FREE Vol. 16, No. 27 essexreporter.com
July 6, 2017 • The Essex Reporter • 1
The Essex
Reporter
Prsrt Std ECRWSS U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 266 Burlington, VT 05401 Postal Patron-Residential
{ Thursday, July 6, 2017 }
Manz reflects on time with rescue, talks dept.'s future By COLIN FLANDERS For the first time in over 30 years, Dan Manz won’t awake to the crackle of a radio in his bedroom. After five years as executive director of Essex Rescue, Manz retired from his post last week, bookending a three-decade career with the department that includes a quarter-century of volunteering. Yet Manz’s influence reached well beyond the local sphere, shaping emergency medical services on both a state and national level. He was the Vt. Department of Health’s EMS director for 25 years and previously served as the president of a national association comprised of state directors. During that time, he helped negotiate rules na-
Changing of the guard PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Dan Manz looks out of his office window at the Essex Rescue building last Thursday. He officially retired the following day, marking the end of a three-decade career with the department that included 25 years as a volunteer. tionwide around Medicare payments and is now a frequent consultant with his former employer; he’s currently on the administrative team updating national
scope of practice model for the first time in 10 years. Perhaps Manz’s proudest accomplishment, however, is co-chairing the group that created the EMS “agen-
da for the future,” he said, a lengthy, strategic plan that’s still guiding EMS development across the country 20 years later. “In my career, there's
been a number of situations that I was the right guy at the right time for EMS systems,” Manz said. That experience contributed to Essex Rescue’s
recognition by the American Heart Association’s Mission Lifeline program last year for its quality care of patients having heart See MANZ, page 3
Families sought for Habitat homes By COLIN FLANDERS
O FILE PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity construction chairman Dick Shasteen looks over building specs in April at 57 Park St., the site of Essex Jct.'s first Habitat build. Shasteen said he hopes to finish the triplex by year's end, and Habitat's organizers say they're still accepting applications for three of the four homes on the property.
rganizers from Green Mountain Habitat for H u m a n ity are urging families in need to apply for one of three remaining homes in Essex. Located at 57 Park St., two of the three available homes are within a triplex being built where the previous house, which was left partially burned from a 2016 fire, once sat. Catherine Stevens, the organization’s director of advancement, said GMH has now selected one family from Burling-
ton and received “quite a few” other applications that didn’t meet the program’s requirements. “It would be great if some families in Essex would apply,” Stevens said. With Habitat, families can purchase the homes with a 25- to 30year, no-interest loan with no money down. Those payments are then used to construct more homes. Estimated monthly costs for the two-bedroom, one-bathroom carriage house are about $1,000, which includes the mortgage payment, property taxes and an association fee. Estimated
costs for one of the triplex condos, which have three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms, are about $1,100 per month. volunteer-based A family selection committee pores over applications before choosing families, which qualify if they make less than 60 percent of the median household income, currently about $50,000 for a family of four, yet have a stable income to pay for a mortgage. They must also demonstrate a need for the home, for reasons like living in a crowded or unsafe environment. Additionally, they’re reSee HABITAT, page 3
Blodgett Oven moves to Essex By COLIN FLANDERS A 169-year-old Vermont business will soon call Essex home. Blodgett Oven, an oven and steam equipment manufacturer, announced late last month plans to leave Burlington for a 180,000-square-foot facility at 42 Martin Allen Dr. in a deal finalized by its parent company, The Middleby Corporation. “We’ve experienced double-digit growth every year for the last 10 years,” Erica Havers, vice president and comptroller, said in a phone interview last Friday. “We are growing. We were able to take on other Middleby brands. Now that we have some more space, we’re in the game to hopefully bring some more business here.” The company’s 200 workers will continue to work in Burlington while the Essex facility is customized to include office space, a training center and a kitchen. Signaling the end of an era for
Blodgett — which moved into its three Lakeside Ave. buildings in the 1940s — the move culminates a twodecade search for a new location, Havers said. “We’ve been pretty cramped here in a while,” she said. “We’re really busting at the seams.” Yet Blodgett tried to “walk a tight line” during the search, Havers said, fearing that if it pushed too hard, its parent company would initiate a move out of state. “We definitely attribute a lot of our success to our local workforce,” she added. “Hardworking Vermonters help make Blodgett a good brand.” Greg Morgan, Essex Jct. resident and chairman of the town’s economic development commission, said the move is not only good news for Essex, but for Vermont. “Essex just did the state a big service by creating an environment where Blodgett could go,” Morgan said. See BLODGETT, page 3
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Blodgett Oven, founded in 1848 in Burlington, is leaving the Queen City for the town of Essex after its parent company, The Middleby Corporation, purchased this 180,000-square foot facility at 42 Allen Martin Dr. last month.