Month: April 2015

President, Hadley Printing Co.; Age 38

Chris Desrosiers

Chris Desrosiers remembers Hadley Printing — the small, one-man shop started by his grandfather, Alexander, and then acquired by his his father, Mark, and uncle, Dean — being a huge part of his life growing up. He recalls being at the shop handling odd chores while in grade school, before graduating to more serious roles on the production floor during summers in high school.

But he never intended to be part of any third-generation ownership team. In fact, after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology and its printing management program, he went to work for a printer in Boston. Everything changed, however, in 2003, when Dean decided he wanted to sell his ownership stake in the company. Chris saw this as a unique, and unanticipated, opportunity to return to Western Mass. and scratch an entrepreneurial itch, and he partnered with his brother, Greg, to acquire those shares.

A decade later, they completed the acquisition, buying out their father, and today they’re full partners in a business that is setting the tone in a changing, increasingly competitive printing industry.

While Greg is focused primarily on sales and marketing, Chris is involved with operations, and he played a huge role in expanding the company’s services to the larger-scale printing projects demanded by many commercial customers, thus helping it double sales since 2003.

The third-generation owners have invested heavily in equipment and people, a trend that continues with the acquisition of a new Kumari five-color, 40-inch press recently installed at the Holyoke plant. “This will help us take that large-format commercial segment to a new level,” he explained. “This investment will pay dividends.”

He’s expecting a similar return on investment from the time and energy he’s contributing to efforts to groom the next generation of printing professionals, through his involvement with Dean Technical High School and its graphic communications program.

“A business like ours is so technology-driven, it’s really a trade handled by craftsmen,” he explained. “The staff we have here is in their 40s, 50s, and 60s; we have a lot of talent here, but over the next 10 years there’s going to a be a lot of attrition, and finding people who not only have interest, but also the talent and experience, is tough these days. I got involved at Dean because I wanted to help develop new talent for this trade — and this business.”

— George O’Brien

Eric Devine

Information Technology Services Officer, Country Bank for Savings; Age 35

Eric Devine

Eric Devine says the desire to excel at everything he does is programmed in his DNA.

He is responsible for Ware-based Country Bank’s information-technology system, and has played a significant role in the institution’s recent technology-upgrade efforts aimed at streamlining services. In fact, Devine and his staff were recognized countless times for their ability to meet and surpass expectations, and although he admits his job can be challenging, he loves it and looks forward to going to work every morning.

“I am very competitive with myself and strive to exceed demands,” he told BusinessWest. “I like to be the best at everything I do and believe I am fortunate to work for a great company with a great team of people.”

Devine served as president of the John Boyle O’Reilly Club for eight consecutive terms and stepped down in January to spend more time with his wife Jennifer and their 5-year-old twins, Alana and Erin. But he began going to the club with his father when he was a child, and says it has always played an important role in his life. “I grew up in the Irish community, and the club is my second home.”

He was the 2015 Springfield Grand Parade Marshal for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and a member of the Parade Committee. During his tenure at John Boyle O’Reilly, Devine helped to host a wide variety of events, expand the number of children’s sports teams, and raise funds for many worthy causes.

He was feted with the Christopher Burnham Award in 2014, which was presented to him by U.S. Rep. Richard Neal. He received the Paul G. Caron Award in 2008 and is actively involved with Griffin’s Friends Children’s Cancer Fund at Baystate Health Foundation. Inc. and participates in the group’s Marathon Challenge as a marathon runner and fund-raiser (he also ran the Boston Marathon in 2013).

Devine also serves on an advisory committee at Porter and Chester Institute and helps determine what students need to learn to be prepared for the workforce. In addition, he served as the 2014 chairman for the Committee to Elect Aaron Saunders for State Senate. He and his wife are also on the Boston 2024 Olympic Citizens Advisory Group.

That’s quite a schedule to keep, but Devine is undaunted. “I am passionate about always doing my best.”

— Kathleen Mitchell

Lindsay Doak

Director of Education and Marketing, Fazzi Associates; Age 38

Lindsay Doak

At a time when the population is getting older and tens of millions of Baby Boomers head into their retirement years, the work Lindsay Doak is doing is more critical than ever.

Specifically, Doak — director of education and marketing at Fazzi Associates, a home-health and hospice consulting and research firm — designed the National Healthcare Learning Center, an online education delivery system utilized by healthcare organizations throughout the world. “It has really taken off,” she said. “We have more than 50,000 logins to the center every month, everyone from IT coding to management.”

Her latest initiative is work with community colleges and other institutions to deliver training that will fully certify home-health coders — an important project because of a national shortage of medical coders. The targeted program allows low-income workers the opportunity to move beyond minimum-wage jobs.

“There’s a huge need for coders because the code set is changing so much,” she said of the healthcare industry’s move from the ICD-9 standard to ICD-10, set to launch this fall.

In addition, the educational alliances Doak has built at Fazzi with state and national organizations like the National Assoc. for Home Care, the National Physical Therapy Assoc., and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization are helping improve care and reduce rehospitalization for the growing population of American seniors.

“The Baby Boomers are now entering home health care, and with healthcare reform, home health has become a big player to reduce costs and keep people out of hospitals,” she said. “When we can take care of patients at home, we really reduce those costs. And the need for these services is going to expand exponentially.”

Meanwhile, Doak makes time to volunteer in the community, including work with the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts and a former spot on the board of the Hampshire Regional YMCA. She’s also a board member at Whole Children, an organization that offers a wide range of after-school, weekend, and vacation enrichment programs for children, teens, and adults, especially those with special needs.

“That gives me great satisfaction,” said Doak, who chairs the group’s marketing and fund-raising committee, and is currently promoting next month’s Wild Goose Chase fund-raiser at Look Park. “I have a child myself, and my child isn’t perfect; I see the struggles, what it’s like to have a kid dance to his own beat. A lot of schools don’t accept that, so an organization that accepts anyone, that’s all-inclusive, there’s such a need for that. It’s so fulfilling to be a part of it, and make sure these kids are successful.”

—Joseph Bednar

Bridget Fiala

Attorney, Marinosci Law Group, P.C.; Age 29

Bridget Fiala

When she first started out in law, Bridget Fiala worked for a firm that handled a broad variety of work, but she never found a niche she especially liked.

That changed when she joined Marinosci Law Group, which is strictly a real-estate law firm, handling both commercial and residential transactions and refinances. “I represent people who are buying and selling their houses, as well as the bank in regard to the transaction,” she said.

Fiala finds the work appealing, she noted, because she can usually put her head on her pillow at night without dwelling on the often-troubling aspects of other legal practices.

“I like working with people at what can be a very exciting time in their lives — when they’re buying a house for the first time or selling their first house. Maybe they recently had a baby, and they’re trying to find something bigger. Whatever the case, it’s usually not a terrible situation, unlike people who work in family law, bankruptcy, things like that.

“It’s a pleasure helping people with a good part of their lives,” she added, “something that generally makes them happy.”

As a political science major in college, Fiala has long been interested in government and politics, which led her to run for West Springfield’s Town Council in 2013, becoming one of its youngest-ever members.

Meanwhile, she has donated her time and energy to a number of local civic organizations, including the West Springfield St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, Dr. Seuss Read Across America, Clean Up West Springfield, Operation Santa, and Taste of the Valley, to name a few.

“When I graduated law school and had the ability to give more of my time, I was also burdened with debt — so it felt like all I had to give was time,” she said. “I was able to donate my time to give back instead of writing that big check.”

Fiala is most gratified that so many of her community-oriented efforts revolve around her hometown.

“It’s huge for me. I was born and raised in West Springfield, and I was a user of all those programs, so this is my way of giving back,” she said. “I love the town I live in. I’m not going to go anywhere else; I want to raise my family here and help grow the town and make it better, get involved, and try not to miss out on an opportunity to help out if I can.”

— Joseph Bednar

Jessica Fraga

Continuous Improvement Consultant, MassMutual; Age 36

Jessica Fraga

When Jessica Fraga stands at a podium or in front of a room of students and counsels them about dealing with their past — things they’re not particularly proud of and might be ashamed of — and not letting those issues hold them back from achieving their dreams, she speaks from the heart, and from experience.

Indeed, while attending kindergarten, she was living with her mother in a green Oldsmobile after her mom fled an abusive situation and seemingly exhausted all other options. “I was really young, and I didn’t fully understand, but I knew this wasn’t right,” Fraga recalled, adding that her mother forbade her from talking about her living conditions with anyone out of fear that she would lose her daughter — not that she wanted to talk.

Things eventually improved for the two, but Fraga remembers always being “the poor girl in town,” a stigma that eventually wore her down, prompting her to drop out of high school.

But both she and her mother somehow found the strength and determination to rebound and improve their lives. They both got their GEDs, and they graduated together from Bay Path University. Fraga would go on to earn an MBA, which she put to good use first at Baystate Health in Human Resources and now at MassMutual as a continuous improvement consultant.

“I get to help people find ways to do what they do more efficiently,” said Fraga, who’s also an adjunct professor at Bay Path, teaching a number of business courses. Meanwhile, inspired by those who helped her in her youth, she finds ample time to give back to the community.

She serves on the board of directors for HAPHousing, chairs its resource development committee, and was the featured speaker at its annual fund-raising event, The Way Home. She’s also served on the Mass. Rehabilitation Commission Advisory Council as well as the Women’s Leadership Council of the United Way of Pioneer Valley, supporting financial literacy for young women and STEM programs for middle-school girls. In 2012, she co-created — and was the featured speaker at — the LGBT Coalition Conference on Career and Life Skills for Transgender Women, and she currently volunteers with the Knockout Project, a nonprofit started by her husband, Jay, which raises awareness about the dangers of concussion and brain injury.

On top of all that, she often tells her story — something she once couldn’t do, but now does to inspire others to put the past behind them and a bright future in front of them.

— George O’Brien

Erin Friedman

Assistant Director, Office of YMCA Relations, Springfield College; Age 38

Erin Friedman

Erin Friedman says the philosophies of Springfield College and the YMCA have a lot in common.

“Our mission is all about educating the whole person — spirit, mind, and body — for leadership and service to others,” she said of the college where she’s worked for the past decade, “and the Y’s values and principles are truly aligned with that.”

Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that the two entities share a history and heritage, and a partnership that dates back to the establishment of the college in 1885, when it was known as the School for Christian Workers, she noted. “Today, that partnership with Ys across the U.S. and around the world still exists at our core and our foundation.”

One of Friedman’s roles in the college’s Office of YMCA Relations is to “recruit and ultimately place the next generation of YMCA leaders, preparing leaders to work in a wide range of careers,” she explained, adding that the YMCA is primarily focused on youth development, social responsibility, and healthy living.

Among the students examining opportunities in those areas are Bronwen Stern and Jessica Lajoie, juniors at Springfield College whose letter to BusinessWest was among many supporting Friedman’s nomination to 40 Under Forty. They talked about traveling with their advisor and mentor to YMCA conferences locally and across the country, connecting with potential employers and learning experientially.

“For us, Erin is not only an advisor, but a role model. She is the most kindhearted and selfless person we know,” they wrote, noting, as one example, her involvement with the Sexual Assault Victim Advocate program on campus, which helps people who have experienced a sexual assault. “She truly is devoted to not just making Springfield College better, but improving the community of Springfield as a whole.”

Friedman said she stresses real-world learning for a reason. “A college degree today is not enough; you need to be able to distinguish yourself,” she said. “It’s important to connect with opportunities to learn beyond the classroom, and connect with professionals from all over. Our ultimate goal for young people is to become the best version of themselves as possible and help them discover what they’re really passionate about.

“If you’re in a job where you’re counting days to Friday and or counting the hours in the week,” she added, “perhaps you’re not where you need to be. For me, it’s highly rewarding helping people find meaning and purpose. That’s what we can provide.”

— Joseph Bednar

Jennifer Gallant

Chief Financial Officer, Polish National Credit Union; Age 39

Jennifer Gallant

Jennifer Gallant’s interest in finance was sparked by a memorable business teacher in high school. The class was in accounting, however, and she didn’t see herself as the numbers-crunching type.

“I did two years of accounting in college, but I switched it up to do finance,” she said. “I like the analytical side; I have a lot of accounting experience, but I prefer analyzing numbers versus crunching them, and that’s what got me into finance.”

Gallant started her career as a teller at a local credit union before working her way up to CFO, later joining Polish National Credit Union in the same capacity. “I do asset and liability analysis, I oversee the budget, I approve and monitor all expenses, I do investing, I analyze the rates, and I supervise the accounting department,” she explained. “I’m a member of the executive management team; we all work together to run the credit union.”

She said she enjoys the challenge of analyzing the budget and making sure the credit union is operating within it — and, if not, determining why and taking steps to fix it. But she also enjoys mentoring high-school and college students who are interested in finance — in effect, paying forward what that business teacher did for her.

“We have a branch at Chicopee Comprehensive High School, and the tellers are high-school students, so we interact with a lot of students already,” she explained. “If we see potential there, or if someone expresses an interest in some area of the credit union, we’ll bring them on as a summer intern. It really helps show them the big picture of the credit-union industry.

“We’ve had some enthusiastic candidates go on to college to study finance, accounting, or business management,” she added. “I enjoy sharing my experiences with the interns, helping them figure out what they want to do. If that future is here, locally, that’s fantastic.”

Along with her full-time job, mentoring roles, and raising three children, Gallant also finds time to give back to the community through such organizations as Lorraine’s Soup Kitchen, where she serves as board member, finance committee member, and HR committee chair.

“I love the feeling I get from helping people,” she said. “I understand everyone leads a busy life these days, and it’s easy to let those things fall by the wayside, because you don’t have to do them. But if everyone had that mentality, who would do those things? I just think it’s important.”

— Joseph Bednar
Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Joshua Garcia

Municipal Services Coordinator, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission; Age 29

Joshua Garcia

A quick look at Joshua Garcia’s résumé reveals a deep commitment to the community — and especially his hometown of Holyoke.

Indeed, he has served on the city’s School Committee — a role he reluctantly relinquished after moving out of his ward to accommodate a growing family — and currently serves as board chairman for Nueva Esperanza, an agency devoted to promoting entrepreneurship and spurring economic development in the city. Over six years, he served in a number of capacities for the Holyoke Housing Authority, and he has officially announced his plans to run for city treasurer this fall.

But while Holyoke is his passion, the region is, well, his new job — at least in a manner of speaking.

Since June 2013, Garcia has been serving the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission as municipal services coordinator. In that role, it is his responsibility to coordinate collaborative partnerships between the PVPC’s 43 member communities and provide project-management expertise. He’s also tasked with providing technical assistance to local governments to facilitate what he called “cross-jurisdictional shared municipal opportunities” with the goal of reducing costs and improving service efficiencies.

“My role is to get municipalities to cross-collaborate in order to share resources,” he explained. “When it comes to specific municipal functions of local government, be it inspectional services or public health … instead of communities focusing on trying to provide these themselves, we encourage them to work with a nearby municipality and share resources.”

As examples, he cited a scenario where two communities, each paying a part-time inspector, could collaborate and together hire one full-time employee, and another where smaller towns could share a full-time public-health nurse. In both cases, the participating communities would save money.

And such creative steps will become necessary in the years to come, he told BusinessWest, because municipal budgets are getting increasingly tighter. “It’s about trying to bring regional solutions to local issues.”

While concentrating on the region, Garcia is also firmly focused on family. His twins are now 3 years old, and his wife, Stefany, has battled back from a bout with lupus that nearly claimed her life.

“They worked a miracle there,” he said of the doctors and nurses that treated Stefany. “And all of this has shifted my priorities; I’ve been focused on family and creating a bright future for them.”

He’s doing the same for Holyoke — and the region.

— George O’Brien

Andrew Crane

Co-owner and Partner, A. Crane Construction; Age 32

Andrew Crane

Andy Crane says he doesn’t have much downtime between work and family, but he devotes a decent chunk of what he does have to “old-man softball” and especially touch football. He plays mostly defensive tackle in the Western Mass. Touch Football League, and when its fall season ends, the squad plays through the winter in a domed facility in Greenfield on Friday nights.

“I really like football. It’s a good release, although it’s almost time to give it up — my joints are starting to creak and crack,” he joked, adding that he won’t have to look hard for new uses for that time if he is forced to retire.

Indeed, Crane, the father of two (ages 7 and 1) is co-owner of A. Crane Construction in Chicopee, a venture started by his father (also named Andrew) that specializes in all phases of residential and light commercial construction and also manages condominium complexes and other types of commercial real estate.

The Cranes divide the various, and many, responsibilities, with the elder serving as primary salesperson and the younger handling outside operations and most day-to-day activities. They make all the key business decisions as a team, and together they’ve generated strong, steady growth over the past several years.

While providing effective leadership for the company, Crane is doing the same within the community. He is immediate past president of the Home Builders and Remodelers Assoc. of Western Mass., and is still heavily involved locally as chair of the organization’s building maintenance committee and the Home Show committee, and he’s also on the state board.

He’s also on the board of the Pioneer Valley Red Cross and serves as chairman of the committee that selects the organization’s Hometown Heroes, and he played a key role in an Extreme Makeover project in 2011 as construction manager.

Most recently, he was named to the board of Westmass Area Development Corp., which oversees several industrial parks in the region, the latest being the Ludlow Mills initiative.

He’s been on that board only a few months, but he takes great pride in its mission to spur economic development.

“I really enjoy the work — bringing economic opportunities to the region is rewarding on many levels,” he explained. “I don’t see any other way to grow Western Mass. other than bringing industry here; with industry comes people to work here, and when people work here, I get to build houses for them.”

In other words, he gets to help build momentum in many different ways.

— George O’Brien

Dr. Anthony Sarage

Podiatric Surgeon, Western Massachusetts Podiatric Associates; Age 36

Dr. Anthony Sarage

From his grade school days, Dr. Anthony Sarage was intrigued by medicine. “I always wanted to do something in the medical field — that was always something interesting to me — but there were so many different medical specialties out there.”

What wound up grabbing his interest were the lowly feet — not a part of the body people often think about enough, or at least not as much as they should, especially as they get older or are especially active.

As a podiatric surgeon, he treats patients of all kinds — from newborns to geriatric patients — at Western Massachusetts Podiatry Associates, P.C. in East Longmeadow.

“I joined back in 2007 and have been a partner for the past four years,” said Sarage, who performed his residency in reconstructive foot and ankle surgery. “There’s a wide variety of things we see on a daily basis, from medical management to surgery to sports medicine. It really is a comprehensive foot and ankle practice.”

The practice boasts additional locations in Northampton and Ware, and Sarage performs surgery at Baystate Medical Center, Baystate Mary Lane Medical Center, and Mercy Medical Center. He has also served as a trustee of the Mass. Podiatric Society since 2012, an examination reviewer with the National Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners since 2008, and the Springfield College Alumni Assoc. since 2000; at college, he racked up numerous academic awards and was class president for four years.

In addition to the variety of conditions he treats on a daily basis, his practice also has a partnership with the Baystate Wound Care Center, he noted, an important aspect of podiatry since effective wound treatment is often a key factor in limb preservation.

Sarage understands the importance of healthy feet for an active lifestyle, as he and his wife, Dawn — a nursing administrator at the Hospital of Central Connecticut — are avid fans of the outdoors, enjoying running (including half-marathons), cycling, and golfing, among other activities. But he’s a sports fan of the more passive kind, too.

“I’m definitely big into the Patriots, Bruins, and Yankees,” he said. “Yes, a Patriot and Yankee fan. That’s not an easy thing to be.”

Sarage’s love of family — he and his wife had a daughter, Lea, late last year — is just one more reason podiatry makes sense for him.

“My job is more conducive to a 9-to-5 schedule, as opposed to being up all hours of the night and weekend,” he said. “That’s a big draw, the lifestyle and family standpoint.”

— Joseph Bednar
Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Elizabeth Barajas-Román

CEO, Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts; Age 38

Elizabeth Barajas-Román

Elizabeth Barajas-Román has lived in many places — she was born in Lincoln, Neb., attended college in Ohio (Oberlin) and Cambridge (Harvard), and spent many years in Washington, D.C. But in many respects, home has always been the public library.

“When I was young, my mother essentially educated herself, at the public library, in how to set up her own business,” she explained while tracing the origins of her passion. “And that helped set us in the right direction when it came to education. Supporting the public library is something that’s always been close to my heart.”

And it still is today in her new place of residence — Northampton, where she spends many hours at both the Forbes Library and the Lilly Library in Florence, engaged in a host of programs.

While doing so, she is writing the next chapter in what has already been an intriguing career. Indeed, after stints as a city planner in Cambridge, director of Policy & Operations for the Justice Research Institute in Boston, reporter with the Daily Hampshire Gazette, director of Policy for the Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and campaign manager for Pew Charitable Trusts, she became CEO of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts last summer.

Her ambitious goal is to scale up the WFWM’s already-impressive track record for supporting programs for women and girls and position them as leaders within the community, and the organization is making considerable progress with meeting it.

Indeed, the Women’s Fund is currently seeking proposals for an additional round of grant making that will total $240,000 and include initiatives in each of the four western counties.

Meanwhile, she’s been meeting with a number of groups and individuals to gauge specific needs within the community and generate opportunities to continue and enhance partnerships that help expand the WFWM’s mission and broaden the already-considerable impact of its philanthropy.

It’s a learning experience that is ongoing and occupies most of her time. However, she is involved within the community in several other ways, most recently as a member of state Treasurer Deb Goldberg’s Financial Literacy Trust Fund Board, which plans to incorporate a range of initiatives, including money management, college affordability, and programming to support wage equality in the Commonweralth.

“The Women’s Fund’s mission is to invest in the lives of local women and girls in order to create a better community for all,” said Barajas-Román. “Serving on the board will provide an important perspective for our work in Western Massachusetts.”

— George O’Brien
Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Anthony Gulluni

Hampden County District Attorney; Age 34

Anthony Gulluni

“Tiring but invigorating.”

That was the very concise summation offered by Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni when asked to talk about his first few months in office and the ongoing transition he’s orchestrating. And he stressed both words as he elaborated.

“It’s been even busier than I expected, and that’s saying something. We had to keep up with the wheels of justice — nothing stops for the new DA,” he told BusinessWest. “But it’s been very exciting.”

Since being sworn in early in January, the state’s youngest district attorney, who recently turned 34, has been working to bring both a sense of stability and needed change to an office he had served previously as an assistant DA to Mark Mastroianni.

These were some of the many focal points during a grinding campaign last spring and summer that saw the Springfield native and graduate of Western New England University (he earned both his bachelor’s degree and juris doctor there) triumph over a crowded field.

Over the past several weeks, he has initiated several personnel moves — a critical part of any transition — while also making a fundamental change, a so-called ‘unit structure’ within Superior Court.

“We’re going to have more-defined units, with specialized prosecutors, from homicide to drugs to guns to major felonies,” he explained, “as opposed to being more diversified, as they have been for the past several years.

“When you specialize, you’re more familiar with the typical issues in certain kinds of cases,” he went on. “You deal very often with the same police officers, whether it’s narcotics detectives or homicide detectives, so you develop a strong repertoire with them, and you become more educated on the issues.”

And, ultimately, victims of crimes are better served by the DA’s office, he said, adding that the changes he’s implementing are getting a good response, both internally and externally.

What hasn’t changed, it seems, are the age jokes. They keep coming, although there is a softer tone than what was experienced during the campaign, when opponents used it against him.

“A woman came up to me at a function recently and said, ‘didn’t you go to college with my son?’” he recalled. “She got a kick out of it, and I thought it was funny. The jokes are in much better spirit than before I won.”

— George O’Brien

Jim Angelos

Owner and Executive Director, InspireWorks Enrichment Inc.; Age 32

Jim Angelos

Remembering the learning opportunities he had as a kid, Jim Angelos worried that today’s students are missing out. So he decided to do something about it.

Armed with a degree in business and sports management from Elms College, Angelos launched InspireWorks Enrichment in 2007, partnering with local school districts and municipal park and recreation departments to offer after-school programs and summer camps.

“I had opportunities when I was younger, and I wanted to make sure kids today have something — especially with specialty subjects like music and art being cut out of school budgets,” he explained. “Unfortunately, right now, in a lot of school systems, teachers have to teach to a test, and they’re cutting out other programs. School systems see us as a way to enhance the curriculum.”

Starting with Agawam, then Longmeadow, with plans to expand into other communities, InspireWorks’ after-school offerings focus on a broad area of learning, such as science, engineering, or painting.

These curriculum-based enrichment programs, aimed at students from kindergarten through grade 8, aim to balance education and entertainment, Angelos noted. “The goal when designing classes was to disguise the learning; the kids just see it as a fun program.”

But it’s fun with a purpose, because the programs attract students with a predilection for a certain subject and enhance what they receive in school. “The after-school programs allow us to go in depth around certain subjects. For example, if they sign up for our science classes, they may already have an interest in that area, and we go into things like rocketry, physical and chemical reactions, dry-ice demonstrations, things along those lines.”

Meanwhile, the summer programs in Agawam and Chicopee (so far), like the after-school programs, strive to go beyond what kids might get at other camps, with activities ranging from swimming, archery, and sports to cooking, science, engineering, and fine arts.

“We’ve been fortunate to get a lot of positive feedback from our parents,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he’s also struck up a partnership with the Connecticut National Guard to offer programs for children of parents serving overseas.

With a full-time staff of about 30 people, InspireWorks served more than 2,500 students last year, and also maintains a camper leadership training program to help young adults develop leadership skills and job experience — starting the circle all over again.

It all comes back to what Angelos finds most gratifying about his company. “It gets kids excited about learning.”

— Joseph Bednar

40 Under Forty Past Honorees