BRATTLEBORO — At its 55th annual meeting held Oct. 26 at the Cotton Mill Complex in Brattleboro, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. awarded its Founders Award to Landmark College of Putney.
At the meeting, BDCC President Hugh Barber thanked retiring board members, Peter Van Oot of Downs Rachlin, and Barry Beeman of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, for their service on the board. The membership then elected Dan Normandeau of the Windham Foundation and Bob Stevens of Stevens and Associates to the Board of Trustees.
The BDCC Board of Trustees voted to award the Founders Award to Landmark College in this, their 25th year, because they have restored the previous Windham College property to productive use, and grown their financial impact from a few hundred thousand a year to over $20 million.
Employment, property value, and reputation for the area are all enhanced by Landmark's success. While BDCC focuses on the economic impact, it is also highly aware of the educational impact of Landmark's particular focus and mission. Developing a program and college level school to educate students with learning disabilities is a major benefit not just to our region, but to the region and nation.
Credit for the vision to create Landmark College goes to Charles Drake, who first started Landmark School in Massachusetts to address learning disability students. His mission was to provide educational services that helped develop a section of the population that was not well served and harbored high value for the society at large.
Dr. Lynda Katz, president since 1994, has driven Dr. Drake's mission forward and raised the standard of accomplishment to make Landmark a national center of excellence in learning disabilities.
Landmark Executive Vice President Brent Betit said that “since opening in 1985 with approximately 40 employees, Landmark now employs approximately 230 faculty and staff from Vermont and surrounding States. Our official and public events draw thousands of family and professional visitors to the area each year. Our Fine Arts Building is a regional resource for the arts and entertainment, used both for our educational programming, but also supporting area artistic events ranging from plays, concerts, dance troupes and other performances.”
Landmark now fully occupies the original Windham College campus, and has constructed eight new buildings on our campus to supplement the original facilities. Our capital investment activities during the past decade to both renovate existing structures and build new ones has employed several thousand skilled tradesmen and contractors from the region, and resulted in more than $50 million in capital investments.
BDCC is pleased to recognize the quiet accomplishments of Landmark College over its 25 year history.
In other activity, BDCC Board Treasurer Tammy Richards reported that the organization was financially healthy with good prospects from its real estate. With 103 tenants in place, BDCC is a large commercial landlord using its property to support local businesses start and grow. The past two years of national economic distress have affected the tenant base, but occupancy has returned to sound levels and interest remains strong from prospective tenants.
The meeting was held in the offices of Oak Meadow School in the Cotton Mill Complex, a BDCC property. Oak Meadow develops and publishes curriculum for to support home schoolers across the country and world. They also run an on-line school to provide courses home school parents do not feel qualified to teach. Eaddy Sutton, executive director of Oak Meadow, welcomed the group to the space.
Following the meeting, members were taken on guided tours of the building and its 65 tenants.