BusinessWest

This Diverse Group Finds Ways to Stand Out and Give Back

The ‘club’ has now reached 200 members.
Indeed, with this announcement of the Class of 2011, there are now five groups of 40 Under Forty winners, each one distinct, but with several common denominators that run through all the classes.
The most important of these is a willingness to find the time, energy, and, yes, passion to not simply perform a job or manage a business or nonprofit — but also contribute to the community in some way, or several ways.
Like the groups before it, the Class of 2011 is diverse, with each story unique in some ways. Perhaps the most unique is that of a 16-year-old high-school student who became the youngest winner to date through his work in the community, which ranges from tutoring Somali refugees to work on the Web site for Link to Libraries; from involvement with a teen-philanthropy organization to membership in the aptly-named Don’t Just Sit There, a ‘good-works’ group that assists a number of causes.
Looking over this group of 40 individuals, it would be fair to say that none of them ‘just sit there,’ and most all of them could be considered truly inspirational. Here are some other examples:
• A lawyer who has also served for several years on the board of the Forest Park Zoological Society, but also recently helped initiate a new program to mentor fledgling entrepreneurs, thus improving their odds of survival and staying in Western Mass.;
• A melanoma survivor — and marketing manager for the Food Bank of Western Mass. — who founded SurvivingSkin.org and now actively promotes a message of sun safety while also helping to raise awareness and funds to fight the disease;
• A loan-review officer for a local bank who finds a number of ways to give back to the community, including work as a mentor to young women at the Mass. Career Development Institute;
• The regional director of the Mass. Office of Business Development, who helps area companies secure needed state assistance to grow and add jobs, while also helping young men learn life lessons (and a better jump-shot technique) as a high-school basketball coach; and
• A Web-site designer who has also created a recognition program that is inspiring Springfield-based businesses to become more earth-friendly in everything from how they make their products to how they build out their office space.
There are about three dozen more stories like these in this special section introducing the Class of 2011, which will be honored at BusinessWest’s annual 40 Under Forty Gala on June 23 at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House.
We hope you’ll enjoy these stories and become inspired to find your own ways to stand out in the community and give back to it.

2011 40 Under Forty Winners:

Kelly Albrecht
Gianna Allentuck
Briony Angus
Delania Barbee
Monica Borgatti
Nancy Buffone
Michelle Cayo
Nicole Contois
Christin Deremian
Peter Ellis
Scott Foster
Stephen Freyman
Benjamin Garvey
Mathew Geffin
Nick Gelfand
Mark Germain
Elizabeth Gosselin
Kathryn Grandonico
Jaimye Hebert
Sean Hemingway
Kelly Koch
Jason Mark
Joan Maylor
Todd McGee
Donald Mitchell
David Pakman
Timothy Plante
Maurice  Powe
Jeremy Procon
Kristen Pueschel
Meghan Rothschild
Jennifer Schimmel
Amy Scott
Alexander Simon
Lauren Tabin
Lisa Totz
Jeffrey Trant
Timothy Van Epps
Michael Vedovelli
Beth Vettori

Photography for this special section by Denise Smith Photography

Meet Our Judges

This year’s nominations were scored by a panel of five judges, who accepted the daunting challenge of reviewing more than 110 nominations, and scoring individuals based on several factors, ranging from achievements in business to work within the community. BusinessWest would like to thank these outstanding members of the Western Mass. business community for volunteering their time to the fifth annual 40 Under Forty competition. They are:

• Diane Fuller Doherty, regional director of the Western Mass. Regional Office of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network. Previously, she founded and served as president and CEO of Doherty-Tzoumas Marketing.  She is a founder of the Women’s Fund of Western Mass., and also serves on the boards of the Pioneer Valley Plan for Progress, Bay Path College, and the Community Foundation of Western Mass.

• Eric Gouvin, a professor of Law at the WNEC School of Law and director of WNEC’s Law and Business Center for Entrepreneurship. Previously, he practiced corporate, commercial, and banking law in Portland, Me. He founded the Small Business Clinic at WNEC School of Law, serves on the Board of Editors for the Kauffman Foundation’s eLaw web site, and is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Scibelli Enterprise Center and Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Initiative.

• Hector Toledo, vice president and Retail Sales director for Hampden Bank, and member of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty class of 2008. He is currently chair of the Board of Trustees at Springfield Technical Community College (from which he graduated), and has long been active with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Springfield’s libraries, his church, and a host of other nonprofit groups.

• Jeffrey Hayden, director of the Kittrredge Center for Business and Workforce Development at Holyoke Community College, which houses a number of workforce-development programs, the Mass Export Center, and WISER, the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research. Previously, he was director of the Holyoke Office of Planning and Development and the Holyoke Economic Development and Industrial Corp.

• Michael Vann, a principal with The Vann Group, a professional services firm that provides small-to mid-size businesses with solutions such as accounting and bookkeeping, human resources, recruiting and strategic advisory services. He handles day-to-day operations of the group’s strategic advisory services and merger/acquisition activities. He is actively involved in a number of charitable organizations, and is a member of the 40 Under Forty Class of 2007.

President, left-click Corp.

Kelly Albrecht is a problem solver.
It’s a skill he learned while majoring in philosophy at UMass, never dreaming he would open a computer-repair business that has grown from a tiny ad he put in the Yellow Pages to a million-dollar business with three locations in Amherst and Northampton.
In fact, Albrecht majored in philosophy because he didn’t want to take “a lot of boring entry-level courses,” and didn’t plan on a career in computer science. But he was already knowledgeable in the field because his brothers started programming at a young age. “The documentation of how computers work was easy for me to understand, and I found it interesting,” he said. “But I realized that wasn’t the case for everyone.”
Albrecht was attracted to the logic in philosophy, but when he became frustrated by philosophical problems, he turned to solving computer problems, an effort he found more gratifying. “In philosophy, you troubleshoot an issue where there is conflict and contradiction between what you see in reality and what you think to be true,” he said. “But you can never solve anything. The difference between philosophy and a technical problem is that the technical problem can be solved.”
Today, his background plays a role in the way he manages his company. In short, it helps him work well with people and understand the complexity inherent in teamwork. “The company has tripled in size in the last year,” he said, adding that he opened a second location in Northampton a year ago, and in November rented a third space for a Web-development team.
Albrecht is also the lead organizer for the Western Mass. Drupal Group, which held its first learning camp this year, attended by more than 200 participants.
He said he named his company left-click because the left button on the computer mouse is the one used to execute a course of action. “The right click is more exploratory, but a left click gets the job done,” said the father of three. Which is exactly what he and his team members do every day.
— Kathleen Mitchell

Adjustment Counselor, Elias Brookings E.L. Museum Magnet School

Gianna Allentuck says her life and work have a number of focal points.
But they are all intertwined, and the common denominator is hope. “The way to get to it is by connecting within the community and supporting one another,” she said.
Her parents were both educators, her family is close, and she believes everyone deserves to have a good life. “I’ve been blessed, and that is part of what inspires and motivates me,” she said. “The people in my life always inspired teamwork, support, and dedication to each other and their craft.”
Allentuck spent several years working in Washington, D.C. as a nanny. After leaving the position, she was hired by a law firm, but three weeks into the job she was diagnosed with cancer. Her co-workers immediately joined together to support her.
“They went into action and called major cancer-treatment centers to get me the best care possible,” she said, adding that the love and care she received during her treatment at the National Institutes of Health led her to write a book titled Welcome to My Heart, which was used to raise $40,000 for the Children’s Inn for seriously ill children and their families.
Allentuck returned to Western Mass. in 2006 and began working at Brookings School. Since then, she has created “A Neutral Corner,” a youth boxing program; been a co-creator and coordinator of a Peace through Education, Acceptance, Courage, and Expression (PEACE) hip-hop poetry program; and founded the annual United in Hope event that brings community members together around issues of education and peace.
She writes for the African American Point of View, and has taken an active role with many other organizations, notably the Mayor’s Citywide Violence Prevention Task Force.
“I work with people of all ages, from preschoolers to adult community members,” she said. “Our cities, schools, and communities need a lot of help. We need to get back to where neighbors help neighbors. If we connect the dots and support each other, then hope is possible.”
And that’s where it all begins for Allentuck — straight from the heart.
— Kathleen Mitchell

Project Manager, Tighe & Bond

Briony Angus admits to being a bit of a policy wonk when it comes to land use and the environment.
“I’ve always been interested in environmental issues,” said Angus, who started her career in the public sector, including a stint as a Mass. Environmental Policy Act analyst for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
“I like law and regulations, and I liked administering laws and regulations and enforcing laws and regulations,” she said. “Now, at Tighe & Bond, I’m happy to be working on the other side of the table.”
Her interest in land-use planning started in graduate school; “I got a lot of very interesting work opportunities and internships that jump-started me into the field,” Angus said. Today, her role is equally varied. “I do an enormous amount of different things and wear a number of hats; it’s a pretty diverse work experience.”
Most notably, Angus is what Tighe & Bond calls its “wind-energy champion,” and is heavily involved in growing the firm’s renewable-energy market. She manages several wind-energy projects underway at the firm, including Holyoke Gas & Electric’s plans to develop a renewable-energy project on Mt. Tom, and she frequently provides expert guidance to clients on regulatory, technical, policy, and financing issues related to such efforts.
“My earliest start in the energy field came from when I did greenhouse-gas-emissions inventories for a couple of New England municipalities,” she said, “and there has always been an energy-efficiency or clean-energy focus to my professional career.”
Angus says she has been continually inspired by her mentors — “I’ve always been very lucky to have extraordinary bosses my entire career” — and is proud to be keying innovative projects at her firm during its centennial year.
“I’m excited to be helping the team expand into new areas like renewable energy,” she said. “The fact that Tighe & Bond is interested in developing these new services is a testament to how successful it’s been over the past 100 years. And it’s personally fulfilling to know that I’m at least getting people to think about their energy choices.”
— Joseph Bednar

Community Engagement Coordinator, ACCESS Springfield Promise Program

Growing up in Springfield gave Delania Barbee the realization of how her professional life would be dedicated. “We can’t strengthen a community unless we can strengthen the young people and our young adults,” she said.
With the wisdom of someone decades older than she, Barbee said her life has been about breaking through polarizing statistics. One of the most important of those distinctions, she said, was graduating from Smith College cum laude, on the same timetable as her peers — as a single mother.
After college, she was one of the pioneering members of her hometown’s ACCESS program, an organization committed to helping students in need find ways to matriculate into higher education. The program was the first of its kind outside Boston, and Barbee was instrumental in tailoring this outfit for Springfield.
“Financial barriers are one of the main reasons why people don’t go to school,” she explained, “and my role is to meet people in the community wherever they are, to help them with those barriers.”
Working with the city’s financial-aid advisors, Barbee is doing her part to help break another statistic — the current graduation rate of 53%.
But there’s even more work to be done, she said. “While we don’t have an educated workforce the way other communities do, I want to make sure that people can work in the communities where they live.”
To that end, Barbee has set her sights on law school, so that she can better help people through the process of starting businesses in Springfield —  “not just as an attorney,” she said, “but as a counselor for them.”
Add to her goals the book she’s working on about hip-hop culture and black feminism, and it’s safe to say that Barbee will be making a change in her community for many years to come. “By raising the economic and educational qualities in Springfield,” she said, “this will add to the proud history that we have here.”
And for this local hero, that’s a pretty good rap.
— Dan Chase

Resource Development Director, Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity

On her climb to the top, Monica Borgatti said she was left gasping for breath. That is, as a volunteer for the American Lung Assoc. (ALA) Fight for Air climb held in the stairwells at Monarch Place, where she has been a fund-raising tour de force in the last three years.
Since earning a bachelor’s degree from Bay Path, Borgatti has worn many hats — she has licenses in auctioneering and real estate, and worked for a heating and cooling company. “I’ve even worked in a hotel and coffee shop,” she said.
But, she added, “none of those things were calling out to me, telling me what I needed to be doing. It was always working for someone else, making money for someone else, and it never felt amazing.
“I’ve got a pretty loud voice, and I’m fairly outgoing. I have strong opinions, and I’m not afraid to fight for what I think is right,” she continued. To channel that voice in the working world meant a return to her alma mater, where she finished a master’s degree in nonprofit management and philanthropy in 2010.
In the months since then, she has quickly proven herself an invaluable asset to the regional chapter of Habitat for Humanity. “When people ask me what I do for work,” she said, “often I see them recoil — like they’re thinking, ‘you ask people for money?’
“But it’s more an opportunity to have people give their philanthropic dollars in a meaningful way for them,” she explained. “At Habitat, we can offer those people a hand up to achieve something better for themselves. We all share this community, and we need to do the best we can to make it welcoming and healthy, to make it a good place for everyone.”
And with her team at the ALA, the Little Engines, Borgatti has been helping to raise awareness and funds for lung cancer. With her team of no more than four other volunteers and 24 flights, they have raised more per capita in the last two years than any of their fellow climbers — one step at a time.
— Dan Chase