2019 Winner | Chroma Technology Corporation

Pictured: Newell Lessell, CEO of Chroma Techology Corp; John Boutin, Publisher of Vermont Business Magazine; Jay Reichman, Co-Founder of Chroma Technology Corp; Betsy Bishop, President of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Janette Bombardier, COO of Chroma Technology Corp.

Vermont is home to unique kinds of businesses, ones that are good to their employees and their customers, the environment and the world. Every year, Vermont Business Magazine and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce honor a Vermont business that demonstrates an outstanding history of sustained growth while displaying an acute awareness of what makes Vermont unique.

The Deane C Davis Outstanding Vermont Business of the Year Award, named for the former Vermont governor and established in 1990, marks its 30th year of presenting this award to a deserving recipient. This year we are proud to announce that Chroma Technology Corp of Bellows Falls is the 2019 award winner.

Out of a list of 13 nominations, a panel of distinguished judges had the difficult task of determining the 2019 winner.

In these unprecedented times with the Covid-19 pandemic, Vermont Business Magazine and the Vermont Chamber decided to have the judges pick only the winner and not the top three finalists. There will be no formal presentation of the award and the plaque will be presented to Chroma Technology Corp, in a safe manner for everyone.

"Chroma has shown great merit for the Deane C Davis Award. Like Davis himself—former governor, president of National Life of Vermont, and environmentalist—Chroma reflects Vermont's diverse nature and, at the same time, radiates a savvy business sense" commented John Boutin, Publisher of Vermont Business Magazine. "Chroma Technology's designation as the winner of the Deane C. Davis Outstanding Business of the Year is a culmination of many years of success as a leading advanced manufacturer in Vermont. It's great to see a local company grow to such success in our state," said Betsy Bishop, President of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.

A 100 percent employee-owned company, Chroma Technology produces optical filters for the scientific, biomedical, photonics and imaging and detection industries. The filters and mirrors that Chroma manufactures are used in microscopes, DNA sequencers and clinical diagnostic devices, among other applications.

Chroma was founded in 1991 by six people who believed that it was possible to do well in business by doing good. Six people who believed that sharing ownership broadly within a company was the right thing to do and made good business sense. Chroma's growth from a small shop in a rented incubator space in Brattleboro serving a handful of individual scientists to an almost $40 million company with over 130 employees and customers all over the world has proven them right. As owners the employees share in the company's profits and amass equity as the company's value increases over time.

In the two years, Chroma opened a new $22 million expansion in Bellows Falls that promised to add or retain 133 jobs in the town. Founded in Brattleboro in 1991, the company has a worldwide customer base with established offices in Europe and Asia.

“Chroma Technology is the 2019 Deane C Davis Award winner, not only due to its commitment to its employees and the environment, but because it does that in a way that represents Vermont well”, said Boutin.

The criteria for this Award include:

• Growth in sales or employment.
• Commitment of company resources for participation in community projects.
• Encouragement of employees to be involved in community events.
• Recognition of the importance of the environment to the state as a natural and economic resource.
• Addressing employee concerns/needs to create a positive work environment for all employees.
• Nominated businesses must have been based in Vermont for at least 10 years.

Let us look at how they did in each of the above listed criteria.

Growth in the number of employees and/or sales

Chroma is a 100% employee-owned optical filter manufacturer with a mission to "provide the best products and solutions for their customers' ever-changing needs." Their mission and their ownership structure shape their culture and are key elements of their continued success.

Chroma's full Mission Statement states "Our mission is to provide the best products and solutions for our customers' ever-changing needs. To that end we develop lasting relationships with our customers by providing applications expertise and exceptional customer service".

Each employee has a share of the responsibility for Chroma's success, and each earns a fair share of the rewards. They value the economic and social needs of the individual as well as the needs of the company as a whole. This is how they create the committed, involved and healthy employee body that is key to achieving their mission.

Since its founding Chroma has been consistently profitable and grown steadily in revenues from less than $500k in their first year of operation to almost $38 million in 2019. This sustained growth was built on a foundation of commitment to business excellence and partnership with their customers, employees and community.

They leverage their employee-owned structure to encourage entrepreneurial thinking throughout the organization. Everyone has a role to play in improving the customers' experience and growing sales. Individual workgroups set quarterly goals and objectives that they identify to support larger annual corporate objectives. As employee-owners everyone has a direct financial stake in their success and is therefore highly motivated to identify and support opportunities to strengthen and grow the company. Recently, this broad based entrepreneurialism has enabled them to reduce lead times by over 50% while significantly improving on time performance. These gains in operational performance helped drive an 8% growth in sales this past year.

Since 2015 their sales have grown over 30%. The cornerstone of Chroma's sales and marketing strategy has always been to focus on identifying customer needs and build lasting and collaborative relationships by providing exceptional service and quality products. As their customer base has evolved they have responded to their changing priorities.

Initially their customer base was individual scientists. As this market grew they used what they had learned from working with these individuals to develop a standard catalogue of products to meet the needs of individuals using common fluorescence techniques in their research.

This standardization reduced costs and simplified the buying experience for many customers leading to increased sales and ultimately attracting microscope manufacturers as customers.

Building on their success with microscope manufacturers they pursued other OEMs in the life sciences field by attending tradeshows and developing products to meet their specific needs.

These corporate customers put a premium on consistency, quality and engineering support. In response they hired product engineers to work with these customers and evolved their production and management capabilities to meet their expectations.

They have since expanded beyond the life sciences to serve markets including machine vision, LIDAR (autonomous vehicles, agricultural drones, etc.), security, and food safety.

As the market has globalized they have moved along with it establishing sales offices in Germany, China and Japan to provide local and native language support in key markets. Today about two-thirds of their sales are to customers located outside the U.S. while 100% of our production is in Vermont.

Commitment of company resources for participation in community projects

The start of their community service commitment is in their Mission Statement, "Chroma Technology is an active and caring member of the community in which we live as well as the scientific and technical communities that we serve."

They give back to these communities by providing jobs, offering financial support to local non-profit service agencies, sponsoring educational opportunities for students of science and technology, and promoting employee ownership".

Chroma has an annual donation/sponsorship budget of an average of 10% of corporate profits. The Community Donations Committee performs the community relations function and is an employee group that reviews and grants donations and scholarships.

In 2019 Chroma gave $75,000 to a variety of non-profits in the surrounding community, the largest portion going to organizations that provide food and shelter, SEVCA, Greater Falls Warming Shelter, Groundwork Collaborative, Our Place Drop-In Center being examples.

They also gave generously to humane societies and animal shelters in both Vermont and New Hampshire, museums and arts projects as well as supporting extracurricular student field trips and projects for local schools. Beginning 14 years ago, Chroma has made annual scholarship awards to the graduating class of Bellows Falls Union High School.

What began as a single award of $2,500 has grown over the years to three separate scholarships: the original award, dubbed the Robert B Edmonds Scholarship, now valued at $10,000 over a 4 year period, the Chroma Technology Scholarship, also valued at $10,000 over four years and the Chroma Technology Community College Scholarship, valued at $2,500 over a 2 year period.

A small group of Chromite's volunteers their time each spring to review the applicants for the scholarships and to choose the successful candidates.

Chroma supports many community projects and commits employee hours to support those projects. They increase the probability that their employees will also be involved with their communities on their own time by providing wages and flexible schedules that allow them to have a reasonable work-life balance.

In 2019 Chroma employees volunteered for over 1300 hours at over 40 different organizations including The Greater Falls Chamber of Commerce (board member), Music Camps North, Meals on Wheels, Weathersfield Proctor Library, Clinical & Support Options, Inc., Greater Falls Warming Shelter, BASIC (Brattleboro Skatepark Is Coming) and NAMI VT.

Two-thirds of the company officers are involved in State and Community projects. This includes volunteering in areas of the Vermont economy and education including a Trustee of the State College System, Executive member of the State of Vermont Workforce Investment Board, member of the Advisory Board for the University of Vermont Department of Education and Social Service, and a business representative to the State of Vermont Manufacturing Policy committee.

Recognition of the importance of the environment to the state as a natural and economic resource

Environmental responsibility is an important element of Chroma's commitment to being an exemplary corporate citizen in the state of Vermont as well as in the countries they operate.

Their commitment to the environment is reflected in their environmental policy: It is Chroma's practice to seek improvements throughout its business operations to lessen its impact on the local and global environment by conserving energy, water, and other natural resources, reducing waste generation, recycling and purchasing recycled products, and reducing the use of toxic materials and products wherever possible.

At the state level Chroma is involved in the development of environmental policy through their memberships in the Vermont Environmental Consortium and the Department of Environmental Conservation's Green Business Program.

In 2019 the company leadership was actively involved in establishing the methodology associated with the legislated Energy Savings Account (ESA). Chroma is one of the pilot companies for the ESA which will drive higher value energy efficiency and energy productivity projects for manufacturing companies and Chroma's energy efficiency projects for this program are underway.

Acting locally, Chroma has installed electric vehicle charging stations, energy-saving LED lighting that illuminates over 90% of our space, and the installation of a new, high-efficiency HVAC system.

They have also adopted an Environmentally Preferable Products Purchasing Policy that gives preference to suppliers whose products have environmentally friendly attributes that maximize Post-Consumer Recycled content, minimize packaging, or have other environmentally preferable attributes.

Other employee-driven environmental initiatives include new composting and increased recycling programs, and the use of compostable silverware and plates. Chroma has installed a large rain garden to not only reduce the impact of stormwater runoff but to support bees, butterflies and other wildlife. Employees have planted milkweed seeds to support Monarch buttery population and migration and have worked to protect snapping turtle nesting and movement on the Chroma Technology property.

Addressing employee concerns/needs to create a positive work environment for all employees

As a 100% employee-owned, democratic workplace Chroma offers all employees the opportunity to provide input to operating policies. Companywide surveys and focus groups are utilized to gather input when significant policy proposals are being considered. Policy decisions are ultimately made by their Board of Directors which is comprised entirely of employees and elected by our employee-owners.

Board meetings, with the exception of executive sessions, are open to all employees to attend and provide input. Employees are also encouraged to serve on various committees that shape policy and their philanthropic activity including building, safety, wellness, charitable giving, compensation, and hiring.

Chroma Technology participates in the Best Places to Work Survey and uses the data to collect employee input on areas they are doing well and areas they can improve their workplace. In 2019, 108 employees completed the survey and the overall results are 84% satisfaction and engagement out of a total of 100%, which is three points higher than in 2018.

They gained points in every category except Pay/Benefits which had no change which is and has been the highest-ranked category at 94%. Chroma was named to the Vermont Business Magazine Best Places to Work list for 2020.

The Chroma events team plans monthly summer BBQ's, birthday bagel days, chili competitions and other events to support team building and employee engagement. Production level operating changes are informed and often initiated by members of workgroups. Individual engagement in these types of issues is a right of ownership at Chroma.

Their workforce has a wealth of expertise and good ideas and it is management's responsibility to support them in their efforts towards continuous improvement. All workgroups create their own set of goals and objectives.

The 2019 Deane C Davis Award Selection Committee

The Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Vermont Business Magazine sincerely thank the members of this year’s Selection Committee. The committee meets behind closed doors (this year via Zoom Video Conferencing due to the pandemic) to review the award nominations. These dedicated volunteers are held in high regard for their enthusiasm and strong commitment to the spirit of the Deane C Davis Award.

Thomas Leavitt, President & CEO, Northfield Savings Bank

Mari McClure, President & CEO, Green Mountain Power

Cassie Polhemus, CEO, Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA)

Drew Richards, Vice President, The Richards Group

Betsy Bishop, President, Vermont Chamber

John Boutin, Publisher, Vermont Business Magazine

2019 Winner | Chroma Technology Corporation