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Focus on Progress, Not Perfection Ditch Unreachable Expectations, Fear of Mistakes, and Excess Criticism

By MARTI MacGIBBON

Heather, a manager at a publishing company, prides herself on her extremely high standards, even jokingly referring to herself as a perfectionist, but she has difficulty meeting deadlines.
During brainstorming sessions with her staff, Heather yearns to unearth new discoveries and innovations, but dreads making even the smallest mistakes, putting a damper on creativity. She tends to take on only familiar challenges in order to guarantee that she will excel. Recently Heather noticed she has difficulty relating to and encouraging her subordinates. She longs to be able to inspire them, but finds she can see only flaws in their work. Since Heather is also self-critical, she is tense and rigid when embarking on new projects, putting a clamp on productivity.
Tyler’s office is down the hall from Heather’s, and she’s noticed how he and his staff consistently come up with innovative new concepts and complete projects before the deadline. Whenever a groundbreaking new endeavor is discussed, Tyler volunteers to take it on. His confidence is truly remarkable. In meetings, Tyler’s subordinates demonstrate self-assurance and an easy rapport with him. When Tyler’s staff turn in reports, the mood is upbeat, almost celebratory, even when they are only halfway to their project’s completion. Heather sees people leave Tyler’s office looking focused, empowered, and energized. She wonders how Tyler can appear to be so relaxed and happy and still be so productive.
Tyler’s advantage is that he focuses on progress, not perfection. Striving for perfection and rejecting anything less can become an obstacle to innovation, creativity, and satisfaction in the accomplishment of everyday tasks and goals. Focusing on progress will highlight the fact that everyday tasks and goals are actually baby steps on the way to achievement of the highest standards and accomplishments. While focusing on progress, we learn to enjoy the journey as well as the destination. French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire said, “Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.”
Here are six progress-oriented strategies you can use that will free you from excessive self-criticism and increase your creativity, satisfaction, and confidence.
There is really no such thing as perfection in life. Know that perfection is not an oasis — it’s a mirage! You’ll never arrive, because it simply isn’t there. Once you realize that everything in this universe is flawed, you can relax and focus on improvement and progress. You will find that, as your confidence builds, your freedom of thought increases. You now have lots of elbow room to take on new and exciting challenges.
Practice intelligent goal-setting. Determine your ultimate goal. Then set doable, measurable goals, at definite intervals on the journey, that you know you can reach. At each of these intervals you can measure progress, adjust your sights, and make changes if necessary. It’s easy to slip into a self-defeating pattern by setting inappropriate goals and standards. If you tell yourself you can accept only the utmost perfection in everything you do, you rob yourself of the joy that comes from celebrating each and every small accomplishment regardless of the result.
At the end of each day, take an inventory of anything and everything you have accomplished, and celebrate it. Progress is not exclusively linear. Be sure to include upbeat attitude, a positive thought process, kind words, and generous actions on your list. You most likely have gained character strengths, leadership skills, personal insights, and communication skills during any given day, week, or month at work. It’s a good idea to begin recognizing all of your accomplishments and gaining greater resolve from them.
There is real reward in enjoying the journey and accepting your work without judging it. Perfectionism often creates a cycle of procrastination — the standard is set so high that you find yourself overwhelmed and paralyzed at the outset. Exercise your non-judgmental attitude toward others as well, regarding everything around you as a work in progress.
Give yourself permission to grow and to embrace missteps. Some of the greatest discoveries were a result of blunders, or were learned by trial and error. If you stop making mistakes, you stop progressing and learning. Loosen up — value the process. You’ll find your creativity, productivity, and happiness will increase exponentially.
Never underplay your accomplishments. Banish self-talk such as, “well, it was OK, but anybody could’ve done that.” That sort of thinking, discounting the positive, can lead to anhedonia, the technical term for diminished ability to find joy and satisfaction in life. Instead, encourage yourself and others around you by recognizing the significance of smaller tasks as part of the ultimate goal. Muster your enthusiasm by visualizing the final result.
Try consistently putting these strategies into play, and you will be surprised as you exceed your own expectations. Constantly focus on progress and learn to have fun along the way. Celebrate each baby step. Pat yourself on the back: turn on the self-approval faucet and let the feeling of accomplishment wash over you. This isn’t complacency, this is stamina building.
Success in any endeavor takes time — it’s like a long-distance run. If you want to zoom across the finish line at the end of the course, then say goodbye to perfectionism’s unreachable expectations, fear of mistakes, and excessive criticism. Say hello to progress and begin embracing and celebrating it daily. Perfectionism is a deal breaker. Progress is a star maker.

Marti MacGibbon, CADC II, ACRPS, is a certified mental health professional, inspirational motivational speaker, veteran standup comic, author, and member of the National Speakers Assoc. Her memoir,  Never Give In to Fear, is available on Amazon.com and through her Web site, www.nevergiveintofear.com.

Departments Picture This
Hoop City Jazz & Art Festival

Large crowds descended on Court Square July 9-11 for the Hampden Bank Hoop City Jazz & Art Festival (HCJAF). The annual event featured a number of jazz performers, art vendors, an array of fine food, and general merriment.
Photography by Ed Cohen

Hoop City 1

From left, Kari Njiiri of WFCR; Adrienne Osborn, director of Artist Relations for the HCJAF; Ron Ancrum, president of the Community Foundation of Western Mass. and advisory board member for the HCJAF; John Osborn, president and founder of the festival; Amy Scribner, assistant vice president and associate director of Marketing for Hampden Bank; Richard DeBonis, senior vice president and director of Marketing for Hampden Bank; and Evan Plotkin, president of NAI Plotkin.



Hoop City 2The scene in Court Square.







Hoop City 3Vincent Ingala lights things up on his saxophone.



Hoop City 4Pancho Sanchez performs with his Latin Jazz Band.







Hoop City 5Hampden Bank employees John Mirkin, Amy Scribner, Donna Abelli, Cindy Bartels, and Debbie Andrews.






Hoop City 6The scene on Friday night.





Hoop City 7The scene in front of the stage.




Hoop City 8Dawn Creighton, with her daughters, Caleigh (left) and Mackenzie.






Big Band Celebration

Hundreds of area residents flocked to the green at Springfield Technical Community College on July 9 for what was called a “Poppin’ Big Band Celebration.” The evening of music and dance was a salute to Benny Goodman’s 1943 concert at the Springfield Armory, much of which was later transformed into STCC after the facility closed in 1966. The event featured the Memories Big Band Sound, a USO Retro Show featuring two dance troupes, Jitterbug Dancers of Chicopee, and Small Planet Dancers of Westfield, and a performance by the U.S. Northeast Navy Pops Band.
Photography by Jim Langone

Big Band Celebration

Big Band Celebration

The scene from the audience, with the Armory Museum in the background.







Big Band Celebration 3The Memories Big Band Sound performs.






Big Band Celeb 2The Small Planet Dancers mug for the camera.






Big Band Celeb 1Audience members take to the dance floor.

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

Sing This Summer Inc., 137 Pine St., Amherst, MA 01002. Jonathan Hirsh, same. Vocal training and coaching.

CHICOPEE

Zohra Inc., 659 Grattan St., Chicopee, MA 01020. Umar Bhatti, same. Convenience store.

GREAT BARRINGTON

Rude Movement Inc., 14 Berkshire Circle, Great Barrington, MA 01230. Jordan Ivey Weller, same. Organization designed to encourage good public behavior among citizens of Massachusetts.

HOLYOKE

Sybm Inc., 10 Beacon Ave., Holyoke, MA 01040. Alizabeth Bernadette Showers, same. To improve the communities in which we live by adding value through everyday contributions in the arts, education, and enterprise. Sybm hopes to create a renaissance like movement restoring the belief in our youth and young adults the ability to dream without fear.

Victory Home Healthcare Inc., 717 Northampton St., Unit 41, Holyoke, MA 01040. Jacob Waah, same. Home health care services.

Western Mass Safety and Fire Education Assoc. Inc., 600 High St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Michael Richard, 10 Heritage Lane, Monson, MA 01057.

HUNTINGTON

The Huntington Public library Foundation Inc., 7 Main St., Huntington, MA 01050. Karen Wittshirk, 143 Pond Brook Road, Huntington, MA 01050. Nonprofit organization formed to support and promote the Huntington Public Library.

INDIAN ORCHARD

Seven Oceans Inc., 967 Worcester St., Apt 3, Indian Orchard, MA 01151. Ramzan Ali, same. Convenience store.

Western Mass Hackerspace Corp., 34 Front St., Indian Orchard, MA 01151. Patrick Cagan, 11 Lewis St., Westfield, MA 01085. To promote and encourage technical, scientific, and artistic skills through individual projects, social collaboration and education.

LENOX

Stockbridge Motorcar Company Inc., 150 Hubbard St., Lenox, MA 01240. Automotive repairs and sales.

Women’s Interactive Network Inc., 213 Main St., Lenox, MA 01240. Laura Fetherolf, same.

LONGMEADOW

Springfield Rifles Inc., 100 Jonquil lane, Longmeadow, MA 01106. Youth hockey program.

NORTHAMPTON

Rich Denno Inc., 551 Florence Road, Northampton, MA 01062. Richard Denno, same. Construction.

Wayde James Inc., 49 Pine Brook Curv, Northampton, MA 01060. Wayde James, same. Construction.

SOUTH DEERFIELD

Primo Pizzeria & Restaurant Inc., 4B Sugerloaf St., South Deerfield, MA 01373. Ismael Alvarado, 275 East Hadley Road, Amherst, MA 01002. Pizzeria and restaurant

SPRINGFIELD

Quality Import Management Inc., 626 Carew St., Springfield, MA 01104. Jhoan Cruz, same. Roumeliotis Law Group, P.C. 51 Taylor St., Springfield, MA 01103. George Roumeliotis, same. Professional law services and consultation.

Royal Professional Inc., 101 Mulberry St., #113, Springfield, MA 01105. Avihen Levanon, same. Retail hair sales products.

Sh Wireless Inc., 1365A Liberty St., Springfield, MA 01104. Jin Hong, 2334 Founders Way, Saugus, MA 01906. Cellular phone sales and service.

Springfield Wildcats Inc., 179 Warrenton St., Springfield, MA 01109. Crystal Mendoza, same. Youth football and cheerleading program for grades 3-8.

St. James Property Mgmt. Inc., 706 Saint James Ave., Springfield, MA 01104. Carlos Rivera, 90 Paramount St., Springfield, MA 01104. Commercial property-management company.

Varsity Entertainment Group Inc., 202 Northampton Ave., Springfield, MA 01109. Heath Richardson, same. Music composition.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Tri-State Fabricators Inc., 49 Apricot Hill Lane, West Springfield, MA 01089. Mark Edwards, same. Metal fabrications and construction.

WILBRAHAM

Wilbraham Construction Inc., 10 Beechwood Dr., Wilbraham, MA 01095. Judy Bergdoll, same. Construction

WILLIAMSBURG

Scotti’s Inc., 151 Sugar Hill Road, Williamsburg, MA 01096. Pierre Brisson, same. Limited food service and recreation.

WILLIAMSTOWN

Willows For Holidays Inc., 480 Williamstown, MA 01267. Bhupinder Sabharwal, same. Motel.

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT
Ted Ondrick Co. Inc. v. Bruschi Brothers Inc.
Allegation: Breach of written agreement: $14,608.90
Filed: 6/13/11

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Kevin Bonfilio v. Main Street Bar & Grille, et al
Allegation: While at the defendant’s tavern, plaintiff was beaten by two intoxicated patrons, suffering permanent injuries: $235,840
Filed: 5/16/11
Patterson Farm, LLC v. Agronomic Field Services, LLC and Allan Smith
Allegation: Failure to pay for trucks purchased and services rendered: $51,380.41
Filed: 5/27/11

GREENFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Veronica Willard v. Fisher Express Inc.
Allegation: Breach of partnership conversion: $25,000
Filed: 5/27/11

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Concrete Services Inc. v. Bruschi Brothers Inc., et al
Allegation: Breach of contract and unfair and deceptive trade practices: $6,161.52
Filed: 5/6/11

Barbara Ostrowski v. Robert S. Wool, M.D. and Women’s Health Group of Western Mass. Inc.
Allegation: Medical malpractice: $80,000
Filed: 5/5/11
Ted Ondrick Co., LLC v. Green River Development, LLC and John Christopher
Allegation: Non-payment of paving services rendered: $25,350.30
Filed: 5/6/11

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT
Falcetti & Clark Electrical Supply v. Specialty Loose Leaf Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment of electrical services supplied: $5,000
Filed: 4/22/11

PALMER DISTRICT COURT
Irene Spring v. Mass. Central Railroad Corp.
Allegation: While traveling in a car under a train-track overpass, part of the railroad support structure fell and struck the plaintiff’s vehicle: $9,576.33
Filed: 5/24/11

SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Heritage Electric Inc. v. Lexington Development
Allegation: Non-payment of electric labor and materials: $5,470
Filed: 5/2/11

Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. NIHEN Construction Co. Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment on two workers’ compensation policies: $16,925.34
Filed: 5/16/11

Nassau Lens Co. Inc. v. Occhali Eye Boutique, LLC
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $10,115.11
Filed: 4/11/11

The MVA for Rehabilitation v. Commerce Insurance Co.
Allegation: Denial of payment for medical bills: $3,870.52
Filed: 4/18/11

Chamber Corners Departments

Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

• Aug. 3: Red Sox Bus Trip to Fenway Park vs. Cleveland Indians. Game time: 7:10 p.m. Cost: $105 each. Limited tickets are still available.
• Aug. 24: Business After Hours, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., hosted on a C-5 at Westover Air Reserve Base. Cost: $10 for members, $20 for non-members. Registration is required.

Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

• Aug. 11: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Nicky D’s, 164 Northampton St., Easthampton. Sponsored by 5 Star Building Corp. Door prizes, hors d’ouevres, host beer and wine. Cost: $5 for members, $15 for non-members.
Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
www.holycham.com
(413) 534-3376

• Aug. 24: Chamber Business Salute Breakfast, 7:30 to 9 a.m., hosted by the Yankee Pedlar, 1866 Northampton St., Holyoke. Sponsored by Lyon & Fitzpatrick LLP. Cost: $20 for a buffet breakfast. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 to reserve tickets or log onto www.holycham.com.

South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce
www.shchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

• Aug. 9: “Step Away” for Chamber, 8-11 a.m., hosted by Wingate Nursing Home, Rt. 202, South Hadley. No cost, but There is no cost, but members must RSVP to Kay Sordillo at [email protected] by Aug. 5.  Chamber members only.

West of the River Chamber of Commerce
www.ourwrc.com
(413) 426-3880

• Aug. 22: 8th Annual Golf Tournament, hosted by Oakridge Country Club, Agawam. Registration at 11:30 a.m., lunch on terrace at 12 noon, shotgun start at 1 p.m. (scramble format), sit-down banquet dinner at 5:30 p.m. Cost: golf and dinner, $99 per player; dinner only: $35 per person; tee or green sponsor, $75. Other sponsorships available; contact chamber for more information. Fees include green fees, 18 holes of golf with cart, lunch on terrace, refreshments on course, and formal banquet dinner. Banquet dinner includes raffles; silent auction; prizes for first-, second-, and third-place teams, hole in one, closest to the pin, longest drive, and most accurate drive.

Departments People on the Move

United Bank announced the following:

Barbara-Jean DeLoria

Barbara-Jean DeLoria

• Barbara-Jean DeLoria has been named Senior Vice President of Commercial and Retail Lending. She has been with United since 1989, most recently serving as a senior vice president and commercial lending officer. She also has overall responsibility for the bank’s consumer lending department. In her new role, DeLoria will remain based at the bank’s corporate headquarters in West Springfield and will maintain her commercial-lending portfolio, in addition to her new responsibility for managing the bank’s retail lending division, which includes consumer and residential lending. DeLoria is treasurer of the Affiliated Chamber of Commerce of Greater Springfield and serves on the Professional Women’s Chamber. She also serves on boards for the Weston Rehabilitation Center for Women, the Massachusetts Small Business Review Board, and Springfield Rifles Hockey Inc. She is a teacher for the Center of Financial Training (CFT) and president of Dress for Success of Western Mass.; and
Milly Parzychowski

Milly Parzychowski

has been hired as Assistant Vice President and Residential Lending Sales Manager. She is a new addition to the United Bank team, bringing with her decades of experience in mortgage financing in the Greater Springfield area. As the assistant vice president and residential lending sales manager based at the bank’s corporate headquarters in West Springfield, Parzychowski is responsible for managing the residential-lending team of originators, as well as residential-mortgage business development. Parzychowski joins the bank from Mortgage Master in West Springfield, where she served as senior loan officer, a position she had also held previously with Family Choice Mortgage Corp. in West Springfield. She serves as chair of the Board of Directors for the Agawam Small Business Assistance Center, is immediate past president of the West Springfield/Agawam Kiwanis Club, and is active in several charitable organizations.
•••••
Attorney Susan Fentin, a partner with Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., will be a key speaker at the 2011 Advanced Employment Issues Symposium in Nashville, Tenn. on Oct. 6 and 7. Fentin will be part of the keynote panel that will begin the symposium and will be speaking on independent contractor misclassification, a topic of significance for employers in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the U.S.
•••••
Tamara Fricke

Tamara Fricke

The Massachusetts Chamber of Business and Industry announced that Tamara Fricke has been named Vice President and Manager of Chamber Relations. She comes to the chamber with more than 15 years of professional experience in managing sales, marketing, and information-technology initiatives.
•••••
Dietz & Co. Architects announced the following:
• Jamie Kelliher has joined the firm. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor of Architecture degree and the University of Arizona with a master of Architecture degree in Urban Design. Prior to joining Dietz & Co. Architects, he worked at Drachman Institute for Regional Development in Tucson, Ariz. and Paolo Soleri/Arcosanti Planning Office in Mayer, Ariz., where he acquired experience working on complex, high-end, award-winning, multi-family, mixed-use building projects. He collaborated on the Soleri Bridge and Plaza in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the design incorporated hallmarks of Paolo Soleri’s signature style and was also designed to bring awareness of our human connection to the sun and the natural world;
Josh Payne

Josh Payne

• Josh Payne has joined the firm as an Architectural Associate. He graduated from Roger Williams University with a bachelor of Architecture Degree and studied planning, architectural design, and art history for a semester at Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, Italy. He acquired valuable experience collaborating on complex, high-end residential projects at a design firm in Great Barrington;
Kris Kennedy

Kris Kennedy

• Kris Kennedy has joined the firm as an Architectural Associate. He came to Dietz as an intern in the spring of 2010 and has since earned his master of Architecture degree from UMass Amherst. He was one of three graduates honored by the faculty of the Tau Sigma Delta National Honor Society, which is the only national honor society in architecture. He also acquired his certification as LEED AP BD+C. He was involved as a session chair at the NESEA Conference BE11 this past Spring. He is most interested in sustainability and community engagement through design; and
• Mark Hellen has joined the firm. He graduated from New York University and Boston Architectural College with a master of Architecture degree. Prior to joining the firm, he spent over 10 years at CBT in Boston, working on various educational, residential, and commercial projects. His extensive list of experience, regionally, includes the design of Turner Hill Cottage Development, a residential project on an exclusive golf course in Ipswich, Mass., and Northfield Mount Hermon Rhodes Art Center, an educational project encompassing multiple classroom, art, and performance spaces. His most complex past project is Champlain College, which included adding four dormitory buildings to an existing neighborhood.
•••••
Kristen Adams

Kristen Adams

Kristen Adams has been named eMarketing Officer for Florence Savings Bank.  Adams joined FSB in June, having worked most recently as an Internet Marketing Manager at the Janlynn Corporation. Active in the community, Adams is a volunteer at Big Brothers Big Sisters and a member of Northampton Area Young Professionals.
•••••
Attorney Ryan Alekman, a Partner of Alekman DiTusa in Springfield, has been elected to a two-year term on the Board of Governors of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys. A graduate of the Western New England College School of Law, he handles personal-injury and criminal-defense cases.
•••••
Nuvo Bank & Trust Co. has promoted Susan Fearn to Assistant Vice President in addition to her duties as Client Sales and Service Manager.
•••••
Brian O’Shea, Manager of the Holyoke McDonald’s, 285 Maple St., and Jeremy Zimowsky, manager of the 2194 Northampton St., Holyoke McDonald’s, are recipients of Outstanding Restaurant Manager awards by the Connecticut and Western Mass. McDonald’s Owner-Operator Assoc. The award recognizes managers whose McDonald’s restaurants operate at an outstanding level and exemplify leadership following McDonald’s key initiatives. The top 10% of restaurant managers are bestowed with the honor.
•••••
The Mass. Society of Certified Public Accountants Inc. recently elected its board of directors for the 2011-12 fiscal year. The MSCPA board of directors sets policies, manages programs, and oversees activities that benefit the 10,500-plus-member organization and accounting profession. The following will serve as board officers:
• Stuart Benton, CPA, Bradford Soapworks Inc., as chairman;
• Kenneth Kirkland, CPA, KAF Financial Group, as chairman-elect;
• Merrill Puopolo, CPA, CBIZ, Tofias & Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C. – Tofias New England Division, as vice-chairwoman of finance;
• Tracy Noga, CPA, Bentley University, as vice chairwoman;
• William Mahoney, CPA, Edelstein & Co. LLP, as vice chairman;
• Jeffrey Solomon, CPA, Levine Katz Nannis + Solomon P.C., as past chairman; and
• Theodore Flynn, CAE, MSCPA, as president and CEO.
The following will sit on the board as members: Cheryl Burke, DiCicco Gulman & Co. LLP; Frank Constance, CPA, Coles & Bodoin LLP; Kristin Costa, CPA, Braver P.C.; Paul Gerry Jr., CPA, Gray Gray & Gray LLP; Gerald Gerson, CPA, Litman Gerson LLP; Scott Levy, CPA, Grant Thornton LLP; Kevin Martin Jr., CPA, MST, Kevin Martin & Associates P.C.; Carla McCall, CPA, Alexander Aronson Finning & Co. P.C.; Robb Morton, CPA, CITP, Boiselle Morton & Associates LLP; George Neble, CPA, Ernst & Young LLP; Charles O’Donnell, CPA, Hans Kissle Co. Inc.; and Carolyn Stall, CPA, Stall Advisors LLC.
•••••
The Springfield Technical Community College Foundation recently welcomed three new members to its board:
Raymond Berry

Raymond Berry

• Raymond Berry is Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration for the United Way of Pioneer Valley. He previously held positions at MARC: Community Resources, the Springfield Housing Authority, and the Mason Square Development Corp.;
Sheila King Goodwin

Sheila King Goodwin

• Sheila King Goodwin is Senior Vice President of Retail for PeoplesBank and previously held management positions at Citizens Bank and Fleet Bank; and
Michael Weekes

Michael Weekes

• Michael Weekes of Longmeadow is President and CEO of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, the state’s largest human-service
trade association, and also of the Human Services Providers Charitable Foundation.

Bankruptcies Departments

The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court.

Acevedo-Barrows, Natasha
252 Gilbert Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Alves, Adam
72 Canal Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Anderson, Lynne S.
24 Hamilton Ave
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/08/11

Ardizzoni, Thomas Joseph
Ardizzoni, Sandra Lee
22 Holland Road
Wales, MA 01081
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Baez, Evelyn
565 Riverside Road
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Baez, Pedro
a/k/a Baez, Peter
565 Riverside Road
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Ballester, Gloria I.
28 Sherbrooke St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Basu, Biswajit
Basu, Vandana
48 Holy Family Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/04/11

Beraldi, Michael E.
29 Pine St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Bernardos, Robert J.
Bernardos, Luce T.
a/k/a Bressette, Luce T.
54 Wing St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Bizon, Danielle M.
74 Front St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/02/11

Block, John Chris
26 Mountain Dr.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Blue Tomato Farm Food
Hu, Guang
a/k/a Hu, Phillip G.
55 North Main St., Unit 41
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Boniface, Christopher M.
252 Kings Highway
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/08/11

Boos, Erica A.
2215 Main St.
Three Rivers, MA 01080
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Bouchard, Denise J.
63 7th St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Boucher Sr., Gilbert E.
P.O. Box 225
Oakham, MA 01068
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Boulware, Stella M.
a/k/a Mims-Hylton, Stella
61 Kimberly Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Burnett, Ann E.
415 Springfield St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Byrd, Leah
35 Hope Farms Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Carlson, Erik J.
37 Boutin St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Carpenter, John H.
Carpenter, Joanne E.
23 Berkshire Circle
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Chevalier, Marjorie A.
185 Chudy St.
Three Rivers, MA 01080
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Conniff, Daniel J.
Conniff, Pamela D.
30 Mooreland St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Cullen, Courtney Jean
40 High St. Apt. N
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Dawson, Randall C.
Dawson, Brigitte A.
P.O. Box 292
Ashley Falls, MA 01230
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Demarco, Roberta M.
a/k/a Demarco, Robbie M.
84 Worthy Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Dimos, James K.
PO Box 882
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Dolan, Eileen T.
a/k/a Grimaldi, Eileen
11 King Place
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Dulude, Kenneth G.
Dulude, Kristie A.
162 Penrose St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/11

ELR designs
Interiors by ELR Designs
Rhindress, Erin Leigh
a/k/a Boughamer, Erin Leigh
343 Wilbraham Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Enright, Benjamin P.
4 Highland Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Fernandes, Roberto
21 Jackson St., #2
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Fitch, Judith E.
21 Clayton Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Flynn, George F.
Flynn, Linda L.
41 Rabideau Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Furnia, Joseph C.
Furnia, Gloria G.
154 Taylor St.
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Glover, Grady A.
Glover, Amanda R.
220 2nd St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Gonzalez, Joseph Perez
327 Orange St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/12/11

Griffin, Ruth F.
67 Clough St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Grimaldi, Jennie L.
525 Cooper St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/11

Gugenberger, Steven A.
36 Beauregard St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Hambley, Mark Gregory
190 Longhill St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Hector, James G.
62 Edwards St., Apt. 203
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Holzhauer, Mariah
121 Greenfield Road, Apt. 1
Montague, MA 01351
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Jahn, Maria Davina
50 Pine St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Jenco, Mark P.
5 Newell St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/08/11

JOE Construction Services
National Service
Prince, Joseph D.
Prince, Renee M.
153 Mt Vernon Road
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Kennedy, Cheri L.
31 Borys Circle
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Kennedy, Jason D.
31 Borys Circle
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Kirouac, Donna Lee
72 Washington St.
Lynn, MA 01902
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Knight, Norma L.
25 First St.
Hampton Ponds
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Krutka, James W.
Krutka, Julianne M.
74 King St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Lacki, Lester S.
Lacki, Mary Alyce
650 Silver Lake St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Lapointe, Steven J.
Lapointe, Lynn
36 Raymond Circle
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Larder, Marc M.
Larder, Ellen M.
37 Helen Circle
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/01/11

LeClair, Frank
14 Goodman Lane
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

LeVardi, Jerry P.
1125 Sandmill Road
Cheshire, MA 01225
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/11

Lucia, Denise M.
6 Paper St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Mahoney, James L.
2460 Pendleton Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01022
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Marlow, Matthew Fredrick
46 Clinton Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Matta, Gerald
397 Palmer Road
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

McCarthy, Peter E.
Caballero-McCarthy, Minerva
a/k/a Reardon, Minerva C.
115 Barbara Lane
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Medvec, Stephen W.
P.O. Box 1046
Pittsfield, MA 01202
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Moore, Edna M.
P.O. Box 82
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Mowe, Marcia Ann
74 Park Ave.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Nassar, Micah G.
45 Williow St., Apt 30
Springfield, MA 01103
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/11

Newton-Irelan, Robin F.
870 East St.
Lenox, MA 01240
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Nielsen, Donald
735 Memorial Dr. #33
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Noonan, Michael W.
58 Summit St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

North Adams Regional Hospital
71 Hospital Ave.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 11
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Northern Berkshire Health
71 Hospital Ave.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 11
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Northern Berkshire Realty
71 Hospital Ave.
Doctors Building, Room 2
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 11
Filing Date: 06/13/11

O’Neill, Roy
664 East Main St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/05/11

Pagan, Julio A.
1224 Page Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Phillips, Christopher K.
Phillips, Melissa T.
a/k/a Torres, Melissa
73 Armstrong St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Phillips, Claiborne Hooper
120 Central St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Prouty, Frances A.
154 McIntosh Dr.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Renaud, Michele A.
1073 Pine St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Rivera, Marisol
859 Main St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Robinson, Brett L.
Robinson, Lauren A.
a/k/a Cardin, Lauren A.
P.O. Box 801
Wales, MA 01081
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Robinson, Ernestine
9 Sycamore St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Rubero, Jose F.
2 Old Bay Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/11

Senecal, Sharen A.
20 Faulkner Place
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Something Special Catering
Bernier, Laurie A.
P.O. Box 227
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/01/11

Soto, Susan M.
a/k/a Craven, Susan M.
275 Main St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/04/11

Spencer, Allan L.
Spencer, Karen
298 Monson Turnpike Road
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Springer, Edward P.
Springer, Laurie A.
47 Davis St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/10/11

Strong, Craig R.
95 Gilbert Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/11

Sullivan, James M.
Sullivan, Rebecca E.
73 Somerset St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/10/11

Surprenant, John Paul
Surprenant, Mary Elizabeth
PO Box 498
Brimfield, MA 01010
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Swayger, Michael J.
P.O. Box 83
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Talbot, Erica J.
96 Anzio Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Talbot, James M.
324 Southwick Road, C-7
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Tavernier, Stephen A.
Tavernier, Marie E.
92 Florence St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Thomas, Jason
Thomas, Teresa Lynn
92B Little Rest Road
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/11

Trott, Brian A.
400 East St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Vadnais, Phillip G.
16 Monroe St.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Vega, Henry A.
Vega, Catherine P.
a/k/a Dagastino, Catherine
13 Day Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/11

VG Janitorial Service
Govine, Vincent
42 Holland Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Visiting Nurse Association
535 Curran Highway
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 11
Filing Date: 06/13/11

Warner, Debra E.
111 Hope St., Apt. 3S
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/11

Whalen, Michael Patrick
Whalen, Linda Rita
115 Shearer St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/09/11

Willaims, Dianne Marie
107 Monrovia St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Williams, Jean
23 Monticello Ave
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/14/11

Woods, Catherine Mary
105 East St.
Clinton, MA 01510
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/11

Young, Mary Margaret
184 Coyote Circle
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/11

Building Permits Departments

The following building permits were issued during the months of June and July 2011.

AGAWAM

Agawam Plaza
67 Springfield St.
$30,000 — Fire sprinkler installation

CHICOPEE

Berkshire Retail
205 Exchange St.
$45,000 — Renovate Internet cafe

Callaway Golf Sales Company
425 Meadow St.
$19,000 — Renovate existing duct system

Con-Way Transportation
84 New Lombard Road
$82,000 — Roof repair

Faith Methodist Church
181 Montcalm St.
$9,500 — Install replacement windows

Hair Cuttery
1410 Memorial Dr.
$30,000 — Store remodel

Nineteenth Association Properties, Inc.
561 Sheridan St.
$8,000 — Add 8-by-14 deck with ramp

TFGC
425 Meadow St.
$35,000 — Erect wall partitions

HADLEY

Kevin Michelson
8 Pine Hill Road
$14,000 — Construct waiting room for customers

HOLYOKE

Jeffrey Wilga Jr.
269 Whitney Ave.
$13,600 — Build new addition

Jonathan M. David
2 Oscar St.
$22,300 — Re-build collapsed roof

Nicole Rodrigues
48 Portland St.
$5,000 — Renovations

Patrick Mangan Trust
317 Westfield Road
$3,800 — Install patio door

LUDLOW

Big Y Foods Inc.
433 Center St.
$98,500 — New roof

Lil’ Dogs
393 East St.
$7,000 — New roof

NORTHAMPTON

F. L. Roberts & Company
63 Main St.
$39,000 — Exterior renovations

Garden Building, LLC
361 Main St.
$10,000 — Exterior renovations

Leo P. Lachance
487-489 Bernardston Road
$208,000 — Interior renovations for a new community medical center

SOUTH HADLEY

Cumberland Farms
507 Newton St.
$350,000 — Store renovations

E Ink
7 Gaylord St.
$1,505,000 — Commercial renovation

Mount Holyoke College
1 Everett St.
$1,097,600 — Construction of a new public safety building

SPRINGFIELD

Fuller Development, LLC
1545 Main St.
$91,000 — Tenant fit-up

HGI
820 West Columbus Ave.
$6,000 — Build exterior deck

Mercy Hospital
233 Carew St.
$4,190,000 — Renovate fourth and fifth floor

WESTFIELD

Briarwood, LLC
70 Court St.
$1,500 — Interior renovations

Commercial Real Estate Sections
O’Connell Development Envisions Mix of Uses for Sprawling Complex

WestinghouseDPartThe former Westinghouse Electronics complex in East Springfield was slated for redevelopment into a large retail Mall, with perhaps two dozen stores, but then the recession sent that sector into a deep tailspin and eventually scuttled those plans. The O’Connell Development Group, creator of Holyoke Crossing in Holyoke, among other area retail complexes, acquired the property last fall, and is advancing plans for a mixed-use facility — although there is uncertainty about what that mix might entail.

As he talked about the sprawling former Westinghouse Electric manufacturing complex off Page Boulevard in East Springfield, and the prospects for redeveloping it, Andrew Crystal drew a number of comparisons to another project orchestrated by the Holyoke-based O’Connell Development Group, which he serves as vice president.
That would be the transformation of the former H.B. Smith boiler plant in the center of Westfield into a massive Stop & Shop supermarket and accompanying parking lot.
“That was a large industrial site that was demolished, cleaned up environmentally, and then turned into a retail location,” said Crystal, adding that this is the plan for the Westinghouse site, located just off I-291, as well. Actually, it’s been the plan for some time, and the fact that the 40 or so acres in question are still home to several buildings in the process of being razed points up a big difference between this initiative and the one in Westfield.
The H.B. Smith project unfolded in 1997, when the economy was humming and most major retailers were in an aggressive expansion mode. A planned transformation of the Westinghouse site into a $45 million retail complex with a mix of stores, undertaken by Newton-based Packard Development, was put on the drawing board more than three years ago, or just before the start of the worst recession in 80 years.
That downturn prompted the closing of thousands of retail establishments across the country and back-burnered a number of projects like the Westinghouse endeavor, said Crystal, adding that, while the retail sector is still reeling from the downturn in many respects, that segment of the economy is expected to eventually recover. Meanwhile, the Westinghouse complex has that most precious of real-estate qualities — location.
These factors and others prompted O’Connell Development, one of the O’Connell companies, to acquire the complex for $4.2 million last November and quickly commence with the process of razing the many buildings and cleaning up environmental contamination.

promising possibility for the site

Andrew Crystal says retail is one promising possibility for the site, although the sector isn’t as healthy as it once was.

“We think the site has a lot of potential, and clearly some of that is for retail uses,” he said, “because it is within a fairly dense residential area and has such easy and immediate access to 291. That access accounts for much of the site’s appeal, but there’s also the visibility from the highway.”
For this issue, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at the prospects for the Westinghouse property, identified as one of the key economic-development priorities in the City of Homes and a big piece of the ongoing revitalization puzzle.

Back to the Future
In its heydey during World War II, the Westinghouse Electric complex, opened in 1915, employed as many as 7,000 people in the manufacture of white goods and other products. The plant was part of a large industrial corridor where Rolls-Royces were once assembled and Smith & Wesson later became a huge part of the landscape.
The Westinghouse operation eventually wound down in 1970, and since then the cluster of buildings has become home to a number of warehousing and distribution tenants, said Crystal, adding that the site has long been considered an attractive location for a retail center, given its size and location only a few hundred yards from the East Springfield exit off I-291.
And in early 2008, Packard Development, a subsidiary of New England Development, which has developed a slew of retail centers across the Northeast, including several in Eastern Mass., put plans on the table for such a center, one that would be home to perhaps two dozen stores and a total of 450,000 square feet of retail. Formal plans were submitted, an environmental impact report was filed with the state (addressing, among other things, traffic issues), and the company met several times with neighborhood residents to hear and address their concerns.
All systems appeared go, but then … the recession hit, and the East Springfield project, like many planned retail developments, was first delayed and then scrapped.
“New England Development is a good firm, and they had a pretty aggressive development plan — they just got caught by the recession,” said Crystal. “It was a time when even the big national retailers were pulling back, and some didn’t make it through the recession; there were many casualties.”
But O’Connell saw enough potential in the property to make that $4 million roll of the dice last fall, said Crystal, adding that he considers this property to be a gamble well worth taking, considering the site’s size, location, and potential for a number of possible uses.
Crystal told BusinessWest that demolition will likely be concluded by the end of this year, clearing the way for what he calls mixed-use development, “although, at this point, we’re just not sure what that mix of uses is or would be.”
The property is zoned commercial, he continued, adding that this designation doesn’t permit some specific uses, such as a large distribution center, but does allow almost all others.
Retail is certainly at or near the top in terms of preferred uses, he said, adding that there is a recognized need for more retail in that part of the region, and dense population centers within a few miles of the site that could be attractive to major players in the industry.
But retail is still in a relative holding pattern overall as a sluggish recovery from the downturn continues, and Crystal acknowledged that many questions remain about when and to what degree the sector will bounce back.
“Retail is doing better than it was a year or two ago, certainly,” he said, “but it’s not like it was five years ago, and it likely never will be again. There are fewer national retail tenants now — the bankruptcy filings provide ample evidence of that — and the sector is still making its way back. Things are better, and consumer confidence has improved tremendously, but it’s certainly not like it was.”
The O’Connell Development Group has extensive experience in retail development, with several such projects in its portfolio, including the Westfield Stop & Shop initiative; Holyoke Crossing, its best-known retail effort, and one that has certainly felt the impact of the downturn; the Bernie’s store across Whiting Farms Road from Holyoke Crossing; and several CVS locations across the region.
Meanwhile, the company continues its work to redevelop the former Atlas Copco property just a few blocks from Holyoke Crossing and the Holyoke Mall into a retail facility; it is currently being used for distribution.
But there are several other potential uses for the Westinghouse site, said Crystal, listing everything from office space to health care services; from entertainment venues to a satellite post office. All are permissible uses under the zoning, and all are viable alternatives given the location just off the highway.
In the meantime, O’Connell is working to lease out space in the Westinghouse office facility fronting Page Boulevard, which is not slated for demolition at this time. Approximately 30,000 square feet across two floors is leaseable, said Crystal, adding that the company is still gauging demand for that space while deciding its ultimate future.
Marketing of the site will commence once O’Connell has a firmer grasp of just what it wants to do with the location and what the market will bear, said Crystal, adding that the site simply has too much going for it to remain dormant for long.
“You just don’t find close to 40 acres in an urban environment like this,” he said, “that has such close proximity to the highway and such high visibility from the highway.”

The Bottom Line
The H.B. Smith project succeeded in changing the look and feel of downtown Westfield. It removed a decaying, contaminated factory complex and brought retail — and some vibrancy — to the downtown.
Whether history will repeat itself in East Springfield remains to seen, but Crystal is optimistic that another location known mostly for what transpired in the past will have a different, and quite compelling, future.

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

Features
This Family Business Owner Is Driven to Succeed

Damon Cartelli President and General Manager,  Fathers & Sons Collection

Damon Cartelli President and General Manager, Fathers & Sons Collection


Damon Cartelli was clicking his way to the Boston College football Web site to see which opponents would be coming to the Heights, as the Chestnut Hill campus is called, for games this fall.
Years ago, he probably would have known the schedule by heart, and the fact that this alum and long-time season-ticket holder didn’t on this occasion — not to mention the hard truth that most of this year’s tickets will be used by friends, family members (his father likes to go), and very good customers — speaks volumes about the changes that have taken place in his life since he was a diehard regular at Alumni Stadium.
For starters, his two children are now 5 and 8, and both will be playing soccer this fall, and on Saturdays, which will take care of some of those Eagles’ games. Also, there are the two titles on his business card — president and general manager of Fathers & Sons Collection, as well as the one you don’t see: he’s also general sales manager until he hires a new one. All that keeps him quite busy. And then, there’s the fishing boat he intends to keep on the water and, more specifically, a favorite spot about 30 miles off Block Island, for as long as the weather permits.
Add it all up, and there probably won’t be much time for football this autumn. But Cartelli has accepted this as part of his progression as husband, father, and business owner. In short, priorities have changed, if not his loyalty to his alma mater.
Change has certainly come to the family business. Indeed, Cartelli, who came to Fathers & Sons  — or back to it, as the case may be — after aspirations to enter the legal profession failed to materialize nearly 20 years ago (more on that later), has moved out of the large shadow cast by his father, Bob, and is now presiding over the host of dealerships on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield, and is co-owner (with his father) of two dealerships in Greenfield as well.
He acquired Fathers & Sons in September 2008, and has managed to keep his sense of humor about that major acquisition coming just as the economy was going into freefall and the auto industry was just weeks away from the most disastrous period in its history.
“My timing was impeccable,” he joked, adding quickly that, while it’s been a long, hard slog, the family business has made what amounts to a nearly full recovery from the days when showrooms across the country were devoid of customers and inventories were mounting.
Indeed, as he talked about sales of Audi, the hottest of several brands the company sells, he looked at a list of cars slated for delivery in the coming weeks. “Let’s see … sold, sold, sold, sold,” he said, running his finger down a roster of various models and lamenting that he didn’t have more product to sell. “Sold, sold, sold … it’s a good problem to have — I guess.”
Other brands, including some Volvo models, are faring well also, he said, adding that, as the car industry continues to get healthier, change continues to come to the business. There are fewer dealerships overall, and greater consolidation, all of which make it more difficult to do what he’s done — rise in the ranks and own a small chain of dealerships — unless one has a great deal of luck or the kind of family-run operation he ascended within.
“The capital involved to get into this business is intensive,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s realistic for people to think they can come in out of college or even years after and say, ‘I want to own a dealership’ unless they’re in a family or have some family wealth, or hit it big somewhere, somehow to have the capital to get it going.
“The difference now is keeping it going once you get it started — that’s more challenging, and for a number of reasons,” he continued. “Anyone can own one if you have the money, but how do you keep it going, keep it profitable, and keep everyone employed?”
For this, the latest installment of its Profiles in Business series, BusinessWest talked at length with Cartelli about all that’s happening with his work and life, thus answering the question about why he’s been less visible at BC home games.

Not Idle Talk
For his talk with BusinessWest, Cartelli sat down behind the desk in the sales manager’s office, which is around the corner from the space with his own name on the door.
“This is where I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately,” he explained, adding that, while he continues his search for a new occupant for that office, he is carrying out most all of that job’s responsibilities — up to and including sitting in warm vehicles in the parking lot trying to figure out where noises, identified by concerned customers, might be originating.
“You can’t hear the noise if the air conditioner is on,” he explained. “So it gets pretty hot in those cars.”
Cartelli is certainly experienced in identifying noises, as he is with virtually every other aspect of the industry. Indeed, like many who are now managing second- or third-generation family operations, he grew up in the business, learning every nuance, from washing cars when he was in grade school to stacking parts during his adolescence, to learning how to sell when he was still a senior in high school.
He said some of the earliest memories are eating lunch with his grandfather, Domenic, at the counter in the Sears Roebuck store near the rotary on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield; the original Fathers & Sons was located across the street.
Actually, our story starts years earlier, when Domenic opened a gas station on   High Street in Holyoke and eventually won a Pontiac franchise. The second generation of the family, Damon’s father, Bob, eventually joined the business and diversified it into foreign cars such as Jaguar and MG, before splitting off that segment of the operation and going into business on Memorial Avenue.
Damon Cartelli said that he did just about everything one can do at a dealership while growing up, from sweeping floors to cleaning cars; from tracking parts to basic work in the body shop. In his senior year in high school, he received from tutoring from long-time sales manager Vinny Fusaro in the art of the auto sale.
“I learned a lot from him about the psychology of selling and the ins and outs of taking care of customers,” he explained. “And those essentials haven’t changed, really, from the steps and process of meeting the customer, greeting the customer, finding common ground, and then listening to their needs and matching them with a vehicle that meets those needs.
“It’s funny — everything’s been changed and turned upside-down by the Internet,” he continued, “but the basic steps of selling haven’t changed a bit from when I started 22 years ago, and I’m sure Vinny would say the same thing, and he started in the ’60s.”
But while Cartelli grew up in the car business, he said he was not his plan to make it a career. Instead, after majoring in political science and pre-law at BC, his objective was to enter the legal field.
“My uncle was an attorney, and my cousin was an attorney, and they both tried to dissuade me from that profession,” he said with a laugh. “But I still enjoyed the banter, the back-and-forth nature of the work, the intellectual conversation, the writing, all of that. That’s what I was going to do.
“I tried to get an internship at the State House for the summer, and then go to law school in the fall,” he continued. “The internship never came together, and by fall I wasn’t ready for law school. My father said, ‘come on home, I have some work for you.’”
That work turned out to be at his summer home in Sturbridge, sanding decks, painting walls, and other forms of “manual labor,” as he called it.
“I decided that was the birds — I just wasn’t cut out for that — and I eventually took him up on his offer to join the business,” he said of his re-entry of sorts into auto sales. Over the next several years, he would have several titles on his business card, including used car manager, new car manager, and eventually general manager.
When Cartelli ascended to GM in 2002, what he called “an interesting management dynamic,” a power struggle of sorts developed. Elaborating, he said while he was more or less in charge of running the operation, his father was still president, visible, and quite accessible, which led to some problems.

His Coupe Runneth Over
“We had a lot of employees who had been here for years and years,” he explained, “and if they didn’t like what I had to say, well, it was like if you didn’t like what dad said, go see mom.’
“If they didn’t like what I was telling them, they’d go see my dad, and maybe he would — without talking to me, because he didn’t know they’d come to me — tell them something different. It was definitely a difficult period in terms of managing that dynamic between the two of us and staying on top of communications.”
In 2008, Damon acquired the dealership from his father and thus shed himself of the problem — as his father focused on the Greenfield operations — only to have to trade it for something far worse.
That would be the Great Recession, which rocked virtually every sector of the economy, but shook the auto industry to its core.
Looking back on those anxious times, Cartelli said business all but came to a halt for a few months, and what followed was a prolonged period marked by uncertainty, desperate measures such as Cash for Clunkers, and wholesale changes to the local auto scene.
Several dealerships, especially smaller outfits and suburban operations, closed their doors, and many names that had dominated the landscape for decades disappeared during the recession or the shakeup that followed it, he explained, leaving fewer family operations. It’s a trend that seems destined to continue.
“For years, that’s how it went — family operations passed from one generation the next,” he continued. “But the business is heading in a different direction now, with conglomerates and chains gobbling up all the mom-and-pop stores and franchisers trying to consolidate and getting rid of a lot of those smaller, family-run business that have been around for decades.”
When asked about the many hats he’s wearing now, Cartelli said his schedule is definitely more crowded, but he can handle it, in large part due to a talented staff that handles their assignments well. More to the point, he doesn’t really have a choice.
“Being general sales manager has been good … it’s allowed me to get my hands dirty a little bit; it’s not good to be isolated and out of the action and away from the pulse of what’s going on,” he explained. “I’ve actually been enjoying this for the past few weeks, talking to customers, getting a feel for where they’re at, what they’re doing, what they want to accomplish, and how we can help them.”
Meanwhile, he’s dealing with the lack of Audi inventory, which is one of the many new realities of the auto industry these days.
“The challenge with Audi is inventory, inventory, inventory — we can’t get enough,” he said while explaining the many reasons why. “Three or four years ago, dealers were carrying 60 to 90 to 120 days’ supply of inventory. When the economic downturn hit, manufacturers cut production, and we went down to 30 to 45 days’ supply. And the manufacturers realized that, if we have that kind of supply, they don’t have to incentivize us as much, and they make more money per car.
“Now that we’re coming out of it and they’re starting to build more cars, they’re very cognizant of the fact that they don’t want too many cars on the lots, because if they do, they’ll have to incentivize more, and that will reduce their margins,” he continued. “Plus, with the world economy, they’re shipping a lot of cars; they’re not cutting production — they’re just cutting the production that’s coming to the U.S.”

Gearing Up
As he talked with BusinessWest just after the July 4th holiday, Cartelli said that weekend marked his first on the water with his boat — the latest he had ever started a season.
His June schedule was packed, he explained, especially on weekends, forcing the late start. July will be a little better, although when he talked to BusinessWest he was preparing to head to Chicago and a Kia dealers’ meeting that would take care of another weekend. “My plate is definitely full,” he said.
It will be even moreso in the fall, as soccer starts for his children and other endeavors compete for his time.
The trips to Chestnut Hill are now few and far between, he said, adding quickly that, while he still cares greatly about how his Eagles fare against UMass, Notre Dame, and the teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference, there are many more pressing matters at the moment.
Such as getting out from behind the sales manager’s desk and meeting some customers.

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

Features
Reaching Everest’s Summit Was a Physical and Mental Test

Mike Matty displays the St. Germain flag

Mike Matty displays the St. Germain flag as he poses at the roof of the world.

Editor’s Note: In March, BusinessWest profiled St. Germain Investments President Mike Matty, focusing mostly on his upcoming attempt to summit Mount Everest and thus join a very exclusive club — the one consisting of individuals who have scaled the highest peak on each of the seven continents. Matty is now a proud member of that fraternity, although the Everest climb challenged him in every way possible. Here’s a quick update.

Mike Matty had heard countless times before he left for Nepal that scaling Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, is every bit as much a mental challenge as it is a physical test — and maybe moreso.
He listened, and he thought he understood. But he didn’t fully comprehend that sentiment until he could finally take his crampons off for the last time, after safely descending back to base camp about a week after reaching the summit on May 13.
By the time his Sherpa guide had photographed him at the roof of the world just after 7 that morning (with a sign for his company in his hands), Matty had watched another member of his climbing team die on the mountain, seen another turn back soon after absorbing that fatality, climbed past the dead body of a member from another team as he neared the summit, and entertained seemingly countless thoughts about whether what he was doing was worth all the physical pain and mental anguish he was enduring.
“You reach a point where, after you’ve been sleeping in a tent on a glacier for a month, you say, ‘a cold beer and a warm bed seem pretty good at this point,’” he recalled. “You’re feeling so lousy, you’re wondering whether you’re going to be able to summit on summit day; you’re constantly questioning, questioning, questioning. That’s why it was so easy for that one guy to make a decision; he said, ‘I didn’t come here to die on this mountain,’ and he went home.”
When BusinessWest talked with Matty as part of its ongoing Profiles in Business series in late February, Everest was the lone obstacle remaining as he continued his quest to join a very exclusive club consisting of individuals who have scaled the highest peaks on all seven continents. Over the previous several years, he’d climbed, in succession, Kilimanjaro in Africa; Elbrus (Europe); Vinson (Antarctica); McKinley, or Demali (North America); Kosciuszko/Carstenz (Australia); and Asconcagua (South America). In the weeks leading up the Everest climb he was working out extensively with a team of trainers, preparing himself for a physical challenge that would eclipse anything he’d experienced in his climbing career to date.
But in retrospect, he says there was nothing that could have prepared him for the mental challenge he was to endure, especially the death of a fellow climber and the introspection that followed as the body was taken back down the mountain to what’s known as Base 2 for eventual transport back to the U.S. (In many cases, bodies are simply left on the mountain because it is too dangerous to remove them, but this fatality occurred at a height and in a place where recovery was possible.)
“That was the closest I came to heading home and saying ‘the heck with this,’” Matty told BusinessWest, adding that he was the closest person to the other climber when he died, and tried, along with others, to resuscitate him. “After sitting there and doing shots of adrenaline and epinephrine and CPR and other things for a good long while, I descended to Base 2 by myself, and the whole way down, for the next few hours, I’m thinking, ‘all right … how much do I want to keep going here?’”
But go on he did, eventually reaching the summit and fulfilling a promise he made to himself to leave there a photo of his brother, who died in his sleep last year at age 48, when he was a young child. Explaining the photo to his Sherpa, who lacked a firm grasp of the English language, was a stern challenge, but Matty believes he got the message across.
“I’m trying to tell him the story about this whole thing, and you can tell that he doesn’t understand the details,” he said, “but because of the emotions you’re going through, he gets the gist of it.”

Mike Matty’s recent view from the summit.

Mike Matty’s recent view from the summit.

Looking back on the Everest climb, Matty said it was physically taxing in every way imaginable, and he credits the hard work he did in the months leading up the assault with enabling him to persevere, although he admits there were many times when he wondered if he could win the battle of attrition.
“You think you know what it’s going to be like, but the combination of being away from home, the unfamiliar foods, everyone has a bad cough, everybody feels like their ribs are cracked or they have pulled muscles in their chests, and so on … you’re feeling pretty beat up, and I lost 24 pounds while I was there,” he recalled. “Physically, your body’s deteriorating and your strength is declining; you’re just hoping you can get yourself up the mountain at some point.”
Watching someone die and later seeing the dead body of another climber were certainly traumatic experiences, but Matty said there were plenty of other episodes that made him question the wisdom of his decision to take on the world’s highest peak. Many came while crossing the famous Khumbu Icefall, which climbers have to traverse a half-dozen times while becoming acclimated to the altitude. The icefall, located at the head of the Khumbu Glacier, is found at the 18,000-foot mark, just above base camp, and is considered one of the most dangerous stages of the so-called South Col route to the summit, with large crevasses opening and closing with little warning and huge ice towers known to collapse suddenly.
“You see these mobile-home-size blocks of ice leaning in all directions,” he recalled. “One day, the line you’re clipping on to keep from sliding down the mountain if something happens goes under a block of ice at an 80-degree angle; the next day, it’s a 60-degree angle, and the next, it’s 45 degrees; you realize that this stuff is moving all day, every day, and you’ve got to walk right underneath it.
“Tomorrow, there’s a 40-foot-wide crevasse where there was none today, because suddenly, everything just split open,” he continued. “It’s a constantly changing thing, and you’ve got to go through there six times. It’s nervewracking … you’re walking through there every time thinking, ‘this could be it, this could be it.’”
Matty did some blogging of his experience, and one of the missives he sent was that no one who attempts Everest considers the fight won until they’re through the icefall one last time and back to base camp.
“It’s one thing to be there at the summit,” he said, noting that he had a full hour to take in that view and enjoy the moment. “But it’s quite another to be back down safely and done. That’s when you say, ‘yeah, all right, I climbed Everest.”
And once back down, he made the traditional visit to the Rum Doodle restaurant in Kathmandu. He signed the wall, as more than 4,000 had before him, including the first to make it to the top, Sir Edmund Hillary, who did in 1953.
When asked what he had for dinner, Matty said he couldn’t remember. “I just know there was a lot of beer.”

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

Opinion
Rebuilding: the Region’s Big Challenge

It’s been nearly seven weeks since the tornadoes touched down in Western Mass. In most all respects, people have stopped talking about what transpired that day — it’s now a distant, yet still-fascinating memory for many — and are instead focused on the future, which is as it should be.
As with any disaster, there is an immediate response to the calamity, a stage in which this region shined on many levels, with people and institutions pitching in and stepping up in ways that can only be described with the word inspiring. Now comes the next phases, or ‘r-words,’ with respect to an event of this magnitude — recovery and rebuilding — and with these steps, the region must shine just as brightly.
In Springfield, matters are off to a very promising start with the appointment of the two leaders of the rebuilding effort — Gerald Hayes and Nick Fyntrilakis — and strong hints about the game plan they intend to put in place.
Hayes, vice president of Administration and Finance at Westfield State University, is a natural choice for this project, with his strong background in economic development, urban revitalization, and long-term planning initiatives. In short, he knows how to get things done, and he’s long displayed an ability to work with others to reach stated goals. Fyntrilakis, meanwhile, is a rising star in Springfield development and revitalization efforts, having taken a leadership role in the State Street Corridor Initiative and other projects to bring vibrancy to the city’s central business district and other neighborhoods. Like Hayes, he’s shown an ability to take a project from the drawing board to reality.
But neither has anything quite like a tornado rebuilding effort on his résumé, so this will be an exciting new challenge to which they will certainly lend energy, determination, and imagination.
The roadmap is still being developed, but the broad plan moving forward is to hire a master planner to create a blueprint for recovery and rebuilding, garner critical feedback from all relevant constituencies in the drafting of that master plan, and then effectively execute what’s been put down on paper. All this will take time, resilience, and large amounts of money that currently don’t exist and must be found, which might be the most difficult part of this assignment.
But it all starts with a plan, and for that, we suggest that all those involved aim extremely high and resolve never to settle for anything second-rate because something better might be too difficult or too expensive to pursue.
We’ve said this many times before, as have countless others, but it bears repeating. Rebuilding from the tornado will be an extreme challenge, in part because this region has never experienced anything like this, but it is also a tremendous opportunity to make things better than they were on May 31. Much better. That may sound a little corny, but it’s absolutely true, and it must be the mindset.
We can make the homes that were damaged or destroyed greener and more fuel-efficient as we rebuild; we can take already-challenged neighborhoods and make them places businesses will want to invest in and make their homes. We can make the South End a model for modern urban renewal.
None of this will happen quickly or easily, but the opportunity is there to do something meaningful, something historic — if we take the energy and creativity that was applied to the tornado response and apply it to the long-term process of rebuilding in Springfield, West Springfield, Westfield, Monson, and every other community where the tornadoes touched down.

Opinion
What’s Behind the State’s ‘Big Shrink’

Massachusetts has lagged behind the rest of the country in job creation since the 2001 recession. While the rest of the country grew, we shrank.
Two interlocking factors explain a significant portion of our stagnation — Massachusetts is failing to create new businesses at the same rate it did in the ’90s, and the new businesses we manage to create are much smaller in size. The Pioneer Institute’s latest study, “The Big Shrink,” seeks to understand how the dynamics of firm size have changed.
Average establishment size dropped from 16 employees in 1990 to 9.7 employees by 2007. This decline has several causes. Large establishments in Massachusetts are disappearing, particularly branches of more than 100 people. Headquarters have actually grown in average firm size over the period studied. Unfortunately, we lost an astounding 5,000 of them from 1990 to 2007.
The most important changes have occurred at stand-alone, single-location firms that make up the vast majority of establishments in the state. The number of stand-alone businesses has increased by almost 150,000 establishments over the 17-year period. But most of that growth is from single-person or non-employer service companies, particular business services. That has resulted in a drop of average firm size at stand-alone companies from 8.38 employees to 5.48.
To be sure, small businesses are crucial to the economy, and we should support them.  There’s also a case to be made that high-value-added service businesses are a durable source of employment that is strongly resistant to outsourcing. But a job-creation dynamic that results in fewer, smaller businesses is incompatible with long-term economic growth.
What is precluding Massachusetts establishments from growing and, in the process, hiring more people? Given that firm shrinkage is pervasive across industries, the answer may lie in the general business environment, as opposed to our current economic-development focus on specific industry niches. Put simply, we need a broad-based effort to address those factors that make the costs of growing and hiring outweigh the benefits. These costs include taxes, unemployment-insurance charges, and the legal and regulatory environments, to name a few factors other studies have highlighted. Massachusetts regularly falls below average in studies that rank states based on their tax and regulatory environments.
Relative to the rest of the U.S., Massachusetts’ inability, long-term, to grow jobs suggests that our economic policies are not effective. To create jobs requires that Massachusetts dramatically increase its rate of business creation and reverse the firm-size trend. Reigniting the Bay State’s job engine will require a systematic approach that takes into account the real dynamics of employment in this state and makes the Commonwealth an attractive place to start and grow businesses.

John Friar is the Pioneer Institute’s senior fellow on Jobs and the Economy and executive professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration.

Architecture Sections
At Studio One, Knocked Down Doesn’t Mean Knocked Out

Greg Zorzi (right, with Chris Novelli)

Greg Zorzi (right, with Chris Novelli) says it was important to get back to work after the tornado, for the sake of not just ongoing projects, but also Studio One employees.

When remembering the events that took place on June 1 and 2, Greg Zorzi paused and looked out the window onto the streetscape below in downtown Springfield, and when he began to talk again, his words were shaken, yet strong and clear.
Like many in Springfield and beyond, the historic tornado changed Zorzi’s world in a single day. The stately Civil War-era brick block known as South Commons that his parents, the original Studio One architects, had renovated and owned was badly damaged one day, then demolished the next. Among several other businesses were the offices of Studio One architects and planners, as well as the Zorzi home.
Sitting in the offices that became the latest headquarters for this architectural firm that has been in existence in Springfield since 1974, he said that, while the business was dealt a great blow both physically and spiritually, the show must go on.
“I strongly believe in the expression that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said, smiling. “We had a city water main break about 10 years ago down there, and we were flooded. We thought that was bad!
“But not only was it important for us to get back to work, to get to the projects that we had been working on right after the tornado hit,” he continued, “I’m responsible to all these people who work here. That is what kicked in. We can’t focus on the negative; we have to move forward.”
Talking about what has driven Studio One since the earliest days of the firm, back when his parents, Peter and Melinda Zorzi, were principals, he said that one of the greatest factors in their strength is wrapped in one word, endurance. “You need a tremendous amount of drive to succeed in this business.”
It’s not just all sweat that makes a good architect, he went on. “What we do, and what my father taught me from an early age, was to build goodwill with clients. That means going the extra mile, never mind whether something is an additional service or not. That’s the best advice I ever got. And because of that, folks call us back.”
Very soon after their offices were destroyed, Studio One relocated to 115 State St., and it was here that Zorzi spoke to BusinessWest. In a suite of rooms that doesn’t have the appearance of a makeshift space created on the quick, Zorzi told the story of how he came to be where he is today.
Glossy images of the buildings his firm has designed over the years line the walls, and with that backdrop, he said that the South Commons location may have been part of the firm’s identity — having been its home for over 25 years — but there’s a silver lining somewhere in that story, somehow.  It’s clear that the endurance he talks about will give Studio One a firm footing to set forth on its next endeavor (more on that later), to be started this fall.

Historic Preservation
A solid book of work in Studio One’s portfolio comes from multi-family housing and SRO (single-room occupancy) projects, and this goes back to the days when Greg’s father Peter was at the helm. Projects have ranged from luxury condo units to the redevelopment of historic properties for housing in Westfield, with a range that covers most of Southern New England.
The firm was one of the businesses instrumental in the revitalization of the historic Matoon Street area in Springfield. Years later, historically sensitive new construction took place in that district, and that, Zorzi said, is one area where his firm excels.
Reiterating the notion of goodwill that he mentioned earlier, he said this has been a great asset not just for his clients, but for his business as well. With many projects over the years funded by HUD money, sometimes going the extra mile meant a repeat customer — many times over.

South Commons, pre-tornado,

South Commons, pre-tornado, was Studio One’s home for more than 25 years.

“One of the distinctions of our firm is that we are very willing to work up front with our clients, especially with those HUD projects,” he said. “They might need assistance with funding, or any amount of assistance in getting their project off the ground. Oftentimes we’re not paid a nickel until the construction documents are 100% done. Then we receive DPG [demonstration program grant] monies from HUD — and then we’re paid. We’re way out there though from the start.”
Repeat customers, from HAP Inc. to Domus in Westfield to the Sisters of Saint Joseph, have been a significant component to how Zorzi’s firm has kept busy and how, unlike other firms its size, it has never had to downsize in staff. “Again, from working with my father, this is how I learned how to build a business,” he said.
With his father in a strong leadership role from the start, Zorzi laughed when talking about succession issues when he became president. While Peter is still active in the firm — “he knows so many people in the industry; he’s an incredible asset, and we still get work from his numerous contacts” — it was natural for the child who started running errands at the age of 10 to eventually take over someday.
After graduating from Boston Architectural College in the 1980s, Zorzi went to work for a large firm in the Hub. It was good experience, he said, but he knew he wanted to return to a smaller-sized shop.
“I was still working there,” he remembered, “when I asked my dad one day at a wedding, ‘are you going to ask me to join the firm or not?’ His response was, ‘I thought you were happy in Boston!’ and then, ‘of course!’”

Student Loans
There are many events that can shape the history of a business. While the events that took place after the tornado are a significant obstacle, Zorzi firmly said that this is a hurdle, but not a dead end.
His comments were carefully thought out, and it’s clear there’s a lot of hurt still there. But he repeated again that one word as an overarching answer to all of what transpired: “endurance.”
“When the city demolished South Commons, we were all greatly saddened,” he said. “I thought the city’s approach was heavy handed and capricious, and not thought out. Those buildings were secured. When we found that block in 1980, it was in worse shape than what happened by the tornado — the section of wall that was damaged and knocked down was a non-load-bearing wall.
“But the worst part,” he continued, “is that we’re licensed architects, and we weren’t even consulted on the fate of those buildings. We were told by City Hall that FEMA was calling the shots, but we later found out that was wrong, that the building commission was. No question in my mind, those buildings on the National Register of Historic Places could have been saved. It’s hurtful. I think the city has made some grave errors in judgment, and we’re calling them out on that.”
Then he stood up from the desk and called in his project manager, Chris Novelli. “There might be a good ending to this story after all,” Zorzi said.
It will start this fall, as Novelli teaches a graduate-level seminar in the Architecture + Design Department at UMass Amherst, to be held in Court Square. “It’s going to be a South End reconstruction studio,” Novelli said. “It’s still in the planning stages at this point for scope and focus. And this is not going to be a purely tornado-based program, but rather taking a broader-based look at the South End — the history of it, what problems exist, and how to create development opportunities.
“I think the biggest goal is that the students learn something,” he continued. “But I personally hope that some of these ideas that the students will eventually come up with will help the city leaders and planners see potential for what they can do, rather than trying to get in any developer who is just willing to do anything there.”
Zorzi added that he would like to see business and civic leaders engaged in the session as well, to act as ‘clients’ of a sort for the students’ projects.
“This is about healing. Even if it’s just a vision for what can be, it’s a healing process,” Zorzi said. He was referring specifically to the UMass program, but it was clear that this architectural firm’s president was also thinking about Studio One, and the city he has called home most of his life.

Features
Small Specialty Shops Thrive in This Affluent Town

Lois Brooke

Lois Brooke says moving her store to Longmeadow was too good an opportunity to pass up.


Fifteen years ago, Lois Brooke started a business named Floral Fantasies and erected a building on Memorial Drive in West Springfield to house the fresh and silk flower arrangements and gift items she carries.
Although the shop was doing well, when she heard that florist William Burrows was retiring and the storefront in the Longmeadow Shops that he occupied was available, she moved her business there because she said the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“I thought it was a great walk-in location. It is a nice community, and a lot of my customers come from Longmeadow, Hampden, and Wilbraham, so I figured it would be more convenient for them,” Brooke explained.
Her shop carries a wide variety of unique gift items that range from fanciful figurines to sea-glass jewelry, specialty chocolate, high-end designer purses, and unusual silver and crystal.
“People come to the Longmeadow Shops looking for something different,” she said, adding that some are seeking bridal or shower gifts and want something more unique and memorable than what couples have registered for.
After moving to Longmeadow, Brooke discovered another bonus: a close-knit community of business owners who work together to support one another. During prom season, she puts roses in a nearby clothing store as promgoers rent tuxedos there, and both businesses tell their customers about each other’s offerings.
Brooke has also carried on the tradition started by Burrows of decorating the plaza during the holiday season, and provides free flowers each week to Starbucks and other stores, which brings new customers to her store.
When it comes to the world of business, Longmeadow is small, and its business space is fairly limited. The majority of storefronts are owned by people who specialize in high-end goods at retail shops, or who operate specialty restaurants, most of which are located in a triangle that includes the Longmeadow Shops on Bliss Road, the Big Y plaza, and Williams Place across the street, which rents office space as well.
There are also a number of small retail establishments in a strip along the Enfield line in the Armata’s supermarket plaza area and at two other plazas at the junction of Shaker and Maple roads. Office space also exists in a building at 1200 Converse St., and many doctors and dentists occupy two buildings on Dwight Road.
“Longmeadow is a small community, but that is the benefit of doing business there,” said Sarah Tsitso, executive director of the East of the River Chamber of Commerce, adding that residents like to patronize community businesses. “The town has a little bit of everything, from banks to clothing shops, along with great public schools.”

Small Wonder
Longmeadow boasts a single tax rate, and Tsitso said the Board of Selectmen works continuously with the chamber to ensure that Longmeadow remains a good place to own and operate a business.
The town sits on the Connecticut line and is easily accessible from Route 5, which runs directly through it via Longmeadow Street, where it connects to Interstate 91 North.
“Longmeadow also has a college in its midst, so it draws parents and a large crowd of continuing-education students from all over the region,” Tsitso said, referring to Bay Path College on Longmeadow Street. “In addition, it has two wonderful golf courses with banquet facilities.”
Town Manager Robin Crosby told BusinessWest that the community is well-informed, and has a higher per-capita income than the average earned by residents in Western Mass. as a region.
“The people here can afford services and are willing to pay for them; plus, the town is very pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly,” she said. “The Longmeadow Shops are located right next to the high school and athletic fields, which makes it easy for families to shop there.”
Walter Gunn agrees. “We are a destination spot because the stores here are upscale,” said the Planning Board chairman. “We also have a lot of professional services and small businesses that include engineers, lawyers, and real-estate agents. Longmeadow doesn’t have an industrial park, and there is no zoning for one. Professional and retail is what the town is all about, and the shops and stores cater to an affluent population. The Longmeadow Shops attract people from out of town. They are a destination, and it’s a safe and secure place for people to shop.”
Over the past year, there have been a number of changes with regard to the town’s retail landscape, and several storefronts have vacated, but Crosby said they fill in quickly.
Camile Hannoush, who co-owns Hannoush Jewelers with his family, says they opened their third Gift-ology store in town last fall. The chain now has dozens of stores across Western Mass. and beyond.
Hannoush said the company chose the Longmeadow Shops because it is a great market for the type of product it carries. “We have handmade and very unique gift items such as pillows from different parts of the country, handmade blown glass which is actually wall art, and handmade purses,” he said, naming several exclusive lines. “Gift boutiques have done very well in Longmeadow because of the demographics. There is a demand for that type of product in town, and I feel that customers who go there want something that other stores don’t offer.”
Hannoush told BusinessWest that, although its Springfield store does well, the company doesn’t have to do as much target marketing in Longmeadow because the location attracts clients interested in its merchandise. “It’s not like going to a mall. The shops here are a destination and a retail mecca with a lot of beautiful co-tenants that we felt were a good fit,” he said. “It’s a great area that is convenient and a pretty place for people to go and shop. They feel comfortable there.”
Crosby said that feeling exists throughout the town, and small restaurants also do well. She cites the Iron Chef as an example. It serves Asian cuisine and opened in a small space on Shaker Road in the Armata’s plaza a number of years ago.
Joann Melikian and her brother, Ardy Iennaco, along with other family members, have been working since January to open a second Primo’s Pizza shop on Maple Road in Longmeadow. The family business will sit in a small strip mall across the street from the Iron Chef and next to a Chinese restaurant in the four-corner section of town on the Enfield border.
Primo’s does excellent business in its shop on Worthington Street in Springfield, Melikian said, but has had its eye on Longmeadow for more than seven years.
“We grew up in Longmeadow, and the whole family lives here, with the exception of my sister, who is in the military, and my brother Frank, who lives in East Longmeadow,” she said. “It’s a small community, we know everyone, we can service more towns with takeout in Longmeadow, and there are only a few other pizza shops in town.” She added that the type of pizza they make will be new to the town because it is baked in old-style ovens.

Location, Location, Location
The family has been looking for an appropriate location in town for years, and when Iennaco discovered that the owner of the Maple Street location would allow them to open a pizza business there, he was thrilled. “I’ve wanted to be in this spot for seven years because I knew it will be a home run,” he said. “There is a steady flow of traffic, and there are two schools nearby,” he added, explaining that their operation will offer takeout and meals that will feed three to eight people.
“It is a great economic opportunity,” Melikian agreed. “We’re a family-oriented business and don’t have a big staff. This is small and is exactly what we were looking for. We grew up here and think people need the opportunity to have old-style, homemade pizza.”
There are many business owners in Longmeadow expressing similar sentiments. Indeed, while the products vary — from flowers to jewelry to pizza — everyone seems to be hitting home runs.

Features
The Maccabi Games Will Bring the World to Springfield

Organizers of the upcoming Maccabi Games

Organizers of the upcoming Maccabi Games, from left: Francis Mirkin; Stuart Greene; Jeff Grodsky, vice president of the Harry Grodsky & Co.; and Michael Paysnick.

The digital display in the lobby of the Springfield Jewish Community Center (SJCC) has been counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds to the start of the Maccabi Games since early this year.
What the current numbers translate to is crunch time, said Michael Paysnick, executive director of the center, noting that the kickoff ceremonies on Aug. 14 are virtually right around the corner. Most all of the really hard work, from recruiting sponsors to finding host parents (although some still need to be secured) to arranging security for the estimated 900 athletes (ages 12-16), 250 coaches and delegates, and 5,000 spectators, has been handled, “and now we’re down to the fine details.”
And they are what ultimately add up to a successful week (Aug. 14-19), said Paysnick, adding that the final pieces are coming into a place for an event that truly brings the world to Western Mass.
Indeed, athletes from across the country and several foreign nations, including Israel, Canada, and Mexico, will descend on the region in mid-August for an event that mirrors the Olympics in many ways, starting with elaborate opening ceremonies at the MassMutual Center, said Francis Mirkin, an attorney with the Springfield-based firm Bacon Wilson and co-chairman of the Games.
“Like the Olympics, the Maccabi Games bring people together from across the country and other nations,” he explained. “They compete against each other, but they also learn from each other and share ideas and memories. It’s a learning and growing experience as much as it is an athletic competition.”
The games mirror the Olympics in another respect as well: putting them on is a huge undertaking, a challenging test for a region and its hospitality infrastructure, but with rewards there as well.
Indeed, while the games are, at their core, a series of athletic competitions with medals for the top performers, said Mirkin, they have become an economic boon for the hosting region and, in the case of Springfield, which hosted the games before, in 1992, a showcase of its tourism facilities, communities, colleges, and universities, many of which will host sporting events, and the business community as well.
“In many ways, this region is perfect for the games,” Mirkin explained. “It has the strong support network and communities with hundreds of willing host families. But it also has the colleges, the facilities, such as those at the MassMutual Center, and the attractions like Six Flags and the Basketball Hall of Fame. And while the games have benefited from coming here, this region has benefited from being host.”
For this issue, BusinessWest goes behind the scenes as the region again prepares to host nearly 900 young Jewish athletes and create another of those learning experiences Mirkin described.

Winning Proposition
Stuart Greene, director of Health & Physical Education at the SJCC, coordinated the games when they came to Springfield in 1992, and he has that assignment again this year.
He brings to the job nearly two decades of experience with the games, starting in 1992, when he took a delegation from the SJCC to its first Maccabi event in Boston. Since then, he’s led subsequent delegations as they’ve competed in Denver, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Diego, and other cities.
The Maccabi movement was started in 1895, but it was not until 1932, when the first official Maccabiah Games — originally conceived by Yosef Yekutieli, a 15-year-old inspired by the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games — were held in Israel. And it wasn’t until 1982 that the first games were staged in North America, in Memphis.
Like Mirkin, Greene said the games represent much more than a chance to compete in sports ranging from basketball, soccer, and volleyball on the team level to tennis, swimming, golf, and track and field at the individual level — although that’s certainly a big part of it.
“It’s a chance to see other places, meet lots of new people, forge friendships, compete, and learn,” he said. “It’s a rewarding experience on so many levels.”
The same can be said of the art and science of hosting the games, he continued, adding that Springfield and Philadelphia stepped forward to co-stage the event (it’s usually held in several venues each year) when many other cities were simply unable to, due in large part to a still-sluggish economy.
The work actually began more than a year ago, when the host cities were announced, said Paysnick, and it will continue until long after the countdown is officially over and even after the athletes and coaches have gone home.
There is a virtual mountain of logistics involved, said Paysnick, adding that perhaps the most challenging is finding host families for the athletes. That work continues even in the final weeks, he said, adding that additional beds are still being sought.
But there are myriad other details to be worked out, he continued, from the securing of venues for the various athletic events to the recruitment of hundreds of volunteers; from security arrangements (which are not as elaborate as they were in 2002, only months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but are still comprehensive) to coordination of transportation for all those athletes.
In all, 33 delegations will descend on Springfield and the surrounding region. In addition to three international teams, there will be squads representing neighborhoods of big cities (Bensonhurst in New York and North Miami Beach, for example) and entire cities, including Hartford, Houston, Chicago, San Antonio, and Jacksonville.
They will be competing in events staged at several area colleges and facilities, including the MassMutual Center, Springfield College, American International College, Holyoke Community College, several area golf courses, and other venues.
The total budget for the SJCC games is approaching $1 million, and is covered through contributions, in cash and in-kind donations, from a host of individuals and corporate sponsors. That latter list includes PeoplesBank, Big Y, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Harry Grodsky & Co., Bacon Wilson, Williams Distributing, and many others.
“It’s a huge undertaking that wouldn’t be possible without the donations of time, money, and energy from many people and businesses,” said Mirkin.

Let the Games Begin
As the numbers get smaller on the digital display at the SJCC, the anticipation builds for an event that will showcase not only young athletes, but Western Mass. and its proficiency at staging large, and ultimately successful, events.
In that respect, there will be winners on many levels as these games are played out in mid-August, and rewards for the all those participated — and those who were part of the effort to bring the event back to Greater Springfield.

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

Briefcase Departments

Advertising Club
Seeks Nominations for
Pynchon Award
SPRINGFIELD — The Advertising Club of Western Mass. is seeking nominations for the 97th annual William Pynchon Award, the area’s oldest and most prestigious community-service recognition program. Established in 1915, the award honors individuals from all walks of life who go beyond the call of duty to enhance the quality of life in Western Mass. communities. Educators, social activists, philanthropists, clergy, physicians, journalists, and business leaders have received the award in years past. To nominate an individual, submit a one-page letter explaining reasons why the nominee should be considered. Included should be brief biographical information, outstanding accomplishments, service to the community, organizations he or she is or has been active in, and the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of at least three people who can attest to the nominee’s contributions. All nominees will be considered and researched by the Pynchon trustees, comprised of past and present presidents of the Advertising Club. The 2011 award recipients will be announced in early fall. The awards dinner and ceremony will be held on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011 at Chez Josef in Agawam. Nominations must be submitted by the end of business on Friday, July 22, 2011 to William Pynchon Trustees, Advertising Club of Western Mass., P.O. Box 2823, Springfield, MA 01101 or by e-mail to [email protected].

MacDuffie Property Acquired for School
SPRINGFIELD — The former home of the MacDuffie School in downtown Springfield has been acquired by the owner of several private alternative schools, with the intention of creating a boarding school for inner-city youths. John Foley, who is also the founder of Project 13, a Holyoke-based program that encourages middle-school students at risk of dropping out to stay in school, closed on the property on July 1. He plans to create the Commonwealth Academy, which will be a nonprofit institution with funding from private donors and the government. The MacDuffie campus, which includes some of the oldest homes in the city, was extensively damaged by the June 1 tornado that plowed through the city. Foley said he intends to continue using the homes as residences for the students.

UMass Chancellor to
Step Down in 2012
AMHERST — Before stepping down as UMass President on June 30, Jack Wilson announced that Robert Holub, chancellor of the flagship Amherst campus, will leave that position next year, and sooner if a replacement is found. The announcement came on the heels of a May report in the Boston Globe stating that an evaluation committee recommended against reappointing Holub after his existing contract expires on July 31. In a statement, Holub said he would leave sooner than July 2012 if another chancellor is able to begin before his new term expires.

Departments People on the Move

Daniel X. Montagna has joined the law firm of Brodeur-McGan as an Associate Attorney. He graduated cum laude from Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, where he was a member of Western New England Law Review.
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Jaimye R. K. Hebert

Jaimye R. K. Hebert

Jaimye R. K. Hebert has joined Monson Savings Bank as Vice President and Commercial Loan Officer. Hebert brings more than 10 years of commercial lending experience to her position, including managing all aspects of a commercial-loan portfolio in excess of $80 million.
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Deborah Gagnon has been appointed Corporate Outreach Officer for Country Bank. In the newly created position, she will oversee the implementation of the bank’s Community Advisory Council and community-outreach activities.
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Christopher Venne is the winner of United Bank’s Service Excellence Award for the second quarter of 2011. The quarterly award recognizes an employee whose on-the-job performance exemplifies excellence in service. As a floating teller, Venne helps keep staffing levels consistent by moving among United’s Springfield branches as needed. In addition, he can be seen escorting customers to their car if the occasion demands, as well as helping foreign-speaking individuals communicate with bank staff.
•••••
STCU Credit Union has hired Michael S. Ostrowski as its President and Chief Executive Officer. His career in financial services spans lending, branch administration, and senior management.
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Nancy Bazanchuk

Nancy Bazanchuk

Nancy Bazanchuk, Disability Resources Program Director for the Center for Human Development, has been inducted into the New England Wheelchair Athletic Association (NEWAA) Hall of Fame. The NEWAA Hall of Fame recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of people who promote sports for disabled persons, are role models for disabled youth, and encourage people of all ages to become more active. The NEWAA also selected Natalie Stebbins as its Female Athlete of the Year. Stebbins has been a Disability Resources member for seven years.
•••••
Greenfield Fire Chief Michael Winn has graduated from the 19th offering of the state firefighting academy’s chief fire officer management training program in Stow.
•••••
Christine Finnie has joined the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office in Longmeadow. As a Sales Associate, Finnie provides residential real-estate services in Longmeadow and the surrounding communities of East Longmeadow, Hampden, and Wilbraham.
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Steven Weiss

Steven Weiss

Steven Weiss of Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, P.C., of Springfield, is included in a new book titled Inside the Minds: Representing Small Businesses in Bankruptcy, from Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books. Weiss, Shareholder and Chair of the Bankruptcy Department, wrote the chapter “Advising Small  Business Clients About Chapter 11,” which includes critical bankruptcy information, guidance, and a checklist. Weiss concentrates his practice in the areas of commercial and consumer bankruptcy, reorganization, and litigation. He supervises the firm’s bankruptcy, reorganization, and workout practice, and represents creditors, debtors, and others in commercial and consumer bankruptcy cases throughout the state.
•••••
The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, based in Springfield, recently honored three area leaders for their contributions to the region and the commonwealth at its 49th annual meeting on June 9.
• Paul E. Hills, Executive Director of the Ware Community Development Department, was recognized for his work in support of regional initiatives and programs and for his successful efforts in community development for the town;
• Stanley W. Kulig, Public Works Superintendent for the city of Chicopee, was honored for his work in promoting and overseeing Connecticut River cleanup efforts, bike path and walkway projects, and infrastructure improvements; and
• David F. Woods, Chair of Leadership Pioneer Valley, was honored for his dedication to creating an advanced leadership-development program that will support emerging and existing leaders in the region’s business, nonprofit, and public sectors.
•••••
The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. (MMWEC), based in Ludlow, elected its officers and four directors during the Joint Action Agency’s May 4 annual conference. They are:
• Kevin P. Kelly, Manager of the Groton Electric Light Department, was elected to the Board of Directors to complete the one year remaining on the term of Thomas R. Josie, retired General Manager of Shrewsbury’s Electric & Cable Operations;
• Jonathan V. Fitch, Manager of Princeton Municipal Light Department, was reelected to a three-year term as a Director;
• Robert V. Jolly, General Manager of the Marblehead Municipal Light Department, was reelected to a three-year term as a Director;
• James M. Lavelle, Manager of the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department, was reelected to a three-year term as a Director;
• Jonathan V. Fitch also was elected to his second one-year term as Chairman of the Board; and
• Peterf D. Dion, General Manager of the Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department, was reelected to his third one-year term as President of MMWEC.
• Additional MMWEC officers for the coming year, as elected by the board, are Ronald C. DeCurzio, Chief Executive Officer and Secretary; James B. Kline, Treasurer; Alan R. Menard, Assistant Treasurer; Nancy A. Brown, Assistant Secretary, and Nicholas J. Scobbo Jr., General Counsel.
• Other MMWEC directors, elected previously by the membership, are Gary R. Babin, Director of the Mansfield Municipal Electric Department; Jeffrey R. Cady, Manager of the Chicopee Municipal Lighting Plant; and Sean Hamilton, General Manager of the Sterling Municipal Light Department.
• Michael J. Flynn and Paul Robbins serve on the board as Gubernatorial Appointees. Flynn also represents the Town of Wilbraham on the board, with Luis Vitorino and John M. Flynn representing the towns of Ludlow and Hampden, respectively.

Cover Story
Former Musician Ron Ancrum Now Hits High Notes with the Community Foundation

July 4, 2011

July 4, 2011


Growing up, Ron Ancrum wanted to be the next Quincy Jones. He was a skilled trumpet player, but liked writing music even more than performing it. He put aside those interests a quarter-century ago as he was shaping a career in higher education and the broad realm of philanthropy, which continues today as president of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. He’s not writing music in that position, but he is working to orchestrate progress for the Pioneer Valley.

Ron Ancrum says he fell in love with jazz — and discovered the trumpet — when he was in the 7th grade.
And by the time he graduated from Rippowam High School in Stamford, Conn., he was, by his own admission, quite good at the craft, which he honed while playing with such groups as the Silver Falcon Drum & Bugle Corp and the Stamford Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. He wasn’t alone in that opinion, either; he earned a mention in Downbeat magazine in 1967 as a promising up-and-coming jazz musician.
“I was a senior in high school at the time,” he recalled. “They [Downbeat] did these jazz competitions where the magazine would go to different cities and have different groups compete; we didn’t come in first, but we got a mention.”
But as much as he liked playing music, he enjoyed composing it even more, and majored in theory and composition at UConn.
“My dream was to be the next Quincy Jones — I wanted to write for motion pictures,” he told BusinessWest, noting quickly that, while he had some success in music — one of many bands he played with, ANKH (his nickname), opened for Gladys Knight and the Pips back in 1973 at the Bushnell in Hartford, and another jazz band, Quintessence, released an album in 1981 — his career has gone in a completely different direction (actually, several of them), mostly out of necessity, but also desire.

Ron Ancrum (center) on the back cover of the 1981 album recorded by his former jazz band, Quintessence.

Ron Ancrum (center) on the back cover of the 1981 album recorded by his former jazz band, Quintessence.

“The major record labels were not picking up jazz — they were more into pop and R&B,” he said of the then-unusual step of releasing the album himself, as well as the primary motivation for his entry into the higher-education sector in the early ’80s, and then a subsequent move into the broad arena of philanthropy, first as a consultant with his own company and later with an outfit called Associated Grant Makers.
His current assignment, as president of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, carries with it some composition work of a different kind — in the realm of what’s known as ‘community leadership.’
Explaining the concept, Ancrum said it involves groups like the Community Foundation moving well beyond the work of managing funds and distributing grants to area nonprofits (although those are still important parts of the whole), and into efforts to address some of the many social and economic issues impacting the region — from school dropout rates to the creative economy to social entreprenuership.
This work has manifested itself in a number of ways, from the coordination of the first of what is expected to be several so-called ‘City to City’ tours — Springfield-area business and civic leaders visited Winston-Salem and Greensboro, N.C. last fall to learn how those communities have bounced back from adversity — to the funding of a new leadership-development program (see story, page 50). And more initiatives are in the formative stages, said Ancrum.
For this, the latest installment of its Profiles in Business series, BusinessWest talked with Ancrum about jazz, philanthropy, and community responsibility, and how they all involve hitting the right notes at the right time.

On-the-record Comments
Ancrum said his interest in jazz these days is confined mostly to listening to it — “picking up an instrument and playing is not what I’m interested in, although I would like to start writing again; that’s what I really enjoy.” But since he’s in Western Mass. at least five days a week (his permanent home is in Canton, Mass.), finding good listening can be challenging.
“I’m used to being in Boston, where there’s tons of jazz,” he explained. “There’s some here, but certainly not as much; there’s been a lot of good jazz at UMass through the Fine Arts Center, for example.”
He is putting his knowledge of the genre and the business to work as a member of the planning committee for the upcoming Hoop City Jazz & Art Festival, slated for July 8-10 at Court Square in downtown Springfield. “I found out that the person organizing it, John Osborn, is a UConn grad like myself, so we got together over lunch and I got involved,” he said, adding that his role is simply as adviser rather than band recruiter. “John’s more into smooth jazz, and I’m more into traditional jazz; I recommend people, but he doesn’t necessarily gravitate toward them.”
Ancrum thought he was destined for a career in music after UConn, where he ran the jazz band and was the arranger, French horn, and electric piano for a multimedia rock production of the Who’s Tommy, among other things. But the stars were simply not aligned for that eventuality.
“I actually took off for California right after graduating, but eventually turned around and came back,” he said, not wanting to go into details of that excursion. Instead of Hollywood, his next stop was a short stint in graduate school, studying music theory at UConn, while also finding different ways to remain active in the music business.
He wrote music and performed with the Voice of Freedom Gospel Choir, for example, and was leader, manager, arranger, and composer for Quintessence, which released an album with that same name in 1981 that has become a collector’s item of sorts.
“There’s a guy in New York who has it listed as a ‘rare-find album’ — he came up and purchased 200 of them from me,” said Ancrum, who found a copy for BusinessWest.
And while he continued to perform and compose until 1987, Ancrum was by that time well into a career in higher education. He started at UConn as a staff assistant in the Student Activities Department in 1972, and later became director of Admissions at Connecticut College. Next was a two-year stint as associate dean of Admissions at Colgate University in Upstate New York. “That’s one of the nicest places to work; it’s just in the wrong place,” he joked. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it snowed from Columbus Day to Easter.”
He then spent nearly a decade at UMass Boston as director of Undergraduate Admissions before starting his own consulting business in the Boston area, which provided services to numerous nonprofit organizations and higher-education instituitions. From there, he went to a Boston-based company called Third Sector New England, again providing consulting services to nonprofit organizations, and eventually on to a lengthy stint as president and CEO of Associated Grant Makers, a membership association for foundations and corporate-giving programs serving Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
During his tenure there, Mary Walachy, executive director of the Springfield-based Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, and Kent Faerber, then-president of the Community Foundation, both served on the board of directors, providing him some insight into Springfield and the Pioneer Valley in the process.
Over time, Ancrum said he developed a desire to work at a foundation, rather than for them, and began looking for such a position around the time Faerber announced that he would be retiring from his post. Following conversations with Walachy and others about the job and the region, Ancrum decided to apply and was ultimately chosen.

Projects of Note
Ancrum said that, when he took the helm at the foundation, he knew little about Springfield other than what he’d learned from Walachy, Faerber, and other funders. He had read of the city’s deep financial problems, but also that they were mostly a thing of the past by the time he started moving into his office on the 23rd floor of Tower Square.
“When I came here, I saw a lot of opportunity to do something,” he said, acknowledging that this was an outsider’s perspective, although little has changed since he’s become an insider. “I thought this was a place ready to take off; it has a lot going for it. There’s clearly some strength in the quality educational institutions, and the health community is quite strong.
“There are assets here,” he continued, “and culturally, there’s a lot of potential; there’s music and art and some museums. This should become one of the places in the state that people come to visit. It’s a destination stop; however, it needs to be marketed better.”
But along with all this potential there are issues and challenges, not only in Springfield, but in communities across the three-county (Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire) area served by the Community Foundation, said Ancrum, noting, among things, a clear need to create new sources of jobs, efforts to replace lost manufacturing companies, and a need to rebuild what he called the “economic infrastructure.”
The sum of these challenges and the need for a coordinated response have been the primary motivators for the foundation taking big strides into the realm of community leadership, he continued, noting that this is now the third leg of the Community Foundation’s mission.
The first leg is essentially providing a vehicle for individual donors to engage in philanthropy, he said, adding that the foundation manages roughly 500 funds ranging in size from $10,000 to $12 million. The second leg is grant making, including the largest scholarship program in the region, awarding nearly $2 million in the most recent cycle.
There are also competitive grants, awarded in several cycles, that have recently totaled roughly $1.4 million. “We recently made 77 awards totaling $720,000,” he said of the most recent round, which featured 104 requests, one of the highest totals in recent years. Following the recent tornadoes, the foundation created a relief fund and directed $50,000 toward it, with other donations coming from a number of financial institutions and other area companies (see related story, page 28). At present, the fund now totals more than $125,000, and will be used to assist nonprofits directly impacted by the tornadoes (and there were several) or that provide assistance to victims.
The community-leadership component is part of a nationwide trend among community foundations, said Ancrum, adding that the agency’s board of directors approved a broad plan to move in this direction in late 2008, and a big part of his job description is carrying out that assignment.

Getting Creative
There have been several manifestations of this initiative, he explained, many of them sparked by what he called “community conversations.”
“These are simple convenings where we invite our donors as a way of educating them, and we invite other people in the field who can contribute to the conversation,” he said of the sessions. “We basically try to figure out what the really hot issues are and bring in national, regional, and local speakers who we feel can add to the discussion and provide direction moving forward.”
One such conversation was about the controversial subject of dropout rates in inner-city schools.
“We took an angle that it’s not just an educational issue — it’s really an economic issue, and it’s really a public safety issue as well,” he explained. “So we had the sheriff there, the superintendent there, someone from the state who could talk about the research done on the subject … we brought people together who we thought would be good to have in the room for the kind of conversation that probably should happen.”
This was followed up by a session on the creative economy, he continued, adding that this featured speakers such as state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg and others, who focused on the success achieved by North Adams and other communities as they have used the arts to stimulate economic development.
One of the most visible of the community-leadership initiatives was last fall’s City to City tour of Winston-Salem and Greensboro, this region’s first foray into a national program designed to let business and civic leaders in one area see, hear, and analyze how other urban areas of similar size and demographics have achieved progress with economic-development initiatives.
More than 50 representatives of area businesses, colleges, and nonprofit agencies spent three days in North Carolina, learning how the two cities had succeeded in revitalizing their downtowns, generating new sources of jobs, and making their cities safer and, overall, more livable.
Ancrum said he believes the program was a success on a number of levels, starting with how it brought a number of area leaders together for three days, giving them a chance to get to know one another, build relationships, discuss matters of importance, and analyze what they were seeing and hearing.
“We had people from the nonprofit sector talking with business leaders and also officials from the city,” he explained. “When you’re with people for several days like that, you can create relationships, and that makes it easier for people to pick up the phone later and talk with people and collaborate with them.”
The other obvious benefit was the rich learning experience, which yielded a number of potential takeaways, either in the form of projects to emulate or attitudes to embrace.
“Because we saw a baseball park in Greensboro, that doesn’t mean we need one here, necessarily,” he explained. “The lesson for me was that creating a venue that will bring families and individuals to the center of your city creates other business in that area that will help your economy overall; we need to create something like that, but it doesn’t have to be a ballfield.”
Another City to City tour is planned for late this fall, he explained, adding that trip organizers are currently researching several options, with Grand Rapids, Mich. and Jersey City, N.J. heading the list of possible destinations.
Meanwhile, the foundation continues to look for other ways to meet that stated commitment to community leadership.

A Major Hit
For $74.99, one can still obtain a copy of the Quintessence album. An outfit called Rarebro Records has it in stock, apparently.
Next to the item on the company’s Web site is a quick description and review of the album. “Recorded in 1980, the jazz arrangements here are soulful and full-bodied,” it reads, “with some nice texturing with the rhodes, saxophone, flute, trombone, flugelhorn, recorder, congas, bongos, bass, acoustic bass, handicaps, drums, and vocals by the lovely Kharmia.”
For this critic, at least, it appears that Ancrum was able to take a number of diverse elements (the flugelhorn?) and blend them into something distinct and meaningful. That’s not exactly his job description with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, but, given its new focus on community leadership, it would seem to fit.
He’s dying to start writing music again, but in the meantime, he’s helping to script some economic-development success stories.

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

Briefcase Departments

Pair Tapped to Head Tornado Recovery
SPRINGFIELD — Gerald Hayes, vice president for administration and finance at Westfield State University, and Nicholas Fyntrilakis, assistant vice president for community responsibility at MassMutual, have been selected to lead the city of Springfield’s long-term rebuilding campaign following the tornadoes of June 1. At a news conference last week, Mayor Domenic Sarno said both men have extensive credentials in urban development and knowledge of Springfield’s history and character. They will serve at no cost to the public. In the wake of the disaster, 22 buildings in the city were demolished, 171 condemned, and more than 1,000 damaged. Hayes and Fyntrilakis will coordinate the tornado-recovery effort until Dec. 31, at which time the arrangement will be reevaluated. The rebuilding campaign, a public-private partnership that will involve the Springfield Redevelopment Authority and DevelopSpringfield, will operate out of a downtown office and will be advertising for a consultant to write a multi-year plan for recovery efforts. Hayes has more than 30 years of economic-development experience, and Fyntrilakis is a former School Committee member and current chairman of DevelopSpringfield.

PVLSI Collaborates with Seahorse Biosciences
SPRINGFIELD — The Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute (PVLSI) and its Center of Excellence in Apoptosis Research (CEAR) have entered into a translational-research collaboration with Seahorse Biosciences of North Billerica and Chicopee. Dr. Nagendra Yadava will be the principal investigator for the program at the PVLSI and will receive the title of John Adams Investigator, in appreciation of support from the John Adams Innovation Institute to create CEAR. Alejandro Heuck, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UMass Amherst and a collaborator with Yadava on this project, will also be named a John Adams Investigator. The program will foster shared research between PVLSI scientists and industry partners, to accelerate new products to the market and foster regional economic development. The new project uses intellectual property developed at the PVLSI to create a new reagent kit aiding scientists in quantifying cellular bioenergetics using Seahorse’s XF Analyzer, an instrument that measures different aspects of cell metabolism. “I am delighted to extend our relationship with Dr. Yadava, the PVLSI, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” said David Ferrick, chief science officer for Seahorse. “The collaborative research and development performed under this agreement will simplify mitochondrial assays and expand our understanding of the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in aging and disease.” D. Joseph Jerry, PVLSI’s science director, added that the agreement “sets the stage for PVLSI scientists to leverage their intellectual discoveries into new products, fulfilling the institute’s mission for translational research.” Patrick Larkin, director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute, added that “this is exactly the type of project we were hoping for when we invested in the PVLSI. It demonstrates the importance of the institute to the region in providing an interface for the life sciences with local advanced manufacturers.” In related news, Yadava was recently named the Western Mass. Mitochondrial Champion by the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, and will serve as an expert on mitochondrial function to researchers and clinicians in the region. Yadava and his team recently published a paper titled “Mitochondrial Dysfunction Impairs Tumor Suppressor P53 – Expression/Function” in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Westmass to Finalize Acquisition of Ludlow Mills
CHICOPEE — Westmass Area Development Corporation (Westmass) recently informed the Ludlow Board of Selectmen it planned to acquire the Ludlow Mills property on or about July 1, according to Kenn Delude, president and CEO of Westmass. With a combination of state grants, private debt financing, and equity investments, Westmass has put into place a finance program that will enable the project’s permitting to commence immediately and allow building utility modifications to be made before winter. “After two years of due diligence investigations, we are now prepared to begin our long-term partnership with the community and start work on the project,” Delude said. He noted that the first visible signs of activity will occur in late summer when the Columbia Gas Co. installs a new gas main along State Street. This work will then be followed by the road reconstruction and other related infrastructure improvements. The goal is to have all the roadway improvements completed by December 2012, according to Delude. The improvements will be funded by a $3.7 million state grant the town received under the MORE JOBS program. “Westmass is committed to seeing that Ludlow Mills once again becomes a major contributor to the economic prosperity of our region,” added Delude. He noted that businesses seeking a new or expanded location, whether to lease or own, are encouraged to contact Westmass for more information.

Grants Available to
West of the River
Chamber Members
WARE — The West of the River Chamber of Commerce is taking its mission of helping local businesses to the next level with the launch of a workforce-education initiative. The chamber will award $500 grants to four businesses which can be used for classes, seminars, and workshops that will develop employees’ skills and ultimately help the business. The idea was proposed by the West of the River education committee and is based on the concept that an educated workforce equals a stronger economy. Grants are open to all members of the West of the River Chamber. The winners will be drawn lottery style at the beginning of August. For an application or more information, call (413) 426-7077 or send an e-mail to [email protected]. All applications must be received by Aug. 1. The chamber serves the business communities of Agawam and West Springfield.

Link to Libraries
Donates Books to
Monson Tornado Victims
EAST LONGMEADOW — Link to Libraries recently donated more than 250 new books for youths of all ages to Monson Savings Bank, which will be distributed to tornado victims in town. The books will be distributed to the children left homeless or with tornado damage to homes in the Monson area through the bank, according to Susan Jaye-Kaplan, president of Link to Libraries. “The books donated by Link to Libraries, we hope, will give much needed enjoyment to the families hit by this devastating tornado,” said Jaye-Kaplan. “It is our hope that the children will find pleasure in reading and an opportunity to have time to relax and be relieved of some stress and worry.” The books include reading material for preschool through the teenage years.

Salvation Army Receives Recognition, Financial Gift
SPRINGFIELD — Major Thomas Perks and his wife, Major Linda Jo Perks, both of the Greater Springfield Salvation Army, have been recognized locally with a monetary donation for the organization they manage, as well as by the national office of the Salvation Army. The Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield honored both the Salvation Army and the YMCA of Greater Springfield during its annual meeting on June 15. Both organizations were recognized for their strong business models and community presence that have had a direct impact on quality of life in the Greater Springfield area. Both also received a check for $1,000. In related news, Perks and his wife were recently honored by the national Salvation Army with pins for 25 years of service. The designation illustrates the tireless efforts of the couple and the organization they oversee. In addition to assisting first responders and victims of natural disasters, the local Salvation Army helps more than 30,000 families throughout the year and more than 6,000 families during the holiday season.

Chamber Corners Departments

ACCGS
www.myonlinechamber.com
(413) 787-1555

• July 8: ACCGS Legislative Steering Committee, 8-9 a.m., TD Bank Conference Center, Springfield.
• July 11: ACCGS Annual Golf Tournament, Ludlow Country Club, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., $150 per person.
• July 20: ACCGS Ambassadors Meeting, 4-5 p.m., EDC Conference Room, Springfield.

Amherst Area
Chamber of Commerce
www.amherstarea.com
(413) 253-0700

• July 18: 8th Annual Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament, 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Hickory Ridge Golf Course, Amherst. Sponsors: Hampshire Hospitality Group, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Applied Mortgage Services, Blair, Cutting & Smith, J.F. Conlon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Mass. Business Assoc., MetLife, Health New England, and Fallon Community Health. Cost: $125 per player, $500 per foursome, includes lunch, tournament, dinner, gift, and goody bag. Register at [email protected] or (413) 253-0700.

Greater Easthampton
Chamber of Commerce
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

• July 14: Networking By Night Business Card Exchange, “Waterski Show Night,” 5-7 p.m., hosted by Oxbow Water Ski Show Team, 100 Old Springfield Road, Northampton. Sponsored by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts. Gala waterski show, door prizes, hors d’ouevres, host beer and wine. Cost: $5 for members, $15 for non-members.
• July 29: 27th Annual Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce Golf Tourney, 9 a.m. shotgun start – scramble. Hosted by Southampton Country Club, College Highway, Southampton. Major sponsor: Easthampton Savings Bank. Golf with cart, lunch, dinner, gift, contests. Win a Buick hole in one sponsored by Cernak Buick; $10,000 hole in one sponsored by Finck & Perras Insurance. Cost: $100 per person, $400 per foursome.

Greater Westfield
Chamber of Commerce
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

• July 14: 34th Annual Pancake Breakfast, 7-11 a.m., Westfield South Middle School, rain or shine. Cost: $5, $4 for seniors, $2 for children. Vendor tables available for $75 for members, $100 for non-members. Call chamber office at (413) 568-1618 for tickets.

Agenda Departments

Jazz & Art Festival
July 8-10: A Mardi Gras theme will kick off the 5th annual Hampden Bank Hoop City Jazz & Art Festival on July 8, featuring Glenn David Andrews with the Soul Rebels, and hosted by Wendell Pierce, star of the HBO series Treme. The celebration, planned at Springfield’s Court Square on the Esplanade, continues throughout the weekend with a lineup of world-class entertainment. On July 9, performances are slated by Marcus Anderson, the UK Kings of Jazz Groove, Down to the Bone, 17-year-old jazz newcomer Vincent Ingala, and Gerald Albright. On July 10, performances begin with the Eric Bascom Quintet, followed by Samirah Evans and Her Handsome Devils. Kendrick Oliver and the New Life Orchestra will also perform, and Latin jazz performer Poncho Sanchez will close out the festival. Organizers will also be increasing the number of merchandise vendors, artisans, and crafters, as well as food vendors. For more information, visit www.hoopcityjazz.org.

Big Band Celebration
July 9: The Springfield Armory National Historic Site will be the setting for an evening of music and dance to salute Benny Goodman’s 1943 concert in the city. The Memories Big Band Sound will kick off the celebration from 6 to 8 p.m., performing the music of Glenn Miller, the Dorsey Brothers, the Andrew Sisters, and Benny Goodman. The USO Retro Show will be performed by two dance troupes as Jitterbug Dancer, of Chicopee, and Small Planet Dancers, of Springfield, take the stage at 8 p.m. with a look back at the 70th anniversary of the USO. The dancers will be dressed in World War II-era uniforms. Jitterbug will also offer free swing dance lessons to the audience from 5 to 6 p.m. The evening culminates with a performance by the U.S. Northeast Navy Pops Band from 8:30 to 10 p.m., playing top-10 music hits from the past three decades. Picnicking is encouraged. There will be ample parking, including handicap parking, and indoor restroom facilities. The rain site is Scibelli Hall at Springfield Technical Community College. The museum will also be open during all event hours. For more information, call (413) 734-8551 or visit www.nps.gov/spar.

Autism Conference
July 9: The Elms College Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Autism Spectrum Disorders, along with the River Street Autism Program, will host “The New Face of Autism” from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the college’s Alumnae Library Theater. This first annual conference is designed for parents and professionals, and topics will include critical communication skills in autism, the future of autism treatment, teaching children with autism to ask for what they want, making psychoactive medication decisions, and quality-of-life issues for individuals with Asperger’s. Educators and professionals in the field of speech and language pathology and board-certified behavior analysts will conduct the conference sessions. The $95 cost to attend includes all presentations and lunch. Registration is required. For more information, contact Dee Ward at (413) 265-2253 or [email protected].

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 $800 for all chamber members and $850 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. 100.

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]

Lucky 13th

Joe-and-Carm-ManziBrothers Joe (left) and Carmino Manzi, co-owners of Villa Napoletana restaurant in East Longmeadow, recently celebrated their 13th anniversary in business with a party at the restaurant on North Main Street. They’re standing in front of a Sunoco modified racecar they sponsor that is driven by John Catania at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series.





Link to Libraries

Link to LibrariesGeorge Burtch, vice president for Global Integration at Hasbro, is seen with fourth-grade students at the Center for Excellence School in Holyoke, where he is participating in the Link to Libraries nonprofit celebrity read-aloud program. The Link to Libraries program offers youth in underserved communities reading programs, new books, and opportunities to meet area business executives who often mentor area youth. For more information on Link to Libraries, go to www.linktolibraries.org.


NCCJ Honorees

NCCJThe National Conference for Community and Justice staged its annual Human Relations Award Banquet on June 14 at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield. The agency, founded in 1927 as the National Conference for Christians and Jews, is a human-relations organization dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry, and racism in America.  Honored with
NCCJ Human Relations Awards for 2001 are, from left, Dr. Saleem Bajwa, Thomas Burton, youth award recipient Rosaline Abraham, James O’S. Morton, and Hyman Darling.


Read-aloud Event

Read-aloud Event 1Read-aloud Event 2Read-aloud Event 3Read-aloud Event 4The United Way of Pioneer Valley and BusinessWest’s Difference Makers collaborated to present a special read-aloud session at the Holyoke Public Library that was part of the Connect to Reading Book Drive staged to collect books for the Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative. From top, BusinessWest Senior Writer Joe Bednar engages a pair of young people in a reading exercise; BusinessWest Advertising Consultant Gwen Burke has one of the young people read to her; dozens of young people and their parents take part in the reading initiative; BusinessWest Advertising Consultant Tina Kuselias reads to a group of young students.

Sections Supplements
Forget Time Management … Are You Managing Your Energy?

Phrases like ‘manage your time’ and ‘do more with less’ have become buzzwords for this decade. The idea is that, if you can manage your time well, you’ll be more productive in all areas of life.
The only flaw in this thinking is that time is finite. In other words, you can manage time all you want and continually push yourself to get more done. But all this managing and pushing tires your brain, drains your spirit, and disengages your soul. That’s when mistakes occur and burnout ensues. The key, then, is not simply to manage your time, but also to manage your energy.
Unlike time, energy is restorable. And when you manage your energy well, you’ll have more energy for your priorities, whether they are personal or professional in nature. If you don’t manage your energy, you can’t manage your time. Sure, you can think about all the things you need to do, and you can even schedule them, but if you don’t have the energy to do the tasks, you won’t be able to accomplish them appropriately.
Realize, too, that managing your energy goes beyond work/life balance. While many people talk about work/life balance (devoting ample time to all areas of your life), few address those things that make life rich and fun.
With so many things competing for your attention daily, you need to give attention to energy replenishment so you can devote time your life’s priorities demand. This is why it’s important to manage your energy before you manage your time.
Keeping your energy in check means giving attention to your brain, your spirit, and your soul. Think of it like a three-legged stool. For the stool to be useful, you need all three legs. Remove one leg from the equation, and the stool topples over and is useless. The same is true for your energy. Therefore, to keep your energy replenished, implement the following suggestions into your daily life.

Stimulate Your Brain
The human brain likes control and certainty, and it’s very good at predicting the next thing that is likely to happen based on the information it has. That’s why you often feel better when you perceive you have control over a situation and feel stressed if you think you have no control over events.
Additionally, the brain is programmed to fear. This is a good thing, though, because the inborn fear is what has allowed our species to evolve. The only drawback to this natural fear is that the brain will take three pieces of information and make a story out of it — usually a negative one. This negative story becomes your reality until you get another piece of data. Talk about an energy drain on your brain!
In order to replenish your brain’s energy, do the following:
• Since your brain is part of your body, it needs to be fed the right food for optimum health. Eat three nutritious meals a day, exercise to increase the oxygen flow to your brain, and drink plenty of water to keep hydrated.
• Reconstruct your stories. You have to purposefully stop the story and seek out the missing pieces of information. For example, if you get an e-mail from your boss telling you not to take part in a task you volunteered for, with no explanation why, you would likely think your boss doesn’t believe you’re capable of the task. In reality, your boss may need you for another task, he or she may think the task is not challenging enough for you, or your boss may simply not need any assistance on the task any longer. But you’ll never know (and never stop the negative story) until you ask.
• Analyze what helps and hurts your thinking ability. For instance, do 200 e-mails staring at you first thing in the morning make you exhausted before you even start the day? If so, then don’t do that task first thing. Do the most important things when you’re alert and at your best, as those tasks will actually energize you so you’re able to handle the stressful tasks later.
• Give yourself two hours a day for focused attention on a key project — the earlier in the day, the better. No multi-tasking during this time! Whether you are a night person or a morning person, the fact is that your brain is rested after you sleep, so this is the key time for focused attention and productivity.

Awaken Your Spirit
The human spirit yearns to soar. The spirit enjoys lofty goals and challenging tasks to accomplish. How spirited someone is often relates to how purposeful he or she is. In fact, it’s common that, when people lose their purpose in life, they feel deflated and even depressed. Hence the phrase ‘her spirit was broken.’
An energized spirit is what catapults you out of the mundane and into a new and exciting endeavor. In order to replenish your spirit’s energy, do the following:
• Do one thing every day that makes your spirit soar. Whether it’s reading poetry or listening to music, if you feel your spirit is fed by that, do it.
• Think about what you want to do in your life. Dream big! Give planned time to your future in order to nurture your spirit.
• Read things that stretch your mind. Your spirit wants to reach for the next best thing. Unleash the power of your spirit by exposing your mind to new things — even things that you feel are impossible to accomplish right now.
• Take time each day to think and concentrate. Many people are in knowledge-oriented jobs and need some degree of quiet time. So even though a particular task must get done, that task often requires planning and thinking. Your spirit can’t gain energy to tackle big goals unless it has some quiet time to prepare. So let people know that you require quiet thinking time, and actually put this time in your schedule. If others know your needs and intentions, they will respect them.

Feed Your Soul
The human soul likes the familiar, the deep, and the poignant. The soul likes ritual, doing the same thing at the same time every day. It also enjoys the simple things in life, beauty, and nature. The soul is what connects you to life and to what is deeply meaningful to you.
In order to replenish your soul’s energy, do the following:
• Clarify your intentions and plan what you want your tomorrow to be like before you go to bed. This allows your subconscious to work on your challenges and big decisions while you sleep.
• Take time for enchantment. Linger through a museum. Enjoy preparing a simple, elegant meal. Go outside regularly and really look at nature. Your soul loves beauty and wants a connection with the earth.
• Experience the present fully. Focus on the things around you — the colors and textures. Be mindful of your current surroundings and activities rather than always trying to multi-task. Really engage in life in the moment. Feel yourself breathe.
• Build rituals for yourself and your family. Even something as simple as eating dinner at the same time every day is a ritual. Both your soul and your brain crave ritual and gain energy from it.

Energize!
By focusing on these three areas of your life — your brain, your spirit, and your soul — you’ll gain the much-needed energy to tackle life with enthusiasm and zest. With your energy fully replenished, time will no longer be an issue. You’ll feel ready to handle anything that comes your way with ease … and you’ll do it much faster.
So make it a habit to stimulate your brain, awaken your spirit, and feed your soul. It’s one investment in yourself you can’t afford not to make.

Jean Kelley, industrial sociologist and founder of Jean Kelley Leadership Consulting, has personally interviewed more than 20,000 people.  She is the author of Get a Job; Keep a Job and Dear Jean: What They Don’t Teach You at the Water Cooler; www.jeankelley.com.

Sections Supplements
New Initiative Strives to Identify and Develop Regional Leaders

Lora Wondolowski

Lora Wondolowski

Recognizing the need to identify and cultivate young leaders, area civic and economic development leaders have created an initiative called Leadership Pioneer Valley. As the name suggests, this is a regional program — covering Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties — crafted to take emerging and existing leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, immerse them in a program to build leadership skills and educate them on the Valley, and then provide them with opportunities to put what they’re learned to work. This is a program, said its recently appointed director, that will have benefits for participants and the region as a whole.

In 2004, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s Plan for Progress, initially created a decade earlier, was overhauled, with 13 new strategic goals identified as “critical for growing the people, companies, and communities that grow the region.”
Lora Wondolowski is now working out of a small office just down the hall from PVPC Executive Director Timothy Brennan because of what’s known colloquially as Action Item 7: “Recruit and train a new generation of regional leaders.”
Indeed, Wondoloski, hired in April, is program director of an initiative known as Leadership Pioneer Valley, which operates with a simple core mission: “To identify, develop, and connect diverse leaders to strengthen the Pioneer Valley.” As she talked with BusinessWest about her new assignment, she conveyed the message that each word in that mission statement was chosen carefully, and it’s her job to sharply define each one.
That starts with ‘identify.’ Wondoloski is now in the process of recruiting the first class of 40 to 50 emerging and existing leaders (ages 25-45) from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to participate. “These are mid-career professionals, people who have been identified as having potential for leadership within their own company or organization,” she explained, “or people who have gotten involved locally somehow; we’re not looking for recent college graduates, and we’re not looking for CEOs ready to retire next year. For employers, these are people they want to keep around, people they want to root in the community.”
‘Develop’ is the next key word in the mission statement, and it will be addressed through a 10-month curriculum (one day per month) that will include a balanced combination of retreats, day-long seminars, and small-group activity, and is still a work in progress, with several weeks remaining before the start of the first planned program in October.
Which brings us to ‘connect’ — once the leaders have been identified and developed, they will be connected to the communities in ways designed to utilize the skills and knowledge they have acquired to benefit the region and specific communities and agencies as program alumni — and ‘diverse.’ Wondoloski said those chosen will, as a group, accurately reflect this region’s changing demographics and, in the process, develop leaders from several different ethnic groups. But it will be diverse in other respects as well, including industry representation.
As for Pioneer Valley, this is a truly regional concept, involving all of Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties, she explained, which separates LPV, as it’s called, from some other leadership programs created in Springfield and Northampton. Meanwhile, one of the goals of the curriculum is to familiarize participants with the whole of the Valley and the specific challenges and assets of specific areas and communities.
“We want participants to get a deep understanding of the Valley and the communities that make up this region,” she explained. “A lot of people don’t leave their communities — people from Springfield don’t often get up to Franklin County, and vice versa; we want to get people out of their silos.”
For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Wondolowski to gain some perspective on Leadership Pioneer Valley, it’s goals and emerging strategies for meeting them, and the reasons why it has become the embodiment of Action Item 7.

A Leadership Position
Since starting her new assignment, Wondolowski, formerly the founding executive director of the Mass. League of Environmental Voters, has been working with a 27-member steering committee on several components of that aforementioned mission statement, from curriculum development to the multi-faceted task of recruitment.
For example, she was in attendance at BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty gala on June 23 at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, meeting with several potential members of the first class of leaders. She’s also been finalizing the application form for those desiring to be members of the first class — it now appears on the recently launched Web site www.leadershippv.org — and meeting with area business and civic leaders to gauge what they want and need to see result from this initiative.
The broad yet simple goal is developing leadership, she continued, adding that this has been identified as one of the more critical economic-development priorities in the region for some time. And to achieve that goal, the PVPC, the Community Foundation of Western Mass., and several area businesses are collaborating to create a program modeled after several local, regional, and national initiatives, said Wondolowski.
As examples, she cited a one-year pilot program created six years ago by the Northampton Chamber of Commerce and the United Way called Leadership County, an effort launched nearly 30 years ago called Leadership Greater Hartford — administrators there have served as consultants for LPV — and an initiative in the nation’s capital called Leadership Greater Washington.
LGW, as the Washington-area program is called, was created in 1986, put together by six area chambers of commerce and three economic-development-related organizations — the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, and the Junior League. The linchpin of the program is its so-called Effective Leadership Institute, which provides one-day-per-month coursework focusing on communication, team building, emotional intelligence, and diversity.
“We’re taking the lessons learned from Hampshire County and applying them to a region-wide leadership program, and the Hartford team has helped put together a business plan for us,” said Wondoloski. “We’re taking best practices from a number of different models.”
Hiring a director and assembling a steering committee were the first real steps in the process of getting LPV off the ground, said Wondolowski, adding that recruitment and curriculum development are the next matters in the to-do list, and there has been significant progress with both.
The recruiting process will be highly competitive, she told BusinessWest, adding that she expects the volume of applications to far exceed the number of seats in the classroom. But more important than the quantity of applicants is the quality, she went on, noting that is why she’s working hard to get the word out to individuals and constituencies like the 40 Under Forty Class of 2011 and those that preceded it, as well as the area’s young-professionals organizations.
Meanwhile, she’s reaching out to LPV sponsors, which include MassMutual, Baystate Health, PeoplesBank, United Bank, Westfield Bank, and others — who are each contributing $5,000 to $10,000 toward the program’s $257,000 annual budget — to help recruit candidates.
Diversity is also a key factor in finalization of the first class, she said, adding that there will be targets established for specific ethnic groups, and to reach them, organizers will reach out to groups like the Latino Chamber of Commerce and others like it that serve a specific constituency.

Course of Action
While recruitment work continues, Wondoloski and the steering committee are also finalizing the curriculum for the 10-month program, the cost of which will vary according to a sliding scale. For participants from large companies, the price tag will be roughly $2,500, while those from the smallest nonprofits will pay $850. Participants will be asked to contribute $300 themselves, and scholarships will be available.
Most of the components are in place, she told BusinessWest, adding that they include:
• A retreat, to be staged in September, which will focus on self-assessment of leadership skills, an introduction to the region, and selection of group projects;
• Challenge days, or day-long seminars, held monthly, that will focus on leadership skills and significant challenges facing the region such as education, sustainability, transportation, and the regional economy;
• Field experience in the shape of day-long workshops, also held monthly, at locations around the region to introduce participants to local leaders, the diversity of the region, and an area’s challenges, assets, and potential; and
• Leadership learning labs. Each class will work in small teams to devise strategies to address one of the themes or challenges identified in the PVPC’s Plan for Progress. The teams will have time to meet on training days, but will also meet independently between the monthly sessions.
The seminars will be held at venues across the region, said Wondoloski, listing the Springfield Museums, Greenfield Community College, and Yankee Candle as examples of potential sites chosen to connect participants with the businesses and institutions that shape the Valley.
Meanwhile, to provide what she called a 360-degree view of the region, the field experiences will be staged at locations chosen to broaden participants’ knowledge of the entire Valley. Details have not been finalized, she said, but there will likely be a Springfield Day; a Five College Day to familiarize the class with the Amherst-Northampton area; a day in Holyoke, Chicopee, and perhaps South Hadley to gain perspective on that area; and a Hilltowns and Franklin County Day.
The sum of these curriculum elements will provide participants with opportunities to refine their personal and public leadership skills, said Wondolowski, while also developing diverse contacts and an effective communication network, receiving recognition for themselves and their organization, and gaining opportunities for taking an active and effective role in addressing community needs.
In short, participants will be gaining and honing leadership skills, while also getting a comprehensive education in the region as a whole, but also its specific areas and communities — and then opportunities to apply what they’ve learned.
Looking down the road, Wondoloski said that some of the programs that LPV is modeled after have developed some measures for quantifying the success of their initiatives. These include everything from the percentage of participants gaining promotions in their firms to the number of nonprofit board seats filled by individuals who have taken part in the training regimens.
Ultimately, though, success will more likely be qualified, and the indicators will be quality of life, overall vibrancy, and greater diversity in the business sector, government, and other realms.

Class Act
Graduates of the LPV program will receive a certificate of some sort identifying them as a participant and perhaps some course credits, said Wondoloski, adding that these are some of the details still being worked out.
But they’ll get much more than a piece of paper, she told BusinessWest, adding that they’ll gain not only additional leadership skills, a new network, and a broad education on the Valley, but also, and more importantly, motivation and opportunities to put what they’ve learned to work.
In that respect, they will be helping to address Action Item 7, but also address the critical need for leadership across the region.

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

Health Care Sections
How Best Buddies Helps Young People Come to an Understanding

Theresa Ruszczyk (right) and her buddy, Lucy Pasche

Theresa Ruszczyk (right) and her buddy, Lucy Pasche, say their friendship has benefited both of them in several ways.

“So far this month we have done the movie night at Cinemark. This event was a lot of fun and we both enjoyed the movie. We have also gone out to lunch at Wendy’s in Hadley. We were originally going to do ice cream but then Liz wanted to go out to lunch and Wendy’s is her favorite restaurant. Liz’s best friend Charlene came with her buddy Emily. This was really fun and it also gave me the chance to meet her dad for the first time. Liz has also come to one of my soccer games. She came to the game because she really wanted to see me played [sic]. I really wanted her to come. Overall, me and Liz [sic] are getting along really well and we already have a bunch of fun activities planned for the upcoming months :)”
This synopsis, known in the parlance as a ‘friendship update,’ does a remarkable and efficient (just 139 words) job of explaining just what the program Best Buddies is all about, and how it creates an abundance of those grammatical smiley faces like the one seen at the end of this missive.
Written by a young woman from Northampton, this monthly update report tells of how two people have become, well … buddies, and how they are spending increasing amounts of time together, finding out about one another, supporting each other, and anticipating a relationship that will continue to grow.
Better than any lengthy brochure, this simple update gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to Best Buddies, which pairs individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) with people of the same age who do not. New friends, or buddy pairs, commit to contacting each other weekly and participating in a one-to-one activity together monthly. In addition, members plan and participate in at least four group activities each year.
Participation in the program becomes a unique growing and learning experience, said Kate Crowther, director, since last fall, of an area that includes Central and Western Massachusetts.
“While there is a service component and a mentoring component to the programs,” she explained, “we really try to support and enforce the idea that each student is of service to the other; it’s a mutually benefiting relationship. And so it’s not about spending an obligated amount of time with someone to fulfill your own personal desire to be of service to someone — it’s about taking steps to become more aware of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, what their capabilities are, and to integrate the two demographics together.”
Theresa Ruszczyk (pronounced ruzz-ik) would certainly agree.
A junior at Northampton High School, she’s been involved with Best Buddies for two years now and is currently president of the Northampton Club, as these groups are called. At a matching party last fall, she was paired with Lucy Pasche, a senior at NHS who has Down syndrome.
Over the past several months, the two have gone to a number of Best Buddies-organized events together, including a dance, a few movies, a day of ice skating, a Halloween party, and a holiday-season get-together at which participants crafted gingerbread houses to be displayed in downtown businesses. Meanwhile, they ‘talk,’ which usually means texting, every day, and have formed a friendship that has benefited both young women in a number of ways.
“I’ve gained a lot more respect and patience and the knowledge that everyone is capable of doing something,” said  Ruszczyk. “I’ve realized a lot more about everyone, especially people with disabilities. I never look at Lucy and think about what she can’t do. I’m focused on what she can do, like run track and be a team captain, be a teacher’s assistant, and much more.”
Meanwhile, Pasche used the phrase “that was fun” to describe a number of the activities that have been part of the Best Buddies experience, especially the dance and gingerbread-house-building activities.
For this issue, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at Best Buddies and how Crowther is being aggressive in her efforts to build awareness of the program and thus create more opportunities for those smiley faces and strong relationships like the one forged by Theresa and Lucy.

The Buddy System
When asked about these efforts to raise the profile of Best Buddies in her large region, Crowther offered a significant sigh and a telling smile.
“It’s a 24/7 effort,” she said, adding quickly that she was exaggerating, but only slightly. Indeed, getting the word about this organization and expanding its already considerable footprint constitutes the top line of Crowther’s job description. It’s an intriguing challenge for an organization that locally is far less a household name than its leading spokesperson — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
But it has made significant strides over the past several years, said Crowther, noting that the area she leads now boasts more than 800 members and 19 chapters involving colleges, high schools, and a few middle schools.
In Western Mass., the colleges are Mount Holyoke, Smith, Springfield, and UMass Amherst. Meanwhile, there are eight area high schools involved — Amherst, Athol, Chicopee, Minnechaug, Monument Mountain, Northampton, Pittsfield, and Westfield — and two middle schools, Amherst and Glenbrook, both in Longmeadow.
Crowther said her twin goals are to grow the number of chapters  — to the extent the budget will allow — and strengthen existing programs. This is what’s happening nationally and internationally for an organization started in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver and that exists with the ultimate goal of essentially putting itself out of business.
“We enhance the quality of life for people with IDD,” Crowther explained, “while striving toward our long-term goal of establishing a society in which people with IDD are so successfully integrated that our services are no longer needed.”
Best Buddies pairs non-disabled students (peer buddies) with individuals (participant buddies) who have intellectual and developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, William’s syndrome (a genetic condition characterized by medical problems, including cardiovascular disease, developmental delays, and learning disabilities), Asperger’s syndrome, and other conditions.
The Boston-area office of the organization opened in 1995, said Crowther, and as demand for such programs in the central and western parts of the state grew, an office to serve that large region opened in 2005. It operates with the same guiding principles as the others, and that overriding goal of creating learning experiences for all those involved.
The many benefits of the program can be seen in the findings of a study conducted at Yale University in 2005. “Best Buddy relationships appear to offer unique benefits to the psychological adjustment of adolescents with mental retardation,” wrote the physicians who conducted the study. “The frequency of contact [adolesecents with intellectual disabilities had with their non-disabled peer buddies] was associated with lower frequencies of peer victimization, better adaptive behavior, higher levels of self-esteem, fewer psychological symptoms, and increased socialization.”

Equal Share
They can also summarized in an annual survey of the Best Buddies program conducted by Michael Hardman, dean of the Department of Special Education at the University of Utah. Results of several recent years showed that:
• 90% of high school peer buddies and 86% of college peer buddies have a more positive attitude about people with intellectual disabilities;
• 80% of the participants with intellectual disabilities demonstrated improved social behaviors;
• 77% of special-education faculty felt Best Buddies heightened awareness of the special-education department and its students among other faculty and non-disabled peers;
• 74% of the participants without intellectual disabilities were more aware that people with intellectual disabilities can hold jobs; and
• 92% of high-school peer buddies (without intellectual disabilities) and 85% of buddies with intellectual disabilities viewed their Best Buddies experience as enjoyable. Meanwhile, 97% of college peer buddies and 83% of college buddies viewed their Best Buddies experience as enjoyable.
“As with any successful social movement, the key to reform is changing people’s minds and hearts,” Hardmann wrote. “By introducing one person with a disability to a peer who does not have a disability, Best Buddies Massachusetts meets the immediate need for socialization and effects long-term change in people’s attitudes toward those with intellectual disabilities.”
Ruszczyk said the Northampton chapter has grown and evolved over the past few years. When she joined, most members were seniors, and when she graduated, the chapter had just a handful of participants. But it has grown to nearly 50 over the past year.
Some of these members have buddies, but many do not (lack of transportation often makes it difficult to meet some of the requirements), and these individuals are essentially friends to all those with IDD, said Ruszczyk.
“They don’t look at not having a buddy as being a barrier,” she explained. “They went beyond that; they’re very social and friends with everyone.”
“We want to be as welcoming as we can,” she continued, adding that the chapter’s get-togethers are open to all students at the school, not simply members. Meanwhile, the Northampton chapter will collaborate with the one at Amherst High School on events to create larger gatherings that help build awareness of the organization and its many goals.
By building greater awareness, Crowther hopes to be able to take the Best Buddies model to more middle schools, high schools, and colleges in Western and Central Mass., and, ultimately, make her region self-sustaining.
Achieving this goal will require greater financial stability and flexibility, she continued, adding that Best Buddies Massachusetts provides most of the funding for the regional office, but grants have also been secured and several fund-raising events have been added in recent years to provide that stability.
A fashion show staged at Thornes Market in Northampton this past spring was one such activity, while a golf tournament, slated for later this month, is another. The most successful fund-raiser to date, however, is an endeavor known as Artistic Abilities, an event that showcases and various talents of area buddies. Artists from the community will partner with individuals involved with Riverside Arts Industries, an Easthampton-based organization that provides services to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Moving forward, the organization wants to take its fund-raising activities to a higher level, she continued, but from a big-picture perspective, the success of best Buddies lies in relationship-building on a number of levels — with participating schools, area businesses, and the community at large.

Getting Together
Pasche will be attending Holyoke Community College this fall, with a specific course of study to be determined later. Ruszczyk, meanwhile, is just starting the process of looking at schools, and for now, she’s equally undecided about a career path.
One thing she has decided is that she wants to continue her involvement with Best Buddies. “I hope the school I go to has a chapter — I’m pretty passionate about it,” she told BusinessWest, to which Crowther replied that, if that institution didn’t, she could always try to start one.
But that’s down the road. For now, she and Pasche are focused on the summer, finding ways to stay in touch (a cell phone greatly facilitates that process), and building upon a friendship that has already provided some enduring memories and important lessons that will linger well beyond their time at Northampton High School.
And that, in a nutshell, is what Best Buddies is all about.

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

Health Care Sections
Tornadoes Spur New Chapters in Hospitals’ Books on Preparedness

Ann Carroll

Ann Carroll had already been thinking about tornado preparation when the events of June 1 put Springfield’s hospitals to the test.

Ann Carroll spent most of the morning on June 1 preparing a PowerPoint presentation on, of all things, tornadoes and what hospitals should be thinking about to be fully ready in case one strikes.
This work, which falls under her job description as emergency preparedness coordinator at Mercy Medical Hospital, was inspired by the events in Joplin, Mo. eight days earlier, when a mile-wide tornado devastated that community, killing at least 155 people. It hit the nine-story St. John’s Regional Medical Center head-on, and many of the stories of out of Joplin detailed how the hospital’s staff scrambled to safeguard patients during the few moments of warning they had, and how they carried on, despite great adversity, after disaster struck and cleared the hospital in less than 90 minutes.
Believing there were poignant lessons from Joplin, Carroll started logging information about that event and tornadoes in general to add to Mercy’s database on such matters. What she learned, or had reinforced, among other things, was the fact that tornadoes can ‘hop’ — touching down in one area, rising off the ground for what could be a few hundred yards or several miles, and then touching down again.
“Another thing I learned is that they generally take on the color of the ground,” she said. “If they’re coming just over grass, they’re green, but when they’re black, it means they’re picking up debris.”
Little did Carroll know that, by day’s end, she would have some first-hand knowledge of these phenomena and many others to add to her presentation — which remains a work in progress — and perhaps a few new pages for the binder on the bookshelf behind her desk titled ‘Weather Emergencies.’
Indeed, the series of tornadoes that hit Western Mass. late that afternoon, and especially the one that arrived in downtown Springfield around 4:30, gave new meaning to the phrase ‘learning experience’ for all involved, said Carroll, and in this case provided just one of the myriad ironic twists that fateful day.
Tom Lynch

Tom Lynch said any emergency plan has a certain amount of flexibility built into it, because it’s impossible to predict precisely what type of disaster will strike.

Tom Lynch agreed. He’s the director of Security at Baystate Health, and he, too, was going over material written about Joplin in the days leading up to the Massachusetts tornadoes. And while doing so, he put special focus on how St. John’s and its parent system, based in Springfield, Mo., handled the broad matters of information management and communication.
“One of the things that becomes critical is how you communicate with your staff and how you communicate with the community,” he said, “because, if there’s a need to access services or if there’s a question of whether you should come to work and, if so, how you should do it, then the ability to get that information out becomes a challenge.”
Like Carroll and most everyone else at Baystate and Mercy, he would have some personal accounts to add to his base of knowledge by the time the sun went down on June 1, and some thoughts about where changes or improvement may be needed in disaster readiness. Like Carroll, he said the collapse of cell-phone service was unexpected and problematic. Meanwhile, he said, overall, things could have been much worse that day if, for example, the tornadoes had done considerable damage to one of the arteries it passed right over, including I-91, Route 5, and the Memorial Bridge. And he believes plans should be made for such specific calamities.
For this issue, BusinessWest looks at how Joplin put tornadoes on the radar screen here and elsewhere, in a figurative sense, and how this region’s own experiences brought those lessons home in ways no one could have imagined on May 31.

Getting Wind of It
Recalling the events of that fateful Wednesday, Dan Moen, president and CEO of the Sisters of Providence Health System, which includes Mercy Medical Center, said there wasn’t much talk of tornadoes that morning, and very little in the way of what would be considered heightened alert of additional preparedness other than people “being aware of what could be a pretty significant storm.
“I think that, sometimes, we don’t pay enough attention to those types of storm warnings,” he continued, adding that it’s fair to say that the word ‘tornado’ will never be regarded the same way in this region. “I don’t think anyone will underestimate those storm warnings in the future.”
Although the first tornado touched down in Westfield, and then again in West Springfield, there was very little warning to speak of at Mercy Medical Center, said Carroll, whose basement-level office at Mercy has no windows. She added that there was a warning around 1 p.m. that conditions were ideal for severe thunderstorms and perhaps a tornado, and the first real warning — but for possible tornadoes much further north, in the Amherst/Belchertown area — came at 4:23 p.m., just seven minutes before the funnel cloud then making its way across the Connecticut River showed up on a camera fixed atop the hospital’s roof.
No one at Mercy really knew about the tornado until they heard about that image from the roof camera or saw the funnel for themselves, said Carroll, adding that she was walking through a tunnel between the hospital and Memorial House when the tornado crossed the river into Springfield, and first saw it when she emerged at the other end. She immediately told staffers to seek shelter, and within seconds, warnings had been sent to the pagers and cellphones of employees, and Mercy swung into what’s known as a ‘Medical Alert Code 1,’ the lowest of four levels, with a ‘4’ translating into full-scale evacuation of the hospital.
In the Code 1 scenario, personnel at the hospital were asked to work beyond their traditional shifts (which vary with the position in question), and additional personnel were placed on standby. Meanwhile, patients were moved away from windows — a step already in the response book but reinforced by the events at Joplin — and Moen took up a command post in the hospital’s ER with the mindset that a tornado in an urban area like Springfield could result in a large number of injuries.
“We anticipated that there would be many more victims than what we actually experienced,” he said. “We started to work on the staffing piece — asking people to stay beyond their shifts and calling some people whose skills we knew we’d need, not knowing whether they could get in at that point.”
At Baystate, very much the same thing was happening as that hospital shifted into what it calls a Plan D (for disaster), said Lynch, noting that the facility first went into standby mode for that particular response scenario, and then, when the tornado officially touched down in Springfield, went into the actual Plan D.
There have been a few occasions over the years when this has happened, he said, adding that, in his 16 years at the hospital, the only direct comparison he could draw to the tornado in terms of the type and degree of response and general level of mobilization was the Jahn Foundry explosion in February 1999 that sent 12 workers to Baystate with burn injuries; three of them would later die as a result.
“The similarities are the spontaneity of it, the fact that we had some self-drives — not everyone came by ambulance — and the level of preparation activity,” he said, adding that the nature of the foundry injuries, severe burns requiring that patients be stabilized and then moved to burn centers, made that case different in some respects.
Baystate does not have a specific contingency plan for a tornado, said Lynch, adding that such a development would be covered under what’s known as hazard-vulnerability analysis, which looks at 35 to 40 different things that can happen — from a terrorist attack to a severe blizzard — and prioritizes them in terms of the likelihood of their occurrence, the kinds of damage each might cause in terms of operation, and preparedness level. Tornadoes do not appear on the list (although ‘severe weather’ does), he told HCN, and they’re certainly not a high-priority consideration, or at least they weren’t before June 1.
“When you design a weather-emergency plan, there’s a certain amount of flexibility in there,” he explained. “It might be snow, ice, or severe thunderstorms that take things out of play.”

Imperfect Storm
Given the population density in downtown Springfield and the neighborhoods surrounding it, personnel at both Mercy and Baystate were preparing for a high volume of injuries that, thankfully, never materialized.
At Baystate, for example, the hospital moved into what the system calls ‘mass casualty mode.’
“With the damage you’re hearing about — with the collapses, the closed-off neighborhoods, and the closed-off streets, the anticipation is that you’re going to get large numbers of wounded people here,” Lynch explained. “So you move into the mass-casualty mode, which then ramps up different aspects of the operation, particularly the clinical things.”
Elaborating, he said that Dr. Reginald Alouidor, attending physician in Baystate’s Level One trauma unit, the only facility of its kind in Western Mass., was forming trauma teams, and the Emergency Department staff were moving patients and creating room for a crush that was far less severe than it could have been.
Baystate eventually treated 25 people, 10 of them in the trauma unit; seven were admitted. Mercy, meanwhile, treated a total of 35 people, none of them with life-threatening injuries, and all were treated and released.
Many of these individuals transported themselves to the hospital, which made this situation unique in some ways. “I remember this one car that drove up … the roof was V-shaped,” said Carroll. “A tree had fallen on top of it, and the windows were blown out; there was a baby in the car, and they needed two wheelchairs to get the occupants out and into the emergency room.”
While dealing with the injured from the first tornado, both hospitals soon went on alert for more twisters, especially one that was reportedly moving southwest from Chicopee, right into the path of the two facilities.
Moen said these reports prompted staffers to once again move patients away from windows and consider additional steps to ensure both patient safety and efficient handling of large numbers of injuries.
When asked what lessons Mercy and other hospitals could take away from the events of June 1 — just as they are all learning from Joplin — Carroll started with the need to pay a little more attention to the weather, a need she’s already addressed.
“Someone told me Radio Shack was having a special on hazard-alert radios, for $29.99,” she said. “They were getting rid of last year’s models, so I went and bought five of them; we’re going to place them at the security booth, the front desk, at the switchboard, which is also in the basement, and the fourth floor of the Weldon Center, because they saw it out the window about the same time I did.”
Beyond that, she and Lynch said much of the focus has been on the ineffectiveness of cellphones — again, something that wasn’t anticipated — and steps that may be taken in the future as a result.
“I received only one call in two hours, and every call I tried to make didn’t go through,” she said, adding that backup contingencies, ranging from land lines to two-way radios to texting, kept most of the lines of communication open.
In the wake of the tornadoes, Mercy will look into having more ham radios tuned to the SkyWarn channel, another stormchasers’ outlet. “Many times, they’re the first to see the first touchdown.”
Said Lynch, “It’s a stunning thing for people to dial something on a cell phone and get busy circuits all the time. You have to look at what that impacts. It didn’t affect our operations, but when you live though it like this, you ask questions about what happens next time.”
As is typical with such events and the drills that replicate them, he added, there is a comprehensive debriefing exercise, at which those involved discuss what went well and what didn’t. In this case, most all matters fell into that first category.
“But in this particular case, we’re going well beyond that, because it was an actual event, and we’re really soliciting information from our clinical people,” Lynch said. “They did fabulous work, and they organized this so rapidly; it’s not a surprise, but it’s always great to see. People take the training, and they take the understanding, and they do what they have to do, and do it remarkably well.”

Lasting Impressions
Caroll is still working on that PowerPoint presentation she talked about. The pictures and accounts of the Joplin disaster offer some important lessons for Mercy and all hospitals.
“We wanted to look at the types of damage done to the hospital in Joplin, and the things that we would need to consider in our planning,” she said, “such as the safest places to seek shelter in the buildings, warning systems, and so on.”
All that will still go on, but now there are other, far more personal accounts of what to do when a tornado strikes. They are one of the more positive things to take away from a day that won’t ever be forgotten. n

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

Banking and Financial Services Sections
Start by Creating a Budget and Trimming Some Fat

Thomas J. Fox is

Thomas J. Fox is

Stress is a word we’ve become all too familiar with throughout the recession. According to the American Psychological Assoc. 2010 Stress in America survey, 76% of Americans say money is the significant cause of their stress. Although the economy has shown signs of improvement, many of us are still concerned about the future.  If you’ve seen your home lose a quarter of its value, watched your retirement account dwindle, or been forced to live a more frugal lifestyle, you know what I’m talking about.
Needless to say, no matter how good the country’s economy gets, we won’t consider the recession over until our personal economy rebounds. Now, we don’t know when that’s going to happen, but there are some things you can do to make things a little less stressful on yourself and your family until the situation has stabilized.
First, let’s look at the bright side of our economy. The Associated Press’s Economic Stress Index, a monthly release analyzing the financial strain of the nation, shows promise in our recovery. The Stress Index calculates the pressure Americans are feeling by county, and assigns a score, from 1 to 100, to the overall pressure the nation is feeling. Factors such as unemployment, foreclosure, and bankruptcy filings are considered when weighing economic pressure. As things get worse, the Economic Stress Index increases; as things get better, the score decreases.
According to the AP’s April release, America’s economic stress fell to a two-year low of 9.8, down from 10.5 in March. The decrease is attributed to strong private-sector hiring and lower bankruptcy filings. That’s great news, but we’ve still a ways to go before we can claim a full recovery. Plus, we have to contend with higher food and gasoline prices, which hamper our overall economic growth.
Even though there are signs things are improving, we may still be feeling the stress of a beleaguered economy for a while. So, what else can you do to keep calm during the recovery? The American Psychological Assoc. has some great tips on how to take the edge off your financial woes.
First, don’t panic. I know, easier said than done, but think about it. What have you gone through in your life? Have some experiences left you feeling like this is the end of the world? From my own personal experience, I know I’ve felt that way on a few occasions, but you know what? Things worked out, sometimes even better than I imagined. The point is, don’t worry about things you can’t control. You can’t put your life on autopilot, either, but you shouldn’t fret about the overall economy. Focus on your personal situation and make the best decisions you can to make things easier.
Some decisions require soul-searching and communication. Many of our expenses are personal in nature. However, when we really look at where our money is going, there’s always room to trim the fat. Sit down with your family and have an honest discussion of what you can eliminate from your budget or spending plan. If you don’t have a budget, make one. You can’t make a plan to alleviate your stress if you don’t know what’s stressing you out. There are plenty of online tools you can use to develop a budget, such as Mint.com, that will help you to create one in a jiffy. Once you know where your money is going, start to think about areas where expenses can be reduced. If you are having some difficulties cutting back, call your bank, utility companies, and creditors to see if there are any programs available to help reduce the amount of your monthly obligations.
The next bit of advice works in conjunction with cutting expenses. Most of us never took a course in personal finance, and to some, budgeting sounds about as fun as a root canal. The good news is that there are many services available to you that can help you to create a budget and reduce your expenses. Credit-counseling services employ financial professionals who have a great deal of experience helping people make sense of their finances. Each year, millions of Americans reach out to these nonprofit agencies for relief, guidance, and the expertise to deal with a host of financial issues. Even better, talking to a counselor is free — how’s that for reducing your stress?

Thomas J. Fox is the Community Outreach Director at Cambridge Credit Counseling, an Agawam-based professional housing and debt-counseling agency. He is an AFCPE-accredited credit counselor, a CFC-certified educator in personal finance, and an NCHEC-certified housing counselor; (413) 241-2362; [email protected]; twitter.com/thomasjfox

Banking and Financial Services Sections
STCU Stays True to Its Roots by Providing Education to Its Members

From left, STCU executives Michael Ostrowski, John Klimas, Jennifer Beylard, and Denny Keyes

From left, STCU executives Michael Ostrowski, John Klimas, Jennifer Beylard, and Denny Keyes say their institution is focused on helping its members achieve their financial goals.

Michael Ostrowski was talking about doing the “right thing.”
But the president and CEO of STCU Credit Union, who took over the helm June 10, wasn’t referring to moral choices. Instead, he was explaining the importance of helping members make sound decisions about how to save, invest, and spend their money based on financial literacy and education, which he says is integral to the institution’s mission.
“People come in here and they think they know what they need,” he said. “But we get the broad picture of where they stand financially and then try to encourage them to do what we think is in their best interests. Credit unions are about people helping people, and we try to make sure each person has the ability to make payments on a loan and is making prudent financial decisions. For example, someone might think they want a home-equity loan because of the low rates, when it may be smarter for them to rewrite their first mortgage. We look at what is best for them, as it’s part of our mission to guide them to make better decisions than they might make on their own.”
STCU was founded during the Great Depression by a group of teachers at Commerce High School in Springfield. It has come a long way since its beginnings in 1929, and today serves about 11,000 members who reside in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. Although it is open to the public, the majority of members are educators who come from Springfield Public Schools, American International College, Springfield Technical Community College, Minnechaug Regional High School, and the Massachusetts Career Development Institute, among others.
The credit union has always been a place where members give their all to benefit fellow teachers. In fact, its first full-time manager, Joseph Della-Giustina, left a teaching job he loved at Commerce High School in 1988 and took early retirement because state officials wanted to take the credit union over and gave it a month to find a full-time person to run it.
“I loved to teach, but we were going to lose it; there were many times when we had to stretch our necks out to help people,” said the 88-year-old. “We listened to people’s stories, and during my time there, I saw many who left here with things looking up for them. To this day, I have people who come up to me and thank me for what we did for them.
“We started in one room,” he continued, “and worked on the credit union, and as long as we had people interested and willing to stick their necks out, we got things done.”
For this edition, BusinessWest takes a look back at STCU’s history and the factors that allowed it to grow and remain financially healthy through turbulent times and difficult periods in history.

Pooling Resources
In 1929, 31 teachers at Commerce High School pooled their money to start the Springfield Teacher’s Credit Union. It was housed in Room 125 at the school, and the records were kept in a locked closet. The hours were few: it was only open for about a half-hour each day after school closed.
“But it was a place where teachers could save and borrow during one of the most difficult times in U.S. financial history,” Ostrowski said. “STCU was born out of necessity. These people needed loans, so the founders did what they had to do to fulfill their fellow teachers’ needs. There were a lot of bank failures at the time, and it must have been very difficult for people who were gainfully employed not be able to get a loan or save properly, so this provided a solution to the problem.”
The members pooled their savings, which were recorded at $2,160. After several meetings, on Oct. 5, 1929, the credit union received a certificate of incorporation from the Commissioner of Banks and the Secretary of State.
Anthony Serafino, who was a former teacher at Commerce, was one of the key players in its history, as was Della-Giustina, who joined the credit union in the ’50s when he was teaching business math at the high school.
He remembers people who needed to borrow as little as $150 and were thrilled to have their requests met at STCU. However, he made it a point to tell members that membership was a two-way street and that, in order for the credit union to successfully serve their needs, they needed to support it by borrowing and saving there. He also told them to keep in mind that it was their credit union, which meant they had the opportunity to have a say in how it was run, elect people to the board of directors, and directly influence the products and services that were provided.
“Our sole purpose is to serve our members in good times and bad, and all the benefits of membership derive from that single purpose,” he said in a statement made in 1988.
As the membership grew, it became necessary for the credit union to move its operation out of Commerce High. Della-Giustina said a three-story building was available next door on 427 State St., and they rented it for a time before purchasing it.
The ground floor was a store, and one of the teachers who was handy and lived a distance from Commerce was given free rent in an upstairs unit in exchange for doing the work necessary to make it operational. Della-Giustina and Serafino oversaw a lot of the construction and made sure it continued to meet the needs of the teachers it served.
“But as time went by, we grew, and it became too small,” Della-Giustina said. He had a friend in the construction business who had purchased the piece of property the current main branch stands on at 145 Industry Ave. in Springfield, who was unable to use it for what he wanted and sold it to the credit union at his cost so it could put up its own building.
Ground was broken on Nov. 4, 1988, and the credit union opened its doors on Aug. 7 that year. By that time, STCU offered a wide array of products and services, but as its new manager, Della-Guistina had to petition city officials to allow direct payroll deposits and deductions for members, which he successfully obtained.
The credit union has continued to expand since that time and opened a branch in the Westfield Shoppes in 2006. Ostrowski said the name was changed about 10 years ago from Springfield Teacher’s Credit Union to STCU as it hoped to attract more members from  the general public and didn’t want people to think it was only for teachers.

Bright Future
Ostrowski, who has spent his life in banking in the Greater Springfield area, said he’s excited to be at the helm of STCU. He knows what it’s like to struggle, as he worked his way through pre-med school with a night job before a chance encounter led him to switch career paths. He has handled mortgage banking at Boston Pioneer Financial Cooperative Bank, started the residential mortgage department at Multibank National Bank in Springfield, and was a commercial lender at Ludlow Savings Bank, vice president and chief lending officer at Freedom Credit Union in Springfield, and vice president and senior lender at Barre Savings Bank before coming to STCU.
He likes the fact that credit unions work together, and is very committed to continuing the education that has been part of the mission of the credit union. “Teachers are a close-knit group and want to do the right thing, which falls into place with this credit union. We have the same attitude, which is a tradition that has been carried on since its beginning,” he said.
One of his goals is to work with schools in Springfield and Westfield to develop programs that will teach high-school students financial literacy.
“It’s important; you see so many college students who are in trouble due to credit cards and solicitations because they don’t know how to handle money,” he said. “I want to make sure we are doing everything we can to get kids on the right track.”
Classes would include an introduction to checking and how to save, and may also include sending a credit-union representative to the schools each month to make it easy for students to make deposits.
“Teens need to learn to be savers and understand when to get loans and when not to get them,” Ostrowski continued. “We see a lot of people who have overextended themselves financially because they are not financially literate, and since we are a teacher’s credit union, it’s really important to build that bridge, which ties in wonderfully to our roots.”
Ostrowski says the board of directors has always been financially responsible, and although the credit union took some losses two years ago, “we have turned the corner and are very much on solid ground. We are well-capitalized and are earning money.”
In short, it all comes back to doing the right thing — first and foremost for individual members, which translates into the bigger financial picture of the entire credit union.
And to this day, as Della-Giustina said, people who go there for help don’t forget what they learned in the hallowed halls of this teacher-founded banking institution that is still dedicated to education.

Education Sections
Initiative Creates an Ambitious Agenda for Public Higher Ed

VisionProjectThere are many moving parts to the state Department of Higher Education’s Vision Project, but the bottom line is jobs, or, to be more precise, properly preparing individuals for the jobs that define a new, technology-centered economy. The Vision Project aligns all 29 public colleges and universities behind seven identified goals — from improving graduation rates to getting more people into math and science fields — and adds several layers of accountability.

Richard Freeland says there’s nothing new or particularly imaginative about the goals spelled out in the Mass. Department of Higher Education’s so-called Vision Project.
They range from improving graduation rates to increasing the numbers of people entering college; from eliminating historical disparities among racial and ethnic groups to encouraging more people to enter the math and science fields of study — and they’ve been goals for individual colleges and universities for decades.
What is new, said Freeland, the state’s commissioner of Higher Education, is a heightened sense of urgency attached to these goals, created by truly global competition and technology-focused jobs that increasingly demand a college education.

Richard Freeland

Richard Freeland

“Given where our economy is and given where our state is demographically, and given the competitiveness of the economic world, both nationally and internationally, we’re at a point in the history of Massachusetts where we need first-class public higher education,” he explained. “And I don’t think that, historically, public higher education has been the kind of priority that it needs to be today.”
And what’s imaginative is the Vision Project’s approach, a coordinated effort involving all 29 public colleges and universities that adds several layers of accountability.
“This is an attempt to pull together, against the background I’ve described, the coordinated efforts of all public high education,” Freeland explained. “We have a highly decentralized system that features a great deal of autonomy granted by statute to the colleges and local boards of trustees. That makes it extremely difficult for public higher education as an entity, as a statewide institution, to respond in a collective and focused fashion to statewide needs.
“There is a bit of a mismatch between the structure — the decentralized, desegregated, fragmented structure of public higher education — and the urgency of the concentrated focus on building a first-class system of public education,” he continued, adding that the Vision Project was created to align the 29 public campuses behind a short list of critically important goals.
To show how it will all work, Freeland talked about one of the items on that short list, the often-controversial matter of graduation rates.
“This is where the rubber meets the road,” he said of the need to see people who enroll through to commencement night. “When people talk about graduation rates, the answer, across the country, is that they’re not high enough; too many people are falling by the wayside.
To address the problem in the Bay State, a comprehensive, three-part program, developed as part of a national initiative known as Completing College America, has been implemented to move the needle in the right direction.
“The first part calls for every institution to have specific goals to improve student success,” he said, citing just one example of how the Vision Project operates. “When we surveyed our institutions, we found that that was not currently the case; while everyone’s working to do better, a number of our institutions had not formulated specific aspirational goals against national benchmarks to hold themselves accountable for forward motion.”
Ira Rubenzahl, president of Springfield Technical Community College, said he’s a strong proponent of the Vision Project, although, like others, he stressed that it will need a strong funding commitment from the Legislature to meet its goals, and he has concerns about whether that will materialize.
He stresses that the need for the initiative is real, and that while the initiative has a number of moving parts, at its core it is about one word: jobs, and, more specifically, adequately preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow — and today, for that matter.
Ira Rubenzahl

Ira Rubenzahl

“We recognize that some college is critical for young people to get jobs in this new economy, and it’s critical to grow this new economy,” he said. “All the elements — getting more students to attend college, getting more students to complete, getting students to be successful while they’re at college, eliminating disparities, and aligning with local businesses — have an economic lens to them.”
For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at the Vision Project, its goals, and the unique strategy mapped out for attaining them.

Schools of Thought
Freeland told BusinessWest that there are several reasons why Massachusetts has historically lagged when it comes to attention to and funding of public higher education. One has been the predominance of private institutions that attract students from across the state and around the globe.
“The success and sheer number of these schools have made it possible for state leaders at different kinds of institutions, as well as the general public, to believe that, because we have Harvard and MIT, not to mention all those other great places like my alma matter, Northeastern, we don’t necessarily have to invest in public higher education the way California does or Texas does or Ohio does,” said Freeland, who speaks with decades of experience working in the public higher realm, including a lengthy stint at UMass Boston. “But that perspective is way, way out of date.
“Over time, public higher education has grown increasingly important as an educator of young people in this state,” he continued. “When I started in 1970, the majority of high-school students were still going to private institutions for college, but today, two-thirds of the students who graduate from our high schools are going to public institutions if they pursue education in this state; we have become overwhelmingly a primary provider of higher education for the broad population of this state at a time when we’re not having a lot of in-migration, we’re not having any population growth, and we have a workforce that needs a large number of highly educated workers.”
All this adds up to what Freeland called a heightened sense of urgency that hasn’t existed before, and the need for a plan of action, or agenda, moving forward.
And thus, the Vision Project was conceived in late 2009, and officially adopted by the Board of High Education in May 2010. It completed its first full year of implementation on June 30, and the Legislature is earmaking several million dollars in the fiscal 2012 budget for the Department of Higher Education to provide incentive grants to individual colleges and universities to organize activities around the goals of the vision project.
In a nutshell, the initiative was launched with the recognition that the state is in fierce competition with other states and countries for talent, investment, and jobs, and that its primary assets in this competition are the overall education level of its people, its workforce, and the overall competence and creativity of individuals and organizational leaders driving the state’s knowledge-based economy.
“There is a heightened sense of urgency, because I do believe that Massachusetts needs the best-educated citizenry and workforce in the country, because that’s about all we’ve got in the competition among states,” he said. “And if we neglect public higher education, we’re simply not going to have that.”
The Vision Project is, in essence, the vehicle through which public higher education will remain focused on preparing individuals for this economy — and holding itself accountable for results.
Several key outcomes have been identified, said Freeland, noting that, for the state to thrive in this highly competitive environment, it must achieve national leadership in several realms, including:
• College participation, or the college-going rates of high school graduates;
• College completion, or graduation and success rates of the students enrolled;
• Student learning, academic achievements by students on campus-level and national assessments of learning;
• Workforce alignment, or alignment of degree programs with the key areas of workforce need in the state’s economy; and
• Elimination of disparities, meaning achievement of comparable outcomes among different ethnic/racial, economic, and gender groups.
Meanwhile, the University of Massachusetts must claim national leadership in research activity related to economic development, and economic activity derived from research.
As it went about creating the Vision Project, the Commonwealth’s public higher-education community considered what other states are doing well in this regard, said Freeland, adding quickly that the state’s highly de-centralized system makes it difficult to replicate what other systems are doing. Meanwhile, the state’s track record with public higher education and a lingering lack of urgency in some camps makes it hard just to put such an agenda in place.
“You don’t have to make much of an argument in Ohio that public higher education is critical to a state that has been losing altitude as the Rust Belt has declined,” he explained. “There, public higher education is understood to be the name of the game, and Ohio State is the Harvard of that region. But you do have to make that case in Massachusetts much more strongly.”

Extreme Measures
As he talked about specific goals within the Vision Project, Freeland said there is a universal aspiration for each  — that phrase “national leadership.”
This is inherently a subjective phrase, he said, but not in the case of such matters as graduation rates and diversity, where there are hard numbers to compare and contrast performance. It is one of the underlying missions of the project to create meaningful measures for the specific goals, and then to score high in each category.
Returning to the subject of graduation rates, he said the numbers used are broad and often misleading.
“The best metric for measuring student success and graduation rates, particularly at community colleges, is a vexed question,” he said. “The rate that is often cited as the national standard [about 25%] is based on whether or not students who begin as full-time students graduate in three years, which is a very small percentage of the students who actually attend our community colleges.
“So we are working to develop a much more useful metric,” he continued, “which would measure such things as how successful we are in graduating part-time students, how successful we are in graduating people who transfer in from someplace else, and how successful we are transferring students who start at community colleges and transfer on before completing a degree.”
And while graduation rates are certainly one strong focus of attention, there are several other goals within the Vision Project that are key to achieving that overarching goal of making the Commonwealth more competitive on the global stage, said Freeland.
And with that he referenced an acronym, and statewide initiative, that is gaining visibility and attention across the state: STEM. That stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and increasing the numbers of students enrolled in these fields — and then graduating them from those programs — are top priorities, said Freeland.
“Far too few young Americans are pursuing academic studies and scientific and technologically oriented careers, and far too few are coming out of our colleges with appropriate skills to drive an innovation-oriented economy,” Freeland told BusinessWest. “This has been a major focus in the business community as well as the education community.”
Local programs have been created to help spawn interest in the STEM fields, he said, listing everything from field trips to manufacturing plants to scientists coming into the classrooms to talk about careers, a “traveling road show,” as he called it, designed to inform and even entertain students.
One of the Vision Project’s goals is to build on these programs aimed at energizing students about STEM and graduating more students in those fields. “We get a good number of people coming out of high school who say they want to major in STEM fields, and start out in them,” he said, “but the dropout rate is very high.”
And the so-called ‘persistence rate’ is comparatively low, he continued, adding that this gauges how many students stay in the field of study they’ve chosen. Work to move those numbers higher is still another matter that the Vision Project will measure — and inject accountability.
The goal with all the initiatives is to prepare individuals for the job market they will face and create a workforce that will enable the state to compete for companies and jobs, said Rubenzahl, who echoed Freeland when he said the landscape has changed in nearly all aspects of business, and public higher education now has a larger role than ever in helping to create a pipeline of qualified workers.
He cited manufacturing and related fields such as biotech as examples of how things have changed, and how the role of public higher education has been broadened.
“We had some pretty good-paying jobs in various industries — originally it was textiles — that left,” he said. “And for many of those jobs, you didn’t need a college education. However, for many of the industries that stayed here or grew up here, you need much more education.
“The economy has changed, and public higher ed has a much larger role than it had before,” he continued. “Let’s face it, Harvard and MIT are not going to train highly skilled factory workers who can run these CNC machines or production workers in these biotech plants. They have a role, but we think we have a greater role as well.”

The Bottom Line
Summing up the Vision Project, Freeland said it is a comprehensive — and very visible — attempt to take public high education to a new level of excellence, responsiveness, and accountability.
“The campuses believe in these things … this isn’t about persuading schools to do things they don’t want to do,” he explained. “It is about taking it to a higher level of focus and having a higher level of aspiration and holding ourselves accountable.”
And it’s a long-term initiative, one that will play itself out over the next several years, involving perhaps many different gubernatorial administrations and college presidents. But he believes the program will stay on track, mostly because it has to if the state is going to thrive in this truly global arena.
“It’s easy for institutions to run out of gas addressing these very tough problems,” Freeland said. “You can bank on the fact that I’m not going to be here forever and Gov. Patrick isn’t going to be here forever, but these issues are going to be here forever.
“These are not issues for one day or one week,” he continued. “But once we get focus on them and get some momentum behind them, the gravitational force of statewide need will keep us focused. But it’s not going to be easy.”

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

Features
A look at the event from June 23, 2011

More than 600 people gathered at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House on June 23 for the fifth annual 40 Under Forty Gala, a celebration of the Class of 2011. The overflow crowd enjoyed a wide selection of food and some excellent networking opportunities before getting down to the real business of the night — the introductions of the Class of 2011, with each member choosing their own music for their moment in the spotlight.

Click Here: 40UnderFortyGalaBW0711a



••• Click here for more photos •••

Opinion
The Law of Unintended Consequences

I had an appointment with a client recently who told me that she was shocked to see how empty a restaurant was in downtown Springfield a few nights earlier. The reason she was so surprised was that this particular restaurant was relatively untouched by the tornado that tore through the center of the city on June 1. The owner stated that the reason things were so quiet was that people were simply afraid to come back.
Having read or viewed many articles and newscasts discouraging people from traveling to impacted areas (for completely understandable reasons) immediately after the tornadoes struck, I believe the law of unintended consequences might be starting to take effect in this region.
For instance, I myself have tried to stay clear of any impacted areas (unless going there to help with cleanup efforts). However, even though these intentions have been sound, the businesses that exist in these locations are suffering continued damages by this mindset. Many of these organizations were already struggling due to the recent, prolonged recession well before the tornadoes touched down. If their difficulties are now compounded by a sustained dropoff in business, a large number of them might not make it through to the other side. This could create a second wave of negative events for our region.
I write this in the hope that those who are in a position to do so can help spread the word regarding those conducting business in areas impacted by the recent tornado. I’ve already reached out to the leadership of Springfield encouraging them to use their amplified microphone to continue to spread the word that businesses are open and eager to serve — and that, when possible, individuals and business owners should do what they can to support these ventures.
I truly feel that those living and working in bordering communities need to be encouraged to travel back into impacted areas. The average local resident catches the news only on occasion, so it will take a genuine, concerted effort to convince people that it’s not only OK to come back, but such support is genuinely needed.
What we need is for individuals and business owners to think about both the direct and indirect victims of the tornadoes when they make decisions about where to stage the next staff luncheon or where to have their next date night. I’m a small-business owner in East Longmeadow, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how fortunate I’ve been to escape these tornadoes unscathed. But I’ve also been thinking about my counterparts in downtown Westfield, the center of West Springfield, the South End of Springfield, Wilbraham, or Monson who have been far less fortunate.
All businesses in our area are challenged by the economy, competition, and other factors. Businesses located in the paths of the tornadoes have been dealt an added blow that may prove crippling unless people step up and help in very simple ways.
My concern is long-term. If things are handled well, our entire region could use this experience as an opportunity to grow and prosper. However, if mishandled, we could see large-scale business closures and abandoned homes that could take many years to recover from.
Perhaps if we each do a little, then it might be enough to keep our collective community growing in the right direction.

Edward Zemba is president and co-owner of Robert Charles Photography; (413) 525-4263.

Opinion
Launching a Quest for Leadership

When we think about leaders, the discussion tends to gravitate — as it does when the subject is entrepreneurs — toward whether such individuals are born or cultivated.
The answer, with regard to each, is both.
Leaders, like entrepreneurs, simply must possess certain inherent traits, without which they won’t succeed. But we believe that leadership, like entrepreneurship, can be encouraged, developed, and, in effect, produced.
Which is why we are very encouraged by the creation of an initiative known as Leadership Pioneer Valley (see story, page 6). Spawned by the Plan for Progress and, more specifically, Action Item 7 in a 2004 update of that document — “Recruit and train a new generation of leaders” — the program was launched with the broad goal of creating an abundance of something the region will certainly need in the years to come.
Based on models created locally and in other communities, Leadership Pioneer Valley (LPV) will attempt to take people with inherent leadership qualities and provide training and insight that will help shape them into effective leaders than can serve — and benefit — this region in the decades to come.
In the ‘About Us’ section concerning LPV on the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s Web site, it notes that the 10-month program that recruits enter “immerses participants in an inspiring and enlightening curriculum that examines critical issues that the region’s numerous and diverse areas. During the program, participants expand their leadership skills while gaining connections, greater commitment to community stewardship, and cultural competency.” Roughly translated, this means that LPV intends to give participants an education in the Valley, its assets, challenges, goals, and aspirations — and then provide them with some opportunities to do something meaningful with that education.
We’re obviously hopeful that LPV can succeed with that overall mission, because this region has a number of very large challenges facing it, and none of them can be overcome without leadership.
For example:
• The region as a whole and most all of its larger communities must still reinvent themselves from former manufacturing centers into … well, something else. Unfortunately, most cities in the Valley carry that descriptive phrase ‘former manufacturing hub’ and have nothing to replace it with;
• While developing new sources of jobs, the region and its individual communities have to create a workforce with the skills needed to take on those new jobs, and thus attract new employers to the 413 area code;
• Springfield, the capital of Western Mass., is emerging from the economic meltdown that made it the butt of jokes for the better part of a decade, but it is still far from being the vibrant urban center everyone wants it to become; and
• The minority populations (soon to become the majority) in cities like Springfield and Holyoke need to become much more engaged in their communities and part of the pattern of progress. They have strength in numbers, but they’re not fully utilizing this asset.
These are just some of the myriad issues and challenges confronting our region, and the truth is that none of them are recent phenomena. They have been issues for many years — decades, actually — because the solutions are elusive; they don’t come easy.
And they won’t come through chance, fate, or the law of averages. They will come only through effective leadership that understands the region and the people who call it home, and are committed to moving it forward.
That’s why LPV is a critical development for Western Mass., and why we hope it will succeed in its all-important assignment.

Features
A Mill Town Writes a New Chapter in Its History

Aaron Saunders

Aaron Saunders says the Ludlow Mills site reflects one part of the town’s history, but farming has been another important aspect.


As he surveyed the landscape — old yet solid brick factory buildings bordered by broken expanses of asphalt with lanky grass growing in patches — Aaron Saunders said that this property is filled with the stories that gave birth to his town.
Walking around the Ludlow Mills, the chairman of the town’s Board of Selectmen remembered one particularly extreme tale — of the old smokestack, which he said was covered in diesel fuel and set afire to demolish it. “There are families living here that can trace their history there 100 years or more,” he said. “Those are the stories that maybe only one or two people still remember.”
Gesturing to the brick mills all around him, he added, “some of the older generations are still alive, and that means there’s a lot of living history here.”
He was at the property to tell BusinessWest about history in the making at this site bordered by State Street and the Chicopee River. The former Ludlow Manufacturing Associates jute mill has been selected as the latest property development undertaken by Westmass Area Development Corp. This past March, that organization secured funding to go forward with the remediation and redevelopment of this 170-acre site on the town’s southern border.
Bill Wagner, right, with Kenn Delude

Bill Wagner, right, with Kenn Delude, says the Ludlow Mills project, if done right, could serve as a blueprint for other cities’ riverfront development projects.

At Westmass headquarters in Chicopee, Kenn Delude, president and CEO of  the agency, and Bill Wagner, chairman of the board, sat before two posterboards: a present-day aerial shot of the property, and an historic etching of that same view.
Wagner said that, while Westmass has a history of successful site development, including the business and industrial parks at Westover, the project in Ludlow has some important and distinct qualities, some measured by the property itself, but also by the residents in town.
“When people in Ludlow first heard that we were involved in the property,” he said, “their first response was, ‘what can we do to help?’”
From the outset, the community has been invited to meetings intended to help determine the fate of this property, and both men agreed that Ludlow has been actively concerned with the property whose iconic clock tower graces everything from the town’s seal to its stationary to the high school’s class rings.
Doing business in Ludlow has long been reflective of many small towns in the area, with many primary services provided by locally owned operations. But as the mill property that gave the town much of its urban shape is redeveloped, an important aspect of this project stands a good chance to reinvent much of the way the Pioneer Valley looks at its riverfront industrial property.
It’s a big-picture perspective, but as Wagner pointed to a bucolic photograph of the greenway in front of the Ludlow Mills, he said, “the board’s opinion is that, if we revitalize this, and do it successfully, it will establish the blueprint for all the other communities to go forward with their riverfront property.”

Flower Power
Saunders was one of many people who spoke openly about their hopes for the future of the Ludlow Mills project. But he also mentioned the interesting nature of the town’s business profile. “Sure, this site is what built up all the houses in this part of town, but go just a couple miles east, and it’s all farmland.”
And while that agricultural legacy might have been eroded as the family farms were replaced by housing developments — another homegrown industry, you might say — Ludlow is still a place to get some of the finest local produce.
“Well, right now we’re in strawberry season,” Karen Randall said, “along with asparagus. This time of year is really the kick-off for the area’s growing season, and people have been busy putting in their perennial gardens, too.”
The second-generation owner of Randall’s Farm and Greenhouse on Center Street, she listed off all the local bounty that can be found in the market area of her operation. “Red and green leaf lettuces, summer squashes, tomatoes in late July, and then corn after the fourth of July. It’s really the exciting time of year for us. And if Mother Nature cooperates with sunny days, the ice-cream stand will be busy also.”
As she gets ready to celebrate the 50th birthday (next year) of the family business — what started out as a farmstand run by her mother and father — Randall said that her business has stayed in bloom throughout an otherwise down economy.
“The last two seasons have been good,” she explained, “and I’m really happy to say that. People do seem to be more relaxed. I haven’t quite figured out if people’s circumstances are better, or they’re just used to the way things are now, but people seem to be less nervous about the economy.”
While her business has a broad appeal far beyond the town limits, she said that efforts have been made to secure that market share. “We’ve developed our e-mail lists of customers, and our marketing through that. By touching our customers in that way, it has helped.”
But, as owner of one of the popular places for people to gather for coffee in the morning, she does see that there are other sectors that aren’t as rosy. “We do have a high concentration of construction companies in town who have taken a hit because there just isn’t a lot of new building out there,” she said.
That’s a sentiment that Bruce Libby said is unfortunate, but true.
He’s also a second-generation owner of a family business in Ludlow — Contemporary Structures Construction was started by him and his father back in 1975. They started as general homebuilders way back when, but in the early 1990s, during another downturn in the construction sector’s fortunes, a decision was made to hammer out some changes.
“We started doing staircases as a fill-in-the-gaps thing,” he explained. “Then it evolved into a great niche as the construction tide ebbed. So we focused on that, and today there are nine guys who work for me all year long — installers, shop people, estimators. Building finely crafted staircases is a nice area of focus.”
Today, that niche operation has ascended to a business that builds, on average, 200 to 300 staircases per year, from Worcester west to New York, up and down from Vermont to Connecticut.
In talking about the town’s construction economy, which saw a boom in houses built both in Ludlow and by its talented local builders in other communities, he tracked the changes from the perspective of his corner of the market.
“Five years ago, we probably did 95% new, and now it’s probably 50-50,” he explained. “There is still a market for new construction, but people are increasingly using remodeling as a means to get more out of their investment. New stairs, hardwood flooring, these are big improvements that add a lot of value to a home.”
He credits the Home Builders & Remodelers Assoc. of Western Mass as a key player in keeping the industry on a solid tread. “I’d say 80% of my contractor clients are from there,” he said of that trade group. And as tornado reconstruction gets underway, he’s looking to those colleagues to help rebuild the area. Ludlow, he said, will be well-represented in that effort.
“In general, Ludlow has a lot of contractor companies,” he added. “You won’t see a harder-working group of people.”

Rolling on the River
The development-update materials from Westmass refer to the Ludlow Mills project as “Our Next Challenge.”
While it is the largest brownfield mill-redevelopment project in New England, with nearly 1.5 million square feet of space in 66 buildings on 170 acres, the property is still in decent overall shape, both Delude and Wagner said. And, they agreed, the people of Ludlow have been vocal and helpful about what they hope to see both before and after the official sale — on track for early this month.
“The larger issue for the people of Ludlow,” Wagner explained, “was that they didn’t want it to deteriorate like other riverfront mill properties in the area, and become a potential big environmental hazard. They were very pleased that we were going to come in while the mill was still in a useful state.”
Delude said that Ludlow’s citizens have been engaged in meetings from the outset, to help determine what would be a good shape for the final results of the project. And, of course, his office’s track record speaks for itself.
“When people found out it was Westmass,” he said, “they knew that we’re looking for business uses, industrial uses, maybe in some cases a small residential component. This is contrasted with what they’ve seen in the past, when maybe there was a fear that there was too much of an emphasis on residential development.
“The focus here is on the creation of jobs still, with some mixed-use development,” he continued. “And that scope gives the plan its strength. If one sector is a little softer than others, you’ve got the others to support it.”
To elaborate on much-anticipated details is premature, Delude said, but he did note that two businesses have expressed strong interest in the property. “And both of them would be embraced by the community,” he added.
But one component to the Ludlow Mills which has both men, and indeed most everyone attached to the project, brimming with enthusiasm is the greenway along the property’s river edge. “There’s been a fence along State Street for almost 160 years,” Delude said, “prohibiting the people who live in these houses just across the street from getting to the river. In fact, by virtue of the infrastructure in town, there is no public access to this beautiful stretch of water.”
In response, Delude said that 50 acres of the project is to be set aside for a greenbelt and walkway along the river, stretching from the westernmost point, close to the town common, all the way along the property’s waterfront, up to a rail trestle spanning the bridge.
Putting that into perspective, Wagner said, “almost since we started talking about doing this, about five years ago, everyone is struck by the fact that, here in the Pioneer Valley, some of our most valuable land — the land along these clean and beautiful rivers — is banked with these old mills that are becoming more and more functionally obsolete. The real estate isn’t being put to its highest and best use.
“That has an economic cost to Western Mass. and to cities like Holyoke and Springfield and Chicopee,” he continued. “The fact that, thus far, you can’t use this shore property is a big negative. It’s a monumentally important effort that we’re putting forward here for not just Ludlow, but the future of our valley.”
It might sound like a lofty goal, but, then again, Delude and Wagner don’t limit the scope of what their office can accomplish. Looking at the images behind him of not just the Ludlow Mills complex, but of other Westmass projects, Delude said, “I think you can see why we chose this site in Ludlow; it does have the beauty, and it has the ability to create a model that Westmass could use going forward.”