It was right around the time we were building the small ex-Heald grinder that Craig decided to change the name of the company. His future plans were to build new machinery, so our “Vermont Rebuild” name had to go. It took a while for management to come up with a new one, and when the name “Vermont Machine Tool” was announced, most of us shuddered. Wasn’t that what The Goldman Group called themselves? Well, it was VERY similar; wouldn’t there be some confusion here? Our qualms were not eased when Craig put up a big sign on the side of the building. It’s still there, and will probably stay (oh, BTW, Goldman called themselves “Vermont USA Machine Tool Group).

The dream of becoming an “OEM” was realized when we bought the Bryant product line out of bankruptcy. The Goldman Group had filed for bankruptcy protection early in 2002, and it included all their holdings in Vermont, including J&L, Fellows, and Bryant. Our decision to buy Bryant was based on the fact that they had still posted a profit into the late ’90’s. Unfortunately, in 2000 Goldman had decided to move the complete company from their original building on Clinton Street up to the Fellows complex in North Springfield. On the face of it, it made sense; put everything under one roof. But the complexity and cost of the move proved fatal; within two years, the entire outfit folded.

We would never have been able to buy Bryant without some sort of financial help; the state of Vermont stepped up to advance the necessary money. This money was lent to the town of Springfield, who in return lent it to us. This loan was to be paid back to the town, and half of the money would be returned to the state; the other half the town would retain in a “revolving loan” fund which could be lent to other needy businesses.

What we got for our money was the complete Bryant product line, including any and all inventory of parts, patterns, and in-process machine builds. Also the “Intellectual Property”, which included all drawings, and microfilms of drawings, manuals, service reports, customer contacts and patents. We had a problem- where were we going to put all this “stuff”? We ended up renting a large area on the ground floor of the old Fellows building, where we constructed a fenced-in area to organize all the physical parts inventory. It was quite a large project that took many months to complete. We had to build shelving and tag all the items with proper part numbers, and make a master list of just where all these items were located. Of course, we had to hire more help, and were lucky enough to be able to retain some former Bryant people who were familiar with their numbering system, mechanics to build the machinery, and office help to organize the drawings and spare parts inventory.