Day: April 26, 2011

President and Chief Marketing Officer, LogicTrail, LLC

Alexander Simon’s passion for people and open-minded collaboration are the driving forces that have led this entrepreneur to success. The father of two has worked on many award-winning marketing campaigns, but accolades are not what propel him to work long hours and give his time to a host of civic organizations.
“I’m a people person and have a passion for collaboration that is reflected in my career and my civic responsibilities, and it’s also something I try to instill in my children,” Simon said. “It’s a constant learning; I’m motivated by inviting others to share in cultivating better ideas. I really try to build that with our clients, and it’s wildly satisfying to see a big idea reach the light of day with everyone on board. It’s my nature to try and push the envelope, but only when it’s for the right reasons.”
Simon said he believes strongly in teamwork. He takes pride in getting to know his clients well and says the “intimate” relationships he forms come after listening closely to the way they talk about their world, which helps him create campaigns that break through the clutter.
Simon is a founding member of the Sounding Board for Professional Development, a board member of the Ad Club of Western Mass., a youth coach for the Northampton Recreation Department, and a Look Park Board Development Committee member, and has been engaged in political action committees in Northampton.
“I’m still young and looking for the right opportunity, but I definitely have a passion for working at the civic level,” he said. “We have a responsibility to give back to our cities and towns.”
He founded his company in 2009 and has a small but highly experienced and dedicated staff. “We want to stay youthful, agile, and able to work with different-sized clients and industries, and that means staying small,” he said. “This is my calling, what I’m supposed to be doing. I started my agency to do things in a different way and to enjoy the process. And so far, we’ve been very fortunate to work with some stellar clients.”
— Kathleen Mitchell

Value Based Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, ITT Power Solutions

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

Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager, PeoplesBank

Lauren Tabin never intended to work in banking. But she’s glad she tried it.
“I came to Peoples in 1996 as a teller, and I honestly came just because I needed benefits; I was managing a candy store prior to that,” she said.
But she took advantage of the organization’s extensive management training program and quickly moved up the ranks; she was promoted several times on the way to her current role as branch manager and assistant vice president, not only running the operations of her office, but overseeing business development and community relations in the Holyoke market.
“I didn’t think this was going to be this much fun,” Tabin said of her accidental career. “I think the reason I’m enjoying myself is because of the great variety of tasks that I’m responsible for.”
She has always enjoyed the mentoring aspect of her job, and that ethos extends into the community, where she teaches young people about financial literacy. “I wish I had that as a kid,” she said. “A lot of families in Holyoke have very limited resources, and I feel the same way about the younger generation just coming into the work world. I want to mentor them and give them the tools to be successful like I was.”
Tabin’s civic involvement extends to her work with Providence Ministries for the Needy, the Holyoke Community Charter School, Girls Inc., and the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club, among others.
“I like to be a motivation to people, to share my story with them and give them hope in hard times,” she said. “I had a child when I was very young and overcame lots of obstacles, and I share my story — that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I always see potential in everyone.”
It’s especially meaningful for Tabin to be doing this work in Holyoke.
“This is where I was born and raised, and this is where I’m raising my family,” she said. “I want to make a difference in the community where I live, and help make Holyoke a better place. I don’t want to be on the sidelines.”
— Joseph Bednar

Manager, Stop & Shop

Joan Maylor used a picture of her parents in her 40 Under Forty portrait because, she said, “they truly represent who I am today.”
She recalled something her father always told her. “Once a task is begun, never leave it until it is done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”
Well, Maylor certainly has lived up to that. She started her career with Stop & Shop as a bagger 21 years ago, “then worked every single department throughout the stores, through three levels of management, to the position I’m in now as store manager.”
When she started out in her entry-level position, she didn’t see supermarket work as a long-term career. But, she said, as she continued to grow and mature, she saw the many opportunities that can come to someone who sets her mind on a goal and works hard to achieve it.
Maylor is active in her church and, through her faith, committed to being a role model for younger generations. “I see that the young people these days can have trouble with focus or have a lack of purpose,” she said, “and I believe that, if I can show them how I grew up and became who I am, they can see possibilities.
“I’m hoping, through my position as store manager, that I can reach out to the community and get them interested in working in my field,” she told BusinessWest, “so they can see that there’s more to grocery stores than just stocking shelves.”
There were people at every stage of her career at Stop & Shop who would act as mentors, “teaching me what I didn’t know, but also what I needed to move on to the next step,” she said. “I still talk about all of them, and they have each given me a piece of who I am today.”
For Maylor, that’s what is most important, for her nieces and nephews and all the youths she works with: to help them understand, she said, “and to get the word out that you can make it.”
— Dan Chase

Program Manager, Human Resources Unlimited, Pyramid Project

Christin Deremian says that people living with physical and mental disabilities often have a difficult time finding advocates to help with their various needs.
“Everyone has a different need for our services,” she said, explaining her role at the Pyramid Project, a division of Human Resources Unlimited in Springfield, “from getting up and walking around to working on their reading, writing, or socializing skills.”
For the past nine years, Deremian has been affiliated with HRU, striving to be one of those advocates she says the area lacks.
“I’m working to empower folks here,” she said, “because many people don’t know their rights, or even that they’re able to vote. We need to offer them the dignity of risk. Just because they’re disabled doesn’t mean they can’t go out and make their own choices.”
Deremian said Pyramid and HRU are proponents of the so-called ‘clubhouse model’ in a number of their programs, which means “focusing on people’s abilities, rather than their disabilities. We strive to make people feel wanted, needed, and appreciated — because that’s how everyone should feel.”
At Pyramid, she works with 70 members and 300 staff, and her colleagues credit her with taking the clubhouse to a new level.
By focusing more on what people can do than what they can’t, she has created programs that offer music, pet, swim, and massage therapies; armchair travel, culinary, and book clubs; a woodworking unit, and a member-produced newsletter. But her advocacy doesn’t stop at the office door.
Deremian, an accomplished equestrian — she was the youngest caption of the Central Mass. national show-jumping team — is also an active member of the Springfield Public School System’s Read-Aloud program, and supporter of the Molly Bish Foundation. Bish was a family friend, Deremian said, and she is proud to support efforts to raise awareness of missing and exploited children, “to ensure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else’s family.”
“My father always said to me, ‘if you’re going to do something, do it well, or don’t do it at all,’” she added. “If it’s going to be worth my time, then it has to be something that I can take pride in.”
— Dan Chase

Creative Director, DIF Design

Peter Ellis grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, where, he said, people were ‘going green’ long before that phrase came into vogue in this country.
“Green came naturally to me — stores didn’t have plastic bags; you had to bring your own bags,” he said of an attitude that prevails in Eastern Europe. “We bought local, fresh produce; nothing was shipped across the country. Green was imbedded in me by default, I guess.”
This background, coupled with his desire to help Springfield catch up with Northampton, Boston, and New York in matters involving earth-friendliness, inspired Ellis, founder and creative director of DIF Design, to create something called the  GreenSeal program for businesses in the City of Homes. Creation in conjunction with the city, it recognizes ventures that are making strides in this realm and fosters a greener, more sustainable community.
The program is one of several factors that helped Ellis — who came to the U.S. to study at a seminary, but ultimately decided to take a much different career path — attain the top score among 40 Under Forty nominees. The growth of DIF Design, and the quantity and quality of his work, especially in Web design, was obviously another factor.
The company, which started mostly as a consulting venture in the broad realm of digital imaging, now boasts a number of clients across several sectors, and with each one, DIF works to identify which message needs to be sent, to whom, and how.
“When someone comes to us for help with their Web site, we strategize with them on how to build that site and reach a certain demographic so that it’s not just out there and looks good. It also functions as a piece of their marketing, rather than as just a brochure online.”
In addition to his family — his wife, Meaghan, and two daughters, Avery, 4, and Emery, 2 — Ellis devotes free time to a woodworking hobby (he builds furniture) … and getting tattooed. Indeed, he said most of his chest and arms are covered with images, something most of his clients would never know, and by design.
“Image is everything,” he said. “That’s what I preach.”
— George O’Brien

Certified Public Accountant, Gomes, DaCruz, and Tracy, P.C.

During the work day, Mark Germain said he mostly specializes in small businesses, “from start-ups to companies with $50 million in sales.”
He said his office helps these companies with all of their accounting and management needs because “a lot of entrepreneurs can run their business, but maybe they need some help with the financial side of things.”
And it was through that dedication to his clients that he found a calling outside the office.
Since 2007, he has been a member of the Assoc. for Community Living (ACL), a Springfield-based organization whose mission is to “create opportunities, build relationships, and improve lives for children and adults with developmental disabilities and for others who will benefit from our services.”
The ACL was started more than 50 years ago by five young mothers of children with developmental disabilities who felt strongly that their families had the right to grow up with dignity in their own home communities. Germain has been the assistant treasurer since 2008, the chair of the Buildings and Property Committee, and a member of the Finance, Audit, Investment, and Executive committees.
He said the ACL “helps people who have struggled to help these youths get to where they are.
“The organization is the link between the family and the state, and we can help them with services,” he continued, “so these children feel more a part of the community than they have been able to. It’s a good bridge for the kids and their families.”
Germain said that involvement in community affairs is something that has always been important to him, even when growing up. “My mentors early in my career always encouraged that, saying it was the right thing to do.”
With two young children of his own, he said he hopes to instill his interest in community to the next generation of Germains. “Spending time with my family is important,” he said, joking, “I’d like to slow down a little.”
Like any successful accountant, of course, he knows the value of the important things.
— Dan Chase

Vice President of Commercial Banking, People’s United Bank

Jaimye Hebert has been involved in the theater, in one capacity or another, since she was 7. Together, these experiences have played a big role in helping her become the person — and commercial-banking professional — she is today.
“Theater is … well, theater is where I met my husband,” she started. “Theater is where I developed my ability to speak in front of people. It’s where I learned to have no fear of meeting people. I never would have had the success in my career that I’ve enjoyed if I hadn’t been involved in the theater and been able to push myself in uncomfortable situations, performing in front of hundreds of people. That can’t be taught, and the value of those lessons defies monetary value.”
Hebert’s theatrical résumé includes everything from acting — she counts her performances as Sr. Mary Leo in Nunsense and Nunsense II as perhaps her personal favorites — to stagehand to lighting crew member. She’s been a long-time board member with the Victory Players, and has done extensive work with the Exit 7 Players.
Meanwhile, her professional résumé has ‘summer teller’ as the first line, with other ladder stops, including credit analyst, senior credit analyst, credit officer, portfolio manager, and assistant vice president, before reaching her current position as vice president of Commercial Banking.
She draws a number of parallels between both spheres of her life, with the common denominator being creativity. “I’m a fine-arts minor,” she said. “I’ll be as creative as I need to be to get a deal done, because that’s the way my brain works. I thrive on creativity, which is why I love this job; people don’t equate creativity and commercial lending, but they really are one and the same.”
When not working or performing, Hebert is involved in everything from American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, to the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield, to youth soccer in Monson, where she coaches the Blueberry Sharks.
All this takes time, and she credits her husband, Jonathon, and her children, Tristan, Sienna, and Paige, with playing strong supporting roles in helping her get it all done.
— George O’Brien

Program Director, Center for Human Development

Sean Hemingway is striving for balance. He directs the Center for Human Development’s Assessment and Juvenile Justice Support programs at the DYS Westfield Youth Service Center, and has been raising three children with his wife while climbing CHD’s ladder of success and working actively in the community. “It’s a struggle not to be all things to everyone,” he said.
When Hemingway was in college, he was hired as a part-time maintenance man at CHD’s Assessment Program. The job gave birth to his career, and he became passionate about working to improve the lives of young people. He wrote a paper titled A Janitor’s Journey Through the Justice System before graduating from UMass with a degree in mental-health studies and at-risk youth.
Hemingway spent his early years at CHD working with young males, but soon rose to the position of assistant program director of CHD’s Terri Thomas Girls Program. He said it was a “monumental life-learning experience, as they were in a [detention] system developed and designed for boys,” adding that their situation really hit home after his daughter was born.
Fifteen years later, he now directs the program for teenage boys and has come full circle.
“These teens have had very challenging, abusive, and neglectful lives,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to give them tools so they can make better choices. I am working to enact positive change in the young men so when they are released, they don’t reoffend in the same neighborhood situations.”
This juvenile-justice expert and certified instructor in non-violent intervention gives frequent lectures and belongs to several professional groups. To be successful in many arenas involves balance, and Hemingway directs his 53 staff members to do their best for the young people they serve as well as for themselves. “I am passionate about this work, but we need a work/life balance so we don’t burn out,” he said. “It’s a team effort.”
And one that requires stability — for both the staff and the teens they serve — on and off the most difficult playing fields of life.
— Kathleen Mitchell

Executive Director, Rockridge Retirement Community

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