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WESTFIELD — Tighe & Bond climbed six spots this year to 148th on Engineering News Record’s (ENR) 2018 Top 200 Environmental Firms ranking. ENR ranks its list of top 200 environmental firms nationally based on the percentage of their 2017 gross revenue from environmental services.

Earlier this year, Tighe & Bond moved up 19 spots to 241st on ENR’s 2018 Top 500 Design Firms ranking, up 34 spots in the past two years. ENR ranks its list of top 500 design firms nationally based on design-specific revenue from the previous year.

“Our yearly climb in this important national ranking is made possible by the ongoing trust that both our public and private clients place in us for their environmental consulting and engineering needs, as well as our dedicated, professional staff,” said David Pinsky, president and CEO of Tighe & Bond. “Our goal is to provide an expansive portfolio of engineering and environmental services to our valued clients throughout New England and New York.”

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SPRINGFIELD — Fitzgerald Attorneys-at-Law announced the addition of a new partner, attorney Bradford Martin Jr.

Martin has been practicing law in Western Mass. for 39 years, with extensive experience in commercial real-estate transactions and business and corporate law. Over his career, he has been involved in real-estate projects and financings in the area and has litigated complex property issues in the Massachusetts Land Court. 

“We are very pleased to welcome Brad to our firm,” said Managing Partner Frank Fitzgerald. “Brad is an outstanding lawyer with deep ties to the region, and he brings a wealth of critical experience in areas that our clients value.”

A native of the area, Martin attended Northfield Mt. Hermon School and is a graduate of Springfield College and Western New England University School of Law. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Assoc. and the Hampden County Bar Assoc. and is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar, the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Tax Court.

“I am excited to join Fitzgerald Attorneys-at-Law,” Martin said. “This firm has a long track record of handling some of the region’s most complex and high-profile legal cases, and I look forward to joining my colleagues in building upon that success.”

Martin was formerly a partner at Ryan & White, P.C. and Morrison Mahoney, LLP. He serves on the board of ChildHope, a charitable organization dedicated to building and running schools in Central and South America, and is chairman of the board of Teen Challenge New England, a faith-based, nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. He serves as a deacon at Bethany Assembly of God in Agawam.

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CHICOPEE — Elms College ranks in the top 100 of Best Regional Universities – North Region in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best Colleges listings.

“That Elms College continues to rank among the best colleges in the entire Northeast is a testament to the quality and strength of our academic programs,” said Walter Breau, vice president of Academic Affairs at Elms College. “We strive to prepare our students for their whole lives — academically, professionally, personally, and spiritually — through a strong liberal-arts curriculum and extensive hands-on learning opportunities, both in the classroom and beyond.”

The rankings evaluate colleges and universities on 16 measures of academic quality that education experts say are reliable indicators of academic quality. These measures are grouped into the following indicators: outcomes (including social mobility and graduation/retention rates), faculty resources (including class size, faculty salary, terminal degrees among faculty members, student-faculty ratio, and full-time faculty ratio), expert opinion (including peer assessment and guidance-counselor assessment), financial resources, student excellence (including standardized test scores and high-school class standing), and alumni giving.

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SPRINGFIELD — Springfield College is once again ranked in the top tier in the category of Best Regional Universities – North Region in the 2019 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges report. For the fourth consecutive year, Springfield College is ranked in the top 30 in its category, placing 28th.

Springfield College was ranked in the A-Plus Schools for B Students category, which highlights colleges with strong academic ratings in the Best Colleges rankings that accept students with non-stratospheric transcripts.

Springfield College was also ranked 19th in the Best Value rankings that showcase colleges with high quality and a lower cost. This is the third consecutive year that Springfield College has been listed in this category. The Best Values category takes into account a college’s academic quality and net cost of attendance.

“The continuation of our top-tier ranking demonstrates that the value proposition of a Springfield College education, grounded in the Humanics philosophy, is well-regarded,” said President Mary-Beth Cooper. “I am extremely proud of the hard work, dedication, and commitment of our faculty, staff, and students to advancing the Springfield College mission. We have accomplished a great deal in recent years, and we are proud to receive continued recognition for our outstanding academic offerings and rich co-curricular life.”

The consistent ranking of Springfield College in the top tier is spurred by improved graduation rates, improved retention of first-year students, and positive feedback by peers.

“Our enrollment will continue to grow because we have a vision for how to educate and serve our students in exceptional ways,” said Cooper. “We have a strategic plan that puts students first, and we have a campus master plan that will provide exceptional learning and recreation facilities that prepare students for all aspects of personal and professional success. We are innovatively reinvigorating our academic programs and creating new ones along with ways to deliver those classes and degrees that meet the needs of 21st-century learners.”

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HOLYOKE — Baystate Health and VertitechIT announced the formation of a new company to meet the increasingly complex IT needs of medical practices, clinics, and healthcare social-service organizations in the Western Mass. and Northern Conn. regions.

BaytechIT is a first-of-its-kind independent joint venture, providing monitoring and management of information-technology networks, telephony, clinical engineering support, and other IT-related consulting and engineering expertise previously unaffordable to the local healthcare community. Already serving Baystate Health, its operating medical practices, and several large and mid-sized offices and clinics, baytechIT currently has 150 clients and manages/monitors more than 16,000 endpoint devices.

“While we’re rooted in technology, baytechIT focuses on how to make IT useful and valuable to our clients. Rather than seeing IT as a cost or an imposition, we want to make it an invaluable asset woven into the fabric of a medical practice,” said baytechIT President Patrick Streck.

Added baytechIT Executive Vice President Steve Shaw, “this requires a highly specific set of skills and experience in healthcare IT that most independent practices either don’t have or can’t afford. Meeting this need will ultimately have a positive impact on patient care throughout our community.”

BaytechIT will be headquartered in Holyoke with additional offices throughout Western Mass.

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SPRINGFIELD Springfield will be host to the 24 Educare early-education center to be built in the U.S., and the only one in Massachusetts, with a groundbreaking to be held at 100 Hickory St., adjacent to Brookings School, on Monday, Sept. 17 at 10 a.m.

Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito will be joined by Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno; Educare officials; Janis Santos, executive director of Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start; other representatives of the Commonwealth; local leaders in philanthropy and project funders; representatives of Springfield College and Old Hill Neighborhood Council; and other community members for the official groundbreaking of the nearly $14 million early-education school that will serve children from birth to age 5 in an all-day program.

Educare offers an early-education model designed to help narrow the achievement gap for children living in poverty and represents a national collaboration between the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and the Ounce of Prevention Fund. Currently, there are 23 Educare schools located in 15 states across the country, including urban and suburban communities.

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SPRINGFIELD — Springfield College will host mental-health awareness advocates Jessie Close and Calen Pick on Thursday, Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. in the Field House. This year marks the fifth year of the college’s newly endowed Arts and Humanities Speaker Series, made possible through the generosity of Carlton and Lucille Sedgeley. This event is free and open to the public.

Inspired by Close and Pick’s stories in 2010, actress Glenn Close (Jessie’s sister) co-founded Bring Change to Mind, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness.

Jessie Close’s own struggle with bipolar disorder and alcoholism provides the backbone to a courageous story and an enlightened perspective on the state of mental health in the U.S. She is the author of Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness, published in 2016, and a speaker who shares her own journey toward the larger goal of greater understanding of the complexities and challenges of living with a diagnosed mental illness.

Pick, diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder as a young man, has been active in outreach programs for youth living with mental illness, resources that weren’t always available to him at a young age. A Montana-based artist, Pick has been developing his craft for more than 14 years. He views his artwork as an expression of the creative gifts commonly found among people living with mental illness and an important therapeutic tool for his own pursuit of a healthy and productive life.

If you have a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to fully participate in this event, contact (413) 748-5287 to discuss your accessibility needs. Springfield College is a smoke- and tobacco-free campus.

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WARE — Country Bank staff recently volunteered their time to assist the Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity build a home for a local Springfield family.

“Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity is blessed to have wonderful community partners like Country Bank who contribute the time, talent, and treasure needed to help families build strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter,” said Jennifer Schimmel, executive director for Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity.

Added Jodie Gerulaitis, vice president, Community Relations at Country Bank, “when asked to support such a meaningful cause, the staff at Country Bank was eager to help with this project. The staff was truly grateful to be a part of making the dream of home ownership a reality for Joseph and Lakery and their family.”