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Karen Volpe

PeoplesBank has announced the promotion of Karen Volpe to Assistant Vice President of the Fairview office located at 1936 Memorial Drive in Chicopee.

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The Springfield Business Improvement District (BID) has announced the promotion of Jeffrey K. Keck to Executive Director. BID is an affiliate of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts. Prior to his promotion, Keck served as operations manager at the BID for more than seven years. In his new position, Keck will continue to work closely with BID property owners, businesses, government, and the general public. He will also be responsible for coordinating special events and programs that will enhance the downtown business district with a focus on real estate.

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Carlson GMAC Real Estate announced the following:
• Barbara Robinson has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Wilbraham office;
• Deborah Lenz has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Wilbraham office;
• Gisele Meunier has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Wilbraham office;
• Christine L. Swanson has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Longmeadow office;
• Sheila Clapprood has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Longmeadow office;
• Judith S. Cohen has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Longmeadow office;
• Suzanne W. Carter has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Holyoke office;
• Amy Meo has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Holyoke office;
• Jennifer Fleury has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Agawam office, and
• Chris J. Hall has joined the firm as a Sales Agent in the Palmer office.

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Lamson & Goodnow of Greenfield has hired Coreen Foote, CPA, as Chief Financial Officer.

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Ryan W. Crosby has joined the Palmer office of Carlson GMAC Real Estate.

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Eric A. Marsh has joined Greenfield Co-operative Bank as Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer.

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Gina C. Birchall has been named Vice President of Underwriting at Berkshire Life Insurance Co. of America, headquartered in Pittsfield. Birchall will be responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of current underwriting processes and engaging with Berkshire Life’s reinsurers on a strategic basis related to risk retention.

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United Personnel Services Inc. announced the following:
• Lauren Mendoza has been named a Staffing Consultant in the Springfield office, and
• Rebecca Freeman has joined the Hartford office as a Staffing Consultant.

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William P. Chase II, President and Owner of Hi-Tech Window and Siding Installations Inc. of Haverhill, has been appointed to the Westfield State College Board of Trustees by Gov. W. Mitt Romney. Chase is a 1991 alumnus of the college.

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Sheryl J. Sadler-Twyon

Sheryl J. Sadler-Twyon has been named Vice President for the Information Technology Department of Florence Savings Bank.

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The Cancer House of Hope, with locations in Westfield and Springfield, announced the following:
• Parker Hodgman has been named a member of the Board of Trustees for the 2007 fiscal year;
• Jenn Cohen has been named a member of the Board of Trustees for the 2007 fiscal year, and
• Jennifer DeMoe has been named a member of the Board of Trustees for the 2007 fiscal year.

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Century 21 Pioneer Valley Associates announced the following:
• Arthur Haskins III, a Sales Associate, has successfully completed the CREATE 21® New Agent Training Program;
• Terry Bartus, a Sales Associate, has successfully completed the CREATE 21® New Agent Training Program, and
• Erica Burns, a Sales Associate, has successfully completed the CREATE 21® New Agent Training Program.

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Dave Boisselle has been promoted to Vice President of Operations at J. Polep Distributions Services in Chicopee. Prior to his promotion, Boisselle served as director of operations for 18 years.

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The Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau (GSCVB) has appointed Alicia M. Szenda to Group Tour Coordinator. Her responsibilities will include working closely with the GSCVB’s Group Tour Committee to develop initiatives to increase motor coach visitation to the Pioneer Valley. She will also represent the region at industry-related trade shows and conventions.

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Lyn Yarmesky

Lynn Yarmesky has been named Vice President of Lending at the STCU Credit Union, with offices in Springfield and Westfield.

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Tighe & Bond, Inc., based in Westfield, announced the following:
• Alfred Mascia Jr., P.E. has joined the firm. Mascia is a civil engineering manager and licensed professional engineer with more than 28 years of experience in the design, planning, management, and construction administration for a diverse mix of site-development projects;
• Christopher O. Granatini, P.E., has joined the firm. A registered professional engineer, he brings more than 10 years of experience in various aspects of transportation and traffic engineering;
• Daniel P. Rukokoski, PWS, RSS, has joined the firm. He is a senior environmental scientist with more than 11 years of experience in wetland delineation; municipal, state, and federal permitting; remedial investigations; Phase I, II, and III environmental site assessments; and environmental health and safety, and
• Craig S. French, P.E. has joined the firm. A registered professional engineer in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, French adds a decade of structural engineering experience to the firm. As manager of the structural department, he will be responsible for structural engineering and architectural design, with involvement from the conceptual phase and planning through final design and construction.

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OMG Inc. in Agawam announced the following:
• Brian Wroblesky is now the Midwest Regional Manager for Roofing Products Sales;
• Stephen Trites has been named Southeast Regional Manager;
• Sean Kelly is now in charge of the Northeast region;
• Joe DiSanto has been named Customer Service Manager for Roofing Products;
• Andy Cleveland is transitioning within Roofing Products from National Accounts to Product Management. He will be responsible for the sales and marketing of the OlyBond program;
• Brent Kreutzer has been named National Accounts Manager, and
• Corey Rohland has been promoted to Western Regional Manager.

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Adam Lesko

Adam Lesko, a board certified Microbial Consultant, has formed Green Environmental Consulting in Northampton. His firm specializes in industrial hygiene, indoor environmental quality, and mold consulting services. In addition, his company develops and maintains custom database solutions for managing asbestos and other environmental data.

 

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Michael T. Moriarty

Michael T. Moriarty has joined the staff at United Bank as a Senior Vice President in the Commercial Banking Department. He will be based out of the main office on Elm Street in West Springfield, and will work with commercial clients throughout the bank’s market area.

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Madeline Claudio

Madeline Claudio has been promoted to Business Development & Sales Manager in the TD Banknorth branch at 958 State St., Springfield. In her new role, she will focus on growing and developing business in the branch serving customers throughout the region.

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Denise Eldred

Denise Eldred has joined the Office of Development and Alumni Relations as Coordinator of the Annual Fund at American International College (AIC) in Springfield. In her new position, Eldred will serve as Phonathon Director. She will also work with AIC donors, and will be involved in planning alumni events.

Opinion
A Model for Tackling the Energy Challenge

On July 20, 1969, the United States reached the moon, beating the decade’s-end goal set by President John F. Kennedy. Many saw the original timetable as too ambitious. Yet with the country committed to the mission, and with the mission accelerated by federal policies promoting the necessary technological advances, the U.S. flag was planted in lunar soil sooner than even many optimists expected.

Winning the race to the moon was a technological triumph, to be sure, but its benefits reached deep into the nation’s psyche, inspiring a generation of children to believe that they could play a role in the nation’s most exciting ambition and providing fuel for the nation’s innovation economy.

Project Apollo surfaces repeatedly as a model for tackling the energy challenge. Given the urgency of the situation, achieving a secure energy future will, indeed, call for a similar commitment in funding, policies, and passion. The execution, though, will have to be different. More than a discrete undertaking with a single goal, the energy project will have to deliver a broad portfolio of solutions, playing out on timetables measured over a few years to several decades.

No single technology can meet current or projected energy demands. Humankind uses energy at the rate of 14 trillion watts. Supporting that much primary energy use would require about 10,000 large coal plants, at 500 megawatts of electricity each. To generate an equivalent amount of electricity with solar power, today’s deployment would need to be increased several thousand-fold.

Adding to the pressure for multiple approaches to this vast challenge, the time for initiating meaningful steps to curb climate-threatening carbon dioxide emissions is short. It will take a long time to change the energy mix appreciably. Yet we are probably only decades away, at best, from the point of no return on greenhouse gas concentrations.

The university research community has embraced these challenges, with many faculty and students invested in finding energy solutions. Superb work underway on many campuses today, from Berkeley and Stanford to MIT, from the University of Michigan to the University of Texas to Georgia Tech, encompasses an impressive range of new and evolving technologies.

The tireless enthusiasm of students is one reason universities have the potential to play key roles in energy innovation. In addition, while integrating new technologies on a broad scale into an immense and mature sector of the economy will pose complex challenges, universities have expertise to share not only in technical fields, but also in economics, planning, architecture, political science, and management, among others.

Federal energy research funding that is sporadic, at best, is one reason university research has not realized the promise of the post-1970s energy crisis. Happily, this situation is changing. The Department of Energy has increasingly emphasized basic energy research in a range of areas — a welcome recognition that we have much yet to learn on the way to truly game-changing energy technologies.

To fully realize its potential, though, the university community must lower some internal barriers. The standard academic research model of a single investigator, or a small group of people, working on narrowly defined problems is important but, frankly, not sufficient in an energy context. We must develop organizational structures and incentives that encourage large multidisciplinary teams and, where relevant, permit true working partnerships with industry and government groups.

Project Apollo’s inspiration ultimately produced the scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers who have fueled this country’s innovation economy. Today, our nation hungers for a similar inspiration, one that will refocus the attention of our schoolchildren toward science, mathematics, and technology. In fact, our future economic success could depend on it.

Susan Hockfield is president of MIT.

Opinion

By most accounts, Springfield is starting to rebound.

The Finance Control Board has stabilized the city’s finances and brought about relative peace and harmony to the labor front. The Urban Land Institute study of the city has established some priority areas for the community, and there is already movement on some of these fronts. We’ve seen momentum in the business community and the commercial real estate market, and the promise of more activity and jobs.

As the new year dawns, many in the community would like to add to this list by putting the scandals that have rocked Springfield in the rear-view mirror. Some have suggested that the FBI, which has successfully ferreted out wrongdoing on the part of many city officials, including most members of the Asselin family, should consider its work here done.

Not yet.

The FBI shouldn’t close the book on Springfield until its work is finished, and that won’t be accomplished until former Mayor Michael Albano, who was ringmaster for the circus that his administration became, is made to account for his many misdeeds.

While several members of his administration have been indicted, tried, found guilty, and incarcerated, Albano has thus far escaped the same fate. Maybe there’s nothing the Feds can pin on him, but we suspect that there may be other reasons for the FBI’s reluctance to act on the former mayor.

Albano has suggested to many that the FBI’s crackdown, similar in some ways to the well-documented Operation Plunderdome that took down Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci, is part and parcel to “being an Italian American” who assumes a leadership position in this country. This is nonsense.

Albano’s assertions are offensive to all Americans, especially to those of Italian descent, and are being compounded by Albano’s opining that the FBI’s interest in Springfield and his administration is motivated by actions he took 24 years ago.

Albano, a former member of the state Parole Board, recently testified in a U.S. Civil Court trial that the FBI never provided him with information that three men convicted of murder were innocent. The testimony came in a trial in which two men and the families of two deceased men are suing the government for than $100 million for wrongly putting them in prison.

The two living individuals, who were freed after 25 years in prison, were exonerated after documents were released indicating that the FBI knew the men were innocent but set them up to protect an informant who committed the murder of a mob member.

Outside the courtroom, Albano told reporters that when the Parole Board was considering whether to commute the sentence of one of those convicted, he was told by two FBI agents that voting for the commutation — which he eventually did — would not be a good career move for him.

It appears that Albano is trying to use these events, and his ancestry, to suggest that the FBI has no good reason for being in Springfield and turning City Hall, the Housing Authority, the Mass. Career Development Institute, and other once-corrupt agencies upside down looking for wrongdoing.

The truth is that the FBI has every reason to be here, as evidenced by the convictions already won, and it should stay here until its job is finished. More importantly, it should not be intimidated by Albano’s posturing about being bullied by the bureau two decades ago.

Former members of the Albano administration have hinted privately that the best defense against the FBI is a good offense. The former mayor has been saying for years that the bureau has an ax to grind and that this explains why the Feds have set up camp in Springfield.

The truth is that the mayor presided over a City Hall that was corrupt, out of control, and an embarrassment to the community. And that’s why we believe the FBI’s work, as damaging as it has been the city’s reputation, must continue until all the questions are answered. Then, it will be appropriate to move on.

Sections Supplements
Time Management Is the Topic of the Day

It’s called BuzzWhack.

Created at the start of the new millennium, it’s a tongue-in-cheek Web site compiled by newspaper editor John Walston, devoted to defining corporate-speak in all its forms and calling attention to the human factor of any workplace.

And sure enough, right there between ticker shock and tin kickers, is a slew of time-related turns of phrase that illustrate how heavily the concept of time – and not having enough of it – weighs on our collective minds. Timeboxing, time-suck, and time toilet are particularly illustrative.

One of the most prevalent buzz terms in career development of late is that of time management, referring to better utilization of time, being more productive, and streamlining various tasks to optimize the hours in a day.

In other words, how to get things done in the time you have to do them.

But many professionals are beginning to take this phrase seriously. While it’s a simple concept, it’s something that many professionals – Americans in particular – struggle with. The reasons why vary, ranging from busier lifestyles to an increasingly ‘hooked-in’ work environment that can make multi-tasking easier, but can also add distractions.

The subject is currently being addressed through a number of channels, including time-management software, countless self-help books, professional seminars, even hypnosis – a Froogle search for ‘time management’ products alone returns 159,776 results.

Experts in time management, many of them executive coaches who specialize in maximizing productivity, say all of these interventions work for some, but none for all. That’s because everyone manages their time differently, and if those management skills are lacking or ineffective, the solution must first fit an individual’s natural habits to a tee.

Up-to-the-minute Analysis

So what do the experts suggest? First, and above all, a personalized approach.

Jess Dods, president of Right Choice Careers, a career coach with international experience and an organizational consultant, said one of the first steps he takes when working with a new client is to “flush out” what that person’s relationship with time is. Identifying that broad relationship, he said, is key to the process of better time management because it leads to more effective, long-term solutions.

“Some of the questions I ask are ‘how does this person relate to time?’ and ‘does this person feel that time is a prison, or time is a tool?” he offered. “Finding out how they perceive time then leads to the steps that can be taken to reach specific goals.”

Some people, he explained, see productivity as a major hallmark of their own worth, and changes to their work processes can be seen as a threat not only to their habits, but to their jobs or even their personalities.

“I know people who keep busy in order to distract themselves from other things,” he continued, “and busy people who see their schedules as a part of their own self-worth. I also know people who look at being busy as job security, or who enjoy the familiarity of the stress of being busy.”

Many of those symptoms of the problem, as Dods describes them, are nearly the same as many American ideals – in particular, that of hard work leading to prosperity. That could be one root, he mused, of the nation’s sticky relationship with time, and why time-management-related stress is so much more prevalent in this country than in others.

“We’re taught from an early age that work is difficult, and we expect that when we are most productive, the work will also be hard,” he said. “Some people make sure they don’t have enough time to do things, because that’s the only way they feel as if they’re working at all.”

But being busy isn’t synonymous with managing time, Dods cautioned, calling that forced business a “well-decorated rut.”

“Change doesn’t come easily – none of us want to change,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s important to note that we’re not a bunch of train wrecks.”

Instead, Dods said today’s workplace can benefit from a close look at time management as a tool for increased productivity and profits.

Week Explanation

Madeline Carnevale Calabrese, president of Calabrese Consulting in South Hadley, agreed with the personalized approach to time management. Beyond international differences in how time is viewed and managed, she noted that the collision of established workers with a new generation of employees who approach work in a very different, very technological way also creates time-management issues for both parties.

“Younger people are very good at multi-tasking,” she said, “but have trouble isolating tasks. With the older group, it’s a different set of issues. Oftentimes, these people have tried and true methods of doing their jobs that just aren’t working anymore.

“There are a couple of forces that are pressing on them,” she added. “Older workers are now working side-by-side with a younger generation that is technologically tuned-in, and historically that’s not how older workers have worked. That, in turn, creates stress, and older workers are asking, ‘how do I stay valuable?’

Calabrese said the process begins with identifying priorities within a given job, and how one person can best meet those priorities without sacrificing their own personal habits.

“You have to take a close look at a person’s workload, work cycles, and personality,” she said. “Usually, people come to me knowing something’s not working, and they’re at the point of frustration. We look at their patterns and their work environment, and we start by identifying priorities and how to stick to them.”

Calabrese also cautioned against always viewing time management as a problem that begins and ends with a given individual. Sometimes, she said, people’s careers have innate qualities that make managing time more difficult.

“Some people have careers or offices that are very interruptive, and we need to work around that,” she said. “I usually suggest evaluating the interruption based on the priorities of that day. Sometimes, all someone needs is the language to ask someone to get back to them. It’s about creating space without being aggressive or, on the other hand, without being steamrolled.”

That approach can also include identifying a person’s peak productivity times, or in some professions, one’s prime creative time, said Calabrese.

“I tell people to pick the best time of the day to work on a project based on its priority and the time of day the individual is most likely to produce their best work,” she said. “And at that point, they must remain uninterrupted – shut the door, go somewhere else, whatever it takes.”

On Second Thought

Despite that strong emphasis on creating an individualized time-management plan, there are some steps that everyone can try to help identify the source of some time management problems.

Joshua Hornick, a leadership, management, personal, and professional coach based in Amherst, said that, with the preponderance of time-management resources currently available, the first step for anyone with time issues is to find one such resource that resonates personally.

“There are a zillion books and articles that give you tips and tricks, or it could be a coach that can help you, or an internal resource at your job,” he began. “First, know where you are and where you want to realistically take your game. Then, you can investigate further independently, or maybe it’s time to get your pit crew together.”

To evaluate what time-management issues may currently exist, many coaches suggest selecting a period of time – one or two weeks, for example – and logging daily activities.

“That’s a cognitive process that can help to illuminate problems,” said Hornick, echoing Calabrese’s position that sometimes, there truly is too much to be done, and if so, that needs to be isolated.

“Sometimes, people have time issues because they’ve taken on too much,” he said. “But once that is realized, focus can be clarified.”

That clarity, Hornick continued, leads further to a better ability to prioritize.

“The most obvious way to prioritize is to make a list,” he said. “Then, there are lots of ways you can streamline your environment.”

That could mean physical improvements, Hornick said, such as filing or ‘bucket’ systems, or new habits, such as acting immediately on small, two-minutes-or-less tasks once they crop up – if an E-mail requiring a response comes in, for instance, or if a supervisor asks for an update.

It’s here that many experts cite one of the most underutilized and counter-intuitive optimizers of time management – ask your boss for help.

“If you’re still lost, you’re well-served to get some specific support,” said Hornick. “If you’re an employee and you’re concerned about time management, talk to your employer – managers love it, and a really good manager will bend over backwards to help you.”

Calabrese added that beyond helping an employee find some extra minutes in the day, business owners and managers are also keenly aware of what is important to their daily operations as well as the bottom line, and in some cases, can serve as mentors and examples of best practices.

“If you’re not sure where to go from where you are, the thing that can get you back on track is communication with the upper ranks,” she said. “Managers are in touch with the new and the important when it comes to their business, and they can help show an employee what’s old, and what needs to be let go.”

Things like time-suck – any activity that wastes time, according to BuzzWhack – or carbon-based error – any mistake caused the human factor. And guarding against falling into the time toilet can be exactly what an employee needs to avoid being dooced, plutoed, or voted off the island.

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
How the Changes Will Impact Your Bottom Line

Earlier this year, President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act into law. This immense measure (more than 900 pages) overhauls the funding and disclosure rules for defined benefit plans, revises the deduction limits for qualified plans, addresses conversions of pension plans to cash balance plans, liberalizes payout and rollover rules, and, makes a number of other changes relating to pension plans and their beneficiaries.

It also revises specific rules related to charitable giving and makes a number of charitable reforms. As an employee, you will likely see positive changes to the qualified retirement plans at work, so watch for these over the next couple of years. What follows is a summary of a few of the provisions that may affect individuals:

Many Prior Pension, IRA and QTP Provisions Made Permanent

A number of pension, IRA, and Qualified Tuition Program (QTP) changes were made in 2001 but were scheduled to “sunset” at the end of 2010. The act makes these provisions permanent including the following:

  • Increases in the IRA contribution limits, including the ability to make catch-up contributions;
  • For individuals age 50 and over, catch-up contributions to 401(k), SEP and Simple IRA plans;
  • Increases in limits on contributions, benefits and compensation under certain deferred compensation, tax-sheltered annuity and qualified retirement plans; and
  • Expanded and liberalized QTP rules related to contributions and distributions.

Rollovers OKed for Non-spouse Beneficiaries

Pre-act law did not allow non-spouse beneficiaries to roll over inherited qualified plan accounts to IRAs. The new law permits rollovers of distributions from an eligible retirement plan of a deceased employee to a non-spouse beneficiary’s IRA, beginning with distributions after 2006. For example, children who inherit their parents’ IRA will no longer be required to pay taxes on the balance immediately, but will be allowed to roll it over to their own IRA.

Rollovers of After-tax Contributions

For tax years beginning after 2006, the act permits an employee to make a direct rollover of after-tax contributions from a qualified retirement plan to either another qualified retirement plan or a tax-sheltered annuity, provided that the receiving plan separately accounts for the after-tax contributions and their earnings. Prior to this change, the rollover options of after-tax contributions were limited.

Charitable Giving Using Tax-free IRA Distributions for Those age 70 1/2 and Older

Under prior law, there was no special tax treatment for distributions from regular or Roth IRAs that were used to make charitable contributions. The distributions were subject to the rules at the time and may have been fully or partially taxable. The contributions were subject to the deduction limitations and may have been reduced by the overall limitations applied to itemized deductions.

Under the act, for IRA withdrawals in 2006 and 2007, there is an exclusion from gross income (up to $100,000) for qualified charitable distributions. To be a qualified charitable distribution, the IRA trustee must make the contribution directly from the IRA to a charitable organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Code, and the distribution must be made after the date the owner of the IRA attains age 70 1/2. Only those amounts that would have been taxable are considered to be qualified charitable distributions. No contribution deduction is taken for those amounts that would have been taxable but are now excluded from income. Note that qualified charitable distributions may be used to meet the required minimum distribution rules even though it is the charity and not the IRA owner receiving the funds.

Recordkeeping Requirements for Charitable Contributions

For contributions made after 2006, the act disallows deductions for monetary gifts (cash, check, etc.) unless the donor maintains appropriate records that include either a bank record or a written communication from the donee organization showing the donee’s name, amount, and date of the contribution.

This article contains only a general discussion of the rules, and you should consult with your tax advisor for additional information or assistance.

This article is not a tax opinion. To the extent that this article includes any tax advice, it is not intended or written to be used by the recipient or any other party for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by the Internal Revenue Code or any other tax authority.

Jana B. Bacon, CPA is a member of the Firm of Wolf & Company, P.C. a regional certified public accounting and business consulting firm, with offices in Boston and Springfield, and Albany, New York;www.wolfandco.com)

Sections Supplements
Carol Leary Directs Bay Path Toward a Second Act

In her first 12 years as president of Bay Path College, Carol Leary has choreographed a stunning metamorphosis — transforming the formerly sleepy Longmeadow institution not long ago considered a secretarial school into a leader in innovation, entrepreneurship, and professional development. Always looking forward, her next strategic plan, titled ‘Good to Great,’ borrows from author Jim Collins and speaks to her philosophy that the process of continuous improvement never ends.

Carol Leary, president of Bay Path College, remembers a time when her life’s ambition was to be a choreographer.

She had the background – years of dance training – and the requisite passion, as a great lover of culture and the arts.

But Leary ultimately chose to forgo dancing with the stars and instead focus on a different creative pursuit – essentially, creating opportunities to allow others to find their true callings. Fueled by her vast experience in higher education and a deep affinity for learning at all stages of life, Leary brought with her to Bay Path a leadership philosophy that leans heavily on the power of teams, along with a strong belief in ongoing professional development, particularly for women.

The result is a flourishing campus with several new programs aimed at the needs of the region served by the four-year, private women’s college – primarily Western Mass. and Northern Conn. – and a school that has raised its profile in national and international circles of late.

All this didn’t happen overnight, but many of Bay Path’s latest developments didn’t take years to develop, either. Just as in dance, a lot had to do with timing, said Leary, and with careful attention to each step of the process on the part of the entire Bay Path troupe.

The college recently completed its five-year ‘Vision 2006’ strategic plan, and has just embarked on ‘Vision 2011,’ which carries the theme ‘Good to Great,’ borrowed from the title of one of Leary’s favorite professional development books, written by Jim Collins.

The theme is an apt example of the mission of the college and its ongoing development goals, which Leary said are geared toward the improvement of not only its students on professional and personal levels, but also on the betterment of the region’s many businesses, and of professional women in general.

“What I take from the idea of ‘good to great’ is that when you think you’ve reached where you want to be, you have to realize that you still have to improve, because you can’t become complacent,” said Leary. “Things change, environments change, and you must be nimble and flexible enough to welcome opportunity to your doorstep.”

When she arrived in Longmeadow, this challenge translated into hiring the best people to develop new programs to meet market trends, always with a focus on innovation, and in many ways those practices remain at the forefront of Bay Path’s development plans.

“I truly believe that our success has been because of the people who have been hired and have committed their own visions to this college in the last 12 years,” she said. “When I arrived here, I recognized a sense of anticipation – when a new president enters an organization, be it corporate, private, not-for-profit, or educational, the members of that community try to figure out what is going to happen. They ask, ‘what will my role be with this new person at the helm?’

“But my philosophy has always been to make use of the best talents of the people you have, and let them use their imagination, their creativity, and their expertise to develop programs that they think will meet market demand,” she added. “So that’s basically been my style – use everyone’s potential, nurture it, and then implement whatever their ideas may be.”

However, to make best use of those ideas, Leary said not everything can be left to the process of free, organic thought; there must also be a clear plan for progress in place to organize all of those divergent thoughts into one course of action.

“I’m also a true believer that the people and the plan have to work together,” she explained. “You can hire the very best people, but if you do not have a road map or a vision of where you want to be, then I think you can become very scattered, and you can detour into areas that might not be where you should be.”

By the Book

That mode of thinking has kept several new initiatives running smoothly at Bay Path, including a number of new academic programs and majors, which have been introduced over the past decade in addition to a suite of successful professional development conferences.

The college changed from a two-year college offering associate’s degrees to a four-year baccalaureate college in 1988, but Leary said in many ways Bay Path was still operating as a two-year college when she arrived in 1994. At the time, it offered 14 associate’s degree programs and three baccalaureate degrees, and no graduate programs.

“I saw that as an opportunity,” she said. “I saw the expanse of where we could go.”

The course offerings have since shifted to include nine baccalaureate programs and five master’s programs. Bay Path also operates six days a week, having added its ‘Saturday school’ in 1999, and offers classes in two locations, at the main Longmeadow campus and its satellite location in Southbridge. Leary said extending the off-campus sites across the Commonwealth is a new goal, but at the start of her career at Bay Path, it was an idea that seemed lofty and far off.

“Back then, I wasn’t thinking about branch locations,” said Leary. “But because of the people who were hired over the next five years, a whole host of ideas were introduced to the college that included one-day-a-week programs and graduate programs. We also started looking at the talents of our current faculty, and we found that many of them had dreams that we could fulfill.”

These included an expanded science program that led to the creation of Forensic Science and Forensic Psychology programs at Bay Path that are now attracting students from across the country as that field grows in popularity, particularly among women.

“From a recruitment standpoint, there is a market there for forensic science and biology,” she said, “and at women’s colleges we saw that it was one of the four top majors that women went into, so we knew it was going to be a good market. We also had faculty with the expertise in all of the areas that surround forensic science, and we gave them the opportunity to hire faculty to fill the gaps. It was just the right time, the right voices, and the right people in place that brought those programs to the forefront for Bay Path.”

In addition to the forensic science programs, Bay Path has also created four master’s degree programs over the past seven years: a master’s in Communication and Information Management, introduced in 2000, a master’s in Occupational Therapy in 2002, an MBA in Entrepreneurial Thinking and Innovative Practice, and, most recently, a master’s in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management, unveiled just this year.

The master’s in Communication and Information Management was largely spearheaded by William Sipple, Bay Path’s provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, who had taught in a similar program at Robert Morse College prior to relocating.

“That was an easy transition into the master’s program because he had done it,” Leary said, adding that the master’s in Occupational Therapy that followed was also added relatively easily. “That was a natural outgrowth. The accrediting body had said that by 2007, a master’s would be the minimum requirement in that field, and so creating that program was a gradual process.”

The MBA, however, introduced in 2005, was built from the ground up over a period of a few years, and was tailored to address the need for entrepreneurial ventures in the region, as well as those led by women.

“We realized that, in many ways, we as an institution were representative of the degree we were going to create, because every year we seem to have something new happening on this campus,” Leary said. “Therefore, we had some experts we could draw upon, and then in turn use to recruit new experts to Bay Path.

“We did not want to do a standard MBA program, because of the other 15 programs in a 45-minute radius,” she continued. “We knew we needed a niche program. This area is one of the top areas in the country for entrepreneurship, and it needs an infusion of new companies in the area, so that program was one that we had really thought about, and we waited until the right moment.”

A Woman’s World

The first MBA class will graduate from Bay Path this May, just as the first class in the new master’s in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management will enter courses.
Leary calls this newest offering “the soul of Bay Path,” in part due to her own observances in the non-profit sector, where she often volunteers her time.

“I have seen firsthand that it’s such an important part of the psyche of an area to have a good, well-run non-profit sector. I listen very hard to what the struggles are, and I watch when a leader of a not-for-profit retires and how hard it is to find a successor.”

In addition to those challenges, Leary said there is currently a national trend of turnover in non-profit leadership as leaders at retirement age make way for new blood, and 70% of the people who work in the sector are women.

“Those two factors, for me, created the perfect mix,” she said. “It happened very quickly, but we had all the pieces to create a stand-alone master’s program.”
Those new programs also add weight to one of Leary’s most challenging decisions, which came very early in her presidency: the choice to maintain Bay Path’s identity as an all-women’s college, even while the current national trend is toward a co-ed charter, or toward closing completely.

“I think we realized 12 years ago that even though we knew it was not going to be a smooth run, we were going to remain a women’s college,” she said, “even though they were closing everywhere.”

Leary referenced several institutions in Massachusetts alone that have gone co-ed – among them Elms College, Regis College, Emmanuel College, and Lesley College – all in the last decade.

“But we believed in the professional development of women. That’s our mission, and we’ve made a strong commitment to figure out what programs women needed for the future. In every conversation we have we want to make sure that new programs, including the master’s programs that by law are open to men, include a few courses that look at a woman’s perspective, which can be taken by both men and women.”

Leary herself is not the product of a women’s college – she attended Boston University and graduated with a degree in Political Science, and later earned her master’s in Student Personnel and Counseling from SUNY Albany, and her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from American University. However, she said her experiences at Boston’s Simmons College, as director of Residence from 1978 to 1984 and as the college’s associate dean in 1984 and 1985, cemented her belief in the power of women’s education.

“Working at Simmons College really opened my eyes to the incredible potential and possibility women’s education had,” she said. “So when I came to Bay Path after having worked at Simmons for many years, I realized we could stay an all-women’s college and be successful.”

A Development Story

To prove that theory, Bay Path made its first major stride in women’s development early in Leary’s presidency, by instituting the Women’s Professional Development Conference (WPDC) in 1996.

The annual event attracts more than 800 attendees, most women, but Leary said men attend too, in part to hear from an impressive list of speakers that has featured Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Cokie Roberts, Jackie Joyner Kersee, and Madeleine Albright.

“I look back at that first women’s conference and reflect, and in many ways I think that was one of the defining moments of Bay Path as a women’s college,” said Leary. “We stayed true to our mission for professional education of women and by having this conference and by inviting the very best minds in America to Springfield, it helped define our image in the eyes of many people in the community.

“That image,” she explained further, “is of a college that is going to take risks, and is going to ask the very best to come to Springfield. And, we are going to encourage women to take advantage of professional development opportunities that we have brought to their doorsteps.”

The WPDC’s continuously impressive list of speakers, to which writer and poet Maya Angelou and Valerie Plame (the CIA agent outed by the press in 2003) will be added in April, 2007, has also added to the buzz about the annual event and its host college on both a regional and national level. Returning to the idea of timing, Leary said some of those speakers were the result of a simple invitation, but others have chosen to speak based on the conference’s theme that year – usually a one-word notion that ties the entire day of workshops and networking together.

Last year, that theme was humor, an idea that resonated with the day’s keynote, producer, writer, and director Nora Ephron, famous for directing such films as Sleepless in Seattle and writing When Harry Met Sally. And this year, the theme of ‘resilience’ played a major role in Angelou’s decision to lend her name and her voice to the program.

“She had eight speaking engagements before her that had been offered,” Leary said, “and the reason she chose us was she loved the theme. I think it’s easier for us to get speakers now because of our themes, and also because they can look at who we’ve had in the past.

“Our speakers are also women who really enjoy being surrounded by other women who are there to learn from them,” she added. “From that very first conference to the one we will present in 2007, I think we have set the standard very high.”

Other development programs have followed the WPDC, including a wide array of workshops, academic programs, and community partnerships centered on entrepreneuriship and innovation. These programs, which include courses in Innovation in Business, Entrepreneurship, and ‘Entrevation,’ a term coined to represent skills that pair the two concepts, began to emerge in 2001 and have since created a campus-wide initiative that has received some national attention.

There’s also the Innovator’s Roundtable, comprised of area CEOs and business owners who provide advice and expertise regarding the skills required when starting a business or even entering today’s job market; a cooperative education program, in which students are placed in area small businesses, where they will gain hands-on experience in what is required to be an entrepreneur; a summer program in entrepreneurship for high school girls that acts as a bridge between area youth entrepreneurship programs and the initiatives at Bay Path; and the Innovative Thinking and Entrepreneurial Summit, which began as a series of lectures and expanded, now held each year since 2003. The summit draws on entrepreneurial minds both nationally and regionally, and is just one of many entrepreneurship-related ventures funded by a $143,000, three-year Coleman Foundation grant received by the college in 2005.

In the past, entrepreneurs such as Yankee Candle CEO Craig Rydin and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, have spoken, and this year Jeff Taylor of Monster.com fame visited to speak about his latest venture, the Baby Boomer-driven Web site Eons.

Tapping into Talent

All of these programs revisit that theme of lifelong learning that Leary enjoys and respects so much, and have contributed to a cohesive educational repertoire at Bay Path, aimed at preparing people – students, area residents, business owners, and especially women – for the job market of today and the challenges of the world at large.

“You need to have a mind that’s an open book, so that no matter what you’re doing, you can learn from it,” Lear
concluded. “If I have an idea, and I share my idea, others can add to that idea, so a small kernel can lead to great things.

“It’s all about the ability to speak up, to take a risk, and to step back from the comfort zone.”

Leary has taken that step, and countless others are following her lead. While she’s yet to take her talents to Broadway, Bay Path’s resident dancer has made some impressive moves – and promises to keep a close watch on her timing, her audience, and the stage she has set.

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
Westfield Bank Charts a Steady Growth Pattern
James Hagan

James Hagan says Westfield Bank will continue to grow only by understanding the changing needs and preferences of 21st-century retail and commercial customers.

As banks across Western Mass. grapple with a host of new challenges — from reduced profit margins to a decrease in home-mortgage business — Westfield Bank continues to grow steadily by aggressively building its commercial loan products and by making itself more accessible to both business and retail customers. In doing so, this 153-year-old institution remains one of the region’s financial success stories.

James Hagan believes in identifying a niche and excelling in it. And, like his predecessor at the helm of Westfield Bank, he’s finding success by building on what works.

When Hagan took the reins from longtime bank President Donald Williams last year, he was already committed to the course that Williams had set: focusing on the bank’s commercial-lending business and not getting drawn into the branch boom that has seen other regional institutions extend their footprints into far-flung territories.

To be sure, Westfield Bank has seen success in its retail and home-mortgage business, and it is making strategic expansion moves as well — but none of it at the expense of local customers or a growing commercial-loan business that now boasts a backlog of more than $50 million, at a time when banks that rely more heavily on home mortgages might be feeling a bit squeezed.

“Our backlog is extremely high,” Hagan said of the commercial-loan business. “That doesn’t mean we’ll get all those accounts, but if we get even a good percentage, we’ll have a very successful 2007.”

He added that the regional economy might typically grow slowly, but he senses the kind of optimism from the area’s business community that bodes well for continued success in commercial banking.

In this issue, BusinessWest examines why the key players at Westfield Bank are hopeful for continued growth — both by offering the products that customers want, and by taking steps to make their lives a little bit easier.

In My Time of Banking

From Westfield Bank’s launch 153 years ago through the mid-1970s, its assets had grown to about $100 million, but three decades of rapid growth have brought that total to $832 million. The bank will also benefit from selling 9.9 million shares of stock in its ongoing conversion to a fully public company, a transaction approved on Dec. 18.

“That should certainly increase our capital and assets as we move forward into the new year,” Hagan said — in turn increasing the bank’s flexibility in making more and larger loans.

“We’ve continued our emphasis on the commercial lending aspect and actually made strides there,” Hagan said, noting that the bank has hired additional lenders to oversee its business-loan activities in Northern Conn., a new market for Westfield Bank.

One of them, William Fleming, “came to us with a venture capital background and added a world of experience,” Hagan said. “We’re very excited about going into Connecticut and opening up a tremendous new marketplace for us. And we’re doing it with what we call ‘desk to deposit.’”

Specifically, Westfield is the first community bank in the region to use a technology known as remote data capture.

“It’s a piece of equipment that scans checks at a customer’s place of business and allows us to deposit items to accounts here in Westfield,” said Alice Babcock, vice president and director of community banking. “What that means is, we don’t need a branch in Connecticut to support our lending efforts there. We can put one of these on the customer’s desk, and he can access Westfield Bank even though his office is far away.”

The bank, which has also introduced the technology to clients in Western Mass., is the first community bank in the region to use remote data capture, Babcock added, although the technology is commonly used by larger institutions.

“It has been met with remarkable success,” she said. “It allows our customers to do business without having to come to the branch, and it’s a window for customers to deposit checks up until 7 at night, instead of having to come to the bank by closing time at 4 or 5. It’s revolutionizing how businesses do their banking.”

“It has been a good way to get in the door with prospects,” especially those located away from the bank’s Western Mass. branches, Hagan said. And because time is money to business people, any development that makes customers’ lives easier benefits the bank, particularly in such a fiercely competitive market for commercial banking.

“The nice part for us is that it doesn’t limit our footprint to physical branches,” Babcock said. “We can support customers down there, which gives us more time to think through our strategy on bricks-and-mortar expansion.”

Not that Westfield Bank has been lax on that account. At a time when banks are branching out at unprecedented rates, Westfield hasn’t built many new branches, but is making a few key additions.

Take Tower Square in Springfield. In March 2006, the bank moved its downtown office to that location, from a building farther away on Main Street.

“We’re excited about what we’ve seen develop in that particular marketplace,” Hagan said. “Our assets have grown significantly in that branch since we moved. We’ve gained a lot of visibility and accessibility there.”

Babcock added that downtown Springfield continues to have a safety problem — or at least a perception of one — but people feel more secure banking at a commercial center like Tower Square.

“Plus, we wanted to make a commitment to the heart of Springfield, and that’s where Tower Square is,” Hagan said. “We feel very strongly about that.”

Positively East Main Street

A fourth branch in Westfield, set to open in April 2008, also speaks to an emphasis on making life easier for customers. Babcock said the bank’s current main branch on Elm Street lies close to the Great River Bridge, which will undergo a lengthy rebuilding project over the next few years.

“The main office is becoming less convenient for people; they’re concerned about the bridge,” she said. “So that was one of the main reasons we began looking for an alternate branch. The location on East Main Street (near the new Home Depot which opened earlier this year) is well-suited for us on that side of town. It really helps residents of that area who are used to coming here.”

“In the past 10 years, there have been 500 or 600 housing starts in the neighborhoods on that side of town,” Hagan said. “The time is right. We’ll have good visibility and accessibility there.”

To further emphasize the convenience factor, Westfield Bank will pilot a seven-day schedule at that branch, keeping office hours on Sundays as well as weekdays and Saturdays.

“Saturdays are over pretty quickly, what with children and sports and everything else,” Babcock said. “All the research we’ve done says that banks that open on Sundays have been very profitable. And customers appreciate not being stressed and having a little more time to get to the bank. It may become a model for us going forward.”

At the same time, Westfield Bank will announce another new branch opening in the coming months. Hagan would not reveal the location, but said it’s in a town where the institution does not currently have a presence.

That location, and the second Westfield site, would bring the bank’s branch total to 12. In addition, three new automated tellers were added in the past year — two in West Springfield and one in Westfield — bringing the bank’s total number of ATMs to 19, with the same growth rate planned for 2007.

In a competitive (some might say overbanked) market, banks need to be more accessible to customers in order to compete for their business, Hagan said. That’s especially true over the past couple of years, during which time financial institutions have found it increasingly difficult to harvest large profits, due to a phenomenon known as a flat yield curve.

Essentially, the yield curve is the difference between short-term and long-term interest rates on loans. In recent years, short-term rates have been significantly lower than long-term rates, which is beneficial for banks, because it allows them to borrow money on the short end and loan it long-term. However, the Federal Reserve has raised short-term rates over the past few years while long-term rates have remained steady, cutting into banks’ profit potential in the loan business.

However, the impact is felt especially in the arena of long-term mortgages, and Westfield Bank’s recent emphasis on its commercial loan business over the home-mortgage side insulates it somewhat from the full effects of a flat yield curve — not to mention a declining mortgage-loan market.

“Because we focus more on commercial lending, the residential downturn hasn’t impacted us as much as it has other banks,” Hagan said.

Gotta Serve Somebody

All banks, however, regardless of their focus or size, must deal with customers’ shifting preferences for how they want to do business. Westfield Bank has seen such strong response to its online banking, for instance, that the technology — along with greater use of ATMs — has forced the institution to adjust the roles of its branch staff.

“We’re seeing customers use alternate delivery channels for transactions, but you still need bricks and mortar for more complicated questions, financial counseling, that sort of thing,” Babcock said. To that end, the bank has trained and upgraded its branch staff to be more skilled at this kind of work.

Frankly, that shift away from conducting routine business in the branch doesn’t surprise Hagan, and it gives banks more flexibility to expand their customer base without necessarily expanding their physical footprint.

“You need to make things as convenient as possible for customers and prospects,” he said. “Typically, what’s happened is that the day-to-day transactions that used to be done at a physical branch are being done on computers. We’re seeing customers using internet banking products to a much greater degree.”

In short, said Hagan, there’s only one method of making a bank more accessible to 21st-century customers:

“You have to take the bank to them.”

Joe Bednar can be reached at[email protected]

Departments

The following building permits were issued during the month of November 2006.

CHICOPEE

Sentry Uniform
803 James St.
$50,000 – 16’ x 42’ addition to front of building

EASTHAMPTON

Liebmann Optical
1 Industrial Parkway
$25,800 – New roof

GREENFIELD

Esthier Christopher
76 Hope St.
$1,500 – Fire Escape

HOLYOKE

O’Connell Properties Inc.
480 Hampden St.
$15,000 – Replace ceiling in second-floor conference room

LUDLOW

Town of Ludlow DPW
198 Sportsmen Road
$200,000 – Alterations to transfer station

SOUTHWICK

Karman Rhodes Plaza
515 College Highway
$180,000 – 3,600-square-foot addition

SPRINGFIELD

Jerron Realty LLC
1191 South Branch Pkwy.
$716,000 – Erect eight-unit condos

 

Mercy Medical Center
271 Carew St.
$61,000 – Renovate existing nursery

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church
193 Williams St.
$552,000 – Construction and alterations

Sisters of Providence Health Systems
271 Carew St.
$8,400,000 – New ICU

Sisters of Providence Health Systems
271 Carew Street
$1,844,000 – ASU renovations

WESTFIELD

Westfield Bank
560 East Main St.
$900,000 – New Bank

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Longview Fiber Co.
42 Palmer Avenue
$30,000 – Roof repair

MJ O’Malley/Salomon Realty
52-54 Wayside Avenue
$80,000 – Office addition

Departments

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden and Hampshire counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

AMHERST

International Arthouse Features Inc., 83 Shays St., Amherst 01002. Larry Jackson, same. Film distribution.

BELCHERTOWN

Rushing Rivers Inc., 50 Two Ponds Road, Belchertown 01007. Piotr Parasiewicz, same. Research on rivers.

BRIMFIELD

Sunny Farm Days Inc., 81 Five Bridge Road, Brimfield 01010. Kimberly J. Morse, same. Marketing operations.

EASTHAMPTON

Scheherazade Reportory Theatre Inc., 32 Briggs St., Easthampton 01027. Mark J. Vecchio, same. (Nonprofit) For charitable purposes.

FEEDING HILLS

Family Bike of Agawam Inc., 1325 Springfield St., #4, Feeding Hills 01001. Trevor J. Emond, 67 Cooley Dr., Longmeadow 01106. Bicycle (and other sporting equipment) retail sales and repair.

HOLYOKE

Sacred Slam Inc., 263 Suffolk St., Ian Koebner, Holyoke 01040. Ian Koebner, same. (Nonprofit) To promote the peaceful resolution of conflict and respect for diversity through the arts and education, etc.

LUDLOW

PCD Group Inc., 185 West Ave., Ludlow 01056. Carlos Cortinhas, 34 Jestina Circle, Ludlow 01056. To operate an auto repair shop.

MIDDLEFIELD

New American Castle Museum Inc., 86 Chester Road, Middlefield 01243. Kim Baker, same. (Nonprofit) To operate a museum.

NORTHAMPTON

NoHo Management Inc., 36 King St., Northampton 01060. Mansour Ghalibaf, same, president, treasurer and secretary. Hotel management.

Northampton Swimming and Diving Booster Club Inc., 49 Northern Ave., Northampton 01060. Robert Boyton, 20 Emily Lane, Northampton 01060. (Nonprofit) To promote the sport of swimming and diving in local Hampshire county communities.

 

Somatics Inc., 32 Mason St., Northampton 01060. Steven Aronstein, same. Somatics and somatic education certification and consulting.

SPRINGFIELD

Korv Inc., 288 Worthington St., Springfield 01103. Orlando Velez, same. To provide a full restaurant/banquet hall service, including takeout and offsite catering.

R.R. Enterprises Inc., 125 Paridon St., Springfield 01118. Ronald Ruell, Sr., 121 Albemarle St., Springfield 01108. Sale of paper, used books, used clothing.

Talk Media Inc., 650 Belmont St., Springfield 01108. Michael Harrison, same. Media production and management.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

B & K Hospitality Management Co., 739 Prospect Ave., West Springfield 01089. Dinesh Patel, same. Hotel management.

Chunida Inc., 739 Prospect Ave., West Springfield 01089. Dinesh Patel, same. Operation of hotel.

Guyette Framing & Home Improvement Inc., 202 High Meadow Dr., West Springfield 01089. Chris P. Guyette, same. Framing and home improvement.

Revaba Inc., 739 Prospect Ave., West Springfield 01089. Dinesh Patel, same. Real estate holding company.

Summerwood Construction Inc., 1027 Amostown Road, West Springfield 01089. Scott C. Harvey, same. General contracting/residential and commercial remodeling.

Sunburst Inc., 739 Prosepct Ave., West Springfield 01089. Dinesh Patel, same. Operation of restaurant and bar.

WESTFIELD

Own your Home Inc., 60 Scenic Road, Westfield 01085. Charles Fortin, same. Providing sources of financing to sell real estate.

St. Pierre Brothers Drywall Inc., 18 St. Pierre Lane, Westfield 01085. Troy M. St. Pierre, same. Drywall work.

WILBRAHAM

Palmer Park Inc., 655 Glendale Road, Wilbraham 01095. Leonard F. Surdyka,
same. Real estate

Departments


Pedro J. Caceres

Pedro J. Caceres has been appointed Global Vice President of Operations at LENOX® in East Longmeadow. He will be responsible for all manufacturing processes and support operations for the tool and band saw areas in support of LENOX’s global expansion.

•••••

Stevens Urethane has hired James P. Galica as Vice President of Market and Product Development.

•••••

Kristin S. Gravanis has been promoted to Assistant Vice President in the Mortgage Department at TD Banknorth Inc. in Springfield.

•••••

Frank Chiera Jr. will lead the Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations Department for Rocky’s Ace Hardware.

••••••

Suzanne L. Parker has been named Executive Director of Girls Incorporated in Holyoke.

•••••

Douglas Fish has been named Director of Financial Aid at American International College in Springfield.

•••••

Park Square Realty of Westfield has hired Duane Desilets as a Sales Associate in its Westfield office. His focus is in residential listings and sales.

•••••

Century 21 Pioneer Valley Associates announced the following:
• Greg Dibrindisi has joined the firm as a Salesperson;
• Erica Burns has joined the firm as a Salesperson;
• Naomi Gendron has joined the firm as a Salesperson, and
• Bruce Dearborn has joined the firm as a Salesperson.

•••••

Dr. Denise Spence has joined Amherst Medical Associates and the practice of Drs. William Smith and Joseph Coppola. Dr. Spence is board-certified in internal medicine and has special interests in women’s health care as well as preventative medicine and diabetes.

•••••

Go FIT announced the following:
• Doug Plavin has been named Program Director;
• Harriet Fingeroth will assume responsibilities for the Go FIT Mentor Training Program;
• Additional staff members have been added to support clinic offerings including: Patrick Tudryn, Mary Lovett, Amy Greenbaum, and Laura Hutchinson;
Speakers set to lecture at Go FIT include:
• Dr. David Cates, a licensed clinical psychologist and program manager for the Child and Adolescent Partial Hospital Program, Day School Program, and Central Intake Department in the Division of Behavioral Health at Baystate Medical Center;
• Erin Smith, a registered dietician and certified diabetes educator;
• Gail Stathis, a safety educator from Baystate Health System, and
• Kelly Tetrault-Stellato, a registered dietician who is also certified in first aid, weight management consulting, personal training, and yoga.

•••••

TD Banknorth Insurance Agency Inc. in Springfield announced that Rosa Dell’Aera-Smith has been promoted to Assistant Vice President.

•••••

Fidelity Bank has hired Brenda L. Young as Branch Services Manager for its Gardner office. She will be responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the facility.

•••••

James B. Ingram was recently awarded the International Society of Arboriculture 2006 Award of Merit. Ingram is the Vice President and Division Manager of the Northeast Division of Bartlett Tree Experts in Osterville.

•••••

At the 15th annual meeting of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the following announcements were made:
• Stephen A. Davis was appointed Chair of the Board of Trustees;
• Elizabeth D. Scheibel was appointed Vice Chair;
• Peter Daboul was named to the Board;
• Jean Deliso was named to the Board;
• James Morton was named to the Board;
• Peter Picknelly was named to the Board;
The following members were also nominated to serve an additional term: Bruce Brown, Carol Leary, Sonia Nieto, Mary Ellen Scott, and Linda Silva Thompson.

•••••


Michael M. Lefebvre

Michael M. Lefebvre has been promoted to Senior Vice President in the Commercial Lending Division at TD Banknorth Massachusetts in Springfield. He will continue to handle middle-market lending for business customers throughout Western Mass.

•••••

Peter Pan Bus Lines President Peter A. Picknelly recently dedicated a Springfield terrace to the memory of his late father, Peter L. Picknelly Sr., and his late mother, Mary F. Picknelly, at the corner of Park Drive and Normandy Road on the Springfield-Longmeadow border adjacent to Forest Park. The Picknelly family and Peter Pan developed the Springfield terrace as part of the city’s Adopt A Terrace program. The terrace has been landscaped by Ottani Landscaping and has an irrigation system, a park bench, and a memorial stone with Picknelly’s parents’ names inscribed.

•••••

Dowd Insurance Agency of Holyoke announced the following:


Lori Slezak

• Lori Slezek has been named Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Administration, and

 

 

 

 

David W. Griffin

• David W. Griffin, CIC, Licensed Advisor and Partner, has been named Senior Vice President.

•••••

Meyers Brothers Kalicka of Holyoke and Greenfield announced the following:
• Jeremy M. Leblond, CPA, has met the requirements to obtain an MBA;
• Lisa M. Hazeltine has met the requirements to obtain an MSA, and
• Christel D. Harju has joined the firm as a Senior Associate in the Holyoke office.

•••••

Bacon & Wilson, P.C. of Springfield announced that the following attorneys were named “Super Lawyers” in the November issue of Boston Magazine:


Paul R. Salvage

• Paul R. Salvage, Co-chairman of the Insolvency Department;

 

 

 


Gary L. Fialky

• Gary L. Fialky, Chairman of the Corporate Department;

 

 

 


Michael B. Katz

• Michael B. Katz, Co-chairman of the Bankruptcy Department;

 

 

 


Paul H. Rothchild

• Paul H. Rothschild, Chairman of the Litigation Department’

 

 

 

 


Stephen N. Krevalin

• Stephen N. Krevalin, Managing Partner;

 

 

 

 


Hyman G. Darling

• Hyman G. Darling, Chairman of the Estate Planning and Elder Law Departments, who was also a speaker at the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys’ Advanced Elder Law Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November;

 

 

 


Francis R. Mirkin

• Francis R. Mirkin, whose areas of practice include commercial and residential real estate;

 

 

 

 


Bruce M. Fogel

• Bruce M. Fogel, a member of the estate planning and elder, real estate and zoning, and business and corporate departments, and

 

 


Gary F. Bevilacqua

• Gary F. Bevilacqua, whose primary area of practice is real estate.

•••••

 

 

 


Jacqueline Keegan McColgan

Nursing professor Jacqueline Keegan McColgan has been honored as the 2006-07 recipient of the Joseph J. Deliso Sr. Endowed Chair at Springfield Technical Community College. At STCC, the Deliso Endowed Chair award includes a $3,000 grant, with half to further the honoree’s professional pursuits and half in grant for the recipient’s academic department. McColgan is planning to use the department share of the award to update hospital equipment such as IV pumps and patient feeding pumps that are used in simulation experiences.

•••••

Diane M. Brzozowski, CPA, has been promoted to Audit Manager at Downey, Sweeney, Fitzgerald & Co., P.C., with offices in Springfield and Westfield.

Departments

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden and Hampshire counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

AGAWAM

Esperanza Inc., 27 Grant St., Agawam 01001. Dmitriy A. Bazukin, same. Transporting vehicles across the state with a truck.

BRIMFIELD

Premier Singles Inc., 73 Dunhamtown Palmer Road, Brimfield 01010. Maria N. Thomson, same. (Foreign corp; DE) Social networking.

EAST LONGMEADOW

KCL Corp., 422 North Main St., East Longmeadow 01028. Kam Chow Lau, same. Provide prepared ethnic food and drink.

New England Time Solutions Inc., 41 Lee St., East Longmeadow 01028. Karl Cook Bailey, Jr., same. Selling time recording and payroll systems equipment and providing related services.

Reflections by Claudia Inc., 23 North Main St., East Longmeadow 01028. Claudia H. Walsh, 374 Pinehurst Dr., East Longmeadow 01028. Retail sale of home furnishings and gifts.

FLORENCE

Northampton Boys Soccer Boosters Inc., 103 Pioneer Knolls, Ext., Florence 01062. Amanda Cronin, same. To support boys’ soccer teams by fostering positive team spirit, etc.

HAMPDEN

Excel Home Care Services Inc., 83 North Monson Road, Hampden 01036. Rebecca L. Paquette, same. Nursing services.

LEEDS

The American Singers’ Theater Corp., 231 Main St., Leeds 01053. Alan W. Schneider, same. Producing events and providing services in the performing arts.

LONGMEADOW

Memory Lane Lamps Inc., 28 Rugby Road, Longmeadow 01106. Steven D. Couchon, same. Wholesale and retail sale of lamps and other goods.

LUDLOW

DJZ Inc., 53 Blanchard Ave., Ludlow 02056. Denise J. Zrakas, same. Child care business.

Westfield Gas & Electric Cooperative, Moody St., Ludlow 01056. Daniel Golubek, 82 Wood Road, Westfield 01085. To deal in energy or energy-related services.

MONSON

Docco Mountain Supply Inc., 45 Bethany Road, Monson 01057. Daniel W. O’Connor, 24 Circle Dr., Monson 01057. To manufacture and sell ski lift parts.

NORTHAMPTON

Hampshire County Partnership to Improve End of Life Care Inc., 168 Industrial Dr., Northampton 01060. Tracy Carroll, 2 Warner Row, Leeds 01053. (Nonprofit) To educate the public regarding all aspects of life care, etc.

 

Student Educational Exchange Inc., 29 Adare Place, Northampton 01060. Megan Connelly, 375 Mulberry Road, Mansfield Center 06250. (Nonprofit) To engage in education.

SOUTH HADLEY

Definitive Protection Solutions Inc., 78 Bardwell St., South Hadley 01075. Carlos Ramirez, same. Security services.

Home First Remodeling Inc., 5 Wright Place, South Hadley 01075. Michael Troy Reiter, same. Residential remodeling.

SOUTHWICK

J.L. Towing Inc., 40 Sam West Road, Southwick 01077. John A. Litwak, Jr., same. The retail sale of auto parts and towing services.

SPRINGFIELD

Affordable Enterprises Inc., 69 Maple St., Springfield 01105. Dwayne Harris, 5225 Longridge Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89146. Earl G. Wilson, 69 Maple St., Springfield 01105, treasurer. Residential and commercial construction, home remodeling, etc.

Community Contracting Inc., 211 Wilbraham Road, Springfield 01109. Jose L. Fernandez, 70 East Haverhill St., Lawrence 01841. Home improvements, installation of security systems, real estate development, etc.

Iglesia Camino Al Cielo Pentecostal Inc., 758 Carew St., 3rd. Floor, Springfield 02204. Joel Caballero, same. (Nonprofit) To preach the gospel in the Christian way of life.

Israel Inc., 29 Berkeley St., Springfield 01109. Grace Morris, same. Cyberservice working on the Internet doing consultation.

WTKD Inc., 691 Boston Road, Springfield 01119. Won Young Ju, 30 Sunnyside Terrace, Wilbraham 01095. To operate a martial arts institute, etc.

WESTFIELD

Alliance Home Improvement Inc., 148 Berkshire Dr., Westfield 01085. Sergiy Suprunchuk, same. Home improvement.

Howard Barber CPA Corp., 1 Court St., Westfield 01085. Howard Glenn Barber, 25 Willow Brook Lane, Westfield 01085. Accounting and business services.

Prometheus Labor Communications Inc., 10 Kane Brothers Circle, Westfield 01085. Stephen Dondley, same. Computer consulting and design services.

WILBRAHAM

Coffee Guys Corp., 8 West Colonial Road, Wilbraham 01095. Thomas F. Sweeney, same. Retail coffee sales.

Wilbraham Middle School PTO Inc., 78 Oakland St., Wilbraham 01095. Georgina Trebbe, same. (Nonprofit) To encourage cooperation among parents, school staff and community, etc.

Departments

WNEC Named Employer of the Year

SPRINGFIELD — Western New England College has been honored as ‘Employer of the Year’ by the Employers Association of the Northeast, the second straight year the college has been recognized in the nonprofit/over-100-employees category. Awards are based on several criteria, including effective communication, fostering employee input and feedback, encouraging professional development, fostering work/life balance, and promoting a positive, professional culture while valuing diversity and individuality.

Law Firm Opens Northampton Office

NORTHAMPTON — Springfield-based Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury & Murphy, P.C., recently opened a new office at 60 State St. Attorney Thomas M. Growhoski has joined the firm and will serve as lead attorney in the Northampton office.

Big Y Plans 2008 Store Opening in North Branford

SPRINGFIELD — Big Y recently announced plans to open a World Class Market in North Branford, Conn., in early 2008, subject to obtaining development approvals from the Town of North Branford. Big Y’s proposed 63,000-square-foot supermarket will be developed by Julian Enterprises of West Haven, Conn., which has filed a site plan application on a 10-acre site at 1289 Foxon Road. The North Branford location will be Big Y’s 59th store and the fifth in New Haven County. The proposed supermarket represents an investment of more than $5 million by Big Y into the local community.

Holyoke Credit Union Set to Expand Operations

HOLYOKE — The Holyoke Credit Union will open a second full-service location at 333 Elm St., West Springfield, in the spring. The added location will feature a full-service walk-in facility and a drive-thru window. The Holyoke Credit Union is available to anyone who lives or works in Hampden or Hampshire counties. For more information, visit www.holyokecu.com.

Verizon Wireless Network Expands into Northampton

NORTHAMPTON — Verizon Wireless has expanded its network in Hampshire County with the addition of a new cell site. The new site increases coverage and capacity along Routes 10 and 66 in the city. The network expansion is part of the company’s aggressive multi-billion-dollar network investment each year, including well over $300 million in New England in 2005 alone, to stay abreast of the growing demand for voice and data services.

HCC Featured in Periodical

HOLYOKE — The history-making success of Holyoke Community College’s “Gift of Opportunity Campaign” was the subject of a feature article in the Oct. 27 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Officially launched in 2004, the campaign secured an unprecedented $5.2 million, including a $500,000 commitment from the college’s alumni. The article, titled Coming to a Community College Near You, highlights the efforts of Alumni Director Joanna Brown in securing the largest-ever commitment from a Massachusetts community college alumni group. Other hallmarks of the campaign include: 46% of faculty and staff participated in the campaign, there was 100% participation from the HCC Foundation Board of Directors and the HCC Board of Trustees, and more than 50% of contributors were first-time HCC donors.

Alumnus Donates $1 Million to WNEC

SPRINGFIELD — Western New England College has received one of the largest gifts in its history — a $1 million donation from The Phyllis and Donald Campbell Charitable Foundation. The donation will support WNEC’s recently unveiled $20 million fundraising effort, “Transformations: The Campaign for Western New England College.” Donald G. Campbell is Vice Chairman of the TJX Companies Inc., and serves on the college’s Board of Trustees. Campbell received his bachelor’s degree in finance in 1973 and his MBA in 1979 from WNEC. Campbell and his wife, Phyllis, a Springfield native, have established the Steerage Rock Endowed Scholarship to provide financial aid through the college’s School of Business for students from Brimfield, Holland, Monson, Wales, or Warren. To date, ‘Transformations’ has raised more than $15.5 million to support college projects.

Departments

The following building permits were issued during the month of November 2006.

AMHERST

Kiln Works
460 West St.
$7,000 – New lights & fire alarm system

CHICOPEE

Chicopee Brown Realty
902-08 Chicopee Street
$86,000 – Build 5-stall garage, add porches and re-roof windows

EAST LONGMEADOW

E.L. Retirement
1 Appleblossom Lane
$9,326,600 – New Building

GREENFIELD

Troy Renaud
8 North Circle
$101,000 – Build storage building

HADLEY

Town of Hadley – CMU Building
129 Bay Road
$2,114,700 – Water treatment facility

HOLYOKE

Brosenfrenz LLC
36 Dwight St.
$40,000 – Repairs to building

NORTHAMPTON

Service Properties Inc.
84 Conz St.
$150,000 – Renovations

 

SPRINGFIELD

90 Meat Outlet Inc.
90 Avocado St.
$4,500 – Construct stair for entrance to salesroom

Express Gas/Foodmart
1103-07 State St.
$55,000 — One-story addition with employee bathroom

Forest Park Commons
153 White St.
$1,400,000 – Erect 13-unit multi-family residence

Performance Food Group
340 Taylor St.
$20,646,000 – New distribution warehouse with offices

YMCA of Springfield
275 Chestnut St.
$49,500 – Misc. renovations

WESTFIELD

Westfield Technical Emergency Management Systems
179 Apremont Way
$1,2000,000 – New commercial building

WEST SPRINGFIELD

John C. Nekitopoulous
241 Bliss St.
$50,000 – Foundation for addition to commercial building

YMCA of Greater Springfield
125 Great Plains
$140,000 – Multi-purpose summer camp building

Departments

The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court.

Bartkowski, Andrzej F.
385 Parkerview St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Bartkowski, Zofia M.
385 Parkerview St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Bolte, Juan E.
296 Houghton St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/13/06

Bourgeois, Valerie Joseph
1328 Main St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/10/06

Cerpovicz, Leeann
58 North Boulevard St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/07/06

Chonmany, Barbara A.
177 Shawmut St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/10/06

Delgado Ruiz, Ileana D.
813 Berkshire Ave.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/15/06

DeSando, Debra L.
48 Olde Colonial Dr.
Gardner, MA 01440
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/07/06

Dyer, John Michael
Dyer, Laura Rose
371 Mill St.
Gardner, MA 01440
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Escalante, Luis
21 Oswego St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/14/06

Hagelberg, Donald O.
281 Chauncey Walker Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/09/06

Hamel, Michael R.
70 Brianna Lane
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/08/06

Hannah, Aileen Marti Teahan
526 South St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Hannah, Denzil
526 South St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Helm, Conrad
383 Newton St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/06/06

King, William R.
Foreign Performance, LTD
15 Elm Drive
Hudson, MA 01749
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/13/06

Klash, Brenda L.
32 Whitney St.
Gardner, MA 01440
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Korniyenko, Andrey
248 Amherst Road
Apartment A8
Sunderland, MA 01375
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/15/06

Kuras, Laura L.
Tyler Home Improvement
88 Birch Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/06/06

Lantz, Becky Sue
45 Central Ave.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/10/06

Leone, Nina B.
29 1/2 Berwyn St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/08/06

Marchefka, Mary Ann
318 Deerfield St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/13/06

McClain, Leonard
176 Savoy Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104-2062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

McClain, Norma J.
176 Savoy Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104-2062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Morse, Andrew A.
588 Main St.
Sturbridge, MA 01566
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/13/06

 

Murphy, Mildred H.
193 Elberon Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/13/06

O’Connor, Valerie A.
80 Lynch Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Pare Jr., Andre
84 Olea St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Peralta, Raymond S.
69 Macomber Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Peralta, Sandro
672 Alden St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/01/06

Plant, Gary J.
2033 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/05/06

Porter, Elmer W.
70 Coleman St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Raymond, Timothy W.
41 Kimball Hill Road
Holland, MA 01521
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Robertson, Martin D.
28 Park St., Apt. 1
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/08/06

Sprous, Dennis Gilbert
Sprous, Wendy Theresa
24 Pleasant St.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/10/06

Stalter, Dennis E.
Stalter, Cynthia L.
5 Big Tree Lane
Holland, MA 01521
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/08/06

Strycharz, Gerald L.
Strycharz, Patricia J.
607 Fuller St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/06/06

Talbot, Elaine C.
735 Memorial Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/13/06

Tang, Kan Y.
Tang, May Lan
15 Depot St., Apt. 14C
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/08/06

Tefft, Evon S.
18C Elm Ter.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/07/06

Tolomei, Rebecca L.
48 Coleman St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/15/06

Uggiano, Shirlee Jean
209 Prospect St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Vargas, Evelyn
Gonzalez, Evelyn
50 Buckingham St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/07/06

Vincelette, Matthew R.
19 Hollywood St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/09/06

Vincent, Lisa
Demastrie, Lisa
LV Enterprises
35 Silver St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/09/06

Vogt, Michael L.
102 Linden St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/02/06

Wells, Michael Robert
Wells, Lisa Ann
80 Wheeler Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 11/03/06

Forestier, Carmen M.
125 Saint James Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109-3803
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 11/01/06

Sections Supplements
STCC’s Patient Simulators Open New Doors to Learning
Nursing student Tracy Stanlewicz

Nursing student Tracy Stanlewicz checks the vital signs of one of STCC’s 14 patient simulators.

When Springfield Technical Community College bought its first patient simulator several years ago, it was a fresh idea in medical education. Now many more colleges are getting on board. They increasingly realize what students and professors at STCC have known for years: that real-world experiences in medical training lead to real-world successes later on.

Michael Foss remembers the day, during his medical training, when lightning struck — a moment both terrifying and valuable.

“I was transporting a patient down an elevator, and lightning struck outside,” said Foss, now dean of the School of Health at Springfield Technical Community College. He recalled that the elevator suddenly stopped, the lights switched off, and the patient, who was hooked up to a respirator, stopped breathing.

“It scared the hell out of me,” he said. “In a matter of seconds, I was completely alone with the patient. All of a sudden, the lights came back on, the elevator jumped, and the patient started to breathe again.”

As Foss related this tale, he leaned forward with a sneaky grin. “We can do that kind of cool stuff here, any time we feel like it,” he said — thanks to a growing collection of state-of-the-art patient-simulation mannequins that can replicate virtually any situation a nurse or other medical professional might encounter in real life.

Say a couple of students are transporting a ‘sim’ patient, thinking they have done everything properly to stabilize him. “If they start to get complacent, thinking everything is cool, we can make everything not OK,” Foss said. “We can have that patient take a dive in the hallway or the elevator or anywhere else we feel like.”

These sim patients — which simulate movement, breathing, and a host of vital signs — are given the human touch by a professor, who monitors students’ interaction with the patient from another room using a camera. The professor not only serves as the patient’s voice, but uses a computer to direct responses and vital signs.

Patricia Hanrahan, director of Clinical Education at STCC’s School of Health, used the example of a blood draw to compare patient simulators to ‘task trainers’ like a realistic — but unmoving — arm.

“When they put the needle in the patient’s arm and the patient passes out, they not only have to figure out what to do with the patient, but what to do with the needle,” she said. “There are two sets of expectations that are simultaneous.”

But then, there’s a payoff. “A student came to me with a great big smile on her face and said, ‘I did it.’ The same thing happened to her in a clinical setting, and she knew exactly what to do. The people at the agency were so impressed that they hired her on the spot for an externship.”

In this issue, BusinessWest looks into the history of patient simulation at STCC — and why it is proving beneficial not just to students, but to real patients everywhere.

Starting Small

The college’s first attempt at patient simulation was in its sonography program, and was a computer-based simulator that looks and acts like a real ultrasound scanner. When a student moves a probe across the patient’s body on the table, the screen brings up actual ultrasound images on the screen.

“That’s how we got started in simulation,” Foss said. “Then we decided to go to full-size human patient simulators, so we made a large investment in an adult male and a pediatric male that could be plugged into the same piece of computer equipment. We opened our patient simulation center and used it for respiratory care, mostly.”

Meanwhile, other faculty members were intrigued by the possibilities of this pair of talking, breathing simulators. Soon after, a nursing graduate who was working for a simulation company approached the college about lending another full-size sim in exchange for the chance to conduct some research on campus.

As time went on, the roster of sims in the department continued to grow to its current total of 14, with a mix of different ages, genders, and ethnicities.

“For a long time, the airline industry has demanded that pilots go through cockpit training in simulators,” Foss said. “We thought, if it’s good enough for pilots to keep people alive, it would probably work for students going into the health care field.”

Each year brings further advances, so that the sims can be updated completely through software. The newer models are also mobile and not confined to a bed setting.

Mobility has opened the use of sim patients to many more departments than the original models did. For instance, the first patients couldn’t be moved into the chair for Dental Assisting students to work on, as is possible today.

“We put a portable patient in street clothes, put him in the chair, and one of the faculty acted like the doctor and gave him a shot of anesthesia,” Foss said. “As the patient was conversing with the dental assistant student, he started to have slurred speech and wasn’t very responsive. We were watching this on a camera and changing all the vital signs, just like what might happen in a real patient situation.”

Confidence and Competence

It’s important, he explained, for students to experience these bumps in the road during seemingly routine procedures now, when no one’s health or safety is actually at stake.

“We’re making sure that the context and environment students learn in is as close as possible to the environment they’re going to work in after graduation,” he told BusinessWest. It’s an effort that goes beyond the sims; the college has been renovating its health education facilities to make the rooms look more like real medical settings as well.

That realism today will build some essential skills that aren’t learned in a textbook, Hanrahan said.

“In clinical education, confidence and competence are very important,” she explained. “When students feel more confident about their skills, they tend to act more competently in the clinical area, and that gives them even more confidence to make clinical decisions.”

The hands-on training is not to be understated, Hanrahan said, recalling one student who aced a written exam, yet flunked the accompanying simulation test. Better to fail in class, of course, than with real patients.

“Before they go to their clinical training, they can walk through that environment here. Then, when a similar thing happens, they feel like they know what to do.” It helps that all simulations are taped so students may review their decision-making and responses with professors afterward.

“We’ve had task trainers for years — parts of the body,” Foss said. “So they can stick the needle into the plastic arm, but the arm does not react. Our patients will react. We can have them refuse — and that brings up an entirely different set of skills. Then, when they’re in a stressful situation with a patient down the road, they can draw on this and say, ‘I’ve done this before.’ It helps them to relax.”

He compared the experience, again, to flight simulators that train pilots — technology so advanced that it’s indistinguishable from performing actual maneuvers thousands of feet above the earth.

“We’re almost to that point, where we’re suspending the users’ disbelief,” Foss said, noting that the hospital-like settings of the rooms are crucial to the illusion.

When we put the simulator on a hospital bed near the normal things you’d find in a hospital, it becomes more real and meaningful to them. I feel strongly that we’ve often taken hands-on experiences in medical training out of context; with the patient simulators, we’re putting it back into context.”

Scary Moments

That context, of course, can be decidedly unnerving.

“I can assure you,” Foss said, measuring his words, “that we can make this one of the scariest moments of your career. We can throw things at you at a very high level that will make you sweat.”

That’s partly because few students ever get everything exactly right, he explained. “You may think you’ve given the right dose for this patient, but you didn’t because you forgot to check his weight. Or perhaps you left the room, and when you came back, you didn’t check his name appropriately. Or you didn’t do chest compressions properly. You thought you did, but the computer knows better.”

But the sims don’t only develop proficiency. They also help students understand that even their best efforts aren’t always enough. “We do, sadly, kill patients,” Foss said. “There are times when you do everything right, and the patient still dies.”

That’s a useful lesson, Hanrahan said. “Students are able to problem-solve not only what they did, but how they feel about it, how to make sense of it, how to communicate with family members. This is not about merely technical or psychomotor skills; it’s about taking care of patients. We give them an environment where they can reflect and faculty who help them reflect.”

Some pick up the concept sooner than others. Foss recalled a tour of visitors to the classrooms during which he voiced one of the patients as a man with Alzheimer’s disease. As the group discussed the patient simulators, Foss, as the sim, kept asking for his long-dead wife, and one of the visitors became intrigued.

“She interrupted the conversation and said, ‘Let’s listen to him. He sounds like he has Alzheimer’s.’ And she had it, dead-on,” Foss said. “You can’t do that with a task trainer.”

Then there was the time a student successfully helped his sim through a critical moment and had him stabilized. Another student took over at that point, and instead of taking it easy or asking for help on what to do next, he started talking to the patient, noting on his records that he smoked two packs a day, and that wasn’t good for him.

“He basically went through a very personal health education moment. We were not expecting that, and it blew us away,” Foss said. “Both students did an exceptional job, and because of that, they have the confidence and competence to handle such a situation.”

Expanding Upon an Idea

Meanwhile, STCC has achieved the competence with patient simulation to become a model for the other 14 community colleges in Massachusetts. Three years ago, hardly any of the other campuses had patient simulators, and now about half own at least one, with more coming on board all the time. And that’s important, Foss said, because although community colleges aren’t turning out doctors, they do supply the bulk of new nurses and other medical personnel across the state.

“If we can help introduce patient simulation to other schools, we’re actually improving the quality of health care across the entire Commonwealth, so that’s our goal,” he said, noting also that simulation also carries some intriguing workforce-development possibilities, such as hospitals sending employees to a local college campus to train on a new procedure.

“It has even been suggested to us as a pre-hire evaluation,” Foss said. “If you want to know for a fact that an employee can do a whole set of skills, you send them to a patient simulator and let them prove it.”

Hanrahan said such efforts would not be out of line with the patient-safety goals so prominent in the modern hospital setting. “All health care institutions are very focused on patient safety as a quality issue,” she said. “We can create and recreate situations that help people evaluate their ability to practice safely.”

They’re doing so by teaching students how to focus on the patient, Foss said. Instead of asking the professor what to do next, students are gradually trained to direct questions to the patient. And technology is continually improving to help suspend students’ disbelief, including baby sims who are “delivered” from adult-size sims; the babies come out with a blue tint and eventually turn pink — as long as the student makes the right decisions.

“It’s powerful to see students acquire mastery,” Hanrahan said. “These students are providing the employment pool in the local and not-so-local health care arena, and we want them to feel that they’ve mastered what they came here to accomplish.”

It’s a sudden rush of knowledge that can hit a student like — well, like a bolt out of the sky.

Joe Bednar can be reached at[email protected]

Opinion
The Ticking Time Bomb in State Pensions

President Bush recently signed into law the Pension Protective Act of 2006 in an effort to strengthen the financial health of corporate defined benefit pension plans.
However, little attention is paid to a retirement sector in even greater financial straits: state government pension plans. These plans are facing a $1.3 trillion shortfall that presents a serious threat to their very survival — as well as to every taxpayer in the country.

State pension programs — which cover 12.8 million Americans and manage assets worth $2.3 trillion — are a pillar of the nation’s retirement system. By comparison, corporate defined benefit pension plans cover 44.1 million participants but possess fewer assets — about $1.7 trillion.

At first glance, state plans seem to be nearly as healthy as their corporate counterparts: they face a shortfall of $348 billion under current accounting rules, according to the National Assoc. of State Retirement Administrators. This implies they are 86% funded, versus 90% for corporate plans.

However, these projections are misleading. The real shortfall of state-defined benefit pension programs is closer to $1.3 trillion, which translates into the plans being 64% funded. This alarming gap could set off a crisis whose magnitude would dwarf the $200 billion government bailout of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s. Just as disturbing, this threat is largely ignored because of opaque accounting.

Opaque accounting dramatically distorts the liability side of the pension ledger. The key question is whether pension plan liabilities are being properly measured. The liabilities of defined benefit pension plans are measured by using a discount — or interest — rate.

Unlike corporate plans, which must use high-quality corporate bond rates as their discount rate, state pension plans are allowed to use the much higher expected return on the assets they manage, artificially shrinking their liabilities.

This practice perniciously disguises the actual health of state-funded pension programs. As with corporate plans, state plans should be discounted using long-term corporate bond rates instead of the expected rate of return on assets, which is the current practice of most state governments.

Consider how distorting this practice is. Specifically, the average expected return on assets across state pension plans today is about 7.89%, according to the NASRA. Based on this return, their liabilities are estimated at $2.5 trillion. If, however, the plans use as their discount rate the more credible 10-year Treasury rate, at about 4.9%, their liabilities would weigh in at $3.5 trillion — a whopping 42% increase.

Startling as this finding is, it simply stems from applying to state-defined benefit pension plans the same accounting principles that corporate plans must live by.

States must be honest about their pension liabilities and the true value of plan underfunding. They must then take assertive steps to close the gap through a combination of benefit reductions, tax increases, and tapping other sources of non-recurring revenues. Issuing bonds to fund pension liabilities, for example, doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes it more visible by moving the obligation onto the state’s balance sheet, thus encouraging more responsible management.

Longer term, states will probably follow in the footsteps of the corporate sector and both freeze their defined benefit plans and shift employees to defined contribution plans.

While not as economically advantageous in the long term, the latter are often more popular among workers and are more transparent. Under defined contribution programs, politicians would not have the luxury of granting employees generous pension allowances that state plans are ill-equipped to afford, or to consistently defer contributions.

And that would be a relief to taxpayers, once they become aware of the $1 trillion pension bombshell headed their way.-

Thomas J. Healey is a retired partner of Goldman Sachs & Co., and currently a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He served as assistant secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan.

Features
HRU Partners with Businesses to Help Make Dreams Reality
Schley Warren, left, general manager of Berkshire Service Experts

Schley Warren, left, general manager of Berkshire Service Experts, says Ed Collins, who came to the company via Human Resources Unlimited, has been a tremendous asset.

Schley Warren remembers his introduction to Human Resources Unlimited and its facility called Lighthouse.

He was at that Springfield location several months ago overseeing some work to its HVAC system as part of his work as general manager of Berkshire Service Experts. “I asked the people, ‘so . . . what do you do here?’”

The answer intrigued him enough to eventually become both a vendor and a client, although the preferred term is ‘business partner.’

Lighthouse is one of HRU’s four so-called clubhouses, facilities that provide a variety of rehabilitation services to adults with mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia. One of those services involves transitioning individuals into the workforce through skill building and then matching people with positions at area companies.

After watching and learning about Lighthouse, Warren, who had long been looking to add a receptionist to cover lunch hours, decided to make Berkshire one of those companies.

Today, Ed Collins works at the front desk of Berkshire’s offices on Capital Drive in West Springfield. There, he handles the phones, greets visitors, and even works on spread sheets. Warren describes him as a real asset to the company, someone he’ll certainly miss when Collins moves on in a few months.

His assignment is temporary in nature (six to nine months is the norm) and while there is more than a touch of regret on Warren’s part about this fact, there is also a realization that moving on is better for Collins — “he’s underutilized here … there’s bigger and better things waiting for him out there” — and for HRU. That’s because the position at Berkshire isn’t really given to an individual; it’s given, in essence, to the agency, which will hopefully assign a succession of individuals to it, giving them additional skills and work experience that will enable them to land permanent jobs.

“Meaningful work is an integral aspect of an individual’s sense of purpose and well-being,” said Margaret Jordan, HRU’s director of Mental Health Services, who told BusinessWest that for individuals helped by HRU, joining the workforce is an important part of their recovery.

“Individuals with mental illness have been told that they shouldn’t be working, and should instead just collect services,” she continued. “We don’t believe that.”
Those involved with HRU, called ‘members,’ now occupy a number of positions, ranging from receptionist to software support, and for companies ranging from what are (or were) one-person shows to large corporations like Big Y and CVS.

Business partners can earn $2,400 Work Opportunity tax credits for each position they designate for HRU, Jordan explained, but this is rarely, if ever, the motivation. Instead, it’s a simple desire to bring on skilled, dependable workers (something that is becoming increasingly difficult in this labor market), while also giving those individuals a much-needed opportunity to be productive, earn wages, and, most importantly, gain confidence in themselves.

“They’re not just doing good,” Jordan said of the companies that have become partners. “They’re doing well. In many ways, they’re helping their businesses.”

Looking forward, Jordan said HRU would like to add more business partners, an expansion effort that would help more individuals with mental disorders, while helping to address the challenge of finding good help. Such growth for the program will come through awareness, she continued, adding that business owners should consider HRU’s ability to solve their workforce problems.

Seeing the Light

Jeff Lander is another of those business owners who discovered HRU largely by accident.

His relationship started in 1999, when he bought a home on Broad Street in Westfield — in which he set up his software development business called Appilistic — located next door to another HRU facility known as Forum House. Curiosity prompted him to learn about the work being done at that facility, while intrigue compelled him to first volunteer, then become a member of the group’s board of advisers, and then lead that board.

And it was common sense that made him a business partner.

An administrator at Forum House approached him about an individual she thought would be a good support person for Appilistic. Talk eventually led to the hiring of Mike Santner, who now handles a variety of tasks, including HTML coding, thus allowing Lander more time for initiatives that will help grow his business.

“His skills complement mine nicely,” said Lander, who said his experience with Santner has worked out so well that he has created another position, largely along the lines of an administrative assistant, that is also staffed through HRU. “He’s a great addition; he’s very good at what he does.”

For his commitment to HRU and its programs, Lander was recently named the organization’s employer of the year, one of several awards given annually to recognize the companies that help HRU carry out its mission of community integration. This partnership with the business community began in 1970, said Jordan, when now Springfield-based HRU was founded.

Originally, the agency was affiliated with Belchertown State School and its vocational program, she explained, adding that it broke away from the school and relocated to Springfield in 1985. HRU, with a $7 million annual budget funded by the State Dept. of Mental Health, has a number of component parts. They include ETS Career Services, a Springfield-based facility that places developmentally disabled individuals for contract and assembly work, and the Pyramid Program, which conducts skill-building for individuals with severe developmental disabilities and, more commonly, physical disabilities. There are other programs to help those on transitional assistance enter the workforce and offer services that enable homeless individuals get back on their feet.

The Mental Health Services Division now operates four clubhouses — Lighthouse, Forum House, the Star Light Center in Florence, and Tradewinds in Southbridge — that function to provide individuals with work skills and then match them with transitional and, hopefully, permanent employment opportunities.

The basic mission for the clubhouses is to challenge program members to rise to their full potential through skill-building and work, Jordan explained. “The program was founded on the belief that members have the right to be connected to their community, to make their own choices, pursue personal goals, and have the opportunity to work.”

The clubhouses assist individuals with an array of mental illnesses, she continued, including severe depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and personality disorders.

For employers, the clubhouses act in many ways like staffing agencies. The work begins with assessing specific employment needs and continues with efforts to match job requirements with members, said Jordan. Clubhouse administrators actually take on a position initially, to understand its nuances and properly train members to assume it. The clubhouse provides what it calls an absence-coverage guarantee, meaning that if, for any reason, the employee cannot show up for work, another, already trained, clubhouse member or administrator will fill in.

Getting Down to Business

Over the years, the roster of business partners has steadily grown, said Jordan. It now includes A.J. Wright, Aquadro & Cerruti, Burger King, Friendly’s, O’Connell Oil, T.J. Maxx, WGBY, and dozens more. Assignments within these companies vary, ranging from administrative assistant to assembler; groundskeeper to hotel bellman; stock clerk to tutor.

But while the job titles vary, the opportunities are largely the same, said Jordan, adding that individuals are given a chance to build a track record as a responsible, dependable, and efficient employee, which could lead to permanent employment within the area.

The process starts with transitional employment assignments, like the one Ed Collins is on at Berkshire. In two months, he will move onto another transitional position, gaining more skills and confidence as he does so. In some cases, transitional work will lead to permanent jobs at a company, although this means that HRU loses the position in question — unless it convinces the employer to create another job for the agency, which often happens.

Such was the case at Appilistic, where Lander thought Santner was such a good addition he asked him to stay on with the company.

Transitional jobs have also led to a number of permanent positions at Big Y stores, including the one on East Silver Street in Westfield, which has a long-standing relationship with Forum House.

John Mountain, the store’s manager, told BusinessWest that the facility now has six employees, all “service clerks” who handle duties ranging from bagging groceries to corralling shopping carts, who came to the company from Forum House. Many have been with the store for years, he said, adding that a few that he hired before a four-year assignment with another store before returning to Westfield to become manager are still there.

“This has worked out very well for us; all the employees are very dependable,” he said, adding that when the store has openings, Forum House members are always an option to be considered just like other candidates.

Like other business partners, Warren said there are many advantages to awarding a position to HRU. The post is consistently staffed with reliable individuals who don’t have to be trained by Berkshire, he explained, adding that the alternative — trying to find someone who will stay in such an entry-level, part-time position for any length of time — is not very attractive. He’s now mulling other positions, such as sheet metal fabrication, that could be given to HRU and Lighthouse.

Warren’s not looking forward to seeing Collins leave Berkshire early next year, but he is excited about the prospects of helping other individuals gain work experience.

“It really is a win-win,” he explained. “We win because our company’s is better because we have people like Ed here, and Ed wins because he’s learning and growing.”

Labor of Love

As he talked about HRU and Forum House, Lander stressed repeatedly that his involvement is not simply doing good deeds.

“This is a resource that helps me run my business more efficiently,” he said, referring to Forum House as his HR department. “It helps in unexpected ways — they want to help my business succeed.

Similarly, the programs help members to succeed — in whatever ways they define that word.

“We help people set their own goals and help them dream,” Jordan explained. “Sometimes, mental illness interferes with dreams; it shouldn’t keep them from coming true.”

George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
More People Are Choosing Hospice Care in Their Final Days
Joanne Schlunk

Joanne Schlunk says a multi-disciplinary team makes sure not only a hospice patient is comforted and supported, but the patient’s family, too.

Joanne Schlunk recalled a man who was told he had two weeks to live. His volunteer hospice aide asked him if he had any regrets, and he said he wished he had written his memoirs.

The aide offered to write down his thoughts for him. The dying man was skeptical, but convinced himself that two weeks’ worth of memories might have some value to someone.

A year later, the memoirs were finished. The author? Far from it.

The story demonstrates the unpredictability of the final days of life, said Schlunk, director of the recently launched Mercy Hospice in Holyoke. Hospice services are available to people whose illnesses are no longer responding to treatment — who are, in their doctors’ estimation, dying.

And there’s no reason not to accept the comfort, companionship, and relief that hospice care can offer, Schlunk said — because predicting the end of life is a tricky business, and that two weeks, or six months, might not really be the end.

“The focus of hospice care is comfort and quality of life, symptom management and support,” Schlunk said — all with the recognition that the patient has finally begun to succumb to his or her illness, and the end of life would no longer be a surprise.

Robert Engell, vice president of Allegiance Hospice in Springfield, said hospice care marks a significant distinction from traditional health care in terms of its goals.

“For most of us, when we go to the hospital, the focus is on curing us, fixing us. It’s acute intervention,” he said. “For people going into hospice, the recognition has been made — or is in the process of being made — that there is no cure for this life-limiting illness. So hospice is not a place; it’s a philosophy of care.”

It’s also one that increasing numbers of Americans are tapping into, as it enables them to receive care where they’re most comfortable, usually at home. This issue, BusinessWest examines the philosophy behind hospice and how it’s benefiting not only the dying, but those grieving for them as well.

New Concept

Engell said the hospice concept emerged during the 1960s and 1970s, as pioneering studies of the dying process by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and others were getting serious attention.

“There was a lot of work being done around that time on the needs of the dying person,” Engell said. The first hospice program in America was launched in New Haven, Conn. during the mid-1970s.

“That was the start of it,” he continued. “In the 1980s, Medicare recognized the value of it and lent it credence as one of its benefit programs. As people became more aware of a hospice benefit, they started taking advantage of it as an alternative to more aggressive treatments.”

Schlunk has witnessed the same trend, having spent 23 years in the field of hospice care. She helped launch one of the Bay State’s first such programs at Franklin Medical Center in 1985, and was excited to do the same for the Sisters of Providence Health System.

“This system stands for providing care at all phases of life and serving the needs of the entire community,” she said. “They stand behind that mission, so this was a logical development for us.”

Other area hospitals and health systems have similar affiliations, and Schlunk said it makes sense, allowing people to stay within the health system that might have served them for decades. One difference between 1985 and 2006, of course, is that many more people know what hospice is, and how they can access it.

“There’s much more awareness today of what hospice can provide and the value it has,” she told BusinessWest, recognizing at the same time that moving to hospice care is a significant emotional hurdle for families, since doing so explicitly recognizes that the end of life may not be far away.

“It’s a big step, a huge psychological step,” Schlunk said. “The timing has to be right for each family. Sometimes that’s a few days before the end, and sometimes it’s years before.”

Engell said there are some 3,000 hospice programs nationwide, and about 50 in Massachusetts. Typically, programs feature an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, home health aides, social workers, chaplains, therapists, counselors, and volunteers, all working together to make sure the patient is as comfortable — and at peace — as possible.

Changing Perceptions

Engell tells of hospice patients who wish they had started sooner, if only to have a chance to rest peacefully at home, where most hospice care is delivered.

“It’s really all about the relationships that are established between these professionals and the patient and family,” he said. “As with all good relationships, they take time to develop, so there’s a better benefit to those who access it early.”

However, compared to other models of elder care, such as nursing homes, hospice care is still relatively new. As a result, many people still need to be educated about what hospice is and isn’t, Engell said.

“Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, the majority of people who went into hospice care — about three-quarters — had some form of cancer diagnosis,” he explained. “Many people still have the impression that it’s just a benefit for people who have cancer, but that’s not true.” Still, he said, perceptions are changing; cancer patients now comprise just under half of all those in hospice.

The other major public-awareness hurdle involves communicating how much of a benefit hospice care is not just to the dying person, but his or her loved ones. The philosophy of hospice is closely tied to giving emotional and other support to the entire family — and those benefits, which are paid for by both Medicare and Medicaid, continue for a full 13 months after the main care beneficiary has died.

Why more than a year after? “Think about it,” Engell said. “All of us have a life cycle of events that run throughout the course of a year. Think about the first Thanksgiving that your mother’s not at the end of the table, or the first time your child celebrates a birthday and his favorite uncle isn’t there.”

Providing services throughout a full year, he explained, allows a family to access support as they encounter each holiday, special day, or other key event that might prove to be a surprisingly emotional challenge.

“We’ll receive a call out of the blue from someone we haven’t heard from in awhile,” Engell said. “They’ll say, ‘I thought I was OK, but I just need someone to talk to.’ That’s what’s really wonderful about hospice — it’s there to give relief, whether physical, spiritual, emotional, or psychological. It allows patients and their families to have comfort and dignity.”

Into the Sunset

Engell mused that, as awareness of hospice increases, more people will demand the service. “It’s a holistic form of care that allows for people to reconnect with their families in very significant and meaningful ways.”

Recalling the man who lived long enough to dictate his memoirs, Schlunk reflected on the futility of running out a clock that’s never accurate. Instead, the hospice team helps the patient focus on the goals of care — and of living.

“They’ve documented that the person is declining, or is expected to decline, but they don’t have to discuss that at length with the patient,” she said. “We don’t want to take away hope — and hope can take on many forms. It can be hoping that a miracle happens — and they do — but it may just be hoping to see a son graduate, or see a grandchild born. That’s OK. We want to hope right along with people.”

Even if there’s nothing left to hope for but a peaceful — and regret-free — end.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
Private Garden Provides an Oasis for a Unique Set of Clients

As Hurricane Rita ripped its way through the Texas-Louisiana coast in September, 2005, home and business owners braced for the worst.

The owners of the Timberline Nursery in Hillister, Texas as well as the greenhouse’s designer — Private Garden of Hampden — were among the worried. Indeed, the 650,000-square-foot glass structure was among the largest and most vulnerable buildings in the storm’s path.

But when the skies cleared, the nursery still stood — with minimal damage, and far better off than many surrounding buildings.

And 2,000 miles away in Western Mass., the Hickson family breathed a sigh of relief, knowing their client’s business was safe, and that their product had just weathered the ultimate test.

Joe and Kathy Hickson, who started Private Garden in 1984, have created a name for themselves in the home and garden industry, as one of just a handful of companies that offer high-end glass enclosures for commercial and residential use.

Locally, they are also an example of a thriving family business, one that began with a $200 loan more than two decades ago and now employs not only the Hicksons, but also two of their children, Joe Hickson III and Jennifer Sackrider, who spoke with BusinessWest about the business, its history, and its future.

“We’ve worked in almost every state,” said Sackrider, noting that the wide reach of the company requires plenty of international and domestic travel for its principles; in fact, her parents were on location at press time in Hillister, meeting with the Timberline Nursery owners to finish a final round of repairs. “It’s our job to bring the customers in, and also to design and build the structure they need. We’re involved from start to finish.”

Pane and Simple

Private Garden specializes in the design, sale, and installation of both residential and commercial greenhouses. That includes glasshouses, heated conservatories, and pool enclosures for residential clients, and growing ranges, garden centers, and boutique greenhouses on the commercial end.

Joe and Kathy Hickson first entered the business while living in Virginia and while Joe was working with a local park and recreation department. He hired a glasshouse company for a project, according to Sackrider, and later decided to enter the industry himself.

He has a master’s degree in education and Kathy a degree in occupational therapy, but still, the business that draws from specialties such as architecture, engineering, construction, and horticulture has proven to be a good fit for the Hicksons. The company is at the close of a strong year, and saw one of its best years ever in 2005. Private Garden is also one of just five such companies nationwide that provide these high-end types of glass structures, and even within such a small pool of competitors, the company has carved its own niche to stand out.

The first strength is seen in the customization of orders. Every order is different, especially in the residential sector, and while Sackrider said about 80% of Private Garden’s clients are commercial, many of the more customized aspects of the smaller, residential enclosures are now being seen among corporate clients such as garden centers.

Garden centers are getting creative, she said, to survive in a landscape dominated by big box stores offering similar products at lower prices.

“The big boxes are knocking out the little guys,” said Sackrider. “And if they don’t have something that’s appealing and makes them stand out, those smaller centers are not going to last.”

Climate Control

Those ‘little guys’ include destination garden centers — larger businesses that attract customers from a wide radius; regional garden centers, and boutique garden centers, the smallest of the three and those most threatened by the big box trend.

To better compete, all types of garden centers are adding an array of bells and whistles to increase productivity, such as irrigation and environmental control systems, or adding a little flair to an existing business by constructing a greenhouse that includes cupolas, lanterns, or covered walkways, and in some cases, even added event space, restaurants, or coffee bars.

To offer that customization that is increasingly in demand, Private Garden works closely with a number of European fabricators that specialize in different types of greenhouses, such as Lloyd Hamilton of Belgium, which manufactures wood conservatories and orangeries, and Hartley Botanic of England, which has earned an endorsement from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew for its Victorian glasshouses.

“There are so many different products to choose from that there are limitless things we can do,” said Sackrider.

The structures start at about $23,000, but after pouring a foundation and completing the necessary masonry on their own, Sackrider said most people are committed to upwards of $50,000 to install a residential greenhouse, and much more than that for a commercial model.

“We’re the Rolls Royce of the industry,” she said, adding that the lofty distinction also adds some interesting wrinkles to an already very specialized business.

All Private Garden structures, commercial as well as residential, are custom- designed and built, using a team of architects, designers, craftsmen, and engineers culled from both the Private Garden staff and those of the European partnering companies. They’re also constructed onsite across North America, as local as a few feet down the street from the company’s headquarters at Hampden Nurseries, and as far away as Washington, California, Bermuda, and Hawaii.

But the high-end nature of the product, particularly in the residential market, also creates some intriguing concerns for the company.

The firm has a number of wealthy and, in some cases, well-known clients, so Sackrider explained that staff members, numbering about 20, are trained to value the privacy of their customers as much as quality of craftsmanship.

Beyond that, many affluent areas, Beverly Hills, for instance, have ordinances in place to maintain quality of life for its residents, such as construction bans after certain times of the day and noise restrictions on weekends.

Private Garden also has a strong following in New York City, as the only greenhouse purveyor in the Northeast that uses aluminum frames as well as wood; building codes in major cities often prevent the use of anything other than aluminum when building additions of any kind, said Sackrider, let alone one as unique and fragile as a glass conservatory.

That has created a cadre of clients who have ordered custom conservatories in the logistical nightmare that is Manhattan because, well, they can — one client even had one installed in his 16th floor, penthouse apartment — and making no easy feat out of completing an already complicated job.

Inch by Inch

That’s a trend, Sackrider added, that illustrates the nature of Private Garden’s business. On one hand, it caters to a wealthy set, and on the other, to garden centers that instead of dying in the shadow of big box competitors, are making major investments in their craft.

“In our industry, we see firsthand on the residential side that regardless of the economy, the rich keep spending,” she said. “And commercially, people are either getting out or stepping up.”

The Timberline Nursery in Hillister, however, is simply doing what its customized greenhouse allows them to — standing tall, while the winds of change blow around its reinforced glass and aluminum walls.

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
Designating Someone to Handle Your Financial Matters

As you may have already heard or read, a Durable Power of Attorney (DPA) is a very important and beneficial document to have available, not only as you age, but at other times as well. It is a very powerful tool in the hands of the right appointee.

The usual and best form for a DPA is a broad and unlimited grant of authority by you (the principal) to your appointee (the attorney-in-fact), which authority is effective upon signing. The execution of a DPA fundamentally gives your attorney-in-fact the ability to be you as far as all of your assets and material possessions are concerned.

In the absence of a DPA, the only mechanism whereby somebody is authorized to act on your behalf is to go to the Probate Court and petition to have somebody appointed as either your Guardian or Conservator. In each of those instances, the appointee will have the power and authority to handle and manage all of your assets.

Whereas your attorney-in-fact is able to act without any supervision at all, the important and significant difference with a guardian or conservator is that the Probate Court will supervise their performance by virtue of the requirement of filing regular accountings. An accounting is the report to the court that lists assets received, their disposition, all income received, and each expense paid. While this supervision may seem desirable, it does include a degree of expense, formality, and time, which may not always be beneficial.

While the simplicity and directness, not to mention efficiency, of a DPA is more often than not appropriate, it does open up the opportunity for concerns relative to supervision. Think about it this way: Suppose you were to take all of your assets and convert them into widely circulated 10- and 20-dollar bills and place all of it in a strong box. Then, you hid that strong box in a place that only you and your potential appointee knew about. Finally, you assured your appointee that for one week he would be able to access that strong box without anybody in the world knowing or seeing. In that situation, are you willing to appoint this person as your attorney-in-fact?

If your answer is anything but an immediate and unqualified, “yes” with regard to that appointee, then you should not appoint that person and begin thinking about someone else. In most instances, people are completely comfortable with those they appoint and are able to derive the full measure of benefits available from an effective DPA.

You should also contemplate appointing a successor attorney-in-fact, since, if the document is worth having in the first place, it is worth having it be as durable as possible. Successors should be named who can serve in the event that the first, or even second, named individual is not available, and thereby allow for action on the principal’s behalf by somebody duly authorized.

Another consideration to bear in mind when appointing somebody to be attorney-in-fact is geography. Appointing somebody local rather than distant can offer both logical and logistical benefits.

Oftentimes people say that they cannot choose among the people they are considering, and therefore seek to appoint more than one person as co-appointees. While this is permitted in the context of a DPA, it is frequently discouraged for the reason that “rule by committee” often turns out to be no rule at all. This means that any disagreement between the appointees leads to inaction, or possibly controversy, and bitterness may ensue.

It is also important in the course of thinking about whom you might appoint that you contemplate who might best discharge the responsibilities of being an attorney-in-fact, rather than simply appointing the oldest or the closest geographically. In this way, you will have someone who will exercise rational and thoughtful judgment in the course of acting on your behalf.

The final aspect of this topic involves the issue of whether to utilize a durable power attorney that has a ‘springing’ power, or one that is effective immediately. A springing power is one where the attorney-in-fact’s authority to act comes into effect at such time as you are no longer able to function capably on your own behalf. This is to be distinguished from a DPA that is effective immediately upon signing.

As you contemplate whether your DPA should be effective immediately, consider the following: very often the point in time when you are no longer functioning capably is not a clear line in the sand. Disagreement and anxiety might arise between you and the attorney-in-fact who believes that it would be beneficial for you to have the help at a time when you might not agree.

Furthermore, if you are willing to appoint this person and trust him or her enough to take on this significant responsibility after you are no longer able to function on your own behalf, why then wouldn’t you want to take advantage of having them available while you are still competent to the extent that there are circumstances and/or opportunities when it might be beneficial or convenient to have that help?

There are likely to be times when you are traveling, or even if you are just feeling under the weather, when you can not get out to file a document, pay a bill, or renew a CD in a timely fashion. It can be very convenient to have your appointee available to take care of such things for you.

Despite the possible concern relative to the unsupervised authority of your attorney-in-fact, the durable power of attorney is indeed is one of the most desirable and beneficial documents to have within your estate planning arsenal.

Bruce M. Fogel is a lawyer with Bacon & Wilson Morse & Sacks in Northampton. He is a member of the firm’s estate planning, elder, real estate, and business departments. He has extensive experience in matters relating to income, gift, and estate taxes, and he focuses on the tax implications of all legal transactions; (413) 584-1287;[email protected]

Sections Supplements
Seeking to Break Out of Ongoing Stagnation

The Pioneer Valley in Western Mass. has gone through the kinds of cycles that are typical of evolving economies in both the state and nation. But what has been occurring over the past 20 years presents a curious mismatch between appearance and hard data.

By appearance, the region would seem to be in a difficult position; companies, especially ones that once offered high-wage manufacturing jobs, have been closing their doors, victims of the forces of globalization and creative destruction. Poverty rates are high and increasing. And the region continues to see a net out-migration of residents. But at the same time, data nonetheless shows that jobs and income are still growing, albeit slowly. The region has not experienced the rapid economic growth seen elsewhere during the mid- to late-1990s, but neither has it suffered the sharp drop-off seen in other regions in recent years.

In short, the region continues to economically hold its own, especially in the past few years and especially in its level of employment. But progress is slow — indeed, some have described the Pioneer Valley’s economic condition as one of ongoing stagnation. More than anything else, this study of the last 20 years of economic and demographic development in the Pioneer Valley reveals an economic landscape that is missing a dynamic growth sector that can provide a growing number of high-paying jobs — and a sense of economic identity for the region.

During the 19th century, the Pioneer Valley was America’s first Silicon Valley, where innovation led to a thriving manufacturing sector. The use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing, which saw its origins in the production of armaments for the military at the Springfield Armory, revolutionized production processes. As a consequence of this advance, a thriving machine tooling and precision metal working sector developed in the region.

But throughout the 20th century, both major and small employers have gone out of business, a process that continues as manufacturing plants close. The manufacturing economy void has been partly filled by the ‘Ed-Med’ sector — ‘Ed’ stands for education or more generally ‘knowledge creation’ and ‘Med’ stands for the medical, or, more broadly health care. Ed-Med is by far the most important current employer in the Pioneer Valley. But this positive development cannot mask a significant area of alarm: the incidence of poverty in the region, which exceeds that of the state (and, in the case of Hampden County, that of the nation).

While the region has not experienced the same dire fate as other American cities that have lost their economic base, the Pioneer Valley has suffered from comparison with the eastern part of Massachusetts, especially the metropolitan Boston area. This has been especially true when looking at the secular pattern of real (price adjusted) per capita income. While per capita income has been growing in the region, its rate of growth has fallen significantly behind that of the state as a whole, and especially that of metropolitan Boston.

Employment – the “Ed-Med” Influence

From the business cycle peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the peak in the most recent business cycle, employment in the Pioneer Valley grew by 2.5%, from 319,739 in 1989 to 328,000 in 2004. National employment growth was a considerably more robust 14.8% during the same period, and statewide growth was 3.8%. The Boston metropolitan/northeastern part of the state experienced employment growth of 4.7% over the same period. The Pioneer Valley has, however, seen somewhat stronger employment growth recently. From the trough in employment in 1995 until 2004, employment grew by a bit more than 7%, from about 306,000 to about 328,000.

In the Boston/Northeastern part of the state, employment peaked in 2002 and then began to decline. The Pioneer Valley, however, did not see a drop in employment through 2004. Nor did it experience a drop in employment during the recent recession, unlike Eastern Massachusetts, where the sharp loss of jobs followed a period of relatively robust job growth. The knowledge creation segment of the economy is broad, and the Pioneer Valley encompasses many of its activities, including information (media production and distribution, telecommunications), professional and technical services provision, management services, and educational services. Combined, such knowledge creation sectors accounted for nearly 60,000 employees, or 21% of all Pioneer Valley employment in 2004.

One of the more prominent employers in this sector is the flagship Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts system, which is the largest piece of a regional higher education cluster. Surrounding UMass are four well-known small liberal arts colleges: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College. These five institutions form the Five College System, which allows students in any of the colleges to enroll in classes in all of them. The five colleges employ a total of nearly 9,000 people, not counting a large number of student employees on all the campuses, especially that of the University of Massachusetts. But while this concentration of employment is important to the Pioneer Valley economy and identity, it has not been a growth area, or even a particularly dependable sector. In particular, UMass has suffered from severe budget cuts in recent years, and only now is beginning to replace some of the jobs that were lost.

After education, the next most important employment sector is health care, which accounts for 16% of regional employment, nearly 44,000 people. This sector consists not only of health care, as traditionally defined, but also “social and community services,” such as homeless shelters and community kitchens. Despite its steep decline, traditional manufacturing remains an important employer, accounting for 11% of the region’s total employment in 2004, or more than 32,000 people.

Considerable economic development efforts, as well as investment dollars from the state, have resulted in the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, a collaboration between Baystate Medical Center and UMass. While its primary stated goals are clinical, the collaboration is designed to create the environment from which to launch commercially successful development and manufacture of biomedical and other health-related products. This type of activity is broadly defined as ‘advanced technology manufacturing.’ While this activity now accounts for only 1% of Pioneer Valley employment, its potential is important.

Population Trends Reflect the Economy

Recent population patterns in the Pioneer Valley closely mirror the path of the economy. Population growth in the region over the past 20 years has been very slow, growing from 646,000 in 1980 to 680,000 in 2000, for an increase of just 5.2%. Over the same period, population grew in Massachusetts by more than twice as much (10.7%) and in the United States by nearly 23%.

Perhaps the most troubling pattern in population change in the region is its continuing net out-migration. Since 1990, the region has lost a net of nearly 35,000 people to out- migration. This number is the result of considerable ‘churning’ – in other words, it is the outcome of the interaction between flows of in-migration and out-migration. During this period, more than 130,000 people moved into the region while more than 165,000 people moved out. There was been a sharp increase in the volume of net out-migration in the last year for which data is available, 2004.

Much of the migration into and out of the Pioneer Valley involves short-distance moves. Many of these gross flows cancel out, leaving small net (though slightly negative) changes due to migration. By far the largest in- and out-flows have been to and from the border state of Connecticut.

There are also significant flows probably associated with retirement from the labor force. The largest net out-flow of migrants from the Pioneer Valley — nearly 13,000 net out-migrants over the period — was to Florida. This represents one-third of all net out-migrants from the Pioneer Valley since 1990.

Most other destinations/origins of Pioneer Valley migrants are close by, either in New England or New York state (with which the Pioneer Valley had a positive net migration flow). California and Arizona also received relatively large net flows of migrants.

Within the state, the Pioneer Valley has a net negative migration balance with most other regions. The Berkshire and Central regions are the only of the state’s regions with which the Pioneer Valley has a positive net migration. Two regions in the state, metropolitan Boston and the Cape and Islands, have the largest magnitude of negative net migration balance with the Pioneer Valley. Much of the migration to the Cape and Islands may, again, be associated with labor force retirement.

It is encouraging that for all this net out-migration, a good deal of in-migration to the region is also occurring. Typically, when a region is truly stagnating, migration is uniformly in the ‘out’ direction, with very little in-migration. The Pioneer Valley has certainly not experienced that pattern. And a significant portion of the negative net migration may well be due less to economic forces than to retirement.

Nonetheless, the reality remains that net migration has been consistently negative for over a decade. Migration tends to be highly selective of the very members of a population upon which the future is based: Younger, better-educated, and with better income/occupational prospects.

There has been considerable migration within the Pioneer Valley, the net result of which has been a drain on the population of Hampden County, where the cities of Springfield and Holyoke are located. Since 1990, Hampden County has gained more than 29,000 migrants from within the Pioneer Valley, nearly 30,000 of them from Hampshire County. Over the same period, Hampden County lost over 34,000 residents to Hampshire and Franklin Counties. The net effect of this in- and out-migration has been a drain on the population of Hampden County. Nearly 5,000 net migrants have left Hampden County for Hampshire and Franklin Counties, most of them to Hampshire County.

Income and Poverty

The pattern of per-capita income in the region, especially relative to the state, is instructive of the pattern of the regional economy over time. The region’s per capita income has been consistently lower than that of the state as a whole, though that fact is at least partly compensated by a lower cost of living, especially in housing. Still troubling, however, is the pattern of change over time. In 1970, per capita income in the Pioneer Valley was nearly 90% that of the state and more than 80% that of metropolitan Boston. Since then, the region’s per capita income has deteriorated. In 2003, Pioneer Valley per capita income was 75% of the state’s and 66% t of metropolitan Boston’s.

The relative deterioration of regional incomes is a secular, rather than a cyclical, phenomenon. Over the course of the business cycle, whether increasing or decreasing, the changes the region experiences in per-capita income are always more muted than the change experienced in the state. The Pioneer Valley does not rise as high or fall as far as the state. The economic dynamism of the eastern part of the state has never translated well to the Pioneer Valley.

This region did not fully share in either of the two most recent sustained state economic expansions of the 1980s and the 1990s. The other side of the picture is that the Pioneer Valley also did not suffer as badly as Eastern Mass. when recession replaced expansion. Because it is a hotbed of technology, Massachusetts experiences economic cycles that are at times excessive. The bad news is that the Pioneer Valley has long since lost its high technology sectors; the offsetting news is that its economic cycles have been less extreme.

The incidence of poverty provides another measure of the region’s income circumstances. In 2004, the U.S. Bureau of the Census defined the poverty threshold for a family of four as a total household income of $19,157. The poverty rate in the Pioneer Valley has consistently been higher than that for the state. This is especially so in Hampden County, where the poverty rate also exceeds that of the nation. Of the three counties in the region, only Hampshire County has a poverty rate that is less than that of the state.

Perhaps an even more telling measure of regional poverty is the share of students eligible for the free and reduced school lunch program. A study recently completed by the UMass contained the following analysis of this data:

“The federal poverty level is too low to properly assess the number or proportion of children from low-income families. Federal school lunch subsidies cover children from families with incomes up to 165% of the poverty level…

“The percentage of public school students eligible to receive reduced-price or free school lunches in the Pioneer Valley is alarming,” the report continues. “In the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years, 40% of public school students in the region resided in households with incomes no higher than 165% of the poverty level. No region in the state has a higher percentage of low-income students. Public school systems in cities such as Boston or Worcester have comparable percentages of low-income students, but the regional concentration of low-income students in the Pioneer Valley is approximately one-third higher than any other region in the state. The Pioneer Valley’s low-income students are concentrated in the region’s cities, Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee; however, many of the region’s rural school districts are also home to high concentrations of low income students.”

The Cost of Housing

The Pioneer Valley has less expensive housing than the eastern part of the state, a cost advantage that many in the region hope will help promote increased economic growth. A Boston Globe report late last year explained:

“Housing prices in Western Mass. have risen much faster this year than in the Boston area, fueled by Bostonians moving farther from the city in search of lower prices, according to a report released yesterday…

“Between January and November, the median price of a single-family home rose 13.3% from a year earlier in Hampden County, where Springfield is located; 10.9% in Hampshire; and 10.3% in Franklin. Depending on traffic and the time of day, these counties are around a 90-minute commute each way from Boston, though they’re much closer to employers along Interstate 495 or in the Worcester and Framingham metropolitan areas.

“The condo market in Western Mass., while smaller than Boston’s, is sizzling. The number of condo sales surged nearly 28% this year in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin. The median condo price rose 28.9% in Franklin County in 2005; 18.9% in Hampden; and 18.2% in Hampshire, according to Warren Group. Condo prices were up 1.8% in Suffolk, and 8.5% statewide. Despite the price increases, the gaps between east and west remain huge. For example, the median price of a Hampden County condo was $124,900 this year, up from $105,000 last year. The median condo price in Suffolk County was $340,000, up from $333,850 last year.”

This may mark the beginning of a significant development for the region. Though it is too early to determine if this trend of housing price-driven movement to the region will continue and grow, especially with home prices flat or falling across the state. But this is at least an indication that the Pioneer Valley has some natural advantages — and these may again be grounds for hope.

Conclusion

In 1999 Benchmarks published a profile of the Pioneer Valley economy. In the conclusion of that study was the following assessment:

“There is a considerable effort under way to revive and remake the economy of the Pioneer Valley … at the moment, those forces have resulted in a flat or slightly growing regional economy. The difficult task of spawning genuine economic development lies ahead.”

< >Seven years later there seems little reason to modify this statement. The Pioneer Valley, despite its illustrious economic history and reputation for offering a high quality of life, remains stagnant and without direction.

Robert Nakosteen is on the faculty of the Isenberg School of Management at the UMass Amherst and is executive editor of Benchmarks, the university’s quarterly report on the state economy. This story originally appeared in Benchmarks.

Sections Supplements
Jobs Market Sees Little Pain, but Not Much Gain

Steady.

That’s the one and only word apparently needed to describe the local jobs scene. It represents the good news — “at least we’re not declining,” said Rexene Picard, executive director of the FutureWorks one-stop career center in Springfield, as well as the bad news, meaning that there is little if any growth to speak of. Steady is, in many respects, the only news.

The term applies, generally speaking, to the employment rate, which, for Hampden County, at 5.1%, is down one-tenth of a percentage point from this time last year. As for overall employment in the county over the past five years, the line on the bar chart is practically straight; the number was 204,800 in 2001, the start of the last recession, and it was 198,300 for mid- 2006, the latest data available. Conversely, the same line for the state looks more like an abbreviated ‘U,’ with 3.4 million people working at the start of ’01, 3.16 million at the low point in December of ’03, and 3.23 million by July of this year.

Steady also defines the broad picture in terms of job losses and gains. There have been a few hundred losses, most in manufacturing, over the past 12-15 months, and some gains, but mostly in the hospitality and distribution sectors, said Picard, meaning comparatively lower-wage jobs. This has been the trend for the past several years.

“In Western Mass., we don’t see the peaks and valleys that other regions of the country, and this state, do,” she said. “We tend to stay level, with no big drops.”

Steady, as defined in Webster’s Collegiate as ‘showing little variation or fluctuation,’ would also describe the state of the so-called skills gap in the region, a phrase used to depict scenarios when and where companies have the ability to grow but have difficulty finding individuals with the skill sets needed for the jobs in question.

This phenomenon is seen in precision manufacturing, and also in health care and especially nursing, said Bill Ward, director of the Hampden County Regional Employment Board (REB), noting quickly that grant-funded programs are underway to address the comparatively high job-vacancy rates in both sectors.

In the precision manufacturing arena, a $150,000 grant from the John Adams Innovation Institute is being used to fund a broad-ranging effort to improve the image of the that sector among both young people and their parents, and to put more individuals in a pipeline that will yield skilled workers who will provide long-term security for that industry. Similarly, a $250,000 grant is being utilized to address an ongoing nursing shortage in the region. Called CAN DO (Collaborating for the Advancement of Nursing: Developing Opportunities), the program will develop a structural framework for nurse advancement, from LPN through to a doctoral degree, and raise the bar for cultural proficiency within the profession.

Hampden County is one of 10 regions from across the country selected for the program from among nearly 200 applications, said Ward, adding that, if successful, CAN DO will put more individuals in nursing positions at the entry level and incentivise people to earn advanced degrees in nursing, enabling them to teach the subject at area colleges, thus allowing schools to accept more people into their programs.

The REB-orchestrated programs are among many short- and long-term efforts to help the region move beyond ‘steady,’ with regard to its employment picture and register real gains across several sectors.

For that to occur, many things will have to go right, said Joe Ascioti, owner of Agawam-based Reliable Temps, a company that handles staffing assignments across the board but is perhaps best known for its work in the manufacturing realm. He listed everything from the policies of the Deval Patrick administration, especially with regard to the cost of doing business in the Commonwealth, to efforts to improve local schools.

“We have a simple math test that we give to people when they come in the door,” he said of applicants for temp and temp-to-hire positions. “When I say simple, I mean basic multiplication, addition, and maybe some long division. And many people can’t pass it. We’re not going to lure jobs to this region if people can’t pass a math test.”

Work Study Job

Ascioti is also a frequent user of the word steady, and one can detect a general sense of frustration when he does.

Indeed, like others, he doesn’t mean it necessarily as a synonym for ‘good,’ although he acknowledges that things could be worse, and have been in years past.

Recently, he’s seen an ongoing trend among area companies, especially area manufacturers, to utilize staffing agencies as extensions of their own HR departments.

Elaborating, he said firms like his are used by businesses looking to outsource many of the steps in the hiring process, especially advertising for and the screening of candidates.

Individuals who pass muster (and the math test) are then subjected to a trial period lasting several weeks or months, after which, if they show enough ability and promise, they are added to the workforce. This ‘temp-to-hire’ process is certainly nothing new, said Ascioti, but what is relatively new, and disturbing, is the greater degree of difficulty for Reliable and other firms when it comes to filling orders.

They are almost always filled, he said, but sometimes it takes awhile, because the pool of qualified candidates is shrinking, and everyone is fishing from the same pond.

Creating a bigger pool is the broad goal for the region, he said, adding that there are several components to this assignment, including an improvement to the overall business climate in Massachusetts, and steps to reduce the number of individuals flunking Reliable’s math and reading tests.

“The climate in Massachusetts isn’t very good, and it could get worse,” said Ascioti, noting that several companies have left the region in recent years, and more will if other steps, such as mandated health insurance, are taken. “I think a lot of companies are waiting for one more straw, and that will be the one that prompts them to leave.

“If you’re a CEO looking to expand, you want to be in a state that has a favorable climate for business,” he continued. “Massachusetts is at the point where it needs to be careful.”

In many respects, Western Mass. has performed better than the state overall, from an employment perspective, over the past five years, said Ward, noting a slower rate of out-migration, actual growth in the labor force, and a less-pronounced decline in overall employment.

Statistics provided by the REB show there were 6,500 fewer jobs in Hampden County in 2005 than there were in 2001, the employment peak for this region and the state. The biggest gains came in health care (nearly 1,500 new jobs); education (almost 800), and the broad category called ‘other services,’ meaning those not in hospitality and retail, for example (2,100). The losses, meanwhile, came in manufacturing, a decline of 4,700; retail (1,470); finance (1,199), transportation and warehousing (1,019); ‘information’ (1,200); and government (723).

Projecting what will happen for these sectors in the months and years ahead is difficult, said Picard, who again summoned steady to describe what is likely.
In October, job postings were down roughly 16% from September and 16% from October of ’05 at FutureWorks, she said, noting many factors could be contributing to a general state of cautiousness when it comes to hiring.

These include the state of the housing market (better than in Eastern Mass., but still slower than a year ago), energy prices and their instability, and even uncertainty about the future of the war in Iraq — a concern to many companies that supply defense contractors.

“Some area firms are hiring,” she said, listing Smith & Wesson, which has added some new product lines, Performance Food Group, Big Y, and others. But overall, the region is seeing individuals move within the market, as companies compete for skilled workers, rather than real gains in employment.

As for the long term, Ward projects that real job growth can and probably will occur in health care and education, and perhaps precision manufacturing, including the development of a medical instruments cluster — there are a few companies now specializing in such manufacturing, and there is potential to expand that base, he said.

Much will depend on efforts to reduce the region’s vacancy rates, which are, in several fields, higher than the state’s.

The precision machining initiative, a two-year program, is already producing some results, some Ward, noting that enrollment is inching up at area technical high schools, and work continues to develop an interactive Web site that will inform young people and their parents about the many benefits of careers in machining.
Meanwhile, Ward is optimistic about CAN DO and its potential to eventually increase the number of nursing graduates at area schools.

“UMass had to turn away a large number of applicants because it just didn’t have the space for them, because they didn’t have enough faculty,” he said. “This program will streamline and facilitate the process of people working toward their master’s and doctorate degrees.”

Employing Logic

When asked for a prediction on the job market for 2007, Picard didn’t venture very far out on the limb.

She said some companies and sectors will likely register some small gains, but the factors she listed earlier — the housing market, energy prices, even uncertainty over the Patrick administration — will probably trigger only tepid growth.

In other words — or in another word — the region can expect more (you guessed) of that term steady.

George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]

Sections Supplements
Today, Medical Liability Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry
Attorney Ronald Kidd

Attorney Ronald Kidd says the nuances of physician liability and medical harm can be difficult for jurors to navigate without expert witnesses.

Could the Bay State’s malpractice problem — and the soaring costs that accompany it — be solved with more openness and civility between doctors and injured patients? Some proponents of changing the current system think so.

It’s been well-documented that the Commonwealth’s system of medical malpractice has forced doctors in high-risk specialties, such as obstetrics and neurosurgery, to pay more than $100,000 in annual insurance premiums — while forcing many others out of the state entirely.

“It’s been shown time and again that when malpractice premiums are high, the physician workforce shrinks, and patients have less access to the care they need,” said Dr. Kenneth Peelle, president of the Mass. Medical Society (MMS). “The current medical liability system is not working for physicians and definitely not for patients.”

Peelle cited the typical long stretch between the filing of a malpractice claim and its resolution — five years on average — and cited a study suggesting that the system pays one-quarter of the people without a legitimate claim, and doesn’t pay one-quarter of the people with a legitimate claim.

“We think the current system is badly broken, and it’s broken from the patient’s perspective,” agreed Dr. Alan Woodward, a former MMS president who now chairs the group’s task force on liability reform.

He noted that only one of every 16 injured patients ever sees money, and it’s not unusual for a monetary award in one case to be 40 times that in another, very similar case. “That’s jackpot justice,” he said. “And it’s justice delayed — and we think that’s justice denied.”

Woodward further explained that the system is heavy on overhead, meaning about 30% of award money actually goes to plaintiffs, with more than 60% going to lawyers, expert witnesses, and layers of administrative infrastructure.

John Bagley, an attorney with Springfield-based Morrison Mahoney, disagrees that the system is in need of fixing, noting that physicians win around 90% of jury verdicts, but only after a lengthy, diligent laying out of the facts.

“There’s a perception in the health care community that the jury system doesn’t work in malpractice cases,” Bagley said, “and I think that’s a misperception based on the fact that the verdicts that are publicized tend to be big plantiffs’ verdicts. And that skews what juries are actually doing.”

He noted that many physicians he has represented over the years say that it’s a stressful thing to endure a lengthy litigation and trial, but when all is said and done, most feel good about the experience.

“The time it takes is just a part of doing business for a trial lawyer,” Bagley said. “The court system can only accommodate a certain number of civil trials at one time, and criminal trials take precedence. Also, on the state court level, where almost all medical malpractice cases are tried, courts are underfunded and understaffed, so that adds to the backlog.”

But there is a better way, Woodward claimed, one that promotes openness between doctors and injured patients, while meting out justice more quickly, more consistently, and with an eye on improving safety in medical settings.

In this issue, BusinessWest delves into the concept of health courts, and the establishment of a climate in which doctors aren’t afraid to tell patients they’re sorry. But first, let’s take a look at how the typical malpractice case is conducted today.

Long Road

In Massachusetts, all malpractice cases have to be approved by a three-member tribunal, made up of a judge, a lawyer, and a doctor. The physician must be in the same field as the defendant doctor but from a different county.

At the tribunal hearing, the plaintiff must provide expert testimony from a doctor. Without this testimony and the favor of the tribunal, the suit may still proceed, but the plaintiff must put up a $10,000 bond. If he loses the case, he loses the money.

Once the case moves to trial, several standards need to be met to formulate a successful malpractice case, beginning with what type of duty the doctor owes to the patient, said Ronald Kidd, an attorney with Robinson Donovan in Springfield.

“When you get in a car and go out on the road, you owe the duty of a reasonably prudent driver to everyone else on the highway — prudent, but not perfect. That’s a critical concept,” he explained. “In almost all cases, a similar duty is owed by a health care provider to a patient.”

The second factor, obviously, is whether a breach of that duty has occurred. That could mean one of two things, Kidd said: a doctor doing something that a reasonably prudent physician would not have done if faced with the same or similar circumstances, or failing to do something that a reasonably prudent physician would have done.

The other two factors are harm, and whether there is what Kidd calls a “proximate causal relationship” between the breach and the type of harm that resulted. And because this area can get technical, often requiring some knowledge of medical practice, both sides in a malpractice case rely on expert testimony, typically from other physicians, to make their case.

“That’s one place a medical malpractice claim differs from a typical tort claim,” Kidd said. “In a normal situation, a juror, in the absence of any expert opinion, can decide whether it was negligence to leave a rollerskate out on the porch where the letter carrier could step on it, or negligence for you to be on the wrong side of the road when the accident occurred.

“But jurors are usually not competent, in the absence of expert testimony, to decide whether a doctor failed to meet the standard of a reasonably prudent physician faced with the same or similar circumstances,” and whether an error in judgment directly resulted in harm, he added.

The law requires expert opinion in such situations — typically someone from the same specialty as the defendant, although that isn’t exclusively the case. Such witnesses on both sides help convince a jury whether or not a doctor acted within the accepted standard of care.

Cases often come down to which expert makes a stronger argument, Bagley said, but that goes beyond speaking skills; for instance, an expert who presents peer-reviewed medical articles to support a certain claim has an advantage over an expert on the other side armed only with his or her opinion. In general, he asserted, malpractice cases are decided on the merits by thoughtful juries. “A well-tried case can be a very impressive thing.”

Some tricky instances arise, Kidd noted, when the accepted standard of care changes over time, which it does in many situations. Take, for example, prostate cancer.

This condition can be detected with a test of a protein called the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA. “It has long been understood that elevated PSA in the adult male is suspicious for the presence of prostate cancer, and would warrant further evaluation,” Kidd said.

But how elevated? In the past, physicians called for further tests when a man’s PSA measured 10 or more nanograms per milliliter of blood. Today, the standard is 4. If a patient sued after a physician failed to order further evaluation, a question might then arise as to when the test took place, before or after the standard changed.

“You can’t expect that, the day after this is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that this becomes the standard of care for every practice in the commonwealth,” Kidd said. “What is a deviation today might not have been three years ago. Reasonable people can differ over what is the standard of care.”

Let’s Talk

However, that very concept — reasonable people differing — is exactly what’s being lost in the current malpractice climate, Woodward said.

“There’s a culture of silence,” he told BusinessWest. “You’re told to talk only to your lawyer, and you can’t attempt dialogue that might improve patient safety and prevent a reoccurrence. This system thwarts direct communication.”

Part of the reason is that any kind of contrition on the doctor’s part may be used against him in court, which is why Woodward supports an ‘I’m sorry law’ that would make physician apologies inadmissible in court.

“An apology can be therapeutic to both parties,” he said. “In this situation, it’s an important part of the doctor-patient relationship.”

Such a law is just one part of a plan proposed earlier this year by Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and endorsed by the MMS. Other elements in the plan include tightening the tribunal system to make the standard of proof of negligence more difficult before a claim can proceed; a hard cap of $500,000 on non-economic damages; a reduction in attorney fees from 25% for verdicts over $500,000 to 15% for verdicts over $600,000; and the funding of a patient safety initiative through the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction.

The bill had made no headway even before the recent elections, and now that Healey is wrapping up her time in a lame-duck administration, it has no chance. But Woodward would not stop with those recommendations.

He sat on a task force of the Joint Committee on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which was tasked with improving patient safety across all institutions. Members talked about ideas that have been around awhile, such as electronic order entry, but they had some more radical ideas in mind as well — including full disclosure of medical errors and apologies to patients.

Those changes should, in the opinion of the task force, come as part of a complete overhaul of medical liability, one that replaces the current climate of mistrust and gag orders with one of openness and constant improvement.

“We are looking at a system of health courts where we have experts rather than the general court hear cases,” Woodward said. “Medical testimony is often beyond the expertise and understanding of the average person, so it’s better to have someone well-educated and versed in this type of litigation.”

Bagley disagrees. “It’s not a perfect system, but the system works,” he said. “Decisions in these cases are made by lay people, but that’s true of all types of cases. Juries admittedly do not have a medical background, but, having done this for 25 years, I can tell you that good lawyers should be able to present medical evidence effectively through qualified, expert witnesses.”

Bagley sees other problems with a health court system, noting that patients already have options for alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation and arbitration, if they do not want to go the trial route.

“If the proposed solution is to basically move malpractice litigation out of the judicial system, some constitutional issues would have to be dealt with — particularly the right to a trial,” Bagley said. “Just as someone in an auto accident has the right to a court action, someone who is injured through malpractice has a constitutional right to file an action.”

The only area of the law exempt from tort action is workers’ compensation, in which there is no burden to prove fault. However, he said, medical liability is “a whole different concept,” one in which proving or disproving fault is a central factor — and one not likely to change.

However, proponents of health courts envision appropriate, consistent compensation being paid more quickly to patients who merit it, and doctors allowed to speak with — and apologize to — those who have suffered wrong, all the while striving to fix the problem instead of wishing it away through a wall of lawyers.

“When it comes to litigation, when we ask patients what they want, it’s full disclosure and an apology — and to make sure it doesn’t happen again to someone else,” Woodward said. “They also want fair economic compensation, which they clearly deserve, and a system like this has the potential to compensate many more patients than 1 in 16.”

Culture Shock

However, it’s not just the liability landscape keeping doctors from saying they’re sorry; it’s the very culture in which they were trained, said Thomas Gallagher, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “The vast majority of doctors haven’t had any training in disclosure, and these conversations are really difficult.”

A recent survey revealed that 94% of doctors would be willing to disclose an error if it did not increase the risk of litigation, said Cecil Wilson, board chair of the American Medical Association (AMA).

“Patients deserve to know, and the AMA supports that, but in practice, disclosure may not be as frequent and complete as it should be,” Wilson said. “Our perception is that fear of medical liability litigation is one of the major deterrents.”

But something needs to be done, Woodward said, if only to stem the growing physician shortage in Massachusetts — and to allow the doctors who remain to work confidently and without fear. “If they view new patients as potential litigants, they practice more defensive medicine, which costs this country more than $100 billion a year in tests and consultations doctors wouldn’t order if they weren’t worried about legal ramifications,” Woodward said.

“We have to do what we can to change this system,” he concluded. “It’s obviously broken to those who look at it objectively. We need a kinder, gentler, more efficient, and more just system for everybody — both physicians and patients.”

Sections Supplements
New Owners at Hampden Country Club are Putting a Hidden Gem in the Public Eye
Bill Tragakis, left, and Nick Cardinale.

Bill Tragakis, left, and Nick Cardinale, owners of Hampden Country Club, have plenty of plans teed up for 2007.

Bill Tragakis, co-owner of the Hampden Country Club, calls the last year of his life a Cinderella story.

True, there are no pumpkin coaches or glass slippers — those have been replaced with golf carts and spikes. But Tragakis, who purchased the golf course and club along with Nick Cardinale and Michelle Siniscalchi (as Hampden Realty Partners LLC) just under a year ago, said there are some similarities between the classic tale and his own; he worked for several years behind the scenes before achieving a life-long dream, and now he too has his own ballroom.

Metaphors aside, though, the Hampden Country Club is indeed experiencing a rebirth of late, with its trio of new owners at the helm. Tragakis, who worked with its previous owner, Friel Golf Management, for 20 years (five of those at Hampden) joined forces with Cardinale, a club member with a background in environmental consultancy, and Siniscalchi, a neighbor with an interest in the property, after Friel management announced it was ready to sell.

In January of this year, that sale was finalized at $3.4 million, marking the start of a new venture for its current owners, all three locally based. And for Tragakis, the club’s former head golf pro, it offered a chance to live what he says is every golf pro’s dream — to own and operate a course of his own.

Now approaching the close of its first year in business under new ownership and management, the club that opened in 1973 as a 9-hole course is entering 2007 on terra firma, said Tragakis. He credits a solid first year — one that saw membership numbers more than double and an overall increase in revenue from 2005 — with the public taking notice of varied improvement projects that are ongoing inside and out.

“I think people have seen us putting a lot of money and time into the operation,” he said. “They’ve seen us bring it to a new level, and from there we can continue to grow and reach out to new members and the public.”

Going for the Green

All of those renovations and improvements to the semi-private club and its 295 acres of land are geared, he noted, toward steadily increasing membership, translating the club’s amenities to the public, and creating a competitive golf course in two senses of the word — one that challenges golfers and also attracts new faces to its grounds, on a local, regional, and even national scale.

And in some cases, that meant facing some challenges head on almost immediately after closing the deal, including the club’s reputation as a ‘hidden gem.’

“A lot of people still think we’re a private club and I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s the long, winding entrance, or maybe it’s because a long time ago, the club was private,” said Tragakis, tracing the history of the club, which opened 18-holes to members two years after opening, and was owned locally until Friel Management took over. “We may be private again, but we want the public to know that we’re here, and right now we’re very much open to them.”

There were other challenges too, such as a championship course that was in need of some repair and a clubhouse with a somewhat dated look. There was also the diverse business model of a country club to take into account — in addition to improving and managing a 150-acre course and its ancillary dining and retail operations, the partners were also charged with maintaining and promoting the club’s 300-person capacity banquet facility.

But Tragakis added that no time has been lost in addressing those hurdles, and moreover capitalizing on the club’s existing strengths, which include an enviable view of the Pioneer Valley, striking architecture, and a challenging course that attracts golfers at all levels.

“We’re suited for both large and small outings and also for large and small events inside the facility,” he said, noting that to increase both types of business, he and his fellow owners have been marketing the club as a premier location for business meetings of all sizes. “We’re perfect for that two-hour meeting, be it a breakfast meeting or a dinner, and a business meeting that breaks in the middle for nine holes of golf is an even better sell. We’re very interested in capitalizing on that.”

In addition, the partners are working to raise the profile of food operations at the club overall, making plans to hold fine wine dinners, themed events, and offer live entertainment in the pub area, as well as expand the dining area to the outside patio during the spring, summer, and fall months. And one of the first changes the new owners made was upstairs in the banquet area, where catering services have been outsourced to Hampden House Banquet catering.

“We’re not experts in the food and beverage business,” said Tragakis, “And we felt it was the better choice to work with people who were. The Hampden House also has a strong reputation in this area.”

But perhaps more visible than those changes to regular operations have been the physical improvements in the club and on its course. To date, the ground floor, which includes the 19th Hole bar and casual dining area, locker rooms, and the pro shop, has been redesigned, and upstairs, the banquet facility has also seen some improvements, including the addition of a bridal suite.

Outside on the 18-hole golf course, maintenance has been stepped up to include more labor and better equipment, as well as more aesthetic landscaping features such as a rose garden with a small terrace that Cardinale is designing himself.

Plans are also being mulled for an upgrade to the course’s irrigation system, creation of an outdoor seating area and outdoor event space, and improvements to the driving range and tee boxes. All of the plans will make for a better course and a better value, said Cardinale, for members who can golf at Hampden for $39 on weekdays and $50 on weekends.

“We have multiple things going on at the same time, and many developments planned for the coming year,” said Cardinale. “The property had been neglected somewhat, and it definitely needs some work. We want to look at all of those things that need improvement and set goals to enhance and upgrade the quality of the entire course, and we also want to add the bells and whistles that a top-notch course requires.”

In terms of long-range plans, some possible developments to the untouched land that surrounds the course are also being discussed, he added.

“There’s a lot of land that, down the road, has great potential for development. We’re taking it one year at a time, though, and focusing on the overall beautification of the course,” Cardinale said. “We’re hoping that people will see us continuously putting a lot of time and work into this property.”

The bottom line, Tragakis added, is to retain those who are currently frequent visitors to the club and to recruit new members, as well as members of the business community.

“It’s a fine balance,” he explained. “We don’t want to book too many outings, or tournaments, because if we’re too full, our members can’t play. We’d like to have enough that we know we have a steady stream lined up, but that our members won’t notice.”

Even with that close attention to balance though, already those outings have quadrupled at the club, with about 70% of them large events.

“We haven’t lost a group,” said Tragakis, “and if we can pick up three or four more each year, that’s great. That’s the steady growth we want.”

Fair Way to Assess Progress

And while he likens the strong showing the club has demonstrated in its first year to a fairy tale, Tragakis said the work toward improvement and the reasons why are very much rooted in reality.

“There’s a lot of competition out there,” he said in summary. “We have to make sure we hit the mark, and that we hit it on our first try.”

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

Cover Story
What’s Next for the Pioneer Valley Economy
Cover

Cover

As the calendar turns to 2007, economists see some growth for the Commonwealth, but mostly a continuation of the pattern of unspectacular progress that has defined the past few years. In other words, look for a continuation of the jobless, or nearly jobless, recovery. As for the Pioneer Valley, “it just keeps plugging away,” said one observer, noting that its relative stagnancy is better than some regions have experienced.

It’s been 16 years since a Democrat has been governor of the Bay State, and anyone in business who can clearly remember 1990 and the years that followed … would rather not.

Which is why some apprehension on the part of the business community at the dawn of the Deval Patrick era would be understandable. But there has been little of that to date, according to most observers, who say that, for now at least, Patrick is being given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to business, keeping the costs of conducting it in this state under control, and a host of issues that impact the Commonwealth’s ability to attract and retain jobs.

There are several reasons for this, said Andre Mayer, senior vice president of Communications and Research for the Associated Industries of Mass. (AIM), starting with the fact that the outgoing governor, Republican Mitt Romney, would receive only a mixed report card from many in the business community about containing business costs. There is also the rhetoric Patrick issued during the campaign, especially about education and creating a better-trained workforce — and the promise that it will translate into positive action in the months and years ahead.

“Thus far, I haven’t seen any real alarm about Patrick or a one-party government,” he said, referring to the Democrats’ stranglehold on Beacon Hill. “In fact, the business confidence index rose while Patrick was pulling away in October.

“I think part of the reason he was elected is the feeling that the emphasis will shift from taxes to other issues,” he continued, “and so far, Patrick has been saying all the right things; he doesn’t act like a tax-and-spend Democrat.”

But while Patrick is apparently not a cause of real concern as the calendar turns to 2007 (things may change later), there are some other matters that do warrant apprehension. At the top of the list is the condition of the housing market, especially in the Eastern part of the state. Prices have declined between 10% and 15% over the past year or so, and some analysts say they could fall another 10% before bottom is officially hit.

The falling prices are making the state marginally more affordable for workers, which is good news, said Bob Nakosteen, faculty member of the Isenberg School of Management at UMass and executive editor of Benchmarks, the university’s quarterly report on the state’s economy. But that downturn has certainly impacted consumer spending, while also hurting both the construction sector and the legion of Realtors operating across the Commonwealth.

The broad result is an overall decline in confidence, which is another of the matters to watch closely as the new year unfolds, said Nakosteen, adding that the slow start to the holiday shopping season, a few rough days for the stock market after that first shopping weekend, and talk nationally of inflation and possible interest rate increases to ward it off won’t help boost confidence.

There are other factors to consider, including energy prices — lower for the time being, but always volatile — that have most analysts projecting modest (2.5% to 3%) growth for the year ahead, said Nakosteen.

That would represent a modest decline from recent events, he said, noting that the Massachusetts economy performed better over the past six months (3.6% growth in gross state product) than at any time since the current expansion began in 2003. This growth was prompted by a resurgence in technology markets, especially demand for microchips, he explained, noting quickly that there are signs that things are already slowing down again.

For the longer term, analysts are wondering, as they have for the past several years, where the next surge in jobs for the Bay State and the Pioneer Valley will come from. In a recent article written for Benchmarks (see page 37), Nakosteen chronicled 20 years of relative stagnancy for Western Mass., with questions about if, when, and how it might end.

“The region just keeps plugging along,” he said, noting that, while ‘stagnant’ is generally not a positive economic term, in this case it’s better than some areas of the state, which have witnessed dramatic surges, but equally dramatic declines.

Through the Looking Glass

When asked about what to expect from the Deval Patrick administration, Jeff Ciuffreda, vice president of Government Affairs for the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, said he’s not hearing a lot of negative talk.

Like Mayer, he said Patrick’s campaign and its theme, Together We Can, created generally positive vibes, and the business community is, by and large, withholding judgment until the picture is colored in.

“He seems to at least speak the language of business,” said Ciuffreda, noting that Patrick has served on several corporate boards and would seem to appreciate the needs and concerns of business owners. “How that will translate … we don’t know yet.”

To date, Patrick has been short on specifics with many issues ranging from the the fate of the Finance Control Board — the ACCGS would like it to remain in business — to his first budget. He has been outspoken on public higher education, and recently told an audience at UMass that he would push to increase spending on state schools by $400 million over five to seven years.

As for Western Mass., Patrick, like previous candidates and governors, has pledged support for the region. However, some are already alarmed by how few members of his transition team (7%) are from the Pioneer Valley.

“We may need to keep his feet to the fire on Western Mass.,” said Ciuffreda. “We’ll know a lot more in a year or so.”

That statement applies to many issues and concerns, he said, noting that while waiting to see what Patrick and his team members do in their first year, economy watchers will also be monitoring the housing market, energy prices, the war in Iraq, and the strength of the dollar — or lack thereof.

The softening of the housing market is still largely an Eastern Mass. phenomenon, although sales volume has fallen in the Pioneer Valley and prices has remained steady, said Nakosteen. But the impact is felt statewide because of the broad ripple effect. Consumer spending will continue to decline if the trend does not reverse itself, due to a phenomenon known as the ‘wealth factor.’

As Nakosteen explained, many individuals now view their homes as their principle vehicle for investing (savings rates remain low), and when homeowners see the value of their property diminish, they feel less wealthy and are thus less apt to spend.

“That’s why the housing market is the biggest concern for the year ahead,” he said, adding that economic projections for the next several quarters are muddled because of general uncertainty about housing prices and sales. Debate continues on whether bottom has been hit and, if it hasn’t, when that might occur — the consensus is the second or third quarter of next year.

The Big Picture

The sum of the many factors influencing the economy will determine how much of a surge will be seen — in the overall economy and in jobs.

While current conditions wouldn’t be described as a truly ‘jobless economy,’ the phrase that became popular in ’03 and ’04, there haven’t been significant gains in employment statewide or regionally.

“We set a record for merchandise exports this year,” said Mayer. “We’re making the stuff the world wants, but we’re just not employing a lot of people to make it.

“Hiring is still regarded almost as a last resort for some employers,” he continued, “and the availability of good people is one big reason why. Some companies just can’t find people.”

Overall, the state has seen roughly 1% growth in the number of payroll jobs over the past year, said Nakosteen, noting that the state was registering 2% to 2.5% increases during the early years of the decade. Most recent gains have come in professional and business services (7,100 jobs), education and health services (6,800), and financial services (4,200). In addition, 3,900 jobs were added in construction.

This relative stagnancy on the jobs market has contributed to an ongoing out-migration of state residents, the extent of which is still being debated, said Mayer, noting that the exodus, however large it may be, has some economists worried.

And the trend will continue, he said, until the state creates large numbers of new jobs. When and how that will happen are both $64,000 questions.

There are many theories about where the next large wave of jobs will emerge — from renewable energy to biotechnology to medical instruments manufacturing — but no clear indicators, said Mayer, who doubts that any of those sectors will blossom into large-scale jobs centers.

“I’ve heard that renewable energy could be the next big growth area, but I don’t see it,” he told BusinessWest. “How many people does it take to run a windmill?”

Nakosteen agreed, saying that the next big source of jobs probably hasn’t identified itself yet.

“Massachusetts has a long history of reinventing its economy, and it will do so again,” he explained. “But if there’s a new engine out there that’s going to drive us, it’s not at this point identifiable. And one of the reasons we’re going to see very, very minimal, almost stagnant employment growth over the next few years is because we don’t have this new engine out there.”

That same statement can be applied to Western Mass., which has seen some job growth in biotechnology and medical instruments, but, overall, hasn’t found anything to replace the manufacturing jobs that have given the region its identity. This fact, coupled with the region’s minimal but consistent growth, adds up to remarkable resiliency, he said.

“Over the past century, the Pioneer Valley has lost most of its important employers, especially in manufacturing,” he explained. “If you look at other areas of the country, when they lose their major employers and enter a recession, they go into a death spiral; we just keep plugging away.”

Nakosteen attributes this phenomenon to the region’s employment anchors — UMass, MassMutual, Baystate Health, and others, who have maintained their core strength over the years — and also to new small-business development. “This region is much better off than other areas that have lost their manufacturing bases,” he said, “and I think it’s because of those core businesses.”

Identity Crisis

Can the region break free of the stagnancy that has defined it for the past few decades? Possibly, said Nokosteen, but it probably won’t come from companies leaving Boston for the Valley and its lower cost of doing business.

“The prevailing theory is that if business owners are going to leave the Boston area, they’ll go all the way to the Research Triangle,” he explained. “They won’t stop along the way in Springfield.”

Thus, growth will likely be organic, and Nakosteen isn’t sure where it will come from.

“We don’t have an economic identity, and we don’t have an engine of growth; I don’t see anything coming to the fore,” he told BusinessWest. “But it’s not obvious that anything has to come to the fore; we could be like this forever more.”

George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]

Features
AIC President Vince Maniaci Orchestrates a Stunning Turnaround
AIC President Vince Maniaci

AIC President Vince Maniaci

He barely had his boxes unpacked before AIC president Vince Maniaci realized he had a big problem on his hands – a waning sense of community and pride at the private college that was dwarfed only by a $5.3 million deficit. The 122-year-old institution is now back in the black and its leaders are focused on regaining what was lost – and creating what never was.

Vince Maniaci, president of American International College, has a number of signature phrases he’s coined that are directly related to AIC and the turnaround he’s trying to create.

He says all of the changes on campus are “mission-centric” and “market-smart,” meaning they don’t stray from the institution’s core educational values, and are made with attention to the state of the local economy and the region’s strengths and weaknesses.

He also says he’s trying to “put the international back in American International,” a pledge that is leading to some intriguing global developments at the school.
Finally, he says that AIC will “tolerate excellence, but its goal is perfection.” Of all his quotable quotes, that’s one of Maniaci’s personal favorites, and also probably the loftiest goal he, or any college president, could create for himself.

Indeed, AIC is only now gaining solid footing after standing on shaky ground for some time. Maniaci took the helm in August of last year, after serving as the vice president for institutional advancement at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. He succeeded long-time president Harry Courniotes, who announced his retirement plans in October of 2004.

Maniaci remembers first discovering that the college was in dire straits his fifth day on the job, when a financial review of its books revealed a $5.3 million shortfall in the budget for 2005. The audit also showed the college had consistently come up short for several years, dating back to 1997.

“That made it abundantly clear that we were not financially sound, and it was shocking to me, but more shocking to the Board of Trustees,” he said. “We were in bad shape, and the vultures were starting to circle. We had to focus not on creating a healthy surplus, but just on breaking even.”

To do that, the college entered a deep freeze; $1 million was slashed from AIC’s operating budget — in some cases, the loss was fat, but some pet projects across all departments also had to be sacrificed. A total of 15 positions were eliminated, and the pension fund was frozen and later replaced with a defined contribution plan.

“It was painful,” Maniaci said, “But we did it about as well as we could, and it’s really what began the renaissance here.”

It also pushed Maniaci into the spotlight much sooner than he expected and for less auspicious reasons, but the images that attention created were not always of somber financial reports and layoff announcements.

As freshmen moved into the dorms during AIC’s orientation weekend, for instance, they had help from a man wearing a yellow sweatband that read ‘President.’ He introduced himself to parents as Vince, and made that same promise to “tolerate excellence.”

His unconventional approach persists on campus. He makes an effort to memorize every new student’s name, and they call him Vin, Vinny, and ‘Manach.’ His office is adorned with the standard certificates and diplomas of any college president, as well as one of C.M. Coolidge’s oil renderings of dogs playing poker.

“You have to have a sense of humor,” said Maniaci. “Especially when it comes to survival.”

School of Rock

That positivism adds to an already amplified sense of change at AIC since Maniaci arrived. At 47, he’s a young college president who succeeded one of the country’s oldest, who led AIC for 36 years, and who worked at the college for longer than Maniaci has been alive.

Maniaci has also instituted more changes in a year and a half than the campus saw in the decade prior to his arrival. Positions have been cut and rearranged, titles have been adjusted, programs have been both changed and added, and the doors of some campus buildings have closed while others have opened.

But in the midst of continued upheaval, one thing is certain – the college’s finances are improving, and that can be seen plainly in black and white.

Following that paralyzing financial review in 2005, the college was projected to see an additional shortfall of about $4 million this year. But as the year draws to a close, the books will show a $500,000 surplus on a cash basis. In addition, the school’s retention rates ticked up by 8%. Adding to the positive press was the recent announcement of a new master’s program in nonprofit management, and earlier in the year, the announcement of a new Web-based master’s in nursing.

In fact, new program announcements have become common occurrences at AIC, and Maniaci credits many of them with contributing to the speed at which the institution has returned to health.

“Yes, there were cuts,” he said, “yes, there were layoffs. But there has also been a lot of reallocation of resources, a brand new marketing plan has been put into place – we weren’t marketing globally before, now that’s very much a focus – and several new programs have been instituted, so far with very good success rates.”

“We won’t grow through austerity,” he said. “We will grow through recruitment and by creating an identity that both fits and benefits our students and the city we’re in.”

The first new development came just three months after Maniaci arrived, when dual admissions agreements were signed between AIC, Springfield Technical Community College, and Holyoke Community College in October 2005. The agreement, which allows students to transfer automatically to AIC after successful completion of coursework at one of the two-year schools and also provides $4,000 scholarships, created a new pipeline of students and marked the first such arrangement with a private, four-year college in the area. Since that initial agreement was signed, Greenfield Community College, Berkshire Community College, Capitol Community College in Connecticut, and Bermuda College have entered into similar agreements with the college.

A month later, the AIC’s ‘Community Engagement Initiative’ was unveiled, which awards $10,000, four-year, renewable scholarships to Springfield homeowners and their children. The program was initially opened to the 4,000 residents of the city’s Bay Area, including portions of State Street, Tapley Street, Roosevelt Avenue, and Mason Square. Now, it is being expanded to other areas.

The Web-based nursing degree, a master’s in Nursing Education, was announced in May of this year, augmenting the master’s in nursing program that itself is only two years old, but was added to enhance what is currently AIC’s largest major with 350 students. That announcement was followed in September with the unveiling of the Nursing Workforce Diversity Collaborative Project, designed to introduce health-related careers to disadvantaged high school students, with the help of a $1.1 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services.

And the newest addition to the curriculum, the master’s in nonprofit management, was created, Maniaci said, to fill a need within the nonprofit and human services sector of Western Mass.

“There are thousands of people who are underserved in this area, and that creates a defined need and a demand for expertise,” he said, “and we are the ideal institution for this program.”

There are other changes that garnered fewer headlines; a set of satellite campuses have been created across the Commonwealth in high schools, community colleges, and other locales, offering a master’s in education in the Greater Boston area. The high hedges that once weaved through the campus quad were leveled, picnic tables were added outside of the dining hall, and an international student lounge has been created in Sokolowski Tower, a building that, previously, was the subject of a joke among many students at the small college who never knew what it was for.

News, Views, and Brews

New additions, academic and otherwise, are a long-term answer to the college’s ills, said Maniaci, and foster continued growth rather than reinforcing the status quo. He added that the creation of new initiatives is not as damaging to the bottom line during troubled times as many might suspect.

“The effect on the bottom line is not bad,” he said. “People forget that new initiatives, especially scholarship programs, bring in students who in turn bring with them a certain amount of state and federal money.

“And the fact of the matter is, our budget is balanced, and now we can begin reinvesting.”

Moving forward, activity is not slowing down at AIC. In an effort to increase its international reputation, Maniaci is working to create satellite campuses in global markets such as Cairo and Bermuda, where a joint admissions agreement already exists with Bermuda College. He said he’s looking primarily at secondary markets – not China or other locales in high demand for American ventures, but rather smaller, promising markets such as Ireland and The Netherlands.

Stateside, plans are being mulled for an MBA with a global focus and, more locally, for a degree program tailored for paraprofessionals in education, to address the need for qualified teachers in the Greater Springfield area.

And in terms of physical development, a new pub is being added to the campus that will serve coffee during the week and beer and wine on the weekends. It’s an interesting addition, as many schools across the country close their on-site bars to ‘go dry.’ What’s more, the pub – The Stinger – will occupy what was once the faculty dining room, an amenity that Maniaci permanently removed.

“I am not advocating underage drinking or excessive drinking at all,” he said, “but let’s be real: there is no such thing as a dry campus in this entire country. And I also have no enthusiasm for students driving downtown to drink. What this is about is establishing a sense of community on campus.”

That sense of community is one of the intangible qualities Maniaci is trying to foster in tandem with cold, hard business improvement. He said he sees it happening – he receives reports that classroom behavior has improved, registration numbers for the spring semester are healthy, and interest in the college newspaper The Yellow Jacket has been revived after a few stagnant years. The most recent edition features a cover photo of Maniaci, with a New York Post-like headline that simply reads ‘The Man.’

A Man with a Plan

Maniaci is quick to accept the compliment, and just as quick to accept that not every decision he’s made has been popular.

“Transition is hard, and it’s particularly hard in an institution of higher learning,” he said. “We are largely a group of open-minded thinkers, but there’s an irony there, because we also have a tendency to harken back to the past.

“A lot of change was necessary,” he added, “and even I had no idea how deep the cultural shift was going to go. But we have a noble mission, and to achieve our goals we need to stay centered on that mission, run this place like a business, and make difficult decisions.”

The challenges will persist, he said, among them a loss of a sense of urgency among AIC’s administration, now that the college is no longer floundering in a sea of red.

“We have escaped imminent doom,” said Maniaci. “My worry is we could lose our edge, and we absolutely can’t afford to lose our edge. Still, we are stable, and that in turn makes a good base for creating excellence.”

And from excellence, there is the possibility of perfection.

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

Opinion

We’re not sure how plans to locate a back-up data center for the Commonwealth in Springfield turned into such a heated controversy, but we suggest that the parties end the hostilities — before the city loses the facility and its 50-odd jobs to another community.

The conflict over the data center, which would store records of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Medicaid, and other state agencies and programs, has escalated over the past few months. It boils down to two sites, the merits of which are being debated in the local papers and over the airwaves.

One site is the former Technical High School — or what’s left of it — on Spring Street, a proposal being strongly pushed by U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal and a collection of supporters that includes the bishops of the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian dioceses, Mayor Charles Ryan, leaders at MassMutual and, the most recent addition, the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield. The other site is the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College, an office/technology park created largely through a $4.5 million state appropriation and now home to several technology-related businesses and a few state agencies. The tech park site is being backed by state Rep. Thomas Petrolati.

Neal and others want the Tech High site because it would complete a larger neighborhood revitalization effort that includes the $67 million federal courthouse now being constructed on State Street and a $13 million State Street corridor improvement project. Tech High has been abandoned for two decades, and most of it was torn down to make way for the courthouse. What remains, the original building built more than 100 years ago, is an eyesore that Neal and many Springfield leaders have been desperate to rehabilitate.

The tech park is being touted as a potentially lower-cost alternative, one that would help ensure the long-term viability of the park by absorbing a portion of currently vacant space.

There are a lot of numbers on cost being tossed around on the project — serving to add confusion to the controversy, perhaps intentionally — and some heated words. Neal, at a hastily called press conference after the revised tech park estimate was announced, said of the park and its management team: “they are proposing a Bermuda tax haven at the tech park. They are absorbing state agencies into the park, and asking the government to rent from the government.”

And a few days later, while addressing a meeting of the assistance corporation, Ryan, who was mayor when STCC was created 39 years ago and helped with that process, said, “Little did I dream STCC would be an instrument to hurt the city. It’s ironic and disappointing that the leadership at STCC would continue on the path that they’ve embarked on.”

Such comments could leave scars long after the Legislature ultimately decides where to put the data center, and that’s what concerns us. In many respects, the facility is a charitable gift to Springfield from the state, much like the original data center, built in Chelsea, which was battling its own fiscal crisis at the time it was chosen. This gift should help build some momentum for Springfield, not create division.

We suggest that the city and its leaders find some way to present a unified front and get behind one plan, before all this friction prompts legislators to conclude that Springfield doesn’t have its act together. And by unified front, we don’t mean making the tech park supporters simply go away and fall in line with the belief that the high school is the only plan that should be considered — or the best plan.

We’re not sure that saving what will amount to one wall of Tech High and putting the data center on Spring Street is really the best way to use this gift from the Commonwealth; the tech park, the soon-to-be-vacated federal building downtown, or some other site may make more sense and cost less. And we suggest that city leaders take that approach — determine the best, most cost-effective site, perhaps by issuing a request for proposals — and not the ‘this is the last hope for Tech High so it should go there’ philosophy that currently prevails.

Otherwise, the city may lose its gift.