BRATTLEBORO — While many think that the economic woes of Windham County started with the collapse of the financial markets in 2007-08, Jeffrey Lewis, executive director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. (BDCC), believes that our region has been experiencing a recession for the past two decades.
BDCC was founded in 1954 by community members concerned about Brattleboro's economic health. To keep a large printing press and employer threatening to leave the area, the BDCC built a building and leased it back to the company at a low rate.
Now, said Lewis, the BDCC works with all sizes of businesses.
“We're a little bit of a nursery for small business,” he said, referring to the BDCC's Cotton Mill Hill property where low rents help new businesses get on their feet.
In terms of population and economic growth, Vermont grew by every measure from the 1950s to 1980s, according to Lewis. IBM employed 9,000 in Essex Junction in the 1960s. The Book Press, the Brattleboro printing company that moved into the factory that the BDCC built when it began, employed 900 at its peak.
But Vermont's economy changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s when many U.S.-based jobs traveled overseas. Major employers closed their doors. Windham County's population began its 20-year shrink. The Book Press, then owned by Quebecor World Color, left town by 2000.
Tourism and second homeowners slowly filled the gap left by industry, said Lewis. “[This shift] masked the fact that the underlying economy was losing strength,” he said.
But tourism, second homes and retirement economies have a different implication on the tax base than industry and small business. It's not good, Lewis said, when a population's overall age is going up and the overall wage down.
Lewis cautions against putting all the job and economic eggs in one basket. He said diversity in business type and size is important for economic health.
Bigger businesses add much to the economy, but if a community wraps itself around one industry, then “our health depends on their health,” he said, while smaller businesses can come and go without shock waves.
Despite some challenges, such as spotty broadband service and a long recession, Lewis thinks the area has many opportunities.
It has a flow of tourists depositing money into the economy, a strong, enticing reputation as a good place to live, a motivated and hardworking workforce, good health care centers and Interstate 91, which ensures easy access to Boston and New York.
The BDCC, Windham Regional Commission and other organizations are also collaborating on a southeast Vermont economic development strategy.
“I think it's exciting to see that Wilmington and Dover collaboration, and I hope we'll see more across the region,” said Chris Campany, new executive director for the Windham Regional Commission.
Campany said asking the hard questions about the county's strengths and weaknesses and coming up with honest answers is necessary for economic development.
He agrees with Lewis about having a mix of employers to help stabilize the county's economy.
Campany has worked in towns centered around a few large manufacturers who could hire 500 employees in one shot. But, he said, they could also fire 500 employees in one shot.
Ultimately, he said, small business, employing between one to 300 employees, provides more sustainable growth patterns over time.
His dream is to see a statewide economic development strategy built from the local level up. The local communities would work together to build a regional strategy that would inform the state's initiatives.
“In my world that would be an ideal way. Harness relationships that have already been created,” said Campany.