Weston

After a seven-year run as head of The Vermont Country Store, Bill Shouldice will step down at the end of the year as president and CEO and turn the reins over to the Orton family. Shouldice announced his plans Thursday to resign as head of the family-owned catalog and retail store business that was founded by Vrest and Ellen Orton in 1946. “I was brought in … to really help the family to take the business to the next level,” Shouldice said during an interview Thursday. “That included building a management team, making strategic investments in the business and

Mildred Ellen Orton, who co-founded the Vermont Country Store with her husband, has died. Orton died at her home in Weston, Vt. last week at the age of 99. Her son, Lyman Orton, who now owns the mail order company with his three sons, says she did the paperwork and bookkeeping for more than 30 years for the company she and her husband, Vrest, started in 1946.