| Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. of Holyoke and Greenfield announced the following: ••••• Richard D. Wilson Jr. has been appointed National Sales Manager for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). He will have management responsibilities for the external team that wholesales life insurance product and sales concepts to the MassMutual career agency sales force. ••••• The Springfield Falcons announced the following: ••••• UMass Amherst announced the following: ••••• Mary Beth Wood has joined Park Square Realty of Westfield as a Sales Associate in its Feeding Hills office. ••••• Sam Everett has been promoted to Vice President of RDW Group Inc. He will supervise RDW’s Worcester office. ••••• Eric Person has joined Johnson Health Network in Stafford Springs, Conn., as Vice President of Johnson Development Fund Inc. ••••• Carlson GMAC announced the following: ••••• | John W. Therrien has been named Manager of Plant Operations at Holyoke Medical Center. ••••• Greenfield Community College has appointed Anna Berry its Coordinator of Disability Services. ••••• Maryann Aubuchon, Salon Manager at JC Penney in the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, was among almost 100 Penney salon managers who were named Personal Best Award winners. ••••• Nancy Harper, RN, BSN, RHP, has been promoted to Regional Director of Resident and Family Services for Benchmark Assisted Living, based in Wellesley. ••••• New officers of the Pioneer Valley chapter of Business Network International are: ••••• Rocky’s Ace Hardware of Springfield announced the following: ••••• The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, based in West Springfield, announced the following regional leadership and service awards at its recent annual meeting: |
Month: June 2006
Here we can go again.
It seems like every five or seven years, the talk about commuter rail and high-speed rail starts to heat up again. It usually subsides, however, due to a lack of funding, a lack of momentum on Beacon Hill, or both.
But it always comes back again — this time in the form of a proposed route between Springfield and New Haven and preliminary talk of a route between Springfield, Worcester, and points east — and we’re not really sure why.
We understand the general theory — that if you can connect cities like these with a modern, fairly high-speed form of rail transportation, then people can live in one of those cities and work in the other, creating some employment opportunities. But the last time we checked, these cities were already connected, and rather effectively, by bus, specifically Springfield-based Peter Pan, which runs several routes to New Haven and Worcester a day. And relatively few people take them.
That’s because the bus is for poor people, or so goes the argument, which continues with the presumption that if there was a publicly subsidized commuter rail line, offering rates a few dollars cheaper than the bus, then people would rush to take it. Quite frankly, we don’t see it.
What we see instead are people clinging to an old, romantic notion of rail travel. Years ago, before the interstate highway system was built and jet travel made the country exponentially smaller, rail is how anyone got anywhere. A generation ago, people commuted to and from work by rail, often traveling dozens of miles in the process.
Commuter rail proponents, and there are many of them, say it could happen again. They say individuals who want to work in Boston and New York could do so — and while living in the Pioneer Valley. They also say that a commuter rail system will ease congestion on the region’s highways, improving commerce and creating other opportunities for growth. And commuter rail has, in fact, worked in other parts of the Northeast and other regions of the country.
But we see it as an expensive gamble, one with promise, to be sure, but also considerable risk. Indeed, high-speed rail may actually hinder economic development efforts in Western Mass., by taking talent and jobs out of the region.
Before this region, the Baystate as a whole, and Connecticut dive into commuter rail with both feet, it might be best to study the matter first. ‘Study’ is often a dirty word in government and economic development circles because it’s often meant as a way to stall things or put them on the backburner for a while and hope their proponents go away or find something else to promote.
In this case, however, study is necessary, because there is no real evidence that commuter rail will stimulate economic development, as proponents claim, only speculation, and lots of it. The Springfield-to-New Haven line presents little risk, at least in the form of financial burden, for the Commonwealth, which at this point is only being asked to pick up 10% of the $300 million cost, so it might serve as a litmus test of the concept.
But the region is far from ready to take on its commitment to the project — the Union Station renovation project seems dead in the water and there currently isn’t an infrastructure in place to handle a large-scale rail service in the city — and it has other priorities.
Proponents of commuter rail argue that this economic region, which includes Northern Connecticut, needs to be imaginative in its transportation planning if it is to see economic growth . Being imaginative is fine, but the region also needs to be practical and not create redundancies in a transportation infrastructure that has not been identified as a problem.
In short, more homework is needed before we can state with any degree of confidence that commuter rail can or should be part of the solution for this region.-
A Modern Touch for the Pension System
It’s time to take a hard look at how to modernize and streamline Massachusetts’s archaic pension system.
There are 106 state and local public employee pension systems. Each has overhead, inefficiencies, loopholes, and, in some cases, mounting deferred expense.
The state pension system has $13 billion in unfunded liability that acts like an anchor on the budget and mortgages the state’s future. Next year, taxpayers are set to pay more than $1 billion just to chip away at the pension debt. Those annual payments will rise to $2.3 billion by 2023.
In addition, cities, towns, and counties waste almost $200 million a year running their own systems, much of that going toward making up for poor returns on investment. A study by the Pioneer Institute found that just 5.7% of local pension systems match the state fund’s investment returns.
Local pension systems are also weighed down with separate investment managers, accountants, and additional duplicative overhead. Maintaining that local control over pension systems comes at a large cost. Taxpayers will pay another $3 billion over 20 years just to make up for poor investment performance in local systems over the last decade.
The pension system is also easily gamed by insiders who know how to work the system to maximize their payout. At the same time, the system discourages bright, idealistic young people from spending a few years in public service before moving on in their education or career, by denying short-term employees any pension benefit.
What can be done to fix this mess? Most companies have started offering their employees a 401(k) option. Recognizing that modernization, other states have followed the lead of the private sector, and Massachusetts should be next.
If we institute changes that bring us more in line with the successes of the private sector, we can stop the $13 billion in unfunded pension liability from growing larger, and immediately deliver nearly $200 million in annual savings while maximizing returns for retirees.
The Healey-Hillman pension reform plan would apply to all new public employees in Massachusetts, except police officers and firefighters, who often retire at an early age and spend their days in hazardous working conditions. It would fold 106 taxpayer-funded state, county, municipal, and authority systems into one, eliminating abuses, duplication, and unnecessary local overhead costs, and give municipalities the benefit of the state pension fund’s strong performance.
Employees could choose to invest the money themselves, continue to have the Commonwealth invest it for them, or opt for guaranteed annual interest equal to the 10-year Treasury bond, currently around 5 percent.
Employees could take their retirement benefits with them when they leave, creating an incentive for young people to spend a few years in public service.
Our proposal will save some money immediately and have significant long-term financial benefits. The system would save more than $100 million over the next decade. Once all state employees are covered by the plan, taxpayers will save $140 million each year.
Municipalities would save about $200 million a year immediately, and could use the savings to return money to taxpayers in the form of property tax relief, or to boost local services. Most important, once all employees are in the new system, taxpayers in Massachusetts will not have to worry about unfunded pension liability dragging down the budget and the economy again.
Our pension reform will transform a broken system into one that is fair to employees, less burdensome to taxpayers, and helps to modernize an out-of-date Massachusetts bureaucracy that is weighing the state down and making it less competitive.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey is the Republican candidate for governor.
Still Struggling with Budget Cuts, Area Career Centers are Being Entrepreneurial
Kevin Lynn of FutureWorks said proactive programs and business strategies are one way to offset the effects of funding cutbacks.
Sometimes, when David Gadaire, executive director of CareerPoint one-stop career center in Holyoke, talks about the center, it sounds like he’s describing an emergency room.
“When people lose their jobs, they go into panic mode,” he said. “Often, people are frantic. They walk in off the street, and we work to help them as best we can. At the same time, the phone is ringing, sometimes 300 calls a day, and everyone has a specific, important question that needs to be answered. To succeed, it becomes part of our jobs to cut through the bureaucratic system, which we are — very — and focus on being as customer-driven as possible.
“It’s like triage.” CareerPoint and its Springfield counterpart FutureWorks, have been serving Western Mass. as the only one-stop career centers in the area for 10 years, and upon this anniversary, Gadaire and others are reflective of the challenges of the past that have been surmounted. However, they’re also mindful of the challenges to come.
In those 10 years, career centers across the country have faced mortal wounds to their budget, while the job-seeking community remains in constant supply, and more in need than ever to enter the job market armed with increasingly sophisticated skills.
Rexine Picard, executive director of FutureWorks, has been at the center since its inception in 1996, and has seen the changes to the market firsthand.
“It has been an intense journey,” she said. “I came on board as a career counselor and made my way up to my current position. This was the first one-stop career center in Massachusetts, and I saw it as a great opportunity to do things out of the box.”
Center Cuts
According to Picard, that’s exactly what happened — FutureWorks thrived in its first year by focusing on the development of individual career skills, education, and strong employee-employer matches. And despite budget cuts that have necessitated some downsizing over the past 10 years, she said FutureWorks has managed to remain on an even keel in terms of services, although there have been stormy periods.
At one point, for instance, state funding was virtually eliminated in the middle of the year for a program called Next Step, which provides work opportunities for welfare recipients. The slash necessitated the lay-off of 14 people, and although funding was eventually restored and all 14 employees returned to their posts, it’s surprises like those that can rock the boat.
As can a little controversy. Several years ago, Picard explained, FutureWorks be-came the site of protests, as some local groups called the center’s private standing – at the time, the organization functioned as a private, for-profit venture – into question.
“Some people in Springfield saw issues surrounding the idea of private industry managing a government entity,” she said, noting that FutureWorks rechartered as a private non-profit in 2001, forming a local board of directors. “The local board of business professionals has given us a much stronger hold in the community.”
Despite their private status, however, FutureWorks and CareerPoint (also a private non-profit) still glean the majority of their funding from state and federal sources, and have suffered the same financial dire straits as many career centers in the Commonwealth, public and private. Kevin Lynn, manager of business and youth services at FutureWorks, said that while unexpected hits like the loss of the Next Step funding can have a profound effect on the center’s bottom line, it’s the steadily diminishing stream of funding that has an even greater impact.
“For career centers, funding has declined every year for the last 10 years,” said Lynn, noting that fiscal year 2007 is expected to see a $900,000 cut. “The high-point was really that very first year, when money was rolled out for this new concept.
“The loss in federal funding is due in part to the state’s loss in population,” he continued. “There are occasional grant opportunities, but not all are of an appreciable amount, and grants also usually have a dedicated purpose, and that doesn’t allow you to solidify your core mission. So in many ways, career centers are limping along.”
In Business
To address that fiscal need, though, many career centers have turned to new, profitable service options, in order to gain greater control of their finances.
Gadaire explained that CareerPoint’s business division, which provides training classes for companies across the region for a fee, was a response to the need to serve several specific populations on a shoestring, and the realization that funding just wasn’t going to stretch far enough.
“What has changed the most for us is the sheer volume of people coming through the doors,” said Gadaire. “The first year we were open we served 4,000 people. Last year, the number was 14,000. That, paired with the fact that we’re currently receiving less funding today than we were in that first year, has prompted us to keep a close watch over how we do business, and what services we provide.”
Gadaire explained that at the outset, CareerPoint’s central mission was to provide as many job-related services as possible to the greatest number of clients as possible.
“We were set up to serve as a one-door, access-for-everyone career center,” he told BusinessWest. “When we acknowledged the fact that we didn’t have the resources to serve everyone, including special populations such as the disabled, ex-offenders, those who speak little or no English … that’s when we became more entrepreneurial in our thinking.”
He said CareerPoint’s business division was created to tap into funding sources outside of state and federal programs, and in turn to serve a greater number of people more completely.
“The largest population of people we serve is still people who want to change or expand in their careers, or who have been dislocated from their jobs,” said Gadaire. “The problem there is that when the population of people in need gets too big, the specific populations get lost.
“We’ve been able to expand our capacity over the last five years by $1 million,” he continued, “by tapping into three key areas: grants, partnerships with other businesses, and through fee-for-service offerings. We want to become even more self-contained … we’re not there yet, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to be fully free of state and federal funding … but we do need to be more flexible.”
And beyond expanding revenue, the new funding streams have also allowed CareerPoint staff to expand their knowledge base. The center’s partnership with the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, for instance, has allowed CareerPoint to conserve time and resources by tapping the Sheriff’s Department for assistance with ex-offender re-entry to the job force.
“The Sheriff’s Department goes for grants for ex-offender re-entry which in turn benefit us through the partnership,” said Gadaire. “That also allows us to grow our area of expertise. It allows us to have people on the payroll who are truly experts in one or more of those sub-groups of people, and those groups begin to add up.
“We still believe in the universal access model,” he added. “And expanding our expertise helps us ensure that people with specific needs don’t get lost in the crowd.”
The business division will continue to play a major part in CareerPoint’s strategic planning, said Gadaire, especially in light of the news that funding is expected to drop substantially in 2007.
“We’re taking some fairly draconian hits,” he continued, noting that the center is expected to lose 22% of its federal funding. “They’ve necessitated some layoffs and some hours cut, which is ironic, because now some of our staff members will be using our services. That really drives the point home that everyone is a customer.”
Stitch in Time
And while not every case is an emergency, there is a wide gamut of clientele to be served – some, arriving just hours after losing a job, need wounds healed, while others are looking to improve the overall health of their careers.
Either way, said Gadaire, whatever the fiscal year brings, FutureWorks and CareerPoint both have waiting rooms that are perenially busy.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
EDC Appointments Expected to Advance Agency’s Mission
From left, Michael Graney, Alan Blair, and Kenneth Delude.
Alan Blair says a transition in leadership at Westmass Area Development Corp. has been in the talking stages for some time now.
“We wanted to make the change when it made sense to do so,” said Blair, referring to his recent decision to step down as president of that agency, an affiliate of the Economic Development Council of Western Mass. (which he also serves as president), and hand the reins over to his long-time lieutenant, Kenneth Delude. “And that time is now.”
By that, he was referring to both the 10-year anniversary of the creation of the EDC (see related story, page 6), what Blair considered a logical time to take stock of the corporation and its affiliates, but also the state of Westmass, the private, non-profit organization that has developed industrial parks in several area communities.
Westmass, like its sister organization, Westover Metropolitan Development Corp., the non-profit group created by the state Legislature to oversee development of former Westover Air Force Base property into what has become four industrial parks, is a vital cog in regional economic development efforts, said Blair. For Westmass to better carry out its role of job creation, he continued, it was decided that Delude, who has served that agency as senior vice president for several years, would assume the presidency and that additions to the staff would be made.
The move also gives Blair, who will remain in his role as president of Westover, more time and energy to devote to the EDC as it enters its second decade of operation.
“There is a strong imperative to continue Westmass’s mission, which is to continue to find ways to work with area communities to bring jobs to this region,” said Blair, noting that the changes in staffing will help with that assignment. “If we don’t continue to provide space for new development, growth in this region will begin to slow.”
Delude’s promotion is one of two appointments announced by the EDC this month. The other is the naming of Michael Graney, most recently director of the Springfield Business Development Corp. (SBDC) as senior vice president of Marketing and Business Development for the EDC.
Graney succeeds Ralph Carlson, the recently retired vice president of Marketing for the EDC, but he will have a broader and somewhat different role than his predecessor, said Blair. That new job description will also include work in what he called “prospect management.”
Elaborating, he said this is work that takes leads for development in the region — both new ventures and job-retention efforts — and works them through what can be a lengthy, complicated process.
Prospect-management has always been an organization-wide function within the EDC, Blair, continued, and it will continue to be, but Graney, in the ‘business development’ role included on his business card, will play an active role in those efforts.
Delude has been part of the team at Westover/Westmass for nearly 25 years. A former engineer for the city of Chicopee, he has worked for both agencies in all aspects of development, in a capacity that essentially matches prospects with suitable sites in the agencies’ industrial parks.
His responsibilities have included everything from working out purchase and sale agreements and closings for individual parcels, to representing the EDC before boards and commissions in communities where the agency has conducted business. In his capacity as president he will maintain some of the duties, but will mostly be tasked with the broad assignment of making sure Westmass can continue its mission for the long term.
Looking forward, Delude told BusinessWest that his agency has several tasks at hand.
The first involves staffing issues, he said, noting that in addition to securing his successor, he will also look to hire another individual to handle a combination of sales and closing duties.
Those staff additions will help Westmass make some progress with its two primary assignments — filling remaining space in existing parks and developing new parks to ensure that the region has an adequate inventory of land for development.
As for existing parks, some are filled or near that point, said Delude, referring to facilities in Westfield and Agawam, while a recently developed park in East Longmeadow has a few parcels remaining. University Park in Hadley has approximately a third of its 76 acres remaining, he continued, while the Chicopee River Business Park, which has one current tenant and a second deal in the works, will have 10 remaining sites and roughly half its developable acreage left after that second deal is inked.
This fairly limited inventory — the Westover parks are also nearing capacity — makes the development of new industrial parks a priority, said Delude, noting that Westmass officials have been exploring both urban and surburban sites in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. There are some options, he continued, but mostly smaller parcels, at least when compared to the two large parks Westmass developed in Westfield and Agawam.
“We may never see a 300-acre park again,” said Delude, referring to the Agawam Regional Industrial Park, built on the site of the former Bowles Airport. “But there are opportunities for smaller developments, and we’re looking at both greenfields and brownfields sites in several communities.”
Graney brings a diverse resume to his new position, one he told BusinessWest he lobbied for as part of his pursuit of a new challenge.
He had spent the previous decade at the helm of the SBDC, an agency now with no personnel and an uncertain future. During that time, the agency contributed to formation of the Springfield Business Improvement District, created a new management model for Symphony Hall and StageWest (now City Stage), and worked unsuccessfully to bring minor league baseball to Springfield, among other initiatives.
Prior to that, Graney managed the Springfield Civic Center, as well as other area arenas and theaters, including the CTNow.com Meadows Music Theatre (Meadows Music Center) in Connecticut, and before that worked on commercial real estate, particularly specialty retail centers.
It was that broad depth of experience that appealed to Blair.
“As it developed, the job description for this position was not pure marketing,” he told BusinessWest, adding that there was no formal search for Carlson’s replacement. “We’re trying to attract investors; we needed someone who understands marketing, but also someone who understands real estate and this region. We realized that this isn’t someone you find on the street.”
The new challenge that Graney has assumed involves equal parts marketing, education, and the management of prospects for the region’s industrial parks, said Blair, noting that, a decade after its creation, the EDC, a unique management model, remains a difficult concept for many in the region to grasp.
Thus, marketing will involve initiatives both inside the region and outside it, said Blair, noting that the EDC takes part in a number of trade shows and conventions involving developers and site selectors. Graney took part in his first, a medical device manufacturers show staged in New York, earlier this month.
As for prospect-management, Graney described it as the process of “turning leads into deals,” and said his background in real estate, building management, and in working with other agencies to get things done, will assist him in that assignment.
“Leads can come from a variety of places, from trade shows to state agencies — there’s a whole alphabet soup of them out there,” he said. “We want to take those leads and work with whomever we need to work with to turn them into deals.”
Stop Thinking About Technology and Start Thinking About Your Target
Some people will read the title of this article and presume that ‘getting’ means ‘understanding.’ Others will assume it means ‘acquiring.’ And the answer is yes — though you need the former before you can achieve the latter. And you can pull the word ‘interactive’ out of the title because it doesn’t add anything to the discussion since understanding and acquiring interactive technology are really just understanding and executing basic marketing practices using some tool sets and features that are enabled by interactive technology.
However, before we get into a discussion of the ‘what to whom,’ (my definition of marketing) I think it bears mentioning that as a person who has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business, I believe best practices in this realm are seldom defined as purely an interactive technology solution alone but rest upon the idea that interactive elements helped achieve the overall marketing goals of the client.
Good interactive marketing starts with good strategic marketing planning. You can’t maximize the effectiveness of technology if you haven’t integrated it into an overall communications plan. Time and time again, the biggest mistake companies make is not thinking about interactive as an integral part of the marketing plan. Instead they treat it as stand-alone effort.
And the second mistake? Ownership. How can a company be effective in getting its message out and connecting with and developing customers if one person or group is handling traditional advertising and marketing programs and somebody else is responsible for so-called interactive technology? Just because the word technology is in the mix often there is a turf war between marketing and IT. These are the ugly barriers to successful implementation.
Once you’ve established the ground rules the next step is relatively simple. Stop thinking about technology and start thinking about your target. An 18-year-old consumes media in a much different way than their grandparents. It’s not an earth-shattering insight. But you’d be amazed how many projects I’ve seen where the objective seemed to be technology deployment rather than improving communication with a target consumer.
If you think of media as a continuum ranging from print through radio and television to interactive, and your tool sets as display advertising, direct mail, broadcast advertising, etc., you can begin to define a set of options around new media. But these options, like everything you do in marketing, have to be directed toward business objectives. Creating a feedback loop with customers, creating a new product launch channel, a cross-selling channel, speed to market, online sales to augment traditional sales – even just a simple way to stay connected – are all valid goals toward which your efforts can be directed.
Bear in mind, interactive can offer some clear advantages. For one, if you include the Web site, your ability to present reams of information and allow potential customers a feast of self-selected details makes the concept of a printed brochure pale by comparison. More important, is the truly interactive nature of the collective technology in that it allows you to open a dialogue in the guise of a self-directed exchange.
Building a connection is usually a function of privileged E-mail. I say privileged, because treated any other way it has the potential to burn you. If you want to communicate directly, you have to ask permission. And if you get the opportunity, you have to meet or exceed your customer’s expectation of your brand. Over-communicating with blatant sales pitches, filler nonsense, or poorly defined content are all ways to tarnish your image. The last time I bought a car they actually asked me if I would find it convenient for them to contact me about service calls by E-mail. So far they’ve kept it to that, and I find it convenient, unobtrusive, and worthwhile.
For a more dynamic example, think of the problem an educational institution has in trying to attract good candidates to its campus. On the first level is the problem of ‘really interested’ versus tire kickers. ‘Really interested’ (RI) will register and give you their E-mail. Now let’s begin marketing by more precisely segmenting the customer base so we can really zero in on their needs. Let’s give RIs several choices as to areas of interest (a,b,c). Once they’ve self-selected further we can connect on the basis of interest with differentiated content being offered to RI-a, RI-b and RI-c. If the potential students continue to engage you can be pretty sure interest is high and knowledge is good.
This kind of segmentation with a potential customer group showcases the granularity of interactive marketing, and though it takes some thinking to programmatically plan, it is both effective and cost-effective.
A well-managed E-mail marketing effort has another clear advantage over traditional media – it is easily measurable. From that standpoint, it’s a bean counter’s dream. Open-rates, click-throughs, conversion rates, unique visits. Yum. Mind you, you have to understand the metrics, watch them, and use them to dial in your effectiveness. The ability to conceive, test, and refine is an inherent part of the value proposition and you should be prepared to take advantage of it. In contrast to traditional marketing programs this flexibility can either be looked at as a burden (someone has to assess and refine) or an opportunity (we’re getting increasingly close to customers).
This leads into another aspect of interactive marketing that some clients find frustrating: it keeps changing. It’s what I like to refer to as the wet edge. That describes the phenomena of constant change and enhancement. Some change is good; other change can easily be a double-edged sword. New technology functionality doesn’t guarantee value creation. Just think of the times you went to a Web site that wouldn’t load because of bandwidth or you couldn’t view it because you didn’t have the latest plug-in. The problem is that purveyors of technology will dazzle you with what it can do and limit the discussion of access.
That’s why any discussion of technology deployment has to be balanced but your target demographics’ use and access patterns.
Sounds like a lot to keep track of, but it isn’t. You just have to be careful about chasing technology or being a beta test. The ultimate objective is not to use the latest and coolest technology; it’s to increasingly cement your relationship with your customers. It’s a gentle balance, and like everything interactive, it changes over time.
On the other hand you have to stay abreast. Certainly the things like keyword purchases in search (paid placement), changing search-engine optimization protocols, the move toward more localized search, RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, and video ad distribution are all trends that will alter the landscape and create opportunity to best your competition. Just be judicious in your thinking — using something totally cool on your Web site isn’t effective if it limits access of or becomes a point of frustration for your target audience. Seems pretty simple, but everyone’s been frustrated by enough Web sites to know how many companies make this mistake.
I realize I have generalized to the most common denominator and perhaps not offered insights specific enough to act on. So here’s some top-line thinking based on my experience with clients about getting interactive. If you’re still questioning whether you really need to investigate this new media option, with all due respect, you’re a hopeless Luddite. On the other hand you have to be very careful to create the balance that matches your market dynamics.
You have to study interactive marketing and assess technology in terms of its ability to meet business objectives within the bounds of your customer’s comfort zone. You should seek best practices, demand metrics and measure value based upon goals in marketing plan.
Above all, remember that technology is not a message in and of itself, though some allow it to become that. At its best it’s simply another, often better way to deliver your message. For no matter how much technological dazzle you create, it is ultimately the message that counts and delivers the customer – and understanding that much is how you start ‘getting’ interactive marketing.
Nathan Winstanley is president of Winstanley Associates and Lenox Softworks, a full-service advertising, marketing e-communications and public relations firm in Lenox, Massachusetts; (413) 637-9887;[email protected].
Taking Stock of the EDC After a Decade in Business
June 26, 2006 Cover
The Economic Development Council of Western Mass. recently marked 10 years of work to promote the cities and towns of the Pioneer Valley as one economic entity. Its president and CEO, Alan Blair, says the council has achieved its primary mission — making the region more competitive — but much work remains to bring jobs and economic growth to Western Mass.
As he stood at a podium in a meeting room at Chicopee’s Parwick Center a decade ago to announce the formation of the Economic Development Council of Western Mass. (EDC), Alan Blair was asked by BusinessWest how and when he would know if the new venture was a success.
“If we become more competitive as a region,” was the quick response, with much to follow about how he believed the EDC, a new and fairly radical concept in planning and economic development, would enable the counties of Western Mass. to better compete for everything from jobs to the attention of lawmakers in Boston and Washington.
Ten years later, Blair, the EDC’s first and only president and CEO, says he can state with confidence that this basic mission has indeed been accomplished — although he stressed that the work is just getting started.
“We’re definitely in the game now,” he explained, using that phrase to imply that the region is now a larger player in the high-stakes and truly global competition for jobs and economic growth — it even had a site or two reportedly in the mix for the $1.1 billion Bristol-Meyers Squibb manufacturing facility that will be built on the former Fort Devens site. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to win every game, certainly — just that we’re in a lot more than we were before.”
But is the region winning enough?
That is a question Blair knows many people are asking — and also answering with a ‘no.’ And he would be the first one to say that the region could be doing better in its efforts to attract more companies and jobs, and hopefully will in the years to come.
It is handicapped in that assignment by everything from geography to well-financed competition, said Blair, adding quickly that luring large employers to the 413 area code has never been the region’s strong suit — most of the larger companies that call the Valley home grew up here — and it is merely one aspect of that broadly defined term economic development.
Others include job-retention, advocacy, government relations, growth of the tourism sector, and new-business development, and in these realms Blair believes the EDC has enjoyed varying measures of success.
“There are 33,200 more people working in the Pioneer Valley today than there were in 1995; our economy is growing, if it wasn’t, we couldn’t absorb those jobs,” said Blair, noting that while some might question where those people are working — many new jobs have come in the tourism and distribution sectors — that simple statistic shows that the region is growing while others in the Commonwealth are not.
There are other ways to quantify and qualify the relative success of the EDC, said Blair, citing everything from the MassMutual Center, which he says might not have gotten off the ground without the council’s work to rally area legislators around that cause, to the fact that other regions in Massachusetts and other cities, including Hartford, are incorporating the EDC model in one form or another.
Overall, he said the EDC has succeeded in taking an area with nine cities (six when it was first created) and dozens of small towns, which were all slugging it out on their own and competing against one another in the process — ‘Balkanized’ was the word Blair used to describe the Valley’s state — and making it one economic region.
Actually, it has gone further, he said, adding that in 2000, the EDC partnered with officials in Connecticut to create what has become known as the Knowledge Corridor.
A region that stretches from south of Hartford to Northampton, the corridor boasts roughly 1.7 million people, 27 colleges and universities, and perhaps 30,000 college graduates a year. These are numbers that can be sold to site selectors and company owners, said Blair, adding that many people are shocked when they hear them.
Turning that initial shock into growth on both sides (but preferably this side) of the border will be a priority for the EDC as it enters its second decade of work, said Blair, who recently talked with BusinessWest about the council’s first 10 years and what the future will likely hold.
History Lesson
As he traced the history of the EDC and outlined the factors that motivated its creation, Blair flashed back to a conference he attended in 1995 as president of Westmass Area Development Corp. and Westover Metropolitan Development Corp., with the goal of finding prospects for those agencies’ industrial parks.
He doesn’t remember where that show was, but he clearly recalls a conversation he had with another attendee.
“He asked me who I was representing and what I was selling,” said Blair. “I said, ‘Chicopee, Ludlow, Westfield, and other communities where we had parks, and he laughed. He said, ‘where are those places?’
“That helped make it clear to me and other people just how absurd it was for us to sell a single municipality to site selectors and brokers who were looking at broad regions and needed a ton of information in order to make decisions about where to locate,” he continued. “That became a foundation for our regional approach to selling this area.”
The vehicle for doing that selling would be an economic development council, funded by several sources, including contributions, totaling $150,000, from area businesses. The council would have a president and a large board of directors that would reflect the regional nature of the agency by including all the region’s mayors and college presidents.
The council’s operating model would be unique in that it would act as what Blair called a “management company” for its six affiliate economic and business development organizations: Westover, Westmass, the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Springfield Business Development Corp., and the Regional Technology Corp., which joined over time.
The cooperation of those affiliates, and the EDC’s unique relationship with them, have been pivotal factors in the overall success of the council, said Blair, adding that the EDC’s architects didn’t want to create a ‘super agency;’ instead they wanted to coordinate the work being done by those organizations.
“This could have been a disaster if the affiliates felt that this was a parent-subordinate relationship, one where we somehow forced them to conduct themselves in a way they weren’t comfortable with,” he said. “That was never the intent, but we knew it was a delicate relationship; every affiliate has found the way to interact as part of the whole, while still maintaining the identity they need to maintain to properly serve their members.”
Working together, the EDC and its affiliates have managed to promote the region as one entity and make it more competitive in the process, said Blair, who, when asked for examples of how the council has accomplished this, started with the Coolidge Bridge.
The structure, which links Northampton with Hadley was badly in need of repair and widening, he said, noting that congestion on the bridge had created legendary traffic tie-ups that in some ways threatened growth of those communities and UMass.
“We were selling the research capability of the university,” he explained,” but people were saying that they couldn’t get there.”
What the EDC did was effectively convert the bridge from an Amherst-Hadley-Northampton issue, which it had been for decades, into a regional priority. Through letters to state transportation officials, talks with area legislators, and efforts to get the region’s mayors to get on board, the EDC helped move the project forward by “taking some of the politics out of the equation.”
“When we got the mayors to support it, that said to state representatives and senators that their backs were covered,” Blair explained. “That hadn’t happened before; someone from Springfield could now advocate for this project in Northampton without fear of having their legs cut out from by the mayor of Springfield.”
The same M.O. has helped with other regional projects, said Blair, listing the MassMutual Center, legislative action to lower the airport user tax (a measure that significantly benefited Westover Municipal and Barnes Airport in Westfield), and an I-91 broadband project now in the works.
The regional approach has also been applied to the task of bringing companies and jobs to Western Mass. and now the larger Knowledge Corridor, he said, adding that before the creation of the EDC, individual cities and towns would compete against each other, often with calamitous results.
The most notable case was the Coke Cola bottling plant that eventually wound up in Northampton in 1995. For several months, Coke played those two communities against one another in a game that resulted in no clear winners.
The EDC now takes large measures of that gamesmanship out of the equation by creating a central entry portal for companies looking to enter the region or expand within it, said Blair. The specific wants and needs of those companies are weighed, and possible sites are forwarded.
The streamlined process has helped bring many companies to the region, said Blair, citing German-based Suddekor LLC as one of the better success stories. The company, a paper-maker, was looking to locate a plant somewhere in the Northeast, and was steered to Western Mass. and eventually the Agawam Regional Industrial Park by the EDC.
The company has steadily grown, and recently opened a second plant in the region in an East Longmeadow industrial park developed by WestMass.
“They’re an example of a company that could have gone anywhere,” said Blair, “but they came here in part because of our regional approach and our ability to put ourselves in the game.
“That’s how we got started with the EDC and why we started — to become more competitive,” he said. “And as soon as we did, we not only got attention statewide, but we got attention from other places, like Northern Connecticut; people were saying, “maybe they’re on to something there, maybe this is the way to go.”
The Jobs at Hand
Despite Blair’s many positive measures of the EDC’s performance in its first decade in business — not to mention the attempts to duplicate the model elsewhere — the council has its critics and skeptics.
Indeed, there are those who have questioned everything from the size (85 members) and makeup (too many old guard members and not enough women or small business owners) of the Board of Directors, to the area’s new marketing image and slogan.
‘Arrive Curious, Leave Inspired’ emerged from a lengthy and somewhat controversial EDC-led process that included the hiring of a Tennessee firm that specializes in destination branding, a move that didn’t sit well with some members of the local creative community.
Meanwhile, some have suggested that the EDC is too Springfield-centric, at the expense of Hampshire and Franklin counties, and still others maintain that it hasn’t done enough to help the struggling city out of its fiscal morass.
But the most consistent criticism of the EDC is that it hasn’t brought large numbers of jobs to the region, despite ongoing efforts to market it as an attractive, lower-cost option to Boston, and hasn’t created much in the way of economic development.
The Chicopee River Business Park, which straddles Chicopee and Springfield, has become the poster child for perceived EDC underachievement. It’s been on the market for nearly a decade, but has just one tenant — laser manufacturer Convergent Prima — although a second deal is said to be nearing completion.
Blair acknowledges the criticism, but bristles at the notion that there hasn’t been any economic development over the past several years. He says it just hasn’t come in the form that most equate with that phrase — companies building new plants and hiring hundreds of people.
There has been some of that, Blair noted, citing Suddekor, the giant Target distribution center that will soon take shape in Westfield, and other companies that have built or expanded in the WestMass and Westover industrial parks over the past 10 years.
But economic development has come in many other ways, some of them less visible, at least from the standpoint of the EDC’s involvement. These include everything from heavy lobbying for the MassMutual Center and the Coolidge bridge widening to creation of the Business Improvement District in Springfield and emerging BIDs in Westfield and other area cities.
And it also includes job-retention, a less-glamorous, often overlooked aspect of economic development, he said.
Citing the decision of Performance Food Group to relocate from Taylor Street in Springfield to the new Memorial II industrial park to be created on land adjacent to Smith & Wesson, Blair said that initiative will bring about 250 new jobs to the region, a number he believes isn’t drawing the proper amount of respect.
“If we were bringing in 250 jobs from outside the region, there would be headlines for three days about how great that was,” he said. “Why don’t we have three days of headlines when we create 250 jobs by keeping a company here?”
New-business development has also been a priority and another relatively successful realm for the EDC, said Blair, adding that through the work of affiliates like the ACCGS and facilities like the Technology Park at STCC, the region is a much more “friendly” place for entrepreneurs.
Tourism has also seen steady growth, he said, noting that several new hotels have been built in the region and occupancy rates remain higher than the state average despite that higher volume.
Moving forward, the EDC will look to improve its track record in efforts to bring more large employers to the region, he said, adding quickly that success will likely not come quickly or easily because the level of competition and the comparatively low level of financial support from the state.
“We didn’t expect to suddenly turn on the spigot just because we printed some brochures and went to a few trade shows and conferences,” he explained. “We knew this would be a long-term effort that would require a lot more resources than we could generate on our own.
“We look to the ‘Research Triangle’ in North Carolina as the model that everyone refers to; they say, ‘look at what they did in the middle of nowhere with a couple of colleges and the state university,’” he continued. “When we investigated that, we found that the brand Research Triangle has been around for more 30 years and that the state has put half-a-million dollars into that brand every year since the beginning. No one had even heard of the triangle until six or seven years after they started.”
It will take more time and resources for the Knowledge Corridor to become a recognized brand, he said, adding quickly that it is already becoming part of the lexicon for brokers, developers, and site selectors.
“We have a cross-border brand that’s only five or six years old,” he told BusinessWest. “We should be looking at a 15-year timeline to see if we can be successful in changing the perception of Western New England by using this brand.”
The Bottom Line
While Blair feels confident that the EDC has met that threshold for success he laid out a decade ago, he’s far from content with what the council has accomplished.
“You never want to leave the impression that you’re ever satisfied with results,” he said. “If you ever feel that way, you might as well get out; there are many things we can be doing better.”
But overall, Blair believes the EDC has had a productive first decade in businesses, and, like the region itself, has built a foundation on which to grow.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
JGS Continues to Adapt as the Tide Turns in Elder Care
Resident James Moberg and Director of Case Management Lucy Giuggio share a moment outside of the JGS campus.
With its 100-year anniversary fast approaching, Jewish Geriatric Services is a mainstay in the Western Mass. landscape with which many people are familiar. However, what people often do not realize is the breadth of JGS services – from home care to comprehensive health and wellness management to day programs. Through them, the organization is redefining the very process of aging for many seniors.
Lucy Giuggio RN, director of case management for Longmeadow-based Jewish Geriatric Services, often compares the organization to a ship; and the seniors the organization serves, she says, are the captains.
“There are a sea of options for seniors today,” she said, continuing the metaphor. “The challenge is identifying what the best option is for each person, and recognizing that changes … what’s good today may not be suitable tomorrow.”
To that end, JGS, which began in 1912 as a nursing home in Springfield called that Daughters of Zion Home for the Aged, has grown in its 95-year history to not only meet the needs of area elders, but also to predict those changes on the horizon.
“I spend a lot of time answering questions,” said Giuggio, “from seniors as well as their families and caregivers. When need arises, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is a nursing home. But part of my job is explaining that there is a continuum of care today to be utilized.”
Homeward Bound
Indeed, many people still equate JGS only with its nursing facility, the Julian J. Leavitt Family Jewish Nursing Home (JNH), a 200-bed facility that serves as the flagship for JGS at its Converse Street location. However, the JGS footprint is much larger than that, including several aspects of that continuum of care, a staff of more than 400, and an operating budget of $25 million.
In addition to JNH, the non-profit also operates Ruth’s House, a 76-bed assisted living facility; Genesis House, a 109-unit independent living facility; Spectrum Home Health Care, which offers home-based nursing and assistance services to residents in 10 towns, and the Wernick Adult Day Health Care Center, which provides daily acitivities and health assistance to seniors still living in their own homes.
Alan Rosenfeld, president and CEO of JGS, said keeping people in their own homes will be a driving force behind several new initiatives within the organization in the coming years, as JGS embarks on a new strategic planning phase this year.
“We’re looking very closely at home-based care and trying to create more opportunities for people that will allow them to stay in their own homes,” said Rosenfeld. “It goes back to our mission. We started as a nursing home, but our mission is much broader — to serve the elderly. We have no desire to bring people into a nursing home that do not need to be.”
The growing need for comprehensive care that caters to a wide range of seniors at various levels of independence and health is indeed a major focus for Rosenfeld and his team as JGS moves forward. Baby Boomers are aging, and that means all elder care facilities will be facing capacity issues in the next 20 to 30 years.
But more pressing, Rosenfeld said, is the WWII generation, which although markedly smaller than the Boomers, represents the population with the greatest need.
“The older Boomers are currently turning 60,” he explained. “But the generation that went through World War II — they’re turning 85. That’s the highest-demand population, although it is one that is shrinking.”
The strategy moving forward, then, becomes two-fold, added Rosenfeld — maintaining the quality of the nursing home as enrollment numbers dip, and refocusing attention on home and community services, in order to enter the next decade with a strong care model.
“Baby Boomers will begin turning 85 in 2030,” he told BusinessWest. “And this idea of entering a nursing facility as one’s health declines, I don’t think they’re going to go for that.”
Diane Mintz, executive vice president for Spectrum Home Health Care, agreed with Rosenfeld that in terms of the broad makeup of care at JGS, Spectrum’s services will be very much at the forefront of new planning initiatives, because the home health agency often represents the entry point for seniors seeking assistance. That in turn can lead to a long-standing relationship with the organization as an elder’s needs change.
“Spectrum launched in 1994,” she explained, “which makes us relatively young — many visiting nurse services in the area are more than 130 years old. But in terms of our relationship to the entire campus, we represent a big part of the team. Our clinicians are seeing about 80 people a day, offering specific services including nursing care and rehab.
“And if extended care is necessary due to an acute illness or a fall, for instance,” added Mintz, “there are other services readily available within the same system. I think it’s comforting for people to know that everything is all right here.”
More importantly, though, Rosenfeld noted that Spectrum allows JGS to extend its services and its mission to a larger audience.
“We need to be able to address the needs of the aging population while at the same time keeping them independent longer, and we’re making progress in this area.”
Staying on Course
The work is multi-faceted — in addition to some program additions and enhancement, Rosenfeld said JGS’ new strategic plan, currently still on the drawing board, is expected to include the creation of a privately operated Hospice program. Also planned are an expansion of home health services, a revamped approach to treatment services, particularly of chronic ailments such as Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes, and an ongoing effort to streamline the many service aspects at JGS, so they work together as seamlessly as possible.
The new directions are an extension of similar initiatives taken on in recent years at JGS to address the varied needs of seniors. These include the addition of telemedicine to home health care services, free-standing digital health diagnostic centers in every building on the JGS campus (residents swipe an ID card and can immediately check blood pressure, weight, and other variables), and a remodeling effort at Genesis House two years ago that added 29 units, new elevators, and a community kitchen and meeting room.
Prior to that project, though, was the notable construction of Ruth’s House assisted living eight years ago, and a renovation of JNH that made the facility more home-like.
Susan Halpern, director of development at JGS, said those projects were funded largely by a capital fundraising campaign called ReGeneration, which took place from 1995 to 1997 and raised more than $7 million.
“The ability to meet the changing needs of the elderly and to be able to adjust to a changing health care community were the driving forces behind that campaign,” she said, noting that as JGS embarks on new projects, the mission will remain largely the same.
The organization conducts an annual fundraising campaign, but also an annual donors’ night, complete with entertainment, and the Kinsler Classic, a bridge, tennis, and golf tournament, among other endeavors. Halpern said the events as well as the annual appeal allow JGS to maintain services and to develop new ones, but in the coming years she expects a greater focus on major gifts and planned giving, in preparation for new additions to the JGS suite of services.
“Part of my job is to educate the public on the challenges of providing quality care for elders,” she explained. “The task is very taxing on our system, because essentially we are being called upon more and more each year to provide more costly health care with fewer dollars.
“We are very blessed with a supportive community of donors who understand and embrace our mission,” she continued, “but there is a growing gap between funding and services, and the question becomes ‘where do we look to fill that gap?’”
Halpern said some of the options she’s experimented with have been some new media initiatives — billboards and other marketing tools that the organization had not used before. She also said JGS recognizes contributors whenever possible through events and inclusion in the community, and through a number of educational projects, meant to better translate the JGS mission to a greater number of people. Naming opportunities — from bricks in the walkway to entire builings on the JGS campus — remain a strong fundraising tool as well.
“We continually establish new budgets and try to reach new goals time and time again, in terms of major gifts and growing our endowment,” Halpern said of JGS’ fundraising objectives (the endowment currently stands at approximately $22 million). “What got us here today was our ability to remain fluid in terms of fundraising, but also in terms of the entire health care picture.”
Sailing Away
Giuggio agreed.
“We are a long-term care system that offers most levels of care that people need,” she said, “and that allows us to help others balance care with quality of life.
“I use the analogy of the sea a lot because of the many options we provide for the elderly,” she continued, “but also because we provide a sort of telescope for them … the ability to sail through those options, and find the best possible outcome.”
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
| The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court. | ||
| Carabetta, Janet A. Carlson, Cindy Ann Clark, Jonathan C Cruz, Maria DuFur, Beverly A. Durant, Valerie Ann Fernandez, Agnes Fernandez, Pedro J Forgues, Amber Harrington, Lynne Harford, S. Rian Lakota, Stanley J.
| Laughran, William R. Levine, Jessica Lis, Angela M. Lowell, Lisa Mani, George Mani, Susan Pennock, Dorothy M. Rivera, Angel Cruz Skiba, Maureen T. Smith, Charles W. Thomas, Leesa Wojciechowski, Lonnie M.
|
Steady Job Market Anticipated for Springfield Area
SPRINGFIELD — Springfield-area employers expect to hire at a respectable pace during the third quarter of 2006, according to a new Manpower Employment Outlook Survey. From July to September, 32% of the companies interviewed plan to hire more employees, while 21% expect to reduce their payrolls, according to Manpower spokesperson Cathy Paige from the Springfield office. Another 22% expect to maintain their current staff levels and 25% are not certain of their hiring plans, added Paige. For the coming quarter, job prospects appear best in non-durable goods manufacturing, finance, insurance and real estate, education, services, and public administration. Employers in construction, durable goods manufacturing, and transportation/public utilities plan to reduce staffing levels, while those in wholesale/retail trade voice mixed hiring intentions. According to the national seasonally adjusted results of the survey, U.S. employers still won’t budge on hiring plans for the third quarter of 2006. Of the 16,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 31% expect to add to their payrolls during the third quarter, while 6% expect to reduce staff levels. Fifty-seven percent expect no change in the hiring pace, while 6% are undecided about their July-September hiring plans.
Westfield State President Resigns
WESTFIELD — Vicky L. Carwein, the first woman president at Westfield State College (WSC), recently announced her resignation to accept the chancellor position at Washington State University. Carwein said that the opportunity was too good to pass up since her husband also has a new position in the same area. Carwein will continue to serve as president at WSC through the summer and will assume her new position in the fall. The college’s Board of Trustees will soon embark on a national search for a successor to Carwein.
Hayden Tapped For Kittredge Center Post
HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College (HCC) President William F. Messner has recommended the appointment of Jeffrey P. Hayden to vice president for business and community services and executive director of the Kittredge Center. Hayden’s nomination must be formally approved by the college’s Board of Trustees, which next meets on June 27. If approved, Hayden will begin the position in early July. Hayden has worked in the Office of Economic and Industrial Development for Holyoke for 12 years, and most recently as its director. Hayden was one of 38 candidates for the position, which was left vacant last summer when long-time HCC administrator Paul Raverta assumed the interim presidency of Berkshire Community College. Named after Yankee Candle founder and HCC alum Michael Kittredge, the Kittredge Center for Business and Workforce Development houses the college’s academic and community focused business services. The $18 million complex is home to the WISER (World Institute for Economic Research) Center, as well as the Center for Business and Professional Development.
Springfield Has Pros, Cons to Economic Profile
SPRINGFIELD — Twelve cities recently participated in a study by the Northeastern University Center for Urban and Regional Policy, with Springfield ranking in the middle of the pack. Springfield has been the only city to publicly release its information about the comparison, according to Donald Walsh, a senior fellow at Northeastern University, who also supervised the survey project. The participating cities answered 194 questions relating to the economic profile and municipal infrastructure, and then a survey of 4,000 site selectors, industrial and commercial real estate brokers, and developers ranked the importance of various measures of community performance. Springfield scored well on several issues ranging from modest traffic and the proximity of higher education to relatively low rental rates. Areas that ranked poorly in Springfield included limited parking near development sites, crime rates that are higher than average, and scores on standardized tests of students are lower than average. Mayor Charles Ryan noted that the city has been diligently working to improve results in several of the key areas cited in the survey. Other cities that participated in the survey were Attleboro, Brockton, Chelsea, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Pittsfield, New Bedford, Revere, and Worcester. The cities were chosen because they elected to pay the costs of participating, according to Walsh. The survey was co-sponsored by the National Assoc. of Industrial and Office Properties, the Mass. Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, and electric utility NSTAR.
| The following building permits were issued during the month of May 2006. | ||
| AGAWAM Amherst Commercial LTD Amherst Commercial LTD Amherst Housing Authority J. David Marley Martin Wells Slobody Development Corp. Trustees of Hampshire CHICOPEE Eugene Warguleski Top Flight Golf Co. HOLYOKE Open Square Properties | NORTHAMPTON Ahamed Bashir Coolidge Northampton LLC 518 Pleasant Street LLC Northampton Co-operative Pug Realty LLC Smith College Smith College SPRINGFIELD Bank of Western MA Baystate Medical Eastfield Mall WESTFIELD Robert Williams |
| The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of June 2006. | ||
| AGAWAM Champagne & Rinaldi Cinron Joanne Szymanski at AMHERST Amherst Family Practice PC Footage Films HCM Enterprises Pat Mount Real Estate Trainer’s Spectrum CHICOPEE Camelot Paintball Country Scentsabilities Full Spectrum Ascension Internet Resource Solutions Salon Temps EAST LONGMEADOW D & D Enterprises MAK Construction The Nail Lounge Quality Building Products Shapes A Salon HADLEY Edible Arrangements B & M Fashions Homewood Suites Mill Vallley Hall Your Place Caf} NORTHAMPTON Chen’s Northeast Inc. Dust Dancer The Firefly Salon Joel Russell Associates Peri’s Line Route 9 Design & Build Soul Touch Massage Therapy | SPRINGFIELD Big Nick’s Cleaning Service 95 Quincy St. Albert Caudle C & M Decorative Concrete Dinner, Dancing, Dates Dynasty Restaurant The Final Touch Barber Ghost Music Records Hollywood Video How U Want It Cleaning Jay’s Construction & Remodeling Motto Express Process Management R & R Auto Repair Retamar’s Home Robichaud Home SPI Distribution T & C Auto Service WEST SPRINGFIELD Affordable Solutions Online Bob’s Court Boston Billiard Club C & N Carpentry Services Direct Power Sports Elite Floor Covering Five Star Roofing and Home Greenwood Electric A10926 K & M Auto Sales Liquori’s Pizza & Restaurant Mingle’s Needle and Scissors Segway Central Massachusetts LLC Siciliano Salon Stevens Jewelers Inc. Valerie Franz @ Mind, Body West Side Roofing WESTFIELD The Auction House Dan Allie Designs Home D}cor Westfield Furniture |
| The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden and Hampshire counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community. | ||
| AMHERST BELCHERTOWN CHICOPEE Kung Fu Academy Inc., Polish Legion of American Steve Beshara Inc., Westfield Auto and Truck EASTHAMPTON Summit Ridge Builders EAST LONGMEADOW Holistic Retreat Inc., NLB Appraisal Services Inc., GOSHEN Goshen General Store Inc., HADLEY South Middle Street Inc., South Middle Street Inc., HAMPDEN GTech Manufacturing Inc., | HOLYOKE Fragrance Source Maki of Japan Holyoke Inc., LUDLOW CS Landscaping Design and NORTHAMPTON Turnkey Imaging Consultants Inc., PALMER Doyle’s At Forest Lake Inc., Doyle’s Realty Holdings Inc., Sweet Dreams Anesthesia PELHAM Gary Hyman Consulting Inc., SOUTH HADLEY Stadium Renovation C.S.O.R.K. Inc., SPRINGFIELD Debra’s Beauty Solutions Inc., Greenleaf Pest Management Inc., Manjlee Inc., Wak Services Inc., WESTFIELD Marvon Construction & |
The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden and Hampshire counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.
| AGAWAM Champagne & Rinaldi Electrical Contractors Inc., BELCHERTOWN Blaze Enterprises Inc., CHICOPEE Chicopee Chix Inc., Dynamic Embroidery and Silk Screening Inc., TM Design Solutions Inc., Wilson’s Paving & Construction Inc., EASTHAMPTON CitySpace Inc., New City Processing Inc., EAST LONGMEADOW Katcon Inc., Pioneer Valley Independent Health P.C., Young Presidents’ Organization, Berkshire Chapter Inc., INDIAN ORCHARD Eddie Painting Inc., | Lilli Event Planners Inc., LONGMEADOW Han’s Character for Kids and Adult Smart Programs Inc., NORTHAMPTON The Organization for Voter Integrated Democracy Inc., PELHAM Annwn Foundation Inc., SOUTH HADLEY DeoArtur Holdings Inc., SOUTHAMPTON Carolin Ltd., 57 Crooked Yiannis Distributing Co., SOUTHWICK Competitive Plumbing Inc., SPRINGFIELD Commonwealth United Mortgage Savings & Loan Investment Corp USA Inc., Karen Real Estate Lessard Plumbing & Heating Inc., WESTFIELD Whip City Realty Ltd., 97 WEST HATFIELD Vision Machining Inc., 9 |
The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of May 2006.
| AGAWAM B & L Construction and Design Chirgwin Computer & Accounting Commercial Grounds Maintenance Inc. Corner Deli & Variety II The Daily Grind Goulet Real Estate NBS Construction Tami Lemke At Rosemarie’s Salon AMHERST Adair Construction Amy J. Rubin, DVM Amy J. Rubin Essentials Hart Graphics Left-Click Pioneer Valley Pizza Welcome to the Zoo CHICOPEE Allen Blanchard Chuck’s Auto Service Europa Salon & Volpe Nails Insta-Comp Royal Coach Sales LLC Sophisticated Cuts EAST LONGMEADOW Baystate Medical Practice K.O. Building & Remodeling Meadows Medical Associates Pattie @ Shapes HADLEY Alligator Brook Farm Norm’s Auto HOLYOKE Applied Light Cuba Supermarket Jerry’s Auto Sam’s Food Store NORTHAMPTON Buenos Aires Leather Co. Display Design & Management Expert Resume Services Hygeniks Kristy’s Nails | Primed to Sell SPRINGFIELD Brenda & Lelly’s Hair Salon C & C Wholesale Group Davidson Home Improvement Douglas-Allen Inc. Express Repair Franco Hood & Ducts Glossy Design J.L. Beauregard Properties Latina & Co. Over the Rainbow Daycare Prospect Variety Redbox Automated Retail Ritchie Handyman Service 7-11 Super Class Laundry 2:30 AM Paperart Designs W.A. Belanger Home WEST SPRINGFIELD Absolute Home Improvement At One Massage Therapy Bob’s Discount Furniture Breaker’s Castillian Hair Cutters D’Orazio Guitars Ewect GN General Contractor Joe’s Garage Lincare Inc. Maximum Pawn Co. Mr. Safety Pizza King Sergie Gut Professional Painting Steve’s Sports United Bank Foundation V3 Construction WESTFIELD Alumasoft Web Development Baystate Indoor BMX Hayrake Farm Westfield Auto & Truck Center |
The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.
NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT
Sharifs’ Inc. d/b/a Copycat Print Shop v. Ct. Business Systems LLC d/b/a Bloom’s
Allegation: Breach of servicing equipment contract: $25,000
Date Filed: May 15
HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT
Rugg Lumber Co. Inc. et al v. J.F. Kennedy Corporation et al
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for goods sold and delivered: $37,760.05
Date Filed: May 22
HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT
Holyoke Mall Co. LP v. Grand Wireless Inc. d/b/a Grand Wireless
Allegation: Breach of contract — Violation of lease: $418,455.74
Date Filed: May 3
SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Bowtie Inc. d/b/a Fancy Publications v. Fleming Industries Inc. d/b/a Pet-Medic
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for advertising services: $2,550
Date Filed: May 2
Quality Machine Solutions Inc. v. Topsfield Tool & Engineering Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for services: $17,000
Date Filed: May 2
Construction Service, a division of Dauphinas & Sons Inc. v. J.F. Kenney Corporation
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for goods sold and delivered: $9,343.01
Date Filed: May 8
WMECO v. Seawave Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for services: $4,075.39
Date Filed: May 12
Stephen Jaldonski, Architects v. Pearson Systems
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for services: $15,700
Date Filed: May 17
WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Haro Bicycle Corp. v. David Axler d/b/a Axler’s Cicycle Corner Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract — Failure to pay for goods sold and delivered: $5,572
Date Filed: April 11
Springfield Colleges Launches Expansion Project
SPRINGFIELD — Springfield College recently conducted groundbreaking ceremonies for its major renovation and expansion of Schoo Hall into a state-of-the-art science teaching facility. The cutting edge interior design of the new facility follows guidelines of the National Science Foundation’s Project Kaleidoscope, which showed that effective undergraduate programs foster hands-on investigative learning. The building is designed to facilitate interaction among students and faculty, laboratory experience, and student research. Faculty members will also conduct research, often involving students, in the building. The $5 million science center is scheduled for completion in early 2007, and will house programs in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science. During demolition and construction, the college has relocated classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices to other areas of the campus. The Schoo Hall renovation is the first campus building project funded through the current $40 million campaign, ‘Leadership for the 21st Century.’ In addition to renovating Schoo Hall, the college plans to construct a new campus union, field house, and wellness center. The campaign will also support additions and improvements to academic programs and a range of current and future needs.
Nicolai Law Group Provides TeleCounsel Benefit to Incubator Firms
SPRINGFIELD — The incubator companies in the Andrew M. Scibelli Enterprise Center at Springfield Technical Community College can now access the TeleCounsel library offered by Nicolai Law Group, P.C. The free service gives the 10 companies access to a password-protected section of Nicolai Law Group’s Web site at www.niclawgrp.com. Companies can then use the firm’s searchable database of more than 500 legal articles and publications. Nicolai Law Group, P.C. officials said that offering this service is part of its ongoing commitment to help businesses grow through access to an extensive and trusted legal resource.
WNEC Receives Merit Awards
SPRINGFIELD — Western New England College (WNEC) was recently honored with a Gold Award for its new undergraduate marketing brochure, titled It’s Your Time, at the 2006 Creative Merit Awards presented by the Ad Club of Western Mass. Contributors to the award-winning project were Debbie Chappell, creative director; Carlos E. Durkin, senior graphic designer, and Mary Mazzaferro, director of copywriting services. All are members of WNEC’s Division of Marketing and External Affairs. Other contributors were photographers Paul Schnaittacher and Pat O’Connor, and printer, Andrews Connecticut. The Creative Merit Awards also featured a student category, and Bill Rinaldi, a recent WNEC graduate, received a Silver Award for his video on the local GoFIT Foundation. His instructor, Brenda Garton, served as adviser and on-air talent for the video.
Berkshire Hills Bancorp Among Globe’s ‘Top 100’
PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc. was recently ranked by the Boston Globe as one of the 100 top performing Massachusetts-based public companies for the fifth year in a row. The company is one of eight financial services companies in the state and one of four companies in Western Mass. that were selected for the honor. In addition, the company received the highest ranking in Western Mass. and is the only public company selected from Berkshire County. For 2005, the company was ranked 92nd out of 224 Massachusetts-based companies whose stock is publicly traded, based on a composite score ranking of annual growth, annual profit-margin growth, and return on equity.
Shriners Hospital for Children Launches New Campaign
SPRINGFIELD — Shriners Hospital for Children has recruited Stevens Design Studio of Westfield to help establish a new brand image and then implement its comprehensive awareness campaign. The goal of the campaign is to increase recognition of the specialty medical services provided by the hospital. Children are treated at no cost through the Shrine Endowment Fund, the Shriners fraternity, and the generosity of the general public. The campaign first launched with print advertising. Currently, the campaign can be seen throughout the terminals at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn. In addition, new billboards can be seen along Route 291 in Springfield. The campaign will continue to roll out over the coming year and will include print advertising, newspaper inserts, and airport duratrans throughout New England.
The Real Energy Crisis
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Turn the page of any paper or turn on any news show and you’ll likely hear about the global energy crisis and soaring gas prices. But the real energy crisis is not taking place in the oil fields of Texas and Iraq or the gas stations of New York and California, but rather inside the people and the companies that contribute to our global economy.
In a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. less than 15% say they feel strongly energized by their work and only 20% feel very passionate about their jobs. While part of this crisis can be attributed to management (37% of managers are indifferent to their company’s fate) a big part of the problem can be associated with worker burnout; 42% are coping with burnout while 33% believe they have reached a dead end in their jobs, and 21% are eager to change their jobs.
The cost of fatigue, burnout, and a lack of engagement to corporate America is staggering. The Gallup organization estimates the cost to be $250 billion to $300 billon dollars, while workplace fatigue alone costs American businesses at least $77 billion per year, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
There’s no doubt that today’s employees as a whole are under-engaged, overtired, and overstressed. If you’re not convinced just try to eavesdrop on water cooler conversations. You won’t hear anything because they are not there. They’re hovering around the coffee pot or in line at the corner coffee shop. People are clearly searching for their energy, but unfortunately they are finding it in double lattes, diet sodas energy drinks, and other quick fixes that do not last.
After all, there are more Starbucks then ever but America’s workforce is more tired and less engaged than ever.
The fact is that enhanced energy, success, and performance cannot be found in a bottle or cup of espresso and we cannot replace sleep with a double latte. Just as the world must find alternative sources of energy to oil, it’s clear that Corporate America must look to alternative sources of energy besides coffee to power its workforce.
Instead of energy drainers, American businesses must focus on becoming power generators. Considering that only 31% (strongly or moderately) believe that their employer inspires the best in them, one of the most significant actions business leaders can take is to implement programs and business practices that develop positive, high performing engaged employees and teams that are fueled by purpose and enthusiasm.
Ironically, one of the great role models of this business philosophy and practice is Howard Schultz and Starbucks. From the very beginning Schultz realized and trained his managers that they weren’t in the coffee business serving people but rather in the people business serving coffee. He explained his vision that he wanted to build a company that valued, invested in, and respected its employees. One of the ways Schultz did this was by offering comprehensive health insurance to employees that work more than 20 hours a week.
Now, Starbucks spends more on health insurance then it does coffee beans. Schultz also hosts frequent town hall meetings with management and employees and he personally visits 30-40 locations a week to share his passion, enthusiasm, and purpose with his employees. They receive his positive energy and in turn they share this positive energy with their customers.
Judging from Starbucks growth and sales it is certainly a successful formula. But Starbucks isn’t alone. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence explains that a company with positive employees and a positive culture will outperform their negative counterparts every time. Also, consider that if you would invest in the top 100 best companies to work for, you would significantly outperform the market average. Positive work environments clearly produce positive results.
Thus, the answer to the real energy crisis is not a cup of Joe but the attitude, enthusiasm and energy of the Joe that is employed by your company. If you develop, engage and energize him you’ll be one step ahead of the competition.-
Jon Gordon is s a professional speaker, consultant, and energy and performance coach.
Five Easy Steps to Pain-free, Productive Meetings
Do you think all meetings are painful, time-wasting, poorly run and unproductive torture sessions? If you hate meetings, you’re not alone. Practically everyone does, and although businesses have to run meetings, very often, meetings run businesses. More than just a drag, bad meetings can have a tremendous negative impact on productivity and the bottom line.
You may think that the only thing worse than sitting through meetings is having to lead them. After all, you don’t want all that wrath and boredom directed at you, right? Rather than dreading running meetings, though, you can embrace the opportunity to polish up and show off your leadership skills. The style in which you lead a meeting will establish its tone and influence the meeting culture. People will take their cues from you, adopting your good practices.
Different types of meetings require different approaches. You must be flexible and adapt to the purpose and participants in a meeting. While there are different meeting styles, some practices and policies make all meetings better. These simple steps will enable you to lead great meetings:
Determine Purpose and Prepare for Productivity
As the meeting leader, you must determine why the meeting is taking place in order to know who to invite, what to put on the agenda, how long to discuss each item and even what methods to use to come to a decision.
Productive meetings begin with good pre-meeting communication. Several days or even weeks in advance of the meeting, call, E-mail or speak in person with influential people. Identify which issues will need to be addressed. This checking-in process will help you to deal with objections and build consensus.
Write an Agenda and Stick to It Without an agenda, participants cannot prepare, so time is lost while people read or catch up. Missions fall by the wayside as people talk about whatever is on their minds instead. As the meeting wanders, some may start up whispering side conversations and anyone dominant enough can easily hijack the meeting.
Agenda-less meetings often must end before decisions are made, or decisions are made after key people have to leave. Sound familiar?
Realize that you can’t solve all the problems of the world in one meeting. If you decide to spend 10 minutes on something, and the 10 minutes is up, it’s your responsibility to move on. You may be amazed to find what a difference just starting and ending the meeting on time and keeping it clipping along will make in participants’ morale and willingness to participate now and in future meetings.
Encourage Discussion and Participation
Your most valuable resource is the collective knowledge of others in the organization. A good leader encourages participation in order to harness others’ creative power. Everyone will benefit when you make the atmosphere safe and easy for everyone — even the shy ones — to get involved.
Take note of those who remain silent, and make it a point to ask them what they think. You don’t want those who disagree with you or with the group’s decisions to not say anything, and then leave the meeting and attempt to undermine the decisions later.
Encourage participation by saying:
• “Stan, you shook your head just now. What else do we need to consider?”
• “I would like to hear from Amanda on this.”
• “Jack, you and I talked about something before the meeting. Would you share it?”
• “Do we have all the issues on the table?
Listen Actively
Listening well and being able to provide a brief but accurate review of what has been said sets great leaders apart from the rest. To summarize effectively, you must hear everything that is said, and even more important, notice what is not said.
Take notes or listen in “note-taking” mindset to key words and phrases. Put ideas you hear into the context of the whole discussion, and you will find that this creates accountability. Ask questions and then truly listen to the answers.
Questions that will yield valuable insights might begin with:
• “What’s your reaction to…?”
• “What’s your view on…?”
• “What led you to…?” and
• “How could we…?”
Manage Conflict and Deal with Difficult People
As a meeting leader, if you ask good questions and make it safe to disagree, participants will debate issues on the merits. You can’t allow discussions to get personal or let issues go unresolved; otherwise, you risk damage to the whole organization, not just the individuals involved. Meeting leaders must promote positive conflict while avoiding personal attacks.
While debate is usually healthy for organizations, some people in the group will test the limits. Because they are angry or feel ignored, they will argue miniscule points, be unable to see others’ views, or fail to recognize the value of compromise. They may be poor listeners or have hidden agendas. Most of the time, difficult people are unaware of how they affect others, or what a serious impact they have on their own careers as well as on the effectiveness of their teams.
To keep difficult people from derailing your meeting, intervene in advance. Speak with them one-on-one so that they can vent or discuss what’s on their minds outside of the meeting context. During the meeting, allow them to have their say, and even ask a few questions, and then move on. Remember, your role as a leader is to enforce time limits.
Learning Meeting Skills Leads to Great Opportunities
Good meeting leadership is not as common as it should be. Few people have the skills, and even fewer are taught how to lead meetings effectively. Rather, like most of us, they sit through many bad meetings, develop a lot of terrible habits, and then, when it’s their turn to step up and lead, they just don’t have the skills to do it.
Your ability to run meetings well is a direct reflection of your leadership skills. Your staff, your peers, and the people you report to will all judge how you lead meetings and, in turn, whether your meetings accomplish results. In other words, your leadership skills will have a direct impact on the organization’s bottom line because the meeting is not an end in itself; it is a vehicle to accomplish the work of the organization.
By following these five steps, you can learn how to lead productive, pain-free meetings, demonstrate that you have these leadership qualities, and position yourself for promotions and advancement in your organization.
Suzanne Bates is an executive coach and communications consultant. She is the President and CEO of Bates Communications, which helps executives and professionals develop a unique and authentic communication style;www.bates-communications.com.
Six Steps to Relieve the Most Common Memory Worry
If you live in fear of forgetting prospects’ names, sometimes within mere seconds of being introduced to them, you’re not alone.
Surveys show that 83% of the population worries about their inability to recall people’s names. Ironically, while most of us hate having our names forgotten or mispronounced, the majority of us claim we just ‘aren’t good at remembering names’ or putting faces together with names when we meet people again.
If you have difficulty recalling names, you know that the two most common scenarios are forgetting the name instantaneously upon being introduced to someone new, and failing to recall the name of someone you’ve met and interacted with in the past and should know but just can’t pull up from your memory bank.
Forgetting names becomes more than just an embarrassing social faux pas in business, and especially in sales. Straining to recall a name can so preoccupy you that you are unable to fully pay attention to your client or prospect. He or she may perceive you not only as unfocused and easily distracted, but also as not very bright if you’re unable to devote your full attention to him or her.
Even worse, if you forget the name of a client with whom you’ve worked in the past, he or she may view your memory lapse as a betrayal of trust, which can cost you a great deal of money if that client severs the relationship.
Integrating Learning Styles to Improve Name Recall
While common, this frustrating phenomenon can be relatively easy to overcome when you commit to taking steps to improve your memory. The most important key to really effective learning of any kind is understanding that there are three learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (physically interactive). The more you can apply all three of these styles to a task, the more quickly and solidly you will learn anything.
Practice each of the following steps to improve your name recollection in every sales and social situation.
• When you’re first introduced to someone, look closely at his or her face and try to find something unique about it. Whether you find a distinctive quality or not is irrelevant; by really looking for a memorable characteristic in a new face, you’re incorporating the visual learning style. And a word of advice: if you do find something that really stands out about someone’s face, don’t say anything! Within minutes of meeting someone new, it’s generally a bad idea to exclaim, “Whoa! That’s a huge nose!”
• The next step utilizes both auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. When you meet someone, slow down for five seconds, and concentrate on listening to him or her. Focus on the prospect and repeat his or her name back in a conversational manner, such as ‘Susan. Nice to meet you, Susan.’ Also make sure to give a good firm handshake, which establishes a physical connection with the prospect.
• Creating a mental picture of someone’s name incorporates the visual sense again. Many people have names that already are pictures: consider Robin, Jay, Matt, or Dawn to name just a few. Some names will require you to play with them a bit to create a picture. Ken, for example, may not bring an immediate image to your mind, but a “can” is very close. Or you might envision a Ken doll. The point is not to create the best, most creative mental image ever, so don’t get caught up in your head during this step of the process, thinking, “Oh, that’s not a very good picture. What’s a better one?”
The worst thing you can do when learning is to stress yourself out and overthink the process. If an image doesn’t come to you right away, skip it and do it later. You’ll undo all of your good efforts if you’re staring dumbly at your prospect, insisting, “Hey. Hold still for a minute while I try to turn your name into a picture!”
• Once you’ve identified a mental image that you associate with a person’s name, the next step is to glue that image to the person’s face or upper body. This bridges that gap many people experience between being able to recall faces but not the names that belong to those faces. If you met a new prospect named Rosalind, for example, you might have broken her name down into the memorable image of ‘rose on land.’
Now you must create a mental picture that will stick with you as long as you need it and pop into your head every time you meet her; this should be something fun, even a little odd, that will bring ‘rose on land’ to mind when you see her face. You might imagine her buried up to her neck in earth, with roses scattered around her, for example. Because you created the image, it will come up next time you see her and enable you to recall her name.
• At the end of the conversation, integrate auditory learning by repeating the prospect’s name one more time, but don’t ever overuse someone’s name in an effort to place it more firmly in your mind. Use the prospect’s name only right at the beginning of the conversation, and then again at the end; if you feel like you can do so naturally, you might insert someone’s name once or twice in a natural fashion during the course of the conversation, too. But if you’ve ever had a stereotypically pushy salesperson use your name a dozen times in a five-minute conversation, you know how annoying, even weird, this can be, so don’t overdo it.
• Writing is a form of kinesthetic learning – you’re getting a part of your body involved in the learning process – so if you’re really serious about wanting to remember people’s names for the long term, keep a name journal or a log of important people you meet, and review it periodically.
Forget Me Not: It’s the Effort That Matters Most
The most important thing to know about this memory process is that even when it doesn’t work, it still works! For example, if you get stuck trying to make a picture out of someone’s name, skip it for now. The next day, when you have a chance, give the matter a few minutes of concentrated thought. If you still can’t get a picture, stop and take up the matter a week later.
Even if you’re still unsuccessful at creating a mental image, you’ve thought about the prospect’s name so much, there’s now no way you’ll ever forget it! So you’ve actually accomplished what you set to do in the first place.
People can’t remember names for one main reason: they’re just not paying attention. This process forces you to think. If, for example, you struggle with the step of creating a mental picture, the other steps – looking at the prospect closely, shaking his or her hand confidently and repeating the name a few times – are easy to do, will solidify the name in your memory, and will ultimately convey a positive image of you to clients and prospects.
That positive image will certainly make you memorable to prospects, enabling you to close more deals and increase your bottom line.
Roger Seip is the President of Freedom Speakers and Trainers, a company that specializes in memory training. Workshops are presented all over the country;www.deliverfreedom.com.
Jeff Sagalyn says the key to be a good lawyer is “knowing when you don’t know something.”
Jeff Sagalyn is now leasing the space at 165 Front St. in Chicopee, considered part of the massive Cabotville Industrial Park.
But for 20 years, he and partner Dan Burack owned and managed the complex and its 680,000-odd square feet of old mill space, a business venture that also helped shape Sagalyn’s career in the legal profession.
Indeed, the time commitment that accompanied the task of managing the property and its 12 employees eventually forced Sagalyn to leave the firm of Kalill, Sagalyn and Glasser in 1992 and become a sole practitioner, one with a more-narrow field of focus. Meanwhile, he would wind up representing several of the tenants he would sign to leases at the mill, becoming ‘landlord/lawyer,’ as he put it.
And the experience of running the mill and managing its workforce eventually made him a better business lawyer, by his estimation, and helped him gain new clients in that specialty.
“It was certainly an advantage to me to be running a business, overseeing employees, paying the taxes, and overall management,” he explained. “I could not only read a balance sheet, I had my own balance sheet to read, and used my own personal knowledge to the benefit of my business clients.”
Sagalyn and Burack sold Cabotville in 2004 to Brooklyn real estate developer Josh Guttman. As part of the deal, Sagalyn negotiated a lease back of his three-room office that sits across the canal from the mill. But he also represents Guttman in a wide range of mill-related matters, from lease negotiations to the permitting and other logistical concerns involved with emerging plans to convert large portions of the mill into residential units.
So the old mill once owned by and purchased from Sagalyn’s uncle continues to shape a law career, one that started 30 years ago and has seen a number of twists and turns. Sagalyn told BusinessWest he has shared space, worked within firms, and been a sole practitioner — and enjoyed each experience. He’s also become less of a generalist, focusing his work on several niche specialties including domestic relations (divorce), probate work, estate planning, and business law.
The evolution has been more a matter of need than choice, he explained, noting that as different areas of the law have become complex over the years, the days of the old fashioned general practitioner have essentially ended — at least for him.
“When I first started out, I was told to essentially take everything and anything that came in the door,” he said. “I would never give that advice to young lawyers today; instead, they should find a niche and practice within it.
“When I think back on some of the cases I took when I was younger, I still shiver,” he continued. “I had no business taking some of those cases. So much has changed over the years … everything is more complex, and the advice you give today could be the wrong advice for tomorrow.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is Sagalyn’s commitment to the community, especially the human services field. He is currently president of the Board of Directors for the Center for Human Development. CHD is the largest community based human services organization in Western Mass., and provides mental health, children, family, and developmental disability services to thousands of individuals through 40 different programs.
Sagalyn, the latest subject of BusinessWest’s ongoing Attorney Profile series, will be honored for those efforts later this month with the Community Service Award, presented by the Mass. Bar Assoc. for work that falls outside the realm of the law.
In a wide-ranging interview, Sagalyn talked about his work within the community, his practice, the mill, and how he’s managed to balance it all.
Time Passages
Sagalyn’s office is in one of the older remaining buildings from the former Dwight Mfg. Co. complex that dominated the section of Chicopee that was once part of Springfield and known as Cabotville.
On the walls are several framed renderings of the original mill complex, much of which was destroyed by fire and replaced by the existing mill, built in the early 1920s. And there are several artifacts from that era, including a 14-foot-high Seth Thomas grandfather’s clock, said to be among the largest ever built in this country, that came with the mill.
Actually, there were four of this particular model built, said Sagalyn, who was given the background by a clock expert (now deceased) from Old Sturbridge Village. That was the good news, he continued, adding that the bad news was his assessment that too much had done to the clock over the years to make it worth as much as the two partners had hoped.
While Sagalyn has always been fascinated by the history of the mill and items like the clock, it was the landmark’s potential as a business opportunity and sound real estate investment that prompted he and Burack to roll the dice and acquire the landmark.
At the time, he was a partner with the firm Hagarty, Malloy, Sagalyn, and Battista, and learning not to take every case that came in the door.
“The key to practicing law is knowing when you don’t know something,” he said, adding that when this threshold is crossed, it’s time to refer a client and his or her business to someone who does know. “Anyone who says ‘I can do it all’ is not going to be a good lawyer; you have to know your limitations.”
By fully understanding his, and focusing his work on those selected niches he spoke of, Sagalyn has built his practice over the years. In 1985, he became part of Kalill, Sagalyn & Glasser, based in Springfield, and remained there until he felt his duties with Cabotville necessitated a slight scaling back of his legal work and a move into the mill complex.
Over the years, he successfully juggled his work at the mill with his law practice — and achieved a desired measure of success with each.
“There was a flow to managing the mill that allowed me to spend sufficient time at my practice, but also spend sufficient time here,” he explained. “And like all lawyers, I would work on weekends to get everything done.”
Sagalyn told BusinessWest that he and Burack never actually put a ‘for sale’ sign on Cabotville, but several years ago, following the departure of two large tenants, they engaged an out-of-state broker who specialized in old mills to quietly market the property and field offers.
“We weren’t motivated sellers,” he explained, noting quickly that it had become apparent that it was going to be difficult to find large tenants to fill the space that had been vacated. “We simply said, ‘if you find someone, we’ll listen.’”
The broker eventually found Guttman and a deal was struck, he said, adding that the timing of the transaction could not have been better.
“When we sold, oil was still $35 a barrel,” he told BusinessWest, noting that he and Burack were heating more than 200,000 square feet of unused space at the time. “It worked out very well for us.”
While he still handles some work for Guttman, Sagalyn has much more time for his practice — and his work outside it, which has always been part of juggling act. Sagalyn has donated time and energy to the profession — he’s currently president of the Chicopee Bar Assoc. and treasurer of the Hampden County Bar Assoc., for example — and to work within the community.
Much of the latter was inspired by what he saw and experienced in his youth; one of his childhood friends had a sister with Down’s Syndrome.
“I got to know her very well,” he explained, “and I saw the lack of response from the state in assisting this family. I also saw what a loving family does for a child with special needs.
“When I started practicing law, that same family asked me to join the board of a very small non-profit group called Meadows Homes, which provided group homes in the surburbs,” he continued, adding that he accepted the invite and participated in efforts to place developmentally disabled adults in homes in many area communities, including Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, and Wilbraham.
In the late 90s, Meadows Homes merged with the Center for Human Development, and Sagalyn joined its board. He became chair in 2000 and has served in that capacity ever since. That’s longer than the norm, he said, but he’s been asked to stay on to help see the group through several projects — the latest being the current search for a new director.
“It’s a big time commitment … hardly a week goes by without something,” he explained. “But it’s important work and very rewarding work; I love doing it.”
Man of the Hour
Sagalyn told BusinessWest that the grandfather’s clock in his office kept perfect time until about a year ago when, upon his return from a vacation, he discovered that it had stopped and could not be restarted.
He says he will soon launch a search for someone who can fix it, preferably an individual who makes house calls (or, in this case, old mill calls) because this clock will be hard to move.
It’s a fixture at Cabotville, as is Sagalyn, who acknowleges now that his acquisition of the mill wasn’t merely a real estate deal. It was also an important career move.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
Economic Development Is a Priority for Agawam’s Mayor
Agawam Mayor Richard Cohen says the community’s leaders are committed to diversifying its business base.
Agawam Mayor Richard Cohen says the community’s leaders are committed to diversifying its business base.
Six Flags New England may be the largest employer and taxpayer in Agawam, but it also has the potential of becoming the city’s largest headache.
But that hasn’t happened, says Mayor Richard Cohen, who is not shy about taking some of the credit for that.
“When I was first elected, traffic around Six Flags was one of the largest issues in Agawam,” he said. “We came up with a lengthy memorandum of understanding with the park, and since then, they have done everything possible to work with us. As a result, we have developed a very friendly relationship with them, one that we wish to continue.”
During Cohen’s seven-plus years in office, he has presided over some significant economic-development success stories, from the growth of Six Flags to the speedy occupancy of the Agawam Industrial Park. But through it all, he has maintained that, for a city to be attractive to business, it first must be an attractive place to live.
To that end, Six Flags is a special challenge. Uniquely positioned on the Main Street of a small city – perhaps the most residential setting in the entire amusement chain – the park has always posed concerns for its neighbors.
But the city has also done its part to alleviate problems, said Deborah Dachos, director of planning and community development. Specifically, Agawam has used grant money to generate a traffic impact study for the area and plans to spend more than $1.5 million on improved street lighting, new signs, synchronized traffic signals, and aesthetic improvements.
“We have a plan to modernize Main Street in terms of sidewalks, granite curbing, and beautification of the Main Street area with significant landscaping,” she said.
They’re obviously the fastest-growing business in Agawam, and we have a relationship with them where, in advance of any new attraction, we do planning studies to ensure that the impact on the community will be limited.”
That’s Agawam in a nutshell, at least in Cohen’s vision: a place where commercial, retail, and industrial ventures can thrive, but only in the context of a livable city. And despite occasional setbacks, it has proven to be a business model that works.
No Vacancy
It has certainly worked for the industrial park, which Cohen calls “one of the prides of the city, and one of the finest industrial parks in the Pioneer Valley.” His enthusiasm is justified by the statistics: the park is essentially full, while some veteran tenants are actively expanding their facilities. The mayor said he’s not surprised that Agawam has proven to be a draw for businesses.
“We have maintained one of the lowest commercial tax rates in the region,” he told BusinessWest – $25.93 per $1,000, to be exact. “The whole city has sewer and water. We’re close to Interstate 91, close to Bradley Airport, and not far from New York State. I think the location is very attractive.”
In addition, Cohen said he has improved communication between developers and city officials and streamlined the approval process on projects. “We’re trying to make things very easy, and we’ve been successful,” he said. Furthermore, “we’ve gone out and met with businesses to see what we can do for them, and I think that dialogue has helped make development in Agawam a positive experience.”
Still, Cohen says he doesn’t want Agawam to rest on its laurels, and he supports further commercial expansion where appropriate.
For example, redeveloping the mostly vacant shopping plaza on Springfield Street remains a priority. Meanwhile, Development Associates, an Agawam-based developer of commercial and industrial sites, is conducting preliminary studies on a potential new industrial park on a 24-acre parcel on Suffield Street. The same firm is also developing a 25,000-square-foot site at Suffield Street and Shoemaker Lane for office and retail space.
Of course, not every development plan comes to fruition. Proponents of a proposed retail development on Tennis Road – which had retail giants like Target and Lowe’s attached to it – suffered a setback last year when voters defeated the project by a 3-to-1 margin at referendum.
“There was some controversy over whether Agawam citizens wanted big-box stores there,” Cohen said. “My feeling was from the beginning that people should vote on it, and the fact that people defeated it shows that the democratic process works. The people spoke, and the development did not go forward.”
Support System
The mayor was quick to emphasize, however, that not all economic development in Agawam involves physical expansion.
For instance, Cohen said the city is taking ‘baby steps’ toward the development of a business improvement district along the Suffield Street corridor. Such a zone is created when the majority of business owners in a certain area choose to make collective contributions to the maintenance, development, and promotion of the business district.
“They have an assessment on their tax bills that goes directly to them, to spend on things like façade improvements, sidewalks, parking, and marketing schemes,” Dachos said. “But right now, we’re just in the investigative stage of doing that.”
In addition, the city has cultivated a busy small business assistance center, funded completely by donations, that offers professional counseling and advice to people who want to start a business or move their company to Agawam. Cohen said it’s a natural extension of his pre-mayoral role working with the small-business incubator at Springfield Technical Community College.
“We have a very dynamic and involved board of directors, including people in banking, real estate, software, marketing, and law,” Dachos said.
The center has also sponsored a series of free workshops on various aspects of running a business, and hopes to secure grant funds to launch a comprehensive computer training course.
“Most of our clients at the workshops expressed a desire to do some hands-on computer training,” Dachos said, explaining that she would like to see a 10-week computer course covering both the basics of computing and specific software relevant to businesses, such as QuickBooks. “We think we could be successful with that.”
Stay Awhile
Of course, when it comes to economic development, supporting new businesses is only half the challenge. Keeping companies from leaving is equally important.
“One of our main goals has always been to maintain and grow what we already have,” Cohen said. “We have a strong tax base for industrial and commercial development, and we’ve had very few vacant storefronts.”
He says part of the reason is that Agawam continues to cultivate quality-of-life projects aimed at creating an attractive city for residents and businesses alike. For example, a $4 million, 50-acre park at School Street and River Road will be partially funded with state money through the Community Preservation Act and the Urban Self Help Program.
“I want to make this city attractive to businesses, but still maintain a town-like atmosphere,” Cohen said. “Those types of things are very important to me – not only as the mayor, but as a resident.”
So far, that’s been a recipe for economic growth in this city by the Connecticut River, where roller coasters continue to lift riders high above Main Street.
Physician Assistant Students Take a Tour of Duty in Battered New Orleans
Springfield College physician assistant students work to clear debris in the Ninth Ward
Six months ago, Ashley Cary of Ithaca, N.Y., a physician assistant student at Springfield College, settled into winter break after weeks of intense study and long hours at school.
It didn’t take long for the cabin fever to hit her.
“As a PA student, you’re always busy, you don’t have time to be bored,” she said. “I was sitting at home stir crazy and I said, ‘this is not for me.’ I knew I had to find something worthwhile to do during spring break.”
But Cary bypassed traditional options of tropical vacations and road trips, instead researching volunteer opportunities for college students online. Soon, she’d located an agency willing to work with her during a free week in mid-March, and a locale in desperate need of some help – New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, the site of the first levee break and the hardest hit section of the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
With a background in medical care, Cary knew she’d be an asset to the clean-up efforts, but she needed more hands on deck to make a significant impact. She approached her classmates, and soon a troupe of seven Springfield College students, all enrolled in the physician assistant program, had signed on with ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). ACORN is a FEMA-funded agency, located in several metropolitan areas, which devised a new program after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita called the Home Clean-out Demonstration Program, one of many community-service and rebuilding efforts across the country.
Tearing Down Walls
One of the trip’s participants, Mike Russo of Chicopee, explained that plenty of work remained to be done in New Orleans. Physician assistants (PAs) are trained to provide diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive health care services, as delegated by a physician. They also treat minor injuries, by suturing, splinting, and casting. But as soon as they entered some of the most ravaged neighborhoods of the city, he said the specific nature of the work they’d be doing became less important.
For five days, the students worked alongside fellow volunteers, hurricane survivors, and paid contractors to essentially rip out unsalvageable property and make way for new structures.
“Even as future PAs, not as much medical work was needed from us,” said Russo, “but we were called on to do what needed to be done. We gutted houses, cleaned up trash … that’s where the city is right now in terms of need — demolishing homes so they can be rebuilt.”
What’s more, the volunteer work was not so far off-track in regard to the students’ course of study. According to the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), which profiled the Springfield College project in its professional publication and Web site, all PAs and PA students are encouraged to seek ways to enhance the lives of individuals in their local communities and beyond, as part of their overall professional responsibilities. The AAPA even developed a formal campaign, the Joint Efforts campaign, centered on increasing involvement in national health-related and community-based initiatives.
Clearing House
Russo, who lived for a week in a tent city with his classmates and 400 other people, said the level of destruction in the Ninth Ward was quickly evident.
“It didn’t take long to realize that the pictures you see and the news stories you hear do no justice to what is going on,” he told BusinessWest. “Everyone is complaining that not enough is being done, but this isn’t small, this isn’t localized … essentially, there is no good place to start.”
He said the bulk of the students’ work was centered in the upper portions and the east side of the Ninth Ward, on the outskirts of the most badly damaged areas.
“Where we were, there were water lines six feet up the walls and beds flipped over in every room,” he recalled. “There were clothes everywhere and mold on everything. We took everything out of the houses, then we ripped the houses right down to the frames, the studs. That was all we could do, the damage was so extensive.”
But closer to the center of the ward, Russo said the outlook was even more grim.
“Directly inside the Ninth Ward, nothing was salvageable,” he said. “When we were there, bodies were still being found in attics. There was no work to be done – just bulldozers coming in, pushing everything away.”
Cary echoed Russo’s description of the city in its most badly hit sections.
“I hope that anyone who has extra time will schedule a trip to contribute to the relief efforts,” she said. “It’s amazing that this is part of our nation, and it looks like a third world country.”
Recharge and Rebuild
After seeing the devastation and the number of workers and volunteers contributing to the clean-up, Cary said she’s mulling another trip to New Orleans, this time in a more formal medical capacity. Both she and Russo graduated this May, and are now entering clinical rotations that will last a year. After that time, they’ll both likely be certified physician assistants, and more able to provide comprehensive medical care to disaster relief workers.
“The damage that the hurricanes created is indescribable,” she stressed. “The clean-up won’t be done in five years; it won’t be done in 10. I’ll enter my rotations this year, and when I graduate I want to go back to New Orleans. For my next trip, I’m hoping I can provide health care for the workers.”
But Cary said she’s not averse to again abandoning her stethoscope in favor of a sledgehammer.
“We did nothing but demolish wrecked houses this spring,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind going back to help rebuild.”
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
A Declaration of Homestead, also sometimes referred to as a Declaration of ‘Homestead Protection’ or of ‘an Estate of Homestead,’ provides certain protection from creditors for real estate or a manufactured home that serves as an individual’s personal residence.
The law is contained in Mass. General Laws Chapter 188, sections 1-10. Protection is obtained by filing a Declaration of Homestead, with a description of the property, at the Registry of Deeds in the county where the property is located. As of Oct. 26, 2004, homeowners in Massachusetts can protect their property from unsecured creditors up to the amount of $500,000 of equity per residence. Homesteads existing before that date (the amount of protection was previously $300,000, and before that $100,000) automatically get the increased protection, provided the homestead has not been terminated either explicitly by the homeowner or by subsequent events effectively terminating it.
The protection is against attachment, levy, on execution, or sale to satisfy debts asserted after the filing of the homestead declaration, with some important exceptions:
- Debts incurred or contracted prior to the acquisition of the homestead;
- Mortgages used to purchase the residence;
- Federal, state, and local taxes, assessments, claims, and liens;
- An execution issued from a court of competent jurisdiction to enforce its judgment based on fraud, mistake, duress, undue influence, or lack of capacity;
- An execution from the probate court to enforce a judgment that a spouse pay for the support of a spouse or minor child; and
- In the case of a renter of land who owns a homestead in a building on the land, where those buildings are attached, levied upon or sold in connection with the ground rent of the lot on which they stand.
A homestead declaration protects the homeowner only from unsecured creditors. Thus, it does not offer protection from first- or second-mortgage lenders or other equity lenders who possess a security interest in the home. Similarly, liens imposed by the Mass. Department of Public Welfare in connection with the payment of Medicaid benefits are exempt from homestead protection.
Under current law and practice, as long as the recipient of those benefits, or the spouse of the recipient, is alive, the department will not try to attach the residence for reimbursement of Medicaid benefits. If the surviving spouse is also a recipient of Medicaid, the Commonwealth will file a claim for reimbursement from the estate for the entire amount of Medicaid benefits paid, once both spouses have died. There are special rules governing the effect and extent of homestead protection where the homeowner is in bankruptcy.
A homestead can only be declared on an individual’s ‘principal residence,’ so no homestead can be filed on a vacation home unless it is the principal residence of the filer. The law provides that only one spouse under the age of 62 can file a homestead on behalf of themselves and his or her family, but that the protection will extend to the spouse and to minor children (under age 18) for so long as the property remains the primary residence. There is an exception for elderly and disabled individuals, who are each entitled to protection of $500,000.
A homestead will be terminated:
- Upon the sale or transfer of the real property or mobile home during the homestead holder’s lifetime;
- If the holder dies, his or her surviving spouse remarries, and each child reaches the age of 18, or if a release of homestead is signed, sealed, acknowledged and recorded at the registry of deeds;
- If the property ceases to be the individual’s principal residence; or
- Upon the subsequent filing of a declaration of homestead by the holder.
Nicole’s Law
Homeowners should also be aware of a new law, which went into effect on March 31, requiring that every building or structure occupied in whole or in part for residential purposes that either contains fossil fuel burning equipment or a closed parking area within its structure (i.e., an attached garage) must be equipped by the owner with approved carbon monoxide alarms in conformance with the requirements of the Board of Fire Prevention Regulations.
This will cover most Massachusetts residences. The law is named Nicole’s Law in memory of seven year old Nicole Garofalo who died after a snowdrift blocked an exhaust vent from her family’s propane boiler, filling the house with an odorless, colorless, lethal gas.
Nicole’s Law is very similar to a smoke detector mandate enacted 20 years ago and requires installation in most residences of a battery operated or plug-in detector by March 31. Like the smoke detector requirement, Nicole’s Law will be enforced by local fire departments during home inspections prior to the sale or transfer of the property. A seller of a home will not be able to sell the property if it does not meet the new requirement.
There were nearly 3,000 carbon monoxide cases reported in Massachusetts in 2003. The cost of carbon monoxide detectors starts at about $30.
Brenda Doherty joined Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury & Murphy in 2001, and practices in the areas of corporate, real estate, tax, estate planning, and education law. (413) 733-3111 Ext. 318;[email protected]
$13 Million Facelift Will Change the Look — and Character — of State
The $13 million improvement project for State Street is being touted as an effective way to leverage the $67 million federal courthouse now under construction.
Kevin Kennedy calls State Street in Springfield an ‘educational corridor’ — there are three high schools with that mailing address and two colleges, AIC and STCC, border it.
But it’s also a religious corridor, said Kennedy, senior aide to U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, noting that several churches and the headquarters for the Archdiocese of Greater Springfield are on or just off the road. And it’s a business corridor — MassMutual’s sprawling headquarters lie near its east end — as well as an historical corridor; Shays’ Rebellion was waged near the Springfield Armory, now home to the STCC campus, and the street is considered part of the famous Boston Post Road.
“It’s a very important road that thousands of people use every day; it winds its way through several neighborhoods in this city,” said Kennedy, noting that for these reasons and more — specifically, a $67 million federal courthouse now taking shape near the former Technical High School — State Street is getting a facelift.
It’s a $13 million set of upgrades, to be more specific, with work slated to begin early next year and end, hopefully, around the time the new courthouse opens its doors in late 2007.
Kennedy, who is coordinating many aspects of the project for Neal, who helped to secure $11 million in federal transportation funds for it (the state is providing the rest), told BusinessWest that the improvement initiative is one effective way to leverage the courthouse project, seize the momentum generated by it, and broaden its overall impact.
Elaborating, he said that while the work will make the road more attractive, safer, and easier to navigate — plans call for 600 new trees, 250 new street lights, 125,000 square yards of asphalt, 44,000 linear feet of curbing, sidewalks, crosswalks, and some reconfigured intersections — it will also spur economic development.
“It is everyone’s hope that this project will encourage people to invest in their own property,” he said, adding that there is a mix of privately and publicly owned property in need of re-investment. He listed the remaining portion of the former Tech High School (most of the structure was demolished to make way for the courthouse), the old fire station at Mason Square, and some shuttered businesses, such as the former Byron Funeral Home, as landmarks that may see new life from the improvement project.
David Panagore, the city’s economic development director, agreed.
He told BusinessWest that investments in such things as lighting, sidewalks, and intersections do, indeed, spur private investment. He’s seen it happen locally, in Turners Falls, and in Boston, where improvements made to Washington to Shawmut Streets generated increases in property values and investments to protect those assets.
“If you look at downtown Turners Falls, the investments in the streetscape have had a big impact,” he explained. “Projects like that raise the level of expectation in the public space.
“With State Street, the outcome is going to be tremendous in terms of changing the character and tenor of that area and bringing it out,” he continued. “Our goal is not to create a greater sense of place.”
BusinessWest looks this issue at how the ambitious project — a blend of engineering and economic development — will do just that.
Concrete Examples
As John Bechard worked his way through a PowerPoint program outlining specific aspects of the State Street project, he stopped at slides 18 and 19.
The former is a photograph of a stretch of the road near the west end of the STCC campus, while the latter is a computer-generated rendering of what that same block will look like after a median, complete with new trees, is added to State Street between Spring Street and Federal Street.
The median and its trees will make the road more aesthetically pleasing, said Bechard, managing director of Transportation Engineering for Watertown-based Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. (VHB), the firm hired to design the State Street improvments. He noted that specific species of trees have yet to be chosen, but they will provide several months of color. But the median will also make the road safer and improve traffic flow, he continued, adding that it will prohibit motorists traveling west from making turns onto Byers Street, thus preventing tie-ups.
There are similar dual benefits to many of the other specific aspects of the so-called State Street Corridor Improvement Project. Bechard said other initiatives, including new entrance patterns for Wilbraham Road and steps aimed at improving the tangled intersection of State Street, Magazine Street, and St. James Avenue, will blend aesthetics with traffic and safety enhancements.
“Our basic goal is to improve travel for pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles alike,” said Bechard. “We’ve received a lot of feedback from people, and while not everyone is happy with all the changes, we feel we have a plan that will make the road safer and provide better traffic flow.
Bechard told BusinessWest that the project has been in the planning stages for more than two years. The process of finalizing specific improvements and the designs for each has involved everything from pedestrian and traffic counts (roughly 17,000 to 25,000 cars per day) to a series of neighborhood meetings, at which project coordinators have sought to identify both “opportunities and constraints.”
While the city does not have a financial commitment for the project, said Bechard, it will have the responsibility of making sure the improvements are implemented as designed, and that public input is gathered and weighed before those designs are finalized. These tasks require a high level of organization and the cooperation of departments ranging from the DPW to the Historical Commission; parks to housing.
What has emerged to date is a multi-faceted plan, to be administered by the Mass. Highway Dept., that involves roughly four miles of road between East Columbus Avenue and Berkshire Avenue. This stretch passes through several neighborhoods, including McKnight, Six Corners, Old Hill, Upper Hill, and Pine Point.
Nine intersections will be modified, improved, and beautified, said Bechard, adding that traffic signals will be upgraded to improve synchronicity. Sidewalks will also be reconstructed, with many sections to feature brick inlays. Work will also include the removal of cobblestones and decaying trolley tracks that lie under many sections of the street.
The project will unfold in three phases,said Bechard; the first will be stretch from East Columbus Avenue to Federal Street, while the second will wind from there to Roosevelt Avenue, and the third, including the section by MassMutual, ending at Berkshire Avenue. There is no set timetable for the order in which the work will be undertaken.
Main elements to the plan include the median, the intersection at Magazine Street and St. James Avenue, and a new entrance for Wilbraham Road and enlarging the park at that intersection near Mason Square.
Motorists traveling east on State Street have simply veered right onto Wilbraham Road, he explained. When the intersection is redesigned, they will continue on State Street to Catherine Street and take a right-hand turn there. The adjacent park will be lengthened and widened, with additional trees planted.
Beyond the engineering elements to the plan, however, there is an economic development component to the project, said Kennedy. He told BusinessWest that the enhancements could and should prompt additional investments (MassMutual has already put $45 million into renovations at its building) and help move some stalled projects forward.
Panagore agreed, and said the state is currently studying the Tech High School site as the possible location of a data center, similar to the one the Commonwealth built in Chelsea (another fiscally challenged city) several years ago.
Meanwhile, the city is looking at undertaking work to make the old fire station more ready for development, he said. The long-shuttered landmark, challenged by a lack of parking, is in an advanced state of disrepair, Panagore said, adding that with some investment in the property the city could generate some interest in a request for proposals.
As for private investment, Panagore said city officials will seek to assemble financing vehicles to help property owners with façade work and other improvements. Officials will make use of federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money, while also trying to create a loan, or mortgage, pool.
“We’ll look to focus the resources we do have on buildings that are outdated or vacant, and work with owners on bringing them back on line,” he said, adding that discussions are taking place on a loan pool. “We want to work with business owners to help them build on the momentum that will be created by the project.”
Exit Strategy
By doing so, city will indeed, be changing State Street’s look and character, said Panagore, noting that many neighborhoods will be touched by what he calls an ‘impact project.’
“We don’t consider this to be $13 million worth of macadam and work to tear up old cobblestones,” he explained. “This is $13 million worth of important investments in many sections of this city.
“We’re not just putting in pavement,” he continued. “We’re making a capital investment that will spur private investment.”
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
Kittredge Gift Propels Campaign
Lisa and Michael Kittredge at the recent cornerstone-placement ceremony at Cooley Dickinson Hospital
Cooley Dickinson Hospital President Craig Melin says the talks began about six months ago.
These were the discussions he and others at CDH had with Yankee Candle founder Michael Kittredge and his wife, Lisa, about the hospital, health care in the region, and the future of both. Those conversations eventually led to a $1 million donation from the Kittredges for CDH’s Caring for the Future Campaign, the fundraising effort that supports the hospital’s ambitious $50 million expansion program.
That 116,000-square-foot initiative will include several new facilities, including the Kittredge Surgery Center, which will be the heart of the expansion. Other components include a new central sterile laboratory, additional private patient rooms, a central, sterile supply department, and a new parking garage.
The Caring for the Future Campaign was launched in late 2004 with the goal of raising more than $6 million for the expansion project, with the balance coming through borrowing and funds set aside for the initiative. Response has been so great, the campaign’s goal has been raised to $8.5 million, said Melin, adding that the Kittredges’ gift moves the current total past $6.5 million and provides some additional momentum for the task of raising the balance.
The donation from the Kittredges is the largest for the current capital campaign and one of the largest the hospital has ever received. Other major gifts include $705,500 from CDH physicians, $500,000 from the hospital’s auxiliary, $442,650 from hospital employees, $400,000 each from Florence Savings Bank and Easthampton Savings Bank.
At a cornerstone-placement ceremony staged May 12, the Kittredges referred to CDH as their “home hospital,” one where their daughter, Kylie, was born, and where a second child they are expecting in July will be delivered.
Michael Kittredge praised the hospital for its role in delivering quality health care to Hampshire County residents, and also commended hospital administrators for achieving solid financial footing at a time when many hospitals in the Commonwealth are struggling with their bottom lines.
Melin said the addition, due to be completed early next year, addresses what he called the ‘core’ of the hospital’s operations and services. By this, he meant surgical facilities, inpatient care, and the emergency room, and all three will be enhanced by the new facility.
Plans call for eight new operating rooms, each roughly 50% bigger than the existing rooms. The added facilities will enable the hospital to perform more — and more-complicated — procedures, said Melin, taking greater advantage of technological advancements.
Plans also call for the addition of 32 private patient rooms, said Melin, noting that this step will effectively “decompress” the two-, three-, and four-bed rooms currently being used, and produce a higher quality of care for all patients.
The additional patient rooms and the new surgical center will also improve the overall quality of care delivered in the emergency room, said Melin, noting that the new facilities will enable the hospital to expand the ER and create a smoother flow of patients from the ER to the inpatient floors.
“There are two issues in our emergency department, both having to do with capacity,” he explained. “Our emergency department isn’t large enough, and the surgical program is currently adjacent to the ED; by relocating the surgical program it gives us the opportunity to expand the emergency department as the next phase.
“Also, one of the reasons the emergency department becomes overcrowded is because when we’re full in the rest of the hospital, patient-flow gets backed up in the emergency department,” he continued. “With the improvement in inpatient capacity, we can put more patients in beds when they need one, and this will ease that overcrowding.”
Keystone Woods in Springfield Scripts a Success Story as Construction Continues
Joe Roche, in front of Grayson House at Keystone Woods, said unit reservations are well above the national average.
Joe Roche, in front of Grayson House at Keystone Woods, said unit reservations are well above the national average.
Joe Roche, the local managing partner of the new 17-acre assisted and independent living facility Keystone Woods in Springfield, is particularly fond of the development’s theater-style movie rooms, complete with over-sized, flat screen televisions, leather arm chairs, and popcorn machines.
“The residents love them, and I’m unaware of any other facility such as ours that includes theaters like these,” he said.
But beyond being an extra perk for residents at Keystone Woods, those cinemas also serve as an apt metaphor for Roche and his work in the elder care sector. It’s a career that has seen a lot of action for several years, but now, Roche is in the midst of what is likely his biggest blockbuster.
Roche, president of Roche Associates, LLC of Wilbraham, and his wife Joan, a nursing professor at UMass Amherst, are the largest shareholders of Keystone Woods, which opened its independent living facility last year and recently opened an assisted living building (construction continues at both buildings to further expand services as well as the number of units). They’re also the only local owners, and have been involved in the senior living industry on a national level for more than 25 years, primarily in the areas of market research.
In terms of Roche’s career in the field, the Keystone Woods development has been a long time coming; despite his involvement with successful projects in other parts of the country, he said he first eyed senior living development opportunities in Western Mass. a decade ago, when some market research suggested a strong consumer base for such services in his own backyard.
Through perseverance and imagination, he has taken his initial vision to reality.
Survey Says …
Roche told BusinessWest that he was first involved in a potential development project at the former Springfield Technical High School property off State Street, but that development never got off the ground.
“However, at the time we conducted a study that showed us that 75% of the seniors in the area had lived here for 50 years or more, and what that told us was they weren’t going to be quick to leave,” he continued, adding that the immediate challenge was finding a suitable site on which to build.
Roche’s research of the market 10 years ago has thus far proven accurate — today, 71 of the facility’s 97 rentable units are occupied, and most of Keystone’s residents previously lived within a seven to 10-mile radius of the facility.
“The majority of our residents are coming from the Forest Park and Sixteen Acres neighborhoods of Springfield, but we’re also seeing many people from East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, and Wilbraham,” Roche explained. “I think people like the concept of a senior living community that has been created specifically to serve their needs and reflect the region.”
Keystone Woods is managed by Keystone Senior Management Services, based in Indianapolis. Roche said 10 similar properties have been developed by the company across the country; Roche served as a market consultant for Keystone projects in Iowa and Kentucky. When he independently secured an option to purchase land in the Sixteen Acres section of Springfield, his associates at Keystone were open to the idea of managing a new property in Western Mass.
“They weren’t actively seeking an opportunity in this area,” Roche explained, “but once they visited the site, their interest was piqued. They liked the fact that the property would be located within a city, but would feel like it was in the suburbs. They liked the overall residential appeal of the city.”
Armed with a plot of land and a positive outlook, the Roches entered into a partnership with three other players at Keystone — Dave Kingen, Tim Eldredge, and Tony Mullen — to begin construction of phase one of the Keystone Woods development, 58 independent living units grouped under the name The Gardens, in the fall of 2004. That aspect of the development was completed about one year later, and phase two, which added 39 more units, was completed last month.
Similarly, phase one of the facility’s assisted living apartments, dubbed Grayson House and located adjacent to The Gardens, was completed in February, and phase two of the development, which will add 18 units dedicated specifically to the care of residents with memory-related disorders and issues, is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
The total pricetag on the project to date is $22 million — no small figure in the City of Homes, which has seen few such investments in recent years. But beyond the scope of the actual development, Roche said he and his partners have remained focused on creating a viable suite of services for local residents, one that not only represents the latest in elder care advancements, but also caters to the diverse populations of seniors within the city, particularly from a socio-economic standpoint.
The People in the Neighborhood
“This is a high-end development, but one that houses seniors spanning the entire economic spectrum,” he said, noting that Keystone’s size and existing capital has translated into lower rates for residents. Roche characterized those rates — about $2,000 a month for a single- occupancy residence at The Gardens and between $2,000 and $4,000 for a unit at Grayson House — as competitive with similar communities in New England. And beyond an initial rental deposit, residents aren’t asked for large lump sums of money or entrance fees up front.
“The partnership with Keystone created an extremely good construction value,” he said. “A building of this magnitude under different circumstances could have cost us 20% to 25% more, but with the Keystone partnership, we’ve been able to control our costs that much more. Keystone has some exemplary operating systems.”
In addition, management has developed a ‘step-down’ option for residents facing dwindling resources for any number of reasons — due to the large number of double-occupancy apartments, residents in single units may opt to take on a roommate for added savings. Similarly, Grayson House welcomes elders enrolled in the state’s group adult foster care system, which provides subsidies for assisted living for qualified residents.
“Both are ways for us to provide assisted living packages to people in all income brackets,” said Roche, “and to allow people to stay longer.”
He added that rentals have been brisk in both buildings.
“It’s been a very exciting time for us. We’re filling The Gardens at a rate of twice the national average, netting more than 10 new rentals per month. The national average for assisted living placements is 2.2 a month, and we’re currently hovering around six.
“I truly believe that the reason is that we have developed a better product than the norm,” Roche continued, listing some of the services he and his partners chose to incorporate as standard offerings at Keystone. “The standard personal care plan for an assisted living facility is 30 to 40 minutes per day, and we provide an hour and a half. Apartments are fully-loaded, and I like to think we have the best line-up of activities here — everything from health screenings to swing dancing. The overall mission is to ensure that people’s lives are enhanced.”
Curtain Call
To that end, Roche remains an active part of all aspects of planning and development at Keystone Woods, from marketing and advertising initiatives to activity direction. He’s a frequent flyer at The Gardens’ Friday night cocktail hours, and has recruited his own daughter to teach swing dance lessons to residents.
And he personally bought the chicken wings for a recent event held in the movie room at The Gardens. He heard many of his residents had yet to try them, and he bought a box of 150.
They were gone by intermission.
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
Stuart Reese Leads a Cultural Change at MassMutual
Stuart Reese, who was thrust into the role of president and CEO at MassMutual in the wake of the scandal that took down his predecessor, Robert O’Connell, recently completed his first year at the helm. This has been a time of transition, he said, noting that in some ways — especially with regard to individual businesses and their performance, as well as community involvement — it has been seamless. But with others, most notably the corporate culture he’s instilling and a strategic plan he’s shaping, it’s been anything but.
Stuart Reese remembers the phone call. It would be a hard one to forget.
It was from board member James Birle (now chairman) and it came on June 2, 2005, around lunch time. He was calling to say that, amid a series of allegations of improper conduct, Robert O’Connell was out as president and CEO of MassMutual, the largest company in Massachusetts and a Fortune 100 stalwart, and that Reese, then the company’s executive vice president and chief investment officer, was in.
Asked to recall his immediate reaction to that news, Reese struggled somewhat, saying that the ensuing minutes, hours, and days were in some ways a blur, with he and many others at the company “going 24/7,” as he put it.
“It was a difficult moment conceptually and logistically, because there were so many issues that had to be dealt with very, very quickly, and so few people who knew what was going on,” he remembered, adding that he had to address regulators, rating agencies, the press, the board, and employees, all of whom were looking for answers.
“We had to engage a lot of people to get many things done quickly, and these people weren’t exactly sitting around waiting for this to happen; they were doing other things,” he continued. “The mindset at the time was that we knew there were so many good people at the company running the businesses; we said ‘let’s engage them and let them know what’s going on and rely on them to run the business while we deal with these other issues.’”
Thus began what has been an intriguing transition process, said Reese, one that is in many ways still ongoing. In some respects, that transition has been seamless in nature, he said, especially with regard to individual businesses and their performance — year-end 2005 and first-quarter ’06 numbers show strong gains in many areas — but definitely not in some others.
That was certainly the case with corporate culture, said Reese, who sat down with BusinessWest recently to talk about his first year at the controls of the company and his focus moving forward.
“We had to make a very clear statement internally and externally that there was a change in culture and that things were going to be different in some ways,” he explained. “There were some things that had been done wrong, and they were not going to be done that way any more. In that regard, the transition was intentionally not seamless in some ways.”
Elaborating, Reese said that since last June, he, the board, and the leadership team he’s assembled have promoted a culture defined by transparency — a word he would use often — as well as meritocracy and open lines of communication, all traits he believes were missing during the O’Connell years.
But the cultural shift involves more than improved communications and open doors, said Reese, noting that the company intends to be more customer-driven in the development and refinement of products and services.
“We need to be more of an outside-in driven organization, and less of an inside-out driven organization,” he explained. “We need to have a higher percentage of our employees closer to the customer and responding to the customer, so what’s taking place within the company is driven more by the customer than by internal processes.”
BusinessWest looks this issue at Reese’s first year of work guiding the financial services giant, and about how he’s spreading a new culture among its nearly 6,000 employees.
Mutual Respect
Reese says his primary goals for his first 12 months at the helm were to have a strategic plan in place and a team assembled that is “second to none.”
He’s just about there. “There are some ‘i’s to do be dotted and ‘t’s to be crossed, and we’ll do that by the June board meeting,” he told BusinessWest. “But those primary goals of having the team in place, as well as the strategy and the vision, have been accomplished.
“We still have some work to do communicating our plan to the company, and we’ll do that — there are many methods for communication,” he continued. “What I’ve learned is that people need to hear these things many times, so we’ve got lots of repetition ahead of us and helping people understand exactly what it all means; we’re just beginning execution.”
Reese uses the third-person plural quite regularly as he discusses the company, its present, and future. He’s spent the past year assembling his leadership team — there are a few holdovers from the O’Connell era, some from within the company in new positions, and several newcomers to MassMutual — and is a strong proponent of teamwork.
“I want people who are team players,” he said. “This isn’t about me, it’s about the company and moving it forward.”
The concept of ‘team’ is a recurring theme for Reese, who first came to MassMutual in 1993 and has served in a number of roles since.
A graduate of Gettysburg College in his native Pennsylvania, Reese majored in biology and had designs on a career in veterinary medicine. Such thoughts subsided when he actually started working for a local vet.
“I realized rather quickly that this wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he took a few business courses, found the subject matter intriguing, and eventually earned an MBA at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.
He mulled several job offers before taking one from Aetna in 1979. There, he served in several capacities, most involving investments. He eventually rose to the rank of vice president and managing director of Capital Markets, overseeing the management of all external funds.
A search firm hired to identify candidates for positions in asset-management at MassMutual contacted him, thus beginning a dialogue that brought him to Springfield in early 1993. Over the years, he held various leadership positions at several MassMutual subsidiaries, serving as chairman and CEO of Babson Capital Management LLC, chairman of Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors LLC, and as a member of the Board of Directors for Oppenheimer Acquisition Corp.
As executive vice president and chief administrative officer, he was responsible for the management of the company’s general account and served as a key advisor on overall business strategy.
He was handling those duties and others when MassMutual and its State Street headquarters became ground zero for a highly public and controversial change of command, one that played itself out on the front pages of the Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal at the top of the local news broadcasts.
Details of the firing emerged, and specific allegations against O’Connell — all of which he denied — ran the gamut from improper use of company planes and helicopters to nepotism; controversial real estate transactions to questionable handling of a ‘shadow’ account.
Reese was reluctant to revisit the events of June ’05 — and the weeks and months that preceded them — other than to praise the board for addressing the matter, not covering it up, and also the team of leaders that effectively moved the company forward from that fateful phone call.
“Instinct plays some role in that process, but I think instinct is somewhat overstated,” he explained. “Basically, I had to rely on the existing management team, trust them to do the right things, and just grind through it. And that’s what we did.”
Policy-maker
While the O’Connell firing is not exactly behind the company — several investigations are still ongoing and arbitration requested by O’Connell is still pending — MassMutual has, in most respects, put that ugly chapter in its 154-year-history, in the rear-view mirror, said Reese.
Indeed, in areas ranging from community involvement to the Q1 numbers posted by the company and its subsidiaries, life has been seemingly unchanged, he told BusinessWest.
And if there has been change on the business end, it has mostly been for the better.
First-quarters numbers show strong gains: total assets under management for the company and its subsidiaries rose to $418 billion, a $23 billion, or 6%, gain from the end of ’05. That projects to a 24% increase for the year, slightly better than the already solid 22% registered in ’05. Life company assets climbed to $116.5 billion in Q1, up 7% from the same quarter a year earlier, while net income soared to $143 million for the period that ended March 31, up 55% from the $92 million posted in that same period a year earlier.
As for individual subsidiaries, most had strong performances in ’05. Oppenheimer Funds Inc. was recently named the ‘best large overall fund family’ and ‘best large fixed-income fund family’ at the 2006 Lipper Fund Awards in New York, said Reese. In addition to those top honors, three Oppenheimer mutual funds — Oppenheimer AMT-Free Municipals, Oppenheimer California Municipal Fund, and Oppenheimer Rochester National Municipals, were recognized for their individual achievements within their respective Lipper classifications.
Other subsidiaries, including Babson Capital Management LLC, Baring Asset Management Limited, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC, MassMutual International Inc., which has operations in Chile, Hong Kong, Japan, Luxemburg, Macau, and Taiwan, also had solid gains in 2005, said Reese.
“We had a fabulous year.” And while individual businesses have put up good numbers, the company has expanded its physical presence. It opened a 66-acre office complex (the former Phoenix headquarters) in Enfield last fall, and recently completed a $45 million renovation to the State Street headquarters. That project included construction of an 80,000-square-foot document-management building and renovation of a major building wing, including a complete overhaul and expansion of its employee cafeteria.
Progress in these areas, as well as continued strong involvement in the community — to the tune of $5.9 million in total corporate donations in 2005, a $2 million increase over ’04 — constitute the seamless elements of the transition, as Reese described them.
But there have been other changes for which that adjective would not apply, said Reese, referring to a new management team he assembled, an emerging strategic plan, and that broad cultural change he mentioned and its focus on transparency.
Open to Discussion
When asked what that word meant to him, Reese said it comes down to making all matters of the company visible to all constituencies, including the board, rating agencies, and employees.
Change, in the form of greater visibility, was needed, he said, because in the O’Connell years, the management style could be described as exclusive, not inclusive, with managers aware only of their specific piece of the company.
Reese used the term ‘hub and spoke’ to describe it.
“There was a relatively small group, maybe two or three people, that knew everything about what was happening,” he explained. “You had Bob and one or two other people at the center of the hub and everyone else on the outside, knowing only their small piece of what was going on.
“To me, this ‘you can focus on your piece and don’t bother with the rest of it, I’ll take care of it’ style is not an effective management strategy,” he continued. “I want a management team that’s involved in managing the entirety of the corporation; I lead the team, but every member of that team should have a clear understanding of what’s going on with the company.”
Which brings him to the strategic planning activities that have been ongoing since last June, and undertaken with the help of a consulting firm. Reese offered few real specifics on the plan’s contents, other than to say that this is a mutual insurance company owned by its policyholders and it will remain that way; there are no plans to take it public. Also, he said MassMutual will refocus on its core business — protection, especially the life insurance business.
Reese said the company will look for opportunities to grow its international business — China and India are two logical areas for expansion — and will also be exploring new acquisition opportunities, looking, as always, for ventures that make sense for the company and fit into its evolving strategy.
Overall, Reese said that more important than the strategic plan’s specific contents is the fact that employers and board members must know and understand the basic goals and how to achieve them.
And this is another change from the O’Connell administration, he continued.
“To the extent that there was a strategy for the company before, it was probably only known to a few people,” he said, referring to the hub-and-spoke nature that existed. “We want to clearly communicate our strategy to everyone.”
When asked how he intends to spread his new culture and explain his strategic plans to 6,000 employees, Reese acknowledged that this is certainly a challenge.
The process involves many methods, he said, including a trickle-down theory that involves individual businesses and departments and successive layers of leadership. But Reese will also work to get the message out personally.
He has staged several ‘all-employee meetings’ and recently initiated a series of what amount to ‘lunches with the president,’ involving small groups of employees covering all rungs on the ladder. The first installment was considered a success.
“From my vantage point it was great … there’s no agenda; you just pick up a pizza and talk about the company,” he explained, noting that he has staged such sessions in prior jobs and with measurable results. “It’s a chance for them to talk to me and for me to hear from them about what’s on their minds.”
The Bottom Line
The small gatherings are just one component of a much larger culture of openness and communication, said Reese, noting that such a change in a large company doesn’t come quickly or easily.
And it comes through teamwork, he stressed repeatedly, as well as a management philosophy in which there is no real hub or a few spokes. Instead, there’s a system of mutual understanding — both literally and figuratively.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
UMass Central Heating Plant Will Fuel the Campus — and the Imagination
John Mathews says the new CHP at UMass will bring what he calls “net gains” for the environment.
Ground was broken last month for a new, $118 million central heating plant at UMass Amherst. The facility will replace a 1950s-vintage coal-burning plant that has been obsolete for decades, and will be environmentally friendly in every way — from its unique exterior design to equipment that will significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
John Mathews now keeps a pair of binoculars near the window in his cubicle on the third floor of the Physical Plant Building at UMass Amherst.
He’ll use them to help chart the progress of the $118 million central heating plant, or CHP as it’s called, now taking shape roughly 500 yards to the west.
athews, assistant director of Campus Projects, Facilities & Campus Planning, has a decent view of the construction site, which lies just beyond the Mullins Center, and the early-stage work being done (ground was broken May 12).
But he’ll be doing most of his monitoring efforts up close and personal.
Indeed, Mathews has been working on the effort to build a replacement for the university’s World War II-era, coal-burning heating plant for about a decade now, and, as this initiative’s project manager, he is responsible for making sure the facility is built according to specifications.
Those would be the specs laid out in the foot-thick stack of books and hundreds of diagrams that also occupy Mathew’s work space and represent nearly seven years of work to finalize designs for the plant, scheduled to go on line in the spring of 2008.
As he talked about those designs and specific features of the 14-megawatt plant, Mathews used the terms unique and state of the art early and often. And he applied them to describe everything from the facility’s look — more like a field house than a co-generation plant — to its operations room, complete with something called a “circular cockpit.”
But the most significant features of the plant will be its efficiency and environmentally friendly nature, said Mathews, who is coordinating the planning, design, and construction of a number of projects on campus. He noted that the facility will generate more energy per pound of fuel burned than the current plant, despite the fact that the fuels to be used — oil and natural gas — are much more expensive than coal.
Meanwhile, the plant will use advanced combustion turbine burners and other equipment that will significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and will recycle municipal wastewater plant effluent for boiler make-up water, reducing the demand on the public drinking water system in Amherst by nearly 200,000 gallons daily.
“There will be net gains for the environment,” said Mathews, noting that some of the steam-turbine technology and pollution-control equipment included in the plant’s design have rarely, if ever, been used in combination before. “We’ll be using less fuel to create more energy and we’re recycling wastewater for the plant’s primary source of water.
“Massachusetts DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) has one of most stringent air-quality standards in the country, next to Southern California,” he continued. “We’ve been told by our consultants, who permit these facilities across the nation, that, for this-size facility, we’ll have one of the cleanest-burning plants in the United States.”
BusinessWest looks this issue at how this important project came together, and why the new plant is fueling the imagination — in more ways than one.
Letting off Steam
Mathews told BusinessWest that the plant currently heating the university’s 200 buildings and roughly 10 million square feet of space has been essentially obsolete since the late ’70s.
The oldest remaining components of the plant date back to the early 20th century, he explained, adding that while there have been some additions and upgrades over the years as the campus has witnessed exponential growth, most equipment has been in place since the Truman administration.
“The control board should go to the Smithsonian when it’s retired,” he joked. “That’s how old and outdated it is; it goes back to the 1930s. This plant was good in its day … but technology has changed significantly over the past 50 years.”
Economics and logistics have been the primary hurdles to building a replacement and fully utilizing advanced technology, Mathews noted, adding that both have been cleared over the past few years, with progress essentially mandated by a state order to cease all coal-burning operations by 2008.
The UMass Building Authority is bonding for the CHP project — and others now in various stages of completion around campus, said Mathews, adding that the $118 million price tag covers design, construction, project management, permitting, new steam lines, and demolition of the existing plant. Meanwhile, after a lengthy search, a site was found in the northwest corner of the university, on land that actually sits in the town of Hadley, only a few hundred yards from Amherst’s wastewater treatment facility.
The diversion of 180,000 gallons of that wastewater (roughly 11% of the daily volume) to the new plant, where it will be treated to drinking-level quality, is merely one of the facility’s many environmentally friendly characteristics, said Mathews, noting that there are many.
Others include selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, technology to control the emissions of nitrous oxide (the precursor to ozone), and oxidation catalysts to control carbon monoxide emissions. The plant will also employ what are known as low-NOx burners in its 10-megawatt gas turbine to further reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
The pollution-control technology is but one aspect of the plant that could be characterized as state-of-the-art, said Mathews, who told BusinessWest that some of the equipment included in the plant’s design is being put to use for the first time in this country.
“We permitted technology back in 2002 that did not exist, that was not commercially available,” he said. “When this plant goes on line with its gas turbine with its advanced burner design, it will be one of the first times it’s ever been used.”
Work on the design and specifications of the new CHP began in 1999, said Mathews, adding that project leaders hired Boston-based R.G. Vanderweil Engineers, a leading designer of heating plant facilities, to help blueprint the new facility.
The assembled team looked at a number of existing plants around the country and also studied emerging technology, he explained, with the goal of designing the most efficient system possible for the generation of steam and electricity with the same pound of fuel.
The new plant, roughly one-tenth the size of the Mount Tom Power Plant in Holyoke, a 150-megawatt facility, will feature a combustion gas turbine, similar to a jet engine, capable of producing 10 million watts of electricity, said Mathews. Steam generated by a heat recovery boiler that captures the hot (900º) exhaust from the gas turbine is then sent to a steam turbine generator, which creates another four megawatts of electricity.
The 14-megawatt total covers roughly 80% of the campus-wide electrical need, with the rest purchased from other suppliers. It would not be cost-effective to build a plant to meet 100% of the electricity needs, Mathews explained, adding that the peak usage occurs in only a few weeks of the year.
The steam generator and three auxiliary ‘package boilers,’ as they’re called, will produce 450,000 pounds of steam per hour for on-campus consumption, meeting 100% of demand. Two 20-inch main steam-transmission lines will connect the plant to the existing campus steam-distribution system and its 30 miles of pipes, while new lines are being constructed to take steam to a new dormitory complex in the northeast corner of the campus.
All facets of construction are being led by lead construction manager, O & G Industries, said Mathews, adding that the Torrington-Conn.-based company has recently built new central heating plants for the University of Connecticut and the University of New Hampshire.
Sound Advice
While project leaders set out to build a plant that was ultra modern, efficient, and environmentally friendly, they also wanted to create a facility that would effectively co-exist with the university and the surrounding neighborhoods.
And this meant paying close attention to everything from aesthetics (exterior design) to noise control, said Mathews.
For the former, project leaders turned to Cambridge Seven Associates, the architectural firm that designed the Mullins Center and drew inspiration from that arena for the CHP. The company eventually came up with a field-house-like design that features a large sloping roof covering both the 45,000-square-foot plant and the adjacent fuel farm.
Meanwhile, the front of the plant will feature a glass wall, permitting passersby to see the equipment and operations taking place inside.
“It’s designed to fit into a campus setting,” said Mathews. “It’s a beautiful structure.”
As for noise, Mathews said it was a subject of much discussion among project managers, neighbors, and campus officials. The new plant will sit roughly 1,400 feet from the nearest residence, and will be near the Mullins Center, the school’s baseball stadium, and a number of playing fields used for intramural sports. Project leaders didn’t want any of those constituencies bothered by noise.
“This was a very big issue for us; we didn’t want to impact neighborhoods or the playing fields,” he said. “We’ve gone to great lengths to control noise both inside the plant and what might be emitted from the plant.”
These include everything from silencers in duct work and on louvers that penetrate the building wall, to the design and thickness of windows, he said, adding that several noise models were created to help ensure that increases in noise would be barely perceptible, if at all.
Considerable time and effort were also spent on the design of the control room on the plant’s second floor, what Mathews called the “heart and soul” of the facility. He said operators can see 360 degrees around the plant and, through the use of video technology, “layer down,” as he put it, to see specific operations and the equipment used for them.
“We designed it ergometrically so that an operator, with computer screens in a circle around him, can see the entire plant at once,” he explained, applying the term ‘circular cockpit’ to describe the work space. “He can see the plant through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and with the computer screens he can drill down to four levels of controls.
“There’s a lot of engineering and technology at his or her fingertips,” he continued. “And that will enable the operator to make sure the plant is running at peak efficiency at all times.”
The carefully choreographed timetable for plant construction and start-up calls for the installation of process equipment, including the control room, starting in the spring of 2007, with the first firing of the boilers to come that fall. To follow will be roughly six months of commissioning and acceptance testing.
If all goes as planned, the new plant will be fully operational, and demolition will commence on the current facility, in the spring of 2008.
Taking the Heat
By then, Mathews can put away the binoculars. They’ve seen limited use thus far — work since ground breaking has been confined to foundation-pouring and other preliminary work.
He’ll no doubt use them more when steel is erected — it’s due to arrive later this month — and for other steps in the construction process.
And with them, he’ll not only get a look at a construction site, but a view to the future of heating plant technology.
George O’Brien can be reached at[email protected]
Diane Brunelle, vice president of Patient Care Services at Noble Hospital, says the legislation that passed in the House is not a true compromise.
A landslide vote in the House supporting nurse-staffing limits in Massachusetts hospitals, has supporters cheering and opponents reeling … many didn’t see this development coming. But regardless of which side of the debate they fall on, health care professionals across the Commonwealth are remobilizing their awareness efforts as the issue moves forward in the Legislature.
It came as a surprise to many health care professionals.
On May 24, the Mass. House of Representatives voted 133 to 20 to set mandatory nurse staffing levels at hospitals.
The vote was a coup for the Mass. Nurses Assoc. (MNA), the largest union of registered nurses in Massachusetts, which originally drafted the bill. However, several major organizations in the Commonwealth have publicly opposed nurse-staffing limits, and openly supported another piece of legislation called the Patient Safety Act, submitted by state Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge) for close to three years now.
Efforts to increase awareness and knowledge of both bills, however, must begin anew with proof of overwhelming support in the House. No date has been set for a Senate vote on either bill, and it is still unclear whether any votes will take place before the current legislative session closes in July; however both opponents and proponents of staffing limits agree that the House vote is a major factor in the outcome of this potentially landmark legislation.
“A lot of bills will die once the session ends,” said Stephen Bradley, vice president for Government and Community Relations for Baystate Health. “There are about seven weeks left, though, and that’s a long time in the legislative world. I’m sure there will be attention paid to this issue given the considerable pressure from both sides.”
If passed into law, the nurse staffing ratios bill (its proper name is An Act Ensuring Patient Safety) would make Massachusetts only the second state in the nation to set government-mandated limits on how many patients a nurse can care for during a shift. California set similar limits in 1999; 14 other states have similar legislation pending. The ratios, which have yet to be determined, would be put into place by 2008 in teaching hospitals such as Baystate Medical Center and by 2010 at community hospitals.
Conversely, Moore’s bill would attempt to address staffing issues, in particular the widespread nursing shortage, through a state-run oversight process of hospital staffing patterns, guidelines to bolster nurse faculty at state colleges and universities, and the creation of the Mass. Center for Nursing, which would require a $30 million appropriation, among other measures.
Legislative Landslide
Sharon Adams-Babineau RN, vice president for Patient Care Services at Mercy Medical Center, said she’s seen the breadth of the opposition to staffing ratios firsthand at all levels of her own organization, and was taken aback by the endorsement of staffing limits by House leadership last month.
“Only one in five nurses in the Commonwealth support this bill,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been so much of a surprise if the vote hadn’t turned into such a landslide.”
Adams-Babineau added that with such strong support of the Patient Safety Act among Massachusetts hospitals, particularly in Western Mass., many felt the staffing-limits legislation would easily fail on the House floor. Indeed, supporters of the Patient Safety Act have been both visible and vocal throughout the life of the patient safety debate on Beacon Hill.
In a particularly visible move, the CEOs of every hospital in the Commonwealth signed a letter to legislators opposing the nurse staffing ratios bill, which was delivered the day before the May 24 vote in the House. Sixteen nurse, health care, and business organizations, including the Mass. Hospital Assoc. (MHA), the Mass. Organization of Nurse Executives, the Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, the Mass. High Technology Council, and the Mass. Assoc. of Registered Nurses, also signed a letter opposing the measure.
And locally, the Western Mass. Economic Development Council and the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield both oppose the legislation, in addition to nine of the area’s hospitals – Baystate Medical Center, Franklin Medical Center, Holyoke Medical Center, Mary Lane Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, Providence Behavioral Hospital, Noble Hospital, and Wing Memorial Hospital.
Those organizations joined forces last year to initiate marketing and awareness campaigns surrounding the issue of nurse ratios and to support the Patient Safety Act. Dubbed the Western Mass. Hospitals Coalition, the group has become one of the Commonwealth’s most active forces in opposition to nurse staffing limits, and includes hospitals with both unionized and non-unionized RN populations.
“Many, including nurses, have been vocal in their opposition to staffing ratios,” said Adams-Babineau, “but I suppose that put us in a sort of nirvana, thinking that this wouldn’t happen.
“Through the coalition,” she continued, “we feel that we’ve done a great deal to educate the public on what ‘staffing limits’ really means. But what this vote says to me is that there is not necessarily a true understanding out there of the potential impact of nurse-to-patient ratios.”
Agreeing to Disagree
The legislation passed in the House represented a modified version of the original legislation, which the MNA calls a ‘compromise bill.’ Among other aspects, the MNA states that the new bill directs the Department of Public Health to undergo a regulatory process utilizing research, data, patient outcome information, and expert testimony to develop safe standards and limits.The measure also includes nurse faculty and recruitment initiatives, prevents understaffing of other critical health care workers, including licensed practical nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel, and places these workers in the formula DPH will create to adjust nurse staffing based on patient needs.
“Everybody wins here; hospitals, nurses, and most important of all, the patients,” said Beth Picknick RN, president of the MNA, referring to the revised bill. “The 23,000 members of the MNA join with the 104-member Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients in applauding the efforts of all involved to reach this compromise and in doing so, address this important patient safety issue.”
Still, most nurse and hospital administrators and others who oppose nurse-staffing limits didn’t budge in their stance, despite changes to the bill’s verbiage. Further, the term ‘compromise’ was also called into question following the overwhelming House vote.
In a statement released by the Mass. Hospital Assoc. (MHA) following the House vote, the organization urged legislators to reject the “micromanagment” of health care in the Commonwealth.
“We would like nothing more than to reach a mutually acceptable agreement with the MNA over the issue of nurse staffing,” the letter stated. “But, ultimately, we could not compromise … we believe that the entire care-giving team must be included in the development of flexible staffing guidelines. The union, by contrast, believes government should set RN-only ratios.”
Bradley added that the MHA’s position is not a radical one; national standards for quality of health care delivery are measured by the number of hours spent with a patient by all clinical staff, not just registered nurses.
“The measure of clinical hours should refer to the total care-giving team,” he said. “We’re simply asking that the national norms be applied here, as well as an acceptable definition of ‘overtime.’”
Diane Brunelle RN, vice president for Patient Care Services at Noble Hospital, echoed the MHA’s sentiments and clarified that while some aspects of the bill were modified to more closely resemble the Patient Safety Act, the major sticking points regarding staffing limits remain unchanged.
“The current revision that went through in the House is not a compromise,” she stressed. “The language is still there that talks about limits, and we feel that the decision should rest with nurse managers. Ratios could also have a profound effect on community hospitals – the teaching hospitals will have to recruit nurses first, leaving a shallow pool for us to work with to prepare for 2010. That could put community hospitals in some dire straits, and this region especially cannot afford to lose any facilities.
“Mandates are also not going to cure the nursing shortage problem,” she added. “What we need is to get more faculty into the nursing programs to accommodate the growing number of applicants, and create a larger pool of well-educated nurses.”
Fair and Flexible?
Janice Kucewicz RN, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Wing Memorial Hospital, suspects that confusion in the Legislature, or at least a lack of complete information regarding staffing limits, led to the lopsided nature of the House vote.
“I think the point being missed here is that care is provided by a team, not just by the RNs,” she said. “There is a whole pool of care-providers who are not even considered through the staffing limits bill, and to best utilize their talents, we need to be able to work within flexible guidelines.”
Kucewicz added that that she too sees the staffing limits bill doing little to address the ongoing nursing shortage.
“There is a notion out there that these staffing ratios will create jobs for nurses, and bring in nurses from private practices and other facilities to our acute care hospitals,” she said. “But it’s a misnomer that there are nurses out there waiting in the wings to take these jobs. Nursing schools only have so many open slots, and currently applicants are being turned away. All ratios will do at this point is contribute to a vicious cycle.”
While the futures of both patient safety bills remain unclear, work will continue through the Western Mass. Hospitals Coalition and other entities to increase understanding of the various components of both pieces of legislation involved, with particular emphasis on the bills’ potential effects on the nationwide nursing shortage.
“We won’t give up our cause,” said Brunelle. “The coalition will continue to work to do the most to bring nurses to the bedside.”
Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]
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Tim Brennan was talking about the bike path that winds its way along the east bank of the Connecticut River. But he might as well have been talking about the city of Springfield as a whole.
Brennan, director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, which coordinated construction of the 3.7-mile Connecticut River Walk and Bikeway, told the local press recently that the path is considered underutilized — roughly 150 users on weekdays and just over half that number on weekends — because of doubts about safety.
And there will certainly be more of those now following the stabbing death of one the path’s few users earlier this month, the city’s sixth homicide of the year, which is slightly below the record pace (18 for the year) set in 2005.
Like the bike path, many of Springfield’s neighborhoods, institutions, and, yes, businesses, are being hurt (or underutilized) because of crime and, equally important, the perception of it. The city has other issues, to be sure, including its fiscal woes and overall image problem, but crime has taken center stage.
It is a factor impacting everything from where people live, work, shop, eat, and go to college, to whether they use the bike path along the river. And in many ways, it is stifling economic development in the area, because, as much as anything else, Springfield is now synonymous with crime.
Some local officials would like to blame the press and its ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ operating strategy for this phenomenon, but when a city this size has five shootings in one night, as was recorded early in May, the problem is not the press.
Rather, it’s the apparent inability to gain any sense of momentum in the fight against crime. Some officials would have you believe there is some, and use easily pliable statistics to back up those claims. But the real measure of progress is public opinion (and traffic counts on the bikeway), and at the moment the public remains skeptical — and, in many ways, afraid.
Recently named Police Commissioner Edward Flynn has taken the fight to the neighborhoods and the city’s housing projects. He is imploring residents to get involved and be part of the solution, not part of the problem by protecting criminals. He’s been very visible — one can see him on the streets and hear him on the radio — and he’s made the word ‘snitch’ part of the local lexicon.
We can only hope that increased patrols and the appointment of area commanders to oversee neighborhood coverage will succeed not only in bringing the crime rate down, but in making people feel better about Springfield in the same way that many residents of Holyoke feel better about their community.
Overall, we believe the city needs additional resources, and that Gov. Mitt Romney should make a stronger commitment to keeping the streets safe in the state’s third-largest city.
When the bike path was put on the drawing board more than a decade ago, it was envisioned as a way to make the city’s riverfront vibrant and more relevant. It was viewed as a way to bring people back into the city for recreation, to create images like those we’ve seen of people walking, running, biking, and roller-blading in Washington, D.C., Cambridge, San Diego, and other cities.
Very little of that has happened, and safety is the reason. And so many other things aren’t happening in Springfield for the very same reason.
The bike path is not just the scene of a fatal stabbing; it’s a symbol of what could be, and isn’t, in Springfield, largely because of public safety concerns. Maybe it can serve as additional motivation in the effort to make this the City of Homes, not the City of Crime, once again.-
