BusinessWest

Value Based Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, ITT Power Solutions

Lisa Totz had her 40 Under Forty portrait taken on her bicycle while wearing a business suit. Such imagery, conveying both dedication and physical prowess, would seem appropriate for someone who competes in triathlons and has the words ‘black belt’ included in her job title.
But she laughed when explaining what’s behind the words printed on her business card. “Basically a black belt is someone who is a change agent,” she said, “someone working to improve things around the company.”
And what a change she has made.
For 35 years, ITT had been a paper-based company, with all of its data analysis recorded in print. “That process is so wasteful, though,” she said, “because, first, someone has to analyze all that data, and second, it’s on reams and reams of paper.”
So, as a test engineer, Totz took her data-collections role and transformed it into ‘architect’ for an interfaced, electronic test-data collection system. It’s a technical approach to solving the inefficiency created by all that paper, and, using simple terms, she said it “changes how ITT Power Solutions functions.”
And with one look at what Totz does in her free time, it’s easy to see that efficiency is key to making time for all of her pursuits. Over the years, she’s volunteered time, energy, and imagination to such groups and causes as the Jimmy Fund, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Griffin’s Friends, ITT Watermark, the company’s corporate philanthropy program (which she’s served as site ambassador), and the Wave Triathlon, which she founded in 2009 to benefit the Westfield YMCA Wave Swim Team.
It was for her efforts with the triathlon, which has growing steadily in terms of participation and funds raised, that she received the Westfield YMCA’s Spirit Award, which she counts among the accomplishments of which she is most proud.
A five-time Ironman triathlete, Totz noted that “youths don’t have a lot of good role models these days.” But, through the work she’s done on the job and within the community, she has certainly become one.
— Dan Chase

Program Manager, Human Resources Unlimited, Lighthouse

It’s called the HRU Café. That’s the name given to a new venture, a unique start-up business located at the Springfield Jewish Community Center (JCC) that brings together most of Jeff Trant’s passions under one roof, or operation.
These include social work, which he’s been doing virtually all his life — currently as director of a facility called Lighthouse, a community rehabilitation and employment organization managed by Human Resources Unlimited (the HRU part of that name) — and also business, or, in this case, the all-important business side of nonprofit management.
And then, there’s the coffee. “That’s been a serious vice since grad school,” he said.
The café, open since Valentine’s Day, employs disabled and disadvantaged adults and thus brings awareness to the large and diverse JCC community about the abilities of all people, disabled or otherwise, said Trant. Doing this, and hopefully breaking even financially, he said, helps explain what he means when he says he’s “an untraditional social worker.”
“When you have the credentials I have, you’re automatically sort of put in this box — when people hear the words ‘social worker,’ they assume you do one of two things, that you do child-protective services, meaning you take kids who are abused or neglected away from families, or you do psychotherapy with people. I do neither. What I do is very important work — it’s working with folks who don’t have a voice and helping them get one. That cuts across all facets of society, and it’s all about building stronger communities.”
Through Trant’s leadership, Springfield-based Lighthouse, which he took over in 2008, has undergone a successful restructuring, and now serves more than 500 men and women recovering from the effects of mental illness.
Trant’s only passion not represented by the café is golf, which he calls the “great equalizer,” and a way to “decompress” from his hard and often trying work at HRU, trying to give his clients a voice.
Trant credits his wife, Rachel, with helping him find a balance between work, life, golf, and coffee.
— George O’Brien

President, the Sandri Companies

Tim Van Epps remembers the conversation vividly.
It was Christmas night, 2004. He was enjoying a single-malt scotch with his father-in-law, W.A. (Bill) Sandri, when the conversation turned in a direction he wasn’t expecting. “He asked me if I would be interested in coming to his office, taking a look at the family business [the Sandri Companies], and giving my opinion on things. That was the first time he had ever raised the subject.”
And thus began more conversations — and some hard vetting on the part of company executives — that would eventually prompt Van Epps to leave a lucrative job as a portfolio manager for Sovereign Bank and take the helm at one of Franklin County’s largest employers, a deeply diversified, $200 million company involved in everything from gas stations (116 of them under the Sunoco flag) to photovoltaic installations; from a host of clean-energy ventures to three semi-private, high-end golf courses.
It is Van Epps’ goal to continue this diversification, thus further expanding a company currently boasting 500 employees — and counting. “Right now, we can’t build office space fast enough for new people.”
Many of these employees wouldn’t know Van Epps by face, which is good because he likes to pop into his gas station/convenience stores and other businesses while on the road in a form of Undercover Boss work that, he said, keeps him in touch with things happening on the ground.
While working to continually expand the family business, Van Epps is also busy within the community. He’s on the board at Franklin Medical Center and the Greenfield Community College Foundation, and is a member of the Western Mass. Chapter of the Young President’s Organization. He’s also a big supporter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, for which he helps organize a golf tournament that has become a key fund-raiser.
Meanwhile he travels extensively with his wife, Wendy, and children, Aiden, Aaron, and Ashley — Singapore was one recent destination — leaving Van Epps with little time for golf on his company’s courses, including Crumpin-Fox in Bernardston.
Which, at this moment, is his only regret.
— George O’Brien

Regional Director, Mass. Office of Business Development

Mike Vedovelli draws a number of parallels between coaching basketball, which he’s done at both Cathedral and Agawam high schools, and his day job as regional director of the Mass. Office of Business Development.
“It’s all about relationships,” he said. “Both provide different situations, different scenarios, each day, and you have to respond. In coaching, you’re put in some difficult situations where you have a kid who’s trying really hard and giving to the best of his ability, but not able to really compete; you have to explain why he’s not playing, but that he’s still part of a team. It’s similar with businesses: they’re coming to you asking for the sky, and you can only realistically give them so much.”
Vedovelli’s had considerable success on the court — Cathedral teams he served as assistant coach won four Western Mass. championships in six years, and two of his Agawam teams won sportsmanship awards — and within the broad realm of state-supported economic development. Indeed, he’s had his picture in several press outlets, including BusinessWest, for his work helping companies such as Titeflex and Smith & Wesson, both in Springfield, gain the state and local support needed to expand. But ultimate success isn’t measured in photo ops, but rather with jobs created or retained, he said, adding that the number was 225 with Smith & Wesson and more than 100 with Titeflex.
What he likes best about his work is the diversity. “Every day is different; one day I’m dealing with a tiny manufacturing company in Conway, a nine-person operation that’s going to create two jobs, and the town is going crazy because they think it’s great, and the company is very excited because it thinks this will open doors to new business. The next day I’m dealing with a Fortune 25 company that could potentially add 100 new jobs.”
The hardest parts of this job, he continued, are managing the expectations of those seeking help, and saying no, which he has to do on many occasions.
Vedovelli is married to Sarah, and has two sons, Cameron, 6, and Ryan, 4.
— George O’Brien

Executive Director, Rockridge Retirement Community

Beth Vettori didn’t always plan to work in senior living. But her perspective changed while on vacation.
“My graduation gift from my parents was a trip to Switzerland with my grandmother, on a tour bus with other retirees,” she said. “Everyone was in their upper 60s, 70s, and 80s, and we toured Switzerland, Italy, and France. I bonded with the seniors without realizing it.”
After college, she went to work for Orchard Valley at Wilbraham and started up its Harbor program, an assisted-living neighborhood for elders with various types of memory impairment. “It was very challenging and a great experience to put that together,” she said. “It’s a great, caring atmosphere.”
She was later hired by Rockridge Retirement Community in Northampton and was promoted to executive director at age 27. At the time, the community had an operating deficit of nearly $1 million, but she led a restructuring effort to bring it to profitability within two years.
“My task is running the campus, so I oversee all the operations,” she said, noting that she especially enjoys the contact with both employees and residents. “It’s challenging, but it’s exciting. There are some great, great people who live here and work here with me.”
For her work at Rockridge — including opening its 42-unit assisted-living community and its memory-support neighborhood before being named executive director — Vettori earned the Emerging Leader Award from MassAging in 2010.
“While the [restructuring] task was difficult, especially for a young, new executive director,” said Paul Hollings, chairman of the MassAging board, “Beth pulled it off with grace and dignity and made everyone feel positive about the changes.”
In her spare time, she stays active with several nonprofits, including Steph’s Wild Ride, an organization launched five years ago to assist children with cancer; it was named after Vettori’s cousin, who died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 21. “I want to help other local families by providing children with funds and gift cards, things that can really help them out,” she said.
It’s just one more way Vettori is helping to improve lives — both young and old.
— Joseph Bednar