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Month: March 2006
Usually, planners of Bay Path College’s annual women’s professional development conference pick a theme and then select speakers who can properly address it.
For 2006, however, that approach was turned inside out.
Organizers thought they had a theme — concerning how careers and lives evolve, said Caron Hobin, vice president of Planning and Student Development, and then went about assembling a program.
As they looked at the resumes and speaking styles of the keynote speakers, however, conference planners noticed that they all used humor to get their various points across, said Hobin, noting that this trend eventually shaped the 11th edition of the conference into an event titled Humor Incorporated.
“This won’t be a program about humor,” Hobin said of the day-long event set for May 5 at the MassMutual Center. “Instead, it will provide lessons in how humor can be an effective tool to help get a message across or to help people understand dry or complex material.”
Like punctuation.
Indeed, Lynne Truss used humor in her discourse on that subject in the #1 New York Times best-selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. She will be the morning keynote speaker at the conference, and should get the event off to a rousing start.
Other keynoters are noted journalist, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and director Nora Ephron, who has directed such hit movies as Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally …, and You’ve Got Mail, and philosopher/comedian Emily Levine.
The three speakers will have different subjects to address, said Hobin, noting that Ephron will focus on her career and the subject matter that has been the focus of much of her work — the evolving relationships between men and women. Meanwhile, Truss will expound on civility in the world today (or the distinct lack thereof), which was the subject of her latest book, Talk to the Hand, and Levine will touch on a variety of subjects in a talk titled It’s Not You, it’s the Universe: How to Have Your Cake and Eat it Too and Lose Weight
But while what they have to say is important, said Hobin, how they say it is what this conference is really all about.
“By using humor, they’re going to provide some direct examples of how it can help people communicate better, and we all know how important that is,” she told BusinessWest, adding that there should be valuable lessons for women at any stage of their careers.
“This is something completely different for us,” said Hobin. “It’s going to be a lot of fun and very entertaining.”
In addition the keynote speakers and their focus on the effective use of humor, the conference will feature several break-out sessions designed to give attendees some knowledge and insight they can take to the office on Monday. This year’s offerings are:
• The Change Before the Change: Laura Corio, MD will address the subject of perimenopause, an important and highly misunderstood biological phase of womanhood. Corio, a board certified OB-GYN with a medical practice in New York City, will speak openly about perimenopause and suggest treatment options focusing on stress and diet, safe and natural hormonal treatment, and alternative therapies;
• Reading Between the Lines: Jo-Ellen Dimitrius, considered the nation’s leading jury consultant, and author of the book Reading People, will offer insight into how individuals can decode the hidden messages in appearance, tone of voice, facial expression, and personal habits to predict behavior and attitude. Dimitrius has used such skills as a consultant in more than 1,000 trials, including such high-profile cases as Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson, and Rodney King, but she will show attendees how they can apply them to everyday situations, including job interviews, professional interaction, or even a date.
• The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life: Therapist and painter Rosamund Stone Zander will lead a workshop based on the book, The Art of Possibility, which she co-authored with her husband, Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. Zander advocates that art can be a springboard for creating innovative ways to reach personal and professional fulfillment. She will show individuals how they can open their minds to the notion of possibilities and how it can play into their lives and careers to fulfill dreams large and small. For business leaders, the workshop will offer insight into many of the challenges people routinely face in organizations.
• Unfinished Business: A Democrat and a Republican Take on the 10 Most Important Issues Women Face: When Julianne Malveaux, a Democrat and writer and featured columnist, and Deborah Parry, a Republican and political commentator, met in 1998 on MSNBC to discuss a presidential scandal, they found their passionate viewpoints illuminated important political issues. In Unfinished Business, a book they co-authored and sessions they stage together, the two take on subjects that resonate with women such as child care, education, health care, reproductive rights, and foreign policy. Their program sheds light on issues from both sides that help individuals better understand and form opinions on those subjects.
Hobin said plenty of seats are still available for the conference — the move to the MassMutual Center will enable organizers to host more than 1,000 people, 200 more than in the past — but the event is expected to sell out. v
To register online, visitwww.baypath.edu. For more information, call (413) 565-1293 or (800) 782-7284, ext. 293.
You can’t get by on chotchkes. That’s a mantra that Roland Desrochers, president of Monson Savings Bank, subscribes to in this competitive banking market – the days of wooing new customers with toasters are quite over.
Monson Savings, a three-branch institution in operation in Western Mass. since 1872, has taken steps to offer what Desrochers says people really want and need – low fees or no fees, a wide range of services, and sometimes, cold hard cash.
The cash comes into play as part of some of the bank’s ongoing programs to attract and retain customers, such as a referral program that awards $50 to current customers that bring new business to MSB.
But the real emphasis is on convenience and the ability to cater to the bank’s core audience, Desrochers added, and that has lead to continued growth within the community bank and set the stage for more progress in 2006.
By All Accounts
In addition to its flagship branch in Monson and a facility in Hampden, the bank opened its third branch in Wilbraham on Boston Road two years ago, in part to serve a growing number of customers from that town, and a free-standing loan center on Main Street in Monson, as well, opened in 2004.
“Soon, we’re going to have to expand here,” said Desrochers, waving a hand around his Monson office. “We’re busting at the seams.”
The need for physical growth is a reflection of the strong patterns set in recent years at MSB. Those include an 11% increase in assets in 2005, up from the 9% growth the bank has averaged over the past five years.
Desrochers said the bank’s successes, small and large, are the products of quick, aggressive implementation of new services geared toward the needs of its customer base.
In recent years, the bank has focused on customer convenience as the driver for several new initiatives, in addition to developing programs geared toward diverse audiences, from kids to business owners, and keeping fees to a minimum. And once an idea has been accepted in the boardroom, the bank is quick to introduce it to the public.
“Obviously, in this state, there are plenty of banks and we’re all beating each other up to get one new customer through the door,” he said. “We’re focused on that. But we’re also focused on what we, as a community bank, can bring to the table. Convenience is the number one concern, and pricing is a close second.”
Some of those new services Monson Savings has put in place include extended drive-through hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, and the installation of an ATM in a strategic spot in downtown Wilbraham, making banking easier for customers living on the outskirts of all three towns directly served by MSB, which abut near Wilbraham center.
It also has a suite of services that fall under the title of ‘family banking.’
Those products include Monson Savings for Kids and Teens, which offers special incentives for children, such as ice cream cone gift certificates – the occasional give-away doesn’t hurt, Desrochers said – after saving accounts reach certain benchmarks. Teenagers can take advantage of free checking accounts and personalized checks, debit cards, and online banking access, as well as tiered interest rates based on balance, instructions on balancing a checkbook, and dos and don’ts for financial independence.
In part to increase awareness of Monson Savings’ online bill pay program, the bank also instituted a promotion that pays $100 toward a new customer’s Internet service after three bills are paid online. The bank has made strides in online banking and services tailored to small businesses in recent years, Desrochers said, offering no-fee online bill pay and e-statements, and no-fee small business checking accounts.
“The no-fee small business accounts began to attract more people, and we continued the trend with the no-fee online banking,” said Desrochers. “I think it’s proof that in these competitive times, banks just can’t afford to charge people. We saw a 500% increase in the number of small business checking accounts and a 32% increase in online banking sign-ups in 2005.
“The drive-through hours and the ATM in Wilbraham have really been home-runs for us,” he continued, noting that even small additions like those can have a profound impact on a community bank’s bottom line.
“You have to be very aware of your market as a community bank,” said Desrochers. “When I think of some of the smaller banks that have set up branches in certain towns, thinking they can directly compete against those large banks … I shudder. For us, it’s about building strong relationships within the market we know and serve.”
Community Interest
And that includes, as it does for most banks, a strong philanthropic component. Monson Savings Bank contributes to a number of organizations and causes throughout the year, but with a special emphasis on those that operate in Monson, Hampden, and Wilbraham.
“We’ve increased our community investment as a percentage of income before taxes in each of the past three years,” said Desrochers, noting that much of that funding goes to smaller, local outfits. “You’re not necessarily going to see Bank of America giving to organizations like the Monson Arts Council, and that’s where the importance of community banks really comes into play. That’s why we need to survive.”
Desrochers said that Monson Savings is jumping into 2006 after a great year, and that has allowed the bank to give back in some substantial ways to the communities in which the bank operates.
“We’re thrilled with the way things are going,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, the financial environment is just as challenging as everyone says it is. But we are pleased to report some pretty exciting numbers.”
In addition to that 11% growth in assets, Desrochers said deposits have also grown by 11%, and the number of checking accounts at the bank has seen a 10% boost.
“That’s something we’re pretty proud of in this competitive market,” he said.
In terms of the bank’s three branches, Desrochers said the Monson branch continues to hold steady, while the bank’s newest location in Wilbraham, eight months away from its third year in operation, is progressing on target. The branch recorded $16 million in deposits at the close of 2005, growth that is on par with the bank’s projections.
Growth in Wilbraham is slowed somewhat by the competition in the Boston Road corridor, Desrochers said, which is currently home to branches of Hampden Bank, Country Bank, First Pioneer Credit Union in Wilbraham, TD Banknorth just over the town line in Springfield, and soon, a Webster Bank branch will also open in Springfield, close to the Boston Road and Parker Street intersection.
But in neighboring Hampden, Monson Savings is proving, as he put it, that “you don’t have to go to Route 20 to make a buck.”
“The Hampden branch is doing extremely well,” he said, “and advancing faster than its counterparts from a growth perspective. The community is very supportive and appreciative that we were the bank that stepped forward to serve their needs.”
The bank has also reported continued growth in the loan department – a steady trend at Monson Savings that led to the creation of the loan center.
“There are 190 residential lenders in Hampden County alone,” said Desrochers, noting that as one might expect, MSB ranks number one in residential lending in Monson and Hampden, but more notably, comes in at number 17 in the entire county. Desrochers said one goal for 2006 is to improve upon that ranking by four slots – lucky 13.
“Interest rates increased steadily throughout the year, so we’re particularly pleased with our current success in this area,” he said. “And growth was spread out across all categories, with 11% growth in commercial real estate loans, 23% in commercial loans, and 14% in residential real estate loans.”
The bank is also up by 46% over 2004 in terms of construction loans, a particular niche for the bank that brings customers from Western Mass. and more eastern parts of the state as well, Desrochers said.
“I think we have a strength here, particularly with builders, in part because of our size,” he said. “We’re more responsive. When someone is finished with a certain phase of a project and needs an advance to continue, we try to be as accommodating as possible, and that has created a good name for us in this arena.”
Interest Rates and iPods
The most important thing the team at MSB does is to always try to think like the customer,” Desrochers concluded. “People are extremely pressed for time these days. They need convenience, choice, and expertise … we believe the trick is to offer a unique blend of technology, financial sophistication, and genuine, personalized, outstanding service.”
And in thinking like the customer, Desrochers said while he won’t rely on chotchkes, he understands the power of want as well as need. MSB recently offered a Dell laptop drawing for new online bill-pay customers, and has plans to offer new iPod Nanos to the first 50 people to sign up for a new checking account this spring
“You have to be aggressive with what you’re doing out there,” he said, “on all fronts.”
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
When Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist and Mount Holyoke College alumna Suzan-Lori Parks delivered the college’s commencement address five years ago, she remarked “when you wish for it, you begin moving toward it, and it, in turn, begins moving toward you.”
That’s a sentiment that this private women’s liberal arts college, established in 1837 by Mary Lyon, has held onto since Parks spoke those words. In fact, it now uses them in some admissions materials sent to prospective students.
And, in many ways, the essence of the message describes the school’s efforts to become ever more visible in the community and take an active role in educational, cultural, and economic-development-related initiatives. Indeed, as the college moves closer to the community, and especially the town of South Hadley, the community moves closer to the school.
Mary Jo Maydew, vice president for Finance and Administration at Mount Holyoke College, said the institution has historically been a ‘friendly resident’ of South Hadley, serving not only as a landmark institution – it is one of the vaunted Seven Sisters of women’s higher education, and the first – but as a partner in a number of ventures, from conservation efforts to development projects.
The school’s contributions can be quantified, said Maydew, noting that the college disseminates an economic impact report annually, which breaks down the various events, programs, and contributions the college has made throughout the course of the year that have, directly, or indirectly, had a positive impact on South Hadley and the region as a whole. But they can also be qualified through a growing number of partnerships and collaborative efforts that include everything from programs for area elementary school students to the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open, played at a golf course, The Orchards, owned by the school.
“We began offering this information to the town for use during its annual town meeting,” said Maydew, referring to the economic impact report. “We didn’t think people fully understood the economic impact of the college, and we also sensed a lack of understanding in regard to what the college does and how it fits into the life of the community.”
College Town
Referencing the report, Maydew said the college contributes regularly to town programs and purchases, including two $25,000 infusions to the town’s stabilization fund in 2003 and 2004, a town grant program that assists graduates of South Hadley High School who attend Mount Holyoke College, and a recent $300,000 pledge toward the purchase of the Bachelor Brook property, a $1.55 million transaction the town has undertaken in order to preserve the property for passive recreational use.
Donations such as these are a large part of the annual reports, as are the more constant economic variables provided by the college, including jobs, tax dollars, and property development within South Hadley.
The college has a $447 million endowment and an $89.4 million operating budget for FY 2005-2006. In addition to bringing about 2,100 students to the area each year, Mount Holyoke is also one of the largest employers in the area, with an annual payroll of $48 million and a workforce of 1,050.
Beyond that, though, the college’s economic impact report for 2005 states that the college made $13,619,457 worth of purchases within the four counties of Western Mass. alone, $5 million of which was spent in South Hadley, where MHC is also one of the largest taxpayers, paying about $136,000 in property taxes.
Maydew said that while the college remains relatively neutral when it comes to town issues, financial and development-related or otherwise, Mount Holyoke does communicate regularly with town officials and regional leaders in order to maintain a strong voice within the community.
“Interactions between colleges and towns have to be ongoing and cooperative,” she said. “We keep in touch with the businesses in town and meet with the chambers of commerce regularly. We don’t enter discussions with particular points of view, but we are mindful that we are a big player in this area, and if we can make a difference or have an effect, we need to contribute.”
That is particularly important for Mount Holyoke, given the college’s physical reach extends beyond the campus in South Hadley. In addition to the 800-acre campus, the college also owns the Village Commons, the office, retail, and restaurant complex located just across the street, and The Orchards. Those two ventures alone employ nearly 400 people, and in 2004, the property taxes paid to the town between the two holdings exceeded that paid for the college itself – about $155,000.
Maydew said it’s numbers such as these that the annual reports help call greater attention to, as well as the morenebulous economic benefits Mount Holyoke offers, through various events and programs.
One of the more visible examples of college-sponsored events was the U.S. Women’s Open, a mammoth undertaking that Maydew describes as a true partnership between the college and the community. The event brought millions of dollars worth of economic activity to the region, but Maydew said other, less-visible programs held at Mount Holyoke are held year-round, benefiting residents and bringing in a steady influx of visitors.
The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the Talcott Greenhouse are active throughout the year, for instance – both are involved in the region-wide Go Dutch! program, celebrating Dutch art and culture and sponsored by Museums 10, a marketing partnership of 10 college and independent museums of which Mount Holyoke is a member.
The college also has a robust conference schedule, particularly in the summer months, when visitors academic and otherwise flock to Mount Holyoke for a number of programs, ranging in length from days to months in session.
“We have enormous stability in the area of conferences and events,” said Maydew. “We typically stage several at a time, and we’re booking one to two years out.”
In addition, more than 1,000 school-age children from across the region participate in the museum’s educational programs, and Maydew said a number of community and cultural events are open to the public, often free of charge or at a nominal fee.
“We try to make the campus as permeable as possible,” she said. “Anything that demystifies the college is an immediate benefit.”
The New Recruits
Maydew said that practice can also aid in marketing future opportunities, as well.
Opportunities such as the economic impact colleges can create by stimulating the area’s educational landscape, through partnerships with the region’s community colleges.
Kevin McCaffrey, associate director of communications at Mount Holyoke College, said the college recently secured a $779,000 grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which will enable Mount Holyoke to offer scholarships to students transferring to the school from Holyoke Community College or Springfield Technical Community College. Amherst College also received a similar grant.
“We’re looking at community colleges as untapped sources for high-achieving students,” he said, “and this grant is going to help us step up a number of programs we already have in place.”
McCaffrey added that with an already strong national and international presence, it has become a particular goal of Mount Holyoke’s to improve its visibility within Western Mass.
“There won’t be any particular focus on any specific type of student,” he said, “we want to attract high ability, high achievement students from wherever we can get them.
“But, we would like to reach out to people who might not at first see Mount Holyoke as an obvious choice for schooling,” he continued, “through some more continuous communication with the region. This is an opportunity to make some new, strong partnerships.”
Those partnerships are something the college wished for, and it’s a goal Mount Holyoke is moving toward.
And it, as Parks might say, is beginning to move toward the institution, as well.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
Joseph Marois has a slick, professional brochure that he gives to potential clients of his company, South Hadley-based Marois Construction.
Inside, bright photographs tell the story of some the company’s recent success stories, from the Amherst College sports complex and the Mount Holyoke College equestrian center to the South Hadley Medical Center and the Westfield District Court. All the buildings feature sharp architectural lines, striking facades, and cutting-edge technology.
Then, on the very last page, is a photo of a small, ramshackle shed with thin walls, wood discolored by weather, and a plank leaning against a door to keep it closed. It is decidedly not a wonder of design.
Yet, it may be the most significant photograph in the brochure, because inside that shed, in 1972, Marois began his construction career by building cabinets and restoring furniture. Today, almost 35 years later, the Marois name is well-known for constructing buildings across Western Mass., particularly its cutting-edge work on college campuses.
In an industry where quality work survives for decades and even centuries, 35 years may not seem like a long time. But Marois Construction has ridden enough ups and downs in its field to make next year’s anniversary a notable accomplishment – especially in a region that has become so competitive for building contractors.
“There have been some significant market changes, and also an influx of contractors from the Worcester and Boston areas,” Marois said, “so we have more competition today.”
For someone who built a successful company from a backyard shed, however, that’s just another challenge to overcome.
Back to School
By 1978, Marois Construction had long left the shed, boasting seven employees and five trucks. Today, 75 employees work out of a large building on Old Lyman Road, into which the company moved about five years ago.
Growth has been steady over the years, but not always easy. “The late ’70s were the worst time, with 18% interest rates,” Marois said. “And the ’80s were pretty bad, too. But even in slow times, we have had a good customer base that thinks of us as a quality organization, and that loyalty had led us through the bad times.”
Much of that customer base has come from college campuses, where Marois has carved out its most recognizable niche. The company has constructed new academic and recreational facilities and renovated historic dormitories at UMass, Smith College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, and others.
However, in the past few years, Marois has diversified its portfolio – partly because opportunities at colleges have slowed down somewhat, but partly to open other doors in a highly competitive marketplace. Notable current projects include a PeoplesBank branch in Westfield and a health facility in Stockbridge, reflecting two other longtime niches for Marois, banking and health care-related construction.
“We’ve long specialized in college work, but we’ve branched out a little,” said Carl Mercieri, the company’s vice president. “At the same time, I’ve noticed that our territory has expanded, and we’re going to where the work is as opposed to the work coming to us. That brings a certain amount of rewards, too.”
It’s also a necessary move at a time when longtime Boston- and Worcester-based firms are aggressively making inroads in Western Mass., due to a slowing market in the eastern portion of the state, Marois said.
“I think Boston has gotten a little slower. The state has cut back on a lot of public projects since they’ve been having some financial difficulties, so the contractors that rely on public work are seeking jobs in other areas, primarily the private sector where we’ve concentrated for many years.”
Mercieri agreed. “Times change and trends change,” he said, “but you do have to be well-diversified in today’s market. It’s a self-preservation thing. It has always been a competitive market, but with a lot of public school work coming to an end, contractors who specialize in that kind of work are moving into the private sector.”
Still, he continued, trends in public money shift over time, and that type of work will eventually pick up, easing competition across the board. And even in a slower period than in past years, Marois sees no end college and university jobs.
“College campuses seem to be competing right now for students,” he said. “We’re finding that a lot of them are putting up new dorms, doing high-tech science and technology buildings, and aggressively competing for students.”
One example is Smith College in Northampton, which has embarked on a multi-million-dollar project to build an engineering and technology building with state-of-the-art labs, increasing the campus size by 25%. Marois also recently finished new, high-tech labs at UMass for research and development of alternative energy sources – a project funded by a federal grant.
“That seems to be a wave of the future,” Marois said. “There’s no guarantee that we’ll get every project like this, but certainly we know campus work. We know what to do and how to do it.”
Building for the Future
Marois has seen plenty of other trends emerge in construction. For example, the company has employed more people in the past than it does now, but that’s because of an increasing specialization in the industry.
“We used to have more disciplines working for us than we do today,” he said. “We used to have painters, masons, all trades on our own payroll – everything except the licensed trades, like electric, plumbing, and HVAC. But that’s a very large furnace to keep fueled, and the trend now is to outsource a lot of those things.”
Other changes in the nuts and bolts of the construction industry have been driven by computer technology. However, a new, computer-driven emphasis on speed and efficiency has proven to be a double-edged sword.
“All businesses have been forced into the digital age, and we’re doing a lot more with computers than we were five or 10 years ago,” Mercieri said, referring to trends ranging from E-mailed communications to computer-assisted design (CAD).
“The good part is, we’re much more efficient. But some people in the industry rely too much on short cuts, and some people we deal with out there are not computer-literate. You still have to check everything by hand.”
Furthermore, Marois said, the speed of communications has increased consumer demands on construction firms, tightening time frames on all projects.
“It started with the fax machine, and now it’s computers and E-mail,” he said. “We have architects who are wiring us complete sets of drawings on e-mail, and our CAD department is busier now than it has ever been. As a result, you’re required to do things much more quickly, and everyone expects it to be done right away.”
Marois said the company has benefited from embracing each new technology as it emerged instead of fighting it, enabling it to meet the growing demands of its clients.
“A lot of our work comes to us through referrals by our other customers, so it seems like we’re doing something right,” Mercieri said.
Still, Marois said he doesn’t want to coast on reputation.
“I always keep in mind that you’re only as good as your last job,” he said. “We never allow ourselves to get too cocky. Mistakes happen, but we’ve never had a failed project, and we’ve always completed everything to the degree of quality expected by the customer.”
It’s a philosophy that applies to furniture restoration and the construction of multi-million-dollar facilities in equal measure – and it’s why Marois has built a respected name in the Pioneer Valley, literally from the ground up.
A Phantom Stock Plan can be an attractive incentive option for an employer to provide a valued key employee with a financial stake in the growth of a company without actually giving the employee an actual ownership interest in the company or a vote regarding management of the company.
What follows is an overview of the basic structure of phantom stock plans as well as issues to consider with regard to creating such a plan.
Taking Stock
A phantom stock plan is a plan whereby a company gives an employee ‘phantom’ shares of stock in the company rather than real shares. Awards of phantom shares are generally given to employees based upon performance at the discretion of the employer at various times chosen by the employer. Phantom shares represent the right of the employee to cash payments upon the occurrence of a triggering event such as the employee’s death, termination of employment (in certain circumstances), retirement, or disability. The employee never actually owns stock and thus obtains no stockholder rights under the plan.
Phantom shares can typically be converted into cash payments to the employee under either of two scenarios. Under a ‘stock’ approach, the phantom share could be given the same economic value as if the employee were given an actual share of stock in the company. Thus, if the employee were given one phantom share and the value of the company never increased between the date of the grant and the date the phantom shares are ‘redeemed’ by the company, the employee would receive a payment equal to the value of one share of stock of the company.
An alternative is a ‘stock appreciation right’ approach, which values the phantom share at the date of the grant at the same value as the actual shares of the company at the time of the grant. When the phantom share is ‘redeemed’ the employee gets paid the difference between the value at the date of the grant, and the increased value, if any, at the date of redemption. Under this method the employee would only receive payment if the value of the company increased between the date of the grant and the redemption.
Phantom stock plans are not only attractive options to award key employees and retain their services by giving them a stake in the growth of a company, but they are also an attractive plan for employees and employers from a tax point of view, because the employee is not taxed upon receipt of phantom stock shares.
Rather, employees are only taxed upon their receipt of a cash payment from a phantom share award or sooner if pursuant to the plan the employee has the right to demand a cash distribution. Note that the plans are also attractive to employers as well as the company is typically entitled to deduct (as compensation) from its taxable income the payments made to employees pursuant to phantom stock plans. Payments to the employee are taxed at ordinary income tax rates.
Limitations on the Amount of Phantom Shares/Method of Granting.
Most phantom stock plans place a limitation on the number of phantom shares or percentage of the value of the company that will be granted pursuant to the plan. There are different ways in which the granting of phantom shares is structured. One method involves creating a schedule providing for a certain number of phantom shares to be granted each year for a term of years (such as 10 years) to be vested immediately upon the grant of the phantom shares.
For example, the employee would earn the right to the phantom shares for each year that he or she completes employment, subject to vesting. A twist on this approach is to grant a certain number of phantom shares each year (unvested) and provide that the shares vest after a certain term (such as 5 or 10 years or upon retirement after a certain age).
Another alternative to the grant schedule is for the employer to grant shares to the employee periodically at its discretion without a predetermined schedule but according to the employee meeting certain performance goals set each year. However, this method is less common because it typically does not provide the employee with any degree of certainty or security that his or her efforts will be rewarded, and may not have the ‘golden handcuff’ effect that most employers are seeking when establishing these plans.
One further alternative to annual grants (and which is somewhat related to the scheduled grants) is a one-time grant of a block of phantom shares, all of which vest at a certain time in the future (such as over 10 years) assuming no other triggering events occur prior to that time which would cause the shares to vest earlier or cause the shares to be forfeited.
Vesting/Other Triggering Events.
The phantom shares to be granted to an employee (irrespective of the method selected) should be vested over a term of years. Typically, if an employer chooses a term vesting plan or vesting schedule, the employee’s phantom shares are generally immediately vested under certain circumstances, including a change in control (such as a sale of the business), in the event of the employee’s death or disability, or if the employee is fired without good cause. If an employee is fired ‘for cause’ (i.e., for engaging in illegal or harmful conduct during the scope of employment), or if the employee resigns, all of the employee’s phantom shares are typically forfeited without payment irrespective of whether they are vested or not.
Payment of Phantom Share Awards.
Some phantom stock plans provide the employee with the right to exercise (cash out) their phantom share awards upon the vesting of the phantom shares. However, it is much more prudent to structure the plans in a manner in which the phantom share awards will only be payable upon certain triggering events such as termination of employment (other than termination for cause), death, disability and change of control.
Valuation of Stock.
If the phantom share award is based upon the increase in the value of the company from the date of the grant of the phantom shares until the date of the payment of the phantom share award, the plan must establish a means of evaluating the fair market value of the company. This value would be determined through a formula, which is described in the plan. The formula should accurately reflect the true value of the company and once the plan is put into effect, the formula typically cannot be changed unless both the employer and employee agree to the change. Normally, the formula takes into account the value of assets and goodwill.
Non-Competition/Non-Solicitation.
Most employers require plan participants to sign a non-competition/non-solicitation agreement in exchange for implementing the phantom stock plan for their benefit. The execution of this type of agreement is typically a condition attached to the participation in the phantom stock plan and is usually not considered to be unreasonable in light of the benefits to the employee associated with this type of plan.
In summary, phantom stock plans are very flexible agreements that may be specifically tailored to all businesses and employment relationships. They have increased in popularity over the past several years due to the fact that they provide the employer with an option to reward a valued employee with a financial stake in the success of a company and provide a means of retaining the employee without actually giving up a voting interest or stock in the company, which can help eliminate costly shareholder/member/partner disputes in the unlikely event that the employee/employer relationship deteriorates in the future.
Bruce E. Devlin, Esq. is an associated attorney at the law firm Robinson Donovan, P.C.; (413) 732-2301.
The salespeople employed by James J. Dowd & Sons Insurance Agency have, on average, more than 20 years of experience selling insurance products. And they’ve always done things their way.
“Now we require our salespeople to use PDAs,” said John E. Dowd Jr. one of the agency’s three partners, referring to the handheld electronic devices used to store and transmit information. “They’re all going high-tech – some of them kicking and screaming.”
OK, so maybe that’s an exaggeration – the fact that Dowd’s salespeople carry portable digital assistants and have learned how to navigate cutting-edge database software in the office hasn’t caused any actual screaming.
But still, “for people who have done things a certain way for 20-plus years, saying we’re going to throw away paper and centralize our technology has been a big challenge,” Dowd said. “And if we insist that they become high-tech, we have to provide the training for them to utilize the technology in which we’ve invested so heavily. Our challenge is to teach people how to use it in a way that makes them better salespeople.”
In short, even a company that has been a part of the Pioneer Valley for 108 years needs to continually adapt to new modes of doing business, Dowd said.
Long History
While the Dowd agency has long been a recognized name in the region, its origins are humble. James J. Dowd was one of 14 children brought to America by their father in 1865 to escape hard times in County Kerry, Ireland. In 1898, he and partner Jeremiah Keane opened the Keane and Dowd insurance and real estate business in Holyoke.
The company was renamed James J. Dowd & Son before Dowd’s son took over the firm in 1916, eventually moving it into a new, larger building on Suffolk Street in 1926. Over the next 50 years, two more generations of Dowds would move into company leadership. The agency moved into its current location on Bobala Road in 1993 and boasts branch offices in Amherst and Southampton.
Today, as part of the fourth generation of Dowds at the company, John Dowd says his path was inevitable. “I thought about no other careers,” he told BusinessWest. “From the time I started thinking about what I would do when I got out of school, I had only the insurance business on my mind. It’s in my blood.”
That heritage includes a well-honed sense of when to adapt to the changing times. For example, to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, today’s insurers have become more creative with the range of services they offer, and Dowd is no exception.
“We offer all lines of property and casualty insurance for any size business, from a corner store to a publicly traded company with worldwide operations. We have that range,” Dowd said, adding that the company also offers several personal lines, such as homeowners’ and auto insurance.
But in addition, Dowd also carries financial products ranging from life insurance and investment services to employee benefits such as 401k plans and health insurance.
“The idea is to become a one-stop shop for insurance and financial services,” he said. “We’re looking to expand that where it makes sense to provide other services that our customers might like to have available. From our standpoint, that’s the direction the industry has gone.”
The major shift came in 2002 when banks were allowed to sell insurance. “We, in essence, now look at them as competitors,” Dowd said, “so we compete with them not only on insurance, but on financial services as well. That really opened up the financial marketplace to where different services that were once separated are now sold under one roof.”
But the products Dowd offers are only one factor in the company’s success. He said customer service is crucial to building and keeping a loyal clientele.
“We’ve long recognized that we sell services and products similar to what’s being sold by many of our competitors,” he said. “But it happens to be a complex product that can be fraught with potential problems, concerns, and misunderstandings. We feel we need to see things from the customer’s standpoint, anticipate their needs, and make the whole process as easy as possible for them.”
That means putting a premium on finding information for clients quickly and making sure they’re able to talk to a person on the phone, not an automated wall of options behind an 800 number.
“People want to have their hand held, and we want to hold their hand,” Dowd said. “We’ve done surveys of our clients to assess how well they are treated, not just by us but by their insurance carriers and people in claim services. If it’s not a positive experience for whatever reason, we make sure that the parties involved are aware, and that steps are taken so the same problems don’t occur next time.”
He said those surveys produce consistently high feedback ratings, but he pays close attention to the few that do not. “Those are the people who can shape your reputation. For better or for worse.”
Repeated Cycles
In order to build a strong reputation over 108 years, a company in any industry must go beyond offering strong products backed by solid service. Part of the challenge is anticipating and riding shifting trends, and insurance is particularly sensitive to market shifts.
For example, throughout the 1990s, rates stayed low in a soft market as insurers were happy to underwrite policies at a loss because they were making more profits by reinvesting that money in financial markets, often to double-digit returns. But that couldn’t continue forever, and the market was already hardening when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 accelerated that process.
“Many insurance companies went out of business. It did turn the industry upside down for a time,” Dowd said. “But we’ve grown accustomed to going from a soft market to the inevitable hard market and back to a soft market. It’s a fairly predictable cycle. When insurance companies experience losses, they need to restore their surplus and profit margins.
“There is a softening now,” he added, “but it’s not in all segments of the marketplace. The challenge is to know which ones are susceptible to softening and which ones aren’t.”
One trend that emerged from the hard market following 9/11 was a new emphasis among companies on internal loss control and loss-prevention measures, such as disaster-recovery plans and safety awareness programs.
“Claims are inevitable, but good loss control minimizes the number of claims,” Dowd said. That, in turn, allows insurers to gradually sell policies at a lower price, and competitive pressures eventually toward another softening trend – that predictable cycle Dowd talks about.
Other trends have emerged in recent years as well, particularly in response to major insurance events. For example, following the devastation along the Gulf Coast last year following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it’s difficult to find coverage for coastal properties, including on Cape Cod, Dowd said.
Around the World
James J. Dowd & Sons has come a long way in more than a century of insurance and financial services, now reaching around the globe as part of an international insurance network.
“If you have operations in Singapore, I can provide coverage for you,” Dowd said. “We’ve been able to provide everything from workers’ compensation to property and liability coverage for publicly traded companies as far away as Asia. This is a smaller world than we used to live in, and we can now insure companies with a global exposure.”
Whether dealing with customers around the world or close to home, he said, it helps that Dowd shares a strong relationship with its carriers, some of whom have been associated with the agency for 100 years.
“Those relationships do come into play when settling claims,” he said. “Our carriers trust us; they trust our knowledge and integrity, and that’s important to us.”
Dowd also boasts of the quality of his employees, not only the experienced sales force, but support personnel – a team he calls the strongest in the company’s history.
Still, he worries that the pool of insurance professionals on which to draw is shrinking, which is why the agency is teaming up with Holyoke Community College to help provide insurance-related courses and assist students with internships.
“We want to help this industry grow by helping people get into this business, so we can continue to have strong professionals serving our clients,” he said.
And if, along the way, they learn how to use a PDA, that can’t hurt.
Paul McDermott remembers the first time he saw the site of the former Belchertown State School.
That was late last fall, several months after Ernest Bleinberger, senior vice president and COO for Maryland-based Hunter Interests first invited him to take a look. Hunter is the firm hired by the Belchertown Economic Development and Industrial Corp. (BEDIC) to conduct a feasibility study of plans to convert the site into a resort hotel and wellness complex and generate some interest for the project in the development community.
Bleinberger had worked with McDermott, now president of a Chicago-based venture called Bridgeland Development LLC, on a few mixed use development projects, and thought the BSS campus and the potential to transform it into something unique would intrigue him.
He was right.
“It took some prodding, but I finally got there,” said McDermott, who had been working on several large-scale development projects and thus struggled to find some time in his schedule. “And when I did, I fell in love with the site and the community, and decided that this was something I really wanted to go after.”
By that, he meant the unique concept that has been proposed for a portion of the 400-acre site — a destination resort spa with related, wellness-oriented businesses and attractions. The planned mix would include several of the elements from other projects McDermott has worked on, including hotels, wellness centers, sports facilities, equestrian centers, restaurants, and others, but not all in the same package.
“I’ve never done a project quite like this one, and that’s what intrigues me,” said McDermott, whose firm was chosen earlier this month to be the master developer for the BSS project, known colloquially as the Cold Springs Resort Hotel and Spa Complex. Bridgeland will spend the next three months taking the conceptual plans for the concept and shaping them into a working model based on market realities.
A memorandum of understanding could be inked by the end of the month, said McDermott, adding that, while the project’s final price tag will be determined by the components included in it, the cost will likely be between $70 million and $100 million (with 80% or more being private money), making it one of the largest development efforts the region has seen in recent years.
BusinessWest looks this issue at the next steps in the process of making it reality.
Mind over Matter
As he talked with BusinessWest via cell phone, McDermott was being guided by his car’s onboard navigation system to a massive, 1,200-acre development in Rock Hill, S.C., just south of Charlotte.
There, Bridgeland and its parent company, Cincinnati-based Pollution Risk Services Inc. (PRS), are finalizing plans for the Greens at Rock Hill Project — one of the largest development projects currently underway in the country — at the long-shuttered Celanese Fibers Company complex. Plans call for roughly 300 acres to be devoted to warehouse and light manufacturing, another 300 acres of retail, a satellite medical campus with a 100,000-square-foot wellness center, and more than 1,000 residential units.
Rock Hill is one of many environmentally challenged sites that PRS has placed in its portfolio over the years. The company specializes in remediation of such sites — more than 3,000 of them since the company was formed 21 years ago — and, in recent years, has added a development component to its roster of services.
The desire to expand the development aspect of the business led PRS President Mark Mather to partner with McDermott and create Bridgeland in early February. The company is already engaged in managing four urban mixed-use development projects, including Rock Hill, and is consulting on an equestrian center project in San Antonio, a 50-acre retail and hotel development project in Bridgeview, Ill., and a 100-acre mixed-use project in Costa Rica that will include more than 100 residential units, retail, commercial, and an equestrian center.
Bridgeland is the latest stop in McDermott’s 28-year career in the management of complex projects that cross several realms, including commercial, industrial, hospitality, residential, sports, entertainment, and others.
While serving as a project executive for International Facilities Group, LLC (IFG) and, prior to that, as senior vice president at Mesirow Stein Real Estate and manager of project management services for Hanscom Inc., McDermott worked on several large-scale projects. They include ‘The Glen,’ a $1 billion redevelopment of the closed Glenview Naval Air Station in Illinois; another base-closure redevelopment at the Orlando Naval Training Center; a $70 million project to build a new stadium for the Chicago Fire professional soccer team; and the $150 million Orlando Performing Arts & Education Center.
McDermott told BusinessWest that he will borrow from those experiences and many others as he works to bring the BSS concept from the drawing board to reality.
The Cold Springs Resort Hotel and Spa Complex is the vision that has emerged for the state school property, which has been the subject of considerable speculation since the state-run residential facility for the mentally retarded closed its doors in 1992. Several possible uses have been forwarded in the years since — from a jail to a retail center, to a national music center — but none have materialized.
The spa concept was eventually brought to the table by town resident Elizabeth Tarras, who once worked in marketing for Springfield’s Business Improvement District. She began researching the subject and concluded there was a market for a moderately priced resort spa in the center of the state, and that such a venture could be complemented with other health- and wellness-related businesses and activities to create a viable destination.
Hunter Interests, which has undertaken feasibility studies, market studies, financing plans, marketing strategies, and other initiatives for a wide range of development projects, including the one in Rock Hill, was hired in early 2005 to conduct such pre-development work for the BSS site.
This included the coordination of a request for proposals (RFP) for the site, which eventually drew responses from 23 “interested parties,” including Bridgeland.
McDermott said the Belchertown site is not considered to be environmentally challenged — although there are some issues, such as asbestos removal — but it does fit the profile of the type of mixed-use project that he and PRS specialize in.
The next three months or so will be devoted to putting a mix together and creating a working plan for the site. Elements to the Cold Spring project could everything from senior housing to a micro-brewery; a medical office building to cross-country skiing.
“We have 90 days to pull together a development team, which means we’ll select a hotel developer and operator, a wellness center operating company, restaurateurs, and a planning team with architects, engineers, and master planners,” he explained. “We’re looking at developing a museum, some sports facilities, an equestrian center, some retail … we’re going to come up with the package we think will work.
“We want to confirm that this is economically viable,” he continued, “or, to put it another way, confirm what it will take to make it economically viable in terms of amendments to the original plan.”
The assembled team will also assess which of the buildings on the campus can be renovated for new use and which will be razed, said McDermott, noting that while the overall site is historic, individual buildings on it are not.
“There are well over 20 existing buildings on the site in various states of disrepair, and one of our next tasks is to do an assessment,” he explained. “Essentially, we’ll have to do a cost/benefit analysis on each building regarding the cost to remediate, renovate, and their specific usability.
“Overall, there are a lot of questions we need to answer — for example, do we want a boutique hotel or a main-brand hotel; a 50,000-square-foot wellness center or a 100,000-square-foot wellness center,” he said. “Hopefully, we can answer them over the next 90 days.”
Building Suspense
If all goes well, permitting and site plan work and remediation of buildings within the complex could be completed over the next 18 months, said McDermott, adding that the hotel could be open within 2 1/2 years.
For now, though, the focus is on shaping the broad vision for the property into a workable plan.
“This is an awesome site with enormous potential,” he said. “I think we can do something special here.”
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
It took him six years to finish high school – he was too busy causing trouble. But today, Darby O’Brien, founder and president of Darby O’Brien Advertising and Public Relations, has made a name for himself not only in the marketing world but as one of the Valley’s most vocal proponents for positive change. The one thing that hasn’t changed, though, is his habit of sticking in the craw of authority figures.
Darby O’Brien has never played by the rules.
Expelled from four different high schools in his youth, he later opposed the Vietnam War by assuming conscientious objector status and teaching English through the Spanish Apostolate, a social services division of the Springfield Dioscese that once operated in the city’s North End. He cut his teeth as an activist working to preserve various local landmarks, including the Mount Tom ski resort, and stumbled into advertising while seeking financial sponsors for a traveling band of musicians he managed, who hopscotched across the Pioneer Valley playing Irish ditties on a flatbed truck (he knocked on the door of the former Douglas Bewick Advertising Agency in Springfield and came away with a job.)
In 1980, he struck out on his own, and since then has built a name for himself as a reputable – and often renegade – firm with which to work.
“People either love us or they hate us,” he said. “But either way, hey know us.”
O’Brien’s offices in the Village Commons in South Hadley speak to the unconventional thinking that defines the firm – visitors are greeted by the strains of Irish music and a wreath made of beer cans. In the waiting room, they must heave themselves into butterfly chairs – not much more than cloth and a simple metal frame, they’re usually seen at the beach – and the boardroom is a fishing lodge, complete with rods and lures.
The lodge is a byproduct of one of O’Brien’s largest and most visible crusades to date — the ongoing ‘Fishing Buddies’ campaign, kick-started in 1997 to reopen several reservoirs in Western Mass. to fishing, and proof of O’Brien’s complete inability to stand on the sidelines and watch.
“People tell us, ‘don’t stand for anything, don’t lead the charge, because it will cost you business,’” he said. “We don’t listen. We fight the fight, and in doing so we reverse the spin.”
The mission behind the Fishing Buddies was and is loftier than gaining access to a few trout, O’Brien explained. He – along with John Cronin, managing director for the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries in Beacon, N.Y., and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an attorney and director of the Pace University Environmental Litigation Clinic – also formed a local chapter of the national Fishing Tackle Loaner Program at the Holyoke Public Library, for boys and girls who didn’t own fishing poles. They created the Buddy System, hooking kids up with volunteers to take them fishing, and lobbied to legalize recreational fishing at the reservoirs. In 1999, the Buddies garnered an Environmental Merit Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for their efforts, all the while tooling around in an old convertible, Blues Brothers style, with fly fishing garb replacing black suits and fedoras.
That wasn’t a job for a client; that was a Darby O’Brien original. And there are plenty of similar deviations, both in the can and on O’Brien’s drawing board, that are fueled by one common variable: Rebel Think.
Reeling Them In
They include a speaking program O’Brien will announce this month in The New Yorker; a T-shirt campaign to raise money for Holyoke’s baseball team for 7- to 9-year-olds, the Elmwood Jets, which garnered support from the likes of Regis Philbin and Craig T. Nelson; a series of recent direct mail pieces that have called into question the track record of the Economic Development Council of Western Mass., (EDC) and its executive director, Allan Blair; the Smarten Up Manifesto, a four-page leaflet launched in response to what O’Brien calls a ‘dumbing down’ of the region; and The Gut, a so-called ‘chronicle of change’ that is published “when we feel like it.”
Those projects are in addition to the ongoing advertising and PR work the firm handles for a number of outfits both locally and nationally. Many are small, specialized, or family businesses.
But O’Brien doesn’t see his personal projects as separate from his work with clients. In fact, he said there has been considerable overlap between the two, from referrals for new business to making a name for himself and his firm in the Pioneer Valley as one that bunks the status quo in terms of both work process and product.
He typically shuns formal research studies, focus groups, and ‘safe’ advertising strategies such as mirroring the style of other successful campaigns.
Darby O’Brien ads, for example, are often text-heavy and include photos and headers that stray from the standard cor
porate image; a recent ad for Foley Connelly Financial Partners of West Springfield, for example, depicts the company’s owners, Chris Connelly and Brian Foley, bellied up to a coffee counter under the words ‘Interesting Micks.’ An ad campaign designed for Epstein Financial Services repeatedly pairs the firm’s president, Charles Epstein, with local business owners he works with in a number of unlikely poses: flipping burgers at White Hut, harvesting radishes with Karen Randall of Randall’s Farm, or reduced to a few inches in height, standing inside a cabinet at Curios Kitchen and Bath.
“A lot of it has been gut instinct,” O’Brien said, harkening back to one of his first major projects, the Marty Dunn for Mayor campaign in Holyoke in 1987. The then 30-year-old Dunn ran against 12-year incumbent Ernie Proulx, and was expected by many to lose by a wide margin. “Marty had conducted a formal survey, and I looked at it and said, ‘if we follow this, we’re going to lose.’ Marty had the courage to let us do it our way – talking to people in Holyoke, at coffee shops, baseball games, and bars.”
The campaign was a success – Dunn won in what was termed across the state ‘the upset of the year,’ and O’Brien won some respect for his business as well as his practices, which rely heavily on what he calls ‘hunch power.’
“We have spent a lot of time over the years defending work that worked,” he said, “and defending successes, which is nuts. Now, there seems to be a swing toward our way of thinking in American business.
“As part of their job, ad agencies push clients to take risks,” he continued. “That can make a potential client stop and ask, ‘well, what risks have you taken?’ And we have an answer. We’ve made a reputation for ourselves as a firm that will fight for good, strong ideas.”
Golf is Bad
And now, O’Brien is preparing to take some of those ideas on the road.
He has created a new speaking program, designed to offer some words of wisdom to corporate America on how to remain on par in terms of effective management.
Heralded by an ad campaign appearing in The New Yorker this month and using the tag line Golf is Bad: Play Too Much, You Lose Your Balls, the project focuses on six key points, all of which O’Brien said were derived in large part from practices that have developed within his own firm in response to some of the pitfalls he’s seen while working with clients to shake up their marketing efforts.
The first of those points is the grabber: Golf is bad for business.
“We’ll present concepts, strategies, and layouts here that clients love,” said O’Brien, “and then the client leaves the office and the campaign dies. A lot of times, they’re dying on the golf course. It’s not the game, it’s this whole culture that surrounds it: people are afraid of what their buddies might think.”
O’Brien said the remaining five aspects of the proposed speaking engagements focus on similar issues that can turn high-level executives into second guessers, among them spouses, focus groups, and the corporate image itself – serious and stuffy.
His advice on all accounts is to do the reverse of what would be considered the norm, to go with the opposite of what your wife or husband thinks, back the loser when it comes to a focus group, and take yourself less seriously. When individuals refuse to take themselves too seriously, he says, they create a confident image, and other people take them more seriously.
“I started to think that maybe the way for all of us to survive in corporate America is to poke fun at it,” he said of ‘Golf is Bad.’ “People have had it with things like off-shore operations that hurt family businesses and corporate scandals. They’re looking around and saying ‘hey! This doesn’t work.’ Essentially, all we have left are ideas. So let’s stop killing them.”
Politics and Ping-Pong
That’s the message O’Brien is sending to national audiences via The New Yorker, but it’s also the gist of many locally focused campaigns, with particular emphasis on point number five: Smarten Up.
“The key to success is smartening it up, in an era in which just about everyone in business seems to believe that the way to win is to dumb it down,” he said, pointing a finger at the Pioneer Valley in particular.
It’s not an opinion he’s shied away from sharing with the public. In a flurry of direct mailings that began in 2004, O’Brien has pointed a finger – and wagged it liberally – at the EDC, with pieces that, for instance, featured the bumper of a car decorated with a sticker emblazoned with the Pioneer Valley’s new logo and slogan, ‘Arrive Curious, Leave Inspired.’
Yeah, people leave inspired, all right, the flyer reads. The last thing they see as they’re walking out the door are the guys who run the EDC smiling and waving and telling them good riddance.
A new direct mail piece, which like its predecessors will be sent to dozens of businesses, organizations, and individuals across the Valley, features a photo of O’Brien smashing a return in ping pong, and challenging Blair to a game. If Blair accepts, and wins, O’Brien promises never to criticize the EDC again.
O’Brien’s beef, he said, stems from one major area – the need he sees in the Valley to keep and create good jobs and opportunities for residents, especially the creative set.
“People think picking a fight with the EDC is just a publicity stunt,” he told BusinessWest. “But it’s about calling attention to the fact that it’s essential we create optimism in the area. We lose that, we lose the game.”
He said part of the problem is a pervasive ‘can’t do’ attitude, offering as one example his interest in promoting outdoor recreation in the region – not just fishing, but hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, and the economic benefits they could bring. “There’s no reason places like Mount Tom should be closed right now. And we have some of the best rivers in the Northeast, but no one is paying attention to what an exceptional resource they actually are.”
O’Brien went on to reference the recent announcement that Cabela’s, the nation’s largest direct marketer of outdoor merchandise, has chosen a site in East Hartford, Conn. to open an expansive, interactive retail store, that will include everything from an indoor aquarium to an archery range.
More importantly, though, the new store, slated to open in the fall of 2007, will employ upwards of 450 people, and Cabela’s has committed to at least 20 years at the location. O’Brien sees the addition of the outfitter in neighboring Connecticut as a missed opportunity.
“We could have attracted them to this area,” he said. “We would have been perfect. The Valley is an outdoor hotbed. This is the grip that our politicians and leaders have on us. They need to have the confidence to scout what’s going on nationally and react … and they’re not doing it. This area should not be in the boat that it is in.
“These are not pipe dreams,” he continued. “It all goes back to having courage. It can be done … Northampton didn’t come back to life offering coupons for $4.99 steaks. It came back to life with style and taste.”
Work to Rule
As visitors leave O’Brien’s offices, they might notice a terse sign that tells them in no uncertain terms to ‘Get Out!’
With a fishing lodge for a conference room and any number of bats, balls, gloves, sticks and pucks littering the waiting area, that suggestion could be taken more ways than one. But O’Brien isn’t particularly concerned either way … he’s too busy getting out himself, perhaps backing the losing team, or urging a few more people to jump off that bandwagon.
Love it or hate it, it’s all the same to him.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
The annual spring trade show of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield moves to the MassMutual Center for 2006. Organizers say the new venue provides facilities and amenities that will take the Market event to a higher level and bring greater value for exhibitors and visitors alike.
Deb Boronski says a new venue, the MassMutual Center, will no doubt generate some excitement and curiosity for the 2006 Business Market Show, set for April 5.
“People are always asking, ‘what’s new for this year?’” said Boronski, vice president of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield and coordinator of the Market event for the past several years. “Well, now we’ve got a pretty good answer for them.”
But the gleaming new convention center will do more than draw some attention to the event and perhaps a bigger crowd, she said; it will also create a bigger and better show.
Elaborating, she said the facilities at the center, especially the smaller function rooms, will enable organizers to schedule a number of programs and seminars during the day — from the monthly luncheon of the Advertising Club of Western Mass. to the launch of the Affiliated Chambers’ new Division of Business Excellence.
The number and variety of scheduled programs has even prompted organizers to change the event’s name. “It’s no longer just a trade show,” said Boronski, “we’re calling it a conference and exhibition.”
And it is one that will likely live up to that often-used phrase ‘something for everyone,’ she said. In addition to the nearly 200 booths on the exhibition floor, the 2006 show will feature seminars on everything from identity theft to Internet marketing; the region’s burgeoning Hispanic market to making full use of those electronic gizmos.
“This is not just a trade show any more it’s a showcase,” said Boronski. “What we’re doing is giving businesses more reasons to send more of the people to the show.”
Getting Down to Business
As she talked with BusinessWest in the main exhibition hall at the MassMutual Center, Boronski said the $70 million facility, opened last fall, gives show organizers a large degree of flexibility simply not obtainable at the Eastern States Exposition, the show’s home for the past decade.
“The Big E was a great venue, it served us well for many years,” she said. “But we were limited in some of the things we could do there; it was essentially one big room, which made it more difficult to conduct break-out sessions and seminars. Here, we have the facilities to do a lot more of everything.”
And, in the progress, provide the change and value (to both exhibitors and visitors alike) that a show must provide to succeed, she explained.
“Each show is going to be different from the one before,” she said, noting a turnover rate among exhibitors of about 30%. “But we strive each year to bring new programs and events that will give people ample reason to leave their offices and plants and come to the show.”
This year, there will be a number of incentives for coming to downtown Springfield, starting with the annual breakfast and its keynoter, Steven Little, a senior consultant for Inc. Magazine, who will speak on business growth and what he calls the “future of opportunity.”
Meanwhile, the Advertising Club of Western Mass. will stage its monthly luncheon at the show, and is inviting exhibitors and visitors to join in the festivities. Reservations will be needed for the luncheon (tickets are $25 for ad club members and $30 for non-members; visit www.adclubwm.org), which will include the program Branding: Making Your Mark. It will feature regional case studies that will examine the elements of effective branding.
In the afternoon — 4 o’clock to be exact — the ACCGS will launch its new Division of Business Excellence. A successor to the membership-driven agency SPACE, the Springfield Area Council for Excellence, the DOBE as it’s called will provide a number of services aimed at helping area companies become more competitive in a global marketplace.
These will include informational programs as well as linking business owners with consultants who will provide assistance on a fee-for-service basis with implementation of business excellence strategies including Kaizen, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and others.
“We thought the Market show was the perfect forum for us to launch the business excellence division,” said Boronski. “There will be hundreds of business owners and managers there, giving us an opportunity to generate awareness of the division and how it can make the region more competitive.”
Market 2006 will also feature a number of free business seminars, to be staged in morning and afternoon sessions, in the MassMutual meeting rooms next to the exhibition hall. The scheduled programs include:
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Managing Your Electronic Gizmos and Office Technology, a how-to and ‘how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-devices’ hosted by Sean Hogan, president of Hogan Communications;
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Grow Your Business — Hire Right, led by Ethan Bloomfield of HRD Press;
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The Business Incubator at the Andrew M. Scibelli Enterprise Center, led by Thomas Goodrow, vice president of Economic and Business Development at Springfield Technical Communnity College;
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Entrepreneurship: Make the Transition to Grow Your Business, led by John Rogers, dean of the School of Business at American International College;
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Internet Marketing, presented by David Flaherty of Ashton Services;
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Run Your Business So You Can Leave it in Style, a panel discussion coordinated by the Bank of Western Massachusetts;
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Focus Your Marketing Vision, led by Tina Stevens, president of Stevens Design Studio;
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Improve Team Collaboration and Have Fun, led by Robert Rasmussen, president of Robert Rasmussen and Associates, LLC;
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Understanding New England’s Hispanic Market Potential, led by Hector Bauzá and Francisco Javier Solé, of Bauza & Associates in Holyoke;
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Credit Reports, Nondisclosure Laws, and Identity Theft, led by Guy Swiatlowski of Cambridge Cradit Counseling;
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The LifeBridge Free Insurance Program, led by the MassMutual Financial Group;
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Treat Business Like a Business and Family Like Family, a panel discussion coordinated by the UMass Family Business Center; and
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More on the Future of Opportunity, led by Steven Little, senior consultant for Inc. Magazine.
The attractive lineup of events should attract a larger number of visitors than previous shows, said Boronski, adding that she is hopeful that individuals working in downtown office towers will set aside at least some of their day for the show.
“They don’t have to get in their cars and drive anywhere,” she said, noting that some people working downtown were put off by the prospect of driving to the Big E. “There are 9,000 pre-paid parking spaces in downtown Springfield — if we can get just 10% of those people to come to the show, that’s an additional 1,000 visitors, and that would make the event so much better.”
Show Time
The 2006 Business Market Show will be the 17th edition of the event, said Boronski, adding that since year 2, the goal — and the challenge — for organizers has been to make the show different and better.
The MassMutual Center provides the setting and the amenities to make that assignment somewhat easier, she said, noting that additions for this year take the event well past the label trade show.
“We’ve gone to a new, much higher plane,” she explained. “We’re still a showcase of 200 area businesses, but now we’re so much more than that.”
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Fast Facts What:The 2006 Business Market Show Conference and Exhibition |
Mike Oleksak, a veteran commercial lender most recently with TD Banknorth, has been named regional president for Berkshire Bancorp’s Pioneer Valley operations. His charge is to aggressively pursue market share in the region and to clear a bar that has been set very high.
Mike Oleksak remembers his first job in banking. He was 19, and working as a teller in the main branch of Westfield Savings Bank.
He remembers watching then-president Art Knapp, vice-president Don Williams, and other officers of the bank, and trying to learn from how they conducted themselves and interacted with customers.
“I wasn’t really sure what they did,” he recalled with a laugh. “I just knew that I wanted to be one of them.
“Art Knapp was a real inspiration,” he continued. “Whenever anyone in the community talked about him, they did it with deep respect in their voice. And he handled every customer, from the smallest to the largest, with the same degree of gentleness and kindness.”
That’s an operating style that Oleksak has adopted during a 28-year career that has taken him to several positions at a number of institutions (many of which don’t exist anymore) and ultimately to the rank of senior vice president and co-regional executive at TD Banknorth.
And it’s one he’ll apply in a position that ultimately pried him from his attractive post at Banknorth — that of regional president for Berkshire Hills Bancorp’s Pioneer Valley operations, which, the bank announced recently, will be managed as a separate business unit with local commercial lending decisions.
The assignment, which he assumed late last month, brings Oleksak back to his native Westfield (home to Woronoco Bancorp, which Berkshire acquired last year), and makes him point person for the Pittsfield-based institution’s efforts to continually grow its presence — and asset and deposit totals — in the Pioneer Valley.
Berkshire acquired Woronoco and its 10 branches roughly a year ago, and has spent the ensuing months melding Woronoco’s strong track record in consumer products and mortgage lending with Berkshire’s recent success in commercial lending and wealth-management products.
Thus far, the results have far exceeded what were considered lofty expectations, said Michael Daly, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hills.
He told BusinessWest that deposits in the Pioneer Valley have risen by $42 million — to $416 million — since the merger last June, which is an annualized rate of 20%. And he believes the bank can match that number again in each of the next several years.
“That’s an aggressive goal, for sure,” he said, noting that most community and regional banks would be content with 4% or 5% annual deposit growth. “But one we certainly feel we can achieve.”
Oleksak agreed. He told BusinessWest that the strong showing in Berkshire’s first year in Hampden and Hampshire counties results from the enthusiasm of employees and ongoing efforts to monitor and continuously improve service.
For the future, Oleksak’s primary goals will be to bolster the commercial lending side of Berkshire’s ledger, while working with Daly and other members of the management team to expand the bank’s footprint through additional branches and perhaps further acquisitions.
He’ll do all that while acting as what Daly called the ‘face,’ of the Western Mass. operations, providing visibility and leadership within the region.
BusinessWest looks this issue at Oleksak’s appointment and how he’ll approach his charge to lead the bank’s efforts to gain market share in the Pioneer Valley.
Strong Statement
As he talked about Oleksak’s ascension to the position of regional president, Daly said this was an appointment that certainly didn’t happen quickly.
That’s because the bank took its time finding the right individual for the assignment, he explained, and because Oleksak took some more time making up his mind to take it.
“It really was a difficult decision for me to make in some ways,” said Oleksak. “I was very happy at Banknorth and had no real reason to look for another job.”
But when he was approached by Daly about the position, he was convinced to at least explore the opportunity. He did, and with some encouragement from Berkshire’s chairman of the board, Larry Bossidy, a former executive with General Electric and CEO of Honeywell and Allied Signal, he became convinced that this was the next logical step in his career.
“What ultimately helped convince me was Mike Daly’s passion for making this bank grow,” said Oleksak. “It’s infectious, and it made me want to come here and help him get to the finish line.”
Daly said Berkshire was drawn to Oleksak by the level of respect he commanded from individual customers, and by the business community as a whole.
“We intend to continue to build this team,” he explained, “and the best way to build a team of high performers is to have someone leading that group that others respect.”
Oleksak has built up that respect, and a large Rolodex of contacts, through a lengthy career focused mostly in commercial real estate and commercial lending.
After a seven-year stay at Westfield Savings Bank, which culminated as branch manager in West Springfield and Agawam, he moved to MultiBank (one of those institutions swallowed by merger), where he held several positions, including credit analyst. He became a junior loan officer at Vanguard Bank in Holyoke in 1988, and was later promoted to assistant vice president and, then, interim senior lender, a post he held until the bank was closed by the FDIC in 1993.
He eventually rose to the position of vice president and commercial & industrial lender at Shawmut, and remained in that capacity through that institution’s merger with Fleet in 1998. From there, he moved to what was then SIS, starting as a vice president of commercial lending and team leader of the Commercial Real Estate Department. Over the next eight years, he took a portfolio of $125 million and a staff of two lenders, and grew it to $650 million and eight lenders.
It was those numbers that drew the attention of Daly, who told BusinessWest that, moving forward, one of Berkshire’s primary goals is to grow its commercial loan volume.
Taking Interest
To do that, the bank will take the same approach it has with other initiatives, broad and specific, said Daly, and that it is to be aggressive.
Such an attitude is certainly necessary in a highly competitive commercial market in which a host of local players, joined recently by Berkshire (which had only a minor presence in the Valley before acquiring Woronoco) and a growing list of Connecticut banks, are vying for business in what is considered a a low- or no-growth area.
To succeed in such an environment, banks need experienced lenders who know the market and the businesses in it, quality products, including attractive rates, local decision-making ability, and a game plan grounded in smart growth, said Oleksak, adding that Berkshire is putting those ingredients together.
A commercial lending team is being assembled, he told BusinessWest, adding that additional lenders will be added to the current team of four. Meanwhile, the designation of Berkshire’s Pioneer Valley operations as a separate business unit gives Oleksak and the team he assembles lending authority over roughly 80% to 90% of the deals that emerge.
As for smart growth, Oleksak said the bank will take a steady, responsible approach to expanding its portfolio, working to do what is best for both the bank and its stockholders — as well as the customers.
“Fundamentally, I’m not going to do anything different than I did at Banknorth or at Fleet,” he said. “It’s about treating people the right way and making a consistent calling effort; it’s about being attentive when they need something and getting back to them right away.
“And sometimes ‘no’ isn’t the worst answer you can give a client,” he continued. “They can respect you just as much for saying ‘no’ as saying ‘yes,’ or for finding another way to get them what they need.”
As for the consumer products side of the ledger, Berkshire and Oleksak plan to be equally aggressive. This is apparent in Daly’s stated goal for the next three years — growing deposits by 60% in the Pioneer Valley.
That projection comes at a time when another newcomer (Connecticut-based Webster) has arrived in Westfield — soon to be joined by Holyoke-based PeoplesBank, which is opening a facility directly across East Main Street from Webster — and new branches are opening on seemingly a monthly basis across the Valley.
And Berkshire, which currently has locations in Westfield (2), Southwick (2), Chicopee Falls, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Agawam, Ludlow, and South Hadley, will be joining the fray. It has a stated goal of opening four new branches in the region over the next year (specific locations were not identified) and another four or more in the year or two after.
Such increased presence, especially in communities where the bank currently doesn’t have facilities, will certainly help in the efforts to meet Daly’s aggressive goals for deposits, which obviously must be matched with loan and total asset growth, said Oleksak, adding quickly that it goes well beyond bricks and mortar.
Customers are drawn by quality products and service, he said, which brings him back to the impressive numbers posted by Berkshire in its first year in the Pioneer Valley.
“Remember, this was at a time of great uncertainty, when we were melding one bank’s culture with another, and when we didn’t have a regional president,” he said. “To post those kinds of numbers under those circumstances is remarkable, and it all comes back to the enthusiasm of the staff.
“Looking ahead, we do have some aggressive goals,” he continued, “but that’s exciting; it’s going to be fun to go out and accomplish them.”
The Bottom Line
Assessing his latest career move, Oleksak said that, in some ways, he has come full circle.
He is back in the community where he started, and he is now the one young tellers will look across the room at and, ultimately, attempt to learn the business from.
As he takes on the assignment, he’ll apply the same basic approach as Art Knapp — treating every customer the same way. By doing so, he believes he and his team can meet or even exceed those aggressive goals for growth.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
| The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court. | |
| Agouab, Ali Agouab, Patricia A. Alderman, Laura B. Alderman, William N. Bruce-Foster, Tammy B. Canela, Basilia Gouin, Nicole L. Griffith, Jacqueline Harris, Antonio Harris, Teresa Ann Henry, Ethel | Knight, Diane S. Lemire, James P. Lemire, Patricia A. Milbier, Marco Eugene Nareau, Todd M. Salgado, Jessica Smith, Charles W. Smith, Sharon M. Torres, Margarita Waring, Kenneth Patrick Watson, William P. |
| The following building permits were issued during | |
| AGAWAM Valley Community Church HOLYOKE Frederic Sellica Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House NORTHAMPTON Bermor Limited Partnership Cooley Dickinson Hospital Inc. Cooley Dickinson Hospital Inc. Eric Suher ES Realty Corp. Forty Main Street Inc. Linda Valenti | Northampton Nursing Home Inc. Robert & Patricia Normand Suher Properties LLC SPRINGFIELD Daniel Roy Mental Health Association Mental Health Association Merchants of Springfield Springfield Boys & Girls Club Tim Driscoll Vornado Realty WESTFIELD PVS Therapy |
| The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims. HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT R.P.S. Inc. d/b/a Hampden/Zimmerman Electric Supply Co. v. Michelson Properties Inc., Keven B. Michelson a/k/a Kevin Michelson SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT Northeast Utilities Systems and Western Mass Electric Co. v. The Holyoke Card & Paper Co. R.P.S. Inc. d/b/a Hampden/Zimmerman Electric Supply Co. v. James Leary a/k/a James E. Leary d/b/a Leary Electric N.R. Bergeron Drywall Contractor Inc. v. Grand champ & Pierce Builders Inc. |
| The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of March 2006. |
| AGAWAM Bronze Stone Champagne Dry Wall Inc. Claire’s Professional Runners CMD Rental Management Property Eagle Inspections Extreme PC Heritage Hall South K & C Home Improvement LLP Mass-Conn Fire & Security Meadow Farms and Bolducs Mountaintop Woodworking & General Contracting Olson Computer & Sec. Service Quality Auto Care Steve’s Appliance Surprise Card & Gift CHICOPEE On Sight Optical Services Spruce EAST LONGMEADOW The Nels Design & Drafting Progressive Massage HOLYOKE Cabrera Surveillance Services Mi Plaza Restaurant Ruff Ryders Banquet Hall LONGMEADOW Dr. Leon Gellerman Mel’s Typhoons Swim Club NORTHAMPTON Fagan Entertainment Happy Valley More Than Sound Productions Robotparade Streamline Painting Co. Yogic Touch SPRINGFIELD Ardel Investigations Inc. Café Trung Nguyen Chico’s Towing E-Suede Productions Exclusive Painting & Remodeling Fashion Ave. Fred’s Home Improvement Gonzalez Bus Line Heavyweight Productions Items Ark JG Wholesalers JoElla’s Closet MLC Child Daycare Perennial Landscaping Revstar Tilbury Inc. WEST SPRINGFIELD Bay State Fuel Oil Inc. Bay State/Fast Fill Bay State/Vickers Best Oil Cash & Carry Oil Economy Oil Grand International Auto Driving School JRE Masonry & Restoration National Oil Papa Nucci’s Pizza R & S Oil Smith Oil WESTFIELD C & R Landscaping Family Product Market Passion Parties Reed Hill Associates Todd’s Foreign Auto |
| The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden and Hampshire counties, and are the latest available. They are listed by community. | |
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| David Pinsky has been named President and Chairman of the Board of Tighe & Bond of Westfield. Joining the firm in 1988, Pinsky has led many project teams with his expertise in water supply, distribution and treatment. •••••
Debra Mahannah has joined The O’Leary Company of Southampton. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the design and management of office renovation projects in Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. ••••• Carla Oleska, Ph.D., former Associate Academic Dean of Elms College, Chicopee, will serve as Executive Director of the Women’s Fund of Western Mass., based in Easthampton. ••••• Architect Jeremy Toal, AIA, has joined Dietz & Company Architects of Springfield. Toal’s previous works incorporated renewable energy, energy efficiency, and healthy, durable, natural materials. ••••• Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in Springfield announced the following: •••••
Susan L. DeFeo has been elected Senior Vice President, Director of Operations and Technology at Florence Savings Bank. ••••• Sarah J. Zingarelli recently joined the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission of West Springfield as a Planner in the Land Use and Environment section. ••••• UMass Amherst alumni Ellen Ferraro and Regina Valluzi will be honored by Mass High Tech as Women to Watch 2006. Mass High Tech is a weekly publication, based in Boston, which focuses on business and technology challenges in New England. Ferraro is the deputy director of the system validation, test and analysis directorate for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, and Valluzi is the founder and chief scientific officer of Evolved Nanomaterial Sciences. Both women were among 10 New England-based women who were recently recognized as future leaders and innovators at an awards dinner in Boston. •••••
Webster Bank announced the following:
• Amybeth Perry has been named Vice President of the Westfield office.
Sherry Leastman has been promoted to Branch Manager of Countrywide Home Loans’ Northampton branch, where she will be responsible for developing Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties. ••••• Matthew Nocton has been promoted to Senior Account Executive for MassLive.com. He will oversee major local and regional accounts. ••••• Lisa Watts, owner of Cold Spring Events in Belchertown, has earned the designation of Certified Bridal Consultant through the Association of Bridal Consultants. ••••• Crystal Carrol has joined the Palmer office of Carlson GMAC Real Estate as a Sales Agent. ••••• Zoar Outdoor in Charlemont announced the following: ••••• Darryl Thomas has joined 84 Lumber in West Springfield as a Manager Trainee. ••••• Lawyer Richard S. Ravosa Jr. has been recognized by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as a “Rising Star/Up and Coming Lawyer.” Ravosa has offices in Springfield and Boston, and is the founder and executive director of Town & Country Legal Associates, with offices in Springfield, Boston, Salem and Natick. | Gregory M. Schmidt has been named an Associate in the commercial transaction and banking practice of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy P.C. ••••• Vicki S. Donahue has been named a Director for Cain Hibbard Myers & Cook PC in Pittsfield. She has been an Associate with the firm for eight years. ••••• United Bank of West Springfield announced the following: ••••• Noble Health Systems in Westfield announced the following: ••••• Bruce Leshine has joined the law firm of Jorden Burt LLP, as a Partner in the technology practice group. The firm has offices in Simsbury, Conn., Washington, D.C., and Miami. •••• Monson Savings Bank announced the following: ••••• Country Bank in Ware announced the following:
• Denise Jaworski has been promoted to Treasurer, and will be in charge of the bank’s finance and budget functions;
• Robert Paulsen Jr. has been named Vice President of Commercial Loans, and will oversee the development of new and existing business relationships; and
• Christopher Wszolek has been named Vice President of Commercial loans, and will also oversee the develop ment of new and existing business relationships. ••••• Debra Mahannah recently joined the staff of The O’Leary Company of Southampton, MA. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the design and management of office renovation projects in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. Mahannah is a member of the Construction Institute and the National Association of Women in Construction. The O’Leary Company is celebrating its 50th year as a full service design-build firm specializing in large scale commercial and industrial construction. •••••
Larry A. Letendre, Jr. recently joined Southbridge Savings Bank as the Branch Manager of the Ruthven Ave. location in Worcester. His responsibility is to establish new customer relationships with consumers and local businesses. Aside from his managerial duties, he plans to continue working with community groups in the area including Worcester Housing and the Worcester County Food Bank. •••••
Beverly Ouellette joined the Phillips Insurance Agency Inc. as its new Benefits Director. Her responsibilities will include the management and marketing of the life, health, and employee sponsored benefits products. ••••• Michelle N. Theroux, M.Ed., LMHC, has been named Executive Director of Child & Family Service of Pioneer Valley, Inc. Ms. Theroux served most recently as Director of Family Networks at Key Program, Inc., and was previously the Family Based Services Program Manager at Key. She is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Springfield College, teaching courses in Behavior Management and Life Span Development. ••••• James C. Hagan was recently elected Chairman of the Board of Noble Health Systems. A Westfield resident, Hagan is the President of Westfield Bank. Other officers are Mark A. Morin, Vice Chairman; James F. Shea, Treasurer; Timothy P. Scanlan, Secretary and George J. Koller, President. Murray Watnick, M.D. was elected as a trustee. Other board members include: Robert J. Bacon, John M. Greaney, Carol A. Kauffman, Robert L. LaPalme and Richard K. Sullivan, Jr. Noble Health Systems is the parent corporation of Noble Hospital, Noble Visiting Nurse and Hospice Services and Westfield Medical Corporation. |
Rob Parslow was getting pretty frustrated in his search last spring for an internship within the financial services sector, a step he considered critical to his pursuit of a new career in accounting.
He had sent out more than 40 resumes, including many to Fortune 500 companies that had active internship programs, and heard nothing back. He was on the verge of giving up when he went to a new Web site — and eventually hit pay dirt.
It was an opportunity with a small, East Hartford-based company called Horizon Services Corporation, which specializes in customized cleaning solutions for a wide range of clients. It had posted a listing onwww.internhere.comlooking for a quality-management intern who could help the company become ISO 9000 certified.
Parslow, a student at Springfield Technical Community College and a former Air Force officer, saw it, and became intrigued.
To make a long story short, Horizon Services eventually stepped back from its pursuit of ISO certification, but it engaged Parslow in the creation last fall of a quality-management system that is already paying dividends for the company.
And as he talked about Horizon, his work with the company, and the satisfaction he gains from knowing it is still using the system he implemented, Parslow made heavy use of the word we.
Which is exactly what the creators ofwww.internhere.comhad in mind.
The user-friendly, free of charge site was developed by business and economic development leaders involved with the Hartford-Springfield Economic Partnership, with the purpose of retaining more of the 235,000 students attending area colleges and universities; especially those who will be graduating in the next two years.
It is much too early to gauge how effective the site will be with regard to that mission, said Nancy Scirocco, vice president and business development officer for the Healthcare/Not for Profit Division of Webster Bank and chair of the committee that launched the site just over a year ago. But there are signs that it is successfully linking students with opportunities while helping companies, especially small- to medium-sized ventures solve problems and ultimately become more competitive.
“Student perceptions of the region have been causing them to seek jobs elsewhere,” she explained. “We believe this site can ultimately change those perceptions.”
At present, internhere.com is largely a Connecticut phenomenon — the vast majority of posted listings are from companies in that state and large firms there were instrumental in getting it off the ground — but officials on this side of the border would like to change that.
“I think this is a great tool with which we can hopefully keep more of our college graduates in this area,” said Bill Ward, executive director of the Western Mass. Regional Employment Board (REB). “We want to make people aware of this Web site and make full use of it.”
A Job to Do
Scirroco said the motivation for internhere.com can be found in statistics garnered from a 2003 survey completed by the Graduate Retention Committee of the Hartford-Springfield Economic Partnership.
Nearly half (45%) of the graduating seniors surveyed believed that better job opportunities were to be found elsewhere. However, 31% of those polled at the time of the survey were undecided. Meanwhile, 51% of students who had successful internships and co-ops in the area were more likely to stay in the region.
What the survey revealed was a matter of perception regarding the region and the job opportunities it presents, said Scirroco, adding that the region does have good jobs for graduates — but many simply don’t know about them.
The Web site was created to generate some awareness, she continued, noting that it has a wide array of information about the Hartford-Springfield region beyond internships, including its educational, cultural, and recreational assets. But part of its purpose is to link students with companies in ways that may create employment opportunities after the students graduate.
Here’s how it works. Employers wishing to use the site log on and enter a profile that will remain permanently on the site. Meanwhile, they can post specific internships and co-op opportunities and place them under categories of employment that range from accounting/auditing to underwriting; entertainment to IT.
Students, meanwhile, can log on and search through those listings as well as the company profiles, said Scirroco, adding that the site effectively exposes area students — not to mention others from well outside the area (inquiries have come from Brown University in Providence, for example) — to the vast array of career opportunities in the area.
But the site’s ultimate mission is to match students with employers, she said, and this is why the site remains free of charge — to encourage students and companies of all sizes to take advantage of it.
A look at some current postings gives an indication of the quantity and diversity of opportunities available. For example, the category ‘Communications and Mass Media’ lists dozens of entries.
They include internships in the University of Hartford Athletic Department, Boerhringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Jacobs Pillow, the acclaimed dance festival in Beckett, Mass., the Hartford Business Journal, the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition, ThinkGlobal Incorporated, the Northampton-based advertising and marketing firm, and many others.
Scroll down the listings in the category ‘Information Technology,’ and one finds posted internships for such companies and organizations as Abot Software, Hartford Stage, Pratt & Whitney, St. Paul Travelers, and New Wave Industries Inc., all in Connecticut and the Pioneer Valley Design Center in Springfield, among others.
Position Players
It was under the ‘Accounting and Auditing’ category that Parslow found Horizon Services’ posting for an internship centered around creation of a quality-management program. He submitted a resume, and got a call from the company’s president, Ted Hsu (pronounced ‘shoe’) the day it arrived.
The two met and shook hands on a paid internship that brought benefits to both parties.
“He essentially acted as a consultant for us,” said Hsu, noting that Parslow’s first assignment was to read and digest (hopefully) the 700-page ISO manual and offer some recommendations. “That was well above and beyond the scope of a traditional internship; he did a tremendous job for us.”
Hsu actually posted two internships on the site — the other was for someone to focus on marketing efforts such as search engine visibility — and he found matches for both. He told BusinessWest that the resource proved an effective way for his company to reach out to a large audience of qualified candidates.
“What was unique about this site is that it let students know that there are real opportunities out there in small, growing companies,” said Hsu, who was referred to internhere.com from a colleague on the Conn. Minority Supplier Development Council. “That was the first time that link had been made.”
Getting the word out on the Web site, the opportunities if offers small companies, and success stories like Parslow and Horizon Services is one of the challenges facing the committee coordinating the site, said Scirocco.
She told BusinessWest that some aggressive marketing is planned to create awareness. Organizers are using area chambers of commerce, technology councils, other business groups, and some media advertising to not only familiarize business owners and colleges with the concept, but make it part of the economic development fabric in the region.
“People need to hear the message two or three times before it really sinks in,” she explained. “And that’s why we want to work with the chambers and other groups to make sure internhere.com isn’t a best-kept secret.”
Meanwhile, the committee will search for additional and more permanent sources of funding for the venture, she said. Several companies and organizations (most in Connecticut) have contributed money or in-kind services to the cause, including St. Paul Travelers, the MetroHartford Alliance, The Hartford, Northeast Utilitities, Pratt & Whitney, and Ashton Services, based in Springfield, which currently hosts the site. The state of Connecticut is currently considering legislation to provide steady funding toward upgrades and marketing, she noted, adding that similar contributions are being sought from the Bay State, but thus far without success.
“It’s easier for us in Hartford, because this is the state capital and we have some clout with the Legislature,” she said. “It’s obviously going to be harder in Western Mass.”
Ultimately, the committee will look to hire an individual to manage and market the Web site, she continued, adding that such a step is predicated on securing a steady stream of revenue that must be achieved without charging students, businesses, and colleges for using the resource.
“We don’t want to do that, because that’s one of the site’s big advantages right now,” she said. “Because we don’t charge, many smaller businesses and non-profit groups are able to take part.”
Work in Progress
Still another challenge for the committee is to introduce tracking procedures that will let site organizers know how many students have been linked with internships and if any of those individuals have found permanent jobs in the region.
After all, the stated purpose for the site is to increase graduate retention rates and reduce brain drain out of the Hartford-Springfield area.
Ultimately, Scirocco believes it will succeed in keeping students — one of the region’s biggest assets — in the area.
“The opportunities are there,” she said. “We have to make people aware of them and then make some connections.”
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
In the past four years Massachusetts has lost more than 200,000 jobs. If the state wants to keep its share of technology-based industries, such as biotech, it has a lot to learn from places like North Carolina, which does a better job of incubating a skilled workforce.
Two proposed programs under the Workforce Solutions Act, which is part of the economic stimulus bill in the Massachusetts House, are a good beginning. But what they leave out is more instructive than what they include. The proposed $11 million Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund would match employer investment in worker training and build partnerships of employers, the workforce development system, community organizations, and unions to support business needs for particular skills in short supply. The $3 million Education Rewards program would provide assistance to workers attending community colleges or state universities to obtain a certificate or degree that allows them to advance in their occupation. But even with these combined programs, Massachusetts has a lot of catching up to do.
The state’s two major competitors in biotechnology — North Carolina and California — have corporate headquarters and research facilities, just like here. All three states hope to use this strength to expand bio-manufacturing. But Mass-achusetts has not made the strategic investments that those states have in training bio-manufacturing workers.
For starters, too much of the state’s focus is on providing incentives for firms to locate here rather than investing in the workforce that will keep them here once they go into manufacturing. In 2003, Governor Mitt Romney launched the ‘Massachusetts, It’s All Here’ marketing campaign, whose first phase was to attract bio-manufacturing and medical device producers. Another Romney economic development initiative set aside $125 million in subsidies to attract bio-pharmaceutical and medical device companies that create manufacturing jobs. These initiatives are important, but ignore workforce development.
The missing link in the economic development agenda is a community college system that responds to the needs of the labor market. While community college systems in North Carolina and California are collaborating with employers and universities throughout their states to develop bio-manufacturing certificate and degree programs, Massachusetts has few degrees and only tried a pilot certificate program in 2001. The pilot, Building Essential Skills Training, created a short-term bio-manufacturing certificate for the state’s community colleges, which a couple of colleges, including Springfield Technical Community College, still offer. But last year only 13 associate degrees and seven certificates in biotechnology were awarded by Massachusetts community colleges. In contrast, 874 people were enrolled in 17 associate degree programs in biotechnology in North Carolina’s community colleges and 559 completed a one-semester technician certificate in 2005.
Furthermore, the Golden LEAF Foundation, North Carolina’s tobacco settlement fund, put up $60 million in 2002 to improve biotechnology programs at the community college and the university level. This human-capital approach to attracting biotechnology companies should have other payoffs as well. Even if workers do not get jobs in biotechnology, they are building skills that can be used in other high-tech industries.
North Carolina shows what a state can do when it links its community college system to its economic development agenda. CommCorp, primary workforce development agency in Massachusetts, tried to make such a link with initiatives like the Building Essential Skills Training program, but it cannot provide the funding that the state’s higher education system could.
The Workforce Solutions Act is needed, but if the Commonwealth hopes to convert its leadership in research and entrepreneurship into good manufacturing jobs, it has to be better integrated with higher education.
Joan Fitzgerald is director of the graduate program in Law, Policy & Society at Northeastern University.
Last fall, as the MassMutual Center was getting set to open its doors, there were more than a few skeptics who doubted whether the $70 million facility would succeed in drawing events to Springfield and bringing people downtown.
Today, such doubters remain, but they’re considerably harder to find.
Granted, it’s only been a few months, and the success of such a massive public project is measured over a long period of time, but there are many signs that the facility is doing what it was designed to do — breathe some much needed life into downtown.
Two successful concerts, Martina McBride and Motley Crue, drew large crowds, and downtown parking lots have been jammed most weekends with mini vans and SUVs, the vehicles of necessity for audiences drawn to shows ranging from Dora the Explorer to pro wrestling; monster trucks to Disney on Ice.
This early success and the promise for much more — the March schedule was packed with events including auto and flower shows and college basketball championships — should give city officials and Financial Control Board members pause to consider creation of a broad strategy that will seize on the momentum being created by MassMutual Center.
It is clear that one doesn’t exist, because the facility has been left largely on an island, with very little to support it or to ‘extend the stay’ of visitors, as those in the travel and tourism business like to say. Indeed, while there are a few restaurants and attractions close by, there is little to keep those mini vans and SUVs from getting back on the highway after the shows end.
Extending the stay will take a coordinated effort, one that will require steps ranging from a beefed up police presence to finding some way to bring the long-stalled plans for a boutique hotel in Court Square to reality. And there will be a number of challenges, ranging from economics to the deteriorating condition of the Court Square building.
But right now, the MassMutual Center is a vital component of the overall economic development strategy in Springfield, and thus city and state officials must be aggressive in pursuit of ways to extend the building’s influence beyond its four walls and downtown parking concessions.
Put another way, they need to facilitate what should be — if the MassMutual Center continues on its current path — an intriguing exercise in the laws of supply and demand. How? For starters, they could explore options to incentivise national restaurant chains, especially those that cater to families, to look at and eventually invest in downtown Springfield. Meanwhile, they should engage downtown property owners in discussions on ways to bring in new businesses, ones that will complement the MassMutual Center.
City officials and the Control Board must also continue their work — there has been noted progress — to make the downtown cleaner, brighter, and safer.
And there must be a concerted effort to somehow rescue plans for a hotel at the Court Street property or find some other use for the century-old building. At present, the city is moving to foreclose on the property, burdened with more than $1 million in back taxes and a dispute over them between the city and the Picknelly family, which purchased the historic property several years ago.
Control Board officials say they are restricted in what they do in terms of forgiving back taxes and interest, and remain hopeful that there will be interest within the development community for such a venture. We are not as optimistic, and believe that a way should have been found to allow the Picknelly family to move ahead in its endeavor.
Foreclosure will likely serve to only delay this project further, not move it forward.
The MassMutual Center is not going to turn Springfield into Orlando. The city’s downtown isn’t likely to become a real destination any time soon. But the early success of the new facility provides a measure of optimism, a sense that it can bring greater prosperity to that area — if some encouragement is provided.
The city and state invested more than $70 million in the MassMutual. Now it needs to invest some time and energy to make sure it doesn’t remain an island.
In recent years, states have found themselves caught in an accelerating competition to offer ever-larger tax breaks to big businesses.
The rationale, aggressively marketed by corporate lobbyists, is that giveaways are necessary to attract business investment and jobs to a state, and that the resulting expanded business activity will more than pay for the lost revenues from the tax cuts.
Reality, however, contradicts these claims. Several studies, including one by economist Robert Lynch in 2004 called Rethinking Growth Strategies: How State and Local Taxes and Service Affect Economic Development, establish that state tax incentives have, at best, a minimal impact on businesses’ decisions about where to locate their facilities. State taxes are simply too small a fraction of business costs (typically 1% to 2%) to be a major factor in siting decisions. Moreover, since all states are offering competing incentives, the differences are usually very small.
When asked about the efficacy of business tax incentives during his confirmation hearings in 2001 to be US treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, former chief executive officer of ALCOA, said: ‘’As a businessman I never made an investment decision based on the tax code. If you give money away I will take it, but good business people don’t do things because of inducements.”
The real effect of these tax breaks is a dramatic loss of state and local revenues. In 1997, the national cost of state and local incentives was estimated at $50 billion, and the numbers have grown dramatically since then. The result: heavier tax burdens on individual taxpayers and small businesses. And less money for education, infrastructure, and the other government services that the research shows are real factors affecting business decisions about where to locate.
Nonetheless, state policy makers find it hard to say ‘no’ to these giveaways. As long as other states are offering them, no one is ready to unilaterally disarm. And big businesses have become adept at playing states against one another to extract generous tax breaks. The states are caught in a vicious cycle of proliferating business incentives.
The best hope for saving the states from this destructive competition lies in the courts. Recently, the US Supreme Court heard a case, DaimlerChrysler v. Cuno, in which the lower court struck down Ohio’s investment tax credit, one of the most common incentive devices, because it discriminatorily favors in-state business activity.
In fact, one of the primary purposes behind the Constitution was to put an end to tax wars among the states that were threatening to balkanize the national economy. Over the years, the courts have repeatedly stepped in to stop the states from using their tax systems to pursue parochial aims in ways that ended up hurting all of them. In particular, they have repeatedly forbidden a wide variety of state tax measures providing preferential tax benefits that are restricted to in-state business activity. The present array of location incentives are just the latest examples in that long history.
Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists are already laying the groundwork for federal legislation to reverse the impact of a possible Supreme Court decision invalidating location-based tax incentives. But hopefully, once the court has acted, Congress will have the wisdom to save the states from the renewal of a rivalry that only lines corporate pockets.-
Peter D. Enrich, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law, is representing the plaintiffs in the Cuno case.
Since Janet Wanczyk arrived at Springfield Technical Community College four years ago and started signing the checks in her capacity as vice president for Administration and chief financial officer, she has been on a mission to reduce the school’s enormous fuel bills.
“We’ve been scouring the Earth looking for ways to cut our expenses,” she told BusinessWest, noting that the campus, housed partly in former Springfield Armory buildings, occupies some 1 million square feet — perhaps three times the space of a more-modern school with similar enrollment — much of it very inefficient when it comes to heating and cooling.
The dire need to reduce fuel and electricity bills, which will reach $2 million for the fiscal year that ends next June 30 (a 33% increase over a year ago) has prompted the school to look at alternatives ranging from co-generation to windmills and to take steps that range from installing more energy-efficient exit signs to shutting down most buildings for two weeks during winter break.
And it also inspired a sequence of events that led to the installation of what is being called the largest photovoltaic (PV), or solar energy system in Western Mass. on one roof in the Technology Park that sits across the street from the STCC campus.
Installed in January and unveiled to the public late last month, the $255,000 system is comprised of 108 PV panels that effectively convert sunlight into electricity — roughly 33,000 kilowatt hours of it per year. That production rate will save the Technology Park, administered by the STCC Assistance Corp. (STCCAC) about $6,000 per year, making only a small dent in the park’s $1 million budget for fuel and electricity in FY ’06.
But the current system, which is expandable, is considered merely a “starting point,” said STCCAC Chairman Brian Corridan, who told BusinessWest that phrase refers to much more than the generation of electricity.
Indeed, he said the PV installation is expected to spark a number of academic initiatives, entrepreneurial ventures, and public-private partnerships in the broad realm of renewable energy. Looking down the road — and not very far down it — Corridan said he envisions developments in PV and other renewable energy products involving virtually every aspect of the college and its technology park.
This includes the training of individuals who will work in this field, the creation of new businesses focused on renewable energy, which could be nurtured in the Scibelli Enterprise Center within the tech park, and the emergence of a renewable energy business cluster, possibly at the tech park. Eventually, the STCC complex may become a teaching and demonstration center for photovoltaic energy in the Northeast.
“I think we’ve just taken the first steps in what will be a long journey,” said Corridan, adding that the ambitious expansion of the park’s focus into renewable energy, building on its base in telecommunications, is a natural progression — literally. “This is the kind of thing that a technology park should be doing.”
BusinessWest looks this issue at how the installation at the tech park came to be, and what it could eventually mean for the college and the region.
Shedding Light on the Subject
Chris Derby Kilfoyle became involved with photovoltaic energy pretty much out of necessity.
He had acquired a cabin in Vermont that was not served by the electric grid, and needed some way to light the place. He turned to what was then a technology still very much in its infancy. Indeed, in the early ’80s solar power was both less efficient and more expensive than it is now, but for some, it is essentially the only option.
Inspired by his own experience, Kilfoyle, a philosophy major in college but knowledgeable in the sciences, attended one of the first conferences on solar power in 1985 and later that year started Berkshire Photo Voltaic Services, which has installed more than 130 solar power systems (most of them residential) over the past 20 years, and was chosen to handle the project in STCC’s tech park.
He said the initiative is an intriguing one not merely for its size and cost-cutting capacity, but also for its ability to generate awareness for photovoltaic energy and to help that industry grow. And it comes at a time when President Bush is challenging the nation to reduce its dependency on foreign oil by expanding the use of alternative sources of energy.
“I get calls all the time from people who want to know about opportunities in this field … they’re excited about getting it, said Kilfoyle. “I believe it has a bright future, and what’s happening at the college is an exciting development.”
And it came about because Wanczyk was at wit’s end in her quest to do something, anything about the college’s staggering fuel and electricity bills.
Those bills and the need to reduce them eventually brought school administrators to the Mass. Technology Collaborative (MTC), a public agency and administrator of the Renewable Energy Trust, in search of grants to study photovoltaic systems and other forms of renewable energy.
The college was turned down in its initial bid for a $50,000 grant three years ago, said Wanczyk, but the tech park (STCCAC) later partnered with Appleton Corp., the management company for the park, and Western Mass. Electric Co., a park tenant) in a grant application that was eventually approved by the MTC.
The $123,000 awarded by the agency was essentially matched by STCCAC, she explained, and the project commenced last fall.
The 108 photovoltaic panels are placed at a 6-degree angle and positioned in rows at the southwest corner of what is known as building 111. Each cell contains 216 silicon semi-crystalline solar cells that produce power with no moving parts.
As Kilfoyl explained, electricity is produced as photons of sunlight penetrate the silicon, bumping electrons into a flow. This photovoltaic effect, as it’s called, produces direct current (DC) electricity, which is converted to alternating current (AC) to match the American standards of AC frequency and voltage.
Over the course of its 35-year lifetime, the PV installation at the tech park will replace the energy equivalent of 150 tons or coal or 31,000 gallons of gasoline, and avoids 756 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, it will save the park an estimated $5,800 in annual energy costs, and will help WMECO more easily manage peak usage periods in the summer.
Current Events
The installation covers only a small percentage of the roof space at the tech park, noted Kilfoyle, adding that it can be expanded onto both flat and angled sections of roof. The pace of expansion will be determined by economics, the availability of grant money, and a current worldwide shortage of poly-silicon, the main ingredient used in the production of solar cells, and also computer chips.
“That shortage will definitely limit the availability of product,” he said, adding that there are no real estimates on how long the shortage will last.
In the meantime, a small (10 kilowatt) photovoltaic installation is being planned for the college, said Wanczyk, adding that, like the tech park installation, it is environmentally friendly and another step being taken in the effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
And the benefits to the college and the tech park will far exceed cost savings, said STCC President Ira Rubenzahl. He told BusinessWest that the school has plans to revive its Environmental Technology associate degree program, with a focus on clean water or wastewater management, and will likely include options to that program in renewable energy.
Rubenzahl said the college offered an academic program in solar power in the’80s, but at that time, the field was not as technically advanced not as economically feasible for homeowners and smaller scale corporate applications. Now that the energy is more affordable and the technology more efficient, the school will look to take a lead role in the field.
“There are opportunities for initiating workforce development partnerships and training within the renewable energy industry,” he said, noting that the school’s Center for Business and Technology (CBT) is already talking with the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners, which offers a certification exam for PV installers. CBT is working with industry experts to develop a certification exam preparation course, which could be offered as early as the fall.
Meanwhile, for the tech park, the PV installation provides a foundation on which to build a renewable energy cluster to complement one in telecommunications that includes such tenants as Choice One Communications, CTC Communications, Northeast Optic Network Inc., WilTel (Williams Communications), Verizon Business, and MAP Internet.
“What we saw was an opportunity to draw companies that are in this field to the tech park,” he said, referring not only to photovoltaic energy, but also wind power, hydro, and other types of renewable energy. “These companies could use the college as a reservoir for talent that they need to grow.
“This would be a first step in that direction,” he continued, adding that as more companies in this broad field locate in the park, the environment will logically create a larger critical mass of businesses. “Telecommunications breeds more telecommunications, and renewable energy will breed more renewable energy.”
Watt’s Happening?
Wanczyk’s fight to reduce the school’s energy bills continues. The photovoltaic installation in the tech park, as well as the one soon to be installed at the college, will bring only minor relief.
But they are, as she and Corridan said, just the start of something bigger, and offer the promise of much more than some help with the bottom line.
They could help the school — and the renewable energy field itself — take steps toward a brighter future.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
The attic of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum holds a curious collection of artifacts from Springfield’s history.
There are two lanterns that sat atop the Memorial Bridge the day it opened in 1922. There are a few of the earliest calculators ever made, used by workers at MassMutual more than a century ago. One drawer contains some of the early monkey wrenches produced by the Bemis & Call Company in the city’s North End. And, at last count, there were more than 1,300 handguns — most of them made by Smith & Wesson, but also a few from some of the 400 other arms makers who operated in Springfield over the years.
And then, there’s the first (circa 1893) and last signs put over the door of the landmark Johnson’s Book Store. Both feature images of a shallop, the sailing vessel (Dutch in origin) that took William Pynchon and his party down the Connecticut River to Springfield in 1636.
Those items and thousands more are in the attic — or the basement — because there is simply not enough room to display them on a permanent or even a rotating basis, said Joseph Carvalho III, president and executive director of The Springfield Museums. This is a situation he plans to rectify with the creation of a new museum that could be open as early as the spring of 2008.
The ‘Museum of Springfield History.’ That’s the working title of a facility that will occupy the Verizon building located across the street from the Quadrangle and adjacent to an auxiliary parking lot used by The Springfield Museums. It is being purchased (the closing is slated for June) with $1 million bequeathed to the museums by Allen Swift in order to provide a home for his 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom I S273, manufactured in Springfield, which was also donated to the museums.
The new facility will display many of the products once — and in some cases still — manufactured in Springfield, from ice skates to automobiles, said Carvalho, but it will not be an industrial museum per se. Rather, it will celebrate and chronicle innovation, he explained, and Springfield’s history is replete with it.
It can be seen in the many industrial breakthroughs that occurred in Springfield, starting with the Springfield Armory more than 225 years ago, he said, but also in arts (Dr. Seuss), sports (basketball was invented in the city) and even in marketing, with such examples as the famous Breck Girls created by local artist Charles Sheldon.
“Springfield has had an incredible number of firsts,” said Guy McClain, director of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. “A great many things were invented here or produced here and it wasn’t by coincidence — it’s because Springfield had all the ingredients needed to get ideas off the ground.”
Carvalho agreed, and cited as just one example, the Duryea brothers, Charles and Frank, who manufactured the first gasoline-powered automobiles in Springfield starting in 1893
“The Duryeas weren’t from Springfield,” he explained, “but they came to Springfield, because they realized this was the place to find the technology, the techniques, the workers, and the materials they needed. And that pattern was repeated countless times.
“This is a story that needs to be told,” he continued, “and soon, we’ll able to tell it.”
Plane Speaking
Carvalho pointed to the GeeBee racing airplane, built at an airfield that once existed on the site of the Springfield Plaza, that is now suspended from the ceiling in a small room off one of the galleries in the Springfield Science Museum used for lectures and presentations.
“That’s the only place we could put it,” he told BusinessWest, adding that many visitors to the museum don’t even notice it’s there. “Most people discover it almost by accident; we’d like to put it out where everyone can see it, and also put it in the proper historical context, but we just don’t have the room.”
This lack of space is not exactly a recent phenomenon, he continued, adding that museum administrators have carried out a search for additional room for several years now.
The quest has prompted them to consider properties ranging from the old Basketball Hall of Fame to what remains of the former Technical High School; the York Street Jail to the city’s school administration building on State Street. But those options were either not workable or not affordable.
However, a series of circumstances came together late last year that gave the Springfield Museums a solution to its problem — and right across the street.
Swift, who was 102 when he died last October, was a legend of sorts among Rolls Royce collectors for owning his Phantom I longer than anyone in the world had ever owned an individual Rolls. He decided several years ago that he would donate the car to a museum; the question was which museum.
He was aware of The Springfield Museums because of its many programs on the history of transportation, said Carvalho, adding that in 2002 Swift started talking with museum administrators about the car, and agreed to donate it to the facility — if a building could be found to house it.
Several options were considered, including new construction, said Carvalho, but when the 30,000-square-foot Verizon office building at 85 Chestnut St. came on the market last summer, museum administrators knew their search was over.
“It was the logical location … the building is in good shape and it’s right behind the historical museum,” he said, adding that the two-story facility is being acquired for just under $900,000.
It will provide museum administrators with roughly twice the space currently available in the historical museum, as well as the flexibility needed for larger displays.
With the acquisition of the property all but finalized, several committees are moving on to the next series of steps and challenges in the process of creating the new museum, said Carvalho. These include raising the nearly $2 million needed to renovate the building and create displays, and determining what will be showcased in the new facility and how.
Meanwhile, museum administrators are seeking the support of the business community in the endeavor, said McClain, noting that financial help is needed, as well as contributions of artifacts that will help in the telling of Springfield’s story.
Business Cycles
To illustrate the types of items that would be put on display in the new museum, Carvalho and McClain ushered BusinessWest to the second floor of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. There, in a hallway off the stairs, an early Indian Motocycle, manufactured a few miles down State Street, and a Knox automobile, made in Springfield and restored by Friendly’s co-founder and avid car collector S. Presley Blake, are on display.
In one of the galleries sits another Indian, this one used by the Army during World War II. On shelves along one wall are several of the early games created by Milton Bradley, and, in a glass case, are some of the first ice skates manufactured by Everett Barney.
These items will join Swift’s Rolls Royce, the GeeBee, an old horse-drawn fire pumper truck (circa 1872), currently sitting in the historical museum’s basement, and many of those aforementioned items stored in the attic.
But it won’t be merely a collection of items invented, manufactured, or put to use in Springfield, said McClain. Rather, the new museum will chronicle how a pattern of innovation, beginning with the Armory, made Springfield what he called the Silicon Valley of late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Elaborating, he said the craftsmen and engineers that came to work at the Armory eventually gave the region a critical mass of both skill and innovation that led to many industrial breakthroughs and business success stories.
McClain cited Milton Bradley as just one example.
“He came to work at the Armory, he was a draftsman,” he explained. “He later had an idea to develop a board game. Why did he start his company here? Because he was here and the workforce he needed was here.
“That’s a story that was repeated time and time again,” he continued, adding that the machine shops and skilled workforce spawned by the Armory provided the perfect environment for development and manufacturing of cars, motorcycles, airplanes, adjustable wrenches, guns, and countless other products.
“It is absolutely no coincidence that all these innovations came out of Springfield,” he said. “It’s because of that critical mass that existed; if the Duryea brothers needed a particular part for their car and needed a machine that could produce it, they could go down the street and find someone who could do that kind of work. That wouldn’t have happened in other places in America at that time.”
The challenge for museum administrators is to create a facility that effectively tells that story, said Carvalho, adding that work is already underway to assemble pieces and design displays that convey what he described as a “mindset of innovation” that existed in Springfield.
“It goes beyond industry,” he explained. “Theodore Geisel took the language to places no one had taken it before. He wasn’t just a writer, he was an innovator. We want to tell that story — Springfield’s story.”
Driving Force
Projecting a few years down the road, Carvalho said the new museum will help educate people from across the Valley and across the country about the many contributions Springfield has made to the nation’s culture and industrial evolution.
But while informing visitors, he believes it will inspire them as well.
“I don’t want people, young people especially, to think that success always happens somewhere else,” he explained. “We want to show them that it happened here, and that it can happen here again.”
In that respect, he continued, the museum will go beyond showcasing innovation, and perhaps generating more of it.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
Many times, succeeding in business means changing with the times. The Porfilio family has proven that for a half-century.
When William Porfilio Sr. launched Eastern Electronics in downtown Springfield in 1957, he specialized in antenna-based communications, from paging and intercom systems to radio repair. But when cable became the dominant mode of receiving broadcasts, Porfilio knew he had to make a shift.
That’s when he changed the company name to Eastern Electronics & Security, putting more emphasis on the security side of the business, which now encompasses a wide range of services to protect and monitor homes and businesses, as well provide tools to track the attendance and productivity of a company’s workforce.
“We had to change with the times, basically,” said William Porfilio Jr., the company’s current president. Heading into its 50th year, Eastern remains a family business, with another son, Richard Porfilio, serving as vice president and Porfilio Sr. continuing to act as CEO.
“Security will always be an important part of the business,” Porfilio Jr. continued. “Companies want to keep drivers from wandering around when deliveries are made. They want to control who’s entering the building, and they want to keep track of time and attendance.”
Those efforts not only keep companies secure, he said, but also benefit their bottom line – sometimes in unexpected ways.
This issue, BusinessWest examines how Eastern Electronics & Security, now based in West Springfield, has managed to remain ahead of the curve in the rapidly changing, increasingly technology-driven field of electronic security.
Shifting Landscape
Eastern Electronics had been a player in the Pioneer Valley for more than 20 years when Porfilio Jr. joined the business in 1979, followed by Richard Porfilio in 1982. Both have been there long enough to witness workplace security trends come and go.
For example, “right after 9/11, we were doing more in the food industry, but now we work with almost all industries, and everyone has their own needs,” William Porfilio said. “Some want to prevent people from entering the building, while some are monitoring employees or keeping an eye on production.”
Whatever the industry, Eastern tends to work with mid-sized and large companies more than smaller ones, in part because larger businesses have larger security budgets and more employees and facilities to protect.
“It is a long-term expense,” Porfilio explained. “I’m not saying smaller companies aren’t interested, but most of our growth has been with companies of 100 employees and up.”
“People want all the coverage. They want protection for their whole building,” Richard Porfilio added. “But when they find out what the bottom line is, they tend to do it in phases. It’s tough to do it all in one shot.”
Fortunately, Eastern offers an array of security options – including access control badges and biometric readers, video surveillance systems, fire and security alarms, and 24-hour remote monitoring – so that companies can prioritize them according to their individual needs. Clients can also purchase a range of communications products, including nurse call systems for health care facilities, digital phone systems, and paging and evacuation systems for industrial facilities.
In all cases, Eastern works closely with a client company to identify its security and communications needs, design a system to meet those needs, and install and service that system. It’s not a business that rewards complacency, Porfilio Jr. said, since the technology that supports these products is always changing.
“Unlike 20 or 30 years ago, most of this is computer-based,” he said. “So there’s definitely a learning curve – you have to know the software and the hardware, where years ago, it was all about the hardware.”
The march of technology has ushered in some effective tools. For example, only in recent years have employers had the ability to monitor their workplace on a laptop from a vacation spot across the country.
And certainly, GPS tracking devices for vehicles and shipped products weren’t part of the business landscape 20 years ago, but that’s yet another option for companies seeking ways to monitor their operations.
“That’s a new technology, and it’s still in its infancy stage, so it’s still on the higher end, pricewise,” Porfilio Jr. said. “But it will become more affordable. It’s the same as with any new technology – it starts out expensive, but as the technology improves, the price comes down.”
A Solid Investment
The Porfilios don’t shy away from the price factor in discussing their services. “Not everyone has the budget to do some of this,” Porfilio Jr. told BusinessWest. “There is a cost. But technology also allows us to do a lot more for the money than we could 20 years ago.”
He cited one local company that hadn’t addressed its security needs in 15 years. “As it turned out,” Richard Porfilio said, “it was more cost-effective to completely upgrade it than it would have been for them to work with the old system.”
Meanwhile, “there’s a lot of junk on the market, and you get what you pay for,” Porfilio Jr. added. For that reason, he said, Eastern deals only with high-quality vendors with proven track records, so clients can be confident they will be around five or 10 years down the road.
However, the Porfilios don’t allow costs to obscure what they believe is a financial return on investment – one that extends beyond preventing theft from outside intruders.
“There’s also theft of equipment and time” by employees, Porfilio Jr. said, which is why Eastern offers a number of workplace- monitoring products. He told of one company that discovered second- and third-shift employees hiding and taking naps over a long period of time. “That may sound funny, but that’s money,” he said. “You’re paying somebody to do the work, and they’re not producing.”
In addition, swipe cards can track the movement of employees, while GPS hookups in company vehicles can determine whether drivers are spending too much time taking breaks.
“Companies don’t realize what they’re losing,” Porfilio Jr. said. “You can track how many times someone takes a cigarette break over the course of the week, and how that affects productivity. So while this technology protects employees, it’s also there for the employer, to improve his bottom line.”
After all, a healthy bottom line is the best way to secure a successful future in business – and that’s what the Porfilio family has enjoyed for almost 50 years.
A typical day for Frank Campiti includes greeting visitors to his new business, balancing the books, updating order sheets, and feeding a room full of hungry bats.
The bats — all females, he greets them with a tray of apples and oranges and a jovial “hello, girls!” — comprise just one duty Campiti has taken on in the last few months, concurrent with the grand opening of what could very well be the strangest business Western Mass. has seen in many years — Dr. Spooky’s Animal Museum in South Deerfield.
But that’s not to say that strange can’t equal successful. A long road led to what is now a popular tourist attraction, created following months of research and weeks of careful construction.
Dr. Spooky’s — essentially, a haunted castle that is home to a number of live animal exhibits and caves of dinosaur displays — started with a vague idea and a goal to capitalize on the growing tourism industry in Western Mass. But it has grown to become a unique, and indescribable, attraction — one you have to see to believe. And in the tourism industry, that’s gold.
Campiti said it was a long-held dream of his to open a tourism-based business in Western Mass. What that venture would be, he wasn’t sure, but he had a few ideas.
A veteran of the construction industry, Campiti has specialized in the past in the design and construction of themed restaurants, bars, and attractions such as haunted houses. Some of the ideas he had for a tourist attraction harkened back to his days designing large props for businesses such as Chicopee’s Hu Ke Lau restaurant, and he hoped that something creative, fun, and larger than life would serve as an effective backdrop for an educational attraction geared toward school-age children.
“I always knew I wanted to open a tourist attraction,” he said. “I knew it would be an opportunity to put together a great concept that was educational and fun.”
He admitted he also loves animals and Halloween — and both provide impetus for a business that blends the science of animal studies with the scare-value of a haunted castle. But from a business standpoint, Campiti also saw the value in creating a new attraction in a region that has turned much of its focus to tourism in recent years.
“Tourist attractions are a non-consumable product,” he explained. “There’s very little turnover in resources. I’ve been involved in the restaurant and bar business, and in that industry, every $10 you touch turns into $1.50, if you’re lucky. This is the total opposite. We built it, and the people are coming.”
Out of the Mouths of Babes
The process of securing a plot of land for what would eventually morph into Dr. Spooky’s began in the spring of 2004. Campiti eventually chose to lease a site adjacent to and owned by the New England Candle Company on Greenfield Road in South Deerfield, a throughway already booming with several successful tourist attractions and businesses, including the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory and Yankee Candle Company.
Still, the business plan was nebulous, and Campiti, along with his wife, Kathleen, turned to what they viewed as their core audience to seal the deal.
“I had some ideas as to what I wanted to do,” he said, “but the real plans started to form after we surveyed students in the Springfield school system, and asked them what they would want to see.”
The students surveyed were in grades 2 through 8, and were given a brief set of questions meant to gauge where the most interest would fall within a cross-section of children in many age groups.
Students were given the choice, for example, of three potential themes for an attraction that would also include a strong educational focus, such as an archeological dig site, a mad scientists’ laboratory, or a haunted castle (the choice was clear). They were also asked what types of exhibits they’d like to see within the setting of their choosing, and the overwhelming response — Campiti said about 87% — was live animals, as well as some exhibits pertaining to prehistoric animals and dinosaurs.
Thus, the concept for Dr. Spooky’s was born — a haunted castle, complete with a graveyard, a creepy backyard (that doubles as a snack bar) and a series of sprawling caves that lead to dinosaur exhibits.
Campiti has been involved with all aspects of the business, from brainstorming a theme to actually executing the design inside. He said he and Kathleen traveled across the country visiting museums, tourist attractions, and other sites, in search of inspiration, but has yet to find an attraction that is similar to Dr. Spooky’s. That posed a challenge when it came time to begin design and construction work in the building’s interior — with such a unique business model, blueprints went out the window early on.
“That was the hardest thing, not having a set plan for exactly what the inside was going to be,” he said. “How could we? We were talking about something that just didn’t exist.”
Campiti said he and fellow construction and design workers literally walked through the building over and over again, deciding what could be placed where. He said he knew there were some design aspects he wanted at Dr. Spooky’s, such as a lot of overhangs, tunnels, and walk-throughs, that would take away from the cavernous feeling of the building.
With that in mind, corners was filled with sprawling trees, a statue perched on a throne took up residence in the lobby, and two giants clasping hands were constructed to create an entryway.
Construction was completed in November of 2005. Campiti added that Dr. Spooky’s operates on the land with the benefit of what he termed “a very long-term lease,” and with great cooperation from owner Henry Komosa and from area businesses and municipal entities.
“There’s a definite acceptance of new business in South Deerfield,” he said. “People want to see new businesses take off, and they’re fair and helpful. The town told us what we needed to do, and helped us to do it.”
The true test of the business came not long after Dr. Spooky’s opened its castle doors. Area schools closed for Christmas vacation, and Campiti said that without any marketing efforts, the business saw its first boom, and word-of-mouth began to spread. Last month, during February vacation, Dr. Spooky’s matched the success seen in December — and went on to triple its revenues.
Of Mice and Men
Campiti said word-of-mouth works in the case of Dr. Spooky’s because people try to explain what it is they’ve seen to friends and family, and end up merely saying “you just have to go there.”
He admits that even for him, Dr. Spooky’s is impossible to adequately describe. Indeed, there’s a lot going on behind the towering castle façade of the building. But the educational exhibits of live animals and of dinosaur replicas, the haunted castle theme, even Dr. Spooky himself — he’s a character who gives three lessons throughout the course of a visit, from a screen in the center of the building called the Magic Mirror — are tied together by one common bond: sheer and utter creepiness.
Upon entering Dr. Spooky’s, guests are greeted by a towering skeleton, who points the way to the ticket counter. Staff members assure visitors that the hoots and hollers they hear are merely the live animals in the exhibits, and all of those are friendly. Visitors then begin the journey down a winding path that walks them through a series of animal exhibits, all separated by animal groups — from the simplest invertebrate, to mammals of all sizes. It’s this aspect of Dr. Spooky’s, Campiti said, which has been most attractive to school groups; the exhibits follow lines similar to a middle-school biology curriculum.
But the animals aren’t your run of the mill lions, tigers, and bears. Instead, guests learn about various species by studying creatures such as poison dart frogs and African pygmy mice.
After a visit with Dr. Spooky, the journey continues through a series of caves that feature replicas of dinosaur teeth and claws. A massive quetzalcoatlus – which means flying dragon – looms overhead, and the visit ends in a large, military style-tent, where nervous visitors enter and stand, perplexed for just a minute — until they start at the sound of a T-Rex roar ‘outside’ and jump as the ground beneath them begins to shake.
Campiti said the entire attraction was designed to incorporate a lot of educational information under one roof, but in a setting that would resemble more an incredible field trip than a lesson in school.
“A lot of places that have exhibits with a lot of information are kind of boring,” he said. “Others are fun but aren’t educational. I wanted to do both – an educational experience, but in another world.”
Bats in the Belfry
That’s a world that now includes a varied set of responsibilities for Campiti, including answering questions about the many animals at Dr. Spooky’s as well as feeding them regularly. During that school vacation week last month, he often found himself performing both tasks at the same time, as he prepared dishes of food for the bats and answered a visitor’s question about a nearby dwarf possum.
It’s busy times like those that help convince Campiti that the utterly unique business he’s created at Dr. Spooky’s has some teeth — maybe even fangs.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
Clad in bright sweatshirts and comfortable walking shoes, four of the Eastfield Mall’s veteran mall walkers list the many benefits of participating in the well-known fitness activity.
Good exercise, improved health, and free gifts top the list.
But it has taken more than the occasional chotchke to keep the nationally known phenomenon in place for decades – welcoming thousands of participants during that time.
Many people hear of mall walkers, but never see them – most arrive at the mall before the stores open to get their laps in before the hallways get crowded. Still, there are mall-walkers like those who meet each morning at the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, and organized groups like the Eastfield Mall Walkers Club scattered across the country. The groups entitle members to a number of perks – many free – in addition to early-morning walking privileges.
Physicians routinely recommend mall walking as an easy, inexpensive way to improve health through regular exercise, especially for seniors, and as an alternative to pricey gym memberships or unsafe walking conditions outside.
As part of that focus on improving health, many malls have taken steps to become more involved in the promotion of mall-walking benefits. Some measure out how many laps it takes to complete anywhere between one and five miles, allowing walkers to easily gauge how much exercise they’re getting. One lap around the Eastfield Mall, for instance, is five-eighths of a mile, and each level at the Holyoke Mall is three-quarters of a mile, so walkers can start slowly and work up to the level of exercise with which they’re comfortable.
Malls also often provide an informational packet when new members register and information sessions regularly, which include tips to maximize a workout – start slowly, pace yourself, maintain good posture, talk while walking (if you’re out of breath, you’re going too fast), cool down at the end our your workout, and have fun.
Talking the Talk
Lisa Wray, marketing director for the Holyoke Mall, said mall walkers are a constant fixture.
“We open our doors early, at 6 a.m., for mall walkers, but they are in and out throughout the entire day,” she said, adding that it can be hard to pin down an exact number of how many walkers pass through each day. “I would say hundreds walk throughout the week.”
As any mall walker will tell you, however, membership in a mall-walkers club entitles one to much more than access to a safe, warm place to exercise, at no cost.
Rather, many programs have evolved to include weekly health-related presentations, mini health fairs, annual get-togethers, discounts at mall stores, free gifts, breakfasts, and more.
Members of the Mall Walkers Club at the Eastfield Mall routinely brainstorm new ideas for programs, featured speakers, or events planned around mall walking – most are health related and take place in the morning. In addition to walking, free health presentations attract hundreds of guests.
“There’s always someone who comes in to talk with us and the programs are great,” said Warren Hudson of Indian Orchard, one of the club’s most seasoned walkers – he and his wife Jackie have been walkers since the club’s inception 18 years ago, even walking the perimeter of the building before an expansion was completed. “We’ve heard talks on every subject you can imagine – from Alzheimer’s to nutrition, and Social Security to changes in health insurance. It’s very informative, and all geared toward health. We even get our blood pressure checked twice a month.”
Those presentations are often held in partnership with local health care providers and businesses. Wray said programs are held in conjunction with Baystate Health at the Holyoke Mall, providing speakers to educate walkers through free presentations.
And according to Carolyn Varnadore, marketing associate at the Eastfield Mall, the Baystate Visiting Nurse Assoc. and Hospice and Baystate Senior Class, both aspects of the Baystate Health system, are the primary sponsors of the free health presentations at the mall. Meanwhile, quarterly health fairs are currently sponsored by Redstone Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in East Longmeadow and Springfield’s Boston Road Stop & Shop.
“We’re very proud of our mall walkers,” said Varnadore. “They are a wonderful group of people and a great addition to the Eastfield Mall, and we are always trying to add to the program for them.”
And the walkers themselves often participate in talks regarding improvements at the mall, she said, adding that they serve as a sort of built-in market research group and sounding board. As constant visitors to the mall, they weigh in on general issues concerning mall management and security, including safety, services for customers, and accessibility for the handicapped, children, or the elderly.
Jackie Hudson said she recommended, for instance, getting an indoor entrance installed within the mall leading to the 99 Restaurant.
“Before, you had to go outside, and it wasn’t as safe,” she said, noting that the improvement had an effect not only on safety at the mall, but also patronage at the restaurant, at least among her high-stepping associates. “We go there all the time now. It’s much easier.”
Ease on Down
But one of the most valuable aspects of the program, according to Janice Jones of Springfield, a four-year veteran walker at the Eastfield Mall, is the camaraderie.
“We all come to know each other,” she said. “We may not know your name at first, but we know the face, because we pass by walking, wave, and say ‘hello.’ It’s a very friendly atmosphere.”
Jones said she began walking as part of the Mall Walkers Club shortly after retiring.
“I didn’t know what was on television during the day, so I took some time to sit and relax, and bought all of my favorite snacks,” she explained. “Sure enough, my cholesterol shot up.”
Jones’ physician recommended walking, and soon thereafter she began regularly walking at the mall, her cholesterol lowered. The new friendships and the regular programs to look forward to help keep her going, she said.
Claire Lebel of Ludlow said her doctor also recommended walking, and advised mall walking over outdoor exercise, because her neighborhood doesn’t include safe sidewalks.
Lebel said she was skeptical of mall walking at first.
“He told me I should try mall walking, and I didn’t want to go alone,” she said, “but there were some other ladies in Ludlow that were in a club of their own and they asked me if I wanted to join. I made my mind up that I was going to do this and stick to it, so I came to the mall early one morning, and never stopped.”
Lebel added that walking does more than improve her health – it takes her mind off of her problems as well.
“You come in and sometimes you’re half asleep,” she joked, “but there’s always someone to say ‘good morning,’ and that’s a great feeling. It gets your day off to a good start and that’s important, because it stays with you all day long.”
The Finish Line
The mission of the club is still the exercise component, however, and those walkers who spoke with BusinessWest are all firm believers in mall walking as a fitness regimen that promotes overall wellness of the mind, body, and spirit.
In addition to Jones’ cholesterol numbers going down, Lebel’s health has also improved, and as she looks at a photo from a recent health fair, she smiles as she spots herself and her friends.
And Jackie and Warren Hudson have slightly different evidence of the health and longevity their mall walking has helped along.
“We’ll be married 58 years in June,” they say together with broad smiles, as Jackie jokingly waves a gold-ringed fist in the air, and Warren tightens the lace on his sneaker.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
Just when you thought it was safe to put HIPAA aside, another deadline looms just around the corner.
The privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) became effective for most health care providers, health care clearinghouses, and health plans on April 14, 2003. Now, three years later, those health plans that had to comply with the HIPAA privacy rule by April 14, 2003 will need to send a notice to its members by April 14, 2006 of the availability of its Notice of Privacy Practices.
Defining Privacy
The privacy rule protects health information from being disclosed without the individual’s authorization in most instances. There are several exceptions. These exceptions include a disclosure that must be made by the health care provider or the health plan for 1) treatment (i.e. a doctor may disclose an individual’s health information to another health care provider), 2) payment (i.e. a doctor may disclose health information to obtain payment from the health plan), or 3) health care operations (i.e. a health plan may disclose health information to its attorney when defending a claim for denial of coverage).
HIPAA allows disclosure of health information in other limited instances such as when: there is a threat to health or safety; the disclosure is needed to comply with legal duties; a government agency enforces state or federal regulations; the disclosure is needed during judicial and administrative proceedings, etc. These exceptions have additional safeguards that prevent unnecessary disclosures. Health care providers, health care clearinghouses, and health plans must provide a notice to the individual about how and when certain disclosures may occur. This notice is called the Notice of Privacy Practices.
Giving Notice
The Notice of Privacy Practices is a list of how the health plan will use and protect the patient’s health information. An individual has a right to adequate notice of the health plan’s legal duties with respect to the individual’s health information. The health plan must provide notification to the individual through the Notice of Privacy Practices.
A health plan is defined under HIPAA as an individual or a group plan that provides or pays the cost of medical care. Examples of health plans include employee benefit plans, health insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, nursing home insurance companies, Medicaid, Medicare, and state child health plans. Under HIPAA, these organizations had to send an initial Notice of Privacy Practices to their enrollees by April 14, 2003. Thereafter, the health plan must notify individuals at least every three years of the availability of the Notice of Privacy Practices and how to obtain it. If you are responsible for an entity that must comply with the privacy rule, now is a good time to re-examine the entity’s Notice of Privacy Practices and make any revisions that might be needed. The following is a review of the requirements for the Notice of Privacy Practices.
The Notice of Privacy Practices must have a header that states “THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.” It also must contain a description and one example of the disclosure of health information for treatment, payment, and heath care operations and a description of other purposes that HIPAA permits the health plan to disclose health information without the individual’s written authorization.
The Notice of Privacy Practices must contain a statement that other uses and disclosures will be made only with the individual’s written authorization and that the individual may revoke such authorization to the extent that it has not been relied on.
Additionally, if the entity intends to use the individual’s health information for appointment reminders, information about treatment alternatives, or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to the individual, raising funds, disclosure to the plan sponsor (i.e. employer), then the Notice of Privacy Practices must have individual statements that specifically explain that these disclosures may occur.
The Notice of Privacy Practices must also describe the individual’s rights and how the individual may exercise these rights. In this respect, the notice must contain statements that the individual has a right to: 1) place restrictions on the disclosure of health information but that the health plan is not required to agree to a requested restriction; 2) receive confidential communications of health information; 3) inspect and copy his or her health information; 4) amend his or her health information; 5) receive an accounting of disclosures, and 6) request and receive a paper copy of the Notice of Privacy Practices.
Furthermore, the Notice of Privacy Practices must contain statements that the health plan is required by law to maintain the privacy of the individual’s health information and provide notice to the individual of its legal duties and privacy practices. The document must also explain that the health plan is required to abide by the terms of its Notice of Privacy Practices currently in effect. The health plan must describe how it will provide a revised notice, if there is a change in the health plan’s privacy practices. Also, if the health plan intends to apply a change to the health information that was created prior to a revised notice, the Notice of Privacy Practices must reserve the right to change the terms of its notice and to make the new notice provisions effective for all health information that it maintains.
Other mandatory statements include: the name or title and telephone number of a person or office to contact for further information or to file a complaint; how to file a complaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services; and the date on which the notice becomes effective, which cannot be earlier than the date on which the notice is printed or published.
If the health plan, health care provider, or health clearinghouse makes a material change to either its uses or disclosures, the individual’s rights, the health plan’s legal duties, or other privacy practices, the Notice of Privacy Practices must promptly be revised to reflect the change.
A material change may not be put into practice before the effective date of the revised notice. If there is a material revision to the Notice of Privacy Practices, the entity must provide a revised Notice to individuals within 60 days of the material revision.
Sticking to the Plan
A health plan must provide a Notice of Privacy Practice to each new enrollee. The health plan satisfies the notice requirement by providing the Notice to the named insured of a policy. If a health plan has more than one Notice of Privacy Practice, it must provide the Notice that is relevant to the individual or other person who requests the Notice.
A group health plan that provides health benefits only through an insurance contract with a health insurance issuer or HMO and receives or creates health information, summary health information, or information on whether the individual is participating in the group health plan, must maintain a Notice of Privacy Practice and provide the notice to the individual upon request. A group health plan that provides health benefits only through an insurance contract with a health insurance issuer or HMO and does not create or receive health information is not required to maintain or provide a Notice of Privacy Practice. Both of these types of group health plans are exempt from providing notice every three years.
It is prudent to review your Notice of Privacy Practices on a routine interval to be sure it accurately reflects your entity’s information. The entity will need to revise its Notice of Privacy Practices if the entity moved to a different location, merged with another entity, changed ownership, changed privacy practices, designated a new contact person for HIPAA privacy issues or made other significant changes.
Minding Your Business
If your business is a health plan, you need to provide notice to enrollees by April 14, 2006 of the availability of your Notice of Privacy Practices. It is important to have a Notice of Privacy Practices that contains the correct information for the entity. The penalties for HIPAA violations can amount to thousands of dollars per incident.
Don’t be caught off guard.
June M. Sullivan, Esq. is an attorney with the Hartford-based firm Halloran & Sage LLP specializing in health care law, defense of health care providers, risk managment, and HIPAA compliance; (860) 241-4077.
Pat Montgomery says his job is be to the face of the MassMutual Center. By that he means it’s his responsibility to build the relationships and partnerships needed to make the $71 million facility a success, while also doing whatever it takes to provide event organizers and convention planners with a positive experience.
Pat Montgomery says the community of promoters and meeting and convention planners is a small, fairly close-knit group.
“They all know each other and they like to talk and compare notes,” he told BusinessWest. “That’s why you want them saying good things about you.”
Creating such positive talk could be considered a very broad job description for Montgomery, who last summer became general manager of the MassMutual Center, which opened its doors in October.
And that means that he’ll definitely be earning his keep this month.
Indeed, by the time March is over, there will be considerable talk within meeting and convention circles about Springfield and its new, $71 million convention center. Events on tap range from an auto show to a performance by Larry the Cable Guy; the Division II men’s basketball finals to Disney on Ice; the Governor’s Council on Travel and Tourism conference to a Motley Crue concert.
“It’s a big month … we’re going to be really busy,” said Montgomery, adding that the packed schedule brings both challenge and opportunity. The former will come in both the number and diversity of the various events — on a few dates there are big shows going on simultaneously in the arena and the convention floor — while the latter involves the potential for generating large amounts of that favorable talk he referred to.
“It’s all about creating a positive experience, and a lot goes into that,” he explained, adding that his broad assignment is to make Springfield and the region ‘convention-ready.’
To successfully carry out that assignment, Mongtomery said he and his staff must build a number of relationships and partnerships with groups and organizations that range from the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau (GSCVB) to the city’s police department; the Spirit of Springfield to area hotel managers.
It is through such partnerships that the MassMutual Center can meet the financial goals set by the Mass. Convention Center Authority, which owns the building, and also make the Pioneer Valley a viable tourist and convention destination, said Montgomery, who added that as GM, he acts as the ‘face’ of the facility.
Elaborating, he said that means he’s very visible — in the building and in the community — and interfacing with a number of constituencies, from audience members to Chamber of Commerce leaders. This is an evolving role, one that Montgomery, who came to Springfield and the MassMutual Center from the Liacouras Center at Temple University in Philadelphia, says he’s growing into.
“This is a great opportunity for me … it’s been wonderful learning experience,” he said, adding that his education will no doubt be enhanced by the crowded March schedule. “Every day, every show, brings something new.”
BusinessWest looks this month at the many aspects of Montgomery’s new assignment, and how he goes about the task of putting his facility, and the region as a whole, on the map.
Pinning Him Down
Like most people, Mongtomery doesn’t exactly understand the attraction of professional wrestling. “I don’t get it personally, but to each his own,” he said, adding quickly that he was there, in the front row, for the December Smackdown put on by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the publicly traded conglomerate headed by Vince McMahon.
He wasn’t exactly taking in the action on the mat, though. Rather, he was doing what he does at every event staged at the facility — watching, listening, and doing everything in his power to make sure organizers leave with smiles on their faces.
“That show was amazing,” Mont-gomery said of the Smackdown, referring not to the wrestling per se, but the scope of the production staged by the WWE. “There were giant screens and this huge metal fist they brought in — it was great a show and a real test for us, one that we passed easily.”
Each show tests Montgomery and his staff of 22 in some way, be it parking, traffic, lighting, logistics, or making sure the carbon dioxide levels are within safe limits at the recent monster truck show. “Each event is different, and each one presents us unique challenges,” he explained. “That’s what makes this work fun and, in many ways, rewarding.”
Montgomery was drawn to the field of arena management as an undergraduate at Temple. He later earned a master’s degree in Sports Administration at the school and started his career as event manager and assistant general manager of the Liacouras Center.
That’s one of 40 arenas (the Mullins Center at UMass is another) managed by Philadelphia-based Global Spectrum, a subsidiary of ComCast and the world’s second largest management, consulting, and event development company for public assembly facilities. That category includes stadiums, ice rinks, and exposition centers, as well as convention centers in Palm Beach and Miami, Fla., Richmond, Va., Pueblo, Colo., and other cities.
That list grew by one last summer when the Mass. Convention Center Authority chose Global Spectrum to manage the MassMutual Center. Montgomery sought to come from Springfield because the facility here represents a larger, sterner challenge.
“This has both an arena and a convention center,” he explained. “This is a bigger, better facility that will provide me with experience in putting on a wide array of shows and events.”
The center’s first four months in business offer a glimpse of that diversity. In addition to the wrestling and monster truck shows, the facility hosted two performances of Dora the Explorer, a Martina McBride concert (the first sold-out concert in Springfield in more than 15 years), the Harlem Globetrotters, and several other events.
Work staging those shows has helped prep the MassMutual Center staff for its own version of March Madness.
The month started with the Inter-national Auto Showcase, a giant car show staged in the exhibition hall Feb. 28-March 1, as well as shows of Monsters, Inc. Disney on Ice and the March 6 Motley Crue concert. Other events on tap include:
- The Northeast Campground Asso-ciation’s regional industry trade show and conference;
- The NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball finals and Elite Eight Division II Men’s Basketball tournament;
- The annual Mass. Governor’s Conference on Travel and Tourism;
- A performance by Larry the Cable Guy, who offers what is called ‘redneck humor’; and
- The annual conference of MATHWEST, the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Western Mass.
The March events at the MassMutual Center will complement others in the area during the month, including a conference of the Mass. Municipal Auditors and Accountants at UMass, a gathering of New England District Key Clubs at Springfield’s Marriott and Sheraton Hotels, and a conference of the New England Cheerleading Assoc., expected to bring 3,500 people to Western New England College.
The sum of the various events is expected to generate, by the GSCVB’s estimates, more than 32,000 visitors to the region, nearly 5,000 room nights, and close to $1.2 million in overall economic impact.
“March will give us a great opportunity to introduce some people to Springfield and the region, and let them see that we can put on a good show,” said Montgomery, adding that the generation of positive experiences is a process, one that requires teamwork and cooperation.
Working in Concert …
As he gave BusinessWest a quick tour of the MassMutual Center and its many different facilities, Montgomery, referring to the designers and contractors, said, “they did it right.”
By that, he meant that the facility and its specific parts, from the arena bowl to the smaller meeting rooms, were designed and built to be user-friendly and to solve problems, not create them.
“This facility has all the bells and whistles, starting with the scoreboard — it definitely creates a ‘wow’ factor,” he explained, “but beyond that, it was designed with the users in mind. The designers anticipated virtually every need, from where to put electrical outlets on down the list, and they addressed them; it’s a great asset for the region.”
But the building itself is only part of the equation when it comes to making the MassMutual Center successful and able to meet its stated goals — generating revenue for both the Mass. Convention Center Authority and the region as a whole.
Other components include an aggressive sales strategy that focuses on selling not merely the MassMutual Center or the city of Springfield, but the region itself; continued building of partnerships within the broad tourism and hospitality sector in the region; and working to break through the perception that Springfield is a troubled city.
Competing cities, including Worcester, Lowell, Providence, and Hartford, no doubt help to create that perception, said Montgomery, noting that the business of attracting shows and conventions is like any other — it’s cut-throat. What Springfield must do, he continued, is counter those perceptions by addressing its issues with regard to crime and budget deficits, while also generating solid reviews within the meeting and convention community.
“We have to create a good name for ourselves … that’s how you break through the perception problems we have,” he explained. “And you do that by making sure that when people leave, they have a good taste in their mouths.
“You want to develop a good reputation,” he continued, “you want to have people saying ‘they do a really good job there, they took good care of us.”
Thus far, Montgomery believes he and his staff — and the many other players involved in bringing conventions and events to the region — have created positive talk about Springfield and its facility.
“The wrestling people loved us — they want to come back,” he said, noting that return visits will be one good barometer of how the MassMutual center is meeting or exceeding expectations. Another will be the number of new events that are gained through positive word-of-mouth referrals.
Using concerts as an example, he expects that promoters will look at both the numbers from the Martina McBride show and the smoothness of that concert and conclude that Springfield is ready and able to handle more of such shows.
“We had a lot of positive press from that event, and a lot of E-mails and letters from people who attended saying they had a good time,” he said. “That all helps to create that reputation you’re looking for.”
Closing Number
Montgomery said he attends virtually every event at the MassMutual Center. That includes Martina McBride, the monster trucks, and Dora the Explorer.
“It can wear you out a little, but it’s one of the things that makes the job fun,” he explained, adding that by attending in person he can get the look and feel of an event from a spectator’s perspective.
That’s just one of many aspects of being the ‘face’ of the facility and one of the strategies being employed to create positive experiences and, as Montgomery put it, “getting people to say good things about you.”
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
Springfield-based Spalding has been making a name for itself in recent years for essentially re-engineering the common basketball. It started with a product that placed the inflating pump inside the ball itself, and continued with the introduction last fall of something called the Never Flat™, a ball that is guaranteed not to deflate. The product has met with solid early reviews, and sales for the company have been anything but flat.
When Bob Llewellyn talks about concerns over inflation, he’s not referring to the economy and the threat of price increases that Alan Greenspan spent a career working to minimize.
No, he’s talking about filling a ball with air or, to be more specific, the challenge of keeping one filled.
Over time, air will eventually leak out, he explained, adding that this has been a long-time problem for many consumers; people often put their pump and inflating needle in a special place — and then forget where that is.
They may never need to remember, thanks to a new product rolled out (literally) by Springfield-based Spalding last fall. It’s called the NEVER FLAT basketball, a name that is also a slight exaggeration.
The ball stays inflated 10 times longer than a traditional basketball, said Llewellyn, Spalding’s director of Consumer Marketing and Business Analysis, noting that this amounts o perhaps 15 months or so, longer than the lifespan of many balls.
So, in that respect, the ball often never does go flat, he said, adding that the product has become a real hit with retailers and consumers alike. Meanwhile, the new science involved, which includes proprietary pressure-retention technologies and, in essence, changes the air inside the ball, has been nominated for several sports-innovation-related honors.
Indeed, for Spalding, the ball represents another step forward in the use of new technology to improve product quality and enhance sales, said Llewellyn. Five years ago, the company introduced a product called Infusion, which features technology that builds an inflating pump into the ball.
It was introduced with basketballs, but was eventually incorporated into new models in football, volleyball, and soccer lines, he explained, adding that Never Flat, which goes one step further — virtually eliminating the need for a pump — will likely be used in other Spalding products as well.
For now, though, the focus is on the basketball realm, where the Never Flat gives Spalding a real opportunity to expand market share by giving consumers even more options, said Christy Hedgpeth, a former college and pro player who now serves as Spalding’s senior manager of basketball marketing.
Gesturing to a display in the company’s main conference room featuring dozens of different styles and colors of basketball, she said Spalding has greatly increased its number of skews in recent years, a strategy that has succeeded it giving it roughly half of all basketball sales.
The Never Flat will complement the existing portfolio, not render other models, such as Infusion, obsolete, she explained.
“We want to establish is the notion that no matter what price point they may be looking at, people can rely on Spalding,” she explained. “Hopefully, we’ll have something to meet the needs of everyone looking for a basketball; that’s how we’ll gain market share.”
BusinessWest looks this issue at how this new product is helping Spalding in its broader mission to become a stronger, more versatile sporting goods company.
Pressure Points
Lebron James, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and other NBA players were the real standouts of the NBA All-Star game and related festivities staged last month in Houston.
But there was another, far less heralded, individual putting up some impressive numbers.
Like 26.5. That’s the number of continuous hours that Joseph Odhiambo dribbled a basketball during a special promotion during all-star week, a performance good enough to break a Guinness world record. He eclipsed another one two days later when he spun a ball on his finger for a continuous four hours and 15 minutes, shattering the old mark by 16 minutes.
He accomplished both feats with a Never Flat ball, said Hedgpeth, noting that one was also in use when students from Duke and the University of North Carolina squared off in record-breaking 58-hour basketball game staged in mid-January. The final score was 3,688-3,444, with Duke prevailing. Also tallied, sort of, was the number of times the ball bounced. Using an average-bounces-per-minute multiplier, the final number was projected at 125,000.
These exhibitions and others — Never Flats were used in recent attempts to break the Guinness records for most free throws and three-point shots made in one minute — are part of a broad campaign to introduce the ball to consumers, said Hedgpeth. All-star weekend was the perfect launch platform, she explained, noting that the various events and exhibits — and Spalding had a presence at all of them — were attended by more than 120,000 people.
They took in Odhiambo’s efforts at a facility called the ‘Spalding Record Setting Court,’ and also were exposed to banners, video promotions, and a host of other marketing strategies. “The ball was everywhere people looked,” she said.
To top things off, the company gave a Never Flat ball to an entire section of fans at the Toyota Center during the All-star game— an estimated 200-250 people.
What these individuals took home looked just like a normal basketball — on the surface. Inside, of course, things are much different, and this is what allows the ball to take its name.
Left on a shelf or a ball rack, the average basketball will eventually lose air, Llewellyn explained, noting that the recommended pressure for a ball is 7 to 9 pounds per square inch, and that over the course of a year that number will fall to 3 or 4 psi. Looking at it another way, he said a basketball will fall out of game-ball specifications in three months.
These numbers provide the primary motivation for the Never Flat, which was developed over the course of only a few months through a partnership between Spalding and Primo Innovations, an invention laboratory started by two materials scientists, Dan Sandusky and Michael O’Neill, after they left DuPont. The product attacks air loss through several changes in basic basketball design.
First, the scientists addressed air loss through solid membranes by reducing the porosity of the ball’s internal bladder through the incorporation of new materials that reduce the size and number of holes in the bladder. Next, Primo’s team addressed air leakage from the standard ball’s rubber valve by incorporating a removable plug. The hole in a valve is tiny, said Llewellyn, but air can still get through. Meanwhile, the plug keeps dirt from getting into the valve, further reducing the loss of air.
But the biggest change is to the air inside the ball itself.
Primo developed a proprietary gaseous concoction called NitroFlate. It is comprised of a mix of large and small gas molecules that effectively block the exits used by air molecules as they try to escape through the pores in the ball’s inner membrane.
The combination of these ingredients has produced a ball that lives up to its name, said Llewellyn, adding that the Never Flat exemplifies Spalding’s ongoing work to take the hassles out of playing a sport, but preserving its core aspects.
“The company has adopted the slogan ‘True to the Game’ to describe the products it brings on the shelves,” he explained, “and Never Flat builds on that reputation.”
The new technology has gained the attention of Popular Science, which made it a semi-finalist in its ‘Sports Edge Product of the Year’ competition, and by the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Assoc. (SGMA) which made it one of five finalists for ‘New Sports Product of the Year.’ It is competing against, among other things, a treadmill, an elliptical machine, and a sports bra that comes complete with a heart monitor.
Round Numbers
What the Never Flat technology allows consumers and (soon) college and high school equipment managers to do is forget about the needle and pump. And if that sounds like a big step forward in sports technology — it is, said Llewellyn.
And this was reflected in the reaction by retailers when they were first shown the ball and told about its performance capabilities last fall.
“They all wanted to know when they could get the ball, how many, and if they could have exclusivity,” he said, adding that the product made its retail debut at a Dick’s sporting goods store in Danvers, Mass.
That launch time, around Thanksgiving, is a period when stores are loading up for the holidays and floor and display space is at a premium. “But for this ball, they made space on the shelves,” he explained.
And the balls moved off the shelves as well. Spalding saw its market share in the basketball market jump from just over 40% to nearly 55% in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, said Llewellyn, noting that the share dropped back to the mid-40s in the subsequent months, which are generally slow when it comes to sporting goods sales.
Things pick up in the early spring, however, as the weather gets warmer and March Madness and, later, the NBA playoffs commence, said Hedgpeth, adding that Spalding will utilize the marketing slogan ‘enhanced performance under pressure’ to convey how the ball and the individuals using it can perform.
The company is gearing up for the spring with a series of promotional strategies, including print ads, in-arena marketing, as Hedgpeth called it, and a recently debuted television commercial featuring Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce.
Produced in conjunction with Lenox-based Winstanley Associates, the commercial was crafted in a way that seeks to take the target audience (12- to 24-year-old males) inside the basketball. Describing the effects used in creating the ad, Winstanley’s Creative Director Ralph Frisina said they had a dual mission.
“They needed to be so descriptive as to be scientific,” he explained, “yet cool enough to elicit a ‘wow, did you see that?’ reaction.”
Whether total sales volume will eventually wow Spalding executives remains to be seen, but if the Infusion’s performance is any indication — the company projected first-year sales of 250,000 and then sold nearly 1 million — the Never Flat will do well.
“We’re very confident that consumers will embrace this ball because it solves what is, for many, a real problem,” said Llewellyn, who declined to release specific sales goals or projections. “We know this product is a winner.”
A New Spin
As part of its broad promotional strategy for the Never Flat, Spalding supplied retailers with displays that let the consumer know exactly how long the ball they were considering would go before losing perfect pressure and game-ball status.
It reads ‘374 days, 04 hours, and 21 minutes,’ and was calculated to account for several days or even weeks on the store shelf before purchase.
Early indications are that most of the balls won’t be in the store that long. The product, and the technology, seem to be scoring points where it counts the most — the court of public opinion.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
With a number of recent expansion projects completed and more on the horizon, the national reach of Westover Air Reserve Base is extending rapidly. Rather than becoming more withdrawn from the community as the military steps up operations at the base, however, Westover is becoming even more integral to the Western Mass. Economy, bringing more visitors, more industrial activity, and most importantly, more jobs to the Valley.
It could be viewed as a town within a city.
Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee is the workplace of over 2,400 Air Force reservists and 600 civilian employees, including 50 active air force pilots. It’s home to the 439th Airlift Wing – capable of providing worldwide air movement of troops, supplies, equipment, and medical patients, and airdrop and combat off-load operations.
In terms of land area, Westover is the largest Air Force Reserve base in the country. In terms of staff, military and otherwise, it’s ranked third. In addition to its winding maze of internal roadways, building complexes, and airfields, Westover also features living quarters, food service facilities, and a full-scale bowling alley – it’s the only reserve base in the country with such an amenity.
It even has its own Galaxy – nickname to Westover’s fleet of 16 C-5 cargo aircraft.
But despite its breadth within the guarded gates, Westover is not an island within the Western Mass. landscape. As the base continues to grow, following a pattern that began shortly after 9/11 when the base’s importance to national security was realized more fully by the U.S. military, its relevance to the local economy has also become that much more prevalent. With a greater part to play in national security comes a greater influx of federal dollars, to fund increases in personnel, services, and facilities.
All of those initiatives lead to new jobs – both in the civilian and military sectors – and a trickle-down effect that benefits many businesses in Chicopee and across Western Mass., both directly and indirectly.
Major Patrick S. Ryan, deputy mission support commander at Westover, calls the phenomenon the “municipal-military bond.”
“The old paradigm that a military base must stand apart and separate from the community in which it functions is dead,” he explained. “Just like any other business, we need to consistently attract more and better employees, and being an active part of the Western Mass. community helps us do that.”
A Changing Skyline
Indeed, since 2001, some major additions and renovations have been undertaken at the base; some are being completed now, and others are slated to begin in the coming years.
One of the largest projects on the drawing board will be in response to the Army’s decision to constuct a three-building complex to house an Army regimental headquarters, bringing upwards of 1,000 new personnel. The details are still unclear in regard to the expansion, which is scheduled to begin in 2007, but Ryan noted that 1,000 is a cautious number in terms of additional staff and reservists.
“The Navy SeaBees will also be moving into a new facility here, and that will bring a 400-man battalion to the base,” he added, noting that change will come further on in the future, in 2008 or early 2009.
But other changes to the base are expected to begin this month, including the addition of a new base operations building, made possible by a recent surge of federal dollars following an emergency insertion by Sen. Edward Kennedy.
In addition, a new security forces building officially opened in January, after construction that began in 2003 was completed to construct a new home for the 140-member 439th Security Forces Squadron, allowing them to move out of the World War II-era building they once occupied. The base’s gym and dining hall are also both currently under construction.
Those projects are the latest in an ongoing surge of facility upgrades and additions in both staff and services at Westover that Ryan said began following 9/11, but has continued in part due to the base’s role in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“We are the closest base to Europe in the nation, so that means we can transport more cargo using less fuel,” he explained. “That becomes increasingly important during times that movements are happening on a large scale. We are also a reserve base with a large faction of seasoned, experienced personnel, some of whom have been here for 10 to 20 years and have an incredible depth of understanding in their field. People come here to tap into that experience – to tap into us when structuring movements such as Iraqi Freedom, or relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina.”
In 2001, for instance, the 2nd Lt. Michael J. Casey Reserve Training Center was constructed, moving all Marine offices at Westover into one facility, and a Military Entry and Processing Station (MEPS) was also built in 2001, replacing the former, smaller facility once located in downtown Springfield. The facility at Westover now serves as a physical and career testing and processing center for new or potential recruits, and serves not only Western Mass., but Connecticut, Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire as well. There is only one other MEPS in the state, Ryan said, in Boston.
“The MEPS is definitely busy,” he said, noting that when recruits or potential recruits visit the base for testing and processing, they’re using all of the base’s lodging, meal, and recreation services, as well as patronizing area businesses outside of the base.
Like a Good Neighbor
That’s a trend he said will continue as the base grows and expands, but the importance of the base to the local economy, as it expands on a level of national importance, is much larger than a few reservists grabbing dinner at a local eatery.
“Overall, our growth in the past four or five years has been exponential. We’ve had good luck with receiving (federal) money for construction projects, and a lot of that was driven by 9/11,” said Ryan. “At any given time, we have thousands of people living or working here, and those people are using the resources available to them in the community.”
Conversely, the base is an increasingly valuable asset to the surrounding community, as well. For one, the base provides those 600 full-time civilian jobs, ranging from maintenance crews to engineers to civilian flying operations personnel.
But the base has also been instrumental in other career-oriented arenas. Through a strong partnership with the Federal Executive Administration of Western Mass., military and civilian employees at Westover lobbied to change the locality rate – the salary awarded to employees working in a number of federal jobs, such as in Social Security offices and with the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife – to mirror that of Hartford, Conn. That meant many employees received a 10% boost in pay last year, mostly ‘general schedule,’ or salaried employees. This year, paperwork is flying to get ‘wage grade’ employees – those paid hourly – a similar increase.
David Kocot, chief engineer at Westover and a civilian employee himself, said that on a more regular basis, local firms and individuals benefit when new projects are undertaken at Westover, and are encouraged to enter the bidding process, often winning the jobs. But even if a firm based outside the area is chosen, Kocot said the area still receives a boost.
“Even when a national firm accepts a job, often local employees are hired,” he said.
On an ongoing basis, for instance, two firms – Phoenix Management, based in Austin, Texas, and Burns and Roe, based in New Jersey – oversee a number of regular base services in-house, such as property management, supply transportation, and air field management, and all of the firms’ employees at Westover were hired locally.
Kocot agreed with Ryan that the civilian/military cross-over has created a unique bond between the base and Western Mass., the city of Chicopee in particular.
“There is tremendous communication with the mayor’s office and the base, and historically, that has been the case,” he said.
Ryan added that the base also wastes no time in forging new bonds with new mayors, including current Mayor Mike Bissonnette.
“It starts with extending a hand as soon as a new mayor takes office, and the commander meets the mayor as soon as possible. The municipal/military bond is very strong – we want to participate in community efforts, and we’re happy to have them as well.”
That bond touches on a myriad of issues within the city of Chicopee. Cooperation is essential during major events such as the annual Westover Air Show, which brings more than 300,000 people to the base and the city each year.
But it’s also important during quieter times, when cooperation can augment not only military organization and safety, but that of the community as a whole.
The base recently collaborated, for instance, in a mock emergency drill in the center of Chicopee, which simulated a plane crash. That drill was staged in order to create a better understanding between military emergency procedures and those of the city’s police and fire departments.
The base also partners regularly with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and local planning boards in surrounding communities such as Chicopee, South Hadley, and Granby, to address various environmental and community planning issues that might be affected by operations at the base.
For the Birds
“We collaborate on noise studies, planning efforts, and conservation efforts,” said Kocot. “For instance, if a school is going to be built, we want the community to know if our flight patterns are going to create a noise issue. If there is a particular type of bird that is prevalent in a certain area, we want to work with the community to make sure the activity at the base isn’t disrupting its population, or that the birds aren’t disrupting our flights.”
And while keeping an eye on the local bird population is just one small aspect of Westover’s operations, it’s an important show of solidarity from the base, extended to the surrounding communities; one that underscores the fact that Westover does not stand alone, but rather alongside a wide series of community partners.
The only thing they keep for themselves is the bowling alley.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
| The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court. | |
| Brown, Randy Caputo, Laurence A. Colon, Wilfredo Daviau, Christopher M. Daviau, Lilaina W. Deliefde, Margaret J. Dion, Cathy J. Dumaine, Adelard Pierre Dumaine, Darcy Jean Feuerstein, Derrick P. Harris, Sarah A. Harvey, Wayne J. | LeBlanc, Arthur Matarazzo, Robert Philip Montagna, James J. Morales , Ferdinan Morgan, Gordon Samuel Normand Thebodo, Packard, Regina V. Pease, James R. Schmidt, Rosemary Tripoli, Frank C. Vondell, Nancy A. Zambrana, Magda |
| The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims. HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Energy East Solutions Inc. v. Bioshelters Inc. SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT Home Lumber Co. Inc. v. Medforce Inc. v. HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT D.A. Sullivan & Sons Inc. v. |
| The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or |
| AGAWAM Agawam Roofing & Siding Cascio Company Inc. CHH Engraving Inc. Clinical Psychology Assoc. Control Pak of New England EHS Compliance Services EyeCare & Eyewear Halo Creations JRS Agawam Flea Market Mario’s Pizzeria Mill Realty Co. St. Anne Country Club Suburban Appraisal Co. CHICOPEE Affordable Overhead Door Project Management Services Webtixdirect EAST LONGMEADOW Emerald Productions HOLYOKE Basic Prints Mamita’s Market Pat’s Fine Foods T & T Variety LONGMEADOW A.F. Carosella Electrical Services LeDuc Racing Utilx Corporation NORTHAMPTON irrell Builders Foley Investigations Harrison Programming & Development Services Nova Books Side St. Café SPRINGFIELD Alex’s Market Between Friends Candy n’ More Double A Construction Co. Enfield Sports Café Express Flooring Fix My Bug Computers Gold Coast Market Hathaway Construction Co. Inci te Network J.B. Enterprises J & S Contractor K & W CAD Montessori School of Springfield Pink Lemonade Design Rumba Music Shop WEST SPRINGFIELD A-1 American Eagle Oil B & S Oil Bay State/Cashway Bay State/Quick Stop Belmont Oil Bunn’s Oil Corbett Energy Electrical Cost Estimating MRW Realty LLC/Re/Max Ortolani Oil Saveway Oil Sweeney Associates Westside Shearing Demolition WESTFIELD The Brothers’ Shop Dragon Fly Books Franklin Auto Body Phone Zone Wireless Shear Paradise |
| Westbank in West Springfield announced the following: ••••• Winstanley Associates of Lenox announced the following: •••••
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly recently featured attorney Paul Nicolai in an article on the subject of lawyers collecting fees from clients. The Jan. 30 cover story, “At What Cost?” examined whether lawyers should sue clients to get paid. Nicolai is President of the Nicolai Law Group, P.C. in Springfield, and is Chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Fee Arbitration Board which settles attorney fee disputes. ••••• Jeffrey L. Sedgwick, Associate Professor of Political Science at the UMass Amherst, has been nominated by President George W. Bush to be the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S. Department of Justice. Sedgwick, who is on a year-long leave from his faculty post, is awaiting approval of his nomination by the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee. If the panel endorses his nomination, he must then be confirmed by the Senate. One of the nine largest statistical agencies within the federal government, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has a budget of nearly $46 million and 52 staff. ••••• Commercial banker Michael J. Oleksak has been named Regional President for the Pioneer Valley for Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield. A separate business unit for the region has been established at 31 Court St., Westfield, with local management. ••••• Jenna Lisella, Manager of the West Springfield McDonald’s on Riverdale Avenue, has received a 2006 Ray Kroc Award. The award is given to McDonald’s employees who have continued the legacy of Kroc, founder of the company. ••••• Kathleen Lodge has been named Sales Manager for Applied Software Technologies of West Springfield. ••••• Project manager James E. Graf will oversee a new southern New England office in Wilbraham for Enterprise Engineering Inc., with offices in Freeport, Maine, and Anchorage, Alaska. ••••• American International College in Springfield announced the following: ••••• Jewish Geriatric Services in Longmeadow announced the following: •••••
| Lavena Pleva has been promoted to Unit Organizer for Princess House, based in Taunton. ••••• Denise Deslaurier has joined For K-9’s & Felines in Westfield. ••••• Lowell McLane has been appointed National Sales Manager of WWLP-TV, Channel 22, in Chicopee. ••••• Environmental Compliance Services Inc. in Agawam announced the following: ••••• Wesley John has joined Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield as a Vice President and Commercial Lender. ••••• Lisa Kraus has been promoted to Branch Manager of Countrywide Home Loan’s West Springfield office where she will oversee operations and sales. ••••• Plastic surgeon Colleen Jambor, M.D. has joined the Johnson Memorial Hospital Medical Staff and is in practice at Johnson Professional Associates, P.C., in Enfield, Conn. ••••• Anderson Green has joined Reliant Mortgage Co. in East Longmeadow as Vice President and Regional Manager for Western Mass. He will oversee loan production and recruiting in Hampden and Hampshire counties, and will create markets in Northern Conn. ••••• Andrew T. Henshon has been named Managing Partner for Renaissance in West Springfield, Pearson’s new venture of residential communities. ••••• Wallace W. Altes has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Berkshire Bank. He becomes the first Albany (N.Y.) Capital Region resident to serve as a Director of the Pittsfield-based financial institution. He is currently Executive-in-Residence at the Graduate College of Union University in Schenectady, N.Y. ••••• Sales Agent Joyce L. Korona has joined Carlson GMAC Real Estate in its Westfield office. ••••• St. Germain Investment Management announced the following: ••••• Srisubha Gadey has joined the accounting firm of Kostin, Ruffkess, Themistos & Dane LLC in Springfield. ••••• Fuss & O’Neill’s West Springfield office announced these promotions: ••••• Big Y Foods Inc. in Springfield announced the following: |
| Picture This | |
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James St. Amand, chairman of the advisory board of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, recently told the local press that, despite all appearances, the PVTA is not in a state of disarray.
He must be reading from a different definition than the rest of the population.
At last check, two of the transit authority’s top officers, Director Gary Shepard and General Counsel Kevin Walkowski (making about $200,000 a year between them), were getting paid to stay home — the former for being at the center of a federal criminal investigation into the PVTA’s finances and management, and the latter for reasons unknown, although he is said to be a whistleblower in this investigation and describes his suspension as an act of retaliation.
Walkowski was placed on leave by acting interim director Keith Henry, the PVTA’s chief financial officer and the individual who signed off on all the contracts and expenditures that are now being questioned by the Federal Transit Administration. The nature and timing of the suspension have some board members scratching their heads and wondering what’s going on the agency and who’s really running the show.
We’ve been asking that same question for months.
The Walkowski suspension caught many board members by surprise, which continues a pattern we’ve seen unfolding over the past several weeks.
Indeed, some board members said they didn’t know that federal funding had been frozen for three important economic development projects — redevelopment of Union Station in Springfield, renovation of a former fire station in Holyoke into an intermodal transportation center, and construction of a new intermodal center in Westfield — pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.
And some board members said they didn’t know about Shepard’s contract and its generous clause calling for him to be paid two years’ severance if he is terminated without cause — in this case defined as a felony conviction or insubordination. There are questions about whether the contract is actually valid — it was approved by only a handful of members who sit on the Finance Committee, but not the full board.
Disarray? It certainly sounds like it.
But it’s not surprising really, because the advisory board is a poorly structured body that, especially over the past several months, has been unable or unwilling to provide the oversight that might have prevented some of the chaos now engulfing the transit authority.
This is a byproduct of a misguided mindset that has existed for some time at the PVTA — that if the buses are running on time, then everything is fine. We could not disagree more. The PVTA is a large agency, with a $30 million budget, most of it publicly funded. Meanwhile, it has a very important function — it takes residents to work, school, area shopping malls, and other retail centers. In short, it plays a critical role in regional economic development, a role taken to a still-higher level with the projects in Springfield, Holyoke, and Westfield, where the PVTA is acting as a key development partner.
An agency with such a broad influence needs a strong board that can provide direction and oversight. Instead, the PVTA’s board has a weighted voting system that gives most of the power to a handful of larger cities, and allows politics to rear its ugly head and influence to decision-making, such as the appointment of directors. We think each city and town serviced by the PVTA should have an equal vote; similar to the U.S. Senate, where senators from Vermont and California each have an equal voice.
For the short term, the advisory board must hire an interim director — one who could be in the job for some time while this investigation plays itself out — who can bring some semblance of stability to the transit authority. This means focusing on abilities and experience, not politics.
Meanwhile, the board has to examine its own performance — it took two months to decide what to do with Shepard after PVTA offices were raided by the FBI — and make a stronger commitment to providing the requisite oversight.
As we said, there is much more to the Authority than making the buses run on time. The advisory board needs to step up and take some real responsibility for this important regional asset, because despite what St. Amand believes, the agency is in disarray and the wheels have definitely come off.
