone, with support from the USDA Rural Community Development Initiative.
The Summit is made possible in part by this year’s Summit Sponsor Brattleboro Savings and Loan, keynote sponsor MSK Engineers and session and special event sponsors Vermont State University, the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, M&T Bank, the UVM/Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships, VELCO, Weston and Sampson Engineers, Community College of Vermont, Vermont Community Foundation, The Richards Group, Vermont Economic Development Authority, Efficiency Vermont, the Vermont Community Loan Fund, Stevens and Associates/M&S Development, the Better Business Bureau of New England, and Merritt and Merritt Law.
Find a full list of sponsors at the Summit website, www.sovermontzone.com/summit.