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WESTFIELD — Tighe & Bond has been named as a member of the PSMJ Resources Inc. 2019 Circle of Excellence for second year in a row. The Circle of Excellence highlights successfully managed firms that demonstrate outstanding achievements in areas such as profitability, overhead management, cash flow, productivity, business development, and staff growth.

“To be recognized as a member of PSMJ’s Circle of Excellence for the second consecutive year is a high honor. Tighe & Bond has always strived to create an outstanding client- and employee-focused firm that adheres to exceptional business practices and delivers sustainable business results,” said Bob Belitz, president and CEO.

Founded in 2006, the Circle of Excellence represents the top 20% of participants in PSMJ’s annual A/E Financial Performance Benchmark Survey, based on 13 key performance metrics. The annual survey is open to all firms in the industry, regardless of firm type, size, gross revenue, net revenue, practice area, or location.

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PITTSFIELD — A key deadline is approaching for joining MGM President Mike Mathis, Berkshire Innovation Center Executive Director Ben Sosne, Percolate Senior Vice President Ken Pouliot, Lee Bank Senior Vice President Wendy Healey, Naval War College Capt. Scott Smith, Droga5 Director Christina Fieni, and other national and local executives at the Dulye Leadership Experience (DLE) 2019 Gen Now Retreat, set for Nov. 1-3 on Pontoosuc Lake in the Berkshires.

The early-consideration period for the 2019 DLE Retreat ends Friday, Aug. 2. Applications submitted at dle.dulye.com by Aug. 2 will receive advance review by the retreat selection committee. If approved, the application secures one of the retreat’s 45 choice seats before the general application period begins. The general application deadline is Saturday, Aug. 31.

Curated sessions, interactive exercises, and one-on-one coaching will deliver immediately applicable strategies and tools for like-minded, motivated young professionals to improve their communication, collaboration, and everyday performance. Hot topics include networking, verbal and written communication, impostor syndrome, inner bias, stress relief, first-time boss, service excellence, financial fidelity, lifetime learning, diversity and inclusiveness, difficult conversations, community engagement, and a personal 2020 development action plan.

The $850 registration fee includes full access to all sessions on all days, meals, networking receptions, personal coaching, the DLE nationwide professional network, and complimentary membership to the DLE’s extensive career-development portal. The retreat will be held at the lakeside Proprietor’s Lodge in Pittsfield. Full details are available at dle.dulye.com.

Daily News

HOLYOKE — The American Cancer Society (ACS) recently welcomed Jill Monson-Bishop into the role of Community Development manager. She comes to the ACS with expertise in networking, relationship building, marketing, project management, and more.

Prior to joining the American Cancer Society, Monson-Bishop was one of the opening-day team members at MGM Springfield, with responsibilities including internal communications and employee events. She also owns Inspired Marketing, now a consultative marketing agency, but at one time a full-service marketing and event-planning company serving clients such as Smith & Wesson, Adam Quenneville Roofing, and Northwestern Mutual. Previously, she was a radio personality in Western Mass. on stations such as WMAS, Rock 102, WHYN, and more.

“Having lost my mom and dad to cancer, along with many other loved ones lost, battling, or having survived, this career choice is personal,” she said. “I want to make sure every person in our area knows the resources available to them through ACS. Oprah once said, ‘follow your passion; it will lead you to your purpose.’ I have done just that, and I’m ecstatic to share this purpose.”

Community engagement has always been a priority for Monson-Bishop, who, over the years, has been involved with organizations such the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield, Square One, YWCA, the Springfield Regional Chamber, the Drama Studio, and more. She is a graduate of Bay Path University with a MBA in entrepreneurial thinking and innovative practices, and she earned her bachelor’s degree in communication and media studies at Westfield State University.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest magazine is currently accepting nominations for its second annual Women of Impact, a recognition program launched in 2018 to honor a specific segment of the local population: women who are making an impact in and on this region. Nominations are due by Friday, Aug. 2. For nominating guidelines and to submit a nomination, click here.

Nominees who score the highest in the eyes and minds of a panel of three independent judges will be honored at a luncheon on Thursday, Dec. 5 at the Sheraton Springfield.

‘Women of Impact’ was chosen as the name for the program because, while nominees can be from the world of business, they can also be from other realms, such as the nonprofit community, healthcare, public service, law enforcement, education, social work, the mentorship community, a combination of all these — any inspirational women on any level.

Last year’s inaugural class of honorees included Jean Canosa Albano, assistant director for Public Services, Springfield City Library; Kerry Dietz, owner and principal, Dietz & Co. Architects Inc.; Denise Jordan, executive director, Springfield Housing Authority; Gina Kos, executive director, Sunshine Village; Carol Leary, president, Bay Path University; Colleen Loveless, president and CEO, Revitalize Community Development Corp.; Janis Santos, executive director, HCS Head Start Inc.; and Katie Allan Zobel, president and CEO, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.

TommyCar Auto Group and Country Bank are the event’s presenting sponsors, Comcast Business is supporting sponsor, New Valley Bank & Trust is speaker sponsor, and WWLP-22 News/CW Springfield is media sponsor. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, call (413) 781-8600.

Daily News

CHICOPEE — On the weekend of Sept. 7-8, Mercedes-Benz of Springfield is hosting a car-wash fundraiser benefiting Chris Thibault and his family.

Thibault helped Mercedes-Benz get its start in Western Mass. more than two years ago, producing all its local commercials.

“He is a very talented filmmaker and storyteller,” dealership owners Michelle and Peter Wirth said. “He touched our lives, and we want to help him as much as we can as he battles cancer.”

Chris Thibault and his wife, Missy, own and operate Chris Teebo Films, a local production company. Chris has been diagnosed with stage-4 cancer and is fighting hard for his life. He recently lost his younger brother, Brandon, to cancer as well. So far, his cancer has been unresponsive to the past three treatments. He is currently undergoing a fourth treatment as well as alternative treatment options. You can read more about his story in this BusinessWest story and on his blog.

The car wash will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both Saturday, Sept. 7 and Sunday, Sept. 8 at Mercedes-Benz of Springfield, 295 Burnett Road, Chicopee. If you would like to donate time or services to the event, contact Michelle Wirth at [email protected].

Daily News

CHICOPEE — Elms College announced it will host an Irish Fulbright language teaching assistant (FLTA) during the 2019-20 academic year.

Yvonne De Faoite of Limerick, Ireland, will teach Irish (Gaelic) language and culture. The Irish FLTA position is co-sponsored by the Irish Cultural Center of Western Massachusetts.

“The Fulbright FLTA program allows us to broaden the range of language classes that we offer at Elms College,” said Joyce Hampton, director of Student Success and Strategic Initiatives at Elms. “This is such a benefit to our students because learning another language develops a global perspective for students and sparks an interest in international affairs.”

The college also regularly offers classes in American Sign Language, Spanish, and English as a second language.

De Faoite earned her primary teaching degree from Froebel College of Education in 2008. In 2012, she spent a year in Australia, where she gained international teaching experience. She recently completed a master’s degree in Irish immersion education from Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. Prior to that, she completed a diploma in educational leadership in University College Dublin. De Faoite’s educational interests include immersion and second-language acquisition.

As a Fulbright Irish FLTA, she will teach the Irish language and culture to Elms College students and to community members through the Irish Cultural Center. She will also take classes at Elms.

Daily News

CHICOPEE — The Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee received a $5,000 grant from the MassMutual Foundation as part of a national Community Service Award (CSA) program. The Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee is one of 32 organizations nationally to receive an award. The MassMutual Foundation made the grant as a tribute to the volunteer efforts of Robert Houle, a MassMutual agent with Unity Financial & Insurance Group in Holyoke and an alumnus of the club.

“We are stronger when we come together as a community, and our Community Service Awards program recognizes a group of MassMutual financial professionals who embody this spirit, working with members of their respective neighborhoods, towns, and cities, helping nonprofits with which they are involved grow and thrive,” said Dennis Duquette, head of MassMutual Community Responsibility and president of the MassMutual Foundation. “We are proud of the time and energy Rob dedicates to better his community and delighted to support the great work MassMutual financial professionals do with organizations across the country.”

The mission of the Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee is to enable all young people reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.

“We are grateful to receive this grant to help support the current programs and services provided at the club, which include art, athletics, homework help, and nutrition, to name a few,” said Jason Reed, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee.

Added Houle, “I am very pleased that my dedication to the Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee has been recognized by the MassMutual Foundation. This grant will provide much-needed funding to continue supporting the youth in our community.”

Daily News

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Work Opportunity Center Inc. will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Aug. 23 at its newly acquired and renovated community-based day service (CBDS) facility located at 111 Park Ave. in West Springfield. Mayor Will Reichelt will cut the ribbon at approximately 9 a.m.

Established in 1969, Work Opportunity Center (WOC) initially served its participants through a center-based work-service model. Community-based day services were added in the summer of 2014. On June 30, 2016, center-based work services were discontinued for all participants, and those services were converted to CBDS. As of July 1, 2019, there are approximately 84 individuals participating in WOC’s CBDS services. On July 1, 24 program participants and five staff members transferred from the WOC facility in Agawam to its newest facility in West Springfield.

The CBDS program of enables individuals with developmental disabilities to enrich their lives and enjoy a full range of community activities by providing opportunities for developing, enhancing, and maintaining competency in personal, social, and community activities. Service options for individuals participating in the CBDS program include career exploration, community-integration experiences, skills development and training, volunteer opportunities with local nonprofits, health and fitness classes, socialization experiences, and support to enhance interpersonal skills, as well as the pursuit of personal interests and hobbies.

The renovation of the 111 Park Ave. facility is supported by a $5,000 grant by United Bank in addition to a $1,000 grant from the Rotary Club of West Springfield.

“The city of West Springfield is happy to have Work Opportunity Center return to West Springfield, and we look forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership,” Reichelt said.

Added Robert MacDonald, executive director of Work Opportunity Center, “this new West Springfield community-based day services program will offer individuals from the West Springfield/Agawam area better access for working, volunteering, and exploring in their community. The program is designed so individuals will spend less time commuting and more time participating in community activities. More community involvement will help individuals become more comfortable in their community.”

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest magazine is currently accepting nominations for its second annual Women of Impact, a recognition program launched in 2018 to honor a specific segment of the local population: women who are making an impact in and on this region. Nominees who score the highest in the eyes and minds of a panel of three independent judges will be honored at a luncheon on Dec. 5 at the Sheraton Springfield.

‘Women of Impact’ was chosen as the name for the program because, while nominees can be from the world of business, they can also be from other realms, such as the nonprofit community, healthcare, public service, law enforcement, education, social work, the mentorship community, a combination of all these — any inspirational women on any level.

Last year’s inaugural class of honorees included Jean Canosa Albano, assistant director for Public Services, Springfield City Library; Kerry Dietz, owner and principal, Dietz & Co. Architects Inc.; Denise Jordan, executive director, Springfield Housing Authority; Gina Kos, executive director, Sunshine Village; Carol Leary, president, Bay Path University; Colleen Loveless, president and CEO, Revitalize Community Development Corp.; Janis Santos, executive director, HCS Head Start Inc.; and Katie Allan Zobel, president and CEO, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.

Nominations are due by Friday, Aug. 2. For nominating guidelines and to submit a nomination, click here.

TommyCar Auto Group and Country Bank are the event’s presenting sponsors, Comcast Business is supporting sponsor, New Valley Bank & Trust is speaker sponsor, and WWLP-22 News/CW Springfield is media sponsor. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, call (413) 781-8600.

Daily News

Bob Cummings has been re-elected to serve as president of The National Association of Professional Benefits Administrators (NAPBA).

A  NAPBA trustee since 2007, Cummings was first elected NAPBA president in 2015, and has been an instrumental force in the emergence of the consumer directed healthCare industry over the past 20 years, orchestrating the growth of NAPBA as the primary compliance standards and best practice organization for third party employee benefits administrators serving the consumer directed healthcare industry.

As CEO and Founder of American Benefits Group (ABG), a leading national employee benefits administrator located in Northampton, Massachusetts, Cummings has been a pioneer of the consumer directed healthcare industry before the term even existed. ABG was one of the first administrators of flexible spending accounts (FSAs) in 1989 along with COBRA, billing administration and commuter benefit accounts in the 1990’s. When health savings accounts (HSA) and health reimbursement arrangements (HRA) were enabled under the Internal Revenue Code in 2002, ABG was one of the early leaders in administering consumer directed healthcare plan designs.

As pre-tax account-based plans became a lynchpin of most employer benefit plans designs along with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), NAPBA was founded to promote compliance and best practice standards in the administration of pre-tax account based plans. All NAPBA member organizations are third-party administrators (TPAs) focused on the administration and service of employer sponsored plans for consumer directed pre-tax accounts such as FSAs, HSAs, HRAs, and commuter benefits as well as COBRA administration services. Collectively NAPBA member organizations provide services to more than 30 million employee healthcare consumers nationwide.

“Almost 20 years ago when NAPBA was founded, a number of forward- thinking industry pioneers saw the need to help create the map for this emerging industry,” said Cummings. “We recognized that benefits- administration companies who focused on these pre-tax account based programs could also gain from aligning and sharing though leadership, establishing the benchmarks for best practice operational excellence as well as promoting compliance standards and emerging technology innovation.

“NAPBA has emerged as the sole organization dedicated specifically to the TPA benefits administration industry, with a mission to unleash the full potential of consumer directed healthcare,” he went on. “As we contemplate the future of how consumers engage with healthcare in a much more personal and intelligent way, we recognize that we’ve made tremendous progress, and yet we still have many miles to go. Rapid technological and changes in the healthcare delivery system are creating unprecedented marketplace disruption but also unprecedented opportunity. As an organization, NAPBA is dedicated to helping our members adapt to these changes and maintain their pivotal role as key stakeholders in the story. We’re creating the future roadmap for the empowered healthcare consumer – getting to consumer directed healthcare 2.0 requires vision and innovation, NAPBA members understand that it’s our responsibility to lead the charge. We’re going to not just deliver the road map, we’re creating the intelligent digital GPS navigation system.”

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Linda Morgan, an attorney with extensive experience in higher education, has been named vice president and general counsel at Springfield College, effective Aug. 26, President Mary-Beth Cooper has announced.

Morgan will provide legal counsel and guidance to the leadership of the college and will serve as secretary to its board of trustees. She will be a member of the president’s senior leadership team.

Joining Springfield College with 13 years of service as a practicing attorney and more than six years in positions of senior-level organizational management and financial administration, Morgan is demonstrably practiced in providing leadership to institutional compliance with laws and regulations pertinent to higher education including the Higher Education Opportunity Act, Title IX, FERPA, HIPAA, and the Jeanne Clery Act.

She provides experience in broad aspects of law and related matters including contracts, agreements, litigation, legal investigations, dispute resolution, mediation, business formation, compliance, and management. Morgan is admitted to the bars of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of New York, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Morgan most recently worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts providing expertise in areas of employment law adjudication and related statutory interpretation. Her previous experience also includes service as Associate Dean for Gender Equity at Bard College, grant administrator within the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, and as an attorney in private practice. She possesses a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Maryland University College and a juris doctor from Western New England University School of Law.

She has teaching experience as an adjunct professor at Holyoke Community College and Greenfield Community College.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Zoo in Forest Park & Education Center is hosting its third annual Brew at the Zoo on Aug. 17.

This year’s event will feature signature craft beer tastings from a dozen local professional brewers, including Fort Hill Brewery, Vanished Valley Brewing Co., Iron Duke Brewing, Two Weeks’ Notice Brewing Co., Drunken Rabbit Brewing, White Lion Brewing Company, Abandoned Building Brewery, Rustic Brewing Company, Loophole Brewing Services and Sam Adams Boston Brewery.

For the first time, Brew at the Zoo will also feature a home brew competition, with beer tastings from One Way Brewing, Catseyesoup Brewing, Clear Headed Brewing, Down to Earth Brewing, Coalescent Brewing Co., Beech Hill Brewing, Stockade Brewing, Strongman Brewing Company, Drawing Board Brewing Company, and Process Brewing Project.

Live music will be provided by Jonny Taylor Music. Four food trucks will be on hand from Cantina Curbside Grill, Murphy’s Pub, North Elm Butcher Block, and Gran-Val Scoop.

The day also features games, a dunk tank and misting stations. General admission tickets are $40; VIP tickets are $50, and include early entry, animal interactions, and special giveaways. VIP hour starts at noon, with the gates opening for general admission at 1 p.m. Last pour is at 4:30 p.m. Designated driver tickets are available for $20. If general admission tickets are still available, a limited number will be sold at the door for $45. Tickets are available for purchase through The Zoo’s website, www.forestparkzoo.com, or through its Facebook page.

Presenting sponsor of the 2019 Brew at the Zoo is United Bank. Other sponsors include PeoplesBank and USA Hauling.

All funds raised from Brew at the Zoo support the 180 animals that call The Zoo in Forest Park their home, 365 days a year. More than 90% of The zoo’s animals are elderly, disabled, injured or otherwise deemed non-releasable. Located on 4.5 acres inside Springfield’s Forest Park, The Zoo is an independent nonprofit focused on education, conservation and rehabilitation.

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EAST LONGMEADOWPIP in East Longmeadow recently received a Top 10 Sales Volume award recognizing the business as one of the top 10 in the entire PIP franchise network. The award is based on 2018 annual sales revenue and was announced at the annual PIP Convention, staged July 17-20, at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio in Texas.

PIP in East Longmeadow is owned by Michael and Vicki Tarby and Bob and Claudia Pelzek.

“Our top 10 franchisees are innovators who set an example of excellence for the entire network,” said Richard Lowe, president and COO of Franchise Services Inc., parent company of PIP. “They adopt new products and services to consistently fulfill their customers’ needs and they deliver exceptional customer service. I congratulate Michael, Vicki, Bob, and Claudia for this outstanding achievement.”

PIP is a marketing, signs, and print provider that specializes in the creation and execution of growth-oriented solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Ad Club of Western Massachusetts recently recognized The Innovation Series with an award in the Video Series category.

The Innovation Series is a documentary-style video series produced by Darcy Fortune, producer for Garvey Communication Associates Inc., for PeoplesBank. The series explored Valley Venture Mentors and some of its more unique entrepreneurial teams. The series was hosted by Matthew Bannister, first vice president of Marketing and Innovation for PeoplesBank.

“We have worked with PeoplesBank for a long time and knew that they were themselves an innovator,” noted Fortune. “We also helped Valley Venture Mentors get up and running as well as secure its first solid funding. So, we knew critical elements of each of their innovation stories and thought we had the makings of an interesting series.”

According to the bank’s website, the Innovation Series was designed and produced with the belief that PeoplesBank can not only be innovative, but help inspire innovation as well. Over the course of six episodes, Bannister interviewed innovation influencers and startup founders to glean specific ‘how to’ suggestions as well as ‘what to avoid’ advice.

The series garnered considerable media attention with feature stories appearing in BusinessWest and several other area media outlets, as well as a sizable viewing audience. GCAi also distributed the Innovation Series through social media channels where it accumulated almost 400,000 total impressions, 100,000 engagement actions, and 90,000 video views at the time of the award.

Fortune’s team included GCAi’s John Garvey as producer, Mary Shea as project manager, and James Garvey as digital dissemination manager. Matthew Derderian served as director of photography.

Fortune is an experienced media professional and video producer having served on assignment desks for both ABC and FOX News affiliates and who has developed videos and animations for GCAi clients including Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, Cape Cod Cooperative Bank, MP CPAs, PeoplesBank, Peter Pan Bus Lines, and Winchester Savings Bank. She also just released two new pro bono videos for The Children’s Study Home and Wild Care of Cape Cod.

The Innovation Series videos can be viewed at: https://www.bankatpeoples.com/innovation

 

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SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Regional Chamber is seeking nominations for its annual Super 60 awards program, presented by Health New England, with platinum sponsor People’s United Bank.

Marking its 30th year, the awards program recognizes the success of the fastest-growing and privately-owned businesses in the region, which continue to make significant contributions to the strength of the regional economy.

Each year, the program identifies the top-performing companies in revenue growth and total revenue. Last year, Total Revenue winners combined for more than $750 million in revenues, with 25% of these winners exceeding revenues of $40 million. All winners in the Revenue Growth category had growth in excess of 13% while one-quarter of the top 30 companies experienced growth in excess of 75%.

To be considered, companies must be independently and privately owned, be based in Hampden or Hampshire county or be a member of the Springfield Regional Chamber, produce revenues of at least $1 million in the past fiscal year, and be in business for at least three full years. Companies are selected based on their percentage of revenue growth over a full three-year period or total revenues for the latest fiscal year.

Companies may be nominated by financial institutions, attorneys, accountants, or be self-nominated, and must submit a nomination form and provide net operating revenue figures for the last three full fiscal years, signed and verified by an independent auditor. All financial information must be reported under generally-accepted accounting principles and will be held and considered confidential and not released without prior approval.

Nomination forms are available by contacting Grace Szydziak at [email protected] or (413) 755-1310.  Nominations must be submitted no later than August 2.

The Super 60 awards will be presented at the annual luncheon and recognition program on Oct. 25, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Chez Josef in Agawam.

Daily News

HOLYOKE — This fall, Holyoke Community College will for the first time offer a stand-alone professional-level baking course open to anyone who wants to improve their baking skills.

The 14-week evening course, Baking and Pastry Arts I (Culinary 114), will run Mondays from 4:30 to 9:15 p.m., Sept. 9 through Dec. 9, at the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute, 164 Race St., Holyoke.

The two-credit course, taught by HCC baking instructor Maria Moreno Contreras, is exactly the same as the first of two baking courses required for students enrolled full time in HCC’s Culinary Arts certificate and associate degree programs. For this new course, though, there are no prerequisites, and students don’t have to enroll in any other classes.

“Anybody can take this course,” said Contreras, a professional baker who previously worked at the Blue Heron Restaurant in Sunderland and operated her own local baking business, Chilean Sweets.

Students in Baking and Pastry Arts I will learn about ingredients, measurement techniques, culinary math, and nutrition as well as the steps required to make yeast breads, quick breads, cookies, cakes, cake decorations, laminated dough, pate a choux, custards, puddings and dessert sauces.

“It’s a full-tilt professional baking course,” said Kristine Ricker-Choleva, interim dean of Business.

Since the opening of the Culinary Arts Institute in 2018, HCC has received a lot of phone calls from people interested in taking baking classes but who might not have time to attend a comprehensive culinary school.

“This course is for anyone who wants to get a good base in baking fundamentals” she said. “It would also be appropriate for professionals working in the food industry who want to strengthen their baking skills or baking businesses, such as people who own food trucks or small bakeries.”

If this course is successful, HCC will offer Baking and Pastry Arts II in the spring 2020 semester for students who want to continue. Depending on demand, HCC might also add a full-time baking certificate program to its slate of culinary arts offerings.

“A lot of culinary schools have a baking track,” she said.

The cost of the course is $547. Seating is limited. To register, contact the HCC Admissions office at 413-552-2321 / [email protected] or apply online at hcc.edu/admissions.

 

Daily News
WESTFIELD — NetLogix, a managed-services provider and technology partner based in Westfield, announced its selection to The Channel Futures MSP 501 List for 2019.

Released annually, this award recognizes the worldwide top managed-service providers who exhibit innovative and forward-thinking approaches to managed service. These organizations have distinguished themselves among the largest pool of applicants the MSP 501 has ever received.

Since its inception, the Channel Futures MSP 501 list has aimed to identify the most groundbreaking managed-services organizations operating today, each of whom have become known for their advanced solutions that have a potentially limitless potential for growth. The companies on this list have reputations for not only excellent services but also an ability to adapt to the changing needs of customers, a demonstrated ability to help organizations get the most out of their technological investments and establishing partnerships based on professionalism and trust.

“I’m incredibly proud of the NetLogix team and all the hard work they’ve done to bring the company where it is today,” said Marco Liquori, founder and owner of NetLogix. “Without them and their dedication, we would never have become the business we are today — an excellent team of professionals, who put our client’s best interests and satisfaction above everything else.”

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GREENFIELD — “One mission, many lives changed” was the theme of this year’s Greenfield Community College (GCC) Foundation fundraising campaign, co-chaired by Lindsay Stromgren, Amherst assistant fire chief and a GCC alumnus, and Amy McMahan, owner of Mesa Verde Restaurant in Greenfield. Thanks to their leadership and the strong annual-fund support by business and individual donors, the recently completed campaign raised $1,094,237 in support of students and programs at the college.

“We exceeded our $1,000,000 goal by nearly 10%, made possible by increasing support for GCC students from our community,” said Regina Curtis, GCC’s executive director of Resource Development. “She noted that setting the goal represented a big step, as the GCC Foundation had never previously set a campaign goal that included seven digits. “It was very exciting and a little anxiety-provoking all at once, but this community continues to prioritize access to education for all.”

Leigh Rae, president of the GCC Foundation board of directors, added that “we are extremely grateful for the continued support of GCC by our caring community.” She noted that the funds raised are critical for student success, as that support will continue to help the college provide access to higher education that might otherwise be out of reach without GCC.

GCC President Yves Salomon-Fernández expressed her appreciation for the campaign leaders and volunteers who help elevate the mission and work of GCC. “Our mission to prepare students across all walks of life for meaningful careers and citizenship is more relevant today than ever before. With college becoming increasingly elusive for so many because of cost, we are beyond grateful to our community for prioritizing equity in access to higher education. Our region relies on an educated citizenry.”

Stromgren co-chaired the campaign with McMahan this year because “I wanted to do more for the college, recognizing the multiple connections I have and have had to GCC over the years.” Stromgren graduated from the college’s Fire Science program in 1995, his daughter Merissa is a current student, and his father taught at the college in its early years.

Noting how many lives are touched by the college, McMahan added, “GCC welcomes everyone, and it welcomes back students who have had to take a break because of life circumstances. The school is the foundation of so many careers and career changes. I’m honored by the opportunity to support this institution that is so pivotal to evolving our local workforce and community.”

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BOSTON — Berkshire Bank has joined the growing coalition of businesses pledging to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. More than 600 CEOs have come together for the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, including Berkshire Bank’s Richard Marotta.

By signing on to this commitment, Marotta and Berkshire Bank are pledging to take action to cultivate a workplace where diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected and where employees feel encouraged to discuss diversity and inclusion.

“Berkshire Bank has been committed to serving the communities in which we operate for over 170 years,” Marotta said. “The neighborhoods we work with have changed greatly over this time. We want to ensure, as demographics shift and our communities become more racially and ethnically diverse, that we’re as nimble and adaptive as possible. For us, this means creating programs and services that are inclusive and address the needs of our neighbors. We are committed to making sure all of our customers feel like we are attuned to their financial dreams as well as their struggles. We are honored to sign this pledge, as it is a reflection of the values we hold dear.”

Proponents of a diverse and inclusive workforce say it facilitates community but also drives innovation and creativity. A recent study found that 85% of those surveyed reported that diversity is a key component to fostering innovation.

“We are so proud that we are continuing to build momentum and support for the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion across companies, industries, and regions. This collaboration expands our reach and brings in unique values, actions, and perspectives to continue to raise the bar for the entire business community,” said Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman and senior partner of PwC and chair of the steering committee for the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion. “The overwhelming support for the coalition has been amazing to see, and with each and every new organization signing on, we have the opportunity to put our commitments into action by working together to improve diversity and inclusion in our workplaces and communities.”

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NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Survival Center invites the public to join in its 40th-anniversary celebration with events in August and September that highlight local businesses and their support for the center’s role in Northampton and nearby communities.

A series called “40 Ways to Cook a Carrot” will kick off the festivities the week of Aug. 19-25, with participating restaurants featuring a carrot-inspired appetizer, entree, dessert, or drink in recognition of the center’s bright-orange carrot logo.

After-hours parties will take place at various downtown businesses on Thursday, Sept. 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. A single price of $25 will allow ticket holders entry into all participating parties, with each party staging its own select activity, such as live music, merchandise discounts, and more.

The Window Stroll Challenge, expected to run several days in early September beginning Friday, Sept. 6, will showcase creative downtown window displays starring the center’s carrot logo. A map, published in a special pull-out section of the Daily Hampshire Gazette and available in participating stores, will orient visitors to the downtown area. An online version of the map, directing strollers to participating window displays, will do double duty as customers use it to vote for their favorite windows and also join in a hidden-carrot contest, with eventual winners eligible for prizes.

Finally, businesses outside the downtown area plan a toiletry drive and challenge to see which participating business can collect the most donations of toiletries, such as toothpaste, soap, diapers, and other personal-care items.

Founded in 1979 and currently located at 265 Prospect St., the Northampton Survival Center is a food pantry that has been serving the Hampshire County community for 40 years, with over 15 million pounds of healthy food distributed during that time. A dedicated band of volunteers helps the center fulfill its mission to improve quality of life for low-income individuals and families by providing food and other resources in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest magazine is currently accepting nominations for its second annual Women of Impact, a recognition program launched in 2018 to honor a specific segment of the local population: women who are making an impact in and on this region. Nominees who score the highest in the eyes and minds of a panel of three independent judges will be honored at a luncheon on Thursday, Dec. 5 at the Sheraton Springfield.

‘Women of Impact’ was chosen as the name for the program because, while nominees can be from the world of business, they can also be from other realms, such as the nonprofit community, healthcare, public service, law enforcement, education, social work, the mentorship community, a combination of all these — any inspirational women on any level.

Last year’s inaugural class of honorees included Jean Canosa Albano, assistant director for Public Services, Springfield City Library; Kerry Dietz, owner and principal, Dietz & Co. Architects Inc.; Denise Jordan, executive director, Springfield Housing Authority; Gina Kos, executive director, Sunshine Village; Carol Leary, president, Bay Path University; Colleen Loveless, president and CEO, Revitalize Community Development Corp.; Janis Santos, executive director, HCS Head Start Inc.; and Katie Allan Zobel, president and CEO, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.

Nominations are due by Friday, Aug. 2. For nominating guidelines and to submit a nomination, click here.

TommyCar Auto Group and Country Bank are the event’s presenting sponsors, Comcast Business is supporting sponsor, New Valley Bank & Trust is speaker sponsor, and WWLP-22 News/CW Springfield is media sponsor. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, call (413) 781-8600.

Daily News

LUDLOW — Community-based financial-advising firm PV Financial Group (PV) recently welcomed the newest member to its financial-advisory team, Cindy Bigras, CFP. Bigras and her staff will operate out of their office in West Springfield, expanding PV Financial’s services and continuing its growth as a company.

With more than 30 years of working independently and running her own advisory practice, Bigras will bring a wealth of investment knowledge and will help PV Financial form strong relationships with clients and their families.

“Personally knowing Cindy for over 20 years, it was a natural fit for our firms to merge based on our commitment to providing excellent client experiences,” said Edward Sokolowski, managing partner. “Cindy has made a difference in the lives of her clients through the caring advice she has provided, and we look forward to continuing that legacy here at PV Financial Group.”

A financially savvy and hard-working individual, Bigras has always maintained a passion for helping others with their finances, Sokolowski added. Working as an agent and as a broker at a major insurance company before starting own practice gave her a solid foundation in risk management that proved essential to a financial-planning career.

Daily News

CHICOPEE — Theory Wellness, a craft cannabis company, has received a special permit from the city of Chicopee to move ahead with its plans for a medical and recreational cannabis dispensary at 672 Fuller Road. The company has been working with the city since the summer of 2018 and was selected to operate one of the four permitted dispensaries in the city during a competitive bidding process.

Seven months after successfully transitioning its Great Barrington medical dispensary into recreational sales, Theory looks forward to commencing construction immediately on this new project. Its expansion into Chicopee will mark the third dispensary for the company, which currently has locations in Bridgewater and Great Barrington. The Chicopee site will be its second co-located storefront to support both medical and recreational cannabis sales.

“We conducted extensive statewide research to identify new locations, and Chicopee was top of the list for us due to its terrific geographical positioning for our customers and its thoughtful city permitting process,” said Brandon Pollock, CEO of Theory Wellness. “It’s a great opportunity for Theory, and we believe it will be for the city as well. We’ve learned a lot from our adult-use sales experience in Great Barrington, and have translated that into the design of our newest dispensary in Chicopee.”

Theory expects to begin sales in November, and will soon begin construction on the new location, which has ample parking and is just minutes from both I-90 and I-291. The company anticipates hiring about 40 full-time employees and expects to generate tax revenues in the range of $250,000 to $500,000 per year for the city.

Daily News

PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Communicators Inc. has been honored with the ATSI 2019 Award of Excellence for the 15th straight year. This award is presented annually by the Assoc. of TeleServices International (ATSI), the industry’s trade association for providers of telecommunications and call-center services, including answering services and message delivery across North America and the U.K. Berkshire Communicators was presented with the award at ATSI’s annual convention in Dallas.

Independent judges are contracted by ATSI to evaluate message services over a six-month period. The scoring criteria includes response time, rep courteousness, accuracy, account knowledge, and overall impression of the call. Now a 15-time winner, Berkshire Communicators earned the Platinum Award.

“The ATSI Award of Excellence is a great way for our members and their employees to evaluate how they are providing service to their customers,” ATSI President Joseph Pores said. “It enables them to identify the things that make them great and also the areas that they can work on to get better. We have members that have been involved in the program for decades and are very proud each year when they win the award.”

The award started 23 years ago as a means to improve the overall quality of the call-center industry by setting expectations and measurements to ensure a successful call-handling experience.

Berkshire Communicators is owned and operated by the Gore family of Lee and employs 20 full- and part-time personnel. The company operates 24/7/365, processing more than 600,000 calls per year and 6,200 alarm signals per day in its central alarm-monitoring station.

Daily News

BOSTON — MassDevelopment announced up to $310,000 in funding for 10 projects through its Real Estate Technical Assistance program. Under this program, through a combination of in-house expertise and contracts with consultants, MassDevelopment works with municipal officials, planners, local stakeholders, and others to address site-specific and district-wide economic-development challenges. The technical-assistance funds will support a range of projects, from feasibility studies to master-planning efforts.

Locally, the town of Greenfield will use one of the awards to prepare a market assessment and operational analysis of proposed uses in the First National Bank and Trust building. This follows a feasibility study that consultant Taylor Burns completed in June.

The other local award will be given to the city of Holyoke to develop architectural and financial analyses to determine the cost of rehabilitation of the former National Guard Armory at 163 Sargeant St. Findings from the analyses will help the city secure additional funding needed to move the project forward.

“As part of our mission to help communities thrive, we’re proud to provide funding for real-estate services that will advance local economic-development goals in 10 cities and towns around the Commonwealth,” said MassDevelopment President and CEO Lauren Liss. “These projects will enable municipalities to explore the development potential of key properties, address streetscape and infrastructure needs, and plan for smart growth.”

Daily News

LONGMEADOW — Lovin’ Spoonfuls celebrated the launch of its food-rescue program in Hampden County yesterday at Longmeadow Open Pantry. With a goal to rescue and distribute fresh food that would otherwise be wasted, it will be delivering food to 17 partner nonprofits in Hampden County.

The event hosted speakers both within and outside the organization to speak about the launch, as well as a demo of what a typical delivery looks like. State Rep. Brian Ashe shared his personal story as a kid who grew up in Longmeadow on welfare, oftentimes going without food.

“I’m so happy you’re in Longmeadow today to show the good work you do, and show the people of Western Mass. the good work that is done,” he said. “Stuff like this is really near and dear to my heart, and it’s so important to me personally and professionally.”

Lovin’ Spoonfuls, established in 2010, serves nearly 40 cities and towns across Eastern Mass., focusing on perishable, nutritious food. Its rescues provide meals to more than 30,000 individuals every week. Partners in its move to Western Mass. include the Longmeadow Open Pantry, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Big Y, and Rachel’s Table.

“One of the things that I was always troubled about was the waste that happens in the supermarket, and is there a way to capture that waste and have it go to people that really could use it and need it?” said Charlie D’Amour, president and CEO of Big Y Foods. “With Lovin’ Spoonfuls, we have a wonderful opportunity to connect that much more and in a very timely way … it’s food rescue for a reason because it would just be going to waste, and there’s an opportunity to have it not go into the landfills, but have it go and do some wonderful good.”

Lauren Palumbo, chief operating officer at Lovin’ Spoonfuls, noted that, between the organization’s six routes in Greater Boston and the MetroWest area, plus now Hampden County, it is rescuing more than 75,000 pounds of food each week.

“It has been a goal of ours for some time to expand into this region and serve the additional communities outside of our home base in the Greater Boston area, and it has taken a lot to get to this day,” she said. “We’re so pleased to now be on the ground working in Hampden County.”

Daily News

CHICOPEE — Elms College announced a new Office of Graduate and Continuing Education Admission to streamline the application process for graduate, post-baccalaureate, and continuing-education students.

The new office will focus on the recruitment, admission, and enrollment for all graduate and continuing education programs at Elms College.

“Prospective graduate students typically have different needs than undergraduates,” said Jonathan Scully, vice president of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Elms College. “They need more flexibility, as well as reassurance that graduate study will fit into their lives and specific insight into how a graduate degree or certification will advance their careers. Our graduate admission counselors will support incoming graduate students and help them navigate the process.”

Nancy Davis has been named director of the Office of Graduate and Continuing Education Admission. Davis, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount St. Mary’s University and an MBA from Elms College, most recently served as Business Development specialist for the college’s MBA program and Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership for more than three years. She previously worked as the director of Career Development at Elms for nearly five years, as director of Career Services at BHCI in Windsor, Conn., and as a technical recruiter, both for CMC Technical in Virginia and independently.

“Nancy has been a part of the Elms community for eight years, and her ability to build relationships, recruit students, and represent all that is Elms College make her perfectly suited for this role,” Scully said.

Davis’s team will include two graduate admission counselors. Undergraduate and transfer students will continue to work with the Office of Undergraduate Admission throughout the application, acceptance, and orientation process.

Daily News

BOSTON — The Cannabis Control Commission announced it has begun accepting applications from entities seeking to achieve state certification as responsible-vendor trainers for marijuana-establishment agents. The program, the first of its kind to be mandated statewide by a cannabis regulatory agency, is designed to support licensee compliance and enhance the safety of customers and employees of cannabis businesses in the Commonwealth.

“Massachusetts’ regulations include safeguards that ensure marijuana establishments operate carefully and adults have information they need to make educated decisions when they purchase cannabis,” Commissioner Kay Doyle said. “The launch of our Responsible Vendor Training Program will double down on those measures by ensuring all agents have standardized skills and knowledge to fulfill their duties, which will enhance service to customers and increase the safety of all who participate in the legal industry.”

Instructional designers and related professionals who wish to become certified as trainers for the Commission’s program may apply through the Massachusetts Cannabis Industry Portal. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Vendor trainers are required to be independent companies and are prohibited from being owners of, employees for, or having a controlling interest in a licensed marijuana establishment.

Approved responsible vendor trainers must offer a real-time, interactive program, either live or online, in which instructors impart standardized training to marijuana-establishment agents, including but not limited to the following areas: the effects of cannabis on the human body, preventing diversion and sales to minors, seed-to-sale tracking compliance; and operating in accordance with state laws, regulations, local rules, and other topics.

Trainers also must be able to verify the identification of all attendees and certify their successful completion of the program. The commission will review and approve curricula every two years for trainers to remain certified.

Once the program launches, marijuana-establishment staff will be required to complete at least two hours of responsible-vendor training as part of the state’s annual, eight-hour general training minimum required of agents who are registered to operate in the adult-use industry. All owners, managers, and employees that are involved in the handling and sale of marijuana will be required to attend courses through a certified provider within 90 days of hire.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Since 1991, Springfield College has been a supporter of the Massachusetts Senior Games, hosting the annual event on the campus each summer. The tradition continued during the weekend of July 13-14, as hundreds of participants took part in a range of events, including track and field, swimming, racquetball, and more.

The Massachusetts Senior Games kindles the Olympic spirit and ignites the flame for thousands of older adults across the Commonwealth, giving them the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities throughout the year. Once again, Joan Simmons, associate professor of Occupational Therapy at Springfield College and Massachusetts Senior Games board member, helped lead current Springfield College occupational-therapy students in volunteer efforts, demonstrating the college’s Humanics philosophy.

Formed by Jack Neumann, Springfield College professor emeritus, the Massachusetts Senior Games has been a staple event on campus for 29 years. Neumann was a World War II veteran, a Springfield College football coach, a chairman of the National Senior Games, and a medical psychotherapist. He helped generations of students, athletes, and senior citizens improve and enrich their lives over his 57-year career as an educator.

Cover Story

Getting a Boost

Lisa Papademetriou, founder of Bookflow

The name tells a good part of the story. Launch413, one of the latest additions to the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, exists to help developing companies get to the proverbial next level. It does so by linking entrepreneurs with seasoned experts in everything from marketing to supply-chain dynamics, thus enabling them to soar higher — and, hopefully, within the 413.

Lisa Papademetriou is a wordsmith.

She’s a novelist specializing in young-adult fiction — she’s written, among other things, the New York Times bestseller Middle School: My Brother is a Big, Fat Liar — but she’s also been an editor at Harper Collins, teaches writing, and is a sought-after public speaker.

But she also knows how to use numbers effectively, especially when it comes to the business she’s trying to take to the next level.

She knows, for example, that publishing is a $77 billion business. Further, she knows that something like 1.2 million different books are published each year, many of them self-published. And perhaps most importantly, especially when it comes to her venture, she knows that perhaps one in 10 people who start writing a book will actually finish it.

With all these numbers in mind, Papademetriou created Bookflow, a cloud-based tool for writers that helps them become more creative — and more productive.

“It helps writers build skills, with a framework that’s built out to support specifically long-form fiction,” she explained. “It provides information on structure and checklists to help people keep their scenes on track and accomplish what they want to do.

“It helps build motivation with Fitbit-style trackers on both a daily and a project level so that you have a certain amount of accountability,” she went on. “And it also offers rewards.”

Those aforementioned numbers also help explain why she enlisted the help of Launch413, an initiative, but also a business itself, that has become an intriguing addition to the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In a nutshell, Launch413 helps take startups to their first $10 million in revenue, said Paul Silva, co-founder along with Rick Plaut. Silva is perhaps best known for his work to create Valley Venture Mentors, but he now wears many hats, as we’ll see, including president of River Valley Investors, an angel-investor network.

Paul Silva says Launch413 was created to address a gap in the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem — specifically companies ready for venture funding.

When wearing his Launch413 hat, he and other members of the team help people like Papademetriou take an existing venture to that proverbial next level through guidance and consultation on matters ranging from sales to technology to supply chain.

This consultation is provided in exchange for what amounts to royalties in the business — not an equity stake — payable down the road.

That’s how Launch 413 does what it does. As for the why, that’s summed up in this simple line from its website: “we believe there is no better way to create prosperity than to help entrepreneurs turn their crazy dreams into innovation and jobs for the future.”

For Papademetriou, her crazy dream is what she calls “the world’s first online writing mentor,” which provides an organizational framework for helping writers stay on point, on target, and finish what they start.

She told BusinessWest she clearly understood what the market wanted and needed, but she didn’t know everything she needed to know to convert the service, currently available for free, into a successful business.

So, with some urging from Silva, she enlisted help from Launch413 — specifically, from people like Eric Ashman, CFO of the Huffington Post and serial entrepreneur; Meghan Fitzgerald Henshon, global brand manager for Procter & Gamble; and Randy Krotowski, CIO of a Fortune 100 company with vast experience in negotiating joint ventures and acquisitions.

Consultation from such individuals would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, if you actually get them on the phone, said Papademetriou, adding that Launch 413 provides such access, and she is taking full advantage.

Thus, her story — that’s an industry term — provides a perfect example of how Launch413 is becoming an important addition to the entrepreneurial landscape. And there are many others, such as Wooftrax, maker of the Walk for a Dog app, and a company with this marketing slogan: “Don’t just take your dog for a walk … take your walk for a dog.”

Indeed, this venture, launched by Doug Hexter, enables users to raise funds for an animal organization every time they take their dog for a walk.

Revenues are generated from advertisements, said Hexter, adding that some 50 million walks have been taken since it was launched two years ago, benefiting 9,000 animal charities.

“Launch413 is helping take things to the next level,” Hexter told BusinessWest. “They’ve been great in, well, helping us focus on what makes sense to focus on.”

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at Launch413 and how it is becoming an exciting new plot line in ongoing efforts to foster entrepreneurship in the region and create more jobs and vibrancy in the process.

A Real Page Turner

When she was teaching, Papademetriou said, she was struck by just how many students had a good idea for a story and the motivation to write it, but had trouble organizing it into a cohesive manuscript and identifying the objectives they were supposed to accomplish with their work.

“On the sentence level, their stuff was great,” she told BusinessWest. “On the big-picture level, on the strategy level … not so much. They had no trouble with descriptions or even creating vibrant characters, but they couldn’t make a whole story, and they couldn’t get to the end.”

Bookflow was created to help them get to the end, and in that respect, it is much like Launch413 itself; both concepts are focused on the big picture, strategy, and putting the pieces together — for a specific venture, but also the region itself.

“We believe there is no better way to create prosperity than to help entrepreneurs turn their crazy dreams into innovation and jobs for the future.”

As Silva explained, River Valley Investors (RVI) has long been interested in investing in more local companies, but it has struggled to identify enough local ventures that were far enough along for investors to feel comfortable taking on the risk.

“When VVM took off, we had hope that we could invest in VVM graduates,” he went on, referring to the agency’s accelerator program. “And we invested in one or two of them, but VVM has graduated some 200 companies. So there was a gap between what VVM was graduating and what RVI could comfortably invest in.”

Launch413 was created to help close that gap.

Elaborating, Silva said most of the companies VVM has been graduating are led by first-time founders.

“And these first-time founders have to make all the first-timer mistakes — those are the rules,” he explained. “And we don’t want to invest in someone who we know is going to make all those first-timer mistakes, because they’re going to make them on our dime.”

Meanwhile, such first-time founders generally don’t have the money needed to hire people have essentially been there and done that, he went on, thus creating a frustrating catch-22 — one that needed to be addressed.

Launch413 was born from that frustration, said Silva, adding that it provides entrepreneurs with access to people who have been there and done that and are willing to share their wealth of knowledge for a share of the profits down the road.

Doug Hexter, founder of Wooftrax, is one of many entrepreneurs who have received consultation from those behind Launch413.

“I realized that I knew a bunch of crazy-smart people who don’t need to get paid today,” Silva said. “They can take a risk and help the companies, and thus help solve the chicken-and-egg problem.”

The operating model for Launch413, he went on, is to invest in a company by providing ongoing consultative support in the crafting of a strategic plan, focusing on the areas where the entrepreneur or group needs technical assistance to get from here to there.

“We’ll say, ‘OK, what are your biggest challenges?’” he explained. “‘Do you need to redo your branding or build a robust marketing strategy? The former global brand manager for Procter & Gamble is going to meet with you every two weeks to get that done. You need to get your financials straightened out before you meet with venture capitalists? This is the founding CFO of the Huffington Post; he’s going to meet with you every two weeks until you’re done and ready, and if you impress him, he’ll introduce you to his VC friends.’

“And so on and so forth,” he continued, adding that Launch413 has more than dozen such consultants ready to assist. And when companies being helped then come to RVI and other groups in search of capital, that team behind them certainly helps eliminate some of the risk that might be involved.

This support comes in exchange for royalties, or a percentage of top-line revenue, a few years down the road and until the company reaches $10 million in revenues, said Silva, adding that this overall model is somewhat unique. He’s seen it done with one-offs and unicorn companies (revenues in excess of $1 billion) but not in a structured format like this.

As for that royalties structure, he believes it works more effectively than taking an equity stake, something most entrepreneurs don’t want to do anyway.

“Our incentive is not to encourage the entrepreneur to sell the company,” he said, adding that ‘413’ exists in the name as a nod toward the goal of creating more businesses for this region. “By taking a royalty, our only incentive is to help the entrepreneur earn money. If the entrepreneur wants to sell the company, they can certainly do that, and we’ll get paid then. But they know our only incentive is to make the company more successful.”

The Plot Thickens

Returning to the many motivations for Bookflow, Papademetriou noted that, when she encountered students who had trouble getting to the finish line, she would usually recommend that they read books on writing to find some inspiration and a roadmap.

“Invariably, they would try to apply everything all at once and get frustrated,” she said. “And I kept thinking, ‘if I can just be there with them as they’re trying to compose, encouraging them or reminding them gently that this scene needs to have an emotional transition, or some technical thing, it would be a lot easier.’”

Through Bookflow, that’s essentially what she does — she’s there with the writer as he or she continues their journey to the final page. “You can’t always be sitting next to someone as they’re composing,” she explained, “but you can offer a piece of software that serves as that kind of mentor.”

In a way, Launch413 provides a similar service to the entrepreneur — helping that individual or team get to where they want to go.

“As someone who has been in publishing and has been a novelist, I didn’t necessarily have contacts with the kind of business background that one needs if one wants to launch a product and create a business,” said Papademetriou. “I knew what the consumer needed, but I didn’t know how to conceive a business strategy. I didn’t know how to craft an investor pitch, and I didn’t even really know how to create a cohesive marketing plan. And Launch 413 has been instrumental in helping me with all of those things.”

Hexter tells a similar story with Wooftrax, adding that the company was already established when it became involved with Launch413, which has been instrumental in helping it scale up.

“It’s a process,” he said. “They’ve been helping us in identifying strategies to get to that next step, partnerships, helping us in the decision process, and more.

“They have expertise in the areas that we need help in, without actually having those people on staff, which we couldn’t afford to do,” he went on. “And they’ve helped us make connections — connections in the community, connections to other entrepreneurs, connections to venture-capital people, and other people doing interesting startup activity — and all those connections become useful in the short term and the medium term.”

“On the sentence level, their stuff was great. On the big-picture level, on the strategy level … not so much. They had no trouble with descriptions or even creating vibrant characters, but they couldn’t make a whole story, and they couldn’t get to the end.”

As for the consultants working with the entrepreneurs, each one brings vast levels of experience and success to the equation. In Fitzgerald Henshon’s case, that experience comes in the realms of marketing and brand building, areas she said many business owners don’t fully understand.

“I do a lot of educating entrepreneurs on just what marketing is strategically,” she explained. “I think people think of marketing as websites and ads, but it’s what goes into that — that knowledge of the consumer and the benefits the business is trying to bring to the consumer — and then how to communicate it in a way that’s really authentic to the brand that they’re creating.”

She said there are many types of consumers, obviously, and ventures like those now being assisted by Launch413 must identify their specific consumers and craft a message intended specifically for them.

For that reason, the work she does with these entrepreneurs is very hands-on, it involves imparting decades of acquired knowledge, and it’s quite rewarding on a number of levels.

“I really love it,” she said. “I’m impressed with the quality of the entrepreneurs and the ideas. And I think that this [Launch413] is a marriage that works very well. You’re helping meet specific needs, so it seems like every time you meet, something concrete is being tackled.

“It’s not advice and then ‘take it or leave it,’” she went on. “It’s something really tangible to be worked on, and then we roll up our sleeves and get it done. We don’t offer a few ideas in a presentation, for example; we go through it slide by slide.”

By the Book

Papademetriou isn’t sure how her latest work — meaning Bookflow, not the next young-adult novel to hit the shelves — will end or even how the next chapter will develop.

She’s confident, though, that this will be the story of a new and intriguing product that will meet a critical need — helping all those writers who start a book and never finish it, for example — in a meaningful and profitable way.

It’s a story with an intriguing cast of characters and several potential plot twists, all resulting from the help of Launch413.

And, as all those who spoke with BusinessWest noted, it’s a story that needs to be written many more times as the region seeks to grow and add more jobs.

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

Education

Learning to See

Joy Baglio

When she arrived in the Pioneer Valley from New York City four years ago, Joy Baglio knew she wanted to write, and to connect with other writers. What she didn’t expect was to stumble upon a passion to teach the craft of writing, and to assemble a team to help her do that. Since its opening in 2016, the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop has grown steadily, into a place both supportive and rigorous. And that’s an intriguing story in itself.

Joy Baglio likes sharing a quote by Flannery O’Connor, who wrote, “learning to see is the basis for learning all the arts.”

And there are many ways to see, Baglio said, including breaking apart written texts to examine the ‘how’ of writing — the craft, to employ a term Baglio uses often to describe what takes place at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop (PVWW).

“I guess I have an inner engineer, someone who wants to understand how things work — but with stories,” she said during a candid conversation with BusinessWest, a few weeks after she was honored by the magazine as one of this year’s 40 Under Forty.

The problem is that the process of learning how to improve one’s writing requires vulnerability — and not every writer relishes that.

“People want to be recognized, they think they want to improve, but they don’t know how to take feedback,” she said. “We all have sense that what we produce is precious and sacred. That’s an earlier writer impulse — ‘this came out this way, this needs to be in this format, I’m protective of the way it is.’”

However, “there’s a moment when you emerge from that, when you really want to grow,” she went on, before hearkening back to the O’Connor quote. “Learning to see is also learning to see where your own work can grow. What can you learn from others? How can you learn those things? Taking feedback is one of the big challenges. It’s hard — it challenges our sense of self.”

But those who attend classes and workshops at PVWW quickly learn the value of feedback, of diving honestly into their work, and of honing their craft — just as Baglio does with the trusted writers to whom she sends her own manuscripts.

Joy Baglio (right) with PVWW Assistant Director Kate Senecal at the Easthampton Book Fest.

“If there’s anything not working, I want to know all of it. I want this thing to be as good as it can be,” she said of perhaps the greatest reason to take a class. “It requires deep self-honesty. What do you really want from your writing? Are you writing for yourself, in which case feedback is very threatening? Is it all about the ego, or is there something about the process of writing that you love? Do you want to be recognized and that’s all, or do you want to be the best writer you can be? If so, it requires a kind of surrendering.”

Writers — both seasoned and just starting out — have been happily surrendering, and growing, at PVWW since Baglio launched the school in 2016 as an informal Meetup.com group. It has since expanded to 13 instructors and a comprehensive curriculum that draws fiction writers, memoir writers, poets, even songwriters. One-day classes offer participants the opportunity to focus on specific elements such as dialogue, setting, and suspense, while multi-week series delve deeper into fiction fundamentals, story arc, revision, and more.

The organization also provides one-on-one consultations and writing-coach services, as well as hosting free writer gatherings and readings designed to cultivate and support the writing community at large.

It’s a collaborative environment where the instructors — who receive most of the proceeds the class fees generate — have plenty of say in what they’d like to bring to the table.

“We just slowly built it so we had more and more people teaching, and in order to sustain it, we started charging for classes, as low as we could, and it just kind of grew from sheer demand of people being interested and telling us how valuable they found it.”

“I might say, ‘it would be great if we had a class on sentence structure, creating flow on sentence level,’ and someone might fill that gap. But I want them to be passionate about what they’re teaching. We send out calls for class proposals, and I try to offer as many as we can,” Baglio said. “We offered 20 classes last spring — so it’s really kind of grown. I had no idea that it would grow like this.”

Settling Down

Baglio’s own story begins in Buffalo, N.Y. — “I grew up in blizzards and lake-effect snow” — after which she earned her undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Bard College in New York, followed by an MFA in fiction from the New School in Manhattan.

She remained in the city for several years after that, but she and her partner were looking for a lifestyle change when they moved to the Pioneer Valley in 2015.

“My own writing started taking off when I moved here,” she recalled. “There must be something about leaving a place like New York City and coming to a place like this, a new place.”

Some early successes with published work and awards — her short stories have appeared in Tin House, Iowa Review, New Ohio Review, TriQuarterly, PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and many others — gave her a sense of momentum and possibility in her new home. In particular, a short story in Tin House called “Ron” — about a young woman who encounters a long series of lovers by that name — led to a film and TV option, and a film agent. Meanwhile, she’s working on a novel based loosely on her short story “How to Survive on Land,” the story of three half-mermaid siblings.

Much of Baglio’s work falls into the genre known as speculative fiction, a broad umbrella that includes sci-fi, fantasy, dystopian or futuristic fiction, and other imaginative themes. She started writing fantasy in high school, but as an undergrad, she was encouraged to write in a more realistic bent, although it wasn’t interesting to her. Inspired by the stories of Karen Russell and others, she felt she could uncover more meaning through more interesting, fantastic angles — and have fun doing it.

“It feels more playful, and I’m an advocate that writing is not drudgery,” she said. “My impulse was always that kind of story, but I got steered away from it — and then I refound it.”

A lot of her ideas lend themselves to “short exploration,” she said, which explains why she has about 20 pieces of flash fiction — very short stories — on her desktop. “I jump around and try to inch them all forward simultaneously, like an advancing army of stories. I like to work from start to finish through a piece and get that practice of what it means to begin and end something and develop it.”

That said, she’s making progress on her novel — writing much of it in a notebook instead of on a computer, which forces her to move the story forward, rather than get bogged down tweaking one section. She was awarded fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Speculative Literature Foundation for work and research on the novel, for which she has already received early interest from agents and publishers.

She also teaches at the Boston-based creative writing center GrubStreet, and is associate fiction editor of Bucknell University’s literary magazine, West Branch.

The school’s instructors bring a deep pool of writing and editing experience to their classes.

All that would seem to take a good deal of Baglio’s time, and it does. In fact, she never planned to start a writing school — just to move to an arts-friendly region with a writing community she could tap into. When she did, through the Meetup groups gathering at Commons Coworking in Williamsburg, she saw an opportunity for more.

“There are a lot of small writing groups around here, and I loved some of them. I just felt a need for something else — I felt people wanting and needing instruction and tools,” she said. “I refer to ‘the writer’s toolbox’ — all the techniques and tools and concrete stuff that can actually help people. Like point of view — it’s a very technical craft element, and when you understand point of view and narrative distance and how to move farther and closer to your characters, it can really improve your writing a lot.”

She was particularly inspired by writing conferences she attended after earning her MFA, especially Tin House’s summer workshop in Portland, Oregon, which was very craft-based in instruction.

“We learned about technical stuff that I feel wasn’t even taught in many of my MFA classes. It really approached writing from the point of view of how to technically learn different skills,” she said. So, once her Meetup sessions became well-attended, Baglio began to put the pieces together in an entrepreneurial way.

“Even at the beginning, I approached it as a class, so I had a whole lesson. I think the first-ever one I did was on creating and developing characters,” she said. “I was leading it; it wasn’t just a free-for-all meeting where we’d sit and write together. I was giving out a lot of craft instruction I had accumulated over years — a lot of stuff I thought was helpful. And people kept coming back.”

Preserving the Spark

The roster of classes and workshops gradually expanded as Baglio met more writers drawn to the experience — and more instructors as well.

“We just slowly built it so we had more and more people teaching, and in order to sustain it, we started charging for classes, as low as we could, and it just kind of grew from sheer demand of people being interested and telling us how valuable they found it,” she explained. “A lot of people told us this was the first of this kind of writing instruction in the Valley. There are a lot of literary offerings and writers, but there isn’t one cohesive craft school for writing. So I felt there was a need — and we kept expanding.”

Becoming an entrepreneur was an education in itself, she added, and in many ways, running the school has taken time away from actual writing, but, on balance, she feels energized by the interactions.

“With writing, it’s always a balance of preserving your own creative spark and your own initial drive that led you to write in the first place with the practical side of how to teach others,” she told BusinessWest. “I really love teaching. I feel like I learn so much from the students and from other writers. I feel like I have this community of writers in the Valley.

Joy Baglio is seen here teaching the first-ever multi-week workshop (Intro to Fiction) at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop — the first, as it turns out, of many more.

“It’s become this weird marriage of my own passion and the practical aspects of the business,” she went on. “Administrative work takes a lot of time. But it does give me creative energy. I just see what the other instructors are teaching, and I’m inspired by their topics, what they propose.”

The school — which draws writers of all ages and skill levels, from young people just starting out to retirees contemplating their memoirs — remains based at Common Coworking, which has been a positive symbiotic relationship; a number of current members at the space discovered it through a writing class.

Baglio also hosts free monthly community writing sessions and organizes free public literary readings and author panels at venues such as UMass Amherst, local libraries and bookstores, and other central locations in the Pioneer Valley. The school’s curriculum also includes workshops specifically geared to young creative writers, from middle through high school. On a related note, Baglio is currently teaching speculative fiction writing to high-school girls at Smith College’s summer writing program.

While her next goal is to get her novel into the world — which she feels would raise the profile of the PVWW as well as her own — she’s also looking at ways to expand the school, including online options and perhaps a residency program.

“I want to find really innovative ways to help people feel empowered creatively,” she said. “I feel like Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop can go in many different directions, but craft is always at the center of it. I want it to feel both rigorous and kind.”

She’s found plenty of both rigor and kindness through her development of a school she never planned to open when she left the urban environs of New York City.

“I remember moving here and reading some article saying this is the most densely populated area of writers in the country. So it isn’t surprising that this would emerge here,” she said. “I wasn’t dreaming of starting a writing school in New York, but I needed to get out of the city to do this. I feel like the Valley itself inspired this.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Modern Office

They’re Not Sitting Still

Mark Proshan

When the Lexington Group was launched in the waning days of the 1980s, the office was in many ways a different place than it is today. Spaces are more open, people can now stand at their desks, and the ‘world of sitting’ has evolved in ways that might not have been imagined years ago. As it celebrates 30 years in operation, the Lexington Group embraces change, but really embraces what hasn’t changed — the basic fundamentals of serving customers.

It’s been not quite 30 years since the collapsing Monarch Insurance Co. handed employee Mark Proshan an additional assignment — find a buyer for roughly $3.5 million in office furniture it no longer needed — one that ended with him becoming that buyer.

With that acquisition, he founded the Lexington Group, which, now as then, operates out of former manufacturing space in the old Gilbarco complex on Union Street in West Springfield, selling and repairing new and used office furniture.

As he talked with BusinessWest about those 30 years, Proshan noted two things that might seem obvious. The first is that they’ve gone by very quickly. The second is that they have been marked by constant and sometimes profound change.

Indeed, Proshan now regularly attends ergonomics conferences — there weren’t many, if any, of those in 1989. He sells sit-stand desks and something called the Magis Spun chair (it’s large, orange, looks more like a sculpture than a chair, and, yes, it rocks and spins; it’s popular in college dorm lounges). And today, rather than browse the showroom (although some still do that), many customers come in with a cell phone and show Proshan a picture of what they want. They weren’t doing that in 1989, either.

But what’s far more significant to him — not that these changes are not noteworthy — is what hasn’t changed.

Mark Proshan says there have been many changes in the inventory on the showroom floor over the past 30 years, but what’s more important is what hasn’t changed — the fundamentals of business.

“The fundamentals of doing business have never changed, in my opinion,” he told BusinessWest. “The technology and the gadgetry and the wizardry of doing business have changed, but the need to listen, establish relationships, understand, and guide someone to what would be a good solution for them — those don’t change, and that’s what we’ve always done.”

This focus on listening, guiding, and relationship building has enabled Lexington Group to enjoy consistent growth over the years, to the point where it now occupies roughly 165,000 square feet, more than eight times the amount it struggled to fill with inventory when it first opened, and employs 30 people full-time, as opposed to the two part-timers Proshan started with.

Change, as noted, has been a constant when it comes to everything from products to how people shop to the height of cubicle walls (they were 70 inches on average, and now they’re typically 48 to 54). Meanwhile, the percentage of used furniture sold compared to new, which was roughly 60-40, is now the exact opposite, and probably closer to 20-80 as customer demands change.

The client list has changed and grown as well, said Proshan, adding that it includes many of the region’s colleges and universities, hundreds of businesses large and small, and a growing number of entrepreneurs launching new ventures.

These are just some of the things the company is celebrating as it marks this important milestone, with the official anniversary date coming in December.

It will celebrate in unique style well before that, though, with an event that’s been staged in most other markets before, but not this one, to the best of Proshan’s knowledge.

We’re talking about chair hockey.

Yes, this is hockey played in chairs — specifically Aeron Chairs manufactured by Herman Miller, a company that has been helping to stage such competitions across the country and around the world. In fact, the phrase often used is Aeron hockey.

Set for Oct. 2 at Lexington’s facilities — the center aisle in the main showroom is 30 feet wide, ample enough for such a purpose — this event will feature top collegiate teams squaring off, with the winner moving on to play a delegation from the Springfield Thunderbirds. A contingent from American International College, which last spring sent a team deep into the NCAA tournament, has signed on, as has UMass Amherst, which went all the way to the championship game last spring (won by Minnesota-Duluth) to participate as well.

“The technology and the gadgetry and the wizardry of doing business have changed, but the need to listen, establish relationships, understand, and guide someone to what would be a good solution for them — those don’t change, and that’s what we’ve always done.”

Proceeds — and Proshan is hoping to raise $5,000 to $7,000 — will go to the Foundation for TJO Animals.

Funds will be raised by selling Aeron chairs to be used in the tournament to participating companies (at an amount well below sticker price). Companies get their name on the back of the chair for the tournament, and when it’s over, they get to keep the chair.

Ultimately, Proshan is hoping this becomes an annual event, and he has ambitions to take it to a larger venue (the MassMutual Center, perhaps) and involve dozens of area businesses in the competition.

“We’re excited about this because a lot of people do walks, a lot of people do runs, and a lot of people do golf tournaments, but this has never been done before,” he said, adding that this year’s hockey competition doubles (or triples) as an anniversary celebration and networking event for the region.

And it’s an appropriate way to mark the company’s milestone because it represents something new, different, and forward-looking, qualities the company has strived to embody from the very beginning.

Chair Man

As he talked about his business and his industry, Proshan acknowledged what many probably knew already: office furniture is not exactly rocket science.

But it is certainly more than filling a warehouse with desks, chairs, file cabinets, and credenzas and waiting, as he noted, for people to come in, bring their phones out, and show pictures of what they want. This is, indeed, a customer-service-focused business, even if the customer might not fully grasp this at the beginning.

“With office furniture, people will often come in thinking that they know what they want,” he said. “But when you question them as to why, they start to look at things differently.”

To get his point across, Proshan summoned one of the myriad anecdotes he’s collected over three decades as a business owner.

Mark Proshan, seen here with his dog and frequent work companion, Beckett, says the company will celebrate 30 years with an Aeron hockey competition.

“A guy came in a few years ago, and he wanted a very traditional, bank-like-looking leather chair to sit at his desk in,” Proshan recalled. “It had all of the looks of old-school banking and power, and that’s what he wanted. And when I talked with him, he said he was also having trouble with his back.

“I told him this chair would do nothing to help with any physical ailments he was experiencing, and also told him I understood what he was going for in terms of a look,” he went on. “But I told him he needed to weigh that against the benefits of some of the technological advancements that have come out in the world of sitting.”

Fast-forwarding a little, Proshan said he showed the customer an Aeron chair, and the response was “absolutely not — this is not what I have in mind.” He then enticed him to sit in one. When the customer left the showroom, he took one of the chairs with him.

That story provides a simple yet effective tutorial in how this business is carried out, or should be carried out.

“It’s that kind of guiding people to what may be a more favorable outcome that they may not have been aware of when they came in that still takes place,” he said. “And that’s really the key to success in this business.”

Meanwhile, that story also provides more evidence of how things have changed.

Exhibit A is that phrase Proshan used above — ‘the world of sitting.’ It has changed considerably in 30 years, and even in the past few years. And, as noted with that reference to the sit-stand desks now populating the workplace (Proshan has one himself), people are doing less of it.

But when they do sit … well, there are options, more of them than some might imagine.

Like the Magis Spun chair, made by Herman Miller and described in marketing materials as “a fun and functional chair that lets you rock side to side or spin around.” And like the Berdi Perchiching sit-stand stool, made by Ergonomic Solutions. As the name suggests, it’s designed for use with sit-stand desks, and, further, it’s designed to enable people to exercise their core while sitting and working.

Proshan, who also has one of these, explains, with insight gathered at one of those ergonomics conferences he now attends:

“The experts say that not only should we stand, but we should be constantly engaging our hips and our core,” he said, referring to the now-universally accepted opinion that people need to sit less. “And I have a chair with a bottom that moves so that you constantly engage the hips and your core and are more active than if you were just standing.”

As for the aforementioned height of cubicle walls, and the more-open nature of today’s offices, a topic of considerable import in this business, Proshan won’t predict anything, but he said he’s heard anecdotally that they may be soon be rising again.

“Things seem to cycle, and there’s a question about how long it will be before the walls go back up and people want their private and individual spaces again,” he told BusinessWest. “And that’s good news if you’re in this industry, because then you’ll have an opportunity to provide product in that new design mode.”

He added that it’s not his job to predict what will come, but to be ready for it, and to help customers be ready for it. And that’s another thing that hasn’t changed since he put a sign over his door.

Bottom Line

Returning to the question of what has changed and what hasn’t in 30 years, Proshan said his office provides ample evidence of the former, between his desk and his ergonomically correct chair.

As for the latter, he goes back to his comments about the fundamentals of business — and his in particular.

“The basics of office furniture haven’t changed that much in a very long time,” he said. “There’s a place to sit, a place to stand, and a place to collaborate. It’s not that dynamic.

“It’s still about the fundamentals — paying attention to who your customers are and what they’re asking you to do, and being there when they need you to be there,” he went on. “Those are the things that are constants, and they’re as important now as they were back then.”

A sharp focus on those fundamentals has helped Lexington Group grow and thrive through three decades of change to the so-called ‘modern office,’ and this is what will carry it through the next chapters in its intriguing history.

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

Manufacturing

Taking Flight

Since the announcement last month that defense and aerospace giants Raytheon and United Technologies will merge into one firm based in Eastern Mass., few other details have emerged, and questions remain about the impact on the companies’ workforce, particularly those currently based at UTC’s Connecticut plant. But some see potential growth in the merger, which may bode well for the many Western Mass. machine shops — and their 5,000 employees — that make components for those companies.

Rick Sullivan calls it the “invisible backbone of the economy” in Western Mass.

He refers to precision manufacturing, and he chooses each of those words for a reason. Machine shops — virtually all of them in the small (make that very small) to medium-sized range — exist in almost every community in the four counties of Western Mass.

“Those companies, if we could put them together under one room, it would be a giant company that gets everyone’s attention all the time — national attention. It’s that significant,” said Sullivan, president and CEO of the Western Mass. Economic Development Council.

As for invisible? “These shops each have a real niche and do high-quality work, and you don’t see that impact every single day,” he went on. “But it’s a true center of excellence. It’s important.”

Among the work many of these shops do is supplying components for major companies — like Raytheon and United Technologies Corp. (UTC). And when two companies of that size announce plans to merge, as they did last month, it sends ripples of concern through that often-invisible but critical industry, simply because of the uncertainty it produces.

“Obviously, when anything changes out there, we have to evaluate that change in terms of what it’s going to mean locally,” Sullivan told BusinessWest. “No question, the relationship of Massachusetts manufacturers with both companies is significant.”

The merger — which will create one of the world’s largest defense companies, with combined sales of $74 billion — will close in the first half of 2020 after United Technologies completes the previously planned separation of its Otis and Carrier businesses.

The combined company, to be named Raytheon Technologies Corp., will be a major player in defense research and technology — not that the two companies weren’t already. In announcing the merger, the two giants said they will be able to develop new technologies more quickly, with combined research and development spending of $8 billion annually and more than 60,000 engineers.

In many ways, that’s good news, but there are workforce-related questions, state Sen. Eric Lesser noted the day the merger was announced.

Rick Sullivan says the economic impact of the region’s precision manufacturers is significant, even as it often flies under the public radar.

“The UTC-Raytheon deal means another major corporate HQ is relocating to Massachusetts, which overall for Massachusetts is positive news and will be celebrated in Boston,” he said, while quickly noting that a sizable portion of UTC’s current workforce lives in Greater Springfield.

“A quick drive past the huge parking at UTC’s facility across from Bradley Airport, for example, shows a lot of Massachusetts license plates,” he went on. “I personally know many constituents that work at the UTC facilities in both Windsor Locks and Farmington — engineers, electricians, accountants, salespeople, etc. — almost all very good and well-paying careers with great career paths at a variety of education levels.

“Long term, what will happen to those Western Mass. UTC jobs as a result of this merger?” Lesser asked. “If facilities are relocated to Metro Boston, what will losing those jobs mean for Western Mass.? It won’t be positive. We need good jobs at both ends of Massachusetts, and everywhere in between.”

The fact that Raytheon Technologies will be based near Boston drew a complaint from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who said he is concerned about the potential workforce impact on his state. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Blumenthal also urged the Defense Department, the Justice Department, and other agencies to examine the potential impact on costs and competition in the defense industry.

Maintaining the Flow

Then there’s the matter of protecting the flow of work to the region’s small machine shops and their 5,000-plus employees. It’s an area of concern for Kristin Carlson in both her roles — as president of Peerless Precision in Westfield and also of the Western Mass. chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Assoc.

She recently told BusinessWest that business is booming for Peerless and most other local precision manufacturers, and that the region has a reputation across the country and around the world as a precision-machining hub. The industries the sector serves — aerospace, defense, oil and gas, and some commercial sectors — are surging, and a report issued last year by the Precision Manufacturing Regional Alliance Projects suggests that the manufacturing sector statewide will need to fill up to 1,500 jobs this year, due to growth and retirement.

“Obviously, when anything changes out there, we have to evaluate that change in terms of what it’s going to mean locally. No question, the relationship of Massachusetts manufacturers with both companies is significant.”

So there’s a lot at stake when a move of this scale happens — and Carlson hopes the impact is a net positive.

“A lot of the machine shops are already suppliers to Raytheon or UTC,” she said. “From what I can see, this merger presents the opportunity for existing suppliers to those two separate companies to become suppliers to the new company, which can increase opportunities for local machine shops and other manufacturers — which means growth and more jobs.”

As for the move of UTC to Eastern Mass., where Raytheon is already based, Carlson doesn’t expect the company to move its entire workforce, although it hasn’t made those plans clear yet.

“I don’t know what the grand plan is,” she said. “My perspective is, I don’t think they’re going to be moving everyone to Eastern Mass. I anticipate some jobs might get transferred over to the new location, but I don’t think they’ll be shutting down or moving everyone over.”

Kristin Carlson says the Raytheon-UTC merger may present opportunities to increase an already-robust pipeline of work.

Raytheon Technologies intends to focus on hypersonics — vehicles and weapons that can fly faster than the speed of sound — as well as intelligence and surveillance systems, artificial intelligence for commercial aviation, and cybersecurity for connected planes.

Raytheon was founded in 1922 and makes missiles, including the Patriot system, and cybersecurity tools. United Technologies was founded in 1934 and makes products for the aerospace and building sectors, including airplane engines and spacesuits.

“Our two companies have iconic brands that share a long history of innovation, customer focus, and proven execution,” United Technologies Chairman and CEO Greg Hayes noted in a statement last month.

Hayes will become the CEO of Raytheon Technologies. Two years after the merger closes, he will add the title of chairman. Raytheon Chairman and CEO Tom Kennedy will be appointed executive chairman. The company’s board will include eight directors from UTC and seven from Raytheon.

Defense mergers are nothing new in recently years. In 2018 alone, there were eight mergers exceeding $1 billion in value, including an all-stock deal between L3 Technologies and Harris and General Dynamics’ acquisition of CSRA Inc., according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Building on Relationships

Still, in Western Mass., much of the focus has come down to jobs, and preserving the working relationships that exist between small machine shops and large players like Raytheon and UTC.

“Those relationships as subcontractors are vital to us,” Sullivan told BusinessWest. “I do think, moving forward, those connections can even be strengthened. In Western Mass., we recognize that we have an economy that goes east-west, but as importantly, and maybe even more importantly, it goes north-south also. We obviously will be watching closely.

“Raytheon is obviously a big player regionally in Western Mass.,” he added. “We need to grow those relationships, and I do think there are opportunities for growth.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

 

Education

Pressing On

President-Elect Ed Wingenbach spoke at his first public press conference on Thursday, July 18 regarding the future of Hampshire College and the role he hopes to play in its success.

When asked whether he thought Hampshire College could not only maintain its accreditation but forge a long-term future, Ed Wingenbach, the recently named president of the beleaguered institution, didn’t hesitate in his response and spoke with a voice brimming with confidence.

“Yes; do you need me to say more?” he replied as the question was posed at a press conference to announce his appointment on July 18.

“I’m not at all worried about our ability to pull it off,” he went on, adding that, although he believes Hampshire College will overcome these obstacles, that certainly doesn’t mean it will be easy. “There’s a lot of hard work to be done over the next two months, six months, three years, but it’s the work that Hampshire College should always be doing.”

His confidence, he said, results from what he called “extraordinary and dedicated students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members who all have the will to get the job done.”

Wingenbach will be the eighth president of the Amherst-based institution has appointed. An accomplished administrator, faculty leader, scholar, and proponent of liberal-arts education, he has served for the past six months as acting president of Ripon College in Wisconsin, a liberal-arts college where he has been vice president and dean of faculty and a professor of Politics and Government since 2015. Previously, he served for 15 years as an administrator and faculty leader at the University of Redlands in California.

“I’m coming to Hampshire College today and hopefully for a very long time because I think that it is the essential college in higher education,” he said at his welcoming press conference. “There is no place that has been more important to the success of the American college and university system over the last 50 years than Hampshire College.”

Hampshire’s board of trustees voted unanimously for Wingenbach’s appointment on July 12 after a formal recommendation from the presidential search committee chaired by trustee Ellen Sturgis and comprising faculty, students, staff, trustees, and alumni.

The board’s goal was to name a new president this summer to help guide the college in securing its operations, planning for its future, and preparing for the coming academic year, assignments that come as the school is literally fighting for its survival.

Indeed, the school recently received a letter from the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) stating that, absent evidence of substantial progress on a number of matters, ranging from hiring a new president to developing plans for achieving ambitious goals for fundraising and rebuilding enrollment, “the commission will, at its November 2019 meeting, take an action to place the college on probation or withdraw its accreditation.”

“I’m coming to Hampshire College today and hopefully for a very long time because I think that it is the essential college in higher education. There is no place that has been more important to the success of the American college and university system over the last 50 years than Hampshire College.”

This rather stern warning comes after roughly a year of turmoil and regional and national headlines concerning the college, thrusting it into the forefront of mounting problems for smaller, independent colleges dependent largely on high-school graduates at a time when graduating classes are getting smaller and projected to get smaller still.

In recent months, Hampshire announced it will not admit a full class for this fall — in fact, only about 15 students are expected to be in what will be known as the class of 2019. There have also been layoffs, the resignations of President Miriam Nelson and several board members, and departures among the current student body.

 

Grade Expectations

Despite this steady drumbeat of bad news, in recent writings to the Hampshire community, interim President Ken Rosenthal, one of Hampshire’s founders, has been using a decidedly optimistic tone. Last month, he wrote that the school was fully committed to enrolling a full class for 2020, was making progress with an aggressive bid to raise $20 million by June 2020 and an estimated $100 million over the next five years, and was filling several key positions, including president.

Ken Rosenthal

While acknowledging this optimistic tone and focus on the future at a time when many had — and perhaps still have — grave doubts that Hampshire has a future, Rosenthal told BusinessWest, “that certainly doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”

Wingenbach agrees, but he has a plan.

“I am confident that we can overcome those challenges by reinvigorating the mission to innovate and lead higher education,” he said. “By becoming distinctive again, and inventing, again, new ways to think about undergraduate education, and implementing them and doing them well, we’ll restore the rightful distinctiveness of Hampshire College.”

However, both his and Rosenthal’s sentiments about the task ahead certainly not being easy were echoed by Barbara Brittingham, president of NECHE, who said Hampshire faces what she called a “heavy lift,” given both the challenges facing all colleges reliant upon high-school graduates, and the relatively young age of Hampshire’s alumni.

Wingenbach told media, professors, students, and trustees that Hampshire College is a laboratory to how to make higher education better, and the hard work that will happen over the coming months and years will set the college up for success.

Indeed, like Rosenthal, she said Hampshire is challenged to raise money and thus grow its endowment because its oldest alums are barely 70 — and probably still living and thus not bequeathing money to the college — and most alums are at an age when they are paying for their children’s college, saving for retirement, or putting their money to other uses.

Thus, the school will have to look well beyond its alumni base for support, she said. And it will also have to attract more students, a task made more difficult by recent headlines and words and phrases such as ‘probation’ and ‘possible loss of accreditation.’

“Colleges rely a lot on donations from alumni, but they often get donations from friends, people who admire the mission,” said Brittingham, adding that Hampshire will need considerable help from such friends moving forward.

This, said Wingenbach, is part of the plan. In order to reinvigorate Hampshire College, reaching out to not only alumni, but also those who are interested in Hampshire’s mission, is crucial.

“We have all kinds of resources beyond this campus to make sure that our students have access to everything they need to be successful,” he said.

 

Course of Action

The college has certainly used those resources so far. Wingenbach praised Hampshire for raising more than $9 million since February of this year, adding that this is an impressive accomplishment with the challenges they’ve faced.
But the college will need to continue to raise money at this rate in order to make ends meet.

Because Hampshire will be a much smaller school this fall — it just graduated 295 students and will bring in only 15 freshmen in September — the resulting loss of tuition and fees will result in a huge budget deficit. The projected number is $20 million, said Rosenthal, but it may be smaller depending on just how many students return to the campus this fall; the school is budgeting for 600.

“We set out two months ago to raise that $20 million by June 30, 2020, and we’re a little ahead of schedule,” said Rosenthal, adding that this schedule called for having $7 million in cash in hand by August, another $7 million by the end of December, and the final $6 million by the end of the current fiscal year, ending next June 30.

Moving forward, and, again, thinking optimistically, as the college moves closer to what Rosenthal called ‘normal size,” meaning 1,200 to 1,400 students, the budget deficits will grow smaller. Still, he projects that roughly $60 million will be needed over the next five years. When necessary capital improvements are added, the number rises to $100 million.

As Brittingham noted — as Rosenthal did himself, only with different language — this is indeed a heavy lift for a college this size.

Wingenbach says the cost structure of the college must undergo a serious adjustment in order to accomplish this ambitious goal.

“As we’re currently constituted, we spend too much money, and we don’t raise enough. That’s a fundamental reality of almost all small colleges in the entire country; we’re no different. But we have to face that reality as well,” he said. “As we’re thinking about experimentation and innovation and new ideas, we have to think about that framework within a reasonable understanding of what our budget and resources will look like two and four years from now, and live within that framework.”

This, Wingenbach said, may include an increase in tuition.

“We have to be thinking really carefully about what our likely students are willing to pay for this kind of an education,” he said, adding that the average Hampshire student graduates with about $24,000 in debt, an extraordinarily low figure for a four-year education. “I think it’s likely that tuition goes up, but I don’t think it’s likely that it goes up a lot in any given year.”

 

Critical Crossroads

Whether all or any of this — from the early progress on fundraising to Hampshire’s relevance in a changing world — will have any impact on students’ decisions on whether to return to the campus, or on NECHE’s upcoming decision on accreditation, remain to be seen. And they will both go a long way toward determining the college’s future.

“I think we have a really good story to tell that I think is compelling to people,” Wingenbach said, adding that another critical part of reinventing the school is going to be reminding people why the school is so important in the first place.

“One of the big advantages Hampshire has is that the value of an education here is easy to articulate,” he went on. “Colleges struggle to attract students who can pay a slightly higher rate if they have no argument as to why you should do that. Hampshire has a great argument for why you should do that.”

Reminding not only those within the community, but also those inside Hampshire College, of all this is a critical step in maintaining the energy Wingenbach says is crucial to get the school back on top. This includes recognizing the hard times in order to get to the good.

“There has been a lot of trauma here,” he said. “This has been a very hard six months to a year. Part of engaging people is recognizing that, both within the college community and with the public. It doesn’t change the fact that this has been a really hard year, and people have struggled. We recognize that and say, ‘now we’re going to continue to struggle, but we’re going to do something productive about it.’”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Features

Making Courage Contagious

Kirk Jonah has devoted himself to making sure fewer families must suffer the kind of tragedy his did — the death of his son Jack (inset) to a heroin overdose in 2016 at age 19.

Kirk Jonah doesn’t rely on a set script when he gives one of his talks; he’ll vary the message to the setting and the audience.

But generally speaking, he’ll wrap things up the same way, especially when he’s speaking to young people.

He puts up an image of a form. He’ll usually ask if someone knows what it is, and often, someone will offer that it’s a birth certificate. He focuses in closer with the next PowerPoint slide, and it becomes clear that is instead a death certificate — one for his son, Jack.

Then he focuses in even closer on the ‘cause-of-death’ line and the words ‘acute heroin intoxication.’ “I tell them, ‘this is what you get, as a parent, five or six weeks after you bury your child — a death certificate,’” he told BusinessWest.

And he leaves the image there for a few moments — usually to very dramatic effect.

Jonah started giving these talks not long after Jack died of that overdose in April 2016. He says he probably averages one a month now, although the talks frequently come in spurts. And, as noted, the audience varies. Often, it’s young people, but sometimes it’s parents. And at other times, it’s a mix of both.

He talks about Jack — his life as well as his death — but he also makes a point of talking about survivors, those who are fighting addiction, to show there is a path to a better life.

Overall, he talks about the choices people have to make and the need to make smart ones (much more on this later). There are three themes — honor those who have died, educate people about those choices to be made, and support those who are fighting the fight. Honor, educate, and support.

And if there is an overriding message, it’s that everyone, that’s everyone, has to do all they can to prevent more parents, more families, from being mailed a death certificate like the one sent to the Jonah residence.

Today, he’s presenting this message and those themes on platforms far beyond the podium. Indeed, Jonah and his family — wife Nini, son Dan, and daughter Karlye — have created the Jack Jonah Foundation, which this spring staged its first fundraising walk.

Jack Jonah, far right, with his siblings, Dan and Karlye, and grandmother, Anita Barrett.

It netted more than $70,000 in contributions that will be distributed to nonprofits helping to wage the fight against opioid abuse, but it much more than that. It brought more than 1,000 people together behind a cause that has too often been relegated to the background because of the stigma against drug abuse.

And soon, there will be a movie about the Jonah family and its work, to be undertaken by JCFilms, a maker of family-friendly, faith-based narratives; the working title could also be called the unofficial mission of the recently formed foundation — Jack Jonah: Making Courage Contagious.

Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Out of Time, Rat Race, and, more recently, a host of JCFilms productions) has been cast in the role of Kirk Jonah, and other roles will be filled soon. In fact, a casting call was issued, and auditions were held on July 20 at West Springfield High School. The poster declared there are more than 13 adult roles, more than 25 teenage roles, and 200 background actors.

“This is not a biography; it’s not a chronology,” said Jonah. “It’s about Jack, and it’s about our family, but there will be a lot of moving parts; it’s an opportunity to engage people in fighting this epidemic.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Jonah about the film, the foundation, and the sum of his efforts to prevent more tragedies like the one that befell his family.

Bitter Pills

Jonah recalls the short conversation as being somewhat odd.

A friend with the West Springfield police called and told him he needed to get home as quick as he could. But he didn’t say why.

Upon arriving, Jonah, who theorized it might have something to do with his alarm system, was told why. His son had been found dead in his room with hypodermic needles around him. Jonah had to take the police at their word because his room was now a crime scene and he was not allowed in.

“The room was locked off — there were police officers at both stairwells,” he recalled. “I called family, they started coming to the house, and we sat in the kitchen while the coroner came and went up to the room, and then the body was taken out of the house; we were not allowed to see any of it.”

Thus, Jack’s death became the latest in an epidemic of fatal overdoses rocking this region and this nation. This one was a little different, though.

Jack’s family had absolutely no idea he was using heroin. None whatsoever.

Kirk Jonah ends most of his talks by putting his son’s death certificate on the screen and focusing in on the ‘cause of death’ line.

“We didn’t see any signs,” said Jonah. “A lot of people who have come up to me over the years have said that a loved one had been fighting addiction for five years or 10 years and they had gone through a lot of difficult moments. We didn’t have that with Jack — we were completely surprised.”

The basic reason for this surprise was all the good that was going on in Jack’s life in the months and years leading up to this tragedy, none of it really consistent with heroin addiction.

“He was going to HCC [Holyoke Community College] and was dean’s list,” Jonah explained. “He was deciding what he wanted to do, and he had kind of narrowed it down to working with animals — he worked at Boston Road Animal Hospital, where he assisted surgical vets — or the medical field, like nursing.

“He was very artistic,” he went on, adding that Jack created a self-portrait in charcoal that hangs in the family’s living room. “He played guitar, he played the piano, and he was also involved in drama — he did some acting and was involved with other students in writing a play called Labels. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and family, and he was just a great kid and a wonderful young man.”

To this day, Kirk Jonah still doesn’t know when or how his son became hooked on heroin. Since Jack’s death, no one has come forward with any information that might help him solve that puzzle.

But in most all respects, it doesn’t matter. What does is that someone died of a heroin overdose. And Jonah, with the help of his family and a very supportive employer, Holyoke Gas & Electric, has dedicated himself to saving some of the lives that might otherwise be lost to drug addiction and overdoses.

When asked how this work began and why, Jonah started by referencing the many sleepless nights he was experiencing after his son’s death.

“A person said to me, ‘that’s Jack and God speaking to you — listen to them, open up, invite them in,’” he recalled. “So I said, ‘OK.’”

He said he was asked to speak at Holyoke Mall at an event called “Living in Plain Sight,” put on by the CARE (Collaborative Accountability Reaches Everyone) Coalition of West Springfield, and from there, the requests have multiplied.

He’s spoken at events ranging from assemblies at area schools to a gathering at Baystate Noble Hospital to Mercy Medical Center’s annual Caritas Gala; Channel 57 recently made the family’s story the basis of an episode of its Connecting Point show.

“People just kept reaching out to me asking me to speak,” he said, adding that he now gives about a dozen talks a year.

Talking Points

As noted earlier, his presentations vary in their specific talking points, depending on the audience.

When he’s talking to the those who have suffered a loss like his, he has some poignant thoughts on coping, advice handed down from his grief counselor.

“I tell them, ‘you’re going to be sad every day, but don’t make it all day — make it part of your day,’” said Jonah, who can tell you at any moment how many years, months, and days it has been since his son’s death. “I say, ‘manage it as best you can; that’s what I do.’

“I have this imagery vault, and I’m the only one who has a key,” he went on. “I open that vault every day, and I take out that sadness; it’s overwhelming. Sometimes it can last 10 minutes, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes it’s longer. But then you take this sadness, put it back in the vault, lock it, and say, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’”

In all cases, though, Jonah’s talks come back to choices, and the need to make smart ones.

These choices come in all varieties, he went on, from young people deciding whether to pop a few prescription pills while at a friend’s party to adults deciding how to store and dispose of such pills, to the friends of those who are abusing drugs deciding whether to intervene and tell the parents of such an individual.

“In a lot of cases, it starts with prescription medication,” Jonah said of heroin addiction. “It might be at a party, and they took their parents’ prescription pills,” he said. “One person gets addicted, and the other one doesn’t; you don’t know which one you’re going to be, and that’s why you have to make smart decisions.”

He also encourages people to speak up, as difficult as that might be in many situations.

Specifically, he often relates the story of one young person who did speak up and told his parents that his brother had a problem that needed to be addressed.

“This person called his parents, and they said, ‘OK,’ and they started watching for signs,” said Jonah. “When they found their son overdosed, they had Narcan, and they revived him; he’s now been clean for many, many years.

“I say to the kids, ‘how do you think that brother who was doing the heroin felt when his brother spoke up?’” he went on. “They all say, ‘not good.’ I ask, ‘how do you think he feels now?’ They’re best friends.”

He also relates the story of someone who didn’t speak up about an individual who eventually died of an overdose. “And I ask them, ‘which one are you going to be?’”

And, as noted, he finishes with that death certificate.

“I say, ‘when you leave here today, you may remember Mr. Jonah, or you may not; you may remember Jack, or you may not,’” he said. “‘But when you’re out in the world and you’re faced with a challenging decision, think of that death certificate, and hopefully it will give you the strength and confidence to make the right decision.’”

The talks were followed by a website, a logo, a Facebook page, and, eventually, the foundation, a 501(c)(3), all of which came about through the help of a number of supporters, said Jonah, adding that the film, production of which will begin next month, is the latest platform for telling the story.

The short informational piece on the Jack Jonah Foundation website pretty much tells the story about why the film is being made and what those behind it hope to accomplish.

“Jack Jonah was an extraordinary teen with real dreams and a bright future,” it reads. “On April 6, 2016, that ended, and he quickly became a statistic.

“Will you join this project to challenge teens in the community and communities around the country to be courageous in speaking out against drug usage among teens?” it continues. “This is bigger than just a film about Jack’s life; it’s about his voice being echoed throughout this film to save lives.”

In a nutshell, that’s what Kirk Jonah’s talks, the website, the foundation, and everything else are all about.

Inspiration that Lives on

Jonah told BusinessWest that he reaps many rewards from his ongoing work. The most important to him are the comments from those who approach him after one of his talks, at the fundraising walk, or just on the street.

Parents have told him that he has inspired them to become more open about a child’s problem and not be caught up in the stigma of drug abuse. Young people have told him that, because of his words, they have intervened in an effort to help a friend, or plan to.

In short, he believes he is creating some progress in an ongoing war against opioid addiction — progress that will hopefully translate into fewer people getting a death certificate like he did.

And he gives all or most of the credit for this progress to Jack, and the way his story continues to move others.

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

Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

The Baystate Health & Wellness Center, which opened last year, lies alongside significant improvements to the Dwight Road corridor at the East Longmeadow line.

When people think of economic development, they might think of a flood of new businesses into a community. Longmeadow will never have that, Town Manager Stephen Crane said, but it certainly has economic development — centered instead around residential property values and the quality of life that maintains them.

“What sustains property values are investments like middle schools, senior centers, things that make the community more desirable to live. That’s the number-one goal of Longmeadow,” he said of a town in which 95% of all property is residential.

“As I always say, our number-one economic activity is the sale of single-family homes,” he went on. “So keeping those homes a desirable place for people to live is job one, and new senior centers, new schools, new amenities — those are the things we can do as a municipal government to sustain that quality of life.”

While a new middle school has been talked about for years, a new senior center will soon become reality, after a groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 11. The Longmeadow Adult Center will move from its current location, a former elementary school at Greenwood Park, to a $14 million facility on Maple Road next year.

“It’s a fantastic project. It’s a very big deal,” Crane said, noting that the demographic trend commonly called ‘the aging of America’ is certainly underway in Western Mass.; in fact, 29% percent of Longmeadow’s population is age 60 or older, and that number grows every year. Because of that, he said, communities need to provide services that help seniors age in place.

“The senior center will fill a lot of gaps we have in terms of aging in place,” he told BusinessWest, noting amenities like its state-of-the-art gymnasium with a suspended walking track. “The programming space will be substantially better than what we have now. The current programs are great, but the new space will reflect the quality of those programs.”

Crane, who has been Longmeadow town manager for the past six years, will be departing his seat next month after inking a three-year contract as town manager in Concord. He’s witnessed plenty of changes in town during that time, but one of the intriguing ones has been Longmeadow’s shifting demographic reputation, spurred by growing amenities for seniors and a significant stock of ranch homes for single-floor living. In short, a town once known as a place where young parents raised their kids and moved out is becoming an all-ages destination.

Taxing Concerns

To maintain those amenities — and the quality of life so critical to keeping residential property values high — town officials support legislation on the state level that would allow it, and other towns, to override a key element of Proposition 2½, which went into effect in 1982.

That legislation sets a 2.5% ceiling on total property taxes — or $25 per $1,000 of assessed value — and a 2.5% annual limit on property-tax increases. (The ceiling does not include excludable debt for capital projects like the senior center.) Proponents of a change, at least in Longmeadow, would like towns to be able to override the first part of the law by moving the ceiling higher, first by a two-thirds vote at town meeting, then at the ballot box.

“It’s really quintessential self-determination, which is the essence of town-meeting government.”

“We are approaching that ceiling. And costs are going to continue to go up, unless property values stay the same or go up. If we have a 1% dip in our real-estate market, our tax rate jumps up even if we don’t spend another dime,” Crane said. “We are not proposing to touch the 2.5% increase, but we propose that the community can set the ceiling where it wants, and decide for themselves how much they want to invest in themselves. It’s really a local-control thing.”

While Longmeadow has the highest residential tax rate in the Commonwealth, it also has a high bond rating. “So our tax rate is not the result of profligate spending. We are an extremely well-managed town from a financial standpoint. We have to be very careful and make great decisions and pursue value in earnest, which we do.”

One way it does that is by pursuing regionalization when possible, as with the two-town (and perhaps others in the future) regional emergency communications center, or RCC, that Longmeadow is establishing with Chicopee, housed in that city’s Police Department and operated by an independent district called WESTCOMM. That system is expected to go live in October, and dispatchers have already been hired.

“The Baker administration is pushing municipalities to work together,” Crane said. “We certainly embrace that, whether it’s working with East Longmeadow on shared health services for public health, the regional dispatch with Chicopee, we are always reaching across town lines, trying to find ways to work more efficiently and relieve burdens on taxpayers.”

He understands how legislation to change Prop 2½ could be cast as merely an effort to raise taxes, and he understands how that goes over with some.

“Would it lead to increased taxes? Not any more than the current two-and-a-half-percent cap allows year after year. Would it lead to higher tax bills in the future? Potentially. But is it essential to maintain property values and maintain the community’s quality of life? Yes.

“To hit that ceiling,” he continued, “means reductions in services that may not be impactful right away, but would lead to a downhill momentum where services are reduced, quality of life goes down, property values then go down as well — and that’s even if the economy and real-estate market stay stable.”

Important, though, is the fact that, under the proposed change, each community would have a say in moving its tax ceiling — and Crane said Longmeadow residents have long been aware of its unique tax base and the need for community investment to keep property values high.

“It’s really quintessential self-determination, which is the essence of town-meeting government,” he added. “The state doesn’t really give a lot of local-control options to communities for generating revenue.”

Moving Right Along

Meanwhile, the town continues to pursue improvements and development on both the public and private fronts. Along the busy Dwight Road corridor that intersects Converse and Williams streets — where the Baystate Health & Wellness Center opened last year — a major infrastructure project included street and sewer upgrades, new sidewalks and bike lanes, and improved traffic-light coordination across the East Longmeadow town line.

“The corridor improvements on Dwight Road are complete, which is a regionally significant improvement,” Crane said. “Traffic is flowing exponentially better than it ever did. Those improvements were clearly needed.”

Longmeadow at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1783
Population: 15,784
Area: 9.7 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $24.09
Commercial Tax Rate: $24.09
Median Household Income: $109,586
Median Family Income: $115,578
Type of Government: Open Town Meeting; Town Manager; Board of Selectmen
Largest Employers: Bay Path University; JGS Lifecare; Glenmeadow
* Latest information available

On the private-investment front, in addition to the Baystate project and a 21,000-square-foot expansion of the Longmeadow Shops in 2017, a memory-care facility is planned on the site of a former synagogue on Williams Street, and the former Brewer-Young Mansion on Longmeadow Street has been converted to professional offices, with developers eying a mix of uses, including shared workspaces. On the municipal side, the development of a new Department of Public Works facility on the site of a former tennis club on Dwight Road continues despite unexpected costs from asbestos removal from the soil.

Overall, Crane said, “town meeting been generous with appropriations. To me, it’s a sign that they have faith in their local government and know that, if it wasn’t really needed, we wouldn’t be asking for it. The success we’ve had with approval of things shows we are able to articulate the community’s needs in a way that town meeting agrees with.”

For instance, voters recently authorized a $1.54 million debt exclusion to continue improvements to the Wolf Swamp Road athletic fields, which Crane called the town’s biggest and busiest recreational asset.

“The fields have fallen into disrepair for a variety of reasons — lack of irrigation, overprogramming, and just some disinvestment,” he told BusinessWest. “The DPW does the best it can to maintain those fields, but without irrigation and with the overprogramming, there’s a limit to how effective you can be with maintenance.”

The plan includes a new, central parking lot, converting current parking at one end of the complex to field space, and achieving a net gain in field space.

“The fields will be stripped, graded, planted, and irrigated,” he went on. “It’ll be a couple years out of service, but when it comes back online, it’ll be the envy of the region, I think. That’s not a great economic driver, but when we have tournaments, those do generate revenue for the town, but it also sustains quality of life, which does have economic value.”

‘A Good Place’

Crane said the various departments in Town Hall want to support its local bricks-and-mortar businesses with good infrastructure and cooperative permitting. “You can help people with what they need or you can make them climb through the regulatory systems on their own, and I know we really try to do what we can for our local businesses.”

But he also understands that housing — and the higher revenues that come from raising quality of life and keeping home values high — will always dictate much of what Longmeadow is able to achieve.

“I’m proud of the work I’ve had a small part in accomplishing,” he said as he prepared for his newest challenge in Concord. “We have a great team, great departments, and outstanding volunteers. I’m proud to have been a part of many positive changes that have happened in the community — things that have been quality-of-life improvements, but have not changed the character of the community. The next town manager will have challenges, but I think the town is in a good place.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Education

Closing the Skills Gap

Caron Hobin says Strategic Alliances can help fill skills gaps that exist in the region’s workforce.

The ever-changing workforce environment is a continuous challenge for employers seeking qualified people to fill their positions.

However, not all employers are looking for people with a college degree. In fact, the World Economic Forum reported recently that skills are in higher demand in the labor market than occupations and degrees.

This is one of the many reasons why Bay Path University started a new division on campus — Strategic Alliances, which provides customized training and learning experiences for area employees, as well as the latest online certifications and recertifications.

Caron Hobin, Bay Path’s vice president of Strategic Alliances, said the goal for this new division is a direct reflection of the overall mission of what was then Bay Path Institute when it was founded in 1897. And that is to always be attentive to the needs of the employers in the region and to make sure the university is preparing prospective employees to succeed in the workplace.

“That’s what I see our division doing here in an authentic way,” said Hobin, adding that this initiative strives to help employers target areas of recognized need through specialized training. Whether the focus is on cultivating emotional intelligence, working in teams, storytelling for success, or any other topic a company may need help with, Strategic Alliances uses carefully selected faculty from Bay Path as well as practitioners who have expertise in the topic to create programs that address these issues.

“Time is always of the essence, money is critical, so how do you provide training, and how do you help close the skills gap that employers say is definitely an issue out there?” said Hobin. “We do discovery sessions with companies and prospective clients, and we listen to what they are looking for, and then we create customized programs to meet their needs.”

She said these trainings may last anywhere from a few hours to weeks or months; however, she does her best to encourage companies to choose a lengthier program in order to get the most out of the experience, noting that, if the goal is changed behavior, employers aren’t going to get it with a one-hour training.

Longmeadow-based Glenmeadow, which provides of variety of senior-living options, is one of about a dozen clients of Strategic Alliances. It recently completed a six-month leadership academy for all its managers.

“They used a best-practice model for adult learning, which is learning something new and then putting it into practice,” said Hobin. “It’s not theory; it’s not just a couple of hours, then you’re done. You go through an intensive training.”

“We do discovery sessions with companies and prospective clients, and we listen to what they are looking for, and then we create customized programs to meet their needs.”

Anne Miller, Glenmeadow’s vice president of Operations, scheduled six training sessions with Strategic Alliances for 20 managers at the facility, with each three-hour session going into detail on specific topics, with the aim of improving overall leadership skills. After each training session, Miller put together breakout sessions held at Glenmeadow that helped her employees apply what they learned from the trainings.

“We wanted to do some things that reinforced some of the training or actually made it come to life a bit,” Miller told BusinessWest, adding that post-training sessions are important in order to help with retaining and applying what’s been learned.

These training sessions, conducted by a host of individuals from Bay Path, covered a wide array of topics ranging from how to de-stress to how to complete a good performance review, which Miller said are critically important for customer-service purposes within the many aspects of Glenmeadow’s broad business portfolio.

“I think it set a good base for us to continue the learning,” she said.

Interactive Approach

Glenmeadow’s case provides a perfect example of how Strategic Alliances works and why it was created, said Hobin, adding that, today, adult learners not only want to learn new information, but they want interactive, applied learning that goes along with it.

So, after the initial presentation session, Strategic Alliances hosts a practice session, where participants take the training they’ve received and apply it using strategies like role play in order to engage the employees.

Hobin said this training, coupled with ongoing work to determine specific needs among industry sectors and specific businesses, helps Strategic Alliances tweak its customized programs. And it also helps Bay Path when it comes to teaching students in its classrooms.

“We recognize that, with declining numbers of high-school graduates and with just a changing work environment going forward, we are going to need to find new markets,” she said, referring to the need to improve the skills of those already in the workplace and those seeking to advance within the workforce. “We can tell you very concretely that these are the skill sets that employers are looking for.”

Bay Path also partners with MindEdge, a provider of online continuing-education courses, to deliver various certifications and recertifications to any interested student or employee. When Bay Path launched its American Women’s College, its online degree program, Hobin said, she was hearing that more and more employers were not necessarily interested in people having a degree, but rather specific skill sets and certifications.

She hopes this will encourage students to get a professional certification before graduation, and she has a specific goal for the future — to have every Bay Path student complete a certification before they graduate.

For now, Hobin said Bay Path is implementing several strategies to reach out to the community, improve the visibility of Strategic Alliances, and build relationships with area business and economic-development-related agencies.

In addition to being a member of several local chambers of commerce, Strategic Alliances hosts virtual roundtables which provides viewers with a free, one-hour training course on various topics, which Hobin said have brought in many interested companies. These videos host a panel of professionals in the field and have focused on topics including using one’s power voice, having difficult conversations in the workplace, and diversity and inclusion.

Overall, Hobin wants Strategic Alliances to be a resource for the region, its business community, and individuals who want to be better-equipped to succeed in an ever-changing workplace.

“We’re here,” she said. “We’re interested in innovative approaches to professional development going forward.”

— Kayla Ebner

Modern Office

The Value of Internships

By Brittany Bird

People are often aware of the numerous benefits for students who participate in an internship while pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree, but the benefits to you as an employer of offering an internship program are not to be overlooked.

Interns are similar to entry-level employees who are likely students and are hired for a specific period of time. Interns may be paid or unpaid, though paid internships typically produce better candidates. Students are generally eager to get their hands dirty and get real, hands-on experience so that they can put into practice what they’ve been learning in their classes.

Brittany Bird

What’s more, students putting in the effort to seek internship opportunities tend to be motivated, aspiring professionals who are willing to work hard to show their value to a business in the field of their major and desired career. These young go-getters can offer fresh perspectives, new ideas, and valuable feedback. As interns are most often still in school while working with your business, they are able to provide insight into new technology and trends to participate in the continuous improvement of your company.

The feedback they provide from their experience with you can also help to better the work environment and position your business to attract other young graduates like themselves.

Providing internship opportunities to local students showcases that your business supports the community and is interested in the potential of the younger generations. Internships support students as part of the growing workforce by giving them work experience and a better understanding of their field of choice and their own skill set.

This is a great way for local businesses and firms to secure young talent in Western Mass. as well. Indeed, your company has the chance to try out new talent before hiring them as a full-time employee. Internships allow you as an employer to gauge the work ethic of the student and see how he or she fits with your company and vision.

Recruiting for these positions also increases brand awareness among students, across local university campuses, and beyond. People become more familiar with your company name and what you represent as a result of your recruiting presence. Additionally, interns themselves act as quasi-recruiters as they tell friends, family, and classmates about their internship experience and inform them of other positions available with your company.

Internships allow young professionals to become familiar with your company and its culture and mission. Scouting out interns is like proactively recruiting for future full-time positions. Internships are a time to evaluate the intern in a lower-risk setting than bringing someone on full-time allows. Also, interns can typically do the same work as a new hire, but for a lower pay rate.

Retention Rate as of 1 year of Employment:

Internship with your company: 70.6%
External internship experience: 65.8%
No internship experience: 46.3%
(NACE 2016)

Internships also provide the chance for more seasoned staff to improve their management, mentoring, and leadership skills by training the new students on board. Having internships during your busiest times of year puts them through the ringer and tries their abilities to keep up and help out even in the craziest of circumstances while providing relief to other associates from the less important or less involved projects.

Internships not only allow a smoother transition into a career for the student, but also for your business. Instead of hiring someone you have to train from scratch, you now have an entry-level employee who has spent time with your organization and will require significantly less, if any, training. You will already to know their strengths and how they work with the team.

When they come on full-time, you have a much better understanding of their abilities and qualifications and can bring them on and keep your business operating smoothly. And getting employees who are a better fit through internships means better retention. Studies conducted by the NACE have shown that, at one year (see table on page 30) and at five years, retention rates are higher for those employees who started with a business through an internship program. Even if there are no full-time positions currently available, the line of communication is there and can be kept open for when future opportunities arise or when the student graduates and is looking for a career.

Internship programs that are well-designed and well-run will attract bright, young talent that can be a great addition to your team and part of your strategy for achieving the goals of growing your business by increasing productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Recruiters can look to university career centers to contact personnel who can lead them in the direction of clubs relevant to your business’ field or inform them of dates of meet-and-greet events or career fairs. Often, businesses can also put postings on universities’ websites or flyers and applications in the universities’ career-counseling offices.

In short, the time, money, and effort put into an internship program usually provide a big payoff in the long run as well as providing direct benefits to your company’s short-term goals in the present.

Brittany Bird is an audit associate with the Holyoke-based public accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. She began her career at MBK as an intern and recently celebrated her first anniversary as a full-time audit associate; (413) 322-3502; [email protected]

Manufacturing

Leading Lights

Two Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) students are working as interns this summer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Defense research and development center in Lexington.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory selected Douglas Bednarczyk and Shane Richardson, students from the Optics and Photonics Technology program at STCC. They are interning at the Lexington facility through August.

Richardson earned his associate degree from STCC in May, but will return this fall to take additional classes. Bednarcyzk finished his first year in the two-year Optics and Photonics Technology program and hopes to earn his associate degree in spring 2020.

Students in the Optics and Photonics Technology program learn about the practical applications of light, optics, and electronics. High-tech applications include lasers, fiber optics, holography, laser materials processing, optical systems, and more.

“Students in the Optics and Photonics Technology program at STCC train on state-of-the-art equipment used in many commercial laboratories,” said Nicholas Massa, department chair for Optics and Photonics Technology. “There aren’t any other associate-degree programs like ours in the region. That’s why companies approach us. They discover our students know how to use the laser equipment and know the theory. They’re ready to go to work.”

Massa said there are not enough trained candidates to meet the demand for jobs in the optics and photonics industry.

“I get calls every day from companies asking about candidates for internships and full-time positions. Nearly all of my students who graduate from the program get hired, and they often get multiple job offers,” he said. “After you get a degree in Optics and Photonics Technology, you can land a job that pays between $40,000 and $60,000 a year to start, and you go up from there.”

Bednarczyk is a third-generation STCC student. His grandfather studied electrical engineering technology, and his father graduated from a biomedical technology program. He looked into the optics and photonics technology after reading an article about STCC’s program.

“I enjoy the program,” he said. “It’s really engaging and hands-on. I’m not the type of kid that was meant to sit behind a computer all day. To use the laser-etching and marking systems we have, I think that’s a blast.”

Meanwhile, Richardson came to the Optics and Photonics Technology program with a bachelor’s degree in theater from a university in California. At STCC, Richardson had the opportunity to study with a mentor, Eric Lim, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

“As a hiring manager, I’ve been impressed with the quality of students who came out of this program,” said Lim, who worked at a laser-technology company. “It was exciting to find a student who was hands-on and interested in laser physics, something I had trained for in my graduate days. So I was very happy to mentor Shane.”

For his class project at STCC, Richardson experimented with converting invisible infrared light into visible green light.

“In order to change light to interact with anything, we have to change the wavelength, and that is what this whole experiment was about,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much I was going to enjoy the program or how beneficial it was going to be. It was a nice fit. I like the people here, and I like the atmosphere. Not many people know about optics and photonics technology.”