Home 2017 December (Page 4)

Month: December 2017

Greater Holyoke Chamber Announces Its Ambassador of the Year

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Daily News

HOLYOKE — The Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce bestowed its Chamber Ambassador of the Year Award to Jessica Picard, marketing director at Loomis House Retirement Community, a position she has held since 2012.

Previous to that, she was the marketing and admissions liaison for Loomis Lakeside at Reeds Landing in Springfield. She graduated from Westfield State University with a degree in business management and a minor in marketing.

“Our ambassadors play a pivotal role in allowing the Greater Holyoke Chamber to be able to execute on our programs and events. Jessica Picard has been a champion of the Greater Holyoke Chamber for several years, and her service as an ambassador to our chamber members is irreplaceable,” said Wanda Zabawa, events manager and ambassador leader.

Chamber ambassadors are volunteers who make a commitment to help new members feel welcome and demonstrate to all members how to make the most of their chamber benefits. They also gather feedback from members to help the chamber improve its services. Other members of the chamber ambassador committee include Wendy Palmer of PeoplesBank, Julie Rochefort of United Personnel, Paula Auclair and Harry Montalvo of bankESB, Kate Buckley of Goss & McLain Insurance, Susan Concepcion of Homewood Suites, Molly Desrocher of United Personnel, Pauline Gove of deRenzy Document Solutions, James Brunault of Massachusetts Rehabilitation, Daniel Couchon of Fairfield Inn, and Tom Thacher of CareerPoint.

“Jessica truly deserves the Ambassador of the Year award. Jessica has gone above and beyond her responsibilities as an ambassador toward our members and has demonstrated extraordinary dedication, involvement, and initiative to enhancing the partnership between the chamber and our members,” said Kathleen Anderson, chamber president.

Picard was chosen for the award after receiving the most ambassador points in 2017. Ambassadors earn points by calling and visiting chamber members, attending monthly meetings and ribbon cuttings, recruiting other ambassadors, and participating in chamber events.

Picard and her manager, Margaret Mantoni, will be honored at the chamber’s holiday business breakfast and pop-up retail event on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at the Log Cabin. The public is welcome to attend.

Freedom Credit Union Announces Gift Drive for Children in Need

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — For the 10th year, Freedom Credit Union is partnering with the Department of Children and Families to provide gifts to children in need this holiday season.

“Over the past nine years, the generosity of Freedom’s members, employees, and area residents have brightened the holidays for children throughout the Pioneer Valley,” said Glenn Welch, president and CEO of Freedom Credit Union. “This year we hope to bring even more smiles to local families in need.”

Every branch of the credit union has a tree filled with tags that show the gift request from area children. Anyone who goes into Freedom branches can choose a tag from the tree, purchase the requested gift, and bring it back to the branch unwrapped by Thursday, Dec. 21.

In 2016, Freedom collected 500 toys for foster children in Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties.

MBK Welcomes Three New Associates

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Daily News

HOLYOKE — Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. recently welcomed Marie Lafortune, Natalya Riberdy, and Haley Pedruczny to the firm.

Lafortune comes to MBK as a first-year audit associate. She is currently focused on pension and 401(k) plans, HUD engagements, and compliance testing for nonprofits. She also assists with tax preparation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and healthcare management from Elms College and is pursuing her master’s of accountancy at Westfield State University.

Riberdy is a new associate focusing on the service and construction industries. Before joining MBK, she gained experience as intern at a regional firm and as a billing, AR, and AP associate in private accounting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Bridgewater State University and is on track to complete her MSA, with a concentration in forensic accounting, from Western New England University. She will then begin studying for the CPA exams.

Pedruczny comes to the firm with accounting experience across the real estate, manufacturing, and consumer-product fields. As an associate at MBK, she works primarily on nonprofit clients and employee benefit plans, from small companies and schools to large corporations. She graduated from the Isenberg School of Management with a BBA in accounting and is currently pursuing her CPA license.

“Each of these women represent the wellspring of young business and accounting talent we have right here in Western Massachusetts,” said MBK Partner Howard Cheney. “At MBK, we consider ourselves fortunate to tap into the vital resources of the next generation and bring them into the fold to grow and thrive along with the firm and our clients.”

Santa’s Trains on Display This Month at Look Park

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Daily News

FLORENCE — All aboard! Next stop … Santa’s Trains at Look Memorial Park. This holiday season, the park is celebrating with running model trains and locomotives whirling by displays set in a whimsical wonderland of Christmas favorites and village landscapes.

The Garden House, transformed into a Victorian-style train station, offers all the sights and sounds of the holiday season. View enchanting, themed holiday trees; say hello to Santa’s helpers; chat with authentic engineers; and share that special visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus before relaxing with a holiday cookie and hot chocolate. Each evening features a special guest conductor and station master from the community greeting visitors.

Santa’s Trains at Look Park is open to the public daily Dec. 8 through Dec. 23 from 4 to 8 p.m. and Dec. 24 from 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Garden House at Look Memorial Park, 300 North Main St., Florence. This special holiday event is free for all ages. Visit www.lookpark.org for more information.

Also, join us for a traditional hayride around the park to view more than 50 holiday light displays made by the grounds and maintenance staff. The cost is $5 per rider. Departures are every 20 minutes from 4:20 p.m. until 7:40 p.m., weather permitting.

More than 20,000 visitors annually visit the park during the holiday season to visit Santa’s Trains, view the wonderland light displays, and share holiday dreams with Santa.

Elms to Give $2,500 Scholarship to JA EnTEENpreneur Winner

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Daily News

CHICOPEE — Recognizing the importance of inspiring young people to pursue their professional dreams, Elms College announced it will work with Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts (JAWM) to award a scholarship of $2,500 to the winner of the fourth annual JA EnTEENpreneur Challenge in March 2018.

Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts started the JA EnTEENpreneur Challenge in 2015, and Elms College has been deeply involved in supporting JA’s youth entrepreneurship outreach efforts. The college hosts a yearly Pitch Camp for all middle-grade and high-school students involved in the JA It’s My Business program or the JA Company Program, giving participating students insight into how to develop a business pitch and helping them to craft pitches for their own businesses.

This year, for the fourth Annual JA EnTEENpreneur Challenge, Elms College will give the winning student, on behalf of the college’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, a $2,500, one-time, non-transferable scholarship for their freshman year. If the winning company comprises more than one student, the students will split up to $5,000 in scholarships. If the team includes non-high-school seniors, those students can defer the award until their freshman year at Elms.

“Elms College has a mission to give back to the community,” said Amanda Garcia, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at Elms College. “We know that economic development and entrepreneurship is a big part of making our community better. We strongly believe in supporting the entrepreneurial spirit at a younger age, and the JA EnTEENpreneur Challenge offers a perfect venue to inspire and support future business leaders.”

When they arrive at Elms, the scholarship winners will be able to take advantage of the CEL’s academic offerings, which include a major in entrepreneurship and an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship. The CEL offers a strong foundation in core business concepts using Lean LaunchPad, a startup methodology for gaining immediate customer feedback in the marketplace during the launch of a business. The Lean LaunchPad model allows startups owners to learn as they grow their businesses and react to market demands.

“Elms College is an outstanding educational partner with Junior Achievement,” said JAWN President Jennifer Connolly. “Elms students, faculty, and staff volunteer to present more than 40 JA programs each year, and from the beginning Elms has supported JA’s entrepreneurial programs. Being able to tell our JA Company Program students that not only could they win a cash prize of $500 but a scholarship to further their education and follow their passion for entrepreneurship is a dream come true for JA of Western Massachusetts. For nearly 100 years, JAWM has been inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in life and the world of business, and now we can see those young people continue their journey beyond high school, thanks to Elms College.”

The fourth annual JA EnTEENpreneur Challenge will be held on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at the UMass Center at Springfield. Members of the public who would like more information or to become involved can contact Connolly at (413) 747-7670 or [email protected].

Community Bank N.A. Shares Steps to Help Prevent Identity Theft

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Daily News

DEWITT, N.Y. — Identity theft has always been a top consumer concern. However, with Equifax’s massive data breach earlier this year and Uber’s last month, discussion on the topic has spiked throughout American households.

December is National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month and aims to help consumers protect themselves against future data breaches and identity theft. While there is no bulletproof solution to identify theft, there are steps to take to ensure consumers are protecting themselves to the best of their ability.

Therefore, this December, Community Bank N.A. recommends taking a hard look at your personal security and following the steps below to help prevent identity theft:

• Shred non-critical documents. Shredding personal documents is crucial to protecting your identity against theft and fraud. Important documents to shred include financial statements, personal documents, credit-card offers, employee pay stubs, ATM receipts, and any items with a signature.

• Protect your personal information. Don’t give out your personal information to anyone unless you’ve initiated the contact or know whom you are dealing with. That includes phone calls, e-mails, and online contacts.

• Give your passwords a difficulty boost. Create hard-to-guess passwords that cannot be found in the dictionary, have at least eight characters, and include a mix of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and special characters.

• Pay attention to your bills. Follow up with creditors if your bills do not arrive on time. A missing credit-card bill could mean an identity thief has taken over your credit account and changed your address.

• Stay alert. Be cautious when using ATMs or your debit card at checkout — someone could be looking over your shoulder to steal your PIN number.

OMG Roofing Products Introduces RhinoBond Plate Marking Tool

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Daily News

AGAWAM — OMG Roofing Products has introduced a plate-marking tool designed to help roofers improve rooftop productivity by quickly locating and marking RhinoBond Plates installed under thermoplastic membranes.

The new RhinoBond Plate Marking Tool is lightweight, simple-to-use, and easy-to-maneuver. Simply roll the marking tool over a row of installed RhinoBond Plates. Every time it passes over a properly installed plate, the tool leaves a temporary mark on the surface of the membrane to identify the plate location. Plate marks are made with standard blue construction crayons and typically fade away within a few weeks.

The plate-marking tool is compatible with all thermoplastic membranes regardless of type or thickness. In addition, the tool’s handle is reversible for quick direction changes, and lies flat for rolling under rooftop pipes and raised equipment such as air-handling units. Other benefits of the new system include powerful sweeper magnets mounted on the front and back of the chassis that pick up any metal debris on the roof. The tool is provided in a protective carrying case for easy handling and storage.

“Many roofers understand the tremendous productivity and performance benefits that RhinoBond offers,” said Web Shaffer, vice president of marketing for OMG. “In fact, some roofers have reported productivity-rate improvements of up to 30%. To enhance the systems’ overall productivity offering, we wanted to make it even easier for roofers not only to find, but also to clearly ‘see’ the installed RhinoBond Plates beneath the membrane. The new RhinoBond Plate Marking Tool makes this possible.”

The RhinoBond System is designed for use with TPO and PVC roofing membranes. The system uses advanced induction-welding technology to bond roofing membranes directly to specially coated plates that secure the insulation to the deck. The result is a roofing system with improved wind performance that requires fewer fasteners, plates, and seams, and zero penetrations of the new membrane.

Headquartered in Agawam, OMG Roofing Products is a leading manufacturer of commercial roofing products featuring specialty fasteners, insulation adhesives, drains, pipe supports, productivity tools, and edge-metal systems.

UMass Engineer Makes Bioinspired Polymers with Electrostatic Force

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Daily News

AMHERST — UMass Amherst chemical engineer Sarah Perry, working with a colleague at the University of Illinois, is creating new bioinspired materials using electrostatic charge to direct the self-assembly process of long molecules. The research team, working with a class of polymers called coacervates, found they could be modified by changing the sequence of charges along the polymer chain. Coacervates are commonly used in food products and cosmetics. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Perry and Charles Sing, professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, collaborated on the research. They say long-chain molecules called polymers are ubiquitous in biology where the precise sequence of chemical building blocks in the chain, known as monomers, encodes the structure and function of life. Perry and Sing are looking for ways to use this kind of chemical patterning to design new synthetic materials.

“The idea is to use patterns of chemistry to help design materials, the same way that nature uses amino acids to create functional proteins,” Perry said. “We focus on a class of charged polymer solutions, known as complex coacervates, which in water are known to separate like oil and water into a gel-like substance due to the attraction between opposite charges. We show how polymer sequence can be used to tune this separation process; this opens up new possible ways to design materials, where charge patterns are directly synthesized into a polymer to encode for specific properties.”

In nature, Sing added, proteins encode information through a precise sequence of monomers. However, this precision control over sequence is much harder to achieve in synthetic polymers. “Instead, we can control the charge placement along the synthetic polymer chains to drive self-assembly processes.”

Perry and Sing say coacervates are commonly used in cosmetics and food products to encapsulate flavors and additives, and as a way of controlling the ‘feel’ of the product. However, if there is a need to change the texture or the thickness, manufacturers have to change the material being used. In this study, Sing and Perry demonstrate that they can rearrange the structure of the polymer chains by tuning their charge to engineer the desired properties.

“This is how biology makes the endless diversity of life with only a small number of molecular building blocks,” Perry explained. “We envision bringing this bioinspiration concept full-circle by using coacervates in biomedical and environmental applications.”

Sing and Perry say they hope to expand the use of this process into nanotechnology.

WSU, GCC Announce Nursing-degree Partnership

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Daily News

NORTHAMPTON — The presidents of Westfield State University and Greenfield Community College announced and signed an agreement today that creates a hybrid (combined online and onsite) RN-to-BSN completion program between the institutions.

Based online and at GCC’s newly opened Northampton satellite location, the program provides GCC’s associate-degree graduates and other area registered nurses a flexible, convenient, and cost-effective pathway to a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree from Westfield State.

Students will take the majority of courses online and fulfill the limited on-site requirements at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton.

With a price tag of $10,800, its leaders say, the RN-to-BSN completion program is the most cost-effective in the area. Applications are currently being accepted for fall 2018 enrollment.

Five Colleges Names Sarah Pfatteicher Executive Director

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Daily News

AMHERST — The board of directors of the Five College Consortium has appointed Sarah Pfatteicher to be its new executive director, succeeding Neal Abraham, who will be retiring after nine years at the helm of the higher-ed collaboration. Pfatteicher is currently associate dean for Academic Affairs and a research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The board was impressed with the breadth and depth of experience that Sarah will bring to the position,” said Jonathan Lash, president of Hampshire College and of the Five College board of directors. “The level of leadership she’s shown at the University of Wisconsin in both academic and administrative endeavors is remarkable, and will serve the consortium well.”

Pfatteicher (pronounced FAH-ticker) attended Northfield-Mount Hermon School and graduated from Smith College before earning her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has held a variety of positions at the university and currently oversees more than 70 academic programs, services for 5,000 students, and a budget of $2.3 million. She has extensive experience in both academic and administrative efforts, having created new academic programs, led a major curriculum revision, coordinated strategic planning efforts, and helped develop a blueprint for diversifying the institution, all while teaching engineering courses.

“I’m excited to return to the Pioneer Valley and honored to have the opportunity to work with these unique and storied institutions,” Pfatteicher said. “I’m particularly drawn to the unusual breadth of the Five College portfolio and its inclusion of both academic and administrative programs. I believe my own diverse higher-ed background will make me a good fit.”

Chosen in a national search that considered some 200 candidates, Pfatteicher will begin working at Five Colleges on April 23.

HCC Welcomes New Dean of Science, Engineering and Mathematics

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Daily News

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College recently welcomed Olugbemiga Adekunle as its new dean of Science, Engineering and Mathematics.

Adekunle had previously worked at Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia as a Computer Science professor and more recently as associate dean of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and English.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in instructional design and technology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

Before arriving at HCC in September, Adukenle, who goes by Gbemiga (pronounced BENG-gah), spent the summer as a research fellow at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland for the third time to gain experience in systems engineering.

“All of his experiences will serve him well in this position and support his work on behalf of the division,” said Monica Perez, vice president of Academic Affairs.

Adekunle, whose parents moved to the U.S. from Nigeria before he was born, grew up in Nashville, Tenn. and later in Baltimore. At six-foot-five, he is an avid basketball player who also enjoys rapping, comedy, improv, and Star Wars.

“I see people as well-rounded,” he said. “I want people to see me that way too.”

He said he is excited to have a new challenge and the chance to put his administrative experience into action at HCC. “The focus of my work is making sure that students are successful. I also aim to ensure that faculty are supported and get appropriate training to help them advance their careers.”

Elms College, University of Kochi Extend 20-year Exchange Program

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Daily News

CHICOPEE — Elms College signed an agreement on Nov. 29 continuing its international exchange program with the University of Kochi in Japan. The exchange relationship is celebrating its 20th year.

Harry Dumay, president of Elms College, and Takahiro Ioroi, academic vice president of the University of Kochi — one of the original faculty members involved in starting the exchange program — signed the agreement in Dumay’s office at Elms.

Every year, visiting students from Kochi spend nearly two weeks exploring life at Elms. The Kochi students stay in residence halls at Elms, study English, attend classes related to their majors, and take in local sights and cuisine. They participate in extracurricular activities — including bowling, shopping in Northampton, film screenings, and a karaoke party — that show them the fun side of American college life, and they host a Japanese festival each year to share their culture with the students of Elms.

“We want to promote international education and exchange, because never, in our global society that’s always changing, has international education and exchange been as important as it is now,” said Marco Garcia, director of International Programs at Elms.

During the visit, nearly 40 Elms students serve as ‘friendship partners’ for the Japanese students. These friendship partners participate in a three-hour training course to act as roommates, classmates, and partners in language and cultural activities.

Friendship partners are one of the most important aspects of the program, Garcia said. “As the Japanese students come in, we want them to meet a diverse group of students here, so they have a deeper understanding of American life and culture. Our students are very diverse. And that’s really important, because we are a nation of immigrants, and understanding the strength of our diversity is very important.”

In addition to Ioroi, the representatives from the University of Kochi are Dr. Joel Joos, a native of Belgium who is a professor of Japanese Cultural Studies and chair of the International Exchange Committee; and Mariko Hayashi, International Center associate.