Month: May 2007

Age 26. Senior Marketing Manager, Eastfield Mall

While the rest of New England was slogging through a long, cold winter, Jillian Gould was building a beach.

Sure, the 400-square-foot sandbox was inside Eastfield Mall in Springfield, and there weren’t any splashing waves, but that didn’t matter to the children on winter break who got a chance to escape the chill, if only for an afternoon. And if it got their parents into the mall, then Gould — the facility’s senior marketing manager — was pleased about that, too.

“It’s gratifying when we do things for families,” she said. “We really gear many of the events for children, but we involve the whole family, and we love to see the joy the kids have when they come here.” The sandbox, beach toys, dancing, and ice cream-eating contests of February’s nine-day beach blowout fell into that category.

Gould, at 26 one of the youngest members of BusinessWest’s inaugural Forty Under 40 club, has come a long way with Eastfield Mall since interning there in 2001. She was hired as marketing manager in 2004 — “I was looking for a new job, and we had kept in touch” — and promoted to senior marketing manager in 2006, overseeing marketing efforts for both the Boston Road complex and the Eastern Hills Mall in Buffalo, N.Y. And that means keeping track of mall traffic and helping to develop events and campaigns to keep it flowing.

“I like how often this job changes,” Gould said. “Every week, we’re doing something different, so it never gets monotonous. And I like to work with the creative people who put together our print ads and television commercials.”

In fact, working with other business people has become a particular interest for Gould, who co-chairs the Boston Road Business Assoc., in addition to a slate of other activities with the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, the Ad Club, and other networking groups. Starting in March, she headed up the Eastfield Mall team for the ACCGS’ Total Resource Campaign, an annual effort to increase awareness of and membership in the chamber.

Staying that active is no walk in the park. But it’s sometimes a walk on the beach.

“The beach week isn’t something you see every day,” she said. “Kids stayed for hours, while the moms got to talk to other moms” — and spend money in the stores, of course. It’s not all fun and games, after all.

Craig Swimm

Age 39. Director of Sales, WMAS AM/FM Citadel Broadcasting

Craig Swimm didn’t see it as a step backward.

Well, OK, from an immediate salary standpoint it certainly was, but not, in his mind, from a career development viewpoint or from the perspective of what was best for his family — although he was more than a little worried about what his wife, Sigrun, would say or do when he told her the news: he was leaving a position as a warehouse supervisor, delivering refrigerators for the old Lechmere store in Springfield, to do sales and marketing for radio station WARE.

He recalls her saying, “what have you done?!!” or something to that effect.

By Swimm’s estimations, he was taking a $25,000 pay cut to do something he’d never done before. But he was nothing if not confident — and adventurous. And he never looked back. Nor, apparently, did Sigrun, an Icelander whom Swimm met while stationed at Keflavik Air Force Base during Operation Desert Storm.

The Swimms and their daughter, Sonja, make at least one trip to Iceland a year — Christmas, Easter, or both. This year, it was Easter, a trip Swimm was looking forward to after another hectic year balancing his duties as sales director of WMAS AM and FM and community work that includes work on the boards for FutureWorks and the Salvation Army.

He told BusinessWest that he enjoys sales, and that when it comes to selling media, he gets an education in how businesses across virtually every sector operate, and how advertising helps them get their message across. And in the ‘life-is-ironic’ category, he remembers applying for a job selling vacuum cleaners at Lechmere, but being told that he didn’t have the personality for sales.

When asked about Iceland, Swimm said it’s a place everyone should put on their ‘must-visit-someday’ list. “It’s a wonderful country,” he said. “It’s extremely clean … there’s no pollution, and the people are incredibly friendly.”

That said, he advises visitors to be aware — and maybe wary — of one of that country’s traditions: an offering to a houseguest of a little vodka (from the freezer) and a large bite of shark meat.

“The vodka’s OK,” he said, “but the shark is the most horrible-tasting thing you can possibly imagine.”

Michael Gove

Age 28. Attorney, Lyon & Fitzpatrick LLP

With degrees in Political Science and Law — and experience campaigning for political candidates in Massachusetts — Michael Gove is enthusiastic, to say the least, about politics. Just don’t ask him to run for office.

“I’ve always been a big believer in the political process, and I’ve always had a blast campaigning,” he said. “There are so many issues out there that can only be resolved through the political process, so it’s important that people stand up and tell the people representing them what they believe.”

That said, “I could see myself on a board of selectmen, something small, but wouldn’t want to be governor. I don’t like the horse trading, or trading away my principles and making compromises. I’d rather focus on an issue I believe in and work for that.”

In many ways, Gove is working for the public right now, one person at a time, as an attorney with Lyon & Fitzpatrick LLP who specializes in business law, estate planning, and housing law.

“I originally wanted to be a prosecutor,” he said, “but I found I really enjoyed working with people planning ahead for things” — a job description that ranges from helping businesses plan 10 or 20 years down the road to making sure young couples with children plan a secure future for their family, or helping senior citizens protect assets when preparing for nursing-home care.

Gove is planning on a larger scale, too. A member of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, he was asked by PVPC Director Tim Brennan to co-chair the Valley Development Council, a board hard at work on Valley Vision II, a comprehensive land-use plan for the region.

“It’s a huge project, and it has taken two years to get to where we are now,” Gove said. “We’re going to urge the commission to support it and push principles of smart growth, energy conservation, mixed-use buildings, mixing residential and commercial building, and mass transit.”

The first Valley Vision endeavor, he said, was released several years ago and then “left to collect dust.” The current council intends to make the second effort a living document, to be updated as the years go by.

After all, to succeed in the future, you have to work at it now — whether you’re a politician, a city planner, or a retired grandmother who doesn’t want to lose her life savings.

Bill Bither

Age 31. President and Founder, Atalasoft Inc.

Bill Bither says he doesn’t really have anything he’d call “free time,” just time spent doing many different things.

When he’s not running his software development firm, Atalasoft, in Easthampton, which is growing at an astounding rate of 75% annually, he’s working to recruit technology talent to Western Mass. through his involvement with the Regional Technology Corp. He’s also a prolific blogger at BillBither.com, and encourages the practice among his employees.

But Bither isn’t always chained to his keyboard; he’s also a competitive cyclist who commutes to work by bike, and celebrates a healthy lifestyle within his company, too; Atalasoft’s team meetings are often held in motion on nearby bike paths.

“Sometimes I need to come up for air,” he joked, adding quickly that any down moments are usually spent with his family — his wife Kim and two children, Abriana and Alex. “I just love them, and having two young children to play with is a blast.”

Bither moved to Western Mass. after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He started his career at Hamilton Standard, but as a side project began developing a software application called EyeBatch, which processes several images at one time, often for use on the Web.

He said EyeBatch began to generate a nice side income, which in turn motivated him to start his own business. Now, Atalasoft sells six core products worldwide and employs 15 people. Bither expects that number will be closer to 100 in just a few years.

“That’s all organic growth — we hire people as we need them,” he said.

The fast pace at which Atalasoft is evolving has also allowed Bither to make philanthropy a major part of his business. After losing his father to brain cancer, he and his family became involved with BrainTrust, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the quality of life of those with brain-related conditions. To give back, Bither donates 100% of the profits of EyeBatch to the group.

“They offered my family a lot of help, and BrainTrust is a small charity, so it really benefits,” he said.

And, it’s just one more way Bither stays busy — a business owner, bicyclist, blogger, and now, benefactor, as well.

Christy Hedgpeth

Age 34. Director of Branding and Licensing, Spalding

Christy Hedgpeth says she has a sports analogy, or lesson, for almost every occasion, including just about every business situation she finds herself in.

And she should. She has played basketball professionally for the Seattle franchise of the American Basketball League and, in fact, played a lead role (manager of player development) in getting that pioneering league off the ground. And she was the starting shooting guard on a Stanford University team that went to two Final Fours and won the national title in 1992.

Hedgpeth, director of branding and licensing for Springfield-based Spalding, has made endless references to that championship season, which provided countless lessons in teamwork, continuously striving to get better, and just plain old hard work.

“We had talent, but we also had great chemistry … we had five starters in double figures that year,” she explained. “But we were also incredibly well-conditioned. We paid our dues on the track in the summer when it was really hot. When games got tight, we knew we had an advantage because we had prepared more thoroughly than anyone else.”

Hedgpeth has been applying lessons she learned on the court, on the running track, and in the weight room (and encouraging others to the same) in a career that has effectively blended her areas of expertise — sports, marketing, and business. At Spalding, she wears many hats in her current role, and is essentially charged with ensuring brand consistency across all of the company’s businesses. Often, she works in concert with Dan Touhey, Spalding’s vice president of Marketing and another of the Forty Under 40.

Like Touhey, Hedgpeth is active in the community, donating time and energy to several causes and groups, especially the fight against breast cancer, which took the life of a friend a few years ago.

Hedgpeth said she will always have fond memories of that championship season, the other years at Stanford — including 1994, when she was team captain — her three years with the Seattle Reign, and even an ESPY nomination in 1993 for best women’s player of that season. But the memories are just part of the equation.

There are also the lessons — especially those about working with others to clear hurdles and achieve common goals. Like the memories, her championship ring, and that piece of net she cut down that April night in 1992, she’ll have those forever.

Amy Jamrog

Age 35. Managing Director, The Jamrog Group

Amy Jamrog took out her first small-business loan at age 7.

The financing was from her mother, and was used to purchase yarn and crochet needles to create hand-crafted Easter bunnies — a talent she learned from her grandmother and spun into a seasonal job.

“I would start in January,” Jamrog remembers. “I crocheted like a maniac, and went door-to-door, selling bunnies.” Her first year in production, Jamrog netted $50 after repaying her mother, and proved at a very early age that she innately possessed a number of key business skills, including creativity, perseverance, and that hard-to-acquire entrepreneurial drive.

She’s since tailored those skills into a successful career in financial planning, founding the Jamrog Group, the Northampton office of the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, in 2006, and tripling the company’s size since that time. She is also a motivational speaker with a national reach, another talent she’s enjoyed since childhood.

“I just love motivational speech in front of large crowds,” she said. “I speak a lot within my industry, encouraging people to think more holistically about planning, how we teach people to be empowered by their money, and how to have fun doing it.”

Jamrog also speaks on the topic of philanthropy, another passion, and her engagements have taken her to Toronto, San Francisco, Jacksonville, New York City, and several other markets.

Her next goal is to publish some of the concepts she typically speaks about and uses to help counsel her clients, perhaps by penning a book. “I feel like I can take my creative side and my entrepreneurial side and create something extraordinary,” she said, adding that her life is one that includes a few different worlds.

Indeed, in addition to financial planning and public speaking, Jamrog also has two sons and is active in community service, having received Northwestern Mutual’s Community Service Award twice.

“But my life has become a wonderful Venn diagram,” she said. “I don’t struggle with balance because I see no separation. It’s not work and home, it’s just my life. There is no between.”

Still, she said it’s inspiring to be recognized for her achievements to date, and for those yet to be sewn up.

Paul Kozub

Age 32. Founder and Owner of V-One Vodka

Paul Kozub was captain of the basketball team at Skidmore College.

A small forward, he could shoot a little (he scored 35 points in two different games while in prep school), but his forte was, and still is, defense. “I could jump pretty high, and I’m left-handed. Most people shoot right-handed, so when they get in the shooting position, my hand is right there,” he explained. “So I was often called on to try and shut down the other team’s top scorer.”

More often than not, he did. And he believes his exploits on the court have helped him achieve success with one of the Pioneer Valley’s more intriguing entrepreneurial ventures — a vodka label, V-One, that started in his bathtub, was perfected (and is now produced) in Poland, and now adorns shelves in liquor stores and bars across Western Mass. and one region in California.

“Having an attitude of not being afraid of the big guy has definitely helped me,” he said, drawing a direct parallel between the taller players he defended in college and the giants in the vodka business. “Companies like Grey Goose and Belvedere have all this money to develop and market their product; how the heck am I going to compete with that?

“I’ve competed by just not being afraid.”

This ‘no fear’ approach should serve Kozub well as he prepares to take the training wheels off a business he has grown through small, measured steps. He recently hired his first full-time employee, a salesperson who will help the company penetrate the Connecticut market and move on from there.

The addition to the staff should also help relieve some of the burden from Kozub’s shoulders. He has been a virtual one-person show since launching V-One in late summer 2005, and still services some 300 clients personally. That doesn’t leave much time for things outside work, but Kozub makes time for his church, a few men’s basketball leagues, and 13 nieces and nephews.

They were all in attendance at Uncle Paul’s wedding on Cinco de Mayo — he took that day off, but the honeymoon will wait until the winter, when the vodka business slows down — an event that no doubt featured some seriously good martinis.

Bob Lowry

Age 36. Owner, Bueno y Sano and Rolando’s restaurants

It all started with a late-night stop at a Mexican joint on Nantucket.

Bob Lowry, then a recent graduate of UMass-Amherst, came away from that visit with more than a full stomach. He also took some inspiration for an entrepreneurial venture. Upon returning to Amherst, he noticed a ‘for rent’ sign in a storefront, and began putting some numbers together in his head.

“I figured I needed to sell $600 worth of burritos a day to break even,” he said. After that, Lowry’s plan unfolded rather organically. He said he’d never made a burrito in his life, but had a sense that he could make a good one. He’d never considered being a restaurateur before, but thought he might make a good boss.

His hunches turned out to be right on the money. He opened his first location in Amherst in 1995, and the healthy, hearty burrito eatery was a hit — especially among the late-night crowd.

“When I opened Bueno y Sano, I thought, ‘this is me. This is exactly what I was meant to do.’ And I love what I do.”

Today, Lowry has two Bueno y Sano locations, in Amherst and Northampton, and is in the process of opening a third restaurant with a new theme in Amherst. It will be called Rolando’s, named for his long-time general manager, and will specialize in roast beef and falafel. In addition, his brother is planning to open a third Bueno y Sano in Burlington, Vt.

The business has opened the door to community service for Lowry, who began working with local nonprofits, initially providing fundraising dinners. He now sits on a number of local boards, including Northstar: Self-directed Learning for Teens, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Hampshire Health Connect.

Even with so much on his plate, Lowry maintains a laid-back view of the world.

“I have it pretty good because I have a great staff,” he said. “I’m not a slave to my places.”

Looking ahead, Lowry said he hopes to maintain that peace of mind, and to keep having fun at work. That said, Lowry is still one of the busier ‘Type B’ personalities you’re likely to meet.

“People who know Bueno y Sano know I’m hard to find,” he said. “I’m usually out finding some other crazy project.”

G.E. Patrick Leary, CPA

Age 36. Partner, Moriarty & Primack, P.C.

Patrick Leary isn’t one to dip a toe in the water when a diving board is close by.

His total-immersion experience came as an undergraduate at Fairfield University, when some fellow students told him about their experiences studying in Europe.

He was intrigued, even though he spoke only English. “I thought I’d like to take that on and see what it’s all about to go abroad,” he said. “But it’s a real leap to do that when you don’t know anyone and don’t know the language.”

He decided on the University of Salzburg in Austria, a campus where the main language was German. To adapt, Leary was first plunked into the Berlitz School of Languages in Munich, Germany for a crash course. “They spoke to you in German, seven or eight hours a day, for three weeks straight,” he said. “I learned some basic German, enough to get by. It was a learning experience.”

During those years, Leary was a little more tentative about his career path, having already switched from a Biology major to business courses. “During my senior year, I was given an ultimatum: Accounting or Finance. I selected Accounting, and I’m glad I did. I really enjoy it.”

Specifically, Leary enjoys helping his firm’s business clients with their audits and financial reporting, as well as special situations such as new product rollouts and corporate acquisitions. “To me, it’s all about providing our clients with advice to help them grow their businesses and hopefully make the right decisions — and to be a sounding board, in many cases.”

That’s a role Leary has extended to seminars he conducts on business issues such as fraud, cash-flow planning, and managing risk. He also provides commentary during the tax season on WGGB Channel 40.

He recalled one seminar hosted by the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce. “It was a fairly intimate group, and it was more than just me standing up and speaking; it was a lot of give and take. And some of those people have called me since then. They’re not clients, but they want to pick my brain a little bit, and I’m happy to do that. I can draw on my experience and hopefully help them move their businesses where they want to go.”

When the complexities of business finances can sometimes seem as incomprehensible as … well, German, that’s not a bad resource to have.

Todd Lever

Age 39. Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations, Noble Hospital

Todd Lever has big things in mind … for his generation.

“I’ve had a number of mentors over the years, and I’d like to do the same for others who are trying to break into different careers,” Lever said of one of his goals: to start a regional networking group for members of Generation X. He even has a name in mind: Xecutives.

“With the aging of the Baby Boom generation, there will be a leadership transition between Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, and an increased need for leadership and networking.”

It’s a typically ambitious plan for Lever, who seems to be happier the more thinly he spreads himself. His current job, overseeing a range of marketing efforts at Noble Hospital in Westfield, is only the latest in a series of public-relations roles in health care, including stints at Health New England, Baystate Health, and the Sisters of Providence Health System. In the meantime, he has cultivated relationships with several regional nonprofits in the human services sector. “I’ve never wanted to market widgets,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to have some close human connection to my daily business activities.”

It’s a mission Lever has taken beyond his own career through an entity called Western Mass. Strategies, his consulting practice that focuses on marketing, public relations, and government affairs within the local nonprofit sector. “I had been participating in a human services advocacy group, and I found a number of executive directors taking about a need for public relations and advocacy capacity within their organizations, because they couldn’t hire anyone on their own,” he said. “So I set up my own boutique consulting business, working for several organizations.”

Lever has been, in many ways, a public-service Renaissance man, from his Political Science studies at UMass and his election as a Southwick selectman at age 24, to his eight years of editorial writing about political and interpersonal issues for Southwoods magazine and his more recent role as a public affairs analyst on the Tony Gill Show on WAIC radio.

Still, his work keeps returning to the fields of health and human services. “I’ve been given fantastic opportunities to have some daily interaction with people and to try to make a difference in people’s lives,” he said.

All this, with nary a widget in sight.

Audrey Manring

Age 33. Editor, The Women’s Times

As she talks about all that’s going on in her life, professionally and within the community, and her efforts to squeeze it all in, Audrey Manring uses words and phrases that give new meaning to the saying about time being money.

“You scrimp and you save,” she said, describing her efforts to make maximum use of the 24 hours in a day. “Maybe you cut back on sleep … you do whatever you can just to make the time.”

This tall order got considerably taller a year ago, when Manring was named editor of The Women’s Times, a publication with a mission that suits her professionally and personally.

“It’s a nice marriage of what’s interesting to me intellectually and the kind of work I feel is important: amplifying women’s voices, telling their stories, and looking at issues of concern regionally and nationally, but from a very locally grounded perspective,” said Manring, who had several interesting stops before returning to the Berkshires in 2002.

After graduate school (at the University of Scotland), she was a freelance writer, with bylined articles in Information Week, among other publications. Before that, she was a research and writing assistant for the New York Times bestseller Flyboys.

In her current capacity, Manring wears many hats. She does some writing and art direction, considerable editing, and work done in collaboration with Publisher Eugenie Sills to brand the publication, shape its editorial philosophy, and make it more visible across Western Mass.

While doing all this, she finds time for a long and intriguing list of community work. She was, for example, co-founding director of the PapaInk Children’s Art Archive, which has collected and archived roughly 30,000 pieces from around the world. Manring is also a mentor with the South Berkshire Youth Coalition Mentoring Program, which serves high school students at risk; sits on both the steering and marketing committees for Voices from the Inside, a literary arts program for incarcerated women; and is a volunteer with Construct Inc., an agency working with housing and homelessness issues in Great Barrington.

When asked about future career goals and aspirations, Manring said she considers herself a writer first and foremost, one who would like to freelance for some national publications and someday pen her own novel. To do that, she knows she’ll need to really scrimp when it comes to her time.

Daniel Morrill, CPA

Age 31. Senior Manager, Wolf & Co.

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While playing baseball at Holy Cross, Daniel Morrill saw his friends keeping busy by helping needy children. He recalls being both jealous and inspired.

“I played baseball for four years there, which didn’t allow me any time to do community service,” he said. “A lot of my friends were involved in a program where they met with underprivileged kids in Worcester once a week, and one of my friends had a little brother through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. I wanted to do that, too.”

Morrill eventually did get involved, so effectively that he was named the Hampden County Big Brother of the Year in 2004. That’s typical of Morrill, who has made a habit of swinging for the fences in both his work and the community. Even as the Forty Under 40 goes to press, he’s on the move at Wolf & Co., the Springfield-based CPA and consulting firm. Before this year, he had worked as a senior audit manager, handling the audits of more than 125 clients throughout the year, including large, multi-state, publicly held bank holding companies.

“I’m in the midst of an exciting transition right now, moving into professional practice as a senior manager,” he said, a position that includes both in-house training and overseeing in-house consulting with other partners and managers on technical issues.

It’s a career he relishes, although he freely admits that he was drawn into the Economics and Accounting programs at Holy Cross partly by the fact that graduates of the program usually had no problem finding work after college. “It wasn’t difficult getting a job coming out, and when you’re 18, that’s appealing,” he said.

Getting a job is one thing, but moving quickly up the ladder is another. Still, Morrill is no longer letting work or play (golf) get in the way of serving the community, whether through an annual bowl-a-thon that draws some 50 participants from Wolf & Co. or working with Big Brothers Big Sisters, where he has served on the board of directors for several years.

“I realized the impact you could make on a young person’s life,” he said of his experience there. And making an impact, both on the job and away from it, is what the Forty Under 40 is all about.

Katharine Pacella Costello

Age 35. Attorney, Egan, Flanagan, and Cohen, P.C.

There are two cases that stand out in Katherine Pacella Costello’s mind as defining moments in her career.

The first came relatively early, just six months after she signed on with the Boston law firm Pepe & Hazard. She was assigned to defend a lawyer accused of malpractice; the client was her boss. “It was my first major deposition, and very stressful,” she said. “Those were some the most grueling arguments ever.”

But when a 48-page decision was returned in her favor, Costello, who said she takes her cases personally enough to lose sleep, was able to rest on her laurels — though not for long. Soon, a second case landed on her desk, this one spanning six years of her career with Pepe & Hazard.

“There were many people involved, but I was the person who was there from beginning to end,” said Costello, now an associate with Egan, Flanagan, and Cohen of Springfield.

That case involved a power plant developer and a contractor, who disagreed — vehemently — regarding the terms of a $217 million construction agreement. After years of hearings, depositions, and mile-high stacks of paper had accumulated, Costello and her colleagues finally won that case, and the decision was affirmed on appeal. She heard the news while on maternity leave, having given birth to her daughter, Alessandra, now 3, in the thick of the proceedings.

Those personal victories validated Costello’s career choice, which she’d decided on by her teenage years, following the example of her father, also a lawyer.
Today, Costello’s career remains fast-paced, but she has a more robust home life, which has created a satisfying, yet delicate, balance. “My daughter is the light of my life,” she said, noting she has another baby on the way, due in June. “Children really change everything, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.”

She’s thrown herself into motherhood with the same fervor as she has her career, active as an event coordinator for a local mom’s club. She said she’s always been careful to choose employers who value the ability to lead a well-rounded life as much as she does, and that has augmented her success.

“One person cannot create that balance,” she said. “It has to be a group working together: employer, employee, family, community. As long as work and family are treated as equally important, I feel fulfilled.”

Richard Corder

Age 37. Vice President of Operations and Facilities Management, Cooley Dickinson Hospital

Richard Corder has spent the past few years leading two major construction projects: a $50 million expansion of Cooley Dickinson Hospital — and a tree fort he is building with his 10-year-old son, Harrison.

He is extremely proud of the fact that, with regard to the former (completed just a few weeks ago), he could consistently report that it was on time and on budget. And he’s equally proud that, when it comes to the latter (still ongoing), he can say neither. “There never was a schedule, and there never was a budget, which is good, because having either would take a lot of the fun out of it.”

Corder has managed to pack several different kinds of fun into his balance of life and work since he came to CDH as director of Guest Services in 2000, and has since been promoted twice. A native of Nottingham, England who immigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and spent many years in the hospitality sector before seguing into health care, Corder likes brewing his own beer, collecting and drinking fine wines, cooking, arranging flowers, and sailing, which is one of his few regrets about relocating to the Northampton area. “I can only do it maybe once or twice a year.”

Being farther away from the ocean than he would like is about the only thing Corder can complain about these days. He’s enjoying every aspect of being a husband and father of two, and has found a great measure of fulfillment in his work at CDH, especially the expansion project, which he called a career milestone.

Actually, he summoned a good number of adjectives to describe the massive addition, planning for which began soon after he arrived at the hospital. “When I look back on my career thus far, it’s probably been one of the most exciting, rewarding, challenging, frustrating, joy-filled, professional endeavors I’ve been involved with.

“To have been permitted this opportunity is something I’ll never forget,” he continued. “I’ve learned a lot personally, and we’ve learned a lot as an organization.”

As for the tree house … “my wife was walking around for a year saying, ‘I could have bought a new couch,’” he joked. No word yet on when it will be completed. As he said, there’s no timetable, and he likes it that way.

Carin Zinter

Age 33. Director of Human Resources, the Princeton Review

Carin Zinter says most people take the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) once, maybe twice, and that’s certainly enough for a lifetime.

“Most say it’s an experience they wouldn’t want to repeat if they could avoid it,” she said, noting quickly that she has to take the test at least once every year as part of the process of staying certified to tutor young people in how to take the SAT and other standardized tests, and to train those who do the tutoring.

And Zinter, director of Human Resources for the Princeton Review, doesn’t seem to mind; you wouldn’t either if you scored 2,390 out of a possible 2,400 on the last go-round.

There are many factors that go into notching a score like that, she said, including an ability to avoid some of the pitfalls that test designers incorporate into their work.

“You have to know a lot about testing strategy,” she explained. “You have to be skilled in knowing how to pace yourself and find the shortcuts that test writers don’t really want you to find in order to answer questions as quickly as possible.”

Zinter has been posting some impressive numbers outside her work as well. Like many other members of the inaugural Forty Under 40 club, she likes running long distances. In her case, it’s triathlons (specifically, half-Ironmans, featuring a 1.5-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run) and ultra-marathons, with 50 miles being the norm for the races she enters.

“You get a lot of alone time during events like that,” she said, adding that she uses it to contemplate her work and her many contributions to the community, including participation with the Women’s Partnership, Dress for Success, and other initiatives — and maybe do some mental studying for the next SATs.

Zinter has a theory about why so many young professionals are being drawn to distance racing and other extreme tests of their mind and body.

“When you’re talking about people who like to dedicate themselves to something like their job or their own business, that type of mindset works out to make for great endurance athletes,” she theorized, “because we like to heap abuse on ourselves for several hours at a time, and it seems to somehow end up as some sort of perverse fun.”

Like taking the SAT every year.

Sarah Tanner

Age 35. Vice President of Resource Development, United Way of the Pioneer Valley

Sarah Tanner was on course for a career as a speech pathologist when a part-time job with a unique, student-run, nonprofit venture at UMass-Amherst started her in a different direction.

It was called the Peoples Market, a grocery store known for its coffee, bagels, fresh fruit, and loud music that could be heard in every corner of the Student Union building, said Tanner, adding quickly that it wasn’t so much what the business did, but rather how it was run that attracted her. “Everything was done by full consensus,” she said. “There were 26 of us in the co-op, and we got a consensus on everything, right down to where we got the apples we sold.”

Inspired by her work at the Peoples Market, Tanner would eventually pursue a graduate degree in Public Administration at the University of Colorado — she relocated to the Rocky Mountain State with her husband, Mark, the other half of the only husband-wife team to make the Forty Under 40 list — and a specific course of study in nonprofit management.

And she’s spent the better part of the past decade in various capacities with four different United Ways — the Mile High facility in Denver, New York City (where Mark served as assistant district attorney), Hampshire County (after the couple returned to Western Mass.), and, currently, the Pioneer Valley chapter. There, she serves as vice president of Resource Development, and oversees all aspects of the organization’s $6 million fundraising campaign.

As her career path would certainly indicate, Tanner is a true believer in the United Way mission. “What I like most is the potential that’s there to really make some systemic change in communities,” she said. “And at each United Way I’ve worked at, they’ve had a unique angle that they take, and it’s always been appealing to me.

“In New York, it was about helping people help themselves — they really pushed self-sufficiency, and it was really gratifying to be part of that,” she continued.

Here, I think we’re still trying to define what our product is because there’s been so much change in the community, and so much need. We need to define what our role is, but the potential is there, and it’s immense.”

Michelle Theroux

Age 32. Executive Director, Child and Family Services of Pioneer Valley

Securing an executive director’s position at 31 is a feat that requires discipline, drive, and balance.

Michelle Theroux, executive director of Child and Family Services of Pioneer Valley, says she acquired those traits earlier than most, through the rigors of dance practice and performance. Theroux began studying tap, jazz, and ballet at age 5, and added dance instruction to her repertoire when she was 16. Some exciting years followed, when she was asked to tour nationally in a jazz-based children’s show. For five years, Theroux jetted around the country on weekends and during school vacations, while working toward two bachelor’s degrees at Assumption College, in Psychology and Political Science.

She mulled careers in psychology and law before realizing her passion and strengths lay in human services. And while dance remains an important focus, Theroux said life as a professional performer was something she outgrew when her touring years ended.

“Those are experiences I will never be able to replicate,” she said. “But on a full-time basis, living from audition to audition … that part of the life never appealed to me.”

What did appeal to her were the opportunities to see the world and expand her knowledge base in her late teens and early twenties, as well as the strength of will and of mind she acquired. “I think studying the arts in general provides a lot of discipline,” she said, “and when I started to be pulled more into the human services field, I realized that my life experiences were going to help me.”

Theroux has previously worked as a clinical supervisor at the Gandara Center of Springfield, and later with the regional family services agency The Key Program, as a senior manager. Theroux took on her role at Child and Family Services last year. This is a nonprofit agency with many moving parts, offering counseling and assistance for families, people with disabilities, and immigrants and refugees, among other groups.

In addition, she serves as an adjunct professor within the Psychology Department at Springfield College, and continues to teach dance to children.

“Now, dance is sort of my balancing piece,” she said. “It evens out stress. Still, in my life, sleep is optional.”

Tad Tokarz

Age 33. Owner, the Western Mass. Sports Journal

13:50. That’s the time, in hours and minutes, that Tad Tokarz posted in the first Ironman triathlon he raced in two years ago. That’s how long it took him to complete the 1.5-mile swim, 120-mile bike ride, and 26-mile run. Tokarz remembers his time, but it is of no real significance to him. “My goal was to finish, and I did.”

He also remembers the winner’s time — sort of. “It was around 8 1/2 or 9 hours … which is simply incomprehensible.” That’s a word that many might apply to Tokarz’s performance as well, especially when one considers that two years before the race, he couldn’t swim more than two laps in the pool and didn’t own a bicycle. “It was just something I set my sights on, and I accomplished it.”

This is essentially the same approach he’s taken to an intriguing entrepreneurial venture called the Western Mass. Sports Journal, which, as the name implies, provides coverage of sports at a variety of levels, but always with a Pioneer Valley slant. Tokarz, who by day is the assistant principal and director of Athletics at Springfield’s Central High School, thought many of the good stories at his school and many others in the Valley were simply not being told. So he created a forum in which they could.

The Journal, now located in the Scibelli Enterprise Center at Springfield Technical Community College, and grown through the help of administrators there, has become almost another full-time venture for Tokarz, who must still find time to train — he starts each day at 4:30 a.m., is in the gym by 5, and works out twice each day during the summer — and also for community involvement. He’s on the board of the South End Community Center in Springfield, and donates time and energy to the Ludlow Boys and Girls Club and the Jimmy Fund, among other groups.

He told BusinessWest that the strict workout regimen has helped him organize his time and stay focused on goals and strategies to achieve them — both at Central High and the Journal. “Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily — when I trained for the Ironman, that was a year-long endeavor; we used to go on bike rides for eight hours,” he said. “That experience translates directly to the work I do in school and in publishing.”

Dan Touhey

Age 39. Vice President of Marketing, Spalding

Dan Touhey was working in marketing for Bayer, specifically on ways to promote Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine — and, in his words, looking for a way out.
A recruiter called him about a product manager position at Spalding, but did so with a cautionary tone. “He told me I had good experience, but not industry experience, and the company wanted someone who knew the business,” Touhey recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll tell you what … I’m a fanatic about basketball and sports in general; if you get me in the front door, I’ll do the rest.’”

He did, and Touhey has.

Over the past decade, he has played a lead role in rebranding Spalding, developing the tag line True to the Game, and rolling out (literally) many new products, from the Infusion™ line, which puts the inflating pump inside the ball, and the Neverflat™, a name that says it all. In so doing, Touhey has helped Spalding, known primarily as a “golf company” when he arrived, return to its roots as a leading sporting goods manufacturer.

Touhey’s work takes him across the country and around the world, but he still makes time for civic involvement. After a year of hard training, he ran in his first Boston Marathon last month as part of Tedy’s Team (named for New England Patriots linebacker and stroke victim Tedy Bruschi), on behalf of the American Stroke Assoc. That’s a cause he embraced after his father suffered a stroke last year. “I always wanted to run the marathon, but never had the inspiration,” he said. “Now, I have plenty.”

Touhey is also on the advisory board for Good Sports, a group that takes donations from sporting goods manufacturers and gives them to communities and individual schools in need, and started coaching tee-ball this spring, with the older of his two boys taking a roster spot.

A basketball player in high school and also during his last year in college (spent in Ireland), Touhey is a big believer in teamwork. He credits others at Spalding and Lenox-based Winstanley Associates for helping create ‘True to the Game’ and launch products that help the company live up to that slogan.

But he is the leader of the team, and has been since he was able to make his way through Spalding’s front door.

Michael Vann

Age 33. President and CEO, The Vann Group, LLC

Michael Vann has a few diverse interests.

He is politically minded, and has a background as an intern for both U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and U.S. Sen. John Kerry. He’s also a history buff, with particular interests in the leaders of the American Revolution and the Civil War. “Every generation has some dominant personalities,” he said. “If you’re looking at Colonial times up to the Civil War, they are the political leaders, and afterward it shifted to business people. I think that’s still the case, but who are business leaders emulating? I think it’s the politicians of years past.”

There was a time when he mulled a career in politics inspired by those leaders he’d read about and admired. But early in his adult life, Vann recognized that his passion was building companies. At 33, he is the president and CEO of The Vann Group, a strategic advisory firm that assists owners and their management teams in establishing, operating, growing, and divesting a business. He joined the company, founded by his father, Kevin Vann, in 1999, after working with a Fortune 500 company doing similar work in Washington, D.C.

“I was tired of the D.C. costs and traffic,” he said, “and I came home for the quality of life.”

Since then, Vann has built a name for himself as a strategic consultant with an international presence. He balances that success with a deep commitment to family (“my dad is one of my closest friends”) and community, which includes coaching a Little League baseball team and serving on the board of the Chicopee Boys and Girls Club.

“I firmly believe that business leaders must be involved individuals, within and beyond their own companies,” he said.

Of his work, Vann said it’s unique because it allows him to work with several different kinds of companies, from those that are growing rapidly to those in crisis to those that have peaked and need a fresh perspective. It’s also a good fit for his tactical mind.

“Even in college, I was always thinking strategically and for the long-term, and I love doing that for clients. In the future, I hope to acquire companies in order to help them build — not on the operational side, but as an advisor, through strategic planning,” he said. “It’s what I’m good at.”

Catherine West, CPA

Age 33. Professor/Tax Manager, UMass Amherst and Meyers Bros. Kalicka

Catherine West recently returned from an intriguing junket to Ireland.

She was there with 23 business students from UMass, where she teaches Accounting, as part of an ambitious program called Business Development and Conflict Resolution — Ireland, a 10-day exercise designed to provide an education in that island nation’s business, culture, and trade.

And that wasn’t the first time West’s passport was put to use this year. In January, she made her fifth trip to the West African nation of Ghana. She was there with 26 UMass business students who taught basic business skills to students during the day, and held seminars on business development at night for residents of the local towns.

In the Ghanian city of Secondi, West has led efforts to create something called the Business and Learning Center, a business school that has taken some time to develop, but is providing her with hard evidence of how a few people can make a big impact.

“It’s very hard to see change and improvement in a developing country because getting funding takes forever,” she explained, referring specifically to efforts to convert an existing school building into the business center. “This year, I was blown away, because the school is almost done. It showed me that a group of people can make a difference in one community, and it reinvigorated me to the point where I’m very excited to keep going back.”

West has been making a difference in a number of ways, through her teaching at UMass and abroad and her work with clients as a CPA, but especially in the community. She’s been a board member at the Academy of Music and Go FIT, is president of the Northampton chapter of Dollars for Scholars, and has served as the primary accountant for several non-profits, including the United Way of Pioneer Valley, Springfield Library and Museums, and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Summing up her approach to life in general and her community work in particular, West said, “There’s a reason why I’m here, and I need to not waste any of my time.”

Suffice it to say, she hasn’t.

Arlene Rodriguez

Age 39. Dean of the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, STCC

Arlene Rodriguez was born 143 years after Daniel Shays died.

But she feels like she knows the Pelham farmer whose name was permanently attached to the insurrection of 1786-87, which stirred fear in Gen. George Washington and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention.

Such familiarity was but one byproduct of a special project she co-organized last fall on Shays’ Rebellion, one important act of which was played out only a few hundred yards from the Springfield Armory. It was that landmark which, upon its closing, was converted into Springfield Technical Community College, where Rodriguez serves as dean of the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

In that capacity, she has been involved in a number of other programs — from a partnership between STCC and the Community Music School to Rosa Parks Day events to organizing activities for Hispanic Heritage Month — that characterize both her community-minded spirit and her belief that learning takes place inside the classroom and out.

And such learning mustn’t end with a college diploma, she told BusinessWest, adding that the Shays program, Reconsidering the Debt: Scholars Revisit Shays’ Rebellion, offered keen insight into the man who led the revolt and the so-called Regulators who fought beside him.

“Scholars came together and talked Shays all weekend; it’s a great story, and it happened right here,” she said. “I think it’s fascinating, this idea of people getting together and voicing their opinion about something and fighting or arguing with the government; that’s a concept that’s truly international.”

Rodriguez taught courses ranging from English Composition to Latino Literature at the college for a number of years before becoming dean in 2005. She credits deans she worked under with instilling an imaginative, outside-the-box approach to education and teaching.

“I had some great deans who never told me ‘no,’” she said. “They were great role models.”

In her spare time, Rodriguez likes to read (she prefers history and fiction and is fond of the works of Japanese author Haruki Murakami) and write — she’s penned several short stories, most about her parents and life in their hometown of Aibonito, Puerto Rico.

As for the story of her career and her involvement in the Greater Springfield community — there are obviously many chapters still left to write.

Edward Zemba

Age 35. Co-owner, Robert Charles Photography

Ed Zemba has one of those mental to-do lists that people take with them through life, and he’s managed to draw lines through many of the items on it — like scuba diving and skydiving.

The latter was a father-son undertaking, and Zemba entered it thinking he wanted to go solo, or as close to that as he could. Most first-timers do what’s called tandem jumping, where they’re essentially strapped to an expert who does most of the work involved. “You’re just along for the ride,” said Zemba, who took a different tack, involving what are known as “spare tires,” experts who hang on to the first-time jumper until the ripcord is successfully pulled and then depart to let the jumper take the trip down alone.

One item not on Zemba’s to-do list, but he did it anyway, was to join the East Longmeadow Rotary Club. He did so before he could legally drink — which was problematic, to be sure — and took large doses of ribbing from club members, who, he said, regarded him almost as a mascot. But he also learned invaluable lessons about life, business, giving back to the community, and being part of a team.

He’s applying all of them as co-owner of Robert Charles Photography in East Longmeadow. Zemba and the other co-owner, brother Robert, purchased the business from their father two years ago after both working at the venture for most of their adult lives. Together, they’re trying to bring consistent, measured growth to a business that focuses on portrait, wedding, and commercial photography.

Both are involved in most aspects of the business, but Ed’s duties are more administrative in nature, while Robert’s are more artistic — he’s one of several who handle the photography for the company, and he’s won a number of awards for his work.

While managing the business, Ed is busy drawing a line through another item on his list — getting a college diploma. He’s enrolled at Western New England College and is making progress toward a business degree. He’s also finding time for his four children; he likes taking each on personalized junkets, and recently took one of them to the New England Air Museum at Bradley Airport.

Hang gliding. That’s still one more thing on that to-do list, and given everything else on Ed Zemba’s plate, it may have to wait a while.

Joseph Pacella

Joseph Pacella

Joseph Pacella has never been at a loss for words. He blames his father.

“My father was a lawyer, and we had spirited dinner-table discussions,” said Pacella, an attorney with Egan, Flanagan and Cohen, P.C. in Springfield. “I always looked up to my father, and I always had an answer for everything — probably to my parents’ chagrin.”

Still, he and two of his siblings followed their father into law, so those household debates had an impact. Today, Pacella tries to have a different kind of impact on the clients he serves — the plaintiffs and defendants in criminal and civil litigation.

“Much of the practice of law is a lot like social work,” he said. “In many criminal cases, you’re getting the defendant to understand what needs to be done in their lives regarding counseling, probation, and so on. Understanding the consequences of your actions can be a powerful thing. Even in a civil case — such as when someone breaches a contract with you — it has to do with managing personalities and helping the client make the best decision, regardless of emotions.”

Pacella said he’s always had a heart to help others — a sensitivity no doubt honed by his work as a domestic violence prosecutor in the late 1990s and his involvement with Big Brothers Big Sisters; he was named Hampden County’s 2003 Big Brother of the Year.

“That program does such a great job of matching people,” he said, recalling a middle-schooler he took under his wing several years ago who recently turned 21. He chuckled at the “psychological battery” the organization put him through during the screening process — “as a former prosecutor, I considered myself a safe choice” — but still admires the way the group tries to fill specific needs, not just rubber-stamp matches. It’s the same kind of care Pacella has given to his other community-service efforts, from serving on the board of Mont Marie Child Care Center to his work with Safe Passage, an organization that helps victims of domestic violence.

“I always had an interest in doing things like that, even in high school and college,” he said. “My parents instilled in us a desire to reach out to people who are less fortunate and do what we can to improve our community.”

We’ll bet he didn’t have an answer for that.

Michael Zaskey

Age 32. President and Owner, Zasco Productions

Michael Zaskey’s career began at age 11, when his father brought home a camcorder, and Zaskey immediately dove into the box.

After learning his way around the camera, he devoted much of his time to amateur filming, until one of his dad’s co-workers gave Zaskey his first break that same year. He taped her wedding, and later, one of the bridesmaids asked him to tape hers, as well. A business was born.

“By the time I got to high school, I was videotaping about 40 weddings a year,” he said, adding that he and his father officially established Zasco Productions when he was 15.

Many years later, Zaskey hasn’t changed his habits much — he still loves new technology and still takes the time to learn how to use every new piece of equipment he procures. But what has changed are the trappings. Zaskey, who began his enterprise in his parents’ basement, has recently moved from a small office into a new, larger space on McKinstry Avenue in Chicopee.

The business has also shifted, from video production to live events, for which Zasco provides audio-visual, multi-media, and lighting services. The current client list includes Springfield Technical Community College, Baystate Health, Big Y, LEGO, the Sisters of Providence Health System, and dozens of others.

“I love my job even at the most stressful times,” Zaskey said. “It continues to be a hobby for me — if I don’t have anything I have to be doing on a Saturday, there’s still a good chance I’m in the office, playing with equipment.”

That passion has led to some unique business practices, such as weekly training sessions with his employees, and it has earned Zaskey some accolades, including being named the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Year for 2007.

Moving forward, Zaskey said he’s focused on controlled growth for his company, aiming to progress without losing the ability to take an active role at clients’ events. He also credits his team, some who’ve been with him since the basement days, and his parents, and hopes to give back to friends, family, and community.

He also never wants to lose the joy his job brings. As a child, he said he was more amazed by the lighting displays at Disney World than the characters. Today, he’s an avid concert-goer, but still often looks away from the band — to check out the production pit.

Dena Hall

Age 34. Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations, United Bank

Dena Hall describes efforts to meet the many demands of her job, while also making time to give back to the community, root on the UMass men’s hockey team (she and her husband, Eric, have season tickets), and walk the couple’s boxer, Crickett, as the quintessential balancing act.

And it’s one that will soon add another, very challenging dimension: she and Eric are expecting their first child in about four months.

But Hall has always displayed a real talent for multi-tasking (she majored in Journalism and minored in History at UMass) and also for setting and meeting goals. One she put down years ago was to be a senior officer at a major bank. She accomplished it at age 32 when she became vice president of Marketing and Community Relations for United Bank, the federally chartered stock bank based in West Springfield that recently reached a key industry benchmark — $1 billion in assets.

As the title would indicate, there are two distinct aspects to Hall’s duties, and both involve putting the bank’s best face forward. She handles the institution’s marketing budget, and also manages the Investor Relations program for United Bancorp, the holding corporation for the bank. She also serves as president of the United Bank Foundation, which currently awards more than $200,000 annually to area nonprofit agencies and community-based organizations.

Hall is quite familiar with many of them.

She is on the board of directors of the Business Friends of the Arts and the Westfield Boys and Girls Club, while her husband is on the board at the Greater Westfield YMCA, and she’s become involved with that organization. Hall is also a member of the board of directors of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and the board of trustees of Noble Hospital, and is an active member of the Greater Springfield area Funder’s Forum.

With one key career goal already met, Hall jokes that she has a new one already in the formative stage: to retire in a fashion similar to her predecessor at United, Jack Briggs, now criss-crossing the country with his wife in an RV.

Fortunately for the Pioneer Valley and a host of area nonprofit groups to which she donates time and energy, that day is a ways off.

Kimberlynn Cartelli Matthews

Age 32. Director of Marketing, Fathers & Sons Inc.

She calls it the “convertible bra.”

Kim Cartelli Matthews started conceiving it while attending the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles in the early ’90s. Simply put, it’s a bra with straps that can be adjusted to accommodate a variety of tank top neck designs. There was nothing exactly like it on the market when Cartelli Matthews — who once fashioned bra straps out of mint dental floss to resolve one wardrobe challenge she encountered — first proposed the concept before members of an entrepreneurship class. And there still isn’t, although she’s working on it.

But the drive to bring the bra to market has taken a back seat to Cartelli Matthews’ work with the family business, luxury car dealer Fathers & Sons Inc., for which she serves as marketing director, and also to her extensive community work, which includes service with groups ranging from the United Way to the American Heart Assoc.

Cartelli Matthews appears in many of the dealership’s radio ads, identified as “the daughter at Fathers & Sons.” Those are words she never thought she would utter when she was younger. “People kept asking me if was going to work for the family business,” she recalled. “I always said, ‘hell, no!’”

But when her father, Robert Cartelli, asked if she would help out with marketing and facilitate the company’s move into its new dealership on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield in 2002, the answer was ‘yes.’ And that was the same reply she gave her father a few years later when he made a counterproposal after one of the designers Cartelli Matthews was working with to bring the convertible bra to the marketplace offered her a job in New York.

‘Yes’ has also been the common response when she’s been asked to serve area non-profits. One of her current, and more exciting, assignments has been with the United Way to help it launch the “Young Leaders Society,” which is being created to identify the next generation of business and civic leaders in Western Mass.

Probably the only time Cartelli has said ‘no’ lately was when asked if she had given up on the convertible bra.

“I’m still trying,” she explained. “It was a great idea then, and it’s a great idea now. I just have to make it happen.”

Amy Caruso

Age 34. Assistant Vice President

Her maiden name is Liptak, and Amy Caruso has dedicated herself to living up to it.

In the Westfield area, she explained, the name Liptak, with its mere mention, brings large doses of history, tradition — and expectation for service to the community. Indeed, her grandfather, Louis Liptak Sr., was the long-time director of a city landmark, Stanley Park, who also donated time and energy to numerous groups and could be counted on to play Santa Claus every year at gift-distribution programs for needy families. Countless other members of the family have given back in a number of ways, including Caruso’s recently deceased second cousin, Adam Liptak, who was a long-time city councilor, Kiwanian, and, coincidentally (or not), another Santa Claus.

Caruso played the flute at his funeral service in March — she’s been an accomplished flautist for many years — but she’s honored her cousin and her family name in many other ways. Now an assistant vice president in MassMutual’s Financial Products Division, Caruso donates time to several groups and causes, always with the goal of doing what her former boss and mentor, the late Richard Stebbins, longtime president of BayBank, told her to do. When contemplating how to give back to the community, he said to find ways to make an impact.

“He told me I could either do a lot of little things or a few big things that would make a difference,” she explained, adding that she is attempting the latter though involvement with such groups as the Hampden Hampshire Housing Partnership (HAP), which she serves as a Fund Development Committee member.

In her capacity at MassMutual, Caruso is a compliance officer and oversees new product launches. She joined the company in 2000 as a participant in its Executive Development Program, rotating through various marketing, sales support, and operations roles in Retirement Services, Disability Income, the firm’s broker-dealer, and Annuities.

During that progression, and at previous career stops at Baybank and Sovereign Bank, she always found time to get involved with such groups as the Springfield Symphony Orchestra Marketing Committee, the Brightside Angels, the Westfield Community Band, the Western Mass. Chapter of the Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation, the YMCA of Greater Springfield, and many others.

Needless to say, Louis Liptak Sr. and Dick Stebbins would be proud.

Denise Cogman

Age 34. Executive Officer, Springfield School Volunteers

Faith. That’s what Denise Cogman says moves her forward in life, and is what gives her strength in her position within the Springfield School system, managing close to 3,000 volunteers and enriching the lives of the city’s many students.

A little faith also went a long way when Cogman began searching for a career; she said the path she embarked on was markedly shorter than she expected it would be. As a student of social work at Western New England College, Cogman said she was in the midst of a hectic senior year — completing an internship advocating for homeless families, studying for final exams, and serving as a resident assistant.

“One day, mock interviews were being held on campus, and it reminded me that I needed to get my résumé together,” she said.

Cogman went to WNEC’s career services office with a simple request — “help me?” — and got more help than she’d bargained for. A staff member noticed Cogman’s internship scribbled among the notes she’d brought along, and said she’d just gotten a tip about a position with similar responsibilities within the Springfield school department.

“She just got on the phone, and the next thing I know, I have a part-time job in the homeless tutorial program,” said Cogman. “I still didn’t have a résumé, though.”

She excelled in the part-time position, and was offered a full-time program-manager job soon after. Just last year, the executive officer position opened up, and Cogman submitted her now-completed résumé.

It’s a position with many diverse responsibilities; Cogman is charged with developing an annual plan for school volunteers, managing the department’s budget, and spearheading recruitment initiatives. A current goal is to increase diversity among her volunteers, in order to better mirror the constituency her department serves.

“That’s one goal we’ve really worked hard on, reaching out to African-American and Latino communities,” she said.

Cogman still marvels at how quickly her career track has moved along, but added that a position in education is a good fit for her personal values.

“I’m a Jehovah’s Witness, and that’s a big part of what we do — teach people,” she said. “When I want to share something about myself, I always return to that. Faith and family — that’s who I am.”

James Harrington