This story by John Lippman was published by the Valley News on Jan. 6.
[R]ANDOLPH — The 21st century has not been kind to Randolph, as it has not been for many towns in rural New England struggling with economic and population decline.
A walk down Randolph’s Main Street reveals vacant storefronts. Around the corner, the popular Three Bean Cafe closed, then reopened under a different operator, only to close again a few months later.
Randolph, halfway between Lebanon and Burlington along Interstate 89 and nearly dead-center in the state, wasn’t always this way. For a long time it was a robust manufacturing and agriculture hub.
But over the years the town has lost hundreds of jobs as once-reliable employers have shut down, moved away or downsized — although employment in Randolph has ticked up with the improving U.S. economy.
The town, which has a population of about 4,800, once was home to an Ethan Allen furniture plant, flooring manufacturer Branchwood, plastic injection molding company Waterbury, and apparel maker Merrymaids, all now gone. The past couple of years alone have seen the closings of corporate furniture maker WallGoldfinger, Wiggett’s Auto, Bisbee’s Hardware, the East Randolph outlet of farm equipment supplier Champlain Valley Equipment and, most symbolically, downtown mainstay and variety store Belmains.
To be sure, Randolph still hosts vital companies. Lighting company LEDynamics, a maker of LED lighting systems, is building a new, $4.5-million, 27,000-square foot facility on Beanville Road. The parent company of wood-burning stove maker Vermont Castings has invested more than $10 million at the plant’s foundry, although the company today employs significantly fewer workers than it once did. Applied Research Associates, a prominent national engineering firm that develops high-tech security technology for the military, operates a division in Randolph.
And Randolph Center has seen development associated with Vermont Technical College and senior living communities connected to Gifford Health Care.
And there are flickers of better things to come. Green Mountain Glove, founded in 1920, was acquired last year by a 24-year-old entrepreneur who is running the small maker of high-quality work gloves with the founder’s granddaughter. The five-person company has redesigned its website and now is selling its hand-stitched goatskin gloves online for $100 a pair.
Randolph now even boasts the sine qua non of the digital economy: Randolph Co-Worker, a shared work environment that leases individual offices and suites at the corner Main Street and Merchants Row, developed by former Three Stallion Inn owner and real estate entrepreneur Sam Sammis.
Still, the need to foster business development in Randolph is acute, said Perry Armstrong, owner of Rain or Shine Tent and Events Co. and a member of both the Selectboard and Economic Development Council. A Randolph native who has run a tent and events business for the past 30 years that serves venues all around the state, Armstrong said he has seen how other Vermont towns have managed the exodus of industry.
“Randolph in the ’90s was still vibrant but starting to show signs of weakness,” Armstrong said. “It was basically a manufacturing and agriculture community and, like Windsor and Bradford, which lost retail services, is having to reinvent itself.”
Last fall, the Randolph Selectboard, after being encouraged by Armstrong and other community members, agreed to budget for a newly created position of director of economic development. The town now is advertising for the staff position that will pay $55,000 to $60,000 annually and will report to Town Manager Adolfo Bailon.
“Some people think the town has not been focusing enough on economic development,” said Peter Reed, senior community banking officer with Northfield Savings Bank in Randolph and chair of the town’s Economic Development Council. “That’s a fair criticism.”
Reed and Armstrong said Randolph’s economic development director will be tasked with reaching out to the numerous state and federal public agencies that provide funding and resources for development as well as to the private sector to attract businesses to the town.
Randolph actually has the kind of critical institutions that any town would covet and is well-situated geographically to attract development and business, Armstrong said.
“One of the things I’ve been adamant about is trying to find somebody to pick up the ball and help us with economic development,” Armstrong said. “We have a hospital, we have a tech college, we have an interstate that runs through town. We even have an Amtrak stop. There are all kinds of great assets here.”
Trini Brassard, an administrator with the Vermont Agency of Transportation who is chair of the Randolph Selectboard, touted the new outlook even as she acknowledged that the town has not always been hospitable to development.
“We’re trying to change that,” she said.
