The Vermont Country Store to Open Employee Health Centers

From Marketwire

Jan. 16, 2013

MANCHESTER, VT–The Vermont Country Store is partnering with Marathon Health, one of the nation’s leading providers of worksite healthcare, to open new employee health centers at their North Clarendon Operations Center and Manchester headquarters on May 1, 2013. The new health centers will become the heart of the family owned company’s innovative effort to improve employees’ health and wellbeing, which is founded on the belief that personal wellbeing is directly linked to productivity, success, and happiness.

“The Vermont Country Store was among the first champions of employee wellness in the state, which has been primarily focused on physical health,” said Gardner Orton, who with his brothers, Eliot and Cabot, are third-generation owners of the 67-year-old company. “Our father, Lyman, is a huge advocate for physical activity and has inspired us as an avid cyclist to live healthy lives. My brothers and I have taken what he built a step further with fitness centers, health coaching, and even a weekly on-site farmer’s market. What we believe is needed to help our employees improve their wellbeing is something to tie all these different benefits together; a place to serve the whole person with physical health being one component of the total picture. The new health centers will give us the environment for employees to evaluate their health and wellbeing, and to have their needs served in a holistic way.”

The health centers will be open to all of The Vermont Country Store’s 450 year-round employees, regardless of their health coverage, as well as to dependent family members who are covered under the company’s medical plan. Patients will be seen in a convenient, confidential medical setting by qualified medical professionals who will provide primary care services for common illnesses and injuries, as well as health screenings and coaching to address lifestyle health risks. The health centers will also dispense common, generic prescription medications to treat diagnosed illnesses, making medical care and treatment efficient and convenient.

The partnership between The Vermont Country Store and Marathon Health grew out of the employee health coaching, disease management and assessment services that Marathon Health has provided to VCS as one of their first clients.

“Our partnership with The Vermont Country Store has always been about helping people achieve their best health,” said Marathon Health CEO Jerry Ford. “Over the past five years, we have provided the support people needed to make important healthy lifestyle changes. With the addition of primary care services, we are providing another avenue to guide The Vermont Country Store employees on their journey to better health.”

“The health center is really the culmination of our evolved thinking about employee wellbeing and the reality that affordability and access to care are still huge barriers for many of our employees to improving their health,” said Geof Brown, head of human resources for The Vermont Country Store. “By providing quality health care at work and making it a low-cost option for employees, it creates a new opportunity for our folks to really improve their health, and their total wellbeing, which we believe will make them more productive at work and at home, and happier in their lives.”

About The Vermont Country Store
In 1946, Vrest and Ellen Orton printed their first catalog — just 12 pages and 36 products — and mailed it to the folks on their Christmas card list, and sixty-seven years later the business continues to be Orton family owned. As Purveyors of The Practical and Hard to Find, The Vermont Country Store is nationally famous through its catalogs, web site and historic retail stores in Weston and Rockingham, Vermont. For more information, please visit www.VermontCountryStore.com.