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Month: August 2009

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Transforming Young Minds

The Electrical/Robotics Technology Department at Springfield Technical Community recently staged its annual summer robotics camp. Eleven middle-school students from Springfield took part in the two-week camp, which gave them an opportunity to learn about the field and build their own robot. At left, Kamari Long displays his robot, while below, Aailyah Gordon (left) and Daryen Ramsey-Thomas show what their creation can do. Sponsors for the camp again this year included the Hampden County Regional Employment Board and the Black Men of Greater Springfield.

A Cut Above

Paul DiGrigoli, owner of DiGrigoli’s Salons, put his talents on display at a recent trade show of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, providing free haircuts to attendees. Here, he chats with BusinessWest Sales and Marketing Coordinator Melissa Hallock.

Building Momentum for Green Leases

By
Sections Supplements
They Make Good Sense for Landlords and Tenants Alike

By now, most people are familiar with the term ‘going green’ and the concept of green building, but many people may not be familiar with green leasing.

While there is, as yet, no working definition of the term, green leasing generally integrates concepts such as recycling, sustainable-development principles, energy and water conservation, alternative-energy usage, and hazardous materials (usually cleaning materials) use and disposal, with the standard leasing language involving operating expenses, rent structure, and tenant build-out costs.

Most green leases include provisions for the reduction of energy usage through such simple measures as energy-efficient fixtures and equipment, turning off lights, motion sensors, and increased rent for ‘after-hours’ business operations. These leases also contain clauses requiring recycling programs, sustainable buildout materials, air-quality standards, and reduced water usage.

Just as green leasing lacks a standard definition, there is also no single certification given to identify a lease as a ‘green’ lease. Instead, there are a number of different certifications that can be attained by builders, developers, and landlords seeking to label leases as green leases. For example, some seek certification pursuant to the Leadership in Environment and Energy Design (LEED) standards set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council, which awards points based on building specifications. In the case of existing buildings, LEED certification for commercial interiors (LEED-CI) is often sought. LEED-CI awards points (a) if the lease is for a term of 10 years or more; (b) if the leased space is located in a LEED-certified building; and (c) if the leased space is located in a building that contains certain green equipment, including but not limited to water- and energy-conservation fixtures.

Another certification sought is Energy Star for commercial buildings, which is a government program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Star’s goal is to reduce the use of energy through the use of energy-efficient practices and products. Energy Star also uses a points-based system that awards points on a scale of 1 to 100. Buildings that receive a score of 75 or more receive the Energy Star rating.

So, it’s logical to conclude that green leasing equates to increased construction and operating costs. While there are without doubt costs associated with green leasing that are not found in traditional leases, if crafted properly, green leases can actually result in an overall increase in net operating income through the inclusion of requirements affecting the use of energy, regardless of prevailing energy prices.

In the context of a net lease arrangement, this can be accomplished through the inclusion of green-building capital expenditures, repairs, and maintenance in the definition of common-area maintenance (CAM) and/or operating expenses. In a gross-lease context, this can be accomplished through the adoption of green rules and regulations that require all tenants to adopt green standards, thereby eliminating the possibility that tenants who have adopted green practices, and therefore incurred such associated costs, are paying a pro-rata share of energy expenses with tenants who have not adopted such practices, and are therefore responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of overall energy consumption.

In addition, more and more companies and government entities are now demanding green lease space. For example, in 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) was enacted, which set forth goals and standards for the reduction of energy use in federal buildings (including all buildings in which the federal government leases space), including the use of energy-efficient lighting fixtures and bulbs and a prohibition against federal agencies leasing space in buildings that do not earn an Energy Star label. As such, landlords who seek federal government tenants will be forced to attain Energy Star certification.

Additionally, many companies have enacted sustainability statements that, in addition to other provisions, require that leases entered into by the company contain at least some green language. These mandates, along with a growing and continuing trend toward green building and green initiatives in general, are beginning to force landlords and tenants to rethink lease arrangements in order to meet the goals of both parties.

While green leasing is a relatively new concept, the number of green buildings being built, and the number of companies and government agencies requiring green leases, continue to increase. As with most new concepts, those who lay the groundwork now for preparing and/or negotiating green leases will be well-positioned when this new concept becomes an accepted reality. This positioning requires both landlords and tenants to reconsider the approach the other takes when negotiating lease arrangements.

Dennis G. Egan Jr. is an associate with

the regional law firm Bacon Wilson,

P.C., who specializes in business and

corporate law; (413) 781-0560;[email protected]

Course of Action

By
Mark Melikian
Sections Supplements
For Horizons Owner Mark Melikian, the Sky’s the Limit
Mark Melikian

Mark Melikian says the key to his longevity is fairly simple — giving customers what they want, and at an attractive price.

Mark Melikian has seen a lot of changes come to Wilbraham Road (Route 20) since he opened Horizons Restaurant & Bar on that thoroughfare 22 years ago.

“There was much less here then,” he said, referring to the stretches both east and west of his establishment and gazing skyward as he tried to recall the landscape in 1988. “There was a tennis club back then; now it’s a soccer center of some kind. There was just one auto dealership; now there’s several. And of course Post Office Park (the elaborate business center a mile or so west of Horizons) hadn’t been built.

“It’s getting pretty developed now … there’s a lot of new businesses, and a lot of new chain restaurants,” he continued, noting that the former has helped his enterprise, while the latter he could definitely do without, although he has stood up well to the groundswell of competition.

That’s rather obvious if he’s been witness to more than two decades of change and progress on Wilbraham Road when many businesses, not to mention restaurants, have come and gone in that span.

Melikian says he owes his feats of longevity (something fairly rare in this sector) to some basic business principles and some strategic approaches specific to the restaurant industry and the niche he serves. He tries to keep things simple, for example, and focus on what the customers say they want, not what he believes they might want. He keeps his prices reasonable and puts the accent squarely on value.

This approach has kept regulars coming back and a steady stream of newcomers coming to the door, he told BusinessWest, adding that over roughly three decades in the business he’s seen a number of business cycles, and the current downturn has been particularly challenging.

“This has been going on for two years now, really,” he said of what has evolved into what some have dubbed the ‘Great Recession.’ “It’s been challenging; we’re talking about disposable income, and everyone has less of it these days.”

In this environment, restaurant owners and managers have to control their spending, become even leaner (restaurants always run lean), and look to create new business opportunities, he said, adding that he’s doing all of the above.

For our annual Restaurant Guide, BusinessWest talked with Melikian about Horizons, the restaurant business, surviving a recession, and, in general, what it takes to achieve longevity in this ultra-challenging business.

For Appetizers

Melikian said he took what would have to be considered the road most taken when it comes to restaurant ownership.

He started (where else?) washing dishes at the old Willow Glenn House in East Longmeadow, a restaurant and banquet facility owned by his father and two uncles. He graduated to other kitchen duties involving food preparation, developed that requisite passion for the business, and went to school to hone his skills.

“I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I applied to the Culinary Institute of America and got accepted,” he joked. “I took a sabbatical from college and went off to pursue this; I guess I really knew early on that this is what I wanted to do with my life.”

After working as a chef in a number of restaurants, including a few in Florida and New York, Melikian, like most others who start down this road, wanted to run his own restaurant. Actually, this was a dream also shared by his brother, Jeff, so they pursued it together.

With some financial backing from their father, the brothers Melikian acquired the then-closed Top of the Hill Restaurant, a long-time, if at times troubled, fixture on Boston Road in Wilbraham in 1987. They renovated it, renamed it Horizons, and a few years after opening it put on a large expansion (the current bar area).

Jeff, now with Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, left the business several years ago, leaving Mark, now playing the role of chef/owner — “I supervise everything” — to cope with the changing scene on Route 20 and an ever-more-competitive business landscape.

He’s fared well by catering to a broad constituency that includes everything from retirees to business professionals living in Wilbraham, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Belchertown, Ludlow, and other affluent suburbs east of Springfield.

The former is the bread and butter, if you will, for the luncheon business, while the latter dominates the dinner clientele. Meanwhile, younger audiences find the bar area an attractive spot for watching a ballgame, listening to live music (now featured regularly), and enjoying a good meal.

Such well-roundedness helps Horizons at all times, but especially when the economy is soft, said Melikian, adding that he relies on a steady diet of regulars, but also a constant stream of newcomers. He draws both by keeping the menu, which he described as “Creative American,” varied, but also dominated by staples such as prime rib — cooked on the bone — as well as steaks, seafood, and pasta dishes.

And while discussing what has become a recipe for success he almost apologizes for its simplicity.

“You just try to do the right thing and treat people right— offer quality products at affordable prices,” he explained. “It sounds mundane, but that’s what you have to do; that’s what it comes down to.”

Elaborating, he said this means listening to customers and responding with what they want. “We try to cook the food I think people want to eat, and not necessarily what you’d like to do,” he explained. “Everyone would like to be able to serve a $40 steak, but you have to take what the market gives you.”

As for the recession, Melikian speaks for others in the business (actually, they speak for themselves; see related story, page 23) when he says that the key to surviving and thriving is to simply “keep an eye on things.”

And by that, he means everything from the prices he pays for food and other items to controlling waste to keeping any and all other expenses in check.

“It’s like any business; you can’t control what comes in,” he said, referring to the volume of business for a given day, week, or month. “But you can control what you spend.”

Such steps are necessary, he said, because this recession is more challenging than any he’s seen previously (and he lived though the downturn in the early ’90s), and people simply don’t eat out as much when they have less disposable income or if they are uncertain about the economy — and until recently, that meant just about everyone.

“People still come in, just not as often,” he said. “If you used to see them once a week, maybe you’ll see them once a month now.”

To compensate, Horizons is doing more off-site catering, said Melikian, noting that it recently handled a wedding at the Barney Estate in Springfield, one of many such assignments in recent months, and, in general, it is stretching its imagination when it comes to ways to generate additional revenue and reduce expenses.

“And that’s a challenge, because your fixed expenses have gone up, and you can only charge so much for what you do,” he said. “You can’t say, ‘this steak used to be $15, but now I’m going to charge $25 to cover my expenses.’ Well, you could do that, but no one would eat it.

“Instead, you have to find ways to cut back, but not sacrifice quality, the things that make people come to your restaurant in the first place,” he continued. “It’s not complicated, really. You just keep an eye on everything.”

Just Desserts

Returning to the matter of chain restaurants proliferating on and around Boston Road, Melikian said he’s seen many come — and a good number go.

There have been other observations, as well. “When one of them opens, you always notice some drop-off in business as people go to check it out,” he said. “Then, things gradually return to normal, and after their good start, some of the chains slow down, and before long you see their people coming to your door looking for work. There’s a pattern there.”

Melikian has stitched his own pattern, one of success and longevity that has made Horizons a true landmark and enabled its owner to be a witness to 22 years of evolution on Route 20 — and counting.

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

OPINION

By
Opinion
Casino Jobs Aren’t Enough

Last year, House opposition stopped Gov. Patrick’s proposal to build three resort casinos in Massachusetts. With a worsening fiscal crisis and Speaker Robert DeLeo taking a more casino-friendly stance than his predecessor, the issue is sure to reemerge this fall.

Proponents argue that casinos will add new tax revenue and much-needed jobs — a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce study estimates that three resort casinos would add between 10,000 and 11,500 temporary construction jobs and 17,000 to 21,000 permanent jobs. Opponents cite the societal costs associated with gambling.

Our organizations haven’t taken a position on casinos. But we believe the much bigger issue is that, while the country added about 25 million jobs over the last two decades, the number of jobs in Massachusetts stayed the same.

Flat job growth is not a strategy for long-term success. Skilled workers have made Massachusetts a leading destination for high-paying jobs. But focusing only on high-end employment is a recipe for disaster, creating a society of haves and have-nots. Broader job growth creates social mobility, encourages affordability, and enhances the region’s ability to attract the best talent.

Creating a level playing field should be the foundation of an overall vision for long-term job growth. It begins with streamlining the process for starting a business. Massachusetts must be a destination that holds opportunity for new immigrants and other start-up entrepreneurs, not just the established and affluent. And while Massachusetts will never be inexpensive, costs matter, and there is much that can be done to reduce them.

A 2006 study prepared by Global Insight for Pioneer Institute found that the cost of land was the source of the state’s high residential and commercial rents, wages, and overall cost of living. The problem often stems from rigid local zoning ordinances that discourage development. In the midst of a deep recession, it’s easy to lose sight of problems such as the supply of affordable commercial space not keeping up with demand. But over time, this has been a main driver of rising costs, making each new job more expensive to create.

The cost of employer-provided health insurance continues to rise much faster than inflation. The Commonwealth’s 2006 health care reform law was a first step toward addressing the problem. It has successfully expanded access to health insurance, but a laser-like focus on cost containment will be necessary if it is ultimately to succeed.

Massachusetts’ cost of electricity, one of the highest in the nation, is also hindering economic growth. With the state’s reliance on expensive fuels to generate power, escalating costs to replace an aging infrastructure, and the willingness to constantly add surcharges to customer bills to fund unproven renewable technologies and other costly experimental programs, further double-digit rate increases are certain.

Massachusetts employers also pay more than $1.5 billion annually in unemployment insurance taxes — double the national average on a per-employee basis. The taxes support a system that offers the richest benefits in the country, and one in which it’s easier to qualify for benefits and recipients can collect for longer than in other states.

With people hurting across the state, this isn’t the time to cut unemployment benefits. But a set of reforms proposed last year by Associated Industries of Massachusetts would have saved $366 million without slashing benefits.

Today, businesses in seasonal industries like construction and tourism routinely lay off the same employees every year, using unemployment benefits as kind of a payroll subsidy. Some small-business owners take advantage of this loophole by laying themselves off and collecting for part of each year. Charging those companies much higher unemployment insurance tax rates would provide a disincentive for bad behavior and lighten the load for companies that aren’t abusing the system.

Whether to build casinos in Massachusetts is an issue that merits spirited debate. But casinos alone aren’t nearly enough to make up for the Commonwealth’s failure to grow jobs. Regardless of how the casino debate turns out, state policymakers should spend far more time and effort on reforms that will spur substantial long-term job growth.

Rick Lord is president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Jim Stergios is executive director of Pioneer Institute.

Practical Lessons from the Great Recession

By
Opinion

With the possible exception of the bill-collection business, virtually every sector of the economy has been negatively impacted by the current recession. But perhaps none more than the hospitality industry, and especially the restaurant business.

It is a simple truth that, when money is tight, people (even current generations) will splurge less and stay home more. In reaction to this fact of life, area restaurateurs have responded with determination and imagination, necessary ingredients if one is to not merely survive but somehow thrive in these challenging times.

As outlined in a piece in BusinessWest’s annual Restaurant Guide (page 23), steps taken have been as varied as the items on a typical dinner menu; from reducing lighting and energy costs to expanding the menu with lower-priced items; from cutting down on printing costs to staying visible through aggressive, targeted marketing.

Restaurateurs typically run a tight ship — they have to because margins are so low to being with — but these days, that ship is much tighter.

The hospitality sector is certainly not alone in its creative, determined response to the softened economy and its ongoing implications, but its actions serve as strong testimony to the fact that, while this recession is in all ways painful, there are practical lessons to be learned from it, and ones that could help this region become more competitive in the long run.

The biggest lesson, clearly, is that companies shouldn’t wait until the storm is upon them to look at their operations and devise ways for them to run more efficiently and creatively. This mentality should prevail 24/7/365, regardless of what’s happening with the economy.

But as everyone knows, reality is different. Companies — and the people who manage them — tend to become complacent when times are better. They’re less concerned with how long the air conditioning is on and what the thermostat reads when people go home for the night. They’re not as likely, perhaps, to market themselves aggressively and remain visible because they believe the business will find them. And they’re not as willing to look at a department or a division and wonder whether it is properly staffed and if the same amount of work can be done with fewer people.

It is when times are tough that people turn over every rock in search of ways to cut expenses and increase revenues. As one restaurateur put it, this is the time for everyone in an operation to “think like an owner.”

He’s right, of course, but the time for such thinking, for such a mindset, is all the time.

And if area business owners and managers can learn this lesson, then maybe there will be something actually gained from what’s being called the Great Recession.

Indeed, newspapers and business magazines often run collections of stories on businesses large and small surviving a recession. They are replete with tales of business leaders being daring and entrepreneurial as they blueprint ways to do what they do better, to reach new audiences, and cultivate new groups of customers.

Add it all up, and it seems that people in business do their best, most creative, thinking when their backs are up against the wall and their survival is quite possibly at stake.

What we hope people take away from these troubling times is that they don’t have to wait until trouble strikes to be entrepreneurial or to really think like an owner. If they act in such a manner during all economic seasons, then this region will have better, stronger small businesses and, overall, a much more resilient economic base.

Still a Work In Progress

By
Mary Ellen Scott, left, and Christine Phillips
Sections Supplements
The Employment Picture Is Improving, but It Remains Fuzzy
Mary Ellen Scott, left, and Christine Phillips

Mary Ellen Scott, left, and Christine Phillips say business is picking up.

The July unemployment numbers released by the U.S. Department of Labor were lower than expected. That’s the good news.

However, the difference between the projected figure and the 9.4% unemployment statistic for that month was a tenth of a percent. That’s … not too bad for news these days.

Across the nation in July, employers trimmed 247,000 jobs, in contrast to the staggering January losses of 741,000. On the day the unemployment numbers were released, President Obama said that “the worst may be behind us,” and that “we are pointed in the right direction.”

The Bay State posted a seasonally adjusted 8.6% unemployment rate for the month of June, and while there were other Mass. communities that spiked into double digits, Hampden County edged below, at 9.8%.

That’s still a large number, and it’s reflected in what Rexene Picard, executive director of FutureWorks in Springfield, one of 37 statewide career centers, observes every day. “The big thing that we’re seeing is increased traffic for job seekers. There’s a line out the door when we open. At the same time, we are seeing fewer job opportunities. Our job postings have gone down from this time last year about 38%. That’s a significant drop.”

At United Personnel in Springfield, owner Mary Ellen Scott and Executive Vice President Christine Phillips took a positive look at the local job market. Talking about the manufacturing sector, historically one of the backbones of the local economy, Scott said that “our business has definitely been picking up over the last few months.”

Joe Ascioti, owner of Reliable Temps Inc. in Agawam, feels less buoyant about the government’s predictions. While the latest statistics are better than feared, he said, “let’s face it, we aren’t creating a lot of new jobs yet. There’s still too much uncertainty out there right now.”

In these days of economic turmoil, a reduction in bad news is good news, most would agree. Massachusetts has consistently been at the lower end of the nation’s unemployment rates, but in talking with area employment professionals, the big question is, when does the good news get good?

Local Looks

While the number of job-seekers and the dearth of jobs Picard sees everyday are both somewhat historic, she is confident in programs that are available for area workers.

“Western Mass. is better in some ways than the Boston area because we don’t see the highs nor the lows that they do,” she said.

Some new growth in the job market comes from familiar sources, she continued. “Health care is, and continues to be, the leading source of employment for this area and the state.

“Our largest employer in the area is Baystate Medical Center,” she continued. “They are reaching out to us now, because we know that there is going to be a need to hire around 1,000 people a year for the next several years. Anybody that’s thinking about a new career, or switching gears, I encourage them to look at that field.”

In the manufacturing and construction sectors, new claims for unemployment in Hampden County totaled more than 3,000, and Picard agreed that the bulk of her June numbers comprised those industries. But with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one of the largest stimulus packages in history, funds have come through the pipeline to address those losses. Picard said she’s pleased to see substantial money going into both new training and retraining for the manufacturing base of the area.

“But it’s difficult,” she continued, “because this money essentially is going to replacement jobs. Not a lot of new companies are moving to the area.”

Manufacturing continues to be an important facet to the regional workforce, despite decades of offshore attrition. Picard said that the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County is involved with numerous initiatives to keep people in those positions.

“The manufacturing industry constitutes 17% of the area workforce, and those generally are jobs that are well-paying positions,” she said. “The REB is doing a lot of work in the area with manufacturers, asking where the need is for new employees and what they can do to successfully build pipelines into those industries. It’s an aging workforce in many cases.”

Phillips and Scott say there are signs of some light at the end of the tunnel for the manufacturing sector, and they’re seeing it in the growing number of positions they’re being hired to help fill.

“I don’t think we were expecting manufacturing to be doing as well as we have seen already this year,” said Scott. Phillips agreed. “It has picked up, and it is definitely where we have seen the biggest trend change. We were not anticipating certain clients to have needs this year; our analysis was that we weren’t planning on having any orders.”

The improving picture can be attributed in part to what appears to be greater consumer confidence, as reflected in some of the numbers being posted by retailers, said Phillips.

“I think that if you look at certain other sectors, let’s say retail, their numbers began the year pretty low,” she said. “What they predicted for this quarter has been completely surpassed. There was a real concern about what kind of money would be spent. What retailers are seeing is that people are still spending. Thus, analysts look from this time last year to now, and their orders are far greater than they had anticipated.”

Phillips and Scott agreed that the numbers these days are not as good as they would like them to be. While some clients are hiring more than they anticipated, many employers are, by and large, holding out for more assurance that the economy will strengthen.

“Frankly,” said Phillips, “I’d be more nervous if we were making giant leaps in gains in the economy. It is more-steady gains that build people’s confidence. If it goes up in a sharp increase, people think that it could similarly go down in a sharp decline.”

Ascioti told BusinessWest that he sees government forces sometimes playing a contradictory role with regard to the employment picture. Unemployment taxes can be punishing to small business, and that size employer is one that needs to be given more consideration, he maintained.

“What I’m worried about right now,” he said, “is where are we going with all this? As the saying goes, Wall Street doesn’t like uncertainty; well, neither does small business. Unemployment costs for many businesses are going to go up 30%. For politicians in Boston to think that they can just raise the sales tax, raise the meals tax, raise this, mandate that, and that businesses are just going to sit there and say, ‘oh yeah, no problem. We’ll just raise our prices’ — well, it’s not an elastic environment. You can’t just do that.”

In this area, he said, a lot of what he hears is that business is still off 25% to 30%. “We have a couple of clients that are doing better than normal,” he said. “Are they where they were a year and a half ago? No. Are they better than 80% of what their competition is doing? Yes. But can I pick one specific industry? Unfortunately, no.”

Looking at the larger forces of federal and state regulation, Ascioti said, “what we need to do right now is bring our costs in line. I wish the government would understand that it’s small business that creates the jobs in America. If the climate isn’t positive for them, it’s going to be impossible to hire people.”

Hire Ground

The day after the newest unemployment figures were released, the New York Times reported that “employers are no longer in a panic, and the pressure they felt to get rid of workers in a hurry is diminishing.” That seems to be the sentiment in the Pioneer Valley, but the overall employment picture remains fuzzy because there are too many variables to make a clear assessment.

One thing is fairly certain, however: until the economy gains both momentum and sustained stability enough for employers to take on more workers, the only real good news is that the bad news is getting better.

Saving the Planet — and Money

By
Sections Supplements
Report Touts Green Building as Economic and Environmental Imperative

Investing in the energy efficiency of buildings represents a powerful and strategic energy and climate solution that, combined with other non-transportation initiatives, could reduce the nation’s energy consumption by 23% by 2020, save the U.S. economy $1.2 trillion, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons annually, according to a study released recently by McKinsey & Co., a national management-consulting firm.

“This confirms a critical path forward that we have long championed,” said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO, and founding chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which co-sponsored the report. “Harnessing the engine of green, energy-efficient buildings can cost-effectively drive tremendous improvements in our economy and environment.

“Green building can stimulate the economy at a level one and a half times larger than the federal stimulus bill,” he added. “In terms of climate change, a commitment to energy efficiency would be the equivalent to taking the entire U.S. fleet of passenger cars and light trucks — more than 200 million vehicles — off the road.”

The report provides a detailed assessment of how much the nation can increase energy efficiency in buildings and other non-transportation sectors using existing methods and technologies. A targeted investment of $50 billion a year over 10 years, the report finds, would enable the entirety of those potential savings to be realized. Those reductions in energy use would save the U.S. economy $1.2 trillion, a return on investment of more than 2 to 1.

Furthermore, those investments would generate 900,000 jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons, according to the report, “Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy,” which was sponsored by 12 organizations from within both the government and private sector.

McKinsey’s research finds that a comprehensive strategy, executed at scale, could reduce the annual non-transportation end-use energy consumption analyzed in this report from 36.9 quadrillion BTUs in 2008 to 30.8 quadrillion BTUs in 2020 — saving 9.1 quadrillion BTUs relative to a business-as-usual baseline.

“Increasing our nation’s energy efficiency is an economic, environmental, and national security imperative that requires bold public policy,” Fedrizzi said. “As Congress debates climate-change legislation, these findings make an overwhelming case that we must dramatically strengthen provisions that support and scale green building.”

The energy-efficiency potential cited in the report is divided across three sectors of the U.S. economy: industrial (40% of the end-use energy-efficiency potential), residential (35%), and commercial (25%).

Solutions, drawn from proven, piloted, and emerging national and international examples, show that maximizing the energy-efficiency potential from any single opportunity — weatherizing homes, utilizing efficient air conditioners, or employing combined heat and power generation — requires addressing multiple barriers simultaneously.

“By leveraging existing green-building approaches, we have the ability and capacity now to address multiple barriers, and thus generate additional resource efficiencies and cost savings,” said Fedrizzi.

Call to Action

The report calls for an integrated national plan guided by five principles:

  • Recognize energy efficiency as an important energy resource that can help meet future energy needs, while the nation simultaneously develops new no- and low-carbon energy sources.
  • Formulate and launch — at both the national and regional levels — an integrated portfolio of proven, piloted, and emerging approaches.
  • Identify methods to provide the significant upfront funding.
  • Forge greater alignment among utilities, regulators, government agencies, manufacturers, and energy consumers.
  • Foster innovation in the development and deployment of next-generation energy-efficiency technologies to ensure continuing productivity gains.

    • According to the USGBC, buildings in the U.S. are responsible for 39% of carbon dioxide emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% of water consumption, and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. The organization claims that greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.

    In addition to USGBC, the McKinsey report was also sponsored by Austin Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy, DTE Energy, the Energy Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Exelon Corp., the Natural Resources Defense Council, PG&E Corp., Sempra Energy, the Sea Change Foundation, and Southern Co. To download the report, visitwww.mckinsey.com.

    Ashley Katz is communications manager for the U.S. Green Building Council.

    By
    Departments

    The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of August 2009.

    AGAWAM

    365 Degrees Consulting
    40 Kathy Ter.
    Brian Edgarly

    Agawam Landscaping
    396 Main St.
    Shana Marie

    Employee Physicals Service
    77 Riverview Ave.
    Frank Benson

    JSC Painting
    24 Jennie Circle
    Joseph Sciartelli

    Law Offices of Jeffrey S. Weisser
    2 South Bridge Dr.
    Jeffrey S. Weisser

    My Tan Factory
    850 Suffield St.
    Sal Mancuso

    Quality Inc. and Toner
    360 North Westfield St.
    Jeffrey Lavoine

    Yan David Landscaping
    25 Walnut St.
    Pavel Sinigur

    AMHERST

    Five College Storage Inc.
    159 Bay Road
    Parker Holcomb

    Dunn Et Al
    989 South East St.
    David V. Dunn

    Mystery Train Records
    178 North Pleasant St.
    Josh Burkett

    Panda East
    183 North Pleasant St.
    Yi-Ching Chiang

    Traveling Man Art & Jewelry
    248 Flat Hills Road
    Joseph Chenelle

    CHICOPEE

    DND Construction
    399 Hampden St.
    George E. Doup

    Elion Construction
    116 Hampden St.
    Denis B. Borison

    Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 104
    168 Chicopee St.
    Michael Dean Langone

    EAST LONGMEADOW

    Benjamin & Bers
    382 North Main St.
    Peter Benjamin

    Premier Choice Realty Rentals
    444 North Main St.
    Russell Sabadosa

    GREENFIELD

    Distefano & Son Stable
    1093 Bernardston Road
    John A. Distefano

    Needful Things
    199 Deerfield St.
    Michael Spence

    Walgreens
    5 Pierce St.
    Margarita Kellen

    Wendy’s
    138 Federal St.
    Ed Rafter

    HADLEY

    Riverside Fencing Club
    162 Russell St.
    Taro Yamashita

    HOLYOKE

    Almonte Market
    549 South Bridge St.
    Evaristo Almonte

    CCO Investment Services Inc.
    2265 Northampton St.
    Xiomara Corral

    Eddy’s Connection
    1375 Dwight St.
    Eduardo Rosado

    Gene’s Ford & Chevrolet
    103 North Bridge St.
    Christopher A. Wenzel

    Miracles Sweets
    329 Main St.
    Milagros Reyes Aponte

    LONGMEADOW

    A2Z Hypnotherapy
    361 Wolf Swamp Road
    Robert Cocchi

    CCO Investment Services Corp.
    53 State St.
    Xiomara Corral

    Maritime Smarts Inc.
    141 Lawnwood Ave.
    Stephen Larivee

    Redbeard Guitar
    1255 Williams St.
    Eric Racicot

    LUDLOW

    Birch Pond Farm
    1709 Center St.
    Marcy J Reed

    Mr. Home
    14 Aslak Dr.
    Bill Sweeney

    Northstar Diesel Services
    409 West St.
    William Heyn

    Russell’s Automotive & Small Engine Repair
    409 East West St.
    Russell A. Nugent

    Toner Town
    120 East St.
    Joel J. Natari’s

    NORTHAMPTON

    Hess Express
    237 King St.
    Richard J. Lawlor

    My Taxi Inc.
    One Round House Plaza
    Katherine E. Hogan

    Pizza Amores
    18 Green St.
    E. Atmaca

    Sitalab Architecture & Design
    33 Roe Ave.
    Caryn Brause

    Tapestry Health
    16 Center St.
    Leslie Tarr Laurie

    The Turn-Around Shop
    30 North Maple St.
    Elizabeth M. Hamilton

    Toe & Soles
    502 North Farms Road
    Diane Boeder

    PALMER

    Palmer Package Store
    1615 North Main St.
    Jorge Martins

    		  

    Steaming Tender Inc.
    28 Depot St.
    Robin Lamothe

    Teng China Garden
    1427 Main St.
    Feng En Teng

    U Call We Haul
    1294 South Main St.
    Blake Lamothe

    SOUTHWICK

    Granfield Tree Service
    50 Hastings Road
    Kerry M. Granfield

    Nail Tique
    535 College Hwy.
    Nga Kieu

    Susan’s Sanctuary Bed & Breakfast
    68 Powdermill Road
    Susan Drapeau

    The Sweet Leaf
    535 College Hwy.
    Tanya Carr

    SPRINGFIELD

    A2Z Painting
    19 Forbes Circle
    Mohammed Tanvir

    Answer Connecticut
    989 Main St.
    Frederic Seigel

    Baystate Children’s Hospital
    759 Chestnut St.
    Mark R. Tolosky

    Beauty World New Beginning
    196 Chestnut St.
    Ivette Reyes

    Boubacar General Enterprises
    68 Federal St.
    Boubacar Amadou

    Bridge Pizza
    565 Main St.
    Esmanur Corp.

    CNEJ Trucking
    1655 Main St.
    Clyde N. Epps

    Carol-Ann Boardway’s Shop
    1196 Parker St.
    Carol-Ann Boardway

    Clark Administrative Services
    22 Lakeside St.
    Dorothy M. Clark

    E & M Concrete
    385 Worthington St.
    Egidio Morales

    Fabulous Ink
    1655 Main St.
    Melvin Louis Lockett

    Famous-N-Broke
    327 State St.
    Javier H. Colon

    Felix’s Auto Repair
    914 Sumner Ave.
    Jill A. Crosby

    Fidan Express
    95 Sumner Ave.
    Farkhad Abbasov

    Game World
    2475 Main ST.
    Thu T. Nguyen

    Georgia’s Fashion
    229 Windemere St.
    Georgina Coogan

    Glow Commercial Cleaning
    38 Pasco Rd.
    Richard Rowe

    Gus & Magda Tropical Fish
    38 Narragansett St.
    Magda Benjamin

    Hair Cuttery
    1712 Boston Road
    Ben A. Teicher

    WESTFIELD

    Center City Serv & Muffler
    709 Russell Road
    Frank Scigulinsky

    Eagle’s Nest Roadside Grill
    600 Southampton Road
    Craig LaPierre

    Ergo Home Design
    246 Elm St.
    Mark Edward Ethier

    For K-9’s and Felines
    45 Southwick Road
    Nicoll Vincent

    Mokan Floors
    190 Pontoosic Road
    Eduard Mokan

    My Favorite Place
    48 Elm St.
    Lori Lisheness-Hooten

    Pioneer Valley Property Management
    16 Harrison Ave.
    Stephanie Callahan

    Prima Vidya Center
    24 Elm St.
    Jennifer L. Eckard

    Scott’s Medical Billing
    58 Deer Path Lane
    Cynthia A. Scott

    Stanley Laundromat
    3 White St.
    Yong Ja Noh

    Steals & Deals
    485 East Main St.
    Jordan Phillips

    Valentine Sign & Design
    197 Little River Road
    Lance Valentine

    Westfield Equipment Services
    11 Airport Dr.
    Josh Tooney

    WEST SPRINGFIELD

    Adlord
    104 Hampden St.
    Earl Stephen Lord

    AHA Services
    17 Healy St.
    C. Howard Pevlin

    Applied Software Technologies
    59 Interstate Dr.
    Edward R. Garibian

    Hess
    341 Memorial Ave.
    Richard J. Lawlor

    J. H. Miller Framing & Gallery Inc.
    86 Elm St.
    James P. Hutchinson

    Martin’s Upholstery
    811 Memorial Ave.
    Martin A. Dean

    Pat’s Home Maintenance Service
    45 Lynne Dr.
    Pasquale A. Stirlacci

    St. Ann’s Society
    110 Winona Dr.
    Nancy Tessier

    Strong Arm Cleaning
    17 Pleasant St.
    Jackson Haines Laverne

    By
    Departments

    The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

    FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT

    Edward, Mary and Christopher Muenkel v. Greenwood Technologies, LLC
    Allegation: Malfunction of wood-burning furnace causing property damage and personal injury: $83,000
    Filed: 7/7/09

    Theresa Rice v. Deerfield Academy
    Allegation: Negligent property maintenance causing injury: $67,500
    Filed: 7/10/09

    HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

    Hallinan Capital Corporation v. Mountain Road Estates and John Hansen
    Allegation: Breach of promissory notes: $884,870.63
    Filed: 7/13/09

    Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame v. Wazoo Sports Inc.
    Allegation: Default of broadcasting rights agreement: $54,500
    Filed: 7/9/09

    Republic Ironworks Inc. v. Barr Inc. and Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. of America
    Allegation: Breach of contract and non-payment of labor, equipment, and materials provided: $42,426.00
    Filed: 7/9/09

    HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT

    Frank C. Corriveau v. Gentiva Health Services
    Allegation: Employment discrimination: $850,883
    Filed: 7/15/09

    Town of Hatfield v. Mount Vernon Group Inc., Moriece & Gary Inc., and Aquadro & Cerruti Inc.
    Allegation: Breach of construction contract for the Dorothy M. Breor Elementary School: $100,000
    Filed: 7/15/09

    Tyron A. Patruno v. Town of Hadley
    Allegation: Breach of employment settlement agreement: $50,000
    Filed: 7/15/09

    HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

    Leader Home Center Inc. v. A.R. Green & Son Inc. & Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $45,266.17
    Filed: 7/3/09

    Cook Builders Supply Co. v. Berry Construction
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $3,305.13
    Filed: 7/16/09

    NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT

    SWB Properties, LLC v. Equity Builders Realty, LLC
    Allegation: Breach of purchase-and-sale agreement: $8,750
    Filed: 7/13/09

    The Darcy Co. v. Northampton Rehabilitation and Nursing Center
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $4,844.87
    Filed: 7/27/09

    PALMER DISTRICT COURT

    IGM International Granite & Marble Corp. v. Blarney Stone
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $3,644.33
    Filed: 6/25/09

    SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT

    Comcast Spotlight Inc. v. BMS Paper
    Allegation: Non-payment of advertising services provided: $9,896.73
    Filed: 7/1/09

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Rebello Construction Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of workers’ compensation insurance: $7,307.43
    Filed: 7/8/09

    WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT

    Berkshire Bank v. Your Cleaning Services and Alena V. Mozolevskaya
    Allegation: Non-payment of balance due under credit agreement: $24,940.57
    Filed: 6/19/09

    By
    Departments

    Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield
    www.myonlinechamber.com

    Sept. 2: ACCGS Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., hosted by the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House in Holyoke. The speaker will be Kevin Rhodes, conductor of the Springfield Symphony. The cost is $20 for members, $30 for non-members.

    Sept. 7: ACCGS After 5, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Café Lebanon in Springfield. The cost is $10 for members, $20 for non-members.

    Sept. 14: Ludlow Golf for Kids, hosted by Ludlow Country Club. Registration and lunch from noon to 1 p.m.; shotgun/four-person scramble at 1 p.m. The cost is $110 per person or $400 for a foursome. Sponsorships are available.

    Sept. 22: West of the River Chamber of Commerce Board Meeting, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Captain Charles Leonard House in Agawam.

    Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce
    www.amherstarea.com

    Sept. 3: UMass/Chamber Community Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by the UMass Student Union Ballroom. The cost is $8 for members.

    Sept. 9: Chamber Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Courtyard by Marriott, sponsored by Back In Motion, Auto Express, and Summerline Floors. The guest speaker will be Tony Marx. The cost is $12 members and $15 for guests.

    Sept. 23: Chamber After Five, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum, sponsored by Amherst Insurance Agency/The Nathan Agencies. The cost is $5 for members and $10 for guests.

    Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
    www.chicopeechamber.org

    Sept. 16: Salute Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., hosted by the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House. The cost is $18 for members and $25 for non-members. Register online at www.chicopeechamber.org

    Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
    www.franklincc.org

    Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

    Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
    www.easthamptonchamber.org

    Sept. 9: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Apollo Grill, 116 Pleasant St., Eastworks, Easthampton. Sponsored by Clarke school for the Deaf. Event features door prizes, hors d’ouevres, and a cash bar. Tickets cost $5 for members and $15 for non-members.

    Sept. 18 and 19: Electronic Recycling Collection, hosted by Red Rock Shops, College Highway, Rte. 10, Southampton. Sponsored by Duseau Trucking LLC, Autumn Properties, and Greater Easthampton Chamber. Event allows people to responsibly dispose of their old computers, monitors, TVs, stereos, and small home and office appliances.

    Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
    www.holycham.com

    Sept. 16: Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce Annual Outing, 5 to 7:30 p.m., hosted by Holyoke Country Club, Country Club Road, Holyoke. Featuring a chance to win $1,000. Tickets cost $25. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 for tickets or to become a sponsor, or visit www.holycham.com for more information.

    Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
    www.explorenorthampton.com

    Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

    Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce
    www.qvcc.biz

    Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

    South Hadley/Granby Chamber Of Commerce
    www.shchamber.com

    Sept. 22: Premier Beyond Business, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by the Sycamores. The guest speaker will be Ken Williamson of the South Hadley Historical Society, who will speak on the Sycamores’ history and renovations. Sponsored by Premier members Berkshire Bank, Chicopee Savings Bank, Easthampton Savings Bank, Florence Savings Bank, Jubinville Insurance Group, PeoplesBank, and Private Financial Design. The cost is $10 at the door for chamber members. Reservations are necessary; RSVP at (413) 532-2480 by Sept. 18.

    Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce
    www.threeriverschamber.org

    Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

    Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
    www.westfieldbiz.org

    Sept. 9: WestNet Opening Networking Evening, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted and sponsored by Nora’s Restaurant, 106 Point Grove Road, Southwick (across from Louie B’s), celebrating its grand opening under new ownership. Attendees are encouraged to bring business cards. Tickets cost $10 for members and $15 for non-members. For reservations, call (413) 568-1618, E-mail marcia@westfieldbiz. org, or sign up at www.westfieldbiz.org.

    Sept. 19: 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, 5 p.m. to midnight, hosted by Tekoa Country Club, Route 20, 459 Russell Road, Westfield. Sponsored by Berkshire Bank. The theme for the evening is ’50s Diner. A Cruise Night will be set up in the parking lot. Bands include the Drifters and Corey and the Knightsmen. Tickets cost $35 through September 13, and $45 thereafter. For reservations, call (413) 568-1618, E-mail [email protected], or sign up at www.westfieldbiz.org.

    Sept. 23: Mini Trade Show, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., hosted by Westfield State College, Ely Campus Center, Main Lounge Area, 577 Western Ave., Westfield. The event aims to acquaint the college community, faculty, and students with local businesses and their goods. Call (413) 568-1618 with any questions, or E-mail [email protected].

    Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
    www.springfieldyps.com

    Sept. 11: United Way’s 16th annual Day of Caring. Each year, more than 1,400 volunteers from 45 companies participate in the Day of Caring, which pairs volunteers with agency service providers to accomplish a variety of projects.YPS will be paired up with Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity and will be working on one of the homes currently under construction in Springfield.

    Sept. 17: Third Thursday, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Café Lebanon in Springfield. Relax after work and socialize with other area young professionals.

    By
    Departments

    The following building permits were issued during the month of July 2009.

    AGAWAM

    Frank Ferrentino
    1676 Main St.
    $14,000 — Install 4-foot foundation under existing cement pad

    Riverbend Medical, LLC
    230 Main St.
    $32,000 — General renovations to expand IT/telephone and data room

    Town of Agawam
    760 Cooper St.
    $7,000 — Renovations to the high school

    AMHERST

    Jones Properties, LTD
    15A Pray St.
    $8,000 — Renovate interior of hair salon

    CHICOPEE

    AHH, Inc.
    10 David St.
    $20,000 — Interior renovations

    Daniel O’Connell’s Sons Inc.
    275 Meadow St.
    $175,000 — Replace existing shed

    LTL, LLC
    14 Duncan St.
    $10,000 — Repair porch, exterior doors, and windows

    EAST LONGMEADOW

    Berg Family Trust
    130 Shaker Road
    $25,000 — Renovate office space

    Meadowbrook School
    607 Parker St.
    $61,000 — Install new alarm system

    GREENFIELD

    Fair Business, LLC
    74 Fairview St.
    $52,000 — New roof

    Franklin Medical Center
    164 High St.
    $13,000 — Installation of two-hour fire separation partition and ’90-minute’ doors

    Roman Catholic Church
    221 Federal St.
    $7,000 — Roof renovations

    Town Of Greenfield
    1 Lenox St.
    $4,500 — Remove and replace existing guard/hand rails at high school

    HOLYOKE

    Holyoke Machine Inc
    514-522 Main St.
    $21,000 — New roof and insulation

    O’C Ingleside LLC
    361 Whitney Ave.
    $719,000 — Construction of new laboratory for Baystate Health

    LUDLOW

    Big Y Trust
    433 Center St.
    $54,000 — Partitions

    		  

    NORTHAMPTON

    Crocker Building Company Inc.
    296 Nonotuck St.
    $30,000 — Install metal siding by loading dock

    John Scott
    52 Round Hill Road
    $35,000 — Interior renovations at Clarke School

    Sackrey Construction
    30 Crafts Ave.
    $114,000 — Construction of handicap ramp and bathrooms

    SPRINGFIELD

    Baystate Medical Center
    471 Chestnut St.
    $12,000 — Reline chimney

    Block Realty
    504 St. James Ave.
    $9,000 — New roof

    Diocese of Springfield
    155 Eddywood St.
    $240,000 — Minor classroom renovations and construction of new vestibule enclosure

    Falcon Management
    One Monarch Place
    $100,000 — 8th-floor build out

    Hampden County Physicians
    300 Stafford St.
    $259,000 — Interior renovation of 3,000 square feet of space for doctor’s office

    Holyname Parish
    37 Alderman St.
    $153,000 — Interior renovations

    Javal Inc.
    1801 Page Blvd.
    $39,500 — New roof

    O’Connell Oil
    570 Sumner Ave.
    $41,000 — Remodel existing building

    Yellow Brick Property
    270-272 Center St.
    $30,000 — Repair front and side porches

    SOUTH HADLEY

    PVPA School
    15 Mulligan Dr.
    $57,000 — Renovations

    WESTFIELD

    Berkshire Bank
    31 Court St.
    $370,000 — Interior renovations

    WEST SPRINGFIELD

    SUK Realty Trust
    1144 Elm St.
    $18,000 — Re-roof apartment building

    By
    Departments

    Women in Business Luncheon

    Sept. 9: The Berkshire Chamber of Commerce will host a “Celebrating Women in Business” Luncheon from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berkshire Hills Country Club in Pittsfield. Jane Iredale, president and founder of Iredale Mineral Cosmetics, will be the keynote speaker, while Jessica Layton of NewsChannel 13 will serve as emcee. The public is welcome to attend the event. Admission is $30 for chamber members and $45 for non-members, and includes a plated lunch. To register, call (413) 499-4000, ext. 26, or register online at www.berkshirechamber.com.

    Identity Theft Seminars

    Sept. 11, Sept. 22, Sept. 23: Representatives of Royal & Klimczuk, LLC, of Northampton and Springfield, will present several informative seminars on revisions to the identity-theft regulations that will impact businesses. The regulations will be effective March 1, 2010, according to the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. The most dramatic change to the new regulations is its adoption of a ‘risk-based approach’ to information security. The Sept. 11 seminar is planned in Northampton, while the Sept. 22 seminar is slated in Springfield, and the Sept. 23 seminar is in Westfield. For more information on locations and registration, contact Amy B. Royal, Esq. at (413) 586-2288, or e-mail [email protected].

    Family Business Dinner Forum

    Sept. 15: For individuals feeling trapped in a family business, a lecture planned by the UMass Family Business Center may be the answer. The lecture will be presented as part of a dinner forum from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center in Northampton. For complete details, visit www.umass.edu/fambiz or call (413) 545-1537.

    Rick Thorpe Golf Classic

    Sept. 26: The 8th Annual Rick Thorpe Memorial Golf Tournament will be staged at the Country Club of Wilbraham, with the tournament starting at 12:30 p.m. and dinner at 6 p.m. The event, named in honor of Rick Thorpe, who died in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, will support the Rick Thorpe Memorial Fund. Two $1,500 scholarships are awarded respectively to graduating male and female seniors from Minnechaug Regional High School. The tournament will be staged a week after the start of the fourth year for Rick’s Place Inc. (also named after Thorpe), which provides a supportive, secure environment where families can remember their loved ones and avoid the sense of isolation that loss can produce. All families with children ages 5-18 who have experienced the loss of a close family member are invited to be a part of this support group free of charge. Children meet in small groups led by trained and supervised adult volunteers in projects, games, and activities meant to facilitate their grieving process. Adult family members meet separately with other caregivers to talk about how to support their children, who may or may not outwardly show their grief. Rick’s Place Inc. is located at Kids Village, 35 Post Office Park, Suite 3514, in Wilbraham. For more information on the golf tournament or Rick’s Place, call (413) 348-3120 or visit www.ricksplacema.org.

    Oktoberest

    Oct. 14: An After 5 & Tabletop Expo is planned from 4 to 7 p.m. at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, sponsored by the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield. Exhibitors are still sought for the business-to-business event. The general price to exhibit is $175, $100 for chamber members. Parking is $5 at the MassMutual Center Garage. General admission is $20 and $10 for Chamber members. For complete details, visit www.myonlinechamber.com.

    YPS New Year’s Celebration

    Dec. 31: The Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield has once again chosen downtown Springfield for its New Year’s Eve celebration. Only 300 tickets will be available for the affair at the Marriott Hotel in Tower Square. Businesses and individuals interested in sponsorship of the event should visit www.springfieldyps.com for more details. For ticket information, call Jill Monson of YPS at (413) 219-9692.

    By
    Departments

    Ten Points of Joint Tenancy:
    By: Todd C. Ratner

    Joint tenancy is a form of co-ownership. An advantage is that, when one co-owner dies, the surviving co-owner has instant access to the jointly held property, eliminating the need for probate. However, joint tenancy can have its perils.

    1 Control Issues. By providing someone with co-ownership, you give them control of your asset. If you add another person as co-owner of your home, you cannot sell or mortgage the home unless that person agrees.

    2 Creditor Issues. If creditors seek out your co-owner for outstanding debt owed, the creditors may be able to obtain part of your home or bank account that is held in joint tenancy.
    3 Relationship Issues. If you and your co-owner experience a falling out, the co-owner may be able to take all of the money out of the bank account.
    4 Substitute for Will Issues. Parents of several children may place one child’s name on an account and assume he will divide assets equally among all siblings. Unfortunately, this method provides no stipulations over control of the money. The surviving co-owner can do with it what he pleases, with no legal obligation.

    5 Uncertainty Issues. Unplanned ownership of property often leads to unwanted results, especially for people unable to manage assets.

    6 Tax Issues. Careful planning to eliminate or reduce estate taxes can be completely thwarted by a joint tenancy that passes property outright to a surviving joint owner.
    7 Long-term Care Issues. Thoughtful planning to reduce long-term care financing can also be thwarted by a joint tenancy that passes property outright to a surviving joint owner.
    8 Marriage Issues. Individual property may become marital property once it is transferred into a joint tenancy.
    9 Incompetency Issues. If a co-owner becomes incompetent, part of the property may go into a conservatorship, making it burdensome if the other joint tenant wants to sell the jointly held property.

    10 Distribution Issues. Joint tenancies deprive you of the flexibility of a will or trust, where you can stagger the distribution ages of the beneficiaries. In a joint-tenancy arrangement, the joint tenant receives the asset all at once.

    Todd C. Ratner is an estate planning, business, and real-estate attorney with the Springfield-based law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. He is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys; (413) 781-0560; [email protected]; bwlaw.blogs.com/estate_planning_bits

    Organized Thoughts

    By
    Meredith Wise
    Sections Supplements
    Employee Free Choice Act Opens Fresh Dialogue on the Future of Labor Unions
    Meredith Wise

    Meredith Wise says employers are making a mistake if they underestimate unions.

    As Congress gets set to re-open debate on a bill that will streamline the process by which employees unionize — a measure opposed by many businesses but supported by elected leaders in this time of economic turmoil — there is new discussion about organized labor and the role it will play in the years to come.

    Later this year, a bill to be voted on in Congress will have a significant effect upon the American workforce.

    The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was originally introduced in February 2007 and gained momentum, but a Republican filibuster kept the bill effectively squashed. In March of this year, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. George Miller of California re-introduced the provision to the 111th Congress.

    EFCA’s role in the workplace is to streamline the process by which employees unionize their workplace. Key proponents of the bill see this as necessary for workers in a time of financial turmoil. However, businesses from Home Depot to FedEx have reacted strongly against the pending legislation.

    While supporters lobby to get some form of the bill passed through Congress, larger questions arise. With such powerful federal assistance to organized labor in America, is it time to re-evaluate the role unions play in the contemporary workforce?

    “Basically union membership has been declining overall for the past 10 to 15 years,” said Meredith Wise, president of the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast, a membership organization that strives to improve employer-employee relations. “One of the reasons why the unions have declined is because their agenda has been legislated.”

    But Tom Juravich, a professor of Labor Studies at UMass Amherst and former director of the school’s Labor Center, disagrees with that basic premise. “I think it’s important to draw the distinction between how unions operate, and the role unions play in this country, with the workforce of Western Europe,” he explained.

    In contrast with that workforce, which is largely granted much of its benefits and social stability through citizenship, said Juravich, “in many ways, the only opportunity an American worker has is through a union card.”

    With historic change possibly on the docket in Congress, BusinessWest opens a dialogue on what role unions have for the nation’s workforce, what EFCA will mean, and what the future might hold for organized labor.

    The Times They Are a-Changing

    Wise said that with all the attention placed on EFCA these days, “companies, as well as unions, are focusing more on what role unions play in the workplace and whether they’re going to grow or continue to diminish in membership.”

    What seems to be happening, she said, is that both companies and unions are in a holding pattern, basically seeing how the legislation fares. “The sense had been that, until the EFCA passed or was totally shot down, that the unions wouldn’t get active. They wouldn’t do more than they typically do, as far as outreach or trying to unionize workplaces, and a lot of employers I think kind of put the urgency to look at their employee relations on the back burner.

    “The economy being what it is,” she continued, “business might be saying, ‘my plate’s full; I just can’t worry about the possibility of unionization unless something happens with EFCA. Unions can’t come after me anyway, because there’s just no money to give increases, people are being laid off … unions don’t have a platform.’”

    However, quite the opposite of that logic is what appears to be underway. Wise said that over the past several weeks, she sees unions in Western Mass. and Northern Conn. not pulling back, but getting much more active in reaching out to workers. “They don’t appear to be saying, ‘the economy’s not good; we shouldn’t push,’” she said.

    Rather, unions are reaching out to increasing numbers of workers, but aren’t filing petition cards with the National Labor Relations Board, said Wise, adding that she is left with questions concerning their intent. “Part of what we as an employers association, and what businesses are wondering, is whether the unions are getting active to gather signature cards, and then sit on them for a while with the thought that EFCA is going to pass, or some version of it passes, and then they can present these cards and be recognized? Or are they gathering them and they just haven’t gotten to enough of a point yet to get an election?”

    While speculation swirls about EFCA and its fate, there is broader discussion about just how much power unions still possess and what it can or should do with that influence.

    While manufacturing has been the traditional base for organized labor, Wise noted that unions have branched out into many different sectors. The public sector, from the federal government on down to town municipalities, represents fully one-third of the organized workforce in the nation, she noted, adding that growth is significant in both human services such as health care and also finance.

    The big difference for unions these days, she told BusinessWest, is that goals have changed with the times. “I think that one of the main reasons is that, 10 to 15 years ago, unions did a really great job of pushing their agenda into the political arena,” said Wise. “So there had been a lot of laws and regulations that used to be part of union contracts, but now they are regulated.

    “These include things like family and medical leave,” she continued. “At one point in time, something that would have been a big part of the union platform is that you can go out on leave and have your job protected. Well, now that is federally legislated. That’s going to happen regardless if you are union or not.”

    The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is another example of union success for the workplace at large. “I think that the unions have done a pretty good job over time of getting their agendas politicized and put across for all employers to have to do without being unionized.”

    Juravich agreed that union’s message has successfully become part of the American worker’s rights, union or not. However, he noted that there is still work for unions to do. “I still think that what we’re given by law is minimal when contrasted with other industrial societies,” he explained. “For example, there is no federally or state mandated right to a lunch hour. So I think that unions still can provide a lot.”

    EFCA Marks the Spot

    Votes for unionization currently take place when 30% of the workers for a given employer agree to sign authorization cards. Those cards are then filed with the NLRB, which then organizes an election for them.

    Generally within 60 to 90 days there is a secret-ballot election, where the employees that have been identified as a unit have an opportunity to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Those who originally signed those authorization cards may stick with their original vote of pro-union, or they can decide against it.

    If EFCA passes as currently written, there would be no secret-ballot election. If the union voices could get 50% plus one of the workforce originally, the potential bargaining unit that gathered these election cards would present them to both the employer and the NLRB and then they’re in — no further election.

    EFCA, essentially, seeks to safeguard the jobs of employees seeking to organize their workplace. Juravich explained some of the clear and present dangers with the current process and why the legislation has been filed.

    “The problem is that, during the days leading up to the election process, what we know is that they are not very democratic,” he explained. “Employers can do a variety of things to impede the elections. For example, they can bring workers in and meet with them individually for five minutes to three hours to try to dissuade them from voting positively in the election.

    “There is a statistic that in one out of every three union elections, workers are fired illegally for trying to organize,” he continued. “That has an incredibly chilling impact, even though those employees might later be hired back.”

    The possibility for compromise with the EFCA as currently written seems likely, said Wise and Juravich. One of the key revisions already discussed is that the secret-ballot election wouldn’t be abolished; it would just take place with an expedited timeline. Instead of the current waiting period of 60 to 90 days, balloting would have to happen within 10 days. Or, if the election were to take place within 10 to 15 days, there are certain things management can or cannot do regarding campaigning against the union.

    Labor Daze

    While helping employers understand EFCA and potential ramifications, Wise also has some advice for business owners about organized labor in general: Don’t underestimate it.

    She said the card unions are playing today involves respect, or, more to the point, the lack of it being shown to workers during this economic downturn.

    “Businesses are very involved right now in keeping themselves afloat, making it through another payday, making it through the year, and they are neglecting to a large extent those employee-relations pieces,” she continued. “It’s an important thing not to say to an employee, ‘you’re lucky to have a job,’ or, ‘no I don’t have time to listen to your complaint today, and remember, you have a paycheck. You’re not like the other 10% of the workforce that is unemployed.’”

    Wise noted that unions are a business, and are utilizing sound business models these days. “Over the last five to 10 years, the unions have been working so hard at restructuring themselves and re-educating themselves because the workforce that they were accustomed to organizing is no longer the workforce that’s out there,” she said.

    “Now, unions are poised to kind of come back,” she continued, “because they have more technology. They’ve worked really hard at rebuilding their Web sites, updating their methods of communication, and frankly probably done a better job of that than their employers as far as recognizing how tech-savvy a lot of the younger people are, and working that into their campaigns and their outreach.”

    For Juravich, his contrast with the industrialized societies of Western Europe highlights the discrepancies between the two workforces. “As part of the rights one receives there with citizenship, one has the right to earn a living wage, to have health care and pension benefits. Those are their citizenship rights.

    “In this country,” he continued, “the laws provide us with minimum wage, no access to health care, no access to pension programs, with the exception of Social Security. Unions are in many ways for American workers to be a part of a society, to have what workers around the world are offered by law.”

    Speculation on Capitol Hill is that health care is presently on the front burner of Congressional voting, and that EFCA cannot realistically be addressed until at least later this month. Passage of the bill would prove to be a significant victory for organized labor in the U.S., and Wise wants employers to understand the consequences of current actions.

    “My message is that companies need to open their eyes,” she said, “and if they don’t want that union intervention, they need to stop and look at what their employee relations are.

    “That’s what’s going to help them achieve their corporate goals and expectations,” she continued. “Unions have played a role in the economy and environment, but I think that businesses can do a better job of achieving their goals of working with their employees without third-party intervention.”

    Juravich thinks this is a pivotal time for unions. “This is without a doubt the most difficult time that workers will face in over three generations, because of the economy. But also this is the most challenging time for unions to be facing in that same time period.

    “In the industrial sector,” he continued, “unions have not been able to hold onto their workers. In the auto industry, they are struggling and saying to themselves, ‘how can we still make a difference?’ Unions have always been about wages, pensions, and health care. But they have also always been about more than just that. In these difficult times it’s important to remember that unions are also preserving the larger issues of justice and dignity in the workplace.”

    A Global Approach

    By
    Cover
    Cover Story
    Jeff Daigneau Creates a World of Possibilities at Lattitude
    Cover

    Cover

    Jeff Daigneau says he’s long desired to be a chef/owner, the coveted title that most all those who enter the restaurant business aspire to. After working at several area landmarks, including, most recently, Max’s Tavern, he decided that he didn’t just want to be in the kitchen — he wanted to be in his kitchen. The story of how he created Lattitude in West Springfield speaks to the myriad challenges — and sleepless nights — facing those who choose this road.

    Jeff Daigneau calls it the “itch.”

    And like many of those who start working in a restaurant, usually washing dishes, at a very young age, he got it — big time.

    Elaborating, he told BusinessWest that many of those who get exposed to the challenging but intriguing restaurant business early on get drawn into it and make plans to make it a career. From washing dishes, they move on to peeling potatoes, chopping onions, and assorted other duties. Those not intimidated by the long hours, hard work, and industry lifestyle often go to college to learn how to cook — Daigneau turned down a full scholarship at Johnson & Wales in Providence to attend a two-year program at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., instead — and eventually go to work in someone’s kitchen.

    However, if one truly gets the itch, said Daigneau, he or she eventually wants their own kitchen, and if they go down that road, they get everything that comes with those bragging rights, from those long hours to credit card balances with lots of zeros to often-sleepless nights spent wondering how to make ends meet.

    Daigneau got all that and much more — including the enormous challenge of coping with the Big E, located directly across Memorial Avenue from his establishment (more on that later) — when he decided to open Lattitude more than 20 months ago. He has absolutely no regrets, though, and nothing even approaching a second thought about his high-risk entrepreneurial gambit.

    “That’s because it’s … really a lot of fun,” he said, shaking his head for emphasis. “I get to have fun every single day.”

    This fun comes in the form of creativity he can express in myriad ways as he plays out the role of chef/owner, or “true chef/owner,” as he puts it, explaining that some who put this title on their business card are chefs who own merely a small piece of the restaurant in question. Daigneau, former executive chef at Max’s Tavern in Springfield, owns Lattitude lock, stock, and salad forks, and he has those credit-card balances — once soaring above $150,000 but now down to $30,000 or so — to prove it.

    In that role, Daigneau is, in essence, carrying out the mission that prompted him to choose the name Lattitude, while giving the word an extra ‘t’ for some flair and to be a little different. “Latitudinal lines go around the world,” he explained. “I try to give people a little flavor of the world.”

    Elaborating, he says part of that aforementioned mission is to educate his patrons, and he does so by introducing menu items such as “true” San Francisco cioppino, a bouillabaisse-like dish, and keeping some prices on wine “stupidly reasonable” to give people a chance to sample various labels.

    Overall, his strategy is succeeding. Revenues are running well ahead of projections for where he thought the restaurant would be at this juncture, and the sluggish economy has, in his opinion, been a non-factor, a testament to the fact that he’s obviously doing something right.

    As for the Big E, well, it was a big part of a first year that Daigneau described as a real learning experience.

    “That first fair … it nearly put us out of business,” he explained, noting that the doors had been open only a few months before the start of the exposition’s 2008 run, and he simply didn’t know what to expect in terms of the challenge of luring customers to that stretch of Memorial Avenue for those 17 days in late September.

    This year, he says, he’ll be ready, with a game plan — he’ll pay for his customers’ parking, for example — as well as some aggressive marketing to remind people he’s open, and a refined attitude born from last year’s experiences.

    Meanwhile, for the other 49 1/2 weeks of the year — and fair time as well — the Big E represents opportunity, said Daigneau, one that he intends to fully maximize.

    “We do very well with a lot of the weekend shows,” he explained. “The Morgan Horse shows have been really good, but all of them have helped — the dog shows, a motorcycle show, even the gun and knife show; someone from Ohio came in for dinner and asked what kind of heat we pack around here.”

    In this issue, BusinessWest looks at Daigneau’s early success recipe, and how his story is typical, albeit with some different wrinkles, of those involving individuals who get that itch.

    Entrepreneurial Flavor

    Daigneau says he probably wouldn’t have his own kitchen — or at least not the one he currently patrols — were it not for a 57-page business plan he wrote for the restaurant that would become Lattitude.

    “It was a work in progress for about three years,” he said of the document he eventually handed to commercial lending officers at Berkshire Bank in early 2008. “It was rock solid, and full of true facts and figures.”

    Solid enough, apparently, to convince those at Berkshire to write the bank’s largest restaurant loan to date — $400,000 — after a few other institutions wouldn’t even talk to him. That wasn’t enough for Daigneau to get the doors open, actually; he had to start using his credit cards. But it came close, and it exemplified just how different, and compelling, the concept for Lattitude was and is.

    Daigneau probably first starting thinking about it when he was washing dishes at a small breakfast place located on the Congamond Lakes in Southwick. This is where the itch first developed. It progressed while Daigneau, an Agawam native, went to work at the Chez Josef banquet house, where he handled a number of duties over a stint that lasted through most of his high school years.

    “You start out washing dishes — everyone does — and you realize that what you’re doing is kind of cool,” he said of how his passion for the business developed and evolved. “Soon, you’re peeling potatoes and peeling carrots, and you get an itch — and that’s exactly what it is, an itch.

    “You initially look around and see what else is going on, and you see the guy at the grill and the woman doing the fries, and you say, ‘I’d like to be doing that,’” he continued. “And pretty soon, you end up there because someone doesn’t show up for work. Eventually, you’re working on the line. By my junior year in high school I had decided that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

    After attending CIA, Daigneau worked in a few restaurants, including Eastside Grill in Northampton and School Street Bistro in Westfield, before eventually landing at Max’s. He started as executive sous chef, was quickly promoted to executive chef, and, in 2007, was tabbed to lead the eatery’s catering division.

    Daigneau said he enjoyed the work, but kept returning to the notion of running his own establishment, a thought that first entered his head maybe five years ago and never actually left.

    “I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s not that I didn’t believe in everyone else’s way of doing things; owners were always giving me a lot of freedom, but I wanted more. I wanted to be the chef/owner, I wanted that level. I’ve had that goal since I was a kid.”

    He started scouting for suitable sites, and had trouble finding what he was looking for. He said that when he “stumbled” across space, actually three spaces, in a building on Memorial Avenue that comprised the old Caffeine’s restaurant and the former home to Kent Pecoy Construction, he knew he’d found a home.

    “I don’t know why, I just knew,” he explained. “I talked to the landlord and signed a lease immediately. I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have a liquor license, I didn’t have anything; I just said, ‘I’ll figure it all out later.’”

    And he did.

    Salad Days

    As he assessed his first 15 or so months in business, Daigneau said most things have gone according to that detailed plan he worked out for the lenders. But not everything, obviously.

    The restaurant has become popular with most demographic groups and draws patrons from across a wide geographic radius, he explained. But it has become, somewhat to his surprise, extremely popular with women, a fact he attributes to well-lit parking areas and entrances and a feeling of safety not attainable in many settings.

    And then, there’s the Big E.

    Daigneau said he was caught somewhat off guard last year by the fair, which can be a drain on Memorial Avenue businesses, as he soon learned. Most restaurants in the vicinity of the fairgrounds simply shut down for those 17 days (with most using their real estate to park cars), he explained, adding quickly that he didn’t have that option last year and, despite his strong start, doesn’t have it this year, either.

    He’ll be open, but with the understanding that Lattitude will become more of a bar than a restaurant those 17 days, and he’ll be pouring far more draught beer than specialty martinis. But he wants his regulars and potential first-timers to know he’ll be open for lunch and dinner.

    And despite the solid nature of his business plan and no shortage of confidence in his abilities and business instincts, Daigneau says there was plenty of apprehension in the weeks and months after he opened the doors to Lattitude. “I didn’t sleep much those first eight months,” he said.

    Overall, Daigneau says he believes he’s planned — and guessed — right when it came to his menu, basic approach (a heavy emphasis on local, fresh produce) and the general experience he provides.

    As for the cuisine, he calls it ‘Global American’ in another reference to latitude, and says he likes to mix things up, with new offerings regularly on both the lunch and dinner menus, with the former becoming increasingly popular of late with the business crowd. It features everything from a ‘house made mac & cheese’ to a grilled scallop salad to ‘Asian spiced grilled king salmon.’

    “I didn’t want to limit myself on anything,” said Daigneau, referring both to what’s on the menus and how offerings are prepared. “I change the menu almost every day — dishes come off, dishes go on. We change all kinds of things because we want to educate people, not intimidate them.”

    Most all of the items on the menus are prepared or accented with locally grown produce, said Daigneau, adding that he’s at Cecci Farms in Feeding Hills every day. “A case of tomatoes is $25 there, while I can get one from the wholesaler for $10, but I want the local,” he explained. “To have a true farm restaurant is a lot of fun.”

    There’s that word again. Daigneau used it repeatedly in the course of his talk with BusinessWest, and he used it with sincerity, while reiterating, repeatedly, that this business certainly isn’t all fun and games.

    Check, Please

    Daigneau said his father got married a few months ago. It was still another event for which he handled the cooking.

    He took the occasion to look through some old photographs and noticed that in practically every one taken over the past decade, he was in a chef’s outfit. Recalling the event prompted him to recite something he’s probably said hundreds of times in his career: “this isn’t a life,” he said of what it’s like being at the upper levels of the restaurant business. “It’s a lifestyle.”

    It comes to those who get the itch, he continued, adding that few ever regret scratching it, and he certainly doesn’t.

    After all, how many people get to have fun every single day?

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

    By
    Departments

    An Exciting Chapter

    As part of a program called “Putting the Accent on Literacy, One Book at a Time,” BusinessWest and its Difference Makers Class of 2009 coordinated a book drive in conjunction with the Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative, which links young people with books during the summer months when they are away from school. On Aug. 5, program participants gathered for a reception and book reading at the Dunbar Community Center in Springfield. At right, Maura Geary, project coordinator for the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, reads Mia Hamm’s “Winners Never Quit” with Tea Webster; below, right, Trevis Wray, representing the Young Professionals Society of Greater Springfield, reads “Where the Wild Things Are” with Chris Benoite; below, BusinessWest Associate Publisher Kate Campiti reads “A Chair for My Mother” with Tahjai Lewis.

    By
    Departments

    The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of July 2009.

    AGAWAM

    AIM Marketing Communications
    55 Christopher Lane
    Anthony Ieraci

    Bancroft Bridals
    967 Springfield St.
    Bancroft Bridals

    Bruburger
    241 South Westfield St.
    Constantino Dino Gravanis

    Cardinal Security Consulting
    16 Lawnwood St.
    Phillip Leclair

    Fournier Woodwork
    940 Main St.
    Ann Fournier

    My Tan Factory
    950 Suffield St.
    Becky Lanza

    Pheasant Hill Village Associates
    25 Pheasant Hill Dr.
    Ernest A. Gralia

    Shean Remodeling & Home Improvement
    2 Royal Lane
    Dan Shean

    Tiger Power Wash
    221 Springfield St.
    Kenneth Rose

    United Research Bureau
    24 East View Dr.
    United Research Bureau

    AMHERST

    3C Communications
    157 Aubinwood Road
    James R. L. Holdsworth

    Amherst Coffee
    28 Amity St.
    A Fine Café Company Inc

    Caseify
    96 Larkspur Dr.
    Lauren Kopec

    Five College Laundry
    22 Whipple Tree Lane
    Zachary Zetlin

    H20 Amherst
    431 Pinest Road
    Christopher O’Keefe

    Human Rights Action International
    4 Chadwick St.
    Joseph Wronka

    International Center for Psychological Trauma
    26 South Pleasant St.
    James Helling

    Orrpaz Auto Repair
    48 Belchertown Road
    Craig Eyal Tornovish-Block

    The Humble Baker
    460 West St.
    Brieta M. Goodwin

    CHICOPEE

    Chaput Electric
    90 Royalston St.
    William C. Chaput

    Chicopee Hearing Center of Pioneer Valley Audiology
    500 Front St.
    Kathryn S. James

    Homestyle Café
    1780 Westover Road
    Hollie Warren

    JL Construction
    39 Swol St.
    Jared Laravee

    MacroPlan & Associates
    48 Rose St.
    Obukohwo Urhiafe

    Our Dentist
    747 Memorial Dr.
    Mitesh G. Brahmbhatt

    Vehicle Ventures, LLC
    1840 Memorial Dr.
    Jason Spellacy

    EAST LONGMEADOW

    Consignment Plus
    46 Baldwin St.
    Carla Germain

    Dr. Handyman
    48 Braeburn Road
    Dmitry Rokhkind

    Gasperini & Sons
    45 Longview Dr.
    Michael Gasperini

    Graziano Bros. Landscape Inc.
    280 Elm St.
    Christopher Graziano

    Salon Chiala
    44 Harkness Ave.
    Chiala Marvici

    GREENFIELD

    Aia Sign Travel Company
    15 Chandler Lane
    Kimberlee McAulay

    Barlow Tree, Landscaping, & Excavating Inc.
    77 Davis St.
    Bryan Barlow

    Calins Home Repair
    297 Chapman St.
    Calin D. Giurgio

    Glamorous
    114 Wells St.
    Ryan Kus

    M & M Auto Center, LLC
    295 Federal St.
    Mahmut Omeragic

    New Inkwell News
    78 Federal St.
    Rozina N. Butt

    Real Pickles
    311 Wells St.
    Daniel S. Rosenburg

    Save A Life Certification
    332 Deerfield St.
    Dan Violel Oros

    HADLEY

    General Co.
    32 North Maple St.
    James C. Ting

    Wind in the Woods Farm
    229 Russell St.
    Anna Rose Sample

    Zephyr Rugs
    227 Russell St.
    Victoria Sheikh

    HOLYOKE

    Abercrombie
    50 Holyoke St.
    Marjorie Brody

    Charles Schwab & Co.
    330 Whitney Ave.
    Michael Cavanaugh

    Corners Delight Grocery & Deli
    95 High St.
    Luis A. Alvarado Sr.

    Dairy Market
    1552 Dwight St.
    Sagheer Nawaz

    High Style
    364 High St.
    Besaida Diaz

    J & C Auto Sales
    9 Avon Place
    Cynthia Geiring

    J. M. Hollister, LLC
    50 Holyoke St.
    Marjorie Brody

    No Static
    37 Temple St.
    Brian Robidoux

    Wongshing Inc.
    2223 Northampton St.
    Neil Wong

    LONGMEADOW

    Christian Psychotherapy Associates
    861 Converse St.
    Bernard Marshall

    Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
    1 Campus Dr.
    NRT New England, LLC

    Pioneer Valley Tree Professionals
    167 Wimbledon St.
    Ryan O’Leary

    Solomon Communications
    62 Prynn Ridge
    Susan Solomon

    Total Health Acupuncture
    86 Greenmeadow Dr.
    Mei Han

    LUDLOW

    Annie’s Cutting Corner
    183 Prospect St.
    Anne Clement

    Joe’s Auto Body Inc.
    199 West St.
    Joaquim Mateus

    Lost Pond Farm
    975 Lyon St.
    Edgar R. Minnie II

    Monzi’s Café
    390 West St.
    Joseph A. Monzillo

    Performance Diesel Services
    566 Holyoke St.
    Todd Ely

    NORTHAMPTON

    Columbia Delta Company
    32 North Elm St.
    Richard N. Kowalski

    Just B
    30 Strong Ave.
    Bianca Jackson

    Layla Vera
    150 Main St.
    Jessica Sokol

    Noho Pride
    221 Pine St.
    Cindy S. White

    Sakura
    261 King St.
    Hao Chen, Inc.

    Scrappy Do
    284 Sylvester Road
    Michael Samson

    The Taxi Inc.
    One Round House Plaza
    Chester Krusiewski

    PALMER

    Bob’s Auto & Small Engine Repair
    106 Belchertown St.
    Robert E. Cain

    Chicken Coop Café
    103 Thorndike St.
    Li Jia

    Dancing Keys
    1 Laurel Road
    Carolyn Gibbs

    Handy Man Unlimited
    15 Smith Ave.
    John D. Gilmore

    Lyon Home Improvement
    1235 Park St.
    Troy M. Lyons

    Millenium Die Group
    2022 Bridge St.
    Richard J. Sweeting

    Palmer Auto Wash
    1219 Thorndike St.
    Robert W. Ainsworth

    P & H Excavating
    148 Gates St.
    Michael Francis Piechota

    S & S Food Mart
    1520 Main St.
    Syed Hashmi

    Tenczar’s Food Town
    2004 Main St.
    Keyur Patel

    The Wedgewood Motel
    1430 Park St.
    Stanley R. Lamb

    Wayne’s Truck Service
    75 North St.
    Wayne Chapin

    SOUTH HADLEY

    Alphabet LTD.
    11 Cedar Ridge
    Cynthia L. Meyer

    Denise’s Designs
    491 Granby Road
    Denise Pelletier

    Family Cuts
    189 East St.
    Mary Quesnel Sudyka

    South Hadley Farmers’ Market
    10 Pheasant Lane
    Ann Pembleton

    		  

    Tailgate Picnic
    7 College St.
    John A. Magri

    T. I. Painting
    77 Ferry St.
    Timothy H. Lawler

    The Center for Functional Nutrition
    514 Amherst Road
    Russell Mariani

    SOUTHWICK

    A Healing Spirit
    44 Charles Johnson
    Wendy Marie Birchall

    Angco-Vieweg Distributors
    24 Laro Road
    Jason Vieweg

    Choice Home Improvements
    3 Matthews Road
    Thomas E. Delnegro IV

    Country Auto Sales
    532 College Highway
    Al Gendron

    Friends of Jaime S. Rivera
    203 Feeding Hills Road
    Jefferey E. Bovat

    Ideal Home Reality
    155 Fred Jackson Road
    Bernadette Bain

    Red Oak Paving
    610 College Highway
    Philip G. Bellinghausen

    SPRINGFIELD

    American Career Institute
    365 Cadwell Dr.
    Robert Payne

    American Traditional Carpet
    43 Shepherd Dr.
    Thomas N. Edens

    Amiracle Construction
    225 Durant St.
    Jonathan Barry Hall

    Happy Feet
    170 Main St.
    Latoya Granesha

    Hilda’s Sewing
    55 Armory St.
    Hilda L. Martinez

    I Wireless
    607 State St.
    Long Nguyen

    JB High Quality Dental
    1655 Main St.
    Jose A. Bautista

    JJ Beauty Salon
    1614 Main St.
    Yoanda Carpio

    Jasm Enterprises, LLC
    805 Newbury St.
    Jefferey Adam

    Jezy’s Cake Wedding Plan
    47 Longview St.
    Jezenia Delgado

    Lupi Illustrations
    665 Belmont Ave.
    Michael Robert Lupi

    Main Connection
    2670 Main St.
    Jacqueline Alban

    Main Kitchen
    1343 Carew St.
    Bun Chan

    Mary T. Tzambazakis
    1120 Main St.
    Mary Tzambazakis

    Melanie’s Beauty Salon
    494 Central St.
    Radhames Rodriguez

    Mercado’s Painting
    122 Temby St.
    William Mercado

    MMY Convenience Inc.
    295 Allen St.
    Mahir Elssir

    Montessori School
    1644 Allen St.
    Path Mangi

    New York Fried Chicken
    7 Audubon St.
    Mahboob Ali Shah

    Next Level Supplements
    80 Lois St.
    Brandon J. McCloud

    North East Performance
    113 Vermont St.
    Derek Dang

    PCX Corp
    1531 Main St.
    Soo Bong Lee

    Platinum Auto Spa, LLC
    1122 Bay St.
    Michael F. McCarthy

    PR Hotdogs
    20 Summit St.
    Noel Mercado

    Premier Automotive Sales
    694 Berkshire Ave.
    Luis Antonio Rivera

    R & R Grocery
    344 Orange St.
    Rohail Uddin A. Khan

    RAMI Photography
    1655 Main St.
    Belal I. Awkal

    Reliable Handyman Service
    36 Upland St.
    Frank Sterlin

    Rise and Shine Auto Sales
    890 Boston Road
    Julia V. Vargas

    R. J. Majowicz Electrical
    65 Main St.
    Robert J. Majowicz

    Ruff Edge Entertainment
    23 Goldenrod St.
    Gina M. Emanuel

    RYS Family Fashion
    2460 Main St.
    Luis E. Liriano

    Sally A. LaFleur
    24 Gardens Dr.
    Sally A. LaFleur

    TMB Consultants
    24 Dorne St.
    Thomas M. Belton

    Trust Associates
    77 Lyons St.
    Debra J. Woods

    Valhalla Labs
    148 Allen St.
    Corrie Jean Platten

    York Street Establishment
    1 Federal St.
    Michael Mastriani

    WESTFIELD

    Angela’s Hair Salon
    78 Frank St.
    Angela Poon

    BPR Concrete Service
    11 Laurel Terrace
    Brian Rousseau

    Disposable Friend
    248 Western Ave.
    Timothy Wylie

    D. J. Webber & Associates
    64 Deer Path Lane
    David Webber

    EMT & SSTA
    577 Western Ave.
    Edward Mello Jr.

    Hess
    310 East Main St.
    Amerada Hess Corporation

    H & C Plumbing and Heating
    75 Beverly Dr.
    Heath Allen

    Lansing Home Improvement
    29 Noble Ave.
    Nicholas Lansing

    Mary Leavy, ATP
    156 Western Ave.
    Mary Leavy

    Morin Home Improvement
    98 Old Farm Road
    Christopher Morin

    Musical Beginnings and Story Time Magic
    287 Shaker Road
    Donna Omega Liese

    Naugatuck River Review
    45 Highland Ave.
    Lori Desrosiers

    New Corner Variety
    2 Crown St.
    Laura Parker

    North Country Harvest
    639 Shaker Road
    Michael Kosinski

    Oleksak Home Services LLC
    31 Schumann Dr.
    James Oleksak

    Property Services Plus
    40 Montgomery Road
    Stephen C. Poteat

    The Home Depot
    111 Southampton Road
    Steven Taplits

    Valley View Property Management & Services
    65 Deborah Lane
    Steven J. Morse

    World Peace Beads
    4 School St.
    Suzanne Tracy

    WEST SPRINGFIELD

    Alex Izoita Electric
    40 High St.
    Aleksander Izoita

    Apex Oil Inc.
    57 Norman St.
    George R. Martin Jr.

    Bertucci’s Brick Oven Ristorante
    847 Riverdale St.
    David G. Lloyd

    EC4WDA Northeast Region
    110 Kings Highway
    Angel L. Matthews

    Edible Arrangements
    1702 Riverdale St.
    Louise Beauchemin

    Fat Boyz Kustoms
    33 Heywood Ave.
    Eric J. Cross

    Friendly Hair Salon
    559 Union St.
    Tatyana Gitsman

    Gooseberry Farms
    201 Gooseberry Road
    Leonard Lapinsky

    Home Mart
    366 Memorial Ave.
    Brian Christopher Clarke

    Hooters
    1290 Riverdale St.
    West Springfield Wings, LLC

    Life Uniform
    935 Riverdale St.
    Healthcare Uniform Corporation

    Massachusetts Power Saver
    179 North Boulevard
    Galen Plourde

    Noho Pet Sitters
    576 Dewey St.
    Melanie M. Miller

    Parsons Sewing Connections LLC
    2009 Riverdale St.
    Marlene P. Warren

    Speed & Hegeman Insurance Agency
    103 Van Deene Ave.
    McClure Insurance Agency Inc.

    Sterling Motors Inc.
    130 Norman St.
    James M. Chojnowski

    Subway
    1329 Riverdale St.
    Steven Petau

    Sweeney Associates
    84 Cedar Woods
    Kathleen H. Sweeney

    The Big Remodeling
    53 Hill St.
    Eugeniu Banaru

    V & K Auto Sales
    44 Exposition Ave.
    Anthony Valentino

    Taking a Truly Global Approach

    By
    Lea Johnso
    Sections Supplements
    AIC’s New Business Dean Wants to Make a World of Difference
    Lea Johnso

    Lea Johnson wants AIC business students to get an education with an international flavor.

    Lea Johnson says she won’t ever forget the impact a 2006 trip to Africa made on her views about conducting business in a global environment.

    At the time, she didn’t see much value in going on the excursion, which was a mandated part of her doctoral program. But a “flash point” of awakening occurred when a colleague remarked that it was sad so many children there didn’t have shoes.

    The African professor they were talking to reacted with anger, Johnson said, and explained that going barefoot in their country was not necessarily a sign of poverty.

    “If you could have seen the anger in her eyes. We sat in stunned silence,” she recalled. “We were administrators from all over the U.S., but we didn’t understand their culture or apartheid and the inequality that still exists until we were actually there.”

    The experience caused her to vow that, if she was ever in charge of an international business graduate program, she would make sure students understood the importance of culture and history.

    Johnson is in that position today as the newly ap-pointed dean of the School of Business Administration at American International College. In this issue, BusinessWest takes a close look at her vision for the future as she explains why teaching established business skills to students is no longer enough to guarantee success.

    Flying High with Ideas

    Johnson, who assumed her new role in early July, said one of her first priorities is to restructure the program. “We can no longer keep education in the silos,” she explained. “It was OK until about 15 years ago, but things have changed. We talk about a global economy, and we really have an obligation to make sure students understand cultures and economies outside our own. We need to become sensitive and know what is expected, what a country’s protocol is, and what is off-limits to discuss.”

    That means providing more students with an international experience, which is in line with AIC’s mission. The business school’s undergraduate and graduate programs are based in Springfield, but in the past two years satellite operations were established in Ireland, Italy, Bangkok, and London. Johnson said they hope to open another location in the UK in about a year.

    However, only a handful of students participate in the programs in Ireland and Italy. The Bangkok and London programs are more popular, and this fall, 50 MBA students will study at those remote sites, with 25 in Bangkok and 25 in London.

    Recently, John-son accepted 40 new students into the MBA program in Springfield, hailing from Russia, Africa, China, and India, as well as the U.S.

    “Think how rich it will make classroom discussions,” Johnson asked, adding that a foreign dentist and physician are part of the new Springfield student body. Still, she would like to see more U.S. students do a semester abroad and be matched with mentors in those countries.

    That experience should be valuable, and Johnson plans to consider moving the Bangkok and/or London programs to a different continent. The idea to move their location came to her during a 30-hour return flight from a recent graduation ceremony in Bangkok. The AIC students there presented an impressive array of completed projects. But she believes future graduates might benefit more from studying in countries with emerging economies.

    “I thought, ‘let’s rachet it up.’ There are different types of deans,” she said. “Some just keep the train running on time, and others try to take the organization to the next level. I’d like to think I am one of those deans.”

    To that end, she plans on putting a team together to explore where it would make the most sense to relocate the program.

    “The demand in education is for us to focus on the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) economies, which are emerging,” she said. “Russia and Brazil are percolating on a back burner, and they are potential superpowers to watch,” Johnson said.

    She also plans to review the school’s undergraduate programs this fall and will explore the possibility of having students study how major businesses set themselves up in foreign countries. “It would be fun to study how they deal with cultural problems, language barriers, currency, and economic structures,” she said. “If we are training students to become managers and potential leaders, they need to be aware of global issues.”

    Johnson is not a new face at AIC. She was hired a year ago as associate dean of the School of Business. Her areas of expertise are integrated marketing communications, program development, and entrepreneurship. Her background includes positions with the federal government and stints as the director of advertising campaigns in the private sector.

    She founded a national trade magazine for the public relations profession, and has worked in administration at Suffolk University School of Management and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Still, Johnson was very surprised when she was asked to head up AIC’s School of Business, because she had not applied for the position. “I was very excited, honored, and thrilled,” she said. “It is a terrific opportunity.”

    AIC’s business school has added a new faculty member who will focus on green economics. The new position is only a beginning, however, as Johnson wants to market the college’s business programs around the globe.

    “I am hoping to double the faculty,” she said. “I want to introduce and expand the areas of economics we teach and also build new courses in international study.”

    Johnson has already added courses to the fall roster in nonprofit management, and says AIC’s new president, Vincent Maniaci, supports her ideas.

    Another goal is to forge new, local partnerships. “I plan to convene an industrial advisory council in the late fall with senior business leaders who can give us good advice as we conduct our curriculum reviews,” she said. “They will be able to tell us about emerging needs in their industry.”

    Making classes more accessible to working people, via blended programs which utilize online learning, is an idea Johnson hopes to bring to fruition. “We need to explore different models,” she said. “This is another area the Advisory Council could help us with, especially if their employees became students here. We need to look at what students really need along with what employers really want.”

    Two-week internships abroad for MBA and nonprofit students are also on the burner. Many students work full-time, but would be able to use their vacation to take advantage of this opportunity, said Johnson, noting that adding more courses to the college’s menu could complement those experiences. “I would like to add business courses that relate to culture and the economic state of different countries,” she said.

    In April, AIC’s business school was awarded a prestigious accreditation from the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education. While all of the college’s programs are accredited through the New England Assoc. of Schools and Colleges, the new accreditation is specific to business education. Johnson said the process has taken years to complete and involved site visits, self-study, and follow-up reports.

    “It’s a new accreditation for schools with a focus on teaching and student learning outcomes,” she said. “There are 1,500 business schools in the U.S., and less than one-third of them have earned this.”

    Course of Action

    In order to maintain its standing, AIC will have to focus on practices that promote excellence in business education through a benchmarking process, which allows school administrators to assess whether their goals are being realized.

    Johnson said she’s excited about the challenge and enthusiastic about expanding the program so that graduates enter the market prepared to be successful anywhere in the world.

    That’s just part of what she considers a truly global focus on business, education, and life in general.

    Healing Environment – by Design

    By
    Sections Supplements
    Mercy’s New Intermediate Care Unit Sheds Some Light on the Subject

    To officials at Mercy Medical Center who recently cut the ribbon on the hospital’s new intermediate care unit, the space is an ideal blend of state-of-the-art technology and natural healing.

    The 22-bed IMCU features private rooms for each patient with direct access to large windows and plenty of natural light. Both, it turns out, are more than mere design choices.

    “On one hand, it’s a unit designed to respect a patient’s privacy, and to have a place for family and friends to visit,” said Vincent McCorkle, president and CEO of the Sisters of Providence Health System, which oversees the Springfield-based hospital.

    “But when it comes to privacy and things like the use of natural light,” he continued, “clinical studies have demonstrated that they help in the healing process and help patients do better. There’s less disorientation, and patients leave the hospital faster.”

    Of course, privacy has become a major concern for hospitals in the era of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). But Stan Rogalski, vice president of System Support Services, also cited a string of industry studies demonstrating that a patient’s hospital environment — elements like natural light, noise reduction, even the colors used in room décor — can have a measurable impact on healing time and the quality of that healing.

    Private rooms are a big part of that equation, and even insurance companies are coming around on the issue, he added, noting that payers that have historically been reluctant to cover private rooms now understand that, when patients recover faster, there are lower costs in the long run.

    That’s partly why McCorkle sees the new IMCU as an investment, in more ways than one.

    “We look at the demographics of our community and what the community can afford, and at the same time what the community needs in terms of exceptional health care,” he told BusinessWest. “This is part of a strategy to offer value — a combination of lower cost and excellent clinical quality — improving the overall experience of hospital care for the patient and the family when they come to the intermediate care unit.”

    Comforts of Home

    Family members and others who visit patients in the new unit will find more space inside patient rooms and in common areas than in the old IMCU. Additional amenities include flat-screen televisions and wi-fi service provided free of charge, as well as adjustable lighting, ceramic-tiled bathrooms, and glass-panel doors for noise reduction.

    Such elements, particularly those related to privacy and noise reduction, aren’t new concepts, but they are receiving more attention in hospital design as new data becomes available and is touted by organizations like the California-based Center for Health Design Research (CHDR).

    Take, for example, the benefits of private rooms in relation to noise levels. “Hospitals are extremely noisy, and noise levels in most hospitals far exceed recommended guidelines,” writes Dr. Anjali Joseph on the CHDR Web site. “The high ambient noise levels, as well as peak noise levels in hospitals, have serious impacts on patient and staff outcomes ranging from sleep loss and elevated blood pressure among patients to emotional exhaustion and burnout among staff.

    “Poorly designed acoustical environments can pose a serious threat to patient confidentiality if private conversations between patients and staff or between staff members can be overheard by unintended listeners,” he adds. “At the same time, a poor acoustical environment impedes effective communication between patients and staff and between staff members by rendering speech and auditory signals less intelligible or detectable.”

    Natural light has measurable benefits as well, Joseph notes. “Adequate and appropriate exposure to light is critical for health and well-being of patients as well as staff in health care settings. Natural light should be incorporated into lighting design in health care settings, not only because it is beneficial to patients and staff, but also because it is light delivered at no cost, and in a form that most people prefer.”

    The opening of Mercy’s new IMCU — one floor below the hospital’s modern intensive care unit, which opened in 2007 — marks the completion of the first phase of an initiative to create more private rooms and improve the patient experience.

    “These improvements are the direct result of input from our patients, many of whom have expressed a desire for more privacy as they recover from illness or injury,” McCorkle said, adding that, increasingly, hospitals need to consider both technological advances and structural design elements when trying to improve patient satisfaction and care.

    Phase two of the project will involve the conversion of double rooms to private rooms on other patient care floors at Mercy, significantly increasing the number of single or private rooms available for both medical and surgical patients. One of the areas to see this renovation will be the old intermediate care unit, he said.

    Elbow Room

    As for the new IMCU rooms, he said patients and their families will be pleased with the space. Even elements unrelated to square footage — like a bank of outlets to hook up monitoring equipment attached to the wall of each room — will save space and reduce chaos.

    “The rooms aren’t quite as large as in the ICU, where they have to be bringing in crash carts and teams of people,” McCorkle said. “But there are more rooms here than in the ICU, and they all have very spacious private bathrooms.”

    All of which, he said, speaks to an overall goal of patient satisfaction.

    “As we tell people these days, if you haven’t seen Mercy lately, you haven’t seen Mercy.”

    Joseph Bednar can be reached at

    [email protected]

    Breathing Room

    By
    Sections Supplements
    Why Asthmatics Struggle in the Pioneer Valley — and What Can Be Done

    Dr. Matthew Sadof emphasizes something he calls the ‘rule of twos’ to determine when to seek professional help for asthma.

    “If you wake up at night due to asthma more than twice a month, if you need to use your rescue inhaler more than twice a week, or if you need to refill your inhaler more than twice a year, then your asthma is out of control, and you need to get some help,” said Sadof, a pediatrician who runs the asthma intervention program at Baystate Children’s Hospital and chairs the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition (PVAC).

    “If you’re having trouble breathing, call somebody,” he added. “Asthma deaths are preventable for the most part.”

    Deaths?

    It’s true: according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), some 3,500 Americans die from asthma-related causes every year, and up to 250,000 annual deaths worldwide may be attributable to asthma. More than 34 million Americans are living with a diagnosis of asthma at some point in their lives. On an average day, about 30,000 Americans suffer an asthma attack, and 5,000 wind up in the hospital.

    It’s even worse in Western Mass., said Sadof, noting that the incidence of asthma is about 18% — much higher than the state average.

    “It has a lot to do with the geography of the area,” he explained. “We’re in a valley, which is kind of a bowl, and the air coming up from New York and Hartford pools in the area, giving us poor air quality. Plus we have a highway, coal-fired power plants, and a lot of manufacturing in the valley.”

    Those elements are magnified by issues with indoor air quality that are also common to Western Mass. — specifically, a multitude of old houses that don’t feature modern ventilation, allowing mold and other allergens to take hold.

    Considering all these factors, the asthma coalition has launched a series of educational and advocacy programs aimed at improving asthma conditions in homes, schools, and other places in the Pioneer Valley. In this issue, BusinessWest examines this ongoing health problem and why Sadof believes those goals are within reach.

    Gasping for Air

    Asthma is a breathing condition triggered by any number of things, from exercise and cold air to illness and allergies to plants, pets, or dust mites. And it’s on the rise; the prevalence of asthma has roughly doubled over the past quarter-century, according to the AAAAI.

    In technical terms, asthma is a chronic respiratory condition in which the airway occasionally constricts and becomes inflamed. This airway narrowing can cause a number of symptoms, from wheezing and coughing to chest tightness and shortness of breath. It affects all ages, but young children and senior citizens have the highest incidence.

    The Mass. Department of Public Health released a report recently that found that the incidence of adult asthma rose by 29.4% in the Commonwealth between 2000 and 2007. Moreover, total hospital costs related to asthma jumped by 77% over roughly the same period, from $50 million to $89 million annually — and, again, Western Mass. has borne the worst of the increase.

    While noting that homeowners can reduce their own asthma triggers with certain home improvements, such as better ventilation systems, Sadof conceded that this is a bad time economically for people to make those sorts of changes.

    With that in mind, the PVAC continues to partner with organizations that have the resources to make a difference. “We want to increase the capacity of statewide and local partnerships, and address these issues at a community level,” Sadof said. Among the organization’s efforts are:

    • The Springfield Healthy Schools Initiative, a partnership with Springfield’s Department of Parks, Buildings and Recreation Management, which aims to improve indoor air quality in city schools and educate students about asthma;

    • Asthma Education for Kids Like You!, a general asthma-education outreach targeted at grades 3-5, which trains Nursing students from Elms College to deliver the program;

    • A project that educates school nurses in Springfield and Holyoke about asthma management, and provides asthma-related resources and materials, as well as putting together a School Nurse Asthma Conference in collaboration with the American Lung Assoc.; and

    • A project in conjunction with Square One to educate its staff about asthma, improve indoor air quality in its early-education facilities, and implement best practices to manage asthma.

      • Such programs are critical to improving the health of the region’s young people, Sadof said.

      “One school a few years back reported that more than 40% of the students had asthma,” he recalled. “Like other chronic illnesses, asthma requires ongoing medical assessment and self-care, and that happens not only in a medical setting, but in the home, in the community, and at school.”

      Better Living

      PVAC also focuses on healthy housing, with forums teaching people about asthma triggers in their homes, development of community resources to help homeowners minimize these triggers, and public advocacy aimed at reducing asthma triggers in public, subsidized, and private housing. The group also distributes educational material for parents of asthmatic children and pushes for legislation to improve access to medical care for individuals with asthma.

      Educating asthma sufferers about how to properly administer medicine is also important, Sadof said.

      “Many people I see in practice, when they have an asthma attack, are often taking their medicine improperly,” he told BusinessWest. “And it’s not that people don’t listen; it can be extremely complicated. People need to be reminded on a regular basis how to use their medicine properly.”

      Sadof is passionate about each of these points — and the programs the PVAC has set up to address them — because he knows that asthma doesn’t have to kill.

      “The sad thing is, here in 2009, you can live a completely normal life with asthma, but for many people in our community, it’s out of reach,” Sadof said. “For economic reasons, they don’t have access to health care, and they can’t make the changes in their environment that can decrease the triggers for asthma. It’s a crime.

      “Kids with asthma should be able to move around and play without coughing, but too often, that doesn’t happen.”

      So he continues to spread the word, understanding that it’s possible, with a little knowledge and effort, for asthma sufferers — even in the Pioneer Valley — to breathe a little easier.

      Joseph Bednar can be reached at

      [email protected]

      A Truly Inspirational Story

      By
      Chad Mullin
      Sections Supplements
      How Mary Lane’s Chad Mullin Went from Spinning News to Making It
      Chad Mullin

      Chad Mullin says he long desired his current job, and prepared for the day when he would compete for it.

      When Charles (Chad) Mullin was manager of public relations and marketing for Baystate Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, he would often “hang out” (his words) in departments such as radiology, cardiology, the lab, the sleep program, and others.

      “I was the ‘PR guy who just wouldn’t leave them alone,’” said Mullin, adding that he was fascinated with the new technologies and procedures put to use in those departments.

      Outwardly, he was looking for story angles for the internal publications for which he would write and edit, and also for ways to generate external press for the small, 31-bed hospital he joined in 1997.

      But there was much more going on.

      He was watching, learning, and appreciating the work being done, while also setting an ambitious career goal — to one day be the one leading those departments in the position known as director of Diagnostic Services.

      The position was occupied when he set that goal, of course, but he knew that someday it would be available. And he went about making himself job-ready — by taking the knowledge he had amassed and coupling it with an MBA he earned from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst in the spring of 2008.

      The day before commencement, his father passed away unexpectedly.

      “I still walked down the aisle to get my diploma,” said Mullin, adding that he did so more out of respect for his father than anything else. And a few months later, when the director of Diagnostic Services position did in fact come open, he showed that respect again.

      “My father was always saying that, if you want something in life, just do it,” said Mullin. “When I went back to school, I just wanted to get my education and to get this job.”

      And roughly a year ago, he was given the title he long coveted. The work, as he expected, is challenging and rewarding, and he enjoys just about everything about it.

      In this issue, BusinessWest looks at how Mullen made the unusual leap from PR to hospital administration, and how he’s settled into this important role.

      Hot Off the Press

      Not long after he arrived at Baystate Mary Lane, Mullin concluded that, despite its small size, this was a hospital he wanted to stay with — although not necessarily in that position.

      “For me, it’s the people, and the fact that you’re involved in a lot of decision-making,” said Mullin, adding that, soon after arriving, he got a real feel for the sense of what he called “family” that exists at the hospital. “Patients know employees, mothers bring their daughters, and eventually those daughters bring their daughters; there’s a real community connection here.”

      Mullin got to know every corner, every aspect of the hospital in his role as manager of public relations and marketing, a job he ascended to after serving for two years as a public-relations assistant at Baystate Medical Center. He actually started as an intern at Baystate, worked briefly in public relations for the Big E, and then returned to the medical center.

      At Mary Lane, Mullin was responsible for public-relations functions; internal employee, management, and medical staff communication; and marketing activities. He also coordinated special events. In the course of doing all that, he developed a keen understanding of how the hospital and its various departments, especially the diagnostic areas, worked — and how they could work more efficiently.

      All this contributed to Mullin’s goal of someday leading the diagnostics department, a progression he admitted was somewhat unusual, and perhaps only doable at a smaller hospital like Mary Lane.

      When now-former Diagnostics Director Bill Patten announced his plans to leave for another opportunity in the summer of ’08, Mullin had a lengthy talk with Mary Lane President and CEO Christine Shirtcliff about the position and his desire to hold it. Actually, he said he had spoken to her often about his desire to be in hospital administration at some point.

      What he told her — and BusinessWest — is that, while he lacked direct experience in administration, he had a thorough understanding of the hospital, its component parts, and how to remain competitive in the local health care market.

      “I think the 12 years of working here prior to seeking this role helped prepare me for it,” he explained, “because when you work in a small community hospital, you have exposure to a lot of clinical and non-clinical work. I had a good understanding of the operations arena.”

      This level of understanding was obviously communicated to those interviewing candidates, and the message resonated with them.

      As director of Diagnostic Services, Mullin supervises roughly 65 employees working in several different departments. They include Diagnostic Radiology, Mammography, Nuclear Medicine, Ultrasound, CT, Cardiology, Laboratory, the Sleep Program, Respiratory, and Outpatient Specialty Services.

      He knows all the numbers — 29,000 radiology exams a year, 165,000 lab tests, and 280 sleep studies — but, more importantly, he knows the people behind the numbers

      There was still a learning curve for Mullin, but he said he had — and still has — a good support network to help him in what is still a career in transition.

      “I knew going into the position that I wasn’t going to be out there on an island,” he explained. “That’s because Mary Lane is so integrated with Baystate Health that I knew I had people in Springfield — in radiology, in laboratory, and in the sleep program — that I could call at a moment’s notice to help me through any challenges that came up.”

      He describes his work as purely administrative, with the clinical link being the supervisors, or the “wheels on the ground,” as he called them, running each specific department. “They’re the ones managing most of the day-to-day clinical issues.”

      When asked about what a day in his new life is like, Mullin said this is much more of a 24/7 position than his previous work; now, as then, he carries a beeper. There are more meetings, obviously, both within the Mary Lane operation, and the Baystate system. Mullin appreciates the latter, because there is a sharing of ideas that can benefit his facility and all others under the Baystate umbrella.

      “You can share information about what works at your place, and they share information about what works at theirs,” he explained. “We’re always refining the way we deliver services here at Mary Lane.”

      And Mullin says the learning process never ends.

      “I’m still learning every day,” he said. “There are many facets to this position, and there is a lot involved with each of those patient-care areas. You’ll learn different ways of doing your job and how you can help your techs do their job every day.”

      The Bottom Line

      When asked if he had to write the press release for his own promotion a year ago, Mullin laughed and said that responsibility fell elsewhere.

      Clearly, he already had new responsibilities and a new job to learn and do.

      His father had told him that, if he wanted something in life, then he should just do it. This was something he wanted, and he did it.

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

      Tale of the Tape

      By
      Susan Guyer, left, and Tracey Dexter Matthews
      Sections Supplements
      Athletic Training Profession Grows in Popularity — and Responsibilities
      Susan Guyer, left, and Tracey Dexter Matthews

      Susan Guyer, left, and Tracey Dexter Matthews have seen interest in their profession steadily increase.

      Susan Guyer says that many of those who enroll in Springfield College’s four-year Athletic Training program do so with visions of working for the Boston Red Sox some day.

      That’s why she gives her students — and those thinking about becoming her students — what she calls a reality check. It comes in the form of hard statistics, and specifically the one about how fewer than 1% of the athletic trainers currently employed across the country are on the payrolls of top-level professional sports teams.

      This doesn’t seem to faze many of these individuals, nor should it, said Guyer, assistant professor of Athletic Training at SC. For starters, some of those who enroll in this program may very well become part of that small percentage; several of its graduates are now with major league teams, including Jim Rowe, head trainer with the Red Sox, and Barry Weinberg, head athletic trainer with the St. Louis Cardinals, among others. But more to the point, those who choose this program are drawn by an intriguing mix of medicine and sports, she explained, and most of them of them would be content no matter where they landed.

      And there are many possible destinations, from those aforementioned pro sports teams to colleges and high schools; from clinical settings such as physical therapy centers to military units. There are now more than 32,000 people making a living as athletic trainers, and that number grows every year, said Tracey Dexter Matthews, associate professor of Research & Statis-tics at SC.

      That’s because the need is escalating, she said, continuing a pattern that started more than 50 years ago. Indeed, there were only a few hundred athletic trainers in the late ’50s, and just a few thousand when Springfield College created its program — one of the first in the country and still one of the largest — in 1975.

      The profession, and programs to train those who want to enter it, have come a long way over the past 34 years, said Guyer, but progress has been slow to come in some areas, starting with the matter of identity.

      “Sometimes our name doesn’t clearly depict what we do; I was on a plane the other day, and when I told the person sitting next me I was an athletic trainer, she said, ‘can you help me get fit?’” said Guyer, citing the confusion between this profession and that of fitness, or personal, trainer. “It’s been a problem for a long time, but whenever we discuss a possible new name, no one can come up with one that works.”

      Meanwhile, salaries remain at levels below what those inside and outside the profession think they are or should be, although some improvement has been recorded. Those working at high schools usually earn in the mid-40s, said Dexter Matthews, while those with small, private colleges actually make considerably less, and the average salary for those working in professional baseball (all levels included) is still in the low 30s.

      At the top rung, however, the salary, benefits, perks, and other rewards can be substantial, Guyer continued, noting that trainers can earn bonuses, royalties, and even World Series and league championship shares and rings, as Rowe and Weinberg have.

      “Salary has been a battle — they’re not where we want them yet,” said Guyer. “But the numbers are improving; every time I look at the statistics, I get a little more encouraged.”

      And there remain some glass ceilings, Guyer continued, noting that there are hardly any women working at the top rung of professional sports — the NFL boasts one female assistant athletic trainer, with the Pittsburgh Steelers, for example — although she believes there will be a breakthrough, and soon.

      “Someone’s going to bust through the barrier; things are improving on many different levels,” she said, adding that interest in the program and the profession has remained steady and strong over the years. As for the salaries … “it’s not about money for these individuals; it’s a passion for being involved with athletes.”

      Field of Dreams

      When asked if there was a standard profile for students who enroll in SC’s program, Guyer said there’s nothing, really, beyond that aforementioned attraction to both sports and medicine, although the number of women getting involved is climbing. Indeed, for the first time last year, more than half of those enrolled in programs nationwide — 51%, to be specific — were women.

      But there are some personality traits shared by most students, she added quickly, noting that anyone who doesn’t like the sight of blood should look in another direction, career-wise. And, overall, a strong stomach is a prerequisite.

      “These are people who will look at the YouTube video of [former Washington Redskins quarterback] Joe Theismann getting his leg broken [the gruesome injury suffered in a 1985 game against the New York Giants] and watch it over and over and over again,” she said. “They’ll look at the tape, watch and learn, and say, ‘that’s a good knee injury,’ if you should be calling it that.”

      Dissecting such video is a small part of the process of learning the athletic trainer’s main duties — to “treat, rehabilitate, and diagnose injuries and illnesses,” Guyer continued, adding that, while the place of employment may vary from a local high school to a pro hockey team, the basic job description is essentially the same.

      But it’s a role that has evolved over the years, she said, adding that new responsibilities have been added as medicine, society, and attitudes about fitness and exercise have changed.

      To help explain it, Guyer used her own work as a trainer for SC’s women’s basketball team, and a season in that life, as an example. She said her work starts long before the first jump ball of the season, with thorough evaluations of each player.

      “I will check each one of them in a preventative strategy before the season starts, so we play a huge role in prevention,” she told BusinessWest. “We do height, weight, blood pressure, pulse; we do orthopedic screening, and we do overhead-squat screenings to see if they have any weaknesses or any limitations in motion. We do a full health history screeing and go through it to see if there are any red flags — do they have a history of concussion? do they have diabetes? Are they an individual that’s asthmatic? What medications are they on?

      “So we know a lot about this individual before they even step onto the court,” she continued, adding that, once the practice or a game begins, she’s also the first one on the scene if there’s an injury, such as a sprained ankle.

      In such a scenario, the athletic trainer will check out said ankle, diagnose the problem, treat it, and monitor the situation. “I’m going to choose whatever modality I want,” she explained, “whether it’s ice and ultrasound progressing to heat and laser-light therapy. I’m going to be doing all the rehabilitation, so I’m going to get the range of motion back, and the strength back, and the balance back.”

      And he or she also makes the decision about if and when the player is ready to return to the court (except in matters involving head injuries).

      “It’s the trainer’s decision,” she said, noting quickly that this responsibility will sometimes, and perhaps often, lead to disagreements with coaches and the injured players in question. This explains another of the skill sets expected, if not required, of graduates — the ability to effectively communicate with a host of constituencies, even the parents of players.

      And there’s more, Guyer continued, noting what she called a “psychosocial” element of the equation. Indeed, the athletic trainer is expected to help individuals cope with personal problems, common colds, and even eating disorders.

      The breadth and depth of the job description can be gathered from the list of foundational and professional courses students must take over their four years. The subject matter includes human anatomy, kinesiology and biomechanics, nutrition, ‘acute care of injury and illness,’ ‘risk management and injury/illness prevention,’ health care administration, therapeutic modalities, and ‘psychosocial intervention and referral.’

      In addition to work in the classroom, students must also complete field work TO gain hands-on experience. These are undertaken at area high schools, including Central in Springfield, Agawam, South-wick, and many others, and several colleges, including SC and UMass Amherst.

      This combination of classroom and field work has the graduate ready for many of the possible destinations for athletic trainers, said Dexter Matthews, noting that most all seniors who want to enter the field have jobs long before commencement, but many choose to go on to master’s degrees that could open more doors.

      That’s a Wrap

      Summing up the realm of the athletic trainer and its popularity, Guyer said simply, “we deal with healthy people who have had an injury.”

      This helps explain why this profession is more popular than some in the broad spectrum of health care, and why there has been a steady stream of interest in programs like that at Springfield College, even though the odds are very long that graduates will ever trot of the Red Sox dugout to check on Jacoby Ellsbury’s status after he’s had an encounter with the center-field wall.

      “If you have a student who’s looking at a college, and they like sport, and they like medicine, this is a perfect combination,” she explained. “If you go into another profession, you’re not guaranteed to work with a physically active population that has few, if any, outside problems, like stroke.”

      In other words, it’s enjoyable, rewarding work, even if you never get to take home a World Series ring.

      George O’Brien can be reached at

      [email protected]

      Taxing Situations

      By
      Sections Supplements
      Some Recent Developments in the Law Bear Watching

      Congress continues to pass a variety of new laws, many of which have significant implications for individuals and businesses. What follows is a summary of some key developments enacted during the second quarter of 2009.

      Guidance on the Limited Subsidy for COBRA

      The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides a 65% subsidy for COBRA continuation premiums for up to nine months for workers who have been involuntarily terminated, and for their families. This subsidy also applies to health care continuation coverage for small employers if required by states (including Massachusetts, other than employers with fewer than 11 employees).

      In most instances, the federal subsidy works as follows: the employer advances the 65% subsidy to the health plan and is reimbursed through a payroll tax credit. To qualify for premium assistance, a worker must be involuntarily terminated between Sept. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2009. The subsidy is not taxable when received, but higher-income recipients — those with modified adjusted gross income above $125,000 ($250,000 for joint filers) — will have to pay back part or all of it at tax return time. This subsidy has been the subject of much guidance from the IRS, posted at www.irs.gov. This guidance includes the following posts:

      • In early May, the IRS posted Q & As on its Web site providing additional guidance on recovery of the COBRA premium subsidy by way of a payroll credit claimed on Form 941, and clarifying when the subsidy begins and ends.

      • In late May, the Department of Labor released a form that terminated workers (or their qualifying family members) can use to request expedited review of their being denied the COBRA premium subsidy.
      • In early June, the IRS added 19 new Q & As confirming that the premium subsidy will not be reported to the IRS or the recipients on either Form W-2 or Form 1099. The IRS also clarified a number of other topics, including events that will be treated as involuntary termination for COBRA subsidy purposes, determination of who is entitled to claim the payroll tax credit for the premium subsidy, and certain record-keeping requirements.

        • Business Cell-phone Substantiation Requirements

        An employee may exclude from gross income the business use of an employer-provided cell phone as a working-condition fringe benefit. However, because cell phones are so-called listed property, strict substantiation requirements must be satisfied for business cell-phone usage to qualify for the exclusion. Additionally, any personal usage of an employer-provided cell phone is a taxable fringe benefit. Thus, the current rules require documentation of the business and personal use of the cell phone. The IRS is currently considering three alternative methods to simplify the substantiation requirements applicable to employee usage of employer-provided cell phones: a minimal personal-use method, a safe-harbor substantiation method, and a statistical sampling method (or some combination of the three).

        Cash for Clunkers Law

        President Obama recently signed legislation into law that gives a cash incentive for individuals and businesses to trade in older gas-guzzling vehicles for new and more fuel-efficient ones. The incentive takes the form of a voucher of $3,500 or $4,500 depending on the type of vehicle traded in and the fuel efficiency of the vehicle purchased. The new vehicle must be purchased between July 1 and Nov. 1, 2009. The vouchers are not treated as gross income for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code (or for federal or state assistance programs).

        IRA Rollover Pitfall to Avoid

        Subject to certain limited exceptions, withdrawing funds from an IRA before reaching age 59 1/2 triggers a 10% penalty. One way to avoid the penalty is to take a series of substantially equal periodic payments (SOSE or SOSEPP), not less frequently than annually, for the life (or life expectancy) of the IRA owner or the joint lives (or joint life expectancies) of the IRA owner and his designated beneficiary.

        The IRS has been fairly unforgiving on inadvertent, good-faith errors with respect to SOSEPPS. In one case, an owner took advantage of this exception, but later moved her IRA funds out of equities and into safer certificates of deposit at another institution after the market soured. In a private ruling, the IRS said that this move triggered the 10% penalty for all years going back to when she started taking the periodic payments. The IRS said that the rollover of the IRA to the new institution was a modification of the periodic payments that triggered imposition of the back penalties under a so-called recapture rule. It was irrelevant that the move was inspired by safety concerns, and that the individual was willing to take the payments out of the new IRA.

        The IRS also refused to allow her to correct the situation by placing the funds back into the original IRA. Note, however, that a new private ruling issued on July 17 indirectly calls that conclusion into question. The ruling provides relief where an amount was erroneously rolled over into the IRA from which periodic payments were being taken following a rollover from the original IRA from which the payments commenced. The ruling did not affirmatively address whether the original rollover constituted a modification, but assumed that it did not.

        Note also an education exception to this somewhat harsh rule. Another litigated matter involved a taxpayer who took advantage of the SOSEPP exception. She subsequently varied the amount to access additional funds for her son’s education. The IRS maintained that this was a modification, triggering the penalty. However, the Tax Court overruled the IRS, holding that there is no penalty because of the exception for IRA funds withdrawn before age 59 1/2 for education, and that the rules allow an individual to qualify for more than one exception at the same time.

        Claiming Motor-vehicle Sale-tax Deduction

        For 2009, there is a new deduction for state and local sales and excise taxes paid on the purchase of new cars, light trucks, motor homes, and motorcycles after Feb. 16, 2009 and before Jan. 1, 2010. The deduction generally is available regardless of whether you itemize deductions on Schedule A or claim the standard deduction. The deduction is limited to the tax on up to $49,500 of the purchase price of an eligible motor vehicle.

        This dollar limitation is imposed on a per-vehicle basis, so taxpayers can deduct taxes on one or more purchases of qualifying motor vehicles, up to the limit on each one.

        New Guidance on Life Settlements

        The IRS recently lifted some of the uncertainty surrounding life settlements by explaining their tax consequences. Until recently, individuals who no longer needed a life-insurance policy had few options: they could surrender the policy to the issuing insurance company for its cash-surrender value, or they could stop paying the premiums and let the policy lapse. For a term insurance or other policy without cash-surrender value, the only choice was to let the policy lapse.

        Now, for some individuals, there is a secondary insurance market in which they may be able to sell a policy for more than its cash-surrender value or even sell a policy without cash-surrender value, such as a term policy. These transactions are called life settlements.

        This is an important development for anyone contemplating a life settlement because they will now be in a position to gauge how much they will be left with after tax once they reach an agreement on the settlement amount and fees.

        Brenda Doherty is a partner with the Springfield-based firm Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury, & Murphy P.C. She practices in the areas of corporate law, estate planning, and taxation; (413) 733-3111.

        Cracking the Whip

        By
        Lisa McMahon
        Features
        Westfield Charts Progress Downtown and in Its Industrial Parks
        Lisa McMahon

        Lisa McMahon, seen at Westfield’s Farmers Market, says there is a great deal of interest in downtown real estate.

        Moving like a freight train.

        That’s the speedy-sounding metaphor Westfield Mayor Michael Boulanger used to describe the forces transforming both his city’s downtown and overall immediate future. As he delved into the details, the description doesn’t seem far off.

        A city with a long history evident in three centuries of architecture along its city green, Westfield dates to the 1660s as the westernmost outpost of the Massachusetts Colony. In its heyday, it was a manufacturing center for bricks, cigars, and the buggy whips that give the city its nickname. Today, more than 40,000 people inhabit its 47 square miles, with a median income of around $45,500.

        Westfield has long been free from many of the social ills plaguing its regional peers. It boasts steady home prices, a low crime rate, and a solid middle-class population have made the Whip City something of an anomaly in the Pioneer Valley.

        While other former mill cities strive to shore up their communities from decades of urban blight, Westfield has its eyes on a larger prize, nothing short of transformation into a destination city, not unlike nearby Northampton. In this latest community profile, BusinessWest talks to some of those people with the lofty, yet very real, goals of making that happen.

        Home Court Advantage

        Nationwide, economic development has been as stagnant as the summer’s heat. But Westfield boasts new-business planning that most communities can only dream of. Boulanger sat at the head of his conference table recently to outline the details of that “freight train” he described.

        “Contrary to what the Massachusetts economy, or that of the nation, has shown in terms of a lack of growth, well, there’s a lot of stuff happening here now,” he said. Indeed, there is.

        The undeveloped areas of land around Barnes Airport on the north side of the city are proving to be fertile grounds for significant growth. Home Depot had already operated a regional facility in that section of town, but plans are underway for a $25 million rapid-deployment center in Campanelli Industrial Park.

        “That facility will be the regional distribution facility for all the Home Depots in Eastern New York State, as well as New England,” said Boulanger. “That’s a 675,000-square foot facility, and that to us is huge.”

        Not only did Westfield successfully keep the facility within city limits after sites in Connecticut were considered as potential hosts, but officials estimate that 150 new jobs will be added to the city’s workforce.

        Also scheduled for construction in Campanelli Industrial Park is a $400 million power plant owned by the Pioneer Valley Energy Corp. Boulanger noted that all permitting is in place; phase two of the project, involving gas lines from Southwick, is underway; and the site promises a substantial contribution for the city’s tax coffers. “We’re expecting annual revenues for Westfield to be around $3.2 million,” Boulanger said.

        Why Westfield? Boulanger was happy to expound on the relative strengths of his community. “We had the space available, first and foremost, and not many other places did, really, for facilities of that size,” he explained. “We’ve got the airport right there for corporate needs, we’re at the axis of highways going north-south and east-west, we’re close to a major city, Springfield, as well as a commercial airport. In the case of Home Depot, Westfield is centralized for all the facilities for the stores they need to service.”

        Boulanger noted that new growth is not limited to the industrial park. Barnes & Noble plans to open a 10,000-square-foot facility incorporating a Starbucks café in the city common, with a target date for business beginning in summer 2010. “That will be a huge anchor point for other establishments to build off that brand and its presence,” he said. The retailer’s college-bookstore division also signed an agreement in principle with Westfield State College, with business to begin in October of this year at the campus.

        In a statement, WSC President Evan Dobelle noted that Barnes & Noble was unanimously recommended to be the school’s managing bookseller, adding that “they have been highly successful in communities of all sizes.”

        But the bookstore isn’t all that the city and college will be sharing.

        Head of the Class

        When BusinessWest recently turned its focus on Westfield, the big news was Boulanger and Dobelle agreeing to join forces in using downtown student housing to spur revitalization in the city’s center. The two understand that a college community is dependent on both town and gown for reciprocal strength and vitality. Boulanger said that the plan is moving along, and that he “couldn’t be more pleased.”

        “The college had put out requests for proposals for student quarters in the downtown area a few months ago,” he said; that process has closed and is being reviewed by the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM). “That office will come out with some decisions on those housing locations in a few weeks, so we can use that as a springboard for other projects in downtown.

        “Revitalization of downtown is really college-dependent at this point,” Boulanger continued, adding that “the close partnership with the college is very strong, and I do know that they want to do this as much as we do. This really will serve as the catalyst for commercial and economic growth.”

        Dobelle is no stranger to town-and-gown collaborations, nor, for that matter, the corner office itself. For two terms back in the early 1970s, he served as mayor of Pittsfield. Since then, he has been president at four different colleges; he became the 19th president of WSC in December 2007. While at Trinity College in Hartford, he successfully led efforts to utilize the school’s strengths to strengthen the poor neighborhoods surrounding the school.

        “Westfield has an affluence that you don’t find in a lot of cities,” Dobelle told BusinessWest. “But the reality is that the dollars spent in Westfield are drawn out of the city because there aren’t places for that money to be spent here, be it retail or entertainment.”

        The plan to house students downtown has a definite target date for move-in day for the fall 2010 semester, but Dobelle said it could realistically happen as early as the beginning of next year.

        He sees WSC as an “anchor tenant” for downtown Westfield, and belives that, once people with disposable income start moving into those locations, business can be viable and successful, with a chain reaction taking place whereby the public sector wants to be a part of that vibrant culture. Locally, the turnaround of Northamp-ton’s downtown in the 1980s and ’90s is often cited as an example.

        When the Great River Bridge (Elm Street) construction project is completed, the village green is redone, and the infrastructure of the city is repaired in a couple of years, Dobelle hopes that WSC will have proved to be the catalyst for a bustling city center like that of other college towns across the nation. He sees his role as president of a public college having even more of a place in that collaboration.

        “When a public college is subsidized by the taxpayers, then there is a responsibility,” he said. “I could build dormitories on the campus and then not pay any taxes. But doing this is a more-responsible way to be respectful of the local property owners and the taxpayers subsidizing our institution.”

        Home Improvements

        When WSC successfully integrates into the city’s downtown, it won’t be the first agent of change in the historic center.

        In the summer of 2006, the wheels were set in motion for the third Business Improvement District in the Commonwealth, located in Westfield. Lisa McMahon is executive director of the WBID, noted that, like other small to mid-size American cities, “strip malls took their toll on downtown’s economy. The Chamber of Commerce, the business community, and also City Hall agreed that our downtown was not well-represented.”

        Like most people in the city, McMahon said that the collaboration with WSC puts some planning into a holding pattern. Once DCAM knows where those student-housing units will be, the private sector will follow. More than just director of the BID, McMahon has become a liaison to interested developers.

        “I’ve become a bit of a connector,” she said, adding that “I’m familiar with the real-estate stock in the city, so I’ll get calls from people both here and out of the area, saying, ‘I’m looking for x square feet,’ or ‘I need a storefront or a second floor.’

        “I’ve walked around downtown with developers from all over,” she continued, “from Eastern Mass., from New York, who are all interested in downtown; they’re interested in the potential and the possibilities here.”

        Students’ feet on the streets translates into consumers with money to spend, and the business community knows that. McMahon said that some of the calls she has been fielding reflect that demographic. “We have someone who is interested in opening a fish market, another a clothing store, a chocolatier, all these different people who are really interested and who want to get in on the ground floor here,” she said.

        In fact, McMahon said the response has been so overwhelming that the WBID has pulled back on its advertising of commercial properties due to the sheer volume of calls.

        But the WBID isn’t limited in scope to attracting new blood to the city center. During a well-attended ‘Farmers Market,’ one of the agency’s initiatives, McMahon told of what the BID means for the city. Like others of its kind, the agency strives to make the city, in its words, “a clean, attractive, safe, well-programmed, and aggressively promoted location in which to live, conduct business, shop, and visit.”

        From the Farmers Market to concerts on the Green; from holiday lights and decorating vacant storefronts downtown to programs for youths, seniors, free health care, and adult literacy, the WBID has become a one-stop “New Deal” for Westfield, she said, adding that assistance from the city has been vital to her own successes.

        “All of these things — Summer Sounds, the Farmers Market, and more, we wouldn’t be able to do any of them if we didn’t have the cooperation of the Parks and Recreation commission, the licensing commission, the City Council, the restaurateurs,” she said. “Even here, right now, the church across the street gives us their parking lot.

        “People want to see downtown succeed,” she continued. “From the Gas & Electric linesmen who help us with lights on the common to the Police Department, everyone pitches in. It would never be able to happen if we didn’t have collaborations from everyone in the city. People are community-minded, and they want to see change.”

        As a benchmark of the WBID’s success, McMahon said a number of properties originally opted out of the BID, “but many have since contacted us to say, ‘how do we get in? We want to be part of the BID, we want to be on the Web site, we want to be on the flyers that come out.’”

        Overall, she said the city is responding positively to all that the WBID has done. “People stop you on the street and say, ‘we appreciate what you are doing here.’”

        Summing things up, McMahon said the city is in a holding pattern for further development now, but not for long.

        In just a few weeks, the first wave of college students will find out their new potential addresses in the city center for next year. From students to the new development that follows, it seems clear that Westfield is cracking the whip anew, and is charting a new course for success.

        OPINION

        By
        Opinion
        Retooling the Medicare/Medicaid Model

        National health reform is on a fast track. And most proposals draw heavily on the experiment in Massachusetts, which has led to a phenomenal coverage success. But there is a lesser-known innovation in Massachusetts that may offer greater lessons to our nation in improving health and lowering cost. It is called Senior Care Options, and it targets a population largely ignored by health reform — seniors. To understand its novelty, a quick review of Medicare and Medicaid is instructive.

        Both public programs are overseen through one federal agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Medicare is administered by the federal government and provides health insurance to seniors 65 and older. Medicaid is funded by the states and the federal government, but administered by individual states. It provides insurance to low-income families, disabled individuals, and seniors. Families represent three-quarters of Medicaid’s enrollment, but only 30% of the costs. Seniors account for much of the rest.

        A child on Medicaid costs $1,700 per year. A senior in a nursing home costs $70,000. Herein lies an irony. Medicare was created to provide care for seniors. But that care is putting the greatest pressure on state Medicaid budgets. Why? Medicare does not pay for most long-term care services — the most expensive care for this population. And since most seniors cannot afford long-term care, once they become frail they ‘spend down’ their assets (or previously transferred them to their children) to qualify for Medicaid.

        In order to deal with this growing burden, states are investing in innovative community supports and services — like home health and personal-care services — to keep seniors out of nursing homes. To do this well, a state must effectively manage the entire care for this population. But for the 9 million nationally who are on both Medicaid and Medicare, it is almost impossible to do so. This is because each program operates in its own silo with different rules, providers, and services, resulting in enormous fragmentation and added cost. And this cost is significant. Seniors in this circumstance — so-called ‘dual-eligibles’ — account for more than $200 billion in spending per year.

        Enter Senior Care Options. Massa-chusetts and CMS entered into a novel experiment in 2004. For dual-eligible seniors, Medicare and Medicaid both provide funding to Senior Care Options organizations, which are responsible for managing all care. The organizations provide care that best meets the needs of individuals without separate funding sources and rules to fragment care. Care is fully coordinated, and patients and their families are actively involved in decisions about their health.

        The program has had impressive results. Enrollment in this state now tops 11,000 and has increased each year. (Senior Care Options is not available in all regions of the state, and as a voluntary program does not cover all those eligible.) One recent survey found that customer satisfaction was generally very high. Another showed that those in these organizations entered nursing homes at a rate that was 25% lower than those not in the program.

        Senior Care Options teaches that seamless coordination of care is critical to success. Yet, the arcane design of Medicaid and Medicare presents major obstacles. As a result, very few other states have successfully replicated this model, and the care for most dual-eligibles remains largely unintegrated.

        As Congress considers a new public plan, shouldn’t we better align the public plans that already exist? The Obama administration can reorganize CMS so that it focuses as much on the unique needs of populations as it does on the rules of payment. CMS should create a program integration unit devoted exclusively to breaking down silos between the two programs and working with states to eliminate barriers to seamless care for dual-eligibles. Doing so will go a long way to reducing costs — and free up resources for more far-reaching reform.

        Douglas S. Brown is senior vice president and general counsel of UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester and a former state Medicaid director.

        Who’s Looking Inside Your Business?

        By
        Sections Supplements
        Some Words of Wisdom from a ‘Certified Ethical Hacker’

        Most companies recognize basic security as part of the cost of doing business. However, leaving your information systems exposed is a lot like leaving your front door unlocked 24/7.

        Even very small businesses can attract unwanted attention from those with the skills to infiltrate their information systems, including servers, applications, and operating systems. And chances are, if they’ve been there, you may not even know it without the help of a forensics expert.

        Because many organizations are unaware of the risk of computer attacks, technology security tends to be an afterthought in both small and large companies. Information technology (IT) professionals feel great pressure to maximize functionality and speed, and security controls are often credited with slowing the processes.

        However, when the proper security devices and procedures are built into IT systems on the front end, they can become seamless and efficient while also providing far greater protection from hackers and other security risks.

        As a certified ethical hacker and certified information systems auditor, I am trained to hack into my clients’ systems, just as an unauthorized hacker would. An ethical hacker is an individual who is employed with or by an organization and who can be trusted to undertake an attempt to break into networks and/or computer systems to discover and address vulnerabilities in corporate, governmental, and institutional information systems.

        Hacking is a felony in the U.S. and most other countries. But when it is done by request and under a contract between an ethical hacker and an organization, it is legal. Ethical hackers help municipalities and other government bodies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations to become more secure.

        Who’s a Hacker?

        Hackers come in many forms, and their intent to harm can vary as well. So-called ‘black-hat hackers’ break into Web-interface applications to gain access to servers to steal information or vandalize systems. But malicious behavior can also come from people you know by name — for instance, disgruntled employees. These individuals can cause public-relations problems, such as defacing your Web site or getting access to credit cards and Social Security numbers.

        Hackers target all types of organizations, including professional firms, private and public companies, government, and nonprofit institutions — so all need to take security precautions. The good news is that many of these precautions are neither difficult nor expensive to implement.

        Common Weaknesses

        Fortunately, some of the most common security weaknesses require little to no cost to address.

        Using proper password complexity to secure data is a perfect example. Lack of proper passwords or weak passwords are considered ‘low-hanging fruit’ among hackers. By trying a brute-force-automated attack software that attempts 150 passwords per second, a five-character password can be cracked in less than 24 hours. Default password settings in hardware can also represent an open window to hackers.

        Often, the passwords associated with the hardware aren’t changed after purchase, so the manufacturer’s default password is the only protection against intrusion. For example, if your firm installs a Cisco router and the password isn’t reset, a hacker can easily infiltrate your network because manufacturers’ default passwords are available to anyone on the Internet.

        Poor access controls are also a common weakness within computer networks. Creating policies and procedures to manage access to the network and specific applications is essential to network security. Many organizations fail to eliminate ‘phantom users,’ such as former employees, from their systems, leaving the door open to individuals who may wish to cause embarrassment or damage.

        We encourage clients to implement user ID auditing to ensure that the right people are on the system at any given time, with the right credentials and the appropriate security access.

        Trends in Hacking

        Another trend in hacking should be of particular concern to smaller businesses, municipalities, and educational institutions. Hackers who want to steal information or create damage at a high-visibility target, like a major corporation, need to do so under the cloak of anonymity to avoid being caught and prosecuted.

        To do that, they hack first into smaller, more vulnerable organizations and harvest that site’s credentials — IP numbers and other identifying information — and take on that identity when hacking the primary target. This represents a problem for the smaller organization because the larger company can argue that a lack of proper security allowed the fraud to be committed.

        Protecting Your Virtual Assets

        A vulnerability assessment is an effective way to protect your organization against hackers and malicious intruders. In a vulnerability assessment, a certified ethical hacker attempts to break into an organization’s systems and identify areas of weakness. This results in an analysis and specific recommendations for implementing security technologies, as well as policies and procedures to control and monitor access to the system.

        After six months, a followup benchmark analysis is conducted to ensure that all recommendations were implemented and are working properly. The service offers a high return on investment, not to mention peace of mind.

        Michelle D. Syc, MsAIT, CISA, CEH, a certified ethical hacker and certified information system auditor, heads the Informa-tion Technology (IT) Assurance Service Group at Kostin, Ruffkess & Co., LLC, with offices in Farmington and New London, Conn., as well as Springfield. She evaluates information systems to identify vulnerabilities and recommends solutions to mitigate security weaknesses; (860) 678-6000;[email protected]

        Protecting Personal Information

        By
        Sections Supplements
        New Law Affects Virtually Every Business in the Commonwealth

        It’s referred to as ‘201 CMR 17.’ It’s better known as the state’s tough new law regarding the protection of personal information, and business owners have considerable work to do if they and their employees are to be ready by the deadline for compliance with this legislation — Jan. 1, 2010.

        The law, passed into law in August 2007, requires that all businesses and individuals that own, license, store, and maintain ‘personal information’ — that’s now a legal term with its own definition — have in place a comprehensive plan to protect that information and help prevent security breaches like the one at TJX Co. in 2006 that led to the theft of more than 45 million customer credit- and debit-card numbers and prompted calls for such legislation.

        Since nearly every enterprise in the Commonwealth falls into this category, the law will have a significant and potentially costly impact on the business community and individual companies. And it will have teeth, in the form of penalties that could reach $5,000 for each violation, in addition to other potential liabilities for investigative and restitution costs.

        This is legislation that will make nearly every business owner somewhat painfully familiar with the acronym WISP, or ‘written information security program,’ which all businesses must have to be in compliance, and which must be comprehensive enough to meet a 32-point checklist promulgated by the state relative to maintaining the personal information and electronic records of customers and clients.

        The original deadline to comply with 201 CMR 17 was last Jan. 1, but the timeline was extended to May 1 amid protests from the business community and calls for more time to comply, and was extended again until next Jan. 1. There is no talk of any further extensions, so the time to act is now.

        What follows is a primer on the new regulations and a comprehensive assessment of what business owners and managers must do to be ready for, and in compliance with, the new law.

        By the Book

        Perhaps the place to start is with that definition of personal information (PI), as set forth in the new regulations: In this case, it refers to any Massachusetts resident’s last name and first name and any of the following: a Social Security number, a driver’s license number, a financial account number (credit card or debit card), or an access code that would allow one to access that person’s financial information.

        With that definition, and given the profound growth in electronic financial transactions, it’s clear to see the broad impact of the measure. First, it impacts every business that employs Massachusetts residents, and it involves each and every service provider and professional, from accountants and attorneys to retail stores and physicians’ offices — virtually every conceivable business or entity that maintains even a bare minimum of financial or personal information regarding its customers.

        To be in compliance with the new law, all applicable businesses must have in place a comprehensive WISP. Such plans dictate that businesses owners must:

        • Include administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for personal information protection;
        • Designate employees to maintain and supervise the comprehensive security program;
        • Identify the paper, electronic, and other records and electronic storage systems (e.g. computers) that contain personal information;
        • Identify and evaluate foreseeable internal and external risks to paper and electronic records containing personal information;
        • Include regular, ongoing employee training and procedures for monitoring employee compliance, including disciplinary measures for violators;
        • Determine procedures for immediately blocking terminated employees’ access to company records;
        • Thoroughly analyze the capacity of third-party service providers (payroll, accounting, legal) to comply with the requirements of this section, including requiring the certification of such third-party service providers and an analysis of the location where physical records are stored, including assuring security and ongoing monitoring to ensure and prevent unauthorized access to such records;
        • Conduct an annual review of security measures; and
        • Establish significant and specific regulations requiring the storage of electronic records, including the use and nature of passwords and user identifications, the encryptions of personal information records and files transmitted in an E-mail or wireless capacity, the encryption of laptops and other portable devices, up-to-date firewall protection, system security agent software and virus protection, and employee training regarding such computer security.

          • There can be no question that the aforementioned laundry list of requirements will impose some financial obligations on the impacted individuals and businesses.

          In fact, as the Commonwealth recently acknowledged in its “fiscal effect and small-business impact statement” relative to the new legal requirements, businesses that will be affected “may be subject to increased costs related to establishing and/or maintaining the comprehensive, written information security program” that is required by the new regulations.

          Information Is Power

          Meanwhile, the new law will change day-to-day operations at most every business because of the way it will change the way customer data is handled. Business owners should expect to confront displeasure and opposition from employees who will be forced to deal with encrypted devices and jump through extra hoops within their daily business routines.

          The new regulation will affect anyone who must move sensitive customer information via an electronic device, such as a USB flash drive, laptop, or PDA (Blackberry, iPhone, etc.), including both office workers and those who work from home.

          How will workers cope with these changes in the protection of personal client information? For starters, they will need to be trained in how to handle PI and adjust to changes initiated by new password policies and E-mail encryption. Depending upon the sensitivity of your company’s customer data, the new password policy and encryption software have the potential to significantly impact the way your employees conduct business.

          Encrypting E-mail is one of the many methods of PI protection. Some solutions will force 100% compliance, and others will leave more discretion in the hands of employees, so business owners and managers must balance your company’s need for security against employee inconvenience. The varying levels of E-mail encryption available include:

          • Software that scans all E-mails and attachments, then automatically determines if PI is necessary and encrypts the E-mail before sending it;

          • Manual encryption of E-mail, giving the worker the ability to determine which E-mails need to be encrypted before sending; and
          • Encryption of all E-mail, regardless of whether it contains any PI.

            • Allowing the decision whether to encrypt to be made on a case-by-case basis by employees may not be in the best interest for your company. Most workers will probably not want the responsibility for making this decision, so one of the remaining two options may be preferable. It may also be in the best interest of your company to remove the risk for error from your employees because most breaches of PI are the result of employee error or improper handling of information.

            Another major risk to your customers’ PI security is your employees’ portable devices. Compliance with the new law will require that data encryption be used on any portable device that transfers sensitive PI. All company laptops and USB thumb drives will require encryption software to prevent any information from being accessed if the device is lost or stolen. One suggestion to start with is TruCrypt (www.truecrypt.org) to protect your company’s laptops. This is free encryption software.

            Another popular communication tool that is heavily utilized in today’s business world is the PDA. This device facilitates the transfer of personal data between clients and your employees, so protecting PI on handhelds is an area of concern.

            Those businesses that use PDAs for E-mail purposes and either transfer PI or synch with a server that can access PI will have to enforce the use of passwords on all handheld devices used by their employees, whether personally or company-owned. Handhelds without passwords are vulnerable to information theft because the data on the device is not encrypted. This means that the information sent via unencrypted E-mail or text message to a handheld device such as a Blackberry, Palm Pilot, or iPhone is not protected, and anyone who could gain physical control of the handheld device would have access to the data.

            Passwords on handheld devices won’t be the only change users will have to face. Part of the new regulation mandates more-stringent password policies and forces the use of stronger passwords and frequent password changes. This new password policy may be an inconvenience to workers who are not used to being so security-conscious.

            It is worth noting that the modifications made by the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation resulting in the extended Jan. 1, 2010 compliance date additionally softened the requirements imposed upon impacted businesses to verify compliance of third-party service provides (e.g. payroll companies) with the OCABR regulations.

            Rather than contractually requiring such providers to maintain the privacy safeguards, when the regulations take effect, businesses will need only to take “all reasonable steps to verify that any third-party service provider with access to personal information has the capacity to protect such personal information in the manner provided” pursuant to the regulations.

            As significant and onerous as these obligations may be, it is equally important for individuals and businesses storing personal information to understand fully the potential penalties for violation of the provisions of the new regulations — those fines of up to $5,000 — and the fact that compliance of the new regulations will fall upon the Office of the Attorney General pursuant to Chapter 93A, the Mass. Consumer Protection Statute, which provides for double and treble damages in the case of certain violations.

            There can be no question that,

            with the new privacy regulations, Massachusetts is ushering in a new era of strict regulatory compliance relative to how businesses store personal information regarding its customers. Only with careful and prudent analysis of the new requirements will companies be able to ensure compliance and, perhaps more importantly, prevent a future instance of a TJX-like data breach. n

            Jeffrey Fialky is an associate with the regional law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C, specializing in business, corporate, municipal, and real-estate law; (413) 781-0560;[email protected]. John D. Chavis is the systems administrator at Bacon Wilson, P.C. He is responsible for all hardware and software applications and implementing solutions that comply with the new personal information security regulations;baconwilson.com.

            By
            Departments

            The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

            CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT

            Tamara Gordievsky v. Spring Valley Mart
            Allegation: Negligence in property maintenance, causing injury: $2,557.03
            Filed: 7/14/09

            FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT

            Cindy Foster, Executor of the Estate of Karen Marquis v. Uma Raghunathan, M.D.
            Allegation: Defendant’s failure to properly treat Marquis’ medical condition led to her death: $25,000
            Filed: 6/30/09

            Mary English and Margaret Perri v. Lifetyme Exteriors, LLC
            Allegation: Breach of home repairs and painting contract: $37,946.15
            Filed: 7/10/09

            Sally Orluk and Walter Jarvi v. Richard & Paula Sheridan and Orange Oil Company Inc.
            Allegation: Improperly installed heating unit, causing property damage and personal injury: $546,192.15
            Filed: 7/23/09

            GREENFIELD DISTRICT COURT

            Crystal L. DeMaria v. Green River Honda
            Allegation: Negligent failure to repair motorcycle, causing accident and personal injury: $3,262.05
            Filed: 6/18/09

            Leader Home Center Inc. v. W. Kulig Inc.
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $14,073.85
            Filed: 6/11/09

            Oldcastle Precast Inc. v. Blue Waters Marine Aggregates, LLC
            Allegation: Defendant’s agent, while driving a tractor, negligently damaged the trailer in an accident: $12,000
            Filed: 6/10/09

            HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

            Alan E. Pranka v. Harman Stove Co., et al
            Allegation: Product liability: $209,070.65
            Filed: 6/22/09

            JoAnne Grybosh v. Hartley Brother Landscaping Inc.
            Allegation: Breach of contract: $118,000
            Filed: 7/2/09

            Mark P. Soticheck v. CRS Environmental, LLC
            Allegation: Breach of employment contract: $53,500
            Filed: 6/30/09

            Marlin Controls Inc. v. Lapinsky Electric Inc.
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $35,584.32
            Filed: 7/2/09

            Michael A. Lind and Lisa A. Bishop, Jointly as Administrators of the Estate of Corey M. Lind v. Domino’s Pizza Inc. and Alex A. Morales
            Allegation: Compensatory and punitive damages resulting from negligent supervision and wrongful death: $15 million
            Filed: 6/16/09

            OFC Capital Corporation v. Berkshire-Westwood Graphics Group Inc.
            Allegation: Non-payment of promissory notes: $417,149.06
            Filed: 7/14/09

            Ryder Transportation Services v. Berkshire-Westwood Graphics Group
            Allegation: Non-payment of truck lease and service agreement: $36,289.64
            Filed: 6/08/09

            Susan Mani v. United Bank and Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury, and Murphy, P.C.
            Allegation: Breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and conversion: $13,441,340
            Filed: 6/25/09

            United Cooperative Bank v. Washington Mutual Bank
            Allegation: Breach of warranty; defendant cashed forged instrument and then presented to United Bank for payment: $38,066.89
            Filed: 6/15/09

            HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT

            Christopher G. and Sarah D. Pelkey v. Veterans of Foreign Wars No. 8006
            Allegation: Dram shop liability: $111,731.49
            Filed: 7/06/09

            Don Lia, et al v. Environmental Compliance Services Inc.
            Allegation: Damages resulting from breach of contract for environmental consulting services: $20 million
            Filed: 7/21/09
            Green & Sons Inc. v. Protestant Episcopal Church
            Allegation: Non-payment of construction goods and services: $576,953.20
            Filed: 7/20/09

            Universal Forest Products Eastern Division Inc. v. Trak Petroleum, LLC and Patrick Tannous
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $15,184.45
            Filed: 7/30/09

            HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

            Cook Builders Supply Company Inc. v. Ryan Landscaping
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $6,412.41
            Filed: 7/16/09

            Lora Barrett v. B.F. Donuts Inc. d/b/a Dunkin Donuts
            Allegation: Failure to maintain entryway, causing injuries: $17,690
            Filed: 6/08/09

            NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT

            Designcrete of America, LLC v. Stone Soup Concrete, LLC d/b/a Kustom Decokrete
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $2,693.02
            Filed: 7/8/09

            L. Francis Dionne v. Northampton Ford Inc.
            Allegation: Failure to deliver purchased vehicle and failure to return purchase price upon written demand: $12,221
            Filed: 6/26/09

            Premier Supply Group Inc. v. Al’s Heating & Cooling Inc.
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $4,886.24
            Filed: 6/30/09

            Premier Supply Group Inc. v. Advanced Mechanical Services, LLC
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $24,179.57
            Filed: 6/30/09

            TBF Financial, LLC v. Somatic Systems Institute Inc.
            Allegation: Plaintiff seeks to recover damages for breach of a business lease: $8,149.47
            Filed: 7/22/09

            PALMER DISTRICT COURT

            Alexander and Karen Averette v. Good Deal Auto
            Allegation: Breach of contract for purchase of motor vehicle: $10,000
            Filed: 6/16/09

            BRT Extrusions Inc. v. Ledlight Illuminated Signs, LLC
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $4,168.17
            Filed: 6/15/09

            Capital One Bank, N.A. v. Carter McLeod Realty Company, LLC
            Allegation: Monies owed for credit advanced: $4,279.37
            Filed: 6/05/09

            SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT

            Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. F.W. Dwyer Co., LLC
            Allegation: Non-payment of workers’ compensation insurance: $19,480.66
            Filed: 7/8/09

            Michael R. Tryon v. Home Depot USA
            Allegation: Defendant sold and installed a defective door causing damage to plaintiff’s home: $8,417.42
            Filed: 6/25/09

            New England Industrial Uniform Rental Services v. Herb Holden Trucking
            Allegation: Breach of uniform rental agreement: $15,739.72
            Filed: 6/30/09

            Poultry Products Inc. v. Li’s Brothers
            Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $4,662.03
            Filed: 6/22/09

            Robin Belgrade v. Six Flags Inc.
            Allegation: Defect in pavement, causing injury: $25,000
            Filed: 7/13/09

            Zulma Sinisterra v. Giggle Gardens Child Center
            Allegation: Negligence in property maintenance, causing slip and fall: $6,382
            Filed: 6/19/09

            WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT

            Amerifirst Home Improvement Finance Co. v. Custom Craft Industries
            Allegation: Breach of contract: $10,228.37
            Filed: 7/3/09

            BKM Total Office v. Floors Above and Brian Glynn
            Allegation: Defective installation of flooring at Barnes Aerospace: $19,878.88
            Filed: 6/16/09

            By
            Departments

            Hampden Bancorp Declares Cash Dividend

            SPRINGFIELD — Hampden Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Hampden Bank, recently reported that total assets increased 4.4%, from $543.8 million on June 30, 2008 to $567.7 million on June 30, 2009. Net loans, including loans held for sale, increased $26.8 million, or 7.4%, to $387.6 million at June 30, 2009, and securities decreased 6.3%, or $7.8 million, from $123.9 million to $116.1 million as of June 30, 2009. Deposits increased $50 million, or 15.1%, to $381.5 million at June 30, 2009 from $331.4 million at June 30, 2008. In other news, the company repurchased 397,493 shares of company stock, at an average price of $10.03 per share, in the first and second quarters of fiscal 2009 pursuant to, and in completion of, the stock repurchase program that was announced in May 2008.

            Easthampton Savings Notes Steady Growth

            EASTHAMPTON — Easthampton Savings Bank continues to experience “steady growth,” according to William Hogan Jr., president and CEO. The bank’s total assets increased $22 million from a year ago, an increase of $6 million over the last quarter. Total assets now stand at more than $802 million. Hogan noted that the capital-to-asset ratio ended the second quarter at 12%. Also, the bank’s loan portfolio totaled more than $588 million at the end of June. In other news, Banker & Tradesman recently announced the top three lenders in Hampshire County, and Easthampton Savings was first in mortgage market share, according to Hogan.

            Behavioral Health Network Awarded Contracts

            SPRINGFIELD — Behavioral Health Network (BHN) has been awarded two state contracts to provide a range of comprehensive services to Medicaid-eligible children with serious emotional disturbances. This service, which focuses on intensive care coordination and family support and training, comes under the new responsibilities of a lead community service agency, specific to geographical areas of the state. The Mass. Behavioral Health Partnership awarded both the Springfield and Robert Van Wart geographic service areas to BHN. Areas to be served by the contracts include Springfield, Chicopee, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, South Hadley, Granby, Ludlow, Wilbraham, Hampden, Monson, Palmer, Belchertown, and Ware. Jennifer Moore, BHN’s senior program manager, projects that, once the program for the two service areas is fully operational, more than 1,100 children and their families will be served, and more than 100 new staff will be hired. Moore added that the contract awards will result in between $9 and $12 million in new services for the Greater Springfield area.

            Law Firm Adopts New Name

            NORTHAMPTON — Royal & Munnings, LLC has changed its name to Royal & Klimczuk, LLC with the recent addition of new partner Kimberly Klimczuk. Royal & Klimczuk, a state certified, women-owned business enterprise, will continue to focus its practice in management-side labor and employment law, business litigation, and corporate and nonprofit law. The firm has launched a new Web site, www.rkesq.com.

            WNEC Participates in Yellow Ribbon Program

            SPRINGFIELD — Western New England College (WNEC) has committed to providing thousands of dollars in financial aid to veterans under the federal government’s new Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program. The program allows qualifying veterans to attend WNEC and the WNEC School of Law tuition-free. The Post-9/11 GI Bill pays qualifying veterans a benefit up to the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition. Institutions voluntarily participating in the Yellow Ribbon Program commit to providing additional assistance, which is matched dollar-for-dollar by the government. Veterans who served at least 90 days on active duty after Sept. 10, 2001 are entitled to the new benefits, with those who served at least 36 months on active duty eligible for the maximum benefit. WNEC will waive application fees for program participants. For more information, call Admissions at (413) 782-1321, or E-mail [email protected].

            Kuhn Riddle Earns Honor

            AMHERST — Kuhn Riddle Architects (KRA) has received an Honor Award from the Boston Society of Architects and the Mass. Architectural Access Board for a recently completed project at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) in North Adams. The award recognizes design excellence in a building with a special approach to access for people with disabilities. The MCLA Berkshire Towers project involved renovations and additions to a high-rise dormitory, built in 1973. Chris Riddle, KRA principal, noted that the firm was committed to make the new common spaces in the residential complex “easy and fun for everyone, disabled or able-bodied.”

            Couple Sought for Wedding On Ice Event

            SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Falcons are searching for a couple who would like to get married on the ice before the Falcons home game on Nov. 28. The ‘wedding on ice,’ presented by Hannoush Jewelers, includes the ceremony on the ice performed by Justice of the Peace Ruth Farnsworth, and a wedding reception in the Executive Perch overlooking the ice for 50 people, with tickets to the game and food included. In addition, Hannoush Jewelers will donate his-and-her wedding bands, and Deluxe Limousine will bring the couple to center ice for their first dance during the first intermission. Also, Formal Affair will provide tuxedoes, while Pearl Bridal Boutique will provide the bridal dress. Susan Weislo Photography will provide photography, including a proof book, and McClelland’s Florist will provide the bride’s bouquet and the on-ice arrangements. Individuals interested in winning this all-expenses-paid wedding can E-mail Bill Bullock at the Falcons office at [email protected] by Sept. 15. Couples can also register to win by visiting Formal Affair, 581 Westfield St., West Springfield; Pearl Bridal Boutique, One Open Square Way, Holyoke; or any Hannoush location.

            By
            Departments

            Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield
            www.myonlinechamber.com

            Sept. 2: ACCGS Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., hosted by the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House in Holyoke. The speaker will be Kevin Rhodes, conductor of the Springfield Symphony. The cost is $20 for members, $30 for non-members.

            Sept. 7: ACCGS After 5, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Café Lebanon in Springfield. The cost is $10 for members, $20 for non-members.

            Sept. 14: Ludlow Golf for Kids, hosted by Ludlow Country Club. Registration and lunch from noon to 1 p.m.; shotgun/four-person scramble at 1 p.m. The cost is $110 per person or $400 for a foursome. Sponsorships are available.

            Sept. 22: West of the River Chamber of Commerce Board Meeting, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Captain Charles Leonard House in Agawam.

            Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
            www.springfieldyps.com

            Sept. 11: United Way’s 16th annual Day of Caring. Each year, more than 1,400 volunteers from 45 companies participate in the Day of Caring, which pairs volunteers with agency service providers to accomplish a variety of projects.YPS will be paired up with Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity and will be working on one of the homes currently under construction in Springfield. 

            Sept. 17: Third Thursday, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Café Lebanon in Springfield. Relax after work and socialize with other area young professionals. 

            Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce
            www.amherstarea.com

            Sept. 3: UMass/Chamber Community Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by the UMass Student Union Ballroom. The cost is $8 for members.

            Sept. 9: Chamber Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Courtyard by Marriott, sponsored by Back In Motion, Auto Express, and Summerline Floors. The guest speaker will be Tony Marx. The cost is $12 members and $15 for guests.

            Sept. 23: Chamber After Five, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum, sponsored by Amherst Insurance Agency/The Nathan Agencies. The cost is $5 for members and $10 for guests.

            Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
            www.chicopeechamber.org

            Sept. 16: Salute Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., hosted by the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House. The cost is $18 for members and $25 for non-members. Register online at www.chicopeechamber.org

            Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
            www.franklincc.org

            Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

            Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
            www.easthamptonchamber.org

            Sept. 9: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Apollo Grill, 116 Pleasant St., Eastworks, Easthampton. Sponsored by Clarke school for the Deaf. Event features door prizes, hors d’ouevres, and a cash bar. Tickets cost $5 for members and $15 for non-members.

            Sept. 18 and 19: Electronic Recycling Collection, hosted by Red Rock Shops, College Highway, Rte. 10, Southampton. Sponsored by Duseau Trucking LLC, Autumn Properties, and Greater Easthampton Chamber. Event allows people to responsibly dispose of their old computers, monitors, TVs, stereos, and small home and office appliances.

            Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
            www.holycham.com

            Aug. 26: Chamber Salute Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Yankee Pedlar, 1866 Northampton St., Holyoke. Sponsored by Lyon & Fitzpatrick, LLP. Tickets cost $18. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 to sign up, or visit www.holycham.com for more information.

            Sept. 16: Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce Annual Outing, 5 to 7:30 p.m., hosted by Holyoke Country Club, Country Club Road, Holyoke. Featuring a chance to win $1,000. Tickets cost $25. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 for tickets or to become a sponsor, or visit www.holycham.com  for more information.

            Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
            www.explorenorthampton.com

            Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

            Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce
            www.qvcc.biz

            Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

            South Hadley/Granby Chamber Of Commerce
            www.shchamber.com

            Sept. 22: Premier Beyond Business, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by the Sycamores. The guest speaker will be Ken Williamson of the South Hadley Historical Society, who will speak on the Sycamores’ history and renovations. Sponsored by Premier members Berkshire Bank, Chicopee Savings Bank, Easthampton Savings Bank, Florence Savings Bank, Jubinville Insurance Group, PeoplesBank, and Private Financial Design. The cost is $10 at the door for chamber members. Reservations are necessary; RSVP at (413) 532-2480 by Sept. 18.

            Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce
            www.threeriverschamber.org

            Visit the chamber online to learn more about upcoming events.

            Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
            www.westfieldbiz.org

            Sept. 9: WestNet Opening Networking Evening, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted and sponsored by Nora’s Restaurant, 106 Point Grove Road, Southwick (across from Louie B’s), celebrating its grand opening under new ownership. Attendees are encouraged to bring business cards. Tickets cost $10 for members and $15 for non-members. For reservations, call (413) 568-1618, E-mail marcia@westfieldbiz. org, or sign up at www.westfieldbiz.org.

            Sept. 19: 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, 5 p.m. to midnight, hosted by Tekoa Country Club, Route 20, 459 Russell Road, Westfield. Sponsored by Berkshire Bank. The theme for the evening is ’50s Diner. A Cruise Night will be set up in the parking lot. Bands include the Drifters and Corey and the Knightsmen. Tickets cost $35 through September 13, and $45 thereafter. For reservations, call (413) 568-1618, E-mail [email protected], or sign up at www.westfieldbiz.org.

            Sept. 23: Mini Trade Show, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., hosted by Westfield State College, Ely Campus Center, Main Lounge Area, 577 Western Ave., Westfield. The event aims to acquaint the college community, faculty, and students with local businesses and their goods. Call (413) 568-1618 with any questions, or E-mail [email protected].

            By
            Departments

            The following building permits were issued during the month of July 2009.

            AGAWAM

            Bob Wilcox
            1100 Springfield St.
            $246,000 — Renovate entire structure for new insurance office

            Gravanis Enterprises Inc.
            241 South Westfield St.
            $205,000 — Complete interior fit out for a restaurant

            Hillside Development Corporation
            975-A Springfield St.
            $50,000 — Partition interior space for hairdresser

            Hillside Development Corporation
            959 Springfield St.
            $100,000 — Partition interior space for a bank

            AMHERST

            40 Montague Place, LLP
            38 Montague Road
            $4,000 — New roof

            Amherst Associates, LLC
            345 Northampton Road
            $12,500 — Replace stairs in Building 1

            Brode Block LLC
            63-71 South Pleasant St.
            $2,000 — Remove roof deck and rafter section to prep for repairs

            Cash, Dr. J LLC
            57 North Pleasant St.
            $29,000 — Construct an addition at the back of Delano’s

            Jones Properties LTD Partnership
            1008 North Pleasant St.
            8,000 — New roof

            CHICOPEE

            Curry Honda
            767 Memorial Dr.
            $20,000 — Install one stationary awning

            Hawthorne Services
            517 Chicopee St.
            $625,000 — Construct a residential group home

            Holyoke Health Center
            505 Front St.
            $143,000 — Fit out for a pharmacy in an existing building

            Ken Vincunas
            150 Padgette St.
            $33,000 — Install three external vestibules

            Polish Center of Discovery & Learning
            33 South St.
            $674,000 — Remodel to have a museum in existing building

            Property One, LLC
            388 Broadway St.
            $15,000 – Replace rear decks and stairways

            WE 77 Champion, LLC
            77 Champion Dr.
            $214,000 — Minor office renovations and install four 8’ x 9’ loading docks

            EAST LONGMEADOW

            East Longmeadow Skilled Nursing
            305 Maple St.
            $92,500 — New roof

            G-Laz Realty LLC
            138 Denslow Road
            $118,000 — Tenant fit-out for offices

            Hasbro
            443 Shaker Road
            $500,000 — New roof system

            GREENFIELD

            Alfonso A. Ruggeri
            82 Federal St.
            $5,000 — New roof

            DTS Realty, Inc.
            334 Chapman St.
            $2,000 — Install above ground storage tanks in containment dike

            FBBT/US Properties, LLC
            137 Federal St.
            $45,000 — Interior modifications and cosmetic improvements to pharmacy area

            Lafleur Realty LLC
            10 Silver St.
            $5,000 — Apply vinyl siding to building

            McDonald’s Corporation
            285 Federal St.
            $9,500 — Installation of a trash enclosure

            One Arch Place, LLC
            6 Arch Place
            $56,500 — Renovate entry area including expansion to waiting room

            Rosenberg Property LLC
            311 Wells St.
            $13,000 — Modification of existing fire sprinkler system

            Spike Segundo, LLC
            21-23 Bank Row
            $17,000 – Exterior improvements

            Spike Segundo, LLC
            21-23 Bank Row
            $52,000 — Install a new fire sprinkler system

            HOLYOKE

            City of Holyoke Schools
            500 Beech St.
            $16,566,000 — Renovations including replacement of mechanical systems, expansion of security and fire alarm systems, and window replacement

            City of Holyoke
            Chmura Dr. Playgrounds
            $15,000 — Install new gusset plates to base of existing cell tower

            Oakdale Clinic
            1727 Northampton St.
            $38,000 — Install new doors and exterior windows and replace ceiling tiles

            Oakdale Clinic
            1727 Northampton St.
            $38,000 — Install new doors and replace windows

            O’C Ingleside, LLC
            361 Whitney Ave.
            $27,000 — Interior renovations

            LUDLOW

            Diocese of Springfield
            438 Windsor St.
            $7,500 — Alterations at Our Lady of Fatima

            		  

            East Coast Tile, LLC
            8 Stony Brook St.
            $14,000 — Alterations

            Keystone Commons, LLC
            460 West St.
            $6,000 — Alterations

            T.D. Bank, N.A.
            549 Center St.
            $157,000 — Alterations

            NORTHAMPTON

            Jesse Montgomery
            199 Riverside Dr
            $2,400 — Non-structural interior renovations

            Pioneer Contractors
            36 King St.
            $12,500 — Replace rear entry doors and stairs

            Robert Ardizzoni
            80 Damon Road
            $35,000 — Replace pool deck, and plumbing, and repair fence

            Robert S. Fers Inc.
            228 King St.
            $8,500 — Renovations to install Starbucks

            Thomas Dolan
            91 Crescent St.
            $5,800 — Replace cabinets

            Wright Builders
            274 Main St.
            $169,000 — Replace exterior doors and construct marquee/canopy

            Wright Builders
            139 South St.
            $150,000 — Replace retaining wall

            Young Roofing Company Inc.
            30 Locust St.
            $22,000 — Install insulation and new roofing system

            SOUTH HADLEY

            Mount Holyoke College
            50 College St.
            $5,000 — Alterations at Smith Library

            Riverboat Village
            173 Riverboat Village
            $85,000 — New roof

            United Methodist Church
            30 Carew St.
            $9,000 — Roof work

            SPRINGFIELD

            266-268 Main Realty Trust
            266 Main St.
            $68,500 — Interior remodel and new roof

            ALDI, Inc.
            513 Pasco Road
            $1,244,000 — Construction of one-story structural steel and masonry building

            American International College
            170-192 Wilbraham Road
            $6,500 — Interior renovations

            American International College
            963 State St.
            $414,000 — Create a student lounge and outside terrace deck

            American International College
            125 Cortland St.
            $431,000 — Remove existing press box and replace with new bleacher system and press box

            Basketball Hall of Fame
            1000 West Columbus Ave.
            $10,500 — Interior renovations

            City Cyber Café
            1377 Liberty St.
            $8,000 — Construct office and handicap bathroom

            City of Springfield
            380 Belmont Ave.
            $307,000 — ADA upgrades for Forest Park Library

            City of Springfield
            382 White St.
            $4,050,000 — Erect new fire station

            Falcon Management
            One Monarch Place
            $94,000 — Seventh floor office build-out

            Fontaine Properties
            88 Industry Ave.
            $57,000 — Interior non-structural office/warehouse remodel

            Hannoush Jewelers
            1655 Boston Road
            $150,000 — Convert retail space to offices and stores for Hannoush Jewelers

            Maple Street Holdings, LLC
            154-164 Maple St.
            $14,000 — Retaining wall improvements

            Picknelly Family LLC
            1414 Main St.
            $30,000 — Create new offices on the 20th floor of Monarch Place

            PVTA
            2840 Main St.
            $779,000 — Install three new vehicle lifts and wash-bay slab

            Russ Tetrault LLC
            159 Michon St.
            $370,000 — Construct four 1,500-square-foot rental units

            SIS Center Inc.
            1459 Main St.
            $288,000 — Interior renovations

            WESTFIELD

            Cargill, Inc.
            163 Union St.
            $44,000 — Construction of a salt storage building

            WEST SPRINGFIELD

            110 Elm St. LLC
            110 Elm St.
            $5,500 — Strip and re-roof

            CSX Transportation
            164 Western Ave.
            $31,987 — New roof installation

            By
            Departments

            Westfield Chamber Teams Up with SCORE

            WESTFIELD — SCORE counselors are now available to work with entrepreneurs through every phase of their entrepreneurial venture through a joint partnership with the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce. Counselors can help generate and assess business ideas, prepare a business plan, help raise capital, and manage the operations and finances of a growing venture. The services will be available on the third Wednesday of every month at the 53 Court St. office. For more information about the program or to make an appointment with a SCORE counselor, call (413) 568-1618 or E-mail [email protected].

            Bay State Sees Consumer, Business Confidence Rise

            BOSTON — Consumer and business confidence continued inching upward in July, providing what many analysts see as more evidence that the state’s economy has in fact hit bottom and begun to turn around. Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) said its business confidence index rose for the fourth time in the past five months, reaching its highest level since November. Meanwhile, Mass. Insight Corp., a Boston consulting firm, reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to its highest level since October 2007. Despite improving confidence, the two surveys suggest a long and difficult recovery, particularly in the labor market. About 60% of Massachusetts consumers surveyed said jobs were “hard to get,” while 65% said they don’t expect the state to add any jobs over the next six months, according to Mass Insight. In AIM’s business confidence survey of employers, only 3% said they expect a quick recovery, and 27% said it was too early to even think about a recovery.

            Report: Supplier Deliveries Slower

            TEMPE, Ariz. — Economic activity in the manufacturing sector failed to grow in July for the 18th consecutive month, while the overall economy grew for the third consecutive month, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Six of the 18 manufacturing industries reported growth in July. These industries included non-metallic mineral products, paper products, printing and related support activities, electrical equipment, appliances and components, transportation equipment, and chemical products. The nine industries reporting growth in new orders in July included electrical equipment, appliances and components, primary metals, paper products, printing and related support activities, chemical products, transportation equipment, miscellaneous manufacturing, fabricated metal products, and computer and electronic products. The five industries contracting in July were plastics and rubber products; wood products; food, beverage, and tobacco products; machinery; and non-metallic mineral products. The Manufacturing ISM Report on Business is based on data compiled from purchasing and supply executives nationwide. Survey responses reflect the change, if any, in the current month compared to the previous month.

            Jobless Rate Down for First Time in a Year

            WASHINGTON — The long-battered U.S. job market showed some signs of improvement in July as employers cut far fewer jobs from payrolls and the unemployment rate fell for the first time in more than a year. The Labor Department reported a net loss of 247,000 jobs in July, the fewest job losses since August 2008. Economists had been projecting a loss of 325,000. The job loss in June was also revised lower, to 443,000 from 467,000. The unemployment rate fell to 9.4% from 9.5% in June, the first decline in that closely watched reading since April 2008. Economists had expected unemployment to rise to 9.6%.

            By
            Departments

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

            Adzhigirey, Viktor
            126 Windemere St.
            Springfield, MA 01104
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Allyn, William D.
            2 Hawthorne Lane
            Holyoke, MA 01040
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/14/09

            Al’s All Natural Ice Cream
            Alvin’s All-Natural Ice Cream
            Woods, Alvin J.
            169 Bristol St.
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/19/09

            Altman, Melvyn W.
            P.O. Box 5395
            Springfield, MA 01101
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            Aronowitz, Donna L.
            PO Box 287
            Huntington, MA 01050
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Bazelak, Annette A.
            93 Better Way
            Springfield, MA 01119
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/29/09

            Belyshev, Vladimir
            Belyshev, Irina
            49 Dakota Dr.
            Chicopee, MA 01013
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Berkshire Building Contractors
            Abderhalden, Christopher M.
            123 New Lenox Road
            Lenox, MA 01240
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Berkshire Second Home Construction
            Vandervoort, Walter J.
            45 Stockbridge Road
            Box 225
            West Stockbridge, MA 01266
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Binczewski, Stefanie L.
            166 North Main St.
            South Hadley, MA 01075
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Blasque, Frances
            195 Main St. #2b
            Northampton, MA 01060
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Burke, Patrick T.
            Burke, Doreen P.
            67 Castle St.
            Springfield, MA 01118
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Caloon, Peter M.
            5 Chestnut Lane
            Turners Falls, MA 01376
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Camilleri, Richard
            14 Upland Road
            Holyoke, MA 01040
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/01/09

            Carmody, Paul E.
            388 Carew St.
            Springfield, MA 01104
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Carter, Jean C.
            49 Meadowbrook Manor
            Agawam, MA 01001
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Champagne, Michael L.
            Champagne, Bridget D.
            44 Brigham Road
            South Hadley, MA 01075
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Chaplin, Tina L.
            858 Silver Lake St.
            Athol, MA 01331
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/13/09

            Collins, Brad Garett
            1038 North St. Ext.
            Feeding Hills, MA 01030
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            Comi, Ronald J.
            Comi, Chrissy A.
            334 East St.
            Ludlow, MA 01056
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            Condon, Laurel G.
            46 Railroad St., Apt. 312
            Lee, MA 01238
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Connaughton, Douglas Lee
            30 Kenilworth St.
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            Coppola, Judith A.
            1251 Main St.
            Athol, MA 01331
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Cote, Michelle L.
            101 Mulberry St.
            Springfield, MA 01105
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Cotto, Adalberto
            1360 Berkshire Ave.
            Indian Orchard, MA 01151
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Cox, Leonard H.
            37 Tannery Road
            Southwick, MA 01077
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Crowell, Robert G.
            Crowell, Debera A.
            365 Tiffany St.
            Springfield, MA 01108
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Curves Of Wilbraham
            Eastwood Park Enterprises
            Peck, Linda S.
            a/k/a Scibelli, Linda M.
            37 Decorie Dr.
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            DaRosa, Dale Autilio
            28 Feeding Hills Road
            Southwick, MA 01077
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Deleon, Franklyn A.
            740 Parker St.
            Springfield, MA 01129
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/01/09

            Deren, Robert J.
            9 Ely Ave.
            Easthampton, MA 01027
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Dessources, Marie K.
            616 Armory St.
            Springfield, MA 01104
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Devine, Pauline R.
            1153A Elm St.
            West Springfield, MA 01089
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            Dewkett, Robin Michelle
            P.O. Box 449
            Pittsfield, MA 01202
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Dixon, Hyacinth
            86 Amherst St.
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Dunn, James A.
            PO Box 37
            North Hatfield, MA 01066
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Epshteyn, Inna
            78 R1 Mercury Court
            West Springfield, MA 01089
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/12/09

            Faulkner, Jeremy B.
            38 Academy St., Apt. 2R
            Winchendon, MA 01475
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/13/09

            Fertitta, Darlene M.
            a/k/a Whitney, Darlene M.
            52 South John St.
            Pittsfield, MA 01201
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Fisher, Larry Wayne
            111 Foster Road
            Southwick, MA 01077
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Foskett, Robert M.
            Foskett, Rebecca C.
            27 Fuller Road
            Williamsburg, MA 01096
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/02/09

            Garcia, Ruth N.
            740 Parker St.
            Springfield, MA 01129
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/01/09

            Gibson, John E.
            Gibson, Barbara J.
            42 Adams Road – Lot 10
            Greenfield, MA 01301
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Giordano, Robert A.
            Giordano, Carolyn
            a/k/a Housand, Carolyn
            244 Birch Bluffs Dr.
            Westfield, MA 01085
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 05/31/09

            Golfieri, Irene M.
            104 Johnson Road, #704
            Chicopee, MA 01022
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Gonzalez, Elvin
            180 Mildred Ave.
            Springfield, MA 01104-1271
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            Gonzalez, Peter
            Gonzalez, Amy L.K.
            48 Grove St.
            Chicopee, MA 01020
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Granger, Michael F.
            Granger, Kathleen A.
            62 Annable St.
            Feeding Hills, MA 01030
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Grant, Leslee A.
            a/k/a Braxton, Leslee A.
            380 Riverglade Dr., Apt. #G
            Amherst, MA 01002
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Gray, Christopher M.
            Gray, Diane R.
            a/k/a Armitage, Diane R.
            34 Canterbury Road
            Springfield, MA 01118
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/31/09

            Grigas, Timothy J.
            39 Morse Ave.
            Ware, MA 01082
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Guillemette, Mark H.
            Guillemette, Caroline M.
            286 Conway St.
            Greenfield, MA 01301
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/07/09

            Guzzo, Kenneth A.
            29 Biltmore St.
            Springfield, MA 01108
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Hickling, Bertha T.
            26 Gilbert St.
            West Springfield, MA 01089
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/12/09

            Howell, Emily E.
            278 Allen St.
            Hampden, MA 01036
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Ironside, Debra M.
            21 Ledgewood Dr.
            Belchertown, MA 01007
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            J.T. Rivest Excavating Inc.
            Rivest, John T.
            27 Grant St.
            Chicopee, MA 01013
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/17/09

            Jones, Sandra Jean
            524 Cold Spring Ave., #2B
            West Springfield, MA 01089
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Joseph, Casey S.
            120 Parker St.
            Pittsfield, MA 01201
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Kiefer, Mary J.
            25 Corey Colonial
            Agawam, MA 01001
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            		  

            Kroll, Melanie C.
            159 Allen Road
            Sturbridge, MA 01566
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/12/09

            LaBonte, David A.
            24 Water Lane
            Easthampton, MA 01027
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Laguerre, Irnel
            175 Westford Ave.
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Ledoux, Jerard A.
            Ledoux, Dora S.
            a/k/a Ledout, Doris S.
            81 Clayton Dr.
            West Springfield, MA 01089
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            LePage, Denise M.
            128 Ridge Road
            Athol, MA 01331
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            MacDonald, Fred R.
            66 Massey St.
            Westfield, MA 01085
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Marquis, Barbara L.
            389 Radcliffe St.
            Athol, MA 01331
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Martinelli, Jason A.
            Martinelli, Cristalle L.
            519 Springfield St.
            Chicopee, MA 01013
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            McKinney, Awilda
            a/k/a Colon, Awilda
            477 Wilbraham Road
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            McNally, Brian P.
            133-1/2 Springfield St.
            Palmer, MA 01069
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            McNally, Jennifer A.
            133-1/2 Springfield St.
            Palmer, MA 01069
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            McNeice, Kenneth J.
            McNeice, Maryellen V.
            14 Sixth St.
            Pittsfield, MA 01201
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Merchant, Elaine F.
            28 Miles Morgan Court
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Miller, Lois Anne
            72 Silver St.
            Springfield, MA 01107
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Monska, Megan C.
            a/k/a Pellowe, Megan C.
            238 Monson Turnpike Road
            Ware, MA 01082
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Mortensen, Warren W.
            44 Brooklawn Road
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Mundie, Alan D.
            Mundie, Barbara H.
            704 Brattleboro Road
            Bernardston, MA 01337
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/19/09

            Nadolski, John A.
            Nadolski, Linda M.
            38 Greenleaf St.
            Springfield, MA 01108
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Nolan, Christopher
            97 Salem Road
            Longmeadow, MA 01106
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Obremski, Polly A.
            3 Fruit St.
            Northampton, MA 01060
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            O’Quinn, Aaron M.
            53 Riveria Dr.
            Agawam, MA 01001
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/19/09

            Ortiz, Arnaldo
            269 Stony Hill Road, Apt. T
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Ott, Daryl A.
            241 The Meadows
            Enfield, CT 06082
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Pagan, Tammy C.
            32 Bates St.
            Westfield, MA 01085
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Parker, Janice M.
            150 Holyoke St.
            Easthampton, MA 01027
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/19/09

            Perry, Michael A.
            Perry, Carol M.
            77 Chapel St.
            West Warren, MA 01092
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            Phillips, Kevin R.
            181 Wilbraham Road
            Monson, MA 01057
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Pichardo, Nidia M.
            19 Foster St.
            Springfield, MA 01105
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/01/09

            Pittello, Joshua J.
            71 Loomis Ave.
            Westfield, MA 01085
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            Queiroga, Martha Anne
            a/k/a O’Brien, Martha Anne
            29 Wrentham Road
            Springfield, MA 01119
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Rettura, Virginia Ann
            2559 Boston Road
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Rios, Pedro
            Rios, Magda
            33 Queensbury Dr.
            Springfield, MA 01129
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Robert, Glenn A.
            Robert, Lisa A.
            a/k/a Borey, Lisa A.
            a/k/a Richards, Lisa A.
            171 Veazie St.
            North Adams, MA 01247
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Robitaille, Robert N.
            27 Bliss St.
            Chicopee, MA 01020
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Roman, Ana L.
            45 Dewey St., Apt. 207
            Springfield, MA 01109
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/02/09

            Rosenberg, Steven
            121 Plunkett St.
            Pittsfield, MA 01201
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/31/09

            Roy, Rhonda T.
            a/k/a Swann, Rhonda T.
            20 Woodstock St.
            Springfield, MA 01104
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Sam, Rithdek D.
            Tann, Chheuth
            20 West St.
            Greenfield, MA 01301
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/07/09

            Santana, Brunilda
            26 Commonwealth Ave.
            Springfield, MA 01108
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Sarmuk, James J.
            66 Hawthorne Ave.
            Pittsfield, MA 01201
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Sarnelli, Gina Louise
            173 Main St., Apt. E
            Monson, MA 01057
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Sauvageau, Bruce D.
            Sauvageau, Dawna L.
            65 Shepard Road
            Sturbridge, MA 01566
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/01/09

            Schultz, William J.
            9 Joffre Ave., 2nd Floor
            South Hadley, MA 01075
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/17/09

            Shear Maddness
            Rosati, Brian J.
            Podosek-Rosati, Kathleen M.
            20 Terry Lane
            East Longmeadow, MA 01028
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/11/09

            Sheehan, James F.
            41 White Birch Dr.
            Springfield, MA 01119
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Sheehan, Lloyd E.
            P.O. Box 3
            Wilbraham, MA 01095
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/30/09

            Small, David H.
            21 Ledgewood Dr.
            Belchertown, MA 01007
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/08/09

            Snow, David P.
            Snow, Kathleen
            350 West St. #5
            Ludlow, MA 01056
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/04/09

            Somers, Alan Roger
            Somers, Juliann Marie
            16 Mechanic St.
            Monson, MA 01057
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/10/09

            St. John, Robert J.
            St. John, Mona L.
            24 Robbins Rd
            Monson, MA 01057
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/15/09

            Stevens, Bonnie Lee
            a/k/a Bolduc, Bonnie Lee
            183 Hapgood Road
            Oakham, MA 01068
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/31/09

            Thomas, Eric D.
            33 Lead Mine Road
            Southampton, MA 01073
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Thomas, Kari-Lynn Elizabeth
            33 Lead Mine Road
            Southampton, MA 01073
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/09/09

            Torres, Miguel S.
            Belden Ct, Unit O3
            Agawam, MA 01001
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 05/31/09

            Vangsness, Scott
            PO Box 1301
            1361 East Otis Road
            East Otis, MA 01029
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Vieu, Kenneth J.
            151 Pleasant St.
            Granby, MA 01033
            Chapter: 13
            Filing Date: 06/05/09

            Weigel, Leigh Ann
            12 East Center St.
            Leeds, MA 01053
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/16/09

            Williams, Katherine Jean
            a/k/a Hassay, Katherine Jaen
            111 School St.
            Greenfield, MA 01301
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/18/09

            Zeng, Chang Yong
            P.O. Box 80641
            Springfield, MA 01138
            Chapter: 7
            Filing Date: 06/03/09

            By
            Departments

            Ten Points about :forming a new business

            By SEAN WANDREI, CPA

            1. What type of owners will there be? A sole proprietor has one owner (an individual), a partnership/limited liability company (P/LLC) has at least two owners, C-corporations have no restrictions, and S-corps a maximum of 100 owners.

            2. Choice of tax year? A C-corp can have any year-end. A sole proprietor has the individual owner’s calendar year-end. Generally, a P/LLC must have the same year-end as the majority owner, and S-corps must have a calendar year-end.
            3. Who pays the taxes? A C-corp pays the taxes on its own tax return. Sole proprietor, P/LLC, and S-corp income flows through to the owner, and taxes are paid on the owner’s return.
            4. Is there liability protection? Sole proprietors and partnerships have no liability protection, while C-corps, S-corps, and LLCs have certain liability protection.

            5. Availability of fringe benefits to owners? Fringe-benefits exemptions from tax are not available to a sole proprietor or P/LLC owner. Fringe-benefit exemptions are available to owners of C-corps and fewer than 2% owners of S-corps.

            6. Is the contribution of property to the entity by an owner taxable? An owner can contribute property to a SP and P/LLC tax-free, while contribution of property to a C-corp or S-corp by the owner could be a taxable event.
            7. Taxation on the sale of an ownership interest? Disposition of C-corps and S-corps are treated as a sale of stock, while the sale of a SP is treated as a sale of assets. The sale of P/LLC ownership interest is generally treated as a sale of a capital asset.
            8. Can the entity pay its owner wages? A sole proprietor and P/LLC cannot pay its owner’s wages, while a C-corp and S-corp can pay wages to its owners.
            9. Are earnings of the entity subject to self-employment tax on the owner return? Earnings from a trade or business of an SP or P/LLC are subject to self-employment tax. Earnings of an S-corp are not subject to self-employment tax.

            10. What else should be considered? C-corps and S-corps are subject to tax on their inventory and manufacturing equipment at a rate of $2.56 per $1,000 of value on their Mass. Corporate Income Tax Return.

            Sean Wandrei is a tax manager with Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.. His technical concentrations are in multi-state taxation as well as real estate entities; (413) 536-8510.

            The Next Step…

            By
            Mark Niederpruem
            Sections Supplements
            Shriners Hospital Gets a New Lease on Life
            Mark Niederpruem

            Mark Niederpruem stands in front of a wall decked out with recent letters of support for Shriners Hospital.

            The staff and patients at Shriners Hospital for Children spent a few anxious months wondering whether the facility would survive a proposed closing. But those months were also filled with constant reminders, in the form of letters, petitions, and rallies — of the hospital’s importance to the community. Yes, Shriners is staying open, but financial challenges remain amid the undeniable good feelings.

            When word came down that Shriners Hospital for Children might close its doors in Springfield, what followed felt a little like a family reunion.

            “Former patients told us how much of a difference we’d made in their lives,” said Administrator Mark Niederpruem. “We had somebody about my age — I’m 53 — tell us how much we helped him more than 40 years ago with a brace for his foot.

            “He was only 10 years old then, but he recalled it like it was yesterday,” Niederpruem continued. “Not only was it a positive experience for him, but what they did for him here has improved his life today. That was really humbling and touching, and it shows the impact the hospital has had.”

            It wasn’t an isolated incident. In the weeks following an announcement by the national Shriners organization that it was considering closing six of its 22 children’s hospitals across the country — including the one on Carew Street — former patients, family members of patients past and present, and even community members with no personal connection to the Springfield facility unleashed a deluge of outrage and support.

            “The thing that surprised me most,” said Niederpruem, “was the sheer volume of letters, petitions, phone calls, and fund-raisers. ‘Overwhelming’ is a term that’s often overused, but it was amazing how people stepped up to the plate.”

            In the end, the Shriners board decided against closing any of its specialty children’s hospitals — the one in Springfield focuses on orthopedic care, while others center on spinal-cord injuries, burns, and other niches — even though the organization has struggled in recent years to provide its traditionally free care given rising costs and a shrinking endowment.

            That’s a victory for children like Jared, a local grade-schooler and Shriners patient whose entire class wrote letters asking the hospital not to close. Many such letters and petitions festoon the walls today, and reflect widespread gratitude that the facility will continue to meet critical needs in Western Mass. — and beyond — as it has for the past 84 years.

            This Year’s Model

            “I would rather see you charge my insurance and pay a co-pay than close the facility.”

            That quote, from Albany, N.Y. resident Laytoyia Hardie, is included in a brochure of support prepared recently by a local group called Friends of Shriners Hospital. It’s similar to many such sentiments that poured into Shriners nationally, and it may reflect the children’s hospitals’ best chance for survival.

            “While it brought to light the impact we’ve had on the community for 84 years, through the testimonials of patients, former patients, and families,” said Niederpruem, “this situation also brought into focus the financial challenges we face. The national board decided not to close any hospitals, but they will operate under a different business model so we can afford to do this work and be financially sound.”

            Specifically, in announcing that the six threatened facilities will remain open, the board conceded that the hospitals will have to start accepting third-party payments — from private insurance and government payers such as Medicaid — when possible, although free care will still be provided to all patients without the means to pay.

            “It’ll take some time to ramp up, but it should give some financial stability to the organization long-term,” he added. “We still have an endowment that provides for nice facilities and equipment, and we’re going to make sure patients’ families avoid any financial issues; we have a commitment to people who are uninsured or underinsured, including kids from foreign countries.”

            Specifically, while Shriners Hospital in Springfield treats some 1,000 inpatients annually and logs about 20,000 outpatient visits per year, only about half its young patients hail from Massa-chusetts; the rest are referred from surrounding states and abroad — 31 countries in all last year.

            “Our name has been out there a long time, and various relief organizations, or just well-intentioned individuals, will help a child get here and provide housing and so forth,” said Niederpruem.

            As an orthopedic specialty hospital, the Springfield facility focuses on conditions ranging from scoliosis, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida to club foot, chest-wall deformities, cleft lip and palate, and a host of other conditions afflicting the limbs, joints, bones, and extremities.

            The hospital is committed to using the most state-of-the-art equipment within its means. Take, for instance, a surgical treatment for cleft palate that employs computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technology. It creates a 3D model of the palate to customize a series of devices that gradually reduce the size of the gap.

            Or consider the hospital’s motion-analysis laboratory, where an array of infrared cameras examine how a child walks and converts that data to a 3D model that gives doctors all they need to know about a child’s progress — cutting-edge technology that originated in the movie and video-game industries.

            “They’re doing pre- and post-operative measurements with it,” Niederpruem explained. “It’s an emerging technology. We’ve collected enough data that there’s very strong research potential here, too.”

            That reflects an ongoing commitment by the Shriners to research and education — in the past 20 years, more than 2,000 physicians have undertaken residency education or postgraduate fellowships at the children’s hospitals — but the organization balances the serious with a palpable sense of fun in the buildings themselves.

            “Being exclusively a children’s hospital allows us to create an environment and culture that caters to children,” Niederpruem said, referencing the playscapes and colorful, kid-oriented sculptures and artwork found within its walls. “It’s appreciated by the families that come here, and even other physicians tell us how much they love coming here. One doctor told me he’d like to do all his work here.”

            Red Ink

            Despite these positive testimonies, the hospital system has been fighting a discouraging financial tide.

            As the stock market tumbled last year, an $8.5 billion endowment fund lost more than $3 million in value. At the same time, the system’s 2009 budget of $859 million was far outpacing the fund’s interest and donations, which normally combine to cover operating costs, and that trend was siphoning $1 million per day from the fund.

            As a result, Shriners proposed closing six hospitals, with Springfield’s facility joined in limbo by those in Spokane, Wash.; Erie, Pa.; Greenville, S.C.; Shreveport, La.; and Galveston, Texas. In the end, the organization decided to become flexible with its business model rather than eliminate critical services from these regions.

            “Accepting money from insurers and finding other ways to cut costs will help Shriners retain their presence in all 22 locations,” Doug Maxwell, newly elected president and CEO of Shriners Hospitals, told CNN after the organization’s convention in San Antonio last month. “Our membership affirmed that, rather than closing any, we want to have that presence and take care of children in all those locations.”

            However, questions remain over whether some of the hospitals might become outpatient-only surgery facilities. Many Shriners hospitals have empty beds — including Springfield, in contrast to its extremely busy outpatient work — in part because they were built during a time when most surgery patients needed to stay overnight, unlike today, when advances in surgical techniques allow many more procedures to be done on a same-day basis.

            Regardless of what changes are in store, staff and patients of Springfield’s Shriners Hospital are gratified by the reprieve. Bernadette White, director of public relations, said the outpouring of community support was an emotional lifeline to the hospital’s employees, whose jobs — and roles within an institution they believe in — were up in the air for several months.

            “It had such a positive impact,” she said of the outcry. “It was a real morale booster for our staff during what has been a very challenging time.”

            Going further, Niederpruem said the crisis and the community’s response to it likely succeeded in bringing the institution a higher level of public awareness, which it will need; after all, Shriners hospitals still rely on donations to cover a large part of their costs.

            “It does give us a renewed commitment to what we do,” he said. “I think we’ve been a silent asset in the community for a number of years. This has brought us to people’s attention, and now we need to continue that awareness and keep it going. We’re still going to need donations. We’re never going to be a truly traditional hospital, and we still serve a great many underinsured kids.”

            White said some patients’ families have wondered why the hospital didn’t accept payments before. “They said, ‘if you have to make a choice, take my insurance. Just don’t close.’”

            Building a Future

            Not only is the hospital not closing, it continues to make improvements, including a renovation of all outpatient facilities and addition of more outpatient rooms — a $2 million renovation that was approved and begun before the recent financial turbulence.

            But outpatient surgery is a key element of the hospital’s work — about 700 surgical procedures were performed there last year — so the project is an important one, Niederpruem said. “We’re plugging along, and we want to be around a lot longer for the betterment of these kids.

            “I just want to thank the community and our elected officials for being so vocal,” he added. “No one had a negative comment about us over the past four months.”

            And now it’s time to get back to work, crafting more of those success stories that people will be talking about 40 years from now.

            Community Colleges Need Real Stimulus

            By
            Opinion

            Since President Obama put his American Graduation Initiative — a plan to pump $12 billion into the nation’s community colleges over the next decade — on the table, regional and national commentators have hailed the plan as a giant step forward for these important institutions.

            Obama has been hailed as a visionary and a president who gets it when it comes to the importance of community colleges in the broad realm of economic development. Meanwhile, the initiative, with grant funds tied to performance — specifically with regard to graduation rates — is seen as a means to get community colleges focused on results rather than mere enrollment numbers.

            That’s what the plan looks like from afar. But when one gets a little closer, it becomes clear that maybe this initiative, usually accompanied by the adjective ‘bold,’ doesn’t really deserve such a descriptor. The money certainly won’t hurt — every little bit helps at this time of severe state budget cutbacks — but it is a far cry from what these schools really need to handle the huge assignment they’ve been given: to play a large role in training the next generation of workers for emerging new business sectors.

            What the Obama initiative does — quite effectively, we believe — is at least open a dialogue on community colleges, shed light on some of their unique challenges, and stimulate debate on just what can be done to effectively support these institutions moving forward.

            Historically, community colleges, which have been part of the American landscape for just over a century now, have lacked state and federal support, with rare exceptions such as the original GI Bill, passed just after World War II. Perhaps the reasons for this are the role played by the colleges and the constituencies they serve.

            In short, community colleges provide education for those who have few, if any, other options for obtaining a degree. They cater to mostly non-traditional students, older individuals who are balancing school, work, and family obligations. Many of these people are the first in their families to go beyond high school.

            This is not what elected leaders envision when they think of ‘college,’ and perhaps that’s why community colleges have traditionally been underfunded by state and local governments, at least when compared to four-year schools. But enrollment at the nation’s community colleges is soaring, in part because of changing demographics — new waves of immigrants coming to this country — and also because of the economy and the need that many have to improve their job skills to re-enter the workforce.

            This surge in enrollment, however, is juxtaposed against dramatic budget turmoil at the state level, especially here in Massachusetts, where cuts have led to budget reductions of 14% or more at area community colleges.

            Which brings us to Obama’s American Graduation Initiative. It represents a dramatic increase in federal support for community colleges — 60% if averaged out over the next decade — but to say there are strings attached to the money is a huge understatement.

            Indeed, most of that $12 million will be apportioned on the basis of grant applications that link money with graduation-rate performance. While this sounds admirable, it will likely coerce schools into lowering graduations standards, toughening entrance requirements, or both. The often-criticized, deeply misunderstood graduation rates may in fact climb, but at the likely expense of accessibility to higher education — which is what community colleges are all about.

            While these schools will applaud Obama’s actions and gladly pursue the money, they should also press for more substantial, more meaningful, and more consistent federal support of community colleges. That’s what they really need and truly deserve.

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