Sections Travel and Tourism
Museums10 Adds New Brush Strokes to Its Work in Hampshire County

Jessica Niccol

Jessica Niccol says Museums10 helps raise the profile of what she calls “an extraordinary set of historical collections.”

Like a particularly striking sculpture, a museum has many intriguing sides.
The Smith College Museum of Art is a good example of that, said Jessica Niccol, its director and chief curator. The institution was established not long after the college opened in 1875 and was conceived as a teaching museum. Unlike many prominent galleries then and since, it did not launch with a gift collection waiting in the wings, but accumulated its first pieces one at a time.
“So the staff, very mindfully, built a collection with an eye toward what was being studied at Smith College,” Niccol said. By 1879, the gallery featured 27 contemporary American paintings, featuring notable lights like Winslow Homer and a number of lesser-known artists, and steadily grew from there, helped immeasurably by local businessman Winthrop Hillyer, who appreciated the growing museum and decided to fund it.
“He loved that it would be as much of a benefit to the community of Northampton as it was to Smith,” Niccol said, noting that the orientation of the current building, opening onto Main Street in front and the campus in back, reflects that dual identity. “He saw that the museum could be a resource to the community and a gateway to the campus, and you see both of those things in the way the museum has developed over the past 140 years.”
But that dual focus on education (Smith boasts a robust program of college classes, tours serving thousands of schoolchildren each year, plus college students trained to be gallery instructors) and community outreach (including family days and monthly free Friday nights, featuring gallery talks and other special events) is not exclusive to Smith, but is a common theme running through many of Hampshire County’s art and history museums.
That’s one of the reasons Museums10 makes so much sense, said Kevin Kennedy, director of Communications for the Five College Consortium, from which Museums10 sprung in 2005.
“Much of the consortium’s efforts,” Kennedy said, “are really spent bringing people from the campuses [Smith College, Hampshire College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, and UMass Amherst] together to share ideas, problems, solutions, things like that.”
Therefore, he continued, “it was natural for the directors of the campus museums to participate in that. It’s been going on informally for decades; it started growing organically, and then they decided to formalize it and actually create an organization.”
Kevin Kennedy

Kevin Kennedy says Museums10 acts as a lens to focus the significant energy of its members.

The art museums of the five colleges make up half Museum10’s membership, and they are joined by the Beneski Museum of Natural History, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Historic Deerfield, the Emily Dickinson Museum, and the Yiddish Book Center. The startup money came from the Mass. Cultural Council, with the goal of raising the profile of the Pioneer Valley as a center for cultural tourism.
“Hopefully it has benefited the community by making these rather extraordinary museum resources housed within the Upper Pioneer Valley more visible to people,” Niccol said. “One of the things that awes all of us is what an extraordinary set of historical collections we have here. And, collectively, we’re able to work together to give greater visibility to these resources to try to help visitors — by suggesting multiple museum visits around a special area of interest, for instance.”
To that end, early on, Museums10 launched a series of cross-institution events, starting in 2006 with GoDutch!, which explored the art and literature of Dutch culture, past and present. “All the museums included it as some aspect of their existing collection or brought in a new exhibition,” Kennedy said. “It was a big success.”
The goal was to increase attendance at the participating museums by 5%; instead, it boosted visitation by 15% across the board, and in some venues by as much as 40%.
So, in 2007, Museums10 launched a second system-wide event, this one called BookMarks: A Celebration of the Art of the Book. That was followed in 2010 by Table for 10, with a focus on food. “That was terrific because this is such a food-rich region, and we were able to tie into agriculture, restaurants, organic food creators, wine folks, you name it.”
Eight years into its existence, the goals of Museums10, and the way the individual institutions work together and share resources, are continually evolving. For this issue’s focus on travel and tourism, BusinessWest takes a look at how the organization paints a collective picture of a vibrant cultural scene in Hampshire County.

Drawing on Expertise
Alix Kennedy, executive director of the Carle — which, with only 11 years under its belt, is the youngest of the 10 museums — said Museums10 is about far more than marketing the museums.
“It’s also about how we can leverage resources we have so we can have a greater impact in our own communities,” she told BusinessWest. “The days when organizations try to exist in silos is over. Thankfully, there’s a tremendous amount of professional rapport that everyone gets to benefit from.”
Niccol agreed, noting that, because the museums have small staffs, “there’s an incredible benefit to building this professional network within the five-college area. We’ve really developed strong ties as the curators meet each other, educators meet each other, the marketing staffs meet each other. There’s fantastic communication and support with problem solving.”
Shared resources are critical, she said, such as bringing in educators and workshops for the entire Museums10 system in specific subjects, rather than each of them sending staff members to conferences around the country.
“A lot of things happened,” Alix Kennedy said, “by taking like-minded groups and this variety of different museums, who all share this incredible passion for education, and figuring out ways to give people access to our resources.”
The 30-year-old Yiddish Book Center boasts a wide range of exhibits, lectures, conferences, and educational programs for both college students and adult learners — not to mention big events like Yidstock, an annual summer festival that brings in top names in the klezmer musical tradition and draws visitors from across the country.
“There’s no other place like it,” said Lisa Newman, the center’s director of communications. “Sometimes we refer to ourselves as the first Yiddish museum; there’s no other institution like this, with the breadth of what’s here and all the programs created to promote Yiddish culture. And it’s all rooted in the first mission of the center, which was the rescue of more than a million Yiddish books otherwise destined for the trash.”
Newman added that she has come to appreciate the collective power of Museums10 in supporting that mission.
“I think it’s a really interesting collaboration internally and externally,” she said. “It helps all of us professionally to engage with one another, but in terms of the community, it makes a strong statement that we have these 10 very unique museums — that we have tremendous resources as well as engaging, interesting, and surprising places to visit, and we’re right here in your backyard with a tremendous amount of programming going on.”
As director of marketing for Historic Deerfield, Laurie Nivison said it can be difficult to adequately communicate what such a large, multi-building facility has to offer.
“We say ‘opening doors to the past’ because we have 11 houses and an extensive museum collection for people to explore. We want to make it a destination, not just for people in the local area, but those from outside the area looking for a daycation — just looking to come and explore.”
Museums10, she said, helps get the word out by linking Historic Deerfield’s goals with those of the broader cultural community.
“This is a good group of people,” Nivison said. “As nonprofits, this sort of collective power is helpful, because something one museum might be able to do, another museum might not have the budget to do. Part of Museums10 is leveraging our power, helping us get into those markets we may not otherwise be able to reach.”

Next Phase

Alix Kennedy

Alix Kennedy

“This community is rich in artists,” Alix Kennedy said, noting that the Carle makes an effort to promote and involve the many children’s book artists living in Western Mass. In fact, several museum officials who spoke with BusinessWest brought up the ‘creative economy’ of artists living and working in the Valley.
“We’re really proud of the fact that Museums10 is an important part of the cultural economy,” Niccol said. “Why do people come here? Part of it is the incredible beauty of the landscape, but the other part is the great bookstores, restaurants, concert venues, and museums, and we see ourselves as part of that.”
From those efforts, said Kevin Kennedy, sprung the impetus for what is now known as the Hampshire County Regional Tourism Council, launched in 2012 and funded by the Mass. Office of Travel and Tourism.
“The cultural profile of Hampshire County shows what a unique area it is, and we showed how people could come together to promote that aspect of this area,” he explained.
“It’s been such a natural transition,” said Alix Kennedy, who chairs the new organization. “I think all of us living in the Valley know this is an incredibly rich community for arts and culture, and yet, we’re not confident that people outside this community know that.”
But Museums10 and the tourism council are working to change that, she continued, by bringing some collective marketing muscle to the passion that already exists among the various institutions. “I see these two efforts working in parallel and, ultimately, working in partnership.”
“To a certain degree, I think it’s taken a little pressure off Museums10 to spend all its collaborative time to promote the region,” Kevin Kennedy said, explaining that the member museums are starting to focus more on smaller collaborations involving just a few of them, instead of the system-wide events of past years. “These joint productions were terrific, but they took a lot of energy, and that didn’t leave a lot for other things.
“We’re really taking a step back,” he added, “looking more at where the natural cohesions are among the museums that could be brought to the attention of the media and the public. If a few museums happen to be doing exhibits on photography, we’ll do a press release on that. It used to be an all-for-one approach, and all 10 museums needed to be involved to make it a Museums10 event. Now, if three or four museums are working together because they have similar exhibits or similar interests, Museums10 supports them in that effort.”
It all comes back to supporting culture in the Valley and cultivating new art and history lovers, Alix Kennedy said, noting that the Carle attracts a wide range of constituents, from families and elementary-school students to graduate-level art-degree programs Simmons College operates on site — not to mention those drawn by nostalgia.
“Those books are such symbols of their childhood, and it’s really exciting and reinvigorating to come in and say, ‘they have Charlotte’s Web drawings! I love that book!’” And, like some of the other Museums10 institutions, the Carle reaches into the community with programs like visits from book illustrators to schools in Springfield and Holyoke, hopefully sparking a passion in a new generation.
“The fact that we’ve got these 10 great institutions in the Valley speaks to our culture and the wealth of history and knowledge in the Valley,” Nivison said.
Kevin Kennedy agreed. “Each museum has so much energy,” he said, “and I think Museums10 can act as a lens to focus all that energy.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Building Permits Departments

The following building permits were issued during the month of May 2013.

AGAWAM

American Tower Corporation
1804 Main St.
$12,500 — Exterior renovation

Bragaraus, LLC
60 North Westfield St.
$12,500 — Construction of a unisex handicap bathroom

Pioneer Tool
40 Bowles Road
$33,000 — Re-roof

CHICOPEE

Birch Manor
44 New Lombard Road
$20,000 — Insulate main building

Van Guard Consignment
450 New Ludlow Road
$12,800 — New roof

GREENFIELD

Fair Business, LLC
74 Fairview St.
$58,000 — New roof

Greenfield Corporate Center
101 Munson St.
$25,000 — New sprinkler system and renovations for new tenant

Super 8 Motel
21 Colrain Road
$2,000 — Install new door

Town of Greenfield
1 Lenox Ave.
$38,220,000 — Construct new 160,650-square-foot school

Town of Greenfield
1 Lenox Ave.
$51,000 — Create temporary entrance during construction of new high school

Quickfoods IV, LLC
461 Bernardston Road
$31,500 — New roof

HOLYOKE

O’Connell Development Group
15 Holyoke St.
$285,000 — Renovate existing retail space for Ulta Beauty

LUDLOW

Dave’s Pet City
433 Center St.
$26,000 — Alterations

Wing Memorial Hospital
34 Hubbard St.
$4,800 — Alterations

PALMER

Pride
1045 Thorndike St.
$5,000 — Alterations in store

Town of Palmer
4419 Main St.
$5,865,000 — Construction of a new police station

SOUTH HADLEY

Mount Holyoke College
50 College St.
$20,000 — Install new canopy

SPRINGFIELD

Center Street Housing Inc.
71 Adams St.
$1,500,000 — Renovations

International Valve & Instrument
992 Bay St.
$24,000 — New roof

Kimball Tower Condominiums
140 Chestnut St.
$122,000 — First floor alterations

Mercy Hospital
233 Carey St.
$80,000 — First-floor renovations for new day rehabilitation facility

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Aldi Mart
903 Riverdale St.
$1,010,000 — Construct 16,202-square-foot commercial structure

Costco Wholesale
119 Daggett Dr.
$779,000 — Erect a 2,995-square-foot addition

FiberMark
70 Front St.
$88,000 — Renovate fourth-floor bathrooms

DBA Certificates Departments

The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of and May 2013.

CHICOPEE

E-Nough Logic
19 America St.
Michael Cowley

Grimaldi Landscaping & Services
42 Rose St.
William Grimaldi Jr.

Nom Nom Hut
51 Maple St.
Marcy Megarry

GREENFIELD

Antique Revival
322 Deerfield St.
Eric Webster

Duo Senior Care
82 Birch St.
Rachel E. Lively

Greenfield Auto Specialist
335 High St.
Greenfield Imported Cars Inc.

Lucky Nails
130 Main St.
Tai Huynh

Meadow Green Nail Center
5 Park St.
Patricia Semb

The Carousel Corner
4 Woodland Road
Jonathan Lowe

HOLYOKE

Abercrombie & Fitch
50 Holyoke St.
Robert Brown

Archie’s Mini Market
81 North Bridge St.
Hector Archilla

Fye
50 Holyoke St.
John Anderson

Hair-Hunterz
279 Appleton St.
Frankie Cardona

Max Orient
50 Holyoke St.
Harry C. Chen

Sam’s Food Store
515 High St.
Asad Chaudhry

LUDLOW

AED Moving Enterprises
41 Bruno Ave.
Angelo Rosa

Budget Pest Solutions
264 Moody St.
John Boudreau

C.L. Diesel Repair Inc.
403 West St.
Corey Lajoie

Deluxe Auto Sales
127 East St.
Manuel Coelho

Ludlow Automotive
430 Center St.
Rodney Walker

Moody Street Realty, LLC
54 Moody St.
Beverly Aube

PALMER

Bling in Beads
23 Temple St.
Kyle Camyre

Day & Night Diner
1456 North Main St.
Karl Williams

Interactive School House
2055 Main St.
Nancy B. Roy

LMS Repair
3020 Main St.
Louis Stevens

Spic and Span
6 Green St.
Stephanie Nott

SPRINGFIELD

Little Cargo Couriers
24 East Hooker St.
Anatoly Atamansky

Luxury Landscape
27 Lyman St.
Jerrell Glass

Mack’s Barbershop
255 Bay St.
Michael A. Brawner

Mars Consultant Group
76 Albermarle St.

Martin Tile Company
184 Gardens Dr.
Jamie R. Martin

Mary’s Dollar Plus
2760 Main St.
Maria D. Ayala

Mass Collision
586 Berkshire Ave.
Gabriel E. Sanchez

Michael Ferzoco
33 Amity Court
Michael Ferzoco

Michael Vachula Real Estate
20 Howes St.
Michael Vachula

Mike Auto Repair Shop
136 Nursery St.
Michael S. Candelaria

Mobile Massage Therapy
85 Gold St.
Margaret Cooley

Namco, LLC
1500 Boston Road
Anabela Cruz

Nathan Bills Bar
110 Island Pond Road
John R. Sullivan

Oakley Residential Appraisals
36 Marengo Park
Gary E. Oakley

Omar & Sons Furniture
73 Liberty St.
Khuram Abbasi

Peach Brown Betty
11 Hiawatha St.
Jennifer M. Fleury

Peter S. Poniatrowski
23 Frontenac St.
Peter S. Poniatrowski

Phat Tuesdays
377 Dwight St.
Jazzberries, Inc.

Philip J. Ozzone
48 Champlain Ave.
Philip J. Ozzone

Pittola Investigations
136 Prentice St.
Damien Pittola

Pizza Hut
793 Boston Road
Pizza Hut of America

Price Cutter
2633 Main St.
Syed Shahab Ahsan

Princessazu International
204 Commonwealth Ave.
Boniface Anoje

R & M Remodeling and More
112 Avery St.
Miguel A. Homs

Robbie’s Auto & Truck Repair
1357 East Columbus Ave.
Robert D. Ober

Saravia Family Restaurant
880 Sumner Ave.
Rolando A. Saravia

Second Time Around
680 ½ Sumner Ave.
Pamela Anastasiou

Siec Software Innovation
104 Wayne St.
Marco T. Dermith

Sports Cut Barber Shop
1129 State St.
Susan Barratt

Spring Valley Food Mart
343 Allen St.
Abdul Quadus

Strictly D Best Clothing
604 Page Blvd.
Lorenzo L. Robinson

TM Cleaning
70 Chapin Terrace
Therese Leger

T & T Fernandes
509 Belmont Ave.
Gertrude Fernandes

The Collection
34 Front St.
Ariana Do

WESTFIELD

Alice M. Farrelly
45 East Meadow St.
Alice M. Farrelly

Amanda Calhoun
12 Fremont St.
Amanda Calhoun

Anugraha Grocery Store
160 Elm St.
Pralad Gurung

ESP Pool & Spa Services
261 Papermill Road
Edward Rivera

Guided Touch Therapy
26 Orange St.
Thomas D. Campbell

Sports Multi Media
51 Simmons Brook Dr.
Geof Spear

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Advanced Landscaping
955 Piper Road
Allan C. Beiermeister

D & J Management
42 Maple Terrace
Douglas Smith

George Abdow Enterprises
1680 Riverdale St.
George T. Abdow

Healthy Alternatives
42 Chester St.
Roxanne Susan

Law Office of Caroline Murray
71 Park Ave.
Caroline Murray

Mr. Sealgood
75 Church St.
Scott W. Gage

Nippon Grill & Seafood
935 Riverdale St.
Chang Q. Jiang

Departments Incorporations

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

AMHERST

Amherst Landlords Association Inc., 1040 North Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002. Stephan Walczak, same. Association designed to represent and advance the interests of landlords in Massachusetts.

BELCHERTOWN

Advantech Consultants MSP Inc., 40 Emily Lane, Belchertown, MA 01007. Crystal Calouro, same. IT management and consulting services.

CHICOPEE

Becki Martin Photography, 32 Freedom St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Rebecca Martin, same. Photography services.

EAST LONGMEADOW

Burke Restoration Inc., 23 Sanford St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Restoration services.

GREAT BARRINGTON

Bachelorista Inc., 507 Main St., Suite 4 Great Barrington, MA 01230. Monica Bossinger, same. Retail sales of books, clothing, seminars, and videos.

LEE

ACC Building & Remodeling Inc., 75 Prospect St., Lee, MA 01238. Andrew Vuolo Sr., same. Remodeling.

LUDLOW

Aube Precision Tool Co. Inc., 54 Moody St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Michael Elkhay, same.

B and S Paving and Construction Inc., 145 Booth St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Maria Baltzar, 176 Stony Hill Road, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Paving and construction business and all related activities.

NORTHAMPTON

Al-Hamd Inc., 8 Green St., #10, Northampton, MA 01063. Maqbool Babar, 151 Church St., Barrington, R.I., 02806. Retail convenience store.

Atw Media, 7 Pleasant St., Suite 3, Northampton, MA 01060. Aaron Taylor-Waldman, same. Consulting services for small business owners.

SOUTHAMPTON

Alen Express Inc., 20 Helen Dr., Southampton, MA 01073. Yelena Krasun, same. Company operating specialty and dedicated services of transporting foods, commercial goods, vehicles, and other commodities via flatbed, container, and heavy hauling trailers on a for-hire basis.

Blue Paws Inc., 19 Helen Dr., Southampton, MA 01073. Jonathan Neumann, same. Restaurant and tavern.

SPRINGFIELD

All-In Labor Inc., 99 Arnold Ave., Springfield, MA 01119. Francis Mirkin, 72 Brookside Drive, Longmeadow, MA 01106. Provides contract labor to building/demo industry.

Bizzy Landscaping Inc., 95 Cliftwood St., 1L, Springfield, MA 01073. Berge Bernadeau, same. Landscaping services.

WARE

Align Hypnosis Inc., 18 Kingsberry Lane, Ware, MA 01082. Basil Allen Roman, 94 Sczygiel Road, Ware, MA 01082. To help people to improve their quality of life through hypnotherapy and hypnosis.

Departments People on the Move

Royal LLP recently announced the addition of Tanzania Cannon-Eckerle to the Northampton-based management-side only labor and employment law firm. Cannon-Eckerle will focus her practice in labor law and complex employment litigation, counseling companies on the multitude of state and federal employment laws impacting them, including employment discrimination and harassment, wage and hour, disability and leave, workplace safety, OSHA, affirmative action, and contract negotiations. Cannon-Eckerle is a graduate of Indiana University School of Journalism and Southern Illinois School of Law.
•••••
American International College announced that Heather Cahill has been promoted to Vice President for Institutional Advancement. Cahill has served as the executive director for the same department for the past three years, where she organized fund-raising and alumni operations.
•••••
The Center for Human Development (CHD) has appointed Kirk Woodring, a licensed social worker, as Vice President of Clinical Services. Woodring will oversee several programs, including CHD’s outpatient behavioral-health clinics, the Institutes of Dynamic Living, early intervention, in-home therapy, and other program clinical services.
•••••
FieldEddy Insurance announced the appointment of Lauren Lanza as an Account Executive for employee benefits. Lanza brings more than six years experience as a sale account executive or a Fortune 500 employee benefits provider, and as an associate underwriter for an insurance agency network.
•••••
North Brookfield Savings Bank recently announced the appointment of Bryan Kaye as Vice President and Commercial Loan Officer. Formerly a commercial loan officer at Freedom Credit Union, Kaye holds a bachelor’s degree from Bluffton University and Omega Performance Group’s CU Business Lending School, and is involved in the Western Mass. Chapter of SCORE.
•••••
Jessica Lapinski recently joined Kathy Borawski’s real-estate team at RE/MAX Hill & Valley in Northampton. Lapinski, formerly an agent with Trailside Realty, has been a realtor in the Pioneer Valley for 12 years.

Company Notebook Departments

United Bank to Expand Longmeadow Branch
LONGMEADOW — Richard Collins, president and CEO of United Bank, announced recently that the bank will soon begin a significant expansion of its current branch located in the Longmeadow Shops on Bliss Road. “When the landlord, Grove Property Management, offered us the additional space next door to our existing branch, we jumped at the offer,” said Collins. “We have been in Longmeadow since 1997 and have been delighted by the warm reception given to us by the community. We opened our existing branch in the Longmeadow Shops in 2001. We believe that the Shops provides an excellent location for us to serve the banking needs of the Longmeadow community.” Collins said the future branch will be a financial center complete with retail banking, mortgages, commercial services, and business lending, as well as wealth-management and financial-planning representatives. “We understand the needs of the Longmeadow community,” said Jeff Sullivan, chief operating officer. “This expansion gives us the opportunity to create a new financial center that can serve all of the community’s needs in one convenient location.” According to Sullivan, the future branch will include a larger lobby, private offices, a walk-up ATM, and safe-deposit boxes. The branch expansion is anticipated to be complete by the end of the year, with a grand opening in early 2014. The present branch will remain open during the renovations. The promotion of current Longmeadow Shops branch Personal Banker Teresa Parker to the position of Springfield Region mortgage originator was also announced recently. She will work from the current Longmeadow Shops location in her new position. Personal Banker Nicole Skelly will transfer from East Longmeadow to the Longmeadow branch to fill that position.

NorthEast Solar Launches New Website
NORTHAMPTON — A new website (www.northeast-solar.com) and brand launched recently by NorthEast Solar reflects the company’s innovative approach to solar design and installation for homes, businesses, and farms, said the company’s president, Greg Garrison. “Our new brand reflects the fact that trust and a local leader is at the core of who we are and what we represent in the Pioneer Valley and beyond,” he explained. “Our leadership in the region comes from our unique solar-installation design work, but also from the fact that we live and work in the Pioneer Valley, and people know us and trust us to simplify the installation process.” The timing of the new brand parallels a rising awareness that Massachusetts is a national solar leader with strong incentive programs, he added, making solar power a cost-competitive electricity source. “If the solar industry can prove to residents and businesses across the Valley that solar is cost-effective, simple to install, and fits with the character of their town, then we will install a lot more solar.”

Tighe & Bond Moves Up in Design Firm Rankings
WESTFIELD — Last month, the Engineering News-Record (ENR) again ranked Tighe & Bond among the top 500 design firms in the nation, as it has for more than 10 consecutive years. ENR ranks companies on the previous year’s gross revenue for providing design services to domestic and international markets. This year marked a substantial bump for the firm, as it claimed the 250 spot in ENR’s 2013 report, which exceeds last year’s standing at 272. “Substantial growth across nearly all of our markets and an extension of our geographic reach drove last year’s record revenue,” said David Pinsky, president of Tighe & Bond. “We also significantly expanded our staff to provide existing and new clients with increasingly responsive and integrated services.”

Hampden Bancorp Reports Income Increase, Declares Cash Dividend
SPRINGFIELD — Hampden Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Hampden Bank, recently announced the results of operations for the three and nine months ended March 31. The company also announced that the board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per common share, payable on May 31, 2013, to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 17, 2013. The company had a $249,000 increase in net income for that nine months to $2.4 million, or $0.42 per fully diluted share, as compared to $2.1 million, or $0.35 per fully diluted share, for the same period in 2012. The company had a decrease in net interest income of $131,000 for those nine months, compared to the same period in 2012. For the nine-month period ended March 31, 2013, interest expense decreased by $175,000, or 4.0%, compared to the same period in 2012. This decrease in interest expense included a decrease in deposit-interest expense of $417,000 due to a decrease in rates, which was partially offset by an increase in borrowing interest expense of $242,000 due to an increase in balances. Interest and dividend income decreased $306,000, or 1.7%, for the nine months ended March 31, compared to the same period last year, mainly due to a $270,000 decrease in loan-interest income. The provision for loan losses decreased $100,000 for the nine-month period ended March 31, 2013 compared to the same period in 2012 mainly due to a decrease in specific reserves on impaired loans and charged-off loans. For the nine months ended March 31, there was an increase in total non-interest income of $885,000 compared to the same period in 2012. Also, the company originated $31.9 million and sold $24.8 million in residential mortgage loans, compared to originations of $27.0 million and $12.9 million in sold loans for the nine months ended March 31, 2012, and there was a $218,000, or 88.3%, increase in other non-interest income, which was mainly due to an increase in mortgage excess servicing fees, and a $182,000, or 13.9%, increase in customer service fees compared to the same period in 2012. The company had a $52,000 decrease in net income for the three months ended March 31 to $825,000, or $0.15 per fully diluted share, as compared to $877,000, or $0.16 per fully diluted share, for the same period in 2012. It had a decrease in net interest income of $260,000, or 5.4%, for those three months, compared to the same period in 2012 due to a decrease in the net interest margin from 3.57% to 3.01%. For the three-month period ended March 31, 2013, interest expense decreased by $22,000, or 1.6%, compared to the three-month period ended March 31, 2012. This decrease in interest expense included an increase in borrowing interest expense of $88,000 due to an increase in balances which was more than offset by a decrease in deposit interest expense of $110,000 due to a decrease in rates. Interest and dividend income decreased $282,000, or 4.5%, for the three months ended March 31, 2013 compared to the same period last year. The company’s total assets increased $51.6 million, or 8.4%, from $616.0 million on June 30, 2012 to $667.6 million on March 31, 2013. Net loans, including loans held for sale, increased $32.4 million, or 7.9%, to $439.7 million on March 31, 2013. The majority of the loan increase was in the commercial loan portfolio. Commercial construction loans increased $12.3 million, commercial real-estate loans increased $8.4 million, and commercial loans increased $7.0 million. The company’s strategy continues to be focused on obtaining business loans.

Departments Picture This

Send photos with a caption and contact information to:  ‘Picture This’ c/o BusinessWest Magazine, 1441 Main Street, Springfield, MA 01103 or to [email protected]

House Party

HapHousingHAPHousing recently celebrated its 40th anniversary at the organization’s annual event and fund-raiser at the MassMutual Center, and received a generous donation of $75,000 from the event’s sponsor, Citizens Bank. HAPHousing provides a broad range of housing services to meet the needs of low- and moderate-income households and is the region’s largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing. More than 400 attendees also witnessed the success achieved by three of HAPHousing’s program participants, pictured above. From left, Wally Quinones, who rebuilt on Clark Street after the 2011 tornado; Derek Washington, formerly homeless and now employed and off of public assistance; and Gladys Morales, who went from a shelter to self-sufficiency and owning her own home.

Learning Experience

Polaris04427687Dan Warwick, superintendent of Springfield Public Schools (second from left), recently presented an Outstanding Community Leadership award to United Water for its exceptional outreach and education programs to Springfield students. United Water, which operates the Bondi’s Island wastewater treatment facility, is a founding sponsor for the World Is Our Classroom program, and has donated nearly $775,000 over the past 10 years. Nearly 20,000 Springfield fifth-grade students have participated in the World Is Our Classroom program, which advocates learning outside of the classroom, since its inception in 2003. Here, Nora Burke Patton, left, executive director of World is Our Classroom, poses with, from left, Warwick; Don Goodroe, area manager for United Water; and Katharine Pedersen, executive director of the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.

Ingenuity on Display

IMG_5613IMG_5620Thousands of attendees descended on Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield last week for EASTEC, the largest manufacturing trade show on the East Coast. Sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), the three-day event, now staged every other year, showcased more than 550 exhibitors and pre-registered more than 14,000 attendees to view exhibits of industrial equipment and take in educational programs focused on continuous quality improvement, advanced manufacturing, and the importance of workforce development. At top, attendees stroll the aisles. Middle, Kevin Garvey, left, field service and sales, and Kathleen Trudeau, vice president, sales and service, both of Hayden Corp. in West Springfield, stand with Steve Roy, sales engineer of Hayden Laser Services LLC. Bottom, Tony Nelson, left, forging manager, and Larry Flatley, specialty services business manager, staff the Smith & Wesson booth.IMG_5625

Health Care Sections
Hemophilia Poses Numerous, Lifelong Challenges

Dr. Richard Steingart

Dr. Richard Steingart says hemophiliacs have a shorter average lifespan than those without the disorder, but more meticulous care these days has allowed many to live normal, often-lengthy lives.

Mark Zatyrka’s passion is in his blood — blood that won’t clot.
He’s one of about 20,000 Americans living with hemophilia, a rare condition that prevents blood from clotting normally. But he’s turned his challenges into a gratifying career as vice president of American Homecare Federation, a company that provides services to patients with blood disorders. He also educates young people about HIV, which he contracted from a blood transfusion in the 1980s — a decade when AIDS killed many of his friends.
“I have severe hemophilia, so I know the challenges I grew up with, and I have a personal relationship with a lot of our patients,” he said. “I can mentor the younger kids and show them that disease does not need to define them; this disease does not have to hold them back, and they can still create great things with their lives.”
Dr. Richard Steingart, medical director of Adult Hematology at Baystate Medical Center, agrees.
“The average lifespan is definitely less than normal, although we’re finding that, with meticulous care, these people are living longer and longer,” he said. “Every ethnicity can get it — black, white, Hispanic, Pacific islanders, Asian, it doesn’t matter — and the incidence is about the same throughout the world.”
People born with hemophilia have little or no ‘clotting factor,’ which is a protein needed for normal blood clotting. Normally, when blood vessels are injured, clotting factor helps platelets — blood-cell fragments that form in the bone marrow — stick together to plug cuts and breaks on the vessels and stop bleeding.
People with hemophilia A — which accounts for about 90% of all hemophilia — are missing, or have low levels of, what’s known as clotting factor 8. The rest, who have hemophilia B, are missing or have low levels of clotting factor 9. Hemophiliacs ‘infuse’ themselves with pharmaceutical clotting factor; while those with a mild version of the disease may infuse only before an operation, dental visit, or potentially risky activity, many with severe hemophilia must infuse as often as every day, to prevent dangerous internal bleeding.
“A lot of different drug companies make a lot of different factors,” Steingart said, but noted that they can cost upwards of $3,000 every other day.” Home-care companies like Zatyrka’s exist partly to help patients navigate and access insurance. Overseas, however, that cost often becomes a dangerous challenge. “The product is so expensive that it’s much harder to treat in third-world countries.”
In this issue, BusinessWest takes a look at an often-misunderstood blood disorder and how those who struggle with it are able to find some measure of normalcy despite the ever-present danger.

Blood Simple
The hazards of hemophilia are clear; patients may bleed for a longer time than others after an injury, and may also bleed internally, especially in the knees, ankles, and elbows — all of which can cause long-term damage to organs, joints, and tissues. With rare exceptions, hemophilia is a male disease — about one in 5,000 boys are born with it — and it’s usually (but not always) inherited genetically.
“About a third of the cases are spontaneous mutations; that’s not an insignificant amount,” Steingart said. “It can show up even in a family with no history of hemophilia at all.”
The lack of clotting factor in severe hemophiliacs, like Zatyrka, is dramatic; people without hemophilia have factor 8 activity of 100%, while it’s often less than 1% in those with severe hemophilia. So, while a mild hemophiliac might need clotting factor infusions only on rare occasions, like before dental surgery, those with severe hemophilia may be constantly at risk of internal bleeding and joint bleeds, which can lead to arthritis, skeletal deformities, and even an inability to walk.
The disease often first presents in a childhood operation, often circumcision; today, children born in families with a history of hemophilia will typically undergo a screening for clotting factor 8, which can then be infused before they are circumcised. Meanwhile, some babies first present for hemophilia in the form of large bruises or welts incurred simply from rolling around a crib.
Although most hemophiliacs can live a relatively normal life, some activities — contact sports, for example — are typically not recommended. “But I have hemophiliacs who go skiing carefully, and swimming is perfectly fine, although diving is probably not a good idea,” Steingart said. “Obviously they don’t play football, and they’re not allowed to be in law enforcement or go into the Army.”
For lower-contact sports and other activities that pose slight risk, hemophiliacs will typically infuse themselves with clotting factor before the activity, “so they can get banged around and not have bleeding problems,” he noted.
“It’s really important to streamline these people into normal activities,” he was quick to add. “They don’t have learning disabilities, and they’re just as smart as everyone else — in fact, they’re probably smarter because they know how to live with this lifelong chronic illness.
“Sometimes their joints can hurt when they do have a bleed, so there’s concern about pain medications and addiction,” Steingart explained, “but most of them take pain medications for a certain amount of time, then get off of them. They’re not drug-seeking addicts.”
Better management of hemophilia — and thus longer life — has led to some ironic problems, he added, like the onset of heart disease and other conditions that strike older people. “How do you do a stent in a person with a blood disorder, who needs a blood thinner when, in fact, their hemophilia is a blood thinner, and it’s not protective? That’s becoming extremely challenging.”

Sad Chapter
Perhaps the biggest challenge for hemophiliacs in recent decades — and easily the most tragic — was the AIDS epidemic that tripled the death rate of the hemophiliac population during the 1980s due to infected blood transfusions, before the medical community fully understood what was happening.
Zatyrka, who lost many childhood friends during those years, feels fortunate to have a career that resonates so personally with him and that allows him to shape other people’s lives for the better, and he has gradually become a public advocate for hemophilia, HIV, and AIDS issues, partnering with a number of local organizations and regularly speaking to young people.
The hemophilia community “was devastated by HIV and AIDS back in the early ’80s; about 90% of severe hemophiliacs contracted HIV,” he said. “I’m HIV-positive, and I do my best to help educate others in the community.”
That includes his co-founding of the AIDS kNOw More Project, an initiative of the AIDS Foundation of Western Mass. that trains young people to educate their peers about HIV and AIDS, around which there’s plenty of misinformation.
“Unfortunately, a stigma still exists around HIV. That drives me nuts,” he said. “And a lot of the stigma comes from uneducated, unknowledgable people.”
Thankfully, the plasma-derived infusions of clotting factor common in the 1980s have been replaced by genetically engineered products that do not require plasma, which has eliminated the risk of AIDS from a transfusion.
In any case — mild, moderate, or severe — patients simply learn to live with the challenges, Steingart said, adding that, typically, “around age 7 or 8, a child learns how to self-infuse with help of mom or dad.”
There’s no cure for hemophilia — although hepatitis patients who receive liver transplants have often been able to generate enough clotting factor 8 in the new liver to eliminate both the hepatitis and hemophilia — but scientists continue to work on ways to improve current treatments.
An increase in the length of time an infusion is effective would be a major breakthrough; currently, it’s only about 12 hours. “What they’re looking for is a long-lasting factor 8,” Steingart said. “Wouldn’t it be cool if people could take a shot once a month rather than taking it every day?”
Until then, patients manage as they always have. Some of them, like Zatyrka, are doing more, working to change perceptions and help others cope.
“Sometimes I have a hard time labeling what I do,” he told BusinessWest. “Is this work, or is it personal? It just means so much to me.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Health Care Sections
With STDs, Information Is Often the Key to Prevention

By DR. PATRICIA BAILEY-SARNELLI

Dr. Patricia Bailey-Sarnelli

Dr. Patricia Bailey-Sarnelli

Did you know that nearly 20 million new sexually transmitted diseases — some of the most common being chlamydia, herpes, and gonorrhea — occur in the U.S. each year?
Or that a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis released in March — which included eight common STDs: chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis B virus (HBV), herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), human papilloma virus (HPV), syphilis, and trichomoniasis — noted that about half of all new infections each year occur among young people ages 15 to 24?
Those numbers, especially among our youth, highlight the critical need for prevention. I see many adolescent girls in my practice, and a part of the problem has to do with their normal adolescent psychological development.
Adolescents go through a phase of magical thinking where they have a sense of invulnerability, that nothing can hurt them. For that reason, they tend to be less consistent about condom use, and that puts them at greater risk. The other part of the problem is their lack of knowledge and general understanding of the risks of STDs. In one study, for example, 25% of urban adolescent females developed an STI (sexually transmitted infection) within one year of first intercourse.
While the terms STD and STI are often used interchangeably, there is a difference, and STI is now being used more often in the public-health sector. The difference can be found in the terminology used to refer to an infection versus disease. You can have an infection spread through sexual contact that may or may not lead to symptoms and a future medical problem, but when it does, the result is a disease. In other words, STDs are preceded by STIs, but not all STIs result in the development of an STD. There is also a belief among some that referring to an infection, rather than a disease, has less of a stigma attached to it and is therefore less embarrassing to talk about.
Also, the CDC cites stigma, inconsistent or incorrect condom use, limited access to healthcare, and a combination of other factors as contributing to higher rates of STDs among teens and young adults.
Despite the challenges remaining, parents and schools are doing a better job about informing young people about sex and its consequences, including discussions about abstinence, reducing their number of sexual partners, and how to correctly use a condom.
The girls that I am seeing now are somewhat better-informed, and most talk about learning about sex in their health class at school. It’s also very important for parents to have a frank discussion with their children about sex and its risks. Literature shows that the results cut across all socioeconomic and racial boundaries, that kids whose parents have spoken with them about sex tend to make better decisions.
When it comes to talking to my young patients about STDs, I tell them that we are all sexual beings, and that the most important part of that is being a responsible sexual being — responsible to themselves, their partners, their family, and their community — and part of that includes using protection against sexually transmitted diseases.
The concern among clinicians is that, while most of these infections are treatable — many are curable — some can result in serious health consequences if left undiagnosed and not treated early. Also, the CDC’s March analysis noted that, while the consequences of untreated STDs are often worse for young women, the annual number of new infections is about the same between women and men.
According to the CDC, four of the STDs included in the analysis are easily treated and cured if diagnosed early: chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and trichomoniasis.
Because they often have no symptoms, many of these infections go undetected. However, even STDs with no symptoms can seriously affect one’s health. Undiagnosed and untreated chlamydia or gonorrhea can put a woman at increased risk of chronic pelvic pain and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, and can also increase a woman’s chance of infertility.
But while gonorrhea and chlamydia can be treated with antibiotics and cured, other STDs are lifelong, affecting both the physical and social health of an individual.
HSV-2, HBV, and HIV are lifelong infections that together account for nearly one-quarter of all prevalent infections. HSV-2 can lead to painful chronic infection, miscarriage or premature birth, and fatal infections in newborns. HBV can lead to cirrhosis, a life-threatening liver disease. And HIV damages a person’s immune system over time, increasing an infected person’s susceptibility to a number of diseases. Additionally, nearly 18,000 people in the U.S. die of AIDS each year.
Herpes, which will affect you for the rest of your life, is a very individual disease process. Some will experience a single outbreak, then may go for years without another. Others will have an outbreak every month. As for the psychological and social repercussions, those with herpes must make the responsible decision to tell a new partner and face the consequences of how they will react to the news. This can have enormous consequences and seriously affect one’s ability to connect with others throughout their life.
Also, when you think about sexually transmitted diseases, most people don’t always think of human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer. HPV, for which there is no treatment, is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide. The virus accounts for the majority of prevalent STDs in the U.S. today, and more than half of sexually active men and women will become infected at some time in their lives.
While there is no cure for HPV infection, there is a vaccine that parents can have administered to their sons and daughters to protect them from certain HPV-related diseases. In fact, the CDC recommends routine vaccinations with Gardasil for boys and girls ages 11 or 12. Gardasil is given as three injections over a six-month period.
Based on information from the gardasil.com website, the vaccine helps protect against four types of HPV. In girls and young women ages 9 to 26, Gardasil helps protect against two types of HPV that cause about 75% of cervical cancer cases, and two more types that cause about 90% of genital warts cases. In boys and young men ages 9 to 26, Gardasil helps protect against approximately 90% of genital warts cases. Gardasil also helps protect girls and young women ages 9 to 26 against approximately 70% of vaginal cancer cases and up to 50% of vulvar cancer cases.
As importantly noted on the website, “Gardasil may not fully protect everyone, nor will it protect against diseases caused by other HPV types or against diseases not caused by HPV. Gardasil does not prevent all types of cervical cancer, so it’s important for women to continue routine cervical cancer screenings.”
In addition to the severe human burden STDs place on individuals, STDs also cost an already-stressed American healthcare system nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs alone, according to CDC figures.
Baystate Medical Center’s two community health clinics — Baystate Brightwood Health Center and Baystate Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center — offer both free testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. STD testing is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., including rapid HIV testing, as well as testing for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and hepatitis C. Nurse practitioner Rebecca Reed also provides exams and treatment at Brightwood Health Center on Tuesday and Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center on Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. She is also at Brightwood on Friday from 8 a.m. to noon and at Mason Square from 1 to 4:30 p.m.

Dr. Patricia Bailey-Sarnelli is director of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecologic Services at Baystate Medical Center.

Features
For a Half-century, Gary McCarthy Has Been True to the Boys & Girls Club Mission

McCarthyBoysClubGary McCarthy was asked how the City of Homes and the institution known now as the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Springfield have changed since he first started hanging out there almost 60 years ago.
He leaned back in his chair, looked skyward, and gave a slight sigh as if to indicate that this exercise was going to test his memory. As things turned out, it didn’t. The memories, and the perspective, seemed to flow.
And he started with some history/geography lessons, specifically in the form of a fond look back at what was known as the Chestnut Street Club — the precursor to the facility on Carew Street where he’s served as executive director for the past 26 years and in some capacity for more than four decades — and the neighborhood around it.
“The front door would be in the middle of what is now Liberty Street Extension,” he said of the old club, which was one of dozens of buildings leveled in the mid- to late ’60s as part of a sweeping urban-renewal effort that forever changed the city’s North End. “There are a lot of people with some very special memories of that place; I’m one of them.
“That whole area was residential — there were a lot of apartment buildings,” he said of the blocks to the west of Chestnut Street, while flashing back five decades or more. “There were a lot of kids from that area that came to the club.”
As for the city itself, McCarthy, who grew up in Hungry Hill, said Springfield’s neighborhoods were much more “ethnically defined,” as he put it. “When I lived on the Hill, it was still the white, Irish, Catholic neighborhood; the North End had a large African-American population. A lot of the kids came to the club together because they lived on the same street.”

Gary McCarthy

Gary McCarthy has been associated with the Springfield Boys & Girls Club in some capacity for close to 60 years.

And the Boys & Girls Club? Some things have changed there, too, he said, noting, for example, that what is now the computer lab was, for decades, a wood shop. And at one time the organization netted $200,000 annually from bingo, between the game it ran in the gym on Monday nights and the one operated in the club on Sunday nights by a local synagogue, which paid a generous rental fee. Bans on smoking in public places, coupled with the expansive Massachusetts lottery and casinos in Connecticut, closed the bingo gold mine, leaving the club to find new and different ways to fund its budget, from a golf tournament to the hugely successful Festival of Trees, to more aggressive grant-writing efforts.
But after all that talk about what has changed, McCarthy wanted to focus most of his time and energy on what hasn’t — the simple fact that young people in Springfield still need a place to go after school, on Saturdays, and in the summer — a place that’s safe, accessible, affordable, and can help shape their lives in the right ways.
Despite some considerable fiscal challenges, the Springfield club has always been all those things, he said, adding that, as he looks back on his career, this is the achievement to which he attaches the most satisfaction.
“We’re obviously very proud of how we protected that mission of being a drop-in center, an open door,” he explained. “If a kid needed his or her Boys & Girls Club, they came in, they gave us a little information, if they had a dollar, we’d take it, and if they didn’t, we didn’t care. They came in, and they really earned their membership by being a good citizen — a good Boys & Girls Club citizen, and trying to understand what this organization stood for.
“Kids need a safe place to have fun — it’s that simple,” he continued, knocking the organization’s reason for being down to just a handful of words. “Some nonprofits, and even ones like ours, are starting to think this is something you don’t want to say and shouldn’t be saying. But I happen to think that’s still a big part of why we’re here; young people still need a place where they can work with good, responsible, caring adults, and have a place where they can enjoy their lives.”
For this issue, BusinessWest took the opportunity to talk with McCarthy just weeks from his scheduled retirement. It was a learning experience served up by someone for whom the club has generated a lifetime of memories — quite literally.

Mission: Statement
There was a small fire at the Chestnut Street Club in the 1960s, started, according to local legend, when a popcorn maker was left on inadvertently.
McCarthy laughed off some jokes — at least he thinks they’re jokes — from current club staffers (probably preparing material for an elaborate retirement party on June 8) who believe he might have been the one responsible for the calamity. But he admits he was there, on concessions duty, that night.
Of course, he’s been there, handling some manner of duties, almost every day since he was 15 years old — with the notable exception of a six-year run as director of the Westfield club in the early and mid-’80s. He started as a CIT (counselor in training) at the club’s summer camp, but took on a number of jobs through high school and beyond, from handling concessions to working in the game room; from running the projector on ‘movie night’ to running the second-floor gym at the old club.
And as he moved from the old Technical High School, where he was in what amounted to a college-prep program, to American International College, where he majored in sociology, he essentially made the decision that the Boys Club (‘& Girls’ was added officially in the mid-’80s) was going to be more than a place where he earned a paycheck; it was going to be a career.
When asked how and why he came to that conclusion and became what’s known within the organization as a ‘Boys Club guy,’ he said that, through all those years of being a member and then serving members in all those capacities, he had simply become enamored not only with the mission, but the prospect of leading a team that carried it out.
“The club was a very important part of my life; while I had some nice teachers in the public school system and had some fine role models, the club was the place that really shaped my life,” he said, noting that the phrase has many meanings; he met his wife, Eileen, there while she was teaching economics. “And we think we still do that today; people just reached out, they accepted you, they nurtured you, they were friendly to you, although they made you toe the mark — if you screwed up, you paid.
“The club was instrumental in helping me gain discipline and character,” he continued. “I have a family, and I’d like to think that I’m a good husband and a real good dad, and the club had a lot to do with that. You lived it every day; they made you live it every day. And when the job experiences came along, and that demand was there to set the standard for the younger people, that was very rewarding.”
Fast-forwarding through all the lines on McCarthy’s résumé — it’s fairly easy, because he’s never drawn a paycheck from an organization other than the Boys & Girls Club — one sees that he moved up the ranks fairly quickly, eventually serving as program director at the club and its summer camp and then as assistant director under longtime director Mike Pagos.
Having gone as far as he could, other than the corner office, in Springfield, and with Pagos still years from retirement, McCarthy made what he considered a necessary career move by taking the helm of the much smaller Westfield club. There, he gained important administrative experience (while also calling more bingo), and made himself the logical successor to Pagos when he stepped down in 1988.
“In those days, it was very hard for a person to move on to the next step at a club this size without having received some administrative experience elsewhere,” he noted. “I was fortunate to have that great learning experience in Westfield.”
And once he returned to Springfield, he knew he’d be in that position for as long as the board wanted him there. “I never seriously thought about leaving; this was the club that developed me, and it’s always had a great reputation for serving people. I never wanted to be anywhere else.”

Time Passages
The door to the closet in McCarthy’s office was ajar — just enough to bring the Santa suit hanging there into view.
He’s played that part for many years during the Festival of Trees, and it has become just one of many lines, official and unofficial, on his job description. Others have included everything from bingo caller — he did a lot of that when the game was the club’s principal fund-raiser — to acting as a spotter for one of the closest-to-the-pin competitions at the annual golf tournament, which he was preparing for as he talked with BusinessWest, with tee-sponsorship signs scattered about his office.
But mostly, his job has been to set a tone for this organization, and in many respects it hasn’t been difficult, because it was the same one he encountered when he first walked into the Chestnut Street Club in the early ’50s.
It’s all about meeting that mission of what amounts to being a safe haven for young people, he said, a place where they can learn, forge friendships, and build character.

 The old Chestnut Street Club, where Gary McCarthy was first introduced to the Boys Club mission as a member.

The old Chestnut Street Club, where Gary McCarthy was first introduced to the Boys Club mission as a member.

But carrying out that mission is in many ways more challenging than it was two or four decades ago, said McCarthy, who will invariably use the word ‘we’ in such discussions, referring to the team handling this assignment, which includes both staff and board members. He noted that, while need has been constant — and in many ways has escalated — meeting the club’s $1.5 million annual budget has become more daunting.
The Springfield club still charges only $10 a year for membership ($25 for year-round activities) in an effort to remain accessible for families, many of whom live at or below the poverty line, he said, adding that the process of closing the gap between the cost of programs and operations and what memberships generate in revenue has become more difficult.
“You could run a club for a lot less years ago — just look at health insurance,” he said with laugh, citing just one example. “In those days, a lot of your people were young and single, and medical insurance would cost you $300 per person; now, it’s $16,000 for someone with a family.
“Those types of expenses — utilities, insurance, all those things — escalated dramatically,” he went on. “And that’s why we’re proud that we’ve been able to maintain the foundations of our club and be that safe place to go.”
As he mentioned, fund-raising has changed dramatically from the days when a large disbursement from the United Way, supplemented by bingo revenues, pretty much covered expenses. Today, the club relies much more on fund-raisers such as the golf tournament and the Festival of Trees, as well as its endowment and direct solicitations.
But while many fiscal issues have changed over the years, young people, by and large, have not, said McCarthy, noting that, while technology provides more distractions, and there are more things to do than when he was an adolescent, the same basic needs exist, and it is more important than ever to meet them.
“When you’re talking about gangs and other issues like that, any time you can give kids an alternative that’s easy to get to and that can get them engaged quickly, that’s critical,” he said. “And it’s as important, if not more important, than when I was a kid.”
When asked what he’ll miss most when he turns off his office light for the last time, he said it will be the kids — generations of them who were instructed to use ‘Gary’ and never ‘Mr. McCarthy’ when addressing him.
“One of the most fun parts of my job, even though I’m tucked back here most of the day, is when I get antsy and take a walk along the halls while the kids are here,” he explained. “Hearing them say ‘hey, Gary’ or ‘hi, Gary’ and moving on their way … I’m going to miss that a lot.”

Life’s Work
When asked if, and in what ways, he would be involved with the Boys & Girls Club after August, McCarthy, who probably can’t remember a day when he wasn’t associated with this organization in some way, paused for a moment before using humor to say that he really will be moving on.
“When you’ve hung around this long, you start wondering, with all these new fads and ways of doing things, if you’re getting to be a dinosaur,” he said. “And besides, I didn’t have some senior old timer looking over my shoulder, and whoever comes next doesn’t need me doing that, either.”
Maybe not, but whoever the next leader of this organization is, he or she could do a lot worse than getting counsel from someone who has made the club his life’s work — in every way that phrase can be used.

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

Features
West Springfield Aims to Grow, Casino or Not

WestSpringfldCommunityProfilesMAPWest Springfield Mayor Greg Neffinger says his city doesn’t need a casino.
But that doesn’t mean he and other municipal and economic-development leaders aren’t excited about the bid put forth by Hard Rock International to site a destination casino on the Eastern States Exposition grounds.
When asked what that would mean, however, Neffinger paused for a moment before bringing up a favorite topic.
“I’ve just lowered taxes for the second time in my budget,” he said, noting that the town, recently saddled with the fifth-highest commercial tax rate in the state, now ranks around 16th, and the mayor would like to drop it further in an effort to attract more companies. “So I feel that West Springfield doesn’t need a casino for its economic vitality.”
Instead, he makes a regional argument for a casino, one that would benefit surrounding communities, including Holyoke, Chicopee, Westfield, and Agawam. “I think the casino in West Springfield should be a regional benefit, and the money that’s generated by the casino should be seen as a benefit to all the communities around us. We’re hoping to partner with all our adjacent communities to see how everyone can see the various benefits from the casino.”
But, just as Springfield officials across the Connecticut River have vowed not to stop growing organically even while they promote a casino bid by MGM Resorts International, Neffinger said his town’s economic growth will not be dependent on a gaming resort.
“We are now developing plans that we feel will be beneficial to West Springfield whether a casino is sited here or not,” he said, noting that a small army of consultants, planners, engineers, and attorneys are discussing the potential of the Big E site.
For instance, “there’s a large, undeveloped industrial area adjacent to the casino site, going from the Big E all the way to the power plant along the Westfield River. We hired a planner, Sasaki Associates out of Watertown, to look at those adjacent properties and see what type of commercial, entertainment, or recreation potential they have — either to enhance the entertainment-destination theme, or things that could be done without a casino.”
Memorial Avenue is only one course on Neffinger’s plate these days. To boost growth across the city, particularly in key areas like Memorial, Riverdale Road, and Westfield Street, he has created new positions for a planning and development director (Doug Mattoon) and an economic development director (currently vacant since Michele Cabral resigned earlier this year), and made efforts to streamline the permitting process and make the town more business-friendly.
The growing West of the River Chamber of Commerce, which encompasses West Springfield and Agawam, has taken notice, said Debra Boronski, president of the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce, which manages the West of the River chamber.
“The mayor has been very active, making sure he is present at every event we have, and I think that speaks volumes in regard to him wanting to be connected to the business community,” she said. “He has embraced our quarterly coffee hour with the mayor, and he is always available for those forums as well. He is quite candid about how he feels about West Springfield being a great place to live, work, and do business.”

Architect of Change

Mayor Greg Neffinger

Mayor Greg Neffinger says the properties bordering the proposed casino have great potential whether or not West Springfield wins the bid.

Neffinger, a former architect, noted that each of West Side’s major commercial centers has its own character and set of needs. “Westfield Street is more neighborhood businesses, while Riverdale Road has a life of its own; it’s a very popular location, and restaurants, retail, and car dealerships seem to do well there because of all the traffic going through. Places like CVS, Home Depot, and Costco also do well there.”
He conceded, though, that most of the buzz on Riverdale occurs south of Interstate 91, while the northern stretch of the thoroughfare, between the highway and the Holyoke Mall area, could use more development. A number of chain restaurants — Outback, On the Border, Hooters, and Five Guys, to name a few — have succeeded there, and a tenant is looking to move into the former Piccadilly Pub location. “We think that part of Riverdale Road has lots of potential.”
Armed with a larger planning and development team than past administrations have enjoyed, Neffinger expects progress on other fronts as well. Further development of Agawam Avenue Extension is a key goal in a 2005 report on the Merrick-Memorial section of the city — one of many recommendations he wants to set into action.
“We’re doing a whole rezoning of the Merrick section. That was part of the Merrick-Memorial study,” he told BusinessWest. “When we brought in planners to begin looking at it, they found that virtually 100% of the Merrick section was non-conforming, and [developers] would have to go for a special permit, and it’s questionable whether they’d do that. As an architect, I felt that builders, developers, and entrepreneurs would be more attracted to areas of town that were conforming.”
As a result, a new zoning structure for the area should be completed by June, and virtually all the parcels will be conforming, said Neffinger, who said full development of the area could add $1 million to the tax base.
The mayor repeatedly stressed the importance of a robust planning and economic-development staff, and said the town wants to fill Cabral’s position with someone savvy in 21st-century communication.
“We spoke with a number of retired economic-development directors, and I think the way of reaching out to business is changing, with social media and websites,” he explained, “and so we’re hoping that we can get someone with more of a marketing background who can reach out to businesses and let existing businesses know we’re here and we care about them doing business in West Springfield.”
In addition, he and various planning officials are talking about ways they can improve the process by which businesses locate in town. “One of those is electronic permitting, and hopefully, that’ll be in place next month.”
Neffinger said the Town Council is also discussing exempting businesses from taxes on equipment up to $10,000 in value. “We don’t make much on it, and our administrative costs are almost equal to the money that comes in. There’s a lot of paperwork involved for small businesses, so they’ll save some money and time.”

Rolling the Dice
Of course, it’s hard to ignore the prospect of one decidedly large business — that’s Hard Rock — that wants to call West Springfield home.
Boronski noted that the West of the River Chamber surveyed members and non-members alike about their desire for a casino, and based on the results, just last week, the chamber officially endorsed the $800 million Hard Rock proposal.
“Around the state and locally, no chambers of commerce have come out publicly to support a specific casino,” she said. “For the West of the River Chamber board of directors to do this shows that they are willing to put themselves out there and take a position that’s right for economic development.”
Michael Beaudry, who chairs the chamber, said members “are excited about the potential of the Hard Rock project for its impact to our regional economy and to small business in particular. The job creation and payroll will reverberate throughout the area, alongside new tax revenues for property owners and local government.”
He noted that Hard Rock is committed to a buy-local approach to the project. To strengthen ties between a casino and the business community, the chamber is pursuing:
• Development of a small-business network to identify area businesses that may provide goods and services to the casino resort;
• Coordination on a series of vendor fairs to facilitate additional information and communication on goods and services for the gaming facility;
• Affinity programs for casino employees, by which Hard Rock will offer chamber members the opportunity to directly market their services to the anticipated 2,000-plus casino workers; and
• Promotion by Hard Rock of regional destinations, attractions, shopping districts, and hospitality venues. Those efforts might include cooperative group sales, local training for resort personnel, and marketing and advertising.
That emphasis on making sure small businesses benefit from a casino is a theme that hits home with Neffinger.
“I think small businesses are the backbone of all communities,” he said. “We’re fortunate to have some pretty large companies in West Springfield, but for our economy, employment, and the general well-being of the town, I think small businesses are the lifeblood of the community.”

Natural Appeal
Still, the mayor added, “the casino coming in to the Memorial Avenue area would bring in a whole new dynamic.” One of his missions is to make sure the town’s traditional appeals are not lost in the gaming hype.
“I think, when businesses think of relocating in Western Mass., they’re interested in what the quality of life is, what’s the education system like, what the recreation possibilities are,” he said. “We in West Springfield are surrounded by natural beauty — the Connecticut River, the Westfield River, the Holyoke mountain range, Bear Hole Reservoir … we’re pretty much surrounded by natural resources, and I’m really hoping to capitalize on those.”
To that end, “we’ve already begun to do work on Mittineague Park to fix it up, and we took tons of trash out of Bear Hole Reservoir and put a ranger up there. We want that to be a natural resource for the residents of West Springfield.”
Neffinger also considers education a key part of making West Springfield an attractive destination for businesses and families. The construction of a new, $107 million high school, set to open in 2014, is a big part of that. “We’re also working on improving our MCAS scores and our graduation rate,” he told BusinessWest. “These things are very important for people, especially young families, who are thinking of relocating.”
In addition, he said, “we’re not far from skiing, hiking, beaches, Boston, New York … we’re in a very good location.”
In other words, West Springfield has plenty to offer — whether or not Hard Rock gets the chance to light up Memorial Avenue.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Opinion
Investments in the Future

EditorialBWlogoThere probably hadn’t been this much excitement about a demolition project in Springfield since the city finally took down the old York Street Jail nearly a decade ago. Or since the crumbling Hotel Charles, located next to Union Station, was put out of its misery in the late’90s.
There was Mayor Domenic Sarno with his hardhat and ceremonial sledgehammer taking a few solid whacks at the old River Inn on State Street. When the pomp was over, the bulldozers moved in, taking down a property that had become much more than an eyesore in recent years — although it was certainly that.
Indeed, the long-vacant property had become an impediment to progress — not only on that specific parcel, but across that section of the so-called State Street corridor. Recognizing this, DevelopSpringfield acquired the property at a foreclosure auction in January, with an eye toward demolition and then movement toward redevelopment. As economic-development initiatives go, this wasn’t exactly front-page news (though close), but it constitutes an important step forward for that neighborhood and the city as a whole.
And creating such initial steps — while also stimulating the ones that will follow — is the unofficial mission statement for DevelopSpringfield, the public-private partnership created to stimulate development activity in the city, especially in the wake of the tornado that tore through several neighborhoods nearly two years ago.
The agency is taking a multi-pronged approach to that assignment, but generally, it is currently engaged in identifying development opportunities and facilitating them through what the agency’s president and CEO, Jay Minkarah, calls “strategic investments.” And the River Inn project is a perfect example.
“This place held back the development of the entire neighborhood,” Minkarah told the local press. “It’s good that it’s going to be gone.”
Good, because if it was still there — and it probably would be, because it’s highly unlikely that a private developer would pay the cost of acquiring the property, demolishing it, and settling back taxes totaling $80,000 — then this large slice of State Street would remain undeveloped for the foreseeable future.
The same could likely be said for some of the other properties the agency has acquired recently. These include the historic building at 83 Maple St., known as the Ansel Phelps House (Springfield’s fourth mayor lived in it for some time), which had fallen into a state of disrepair and placement on the Springfield Preservation Trust’s list of endangered historic properties in the city, as well as the historic Gunn Block at the corner of Walnut and State streets, another threatened property said to be city’s oldest commercial building.
Neither is likely to be redeveloped soon, but their acquisition signals the start of movement that will likely remove that ‘threatened’ designation and, more importantly, trigger the kind of development that generates momentum in a specific neighborhood.
There is no way of knowing when and how the River Inn property, or any of the others acquired by DevelopSpringfield, will be transformed for future use. After all, the Hotel Charles acreage and the York Street Jail parcel are still vacant lots. And the same is true, more or less, for the site of the old Steigers building on Main Street. It was to be “a little park for a little while,” said city officials when it came down. That was 18 years ago.
But it’s safe to say that these investments will eventually stimulate movement within the development community and generate real progress with the challenging assignment of revitalizing struggling neighborhoods. Thus, they are solid investments in the city’s future.

Opinion
It’s Time to Raise the Mayor’s Salary

The Springfield Chamber of Commerce is advocating for an increase in the salary for the position of mayor of Springfield from $95,000 — the level it has been since 1997 — to one that better reflects the importance of the position today, $135,000.
While proposals such as this often become politically charged, an informed debate on its merits is long overdue. The chamber is hopeful that, after this debate, our elected officials will support our proposal.
An increase in the mayor’s salary has been proposed at various points over the past 16 years. Most recently, in 2009, as the Financial Control Board was being phased out from managing Springfield, a task force of the chamber met to examine several governance issues within the city, to ensure that the city would never again be forced into having a control board manage its affairs. At that time, the chamber put forth three objectives it felt were integral to proper management of the city. They were:
• Establishment of a chief administrative and financial officer (CAFO), whose contract would not be concurrent with the mayor in order to establish some autonomy, and who would report not only to the mayor but also to the full City Council;
• Moving from a two-year term for the mayor to a four-year term to allow for better long-term planning and afford a mayor time to make difficult decisions without the immediate threat of a political opponent; and
• Establishing a fair salary level for the mayor that would better reflect the duties and responsibilities of the mayor of the third-largest city in Massachusetts and to help attract candidates with the skills to oversee administration of the community.
The first two goals have been accomplished. Before the Finance Control Board departed, the position of CAFO was established, and from all accounts has been performing extremely well since then. Lengthening the term of the mayor of Springfield to four years was put on the citywide ballot in 2009, and voters adopted this change, with 69% voting in favor. Now the third goal remains.
In 2011, a task force was set up by the City Council to look into increasing the mayor’s salary. The chamber had a member serve on that panel, and while the recommendation came out to increase the salary to a figure of around $110,000 and then index it to inflation, the recommendation never made it to the council for a full vote.
The chamber has compiled a great deal of data. Several cities in our area with populations and budgets around one-fifth of those of Springfield have mayoral salaries of only $10,000 less than Springfield’s. One city, Westfield, recently acknowledged the requirements of the job and increased the salary for that city’s mayor to a level above Springfield’s.
When looking at similar-sized cities, here are the results:

• Springfield: $95,000
• Hartford, Conn.: $146,779
• Providence, R.I.: $131,000
• New Haven, Conn.: $127,070
• Stamford, Conn.: $150,000

There will be those who will look at a salary figure and equate it to a particular mayor, past or present, and judge this proposal upon whether he or she was or is worth the figure. That not only misses the point, but is also shortsighted in determining what is best for this city moving forward. The salary is a reflection of the job. The mayor oversees a city with 6,000 employees and a budget in excess of $550 million.
At present, 113 city employees earn more than the mayor, who is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week to not only plan and oversee operations, but to be able to react to all that can and does go wrong in major urban areas. The mayor makes countless decisions, oftentimes difficult and unpopular. A mayor is also in the best position to develop a strategic vision for our city and lead the effort to fulfill that vision.
Let’s try to put politics aside for this vote and set the salary for the position of mayor of Springfield at a level that reflects the duties of the job and encourages those with the skills necessary to run for the position.

Jeffrey Ciuffreda is executive director of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield.

Cover Story Sections Travel and Tourism
Holyoke’s Happiness Machine Marks a Milestone

CoverBW-0513bThe Holyoke Merry-Go-Round marks 20 years in operation at Heritage Park this December.
Thus, this is a time of reflection and celebration in Holyoke, concerning both the remarkable story of how residents and businesses in the city rallied to keep the attraction within the community, and the success enjoyed since: more than 1 million riders, hundreds of events staged at the facility, restoration of nearly half the ride’s hand-crafted wooden horses, and the creation of untold memories for generations of area residents.
There will be many opportunities to rejoice and look back this year, with the highlight being a huge fund-raising gala at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House on Sept. 19, an event that is expected to severely test the facility’s fire-code capacity.
But for those most closely involved with this landmark, known to them as PTC 80 (the 80th carousel built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Co.), this is a time for much more than celebrating — although they will do plenty of that. It’s an occasion to do some strategic planning and take important steps that will ensure there are many more anniversaries to celebrate down the road.
And it’s a time, said Angela Wright, to do some difficult, yet very necessary, succession planning when it comes to management of what those in the city call the ‘happiness machine.’

HolyokeMerryGoRound

Friends of PTC 80, as it’s called, will mark its milestone anniversary with an eye toward ensuring that there are more of these celebrations for decades to come.

Difficult, noted Wright, who was co-chair of the group that raised the money to keep the carousel in Holyoke and has been its volunteer director since it opened, because that’s the only word to describe what it will be like to “let go.”
“We’re reluctant to give up something that is close to all of us, and something that we worked so hard at —  it’s been a labor of love for all of us,” she said, referring to a strong corps of volunteers that has been with this project from the beginning and seen some of their ranks pass away in recent years. “We don’t want to let go of this, but it’s something we know we have to do.”
Elaborating, she said the Friends of the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round, as this group is called, is engaging in discussions about hiring a full-time executive director for the facility, an individual who will assume many duties currently carried out by those volunteers, from fund-raising to marketing, while also taking on the primary assignment — maintaining the relationships that have enabled this city treasure to survive and thrive, and creating new ones.
Hiring a director is one of many suggestions forwarded during strategic planning sessions staged recently with a consultant, Jeff Hayden, former city development director and current director of the Kittredge Center, said Maureen Costello, administrative manager of PTC 80.
Others include everything from recruiting additional board members to developing and implementing a marketing plan; from multi-faceted efforts to increase visitation to a host of initiatives to increase revenues, especially the scheduling of more birthday parties and other events.
These steps are in various, but mostly early, stages of implementation, said Costello, noting that one important step — a doubling of the price of a ride to $2 after more than 18 years — was undertaken in 2012.
“That was a difficult decision for us, because we had prided ourselves on keeping the ticket price at a dollar since we opened in 1993,” she explaned. “But it’s been very well-received by our visitors; many people said, ‘it’s about time you did this.’”
There will be more difficult and far-reaching steps taken in the months and years to come, said Jim Jackowski, business liaison and customer service and credit manager for Holyoke Gas & Electric and current president of the Friends board. He noted that, while the attraction’s first two decades in operation could be deemed an unqualified success, these are tenuous times for independently operated carousels like this one.
The challenges are many, and include everything from the high cost of insurance (carousels have historically had high mishap rates, although this one hasn’t recorded any) to the escalating competition for the time of young children (the ride’s lifeblood) and their parents.
“There are just a lot more things for kids and families to do today,” said Jackowski. “We have to respond to that by promoting ourselves and doing what we’ve always done — providing a truly unique experience.”
Wright agreed. “Many carousels are closing — hardly a week goes that we don’t hear of one of them shutting down,” she said, noting that she and others read about such casualties in industry publications like the Carousel News & Trader and Merry-Go-Round Roundup. “These things are becoming very expensive … our liability insurance is extremely high. Between insurance, staffing, maintenance, upkeep, promotions, and marketing, they’re becoming simply too expensive for many operators to run.”
For this issue and its focus on travel and tourism, BusinessWest takes a quick look back at how PTC 80 remained a Holyoke institution, but a more comprehensive glance ahead to the challenge of making sure the happiness machine will be there to create memories for future generations of area residents.

Turns for the Better

‘Middle horse #5’

‘Middle horse #5’ is next in line for a complete restoration. To date, nearly half of the horses on the carousel have been refurbished.

It’s known simply as ‘middle horse #5.’ And that says it all — if you know this carousel.
It has three rows of horses (there are 28 in all, both ‘standers’ and ‘jumpers,’ with two chariots), with the largest animals on the outside and the smallest on the inside. This particular specimen is fifth in a sequence known only to those intimately involved with this attraction. And it is showing some definite signs of wear and tear, much of it caused by the buckle on the stirrup, which has knocked off badly faded paint in several areas.
As a result, it is next in line for restoration work that will make it look like the much shinier and newer ‘middle horse #4’ just ahead. This work, to be carried out at the New England Carousel Museum in Bristol, Conn., will cost roughly $5,000, said Costello. To help pay that cost, the merry-go-round is staging a raffle this summer, with the winner gaining the right to give the horse a real name — like ‘Lancelot,’ ‘Flower Power,’ and others that have been assigned to other animals on PTC 80.
Restoring horses, staging raffles, and giving names to the stars of this attraction have been some of the many aspects of that labor of love which Wright described, made possible by the truly inspiring story of how Holyoke came together to keep its carousel a quarter-century ago.
Most in this region are now at least somewhat familiar with the saga, which began with Mountain Park owner Jay Collins’ decision to shut down the popular tourist attraction after the 1987 season ended.
After unsuccessful efforts to sell the park, the 300 acres it sat on, and all the equipment and inventory as one package (asking price: $4 million), Collins opted to start selling off the pieces. He had some attractive offers (up to $2 million, according to some accounts) for PTC 80, which was in extremely good condition. And while he was considering them, John Hickey, then manager of Holyoke’s Water Department, approached him with a plan to keep the carousel in the city.
The two agreed on a price of $875,000, and Collins gave Hickey one year to raise the money.
The rest, is, well, history.
An elaborate ‘save the merry-go-round’ campaign was launched, complete with a request for pledges with rhetorical calls to action that included ‘stop them from riding off with Holyoke’s mane attraction’ and ‘if you care about Holyoke’s future, put some money down on her past.’
In the end, residents, business owners, and schoolchildren heeded those calls, raising enough money to buy the carousel and build it a new home in Heritage State Park. Thus, PTC 80’s second life began in December 1993.
To say that it’s been a smooth ride since then would oversimplify things, said Wright, who noted that there have been many challenges over the first two decades, from getting people to come to downtown Holyoke to attracting revenue-generating events, such as birthday parties and weddings, to overcoming the loss several years ago of the four-day Celebrate Holyoke event that gave the carousel much-needed exposure and ridership.
“The real business challenge for us has been to replace the revenue from the Celebrate Holyoke festival, which was probably 10% to 15% of our annual revenue,” said Jackowski. “We’ve done it largely through the promotion of the birthday parties, the private functions, and the corporate functions, and spreading the word through an extended Pioneer Valley area.”
The attraction has managed to remain in the black throughout and meet its annual budget of roughly $100,000, he noted, largely through perseverance, imagination, and resourcefulness.
But if PTC 80, one of only 100 antique classic wooden merry-rounds still operating in North America, is to keep its Holyoke address, it must continue to act as a small business would, and that means strategic planning and, as Wright and Costello said, succession planning.

Round Numbers
That later assignment is a difficult one for many small businesses to even acknowledge, let alone address, said Wright, adding that it’s the same with the merry-go-round, where this exercise takes a number of forms.
For starters, it means active recruiting of younger professionals within the community to join the board and become involved with the carousel, she said, adding that a new generation of leadership must eventually take the reins — literally and figuratively — from the group that waged the campaign to save PTC 80 a quarter-century ago.
Succession planning also means developing and advancing a plan to hire a full-time executive director, said Costello, adding that the merry-go-round has a part-time operations manager (15 hours per week), and there are others who have held that position in the past.
Hiring a full-time manager would be a big step, one that would dramatically alter the budgetary picture, Wright told BusinessWest, but such a move is necessary given the current challenging climate. But the broad “transition,” as she called it, will nonetheless be difficult for the carousel’s older ‘friends.’
“We’ve all been here 25 years,” she said. “And we’re all somewhat reluctant to let anything happen to this merry-go-round. We all have a personal investment in this, and it’s a sizable investment.”
Succession planning is just part of the discussion when it comes to securing the long-term future of the merry-go-round, said Costello, adding that strategic planning initiatives involving the attraction, like those staged for businesses of all sizes, have focused on that acronym SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Clearly, the 20th-anniversary celebrations fall into that third category, she said, adding that the attraction’s leadership intends to use the many events and special programs on tap this year to introduce (or re-introduce) people to the carousel, with several goals in mind. These include everything from increasing direct ridership to booking more special events involving both children and adults; from recruiting more supporters to simply raising more funds.
“The 20th anniversary is a time to reflect on the many things that we’ve accomplished here and be proud of those accomplishments,” Costello said. “But it’s also an opportunity to re-connect with our supporters and make more friends.
“We recognize that, while our merry-go-round was the crown jewel at Mountain Park, the people who remember the park are older now,” she went on. “We understand that those people are not going to be able to share their memories of Mountain Park, so we need to attract a new generation of riders and supporters, and we’re cognizant of that as we make our plans for the future.”
As it did 25 years ago, the Friends group is reaching out to the community for donations, she said, adding that donors can become members of the merry-go-round’s Ring of Honor, a collection of brass plaques that bear the names of supporters ranging from Holyoke schoolchildren to businesses across all sectors.
Beyond fund-raising, one of the main goals moving forward is to maximize other revenue resources, said Costello, adding that the increase in ticket prices resulted in a roughly 70% increase in total revenue in 2012, “which made a huge difference.”
But long-term, the merry-go-round must be more successful with scheduling events, she continued, because they are both solid revenue generators and vehicles for generating future ridership and more get-togethers.
Overall, the ongoing assignment for the merry-go-round’s leadership team is to make the attraction — and downtown Holyoke in general — more of a true destination for families with children, said Jackowski, adding that there are many developments that are moving the city closer to that designation.
“We hope, by keeping this building as attractive as it is, and this park as attractive as it is, that the future looks bright,” he told BusinessWest. “We have our new neighbor, the computing center, we’re hopeful that the canal walk comes to fruition in the next five years, and there is more development down here that creates optimism. We want to be the focal point of all that.”

The Ride Stuff
John Hickey, who passed away in 2008, once wrote of carousels, “man, and high tech, has not yet devised a better way to illuminate the faces of children and parents with pure joy. The lights, the music, the kids dashing for the right horse, the clang of the starting bell, and the motion … you don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave every time around … and their parent will wave back. It never fails … it never will.”
PTC 80 has lived up to those words for more than eight decades, and especially in its new home in Holyoke’s downtown. Its first two decades there have been an extraordinary ride in every sense of that word.
And that’s why this anniversary will be a time to celebrate, but also a time to make sure that the ride will continue for decades to come.

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

Sections Travel and Tourism
Robert E. Barrett Fishway Offers Learning Experiences on a Grand Scale

Paul Ducheney

Paul Ducheney says the fishway was the culmination of years of study involving fish behavior, as well as considerable trial and error.

Paul Ducheney acknowledged that it’s difficult to look upon the elaborate, cutting-edge Frank E. Barrett Fishway and grasp that it was inspired by a net and a bucket.
But it was. Well, sort of.
As legend has it in Holyoke, in 1955, an Atlantic salmon was trying to make its way north on the Connecticut River, back to its birthplace to spawn, when it hit what was then a roadblock — the Holyoke Dam. The story goes that an engineer with what was then the Holyoke Water Power Co. caught the confused fish with said net, but then didn’t know what to do with it.
“So they said, ‘well, lets put it in a bucket of water and bring it up over the dam and dump it in,’” explained Ducheney, superintendent for Electric Production at the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department (HG&E), which acquired the dam in 2001. “And that was pretty much the start.”
Today’s Robert E. Barrett Fishway is the result of that ongoing story of how, through the use of exponentially more sophisticated means of fish attraction and larger buckets, HG&E has created a fishlift that has become a model for hydropower systems in this country and around the world.
The two-bucket system carries hundreds of thousands of anadromous fish — those born in fresh water (salmon, smelt, shad, striped bass, and sturgeon are common examples), and spend most of their life in the sea, but return to fresh water to spawn — over the dam each year so they continue their migratory journey north.
And while doing so, it provides powerful lessons to visitors, many of them schoolchildren on field trips, about these fish, hydropower, and how they can coexist.
This was the dream of Robert E. Barrett, former president of the Holyoke Water Power Co., whose imagination and perseverance made it reality.
The current fishway, opened in 1955, hosts more than 11,000 visitors a year between April and June, when the fish make their annual treks north, said Kate Sullivan, marketing coordinator for the HG&E, who told BusinessWest that the facility is still far too much of a best-kept secret from a tourism perspective, and that the utility is working to see that it loses that distinction.
“People are always amazed; they can’t believe this is in their own backyard,” said Sullivan. “And this was part of Robert Barrett’s mission, to make this an educational experience for kids, too.”
For this issue and its focus on travel and tourism, BusinessWest paid a visit to the fishway for an educational experience on a grand scale — in more ways than one.

Current Events

This illustration shows how the fishway

This illustration shows how the fishway enables migratory shad, Atlantic salmon, and other species to be collected, lifted in buckets over the dam, and released.
Illustration by Robert Oxenhorn

As she gave BusinessWest a tour of the facilities, Sullivan said the creation of such facilities to ferry fish over hydroelectric installations became a federal mandate for those seeking to hold licenses for such facilities decades ago, and there are many such lifts operating today.
But the fishway in Holyoke is somewhat unique because of the breadth and depth of the educational opportunities it provides and the large scale of the operation. Indeed, it is said to be most successful fishlift on the Atlantic coast in terms of the number of fish it ferries.
For visitors, it’s an opportunity to see how nature and modern technology can collaborate and create some powerful images.
Once through the entrance of the power station, visitors are led — on the right, past the giant HG&E turbines that harness the river’s power, and, on the left, past a series of historical pictures of the dam and older fish-assisting devices — out to the large outdoor observation deck. Standing high above the Connecticut River on the deck, they get a southern view of the river and the special canal, which shows the two ways fish enter the gathering area by way of a high-velocity water flow that attracts them to the main collection area just under the deck.
Visitors can then turn their attention to the north and experience the sights and sounds of water coming over a section of the dam, next to the lift structure. On the half-hour, a buzzer rings, signaling the start of the fishlift as its two large buckets begin carrying hundreds of fish and water more than 50 feet up and into an exit flume. This is the point where visitors then move inside to see the fish swim by the public viewing windows, giving them the feeling of being underwater with the fish.
Sullivan told BusinessWest that guided school-group tours take about an hour, which includes time for an activity.
“And this is very unique,” added Ducheney. “If you go to other lifts at other dams, they’re sort of separate from the powerhouse, so it’s pretty neat to see power generation integral with fish passage. It’s Holyoke’s best-kept secret.”
But that secret took some time to materialize.
Kate Sullivan

Kate Sullivan says grassroots efforts have helped increase visitorship at the fishway, which is open only a few months a year.

Dams have been built to harness hydropower for centuries, and attempts to help fish on their migratory journeys have been part and parcel to those efforts, but finding a system that works effectively has often been a frustrating matter of trial and considerable error, said Ducheney, noting that Holyoke’s history serves up some good examples.
Since 1794, several dams have been constructed at South Hadley Falls, where the river drops more than 40 feet, and in October 1849, a large ‘timber crib’ dam was constructed, preventing upstream fish migration.
In 1866, Massachusetts enacted legislation requiring the construction of devices to permit passage of shad and salmon, which resulted in the first wooden fish ladder in 1873 — a system designed to replicate nature — on the South Hadley side of the river. However, the ladder was off the beaten path of the fish’s instinctual travels, said Ducheney, and fish passage didn’t go well; in fact, not one fish used any of the early ladders.
In 1900, the current, much larger dam made from Vermont stone was built, and in 1949, HWP received a license from the Federal Power Commission for the Holyoke Hydroelectric Project. As part of the license, HWP was required to “construct, maintain, and operate fish-protection devices.”
Soon after, the aforementioned lucky Atlantic salmon was saved and lifted over the dam. The stiffer federal mandate had engineers building a different type of fish passage because others hadn’t worked. More research into fish behavior resulted in the reason why: fish needed to sense the sound and current of rushing water on their journey, where a dam now stood. The solution was to create a gathering area by way of a high-velocity water flow that attracts the fish to the main collection area just under the deck, and the first lift, using a bucket in 1955, was built under Robert Barrett’s direction — the first successful fishlift in the country.
“It’s very important for the ecosystem,” Ducheney noted. “From a regulatory basis, today we have a mandate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to operate the dam, and part of the conditions is to provide for safe and effective fish passage.”
Today, fish can continue upstream migration (if they’re not collected for hatcheries), where fishways further upstream at the smaller Turners Falls, Vernon, and Bellows Falls hydroelectric projects also provide a means to enhance passage for migrating species through a simpler elevated step process.

Hook, Line, and Sinker
When HG&E purchased the Holyoke Dam to operate the hydroelectric facilities and the Holyoke Canal System, more improvements were made to the fishlift, Ducheney explained to BusinessWest.
“It’s automated now, so it runs without operator intervention, and it’s tripled in size, so we can accommodate many more fish,” said Ducheney. “In fact, this lift has become a model for others, including the Susquehanna River and in Japan, China, Brazil, and European countries. Holyoke is pretty well-known for fish passage.”
And the fishlift is a first for something else that’s important.
“Literally, every fish is counted,” said Sullivan, noting that the Holyoke Dam is the first that fish encounter as they move north from Long Island Sound, so keeping accurate inventory is critical to tracking what happens to fish before and after they get to the Paper City.
The counters are biology students from Holyoke Community College who click a designated counter for each species of fish in a special viewing room just past the public viewing windows; its another form of educational experience of which Barrett would be proud.
Since the official counts started in 1965, the most prolific years for fish passage were in 1985 and 1992, at more than 1 million fish. In 2012, more than 500,000, mainly shad, were lifted over the dam.
Shad, said Ducheney, is a river herring, and while that may not sound delectable, he noted that shad is actually on the menu at New York’s famous Tavern on the Green restaurant at this time of year.
But restaurants aren’t the only interested parties when it comes to shad. The annual HG&E Shad Derby, one of the region’s largest fishing events, is held on two weekends in May and offers nearly 600 anglers of all ages the opportunity to win cash prizes and write plenty of their own fish stories as they enjoy the recreational benefits of the Connecticut River.
Marketing funds are tight, Sullivan said, so getting the word out about the fishway is a struggle. But thanks to HG&E’s newsletter to 18,000 customers, as well as more comprehensive grassroots efforts over the past couple of years to increase awareness of the facility, visitation has increased.
In just a short window of six weeks, from late April to mid-June, more than 11,000 visitors came through the fishlift last year, 2,000 more than in 2011, said Sullivan, noting that many of them are students from across the region.
The fishlift is open Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., until June 16, due to the spawning season each spring. Also open on Memorial Day, the facility offers visitors of all ages a unique combination of science through tourism, and a chance to tell a real fish story about the ones that got away — or at least further upstream.

Elizabeth Taras can be reached at  [email protected]

Columns Sections
Some On-the-money Advice on Grant Writing

By DONNA ROUNDY, CPA and CARLY CAVANAUGH, CPA

Donna Roundy, CPA

Donna Roundy, CPA

Carly Cavanaugh

Carly Cavanaugh

Grant money can be used in a number of applications, including the forming of new nonprofit organizations, startups, and the expansion or development of current initiatives and programs. However, securing grant money for your organization isn’t always as easy or straightforward as you may expect.
In a difficult and tumultuous economy, funding is increasingly difficult to secure. There is heightened competition for a diminishing grant pool, increased scrutiny by granting organizations, and limited resources to utilize when applying for grant dollars. Beyond the economic constraints involved, there are a number of additional issues to consider, including where to begin looking for grant money, how to apply, and how to determine which grants you may be eligible for.
However, despite the many challenges you may face when pursuing grant money, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In this article, we will explore ways to differentiate and enhance your application, resources you may use in order to pursue the best opportunities, and strategies that you can utilize in order to build cohesive and effective relationships with granting organizations. Further, we will discuss the importance of finding granting organizations whose goals and mission are aligned with that of your organization.
When applying for a grant, it is crucial to be informed about the granting organization and its expectations. Ensuring that both organizations are working toward similar goals is step one; carefully read the application and assess whether your missions align. A careful analysis of your own organization’s mission and long-term goals is imperative.
Also, determine if any of your professional or personal contacts have an affiliation or relationship with the grantor. Matt Blumenfeld, principal of Financial Development Agency, noted that “your board and close friends matter. While it is frequently the executive director and/or board chair who will officially submit the proposal, it is really important to figure out if your organization (volunteers or staff) has any existing relationships with an individual at the funding source.”
If you can locate and activate a ‘champion’ inside the funding entity that will help to distinguish your proposal from all of the other excellent applicants you’re competing with, you increase your likelihood of acquiring funding. Blumenfeld stressed how important building relationships with the grantor can be. Establishing a relationship can be helpful because they get to know your organization.
Collaboration among organizations seeking grant money is a unique way to set your organization apart and increase your chances of winning a grant. When two organizations with similar or complimentary missions connect, you can increase the population you are helping and may be able to offer a more complete service.
For example, if you are applying for a grant to decrease childhood obesity through after-school programs, you may consider teaming up with a local gym, a farmers market, or your local parks and recreation department. Pooling these resources not only more effectively accomplishes your goal but also creates a symbiotic relationship between entities that makes a difference in the community and increases your chances to be successful in winning your grant award.
Be mindful of deadlines. A significant amount of information is needed to complete an application. Working with your team to set internal deadlines before the grantors’ deadline is a great way to ensure enough time for review and rewrites.
Being honest and realistic about what you hope to achieve is essential. Let your passion stand out in your writing. You want the funder to share your excitement about what you plan to achieve. It is important that you understand and can clearly communicate your program objectives but also how you are going to make that dream a reality. Realistic expectations and budgets can make the difference. Having additional funding sources can be a deciding factor in your favor, as grantors prefer not to be the sole provider of funds.
Once you have finished writing your proposal and have performed an intense self-review, one strategy for success is to reach out to people outside of your company or organization. Often, professional colleagues have gone through the process and can provide insight into making your proposal successful. A proofreader can give you objective advice on how to be more clear and logical in your language, and can catch inconsistencies. Be open-minded to suggested changes.
Here in Western Mass., there are a number of resources available to you when searching for funding sources. One organization that lists private funders is the Foundation Center Directory (www.foundationcenter.org). You may also wish to contact the Community Foundation of Western Mass. for help with the technical aspect of grant writing and to request funding. If you are a smaller organization and do not have the personnel or time to put into writing a grant proposal, you may consider using a grant-writing company, such as the Financial Development Agency of Amherst. These types of agencies are there to help you along the way and provide guidance through this difficult process if your organization lacks the resources to devote to grant writing.
Securing grant money is a difficult and challenging process. However, with the appropriate amount of research, relationship building, and passion, it’s an achievable goal. The guidance of your peers and that of the granting organization can help you successfully navigate the grant-application process. Always be sure to leverage the resources available to you, ensure that your mission and that of the grantor are aligned, and, above all, pay strict attention to detail when preparing your grant application.
By keeping these strategies in mind, you will be well on your way to winning your bid.

Donna Roundy, CPA is a senior manager with the Holyoke-based accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. (MBK); [email protected]. Carly Cavanaugh, CPA is a senior associate with MBK; [email protected].

Sections Wealth Management
Critical for Effective Wealth Building

WealthBuildingSome watched the financial collapse in 2008 severely hamper their parents’ retirement plans. Others are simply working at jobs without pension benefits and doing the math.
For whatever reason, young people are starting to take a more serious look at their long-term financial future — a trend Patricia Grenier finds gratifying.
“For the first time in many years, I’m actually seeing young professionals — dual-income couples in their early 30s — coming in to talk about financial planning,” said Grenier, general partner with BRP/Grenier Financial Services in Springfield.
“That’s very surprising because, in the past, I always used to say, ‘I wish I could get them when they’re young, when time is on their side and they can ride the many ups and downs in the market.’ But now, they’re coming in at a much younger age, which gives us a lot more flexibility, a lot more time. It allows us to fix things and make adjustments as we go along.”
George Keady, senior member of the Keady Ford Montemagni Wealth Management Group at UBS Wealth Management in Springfield, makes a similar observation.
“The clear trend in the past five to seven years has been people starting younger,” he told BusinessWest, noting that some of that may be based on encouragement from their employers, many of which enroll them in self-funded retirement accounts almost immediately, and the employer must take the initiative to unenroll.
“Young people today assume they’ll have to take full responsibility for their retirement,” Keady said. “The era of defined benefits and pension payments is being reduced dramatically, so people are taking responsibility through 401(k) plans and savings.”
Doug Wheat agrees. “Certainly, many employers now automatically enroll new employees in 401(k) plans, and that has made a huge difference in what the participation rates are,” said the senior manager of Family Wealth Management in Holyoke. “While there may be more awareness, I think the automatic enrollment has made the most impact.”
While the world of the Internet age is definitely more educated on financial matters than it used to be, Grenier said many young professionals took lessons from the 2008 crash and what it did to the retirement savings of people they know, including their parents. Whatever the reason, they’re increasingly starting early to seek strategies to build and protect wealth.
“They’re more aware,” she said. “We have more knowledge 24/7; we know what’s going on. You can turn on the TV anytime and see exactly what’s happening in the world and in the economy. But there are strategies you need to apply that can’t be learned by turning on the TV. You have to sit down and plan.”

Planning Ahead

Pat Grenier

Pat Grenier says one of the biggest financial mistakes people make is underestimating how much money they will truly need down the road.

Some strategies are time-tested common sense, Grenier noted: save at least 10% toward retirement, prioritize spending and stay within one’s means, and do not build credit-card debt.
As for specific plans beyond the basics, when Grenier talks to younger investors, “they’re asking, ‘am I doing the right thing?’ even though retirement is 30 years down the road for them,” she told BusinessWest. “The lesson to be learned from this big downturn is you need to plan, you need to have a plan B, and if you think you have enough money, you don’t. You always need more money.”
To that end, she added, “I am seeing the younger ages more willing to plan and be flexible. And, unlike older clients, both spouses are usually involved in the decision-making process.”
Wheat said young professionals need to use the time they have to save for retirement, even though it seems so far down the road, “because they can take advantage of compounding interest by starting early. When you do that and build wealth slowly over time, the ultimate goal can be less daunting.
“If young people can target 10% to 15% of their take-home pay to put automatically in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan at work, it makes it relatively painless to contribute to retirement goals down the line,” he continued. “If they do that, it’s much easier to reach a retirement-savings goal which maintains their standard of living in retirement.”
That’s because, “in general, people underestimate how much they may need, and even when they’re contributing to a retirement plan, they often don’t contribute enough.”
If nothing else, Keady said, workers should maximize their company match if there is one, because every dollar makes a difference compounded over time. “If somebody starts putting $15 a week away in their 20s, in 40 years at 6%, they’d have $130,000.”
But that’s just the beginning, he said. “If they get started early, they can sit down and construct a real plan, not a one-size-fits-all solution. We have clients show up in their late 50s, and they’ve accumulated some money, but they really don’t totally comprehend what they need in the years ahead. People in their 40s who have accumulated some money have more options in the planning process.”
One reason young people might be starting on a savings and investment plan early is the cost of college tuition, which has far outpaced the general inflation rate over the past quarter-century.
“The young couples I’ve had this year are really concerned about the cost of education, what it will cost them to educate their children. Personally, I think college tuition is the next big bubble; it’s unsustainable,” Grenier said, noting that the average private college costs about $55,000 per year for tuition, room, and fees. “Even if their kids aren’t going to school for another 10 or 15 years, at today’s cost of college, there’s no way they’re going to be able to save enough money. Coming up with a strategy for them to alleviate the college load is really important.”
Wheat, who wrote about planning to pay for college in the May 6 issue of BusinessWest, agreed that it’s a daunting prospect. “Most people don’t have nearly enough to pay for college. The question becomes, how much debt are they willing to bear? Sometimes they take on more than they should — both college students and parents — and don’t think carefully about taking on more debt.”

Age-old Questions
For older individuals and couples, of course, expenses change as the retirement years loom.
“For people in their 50s and 60s,” Keady said, “those are the years where maybe tuition responsibilities are behind them, they’ve paid for their home, and now they’re thinking about themselves, thinking about retirement income, but also thinking about long-term care issues. That comes with longer life expectancy.”
What those people need to do, Wheat said, is to think about how much they need to maintain their standard of living, and then decide whether their goals are reasonable based on their expected income. If not, “are you going to cut back on your standard of living now or wait until retirement to do that, or do a little bit now and a little later?
“Most people, when they’re thinking about wealth building, really need to start with the basics of what they’re spending their money on and what their total expenses are,” he continued. “Are they spending money on things they really value, or are there places in their budget where they can cut back? For some people, creating artificial spending barriers is helpful for doing that. One of the classic ways to create an artificial spending barrier is to have part of your paycheck go directly into a savings account, where maybe it’s not as easily accessible and not as easily spent.”
Keady also suggested workers increase their withholding with every increase in their salary as another means to painlessly boost their savings. Still, Wheat said, most often the main issue is spending, not saving.
“It’s surprising how few people really know how much money they spend every year,” he told BusinessWest. “People know what their take-home pay is every week or every month, but they don’t necessarily think about it in terms of how much they’re spending for a whole year. The end result, for a lot of people, is spending small amounts of money on lots of things that are not that valuable to them, and it ends up being a lot of money — $20 on this, $25 on that, and $30 on this, and pretty soon it’s thousands of dollars every year.”
It’s an issue that knows no age limitations. “For younger people, the strategies are different because they’re in the saving mode and the spending mode; they might have young children,” Grenier said. “We know their expenses are going to be high, so we come up with a spending plan that suits their needs.”
Similarly, “if I have an older couple who are going to be retiring within the next few years, we’re going to try to find out what their expense needs are going to be and the sources of revenue coming in,” she explained. “If we can cover their fixed expenses, that’s strategy number one; then the rest of the money is gravy, the icing on the cake that allows them to keep up with inflation, allows them to do all those extra things, allows them to have peace of mind if the market drops, so they don’t have to panic.”
Still, the crash of 2008 has changed many experts’ minds about how to build an emergency fund. “Before the crash, we said, ‘make sure you have six months of living expenses.’ Now it’s one year, maybe two years of living expenses in investments they can easily get their hands on.”

Working for a Living
While younger professionals are still mapping out a career path, Wheat said, many older workers are realizing they’re going to have to work longer than they expected, and not just because of the impact 2008 had on many people’s savings.
“Over the past three or four years, Social Security has placed an incentive for people to delay accessing their Social Security benefits, keeping people in the workforce longer,” he said, noting that the traditional average retirement age of around 62-65 has slowly risen to around 65-67. “The fact is, people are living longer — 20 to 30 years after retirement.”
And, in many cases, Grenier said, “they’re outliving their money. It’s tough.”
Even the best-laid plans, for both younger and older investors, aren’t foolproof, which is why it’s important to continually reassess one’s goals and strategies, she added. “Planning is a dynamic process, and you have to make adjustments as life goes on, because life events happen. If you start early, you’ll have more options as to how to get there.”
Wheat said people often become overwhelmed by the prospect of changing course in their wealth-building plans, when actually making a change may not be so difficult. “Taking a half-hour or hour to make small changes can make a big difference.”
Fortunately, said Keady, whose group specializes in higher-net-worth individuals, today’s investors tend to be very engaged. “Clients are much more sophisticated and demanding. They want a comprehensive plan as they accumulate wealth. They expect more out of us than just investment advice. So we’ve got to adapt to changing client demands.”
Those demands, Grenier noted, are much easier to meet when clients start young, so they’re able to ride the inevitable ups and downs of the markets and take a long-term view.
“They can take more risks and look at alternative investments,” she said. “It’s exciting to me to see the younger people becoming more engaged.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Chamber Corners Departments

ACCGS
www.myonlinechamber.com
(413) 787-1555
• June 5: ACCGS June Business@Breakfast, 7:15-9 a.m., at the Richard B. Flynn Campus Union at Springfield College, 263 Alden St., Springfield. Guest speaker will be Kirk Smith, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Springfield, speaking on “A New Way of Doing the Business of a Nonprofit: The Importance of Being VIVID!” Salute to Richard Flynn for his service as president of Springfield College as he leaves the college after 14 years to enjoy retirement. Also to be saluted will be O&G Industries, celebrating 90 years in business. Chief Greeter: John Doleva, president and CEO of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Season Pass Sponsor: Freedom Credit Union; Season Sign Sponsor: FastSigns; Speaker Sponsor: Jewish Geriatric Services; Coffee Bar Sponsor: Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.; Table Sponsor: La Quinta Inn and Suites. Cost is $20 for members, $30 general admission. Tickets are available at www.myonlinechamber.com or by e-mailing Cecile Larose at [email protected].
• June 7: “Small Business and the Affordable Care Act — What’s Coming?” noon-1:30 p.m., at Ludlow Country Club, 1 Tony Lema Dr., Ludlow. A panel of experts will discuss the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the regional business community and economy at the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce (ERC5) Annual Meeting. Panelists will include Rick Lord, president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts; Peter Straley, president of Health New England; Steven Bradley, vice president of Government, Community Relations, and Public Affairs for Baystate Health; and David Leslie, controller for Glenmeadow Retirement Community. Cost is $20 for members, $30 general admission. Tickets are available at www.myonlinechamber.com or by e-mailing Cecile Larose at [email protected].
• June 12: Viva Las Chamber!, the June After-5, 5-7 p.m., at Chez Josef, 176 Shoemaker Lane, Agawam. Cost is $5 for members, $10 general admission. Tickets are available at www.myonlinechamber.com or by e-mailing Cecile Larose at [email protected].
• June 26: ACCGS Annual Meeting, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., at the Sheraton Springfield, 1 Monarch Place, Springfield. Featured speaker will be James T. Brett, president and CEO of the New England Council, New England’s voice of business on Capitol Hill. The chamber will also announce this year’s Richard J. Moriarty Citizen of the Year. Cost is $40 for members, $60 general admission. Tickets are available at www.myonlinechamber.com or by e-mailing Cecile Larose at [email protected].

CHICOPEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101
• May 22: Business After Hours, 5-7 p.m., at Berkshire Bank, 1339 Memorial Dr. in Chicopee. For more information, contact the chamber at (413) 594-2101 or e-mail [email protected].
• June 5: Annual Golf Tournament, 10 a.m. start, at Chicopee Country Club. Cost is $125 per golfer; $100 for tee sponsorship. Hole-in-one sponsors: Curry Honda-Curry Nissan and Teddy Bear Pools & Spas. Cart sponsor: Pilgrim Interiors Inc.

FRANKLIN COUNTY
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.franklincc.org
(413) 773-5463
• June 21: 94th Annual Meeting and Legislative Breakfast, 7:30-9 a.m. at Eaglebrook School in Deerfield. State representatives and senators have been invited to speak. Cost is $12 for FCCC members, $15 for non-members.

GREATER EASTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414
• June 13: Networking By Night Business Card Exchange, 5-7 p.m. Hosted by Freedom Credit Union and Wireless Zone, 422 Main St., Easthampton. Enjoy hors d’ouevres, host beer and wine, and door prizes. Tickets are $5 for members, $15 for future members.
• July 26: 29th Annual Golf Tournament, starting at 9 a.m., at Southampton Country Club. Reserve now before the event sells out. Cost is $400 per team. Tee sponsorships available for $75 and $125. Contact the chamber to sign up a team or arrange a tee sponsor, a raffle prize, or gift donation.

GREATER HOLYOKE
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.holycham.com
(413) 534-3376
• May 21: Chamber Business Connections, 5-7 p.m. Sponsored and hosted by Sovereign Consulting, 4 Open Square Way, Suite 307. If you are in the architecture, engineering, or development industry, please attend as the chamber’s guest. Cost is $10 for chamber members, $15 for non-members. Presented by the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors Committee. Join your friends and colleagues for this informal evening of networking.
• May 29: Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting, 5 p.m., at the Delaney House in Holyoke. Program followed by grand reception, including the Fifield Awards. Sponsored by the Greater Holyoke Chamber Corporate Leaders. Cocktails from 5 to 5:30; annual meeting, 5:30; dinner begins at 6. Admission: $30 in advance, $40 at the door. Open to the public. The chamber will also honor chamber member retirees Rosalie Deane, Holyoke Housing Authority; David Dupont, superintendent of Holyoke Public Schools; and John Kelley, People’s United Bank.
• June 19: Chamber Business Connections, 5-7 p.m., Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, 100 Bigelow St., Holyoke. Sponsored by Northeast IT Systems and Westfield Bank. If you are in the IT/computer equipment, software, or sales industry, please attend as the chamber’s guest. Cost is $10 for chamber members, $15 for non-members. Join your friends and colleagues for this informal evening of networking.
• June 20: Ask a Chamber Expert Series: Blueprint Reading, 8:30-10 a.m., Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce Conference Room, 177 High St., Holyoke. Cost: $10 for members, $25 for the public, includes a continental breakfast. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 to sign up, or register at holyokechamber.com.
• June 26: Summer Recognition Breakfast, 7:30-9 a.m., Yankee Pedlar, 1866 Northampton St., Holyoke. Cost: $20 for members, $25 for the public. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 to sign up, or register at holyokechamber.com.

MASSACHUSETTS
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
(413) 525-2506
• June 26: Manufacturing Matters Lunch Meeting, at Storrowton Tavern, West Springfield. Tickets are $30 for members, $40 for non-members. For more information on ticket sales, call (413) 525-2506 or e-mail [email protected].
• July 22: Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament, at Tekoa Country Club, Westfield. Shotgun start at 11 a.m. Cost is $100 per golfer. For more information on registration and sponsorship opportunities, call (413) 525-2506 or e-mail [email protected].
• Nov. 12: Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting & Awards Luncheon, 9 a.m., at the Double Tree, Westborough. For more information on ticket sales and sponsorship opportunities, contact the chamber office at (413) 525-2506 or e-mail [email protected]

GREATER NORTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900
• June 6: June Arrive @ 5, 5-7 p.m. Hosted and Sponsored by Florence Savings Bank, 85 Main St., Florence. Help us celebrate Florence Savings Bank’s 140th anniversary. Cost is $10 for members. RSVP at [email protected].

NORTHAMPTON AREA YOUNG PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY
www.thenayp.com
(413) 584-1900
• June 12: Nonprofit Board Fair, 5 p.m., at the  Smith College Conference Center. Part of NAYP’s mission is to promote leadership and volunteerism in the next generation of community leaders. The Nonprofit Board Fair will feature more than 20 organizations that are currently and actively seeking the next generation of leaders, and provide opportunities to showcase board, committee, and volunteering opportunities that exist at their nonprofits. The fair offers attendees a chance to hold discussions with more than 20 local nonprofits in one location. Sponsored by Gage-Wiley & Co. Inc. This event will take the place of NAYP’s June Networking Social, and is open for all community members at no cost.

PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S CHAMBER
www.professionalwomenschamber.com
(413) 755-1310
• June 6: Women of the Year Celebration Banquet, 5:30-8 p.m., at the Cedars Banquet Hall, 375 Island Pond Road, Springfield. Celebrate the accomplishments of Jean Deliso, president and owner of Deliso Financial and Insurance Services. Cost is $55 per person. For tickets, visit www.myonlinechamber.com or e-mail Cecile Larose at [email protected].

WEST OF THE RIVER
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.ourwrc.com
413-426-3880
• June 5: Wicked Wednesday, 5-7 p.m., at Lattitude. Wicked Wednesdays are monthly social events hosted by various businesses and restaurants. These events bring members and non-members together to socially network in a laid-back atmosphere. Free for vhamber members, $10 for non-members. This event is open to the public. Guests must pay at the door if they are non-members. For more information, contact the chamber office at (413) 426-3880 or e-mail [email protected].
• June 20: West of the River Chamber of Commerce Annual Breakfast Meeting, 7-9 a.m. at Chez Josef in Agawam. Tickets are $25 for members, $30 for non-members. Featured speaker: Mark Darren Gregor, business and career coach. Presenting sponsor: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino of New England. For more information on registration and sponsorship opportunities contact the chamber office at (413) 426-3880 or [email protected].
• August 19: West of the River Chamber of Commerce 10th Annual Golf Tournament, at Springfield Country Club, West Springfield. Cost is $125 per golfer. Presenting sponsor: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino of New England. For more information on registration and sponsorship opportunities, contact the chamber office at (413) 426-3880 or email [email protected].

GREATER WESTFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618
• June 10: Mayor’s Coffee Hour, 8-9 p.m., at the Arbors, 40 Court St., Westfield. Mayor Knapik will speak about all that is happening around Westfield and field questions. The event is free and open to the pubic. To register, call Pam Bussell at the chamber office at (413) 568-1618 or e-mail [email protected]
• June 12: June WestNet Connection, 5-7 p.m. Hosted by Westfield Bank of Southwick, 462 College Highway, Southwick. An evening of networking; don’t forget your business cards. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. Walk-ins are welcome. Tickets: $10 for members, $15 cash for non-members.  To register, call Pam Bussell at the chamber office at (413) 568-1618 or e-mail [email protected].
• June 14: June 2013 Chamber Breakfast, 7:15-9 a.m., at Shaker Farms Country Club, 866 Shaker Road, Westfield. Platinum Sponsor: First Niagara. Guest speaker: Steven Grossman, treasurer and receiver general. Anniversary salutes: the Carson Center, 50th; East Mountain Country Club, 50th. Tickets: $25 for members, $30 for non-members. To register, call Pam Bussell at the chamber office at (413) 568-1618 or email [email protected].

Bankruptcies Departments

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

Aviles, Gedalia
a/k/a Adams, Gedalia
a/k/a Santos, Gedalia
a/k/a Velez, Gedalia
20 Arnold St., Apt. 5
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/08/1

Campbell, Lillian
414 Newton St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/09/13

Cohen, Bruce A.
82 Hewitt St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/12/13

Fudjo, Awusi
16 Tow Path Lane
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/06/13

Goodchild, Kara L.
38A Yorktown Dr.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/12/13

Henrichon, Glen Allan
102 Garden St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/09/13

Hunt, Alan R.
23 Union St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/11/13

Im, Chong A.
129 Memorial Dr.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/09/13

Jimmo, Andrea Marie
106 Edbert St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/11/13

Kibbe, Clarence Ernest
Kibbe, Margaret Ellen
243 Circle Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/10/13

Kindschi, Cynthia L.
60 Warren Wright Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/09/13

King, Neil R.
1010 Williams St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/10/13

LaBianca, Lawrence M.
LaBianca, Diane P.
135 Meadow St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/09/13

Labonte, Kelly
a/k/a White, Kelly
Labonte, Nycole
2282 Main St.
Three Rivers, MA 01080
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/10/13

Lang, Whitney Charles
275 Chestnut St. #627
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/08/13

Lee, Tina Marie
a/k/a Moriarty, Tina Lee
66 Montgomery St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/11/13

Leger, Gary Michael
77 Valley View Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 04/11/13

Martel, James Michael
Martel, Claudine Nicole
a/k/a Talbot, Claudine N.
393 Silver St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7

Peacey, Scott W.
138 Piney Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/15/13

Pfeffer, Susan M.
a/k/a Perrault, Susan M.
P.O. Box 131
Gilbertville, MA 01031
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/06/13

Sicotte, Karen Jo
36 Sunset St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 04/15/13

Green Business Sections
Recent Developments Spur New Solar-energy Projects In Massachusetts

Nicholas Lata

Nicholas Lata

Massachusetts has experienced rapid growth in its solar-energy sector in recent years.  The total capacity generated by solar energy in Massachusetts has doubled in the last two years, reaching 105 megawatts (enough to power more than 15,000 homes) in 2012, a figure that is forecasted to quadruple by 2020.
Massachusetts’ renewable-energy sector now employs more than 64,000 people statewide (including nearly 10,000 in Western Mass.) and is projected to grow 15% per year. Massachusetts is now considered to be one of the best states in the country for solar development, a phenomenon driven largely by the state’s numerous initiatives to promote clean, renewable energy.
What follows is a rundown of these incentives and other issues involved with the development of solar-energy projects.

Massachusetts Incentives
The Massachusetts solar market is driven by a statutory requirement for utility companies to generate a percentage (7% in 2012) of their electricity from renewable sources. This figure is scheduled to rise 1% per year until 2030, when it will reach 25%.
Utility companies that fail to generate sufficient electricity from renewable sources are required to pay a fine equal to $600 per Megawatt hour (MWh) the utility company falls below the requirement. In lieu of paying this fine, utility companies may purchase solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) from solar developers. Eligible solar developers receive one SREC for every MWh of electricity generated. Solar developers seeking to earn SRECs must apply through the Mass. Department of Energy Resources, and certain restrictions apply.
In 2011, solar developers produced only one-third of the 78,577 SRECs demanded by utility companies. As a result, there was a ready market for SRECs, which traded at approximately $550 per credit. The proliferation of solar development caused the supply of SRECs to exceed demand in 2012. In response, most solar developers have begun entering into futures contracts with utility companies, assigning all SRECs earned in the future for approximately $200 to $250 per SREC.
Finally, for projects that produce more electricity than is consumed on site, Massachusetts provides two options for solar developers to market excess electricity. The first is simply to sell the excess electricity to the local utility at the ‘dump rate’ (about $0.035 cents per kilowatt hour, or kWh). The second is to apply for net metering with the state Department of Public Utilities (DPU). Net metering entitles the solar developer to sell the electricity at a slight discount below the market rate to electricity consumers, typically at a slight discount below the market rate, which is usually $0.12 to $0.15 per kWh for commercial consumers.
A recent DPU order added a few wrinkles to the process for qualifying for net metering, particularly where the property being developed consists of multiple parcels of land.

Federal Incentives
The federal government allows an investment-tax credit equal to 30% of the investment in qualifying solar-energy property. Combined with accelerated cost-recovery rules under the tax code applicable to solar-energy property, this may allow solar developers to operate tax-free for many years.
The issue for many solar developers is that they do not have sufficient income to monetize the full value of the credits and deductions. Many solar developers have sought to bring in outside investors with greater ‘tax appetites,’ which has led to the formation of joint ventures and other arrangements.

Development Issues
On its face, Massachusetts law exempts solar-energy systems from local property taxes. Recently, however, several bills have proposed carving large-scale commercial systems out of the exemption, particularly ground-mounted systems. Although none of the bills passed, the state Department of Revenue has taken the position that systems are exempt only if all of the electricity is used on site.
In response, many developers have either sought properties occupied by businesses with great energy needs (i.e. manufacturers) or negotiated payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements with towns in order to fix payments over the lives of projects. In addition, landowners selling or leasing land which is currently taxed as agricultural or forest property to solar developers may be subject to conveyance taxes, rollback taxes, and a town right of first refusal.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts law prevents towns from passing zoning bylaws that preclude the installation of solar-energy systems. Initially, developers interpreted this law to provide as-of-right siting for solar projects, which would allow projects to progress without the issuance of special permits.
Nevertheless, most towns have interpreted the as-of-right siting to apply only to small, roof-mounted systems, and have passed zoning bylaws that restrict the installation of larger, ground-mounted systems (especially systems exceeding 250 kW). Even where a friendly bylaw is in place, the permitting phase for large-scale projects generally takes at least six months.  Robinson Donovan is currently assisting a national solar developer in the development of a proposed 14-MW solar-energy system on 160 acres of land in Monson.

Project Economics
In general, the cost of installing a solar-energy system is based on its energy-generating capacity, ranging from under $3 per watt for large-scale commercial systems to as much as $6 per watt for smaller residential systems. Although the amount of electricity generated by solar-energy systems is relatively low compared to the investment required, projects can be profitable when incentives are taken into consideration.
When SREC values were at peak levels in 2011, solar projects frequently had rates of return in the range of four to six years. Returns have declined to where rates of return in the range of seven to nine years have become more realistic. Returns may be substantially lower for projects which fail to qualify for SRECs and/or net metering, as described above.
Nevertheless, with the Bay State’s commitment to renewable energy, it is likely that solar incentives are here to stay. Furthermore, advancements in solar-energy technology are simultaneously reducing costs and creating new applications.

Nicholas Lata is an associate with the Springfield-based law firm Robinson Donovan. He has been involved with several projects involving solar power; [email protected]; www.robinson-donovan.com

Briefcase Departments

Grants Awarded for Municipal Water Projects
BOSTON — The Mass. Water Pollution Abatement Trust (MWPAT) announced the approval of more than $6 million in need-based principal-forgiveness grants on 20 water infrastructure loans from across the state. “This money will deliver relief to communities struggling to finance key water projects that provide for the health and well-being of their citizens,” said state Treasurer Steven Grossman, who serves as the chairman of the MWPAT. “This funding frees up additional capital to go to other important local priorities, such as transportation infrastructure, education, and public safety.” The 20 grants, administered by the state and funded by the federal government, were awarded on a competitive basis to cities and towns most in need of financial assistance associated with loan payments to the MWPAT. Because of the reduction of loan principal funded by the grants, impacted communities will see their biannual loan payments reduced, freeing up capital for other local needs. The loans were originated to pay for municipal water projects such as upgrades to water-treatment facilities and stormwater and sewer improvement projects. “As Governor Patrick has so clearly pointed out, the Commonwealth has a significant and expensive backlog of water infrastructure projects to address in order to fully protect the environment and the public health,” said Commissioner Kenneth Kimmell of the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, who serves on the MWPAT board. “I am pleased to join our trust partners to provide this assistance to these communities to make their projects more affordable.” The $6 million in loan forgiveness is associated with a total original loan amount of $98 million, an overall principal reduction of 6%. “As the executive director of the trust, I am excited to announce $6 million in principal forgiveness to these communities that have shown a strong commitment to improving their water infrastructure,” said Sue Perez. “This award represents our third year providing principal forgiveness, and to date we have awarded roughly $33 million in principal forgiveness under this program.” The MWPAT lends financial assistance to the Commonwealth under the State Revolving Fund program by providing subsidized loans to cities and towns for water-infrastructure development. Since its establishment in 1989, the trust has loaned approximately $6 billion to improve and maintain the quality of water in the Commonwealth. An estimated 97% of Massachusetts’ citizens have benefited from the MWPAT’s financial assistance.

Massachusetts Economy Shows Positive Signs
BOSTON — After a period of lackluster economic growth, the Massachusetts economy sprang to life in the first three months of this year as hiring increased, incomes rose, and consumer spending rebounded, according to a new report by the University of Massachusetts and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The state’s economy grew at an annual rate of 3.9% between January and March, accelerating from 2.4% at the end of last year and outpacing the national economic growth rate of 2.5% during the three-month period. The state has recovered from the Great Recession faster than the nation as a whole, regaining as of January all the jobs lost in the downturn even as U.S. employment remains millions of jobs below the pre-recession peak. That has helped boost incomes here, which have been further supported by the strong stock market and rising home values, leading to stronger consumer spending. In fact, spending on discretionary purchases, including TVs, furniture, appliances, and motor vehicles, grew at an annual rate of 11.6%. The Massachusetts economy seems to have responded to the resolution of November’s elections and the ensuing budget battles and ‘fiscal cliff,’ but the UMass report noted that risks to the economy remain. Specifically, Massachusetts is particularly vulnerable to across-the-board sequestration cuts because the state receives billions annually in federal defense and research spending. The spending cuts, which took effect in March, have already led to slower hiring in many of the state’s key industries, including healthcare, higher education, and research and development.

Three Local Agencies Benefit from MMS Grants
WALTHAM — Three agencies in Western Mass. Are among 12 to receive grants from the Mass. Medical Society & Alliance Charitable Foundation as part of its 2013 allocations. The 12 grants total $160,000 and will help to support health and medical services that address vision care, healthy lifestyles, asthma reduction, prevention and screening services, and primary care for the uninsured. Eight agencies are receiving grants for the first time, while four have previously been awarded grants from the foundation. Community Health Programs of Great Barrington was awarded $35,000 to outfit a medical van with equipment to provide a mobile ophthalmic office that will offer patients of all ages comprehensive screening, diagnosis, and treatment for  eye diseases. The van will focus care on populations that are disadvantaged due to mobility, health, or economic reasons. The agency serves people throughout Berkshire County. Amherst Survival Center Free Medical Clinic was awarded $15,000 to hire a part-time clinic manager to oversee expansion of the agency’s operation.  The clinic serves more than 500 individuals in Hampshire and Franklin counties. This is the second grant to the agency from the foundation; it previously received $15,000 in 2011. Greater Westfield Free Health Services received $5,000 to support free health services for residents in the Westfield area who are uninsured or underinsured. Other recipients in Massachusetts include Heywood Hospital, Gardner, $20,000; UMass Memorial Medical Center, Worcester, $15,000; Girls Inc., Worcester, $10,000; Metro West Free Medical Program, Sudbury, $10,000; Children’s Health Care and Nutritional Goals through Education, Shrewsbury, $10,000; Restoring Sight International, West Roxbury, $15,000; the Family Van Program, Roxbury, $10,000; Upham’s Corner Health Center, Dorchester, $10,000; and the Sharewood Project, Malden, $5,000. The foundation is a supporting organization of the Mass. Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians, and the MMS Alliance is the organization of physicians’ spouses committed to promoting good health among the citizens of Massachusetts. The foundation’s mission is to support the charitable and educational activities of the society and alliance and address issues affecting the health, benefit, and welfare of the community.

Springfield Museums Receives Prestigious Accreditation
SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Museums recently announced that, after a two-year process, the nonprofit organization has received prestigious accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the highest national recognition for a museum or museum consortium. Of the nation’s estimated 17,500 museums, only about 1,000 (or 6%) are currently accredited. Accreditation places the Springfield Museums in the same class as institutions like the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. To be accredited signifies a museum meets or exceeds the standards and best practices of the museum field in all aspects of its operation — collections stewardship, community engagement, financial stability, governance, and security. Accreditation is often a prerequisite for, or integral to, loans of objects from other museums nationally and internationally, funding from many philanthropies and foundations, and support from local, municipal, and state government. Longtime private donors, elected officials, and museums staff and board members joined in a celebratory announcement at the Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts. According to Holly Smith-Bove, museums president, the museums draw a quarter-million visitors each year and add an estimated $28 million per year in tourism dollars into the region. The campus off State and Chestnut streets includes the Museum of Fine Arts, the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, the Springfield Science Museum, the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, the Museum of Springfield History, and the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden. Accredited museums encompass the breadth of America’s museums that celebrate and display all forms of art, history, historic sites, natural history, science and technology centers, public and botanic gardens, zoos, and aquariums.

Construction Industry Loses 6,000 Jobs in April
The U.S. construction industry lost 6,000 jobs in April, according to the May 3 employment report by the U.S. Department of Labor, but the unemployment rate decreased to 13.2%, down from 14.7% in March and 14.5% in April 2012. Year over year, the construction industry has added 154,000 jobs, or 1.7%. The decline in unemployment is likely due to seasonality rather than meaningful improvement in underlying construction labor market conditions. The non-residential building sector lost 4,800 jobs for the month, but has added 17,700, or 2.7%, over the last year. The residential building sector added 6,200 jobs in April and has added 14,400 jobs, or 2.5%, year over year. Non-residential specialty trade contractor employment fell by 11,100 jobs in April compared to March, but is still up by 39,000 jobs, or 1.9%, compared to the same time last year. Residential specialty trade contractors added 7,100 jobs for the month and have added 69,300 jobs, or 4.7%, since April 2012. Heavy and civil engineering construction employment slipped by 3,800 jobs in April, but is up by 13,400 jobs, or 1.5%, over the last 12 months. Across all industries, the nation added 165,000 jobs, with the private sector expanding by 176,000 jobs and the public sector shrinking by 11,000 jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, the national unemployment rate fell to 7.5% in April, down from 7.6% in March. “Today’s report highlights the fact that different forms of economic activity require different levels of confidence,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Leading the way in job creation in April were segments such as leisure/hospitality and retail trade. It doesn’t take that much confidence to take a short cruise or eat at a restaurant; however, it takes a considerable level of confidence to move forward with a significant construction project, and that level of confidence is still lacking. “The recent construction spending report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that both public and private nonresidential construction were down for the month, indicating that sustained momentum continues to elude the industry.” Today’s employment report reinforces the notion that sustained recovery remains elusive,” Basu said. “While non-residential construction employment is up by nearly 56,700 jobs on a year-over-year basis, the segment shed 15,900 positions in April. Further declines are possible in the near term given weak construction spending dynamics and the anticipated impacts of sequestration on construction starts.”

Court Dockets Departments

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

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT
Consumer Product Distributors Inc., d/b/a Polep Distribution Services v. C&T Beer and Wine Inc., d/b/a C-Scotts Beer-Wine-Deli, and Tony Saliba
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $16,599.25
Filed: 4/10/13

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Allard’s Farms Inc. v. Feed Commodities International Inc.
Allegation: Sale of contaminated feed product causing illness and death to plaintiff’s dairy cows after ingesting the product: $25,000+
Filed: 3/22/13

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Essroc Cement Corp. v. Connecticut Valley Block Co.
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $40,269.45
Filed: 4/4/13

Gerald Rosemond v. Sisters of Providence Health Systems
Allegation: Employee discrimination based on race and color: $40,192
Filed: 4/8/13

Ralph Smith v. Sun Roofing Inc. and Rich Rousakis
Allegation: Unlawful misclassification as an independent contractor: $35,000
Filed: 4/7/13

SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Constellation Newenergy Inc. v. Franklin Realty Partnerships, LLC
Allegation: Non-payment of energy services rendered and unjust enrichment: $17,125.17
Filed: 4/13/13

WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Constellation Newenergy Inc. v. The Carpet Warehouse Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment of energy services provided: $6,942.83
Filed: 4/1/13

Agenda Departments

ASBAC Golf Tournament
June 18: The Agawam Small Business Assistance Center will hold its annual 9-Hole Golf Tournament at the Agawam Country Club, 128 Southwick Street, Feeding Hills, with a noon shotgun start. This social outing supports ASBAC’s efforts to educate and promote the growth of area small businesses. The cost is $200 for a foursome or $50 per player, including dinner and prizes. The cost for dinner only is $25. To sign up, download the flyer and registration form at www.asbac.net.

BusinessWest
40 Under Forty
June 20: BusinessWest will present its seventh class of regional rising stars at the annual 40 Under Forty gala at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke. The event will feature music, lavish food stations, and introductions of the winners, who were profiled at length in the April 22 issue. Look for event details in upcoming issues of BusinessWest, or call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100 for more information.

Yidstock 2013
July 18-21: Yidstock 2013: The Festival of New Yiddish Music will bring the top names in klezmer to the stage at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. The Klezmer Conservatory Band will kick off Yidstock on July 18, and the festival will continue with Klezperanto and Margot Leverett & the Klezmer Mountain Boys; Brass Khazones: Steven Bernstein and Frank London; the Wholesale Klezmer Band; Golem; and the Yidstock All-Stars. The weekend will conclude with a massive jam, featuring a Yidstock All-Stars band with players from the weekend’s bands, under the musical directorship of Frank London. Among those all-stars are two of the greatest clarinetists in klezmer, Ilene Stahl of Klezperanto and Margot Leverett of the Klezmer Mountain Boys. A series of workshops and talks is also on the schedule, including a Yiddish folk-dance workshop led by internationally renowned Steve Weintraub; a lecture by Hankus Netsky, a founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band; an instrumental klezmer workshop; and a talk by author and music critic Seth Rogovoy. Back by popular demand, Yosi’s Kosher Falafel Tent will once again be serving an assortment of great food. For more information and to purchase tickets and festival passes, log onto yiddishbookcenter.org/yidstock or call (413) 256-4900.

Western Mass.
Business Expo 2013
Nov. 6: Planning is underway for the Western Mass. Business Expo 2013, a day-long business-to-business event to take place at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. This fall’s show, the third edition of the Expo, which is again being produced by BusinessWest, will feature more than 100 exhibitors, seminars on timely issues of the day, special Show Floor Theater presentations, breakfast and lunch programs, and the wrap-up Expo social, which has become a not-to-be-missed networking event. Details on specific programming will be printed in upcoming editions of BusinessWest and can also be found online at www.wmbexpo.com or www.businesswest.com. For more information on the event or to reserve booth space, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

Green Business Sections
‘Going Green’ Investment-tax Credits Have Many Benefits

Kristi Reale, CPA, CVA

Kristi Reale

‘Going green’ is a term that is rapidly gaining momentum in our economy. No longer an ideal for just the early adopters or the environmentally conscientious, going green, or investing in processes, equipment, and energy that are environmentally sustainable, is becoming a distinctive tool for many businesses.
Customers like to see that their products were made in a green environment, prospective employees see energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable workplaces as being preferable to the traditional workplace, and, more than anything, companies are choosing to do business in an environmentally sustainable way — a triple bottom line. And as the trend to go green becomes more and more prevalent in our economy, there is a lot of information suggesting that the fiscal and tax benefits of investing in green energy and equipment are significant. However, these benefits are not always clearly outlined in black and white. It’s important to understand how the credits work and, more importantly, how they apply to you and the investment that you’re planning to make.
Income-tax credits are direct reductions of a taxpayer’s income-tax liability. Generally, the investment-tax credit permits a reduction in tax liability based upon the taxpayer’s qualified investment in certain kinds of property placed in service during the taxable year. Thus, the investment credit is an incentive device, intended to stimulate the purchase or modernization of certain kinds of productive assets. This intent is achieved by permitting the purchaser or constructor of qualified property to reduce their federal income-tax liability by a percentage of the amount they spend for the assets. To this extent, it departs from the concept of a tax imposed on net income.
Form 3468 is used to claim the investment-tax credit. Investment-credit property is any depreciable or amortizable property that qualifies for the rehabilitation credit, energy credit, qualifying advanced coal project credit, qualifying gasification project credit, or qualifying advanced energy project credit. The energy credits are detailed below.
You cannot claim the credit for property that is:
• Used mainly outside the U.S.;
• Used by a governmental unit or foreign person or entity;
• Used by a tax-exempt organization unless the property is mainly used in an unrelated trade or business;
• Used for lodging or in the furnishing of lodging; or
• Property that has been expensed under section 179 accelerated depreciation.

Energy Credits
The business energy credit is either 10% or 30% of the basis of energy property placed in service during the tax year. To qualify as energy property, the property must meet the performance and quality standards that have been prescribed by regulations in effect at the time the property is acquired; be depreciable or amortizable property; be constructed, reconstructed, or erected by the taxpayer; or acquired for original use by the taxpayer.
Energy property that qualifies for the 30% credit is listed at Internal Revenue Code §48(a)(2)(A)(i), such as:
• Solar: the credit is equal to 30% of expenditures with no maximum credit and includes equipment that uses solar energy to generate electricity or heat and cool a structure.
• Fuel cells: the credit is equal to 30% of expenditures with no maximum credit; however, the credit is capped at $1,500 per 0.5 kilowatt of capacity.
• Small wind turbines: the credit is equal to 30% of expenditures with no maximum credit for small wind turbines placed in service after Dec. 31, 2008.
Other energy property qualifies for the 10% credit, such as:
• Geothermal systems: the credit is equal to 10% of expenditures with no maximum credit and includes geothermal equipment and heat pumps used to produce, distribute, or use energy derived from a geothermal deposit.
• Microturbines: the credit is equal to 10% of expenditures with no maximum credit; however, the credit is capped at $200 per kilowatt of capacity.
• Combined heat and power: the credit is equal to 10% of expenditures with no maximum credit, and applies to property placed in service after Oct. 3, 2008.
The basis of the energy property must be reduced by 50% of the energy credit determined. The business energy credit is not allowed for any portion of a property that also qualifies for the rehabilitation credit. Energy property that qualifies for a grant under §1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is not eligible for the energy credit for the tax year the grant is made or any subsequent tax year.

Renewable-energy Facilities
On Feb. 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The purpose of the act was to preserve and create jobs, promote economic recovery, and invest in infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits. Provisions in the recovery act allow for irrevocably electing an investment-tax credit under §48 rather than a production tax credit under §45 for specified renewable energy facilities.
These provisions allow the taxpayer to make an election to receive an income-tax credit calculated at 30% of the cost of the qualifying property in the year it is placed in service, as opposed to the production-tax credit claimed over a 10-year period based on the electricity produced.
To qualify, this property must be tangible personal property (not including a building or structural components); constructed, reconstructed, or acquired by a taxpayer; depreciable; and for original use. The taxpayer must make a separate, irrevocable election for each qualified investment-credit facility.

Credit Recapture
Recapture of either all or a portion of the credit applies if, in the first five years, the investment-tax-credit property is disposed of, the use of the property changes so it no longer qualifies, the business use of the property decreases so it no longer qualifies, leased property is returned to the lessor, or the taxpayer receives §1603 grant money for the property.
Some exceptions to the recapture are death of the taxpayer, transfer between spouses in a divorce under §1041, and a mere change in the form of business in which the property is retained as investment-credit property, and the taxpayer retains a substantial interest in the business.
In summary, these credits appear extremely favorable. However, there are limits that apply, such as passive-activity limitations for certain pass-thru entities, basis limitations, and the effect of alternative minimum taxes.
Before embarking on projects based solely on the benefits of credits, you should consult your tax advisor. n

Kristi A. Reale, CPA, CVA is a senior manager with the Holyoke-based public accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.; (413) 322-3533; [email protected]

Green Business Sections
Gold Circuit E-Cycling Carves Out a Unique Niche

Matt Pronovost

Matt Pronovost says the mission at Gold Circuit E-Cycling is controlled growth.

Matt Pronovost calls it his “museum wall.”
It’s little more than a few wooden shelves in the back of the room cluttered with what could only be described as electronic artifacts, especially if you’re under age 40. There are a few 8-track players in the mix, two movie projectors, a ’60s-era console television (a model that sat on the living room floor), a turntable, an old Atari system, several beta camcorders and transistor radios, and maybe a half-dozen rotary telephones of various colors and shapes.
And then, there are the computers, most with brand names and model numbers that achieved fame (or infamy) but disappeared from the landscape decades ago. A Commodore 64 sits between a Digital UT102 and a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III microcomputer. All three probably came out of the box 30 years ago, and they certainly look their age.
Pronovost said it takes something really unique to make the wall these days — like the old washboard and basin that came in a few weeks ago — partly due to the fact that he’s just about out of display space. But it’s mostly because he’d rather devote his time to the 99.9% of the stuff that comes in his door that he doesn’t even think about keeping.
This is what Gold Circuit E-Cycling is really all about.
This bin of circuit boards

This bin of circuit boards is one of many crowding the floor at Gold Circuit E-Cycling.

It’s a three-year old enterprise devoted to the recycling of computers and electronic equipment, an intriguing and fast-growing venture now occupying roughly half of one of the dozens of buildings comprising the sprawling Ludlow Mills complex. And it would seem to be the right business in the right place at the right time.
Indeed, as technology advances at a rate so rapid that it seems like a 40-inch flatscreen TV or five-year-old PC might soon be candidates for the museum wall (and there are more than a few of both on the floor waiting to be dismantled and recycled), area business owners and residents are increasingly challenged by the question of what to do with yesterday’s electronics as they acquire tomorrow’s products.
And Gold Circuit was created to provide an answer.
“Increasingly, people are realizing that there’s a solution to their problem, and it’s not the garbage can,” said Pronovost, adding that the business of e-cycling, as it’s called, is not exactly new, but it is picking up steam in the Northeast after migrating from the West Coast (as many trends do) a decade or so ago. “We’re here to help people make the responsible choice when it comes to unwanted electronic equipment.”
This venture, which recorded 25% growth in its first full year in business and will likely double its volume this year, collects or ‘demanufactures’ computers, electronics, batteries, home appliances, lawn equipment, metal furniture, copiers, printers, medical equipment, power tools, tires, fluorescent bulbs, styrofoam, pellet-fuel bags, and more, and sells the parts and material for scrap, thus keeping such items out of the waste stream.
There are charges for some products that are dropped off at the facility — anything with glass or refrigerant, for example, and tires as well — but many items can simply be left free of charge. And the company is making it even easier by staging collection events, such as one held recently at East Longmeadow High School.
Several dozen pieces of equipment arrive at the Gold Circuit facility each day, meaning the company is already essentially at full capacity in a 15,000-square-foot location it moved into just last year after outgrowing its original, 6,000-square-foot home in the Ludlow Mills complex.
When, how, and where the company next expands is a critical question, said Pronovost, adding that at present, the goal — and the challenge — is controlled, smart growth.
“I don’t want to grow too fast because expenses can really take off if you’re not careful,” he explained. “Like any business, we have to stay within ourselves and expand in a smart way.”
For this issue and its focus on green business, we look at a company that is certainly larger than the sum of all those parts amassed on the Gold Circuit floor.

Here’s the Breakdown
As he gave BusinessWest a tour of his facility, Pronovost stopped briefly at the museum wall — he tried, unsuccessfully, to find a date on that washboard — but quickly moved on to several large cardboard boxes, each destined for a vendor that would recycle the material in question and/or extricate the more valuable materials from them.
There was one for clean (as in unpainted) aluminum, a material that will fetch 65 cents a pound, he said, and another for ribbon wire, most of it from PCs. Three boxes contained low-grade, medium-grade, and high-grade circuit boards, respectively, designations that indicate that amount of gold in each one. And there were others for everything from transformers (separated by size) to plastic (one for lighter colors and one for black).
Meanwhile, there was a huge box filled with Styrofoam that was used to keep many of these products safe in their boxes. Sold by the bale, this material has a number of potential future uses, said Pronovost, especially as a composite material used in everything from furniture to picture frames.
How he came to be an expert on the future lives of such materials — and to create a business focused on e-cycling — is an intriguing story based on the most basic principles of entrepreneurship: seeing a need and creating a service to meet it.
“To be honest, I pretty much fell into this,” he explained, while retracing a career that started with work supporting those using computers, not breaking them down into component parts.
He started in what he called the “desktop-support field,” working at MassMutual for a few years before moving to a firm in Connecticut where he handled hardware setup and configuration work, as well as equipment auditing. As that company was repeatedly sold to larger corporations, with each transaction accompanied by a change in equipment, Pronovost segued into resale of the old hardware and, eventually, into selling parts and material for scrap, an operation carried out in-house.
“I had the right background to distinguish whether the parts I was looking at had value outside of scrap — whether they could be wholesaled out or brokered out, whether we tear it down or not tear it down,” he noted, adding that he quickly moved up the ranks within this division. “I made the transition from technician into sales, and was doing well with generating revenue.”
However, the Great Recession changed the equation quickly, he went on, adding that he was one of many to be laid off and forced to settle on a new career path. His was entrepreneurship.
“I decided to do it myself,” he said, with the ‘it’ being e-cycling. “I could see that there was a lot of opportunity, especially here in Western Mass.”
Elaborating, he said that there were, and still are, national outfits that would work with large corporations, such as MassMutual and Aetna, to help them scrap electronic equipment, but such operations historically haven’t had much interest in small businesses or residents. Meanwhile, some communities had collection operations (most of them pricey) at their transfer stations, he went on, but there was a definite void in service to large portions of the local market, and this was the need he set out to address with Gold Circuit.
He opened the doors in October 2010 and started small, handling the bulk of the work, including most of the demanufacturing, himself. Growth, he noted, has come through awareness — of both his company’s services and the need to seek out earth-friendly ways of dealing with yesterday’s electronic devices.

Hard-driving Entrepreneur

Employees at Gold Circuit

Employees at Gold Circuit ‘demanufacture’ a wide array of computers and electronics, with parts and materials sold as scrap.

Using an old laptop as an example, Pronovost said there is a good deal of scrap value in such devices, and his company has become adept at squeezing every cent from them.
“The screen, if it’s unbroken, can be torn down and reused,” he told BusinessWest. “The main [circuit] board probably has the most scrap value in that laptop, but the hard drive comes out to be shredded, and there’s a lithium battery — and right now, lithium is one of those commodities that’s sought after. Everything has scrap value.”
On the day BusinessWest visited the operation, there were several dozen old laptops awaiting their fate. A few of them might actually be sold to resellers if they are in very good condition, said Pronovost, as will the various pieces of equipment — computers, printers, VCRs, phones, air conditioners, toaster ovens, and more — crammed into the 20 or so large boxes on the shop floor.
This is a busy time of year — good weather inspires people to clean out their homes and businesses, apparently — and the floor is crowded with “inventory,” he went on, adding that Gold Circuit currently has several days worth of devices to demanufacture, and more comes in every day.
Pronovost has tweaked his original business plan slightly, but for the most part, the document’s projections for volume, or weight (400,000 pounds of material in 2012), revenue, growth, and employment have been on the money.
They were based on a number of factors, but mostly the incredibly fast pace of progress with computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment, and the market for used items — or the lack thereof, as the case may be.
Indeed, he said that PCs more than seven years old, and some much younger than that, have little value other than as scrap when their owners decide to upgrade. And the same is largely true for today’s televisions.
“The older ones, those 20 or 25 years old, are still working,” said Pronovost with a laugh. “The newer HD models … they don’t work. And when they break, you generally have to replace them.”
This phenomenon is one of the many factors contributing to the company’s impressive growth rate, he continued, adding that others include everything from a lack of competition locally to strong word-of-mouth referrals, to heightened efforts in recent years to market the company.
But much of it comes down to partnerships, or working with a host of constituencies, from individual communities to area colleges and universities, to encourage responsible disposal of unwanted electronic items.
When the town of Longmeadow opened its new high school, Gold Circuit took roughly 12,000 pounds of old computers and other electronic equipment from the old one free of charge, said Pronovost, adding that another example of such partnership-building was the recent collection drive at Holyoke Community College to benefit a scholarship fund at the school. Participants paid a small fee to organizers to have everything from an old cell phone to a garage-cluttering air conditioner hauled away by Gold Circuit.
Such events are win-win-wins, said Pronovost, noting that the scholarship fund grows, the planet benefits because such items don’t wind up in area landfills, and Gold Circuit gains some invaluable exposure.
Looking ahead, he said the company, which now has four full-time employees, and several part-timers, will continue its efforts to chart steady but controlled growth.

Parting Thoughts
Pronovost said his museum wall often generates interest and conversation.
“People will say, ‘holy smokes, a Commodore 64 — I had one of those back in…,’ and they start adding up in the years,” he said, adding quickly that, while nostalgia is fine, it’s not what this business is all about.
Instead, it’s about meeting a growing need among area businesses and communities, and a desire to do the right thing when it comes to disposing of old equipment, styrofoam, and more.
“People are learning … they’re understanding that you can’t just throw things like this away,” he said, sweeping his hand across the shop floor. “And we’ve become an answer to their problem.”

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

Health Care Sections
When Disaster Strikes, Caregivers Spring into Action

ResponseAs a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and associate director of its Center for Surgery and Public Health, Dr. Atul Gawande knows a little something about how hospitals respond to emergencies.
And as a staff writer for the New Yorker, he was able to share some of that insight after twin explosions rocked the Boston Marathon last month, killing three people almost instantly and injuring more than 250 others, all of whom survived.
“They had their limbs blown off, vital arteries severed, bones fractured, flesh torn open by shrapnel or scorched by the blasts’ heat,” he wrote the day after the terrorist attack. “Yet, it now appears that every one of the wounded alive when rescuers reached them will survive. Medically speaking, this is no small accomplishment.”
He noted that, within minutes, the runners’ first-aid tent was converted to a mass-casualty triage unit, and emergency medical teams mobilized en masse throughout Boston, resuscitated the injured, dispersed them to eight different hospitals, despite the chaos and snarled traffic.
“How did this happen?” he asked. “Something more significant occurred than professionals merely adhering to smart policies and procedures. What we saw unfold was the cultural legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks and all that has followed in the decade-plus since. We are not innocents anymore.”
Gawande’s words resonate with Brian Rust, manager of Security Services at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
“My philosophy has always been to steer away from the complexity of information-management systems and all this other stuff that sounds good when you get a degree in emergency preparedness,” he told BusinessWest. “Because, when something happens, people revert to what they know best. Doctors and nurses know how to take care of patients — two at a time, 10 at a time, it’s pretty much the same concept. That’s why hospitals respond so well to these events — they’re used to it. They deal with stressful situations all day long.”

In a disaster situation, says Jim Keefe (left, with Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Bob Moore),

In a disaster situation, says Jim Keefe (left, with Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Bob Moore), Holyoke Medical Center relies first on the accurate assessment and triage performed at the scene.

Gawande echoed that sentiment, noting that events in Boston happened too quickly for any well-practiced disaster plan to fall into place. Dr. Stanley Ashley, chief medical officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told his colleague that “I mostly let people do their jobs.” And without being called, scores of doctors, nurses, and other staff just showed up at the hospital, ready to do what they knew how to do.
Yet, no hospital downplays the importance of planning for a mass-casualty event and then playing out their strategies during periodic drills — a challenge, given that no two scenarios are the same.
“The response is based on the nature of the event,” said Dr. Niels Rathlev, chair of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Medical Center. “With what happened in Boston, clearly trauma surgeons would play a role at the forefront of managing these victims. With a flu pandemic, it would be people from infectious diseases. With a fire like in West, Texas, there would likely be trauma surgeons and toxicologists” because of the toxicity of the chemicals in the fertilizer plant.
But there are similarities in each case, too. Baystate, like most hospitals, follows an incident command system in which emergency responders, police, fire, and other officials set up a command center near the disaster site and communicate with area hospitals about how many patients each is able to accept. Baystate, being the region’s only level 1 trauma center, would receive the most critically injured.
“We implement what we call our disaster plan — all hands on deck,” Rathlev said, meaning no one is allowed to leave, and additional medical professionals are called in. It also means sending home patients who don’t need beds, canceling non-urgent procedures, and clearing out the emergency room as much as possible, moving patients already admitted there to other beds in the hospital.
James Keefe, vice president of Inpatient Services at Holyoke Medical Center, said that facility follows a similar policy of not letting anyone go home during a crisis.
Meanwhile, “we rely on a lot of accurate assessment and triaging outside the hospital at the scene, and we provide resources according to our availability here. If we were going to receive a large number of injured, we would say, ‘don’t start any more elective surgeries. We need the operating rooms empty; don’t put another case in there.’”
In short, once incident commanders let hospitals know how many patients need care, each hospital must make a call based on its capacity. “And every day is different for us,” Keefe said. “We could have the emergency room jammed with 100 patients that day, or it could be empty.”
Planning for a contingency no one can really predict — after all, who foresaw a tornado touching down in Springfield two years ago? — may seem like an impossible task, but hospital leaders say it’s necessary. One look at the TV on Patriots’ Day demonstrates why.

Prepare for the Worst
“Speaking of the tornado, we’ve had our fair share of practice here — I’ve been here four years, and we’ve had three major events,” Rathlev said, referring to the twister, last November’s natural gas explosion in downtown Springfield, and the freak October 2011 snowstorm, which in many ways was more challenging for the hospital than the other two scenarios. “Everyone lost power, and we were inundated with patients who came here needing to plug in ventilators, home oxygen, BiPAP and CPAP machines. They came here because we had backup power.”
Tom Lynch, Baystate’s chief of Security, explained that the hospital has an emergency-planning committee — a multidisciplinary team of employees that includes physicians, other providers, and support staff — and part of the team’s role is to examine all disaster possibilities and try to determine which are most likely to occur locally. “We take that as a starting plan.”
He explained that regulatory agencies dictate some of the things that all hospitals have to do, including the exercise of at least two drills per year. “One has to be a mass-casualty drill, and it has to be community-based; that is the key. The whole idea is to have the involvement of public safety. It’s important for people inside the hospital to know who the outside players are, and for people on the outside to know what we’re doing. It makes it easier to communicate.”
Afterward, Lynch explained, the various players break down what happened during the drill. “It’s helpful to have people sit down in a room, see what we’re doing, and make suggestions about ways to improve it.
“We try to take advantage of every opportunity to learn something, even if it’s outside of our scheduled drills,” he continued. “If a situation presents itself, we say, ‘if it had gone to the next level, how would we handle it?’”
He gave two examples of using real-world, non-crisis situations to simulate emergencies. One was the opening of Baystate’s MassMutual Wing. When patients were moved into that area, the hospital essentially ran the transition like an evacuation drill. “We had observers come in from the city and from the Department of Public Health,” he explained.
Then, when the hospital opened its new Emergency Department, it ran a similar drill when moving patients. “When we had to close in one area and open in another area, it’s a great opportunity for a planning session in real time,” Lynch said. “Again, we had people come in from the outside to evaluate how we did that. Those are the kinds of things that build confidence and skills and allow you to work with people in the community. Then, in the event of some kind of issue, we feel like we have a place to start, and we know what to do.”

Brian Rust

Brian Rust says strategies and drills are important, but most critical are caregivers who know what to do in a crisis.

Specific considerations come into play depending on the emergency, Rathlev said, from decontamination in the case of a chemical explosion to the possibility that some victims will arrive at the hospital on their own, not by ambulance. “You have to secure the perimeter of the hospital and not let anyone in unless you’re sure they’ve been adequately decontaminated. Once that happens, they can be brought in.”
Hospitals also must prepare for an inflow of concerned family members, as well as media members, who want to know what’s happening at every turn. “It’s all very systematic, and we practice it on a regular basis,” Keefe said. Those practices often take the form of drills that are unannounced to virtually all participants until they launch, followed by a debriefing and discussion period involving all stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the hospital is constantly monitoring medical trends as part of its planning, since an emergency can conceivably take the shape of a widespread pandemic, not just a localized disaster.
“Every year, we review our policies and procedures, and this year we predicted a tough flu season,” he said, noting that flu cases were showing up earlier than usual, in October, and vaccines were proving ineffective for more than one-third of recipients. The situation never became too serious, but hospitals were alert to the possibility.
“The Department of Public Health asked us to test our ability to handle an influx of flu patients, but we do that anyway,” Keefe said. “If we know we’re going to get a large flu population, we’d open up more beds to take care of the less-ill population; we’d look for alternate locations to treat patients besides the ED.”

Hope for the Best
Rust noted that Cooley Dickinson, like virtually all acute-care hospitals, conducts drills regularly. “We try to plan for everything and anything, but the bottom line is, no matter what it is, it’s sort of the same response. Whether we have a large number of patients come in with a contagious disease or a large number with burns, it’s all about caring for patients.”
Rathlev noted that the larger hospitals in Boston quickly admitted around 25 or 30 patients each, and emergency response personnel worked very quickly to distribute all the injured who needed hospital care — about 140 in all. That kind of response is a reflection of both intensive planning and, as Gawande noted in the New Yorker, caregivers who simply knew what had to be done.
“There is a reason to have plans. That’s important. But that’s not the most important thing; to me, it’s having people who are available,” Rust said, noting that it can be a challenge to mobilize the entire hospital at once, and Cooley Dickinson is working on improving its notification system to manage it more quickly. Still, said all those BusinessWest spoke with, once word of a crisis gets out, medical professionals don’t need much prodding.
“People in our line of business would be rushing to help,” Keefe said. “We would have a hard time keeping people away; they’d want to come. I’m sure Mass General had people coming out of the woodwork — interns, residents, fellows … they want to help. Those guys deal with traumas on a daily basis.”
Rathlev isn’t surprised that disaster management has a high profile right now. “Since 9/11, interest in the public eye has somewhat waned, and now it’s obviously back at the forefront, given what happened in Boston,” he said. “I think it’s very important to teach young medical students and doctors how to manage these situations. The fire in West, Texas, the bombings in Boston … they could happen anywhere. That’s one lesson you have to come away with.”
People often have a short attention span regarding disaster preparedness, Rust agreed, expecting public interest, just like after 9/11, to spike and then fade — except for the people, like him, who are tasked with thinking about it all the time.
“Like everything else, it’s important right after something happens, and then the interest begins to wane and takes a back seat,” he said. “Everyone is so busy dealing with today and yesterday that it can be a challenge getting people thinking about tomorrow.”
But considering the various possibilities is critical, he continued, because large-scale events can occur at any moment. “We know something could happen. Whether it’s a bus tipping over or a dramatic terrorist attack, there’s no longer that shock.”
And, as Boston demonstrated, it won’t be shocking when doctors, nurses, and other caregivers spring into action immediately.
“It’s really that simple,” Rust said. “When we look at the concept of emergency preparedness, it goes back to what you do every day — just on a larger scale. It comes down to having people who know what to do every day, so they can do it any day.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Departments Real Estate

The following real estate transactions (latest avail­able) were compiled by Banker & Tradesman and are published as they were received. Only transactions exceeding $115,000 are listed. Buyer and seller fields contain only the first name listed on the deed.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

ASHFIELD

157 Steady Lane
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Roger E. Howes
Seller: John D. Kendrick
Date: 04/08/13

BERNARDSTON

42 South St.
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $213,000
Buyer: William J. McGuirk
Seller: Linda A. Morey
Date: 04/19/13

BUCKLAND

73 Avery Road
Buckland, MA 01338
Amount: $460,000
Buyer: Maya Nayak
Seller: Katherine E. Brown
Date: 04/16/13

CHARLEMONT

49 Harmony Hts.
Charlemont, MA 01339
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Timothy Flaherty
Seller: Ronald M. Mansi
Date: 04/17/13

CONWAY

238 Warger Road
Conway, MA 01341
Amount: $511,649
Buyer: Greenfield Savings Bank
Seller: Wesley B. Rowe
Date: 04/11/13

GREENFIELD

14 Cypress St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $127,000
Buyer: William W. Schmidt
Seller: Bruce W. Vought
Date: 04/11/13

324 Deerfield St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: 151 Federla Street LLC
Seller: Irene Dejackome
Date: 04/19/13

59 Fort Square
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: Edward F. Maeder
Seller: Welenc IRT
Date: 04/08/13

46 French King Hwy.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $145,900
Buyer: Teresa Conti
Seller: Stephen R. McCabe
Date: 04/16/13

19 Highland Ave.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Tom Friedman
Seller: Stephen Sears LT
Date: 04/08/13

142 Oakland St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Tsetan D. Thingdutsang
Seller: John D. Petrin
Date: 04/19/13

12 Prospect St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $118,500
Buyer: Stephen Poulin
Seller: Eaton FT
Date: 04/12/13

Route 2
Greenfield, MA 01376
Amount: $850,000
Buyer: Franklin Land Trust Inc.
Seller: Wesley B. Rowe
Date: 04/10/13

27 Severance St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $154,000
Buyer: Eddie Martinez
Seller: James R. Knightly
Date: 04/12/13

ORANGE

150 Fountain St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $139,900
Buyer: Aaron T. Gannon
Seller: Adam M. Bouchard
Date: 04/17/13

SUNDERLAND

166 Old Amherst Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $218,500
Buyer: Valley Building Co. Inc.
Seller: Brandts, Cynthia L., (Estate)
Date: 04/19/13

47 South Main St.
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Kenneth D. Arnold
Seller: Hubbard, Eleanor S., (Estate)
Date: 04/19/13

HAMPDEN COUNTY

AGAWAM

55 Annable St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $126,000
Buyer: MHFA
Seller: Joao Oliveira
Date: 04/08/13

70 Arbor Lane
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $231,100
Buyer: Gerard R. Boucher
Seller: Lynn A. Gelineau
Date: 04/10/13

25 Barbara Lane
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $237,500
Buyer: Mark A. Jamgochian
Seller: Martina Pocaterra
Date: 04/12/13

75 Fox Farm Road
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $174,100
Buyer: Johnathan S. Torres
Seller: Gifford, Donald L., (Estate)
Date: 04/19/13

22 Plumtree Way
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Fallah Razzak
Seller: Anthony D. Feato
Date: 04/09/13

181 Shoemaker Lane
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $165,274
Buyer: USA HUD
Seller: Bank Of America
Date: 04/10/13

BRIMFIELD

15 Oakwood Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $149,836
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Theresa R. Willoughby
Date: 04/10/13

CHICOPEE

11 Burton St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Mark A. Haryasz
Seller: Patricia Cossaboom
Date: 04/10/13

378 Dale St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Melissa K. Wackerbarth
Seller: Jeanne M. Boutelle
Date: 04/19/13

340 Grove St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $213,000
Buyer: Sarah B. Fisher
Seller: Revampit LLC
Date: 04/19/13

7 Lucretia Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $134,000
Buyer: Trudiann Pinnock
Seller: Brian Kolodziej
Date: 04/12/13

7 Montello Road
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Joshua H. Laplante
Seller: Robert W. Landry
Date: 04/17/13

EAST LONGMEADOW

28 Brookhaven Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Wayne D. Michaelian
Seller: John F. Ascioti
Date: 04/11/13

37 Holland Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $121,500
Buyer: FHLM
Seller: David Evans
Date: 04/12/13

49 Holy Cross Circle
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Ian A. Bracht
Seller: David G. Bareiss
Date: 04/12/13

14 Lombard Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Paige Moylan
Seller: Eileen A. Verteramo
Date: 04/11/13

HAMPDEN

188 Glendale Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $167,500
Buyer: Kristin J. Desilets
Seller: Rosella Whitney
Date: 04/12/13

10 Glendale View Dr.
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $950,000
Buyer: Barbara A. Greco
Seller: James W. Hoerle
Date: 04/12/13

39 Mill Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $267,500
Buyer: Jonathan Caruana
Seller: Scott W. Brubach
Date: 04/12/13

HOLYOKE

14 Bray Park Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $156,000
Buyer: Miguel A. Carrasquillo
Seller: Marie D. Worwood
Date: 04/19/13

18 Canby St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $123,500
Buyer: Alexandra T. Samets
Seller: Adam R. Methot
Date: 04/17/13

38 Claren Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Sara A. Hayden
Seller: Donald L. Kooken
Date: 04/16/13

1 Country Club Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $2,500,000
Buyer: D Hotel & Suites Inc.
Seller: Holyoke Hotels LLC
Date: 04/16/13

1035 Homestead Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $132,500
Buyer: John A. Tart
Seller: Clifford W. Laraway
Date: 04/17/13

44 Laurel St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Clara W. James
Seller: Cynthia A. Teel
Date: 04/12/13

193 Sargeant St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Gary W. Keefe
Seller: Nancy L. Osgood
Date: 04/11/13

5 Woodbridge St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $242,000
Buyer: Joseph F. Griffin
Seller: Joseph F. Griffin
Date: 04/16/13

LONGMEADOW

187 Cedar Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $222,900
Buyer: Gloyd D. Kimball
Seller: Freya J. Wolk
Date: 04/12/13

24 Fairfield Terrace
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: David J. Lecours
Seller: Jane F. Woodward
Date: 04/17/13

83 Laurel St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $399,000
Buyer: Amy Monroe
Seller: Annie L. Zomermaand
Date: 04/08/13

69 South Park Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $237,900
Buyer: Bruce D. Haskins
Seller: Lisa K. Reilly
Date: 04/19/13

119 Thresher Road
Longmeadow, MA 01036
Amount: $259,900
Buyer: Nicholas M. Tangredi
Seller: Mark G. Pearlman
Date: 04/10/13

LUDLOW

69 Aldo Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $202,500
Buyer: Mark C. Howe
Seller: Scotty L. Afonso
Date: 04/16/13

Center St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $123,000
Buyer: Jason C. Martins
Seller: Rosewood Meadows Inc.
Date: 04/17/13

253 Colonial Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Helder D. Santos
Seller: Peter C. & Joyce A. Shaw RT
Date: 04/16/13

107 Coolidge Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $117,500
Buyer: Ryan N. Merceri
Seller: Joseph A. Barbieri
Date: 04/08/13

19 Daisy Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $320,000
Buyer: Elin M. Zapka
Seller: Ireneu Freitas
Date: 04/11/13

N/A
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $251,000
Seller: Jason C. Martins
Date: 04/17/13

181 Pine St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $148,000
Buyer: Nicole K. Santos
Seller: Robert A. Sousa
Date: 04/19/13

MONSON

15 Hospital Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Beesh Sports LLC
Seller: River Hollow LLC
Date: 04/17/13

14 Main St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $140,900
Buyer: James P. Moran
Seller: Marc A. Pelissier
Date: 04/10/13

313 Silver St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Christian M. Gainer
Seller: Thomas O. Moore
Date: 04/16/13

29 Stafford Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $134,000
Buyer: Richard H. Casler
Seller: Debra M. Jean
Date: 04/17/13

26 Stebbins Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $321,000
Buyer: David E. Cote
Seller: John P. Lanucha
Date: 04/19/13

PALMER

2090 Oak St.
Palmer, MA 01080
Amount: $152,794
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Arlene L. Domey
Date: 04/17/13

PALMER

6 Caroline Circle
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Henry C. Lomba
Seller: Jeffrey P. Harris
Date: 04/08/13

2002 Overlook Dr.
Palmer, MA 01080
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Louis A. Brodeur
Seller: Valtelhas, Sophie J., (Estate)
Date: 04/12/13

SPRINGFIELD

307 Arcadia Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $127,500
Buyer: Donna Dunn
Seller: Barrett, Beatrice V., (Estate)
Date: 04/19/13

97 Avery St. #134
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Franklyn Torres
Seller: Elaine C. Graham
Date: 04/19/13
1333 Boston Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Salvatore A. Scibelli
Seller: Salvatore A. Scibelli
Date: 04/11/13

5 Caldwell Place
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Nationstar Mortgage LLC
Seller: Priscilla M. Schissel
Date: 04/17/13

149 Cooley St.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $180,159
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Kim M. Santinello
Date: 04/12/13

34 Dewey St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $132,910
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Richard Cruz
Date: 04/11/13

180 Eddy St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $139,500
Buyer: Cynthia A. Galas
Seller: Pawel Misniakiewicz
Date: 04/08/13

117 El Paso St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Jessie L. Scribner
Seller: Foster, Jane M., (Estate)
Date: 04/16/13

56 Felicia St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $135,000
Buyer: Jose D. Pacheco
Seller: Henry C. Lomba
Date: 04/08/13

22 Hobart St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Nationstar Mortgage LLC
Seller: Priscilla M. Schissel
Date: 04/17/13

23 Mary St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $117,500
Buyer: John M. Friedson
Seller: Maroney RE Investments
Date: 04/16/13

56 Old Farm Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Kevin D. McCabe
Seller: Brian R. Wallace
Date: 04/17/13

43 Ontario St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Luis A. Torres
Seller: Jorge L. Colon
Date: 04/16/13

100 Perkins St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $151,250
Buyer: Connor M. Knightly
Seller: Julia A. Cross
Date: 04/17/13

82 Pheasant Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $146,000
Buyer: Dawn M. Triplett
Seller: Peter J. Ngige-Njenga
Date: 04/10/13

286 Sumner Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $187,500
Buyer: Nicole T. Baker
Seller: Surtan Reatly LLP
Date: 04/19/13

42 Sylvan St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $117,500
Buyer: Carmen Rodriguez
Seller: Harvey Skerker
Date: 04/09/13

23 Tanglewood Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Eric Podgurski
Seller: Thomas J. Bonavita
Date: 04/18/13

115 Wrenwood St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $176,464
Buyer: JP Morgan Chase Bank
Seller: John C. Eggleston
Date: 04/16/13

SOUTHWICK

16 Fenton Dr.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: B&E Aricraft Component
Seller: Igor Babinov
Date: 04/10/13

1 Gillette Ave.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $179,000
Buyer: Donald Nooney
Seller: Carole A. Hardick
Date: 04/10/13

26 Lakeview St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Kelly J. Duncan
Seller: FHLM
Date: 04/12/13

TOLLAND

305 Moreau Road
Tolland, MA 01034
Amount: $2,100,000
Buyer: Shores Museum Tower QPRT
Seller: Kenneth M. Poovey
Date: 04/16/13

54 Ona Road
Tolland, MA 01034
Amount: $700,000
Buyer: Shores Museum Tower QPRT
Seller: Kenneth M. Poovey
Date: 04/16/13

WALES

32 Holland Road
Wales, MA 01081
Amount: $187,900
Buyer: David W. Fish
Seller: Steven W. Beyor
Date: 04/17/13

WEST SPRINGFIELD

30 Crestview Dr.
Amount: $207,500
Buyer: Stephen L. Holstrom
Seller: Gene J. Galuszka
Date: 04/16/13

258 Main St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: St.Francis De Salles LLC
Seller: Robert J. Schroeter
Date: 04/18/13

60 Mulcahy Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $497,000
Buyer: Robert J. Brodeur
Seller: Francis Wheeler Construction Inc.
Date: 04/08/13

117 Sibley Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $179,000
Buyer: Paul R. Dickey
Seller: Kenneth G. Aubrey
Date: 04/11/13

59 Sprague St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Maria N. Ayala
Seller: RAK Realty Assocs. LLC
Date: 04/12/13

12 Therese Marie Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Svc Net Inc.
Seller: Robert J. Brodeur
Date: 04/08/13

23 Thomas Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Vyacheslav Dadayev
Seller: David H. Stahelski
Date: 04/19/13

115 York St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: York Street Realty LLC
Seller: Orograin Bakeries Sales
Date: 04/18/13

WESTFIELD

215 Bates Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Richard A. Grabiec
Seller: John A. Wallace
Date: 04/18/13

63 Crane Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $174,000
Buyer: Jeremy J. Moquin
Seller: Ryan W. Taylor
Date: 04/18/13

44 Darby Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Jorge M. Delgado
Seller: Kathleen Puza
Date: 04/17/13

240 Eastwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $279,900
Buyer: Lisa A. Saltmarsh
Seller: Daniel Lech
Date: 04/12/13

75 Eastwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Michael F. Messier
Seller: Kevin Malloy
Date: 04/12/13

28 Fowler Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Geoffrey C. Oldmixon
Seller: Maureen Wrobleski
Date: 04/17/13

88 Glenwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Andrew J. Martindell
Seller: Corriveau, Joanne F., (Estate)
Date: 04/09/13

59 Llewellyn Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Alexandra M. Tremblay
Seller: Stanley W. Stevens
Date: 04/17/13

10 Madison St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $128,900
Buyer: Charles Michaud
Seller: Bertrand, Patricia A., (Estate)
Date: 04/12/13

20 Oak Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $199,500
Buyer: Paul J. Boulanger
Seller: Genovese, Samuel C., (Estate)
Date: 04/10/13

155 Paper Mill Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Seth Lamountain
Seller: Kimberly L. Gibney
Date: 04/16/13

155 Root Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $284,000
Buyer: Kevin W. Connolly
Seller: April J. Williams
Date: 04/11/13

49 Rosedell Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Michele L. Cardinal
Seller: Rosetta Grimm
Date: 04/16/13

130 Shaker Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Marc J. Longtin
Seller: Catherine C. Berry
Date: 04/19/13

37 Summit Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $202,900
Buyer: Orlando Huertas
Seller: Daniel H. Knights
Date: 04/19/13

22 Wood Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $182,000
Buyer: Lance M. Phillips
Seller: Douglas E. Allard
Date: 04/12/13

124 Woodcliff Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $409,000
Buyer: Timothy J. Williams
Seller: Carolyn M. Hartt
Date: 04/11/13

WILBRAHAM

9 Brookside Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Patricia E. Perkins
Seller: Warren E. Newhouse
Date: 04/19/13

1 McIntosh Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $314,250
Buyer: Brian P. O’Connor
Seller: Paul A. Schreiner
Date: 04/16/13

28 Red Bridge Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $289,900
Buyer: Jeff W. Farnsworth
Seller: Robert G. Table
Date: 04/16/13

10 Stonington Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Peter D. Martins
Seller: Silo Farm Assocs. LLC
Date: 04/09/13

635 Stony Hill Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Masada RT
Seller: Michael J. Sambor
Date: 04/10/13

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

AMHERST

48 Dana St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $367,500
Buyer: George D. Nichols
Seller: Patrick E. Brock
Date: 04/17/13

186 Harkness Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $425,000
Buyer: Servicenet Inc.
Seller: James J. Bess
Date: 04/17/13

112 Heatherstone Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Elizabeth B. Parker
Seller: Ivan S. Chow
Date: 04/12/13

241 Pomeroy Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $338,000
Buyer: Courtney J. Platt
Seller: George, John W., (Estate)
Date: 04/12/13

BELCHERTOWN

72 Amherst Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: Marian T. Goodhin
Seller: Brenda M. Martin
Date: 04/09/13

17 Bay Path Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $199,300
Buyer: Vincent J. Tran
Seller: US Bank NA
Date: 04/17/13

6 Country Lane
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $168,500
Buyer: Gregg D. Wing
Seller: Stephen F. George
Date: 04/12/13

48 Fletcher Ave.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $335,000
Buyer: Keith M. Frazier
Seller: Michael F. Kobus
Date: 04/12/13

Gold St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $500,000
Buyer: Town Of Belchertown
Seller: Kestrel Land Trust
Date: 04/10/13

154 Gold St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Tina L. Agustine
Seller: Tony P. Hill
Date: 04/18/13

62 Mountain View Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Kyle Savage
Seller: Delfina M. Stevens
Date: 04/12/13

40 Oakridge Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $334,900
Buyer: Allan A. Ruell
Date: 04/17/13

CUMMINGTON

3 Bates Road
Cummington, MA 01026
Amount: $157,593
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: William Lefleur
Date: 04/16/13

EASTHAMPTON

8 Arthur St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: James Duffy
Seller: Chad E. Gagne
Date: 04/10/13

21 Exeter St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Lindsay R. Barron
Seller: Stanley J. Kwiecinski
Date: 04/12/13

7 Lownds Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Steven M. Bilodeau
Seller: Joshua D. Driver
Date: 04/08/13

O’Neil St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Easthampton Savings Bank
Seller: Autumn Props. LLC
Date: 04/19/13

36 Strong St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $242,000
Buyer: Todd T. Dineen
Seller: John B. Anz
Date: 04/18/13

3 Summit Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $146,000
Buyer: Lori J. Carrier
Seller: Pauline E. Carrier
Date: 04/12/13

65 Taft Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Sage C. McKnight
Seller: Patricia H. Nadeau
Date: 04/17/13

36 Ward Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $175,400
Buyer: Eve S. Eichwald
Seller: Julie A. Laurence
Date: 04/08/13

14 Water Lane
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Katie M. Spaulding
Seller: Wilfred J. Buri
Date: 04/08/13

40 West St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Bialy Dom Farm LLC
Seller: Diane K. Grzeskowicz
Date: 04/08/13

GRANBY

7 Greenmeadow Lane
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $150,100
Buyer: Kevin R. Gendreau
Seller: FNMA
Date: 04/16/13

16 Hubbard Dr.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Donald L. Derosia
Seller: Country Bank for Savings
Date: 04/10/13

129 South St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Kevin J. Whitacre
Seller: Gail D. Cosby
Date: 04/16/13

HATFIELD

115 Elm St.
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Florence M. Brisbois
Seller: Hatfield Village LLC
Date: 04/19/13

HUNTINGTON

4 Birchwood Dr.
Huntington, MA 01050
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Kevin A. Perrier
Seller: Crown Meadow Corp.
Date: 04/12/13

NORTHAMPTON

77 Emerson Way
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $449,000
Seller: Wright Builders Inc.
Date: 04/16/13

Emerson Way
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Hampshire Property Mgmt. Group
Seller: Emerson Way LLC
Date: 04/18/13

28 Fox Farms Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $362,000
Buyer: Christopher R. Amato
Seller: Patrick J. Mahoney
Date: 04/16/13

Front St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $282,500
Buyer: Colin J. Hoyt
Seller: Shel Horowitz
Date: 04/08/13

43 Rick Dr.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $232,000
Buyer: Bonnie S. May
Seller: Renee A. Ceno
Date: 04/19/13

49 Woodlawn Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $415,000
Buyer: Joel W. Wolfe
Seller: Margaret S. Zelljadt
Date: 04/19/13

SOUTH HADLEY

35 Applewood Lane
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Michael F. Kobus
Seller: Tonelli, Raymond J., (Estate)
Date: 04/12/13

45 Ashton Lane
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: John B. Anz
Seller: Joni H. Zubi
Date: 04/18/13

7 Cedar Rdg
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Joshua D. Driver
Seller: Elizabeth Mazzocco
Date: 04/08/13

46 East Red Bridge Lane
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $409,000
Buyer: David W. Scruggs
Seller: J. N. Duquette & Son Construction
Date: 04/19/13

42 Hillside Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Nicholas Dube
Seller: Adam Boyer
Date: 04/12/13

60 Pearl St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $221,568
Buyer: Robert A. Carrier
Seller: Alexander Desrosiers
Date: 04/17/13

36 Red Bridge Lane
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $428,900
Buyer: Scott G. Newman
Seller: J. N. Duquette & Son Construction
Date: 04/12/13

SOUTHAMPTON

67 Gllbert Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $380,000
Buyer: Joy A. Tailefer
Seller: Czelusniak Custom Homes
Date: 04/18/13

WARE

43 Moriarty Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $232,000
Buyer: Melissa L. Kratovil
Seller: Lisa M. Kerr
Date: 04/19/13

Features
East Longmeadow Is on a Growth Trajectory

ELongmeadow Community ProfilesMAPRobyn Macdonald says East Longmeadow’s popularity is growing, offering untold opportunities for businesses. “It’s a sleepy little town that’s starting to wake up,” said the town’s Planning, Zoning Board, and Conservation director.
George Kingston agrees, and says business plays an integral role in the economy. “When people think of East Longmeadow, they think of big houses with big lawns. We have those, but there are also important parts of the town that most people never see,” said the chair of the Planning Board. “And the voters recognize the importance of business and industry in supporting the tax base.”
The town has proved attractive to residential and industrial developers in recent years and has experienced a fair amount of growth. But its bucolic atmosphere, which dates back to its agrarian days, still remains, and even its Industrial Garden District and Deer Park Industrial Center are places where manicured lawns and flower gardens belie the scope of the commercial and manufacturing ventures there.
However, most businesses are small and located in and around the town center on Shaker Road and North Main Street. “The majority are owned by people who either live in East Longmeadow or live very close to town,” Kingston noted, adding that the wide variety of shops and services allow residents to get most of their needs met without leaving the town’s 13 square miles.
“We have grocery stores, 10 dental practices, Hampden County Physicians, a lot of salons, and many after-school programs, so people who move here can have a house on a half-acre and only travel a half-mile to take their kids to dancing or gymnastics. If they want to go out at night, they have their choice of 25 restaurants.

Robyn Macdonald

Robyn Macdonald calls East Longmeadow a sleepy little town that’s starting to wake up.

“And people can also work here,” he said, naming firms with sizeable workforces, such as Lenox, which is undergoing an expansion.
Maintaining the town’s pastoral atmosphere is something officials have put time and thought into, so a bylaw prohibits big-box stores. “Retail establishments are limited to 65,000 square feet, and drive-thrus with products for human consumption are not allowed,” Macdonald said.
But homes and building lots are in high demand, and a number of residential developments are under construction or have been built over the past two years. So, although the town felt the effects of the downturn in the economy that began in 2008, “businesses and residents dug in their heels and rode out the storm. And now, you can absolutely see that things are improving,” Macdonald said. “East Longmeadow is an up-and-coming community with a lot of new families. And the school system is tops, which is why a lot of people move here.”

Business Opportunities
Center Square was built in recent years on property that had sat vacant for decades. Today, it is filled with a variety of shops and eateries which include upscale clothing stores, Spoleto’s restaurant, Starbucks, Sleepy’s, a dry cleaner, a card shop, and a law office on the second floor of one of the retail strips. There is also a Walgreens and a Webster Bank branch on the property, which boasts Rocky’s Ace Hardware as an anchor.
Macdonald said the first permits for the complex were taken out in 2004, but it took several years before construction began. “But it has really enhanced the center,” she told BusinessWest, adding that Bentley’s Bistro had just opened within walking distance on North Main Street.
Kingston concurs. “There is lots of parking, and businesses in Center Square are doing really well,” he said. In addition, La Fiorentina bakery and Zonin’s deli opened in late December after renovations on a building a short distance down the street were complete. Their main locations are in Springfield, but Kingston said the town’s uniform tax rate makes moving or expanding to East Longmeadow an attractive prospect.
Large commercial ventures are concentrated in the Industrial Garden District, made up of 530 acres that were former cornfields. When it was originally designed, town officials wanted to preserve its natural beauty, so parcels must be at least 75,000 square feet and must have 250 feet of frontage for every 75,000 square feet they occupy.
The area has been marketed in conjunction with Westmass Area Development Corp., and about 30 companies and commercial manufacturers have settled there, including Milton Bradley (Hasbro), Rubbermaid, and Suddekor.
But although a decided effort has been made to separate commercial and residential areas, there are a number of older industries located along what used to be the railroad, including a wood-processing plant and a large metal-fabrication facility. “But newer industry goes into the industrial park,” Kingston said, adding that there are a few vacant buildings ready for tenants, along with vacant land, particularly in the Deer Park area, which was added to the complex in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
The Arbors Kids recently received Planning Board approval to locate in the district, and will offer day and after-school care as well as a summer camp. “They will take over a vacant industrial building and have plans to renovate the interior; it’s a large facility and will have athletic fields and a swimming pool,” Macdonald said.
In addition to the space in the industrial park, Kingston noted, there are a few other parcels that town officials would like see developed. However, they have some challenges, including the former Package Machinery plant on Chestnut Street, made up of 41 acres and a large building, as well as the former Community Feed property, which contains about three acres and is within walking distance of Center Square. “It has great potential and is a great place for retail development. But there could be traffic problems in the morning and evening.”
He told BusinessWest that the town has also seen an “explosion” of home-based businesses over the past five years, which many people are operating via the Internet. “They don’t have any impact on our residential areas, but are everywhere in town,” he said. “And there are a number of businesses who do things like pet grooming at other people’s homes.”

Steady Evolution
After World War II, the Speight Brothers built hundreds of Cape Cod-style homes in an area that ran from Blackman’s Pond on North Main Street to the town center. The development brought young families to the community, which is a trend that continues today.
However, Macdonald would like to see more affordable-housing complexes built for seniors who have lived in town all their lives, but no longer need large homes.
Some developers have moved to fill the niche. Bluebird Estates, an independent-living facility, was built in 2006 on 11 acres of former Bluebird Acres farmland on the west side of Parker Street. And a new assisted-living facility is being built on acreage across the street. “East Longmeadow Senior Living is under construction,” Macdonald said, adding that its 89,287 square feet will contain 71 assisted-living suites and 32 for people with memory loss.
In addition, the Fields at Chestnut, built by Roulier Associates as an over-55 community with plans for 120 high-end, single family dwellings, is in its final building phase.
“But we still need more projects to satisfy the empty-nester needs of people 55 and over,” Macdonald said, adding that three farm properties for sale in residential districts could be developed.
Younger homeowners have more choices, and the demand for expansive homes has spurred recent growth. “We have seen a pickup in housing builds — there are several new subdivisions started and others being talked about,” Kingston said. “There are also plans for new houses on fill-in lots where homeowners divided their land and are putting up a second house.”

George Kingston

George Kingston says the Industrial Garden District boasts about 30 companies, including Suddekor.

In addition, builders are purchasing older homes and renovating them. “A lot of people want to live in East Longmeadow, and land values are very high here,” Kingston said. “So, despite the housing slump, we have seen continued growth.”
The new Bella Vista Estates development contains 30 35,000-square-foot single-family lots with plans to build five-bedroom homes on each of them.
There is also a three-year-old development on Black Dog Lane, where six of the seven lots have been sold. “And Wisteria Lane, with six lots off of Somers Road, was just approved,” Macdonald said.
In addition, six lots on Winterberry Lane in the northeast corner of town have also been  approved. “They are large and range from 25,000 to 40,000 square feet,” she noted. “The town continues to grow, as people love to live in East Longmeadow.”
While the homes being built are expensive, the town has become more upscale, added Kingston, and the new developments reflect an ongoing movement.

Bright Outlook
Macdonald said companies looking to move or expand should consider East Longmeadow. “We still have plenty of room, and the opportunities here are great. The town welcomes large and small businesses, and our Industrial Garden District is a beautiful area which is easy to get to from I-91.”
But despite continuing growth, officials say, East Longmeadow will not lose its beauty. “We work hard in planning to try to maintain a good quality of life, but also make sure we have tax generation so we can fund our schools, infrastructure, and services,” Kingston said. “And East Longmeadow has achieved a pretty good balance.”

Departments People on the Move

The Springfield-based law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. recently announced the addition of associate attorneys:

Thomas Reidy

Thomas Reidy

Spencer Stone

Spencer Stone

Kathryn Crouss

Kathryn Crouss

• Thomas Reidy is a member of the litigation and real estate and zoning teams, and earned his J.D. from Western New England University (WNEU) School of Law and his BA from Assumption College;
• Spencer Stone is a member of the bankruptcy and reorganization, real estate, and business and corporate departments. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from WNEU School of Law and his BA from UMass Amherst; and
• Kathryn Crouss is a member of the litigation department and earned her JD cum laude from WNEU School of Law and her BA from Allegheny College.
•••••
Ronald Maniscalco, P.E., recently joined Tighe & Bond Inc. as a Senior Electrical Engineer in the Westfield-based firm’s expanding electrical and mechanical engineering team. With more than 20 years of experience in electrical and telecommunication design for both public and private clients, Maniscalco’s expertise includes designing, specifying, and reviewing power, lighting, technology, instrumentation, lightning protection, fire detection, security, video surveillance, as well as telephone and instrumentation systems. He also provides electrical energy-efficiency studies and electrical-services surveys to establish equipment condition and National Electrical Code compliance, and electrical arc flash analyses with overcurrent protective-device coordination studies are a specialty. Maniscalco earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is a registered professional electrical engineer in 12 states.  He is a member of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, the Illuminate Engineering Society, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
•••••
Louis Abbate, retiring President and CEO of Willie Ross School for the Deaf, was presented the Member Emeritus Award by the Mass. Assoc. of 766 Approved Private Schools. The award was created in 2004 by the association’s directors to recognize those individuals who have made outstanding contributions of voluntary leadership and professional expertise to the association and its member schools. Abbate began his tenure at Willie Ross as executive director in 1985 and is responsible for numerous capital improvements and the development of the Partnership Campus with East Longmeadow, a model program that has been recognized throughout the nation. Abbate will retire in June.

Education Sections
A Crash Course in the Options Available to Parents and Students

Doug Wheat

Doug Wheat

By any measure, college is expensive and continues to rise rapidly in cost. How to pay for college is one of the biggest financial concerns for today’s parents, no matter what their income level.
The parents’ concern is enhanced by the uncertainty of college costs and financial aid, the complexity of the application process, and the desire to provide the best education for their children. With a long-term plan that carefully balances savings, borrowing, and college selection, parents can help their children reach their dreams without bankrupting their retirement.
According to the College Board, for the 2012-13 school year, the average cost of one year of tuition, fees, room, and board was $17,860 for public in-state students and $39,518 for nonprofit private college students. These costs were up nearly 4% from the previous year. Locally, a year at UMass Amherst costs $23,000, Springfield College costs $46,000, and Amherst College costs $59,000.
The cost of college is having an increasing impact on the selection of schools. According to the Higher Education Research Institute, in 2012, 43% of college freshman reported that the cost of attending their school was important, compared to only 31% of college freshman in 2004. In addition, 13% of students were unable to afford their first-choice college.
An important tool now available on most colleges’ websites is called the ‘net price calculator.’ These calculators let you have an idea of the type of cost you might be expected to pay at specific schools depending on your specific financial resources.
There are six primary sources of funding for college: grants and scholarships, federal tax credits and grants, current income, savings, student borrowing, and parent borrowing. A comprehensive plan for school financing will try to balance these factors along with school selection to match a student with the school that fits his or her education goals.

Grants and Scholarships
While we all would like our children to get grants and scholarships to cover the full cost of college, the truth is that these will cover only a portion of the costs for most students. The amount a student receives from a college will depend on a combination of the financial resources of the family, the resources of the college, and the attractiveness of the student to the college.
Some students may qualify for ‘merit’ assistance from the college based on their academic or other accomplishments. But most students will require need-based financial aid. Need-based assistance starts with the expected family contribution (EFC), which is calculated after filing the federal FAFSA aid form and CSS Profile aid form for a small group of elite colleges.
The need for financial aid will be determined by subtracting the expected family contribution from the total cost of attending a college. If the cost of attendance is more than the EFC, the student will qualify for need-based financial aid, which may come in the form of grants, scholarships, loans, and work study. The more desirable a student is to the college, the more likely their need-based ‘aid package’ will be more desirable.
Since the EFC is the primary driver of financial aid, parents may be able to increase their award by understanding how the EFC is calculated. For example, some parents that have control of their income may try to decrease their income in the year leading up to college in attempt to show they need additional aid. Parents may also want to understand how colleges use student and parental assets in the aid formulas to determine their best college funding strategy, which will be discussed below.

Federal Tax Credits and Grants
There are two federal tax credits available to help pay for college, but you can only utilize one at a time. The Federal Opportunity Tax Credit provides a $2,500 credit per student for the first four years of post-secondary school. This credit (formerly known as the Hope Credit) is phased out for higher income levels (married couples with incomes above $160,000).
The Lifetime Learning Credit is worth up to $2,000 as a credit per tax return toward education expenses.
Pell grants are available for up to $5,550 per student. Students with family incomes up to $60,000 are eligible to apply, but the majority of awards go to students with family incomes below $30,000.

Current Income
Most parents would find it impossible to pay $60,000 per year out of current income. But by cutting corners and planning in advance, it is possible for many families to make a significant contribution to college costs from their current paychecks, which will help them avoid having to rely overly on debt.
One strategy parents might consider is to pay off their mortgage and other debt before their children get to college. This strategy will help free up cash flow while the student is in school, help the family adjust to living on a smaller budget, and reduce the amount of savings that might be used to determine the expected family contribution.
Income does have the largest impact on the financial-aid calculations that will ultimately determine the expected family contribution. The more you make, the less likely your children will qualify for need-based financial assistance (even if you have little savings).

Savings
Many parents have mixed emotions about saving for college. On one hand, they know college is expensive and they will be expected to pay a portion of the costs. On the other hand, they do not want to spend years saving for college only to have the financial-aid package from the prospective school reduced as a direct result of their savings.
To parents, it is not fair that they receive less aid for saving than a family of similar means that was not as prudent.
While the issue of fairness may nag at parents, it is important for them to take the long view and make sure they position themselves and their children in the best possible financial circumstances. To do this, the number-one priority for parents is to fully fund their retirement. Parents need to understand how much they need to save annually to pay for their retirement. The second priority for parents is to start saving early in the most advantageous types of accounts.
A 529 college savings account is generally the best savings vehicle, since these plans allow for tax-free growth and are considered parental assets for financial-aid purposes. The federal aid formula expects parents to contribute 5.6% of their savings to college costs each year. Accounts in the name of a student, such as UTMA accounts, are assessed by the federal aid formula at 20% per year. Since there is no tax deduction in Massachusetts for contributions to a 529 plan, residents are free to choose the plans with the lowest cost and best investment selections. In Connecticut, the state tax deduction for contributions means residents will want to participate in the CHET 529 plan.
Some people may find saving for college in a Roth IRA account advantageous if they are already fully funding their retirement in 401(k) or 403(b) plans. A Roth account’s advantages include being excluded from the federal aid formula, the ability to take penalty-free withdrawals to pay for qualified higher education, and withdrawals do not count as income. But withdrawals may limit your ability to take the Lifetime Learning tax credit, and there are rules that apply to withdrawals if the account is newer than five years old and you are under age 59 1/2. Be sure you understand all of the rules about Roth accounts and be sure your retirement savings are adequate before you use them as a college savings vehicle.
While few people can afford to save the $1,100 per month per child for 18 years that it takes to accumulate adequate savings for an elite private school, most people can save something each month. Undoubtedly, you will be glad to have saved as much as you can when it comes time to start paying college tuition bills.

Student Borrowing
Student borrowing has become one of the main sources of college funding as the cost of school has increased and the amount of government assistance has decreased. Dependent students may currently borrow up to $27,000 in subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans for four years of school. The interest rate for subsidized loans is currently 3.4%, and the interest does not start accruing until after the student graduates. Subsidized loans are available based on need. Unsubsidized loans have a current interest rate of 6.8%, and the interest starts accruing immediately.
Students should also check with their college to see if Perkins loans are available if they have extraordinary financial need.
Borrowing beyond the direct student lending amount of $27,000 will in most cases require parents to co-sign the loans and may come with higher interest rates. Many personal financial advisors recommend that students try to limit their loans to the amount that they can personally take out in order to make sure they do not enter the workforce straddled by too much debt. It is important to remember that student loans can rarely be discharged through bankruptcy, and this debt will stay with a student until it is paid off.

Parent Borrowing
Parents have the ability to take Parent Plus loans or private loans to make up the difference between the cost of attendance and any financial aid their son or daughter receives from a college.
Even if students qualify for need-based assistance, some schools may not have the ability or willingness to provide that aid (each school reports on the percentage of students whose ‘need’ is met). Filling a missing gap often results in parents being asked to take out huge college loans. Taking out tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to pay for college may not be a wise financial step for parents.
It is important for parents to make sure they do not jeopardize their own retirement by paying for the college education of their children. Parents can inadvertently do this by taking out a large amount of debt only to see their ability to pay it back diminished by losing a job. For older parents, they might consider that they do not have many earning years left to pay back the loan if the parents are in their 60s when their children graduate from college.
For people with equity in their homes, taking out a home-equity loan to pay for school is currently attractive since home-equity rates are currently lower than the 7.9% Parents Plus loan interest rate. But before mortgaging their house to pay for college, parents should carefully consider their ability to pay off the debt. Maybe a less expensive school is a better choice for the family.

Know Your Contribution Limits
It is possible for nearly every person who wants a college degree to find a combination of school selection and financial resources that will allow them to attend. Today many families prefer to find less expensive options for attending school to help make college affordable. For example, a year of classes at Holyoke Community College costs less than $2,500, and you can attend Westfield State University for less than $10,000 per year if you live at home.
Regardless of where your children ultimately decide to attend college, be prepared to know what you can afford to contribute from tax credits, savings, income, and loans. By knowing the limits of your contributions up front, it can help guide the selection of the best colleges academically and financially for your children.

Doug Wheat, CFP is manager of Wealth Management for Holyoke-based Meyers Brothers Kalicka; (413) 536-8510; www.fwmgt.com

Education Sections
College Admissions Officials Face Host of New Challenges

Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly says a student’s grades and the difficulty of his or her high-school courses are the best predictors of college success.

Despite popular opinion that one exists, there is simply no magic formula for colleges and universities to use when deciding which candidates to admit, decline, or put on a waiting list.
Instead, there is a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis, say those who work in the field known as enrollment management, and, in the end, a search for the right fit, however it is defined.
“It takes a combination of good grades and good courses, and the best predictor of future success is the degree of success students have had in high school,” said Kevin Kelly, director of undergraduate admissions at UMass Amherst. “We are looking for students who have taken the most challenging curriculum they can find and done well with it.”
And though this usually grueling process has always been like this, some changes in the procedures, coupled with a rise in student and parental expectations, have transformed the climate and created an atmosphere that is challenging for everyone involved.
Teens in high school are exploring options as early as their freshman year because taking the right courses can result in acceptance at a number of quality institutions.
“We’re seeing more and more families who start the process earlier,” said Charles Pollack, vice president for enrollment management at Western New England University. “We’re giving tours to high-school freshmen and holding open houses for juniors.”
Mary DeAngelo, director of enrollment at Springfield College, concurs. She said the school recently held seven programs for juniors in three weeks. “The whole process is accelerated as students narrow down the schools they’re interested in,” she noted.
However, even when students who have been accepted attend open houses, they are asking questions about job opportunities, internships, and experiential learning that will lead to employment at the end of their college career. “Families are much more proactive in seeking out information,” she went on.
During a recent event at Springfield College, a panel of graduates addressed potential freshmen and spoke about what the school had done to help them transition into careers. “Believe me, people were paying attention,” DeAngelo told BusinessWest. “In the past, students weren’t worried about the end of the experience, but now they are definitely thinking about it before they even start.”
Julie Richardson, dean of admissions and financial aid at Hampshire College, has been in the field for more than 20 years and agrees there has been a climate change. “I love helping students figure out how to get into the right college and pay for it. But students are applying to more colleges than ever before,” she said, adding that many have submitted applications to 10 or more colleges. As a result, students with good grades are often accepted at a number of institutions, which can make it confusing and difficult to decide where they really want to go.
Kelly said UMass Amherst set a new record with almost 36,500 applicants this year, and the numbers have been rising since 2006. As a result, the review process has become a double-edged sword, as admission officials cull through a growing tide of applications, then find themselves having to compete for candidates from the 98% of 18.6 million high-school graduates who have applied or will be applying to institutions of higher learning next fall. And until a student actually begins classes, nothing can be taken for granted.
“Some students go to an orientation during the summer, then change their mind about the college they have chosen,” Pollack said, adding that WNEU receives late applications as a result and admits students at the last minute whenever possible.
DeAngelo said that’s why it’s important for high-school students and their families to visit schools and talk to people on campus in advance to determine the best fit from an academic, co-curricular, and financial standpoint.

Numbers Game

Charles Pollack

Charles Pollack says he’s seeing families start the college-application process earlier than ever before.

The Common Application for Undergraduate College Admission, first established in 1975, provides a standardized form for students, and is used today by close to 500 colleges across the country as well as two international institutions. And, thanks to the Internet, it has become easier than ever for students to apply to a multitude of schools using this format.
Last year almost 2.5 million applications were submitted online, and many colleges depend exclusively on the Common Application.
But it creates an overwhelming amount of work, because students’ credentials must be examined on an individual basis. “The Common Application makes it so easy for students to apply that it can be difficult to tell who has the most interest in your college,” said DeAngelo, adding that Springfield College does not use the format.
Last year, WNEU had 6,400 applicants and admitted 906 students. Pollack said the institution’s name change — from college to university — yielded an increase in applicants from across the country as well as overseas. “At one time, our students were predominantly from the Northeast. But now they are from states ranging from Florida to Hawaii.”
In 2005, UMass Amherst admitted 80% of applicants, while last year the number shrunk to 63%. “We are being more selective,” Kelly said. “But we did admit 1,500 more students for the fall of 2013 than last year.”
When asked how the school goes about deciding which students to admit, Kelly said the process is both an art and a science, with some math thrown in as well.
Indeed, many schools recalculate a student’s grade point average and use only college-preparatory courses to determine that number, although honors and advanced-placement courses are given extra weight.
“We’re looking for trends such as whether the student started out well, then tapered off in their senior year,” Kelly said.
It’s also critical for students to have taken the necessary prerequisites for their majors. “But there is no rating system; we judge each student on their own merits, although there are differences in high schools,” he explained, adding that, even though he and other officials look at extracurricular activities, academic qualifications are far more important than anything done outside of the classroom.
SAT and ACT scores are also considered, but many schools don’t pay attention to the written portion of the exam because it is subjective and doesn’t have a direct correlation to college writing assignments.
DeAngelo said Springfield College considers how much students know about their school, but their personal statement and whether they have demonstrated leadership in high school can be a deciding factor. “Many of our applicants have a pretty strong record of community service, which is important to us because we have a lot of opportunities for students to continue that work. Our small community makes it easy for students to get involved in clubs and organizations, and we have several hundred who are volunteering in the community.”
Personal recommendations also play heavily into the equation at Springfield College, especially in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and physican assistant programs, where spots are very limited. “We have a lot of students who are very strong academically, so we need other factors to look at,” DeAngelo said, noting that interest continues to grow in all health-related professions due to the future job outlook.
But, in the end, it all boils down to grades.
“Participation in clubs, sports, and co-curricular activities makes a student well-rounded, and we like to see it, but it is secondary to their academic record. We analyze every transcript, but only look at college-preparatory classes,” Pollack said. “Many students don’t understand what our coursework will involve, and attending college is first and foremost an academic pursuit, although our students are also exposed to leadership skills to prepare them for graduate school or the world of work.”

Stiff Competition
Hampshire College is one of the many schools using the Common Application. “It makes it so much easier for students. The college search process is fraught with enough tough decisions and stress,” Richardson said. However, Hampshire asks students to submit an additional page that contains information about recent books they have read, other campuses they have visited, and why they believe Hampshire is a good fit for them.
This is critical since the school doesn’t have grades or majors, but encourages interdisciplinary work. “We want to make sure they know about our model and have taken steps to research us. We’re looking for students who are inquisitive and articulate, and we want to know what they are interested in,” she said. “A lot of students we admit are interested in sustainability or want to make the world a better place.”
Although Hampshire admits two out of every three applicants, last year it set a record with a 20% increase in applications, which has continued this year.
And despite the fact that the Common Application contributes to the growing tide of applicants, local admission officials are quick to cite the merits of their schools as a contributing factor.
Pollack said the number of students WNEU admits is carefully calculated due to space restrictions, because it doesn’t want more than two students in a dorm room, and most live on campus.
“But we also pride ourselves on personal attention and don’t have any teaching assistants, even in our labs. It is not our intention to ever become a large institution,” he told BusinessWest. However, he points with pride to the school’s new professional degree programs in pharmacy and civil engineering, which account for the largest recent growth areas.
“And there is more and more recognition of the depth and breadth of our programs, which are attracting students from overseas,” he continued, adding that there is strong interest in the business program, which has attained accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, granted to fewer than 5% of business programs.
In some schools, such as UMass Amherst, students may not be admitted to their first program choice, especially in the fields of management, nursing, or engineering. But many are offered another track, even though they may not be able to switch to their desired major within a given time period.
Still, Kelly said every application is carefully reviewed, and every candidate has to submit at least one letter of recommendation and an essay. “There is no pre-screening done by the computer. We read them all,” he said, adding that the University subscribes to what many schools call a ‘holistic’ review process.
State colleges and universities can cost less than private institutions, but Kelly said it’s not the only reason students want to enter UMass. “It’s our academic reputation, the quality of our majors, and the overall value we offer.”
But any student’s decision about which school to attend can be tenuous. “In the end, it becomes like the tiger chasing its tail, because the more students a school tries to bring in, the more students they have with the possibility to go elsewhere,” Richardson said.

Future Outlook
The competition to attract high-quality students has intensified in recent years, and the Internet will continue to allow families to research institutions and their requirements more carefully than they ever did in the past.
“Students are trying to get a leg up on what they need to do to become competitive, and they want to make certain that they are making solid choices,” DeAngelo said.
In the end, however, it’s all about the right fit.
“The most important thing families can do is to be really judicious about the schools their children apply to,” Richardson said. “They should stretch their dreams and apply to the schools that really meet their needs.”

Education Sections
At Veritas Prep, College Isn’t a Goal — It’s an Expectation

Veritas Preparatory Charter School Executive Director Rachel Romano

Veritas Preparatory Charter School Executive Director Rachel Romano

Everywhere one looks at the Veritas Preparatory Charter School in Springfield are not-so-subtle reminders concerning what this place is all about — preparation for college.
For starters, there are old-fashioned pennants, representing dozens of schools from across the country, adorning several walls in the cafeteria and the hallways by the front office. “We got started by ordering a bunch of them,” said Rachel Romano, the school’s founder and executive director. “People will come in and say, ‘where’s my college?’ and we’ll tell them they have to get us a flag.”
Meanwhile, the three classrooms are named for schools attended by some of the faculty members — Bryant, Depaul, and Chicago (short for the University of Chicago) are currently in use. And there are large banners for UMass Amherst — the alma mater of many staff members — and Syracuse, where Romano majored in broadcast journalism, but ultimately, and obviously, took another career path.
These visual displays are designed to keep both students and staff focused on what could be considered a goal, but what Romano would prefer to consider something more — an expectation.
And that distinction is one of a host of things that separates Veritas Prep, which currently has a fifth-grade class but will eventually serve grades 5-8, from other middle schools in Springfield, where close to half the individuals who start high school don’t finish it.
Many of the others can be learned through a discussion of one of Romano’s more imaginative programs, called ‘scholar dollar paychecks.’ It’s an initiative designed to introduce students to the world they’ll eventually be joining, a professional world in which they’ll take home a paycheck.
The checks they’ve been issued since last September, when the school opened, are based on an initial ‘salary’ of $100 in phony currency. The amount on the actual weekly check is determined by how well a student lives up to the many Veritas Prep expectations (there’s that word again) for conducting oneself.
There are ways to earn bonuses, through work that exemplifies the school’s unofficial slogan: DRIVE (determination, responsibility, integrity, vision, and enthusiasm). But there are also deductions that come in many flavors and denominations.
There are $3 assessments, for example, for things like not sitting up straight after a reminder to do so, talking out of turn, and having a ‘fixable uniform violation,’ such as having one’s shirt untucked. And then, there are $10 hits for things like disrespect toward staff or a student, swearing or inappropriate language, or even “consuming candy, gum, soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, or juices of minimal nutritional value” during school hours.
At Veritas, the school day is roughly two hours longer than at most public schools (7:20 a.m. to 4 p.m., with after-school activities that keep many in this former nursing home until 6), the school year is 10 days longer, and students leave each afternoon with at least an hour of homework to do. There are many reasons for this, said Romano, but the most obvious is that these students need the extra time in the classroom and the extra work.
Indeed, most all of them came in last August behind grade level for all subjects — in some cases, well behind, she said, citing one student who didn’t even know the alphabet, but was nonetheless in the fifth grade.
He’s getting caught up, slowly but surely, she told BusinessWest, adding that the first assignment for the staff is to get all students back up to grade level. And from there, the goal is get them ready — and motivated — to do all the work needed to attend one of those places represented by all those pennants and banners.
For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at this unique charter school, where a different banner in the cafeteria tells the story. “Home to the hungriest students in Massachuetts,” it reads, with Romano adding, “they’re hungry for the knowledge to send them to college.”

Grade Expectations
When asked how she wound up essentially handling payroll for 81 fifth graders, among myriad other duties as executive director, Romano eased back in her chair and offered a look that would suggest that this was to be a long story.
And it was, but one worth telling.
It starts, in most respects, on 9/11 and the days that followed, but to relate the saga properly, she went back further, to some career decisions upon graduating from Syracuse with that broadcasting degree.

banner in the cafeteria at Veritas Prep

This banner in the cafeteria at Veritas Prep tells the story about what this unique school is all about.

“I soon realized that I didn’t love the career enough to move to Steubenville, Ohio and make $15,000 a year, which is probably what I would have had to do in 1999,” she said, using sarcasm to describe the flight path of most who choose that career route, adding quickly that she opted for media sales (radio and Internet advertising) instead of journalism, and was soon doing pretty well with that pursuit.
So well, in fact, that, by the summer of 2001, she was able to move up from an apartment at 53rd and 9th streets that she shared with two others to a place of her own downtown, just a block from the World Trade Center.
Sept. 11 was the Tuesday after a Monday night football game featuring the New York Giants. Romano, who watched with some co-workers until the end, was running just a little late that morning, but enough to become trapped in her apartment building while the Twin Towers were attacked, eventually to collapse, just a few hundred yards away. It was a sequence of events she could generally hear — “when the towers fell, that was the loudest noise I ever heard” — but couldn’t see (there was no television because power was out), which was a real problem.
“I didn’t know what was going on; I thought my building was on fire,” she recalled. “I heard the towers had collapsed, but you can’t process that information unless you actually see it. I definitely thought I was going to die that day; I actually called my mother to say goodbye — I thought it was over.”
She was eventually hustled into the building’s basement, where she and others stayed for hours, but later that afternoon was bused uptown. She eventually found her way to Grand Central Station, and, with nothing but the clothes on her back, got on a train to New Haven, where her very relieved mother picked her up and took her home to South Hadley.
Unable to return to her New York apartment for three months, she stayed in Western Mass. for a while and soon grew tired of people asking her to relive the events of that infamous day — so tired that she took a job substitute teaching in her hometown.
And that’s where the story really starts to turn.
Romano found the work tedious — she was subbing at South Hadley High School, after all — but in many ways rewarding. But she quickly came to the conclusion that, if she was going to make a seismic career shift into education, it should be in a place “where it mattered.”
And by that, she meant the ability to change the course of a student’s life, something she was quite sure she wasn’t going to do in South Hadley, but thought she could do in Springfield.
“Kids in South Hadley or Longmeadow … they’re going to be fine, in spite of school; they’re probably going to go to college, and if they don’t, they’ll make another choice, but they’ll be fine,” she told BusinessWest. “Kids in Springfield need school to be successful in this world, and, unfortunately for kids in Springfield, the schools they’re getting aren’t preparing them to be successful in this world.
“If I was going to teach,” she continued, “it was going to be in a place where I could make a difference in someone’s life.”
Fast-forwarding a little, she got a job teaching sixth grade at Duggan Middle School. And while she enjoyed the work, she didn’t feel it offered her enough opportunity to make an impact, so she segued into leadership and became an assistant principal.
“I embraced the challenge and eventually became obsessed with it,” she said. “First it was my classroom for three years, and then it was like, ‘I have to help fix this broken school.’ I eventually came to think that it didn’t really matter what I did as a sixth-grade teacher — I can give kids one great year, but that doesn’t change the trajectory of their lives.”

Spelling It Out
Still desiring a way to broaden her impact in the community through work in education, Romano started conceptualizing a new charter school for Springfield, one she envisioned to be much more of an equalizer than other facilities in the city.
But the timing wasn’t right, and for many reasons. For starters, she thought she wasn’t quite ready professionally for such a venture. And, more to the point, charter schools were capped at that time, and they were starting to lose favor in many communities due to poor results. “Charter schools haven’t been very big in this region, and, quite frankly, they haven’t been very successful; we’ve seen some of these schools close.”
So Romano took a job as principal with a charter school in Framingham, where she grew professionally and found a number of best practices to borrow, but still felt the environment wasn’t what she was looking for. “I went home every night thinking, ‘these kids are going to go to college no matter what I do.’”
Eventually, the cap on charter schools was lifted in communities with the 10 lowest-performing school districts (and Springfield certainly fit in that category), and Romano went about making her dream a reality.
She recruited a board of directors, which included many area business leaders, and, after considerable editing, whittled her plan for what would become Veritas down to the maximum 155 pages, as directed by the state Board of Education.
Beyond the plan was an attitude. “I wanted to bring to Springfield a school that would get results, a school that would be a game changer for the city,” she noted. “The last thing Springfield needed was another underperforming school.”
The school’s reason for being is effectively conveyed in this paragraph from its executive summary:
“Veritas Prep’s mission and educational program are created in response to the compelling need in Springfield for a public middle school that prepares students to achieve in high school and college,” Romano writes. “With a high-school graduation rate of 54%, Springfield students are not prepared with the skills and competencies they need to move forward. Long before high school, Springfield students begin the process of dropping out of their education — and the promise of their and our future — prior to the successful conclusion of 12th grade. The source of this process for many of our most underachieving students has its roots in the middle school years.”
Summarizing the school’s approach to changing the equation for its students, Romano said it “sweats the little things” as it teaches students how to be Veritas Prep scholars, and that phrase applies to both education and behavior.
“At Veritas, we have incredibly high expectations for both academics and behavior,” she explained, “and a lot of support so they can meet those expectations.”
The first week of school amounts to orientation, she went on. “And we start from scratch, almost as if they’ve never attended school before. We teach them how to sit up at their desks, which we call being ‘in slant.’ They have to listen, and they show they’re listening by asking and answering questions, nodding their head, and tracking the speaker.
“That sounds like a very basic expectation,” she went on, “but if you, as a fifth-grader, have always sat at your desk with your head on your hand looking out the window, that’s hard to do.”
The same approach is taken with everything from morning greetings — Romano gives each student a professional handshake — to the dress code. “When they come here, they’re here to be a student, and there are expectations to be met.”

A Stern Test
As for learning in the classroom, the basics apply there as well, said Romano, adding that the initial goal is to have students learning at grade level, which is challenging, because most of these fifth-graders entered the school year last fall at what was basically the third-grade level.
In a nutshell, the approach is not to dwell on what’s happened — or not happened, as the case may be — in the past, but to focus on steady improvement that will get the student back up to where he or she needs to be. And in a charter-school environment, faculty members can focus on individual students’ needs.
“The teachers here have the flexibility and nimbleness to adapt their program to the needs of their students,” she explained. “So if Ray needs more math tutoring this week than he does reading, that’s what he can get. Being able to really differentiate our students based on their needs is so important, as is the ability to respond to the data we get from assessments.
“They’re learning to think, which is not something many of them are used to doing,” said Romano in summing things up. “It’s been hard, but we have seen considerable progress with getting them to talk, to discuss, and write thoughtfully.”
Praise and recognition are big parts of the equation at Veritas, said Romano, adding that students are singled out for earning large paychecks, making considerable improvement over the last paycheck, attendance, homework completion, and a host of other things.
Such praise is often directed at a student’s resilience, she went on, adding that this is another trait the school works to emphasize.
“One of the things we also teach kids is how to bounce back from a deduction,” she said. “We tell them that they make choices, and every choice earns them a reward or a consequence. They either choose to do the right thing, follow the rules, and keep their scholar dollars, or they choose to do the wrong things and lose them. But it’s important to bounce back and learn from those mistakes.”
Those scholar dollars can be used to ‘buy’ trips (college campus visits on Saturdays) and extra curricular activities (such as movie night at school), and supplies at the school store. Students can also use their earnings to bid on items at the ‘scholar dollar auction.’ which happens at the end of each trimester. Coveted auction items include things like being the school leader for a day, teaching one’s favorite subject for a day, hiking with a teacher, playing chess with a teacher, getting a violin or ukulele lesson, movie night with 10 friends, and a day for your entire class to be out of uniform (that one usually gets the highest bids). These exercises enable students to learn about financial literacy, said Romano, or, more specifically, about not spending more than they earn.
Summing up the basic philosophical difference between Veritas and most Springfield public schools, she once again went back to that word expectations.
“There are so many excuses that people make about why kids in Springfield, or any urban area for that matter, don’t achieve as well as others,” she said. “We know what the challenges are. We know that these families are struggling and the parents may not have educations themselves. But I really think it comes down to expectations.
“The first question I’ll ask teaching candidates, after we’ve screened them and asked them to answer a set of essay questions, is, ‘do you believe our students can achieve at high levels?’” she continued. “After explaining that most of our students come to us several grade levels behind, I ask candidates, ‘do you think we should hold these students to the same expectations at the end of the year as the fifth graders in Longmeadow, for example?’
“It’s usually a very gut reaction — people say ‘absolutely’ or ‘absolutely not,’” she went on. “And I know, if you say ‘absolutely not,’ what you’re telling me is that it doesn’t matter if you show up to work every day — these kids will never be where those children are, and we can’t have that attitude here.”
Romano noted Veritas is still only nine or so months old, and there are myriad challenges ahead — from finding talented faculty members as the school adds grades in each of the next three years, to finding or building a gym (physical education is currently limited to what students can do outdoors or in the hallways), to getting students’ parents more engaged in their education.
But she can already feel a strong sense of accomplishment.
“It’s been a lot of work, a real grind,” she said of the process of conceptualizing the school, making it a reality, and then carrying out its mission every day. “But it’s been the most remarkable thing I’ve ever done.”

Degree of Difficulty
While payroll bonuses are highly prized, the most coveted honor at Veritas at present is the so-called Golden Toilet Seat.
It goes to the team — boys or girls — that has the cleanest restroom, as determined by rigorous weekly inspections.
“It’s a big deal. We do a drum roll and everything: ‘and the winner of the Golden Toilet Seat is …,’” said Romano. “I think some of them of them still believe it’s real gold, although a few might be catching on.”
By the time they move on from Veritas, the students will be firmly focused on a much bigger prize — a college education. Time will tell how many of them will get there, but all indications are that their odds will be greatly improved by attending this unique facility.
That’s because, here, college isn’t a goal. It’s an expectation.

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

Bankruptcies Departments

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

Alamed, Marie C.
42 Arnold St., Apt. 20
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Biza, Stephanie L.
19 Crestwood Circle
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/05/13

Bousquet-Hiller, Gail A.
73 Euclid Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/30/13

Brien, James E.
64 High St.
Monson, MA 01057
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/01/13

Conlin, Daniel A.
Conlin, Janice L.
418 Meadow St., Unit E3
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/02/13

Cox, Sharon L.
36 Chateaugay St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/02/13

Crafts, John E.
41 Glenmore St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Cymer, Peter
661 Belmont Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/01/13

David, Luz Maria
193 Oak St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Dawson, Joshua N.
Dawson, Rebecca V.
a/k/a Hayes, Rebecca V.
23 Lee Road
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/05/13

Gonzalez, Damaris
a/k/a Gonzalez-Nieves, Damaris
72 Biddle St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Hiller, Mark W.
Hiller, Rachel A.
35 King St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 03/30/13

Hyson, Lucienne
22 South Main St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/30/13

Kane, Thomas Sylvester
40 South Cross Road
Gill, MA 01354
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/02/13

LeClair, Kathleen A.
19 Orchard Terrace
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Ledford, Ian D.
63 7th St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/31/13

Lefevre, Stephen Anthony
26 Phelps Ave.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Lefkowitz, Jane A.
296 Connecticut Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/02/13

Lilley Pro Cleaner
Locklear, Patrick Andrew
Locklear, Cindy L.
4 Linda Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Maddox, Dennis J.
46 Montrose St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Magri, Kevin R.
36 Reed St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/04/13

McCabe, Josh A.
21 Sunset Ave.
Lenox, MA 01240
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/04/13

McClellan, Frances Lee
a/k/a Peterson, Frances L.
5 Treehouse Circle, Apt. 2
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/02/13

Miner, Eric M.
2020 Palmer Road
Three Rivers, MA 01080
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/04/13

Murphy, Jonathan P.
Murphy, Kathy E.
73 Harrison Ave.
Williamstown, MA 01267
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Preece, Curtis
PO Box 1723
Cotuit, MA 02635
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/30/13

Redlund, David P.
37 Highland Ave.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/30/13

Renaud, Angelia Renee
6 Keith St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Reynolds, Jeffrey W.
Reynolds, Susan L.
39 Foch Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/29/13

Sanderson, Lee R.
40 Coombs Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Slattery, Cynthia J.
a/k/a Houle, Cynthia J.
61 Garfield Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Tardy, Jason M.
Tardy, Laura M.
10 Riverview Terrace
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/01/13

Taylor, Beverly J.
265 Williams St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/05/13

Voisine, Carl B.
Demicheli, Johanna V.
16 Lockhouse Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 04/02/13

Webb, Steven W.
Webb, Joyce E.
a/k/a Dyer, Joyce E.
a/k/a Jacques, Joyce E.
182 Hope Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/01/13

Whitney, Jenifer K.
a/k/a Wilson, Jenifer
34 Oakman St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 03/31/13

Wilczynski, LynnAnn
a/k/a Harrington, LynnAnn
9 Cady St., Apt 7
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/03/13

Wilson, James J.
78 David St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 04/05/13

Winters, Michael D.
Winters, Deborah A.
a/k/a Arbo Winters, Deborah A.
197 Lyons Hill Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 03/30/13

DBA Certificates Departments

The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of April 2013.

AGAWAM

Kieffer Real Estate
181 Tobacco Farm Road
Rosemarie Kieffer

Main Street Automotive
395 Main St.
Brad Collins

Sisters Daycare
204 Line St.
Shannon McKay

AMHERST

College Pizza
150 Fearing St.
Basem Fam

Learning Lab for Resiliency
93 Southpoint Dr.
Stephanie J. Kent

Shake It Off
218 Harkness Road
Amika Wiemokly

South Amherst Veterinary Hospital
660 West St.
Marci Lowi

White Birch Massage
479 West St.
Cameron Gallant

CHICOPEE

East Street Cleaners
423 East St.
Chong K. Choi

El Chicharron Restaurant
108 West St.
Rafael Marte

HGT Child Development & Learning Center
660 Broadway St.
Leroy Stovall

M, E, & A Investment
90 Fernhill St.
Miguel A. Roldan

Royal Maintenance & Cleaning
78 Rimmon Ave.
Artur Poplawski

Unlimited Landscapes
167 Dale St.
Jameson Glanville

HADLEY

Bibliotechnica
119 Middle St.
Robie Grant

Intsitute of Human Res.
108 Russell St.
Ileaba Miranda

Midas Muffler
397 Russell St.
Barry Drucker

River Valley Chiropractic
245 Russell St.
Spencer Burling

Ronkese Insurance
245 Russell St.
Christopher Ronkesa

Vital Milk
245 Russell St.
Dawn Kennedy

HOLYOKE

Avinu Property Management
24 Lawler St.
Rebecca Rivera

Cake Detailing
1384 Dwight St.
Charles Benard

Cavanaugh, Sale, and Associates
114 Hillview Road
Daniel P. Cavanaugh

Dr. Vonnahme & Associates
98 Lower Westfield Road
Hans J. Vonnahme

Journeys
50 Holyoke St.
Danette Garrett

Lumbra & Lumbra
15 Shepard Dr.
Jon D. Lumbra

Quilt Works
37 Clark St.
Martha J. May

Umbrella Roofing
80 Hitchcock St.
Joseph Sarkoff

Uno Chicago Grill
50 Holyoke St.
Steven J. Hurwitz

NORTHAMPTON

Credit Market Intelligence
109 High St.
Ali Usman

Gnomon Education
55 Lincoln Ave.
Meg Eisenhauer

Hampden Zimmerman Electrical Supply
440  Pleasant St.
U.S. Electrical Services Inc.

J.J.’s Tavern
99 Main St.
Jonathan Neumann

Lia Kia
263 King St.
Michael Lia

Ocana Consulting
68 Ridgewood Terrace
Stephanie J. Arvai

PYFB Properties
98 Nonotuck St.
Marnie Ryan

SOUTHWICK

Bruce’s Masonry
51 Will Palmer Road
Bruce Iglesias

Cities in Ruin
50 Berkshire Ave.
Brian Dagostino

Southwoods Media
148 Hillside Road
Nelson Caron

Ted’s Property Services
200 Berkshire Ave.
Terrance Mountain

SPRINGFIELD

7 Eleven
425 Springfield St.
Scott Sphon

Artistik Cypher, LLC
836 St. James Ave.
Kya Petris

Balise Chevrolet Buick
440 Hall of Fame Ave.
Michael J. Dubois

Bizzy Landscaping
95 Cliftwood St.
Berge Bernadeau

Bonilla and Company
15 Driftwood Road
Wilfred I. Bonilla

Bounce King, LLC
181 Chestnut St.
Arthur W. Cheney

BWF Inc.
354 Main St.
Joseph M. Pafumi

C12 Hi-Fi
147 Hancock St.
Ethan G. Contaste

Chinese Qi Gong Tui Na
1655 Boston Road
Shao H. Chen

Clayton Commons Management
7 Clayton St.
Ernest D. Harris

Coleman’s Cleaners
62 Adams St.
Donald Coleman

Cupcake A Licious
223 Fernbank Road
Roxanie M. Cabrera

D & P Repair
424 Albany St.
Cesar Del Rio

Denise & Friends Salon
908 Belmont Ave.
Denise C. Olszewski

Destiny Auto Detailing
284 Lexington St.
Miguel Garcia

Economy Motor Sales Inc.
824 Berkshire Ave.
Robert Pafumi Jr.

Ed’s Custom Muffler Shop
100 Verge St.
Edwin O. Garcia

Edward J. Parent Photography
1655 Main St.
Edward J. Parent

Edwards Computer Repair
1923 Page Blvd.
Thomas E. Carney

Ennis Bell & Associates
166 Tamarack Road
Cornell W. Lewis

Erich Mann Design
204 Abbott St.
Erich Mann

Final Cleaning Services
68 Euclid Ave.
Lee Antoinette

Flynn’s Auto Sales
813 Berkshire Ave.
Gregory A. Skinner

Geg Auto
145 Michon St.
Gil Gomes

Hayes Development Service
1441 Main St.
Maureen C. Hayes

I Can Help You
99 Grover St.
Donald E. Fredman III

Ivan Hot Diggity Dogs
68 Cleveland St.
Ivan E. Arroyo

J & R Auto Sales
201 Berkshire Ave.
Jose M. Rijo

Jennifer Nieves
876 Sumner Ave.
Jennifer Nieves

Kevin’s Painting & Wallpaper
10 Rollins St.
Kevin Dowe

KM Operations, LLC
405 Armory St.
Kim McCarthy

La Marketa Fruit Grocery
306 Belmont Ave.
Ruddy Reynoso

Lawn Works Mowing Services
116 Cherokee Dr.
Heriberto Rodriguez

WESTFIELD

Affordable Affairs
166 Hillside Road
Linda Ligsukis

Andrea York Photography
52 Murray Ave.
Andrea J. York

Community Substance Abuse Centers
125 North Elm St.
Steven Kassels

Permagraphics Inc.
35 Orange St.
James Burek

Pete’s Handyman Service
163 Franklin St.
Peter Newman

Trendy Right Now
91 Ely St.
Robert G. Boyd

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Absolute Fire Protection
87 Lowell St.
David Knapik

American Home Care Association
440 Main St.
Svetlana Gorovets

Cross Point Clinical Services
117 Park Ave.
Rodney Allen

Dmemanual
1111 Elm St.
Jon S. Jasperson

Faith Transportation
65 Craig Dr.
Peter N. Gitau

GBS Brows & Skincare
1313 Riverdale St.
Pramod K. Sarraf

Gospel Music Studio
407 Park St.
Anatoly Atamansky

West Side Pet Sitting, LLC
75 Kelly Dr.
Alexandra Irish

Departments Incorporations

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

AGAWAM

Showtime Inc., 1664 Main St., Agawam, MA 01030. Diane Demarco, 778 Springfield St., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Bar.

AMHERST

Notch Consulting Inc., 535 West St., Amherst, MA 01002. Paul Ita, same. Market research and consulting.

BELCHERTOWN

Tian Yi Inc., 330 Chauncey Walker St., Belchertown, MA 01007. Fan Du, same. Food services.

CHICOPEE

Prescription Associates Corp., 90 Hendrick St., Chicopee, MA 01020. Brian O’Neil, same. Consulting services, including prescription information and patient counseling.

EAST LONGMEADOW

Richard Doleva & Associates Inc., 180 Denslow Road, Suite 7, East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Richard Doleva, same. Accounting and tax preparation.

EAST LONGMEADOW

The Greater United Aweil Reconstruction and Development Inc., 58 Wellington Dr., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Adim Malek, same.

Transfluenci Edu Inc., 46 Center Square, East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Barbara Rodriguez, 71 Spruceland Road, Enfield, CT 06082. Provides educational services, including translation and interpretation.

Zanetti Electric Inc., 126 Parker St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Glenn Zanetti, same. Electrical services.

EASTHAMPTON

Riffs Inc., 116 Pleasant St., Suite 150, Easthampton, MA 01027. Richard Lyman, 22 Hannumbrook Dr., Easthampton, MA 01027. Food service.

FEEDING HILLS

Repairs Plus Inc., 22 Oroile Dr., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Kelly Nadeau, same. Mortgage field services and home inspection.

GRANBY

Thomas Hill Inc., 118 Munsing Ridge, Granby, MA 01033. Thomas Hill, same. Tavern

GREENFIELD

Tea & Taxes Company, 473 Main St., Greenfield, MA 01301. Wendy Marsden, same. Provide accounting, business and financial services.

HAMPDEN

Timber Heights Tree Service Inc., 12 Genevieve Dr., Hampden, MA 01036. Ryan Morton, same. Tree services.

LONGMEADOW

Pack Solutions Inc., 794 Frank Smith Road, Longmeadow, MA 01106. William Klein Jr., same. Packaging services.

HADLEY

Skip Lunch Inc., 84 Russell St., Hadley, MA 01035. Delcie Bean, IV, same. Product distributorship.

HOLYOKE

Rock Valley Enterprises Inc., 215 Mountain Road, Holyoke, MA 01040. Scott Sattler, same. Real estate management and renovations.

Venice Pizza Inc., 420 High Street, Holyoke, MA 01040. Erol Kumas, 47 James Ave., Agawam, MA 01001. Pizza restaurant.

W & E Accounting and Tax Service Inc., 56 Suffolf St., Suite 607 Holyoke, MA 01040. William Rosario, 26 Scott Hollow Dr., Holyoke, MA 01040. Accounting and tax services.

PALMER

T R Stone Trucking Inc., 30 Lawrence St., Palmer, MA 01069. Thomas Stone, same. Over-the-road long haul trucking.

PITTSFIELD

Third Goat Inc., 11 Swan Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201. John Michalski, same. Property maintenance.

Veronica De Yeso, MD, P.C., 261 South St., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Veronica Deyeso, MD, 8 Webster Road, Tyringham, MA 01264. Full of range medical services by a licensed physician.

Yummy Treasures Inc., 98 Stratford Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Elizabeth Carpenter, same. Retail and wholesale sales.

SOUTH DEERFIELD

Wilcox Builders Inc., 7 Porter St., South Deerfield, MA 01373. Matthew Wilcox, same. Residential and commercial construction and develop.

SOUTHAMPTON

Ted’s Creative Jewelry Inc., 15 College Highway, Southampton, MA 01073. Theodore Blais, 5 Old Country Road, Southampton, MA 01073. Jewelry design, creation sales and repair.

SPRINGFIELD

RRI Consulting Group Inc., 1655 Main St., Suite 504, Springfield, MA 01103. Efrain Medina, 142 Pleasant St., Apt. 2 Southbridge, MA 01550. Business consulting services.

Tyler John Inc., 28 Verge St., Springfield, MA 01129. Samuel Wilson, same. Sales of beer, wine, and liquor.

Yigit Inc., 139 Dwight St., Springfield, MA 01103. Maryem Turan, 322 Meadow Street, Apt. 15, Agawam, MA 01001. Pizzeria.

WESTFIELD

Sound Cleaning On-Site Inc., 54 Hampden St., Westfield, MA 01085. Brian Zych, 25 Hampden St., Westfield, MA 01085. Window treatment, cleaning, and installation.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

One on One Fit Studio Inc., 176 South Blvd., West Springfield, MA 01089. Peter Samberg, same. Physical fitness studio.

Stuti Vending Services Inc., 1150 Riverdale St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Roht Teji, same. Vending machine services.

WESTHAMPTON

Paradox Surfaces Inc., 250 Southampton Road, Westhampton, MA 01027. Brendan Kavanaugh, same. Construction services.

Company Notebook Departments

UMass Amherst Launches $300 Million Campaign
AMHERST — UMass Amherst recently announced the launch of a $300 million fund-raising campaign, the most ambitious in its 150-year history. Called UMass Rising, the campaign is designed to help the school reach new heights as a leader in the nation’s innovation economy, said campus officials. “With UMass rising, we are redefining the future by focusing on innovation and impact in the way we teach students, conduct research, create a diverse and inclusive community, and play a national role in fashioning a sustainable future,” said Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. More than $163 million — roughly 60% of the goal — has already been raised, said school officials, noting that the campaign began with its ‘quiet phase’ in 2010 and will conclude in 2016.

CHD Joint Replacement Center Earns Accolades
NORTHAMPTON — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBS) has again recognized Cooley Dickinson’s Joint Replacement Center as a Blue Distinction Center for Knee and Hip Replacement for its work meeting strict criteria to improve patient safety and clinical outcomes. “Research confirms that Blue Distinction Centers like Cooley Dickinson demonstrate better quality and improved outcomes for patients, with lower rates of complications and readmissions than their peers,” said Dr. Tony Dodek, vice president of Medical Quality and Strategy and associate chief medical officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Added Dr. Mark Novotny, CDH’s chief medical officer, “achieving this designation means Cooley Dickinson’s Joint Replacement Center has met objective, best-practice criteria for knee and hip replacement. For our patients, this designation reinforces Cooley Dickinson’s commitment to a high-quality, coordinated program with outcomes that are among the best in the nation.” Cooley Dickinson’s Joint Replacement Center was first recognized in 2010 among 21 facilities. For 2013, Blue Cross Blue Shield recognized eight facilities. “The healthcare market is changing rapidly, and the cost of care is continuing to rise,” said Scott Serota, president and CEO of BCBS. “It is now more important than ever to equip providers, consumers, and employers with helpful information to assist them in making important healthcare decisions.

Greater Holyoke YMCA Opens Teaching Kitchen
HOLYOKE — The Greater Holyoke YMCA unveiled its new Teaching Kitchen, located on the Beech Street side of the facility, on April 30. As a leading nonprofit strengthening the Greater Holyoke community through healthy living, the Y’s Teaching Kitchen will support families’ wellness goals and inspire a lifetime love of healthy eating. “At a time when one in three children in the U.S. are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, developing healthier eating habits that include nourishing food is more important than ever,” said the Y’s Associate Executive Director Jennifer Gilburg. The Teaching Kitchen will include educational programming for both Y members and the community. Membership staff will be available during the grand opening to give tours of the Y. The Teaching Kitchen was funded in part by grants from the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council and the United Way.

Urgent Care of Wilbraham Opens on Boston Road
WILBRAHAM — Urgent Care of Wilbraham is open and providing professional medical care without an appointment at 2040 Boston Road in Wilbraham, across from the Big Y. The facility is owned and operated by Drs. Richard Freniere and Rock Jean-Guillaume, both board-certified emergency medicine physicians. The clinic is equipped to handle a wide range of health-related issues, including aches and pains, allergies, asthma, bites and burns, bone injuries and fractures, cuts and laceration repairs, earaches, fevers, infections, pediatric illnesses, sprains and strains, sore throats, upper respiratory illnesses, vomiting and diarrhea, and other urgent illnesses and injuries.

Briefcase Departments

DevelopSpringfield Acquires Historic Property
SPRINGFIELD — DevelopSpringfield recently acquired a deteriorating historic property at 83 Maple St. in Springfield for rehabilitation in keeping with its historic significance.  A property to the rear at 234 Union St. was also acquired and will be developed as a part of the project. The Greek revival-style home was originally built in 1841 for Solymon Merrick, the inventor of the monkey wrench. It has been considered an important component of a group of 19th-century buildings located at the corner of Union and Maple streets. Later it was owned by Ansel Phelps, the fourth mayor of Springfield, and was commonly known as the Ansel Phelps House. The property has been included on the Springfield Preservation Trust list of endangered historic properties of Springfield, which highlights 10 threatened properties of architectural and historical significance. The house has fallen into disrepair and will require significant stabilization in preparation for restoration and reuse. The goal of DevelopSpringfield with this project is to eliminate a blight on the neighborhood while saving an important historic property and to ensure its rehabilitation to an appropriate use. “Our first priority is to stabilize the exterior of the building by repairing or replacing windows, porches, and pillars and taking other steps to prevent further deterioration, and to improve the physical appearance of the property,” said Jay Minkarah, president and CEO of DevelopSpringfield. The organization plans to work closely with the Springfield Preservation Trust, the Historic District Commission, and the city’s Planning and Economic Development Department regarding redevelopment of the site to ensure that restoration and reuse plans are consistent with city and neighborhood goals and compatible with surrounding uses. The Springfield Preservation Trust owns the buildings at 77 Maple St., offering an opportunity for collaboration. “This is a property of great importance historically, and it is located on a major gateway to downtown. It cannot be lost to disrepair,” Minkarah added. “Once restored, however, it will become a tremendous asset once again for our city.”

Labor Report Mixed Across Commonwealth
BOSTON — The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development recently reported that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates for March were down in eight areas, up in seven areas, and unchanged in seven areas over the month.  Over the year, the rates were down in 14 areas, up in five areas, and unchanged in three areas. Statewide, the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged over the month at 6.8% and 11,300 jobs were added in March. Over the year, the statewide unadjusted rate edged down by 0.1% from the 6.9% rate posted for March 2012, and Massachusetts added 32,400 jobs. In March 2013, over-the-month job gains occurred in 11 of the 12 areas, the largest of which were in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Worcester, Barnstable, Springfield, and Framingham areas. The Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner was the only area to record a job loss. Over the year, eight of the 12 areas added jobs, with the largest-percentage gains in the Barnstable, Haverhill-North Andover-Amesbury, and Peabody areas. The seasonally adjusted statewide March unemployment rate, released on April 18, was 6.4%, down 0.1% over the month and down 0.2% from the 6.6% rate recorded in March 2012. The statewide seasonally adjusted jobs estimate showed a 5,500 job loss in March following a loss of 800 jobs in February. Unadjusted unemployment rates and job estimates for the labor-market areas reflect seasonal fluctuations and therefore may show different levels and trends than the statewide seasonally adjusted estimates.

Home Sales Down, Prices Up in March
BOSTON — Massachusetts home sales slowed in March while prices kept going up, prompted by a shortage of properties on the market. Statewide, 3,100 single-family homes were bought in March, a 3.6% decline compared with the same time in 2012, according to Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks real estate. For the first three months of the year, sales fell 2.1% to 7,849, compared with the first quarter last year. Condominium sales also dropped off in March, by 2% to 1,211. Sales for the first quarter declined about 1%, compared with the first three months of 2012. At the same time, buyers were having to pay more. The median price for a single-family house rose to $285,000 in March, 8% higher than during that month last year. During the first quarter, the median value of a home swelled by 10.6% to $282,500, compared with the first three months of 2012, according to the Warren Group. Condo prices rose less dramatically to $261,000 in March, by 1.5%. For the first three months of 2013, the median price of a condo hit $250,000, a 1.6% increase from the year-earlier period. The data suggest that there are not enough homes for sale to meet the demand of buyers, who are motivated by low interest rates, rising prices, and an improving economy. The inventory of single-family homes eroded by 29.8% in March, compared with March 2012, marking the 12th consecutive month of decreases, according to the Massachusetts Assoc. of Realtors. Inventory for condos fell 34% in March, compared with that month in 2012. “Low inventory is plaguing housing markets all over the country, and Massachusetts is no exception,’’ said David Harris, editorial director of the Warren Group. “There is definitely concern that such steep price spikes will cause an affordability issue.” Meanwhile, Kimberly Allard-Moccia, broker-owner of Century 21 Professionals in Braintree and president of the Mass. Assoc. of Realtors, said she is happy that so many people are interested in buying a home, but she wishes more sellers would embrace that optimism about the housing market and list their properties. “A good supply of homes for sale is the only thing we’re missing from a sustainable housing recovery,’’ she said.