‘Coming Home’: Danish biotech giant Novo Nordisk puts down roots in West Lebanon
Dennis Clancy remembers June 30, 2014, very well. 9:35 a.m., to be exact. That’s when Clancy, a manufacturing technician at former Olympus Biotech in West Lebanon, got word that he was being laid off after 11 years with the company. Its Japanese owner, beset by an unrelated financial scandal, was exiting biotech to refocus on its core camera and microscope businesses. “I told my wife I was going to be home early that day,” Clancy...
Water Fears Flow in N.Y.
Hoosick Falls, n.y. — After his factory worker father died a painful death from kidney cancer at age 68 in 2013, Michael Hickey made it his mission to find out why so many people in his hometown along the Hoosick River were getting sick. Two years later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has warned residents of Hoosick Falls not to drink or cook with water from municipal wells, and a plastics plant has agreed to install a $2...
The Business of Agriculture: Plant businesses big and small are firing up for the growing season
Setting out petunias in the flower beds and starting tomato and pepper plants in the vegetable garden may seem a long way off here in February, but in New Hampshire and Vermont greenhouse operations, the spring season already is well underway. Propane-fired heaters are roaring, seeds are being placed in growing media and tiny seedlings of some species already are emerging as growers prepare for the sales rush that will begin as soon...
In Third Layoff of 2015, Timken Cuts 40 Positions
Lebanon — Timken Aerospace, continuing to grapple with a downtown in its precision ball bearing business, is letting go about 40 workers at its Lebanon plant as part of a reorganization that involves transferring some functions to the parent company’s corporate headquarters in North Canton, Ohio. The layoffs are the latest blow at the Lebanon plant, one of the city’s biggest manufacturing employers, which has already faced two rounds...
The Business of Agriculture: Upper Valley Farmers Fight the Battle of Bedstraw
What kudzu is to south Georgia — ubiquitous, fast-growing, invasive — smooth bedstraw has become to the fields, meadows, pastures and other open lands of the Upper Valley region. And the summer of 2015 is proving to be the worst year yet with the aggressive weed, as farmers, property managers and agronomists try to figure out ways to beat the pest back, usually with only marginal success. Smooth bedstraw especially loves roadsides,...
