Daily News

AMHERST — The Amherst Survival Center, a regional resource serving low-income residents of Hampshire and Franklin counties, announced the selection of K. Lev Ben-Ezra as its next executive director. Ben-Ezra succeeds Mindy Domb, who has been director since June 2013 and has been elected state representative for the 3rd Hampshire District.

“We’re thrilled to have Lev joining us,” said Lynn Griesemer, president of the Amherst Survival Center board. “Over the past several years, and with the continued and increased support of the community, the center has expanded its collection of programs. As a result, the center has been able to meet more needs and develop and achieve an ambitious strategic plan.”

Ben-Ezra’s experience includes extensive work over the past decade at Community Action Pioneer Valley, where she developed and implemented leadership and workforce-development programs for both youth and adults. Most recently, she served as director of Youth and Workforce Development, and previously as director of Youth Programs. She has also worked in several other youth-serving organizations, working to support youth at risk in a variety of settings. She has served as chair of the Franklin County/North Quabbin Communities that Care Coalition for the last eight years, as a steering committee member of the Hampshire County Strategic Planning Initiative for Families and Youth, and as a member of the Regional Employment Board’s Youth Career Connections Council, as well as on other local coalitions. She is also an adjunct faculty member of Marlboro College Graduate and Professional Studies and a board member of the Community Health Center of Franklin County.

“I have grown increasingly passionate about the importance of addressing challenges we face at both the individual intervention and systemic change level,” Ben-Ezra said. “I have been impressed for many years by the Amherst Survival Center’s commitment to leverage volunteers, donations, and advocacy to create inclusive community, starting by meeting people’s most basic needs.”

Daily News

BOSTON — Business confidence rebounded modestly during February as optimism about the state and national economies outweighed a darkening outlook among Massachusetts manufacturers.

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index gained 0.5 points to 58.2 after dropping in January to its lowest level since October 2016. Confidence remains within optimistic territory but has lost 6.8 points during the past 12 months.

The February increase was driven by a 3.4% jump in employer views of the state economy and a 3.3% rise for the national economy. The government announced last week that the U.S. economy grew at a 2.9% rate in 2018, matching 2015 as the biggest increase since the end of the 2007-09 Great Recession.

“Employers remain generally optimistic about a state economy that continues to run at full-employment levels and a U.S. economy that is projected to grow by 2.2% this year” said Raymond Torto, chair of AIM’s Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. “At the same time, the erosion of confidence among Massachusetts manufacturers during the past 12 months raises some concern about the long-term sustainability of the recovery.”

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.

AIM President and CEO Richard Lord, also a BEA member, said the comments provided by employers on the February AIM Business Confidence Index Survey show that many companies remain bullish about 2019, while others remain concerned about issues ranging from gridlock in Washington to the persistent shortage of skilled employees.

“There are plenty of mixed signals 10 years into the economic recovery,” Lord said. “Massachusetts employers face rising wage costs, rising raw-material costs, and the challenge of integrating new public-policy mandates such as an increased minimum wage and paid family and medical leave. It’s the right time in the business cycle for state and federal government to follow the lead of the Federal Reserve and pause the imposition of expensive new initiatives.”

Daily News

NORTHAMPTON — Michael Tucker, president and CEO of Greenfield Cooperative Bank, announced that Daniel E. O’Neill has joined the bank as vice president – Commercial Lending in its Northampton Cooperative Bank division.

“Dan has over 29 years’ experience in commercial credit and lending, starting his career with the former Shawmut National Bank, and was most recently the senior commercial lender for an area credit union,” Tucker said. “When we heard that Dan might be available, Greenfield Cooperative Bank felt it could not pass up this opportunity to add someone with Dan’s extensive experience to our Commercial Lending team.

O’Neill, who will be based in the 67 King St. office of the Northampton Cooperative Bank division, earned bachelor’s degree from Assumption College in Worcester and is a graduate of the School of Commercial Lending held by the Massachusetts Bankers Assoc. He has been active in the community throughout his career with time spent as a volunteer board member with groups such as the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, the Holyoke YMCA, the Chicopee Boys’ and Girls’ Club, and Blessed Sacrament School in Holyoke.

Daily News

LONGMEADOW — Taking care of the older adults in the community has always been a passion for Glenmeadow, a Longmeadow-based provider of senior living and services. This year, it’s going the extra mile and positioning its leadership team for further success by partnering with Bay Path University’s Strategic Alliances for a six-part series on leadership development.

As an innovative leader in adult and professional learning, Bay Path’s Strategic Alliances partners with employers to customize a curriculum that empowers employees to have a positive impact on productivity and the bottom line. Glenmeadow’s custom Leadership Development program focuses on engaging communication methods, leadership-development skills, handling difficult environments, and employee management. Each session is run by a faculty member who is an expert in their field.

“Glenmeadow’s pledge is to nurture the mind, body, and spirit of the people we serve and employ,” said Anne Miller, Glenmeadow’s vice president of Operations. “Partnering with the diverse team at Bay Path helps us to step back from our day-to-day operations and look with fresh eyes at our services, and gives both our seasoned managers and our newer managers time for growth, development, and teamwork.”

Cover Story

A Six-month Checkup

Mike Mathis, foreground, with recently promoted MGM employees

Mike Mathis, foreground, with recently promoted MGM employees, from left: Marissa Dombkowski, Bill Blake, and Nickolaos Panteleakis.

A half-year after opening its doors, MGM Springfield is well behind its stated goals and expectations for gross gaming revenues, or GGR, and the numbers have been declining each month since the fall. But the winter months are traditionally the slowest in this industry, said Mike Mathis, president and COO of the resort, and the company is still ramping up its operation. Overall, he said, there are a number of positive indicators.

‘Ramping.’

That’s the word you hear quite frequently from MGM’s leaders as they talk about the $950 million property in Springfield’s South End. Jim Murren, president and CEO of MGM Resorts International, used it early and often in a conference call with stock analysts last month following the release of MGM’s fourth-quarter earnings in 2018.

And Mike Mathis, president and COO of MGM Springfield, leaned on it as he talked with BusinessWest late last month, six months after the facility opened its doors. With casinos like this one, Mathis said, the ramping-up process, if you will, goes on for three years or so and is quite involved.

It entails watching, listening, learning, and adapting, all with the goals of growing visitation and, therefore, the bottom line, while also improving efficiency and making the operation in question more profitable.

“I think it’s premature to judge us, or anyone, on a partial data set; it’s a little early to say we’re going to underperform or overperform for our first year.”

“In the context of a new resort, it’s commonly understood within the industry that there’s a three-year stabilization period — a ramp period to stabilization,” he explained. “Three years serves as a benchmark. You’ve been through a few different seasonality rotations, you see the different ranges of weather, you see the different ranges of how holidays land, whether they land on weekends or midweek — you get all those different scenarios.

“You’re also building up your database,” he went on. “Seeing how your competition’s reacting to what you’re doing — how are they activating their property. You get a feel over a couple of years — did we do well that weekend because the competition didn’t have much going on? Or did we suffer because they put in a big act to counter that weekend? That all shakes out over two or three years.”

These references to ramping up are being generated by questions about revenues at MGM Springfield, and, more specifically, about why they are not approaching the numbers the company projected to the Mass. Gaming Commission.

‘Slower’ is the operative word being used with regard to revenues, and it fits if one considers MGM’s projections of $418 million in annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) in its first year of operation, or $34.8 million per month. Indeed, the company recorded $21.58 million in GGR in December, and just $19.7 million in January (February’s numbers will not be released for a few weeks). GGR for November was $21.2 million, the number was $22.2 for October, and in September, it was $26.95 million.

Mathis, while certainly acknowledging that the numbers are lower than projected, at least for the winter months, told BusinessWest that the $418 million projection given to the Gaming Commission was made several years ago, and that the landscape has changed in some ways since then.

Mike Mathis says the winter months are traditionally the slowest for casinos

Mike Mathis says the winter months are traditionally the slowest for casinos in the Northeast, and he is optimistic that visitation will climb as the mercury does.

Meanwhile … it’s early, said Mathis, referring to the fact that the casino has only been open for six months, and a few of those months (January, February, and early December, before the holidays) are among the slowest for casinos, especially those in the Northeast.

“I think it’s premature to judge us, or anyone, on a partial data set; it’s a little early to say we’re going to underperform or overperform for our first year,” he told BusinessWest. “If you look at our August and September numbers, we would have exceeded our expectations. And going into the winter months … that’s the low end of the season.”

And, overall, the casino is still ramping.

That means it’s still learning, collecting data, watching patterns develop, and adapting to what the data shows. As he said earlier, it’s an involved process that involves a number of factors, including the weather. Make that especially the weather.

Mathis said he and his team are tuned into the forecasts, because one thing he’s noticed thus far — and this counts as one of the surprises on his list — is that, despite a reputation for being hardy, people in New England are apparently easily scared off from traveling in snow — or even forecasts of same.

“We thought New England would be hardier than what we’ve seen on some of these snow days,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve had a little bit of experience with snow in Detroit and Atlantic City, but I think every market is unique, and we’re learning some of the patterns and behaviors.

“And it’s not just snow,” he went on, sounding much like area golf-course operators when they talk about rain and how it impacts them. “It’s what type of snow and what time of day it hits and what day of the week it hits. Weather forecasts have become an important tool for operating and planning; it’s been a very interesting learning curve.”

One that extends, as he said, well beyond snow, and into other realms such as where people are visiting from, how often they visit, which games they play, which restaurants they frequent, and much more.

Overall, and as might be expected, Mathis is optimistic that the monthly numbers for GGR will improve as the weather gets better and the casino can make much better use of its outdoor facilities with concerts — Aerosmith is coming for the first-anniversary celebration — and other activities.

But looming over MGM Springfield, in a big way, is the opening of a competing casino in Everett, slated for sometime this summer. Mathis said that development will further alter the landscape and certainly add new wrinkles to the ramping process.

Driven by Data

Mathis told BusinessWest that this first six months of operation have been a learning experience on all kinds of levels, and this, too, was to be expected, because gaming is still relatively new to Massachusetts (Plainridge Park Casino, a slots facility, opened in the fall of 2017), and while those at MGM had expectations, they didn’t know exactly what to expect.

What have they learned? For starters, they’ve learned that visitors much prefer the weekend to the weekdays. And while that sounds obvious, the disparity in the numbers is eye-opening.

“I’m surprised at how weekend-centric the business has been — the difference between weekends and weekdays is pretty dramatic,” Mathis noted, adding that, with the former, visitation averages roughly 18,000 to 20,000 a day, while with the latter, it’s closer to 10,000.

This disparity is far greater than it is in Las Vegas and with most other MGM properties, said Mathis, adding that one big reason for this is a still-ramping (there’s that word again) meeting and convention business in Greater Springfield.

Mike Mathis says the ROAR! Comedy Club has become a solid attraction for MGM Springfield

Mike Mathis says the ROAR! Comedy Club has become a solid attraction for MGM Springfield and a vehicle for bringing new audiences to the resort.

“We have the ability to impact those numbers midweek by putting more convention groups in the MassMutual Center, getting more citywide events, and getting more entertainment mid-week, which we plan on ramping up,” he explained. “There’s ways to impact that midweek business to the benefit of the entire downtown.”

What else have they learned? There’s that aversion to traveling in snow that was mentioned earlier. That was in evidence a few weeks back. The weekend before Presidents Day was one of the best the casino had since it opened, said Mathis, crediting MGM’s ROAR! comedy shows and a host of other things happening downtown and elsewhere, including two Thunderbirds games and a camping and RV show at the Big E, for the surge, one that contributed to one of the few real traffic jams recorded since the property opened.

But the holiday itself (a day off for the vast majority of workers in this region) was considerably slower, and Mathis believes that the few inches of snow that fell overnight had a lot to do with this. Of course, Monday is also a weekday.

What else? Well, to date, MGM Springfield is “underperforming” (Mathis’ word) when it comes to attracting people from Central Mass. Indeed, while the casino does well in drawing people from Upstate New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut (the I-91 corridor), the numbers from the central part of the state are less impressive, which, if you take the glass-is-half-full approach, which Mathis does, means there’s considerable room for growth.

“We’re trying to understand the phenomenon of east-west travel on the Pike, frankly,” he explained. “I think there’s a bias to go north-south — I think that might be the more the traditional traffic pattern, and that’s what the data shows — but we’re also doing well with Boston.

“The good news about how this data shakes out is that there’s upside opportunity for us in Central Mass.,” he went on. “And this might blunt the impact of the Everett casino.”

There have been a few other surprises, including the number of people making their first visit six months after the ceremonial ribbon was cut.

“I’m still surprised by how many people I’m meeting on the floor who are seeing it for the first time,” he said. “Our team has been at this since 2012, so sometimes I feel that anybody who was interested in coming would have come in the first month or two. But there are people hitting the floor every day who are brand new, and for whatever reason have decided that this is the weekend they want to check it out.”

A Laughing Matter

While much of the media’s focus has been on GGR and the hard fact that the numbers are not where they were projected to be, Mathis said there are a number of positive developments to note as the casino passes that six-month mile marker. Here are several he listed:

• The data clearly shows that the opening of MGM Springfield has grown the overall gambling market in this broad region, he said, adding that this becomes clear when one does some simple math and looks at MGM’s revenues and the declining numbers for competitors. The former is larger than the aggregate of the latter, which translates into growth, which bodes well for all players.

“I think one of the good things about new properties coming into the market is it keeps everybody in a position of having to keep up.”

“I’ve met countless customers on our floor who have said that MGM Springfield is their first casino gaming experience, and there’s a few reasons for that,” he said. “Some say they were in Las Vegas, they’re Mlife members, and they’d been to a convention or show, but didn’t happen to go into the casino on that trip; with this in their backyard, they thought they’d give it a try. Others will say they like our non-smoking gaming environment and had never gone into another casino because they didn’t want the smoke; that’s a real competitive advantage for us.”

• The ROAR! Comedy Club has been a solid addition to the MGM lineup, helping to drive visitation, especially during some of the slower months on the calendar. Located in the historic Armory, the shows have drawn consistent crowds, said Mathis, adding that, as the calendar turns to spring and then summer, the team at MGM Springfield will look to maximize its outdoor facilities with a full slate of entertainment to be announced in the coming weeks.

“In talking with the comedians, they say we’re now the buzz within that community — it’s a cool venue, something all the comics want to play on their East Coast rotation,” he told BusinessWest. “it’s a great way to expose the building to different customers.”

• The team continues to find new ways to leverage its many facilities at the casino, said Mathis, noting that it has added entertainment in its ballrooms — Sinbad recently performed two sold-out shows — and the staff continually looks for new opportunities.

“We’re doing a lot of fun activations in different parts of the resort,” he explained. “We want to make sure we understand the booking patterns for convention and meeting groups, and when we see holes, it’s like an empty airplane seat; how do you fill it, and how do you bring new customers to the resort?”

• The hotel and food and beverage side of the casino operation has been exceeding expectations, said Mathis, adding that, among other things, a recently added weekend brunch at Cal Mare restaurant has helped grow that side of the equation.

“Our hotel and restaurant business has been extremely strong, and we thought that would be the case, because there’s good, local lodging and F&B in the market, but perhaps not to a Vegas standard, and we believe we’ve brought a Vegas standard to this market. We’ve exceeded occupancy, and we’ve exceeded our average daily rate.”

• But despite this success, there has been some spillover to other area businesses in this sector, and this is by design, said Mathis, noting that the hotel, with 252 rooms, is not particularly large, and the dining options, while growing (groundbreaking on a Wahlburgers is slated for later this year), leave plenty of opportunities for other eateries in the downtown.

“One of the reasons we sized the hotel the way we did was that we wanted to make sure that developments like ours have a spillover effect to other businesses,” he said. “And we wanted to make sure that came true. Some restaurant owners, including the Caputo family at Red Rose, have been quoted as saying that their business is up 20%, and people are expanding and extending hours.”

• Likewise, the numbers regarding the workforce have been generally positive, said Mathis. He estimated a 35% churn rate since the facility opened its doors, and noted that, while this might sound high to business owners and managers in other sectors, it’s in line with industry norms and actually lower than in many other areas.

Meanwhile, the targets for hiring Springfield residents, veterans, women, and minorities have all been met or exceeded, and many employees have already moved up the ladder since the casino opened its doors.

“I got the stat the other day … I think we’ve had 200 or so promotions since day one, and 30% of those are Springfield residents,” he noted. “Nothing makes me prouder than to see a line-level employee on day one who’s now wearing a suit in a supervisory management role. And it’s happening.”

As examples, he cited three employees who joined him for photos later in the day: Bill Blake, formerly graphic supervisor and now creative manager; Nickolaos Panteleakis, formerly Front Services manager (where he handled many front desk duties) and now director of Front Services; and Marissa Dombkowski, who has been promoted twice already — she started as an HR communications specialist, moved up to Entertainment Marketing coordinator, and is now Marketing manager for the MassMutual Center.

Overall, and to recap, Mathis reiterated that ramping up is, indeed, a three-year process, one that involves a serious learning curve on many different levels.

“I tell my team all the time, ‘if it were easy, everyone would do it,’” he said of casino operations in general. “That’s why we’re here — to manage through, collect data, and be smarter every day as we collect data and finetune the business.”

Driving Force

Mathis was one of those people caught in that traffic jam on the Saturday of Presidents Day weekend.

He told BusinessWest that it took him more than 45 minutes to get to an event downtown from his home in Longmeadow, normally a 15-minute drive. But unlike most others, he certainly wasn’t complaining.

“I’ve never been happer to be in stand-still traffic,” he said, adding that, while it has always been MGM’s goal to minimize such disruption, he’ll gladly take more nights like that in the weeks and months to come.

And he predicts he’ll be getting more as that ramping process continues.

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

Features

The Spirit Moved Him

Paul Kozub stands in front of picture of his new distillery in Poland.

Paul Kozub stands in front of picture of his new distillery in Poland.

Almost from the day he started V-One Vodka, Paul Kozub has been dreaming about, and planning for, the day when he’d make his product himself, at a distillery he owned in Poland, the birthplace of his ancestors — and vodka itself. Now, that day is here, and Kozub believes this huge investment will enable him to scale up his venture on a dramatic level.

Paul Kozub says the hardest part about the whole thing was keeping it a secret.

And that’s saying something, because there were many hard parts to his ambitious plans to building his own distillery to produce the Vodka label, V-One, that he brought the marketplace nearly a decade ago.

There was the process of finding a location in Poland, birthplace of both his ancestors and vodka itself, or so the story goes, as well as designing a facility and getting it built. And none of that could happen unless he sold enough shares of his company to raise the needed capital — but not so many shares that he would lose majority ownership of the venture.

But the keeping-it-all-a-secret part? That was quite necessary because, if word ever got out to those who had been producing his vodka since he launched his label that he was going into that end of the business himself, then they would stop producing it for him posthaste and leave him scrambling to not only fill orders but find someone else to make it in the interim.

So Kozub went to great lengths to keep his search and then his building project a secret. And, as he said, it wasn’t easy.

“My family and friends knew, but I had to really keep things quiet otherwise,” he explained at a short press conference on Feb. 26 to announce the purchase and expansion of a distillery in Kamien, Poland, about two hours southeast of Warsaw. “Every time I went to Poland, I wouldn’t post it on Facebook, because my suppliers are friends of mine and they’d see that I’m there [Kamien] and not coming to see them, so they’d know something was going on.”

As noted, he said this at a press conference, which means this huge development for the company is no longer a secret. Kozub told those friends who were producing his product (the operative word there is ‘were’) about it a few weeks ago, and he said they quite happy for him. At the Feb. 26 press conference, he told several media outlets, supporters, clients such as MGM Springfield, area bars and restaurants, and more.

The distillery in Kanien, Poland has a long history, and V-One Vodka will be writing an intriguing new chapter.

The distillery in Kanien, Poland has a long history, and V-One Vodka will be writing an intriguing new chapter.

It was an emotional announcement and an intriguing new chapter in the V-One story, which started back in 2003, when Kozub started distilling in his home in Hadley after using a $6,000 inheritance from his “Polish moonshining grandfather” to buy some equipment. There have been a number of milestones along the way, from the creation of his signature bottle to expansion into different markets; from the addition of several new flavors to Kozub’s being named BusinessWest’s Top Entrepreneur for 2016 (in recognition of all of the above).

The distillery, which he describes as a “multi-million-dollar investment,” without being more specific, represents the next milestone and one Kozub believes will greatly accelerate growth of the company.

“This will allow us to produce 400 times more vodka than we produce today; we will be looking to not only expand as a national brand, but as an international brand,” he explained. “This represents the next stage of the company — and a very exciting stage.”

Elaborating, he said he doesn’t have a firm timetable, obviously, but expects to expand outside of New England and down the East Coast in the years to come, and will then look to expand globally.

For now, though, he’s focused on getting the first bottle off the line in Kamien, something that should happen on or around April 1.

For this issue, BusinessWest looks at everything that has brought Kozub to that moment and at what will likely happen next.

Proof Positive

As he announced his expansion into Poland — a return to his family’s roots, if you will — Kozub did so with a type of high-tech slideshow. Only it started with a few low-tech pictures that captured some of those milestones described earlier.

One was of his first house in Hadley, a small Cape that he moved into just a few days after his Polish grandfather died, and another captured its basement, where he first started making vodka, or “moonshine,” as he called it. A third zoomed in on the special plumbing that enabled cold water to run through the still, a development that made everything that’s happened since possible.

Other pictures captured his first V-One bottle and his first van, which he purchased soon after going into business. He would load it with 100 cases of V-One and deliver it to clients across the region himself.

The addition built onto the distillery brings all aspects of the business together in one place — from production to bottling to warehousing.

The addition built onto the distillery brings all aspects of the business together in one place — from production to bottling to warehousing.

Yes, that’s a lot of firsts. But to take the venture forward in a meaningful way, Kozub said he needed to control production of his vodka with his own distillery. He said he’s known this almost from the beginning, but the costs of such a facility have been imposing and, until recently, prohibitive.

But knowing he needed to take this step, he raised capital by taking on additional investors as part of a process that really began a few years ago. Subsequent steps included scouting locations and kicking the tires on existing distilleries available for acquisition.

With that explanation, his show shifted to video captured by his phone as he traveled through the community he eventually chose to be home to his distillery.

“There’s thousands and thousands of acres of fruit trees here … it reminds me a lot of Hadley,” he said as the car transporting him moved down a rural road. “As soon as I saw this, I knew it was the place I wanted to call home.”

Home, meaning the actual distillery itself, has been around for more than 133 years, and thus it has some history, said Kozub, noting that, during World War II, the Nazis took it over and produced different kinds of spirits.

The next chapter in its history involves a sizable expansion necessary for producing V-One in the quantities that Kozub is envisioning for the years and perhaps decades to come. Indeed, the facility will include, in addition to the distilling equipment, laboratory space (mostly for R&D and new product development), a bottling area, and warehouse space.

Thus, when asked what this ambitious move does for the company, Kozub said quickly, “it makes everything better.” Elaborating, he said that, almost from the beginning, he has understood the critical need to have more control over every aspect of the V-One operation, especially production.

“I wanted to be in control of production — I’ve had a number of production nightmares over the past 15 years,” he explained. “Literally, we’ll be planting our own grain, our own spelt, harvesting it, and processing it. We like to say that, from farm to glass, we’ll be in control of each process, and that’s the trend today.”

Beyond control, Kozub said this expansion into Poland and the opening of his own distillery allows him to accelerate the process of growing the V-One label and taking it into new markets — in this country and then eventually abroad.

“I really never wanted to make rum or tequila or gin, but I have at least two dozen other vodka products I’d like to make someday,” he told those assembled at V-One world headquarters (a converted church) on Route 9 in Hadley. “And this allows us to be really innovative with doing some of that stuff; when someone else is making your vodka, you’re limited to their schedule and their timeframe.”

Moving forward, Kozub said that, while he did a sell an interest in the company — something he could do only after its raising its value over the past decade through new products and a wider reach market-wise — he is still the overwhelming majority owner, and still one who is quite hands-on and involved in all aspects of the business. That said, he still plans to spend the vast majority of his time in this country, and probably visit Poland about as much as he does now — maybe once a quarter.

While leaving actual production in the hands of a manager in Poland, Kozub will focus on the proverbial big picture and, more specifically, territorial expansion for V-One and a scaling up of the operation.

And having his own distillery, as he said, will certainly help in this regard.

“People comment to me all the time … ‘you’re a 13-and-a-half-year-old business; how come you haven’t gotten out of the New England market?’” he told BusinessWest. “I’ve had some serious production problems and packaging issues that have worried me about getting into Florida or Texas or California, three of the biggest vodka markets. This [distillery] will really allow us to scale up and tackle those challenges.”

Expanding within the U.S. and then overseas markets will obviously require more capital, he added, and he plans to sell additional shares in the business within the next year.

Bottom Line

As he continued his slideshow presentation before the press and his supporters, Kozub placed a map of Poland on the screen to show exactly where his distillery will be located.

He did so to offer a point of reference, offer up a short lesson on Polish geography, and also show where his ancestors are from — a small town not far Krakow. But he also did it to be a touch poetic.
“This really helps put on us on the map,” he said of the distillery, using that phrase to say a great deal.

This venture is now on the map, literally, and its product will be on — meaning available to — a much larger chunk of the map in the years to come because of what this facility will enable the company to do.

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

Banking and Financial Services

What’s in a Name? Plenty

Mike Buckmaster

Mike Buckmaster, vice president of Commercial Lending for Community Bank, N.A.

Since entering the market in 2017 through the acquisition of Merchants Bank and its branch in Springfield’s Tower Square, Community Bank, N.A. has been working to build on its foundation in this region. It brings to the highly competitive local banking landscape both considerable size and an operating mindset commensurate with the name on the letterhead.

Mark Tryniski acknowledges that it sounds illogical that a financial-services institution with $12 billion in assets and more than 230 branches could call itself a community bank — let alone call itself Community Bank, N.A.

But Tryniski, president and CEO of the Syracuse, N.Y.-based institution, said ‘Community Bank’ represents more than a name — and one that fits. Indeed, it’s more like an attitude.

“As our name suggests, we’re a community bank — that’s how we’ve always operated,” he explained. “And when you put the name ‘Community’ on your bank, you’d better function as a community bank — and we do.

“There is such a thing as a community-bank model,” he continued. “You push authority down to people in the branches, as opposed to the big-bank model, where you walk in the door looking for a home-equity loan and they put you on the phone with a 1-800 number and someone working in another country. Community banks don’t do that.”

Mark Tryniski

Mark Tryniski

 “When you put the name ‘Community’ on your bank, you’d better function as a community bank — and we do.”

This operating mindset has enabled the institution to grow considerably over the past several years and into a number of different markets, including Springfield, accomplished through the acquisition in 2017 of Merchants Bank, which had previously acquired NUVO Bank, which operated a single branch within the 413 within a large footprint in Tower Square.

Since putting its name over the door on Main Street, Community Bank, N.A. has downsized that space considerably, while simultaneously working to establish itself and broaden its horizons within this market.

It has done so by essentially living up to the name over the door, said both Tryniski and Mike Buckmaster, vice president of Commercial Lending. They both said the institution possesses the formula that’s required to succeed today — a community-bank feel, but a large size that is necessary in a changing, quite challenging financial-services marketplace today.

“I think that, over a period of time, the market has accepted the fact, to a degree, that this is a consolidating industry,” said Buckmaster, who has logged more than 30 years in the banking industry, locally and in the U.K., and has carried business cards bearing the logos of NUVO and Merchants Bank, among others. “The differentiating factor tends to be the commercial banker, and if the commercial banker can continue to deliver in terms of service and business development, there tends to be a good degree of customer loyalty toward the banker, even through various acquisitions.”

That lengthy explanation helps explain why the Springfield facility has been able to enjoy steady growth in its portfolio even as the name on the wall of Tower Square has changed several times this decade.

Tryniski agreed, but said the combination of size and small-bank attitude is becoming ever more important as the consolidation movement continues without any signs of slowing down.

“I’ve been around the banking industry for a little more than 30 years, and there’s been a dramatic change in the banking landscape, mostly centered around consolidation,” he explained. “When I started, in the ’80s, there were 16,000 or 18,000 banks; now, there are roughly 6,000 banks.

“And I think the trend toward consolidation will continue because of efficiencies that can be garnered by scale and technology,” he went on. “The bigger you get, the more you can justify investments in technology to give you more efficiency. It’s hard for the smaller banks — you have to really be efficient and disciplined.”

Overall, Community Bank will look to get bigger still, and is looking at opportunities to expand within the Western Mass. and Connecticut markets, said Tryniski, but “haven’t found what the right opportunity is yet,” as he put it. Elaborating, he said growth for this institution will continue to come as it has historically, through a mix of organic growth and acquisition, with more of the latter than the former, especially in areas with slow or no growth but more than enough competition, and Western Mass. certainly fits that category.

In such markets, growth can come only by taking market share from other institutions, he went on, adding that this is generally difficult to do. Community Bank has had a good amount of success doing just that, however, because of that aforementioned enviable combination of large size and smaller-bank feel.

Community Bank, N.A.

Mark Tryniski says Community Bank, N.A. will look for opportunities to expand locally beyond its location in Tower Square.

For this issue and its focus on banking and financial services, BusinessWest talked at length with Tryniski and Buckmaster about how Community Bank, N.A. has firmly established its presence in the local market and how it intends to secure additional market share and perhaps expand its footprint in the 413.

By All Accounts

Since acquiring Merchants, and therefore all its branches, Tryniski has visited Springfield on several occasions as part of his efforts to fully understand the broad geographic area served by the institution — one that stretches from the Northern Kingdom in Vermont to the Southwest corner of New York to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania — and meet both team members and customers.

“We spend a lot of time on the road,” he said of the management team at the bank, adding that, when he does visit Springfield, or any other community served by the bank, he makes a point of learning as much about the region as he can.

In the City of Homes, he’s become familiar with some of the players within the business community, has found a few restaurants he likes, and is both impressed with and encouraged by the high level of energy he’s seeing in the central business district.

He said there are a great many similarities between Springfield and Syracuse, and in some ways, that has helped him understand the dynamics of not only the communities themselves, but the banking environment here.

“They’re remarkably similar, actually,” he said. “They have the same population, they have an industrial history, they have a stable-but-not-growing population, there’s a lot of education, the downtowns look very similar … they’re very much alike. Springfield feels to me like Syracuse.”

From a banking perspective, that means a community that, as he said, is experiencing comparatively little growth, population-wise and new-business-wise, and has a crowded field of competitors for financial-services products — banks and non-banks alike.

In this environment, operating with that community-bank model — but with roughly $3 billion in assets behind the institution — is what amounts to a competitive advantage — a large competitive advantage, said Tryniski.

“We tell our branch managers that we want them to be the president of the bank in their town,” he explained. “And we give them the authority to do that; we give them lending authority and authority around charitable contributions, fee waivers, fee adjustments, things like that. We try to vest as much authority in our branch managers locally as we can, and let them make decisions about their customers and their market.

“We probably have more of a community-bank business model than most community banks,” he went on, “because most don’t operate like that.”

However, in this market, there are still a large number of community banks — more than in many other markets — and this simple math requires that small-bank mindset. Meanwhile, the field of competitors continues to change and grow, thanks to technology, which has brought many non-bank players into the mix, said Tryniski.

“We compete now with all sorts of non-bank competitors on the lending side — for everything,” he told BusinessWest. “Whether it’s personal loans, business loans, car loans … it doesn’t matter what kind of loan you’re making, you’re competing against a multitude of other, non-banking enterprises. And the same is true on the deposit side as well.”

Buckmaster agreed, noting that, on the commercial-lending side, with all that competition, as well as all that consolidation, having a local address is not the same thing as having people who know the local market and have worked within it for years, if not decades.

“All that competition puts the emphasis very much on the banker and being able to provide the service and support growth going forward as clients need,” he said, adding that Community Bank is large and stable, and thus able to provide commercial-banking products of all sizes, including dollar amounts beyond the scope of many of the smaller community banks that populate the region.

The sweet spot for the bank, though, is loans between $1 million and $3.5 million, he said, adding that the bank is able and willing to continue writing loans for small-business owners, something the very large banks seem less interested in doing so.

This flexibility has enabled the institution now known as Community Bank, N.A. to continue to serve the customers added to its portfolio when it was NUVO, he went on, adding that loans have been written for businesses across virtually all sectors and for a number of commercial real-estate acquisitions as well.

“We’ve have some customers who were initially small back eight or nine years ago who have grown into significant customers that require a significant increase in loan support going forward,” he told BusinessWest. “We’ve seen some good growth in commercial and industrial customers over that period of time, and in addition, we’ve also seen significant new dollars in different types of commercial-investment real estate, whether it be locally in Western Mass. or further afield.”

Worthy of Interest

Returning to some of those numbers mentioned earlier — the 230 branches and current status as the 125th-largest bank in the country — Tryniski said they certainly make Community Bank, N.A. sound big. And it is.

“But we’re a lot close to the smallest bank in the country than we are to the biggest, even though the numbers say we’re one of the biggest,” he noted, adding that, in today’s banking climate, it’s not how big a bank looks on paper that matters, but how big it acts in the markets it serves.

And with that as the benchmark, this institution does indeed live up to the words on its stationary and over those 230-odd doors.

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

Modern Office

Loosening Up

For decades, dress codes in business environments were simple — suits or jackets, ties, dresses, nylons. But there’s been a shift in recent years, at companies both large and small, toward a more casual dress policy that projects professionalism through slightly more casual wear, a trend often summed up in the phrase ‘dress appropriately.’ The result, proponents say, are more comfortable — and, hence, happier — workers, which is something any company wants.

It was only supposed to be a summer-long experiment, Christine Phillips said.

“Up until the summer of 2016, it was pretty much shirts, suits, and ties for men, and dresses, jackets, and nylons for women,” said Phillips, first vice president of Human Resources at PeoplesBank, of her company’s dress code. “The expectation was a very professional dress environment. But in some of our employee surveys, the concept of a more casual dress code kept coming up.”

There was some precedent, even in the traditionally buttoned-up world of finance; that was the year JPMorgan Chase made waves on Wall Street by making ‘business casual’ its official dress code. Other large corporations have done the same, following the lead of Silicon Valley and the tech sector, which have long been known for more casual dress.

“When people feel more comfortable in their work environment, when they can reflect their personality more, they feel good about themselves and feel good about their workplace. It’s been extremely well-received by all our associates.”

So, PeoplesBank leaders decided on a half-measure — loosening the policy for one summer.

“We took it down a notch — guys didn’t have to wear ties, women didn’t have to wear nylons. We relaxed on some of the more professional aspects — instead of a jacket and tie, just a dress shirt was fine; even a golf shirt was OK. For women, it could be more summer dresses, or open-toed shoes. In a way, we listened to what employees were asking us to consider and decided to use the summer as a test to see how things went.”

The result? “It went really well. People were excited about the fact that they could take the dress code down a little.”

That wasn’t too surprising, Phillips said. Loosening dress codes has been a hot topic for a long time at HR roundtables she’s attended, and other banks have waded into that water. At the start of 2017, PeoplesBank made it permanent as well, writing a less formal dress code — the bank calls it ‘professional casual’ — into policy year-round.

“We approached this as a workplace benefit,” she told BusinessWest. “When people feel more comfortable in their work environment, when they can reflect their personality more, they feel good about themselves and feel good about their workplace. It’s been extremely well-received by all our associates.”

MassMutual arrived at the point slightly earlier. After years of publishing a policy of specific do’s and don’ts, in the spring of 2015, the corporation boiled its dress code down to two words that have often been used in today’s work world: ‘dress appropriately.’

“This was an effort to reflect the more collaborative, innovative, and open culture that was building at the company, as well as simply trusting our employees and providing them with more empowerment and accountability,” said Susan Cicco, MassMutual’s head of Human Resources & Employee Experience.

Christine Phillips (second from left) with fellow PeoplesBank employees

Christine Phillips (second from left) with fellow PeoplesBank employees Anthony Polo, Joseph Zazzaro, and Joseph Fimognari, all dressed in ‘professional casual’ attire.

“What someone wears is very personal, and we want all of our employees to be comfortable and to bring their whole selves to work,” she explained. “We also want employees to have the flexibility to express their own individuality while trusting them to exercise good judgment.”

While the way employees are expected to dress often depends on what they’re doing that day — a client meeting for instance, might require a more formal look than an afternoon behind a desk — both companies are simply reflecting a broader move in the work world away from suits, ties, and dresses. The reasons are myriad, but they all come back to employee satisfaction, and how that affects the entire workplace culture in a positive way.

Decisions, Decisions

Once an employer shakes free of the idea that looking good always means formal dress, it can be freeing to simply trust that workers will make the right decisions with what they wear, Cicco said.

“It’s about placing more trust and accountability in our employees to manage their personal brand and reputation, and in our managers to set expectations and provide guidance for what’s considered appropriate,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s made a notable difference — life just feels a little bit easier.”

Still, for professionals accustomed to formal dress, the new guidelines can complicate matters, too, said Will Brideau, owner of menswear store Jackson & Connor in Northampton.

“What someone wears is very personal, and we want all of our employees to be comfortable and to bring their whole selves to work. We also want employees to have the flexibility to express their own individuality while trusting them to exercise good judgment.”

“We’ve seen people coming in saying, ‘I don’t have to wear a tie to work anymore; the office is really dressing down lately. They’re saying I don’t need a sport coat, just a nice button-down shirt, just dress appropriately for clients. How do I put an outfit together?’” he explained. “To a large extent, a suit and tie is a uniform, but now there’s a lot more flexibility, where they need to put together a semi-casual outfit — a business-appropriate outfit that feels good and looks good.”

While matching dress pants or a suit with a dress shirt might have come easy, he went on, exploring a wider range of “middle-of-the-road pants” — not too dressy, but not too casual — can be trickier for some.

“People are playing around and have a lot more options, and that absolutely requires more from us in terms of directing people to find outfits that will really split the difference and present them as being professional, but not overdone,” he said. “It’s interesting for us watching all of that change, seeing people shift into a more casual workplace style, based on who they’re interacting with on a daily basis.”

Frankly, Brideau went on, he enjoys the challenge of helping customers craft outfits by pulling together separate items — a shirt, dress pants, maybe a vest — they may struggle to assemble themselves after years in suits and ties.

Will Brideau

Will Brideau says he enjoys helping men who are used to suits and ties assemble more casual outfits for work.

“We’re doing more piecing together of separate items to make a creative presentation, which is fun for us. We love doing that stuff,” he said. “And it gives guys more range for creativity and to be playful with the things they’re wearing.”

Still, playful has its limits, Phillips said.

“One thing that was important to us — and we talked about this before we did it — was that, in dealing with our customers, our communities, even each other, there’s an expectation of how we should look, and we have to maintain that. It doesn’t mean we have to stay in suits and ties, but we still have to respect the institution maintain a level of professionalism, even though it’s a little more casual.”

For example, “if we have a community event that requires us to dress up, or a client meeting or business meeting that requires us to dress up, that’s written into the policy. And it absolutely has not been an issue.”

There are a few garments that are still off-limits at the bank, however, from tight-fitting clothing to jeans and T-shirt.

“Jeans are not in our future,” she said. “That’s not something we feel is aligned with our brand, with how we present ourselves. But we feel the professional casual is totally aligned with our brand.”

Culture Shift

Cicco noted that MassMutual’s dress code is just one of a number of ways the company continues to evolve its overall culture.  Other areas of focus include a stronger commitment to diversity and inclusion, modernizing its benefits and leave policies, having a continuous improvement and learning mindset, and realizing small things are big things. The dress code falls firmly into that latter category.

From left, Peoples-Bank’s Caitlyn Powers, Linda Parlengas, and Aaron Sundberg

From left, Peoples-Bank’s Caitlyn Powers, Linda Parlengas, and Aaron Sundberg enjoy the company’s less-formal dress code.

“When this new policy was introduced, our guidance to employees was simply to consider their daily schedule, who they were meeting with, and what was appropriate. That’s it,” she explained. “We also generally suggest to our employees that, if there’s any doubt, don’t wear it. This has worked out really well. As you walk the halls of MassMutual on a typical day, you can feel the more relaxed atmosphere.”

Oddly enough, Brideau said, he’s still selling plenty of suits and ties; in fact, neckties were his number-three seller by category in 2018, up from number four in 2017. He has an idea why: there will always be a need for formal wear, even if it’s on the decline in the workplace.

“We’re selling more neckties, more bowties, more dress pants,” he said. “I think, perhaps, because they’re not as necessary for work, when you need them, you really need them. More people are saying, ‘I never wear suits for work, and now I have to go to a wedding, or a memorial service comes up suddenly, and it gives them an opportunity to get a suit. You never need a suit until you need a suit.”

Increasingly, companies are saying they don’t need suits, or dresses, or any staples of the traditional, formal dress codes of decades past. Phillips says that’s a positive thing.

“I would encourage companies, if they’re thinking about doing this, to have good communication with their associates about it. We said, ‘we hear you, we know this is a benefit to you, and if we’re able to offer this to you, we have expectations how you’ll respect the policy and follow it.’ And now, it’s so rare we have concerns about the dress code.”

While some may point to loosening dress codes as a Millennial-driven trend, she added, workers of all generations seem to appreciate it.

“People who have grown up in banking, and all they’ve known is a professional look, they’re excited the bank could accommodate a look of professionalism but not require them to wear a suit and tie every day,” she said. “They’re able to project professionalism in a slightly more casual dress code.

“People were so excited we were doing it for the summer — that was just a ‘wow’ moment — then when we announced we could move to a year-round policy of professional casual, that really excited people,” she went on. “It also sends a message of trust; instead of saying, ‘it’s always been this way,’ we listened, and we felt this was something we can accommodate in our work environment.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Health Care

Under Pressure

A changing healthcare landscape has doctors feeling stressed, unsatisfied, and burned out like never before — and that could have dire effects on patient care. That’s why the industry is focused on diagnosing the problem and prescribing remedies.

Every day, patients rely on doctors to tackle their chronic health and wellness issues and make them feel better.

But what if it’s the doctors feeling miserable? Or stressed-out, anxious, and overwhelmed? Unfortunately, that’s happening constantly.

Burnout among physicians has become so pervasive that a new paper recently published by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Mass. Medical Society, and the Mass. Health and Hospital Assoc. deems the situation no less than a public health crisis.

“A Crisis in Health Care: A Call to Action on Physician Burnout,” as the document is titled, includes a number of strategies aimed at curbing the prevalence of burnout among physicians and other care providers, including improvements to the efficiency of electronic health records (EHRs), proactive mental-health treatment and support for caregivers experiencing burnout, and the appointment of an executive-level chief wellness officer at every major healthcare organization (much more on all of these later).

But the report also details just how extensive the problem is, and why it should be a concern for patients. In a 2018 survey conducted by Merritt-Hawkins, 78% of physicians said they experience some symptoms of professional burnout — loosely described in the survey as feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and/or diminished sense of personal accomplishment.

Physicians experiencing burnout are more likely than their peers to reduce their work hours or exit their profession. And that’s concerning in itself; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicts a coming nationwide shortage of nearly 90,000 physicians, many driven out of practice due to burnout.

“The issue of burnout is something we take incredibly seriously because physician well-being is linked to providing quality care and favorable outcomes for our patients,” said Dr. Alain Chaoui, a practicing family physician and president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. “We need our healthcare institutions to recognize burnout at the highest level, and to take active steps to survey physicians for burnout and then identify and implement solutions. We need to take better care of our doctors and all caregivers so that they can continue to take the best care of us.”

Dr. Alain Chaoui

Dr. Alain Chaoui

 “We need to take better care of our doctors and all caregivers so that they can continue to take the best care of us.”

While some have pointed to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 — the most significant recent change in the American healthcare landscape — as a stressor, the roots of the crisis date further back, the report notes. For example, EHRs, mandated as part of the 2009 Reinvestment and Recovery Act, have dramatically changed the way doctors allot time to their jobs. And the 1999 publication of the Institute of Medicine’s “To Err is Human” report, highlighting the prevalence of medical errors, directed new attention to the need for quality improvement, physician reporting, and accountability — and brought heightened pressure.

In the past, the report notes, some have proposed ‘self-care strategies’ — such as mindfulness or yoga — as a response to burnout and presented some evidence of limited success with such approaches. However, physicians typically don’t have time to fit such coping strategies into their routine. They also don’t really address root problems.

“Such an approach inaccurately suggests that the experience and consequences of burnout are the responsibility of individual physicians,” it continues. “This is akin to asking drivers to avoid car accidents without investing in repairing and improving hazardous roads. Simply asking physicians to work harder to manage their own burnout will not work.”

Digital Dilemma

As the report noted, a broad consensus has formed that a major contributor to physician burnout is dissatisfaction and frustration with EHRs, which have become ubiquitous in recent years. While the goal of transitioning to electronic records has been to improve quality of care and patient communication, the results have been mixed at best.

“The growth in poorly designed digital health records and quality metrics has required that physicians spend more and more time on tasks that don’t directly benefit patients, contributing to a growing epidemic of physician burnout,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, a VA physician and Harvard faculty member. “There is simply no way to achieve the goal of improving healthcare while those on the front lines — our physicians — are experiencing an epidemic of burnout due to the conflicting demands of their work. We need to identify and share innovative best practices to support doctors in fulfilling their mission to care for patients.”

As Dr. Atul Gawande, a Massachusetts surgeon, writer, researcher, and CEO of the nonprofit healthcare venture formed by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase, recently described it, “a system that promised to increase physicians’ mastery over their work has, instead, increased their work’s mastery over them.”

That’s because the patient encounter is now dominated by the demands of the EHR, undermining the crucial face-to-face interaction that has long been at the core of a satisfying doctor-patient encounter, the report notes, adding that, “for many physicians, EHRs impose a frustrating and non-intuitive workflow that makes excessive cognitive demands and detracts from, rather than reinforces, the goals of good patient care.”

Dr. Ashish Jha

Dr. Ashish Jha

 “The growth in poorly designed digital health records and quality metrics has required that physicians spend more and more time on tasks that don’t directly benefit patients.”

In addition, the quantity of mandatory documentation imposed by EHRs — due to regulatory and payer requirements — means physicians typically spend two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face to face with a patient, including numerous hours after work. And they’re frustrated by spending so much time on administrative tasks they feel have little to do with actual patient care.

One promising solution, according to the report, would be to encourage software developers to develop a range of apps that can operate with most, if not all, certified EHR systems.

Improved EHR usability is, in fact, required by law. The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 mandates the use of open health care APIs (application programming interfaces), which standardize programming interactions, allowing third parties to develop apps that can work with any EHR. This would allow physicians, clinics, and hospitals to customize their workflow and interfaces according to their needs and preferences, promoting rapid innovation and improvements in design.

Another promising but less-developed approach to reducing the HER burden on physicians, the report notes, is the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to support clinical documentation and quality measurements.

Mind Matters

The report spends plenty of time on mental health, and for good reason.

“It is clear that one can’t have a high-performing healthcare system if physicians working within it are not well,” it notes. “Therefore, the true impact of burnout is the impact it will have on the health and well-being of the American public.”

To that end, it calls on hospitals and other healthcare organizations to improve access to, and expand, health services for physicians, including mental-health services — while reaching out to doctors and encouraging them to take advantage of such services in order to prevent and manage the symptoms of burnout.

That’s easier said than done, of course, as a stigma still exists around seeking help for mental-health issues.

“Physician institutions — including physician associations, hospitals, and licensing bodies — should take deliberate steps to facilitate appropriate treatment and support without stigma or unnecessary constraints on physicians’ ability to practice,” the report argues.

Last year, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) adopted a policy reconsidering ‘probing questions’ about a physician’s mental health, addiction, or substance use on applications for medical licensure or renewal, as the existence of such questions may discourage physicians from seeking treatment. “To the extent that such questions are included,” the report says, “those questions should focus on the presence or absence of current impairments that impact physician practice and competence, in the same manner as questions about physical health.”

The FSMB is also calling for state medical boards to offer ‘safe-haven’ non-reporting to applicants for licensure who are receiving appropriate treatment for mental health or substance use. Such non-reporting would be based on monitoring and good standing with the recommendations of the state physician health program (PHP).

Speaking of which, Physician Health Services Inc. (PHS) — a charitable subsidiary of the Massachusetts Medical Society that serves as the PHP for Massachusetts physicians — intends to reach out in a broader way to physicians and hospitals to encourage doctors dealing with burnout and behavioral-health issues to seek appropriate and confidential care.

“Many PHPs in other states have expanded their outreach,” the report notes. “Hospitals and other healthcare institutions should complement and support this effort by acknowledging physicians’ concerns with seeking mental healthcare and clearly identifying avenues and opportunities to receive confidential care, particularly for residents and trainees, who are at a vulnerable stage of their careers.

Finally, the report calls for the appointment of executive-level chief wellness officers (CWOs) at all healthcare organizations. “CWOs must be tasked with studying and assessing physician burnout at their institutions, and with consulting physicians to design, implement, and continually improve interventions to reduce burnout.”

“Patients do not like being cared for by physicians who are experiencing symptoms of burnout, which is significantly correlated with reduced patient satisfaction in the primary-care context. Evidence further suggests that burnout is associated with increasing medical errors.”

The key responsibilities of the chief wellness officer, in addition to acting as an advocate and organizational focal point, may include studying the scope and severity of burnout across the institution; reporting findings on wellness and physician satisfaction as part of institutional quality-improvement goals; presenting findings, trends, and strategies to CEOs and boards of directors; and exploring technological and staffing interventions like scribes, voice-recognition technology, workflow improvements, and EHR customization to reduce the administrative burden on doctors, just to name a few.

CWOs could benefit physicians not just in hospitals, the report continues, but across health systems, and in affiliated practices. “Departments, units, and practices can survey for burnout, begin to identify their areas of focus and barriers to success, and collectively develop solutions. The CWO can help lead this process and provide best practices and other supports.”

Lives in the Balance

In the end, physician burnout is a problem with many triggers, which is why the authors of “A Crisis in Health Care” encourage a multi-pronged approach to counter it. But it’s also an issue with many potential consequences, not just for doctors and their employers.

“Patients do not like being cared for by physicians who are experiencing symptoms of burnout, which is significantly correlated with reduced patient satisfaction in the primary-care context,” the report notes. “Evidence further suggests that burnout is associated with increasing medical errors.”

Dr. Steven Defossez, a practicing radiologist and vice president for Clinical Integration at the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Assoc., said hospitals in the Commonwealth place a high priority on the safety and well-being of patients, so combating burnout will continue to be an area of focus.

“In particular, we recognize the need to further empower healthcare providers and support their emotional, physical, social, and intellectual health,” he said. “This report and its recommendations offer an important advance toward ensuring that physicians are able to bring their best selves to their life-saving work.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

GTI’s cultivation facility in Holyoke

GTI’s cultivation facility in Holyoke has been operating since last summer, and many new ventures could be opening in the years ahead.

Alex Morse says his phone was already ringing — quite frequently, in fact — before he was interviewed on CBS This Morning late last June.

But then, it really started ringing. And his e-mail box became even more crowded.

That’s because, with that report, Holyoke’s efforts to roll out the welcome mat for the cannabis industry, pun intended, became a national story rather than a local story — although it was already well-known.

Yes, this was the detailed report where Morse told CBS that the city once known as the ‘Paper City’ might soon be known as the ‘Rolling Paper City.’ His tongue wasn’t in his cheek, and there was a broad smile on his face as he said it.

Getting serious, or more serious, because he was already serious, he told CBS, “it’s legal … people need to wake up; the days of the past are moving forward. Holyoke has embraced the industry, and we acknowledge that this is an economic-development driver for us.”

Morse, and Holyoke, woke up long ago, meaning just after (or maybe even before) recreational marijuana became legal in Massachusetts in the fall of 2016, and today it is making giant strides toward creating what officials are calling a ‘cannabis cluster.’

And they’re comparing it, in some ways, to the cluster that put this city on the map — figuratively and quite literally (this was a planned industrial city) — the paper and textiles cluster.

As they used that word ‘cluster,’ both Morse and Marcos Marrero, the city’s director of Economic Development, said it means more than the creation of a number a number of businesses and jobs in a specific sector, although that’s a big part of it. It also means establishment of an infrastructure of support services that can have a large multiplier effect, if you will.

“With a cluster, it’s more than the sum of its parts,” Marrero explained. “Once you have a cluster, then you have an expertise, just like Holyoke did when it was the Paper City. Just as you have an expertise with paper, you can have an expertise with all the expects of this [cannabis] business.”

Elaborating, he said cannabis-cultivation facilities require highly specialized construction, lighting, anti-contamination, air-movement, and security systems, and all this adds up to opportunities for companies in this area that can handle such work.

In many ways, Holyoke is well on its way to seeing this cannabis cluster become reality, said Morse, noting that one large cultivation facility, Green Thumb Industries (GTI), is currently operating in a former textile mill on Appleton Street. And there are several other businesses across the wide spectrum of this business — from cultivation to retail — moving their way through the involved process of getting permitted to operate and eventually absorbing some of the vast amounts of commercial real estate that are vacant or underperforming.

Holyoke at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1786
Population: 40,341
Area: 22.8 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $19.29
Commercial Tax Rate: $39.87
Median Household Income: $36,608
Median family Income: $41,194
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Holyoke Medical Center, Holyoke Community College, ISO New England Inc., PeoplesBank, Universal Plastics, Marox Corp.
* Latest information available

“For us, cannabis is another form of manufacturing that’s bringing buildings back to life, being a revenue generator and job creator,” said the mayor.

And as they say in the agriculture business, Holyoke is certainly fertile ground for the cannabis industry. Indeed, it boasts, by the mayor’s estimate, 1.5 million square feet of vacant or underutilized former mill properties. Meanwhile, it has, again, by Morse’s calculations, the lowest electricity rates in the state (Holyoke has its own municipal utility), and it has something just as important as those ingredients — a giant, figurative ‘welcome’ sign when it comes to this business, as will become clear later.

But cannabis isn’t the only positive development in this city. Holyoke is also making great strides in ongoing efforts to attract entrepreneurs and arts-related businesses. It is also convincing more people, especially the younger generations, that this is a place to live as well as work and operate a business. And it’s seeing many of those aforementioned mills being put to creative and momentum-building uses.

Mayor Alex Morse

Mayor Alex Morse, an early supporter of the cannabis industry, says its many components collectively form an economic driver in Holyoke.

All of the above can be seen in one high-profile project known as the Cubit Building, the structure on Race Street that takes that shape. The first two floors are now occupied by the Holyoke Community College MGM Culinary Arts Institute, a story that embodies education, workforce development, and economic development, and in the floors above are apartments that were leased out even quicker than the optimistic owners thought they would.

“You drive by at night, and it’s all lit up,” said the mayor. “People are living on the top two floors, and on the first two floors you see students in the chefs’ hats cooking and doing classes; there’s a lot of vibrancy on Race Street.”

Lights are coming on all over Holyoke, and for this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest examines how this has come about and why Holyoke is creating a buzz — in all kinds of ways.

Budding Ventures

As noted, this cannabis cluster is a solid work in progress, with GTI now approaching a full year in business and several other projects in various stages of development.

Conducting one of those ‘if-all-goes-well’ exercises, Morse said he can envision a cluster that generates perhaps 300 to 400 jobs and many types of businesses, from cultivation facilities to cannabis cafés like those in Amsterdam. If that picture comes to fruition, marijuana-related businesses would constitute economic development in many different ways, from jobs to tax dollars; from revving up the real-estate market (aspiring ventures have acquired options on a number of properties) to giving tourism a boost; from creation of support businesses to helping give Holyoke a new brand.

As Morse told CBS — and BusinessWest — cannabis has become an economic driver. And city officials have had a lot to do with this by being so aggressive, welcoming, and accommodating.

As one example, Morse and Marrero cited the host-community agreements that such businesses traditionally sign in order to set up shop. Some communities have been excessive in their requests (or demands), while Holyoke has taken a different tack.

“These agreements have become another choking point for the industry,” said Marrero. “Communities try to negotiate, they go back and forth, and hold you down for a bunch of criteria. We’ve been very transparent and said, ‘we’re going to go for the maximum allowable benefits for the community by law in terms of impact fee, and if you sign here, you have a host-community agreement; we don’t become an impediment in the process.”

Morse agreed. “There have been communities that have tried to go above the state law in terms of percentage of annual revenues or have tried to negotiate for various line items such as a new fire truck,” he explained. “They say, ‘in addition to the percentage, you need to give ‘X’ amount to this nonprofit every year.’ We have a standard document, so it’s not intimidating in that sense; the burden is really on the companies to get through the state regulatory process — the local process shouldn’t be an additional burden to bear.”

Holyoke’s willingness not to push for every dollar or every concession, on top of its many other selling points, including available mill space and lower utility costs, have certainly caught the attention of the cannabis industry.

“There is political openness and stability to the industry, which is very valuable,” said Marrero. “We were, if not the first, one of the first handful of communities that had a permissive ordinance in place, so we were first to market on the government side to say, ‘we’re open to this business.’

“They saw the mayor’s advocacy, and they saw that the operational costs would be lower, and that is very, very significant,” he went on. “The energy savings alone … you can save 40% on your energy costs.”

This attractive package has attracted a number of interested parties, said Marrero, noting that two additional cultivators, East Coast Farms and Solurge, are working their way through the permitting process. Overall, a total of 15 host-community agreements have been executed, and seven special permits have been issued. Within a year, it is expected that another two or three cultivation facilities could be doing business in the city, and other types of cannabis-related businesses as well.

And as the cluster grows, it gains momentum and recognition, which fuels additional opportunities. Marrero drew some comparisons to Detroit (the car industry) and Silicon Valley (IT).

“The industry has to train a workforce on how to grow these plants and clip these plants, and as that workforce develops locally, other companies know they can locate in Holyoke and they will have an accessible workforce,” he explained. “They will have access to other vendors that know how to provide services or provide goods to cannabis companies.”

Marcos Marrero

Marcos Marrero says a cannabis cluster is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Building Momentum

As noted earlier, though, cannabis is just one of many intriguing economic-development-themed stories being written in what is still called the Paper City.

Others include everything from the culinary arts center and the sum of the Cubit Building’s many parts to ongoing evolution of the Holyoke Mall — one of the city’s main draws and largest employers — in response to a changing retail landscape; from redevelopment of two municipal properties — the former Lynch Middle School and the Holyoke Geriatric Authority building — to entrepreneurial-ecosystem-building efforts that are bringing new businesses, and jobs, to the city.

At the mall, as stores large and small shrink or disappear from the landscape (longtime anchor Sears closed its Holyoke store a few months back) and those that remain operate with a smaller footprint, the facility is changing its look and adding more entertainment-related businesses, said Marrero.

These includes more restaurants, a bowling alley, and a planned movie-theater complex, he said, adding that, overall, the mall is responding proactively to a changing retail scene.

“They’ve been very resilient … retail is changing, and the mall is putting a much greater emphasis on entertainment and making it more of an experience rather than just shopping,” said the mayor. “Whether it’s the escape rooms or the kids’ center or the laser tag and bowling alley, it’s about creating experiences.”

Meanwhile, additional retail will be coming to the city with redevelopment of the former Lynch School, located just off I-91, by the Colvest Group. The property is slated for demolition later this year, and the expectation is that it will become home to several retail outlets.

Reuse of a different kind is slated for the Geriatric Authority property, which closed several years ago. Indeed, Baystate Health and US HealthVest have chosen the site for its planned 70,000-square-foot behavioral-health hospital.

Plans calls for 120 beds in a facility that would represent consolidation of some of the existing beds in the region and creation of new beds as well.

“This is a great story of reactivating a site that had once been a money pit for the city, one that was draining almost $1 million of taxpayer funds,” Morse said of the days when the Geriatric Authority was operating was site. “Overall, we have two large, city-owned properties that are being developed, and that represents real progress.”

There is progress on many different levels in the downtown area and especially the city’s Innovation District, the area around the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, which opened in 2012.

On the municipal side, there will be several infrastructure projects undertaken in the area over the next several years, said Marrero, including street work, reconstruction of one of the canal bridges, and other initiatives.

Meanwhile, the city continues to add jobs and vibrancy organically through entrepreneurship-ecosytem-building initiatives such as SPARK, which recently joined forces with the Massachusetts-based program Entrepreneurship for All, or EforAll, to form SPARK EforAll Holyoke.

The new organization offers a number of programs, including a business accelerator, pitch contests, and co-working space currently being built out on High Street that will be available to program members.

Launched four years ago, SPARK has helped a number of ventures get off the ground or to the next stage, and most of them have settled in Holyoke, said Morse, adding that these startups, in addition to some others started organically, are bringing more vibrancy to the downtown.

He listed a catering venture, a salon now under construction, and a microbrewery on Race Street, among others.

“There are things that are happening organically, and I think these businesses are tapping into the momentum happening in the downtown and the ecosystem they feel here and the support they see,” said Morse. “They feel they can be viable here opening up a catering business or a salon or a brewery in downtown Holyoke.”

Marrero agreed. “We’re tilling our own soils, and stuff grows,” he said, referring to organic growth of the business community. “Every now and then, a business moves here, but a lot of this is organic.”

And these businesses are helping to fill more of those vacant or underutilized properties.

“We’re seeing this dynamic where more square footage is coming online,” said Marrero. “It’s being rehabilitated and filled by these businesses.”

As for the culinary arts center and the Cubit Building on the whole, it is bringing many different constituencies to the Innovation District area, adding to this vibrancy there. These include college students, their professors, those attending functions, and, yes, Morse himself, who has signed up for two night classes, one on how to make macaroons, the other involving a chiffon layer cake.

After those, he’ll be even better suited to answer the question, ‘what’s cooking in Holyoke?”

That’s a Wrap

As he was wrapping up his walk through the city with CBS, Morse told the reporter that it would be a good problem to have if the cannabis industry so embraced Holyoke that it found itself running out of commercial space for additional ventures.

That’s not likely to happen anytime soon (1.5 million square feet is a considerable amount of inventory), but a cannabis cluster appears to be no longer a goal but a reality. How quickly and profoundly it develops remains to be seen, but Holyoke appears to be well on its way to having history repeat itself on a certain scale.

A name change probably isn’t in the cards — ‘Paper City’ will stick — but a new era in the city’s history is certainly underway.

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

Tourism & Hospitality

Rolling Out the Welcome Mat

Mary Kay Wydra (left) and Alicia Szenda

Mary Kay Wydra (left) and Alicia Szenda say the GSCVB works closely with area hotels as part of efforts to draw conventions and other events to Greater Springfield.

There’s more than one way to look at a number. That’s especially true when it comes to hotel occupancy rates.

Take Greater Springfield’s occupancy rates through the last six months of 2018. At almost 67%, they’re 5% higher than they were over the same period in 2017.

That’s good news on its own, but especially positive when considering the capacity added over the past 18 months, from Holiday Inn Express on State Street in Springfield to Fairfield Inn & Suites in Holyoke; from Tru by Hilton in Chicopee to, of course, the hotel at MGM Springfield, the resort casino which is perhaps the region’s top tourism development in decades.

“We’ve definitely seen growth,” said Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau (GSCVB), adding that the average daily room rate also rose by $3 over that time frame.

“The fact that we added inventory and we’re still able to grow rate and grow occupancy is a really good thing,” she noted. “In analyzing that, a lot of it is the MGM factor, and it’s conservative because MGM didn’t open until the end of August. We don’t even have a full year’s picture of them being fully operational, but in just those four months, it’s helped.

“And by charging a higher rate for their rooms,” she added, “it allows everyone else in the marketplace to go up a little bit, which from our perspective is really good because, before they got here, we weren’t moving that needle.”

“The fact that we added inventory and we’re still able to grow rate and grow occupancy is a really good thing. In analyzing that, a lot of it is the MGM factor, and it’s conservative because MGM didn’t open until the end of August. We don’t even have a full year’s picture of them being fully operational, but in just those four months, it’s helped.”

But MGM is just one factor in drawing visitors to the region and increasing demand for hotel rooms. In fact, the relationship between hotels, tourist attractions, convention business, leisure travel, and a host of economic benefits that follow in wake of all that is the result of a coordinated dance between the various players — a dance that has continues to pick up the tempo.

Go for the Juggler

Greater Springfield still runs slightly below the national average in hotel occupancy rate — 63.6%, to be exact, compared to 66.2% nationally. And it doesn’t compare to a city like Boston, which hovers around 79% occupancy.

“Remember, hotels serve the leisure traveler, conventions, bus tours, corporate travel, and also having businesses surrounding you. Boston has growth from the companies being built. It’s not all tourism. It’s business travel as well,” Wydra said. “There’s clearly corporate travel in our area too, probably not to the extent that a major city like Boston has. We’re more focused on other things: the conventions, the leisure, the bus tours, sports.”

The GSCVB has, indeed, seen an uptick in conventions in recent years, and believes MGM is just one more perk to draw in convention groups looking for a vibrant scene, which Western Mass. offers, especially during the summer.

The new Tru by Hilton in Chicopee

The new Tru by Hilton in Chicopee is one of several hotels that have recently opened in the region.

“You’ll see that with some of the national conventions we work with,” said Alicia Szenda, director of Sales for the GSVCB. “We’ve hosted the National Square Dance Convention, the International Jugglers Association … those events take place in the summer, and people participate in them not for their job, but for their leisure activities, their hobbies, so they look forward to that week every summer, and that’s their family vacation.

“So they’re here,” she went on, “and they’re participating in educational seminars and shows and the dancing or whatever it is, but they’re also going to Six Flags, they’re going to Yankee Candle, they’re going to the museums, and doing some sightseeing while they’re here. A lot of the conventions we work with build that social component into their event schedules, so people get to experience the area they’re in. So the more attractions we have, the more variety of hotels, the more attractive we are to different groups.”

And a dynamic hotel scene is, indeed, a key element, which is Wydra is happy to see new names on the scene and planned renovations as well, such as Tower Square Hotel’s plan to return the Marriott name to its complex.

“I think one of the good things about new properties coming into the market is it keeps everybody in a position of having to keep up,” she said. “You’ve got to be reinvesting in your property and making changes; it’s survival of the fittest.”

As part of her role in recruiting conventions to the region and guiding them through the process (more on that later), Szenda also works directly with hotels, asking them to quote rates and block off a certain inventory of rooms, sometimes three years out.

“What the hotels give back depends on where they’re located, what other business they have, and whether they want to roll the dice and let other hotels get the group business,” Wydra said. “They might say, ‘I don’t want that. I’m going to roll the dice and see if I get the leisure visitor.’ They can charge leisure travelers a higher rate — because Alicia’s going to beat them up and say, ‘I want the best rate I can get for my group.’”

Besides attractive hotel rates, the GSCVB might find local ties to entice a convention group, Wydra said, giving the hypothetical example of bringing in a convention of railroad hobby enthusiasts and trying to set up a tour of the CRRC rail-car manufacturing plant in Springfield. “We try to tie in local business with the groups that we have.”

Holding Hands

But there’s far more to the equation, Szenda noted.

“Some groups come to me and say, ‘this is everything I need.’ But a lot of groups I work with don’t have that. It might be their turn to host, and they’ve never planned a national convention before. I sit with them and go through everything they need. Then I send those leads out to our members. Depending on what they need for space, the lead could go to Eastern States, or the Mullins Center, or the MassMutual Center, all three.”

Then she gets to work finding the aforementioned local connections, setting up reasonably priced hotel options, and assembling tourism information about the region.

“Really, it’s the destination a lot of times that’s going to sell that piece of business,” Szenda said, “because you’re trying to convince that one person to bring thousands of people here. They have to make sure each person has something to do that interests them. And, once we win that piece of business, we continue to hold their hand through the process.”

“I think one of the good things about new properties coming into the market is it keeps everybody in a position of having to keep up.”

Part of that is a hospitality program that many similar-sized cities don’t offer, she said, which includes everything from airport pickups and hotel greeters to downtown maps and goodie bags.

“A lot of the business we get is repeat business because we’ve done a good job from the very beginning — meeting them, listening to what they need, giving them what they need, and holding their hand until the event occurs,” Wydra said. “And while the event occurs, we don’t disappear. Even with groups we’ve hosted for years, we never want to rest on our laurels and say, ‘well, we’ve got them.’ It’s a very competitive business, so we want them to know how much we appreciate they’ve selected Western Mass.”

And it’s not just repeat business from that convention group at stake, she added. Oftentimes family members tag along, extending the trip with some family time.

“You never know which of those participants might want to come back,” Szenda said. “They might belong to another association and want to bring a group here or come back with the family. A lot of people to do that.”

It’s always interesting to see what impresses event planners, Wydra said. Once, Springfield was competing with a city in New Hampshire, and when the group heard that welcome signs would be hung downtown, it was a game changer. The planner had previously walked the streets of unfamiliar downtowns, getting permission as she went to tape up handmade signs.

“She didn’t want to do that; she had a day job,” Wydra said. “The minute we take that out of their hands, make it easy, the results are often good for us.

“We work hard to get the groups, so at the very least we want to keep them,” she went on. “We want repeat business. Alicia loves when someone signs a multi-year contract, and we can count on them for years to come.”

What’s in a Name?

If Tower Square does bring back the Marriott name — and makes the upgrades required to do so — that will be another note of progress for the region’s expanding hotel scene, Wydra said.

“Brands are important,” she noted. “I think a brand kind of promises something, if the property does it right. People know what they’re going to get. They know they’re going to get a certain style room, they’re going to get a free breakfast, affinity programs, whatever it is they want.”

Greater Springfield is a brand of sorts, too, even though it can be a tough sell during the winter, which is why events like the recent AHL All-Star weekend are so desirable, driving room nights during a challenging time of the year for the hospitality industry.

But there’s still plenty of room for hotels to flourish, Szenda said, as evidenced by the challenge of cobbling together enough rooms when multiple conventions and event planners want to swoop in during the same weekend — typically between spring and fall.

“During the summer months, we do quite well on weekends, with Six Flags and other activities,” Wydra said. “It’s always midweek that we’re trying to find business, and especially in the winter.”

But a rising tourism brand, buoyed most recently by MGM Springfield — and increased convention volume, much of which promises to become repeat business — is certainly changing the demand picture for the better.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Features

About the Judges

A panel of judges was kept quite busy over the past few weeks, reading, evaluating, and eventually scoring nearly 200 nominations for the Forty Under 40 Class of 2019.

Yes, that’s a record, and it’s a clear indication of how coveted that designation ‘BusinessWest 40 Under Forty honoree’ has become within the 413.

Who will be most recent 40 people able to add that line to their résumés? The judges are concluding their work, and the letters alerting the winners should be going out sometime this first full week in March. They will be announced in late April, and the gala is in June at the Log Cabin.

To say the judges had their hands full this year is an understatement. But it is a very capable group that includes one previous winner, representatives of a number of business sectors, and a few players within the burgeoning entrepreneurship ecosystem within the region. Here are the judges for this year’s competition:

Michael Buckmaster

Michael Buckmaster

Michael Buckmaster, vice president of Commercial Banking for Community Bank, N.A. He has more than 30 years of experience within the banking industry working for a wide range of institutions, from global market leaders in corporate and investment banking in The U.K. to U.S. regional and community banks within the areas of small-business and middle-market commercial lending. Current specialties include commercial banking loan origination and relationship management for small and medium-sized businesses, and commercial investment real-estate financing within the New England region.

He serves as board president for Hartsprings Foundation (an affiliation of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden County), and as a board member for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden County and for the East of the River (ERC5) Chamber of Commerce.

Kristin Leutz

Kristin Leutz

Kristin Leutz, CEO of Valley Venture Mentors (VVM), a nonprofit organization based in Springfield offering mentorship, startup accelerators, and co-working space to build the innovation economy in Western Mass., and 40 Under Forty honoree in 2010.

Previously, she was the director of Development for RefugePoint, an innovative NGO, working to help at-risk refugees by improving humanitarian systems. She also consulted with the global philanthropic membership organization Women Moving Millions, creating strategic communications to catalyze unprecedented resources for women and girls. Before that, she served as vice president for Philanthropic Services at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, where she led donor services, professional advisor engagement, fundraising, and communications.

She earned a master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology from Springfield College, a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University, and her yoga teacher certification from Kripalu.

Julie Quink

Julie Quink

Julie Quink, CPA, CFE, managing principal of the accounting firm Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C.

A graduate of Elms College with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, Quink joined the firm in 2011. She is involved in the accounting and consulting aspect of the practice and manages engagements of various sizes and complexities. She also performs services relative to forensic and fraud-related engagements.

Quink is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Mass. Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Assoc. of Certified Fraud Examiners. She is licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is a certified fraud examiner.

Active in the community, she serves in a number of boards for the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce, Baystate Wing Hospital, and Square One. She’s also a member of the School Committee of Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Christina Royal

Christina Royal

Christina Royal, president of Holyoke Community College. Royal is the fourth president of Holyoke Community College and the first woman to lead the school since it was founded in 1946.

She holds a Ph.D. in education from Capella University and a master’s degree in educational psychology and a bachelor’s degree in math from Marist College.

She sits on the boards of directors for the United Way of Pioneer Valley, the Mass. Technology Collaborative, and the American Assoc. of Community Colleges’ Commission on College Readiness. 

Before coming to HCC in January 2017, she served as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Inver Hills Community College and previously as associate vice president for E-learning and Innovation at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland and director of Technology-assisted Learning for the School of Graduate and Continuing Education for Marist College, her alma mater. 

Gregory Thomas

Gregory Thomas

Gregory Thomas, executive director and lecturer at the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. He works with constituents on campus and throughout the Commonwealth to develop and execute partnerships while also teaching courses in entrepreneurship and innovation.

A 1991 UMass Amherst graduate, Thomas held senior-level global roles in his more than 20 years with Corning Inc. In his last five years at Corning, he was a strategist in the Innovation Group. He is also the immediate past president of the UMass Amherst Alumni Assoc. board.

Banking and Financial Services

Merging Banks

Matthew Sosik

Matthew Sosik

Matthew Sosik, president and CEO of bankHometown, and Robert Morton, President and CEO of Millbury Savings Bank, recently announced that the banks have signed an agreement to merge operations under the bankHometown name.

The combined bank will have approximately $1 billion in assets and 15 branch offices located throughout Central Mass. and Northeastern Connecticut.

“We’re excited to welcome Millbury Savings Bank’s customers, employees, and communities to the bankHometown family,” Sosik said. “This merger will expand our presence into the Worcester and Millbury markets and will add a team of talented bankers to bankHometown.”

Morton agreed. “Merging with bankHometown allows us to provide our customers with increased lending capacity, an extended branch and ATM network, and an expanded offering of products and services,” he said. “At the same time, and even more importantly, our customers will see the same familiar faces every day.”

There will be no staff reductions or branch closures resulting from the merger. The impact to customers is expected to be minimal as both banks share the same core processor.

“Banks under our Hometown Financial Group umbrella benefit from access to highly skilled executives and support teams.”

After the closing, Morton will lead the combined bank as its president and CEO. In addition, Morton and five members of the Millbury Savings Bank board of trustees will join the bankHometown board of directors.

bankHometown is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hometown Financial Group. Morton and one other Millbury Savings Bank board member will join the Hometown Financial Group board of directors. bankHometown will remain headquartered in Oxford. As part of the Hometown Financial Group family of banks, which includes bankESB, bankHometown, and Pilgrim Bank, the combined bank will benefit from the shared resources of a larger institution while operating independently in its own market area.

“We have a proven track record of success with our operating model,” Sosik said. “Banks under our Hometown Financial Group umbrella benefit from access to highly skilled executives and support teams. This allows the bankers at each of our subsidiary banks to focus their efforts on growing market share and providing best-in-class banking products, services, and solutions to customers.”

Following the merger with Millbury Savings Bank, Hometown Financial Group will have approximately $3 billion in consolidated assets and 32 branch offices operating across Massachusetts and Northeastern Connecticut. Following the merger, Sosik will continue in his role as president and CEO of both bankESB and Hometown Financial Group.

The merger agreement has been unanimously approved by the boards of bankHometown and Millbury Savings Bank. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Customer deposits will continue to be fully insured through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and the Share Insurance Fund (SIF).

The merger with Millbury Savings Bank will mark the third transaction that will close in 2019 for Hometown Financial Group. On Jan. 31, the company closed on its acquisition of Pilgrim Bancshares Inc. This was followed by the announcement on Feb. 6 of the merger of Abington Bank and Pilgrim Bank. The closing of that transaction is expected in the second quarter of 2019 and will result in the formation of a $600 million bank with six branches operating in the Eastern Mass. region.

Banking and Financial Services

Understanding Section 199A

By Kristina Drzal-Houghton, CPA, MST

Kristina Drzal Houghton

Kristina Drzal Houghton

At the close of every year, most individuals and business owners begin to think about taxes. Currently, many are anxious to find out what their liability will look like considering the law change known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

One major provision is a new tax deduction for passthrough entities (S-corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships) under Sec. 199A. The deduction generally provides owners, shareholders, or partners a 20% deduction on their personal tax returns on their qualified business income (QBI). Various limitations apply based on the type of business operated and the amount of income the business has.

While the calculation of the deduction amount is beyond the scope of this discussion, a summary follows of the limitations that apply to specified service trades or businesses (SSTBs) and other benefits which may be available.

The Internal Revenue Code has historically treated professional service businesses more harshly than any other type of business, and this continues with the Sec. 199A deduction. For example, before the TCJA, professional service corporations were taxed at a flat 35% tax rate rather than the graduated tax rates applicable to other C-corporations. Under the new rules, the same corporations will benefit from a flat 21% tax. Pass-through entities did not fare as well; the 20% deduction does not apply to certain enumerated SSTBs if the taxpayer’s taxable income is above certain threshold amounts.

The threshold amounts are $315,000 for taxpayers filing jointly and $157,500 for all other taxpayers, with a deduction-phaseout range, or limitation phase-in range, of $100,000 and $50,000, respectively, above these amounts.

SSTBs are broken into two distinct categories:

1.Trades or businesses performing services in the fields of health, law, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, financial services, brokerage services, or any trade or business where the principal asset of that trade or business is the reputation or skill of one or more of its employees (specifically excluded are engineering and architecture); or

2. Any trade or business that involves the performance of services that consist of investing and investment management, trading, or dealing in securities, partnership interests, or commodities.

QBI also does not include compensation, even compensation paid to the shareholders of an S-corporation, or any guaranteed payments paid to a partner for services rendered with respect to the trade or business, or any payment to a partner for services rendered with respect to the trade or business. As a result, if your practice is a partnership that pays out all of its income in guaranteed payments, you may want to switch to a model that instead specially allocates that income to the partners, as a special allocation of income is eligible for the 20% deduction, while the guaranteed payments are not.

This could allow individual partners whose income falls below the above thresholds to benefit from the QBI deduction even if the activity is otherwise an SSTB.

What happens if a trade or business has multiple lines of businesses, where one of the lines is an SSTB? The regulations include a de minimis rule for this situation. If a taxpayer has $25 million or less in gross receipts for the tax year from SSTB activities, it will not be considered an SSTB if less than 10% of the receipts are generated by the SSTB activity. If the taxpayer has more than $25 million in gross receipts, it will not be an SSTB if less than 5% of those receipts are generated by the SSTB activity.

The regulations do provide a couple of anti-abuse provisions to prevent taxpayers from incorrectly trying to take advantage of the tax law. The first relates to a common question I am often asked at networking functions where an employee now desires to be treated as an independent contractor to take advantage of this new tax deduction. The regulations provide that former employees are presumed to still be employees even if subsequently treated as an independent contractor. The IRS provides several tests and factors to consider if a worker is an independent contractor or employee which should be considered by an employer before changing a worker’s classification.

The second anti-abuse provision has to do with related party businesses. Here the IRS has stated that, if a business that otherwise wouldn’t be considered an SSTB has 50% or more common ownership with an SSTB (including related parties) and is providing substantially all its property or services to the related SSTB, it will be considered an SSTB. ‘Substantially all’ is defined to be 80% or more of its total property or services to the related SSTB. This is designed to prevent taxpayers from shifting income to non-SSTB businesses by adjusting the purchase price on related party sales to take advantage of the tax break.

There are several other provisions of the TCJA that benefit all businesses regardless of form. These provisions are all effective Jan. 1, 2018 unless otherwise indicated and include:

• The maximum amount allowed to be expensed under Code Section 179 is increased to $1 million, and the phaseout threshold is increased to $2.5 million. These amounts are indexed for inflation after 2018.

• The definition of qualified real property under Code Section 179 is expanded to include certain depreciable personal property used in the lodging industry, as well as certain improvements to nonresidential real property after the date such property was placed in service, such as roofs; heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning property; fire protection and alarm systems; and security systems.

• For property acquired and placed in service after Sept. 27, 2017 and before Jan. 1, 2023, the first-year deduction is increased to 100%.

• After 2022, the deduction percentage phases down by 20% per year until it sunsets after 2026.

• Most states, including Massachusetts, have decided to decouple from the new bonus-depreciation rules.

• No deduction is allowed for entertainment, amusement, or recreation; membership dues for a club organized for business, pleasure, recreation, or other social purposes; or a facility used in connection with any of the above.

• Costs for entertainment expenses such as tickets to sporting events, taking clients to play golf, and similar activities are no longer deductible.

• Meals provided for the convenience of the employer, through an eating facility or other de minimis food and beverage, are no longer 100% deductible, but now fall into the 50% category. They become non-deductible after 2025.

• Qualified transportation fringe benefits provided to employees continue to be excluded from the employees’ income but are no longer deductible by the business.

• Between Jan. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2019, the TCJA allows a credit of 12.5% of the amount of wages paid to qualifying employees during any period during which such employees are out on family and medical leave, provided that the rate of payment is 50% of the wages normally paid to an employee. The credit increases by 0.25% (but not above 25%) for each percentage point by which the wages exceed 50%.

• Wage expense is reduced when the credit is taken as an alternative.

On Jan. 18, the IRS released guidance on many Sec. 199A issues when it issued final regulations. The IRS noted that the final regulations had been modified somewhat from the proposed regulations issued last August as a result of comments it received and testimony at a public hearing it held. The final regulations apply to tax years ending after their publication in the Federal Register; however, taxpayers may rely on the proposed regulations for tax years ending in 2018.

The combination of the proposed regulation and final regulations has altered some of the planning techniques originally thought to increase the tax benefits available to SSTBs under the provisions of Sec. 199A. If your business previously adopted planning techniques before the August and January regulations, you should revisit the projected benefits with your tax adviser.

Kristina Drzal-Houghton, CPA, MST is a partner at Holyoke-based Meyers Brothers Kalicka and director of the firm’s Taxation Division; (413) 535-8510.

Health Care

Progressive Course

Laura Hanratty

Laura Hanratty says the number of BCBA students has probably doubled since 2012, a clear sign of growing need for such trained individuals.

In many cases, Alyssa Clark says, progress — in whatever way it is measured — comes slowly.

But in most all cases, it does come, and when it does, it quickly reminds her why she chose this career path — not that she ever really forgets.

Clark was talking about her work as a board-certified behavior analyst, or BCBA, as those with the requisite credentials are called. She works in a few area elementary schools with students in grades K-4. Some are on the autism spectrum, but all of them are defined with an industry term of sorts: social/emotional, which means they have behavioral issues, usually brought on by trauma in their backgrounds — poverty, divorce, or being in foster care, for example.

“Sometimes, progress is slow in coming, but even the little things you see … kids might have that one good day after several bad ones,” she told BusinessWest. “And to be able to see that and know that you could make a difference in that kid’s life and help them…”

She didn’t actually finish the sentence, because she didn’t have to. The satisfaction that comes with such work is clearly apparent. And it is one of many reasons why applied behavior analysis (ABA) is becoming an increasingly popular career path within the broad spectrum of healthcare, and also why programs such as the master’s in ABA program at Elms College in Chicopee, which Clark graduated from recently, were created and continue to see growth in enrollment.

“Every kid that we work with should go through an analysis to determine why problem behaviors are occurring, and then treatment based on that analysis helps address those behavioral concerns.”

But the biggest factor is growing need within the community, said Laura Hanratty, assistant professor and director of both the ABA and ASD (autism spectrum disorders) programs at Elms.

“It’s definitely a growing field,” she said, noting that, when she sat for the certification exam in 2012, there were roughly 10,000 BCBAs in this country; now, there are perhaps twice that number.

Why? The ever-growing number of people diagnosed with autism is a big factor, she said, adding that there are many theories surrounding this surge, but the prevailing one is that there is simply more awareness of the condition and, therefore, more early diagnosis.

But the nature of applied behavior analysis, and the tremendous rewards, as Clark described, are also a factor in the growing popularity of this profession.

When asked to elaborate, Hanratty said there is a good deal of science, some of it rigid in nature, in this field. But there are also large amounts of creativity, and this blend of ingredients appeals to many people looking to enter the broad realm of healthcare.

“What we try to teach our students to do is become a scientist practitioner,” she went on, adding that there is much that goes into that phrase. “Every kid that we work with should go through an analysis to determine why problem behaviors are occurring, and then treatment based on that analysis helps address those behavioral concerns.

“We know that attention and rewards help increase behaviors,” she went on. “So what our students do is take that science side, but then then get really creative and personalize with our kids.”

This ability to be creative is what appeals to Rachel Reyes, currently enrolled in the Elms master’s degree program and working part-time with young people through a company called Positive Behavior Supports Corp. (PBS). She has one client, a 4-year-old with autism she sees three times a week.

“I’m working one-on-one with a child a lot, and that’s what I love most about this work,” she said, adding that she aspires to become a BCBA. “I get to see them grow, I get to see their progress, and I get to know them; I build a relationship with them first so they they’ll trust me.”

For this issue and its focus on healthcare, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at the ABA offering at Elms. In the course of doing so, we’ll explain why the program, and the careers it can lead to, have attracted people like Clark, Reyes, and many others.

Down to a Science

When asked how she got onto the path to becoming a BCBA, Clark said a single course on applied behavior analysis she was taking during her undergraduate work at the Elms opened her eyes and changed her career focus.

Alyssa Clark

Alyssa Clark, seen here at the Applied Behavior Analysis International Conference in San Diego earlier this year, says there are many rewards from her work as a BCBA.

“I was in the speech language pathology program,” she recalled. “They mentioned applied behavior analysis; that one class really stuck with me. I knew I always wanted to work with this population of kids, whether it was kids on the autism spectrum or kids with disabilities. So I looked into it more and I saw the behavior side of things, and I loved it.”

Reyes tells a somewhat similar story. She was doing undergraduate work at Westfield State University, studying special education. She had come to the conclusion that she didn’t want to teach and took an introductory course in ABA.

“Prior to creation of this program, there was a master’s in autism spectrum disorders, which was also behavior-analytics-focused, but a little more broad. What we found is that most people who are coming into the program are really interested in the behavior-analysis side, so that’s where most of our students are now.”

“The professor was great — when she would teach, everything was amazing,” she recalled. “I thought about things some more, went to her office, and asked if there were any graduate programs in the field, because I realized that this is what I wanted to do. She told me about Elms.”

Hanratty said many of the students now in the ABA program arrive via a somewhat similar experience, and this helps explain the creation of the master’s program, which accepted its first cohort in 2017.

“Prior to creation of this program, there was a master’s in autism spectrum disorders, which was also behavior-analytics-focused, but a little more broad,” she explained. “What we found is that most people who are coming into the program are really interested in the behavior-analysis side, so that’s where most of our students are now.”

Rachel Reyes, a student in the Elms ABA program

Rachel Reyes, a student in the Elms ABA program, says she enjoys working one-on-one with children.

Students enter the program with a wide diversity of backgrounds, she went on, adding that there are many with a psychology or communications sciences background, who took their undergraduate focus on speech disorders and shifted it to behavioral analysis.

But there are others with backgrounds in education, sociology, social work, and other fields.

“We also get some students who earned their bachelor’s degree in … whatever, and then found a passion for working with kids with autism,” she went on, adding that enrollment in the master’s program fluctuates, but it averages about 17. The smaller size of the cohorts — and the classes themselves — appeal to many students because of the one-to-one support from faculty members.

As she mentioned earlier, ABA is a blend of science and creativity that addresses a range of recognized behavioral issues in people of all ages.

“ABA is based on basic science principles,” Hanratty explained. “We take the basic principles of behavior and apply them to promote changes in behavior among children with autism or behavior concerns. Our students get to take that science and apply it.”

Practitioners use reinforcement — giving some kind or reward or positive contingency — for appropriate behaviors, as well as strategies for reducing inappropriate behaviors.

When asked for an example, she cited a research project she worked on with several of her students, including Clark. Together, they gave a presentation on their work at the Applied Behavior Analysis International Conference in San Diego earlier this year, and also at the Berkshire Conference for Behavioral Analysis.

The project involved one young person exhibiting problem behaviors, said Hanratty. “We did an analysis and found that kids were engaging in severe problem behavior usually to gain some control over their environment — they want to take a break from adult-led activities and just have time to do their preferred activities.

“We taught the kids to ask for control, and then we would reward that, with them being able to have ‘their-way’ time,” she went on. “We gradually started saying, ‘you can’t have your way right now; it’s adult time, and you need to do X,Y, and Z.”

Eventually, the students would come to understand that they can’t always have ‘their-way’ time when they asked for it, and would acquiesce to adult-led activities without immediate reward or reinforcement.

Such progress was noteworthy, because these were students who were engaging in severe problem behaviors, said Hanratty, adding that they would (note the past tense), when asked to do an instruction, aggress toward adults and engage in self-injurious behaviors.

“We were making really impactful outcomes for families,” she told BusinessWest. “It was very rewarding work.”

And just one example of how to blend science and creativity, she went on, adding those attracted to this work now have a number of attractive career options.

These include work in school systems and specifically in special-education classrooms, but also, and increasingly, in the home, working with both children and their families. Others open their own private practices or conduct research. With a doctorate, which some go on to attain, they can teach in the field.

Meanwhile, many students, like Reyes, are finding work in the field, or, in this case, the home, as they’re earning their master’s degree.

“I’d love to stay in the home; I love the home setting,” she said, adding that she enjoys working with not only the child, but the family as a whole.

Bottom Line

Such sentiments, such passion for this demanding yet rewarding work, help explain the growth of the ABA field and programs like the one at Elms.

As Hanratty and her students noted repeatedly, applied behavior analysis is indeed an intriguing blend of science and creativity, a rare mix that is gaining the attention of people from diverse backgrounds and putting them onto the path of becoming a BCBA.

And also opening doors to a wide mix of fulfilling careers.

Health Care

Healthy Development

Baystate Health & Wellness Center in Longmeadow held a grand-opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Feb. 25. The $11 million, 54,000-square-foot medical office building offers primary and specialty care, as well as services like Baystate Reference Laboratories and Baystate Radiology and Imaging.

State legislators present Baystate leaders, including President and CEO Mark Keroack (center), citations on the grand-opening occasion

State Sen. Eric Lesser and Keroack share a moment before the event

State Sen. Eric Lesser and Keroack share a moment before the event

The ribbon-cutting ceremony

The ribbon-cutting ceremony

Dr. Elizabeth Boyle chats with state Rep. Angelo Puppolo

Dr. Elizabeth Boyle chats with state Rep. Angelo Puppolo

The back entrance to the new facility at 21 Dwight Road

Health Care

Game Plan

By Mark Morris

James Ferry, certified aging life care manager at Coaching Caregivers Inc.

James Ferry, certified aging life care manager at Coaching Caregivers Inc.

Many adults take on the role of caregiver for an aging parent, but few are prepared for what’s actually involved in taking on that all-important assignment.

What starts out as a trip to the grocery store or a ride to the doctor’s office can, and very often does, become overwhelming when the parent has a medical crisis or other event where their needs suddenly change.

“It often begins with a hospitalization,” said James Ferry, who manages Coaching Caregivers Inc. in Northampton. “Let’s say your mom is admitted for a urinary-tract infection. After a short stay at a skilled-nursing facility, your family is told that she can no longer stay home alone.”

If the family is local, he went on, an adult child, usually a daughter, typically tries to be the caregiver. But as she tries to balance her mother’s care needs with holding down a job and taking care of her own family, burnout inevitably sets in.

And that, unfortunately, is the time when many families usually reach out for help.

“They come to me when they’re exasperated,” said Ferry, a certified aging life care manager with more than 25 years of experience and an advanced degree in social work. He sees his role as someone who helps navigate the complexities of elder care to relieve the family’s burden and develop a course of action that provides a quality life for the elder parent.

He’d rather get involved before people become exasperated, but human nature often precludes that from happening. Regardless of when he does get involved, the goal is the same — to come up with a care plan that works for both the elder parent and the caregiver.

It’s an art and a science, he says, that brings many rewards.

The Big Picture

In order to develop a plan, Ferry starts by doing an assessment.

“I’ll visit the elder in their home and ask them to tell me their family story,” he explained. “At the same time, I’m listening for what’s going on emotionally and with their mental processing. Then we might take a tour around the home to see how they maneuver in that environment, how safe it is, and how realistic is it for them to remain in the home.”

After the assessment, Ferry develops a care plan to best meet the elder’s needs. The plan can range from a few basic services on an as-needed basis to a more substantial plan that provides daily services.

Arranging for help with even simple tasks can provide great relief for the family, he added. “There’s a big difference between having nothing and having a person in place for grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, or just to walk the dog.”

For more intensive needs, Ferry will often recommend a plan that functions like assisted living, but takes place in the person’s home and still allows for family to be involved.

He refers to this type of plan as a “split-shift approach” in which a caregiver arrives in the morning around 8 a.m. to help the elder client with bathing, getting dressed, and eating breakfast. Then the caregiver will make lunch, clean up after lunch, and leave. The client has the afternoon to themselves to watch TV, catch up with friends, or take a nap. The elder can be alone during this time because they will have a lifeline-type device in the event of an emergency.

A second caregiver arrives around 5 p.m. to prepare dinner, do the cleanup afterward, and help get the client get ready for bed.

“With a plan like this, you can cover the whole day with only seven or eight hours of care,” he explained. “This approach is much less expensive than an assisted-living facility and provides a much higher quality of life for the client.”

This type of plan reflects the current trend of ‘aging in place,’ where services that were once provided in a facility are now delivered in the home. In recent years, home-healthcare agencies have seen strong growth because their services can cost much less than an admission to a long-term-care facility. In addition, studies have shown that people enjoy better quality of life when they can stay in their home and follow their own schedule.

In addition to health concerns, caring for an aging parent also involves financial, legal, and other issues. During this time, family dynamics can bring out a whole new level of stress. “If a family member has a resource agenda, such as the parent’s house or some cash, they could potentially subvert a plan of care because they see it as less going to them.”

Ferry’s role in these situations, he explained, is to be a facilitator who helps the family reach common ground and remind everyone of what’s best for their parent.

Age-old Concerns

The need for the services provided by Coaching Caregivers and similar businesses is sure to increase as more people than ever before are living longer in retirement. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a 65-year-old couple has a 50% chance of one of them living to age 93, and a 20% chance that one of them will reach age 97.

“I work with a lot of people in their 90s who need some help, but clearly do not need a nursing home,” Ferry said, noting that, 25 years ago, far fewer people lived past age 90.

When an aging parent is living a vital and independent life, it’s easy to avoid an elder-care discussion, but he said that’s the time to do it. As difficult as it is to start the conversation with a healthy parent, Ferry said it’s much easier than waiting for a crisis when significant decisions about care must be made under stress.

“When people are desperate for help, they don’t have the capacity to shop around. Instead, they listen to the first person who can offer a solution,” he noted, which may not be in the elder’s best interest.

Ferry counsels people to ask many questions before selecting a caregiver. “Try to get a sense of their reputation. Are they looking out for your parent, or are they steering you to the business they are in?”

There are many professionals who consider themselves care managers, he added, but may represent the interests of an agency or an insurance company. His advice, simply put, is to look for someone who will objectively represent the client’s interests. Once a care plan is in place, he explained, he then takes on the role of ‘consumer advocate’ for the client to make sure they get the services they were promised.

“Professionals like me have no bias for a particular course of action,” he told BusinessWest. “I have relationships with many home-care and assisted-living agencies, as well as other professionals I can recommend. My only interest is what’s best for my individual client.”

Opinion

Editorial

In the wake of momentous, and almost simultaneous, decisions by Amazon and GE to essentially back out of huge deals they had struck with New York and Boston, respectively, there came waves of commentary hinting that the era of huge corporate location, or relocation, subsidies might finally be coming to an end because evidence was mounting that they’re just not working.

Alas, this is probably, if not almost certainly, wishful thinking. Instead of ushering in an end to this habit of cities, states, and regions handing out billions to billionaires on the promise that they will bring tens of thousands of jobs, the events in Boston, and especially New York, only demonstrate why they won’t be ending anytime soon.

Indeed, while many are praising New Yorkers for standing up to Amazon and saying ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to these corporate handouts ($3 billion in this case), many, many more are lamenting a lost opportunity, criticizing the critics for letting a very big fish work its way off the line. And for the record, New York didn’t really stand up to Amazon. Instead, the corporate giant simply decided it didn’t want to take the heat and the criticism and would much rather go where it was not just welcome, but entirely and unabashedly welcome.

And why not? Seemingly within minutes after it was announced that Amazon would not be building in Queens, elected officials in New Jersey, who finished out of the running in the huge sweepstakes to land Amazon’s second headquarters, said, in essence, ‘our offer is still on the table; take another look at us. Please. Please!’

No, New York’s loss wasn’t in any way a victory for anyone. It didn’t change the equation, and New York is out roughly 50,000 jobs. Amazon just changed the rules slightly but importantly by saying, ‘give us a huge relocation subsidy, and don’t criticize us in any way about taking it.’

And the reality is that it’s on very safe ground as it says that.

Why? Because, as we’ve said many times, jobs are now — and will continue to be for decades to come — the most precious commodity on the planet, and cities and states will do whatever it takes to land them.

Even cities like New York and Boston, which shouldn’t have to compete for them. Indeed, in a perfect world, giant corporations should be paying huge subsidies to come to those cities, which have the skilled workers and the vitality and quality of life to attract more of them. They should be paying subsidies to help those cities battle homelessness, feed the poor, and help the have-nots join the haves.

But this isn’t a perfect world. When Seattle’s City Council passed a tax on large employers to fund an initiative to combat homelessness, Amazon threatened to stop major expansion plans, putting 7,000 jobs at risk. Not surprisingly, the tax was rescinded.

Not surprisingly, because city councils don’t hold the real power in such matters; major corporations like Amazon do.

In the wake of the company’s decision to scuttle its plans for Queens, many are calling what happened a victory for New York and other cities like it. Call us skeptical, but we’re not sure what, if anything, was won.

Opinion

Opinion

 By Associated Industries of Massachusetts

Late winter and early spring is high workplace gambling season. College basketball’s March Madness playoff brackets mean many workers will be talking about, gambling on, and even watching the games at work. 

What does workplace gambling look like? Betting pools, online betting, cellphone calls, and texting are some of the common methods employees use to gamble during the workday. All this may lead to a significant reduction in job performance by some employees.

On the other hand, many employers regard employee gambling as a harmless distraction that creates a little excitement, a diversion from the humdrum of the long winter and workday routines. Most employees treat it as a lark that, win or lose, will not impact them very much. In most workplaces, the single-pool proceeds are relatively small dollars, ranging anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to perhaps a few thousand.

That said, workplace gambling is a big deal and likely to get bigger. The American Gaming Assoc. estimates that employees may bet up to $10 billion alone on the college basketball tournament. And, by the way, sports betting remains illegal in Massachusetts. 

If you are concerned about workplace gambling or feel that your current policies are insufficient, here are some questions to consider:

• Does gambling disrupt the workplace? Is the gambling behavior interfering with production? Are arguments between employees over games and gambling taking place? Is bad blood festering over unpaid debts? Is there a spike in wallet or purse thefts among co-workers? 

• Are you seeing betting take up an unreasonable amount of work time? Are workers leaving their work stations throughout the day to discuss gambling? Are they gathering during work time to discuss betting options?

• Are gambling employees asking co-workers or the company for loans on wages or from 401Ks, or are there delays in repaying debts? 

• Are your supervisors running the gambling pool, raising disparate treatment issues across the business?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you may want to consider establishing a gambling policy.

There are a number of options:

• Adopt a no-gambling policy. Define gambling or the type of behavior that is restricted. Employers are free to establish such a policy. The key factor, as always, will be how consistently will it be enforced by your supervisors.

• Determine what constitutes appropriate disciplinary action against any employee who violates the policy.

• Consider adopting a limited no-gambling policy. One method would be to prohibit gambling above a certain dollar figure or value. Such a policy would recognize that small-stakes gambling such as a few dollars or a lunch is reasonable and will be tolerated even though it remains illegal under state law. The problem — will employees disclose they are doing it? There is also the question of determining what is a reasonable dollar value threshold and how to enforce it.

While it is unlikely any company would face any serious civil or criminal liability for a small-time gambling pool, if its operation makes some employees feel uncomfortable, it may make sense to end the practice as soon as you become aware of it, or before it gets going. Whatever policy you choose to adopt, make sure it is one that is enforceable for your workplace. 

Picture This

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

Smile for the Camera

Sandra Costello, owner of Sandra Costello Photography, cuts the ribbon to the opening of her new photography studio in the Eastworks Building in Easthampton on Feb. 17. Surrounded by family, friends, and clients, Costello celebrated her new space for capturing portraits of women, families, high-school seniors, and professionals. (Photo by Ryan Williams)

Sandra Costello, owner of Sandra Costello Photography, cuts the ribbon to the opening of her new photography studio in the Eastworks Building in Easthampton on Feb. 17. Surrounded by family, friends, and clients, Costello celebrated her new space for capturing portraits of women, families, high-school seniors, and professionals. (Photo by Ryan Williams)



Image Conscious

Michael’s Party Rentals recently received a national accolade at the 2019 American Rental Assoc. (ARA) annual convention and trade show in Anaheim, Calif.  The company was acknowledged with a Presidents Image Award, given to a business facility or store celebrating its commitment to improving the rental-industry image through a remodeling, rebuilding, or renovation project. The award was in response to Michael’s Party Rentals’ new showroom, which opened in July 2016. Pictured: Melissa Sullivan (left) and Michael Linton accept the award.

Michael’s Party Rentals recently received a national accolade at the 2019 American Rental Assoc. (ARA) annual convention and trade show in Anaheim, Calif. The company was acknowledged with a Presidents Image Award, given to a business facility or store celebrating its commitment to improving the rental-industry image through a remodeling, rebuilding, or renovation project. The award was in response to Michael’s Party Rentals’ new showroom, which opened in July 2016. Pictured: Melissa Sullivan (left) and Michael Linton accept the award.


Supporting Seniors

Polish National Credit Union (PNCU) recently pledged to donate $25,000 to the Friends of River Mills Senior Center in Chicopee. The donation will be spread over the course of five years in $5,000 installments. The check was presented during the Financial Elder Abuse Workshop sponsored by the credit union on Feb. 7. This donation will be used for the addition of programs and activities for the seniors. Pictured, from left: Alfred Picard, president of Friends of River Mills Senior Center; Jim Kelly, President and CEO of PNCU; Sherry Manyak, executive director of Friends of River Mills Senior Center; Michael Sugrue, executive vice president of PNCU; and Kevin Kober, director of Retail at PNCU.

Polish National Credit Union (PNCU) recently pledged to donate $25,000 to the Friends of River Mills Senior Center in Chicopee. The donation will be spread over the course of five years in $5,000 installments. The check was presented during the Financial Elder Abuse Workshop sponsored by the credit union on Feb. 7. This donation will be used for the addition of programs and activities for the seniors. Pictured, from left: Alfred Picard, president of Friends of River Mills Senior Center; Jim Kelly, President and CEO of PNCU; Sherry Manyak, executive director of Friends of River Mills Senior Center; Michael Sugrue, executive vice president of PNCU; and Kevin Kober, director of Retail at PNCU.

Court Dockets

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.

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT
Jason Blair v. Desai & Sons Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing personal injury: $13,148.70
Filed: 1/9/19

Truss Engineering Corp. v. KRN Solar, LLC
Allegation: Money owed from referral fee agreement: $5,024
Filed: 1/25/19

Susana Aguero v. Adalberto Bernal d/b/a Bernal Properties
Allegation: Breach of contract: $8,480
Filed: 1/28/19

M.S. Homes, LLC v. Lumber Liquidators Inc.
Allegation: Negligence, breach of express warranties, breach of implied warranties, consumer-protection violation, breach of contract: $26,000
Filed: 1/30/19

Carol Arruda v. Thomas P. Ryland Co. Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing personal injury: $453
Filed: 2/6/19

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
BDMG, LLC and Armbrook Senior Living, LLC v. Sage Engineering and Contracting Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract, negligence: $755,000
Filed: 1/25/19

Mary A. Gifford v. Timothy Rusiecki, DDS
Allegation: Dental malpractice
Filed: 1/25/19

Tessa L. Monska v. Baystate Noble Hospital Corp., Brian J. Hession, M.D., and Jacques H. Blanchet, M.D., et al
Allegation: Medical malpractice
Filed: 1/28/19

Katelyn Ryan, p/p/a Timothy Ryan v. Gilbane Inc., H. Carr & Sons Inc., and Essex Newbury Contracting Corp.
Allegation: Negligence causing personal injury: $100,000
Filed: 1/31/19

Maria Asiimwe v. Wilson’s Paving & Construction Inc. and William Burlingham
Allegation: Motor-vehicle negligence causing personal injury: $93,007.06
Filed: 1/31/19

Gerald J. Martin v. Talbot Health & Wellness
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing personal injury: $105,000
Filed: 2/1/19

Devonne McLaughlin v. G & H Landscaping Inc., Pearson Bradley Development Co., and JP’s Elastomerics Corp.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing personal injury: $2,522,763.35
Filed: 2/4/19

Specialty Bolt & Screw Inc. v. Rockwerx Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract, unjust enrichment: $42,202.27
Filed: 2/4/19

Agenda

Celebrity Bartending Tip-Off Fundraiser

March 7: The Hampden County Legal Clinic (HCLC), an award-winning, nationally recognized pro bono program of the Hampden County Bar Assoc. and the Hampden County Bar Foundation, has provided free legal advice and law-related services to the underserved through a variety of pro bono initiatives and community-based programs for 11 years. The HCLC and its pro bono associate advisory board are delighted to announce the first inaugural Celebrity Bartending Tip-Off Fundraiser to support the Legal Clinic. The event will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. at Art e’ Pizza, 272 Worthington St., Springfield. Along with food and entertainment, the event will feature local celebrity bartenders and a silent auction. This event is open to all. For more information, call the HCLC at (413) 733-6500.

‘Daniel Shays & America’s First Non-violent Protest’

March 9: Historian and author Dan Bullen will present “Captain Daniel Shays & America’s First Non-violent Protest” at 2 p.m. in the Springfield Armory Museum. The program will take place in the museum theater. Admission is free, but reservations are required due to limited seating. On Jan. 25, 1787, Shays marched 1,200 farmers and veterans to Springfield to seize the federal arsenal’s stockpiles of weapons, to keep them from falling into the hands of the governor’s army, which was coming to impose martial law in the Connecticut River Valley. For five months, Shays and the farmers of Massachusetts had peacefully protested the state’s economic policies, which explicitly favored the merchant elites, but the governor and other leaders saw the people’s opposition as a threat to the state’s authority. Bullen writes that he found this story deeply engaging “not just as a local history, but as an ongoing story of Americans banding together to protect the liberties they’d won in the Revolution.” Bullen will tell the story of the economic, social, and political factors that brought thousands of men in arms to Springfield in 1787 and ultimately led to reforms in Massachusetts and then to the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For further information about the event, call (413) 734-8551.

Difference Makers

March 28: BusinessWest launched its Difference Makers program in 2009 to celebrate individuals, groups, organizations, and families that are positively impacting the Pioneer Valley and are, as the name suggests, making a difference in this region. The class of 2019 was profiled in the Feb. 4 issue and will be feted at the Difference Makers Gala on March 28 at 5 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets are on sale now for $75. To reserve a spot, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or e-mail [email protected]. The presenting sponsor is Baystate Health/Health New England, and other event sponsors include Royal, P.C., Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., Development Associates, TommyCar Auto Group, and Viability Inc.

Women’s Leadership Conference

March 29: In celebration of women everywhere knocking down doors and breaking through glass ceilings, Bay Path University will host its 24th annual Women’s Leadership Conference (WLC) at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. This one-day event, which has become the region’s prime women’s leadership event for professional networking and enrichment, will challenge women seeking to make career or life changes to look at the power within to make their dreams a reality, and to dare to ask “why not me?” instead of “why me?” Delivering the keynote address will be award-winning actress, dancer, and singer Rita Moreno, one of only four women who have achieved the EGOT, the grand slam of entertainment-industry awards, by winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Mel Robbins, a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, life strategist, internationally recognized social-media influencer, and one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the world, will deliver the conference’s luncheon keynote. She is the CEO and co-founder of the Confidence Project, a media and digital learning company working with Fortune 500 brands to help employees build habits of confidence and courage. The conference’s opening keynote speaker will be announced soon. In addition to the three keynote speakers, breakout sessions focused on reimagining the narrative around women in leadership will be led by Cy Wakeman, drama researcher, global thought leader, New York Times best-selling author, and president and founder of Reality-Based Leadership; Kim Meninger, certified executive and leadership development coach and president and founder of Executive Career Success; Dr. Kristina Hallet, board-certified clinical psychologist, and associate professor of Psychology at Bay Path, executive coach, and best-selling author; and Kim Lear, founder of Inlay Insights, storyteller, writer, and researcher. For further information on the conference and to register, visit www.baypathconference.com.

EANE Leadership Conference

April 4: The Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast (EANE) will stage its annual Leadership Conference on Thursday, April 4 at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place with a focus on measuring success while motivating and inspiring one’s team to improve performance. The program will feature Jim McPartlin, vice president of Leadership Development for Forbes Travel Guide. McPartlin’s keynote will challenge attendees to bring integrity to their leadership responsibilities, even when times get tough. A second keynote will be presented by Tim Hebert, a perennial entrepreneur, innovator, author, speaker, and adventurer. Hebert will ignite the leadership spark in attendees in a keynote focused on the choices of leadership and techniques to help live life by design, not by default. Between keynote presentations, conference attendees will have access to dozens of breakout session topics ranging from performance management to diversity and inclusion, to perfecting ‘C-suite speak,’ and more. The cost for the program is $360 per person with discounts for three or more. Register at www.eane.org/leadership-2019 or by calling (877) 662-6444. The program will offer 5.75 credits from the HR Certification Institute and SHRM.

 

Springfield Art Stop

April 26: The Springfield Cultural Partnership (SCP) announced the return of Art Stop, a pop-up gallery/street festival hybrid, from 5 to 8 p.m. The SCP is partnering with venues downtown to open galleries in unexpected spaces simultaneously. Additionally, several existing Springfield art galleries along this year’s route will also participate as stops along the Art Stop. Between the galleries, which will have the typical artist talks and receptions, there will be street performances. Art Stop was designed to activate underutilized community spaces with colorful art, create economic opportunity for artists, and bring communities together. Galleries will all be located in downtown Springfield. Each individual gallery opening will have an reception with the artist on site to both sell and talk about their work. This year, the SCP has also partnered with several downtown restaurants that will offer a discount on food to Art Stop attendees who present their Art Stop ‘passport’ on April 26. The SCP, along with organizing the curation of art in the pop-up spaces, is hiring unique buskers to encourage attendees to walk from place to place. Guides will be strategically placed to guide attendees along the Art Stop route. The performers will showcase an array of dance, music, and entertainment. All locations are within a walkable area.

Bay Path President’s Gala

April 27: Bay Path University has announced its third annual President’s Gala, “Dance a Mile in Their Shoes,” to take place at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place Hotel. Lindsay Arnold, a Dancing with the Stars professional and season 25 champion, and So You Think You Can Dance fan favorite, will lend her expertise for her second year in a row as the event’s celebrity judge. Arnold will be joined at the judges’ table by actor, producer, Springfield native, and Bay Path alumna JoAnna Rhinehart, who is currently appearing in My Fair Lady on Broadway. The Bay Path University President’s Gala will feature a Dancing with the Stars-style ballroom dance competition infused with telling the story of the university’s mission — empowering undergraduate women and graduate women and men to flourish in a constantly changing world. Last year’s event netted more than $315,000 in support of the Bold Women’s Scholarship and the Finish Line Fund. These scholarships are awarded to assist students in removing obstacles standing in the way of achieving their goal of receiving a college degree. This year’s featured dancers at the gala are Lamont Clemons, Business Development for Secure Energy Solutions, executive vice President of S-Cel-O Painting, and Bay Path trustee; Erin Hornyak, Bay Path advisory council member and Longmeadow resident; and Jillian Jusko, blogger and Longmeadow resident. Clemons, Hornyak, and Jusko are undergoing training with Daryll and Gunnar Sverrisson, ballroom dance champions and owners of Ballroom Fever in Enfield, Conn., as they prepare to compete to raise scholarship funds and take home the Mirror Ball Trophy. In addition to the performances, the gala will feature an auction, dinner, and live entertainment by the Boston-based band Protégé. The President’s Gala will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a cocktail reception and silent auction, followed by a seated dinner at 7:30 p.m. The dancing competition will begin at 8:30 p.m., and at 9 p.m. guests will be invited to dance the night away. Tickets are on sale now at www.baypath.edu/gala.

Aerosmith Concerts

Aug. 21, 24, 26, and 29: Aerosmith will bring “Deuces Are Wild — East Coast Run,” a special edition of its Las Vegas residency show, to MGM Springfield for four nights. Along with never-before-seen visuals and audio from Aerosmith recording sessions, the performances will be presented in L-ISA Hyperreal sound. The shows will take place at the MassMutual Center. Tickets went on sale to the general public on March 1.

Chamber Corners

1BERKSHIRE
www.1berkshire.com
(413) 499-1600

• March 12: 1Berkshire Education Session: “Digital Marketing for Community Organizations,” 3-5 p.m., hosted by Lee Bank, 40 Pittsfield Lenox Road, Lenox. Join 1Berkshire, HYFN Local, and WWLP Media as guest presenter Mitch West discusses digital advertising, incorporating video and social media. Free to 1Berkshire members.

• March 12: 1Berkshire Chamber Nite, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Lee Bank, 40 Pittsfield Lenox Road, Lenox. Join us for the March Chamber Nite in partnership with the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires. Members of either organization get in for free, and we’ll highlight the theme of community impact.

• March 13: 1Berkshire Education Session: “Digital Marketing for Small, Medium, and Large Companies,” 8-11 a.m., hosted by 1Berkshire, 66 Allen St., Pittsfield. Join 1Berkshire, HYFN Local, and WWLP Media as guest presenter Mitch West discusses incorporating video into digital advertising strategies (8 a.m.), social media (9 a.m.), and navigating digital advertising (10 a.m.). Free to 1Berkshire members.

• March 13: 1Berkshire Education Session: “Digital Marketing for Creative Economy, Culturals, Hospitality, and Tourism,” 2-4 p.m, hosted by Red Lion Inn, 30 Main St., Stockbridge. Join 1Berkshire, HYFN Local, and WWLP Media as guest presenter Mitch West discusses digital advertising, incorporating video and social media. Free to 1Berkshire members.

AMHERST AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.amherstarea.com
(413) 253-0700

• March 6: Business Leadership Discussion Group, 4:30-7:30 p.m., hosted by Jake’s at the Mill, Amherst. Presented by Family Planning Business Center and Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce. Register at www.amherstarea.com.

• March 28: Margarita Madness, 5:30-8:30 p.m., hosted by Insterskate 91 at Hampshire Mall. Presented by TommyCar Auto Group. Enjoy an evening of margaritas and vote for your favorite. There will also be dishes from participating restaurants and dozens of raffle prizes. Trumpy of the Valley’s Hits 94.3 will emcee the event. Cost: $30 in advance, $40 at the door. Buy tickets at www.amherstarea.com. Margarita tables are sold out.

GREATER CHICOPEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

• March 5: CEO Power Hour Luncheon featuring Gina Kos of Sunshine Village, 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., hosted by the Collegian Court. A quarterly luncheon series where CEOs tell how they rose to their positions. Series sponsored by Polish National Credit Union. Cost: $30 for members, $35 for non-members. Sign up online at www.chicopeechamber.org/events or call (413) 594-2101.

• March 8: Big Honkin’ Business After Hours, 4:30-6:30 p.m., a multi-chamber event hosted by Marcotte Ford. A celebration of Marcotte’s new, state-of-the-art dealership. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members.

• March 20: Salute Breakfast, 7:15-9 a.m., hosted by the Delaney House. Chief greeter: Karen Hansmann, Chicopee Cultural Council/chamber board. Keynote: Happier Valley Comedy, “5 Tips for Quieting Your Voice of Unhelpful Judgement.” Series sponsored by Westfield Bank, Holyoke Medical Center, N. Riley Construction Inc., Polish National Credit Union, USI Insurance Services, Spherion Staffing Services, and PeoplesBank. Cost: $23 for members, $28 for non-members. Sign up online at chicopeechamber.org/events. Sponsor tables still available; call (413) 594-2101, ext. 102.

GREATER EASTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

• March 7: Networking by Night, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Puzzled Escape Games, Eastworks, 116 Pleasant St., Unit 141. An evening of intrigue and networking. See if you have the skills needed to escape. Cost: free for members, $15 for non-members. For more information and to register, visit www.easthamptonchamber.org or call the chamber at (413) 527-9414.

• March 15: St. Patrick’s Day Lunch, noon to 2:30 p.m., hosted by Northampton Country Club, 135 Main St., Leeds. Enjoy a corned beef and cabbage luncheon and salute the St. Patrick’s Day committee award winners, Michael Callini, Steve Zsavisa, and Mr. & Mrs. Florek. Newly elected state Rep. Dan Kelly will be the keynote speaker. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for future members. Reservations are required, as space is limited. For more information and to register, visit www.easthamptonchamber.org or call the chamber at (413) 527-9414.

GREATER HOLYOKE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.holyokechamber.com
(413) 534-3376

• March 6: Coffee Buzz, 7:30 a.m., hosted by Holyoke Hummus Café. Did you know Holyoke Hummus now serves breakfast? Join the Greater Holyoke business community as we indulge in fine vegetarian cuisine over a warm beverage. There will be plenty of coffee and connections to be had as Holyoke Hummus Café celebrates its second birthday. Cost: free.

• March 13: Annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast, 7:15 a.m., hosted by the Log Cabin, Holyoke. Presented by PeoplesBank. Sponsored by the Republican; Holyoke Gas and Electric; Resnic, Beaureguard, Waite and Driscoll; Holyoke Medical Center; and Marcotte Ford. Join us for our annual St. Patrick’s weekend kickoff as we feature live Irish music, Holyoke tartan for sale, a full Irish breakfast, and plenty of laughs and connections. Rumor has it there will be a special guest speaker. As always, there will be plenty of Irish cheer. Cost: $35 for members, $50 for non-members, $250 for tables of eight for members. Shamrock sponsorship for $550 (e-mail [email protected]).

• March 20: Big Honkin’ Business After Hours at Marcotte Ford, 4:30 p.m. This event is a collaboration with the Greater Westfield and Greater Chicopee chambers, featuring food stations, beer and wine, marketing opportunities, door prizes, and more. Cost: $10 for members, $25 for non-members.

GREATER NORTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.northamptonchamber.com
(413) 584-1900

• March 6: March Arrive @ 5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Forget Me Not Florist, 114 Main St., Northampton. A networking event sponsored by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Complete Payroll, and PeoplesBank. Cost: $10 for members.

• March 26: Workshop: “Excel Tips & Tricks, Part 1,” 9-11 a.m., hosted by the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, 99 Pleasant St., Northampton. Presented by Pioneer Training. This workshop contains a variety of quick tips and tricks in Microsoft Excel that will save users hours of time. Learn how to add buttons to the quick-access toolbar, so the commands you want are at your fingertips. Learn how to view all the formulas in a worksheet and how to freeze rows and columns for easier viewing and navigation. Practice time-saving shortcuts for selecting, moving, and copying cells, and learn how to use autofill to create a series of numbers or dates or to copy formulas. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for non-members.

• April 2: Workshop: “Excel Tips & Tricks, Part 2,” 9-11 a.m., hosted by Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, 99 Pleasant St., Northampton. Presented by Pioneer Training. This class will present a series of tips and shortcuts that will help attendees work more efficiently and complete more complex tasks with Microsoft Excel. Learn how to assign range names to groups of cells and how to use range names in formulas and functions. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for non-members.

• April 3: April Arrive @ 5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Danco, 10 West St., West Hatfield. A networking event sponsored by Northeast Solar, NEPR, Health New England, and MassHire Franklin Hampshire Workforce Board. Cost: $10 for members.

• April 23: Workshop: CyberSafe, 9 a.m. to noon, hosted by Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, 99 Pleasant St., Northampton. Presented by Pioneer Training. CyberSafe is a three-hour workshop for non-technical users that focuses on using technology without compromising personal or organizational security. Students will learn the skills they need to protect digital data on computers, networks, mobile devices, and the internet. They will learn how to identify many of the common risks involved in using technology, such as phishing, spoofing, malware, and social engineering, and then learn how to protect themselves and their organizations from those risks. Cost: $50 for members, $60 for non-members.

GREATER WESTFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

• March 4: March Mayor’s Coffee Hour, 8-9 a.m., hosted by Westfield Gas & Electric at the Operations Center, 40 Turnpike Industrial Road, Westfield. Join us for coffee with Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan. The event is free and open to the public. To register, visit www.westfieldbiz.org/events or call (413) 568-1618 so we may give our host a proper head count.

• March 15: St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast, 7-9 a.m., hosted by Westfield State University, Scanlon Hall, 577 Western Ave., Westfield. Platinum sponsor: Westfield State University; small business sponsor: Puffer Printing; in-kind sponsor: Flowers by Webster. Join us for our annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast as we honor our 2019 Sons of Erin Colleen, Hannah Elizabeth Jury, and her court; Irishwoman of the Year Terri Broderick Hathaway; Irishman of the Year Jim Rood, and Parade Marshal Bo Sullivan. Cost: $25 for members, $40 for non-members. For more information and to register, visit www.westfieldbiz.org/events or contact the chamber at (413) 568-1618.

• March 20: Big Honkin’ Business After Hours, 4:30-7 p.m., a three-chamber event with the Greater Westfield, Greater Chicopee, and Greater Holyoke chambers, hosted by Marcotte Ford, 1025 Main St., Holyoke. Hearty appetizers, food stations, beer, and wine provided. Live jazz music and valet parking. Bring business cards to make connections and enter to win raffle prizes. A 50/50 raffle will benefit the chamber scholarship fund. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Pre-registration is recommended at www.westfieldbiz.org/events or by calling the chamber at (413) 568-1618.

SOUTH HADLEY & GRANBY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.shgchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

• March 14: Business After 5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by: Johnny’s Tap Room, South Hadley. Located in South Hadley’s Village Commons, across the street from Mount Holyoke College, Johnny’s Bar & Grille has been serving up food and drinks since 2006. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. To RSVP or for more information, e-mail [email protected], and mail a check, payable to the South Hadley & Granby Chamber of Commerce, to 2 Lyman St., South Hadley, MA 01075.

• April 6: Mohegan Sun Bus Trip, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Hop on King Ward’s 40-person bus for a day of fun at one of the world’s finest casinos. Pickup and dropoff at the Chicopee Home Depot parking lot at 9 a.m. Cost: $50 per person, which includes bus fare, $15 food voucher, and $15 gambling voucher. Call Steven Laplante at (413) 246-4911 for more information, or e-mail [email protected] to reserve seating.

• April 17: Business After 5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by the Thirsty Mind, located in South Hadley’s Village Commons, across the street from Mount Holyoke College. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. RSVP and direct questions to [email protected], and mail a check, payable to the South Hadley & Granby Chamber of Commerce, to 2 Lyman St., South Hadley, MA 01075.

SPRINGFIELD REGIONAL CHAMBER
www.springfieldregionalchamber.com
(413) 787-1555

• March 4: Outlook 2019, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., hosted by the MassMutual Center, 1277 Main St., Springfield. Presented by Health New England. Featuring national columnist Margaret Carlson as keynote speaker, plus U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Cost: $60 for members in advance, $80 general admission in advance, $100 at the door.

• March 14: Fire & Ice Craft Cocktail Competition and Fundraiser, 5:30-8 p.m., hosted by Springfield Country Club, 1375 Elm St., West Springfield. Sponsored by Florence Bank.

• March 19: “A New Wave,” 4-6 p.m., hosted by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, 1000 Hall of Fame Ave., Springfield. A presentation by the city of Springfield Office of Economic Development in partnership with the Springfield Regional Chamber, highlighting new economic-development projects and updates on larger economic-development projects in the works. Includes reception with cash bar following. Admission is complimentary, but reservations are required.

Reservations for all Springfield Regional Chamber events may be made by visiting www.springfieldregionalchamber.com, e-mailing [email protected], or calling (413) 755-1310.

WEST OF THE RIVER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.ourwrc.com
(413) 426-3880

• March 21: Networking Lunch, noon to 1:30 p.m., hosted by Carrabba’s Italian Grill, West Springfield. Enjoy lunch while networking with fellow chamber members and guests of members. Each attendee will get a chance to offer a brief intro and company overview. You must be a member or guest of a member to attend. Cost: free for members; $10 for non-members. Register online at www.westoftheriverchamber.com.

• April 3: Wicked Wednesday, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Carrabba’s Italian Grill, West Springfield. Wicked Wednesdays are monthly social events, hosted by various businesses and restaurants, that bring members and non-members together to network in a laid-back atmosphere. For more information about this event, call the chamber office at (413) 426-3880, or register at www.westoftheriverchamber.com.

YOUNG PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY OF GREATER SPRINGFIELD
springfieldyps.com

• March 21: YPS Third Thursday, 5-7 p.m., hosted by MGM Springfield Lobby Bar. Join us for our March Third Thursday. Cost: free for members, $10 for non-members. Afterward, we will enjoy the show at ROAR comedy club. For an exclusive discount on tickets to the show, visit springfieldyps.com.

People on the Move
Robert Kelley

Robert Kelley

Cliff Hedges

Cliff Hedges

Eastern States Exposition announced two appointments, naming Robert Kelley director of Operations and Cliff Hedges director of Public Safety. A graduate of Agawam High School, Kelley continued his education at Holyoke Community College before starting his career at ESE in 1975. Over the past 25 years, Kelley has served ESE as its contractor coordinator, overseeing numerous capital-improvement projects. Under his direction, 10 new buildings were constructed, including the Mallary Complex East and West, the food court, the Visitors’ Center East and West, the Transportation Center, the indoor warm-up horse ring, the Young Building and two wine and cheese barns now known as the Farmers Market. He also supervised the installation of air conditioning in the Better Living Center and Young Building, and a heating system in Mallary Complex. Additionally, he directed projects involving moving all electricity from overhead to underground and the installation of a new sewer and storm-drain infrastructure. As director, he will oversee all grounds operations, including maintenance, construction, landscaping, and contractors, and continue to supervise all building projects on the grounds. Hedges has an extensive, 31-year background in federal and local law enforcement, having retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2012 after 26 years as a special agent and a supervisory special agent, spending 21 of those years in the FBI’s Springfield office. He also served as a patrolman and subsequently a detective on the Crimes Against Persons Unit with the Dallas Police Department. Hedges comes to the Exposition from his most recent position as regional director of Compliance and Privacy at Regional Care Capella HealthCare in Brentwood, Tenn. He was a healthcare compliance, privacy, and risk specialist focusing on state and federal regulatory guidance, rules, and regulations. A graduate of the University of Louisville, he earned a bachelor’s degree in justice administration. He also holds a master’s degree in communications and information management from Bay Path University, where he was an adjunct professor of Criminal Justice. Hedges received the Presidential Integrity Achievement Award for Investigations for his work on the public corruption initiative in Springfield. He has also received multiple awards from the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for investigative techniques and a Special Team Award from the New England Narcotics Assoc. In 2002, he was named the Cliff Zundel Citizen of the Year for the town of Longmeadow for his involvement in girls’ youth sports.

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Gulasar (Guli) Niyazova

Gulasar (Guli) Niyazova

PeoplesBank announced the appointment of Gulasar (Guli) Niyazova as a mortgage consultant representing the West Springfield, Westfield, and Russian-speaking communities. In her new position, Niyazova will guide home buyers through the process of obtaining the right mortgage quickly and efficiently. As a mortgage professional, she said her goal is to not only provide a smooth process, but also to help select the mortgage that is most beneficial to each customer. “Guli brings a wealth of professional experience to her new position as a mortgage consultant for PeoplesBank,” said James Sherbo, senior vice president of Consumer Lending. “She values customer service as her top priority, and, because of her experience and Russian-language fluency, she is a valuable addition to the PeoplesBank lending team.”

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The American Council on Education (ACE) announced that Carol Leary, president of Bay Path University and author of Achieving the Dream: A How-to Guide for Adult Women Seeking a College Degree, will receive the 2019 Donna Shavlik Award. The award will be presented ACE2019, ACE’s 101st annual meeting in Philadelphia, during the Women’s Leadership Dinner on Saturday, March 9. In 1994, Leary became president of Bay Path, a private institution offering all-women undergraduate degree programs (on campus and online) and co-educational graduate-degree programs. Under her leadership, Bay Path became a university, established more than 30 graduate and post-graduate degrees, and launched the American Women’s College, the first all-women, all-online baccalaureate program in the nation. She also established the Carol A. Leary Endowed Scholarship Fund for First Generation College Students. Although neither graduated high school, Leary’s parents instilled in her the importance of education and a love of learning. With their support and encouragement, she attended Boston University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and later earned a Ph.D. at American University in Washington, D.C. This upbringing contributed to her advocacy for women, particularly those for whom circumstance and environment might hinder success. Presented annually, the Donna Shavlik Award honors an individual who demonstrates a sustained commitment to advancing women in higher education through leadership and career development, campus climate, and mentoring.

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Susan Lapointe

Susan Lapointe

Riverside Industries Inc., a nonprofit agency empowering individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live rich and full lives, announced Susan Lapointe is the new director of Development and Community Relations. In her new role, Lapointe oversees fundraising, development, public and community relations, and marketing for Riverside. Fundraising will include Riverside’s annual signature fundraiser auction event, as well as annual campaigns, major gifts, planned giving, capital campaigns, cultivation, and stewardship. An accomplished business owner, Lapointe comes to Riverside with a strong entrepreneurial background. Her recent career as owner and creative director of TurningLeaf Design included branding and marketing for many nonprofits and businesses in the Valley. In addition to running her business, her community involvement included serving as director and president of the Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce, chairperson for the Hampshire County Regional Tourism Council, development and marketing chair for the Easthampton Cultural Council’s annual Cultural Chaos event. Her community development also included volunteer and marketing consulting for Riverside as well as serving as a board chair and member of Riverside for many years.

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Jeff Rodgers

Jeff Rodgers

On the same day the Berkshire Museum opened more than 100 years ago, the museum will welcome Jeff Rodgers as its new executive director on April 1. Rodgers brings more than 20 years of museum experience to the Berkshire Museum’s top job. He currently serves as provost and chief operating officer of the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Fla. Rodgers has served in a number of roles at the South Florida Museum. Since 2016, he has held broad leadership responsibilities for strategic planning, creating innovative programming, fundraising, and conducting outreach across the community to build and sustain crucial partnerships and collaborations. A former teacher, he also served in a variety of roles at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, including as director of the Moveable Museum Program. Rodgers was the unanimous selection after a four-month search led by the museum’s board of trustees.

•••••

The Valley Blue Sox announced that former major-league pitcher Mike Trombley has been named special advisor to the team. Trombley, 51, spent 11 seasons in the majors with the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, and Los Angeles Dodgers. A 14th-round draft pick in the 1989 MLB draft, the right-handed pitcher would go on to earn his undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1990. The Wilbraham native appeared in 509 major-league games, primarily working out of the bullpen. He logged a 4.48 earned run average in 795.2 innings of work while notching 44 career saves. He is now the owner of Trombley Associates – Investment and Retiring Planning, and Trombley Associates – Bookkeeping and Payroll Services, located in Wilbraham. In his new advisory role, Trombley will serve as a mentor to Blue Sox players both on and off the diamond. He will also assist the coaching staff and front office throughout the season.

•••••

Clinton Mathias

Clinton Mathias

Clinton Mathias, associate professor of Pharmacology at Western New England University, was named the recipient of the American Assoc. of Immunologists’ (AAI) Distinguished Service Award for 2019. Mathias is being recognized for outstanding service to the immunology community as director of the AAI High School Teachers Summer Research Program in Immunology from 2012 to 2108. A formal award presentation will take place in May at the Immunology 2019 conference in San Diego. Mathias is on the faculty of Western New England’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. For the past six years, he spearheaded the AAI’s efforts to support summer research for high-school teachers, connecting them with AAI mentors from coast to coast, many of them world-renowned scientists. Teachers emerge from the summer program with curricula based on their research experience they could then implement in the high-school classroom.

•••••

Michael Regan

Michael Regan

The Martin J. Clayton Insurance Agency recently welcomed Michael Regan as principal of the agency and vice president of Sales. He comes to the agency with more than 13 years of experience in the insurance business. “Mike is an outstanding addition to the team and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the agency.  His commitment to the highest standards of customer care and business ethics makes him an ideal fit for Clayton Insurance Agency,” said President Daniel Sullivan. Regan was recently awarded the Henry Fifield Volunteer of the Year Award for outstanding community service. He is very active in the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce.

•••••

Columbia Gas of Massachusetts announced that Mark Kempic will assume the role of president and chief operating officer, effective May 1. Steve Bryant, who has been serving as president of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, announced his retirement, also effective May 1. Since January, Kempic has served as chief operating officer for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts. From September 2018 to January, he was a key part of the leadership team for the Greater Lawrence area restoration efforts. He has more than 35 years of experience in the energy industry and has served in a broad range of functions, including information technology, engineering, gas supply, corporate planning, and regulatory policy. Most recently he served as NiSource chief transformation officer (CTO), responsible for enhancing NiSource’s efforts to integrate processes and technology across the company’s seven-state footprint. He also previously served as president of Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania and Columbia Gas of Maryland. He holds a law degree from Capital University School of Law, a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science from the University of Pittsburgh, and an associate degree in solar heating and cooling engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

•••••

Diana Adair

Diana Adair

Coldwell Banker Upton-Massamont Realtors (CBUMR) announced the addition of Realtor Diana Adair to its roster of professional real-estate agents serving Franklin and Hampshire counties. Adair started her real-estate career 30 years ago and has purchased several homes, remodeled six properties, and bought investment rentals. In addition, she has accomplished millions of dollars in real-estate sales. She grew up in Belchertown, lived on a farm, and inherited her great love of land from her father, Howard Mann. In 1992, she started, owned, and operated Heartland Farm in Amherst, which gave lessons, held summer camps, and trained and sold hunter/jumpers. Adair is a member of the Realtor Assoc. of Pioneer Valley, the National Assoc. of Realtors, and the Massachusetts Assoc. of Realtors.

•••••

USA Archery announced the coaches for its newly redesigned teen training program, the Regional Elite Development (RED) program. Kyle Forbes Bissell, owner of Amherst Archery Academy, has been appointed reserve coach for the Eastern Region. Bissell will work with a head coach and three additional coaches with the goal of making this a successful training program for dedicated Olympic recurve archers ages 13 to 17. He founded Amherst Archery Academy in 2011 and now coaches archery full-time, year-round.

Company Notebook

Westfield’s New Baseball Team Unveils ‘Starfires’ Name, Logo

WESTFIELD — The latest entry in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League unveiled its name and logo on Wednesday night at an event held at the Shortstop Bar and Grill in Westfield. The Westfield Starfires will begin play in the summer of 2019 at Bullens Field in Westfield. The team name pays homage to the city of Westfield’s deep connection with the Air National Guard stationed at Barnes Airport. The name is derived from the Lockheed F-94 Starfire, a first-generation jet aircraft of the U.S. Air Force. The F-94 was the first operational USAF fighter equipped with an afterburner and was the first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter combat during the Korean War in January 1953. The Westfield Starfires were founded by local entrepreneurs Christopher Thompson and Donald Moorhouse, and are now part of the FCBL’s seven-team circuit. Since 2011, the Futures League has experienced a meteoric rise to become one of the top summer collegiate leagues in the country. Season-ticket packages and merchandise for the new franchise are available now through westfieldstarfires.com.

GreatHorse Named Northeast’s Golf Course of the Year

HAMPDEN — The National Golf Course Owners Assoc. (NGCOA) recently recognized GreatHorse, the golf and lifestyle club in Hampden, as Regional Golf Course of the Year for the Northeast Region. The award recognizes those courses that epitomize exceptional course quality and management excellence, make important contributions to their communities and the game, and serve as models of operations to their peers. “We’re honored to receive such a prestigious award from the NGCOA,” said Guy Antonacci, owner of GreatHorse. “This national recognition is a testament to how far we have come in the four short years since we opened our doors, and we are excited to continue our growth in the years ahead.”

Michael’s Party Rentals Receives National Recognition

PALMER — Michael’s Party Rentals recently received a national accolade at the 2019 American Rental Assoc. (ARA) annual convention and trade show in Anaheim, Calif. The ARA is the international trade association for equipment-rental businesses and manufacturers and suppliers of rental equipment, with members in every U.S. state, every Canadian province, and more than 30 countries worldwide. Michael’s Party Rentals was acknowledged with a Presidents Image Award from ARA. It was a co-recipient along with True Value Rental of Rollinsford, N.H., representing Region One, which covers all of New England and New York. The honor is given to a business facility or store celebrating its commitment to improving the rental-industry image through a remodeling, rebuilding, or renovation project. The award was in response to Michael’s Party Rentals’ new showroom, which opened in July 2016.

United Bank Earns Accolades

HARTFORD, Conn. — United Bank announced that Greenwich Associates, the leading global provider of data, analytics, and insights to the financial-services industry, honored United with its 2018 Greenwich Excellence Awards for Middle Market Banking and Small Business Banking. Specifically, United Bank earned the 2018 Greenwich Excellence Awards for Overall Satisfaction in Middle Market Banking and Overall Satisfaction and Branch Satisfaction in Small Business Banking. Greenwich Associates, after evaluating more than 600 banks, determined that United Bank was among a select number of banks performing at a differentiated level relative to its peers. To qualify for consideration for these national awards, each winning bank had to have a minimum of 50 clients that responded to the survey. In addition, the Small Business Banking accolade was based on more than 14,400 interviews with businesses with sales of $1 million to $10 million across the country. For Middle Market Banking, the ranking was derived from more than 14,400 interviews with businesses with sales of $10 million to $500 million across the country.

 

Pathlight Moves to

Bigger Quarters in Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD — Pathlight, a local organization that supports people with developmental disabilities and those with autism throughout Western Mass., is moving from its longtime space on North Street in Pittsfield to bigger quarters at 75 South Church St. The move, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 21, allows Pathlight to better support its programs in the Berkshires. Pathlight’s Autism Connections as well as its Shared Living and Adult Family Care programs are growing in response to community demand. Autism Connections offers workshops, social-skills groups, and support groups, as well as recreation opportunities, to people with autism and their caregivers. The program’s autism specialists also work individually with families in their homes. In Pathlight’s Shared Living and Adult Family Care programs, a community member shares their home and provides support for a person with an intellectual disability or autism. The new office space features a large activity room, several meeting rooms, and a kitchen. The space will host community activities, including education workshops on a host of issues, social-skills groups for people with autism, and support groups for families caring for a person with autism. In the future, Pathlight plans to offer recreational and performing-arts classes for children and teens of all abilities.

Country Bank Donates $1M

to Local Charities in 2018

WARE — Country Bank reported that donations for 2018 exceeded $1 million. Through the bank’s established charitable-giving program, support is provided to local nonprofits throughout the region; in 2018, more than 400 organizations received generous contributions from the program. Among the organizations that received donations, the Salvation Army, the YMCA of Greater Springfield, the Springfield Rescue Mission, Friends of the Homeless, and the USO of Pioneer Valley each received $5,000, while the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and Christina’s House each received $10,000. The bank also teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build a home in Springfield last September. Country Bank also has an employee charitable-giving program that raised more than $30,000 in 2018, through events such as jeans days, bake sales, and raffles.

Governors America Corp. Partners

with CTEC to Develop Workforce

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Governors America Corp. has, over the last few years, hired seven past and/or current students from the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative’s Career and Technical Education Center (CTEC), a half-day high-school vocational and technical training facility located in West Springfield. CTEC services students from nine communities in and around Hampden and Hampshire counties with 11 program offerings. Governors America Corp. is a leading provider of engine-governing and system controls to manufacturers and power providers worldwide. The new hires mainly come from CTEC’S Machine Technology program and have worked directly on the manufacturing floor, operating computer numerical control machines. CTEC has also provided Governors Corp. with support in its Information Technology department. This mutually beneficial partnership has enabled students to apply the skills that they have learned in one of the area’s premier manufacturing environments and provided Governors Corp. with a reliable source of pre-screened talent that has enriched its staff and production.

Briefcase

Employer Confidence Slides to Begin 2019

BOSTON — Stabilizing financial markets and continued strong employment were not enough to brighten the outlook of Massachusetts employers during January as business confidence fell for the fifth time in seven months. The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index lost 0.9 points to 57.7, its lowest level since October 2016. Confidence has dropped 6.4 points during the past 12 months. The retreat was led by a 7.3-point drop in employer views of the Massachusetts economy and a 2.4-point drop in opinions about the national economy. Overall confidence remains within optimistic territory, but every element of the AIM Index is now lower than it was a year ago. A separate survey within the January Business Confidence Index found that, while 71% of Massachusetts employers have seen some effect from the U.S. government’s imposition of tariffs on goods form China and other nations, only 10% of companies characterize the effect as “significant” or a threat to the existence of their business. The most common consequence of the tariffs has been an increase in raw-material prices, followed by changes to the supply chain, supply interruptions, products affected by retaliatory tariffs, and loss of overseas customers.

1Berkshire Begins to Implement Berkshire Blueprint 2.0

PITTSFIELD — On Feb. 15, 1Berkshire launched the implementation phase of the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, a strategic economic-development imperative. With more than 300 registered attendees packing the Colonial Theatre in downtown Pittsfield, 1Berkshire members, regional leaders, and elected officials from across the county shared this project, already two years in the making. The event was the culmination of more than 100 interviews, thousands of hours of work, and more than 20 months of planning and design. 1Berkshire President and CEO Jonathan Butler kicked off the primary outline during the launch by recognizing that $1 billion in regional investments have been made in the Berkshires in just the last three years. Beginning the implementation phase of the Blueprint 2.0 entails a number of action steps, focused on five key industrial clusters, as well as other economic-landscape components and cross-cutting issues. Collectively, this work aims to unite all geographic corners of the county for a common goal of economic development and sustained growth.

Study Shows Economic Impact of Westover Air Show

AMHERST — A UMass Amherst economic impact study estimates that the two-day Great New England Air Show (GNEAS) held at Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee in July 2018 generated $4.3 million in direct and induced local spending. The findings confirm increased per-group spending and their impacts on the local economy even though attendance was significantly down; 2018 attendance was estimated to be around 63,475, down from the 375,500 estimated in 2015. The study was undertaken to understand the economic impact and to benchmark the findings of the 2008 and 2015 air shows for the Galaxy Community Council, a charitable corporation of veterans, local business people, and other citizens who work to support the Westover base. The project was completed by the Hospitality and Tourism Management Department of the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. The overall economic significance including respondents’ expenditures both within and outside the region of the air show for 2018 was estimated to be $4.02 million. However, when local attendees were removed, the direct economic expenditures from non-locals was estimated to be $2.67 million, and the direct and induced sales multiplier impact overall was estimated to be $4.3 million. This compares to an economic significance in 2015 that was $11.6 million and a local direct economic impact (including the sales multiplier) of $14.9 million. In 2008, economic significance was $8.2 million, and the direct economic impact was $12.3 million.

Holyoke Wins Grant to Create Services for Older Victims of Domestic Abuse

HOLYOKE — The city of Holyoke has been awarded a grant of $398,205 from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women for a period of three years to create and enhance services for older victims of domestic abuse. This will allow the city to create and design Project Combating Abuse in Later Life (CALL) to address domestic abuse for those aged 50 and older who reside in the city. Project CALL will partner with the Holyoke Police Department, the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, Womanshelter Companeras, and WestMass ElderCare and receive advanced training on abuse in later life from the Office of Violence against Women, then conduct training to law enforcement, service providers, and residents to enhance effective service. Project CALL will have an HPD Elder Affairs Officer team up with a victim advocate and conduct direct services and outreach to those designated as high-risk. This team will enhance victim safety by not only providing support and services to the victim, but finding community-based interventions for the abuser while simultaneously placing them on high-risk status and sharing their information with the CALL Task Force and across systems. The collaborative team aims to have contacts at points of abuse and arrests, and include direct support through the court process. This team will also be responsible for community-based monitoring, case management, and responding to emergency referrals and implementing safety plans for the victims. The CALL Task Force will also act as a wraparound support system responsible for identifying the underserved Spanish elderly population by developing, implementing, and distributing a safety-plan brochure in Spanish for elder victims of domestic violence.

Opioid-related Overdose Deaths Decline for Second Straight Year

BOSTON — Opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts declined by 4% in 2018 compared to 2017, marking the second consecutive year-over-year decrease in deaths, according to the latest quarterly opioid-related overdose deaths report released by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. That 4% decline follows a 2% decrease in opioid-related overdose deaths between 2016 and 2017. Fentanyl, however, remained a key factor in opioid-related overdose deaths; it was present in the toxicology of 89% of those who died of an opioid-related overdose and had a toxicology screen in the third quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, the rate of heroin or likely heroin present has been declining since 2016, falling to about 34% of opioid-related overdose deaths that had a toxicology screen in the third quarter of 2018. In 2018, preliminary estimates showed 1,974 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths, or 82 fewer deaths than the 2,056 confirmed and estimated deaths in 2017. There were 2,099 confirmed deaths in 2016. “The decrease in overdose deaths provides some hope that our approach to combating the opioid epidemic is having an impact,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders. “We must maintain an intense focus on this crisis and continue to expand opportunities to increase harm-reduction initiatives and expand treatment and recovery services.” While the report showed an overall decline in opioid-related overdose deaths, non-Hispanic black males experienced a 45% increase from 2016 to 2017 in the opioid-related overdose death rate.

Historic Restoration Begins at Old Hampshire County Courthouse

NORTHAMPTON — HCG announced the official start of the historic Hampshire County Courthouse restoration. This phase of the project consists of repairs to the roof, tower, as well as windows and masonry. The building is owned and occupied by HCG. Arlington-based Boston Bay Architects Inc. is overseeing the $1.8 million project, and Wesfield Construction Co. Inc. of New Hampshire won the bid for construction. The restoration will begin at the top of the southern facing tower with the replacement of terracotta roof tiles. Exterior repairs include masonry stone restoration and brick stabilization. The tower interior carpentry work will focus on roof, floor, stairs, and railings. At the completion of the tower, the work will continue down the southern façade with window repair and replacement to energy-efficient historical windows. In October 2017, the Baker-Polito administration announced the release of Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) funds to HCG for this current phase of repairs. In 2015, DCAMM released $500,000 for safety repairs to the building’s steps and roof. The Northampton Community Preservation committee has played an integral role in the plans for this phase of renovation, contributing $200,000 to the building restoration. Local Community Preservation Acts contributed an additional $10,000 from Hatfield and $8,000 from Goshen. Area banks have pledged $38,000, and the Hampshire Foundation Buy a Brick program provided $8,800 from local residents and businesses.

DBA Certificates

The following business certificates and trade names were issued or renewed during the month of February 2019.

BELCHERTOWN

Allen’s Carpentry
272 Green Ave.
Christopher Allen

Dream Big Performance Horses
421A South Washington St.
Melissa Lalli

Garage Smith Garage Storage Solutions
7 Prescott Hill
David Samuelson

Greene Acres Equestrian Center
51 Ware Road
Amanda Hodge

Jenn’s Lawnmowing and More
37 Daniel Square
Jennifer Barlow

CHICOPEE

AMF Chicopee Lanes
291 Burnett Road
Brett Parker

CAN Construction, LLC
43 Reed Ave.
Natig Jalilov, Ssmayil Abilov

Champion Auto Deal
415 East St.
Abbas Hamdan

Chic Salon by José
1751 Westover Road
José Ocana

M & R Turnover Solutions
10 Gardner Road
Marisol Alicea

The Metal Men
280 New Ludlow Road
Walter Rose

Nancy M. Richter
44 Walnut St.
Nancy Richter

Nest
23 Sunnymeade Ave.
Christine Polak

Nework Paperboard Products
70 Better Way
Joshua Lenardson

Profiles Salon
12 Sheridan St.
Kelly Mailloux

Surface
246 Montcalm St.
Debra Panagotopulos

TND Landscaping
11 Fletcher Circle
Todd Stevens

DEERFIELD

B. Gorey Fabrication
37 South Main St.
Blake Gorey

Kingsley’s Landscaping, LLC
22 North St., Apt. B
Donald Kingsley III

River Bard Farm
194 Lower Road
Carl Burwick, Angela Burwick

GREENFIELD

Absolutely Fabulous Hair Inc.
305 Wells St.
Jodi Kocsis

Ambulatory, Employee, Industrial, Occupational Urgent Healthcare, LLC
489 Bernardston Road
R.F. Conway, M.D.

Angelina’s Flowers
31 Forest Ave.
Vera Ayrapetyan

Beth Stadnicki, LMT & Licensed Esthetician
305 Wells St.
Beth Stadnicki-Verhyen

Blake Equipment Co.
28 Butternut St.
Fred Cuda

Brady Associates
40 School St., #3
David Brady

Farther Shores
359 Davis St.
Jennifer Heath

Imagine Jewelers
38 Bank Row
Ann Skowron

Juggling Goose Farm
450 Colrain Road
Kathryn Chang, Benjamin Drake

Knotty Kat Fiber
450 Colrain Road
Kathryn Chang

LaBelle & Leitner
335 High St.
John Loeb

New Possibilities Antiques
31 Pond St.
W. Evan McDaniel

Studio Seven
229 Main St.
Rachael Katz

Thunderbird Hospitality Inc.
21 Colrain Road
Kimberly Chapdelaine

To-Do-List
62 James St.
Keith Fernet

Top Choice Cleaning Service
127 Hope St.
Tabitha Sisto

SPRINGFIELD

Branandez Trucking
393 Water St.
Laura Brazier

C & F Electrical
1181-1183 Worcester St.
Francis Cassidy

Cabo Fashion Footware
795 Liberty St.
Edwin Acevedo

Calderon Transportation
90 Cleveland St.
Wilmy Calderon

Calo Rei Restaurant
995 Boston Road
Rubbo Bastos Inc.

Cortland Dental Group
1070 St. James Ave.
Hathaway Road Dental

FSB Trucking
195 Gresham St.
Fabian Barnett

GRP Funding Holding, LLC
1350 Main St., Suite 200
GRP Funding Holding

J. Chaffee Plumbing & Heating
24 Berard Circle
Justin Chaffee

Joy Bowl
455A Breckwood Blvd.
Zhong Tian, LLC

Latino Counseling Center
86 Granby St.
Jonathan Alicea

Lavshi Knits
35 Kulig St.
Nicole Bosworth

Little Moguls
123 Kensington Ave.
Lady Moguls, LLC

Merenciana Corp.
494 Central St.
Pedro Almonte

Mount Zion Deliverance Temple
1655 Boston Road, Unit 167
Owen Bewry

MP CPAs
1 Monarch Place
MP P.C.

Nathaly’s Market
346 Bay St.
Pedro Almonte

OC Enterprise
263 Old Farm Road
Orangie Cole Jr.

Omar & Sons Furniture
73 Liberty St.
Khuram Abbasi

Sabores Authentic Mexican
1490 Allen St.
Moctezumas Mexican

Shane Suban Studio
163 Middlesex St.
Shane Suban

Shawn Bass Preservation
137 Cloran St.
Shawn Bass

WESTFIELD

256 Auto Sales
256 Union St.
David Allen

Brionna Rose Photo
95 North Elm St., #1
Brionna Burke

Dicronite Dry Lube Northeast
54B Mainline Dr.
Acralube Inc.

Essential Wellness Center
94 North Elm St., Suite 30-J
Olesya Lebedinskaya

M & T Machine
81 Laura Dr.
Michael Vella

Salina’s TRX Training
33 Winding Ridge Lane
Salina Sarat

VCA Montgomery Road Animal Hospital
207 Montgomery Road
VCA Animal Hospital Inc.

VMA Construction
756 North Road
Viktor Davidenko

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Khalil’s Detailing
49 Chester St.
Khalil Bayramov

Kuhnel’s Auto Inc.
2309 Westfield St.
Jay Walts

Mario’s Clock Repair
211 Elm St.
Mario Cardinale

Mid-Air Drone Services
71 Baldwin St.
Joshua Glushien

Sandy Stylist
242 Westfield St.
Sandra Pereira

Santana’s Kung-Fu Studio
452 Main St.
Maria Santana

Total Women’s Health Care Inc.
46 Daggett Dr.
Aleli Villanueva, M.D.

Valley Handyman
304 Prospect Ave.
Evan Talbot

Bankruptcies

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

Afoulous, Abdelaziz
49 Kenneth Road
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Apple Ridge Yard Service
Browning, Stephen R.
129 Apple Ridge Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/28/19

Augusto, Michele
92 Wilson St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/18/19

Aulet, Pedro L.
21 Niagara St., Apt. 4
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Barber, Louise A.
192 Old Belchertown Road
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/28/19

Bassingthwaite, Richard James
28 J St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Brownell, Brenda Ann
a/k/a Campbell, Brenda
26 Church St.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/19

Collins, Stephanie A.
480 Southampton Road, Apt. 5
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/27/19

Cortis, Bobby-Jo
117 Skeele St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Data Safe Guard, LLC
Lostaglia, Patrick
15 Erline St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/28/19

El Ghorfi, Miriam
49 Kenneth Road
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Gaines, Lori-Ann
Gaines, Daniel L.
148 Maple St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/17/19

Glover, Kelvin Leonard
414 Chestnut St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Hammond, Lisa M.
a/k/a Boulgarian, Lisa M.
65 Brooks Village Road
Phillipston, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/25/19

Heise, Michael
Heise, Jenny L.
552 Britton St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Holloway, Heather L.
222 Allengate Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Hood, Lisa A.
519 East River St., Lot 46
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/17/19

Hough, Kevin M.
16 Canal St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Jackson, Erik
PO Box 128
Russell, MA 01071
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/18/19

Kenadek, Melanie
16 Crescent St.
Box 1931
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Laverdiere, Tamara
10 Klaus Anderson Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Lowell, Laura A.
69 Lake George Road
Wales, MA 01081
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Mack, Vince J.
Times-Mack, Fran A.
31 Buena Vista Plaza
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Malo, MaryAnn Theresa
188 Log Plain Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/19

Montalban, Jesus
111 Massasoit St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/25/19

Morin, Steven J.
88 Cora Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/28/19

Murach, Terri
PO Box 1665
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Nielsen, Kathleen A
16 Fair Lane
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Phienboupha, Tiana L.
38 Queen Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Pichette, William D.
PO Box 454
Ashfield, MA 01330
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/25/19

Rodriguez, Awilda A.
132 Mohegan St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Rodriguez, Gerardo E.
Rodriguez, Angela M.
a/k/a Mulrooney, Angela
17 Locust St., Fl. 1
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/31/19

Russell, William Jason
70 King St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Santiago, Blanca I.
66 Prospect St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/17/19

Scarpino, Angela Irene
188 Log Plain Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/29/19

Scott, Martha
19 Chauncey Walker St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 01/18/19

Shaffer, Tracy A.
15 Lamb St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Silva, Christopher Michael
Silva, Jennifer Anne
16 Aldrich St.
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Smus, Susan J.
152 Bourne St.
Three Rivers, MA 01080
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/28/19

Stone, Lissa J.
84 Riverview Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/22/19

Therrien, Jill
435 Nassau Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/24/19

Unique Property Services
Boudin, Albert F.
Boudin, Josephine C.
50 Linden St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/28/19

Weaver, Charles E.
1475 Roosevelt Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/23/19

Weiner, Michael P.
115 Druids Lane, Apt. B
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/17/19

Weinman, Elizabeth H.
104 Tracy Circle
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 01/30/19

Real Estate

The following real estate transactions (latest available) were compiled by Banker & Tradesman and are published as they were received. Only transactions exceeding $115,000 are listed. Buyer and seller fields contain only the first name listed on the deed.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

BERNARDSTON

106 River St.
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $247,900
Buyer: Stephen E. Colby
Seller: Mikolaitis IRT
Date: 01/31/19

CHARLEMONT

127 Main St.
Charlemont, MA 01339
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: 127-128 Main Street RT
Seller: 127 Main Street Realty
Date: 01/31/19

DEERFIELD

39 Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
Amount: $525,000
Buyer: Charles Salzberg RET
Seller: Margaret W. Friedrich RET
Date: 02/01/19

GILL

23 Oak St.
Gill, MA 01354
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Robert A. Mattson
Seller: Citimortgage Inc.
Date: 01/29/19

GREENFIELD

20 Grinnell St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $599,000
Buyer: Bryan G. Hobbs
Seller: Gary A. Newcomb INT
Date: 01/29/19

153 High St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $232,500
Buyer: CIL Realty Of Mass. Inc.
Seller: Litvak LLC
Date: 01/31/19

21 Meadow Lane
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $222,000
Buyer: Christine A. Koziara
Seller: Sheila M. Graves
Date: 01/30/19

280 Wells St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Michael R. Gullage
Seller: Jeffrey R. Koch
Date: 01/31/19

LEYDEN

151 River Road
Leyden, MA 01337
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Patrick Colby
Seller: Green River Ridge LLC
Date: 02/05/19

MONTAGUE

36 Crocker Ave.
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Greg E. Stacy
Seller: USA VA
Date: 02/01/19

102 East Chestnut Hill Road
Montague, MA 01351
Amount: $251,000
Buyer: Layla Hazen
Seller: Janet L. Ross
Date: 01/30/19

NORTHFIELD

75 Main St.
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Redfoot LLC
Seller: Mitchell R. Damon
Date: 02/01/19

ORANGE

154 Memory Lane
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $131,500
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Rebecca R. Fisher
Date: 01/31/19

317 Tully Road
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Barbara Haggett
Seller: Thomas J. Ellsworth
Date: 01/31/19

84 West Myrtle St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $145,900
Buyer: Christopher M. Preisch
Seller: Celia Hastings
Date: 02/01/19

ROWE

30 Old Cyrus Stage Road
Rowe, MA 01367
Amount: $212,000
Buyer: Jillian M. York
Seller: David A. Cousineau
Date: 02/11/19

SHELBURNE

675 Patten Road
Shelburne, MA 01370
Amount: $238,000
Buyer: Trevor L. Woodard
Seller: David E. Chaplin
Date: 01/31/19

SHUTESBURY

294 West Pelham Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $520,000
Buyer: Dean Gendron
Seller: Rick B. Woodruff
Date: 02/08/19

WARWICK

Chestnut Hill Road
Warwick, MA 01364
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: John K. Campaniello
Seller: Robert A. Rivers IRT
Date: 02/01/19

45 West Wilson Road
Warwick, MA 01364
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: John K. Campaniello
Seller: Robert A. Rivers IRT
Date: 02/01/19

HAMPDEN COUNTY

AGAWAM

44 Briarcliff Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $227,000
Buyer: Aaron M. O’Quinn
Seller: Adriane L. Hill
Date: 02/08/19

25 Farmington Circle
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $542,000
Buyer: Johnny Ramos
Seller: Vincenzo Tirone
Date: 01/31/19

89 Harvey Johnson Dr.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Marisa Larese
Seller: Seweryn W. Grabowski
Date: 01/31/19

214 James St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Joseph D. Valenti
Seller: Jane C. Koenitzer-Siegars
Date: 01/28/19

204 Line St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $217,500
Buyer: Anna C. Critz
Seller: Kevin M. McKay
Date: 01/30/19

22 Memorial Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Aaron G. Hibbert
Seller: Freda Seymour
Date: 02/01/19

99 Mill St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Tracy S. Paixao
Seller: Marjorie J. Russell
Date: 01/31/19

145 Raymond Circle
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Janet F. Platosz
Seller: Anthony M. Santaniello
Date: 02/08/19

125 Red Fox Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Jerome J. Penna
Seller: Deborah J. Ward
Date: 01/30/19

19 Scherpa St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Hurricane Properties LLC
Seller: Mark S. Naidorf
Date: 02/08/19

51 Valentine St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Jeremy R. Lopez
Seller: Miriam F. Taupier
Date: 02/08/19

BLANDFORD

Chester Road
Blandford, MA 01008
Amount: $164,000
Buyer: Green Apple Farms 4 LLC
Seller: Richard F. Matulewicz
Date: 02/01/19

2 Maple Lane
Blandford, MA 01008
Amount: $154,000
Buyer: Caleb A. Rowe
Seller: Rory D. Limatainen
Date: 02/01/19

BRIMFIELD

24 5 Bridge Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: Laura Lavallee-Simmons
Seller: Megan T. Henry
Date: 02/01/19

71 East Hill Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $355,000
Buyer: William E. Longe
Seller: James J. Fitzpatrick
Date: 01/31/19

42 Oakwood Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $248,400
Buyer: Jessica C. Papachriston
Seller: William E. Longe
Date: 01/31/19

Palmer Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $550,000
Buyer: Black Swan Meadows LLC
Seller: Robert Christo
Date: 01/29/19

Prospect Hill Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $550,000
Buyer: Black Swan Meadows LLC
Seller: Robert Christo
Date: 01/29/19

CHICOPEE

80 Beaumont Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $161,710
Buyer: Jared Daigle
Seller: Laura K. Bachand
Date: 01/31/19

28 Emerald St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Underpass Holdings LLC
Seller: Bruso, Thomas G., (Estate)
Date: 02/11/19

4 Fanwood Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $187,500
Buyer: Luis M. Mota
Seller: Michelle J. Perlman
Date: 02/11/19

80 Fernhill St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $222,000
Buyer: Seth A. Babiec
Seller: Lorraine Buchanan
Date: 02/08/19

501 Granby Road
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $141,860
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Robert A. Buckley
Date: 02/07/19

30 Saint Jacques Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $131,100
Buyer: Flippin Good Home Buyers
Seller: USA VA
Date: 02/06/19

86 McCarthy Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $146,086
Buyer: Carrington Mortgage Services
Seller: Ricky A. Grover
Date: 01/28/19

36 Melvin St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Andrew Collier
Seller: FNMA
Date: 01/31/19

468 Montcalm St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $236,000
Buyer: Wendy Moreau
Seller: Walter R. Cuzyk
Date: 01/30/19

179 Nelson St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: William C. Foucher
Seller: Robert A. Arnett
Date: 01/31/19

22 Old Pendleton Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $206,000
Buyer: Erisnaldo N. DosSantos
Seller: Machnik, Edward J. Jr., (Estate)
Date: 01/30/19

29 Sullivan St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $132,020
Buyer: Freedom Mortgage Corp.
Seller: Elizabeth A. Rabtor
Date: 02/08/19

108 West St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: Zhen Y. Dong
Seller: Margarita Plagakis
Date: 01/31/19

EAST LONGMEADOW

71 Bayne St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Michael Fois
Seller: Olive Pro LLC
Date: 01/30/19

Bella Vista Dr. #9
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #10
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #11
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #12
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #13
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #14
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #15
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #16
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #17
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #18
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #19
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #20
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #21
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #22
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #23
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #24
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

Bella Vista Dr. #25
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $702,500
Buyer: Bella Vista Holdings RT
Seller: Bella Vista Land Holdings
Date: 02/05/19

137 Fernwood Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: HSBC Bank
Seller: Bernard Shevlin
Date: 01/30/19

39 Lombard Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Robert J. Schroeter
Seller: Michael Verteramo
Date: 01/29/19

14 Merriam St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Cynthia R. Palmer
Seller: Joseph B. Merton
Date: 01/31/19

43 Pease Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $117,600
Buyer: Bank Of America
Seller: Paul J. Quinn
Date: 01/28/19

Pondview Dr. #5A
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Joseph N. Leone
Seller: Joseph Chapdelaine & Sons
Date: 02/08/19

138 Tanglewood Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $430,000
Buyer: Robert A. Arnett
Seller: John F. Malley
Date: 01/31/19

40 Wood Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $142,929
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Melissa A. Banerjee
Date: 02/05/19

HAMPDEN

44 Colony Dr.
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Rhianna L. Pluciennik
Seller: Michael J. Laviolette
Date: 01/31/19

34 Echo Valley Dr.
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $183,900
Buyer: Mark Hebert
Seller: Lawina, Krystyna M., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/19

106 Martin Farms Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $231,725
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Joanne M. DelNegro
Date: 02/01/19

150 Rock A. Dundee Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $361,000
Buyer: Country Bank For Savings
Seller: Richard Fredericks
Date: 01/29/19

HOLLAND

2 Clark Road
Holland, MA 01521
Amount: $136,200
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Raymond L. Cratty
Date: 02/01/19

40 Leno Road
Holland, MA 01521
Amount: $276,000
Buyer: Michael Lemay
Seller: James V. Ferraro
Date: 02/12/19

299 Stafford Road
Holland, MA 01521
Amount: $286,000
Buyer: Ryan A. Brassard
Seller: Ralph M. Cook
Date: 02/01/19

HOLYOKE

28-30 Beacon Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $159,900
Buyer: Modesto Melendez
Seller: Ethan S. Powers
Date: 01/31/19

Beaulieu St. #O
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Jahjan LLC
Seller: Iyad Jamal
Date: 02/04/19

33-35 Brown Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Reinaldo Cruz
Seller: Natalie Aguirre
Date: 02/08/19

40-42 Carlton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $143,750
Buyer: Edward Lynch
Seller: Martin F. Fullwood
Date: 02/01/19

80 Carlton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Lori J. Reipold
Seller: Bridget K. Kugler
Date: 01/30/19

63 Hillview Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Angela P. Fontaine
Seller: FNMA
Date: 01/28/19

391 Homestead Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Kathleen M. Lynch
Seller: Trust2u RT
Date: 01/31/19

679 Main St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Jahjan LLC
Seller: Iyad Jamal
Date: 02/04/19

31 Old Jarvis Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $263,000
Buyer: James S. Wilson
Seller: Wilson, Anne M., (Estate)
Date: 02/12/19

226 Pine St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $129,942
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Gilberto Morales
Date: 02/01/19

206 South St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $194,000
Buyer: Juan P. Buscan-Dutan
Seller: Eileen Farrell
Date: 01/31/19

15 Steven Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Jesse Werth-Johnson
Seller: James S. Wilson
Date: 02/12/19

LONGMEADOW

83 Bliss Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $173,000
Buyer: Matthew P. MacDonnell
Seller: Mahoney, Verna H., (Estate)
Date: 01/28/19

86 Cooley Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $208,000
Buyer: 94 Franklin Street LLC
Seller: Marjorie A. O’Connell
Date: 02/05/19

96 Redfern Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $308,000
Buyer: Vincent J. Taylor
Seller: Grammatiki Anderson
Date: 02/04/19

LUDLOW

1st Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $435,000
Buyer: Town Of Ludlow
Seller: Westmass Area Development
Date: 02/08/19

23 Armand St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $237,000
Buyer: Steven J. Mastalerz
Seller: Matthew R. Bettencourt
Date: 02/11/19

17 Chadbourne Circle
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Julie Eldridge
Seller: Edward R. Cabana
Date: 01/31/19

270 East St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Joachim LLC
Seller: Joaquim Santos
Date: 02/11/19

38 Harris Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Braidy L. Miarecki
Seller: Derek J. Smolinski
Date: 02/12/19

28 Mountainview St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Norma L. Theriault
Seller: Elizabeth J. Kessler
Date: 01/31/19

State St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $435,000
Buyer: Town Of Ludlow
Seller: Westmass Area Development
Date: 02/08/19

MONSON

17 Cote Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $152,500
Buyer: Cliste RT
Seller: James D. Keough
Date: 01/29/19

7 Pine St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $170,287
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Tracy E. Hermanson
Date: 02/07/19

PALMER

88 Buckland St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Chad Windyka
Seller: Hodson, Eleanore L., (Estate)
Date: 02/07/19

9 Carol St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $189,900
Buyer: Kristie Merrigan
Seller: Norman N. Turner
Date: 02/08/19

192 Emery St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $236,000
Buyer: Kyle R. Schlesinger
Seller: Roger W. Barnes
Date: 01/31/19

4195 High St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Karina C. Levesque
Seller: Paul E. Burns-Johnson
Date: 02/12/19

1194 Thorndike St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $159,900
Buyer: William Lee
Seller: Nasser Chehimi
Date: 02/01/19

SOUTHWICK

93 Bungalow St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $182,000
Buyer: Danielle A. Rose
Seller: Robert J. Lefebvre
Date: 01/31/19

40 Congamond Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $157,750
Buyer: Amy L. Crepeau
Seller: Robert J. Horsler
Date: 02/08/19

15 Jeffrey Circle
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $254,000
Buyer: Lauren M. Carpenter
Seller: Paul Tsatsos
Date: 02/11/19

102 Sheep Pasture Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Christopher M. Reagan
Seller: Natalie G. Metz
Date: 02/08/19

156 Vining Hill Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: Johnathan A. Grunwald
Seller: Thomas Grunwald
Date: 02/11/19

76 Will Palmer Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $323,500
Buyer: Landon J. Cannizzaro
Seller: Jeffrey M. Burke
Date: 02/01/19

SPRINGFIELD

97 Arcadia Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $177,900
Buyer: Daisy Perez
Seller: Steven E. Andrew
Date: 02/08/19

11 Arden St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $167,500
Buyer: Keyla Zayas-Rodriguez
Seller: Rebeca L. Denault
Date: 01/31/19

109-111 Ardmore St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $184,000
Buyer: Eustaquio Mendoza
Seller: Elena Acevedo
Date: 02/08/19

61 Ashbrook St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Aaron S. Rathburn
Seller: Tasha J. Ellison
Date: 02/01/19

164 Balboa Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $128,706
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Ogirri, Griselina, (Estate)
Date: 01/28/19

20-24 Baldwin St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Andre Diaz
Seller: R. L. Thomas LLC
Date: 01/30/19

1487 Bay St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $800,000
Buyer: Kayrouz Realty LLC
Seller: PMG New Jersey 2 LLC
Date: 02/08/19

111 Bowles St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Ramon P. DosSantos
Seller: Arnold Construction Inc.
Date: 01/29/19

35 Briarcliff St.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $178,500
Buyer: Roderick A. Coombs
Seller: Nathan J. Mello
Date: 02/05/19

1047 Carew St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Carlos H. Villa
Seller: Oussama M. Awkal
Date: 02/11/19

19 Canterbury Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $159,000
Buyer: Rosaida Mercado
Seller: Jason Balut
Date: 01/28/19

236 Connecticut Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $166,000
Buyer: Anthony Gladden
Seller: Rock Ridge TR
Date: 02/11/19

152 Druid Hill Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Daniel R. Daoust
Seller: Lisa M. Liebla
Date: 02/01/19

154 East Allen Ridge Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Alison E. Deska
Seller: Frances E. Russell
Date: 01/29/19

23 Eckington St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: A. Mendoza-VonKomarnicki
Seller: Shawn C. Carleton
Date: 01/30/19

227 Gifford St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $150,500
Buyer: Hazel A. Rodriguez
Seller: Basile Realty LLC
Date: 02/01/19

67 Glenham St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $118,900
Buyer: Ditech Financial LLC
Seller: Pedro J. Cruz
Date: 01/28/19

116 Gresham St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $212,400
Buyer: Alexandr Hayden-Ferreira
Seller: Ibis Duo Holdings LLC
Date: 02/05/19

112 Harrow Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: TM Rentals LLC
Seller: Lynnette L. Tabin
Date: 02/05/19

603 Hendee St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $750,000
Buyer: FP McNamara Rubbish Removal
Seller: Titeflex Commercial Inc.
Date: 01/29/19

240 Jeffrey Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Nodia W. Wright
Seller: Robert F. Gayle
Date: 01/29/19

73 Kensington Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Spring Park Properties
Seller: Hassan Ali
Date: 02/04/19

140 Maebeth St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $167,500
Buyer: Maylenne Rivera
Seller: Brown, Robert W., (Estate)
Date: 02/05/19

157 Magazine St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Samir Ismaeil
Seller: Edward J. Borlen
Date: 01/31/19

34 Marmon Court
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $216,000
Buyer: Charles Beaupre
Seller: Curtis Miarecki
Date: 01/30/19

20 Mary Louise St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $168,000
Buyer: Victor Tonioli
Seller: David B. Premont
Date: 01/28/19

38-40 Massachusetts Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $199,200
Buyer: Roger Cruz-Cordero
Seller: Ika M. Forrester
Date: 01/31/19

71 Meredith St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Deutsche Bank
Seller: Roberto Nieves
Date: 01/31/19

112 Merrimac Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Katherine Williams
Seller: Otaniel Luciano
Date: 02/06/19

108 Miller St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $164,000
Buyer: Luz M. Santana
Seller: Damaris S. Camacho
Date: 01/29/19

110 Oak Hollow Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $272,500
Buyer: Michael Ribeiro
Seller: M&G Property Group LLC
Date: 02/07/19

67 Oakwood Ter.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Yoshua I. Cotto
Seller: William P. Beville TR
Date: 02/01/19

18 Olive St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Luis J. Molina
Seller: TRL Realty Services LLC
Date: 01/28/19

436-438 Page Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Terry Jackson
Seller: Mark J. Mancini
Date: 01/28/19

38-40 Parallel St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $251,770
Buyer: Bank New York Mellon
Seller: Roberto J. Bou
Date: 01/29/19

141 Pasco Road
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $154,500
Buyer: Steve J. McDaniel
Seller: Niejadlik, Irene M., (Estate)
Date: 01/30/19

129 Pendleton Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $132,300
Buyer: Edeni Colon-Rivera
Seller: Mary Cruz-Martin
Date: 02/08/19

1448 Plumtree Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $189,000
Buyer: Luis D. Avila
Seller: Dani J. Sayegh
Date: 02/01/19

150 Senator St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $243,000
Buyer: Melissa Barber
Seller: Michael A. Bosworth
Date: 01/31/19

6 South Chatham St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Abbas Youness
Seller: Vazquez, Hiram, (Estate)
Date: 02/08/19

47 Starling Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $162,000
Buyer: Luz N. Rivera
Seller: Matthews, Paul R., (Estate)
Date: 01/30/19

963 Sumner Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Joseph Kagoma
Seller: Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity
Date: 01/30/19

74 Treetop Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Lausiere C. Rodriguez
Seller: Janusz M. Kalinowski
Date: 02/08/19

63 Upland St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $134,000
Buyer: Yarelix Alequin
Seller: Arthur Castonguay
Date: 02/11/19

4-6 Van Ness St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $186,455
Buyer: William E. Smith
Seller: Ricardo Henriquez
Date: 01/29/19

51 Vinton St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Jeffrey Jean-Charles
Seller: Henry Labieniec
Date: 02/04/19

178 Waldorf St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $157,000
Buyer: Trevor Silvio
Seller: Alex O. Owusu
Date: 01/31/19

21 Waverly St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Farmin H. Choudhury
Seller: Cedar Investment Group
Date: 01/31/19

113-115 Westford Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Birch Properties LLC
Seller: Kelnate Realty LLC
Date: 01/31/19

51 White Oak Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Phuong M. Nguyen
Seller: Nathan T. Lemay
Date: 02/01/19

160 Winton St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $130,500
Buyer: Gary A. Wickland
Seller: Kathryn E. Schubach
Date: 01/29/19

12 Woodland Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $325,000
Buyer: Marc H. Belliveau
Seller: East Coast Contracting
Date: 02/08/19

108 Woodland Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $199,000
Buyer: Joseph F. Marcoullier
Seller: Lynn M. Giblin
Date: 01/28/19

WALES

23 McBride Road
Wales, MA 01081
Amount: $157,900
Buyer: Stephen Aldrich
Seller: Deutsche Bank
Date: 02/01/19

WEST SPRINGFIELD

174 Chestnut St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $161,500
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Tammy Sexton
Date: 02/01/19

16 City View Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $132,000
Buyer: Abdulrahman Massaee
Seller: Larry W. Lungarini
Date: 01/31/19

55 Cornflower Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $192,500
Buyer: Angel R. Villar
Seller: Evelyn A. Duchesneau
Date: 02/06/19

30 Crestview Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $251,000
Buyer: Atef Ebrahim
Seller: Damber P. Khanal
Date: 01/28/19

92-94 Doty Circle
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Koko Holdings LLC
Seller: Doty, Barbara Ellen, (Estate)
Date: 02/01/19

104 Forest Glen
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $375,000
Buyer: Nathan P. Somers
Seller: Dana L. Ivers
Date: 01/28/19

76 Garden St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $153,000
Buyer: Zina Mohana
Seller: Netania Shapiro
Date: 01/28/19

92 Garden St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $144,320
Buyer: PNC Bank
Seller: Susan L. Benoit
Date: 01/31/19

19 Gregory Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Nikunj Atodariya
Seller: Spear, Raymond N., (Estate)
Date: 02/11/19

238 High Meadow Dr.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $523,000
Buyer: Stephen F. Conca
Seller: Sandra J. Burkhart
Date: 01/30/19

43 Kelso Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Jennifer L. Levesque
Seller: Karen M. Fay
Date: 01/31/19

261 Kings Hwy.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $154,556
Buyer: Saw Construction LLC
Seller: Saw Construction LLC
Date: 02/12/19

76 Lancaster Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Brittany G. Foley
Seller: Harold T. Foley
Date: 02/01/19

94 New Bridge St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Maksim Reznichenko
Seller: Nikolay Reznichenko
Date: 02/07/19

150 Ohio Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $320,000
Buyer: Luis A. Ureta
Seller: Stephen Conca
Date: 01/30/19

38 Rogers Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Jeremy Fay
Seller: Patience A. O’Connor
Date: 01/31/19

25 Summer St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $187,500
Buyer: Hann Realty Berkshire LLC
Seller: Frank Demaio
Date: 01/31/19

128 Van Horn St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $223,000
Buyer: Erin H. Placey
Seller: Dion L. Berte
Date: 01/29/19

48 West School St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $120,500
Buyer: Sergey Kucherenko
Seller: Alexander Savini
Date: 01/31/19

1708 Westfield St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Falah AlDainy
Seller: Ahmed N. Abbas
Date: 02/08/19

67 Wilder Ter.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Thomas Mirolli
Seller: Kathryn Maloney
Date: 01/28/19

132 Wolcott Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Carlee Santaniello
Seller: Carmino J. Santaniello
Date: 02/06/19

WESTFIELD

44 Delancy St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: VRS Transpark LLC
Seller: NH 3 Corp.
Date: 01/31/19

19 Forest Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $156,000
Buyer: Yuriy N. Gavrilov
Seller: Wilmington Savings
Date: 01/30/19

308 Hillside Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $124,607
Buyer: Keybank
Seller: Edward J. Haracz
Date: 02/05/19

154 King St. Ext.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $214,500
Buyer: John F. O’Donoghue
Seller: David K. Miller
Date: 02/08/19

9 Leonard Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Joseph A. Heckman
Seller: Joseph G. Flahive
Date: 01/31/19

9 Lockhouse Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $252,000
Buyer: Ryan Henrichon
Seller: Westside Housing Inc.
Date: 01/29/19

10 Lynnwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $189,500
Buyer: Stephanie A. Wiater
Seller: Ruth Furlani
Date: 02/08/19

9 Prospect St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $205,001
Buyer: Scott A. Kring
Seller: Timothy Reynolds
Date: 02/07/19

30 Rosedell Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $162,000
Buyer: Ana Mata
Seller: FNMA
Date: 02/04/19

100 Steiger Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $237,000
Buyer: Kara Dominik-Torres
Seller: Tammy Guagliardo
Date: 01/31/19

171 Susan Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $229,475
Buyer: Oleksandr Moshkivsky
Seller: Christopher T. Voudren
Date: 01/28/19

87 Wildflower Circle
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Michael P. Sadowski
Seller: Gary J. Kerr
Date: 02/06/19

WILBRAHAM

6 Daniele Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: David J. Hauver
Seller: Benjamin Jackson
Date: 01/29/19

22 Decorie Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Gregory R. Heineman
Seller: Philip R. Asselin
Date: 01/31/19

14 Devonshire Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $189,900
Buyer: Robert Colbath
Seller: Wells Fargo Bank
Date: 01/28/19

527 Ridge Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $202,500
Buyer: Clement J. Deliso
Seller: Joseph Chapdelaine & Sons
Date: 01/30/19

7 Southwood Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $385,000
Buyer: Michael Bosworth
Seller: Jean I. Davis
Date: 01/31/19

7 Willow Brook Lane
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $629,000
Buyer: Meghan Kelly
Seller: Custom Homes Development Group
Date: 02/07/19

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

AMHERST

563 Bay Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $325,000
Buyer: Robert J. Dullea
Seller: Patrick J. O’Connor
Date: 02/01/19

21 Hartman Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Elizabeth Donnelly-Caban
Seller: Larissa Schwartz
Date: 02/04/19

106 Pelham Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Norman N. Paradise
Seller: Robert J. Dullea
Date: 02/01/19

65 Stagecoach Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Daniel J. Thibodeau
Seller: Christiane V. Norton LT
Date: 01/31/19

BELCHERTOWN

247 Allen Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $179,000
Buyer: Nicole A. Miner
Seller: US Bank
Date: 01/29/19

14 Jasons Way
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $418,000
Buyer: Kyle C. Bate
Seller: Lexicon Government Services
Date: 02/07/19

17 Pine Brook Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Alanna M. Lynch
Seller: Jeremy A. Dunn
Date: 02/08/19

256 Old Enfield Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Brenda J. Kruse
Seller: David M. Bressette
Date: 01/29/19

680 South Washington St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $360,000
Buyer: Paul E. Kessler
Seller: Whisperwood LLC
Date: 01/31/19

CUMMINGTON

Porter Hill Road
Cummington, MA 01026
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: William R. Hoehne
Seller: William F. Adams
Date: 02/05/19

EASTHAMPTON

24 Highland Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Bunthy Teng
Seller: Christine G. Hagan
Date: 01/30/19

5-11 Irving St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $360,000
Buyer: SW Realty Properties LLC
Seller: Stephen P. Mumblow
Date: 01/31/19

41 Pomeroy St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Frances M. Banas
Date: 02/01/19

GRANBY

108 East St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $140,500
Buyer: Annette Kumiega
Seller: Deutsche Bank
Date: 01/29/19

286 East State St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Robert J. Kndel
Seller: Donald J. Piquette
Date: 02/12/19

54 Ferry Hill Road
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $329,500
Buyer: Matthew J. Rudnik
Seller: Catherine E. Merritt
Date: 02/08/19

HADLEY

146 Hockanum Road
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $354,900
Buyer: Denise E. Barstow
Seller: David J. Barstow
Date: 01/31/19

118 Rocky Hill Road
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Valerie A. Wentzel
Seller: Papageorge, John C., (Estate)
Date: 01/31/19

HATFIELD

125 Elm St.
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $430,000
Buyer: DBL Real Estate LLC
Seller: Mark C. Oliver
Date: 01/29/19

9 King St.
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Peter J. Zebrowski
Seller: John P. Klepacki
Date: 02/07/19

108 Straits Road
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $650,000
Buyer: Modestow Vineyards LLC
Seller: Duval Logging LLC
Date: 02/12/19

NORTHAMPTON

Burts Pit Road
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $700,000
Buyer: GGB Massachusetts Land
Seller: Jonathan R. Goldsmith
Date: 02/01/19

Ryan Road
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $700,000
Buyer: GGB Massachusetts Land
Seller: Jonathan R. Goldsmith
Date: 02/01/19

7 Walnut St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Christopher M. Reinhart
Seller: Urszula Aseltine
Date: 02/04/19

271 West Farms Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $215,625
Buyer: Rhonda L. Gero
Seller: Reil, Dorothy J., (Estate)
Date: 01/31/19

44 Winterberry Lane
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $525,000
Buyer: Burt Snover
Seller: Terry J. Minnick
Date: 01/31/19

21 Woodbridge St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $408,000
Buyer: Brett M. Merrill
Seller: Ronald C. Baldwin
Date: 02/11/19

PLAINFIELD

71 Gloyd St.
Plainfield, MA 01070
Amount: $256,000
Buyer: Michele V. Ragston
Seller: Norman Gordon
Date: 01/31/19

SOUTH HADLEY

21 Maple St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $135,000
Buyer: Theresa M. Magrath
Seller: Janice A. Harris
Date: 02/01/19

SOUTHAMPTON

54 Coleman Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $283,000
Buyer: Christopher Harris
Seller: Peter M. Crisafulli
Date: 01/28/19

124 Fomer Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $229,900
Buyer: Preferred Property Management
Seller: Ruby Realty LLC
Date: 01/31/19

23 Gunn Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Eric J. Kugler
Seller: Paul F. Plourd
Date: 02/01/19

18 Lynn Dr.
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $237,000
Buyer: Kelsey P. Downer
Seller: Tertia M. Hammond
Date: 02/08/19

32 Old County Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $430,000
Buyer: Mark T. Delisle
Seller: Cary I. Layman
Date: 02/05/19

124 White Loaf Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $271,000
Buyer: Joseph S. Jarosz
Seller: Joanne P. Schmidt
Date: 02/11/19

WARE

208 Belchertown Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Foster S. Patch
Seller: Reaching Heights LLC
Date: 01/29/19

21 Dugan Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $279,000
Buyer: Marcus A. Mirabile
Seller: James P. Talarico
Date: 02/05/19

20 Eddy St.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $137,000
Buyer: Melissa J. Vasquez
Seller: Manomednet LLC
Date: 02/05/19

108 Fisherdick Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $336,400
Buyer: Toryn Lane
Seller: Christopher Eldridge
Date: 01/31/19

267 Osborne Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $159,000
Buyer: Jeffery S. Vincent
Seller: Beverly A. Allard
Date: 02/05/19

104 Pleasant St.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Kristie L. Allen
Seller: Della Ripa Real Estate
Date: 01/30/19

38 West Main St.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Sherry A. Starrett
Seller: Lisa Rodrigues
Date: 02/01/19

WILLIAMSBURG

138 Main St.
Williamsburg, MA 01096
Amount: $226,000
Buyer: Tracy E. McQuade
Seller: Dextraze, Arlene I., (Estate)
Date: 01/30/19