Day: March 29, 2011

Building Permits

By
Building Permits Departments

BUILDING PERMITS

The following building permits were issued during the month of March 2011.

AGAWAM

Fitness First
60 North Westfield St.
$45,000 — Repairs to damaged roof system

Western Mass Electric Company
198 Springfield St.
$200,000 — Construction of retaining walls

AMHERST

IAT Partnership LLC
49 Boltwood Walk
$7,500 — Foundation only for mixed-use commercial and residential building

Slobody Development Corporation
101 University Dr.
$9,300 — Alter existing lab space

CHICOPEE

Chicopee Housing Authority
94 Riverview Terrace
$56,000 — Restore unit from fire damage

News Corporation Dow Jones
200 Burnett Road
$4,500,000 — Construct addition and new interior layout

EAST LONGMEADOW

Town of East Longmeadow
124 Pease Road
$376,000 — Pump station upgrades

GREENFIELD

Homesavers Council of Greenfield
2 Pray Dr.
$11,000 — Construct reception area

Saga Communications of New England
81 Woodward Road
$9,315 — Re-shingle

HADLEY

Edward and Joseph Hardy
165 Russell St.
$80,450 — Interior wall build out

Chamisa Corporation
31 Campus Plaza Road
$15,948 — Interior renovations

HOLYOKE

MISZ Realty LLC
104 Whiting Farms Road
$426,000 — Construct new bakery

SOUTHWICK

Town of Southwick
661 College Highway
$3,600 — Site work improvements

SPRINGFIELD

Caring Health
1049-1063 Main St.
$9,500,000 — Renovate three buildings for use as a walk-in health care center

Cutting Edge Pizza, LLC
1762 Boston Road
$110,000 — Remodel of existing retail space

Springfield Center I Associates, LLC
1365 Liberty St.
$86,000 — Construct new space in existing Hollywood Video

Stop & Shop
1600 Boston Road
$5,000 — Install temporary office partitions

WESTFIELD

Centro Heritage SPE 6, LLC
231 East Main St.
$80,000 — Interior renovations to commercial retail space

Lower Mill Inc.
77 Mill St.
$564,000 — Office build out of existing first floor

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Rasim Ibrahimov
205 Allen Park Road
$6,000 — Re-occupy existing retail store

Town of West Springfield
200 Park St.
$107,000 — Replace 18 windows in public library

Clinical Condition

By
Jason Garand
Sections Supplements
Health Care Construction Poses Unique Challenges

Steve Killian

Steve Killian says the health care sector provides plenty of opportunities for contractors — who know how to work around patients.

Hospitals and other medical facilities have long been a key driver in the region’s construction industry; even during the past few years of recession, such projects kept many firms busy. But not every contractor can tackle a job in a clinical setting, say builders with experience in the field. From privacy and patient-flow concerns to infection and particle control, working around medically compromised individuals poses a set of challenges not present when building, say, an office or store. Still, gaining the skills to compete in this arena can be well-worth the effort.

Dr. Louis Durkin’s workplace never closes.
So when his department undergoes a major renovation, as it is now, construction crews have to work around the employees and the customers, and sometimes both get moved around to accommodate the remodeling.
That would be inconvenient at any business — except that Durkin is chief of the Emergency Department at Mercy Medical Center, and his ‘customers’ are patients, many of them in seriously compromised health, and some clinging to life as they’re wheeled in.
Not exactly the right crowd to bring into a construction zone.
“Imagine a patient who’s in severe respiratory distress and bringing them through a dust cloud where ER construction is happening,” Durkin said. Fortunately, that scenario is only an imaginary one, thanks to a complicated dance that medical staff and construction crews engage in every day to ensure patient privacy and infection control while renovation continues.
“We’re taking care of patients, and we’ve done a good job sequestering where we’re doing construction; we haven’t seen any dust in the patient-care areas,” he told BusinessWest. “We’ve done a great job keeping dust and noise to a minimum, and that’s a huge consideration; it hasn’t been an issue.”
To get to that point, though, a builder needs to know something about working in a health care facility.
“There’s a host of things to deal with in the clinical setting as opposed to the standard administrative setting,” said Stephen Killian, president of Barr & Barr, a Springfield-based general contractor that specializes in two traditionally robust construction sectors in Western Mass., health care and higher education. But in a medical setting — unlike school or college renovations, which can be scheduled when classes aren’t in session — there’s often no way to remove the patients from the picture.
With privacy laws strengthened under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — and with medical centers more vigilant about infection control since a series of reports a decade ago detailing an epidemic of preventable deaths in hospitals — contractors and tradespeople working in that arena simply need to know more than ever before.
“Some people don’t succeed very well,” Killian said. “There are firms that say, ‘we’d love to go into that; we’d love to go work for Baystate,’ and they come in with a very competitive number. But in the end, they’re ill-equipped to do the job appropriately.”

Jason Garand

Jason Garand says hospitals see benefits in a construction crew trained in privacy issues, infection control, and other matters.

Jason Garand agrees. As business manager of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters Local 108, he is promoting a training program for members who perform work in a clinical environment. The union-created curriculum covers everything from controlling airborne contaminants to mold remediation to routing materials and personnel around patients and staff. Graduates earn certifications from the union in ‘best practices in health care construction in occupied facilities’ and ‘blood borne pathogens.’
“It’s a program designed to create awareness for tradespeople who come into an occupied facility,” Garand said. “There are many problems people might not aware of when they’re cutting into walls or opening up an old floor or ceiling; you’re releasing pathogens, mold, and mildew.
“As a carpenters’ union, we live in this community, and we want to have our membership trained, especially in an occupied setting,” he added. “So we started to ask where they’re vulnerable, where they have liability issues.”
For this issue’s focus on construction, BusinessWest talked to several professionals about what it takes to build, remodel, and upgrade in a clinical environment, and why hospitals are taking these efforts more seriously than ever.

Union Label
Karen Sprague, vice president of Holyoke-based builder A.R. Green & Son, said her company was among the first to have its employees (eight of them, to be exact) certified in the union’s program. She said changes in the health-insurance industry require hospitals to accept more liability for infection-related incidents, making this sort of education program even more critical.
“It also extends to nursing homes,” Sprague said of the insurance changes. “It’s not just hospitals, but other facilities; these insurance regulations trickle down to all of them.”
Garand said mitigating risks from airborne particles extends beyond erecting a temporary wall, but often involves blocking off a work area correctly and using negative airflow, so that dust, germs, and pathogens don’t get into a patient-care area.
“We think it’s important for our contractors to have an educated workforce, so they can walk into Baystate or other hospitals and say, ‘our guys are aware of these problems, and not only are they putting up a wall so a little child doesn’t walk through, but they’re keeping their air on this side and not letting it pass through,” he told BusinessWest.
“One of the benefits for employers is, instead of thinking of ‘best-trained’ in terms of physically skilled, we’re taking it to a new level, bringing another layer of education,” Garand continued. “Instead of a tradesperson saying, ‘I have to knock this wall down as fast as possible,’ it’s realizing that this wall could have mold and mildew behind it, from when the floors were washed and water leaked in.”
If a construction company doesn’t consider this possibility, it can create that liability that medical centers fear, he added. “So hospitals will see this [certification] as a benefit; they’ll know they don’t have to worry about someone coming in there and releasing polluted air into the hospital, where it can hit the most vulnerable.”
For builders, it’s potentially a marketing tool. If A.R. Green can get the word out that its employees are trained in hospital protocol and how to work in a medical setting, “it’s going to trickle down to me as a general contractor,” Sprague said. “If I can save the hospital money, they’re more likely to hire me than somebody who doesn’t have that training.”
It’s not just general contractors looking for an edge in the fertile health care market, though. Mark Kent, sales engineer at Springfield-based HVAC company Hurley & David, was recently certified as a health care facility design professional by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
The ASHRAE certification program identifies individuals who have mastered a body of knowledge covering the successful design and operation of health care facilities, Kent said.
“Someone who successfully passes the exam for that certification has demonstrated an understanding of the specific codes and requirements and understands a health care facility’s specific needs,” Kent said.
“When it comes to infection control and patient privacy, the number of issues that exist in a health care facility is sometimes mindboggling,” he added. “The purpose of the certification is to assure our potential health care customers that we have a broad understanding of the issues they face, and that, when we design a solution for them, we have tried to assess as many of these issues as possible, and certainly we pass that on to our guys in the field who are actually executing the work.”
It’s an important point of differentiation for Hurley & David, which has done extensive work in medical settings, Kent said. “We are fortunate to have a couple of health care facilities as customers, and we oftentimes work directly for them, as well as working through general contractors and construction managers.”

Have Patients
Understanding how to work around patients and residents goes beyond infection and particle control, however. “The main issue is that things are always changing on a daily basis,” said Durkin of Mercy’s ED project, which is being conducted by Ludlow-based Raymond R. Houle Construction, another contractor that specializes in the health care field.
“The eventual outcome is ending up with more space and better flow, so things are more convenient,” Durkin said. “But when construction is going on, things are obviously less convenient, and it changes every day. One day you have a whole pod open with rooms and storage, and the next day none of it is available. You have to be ready to move different kinds of patients into different areas as needed.”
For example, when he spoke to BusinessWest, the ED was preparing for three days of work on its sprinkler system, necessitating the loss of its FastTrack area, which serves less-critical patients and handles some 40% of total traffic each day. “We have to see all those patients — close to 100 — somewhere else.”
Durkin said the renovation would go much quicker if the hospital could just close down the emergency room for awhile, but, obviously, that’s not possible. In fact, the effort was drawn out because of flu and pneumonia season, which typically causes a surge in patient traffic. “We had to add another phase to the project so we didn’t lose too many beds at one time. The project will take longer than anticipated, but having a small bed capacity at the busiest time of the year wasn’t going to work.”
Robert Aquadro, project manager for Barr & Barr, said disturbing patients who aren’t feeling well brings up a host of undesirable issues.
“It’s very hard to mitigate every aspect, and to do it, you have to be flexible,” he said. “To do construction in a hospital, you always have to be ready to stop, move on, and do something else.”
In addition, Killian explained that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has created the Interim Life Safety Measures program, which works with hospitals to identify and mitigate risks to patients during construction. “It may seem like overkill, but you have to have it in place,” he said. “You have to be mindful of these proactive safety measures.”
He should know; Barr & Barr has certainly forged a deep niche in health care, recently finishing projects at Mercy, Holyoke Medical Center, and Cooley Dickinson Hospital, among others.
“Our staff members are frankly cognizant of what it’s like to be around patients,” he said. “Someone starting out in this area may have the knowledge, but not the staff experience, and it’s a risk for them and the hospital. At the end of the day, we’re all about patient care. It’s not about getting a job done faster and cheaper; it’s about patient care, and how that’s being taken care of during the construction process.”
As for Durkin, he knows Mercy’s emergency area will eventually be more spacious and easier to navigate, and that’s worth what he admitted is occasionally a tight squeeze for staff working around the renovation.
“It’ll end up being an eight-month ordeal,” he said. But as long as patients aren’t the ones being inconvenienced — or worse — it’s a hassle he can live with.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Rock Solid

By
Pioneer Landscapes
Sections Supplements
Pioneer Landscapes Strives to Be a One-stop Resource
Pioneer Landscapes

Brian Campedelli says Pioneer Landscapes tackles a wide variety of projects both residential and commercial.

    Brian Campedelli once wanted to clear the landscape of crime. Life had another plans.
    He originally aspired to become a state trooper, but then his brother suffered a serious car accident and wound up in a coma for six days, followed by weeks of rehabilitation. The experience gave Campedelli a new perspective.
    “My brother was into landscaping; we have a family background in it,” he said. “I asked him what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and landscaping was it.” So Campedelli decided he would rather do something with his brother than become a trooper, and he enrolled in the landscape contracting program at Stockbridge School of Agriculture. Pioneer Landscapes was born soon after, in 1989.
    “We started out as a general maintenance company, and we built it into what we have today, with multiple divisions,” he said. In fact, in the early 1990s, still enrolled at Stockbridge, Campedelli kept his business afloat by working as a co-op student at Mountain View Landscapes in Chicopee, and heading off to his own jobs after work. Sometimes, he would work late into the evening, illuminated only by his truck headlights.
    Campedelli, who initially ran the operation from a 240-square-foot garage in Easthampton, hired his first employee in 1992 and moved Pioneer to its current 2,000-square-foot space on Industrial Way in 2000.
    From its origins tackling basic residential tasks such as seasonal cleaning, mowing, mulching, planting flower beds, and small construction, the company — now employing about 30 people — has a much more extensive menu.
    “We have construction crews for hardscapes, custom outdoor areas and kitchens, and commercial installation; an irrigation division doing installation and maintanance of irrigation systems; and a fertilization division for anything from the smallest residences to school athletic fields,” he explained, not to mention driveway paving, cabana and shed construction, and, of course, a wide range of residential and commercial lawn care. “If it’s outside, we do it.”

    Seeds of Success
    Campedelli was buoyed by his early success. “The first 10 years, business doubled every year in gross volume, then we leveled out a bit,” he said, adding that business was starting to accelerate again a few years ago when the Great Recession hit, and “contracting came to a screeching halt. Usually we’re going from one job to the next, but we had an eight-month period with nothing.
    “But this year, we’ve got a couple of nice jobs going,” he continued, citing the Center at Lenox shopping plaza and Butternut Farm, a residential complex in Amherst, as two examples. “We’re noticing there’s a lot of new jobs coming down the pike.”
    He noted that schools are active in the landscaping market again, which in past recessions has been a reliable harbinger of recovery.
    While most of the industry’s pain has been on the commercial side, Campedelli said, residential work hasn’t been as badly affected by the economy, particularly when it comes to higher-income customers. “Rich people are still rich, and those jobs didn’t slow down. We’re still doing some huge residential installs — anything from custom decks to fireplaces and firepits to pergolas and pavilions.”
    The past decade has seen an upswing in reinvesting in the home, he said. “We’re trying to make it so that, when you come home, you’re on vacation. That’s definitely a trend.”
    While outdoor kitchens and other projects to create indoor-outdoor spaces used to be popular mainly in warmer climates — “in the New England region, it used to be a faux pas to spend that kind of money on a three- or four-month season” — that’s no longer the case, and outdoor fireplaces and firepits, which range from simple to very elaborate, have stretched the warm season to seven months or more for many families.
    “You can start as early and quit as late as you can stand,” Campedelli said. “Firepits are really popular; they’re one of the more inexpensive ways to get out and enjoy your yard. We see a lot of built-in grills, too.”
    Taken together, these improvements — landscaping, hardscapes, outdoor kitchens and fire features — are meant to give people the feeling of coming home, walking outside, and not feeling like they’re at home, he told BusinessWest.
    “There aren’t many words to describe that feeling. No matter what happened at work, whatever kind of day you had, you and your family can go out to this nice area, and it makes you feel like you’re not even in New England,” he continued, noting that one customer told him he feels like he’s having dinner in Hawaii. Another recent client, a well-known business owner in Northampton, told him, “I’ve used my backyard more in the last three weeks than I have in three years.”
    That sort of talk gratifies Campedelli, who strives to create such experiences. At a recent trade show, he said he was situated near about 15 other landscapers, all of whom offered brick and block hardscapes, “but what I want to give you is a lifestyle.”

    Growth Pattern
    At the same time, he’s looking to raise the profile of his company, expanding into a 5,500-square-foot office and storage building on his current property, as well as planning educational events to teach people various aspects of DIY landscaping. He’s also planning fund-raisers for charitable organizations, and donates mulch for annual cleanup efforts in Easthampton.
    Campedelli is also committed to work-life balance for his staff. “Our mission is pretty unique,” he said. “I believe in the safety of our employees and family first. A day lost with your kids can never be found again. I’m in a good place right now, and I want them to have the same quality of life I have as I grow my business.”
    And whether commercial or residential, he said he wants to be a one-stop source for customers’ landscaping needs, continuing to grow the company by creating more loyal clients.
    “We want to be the vendor for all your needs, whether it’s fertilizer, sprinkler systems, parking-lot issues, gazebos and patios, and other enhancements of the property, because the first impression is curb appeal.”
    Campedelli told BusinessWest that 2011 began on the right note, with a January for the ages when it comes to snow — and people needing snow removal.
    “We were going out every two days,” he said with a laugh. “Now we’re back to normal paychecks, but we really appreciated that month.”
    With the spring thaw well underway, Campedelli will soon see if the rest of this year brings as much green promise.

    Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Bringing It All Back Home

By
Bringing It All Back Home
Sections Supplements
Landscape Architects Say More People Are Investing in Their Yards

Bringing It All Back HomeIt’s a concept that gained traction almost a decade ago, in the wake of 9/11: the ‘staycation,’ the desire of homeowners to cut down on travel and instead invest in their homes. Well, area landscape architects are hearing that word again, but for different reasons, namely a lingering recession and high gas prices. In such times, they say, people are more likely to use their vacation savings on something more permanent. That’s good news for a landscaping industry starting to bloom after a couple of years in the rough.

Gas prices have been on the rise for months, with airline fares following suit. That has plenty of people on edge, from would-be vacationers who might stay home this year to the many tourism-reliant businesses in Western Mass.
But there’s a silver lining for one group — landscape architects, who are increasingly hearing that magic word ‘staycation,’ along with rumblings that homeowners might use their vacation funds this year to create a bit of an oasis at home.
“It’s not just the middle- to lower-income people; I think that applies to everyone,” said Bill St. Clair, president of St. Clair Landscaping and Nursery in Hampden. “Let’s face it, people are watching the dollars they spend, and they’re looking to get the most bang for their buck. And I see more people staying home this year, especially since they’re saying gas could hit $5 by midsummer.”
Stephen Roberts, president of Stephen A. Roberts Landscape Architecture & Construction in Springfield, is hearing the same chatter.
“Staycation is the catchphrase — stay at home and enjoy your house; have people over and entertain without the hassles of traveling. It’s huge,” he said. “We’re really focusing on that — creating a nice environment for people at home.”
The stay-at-home trend rivals what the industry saw in the years immediately following 9/11, St. Clair said, but it’s re-emerging for a different reason, namely lingering anxiety over the economy mingled with pain at the pump. These factors, he and others told BusinessWest, are persuading families to reprioritize their extra dollars, putting them toward something more permanent than a week at a resort or on a cruise.
“In the past two years, our industry has been hit as hard as some other industries,” Roberts said, specifically citing the struggles of general contractors and those involved in moving real estate.
“People aren’t purchasing new homes; they’re staying where they are and investing whatever money they have into their homes, for their personal enjoyment,” he continued. “I see that continuing to happen as long as the housing market isn’t doing much. And I see our industry benefiting from people renovating their homes and fixing them up.”

Green Days
When it comes to outdoor spaces, some types of improvements have become especially desirable.
“Outdoor firepits and outdoor, built-in cooking areas are really big,” Roberts said. “Water features are still pretty popular, but people are going more toward urns and sculptural fountains as opposed to fish ponds, just as a way to add quality and the ambience of water without the higher maintenance of a fish pond. Outdoor lights and accent lighting are also gaining momentum with people.”
St. Clair has seen some of the same trends. “We did a good amount of firepits last year,” he said. “In talking to our clients and prospective clients, their outlook was, ‘we’re going to spend more time at home.’ That was helpful to us. People were staying home, and they wanted to fix up their palaces, so to speak. We were doing lots of firepits and water features. We rode that for a good part of the year.”
Brian Campedelli, president of Pioneer Landscapes in Easthampton (see story, page 30), also reports an uptick in homeowners asking for both water and fire features, mingled with hardscapes and different plant materials; he’s also found interest in audio installation outdoors to create additional atmosphere for staycationers.
One growing request, Roberts said, has a back-end economic — and ecological — benefit.
“Rainwater harvesting is another trend that’s hitting our industry. Instead of sending water down the street, you keep it on your property and use it for your irrigation system and general outdoor watering,” he said, noting that other ‘green’ trends are on the rise in landscaping as well.
For instance, some clients, mainly those with larger properties, are converting some portions of their yard to meadows instead of covering every inch with sod or seed. “By making them naturalized areas,” Roberts said, “you reduce the maintenance of the turf; you cut it a couple times a year and add groupings of native shrubs. That reduces rain runoff, and you’re not using as much ferilizer or chemicals.”
The Landscape Management Network blog (lmnblog.com) places such efforts in a general category called ‘ecoscaping,’ which involves making use of green solutions to improve the look of the landscape without sacrificing the health of the environment.
“Some examples of green solutions,” the blog explains, “include rainwater harvesting; a self-contained water feature that recycles the same water; decorative hardscapes, such as more patios, paths, and decks that reduce the need for water and pesticides; retaining walls, which work to reduce runoff; as well as erosion from household chemicals leaking into the yard.”
Roberts said he embraces these trends. “Landscaping makes a huge difference, and it’s up to us to promote these ways of being kinder to our environment.”

Work and Play
While the business of residential landscaping seems to be moving in the right direction, progress on the commercial side has been more sluggish, said Steve Corrigan, president of Mountain View Landscapes and Lawncare in Chicopee, which performs about 90% of its work in the commercial sector.
“We were down last year; we had projects on the books for one to three years prior to that, and once they wrapped up, we didn’t have a lot of projects to fill the bucket,” he told BusinessWest. “If you talk to any of us in the commercial trades, we’re all in the same boat. It’s the same story; competition is so fierce and margins have gotten very low, and it takes more to fill that bucket the way you need to.
“Entering this year, though, I’m cautiously optimistic. We have a bigger backlog than we had in 2010, and I actually have a larger backlog for 2012 projects than 2011 projects,” he added, explaining that landscapers are among the last tradespeople in on a new-construction project, so it might be two years or more between the bid process and actually performing the work.
In the meantime, Corrigan said, “we do some minimal residential design-build work, and we’re seeing a little uptick in that from last year. I’m not worried; I’m optimistic that this year will be better than 2010. But I still think it’ll be even better in a year or two.”
Roberts is anticipating a growth year, too, and St. Clair said 2011 is off to a busy start just based on calls from customers whose landscapes were damaged by the harsh winter, or who have discovered drainage issues. “I think the spring forecast this year is a little bit different than last year due to the winter we had.”
Overall, he said, last year was slightly better than the year before, when the recession was at full force, and he’s encouraged by what he’s hearing this spring from residential customers, even though he knows the industry is not moving at full speed yet.
“People are being cautious with their money because of the economy,” he said. “But you can’t get bored when you’re constantly being challenged. We have work on the books, but it’s been too wet to start. Spring is here, but Mother Nature isn’t letting us out yet. If we can get the weather in our favor, we can get rolling.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Renewing Its Commitment

By
John Musante
Sections Supplements
Landfill Project Makes Amherst a ‘Green’ Leader

John Musante

John Musante says converting an old landfill into a solar-energy project transforms a brownfield liability into an asset for the town.

John Musante is excited about Amherst’s newest ‘green’ initiative.
It involves converting an old landfill into a solar electric-generating facility, which will provide enough power to run every municipal building in town, including the community’s schools, water and wastewater treatment plants, and even its street lights.
Part of the reason the town manager is so enthusiastic is that, three years ago, this wasn’t a viable option due to prohibitive costs. The idea for the project was developed in coordination with Department of Public Works Director Guilford Mooring, but initially didn’t work out.
“In 2008, we put out requests for proposals for the project, but we decided not to award the contract,” Musante said. “At that time, the cost of producing solar power was very expensive to the end user.”
But today, that cost has been reduced, thanks to advances in the industry and government credits designed to fuel the development of renewable energy.
Musante said the old landfill, which is on Route 9 and soon will be covered with rows of gleaming solar panels, has sat empty for 20 years. Using it as the site of a clean, renewable solar-photovoltaic system falls in line with the town and Select Board’s goal to increase the town’s production of renewable energy.
“We saw the landfill as a potential opportunity to transform a brownfield liability into an asset,” said Musante. “It was a trash dump and has been unused open space that we have had to monitor for environmental compliance. There was some talk about using it for recreation years ago, but it never panned out.
“And since the options for re-use were limited, we are really excited about this,” he continued. “In addition to being an environmental winner for the town and region, it is also a major economic incentive, because the taxes generated will be hundreds of thousands of dollars per year over the life of the system. Plus, it helps position the town as a leader in renewable energy.”
The project is also in step with efforts being made at UMass Amherst. “They are a major research university, so having the town of Amherst become a leader in the development of a renewable energy and research application complements their efforts,” Musante said.
BlueWave Capital, LLC of Boston has been selected to develop the facility. It will lease the land and get the benefit of the tax credit. The next steps in the process include the negotiation of a long-term power-purchase agreement between the town, Blue Wave, and Smart Energy Capital, which will fund the project through its solar-financing partnership with Duke Energy Systems and Intergrys Energy Group, which are two of the nation’s largest utility companies. Other details include creating an interconnection agreement with Western Mass. Electric Co. and obtaining state and local environmental permits.
But the project is well on its way to fruition.
“It’s the real deal. This is not a small demonstration project, and we are hoping it will generate at least 4.75 megawatts of electricity,” Musante said. “To go from fossil fuel to having everything fueled by renewable energy is a major leap forward environmentally. We could save as much as $25 million or more over the next 30 years, and we are eliminating the risk associated with volatile and unpredictable future energy prices.”

Lighting the Way
John DeVillars, a managing partner at Blue Wave Capital, told BusinessWest that the towns of Adams, Athol, Taunton, and New Bedford are doing similar projects. “But I can’t think of a better community in the Commonweath than Amherst to partner with to achieve both the financial and environmental benefits of solar power,” he said.
“Amherst has progressive leaders at all levels of society — in businesses, colleges, community organizations, and other institutions,” he continued. “We are very optimistic about forging a partnership with many of these leaders to reduce their electricity cost and environmental impact and establishing a national model for community-wide solar development and use.”
DeVillars formed his company in 2005, and has extensive knowledge in the field. He is the former state Secretary of the Environment and New England administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and also has experience in renewable energy and the redevelopment of brownfields.
His company calls its plan the Blue Wave Model. “It’s a new approach which is focused on community and economic development, while enhancing the town or city’s economic competitiveness and capacity to reduce its carbon footprint,” he said.
DeVillars added that, since the projects are financed through a third party, there is no upfront capital cost for the municipal government or for commercial and residential customers. “BlueWave and its financing partners provide all of the necessary capital and own and operate the solar systems,” he explained. “We sell the electricity back to the city, town, or customer at a cost substantially below other electric costs.”
One part of the program that creates added value is that it provides schools with curriculum tools for use in their classrooms that correlate to the project. They also set up special monitors inside schools, which allow students to see what is happening in terms of energy creation.
“Part of our commitment is to enhance educational programming. By having real-time monitors in the schools, students can see just how much energy the solar panels are creating and using in terms of carbon emissions and energy costs. It’s an interactive system,” DeVillars explained.
Musante provided an example of what the educational program will teach students. “Reducing Amherst’s carbon emissions by more than 6,000 tons per year is the equivalent of removing 1,200 cars from the road,” he said, adding that the educational component was one of the reasons the town selected Blue Wave.
Another benefit is that the project will create work for local companies. Tighe and Bond Inc. of Westfield is part of the Amherst team, which includes Alteris Renewables, New England’s largest solar installer, and TRC Companies Inc. of Lowell, which will lead the project’s engineering efforts.
DeVillars said Blue Wave hires local contractors whenever possible. “We are offering an integrated program and a key part of the mission is local economic and community development,” he said.
The project will also benefit the town’s home and business owners. “The curriculum and real-time monitoring in schools are only the tip of the iceberg,” Musante said. “Blue Wave also has some applications that will increase the use of solar panels in the town’s private and residential sectors. So there is lots of opportunity down the road for expanding solar installations throughout Amherst. We want to be on the cutting edge of that while growing our tax base at the same time.”
This summer or early next fall, Blue Wave will work to identify commercial and residential properties in Amherst where solar energy panels can be installed. “We will offer them the same deal that the town receives, but on a residential level,” DeVillars explained. “We are taking the concept and, in partnership with the city, will reach out to others with the same benefits — third-party financing and no money down.”
The selection process will be based on a number of criteria. But everyone who takes part will benefit. “It’s a giant partnership. But this is the future of our world. So that’s why we are excited as a town.
“We want to be a regional and national leader in renewable energy,” he continued, “and are doing our best to be a leader in saving the planet.”

Energy Fields

By
Manager William Blanchard; and Director of Business Development Carl Frattini
Sections Supplements
WMECO Projects Shine Light on Solar Power’s Potential

Manager William Blanchard; and Director of Business Development Carl Frattini

From left, WMECO President and CEO Peter J. Clarke;Project Manager William Blanchard; and Director of Business Development Carl Frattini stand in the field of solar panels at the company’s Silver Lake solar-power facility in Pittsfield.

On the heels of its first large solar-power installation in Pittsfield, built on land once owned by GE, Western Mass. Electric Co. is ready to build an even-larger facility on the site of a capped landfill on Cottage Street in Springfield. The projects are breaking new ground in terms of the size, scope, and cost-effectiveness of solar power, while also putting brownfield sites to new and productive uses.

Last fall, Western Mass. Electric Co. embarked upon a difficult and ambitious project.
In October, the Springfield-based utility completed the largest solar-energy facility in New England at the William Stanley Business Park on Silver Lake Boulevard in Pittsfield. The photovoltaic system contains 6,500 low-profile solar panels and produces 1.8 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 300 homes. And in January, the company announced plans to build an even larger solar-energy facility on a capped landfill on Cottage Street in Springfield. When it is complete, it will contain more than 15,000 panels that will produce up to 4.2 megawatts of solar energy, or enough to power about 700 homes.
Several objectives led WMECO to this huge undertaking, including the question of economy of scale. Not only did the company want to be a leader in the utility industry in terms of solar power, it also wanted to discover whether large installations would prove more cost-effective to build than smaller ones.
“Solar power is one of the more expensive types of green technology,” said Carl Frattini, director of business development for Northeast Utilities. “The price is declining quickly, but it costs considerably more than wind power. It is so new that it has been a riddle to solve how to make it less expensive for the customer. Our bet with these projects was that we could build them for less than in the past. We also wanted to act as a catalyst to the development of solar infrastructure because we are trying to help develop the market. We are very pleased with the progress that has been made.”
The construction of both of WMECO’s solar power facilities has involved a multitude of environmental, business, energy, and technical challenges. “We have developed a new type of project in an area where there was very little activity,” said Frattini. “We did it with a considerable amount of collaboration with the solar industry, the state’s indigeneous technical resources, the administrations and local communities.
“The only way these projects can happen is through an aligning of interests,” he continued. “It is exciting work and really gratifying to see it come together.”
The new project in Springfield will bring $22 million in construction work to the region and is expected to contribute several hundred thousand dollars in annual property-tax revenue to the city.
In this issue, BusinessWest looks at the challenges these projects presented and the impact they will have on future solar installations.

Powerful Arguments
WMECO’s decision to build a large solar-energy facility was groundbreaking, and the first time a project of this size had been built in New England.
“By 2009, 1,200 solar projects had been built in the state. But the majority of them were residential roof-mounted installations or consumer-based systems. There were only 11 on a larger scale and nothing in the utility class,” Frattini said.
WMECO decided to take on the challenge due to a 2008 state initiative.
“Gov. Deval Patrick set a goal of having 250 megawatts of solar power installed by 2017; it is a formidable objective,” Frattini said, explaining that, at the time, the entire country only had 475 megawatts of solar power. The bulk of that was in California, and Massachusetts was producing less than 10 megawatts of solar power.
“The state had a very ambitious agenda for renewable energy. But to help it achieve the goal, the Legislature passed the Green Communities Act, which put policies and mechanisms in place to help with the transition,” Frattini said.
One new provision allowed electric utilities to own up to 50 megawatts of solar generation. Prior to that, they could purchase solar power, but were not allowed to produce it. And in the past, incentives had always been targeted toward small, residential, roof-mounted systems.
The Green Communities Act provided new incentives, tax credits, and zoning provisions for all types of solar-power development.
“Solar is a very expensive renewable technology which is not cost-competitive, so it has to be subsidized,” Frattini explained. “But there was nothing in the utility class, and we figured we could add value by going in where no one had gone before.”
He explained that, since the cost of research and development is built into electric rates, it is utilities’ responsibility to do what they can to reduce their customers’ bills. “So if we can figure out how to lower the cost of solar projects, we will need less in subsidies, which will reduce the burden on our customers,” he said.
In August 2009, WMECO became the first utility in New England to receive approval from the Department of Public Utilities to build solar-energy facilities in the region.
Initially, it began looking at doing rooftop installations on a variety of sites. But as company officials continued to explore options, using remediated brownfield property made more sense.
“The state has more than 490 landfills with 5,000 acres of site potential whose uses are very limited,” Frattini said. And since building a solar-energy facility requires a lot of open space, the company realized it could build large projects that were less expensive on remediated landfills.
The Pittsfield property, which is now owned by WMECO and the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority, seemed like the perfect fit for their needs. The eight-acre site was once owned by General Electric.
The project became a collaborative effort as the Berkshire Economic Development Corp. worked with the city of Pittsfield, WMECO, and the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority to secure the project for Pittsfield.
After obtaining permits and financing to move forward, WMECO put out requests for proposals to the solar industy. “We wanted to use indigenous resources. A lot of the solar equipment wasn’t made in Massachusetts, but we had the technical services already here,” Frattini said, referring to construction equipment, electricians, civil engineering, and legal services.
The utility also wanted to inspire solar firms to develop a new infrastructure. Its work has paid off, and the $9.4 million Silver Lake facility, which was completed last November, proved that large-scale solar projects were less expensive to develop than small projects.
The cost to produce 1.8 kilowatts in the new solar-energy facility was $5,200, said Frattini, adding, “if you build solar into a house, the cost is $6,000 to $8,000 per kilowatt.”
And solar development is continuing.
“In the past year there was more development in Massachusetts than in the total three years before as a result of the new energy policy,” Frattini said. He added that National Grid has two solar projects underway in the eastern part of the state that will produce a total of 5 megawatts of electric power.
“Since we built Pittsfield, we have seen an influx of projects such as these and the one in Amherst,” he said (see related story, page 23).
After completing the Pittsfield project, the question remained as to whether an even larger facility would be even more cost-effective. So, WMECO decided to build again in Springfield. “We are trying to verify if economies of scale are achievable and make the projects worth doing,” Frattini said.
WMECO began looking at the capped Springfield 60-acre landfill in June. And by fall, it decided to move forward. Company leaders were pleased to discover that the solar industry had made advances after the Pittsfield project.
“We were very pleased with the progress we saw in the requests for proposals that were submitted, not just in terms of cost but in their level of preparedness,” said Frattini. “We were trying to help develop the market, and they all came in with viable, actionable proposals. The day we signed the contract, they were ready to go.”

Watt’s Happening?
WMECO is currently in the final stages of formalizing the project, and expects to begin work in April and have the solar facility finished by November. Frattini said it will provide jobs for about 120 union workers.
“It is exciting, and we are verifying our original theory that larger projects can be done in a cost-efficient way. Once it is built, there will be very little maintenance over its 25-year lifetime because there are no moving parts and no fuel costs.
“The excitement is to go where no one else has gone, and do it in a way that resolves a lot of environmental, technical, and business challenges with a variety of stakeholders,” he continued. “In the end, this benefits the community, the people who work in it, the state as a whole, and our customers.”

Not Just Business as Usual

By
njbau
Sections Supplements
Event Will Honor Companies that Have Evolved and Persevered

njbauMike Oleksak was talking about all the changes that have taken place within this region and its business community over the past 10 years, and how they can make one pause and reflect, not only on what’s taken place, but what is likely to happen next.
And in a nutshell, this is the unofficial purpose, and theme, of an event called Not Just Business as Usual, slated for April 26 at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House. It comes as Springfield Technical Community College’s annual fund-raiser in support of the school’s foundation and entrepreneurship programs — centered around the Western Mass. Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame — enters its second decade. And, thus, it is an appropriate occasion for looking back and ahead, while also honoring two companies that are in that hall of fame — Balise Motor Sales and Smith & Wesson — that embody the perseverance and willingness to change needed to survive and thrive today, said Oleksak, executive vice president of Commercial Banking at Berkshire Bank.
“These are companies that have not simply responded to changes in the marketplace and evolved to become more competitive in a more global economy,” said Oleksak, “but they’ve expanded, assuming large amounts of risk in the process, while adding jobs and a measure of momentum to our economy.”
Recognizing these accomplishments will be one of many highlights of the evening, said Oleksak, noting that keynote speaker Al Verrecchia, chairman of the board at Hasbro and former president and CEO of the company, will have some insightful thoughts on business, the seemingly constant state of change, and how to thrive in this environment.
But the spotlight will also be put on Balise and Smith & Wesson, two inspiring stories for the region, said Oleksak, not merely because of these companies’ success in their sectors, but also for their leadership when it comes to giving back to the community.
“There are a number of companies that have weathered storms and done well, altering their business model and adapting to change in the process,” he explained. “What we wanted to do with this event is take a hard look at two companies that have done that while also giving back.”
Elaborating, he said that Balise has built several new dealerships over the past several years in Western Mass. and also in Rhode Island, while donating money, time, and energy to a number of regional programs, especially those involving education. Meanwhile, Smith & Wesson, another contributor to education-related programs, especially those involving the manufacturing sector, has expanded and diversified its operations, while recently announcing plans for moving one of its divisions, its hunting-rifle operation, to its Roosevelt Avenue complex, adding 225 jobs in the process.
Tickets for Not Just Business as Usual are $175 each, with tables of 10 available for $1,500. More than 300 tickets and several sponsorships have already been sold, said Oleksak.
To see more information about the event, visit www.notjustbusinessasusual.net

Fast Facts

What: Not Just Business as Usual
When: April 26
Where: The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House
Honorees: Balise Motor Sales and Smith & Wesson
Keynote Speaker: Al Verrecchia, chairman of the board and former president and CEO, Hasbro Inc.
For More information: Visit
www.notjustbusinessasusual.net

Doing Business In: Berkshire County

By
Michael Supranowicz
Features
The ‘City in the Country’ Is Turning Some Heads

Michael Supranowicz

Michael Supranowicz says the Berkshires offer quality of life, good schools and colleges, and plenty to do after work, among other draws.

Michael Supranowicz says the business community in the Berkshires is vibrant and alive.
“Pittsfield had a $21 million increase in retail sales from 2008 to 2009. It was one of only three cities in the state with an increase, so we know we are attracting people and something is happening here,” said the president and CEO of the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce.
The region contains about 30 towns and cities, with commercial hubs in Pittsfield, Lee, and Great Barrington. These communities boast residential and business space that is lower in cost than other, larger cities in the Northeast, said Supranowicz, with plenty of opportunity for growth.
Deanna Ruffer, Pittsfield’s community development director, agreed. “We are the city in the country. That characterizes not only what we offer businesses but what we have for all those who come here as a destination for health care, legal activities, shopping, and more.”
During the past five years, Pittsfield, which is a short distance from the Mass Turnpike, has concentrated its efforts on becoming a cultural and entertainment destination.
The historic Colonial Theater reopened about five years ago after a comprehensive restoration, and the Barrington Stage Company moved to Pittsfield from Great Barrington, investing millions into renovating an old theater. The two attractions draw at least 100,000 people a year, Ruffer said. In addition, a six-screen movie theater opened a year ago behind the façade of a historic building.
“We have it all and are known to be very pro-business. Recently, the mayor approached the vice president of General Dynamics and helped them get a Navy contract which will create 500 new jobs,” she said.
There is land available for development in existing buildings as well in the 52-acre William Stanley Business Park, a remediated brownfield site that sits a quarter-mile from downtown. The chamber offers a site locator on its Web page that shows the diversity of properties and buildings available.
“Mayor James Ruberto set a vision for this community to become the best small city in New England, and we are well along the way to accomplishing that,” said Ruffer. “We really have something to offer everyone, and this is a great place to live, work, and play.”

Middle Ground
Richard Vinnette, executive director of the Community Development Corp. in the centrally located town of Lee, calls it “the gateway to the Berkshires.”
Located off Route 2 and boasting a single tax rate, the area has a rich concentration of art, recreation, and cultural venues. “We are right in the middle of what is the quintessential Berkshires. Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow are only minutes away, and we are well-positioned to accommodate innovative companies,” he said. “It is a great place to live and do business, and those who do live and work here know that there is no place like the Berkshires.”
There are a number of economic opportunities in Lee with state incentives available to relocate or expand businesses there. Greylock Mill, situated two miles from I-90, is offering both a 17-acre parcel and a 28-acre lot with rail service. Quarry Hill Business Park has a number of lots sized from two to eight acres, while Laurel Mill, which has a building on 15 acres, is also available, as is another six-acre parcel for sale or lease.
“There are a number of real-estate opportunities available to developers; we have a 200-year tradition of skilled manufacturing and innovation that continues today, and we are well-positioned to accommodate innovative companies,” Vinnette said, adding that businesses such as Country Curtains, Boyd Technologies, and Onyx Specialty Papers Inc. have evolved over the years and offer new businesses the chance to form synergestic partnerships.
“We also have wonderful restaurants and shops downtown, plus the 60 brand- name shops at Premium Outlets provide retail diversions,” Vinnette said, explaining that tourists who come to Lee to shop often explore its walking downtown, which “also has a great array of retail shops and restaurants.”
The Community Development Corp. and a private developer recently worked together to create a viable business plan in the downtown area. The CDC is building a 61-car parking lot near the historic Baird-Benton building, while the developer, whose business addresses the needs of college-age students with Asperger’s syndrome, is doing a $3 million renovation to convert the top two floors of the building into office and classroom space for students with special needs.

Southern Exposure
Great Barrington is nestled in the southwestern corner of the state, and its 46 acres are bordered by Connecticut and New York. It is the commercial and cultural hub of the Southern Berkshires and its eight contiguous towns.
Proponents say it has everything that a large city offers, but on a smaller scale, with close to 50 gourmet restaurants, a diverse number of small businesses, the county courthouse, a small hospital, and a large second-home market. The region, with its two ski areas, fall foliage, hiking trails, fishing, and more, attracts a continuous influx of tourists which double its population year-round.
“We have a walking downtown and are a quintessential New England village with a variety of businesses. There are also some tremendous businesses in the area with an international reach,” said Christine Ludwiszewski, chief executive officer of the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, citing examples that include Sheffield Plastics, Fairview Hospital, and Jane Iredale mineral cosmetics.
“But there are also many small new businesses that have opened recently, including the Magic Fluke, which relocated here on Jan. 1 from New Hartford, Conn. We have a new clothing shop opening on Main Street and a new restaurant, Fiori, on Railroad Street,” she continued. “Our downtown, which is very walkable, has two hardware stores, a half-dozen restaurants, a number of women’s clothing stores, and specialty shops such as a Swedish furniture store. There are also at least three art galleries downtown, so Great Barrington is a great tourist destination and an exciting place to live and shop. We get visitors from Hartford, Albany, New York City, and around the world.”
Great Barrington is also known as a cultural mecca. The historic Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center has undergone $8 million in renovations in recent years and offers concerts, lectures, and films, as well as Broadway plays. “They open here before they go to Broadway; we also have a castle in the middle of town that has been converted to a private school,” Ludwiszewski said.
And although Pittsfield is becoming a haven for artists and culture, “we definitely have a different ambiance, with well-established art galleries, films, and theater,” Ludwiszewski said. Antique shops in the area also bring in many tourists, and since Route 7 is the main downtown throughfare, businesses in that location see a lot of traffic.
The town also has a number of redevelopment projects underway which will provide new office, gallery, and/or loft space for businesses. The former St. James Episcopal Church is being refurbished, and the owner hopes to use it as a wedding and/or music venue. The purchase of the old firehouse was recently approved, and will have space for a café as well as classroom space for students studying culinary arts and woodworking.
Two former schools, which sit on the same piece of downtown property, are also undergoing renovation. Iredale Cosmetics is converting one into office space for its own use, while the other will be transformed into private residences, retail, and office space.
Nearby towns are home to vibrant businesses, and opportunity exists there, Ludwiszewski said. Egremont’s thriving retail shops include a high-end ski clothing store, an antique lighting store, and an Asian antique shop.
“The quality of life is peaceful in the Berkshires,” she continued. “We are surrounded by beautiful scenery, we have excellent schools and health care, and businesses rely on each other to prosper.”
Supranowicz agrees. “When people talk about relocating their business, they want to know what there is for employees to do after work, and we have so many established cultural attractions,” he said. “Plus, there is just such an attractive quality of life here. We have colleges that offer training opportunities so businesses can change as quickly as their customers and a huge second-home market in South County which provides another layer of customers who spend a lot of time and dollars here.
“There is a mix of business in every community,” he concluded. “A lot is happening here.”

Editorial

By
Opinion
Time to Pull the Plug on NPR

While it may seem outwardly risky to support one’s argument with statements made by Ron Schiller — this is, after all, the man who described Tea Party members as “not just Islamaphobic, but xenophobic … seriously racist people” — we’re going to do it anyway.
While it was Schiller, National Public Radio’s now former senior vice president for development (he was abruptly fired for those comments and others exposed in a hidden video sting) who said NPR “would be better off in the long run without federal funding,” he’s certainly not the only one saying such things. And we agree wholeheartedly.
The rhetoric is picking up as the public broadcasting industry wages an all out, almost desperate, campaign to save its federal allowance, which amounts to about $430 million a year for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), of which NPR receives about $5 million. Schiller and others say that NPR can easily survive without the federal dollars. More to the point, it should.
Why? There are a host of reasons, not the least of which is paring the federal deficit, and there are myriad ways to allocate precious funds more responsibly than handing them over to those running public broadcasting facilities and earning six-figure salaries to boot. But those aren’t the best reasons.
Simply put, when government subsidizes the media, any media, it also exercises a measure of control, or influence, over that media, which is something Americans don’t want and don’t need. Over the years, NPR, and local public broadcasting in general, has become a haven for left-wing radical ideologues spewing out anti-business rhetoric.
Without public funding, NPR could operate, theoretically at least, without politics always being the elephant in the room. Looking at things another way, it wouldn’t have to spend time, money, and political capital every year to save its budget.
From our view, NPR, and public broadcasting as a whole, would be better off — much better off — without its public subsidies, but no one in that industry (save for Ron Shiller) will say that out loud.
Call it tough love if you will, but Congress has to cut public broadcasting loose and let it try to survive without its security blanket, our tax dollars. And it will survive, and do just fine, without federal money — and the scrutiny and cynicism that comes along with it.
And as for public television, people should be upset about facilities like Boston’s WGBH’s headquarters, an $85 million multi-media palace dubbed the “Taj Majal,” and the dozen people inside making more than $200,000 a year. Should our tax dollars be subsidizing these edifices of government-funded excesses? We think not.
To go back to where we started, Schiller is right on the money — not about Tea Party members, but about public broadcasting. It would be better off not being on the dole, and so would the people who watch and listen to it.
Will government cut the cord? We hope so.

Material World

By
Adam Ondrick
Sections Supplements
The Ondrick Group Takes It ONE Step at a Time

Adam Ondrick

Adam Ondrick says it’s important in the construction industry to figure out where the market is moving next.


If you’ve been in the construction business for almost 75 years, chances are you’ve made some good decisions along the way.
Adam Ondrick is the latest generation to lead the company that bears his grandfather’s name, the Ted Ondrick Co., and he said that one way to move forward in this industry is by figuring out where the market is heading next.
Ted Ondrick started the firm back in 1937, when the operation consisted of a tractor to create gardens and a horse and scoop loader to dig foundations. Mechanization was the next step, and with more machinery meant more jobs — Adam said that his father, Tadj, joined Ted in the business around this time, and the pair was taking on more utility work.
“When my dad entered the business,” he continued, “they were building sewer systems — larger infrastructure-type projects. But it was my father who started the company in the materials and environmental side of the business.”
He said this while driving around the extensive Ondrick yards off Fuller Road in Chicopee, and from this vantage point, it’s easy to see how construction material is still the biggest facet to this family operation. With a large asphalt-manufacturing plant and environmentally-sound remediation for contaminated construction and landscape debris, the Ondrick Group is one of the area’s leaders for building materials.
But, like the generations before him that saw the necessity of keeping ahead in the industry by broadening the scope of the business and adding diversity, Ondrick is focused on the future as well as the present. And he told BusinessWest how the newest component to what may soon be called Ondrick Materials Group is all about the next big thing.
The latest business venture is called Ondrick Natural Earth (ONE), and when the family members opened the doors to this showroom and material yard across the street from the larger offices almost five years ago, they knew that the time had come to do more business by expanding both what they sell, and to whom they sell it.
He called this a “vertical integration” of construction materials, “so that we can provide material to any type of project, and fit the needs of any type of client.
“Before we opened up ONE, we were serving larger customers,” he continued, “and we had to turn away a lot people, homeowners, masons, small contractors, and landscapers. We didn’t have the venue to facilitate working with them. Now we do.”

Rock and Roll
“In my grandfather’s time, we were primarily focused on construction; he really built the business on that,” Ondrick said. “My father ushered in the era of materials and construction.”
In that time, he elaborated, the business didn’t become the largest construction or commercial-materials firm, but large enough to handle some pretty big jobs.
“Rock crushing at Gillette Stadium, runways at Westover, that’s just some of things we’ve been involved in,” he explained. “Over the years, my dad did runways for about eight different airports. We have been doing roadways across New England for decades.”
But, he continued, the business has changed over time.
“Over the years, we had to evaluate what our company was made of,” he explained. “We realized that there’s a lot of competition out there in the construction business. Not that we don’t have a lot of competition for the materials business, but not everyone has the facility and permits to operate, or manufacture asphalt, or to recycle contaminated soil, buildings, and property to facilitate the manufacture of materials.”
The primary components of the Ondrick business are still asphalt and material construction, and material remediation. These operations dominate the back landscape at the yards in Chicopee.
But Ondrick explained how his grandfather’s approach gives the business a competitive advantage, using proprietary methods in material production.
“We crush concrete and asphalt and make hard pack, which is then used in roadway construction,” is how he explained one process. “We’re recycling construction debris and reusing it instead of using product from a quarry. It’s very popular in urban areas, not so much in rural areas, but in urban situations where there aren’t as many landfills, and hauling debris is more of a necessity.
“And with the remediation of the petroleum-impacted soil,” he continued, “we put the soil through a proprietary process where we encapsulate the hydrocarbons and make a reusable, non-leaching product. My father was at the forefront of that industry back in the 1980s. It has stood the test of time, that business. It still goes strong today.”

Material Witness
When the company officially celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2012, Adam Ondrick said one of his big plans as president of the company will be in name only.
“Probably at that time I’m going to rebrand,” he said, “perhaps to the Ondrick Materials Group, to show the different extensions and the scope of the business.”
That newest addition to the Ondrick portfolio, ONE, officially started five years ago, but Adam said the venture was a few years on the drawing board.
“In driving around New England, we had a lot of exposure to different companies that had diversified their holdings,” he explained. “But we noticed, in our area, a lack of a true landscape-product supply yard. There were many older models of how to do business in that field, where people would take a masonry yard and adapt it, or a nursery, greenhouse type environment would have a small selection of hard goods. We noticed in the Boston and Connecticut markets that yards were popping up where all they sold were hardscape materials — stone, concrete pavers, concrete retaining-wall block.”
The property across the street from the company’s headquarters was coming on the market, and the Ondricks knew that the time had come for that business model they had seen elsewhere to come a little closer to home.
Fast-forwarding to the opening of the Ondrick Natural Earth showroom and sales yard, with materials ranging from bluestone to mulch to engineered concrete-building materials, the company president said that everything they had always wanted to offer their customer base was finally all on one property contiguous to the Ted Ondrick facility. Everything was falling into place … except the economy.
“I had a lot of people coming up to me saying, ‘you picked the worst time to be getting into business,’” Ondrick joked.
“At first I was kind of discouraged about that,” he continued, “but, really, it had taken us three years to get that division of the company on its feet. It took a long time in permitting, in negotiating the property purchase, getting it renovated. Getting into business when we did, it made us take a look at everything we did and really analyze it, because we couldn’t afford to make a mistake.”
ONE is a reinvention of the original firm’s founding, he said, and in keeping with the generations before him who helped the company evolve to what it has become, this new venture keeps the Ondrick legacy relevant, and ahead of current market trends.
The backyard do-it-yourself ethos has gained ground in the tough economy, and Ondrick said that reaching out to that demographic, as well as to smaller contractors, is a way to keep building the business.
“And we’ve been able to grow about 25% every year even through the down economy,” he said.
Prior to ONE, the Ondrick name was most likely seen on large commercial or state construction projects. “But we’ve fashioned our business model at ONE to attract homeowners into our store. There, they can learn about the product we’re selling and get educated by our staff with information on the products that we offer.”
At the beginning, he thought that natural stone materials — granite, bluestone, Goshen stone — would be the bulk of what people would want to use. “We were totally wrong about that,” he said, smiling. The wave of the future for homeowners, he explained, is in concrete-based products.
“People think of a concrete patio,” he said, “and the old model was a poured slab that over time cracks and heaves. With the new paver technology, you can install a patio that will last a lifetime. And if you need it to be free draining, there are permeable pavers where the water drains right through to an underground area. You avoid runoff on your property and have lifelong longevity.”
These materials aren’t just relegated to the DIY crowd, either.
“The DEP and EPA put increasing stormwater mandates into developing,” Ondrick explained, “and developers are looking for ways to control that storm water on their properties. The new generation of concrete pavers will help them with that problem.”
While the initial cost may be higher at this time, he said that the future of infrastructure construction will need to meet those tighter guidelines, and the products are going to address those constraints.
EZ Street cold asphalt is another product that he sees revolutionizing the industry, and the company is the local manufacturer and distributor, an introduction to the Ondrick portfolio made by his vice president and brother, Todd. “The process that we use to make EZ Street is contained in a safe environment,” he said. The product is also bagged for smaller applications, and the demand for this material has had the business sending it as far afield as JFK Airport, and even Ireland.
Unlike traditional hot-asphalt installation, or cold patch, “with EZ Street there’s never any diesel that comes in contact with the ground. There’s also a hybrid mix that we make which utilizes some recycled materials. Cities and towns that are looking for a green product, we have it.”
And that’s the message he wants the region to know — when it comes to hardscape products of all types, ONE will have it.

Paving the Way
Where the generations before him saw new ways to expand in construction, the latest Ondrick to head the family business says that ONE is the latest means to stay on top of the industry. “We definitely see a lot of growth with ONE,” he said. “There is potential out there that we haven’t captured yet.
“We don’t look at ONE as opening a new business,” he continued. “It’s more a continuation of what we already do.”
With his father still clocking in every day, the latest generation looks to the future grounded in the strength of its past. “My dad is still very active here, for which we are all thankful. He has so many years of industry experience, having ridden the ups and downs over the years — he’s a great resource to have.”
And, like any project that promises good results, Ondrick knows how important it is to have the best materials to work with.

Center of Attention

By
Ken Vincunas
Commercial Real Estate Sections
Northampton Project Moves Off the Drawing Board

Northampton/I-91 Professional Center

Northampton/I-91 Professional Center

Development Associates, which has a portfolio boasting 1.5 million square feet of office and mixed-use facilities across Western Mass. and Connecticut, is adding a new facility to its product mix — a Class A office facility to be known as the Northampton/I-91 Professional Center. And as the name suggests, it promises access and a host of amenities.

Ken Vincunas says that considerable time and energy were devoted to coming up with a name for his company’s latest commercial real-estate endeavor.
And he considers it all very well spent.
Indeed, he believes ‘Northampton/I-91 Professional Center’ effectively conveys not only where his next project will take shape, but what it will become.
The two-building, 80,000-square-foot Class A office complex will be located in Paradise City and, more specifically, just off exit 18 off I-91, adjacent to the Clarion Inn and Conference Center, where it will be quite visible from the highway. Meanwhile, it is a facility being designed for professionals, and while the health care sector is certainly one target, he believes individuals and firms across several sectors will be attracted to this site’s combination of access and amenities.
And in time, the site will become a center of business activity, he predicts, noting that the location makes the complex accessible to points well north and south of that I-91 off ramp, and thus perfect for professionals that do business across the region.
“In the end, everyone involved thought this name captured the fact that it was in Northampton and on the highway, which are the two biggest features,” said Vincunas, president of Agawam-based Development Associates Inc., which is spearheading the project for the owner of the Clarion complex, Atwood Drive, LLC, which has assembled the needed acreage over the past several years. “There were options, incorporating phrases like ‘Mountain View,’ that were a little more touchy-feely, but we wanted to emphasize our strengths and what sets this project apart.”
He described his company’s latest venture as a ‘partial-spec project,’ meaning that work will not commence until commitments have been received for probably 60% to 70% of the available square footage. But there is some risk involved, he continued, adding that there are still some question marks concerning when and to what degree the economy will turn around in the months to come.
The professional center is the first undertaking by Development Associates in Northampton, and is the latest in a series of office and mixed-use ventures across Western Mass. The portfolio, which totals 1.5 million square feet in facilities stretching from New Haven to Greenfield, currently includes the 31,000-square-foot Agawam Crossing professional building, the 85,000-square-foot North American headquarters for Convergent Lasers in the Chicopee River Business Park, the 190,000-square-foot Greenfield Corporate Center, the headquarters for Seahorse Bioscience in Chicopee, and dozens of other single- and multi-tenant facilities.
Vincunas believes this will be a worthy addition to that portfolio and, more importantly, an economic driver for the Northampton area and the region as a whole.

Paradise Found?

Ken Vincunas

Ken Vincunas says that, in addition to location, his project would seem to have timing in its favor.

As he talked with BusinessWest about the Northampton/I-91 Professional Center, Vincunas said be believes this endeavor, the first Class A project to be built in Northampton in several years, has more going for it than an effective name and an attractive location.
Indeed, he’s also of the opinion that the timing is good, especially with regard to the laws of supply and demand. Elaborating, he said that, while the economy is still very much in recovery mode, there are certainly signs of progress and higher confidence on the part of business owners, including those in the health care sector.
“If we get the pre-leasing in place and get started soon, the timing could be perfect,” he said, citing what he considers a good amount of pent-up demand for such facilities within the health care sector and other professional groups. “We’d definitely be ahead of the curve because there’s not a lot of things being proposed for this kind of use.
“In the Northampton office market, while there is space,” he continued, “it’s mostly in the downtown where it’s hard to find parking and it can be challenging getting in and out of the center of town, traffic-wise. This gives people with a regional perspective a location that they can get to from all quarters very quickly. You can draw from all areas. You don’t have to be just a local office; you can be a regional office.”
Meanwhile, many of the office projects created for the health care market, such as a series of developments on Wasson Avenue in the North End of Springfield, near Baystate Health, are at or near capacity, said Vincunas, as are many of the rehabbed former mill buildings in Northampton, Florence, and Easthampton. And as the medical sector, one of the mainstays of the local economy, continues to grow, Class A space will be in demand.
The professional center has been on the drawing board for roughly two years ago, or since Atwood Drive LLC completed the task of acquiring additional adjacent parcels, including a former Mobil gas station and a small auto-repair venture, and assembling a parcel totaling just over four acres.
The timing certainly wasn’t as appropriate then, he noted, referring to both the economy as a whole and the fact that two major potential players, Baystate Health and Cooley Dickinson Hospital, were involved with other initiatives. Also, the project had not gone through the involved permitting process in Northampton, he continued, adding that the cart was essentially put before the horse.
“This time, we received the permitting first, so we know what we can offer,” he said, “and we know we can build it as soon as we’re ready.”
The center will consist of two buildings, one with 39,000 square feet of leasible space, and the other with 43,000 square feet. Full floors are approximately 12,000 square feet, and spaces as small as 1,000 square feet will be available.
The exterior of the buildings features a high proportion of glass, complemented by natural brick and EFIS (exterior insulation and finishing system) effects, said Vincunas, adding that the major entrances of the buildings feature a two-story glass lobby. Meanwhile, green materials and high-efficiency mechanical systems will be implemented throughout the project to reduce energy and improve overall quality.
Vincunas said marketing of the professional center has begun in earnest, and initial interest is solid and crosses several industry sectors. Pricing is currently being finalized on the shell and interior spaces, he continued, adding that these numbers will contribute to lease rates, which have not yet been determined.

Space Exploration
While Vincunas exudes confidence while discussing his latest endeavor, he noted that there are still many variables when it comes to the economy and its ongoing rebound, and that time will tell just how much demand there will be for this new supply of Class A space.
At this moment, though, he believes he has the right product in the right place at the right time.
And the name is pretty good, too.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Incorporations

By
Departments Incorporations

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

AMHERST

Armstrong Educational Associates Inc., 7 Pomeroy Lane, Suite 5, Amherst, MA 01002. Stephen Armstrong, 113 Huntington Road, Hadley, MA 01036. Student tutorial services.

F40PH Preservation Society Inc., 130 Blackberry Lane, Amherst, MA 01002. Rowan Christopher De La Barre, same. Preservation, education.

CHESTER

Functional Art Inc., 7 Prospect St., Chester, MA 01011. Michele Klemaszewski, 33 Maple Ave., Chester, MA 01011. Manufacture and sales of window treatments.

CHICOPEE

733 Chicopee Street Inc., 733 Chicopee St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Timothy J Driscoll, 22 Scott Hollow Road, Hollow, MA 01040. Restaurant, bar, real estate.

Desmarais Plumbing & Heating Inc., 318 Springfield St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Robert E. Desmarais, same. Plumbing and heating.

Dynamic Network Solutions Inc., 31 Loveland Terrace, Chicopee, MA 01020. Michael Thomas Malley, same. Computer consultants.

EAST LONGMEADOW

Emporium Newsstand Inc., 444 North Main St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Rakeshkumar Patel, 2 Stadler St., Belchertown, MA 01007. Newsstand and smoke shop.

Chicopee Salty Dog Inc., 12 Chatham Circle, East Longmeadow, MA 01028. Michael Buehrie, same. Bar.

FLORENCE

Franklin-Hampshire Counties VFW District 13, Department of Massachusetts Home Association Inc., 18 Meadows St., Florence, MA 01062. Joseph P. Grabon, 246 Chestnut St., Turner Falls, MA 01376. Fraternal, patriotic, historical, and educational comradeship for members.

Earth First Flooring Inc., 131 Main St., Florence, MA 01062. John K. Asselin, 56 West Pelham Road, Shutesbury, MA 01072. Flooring sales and installation.

GRANBY

Diamond Cut Straight Edge Inc., 547 Amherst Road, Granby, MA 01033. Tyler E. Scheinost, same. Retail Internet sales.

GREENFIELD

Five Fifty-Five LTD., 174 Conway St., Greenfield, MA 01301. Quillon Xylor Swane, same. Create and sell artwork.

HADLEY

Hadley Auto Express Inc., 210 Russell St. #212, Hadley, MA 01035. Amir Mikhchi, 18 Foxglove Lane, Amherst, MA 01002. Motor vehicle repair.

Flying Object Center for Independent Publishing, Art, & The Book, Inc., 42 West Str., Hadley, MA 01035. Emily Pettit, 104 South St., Apt. 2R, Northampton, MA 01060. Artistic and literary development and education to promote literacy, professional development in the arts, and to establish programs, workshops, forums, trainings, and public performances relevant to independent publishing, printing, art, and design.

HAMPDEN

Hampden Bagel Nook Inc., 34 Somers Road, Hampden, MA 01036. Samir Ahmad, 14 Rideway Road, Hampden, MA 01036. Sandwich and breakfast shop.

Graduate Pest Solutions Inc., 79 Martin Farms Road, Hampden, MA 01036. Brenda D. Olesuk, same. Pest control and extermination.

HOLYOKE

Alois Importing Co. Inc., 108 Cabot St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Aloyce C. Assenga, 71 Craig Dr., West Springfield, MA 01089. Importing of goods.

AW&T Auto Wholesale & Transport Inc., 395 Maple St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Oussama M. Awkal, 46 Ogden St., Springfield, MA 01151. Used auto sales and transport.

LENOX

Dunbar & Associates Inc., 188 East Dugway Road, Lenox, MA 01240. Stuart M. Dunbar, same. Create, sell, and promote computer development, system development, business analysis and software implementation.

LONGMEADOW

D&D Industries Corp., 95 Dunsany Dr., Longmeadow, MA 01106. Brian John Danahey, same. Wholesale — adhesive products.

LUDLOW

East Street Deli Inc., 223 East St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Eric S. Boyer, 56 Cote Road, Monson, MA 01057. Deli restaurant with takeout and catering.

Dacruz Inc., 167 Center St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Rosa M. Dacruz, same. Real estate management.

NORTHAMPTON

Center for Biography and Social Art, Inc., 41 Hubbard Ave., Northampton, MA 01060. Signe Schaefer, 15 Hillside Ave., Great Barrington, MA 01230. Provide courses of instruction, public workshops, lectures and discussion groups on building community, human development, life phases, gender and to support research on life themes through conferences, publications, and Web sites.

NORTH ADAMS

Donna Thomas Realty Inc., 71 Quincy St., North Adams, MA 01247. Donna M. Thomas, same. Real estate broker.

PITTSFIELD

Alchemy Initiative Inc., 50 Melville St., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Jessica Conzo, same. Charitable, educational and literary.

Daddyo’s Inc., 511 East St., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Lydia R. Kuzia, same. Restaurant.

Dolce Dental, P.C., 100 Wendall Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Nieca J. Faggiloi DMD, same. The practice of dentistry.

Enlightning Strikes Inc., 34 Kathy Way, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Donna M. Yerkes, same. Own and operate a liquor store.

Gemi Management Company Inc., 130 Pittsfield-Lenox Road, P.O. Box 3029, Pittsfield, MA 01201. George L. Haddad, 150 Blythwodo Dr., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Automobile dealerships.

SOUTH HADLEY

Allen Media Inc., 21 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075. David Allen, same. Marketing, consulting, and advertising.

SPRINGFIELD

AK Wireless Inc., 455 Sumner Ave., Springfield, MA 01108. Ho J Han, 9 Kimbell CT. #811, Burlington, MA 01803. Retail wireless store.

All Waste Trash Management Inc., 181 Chestnut St., Springfield, MA 01103. Richard Barnes, 1187 Shaker Road, Westfield, MA 01085. Trash removal and asset management.

DB Wireless Inc., 1356 Boston Road, Springfield, MA 01119. Ho J Han, 9 Kimbell CT #811, Burlington, MA 01803. Retail wireless store.

D.F.S. International LTD., 29 Cadwell Dr., Springfield, MA 01104. Francesco A. Daniele, 47 Jamestown Dr., Springfield, MA 01108. Import and distribution of food products.

Green Street Logistics Inc., 216 Mount Holly Dr., Springfield, MA 01118. Gary Samuel Linsky, same. Provide green building technologies and training programs designed for persons involved in the criminal justice system.

SOUTH HADLEY

Dairy Market Inc., 54 Bridge St., South Hadley, MA 01075. Fardooq G. Shaikh, 34 Bridge St., South Hadley, MA 01075. Convenience and grocery food store.

SOUTHWICK

Good Scents Garden Corp., 17 Matthews Road, Southwick, MA 01077. Claire M. Kenna, same. Landscape design and maintenance.

SPRINGFIELD

Baystate Dental Management Inc., 1795 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103. Kevin Coughlin, same. Professional management services for persons or entities performing dental services.

BH Wireless Inc., 1380 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103. Ho J Han, 9 Kimbell CT. #811, Burlington, MA 01803. Retail wireless store.

STURBRIDGE

Eclecticorp Inc., 14 Cedar Lake Dr., Sturbridge, MA 01566. William Jacob, same. Photography.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Andre’s West Side Sports Shop Inc., 645 Westfield St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Chad Andre, 40 Forest Ridge Road, West Springfield, MA 01089. Sporting goods store.

Association of Slavic Immigrants of Massachusetts Inc., 801 Main St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Fedor Songorov, 1085 North St., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Appointment transportation, interpreting service: Russian, Turkish, English, citizenship classes, basic computer classes, driver license test, family counseling services.

Colton Express Inc., 19 Colton Ave., West Springfield, MA 01089. Semen Shapovalov, same. Trucking.

Drisdelle Inc., 115 Morton St., West Springfield, MA 01089. John R. Drisdelle, same. General carpentry and home improvement.

Picture This

By
Hometown Hero Nate Lare
Departments Picture This

Send photos with a caption and contact information to: ‘Picture This’
c/o BusinessWest Magazine, 1441 Main Street, Springfield, MA 01103
or to [email protected]

Hometown Heroes

Hometown Hero Nate Lare

Hometown Hero Sirdeaner Walker

Stephen Bryant, president of Columbia Gas

The American Red Cross Pioneer Valley Chapter held its ninth annual Hometown Heroes breakfast at the MassMutual Center earlier this month, honoring nine local residents who acted selflessly to change (and sometimes save) the lives of others. At top, Hometown Hero Nate Lare, who alerted residents when a fire gutted their apartment complex, shares a moment with his mother, Roberta Garabedian, after receiving his award. Middle, Hometown Hero Sirdeaner Walker, an advocate for safe schools who has become an effective anti-bullying voice in the wake of her son’s suicide, is presented with her award by Earlon Seeley of Pellegrini, Seeley, Ryan & Blakesley, P.C., another event sponsor. At bottom, Stephen Bryant, president of Columbia Gas, the event’s presenting sponsor, addresses the audience at the MassMutual Center.

Briefcase

By
Briefcase Departments

Multiple Factors Drive Construction Prices Higher
WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the fifth consecutive month, prices for construction materials increased, rising 1.1% in February, according to the March 16 Producer Price Index (PPI) report by the Department of Labor. Year-over-year, construction materials prices are up 6.1%. A number of categories experienced significant increases in materials prices in February. Steel-mill product prices jumped 4.7% for the month and are up 13.3% year over year. Iron- and steel-producer prices were up 2.8% in February and are up 16.8% over the last 12 months. In addition, prepared asphalt, tar roofing, and siding increased in cost by 0.6% for the month and are up 2% over the past 12 months. Categories in which prices declined include softwood lumber, down 2.7% in February, but up 0.2% compared to the same time last year. Crude-energy prices increased 0.9% for the month and are unchanged from the same time last year. Overall, the nation’s wholesale prices jumped 1.6% in February, the largest increase since June 2009. Year over year, wholesale finished-goods prices are up 5.8%. Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, noted that the data reflects a weakening U.S. dollar, ongoing expansion in the global economy, and unrest in the Middle East. He added that the current data does not reflect the recent events in Japan.

Gender Gap
Widening in
Retirement Confidence
SPRINGFIELD — Retirement plan investors had a “good year overall”; however, it appears that economic uncertainty and market volatility have contributed to lower levels of investing confidence and generally more conservative investing behavior among participants. MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division conducted an online survey between Nov. 15, 2010 and Jan. 15, 2011 of 1,517 participants in retirement plans on the MassMutual platform. MassMutual’s data indicates that men believe the stock market will improve vs. decline in the next 12 months at a ratio twice that of women. Overall, only 37.3% of participants are confident in making their own investment decisions. However, women were significantly less confident in making their own investment decisions (25.9%) compared to men (44.1%). At the same time last year, the percentages were 32.8% for women and 47.8% for men. The survey indicates that anxiety about having adequate savings to retire is increasing. Among participants who made a change in their approach to investing in the last 12 months, 61.7% became more conservative compared to 38.3% who became more aggressive.
‘A Closer Look at the Berkshires’ Contest
PITTSFIELD — The Quality Printing Co. is once again sponsoring “A Closer Look at the Berkshires” photography and art contest. The 2012 full-color calendar will feature the top 12 winners of the contest. Application forms are available at most Berkshire County libraries, as well as area Chambers of Commerce, the Prime Outlets in Lee, the Berkshire Mall, the Berkshire Visitors Center in Adams, and numerous photo and framing-supply stores throughout the region. Full-color photos, transparencies, slides, paintings, and digital images with a horizontal format are being accepted. Cash prizes totaling $1,050 will be awarded, and all entrants will receive a 2012 calendar. The deadline for submissions is April 29. For more information, contact June Roy-Martin, manager of communications, at (413) 442-4166, ext. 119, or [email protected].

People On the Move

By
Benjamin A. Bristol
Departments People on the Move

PeoplesBank announced the following:

Tammy Bordeaux

Tammy Bordeaux

• Tammy Bordeaux has been appointed Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager. She joins PeoplesBank with more than 13 years of banking experience and is working at the North Main Street office in East Longmeadow. She is President of East of the River 5 Town Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Board of Directors for the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield. She is also President of the East Longmeadow Rotary Memorial Scholarship Foundation and a member of the East Longmeadow Rotary Club; and





Amybeth Perry

Amybeth Perry

• Amybeth Perry has been appointed Branch Officer. She joins PeoplesBank with more than 10 years of banking experience and is working at the 610 Memorial Dr. office in Chicopee. Perry is the former President of the Westfield Rotary Club and currently serves on the Board of Directors. She is also serving on the membership committee of the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce and is on the Board of Directors for the Galaxy Community Council and Co-Chair of the Membership Committee.
•••••
Webber & Grinnell Insurance Agency of Northampton announced the following:
• Kevin Hart has joined the firm as an Account Executive and will develop new commercial-line accounts; and
• Adam Lafield has joined the firm as a Commercial Lines Assistant.
•••••
Nicholas P. Helides has joined United Bank, based in West Springfield, and will manage and be the lead lender of United’s new Loan Production Office at the Cummings Center in Beverly. In the newly created position, Helides will introduce the United Bank brand and the bank’s established commercial real-estate lending services to an expanded marketplace.
•••••
Michael Gregory Jr. has been promoted to Vice President, Financial Advisor, at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s wealth-management office in Springfield.
•••••
Anthony M. Sylvia, P.E., has joined Tighe & Bond Inc. of Westfield as a Project Manager for its water-resources and civil-engineering practice. He is slated to work primarily in the Pocasset office, reinforcing the firm’s continued growth and expansion in Eastern Mass., Cape Cod, and Rhode Island.
•••••
Joe Hoelzer has been named President and CEO at Süddekor LLC in Agawam. His areas of expertise include strategic planning and execution, profit planning and P&L management, organizational restructuring and leadership training and development, as well as continuous process improvements, multi-plan management, and Six Sigma/Lean implementation. He also specializes in executive management, change management, and turnaround management.
•••••
Community Enterprises Inc. of Northampton announced the following:

Benjamin A. Bristol

Benjamin A. Bristol

• Benjamin A. Bristol has been named to the Board of Directors. Bristol is an Associate Attorney at Royal and Klimczuk in Northampton;

Stephanie Burbine

Stephanie Burbine

• Stephanie Burbine has been named to the Board of Directors. Burbine is Vice President and Cash Management Officer at Florence Savings Bank;

Brittney Kelleher

Brittney Kelleher

• Brittney Kelleher has been named to the Board of Directors. Kelleher is a Commercial Loan Officer at Westfield Bank;

Gainer O’Brien

Gainer O’Brien

• Gainer O’Brien has been named to the Board of Directors. O’Brien is Co-creative Director of Darby O’Brien Advertising and Public Relations in South Hadley; and

Joseph D. Wendover

Joseph D. Wendover

• Joseph D. Wendover has been named to the Board of Directors. Wendover is Outreach Manager for the Walgreen’s Connecticut distribution center.
•••••

MaryLynn Murray

MaryLynn Murray

MaryLynn Murray has joined Phillips Insurance Agency Inc. of Chicopee as the head of New Business Development.
•••••
The Hampshire Council of Governments has named Lindsay Bennett-Jacobs the Director of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Hampshire and Franklin Counties. RSVP of Hampshire and Franklin Counties currently coordinates 700 volunteers, age 55 and older, providing support to area nonprofit organizations.
•••••
Sanderson MacLeod of Palmer announced the following:
• Mark N. Borsari has been named President. He joined the firm in 2007 as Vice President of Strategy & Development. During his four years as vice president, he maintained the company’s market leadership in manufacturing mascara brushes for the cosmetic industry while expanding the medical, industrial, general cleaning, and firearm markets. In addition, he led an enterprise-wide LEAN manufacturing initiative, achieved record-setting sales levels, and was the inventor and product-development leader of a patent-pending product, the Z-Tip, a new way of putting a protective tip on a twisted wire brush; and
• Jim Pascale has retired from the firm after serving a 46-year career in manufacturing, including 20 years as President of Sanderson MacLeod. During Pascale’s tenure, the firm experienced significant growth and developed into an international leader in the production of twisted wire brushes.
•••••
Janet Uthman has been named Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Comcast’s Western New England Region.
•••••
Dr. Robert V. Chircop has been appointed to the Cardiology Staff at Noble Hospital in Westfield. He completed his medical degree at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He completed both his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
•••••
Kevin O’Donnell has been appointed Assistant Vice President at Berkshire Bank, based in Pittsfield.
•••••
Michele Houghtaling has been promoted to Director of the Hampshire Council of Governments Tobacco Control Program. Her focus is in working with tenants and landlords to ensure smoke-free living environments.
•••••
Steven Lowell has been named President of Monson Savings Bank.
•••••
Nicholas Strom-Olsen has been named Assistant Vice President at Berkshire Bank, based in Pittsfield. He serves the Vermont market and works out of the trust offices in Manchester Center and Rutland, Vt.
•••••
Bulkley, Richardson & Gelinas of Springfield announced the following:
• Kelly A. Koch has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney in the Domestic Relations Department;
• George W. Adams IV has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney in the Business-Finance Department;
• Christopher J. Visser has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney in the Litigation-Alternative Dispute Resolution Department; and
• Abena A. Mainoo has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney in the Litigation-ADR Department.

Agenda

By
Agenda Departments

‘Web Advertising’ Workshop
March 30: Derek Allard of Gravity Switch will present a workshop titled “Web Advertising” from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield. The morning program is sponsored by the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC). Allard will discuss organic search-engine strategies, paid options to help attract visitors to your Web site, defining relevant keywords to target, the importance of Web-site content, building inbound links to your Web site, and paid advertising with Google AdWords and Facebook. The cost is $40. For more information, call the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or visit www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Financial Forum
March 31: Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. and the Council of Churches of Greater Springfield will host the “Hope, Faith, and Healing Financial Forum” beginning at 6 p.m. at Cambridge’s office at 67 Hunt St., Agawam. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served. The educational summit will bring together financial experts, public officials, and clergy to discuss the financial challenges facing the region and opportunities to empower area residents. State legislators, lenders, and other community leaders will also be in attendance. For more information or to register, contact Thomas Fox, Cambridge’s community outreach director, at (413) 241-2362 or [email protected]. For more details on Cambridge Credit, visit
www.cambridgecredit.org.

Healthy Back Class
April 2, 9, 16, and 30: The YMCA of Greater Westfield Inc. on Court Street will sponsor a Healthy Back Class on Saturdays during April from 10 to 11 a.m. in the board room. Instructor Paul Warner, owner of Body Wise Physical Therapy, will teach the basics of back care that can make the difference between a healthy back and an aching one. The cost is $35 for YMCA members, $55 for non-members. For more information or to register, contact Charlene Call, member retention/wellness director, at (413) 568-8631, ext. 305.

USO Dinner Dance
April 2: U.S. Senator Scott Brown will be the keynote speaker for a 1940s-themed dinner dance titled “As Time Goes By” as the Pioneer Valley United Service Organization (USO) hosts its first formal event to mark its 70 years of service to local families of the Armed Forces. The event is planned from 6 p.m. to midnight at the Delaney House in Holyoke. Brown will speak at 8:30 p.m. The event for the local USO chapter, which operates out of the Westover Air Force Reserve Base in Chicopee, will also honor Checkwriters Payroll, Clear Channel/KIX 97.9, Big Y World Class Markets, and local heroes from each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, in addition to the Pioneer Valley USO Volunteer of the Year. The evening will begin with a welcome reception, followed by the dinner and program with Brown and the awards presentation. The evening will end with dancing to 1940s swing, R & B, and music from the era of Motown performed by the O-Tones. For tickets or more information, call Al Tracy at the USO Office, (413) 557-3290, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.pioneervalleyuso.org.

Workshop on Web Sites
April 6: Derek Allard of Gravity Switch will present a workshop titled “Making the Most of Your Web Site” from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield. Allard will discuss defining goals for a Web site, elements of a good home page, writing content to pull people in, measuring success and failure, and common Web site mistakes to avoid. The cost is $40. The Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC) is sponsoring the workshop. For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Science Hoaxes Lecture
April 6: Richard Sanderson, curator of physical science for the Springfield Science Museum, will present a lecture titled “Believe It or Not: Science in the Age of Misinformation, Hoaxes, Bad Science, and Bad Astronomy” at 10:10 a.m. and again at 11:15 a.m. in Scibelli Hall at Springfield Technical Community College, Armory Square, Springfield. Sanderson’s appearance is presented by the Ovations Series, and the public is welcome to attend.

Chief Scott Roast
April 7: Dr. Bill Cosby will be among the dozen or so ‘inquisitors’ during Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott’s Retirement Roast at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. The doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and the dinner begins at 6, with a cash bar. Tickets are $40 per person or $375 for a table of 10. The menu includes salad, chicken breast with sweet sausage apple stuffing, red bliss potatoes, vegetable, dessert, coffee, and tea. For tickets, call Sullivan, Hayes & Quinn at (413) 736-4538, or the Holyoke Police Department, chief’s office, at (413) 322-6901.

Chamber’s ‘Shining Stars’
April 8: The Castle of Knights on Memorial Drive in Chicopee will be the setting for the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce’s annual “Shining Stars” event, which includes recognition of the Business of the Year, Citizen of the Year, and Volunteer of the Year. For more information, call the chamber office at (413) 594-2101.

‘Performance Appraisals’ Workshop
April 12: Attorney Susan Fentin of Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., of Springfield, will present a workshop titled “Performance Appraisals: Rewards and (Yes) the Risks” at the Human Service Forum Nonprofit Risk Management Conference at the Clarion Hotel in Northampton. The daylong event includes breakfast and a keynote address, followed by workshops in which Fentin and participants will analyze the top risks facing human-service and nonprofit organizations. Other workshop topics include “For EDs/CEOs Only: Let’s Talk About Risk,” “Financial Risk Management,” and “Facilities/Property Management.” For more information on the program, visit www.skoler-abbott.com.

Mobile Tech Workshop
April 13: Chris Amato of Knectar Design and Jeff Hobbs of Advanced Internet will lead a workshop on the various critical aspects of the shift to a mobile-technology landscape from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield. The workshop is sponsored by the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC). Amato and Hobbs will discuss how mobile and smart-phone technology has surpassed expectations to become the leading communications and application technology platform for users in many market sectors. The cost is $40. For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Public Health Series
April 13: Dr. Leonard Morse will be the keynote speaker as the Desmond Tutu Public Health Lecture Series continues at American International College, 1000
State St., Springfield. The 10 a.m. talk in Griswold Theatre will focus on education to address patterns of behavior that promote and preserve one’s health. The event is free and open to the public. A reception for Morse will follow in the west wing of the Sprague Cultural Arts Center. For more information, call (413) 205-3231.

Royal LLP Open House
April 14: Royal LLP will conduct an open house for the public from 5 to 8 p.m. to celebrate its new offices at 270 Pleasant St., Northampton. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be provided by Side Street Café. Anyone planning to attend should RSVP by April 4 to [email protected] or call (413) 586-2288.

Marketing Basics Workshop
April 20: A workshop led by Dianne Doherty of the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC) will focus on the basic disciplines of marketing, beginning with research — primary, secondary, qualitative, and quantitative. Topics will include advertising, public relations, and the importance of developing a marketing plan. Doherty’s presentation is planned from 3 to 5 p.m. at the TD Bank community room, 175 Main St., Northampton. For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Not Just Business as Usual
April 26: Al Verrecchia, retired CEO and chairman of the board of Hasbro Inc., will be the keynote speaker for a program titled Not Just Business as Usual, presented by the Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) Foundation. The STCC Foundation will capture the energy and excitement of the college’s past, present, and future at the unique affair to will be staged at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House in Holyoke. In addition, two past Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame inductees, Balise Motor Sales and Smith & Wesson, will be honored for their continued success and contributions to the local community. A cocktail and networking reception is planned from 5:30 to 7 p.m., followed by a dinner program from 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $175 each or $1,500 for a table of 10. Proceeds raised from the event will benefit STCC. For more information, visit www.notjustbusinessasusual.net.

CPA Workshop
April 26: Timothy Murphy, partner at Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., of Springfield, will present a workshop titled “Continuing Legal Education” to certified public accountants from 3 to 5:40 p.m. at the Kittredge Center at Holyoke Community College, Homestead Avenue, Holyoke. For more details, visit www.skoler-abbott.com.

Understanding Financial Reports
April 27: Robb Morton of Boisselle, Morton & Associates will lead a workshop from 9 a.m. to noon on how to read financial statements. Following the presentation at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield, a lunch is planned as well as a question session. The program is sponsored by the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC). The cost is $40. For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Cash-flow Workshop
May 4: Robb Morton of Boisselle, Morton & Associates will present a workshop on the basics of cash flow, how to improve cash flow, the timing of cash inflows and outflows, how cash flow is different from profit, and how to determine your company’s cash flow. The cost is $40. The 9 to 11 a.m. program is planned at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield, and is sponsored by the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC). For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Online Tools Seminar
May 11: From FourSquare to YouTube, Yelp, Groupon, Facebook, Google Places, Twitter, MagCloud, and Issuu, there is an array of low-cost, easy-to-use online tools that allow small-business owners to attract new customers and enhance relationships with existing ones. Larri Cochran of Fresh Table, LLC will present a talk from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield, on who is using which tools so you can identify where your customers are online and which tools fit your business. The seminar goal is to create an integrated marketing strategy that maximizes returns for manageable efforts. The cost is $40. The program is sponsored by the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network (MSBDC). For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

Springfield 375th Parade
May 14: The Spirit of Springfield is seeking community involvement for the city’s 375th birthday celebration, which will include a parade that represents all that Springfield has to offer, its roots, and its future. If you have a business or group that would like to get involved in the festivities, call (413) 733-3800 or e-mail [email protected].

EASTEC 2011
May 17-19: EASTEC, the East Coast’s largest annual manufacturing event, will once again be staged at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield. For exhibition or registration information, call (866) 635-4692 or visit www.easteconline.com.

Using New Media
May 18: Gretchen Siegchrist of Media Shower Productions and Robert Malin of Malin Productions will lead a presentation from 9 to 11 a.m. that will teach participants how they can use the new media to grow their social-media reach and influence. After an overview of different types of online videos for businesses, they will look at various platforms for sharing videos online, including YouTube. The cost is $40 for the presentation at the Scibelli Enterprise Center, 1 Federal St., Springfield. The Mass. Small Business Development Center Network is sponsoring the event. For more information, contact the MSBDC at (413) 737-6712 or www.msbdc.org/wmass.

40 Under Forty Gala
June 23: BusinessWest will present its 40 Under Forty, Class of 2011, at a not-to-be-missed gala at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, beginning at 5 p.m. The 40 Under Forty program, initiated in 2007, has become an early-summer tradition in the region. For more information on the event or to order tickets ($60 per person, with tables of 10 available) call (413) 781-8600, ext. 10; or visit www.businesswest.com.

Summer Business Summit
June 27-28: The Resort and Conference Center of Hyannis will be the setting for the Summer Business Summit, hosted by the Mass. Chamber of Business and Industry of Boston. Nominations are being accepted for the Massachusetts Chamber, Business of the Year, and Employer of Choice awards. The two-day conference will feature educational speakers, presentations by lawmakers, VIP receptions, and more. For more information, visit www.masscbi.com.

Western Mass
Business Expo
Oct. 18: Businesses from throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties will come together for the premier trade show in the region, the Western Mass Business Expo. Formerly known as the Market Show, the event, produced by BusinessWest and staged at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, has been revamped and improved to provide exposure and business opportunities for area companies. The cost for a 10-by-10 booth is $700 for members of all area chambers and $750 for non-members; corner booths are $750 for all chamber members and $800 for non-members; and a 10-by-20 booth is $1,200 for all chamber members and $1,250 for non-members. For more information, log onto www.businesswest.com or call (413) 781-8600, ext. 10.

Chamber Corners: Upcoming Events

By
Chamber Corners Departments

ACCGS
www.myonlinechamber.com
(413) 787-1555
 
• April 5: ERC5 Marketing/Membership Committee, 8 to 9 a.m., Reminder Publications, East Longmeadow.
• April 5: Springfield Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee, 12 noon to 1 p.m., EDC Conference Room, Springfield.
• April 6: ACCGS Business@Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., the Delaney House, Holyoke. Cost: members $20, non-members $30.
• April 8: ACCGS Legislative Steering Committee, 8 to 9 a.m., TD Bank Conference Center, Springfield.
• April 13: ACCGS After 5, 5 to 7 p.m., Balise Lexus, Riverdale Road, West Springfield. Cost: members $10, non-members $20. 
• April 20: ERC Board of Directors’ Meeting, 8 to 9 a.m., the Gardens of Wilbraham, Community Room, 2 Lodge Lane, Wilbraham.
• April 20: ACCGS Ambassadors Meeting, 4 to 5 p.m., EDC Conference Room, Springfield.
• April 21: ACCGS Executive Committee Meeting, noon to 1 p.m., TD Bank Conference Center, Springfield.

Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
www.springfieldyps.com
 
• April 21: Ice Breakers, 4 to 5 p.m., 350 Grill, Worthington Street, Springfield. YPS’ first networking workshop will show how to make a positive first impression at a networking event and how to take the first steps toward building relationships that produce referrals.
Cost: free to members of YPS, NAYP, and HYPE. $20 for non-members, which includes admission to both the session and the Third Thursday event that follows at Adolfo’s from 5 to 8 p.m. Free parking. Space is limited. To sign up, email Jack Toner at [email protected].
 
Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101
 
• April 8: Shining Stars Banquet, 6:30 to 10 p.m., Castle of Knights, Memorial Drive, Chicopee. Honoring the Business of the Year, Chicopee Electric Light; Citizen of the Year, Jeff Sattler/NUVO Bank & Trust Co.; and Chamber Volunteer of the Year, Marie Laflamme/Centennial Insurance Agency Inc. Cost: $60.
• April 20: Salute Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m., Kittredge Center/PeoplesBank Conference Center, Holyoke Community College. Pre-registration cost: members $18, non-members $25.
• April 27: Business After Hours, 5 to 7 p.m., Marcotte Ford, Main Street, Holyoke. Pre-registration cost: members $5, non-members $15. Sign up online at www.chicopeechamber.org
 

Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
www.franklincc.org
(413) 773-5463
 
• April 1: Communities That Care Coalition Meeting, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Great Falls Discovery Center. 
• April 1: Green River Festival Performer Line-up Release Party, Bart’s Café, Main Street, Greenfield. 
• April 16 and 17: Franklin County Home Show and Green Fair, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Franklin County Fairgrounds, Greenfield. Sponsors: Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Greenfield Business Assoc., Franklin Community Cooperative. Cost: $2 donation at the door.
• April 22: Monthly Breakfast Series, 7:30 to 9 a.m., Greenfield Community College. Program TBD. Sponsored by Greenfield Savings Bank. Cost: members $12, non-members $15.
 
Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900
 
• April 6: April Arrive @5, 5 to 7 p.m., sponsored and hosted by Lia Toyota, King Street, Northampton. Cost: members $10, non-members $15.
• April 29: 19th Annual Great Northampton Chamber Auction, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., Pages Loft Restaurant and Events, Clarion Hotel & Conference Center, Atwood Drive, Northampton. Sponsored by Coca-Cola Refreshments. Entertaining evening with food, a silent auction of more than 250 items, and a live auction. Cost: $45 in advance, $50 at the door.

Northampton Area Young Professional Society
www.thenayp.com
(413) 584-1900
 
• April 14: Northampton Area Young Professionals Party with a Purpose, 5 to 8 p.m., hosted and sponsored by Fitzwilly’s Restaurant & Bar, Main Street, Northampton. Cost: members free, non-members $5.
 
South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce
www.shchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

• April 25: Reception at MHC President’s House, 5 to 7 p.m. Sponsored by Mount Holyoke College. Special guests and speakers. Opportunity to talk with Lynn Pasquerella, president. Free.
 
Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618
 
• April 14: WestNet, a business networking event, 5 to 7 p.m., the Ranch Golf Club, Sunnyside Road, Southwick. Cost: members $10, non-members $15. Table tops available for $25. Cash bar, free hors d’oeuvres. Walk-ins welcomed.

Progress Report

By
Commercial Real Estate Sections
Ludlow Mills Project Takes Several Big Steps Forward

Kenn Delude says that, when officials at Westmass Area Development Corp. announced their intentions to acquire the former Ludlow Mills property in July 2008, they expected that it would take considerable time to secure the financing and handle the myriad other details needed to make the complex deal happen.
And they were right.
But most of the work on this phase of the ambitious project — amassing the $13.1 million in state grants, private debt financing, and equity investments for needed infrastructure improvements, site-remediation work, and acquisition of the buildings and land — can now be relegated to the past tense, said Delude, president and CEO of Westmass. He told BusinessWest that a purchase-and-sale agreement on the sprawling complex, identified by the clock tower that has become, in many ways, a symbol of Ludlow, should be completed in a matter of months.
And then … well, thus begins the next, probably equally challenging phase — re-tenanting the more than 1.4 million square feet of existing mill space in 66 buildings and developing more than 100 acres of adjacent green space. It is in many ways the most ambitious undertaking, and certainly the largest brownfields yet, for Westmass, which celebrated 50 years of doing business last fall, and an effort that will play out over at least the next 15 to 20 years and create and retain 2,000 to 2,500 jobs, said Delude.
“We knew it would be an exceptionally long lead time, but things should move much faster now,” said Delude, who expects the property to be ready for the marketplace by early 2013.
So, in a way, the protracted acquisition and site-preparation process should actually work to the benefit of WestMass, he continued, noting that, while the economy is in recovery mode and there is some pent-up demand for distribution and manufacturing space (which is what most of the Westmass inventory is targeted for), there should be much more by the time the Ludlow Mills project is fully ready for the market.
“We’ve been below the radar in a lot of ways on this project,” he explained. “During this recession, we’ve been doing our homework on this site; this is the time to get the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, and be prepared so that, when the economy does turn around, you’re there in the marketplace with a fresh resource that is hopefully attractive enough to spur economic development.
“I’m not going to suggest that we were market-timing by any means,” he continued, “but this was a prudent use of our time and resources in this recessionary period when we haven’t seen a great deal of activity.”
Breaking down that $13.1 million, where it came from, and how it will be allocated, Delude said the key to getting things moving was the securing of more than $5 million in state grants for road improvements, other infrastructure work, and site remediation.
“And that was the catalyst for us being able to go to private lenders, area banks, for a development loan for the project, and this request was well-received,” he explained, adding that Westmass borrowed from the scripts for previous projects, ranging from the Agawam Regional Industrial Park (built on the site of the former Bowles Airport) to the Chicopee River Business Park, and sought to involve a consortium of local banks.
At present, six such institutions are involved, he continued, adding that negotiations have been finalized with all but a few.
“With their participation comes the ability to share the risk that’s involved in a project of this type,” he said. “This is the model we’ve used in the past, one in which the local lenders would take portions of a project that had strong community benefits and regional impact.”
Delude said subsurface environmental and geotechnical investigations at the property were scheduled to commence on March 21 as a final step in advance of the acquisition of the property, with that work expected to be completed in early May, putting Westmass on track to acquire the property in June. Permitting, a zone change, and infrastructure commitments will be worked on simultaneously over the next two to three months.
These infrastructure improvements include the reconstruction of State Street, which runs parallel to the property, as well as water-distribution system upgrades, bringing a natural gas line down through the property so it can be converted from oil to gas, storm drainage, sidewalks, street lighting, and other amenities.
Marketing of the complex has already begun in some forms, said Delude, adding that it will become more comprehensive over the next several quarters, and, as with all Westmass projects, it will be local, regional, national, and even international in scope, with the efforts of the Economic Development Council of Western Mass. accounting for most all of the work in the latter two categories.
And with the Ludlow initiative, there will be one unique constituency to target, he continued, referencing the approximately 30 existing tenants in the mill complex, ranging from some warehouse and distribution operations to a kitchen-remodeling business to a fire-restoration company.
“We have businesses there that we need to work with and find accommodations for, and hopefully they can be the seeds for success moving forward,” he explained, noting that roughly 35% of the square footage is occupied with ventures employing a few hundred employees. “These businesses have strong potential for us; we want to sit down with them and talk about options we can make available to them that perhaps haven’t been available. If they fit the mold, perhaps this means new construction or owner opportunities as opposed to leasing.”
Meanwhile, with the acquisition, Westmass will assume property-management responsibilities, he continued, adding that this is another new challenge for the agency and will require additions to the staff.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Profiles in Business

By
Peter Straley President and CEO of Health New England
Features
He’s Leaving the Nation’s Poor Health in His Wake

Peter Straley President and CEO of Health New England

Peter Straley President and CEO of Health New England


Peter Straley was talking about the Connecticut River — specifically, a winding stretch in Northampton — and how almost no one knows that it’s an ideal spot for waterskiing.
Or didn’t know.
“Maybe I should keep quiet about this,” he said with a laugh, adding that one of the things that makes this spot perfect is a lack of congestion, which he expects will continue even though he’s effectively blown his cover. Waterskiing isn’t a hugely popular sport in these parts, and it’s not something one enters into easily.
Although maybe they should, said Straley, president and CEO of Health New England, adding that he started with this activity in his youth — his grandparents built a summer camp on a lake in the Adirondacks the year he was born (1954) — and continued through his life. But it became much more than a summer-vacation pursuit when he discovered that stretch of the Connecticut River many years after one of his many career twists and turns (they’ll be chronicled later) brought him to Western Mass.
He considers it perhaps his favorite way to put the pressures of the day aside for an hour or two, and physically and mentally reboot.
“I remember a performance coach telling me, ‘Peter, you’re expected to be on all day, every day — people don’t expect the CEO to ever have a bad day or ever be in a bad mood — and of course, no one can do that,’” he explained. “She said, ‘when you have a 7 a.m. meeting followed by a full day of internal meetings, and then a 7 p.m. event, you have to carve out a time when you can let down and be offstage, because if you don’t, you’re just fooling yourself; no one can sustain that continuously.’
“She told me that, if I was passionate about something, whether it’s waterskiing or running or whatever, I should carve out an hour and just go do it; I’d come back renewed,” he continued. “And so I do try to leave here and go off and do something, and often, it’s waterskiing.”
Before and after he takes this time to relieve stress and stay fit, Straley does a lot of things that, collectively, work to diffuse the notion of the “big, bad insurance company,” as he called it on several occasions. This includes everything from being very visible in the community to inviting guests to his office to take a few minutes on his ‘Bogo Board,’ a contraption designed to help improve one’s balance.
The perception of large health-insurance companies has taken a number of hits over the years, especially as rates continue to climb and companies of all sizes struggle to meet this necessary but often-perplexing cost of doing business. The most recent controversies involved Blue Cross Blue Shield paying $8.6 million to CEO Cleve Killingsworth after he resigned roughly a year ago, and revelations that Blue Cross and other insurers paid their board members five-figure stipends at a time when relatively few nonprofits did so (the practice has since been halted at Blue Cross, and the others are considering a similar tack).
“When these people [at Blue Cross] look at the scope of their company — it’s a multi-billion-dollar corporation — and compare themselves to the for-profit world … there’s lots of people making that kind of money,” Straley said of Killingsworth’s departure package. “So when they do objective compensation analysis, which everyone does, from that truly rational perspective, with rational meaning objective, you get there. But then, when you say, ‘how does that play out in the environment we’re in today, in the state we’re in today, with the increased levels of scrutiny they have?’ — it just doesn’t work.”
Straley had much more to say about the reasons why he believes health care costs, and especially insurance, continue to soar. Chief among them, he said, is a propensity among many Americans to simply make bad decisions when it comes to their overall health and well-being. And as he said this, he referenced his father, who died the day he turned 51.
“While I don’t know this for a fact, I believe that he could have lived a much longer, more productive life, and I would have known him much better had he made different choices in his life,” said Straley, noting that his father was a heavy smoker, drank more than he should have, didn’t have a good diet, and didn’t do enough to avoid or deflect the stress that came with a high-pressure job in the insurance business.
His father’s death at a young age — and the causes of it — have prompted Straley to take words and advice from his mother and compose them into a white paper he drafted last fall called “My Mother’s Health Plan — Everything I Need to Know About Good Health I Learned from My Mother.”
“Health care is extremely complex, and therefore you may believe that the solutions to decreasing health care costs are also complex,” he writes. “However, my mother’s health plan offers a simple solution to bending the cost curve in the right direction.
“When you take a moment to think about it, you can summarize the important components of good health into three categories: 1) physical activity/exercise, 2) good nutrition, and 3) practicing prevention,” he continued. “These are all things your mother told you do to. It most likely sounded like ‘turn off the TV and go out an play,’ ‘eat your vegetables,’ and ‘wash your hands and brush your teeth!’ Thinking back, this message was about taking responsibility for my own health and well-being.”

Fruits of His Labor
As Straley talks about this responsibility, one can clearly see that he is passionate, if not obsessed, with his desire to see individuals make smarter choices, become healthier — and, perhaps most importantly, have the workplace become a real force for helping people down this road.
His father’s early death has something to do with this, obviously, but he says an equally impactful catalyst came with the events of 9/11, or, to be more specific, with an exercise Health New England, headquartered on floors 15-17 in Monarch Place, had undertaken just a few days after the terrorist attacks.
“That’s when I realized you could change things from work,” he explained. “I heard all these stories about people who couldn’t be rescued [from the Twin Towers] because they couldn’t make it down the stairs. Shortly thereafter, we decided we should have a fire drill here, because we’d never had one.
“Well, we did — and it was scary,” he continued. “People just couldn’t make it down the 15, 16, or 17 flights of stairs. I realized that, if this was real and all 25 floors of this building emptied out at once, people would have been trampled just like they were in New York.
“That’s when I decided that we just had to do more,” he went on, adding that HNE already had programs in place to promote healthier living, but they weren’t “grabbing people,” as he put it. “So we set off on a journey back then, thinking, ‘if what we’re doing isn’t really affecting everyone, then we have to try more, we have to do different things, and we have to take some harder positions.”
Thus began an initiative that goes well beyond walking programs, reimbursements for gym memberships, and participation in Weight Watchers.
Referencing his father one more time, Straley tapped the side of his head a few times as he talked again about choices, responsibility, and doing the right things.
“He knew up here that all those things were not good for him,” he explained. “But knowing something isn’t enough to motivate behavioral change. I believe — and I’m wrong in a lot of my beliefs, so I may be wrong about this one, too — that the workplace is the best place to motivate change. And this is a radical idea for a lot of people.
“They think, ‘I go to work, I do my job, I’m myself, you can’t change me, and I go home and I live my life,’” he continued. “I believe the workplace is where you can make these kinds of changes; you’re there eight, nine, 10 hours a day … it’s a pretty self-contained biosphere, and, generally speaking, it’s a supportive environment.”
How Straley arrived at the corner office at HNE and eventually led the company to its current leadership role in health and fitness is an intriguing career-development story, one he says has no “rhyme or reason,” and starts at Vermont’s Middlebury College, where he majored in a subject far removed from both health care and insurance — geology.

Stone’s Throw Away
“It really worked well for me, because it was a blend of outdoor work and intellectual work — this was the early ’70s, when tectonic plates were first discovered,” he recalled. “So the science was going through a revolution, and this is a recurring thing for me; I’ve always been attracted to things where you don’t have to be an expert to have a contribution. In most aspects of science, you had to have a Ph.D. and 30 years of research before you could actually contribute something new. But this was new — the research didn’t matter anymore; as an undergraduate student working with an inspired professor, you could contribute something.”
But job opportunities in this field were limited, he said, adding that, fortunately, he was also making strides in another field coming its own — computer science. He took every computer course Middlebury offered (two), eventually landed a job in a computer lab on campus, and took his first career step as a systems analyst for Squibb in New Jersey.
Later, he held several positions, including vice president of R&D for Amherst Associates, a Amherst-based firm that developed software for the health care industry. While there, he earned an MBA at UMass, and eventually went into management-consulting work at the Northampton office of a firm called Jennings, Ryan & Kolb.
“It was fast-paced, exciting work, and I really enjoyed it,” he recalled. “You’re sitting in this room with the board of directors, and you’re a 30-year-old kid. And you had to be right. You couldn’t be saying, ‘I think you do this — you had to prove that this is what they should be doing. It was a great experience.”
In the course of that work, Straley worked with a number of hospitals, including Baystate Medical Center, where the assignment was to form Bay Care Health Partners, a three-hospital, 720-physician managed-care contract organization serving Western Mass. “I had actually developed an expertise in building these things,” he said. “Why? Because no one else was doing it; it was a new thing, you could jump in really quickly and be an expert on it. I wrote the book on it — actually, I edited the book on it.”
After he set it up, Baystate asked him to run it, which he did for three years, essentially following the advice that he had been giving to others as a consultant. And when there was an opening at Health New England in 1997, he said he was brash enough to aggressively pursue the position.
“I didn’t know coming here what the challenges were going to be,” he continued. “I didn’t know that health care was going to implode and there would be all this national stuff. But I did know that I had enough faith in my ability to run a business, I knew a lot about health care, and I could figure out the parts I didn’t know.
“And it’s a job that’s allowed be to use all my skills,” he continued. “We’re a big IT company here, and we‘re trying to figure out how to redesign the health care system, so that consulting background is helpful, and we’re a service organization, and we’re about health. It was not my plan to come here, but it’s turned out to be a great place for me personally, and I think the company’s done pretty well under my tenure.”

The Shape of Things to Come
Straley told BusinessWest that he’d lived in Western Mass. for many years before waterskiing suddenly became a much bigger part of his life.
“Through my kids, I met a guy who had a boat on the river, and it turned out that he was an avid waterskier; I’d never even heard of anyone waterskiing on that river,” he said gesturing out his office window to the Connecticut. “Our kids played soccer together, and I remember asking him if I could invite myself to go waterskiing some day; I wasn’t shy about it.
“We’ve been skiing together ever since,” he continued, adding that, unbeknownst to most in this region, a section of the river near the Oxbow provides ideal conditions for this sport.
“What you want is glass,” he explained, referring to calm conditions and little traffic from other boats. “You don’t want other people around — you want it all to yourself. The other thing that makes it good is that this river is long and narrow and it curves; if there’s a wind out of the west, the river curves, and you can find a place where you’re not into the wind and there’s no chop. No matter which direction the wind is coming from, you can find a place that’s calm.”
Several years ago, Straley bought his own boat, one he says is good for one thing and one thing only, and that’s pulling waterskiers in a straight line. “You have to get people out of the water quickly and without a lot of effort, so you need a powerful engine,” he explained. “The second thing you have to do is not create a wake, because a wake is disruptive, and the third thing is that it has to be highly maneuverable so you can go where you want to go.”
The waterskiing is part of Straley’s work to alleviate the stress and burnout that claimed his father more than 30 years ago and threaten many business owners and managers today as they try to pack work and life into what always seems like too few hours.
“Sometimes I’ll leave at 4:30, go ski for an hour, put my suit back on, and go to a 7 o’clock event,” he said. “I’ve been off having a complete release of mind, body, and soul, and I’m really happy when I come back; I’m a lot happier than anyone else in the room because I got away.”
He finds other ways to find these releases, such as jogging and biking. The common denominator is putting the pressures of the day aside for a while, knowing that they’ll be there when you get back, but you’ve managed to spend at least an hour away from it all.
“The most important thing is relaxing your mind,” he told BusinessWest. “When your body is moving, and when your body is engaged in doing what it knows how to do, your mind is then free to think and to imagine, and I get more good ideas by not trying to think about good ideas. If you occupy your body in a fun, productive, challenging thing, your mind is free to imagine.”
One of these good ideas, he believes, is “My Mother’s Health Plan,” co-authored by Lynn Ostrowski, director of brand and corporate relations at HNE, and distributed at various events in recent months, including the Affiliated Chambers’ Outlook luncheon, attended by roughly 1,000 people. As he talked about it, Straley summoned a term most Baby Boomers would be familiar with, although it hasn’t been used much lately.
“The boob tube — your mother was always telling you to turn it off and go outside and play,” he recalled. “That was pretty good advice that people have gotten away from. People of all ages need to get outside and play more. And they need to eat their vegetables — something else their mother told them to do — and brush their teeth.”
All this brings him back to the high cost of health care, and how doing all these things can move the needle in the right direction. It can be done, he told BusinessWest, but it won’t be easy, because changing individuals’ behavioral patterns is quite challenging.
“We try everything,” he said of HNE’s efforts to promote health and well-being. “And each thing grabs one more person and brings them along, but no one thing grabs everybody, so you have to be committed to meeting people where they are right now and just get them to take the first step.
“The reason I think people don’t sustain the change is that they actually know up here that they should do it,” he continued, tapping his temple again for effect, “but the task is so daunting, there are so many moving parts, and their lives are so complex and fast-paced right now, they can’t figure out the first step. If we can help them with that first step, and they have success, then it’s easier to take that second step.”

The Bottom Line
Straley’s white paper, dated November 2010, is identified as “Volume 1, Number 1,” a strong hint that there are more of these to come.
The next installment may involve thoughts on personal responsibility and how to assume some, he said, adding that this assignment involves people of all ages and social strata — and employers as well.
And it is one of the foundations of a multi-pronged approach that he firmly believes will bring down the cost of health care in this country.
“I don’t expect the 15th floor of Monarch Place to be the epicenter of change,” he said, “but we do expect to have an impact, and we do expect that we’ll export that impact to any place else that will listen.”
He seems quite willing to do everything in his power — and that of his company’s — to make a real difference in this matter.
And that includes letting everyone in on his favorite spot for waterskiing.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

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