Month: March 2018

NORTHAMPTON — Kayla Drinkwine joined Webber & Grinnell Insurance as commercial lines marketing manager. She will be responsible for quoting, negotiating, and placing the agency’s larger commercial accounts with the various insurance carriers represented by the agency.

Drinkwine started her career at Phillips Insurance Agency in Chicopee. Starting as the office receptionist, she moved quickly to personal lines customer service representative and then to commercial account manager. She maintains her construction risk and insurance specialist (CRIS) and certified insurance service representative (CISR) designations from the Massachusetts Assoc. of Insurance Agents.

“We are excited to have Kayla join our team of professionals,” President Bill Grinnell said. “Her strong background, friendly demeanor, and work experience will help Webber & Grinnell continue its trajectory of steady growth and customer-service excellence.”

Unemployment Rate Holds at 3.5% in Massachusetts

BOSTON — The state’s total unemployment rate remained at 3.5% in January, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development announced.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary job estimates indicate Massachusetts lost 6,100 jobs in January. Over the month, the private sector lost 4,200 jobs; although gains occurred in professional, scientific, and business services; information; and other services. From January 2017 to January 2018, BLS estimates Massachusetts has added 29,000 jobs.

The January unemployment rate was six-tenths of a percentage point lower than the national rate of 4.1% reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Massachusetts continues to experience a low unemployment rate and labor force expansions,” Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rosalin Acosta said. “While the overall health of our economy remains strong, and 2017 marked the eighth consecutive year of job growth, persistent skills gaps remain. That is why our workforce-development partners remain committed to ensuring that those who are still unemployed or underemployed have access to the training resources they need to access high-demand jobs.”

The labor force increased by 2,200 from 3,657,300 in December, as 3,900 more residents were employed and 1,700 fewer residents were unemployed over the month.

Over the year, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased four-tenths of a percentage point from 3.9% in January 2017.

The state’s labor-force participation rate — the total number of residents 16 or older who worked or were unemployed and actively sought work in the last four weeks — remained at 65.3%. The labor force participation rate over the year has decreased by 0.2% compared to January 2017.

The largest private-sector percentage job gains over the year were in construction; leisure and hospitality; professional, scientific, and business services; and other services.

MGM Springfield Tees Up Topgolf Swing Suite Experience

SPRINGFIELD — Topgolf Swing Suite will deliver a new social experience to MGM Springfield when the resort opens later this year.

Becoming the first in the region available to the general public, the Topgolf Swing Suite will feature three high-tech simulators within a 2,800-square-foot suite and will open onto the resort’s outdoor plaza. Visitors can play in groups or practice solo while enjoying gourmet bites and inventive cocktails. When it’s time to take their shot, players will step up to a large, theater-style screen to try their hand at a selection of virtual games. Each simulator can fit up to eight players and offers fun no matter the guest’s skill level.

For pre- or post-round drinks, fairway fans can head to the lounge area to grab a cocktail or catch a game on one of the many high-definition TVs. On select nights, the venue will feature live musical performances.

“Our goal is for MGM Springfield to become a destination for the community and for the region. With entertainment experiences that can’t be found elsewhere, our resort should become the go-to place no matter what kind of evening you are looking for,” said Michael Mathis, president of MGM Springfield. “Those familiar with Topgolf already know how much fun is in store, and for those new to the experience, just wait. This is sure to be one of the most exciting corners of our resort.”

This collaboration marks the third Topgolf experience within the MGM Resorts’ portfolio, following the openings of the four-story flagship Topgolf venue at MGM Grand Las Vegas and the new Topgolf Swing Suite at MGM Detroit.

Congressman Neal Meets with CEOs of Area Credit Unions

SPRINGFIELD — Credit-union representatives from the Massachusetts First Congressional District, including Arrha Credit Union, Freedom Credit Union, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Homefield Credit Union, and Pioneer Valley Federal Credit Union, recently met with U.S. Rep. Richard Neal in the Ways and Means Committee Library in Washington, D.C.

The goal of the meeting was to express their thoughts and viewpoints to Neal on pending credit-union legislation being brought forth in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It is important to hear the voices of the credit-union industry and be part of the ongoing discussions,” said Michael Ostrowski, president and CEO of Arrha Credit Union. “We appreciate Congressman Neal’s efforts.”

It’s Time to Think About the Next Healthcare Heroes

SPRINGFIELD — It might be a little too early to mark your calendars for the next Healthcare Heroes gala — Oct. 25 is more than seven months away — but it’s not too early to start thinking about nominating individuals who might be honored.

Healthcare Heroes, an exciting new recognition program involving the Western Mass. healthcare sector, was launched last spring by HCN and BusinessWest. The program was created to shed a bright light on the outstanding work being done across the broad spectrum of health and wellness services, and the institutions and individuals providing that care.

Now, it’s time to start thinking about the next class of heroes, in categories including ‘Lifetime Achievement,’ ‘Emerging Leader,’ ‘Patient/Resident/Client Care Provider,’ ‘Innovation in Health/Wellness,’ ‘Health/Wellness Administrator,’ and ‘Collaboration in Healthcare.’ They will be profiled in both magazines in September and feted at the Oct. 25 gala at the Starting Gate at GreatHorse in Hampden.

Nominations are now being accepted, and will be until June 15. To nominate someone, visit healthcarenews.com or businesswest.com, click on ‘Our Events,’ and proceed to ‘Healthcare Heroes.’

Kayla Drinkwine Joins Webber & Grinnell Insurance

Happier Valley Comedy to Unveil Team-building Business Program

NORTHAMPTON — After years of using improvisation to help Western Mass. businesses work better, Happier Valley Comedy’s founder and president Pam Victor notes that, “if it weren’t for people, business would be easy. People are always the tricky part of working together. People need support working as a team with more joy and productivity.”

With that in mind, Victor’s company, Happier Valley Comedy, is unveiling a new team-building program with an interactive information session called “Creating a Crackerjack Team THROUGH LAUGHTER” on Friday, March 16 at 33 Hawley St., Northampton. And, yes, participants will be greeted at the door with their own box of Cracker Jacks.

According to ClearCompany, 97% of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project, and 86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. Victor is teaming up Stephen Butler of Butler Associates to flip those stats for the businesses of Western Mass. with a program that demonstrates how companies can strengthen team communication and collaborative skills and boost more efficient decision-making and flexibility with change using the tools of improv and experiential training.

“The sessions offer lessons and skills that are readily transferable to workplace settings,” said Stephen Butler, who also works at Amherst College as a trainer and OD specialist. “Perhaps of equal importance, the sessions are filled with laughter, which enables the learning to happen in an atmosphere of exploration and fun.”

The March 16 information session includes participatory demonstrations of team-building improv exercises, handouts about the value of improv training for professional development, a question-and-answer session, and review of a case study in how the program has benefited a local business.

The session will be led by Victor, founder and president of Happier Valley Comedy, where she runs the THROUGH LAUGHTER program and a full-curriculum improv comedy school, as well as producing regular improv shows in Western Mass., and Butler, an independent consultant and trainer with more than 40 years of experience designing and leading trainings.

The event runs from 3:30 to 5 p.m. The fee is $25 per person or $50 total for two or more employees. Participants must register in advance, as space is limited. For more information, visit www.happiervalley.com/creating-a-crackerjack-team.html.

Advertising Club Seeks Nominations for Pynchon Award

SPRINGFIELD — The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts is seeking nominations from throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties for the Pynchon Award, which recognizes citizens of the region who have rendered distinguished service to the community.

The Order of William Pynchon was established by the Advertising Club in 1915 to recognize and encourage individuals whose lives and achievements typified the ideals of promoting citizenship and the building of a better community in Western Mass. Past recipients include war heroes, social activists, teachers, volunteers, philanthropists, historians, clergy, physicians, journalists, public servants, and business leaders — a diverse group, each with a passion for the region and a selfless streak. A complete list of recipients since 1915 can be found at www.adclubwm.org/events/pynchonaward.

To nominate an individual, submit a one-page letter explaining why the nominee should be considered. Include biographical information, outstanding accomplishments, examples of service to the community, organizations he or she is or has been active in, and the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of at least three people who can further attest to the nominee’s eligibility for induction into the Order of William Pynchon.

All nominees will be considered and researched by the Pynchon Trustees, comprised of the current and five past presidents of the Advertising Club. Nominations must be submitted by Friday, March 30 to: William Pynchon Trustees, Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts, P.O. Box 1022, West Springfield, MA 01090 or by e-mail to [email protected].

Pynchon medalists are chosen by unanimous decision of the Pynchon Trustees. 2018 recipients will be announced in June 2018, with an awards ceremony scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke.

Adult Learners to Explore College for a Day at HCC on March 15

HOLYOKE — Easthampton resident Keith Hazel, a 39-year-old high-school dropout, will be the keynote speaker at “College for a Day,” a Holyoke Community College (HCC) event that brings hundreds of adult learners to campus each year to get a brief taste of college life. The Thursday, March 15 event runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the main campus at 303 Homestead Ave., Holyoke.

Students and teachers from dozens of adult basic education and ESOL programs in Hampshire and Hampden counties are expected to attend College for a Day to sample classes taught by HCC faculty and staff in the areas of sustainability, math, careers, computers, conflict resolution, stress management, health, money management, STEM (science, engineering, technology, and math), and life and literature.

Before that, beginning at 9 a.m. in the Leslie Phillips Theater, Hazel will talk about his life and educational journey, from high-school dropout to HCC liberal arts major. Hazel earned his high-school equivalency in 2016 through the Literacy Project in Northampton and completed HCC’s Transition to College and Careers program in 2017 before enrolling as a degree-seeking student last fall.

College for a Day is organized by HCC’s Adult Basic Education and Transition to College and Careers programs, the HCC Admissions office, and the Holyoke-based Community Education Project. Since 1999, nearly 2,000 adult learners have participated in College for a Day.

Knowledge Corridor to Present Mayors’ Economic Forum on April 26

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — “Mayors Meet Millennials” is the title of the 2018 New England Knowledge Corridor Mayors’ Economic Forum, set for Thursday, April 26 at Goodwin College in East Hartford, Conn.

The program begins with coffee and conversation from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., followed by the conference program from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Participating mayors include Domenic Sarno (Springfield), Richard Kos (Chicopee), Marcia Leclerc (East Hartford), Erin Stewart (New Britain), and Luke Bronin (Hartford). Registration options and more information will be available soon.

Pioneer Cold Names Bryan Hedge President

CHICOPEE — The board of directors at Pioneer Cold announced that Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bryan Hedge has been elected president. He joined Pioneer in 2007 as vice president of Operations, and was promoted to chief operating officer in 2012.

Hedge will be responsible for all areas of Pioneer, including customer and employee satisfaction. A major part of his job will be to set priorities in strategy, asset utilization, and revenue growth, and to ensure operational excellence across the company.

As COO, Hedge was the operations leader and delivered consistent improvement in all areas, including safety, capacity planning and utilization, customer satisfaction, and productivity. As a result, Pioneer achieved industry-best operational metrics as benchmarked against industry standards.

Hedge came to Pioneer from Sleepy’s, where he was vice president, Logistics. Prior to that, he was vice president, Business Operations at CIS in Lenox. He also held executive-level supply-chain-management roles at Save-A-Lot Foods, Performance Food Group, and Springfield Foodservice. He spent 20 years with TruServ Corp., where he was consistently promoted to roles with increasing responsibility.

Hedge is an active member of the International Assoc. of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW) and serves as a member of that organization’s supply chain operations committee. He also currently serves as treasurer of the North Atlantic Chapter of the IARW. He is also a member of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

Pioneer Cold also announced two more promotions, with Susanne Gagnon becoming director of Operations and Michael Carr becoming Customer Service manager.

Gagnon served most recently as Customer Service and Transportation manager. She came to Pioneer in 2004 as a Warehouse manager and was promoted to Customer Service manager in 2006. Prior to joining Pioneer, she was with C&S for 10 years and was promoted to roles with increasing levels of responsibility, working on the ‘SWAT Team’ setting up and opening new distribution centers for three years, and was promoted to Warehouse supervisor, where she spent her last two years.

Carr joined Pioneer in 2003 as a Customer Service representative. In 2007, he was promoted to senior Customer Service representative and has spent the last 11 years in that role. Prior to joining Pioneer, he was a route sales/DSD delivery driver for a magazine and book distributor.

Tickets Still Available for 10th Annual Difference Makers Gala

SPRINGFIELD — The 10th annual Difference Makers award program, staged by BusinessWest, will be held at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke on Thursday, March 22. Difference Makers is a program, launched in 2009, that recognizes groups and individuals that are, as the name suggests, making a difference in this region.

This year’s honorees, which were announced and profiled in the Jan. 22 issue, include Bob Bolduc, CEO of Pride Stores; Bob “the Bike Man” Charland, Founder of Pedal Thru Youth; Girls Inc. of Holyoke; Evan Plotkin, president of NAI Plotkin; Crystal Senter-Brown, author and adjunct faculty at Bay Path University; and WillPower Foundation.

The Difference Makers Gala will begin at 5 p.m. with networking and opportunities to meet this year’s honorees. There will be live entertainment, butlered hors d’oeuvres, a plated dinner, and more networking opportunities. Sponsors include Sunshine Village, Royal, P.C., Health New England, and Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C.

Tickets to the event cost $75 per person, with tables of 10 available. To order, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100 or visit www.businesswest.com.

Bay Path and Partners to Present On the Move Forum Today

SPRINGFIELD — In honor of Women’s History Month in March and International Women’s Day on March 8, Bay Path University will present the On the Move Forum in partnership with the Professional Women’s Chamber, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, the Pan African Historical Museum USA (PAHMUSA), and Enchanted Circle Theater. The event will be held at CityStage in Springfield today, March 8, from 5 to 7 p.m.

This program is funded in part by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The On the Move Forum will explore the inclusive timeline of women’s history and the women’s rights movement through an interactive presentation, sparking community conversations about gaps and gains in that history.

The forum’s theme, “Know the Past, Chart the Future,” will use literature and philosophy to engage the audience in exploring the status of women regarding race, ethnicity, culture, age, sexual orientation, and the progress made since the first federally funded women’s conference in 1977.

During the program, an educational presentation will feature portrayals of essential historic figures from the timeline of the women’s movement, providing an opportunity for historic ‘conversations’ with Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Gloria Steinem, to name a few. Bay Path’s Leanna James Blackwell, director, MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and assistant professor of Creative Writing, will portray Steinem, and Priscilla Kane Hellweg, executive artistic director, Enchanted Circle Theater will present as Eleanor Roosevelt. Remarks will be given by young women leaders from Bay Path University as well.

“This is a great opportunity to walk through women’s history while supporting women in business and inspiring professional women at every level and college students to pursue their dreams — thus creating the world they want to live in,” said Janine Fondon, assistant professor and co-coordinator of the On the Move Forum with Melina Rudman at Bay Path University.

The On the Move Forum also includes a Table Top Business Expo by the Professional Women’s Chamber, as well as an interactive program to highlight women’s history, leadership, and trends.

“Our young women need to know of the history of the great women who paved the way for them — their stories will no longer go silent,” said LuJuana Hood, director of PAHMUSA, which is currently displaying an exhibit of figures in the women’s movement timeline.

Many local businesses, including PeoplesBank, Roberto’s restaurant, Sylvester’s restaurant, Pip Printing, and Cambridge College, have joined On the Move as sponsors. For tickets, call the CityStage box office at (413) 788-7033.

Bank of America Employees Volunteer at Kate’s Kitchen

HOLYOKE — Bank of America, a long-time annual investor in Providence Ministries’ Kate’s Kitchen, recently matched its monetary support with a day of service from a team of volunteers at Kate’s last week.

“I have been involved with community service since I was in high school. I feel it helps me stay connected to the community and that it is important to give back,” said Dwight Szarkowski, relationship manager, Sixteen Acres Financial Center, Bank of America. “Most of the morning, we did simple things to help prepare: restocking the food storage room, setting tables, and wrapping the utensils with a napkin so they could be easily distributed. When the doors opened, people came filing in. Most seemed to know the routine.”

But then something happened. Szarkowski sat down with a man and his two children and quickly found out that the gentleman was a single father of this boy and girl, around the ages of 9 and 10. “He shared with me the story of how they have been living in a shelter for over a year. He beamed with pride while telling me how they recently got their own apartment — how it has been hard work, but now that they are settling in to their new surroundings, he was going to be able to get his younger boy involved with sports and his older daughter in to art classes. He was happy to brag about how special each one of his kids are.”

Providence Ministries remains grateful for Bank of America as a partner and annual investor to continue its work meeting life’s basic needs of food, clothing, and housing for its most vulnerable neighbors. Given the rising numbers of those most vulnerable, including new neighbors from Puerto Rico, the organization notes, continued funding by Bank of America and other funders is even more critical in bringing daily meals to the people who need it most in the community.

STCC to Host Open House on March 20

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) will host an open house on Tuesday, March 20 from 4 to 7 p.m. in Scibelli Hall (Building 2), seventh floor.

All high-school students and adult learners interested in learning more about an STCC education are invited to attend. Representatives from Admissions, Academics, Athletics, Dual Enrollment/College Now, Financial Aid, HiSET & English Language Learner classes, Non-credit Training & Certifications, Online Learning, and Transfer Services will be available to speak with attendees.

“In addition, anyone who brings their official high-school transcript(s) or GED or HiSET will be instantly accepted for the fall 2018 semester,” said dean of Admissions Louisa Davis-Freeman. “Our spring open house attracts a large crowd of prospective students who are still exploring plans for the fall. Our academic deans, faculty, and staff look forward to speaking with students and their families about the affordable career pathways STCC offers. I encourage all prospective students — whether you’re in high school or a returning adult — to come learn more about how STCC works.”

Staff will also be available to discuss the new collaboration with Northeastern University offering bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering technology and advanced manufacturing systems on the STCC campus, Davis-Freeman said.

For more information, contact the STCC Admissions Office at (413) 755-3333 or visit www.stcc.edu/admissions.

Greater Westfield Chamber to Hold St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast

WESTFIELD — The Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce will present a St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast on Friday, March 16 at Westfield State University in Scanlon Hall located at 577 Western Ave., Westfield. Registration begins at 7:15 a.m., with breakfast at 7:30 a.m., and the program will begin at 7:50 a.m.

The guest speaker is Bo Sullivan, who was recently named executive director of the Irish Cultural Center in West Springfield.

The event is sponsored by Westfield State University and Republic Services. A 50/50 raffle will support three chamber scholarship awards, for one student each from the Westfield, Southwick, and Gateway Regional public schools. Corsages will be provided by Flowers by Webster. The chief greeter will be Chuck Kelly of Flowers by Webster.

The chamber will also recognize this year’s Sons of Erin Colleen, Mackenzie Hope Rogers, and her court: Maddeline Frey, Catie Laraway, Jasmine Malonchleb, and Brianna Weltlich. In addition, the chamber will recognize Sons of Erin Irishwoman of the Year Kara Herman, Irishman of the Year Peter Miller Sr., and Parade Marshall Joanne Miller.

The guests will also hear from Mayor Brian Sullivan, state Sen. Don Humason Jr., state Rep. John Velis, and Westfield State University President Ramon Torrecilha. WSKB 89.5 will broadcast live in Scanlon Hall. As guests arrive, they will be entertained by bagpiper Roger Bernier.

Contact Pam Bussell at (413) 568-1618 or [email protected] for tickets, sponsorships, or to donate a door prize. The cost is $25 for members and $35 for general admission. RSVP by Monday, March 9.

Employer Confidence Strengthens in February

BOSTON — Massachusetts employer confidence strengthened during February as optimism about long-term economic growth outweighed a volatile month in the financial markets.

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index rose 0.4 points to 64.5, setting another 17-year high. The Index has gained 2.4 points during the past 12 months as confidence levels have remained comfortably within the optimistic range.

Enthusiasm about the U.S. and Massachusetts economies, along with a bullish outlook on the part of manufacturers, fueled the February increase. At the same time, hiring remained a red flag as the BCI Employment Index fell 4 points between February 2017 and February 2018. Almost 90% of employers who responded to the February confidence survey indicated that the inability to find skilled employees is either a modest, large, or huge problem.

“Fourteen percent of respondents said finding employees represents a huge problem that is hampering their company’s growth. One-third of employers see employee recruitment as a big problem, while 29% see it as a modest issue,” said Raymond Torto, chair of AIM’s Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) and lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Design. “For the short-term, however, the state and national economies remain strong, and the recent announcement by Amazon of a major expansion in Boston indicates that the trend should continue.”

The survey was taken before President Donald Trump roiled the financial markets by pledging to impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

The AIM Index, based on a survey of Massachusetts employers, has appeared monthly since July 1991. It is calculated on a 100-point scale, with 50 as neutral; a reading above 50 is positive, while below 50 is negative. The Index reached its historic high of 68.5 on two occasions in 1997-98, and its all-time low of 33.3 in February 2009. It has remained above 50 since October 2013.

The constituent indicators that make up the overall Business Confidence Index were mixed during February. The most significant gains came in the Manufacturing Index, which surged 3.9 points to 66.2, and the U.S. Index, which rose 2.1 points for the month to 66.9 and 8.0 points for the year. The Massachusetts Index fell 0.4 points to 68.5, but was up 5.3 points for the year and still higher than the national outlook for the 96th consecutive month.

The Current Index, which assesses overall business conditions at the time of the survey, rose 2.4 points to 64.1. The Future Index, measuring expectations for six months out, declined 1.6 points to 65. The Current Index has risen 4.2 points and the Future Index 0.6 points during the past 12 months.

The Company Index, reflecting employer views of their own operations and prospects, was essentially flat, gaining 0.1 points to 62.4. The Employment Index also rose 0.1 points, to 56.4, versus 60.4 in February 2017.

Manufacturing companies (66.2) were more optimistic than non-manufacturers (61.9). Large employers (69.8) were more bullish than medium-sized (62.0) or small businesses (62.7).

Country Bank Donates $656,000 to Area Organizations in 2017

WARE — Country Bank reported that it donated $656,000 to more than 400 organizations in 2017 through its Charitable Giving Program. Some of the recipients include the Ronald McDonald House, which received $30,000 to support its ‘home away from home’ for children and their families being treated at the Springfield area medical facilities, and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which received $10,000 to help continue its mission of providing food to those in need.

“Our mission is to grow mutually beneficial relationships with our customers, community, and staff. This is evidenced not only by our commitment to support these organizations with charitable contributions, but also with staff volunteer hours,” said Paul Scully, president and CEO. “In 2017, nearly 800 hours of personal time was given back by members of the Country Bank staff to their local communities.

In addition to their volunteer hours, employees also raised more than $33,000 through their own charitable-giving events such as jean days, bake sales, and raffles.

Incorporations

Departments Incorporations

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

Holyoke

Peoplesbank Charitable Foundation, Inc., 330 Whitney Ave., Suite 740, Holyoke, MA 01040. Thomas Senecal, same. Grants funding programs that benefit low and moderate income and under-served populations focused on the areas of academic excellence, community vibrancy and environmental sustainability.

Longmeadow

Patez Commercial Cleaning Contractors Inc., 187 Westmoreland Ave., Longmeadow, MA 01106. Andreia Patez, same. Cleaning, powerwashing, painting.

North Adams

Save Fort Massachusetts Memorial Inc., 1143 State Road, North Adams, MA 01247. Wendy M. Champney, same. To promote the preservation of the memorial located on Route 2 in North Adams marking the former site of Fort, Massachusetts.

Pittsfield

Scapin Builders Inc., 7 Lebanon Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Jon Scapin, same. Service: remodel existing residential properties.

Springfield

Onecall Medstaff Corp., 736 Belmont Ave., Apt. 1R, Springfield, MA 01108. Steven B. Kee, same. Staffing services.

Sabella Hogan, P.C., 1350 Main St., Suite 214, Springfield, MA 01103. Edward V. Sabella, same. Law practice.

Puerto Rico Food Industries Inc., 61 Mansfield St., Springfield, MA 01108. Luis Feliciano, same. Wholesale of specialty food products.

Ware

Pablo D. Santiago Ministries, 35 West St., Ware, MA 01082. Pablo De Jesus Santiago, 8 Cherry St., Ware, MA 01082. The purpose of this corporation is to expand the Kingdom of God in humble service to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ through ministry, education, charitable service, contribution, outreach, fellowship and ordination.

West Springfield

Road Star Express Inc., 34 Tatham Hill Road, West Springfield, MA 01089. IlkhomAgayev, same. Long haul trucking company.

Westfield

Om Mobil Mart Inc., 162 Southampton Road, Westfield, MA 01085. Mehar Hamza, same. Gas station.

Wilbraham

Rice’s Fruit Farm Corporation, 757 Main St., Wilbraham, MA 01095. Anthony D. Maloni, same. Preparation and sale for consumption of food products, beverages and other goods to the general public.

Bradley Airport Reaches New Heights in Customer Focus

Sections Tourism & Hospitality

Pushing the Envelope

Additions at the food court comprise just one prong in a broad strategic initiative at Bradley International Airport to improve the customer experience.

Kevin Dillon recalled that, when he first started working at airports in mid-’70s, they were run almost like government facilities.

Translation: there were few, if any, frills, customer service was hardly a priority, and the notion of generating repeat customers didn’t really exist because, for the most part, customers didn’t have any choice but to return.

All that has changed over the ensuing decades, of course. Fliers do have choices, especially in this part of he country, where there are several airports within a two-hour drive. And they make their choices based on a variety of factors, but especially convenience and the quality of their experience (after all, they’re spending at least a few hours there, on average).

So today, every airport wants to be the airport of choice, including Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, said Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA), which took over management of the facility in 2013.

And there are many factors that go into that equation, from the number of flights and, more specifically, the number of non-stop flights to the number and quality of restaurants at the facility; from ease of movement through the flying process to the overall customer experience.

And Bradley has been addressing all of them, said Dillon, referencing recent developments ranging from new non-stop service to St. Louis to a new $200 million transportation transit facility set to move off the drawing board (more on that later), to the addition of therapy dogs to help those anxious about flying.

“What we’re about at Bradley is convenience,” he told BusinessWest. “We know that’s what we’re selling as an airport, whether that’s convenient access to the airport or convenience once you get to the facility. So we have focused on improving overall customer service and the customer experience.”

Initiatives on these fronts are generating results that can be quantified in a number of ways, said Dillon, who started with the five consecutive years of year-over-year passenger growth Bradley has enjoyed since the CAA took over in 2013. That includes a 6.2% spike in 2017. He also noted that Condé Nast Traveler ranked Bradley the fifth-best airport in the U.S. it its latest Readers’ Choice Awards.

SEE: Airlines Serving Bradley Airport

But while the passenger-growth numbers and votes from Condé Nast readers are compelling, Dillon said the airport has to keep pushing the envelope (that’s an aviation term, sort of) and find new and better ways to improve the customer experience.

“The airport business has become extremely competitive,” he noted. “So we’re constantly looking to differentiate ourselves from other options that travelers in our region have; we want to be that airport of choice, but we do know that travelers have options, so we have to keep looking for ways to improve the experience.”

For this issue and its focus on tourism and hospitality, BusinessWest talked at length with Dillon about Bradley’s focus on convenience and the many forms this mission takes.

Soaring Expectations

Perhaps the most obvious, and most important, aspect of customer service, Dillon said, is the number of flights being offered, or route development, as he called it.

And over the past several years, the airport has been working to add new flights for the convenience of all travelers, but especially business travelers.

“We know business travelers are looking for a greater menu of non-stop services at Bradley, so we’ve put a lot of attention and focus on development in general,” Dillon explained. “When we first took over the airport, we focused on bringing in West Coast connectivity as well as trans-Atlantic connectivity, and we’ve been able to accomplish both goals.”

With the former, the airport has added a popular flight to Los Angeles, he noted, and last year, seasonal, non-stop service to San Francisco was added to the portfolio, and efforts are ongoing to offer that service year-round.

Kevin Dillon

Also, through the addition of carrier of Spirit Airlines, there are now a number of direct flights into a number of Florida cities, including Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Fort Myers.

As for the latter, the daily Aer Lingus flight to Dublin introduced in September 2016 has becoming increasingly popular with area business and leisure flyers looking for a more convenient way to get to Europe than driving to and then flying out of Boston, New York, or New Jersey.

“That’s because it’s not only connectivity to Dublin, it’s connectivity to all of Europe,” said Dillon. “And there are 26 major cities that you can connect to very conveniently in Dublin with this flight.”

The overseas flight has thus far met or exceeded expectations, and the response from the business community has had a lot to do with that, he said, adding that, as might be expected, leisure travel to Europe drops off considerably in the fall and winter, and the business side of the equation has helped keep the planes reasonably full year-round.

As for the experience at the airport itself, those at Bradley have been attentive to this piece of the puzzle as well, said Dillon, focusing on such matters as security lead times, check-in times at the airline counters, the menu of restaurants, and, yes, programs such as therapy dogs.

When it comes to eateries, Phillips Seafood and Two Roads Brewery have been added to the mix in recent months, and they’ve been very well received, said Dillon, adding that travelers will likely have a decent amount of time to spend at such facilities because of efforts to help the process of getting bags checked and travelers through security.

Overall, there are some things an airport cannot control — travelers will still be asked to arrive 90 minutes before a flight, especially if it’s an international flight — but there are many things it can control, and those are the factors Bradley is focused on, said Dillon.

This extends, as he noted earlier, to access to the airport, and also what happens after one leaves.

And this mindset explains the facility’s new transportation center, now in the final design stages, which is being built to improve the overall customer experience.

“You’ll be able to fly into Bradley and connect via a walkway to this new facility right across from the terminal to get your rental car,” he explained. “No longer will you have to take a bus to that rental-car facility.”

The transportation facility will also serve as a transit hub for the various bus services into and out of Bradley, as a connecting point to the rail line that now connects Southern Connecticut with Springfield.

“We’re working to have every one of those trains stop at Windsor Locks, which is considered the airport train station, and then we’ll connect the new transportation center to the Windsor Locks train station via high-frequency bus service,” Dillon explained, adding that the ultimate goal is to directly connect the airport to that station with light rail.

Such rail connections will ultimately make life more convenient to business and leisure travelers alike, he went on, adding that they can fly into Bradley and connect, via rail, to a host of other cities, similar to how it’s done in Europe.

Plane Speaking

When the CAA took over operations at Bradley, it was handling roughly 5.5 million passengers a year. Fewer than five years later, the total is 6.5 million.

That’s a significant increase that came about through a broad, multi-faceted approach to improving convenience and the overall customer experience.

But as they say in this business, Bradley is merely gaining altitude. It can soar much higher still, and Dillon and his team are committed to doing just that.

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

Museum Sparks Attendance Records, Inspires New Plans

Sections Tourism & Hospitality

Riding the Seuss Wave

Kay Simpson says the Seuss museum has fueled a surge in attendance at all the museums at the Quadrangle.

Since it opened nine months ago, the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum has sparked a series of attendance records at the Quadrangle and driven visitorship higher at all five museums at the complex. Meanwhile, it is also inspiring museum officials to consider improvements to those other facilities, and plans are in the formative stage for renovations to the science museum.

Kay Simpson couldn’t recall the specific name of the exhibit; she just remembered that it featured what she called “robotic dinosaurs,” which were a huge hit and are still talked about 14 years after they made their appearance at the Springfield Museums.

Simpson, executive director of that venerable institution, brought up the dinosaurs as she talked, on Presidents Day, about the school vacation week ahead, and whether the Museums, buffeted by the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, which opened last June, could eclipse the record for winter-school-break attendance the dinosaur exhibit helped set.

“It will be really, really hard to top that mark,” she said. “People came from all over the see the dinosaurs. They roared, they moved, it was really exciting. I’m not sure that record will ever be broken.”

Turns out, she was right. The dinosaurs have kept their place atop the charts, due in part to a sunny day in the ’70s that prompted many families to head outdoors, not inside a museum.

But nearly nine months after the Seuss museum opened its doors, just about every other attendance mark has fallen. That includes the one for Columbus Day. And for the day after Thanksgiving. And for Christmas school vacation week.

Overall, the numbers are stunning. When the museum was being pitched to potential funders years ago, it was thought it would provide a 30% overall boost to attendance, said Simpson, noting, by way of comparison, that when the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History opened in 2009, the bump was roughly 12%.

Instead, attendance from June to August soared 300% above the total for that same period in 2016. In fact, attendance last summer equaled the mark for the entire year in 2016. As for the full year in 2017, attendance doubled the mark of the year previous, with only seven months of Seuss.

Looking ahead, well, officials don’t know just what to expect. They believe that, eventually, as more people take in the new museum, the pace of attendance growth will start to diminish, although it will still be significant, especially with MGM Springfield set to open in the fall. When ‘eventually’ will arrive, though, is a huge question mark, as the new museum continues to draw people from not only across the region but throughout the country and around the world.

Indeed, just a few months ago, surveys of attendees revealed that residents of all 50 states had found Springfield and the Seuss museum. The last one in? Neither Simpson nor Karen Fisk, director of Public Relations & Marketing, could recall exactly, but they believe it was one of the Dakotas.

The Seuss museum has brought many things to the Quadrangle — visitors, revenue, publicity, and momentum come to mind quickly. But also something else: the motivation and inspiration to upgrade other facilities at the site.

And officials would like to start with the still-popular, but often-maligned science museum, which has been described as ‘outdated’ and ‘static’ by many, including Baby Boomers who are bringing children and grandchildren to see the same exhibits they saw a half-century ago.

Simpson, while still proud of the facility and the ornate dioramas that in many ways define the facility, acknowledged that it is not as modern and interactive as this era demands, and the museum is putting preliminary plans on the drawing board to address these shortcomings.

“For the most part, people enjoy coming to the science museum; it’s a beloved institution,” she explained. “They just want it to move forward and be more exciting. They want us to bring it into the 21st century.”

The arch in front of the Seuss museum has become a sought-after backdrop for photos involving visitors from around the world.

And there are plans now taking shape to do just that, as we’ll see later. They call for taking many of the displays that have been behind glass for the most part and bringing them to life.

For this issue and its focus on tourism and hospitality, BusinessWest looks at both the incredible boost that the Seuss museum has provided for the Quadrangle and the plans to build on this momentum.

Rhyme and Reason

Simpson recalls that, when the Museums announced plans to put a colorful arch in front of the Seuss museum (the former history museum built like a stately home from the late 18th century), not everyone was pleased with the concept.

Indeed, there were some who thought the feature clashed architecturally with the classical buildings around it and wouldn’t be a good addition to the historic Quadrangle.

But, while some still think in those terms, this arch is rapidly becoming one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks and sought-after photo backdrops. It’s not in the same league as the St. Louis Arch, that iconic ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada’ sign, or the Rialto Bridge in Venice, but … it’s getting there.

“People take pictures there … one woman celebrating her 50th birthday came to Springfield and danced under the arch,” said Simpson. “It’s celebratory; Dr. Seuss is very meaningful for a lot of people, and we see that in all those people taking pictures at the arch.”

The popularity of the arch is just one of many signs of the awesome power of Dr. Seuss, the characters he created, and the attachment people have to his work decades after they first read one of his books.

Others include the variety of license plates in the Museums’ parking lots; the huge increase in sales in the gift shop, where a large percentage of items are Seuss-themed; the vast amount of press the Seuss museum has garnered, from outlets ranging from the Denver Post to Architectural Digest to Condé Nast Traveler; and, of course, all those new attendance records.

But maybe the most intriguing, and also entertaining indicator of the author’s gravitational pull is the collection of comments in the guest books visitors are asked to sign.

Some, especially those penned by the very young, are short and simple, like ‘this is the best museum ever,’ in large, bold letters. Others reveal how far people have traveled to take it all in, like ‘so happy this museum has opened for all of us. Much love from Indiana,’ with a little heart drawn as a form of punctuation.

Some, however, take on the style of the author himself. There’s this one:

Can it be
Is it true
To see the Seuss
The way we do?
We traveled by car
All over the land
Only to find
Our fave childhood man
Thank you to the doc
Who made reading fun around the clock.

— Abigail & Steve, 6/16/17

And this one:

This place is great!
Not a single thing to hate
It was fun. It was silly
We came all the way from Philly!

— Erica & Jonathan, 6/13/17

Overall, the pages are dominated by prose, little hearts, some attempts to draw Seuss characters, and lots and lots of exclamation points.

And then, there was this entry, which no doubt caught the attention of museum administrators.

Hello, I think that
This is the best museum in all of Springfield. You are the
Best ever seriously
I would also like to say
That the Dr. Seuss museum brings life to this
museum!

From D.

Indeed it does, as was evident during school-vacation week, when, as noted, a near-record number of people took in not only the Seuss museum, but some of the other four museums on the site.

Most need to do that almost out of necessity, because the Seuss museum is relatively small and exceedingly popular, which means many visits to it are timed — an hour or so on average after arrival.

So visitors are using that time to also take in the history museum, the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, the George Walter Smith Art Museum, and the science museum.

So, while the arch is the gateway to the Seuss museum, that facility has become a gateway to the rest of the Quadrangle.

“We have building counts,” said Simpson. “And they show that every single museum got a bump since we opened the Dr. Seuss museum.”

And with this increased visitation comes recognition of the need to put these facilities on something approaching the Seuss museum in terms of earned hearts and exclamation points. Especially the science museum, originally opened in 1899, and for the reasons stated earlier.

“When we opened the Dr. Seuss Memorial Sculpture Garden [in 2004], the most-often-asked question was ‘where is the Dr. Seuss Museum?’” said Simpson, adding that people logically thought there was one, only to learn, to their great disappointment, there wasn’t. “Then, after we announced creation of the Seuss museum, the most-often-asked question was ‘when is it going to open?’

“Now, the question we hear the most is ‘when are you going to renovate the science museum?’” she went on, adding that she doesn’t have a specific answer to the question. But the hope, and expectation, is that soon, those asked that question will be able to say, well, ‘soon.’

The Next Chapter

As she led BusinessWest on a quick walk-through of the science museum, which has been expanded several times since the 1930s, Simpson engaged in some multi-tasking.

She was pointing out, with discernable pride in her voice, the quality, beauty, and historical significance of those aforementioned dioramas, as well as their ability to bring visitors closer to the animals in question than they could ever get at a zoo or in the wild.

At the same time, though, she was explaining that, in this age of interactivity and digital technology, these displays are certainly static.

“To today’s audience, they’re a little dated, which isn’t to say kids don’t love to come look at them,” she explained. “But our intention is to make it more like the Seuss museum, which is a playful, totally immersive, interactive environment.”

With that in mind, the plan — again, still in the formative stage — is to make what’s behind the glass spill into the middle of the room.

“You can sit on a bench that’s a log,” Simpson explained. “You can play with these creatures that you would find out in the woods. The lamps that come down look like birds.”

Elaborating, she said that today, much can be done with dramatic lighting, and the museum plans to use it to create opportunities to take in a woodland scene, for example, in the morning, afternoon, and evening, just by visitor-activated lighting.

Preliminary plans call for making the science museum more modern and interactive.

Meanwhile, the renovated displays will be multi-sensory, she went on, adding that visitors will be able to see, hear, touch, and even smell a number of different settings. The carpeting will be patterned to simulate the floor of the jungle, for example.

The second floor of the museum, meanwhile, will likely feature a Spark!Lab, the only one in the Northeastern U.S. Undertaken in conjunction with the Smithsonian (the Museums are an affiliate), Spark!Lab is a hands-on, STEM invention workspace where visitors can learn about and engage in the process of invention, said Simpson, adding that this addition will bring a new create a new level of interaction at the science museum and bring visitors back repeatedly.

“How perfect is that for Springfield, given its long history of innovation and firsts?” Simpson asked rhetorically, adding that the lab will be an exciting addition aimed at generating interest in the sciences through direct involvement.

All this is ambitious, said Simpson, and the museum will need to aggressively raise funds to make it happen. But initial talks with foundations and other funding sources is underway, and momentum created by the Seuss museum is generating enthusiasm to improve other facilities within the Quadrangle.

The plan is to take on the project in phases, she said, with phase one being lighting, carpeting, and renovation of the bathrooms. If all goes according to plan, these changes could be undertaken late this year or early next year.

Phase two would be the “complete immersion” she described earlier, which would come with a much larger price tag.

But there is a need, and now a commitment, to upgrade the facility.

“We’ve made the science museum a priority because people repeatedly ask us when we’ll update that facility; we’ve heard that on TripAdvisor, and we’ve heard that anecdotally,” said Simpson, adding that, while attendance is up at all the museums, again because of Seuss, the greatest surge has been recorded at the science museum, and to drive attendance higher, and bring people back, changes are needed.

The Last Word

As noted earlier, administrators at the Museums don’t know when — or even if — the power surge from the opening of the Seuss museum will start to lose some of its intensity.

They don’t know when or if the Quadrangle will stop setting attendance records for specific dates, weeks, or months between now and June. (Remember, winter break was an outlier due to those robotic dinosaurs and a summer-like Wednesday afternoon).

What they do know is that the Seuss museum has been inspirational, and not only to those from Philly who take to prose and note that the facility is silly. It is also inspiring those at the Quadrangle, who want to raise the bar across the board — and plan to start with the science museum.

If all goes as planned, it will likely earn some hearts and exclamation points itself. And maybe even some of that prose.

Kay Simpson will settle for people young and old saying they had an enriching learning experience.

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

Casino Career Training Institute Attracts Diverse Student Body

Sections Workforce Development

Rolling the Dice

Diane Garvey, frustrated in her search for a sales position, has started down a much different career path, and was one of the first to sign up for classes at MCCTI.

Diane Garvey was at a career crossroads. In a big way.

In her 50s, she had spent most of her career working at call centers, as an office manager, and mostly in sales positions, specifically in the candy business, supplying retailers with everything from M&Ms to Russell Stover samplings.

Her most recent position had been eliminated in a restructuring last August, and she spent the next several months in a decidedly futile search for something else. By late last year, with her unemployment benefits winding down, her stop at the crossroads ended, sort of, and she started down a road previously not available to her and one she probably couldn’t have imagined last July.

That would be the Massachusetts Casino Career Training Institute, or MCCTI, an acronym that is quickly working its way into the region’s workforce lexicon and into the vocabulary of people like Garvey.

She was on the ninth floor of 95 State St. in downtown Springfield last Monday, taking the first of six weeks of classes that will likely earn her an audition with MGM Springfield, the $950 million casino going up next door, and perhaps a job on the casino floor by early summer, a few months before the sprawling complex is set to open.

“I was unable to relocate into a different position, so I looked at what was available,” she explained. “With MGM coming to the area and all the publicity they’ve had lately and their reputation for being number one in the entertainment business, maybe the best plan would be to go to the dealer class.”

There are roughly 70 people signed up for the first set of classes at MCCTI, a joint venture of Holyoke Community College and Springfield Technical Community College and part of the schools’ hugely successful TWO (Training and Workforce Options) program, which has created training programs to qualify individuals for work in several fields.

For each one of those students, the story is a little different, even though they’ve chosen the same path. Some, like Garvey, are unemployed and looking toward the casino as a place to relaunch their careers. Others are retired or near retirement and looking for something part-time to help fill the day and put a little money in their pocket. Others have some experience working table games in casinos and look upon MGM Springfield as a way to parlay that experience into a job with one of the leading gaming and entertainment companies in the world.

Orlando Marrero can check that last box, and as he talked about what brought him to the ninth floor for the evening class of MCCTI, he borrowed an industry term.

“I rolled the dice,” Marrero, who has a seasonal job delivering propane, told BusinessWest, not once, but several times as he discussed his decision to relocate to the City of Homes and essentially position himself for a job with MGM Springfield when it opens.

With his experience, Marrero probably faces slightly better odds than many of the other students at MCCTI, but all those enrolled stand a good chance of winning a jackpot, in the form of a job, if they are diligent and also passionate about mastering what Alex Dixon, general manager of MGM Springfield, called a “craft.”

“Sometimes people think that you have to know or like table games or like casinos to get into this,” he explained. “This is a craft, and it’s a skill, and with a small investment, you can really become skilled for the rest of your life. As long as you can pass an audition, you’re employable, and these jobs are in high demand.”

Dixon said the casino will need roughly 450 table-games workers and poker dealers when the casino opens, and he admits that MGM has its work cut out for it to not only meet that number but succeed with a much larger goal — sustainability.

“We have our work cut out for us,” he told BusinessWest. “And this is ongoing; we’re looking forward to developing a long-term pipeline of people in Western Mass. who want to choose an opportunity with us.”

For this issue and its focus on workforce development, BusinessWest talked with Marrero and Garvey about their decision to enroll in MCCTI, and with Dixon and others about the many challenges involved with having the casino floor fully staffed by opening night.

Playing the Numbers

With this pipeline-building test in mind, MGM Springfield has taken a number of steps designed to generate interest in the school and prompt more people across that broad spectrum described above to consider careers in table games.

An instructor works with students of all ages on the first day of classes at MCCTI.

These include options when it comes to how many games one wishes to learn, flexibility in the scheduling of classes (they run morning, afternoon, and night); similar flexibility when it comes to hours of employment (there are full- and part-time jobs and several shifts); and even reimbursement of the tuition cost.

Still, with all those incentives and flexibility, creating a large, talented corps of table-games workers in an area new to the casino industry will be a daunting challenge, said Dixon.

But he’s hoping, and expecting, that some of the first students to enter the pipeline — people like Garvey and Marrero — will become effective spokespeople, if you will, and help in the recruiting effort.

This is exactly what happened at MGM’s property in Maryland, National Harbor, which opened just over a year ago. There, a school similar to MCCTI and operated in conjunction with Prince George’s (County) Community College, was instrumental in helping that facility staff up with table-games workers.

“In many cases, our best recruiting tool will be our current students,” he explained. “They can certainly help people understand that this is an opportunity; if you’re a recent retiree or you’re currently employed and are looking to pick up a couple of shifts a week, just about anyone with a good attitude can do this.”

Marrero hasn’t even been hired yet, and he’s already helping in this regard, with comments like these when asked about why he was looking forward to returning to the casino floor — sometime soon, he hopes.

“This is what I like doing,” he explained. “I like interacting with the customers; we have a good time. I have a ball when I’m dealing.”

Marrero was a dealer for several years at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. He relocated to Western Mass. so his wife could take a job here, and he has taken odd things (like delivering propane) since. He first contacted Holyoke Community College with inquiries about a dealer school about three years ago, and was one of the first to sign up for the initial cohort of classes.

“I haven’t been a dealer for seven years, and wanted to refresh myself,” he explained, “so I can work at the new casino.”

Overall, Marrero fits just one of many profiles that TWO administrators are seeing in the group signed up for the first cohort that started on Feb. 26, said Jeff Hayden, vice president of Business and Community Services at Holyoke Community College.

He told BusinessWest that students come in all age groups and with a host of different backgrounds. Some signed up looking for a new career; others arrived on the ninth floor at 95 State St. hoping to find something new, different, and fulfilling to do in their retirement.

Orlando Marrero is an experienced dealer who enrolled at MCCTI to refresh his skills and learn more games.

“So far, we’ve had a good response, but we’re always looking for more people,” said Hayden. “We’re seeing a mix that reflects the region; we’ve had a significant number of people who have some experience and are looking for a refresher course, or they know two games and want to know four games.

“We’ve had more women than men, but the men are primarily the ones with the prior experience,” he went on. “Some are unemployed, but many others are employed, but feel they’re underemployed or in a dead-end position. Still others are looking for something new and different, and MGM appeals to them.”

Dixon told BusinessWest that widely diverse student bodies are typical at these so-called ‘dealer schools,’ which exist even in areas, like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, where the gaming industry has a huge presence. That’s because table-games workers will often seek to add to their skills by mastering new games or by refreshing themselves on ones they already know, perhaps with the goal of winning a supervisory position.

In markets like Greater Springfield, however, a larger number of students are being introduced to these games — and to careers in gaming.

Hayden said that students essentially sign on for a 10-week block of classes. The first six weeks are spent on a so-called ‘level 1’ class in either blackjack, roulette, craps, or poker. A student would then take a four-week ‘level-2’ class in everything from mini baccarat to pai gow poker to follow-up sessions in blackjack, roulette, and craps.

Successfully completing classes for two or more games guarantees the student an audition with MGM, said Hayden, adding that, if a student were so inclined, they could sign up for two 10-week blocks and learn three or four games, thus likely improving their odds for employment and perhaps advancement.

Those auditions could come as early as mid-spring, said Dixon, noting that MGM Springfield will begin hiring experienced table-games workers in April and early May, and will likely start the hiring process with the first MCCTI graduates around that same time, meaning they could be on the payroll by June.

With that timetable, Diane Garvey will likely need an extension of her unemployment benefits to get by — something individuals can apply for and something that is often granted to those enrolled in training programs like MCCTI.

She told BusinessWest that she didn’t come to her decision to enroll in these classes quickly or easily. Instead, after much consideration, she decided that this seemed like the most logical path to take from the crossroads she arrived at, and maybe the best fit.

“I would have interaction with people, which is what I liked most about sales,” she explained. “And to be in an exciting environment like MGM … I thought that would be good for me as well. It looked like an opportunity I wanted to pursue.”

Improving Their Odds

While each student currently enrolled at MCCTI has a different story and a different perspective, there is a common denominator: they all use that word ‘opportunity.’

They see MGM and a job on the casino floor as a chance to add a missing piece — whether that piece is a career that’s not at a dead end or a part-time position that can add an intriguing wrinkle to retirement.

In both cases and a host of others that fall somewhere in between, it’s an opportunity. And to seize that opportunity, many are doing just what Orlando Marrero decided he had to do.

Roll the dice.

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

Manufacturing Field Is Turning More Heads

Sections Workforce Development

Making Some Progress

Elizabeth Ryan, working her way toward a bachelor’s degree in advanced technology systems, wants to move on to a leadership position in the manufacturing field.

While the region’s manufacturers continue to struggle to find qualified help and fill the enormous voids being left by retiring Baby Boomers, it appears that some progress is being made in efforts to inspire young people to consider the field and start down a path toward a career within it. Conversations with students at Springfield Technical Community College reveal that, while considerable work remains to be done to meet the workforce needs of this sector, some perceptions about it are changing.

Gary Masciadrelli said the letters keep coming.

And to back up those words, he started shuffling papers on his desk to find some. He didn’t have to look far or work hard.

“Here’s one — a local company looking for an intern,” said Masciadrelli, professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department at Springfield Technical Community College, as he held it aloft. “Here’s another one … someone looking for a manufacturing engineer. We get a letter almost every day or every other day. We’re constantly getting these demands for people to fill jobs; we could definitely use more students.”

Indeed, a number of area manufacturers are turning to STCC and Masciadrelli for some kind of help with a large and ongoing problem — finding enough talented help to help the steady steam of orders these companies are getting, especially as members of the Baby Boom generation reach retirement age.

“We have far more job opportunities than we have people to fill them,” said Masciadrelli as he talked with BusinessWest in his small office within STCC’s Smith & Wesson Technology Applications Center, equipped with state-of-the-art equipment on which students can train.

That ‘we’ he used referred to both the college — which has plenty of unused seats within both its associate-degree program and a new program launched in conjunction with Northeastern University whereby students may earn a bachelor’s degree on the STCC campus — and the manufacturing sector itself.

By some counts, there are hundreds of jobs, maybe more, within the region’s manufacturing sector that could be filled but have not been because there are simply not enough trained individuals. Changing this equation has become one of the top workforce-development priorities within the 413, which has a rich history in manufacturing and innovation dating back to the creation of the Springfield Armory (on what is now the STCC campus, ironically).

SEE: Business & Economic Resources

Masciadrelli told BusinessWest he’s doing what he can, but it remains a stern challenge to interest young people in this profession. Reasons vary, but at the top of the list are outdated perceptions about what the work is like; lingering doubts, fueled by talk about everything from robots to work going overseas, about the relative health of the sector moving forward; and strong memories among parents who saw stalwarts ranging from American Bosch to Moore Drop Forge to the Springfield Armory abruptly close their doors.

But some young people are managing to look beyond all that and see the vast potential that work in this sector holds. Many have role models, if you will — relatives or friends who stand as inspiring examples. And many are women, introduced to the field in high school and encouraged to continue down that path.

People like Lineisha Rosario, from Agawam, who started down the road to STCC and its mechanical engineering program (quite literally) while watching her father work on cars and becoming fascinated with how things worked.

“I was always with him and always willing to help, even though he didn’t let me because I was too little,” said Rosario, currently working for CNC Software Inc. in Tolland, Conn., which provides state-of-the-art software tools for CAD/CAM manufacturing markets, in the post-processing department.

She plans to continue working there after earning her associate’s degree in a few months, and encourages others to explore a field where they can stretch their imagination and expand their career horizon.

And also people like Elizabeth Ryan, who earned her associate’s degree at STCC and is now working toward her bachelor’s through the affiliation with Northeastern.

A graduate of Chicopee Comprehensive High School, she currently works as a mechanical engineer at Parts Tool & Die, an aerospace machine shop based in Agawam. She enjoys her current work handling programming, processing, and quoting, but has set her sights much higher.

“I want to move up the chain and see if I can get into a leadership position,” she explained. “I’m still fairly new to the industry since I’ve only been in it a year and half, but I have a lot of options now.”

Lineisha Rosario, currently working for CNC Software, says there are many career options for those looking to enter the broad field of manufacturing.

Indeed, she does, and this is the message that Masciadrelli and all those in the manufacturing sector want to get across loud and clear.

For this issue and its focus on workforce development, BusinessWest talked with Masciadrelli and several of the students enrolled in the programs at STCC. Their comments reveal that, while there’s still considerable work to do to close that gap noted earlier, this sector may be starting to turn some heads — as well as some cutting-edge parts for everything from the aerospace industry to the medical-device field.

Breaking the Mold

For many years now, area manufacturers, technical high schools, STCC, and workforce-development-related agencies such as the area regional employment boards have been working diligently to inspire young people — and their parents — to at least give manufacturing a hard look.

Programs have enjoyed varying degrees of success, but some progress has definitely been made when it comes to debunking myths and enlightening people about the opportunities to be found in this field.

For evidence of this, one needs to spend only a few minutes with Tim Vovk.

A graduate of West Springfield High School last May, he started work toward an associate’s degree at STCC last fall, more than four years after he signed up for something called the Pathways to Prosperity program, which introduces area young people to the manufacturing field while in high school.

“I thought to myself, ‘I might as well get to know the field; if I don’t like it, I can always leave it,’” he told BusinessWest. “I took the chance, and I grew to like it, especially the problem-solving aspect of it.”

Inspired by his cousin, a drafter at Pratt & Whitney, Vovk wants to follow a similar path because of the challenging and rewarding nature of design work.

Tim Vovk says he was introduced to manufacturing while in high school, and he grew to like it, especially the problem-solving nature of the work.

“I’m enjoying it even more than I thought I would,” he said, referring specifically to solid modeling and blueprinting. “It’s fun to see a concept take shape.”

The region — and area manufacturers — could use at least a few hundred individuals more like Vovk, and they’re a long way from getting there. But his story, or individual components of it (that’s an industry phrase), are becoming more common thanks to ongoing efforts to promote the industry, create pathways to enter it and thrive within in it, and provide people with the skills that area manufacturers are desperate for.

And STCC is at the forefront of all that, with new facilities (the Smith & Wesson Center), new programs such as the affiliation with Northeastern, and solid relationships with a number of area manufacturers, said Masciadrelli as he talked with BusinessWest just prior to a class (called Solid Modeling for Mechanical Design I) involving freshmen enrolled in the associate-degree program in mechanical engineering technology.

These students, mostly younger individuals but some looking for a new career opportunity, spent the first semester on basic modeling and learning software. In this spring semester, they are learning what Masciadrelli called the “mechanics of design,” meaning proper drawing standards, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, and understanding how to put all that on blueprints, and, in general, understanding the language of design.

By the time they earn their degree roughly 15 months later, and probably well before that, they could be owning jobs in several different realms, including design (CAD); manufacturing, such as using Mastercam programming; and the broad ‘quality’ realm.

While those at STCC are training students for the field, they’re also trying to sell young people and their parents on a profession. And in most respects, it remains a hard sell, said Masciadrelli.

“You have to get into the high schools and get to the guidance counselors and the parents as well,” he explained. “They need to be made aware that this field has changed and there are some great opportunities for good-paying jobs and careers.

“Technology has changed the field of engineering tremendously,” he went on. “Things that were done by hand … the computer has taken over everything. Look at CNC machining; people are no longer running a Bridgeport, turning cranks and feeling the work. The computer runs the CNC machine; with the technology involved, a lot more people can get involved in this work.”

And by all indications, there will be plenty of work in the years and decades to come, he continued.

Currently working at GKN Aerospace in Connecticut, Amanda Cyr is working toward her bachelor’s degree and, hopefully, a leadership position in manufacturing.

“The people at Pratt & Whitney are telling me they’re seeing no changes in he current demands for decades,” said Masciadrelli. “They never been so busy.”

He said the affiliation with Northeastern will help in this regard, because it will enable people to earn a four-year degree while they work (this is a night program) and in Springfield, as opposed to Boston or Amherst (UMass). And with that degree, new doors of opportunity can be opened.

“We want to show people what a great opportunity they have right here,”Masciadrelli explained. “You come here, spend two years, get a job — you’ll definitely be working when you graduate, and probably well before that — and while you’re working, you can complete your bachelor’s degree at night on this campus.”

There are actually two offerings through the affiliation with Northeastern — a degree in mechanical engineering technology (an offering that did not attract enough students to become reality this year), and another in advanced technology systems, which has attracted six students for this spring, including Ryan.

Where Dreams Take Shape

Perhaps the best selling tool the college has when it comes to its programs and the profession as a whole, Masciadrelli said, are individuals like its graduates and current students (most all of them already working in the field as well).

Through word-of-mouth referrals, they let others become aware of everything from the ample supplies of jobs available to the attractive salaries they offer. Through their stories, they effectively communicate that careers in this field are desirable and, contrary to popular opinion, not beyond their reach academically.

David Nawrocki, a graduate of Chicopee Comprehensive High School, tells a story heard often at STCC.

“Originally, I was going to do the engineering science transfer and transfer from here to UMass, but then I saw the course list, and I felt like a wanted to cry,” he explained. “I’m not really into Calc 2 and all the higher math like that. One of the admissions people sat down with me and saw how frustrated I was. I came and talked to Gary [Masciadrelli] my junior year, and he said, ‘I’ll see you next year.’”

Set to graduate in May, Nawrocki, currently working as an inspector at B&E Tool in Southwick, plans to enroll in the Northwestern advanced manufacturing program, earn his bachelor’s degree, and create more potential landing spots.

Specifically, he’d like to be a project manager or manufacturing engineer. “Something that combines the design side that I like with the practical application of the knowledge,” he explained.

Meanwhile, one his co-workers at B&E, Leah Babinova, a graduate of Westfield Vocational Technical High School last May, is just getting started at STCC.

She was inspired by her two sisters, both of whom went to STCC. One is now working toward a degree in aerospace engineering, while the other is working for a manufacturer in Connecticut.

Also an inspector at B&E, Babinova said she had that job before she even graduated from high school. Surveying the field, she said there are many attractive career opportunities already within her reach, and many more if she adds college degrees.

“There are a lot of good jobs out there,” she told BusinessWest. “Most people just aren’t aware of how many opportunities there are.”

Amanda Cyr is well aware. She’s already been working in the aerospace-engineering field for roughly eight years, since just before her graduation from Westfield Voke.

She’s currently at GKN Aerospace in Newington, Conn. as a manufacturing engineer and robotics programmer. She graduated from the associate-degree program at STCC and is now enrolled in the Northeastern program to generate more of those options her classmate Ryan talked about earlier.

David Nawrocki, an inspector at B&E Tool, is working toward his associates degree, and will press on for his bachelor’s

“I just want to continue growing within the industry and have plans to possibly be in a leadership role,” she explained. “And I think having a bachelor’s will help me down that path.”

She spoke for her classmates, her co-workers, and just about everyone else in the industry when she talked about why she chose it as a career.

“It’s challenging, it’s fast-paced, but it’s good — really good,” she said, while Ryan, sitting next to her, nodded her head in agreement.

“The whole world revolves around manufacturing,” she told BusinessWest. “Everything around you has to be manufactured, so if you think about things in that way, you get engaged in it. And the more you get engaged in it, the more you enjoy it.”

Part and Parcel

As Masciadrelli talked about the manufacturing field and the many types of opportunities within it, he said that, while the money’s good, and that’s important, the work itself brings many different kinds of rewards that are not obvious to many on the outside looking in.

“It’s an exciting field — you’re doing something, you’re making something,” he told BusinessWest. “You start with a drawing, and all of the sudden, that becomes something real; things fit together, or they don’t fit together. That’s what fun about it.”

People like Scott Vovk, Elizabeth Ryan, Amanda Cyr, and Victoria Bradenberg have already figured that part out. The region’s manufacturers need hundreds more to become similarly enlightened if they are to have enough talented people to handle the contracts coming their way.

It’s a huge challenge in every respect, but there is progress being made, in every sense of that phrase.

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

Business Owners Should Be Aware of Key Changes in This Realm

Banking and Financial Services Sections

Entertaining Thoughts

By Carolyn Bourgoin, CPA

Carolyn Bourgoin

For many businesses, corporate entertainment has long been a means of building relationships with referral sources, vendors, and strategic partners as well as providing networking opportunities for physicians and practice managers to meet new referral sources and industry influencers and to build a presence in the marketplace.

The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has eliminated most deductions for business-entertainment expenses paid or incurred after Dec. 31, 2017. Drawing the line between the portion of an entertainment activity that is business-related versus for pleasure has long been an area of contention between the IRS and taxpayers. Though the TCJA did eliminate most business-entertainment expenses, certain expenditures, mainly those benefiting employees, did survive the tax cut.

Taxpayers need to understand what expenses survived the repeal so that they can properly segregate the deductible costs.

Expenditures Paid or Incurred Prior to 12/31/17

Prior to the TCJA, entertainment expenses and the use of entertainment facilities were deductible only if the taxpayer could establish that the costs were either directly related to a taxpayer’s trade or business or associated with the active conduct of a trade or business for which a substantial and bona fide business discussion occurred either directly before or after the event. In addition to meeting the ‘directly related to or associated with’ test, entertainment-expense deductions had to satisfy strict substantiation requirements, including details on the amount of the expense, the time and place of the entertainment, the business purpose, and the business relationship with the persons entertained. The term ‘entertainment’ includes activities at country clubs, nightclubs, sporting events, cocktail lounges, and theaters. Though not defined by regulations, business-entertainment expenses are to be further reduced by amounts considered “lavish or extravagant.”

Additional cost limitations apply to skybox rentals, sports tickets purchased for more than face value, and attendance at foreign conventions. Country-club dues were (and still are) nondeductible.

Business entertainment expenses that had escaped limitation at this point were then generally limited to 50% of the expense, unless they fell under one of several exceptions, including certain entertainment expenses included as compensation to the recipient and social or recreational entertainment provided primarily for the benefit of employees who were not highly compensated. These business-entertainment expenditures were fully deductible and survived the TCJA repeal and will be addressed later in this article.

Entertainment Expenditures Paid or Incurred After Dec. 31, 2017

Pursuant to the TCJA, expenses related to entertainment, amusement, or recreation that are directly related to or associated with the active conduct of the taxpayers’ trade or business are no longer deductible. As a result, a tax deduction will not be allowed for the following items incurred after Dec. 31, 2017:

• Expenses incurred for the use of entertainment facilities, such as the lease of skyboxes, are no longer deductible. However, businesses should review their lease agreements to see if there may be a component included in the rental price for advertising. This portion of the rental cost would be fully deductible as advertising if properly documented and reclassified;

• Expenses related to the entertainment of a client or prospect at a sporting event, theater, concert, or similar type venue (unless included in a 1099 as a prize) are not deductible under the new rules;

• Expenses for attending charitable sporting events, such as a golf tournament, where the entire net proceeds go to charity, will not be deductible to the extent of the cost of the golf or other goods or services provided. Until further guidance is issued, it is unclear whether the meals offered at an entertainment event are still 50% deductible. To the extent the ticket price exceeds the goods and services received, the taxpayer will be entitled to a charitable deduction; and

• As was the case prior to the tax-reform act, dues paid to any social, athletic, or sporting club or organization are non-deductible expenses.

Business-entertainment Expenses Still Allowed

As discussed previously, there are nine categories of entertainment-related expenditures that were not eliminated by the TCJA, as follows:

• Expenses for recreational, social, or similar activities (including related facilities) offered primarily for the benefit of employees other than highly compensated employees are fully deductible. A holiday party or annual picnic are examples;

• Expenses directly related to bona fide business meetings of stockholders, employees, agents, or directors are allowed. Examples of such expenditures would be refreshments offered to employees at a meeting where they are being instructed in a new business procedure. Food and beverages served at these meetings would be subject to the 50% limitation;

• Expenses directly related and necessary to attendance at a business meeting or convention held by a business league, chamber of commerce, real-estate board, or board of trade are deductible. Meals at these meetings would be subject to the 50% limitation;

• Expenses for services, goods, and facilities made available by the taxpayer to the general public, such as during a promotional campaign, are deductible;

• Expenses for food and beverages furnished on the taxpayer’s business premises primarily for the taxpayer’s employees (i.e. more than half), are deductible. The cost of meals provided for the convenience of the employer, such as when employees must be available throughout a mealtime, are only 50% deductible as of Jan. 1, 2018. Prior to the TCJA, these meals were 100% deductible. In addition, meals provided at an employer’s on-site dining facility are subject to the 50% limitation until Jan. 1, 2026, when meals for the convenience of the employer as well as the meals and cost of operating an on-site dining facility are no longer deductible;

• Entertainment expenses that are treated as compensation to employees, by including the costs in employee wages for income-tax-withholding purposes, are deductible;

• Expenses for entertainment-related goods or services, to the extent they are includible in the gross income of the recipient as compensation for services rendered or as a prize or award, are allowed. The recipient in this case would not be an employee of the taxpayer and must be issued a 1099 to the extent the goods or services received exceed $600;

• Expenses for goods or services (including the use of facilities) which are sold by the taxpayer in a bona fide transaction for adequate and full consideration in money or money’s worth are deductible. An example of this would be the cost of meals sold by a restaurant, and

• Expenses incurred by a professional firm for actual meal expenses that are charged back and reimbursed by a client, where the meals are separately stated in the invoice, are deductible.

De minimis fringe benefits, which are benefits that are so small as to make accounting for them unreasonable, such as coffee, soft drinks, and donuts offered to employees, remain fully deductible through the tax year 2025. In addition, meals associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business are still allowed, subject to the 50% limitation. Until further guidance is issued, it is unclear whether meals purchased at a business-entertainment event, such as after a round of golf or attending a ballgame, are a non-deductible entertainment expense or if they meet the business-related tests and are still deductible subject to the 50% meals limitation.

Classifying sporting tickets provided to clients as business gifts does not provide much relief, as the tax deduction is limited to $25 per item.

Bottom Line

Due to the recent changes in the tax law, it is important for taxpayers to consult with their tax advisors and develop an understanding of the business meals and entertainment expenses that remain deductible and develop a strategy to track them. It would be wise to set up separate accounts based on whether they are 100%, 50% or nondeductible.

Amounts paid to attend entertainment events should be analyzed to see if there are advertising or charitable components to the cost that can be reclassified as fully deductible. Consideration could be given to issuing 1099s to clients or prospects being provided with free tickets to events to make the cost deductible as prizes. Though the TCJA was not favorable to taxpayers that incur business-entertainment expenses, there are still some expenses in this area that remain deductible.

Carolyn Bourgoin, CPA is a senior tax manager with the Holyoke-based public accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.; (413) 322-3483; [email protected]

There Are Some New Rules — and Situations — to Be Avoided

Banking and Financial Services Sections

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

By Sean Wandrei

Sean Wandrei

In December 2017, Congress passed H.R.1, better known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The act is the largest overhaul of the tax code since 1986. As with any new legislation, there are opportunities and pitfalls that one needs to be aware of when trying to take advantage of the new rules and avoid unwanted situations.

There are still many questions related to the act that the IRS will need to issue guidance on. There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s take a look at some items that businesses and individuals should be aware of.

The act reduces the corporate tax rate to a flat tax rate of 21%. This means the first dollar of taxable income is taxed at a 21% rate. This reduction could cause many owners of non-taxpaying entities (e.g. partnerships, limited liability companies, and S-corporations, also known as pass-through entities) to consider switching to a taxpaying entity (i.e. C-corporation). The maximum tax rate that the income of a pass-through entity could be taxed at is 37%.

Business owners could decide that their business should convert from a pass-through entity to a C-corporation based on this. While the reduction of the tax rate sounds great, there could be some issues that could increase the overall tax due if the entity is a C-corporation. If the owner(s) want to take money out of the C-corporation in the form of dividends, it will have to pay taxes on the dividends from the C-corporation at a maximum rate of 23.8% (20% tax on the dividend plus 3.8% net investment-income tax).

This is known as double taxation, which impacts only C-corporations and not pass-through entities. This could reduce or eliminate the overall tax savings of converting the entity to a C-corporation.

While taxes paid are usually a major factor on entity selection, there are some non-tax items to consider. Owners of C-corporations can receive tax-free employee benefits that pass-through entities are not entitled to. Another tax-savings option that was available prior to the act is the exclusions of the gain on the sale of qualified small-business stock (QSBS) under Code Section 1202. This provision was amended in 2010, allowing QSBS acquired after Sept. 27, 2010 to be eligible to exclude the total gain on the sale. There are a few rules that have to be met to allow for the 100% exclusion. Section 1202 is available only for C-corporations. This means that, when the owner decides to sell his or her stock, the gain from the sale of that stock would be tax-free. The reduced tax rate and non-tax benefits could make C-corporations more attractive to some.

C-corporations are not the only business entities that received a tax break from the act. Pass-through entities are able to take a deduction of 20% on the qualified business income (QBI) earned from the business. Individuals who are sole proprietor and file a Schedule C and individuals with rental activity reported on Schedule E also qualify for this deduction.

On the surface, this deduction seems to be straightforward, but there is a lot to this deduction. Not all businesses qualify, and the deduction could be limited. QBI can be thought of as ordinary income from the business. The catch is that the deduction is limited to the lesser of 20% of QBI or 50% of the total W-2 wages paid by the business. So wages need to be paid to be able to take this deduction.

The 50% of W-2 wages does not apply if the owner’s taxable income is below $315,000 for married filing jointly (MFJ) and $157,500 for other taxpayers. This deduction may not be available to a specified service trade or business (SSTB). A SSTB is a business involving service in many fields, including law, accounting, consulting, and financial services. Engineers and architects were excluded from the definition of SSTB in a last-minute change. If the owner’s taxable income is below $315,000 for MFJ and $157,500 for other taxpayers, the SSTB limitation does not apply.

The planning that comes into play for this deduction is based on the entity type. QBI does not include reasonable compensation paid by an S-corporation to the owner(s). Similarly, QBI does not include amounts paid as guaranteed payments by a partnership to the owner(s).

Based on this, if the pass-through entity is an S-corporation, reasonable wages are going to be deducted from the QBI, which will reduce QBI and the deduction. A partnership and sole proprietor are not required to take guaranteed payments, so the QBI could be larger for a partnership than an S-corporation based on this. If the taxable income is below the limits mentioned above, the 50% of W-2 wages option does not come into play, and the larger deduction will be had by the partnership and sole proprietor.

If the 50% of W-2 wages comes into play, then the S-corporation will have to pay W-2 wages, and the partnership will have to pay guaranteed payments to owners or wages to non-owners to be able to take this deduction. With this in mind, the owner’s taxable income will need to be monitored.

For individuals, the elimination of exemptions and the doubling of the standard deduction will cause more taxpayers to take the standard deduction instead of itemizing. It is said that only 10% of the population will itemize in 2018 compared to 30% in 2017. If you fall into the 10% of people who itemize, you may have heard that one of the biggest deductions, state and local taxes, is limited to $10,000 per return.

This is the case if you are single or filing as MFJ; the deduction is limited to $10,000. The marriage penalty is back. If the MFJ couple was not married and filed as single taxpayers, then they each would be able to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local taxes.

In the past, the interest from a home-equity loan was deductible. The proceeds from the home-equity loan could have been used for anything. Now the interest from a home-equity loan is no longer deductible unless it is used to buy, build, or substantially improve the taxpayer’s home that secures the loan. Prior to the act, employees were able to deduct unreimbursed business expenses related to their job. This is no longer the case.

As you can see, the act has provided many new things to consider when it comes to taxes. Now, more than ever, your CPA will be counted on to help with tax planning.

Sean Wandrei is a lecturer in Taxation at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. He also practices at a local CPA firm; [email protected]

Conversations About Mental Health

Opinion

By William A. Dávila

“A silent epidemic.” “The great unspoken health issue of our time.” “An invisible illness.” “A hidden crisis.” From the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerald to New York Times Magazine, the issue of mental health and its impact on human lives is getting lots of attention — and it’s well-deserved.

A mental illness is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder and can vary in impact, ranging from no impairment to mild, moderate, and even severe impairment. In 2016, there were an estimated 44.7 million adults aged 18 or older in the U.S. with a mental illness, and up to one in five children living in the U.S. shows signs or symptoms of a mental-health concern in any given year. Yet, nearly 80% of the children who need services won’t get them. That has to stop.

When not feeling well physically, we don’t delay our need for medical treatment or advice. So when we are not feeling well emotionally, or our children may not be feeling their emotional best, why is the decision to seek assistance less than expeditious?

It was over a casual lunch recently that a colleague of mine shared a story of her teenaged son who was having a difficult time managing anxiety related to school. He has friends and gets good grades, but anxiety was keeping him from feeling right. It got to the point where my colleague and her spouse realized it was time to seek help from of a professional. The problem was not ‘just going away.’

Her son immediately objected. Why? He was worried that other people would think he was weak if they found out he was seeing a therapist. He didn’t want to believe that asking for help is actually a sign of strength. It took some parental persuasion, but he agreed to talk with a therapist — an objective professional who isn’t a family member — and it helped right away. The young man learned more about what he was feeling and why, which has made him more confident and at ease. Working with a therapist has been a game-changer.

So, how do we collectively build a supportive community where young people feel comfortable having open and honest conversations about their emotional well-being? There are things we all can do:

• Educate ourselves and our communities. Invite local mental-health experts — CHD will happily visit — to speak at a school group, a parent meeting, your congregation, or any community gathering.

• Ask your children, your students, the young people in your life, “how are you?” and then really listen to their response. If you’re sensing something might not be right, trust your instincts and probe. Ask again.

• Set a positive example. Take care of yourself and make your own emotional fitness a priority in your life.

• Be inclusive. Mental health does not discriminate; it can affect all of us.

The sooner we de-stigmatize mental health, the sooner more who need help will seek and find it.

William A. Dávila, Ed.D., MSW, LICSW is vice president of CHD Clinical Services.

Changing the Equation

Opinion

Editorial

The day after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. last month, many of the nation’s major newspapers ran a story with a similar theme. They wrote about how, despite the seemingly endless run of similar tragedies, nothing seems to change.

The New York Times even ran a collection of photos from the past 20 years depicting the sequence of events that take place when there’s one of these shootings — a president offering condolences, parents crying outside a school, a community holding a candlelight vigil, parents testifying before Congress about the need for change.

The thrust of these stories, of course, is that nothing happens after all that. Nothing. Which is why the pictures look the same 20 years later, except for the occupant of the White House. The sentiment expressed in those stories was that nothing was likely to change this time, either.

And maybe they’re right. But this time, something is very different, and because of that, this story may have a different ending.

What’s different is the manner in which the students at the high school have come forward to essentially demand change — and how their courage and conviction are inspiring others to do the same. They have struck a chord with many Americans, from the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, who announced that the company would no longer sell automatic rifles — or any gun to anyone under the age of 21 — to governors and congressmen.

We can only hope that momentum isn’t lost and that the nation doesn’t move on from Parkland, as it has moved on from the gun tragedies that came earlier, before other, more significant changes can come about.

That’s still a distinct possibility, but the young people in Parkland, and those walking out of schools across the country in silent and sometimes not-so-silent protest, might change the equation just like the women who sparked the #MeToo movement have.

How? By essentially getting in the face of the generations that came before them and saying, ‘you’ve failed us, and you need to do better.’ And never has a truer statement been spoken. Members of those older generations — from the sheriffs in Parkland who missed all those signs and failed to go into the school and stop the shooter, to elected leaders who stifle any and all efforts to curb access to guns — failed those young people. And it’s easy to see why they’re so angry, disappointed, and bent on inspiring change.

For members of those older generations, the biggest worries they faced in high school were passing a physics exam, the acne on their face, and getting a date for the prom. They didn’t have to worry about getting shot at by someone not mentally fit to be owning a gun but in possession of one anyway.

Today’s young people do. And they shouldn’t have to. They have a right to be safe, and the older generations are obligated to honor that right.

Let’s be clear about something. This is not about guns. Or just about guns. It’s also about mental health, and bullying, and somehow controlling the hate that is spreading through this country like a wildfire. But guns are a big part of the equation.

Making sure that guns don’t wind up in the hands of someone who would kill 17 high-school students is a daunting, almost impossible task. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. And it starts by paying as much attention to why people pull the trigger (especially in a crowded school or theater) as we do to who can buy guns and when.

Maybe those convinced that nothing significant is going to change this time are right — already, Congress seems stuck in quicksand over the same old fights. But thanks to those students in Florida and the countless others they’ve inspired, there is more hope than ever before that a corner can be turned, and high-school students can someday go back to just worrying about acne and a physics test.

Emerging Technologies Will Bring Dramatic Changes to Business

Features

Embracing the Future

About 40 area business leaders heard Delcie Bean’s encouragement to embrace change and think differently if they don’t want to be left behind by coming innovations.

Delcie Bean knows something about innovation, building the company he launched at age 13, Paragus IT, into a nimble, multi-faceted presence in the region’s IT world. He’s also passionate about futurism studies, understanding better than most that several emerging innovations will dramatically alter the way entire industries do business — leaving many companies hopelessly behind. But for those willing to embrace the change, it’s also a time of great excitement.

In 2013, a small team of entrepreneurs birthed a company called Casper Sleep. Two years later, two brothers launched a similar outfit called Purple Innovation.

“Both sell mattresses online. And they totally disrupted that industry,” Delcie Bean, founder of Paragus IT and Tech Foundry, recently told a crowd of 40 area business leaders, explaining that, for generations, mattresses were designed, manufactured, distributed, and sold by, well, designers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, each with a well-defined role.

“That’s how mattresses have been sold for a very, very long time. But they screwed that all up. They designed their own mattress, manufactured the mattress, and sold it online. And they totally changed the ecosystem,” Bean said, noting that the two startups now control 20% of the U.S. mattress market. “And all they did was capitalize on the Internet.”

That last comment might have been the scariest thing Bean said during his wide-ranging discussion, titled “An Unprecedented Technology Disruption,” the first in a four-part series called Future Tense, presented by BusinessWest at Tech Foundry in Springfield.

That’s because disruptions like the one Casper and Purple managed — and other famous examples, such as Blockbuster’s rapid demise in the era of Netflix, Amazon’s recent dominance of the retail sector, and the way digital photography all but erased Kodak from the public consciousness — may become near-constant events in the not-so-distant future, due to several emerging trends (more on those later) that, some analysts say, could have four or five times the impact the Internet and the smartphone have already had on the economic landscape.

“Think about how different life is today; think about all the things that would not have been true before the Internet existed, and then try to imagine what it would be like to have something four to five times bigger than that disrupt our lives,” Bean said.

Perhaps the most daunting development will be the sheer speed of those shifts, he continued. “We are not wired for this. Human beings are struggling just to keep up with the rate of change we experience today, and if you compare that to 20 years ago, then compare it to 100 years ago, we are moving at a pace that is almost hard to compare to earlier generations. And the rate of change we are about to experience in the next 30 years, we’re totally unprepared for.”

To put things in perspective, he noted that it took the telephone 75 years, after its invention, to reach 50 million people. Radio took 38 years, television 13. The Internet, once opened to the general public in the 1990s, took only four.

Less than a decade ago, with smartphones becoming more widely used, the mobile game Angry Birds needed only 35 days to boast 50 million users. Two years ago, Pokémon Go needed less than a tenth of that: just three days.

“That’s the rate of change we’re talking about, where things are going to happen very quickly. What is true today might not be true tomorrow. The business I’m competing with today might not be my competitor tomorrow. My customer might not be the same customer tomorrow. These things are going to happen very quickly.”

The ripple effects, he said, will be massive and unpredictable, the result of doing business in an interconnected world where new advances have the potential of circling the globe in less than a week.

To demonstrate, Bean settled on four emerging technologies — 3D printing, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality — he believes will create the greatest disruptions and most significant ripple effects for the business world over the next couple of decades, and why they are reason for excitement, not fear, for those willing to accept and embrace the change.

Driving Change

Until recently, there was one way for a musician to become famous — get signed to a major record label and trust in its ability and willingness to promote and distribute the music.

“Now, it doesn’t matter,” Bean said, “because it got democratized with the creation of things like iTunes, which built a platform where a musician could take their art and essentially immediately distribute it to a mass market without a label.”

In fact, the broader world of media was also democratized in the Internet age; no longer does an individual need the backing of a newspaper, book publisher, or TV network to deliver a message; anyone can build a website and reach millions of people.

Some people are still thinking of this as a fun hobby or a cool science experiment. But 3D printing is going to have a massive impact.”

3D printing, he explained — with its ability to replicate basically anything, from complex machinery to human tissue — has the potential to do that to manufacturing.

“Anybody could become a manufacturer. The technology is going to get cheaper and cheaper, the raw materials will get more and more available, and the technology needed to create the design and the products will get cheaper and cheaper. You’re going to have high-school students printing their own T-shirts to wear to school instead of having to go and buy them.”

The ripple effects of anyone being able to create anything will be huge, he said, not only for manufacturing, but distribution, retail, and malls — the latter of which, in turn, impacts real-estate development.

“Some people are still thinking of this as a fun hobby or a cool science experiment. But 3D printing is going to have a massive impact,” he explained. “We can design and produce individual items, so everybody’s smartphone could be different. Everyone’s pair of glasses could literally be different. They could all be perfectly shaped, perfectly fit, perfectly cut for you.”

Autonomous driving is another example of the ripple effect Bean returned to several times during his presentation. He posited a world where people won’t have to own cars, but, rather, subscribe to a service that, for a monthly fee, delivers a self-driving vehicle on demand, which transports the user to his or her destination, then drives off.

“Essentially, it’s Uber, but it’s everywhere, and there’s no human being driving the car, which drives the costs down, which changes the economics a lot,” Bean explained.

And what are the ripple effects? Well, convenience stores — which get most of their food sales from people fueling up their cars — would suffer. So would auto dealerships; perhaps some auto groups would move into the realm of managing fleets of self-driving vehicles for a host of subscribers, while others, not so nimble, would fade away like so many Blockbusters. Meanwhile, parking garages and lots could be repurposed for other types of real estate, changing cityscapes in intriguing ways. And Bean didn’t even touch on the potential impact — and loss of jobs — in the trucking industry.

The effects extend further, he said. If people don’t actually have to drive the cars, they could use their commute to do basically anything — eat breakfast, do their hair, answer e-mails, read the news — which lessens the efficiency drain of a long ride to work, which could, in turn, make city living less of a necessity.

“If autonomous driving does what it’s supposed to do, which is to reduce traffic, make my commute much more enjoyable, and arguably also make my commute more productive, faster, and efficient, the need to live in a city changes,” Bean said. “Right now, we’re going through a resurgence of everybody moving back into cities for convenience, to get access to things, for nightlife. What if that starts to shift back out? I don’t care if I’m 20 minutes from work or an hour from work, because it doesn’t really matter.”

What Is Real?

The other two concepts Bean dove into at length — artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual and augmented reality — may bring a higher gee-whiz factor, but both have very down-to-earth implications for business.

He noted that computing has always been based in programming — tell the computer A, it spits out B. “They do what we tell them to do, but faster, better, cleaner, and they make our lives easier.”

AI, on the other hand, is the concept of computers doing the thinking as well. We’re seeing its infancy in anecdotes like Target sending coupons for diapers to a woman who just found out she was pregnant but hadn’t yet told a soul — because Target’s AI basically observed her behavior online and correctly pegged her as an expectant mother.

“That was done by a computer algorithm that’s programmed to look for different things and then weight them,” Bean noted. “That’s how our thinking works. We take inputs, we weight the inputs based on certain things — our biases, our experiences, intelligence, knowledge — and then we formulate a decision.”

For computers to essentially take on that role is a scary concept for some — and it could wind up costing jobs.

“We are used to living in a world where, for the most part, the only work we think of being done by robots is typically labor-intensive and manual,” he said. “We don’t think of the kind of high-level, high-intelligence, high-skilled work being subject to being replaced by robotics and by artificial intelligence, but that’s what we’re approaching.”

For example, Boston Children’s Hospital now has more requests for robot-assisted surgery than human surgery, he noted, meaning parents trust doctors working with robot-controlled instruments than they trust the doctors’ own hands.

Or take the legal field, where the task of, say, poring through thousands of e-mails during the discovery process for a court case, looking for trends and key data, could be performed more quickly, accurately, and efficiently by a program than a human being.

“I think that’s the world we have to start to think about. We’re not just talking about fast-food workers; we’re not just talking about taxicab drivers. We’re talking about doctors and lawyers, jobs that we never would have thought could be subject to automation replacement,” Bean noted. “We’re far away from seeing a robot argue for a defendant in a courtroom, but we’re not far from a lot of the back-office functions being replaced.”

As for virtual and augmented reality, the technology could eventually become ubiquitous, ditching today’s bulky goggles for glasses or contact lenses and, eventually, implanted chips that will blur the lines between real and virtual in what people see and experience around them.

The applications aren’t as clear as those for 3D printing or self-driving cars, but could range from tourism — Bean theorized about a program that lets people walk down a city street but experience it in a different era, populated with the stores and dress styles of the past — to therapy, with a doctor prescribing a virtual ‘buddy’ to follow someone around and give them emotional support.

Virtual reality could also impact the one form of investment that has always been believed to hold its value, because it is limited: real estate.

“At the end of the day, you cannot create more real estate. But what if that wasn’t true?” Bean said. “We will be able to create space. We will be able to manufacture land as we think about it — a place where somebody goes to have an experience, to see something, to buy something, to do something, to meet someone, hear a concert, see a performance. We will be able to manufacture that at a very low cost. The most popular mall in America, in the world, might be an artificially created mall that is owned by a 15-year-old kid. That’s feasibly possible. And it will still have value.”

In short, if a business can draw traffic to a virtual world — if they can get people to ‘visit’ a place, have an experience, and spend money — then that created reality could have value rivaling that of physical real estate.

It’s one way, Bean said, that corporate assets will change in the future, with data and algorithms taking on oversized importance, and companies acquiring other firms not to make more profit, but to add data, technology and innovation.

“Data will be the next gold,” he said. “The next gold rush will be about acquiring data. Good data will be a key asset on your balance sheet.”

Staying Alive

Why is all this important? Because no one wants to become the next Blockbuster or Kodak — and those cautionary tales will occur, with regularity, as the four technologies Bean discussed at Future Tense become more accessible to the masses.

“We’re going to be living in a world where that could be a daily occurrence. It will be very, very common that a major industry is completely innovated in a very short period of time by an entrepreneur, by a new business, taking a new concept and applying it to an old industry.”

Perhaps most frighteningly, the rate of change and innovation will, for the first time, take away more jobs than it creates, he explained. Every major evolution or disruption has displaced jobs, but created more in return. But this will not necessarily be the case going forward.

“There’s no question some of this can feel a little scary, be a little bit alarming,” he said, “but, at the same time, it should be a little bit exciting. And hopefully some of you are seeing this as the opportunity it really, truly is. This is an opportunity for us to do things we’re not doing now, to reinvent ourselves.”

To do that, companies — and entire industries — need to accept that these changes are coming, he argued, and embrace the change, rather than retreating to the comfort of denial. “If that’s still your mindset, well, focus on that last seven years of your career and retire. But if you’re really going to participate in this, be a part of it rather than being lost in it, you need to accept it and then embrace it and try to get excited about it.”

Part of that is thinking differently, even in industries, like manufacturing, that haven’t drastically changed the way they operate in 100 years, aside from automating some of their processes. It also means examining the value a company can offer in the realm of data, and how that can be commercialized. Most of all, it means recognizing the next big shift before someone else does.

Going back to Blockbuster for a moment, Bean noted that the company failed to look beyond its physical DVDs to see itself as a more holistic provider of home entertainment. “If they had, there’s a chance they could have launched an online service 10 years before they did — and when they finally did, it was a joke. But they could have gotten there. Kodak could have gotten there. They didn’t because they weren’t willing to think differently. We have to fundamentally think differently.”

Thinking differently includes a new view of startups, too, seeing them not as threats, but as idea generators and potential partners.

“Businesses should be helping those startups, trying to get on their boards, giving them funding, giving them ideas — they should be opening up their doors and welcoming those startups. Because those are going to be a future acquisition, and that very well may be the company you buy that saves your own company.”

Putting physical value on virtual real estate? Emphasizing acquisition over research and development? Outsourcing skilled jobs to robots? It’s a lot to take in, Bean admitted, and it can be scary. But he’s learned to think … well, differently about his own fears.

“If you embrace it, it’s a massive opportunity, and that’s how we need to view it, because it will help us survive in a lot of ways,” he concluded. “As dire as that sounds, survival also means thriving — and that’s how I see it.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Picture This

Departments Picture This

Email ‘Picture This’ photos with a caption and contact information to [email protected]

Room to Grow

Big Y’s distribution center on Roosevelt Avenue in Springfield, which now supports 70 supermarkets with more planned, will soon be expanded from its current, 189,000-square-foot space to 425,000 square feet, requiring an additional 32 full-time employees at the site. Big Y announced the project, expected to cost between $35 million and $40 million, on Feb. 23. Below (top to bottom): from left, Kevin Kennedy, Springfield’s chief Development officer; Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno; Claire D’Amour-Daley, Big Y’s vice president of Corporate Communications; and Big Y President Charlie D’Amour. Middle: D’Amour speaks to the crowd gathered for the announcement. Bottom: Sarno, D’Amour, and D’Amour-Daley with Big Y employees.

Briefcase

Briefcase Departments

Tighe & Bond Publishes 2017 Water and Sewer Rate Survey Results

WESTFIELD — Tighe & Bond published the results of its most recent Massachusetts Water and Sewer Rate Survey. Since 1997, Tighe & Bond has gathered and published Massachusetts water and sewer user rate data that municipal government and private water suppliers can use as a benchmarking tool for comparing their rates against other suppliers in the state. The survey, conducted across the state during 2017, includes typical annual homeowner water and sewer costs for most systems throughout Massachusetts. It also provides information regarding rate structures and billing cycles. This can be particularly useful information when suppliers are considering adjustments to their current rates or rate structures. Tighe & Bond is now teaming with the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina School of Government to present the results of the firm’s rate study using a free, online rates dashboard developed, hosted and maintained by the center. This gives users more flexibility in examining the survey data. Users can adjust the assumed annual usage the comparison is based on, review conservation and affordability metrics, as well as compare annual bills. They can also compare rates by utility size, river basin, geographic area, and median household income. The 2017 water survey indicates that annual water costs in in Massachusetts range from a low of $123 to a high of $2,025. The 2017 average is $595, and the median is $568. Sixty-five percent of survey respondents have increased their rates since the 2014 survey. The 2017 sewer survey indicates that annual sewer costs in in Massachusetts range from a low of $229 to a high of $2,316. The 2017 average is $862, and the median is $838. Three-quarters of survey respondents have increased their rates since the 2014 survey. Anyone can access the online rates dashboard, or request a copy of these survey results, by visiting www.tighebond.com/category/rate-surveys.

Opioid-related Overdose Deaths Fell by More Than 8% in 2017

BOSTON — Opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts declined in 2017 by an estimated 8.3% compared to 2016. This is the first time in several years there has been a year-over-year decline, according to the quarterly report released by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. This is the third consecutive quarterly report where the number of estimated and confirmed opioid-related deaths declined. The total number of estimated and confirmed opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017 was 1,977, which is 178 fewer deaths than the 2,155 estimated and confirmed deaths in 2016, or an 8.3% decrease. In previous years, the year-over-year comparisons showed increases in opioid-related overdose deaths; the estimated opioid-related overdose death rate in 2016 increased by 22% from 2015, there was a 30% increase in 2015 from the prior year, and in 2014, there was a 39% increase from 2013.

Bradley Airport to Introduce Non-stop Service to St. Louis

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — The Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) announced the debut of new daily, non-stop service between Bradley International Airport and St. Louis Lambert International Airport on Southwest Airlines. The service will commence on Aug. 7, utilizing a Boeing 737, with an average of 143 seats. The daily departure from Bradley International Airport is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. (Eastern Time), with an arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport at 12:45 p.m. (Central Time). The inbound flight is scheduled to leave St. Louis at 4:25 p.m. (Central) and arrive at Bradley at 7:50 p.m. (Eastern). This route will be Southwest’s 10th non-stop destination out of Bradley International Airport. The airline currently offers non-stop service from Bradley to Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Las Vegas, Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach. The airline first started flying out of Bradley in 1999.

State Announces Grants to Restore Rivers, Boost Climate Readiness

BOSTON — The state recently announced $97,397 in state grant funds for priority projects in the city of Northampton and the towns of Duxbury, Middleton, and West Boylston to remove dams, aid in the restoration of rivers to their natural state, and increase climate readiness. Benefits of river restoration include increased habitat for fish and wildlife, flood management, landscape development, and an increase in recreational opportunities and access. The grant funds are administered by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration (DER). Locally, work will include the Upper Roberts Meadow Brook restoration and the Upper Roberts Meadow Brook dam removal in Northampton, to be funded with a $25,000 state grant. The brook is a cold-water stream with a resident trout population. Removal of the 30-foot-high dam will provide numerous environmental benefits, including conversion of the dam impoundment back to a free-flowing reach, reconnection of approximately nine miles of upstream habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms, and repair of ecological processes that support a healthy stream system, including the movement of sediment and organic matter. This grant will support the city in completing the permitting phase, conducting the bid phase, and beginning the project implementation phase. Priority projects are evaluated by DER on their ecological benefit, cost, size, practicality, feasibility, contribution to climate readiness, opportunity for public education and recreation, available program resources, and partner support.

New Energy-efficiency Program Offers Opportunities and Rebates

BOSTON — A new pilot program funded by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) is making incentives for energy-efficiency upgrades in residential buildings with one to four units available to Massachusetts residents, including those serviced by municipal lighting companies. DOER, established to develop and implement policies and programs to further the energy-related goals of the Commonwealth, has created the Home Energy Market Value Performance (MVP) pilot program to test innovations to residential energy-efficiency program delivery. This program is designed to be custom-built around a home’s individual needs instead of a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all process, relying on the participating contractors’ expertise in building science and advanced modeling software used during the energy audit. The incentives and rebates available for energy-efficiency upgrades are based on the reduction of annual energy consumption of the home. The initial audit will model the current annual energy usage, and the energy specialists will create a plan to reduce that usage. Together with the energy specialists, homeowners can make decisions about what measures to install or upgrade based on their homes’ particular needs and the projected incentive paid by the program. A site visit will be conducted after the upgrades have been completed to confirm their installation and approve the customer’s rebate package. The MVP pilot will run until November 2019 or until all funding is spent, which is estimated to cover 600 projects statewide. Massachusetts residences up to a four-unit building that meet health and safety standards are eligible for participation, including condominiums and rentals with written agreement from the landlord. Currently, homes that heat with Berkshire Gas or that are on a reduced rate code or heating assistance are not eligible for the program. The pilot consists of just eight participating contractors across the state. Locally, the Energy Store, an Easthampton-based Building Performance Institute Goldstar Contractor, was chosen as a participating contractor. Inquiries about the DOER MVP pilot can be directed to the Energy Store at [email protected].

Advertising Club Accepting Scholarship Applications

SPRINGFIELD — The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts scholarship committee announced that scholarship applications are now available online at adclubwm.org. Applications will also be available through guidance departments at high schools in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties, or by contacting the Ad Club at (413) 736-2582. In 2018, one $1,000 scholarship will be awarded. Western Mass. seniors who plan to attend an accredited college or technical school to study advertising, communications, marketing, or graphics arts and will be attending in September 2018 are encouraged to apply. The scholarship must be applied against tuition and fees at the school. Candidates will be judged on academic performance; extracurricular activities; community service and/or work experience; a demonstrated interest in advertising, communications, marketing, or graphic design; personal recommendations; and a letter of introduction outlining future plans. Completed scholarship applications and all support materials must be submitted to the Ad Club and postmarked by Friday, March 30. Scholarship decisions are made by the scholarship committee of the Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts, and are considered final. The scholarship will be awarded at the Ad Club’s Creative Awards show in May.

HCC Foundation Offers More Than $200,000 in College Scholarships

HOLYOKE — More than $200,000 in scholarships is available for new, current, and transferring Holyoke Community College (HCC) students for the 2018-19 academic year. Students must be currently enrolled at HCC or have been accepted for the upcoming academic year to be eligible for scholarships, which are awarded through the HCC Foundation. Last year, for the 2017-18 academic year, the HCC Foundation awarded scholarships to more than 200 students. For more information or to fill out the online application, visit www.hcc.edu/scholarships. The application deadline is Wednesday, March 21. For more information, call the HCC Foundation scholarship office at (413) 552-2182 or visit the Institutional Advancement office in Donahue 170 on the HCC campus, 303 Homestead Ave., Holyoke.

Tickets Still Available for 10th Annual Difference Makers Gala

Tickets to the event cost $75 per person, with tables of 10 available. To order, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100 or visit www.businesswest.com.

Guardair Corp. Appoints Mark Wysk Director of Global Supply Chain

CHICOPEE — Guardair Corp., the largest U.S. manufacturer of OSHA-compliant safety air guns and pneumatic vacuums, announced the hiring of Mark Wysk as the new director of Global Supply Chain.

Wysk brings 30 years of industrial purchasing management experience, including international sourcing, tool-industry knowledge, and materials expertise. In his new role at Guardair, he will support manufacturing through innovative sourcing strategies and optimizing cost-saving opportunities in conjunction with annual operating plans. His focus will be on building and strengthening partnerships, providing true strategic relationships.

“Mark’s expertise in improving productivity, quality, and efficiency of supply-chain operations is a tremendous asset as we continue to grow,” said Tom Tremblay, president of Guardair Corp. “We are thrilled to have him join our team.”

Wysk was most recently the corporate director of Procurement at Simonds International. Prior to that, he held the position of senior manager of Global Sourcing for Lenox. He holds a master’s degree in engineering management and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, both from Western New England College. He currently serves as president of the Institute for Supply Management of Western New England and has published articles in Supply Chain World and Cutting Tool Engineering.

Molding Business Services Acquires Gros Executive Recruiters

FLORENCE — Molding Business Services of Florence has acquired Gros Executive Recruiters of Franklin, Tenn. Both firms provide recruiting and executive search services to the plastics industry.

Molding Business Services (MBS) was founded in 1998, and during those 20 years, its recruiting division has focused almost exclusively on the injection-molding segment of the plastics industry. Gros Executive Recruiters was founded in 1989 and serves the packaging, plastics-processing, and plastics-machinery markets.

MBS brings a deeper injection-molding network to Gros, while Gros provides MBS with penetration into the packaging and plastics machinery markets. Additionally, merging the two already-extensive industry databases produces a network of talent that will benefit the combined firms’ clients. Together, MBS and Gros have recruiting staff located across the U.S., in Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, Vermont, and California.

“The synergies between the two firms are numerous, and our visions and goals couldn’t be better aligned,” said MBS President Jonathan Soucy. “We are excited about enhancing our reach and capabilities for our clients, especially at a time when the demand for talented individuals in our industry has reached critical levels.”

Former Gros Executive Recruiters owner and industry veteran Dennis Gros has been appointed president of the combined recruiting business. “The combination of MBS’s recruiting division and Gros Executive Recruiters is great news for hiring managers and for professionals who seek a career change,” he said. “In combining our resources, we will offer new programs designed to energize hiring in the plastics industry.”

Gros Executive Recruiters will become the sole recruiting brand of the combined entity and will operate as a molding business services company.

The Gray House to Host 27th Annual Spaghetti Supper

SPRINGFIELD — The Gray House will hold its 27th annual spaghetti supper on Monday, March 19 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Greek Cultural Center, 8 Plainfield St. in Springfield. All proceeds from the family-friendly event will help the Gray House provide food, educational services, and youth programming to neighbors living in poverty.

This year’s event sponsor is Freedom Credit Union, and platinum sponsors include PeoplesBank and the Springfield Chapter of UNICO National. Tickets for the event are a minimum donation of $5. Children 6 and under are free, and all tickets can be purchased at the door.

Supper, dessert, and children’s activities are available, as well as the opportunity to win raffle prizes such as Okemo Mountain lift tickets, a Tree House Brewing Co. basket, and many others. The grand-prize raffle includes a foursome to the Ranch Golf Club, tickets to a Boston Red Sox game, and a 32-inch smart TV. Winners do not need to be present to win the grand-prize raffle, and entry tickets can be purchased in advance by calling (413) 734-6696.

This year, the Gray House will honor St. Michael’s Parish and Knights of Columbus Council #9960 of East Longmeadow. The event would not be possible without the support of the St. Michael’s Knights of Columbus and parishioners, said Teresa Liberti, executive director of the Gray House. “For over 20 years, they have been an integral part of making the spaghetti supper such a success. They are the ones who are cooking and serving the food for over 400 guests we have every year.”

Court Dockets

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

Gissel Santiago v. Picknelly Family LP
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $4,828
Filed: 1/31/18

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT

Guillermo Rivera v. Chicopee Property, LLC
Allegation: Window blinds in apartment maintained by defendant fell on plaintiff, causing injury: $5,204.34
Filed: 1/25/18

Reinhart Foodservice, LLC v. AJB Ventures Inc. d/b/a Corner Grill & Pizzeria and Ibrahin Abed
Allegation: Money owed for goods sold and delivered: $6,618.37
Filed: 1/26/18

Nicole Ward v. Yellowbrick Property, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $12,080
Filed: 2/2/18

Gordon Hunting v. Eastern States Exposition and Outdoor Sports Expo Group
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $7,469.17
Filed: 2/7/18

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

Kathy L. Wheatley v. Eastfield Associates, LLC a/k/a Eastfield Mall Associates, LLC and Macy’s Retail Holdings Inc.
Allegation: Slip and fall in Eastfield Mall parking lot causing injury: $91,500
Filed: 1/23/18

Catherine Byrd Clear v. Salema Management Corp.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall at Dunkin’ Donuts causing injury: $21,587.41
Filed: 1/24/18

Mark Pisarczyk, personal representative of the estate of Phyllis Pisarczyk v. Dr. John Romanelli; Baystate Surgical Associates; Jamie Wicks, M.D.; and Baystate Medical Center
Allegation: Wrongful death: $2,524,000
Filed: 1/25/18

The Collins Companies Inc. d/b/a Collins Pipe & Supply Co. Inc. v. the William Powell Co. d/b/a Powell Valves
Allegation: Breach of contract: $428,949
Filed: 1/26/18

Rosemary B. Herberger v. Baystate Medical Center
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $4,144.63
Filed: 1/29/18

Michael Forni v. Kmart Corp.
Allegation: Negligence causing injury: $25,000
Filed: 1/31/18

Christina Mancini v. Haven Plaze East Associates LP and the Stop & Shop Companies Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $43,845.75
Filed: 2/2/18

NGM Insurance Co. as subrogee of Katelyn M. Ford v. Pioneer Valley Transit Authority
Allegation: Negligence; driver of PVTA bus backed into plaintiff’s vehicle, causing injury and property damage: $14,381.83
Filed: 2/2/18

Henry Favreau v. Craig Schacher, M.D.; Kalpana Mani, M.D.; Timothy Herbst, M.D.; and Jefferson Radiology, P.C.
Allegation: Medical malpractice, wrongful death: $25,000
Filed: 2/5/18

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

Lisa N. Grimaldi v. Tannery Crossing Condominium Assoc.
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $1,975
Filed: 1/19/18

John McCluskey v. Pyramid Management Group
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury at Holyoke Mall: $5,000
Filed: 1/31/18

Company Notebook

Company Notebook Departments

Big Y’s Growth Expands Distribution Center

SPRINGFIELD — It was in 1995 that Big Y expanded its three smaller distribution facilities into the former Rexnord Roller Chain Manufacturing Co. on Roosevelt Avenue in Springfield. At the time, a staff of 27 people distributed produce and other products to 31 supermarkets throughout the region. Three years later, Big Y’s corporate headquarters and store support center moved to the same site. Fast-forward to 2018, when Big Y’s distribution now supports 70 supermarkets out of the same space, and it is easy to see the need for an expanded facility. The current 189,000-square-foot distribution center has 19 receiving bays and operates round the clock seven days a week with a staff of 92 moving product through this system. In 1995, 3.5 million cases of product were shipped each year from this facility. Even eight years ago, Big Y’s distribution-center team shipped out nearly 15 million cases to stores. By the end of last year, that number had increased to more than 20 million cases. Therefore, Big Y plans an expansion in order to provide capacity for the next 20 years, with includes plans for 20 new supermarkets. The company anticipates a total of 53 dock doors are needed to manage this growth, along with an additional 232,000 square feet of space for a total of close to 425,000 square feet. This expansion will improve the efficiency of the flow of goods to all of stores and will require an additional 32 full-time employees at this site. Big Y has worked with Kevin Kennedy, Springfield’s chief Development officer, along with Mayor Domenic Sarno to develop a plan for this $35 million to $40 million project. In addition, Big Y is working with Springfield based Dennis Group, a local full service planning, architecture, engineering and construction management firm on this project. It is expected to be completed over the next 18 months.

UMass Dining App Wins Two Awards

AMHERST — The UMass Dining mobile app has been recognized in the Web Marketing Association’s sixth annual MobileWebAwards competition as both the Best University Mobile Application and the Best of Show Mobile Application of 2017. The UMass Dining mobile app’s key features include up-to-date menus, operating hours, and contact information for all dining common locations, the ability to view real-time traffic updates for each location, having access to UMass Dining’s on-campus events information, and the ability to personalize one’s menu for dietary preferences and allergens. Each website and mobile application in this year’s MobileWebAwards competition were assessed based on creativity, impact, design, content, interactivity, ease of use, and the use of the medium. Each entry was evaluated in comparison to the websites and mobile apps within the same format in its industry and then judged for an overall standard of excellence.

United Personnel Wins 2018 Best of Staffing Awards

SPRINGFIELD — United Personnel announced it has won Inavero’s Best of Staffing Client and Talent Awards for providing superior service to clients and job seekers. Presented in partnership with CareerBuilder, Inavero’s Best of Staffing winners have proven to be industry leaders in service quality based entirely on ratings by their clients and the employees they have helped find jobs. On average, clients of winning agencies are 2.3 times more likely to be completely satisfied. Job seekers who work with winning agencies are 1.7 times more satisfied with the services provided compared to those working with non-winning agencies. Focused on helping to connect people with the right job opportunities, United Personnel received satisfaction scores of 9 or 10 out of 10 from a significant amount of both clients and candidates placed in jobs, resulting in the recognition. These two awards are distinctions that fewer than 2% of all staffing agencies in the U.S. and Canada have earned.

Professional Drywall Construction Inc. Transfers Ownership

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Professional Drywall Construction Inc. (PDC) recently transferred ownership of the company to two of its employees. Ron Perry and Nick Shaink are now carrying on founder John Kendzierski’s legacy as a leading commercial drywall contractor in Southwestern New England. Former owner John Kendzierski will remain on the board of directors as a consultant. PDC will continue to operate from its West Springfield office, but in order to better serve the construction industry in Connecticut, it recently opened a second office in South Norwalk, Conn. The new location allows PDC to react more quickly to requests from Connecticut customers and provide additional on-site consultation in the Southern Conn. area. Affiliated with the carpenters and laborers union since 1997, PDC has grown to become a regional firm with more than employees, working in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. PDC is pre-qualified to work in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, and has a bonding capacity of up to $35 million, enabling it to accommodate virtually any size project.

PV Squared Welcomes Five New Worker-owners

GREENFIELD — PV Squared, a worker-owned cooperative and certified B Corp solar-installation company located in Greenfield, recently welcomed five new worker-owners to the ownership team. Each of the new worker-owners — Daniel Berry, Daniel Gomez, Doug Dedischew, Elliot Henry, and Ian Tapscott — has worked at PV Squared for at least two years before being promoted to worker-owner. PV Squared started with four co-owners in 2002 and has since grown to 44 employees, 24 of whom are worker-owners. There are thousands of worker-owned cooperatives around the world, and that number is growing. The cooperative model reflects a growing movement to create an economic and social alternative to ‘business as usual.’ In a worker-owned cooperative, the people who do the work make the decisions together, instead of having them handed down from an executive. It’s a think-on-your-feet model that allows workers to offer their perspective, suggest alternative methods, and affect real change in practices. PV Squared provides renewable-energy solutions to a wide range of clients, including business owners, commercial property owners, academic institutions, and homeowners in Western Mass. and surrounding regions.

MassMutual Foundation Gives $1 Million in Grants to Springfield Schools

SPRINGFIELD — The MassMutual Foundation Inc. — a dedicated corporate foundation established by MassMutual — announced it is providing $1 million to expand the City Connects program into eight additional elementary schools throughout Springfield. This grant aligns with the foundation’s focus on supporting programs that broaden economic opportunity for students and their families by transforming the system of learning. It is also consistent with the company’s recent decision to expand and reinvest in Massachusetts. City Connects, a national program executed by the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, launched in five Springfield public schools in September 2011 and has tripled its reach and impact, serving 15 schools in 2017. The MassMutual Foundation grant will enable City Connects to reach a total of 23 schools. The program provides support for students based on their individual needs by addressing out-of-school challenges that affect student success, and leverages existing community resources and support services to optimize students’ readiness to learn. During the 2016-17 school year, City Connects served more than 5,000 Springfield students, and nearly 100 community partners provided support and services to meet these students’ unique strengths, needs, and interests. Research has shown that the City Connects program significantly improves students’ academic performance; some positive long-term effects include lower dropout rates, higher test scores, and less chronic absenteeism.

HNE Gives Food Bank $30,000 to Support Puerto Rican Evacuees

HATFIELD — The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts announced it has received a $30,000 grant award from Health New England to support Puerto Rican evacuees settling in Western Mass. following Hurricane Maria. The Food Bank has been collaborating with community organizations throughout the region to provide evacuees with their most basic need: food. The grant award will fund the food needs of the two designated welcome centers with the greatest influx of new people: Springfield Family Resource Center and Enlace de Familias Resource Center of Holyoke. Since evacuees began arriving in Western Mass. last October, the Food Bank has been working with these local organizations to ensure everyone has access to healthy food. It has been making weekly deliveries to Enlace de Familias to provide food for approximately 125 families per week. The provisions of canned fruit and vegetables, soup, rice, beans, cereal, pasta, peanut butter, and other staples afford families nourishment as they get themselves settled. The Food Bank has also been delivering food weekly to the Springfield Family Resource Center. Additionally, its agency-relations team has been connecting families with other local partner feeding programs so they can continue to access healthy food, and SNAP coordinators have been on site in Holyoke, enrolling evacuees to receive federal SNAP food benefits.

Community Music School Wins Grant from MDRT Foundation

SPRINGFIELD — The Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) Foundation awarded a $5,000 grant to Community Music School of Springfield (CMSS) through its Quality of Life Grant Program in honor of Jeanmarie Deliso, CFP. Through its global grants programs, the MDRT Foundation is committed to building stronger families and communities around the globe. This year, the MDRT Foundation will award more than $1 million in MDRT member-endorsed grants to more than 200 charitable organizations worldwide. Representing the MDRT Foundation, Deliso will present this grant to Community Music School of Springfield on March 23 at its board meeting. Trained in both music and special education, CMSS faculty work with Springfield classrooms to teach general music concepts in a way that is accessible to special-education students. The AMP Institute expands the reach of this work by training educators to use these methods in their classrooms.

Community Bank, N.A. Ranked Sixth in U.S. in Financial Performance

DEWITT, N.Y. — Forbes magazine recently ranked Community Bank, N.A. sixth in the nation for financial performance in a study analyzing 10 key metrics related to growth, asset quality, capital adequacy, and profitability for the nation’s 100 largest banks and thrifts. This is the seventh year running that Community Bank, N.A. has ranked among the top 15 banks on the list. Forbes began ranking America’s 100 largest publicly traded banks and thrifts after the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Community Bank, N.A. scored above all regional banks serving within the bank’s footprint.

Bumpy’s Natural and Organic Foods Moves to Agawam

AGAWAM — The West of the River Chamber of Commerce recently welcomed Bumpy’s Natural and Organic Foods to the Agawam community. Business owner Derryl “Bumpy” Gibbs and his sister Dishanda Robinson moved the retail store from Granby to the Agawam location last month. As the community becomes more health conscious, Gibbs felt the move was a good opportunity for Agawam and the surrounding region to “eat well, feel great, and save money” — the company’s slogan. It is a family-owned business looking to support healthy families. From an elaborate selection of herbal teas to shampoos to baby needs, Bumpy’s aims to meet the everyday needs of people looking to eat and live healthy, Gibbs said.

WFWM Receives Grant to Support Women’s Leadership Programs

SPRINGFIELD — The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts (WFWM) announced it has received a $25,000 grant from Irving and Sulamith Blackberg Charitable Foundation, Stanley Waxler, Joan Waxlerm and Bank of America, N.A., co-trustees. The unrestricted funds will directly support women and girls in Western Mass. who are participating in the Women’s Fund’s signature leadership-development programs, the Leadership Institute for Political and Public Impact (LIPPI) and the Young Women’s Initiative (YWI). Both programs are dedicated to serving local women and girls in their personal and professional leadership development. LIPPI is a non-partisan initiative that provides women with the tools, mentors, and confidence they need to become community leaders and elected officials. The program trains women in the nuts and bolts of impacting policy from a citizen perspective, and develops leadership confidence through 11 intensive workshops held in downtown Springfield over 10 months. YWI, a national, multi-sector project aimed at creating sustainable prosperity for young women, is a cooperative effort of eight women’s foundations across the U.S. The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts is leading the Springfield Partnership, a pilot program that aims to produce systems change in the region’s largest city.

Doing Business as Certificates

DBA Certificates Departments

The following business certificates and trade names were issued or renewed during the month of February 2018.

AMHERST

10 Say Technology
1325 South East St.
Greg Stutsman

Coy Mami Produce
165 Summer St.
Roger Coy Mami

BELCHERTOWN

M.V.M. Cleaning Services
271 Aldrich St.
Maria Maravilha

Oak and Ash Farm
241 Allen St.
Lindsey Baird, Matthew Baird

Oak and Ash Farm Distillery
241 Allen St.
Lindsey Baird

River Ledge Farm
298 Cold Spring Road
Lydia Lajoie, Corey Lajoie

Summer Wind Daycare
97 Stebbins St.
Ketesah Trudeau

CHICOPEE

J. Polep Distribution Services
705 Meadow St.
Jeffrey Polep

Mike’s Variety
355 Dale St.
Michael Montemagni

Polished Nail Bar & Spa
233 Grattan St.
Tiara Washington

Ronald E. Bevan, Electrician
26 Campbell Place
Ronald Bevan Jr.

Sal Oliveras Custom Painting
7 Otis St.
Salvador Oliveras

Wink Lash Boutique
51 Cabot St.
Luis Marrero, Sharon Lopez

DEERFIELD

Bergeron Drain Pro
18 Stillwater Road
Derek Bergeron

Cloa’s Ark Animal Sanctuary Inc.
3 McClelland Farm Road
Patrick Veistroffer

Valley Re-Fab Inc.
8 North St.
Caleb Dillensneider

EASTHAMPTON

Atalasoft Inc.
116 Pleasant St.
Kofax Inc.

Organized Valley
132 Park St.
Angelie Peterson

Pioneer Tax & Business Services
126C Northampton St.
Heidi Chereski

Rite Aid #10053
32 Union St.
Walgreen Eastern Co. Inc.

Super Washing Well Laundry
92 Union St.
David Cortis

EAST LONGMEADOW

Angelo’s Barber Shop
513 College Highway
Daniel Bean

Embracing the Creative Child
232 North Main St.
Sarah Gale

M & D Trucking
134 South Loomis Road
Michael Girroir

Trendy Right Now
44 Bugbee Road
Robert Boyd

HADLEY

AG Konani
34 Greenleaves Dr., #18
Alfred Gyamfi

The Davis Method
245 Russell St.
Julia Davis, Ryan Davis

Devine Brothers Farms
26 Knightly Road
Devine Brothers Partnership

Devine Farms Inc.
26 Knightly Road
Devine Farms Inc.

Excel Builders
60 Chmura Road
Andrew Klepacki

Hadley Nails Spa
207 Russell St.
Orchid Nguyen

Howard Johnson
401 Russell St.
Howard Johnson Lodge, LLC

KSK Properties
5 Birch Meadow Dr.
Ron Keith

Readings by Margurite
249 Russell St.
Margurite Miller

Sweet Frog
344 Russell St.
Hadley Frog, LLC

HOLYOKE

Aligned & Well
187 Sargeant St.
Margaret Hudson

Denison’s Mini-Market
263 Hampden St.
Evylyn Cuello

Kool Smiles, P.C.
217 South St.
Dr. Tu Tran

Loomis House
298 Jarvis Ave.
Holyoke Retirement Community Inc.

LONGMEADOW

Coat & Tails
109 Yarmouth St.
Kristin Casey

LUDLOW

Kieu Nail Artist
115 Sewall St.
Kieu Nguyen

Kitchen Works
35 State St.
Ronald Kretschmar

Ludlow Pizza
257 Fuller St.
Umit Baytemur

So Cool Gifts & Accessories
345 Holyoke St.
Ana Capela

NORTHAMPTON

Acadia Herbals
2 Conz St., Suite 46
Jennifer Goodheart

Affordable Auto Repair
376 Easthampton Road
James Germana

Backyard Bread
45 Vernon St.
Samuel Coates-Finke

Integral Guesthouse
73 Willow St.
Christopher Spicer

Jackson & Connor
150 Main St., Suite 2250
W & L Retail, LLC

Mattress Firm #181010
172 North King St.
Ken Murphy

Recastings
46 Columbus Ave.
Cheryl Cross

The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought
25 Main St.
Jennifer Polins

Vomax
48 Damon Road
Rajiv Singh

PALMER

CVS Pharmacy Inc.
1001 Thorndike St.
CVS Pharmacy Inc.

Dave Lane Building and Remodeling
1371 Main St.
David Lane

DHG Direct Hire Global
1386 Main St.
Nicholas Paydos

Menard’s Mowing
26 King St.
Joshua Menard

Tony’s Happy Valley Pizza
3102 South Main St.
Anthony Valley

Wendy’s #311
1213 Thorndike St.
Inspired by Opportunity, LLC

SPRINGFIELD

AK Leasing Trucking
94 Gillette Ave.
Lahoussine Akanour

Avanti Salon & Day Spa
1498 Allen St.
Jennifer DeNardo

Awan Brothers
954 State St.
Mohammad Awan, Wajid Mahmood

Brylo Auto
51 Dale St.
Bryan Lora

Casa de Decoraciones
15 Burnside Terrace
Arguidania Ortiz

Chica’s Party Dream
20 Cabot Court
Santa Feliciano

Construction Keys
520 Main St.
Hector Quiles

Crunchy Fried Chicken
30 Fort Pleasant St.
Muhammad Ramzan

Daddy B’s Sandwich Shop
375 Canon Circle
Timothy Brown

Family Dollar #32030
2594 Main St.
Family Dollar Stores

Family Dollar #31747
247 Hancock St.
Family Dollar Stores

Family Home Improvements
27 Margerie St.
Pablo Martinez

Her Imperial Highness
44 Mattoon St.
Jolyn Paris

IQ Financing
93 College St.
Stewart Wilkerson

La Placita Market
2460 Main St.
Munir Ahmad Khawaja

La Belle Salon
933 Boston Road
Yanitza Nogue

Lee’s Club
138 Ardmore St.
Lee Kania

MP Roofing
26 Puritan Circle
Marcus Pierce

Northeastern Career Network
78 Wayne St.
Son Vo

OCD Cleaning
122 Chestnut St.
Davaughn Coppedge

Partners for a Healthier Community
127 State St.
Jessica Collins

People Supermarket
24 Fort Pleasant Ave.
Domingo Rosario

Spruced
122 Chestnut St., Apt. 7
Saucha Consulting Inc.

Times Square Marketing
1350 Main St., Suite 1114
Marcus Smith

WESTFIELD

Big Big Box, LLC
66 Westfield Industrial Park
Big Big Box, LLC

Coggin Machine & Design
52 Deer Path Lane
Jayme Coggin

Country View Primitives
57 Franklin St.
Country View Primitives

The Crack Man
14 Clifton St.
The Crack Man

Cusson Remodeling
64 Yeoman Ave.
Christopher Cusson

Fields of Flowers Farm
435 North Road
Patricia Feld

Mercy Adult Day Health of Westfield
24 Clifton St.
Trinity Health PACE

Simon Sez Pets
35 Schumann Dr.
Richard Simons

Smoke & Vape Shop
41 Franklin St.
MZY Corp.

Westfield Animal Clinic
422 North Elm St.
D & J Animal Clinic, LLC

Westfield Nails & Spa
459 East Main St.
Hanh Chanh

West Side Pet Sitting, LLC
10 Greenwood St.
West Side Pet Sitting, LLC

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Bueno Y Sano
935 Riverdale St.
Robert Lowry

Centerplate
1305 Memorial Ave.
Boston Culinary Group

DJ Xino
70 Elmdale St.
Alvaro Arqveta

Good Dog University
167 River St.
Kimberly Balboni

Green Stone Landscaping
34 Lewis Ave.
Sami Hajrizi

Karma Pet
24 Myron St.
Guy Leclerc

Nicolai Floor Covering
131 Ashley Ave.
Nicolai Contir

Star Realty
347 Gooseberry Road
Donald Ugolini

Ultimate Home Inspections
379 Rogers Ave.
Theodore Pinkerman

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies Departments

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

Bonnivier, Christopher O.
Bonnivier, Linda J.
a/k/a Rancourt, Linda J.
13 Beech St.
Adams, MA 01220
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/25/18

Boulerice, Julia
115 Main St., Apt. 8
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/18

Bridges, Antwain L.
367 Orange St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/25/18

Briggs, Thomas Edward
107 Red Fox Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Burgos, Andrew
Burgos, Gwendolyn
38 Littleton St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/17/18

Casey, Daniel
Casey, Linda
37 Dana St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/19/18

Chistolini, Karen R.
52 Weston St.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/19/18

Claudio, Joselito
303 Maple St., Apt. 327
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Clifford, Amanda M.
27 Janelle Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/26/18

Colemon, Dennis
49 Cortland St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/18

Craig, Andreas
21 Hillmont St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/19/18

Curran, Linda M.
51 Louise St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Davis, Robert W.
44 Stagecoach Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Deida, Aida
67 Haumont Terrace
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Diane’s Home Day Care
Johnson, Diane E.
42 Bliss St.
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/25/18

Farley, Deborah L.
177 Marion St., Exit 2
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Frieri, Gino S.
PO Box 2331
Pittsfield, MA 01202
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/26/18

Gonzales, Antonio
181 Main St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Graves, Scott D.
Graves, Jennifer J.
23 Hollywood St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/18

Guba, Eric C.
186 Conway St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/17/18

Iglesias, Jeanene D.
21B Gold St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/18

Isernhagen, Denise J.
35 Pomeroy St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Jackson, Yvette
a/k/a Morales, Yvette
a/k/a Rosario, Yvette
31 Davis St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/22/18

Landry, Linda A.
29-31 Bloomfield St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/22/18

Leger, Karen E.
48 Scantic Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/17/18

Ogg, Norman
Ogg, Sheila
147 LaBelle Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/26/18

Ortiz, Maribel
101 Saint Kolbe Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Persson, Mark A.
5 King St.
Royalston, MA 01368
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/21/18

Pybas, Charles E.
345 Sturbridge Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Restoration Specialties
Eaton, Wendell Scott
Eaton, Alice Knox
74 Williston Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/19/18

Rodgers, Martin D.
13 Magnolia Terrace
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Rogowski, Theresa A.
14 Austin St.
Barre, MA 01005
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Rubin, Bonnie D.
4 Laura Ave., Apt. 2
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Sanchez, Jose Daniel
3 Hill Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/19/18

Shoefly Shoe Salons, LLC,
Clark, William T.
4 Shepards Hollow
Leeds, MA 01053
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Spafford, Amanda J.
a/k/a Lengieza, Amanda J.
30 Olivine St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/18/18

Staley, Lisa M.
a/k/a Wallace, Lisa M.
a/k/a Staley, Lisa Wallace
60 King St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/17/18

Stepus, Tatyana
76 Chateaugay St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Thomas, Cynthia D.
120- 122 Fargo St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Thompson, George E.
50 Melville St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/29/18

Tremblay, Doreen E.
1209 Brimfield Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/18

Valle Vale International
Valle-Martinez, Ana M.
91 Elmore Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/25/18

Vazquez-Velez, Argelis Joel
238 Cottage St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/18

Vieu, Keith R.
Vieu, Carla L.
25 Pebblemill Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/18

Walter, Peter Vincent
140 Hutchinson Lane
Cheshire, MA 01225
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/22/18

Williams, Tamara A.
145 Sumner Ave., Apt. 8
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/22/18

Winiarski, John A.
Winiarski, Debora M.
22 Lord Terrace North
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/30/18

Young, Amber E.
45 Noble Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/18

Real Estate Transactions