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The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Connecticut and Western Mass. gives grants to nonprofits in the area that help children, and recently, $4,000 was awarded to Link to Libraries based in East Longmeadow. Here, Janet Crimmins, co-founder of Link to Libraries, receives the check at ceremonies at Pottenger School in Springfield, which received a donation of 150 books for the school library. Following the presentation, Link to Libraries conducted a Read Aloud program for students, in which a picture book was read and each student received a free book to bring home and share with family and friends.


Engineering Excellence

Westfield-based Tighe & Bond recently received an Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Connecticut (ACEC) for the Route 34 Roadway Improvement Project in New Haven, Conn. The award was presented on Jan. 21 at ACEC’s annual awards banquet following a competition open to firms engaged in the practice of consulting engineering in Connecticut. Here, Chris Granatini, P.E. (center) accepts the award on behalf of Tighe & Bond.


Heart to Heart

The Second Annual Heart to Heart gala was staged Feb. 6 to benefit Rick’s Place, the Wilbraham-based organization, founded in honor of 9/11 victim Rick Thorpe, that provides support to grieving children and their families. At left, Shelly Bathe Lenn, left, executive director of Rick’s Place, prepares to draw the winning ticket for the grand prize in the raffle as board member Bill Scatolini and Jennifer Boudreau look on. Below, board members and administrators gather for a group photo. From left: Dr. Matt Haluch, Ken Tobias, Dan Sheehan, Amy Selvia-Smith, Carole Mangels (program coordinator), Brian Bracci, Bathe Lenn, Gina Kahn, Rick Hill, Mike Hassett, Glen Garvey, Tina Kuselias, Scatolini, Christina Cracci, and Mark Brannigan.


Design of the Times

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno (center) and UMass Amherst Chancellor Robert Holub (far right) were among several Springfield and UMass officials swinging sledgehammers recently to dedicate the start of renovations to 3-7 Elm Street. That property, in Court Square across from City Hall, will be the location of the new UMass Design Center, which will house faculty, staff, and graduate students, and will undertake projects such as park improvements, urban planning, and conservation upgrades that will benefit the city. In addition to storefront offices, the building will also feature a design studio on the ground floor and low-rent apartments on the upper floors.


Camp Friendly’s

17-year-old Trevor Bynum of Springfield (left) says ‘thank you’ in American Sign Language to Friendly’s president and CEO, Ned Lidvall. Lidvall recently welcomed Bynum to Friendly’s corporate office for the annual kickoff of Cones for Kids for Camp Friendly’s. Bynum is hearing-impaired and has benefited since he was a young child from Easter Seals Camp at Agassiz Village in Poland, Maine. Since 1981, Friendly’s has been raising money for Easter Seals so that kids with disabilities, like Trevor, can enjoy Camp Friendly’s programs. Friendly’s raised $144,000 in Massachusetts alone last year and ran its 2010 Cones for Kids program through Feb. 13 in every Friendly’s restaurant.


Ovations

Mime Robert Rivest delivers a performance in the Ovations series of cultural and educational events at Springfield Technical Community College. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this spring, Ovations is sponsored in part by Chicopee Savings Bank. Events in the series are presented for STCC students and the general public.


Black History Month

Springfield Technical Community College Nursing professor Anne Mistivar-Payen, right, who is seeking relatives in Haiti, is presented with a Reflections lamp by Myra Smith, vice president for Human Resources and Multicultural Affairs. All Black History Month events at the college this year were dedicated to the Haitian people, and fund-raising proceeds will be donated to Haiti relief efforts.

Features
At 25, United Personnel Focuses on Its Next Milestones
Hire Purpose

Mary Ellen Scott says the employment-services field is relatively easy to get into, but hard to master.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

That’s how Mary Ellen Scott described her beginnings in the temporary-employment industry. “It’s been the story of my life, really,” she told BusinessWest before explaining at length just what that means.

Scott is the owner of United Personnel in Springfield, which is celebrating 25 years in business. With the industry changing dramatically in that quarter-century, that adage has been in use for much of the time, seeing Scott and company becoming one of the area’s leading placement firms. Looking back on her time in business, she explained how it has come together over the years.

When Scott and her family moved to Springfield in the early 1980s, a chance encounter with a friend of her then-husband, John Canavan Jr., led to a new career.

“It was a clothing manufacturer, the old William Carter Co.,” she said, “and it was the only unionized plant in the William Carter conglomerate. They wanted to get rid of it, so they sold it to a man who went to prep school with my husband.” That was Joel Gordon, who bought the factory and renamed it the Gemini Corp., and who contacted Scott at home one day.

“Here I was unpacking boxes,” she said, “and this man called me up and said, ‘do you want a job?’ Well, I had been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, so I said, ‘doing what?’ and he said ‘well, what can you do?’”

Despite her modest assessment of that interaction, Scott became the human resources director for the plant of 400 employees. But the two-income household was soon to be cut back to one. In 1984, her husband lost his job. “He was 51 years old,” she said. “That was and is definitely an issue in the job-hunting market.”

After looking for work for more than eight months, Gordon suggested to him to strike out on his own. With a brother in the temporary-help business in Boston, Canavan decided to give that field a shot. Scott explained why.

“From an entrepreneur’s perspective, in concept, it’s not a very complicated business to get into,” she said. Smiling, she added, “but it is hard to do it well. In the grand scheme, though, you don’t need to know how to operate a lot of machines, and it doesn’t take a great deal of capital up front.”

Starting the company in Hartford, Canavan drew upon the vast needs of that city’s many insurance firms to specialize in clerical temps. Scott laughed when she remembered her husband’s attempts for her to work with him.

“It was critical to hire the right person for him to work with,” she said, “but would anyone be willing to jump at a job at a start-up operation, getting paid very little money, when they would have to work very hard, and quit a job that they enjoyed? That’s the question I was asking myself.”

For two months, Canavan sought someone to oversee front-of-the-house operations —interviews, hiring, placements — while he handled marketing, sales, and the administrative details. As before, fate intervened in Scott’s decisions.

“My job at this time was changing,” she explained. “Our friend had brought in this new manager, a graduate of MIT and West Point. He had a very different idea about how to treat people than I had.

“One particularly bad Friday afternoon,” she continued, “I had to be in on a session with him and one of the employees, and I came home and I said to my husband, ‘I think God is trying to tell me something. If we’re going to do this staffing business, we’re going to do it together.’”

After three months of commuting in separate cars to Hartford — “in case one of us needed to go back to the kids,” Scott said — the first order came in. But it didn’t take long for the pair to hit their stride, and within two years, they opened a branch office in Springfield, at the location still in use today, 1331 Main St.

Along the way, the business shifted gears from a focus on clerical temps to a division that served the light-industrial sector. “That was a fortuitous decision,” Scott said. “The economy was changing at the end of the ’80s into the early ’90s. Insurance companies in Hartford were struggling with their real-estate deals gone bad. And the first thing a company does when times are hard is to cut back on new temps. So our business in Hartford went downhill.”

But the Springfield office prospered, becoming one of Inc. magazine’s top 500 fastest-growing companies in 1993 and 1995. “The diverse client list we had here really pulled us through,” Scott said. Not only did they handle clerical and industrial clients, but MassMutual and BayBank were early customers as well. When Canavan passed away in 1999, Scott became the sole owner of the business.

Does Not Compute

“During the early years,” Scott said, “we had no computers at all. We had two electric typewriters, and everything was done on paper.”

Personal computers, however, changed that — and changed the nature of her business. “Companies changed how many secretaries they used,” she said, “and some people don’t use secretaries at all anymore.

“The clerical sector, which at one point was 100% of our business, became a much lower percentage,” she continued. “These days, we are primarily a light-industrial staffing company, about 70% in manufacturing.”

Pointing to a stack of boxes waiting to be moved out of the office’s hallways, Scott said that the old-fashioned pen to paper is still necessary for many forms — I9s and W4s, and applications still filled out by hand — but digital communication has become the new tool of choice for United and nearly every other business in this sector. “While e-mailing certainly makes us more available for our clients,” she said, adding that someone in her office is on call around the clock every day, she motioned with a smile at that pile of boxes and said, “I don’t think computers have made less paperwork.”

Still, Scott said her job is still done, in many ways, just like in the first days of the business. Describing the challenges of staffing in different sectors, she said that clerical candidates still need to be interviewed; “It’s a little more of a conversation to get those jobs filled.”

Manufacturing often involves her clients requesting multiple orders. “We get calls for upwards of 40 orders,” she said of the number of employee needs. “It can be challenging to find that many people right for the job.”

While pundits search for hope in the murky economic forecast, Scott said that business at United, and the sector as a whole, is definitely picking up, which is a good sign.

“When the economy is on the way down, we’re the first to know it, and on the way back up we’re the first to know it also,” she explained.

“Manufacturing clients are getting orders, and they need workers,” she continued. “We have all different kinds of businesses, and they all seem to be picking up, calling for temps.”

Hiring Line

Looking at the next milestone of her successful career, Scott said that the she is thinking about branching out into health-care staffing, acknowledging that it is one of the region’s growth industries.

“Personally,” she laughed, “I don’t know anything about the licensing and laws involved in that sector. So I will have to hire some expertise in that field.”

In other words, she’ll take the approach she has from the beginning: that necessity may be the mother of invention, but hard work and imagination are the secrets to success.

And neither Scott nor her company have ever been lacking in those qualities.

Uncategorized
Strategies for Navigating the Uniform Probate Code

Imagine that your spouse or parent is in an accident or develops an illness that renders them incapacitated. Certainly, you would be dealing with worry and fear due to their situation, and you would most likely want to do all that you could to assist them. Unfortunately, when adults lose capacity to make their own decisions, if they do not have the proper documents in place, it is necessary to petition the court to have a guardian and/or conservator appointed. In order to have a guardian and/or conservator appointed, the court must first declare the incapacitated person to be incompetent.

While guardianship and conservatorship laws have existed in the Commonwealth for many years, the laws changed dramatically with the enactment of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) on July 1, 2009.

Recently, the Probate Court has endured harsh criticism. Many felt that guardianships and conservatorships were obtained too easily, and that there were not enough due-process protections in place for the incapacitated person. With the enactment of the Uniform Probate Court, additional safeguards have been put in place to protect the incapacitated person and to ensure that their rights are protected throughout the process. While this is beneficial to the incapacitated person, it means additional time, expense, and consternation for the petitioning party.

Prior to the UPC, a guardian could be appointed to handle personal and financial decisions for an incompetent person, or a conservator could be appointed to handle financial decisions. Under the new law, a guardian is empowered only to make personal decisions, such as those involving support, care, education, health, and welfare, and a conservator is empowered only to make financial decisions. As such, if a person is seeking to be appointed to handle both personal and financial matters, this person will have to request that the Probate Court appoint them as both guardian and conservator. Under the new law, this requires two separate petitions to the court.

Some of the terminology that has been used for many years has also changed. While in the past all incompetent people were called ‘wards,’ the term ‘ward’ is now reserved solely for guardianships of minors. Under the new law, a person under guardianship is called an ‘incapacitated person,’ and a person under conservatorship is called a ‘protected person.’ Court personnel, attorneys, and the public will need some time to master the terminology now used in these matters.

The UPC has also established priority as to whom should be appointed as guardian or conservator. The highest priority is given to the person named in the incapacitated person’s health-care proxy or durable power of attorney, unless good cause can be shown as to why they should not be appointed. The order of priority differs depending on whether a guardianship or a conservatorship is sought, but in either case, the court may pass over a person having priority and appoint a person having lower priority or no priority.

A new provision also ensures that a person who is being investigated, or who has charges pending, for committing an assault and battery that resulted in a serious bodily injury to a minor or otherwise incapacitated person cannot be appointed as a guardian or conservator. The court will run a criminal-record check to determine a petitioner’s status and to ensure that they are not prohibited from serving.

Prior to the UPC, completing the petition to appoint a guardian or conservator was fairly simple. The entire petition consisted of one double-sided page. Under the UPC, the petition has increased to seven pages, and the information requested therein is much more comprehensive. The court is seeking information that would allow the court to restrict the guardian or conservator to making only those decisions that are absolutely necessary, while allowing the incapacitated person to maintain as much independence as possible.

At the time that a guardian or conservator is appointed, it is necessary to provide the court with a medical certificate completed based upon an examination of the alleged incapacitated person that occurred within 30 days of the hearing. In the past, the medical certificate consisted of one double-sided page, and the physician could complete it with information that the physician believed to be pertinent. Now, a medical certificate spans six pages, and the physician must answer specific questions detailing the incapacity.

Under the new law, a medical certificate meeting the same requirements must also be filed when the petition is initially filed. It is generally impossible to have a guardianship or conservatorship allowed within 30 days of filing. As such, this new rule essentially guarantees that two examinations and two certificates will be needed, which translates into added expense and increased time pressures.

Once a petition is filed, notice must be given to all interested parties, including the alleged incompetent person. This notice provides a date by which the person could object to the petition. Under the new law, the alleged incompetent person has a right to counsel, which would likely be exercised if they desire to object. Under the new law, it appears that the appointment of counsel can be requested by anyone, even if they are not involved in the case. If the alleged incompetent person is indigent, then their counsel will be paid for by the Commonwealth.

The UPC has also restricted some decisions typically made by a guardian that were not restricted in the past. For example, the guardian must receive court approval prior to revoking a previously executed health-care proxy. In addition, the guardian must receive court approval prior to admitting the incapacitated person to a nursing home.

This provision is extremely problematic, as it prevents incompetent individuals who have been hospitalized and who are in need of rehabilitation from being admitted to the rehabilitation facility without a prior court order. This requirement could easily delay the needed admission to the rehabilitation facility for as much as 30 days or longer.

With respect to substituted-judgment determinations, in which the court places itself in the incapacitated person’s shoes in order to make the decision that the incapacitated person would make if competent, the new law requires the incapacitated person to attend the hearing thereon. The most common substituted-judgment determination is related to whether the incapacitated person should be treated with anti-psychotic medications. In the past, it was possible and fairly easy to waive the appearance of the incapacitated person. Now, the court must find that extraordinary circumstances exist requiring the incapacitated person’s absence from the hearing.

In the past, it was the duty of a conservator or guardian of an estate to file an account with the Probate Court on a yearly basis. If the account was not filed, it would not be uncommon for this failure to go unnoticed. The new law mandates that, within 60 days following their appointment, a conservator must report all assets that may be coming under their control in addition to filing an account on an annual basis.

With the use of new software, it is understood that the court will be proactive and will require conservators to file accounts in a timely manner. If an account is not filed, the court may order the account to be filed. In the event that the conservator does not file his account in a timely manner, or if the judge is not satisfied with the account, the conservator could be removed and a successor conservator appointed by the court.

Given the increasing difficulty involved in appointing and maintaining a guardianship or conservatorship, it is increasingly important for competent adults to execute health-care proxies and durable powers of attorney. A health-care proxy is a document in which someone is designated to make health-care decisions in the event of incapacity. A durable power of attorney is a document in which someone is designated to make financial decisions in the event of incapacity. Executing these two documents allows a person to avoid the need for guardianship or conservatorship, as the documents cover the two areas in which the court would appoint a decision maker — personal and financial.

Ultimately, the enactment of the UPC has vastly changed the legal landscape with respect to incapacity. The easiest way to avoid having to navigate this landscape is to plan ahead for incapacity. By executing a health-care proxy and durable power of attorney now, you can put a plan in place that can be carried out without court intervention. n

Gina M. Barry is a partner with the law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. She is a member of the National Assoc. of Elder Law Attor-neys, the Estate Planning Council, and the Western Mass. Elder Care Professionals Assoc. She concentrates her practice in the areas of estate and asset-protection planning, probate administration and litigation, guardianships, conservatorships, and residential real estate; (413) 781-0560 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (413) 781-0560      end_of_the_skype_highlighting;[email protected]

Features
Profiles in Business Putting the Spotlight on Retirement Savings

Charles Epstein, president, Epstein Financial Services

Charlie Epstein clearly remembers his first on-stage performance.

“Glenbrook Middle School in Longmeadow,” he said. “I did a Bill Cosby routine, the ‘Noah’ skit, at the annual talent show. I had yellow bellbottoms; that’s what I remember most.”

Epstein, or Charles Burtaine (that’s the name on his actor’s union card; he took his mother’s maiden name) has gone on to deliver many different kinds of performances since that spring night in 1969. In his freshman year at Longmeadow High, he played “Gangster #1,” as it said in the playbill, for the spring production of Kiss Me Kate, produced by his brother, Paul. He’s done Shakespeare — he’s quite proud of his portrayal of Richard III — and had the lead in a production of Crossing Delancy. He’s been in several television commercials, had a tiny part in an episode of the soap opera The Guiding Light, and in 1991, he did stand-up comedy in New York with Jon Stewart, among other people.

His “tour de force,” as he called it, was a one-man show called Solitary Confinement at what was then known as StageWest (now CityStage) in Springfield, in which he played seven different characters.

“That was my ode to Mrs. Doubtfire,” he joked. “I did 64 performances, eight shows a week for eight weeks; I never worked so hard in my life.”

But Epstein hasn’t been on stage in nearly a decade. He quit a Broadway show on the morning of 9/11 after deciding it wasn’t worth his time and energy, and hasn’t been seriously tempted to do any acting since. He’s confident he’ll return to performing someday, but for now, he’s content to spend the time he’s not working with his family, and especially his two adopted children, Hannah, 14, and Noah, 8.

And Epstein spends considerable time not working, maybe the equivalent of three to five months each year, by his estimate. That’s a pattern he’s continued from his acting days, when he would often spend four days of each week during the summer performing. He says he can do that — and others can as well — by focusing on making the very most of each hour in the day.

“People waste a lot of time in business,” he explained, adding quickly that he doesn’t. “When you only work nine months out of the year, you get really, really clear on what’s important and what’s not, what to put your attention toward, and what to delegate, which is what most people in my industry can’t do; most people do what they think is important — they need to do just what’s essential.”

By practicing what he preaches, Epstein has been able to steadily grow and diversify the company, Epstein Financial Services, which he started in 1983. The Holyoke-based venture now has many moving parts, or components, including the Benefits Consulting Group, a partnership with Meyers Brothers Kalicka, as well as a division called 401(k) Coach, which, as the name suggests, provides coaching to individuals on the minutae of the 401(k) and how to sell that product.

Summing it all up neatly and succinctly, Epstein said his job, which takes him from his office in Holyoke to speaking engagements across the country, boils down to convincing people to save for retirement.

“I help individuals create successful retirement outcomes, or ‘paychecks for life,’” he said, adding that this phrase has become the title of a book he’s working on, with the first draft completed.

As for his own story, when asked about the combination of forces that have shaped his life, Epstein started by pointing to a picture of his mother, Margaret, on the credenza in his office. A budding opera talent, her career was sidetracked, and eventually scuttled, when she married Robert Epstein, a prominent accountant who later went on start a women’s clothing store, Deb’s, in downtown Springfield. Eventually, he would join two brothers in another retail venture called Casual Corner and take it national.

“That’s where I get my dual personality from,” Epstein explained. “My mother was an artist, and my father was a smart businessman.”

Even with that background, though, it didn’t appear that Epstein was ticketed for great things in either realm. He recalls struggling to get even minor roles early in his acting career, and believes he recorded the lowest score (2) ever posted on an aptitude test in the 150-year history of MassMutual, which he took while working in insurance soon after graduating from Colgate University with a degree in Economics.

“It’s designed to tell if you’ll make it in the insurance business,” he explained. “I was right out of college, single, no family; who the heck is going to listen to me talk about life insurance?

“But I was fortunate; I had a mentor in the industry who took me under his wing,” he continued. “That year, I was the number-one new agent at MassMutual and made the $1 million round table.”

He wasn’t doing as well with his acting, though.

“I knew I wanted to go back to acting,” said Epstein, who noted that he lived in the theater at Colgate. “In 1987, I went to Boston for an open call for all the summer stocks in New England. I was so bad, I couldn’t even pay anybody to be an intern. Now, that’s bad. As an intern, you pay them to set up sets.”

Eventually, though, Epstein’s stock rose in both business and the arts. In 1988, he went back to Boston and actually got a paid internship ($50 a week) at a Shakespeare theater in Maine. He put up sets, got a few small acting parts, and learned a lot about the business.

By year’s end, he learned something else — that he made $50,000 more that year, working just nine months, than he did working 12 the year before. “I thought, ‘that’s really interesting.’”

Such performance, he concluded, stemmed from that aforementioned focus on what’s essential, which basically comes from necessity.

“If I were to tell anyone that I was going to take three months of work from them — that they’d have to get a year’s worth of work done in nine months — they would become so focused, and so effective, and so much more turned on,” he said.

Epstein has become so proficient in time management over the years, that he’s not only managed to get all his work done in nine months, but he’s been able to donate time and energy to nonprofits, such as Square One, and also start ventures such as the UMass Amherst Family Business Center, which is now entering its 18th year. When he and his second wife, Lorie married last year, instead of accepting presents, they asked guests to donate to charities they chose. Epstein chose Square One, and Lorie chose the Susan G. Komen Foundation which raises money to fight breast cancer.

Meanwhile, he spends considerable amounts of time on the road, speaking before a wide range of audiences. His message?

“Americans need to save, otherwise we’re going to have a huge financial crisis,” he said, putting heavy emphasis on that word ‘huge.’ “I’m a huge proselytizer of our retirement system. We have the best system in the world; all people have to do is save — it’s really not that complicated — and take half as much risk as they do now.”

When asked about whether he’ll return to the stage, Epstein it’s more a matter of when, not if, he’ll entertain again, and he speculates that the day will likely come when Noah is 18. But he has plenty to keep him busy until them, from watching Hannah’s lacrosse games to vacationing in Europe with Lorie and his children.

And in the meantime, he’ll keep the spotlight on retirement and the need for everyone to simply save.

—George O’Brien

Uncategorized
The Difference Makers Class of 2010 Will Be Honored on March 25

The stage is set — sort of.

Details are falling into place for what should be a very special night, when BusinessWest honors its Difference Makers class of 2010. The date? March 25. The place? The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke. The time? Things start at 5 and will go till whenever people are done celebrating.

The occasion? Recognizing the talents and many accomplishments of this year’s Difference Makers. They are:

  • The Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, to be represented by its executive director, Mary Walachy;
  • Ellen Freyman, shareholder with the Springfield-based law firm Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, P.C.;
  • James Goodwin, president and CEO of the Center for Human Development;
  • Carol Katz, CEO of the Loomis Communities; and
  • UMass Amherst, represented by its chancellor, Robert Holub.
  • To read the stories of these Difference Makers, visit the BusinessWest Web site, www.businessswest.com.

    More than 400 people are expected to turn out for the event, which will feature a networking hour, introductions of the winners, a short speech from each one, some live entertainment, butlered hors d’oeuvres and food stations, and an update on Project Literacy, an endeavor launched by the first class of Difference Makers in 2009, and one that will be continued by the 2010 winners and all future classes.

    This effort, said Kate Campiti, BusinessWest’s associate publisher and advertising manager, was designed to focus attention on the broad issue of literacy and to direct energy and imagination to specific projects to address this critical issue. In 2009, the Difference Makers, working with staff at BusinessWest, collected hundreds of books for the Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative through the United Way of the Pioneer Valley.

    In addition, said Campiti, the group drafted a long-range strategic plan for maintaining the focus on this subject and fulfilling a new stated mission: “Creating a Culture of Literacy — One Book at a Time.”

    “It’s really going to be a fun, exciting evening,” Campiti said of the March 25 festivities. “There will be some great networking opportunities, and, of course, we have some wonderful stories to tell.”

    Thus, this is an event with a purpose, said Campiti, adding that the event has been crafted to not only introduce the winners, but to use their stories to inspire others and hopefully create more momentum for the region moving forward.

    This momentum is summed up in what will be an ongoing theme for the Difference Makers event, the so-called Butterfly Effect, said Campiti, referring to the concept that small events (such as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings) can have large, widespread consequences.

    Five area companies have signed on as sponsors for the Difference Makers event: Catugno Reporting/Sten-Tel, Comcast Business Class, Peritus Security Partners, the law firm Royal & Klimczuk, and Sarat Ford/Lincoln Mercury.

    Tickets for the event are $50 each, and tables of 10 are available. For more information or to order tickets, call Melissa Hallock, BusinessWest’s sales and marketing coordinator, at (413) 781-8600 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (413) 781-8600      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, ext. 10; or e-mail[email protected].

    Features
    Why Flexible Hours and Telecommuting Are on the Rise
    Beyond the 9-to-5

    Brenda Olesuk says the accounting industry has been smart about using flex time and telecommuting as a retention tool.

    In 2003, about 4.4 million Americans were telecommuting, to some extent, instead of showing up at the office. In 2010, that number is expected to surpass 100 million. At the same time, the trend toward allowing employees to work flexible or non-traditional hours has also risen sharply in recent years. Why the surges? As it turns out, even during a recession, companies still value their best talent and are increasingly willing to let them craft a workday around their personal and professional needs. Employers say they benefit because happy workers are productive workers.

    It’s no wonder accounting is such an attractive field for women, considering what a leader the industry has been in providing work-life benefits like flexible schedules and telecommuting.

    “It’s a retention tool,” said Brenda Olesuk, director of marketing for Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. in Holyoke. “In fact, accounting firms, as a rule, have employed flex time, technology, and telecommuting as a both a recruiting tool and as a retention tool.”

    Part of the shift has to do with the rise of women in the accounting field; they make up more than 60% of all accountants nationwide.

    “That has changed the complexion of the industry over the past couple of decades,” Olesuk noted. “Women, of course, have families and often want to have the flexibility of being able to have a family and a career. These are highly educated, accomplished people, and the industry has been very smart about using technology and flex time to attract and retain talent, especially women.”

    But it’s not just accounting, and not only women who are reaping these benefits. Across the board, aided by advancements in communications technology, workers are increasingly being given the option of working at home, or coming into the office for only part of their workweek, otherwise staying connected by phone, e-mail, and Internet.

    The upward trend has been pronounced. In 2003, according to a report from the American Interactive Research Group, about 4.4 million Americans telecommuted from home. A year later, that number had almost doubled, and in 2010, it’s expected to surpass 100 million — almost a third of the country’s entire population, working or not.

    That’s a startling increase, but it doesn’t surprise Lorie Valle-Yanez, vice president and chief diversity officer at MassMutual. That’s because the Springfield-based financial-services firm has long been recognized as a leader in providing work-life benefits to its employees, even being named to Working Mother magazine’s 100-best-companies list 10 times.

    “I like to think we have a culture of flexibility here. If you walked through the halls and talked to people, you’d see it’s less of a formal program and more a part of the DNA of the company,” she explained. “We have a long history of supporting the work-life balance of employees, helping employees meet their obligations inside and outside of work.”

    It’s a trend that should continue as a perfect storm brews, with employers increasingly recognizing the benefits of keeping their top talent happy, and a generation of 20-somethings entering the work world expecting such treatment to a degree not seen before.

    But working from home and setting one’s own hours isn’t a right, say those who spoke with BusinessWest; it’s a privilege earned by the most valuable, productive workers. And used correctly, such flexibility is proving to be a classic win-win for companies and their employees.

    Doing Their Homework

    Employee retention is no small matter; depending on the industry and the position, the replacement cost of an entry-level staff position — including money spent on recruitment, hiring, training, and orienting a new employee — can top $10,000, and often much more. And that doesn’t include the lost time and energy that management must expend on such efforts.

    That’s why keeping top talent happy is critical, even during a recession.

    “Absolutely, it’s attractive for people who want to come work here,” Valle-Yanez said. “One of the selling points when you come to this company is its flexibility. It certainly demonstrates that this company cares about employees’ well-being, and it shows in increased productivity, improved morale, improved engagement, and improved loyalty across the board. People know they can come into this organization and be able to manage their work-life challenges.”

    Smaller companies are also starting to recognize the benefits of giving employees an alternative to the 9-to-5 cubicle shift.

    “Offering flex time and mixed telecommuting arrangements is something we’ve done for a number of years,” said Michelle van Schouwen, president of van Schouwen Associates, a Longmeadow-based advertising and marketing firm.

    “Back when we started, it was born of various necessities — so a valued employee moving to a different state could still do most of their work, or for a parent whose child care ended before our office hours did,” van Schouwen explained. “As we began to work with it, we realized it was a good fit with the type of staffing we had.”

    Specifically, she said, her firm typically hires people who have an independent streak and know how to manage themselves, rather than needing lots of hand-holding. “They tend to be the kind of people who would stay late and do the job at the office, people who know what they’re responsible for and want to get it done. They have that internal sense of professionalism that means they’re going to get their work done.”

    That’s an important factor, Valle-Yanez said, because not everyone has the discipline to stay focused on work when no one is looking.

    “I believe flexibility is not an entitlement; it’s an earned privilege,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s not one size fits all. Not everyone is able to work from home. If somebody is not performing, it’s probably less likely they’ll have the same flexibility as someone who performs very well.”

    The type of job someone has obviously makes a difference, too, she said, noting that a call-center representative would need to work largely on site during regular business hours. But those whose jobs allow them to work from home, on their own schedule, are likely to appreciate the privilege — and that’s good for productivity.

    “People who are good performers have earned the right and earned that flexibility. They value that flexibility a lot, and they’re very productive employees,” Valle-Yanez said. “If you think about it as an earned privilege, you don’t want that privilege to be taken away. So employees who have that privilege tend to be highly motivated.”

    Small World

    Olesuk noted that home offices and corporate offices are more connected by technology than ever before, and many tasks can be performed at night or on weekends, allowing employees who have children or other responsibilities to set their own schedule.

    “In our firm, we have all sorts of people, men and women alike, who are able to work from home or from their office equally well,” she said. “Technology is an enormous component allowing us to do our job from any location, and the flexibility of being able to manage our hours, whether it’s full-time or part-time, and still serve the client and meet the firm’s needs, is a very significant tool. If we were to go back to everyone doing 8 to 5 from this office, we’d have real retention issues.”

    Being an accounting and business-consulting firm, Meyers Brothers Kalicka (MBK) is able to observe this move toward flexibility outside its own walls, too.

    For example, James Calnan, partner and director of the firm’s Health Services Division, sees a definite increase in telecommuting in the medical field, especially for key staff hired for their specific skill set and judgment.

    One of his clients employs a director of finance who’s scheduled to work from home two days per week, with the company supplying the computer, cell phone, and other technology. Another client has field reps in multiple states, and staff meetings are conducted through a dial-in format. While it’s usually key personnel who have more ability to telecommute, Calnan said, most levels of administrative staff are utilizing flex scheduling — again, perhaps spurred by more women in the workforce having to juggle work and home responsibilities.

    Donna Roundy, MBK’s senior audit manager for its Not-for-Profit Division, says nonprofit organizations are increasingly allowing telecommunicating as a way to attract and retain skilled individuals in key roles. Outside of these key positions, she said, most clients typically want their staff on premises.

    Meanwhile, Kris Houghton, a partner and Director of the firm’s Tax Division, says the service sector most successfully utilizes technology for recruitment and retention, with fields such as accounting, law, engineering, medicine, human resources, and computers services best equipped to operate in that ‘virtual-office’ environment.

    Sales forces also benefit from technology and ability to telecommute, she added. While support-level staff may not always have telecommuting opportunities, Houghton said, there has definitely been an increase in flexible hours across the board.

    Telecommuting can also serve specific budgetary purposes, Houghton explained. For instance, instead of bringing a medical coder on board full-time, which a practice may not need, it can hire a coder part-time who does the practice’s work from home at night — a more efficient use of resources.

    Homeward Bound

    At MassMutual, Valle-Yanez said, while scheduling and workplace flexibility is built into the philosophy and culture, each decision on where and when someone works is typically made between that employee and his or her manager, taking into account both outside circumstances and the employee’s work habits and productivity. When the arrangement works, everyone is happy.

    “It’s a nice option,” she said. “You don’t have to face a snowstorm. You can do your work at home. In some cases, people are more productive at home; there are often less day-to-day interruptions, and they’re surprised how much they get done from their home office.”

    In terms of productivity and retention, van Schouwen had similar thoughts.

    “It’s all positive — again, when using the right people,” she said. “For example, among our employees, we have parents of younger children who likely stay with the job in part because it allows them a work-life balance. In addition, we’ve been able to keep people who have moved away with a spouse or made other life changes that would have made an ordinary commute inconvenient.

    “For a small company,” she concluded, “it’s a benefit that’s both affordable and valued, and that’s a precious thing.”

    Joseph Bednar can be reached

    at[email protected]

    Uncategorized
    New Economy, Old Economy, and Business Costs

    Policymakers in Boston and Washington love to paint new-economy jobs as an economic panacea, immune to high taxes, staggering electricity costs, and bureaucratic regulation. They tout — and often subsidize — ‘industries of the future,’ while raising costs for the industries of the present that employ the majority of Massachusetts residents. But the new-economy myth exploded in 2009 as companies that have been poster children for innovation-based economic development in Massachusetts announced major expansion projects in Michigan, the Carolinas, and China.

    A recent UMass study found that 70% of technology executives believe Massachusetts must address the cost of doing business, corporate taxes, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Business costs matter just as much in the new economy as they did in the old.

    High-technology, biotechnology, and clean-technology jobs respond to the same economic influences that determine whether any job will provide economic opportunity to citizens of Massachusetts — or to citizens of Michigan or citizens of China. Innovation remains critical to economic growth, but government must also commit to supporting commercialization and the employment opportunities it will create.

    Our economic future depends upon the ability of the Commonwealth to create a favorable business environment across all industries. The alternative is an ‘invented here, made elsewhere’ economy that provides opportunity for doctoral-level researchers, but leaves other citizens out in the cold.

    That understanding is the foundation of the public-policy agenda of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, which continues to advocate on behalf of employers as Massachusetts enters a new decade struggling to emerge from a protracted economic downturn.

    The document calls for an economic policy that balances key public investments with a competitive cost structure that keeps jobs in Massachusetts; a predictable, responsible, and long-term state fiscal policy; uniformly favorable environment for business development across all industries; leadership from business executives to help government resolve important issues; well-conceived and collaborative regulation policies that create measurable benefits; an environment that values contributions made by employers to operate successful businesses that employ state residents; a nimble, world-class education system that provides opportunity for all Massachusetts citizens and the knowledge base for economic growth; and the need for business and government to more fully collaborate in order to ensure mutual success.

    Massachusetts employers, even ‘new-economy’ companies, have cause to worry as 2010 begins. They face an immediate 28% increase in unemployment insurance taxes and $44 million in new assessments for the Medical Security Trust Fund, as well as the Legislature’s failure to address flaws in last year’s $192 million Combined Reporting corporate tax increase that has put Massachusetts at the bottom of CFO magazine’s list of places to do business.

    A better business climate — not higher business costs — is the key to rebuilding our economy and solving the budget crisis that threatens the ability of state and local government to deliver the services that citizens expect.

    Richard C. Lord is president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

    Uncategorized

    There were interesting comments coming out of Boston last week concerning state government and what it can do to help businesses navigate their way through this recession and into calmer waters. All we can say is that we hope there is action to back up the words.

    In interviews with the Boston Globe, Gov. Deval Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo all said essentially the same thing: that the state needs to respond more forcefully to the economic crisis by helping existing businesses and spurring new ones. And, for the most part, they’re right. Things are not going to get any better on their own, at least anytime soon, and in the meantime, businesses continue to close or move and the unemployment rate is climbing ever closer to that 10% mark.

    Said DeLeo: “It’s reached a crisis point. We churn hundreds of thousands of jobs a year. If we’re going to recover from this economic downturn, we need to restore our job base and start creating new jobs.”

    To do that, Patrick and Murray have specific proposals that range from providing tax credits to businesses who hire new employees, to a freeze on unemployment insurance rates; from consolidation and elimination of some of the more than 30 economic development agencies within the state’s bureaucracy, to creation of regional one-stop centers for business information.

    We hope that all of these and more make that often-difficult jump from proposal to reality and constitute what might be considered a good start toward making this state much more business-friendly. That’s because the Commonwealth is widely perceived to be anti-business, and in this case, perception certainly is reality.

    Indeed, the Bay State is famous, or infamous, for throwing obstacles in the way of business owners, hurdles that prompt many to look elsewhere when they are thinking of starting or expanding a business. Things are better than they were perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, when the Commonwealth was known as Taxachusetts by the business community, but there is still a long way to go.

    The proposals from Patrick and Murray would seem to be some solid steps in the right direction because they address different kinds of obstacles.

    Patrick’s planned freeze on unemployment insurance, for example, would save businesses $158 per employee this year, and $391 million statewide. Those are not insignificant numbers when one considers that many small businesses are operating on the edge and without a safety net of any consequence. Meanwhile, his proposed $50 million in tax credits for businesses — $2,500 for every new job created by a business with 30 or fewer employees — would help promote hiring at a time when employers are wary about adding personnel, even when they know they need to, and require some kind of push.

    The governor is also looking into ways to limit increases in health-insurance premiums, perhaps by convincing the Legislature to give the state insurance commissioner more power in such matters. Such a step would ease a serious drain on the state’s economy and provide still more breathing room for small-business owners.

    As for Murray’s Senate plan, a big piece of it concerns streamlining the many economic-development agencies currently operating in the Commonwealth. Together, they create a different kind of obstacle for businesses, a maze that must be negotiated or, in many cases, not, because it is simply too daunting or confusing.

    Unwittingly, state officials have simply created too much business bureaucracy, a bevy of agencies that duplicate efforts, waste taxpayer dollars, and leave business owners confused about where and to whom to turn when they need help.

    By simplifying matters, the state will do more than save a few million dollars; it will leave those who own and manage companies in this state better-served and better-able to continue doing business here.

    All of this talk sounds very good, and some of it we’ve heard before. As we said at the top, we hope that this becomes so much more than talk.

    That’s because this state remains a difficult and expensive one in which to do business, and things must change if the Commonwealth is to achieve real progress.

    Features
    A Sagging Economy, Other Forces Push Some into Business Ownership

    Entrepreneurs of NecessityMaking the transition from employee to business owner is usually a scary proposition. What’s prompting more people to take such a plunge is the realization that the corporate world is no less scary and, in many ways, even less secure. But whether one chooses this route by choice or out of necessity, a challenging roller-coaster ride almost always awaits.

    Trisha Thompson called it “working for the Mouse,” as opposed to ‘the man.’

    That’s a phrase used by many of those who find themselves in the employ of the massive Disney Corp., which Thompson was, as executive editor of a Northampton-based monthly publication for parents called Wondertime.

    That’s was.

    Indeed, the corporation abruptly shut down the magazine roughly a year ago, despite what most all involved considered solid early success. “We made all our numbers,” said Thompson, referring to the start-up’s performance over its first several years. “We received some awards, we were on track with our circulation … we were a good magazine. We went from an original staff of seven to 32, but they decided to just shut it down.”

    Fast-forwarding things a little, Thompson said this sudden, completely unexpected turn of events provided the rather violent push she and her husband, Fred Levine, then a freelance writer and editor, needed to start their own business venture, called Small Batch Books. Operated out of their home in Amherst, this vanity-press operation specializes in personal memoirs, family histories, and commemorative books.

    It was launched last summer after some extensive job hunting and soul searching led the two to determine that this was the best, most practical route for them to take given their ages (Trisha was 49, Fred 52), their career aspirations, and the decidedly unsteady state of the print publishing industry.

    “It doesn’t feel safe anywhere anymore — there’s no place to go that’s really all that secure,” said Thompson as she explained why she turned down a few other opportunities in publishing, including one in Iowa, and then stopped looking, even if that meant entering the often-scary world of entrepreneurship. “I thought to myself, I’m going to uproot my family to go to Des Moines, and then in a year they’re going to shut that down? No, thank you.”

    And because no place is safe in most all sectors of the economy, many, like Thomson and Levine, have become what Dianne Fuller Doherty calls “entrepreneurs of necessity.”

    Elaborating, Doherty, director of the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network’s western regional office, said that most who go into business for themselves do so out of choice or opportunity. But all economic downturns, and especially the so-called Great Recession, have seemingly removed choice from the equation for some who have found themselves downsized and with few, if any, attractive job opportunities.

    “We’re seeing many people who are choosing this path out of necessity,” she said, “which isn’t always a good thing. Some people are cut out for this, and some people aren’t.”

    Sometimes, such entrepreneurial leaps are brought on by other factors, such as a company’s relocation, discontinuation of programs, changes in administration at a company or institution, or others. For Dan Touhey, the ‘push,’ as those who have made this transition call it, came when his long-time employer, Spalding, which he most recently served as vice president of marketing, announced it would be moving out of Springfield.

    The first announced destination was Atlanta, home to Russell Athletic, which bought Spalding several years ago, Touhey explained. But then, when Fruit of the Loom bought Russell, employees were told that if they wanted to stay in the organization they would have to relocate to Bowling Green, Ky.

    And Touhey never gave that mailing address any serious consideration.

    So after sifting through some offers from recruiters and rejecting them — none looked solid enough in these days of unrest and consolidation in corporate America — he decided to go out on his own last spring with DPT Consulting.

    There are two aspects to this business. The first, concerning his primary client, the Berkshire Opportunity Fund, involves channeling small businesses looking for funding to that venture-capital outfit. The second is centered on offering Touhey’s vast experience in business and marketing to small businesses that can use it. These include a cycling-apparel company in Northampton and a start-up that manufactures a product called the ‘bunt-down bat.’

    As in all cases when individuals mull the shift from being an employee to being self-employed, those who take this step out of necessity must still perform the needed due diligence, said Lyne Kendell, senior business advisor for the MSBDC, who has counseled many people weighing such a decision.

    In short, such individuals must have a solid business concept and a plan of attack, she explained, but also the needed skill sets to be an entrepreneur (not everyone has them), and a passion for what they want to do.

    “It can’t be something they just feel like they want to do or should do,” she explained. “And it shouldn’t be just a way to make money. It has to be something they’re passionate about. Without that, it won’t succeed.”

    By the Book

    This requisite passion was apparently missing the first time Thomson and Levine met with Kendell.

    That was seven years ago, when they were pondering a different kind of venture, one involving custom publishing in the corporate realm, or what Thompson described as “extended advertorials” for products and services.

    “Within about 10 minutes, she was giving us this weird eye, the stink-eye kind of thing,” Thompson recalled. “We were looking over our shoulders saying, ‘who’s she making this face at?’ It was us. She said, ‘do you really want to do this? I’m getting the feeling you don’t, but feel you could or should.’

    “We said, ‘well, of course we do,’” Thompson continued. “But shortly thereafter, we found out she was right, but by then, we had already rented office space and spent money unnecessarily.”

    Things were different when Levine and Thompson were again sitting across the MSBDC conference table from Kendell, this time explaining Small Batch Books. The two told Kendell (and BusinessWest) that they believed they had a somewhat unique concept — a soup-to-nuts vanity publishing operation — and something that they truly believed in.

    This time around, the body language conveyed the necessary confidence and passion, said Kendell, who said she gave Levine and Thompson a homework assignment of sorts, one they ultimately scored well on.

    “I gave them some tasks to do and things to think about, on both the personal side and the business side, and a few weeks later, they came back with those tasks completed and with the confidence that they could take the plunge,” she said. “On the personal side, they have to do what I call a personal retreat — do they have the personal wherewithal to do this? If they’re going to work together, what would the guidelines be for the home life and business life? On the business side, it’s more looking at skills, contacts, potential revenue streams, whether you really know the market, and whether you could, if necessary, live on a part-time job or savings for 12 to 18 months.”

    Kendell has been assigning lots of homework these days, as she and others at the MSBDC handle a larger portfolio of cases than would be considered normal, mostly due to the recession.

    Many of these cases involve businesses that are hurting, said Allen Kronick, senior business advisor for the MSBDC, noting that some wait too long to seek help. For these businesses he sometimes uses the term ‘dead on arrival’ to describe their condition, meaning that there is nothing he or anyone else can do for them. Many others can be helped, he said, adding that his own portfolio has many cases involving companies trying to find ways to hang on until the economy improves — and succeeding.

    Meanwhile, many other cases involve startups, with a good percentage of them blueprinted by individuals who have been downsized and can’t find another job, or at least one to their liking, or who could perhaps find a job similar to what they had before, but are tired of what Kendell called the “rat race.”

    Looking over his portfolio, Kronick said he has several clients that fit this description. They include everything from a former MSPCA employee — laid off when that agency shut down its Springfield facility — who is now making and selling cat scratch posts, to a laser engineer who knew his days were numbered with his now-former employer and started his own venture, to some other former executives at Spalding trying to figure what to do next.

    Tuohey’s situation involves both the recession and general uncertainty about corporate America. He told BusinessWest that, in this economy, even though things have improved somewhat since last spring, opportunities in marketing, and especially senior marketing positions, are few and far between. But recruiters did call, he continued, and upon listening to what they were saying, he became increasingly convinced that there were few, if any, situations that provided the real security and peace of mind he was seeking.

    “When I did find situations, they were less than ideal,” he explained. “They were too similar to what I had just left, and I knew how quickly things could change. I looked at a couple of situations, gave them serious consideration, and decided to decline.”

    Eventually, he said he simply grew tired of waiting for the ideal situation to come about and for the economy to rebound, and started his own venture. The work with the Berkshire Opportunity Fund has been steady and has given him a solid foundation, he explained, adding that he’s slowly but surely building a portfolio of clients in sports-related businesses that can tap into his marketing and brand-building expertise.

    VOmax, a Northampton-based cycling-apparel maker, is one such client. Tuohey said he recently helped the company secure licenses with the National Basketball Assoc., National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball, to make clothes with team logos and colors. Meanwhile, with the Bunt Down Bat venture, he is helping the owner build brand recognition and take manufacturing operations to a higher level.

    Gifted and Talented

    For Marge Slinski, the push into entrepreneurship didn’t come from the recession. Instead, it came first from a change of direction regarding the UMass program she had been involved with — one concerning youths at risk — and an informal policy at the school that acted as a career barrier.

    Elaborating, Slinski said she had a position of authority with a national program, one that won several million dollars in grants to create and replicate initiatives involving youths at risk. She eventually lost that position when the school opted for a different course, and found out rather quickly that, to attain a position with similar responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities to grow, she would need a doctoral degree, which she didn’t have and didn’t want to put her life on hold to earn.

    Instead, she went to the Smith College Career Center (she’s an alum) to get some counseling on what to do next. “I was essentially a person who lost a great job and had no way to replace it,” she explained, adding that those at Smith told her that she could take some of her strengths, specifically those in the arts, and what she called “collaboration building” and perhaps use them to start a business.

    She took that advice and started Choices, LLC, a venture run out of her home that is focused on helping companies find appropriate gifts for their corporate clients.

    Through collaborations with American artists such as Stephen Schlanser, Jennifer McCurdy, Geoffrey Smith, and others, she’s commissioned suitable, meaningful gifts for clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to locally based banks. The recipients vary, from Mideast oil sheiks to Chinese businessmen to retiring employees, and the occasions vary as well, from celebrations of $1 billion sales (for those Fortune 100 companies, obviously) to employees’ 25th anniversaries.

    “I had a new mission,” said Slinski. “Instead of youth at risk, I’m getting corporations to value American arts and crafts as key corporate gifts for their VIPs.”

    Starting with a few leads given to her by her husband, who’s in business, Slinski has managed to steadily grow the company over the past few years, and is now looking to take on a partner and take it to the next level.

    Meanwhile, Levine and Thompson, who worked in Western Mass. several years ago, then relocated for other job opportunities before returning nearly a decade ago, told BusinessWest that they’ve pretty much understood for some time that they would likely have to go into business for themselves, given the rocky state of the publishing industry in recent years.

    “We knew when we moved back here that staying in publishing is not the best place to be, and that we’d probably have to come up with something on our own at some point,” said Levine. “We were lucky along the way in that we did find some staff jobs and we were able to cobble things together with freelance work. But after this last round, with Trisha getting let go, and with the economy taking a huge, huge bite out of print publishing in general, we knew we’d have to do something on our own that would be more stable.”

    Over the past several months, they’ve been able to approach stability through several projects involving personal or family histories or other legacy initiatives, most all of them for customers outside the 413 area code; one current work in progress is for a client in Australia.

    “There are many who won’t have fortunes to leave behind, but will have thoughts and memories and words,” said Thompson, noting, as one example, the remaining World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors, many of whom, as they approach or reach their ’90s, are thinking about putting their stories into something that can be preserved for future generations.

    “They have a legacy to leave behind,” she said, adding that this phenomenon certainly provides some growth potential for their fledgling business.

    Free Spirits

    When asked about making the transition from employee to employer, or sole proprietor, those we spoke with said there is a definite learning curve that is part and parcel to such a career shift.

    There are things to absorb, especially on the financial side of things, and there are some trade-offs. There is no steady paycheck anymore, said Thompson, stressing, as she did repeatedly, that there are no sure things in the corporate world either in this day and age. But there is freedom, more responsibility, and, in general, a pride in ownership that doesn’t come with working for someone.

    “It’s very freeing, but’s also a little scary when you’re not working for the mouse,” said Thompson, who noted that, without the strong push that came with the closing of Wondertime, she and Levine may have not made the leap. “It’s freeing because you have as much autonomy and decision-making power as you do responsibility, and that’s unusual. There’s no one else to blame if something doesn’t go right.”

    Said Levine, “on the days when it gets dicey for us and we start to get a little scared, we take a step back and look at the people we know from the long careers we’ve had who have stayed with a large publishing company and lost their jobs because the magazine got sold to some other huge conglomerate. It isn’t always better on the other side.

    “But maybe the biggest difference for me is realizing how much energy you spent in a
    taff job just dealing with personalities and the whole political machinery of it,” he continued. “Now, you can take all that energy and put it into building your business, and also on the creative side as well. Just think about all the time you lose sitting in meetings.”

    Roughly a year after he made the transition, Tuohey has no regrets and isn’t looking back, only ahead. He, too, likes the freedom and greater sense of satisfaction that comes with business ownership.

    “You definitely make your own breaks,” he said. “The thing about what I’m doing that’s so fulfilling for me is that I’ve earned every penny that I’ve made doing this, and I’ve become much more well-rounded of a professional. I think I’m more determined, and more confident in my abilities.

    “Those are the absolute positives,” he continued, “plus I don’t have to jump on a plane every week and fly off and not see my kids.”

    Slinski said her background has been in program development, not business management, so she has had to learn many of the basics, from balance sheets, which she’s still mastering, to pricing.

    “The hardest thing to learn was to ask for the money I deserved; I would tend to underprice, but I’m getting better at it,” she said. “Overall, I was never a business person; I was great at creating things and developing things systematically, but the business side was all new to me, and I had to learn.”

    All those who make the transition to business owner, whether by choice or out of necessity, should be prepared for what Tuohey called a “roller-coaster ride.”

    “There are a lot of ups and downs and emotional swings,” he explained. “Most of all, people have to be prepared to work hard and have some determination and some perseverance; it’s not an easy ride by any means.”

    The Bottom Line

    Touhey says he still hears from recruiters.

    “I get calls once in a while,” he said. “I tell them that I’ve stopped looking for a job, but if they want to talk to me, and there’s an ideal situation, I’ll certainly listen.

    “But I’m going to be the one dictating the terms; I’m not just going to jump back in,” he continued. “I’ve found something I think I can grow, and in the meantime, I’ve proven to myself and my family that I’m capable of providing for us with this, and there’s a certain amount of accomplishment in that.”

    In other words, a former entrepreneur of necessity is now one by choice — and he’s not alone.

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

    Departments

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

    Abergel, Nicole S.
    a/k/a Remillard, Nicole S.
    187 Oak St.
    Indian Orchard, MA 01151
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/04/10

    Alameh, Maria
    33 Greenleaf St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Alexander, John D.
    11 Francis St.
    Greenfield, MA 01301
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Alfarone, Roberto
    Alfarone, Robinlynn
    a/k/a Gareau, Robin Lynn
    24 Quartus St.
    Chicopee, MA 01013
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Arce, Jesus
    89 Marlborough St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Arrogante, Ruben Bautista
    Arrogante, Maria Carmen
    29 Day St.
    West Springfield, MA 01089
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Baer, Gale M.
    206 Holy Cross Circle
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Benito Rocca Heating
    Rocca, Benito G.
    329 Frank Smith Road
    Longmeadow, MA 01106
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/08/10

    Boido, Matthew T.
    3 Cheryl Lane
    Southampton, MA 01073
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/13/10

    Bonsant, Daniel Alfred
    16 Vienna Ave.
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Brewster, Edythe Mae
    61 Warren St.
    Agawam, MA 01001
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Bulley, Christopher A.
    14 Scott St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Cardona, Luis A.
    540 Page Blvd.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Cauley, Linda Marie
    243 College Highway
    Southampton, MA 01073
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Colon, Virgen M.
    226 West Franklin St.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Corder, Marquita M.
    5 Cottonwood Lane
    Springfield, MA 01128
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Corriveau, Nicole C.
    a/k/a Staiti, Nicole C.
    42 Bradway Road
    Monson, MA 01057
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Cote, David M.
    Cote, Ginger D.
    54 High St.
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Cox, Stephen W.
    Cox, Laura A.
    5 Teakwood Road
    Springfield, MA 01128
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Darrah, Richard E.
    a/k/a Linkenhoker-Darrah, Marilyn A.
    7 School St.
    Ware, MA 01082
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/08/10

    Daskevich, Mitchell D.
    Daskevich, Theresa M
    31 James Lane
    Orange, MA 01364
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/04/10

    Davenport, Deborah L.
    a/k/a Ripley, Deborah
    342 North Loomis St.
    Southwick, MA 01077
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    DelAcqua, Steven R.
    4F Culdaff St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    DeMusis, David Leodore
    198 Durant St.
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    DeVault, Timothy S.
    DeVault, Buni B.
    43 Oak Ave.
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Dorman, James Andre
    9 Waterford Circle
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Elliott, Tammy J.
    38 Greenbrier St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Ferdinand, Nancy M.
    418 North Hemlock Lane
    Williamstown, MA 01267
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/10/10

    Ferry, Daniel L.
    350 West St., Lot 19A
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Fitzgerald, Louise A.
    928 Granby Road
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Garbin, Jill E.
    83 Verdugo St.
    West Springfield, MA 01089
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Gelinas, William Francis
    Gelinas, Susan
    a/k/a Thompson, Susan
    36 Austin St.
    Chicopee, MA 01013
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Giordano, Joseph
    495 Berkshire Ave.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Gleason, Ronald Herbert
    Gleason, Janice Marie
    43 Norwood St.
    Greenfield, MA 01301
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Gorton, Chad Michael
    Gorton, Melanie Mclean
    28 Lyric St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Gran, Steven R.
    1 Malone Ave.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Greene, James R.
    43-45 Ringgold St.
    Springfield, MA 01107
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Halbrook, Sean D.
    Halbrook, Nicole M.
    9 Squire Dr.
    Wilbraham, MA 01095
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/04/10

    Hansen, John G.
    266 Southwick Road
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Harris, Joseph C.
    Harris, Pamela A.
    28 Bangs Ave.
    Orange, MA 01364
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Hernandez, Maritza
    89 Marlborough St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Herrera, Melissa
    104 Francis St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/04/10

    Howard, Juanita L.
    1 Malone Ave.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Inglot, Andrew G.
    Inglot, Diane Z.
    65 Spring Hill Road
    Belchertown, MA 01007
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Kenyon, Chester W.
    PO Box 3086
    Warren, MA 01083
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Keough, Scott R.
    46 Prospect St.
    Hatfield, MA 01038
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

     

    Kraverotis, April M.
    Kraverotis, Wayne J.
    70 Malibu Dr.
    Springfield, MA 01128
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Kreinest, Jeri Ann
    25 Fairway Dr.
    Longmeadow, MA 01106
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    La Croix, Janet A.
    140 Union St., Apt. 12
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Lane, Barbara A.
    54-6 Simard Dr.
    Chicopee, MA 01013
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/08/10

    Lapointe, Raymond T.
    Lapointe, Sarah A.
    26 Dubois St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Livernois, David P.
    P.O. Box 185
    Brimfield, MA 01010
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Lynch, William J.
    Lynch, Joyce H.
    71 Turners Falls Road
    TurnersFalls, MA 01376
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/13/10

    Matney, Louis E.
    11 Greene Ave.
    North Adams, MA 01247
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Matsuk, Aleksey
    Matsuk, Svetlana
    a/k/a Chertovskya, Svetlana
    161 Stimson St.
    Palmer, MA 01069
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Matteson, Raymond F.
    234 Partridge Road
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    McCauslin, Kim
    99 Holyoke Road
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Medina, Roberto
    269 Seymour Ave.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Moran, Kevin G.
    Moran, June M.
    15 Winthrop Ter.
    PO Box 963
    Warren, MA 01083
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/01/10

    Nentwig, Jeffrey E.
    28 Wells Ave.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Normandin, Robert P.
    3284 Boston Road
    Palmer, MA 01069
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    O’Connor, Meghan Ann
    38 Fairlawn St.
    SouthHadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Osgood, Susanne L.
    99 Carroll St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Pagan, Victor
    Rivera, Damaris
    78 Nonotuck St.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Parent, Janice
    495 Berkshire Ave.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Perry, Jennifer L.
    22 G St.
    Turners Falls, MA 01376
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Porter, Alvin A.
    Porter, Deborah E.
    85 Alvin St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Reyes, Eduardo
    189 Eddy St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Rivera, Liz
    101 Layzon Brother Road
    IndianOrchard, MA 01151
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Rossetti, Steven J.
    Rossetti, Lisa M.
    296 Spring St.
    Florence, MA 01062
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Ruiz, Jose B.
    30 Riverview Homes, Apt. #1
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Scanlon, Daniel J.
    123 Pinehurst St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Schuster, Gary C.
    Schuster, Pamala K.
    34 Roosevelt Ave.
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/15/10

    Sepanek, Sharon A.
    78 Forest Park Ave.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/08/10

    Shrair, Jonathan R.
    20 Ardsley Road
    Longmeadow, MA 01106
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Sieng, Phun
    49 Popwin Lane
    Amherst, MA 01002
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Smith, Candace B.
    97 Osborne Road
    Ware, MA 01082
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Smith, Meghan L.
    4 Liberty St., Unit E
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/13/10

    Sosa, Carlos N.
    Sosa, Emily
    35 Archie St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/14/10

    Storti, Jennifer L.
    11 Naples Ave.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/13/10

    Topulos, Timothy A.
    25 Lagadia St.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/13/10

    Torres, Evelyn
    199 Nassau Dr.
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/05/10

    Valois, Maurice H.
    Valois, Patricia
    a/k/a Potente, Patricia
    97 Woodmont St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Vincent, Laurence J.
    Vincent, Carol M.
    681 Shaker Road
    Longmeadow, MA 01106
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    von Marschall, Gloria M.
    127 Spring St.
    Apt. BA
    Springfield, MA 01103
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/12/10

    Vorce, Jay N.
    Vorce, Gail A.
    8 Johnson Road
    Orange, MA 01364
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Walulak, Michael Anthony
    Walulak, Jill Ellen
    Meshlovitz, Jill Ellen
    11 Hovey Road
    Monson, MA 01057
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 01/07/10

    Wiener, Michael B.
    245 Tanglewood Dr.
    Longmeadow, MA 01106
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Willemain, Shawn Lee
    59 New Ludlow Road
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/06/10

    Williams, Wayne E.
    251 Arthur St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/08/10

    Winch, Edward N.
    a/k/a Winch, Nelson E.
    40 Columbus Ave.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 01/11/10

    Departments

    UMass Gets OK for Law School

    BRIDGEWATER — The Mass. Board of Higher Education voted unanimously on Feb. 2 to approve the application by UMass Dartmouth to award the Juris Doctor, the first professional degree in the study of law. The approval comes one week after discussion of the application at the Board’s Assessment and Accountability Committee meeting in Worcester, including public testimony from approximately 30 individuals, most of whom spoke in favor of the application, and after a positive recommendation from staff at the Department of Higher Education. Gov. Deval L. Patrick praised the board’s decision, noting in a release, “this is another historic moment in education for the Commonwealth. Yesterday’s unanimous vote to approve the law program at the University of Massachusetts is a victory for our students and their families. I’m thankful to the Board of Higher Education, the University of Massachusetts system, and the Southern New England School of Law for all of their thoughtful work and effort to make an affordable public opportunity to aspiring young people in the Commonwealth.” Following last week’s committee meeting, the Department completed its analysis of the university’s proposal and recommended approval of the application. Staff found that the proposed UMass Dartmouth Juris Doctor met review criteria, and that the university will be able to start and operate a law school that will achieve American Bar Assoc. accreditation in a reasonable time frame, presuming it will attain its enrollment goals and prudently utilize associated financial resources. The university’s proposal was made possible in part by an offer from the neighboring Southern New England School of Law to donate its buildings and assets to facilitate UMass Dartmouth being able to offer a Juris Doctor. The Southern New England School of Law will file for institutional closure with the Department of Higher Education within 90 days following the spring 2010 student graduation. UMass Dartmouth intends to invite current SNESL students, faculty, and staff to study and work at the new UMass Dartmouth law program. With this program approval, the university is authorized to enroll its first class in the fall 2010 semester. In spring 2013, upon graduating the first class of first-year students in the Juris Doctor program, the university will submit to the Board a status report addressing its success in reaching program goals and in the areas of enrollment, curriculum, faculty resources, program effectiveness, and accreditation status.

    Brightside Closing Some Programs

    WEST SPRINGFIELD — The residential and school programs of Brightside for Families and Children will cease operations by April 2. Since its founding in 1881, Brightside has repeatedly evolved to meet the changing needs of the community, and for the past few years, supported the residential treatment and school program at a census level that was significantly less than half of its capacity. Despite extensive efforts by the Brightside management team to increase referrals, there was no expectation that census levels could improve to viable levels. Additionally, company officials note that funding sources are not available to place children in residential programs like Brightside. More than 130 positions will be eliminated due to the closure of these programs, and affected employees can apply for any open position within the Sisters of Providence Health System for which they may qualify. Brightside’s Family Stabilization Team (FST) will continue to provide outpatient services as they work to integrate Providence Behavioral Health Hospital’s Child and Adolescent inpatient (CHAD) and Acute Residential Treatment (ART) programs with the FST program.

    Girls Inc. Joins National Investment Challenge

    HOLYOKE — Girls Incorporated of Holyoke is one of two Girls Inc. organizations to join the ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge, an innovative nationwide program launched last year that gives girls practical, hands-on investing experience while allowing them to keep their gains in the form of college scholarships. With the help and guidance of trained Girls Inc. staff and ING employee volunteers, teams of girls build and manage diversified, real-time portfolios as part of an integrative investment and economic-literacy curriculum. All portfolios are managed and tracked using a state-of-the-art online-trading platform that allows the ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge participants to track their performance, absolutely and relative to the other challenge teams. After three years, two-thirds of any gains in the portfolio will be paid by the ING Foundation to the girls in the form of Girls Inc. scholarships for post-secondary education; one-third of the gains will be given to the local Girls Inc. affiliate to support local programming. The original $50,000 principal will then be reassigned to the incoming team. Girls in the ninth grade in the Greater Holyoke area are welcome to participate in the program. For more information, contact Sarah Dunton, director of youth development programs at Girls Inc. of Holyoke, at (413) 539-4505.

    Slight Growth Seen in Services Sector

    TEMPE, Az. — Economic activity in the non-manufacturing sector grew in January, according to the nation’s purchasing and supply executives in the latest Non-Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. The NMI (Non-Manufacturing Index) registered 50.5% in January, 0.7 percentage point higher than the seasonally adjusted 49.8% registered in December, indicating growth in the non-manufacturing sector. The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index decreased 1 percentage point to 52.2%, reflecting growth for the second consecutive month. The New Orders Index increased 2.7 percentage points to 54.7%, and the Employment Index increased 1 percentage point to 44.6%. The Prices Index increased 1.6 percentage points to 61.2% in January, indicating an increase in prices paid from December. According to the NMI, four non-manufacturing industries reported growth in January. The four industries reporting growth are other services, utilities, information, and wholesale trade. The 11 industries reporting contraction in January — listed in order — are arts, entertainment, and recreation; mining; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; management of companies and support services; professional, scientific, and technical services; health care and social assistance; finance and insurance; educational services; public administration and accommodation; and food services. The report is based on data compiled from purchasing and supply executives nationwide.

    Documentary Explores Holyoke’s Roots

    HOLYOKE — Interviews with local leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, artists, and young people bring the past and the present of the City of Holyoke to life in a new documentary, Creating Holyoke: Voices of a Community. The documentary will premiere on March 22 on WGBY, and copies are available at the Wistariahurst Museum Gift Shop for $17.95. Written by Priscilla Kane Hellweg and Rachel Kuhn of Enchanted Circle Theater and Kate Navarra Thibodeau, former city historian for Holyoke, the documentary tells the story of Holyoke’s rich history. The documentary was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Nan and Matilda Heydt Fund, and WGBY, and was produced by Navarra Thibodeau. For more information, visit www.creatingholyoke.org.

    UMass Endowment Ranks in Top Quartile of Investment Returns

    BOSTON — Despite a challenging environment, UMass turned in an endowment performance in fiscal year 2009 that ranked in the top quartile of American colleges and universities reporting performance for one-, three-, and five-year returns, according to the National Assoc. of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). The data came from in-depth surveys of 842 U.S. institutions of higher learning, including public and private colleges and universities, their supporting foundations, and community colleges that participated in the 2009 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments. Based on change in market value, UMass placed seventh among universities with endowments of $100 to $500 million and 53rd overall, losing only 4.6% of its overall market value. The UMass endowment, which stood at $367 million at the close of FY09, turned in investment performance of -15% last year against an average of
    -18.7%, and returned three- and five-year returns of 3% and 4.7%, placing it in the top quartile for performance for those periods.

    Study: Struggles Remain For Those Seeking Emergency Food Aid

    HATFIELD — A landmark study recently released by the Food Bank of Western Mass. and Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that more than 91,000 people, including 32,000 children, receive emergency food each year through the Food Bank and its network of food pantries, meal sites, and shelters. In Western Mass., this represents a 22% increase in the number of residents seeking emergency food assistance since 2006, the last time the study was conducted. Hunger in America 2010 is the first research study to capture the significant connection between the recent economic downturn and an increased need for emergency food assistance on a local and national level. In this region, more than 65,000 residents are experiencing food insecurity, not knowing where they will find their next meal, according to Andrew Morehouse, executive director of The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. An estimated 15,000 people receive emergency food assistance each week from a food pantry, meal site, or shelter served by the Food Bank of Western Mass. Morehouse noted that the Food Bank is seeing more people struggling to make choices between food and other basic necessities like rent, utilities, or health care. “We know that nearly three-quarters of all those who seek emergency food assistance are living in poverty and simply cannot make ends meet, so they turn to their local food pantry or meal site for help,” he said in a release. Morehouse added that donors and volunteers have stepped up to help the Food Bank respond to the growing food crisis in Western Mass., including boosting distribution capacity of local partner agencies around the region. The report was based on independent research conducted on behalf of Feeding America by Mathematica Policy Research, a non-partisan social-policy research firm based in Princeton, N.J. A summary of the Western Mass. findings is available at www.foodbankwma.org. The full national report is available at www.feedingamerica.org/hungerstudy.

    Unemployment Filings Still Rising

    NEW YORK — In the week ending Jan. 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 480,000, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 472,000. The four-week moving average was 468,750, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 457,000. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5% for the week ending Jan. 23, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.5%. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 23 was 4,602,000, an increase of 2,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,600,000. The four-week moving average was 4,617,500, a decrease of 51,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,668,750. The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 5.362 million. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 530,405 in the week ending Jan. 30, an increase of 28,234 from the previous week. There were 682,176 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.4% during the week ending Jan. 23, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,665,141, an increase of 62,784 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.3% and the volume was 5,806,901. Extended benefits were available in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin during the week ending Jan. 16. Initial claims for UI benefits by former Federal civilian employees totaled 1,451 in the week ending Jan. 23, a decrease of 499 from the prior week. There were 1,858 initial claims by newly discharged veterans, a decrease of 554 from the preceding week. There were 26,167 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending Jan. 16, a decrease of 59 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 35,777, a decrease of 2,059 from the prior week. States reported 5,632,219 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Jan. 16, an increase of 281,442 from the prior week. There were 1,839,758 claimants in the comparable week in 2009. EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity. The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Jan. 16 were in Alaska (7.3%), Oregon (6.6), Pennsylvania (6.5), Idaho (6.4), Wisconsin (6.3), Montana (6.2), Michigan (6.0), Nevada (5.7), Connecticut (5.3), North Carolina (5.3), and Washington (5.3). The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Jan. 23 were in Oregon (+4,336), Puerto Rico (+2,439), and Hawaii (+18), while the largest decreases were in California (-22,674), Michigan (-11,757), North Carolina (-9,546), Georgia (-7,588), and Missouri (-7,577).

    Departments

    Andrea C. Miller was recently named Manager of the Center for Human Development’s Services and Supported Housing program. The program provides services, treatment, and case management for families in Hampden and Hampshire counties who have experienced long-term homelessness or housing instability.

    •••••

    Todd B. Speed has been appointed Vice President and Director of Investment Strategy for Berkshire Bank. Speed, a chartered Financial Analyst, will help drive investment strategy including security selection, asset allocation, identification of pertinent investment themes, and implementation of risk-management practices as part of the bank’s asset-management and trust group. He will be based at the bank’s headquarters at 66 West St., Pittsfield.

    •••••

    Dr. Ziad Kutayli has joined the Department of Surgery at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, where he will specialize in colorectal surgical services with Dr. Kelly Tyler. Kutayli is a member of the American College of Surgeons, the American Medical Assoc., and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He will see patients at Baystate Surgical Associates, 3300 Main St., Springfield.

    •••••

    Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. announced the following:
    • Kathleen Mary Kane has been honored with the 2010 Eastern Region Managing Director Leader Award; and
    • Western New England College student Jenny May Catuogno has been honored with the 2010 Eastern Region College Leader Award. The honors recognize Kane and Catuogno, affiliated with the Zuzolo Financial Group based in Springfield, for an outstanding year of performance with Northwestern Mutual, serving the financial-security needs of clients and policy owners throughout the region.

    •••••

    A short video of West Springfield professional organizer Mary Martone is currently on the front page of MSN’s national Health & Fitness Web site, at healthyliving.msn.com. The site provides medical information and content from well-known sources for consumers looking for the latest news and advice on personal and family wellness. Martone has been a professional organizer for more than 15 years and also offers articles on her Web site, www.mmartone.com.

    •••••

    Attorney José A. Aguiar has joined the law firm of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury & Murphy P.C. in Springfield as a Litigation Associate. His practice area is commercial litigation, which includes all areas of civil litigation.

    •••••

    MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division has added Dan Caple to its sales team in the South/Central Division. Caple has joined MassMutual as Managing Director, and will be responsible for business development and sales support of MassMutual’s third-party and dedicated distribution channels in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

    •••••

    Dan Jordan has been promoted to Vice President of Purchasing at Friendly Ice Cream Corp. in Wilbraham. Jordan is responsible for purchasing and material-planning functions.

    •••••

    Sally Imhoff , a Certified Public Accountant, has joined the firm of Aaron Smith Certified Public Accountants and Business Consultants in East Longmeadow as a Senior Accountant.

    •••••

    Joanne M. Carney recently retired as Associate Director of the U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds after close to 35 years of federal service. She served as a Clinician Dietitian and Chief of Dietetic Service as well as the facility’s Public Relations Manager during her years at the center.

    •••••

    Catherine D’Amato has been elected a Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Boston Food Bank.

    •••••

    Dr. Katharine White, specializing in family-planning health-care services, has joined Baystate Wesson Women’s Group in Springfield. She is board-certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

    •••••

    Dr. Azad A. Jabiev has joined the Department of Surgery at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. He specializes in endocrine surgery. He is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery.

    Departments

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

    CHICOPEE

    Threadsafe Labs Inc., 87 Fillmore St., Chicopee, MA 01020. Jonathan Lukens, same. Django consultancy in Western Massachusetts.

    EAST LONGMEADOW

    Sodi Inc., 72 Prospect Hills Dr., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Ralph Capua, same. New and rehab construction and sales.

    EASTHAMPTON

    Mantis Signs Inc., One Adams St., Easthampton, MA 01027. Clay Carlson Crow, 13 Holyoke St., Easthampton, MA 01027. Specializing in screen-printed and embroidered apparel, signs, and graphic design.

    FLORENCE

    RHI Construction Inc., 128 Ryan Road, Florence, MA 01062. Thomas Malone, same. General Contractor.

    Shankara Shakti Inc., 94096 Maple St., Florence, MA 01027. Hasmukh Patel, 22 Chestnut St., Easthampton, MA 01027. Real estate.

    Whole Child Foundation for Complimentary Health Inc., 3 Bratton Court, Florence, MA 01062. Patricia Gantes, 30 North Maple St., Florence, MA 01062. Provides holistic services to children.

    FRISKDALE

    Mass Motion Inc., 8 Brookfield Road, Fiskdale, MA 01518. Terri Gordon Djelassi, 30 Holland, E. Brimfield, Road, Brimfield, MA 01010. Dance training.

    GREENFIELD

    The Bill Petraveage Memorial Foundation Inc., 8 Hall Ave., Greenfield, MA 01301. Jason Burns, same. A non-profit organization founded to support teenagers and young adults in crisis.

     

    MONSON

    Western Mass Building Restoration Inc., 4 Fernhill Road, Monson, MA 01057. Fred Kupiec, same. Construction

    PALMER

    MD Logistics Service Inc., 3 Converse St., Suite 100, Palmer, MA 01069. Maurice Denner, same. Business services and management consulting.

    PITTSFIELD

    Twin Brother Hood Cleaning Co., 54 Alpine Trail, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Suzanne Chung, same. Restaurant range and hood cleaning.

    SPRINGIFIELD

    Masterpiece Professional Hair & Healing Studio Inc., 158 Chestnut St., Unit 1A, Springfield, MA 01103. Mandy Farber, 38 Ladeview St., Southwick, MA 01077.
    Beauty salon.

    Morning Light Beauty Center Inc., 1293 Boston Road, Springfield, MA 01119. Bing Chong Kou,1029 Elm St., Apt. 4B, West Springfield, MA 01089. Beauty salon.

    School of Fish Inc., 1865 Page Blvd., Springfield, MA 01151. David James Szpakowski, 17 Gillette Ave., Springfield, MA 01118. Tropical fish, pet, and horticulture sales.

    SOUTHBRIDGE

    Schofield On Line Enterprises Inc., 90 Prince Road, Southbridge, MA 01550. Beverly Schofield same. E-Commerce

    SOUTHAMPTON

    Wild West Brewing Company, 12 Geryk Ct., Southampton, MA 01073. Jeanette Rizos, same. Farmer’s brewery operation.

    Departments

    The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of February 2010.

    AGAWAM

    A-wam Rentals
    396 Main St.
    Walter A. Meissner

    Hampden Brewing Co.
    10 Shelley Lane
    Douglas E. Reed

    Lee’s Plastics
    7E Mansion Woods Dr.
    Soyoung Kim

    AMHERST

    Cobags USA
    5 Flintlock Lane
    Taloren, LLC

    Confidential Design
    433 West St.
    Robert Wilson

    CHICOPEE

    Cabotville Coffee
    165 Front St.
    Octavia Anderson-Mackey

    Champion Overland Doors Inc.
    10 Riverview Terrace
    Clifton Hall

    Fend Photography
    165 Front St.
    Michael Chunyk

    Lucky Design & Media
    1 Springfield St.
    Nathan Dumas

    R.M. Enterprises
    20 Shaw Park Ave.
    Russell McClain

    EASTHAMPTON

    All About You, LLC
    2 Mechanic St.
    Marjorie Pietras

    Easthampton Travel Inc.
    116 Pleasant St.
    Victoria Puza-Allen

    Leclerc & Son Lawncare
    45 Campbell Dr.
    Christopher Leclerc

    Small Bear Press
    150 Pleasant St.
    Gavin Grant

    EAST LONGMEADOW

    All Things Metal
    15 Ainsle Dr.
    Joyce Mackechnie

    Mobile Marine
    10 Garland Ave.
    Lawrence Talbot

    GREENFIELD

    American Tax Service
    239 Main St.
    Jonathan Fein

    Camels & Carpet Cleaners
    221 Conway St.
    Cameron Ward

    Carsense Automotive
    409 Deerfield St.
    Raymond Perkins

    Forsyth & Associates
    278 Main St.
    Curtis Forsyth

    Hair Therapy
    40 School St.
    Jamie Young

    HOLYOKE

    AT & T Mobility
    98 Lower Westfield Road
    Karin Riggs

    Herrera Auto Sales
    395 Maple St.
    Jose Herrera

    Holyoke Laundromat
    556 High St.
    Thomas Sullivan

    PO Art Company
    48 Holy Family Road
    Roy B. Vickery

    Taylor Rental
    14 Shawmut Ave.
    Richard A. Clark Jr.

    T & T Mini Market
    869 Hampden St.
    Roberto Rivera

    Villa Rose Market
    349 Main St.
    Alessander Rafael Delorbe

    LUDLOW

    Old Cislak Farm
    67 Jackie Dr.
    Thomas Cislak

    Roy’s Auto Service
    935 Center St.
    Roy Cote

    Work of Art
    11 Lockland St.
    Arthur Lang

    NORTHAMPTON

    McFalcon Construction
    270 Bridge St.
    Jose Luis Falcon

    Toward Harmony Tai Chi
    16 Center St.
    Charles William Ryan

    PALMER

    Carnivore Records
    32 Burlingame Road
    Keith Holuk

    Hatch Web Solutions
    2174 Main St.
    Austin Hatch

     

    Trinkets & Treasures
    233 Wilbraham St.
    Suzanne Ziff

    SPRINGFIELD

    Jordan’s Boarding Kennels
    599 Tinkham Road
    Rosemarie J. Masley

    Kevin Conway Auto Sales
    200 Orange St.
    William M. McCarthy

    Kim’s Nails
    1003 St. James Ave.
    In Sook Kim

    La Base Xpress
    2964 Main St.
    Wilking A. Mateo

    Laborer’s Unlimited
    154 Phoenix Ter.
    Flordilama Pasqual

    Lamore’s Landscaping
    75 Hampden St.
    Donald Lamore

    Orchard Wirles
    32C Parker St.
    Parooq A. Tahir

    Ortiz Used Tires
    83 Magazine St.
    Maria Ortiz

    Peppa’s Xpress
    1060 Wilbraham Road
    Giuseppe DeGuglielmo

    S & R Doingtall Services
    49 Oak Grove Ave.
    Leslye A. Rivera

    Santiago’s Tree Landscaping
    2048 Page Blvd.
    Harry E. Santiago

    Springfield Nails
    682 Belmont Ave.
    Van Ly

    The Clear Choice
    144 Washington Road
    Christine Wheeler

    Total Property Maintenance
    88 Butternut St.
    Deborah A. O’Brien

    Wheeler’s Convenience
    597 Dickinson St.
    Faiz Rabbani

    Winn Residential
    61 Longhill St.
    Samuel Ross

    WESTFIELD

    DFA Group, LLC
    22 Cherry St.
    David A. Flaherty

    Grass Roots Lawn Care
    60 Pineridge Dr.
    Matthew Richards

    Image Flooring
    404 Southwick Road
    Wayne G. Bruneau

    Jennifer Dorgan Cleaning Services
    37 Allen Ave.
    Jennifer Dorgan

    Soups’ On, LLC
    16 Union St.
    Alice M. Dawicki

    Vitaliy’s Property Maintenance
    87 Birch Bluffs Dr.
    Vitaliy Brover

    Whip City Seafood, LLC
    103 North Elm St.
    Brian M. Donnelly

    Your Rescore
    116 Hampton Ave.
    Raymond Wells

    Zorra Designs, LLC
    3 Gillette Ave.
    Alexandria Melo

    WEST SPRINGFIELD

    AC Remodeling
    45 Althea St.
    Aleksander A. Gib

    Express
    51 Bridge St.
    Oleg F. Sagan

    Gateway Real Estate
    383 Hillcrest Ave.
    Ralph F. Rachele

    Good Dog University
    167 River St.
    Kimberly Balboni

    Jewelry
    244 Memorial Ave.
    Lien Chen

    Joe’s Landscaping
    62 Worthen St.
    Joseph Schmidt

    Kelly Bouchard DMD, PC
    103 Van Deene Ave.
    Kelly Bouchard

    Larry’s Painting
    79 Lathrop St.
    Lawrence P. Kelly

    Pioneer Precision Grinding
    4 Barnard St.
    Pioneer Tool Supply Corporation

    Psycho Hobb’s Entertainment
    17 Exposition Terrace
    Tim Balestri

    Strength and Conditioning
    1425 Westfield St.
    Julia Girman

    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.

    HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

    Comcast Spotlight v. J & J Home Improvement
    Allegation: Non-payment of advertising services rendered: $36,605.70
    Filed: 12/11/09

    Hank J. Lane v. Big Y Foods Inc.
    Allegation: The plaintiff bit into a snowflake roll containing a razor, causing injury: $2,598
    Filed: 12/29/09

    Planned Furniture Promotions Inc. v. John M. Glover Agency
    Allegation: Negligent insurance services resulting in substantial pecuniary damages: $90,000
    Filed: 12/18/09

    TD BankNorth v. Ryan Mortgage Group Inc. and Timothy P. Ryan
    Allegation: Non-payment of two promissory notes: $315,025.85
    Filed: 12/28/09

    HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT

    Kenneth Malinowski v. National Industrial Portfolio, LLC and Westfield Development Associates and The Home Depot Inc.
    Allegation: Negligent maintenance of property, causing injury: $346,923.67
    Filed: 12/23/09

    HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

    Thomas M. Conway v. Russell’s Automotive and Small Engine Repair
    Allegation: Breach of contract to repair motor vehicle: $8,000
    Filed: 12/23/09

    NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT

    Ford Motor Credit Co., LLC v. Eagle Window New England
    Allegation: Non-payment of money loaned on a retail installment sales agreement: $5,673.13
    Filed: 1/13/10

    Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. v. MJ Promotions, LLC
    Allegation: Breach of contract for non-payment of shipping services rendered: $12,291.67
    Filed: 1/14/10

    The H. Lawrence Foster Co. v. Diverse Concrete Services Inc. and Coolidge Northampton, LLC & PM Construction Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of materials and services and breach of contract: $10,155
    Filed: 12/28/09

    PALMER DISTRICT COURT

    Capital One Bank v. Ghedini Preferred Food Distributor
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods and services rendered on a credit-card account: $5,508.80
    Filed: 12/10/09

    NES Rentals v. Tetreault Masonry Inc.
    Allegation: Breach of contract for non-payment of rental equipment: $10,292.20
    Filed: 11/27/09

    SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT

    Abide Inc. v. Superior Plumbing Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of asbestos-removal services: $5,306.61
    Filed: 12/11/09

    Comcast Spotlight Inc. v. Game Universe Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of advertising services rendered: $6,720.89
    Filed: 12/9/09

    Digi-Key Corp. v. Gibraltes Manufacturing Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $21,738.66
    Filed: 12/10/09

    John Deer Landscapes Inc. v. MC Growers
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $6,646.79
    Filed: 12/17/09

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Arbor Construction Corp.
    Allegation: Non-payment of a workers’ compensation policy: $8,828.16
    Filed: 12/11/09

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Nationwide Rock & Recycle Corp.
    Allegation: Non-payment of a workers’ compensation policy: $22,938.85
    Filed: 12/11/09

    USNE Inc. v. Pananas Grill & Bar Inc.
    Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $74,732.39
    Filed: 12/11/09

    WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT

    Wheeler Oil Co. Inc. v. Timberland Trucking, LLC
    Allegation: Non-payment of diesel fuel sold: $9,986.98
    Filed: 12/14/09

    Departments

    ACCGS
    www.myonlinechamber.com
    (413) 787-1555

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
    www.springfieldyps.com

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce
    www.amherstarea.com

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
    www.chicopeechamber.org
    (413) 594-2101

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
    www.franklincc.org
    (413) 773-5463

    March 19: Breakfast Series, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Deerfield Inn. Program speakers: John Fabel, inventor, educator, entrepreneur, and bike nut; innovative green-technology businesses including Sylvan Cycles, Qteros, and Ecotrek. Sponsored by Greenfield Savings Bank. Cost: members $12, non-members $14. To make reservations, call (413) 773-5463 or e-mail [email protected] by March 16.

    Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
    www.easthamptonchamber.org
    (413) 527-9414

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
    www.holycham.com
    (413) 534-3376

    March 4: Leadership Holyoke Program, sponsored by PeoplesBank. Presented by the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Holyoke Community College. Speakers, discussions, classroom time, and field trips are included in this 11-week session. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 for details.

    March 17: St. Pat’s Salute Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., sponsored by PeoplesBank. Hosted by Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, Holyoke. Cost: $20. Call the chamber office at (413) 534-3376 for reservations.

    March 24: Table Top Expo, 4 to 7 p.m. (snow date March 30), presented by the Greater Holyoke, Chicopee, Easthampton, and Northampton Chambers of Commerce. Hosted by Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, Holyoke. The public is invited. Cost: $5; vendors $100 for a table. Call (413) 534-3376 or any of the chambers to reserve a table.

    Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
    www.explorenorthampton.com
    (413) 584-1900

    March 3: Arrive@5, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Calvin Coolidge Nursing & Rehabilitation Center for Northampton. Cost: members $10, guests $15.

    March 17: St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by Clarion Hotel & Conference Center.

    March 24: 16th Annual Table Top Expo, 4:30 to 7 p.m., hosted by the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, Holyoke. Cost: $5 in advance, $10 at the door.

    Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce
    www.qvcc.biz
    (413) 283-2418

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce
    www.shchamber.com
    (413) 532-6451

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce
    www.threeriverschamber.org
    413-283-6425

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
    www.westfieldbiz.org
    (413) 568-1618

    Please see the chamber’s Web site for information about upcoming events.

    Departments

    Hampden Bancorp Declares Dividend

    SPRINGFIELD — Hampden Bancorp Inc. recently announced a net loss for the three months ended Dec. 31 of $670,000 as compared to a net profit of $190,000 for the same period in 2008. The decrease in net income was primarily due to an increase in the provision for loan losses of $1.5 million for three months ended Dec. 31, compared to the three months ended Dec. 31, 2008. The increase in the provision for loan losses is due to increases in loan delinquencies, increases in non-accrual loans, increases in impaired loans, growth in the loan portfolio, and general economic conditions. The company’s total assets increased $7.2 million, or 1.3%, from $567.7 million on June 30, 2009 to $574.9 million on Dec. 31, 2009. Net loans, including loans held for sale, increased $21.7 million, or 5.6%, to $409.3 million on Dec. 31, 2009, and securities decreased 6.7% or $7.7 million, from $116.1 million to $108.4 million as of Dec. 31, 2009. Deposits increased $22.9 million, or 6.0%, to $404.4 million on Dec. 31, 2009 from $381.5 million on June 30, 2009. Thomas R. Burton, president and CEO, noted he was disappointed to be reporting a loss; however, he added that the bank’s strong capital position leaves it “well-postured” to weather the difficult economic storm and to capitalize on opportunities as they arise. In other news, the board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.03 per common share, payable on Feb. 26, 2010, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 12.

    Mercy Offers Latest GE MRI Technology

    SPRINGFIELD — Mercy Medical Center now offers the Signa HDx 3.0T MR system, by GE Healthcare, delivering the most advanced detailed images of the human body with increased speed, better resolution, and unique applications. The 3.0T MR scanner is noted for delivering high field strength that provides higher-resolution imaging, according to Dr. Gregory E. Blackman of the Diagnostic Imaging Department. Blackman added that the scanner features allow for more-distinct margins in patients who present with breast tumors, provide more detailed and accurate images of the spine, and greatly facilitate liver and vascular exams. Dr. William Bithoney, chief medical officer for the Sisters of Providence Health System and chief operating officer of Mercy Medical Center, noted that the acquisition of the 3.0T MR scanner is another example of Mercy’s ongoing commitment to delivering outstanding health care through the use of state-of-the-art technology. The MR system provides MRI exams through a joint venture with Alliance Imaging Inc.

    Tighe & Bond Receives Award

    WESTFIELD — Tighe & Bond recently received an Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Connecticut (ACEC) for the Route 34 Roadway Improvement Project in New Haven, Conn. The award was presented Jan. 21 at ACEC’s annual awards banquet following a competition open to firms engaged in the practice of consulting engineering in Connecticut. Tighe & Bond developed roadway-improvement concept plans to support the traffic generated by the $467 million Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, as well as to address existing operational and safety deficiencies along the Route 34 expressway and the frontage roads. The firm completed a comprehensive transportation engineering study required by the City of New Haven and the State Traffic Commission. Improvements to the adjacent roadway network were deemed necessary to mitigate the identified traffic issues. The centerpiece of Tighe & Bond’s design is a modern roundabout, unique in that it is located at the end of the Route 34 Expressway and provides access to a parking garage. Tighe & Bond also prepared the design for other roadway improvements, including highway ramp widening, geometric modifications along the Route 34 Expressway, widening North Frontage Road to provide additional turning lanes, and the design of a new, state-of-the-art traffic-control signal system involving 12 traffic signals operated and monitored by the City Traffic Management Center. Following the completion of the design and issuance of all permits, Tighe & Bond worked collaboratively with Yale-New Haven Hospital and Turner Construction Co. to administer the construction phase of the project. Construction of the $5 million project started in May 2008 and was substantially complete by October 2008, meeting an aggressive five-month construction schedule. Tighe & Bond shared the ACEC award with Yale-New Haven Hospital. In related news, the Route 34 Roadway Improvement Project also received a 2009 Achievement in Civil Engineering Award from the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers.

    GCB Opens Branch in Shelburne Falls

    SHELBURNE FALLS — Greenfield Co-operative Bank (GCB) recently observed the grand opening of its newest office at 33 Bridge St. The new full-service office offers a full array of savings and checking services, safe-deposit boxes, residential mortgage loans and home-equity lines of credit, consumer loans, a coin-counting machine, a 24-hour ATM, and a night depository. Through its Web site at www.bestlocalbank.com, GCB also offers customers free 24-hour ‘E-Access,’ providing online banking and bill-paying services. The bank also offers free, 24-hour E-Z Access telephone banking. Additionally, through its GCB Financial Services division, the bank makes available a full line of non-deposit investments such as annuities and life-insurance products through its arrangement with MML Investor Services and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Registered representatives Michael Johnson, assistant vice president; and Sharon Connery, financial services professional, will be available to meet with customers by appointment at the Shelburne Falls office. The new office will also have a community room that the bank will make available at no charge on a reservation basis to nonprofit, civic, and educational groups in the community. GCB is a mutual, cooperative bank with five offices and more than $280 million in assets.

    Students Pass Photovoltaics Program

    SPRINGFIELD — All of the students who recently completed the Photovoltaic Practitioner Certificate Program at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) passed the entry-level knowledge exam administered by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners, according to Mary Breeding, assistant vice president at STCC. Breeding added that the program has also been awarded program accreditation by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. Due to the popularity of this program, Mike Kocsmiersky of SolarWrights Inc. has begun teaching another course through the Center for Business and Technology this month. The Photovoltaic Practitioner Certificate Program is designed for architects, engineers, electricians, general contractors, and those interested in developing a career in photovoltaics. The course provides comprehensive coverage of stand-alone, utility-interactive, and dedicated-load applications for solar electricity. Curriculum development and acquisition of lab equipment is being supported by a $150,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

    Baystate Rug Receives Award

    CHICOPEE — Baystate Rug and Flooring was recently named Mohawk Floorscapes Northeast Flooring Store of the Year. Mohawk chose Baystate Rug based on sales, growth, marketing principles, and best practices. Baystate Rug is a family-owned business that has served both business and residential customers for more than 30 years.

    Chicopee Company Updates Its Name

    CHICOPEE — Time Plus Payroll Services has changed its name to Pioneer Payroll Services to better reflect the ever-growing list of services it provides to companies. The Time Plus name and brand is the payroll-software and corporate group that Pioneer Payroll Services uses to perform its various payroll and timekeeping services. Pioneer Payroll Services also provides workers’ compensation, an HR Support Center, Pay Card, and electronic timekeeping. The company is located at 21 Old Chicopee St., and early in 2010, it will update its Web site to www.pioneerpayroll.com. E-mail may be sent to [email protected].

    Life Laboratories Achieves Accreditation

    SPRINGFIELD — Life Laboratories has been awarded accreditation by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), based on a recent on-site inspection. The CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program is recognized by the federal government as being equal to or more stringent than the government’s own inspection program. During the CAP accreditation process, inspectors examine the laboratory’s records and quality control of procedures for the previous two years. Inspectors also examine the staff’s qualifications, lab equipment, facilities, safety program and record, as well as the overall management of the laboratory. The inspection program is designed to specifically ensure the highest standard of care for the laboratory patients.

    Life Laboratories employs 230 people and conducted over 2.7 million test results in the past year. In addition to the main laboratory, located at Mercy Medical Center at 299 Carew St., there are 16 patient service centers located throughout Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. An outreach program also services more than 50 long-term care facilities. CAP is a medical society serving nearly 17,000 physician members and the laboratory community throughout the world.

    Departments

    The following building permits were issued during the month of February 2010.

    AGAWAM

    Ken Eggleston
    360 North Westfield St.
    $5,000 — Interior renovations

    Southgate Properties, LLC
    830 Suffield St.
    $120,000 — Renovation to produce and deli area

    AMHERST

    Trustees of Hampshire College
    Public Safety Building
    $10,000 — Transaction counter remodel

    CHICOPEE

    Septembers Restaurant
    92 View St.
    $1,000 — Interior renovations

    NORTHAMPTON

    Lathrop Community Inc.
    680 Bridge St.
    $228,405 — Re-side buildings

    Smith College
    186 Elm St.
    $117,000 — Renovate kitchen

    Smith College
    College Hall
    $112,000 — Non-structural interior renovations

    SOUTH HADLEY

    Fire District 1
    438 Granby Road
    $14,000 — Construction of a steel building

    Loomis Village
    246 North Main St.
    $22,000 — Replace siding

     

    SPRINGFIELD

    Baystate Health
    759 Chestnut St.
    $103,000 — Interior modifications

    City of Springfield
    36 Court St.
    $574,000 — Restore windows on first, second, and third floors

    East Columbus Ave., LLC
    933 East Columbus Ave.
    $11,000 — Interior office renovations

    Mass. Development
    1550 Main St.
    $268,000 — Interior renovations

    Robert Kushner
    888 Sumner Ave.
    $3,000 — Alterations for church occupancy

    Springfield Preservation Trust
    77 Maple St.
    $118,000 — Structural stabilization

    WESTFIELD

    Frank Lucia
    152-154 Elm St.
    $15,000 — Interior remodel

    WEST SPRINGFIELD

    Ashley Associates, LLC
    73 State St.
    $120,000 — Renovate 615 square feet of space

    Fred Aaron
    1680 Riverdale St.
    $10,000 — Update storage area for new tenant

    George Smarz
    777 Riverdale St.
    $303,000 — Build a 5,275 square feet of commercial space

    Class of 2010 Difference Makers

    President and CEO of the Center for Human Development

    Jim-Goodwin-StandingJim Goodwin says that too many people, especially some in the business community, look upon human services work as a “drain.”
    As he uttered that word, he paused for a second, as if to convey that maybe it was too strong a term, but then forged ahead, convinced that it wasn’t.

    “They understand that it’s a service, and they see some value in it,” he explained. “But they look at it as an expense, and not as a benefit, not as an investment. They’ll say, ‘I’m glad someone’s doing it, but I wish we didn’t have to pay for it.’ They don’t realize that, in many ways, this is something that benefits their employees, and, therefore, it benefits them as business owners.”

    In many respects, Goodwin’s work as president and CEO of the Springfield-based Center for Human Development (CHD) boils down to changing those perceptions he described. And it is because of his success in convincing others that programs in areas ranging from disability resources to the mentoring of young people; from homelessness prevention to post-incarceration services, are, in fact, investments in the community, Goodwin — and, ostensibly, the 1,300-member team he manages — is a member of the Difference Makers Class of 2010.

    And Goodwin, who has been with CHD for 30 years, or almost from its beginnings in 1972, repeatedly stressed this element of teamwork as he talked about his organization’s work with children, adults, the elderly, the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, and the chemically addicted — or what he called “probably the most downtrodden people out there.”

    Together, members of this team carry out programs that fall into several categories, including:

    • Children & Families, which includes such initiatives as Big Brothers Big Sisters, CASA (court-appointed special advocates), an emergency adolescent shelter, foster care, and many others;

    • Community Resources and Services, including a disability-resource program, an HIV/AIDS law consortium, and occupational-therapy initiatives;

    • Homelessness Prevention, which encompasses a number of programs;

    • Mental Health and Addiction Services, which includes child and adolescent mental-health services, outpatient and behavioral-health services, therapy and counseling, and many other programs; and

    • Social Enterprises, which are entrepreneurial programs, such as A New Leaf flower shop and Riverbend Furniture, that offer real jobs to people with mental illness, developmental disabilities, or histories of trauma, abuse, or addiction that often keep them from working in traditional settings.

    Summing up all of this work within CHD, the largest nonprofit, multi-program human services agency in New England, in a few moments or a few sentences is quite difficult, so Goodwin talked generally about the sum of the dozens of specific programs within the organization.

    He said that, collectively, they help to make people with various physical and mental disabilities productive members of society, and not drains, as they are often perceived. “When you help people to the point where they’re employable, where they can work and get things done, and where they no longer look upon themselves as a burden, everyone’s a winner.”

    This is accomplished — again, in broad terms — by creating what Goodwin described as “hybrid services” a term he would use repeatedly as he talked with BusinessWest, because it is the cornerstone of CDH’s basic operating philosophy.

    And by hybrid, he means a combination of clinical and social services.

    “Today, a successful human-services agency has to be able to operate a continuum that deals with the social issues that people are confronted with, along with the medical issues,” he explained. “If you’re providing counseling, psychiatry, and nursing services to people who don’t have a roof over their heads and don’t have enough to eat, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

    Goodwin, who brings to his work master’s degrees in both psychology and business — a mix he says has proven quite effective — has a number of accomplishments attached to his name and title of CEO at CHD:

    • Fiscally, he’s maintained and improved the financial health of the organization over the past several years, leading the agency to 21% growth and a total surplus of $540,000;

    • He’s overseen the development of a sophisticated database that measures treatment and programmatic outcomes and that serves as a reporting tool to funding sources and stakeholders;

    • He’s developed an electronic quality-assurance system that allows programs and corporate administrative services to provide performance feedback to each other on a monthly basis;

    • He developed supported-housing models in the early 1980s that were duplicated nationally and led to major expansion and distinction for CHD; and

    • Overall, he’s developed an extensive system of creative client businesses that produce high-quality products, teach vocational skills, and provide jobs to hundreds of clients in a rehabilitative atmosphere.

    But he told BusinessWest that what he considers his greatest accomplishments are building CHD into one of the region’s largest, and best, employers — one with a 95% retention rate among management-position holders, a remarkable number in the human-services industry — and ongoing work to take that word ‘drain’ out of the lexicon when it comes to work his team does.

    And the workplace element is vitally important to the equation, he explained, returning, again, to that notion of teamwork.

    “You need a highly motivated workforce,” he explained. “You must create a situation where people are excited about the work, and where they understand how it fits in with improving the society that they live in and the city where they live.”

    As an example of the work CHD does, how it does it, and why this work is so challenging — and frustrating from a funding perspective — Goodwin pointed to an initiative called PACT, or the Program for Assertive Community Treatment. Unfortunately, this is a program for which the state recently cut funding.

    “That’s a program that basically serves people in Springfield and Holyoke who are severely mentally ill and have had tremendous difficulties,” he said. “They’ve been hospitalized many times, incarcerated, that sort of thing, and have been a real strain on the community.

    “This program was set up with a team of workers, including a psychiatrist, nursing staff, a vocational specialist, a housing specialist, peer specialists … and these people take the service into the community,” he continued. “They have kept these people functional and outside the institutions — the hospitals and the jails — at an incredible rate. To keep someone in this program for 365 days a year costs $15,000; without it, these people would have four or five major hospitalizations a year, at a cost of $600 to $800 a day. Anyone can do the math, and that’s how it works with all of our programs.”

    Recognizing the need to become visible within the community and to allow people to more easily answer the question ‘what does CHD do?’ the agency recently hired a marketing firm to create a new profile-raising brand. It includes the tag line, ‘CHD — good people, good work.’

    That’s another way of saying that that this organization — and its long-time CEO — are true Difference Makers.

    —George O’Brien

    Class of 2010 Difference Makers

    John Davis, senior trustee of the Davis Foundation, and Mary Walachy, executive director

    Irene E. and George A. Davis

    John Davis, senior trustee of the Davis Foundation, and Mary Walachy, executive director.

    Mary Walachy called it “extemporaneous philanthropy.”
    That was the phrase she chose to describe Irene E. Davis’s approach to giving back to the community — at the least the model she used for most of her life.
    An orphan for much of her childhood, Irene — who married George A. Davis, first a salesman for American Saw & Mfg. and then owner of that company — was, later in her life, very generous when it came to donating money to groups that would help those less-fortunate, especially children, said Walachy, executive director of the foundation that bears the Davis name. However, there was little, if any, structure or organization to her giving, she continued, noting that donations were often in cash and given at the spur of the moment.

    To illustrate the way in which Irene was “personally philanthropic,” Walachy relayed a story from around 1970 that she’d heard many times, knew she couldn’t retell as well as Davis family members, but tried anyway.

    It seems that Irene Davis had become impressed with the work of Downey Side (the adoption agency that was started in Springfield and now has offices across the country), and stopped by the offices of its founder, Father Paul Engel, to find out more. After listening to him for some time, she got out her checkbook and wrote him a check — for $30,000.

    “But he didn’t even look at it to see how much it was for,” Walachy explained, noting that Engel was being polite, but also didn’t know Davis and wasn’t at all sure of who was dealing with. “He just put in his desk drawer. When he took it out later, he was shocked; he thought, ‘this is a crazy lady,’ or ‘she doesn’t know what she’s doing … this is going to bounce.’ He didn’t even take it to the bank.

    “The next morning, she calls him, and he thinks, ‘here it comes,’” Walachy continued. “She said, ‘this is Irene Davis. I gave you a check yesterday — how much was it for?’ When he told her the amount was $30,000, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I meant to make it $50,000; I’ll be down later with the other 20.’ He said he never had a day like that in his career and that this was such a poignant moment in his life.”

    It wasn’t long after this episode, according to family lore, that Irene Davis’s son, Jim, recommended that she form a foundation to bring some order to her philanthropy, to keep records of which groups were sent money and to perhaps monitor whether money was spent in the manner intended, said Walachy. At first, she refused, thinking such a step was mostly about taxes and gaining deductions, which she wasn’t interested in. But when Jim told her it was a way for her to keep on giving to the community long after she passed on, she eventually agreed.

    And so the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation was born, with an initial $350, and for 40 years, its giving has been anything but extemporaneous — although it can act swiftly and with great flexibility, said Walachy, adding, quickly and repeatedly, that this institution exists to do much more than simply award grants, or give.

    Instead, she told BusinessWest, the foundation also initiates, convenes, unifies, collaborates, finds facts, analyzes, tests, evaluates, advocates, and more. And what it’s really doing through the sum of all this is “causing change,” she continued, especially in the broad realm of early-childhood education and development.

    “The majority of our time and attention is absolutely local,” she explained, “and with a significant lens in education and particularly the passion around ensuring that children, especially those in the urban core who are disadvantaged, reach their full academic potential in order to be successful in both school and in life.

    This focus on education, young people, and causing change, as she put it, is part of what Walachy called a “maturation” of the Davis Foundation — something that has dominated her time with the organization, which started in 1996, and which is still very much ongoing. And it’s part of her efforts to adopt best practices involving many of the leading foundations in the country, and also be far more proactive than reactive when it comes to philanthropy.

    “As we’ve grown and matured over the years, we have realized that, in order to be impactful, we need to be somewhat more strategic,” she continued, noting efforts such as the foundation’s Cherish Every Child program and its Reading Successfully by the Fourth Grade program. “And that strategy is largely in the broad rubric on education and investments in young children, because we firmly believe that investing early is where we get the greatest return.”

    However, the foundation understands that resources are limited in Western Mass., and that there are simply not as many charitable foundations here as there are in Boston, she went on, adding that funds are also awarded to groups that assist the elderly, the mentally challenged, and many other constituencies.

    When asked to list just some of the groups to which the foundation has awarded grants over the years, Walachy thought for a minute, shook her head, and then said, “just about every nonprofit group in this area.”

    But, again, she said that giving money is only a part of the equation. In recent years, a perhaps-bigger part is that ability to convene, which is part of the maturation process, and something made possible because the Davis Foundation supports so many nonprofit groups.

    “In order for us to advance and move some of the social-change issues that we care about, we need to lend our name, we need to lend our voice, we need to use our convening power, and we have to use our credibility,” she told BusinessWest. “That is more powerful, in my estimation, and we’ve come to see that come true as we’ve stepped out in a leadership role around change issues.”

    Walachy noted that, while one can see the Davis name on a few plaques or walls across the region — the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baystate Children’s Hospital is one example — this family isn’t big on having things named after it.

    “People will say, ‘if you give us $1 million, we’ll put your name on the building,’” she said. “That’s not an incentive for us.”

    Rather, the real incentive comes in getting a chance to be impactful, to cause change, which is how it chooses to serve the region and carry on the work of Irene and George Davis.

    The family’s methods of philanthropy have changed considerably since Irene’s cash gifts and random check-writing. But the impact is still the same. The foundation is still making for the best days in many nonprofit  administrators’ careers, and creating innumerable poignant moments in their lives.

    —George O’Brien

    Uncategorized
    Blueprint for Success

    When Kerry Dietz was a high-school student in Sylvania, Ohio in the late ’60s, she said, there was nothing even approaching a support network for a young woman looking to become an architect.

    “They had no idea how to counsel me, and they had no idea what to tell me to study,” she said of teachers and administrators at her school. “I got no support for wanting to be an architect, because I was a girl — at least I assume that’s why; it was considered not something that girls did.

    “When I tried to take a drafting class instead of my German III class, my German teacher was horrified,” she continued. “She insisted that I take the German class because drafting class was where the shop boys were.”

    But Dietz persevered. With no clear career-track blueprint to follow, she essentially drafted her own — a public-school education (specifically a bachelor’s in Architecture), followed by a master’s in that subject, or what’s known as an M-Arch, and then a relocation to where she thought the jobs would be.

    “If you grow up in Ohio, for the most part, you end up wanting to leave,” she explained. “I looked at both coasts, and, at the time, Seattle was not the Seattle that it is today. Boeing had just done a huge layoff, there was no Microsoft, so the job prospects weren’t all that great.”

    As it turned out, Western Mass. didn’t provide anything resembling a smooth, easy ride, but four recessions after entering this challenging, highly competitive field, Dietz is not only still surviving, she’s thriving, with one of the larger firms in the region, a solid niche in affordable-housing design, and a positive outlook on the future.

    Dietz doesn’t get to spend much time actually designing these days — not that architects actually devote many hours to the computer and drafting table anyway (more on that later) — but she likes the blend of business management, teaching others how to run a business through a course she teaches at UMass Amherst, and giving back to the community, especially the city of Springfield through her work on the Planning Board and elsewhere.

    In this, the latest installment of its Profiles in Business series, BusinessWest looks at how Dietz has achieved success on several levels — by design.

    Dietz told BusinessWest that, before she started confounding guidance counselors at Sylvania High School with questions about architecture and how to prepare for life in that field, her main interests in high school were German and biology.

    All that changed when her parents starting building a new house, commissioning a close friend of the family (“or what in Ohio we called an ‘uncle,’” said Dietz) to handle the design work. “I got to see the process and became intrigued by it; I would come home from high school and work on the house,” she said, adding that architecture combined many elements she was interested in, including math, science, design, and its problem-solving nature. “And besides, I had come to the conclusion that biology or German probably wasn’t going to get me anywhere.”

    Upon graduating from high school, Dietz went to Kent State University (just a few months after the infamous Vietnam War protest there that left four dead), and later earned her M-Arch at the University of Michigan. After choosing the East Coast and, specifically, Western Mass. — “I don’t like cities” — she worked first at Architects Inc. in Northampton and then Studio One in downtown Springfield.

    In 1985, she started her own firm, Dietz & Company Architects, now specializing in affordable housing, secondary and higher educational institutions, health care, commercial projects, and historic renovations, with a focus on sustainable, or ‘green,’ practices.

    Over the years, affordable housing has become the core of the practice. Over the past 25 years, the firm has produced or renovated thousands of units of family, elderly, and special-needs housing representing more than $100 million worth of construction. Among the company’s signature projects is the award-winning Hope VI affordable housing in Holyoke’s Churchill neighborhood, completed in the late ’90s, and new facilities for the Greater Springfield YWCA, including a state-of-the-art battered-women’s shelter that has become a model for communities across the country.

    The firm has grown steadily over the past quarter-century, with Dietz moving increasingly from design work to practice management, an evolution that comes with a few minor regrets, she says, but is part of life in this business.

    “I miss some of the client contact because I don’t get to work one-on-one as much as I did in the beginning,” she said. “But one of the things I’ve learned how to do is hire good design talent. I don’t consider myself to be a world-class designer — my interest in the business is a little more technical, and my skills lie more in the problem solving, big-picture thinking, and strategic thinking. So I’m not a traditional architect in the public view of what an architect is.”

    Overall, she said architecture is not as glamorous as many in the general public might perceive it to be. In other words, there’s far more paperwork, bureaucracy, and meetings with municipal officials than time spent actually designing.

    “If you followed one of us around, you’d find it pretty boring,” she explained. “Mostly, we’re doing phone calls and paperwork, following things up, checking codes, coordinating our consultants. The actual time one spends sitting at a computer drawing a building and doing design is minimal, and that’s unfortunate.”

    While building her firm and surviving recessions that always take a heavy toll on all construction-related businesses, Dietz has become heavily involved in the community — in particular, Springfield, where she lives and works.

    “That’s part of what makes me tick,” she said, adding that she has been a long-time member of the Planning Board and is currently helping to rewrite the city’s zoning codes, a time-consuming initiative. In the past, she was involved with drafting a new master plan for downtown, and was a founding member of the ‘X’ Main Street Corp., a local effort to preserve and enhance that section of the city.

    She also enjoys teaching her course within the Architecture program at UMass, which underscores her belief in the importance of public higher education, especially in this field, and provides her the opportunity to impart lessons in business management that she never received 35 years ago.

    Overall, it’s been a fulfilling career for someone who couldn’t get any support for her choice of vocation back in high school.

    Then, as now, she’s created a blueprint for success.

    —George O’Brien

    Departments

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

    Anderson, Mark K.
    36 Graves Ave.
    Northampton, MA 01060
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Barton, Gerald D.
    31 Summer St.
    Orange, MA 01364
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/20/09

    Beane, Kimiye M.
    780 Tinkham Road
    Wilbraham, MA 01095
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Bergmann, Michael
    55 North Main St., Apt. 14
    So. Deerfield, MA 01373
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Bertsch, Gregory J.
    Bertsch, Cheryl Avonti
    19 Rainbow Dr.
    Belchertown, MA 01007
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Berube, Nicholas F.
    Berube, Amy M.
    145 Fuller St.
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Birger, Cheryl L.
    a/k/a Baer, Cheryl L.
    64 Old Lane Road
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Bock, Matthew P.
    Bock, Lisa A.
    457 Elm St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Bradbury, Peter C.
    Bradbury, Kelly A.
    164 Valley Road
    Southampton, MA 01073
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Brockney, Diana L.
    713 West Royalston Road
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Brodeur, Martha Jane
    82 South Maple St., Apt. 10
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Brown, Kathy A.
    45 Ramblewood Dr.
    Springfield, MA 01118
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Brunelle, Timothy W.
    122 Squire Lane
    Springfield, MA 01118
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Bulley, Christopher A.
    14 Scott St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Burdick, Patricia R.
    216 Grove St.
    Adams, MA 01220
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Burke, Shelly M.
    31 Gilman St.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Caillias, Thomas C.
    96 Seymour St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Catapano, Paul Matthew
    96 Seymour St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Chase, Tammy J.
    a/k/a Gordon, Tammy J.
    52 Lombard Ave.
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Chistolini, Marc William
    Chistolini, Karen R.
    52 Weston St.
    Wilbraham, MA 01095
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Colesano, Eleanor Lee
    a/k/a Colesano, Ellie L.
    87 Corey Colonial
    Agawam, MA 01001
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Complete Coverage Painting
    Dolinger, Jacob Ian
    Dolinger, Elizabeth Emeline
    a/k/a Benting, Elizabeth E.
    a/k/a Elizabeth E. Be Green
    a/k/a Elizabeth E. Perennials
    543 Fox Hill Road
    Bernardston, MA 01337
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Cordero-McCall, Lisa A.
    222 Marsden St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Counter, John J.
    Counter, Patricia A.
    427 Mountain Road
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Daly, Elizabeth A.
    78 Lyman St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Daniels, Christine Ann
    81 South Maple St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Davis, Christopher Allan
    84 Canal Dr.
    Belchertown, MA 01007
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    DC Cleaners
    Geyster, David
    350 Riverbend St.
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/20/09

    DeBettencourt, Matthew Peter
    DeBettencourt, Amber Lee
    72 Coffey Hill Road
    Ware, MA 01082
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    DeBlois, Claire H.
    27 Aspen Road
    Springfield, MA 01128
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    DeJesus, Maria Lourdes
    40 North Boulevard
    West Springfield, MA 01089
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Denardo, Lisa L.
    124 North Westfield St.
    Feeding Hills, MA 01030
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Dufault, Richard Andrew
    Dufault, Rebecca Anne
    41 West Summit St.
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Dunbar, Patricia M.
    9 K St.
    Turners Falls, MA 01376
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/21/09

    Dunphy, Michael M.
    84 Northampton St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Durocher, Doreen M.
    PO Box 15
    West Springfield, MA 01090
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Famosi, Linda J.
    Safe Passage
    43 Center St., #304
    Northampton, MA 01060
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Faustini, Deanna M.
    29 Dean St.
    North Adams, MA 01247
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Fitzsimmons, Michael J.
    Fitzsimmons, Lynne D.
    117 Main St., Apt. 2L
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Fogel, Evan G.
    16 Forbes Ave.
    Northampton, MA 01060
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Gaughran, Robert D.
    266 Park St.
    Great Barrington, MA 01230
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Gillespie, Jennifer R.
    65 Federal St. Ext.
    Agawam, MA 01001
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/28/09

    Goncalves, Andrea L.
    1024 Pleasant St.
    Palmer, MA 01069
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Goretskiy, Veniamin F.
    Goretskiy, Vera I.
    16 Dubois St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Gray, Arthur R.
    Gray, Elizabeth A.
    814 Alden St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Gutowski, Nicole E.
    63 Worcester St., 1st
    West Springfield, MA 01089
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Harvey, Gerald M.
    Harvey, Irene F.
    18 Everett St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Hervieux, Thomas E.
    23 May Road
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Jenks, Shaun R.J.
    17 Valley View Dr.
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/28/09

    Kelley, Jr., James J.
    Kelley, Elizabeth
    P.O. Box 1287
    100 Reed Road
    Warren, MA 01083
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Kenney, James F.
    66 School St.
    Granby, MA 01033
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Khampaeng, Chan
    517 Main St.
    Hampden, MA 01036
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Klimek, Thomas Edward
    Klimek, Marjorie Truchan
    186 Higher Brook Dr.
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Kurkulonis, Linda J.
    29 Columbus St.
    Agawam, MA 01001
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

     

    Kuzia, Judd J.
    77 National Bridge Road
    North Adams, MA 01247
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/28/09

    Leastman, Sherry A.
    56 Coolidge Ave.
    Ludlow, MA 01056
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    LeBlanc, Jason
    LeBlanc, Kimberly A.
    a/k/a Stevenson, Kimberly A.
    86 Ridgewood Ave.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Lunt Silversmiths Inc.
    298 Federal St.
    Greenfield, MA 01301
    Chapter: 11
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Malloy, William R.
    Malloy, Lisa A.
    342 Notch Road
    Cheshire, MA 01225
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Mangan, Louise J.
    96 Anzio Road
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Manzi, Andrew S.
    Manzi, Martha M.
    25 Howard St.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    McGuirk, Scott Thomas
    61 Deslauriers St.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    McKeever, Eileen A.
    a/k/a Aguilar, Eileen
    1557 Carew St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Metzdorf, Andrew Thomas
    52 Hardy St.
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Metzdorf, Peter Joseph
    Metzdorf, Ann Elizabeth
    268 Palmer Road
    Trailer #56
    Palmer, MA 01057
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Miguel, Reyes
    Maria, Ramos
    6 Decker Place
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/24/09

    Mock, Janet M.
    a/k/a Curtis, Janet
    52 Aster St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/21/09

    Montesdeoca, Myrna
    Scott, Adrienne
    21 Cottonwood Lane
    Springfield, MA 01128
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/19/09

    Morelli, Bruce J.
    Morelli, Laura J.
    280 Eagle St
    North Adams, MA 01247
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Moriarty, Debra A.
    42 Morris St.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/27/09

    Nager, Leslie M.
    356 Park St., Apt. 109
    West Springfield, MA 01089
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Norbut, Richard F.
    Moriarty, Darlene J.
    133 Franklin St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Northeast Plumbing and Heating
    Walker, William A.
    16 Ramah St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Nyiri, Page Joseph
    30 Grove St.
    Turners Falls, MA 01376
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Penalbert, Maria
    8 Eddy St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Platek, Paul D.
    Herzig, Karen R.
    1196 Bernardston Road
    Greenfield, MA 01301
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/28/09

    Pratt, Diane L.
    93 Pomeroy St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Presho, Michele A.
    31 Lower Hampden Road
    Monson, MA 01057
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Reede, Sally Anne
    485 South St., Apt. 502
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/24/09

    Reister, Virginia A.
    119 Kent Road
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Roberts, Paul E.
    116 Old Keene Road
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Rodriguez, Amy L.
    661 Montgomery St.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 13
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Rogalski, Rick J.
    Lepage-Rogalski, Nicole K.
    23 Admiral St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/19/09

    Roman, Sandra I.
    51 Maryland St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Rubner, Todd R.
    73 Maple St.
    Chicopee, MA 01020
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Ruiz, Jennifer
    a/k/a Sanchez, Jennifer
    134 Union St. #39
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Russell, Angela Gail
    a/k/a Telega, Angela G.
    9B Elm Circle
    South Deerfield, MA 01373
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Sanchez, Fabian
    P.O. Box 70562
    Springfield, MA 01107
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/28/09

    Sanchez, Jose Antonio
    Rivera, Sujei
    58 Vinton St.
    Springfield, MA 01104
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Santiago, Arberto
    Santiago, Jeannette
    a/k/a Davila, Jeanette
    15 Groveland St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Sargentelli, John R.
    Sargentelli, Carolanne
    31 Wildwood Dr.
    Barre, MA 01005
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Sattari, Mehdi N.
    2 Summer St., Apt #2
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/21/09

    Seabrooks, Ulysses
    73 Edgewood St.
    Springfield, MA 01109
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/18/09

    Shevchenko, Andrey Y.
    Shevchenko, Alla
    12 West School St.
    Westfield, MA 01085
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/22/09

    Shiner, Eric
    36 Boylston St.
    Pittsfield, MA 01201
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Stark, Kevin J.
    754 White St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/31/09

    Surprenant, Raymond J.
    Surprenant, Denise M.
    5 Maple St
    Monson, MA 01057
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Tattoo Andy
    Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
    Barrett, Andrew T.
    51 Phelps St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Thomas, Janet E.
    1472 Pleasant St.
    Athol, MA 01331
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Truehart, Beverly P.
    328 East St.
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/23/09

    Turgeon, Corrine Ann
    a/k/a Perry, Corrine Ann
    24 Water Lane
    Easthampton, MA 01027
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Tyler, Julie A.
    114 Webber St.
    Springfield, MA 01108
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/27/09

    Vecchia, Janet Ann
    415 Ingleside St.
    Holyoke, MA 01040
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/29/09

    Walker, Dolores M.
    12 Bolton St.
    South Hadley, MA 01075
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/30/09

    Wheble, Robert J.
    Wheble, Christine D.
    a/k/a Vincellette, Christine D.
    43 Brianna Lane
    Springfield, MA 01129
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/16/09

    Wilbur, Trevor S.
    14 Phillips Hill
    Adams, MA 01220
    Chapter: 7
    Filing Date: 12/17/09

    Departments

    Warmth and Generosity

    Baystate Mary Lane Hospital employees recently held a successful coat drive to benefit the Trinity Episcopal Church’s Jubilee Cupboard, the only emergency food pantry of its kind in Ware, which serves between 200 and 300 local families. “Through the many generous donations made by hospital employees, we have collected a record number of warm winter coats during our annual coat drive,” noted Joanne Champagne, radiology technologist and coat drive coordinator at the hospital. “We were very pleased with the generosity of our employees and the success of this year’s coat drive,” added Christine Shirtcliff, hospital president. “I am extremely proud of all of the employees who have offered coats to families who face hardship this year.” Pictured are, from left, Pat Gilmette, Champagne, and Michell Marchand, Radiology Department employees.


    Pajama Party

    Employees of HealthSouth of Ludlow recently delivered five large bags of brand-new pajamas to the Red Cross for local children affected by disasters. Here, Mary Nathan, left, director of Disaster Services for the American Red Cross Pioneer Valley Chapter, accepts the donation from Vicky Healy of HealthSouth. All Red Cross disaster assistance is free, made possible by voluntary donations of time and money. Tax-deductible contributions may be mailed to the American Red Cross Pioneer Valley Chapter, 506 Cottage St., Springfield, MA 01104. People may also donate at www.redcrosspioneervalley.org or by calling (413) 737-4306.


    Alumni Reunion

    Three alumni of the School of Business and Information Technologies at Springfield Technical Community College were honored at an Alumni Reunion on Jan. 21. From left are David E. Nicoll, manager of External Supply Chain for Karl Storz Endovision in Charlton; Bernadette J. Conte, assistant principal at Agawam High School; and the Honorable William J. Boyle, first justice of the Springfield District Court. The evening event was dedicated to the memory of former Business faculty John J. Godfrey and Michael J. Farrell.

    Uncategorized
    An Inspiring Class of Difference Makers

    When BusinessWest launched its Difference Makers program a year ago, it did so with many goals in mind. The first, of course, was to recognize people and institutions making important contributions to the health and well-being of this region. Beyond that, through the telling of their stories, we wanted to inspire others to make a difference as well.

    The Class of 2009 made that second goal easily reachable, and the Class of 2010 (introduced in a special section starting on page 37) will do at least as well. Indeed, if there is one word that sums up this class, it is inspirational.

    Let’s start with the Davis Foundation. Over the past 40 years or so, it has awarded grants to countless local nonprofit agencies, helping them do everything from constructing new buildings to launching new programs to simply meeting the confines of a budget. These acts of philanthropy alone are enough to make the foundation a Difference Maker. But in recent years, the organization has gone far beyond the act of donating money.

    Perhaps its most important role now is to act as a convening power, bringing groups and individuals together to address issues like education and literacy. The word agenda often has a negative connotation to it, but not in this case. The Davis Foundation has a clear agenda — to focus energy, imagination, and, yes, money on the critical matter of young people, this region’s future.

    Serving on boards and committees doesn’t necessarily make one a Difference Maker. But going well beyond the monthly or weekly meetings and compelling those involved with various groups to reach higher and work harder, well, that would put someone in that category.

    And this pretty much sums up Ellen Freyman’s approach to her work. She’s not only tutoring and mentoring members of a Somali family, she’s working with Springfield school officials to improve their chances of succeeding in the classroom. She’s also starting to work with others to find new ways to bring more adult-literacy programs online, not merely to help the Somalis, but also the countless others who need such services. She’s even put a soccer team together for Somalis and arranged for donations of equipment.

    All this shows creativity and the ability to think outside the box — just some of the traits that make her a Difference Maker.

    Jim Goodwin has been at the helm of the Center of Human Development for more than 30 years now, and in that time he has helped create and expand dozens of programs that improve quality of life for society’s most challenged constituencies.

    These include the mentally and physically challenged, children with developmental issues, seniors, those with substance-abuse problems, those who have been incarcerated, and others. He’s a Difference Maker not simply because he works with those groups, but because he’s created an organization — and a team — committed to the CHD mission.

    Carol Katz, meanwhile, is also a Difference Maker on many levels. First, as CEO of Loomis Communities, she has orchestrated strong growth of that organization while also transforming the way in which care to seniors is provided.

    She also gives back to the community, and by setting that example, and that tone, she has created a culture of community involvement in each of the Loomis properties.

    Finally, UMass Amherst and its chancellor, Robert Holub, are making a difference in many ways, especially in Springfield, through a number of economic-development programs. Efforts include establishing a physical presence in downtown Springfield, partnering with area agencies to transfer technology from the university to area precision manufacturers, research projects, the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, work to create the High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, and much more.

    This is an exceptional class of Difference Makers, individuals and institutions that can inspire positive change while also inspiring others to follow their lead.

    Kate Campiti is associate publisher and advertising manager of BusinessWest.

    Uncategorized
    Here Are 22 Effective Ways to Out-market the Competition

    Out-marketing competitors is easy if you do it right. It takes a combination of work and savvy, but the results can be positive. Frankly, the competition often makes it unusually easy. They talk about what they are going to do, but never get around to doing much. They’re successful at missing marketing opportunities.

    But not everyone. For example, a 44-store dry-cleaning chain responded to a request for submissions for family business of the year and another for community service. Detailed proposals were prepared and submitted, and the company took top honors in each one, which brought widespread recognition and additional opportunities.

    While the possibilities are limitless, here are 22 marketing ideas that can help you out-market the competition.

    1.Put your marketing under the microscope. Review everything. And that means all your various marketing activities, whether it’s advertising, letters, memos, eBulletins, newsletters, press releases, and so forth. Ask yourself, ‘is this about our company, or is it about our customers?’ The focus should be squarely on ‘them’ rather than ‘us.’ If it isn’t, change it!

    2.Get a grip on the customer. This means thinking like a customer. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? If you’re selling something, why wouldn’t you try to get inside the customer’s head? After looking at recent GM ads, you might wonder what they’re thinking. Chevy ads focus on interior space, mileage, and OnStar, while Buick highlights a smooth ride. Is all that on target? If the Cash for Clunkers program is any indication, it isn’t. Consumers want value for their dollar. By the way, GM isn’t alone.

    There’s just too much stuff that keeps us from seeing the world though the customer’s eyes.

    3.Watch out for no-appeal perks. Just giving things to customers, including most so-called value-added ‘stuff,’ can backfire. It may send the message that you don’t really understand what they want. If it doesn’t have value for the customer, don’t do it.

    4.Get the emotions going. Facts can be helpful, but they don’t translate into action. Reebok gets the message with its recent cable ads for its women’s EasyTone shoes with its compelling message, “Better legs and a better butt with every step.” The ad has both men and women talking, a sure sign that it hit an emotional target. Skechers’ Shape-ups for men aim at the same hot spot with the message, “get in shape without setting foot in a gym.”

    5.Be ubiquitous. “Daimler AG’s two-year effort to win over U.S. drivers with a thrifty, plastic-clad minicar is running out of steam,” notes BusinessWeek. After a hot start, ForTwo sales stalled. Was it the car or an inadequate marketing budget? The ForTwo smart car was a new concept and it needed to be seen and promoted in every metropolitan area. It’s an example of how underpowered marketing gets you nowhere.

    6.Power up your social-media skills. Look for sites that seem to fit your objectives and focus on one or two to start. Join the groups that are right for you on the sites and expand your connections. Then stay with it and make yourself part of the community by posting helpful information regularly.

    7.Seek out presentation opportunities. Organizations look for presenters who can offer timely information and who won’t serve up an infomercial. If you’re an interesting speaker capable of delivering an applause-worthy presentation, and there are opportunities, you have an edge. It’s a great way for prospects to get acquainted with you.

    8.Piggyback on hot news. A law firm specializing in divorces responded immediately to the Tiger Woods story with a local angle, just what the press was looking for. The story was picked up by more than 40 media outlets across the country. This is always a small window, but you need to act quickly.

    9.Develop a prospect database. An inadequate prospect database thwarts the marketing efforts of most companies. It’s impossible to communicate with prospective customers and actively cultivate them unless you have complete and accurate contact information.

    10.Communicate consistently in a variety of ways. No business can depend on one or even two ways to communicate with prospects and customers today. The goal is to bounce as many balls as possible: phone, e-mail, texting, print and electronic newsletters, blogs, and seminars. Not all at the same time, but in more than one way.

    11.Sponsor a community-relations program. Go beyond just giving money. Identify a community need and make it yours by integrating it into your marketing plan so that it becomes an extension of your brand. The goal is to align your company and its resources with your community-relations program.

    12.Stick with facts. Much of what passes for marketing is mere opinion shrouded in ‘puff and fluff.’ Third-party surveys and solid research can help build credibility by dispelling doubt.

    13.Give your Web site a redo. Old Web sites never die, they just stay that way. Ill-conceived, poorly designed, and company-focused, they need to be filled with excitement and customer appeal.

    14.Share your knowledge. Every business possesses expertise, but few share what they know with customers. Yet, it’s your knowledge that helps set you apart from the competition. Sharing what you know has the power to pull in customers.

    15.Build your brand. What does your brand stand for? How is it perceived by customers? What do they think about when they think about you? What value does your company bring to your customers? And how do you know? Guessing isn’t good enough. Give attention to what makes your company unique.

    16.Create a marketing calendar. Marketing plans are important, but the place to start is with a marketing calendar: what’s going to happen each month, week, and so forth. Use it as a road map to stay on track.

    17.Follow up on sales leads. Lead accountability is essential, since studies show that follow-up fails with 30% to 80% of leads from inquiries, requests for information, telephone calls, and so forth. They’re ignored, thrown away, dismissed as unimportant, or fall through the cracks.

    18.Avoid trite words and phrases. When everyone uses certain words, stay away from them. Watch out for these: ‘value’ (prove it), ‘we have great people’ (who says so?), ‘we care’ (words are not reality), ‘your business is important to us’ (is that why you give out 25-cent trinkets?), and ‘we provide solutions’ (what’s that mean?). Such words are high-level abstractions that don’t mean anything to customers. Be descriptive and tell stories. That’s what grabs customers.

    19.Market bylined articles. Well-written, thoughtful, and informative (not self-serving) articles that meet an editor’s requirements are in demand for both print and online venues. They are a great way to demonstrate your ability to communicate successfully.

    20.Avoid subterfuge. The e-mail message is clear: “ask for our free white paper on…” Then when you ‘click here’ to get it, up pops a form, which instantly devalues the white paper. In fact, it’s no longer free, since the ‘price’ is providing contact information. This sends the message to prospects that you’re not an up-front business. If it’s free, let the visitor get it now.

    21.Understand the male and female shopping styles. Anyone who goes to the supermarket knows men and women are different. Men go down an aisle with speed and determination. They grab what they want, almost without slowing down. Women, however, take their time, check over possible purchases, and carefully check the differences before making a decision. As we all know, they easily irritate each other.

    Researchers point out that, in prehistoric times women were the foragers, spending their days carefully looking for the best foods, while the men were making plans for which animal to kill and how to go about it. When ready, they went out, made the kill, and came home with the prey. Nothing has changed. Recognizing the differences is one key to successful marketing.

    22.Why does your company deserve more business? Ford takes this question seriously by challenging itself and coming up with far-reaching changes in its thinking and operations, including moving to smaller vehicles and a truly global platform. Your actions let customers know what you really are.

    If you’ve thought of other marketing activities to add to the list, that’s good. Continually expanding our marketing horizons is what it’s all about. It’s the best way to out-market the competition.

    John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing-services and sales-consulting firm;[email protected].

    Uncategorized
    This Growing Venture Is a Permanent Fixture

    Michelle Scibelli says she and her staff have a common refrain for new clients seeking directions to their shop on Albany Street in Springfield.

    “We tell them that, if they think they’re driving down the wrong road, then they’re probably in the right place,” said Scibelli, referring to a stretch known as Gasoline Alley, largely because of the huge heating oil and gasoline tanks that populate the south side of the street. “We get a lot people who come in with funny looks on their faces, as if to say, ‘why are you located here?’”

    Well, the location, in a decidedly industrial part of the city, alongside the storage tanks, a building-wrecking company, and a few junkyards, is part of the experience at Gasoline Alley the Salon, said Scibelli, who has worked at this site for more than a decade now, and assumed ownership of the venture upon the retirement of its founder, Eileen Sullivan, in 2004.

    “It was and is a fun place,” she said of her decision to join Sullivan and keep the business on Gasoline Alley. “It’s unique and interesting, and it’s safe. I really enjoy supporting Springfield and trying to maintain and grow a business in what is, to some, an undesirable location.”

    Scibelli said it would have been easy for her to move the operation to a shopping center in East Longmeadow or Agawam, especially last year, when she decided that a major facelift and expansion were in order. But she believes she has a stake in Springfield and wants to be a part of this city and part of the recovery she expects for the beleaguered community.

    “I’m so proud to be here, and we like to bring a little beauty to this part of Springfield,” she said, adding quickly that there are practical reasons for being there. “It’s very convenient to the highway, from businesses downtown, and to most small towns outside Springfield; we get a lot of business from Northampton and Amherst.”

    Tracing the history of the business — and her career — Scibelli, who trained at the Sassoon Academy in Toronto, said she came to Albany Street, and a salon known then as Eileen’s at Gasoline Alley, in 1999. That was roughly a decade after the entered the field professionally, and close to 20 years after first being introduced to the business: her mother had long operated a salon.

    Scibelli said she was bored with her work at a salon in East Longmeadow and was looking for a new challenge when she decided to join Sullivan. And she admitted that, upon first glance, she thought the location (the salon was then in a different part of the building at 250 Albany St.) was strange and perhaps business-unfriendly.

    “I drove down here from East Longmeadow thinking there’s no way I could possibly bring my clientele down here,” she recalled with a laugh. “But once I met Eileen and saw the space, I thought there was no way I couldn’t come here. I loved the uniqueness of the space itself, and I loved Eileen and the whole vibe of the salon.”

    And five years later, upon Sullivan’s retirement, Scibelli accepted an even bigger challenge — taking ownership of the operation and that vibe. She’s managed to increase revenues very year since, even in an ultra-challenging 2009, when many clients cut back on their salon spending.

    “People don’t cut it out entirely — they can’t — but they do spend less,” she said, adding that the company still managed double-digit growth (although not as much as most years) by continually adding new clients.

    Now with a team of four other stylists, Sullivan serves a broad, diverse clientele that includes men, women, and children, doctors and other professionals at nearby Baystate Medical Center and Mercy Medical Center, and many Springfield municipal employees, especially teachers, to whom she has offered discounts and special rates over the years, especially during trying times of budget cuts and layoffs.

    “A lot of Springfield teachers who were already long-time clients were cutting back because of family budgets and concerns,” she explained. “We then decided to offer them a discount so they would not have to give up something or have to sacrifice quality of service — and we’ve continued to do it.”

    Last year, during the depths of the recession — and in spite of it — Scibelli decided to undertake a major expansion and renovation effort that had decidedly ‘green’ undertones.

    Indeed, the new, 1,500-square-foot salon features recycled materials for its doors and windows (from neighboring businesses the Restore and Associated Building Wreckers) and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint. Visitors to the salon find an environment decidedly different from that provided by most similar businesses. The loft-style space has an industrial look and feel, with hardwood floors and exposed metal. But there’s also an art gallery at the entrance — one that features the work of local artists — as well as a gourmet coffee bar.

    Looking to the future, Scibelli said she doesn’t really have a formal five-year plan, accept to continue growing the business and being a visible, active part of the Springfield economy.

    In other words, she plans on being a permanent fixture on Gasoline Alley — literally and figuratively.

    —George O’Brien

    Uncategorized
    How To Tell Your Loved One That It?s Time to Hand Over the Keys

    Do you remember the day when you received your driver’s license? Most people experienced a rush of excitement and a sense of freedom that they could clearly recall many years later. Now imagine losing this mobility and freedom … or, even worse, being the one who has to inform an elderly driver that their driver’s license should be limited or even taken away.

    The thought of having this often-awkward and painful conversation tempts loved ones to procrastinate; however, adequately preparing for this conversation with an elderly driver who poses a danger to himself and others, and understanding the resources available to both you and your loved one, can facilitate what otherwise can be an extremely traumatic experience.

    First, it is important to recognize that everyone ages differently. As such, age alone should never be a dispositive factor in determining whether or not an elder has the requisite capability to drive. However, there is no denying that a person’s physical and cognitive abilities often deteriorate with age. As we age, there is a greater likelihood of becoming inflicted with chronic diseases such as arthritis, dementia, and hearing impairment. In addition, elderly people are more likely to be injured than younger people in similar automobile accidents.

    Because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has no special licensing requirements for elderly drivers, family members should continually look for signs of diminished capacity. However, both Massachusetts and Connecticut require drivers to inform the Registry of Motor Vehicles and Department of Transportation if they have a medical condition that they believe may affect their ability to operate a motor vehicle.

    Physicians suggest that family members of elderly drivers should search for signs that a loved one has diminished capacity to drive. Specifically, family members should ascertain whether or not the driver gets lost, has an increasing number of accidents, becomes forgetful, or has problems understanding simple instructions.

    In the event that you believe an elderly driver should reduce or stop driving, it is important to plan prior to commencing a dialogue with this individual. Driving is often the last means of independence because it provides the elderly with the opportunity to visit friends, go shopping, or manage other tasks of daily life. Elderly drivers may get defensive and angry upon hearing that someone is attempting to take away this freedom. Thus, approaching this subject with realistic expectations is critical.

    It is important to introduce this subject at a quiet time of day when both you and the elderly driver are relaxed and no external commitments are pending. It is also preferable to include the elderly person in the decision-making process if possible instead of dictating a decision to them.

    You may wish to discuss this matter together with other family members, doctors, and other people that the elderly person respects. You might try having them write down both pros and cons, in the hope that they will realize that there are benefits to not driving. The initial conversation does not need to yield permanent decisions. Often it is preferable to put the discussion on temporary hold for a few days to have the opportunity to reflect on various options.

    Caregivers and family members should elicit the assistance of resources that can facilitate the determination of whether or not the elder should be driving. One is the Weldon Rehabilitation Hospital, at 233 Carew St. in Springfield, which has developed a coordinated program to assess an individual’s ability to drive safely.

    The Driving Assessment Program will take approximately 90 minutes to complete. It commences with a licensed and registered occupational therapist providing a clinical evaluation. If warranted, an on-road evaluation and on-road training with a licensed driving instructor may also occur.

    Upon the completion of the evaluation, the results and appropriate recommendations will be discussed with the driver and their physician. The program evaluates vision and perception, physical status, mobility, upper- and lower-extremity reaction time, traffic sign/situation identification and interpretation, cognition, and adaptive equipment. A family member may accompany the elder to the evaluation.

    To schedule an evaluation, contact the Outpatient Admitting Office, Weldon Rehabilitation Hospital, at (413) 748-6880 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (413) 748-6880      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

    Other resources to consider are the Berkshire Medical Center Driver Evaluation Program in Pittsfield, (413) 447-2200; the Fairlawn Rehabilitation Program in Worcester, (508) 791-6351; the AARP’s 55 Alive/Mature Driving Course, (800) 424-3410; the AARP Driver Safety Program, (888) 227-7669; the Assoc. for Driver Rehabilitation, which offers referrals to professionals trained to help people with disabilities, including those associated with aging, (608) 884-8833; and the AAA Safe Driving for Mature Operations program, (800) 622-9211.

    If the elderly driver cannot operate a vehicle safely and refuses to stop driving, be prepared to take action. There are several options available:

    Stage an intervention. This involves family members, health care workers, and anyone respected by the elderly driver confronting him or her, firmly but compassionately, in an effort to offset the senior’s denial of the issue.

    Contact the local Department of Motor Vehicles and register a complaint. You may wish to do this anonymously.

    Disable the car. This may include hiding the keys, disconnecting the battery, or moving it to a location beyond the elderly person’s control.

    Many families are inquiring as to whether, in the face of advancing age, functional disability, and/or cognitive disability, a loved one’s driver’s license should be limited or simply taken away. Denying an elderly person a driver’s license can be an extremely traumatic event. Restricting or removing an elderly person’s driver’s license should be done with careful planning and by taking advantage of the community resources available.

    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 and recipient of Boston Magazine’s 2007 and 2008 Massachusetts Super Lawyers Rising Stars award; (413) 781-0560;[email protected];bwlaw.blogs.com

    Uncategorized
    Preventing Check, Wire-transfer, and ACH-debit Fraud

    Despite the predications of the demise of the paper check, check fraud is on the rise. Shockingly enough, the value of paper-check fraud this year alone is expected to exceed $50 billion.

    With the growing popularity of electronic payments and banking, how is it that paper-check fraud continues to be such a huge problem? Two reasons — technology and the lack of, or weak, internal controls. Technologically adept counterfeiters, armed with check stock and a high-quality color printer, can create close-to-perfect documents that pass for the real thing. When you combine a tech-savvy criminal with weak internal controls, your exposure to fraud skyrockets.

    You’re Not Responsible? Think Again

    Don’t assume that your bank will accept liability for counterfeit checks written against your bank accounts. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) changed more than a decade ago to make the liability for check fraud allocable based upon the negligence of each party. Therefore, it is critical to take precautions and insert controls to protect your company’s assets.

    Implementing payee-positive pay is the most effective way to prevent counterfeit- or altered-check fraud and protect your company from liability for these items. With payee-positive pay, your company sends your bank a file detailing all checks issued. The details include the check number, check date, check amount, and payee. When checks are presented to the bank for payment, the above attributes are compared to the file provided by your company. If any of the details do not match, the bank will contact the company to determine if the check is valid and should be paid. Even though implementing payee-positive pay may carry an additional service fee from your bank, the added protection is worthwhile.

    In short, it pays to understand your bank’s responsibilities regarding check fraud. Contact your bank to obtain a clear understanding of their policies and services available with respect to prevention.

    In addition to implementing payee-positive pay, it’s important to understand that the UCC put a significant amount of responsibility on business customer accounts regarding timely discovery of unauthorized transactions. Section 4-406 of the UCC subsection (c) states that the customer must exercise reasonable promptness in examining the statement provided by the bank for unauthorized transactions, and, if they are identified, they must promptly notify the bank.

    If the bank can prove that you failed in this responsibility, you’re precluded from making a claim against the bank unless you can prove that the bank failed to exercise ordinary care in paying the item. In this instance, the loss may be allocated between the customer and the bank. To protect your company, be sure to maintain proper control over check stock, use check stock with proper security features, and perform timely reconciliations.

    Check-stock security features are also important in deterring check fraud by making checks difficult to copy, alter, or counterfeit. Some of the more effective security measures include watermarks, copy-void pantograph, and chemical voids.

    Watermarks make subtle designs on the front and back of the checks via the printing process that are visible only if held up to the light at a 45-degree angle. This protects against photocopying as a counterfeit measure, since watermarks cannot be copied accurately.

    Copy-void pantographs are also protection against photocopying. When the check is photocopied, the pattern changes, and the word ‘VOID’ appears, making the copy non-negotiable.

    Finally, chemical voids involve the check stock being treated with a chemical that reacts only when a chemical is used to wash the check (to wash out the payee, amount, etc). When the chemicals are applied, the word ‘VOID’ appears, again, making the check non-negotiable.

    Wire-transfer Fraud

    Wire-transfer fraud presents another risk to your company’s most liquid asset. Like check fraud, the most effective way to prevent wire-transfer fraud is with proper internal controls. Some of the key controls that all businesses should have in place are:

    • Written wire-transfer procedures, which include who is authorized to initiate the transfer, who is authorized to verify the transfer, and the types of transactions that are authorized (list of vendors, banks, etc.);

    • Required verifications for all wire-transfer orders placed with a person independent of the employee requesting the transfer; and
    • Prompt review and reconciliation by someone independent of those who request transfers.
    • It’s important to note that wire-transfer information should never be provided to anyone via a telephone request. The company should require the bank to receive actual verbal confirmation/verification of transfers requested. Faxed instructions and/or authorized signatures should not be adequate authorization for the bank to initiate a transfer. For additional security, a code word or password should be required by the bank to verify the identity of the employee authorized to verify transfer requests.

      ACH-debit Internal Controls

      Finally, the company should also implement controls regarding automatic clearing house (ACH) debits. The ACH network has been around for some time now but is gaining more widespread use. Rules and regulations governing the ACH network are established by the Federal Reserve.

      Using ACH debits allows a company to schedule payments to be automatically debited to its account. The benefit of this type of service is the convenience of not having to take time to write the check and mail the bill, and the assurance that the bill will always be paid on time.

      The risks related to this convenience are that you must give the vendor your bank-account information, you may be billed the wrong amount, and you give up some of your ability to manage cash flow.

      There have been instances of ACH-debit fraud where unauthorized ACH debits are charged against a company’s bank account. In these cases, the perpetrator gained access to the company’s bank account information. It could have been as simple as obtaining it from one of the company’s checks.

      Again, if your company is using this type of service to make payments, timely reconciliations are a critical control to ensure that only authorized and proper amounts are deducted from your checking account.

      Finally, there are bank services that you can implement to help your company manage these risks, such as ACH blocking, which is a service from the bank that blocks all ACH debits, or ACH filtering, which allows only ACH debits that match the company’s instructions.

      Technology certainly makes business processes more efficient, but without the installation of proper internal controls as part of a larger fraud-prevention program, organizations risk exposing themselves to a higher incidence of fraud. A fraud-prevention program is good for the protection of your business.

      Joseph Centofanti is a member of the firm and the director of the Fraud Services Group at Kostin, Ruffkess & Co., LLC, a certified public-accounting and business-advisory firm with offices in Springfield as well as Farmington and New London, Conn. Beyond traditional accounting, auditing, and tax consulting, the firm also specializes in fraud investigation, fraud prevention, forensic accounting, employee-benefit-plan audits, litigation support, business valuation, succession planning, business consulting, wealth management, estate planning, and information technology assurance;www.kostin.com.

      Features
      How George Katsoulis and His Family Business Overcame a Nearly Fatal Blaze
      Triumph over Tragedy

      George Katsoulis (left, with brother Nick) says both he and the Spartan business have rebounded from the fire.

      George Katsoulis remembers things happening almost in slow motion.

      “The best way I can describe it,” he told BusinessWest, “was that it was like watching something happen in a movie or TV show. You know it’s reality, but it’s just so hard to believe that you can’t process it. I felt like I was an actor playing a role.”

      He was talking about the fire on March 27 that nearly took his life, closed several business ventures in a crowded block of Memorial Avenue in West Springfield, and forever changed the family business George ran along with his brother, Nick. The blaze left him with third-degree burns over more than three-quarters of his body and doctors thinking that he probably wouldn’t survive.

      He did, and so did the venture, now called Spartan Auto Care Center, that was started by his father, Markos, more than a half-century earlier. And in both cases, the stories involve determination, or sheer will, not to let the fire win the battle.

      They also involve family, friends, and Spartan’s customers, who supplied more than enough support for George, who spent several months in a coma, and the business itself to find that will to carry on.

      “You go through your daily life, and you don’t think about the impact that you make,” said Nick, “but seeing the number of cards, the support, you see that George really made an impact on people. It was an overwhelming outpouring. Seeing that kind of response … that was a factor in our wanting to get back in business as well.”

      The business was back up and running less than a year after the blaze. For George, the climb back has taken much longer, and it is still ongoing. He works a few hours a week, and is optimistic that this year he will be more active with a company that continues to evolve.

      In this issue, BusinessWest looks back on the events of that fateful March day, but also at the comeback efforts for both the business owner and the business. And they are truly inspirational.

      Igniting a Comeback

      Three seconds.

      That’s how long George Katsoulis says it took for a ribbon of fire to reach him and one of his employees as they carried a gas tank to the back of the shop as the afternoon wore on that day that no one will forget.

      “Nick was in our other store at 631 State St. in Springfield, and I was managing the shop,” George began as he recalled the events that led to the calamity that happened with almost no warning. “It was business as usual; nothing particularly stood out about that day.

      “A typical repair we do is to a damaged fuel pump, most commonly located inside gas tanks these days,” he continued. “The job that day … I remember being in my office on the phone, watching through the window as one of my mechanics took the gas tank out of a car. It was sitting under the vehicle. What you want to do is bring that tank away from the bays, into the shop just behind the bays. I could see the mechanic looking around for another body to help him carry the tank. You hate to see someone idle, so I got off the phone and went to help him move it.”

      That’s when an otherwise typical day became anything but.

      “We proceeded to move the tank from the front of the shop to the back,” George said. “When we got in the back room, well, it had been sitting around, so gas fumes had gotten into the air. I can’t say that I saw the fire begin, but the fire came through the doorway we just entered.”

      Nick explained that a mechanic in a bay adjacent to the fuel-pump job was cutting a muffler off, and he speculated that this ignited the fumes that had collected in the ceiling. The fire then set off to find the source — the tank in the two men’s hands.

      “It was a pretty full tank,” George said, “and we spilled a fair amount of the gas on our journey to the back room. It was like a fuse. We were holding the tank, and we watched the flames come to us … it probably took about three seconds to find us.

      “I remember being arm’s length away from a fire extinguisher, but I couldn’t reach it, because between me and that extinguisher were all the flames. Arm’s length, and I just couldn’t reach it.”

      Over in Springfield, Nick recalled, he received a couple of phone calls from friend who worked in Tower Square. “They said, ‘I think you better go check out what’s going on over at your place; it looks like there’s a fire over near there.’”

      Also within the Spartan building at that time were the Cigar Room, the Kung Fu Academy, New England Granite, and Richard’s Giant Grinders. Nick said he called Spartan numerous times, and then each of the tenants. No one was answering.

      “I walked outside the shop in Springfield and could see the smoke. It was very unsettling. To then come down here and see what was going on” — he paused — “I was in a state of shock.”

      Nick said that the building, made of cinder blocks with a steel deck roof, was badly damaged on the inside, but the water and smoke damage hit the tenants hard. Remarkably, for a fire that would eventually draw every truck in the city, as well as engines from Agawam, Springfield, and Holyoke, the front of Spartan was largely undamaged. There were cars out in front of the building that were undamaged, and George laughed when he said, “our computers were on the next day.”

      The other mechanic holding the gas tank suffered third-degree burns on his leg. But it was George who suffered the worst of it that day.

      “Third-degree burns on 86% of my body,” he said. “Pretty much everything but my head.”

      Nick added, “almost immediately he was sent to Mass General in Boston. He was intubated for quite some time. They did skin grafts, and at one point, last rites were administered. We were told to say goodbye. Essentially, he was in a coma for four months.”

      “Three,” George corrected him, smiling, “and one more awake in the hospital.

      “The doctors and nurses all said to me that it was nothing short of a miracle that I was alive,” he added. “So many people were saying prayers for me; I attribute my survival to that.”

      Both men said that the most important thing for them to take away from this tragedy was the importance of their customers, friends, and families. While every one of the heartfelt offerings of support touched the Katsoulis families, Nick said that one in particular stood out.

      “It’s a story that still touches me to this day,” he said. “If you drive out on the Mass Pike heading to Boston, in Brimfield there’s a small niche with a statue of the Virgin Mary on the side of the highway. That’s the family farm for one of our customers, and she said she prayed for George. Every time I drive by that, I will think of her.”

      The staff at Mass General was also touched by the support George received while at the hospital. “They couldn’t believe the number of cards and letters he received,” Nick said. “I want to say that it was more than 1,000.”

      Back in Business

      From the first moment after the fire, all business at the West Springfield shop was shifted to the Spartan location across the river. But there was never a question in Nick’s mind that the shop would reopen. His dedication to the employees and other businesses left him with no other option.

      After six months of going through official channels to secure building permits, reconstruction at 865 Memorial Ave. started in earnest. The shop reopened on Dec. 12 of that year. “Richard’s Grinders is really another part of this story,” Nick added. “They were shut down at no fault of their own, but we’re happy they’re back.” The deli reopened in March 2009.

      Looking back at a year since Spartan reopened, Nick said, “we’re incredibly thankful that our customers have come back to us, and it was a strong year. In so many ways, we do feel fortunate. That’s why George and I are always here, to make sure that things go the way our customers want them to go.”

      George said that his goal for the coming year is simply to get back in the shop.

      “It took about a year after the accident for me to be able to walk again,” he said, but then added with a smile, “if my customers and employees are waiting for me, then this is the year I will be back to work.”

      Features

      The Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation

      Mary Walachy called it “extemporaneous philanthropy.”

      That was the phrase she chose to describe Irene E. Davis’s approach to giving back to the community — at the least the model she used for most of her life.

      An orphan for much of her childhood, Irene — who married George A. Davis, first a salesman for American Saw & Mfg. and then owner of that company — was, later in her life, very generous when it came to donating money to groups that would help those less-fortunate, especially children, said Walachy, executive director of the foundation that bears the Davis name. However, there was little, if any, structure or organization to her giving, she continued, noting that donations were often in cash and given at the spur of the moment.

      To illustrate the way in which Irene was “personally philanthropic,” Walachy relayed a story from around 1970 that she’d heard many times, knew she couldn’t retell as well as Davis family members, but tried anyway.

      It seems that Irene Davis had become impressed with the work of Downey Side (the adoption agency that was started in Springfield and now has offices across the country), and stopped by the offices of its founder, Father Paul Engel, to find out more. After listening to him for some time, she got out her checkbook and wrote him a check — for $30,000.

      “But he didn’t even look at it to see how much it was for,” Walachy explained, noting that Engel was being polite, but also didn’t know Davis and wasn’t at all sure of who was dealing with. “He just put in his desk drawer. When he took it out later, he was shocked; he thought, ‘this is a crazy lady,’ or ‘she doesn’t know what she’s doing … this is going to bounce.’ He didn’t even take it to the bank.

      “The next morning, she calls him, and he thinks, ‘here it comes,’” Walachy continued. “She said, ‘this is Irene Davis. I gave you a check yesterday — how much was it for?’ When he told her the amount was $30,000, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I meant to make it $50,000; I’ll be down later with the other 20.’ He said he never had a day like that in his career and that this was such a poignant moment in his life.”

      It wasn’t long after this episode, according to family lore, that Irene Davis’s son, Jim, recommended that she form a foundation to bring some order to her philanthropy, to keep records of which groups were sent money and to perhaps monitor whether money was spent in the manner intended, said Walachy. At first, she refused, thinking such a step was mostly about taxes and gaining deductions, which she wasn’t interested in. But when Jim told her it was a way for her to keep on giving to the community long after she passed on, she eventually agreed.

      And so the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation was born, with an initial $350, and for 40 years, its giving has been anything but extemporaneous — although it can act swiftly and with great flexibility, said Walachy, adding, quickly and repeatedly, that this institution exists to do much more than simply award grants, or give.

      Instead, she told BusinessWest, the foundation also initiates, convenes, unifies, collaborates, finds facts, analyzes, tests, evaluates, advocates, and more. And what it’s really doing through the sum of all this is “causing change,” she continued, especially in the broad realm of early-childhood education and development.

      “The majority of our time and attention is absolutely local,” she explained, “and with a significant lens in education and particularly the passion around ensuring that children, especially those in the urban core who are disadvantaged, reach their full academic potential in order to be successful in both school and in life.

      This focus on education, young people, and causing change, as she put it, is part of what Walachy called a “maturation” of the Davis Foundation — something that has dominated her time with the organization, which started in 1996, and which is still very much ongoing. And it’s part of her efforts to adopt best practices involving many of the leading foundations in the country, and also be far more proactive than reactive when it comes to philanthropy.

      “As we’ve grown and matured over the years, we have realized that, in order to be impactful, we need to be somewhat more strategic,” she continued, noting efforts such as the foundation’s Cherish Every Child program and its Reading Successfully by the Fourth Grade program. “And that strategy is largely in the broad rubric on education and investments in young children, because we firmly believe that investing early is where we get the greatest return.”

      However, the foundation understands that resources are limited in Western Mass., and that there are simply not as many charitable foundations here as there are in Boston, she went on, adding that funds are also awarded to groups that assist the elderly, the mentally challenged, and many other constituencies.

      When asked to list just some of the groups to which the foundation has awarded grants over the years, Walachy thought for a minute, shook her head, and then said, “just about every nonprofit group in this area.”

      But, again, she said that giving money is only a part of the equation. In recent years, a perhaps-bigger part is that ability to convene, which is part of the maturation process, and something made possible because the Davis Foundation supports so many nonprofit groups.

      “In order for us to advance and move some of the social-change issues that we care about, we need to lend our name, we need to lend our voice, we need to use our convening power, and we have to use our credibility,” she told BusinessWest. “That is more powerful, in my estimation, and we’ve come to see that come true as we’ve stepped out in a leadership role around change issues.”

      Walachy noted that, while one can see the Davis name on a few plaques or walls across the region — the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baystate Children’s Hospital is one example — this family isn’t big on having things named after it.

      “People will say, ‘if you give us $1 million, we’ll put your name on the building,’” she said. “That’s not an incentive for us.”

      Rather, the real incentive comes in getting a chance to be impactful, to cause change, which is how it chooses to serve the region and carry on the work of Irene and George Davis.

      The family’s methods of philanthropy have changed considerably since Irene’s cash gifts and random check-writing. But the impact is still the same. The foundation is still making for the best days in many nonprofit administrators’ careers, and creating innumerable poignant moments in their lives. —George O’Brien

      Class of 2010 Difference Makers

      Ellen Freyman
      Ellen FreymanShareholder with Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, P.C.

      Ellen Freyman was talking about her family’s work mentoring and tutoring members of a Somali family now residing in Springfield through the help of Jewish Family Services. She spoke proudly of the time and effort that she, her husband, Richard, and sons Neal and Stephen were putting into this initiative, and said she firmly believed they were improving the quality of life for this family of five.

      But she also conveyed a strong sense of frustration and concern that speaks loudly about how she approaches her voluminous work within the community and explains why she’s a member of the Difference Makers Class of 2010.

      The Somalis, who were raised in a refugee camp in Kenya, speak in a patchwork of languages and dialects, and have serious trouble reading and writing in any language, including what amounts to their own, said Freyman. “This makes it even more difficult for people to try and teach English to these kids, because they don’t know what word to use to correlate to what they know,” Freyman explained. “If you say ‘tape recorder,’ they don’t know which word to pull out of what language to say ‘tape recorder’ in Somali, or Kenyan, or whatever.”

      Freyman first met with Springfield teachers and principals, and later with Superintendent Alan Ingram, to discuss the problems facing not only ‘her’ Somali family, but others, as well as young people speaking other languages who are seemingly thrust into classes in the city’s high schools where other students are reading Hamlet and Of Mice and Men. As a result, a task force has been created to assess the problem and recommend possible solutions.

      But that group’s work probably won’t happen soon enough to help of the oldest of the children in the family the Freymans are working with. He’s now 19 (at least that’s the best guess), and he will need literacy skills if he is to get a job.

      Unfortunately, the waiting lists for adult-literacy programs in the area are so long that some people don’t even bother trying to apply. So Freyman, in addition to her one hour a week of mentoring and involvement with that aforementioned task force, is working to find a solution to the literacy-class problem.

      “I’m trying to bring a coalition of people together to work on this, to bring some attention to the problem of adult literacy and to get more classes,” she said, acknowledging that there won’t be any easy answers to this one. “We have resources in the community; people just have to be creative. Things don’t always fit in a box — sometimes you have to figure out how to work outside the box.”

      Being creative and thinking outside the box is how Freyman, a principal with the Springfield-based law firm Shatz Schwartz and Fentin, P.C., goes about her work with a long list of organizations, ranging from the Dunbar Community Center to the Community Music School; from the Springfield Jewish Federation to the Springfield Technical Community College Foundation.

      Her bio on the law firm’s Web site lists more than a dozen nonprofits and initiatives to which Freyman has lent her name and time. But that’s just part of the story. The energy, imagination, and outside-the-box thinking that she takes to not only these assignments, but projects she’s initiated, are other big parts.

      For example, there’s her work to create a group called On Board Inc., which works with area boards to help them achieve not only diversity, but also cultural sensitivity.

      It all started in the early ’90s, or not long after Freyman began her work within the Greater Springfield community with such groups as Jewish Family Services, the Springfield Library & Museums, StageWest, and others.

      “I was able to get on a lot of nonprofit boards, but I came to realize that, with the chambers and business boards and economic councils, many of them weren’t open to women,” she explained. “And it wasn’t because they were keeping women out, it was because they didn’t know women who were qualified to be on these boards.”

      So she collaborated with a few other women to create a name bank of sorts with such qualified women, and then approached banks, hospitals, and other organizations to use that resource when filling seats.

      “We met with various board representatives and nominating committees, and said, ‘we know you want your board to be more diversified, but you just don’t know how to do it, and you don’t know who’s out there.’ We met with college presidents, hospital CEOs, and banks, and within a year we had great success; we had a lot of women on these boards.

      “And very soon after we started, it was our mission to get not just women on these boards, but all non-represented groups,” she continued. “I saw that it wasn’t just women that were absent, but also people of color; boards didn’t look like our community, and they needed to.”

      The work with On Board Inc. exemplifies the approach Freyman says she takes with her work in the community — to look beyond her own basic assignment (attending a meeting or two a month) and to look for ways to, well, make a real difference.

      Returning to her work with the Somalis, for example, she said she’s working together with others to create a soccer team that will compete against other clubs in the region; she’s agreed to be its manager. With an assist from Go FIT founder (and 2009 Difference Maker) Susan Jaye-Kaplan, with whom she runs most mornings, Freyman was able to secure 36 new pairs of cleats from Boston-based Good Sports Inc. She’s also received donations of soccer balls, but she’s looking for help with arranging contests and getting the Somalis to games and practices, either through rides or donations of bicycles.

      In other words, she’s looking for more people willing to think — and work — outside the box.

      That’s part of being a Difference Maker. —George O’Brien

      Class of 2010 Difference Makers

      Carol Katz
      Chief Executive Officer of Loomis Communities

      Upon hearing that more than a few of the many people who nominated her for the Difference Makers Class of 2010 wrote that she “transformed care for older adults,” Carol Katz chuckled before saying that she found such language flattering, if also a little excessive.

      “I would hardly call myself transformational, but that is a term that’s used in our industry in some ways,” said Katz, CEO of the South Hadley-based Loomis Communities, before quickly acknowledging that she obviously played a lead role in that organization’s drive to stay atop — and well above — the curve when it comes to adopting the more-patient-centered model of care now being embraced across the country (more on that shortly).

      “And besides,” she continued while explaining this concept and why and how it was incorporated at Loomis, “I certainly didn’t do it all by myself. It’s been a total team effort.”

      Elaborating on the patient-centered model, Katz said that, as the name suggests, it puts the patient at the center of care initiatives. As logical as that sounds, she told BusinessWest, until about a decade ago, the staff at long-term-care facilities such as nursing homes was in the center, in the so-called ‘patient-care’ model.

      “Traditionally, care has been provided in a very institutional way, and nursing homes in particular, like hospitals, are staff-driven, with things done for the convenience of the institution and as far from home life as it can possibly be,” she explained. “There’s been a movement afoot for some years now, in nursing homes but also other facilities, to really change the culture to what they call person-centered care.

      “It’s not enough just to make it more home-like,” she continued. “It’s placing the patient at the center of the care, not the staff. Instead of bringing in extra people on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and that’s when everyone gets their showers, you ask the patient, ‘do you like to take a shower or a bath, and would you like it in the morning or the evening? It’s not what’s convenient for the staff; it’s what the patient wants.”

      As a result of the teamwork Katz mentioned, Loomis Communities became one of the first institutions of its kind to receive state grants to implement this new way of providing care, and Loomis House was just the second nursing home in North America to receive person-centered-care accreditation.

      But these transformational efforts comprise just one of the realms for which Katz has been called a Difference Maker. Others include her work to expand the Loomis Communities, her service to innumerable nonprofits in the area, and her ongoing efforts to create a culture of giving back at all of the Loomis facilities.

      When she arrived in 1989 after stints with skilled-nursing facilities in Wisconsin and Agawam, Loomis had one facility — Loomis House in Holyoke — with a second, Loomis Village, under construction.

      Recognizing the need to continually expand to better meet its mission, but also understanding that new construction wasn’t (and still isn’t) needed because of demand levels, Loomis has grown through acquisition.

      The first such move was Applewood in Amherst, and the second was Reed’s Landing in Springfield, the bankrupt facility that was acquired late last summer. There, Katz has led a change in the fee model that has put that facility within reach of far more area residents.

      While expanding Loomis Communities and changing its model of care, Katz has also volunteered her time, energy, and expertise to organizations ranging from the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce to PeoplesBank; from Westfield State College to her synagogue; from the United Way to the Holyoke Rotary Club.

      She says she finds nonprofit governance to be “fascinating,” and, over the years, became very interested in the subject of nonprofit management, while becoming what she called a “board junkie.” However, she says she limits her work, and the number of ‘yeses’ given those who ask her to serve, to areas that have relevance to her professionally or personally, “or something I think I can help make a difference.”

      And she has made giving back to the community part of the culture of life at all of the Loomis communities. Indeed, residents have contributed to a number of causes and charitable events. For example, they have sold decorative Valentine’s Day cookies to benefit the American Heart Assoc.; sold daffodils and participated in the Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society; walked, raised money, and sold more than 183 dozen blueberry muffins to benefit the Alzheimer’s Assoc. Memory Walk; staged blood drives for Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, and the American Red Cross; sold Brightside Angels at the Holyoke Mall; and wrapped gifts for the hospice program of the Holyoke Visiting Nurse Assoc.

      “Our five-year strategic plan has five focus areas, and the first one is community integration, and that means both having events on our campuses that bring the public in and engaging our residents in the broader community,” she said, noting that many residents in each Loomis facility are from the community in question. “Just because you move from an address in South Hadley to Loomis Village doesn’t mean you stop being a citizen of South Hadley.

      “We’re involved — and one of the reasons I’ve gotten involved with so many civic organizations over the years is because it’s the right thing to do; it’s the way I was brought up,” she continued. “We rely on the community to give us residents and give us services, and we owe back to the community.”

      The sum of all this work across several different fronts prompted the many who nominated Katz — a group that included some who work with her at Loomis, a few of the organization’s board members, others who serve with her on boards and commissions, and some who simply admire her work — to stretch their vocabularies and find phrases such as these:

      • “She has the uncanny ability to recognize the most important issues and figure out logical and effective ways to deal with them.”
      • “She does not just volunteer; she always seems to rise to leadership positions that place enormous demands on her time.”
      • “There are those who lead because they can; Carol Katz leads because she must.”
      • Carol is known across Massachusetts and the entire industry for her tenacity, leadership, and progressive ideas, and I am certain that we have seen only a glimpse of her vision.”
      • “With Carol’s wise direction, Loomis’ promotion of well-being of its residents has been matched by its contribution to the economy of the region.”
      • “She inspires me.”

      That last writer probably spoke for everyone who has worked with Katz in any of the many settings in which she has made a difference. —George O’Brien

      Class of 2010 Difference Makers

      UMass Amherst and Chancellor
      Robert Holub

      Robert Holub says that, as what’s known as a land-grant institution — one of several dozen colleges and universities created on federally owned land — UMass Amherst has certain responsibilities to meet with regard to this region and its residents.

      Originally, they centered on the teaching of agriculture, science, and engineering, Holub, who became chancellor of the university in the summer of 2008, explained, adding that, over the past century and a half or so, these duties have evolved and now extend beyond the realm of pure academia and into the broad area of economic development.

      In recent years, and particularly since he arrived, the university has been increasingly focused on going beyond what’s been legislated, he continued, and more toward what might be expected (and more) from a school that has 25,000 students and is one of the leading research institutions in the state.

      “We consider ourselves a citizen of Western Mass., and with that, we have special obligations to this region, and we’ve been trying to act on those responsibilities,” he continued, adding that such efforts involve the entire region, but especially the city of Springfield, the unofficial capital of Western Mass. and a municipality that, like many former manufacturing centers, is trying to reinvent itself.

      Efforts to assist Springfield and the region come in a number of forms, and together — coupled with the hope and expectation for more in the future — they have placed the university in the Difference Makers Class of 2010. These initiatives include:

      * The Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, or PVLSI, a collaborative effort with Baystate Health to fuel growth in a fledgling biosciences sector;
      * A recently announced project to move the university’s Design Center into one of the buildings in Springfield’s Court Square, a relocation expected to help create more vibrancy in the city’s central business district, help existing service businesses, and spur new ones;
      * A planned high-performance computing center in Holyoke, a much-heralded undertaking involving a partnership that includes several other colleges and universities, including MIT and Boston University, as well as private industry. The UMass system as a whole is a lead partner in the project, said Holub, but many of those laying the groundwork for the center are based on the Amherst campus;
      * The Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Project being undertaken with the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County and the local chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Assoc. to transfer technology from two departments at the university (Polymer Science and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) to area precision manufacturers; and
      * Work with the Springfield school system to attract talented students to UMass Amherst with the hope that they will stay in the region and contribute to its growth and prosperity.

      “Instead of giving them fish, we want to give them the fishing pole,” Holub said of the initiative involving Springfield schools, one based on a pilot program now being developed with the city of Chelsea. “We would like to be able to attract the best and brightest students from Springfield to come to UMass Amherst, get an education here, and then go back to their community and assist with development.

      “We are, primarily, an educational institution; that’s what we do best,” he continued. “And we think that establishing a greater pipeline with the city of Springfield will enable us to help that community more than any one single program.”

      Since his arrival, a few months after Domenic Sarno was elected mayor in Springfield, there has been more communication between the university and the city, or what Holub called a true dialogue. And from those discussions came the agreement to create a presence in downtown and, specifically, Court Square.

      “The mayor has engaged us in conversations since I arrived here about the revitalization of Court Square, and we see that as something that’s necessary for the city,” he said. “And we’ve tried to fit in any way we can given the budget constraints we’re facing.”

      The school is already looking at ways to expand and enhance its presence within the city, he added, noting that administrators are looking to possibly move some backroom operations from Amherst and Hadley — where office lease rates are comparatively higher than in most area communities — to Springfield in moves that would help the city while also saving the university some money.

      The importance of efforts to assist Springfield has been underscored by Holub’s move to appoint to John Mullin, dean of UMass Amherst’s graduate school and a regional planner, as ‘point person’ for the broad initiative. His role will be to keep the lines of communication open, make needed connections within the city, and continue the current dialogue.

      “He knows what needs to be done in terms of urban development,” said Holub, adding that Mullin now dedicates a certain amount of time to the Springfield partnership, and his work has helped to move specific projects, ones that provide win-win scenarios, from the drawing board to reality.

      “We’re not a granting agency — we don’t have $2 million that we can just give to Springfield,” he explained. “We have to look for areas in which there’s mutual benefit, and we’ve been able to find quite a few of those.”

      And while Holub is encouraged, and excited, about current efforts taking place in the realm of economic development, region-wide and especially in Springfield, he fully expects the university to expand and diversify such initiatives when the economy improves sufficiently for it to do so.

      “If we didn’t have this severe economic downturn, I certainly believe that we could be doing more than we are,” he explained. “But we are doing things, and they reflect those responsibilities we feel we have to this region.

      “The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say,” he continued, “and we’ve tried to do things that are going to bring palpable results for the western part of the state and make some modest investments where we can to back up the talk.

      “And those investments are often less in terms of actual dollars — although, with something like PVLSI, it does take an actual cut out of our budget,” he continued, “and more in terms of people and ideas, and with our own ability to lobby industries and individual companies to come here, and assist with those efforts.”

      Those are the things that might be expected from such a prominent citizen of Western Massachusetts.

      —George O’Brien

      Departments

      Ten Points for Smarter e-mail

      By ANN LATHAM

      1. If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, don’t try to accomplish it via e-mail.

      2.If your e-mail is going to lead to an e-mail, which is going to lead to another e-mail, which is going to lead — you get the idea — don’t use e-mail. Get on the phone or out of your chair and have a real conversation. Only use e-mail when you believe you can accomplish your purpose in one round trip — one message and one response.
      3. Keep e-mail short and to the point. What specifically do you need from the other person? If detail or background information is necessary, use the first few sentences to clarify the question, assignment, decision, or other purpose.
      4. Distinguish between requests for action and information (FYI). If you are simply keeping people informed, include an FYI at the top. You might want to let them know why you think they might be interested. Simply put, help people process your e-mail quickly.

      5. If you read an e-mail that was just sent and requires a response, you are usually better off picking up the phone than replying by e-mail. A quick phone conversation can often prevent several e-mail rounds.

      6. Providing options can speed results. This is particularly true if you are trying to schedule a meeting. “I can meet at these three times. Do any of these work for you?” This works for other situations too. “I can send you a draft, or we can arrange a time to talk on the phone first, or we can meet. Which makes sense to you?”
      7. Don’t send a vague request to anyone, but especially not to multiple people. If multiple people receive a request, it is easy for them to assume the others will or should act, while they do nothing.
      8. Don’t use e-mail for emotional or sensitive issues. You will spend more time later trying to undo the damage done by the misunderstandings.
      9. If you write an e-mail when you are mad, wait 24 hours before sending it. Presumably by then you will realize that while writing it helped you out, sending it will help no one out!

      10. Don’t reply-all unless you absolutely believe everyone needs to know.

      Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, is a performance-improvement expert, consultant, facilitator, speaker, and author of Clear Thoughts – Pragmatic Gems
      of Better Business Thinking; www.uncommonclarity.com

      Departments

      Step Afrika! At WSC

      Feb. 2: Westfield State College begins Black History Month with a performance by Step Afrika!, an internationally known step team, at 7:30 p.m. in Dever Auditorium. Step Afrika!’s performance covers the history of step, from gumboot to Zulu styles. The college’s So Seductive step team will open the performance. The show is free and open to the public; however, reservations are recommended. Donations will be collected for relief efforts in Haiti. For more information on reservations, contact Jessika Murphy at [email protected].

      PodCamp Western Mass.

      Feb. 6: From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., area residents are welcome to participate in PodCamp Western Mass. at the Horace Mann Center, Western Avenue, Westfield. PodCamps promote education, innovation, and collaboration between new-media enthusiasts and professionals, including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers, as well as the people who read, watch, and listen to them. Attendees are encouraged to bring laptops, power strips, and cameras, and can come and go as their schedule allows. The cost is $20, which includes a box lunch and morning refreshments, or $5 for students. Attendance is limited to 100 people. Pre-registration is available via EventBrite (pcwm2.eventbrite.com). Westfield State College is serving as the lead sponsor of PodCamp.

      Rick’s Place Benefit

      Feb. 6: The Wilbraham Country Club will be the setting for the second annual Heart to Heart fund-raiser to benefit Rick’s Place Inc. Established in memory of Rick Thorpe, who died in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, Rick’s Place Inc. was created to provide a supportive, secure environment where families can remember their loved ones and avoid the sense of isolation that a loss can produce. Rick’s Place offers bi-weekly bereavement support at no cost to families with children ages 5 to 18. Tickets for the 6 to 11 p.m. fundraiser are $50. A silent auction and raffle drawing are among the highlights of the evening. Underwriting and corporate sponsorship opportunities are also still available. For more information or to make a tax-deductible donation to Rick’s Place, call Shelly Bathe Lenn, executive director, at (413) 348-3120, or visit www.ricksplacema.org.

      Economic Meet and Greet

      Feb. 26: A free economic meet-and-greet affair featuring attorney and economist Walker F. Todd is planned at the Clarion Inn and Suites, 161 Bridge St., East Windsor, Conn., hosted by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), based in Great Barrington. The 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. event will provide the public with a chance to meet AIER staff and research fellows. Appetizers and a cash bar will be provided. AIER’s publications will also be available for sale. Reservations are recommended and may be made by calling (888) 528-1216, ext. 3205, or by sending an e-mail to sally.[email protected].

      Women’s Professional Development Conference

      April 30, 2010: Bay Path College will host its 15th annual Women’s Professional Development Conference at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, call (413) 565-1000 or visit www.baypath.edu.

      Departments

      Foreclosure Petitions by Lenders Surge 28%

      BOSTON — The number of foreclosures initiated in Massachusetts jumped 28.1% in 2009 to 27,928 from 21,804 in 2008, but was 5.5% below the level in 2007, according to the latest report from the Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. The number of completed foreclosures, meanwhile, declined 25.4% to 9,269 last year from 12,430 in 2008, but was still 21.1% ahead of the 7,653 foreclosures recorded two years earlier. Foreclosure petitions, the first step in the foreclosure process in Massachusetts, reached 2,060 in December, a 6.4% increase from 1,937 in November and 26.8% higher than the 1,625 petitions filed in December 2008. The number of foreclosure petitions exceeded 2,000 for most months in 2009, falling below that number only in January and November. In December, there were 857 foreclosure deeds, a 22% jump from November’s 702 deeds but an 8.4% drop from the 936 deeds recorded in December 2008. Foreclosure deeds represent completed foreclosures. Foreclosure deeds fluctuated throughout the year, peaking at 978 in January. The Warren Group also tracked slightly more auction announcements in 2009. A total of 19,441 auction announcements were tracked in 2009, a 0.9% increase from 19,270 in 2008. Auction announcements in December totaled 1,931, a 13.3% drop from 2,226 in November but a 60.1% jump from 1,206 during the same month in 2008.

      Firm Closes $34.5M Financing, Hires CEO

      WILBRAHAM — FloDesign Wind Turbine Corp. recently closed a $34.5 million Series B financing round and has hired a new chief executive officer. The Series A venture investor Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers has been joined by a syndicate of three major new investors in the Series B — a Goldman Sachs-managed investment fund, Technology Partners, and VantagePoint Venture Partners for the financing package. Following the closing of the Series B financing, Lars A. Andersen joined FloDesign as CEO, effective Jan. 4. Andersen will be responsible for managing FloDesign’s transition from a research-and-development organization to a leading renewable-technology-manufacturing company. FloDesign’s previous CEO and co-founder, Stanley Kowalski III, will remain with the company as vice president. FloDesign is developing high-efficiency shrouded wind turbines based on the application of mature aerospace technologies. In addition to the private financing raised by the company, it was also recently awarded an $8.3 million grant as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy Program.

      Massachusetts Unemployment at 9.4%

      BOSTON — The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development recently reported that Massachusetts’ unemployment rate rose to 9.4% in December from the revised November rate of 8.7%. The state rate remains below the national unemployment rate, which was 10.0% in December, the same as the November rate. In Massachusetts, education and health services, government, other services, manufacturing, and financial activities added jobs in December, while trade, transportation and utilities, leisure and hospitality, construction, professional, scientific and business services, and information recorded job losses. Jobs were down 8,400 for December. At 3,164,000, jobs are down 66,200 or 2.0% from one year ago. The labor force declined by 22,000 in December, with 43,100 fewer state residents employed and 21,100 more residents unemployed. In December, 3,108,600 residents were employed, and 323,200 residents were unemployed. At 3,431,800, the labor force was down 800 from December 2008, with 104,300 fewer residents employed and 103,500 more residents unemployed. The unemployment rate is based on a monthly sample of households, while the job estimates are derived from a monthly sample survey of employers. As a result, the two statistics may exhibit different trends.

      Report: Small Businesses Still Struggling

      WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Small Business Assoc. recently released its 2009 Year-End Economic Report, which shows that small businesses continue to struggle under the lagging economy and the ongoing credit crunch. The number of small businesses citing decreases in revenue over the past 12 months rose to its highest point since 1993, and 39% report that they are unable to get adequate financing for their business. Despite a dismal latter half of 2009, however, there is a small silver lining — a majority of small businesses (52%) expect growth opportunities in the coming 12 months. For the first time in two years, there was a slight increase in the number of small businesses who are confident in the future of their own business — up from 58% in July 2009 to 61% in December 2009. Although a positive shift, the downside is that more than one-third (39%) of small-business respondents have concerns about the ongoing viability of their business. According to the report, 64% of small-business owners reported decreases in revenues, up from 62% in July 2009. Job growth also continued to suffer. Despite a three-point increase in the number of small-business owners who created new jobs in the last 12 months, there was also an increase in the number who cut jobs — up from 41% in July 2009 to 44% in December 2009. Looking ahead to 2010, growth projections appear to be on an upswing. Small-business owners also are projecting a net increase in jobs for the first time in over a year, with 24% projecting job growth while 18% expect job cuts. The survey was conducted the last two weeks in December 2009 among 450 small-business owners from across the country in every industry.

      Venture Investment Declines in 2009

      WASHINGTON, D.C. — Venture capitalists invested $17.7 billion in 2,795 deals in 2009, marking the lowest level of dollar investment since 1997, according to the MoneyTree Report by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers and the National Venture Capital Assoc., based on data from Thomson Reuters. Venture investments in 2009 represented a 37% decrease in dollars and a 30% decrease in deal volume from 2008. It was the second consecutive year of annual deal and dollar declines. Investments in the fourth quarter of 2009 totaled $5.0 billion in 794 deals, a 2% decline in dollars but a 15% increase in deals from the third quarter of 2009, when $5.1 billion went into 689 deals. Double-digit declines in investments were spread across almost every industry, including clean technology, life sciences, and software. Investment dollars also fell across every stage of development category, with the exception of a 2% increase in seed-stage investments. First-time financings fell to the lowest dollar and deal level since the MoneyTree began reporting venture-capital investing in 1995. However, fourth-quarter investing did show increases in the number of first-time and early-stage deals completed, potentially marking the beginning of an uptick in investment levels for 2010.

      Goncalves, 21 Others Accused in Bribery Sting

      SPRINGFIELD — Following an undercover sting lasting almost two years, Amaro Goncalves, vice president of sales for Smith & Wesson, has been accused of bribing an African government in the hopes of securing a multi-million-dollar deal for its presidential guard. Additionally, 21 executives from a host of military and arms suppliers have been charged with conspiracy to launder money and violating the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Federal prosecutors allege that the defendants agreed to pay an illegal 20% commission to a sales agent they thought represented the defense minister of an unnamed African government. The arrests were made in Las Vegas while the defendants were attending the 2010 Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show.

      Departments

      The following building permits were issued during the month of January 2010.

      AGAWAM

      David Flynn
      5 North Westfield St.
      $5,500 — Construct exterior elevator shaft

      AMHERST

      Institute For Training and Development Inc.
      8 Sunset Ave.
      $9,500 — Third-floor bathroom remodel

      Wesley Methodist Church Trustees
      12 Pleasant Court
      $10,000 — New roof

      CHICOPEE

      Chicopee Housing Authority
      630 Chicopee St.
      $75,000 — Exterior renovations

      HOLYOKE

      Holyoke Health Center
      230-234 Maple St.
      $9,700 — Construct non-bearing partitions

      NORTHAMPTON

      Carol Radzik
      35 New South St.
      $12,000 — Install replacement windows

      Cooley Dickinson Hospital
      30 Locust St.
      $25,000 — Add three antennas to existing and 1 cabinet in basement

      Valley Community Development Corporation
      16 North Maple St.
      $6,000 — Interior renovations

      SOUTH HADLEY

      Loomis Village
      246 North Main St.
      $17,500 — Renovation

      SPRINGFIELD

      556 St. James Corporation
      556 St. James Ave.
      $25,000 — Install three new antennas

       

      Dunkin Donuts
      805 Main St.
      $58,000 — Interior remodel

      Pediatric Care Associates
      299 Carew St.
      $61,000 — Build out of existing suite #201 at Mercy Hospital

      Peter Pan Bus Lines
      1280 Main St.
      $26,500 — Cosmetic remodel of Dunkin Donuts

      Springfield College
      263 Alden St.
      $88,000 — Renovate existing exercise area into visual and performing art center

      Stafford Street Group, LLC
      136 Nursery St.
      $12,000 — New roof

      Western Mass. Historical Collaborative
      281 State St.
      $280,000 — Renovate registered historical house for business use

      WESTFIELD

      Sons of Erin
      22 William St.
      $76,000 — Install handicap bathrooms

      WEST SPRINGFIELD

      Basare Properties, LLC
      191 Baldwin St.
      $63,000 — Roof reconstruction and door replacement

      Clarion Hotel
      1080 Riverdale Road
      $63,000 — Re-roof

      Helen Bonneau
      2024 Riverdale St.
      $14,000 — Roof repairs

      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

      Irene Redmond, administrator for the estate of Chester Wozniak v. Poet’s Seat Nursing Home and Laura Woznakewicz
      Allegation: Negligence and wrongful death: $48,306
      Filed: 1/8/10

      GREENFIELD DISTRICT COURT

      Pella Products, LLC v. Quality Builders, LLC
      Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $15,586.31
      Filed: 12/23/09

      HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

      Juan and Jennifer Montoya v. C.R. Onsrud Inc.
      Allegation: Product liability causing injury: $644,899.67
      Filed: 12/28/09

      Lindsey Pelletier v. Baystate Medical Center
      Allegation: Medical malpractice: $500,000
      Filed: 12/31/09

      Maria Miller, executrix of the estate of Josephine Miller v. Country Estates Nursing, LLC
      Allegation: Negligence in the care of a patient and negligent infliction of emotional distress: $1,000,000
      Filed: 12/13/09

      Verizon New England Inc. v. City of Chicopee
      Allegation: Non-payment of relocation work performed: $86,406.35
      Filed: 12/21/09

      HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT

      Hannah Coler, et al v. Unicare Life & Health Insurance Co.
      Allegation: Breach of contract and misrepresentation: $25,000+
      Filed: 1/12/10

      NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT

      Colvest/Northampton, LLC v. Cotton Tree Service Inc.
      Allegation: Breach of contract for use of land provided for snow storage: $21,000
      Filed: 12/23/09

      F.W. Webb Co. v. Atlantic Ground Source, LLC
      Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $4,993.64
      Filed: 12/21/09

      PALMER DISTRICT COURT

      Thomas and Cheryl Brown v. Breakers Resort, LLC
      Allegation: Unfair and deceptive trade practices in the sale of a time-share unit: $5,478
      Filed: 12/11/09

      SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT

      Comcast Spotlight Inc. v. Uncle Sam’s Pizza of Worcester Inc.
      Allegation: Non-payment of advertising services rendered: $6,789.87
      Filed: 12/17/09

      Comcast Spotlight Inc. v. Mike’s Gym III
      Allegation: Non-payment of advertising services rendered: $3,430.57
      Filed: 12/22/09

      F.S. Wellsford Company v. LDH Inc.
      Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $2,545.50
      Filed: 12/21/09

      High Priority Associates Inc. v. Heritage Coffee Shop
      Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $3,457.63
      Filed: 12/18/09

      John Deer Landscapes Inc. v. St. Claire Landscaping Co. Inc.
      Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $5,772.92
      Filed: 12/14/09

      Nawana Hollaway, mother of Gianna Holloway v. Children’s Corner Daycare Center
      Allegation: Negligent supervision of minor causing injury: $3,244.77
      Filed: 12/18/09

      WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT

      Desiree Bragan and Barry Lupovich v. General Motors, LLC & Bertera Dodge Chrysler Jeep Inc.
      Allegation: Breach of Lemon Law and warranty: $18,727
      Filed: 12/23/09

      Ford Motor Credit Co., LLC v. Tekoa Golf Inc.
      Allegation: Default on retail installment sales agreement: $8,003.58
      Filed: 12/30/09

      Departments

      The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of January 2010.

      AGAWAM

      Campbell Management
      12 Southwick St.
      Geri Balicki

      Robyn’s Nest Daycare
      563 Shoemaker Lane
      Robyn Riccio

      Three Run Pictures
      204 Lancaster Dr.
      Christopher Rooney

      AMHERST

      Capital Market Team
      71 Country Corner Road
      James Linfield

      River Enterprises
      233 North Pleasant St.
      Christopher Korczak

      CHICOPEE

      Best Electronic Supply
      146 Farnsworth St.
      Deborah Leff

      Complete Removal
      68 State St.
      Dennis Ladue

      Dabros Plowing
      26 Holmes Dr.
      Slawomir Dabros

      Izzy’s Garage & Shop Inc.
      582 Chicopee St.
      Isaiah A. Salloom

      Maine Oky
      40 Haynes Circle
      Bruce Albiston

      Running Shoe Productions
      585 Sheridan St.
      Benjamin Ovackenbush

      EASTHAMPTON

      B & W Towing, Recovery & Auto Transport
      3 West St.
      Scott White

      Charter Communications
      186-A Northampton St.
      Richard Dykhouse

      EA Flood Photography
      63 Parsons St.
      Erica Flood

      Frenchie Drywall
      45 Ridgewood St.
      Francois Turgeon

      EAST LONGMEADOW

      Cirtec Medical Systems
      55 Deer Park Dr.
      Deborah Oarts

      Go Green Greeting Cards
      80 Braeburn Road
      Krystle Champagne

      GREENFIELD

      Adam & Eve
      18 Main St.
      Scott McGregor

      C & C Landscaping
      36 Revere Circle
      Scott E. Coy

      Hillside Woodworking
      1173 Bernardston Road
      Robert Callahan

      Imagine
      38 Bank Row
      Ann Skowron Anushka

      HOLYOKE

      Adam Electrical
      39 Elliot St.
      Adam Fredette

      Coppa Law Group
      132 Allyn St.
      Vittorio Coppa

      Days Inn-Lakshmi Inc.
      1515 Northampton St.
      Arvino Patel

      JR’s Mini Market
      673 High St.
      Ismael O. Santos

      Salsa Rengue Inc.
      392 High St.
      Jose Obou

      The Clover Pub
      102-104 High St.
      Michael Rigali

      LUDLOW

      Kitchen Works
      35 State St.
      Ronald Kretschmar

      Maple R. Traveler
      361 West St.
      Randy Robare

      Turnpike Acres Stove Shop
      185 Miller St.
      George Dupuis

      NORTHAMPTON

      More Than Skin Deep
      150 Main St.
      Diana Cerutti

      Wood Pellet Price
      6 Conz St.
      Seth Fischer

      PALMER

      NuNorth
      35 Stimson St.
      Daniel Soruton

      Vast Speaker Cabinets
      32 Burlingame Road
      Keith Holuk

      SOUTHWICK

      Christina Pahtmann
      Compassionate Home Care
      47 College Highway

       

      SPRINGFIELD

      Aquino Mini Mart
      178 Oakland St.
      William Aquino

      CCNE
      27 Carver St.
      Monica June Caldwell

      City Zone Supermarket, LLC
      770 Main St.
      Raney Shabaneh

      Concentra Medical Centers
      140 Carando Dr.
      E.J. Thompson

      Creating Comfort Outlet
      1655 Boston Road
      Jose E. Barina Jr.

      D.A.M. Vending
      203 Overland Ave.
      Douglas A. Malley

      Deniliva Inc.
      1376 Boston Road
      Steven Kowalski

      Eddie Communication
      847 Boston Road
      Edwin Quinones

      Exquisite Boutique
      109 Bristol St.
      Zoraya E. Gonzalez

      Fresh Cutz
      494 Central St.
      Carlos Cosme

      Garcia’s Landscape
      294 Quincy St.
      Juan J. Garcia

      Ho Mei Restaurant
      852 Main St.
      Mei Ru Wang

      Holyoke Nail II
      471 Boston Road
      Tho Huu Nguyen

      Inspired Marketing
      86 Russell St.
      Jill C. Monson

      J-n-D’s Fashion House
      118 Stevenson Ave.
      Diane Strickland

      James A. Belden Snow
      294 Harkness Ave.
      James A. Belden

      Jenny Beauty Salon
      618 Belmont Ave.
      Isaias Pena

      WESTFIELD

      Children Come First
      288 Honey Pot Road
      Marie D. Cheney

      Diamonds Cut
      246 Elm St.
      Pete Nales

      HeliMetric
      36 Blue Sky Dr.
      David W. Howard

      Low Key Auto
      174 Main St.
      Brandon Furches

      Mina’s Wine & Spirits
      53 Elm St.
      Mina Reshamwala

      Pyrofax Propane
      28 Arch Road
      Timothy Casey

      Redline Action Hobbies
      53 North Elm St.
      Libia Marco

      Starlite Auto Body
      215 East Main St.
      Timothy Chapman

      Timberline Tree Service
      760 Montgomery Road
      Edwin C. Rafus

      WEST SPRINGFIELD

      Dante Club Inc.
      1198 Memorial Ave.
      Mark A. Francocur

      David Camp Sales & Furniture Restoration
      23 Bonnie Brae Dr.
      David Camp

      Fred Astaire Dance Studio
      54 Wayside Ave.
      R.K.R. Dance Studio Inc.

      Friendly’s # 847
      1094 Riverdale St.
      Catherine J. Smith

      Maaco Auto Painting & Bodyworks
      78 Sylvan St.
      H & T Enterprises

      MHHP Acquisition Co., LLC
      85 Interstate Dr.
      Roman Szarek

      Murray Tax Services
      1252 Elm St.
      Kevin M. Murray

      Sibley Property Services
      101 Sibley Ave.
      John Alexander Crocker

      Supreme Brass and Aluminum Casting
      210 Windsor St.
      Domenico R. Rettura

      Western Mass. Chimney Services
      58 Sikes Ave.
      Robert Boido

      Departments

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

      AMHERST

      All College Inc., 161 North Pleasant St., Amherst MA 01002. Parker Holcomb, same. Student-owned and operated laundry service in the Pioneer Valley.

      The Common Foundation Inc, 52 Hitchcock Road, Amherst, MA 01002
      Jennifer Acker, same. Provides charitable, educational and scientific print subsidized and online content in the area of literature and the visual and performing arts to the public.

      HPPR Inc., 55 University Dr., Amherst, MA 01002. Harold Tramazzo, same. Restaurant business.

      BELCHERTOWN

      Danalevi Corp., 732 Daniel Shays Highway, Belchertown, MA 01007. Ross Hartman, same. Manufacturing service.

      CHICOPEE

      Auto Damage Appraisers of Chicopee Inc., 257 Hampden St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Ricci A. Tomassetti, same. Auto-damage appraisers.

      FEEDING HILLS

      Dave Anthony Photography Inc., 8 Marlene Dr., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. David A. Niedziela, same. Photography.

      LONGMEADOW

      Bently Management Group Inc., 696 Bliss Road, Longmeadow, MA 01106 David Steinberg, 31 Brookwood Dr., Longmeadow, MA 01106. Business Management.

      NORTHAMPTON

      Evolvegan Inc., 27 Highland Ave., Northampton, MA 01060. Derek Goodwin, 2 Linden St. #2 Northampton, MA 01060. A nonprofit organization formed to create art, performance and media to educate and increase public awareness about the connections between dietary choice, personal health, cultural ethics, and global sustainable ecology.

       

      SPRINGFIELD

      DIF Inc., One Federal St., Springfield, MA 01105. Dennis Driscoll Jr., 150 Pine St., #114 Manchester, CT 06040. Digital imaging and graphic design

      In My Father’s House Inc., 15 Olive St., Springfield, MA 01109. Elizabeth Garrett-Leak, same. Non-profit organization created to provide the following programs a free clothing, adult literacy, youth self-expressions, employment search, prayer sessions, and a resource lending library.

      WEST SPRINGFIELD

      Anova Hearing Lab Inc., 425 Union St., West Springfield, MA 01089. James F. Caldarola, same. Hearing testing and distribution of hearing aids.

      Led Trucking Inc., 96 Kings Highway, West Springfield, MA 01089. Elena Dipon, same. Transportation services.

      WESTFIELD

      Diamond Custom Coating, 3 Progressive Ave, Westfield, MA 01085. John Balicki, 15 Rosalie, Lane, Southampton, MA 01073. Custom painting and coatings.

      Ily Corporation, 41 Caitlin Way, Westfield, MA 01085. Abdallah Faozi Ghalayini, same.

      WILBRAHAM

      CAGD, Inc., 29 Stonegate Circle, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Giuseppe Deguglielmo, same. Food service provider.