Day: July 3, 2018

SPRINGFIELD — Due to expanding needs, Bulkley Richardson has moved from its Amherst location into a more spacious office at 380 Russell St. in Hadley.

“This move supports the growing needs of our clients and offers a more centralized location in Hampshire County,” said Peter Barry, managing partner of the 35-attorney firm. “The move is another example of the firm striving to exceed client expectations. We can accommodate more attorneys working in the new space, which means offering a greater range of services to our clients.”

Seunghee Cha, partner, will be located primarily in Hadley, where she has a comprehensive estate-planning and administration practice, including special-needs planning for individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She looks forward to “welcoming my Springfield colleagues to Hampshire County and offering a greater breadth of services to both new and existing clients.”

Added Scott Foster, chair of the firm’s business and finance group, “our client base continues to grow, especially as we expand our services to meet the evolving changes to legal needs. Among other areas, a Hampshire County office is relevant to the unique needs of startups, reality of cybersecurity threats, and emergence of cannabis facilities. Our clients range from large hospitals and medical practices to small brewery startups, and nationwide manufactures to local farmers and artists — and a whole lot in between. By having a local office, it just brings us closer to these clients.”

BOSTON — The Baker-Polito administration and MassDevelopment announced $2,155,000 in funding for the third round of Collaborative Workspace Program grants, a MassDevelopment program that accelerates business formation, job creation, and entrepreneurial activity in communities by supporting infrastructure that fuels locally based innovation. Eligible organizations may apply for either seed grants to plan and study the feasibility of new collaborative workspaces, or fit-out grants to develop and expand existing workspaces.

Through its first two rounds of grants, the Collaborative Workspace Program provided $3 million in funding to more than 50 organizations for the planning, development, and build-out of different types of collaborative workspaces. This new round includes $1.5 million from the Commonwealth’s capital budget and $655,000 from the Barr Foundation, the second installment of a three-year, $1,965,000 grant to the program to expand support for arts-related collaborative workspaces in the Commonwealth.

“Through our 2016 Economic Development Legislation, our administration implemented the Collaborative Workspace Program to enable investments in community-based innovation infrastructure to provide entrepreneurs across Massachusetts with the resources to turn ideas into businesses,” said Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash. “Throughout the Commonwealth, participating communities are making progress in creating welcoming and productive spaces. We look forward to investing further in our statewide innovation ecosystem.” 
Added MassDevelopment President and CEO Lauren Liss, “funding awarded through the Collaborative Workspace Program has helped advance community-based innovation and entrepreneurship in cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Thanks to continued support from the Baker-Polito administration and the Barr Foundation, MassDevelopment is thrilled to kick off a third round of grants that will provide even more organizations with the resources they need to create or enhance collaborative workspaces in their community.”

MassDevelopment’s continued partnership with the Barr Foundation broadens the reach of the Collaborative Workspace Program to include the creative sector, a critical source of innovation and positive community change.

Proposals are due via e-mail at [email protected] by 5 p.m. on Friday, July 20. Funding decisions are expected to be announced at the end of September.

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Normandeau Technologies Inc. (NTI) attended the National Assoc. of School Resource Officers in Reno, Nevada in June. The annual, one-week NASRO conference brings together SROs from throughout the U.S. and international locations to meet, discuss the current state of school safety, and receive updates and training on the latest issues surrounding school-safety policy and procedures for school-based law-enforcement officers.

NTI has undertaken a program to introduce the StaffAlerter Emergency Notification System (ENS) to school districts throughout the New England area. In association with this endeavor, Brett Normandeau, president and owner of NTI, is positioning the StaffAlerter with organizations associated with K-12 education, including NASRO. StaffAlerter is an ENS and cloud-based systems control. Any teacher or staff can press a button on a wi-fi personal access device and send a notification to thousands of people, lock doors, sound alarms, and page over loudspeakers.

“The turnout at the show was over 1,000 SROs, and we were able to demonstrate StaffAlerter to many of the attendees,” over the three days of the NASRO conference exhibition, Normandeau said. “The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we were also able to talk to the SROs to get their inputs for features they would want to see on the StaffAlerter that could improve their jobs.”

NASRO national leadership spent time with NTI to see and hear about StaffAlerter and were impressed and positive with their feedback, he added. NTI is looking to attend future SRO regional and national meetings as both exhibitor and presenter.

NORTHAMPTON — The Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways will host a statewide conference of community rail-trail advocates and government policymakers on Saturday, July 28 at Union Station in Northampton.

The keynote speaker will be Kurt Gaertner, director of Land Policy and Planning for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), who is responsible for statewide land-use and land-conservation policies as well as sustainable development. 

Gaertner also serves as the Massachusetts secretary of state’s designee on the Massachusetts Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board, and he represents the EEA on the Governor’s Trails Team. He is an adjunct faculty member at Boston University in its City Planning and Urban Affairs Program, where he has taught since 2009.

Gaertner will deliver the lunchtime address at the sixth Golden Spike 2018 Conference to be held over the past 16 years. Before lunch, in two separate one-hour sessions, a series of speakers will discuss updates and news along the path of the Mass Central Rail Trail from Boston to Northampton, and then from Northampton to New Haven, Conn. These talks will be highlighted by aerial maps via a live Google Maps feed. 

The event is open to residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The program begins at 8 a.m. with registration, breakfast, and networking. At 9:15 a.m., an update on the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail from Boston to Northampton will be offered, and Gaertner’s plenary session will begin at 12:30 p.m. The plenary costs $35 and includes lunch.

The goal of the conference is to update participants on new developments and the various uncompleted sections of the rail trail that stretches from New Haven to Northampton and across Massachusetts from Northampton to Boston.

As part of the conference, eight bicycle and walking tours of varying lengths, featuring topics from local history to flora and fauna along the rail trail, will be offered on Friday, July 27 and Saturday, July 28 at 2:30 p.m. The cost is $15 per tour.

Funding for the conference was provided by a $9,460 Recreational Trail Educational grant from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as well as gifts from Greenfield Savings Bank and the national engineering firm VHB. To register for the conference or a tour, visit www.gs2018.org.