People On the Move

Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C. a certified public accounting firm in West Springfield, announced that Deborah Penzias and Julie Quink have been admitted as partners to the firm. They join partners Richard Burkhart, Salvatore Pizzanelli, and Thomas Pratt.  Penzias, who joined the firm in 1998, is a graduate of the State University of New York at Oswego with a BS in Accounting, and has more than 25 years of experience in public accounting. She services a diverse client base and specializes in the taxation, accounting, consulting, and information-technology areas of the practice. She serves on the finance committee of Beit Ahavah, and was formerly on the board of directors and the finance committees of Congregation B’nai Israel and the Lander Grinspoon Academy — the Solomon Schechter School of the Pioneer Valley. Quink has more than 20 years of experience in public accounting and three years in private, corporate accounting. She joined the firm in 2011 and is a graduate of Elms College with a BS in Accounting. She specializes in the accounting and auditing, financial-reporting, and litigation-support segments of the practice.
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Florence Savings Bank recently announced the promotion of Michelle Bennett to Vice President. Bennett has been the bank’s Security Officer since 2007, where she oversaw all aspects of security for the bank’s offices and ATM locations, including fraud prevention and mitigation for customers’ accounts. In that position, Bennett implemented a number of programs designed to protect customers, including FraudWatch Plus, a state-of the art fraud-detection and protection system for debit cards that electronically monitors transactions looking for suspicious or fraudulent actively, and she initiated programs to train bank staff on the recognition and detection of fraudulent situations, including elder exploitation. Bennett also created a number of education programs to help customers and members of the public prevent fraud; the most notable of these programs is FSB Shred Days. She attended Westfield State University, where she earned a BA in English with a concentration in literature.
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Janet Casey, Principal of Marketing Doctor, a full-service advertising agency in West Springfield, was recently selected for a two-year term as a National Delegate from Massachusetts to Vision 2020, a national organization based in Philadelphia that is committed to achieving women’s economic and social equality through specific goals. Casey will join Carla Oleska, Executive Director of the Women’s Fund, as a Massachusetts delegate, leading projects in the Commonwealth and across the country to accelerate leadership among women and men to reach a new dimension of American excellence by the year 2020, the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Vision 2020 is comprised of 100 delegates from across the country.
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Monson Savings Bank recently announced the promotion of Karen Cartier to Assistant Vice President, Collections, and Fraud Officer.  Cartier, who joined Monson Savings in 2001, has served the banking industry for more than 20 years, beginning her career as a part-time collector. She was promoted to Collections & Fraud Officer in 2006. She currently serves as president of the Security Loss Prevention Assoc. of Massachusetts and is a River East School to Career student mentor. Serving on The March of Dimes board of directors, she has been the chair or co-chair of the Chef’s Signature Auction for the March of Dimes for several years, and is the co-founder of the Forever in Our Hearts Charity Fund to benefit Shriners Hospitals for Children.
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The Springfield-based law firm Robinson Donovan P.C. announced that the following attorneys were recently named by their peers to Best Lawyers in America 2014:
• James Martin — franchise law, real-estate law;
• Jeffrey McCormick — personal injury litigation (plaintiffs), personal-injury litigation (defendants);
• Carla Newton — family law;
• Nancy Frankel Pelletier — personal-injury litigation (defendants);
• Patricia Rapinchuk — employment law (management), litigation labor, and employment;
• Jeffrey Roberts — corporate law, trusts and estates; and
• Richard Gaberman — corporate law, real-estate law; tax law; trusts and estates. Gaberman was also named a Best Lawyers’ 2014 Springfield, Mass. Lawyer of the Year for trusts and estates.
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Amy Royal, founding Senior Partner and head of the litigation department of Royal LLP, the woman-owned, management-side labor and employment law firm in Northampton, has been appointed to the board of the Mass. State Council, the state chapter of the national organization Society for Human Resource Management. SHRM is the world’s largest association devoted to human-resource management, serving the needs of HR professionals and advancing the interests of the HR profession.
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Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., a Springfield-based labor and employment law firm, announced that four of the firm’s attorneys were recently selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2014. Additionally, Ralph Abbott was named the Best Lawyers 2014 Springfield, Mass. Labor Law – Management Lawyer of the Year for the second time in three years, succeeding Jay Presser, who was named best in that category last year.
• Ralph Abbott Jr., a partner since 1975, represents management in labor relations and employment-related matters, providing employment-related advice to employers, assisting clients in remaining union-free, and representing employers before the National Labor Relations Board;
• Jay Presser has more than 35 years of experience litigating employment cases and has successfully defended employers in civil actions and jury trials and handled cases in all areas of employment law, including discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful discharge, wage and hour, FMLA, ERISA, and defamation;
• John Glenn, a partner since 1979, represents management in labor relations and employment-related matters. In addition to providing employment-related advice to employers, he assists clients in remaining union-free and represents employers before the NLRB; and
• Timothy Murphy, partner in the firm, joined Skoler-Abbott after serving as General Counsel to an area labor union and serving as an Assistant District Attorney for the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office. His practice includes labor relations and employment litigation, as well as employment counseling.
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Springfield College announced the following:
• Pam McCray was named Assistant Director of Sports Communications and will help facilitate all aspects of media and sports information relating to the 26 intercollegiate men’s and women’s sports teams at the school. McCray joins the Springfield College Athletic Department after a tenure as a sports reporter for the Republican masslive.com. Along with her print media experience, McCray served as a production assistant for ABC 40/Fox 6 in Springfield. McCray is currently working on her MS at Springfield College, majoring in physical education and athletic administration. Prior to enrolling at SC, McCray earned a BS in communications and mass media from Western New England University in 2010.
• Richard Wood, who has been a faculty member since 2007 in the Department of Exercise Science and Sport Studies, was named the new Director of the Center for Wellness Education and Research (CWER), which is housed in the Springfield College School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. During his tenure, Wood has been educating in the area of nutrition and conducting research related to lifestyle modification in the treatment of chronic metabolic disease. Prior to his time at SC, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Wood earned a Ph.D. in nutritional science from the University of Connecticut in 2006, his MS in applied exercise science in 2001, and BS in 1999 in athletic training from Springfield College.