Day: September 27, 2011

Building Permits

By
Building Permits Departments

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

AGAWAM

Cumberland Farms Inc.
794 Springfield St.
$250,000 — Renovations to existing building

AMHERST

Jones Property Limited Partnership
15A Pray St.
$6,000 — Strip and re-roof

The Common School Inc.
521 South Pleasant St.
$9,800 — New roof

Yosrex Limited Partnership
266 East Hadley Road
$3,000 — Repair 1,000-square-foot roof

CHICOPEE

Curry Realty, LLC
765 Memorial Dr.
$3,819,000 — Construct 12,454-square-foot building and renovate existing structure

First Congregational Church
306 Chicopee St.
$16,000 –—Replace 21 windows

John Salema
751 Meadow St.
$85,000 — Renovate interior of sales area and restrooms

GREENFIELD

Baystate Franklin Medical Center
164 High St.
$4,800 — Remove existing doors and replace with fire-rated doors and frames

Jones Property Limited Partnership
21 Mohawk Trail
$8,000 — Interior renovations

HADLEY

Lacomb Holdings, LLC
191 Russell St.
$19,800 — New roof

Pearson Hadley, LLC
380 Russell St.
$120,000 — Tenant fit out of first floor tenant

Pyramid Mall of Hadley Newco, LLC
4 Clinton Square
$124,000 — Renovation of restaurant to “Chicken Now”

Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter
317 Russell St.
$84,000 — Classroom renovation

HOLYOKE

Holyoke Gas & Electric
2 Bigelow St.
$52,102,000 — Construct a 90,300-square-foot research center

Sisters of St. Joseph
34 -38 Lower Westfield Road
$15,000 — Install cabinets, tile, and closets

LUDLOW

Town of Ludlow
181 South St.
$370,000 — Shed at Westover Golf Course

PALMER

Sherwood Lumber
24 Third St.
$166,000 — Enclose existing building

SOUTH HADLEY

Mount Holyoke College
50 College St.
$3,000 — Construct ramp at Wilder Hall

U.S. Industrial
7 Gaylord St.
$519,000 — Commercial renovation

SPRINGFIELD

American International College
963 State St.
$89,000 — Replace windows

Boston Road Realty, LLC
665 Boston Road
$63,500 — Build out for two tenants

FNMAE
422 Franklin St.
$15,000 — Replace roof

MassWest, LLC
122 Central St.
$18,500 — Interior renovations

WESTFIELD

Bank of America
10 Main St.
$120,000 — New roof

David Schenna
845 Airport Industrial Park Road
$58,000 — Construct new building

Silverstreet
6 Coleman Ave.
$12,000 — Alterations

Stacy Lavertu
53 N. Elm St.
$2,500 — New siding

WEST SPRINGFIELD

83 Worthen St. Inc.
657 Riverdale St.
$125,000 — Renovate 2,500-square-foot of retail space for an auto dealership

380 Union St. Properties
380 Union St.
$4,000 — New canopy over loading dock

Developers Diversified Realty
935 Riverdale St.
$150,000 — Renovate 2,114 square feet of existing space for a phone store

West Springfield Boys & Girls Club
615 Main St.
$17,000 — Roof repairs

Green Building Considerations

By
Construction Sections
There Are a Number of Financial Pros and Cons

Dennis G. Egan

Dennis G. Egan

Going green is all the rage lately. Political correctness almost dictates that waste be minimized and consideration be given to energy alternatives in most situations.
So, under what circumstances might “green” not be an attractive option for a business owner? When might going green have you seeing red?

Budget Considerations
While green buildings can result in significant energy efficiency and corresponding cost savings down the road, the upfront cost of green building materials can be significant. While cost is commonly greater in a green building project than the same costs associated with a traditional building project, the average increase is often less than traditionally believed.
For example, one recent study by the U.S. Green Building Council puts the average green building cost premium at slightly less than 2%, or $3 to $5 per square foot. Those on a tight budget might not be able to afford this increase, however, despite the prospect of lower energy costs in the future.
Additionally, it has been found that, with an increase in the number of green building projects, there is a corresponding reduction in the green-building cost premium. Obviously, the green-building cost premium can be, and often is, offset by the increased energy efficiency of green buildings and resulting reduction in energy costs. So you’ll have to pay more upfront to see the payoff later on.

Tax Credits and Financial Incentives
Recently, several tax credits, deductions, and other financial incentives have become available. For example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created the Commercial Building Tax Deduction, which provides an accelerated tax deduction aimed at reducing the initial cost of investing in energy-efficient building components. Under this program, owners of commercial buildings (or their tenants, if applicable) can deduct all or a portion of the cost of installing lighting, HVAC and hot-water components, windows, and building shell components in the year in which the new components are placed in service, up to a maximum of $1.80 per square foot.
Alternatively, partial deductions are available (up to a maximum of $0.60 per square foot) for improvements in any one of the energy-efficient components listed above. The deduction can be claimed for all qualifying projects as long as they are completed prior to January 1, 2014.
Additionally, the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 expanded the business energy investment tax credit, which provides credits equal to 30% (with no maximum credit) of the cost of solar, fuel-cell, and small wind-turbine power systems, and 10% of the cost (with no maximum credit) for micro-turbines, geothermal power, and combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Minimum- and maximum-capacity requirements apply in some cases, so those wanting to take advantage of this credit should consult a professional to determine the project’s eligibility.
Alternatively, eligible taxpayers may receive a grant from the U.S. Treasury Department in lieu of taking a tax credit. Generally, to be eligible for the credit, the original use of the equipment must be made by the taxpayer, or the equipment must be constructed by the taxpayer. In addition, the tax credit is available only if the energy property is operational in the year in which the credit is taken.
For all of the above programs and incentives, you’ll have to shell out the money upfront, but if you can afford to do so, you may receive credits for the work and also enjoy reduced energy costs down the road.

Certification
One of the most recognized certifications that can be attained by builders, developers, building owners, and landlords is Leadership in Environment and Energy Design (LEED) standards set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council, which awards points based on building specifications. LEED certification can be achieved in a number of different areas, including but not limited to existing buildings (operations and maintenance), commercial interiors (leases/tenant improvements), core and shell (design for new core and shell construction), schools (construction of K-12 schools), retail (retail design and construction), and health care (planning, design, and construction for health care facilities).
LEED certifications are being recognized and adopted as the green benchmark in ever-increasing numbers by federal, state, and local governments. As such, many government entities are requiring that government buildings, both new and existing, as well as owned and leased, comply with LEED standards.
LEED-certification programs are pricey, though. A recent check online resulted in several different programs ranging from $595 to $2,500 for specific certifications. In addition, there are registration fees and credential-maintenance programs that can add up significantly. But as LEED certification becomes more mainstream and expected, contractors may find themselves obligated to make the investment to fulfill credentialing requirements.
Another available certification is Energy Star for commercial buildings, which is a government program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. This certification differs from LEED certification in that Energy Star’s certification is relative to a building, rather than a person. The goal is to reduce the use of energy through energy efficient practices and products, and Energy Star uses a points-based system that awards points on a scale of 1 to 100.
Buildings must be verified by a professional engineer or registered architect, and associated costs must be paid, then buildings receiving a score of 75 or more receive the Energy Star designation. While there is no direct financial benefit from Energy Star certification, there is an implied status enhancement, and research shows that people generally prefer to do business with companies that are committed to doing their part to help the environment.

Dennis G. Egan Jr. is an associate with Bacon Wilson, P.C., concentrating in special education, business, and corporate law; (413) 781-0560; [email protected]

Extreme Challenge

By
Nick Riley, president of N. Riley Construction
Construction Sections
Nick Riley Builds His First House — in One Week

Nick Riley, president of N. Riley Construction

Nick Riley, president of N. Riley Construction, during the build week at Sirdeaner Walker’s home.

Nick Riley launched his construction company about five years ago, focusing on residential remodels but eager to move into total home builds. He’s not likely to forget the first house he finished from the ground up, because he — and a large crew of volunteer builders and tradespeople — managed to complete it in one week. Riley said the opportunity to tear down and rebuild a house for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is one he’s glad he didn’t pass up — not only for the experience, but for the chance to impact the lives of a very deserving family.

Kate Riley said her husband had a few goals when he planned his career — “to have his own business, to have his name get big, and to build houses. This is his first house.”
She — along with several other Riley family members and dozens of area builders and tradespeople, all volunteering their time — stood on Springfield’s Northampton Avenue, absorbing what had happened in the first few days since Ty Pennington and his team of designers from ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition knocked on the door of Sirdeaner Walker and informed her she would have a new house by the following week.
“The Extreme Makeover producer contacted me about four weeks before we started the project,” said Riley, president of N. Riley Construction in Chicopee, noting that he was recommended by the Home Builders Assoc. of Western Mass. and other contractors. “I ended up meeting with them the day after. I sat down and spoke with them, and they told me the story of this family.
“That’s when I made my decision,” he continued. “Being able to do this for this family … you never get a chance like this, to be able to do a project like this. It’s not too often that you can say you were able to gather an entire community to help one family.”
Walker is no stranger to the spotlight, but it’s a light she never would have asked for, obviously. Her 11-year-old son, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, took his own life in 2009 after being incessantly bullied by peers at the New Leadership Charter School in Springfield.
In the months following the tragedy, Walker became a strong advocate against school bullying, successfully pushing for anti-bullying legislation in Massachusetts, meeting with federal lawmakers and President Obama, and establishing a foundation in her son’s name that raises awareness of the bullying issue and scholarships for area students.

Nick Riley’s wife, Kate, and mother, Lisa

Nick Riley’s wife, Kate, and mother, Lisa, were among many family members pitching in with Extreme Makeover.

Her house, in the Upper Hill neighborhood close to Springfield College, was run-down and riddled with plumbing and electrical issues, according to ABC producers. She lives there with two daughters, a sister, her mother, and her grandmother.
“We started planning about four weeks before the build week,” Riley said. “I approached a couple of good friends of mine in the trades to help me. I also started planning right away as far as gathering materials, manpower, and tradespeople. The Extreme team sent in a couple of project managers to help us do that, but it was ultimately my responsibility to provide the help.
“I had, at the beginning, some very good responses. I had a lot of people who wanted to participate, but didn’t think they could at the time because of how everything has been” with the economy, he told BusinessWest. “So it was a little bit of both: I had people who were very positive about it, saying, ‘yes, we’ll do it,’ and on the other hand some who wanted to do it but couldn’t afford to at the time, or were just too busy.”
Riley’s glad he wasn’t too busy, though, calling the experience one of the most rewarding of his life.

From the Ground Up
Riley corrected his wife’s first-house assertion to a point, noting that he’s currently building a house in Chicopee, and his company, which he launched about five years ago, has done some major home renovations that were very close to whole-home jobs. But this month’s makeover was, indeed, the first house he has completed from the ground up.
The build week itself was every bit as long and intense as viewers of the show might imagine. “On Sunday, we knocked on the door and surprised the family, and on Monday we ripped the house down. On Tuesday we started the foundation,” Riley said.
By midweek, a newly framed house had gone up in its place, followed by repaving of the driveway, complete landscaping of the yard, and of course, all those personal touches the designers are known for. “On Sunday, they brought the furniture in and surprised the family with their new home.”
The days, not surprisingly, were long. “We had 12-hour shifts set up, but the nighttime shifts started to roll into the daytime shifts,” said Riley. “The demolition of the house went really well, and when we dug out the foundation, that went really well,” he recalled. “Framing went pretty well, too. We had framers there for 40 hours, then we started losing them, and it was a challenge to get people back there.”
Inclement weather, always a concern on these one-week builds, wasn’t a factor; temperatures were mild all week, with a little rain passing through on Wednesday, but nothing to slow down the progress, as the house was weathertight by that point. But the occasional unexpected challenge emerged during construction.
For example, “when we started to set the concrete walls, we noticed that we hit a little bit of water. That caused a bit of a problem; we had to set up a pump and pump out the water while we were setting these concrete walls.”
But any problems encountered during the build paled in comparison to the joy the Walker family felt at receiving so much community support. In addition to the army of volunteers and dozens of companies — in the construction trades, home supplies, marketing, and other fields — who lent their time and resources, Walker had more surprises coming at the reveal. Notably, UMass presented her with four-year scholarships — tuition, room, board, and fees at any of the four campuses — for each of her youngest children, now age 7 and 8.
Details about the home’s interior will have to wait until the show airs, at the request of ABC. But Riley said the designers came up with some special touches to match the work he and his crew did on the house itself.
“Seeing people come together to help other people in such a big way, giving up their days and money to help people they don’t even know, it was an amazing experience,” he told BusinessWest. “It just shows how good people are. And just seeing the faces of the family when they moved that bus — it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
He said he was also fortunate to meet many people from different businesses he might not otherwise have met, and the participation of his own family members was another personal highlight.
“I asked a couple people in my family to help me out with the planning process, and before I knew it, the whole family was helping out in some way,” particularly helping at the various support tents set up around the neighborhood. “That was rewarding.”
His wife agreed. “This is unbelievable,” Kate said that afternoon midway through the project. “It’s amazing to be able to help a family like this.”

Making a Name
If Riley’s goal was to make a name for his business, he’s well on his way. He started out in the construction business working for his uncle, Andrew Crane, president of A. Crane Construction in Chicopee.
“I ended up leaving because I wanted to start my own company, and things have been great the whole time,” Riley said. “I haven’t had one minute of downtime — it’s been amazing.”
That’s a striking account of success in what has been a decidedly downbeat atmosphere for builders, many of whom have struggled to keep employees busy during the past few years of recession and sluggish recovery. But Riley, most of whose work is residential, has focused largely on home remodels and renovation work, one of the few sectors of construction that has consistently shown some life.
“Right now, because of the recent disasters, we’ve done a lot of insurance repairs, from the ice damage from the winter to work from the tornadoes and the microburst.”
And he’s looking forward to plenty more work as the economy improves — with the experience of that one-week build under his toolbelt.
Still, “we don’t want to grow too big,” he said. “We want to stay a smaller company and keep it personal, make sure we continue to provide a quality product.
“I like the hands-on work of going into someone’s home and putting a smile on the face of the owners,” Riley continued. “There aren’t a lot of other jobs where you can do that, where you can go in make an impact by changing their homes.”
Or, in extreme cases, their lives.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

A Green Report Card

By
Bill Woolridge
Green Business Sections
Initiatives Strive for Success Far Beyond the Classroom

Bill Woolridge

Bill Woolridge says the management curriculum at UMass has become more attuned to green issues.

As the chief coordinator of Greenfield Community College’s Renewable Energy/ Energy Efficiency Program, Teresa Jones told BusinessWest that these are exciting times to be in higher education.
Speaking to the ‘community’ component of her school, where she is also an associate professor, Jones said that “our economy in Greenfield and the surrounding area is a step ahead of many other areas with regard to sustainability and green thinking.
“But as an educator,” she continued, “I think the question I always go back to is, how does a community college contribute to job growth and economic development?”
GCC is one of the Pioneer Valley’s green beacons in developing student programs that strive for a role not just in the evolving green economy, but also in the much-needed pragmatism of job creation.
UMass Amherst has embraced sustainability on all levels, from the administration to the student body. The university has set a goal to become carbon-neutral by the year 2050, and over the last decade has reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 30%. Within the academic departments, a notable example is the Green Building program in the Department of Environmental Conservation, which has been actively involved with students and the region’s construction sector.
At the Isenberg School of Management, Bill Woolridge is the chair of the Management Department, and he told BusinessWest how the class he teaches has evolved over the years to become more attuned to the changing priorities of green consciousness.
He carefully stressed the Amherst campus’s thorough approach to sustainability. But his department is aware of what he called “the bigger picture.”
“In most schools’ management curriculum,” he explained, “there’s that course that speaks to the role of business in the broader social environment.
“I hadn’t taught that in quite a while,” he went on, “and about six years ago decided that I would. As I started to become reacquainted with that material, I realized that addressing sustainable issues is really the challenge of the current generation of students.”
Keith Hensley

Keith Hensley says green-business programs, at their most effective, will drive job opportunities in the regional economy.

The area’s ivory towers don’t envision a role in a green economy that is relegated only to the classroom, however. At Holyoke Community College, Keith Hensley is the executive director of Workforce and Economic Development, and he has designs on nothing short of transformative educational roles for both the school and its students.
HCC has partnered with two organizations to broaden the school’s certificate and training programs within a green economy — with both real-time results for jobs in the marketplace and opportunities for businesses to embrace sustainable practices that also help the bottom line.
For this article, BusinessWest asked people within these schools to explain their own green report cards. Jones was speaking of her own school specifically, but could just as easily been including the goals of her colleagues at other colleges, when she noted that “GCC, above all, serves as a convener for the community. We bring together diverse interests, talents, energies, concerns, ideas, and insights.” It’s that type of thinking that’s making this green curriculum as successful in the job market as it is in the classroom.

Certifiably Green
Hensley said that HCC’s current roster of green programs took root a few years back.
“About two years ago, we partnered with the Hampden County Regional Employment Board,” he explained. “They had applied for a workforce grant from the state for energy conservation — for certain types of training, such as weatherization and insulation, solar-boiler technician training, and energy-auditor training.”
The projected outcomes for the grant were job placements, he said. While the school charted the most success of any institution in the Commonwealth also receiving those funds, “it still wasn’t as much as I would have liked to see.
“What that told us, when everything shook out, is that there currently are not enough jobs in those particular occupations in the state,” he said. “And what we did was take a look at the entire sustainable, energy-efficiency, renewable-energy field as it stands right now, and we homed in on a few things.”
The Green Communities Program, from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs, strives for signatory cities and towns to reduce their overall carbon footprint. Among 72 others, Holyoke and Springfield have signed on. Hensley cited that legislation, as well as an overall environmentally minded population in the Pioneer Valley, as two factors in HCC’s redesign of its green programming.
“And we also looked at the economy as it stands right now,” he said. “Unlike other parts of the country, our manufacturing base is still there. So, with decreased product demand that comes from a bad economy, it’s pushing manufacturing employers to think innovatively, figure out how they can cut costs.”
To meet these needs, HCC has forged partnerships with two organizations: HospitalityGreen LLC, a New York-based consulting firm, and the Energy Conservation Training Co., which specializes in numerous aspects of professional training and certification.
With HospitalityGreen, there are four short yet intensive courses: “Green Facilities Training for Managers,” “Introduction to Green Purchasing,” “Getting to Sustainability Through Changes in Waste Contracting,” and a “Green Custodial and Janitorial” course.
“Participants get a ton of online tools when they go back to their own facilities,” Hensley added. “And we also advise them on how to approach owners and managers of the company, to get their suggestions through.”
Also with HospitalityGreen are two full-day classes for the restaurant and hospitality industries. A core of information will tell participants what it means to be green, and how sustainability affects business.
“The attendees from the companies will get a few days of training, and they go back out to their employers and start doing their audit,” he said. “The bottom line here is to save the businesses money, but also to get a designation as a green restaurant or a green hotel. That has huge implications, especially in this area, where people are environmentally conscious.”
With ECONTC, Holyoke Community College has implemented a series of courses for the building trades. Using metrics set by the Building Performance Institute, a national organization for energy-efficient standards, the classes include “BPI Building Analyst/Envelope Training,” “BPI Heating Professional Training and Certification,” and “Residential Energy Services Network and Home Energy Rating Systems Rater Training and Certification.”
“For all this new programming,” Hensley said, “our mission is twofold. It’s to help companies save money, or make more money, in the case of green-lodging and green-restaurant certification. We expect that those companies who get certified will get more business. And on the other hand, it’s to help companies and homeowners who will be impacted by these trained people, to be included in what it means to be a green community in this region.”

Talkin’ ’bout an Evolution
Back in the 1970s, Woolridge said, when he was the age of his students now, environmental issues were an academic niche in business schools.
“We would talk about EPA rules and so forth,” he said. “It was seen as a compliance issue — an obligation. One of the costs of doing business was to adhere to these government strictures. But that has all moved to the front burner. It’s something we can’t put off anymore.”
Meanwhile, the class he has been teaching is constantly evolving. “The way I teach the course, and the way many others around the country do, is that it’s more an opportunity than an obligation,” he explained. “This is a challenge for this generation and the next generation of business leaders as to what is going to fuel economic growth over the next decades — solving our social and environmental problems on a global scale.”
When asked the name of the class, Woolridge laughed. “Even that’s in flux. It has officially this year been called ‘Social Responsibility and Sustainability.’ This semester on the syllabus, I’m tweaking it, though, looking for the right label. Some of us are calling this ‘Sustainable Enterprise.’
“It has some historic analysis,” he explained, “but it has more of what I would call an examination of sustainable business practices. We use something known as the Socrates database that has 2,500 large businesses profiled, and they have done pretty comprehensive analysis in many areas, particularly with regard to the natural environment, social issues, their governing structures, and so forth. So we look there to get a sense of how industries are doing, relative to these dimensions, and how specific businesses within those industries are doing.
The other important component in the class is to identify the business opportunities presented by these challenges, he added. “This is the challenge for the next generation of business leaders.”
Ideally, Woolridge envisions a certificate program in the undergraduate Business school for Sustainable Practices. “Fairly soon,” he said. “Maybe at the beginning of the next academic year.”
Add to that a class in social entrepreneurship. “This concept is generally about creating new enterprises to solve social issues. Overall, our goal here is to give students perspective, skills, and, for those students going on to small business or entrepreneurship, a sense of the opportunities that do exist.”
UMass Amherst has the critical mass of demand for classes in this field, he said, and a labor market which will support this in future job placements. “It’s impossible to quantify in any real numbers,” he said, “but I know, if we build it, they will come.”

Community Action Plan
An important aspect of GCC’s green classwork translating into actual jobs, Jones said, is that those same employers were part of the original team helping to create the program.
The RE/EE Program at GCC originally started as a $372,000 Workforce Competitive Trust Fund grant, in partnership with the Franklin/Hampshire Regional Employment Board. However, more than 40 regional organizations, from nonprofits to small businesses, also collaborated on the course design for certificate and degree programs.
“The businesses know the program intimately, but also the people that are coming through it,” she explained. “My husband is a small-business owner, and I know for a fact that this is absolutely critical. Here, a business knows who they’re getting, what they know academically, and what their capacities are. A lot of businesses in our area are pretty small, so in the hiring of even one employee, you want to make sure that the match is pretty good.”
Jones cited two examples of substantial outcomes from the GCC program. NorthEast Solar Design Associates in Hatfield started out, she said, with “a really smart husband-and-wife team.” They were one of the businesses involved in developing the school’s curriculum and, in short time, hired students from the program. In the last five years they have expanded to six full-time workers.
“Prior to their involvement here,” Jones said, “they were an established solar company, but not really growing. They are doing major commercial photovoltaic installations. And when in short time you grow to six employees, that is huge growth for a small company. Even though it may be small for some people, this amounts to a massive repositioning of their company.” And the business is expected to hire three more in the near future.
Another key partner with GCC has been the 82-year old Sandri Companies, based in Greenfield. A number of GCC students have gone on to work for Sandri, and Jones cited the company as an example of keeping up with the changing face of a traditional industry.
“They are adding whole new divisions to their enterprise, from wood-pellet burners, weatherization, and solar to energy audits,” Jones explained. “When a company of their size looks into the future to determine how they will continue to stay relevant, this is how you do it. You bring people into your company who know these technologies. You don’t just pay lip service, but get people who can manage these technologies and continue to expand your market.”
And that same logic, she said, applies to her department at GCC. “As we head into the future, it’s a much broader market than I think anyone could have thought.”
Expanding on the role her school plays in the realm of sustainable practices and green initiatives, Jones gives GCC good marks. But the work continues to evolve, and to stay successful and viable in the unfolding green economy, schools need to be as responsive as the business community.
“We listen for where there are places we might contribute directly, for ways that our faculty, staff, and administration can catalyze the creative and entrepreneurial energy that resides in our region,” she said. “Our program is a reflection of that vibrant energy, and continues to respond and change with the rapidly emerging green industries of the 21st century.”

Greener Pastures

By
Green Business Sections
In Its New Home, EcoBuilding Bargains Models Its Mission

For the past decade, the ReStore has been an increasingly popular source of recycled building materials, saving money for professional contractors and do-it-yourselfers alike, all while easing the burden on landfills. The store, now renamed EcoBuilding Bargains, has outgrown that space and will soon move into a much larger building nearby. And the way that structure is being renovated provides an effective case study in the value of green construction and energy efficiency.

John Majercak wants to lead by example.
And when EcoBuilding Bargains — formerly the ReStore — opens its vastly expanded retail center in Springfield later this fall, he’ll have the ideal showcase to demonstrate how homeowners and contractors can make profitable use of recycled materials and save money through energy efficiency.
Because that’s how the new store is being built.

The building in question — a century-old structure on Warwick Street that was originally home to the National Biscuit Co., then Steiger’s, and most recently a warehouse for Kavanagh Furniture — is being expanded and renovated from top to bottom, eventually tripling the retail space of the ReStore’s original Albany Street site and quadrupling its total area.
“When we purchased this property,” said Majercak, executive director of the Center for EcoTechnology in Northampton, which operates EcoBuilding Bargains, “we undertook an environmental remediation process. It was built at a time when energy costs were not a big deal, but were an afterthought. Now, it’s a modern building that’s going to use, by the time we’re done, about a third of the energy a building this size would normally use.”
That feat will be accomplished with an array of improvements — encompassing roofing and siding materials, insulation, and the systems that heat, cool, and illuminate the space — that promote cost savings through energy efficiency. Those strategies, combined with the copious use of recycled materials throughout the building, effectively turn it into an educational model of the store’s very mission.
At the Center for EcoTechnology, a 65-employee, 35-year-old nonprofit that provides practical solutions for going green at home and work, “our motto is, ‘we make green make sense,’” Majercak said. “And this is one example of that. By lowering our own operating costs and teaching people who come through here why we made these green improvements — and what they can do in their own homes — we’ve made this a teaching store as well.”

Do It Yourself

John Majercak

John Majercak says the store will be lined with cutting-edge insulated panels that seal in air, one of many facets of the building’s energy retrofit.

In the decade since it opened, the ReStore — which, at its core, trades in recycled building materials, with the twin goals of saving contractors and do-it-yourselfers money and reducing the burden on landfills — has become increasingly popular, to the point where it has outgrown its space on Albany Street.
“The store sells low-cost building materials so people can fix up their homes,” Majercak said. “We get all kinds of stuff from other people’s homes and remodeling jobs; they donate it or hire us as a contractor to do the deconstruction ourselves.
“Over the years, we’ve just seen an incessant demand for what we do,” he continued. “Our store is now so stuffed, you can barely walk through. We know we can serve more people in a bigger facility and do more of our mission. Customers are going to be much better served by this building, which will have more parking and wider aisles. And with a new, computerized inventory system, we know what we have; it’s much easier for the customers and donors who work with us.”
The efficiency improvements — part of a $900,000 energy retrofit, a significant portion of the total $3.1 million project cost — begin on the exterior of the building, including a white roof to deflect heat and insulated panels lining the building that interlock in a way that seals out all air leakage. EcoBuilding Bargains will also “superinsulate” its roof, Majercak explained, using insulation donated from MassMutual when that company installed a solar array on its roof.
“They took their old insulation off because they needed to use a different system, but it’s fine, and they donated that to us, saving us at least $40,000 in insulation costs, and it’s helping us save a lot of energy,” he said. “There are all kinds of different details that all tie together to make the building really well-insulated.”
In addition, the 3 million-BTU, oil-fired boiler in the basement is being replaced with a 500,000-BTU gas unit, while infrared tube heaters located throughout the structure will heat building occupants but not the air.
“Say you’re in the sun, with the radiant heat — that’s what this feels like, the sun hitting you,” Majercak said. “For a big, open space, it’s very efficient because it allows the air temperature to be lower even though you feel comfortable. And in the offices, we’re using heat pumps to take advantage of the difference between outside and inside air.”
That model of efficiency extends to lighting as well; much of the store will feature sensor-controlled lights that maintain a low level when no one is around them, but become brighter when someone walks in. “That saves energy, too,” Majercak said.
In addition, “we’re using reused materials everywhere — we reused timbers, sliding glass door panels, the flooring is recycled … these are all examples of reuse, and that’s what we’re all about.”
The goal, besides reducing costs while greatly expanding floor space, is to demonstrate the types of changes people who visit the store can make in their own homes.
“It’s been a lot of fun, actually,” Majercak said. “We can walk around and talk to people and show them it is possible, and there are benefits to it. We use household examples, too — no one uses infrared tube heaters, but for homeowners, we have workshops and examples of products they can use in their homes, as opposed to stuff used at the commercial level.”

Dollars and Sense
The simple fact that the ReStore needed a new home testifies to the growing popularity of its ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ model.
“People who shop here do so because of the great deals, or they believe in the mission of keeping stuff out of landfills, or both,” Majercak said. “When we opened this up 10 years ago, there were maybe a dozen or two stores like it in the country. There are about 800 now, and we have our own association; I’m on the board of it.
“It just makes sense on so many levels,” he continued. “People — we Yankees, especially — are frugal and don’t want to throw something out if someone else wants to use it, but they also don’t want it sitting around their basement, either. What’s caught on is the whole concept of going green and the fact that there are societal benefits to doing those things. That’s exciting to me because, at the Center for EcoTechnology, we have a host of green services we can offer people, and now we can showcase them and tell people about them using this facility.”
Majercak expects the business to continue to grow, both through public awareness of the store and in its deconstruction efforts, which have “really taken off” in recent years.
“We’ve worked with Kent Pecoy, R.J. Chapdelaine, Dan Roulier, and some the other big builders around the area. They’ve used us for deconstruction, and we’re working throughout Southern New England and New York now, doing jobs,” he told BusinessWest.
“I think it’s something whose time has come. People shouldn’t just crunch up their house and throw it away. That’s catching on, and will be a big source of material for us over the next couple of years.”
EcoBuilding Bargains is reaping more than just new business, however. About one-third of the $3.1 million building rehabilitation is being funded by a capital campaign, while another third has come in the form of a low-cost mortgage from Westfield Bank; government funding covers a little less than one-third as well.
“The amount of support we’ve gotten to do this project is pretty phenomenal,” Majercak said. “We’ve always tried to operate this store as a self-sufficient nonprofit, so we can cover our costs through the revenue we generate.”
In addition to the capital-campaign support, “a number of businesses have contributed monetary resources or products or in-kind services — lawyers, architects, all kinds of vendors,” he noted. “All the gas pipe was donated from local pipe suppliers. People have been very kind and very supportive.
“When we knew we were going to expand,” he continued, “we chose purposely to stay in Springfield because this is our target market, and it’s also mission-consistent to fix up an older building — but also because we have such great support from the community, the government, and residents. It’s just a great place to do business.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Time is Money

By
Environment and Engineering Sections
Environmental Compliance Can Come at a Steep Price

John Prenosil

Massachusetts has adopted numerous laws and regulations to protect the quality of its natural resources. These laws provide a baseline of protection and are bolstered by municipal regulations that provide supplemental protection to state laws.
I think we all agree that environmental protection is paramount. However, this protection often comes at a significant monetary cost. Why? Compliance with environmental laws and regulations can require a significant outlay of capital and time and is reflected in the price of land. It is the role of the land-development consultant to address these laws and regulations and assist developers through the permitting process.
This article is not meant to suggest that environmental laws should not be levied or provide less protection, and does not provide a comprehensive outline of environmental regulations. It should provide, however, a basic primer on typical environmental-development constraints and their respective roles in driving up land-development costs.
Let’s consider a theoretical parcel of land purchased by XYZ Land Development. XYZ believed it could save money and decided not to hire a land-development consultant prior to purchasing its parcel. XYZ purchased an exceptional parcel encumbered by a slew of environmentally related development issues. The parcel is interspersed with wetlands, located within an area identified by the Commonwealth as containing rare species, located predominantly within the 100-year flood plain of a nearby river, and is downgradient from a gasoline-storage facility. If we consider an identical parcel of land without these issues, you will see how these constraints drive up the development costs for this parcel.

Wetlands
Wetlands in Massachusetts are protected under the state’s Wetlands Protection Act and, in many cases, by additional municipal bylaws. Municipal bylaws are more restrictive and often impose no-build zones and/or additional requirements beyond the Wetlands Protection Act. Let’s assume our parcel is also subject to a municipal wetland bylaw that stipulates a 50-foot no-build zone from wetland boundaries.
By the time XYZ hired a consultant to identify wetlands on the property, leaves had fallen, and most vegetation was dead. Let’s assume it’s late November. Although a competent wetland scientist can identify the edge of most wetlands in late November, most conservation commissions require wetland boundaries to be verified when vegetation is actively growing. It should be noted, however, that certain types of wetland boundaries cannot be accurately identified without vegetation. And yes, you guessed it: the wetlands on our parcel can’t be accurately identified without vegetation.
Because identifying accurate wetland boundaries is one of the first critical steps in developing the parcel, XYZ must now wait at least five months before an accurate and defensible wetland boundary can be determined. Wetland issues (assuming the regulating agencies have no other concerns) have cost XYZ at least an additional five months of wait time, carrying costs, and potential lost revenue.

Rare Species
Concurrent with preliminary identification of wetland boundaries, the consultant filed an information request with the Mass. Natural Heritage Program (NHESP), the state agency tasked with enforcing the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. A response letter from NHESP typically takes 30 days and provides only basic information on the identity of the species thought and/or known to occur on the parcel.
To provide a response, NHESP must understand the major components of the proposed development to determine if impacts to rare species may occur. This response requires the consultant to prepare a site plan illustrating, at a minimum, the proposed development, development limits, and other major site improvements. Upon initial review of the site plan, NHESP may request additional information, including the type of soils on the parcel, forest type, and other environmental characteristics.
A formal investigation of the parcel, called a Habitat Assessment, may also be required. For the sake of discussion, say a rare turtle and rare plant species occur on the parcel. It’s late November, and the turtle is snuggled down in the ground, and the plant is dormant for the winter and unidentifiable. Rare-species issues have cost XYZ a minimum of five months and up to one year of additional wait time, resulting in increased carrying costs and potential lost revenue.

Flood Plains
Although the parcel is not immediately adjacent to a river, more than 95% is located entirely within the 100-year flood plain. In Massachusetts, work within the 100-year flood plain has specific regulations and requires that the flood plain not be filled in. Generally speaking, fill within the flood plain, from grading, site work, and construction, results in displacement of floodwaters (at altered elevations) downstream at those same elevations.
This is a difficult concept to grasp. But let’s think of our flood plain as a cup of water. Imagine the cup is two-thirds full before you pour in a half-cup of sand. The water will overflow because it is displaced by the sand. A flood plain is no different. If you fill it in, its capacity to store a given volume of flood water is decreased.
This issue can be addressed more easily when a parcel has areas located outside (upgradient of) the flood plain. To meet the regulatory criteria for working within the 100-year flood plain, ‘compensatory storage’ must be provided. If you fill in 100 cubic yards of a flood plain, you need to offset this by providing 100 cubic yards of storage. This is accomplished by digging a hole at the same elevation to create what is referred to as compensatory storage.
The XYZ parcel does not have sufficient land located outside the 100-year flood plain to provide compensatory storage, and, unfortunately, the proposed development will require significant amounts of fill to be placed within the flood plain. If compensatory storage cannot be provided on the parcel, it must be provided at the same elevations on an adjacent parcel. To locate compensatory storage on an adjacent parcel requires additional surveying, engineering, and, obviously, landowner approval. Obtaining off-site compensatory storage cost XYZ six months.

Hazardous Waste
XYZ did not perform correct due diligence when purchasing its parcel, and decided to finance the sale privately. An environmental site assessment was not conducted, and XYZ assumed that, because the parcel was never developed, there would not be any hazardous-waste-related issues. XYZ did not consider the possibility that underground storage tanks on the adjacent, upgradient gasoline-storage facility may have leaked.
Well, guess what? They leaked. A lot. The extent of the leak was determined by installing a test well, sampling soil and groundwater, and performing laboratory analysis for contaminants. A significant volume of contaminated soil had to be removed, and long-term monitoring systems had to be installed to meet regulatory criteria. The legal costs of coordination with the owners of the storage facility cost tens of thousands of dollars and took almost a year. Disposal of contaminated soils was also expensive due to a particular type of contaminant.
This example clearly illustrates that compliance with environmental regulations can result in significant outlays of capital and time. I should note that the XYZ property actually exists and was successfully permitted. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

John Prenosil is a land-development consultant with more than 14 years of experience. His company, JMP Environmental Consulting Inc., provides an array of land-development services throughout Massachusetts; (413) 272-0111; www.jmpec.net

Burning with Energy

By
John Lombardi (left, with Assistant Director of Facilities Scott Johnson)
Environment and Engineering Sections
Cooley Dickinson Cops National Award for Sustainable Practices

John Lombardi (left, with Assistant Director of Facilities Scott Johnson)

John Lombardi (left, with Assistant Director of Facilities Scott Johnson) says CDH has long made it a priority to promote healthy living and a healthy environment.


Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton has long taken what it considers a leadership position in terms of green practices and operating philosophies. And now, it has some paperwork to back up those claims.
Indeed, the Volunteer Hospital Assoc. (VHA), a national health care network, recently presented John Lombardi, director of Facilities and Engineering at CDH, with its 2011 Leadership Award for Sustainability. That term ‘sustainability’ means using a resource so it is not depleted or permanently damaged, and the hospital has proven it has a burning desire — exemplified by its wood-burning co-generation system — to protect the environment and the health of the community.
Cooley Dickinson was one of only 13 health care facilities across the nation recognized at VHA’s recent annual conference in La Jolla, Calif. with a Sustainability Excellence/Best in Class Individual Program award.
In fact, its system is so unique and successful that Lombardi was asked to speak about it the week before he accepted the award at the Sustainable Hospitals 2011 conference in San Diego, sponsored by Active Communications International. The purpose of that conference was to help hospital officials understand how creating a sustainable environment can reduce operational costs, improve staff retention, and enhance the patient experience.
“It’s always been a Cooley Dickinson initiative to promote healthy living and a healthy environment,” Lombardi said, adding that it is the first hospital in New England to use woodchips to heat and cool its facility. “Hospitals use a lot of energy and resources to keep up with patient care, and it would be easy to burn oil and use nasty plastics and not be conscious of ecology. But we have been ahead of the game since 1980.”

Firing Up
Cooley Dickinson has been burning woodchips to heat and cool its campus for 25 years. “The hospital applied for a grant to install its first wood-burning operation,” said spokesperson Christina Trinchero. It was approved, and in 1985, the federal government funded half the cost of a new woodchip plant. The chips are purchased locally and consist of scrap wood from milling operations or old trees.
“Our boiler was designed and installed to eliminate the need to burn high-sulfur fuel oil when oil cost less than 50 cents a gallon,” Lombardi said. “The design of the hospital’s power plant has been in the forefront of running on sustainable energy since the ’80s.”
In 1996, a 500-ton steam-absorption chiller was added to provide chilled water for air conditioning. Lombardi explained that the steam supply for the chiller comes from the woodchip plant and reduces the electrical power needed for air conditioning.
In 2006, hospital officials made the decision to continue to expand their green initiative. Before building a new 110,000-square-foot surgery center, they invested in a second woodchip boiler. It was designed with an efficient-emissions package approved by the Mass. Environmental Protection Agency and the city of Northampton.
Lombardi said this was no small investment, as the unit costs about $2.5 million. But it offers many benefits. The wood chips are purchased locally, and since much of the material comes from waste, it reduces the load on landfills. The operation also creates jobs that Lombardi says would not otherwise exist, and the ash produced by the boiler system been donated to farms for fertilizer.
In 2008, the hospital employed an agency to conduct an energy study. As a result, additional measures were implemented to help produce electricity and continue to reduce Cooley Dickinson’s dependence on energy from other sources. Modifications were made to the power plant, which included drilling a new well, and today CDH’s energy-saving measures benefit the environment and save the hospital approximately $450,000 each year.
Recent energy initiatives that began in January of 2010 include installing 4,600 energy-efficient light fixtures, along with new heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning controls, and upgrading the steam-distribution system. In addition, the hospital launched a food-waste composting program in February, which reduces costs by taking waste out of the trash system.
“We realize that waste is inefficient and there is a lot of waste in things we do. So, the right thing to do is to minimize our waste,” Lombardi said. “We also believe in a healthy environment, and wood is cleaner to burn than oil.”
The hospital operates its burner under an Environmental Protection Agency permit that requires it to remove dust particles from the smoke. “So the emission from the smokestacks is mostly steam,” Lombardi explained.
He told BusinessWest that the new clean-energy features, along with micro-turbines installed in 2009 and 2010, save approximately 825,000 gallons of fuel oil and prevent 1,534 metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions from being released into the atmosphere.
“That equates to 301 passenger cars not being driven for a full year, or 179 typical households being taken off the energy grid, or 469 tons of waste recycled,” he said.

Winning Idea
When he decided to fill out the application for the award, Lombardi never thought the hospital would win.
“It was a national competition, and there were a lot of other hospitals involved. I thought there would be bigger hospitals with bigger stories than ours at Cooley Dickinson,” he said. “Our story is simple — we burn wood and make electricity and heat and cool with it.”
So he was very proud when he was introduced at the gala. “We were honored to receive the award because it takes a lot of work on the part of our staff members and engineers to maintain the system. There are a lot of components and technology that affect many people at the hospital who have to coordinate their efforts to keep the system running at capacity and efficiently. So it was nice to be recognized nationally.”
During the conference, participants from other medical facilities expressed admiration and awe. “They didn’t understand how we could generate air conditioning out of wood. But to us, it’s easy,” he said.
Lombardi is proud of CDH’s system, and credits hospital officials for their support.
“Our senior leaders had confidence in the facilities team that the investment would pay off,” he said. “The old-school hospital mentality is to spend money on bigger machines and state-of-the-art technology. But that continues to waste energy, which is needed to run the machines. Instead, we are spending our money wisely in regard to sustainability and the environment, and it has paid for itself and also provided jobs for people.”

Doing Business in: Enfield

By
Michael Monteforte and Jay Bellamo
Features
Easy Access to Highways Drives Business Success

Kathy Miro

Kathy Miro says she was impressed by how supportive the business community is, and how loyal customers are, after opening a pizzeria in Enfield.


Several months ago, Michael “Monte” Monteforte and Jay Bellamo opened Bellmont Kitchen and Bath in Enfield, Conn.
“This location is perfect,” Monteforte said as he stood in their gleaming new showroom on Hazard Avenue, otherwise known as Route 190, explaining that they looked at sites in Windsor Locks, East Windsor, and Enfield before finding exactly what they wanted in the former Video Galaxy Plaza.
“This is a key location because we wanted to be right off a highway,” Monteforte said. “Enfield has four exits off of Route 91, there are plenty of stores and restaurants which draw customers here, and Route 190 gets all of the traffic going to and from Somers.”
Ray Warren, Enfield’s director of Development Services, agrees that the town’s location makes it an excellent spot to own and operate a business. Since it is bordered on the north by Longmeadow and East Longmeadow, it draws traffic from Massachusetts as well as from Somers to its east, East Windsor and Ellington to its south, and Suffield and Windsor Locks to its west.
“Enfield has a population of 45,000 people, which makes it a good-sized small town. We have more than 1,200 small businesses along with many large operations. Lego, Hallmark, MassMutual, and the headquarters for Brooks Brothers are all here,” Warren said.
The majority of the retail sector is located along two main corridors, although Route 5 also has its share of entrepreneurs. They are Hazard Avenue and Elm Street, thoroughfares that run parallel to each other. “Our retail sector is in a very concentrated area with shopping on both sides of the streets,” said Mayor Scott Kaupin.
The town’s biggest constraint in terms of new development is lack of land. “We have turned away businesses due to lack of space,” Warren said. But there are still a number of businesses under construction, and the many stores in Enfield Mall and the adjacent shopping centers represent substantial investments.
“This year, we issued more than $43 million in construction value of building permits,” Warren said. “In FY 2011, the town estimated it would take in $350,000 in building-permit fees. But we took in more than $700,000.”

New Horizons
Although the town has little commercial land available, there is space available for renovation of existing properties and property zoned for industrial development.
Enfield has also seen growth in the professional sector, and both Hartford Hospital and St. Francis Hospital recently built medical offices there.

Michael Monteforte and Jay Bellamo

Michael Monteforte and Jay Bellamo say Enfield’s location alongside I-91 and Route 190 was a factor in locating there.

Larger companies are also expanding. “Lego did a 75,000-square-foot renovation to expand their operations. And Eppendorf Manufacturing, which is an international company that specializes in biosciences, has chosen Enfield as its growth center and made a $25 million investment here,” Warren said.
When Eppendorf moved to the town several years ago, it purchased a large campus. “They are just about to complete their first expansion, and we are already in conversation about a second expansion,” Kaupin said.
The company had access to a large, professional labor pool in New York, but executives have told Warren they found an equally capable and educated workforce here.
“We are part of what is known as the Knowledge Corridor,” Kaupin said of the stretch of land running from the Northampton/Amherst area past Hartford that contains a plethora of colleges and universities, which results in a large pool of well-educated people. In addition, Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield is a leader in the field of machine technology and has forged great relationships with local companies.
Warren said 30,000 people from Massachusetts work in Enfield, and most companies employ workers from the north and south. “The fact that there is a supply of labor which stretches from Springfield to Hartford in a two-state region makes this a very attractive place to do business.”
Enfield has been chosen as a stopping place on the proposed New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter-rail line. Its station will be located in the village of Thompsonville, an old mill area of Enfield which is in need of a great deal of revitalization.
Kaupin is hopeful that, when the project is complete, it will lead to a rebirth in the village, boosting demand for housing as well as for new businesses and restaurants that will be needed to provide service to commuters.

Helping Hands
Kathy and Michael Miro opened Mama Miro’s Pizzeria and Restaurant in January after spending $90,000 and eight months gutting and remodeling a building on Hazard Avenue that had sat empty for about two years.
Kathy said they have been impressed by how friendly other business owners have been since they opened their eatery. “Business owners here help each other,” she said, adding that the pizzeria is their first venture. They have also been surprised by how quickly they gained loyal customers. Although business was slow at first, their weekend breakfast offering has proved so popular, they recently expanded it to seven days a week.
The couple, who moved to Enfield from Brooklyn, N.Y. the fateful week of Sept. 11, 2001, said people come from as far away as Chicopee and Manchester, Conn. to enjoy their thin, New York-style pizza. “Our customers have become our friends, and we have made a lot of them since we opened. One woman comes here three times a day, three days a week, and we have a group of widows who met here and continue to come here for comfort,” Kathy said.
Although they could have located closer to the mall, they chose the site because it has its own parking lot and they will be able to hold fund-raisers there if and when they choose.
Kaupin said the Miros’ experience is not unusual, as the town has a very strong chamber of commerce which serves Enfield, Somers, Suffield, and East Windsor. “The North Central Chamber of Commerce is heavily weighted towards small business. Other chambers in the state are very large, but the members here are very good at networking and share their challenges as well as solutions to problems,” he explained.
Town officials are also doing all they can to encourage economic development, which has included freezing the tax rate for four years in a row. “This was a very deliberate effort which occurred without any reductions is essential services,” Kaupin said. “In the past, the town had been on the higher end of the tax structure, but now we are very competitive.”
The town also created an Administrative Review Team to expedite the permitting process. Team meetings bring everyone to the table who will be involved with a new business. “We meet with business owners, review their plans, and offer advice,” Warren said, adding that money and time are saved by identifying issues and addressing them in the planning stage. “And if they are on a tight timeline, they can go through the Land Review and Building Department simultaneously, which shortens the whole review process. It’s very important, as this is New England, where development is governed by a large body of rules, and we want people to succeed.”
Kaupin said their team approach provides “proverbial one-stop shopping” for new business owners, which is critical in this community, since there are five fire districts and a regional health district independent of the town. The retail arena continues to grow, and available space is always filled quickly. “First and foremost, we are known as a regional shopping area.”
And one that attracts businesses with a pitch that is very appealing — a location that literally drives customers right to their doors.

Opinion

By
Opinion
United Way Merits Strong Support

Our community is filled with people, companies, and organizations who’ve proven they’re willing to do what it takes to help improve the lives of those in need while also investing in our community’s future. Last year alone, countless lives were improved by the generosity shown throughout our community, with an amazing $6.1 million given to the United Way of Pioneer Valley Campaign. We asked for everyone to give 110%, and many of you stepped up to meet the challenge.
One year later, we’ve made a lot of progress together, but there is more to be done. Just a few months ago, residents in our area faced tragedy and devastation. On June 1, three tornadoes ripped through our area, leaving a trail of destruction, crumpling homes, businesses, and schools. United Way of Pioneer Valley immediately took responsibility for the coordination of local volunteer services and partnered with a national organization, All Hands Volunteers, to support regional volunteerism. We assisted local chapters of organizations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army in the identification and matching of volunteers for immediate relief, and we continue to work with local organizations to provide volunteer support to recovery efforts.
Additionally, we established a tornado-recovery fund in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Western Mass. that has raised $300,000. To date, our allocation team has awarded more than $125,000 to local organizations assisting individuals impacted by the tornado, and will continue to focus its efforts on the unmet needs of local residents.
The reverberations from the tornadoes are still being felt in the Pioneer Valley and will forever change the landscape of our community. As we get ready to start up our 2011 campaign, we are committed to fulfill the long-term response strategy to the needs that will continue to emerge in the coming weeks and months.
At the same time, we must face the issues of our community that were present before our area was faced with natural disaster. We will face these issues with the same hope, optimism, and courage that we always have with a new conviction of determination.
Far too many families are in need of food and shelter, and too many of our children arrive unprepared for school and later struggle to make it to their high-school graduation.
We, as a community, are the only ones who can make a change for the better. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have a good life, a quality education that leads to a stable job, enough income to support a family through retirement, and good health. UWPV supports a powerful network of agencies and programs that help people meet the essential human needs of life each day, and often they do it with too few resources.
We have a great challenge ahead, and we need your help to improve lives and our community. Your decision to give to the United Way is critical to the future of our community.
There are many ways to give — you can give your time, you can lend your voice and advocate for others, and you can give financially. You can find these opportunities on our Web site at www.uwpv.org. Your decision to get involved will impact the lives of the men, women, and children in our community that we pass on the street each day. So please give what you can, when you can.
If you’re someone who has given to us in previous years, thank you. If you’re just joining the United Way family, welcome.We need everyone, because we’re stronger together.

Dora D. Robinson is President and CEO of United Way of Pioneer Valley.

The Court is Now in Session

By
Commercial Real Estate Sections
Historic Building Has a New Lease on Life

Opal Real Estate Group and city officials want to turn a neglected space into a vibrant, mixed-use facility.

For the partners at Opal Real Estate Group, the historic block in Springfield known as Court Square is more than just another real-estate redevelopment opportunity. Before the passage of years, they say the building and its surroundings were one of the most vibrant developments in the city. The Springfield Redevelopment Authority, which owns the site, is hopeful that the players, funding, and vision are in place to return Court Square to that status once again.

Hanging on the wall behind Demetrios Panteleakis’ desk is a large painting of 31 Elm St. in Springfield, a building that most know simply as Court Square.
This historic block across from City Hall and Symphony Hall has remained vacant for decades. While the city has been diligent in keeping the property secure, time and nature have taken their toll on the elegant structure. Two other smaller buildings, Byer’s Block and the brownstone on the corner of Elm and Main known as the Chicopee Bank Building, are also part of a larger project that in recent months has city officials excited for the future of Springfield’s center.
Panteleakis is the managing partner of Opal Real Estate Group, the preferred developer for the site. The company, owned by Peter Picknelly, was one of the finalists back in 2008 to redevelop the property, but lost the bid to Connelly and Partners from Boston.
However, when that developer’s plans fell through, only a couple months old and a fast and furious victim of the economy, Opal was asked if it would like a second chance at bat.
The property is owned by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA), and in June of this year, Opal was named the preferred developer at Court Square. It was granted 120 days to come up with plans for funding and redevelopment, by all accounts a comprehensive and laborious process which examines every system of the structures, their history, and their potential future.
It’s an interesting moment of happenstance how Panteleakis came upon that painting, by the same artist responsible for the murals in the elevator lobbies of the very same building. Because, in many ways, the chance encounter with that work of art in an antique store is a metaphor for the larger forces now underway in the revitalization of the property. It’s a story of the right people in the right place at the right time.
Recently, BusinessWest had a chance to sit down with both Panteleakis and Brian Connors, the city’s point person for the property from the Office of Planning and Economic Development. The story they told is not one that has an easy answer. As Connors said, “if this project were a simple fix, it would have been done long ago.”
The difference this time is that, for Picknelly and his partners at Opal, the building is more than just another real-estate redevelopment opportunity. “Court Square was once the most vibrant part of the city,” Picknelly told BusinessWest. “Today, this is the best of New England — the grandeur of the historic buildings married to the modern structures nearby. Springfield is our home, and this building is at its core. In order for our city to be revitalized, this building can’t be abandoned.
“I believe, if done correctly, Court Square can be an important part of our city’s future,” he added. “Springfield simply cannot completely rebuild itself with this grand building left vacant.”

Center of Attention
Connors called the location “one of the most significant civic spaces in the entire Commonwealth,” and of the Court Square buildings themselves he simply said, “buildings that look like this just aren’t built anymore.”
The SRA also owns Union Station just a few blocks away, and he called both these sites key properties for Springfield’s future. Opal had been committed to the Court Square project for months before their preferred status, he said, and meets with city officials on a weekly basis to hammer out the ongoing issues that arise with a project of this scope.
“You don’t just hand over the keys and start construction,” he said. “It’s really a lot of due-diligence work. Opal, meanwhile, is getting all their applications in, their historic tax credits, their financing. We’re very excited to have a private partner advancing this as quickly as they can, with the best of all their expertise. They know Springfield, and they’ve worked on historic redevelopment.”
Patting his hand on a ream of Opal’s paperwork, only a fraction of the documents and reports that will chart the project’s course, Connors added, “this is already making far more progress than ever before.”
But he acknowledged the hard work ahead for both his office and the people at Opal. Between environmental and structural assessments, neither of which is tossing any unforeseen obstacles, and the funding sources, all parties involved will be kept busy before a hammer or shovel hits the site.
Funding is a crucial piece of the puzzle. “A project like this requires every sort of alphabet soup of incentives that are possible — federal, historic, and state tax credits,” he said. “And these are all competitive funds, so those applications are going in now. In a financial environment like there is today, funding is difficult. Banks aren’t loose with their money. City governments don’t have a lot of money.”

Family Ties
Although Connors said that Opal’s preferred 120 days ends in November, if the SRA board is satisfied by the developer’s efforts, the agreement will be extended.
“I can say from our experience, on a staff level we’re working with Opal on a weekly basis, and we’re very satisfied with the progress that’s been made,” he added.
Right now, Panteleakis said, the biggest obstacle his office faces is time.
“We’re in a race to take all the knowledge we’ve accumulated and verify it,” he said. “Because there’s been an RFP for the last ten years, there’s been a lot of study on the building. But for our grant purposes we need to go back and reassess all of it — mechanical, electrical, environmental.”
Opal is no stranger to historic redevelopment; currently it is at work on an historic property in the center of Westfield destined to be student housing for the state university there. At Court Square, Panteleakis said that a careful look at the past success of the buildings can indeed map out a bit of their future.
“You have to look at it less than conceptually,” he said, “and realize that, 25 to 30 years ago, this building had a viable commercial population. And that has a lot to do with location, location, location.”
The plans as they exist now aren’t to reinvent the uses of the building. Although the top floor is presently envisioned as market-rate housing, with apartments of up to four bedrooms, the first floor will remain retail- or service-oriented, with amenities that would cater to a residential or professional population that lives and works in the area. Middle floors are to be mixed commercial use, and there has been great interest in that space, both Panteleakis and Connors said.
Panteleakis, in fact, said the response has been “tremendous.”
“The development process that takes place in a building this size clearly has a point before hammers start to swing where you get a minimum level of commitment in order to have an economically viable project,” he explained. “We are in those conversations now, and we’re trying to firm up some of those commitments by January.”
Responding to criticism of what some may perceive as a surfeit of vacant office space in the city, Panteleakis waved off the possibility to naysay. “There’s a larger philosophical issue that needs to be examined. Anyone can say, ‘there’s too much office and retail space already,’ but it’s the quality of the product that brings people to the downtown. The bottom line is that, when you improve the quality of the product and create competition in that product, it forces everyone to get better.”
Here, he credited the redevelopments that the Dennis Group has made downtown, and how they raised the bar for those sections of Springfield where their historic buildings have been renovated.
Like Picknelly, Panteleakis said that Court Square resonates in his own remembrance of Springfield’s history. And that connection to the past is an important aspect to rebuilding for the future.
“If you have any commitment at all to the city of Springfield, or if you’ve been in the real-estate business and owned property in Springfield,” he said, “you’d know how important this location is. To come to what is probably the most architecturally significant building in the heart of the city, and to see it in disrepair, it makes an immediate statement to visitors to the city, and that has to be reversed.”
This is the type of project that comes along once in one’s career, he said.
“This is Springfield’s legacy,” he went on. “If buildings like this aren’t preserved, future generations are only going to see them in photographs.”
Pointing to the painting over his head, he added, “this is one that will be saved.”

Bankruptcies

By
Bankruptcies Departments

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

Allard, Christopher J.
639 Burnett Road
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Almonte, Ricardo B.
Almonte, Maria M.
55 Greendale Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Anderson, Stephen M.
49 Cherry St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Andrews, Jesicca L.
57 Armstrong St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Bergeron, Lawrence E.
Bergeron, Tammy J.
137 Lancaster Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bertini, Michael A.
129 Ventura St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Blake, Sophia T.
87 Maryland St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

Borden, Grover L.
582 Pleasant St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bou, Angel L.
1237 Burts Pitt Road
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bouchard, Dennis Joseph
57 G St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Boutin, Michelle A.
40 Holyoke St., Apt 1
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Bruneau, Helga A.
3 Federal St.
Millers Falls, MA 01349
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Bubar, John J.
119 White Oak Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Candello, Antonio P.
Candello, Angela Dawn
506 Brattleboro Road
Bernardston, MA 01302
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Castonguay, Mark R.
Castonguay, Ruth A.
87 Oakridge St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/13/11

Christensen, Mildred Christine
#92 Village Park Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Clegg, Shannon Rose
a/k/a Paquette, Shannon Rose
a/k/a Boyle, Shannon Rose
228 River Road
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Colon, Wilberto
Colon, Sandra M.
1447 Northampton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Conniff, Robbin A.
a/k/a Ryan, Robbin A.
a/k/a Barlow, Robbin A.
153 Spikenard Circle
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Cruz, Anna M.
a/k/a Bartley, Anna
61 Beverly St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Deacon, Mark E.
11 Brookline Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Demary, Karen M.
a/k/a Adler, Karen
1029 West St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Deraleau, Aaron D.
192 Brook Road
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Duffy, James B.
Duffy, Sandra J.
1094 Western Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Durham, Glenn E.
Durham, Katie C.
427A Belchertown Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Emery, John A.
Emery, Denise A.
84 Mattawa Circle
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Ferreira, Maria A.
1031 Worcester St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Fischer, Todd H.
442 Warren Wright Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Gagne Brothers Home Improvement
Gagne Brothers, Inc.
Gagne, Brett R.
Gagne, Erin M.
638 Rogers Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Gardner, Justine L.
16 Congress St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Gauthier, Margaretha F.
38 Colorado St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Giza, Chester J.
134 Yale St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Glenn, Sherri-Lyn
a/k/a Hill, Sherri-Lyn
a/k/a Berube, Sherri-Lyn
68 Aster Ct.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Goodell, Sr. Douglas M.
Goodell, Andrea L.
227 Franklin St.
Building 13, Apt. D
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Graham, Dawn L.
Graham, Ian M.
218 Upper Valley Road
Becket, MA 01223
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Grenier, Eric A.
Grenier, Sara M.
570 Cottage St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Grosse, Danielle L.
29 Lehigh St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Hagelstein, Patricia Roxanne
104 Pomeroy Meadow Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Hamer, Ann P.
55 Florida St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Hatfield, Thomas Ross
Hatfield, Dolores Carolyn
485 West Cummington Road
Cummington, MA 01026
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Jacobs, Frankie Dale Vernail
Jacobs, Erica Naa Morkoh
121 Orange St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

James, Emma Jean
79 Crescent Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Johnson, James F.
260 Garvey Dr.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Kennedy-Cawley, Roxine M.
1087 South Washington St.
Becket, MA 01223
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Kohlenberger, Lee A.
Kohlenberger, Amy M.
a/k/a Bowman, Amy
P.O. Box 4221
Pittsfield, MA 01202
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

LaPointe, Forrest Dale
LaPointe, Rosibel Maria
5 Gatewood Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Lester, John C.
23 Joanne Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Lopez, Edgardo
Lopez, Norma I.
a/k/a Martinez, Norma I.
50 Miller St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Lynch, Stacy M.
143 Wilbraham Road
Monson, MA 01057
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Macutkiewicz, Alec E.
129 West Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/05/11

Madden, Bridget
17 Chickering St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Maiorino, Alfonse F.
6 Eagle St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Martin, Gary S.
Tessier-Martin, Linda J.
270 East Main St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Martin, Mary W.
27 Morin Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Mason, Albert R.
Mason, Dorothy E.
99 Elmar Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Matthews, Edward James
Matthews, Marie Alma
21 Franklin St.
Millers Falls, MA 01349
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

McCann, Christy L.
40 High St.
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

McCann, Thomas W.
40 High St.
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Medeiros, Clifton
25 Gardens Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Meehan, Mary J.
P.O Box 164
Cheshire, MA 01225
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Meyer, Kathleen Ann
a/k/a Rogers, Kathleen
52 Shattuck St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Miller, Starr A.
643 Newton St., Apt 9
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/14/11

Mitchell, Penny
25 Abbe Ave.
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Montes, Carmen L.
1237 Burts Pitt Road
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Morey, Jerry W.
Morey, Tina S.
221 Alum Hill Road
Ashley Falls, MA 01222
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Moson, Olivia S.
77 High St., Apt 4
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Mueller, Marie T.
P.O. Box 592
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Nelson, Christopher J.
1295 Pendleton Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01022
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Nepomnyashiy, Yuriy
189 Burbank Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

O’Connor-Allyn, Kelly A.
2 Hawthorne Lane
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Olson, Nancy E.
1389 West Housatonic St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Ortiz, Steve
Ortiz, Elizabeth Kristen
a/k/a Chapin, Elizabeth Kristen
871 Country Club Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Papananias, George
16 Captain Lathrop Dr.
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Pendergast, Sheila
114 Warren St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Pereira, Cesar M.
Pereira, Lisa M.
35 Redstone Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028-1244
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Perry, Russell
Clark-Perry, Celma
196 King St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Politis, Garrett A.
Politis, Nancy Q.
51 Willshire Dr.
Williamstown, MA 01267
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Pollard’s Tavern & Grill
Szydlo, David Walter
25 Florence Road
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Raymond, Timothy D.
202 Rolf Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Raynor, Jamie K.
32 Ellington St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Rinault, Philip J.
242A State Ave.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Robitaille, Carol Ann
P.O. Box 874
Chicopee, MA 01021
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

Rokhkind, Dmitriy
Rokhkind, Yana
48 Braeburn Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Sevigny, Jean Louis
Sevigny, Carol E.
791 James St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Smith, Lakyna C.
207 Bay St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Smith, Nikki S.
a/k/a Smith-Skubel, Nikki
33 Mountain St.
Plainfield, MA 01070
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Soucie, Mark J.
Soucie, Ann M.
238 Dorset Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Spencer, Betty A.
739 Daniel Shays Highway
86 Earle Dr.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Stebbins, Gerald W.
P.O.Box 32
Bernardston, MA 01337
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Sunn, Michael G.
Sunn, Carol A.
1095 Mohawk Trail – Lot 2
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Surreira, Peter F.
135 Higher Brook Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Talbot, Kathleen M.
287 Notre Dame St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Tharaldson, Shaun Edwin
159 Park St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Tintin, Giovanny P.
54 Housatonic St.
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Vo, Kim Chi
a/k/a Le, Chi
14 Crystal St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Welch, Douglas E.
10 Rosedell Dr. Ext.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/07/11

White, Richard A.
73 Hall Road
P.O. Box 493
Sturbridge, MA 01566
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Doing Business As Certificates

By
DBA Certificates Departments

The following Business Certificates and Trade Names were issued or renewed during the month of September 2011.

AMHERST

Center for Pelvic Physical Therapy
24 North Pleasant St.
Carolyn Bentley

Johnny’s Tavern
30 Boltwood Walk
The Amherst Restaurant Group, LLC

CHICOPEE

A.F. Carosella
485 Broadway St.
Michael Leary

Castle Properties
140 Leona Ave.
Michael Tarrant

Mechanical Expert Service
57 Clarendon Ave.
Yeugeniy Bukhantsov

GREENFIELD

Bicycles Unlimited
322 High St.
Robert G. Perry

Family Vacuum
28 Chapman St.
Tory Groth

Franklin First Credit Union
57 Newton St.
Martha Richardson

Frosted
43 Lincoln St.
Shelly A. Phillips

Greenfield High School Alumni Association
22 Bouker St.
Cynthia Bompastore

Maurice’s Inc.
233 Mohawk Trail
Ann Fleming

Treasure Mountain Mining
40 Church St.
Jeanne A. Greene

West Winds Inn
151 Smead Hill Road
Sandra L. Waskewicz

Woodland Forest Soap
99 Lunt Dr.
Catherine Couta

HADLEY

Cash in Rush
367 Russell St.
Bunyod, Inc.

Happy Valley Pet Service
108 East St.
Jennifer Parry

Here We Grow
123 Russell St.
Michael W. Lodge

Liquors 44
458 Russell St.
Andrew Morrison

Tj Maxx
454 Russell St.
TJX Companies

Valley Dentists
138 Russell St.
Peter Cinner

HOLYOKE

Arete Performance Solutions
28 Bassett Road
Debra Gerard

Auto Zone
2231 Northampton St.
Stephanie Forbes

Beaner Beer Company
108 Cabot St.
Jay Hebert

BZD Dental Associates
610 South St.
Badri Z. Debian

Solstice Marketing Concepts
50 Holyoke St.
John Judge

PALMER

Palmer Counsel Center
1085 Park St.
Margaret Warrington

Rising Tide Consultant
320 Flynt St.
Brian Kraft

VCA Palmer Animal Hospital
1028 Thorndike St.
Healthy Pet Corp.

SOUTHWICK

Fresh Fields Deli & Café
326 College Hwy.
Craig R. Samuelson

Prototype Services
10 Industrial Road
Vity Stankis

SPRINGFIELD

4DGlenns Consultancy
203 Wilbraham Road
Devere K. Glenn

A & U, Inc.
882 Sumner Ave.
Gazanfer Kurtulus

A to Z Auto Clinic
11 Front St.
Angel Zaragoza

Affordable Property Management
109 Pennsylvania Ave.
Franklyn E. Dailey

Aspen Contracting Inc.
784 Bay St.
Pat Nussbeck

Baystate Visiting Nurse
50 State St.
Ruth Odgren

Bella Luna Accessories
24 Olmsted Dr.
Nicole Ariekke

Beliz Ecotech Cleaning Services
185 Hickory St.
Vickie Denise

Best Decorative Concrete
82 Darling St.
Craig A. Miller Jr.

C & R Handyman Services
167 Longhill St.
Carmen B. Morales

CW Price
1522 Boston Road
Morris Cohen

Computech Solutions
47 Sumner Terrace
Jerrard Sylvester

Crystal Barn Interiors
124 Gillette Circle
Kerry L. Shorrock

Davila’s Auto Performance
279 Mill St.
Jose L. Davila

Elephant For a Dollar II
1690 Boston Road
Liselot Walker

Eli Clothing
318 Bay St.
Bernadina Ramirez

Finest Candy’s
400 ½ State St.
Angel L. Castillo

Gafney Real Estate
122 Santa Barbara St.
David P. Gafney

Gamestop 233
1655 Boston Road
Michael Nichols

Hbookz
12 Mattoon St.
Ibn-Husein Muhammad

High Class Society
74 Lamont St.
Kassim S. Manzi

Int Sabor Latino
17 Grimaldi St.
Rafael A. Dominguez

J. Lo Home Improvement
21 Standish St.
Jorge I. Lopez

J.T. Builders
278 Denver St.
Jack Tardy

Jahsette’s Hair Salon
63 Hollywood St.
Vinette Byfield

Jewelry Arch
141 Aldrew Terrace
Carol A. Gallagher

Johnny Mac Liquors
1949 Wilbraham Road
John J. McCarthy

Kool Smiles, PC
1070 St. James Ave.
Tu Tran

WESTFIELD

CADCAMZ
37 Florence St.
Peter Lupien

Creative Expressions
74 Putnam Dr.
Linda L. Coffin

L & M Construction
33 Gifford Ave.
Luis Morales

Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant
11 Heggie Dr.
Michal Harling

R.J. Amusements, LLC
11 Radisson Lane
Marc P. Herbert

Solid Ground
27 Susan Dr.
David L. Guilbert

The Groomer
77 Main St.
Tracy Durkee

Westfield Action Sports Photography
1417 East Mountain Road
John J. Sharon

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Bertera Collision Repair Center
160 Westfield St.
Bertera Chrysler Corporation

Discount Office Furniture Inc.
2131 Riverdale St.
Kenneth F. Wytas

Fringe and Flourish
7 Upper Church St.
Ashley Sovinski

Manchester Home Improvement
209 Rogers Ave.
Barry Manchester

Manners and More
7 Beauview Terrace
Dianne Provost

New England Estate Sales & Service
38 Neptune Ave.
Peter Zaitz

O & M
1658 Memorial Ave.
Marina L. Shah

Oleksii Delivery Service
261 Union St.
Oleksii Nerovnia

Parks Academy Tae Kwan Do Inc.
632 Kings Hwy.
Chong K. Park

S & P Deli
246 Elm St.
Hillenbrand, LLC

Salon Blue
470 Westfield St.
Shaun Drugan

Stop N’ Save Smoke Shop
2011 Riverdale St.
Muhammad T. Abbasi

Tomasko Electric
848 Elm St.
Green Energy Sol Inc.

West Side Hypnosis
12 Railroad St.
Louise E. Jahr

BANKRUPTCIES

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

Allard, Christopher J.
639 Burnett Road
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Almonte, Ricardo B.
Almonte, Maria M.
55 Greendale Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Anderson, Stephen M.
49 Cherry St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Andrews, Jesicca L.
57 Armstrong St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Bergeron, Lawrence E.
Bergeron, Tammy J.
137 Lancaster Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bertini, Michael A.
129 Ventura St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Blake, Sophia T.
87 Maryland St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

Borden, Grover L.
582 Pleasant St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bou, Angel L.
1237 Burts Pitt Road
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Bouchard, Dennis Joseph
57 G St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Boutin, Michelle A.
40 Holyoke St., Apt 1
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Bruneau, Helga A.
3 Federal St.
Millers Falls, MA 01349
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Bubar, John J.
119 White Oak Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Candello, Antonio P.
Candello, Angela Dawn
506 Brattleboro Road
Bernardston, MA 01302
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Castonguay, Mark R.
Castonguay, Ruth A.
87 Oakridge St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/13/11

Christensen, Mildred Christine
#92 Village Park Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Clegg, Shannon Rose
a/k/a Paquette, Shannon Rose
a/k/a Boyle, Shannon Rose
228 River Road
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Colon, Wilberto
Colon, Sandra M.
1447 Northampton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Conniff, Robbin A.
a/k/a Ryan, Robbin A.
a/k/a Barlow, Robbin A.
153 Spikenard Circle
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Cruz, Anna M.
a/k/a Bartley, Anna
61 Beverly St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Deacon, Mark E.
11 Brookline Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Demary, Karen M.
a/k/a Adler, Karen
1029 West St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Deraleau, Aaron D.
192 Brook Road
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Duffy, James B.
Duffy, Sandra J.
1094 Western Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Durham, Glenn E.
Durham, Katie C.
427A Belchertown Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Emery, John A.
Emery, Denise A.
84 Mattawa Circle
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Ferreira, Maria A.
1031 Worcester St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Fischer, Todd H.
442 Warren Wright Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Gagne Brothers Home Improvement
Gagne Brothers, Inc.
Gagne, Brett R.
Gagne, Erin M.
638 Rogers Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Gardner, Justine L.
16 Congress St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Gauthier, Margaretha F.
38 Colorado St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Giza, Chester J.
134 Yale St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Glenn, Sherri-Lyn
a/k/a Hill, Sherri-Lyn
a/k/a Berube, Sherri-Lyn
68 Aster Ct.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Goodell, Sr. Douglas M.
Goodell, Andrea L.
227 Franklin St.
Building 13, Apt. D
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Graham, Dawn L.
Graham, Ian M.
218 Upper Valley Road
Becket, MA 01223
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Grenier, Eric A.
Grenier, Sara M.
570 Cottage St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Grosse, Danielle L.
29 Lehigh St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Hagelstein, Patricia Roxanne
104 Pomeroy Meadow Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Hamer, Ann P.
55 Florida St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Hatfield, Thomas Ross
Hatfield, Dolores Carolyn
485 West Cummington Road
Cummington, MA 01026
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Jacobs, Frankie Dale Vernail
Jacobs, Erica Naa Morkoh
121 Orange St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

James, Emma Jean
79 Crescent Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Johnson, James F.
260 Garvey Dr.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Kennedy-Cawley, Roxine M.
1087 South Washington St.
Becket, MA 01223
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Kohlenberger, Lee A.
Kohlenberger, Amy M.
a/k/a Bowman, Amy
P.O. Box 4221
Pittsfield, MA 01202
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

LaPointe, Forrest Dale
LaPointe, Rosibel Maria
5 Gatewood Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Lester, John C.
23 Joanne Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Lopez, Edgardo
Lopez, Norma I.
a/k/a Martinez, Norma I.
50 Miller St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Lynch, Stacy M.
143 Wilbraham Road
Monson, MA 01057
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Macutkiewicz, Alec E.
129 West Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/05/11

Madden, Bridget
17 Chickering St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Maiorino, Alfonse F.
6 Eagle St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Martin, Gary S.
Tessier-Martin, Linda J.
270 East Main St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Martin, Mary W.
27 Morin Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/10/11

Mason, Albert R.
Mason, Dorothy E.
99 Elmar Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Matthews, Edward James
Matthews, Marie Alma
21 Franklin St.
Millers Falls, MA 01349
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

McCann, Christy L.
40 High St.
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

McCann, Thomas W.
40 High St.
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Medeiros, Clifton
25 Gardens Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Meehan, Mary J.
P.O Box 164
Cheshire, MA 01225
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Meyer, Kathleen Ann
a/k/a Rogers, Kathleen
52 Shattuck St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Miller, Starr A.
643 Newton St., Apt 9
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/14/11

Mitchell, Penny
25 Abbe Ave.
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Montes, Carmen L.
1237 Burts Pitt Road
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Morey, Jerry W.
Morey, Tina S.
221 Alum Hill Road
Ashley Falls, MA 01222
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Moson, Olivia S.
77 High St., Apt 4
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Mueller, Marie T.
P.O. Box 592
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/01/11

Nelson, Christopher J.
1295 Pendleton Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01022
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Nepomnyashiy, Yuriy
189 Burbank Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

O’Connor-Allyn, Kelly A.
2 Hawthorne Lane
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Olson, Nancy E.
1389 West Housatonic St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Ortiz, Steve
Ortiz, Elizabeth Kristen
a/k/a Chapin, Elizabeth Kristen
871 Country Club Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Papananias, George
16 Captain Lathrop Dr.
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Pendergast, Sheila
114 Warren St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Pereira, Cesar M.
Pereira, Lisa M.
35 Redstone Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028-1244
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Perry, Russell
Clark-Perry, Celma
196 King St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Politis, Garrett A.
Politis, Nancy Q.
51 Willshire Dr.
Williamstown, MA 01267
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/03/11

Pollard’s Tavern & Grill
Szydlo, David Walter
25 Florence Road
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Raymond, Timothy D.
202 Rolf Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Raynor, Jamie K.
32 Ellington St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/02/11

Rinault, Philip J.
242A State Ave.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Robitaille, Carol Ann
P.O. Box 874
Chicopee, MA 01021
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/08/11

Rokhkind, Dmitriy
Rokhkind, Yana
48 Braeburn Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/31/11

Sevigny, Jean Louis
Sevigny, Carol E.
791 James St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Smith, Lakyna C.
207 Bay St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Smith, Nikki S.
a/k/a Smith-Skubel, Nikki
33 Mountain St.
Plainfield, MA 01070
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Soucie, Mark J.
Soucie, Ann M.
238 Dorset Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Spencer, Betty A.
739 Daniel Shays Highway
86 Earle Dr.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Stebbins, Gerald W.
P.O.Box 32
Bernardston, MA 01337
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Sunn, Michael G.
Sunn, Carol A.
1095 Mohawk Trail – Lot 2
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Surreira, Peter F.
135 Higher Brook Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 07/30/11

Talbot, Kathleen M.
287 Notre Dame St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/11/11

Tharaldson, Shaun Edwin
159 Park St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/04/11

Tintin, Giovanny P.
54 Housatonic St.
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/15/11

Vo, Kim Chi
a/k/a Le, Chi
14 Crystal St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/09/11

Welch, Douglas E.
10 Rosedell Dr. Ext.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/07/11

White, Richard A.
73 Hall Road
P.O. Box 493
Sturbridge, MA 01566
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/12/11

Incorporations

By
Departments Incorporations

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

BECKET

Jacob’s Ladder Real Estate Inc., 2727 Jacob’s Ladder Road, Becket, MA 01223. John Conboy, 1515 Reservoir Road, East Otis, MA 01029. Residential and commercial real-estate broker.

GRANBY

NE Woods & Waters USA Inc., 87 Kendall St., Granby, MA 01033. Dianne Gordan, same. Advertising and publishing.

HOLYOKE

Nationwide Automotive Administrators Inc., 220 Linden St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Ilya Shnayder, same.

LEE

Red Apple Garden Inc., 23 Park Plaza St., Lee, MA 01238. Kong Liand Ni, same. Restaurant.

LENOX

Lenox Alliance for the Arts & Humanities Inc., 34 Church St., Lenox, MA 01240. Robert Romeo, 510 Walker St., Lenox, MA 01240. Performance space for a broad range of cultural and artistic presentations.

LUDLOW

Rosewood Meadows Inc., 187 East St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Suzie Ice, 9 Wandering Meadows, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Real-estate broker.

NORTHAMPTON

Meadow City Conservation Coalition Inc., 42 Phillips Place, Northampton, MA 01060. Jane Potter, same. Nonprofit organization designed to preserve the natural character of the flood plain of the Connecticut River and the nearby Northampton area.

SOUTH HADLEY

Prime Interstate Painting Inc., 65 Columbia St., South Hadley, MA 01075. Bradley Forbes, same. House painting and related services.

SOUTHWICK

KTI Aircraft Maintenance Inc., 41 South Loomis St., Southwick, MA 01077. Andrew Keenan Sr., same. Aircraft-maintenance service.

SPRINGFIELD

Jauna Gaita Inc., 21 Harvard St., Springfield, MA 01109. Juris Zagarins, same. Nonprofit organization designed to support Latvian culture, language, and literature.

Jumbo Supermarket Inc., 932 Worthington St., Springfield, MA 01105. Angel Pena, 15 Stedman St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Supermarket-grocery sales.

Keya Petroleum Corp., 491 Allen St., Springfield, MA 01108. Vasantlal Amrutlal Shah, 321 Longhill St., Springfield, MA 01108. Gas station with convenience store.

Law Office of William T. Walsh Jr., P.C., 83 State St., Springfield, MA 01103. William T. Walsh Jr., same. Law office.

Myids Inc., 51 Denton Circle, Springfield, MA 01104. Mohammad Ali Hazratji, 492 Hall Hill Road, Somers, CT 06071. Sales of ID tags for apparel.

Olympic Deli Restaurant Inc., 232 Chestnut St., Springfield, MA 01103. Francisco Rosario, same. Deli and restaurant.

Rivera & Rivera Act Against Foreclosure Inc., 44 Duryea St., Springfield, MA 01104. Marisol Feliciano, same. Nonprofit organization providing community assistance and services.

Royal Hair Design Inc., 101 Mulberry St., Apt. 113, Springfield, MA 01105. Liran Avital, same. Hair salon.

S.E.M. Convenience Store Inc., 248 Dickinson St., Springfield, MA 01108. Stamatios Moraitakis, same. Convenience store.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

LTG Inc., 41 Oleander St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Rachael Lynn Albee, same. IT services with focus of MSP.

Precision Install Inc., 11 Smith Ave., West Springfield, MA 01089. Eric Poirier, 115 Austin St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Kitchen installations and home improvements.

WESTFIELD

JPY Flooring Inc., 172 Meadow St., Apt. B, Westfield, MA 01085. Julian Yurtuc, same. Flooring sales and installation.

Real China Restaurant Inc., 116 Elm St., Westfield, MA 01085. Bizhen Zhu, same. Restaurant.

Company Notebook

By
Company Notebook Departments

Girls Inc. Benefits From Comedy Night
HOLYOKE — The Women Business Owners Alliance of the Pioneer Valley (WBOA) recently presented Girls Inc. of Holyoke with a check for $2,950, proceeds from a Women’s Night of Comedy. The spring fund-raiser featured comediennes Tina Giorgi, Julie Barr, and Jenny Zigrino. “We are delighted to receive this gift,” said Suzanne Parker, executive director of Girls Inc. “In addition to the generous donation from the WBOA, some members of our board of directors were so inspired at the check presentation that they made additional gifts of their own as well. These donations will help us to continue to offer the cutting-edge, educational, and fun programs that inspire girls to be strong, smart, and bold.”

United Bank Aids
Tornado Relief
WEST SPRINGFIELD — With its partnership in the ABC40/FOX6 Tornado Relief Fund as well as grants awarded by its foundation, United Bank recently announced that a total of $89,500 in donations has supported local tornado relief and recovery efforts. The amount is in addition to the bank’s earlier gift of $25,000 to the Red Cross immediately following the June 1 tornado. The ABC40/FOX6 fund raised $40,000. Individual grants of $10,000 each were awarded to the American Red Cross, Pioneer Valley Chapter; the Salvation Army, Springfield Corps; the Community Foundation of Western MA Tornado Relief Fund; and United Way of Pioneer Valley Tornado Recovery Fund. Also, the United Bank Foundation awarded $49,500 to nine organizations that were impacted by the tornado and those providing immediate relief to the community. The recipients were: Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society, $2,000; DevelopSpringfield Corp., $10,000; Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, $4,000; Pioneer Valley Montessori School, $2,500; Rebuilding Together Springfield, $10,000; South End Community Center, $2,500; Springfield Rescue Mission, $2,000; Square One, $12,500; and Westfield Public Schools, $4,000.

Johnson & Hill Donates to Link to Libraries
PIONEER VALLEY — Johnson & Hill Staffing Services and Link to Libraries Inc., have joined forces for its inaugural Welcome to Kindergarten “Read Together” Literacy Bag Project. The newest initiative for Link to Libraries is the donation of more than 2,000 literacy kits to children entering kindergarten in Springfield and Holyoke public schools. The literacy bags include new bilingual books, bookbags, bookmarks, and parent educational materials supplied by the Irene and George Davis Foundation. “It is most important that our local children have the tools they need to start the school year on the right foot and to help them achieve their intellectual potential,” said Susan Jaye-Kaplan, co-founder of Link to Libraries. “We hope that these literacy kits will stimulate interest in reading and provide books to begin their own home library. We greatly appreciate the support of Andrea Hill-Cataldo and the staff of Johnson & Hill Staffing. It is community partners like this that help us reach our goals.”

Big Y to Eliminate
Self-checkouts
SPRINGFIELD — Big Y Foods Inc. has announced it will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in all its stores by the end of the year. Big Y first implemented self-checkout lanes in 2003. After extensive research, Big Y noted that the self-checkout lanes not only do not save customers time, but usually take them even longer to check out than customers in standard checkout lanes. Big Y concluded that the self-checkout technology could neither improve nor replace the value of a friendly cashier who is able to personally help each customer in their lane, according to Michael Tami, vice president for information resources and technologies. “Our self-checkout technology could not deliver on the service needs of our customers,” he said. “In short, we were not able to provide the exceptional customer service through them that has made Big Y what it is today.”

ACC Bistro Open for Cooking Classes
ENFIELD, Conn. — Hands-on cooking experiences are available to students this fall at Asnuntuck Community College (ACC), led by chef Bill Collins. Collins, a personal chef in Western Mass. and a professional chef for more than 18 years, provides a variety of course options to students looking to enhance their culinary prowess at ACC’s Bistro. Experience in the kitchen is not a prerequisite for the classes. The only requirements are that students bring a chef’s knife, a paring knife, a dish towel, and storage containers to bring home leftovers. All classes will include copies of the recipes Collins will be teaching. Classes are being offered at a variety of lengths ranging from one to four evenings. For more information on classes, visit www.acc.commnet.edu or call (860) 253-3034.

TNR Global to Attend UMass Career Fair
AMHERST — Karen Lynn, director of business development, and Natasha Goncharova, co-founder and managing director of TNR Global, will be representing the firm at UMass Amherst’s Career Fair for Engineering, Natural Sciences & Technology students on Sept. 28. “The University of Massachusetts offers a comprehensive computer science program where students emerge strong candidates for the kind of technical work required of TNR software developers,” said Michael McIntosh, vice president of search technologies. TNR Global is a systems design and integration company focused on enterprise-search and cloud-computing solutions for publishing companies, news sites, Web directories, academia, enterprise, and SaaS companies.

Banks Announce
Merger Plans
ADAMS — Adams Co-Operative Bank and South Adams Savings Bank, both headquartered in town, have agreed to combine their two institutions to form a new community bank serving Berkshire County. A joint announcement of the plan was made recently by Joseph Truskowski Jr., president and CEO of Adams Co-Operative Bank, and Charles O’Brien, president and CEO of South Adams Savings Bank. The combined bank will consist of seven full-service offices located in Adams, Cheshire, Lanesboro, Lee, Williamstown, and North Adams. Truskowski and O’Brien emphasized that both banks are committed to creating jobs in Berkshire County, and no jobs will be eliminated as a result of the merger. The two bank headquarters, which bookend downtown Adams, will also remain fully used. The new bank will be formed under a Massachusetts savings bank charter, with Truskowski serving as president and O’Brien as CEO. The managing boards of the two banks will be merged to create a new board of trustees. In addition, all deposits will continue to be insured in full at the new bank through a combination of coverage from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Depositors Insurance Fund of Massachusetts. The merger is subject to approval by the depositors of Adams Co-Operative Bank, corporators of South Adams Savings Bank, and regulatory agencies. The merger is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2012.

United Rentals Supports Extreme Makeover
SPRINGFIELD — United Rentals in Ludlow worked around the clock in early September providing construction equipment and services to the latest project in Springfield chosen by the ABC show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (see related story, page 36). The build benefits Sirdeaner Walker, who has become a national voice against bullying in schools after surviving the loss of her son. The build is also part of United Rentals’ fifth year of partnership with the award-winning television show, which has relied on the company for equipment and volunteers on more than 80 new-home constructions. “Over 80 projects and more than 5,000 pieces of equipment, United Rentals has come through for us every time,” said Diane Korman, senior producer of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. “Even in remote locations, United Rentals always has a branch close enough to arrange all the equipment we need, ensure its reliability, and deliver it within a three-hour window. Most importantly, they share our ‘safety first’ philosophy.” The episode featuring the Walker family will air on ABC on a date to be announced.

Agenda

By
Agenda Departments

Museums10 Focuses on Photography
Ongoing: Museums10, a collaboration of 10 college-affiliated museums in the Pioneer Valley, features seven photography exhibitions this fall, related lectures and discussions, and a symposium on Trans-Asia photography, all presenting a world that is at once far away and close at hand. With works of art from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, the exhibitions and events collectively reveal a globalized world and distinct styles of photography. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (www.mtholyoke.edu/artmuseum) will present “World Documents,” works by international photographers, through Dec. 18, while the Smith College Museum (www.scma.smith.edu/artmuseum) will showcase the El Muro photography series by Cuban artist Eduardo Hernández Santos. “Cuba Seen Through Photographic Collages and Lithographs” will be on display through Oct. 6 at the Hampshire College Liebling Center Mann Gallery (www.hampshire.edu), while “Bagels & Grits: Exploring Jewish Life in the Deep South” will be featured at the Yiddish Book Center (www.yiddishbookcenter.org) through Sept. 30. Rounding out the exhibitions are “The Instant of Combustion: Barbara Morgan Dance Photography” at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (www.umass.edu/fac/umca) through Oct. 16, and “A Memorial Display in Honor of Jerome ‘Jerry’ Liebling, Photographer, Filmmaker, Educator,” at the Mead Art Museum (www.amherst.edu/museums/mead) through Oct. 23. Historic Deerfield will also host the Hallmark Institute of Photography exhibition through December (www.historic-deerfield.org). For more information on lectures and related events, visit www.museums10.org.

Retirement Planning Roundtable
September 29: The Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield will present a roundtable discussion titled “Focus: Your Corporate Retirement Plan” from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at the Springfield Sheraton. A continental breakfast will be served from 8 to 8:30 a.m. Department of Labor representative Mary Rosen, associate regional director of the Boston office, will discuss the key provisions of recent legislation affecting defined contribution plans. Participants will gain insights from research on more than 1,000 U.S. plan sponsors to determine how one plan stacks up against another. A presentation by Alliance Bernstein, facilitated by the New England Wealth Management Group of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, is also planned. Pre-registration is required for the free event. To register, e-mail Lynn Johnson at [email protected].

Patents Webinar
Oct. 4: Donald Holland, Esq. will present a webinar titled “The Basics of Patents” beginning at 11 a.m. for approximately 40 minutes. He is the senior partner at Holland & Bonzagni, P.C., based in Longmeadow. Webinar attendees will have the opportunity to ask specific questions at the end of the presentation. For more information or to register, visit www.hblaw.org/webinars or call (413) 567-2076.

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, produced by BusinessWest, and staged at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. The show will feature breakfast and lunch programs arranged by the Affilaited Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, nearly two dozen seminars on the business issues of the day, several presentations in the Show Floor Floor Theater on timely topics, and the sophisticated networking program known as Mine Your Business. The day will conclude with a networking social from 2 to 4 p.m. 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 www.wmbexpo.com, or call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

Trade Secrecy Protection Webinar
Oct. 20: Donald Holland, Esq. will present a webinar titled “Trade Secrecy Protection” beginning at 11 a.m. for approximately 40 minutes. He is the senior partner at Holland & Bonzagni, P.C., based in Longmeadow. Webinar attendees will have the opportunity to ask specific questions at the end of the presentation. For more information or to register, visit www.hblaw.org/webinars or call (413) 567-2076.

Cartoonist Lecture
Oct. 21: Cartoonist Leigh Rubin, renowned for the comic strip Rubes, will be the featured speaker as the Ovations special-events series continues this fall at Springfield Technical Community College. Rubes is syndicated in more than 400 newspapers and publications worldwide. His presentations, at 10:10 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. in Scibelli Hall Theater, will cover art, satire, and communication. For more information or to bring a group, contact Ovations coordinator Phil O’Donoghue at (413) 755-4233 or [email protected].

We’ve Got Your Back
Run/Walk
October 22: New England Neurosurgical Associates will sponsor its first We’ve Got Your Back 5K Run/Walk at Forest Park in Springfield, beginning at 9 a.m. The event, which will benefit the Spinal Research Foundation, will also include a spinal health fair beginning at 8 a.m. The certified 5K race begins at 9, followed by a one-mile run/walk. Winners of the race will receive cash prizes ranging from $50 to $300. All children who finish the one-mile run/walk will be given a commemorative medal. For more information, call (413) 781-2211.

Entrepreneurship Lecture
October 27: Sue Morelli, chief executive officer and president of ABP Corp., will be the guest speaker at Bay Path College’s Innovative Thinking & Entrepreneurship Lecture Series in Longmeadow. Since joining Au Bon Pain in 1988, Morelli has worked her way up the ranks of the Boston-based, fast-casual bakery and café to become president and CEO in 2006. Under her leadership, the company now has more than 300 store locations, with almost 200 in the U.S. and the remainder in Thailand, India, South Korea, and the Middle East. She is currently leading a redesign of store interiors, a major menu transformation, and the opening of more than 30 new cafés per year. The lecture begins at 8:15 a.m.; a networking continental breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m. For more information, visit www.baypath.edu.

Licensing Intellectual Property Webinar
November 1: Donald S. Holland, Esq. will present a webinar titled “Licensing Intellectual Property” beginning at 11 a.m. for approximately 40 minutes. He is the senior partner at Holland & Bonzagni, P.C., based in Longmeadow. Webinar attendees will have the opportunity to ask specific questions at the end of the presentation. For more information or to register, visit www.hblaw.org/webinars or call (413) 567-2076.

Serious Fun Event
Nov. 10: MassINC and CommonWealth magazine will host a seriously funny look back at the year in politics and media with pols, pundits, and the press. All proceeds will support MassINC’s CommonWealth Campaign for Civic Journalism as well as a scholarship program for those who are entering the field. The event is planned at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, with cocktails at 6 p.m. and dinner and the program starting at 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.
seriousfun2011.org or contact Lauren Louison at (617) 224-1613 or [email protected].

Author Lecture
November 11: Christina Asquith, author and journalist, will account her years in hiding in Iraq that resulted in her book, Sisters in War, as part of the Ovations special events series at Springfield Technical Community College. Her presentations are at 10:10 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. in Scibelli Hall Theater. For more information or to bring a group, contact Ovations coordinator Phil O’Donoghue at (413) 755-4233 or [email protected].

Chamber Corners: Upcoming Events

By
Chamber Corners Departments

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

•  Oct. 8: Casino Night, 6-11 p.m., One Cottage St., Easthampton. Come try your luck and win prizes at an array of gaming tables. Hors d’oeuvres and cash beer and wine bar throughout the evening. Sponsored by Easthampton Savings Bank and Finck & Perras Insurance Agency. Cost: $25 in advance, $30 at the door.

• Oct. 13: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5-7 p.m., Easthampton Fore Department, 32 Payson Ave. Sponsored by Greater Easthampton’s Jr. Miss Program. Hors d’oeuvres by Glory Days Restaurant, door prizes. Cost: $5 for members, $15 for non-members.

• Oct. 24: Celebrity Bartenders Night, 6-9 p.m., Opa-Opa Steakhouse and Brewery, 169 College Highway, Southampton. Join us for a night of fun with local celebrities mixing your drinks. Tips benefit the chamber’s Holiday Lighting Fund. Raffles and fun. Cost: free.

Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
www.holycham.com
(413) 534-3376

• Oct. 12: Autumn Salute Breakfast, 7:30-9 a.m., the Log Cabin. Sponsored by Holyoke Medical Center. Cost: $20 for members, $25 for non-members. Call Wanda Zabawa at (413) 534-3376 to reserve tickets or register online at holyokechamber.com

• Oct. 18: Mine Your Business Two-on-Two Networking Event, 2-4 p.m., MassMutual Center, Springfield. Sponsored by the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, BusinessWest, Chicopee Chamber of Commerce, First American Insurance, Holyoke Community College, Log Cabin-Delaney House, Marcotte Ford, and Meyers Brothers Kalicka. To take place at the Western Mass. Business Expo. Make your reservation by calling Wanda Zabawa at (413) 534-3376. Cost: table fee of $350 includes a buffet.

• Oct. 19: Holyoke Chamber After Hours, 5-7 p.m., hosted and sponsored by Country Inn & Suites, One Country Club Road. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Call the chamber at (413) 534-3376 to sign up, or register online at holyokechamber.com

• Oct. 20: Holyoke City Council Candidate Forum, 6:30-9 p.m., Dean Technical High School Cafetorium, 1045 Main St.

• Oct. 26: Holyoke City Council Candidate Forum, 6:30-9 p.m., Dean Technical High School Cafetorium, 1045 Main St.

Northampton Area Young Professional Society
www.thenayp.com
(413) 584-1900

• Oct. 5: October Arrive @5, chamber’s annual open house, 5-7 p.m., Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, 99 Pleasant St. Sponsored by Crocker Communication, Pioneer Training, and Innovative Business Systems. The must-go networking event of the year. Cost: $10 for members.

• Oct. 7: October Meet & Eat Breakfast, 7:30-9 a.m., hosted and sponsored by the Hotel Northampton. “Beyond Sound Bytes: What Is Really Going On with the Economy,” featuring Owen Ullman, news editor of USA Today. Sponsored by Dietz & Company Architects and Calvin Coolidge Nursing & Rehabilitation Center for Northampton. Cost: $20 for members, $30 for non-members.

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

• Oct. 3: Mayor’s Coffee Hour, 8-9 a.m., Elm Street Diner, 266 Elm St. Cost: free. To register, call the chamber office at (413) 568-1618 or e-mail Carrie Dearing at [email protected]

• Oct. 12: WestNet after-5 “Oktoberfest” networking event, 5-7 p.m., East Mountain Country Club. Speed connecting (a business card exchange), cash bar, and complimentary food. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Walk-ins always welcomed. To register, call the chamber office at (413) 568-1618 or e-mail Carrie Dearing at [email protected]

Court Dockets

By
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
Daniel Leblanc v. Travelers Insurance of MA
Allegation: Refusal to pay benefits arising from motor-vehicle accident: $25,000
Filed: 7/28/11

Kathleen Riebesehl v. Elliot Beals & Sons General Contracting Inc.
Allegation: Defendant took payment from plaintiff for construction services and never performed: $15,000
Filed: 8/3/11

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Ace Fire and Water Restoration Inc. v. the Box Car Restaurant
Allegation: Non-payment of services rendered: $37,081.13
Filed: 8/11/11

Joann E. Rees v. D.H. Enterprises and Daniel Hescock
Allegation: Breach of contract for home improvement services: $400,000
Filed: 8/11/11

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Kirk C. Bryant v. Crossglobe Transport, LTD
Allegation: Breach of employment contract: $100,000
Filed: 8/1/11

Laurie A. Vadnais, administratrix of the estate of Judith A. Moran v. Marc Linson, M.D.
Allegation: Medical malpractice in the death of a 64 year-old woman following surgery: $25,000+
Filed: 8/3/11

Ted Ondrick Co., LLC v. Patriots Environmental Corporation
Allegation: Non-payment of services and materials: $52,496.07
Filed: 8/10/11

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT
Alberto Cruz v. Save-a-Lot
Allegation: Plaintiff sustained injuries while shopping when an employee transporting boxes of goods negligently caused boxes to fall on plaintiff: $4,405
Filed: 5/16/11

The Darcy Co. v. Prism Builders Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $8,310.10
Filed: 7/1/11

SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT
United Rentals Inc. v. Lunus Construction Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment of materials, equipment, and services for a construction project: $12,135.74
Filed: 6/30/11

Vion Holdings LLC v. Mastex Industries Inc. and Jeffrey Stream
Allegation: Non-payment of monies loaned: $5,096.53
Filed: 7/13/11

Westfield Bank v. Protemps Inc.
Allegation: Non-payment of monies loaned: $10,158.28
Filed: 7/14/11

WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Barbara A. Cohen v. Tip Top Nails
Allegation: Negligence in cutting the skin around a nail causing a fungus to be introduced in the bloodstream and subsequent hospitalization: $24,999.99
Filed: 7/19/11

Picture This

By
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]

United Way Day of Caring

The United Way of Pioneer Valley recently conducted its annual Day of Caring, organizing volunteers from area businesses who performed needed projects around the region.
Below, from top: front to back, Diane Haggerty, Linda Vela, and Nicole Bryar of MassMutual volunteer at the West Springfield Council on Aging; from left, Rebecca Barlow, Tricia Parolo, Gail Couchon, and Sue Gendron of MassMutual work at Abner Gibbs Elementary School; from left, Narinder Kaur, Kathy Giordano, Jennifer Saltis, Cathy Lafortune, and David Woytowicz of MassMutual volunteer at Stanley Park; from left, Lauren Bouvier, Amy Martin, Andrew Conner, and Christine Landry of PeoplesBank pitch in at Chicopee Child Day Center.
Photos courtesy of Ed Cohen



















More Caring
More from the United Way of Pioneer Valley Day of Caring, below from top: Christine Warren of the Davis Foundation volunteers at Wistariahurst Museum; Angel Diaz-Mangiafic of MassMutual lends a hand at the Children’s Museum of Holyoke; Donna Bernard of Jubinville Insurance pitches in at Wistariahurst Museum; Michelle White of MassMutual works at the Children’s Museum of Holyoke; Corey Tomlinson of MassMutual volunteers at the YMCA of Greater Springfield.

Photos courtesy of Joe Aberdale





An Age-old Problem

By
Columns Sections
Understanding Older Generations at Work

Mandatory retirement has been illegal in most industries for decades, but some managers are still reluctant to hire and retain workers older than 65. Frequently workers in this age group are characterized as inflexible, slower, and reluctant to evolve with technology. But most employers find that today’s older workers challenge these stereotypes and can be real assets.
Biological and psychological changes occur as we get older. Each generation is also different sociologically from other age groups. Awareness of age-related differences can empower employers to capitalize on senior workers’ positive attributes and consider making workplace adaptations for their limitations.

Biological Age-related Changes
While most stereotypes about older adults are greatly exaggerated, many biological changes do take place both physically and cognitively. Nearly every organ and system in the body is a bit less efficient than it once was, but this does not mean inevitable disease or disability. The stereotype that seniors can’t hear or see well is false, but it is true that hearing and vision are not quite as sharp as they once were when we are younger. While Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are not part of the normal aging process, tip-of-the-tongue moments and slower reflex, reaction, and recall times are.
Due to changes in eyesight and hearing, consider moving an older worker’s seat at a meeting table to enable a better view of a projection screen. Recognizing normal changes that happen to the aging brain can help managers understand older workers’ behavior. For example, some older workers may be quiet during that meeting but submit great ideas a few hours later, after they’ve had time to process.

Sociological Age-related Changes
Sociologically, older workers are generally highly dedicated employees. Many seniors, particularly older women, are motivated by financial need. There are numerous advantages to deferring Social Security payments, so many seniors want to put off collecting for as long as possible. Most older adults have also witnessed steep declines in their retirement accounts, so there is a genuine need to supplement their income. Others simply did not adequately plan for retirement and require additional income from a full- or part-time job.
Generationally, workers older than 65 are known for a strong work ethic. Even if there is not a significant financial incentive, they were raised in an era that idealized hard work. They are team-oriented and unlikely to leave coworkers in a bind. This age group has likely finished raising their families so they can be open to working more hours when necessary. They are known for honoring commitments and respecting authority.
This age group also is typically good at interpersonal communication. Having worked for most of their careers without access to e-mail and texting, these workers have had to rely on their people skills to get things accomplished. They tend to also be more resourceful than younger generations who have come to rely only on the Internet for research and problem-solving.
Since this age group may have less computer experience than their younger coworkers, it is important to assess and respond to needs for training. Older workers are sometimes thought to be technologically challenged, but often it is because they have not had the opportunity to learn the appropriate skills.

Psychological Age-related Changes
Psychologist Erik Erikson believed that older adults experience a crossroads in their life: a stage he called “ego integrity vs. despair.” The concept of ego integrity is that, when a senior reviews his life thus far, he finds meaning in the way he has spent his time, which leads to wisdom and acceptance of his mortality. On the other hand, if a senior’s life review is focused on feeling resentful or disappointed about the way his time has been spent, he feels despair, which can sometimes even trigger depression.
Meaningful work often promotes increased self-worth in older adults, regardless of whether they are experiencing ego integrity or despair. In understanding this, managers can best motivate older employees by critiquing gently and praising publicly when it is earned. A manager singling out an older employee for a job well-done provides psychological benefits for the senior but also goes a long way to dispelling false stereotypes about older workers.

Tips for Accommodating and Embracing Older Workers
The best strategy in managing and accommodating older workers is the same as with employees of any age: observe , identify strengths and weaknesses, and work with that person to optimize performance. Nearly every employee requires some accommodations in order to do the best job possible. For example, a manager may have to spend time with a new college graduate explaining when, and if, it is appropriate to text customers. The same concept is true with older workers.
It is also important to re-evaluate a worker’s duties as he ages during employment with an organization. For example, a 70-year-old hotel shuttle driver who has been with a company for 20 years may be better-suited to a front-desk assignment if age-related changes are interfering with driving abilities.
Older workers have so much to offer: experience, work ethic, potential to mentor, and, frequently, fewer family obligations that will interfere with work. The key to maximizing value with older employees is recognizing and accommodating their differences.

Jennifer FitzPatrick, MSW, LCSW-C is an author, speaker, and educator. Founder of Jenerations Health Education Inc., she has more than 20 years’ experience in health care. She is a frequent speaker at national and regional conferences and was an adjunct instructor at Johns Hopkins University. Her new book, “Your 24/7 Older Parent,” is addressed to those dealing with the care of an elderly parent; www.jenerationshealth.com

After the Storm

By
Cover Story
Why Area Businesses Need a Disaster Recovery Plan

There’s no doubt that the summer of the tornado, hurricane, and earthquake in Western Mass. got more businesses thinking about the importance of a disaster-recovery plan. But the truth is, it doesn’t take a natural disaster to suddenly shut a company down; a freak fire or flood will do the trick, too. Employers who have developed business-continuation strategies in case of an adverse event — and those who wish they had done so sooner — agree that there’s plenty of value in preparing for the worst.

No one goes to work expecting the roof to come off. Gretchen Neggers certainly didn’t.
She’s the town administrator in Monson, and she recalls the fateful late afternoon of June 1, when a tornado cut a path right through downtown.
“It passed right over our town offices and police station, causing significant damage to that structure,” she told BusinessWest. “It essentially blew the roof off.”
The initial concern, of course, was to see if anyone was physically hurt. The next was how to keep municipal services running at a time when residents would need them more than ever.
“Obviously, that facility houses critical operations,” she said. “All the town’s vital data, our permanent records, everything was housed in that building, and all the essential functions we perform as a town happen there. So it was a challenge to respond to the needs of residents in the community, and at the same time deal with the disaster within our own building.”
One of the town’s first calls was to CMD Technology Group in East Longmeadow, which handles a variety of information-technology services for Monson.
“We said, ‘we need to get our servers out of here,’” Neggers said. In the meantime, someone had the sense to do what they could to protect them before CMD was able to move them — in this case, covering the equipment with a tarp and setting up a fan to blow cool air at it.

Charlie Christianson

Charlie Christianson says disaster-recovery plans should have many facets, from IT to relocation to communication plans if the phones go down.

“We were very fortunate that our data survived,” she told BusinessWest. “There was some blessing in that; had we lost our data, the recovery would have been much harder. We did have some limited backup, but we didn’t have any off-site backup, which is something I now strongly recommend. It was a lesson learned.”
The town offices were relocated, and the town undertook what she called “an intense effort” to get operations up and running in a few days. Importantly, no municipal employees had any paychecks delayed.
“It was something you say, ‘that’ll never happen,’” Neggers said. “Unfortunately, what we learned is that the unthinkable can happen, and you do have to be prepared for it.”
After a summer when Western Mass. was hit with a tornado, the remnants of a hurricane (and plenty of flooding), and even a minor earthquake, companies, municipalities, and nonprofit agencies are looking more seriously at having a plan in place to keep their business operating even if their place of business is no longer usable.
Joan Kagan knows what that’s like. The president and CEO of Square One, whose Springfield headquarters was demolished by the tornado, did indeed have a disaster-recovery plan in place, meaning luck was less of a factor than it was at Monson’s town hall.
“We had completed the first phase of our plan, which was focused on our financial data, which we backed up every night on computer servers down in Connecticut, far from any of our facilities,” she said. “All our our financial data was backed up every night. That allowed us to get back into business right away, and we didn’t lose any of our data. That was critical to us.”
Why? For one thing, “we bill the state electronically for 1,200 kids every month,” Kagan said. “What if we had to go back and recreate the ID numbers and what the services are that we provided that month, so we could bill the state for it? We’d probably still be working on it now. Instead, we were able to get back in business right away.”
For a business like child care, where so many clients depend on those services every day, that continuity is particularly important, she added.
Joan Kagan (center, with Sarah Smith, vice president of Finance, and Phil Klimoski, director of IT)

Joan Kagan (center, with Sarah Smith, vice president of Finance, and Phil Klimoski, director of IT) says Square One not only had a disaster plan, but actively practiced it.

“These are critical services for families, and also, our employees depend on us for their paychecks,” she said. “Some are single or heads of household. You’re talking about hundreds of people who could be impacted if they go without paychecks. But we were able to get payroll out three days after the tornado because we had a backup system. A lot of people lost jobs because of that storm, but we were able to keep everyone employed.”
In this issue, BusinessWest examines the issue of disaster response, and how having a plan — and, just as important, making sure employees understand it and train on it — can make the difference between being helpless and staying in business when there’s no longer a physical business to go to.

Banking on Trouble
Paul Scully knows a little about disaster planning. That’s because Country Bank, of which Scully is president and CEO, has long had such a plan, and trained on it often — which turned out to be extremely fortunate the day a fire broke out at its main office in Ware in 2008, causing no injuries but significant smoke damage.
“It doesn’t matter what the size of your company is; if you could potentially have an interruption in cash flow and business, you have a problem,” Scully said. “You should never think you’re too small to prepare, even if you’re just a two-person company.”
With 44,000 square feet of space rented nearby, stocked with dozens of spare computers, and plenty of server redundancy, every bank office except the one affected by the fire (which had to be cleaned and renovated) was open for business the following morning (a Saturday), with no loss of data for any customer.
“The real key to having a plan is testing it — on an annual basis at mininum — but, in addition to testing it, updating it,” he said. “We do a mock disaster drill every year; we literally make the switch over as if we had just had a disaster. Not only do we switch the operating system over to backup, but we have people come in and do testing at the backup site that day.”
The reasons for repeating the training often are obvious, he said.
“A lot of folks wear different hats, their job responsibilities might change, or they might leave the organization,” he explained. “If Joe was in charge of making sure everyone is accounted for, and suddenly Joe’s gone, then who is the person responsible for that?”
Kagan also stressed the importance of having staff trained in disaster-recovery procedures — “particularly, in our case, with safety measures, evacuating children, which allowed us to avoid any tragedies or having anyone injured. We practice that in our centers and have fire drills once a month, so the staff are trained in how to safely evacuate, and children know how to go to a safe place. That worked to our advantage.”
She emphasized the need for a communication plan after an event. “We make sure that people have their cell phones, that people are in communication and identifying what the needs are,” she explained. “We were able to do that, and the next morning we were able to use our contacts in the community to help us identify space [to set up shop]. The community was very responsive, and from day one people offered us space.”
Dave Delvecchio, president of Innovative Business Systems in Easthampton, recently opened a data center in Marlborough that acts not only as a remote office, but as a disaster-recovery suite for clients. If a customer’s place of business is suddenly rendered unusable, IBS can transfer the contents of the client’s entire network to the Marlborough office, which is equipped with four workstations, in effect providing a location for that customer to continue to operate.
It’s not just disasters business owners should worry about, he said, but everyday mishaps. For tenants in a mixed-use, multi-tenant building, he explained, the odds of a localized disaster — anything from a candle fire to a knocked-out sprinklerhead — go up by a factor of 10. But the past summer’s weather events have really got clients talking.
“We’ve definitely received some cold calls from a few folks about disaster response this year,” he said — as well as a humorous moment the day the Valley trembled. “I was talking with a client one day about potential solutions, and he said, ‘is the floor moving?’ As soon as the earthquake ended, he said, ‘all right, you’ve made the earth move — I’ll sign anything!’”
On a serious note, though, sometimes it takes a disaster for people to realize the importance of their computer infrastructure.
“They don’t have paper-based forms to fall back on anymore. A hotel can’t make a reservation without going online. Insurance companies can’t process claims without going online. Whether you’re a large, regional bank, a single-location business with 10 employees, or a nonprofit agency, we’re finding that disaster planning is meaningful to businesses.”

In Touch and in Business
Charlie Christianson, president of CMD and its sister company, Peritus Security, which offers risk-management services to businesses, echoed the importance of backing up data off-site.
“A lot of people just plug a USB drive into the server and create another hard drive — but all the hard drives are sitting on one site,” he said. “What if the building gets crushed? It’s great on a day-to-day basis if a file gets lost, but it certainly doesn’t protect against catastrophic failures. If a catastrophic event comes through, or an electrical event occurs, you run the risk of losing it all.”
And that means possibly losing business — permanently. After the tornado, the CMD/Peritus offices had no phone connections or Internet access; even cellular service wasn’t active. So the team “triaged,” Christianson said, at a local coffee shop where service was available.
“We started going down the customer list and calling our clients, letting them know how to get hold of us, finding out what they needed, and we started slapping priorities on things,” he said. “You could have people who have been customers for years, and when they can’t get hold of you during an event like this, instead of thinking, ‘maybe there’s a problem with the phones,’ it’s ‘oh, we hope you’re not out of business.’ That’s how quickly people turn nowadays.
“You have to have systems in place on the technology side,” he added, “and it’s equally important to have this stuff written down. Because as calm and cool as people think they’re going to be when stuff hits the fan, that’s not a good time to be figuring things out.”
Scully agrees with the importance of a business-continuity plan. “What do you do if the building isn’t accessible for months? How would you operate? Sure, you may have business insurance, and that may help with cash flow, but what it doesn’t do is satisfy your customer base, and that’s a risk you can’t quantify.”
Some customers would go elsewhere, he said, while competitors would have no problem exploiting the situation and reaching out to welcome them. “I don’t think you can underestimate the the impact of not having a disaster-recovery plan or a business-interruption plan. It’s worth its weight in gold.”
That goes for all kinds of operations, Neggers said.
“A lot of business are regulated — like banking — and are required to have disaster-recovery plans, but I can see why it’s something that everyone should put a lot more attention into,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s not something you want to develop after a disaster happens.”
And just having a plan isn’t enough, she said. “Your plan needs to be precise, it needs to be comprehensive, and you need to train on it. What are you going to do if you can’t go to the office tomorrow, if you don’t have your computer, don’t have your files, don’t have your phone? How are you going to perform the essential functions of your business?
“I hope our experience is something that other entities can learn from,” she continued. “We were lucky in many ways because we didn’t lose our server, but you can’t have your critical functions reliant on luck. It’s something I know we’ll take a lot more seriously moving forward.”

Shelter from the Storm
Christianson still marvels at the sudden outburst by Mother Nature.
“Western Mass. never used to have such radical swings in weather. Maybe once in a great, great while,” he said. “But during the course of the summer, we had a tornado, an earthquake, a hurricane, multiple borderline tornadic events — it seemed like every two weeks we were having a windfall of activity.
“It certainly kept us busy,” he added. “You don’t like to see it happen to people, of course. But no sooner than we’d get one mess cleaned up, the next thing you know, another storm ripped through, causing damage or flooding.”
It shouldn’t take a natural disaster to get employers preparing for the worst, he said, but it’s an effective reminder.
“You need to step back and think outside your box,” he said. “You can’t just say, ‘oh, it’ll never happen,’ because we saw it happen.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

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