BusinessWest

With degrees in Political Science and Law — and experience campaigning for political candidates in Massachusetts — Michael Gove is enthusiastic, to say the least, about politics. Just don’t ask him to run for office.

“I’ve always been a big believer in the political process, and I’ve always had a blast campaigning,” he said. “There are so many issues out there that can only be resolved through the political process, so it’s important that people stand up and tell the people representing them what they believe.”

That said, “I could see myself on a board of selectmen, something small, but wouldn’t want to be governor. I don’t like the horse trading, or trading away my principles and making compromises. I’d rather focus on an issue I believe in and work for that.”

In many ways, Gove is working for the public right now, one person at a time, as an attorney with Lyon & Fitzpatrick LLP who specializes in business law, estate planning, and housing law.

“I originally wanted to be a prosecutor,” he said, “but I found I really enjoyed working with people planning ahead for things” — a job description that ranges from helping businesses plan 10 or 20 years down the road to making sure young couples with children plan a secure future for their family, or helping senior citizens protect assets when preparing for nursing-home care.

Gove is planning on a larger scale, too. A member of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, he was asked by PVPC Director Tim Brennan to co-chair the Valley Development Council, a board hard at work on Valley Vision II, a comprehensive land-use plan for the region.

“It’s a huge project, and it has taken two years to get to where we are now,” Gove said. “We’re going to urge the commission to support it and push principles of smart growth, energy conservation, mixed-use buildings, mixing residential and commercial building, and mass transit.”

The first Valley Vision endeavor, he said, was released several years ago and then “left to collect dust.” The current council intends to make the second effort a living document, to be updated as the years go by.

After all, to succeed in the future, you have to work at it now — whether you’re a politician, a city planner, or a retired grandmother who doesn’t want to lose her life savings.

Bill Bither says he doesn’t really have anything he’d call “free time,” just time spent doing many different things.

When he’s not running his software development firm, Atalasoft, in Easthampton, which is growing at an astounding rate of 75% annually, he’s working to recruit technology talent to Western Mass. through his involvement with the Regional Technology Corp. He’s also a prolific blogger at BillBither.com, and encourages the practice among his employees.

But Bither isn’t always chained to his keyboard; he’s also a competitive cyclist who commutes to work by bike, and celebrates a healthy lifestyle within his company, too; Atalasoft’s team meetings are often held in motion on nearby bike paths.

“Sometimes I need to come up for air,” he joked, adding quickly that any down moments are usually spent with his family — his wife Kim and two children, Abriana and Alex. “I just love them, and having two young children to play with is a blast.”

Bither moved to Western Mass. after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He started his career at Hamilton Standard, but as a side project began developing a software application called EyeBatch, which processes several images at one time, often for use on the Web.

He said EyeBatch began to generate a nice side income, which in turn motivated him to start his own business. Now, Atalasoft sells six core products worldwide and employs 15 people. Bither expects that number will be closer to 100 in just a few years.

“That’s all organic growth — we hire people as we need them,” he said.

The fast pace at which Atalasoft is evolving has also allowed Bither to make philanthropy a major part of his business. After losing his father to brain cancer, he and his family became involved with BrainTrust, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the quality of life of those with brain-related conditions. To give back, Bither donates 100% of the profits of EyeBatch to the group.

“They offered my family a lot of help, and BrainTrust is a small charity, so it really benefits,” he said.

And, it’s just one more way Bither stays busy — a business owner, bicyclist, blogger, and now, benefactor, as well.

Christy Hedgpeth says she has a sports analogy, or lesson, for almost every occasion, including just about every business situation she finds herself in.

And she should. She has played basketball professionally for the Seattle franchise of the American Basketball League and, in fact, played a lead role (manager of player development) in getting that pioneering league off the ground. And she was the starting shooting guard on a Stanford University team that went to two Final Fours and won the national title in 1992.

Hedgpeth, director of branding and licensing for Springfield-based Spalding, has made endless references to that championship season, which provided countless lessons in teamwork, continuously striving to get better, and just plain old hard work.

“We had talent, but we also had great chemistry … we had five starters in double figures that year,” she explained. “But we were also incredibly well-conditioned. We paid our dues on the track in the summer when it was really hot. When games got tight, we knew we had an advantage because we had prepared more thoroughly than anyone else.”

Hedgpeth has been applying lessons she learned on the court, on the running track, and in the weight room (and encouraging others to the same) in a career that has effectively blended her areas of expertise — sports, marketing, and business. At Spalding, she wears many hats in her current role, and is essentially charged with ensuring brand consistency across all of the company’s businesses. Often, she works in concert with Dan Touhey, Spalding’s vice president of Marketing and another of the Forty Under 40.

Like Touhey, Hedgpeth is active in the community, donating time and energy to several causes and groups, especially the fight against breast cancer, which took the life of a friend a few years ago.

Hedgpeth said she will always have fond memories of that championship season, the other years at Stanford — including 1994, when she was team captain — her three years with the Seattle Reign, and even an ESPY nomination in 1993 for best women’s player of that season. But the memories are just part of the equation.

There are also the lessons — especially those about working with others to clear hurdles and achieve common goals. Like the memories, her championship ring, and that piece of net she cut down that April night in 1992, she’ll have those forever.

You don’t think sitting down for dinner as a family makes an impression on kids? Well, turn off the TV and consider the Hoey clan.

“I’m the youngest of 10, and my father was a civil engineer who went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute,” said Francis Hoey III, senior vice president of Tighe & Bond in Westfield. “Seven of us are in engineering or public work to some degree, and three of us went to my Dad’s alma mater. It’s what we talked about at the dinner table. I got pointed in that direction and found I really enjoyed it, and I did internships all through college.”

Since joining Tighe & Bond 15 years ago, Hoey has worked on a number of high-profile projects throughout the region, including serving as project manager for both the Churchill housing redevelopment project in Holyoke and the Village at Hospital Hill, the redevelopment of the 124-acre site of the former Northampton State Hospital.

“I do a lot of land development work,” he said. “My typical client these days is more likely to be a developer than anything else. There’s a lot of mixed-use development, a lot of brownfields work, and redevelopment of derelict properties.”

Speaking of revitalizing properties, Hoey takes a special interest in recent improvements in his hometown of Holyoke, where he serves as vice chair of the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department board, among other forms of community involvement, including a past stint as vice chair of the Planning Commission.

“I think Holyoke is a great city and a great place to live, but it gets a terrible rap,” he said. “Those of us who are able to polish its star a little bit need to do that. I’m proud to be from Holyoke.”

Hoey brings a similar sense of pride to his work with Tighe & Bond. “I like seeing a finished project,” Hoey said. “I like being able to point to something, whether it’s a building, a dam, or something else, and say, ‘hey, kids, I was involved in taking that from a concept on a drawing board to an actual, physical structure.’”

As for those kids — Hoey and his wife have three of them — they had better keep their guard up at the dinner table. Dad’s career could start to look mighty tempting.

Amy Jamrog took out her first small-business loan at age 7.

The financing was from her mother, and was used to purchase yarn and crochet needles to create hand-crafted Easter bunnies — a talent she learned from her grandmother and spun into a seasonal job.

“I would start in January,” Jamrog remembers. “I crocheted like a maniac, and went door-to-door, selling bunnies.” Her first year in production, Jamrog netted $50 after repaying her mother, and proved at a very early age that she innately possessed a number of key business skills, including creativity, perseverance, and that hard-to-acquire entrepreneurial drive.

She’s since tailored those skills into a successful career in financial planning, founding the Jamrog Group, the Northampton office of the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, in 2006, and tripling the company’s size since that time. She is also a motivational speaker with a national reach, another talent she’s enjoyed since childhood.

“I just love motivational speech in front of large crowds,” she said. “I speak a lot within my industry, encouraging people to think more holistically about planning, how we teach people to be empowered by their money, and how to have fun doing it.”

Jamrog also speaks on the topic of philanthropy, another passion, and her engagements have taken her to Toronto, San Francisco, Jacksonville, New York City, and several other markets.

Her next goal is to publish some of the concepts she typically speaks about and uses to help counsel her clients, perhaps by penning a book. “I feel like I can take my creative side and my entrepreneurial side and create something extraordinary,” she said, adding that her life is one that includes a few different worlds.

Indeed, in addition to financial planning and public speaking, Jamrog also has two sons and is active in community service, having received Northwestern Mutual’s Community Service Award twice.

“But my life has become a wonderful Venn diagram,” she said. “I don’t struggle with balance because I see no separation. It’s not work and home, it’s just my life. There is no between.”

Still, she said it’s inspiring to be recognized for her achievements to date, and for those yet to be sewn up.

Today, Cinda Jones heads up the oldest family business in Western Mass. — but she didn’t exactly begin at the top.

“I started in the family business at age 10, cutting plastic yellow triangles for foresters to use as boundary markers,” said the ninth-generation president of Cowls Lumber Co. in North Amherst. Not surprisingly, that wasn’t enough experience for Jones, who went on to hold natural resource non-profit management positions in Maine and Washington, D.C. for a decade after college, before returning home to take the reins at Cowls. “The family insisted I get useful before coming back,” she said.

Now, as president, Jones oversees natural resource management on the company’s timberland in 31 towns in Hampshire and Franklin counties. She also manages the company’s real estate division, as well as its sawmill and planing mill that manufacture up to 3 million board feet of pine, oak, and hemlock annually.

In addition, this often blunt-spoken libertarian — well-known these days for her efforts to protect private timberland from federal government regulation — is helping other business owners by trying to make Amherst a more, well, useful resource for businesses. As the current president of the board of directors of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, she’s working to help local companies be more competitive with Internet and big-box competition, and to jump-start a “buy local” campaign. 

“It’s really not a hard sell,” she said, “because local folks are really dedicated to protecting our local flavor. They know if big boxes put their downtowns out of business, they won’t like the look or feel of what’s left.”

Her favorite cause, however, is promoting the availability of “workforce-attainable housing” in the Pioneer Valley, noting that “it’s unbelievable to me that people who protect and teach our families can’t afford to live here.”

Jones herself won’t be chased away, not even by the lightning strike and fire that burned Cowls’ old sawmill in 2002. She and her brother and business partner, Evan, have since built a new mill, turning what she calls “my most awful experience since returning home” into a positive. Features in the new mill include interpretive panels about sustainable forestry and lumber manufacturing, and an observation deck from which visitors can watch logs turn into lumber.

As for Jones, she’s come a long way from turning sheets of plastic into triangles.