Michael Knapp leads Green River Software, one of more than 120 businesses and institutions comprising the green-economy cluster in Southern Vermont.
Michael Knapp, CEO and partner at Green River Software in Brattleboro, says people move to southern Vermont to enjoy the area’s spectacular beauty.
“We have no billboards on our highways. And it’s how we treat the environment that models our work. We’re really here to create a new economy that’s focused on sustainability and resilience. And the world needs it. That our local community is recognizing it is music to my ears,” Knapp explains.
When you combine the first and most respected national newsletter on green building, a thriving software company devoted to environmental protection, the largest wood kiln operation this side of the Mississippi, the reinvention of timber-frame construction and multi-site foreign trade zones, and new ways of prefabricating upscale homes, you start to see a theme.
Add to the mix several colleges with environmental education centers networking to find international marketing opportunities, a banker inventing a novel way to evaluate energy-efficiency mortgages, the nation’s first urine nutrient-reclamation project, and you have what experts call a cluster.
The green-economy cluster now encompasses more than 120 businesses, colleges, and organizations, three states, and four counties: Windham and Bennington in southern Vermont, Cheshire in New Hampshire, and Franklin in Massachusetts.
The impetus to network these companies was a series of disasters that left the region reeling. Among them was the devastation caused by 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene. More recently, it was the closure of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon. That move brought with it the loss of 600 high-paying jobs, plus services, volunteers, and a wellspring of charitable giving.
“Networking together the cluster is a brilliant strategy in response to the closing of Yankee,” says Knapp. His company, which boasts sales approaching $3 million per year, employs 18 engineers and software designers who have grown up in or relocated to Windham County to be part of a team that is both doing good in the world and making a profit.
Those participating in the cluster are dedicated to creating community-sized, sustainable, world-saving tools, products, and ideas to enrich the regional economy and to entice investors.
For more information, contact Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC), 76 Cotton Mill Hill, Brattleboro, VT 05301, 802-257-7731, Laura Sibilia, director of Economic and Workforce Development – SeVEDS. This story comes courtesy of Stratton Magazine, where it originally appeared in different form.
