Month: July 2018

SPRINGFIELD — Kimberley Lee, a recognized leader in the nonprofit sector of the Western Mass. region, has joined the staff of MHA, a nonprofit provider of residential and support services to people impacted by mental illness, developmental disabilities, substance abuse, and homelessness. Lee is taking on the newly created role of vice president of Resource Development and Branding for MHA.

“Kim Lee is the first member of our leadership team whose primary focus will be to develop our organization’s face to the community,” said Cheryl Fasano, president and CEO of MHA. “She is well-known to leaders of government, media, and business state-wide, and her achievements in building strategic alliances have resulted in new resources and innovative solutions delivered through nonprofit businesses. We are excited to have her on our team at MHA.”

Lee previously served in communications and development roles in several local nonprofit organizations, including CHD, Square One, the Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Community United Way. She has advanced these organizations and the people they serve with an active voice in the community and through vigorous advocacy achieved by constant policy influence at the local, community, and state level.

A lifelong resident of Western Mass., Lee earned her bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Westfield State College.

HOLYOKE — PeoplesBank has joined Big Y as a sponsor of the 2018 Great New England Air & Space Show, specifically by underwriting the appearance of Team Fastrax, a professional skydiving parachute demonstration team.

“This was a unique opportunity for us to honor those who served or are serving, as well as area veterans and active military personnel,” said Thomas Senecal, president and CEO of PeoplesBank. “It also is an investment in economic development, as the Air & Space Show brings thousands of people here, and it has an overall $15 million economic impact on the region.”

Team Fastrax has performed thousands of exhibition skydives at entertainment venues as far away as Moscow, Russia, and Normandy, France. Approved to jump in highly restricted airspace, it is the only parachute demo team to have performed over Ground Zero (on 9/11), the Pentagon, Independence Hall, and the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

To sponsor Team Fastrax, PeoplesBank worked with the Galaxy Community Council, a nonprofit that supports Westover and assists with putting on events like the air show.

The 2018 Great New England Air & Space Show will be held on Saturday and Sunday, July 14-15, and gates will open at 8 a.m. Shows are expected to start at 10 a.m. Attendance and parking are free.

BOSTON — Confidence among Massachusetts employers weakened considerably during June as tariffs, rising raw-material costs, and approval of paid family and medical leave in the Bay State raised concerns about business growth. 

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index dropped 5.3 points to 61.3 last month, its lowest level since August 2017. Confidence remains well within the optimistic range, but the June decline left the BCI slightly below its level of a year ago.

Though analysts say the volatility in business confidence during May and June may reflect some statistical anomalies, the comments provided by employers on the monthly AIM survey suggest that companies are becoming increasingly concerned about a perfect storm of issues on the federal and state levels.

“It is certainly significant that the AIM Business Confidence Index is lower than it was in June 2017. It is also significant that many of the individual indicators that make up the overall index — ranging from employer hiring plans to their views of the Massachusetts economy — are also lower than they were a year ago,” said Raymond Torto, chair of AIM’s Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) and lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Design. “It will be interesting to see how confidence changes during the summer as Massachusetts continues to operate at virtually full capacity.”

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 all lost ground during June. The Massachusetts Index assessing business conditions within the Commonwealth fell 7.2 points to 62.8, leaving it 1.4 points lower than in June 2017. The U.S. Index ended the month at 60.0, down 9.3 points for the month but 2.6 points better than a year ago. June marked the 100th consecutive month in which employers have been more optimistic about the Massachusetts economy than the national economy.

The Current Index, which assesses overall business conditions at the time of the survey, declined 2.6 points to 63.5. The Future Index, measuring expectations for six months out, fell 7.5 points to 59.1. The Current Index gained 1.6 points during the year, while the Future Index lost 2.6 points.

Employer views of their own companies also weakened. The Company Index declined 3.3 points to 61.2, down 1.2 points for 12 months. The Employment Index ended the month at 55.0, a 3.3-point decrease for the month and 3.1 points lower than a year ago. The Sales Index lost 2.9 points for the month and 0.2 points for the year.

Manufacturing companies (62.5) were slightly more optimistic than non-manufacturers (60.2). Companies in the eastern part of Massachusetts (63.3) were more bullish than those in the west (58.7).

“It’s interesting to note that medium and small companies remain significantly more optimistic than larger companies, reversing the typical pattern,” said Edward Pendergast, managing director at Dunn Rush & Co. “Entrepreneurial companies continue to drive growth here in Massachusetts.”

SPRINGFIELD — The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts (WFWM) announced that Rania Kfuri and MaryLynn Murray have joined its Board of Directors. They will each serve a three-year term.

Kfuri currently works as the Communications and Partnerships officer for the Solidago Foundation. Throughout her life experiences, she has worked to support educational opportunities and access to resources that improve the lives of women and girls. She has a professional background in international development, with a master’s degree in ethics, peace, and global affairs from American University in Washington D.C.

Murray is vice president for Commercial Lines and Sales at the Insurance Center of New England. She holds an MBA with a concentration in human resources and has been employed in the insurance industry since 2002. She previously served on the board of the Agawam Small Business Assoc. and on the Women’s Fund marketing committee.

In addition, new officers elected include Haydee Lamberty-Rodriguez as board president (formerly vice president), Leigh Rae as vice president (formerly board clerk), and Pia Kumar as clerk. Layla Taylor, immediate past board president, will remain on the board through June 2019.

SPRINGFIELD — For the second consecutive year, customers of Pride Stores and store management are showing support for Square One in a big way. 

Pride recently held a campaign where customers were encouraged to purchase a Square One ‘square’ for $1 at all Pride locations. Pride owner Bob Bolduc agreed to match all the donations in support the children and families served by Square One. Bolduc, along with his team, presented a check for $13,000 to Square One on July 3.

“We are so grateful to Bob Bolduc, the Pride staff, and their many loyal customers for their very generous support of our work,” said Kristine Allard, chief Development & Communications officer for Square One. “Not only did the campaign raise much-needed funds to support Square One’s work in the community, it was a great way to raise awareness of the programs and services that our agency provides. Whether we are teaching children to read and write, inspiring an appreciation of fine arts, providing a nourishing meal, or developing a healthy love of play, everything we do is driven by our vision of a bright future for all children, despite the daunting challenges many of them face at home.”

SPRINGFIELD — Crocker Communications Inc. has been honored with the exclusive ATSI 2018 Award of Excellence for the 10th year. This award is presented annually by the Assoc. of TeleServices International (ATSI), the industry’s trade association for providers of telecommunications and call-center services, including telephone answering and message delivery across North America and the UK.

Independent judges are contracted by ATSI to evaluate message services over a six-month period. The scoring criteria includes response time, courteousness of the representative, accuracy of the call, knowledge of the account, and overall impression of the call.

“The ATSI Award of Excellence is one of the many ways businesses in our industry can measure their customer-service levels as it relates to agent performance,” said ATSI President Josue Leon. “Agents are evaluated on how they interact with callers based on established call-handling criteria. The program gives participating companies bragging rights — and with good reason.”

The award was established 22 years ago as a means to improve the overall quality of the call-center industry by setting expectations and measurements to ensure a successful call-handling experience. 

SPRINGFIELD — Due to expanding needs, Bulkley Richardson has moved from its Amherst location into a more spacious office at 380 Russell St. in Hadley.

“This move supports the growing needs of our clients and offers a more centralized location in Hampshire County,” said Peter Barry, managing partner of the 35-attorney firm. “The move is another example of the firm striving to exceed client expectations. We can accommodate more attorneys working in the new space, which means offering a greater range of services to our clients.”

Seunghee Cha, partner, will be located primarily in Hadley, where she has a comprehensive estate-planning and administration practice, including special-needs planning for individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She looks forward to “welcoming my Springfield colleagues to Hampshire County and offering a greater breadth of services to both new and existing clients.”

Added Scott Foster, chair of the firm’s business and finance group, “our client base continues to grow, especially as we expand our services to meet the evolving changes to legal needs. Among other areas, a Hampshire County office is relevant to the unique needs of startups, reality of cybersecurity threats, and emergence of cannabis facilities. Our clients range from large hospitals and medical practices to small brewery startups, and nationwide manufactures to local farmers and artists — and a whole lot in between. By having a local office, it just brings us closer to these clients.”

BOSTON — The Baker-Polito administration and MassDevelopment announced $2,155,000 in funding for the third round of Collaborative Workspace Program grants, a MassDevelopment program that accelerates business formation, job creation, and entrepreneurial activity in communities by supporting infrastructure that fuels locally based innovation. Eligible organizations may apply for either seed grants to plan and study the feasibility of new collaborative workspaces, or fit-out grants to develop and expand existing workspaces.

Through its first two rounds of grants, the Collaborative Workspace Program provided $3 million in funding to more than 50 organizations for the planning, development, and build-out of different types of collaborative workspaces. This new round includes $1.5 million from the Commonwealth’s capital budget and $655,000 from the Barr Foundation, the second installment of a three-year, $1,965,000 grant to the program to expand support for arts-related collaborative workspaces in the Commonwealth.

“Through our 2016 Economic Development Legislation, our administration implemented the Collaborative Workspace Program to enable investments in community-based innovation infrastructure to provide entrepreneurs across Massachusetts with the resources to turn ideas into businesses,” said Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash. “Throughout the Commonwealth, participating communities are making progress in creating welcoming and productive spaces. We look forward to investing further in our statewide innovation ecosystem.” 
Added MassDevelopment President and CEO Lauren Liss, “funding awarded through the Collaborative Workspace Program has helped advance community-based innovation and entrepreneurship in cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Thanks to continued support from the Baker-Polito administration and the Barr Foundation, MassDevelopment is thrilled to kick off a third round of grants that will provide even more organizations with the resources they need to create or enhance collaborative workspaces in their community.”

MassDevelopment’s continued partnership with the Barr Foundation broadens the reach of the Collaborative Workspace Program to include the creative sector, a critical source of innovation and positive community change.

Proposals are due via e-mail at [email protected] by 5 p.m. on Friday, July 20. Funding decisions are expected to be announced at the end of September.

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Normandeau Technologies Inc. (NTI) attended the National Assoc. of School Resource Officers in Reno, Nevada in June. The annual, one-week NASRO conference brings together SROs from throughout the U.S. and international locations to meet, discuss the current state of school safety, and receive updates and training on the latest issues surrounding school-safety policy and procedures for school-based law-enforcement officers.

NTI has undertaken a program to introduce the StaffAlerter Emergency Notification System (ENS) to school districts throughout the New England area. In association with this endeavor, Brett Normandeau, president and owner of NTI, is positioning the StaffAlerter with organizations associated with K-12 education, including NASRO. StaffAlerter is an ENS and cloud-based systems control. Any teacher or staff can press a button on a wi-fi personal access device and send a notification to thousands of people, lock doors, sound alarms, and page over loudspeakers.

“The turnout at the show was over 1,000 SROs, and we were able to demonstrate StaffAlerter to many of the attendees,” over the three days of the NASRO conference exhibition, Normandeau said. “The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we were also able to talk to the SROs to get their inputs for features they would want to see on the StaffAlerter that could improve their jobs.”

NASRO national leadership spent time with NTI to see and hear about StaffAlerter and were impressed and positive with their feedback, he added. NTI is looking to attend future SRO regional and national meetings as both exhibitor and presenter.

NORTHAMPTON — The Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways will host a statewide conference of community rail-trail advocates and government policymakers on Saturday, July 28 at Union Station in Northampton.

The keynote speaker will be Kurt Gaertner, director of Land Policy and Planning for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), who is responsible for statewide land-use and land-conservation policies as well as sustainable development. 

Gaertner also serves as the Massachusetts secretary of state’s designee on the Massachusetts Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board, and he represents the EEA on the Governor’s Trails Team. He is an adjunct faculty member at Boston University in its City Planning and Urban Affairs Program, where he has taught since 2009.

Gaertner will deliver the lunchtime address at the sixth Golden Spike 2018 Conference to be held over the past 16 years. Before lunch, in two separate one-hour sessions, a series of speakers will discuss updates and news along the path of the Mass Central Rail Trail from Boston to Northampton, and then from Northampton to New Haven, Conn. These talks will be highlighted by aerial maps via a live Google Maps feed. 

The event is open to residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The program begins at 8 a.m. with registration, breakfast, and networking. At 9:15 a.m., an update on the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail from Boston to Northampton will be offered, and Gaertner’s plenary session will begin at 12:30 p.m. The plenary costs $35 and includes lunch.

The goal of the conference is to update participants on new developments and the various uncompleted sections of the rail trail that stretches from New Haven to Northampton and across Massachusetts from Northampton to Boston.

As part of the conference, eight bicycle and walking tours of varying lengths, featuring topics from local history to flora and fauna along the rail trail, will be offered on Friday, July 27 and Saturday, July 28 at 2:30 p.m. The cost is $15 per tour.

Funding for the conference was provided by a $9,460 Recreational Trail Educational grant from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as well as gifts from Greenfield Savings Bank and the national engineering firm VHB. To register for the conference or a tour, visit www.gs2018.org.

SPRINGFIELD — Comcast announced the appointment of Daniel Bonelli as vice president of Finance for the company’s Western New England Region, which includes more than 300 communities in Connecticut, Western Mass., New York, Vermont, and Western New Hampshire.

In this role, Bonelli will oversee all financial operations, including finance and accounting, warehouse and materials, information technology, facilities, security, fleet management, and environmental health and safety.

Bonelli began his career with Comcast in the Western New England Region in 2007 as a financial analyst. He quickly progressed to manager and then director before being promoted to senior director of Finance in 2014. In 2016, he relocated to the Philadelphia area, where he served as senior director of Finance for one of Comcast’s largest regions, overseeing a team of 60.

“Dan has an outstanding background in finance and operations,” said Michael Parker, senior vice president of Comcast’s Western New England Region. “His expertise in analysis, planning, and execution make him the ideal leader to oversee our financial operations, and we’re thrilled to welcome him back to Connecticut to join our regional leadership team.”

Bonelli graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance from Central Connecticut State University.

HOLYOKE — Annie Rosa signed up for the free Line Cook Training program at Holyoke Community College with a clear objective in mind — get a job working in one of the new restaurants opening soon at MGM Springfield.

The 38-year-old Springfield resident had worked in other restaurant kitchens, including Cracker Barrel, Cafe Lebanon, and Subway, but admits that most of her experience came from cooking for her family. She needed a professional boost. 

“I’m an MGM hopeful,” she said earlier this month, not long after starting daily classes at the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute. Then, before the four-week training program concluded on June 29, Rosa accepted an offer to work as a pantry chef at the Chandler, MGM’s fine-dining steakhouse. She starts July 30.

“I’m no longer a hopeful. I’m part of the show,” she said. “I came here with a plan. I passed my ServSafe training and my TIPS training. I made new friends. I learned new things. And to work for MGM and have the possibility of growing my career with them — that was my ultimate goal. Overall, it was an awesome experience.”

So far, half the students in the program — four of the eight who completed the training — have been offered restaurant jobs with MGM.

Applications are now being accepted for the next round of Line Cook Training, which is free to experienced kitchen workers who want to take their culinary skills to a higher level.

“This is designed for professionals who have been out there for a while,” said HCC Culinary Arts instructor Warren Leigh. “Maybe they’re prep cooks, maybe they’re line cooks and they want to get better. They want to move up. That’s what we’re hoping to get in the next round also. That way we can push them to be better. We can make them better with their knife skills, really master sautéing, really master grilling — as best as we can in four weeks.”

Classes will run Monday through Friday, July 23 through Aug. 17, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the new HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute at 164 Race St., Holyoke. Class topics include moist and dry cooking methods, soups, stocks, sauces, knife skills, culinary math, and ServSafe and TIPS certifications. Students will also participate in résumé workshops and mock interviews.

The program is funded partly through a $50,000 grant HCC recently received as winner of the Deval Patrick Prize from the Boston Foundation for expanding its Culinary Arts program to help address workforce needs.

Applicants must have at least two years of experience working in the culinary industry. For more information or to register, call Ann Rocchi, job placement assistant, at (413) 552-2753, or Milissa Daniels, career development counselor, at (413) 552-2042.

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — The Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) announced that the credit-rating agency S & P Global Ratings has raised Bradley International Airport’s rating on its general airport revenue refunding bonds from ‘A’ to ‘A+’ with a stable outlook.

“S & P Global Ratings is one of the most respected and widely used sources for credit ratings,” said Charles Gray, chairman of the CAA Board of Directors. “We’re pleased that the agency shares our confidence in Bradley International Airport’s fiscally responsible management team and the airport’s continued success.”

S & P Global Ratings assigns a credit rating for Bradley International Airport’s public debt obligations. Some of the factors taken into account during the rating process include the airport’s strong financial and risk-management practices, steadily improving liquidity, low and declining debt burden, strong origin and destination base, diverse service-area economy, airline diversity, and increasing number of enplanements and positive trends. 

“Our business model is to attract new air carriers and to improve facilities while maintaining a competitive cost structure,” said Kevin Dillon, executive director of the CAA. “The raised rating demonstrates our continued financial stability and growth. It is an important indicator of Bradley Airport’s strength in the aviation marketplace and its key role as an economic driver in the region.”

HOLYOKE — Every year, the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women asks every state legislator to nominate someone from their district as an “Unsung Heroine.” For state Rep. Aaron Vega, this year’s pick was Debbie Flynn-Gonzalez, program director at the Gándara Center’s Hope for Holyoke peer-recovery support center.

Flynn-Gonzalez was honored with more than 100 other women on June 20 at the Massachusetts State House’s Great Hall. Each Unsung Heroine received a citation signed by Gov. Charlie Baker and had her bio read aloud at the event.

“I am so impressed with Deb’s leadership among our most vulnerable and the supportive community she’s created,” Vega said. “I’m proud that she has been able to do this work in my hometown, and we’re all the richer for it.”

Flynn-Gonzalez began her career in social work as a mental-health clinician performing outreach work in Holyoke 24 years ago before her personal background in recovery led her to work with the recovery community. She launched the first peer-recovery program for pregnant and parenting women in Holyoke and led that program for eight years. She has been program director at Hope for Holyoke for three years.

“Recovery is different for women,” she says. “For a mother in recovery, your children are your greatest source of motivation. I always understood that as someone who has walked in their shoes.” 

Hope for Holyoke has 300 active members, with an average of 50 people accessing the center daily. One of the members, Kaitlyn, who leads a spiritual journey group there, has high praise for Flynn-Gonzalez. “People walk through these doors broken,” she said. “Starting our day feeling loved is difficult. Deb always makes me feel cared for. She brings out the best in me.”

At the event, Flynn-Gonzalez noted that she couldn’t help but think of the many people in recovery she had meet throughout the years. “For me, it is just such an honor to be part of their journeys. For some of them it is very brief, and they move on. But for others, they remain a part of my life as they continue to grow. Some of them even work in the field now, and they are the new generation of women who will be carrying on this all-so-important peer-recovery work.”

Flynn-Gonzalez earned her bachelor’s degree in social work at UMass Amherst and her master’s degree in counseling and psychology from Cambridge College. She is fluent in Spanish and said she learned the language on the streets of Holyoke and from the mothers she worked with early in her career.

BOSTON — A new, statewide study of marijuana use among Massachusetts residents found that about 21% of adults had used marijuana in the past 30 days, and the proportion of marijuana use was highest among 18- to 25-year-olds.

The study, conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), was mandated by the Legislature as part of its revisions to the 2016 adult-use marijuana law. The purpose of the study was to investigate the patterns of use, methods of consumption, and general perceptions of marijuana; incidents of impaired driving and hospitalization related to marijuana use; and the economic and fiscal impacts for state and local governments.

“The study establishes a baseline measurement of how marijuana is used and how that affects public health, public safety, and potential revenue in the state before adult-use marijuana becomes widely available,’’ said Marc Nascarella, the study’s principal investigator.

Among the study’s other highlights, smoking is the most common method of marijuana consumption, although more than 40% of marijuana users report using multiple methods of use. More than half of adults perceive marijuana to have slight or no risks and use marijuana for non-medical purposes.

A survey of patients who use marijuana products for medical use suggests that the average person uses marijuana 24 days a month, with the majority using marijuana products for at least 21 out of the past 30 days.

Among respondents that use marijuana, 34.3% reported driving under the influence. Overall, 7.2% of the adult population drove under the influence of marijuana in the past 30 days, and 11.3% of adults rode with a marijuana-using driver in the past 30 days. This is similar to estimates from a survey of medical marijuana patients that found approximately 10% of respondents drove under the influence in the past 30 days.

The number of marijuana-related calls to the Regional Poison Control Center in Massachusetts has been increasing over time. The calls include incidents of unintentional exposures among children, with the majority of calls related to 10- to 19-year-old individuals, and/or exposure to dried marijuana flower. The proportion of calls increased after medical marijuana was available in the Commonwealth. 

Economic projections suggest that marijuana will increase Massachusetts state revenue by about $215.8 million in the first two years of retail sales. The increase will largely come from sales and excise taxes collected on retail purchases. Based on experiences from states with existing legalized adult use, sales-tax revenue is expected to be higher in the second year ($154.2 million), as compared to the first year ($61.6 million). 

The study began in early 2017 and was conducted by DPH, in consultation with the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. In addition to state-agency expertise, DPH partnered with the UMass Donahue Institute/UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Mathematica Policy Research Inc., and JSI Research and Training Inc. to assist with the execution of the study.