BusinessWest

The Vast Power of Mentoring

The many benefits of mentoring have long been understood by those who partake in that important practice. Any time adults can use their knowledge, experience, and compassion to help guide young people through the challenges they’re facing — and will encounter in the years to come — good things usually happen.
But MassMutual is taking this time-honored tradition a big step further with a new and somewhat unique mentoring model that we believe has vast potential to become a blueprint for other companies to follow, as well as a method for keeping more of this region’s young talent in the 413 area code.
As explained in the story beginning on page 6, this model, part of the company’s broad Career Pathways program, takes a traditional mentoring initiative and adds an important career element to it. The initiative pairs young people from high schools literally across the street from MassMutual with successful professionals who can provide needed assistance with challenges ranging from the SATs to nailing an interview for a part-time summer job. Moreover, it introduces them one of the region’s largest employers — and a host of career opportunities.
The philosophy behind this program is fairly simple, but the implications are far-reaching. MassMutual employees donate their time, energy, and experience to the task of keeping talented young people on the right path through the challenging last three years of high school, and, in doing so, they are possibly grooming employees for the immediate future, a time when companies large and small will face the daunting task of replacing retiring Baby Boomers.
It looks good on paper — even if it’s not officially down on paper yet — and we’re confident it will look good in reality, although we really won’t know that for some time.
For now, all the signs are quite positive, and it appears that MassMutual has fashioned a program — carried out in conjunction with Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Springfield School System — that will likely have many long-term benefits for the company and the region as a whole. This is an initiative worth emulating for those who have the resources and inclination to do so.
Start with the mentoring component. As we said at the top, this is an all-important exercise in this region, especially in urban centers where young people may not have many — or any — adults in their lives who act as effective role models and push them to reach higher, graduate from high school, and attend college. Many companies in this region encourage their employees to act as mentors and provide them with the time and flexibility needed to carry out those duties, and we applaud them for their efforts.
The MassMutual model adds a career-development component that could be of great benefit to this region at a time when we keep hearing two phrases — ‘skills gap’ and ‘brain drain.’ The first is used by companies that are having a difficult time finding qualified employees to fill open positions, and the second is used by economic-development leaders as they lament the number of area college graduates who leave this area to pursue a career in their chosen field.
Through this kind of career-pathways mentoring, employers can introduce young people to their companies and future jobs, motivate them to do the hard work that’s needed to attain those careers, and perhaps help build a workforce for the future.
MassMutual’s mentoring program recently won an award from the Mass. Mentoring Partnership for its success — and its vast potential. If all goes as expected, there will be even greater rewards down the line.

Reducing Teen Pregnancy Must Be Priority

Teen pregnancy and early childbearing carry tremendous emotional, physical, and financial ramifications for parents, children, and the community that we can no longer afford.
Every year, one in three students does not graduate from high school in the U.S. It’s a crisis that is even more severe among minority students. Yet, as we seek to solve this growing problem, an important piece to the puzzle is missing. As federal, state, and local officials, along with community and business leaders, philanthropists, and others, develop strategies that will help reduce these troublesome dropout rates, they are neglecting to look at the role too-early pregnancy and parenthood play in the problem.
High teen-birth rates impact workforce development, costing nearly $11 billion a year for U.S.  taxpayers in higher health care and education costs. Prevention is also a tool to address child poverty and its associated symptoms such as the fact that children of teen mothers tend to have low school achievement, more health issues, are incarcerated more often during adolescence, have their own children as teenagers, and face unemployment at a young age.
Every member of the community has a role in creating sustainable solutions to teen pregnancy. We need a comprehensive approach involving the combined efforts of schools, policy makers, medical providers, businesses, funders, faith and community organizations, and especially parents.
In April, a report by the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the number of teen births in 2010 was the lowest since 1946. Still, the U.S. lags behind other countries whose birth rates are substantially lower.
Locally, Holyoke and Springfield consistently rank among the cities in Massachusetts as having the highest teen birth rates. In 2009, Holyoke had the highest teen birth rate in the state for the seventh year in a row (96.8 births per 1,000 girls ages 15-19), while Springfield ranked fourth (72.1). Both cities have large disparities in teen birth rates given their populations. In Holyoke, for example, the white teen birth rate in 2009 was 26 and the Hispanic teen birth rate was 132 — five times the rate for white teens.
The causes of high teen birth rates are many, such as access to sexual-health education, condoms and contraceptives for sexually-active youth, and how an adolescent sees his or her future — one filled with opportunity or the feeling that a bright future is out of their reach.
To help our children protect their dreams, the community must transform how we address adolescent sexual health. To this end, the Youth Empowerment Adolescent Health (YEAH!) Network partnered with the Mass. Alliance on Teen Pregnancy to create the Youth First Initiative, which brings together community teams to develop solutions to teen pregnancy using local data to drive decision making. Also, mayor-appointed task forces in Holyoke and Springfield were created to address the high rates of teen births and sexually transmitted infections among youth.
In addition, the Springfield School Committee recently approved a policy — effective September 2012 — to make condoms available, not freely distributed, through the school nurse only to students age 12 and older who choose to be sexually active. This practice would allow them to see a health professional and receive education on abstinence, counseling, and instructions on the proper use of a condom, as long as a parent hasn’t opted their child out of the program.
The policy is based on research of condom-availability policies in public schools throughout Massachusetts and the country. Dr. Laura Koenigs, a pediatrician in Baystate Adolescent Medicine at Baystate Children’s Hospital, co-authored a study that found that, within three years of implementing a condom-availability policy in Holyoke’s middle and high schools, the rate of gonorrhea and chlamydia decreased by 47% among boys 15-19 years old.
We still have much work to do, but the new national birth rates for teens — among the lowest in history — serve as a reminder that the more education and tools children and youth have about their sexual health, the better they will be empowered to make healthy decisions and prevent early sexual activity that can lead to long-term consequences to their health and their future prosperity. v

Dr. Sarah Perez McAdoo, formerly assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baystate Medical Center, now devotes her full-time efforts to community health, especially in the area of teen pregnancy prevention, as director of the YEAH! Network.

40 Reasons to Feel Good About the Future

When BusinessWest started its 40 Under Forty Program just over five years ago, there were expectations — and also some trepidation.
We knew we could identify some rising stars in the region’s business, nonprofit, and entrepreneurship realms, but there were always whispers — and sometimes loud doubts — about just how deep the talent pool was.
As we introduce the sixth class of 40 Under Forty winners, it’s clear that the pool is quite deep — and also very inspiring. For those looking for positive signs that this region will have the young leadership it will need to grow and take on the many challenges facing municipalities in this global, information-based economy, the profiles beginning on page A6 should provide them.
Each of these stories is unique, but there are many common denominators, especially the twin desires to excel and make a difference in the community. Here are just a few examples:
• Carla Cosenzi, the high scorer among the more then 100 nominees. In business, she and her brother, Thomas, are not only continuing the legacy established by their father in the automobile industry, but they’re building upon it with the addition of a Volkswagen dealership in Northampton. In the community, she’s continuing another tradition — the Thomas E. Cosenzi Driving for the Cure charity golf tournament (named after her father, who succumbed to cancer several years ago), which has to date raised more than $200,000 in support of brain-cancer research;
• Ben Einstein, the serial entrepreneur who is devoting considerable time and energy to the cause of helping others get businesses off the ground and to the next level though his involvement with the Idea Mill conference, which is likely to become an annual event in this region;
• Eric Hall, the Westfield police sergeant who became the first law-enforcement officer to join a 40 Under Forty class. His passions are fighting and preventing crime, and helping young people make smart choices. He can often be seen sharing lunch with elementary-school students, and is now chairman of the board at the city’s YMCA;
• Jason Tsitso, who has helped R&R Windows battle back from the rough patch resulting from the Great Recession and its crippling impact on the construction sector. In the community, he took his passion for bicycling and channeled it into a fun — and highly successful — fund-raiser for Habitat for Humanity called Trails for Nails.
• State Sen. James Welch, one of the few public-sector leaders to become a 40 Under Forty winner. He has mastered the art and science of constituent service, especially in the wake of the June 1 tornado, the path of which closely approximates the district he represents.
• Sheila Moreau, who, with her mother, has helped shape MindWing Concepts into one of the more intriguing entrepreneurial success stories in recent years. What’s more, she’s making good on a commitment to serve the community in a number of ways, especially as a volunteer with the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day parade. She even sings the national anthem at sporting events and community gatherings.
The other 34 stories are equally compelling, but these are representative of this year’s class. You won’t find the word in every profile, but the trait these young men and women share is passion — to achieve excellence, to innovate, to help others within our community, and, most importantly, to lead.
After reading these stories, you should feel at least a little better about the future of this region. Thanks to them, it looks very bright.

Crowdfunding Could Spur Startups

The Great Depression led to the adoption of a series of laws designed to prevent individual investors from being fleeced by unscrupulous and fraudulent ‘businessmen.’ These laws provided the framework of securities laws that have been navigated by countless entrepreneurs since the 1930s seeking legitimate investment in their fledgling businesses. Conversely, the Great Recession has pushed Congress to adopt the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed into law by President Obama on April 5, which fundamentally changes the rules of the investment game for businesses of all sizes.
Perhaps the most significant change is allowing startups to use ‘crowdfunding” to raise capital. There is significant potential for a flourishing of startups as this new flavor of capital comes online. There is also the opportunity for regular Americans to get the same opportunity angel investors have had for decades — the small chance to make a lot of money and a much larger chance of losing every penny — investing in startups.
Crowdfunding is the modernization of an old process — raising small amounts of money from a large number of people — using the power and scope of the Internet. Crowdfunding via the Internet already exists in many different forms. Independent journalists fund investigative journalism not funded by the mainstream media via Spot.us; Kickstarter.com allows inventors and artists to raise funding directly from (and sell to) people passionate about the product; and Kiva.org assists developing-world entrepreneurs to connect directly to individual philanthropists to secure microloans.
Here’s how it usually works. Entrepreneurs create a ‘pitch’ profile on a crowdfunding Web site. The crowdfunding site reviews the profile to be sure it is appropriate and not fraudulent (with varying levels of success). The crowdfunding sites have an incentive to list only honest, worthy companies — otherwise, the ‘crowd’ will migrate to an alternate crowdfunding Web site. If the application is approved, the entrepreneurs use social media to promote their pitch to communities of people likely to be receptive to the idea. People who take interest review the profile, often engage in an online discussion with the entrepreneurs, and may make a financial contribution through the crowdfunding site.
The SEC will be finalizing the rules and restrictions on crowdfunding over the next 270 days; however, the JOBS Act already contains significant limitations on both the investor and the company seeking investments through crowdfunding. Companies can raise only $1 million every 12 months through crowdfunding (however, these companies still can — and many will — raise additional funds pursuant to the current, more traditional private-placement rules). Depending on the predefined target that the company establishes for its fund-raising round, the company will need to prepare detailed financial statements (audited if the target is more than $500,000) and deliver these to any prospective investor. The company must also provide both the SEC and prospective investors indepth information about the company and the offering, including the company’s business plan, the risks of the investment, and information about the officers, directors, or managers of the company.
Although any American can participate in crowdfunding as an investor, each crowdfunder will be able to invest only a limited percentage of their annual income (5% for individuals with income under $100,000, 10% for those over this threshold) in any 12-month period. Additionally, the equity that these crowdfunders receive will be restricted stock — it cannot be transferred for 12 months, with few exceptions.
The legalization of crowdfunding will also lead to the launch of a new kind of company — the fund-raising portal — as any company raising funds through crowdfunding must use these portals to act as the conduit between the company and the investors. These portals will exist only on the Internet — there will be no bricks-and-mortar storefront for these portals. The portal will need to register with the SEC and take reasonable steps to ensure that all participating in crowdfunding have followed all of the SEC’s rules — essentially the SEC will be ‘deputizing’ the portals to enforce the SEC’s rules. Companies using a portal should expect to pay 6% to 10% of the total funds raised as a service fee.
Congress and the president hope crowdfunding will lead to more startups obtaining critical funding early in their development, which should lead to more small businesses getting off the ground. However, the individuals investing in these early-stage companies need to be aware of the risks of these investments and remember the golden rule of investing: “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Attorney Scott Foster, Esq. and Paul Silva are co-founders of Valley Venture Mentors.

Maintaining Momentum at UMass Amherst

There were no real surprises at the elaborate press conference staged last week to introduce Kumble Subbaswamy as the chancellor-elect at UMass Amherst (see story, page 10).
The current provost at the University of Kentucky, due to assume his new post in July, said all the things that one would anticipate him saying — about taking the flagship campus to the proverbial next level, improving town-gown relations, maintaining and possibly expanding the school’s work within Greater Springfield, and striving to improve access to the university. In the course of doing all that, he used the words you would expect him to use: challenge, opportunity, relationships, partnerships, collaboration, communication, and transparency.
But he also used a word that some might not expect to hear — momentum. And he used it early and often, in phrases like ‘maintaining momentum,’ ‘building on the existing momentum,’ and others like it. And he was right to do so.
In the wake of what amounts to the ouster of Chancellor Robert Holub, it would be easy to forget or overlook the existence of a good deal of momentum at the flagship campus of the state university. Subbaswamy was wise to acknowledge it, and, more importantly, he understands that one of his primary goals is to sustain the current momentum, and in the many forms it takes.
In recent years, UMass has made great strides in its efforts to win more federal research dollars, and also in the broad and all-important category of fund-raising. Meanwhile, the many cranes operating on campus are a compelling sign of expansion and modernization.
But perhaps the most impressive gains, we feel, have come in the realm of economic development, or making the Amherst campus much more the ‘economic engine’ that area business and civic leaders have long desired — and expected — it to become.
Indeed, for years the phrase heard in the Greater Springfield area was, ‘why isn’t UMass doing more?’ And you heard it in reference to everything from a physical presence in downtown Springfield to job creation; from putting the vast resources at the Amherst campus to work helping individual businesses and economic sectors grow and thrive, to efforts to enable more area residents to attain four-year degrees. Even the football team’s ascension to the bowl subdivision connotes upward movement.
The fact that you don’t hear that phrase nearly as often indicates that the school has become far more involved in those initiatives and has created a good deal of that aforementioned momentum.
Examples abound, and include:
• Expansion efforts at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, a collaborative effort with Baystate Health;
• The university’s lead role in making the Green High Performance Computing Center a reality in downtown Holyoke, where it is generating enthusiasm about bringing related businesses to that city;
• A project to move the university’s Design Center into one of the buildings in Springfield’s Court Square;
• The Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Project, or PMRAP, as it’s known, a project being undertaken with the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County and the National Tooling & Machining Assoc. to transfer technology from two departments at the university (Polymer Science and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) to area precision manufacturers; and
• An ongoing partnership with Springfield Technical Community College to reinvigorate the Scibelli Enterprise Center on the STCC campus and, in so doing, help more fledging business ventures get off the ground or to that next level.
Together, these initiatives and many others add up to progress and (here’s that word again) momentum, not only for the university, but for the region and especially its largest city.
Subbaswamy told the press that there are many aspects to his job description as chancellor — everything from promoting the university and strengthening its brand to making sure a host of constituencies, from lawmakers to alumni, understand its true value to the Commonwealth.
But he can put ‘maintaining momentum’ at the very top of his list, and, judging from his comments, he already has.

Sending a Mixed Message on Jobs

There are more mixed signals from the Obama administration on jobs: a craven capitulation on regulation in the name of job creation, and a surprisingly good speech by a top official on the importance of American manufacturing.
President Barack Obama will shortly sign the so-called bipartisan JOBS Act. The law is neither bipartisan nor about creating jobs. It exempts an estimated 80% of new publicly traded corporations from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) usual disclosure requirements for up to five years after their initial public offering (IPO). 
The law was promoted by investment bankers, venture-capital firms, and the Republican leadership, who were all alarmed that IPOs (not surprisingly) have declined in today’s distressed economy. The remedy? Gut investor protections, the better to promote new stocks. 
The premise is that, by facilitating new stock offerings, the law will create jobs. Mainly, it will create jobs for one set of lawyers working to exploit the loopholes and another representing ripped-off investors. 
The law is ‘bipartisan’ only to the extent that the administration, despite the opposition of SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, didn’t have the nerve to oppose it. This is what today’s bipartisanship looks like — take-no-prisoners Republicans intimidating Wall Street-oriented Democrats.
That’s the bad news. The good news is a terrific, little-noticed speech by the administration’s chief economic official, Gene Sperling, who heads the president’s National Economic Council. In the speech, delivered recently at the National Press Club to a conference on the renaissance of American manufacturing, Sperling made arguments that are standard in circles to the administration’s left, but are rarely embraced by centrist Democrats. “We do believe that, even if today only 12% of the U.S. private-sector workforce is employed in manufacturing, it is a sector that punches above its weight,” he said, “when you take into account the outsized role that manufacturing plays in innovation through R&D investment and patents, the tight linkage between innovation and manufacturing production, the higher-wage jobs it produces, its importance for exports, the spillover benefits that manufacturing facilities have on firms and communities around them, and the deeper economic harm that comes from allowing our manufacturing production capacity to be hollowed out.”
Well-put. Citing a number of studies that justify these conclusions, Sperling added, “more than any other industry, manufacturing firms account for a disproportionate share of innovative activity in the U.S. — 70% of private-sector R&D and over 90% of patents issued. As a country, it matters where these benefits occur.”
So what, exactly, is the administration doing to promote U.S. manufacturing, big time?
Well, Sperling touted the few billion dollars the administration has spent on advanced-manufacturing initiatives, its support for clean energy and related technologies, its efforts to give manufacturing firms tax breaks, its proposal for an $8 billion Community to Career Fund to train workers for high-skill manufacturing jobs, and recent complaints against China’s protectionism when it comes to export of ‘rare earths.’ The Administration also plans a new Interagency Trade Enforcement Center (to do what the office of the U.S. trade representative should have been doing all along.)
It’s a start, and an excellent case for a bolder industrial policy and a much tougher trade strategy against foreign mercantilism — neither of which the White House is pursuing. For the most part, our trade policy is on auto-pilot, promoting ‘free-trade’ deals that turn a blind eye to foreign subsidies and promote outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing jobs. The administration’s late manufacturing czar, Ron Bloom, got no staff and was not permitted to utter the words ‘industrial’ and ‘policy’ in the same sentence.
The challenge for Sperling is to persuade his boss to turn the welcome words of this fine speech into national policy. And to stop backing totally phony Republican ‘jobs’ measures like the JOBS Act.

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect.