BusinessWest

MassMutual Program Features a New Model for Mentoring

It is just after 8:45 on Wednesday morning, and Linda O’Neal and Shaylene Sanchez are settling into what has become their normal routine over the past 20 months — although there’s nothing routine about this exercise.
After grabbing some breakfast — O’Neal has chosen oatmeal on this day, while Sanchez has opted for a fruit cup and some juice — they seek out a quiet spot (if there is such a thing) in the large cafeteria at MassMutual’s sprawling headquarters on State Street in Springfield.
They have what amounts to a regular table, and there, every Wednesday, schedules permitting, they talk about what could best be described as the business of the day. And there is plenty of it at this critical juncture in Sanchez’s life.
For starters, the junior at Putnam Vocational Technical High School is taking the SATs in a few weeks, and has sought advice from O’Neal, a director in Retirement Services at MassMutual, on how to best prepare for that important challenge. Meanwhile, Sanchez is thinking about getting a part-time job this summer, and is exploring a number of options, including possible openings at MassMutual. She has sounded out her mentor on how to go about a search and choose the job that’s right for her, and the two have go so far as to conduct some mock job interviews in preparation for the real thing.
And then, there’s college. Sanchez will soon be entering her senior year and thus also commencing the usually grueling ordeal of exploring schools, applying at those she finds a good match, and seeking available financial aid — a process with which her parents can be of only limited help, because they haven’t been through it themselves.
Providing such assistance is just one of the motivating factors behind the creation of MassMutual’s unique — and award-winning — Career Pathways mentorship program, which now involves several dozen students at several high schools, who are matched with employees representing virtually every department in the company.
The initiative, carried out in conjunction with Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Springfield School Department, pairs students with the skills and inclination to pursue careers in financial services, information technology, and business with MassMutual employees who can help put their career aspirations into sharper focus, while also offering advice and support with regard to the myriad personal challenges facing today’s high-school students.
And in so doing, the company is helping to create what Pamela Mathison calls a “talent pipeline.”
“The Career Pathways model marries the needs of the students and the company together,” said Mathison, a community responsibility specialist for the company and lead coordinator of the mentoring program, adding that students gain valuable counseling, and MassMutual establishes relationships with potential future employees.
Jerrell Moore, director of Diversity & Inclusion at Mass-Mutual, didn’t have a mentor while growing up, and it is because he feels he could definitely have used one that he is passionate about his work in mentorship — in this program and other initiatives within the community.
“I think about a lot of the challenges that I have even now, professionally and personally,” he told BusinessWest. “If I had someone that could have shown me a just a few different steps I could have taken or turned my shoulders in a different direction … it’s not would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, but I see the impact that we as people working in corporate America, or just adults, can have by spending just a little bit of time with young people. It really makes a difference.”
At present, Moore is mentoring José Bautista, a junior at the High School of Science and Technology (which, like Putnam, is literally across the street from MassMutual), who has designs on a career in health care, although he admits that could change over the next year.
Bautista credits Moore with pushing him hard and hitting whichever buttons are necessary to get him to reach higher and put maximum effort into whatever it is he’s doing.
“He’s like a motivational speaker — every time I come in here, I leave with a new attitude,” he said. “Every week he’s like a beacon pushing me on, guiding me so I don’t lose focus.”
For this issue, BusinessWest interrupted the normal Wednesday-morning interaction between these two pairings to gain a better understanding of how the Career Pathways program works, and how it will benefit both the students and the company. We’ll also get some insight into mentoring from both sides of the equation and learn that there are rewards for all those who are involved.

Learning Curves
O’Neal said she’s noticed a big difference in the way Sanchez talks about school now, as compared to her comments and body language when these two first started meeting in MassMutual’s cafeteria in September 2010.
“Back then, she’d just say, ‘it’s school,’ and shrug her shoulders,” said O’Neal. “I’m so proud of her right now, because the way she talks about school is much different. I can tell that she understands the importance of a good education; she has a whole new attitude about school.”
Making such transformations reality is what organizers had in mind when they introduced mentoring programs at MassMutual several years ago, said Mathison, adding that the company has long been involved with supporting Springfield-area students, especially those attending Putnam and Sci-Tech.
The current initiative, put in place two years ago as part of the company’s broader Career Pathways Program, is an effort to take traditional mentoring and add a career-development component to it, as the name clearly suggests, she went on, adding that the program strives to introduce young people to career opportunities in finance, IT, and business, and also introduce them to MassMutual and its culture.
What’s more, the program and the individual mentors keep a focus on that word ‘pathways,’ and the need for students to get on — and stay on — the road that will take them to the careers they’ve been exposed to through their mentors and those with whom they work side by side.
The initiative is a true partnership between the company, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the School Department, she continued, and has been designed to bring the talents of the three organizations together to create a strong and unique mentoring model.
“MassMutual is in the business of workforce development — we’ve got great opportunities to develop young people — but we’re not in the mentoring business,” she explained. “However, Big Brothers Big Sisters is, and they’ve provided support for the work involved to sustain a solid mentoring program.”
Elaborating, she said there is a geat deal of work that goes into the process of matching young people with mentors. In a nutshell, MassMutual recruits the many volunteers needed for the program, and Big Brothers Big Sisters goes about screening both volunteers and students identified by the School Department, and making the eventual matches. Students are identified for 10th grade, and are mentored for the last three years in high school.
The program recently earned an Ignite Award from the Mass Mentoring Partnership, which serves as an umbrella organization for nearly 200 mentoring programs across the state, including 25 in Western Mass.
As she talked about the mentoring process, O’Neal said this type of supportive assistance comes naturally to her, in part because of her job description within MassMutual’s Retirement Services department.
“I manage a group of account managers who service different corporations and the 401(k) plans they offer to employees,” she explained. “I love managing people, and I like being a resource, so that’s why the mentor program is ideal for me.
“I’m also involved in a number of youth programs in the Hartford area,” she continued, noting that she lives in Connecticut and is active with many initiatives in that state. “So when the mentoring program came to MassMutual, it was perfect for me.”
She described mentoring as very rewarding work, for which one needs good listening skills as well as the ability to counsel students while not necessarily giving them answers, but helping them find the answers themselves.
Which brings her back to those practice job interviews she has staged with Sanchez, designed to help the student answer questions she’ll likely hear from an HR representative, while building confidence and enabling Sanchez to gauge her own strengths and weaknesses in the process.
Indeed, when asked to recall the most difficult question O’Neal has put to her during these exercises, Sanchez said, “it’s when she asks me to talk about myself.”
Overall, Sanchez said she’s benefited greatly from her Wednesday-morning sessions with O’Neal, largely because she can discuss things she normally wouldn’t with her parents, and also gain insight on things like the college-admissions process from someone who has been there and done that.
“She’s just always there for me,” Sanchez said of O’Neal. “She listens and gives really valuable advice.”

Talking the Talk
On this particular Wednesday morning, Moore and Bautista were talking about scholarships, and which ones the latter could, and perhaps should, apply for as he contemplates college.
“We were looking at a Navy scholarship,” he explained, noting that’s in the ROTC program at Sci-Tech. “We also found a whole bunch of other scholarships that I could be eligible for, including a Latin scholarship, and we printed out information on many others that I can look at when I get home.”
At present, Bautista is taking a number of advanced-placement courses, including those in English and calculus. The broad plan is to position himself to pursue opportunities in engineering, health, or business.
He’s taking the SATs in June, and that has been another subject of conversation with Moore, whom Bautista credits with keeping him focused on what’s in front of him, and keeping him on that road he needs to travel to get where he wants to go.
“We talk about everything school-related,” he told BusinessWest. “We’ve been talking about scholarships, we’ve talked about time management — that was a big topic a while back — and we talk about how to act in different environments; we talk about a lot of stuff here.”
Moore nodded his head in agreement and, when asked how each week’s sessions proceed, said that Bautista will usually set the tone when it comes to talking points or, for lack of a better word, the day’s agenda.
“And for me, it comes down to making myself available to see what his needs are, and then adjusting the conversation so he gets the most out of that time,” said Moore. “It’s listening, planting the seeds, and offering encouragement. A lot of times, you see the capacity for him to be able to get things, but it’s that extra push to say, ‘yes, you can do it,’ or ‘have you tried this out?’
“That’s what a lot of our sessions are about,” Moore continued. “Sometimes he works it out on his own just talking through things.”
And while the mentoring program has obvious benefits for the young students, or mentees, as they’re called, it also carries rewards for the mentors — “this keeps me energized and feeling connected,” Moore said — and potentially for the company as well, he added, using the phrase ‘full circle’ early and often to describe this initiative.
“We get people like José in, they get to see our environment and see our commitment,” he explained, “so when he’s in college, he’s thinking about how MassMutual is a great place to work and how it’s well-regarded in the financial-services community, and he’s thinking about the opportunities and experiences he’s had there. It just comes full circle when I think about those things.”

That’s a Rap
Looking back at her own childhood, O’Neal, one of seven children in her family, said she benefited from having adults around that could give her guidance and insight.
“There were adults in my life who encouraged me to go to college, because they had never gone to college, and who helped me focus on my career,” she told BusinessWest. “So I know how valuable it is to have an adult there to listen to you, and I say this to people when they tell me they don’t have time to mentor young people.”
They need to find the time, she went on, because, as Moore said, mentoring does indeed come full circle, and the Career Pathways program seems certain to show that companies and individuals who invest time and energy in young people will see those investments pay huge dividends.

George O’Brien can be reached at obrien@businesswest.com

Air Show Strives to Gain the Attention — and Support — of the Region

The Great New England Air Show and Open House, scheduled for Aug. 4 and 5 at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, has a special theme: they’re calling it “a Salute to the Greatest Generation.”
And in a nod to the men and women who served during World War II and are known by that descriptive phrase coined by Tom Brokaw (it became the title of his book on the subject), the show will feature a number of vintage aircraft from that era — including the vaunted bomber called the B-17 and the fighter known as the P-51 Mustang — as well as several ground displays and re-enactments of events from that global conflict.
Meanwhile, calls have gone out to veterans’ agencies across the region in the hope that they can contact those who served during the war (now in their 90s, on average) and ask those who are able and willing to come to the show and earn a salute from those in attendance.
At the same time, though, a different kind of call is being made, this one to businesses and individuals whose help is needed to make this show — which is expected to draw more than 300,000 people from across New England — all that planners hope it can be and should be. Bud Shuback, president of the Galaxy Community Council, a volunteer civilian organization that supports activities at Westover, including the air show, calls this his “100 Heroes” campaign.
Elaborating, Shuback said he’s working diligently to identify 100 companies or individuals who can donate $1,000 toward the estimated $250,000 the Galaxy Community Council will need to cover its share of the cost of putting on the air show. That’s a bigger burden than in previous years, and there are reasons for that.
Primarily, it comes down to cutbacks within the Department of Defense, including the number of appearances for flying teams like the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, shows that come free of charge for organizers of events like the Great New England Air Show.
Replacing those popular acts with private (non-military) jet-demonstration teams — like the Red Steel Jet Team scheduled for this year’s show that will fly Russian MIG 23s — is necessary, but also quite expensive, said Joe Marois, a long-time member of the Galaxy Community Council.
Marois and Shuback stressed repeatedly that there will be an air show in August — that’s a certainty. What isn’t known yet is the size and overall quality of the show, which will determined by the amount of funding support attainted. But it’s important for the show to reach traditional levels of excellence, they said, to draw a large audience and thus have a significant economic impact on the region.
Meanwhile, the show provides an excellent opportunity for Westover to open its doors to the public, and also assists in the ongoing efforts to recruit young men and women, said Col. Steven Vautrain, commander of the 439th Airlift Wing based at Westover.
“I always stress the ‘and open house’ part of the show’s name — it’s not just about the airplanes,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for us to open up the base, let people come in and see what we do, and show them a good time. It also helps bring money into the local economy, because you have 300,000 people coming, with many of them staying in local hotels and eating in local restaurants.
“It’s also good for us when it comes to recruiting — that’s one of the main reasons for doing the air show,” he continued, noting that he believes he got hooked on flying while attending a show at South Weymouth Naval Air Station when he was young. “That happens with a lot of kids; they come out, see the jets, the helicopters, the Marines, the Air Force — and they make a connection and say, ‘that’s something I’d like to do.’”

Base of Support
Shuback told BusinessWest that this region has a rich history of producing large and memorable air shows over the past several decades.
Indeed, with a few exceptions — forced by everything from scheduled inspections to the ramping up of military activity following the 9/11 terrorist attacks — Westover and Barnes Municipal Airport (home to the 104th Tactical Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard) have staged shows on alternating years since the ’80s.
And while the show will indeed go on this year, additional support is needed to maintain the high quality that visitors have enjoyed over the years — and also to ensure that the show will have the same economic impact it has had in the past, said Shuback.
And those numbers are impressive. The 2008 air show at Westover (the last one in Chicopee) contributed $13.8 million in direct economic impact to the region, according to a report authored by students at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst.
A large portion of that impact comes in the form of hotel stays and business with other types of hospitality-related ventures conducted by individuals and families traveling long distances to reach the show, the report concluded.
The Galaxy Council has always had to conduct extensive fund-raising efforts to produce the air show, said Shuback, adding that it has secured sponsorships from both local companies and national and international corporations (including several car makers) while also staging a huge kickoff fund-raising breakfast, this year slated for Aug. 3.
But this year, the challenge is greater, he told BusinessWest, because of those aforementioned defense cutbacks and resulting bigger tab for the Galaxy Community Council (which must pay for the fuel for the acts, provide lodging, and other expenses), but also due to the lingering effects of the recession.
“The last time Westover hosted a show was 2008,” Shuback noted, “and while the recession was certainly coming, most companies were not really feeling the impact by that summer.”
More than one-quarter into 2012, many companies small and large are still feeling the effects, he went on, adding that some traditional supporters of the air show are scaling back their contributions, while others are pulling back altogether. “People are being more cautious in this environment.”
These various challenges have forced the Galaxy Community Council to exercise its imagination and resiliency, said Shuback, and one of the answers it has devised is the 100 Heroes campaign.
It is expected to involve area chambers of commerce, the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, Spirit of Springfield, and other groups and elected leaders in an effort to identify parties that can step forward and support the show.
“We’re reaching out to the local people who are impacted by the economics of this show,” said Shuback. “And if you’re in this region, you’re impacted in some way; the money will rattle around, and everyone will benefit.”

Soaring Expectations
The full list of show attractions is still being finalized, but the lineup is already deep and diverse. It includes everything from a host of World War II-vintage aircraft to a demonstration of a Marine Corps CV-22 Osprey; from a jet-powered school bus to a U.S. Navy F-18 Hornet demonstration.
The full scope of the show will ultimately be determined by the support from the business community, including what Shuback, Marois, and others hope will be at least 100 heroes.
“The show has really become a tradition in this region and, beyond that, a boon for the local economy,” said Marois. “It’s a tradition we want to continue because there are a number of important benefits for the region.”

George O’Brien can be reached at obrien@businesswest.com

EANE Has Been a Resource for Nearly 100 Years

It was well over a century ago when a group of business owners in manufacturing decided that, rather than hold on to the unique workforce solutions they had formed within their own firms, they would share this information and, in the process, benefit their entire industry.
This group of businessmen was originally based in Connecticut, but in 1913, a branch of similar visionary mill owners in Western Mass. saw the wisdom of this way of doing things and joined the movement. That, Meredith Wise told BusinessWest, is how the Employers Association of the NorthEast got its start.
“They felt that they could do better in their businesses if they shared all manner of interests, best practices, how they could be doing things,” said Wise, the group’s president. “Part of it at that point in time was to combat union organizations. But when you look back at the records, it wasn’t militant, or ‘keep the unions out at all costs.’ Instead, it was, ‘how do we make our workforce better so that they’re not interested in unions?’”
Today, the EANE has broadened both its member base and its geographic scope. Where once manufacturing was the only sector served, today the 830-plus members range across New England and into Eastern New York, with virtually every industry represented.
The smallest of companies on up to firms with a workforce numbering in the thousands benefit from the combined wisdom of the organization, which Wise said simply exists “to provide the best human resources, training and development information, and services to our members so that they can improve their business and meet their overall goals.”
That early mythology of ‘union busting’ is one that Wise again dismissed. “What we’re doing is trying to improve the relationship between an employer and their employees,” she explained, “so that there’s not a need for any third parties — whether that’s a union or an employee going to the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination, or to an attorney. What we want to do is work with our members to provide a better workplace for their employees.
“The idea,” she continued, “is to keep good communication, before something becomes a problem.”
In an increasingly volatile business climate featuring outsourcing, ‘rightsizing,’ fluctuations within the economy, and information technology entering the workplace at light speed, Wise said her organization is there to provide assistance and advice to its members, with the expectation of bolstering each company’s strengths and bettering its bottom line.
And that is where Wise and her staff at the EANE are getting down to business. Often a company lacks the ability to devote time or resources to changing compliance regulations and the complications of business in the fast-paced technology arena. While there are times she hears from new clients, more often, she works with businesses that understand the long history of EANE’s assistance, and seek to get their own share of its experience in the marketplace.

Motivational Speaker
While the agency’s name puts the spotlight on the employers themselves, Wise said that much of what her organization focuses on is the workforce.
“The thought is that, in order for companies to reach what they want to achieve, they have to make sure that they’ve got the right people in the right spots with the right talent and skills, all to do what needs to get done,” she explained. “Without those people, and without that motivation and competency, a business isn’t going to meet its bottom line.”
Here, she said the EANE is engaged to assist with the HR departments of its members to fine-tune industry, legal, and regulatory compliances, but without forgetting those individuals on the floor, and always with the goal of attracting, retaining, and motivating the employee base to keep the business moving in a progressive fashion.
“We do a lot of passing along of best practices in human-resource areas — what other companies are doing around retention, engagement, what they’re doing to keep people motivated in the economic climate that we’ve got, how they’re keeping people motivated when they’re asking them to do more with less,” Wise said.
To achieve such goals, she said the EANE spends a significant amount of time in training for leadership, management development, customer service, and teamwork — either in seminars or at roundtable discussions. “We provide all of the skills that people need in order to help their businesses grow,” she added.
But rather than an outsourced model of HR, she said the EANE acts as a partner, or addition, to the existing departments within member businesses.
“Everything has gotten so complicated, and changes so fast, that it’s hard for one person to have all the resources and all the skills that they need,” she continued, “even for a few people in the HR department. So we look at ourselves as augmenting that function within an organization.”
Such complications arise as the very nature of business hierarchy has been shifting away from a purely top-down model. In generations past, a president, CEO, CFO, or senior management team were the people who made all the decisions within a company.
“That fit the environment that was there,” Wise went on. “But nowadays, so much is changing in the business sphere that almost everyone within an organization has to have some decision-making capability. It is increasingly important to be sure that people have the training, the skills, that they’re onboard with the mission and vision of the organization, that they’re held accountable for their decisions, that they have the knowledge to make those decisions. That gets complicated for an organization to do.”
Sometimes, this can be a difficult decision for business leadership to make. But the EANE helps each client take a look at its practices, policies, benefits programs, and employee engagement, and shares the best practices from other employers as well as helping to design strategies unique to that organization.
It’s not always about putting out a fire, Wise said. “Lots of times where we get that call, it happens when a CFO, CEO, or an HR person is out in a group and they’re kibitzing with their peers. That person may ask their colleagues about pain points in their own business — starting to see some turnover, maybe losing some good people. Sometimes it’s just about a number of workers ready to retire. They’ll ask who you are using as a resource. Then our name comes up.”

Stock in Trade
There are still people who say the EANE aims to keep unions out of the workplace, Wise said. Further explaining her dismissal of this notion, an aim of her organization is instead to ensure that her clients’ workforce gets valued attention and recognition.
“We’re not stepping into the middle of that relationship — getting between the employer and the worker,” she continued. “We’re not the employer’s voice to the employee, or vice versa. What we’re trying to do is coach the employer so that their practices and procedures are positive.
“It’s not that we want to keep out unions,” she continued, “but to improve that relationship so that the employee doesn’t feel the need for a union, or that they don’t feel discriminated against, or that, if there’s a harassment issue, that the employee feels comfortable walking into that HR director’s office, the CEO’s office, and telling them about issues that are important to talk about.”
But that’s not as much of an issue, she said, as the nature of the modern workplace, which is evolving on a near-constant basis. And her advice to all business owners and managers is to work within the changes that have taken place rather than try make older ways of doing things work is this changed environment.
Speaking of the Baby Boomer generation as an example, she said that there are many who are nearing or at retirement age. “Some of them may not be able to retire now,” Wise said, “as their savings may have been decimated through the recession. But what is happening within the workplace is that those in their late 50s or 60s, maybe they’re not at a place where they can retire, but they can step back from the 50-hour workweeks. How can an employer meet the needs of that population?”
Here, the unfolding technology that increasingly drives the office could be utilized for Boomers to work from remote locations or work more flexibly outside of a traditional workweek. Such models are also advantageous to newly minted college graduates, for whom a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday schedule might not work effectively.
“This is an example of a good lesson from the last few years on how business needs to better leverage technology,” she said.
As she reflected on the long history of her organization and a century of providing assistance to area businesses, Wise said it’s important to note that the EANE is based in the region it serves.
“What we try to get across to our members is that we’re not just their partner, and not just their resource,” she said. “We’re local, and we’re tied into the communities that are here — which means we understand the environments in which they’re working.
“We’ve been here for over 100 years,” she added with a smile, “and I hope we can continue to be helping organizations for another 100.”

Springfield’s Mayor Looks Back — and Ahead

Domenic Sarno was asked if he could recall what was happening with his city just a year ago.

Springfield’s mayor, now more than 100 days into his third term (one that will last four years), leaned back in his chair, glanced toward the ceiling, and then offered a look that said he could handle that assignment, but it might take a bit of doing.

“That seems like a long, long time ago,” he mused, referring to the days just before a tornado blazed a half-mile-wide trail of devastation through several neighborhoods, changing the landscape in innumerable ways. “So much has happened since that awful day.”

But then, Sarno was able to go back and recall a number of specific events and initiatives from the spring of 2011, from a celebration of the city’s 375th birthday (just a few weeks before the tornado struck) to the closing of a deal with the state that would enable Smith & Wesson to expand its Roosevelt Avenue plant and add 250 jobs; from the relocation of some of the last tenants to the renovated former federal building, now known as 1550 Main Street, to the emergence of plans to locate market-rate housing in the former School Department building on State Street.

“The Asylum building was coming down, we were seeing some progress on Union Station,” he went on, exercising his memory successfully. “There was the daily grind of the budget … we were dealing with the foreclosure crisis, and all the normal fires you put out every day.

“There were many positive things happening; there was a lot of momentum in this city,” he continued, stopping well short of saying that the June 1 tornado put an end to that momentum. But he acknowledged that it certainly compounded the many challenges already facing Springfield and other urban centers like it, while also adding exponentially to the many lines already on his job description.

“I’m probably talking to FEMA, not every day, but most days,” said Sarno, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the phone numbers for which are now obviously in his speed dial. “I’m going to fight damn hard to get every dime that the city deserves on the federal and state level.”

BusinessWest recently talked at length with the mayor at what would have to be considered an intriguing time in the city’s history and his tenure of service. The one-year anniversary of the tornado is fast approaching, and Rebuild Springfield efforts are moving forward, but the city is also still dealing with the aftereffects of several other weather calamities, especially the late-October nor’easter that dropped nearly a foot of snow and left what Sarno projected as a $30 million tab for debris clearing. Meanwhile, the city is confronting an ultra-challenging budget scenario, as evidenced by headlines hinting strongly of both municipal layoffs and trash-fee hikes. An all-important school-superintendent search will soon be underway, and the process of choosing sites for casinos has begun, with Springfield as a major player in that competition.

Summing up all, or certainly most, of the items on his slate, Sarno summoned a word he would use early and often in his remarks: resiliency.

He said the city displayed large quantities of that trait while coping with not only the tornado but the other weather disasters to visit the City of Homes in 2011. It will somehow need to find some more to tackle those aforementioned challenges, he went on, adding that he believes the city’s residents and civic leaders have plenty left.

“I think the best thing to come out of the tornado is that people look at Springfield differently now,” he said. “Some thought we were against the ropes and that this was the haymaker that was going to knock us out. Instead, the exact opposite happened; you saw the community come together, you saw neighbor helping neighbor. That’s going to help us moving forward.”

After the Storm
As he looked back on the tornado and its immediate aftermath, Sarno used both humor and poignancy to get his thoughts across.

Indeed, he talked whimsically about donating the walkie-talkie he carried and the boots he wore to work for weeks after the crisis to the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. He also recalled people saying how tanned he looked in the weeks after the tornado, and, while noting that this was the result of being outdoors, constantly touring damaged neighborhoods, remembered that his response was always “this is not the way you want to get a tan.”

But when he revisited the first several hours after the tornado touched down, and the work to set up a command post and an emergency shelter at the MassMutual Center, he turned quite serious as he described scenes burned into his memory.

“It was probably 1 o’clock in the morning or even later … I was down at the MassMutual Center with some others — I think Sen. Kerry was there — to reassure the families,” he recalled. “And then I started to take a walk down South Main Street. Crews were already doing demolition and clearance, and it was surreal; buildings were shredded in half, but you could still see lights burning and television sets were on because many of the power lines in that area are underground.

“The police were telling me that I had to see Island Pond Road,” he continued. “They said I wasn’t going to be able to recognize it, and they were right; I got there about 6 in the morning, and it was unrecognizable. It looked like dominoes that had been knocked down, or that someone had a pencil with an eraser on it and did a messy job erasing stuff.”

Summing up what’s happened since, the mayor had the expected high praise for those who responded to the tragedy, and said the city has impressed both its own residents and leaders on Beacon Hill with how it has battled back.

“People were proud of the way we handled the initial response,” he told BusinessWest. “We all rallied together; we didn’t throw our hands in the air and say, ‘where’s the federal government? Where’s the state government?’ We handled it ourselves, and then our partners came in.”

Nearly 11 months after the tornado struck, there is notable improvement in many neighborhoods, said Sarno, noting, in particular, the solid rebuilding efforts in Forest Park and Sixteen Acres sections.

Meanwhile, in the highly visible South End, there is some progress, but much more promise in the form of emerging strategic initiatives that will center around several “anchors,” as the mayor called them.

These include the South End Community Center, which Sarno once administered, as well as early-childhood-education provider Square One, which saw its headquarters and other facilities on Main Street destroyed by the twister, and the former MacDuffie School campus off Central Street that was extensively damaged by the tornado.

The mayor conceded that there’s no real manual to consult when it comes to recovering from a tragedy of this magnitude, but he said lessons have been learned from similar calamities, especially the actions taken in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Actually, that was a case of what not to do.

“We found that they had three rebuild plans, and the first two failed miserably, because they went from the top down,” he explained. “Our strategy was to go from the bottom up, grassroots, and that’s exactly what we did, with grassroots committees, and we got complete participation.

“The other thing we realized was that this gives an opportunity to not only rebuild the tornado-ravaged area,” he continued, “but redefine the city of Springfield — and on a lot of different fronts. And we’ll take full advantage of that.”

Picking Up the Pieces
As he talked with BusinessWest, Sarno related a conversation he had with Gov. Deval Patrick while surveying damage only a few days after the tornado struck.

“He said, ‘no one wants this kind of disaster, but you have two silver linings here,’” the mayor recalled. “The first was the resiliency of the people of Springfield that kept us going 24/7, and the other was the monetary help that would be coming to the city, and the economic development that will coming to the community.”

And there are signs that the disaster might indeed yield long-term benefits. “We know there are a lot of investors currently looking at Springfield,” he explained, “and good investors, not ones just looking to cannibalize.”

But real progress will not come quickly or easily, he stressed repeatedly, noting that this is one of many reasons why he’s happy the city made the move to double the length of the mayor’s term in office.

“Four years gives you time to not only put out fires every five minutes, but also plan out a vision for the city,” he explained. “A four-year term allows you legacy.”

And several current and pending matters will likely determine what Sarno’s legacy will be. That list includes tornado recovery, obviously, “I want to rebuild these neighborhoods and make them better than they were before,” he said. But it also includes the current budget crisis, resulting from five consecutive years of state-aid cutbacks; the fate of the city’s school system as the search for a new superintendent commences; the possibility of a casino being built off Route 291 (or perhaps one of several other rumored locations); efforts to reduce the high poverty levels in the city; and even initiatives to give UMass Amherst a much greater presence in Springfield.

Sarno pointed to the superintendent search as a critical step for the city because, he noted, many of Springfield’s deeper problems, including its poverty rates and high percentage of single-parent homes (40% by his estimate) are directly related to a troubled school system.

“That is a huge pick — and I want the best person, whether it’s internal or from afar,” he said. “Because that person has got to come in with an established plan to increase our graduation rates, which are unacceptable right now, decrease our dropout rates, and hammer away at reading from the third grade on; if you can’t read, you can’t succeed.

“And the superintendent has to be a lot like the mayor,” he continued. “He or she has to be the face of the school system, and be out there marketing it. And that’s important not only to the residents of Springfield, but the business community as well.

“If you’re ever going to stem poverty rates and change the public-safety perception in urban centers, it has to come long-term through education,” he went on. “I don’t care what anybody says; we can continue to do our sweeps on guns and gangs and drugs, but those steps, while they’re not Band-aid approaches, they’re short-term hits.”

While the school system is obviously the top priority, Sarno said he has pressing matters moving forward, including his efforts to bring greater vitality — and more business opportunities — to the central business district by creating more market-rate housing. He told BusinessWest that the city has rejected a number of proposals for additional subsidized housing in that area, because there is already enough, if not more than enough, of that product, when an effective mix has been identified as a key component in downtown revitalization efforts in many urban centers.

The goal moving forward is to capitalize on an apparent trend — people of all ages moving back into urban areas after leaving them decades ago — and this can only be done, said the mayor, if there is both housing stock and ample activity and services to attract people to the downtown area.

“The trend is changing — people want to come back to the urban centers, as long as you keep it clean and safe,” he explained. “I’m trying to take advantage of this phenomenon that’s occurring with Baby Boomers and empty-nesters — they’re looking to downsize, they’re looking to come back to the urban center, and I’m looking to make it more attractive. I want a more eclectic mix.”

As for a casino, Sarno said he will “fight tooth and nail” for one in his city, but also work to gain as much back as possible from the chosen casino developer, regardless of where the facility is eventually built.

“The ground rules still haven’t been put in place, but to me, the more competition, the better,” he explained. “The more formal proposals, the better; that means I will continue to ask for everything and anything I can get for the city.

“I want the best, most viable plan and location for Springfield,” he continued, “that brings the most transforming effect on the residents and the business community.”

While working on that front, Sarno said he must also contend with those “small fires” he mentioned, as well as the larger blaze that is the tangled budget situation and the ongoing challenge of simply keeping the city solvent. He said he has rejected all temptations to use reserves to help the city through the current squeeze, and is prepared to make the hard decisions, including layoffs, to keep the city from falling back into the fiscal morass that crippled it nearly a decade ago.

And with that, he related a conversation with former Springfield Mayor William Sullivan, who served the city in the mid-’70s.

“He told me things were totally different from when he served,” Sarno recalled. “He said, ‘you’re in a 24/7 world, and you’re dealing with challenges we didn’t have, like drugs and gangs.’

“He also said, ‘if you ever lose that one word, passion, you might as well take the keys out of your pocket, drop them on the desk, and walk out of here.’ I haven’t lost that passion, and my goal is to have people say, whenever my run is over, is that I did a good job in making people proud that they live or work in Springfield.”

Gust in Time
Looking ahead to June 1, Sarno said city leaders are still piecing together plans to mark the one-year anniversary of the tornado, a verb he chose carefully.

“You don’t celebrate disasters like that, but we’ll mark it,” he said, adding that there will be an interfaith service of some kind, probably in the old First Church in Court Square — a place, he noted, where residents have come together in good times and bad throughout the city’s history history. Also, there are plans to have church bells peal at 4:37 p.m., the moment the tornado touched down in the city.

Whatever transpires on June 1, 2012, it will be recognition of the resiliency shown by the city and its residents, said the mayor, adding quickly that there must be much more of this quality on display in the months and years to come.

And, as he said, he believes the city has plenty of that quality in reserve.

George O’Brien can be reached at obrien@businesswest.com

At Five Years, YPS Aims to Redefine Its Goals

On a night in early April, the Springfield Leadership Institute, a program created through a partnership between the city’s chamber of commerce and Western New England University, held its 2012 graduation ceremonies at the Sheraton in Monarch Place. Offering guidance, support, and the tools for members of the business community to become regional leaders, the institute’s proceedings had very special significance for several members in attendance.
Presenting their own organization’s annual award were several members of the leadership team and board of directors from the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield (YPS). Four of those individuals talked with BusinessWest about how the origins of their organization could be traced back to a similar graduation ceremony five years earlier.
“In 2006 there were five or six people that decided that this invigorating business course couldn’t stop here, and they decided to push forward,” said Pamela Thornton, current president of the YPS.
Jack Toner, one of two vice presidents of the group, said that he came back to the Western Mass. area a few months after that fateful night, but he remembers those early days of the group. “These individuals got together and determined a need for a young chamber of sorts,” he recalled. “They felt that there was a need for collective networking and such, and so a meeting was held at the Keg Room, here in Springfield.”
Joining Thornton and Toner to discuss the past, present, and future of the YPS were Somalid Hogan and Edward Nuñez, both members of the board of directors. Nuñez (also profiled in this issue as a member of the 40 Under Forty), said that, while the group is perhaps best-known for one of its signature events, the so-called Third Thursday, an informal monthly gathering, YPS has long strived to go well beyond networking.
And all agreed that the time for YPS to reinvent itself has come.
The organization is currently involved in a strategic planning, Thornton said, to define its mission and goals “with the help, advice, and input of our members. This will help us going forward as it will articulate who we are.”
Hogan said that there will always be plenty of social-networking opportunities for the group because this is a key component to their event schedule. But these inclusive and engaging events will strive for increased opportunities for professional development — an important suggestion from the surveyed members.
“The YPS is a great opportunity for people to find a role in their community,” she continued, “both for professional development or just to find others who have common interests to get connected.”
Picking up on that comment and extrapolating, Toner joked, “there even have been couples who have met and gotten married from the YPS.”
But after five years, the YPSGS is getting down to business, and that means examining its strengths, points of focus, and long-term goals for the vitality of the organization.
“The YPS is like a Rubik’s Cube, with so many different faces,” Toner told BusinessWest, “each with a great, unique energy. And most importantly, each has passion and a commitment to the city.”

Unison Rules
“At the first meeting I went to, one of the founding members immediately came up and said ‘hello’ to me,” Toner recalled. “That defines our group — no one ever stands alone. This is the consistent theme through all the events that we hold.”
“Live, work, play, and stay” — that has been a familiar mantra since the early days of the YPS, Nuñez said. “We’ve been having a lot of discussion about the fact that we think of ourselves as young professionals,” he added, “but as a group, we also strive to get the word out that Springfield has a lot to offer — and we need to retain those young professionals. Get them to invest in the city and see what it has to offer.
“If we engage them,” he added, “we can have our voices be heard.”
The business community certainly has been hearing those voices: Since the beginnings of the YPS, the membership has swelled to 500 active members, and there’s another tier of corporate membership for area businesses. Clearly, the YPS knows how to get things accomplished.
“We are the future leaders of this area,” Thornton said. “We have definitely grown over these five years. What we do really well is put on events, get people and organizations together, and get them connected.”
Toner said the YPS is committed to challenging negative stereotypes that may pervade the business and social spheres of the Springfield area. To address the members’ political perspectives, the organization is hosting its third Vote the Valley event this fall to correspond with the national presidential election.
“Rock the Vote came here in 2008, and they looked to us to fill their room,” Toner noted. “Now we’ve built our own room, and we’ve asked them to come back.”
Getting young people involved politically is just one of many accomplishments the YPS can claim beyond its monthly networking events. Indeed, the amount of charitable offerings and number of members on nonprofit boards of directors are both far too numerous to mention individually, but the four did count off some of their most recent beneficiaries — the United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and Keep Springfield Beautiful, among many others.
“The Third Thursdays are a signature event,” Nuñez said, “but by no means does that alone define us.”
Taking that opportunity to segue into the unfolding future of the organization, Toner added, “when we ask what kind of organization we want to be, that will still be our leading edge, but it’s also our hook.
“The concept is that we take the easiest thing to grab onto,” he added. “When people question the networking and social opportunities, well, here’s a guarantee of 150 people in a room; that’s a nice hook. Then those meetings are a means to unfold into the other events. People say, ‘oh, by the way, there’s a cancer walk coming up, or a charity golf tournament.’”

Definite Article
And in recent years, YPS members have clearly indicated that, while networking is an important aspect of the group’s mission, they want to take away something more.
To that end, all agreed that an important component of their strategic planning involves increased opportunities for professional development. But the sky’s the limit, according to Toner, when it comes to other goals that the YPS wishes to pursue.
“It’s a deeper commitment that we seek from our members,” he explained. “The first is an engaged membership to fill a lot of the programming needs. We always want to include everyone, but it’s almost like a triangle was flipped around, where the widest part of the triangle was at the top. We want to flip it around where the membership base feeds into the board.
“Once we do that,” he continued, “we can grow to the point where there’s enough critical mass, to work with others who have 501(c) foundations to support initiatives in the region — to offer scholarships, as an example.”
Such vertical trajectories are entirely probable for those members who would seek them, Hogan said. “I started going to YPS events when I wasn’t even a member. Then I got more interested in what we were about, got involved in the diversity committee with Ed [Nuñez], and then I decided that I wanted to join the board. And now I’m the one reaching out to other members.”
The work on YPS’ strategic initiative is ongoing, said Hogan, noting that the group  “will be focused on those things that we already do very well, but to find those things that we can do very well.”

Greetings and Salutations
One of those things that the YPS will always do well is put like-minded people together, be it socially, professionally, or, as was mentioned, matrimonially. And an important part of that are the people themselves.
“When you’re talking to a peer, you’re more likely to hear what that person has to say,” Thornton said. “We can share the YPS mission with other young professionals, coming from young professionals. From that there is good communication, there is good understanding, and it’s relative. It doesn’t mean that other economic organizations aren’t doing a good job, because they certainly are — a lot of them are thriving. But this is a great introduction for young professionals into something bigger, a great place to cut their teeth on a board of directors.
“We’re the future leaders, but we have to start somewhere,” she continued.
In the age of seemingly incessant Facebook newsfeeds, LinkedIn updates, e-mails, texts, or any other number of online reminders, nothing can yet compete with face-to-face interaction, said those we spoke with.
“You can ignore all of that by just deleting,” Hogan said. “But you can’t ignore the person standing in front of you, extending their hand, saying, ‘hello, my name is…’”
That’s one signature experience that the YPS will always do very well.

Program Helps Those with Disabilities Become Entrepreneurs

He calls it the “Lifetime Double-sided Cat Scratcher,” a name that tells you pretty much all you need to know about this product.
Indeed, this is a cat-scratch box (retailing for $29.95) that is guaranteed for the life of the item — something that could not have been imagined with previous products, said Ken Rivet, who brought it to the market and now has it placed in several stores across this region and as east as Natick and an Expressly Pets location there. And it’s worthy of such a guarantee, he said, because it is made of wood, is double-sided, and the cardboard is packed in so tightly that it becomes far more durable and holds up better to constant cat scratching than anything previously on the shelves at pet-supply stores.
Rivet came up with the idea in keeping with the old saying about invention — it was out of necessity. “We had five cats, and I used to buy the stupid things just about every month because our cats tore them apart.” So he went to the workshop in his basement, where many ideas have come to fruition, and figured out a solution.
And in so doing, his concept — and drive to bring it to the marketplace — eventually become one of the many intriguing success stories generated by the Business Development Center, a component of New England Business Associates, also known as NEBA Works, a nearly three-decade-old regional nonprofit recognized nationally for its work in supported employment.
In a nutshell, the BDC, as it’s called, helps individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities become entrepreneurs, said Colleen Moynihan, director of the center since 2008. She told BusinessWest that the center’s staff has worked with a number of clients to create a host of businesses, ranging from Rivet’s venture, called Creative Ideas, to a landscaping outfit launched by Joe Schmidt in West Springfield; from a few restaurants to a company called the Knowledge Is Power Group, a consultancy focused on development of education programs for special-needs children.
Working in concert with SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, the BDC helps clients with development of a business plan, said Moynihan, and then assists them through the challenging process of starting and growing a business. The ultimate goal is to enable individuals with disabilities to eventually become self-sustaining and thus take themselves off Social Security Administration disability benefits.
It has done so with many clients, including Schmidt, who has long suffered from panic disorder but, with the help of the BDC, has steadily grown his landscaping venture over the past several years, and now has several employees. He told BusinessWest that he’s proud to be off federal assistance, but admits that these past few months have been extremely challenging cash-flow wise because snowplowing work, a key component of his business, has been virtually nonexistent.
“It’s been a very difficult start to this year, obviously,” he said, adding quickly that, with an early start on spring, he’s looking to bounce back and add to a client list that already includes several auto dealerships and condominium complexes among many other commercial and residential clients.
Rivet, a former welder who suffered a severe neck injury on the job and later tried to work unsuccessfully with that disability — suffering through depression and alcohol abuse while doing so — is typical of many who eventually come to the BDC seeking assistance.
“I was suffering from depression, then I started drinking, and I couldn’t sleep at night because I was worrying about the bills,” he recalled. “I realized I was going nowhere. But I was always good at inventing things, and I never stopped thinking about getting my own business going.”
For this issue, BusinessWest goes behind the scenes at the BDC to learn how the center helped Rivet make that dream finally become reality by putting NEBA’s slogan — “aligning ability with opportunity” — to work as it fosters entrepreneurship and enables those with disabilities to achieve self-sufficiency and financial independence.

Work in Progress
Moynihan said that many of those who come to the door of the BDC, located at the Scibelli Enterprise Center at Springfield Technical Community College, are initially looking for someone, or something, else.
“Often they’re trying to find SCORE, the SBA [Small Business Administration], or the [Mass.] Small Business Development Center,” she explained. In many cases, individuals will start at those agencies (all also located in the EDC), but wind up back at her office.

That’s because those organizations and others will refer them there to gain the valuable assistance they will need to take a business concept off the drawing board and make it reality.
That help comes in the form of a 10-class entrepreneur-development program that takes individuals from a draft of their mission statement to identification of profit and revenue goals; from tying their product or service to a target market and competition to learning effective marketing techniques.
Along the way, there are lessons in a host of matters involved with getting a venture off the ground and then to the next level, including balance sheets, legal matters, taxes, use of the Internet for marketing and sales, cash flow, and much more. And while doing all this, the BDC also works to help clients build self-esteem and gain the confidence (something many individuals are lacking) necessary to launch a successful business, said Eric Fiedler, outreach and development coordinator for the center.
This unique mission came about, said Moynihan, when NEBA administrators came to the realization several years ago that there was a gap in the agency’s roster of services to clients. Elaborating, she said that the existing programs were designed to assist people with disabilities gain meaningful employment. Largely missing from this equation was the element of self-employment, she went on, adding that this route is often an attractive option for many who struggle to work in traditional settings.
“Supported self employment is an option that matches a person’s dreams and talents to an economic activity that promotes self-sufficiency and final independence,” she said while explaining the genesis of the program and its importance to the broad mission of NEBA Works. “Successful business ownership can create financial options that wage employment may not.”
And while self-employment is the primary objective for many who become involved in the program, said Fiedler, some can attain better, higher-paying jobs in a variety of settings because of the skills and confidence they’ve acquired through involvement with the BDC.
Overall, success is measured in a number of ways at the BDC, said Moynihan, noting that one barometer involves achieving sustainable business revenue. Meanwhile, others might include bringing on additional employees or becoming involved in the community through appointment to a nonprofit’s board of directors.
But perhaps the biggest milestone is that ability to move off Social Security disability benefits, she continued, noting that, in addition to the bottom-line benefits to the taxpayers from removing individuals from assistance programs, there is an all-important sense of accomplishment and financial independence for the individuals involved.

In Good Company
Moynihan and Fiedler said there have been a number of such success stories written by BDC clients, with many more, including Rivet’s, still in the early stages.
Indeed, last fall, the center announced the launch of seven new ventures, all with SCORE-reviewed business plans, and now fully operating. They include Rivet’s Creative Ideas; Mr. Budgeter, a personal-budget consultancy; American Pride Painting, which specializes in the restoration paiting of vintage homes; Mark’s Small Engine Repair; and Divine Divas, an image consultancy owned by Patricia “Coffy” Smith that works with individuals and groups seeking to improve their self-image.
These new ventures join more than a dozen others started over the past few years. These include Felix’s Restaurant in Springfield, which now has a half-dozen employees; Schmidt’s landscaping business; Lit’l Bear’s Den in Greenfield; a store selling Native American crafts; and the Knowledge Is Power Group, created by Lavek Nisenkier.
Nisenkier told BusinessWest that his venture puts on workshops for teachers and parents on current issues in education, such as anti-bullying efforts, working with behaviorally challenged students, and teaching social skills.
He said his company’s services differ from those that are provided by others in that there is follow-up after those workshops are completed to help ensure continued progress with the matter at hand.
“I revisit the teacher and the student to see if the plan is working,” he explained, “and whether there needs to be any adjustments to it.”
As for Rivet and his cat-scratching posts, he now has 17 clients, or outlets, and his product is in some 35 locations across the state. He’s in discussions with the Big Y chain about putting the item on its shelves.
As he talked with BusinessWest about his venture in the cat-supplies aisle at Dave’s Soda and Pet Food City location in Agawam, Rivet said he has long harbored ambitions about turning his product into a business, but needed some help — with everything from the business plan to understanding the numbers — to get there.
“I tried to start businesses at various times,” he explained. “People always liked my ideas, but then they would ask questions like, ‘what are your three-year sales projections?’ They would ask all these questions, and I just wouldn’t have the answers.”
With the help of Moynihan, Fiedler, and others, he would eventually come up with some answers for a concept he called Creative Ideas, which would attempt to bring some of his many inventions — a twist-tie dispenser, a spice rack, a photo-storage box, and a unique set of coasters are among some of the others — to the marketplace. The scratching post has been the focal point of his efforts for the past several years, he went on, noting that facilities like Dave’s would buy up the items as quickly as he could make them, meaning that he would eventually have to both ramp up and outsource production.
“I was just unable to keep up with demand, so I tried to start my own factory,” he said, adding that he lacked the solid credit needed to get bank financing.
However, with assistance from the BDC and SCORE, he recently signed an agreement with Roca, the nonprofit agency that assists high-risk youths in Chelsea, East Boston, Revere, and Springfield, to have participants in its program produce the cat-scratch boxes at one of its job centers. Inmates at the Hampden County Correctional facility in Ludlow will be making them as well. The products will be shrink-wrapped at the Work Opportunity Center in Agawam.
Initial plans call for the two facilities to produce 300 of the scratch boxes a week, said Rivet, adding that he believes he now has the locations to sell that many. And eventually, he wants to bring more of his many inventions to the marketplace. “Everything I make is something unique that you can’t find anywhere else.”
As for that other important measure of success, moving off Social Security benefits — Rivet expects to be there by the end of this year.

The Bottom Line
Doing some quick math, Rivet noted that, if he were to produce and sell 5,000 of his cat-scratching posts per month, in six years he would have perhaps 1% of all cat owners as customers.
He doesn’t get caught up in such numbers, though, choosing to focus instead on reasonable, controlled growth, while managing his disability and achieving financial independence. He’s come a long way with each of these goals, but knows that each day presents new challenges and opportunities.
Business-wise, he’s just scratched the surface of his potential — literally and figuratively — and in so doing has become one of many working models of how the BDC is helping those with disabilities find success though business ownership.

George O’Brien can be reached at obrien@businesswest.com