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History of VEC
 The need for a consortium
was first articulated in 1999, when individuals representing several Vermont environmental companies accompanied Gov.
Howard Dean on a trade mission to Taiwan. During that visit,
the Chinese Petroleum Company proposed a major joint venture that could
allow Vermont firms to pursue
pollution remediation contracts in East Asia.
On returning to Vermont, Gov.
Dean requested that the Agency of Commerce, US Dept. of Commerce and
Vermont World Trade Office work with environmental firms to explore
this opportunity. The original group soon determined that the proposal
was beyond the capacity of any single Vermont environmental company.
Thus the idea of
a consortium was born. The parties formed a steering committee to
develop a strategic organizational structure and sustainable business
model. Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund,
the committee was able to hire a consultant, who coordinated an
organizational development process that led to VEC’s
incorporation as a registered non-profit educational organization in
June, 2001.
Also in 2001, VEC
began a search for an academic site host that would provide the
organization with stability and networking resources. Norwich University
kindly offered hosting and fiscal agency, and the VEC offices have been
located at NU’s Northfield
campus since then.
Peter Murray, one
of the members of the original ad hoc group and VEC’s first
president, conceived of the term “Green Valley”
to describe the vision of a state economy based on, and widely renowned
for, a thriving environmental enterprise sector. The term has been
widely used to summarize this vision by leaders of all three political
parties in Vermont.
In 2004, thanks
to grants received from the Vermont Department of Public Service,
Vermont Technology Council, and Vermont Chamber of Commerce, VEC hired
its first full-time executive director. With expanded services to
members, major conferences, and a variety of special projects, VEC saw
rapid growth during 2005 and 2006. By mid-2006, 55 private businesses,
educational institutions, public agencies, and non-profit organizations
had joined the consortium.
Nonpartisan,
neither an advocacy organization nor a traditional trade organization,
VEC takes a whole-systems, integrated, solutions-oriented approach to
growing the green enterprise sector and building truly sustainable communities.
With members active in every environment-related field, VEC specializes
in identifying critical leverage points – issues where multiple
challenges converge and create multiple opportunities – and
coordinating multi-disciplinary project teams to develop solutions.
Copyright © 2008
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