Who Bears the Risk?

Introduction

The first time I saw Husky's proposed campus plan spread across a table, I understood why everyone was excited.

Twenty buildings. Two thousand jobs. A new bridge across the Lamoille River. A transformed local economy.

The State saw opportunity. I saw a bill.

At the time I was in my early thirties and serving on the Milton Selectboard. What followed consumed years of my life, permanently changed several relationships, introduced me to people who remain friends to this day, and taught me more about risk, governance, negotiation, and leadership than any classroom ever could.

The Vision

The project began because the owner of Husky Injection Molding Systems enjoyed skiing in Stowe and wanted a facility nearby. The proposed 20 building campus sat on farmland on the outskirts of Milton and was hugely ambitious.

I eventually joined state and regional officials on a trip to Toronto to tour Husky's headquarters. The company was impressive. The management team was impressive. The campus was impressive.

I walked away convinced Husky was entirely capable of building what they were proposing. What bothered me wasn't the company. What bothered me was who was being asked to take the risk.

I remember leaving Toronto with two thoughts:

The company could absolutely pull this off.

And Milton was way out of its league.

The Bill Arrives Before the Benefits

Everyone's excitement and enthusiasm focused on the campus vision. My attention focused on everything that needed to happen before the campus existed.

Water. Wastewater. Road improvements. Future bridge construction. Fire equipment upgrades. Future maintenance obligations. Most of those investments had to occur before a single employee walked through the door.

The State saw plans for twenty buildings. I saw a commitment for one.

The State saw future tax revenue. I saw today’s debt.

The State saw opportunity. I saw risk.

Those weren't competing facts. They were competing lenses.

And they led me to keep asking a question nobody seemed particularly interested in answering: What happens if only the first building gets built?

When Husky Changed Milton

At the time, Diana Palm chaired the Selectboard.

For years Diana and I had been allies. We had fought difficult battles together and generally found ourselves on the same side of major issues. Up until Husky, we had usually been able to find common ground. Husky changed that.

As momentum behind the project grew, state officials increasingly involved Diana in high-level discussions. She would return from those meetings expecting the Selectboard to vote to support commitments that she had already made individually.

From her perspective, Milton was in danger of losing an extraordinary opportunity. From my perspective, Milton was being rushed to make commitments before fully understanding the risks.

A disagreement about a project gradually became a disagreement about process, governance, and trust. Our relationship never fully recovered.

The Breaking Point

As deadlines approached, pressure intensified. To make matters worse, a Selectboard member who strongly supported Husky was deployed overseas with the National Guard, creating arguments over whether the town charter allowed him to participate in meetings remotely.

At one point a special meeting was warned as a tour of the land Husky had acquired. The gathering was supposed to begin at a house on the property before moving on to other locations. We never made it out of the house.

As the discussion unfolded, it became obvious that this wasn't really a tour. It was an effort to secure support. When I realized the true intent, I decided to leave. I considered it to be an illegal meeting.

I walked outside and got into my car. Only then did I discover another board member had parked directly behind me. I couldn't leave. For a moment I sat there wondering whether this was actually happening. I was literally trapped in a driveway because I wouldn't agree to support the project.

People continued shouting through my open window about why Milton needed to support Husky. About why I needed to support Husky. Nobody was trying to address my concerns. They were trying to get me to stop raising them.

Eventually I had to threaten to call the police before they let me leave the meeting.

Frank

Frank Cioffi, President of Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, had been involved from the beginning. He had helped recruit Husky to Vermont and had literally flown over Milton with company representatives while evaluating potential sites.

At first I didn't trust him. And for quite a while, we fought. We spent enough time arguing in park-and-ride lots between our offices that I lost count. I waved my finger in Frank's face more than once.

What changed was that eventually he stopped trying to win the argument. He started trying to understand it. He stopped asking: How do we get Ken to support this? He started asking: What would need to change before Ken could support it?

Looking back, it's now clear that Frank and I respected each other long before we liked each other. But eventually respect did turn to friendship, a friendship that carried through many more projects bringing value to Milton long after Husky was over.

As the negotiations were reaching a conclusion, Husky executives expressed concern that I had spent years resisting the project and was now publicly supporting it. They were concerned that I would get them publicly committed and then ask for more benefit for Milton. Frank answered:

"Ken is a pain in the ass and sticks by his guns, but once you reach a deal he stands by it."

I took that as a compliment, and more importantly, the trust Frank had built on both sides became the glue needed to move the deal forward.

The Breakthrough

The breakthrough ultimately came through Art Hogan, Executive Director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, and a Tax Increment Financing structure he proposed.

But Art didn't convince me. And neither did Frank.

The person who convinced me was John Cushing. John had served as Milton's Town Clerk and Treasurer for decades. He eventually retired from this elected position after 36 years, having been re-elected every 3-years without challenge. His ethics were beyond question. His loyalty to Milton was beyond question.

Together we walked through the assumptions, timing, revenues, debt, and risks. When we finished, neither of us saw a perfect project. We saw a workable one. Most importantly, for the first time, the infrastructure could be supported by the first building. The State would forego education-tax revenue and finally have skin in the game. The incentives were aligned. The risks were shared.

When John became convinced the structure could work, I did too. That was the moment my position changed.

The Public Meeting

After the agreement was complete, I stood in front of nearly two thousand people in the Milton High School auditorium announcing that the deal was done and Husky was coming.

I had recently become Chair of the Selectboard. It was the first truly large public meeting I had ever addressed. I was terrified.

The crowd was intimidating but what made it truly frightening was the fact that I was now publicly attaching my credibility to a project I had spent years questioning.  I had always been one of the loudest skeptics of the project. Now I was standing in front of my town explaining why I believed it was the thing for Milton.

Twenty Years Later

Husky has now been a part of Milton for more than 20 years, but not in the way envisioned all of those years ago.

The twenty-building campus was never built. The bridge was never constructed. The remaining nineteen buildings never arrived. Employment remains a fraction of the original projection.

Today the site consists of a single building and roughly two hundred employees. Yet the project still worked. The ultimate agreement never depended on the dream becoming reality. The first step stood on its own.

Final Reflection

Looking back, Husky was one of the most stressful and formative experiences of my career. It strained relationships. It created new ones. It forced me to think about governance, risk, incentives, and public accountability in ways I never had before.

Frank Cioffi became a friend.

Susan Matthews, Frank's deputy, became not only a friend but a trusted ally on regional issues and later served as a colleague on the VELCO board of directors with me.

In retrospect the project mattered to Milton. The lessons mattered more for my development as a leader.

Most people evaluate a vision by asking: What happens if everything goes right? The Husky project taught me a different question: What happens if it doesn't?

The future rarely arrives exactly as planned. The best decisions are the ones that still work when it doesn't. Before committing to the dream, make sure the first step stands on its own.

Strategic Judgment Questions Raised By This Case

Who bears the risk?
The parties most enthusiastic about a project are not always the parties carrying the largest obligations. Understanding risk allocation often reveals more than understanding projected benefits.

Are incentives aligned?
The project became workable only after the financing structure required multiple stakeholders to share both risks and rewards.

Can the first step stand on its own?
Would the project still make sense if the larger vision never arrived? This became the central question in the entire discussion.

What would need to change before I could support this?
Progress accelerated when participants stopped trying to change my mind and started trying to understand my concerns. The solution emerged when the underlying objection was addressed rather than dismissed.

What happens if the future never arrives?
Years later, the twenty-building vision never appeared. The structure still worked. Good decisions remain viable even when reality falls short of expectations.