It was created by the Vermont General Assembly in 1974, to contribute to the state’s economic vitality by providing financing programs to businesses, thereby helping create jobs and advancing Vermont’s public policy goals.
In its first year, VEDA approved six direct loans totaling $967,000. This year that number was more than $58 million, through129 loans to the agricultural, travel and tourism, renewable energy, manufacturing and other sectors. Even this is a mere fraction of the 11,000 loans and $2.8 billion provided since 1974, when the Vermont legislature created VEDA to positively impact Vermont’s economy and job opportunities.
Over its lifetime so far, more than $2.8 billion has been provided through VEDA’s diversity of loan programs — including forgivable loans that helped many locals weather the COVID-19 storm.
The celebration comes alive through an extensive, nearly 50-page annual report, which examines the authority’s work during the last fiscal year and looks at how it has adapted to global change over the five-decade period.
For example, just last year, VEDA impacted Vermont with:
- The creation or retention of 2,061 jobs at VEDA-financed companies, with average compensation of $33.64 per hour
- The transition of ownership of 22 businesses
- Twenty eight start-up businesses established, including 10 new farms, no small feat in a culture of continued agricultural decline
- The creation of a forest products-focused loan program to benefit loggers and others in the field
- Through VEDA’s financing opportunities within the energy sector, enough electricity was generated to support more than 1,000 homes, and about 6,694 tons of greenhouse gas emissions — or 1,445 cars’ worth — were mitigated.
A reader favorite in the annual reports is a section highlighting borrowers who have reached a new goal and achieved a dream through funding from VEDA.
One such business owner is Jolene Kao, who revamped Charlotte’s Old Brick Store. Through VEDA, she said, building up a business in a new-to-her location in a new community was a positive experience.
“It just went smoothly, and I felt like they actually read the business plan that I had put together,” she said. “When I was writing it, there was a question of, ‘Is anybody going to read this and actually care about all of myself that I’m putting into it’?”
A decade-by-decade breakdown of VEDA and the global context that impacted the economy in which it navigated was created, to explore the ways in which VEDA has adapted, shifted and prevailed.
See the full report on VEDA’s website.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Nifty fifty: VEDA celebrates five decades of service.