Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Morgan Stanley announced that John Pappas, a senior vice president and financial advisor in its Wealth Management office in Springfield, has been named to the firm’s prestigious Century Club, an elite group composed of the firm’s top financial advisors. The appointment recognizes his consistent creativity and excellence in providing a wide range of investment products and wealth-management services to his clients.

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management provides access to a wide range of products and services to individuals, businesses, and institutions, including brokerage and investment advisory services, financial and wealth planning, cash management and lending products and services, annuities and insurance, and retirement and trust services.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Dress for Success Western Massachusetts announced the addition of four new members to its board of directors.

“These women will be a great addition to our board,” said Jessica Dupont, the organization’s president. “They each bring a unique skill set and perspective to the organization. We are honored to have them join our leadership team and help us advance the organization.”

Nikki Burnett brings more than 20 years of program coordination, board management, and volunteer engagement to the Dress for Success board of directors. She is currently the executive director of Educare in Springfield and has also worked at the American Heart Assoc. and Baystate Medical Center.

Mariangeliz Fines-Delbrey is a previous client of Dress for Success and has worked for the last 13 years in patient care in the Springfield area, and is also a one-on-one special-education paraprofessional. She has been an advocate for patients and their families and has completed many trainings and certifications to further her education and ability to provide outreach to the community.

Jenary Merced is also a previous client of Dress for Success and brings a wealth of community work and volunteer experience to the board. She has worked in higher education for the last five years, most recently as a community outreach and admissions counselor at Springfield Technical Community College.

Myra Quick brings many years of experience in employee development and volunteer recruitment and is currently the CEO and president of Fast Forward Learning and Development. She holds certifications from the Society of Human Resources Management and the Assoc. for Training and Development, among others.

Dress for Success Western Massachusetts is part of a worldwide nonprofit organization whose overall mission is to help women journey toward self-sufficiency. More than suiting its clients, the organization offers programs including mentoring and interview training to area women seeking meaningful employment.

Daily News

NORTH ADAMS — Caren Beilin, an assistant professor in the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) English & Communications Department, will offer a free community conversation via Zoom on Tuesday, March 9 at 5:30 p.m., in her role as this spring semester’s Hardman Scholar-in-Residence.

This event is free and open to the public; visit bit.ly/MCLAHardman to register. Beilin will also present a faculty talk via Zoom at noon on March 9.

Beilin is a creative writer working at the intersection of feminism and disability poetics. She is the author of the nonfiction book Blackfishing the IUD, a CLMP Firecracker Award nominee. Her other books include a memoir, Spain, and a novel, The University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to her work as a professor and author, Beilin has developed a new residency program in coordination with MASS MoCA that will invite young, emerging writers into the MCLA and North Adams community. Her talk will highlight this new programming and the ways the Hardman Special Initiative funding has been key to its launch.

Made possible through the Hardman Family Endowment, this series, which also includes the annual fall Hardman Lecture, presents in-depth discussions with some of the leading journalists of our time.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Davis Foundation recently awarded Christina’s House with a $15,000 grant to do what it does best — giving a hand up to homeless and near-homeless women and their children. A largely underserved population, these women and their families will stay with Christina’s House for 18 months to two years while they establish healthy living habits, become employed, and earn a GED or job training for upward mobility in the workforce.

Paul Belsito, executive director at the Davis Foundation, and Magnus Monroe, grants and project manager, met with the organization in early fall to better understand how the foundation could support Christina’s House. The Davis Foundation, long known in the community for its educational agenda, found a fit, and the board voted to approve and provide much-needed funds to help the organization through a tough year.

“Each family represents a corner of our community where services don’t reach,” said Shannon Mumblo, executive director at Christina’s House. “Largely overwhelmed by life circumstances, we find them managing on their own as head of household with little or no income.” Sometimes they are doubled up with families or friends, she explained, or in an abusive environment. Sometimes their only warmth and comfort is their community church. “We find them there.”

Linda Mumblo, founder and president of the organization since 2014, is well-known for describing this much-needed intervention like this: “we give them a hand up, not a handout.”

Christina’s House provides transitional housing and social services for homeless or near-homeless mothers and children. It educates, embraces, and encourages families in the program with the life skills needed to become self-sufficient as they transition from homelessness to stable environments. The organization also helps each mother seek, obtain, and maintain employment once accepted into the program, and promotes occupational advancement through résumé writing and job-skills training.

Cover Story COVID-19

What We’ve Learned, What’s Changed, What’s Changed Forever

One year ago, the world, or at least our little corner of it, stopped. Completely.

Well, almost completely. Better to say that it paused — big time. The COVID-19 pandemic had arrived in the 413 and elsewhere, and life as we knew it had given way to something else. Something much different. Something the likes of which we had never seen or dealt with before.

The cover of the March 16, 2020 issue of BusinessWest captured it perfectly. Above a set of empty conference-room chairs was the headline “Life in Limbo.”

Almost exactly a year later … the chairs in the conference room are, for the most part, still empty. In some cases, they haven’t moved or been sat in since last March. They sit, waiting for people, and normalcy — whatever the heck that is — to return.

The fact is, we don’t know what ‘normal’ will be moving forward. In many respects, we don’t know exactly how COVID will reshape the landscape and the workplace, higher education, and the medical center down the street. We don’t know how it will impact the delicate work/life balance moving forward, and we don’t exactly know how it will permanently change how we work, network, gather, and interact with others.

But we can certainly talk about, and for the one-year anniversary of COVID (nothing to celebrate, that’s for sure), we did. BusinessWest gathered leaders with six area businesses and institutions to talk about the many ways COVID has changed our work and our lives, how it is impacting the workplace (and will for years to come), and even how it is has made them all different and, in their view, better managers.

 

They’re calling it the ‘Zen room.’

That’s an apt name for an area being set aside at Mercy Medical Center at which employees can decompress and, hopefully, remove some of the stress from their lives, at least for a while.

“We want to offer space that’s extremely tranquil — it will have massage chairs and soothing color schemes,” said Deborah Bitsoli, the hospital’s president, noting that it should be ready for use soon. “It will literally be Zen-like; it’s a best practice, and it can actually be brought across different industries.”

This Zen room wasn’t created because of the pandemic, necessarily, but rather because of the way it helped crystalize the large amounts of stress people are under even in normal times, and how they need rooms like this. And it is just one example of how the pandemic has brought about change in the workplace and change in society in general.

Other examples include that same hospital offering what it calls ‘resiliency training’; a local bank interviewing — and strongly considering — a job candidate living in Florida who has no intention of moving here; and employers spending considerable time and energy on the questions involving whether employees come back to the office, when, how, and under what circumstances.

These are some of things we learned during a lengthy virtual roundtable involving six area business leaders: Bitsoli; Mary-Beth Cooper, president of Springfield College; Robert Johnson, president of Western New England University; Jennifer Rymarski, a partner with the regional law firm Morrison Mahoney; Tom Senecal, president and CEO of PeoplesBank; and Paul Stelzer, president of Holyoke-based Appleton Corp., a property-management firm that has many elder-care facilities in its portfolio.

This was a Q&A, but also a lively discussion, with the dialogue focused on not only what’s happening today, but what will happen moving forward because of what we’ve experienced, what we’ve learned, and what we’ve changed over the tumultuous and very difficult past 12 months. Here’s a somewhat condensed version of how it went.

 

BusinessWest: The phrase we’re hearing over and over and over again is that there is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes this pandemic and all that has come with it. Are you seeing that light, and, well, how much tunnel do we still have to go through? What are you seeing in your business?

 

Bitsoli: These are challenging and unprecedented times, and at Mercy, we’ve really tried to adapt to a new norm. We have many new processes and structures that, as someone who has dedicated their life to healthcare since the age of 16, I never thought I’d see. We’ve also opened our doors to give vaccines to the public based on the Department of Health criteria; to see tears in people’s eyes as they get a vaccine is something I’ll cherish for many, many years.

We’ve balancing the needs of the community and keeping people safe, but we’re also looking to the future and how we can more provide enhanced services to the community. We’re trying to balance the present and the future.

 

Cooper: This is our third semester in the pandemic, and we’re adapting. We are back on campus, we’re fully residential, and we had our first athletic contest recently — the men’s gymnastics team played Cal. So, yes, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. When we thought about the pandemic and what we needed to do, we had to pivot, just like healthcare; we didn’t imagine going online as quickly as we did, but we made it happen. The biggest takeaway for me thus far, and moving forward, has been the resiliency our faculty and students, in particular, have demonstrated.

 

Johnson: We’re in good shape for the shape we’re in, and like others, we do see a light at the end of the tunnel. As for what’s changed for our organization, we’re future-focused; we’re looking at how we want to come out of this. We’ve been planning for the next five years at Western New England since last September. We have not taken the bunker mentality of waiting for the storm to pass and then figure out what we want to do. We’ve created a vision; we want to be a ‘new traditional university,’ a phrase we’ve coined here and that we’ll define in the upcoming weeks and months to come, and imagine the possibilities.

That’s because higher education, like healthcare, has been turned upside-down; we’re reimagining ourselves, and we think the best is yet to come. It’s tough, though … we’re in a very tough environment.

 

Rymarski: We all have our own struggles, and the law is not immune to it. The biggest impact has been access to the courts and how the courts have adjusted — a lot of litigation is driven by the court schedule, and having the courts shut down for a period of time has had an impact. Also, we’ve gotten a lot of calls on the employment aspects of this pandemic — small businesses, and all businesses, for that matter, are struggling to deal with smaller staffs, how a PPP loan impacts them, what they’re going to do under the Family First or CARES Act, how they’re going to get employees back, and how they implement policies and procedures across the board that are going to be fair but also abide by all of the regulations.

 

Senecal: When this whole thing started right around March 9 — I remember that date vividly — I think I stopped breathing sometime in the middle of March, and I was resuscitated sometime in June, because it looked really bad from my perspective. June came around, summer came along, and things started to look a lot better. Then fall came around, and as cases picked up, that started to have an economic impact on a lot of our customers.

To put things in perspective, we had probably $300 million in loan balances involving customers in that first month asking, ‘can we not pay you?’ And we responded like most community banks and said, ‘yes, no problem; let’s revisit in 90 days.’ I think we’re down to $70 million, which allows me to start breathing again, and most of that $70 million is in the hospitality industry — transportation, restaurants — which is still struggling. I’m not sure where the light is at the end of the tunnel for those industries, because they’re hanging by a thread, and I’m not sure how they’re going to come back. From our banking perspective, we’re operating in a different world; we had to pivot, we had to send 180 people home, and that’s hard to do in retail banking. And if any of you have done your banking, I apologize for us — and I know our competitors are the same way — that the drive-ups are ridiculously backed up. Overall, things are going OK, but it doesn’t feel very good.

Tom Senecal

Tom Senecal

“I’ve flip-flopped on this throughout the year, but, yeah, we’re coming back. The social-interaction part of this is lost with people working at home; you can’t create a corporate culture from a remote location.”

 

Stelzer: At Appleton, we’ve morphed from emergency-response protocols in March to highly organized COVID-19 protocols in our elderly/senior/multi-family apartment communities and in our commercial portfolio that we manage, which is about 2 million square feet. In short, we’re operating at high levels; we’re able to do that even with a chunk of the workforce being remote. All of our employees have had to learn a new COVID language and new COVID protocols amid all the important tasks they already do.

Overall, there’s a lot of good news coming out, but how we’re doing is still a daily question; while the vaccine rollout is encouraging, it’s still going to take some time. But, yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

BusinessWest: During the pandemic, people have worked remotely, and successfully. As we all look toward the day when something approaching normal returns, how will, or should, companies approach work and the question of bringing people back to the office?

 

Senecal: We have 350 employees, and about half of them are working from home. I’ve flip-flopped on this throughout the year, but, yeah, we’re coming back. The social-interaction part of this is lost with people working at home; you can’t create a corporate culture from a remote location. Beyond that, there’s the human connection — staying home is not good for mental health. But I’m for some sort of balance; if your job allows it, you can work from home — we’ve proven that. I do think the outcome of this is that there will be a balance. From a workforce perspective, we’ve had a hard time recruiting people for some key positions, and we’ve re-evaluated to say, ‘no, you don’t have to be in the office.’ We’re interviewing someone today who lives in Florida who may be able to work from home for us; we’ve never, ever considered that before, and we are.

 

Cooper: When it comes to students … there were some questions pre-pandemic about the value of higher education. And I would say to you that our students are saying loud and clear that they want to be in person, face to face, they want to play sports, they want to interact with mentors like faculty members and staff members. We’re studying this … we’re looking at what the future will look like and how we bring people back safely. Some people never wanted to work at home, and now some of those same people want to stay where they are. That’s a risk to our business model; we need to have the interaction between students and mentors that shape them moving forward to be strong employees in the fields we have represented on this panel. The synergy of having people together, the opportunity to come up with ideas and piggyback on them together, and just the joy of being in the workplace, it’s difficult to get all of that on a call or on Zoom.

Mary-Beth Cooper

Mary-Beth Cooper

“The synergy of having people together, the opportunity to come up with ideas and piggyback on them together, and just the joy of being in the workplace, it’s difficult to get all of that on a call or on Zoom .”

Johnson: One of the things I’ve been big on over the past decade is preparing students for the future of work and making sure they had the essential skills that could not be replicated by robots. This pandemic has put us in a place where we, as employers, with our employees, have to do the same thing. I don’t think it’s an either/or when it comes to Zoom or face to face. The question is, ‘how do we use that technology to complement our ability be more efficient in the workplace?’ On college and university campuses, we need to be face to face and on the ground, but I can now give my employees some flexibility; it’s not 8 to 5. If they have a soccer game or child care doesn’t show up that day, we’ve shown that that we can get work done with people working from home. As managers, we have to teach people how to work with their teams and their staffs to give them that work-life balance. Overall, I think the pandemic has merely accelerated what was inevitable anyhow.

 

Rymarski: I agree with the others when they say that synergy, flow, and the social and cultural aspects are missing when people don’t come to the office. I think about the new employees who came on board just before the pandemic, and not having them in the office and having them shadowing someone every single day for a week or two to learn what needs to be done. I think that has impacted them. At the same time, this pandemic has, indeed, accelerated a process that was inevitable. I think the challenge is handling all this; we’ve basically condensed down what we need to do to a very short time, and employers are struggling to manage the expectations of every person.

 

BusinessWest: From what’s been said so far, it seems that the pandemic has brought the issue of work/life balance into the forefront as perhaps never before. Talk about if and how this crisis has provided more impetus for employers to help their employees with this challenge and cope in general.

 

Cooper: The need to be compassionate and caring for your employees has never been higher. These employees are dealing with losses — children that they haven’t seen, aging parents that they can’t see … the human toll is very high.

 

Johnson: I would agree with that wholeheartedly. We talk about work/life balance, and we’ve been talking about it for a long time. One of the things we’ve learned is that, before, managers would have said, ‘you can’t have that work/life balance; you have to be here all the time when you’re supposed to be here.’ But when we had to flip on a dime and make this thing work, it’s amazing how resilient we really are. The human toll that this is taking on people is huge, and we have to give our employees some time to breathe when this is all said and done. I know eight people who have died since last March. When I said that on a Zoom call, people started tearing up, because they’ve had those same kinds of experiences and no way to grieve. Part of this equation is that we have to figure out in our organization what that grieving process looks like, and what is the path forward.

 

Stelzer: What I think is really important going forward in the work/life balance issue is not only their own personal situations, but how do you get people to understand that they don’t need to work 14 hours a day at home? A lot of people dove into their work because they could. I’ve talked with a lot of tenant companies, service providers, attorneys, CPAs, whatever, and they’re all working longer hours than they ever were before. This is something we have to keep on the radar moving forward; if you’re going to remain in a quasi-remote-work environment, how do you find balance and work 9 to 5? (Or 9 to 7 — no one really works 9 to 5.) How do you shut it off?

Jennifer Rymarski

Jennifer Rymarski

“I think about the new employees who came on board just before the pandemic, and not having them in the office and having them shadowing someone every single day for a week or two to learn what needs to be done. I think that has impacted them.”

Bitsoli: The one thing that we all have in common is that our workforce is our most precious asset; it’s what makes us able to do the things we do. And these people are hurting right now. Last Friday, I came in early in the morning and was rounding in the ICU; there was a nurse who had just lost a COVID patient. She was relatively young, and she was weeping. We need to allow people to grieve in these unprecedented times because we haven’t seen this in our lifetime. People need the ability to express themselves. On the mental side, we need to allow them to talk, and we need to listen. And we need to support our management team and train them on how to do that.

The other thing that’s very unique about this is that many people have aging parents who are in nursing homes, and there’s social isolation — they can’t visit their parents. So not only do they have child-care issues, they are so concerned about their aging parents, and yet they can’t get in to to see them. But beyond the mental, there’s also the physical, and that’s why we’re opening the Zen room, where people can go for 15 minutes and just decompress.

 

BusinessWest: You’re probably all very tired of hearing that phrase ‘new normal’ by now. But please try to project what the new normal will be in your industry and in business in general.

 

Johnson: The new normal in higher education is that we have to rethink and reimagine our business model so that we are financially viable while also meeting the needs of our students. Also, before, we used to be able to operate with 80% or 90% of certainty and 10% or 20% of ambiguity. The new normal is … we’re going to be in a world of ambiguity where it’s more like 50-50 for years to come. The new normal for us also in our industry will be, how do we address and deal with the mental-health challenges of our current students, our future students, and our employees?

And let me really focus on future students — students who will be enrolling in our institution two or three years from now will have spent their freshman and sophomore years [of high school] basically learning remotely, and that B+ or A- in Calculus in their junior and senior year won’t be the same B+ or A- it was four or five years ago. So students will be coming to us with academic deficits, emotional deficits, anxiety deficits, and we’re going to have to think about how to retool and restructure ourselves to meet their needs on our campuses. And we all have to be focused on the future of work in terms of educating this next generation of students for jobs that don’t exist, utilizing technologies that haven’t been created, to solve problems that haven’t been identified.

Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson

“The human toll that this is taking on people is huge, and we have to give our employees some time to breathe when this is all said and done.”

Cooper: Moving forward, we have to focus on the 4 Vs of higher education, and any not-for-profit, caring organization. Value — you need courageous leaders who are thinking not only about work-life balance, but the human element. Virtual — we’re going to have a hybrid mix. We’ve seen that in all the trends, and that’s good; there’s demand for it, some students really like it, and some faculty like it. Virtuous — we’re going to need to continue to be people-centered. For us to move forward, the colleges and the universities that will survive are the ones that are student-centered, that continue to be students at the forefront. And we have to go Viral — we have to find a way to tell our story, whether it’s through discussions like this, through social media, or through our students and faculty.

From my perspective, it’s all about leadership, virtual presence, telling the story, and staying close to your mission.

 

Senecal: The new norm in the banking business? I don’t want to get too granular, but the future of our business is very different. There are a little under 5,000 banks in this country — I project that in five to seven years, there will be fewer than 2,500 banks. It will be a digital world. I think you’ll see far fewer branches — you’ll see more and more branches closing.

And from a workforce-development perspective, technology is going to be a huge piece of what we do, and certainly on the mental-health side, I see employers having to be more flexible and understanding with their workforce. PeoplesBank has done that very well over the years; we’re just going to have to adapt a lot more quickly. Workforce skills are going to have to adapt tremendously for all our industries; we’re moving toward a more technology-driven world. It’s already changed for us — we’ve seen a huge change in the last nine months. Our numbers in the digital perspective and how people utilize their banking services has shifted 20% to 30% utilization that is totally digital. If you weren’t there before the crisis, you’re going to fall behind from an industry perspective. My perspective is that things are going to change; things are going to be very different than they are now.

Deborah Bitsoli

Deborah Bitsoli

“The one thing that we all have in common is that our workforce is our most precious asset; it’s what makes us able to do the things we do. And these people are hurting right now.”

Stelzer: ‘New normal’ is an interesting phrase, but there’s nothing normal about this. As we stabilize, as more vaccine gets out, I agree with the panel — resiliency is huge. In our industry, specifically our senior/elderly portfolio, you’re going to see a lot more ‘healthy housing’ initiatives, as we’re calling them, which is a combination of telehealth for seniors and more on-site clinics for seniors. You’re going to see a whole difference in the way legacy elderly/senior property providers handle their air flow, their air circulation, and keep any inflection to a low level.

Also, on the digital side … think about how we stood the country up on the backs of broadband — it’s nothing short of amazing in all of our industries, from higher ed to telehealth to property management and banking. And we couldn’t have done that 20 years ago. My one concern there is the digital divide. What happens next with broadband becomes a very important discussion; there’s already discussion in the State House about making broadband a normal utility and not a private service.

 

Bitsoli: On the healthcare front, we need to continue to have a laser focus on the resiliency and well-being of our colleagues and our employees — they’re the most valuable asset that any of us has. And as this virus evolves, as there are variants, and as there are future viruses, there is a daily drive here around clinical excellence and patient safety and quality where we may have to continue to adapt that clinical model.

I never thought I’d see the day when 100% of the patients are being swabbed for a virus … so, for me, looking at the clinical excellence and keeping the public safe with high-quality care, and how this virus evolves, we’re going to have to be able to adapt to whatever the future holds for us to keep the community safe.”

 

BusinessWest: Much has been made about how to manage, and manage effectively, in a time of crisis. How has the crisis tested you? What have you learned about yourself, as a person and a manager? And has this made you a better manager?

 

Cooper: Let me say, my patience has been tested, certainly, since last March, and I’m working hard at meeting people where they’re at and listening and trying to slow down. And I’m also trying to be a good role model — not having Zooms on Sunday and carving out time for family. To lead during this turbulent time, you have to be self-aware, and you have to take care of yourself. Whether it’s morning exercise or carving out parameters for when you will or will not be available — people are looking for you to role-model that.

Paul Stelzer

Paul Stelzer

“People recognize fake really quick, so you’ve got to be genuine, you’ve got to be honest with them, you’ve got to tell them how it is.”

Stelzer: The key word for me is empathy. All of us have had to really dig deep for the non-traditional ways of providing support — all kinds of support — to our people and managing and being empathetic to the extent that you can and still run your business. It’s critically important — people recognize fake really quick, so you’ve got to be genuine, you’ve got to be honest with them, you’ve got to tell them how it is. And I agree with Mary-Beth — you have to take care of yourself. We’ve all walked the halls of our houses and condos from 2 in the morning to 4 in the morning trying to figure out the next move. We’ve all been there.

 

Senecal: I agree with Paul; empathy is a great word to describe the difference between managing now and managing pre-COVID. We’re all living this horror, so to speak, and realizing that we all have different issues in our lives, between family members getting sick, or trying to work at home with kids at home trying to do schoolwork, with technology issues … pre-pandemic, we glossed over these things. During the pandemic, this home life is hugely important in people’s lives. I’ve come to listen more, but empathy is the word that comes to light; I’m trying to understand how to manage people.

 

Johnson: I would add another word in there, and that’s humanity. I’ve come to realize the importance of helping us all understand that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. Mary-Beth spoke earlier about how, among the college and university presidents, it has been the most collaborative environment that she’s ever seen; I’ve been in the Commonwealth for 11 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this, either. As CEOs, we tend to think that we’re at the center of the universe, but we’re not; we’re only as good as the people around us. And I understand what Mary-Beth means when she talks about patience. I generally don’t have much of an impacting gene, but it has developed since March of last year in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

 

Bitsoli: I’ve recognized just how precious life is, and I’m really stopping and forcing myself to be in the moment, to listen and engage, and slow down. But just as important is demonstrating that to my management team so that I’m also walking the talk in terms of saying to them, ‘life is precious; let’s have a better way of approaching our work life and recognize that life is very, very short and we have to respect and really take care of each other as colleagues.’

 

Rymarski: Patience, empathy, and flexibility are all words that come to mind. But also fairness. From the legal perspective, one of things that’s important as employers and managers is that we want to have a fair playing field, or as fair a playing field as we can. What you may have to do for one might be different than what you have to do for another, but there needs to some semblance of not only empathy, but also fairness and some structure to keep the organization together so that employees don’t become disgruntled with one another.

 

Bitsoli: Not only has this made me a better manager, it has made me a better person, and I think others on this panel would agree. I think I learned a lot about myself and about society, and, again, about the value of life. As a society, there are quite a few of us who have reflected in this way, and we’re better people overall.

 

Home Improvement Special Coverage

Backyard Experience

 

By Mark Morris

On a Thursday in February while snow fell on the region, Bob Schwein was answering a steady stream of phone calls at Drewnowski Pools.

Sure, some calls were from people who use their spas year-round, but many more inquiries were to schedule swimming-pool openings.

“Swimming-pool owners know that if they want to schedule a pool opening for Memorial Day, when thousands of other people want to open their pools, they need to schedule now,” said Schwein, sales manager for Drewnowski.

Early spring is typically when he receives calls to replace vinyl pool liners and to repair or renovate pools made from gunite, a concrete product used for many inground pools. “Repairs to gunite pools can take weeks, and people don’t want to interrupt the middle of their swimming season, so we usually schedule these early in the year.”

With his business growing over the last five years, Schwein said backyard pools are not what they used to be, particularly inground pools (see photo above).

“It used to be a rectangle with a three-foot concrete walk around the pool and a fence surrounding it by itself in the yard,” he noted. “Now, the pool is part of an entire backyard experience.”

That trend — toward creating an experience right outside the back door — is one that many different types of outdoor-improvement contractors can attest to, particularly during the era of COVID-19. BusinessWest spoke with several who said people are spending more money on their homes simply because they are spending more time at home.

The oft-heard story is that people were encouraged to only go out when necessary, and those who were fortunate enough to work from home during this time have been able to save some money, while also becoming more acutely aware of repairs and renovations they may have been putting off. As a result, many contractors reported their most successful year of business in 2020.

As many of the pandemic restrictions continue, people are not sure how long they will continue to work and attend school from home. It reminds Brian Rudd, owner of Vista Home Improvement, of the uncertainty that emerged during a different historic time.

“After 9/11, we saw people start to nest, and they began to see their home as their kingdom,” he said. “Since the pandemic, the desire to nest at home has happened to an even larger degree.”

“Right now, people are addressing the aesthetics of their houses because they are home more and able to address these things now.”

And they’ve been increasingly looking outside the home, not just inside. After a record year in 2020, Rudd reported that even more customers want new siding and new windows. “Right now, people are addressing the aesthetics of their houses because they are home more and able to address these things now.”

It’s not unusual for customers to call Dave Graziano, landscape project manager for Graziano Gardens, to replace old, overgrown plantings with new ones. Last year was different because, along with replacing old plantings, customers wanted to make other improvements to their property.

“Whether it was adding a big patio or simply hanging flower baskets, people wanted to create more outdoor living space, no matter how large or small their yard might be,” he said.

Brian Campedelli, president of Pioneer Landscaping, said his business doubled in 2020 because people decided to invest in their homes rather than vacations. “The money they would have spent on vacation instead went into their backyards, where we helped them create an outdoor entertainment area.”

Both Graziano and Campedelli noted that firepits have become one of the most popular additions to the backyard.

“While we build a lot of circular firepits, people are getting creative and asking us for square or triangular pits to match the seating they have around it,” Campedelli said.

A worker with Pioneer Landscaping places patio stones.

A worker with Pioneer Landscaping places patio stones.

Once considered only for warmer climates, outdoor kitchens are also a growing part of his business, with many designs incorporating a pizza oven.

“In the past, people would not build outdoor kitchens because of the short season to use them, but I don’t hear that as much anymore,” he said. “I think people are just going for it.”

 

Dive Right In

‘Going for it’ is an increasingly common mindset when it comes to buying an inground pool as well, Schwein noted.

While Drewnowski sells inground and above-ground pools, installation is handled by its parent company, Juliano Pools of Vernon, Conn. As busy as Juliano was last year, many who wanted pools couldn’t get them, due to higher demand than normal combined with shortages of materials and labor. Schwein said 2021 is off to a good start because those who couldn’t purchase last year can do so this year.

“We have a spillover of people from last year and new people who have decided to buy a pool this year, so I’m positive that combination will mean another banner year,” he told BusinessWest.

For years, many believed that houses with inground pools would be tough to sell. The red-hot real-estate market since last spring seems to have made that concern a moot point. Many first-time homebuyers are also first-time pool owners who are calling Schwein for advice on how to maintain their inground asset.

“From what I’ve seen, people are not afraid to buy a house with an existing pool. In fact, to many, it’s a selling point,” he said. While a typical home inspection does not cover the condition of a swimming pool, Drewnowski has pool inspectors available to help prospective buyers understand what they are getting.

With less inventory in the housing market, Rudd observed that many people choose to upgrade the house they have. By the same token, when people do purchase a home, they often come to see him, armed with plans.

“From what I’ve seen, people are not afraid to buy a house with an existing pool. In fact, to many, it’s a selling point.”

“When people move, they improve. And when they don’t move, they improve,” he said with a laugh.

Sprucing up a house isn’t complete until landscaping provides the final touch. In addition to landscaping services, Graziano Gardens has a retail store for those who want to tackle backyard projects themselves. Graziano saw new faces in the garden center last year, resulting in what he termed a “mini-explosion.”

“We sold out of trowels, shovels, gloves, watering cans, things we’ve never sold out of before,” he said. Also hard to come by were grown items such as hanging baskets, vegetable plants, and even evergreen hedges. “It seems like people just wanted to fill in that spot.”

Brian Campedelli says customers are looking for more creativity in firepit design.

Brian Campedelli says customers are looking for more creativity in firepit design.

Dry, warm temperatures early last spring, combined with parents and kids cooped up in their homes, might have led to a shortage in pool heaters. Schwein said he took many calls from exasperated parents who bought a heater and opened their pool earlier than usual to get their kids outside and squeeze a few more months out of the swimming season. That logic was fine until manufacturers ran into COVID issues and Schwein could no longer get them.

“The demand was high, and the supply was low,” he said. “Heaters are something that would normally take six days to get, but last year we ran into three-month delays.”

The pandemic also forced several contractors to find new ways to do business. A summer ritual for many involves periodic trips to the local swimming-pool retailer with samples of pool water to make sure the chemical balance keeps the water clean and safe. When COVID first hit, Schwein said, customers were no longer allowed into his store. “We had to change our business model.”

Specifically, customers left water samples outside the door where employees would test the sample and call the customer with a list of what chemicals were needed. After completing the transaction over the phone, an employee would deliver the chemicals to the customer’s house. Schwein admits it put a strain on his staff and customers, but everyone adjusted well.

“Our customers were able to get what they needed, but the way we had to do everything was different.”

When the pandemic first hit, Rudd and his staff were forced to become familiar with 10 years of new technology in less than three months. Beyond Zoom meetings, Vista consultants used satellite technology to measure houses for roofs and siding when they could not visit a client in person. While skeptical in the beginning, he now calls the technology “amazing.”

Dave Graziano says his garden center sold out of many popular plants last year.

Dave Graziano says his garden center sold out of many popular plants last year.

“I’m from the days of using a tape measure and a pencil, so at first I took comparison measurements to make sure the satellites were accurate,” he said. “It’s scary how accurate they are.”

Rudd enjoys using computer-design tools to give homeowners a good idea of how their space will look with improvements.

“We take a picture of the house, upload it into one of our applications, and change the house right in front of them,” he explained. “It leads to great interaction with the client and lets them have control of their purchase, with us there to guide them.”

Campedelli said it’s difficult for clients to envision a dramatic renovation of their backyard, so computer design goes a long way toward sealing the deal.

“Once they see the design, they want to move forward,” he noted, adding that, once the job is done, he enjoys how thrilled customers are with the result. “It changes their lives in a positive way.”

 

Getting Ahead

With spring around the corner, contractors are preparing for another busy year. Schwein pointed out that his phone is ringing now because customers have learned from the pandemic.

“Last year, people were patient and understood slowdowns due to COVID issues, so they are calling now because they don’t want to hear the COVID excuse this year,” he said.

After a busy 2020 as both a contractor and a retailer, Graziano’s main takeaway from last year was that people want to make their properties into their own oasis.

“Whether they do it themselves or they hire a landscape professional, I think that trend will continue through this year,” he said.

In the meantime, he’s got what he called a “good problem” — figuring out how many more shovels and watering cans to order for 2021.

Special Coverage Technology

A Critical Gap

 

Margaret Tantillo clearly remembers — honestly, who doesn’t? — the day Gov. Charlie Baker started shutting down the economy a year ago this month.

As the executive director of Dress for Success Western Massachusetts, an organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of women, she started calling participants in the days that followed, asking what issues they were having. One that kept coming up was access to the internet.

“If people are not connected, they’re going to be left behind in terms of being able to participate in the workforce,” Tantillo said.

So, identifying digital equity as connectivity, access to equipment, and the knowledge and ability to use software, Dress for Success enlisted a group of volunteers to form a digital task force, providing one-on-one coaching for about 40 women and providing more than 250 hours on the phone coaching.

“For the most part, we’re helping people operate on Zoom so they can participate in training and apply for jobs and interview virtually,” she said — just one way internet connectivity is a lifeline for people in these times.

Or, conversely, how lack of it can have a crushing impact.

It’s an issue that has received more attention during the pandemic, as tens of millions of Americans have struggled with remote learning, telehealth, and the ability to work from home because they lack access to fast, reliable internet service.

This ‘digital divide,’ as its commonly known, is not a new phenomenon, but the way COVID-19 has laid bare the problem is forcing lawmakers and others to see it in a new light.

“There are still communities in Western Mass. that don’t have high-speed internet access, or internet at all,” said state Sen. Eric Lesser, who has long championed this cause. “Frankly, in the year 2021, that’s a national embarrassment.”

State leaders haven’t ignored the issue, including tens of millions of dollars for infrastructure in bond authorizations over multiple budgets and economic-development bills, Lesser said, and Gov. Baker has set a goal to reach every community.

State Sen. Eric Lesser

State Sen. Eric Lesser calls the lack of connectivity in some Bay State towns “a national embarrassment.”

“But, frankly, the fact that we have communities that don’t have broadband internet access raises very profound questions about how a high-tech state like Massachusetts, in this day and age, can allow that to happen.”

As president and CEO of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, Rick Sullivan said the EDC has long taken the position — even before COVID-19 made it a more pressing issue — that the state needs to bring internet connectivity into every city and town. He noted that Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration started building the backbone, and the Baker administration has been diligent in making sure communities get financing to execute plans to bring broadband to their residents.

“For a lot of the smaller communities, that is probably the single biggest opportunity they have for economic development in the region,” Sullivan said. “People can choose to work from home, but they need to have the access that helps people choose to live in those communities, and it makes it easier to sell your properties, and that increases values in small towns.”

But even large cities have a digital divide, he added, which has been exposed to a greater extent by COVID-19.

Tantillo noted that, according to Census data from last year, 31% of households in Springfield have no internet access, and 37% don’t even have a computer. That means no remote work, no remote education, no telehealth, no … well, the list goes on.

These digital-divide issue arose during a public hearing last week in Springfield on the relicensing of Comcast. “Parts of Springfield need better connection,” Sullivan said. “The mayor was clear in his opening statements that this was an issue they would be taking a look at. But in every city and town, there are some connectivity issues that clearly need to be addressed.”

Learning Lessons

Yves Salomon-Fernández, president of Greenfield Community College (GCC), understood the need for connectivity before students began attending classes remotely last spring, but that move more clearly exposed the scope of the issue.

“The digital divide is real, especially in certain areas of Franklin County and in the hilltowns. Even in the city of Greenfield, there are places with spotty internet access, and with all of us being on Zoom right now, it slows down the connectivity we have for our faculty, staff, and students,” she added, noting that GCC had to purchase technology for many of them to teach and learn remotely.

“We also have students who are housing-insecure and may not have access to the internet. We gave them a hotspot if they have no cellphone service, and we have accommodated them on campus in various ways.”

She noted that even parts of the GCC campus contain dead zones where cellphones won’t work; the college has a phone tree set up for emergency alerts because cellular connectivity isn’t a given everywhere.

“If the college, a critical institution and a community asset, has these issues,” she said, “imagine what it’s like for small businesses and individuals.”

The flawed vaccine rollout in Massachusetts (see story on page 40) has laid bare another impact of the digital divide: access to vaccination appointments. Even if the state’s website wasn’t confusing or prone to crashing early on, Lesser said, it still wasn’t acceptable to make it the only option to sign up, which is why he and other legislators have pushed for a phone option, which was implented last month.

“You were pretty much shutting out a whole community of people, especially the 75-and-older category, when you set up a system that’s website-only,” he noted.

But vaccine distribution will be completed over the coming months; what won’t change are the other reasons people need to access the internet from home. Solving the issue won’t be easy with the patchwork of different levels of responsibility — towns, the state, FCC regulators on the federal level — when it comes to regulating contracts and service arrangements.

That’s why Lesser is high on municipal broadband, offered by a city to its residents like a public utility — an initiative that Chicopee and Westfield have undertaken, to name two local projects. “It really is like the water or electricity of the 21st century, that’s delivered by the city as well.”

More such municipal projects will also increase competition, he said, which could force other providers to lower their prices and boost speed.

Even people who have internet access through large companies often deal with higher costs than they can easily afford, Lesser said. “The costs are astronomical in the U.S. — people pay much more per month than in Europe or Asia.”

Therefore, “the state needs to look at ways to open the market more and create more competition,” he added, and that could simply entail putting more pressure on big internet companies.

“The problem is, internet service is left to the private sector when it’s a public good,” he said. “It doesn’t make economic sense for big companies to invest in infrastructure to get the internet turned on in small communities. The state may have to mandate they have to make those investments if they want to provide service for bigger locations.”

An Issue of Equity

Tantillo agrees with Lesser that society should be looking at connectivity as a utility and a basic, affordable service, but goes a step further.

Margaret Tantillo says the digital divide, if not rectified, could leave generations behind when it comes to economic opportunity.

Margaret Tantillo says the digital divide, if not rectified, could leave generations behind when it comes to economic opportunity.

“From an equity perspective, this disproportionately impacts women and people of color, so it’s also a social-justice issue,” she said. “But a crisis like this is also a big opportunity to be transformative. Springfield is considered the city of innovation. With a bold solution and reallocating resources, who knows what this community can transform into, if everyone has the opportunity to participate equally in online banking, telehealth, access to jobs, even to engage civically?”

Salomon-Fernández agreed. “In this day and age, it’s also an equity issue when you have people disconnected from the rest of the world. In the United States of America, and in one of the most technologically advanced states in the country, that’s a concern.”

And a particularly acute one, she added, in Franklin County, which contains some of the more rural and economically marginalized towns in the state. The impact isn’t just a problem in the present — it can have long-term effects.

“The world is increasingly globalized, and not being connected has negative repercussions on communities,” she added. “We are creating an underclass of people not able to take full advantage of economic possibilities through digitalization and connectivity. That has real effects, not just on teaching and learning, but also on the vibrancy of our whole region.”

The Federal Communications Commission’s latest broadband deployment report concluded that the “digital divide is rapidly closing.” But some voices in that agency are more hesitant.

“If this crisis has revealed anything, it is the hard truth that the digital divide is very real and very big,” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement released along with the report last month. “It confounds logic that today the FCC decides to release a report that says that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”

The most recent available data from Pew Research, published in 2019, found that around 27% of Americans don’t have home broadband. That percentage is higher for Americans whose annual income is less than $30,000 (44%), black and Hispanic Americans (34% and 39%, respectively), rural Americans (37%), and those with a high-school education or less (44%).

Pew also reported, from a survey conducted last April, that 22% of parents — 40% in low-income families — whose children were learning remotely say they have to use public wi-fi because they lack a reliable internet connection at home.

Sullivan noted that some companies, like Comcast, and municipal utilities in cities like Holyoke and Westfield have made connectivity available to school children during the pandemic, which has been important.

“But going forward, it needs to be universal, and everyone needs to be able to have access,” he said. “It’s so important for education and for economic-development opportunities in every city and town. If we had that, combined with our quality of life and the cost of living we have here in Western Mass., we could be a place where people choose to live and work from home.”

Opening Eyes

Proponents of improved internet access in Massachusetts say COVID-19 certainly made the digital divide more evident, but it certainly didn’t cause it.

“I think it exacerbated that problem,” Tantillo said. “The digital divide has now become a chasm. And if we don’t solve it, generations will be left behind. I think people are more aware of that, so people are more invested in solving it.”

That awareness is critical, she said, in generating the kind of momentum that will move decision makers.

“It’s the plumbing of the 21st century, and the pandemic showed this,” Lesser said. “Vital services like education and, increasingly, healthcare, with the rise of telehealth, are critical services delivered to people through the internet. We’ve operated through a prism of treating this like DirecTV or cable television, like entertainment, an extra in your house. And that’s just not the case anymore.”

For many Americans, Tantillo added, connectivity is something to be taken for granted, but more people are realizing that’s just not the case.

“If I’m sitting there with my laptop, I’m not thinking about the 50,000 residents in Springfield without connectivity — I’m thinking about my own needs. But this is being exposed on a broader level.”

She understands — and has expressed — the negative impact of not being connected, but prefers to couch the issue in a more hopeful, visionary way.

“We know what the ramifications are if we don’t fix the problem of the digital divide,” Tantillo said. “But here’s the amazing thing: we don’t know all the opportunities and how we can transform communities when we fix this and provide digital equity for everyone.”

Salomon-Fernández certainly hopes that happens.

“I think the pandemic has laid bare a lot of the fissures, the inaccessibility and inequity in our democracy, and also the ability of different folks in different regions to reach the same levels of economic prosperity,” she said. “While many people may not have been concerned about them pre-pandemic, it’s obvious now that the cracks are wide open. Hopefully it’s an opportunity for us.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Manufacturing Special Coverage

Machine Learning

Mary Bidwell says hands-on training will always be critical, but the pandemic taught ACC about what can be accomplished remotely as well.

 

As pivots go, this one was pretty smooth, Mary Bidwell says.

But that’s fitting for an academic program built on precision.

It was almost a year ago — March 13, to be exact — when Asnuntuck Community College (ACC) sent everyone home, including students in its Advanced Manufacturing Technology program, which Bidwell serves as interim dean.

“We finished online through April and the end of May, and by the beginning of June, we were able to open back up,” she said, adding that students were able to finish their hands-on training in fields like welding and mechatronics on campus through the summer. “We were one of the first departments back on the ground.”

In the meantime, the program reinvented itself in some ways, turning to online content in ways professors and administrators hadn’t considered before, not only in classwork for the student body, but in community-focused courses for area workers seeking to boost their skills.

“We’ve pivoted well and created online content, we created hybrid models, we got students back in, and we’ve got good safety protocols in play — and we’re looking forward to getting even more students on the ground,” she told BusinessWest. “And now we have this whole portfolio of online opportunities we didn’t have before, and we’ve diversified what we can offer the community, which is great.”

Innovation and adaptation are not foreign concepts in the field of advanced manufacturing, or at ACC, which has become a robust collegiate pipeline into the manufacturing workforce.

The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center at ACC has been around for almost a quarter-century, but it received a major overhaul four years ago with the opening of a 27,000-square-foot addition, more than doubling its space to about 50,000 square feet. It includes an 11,000-square-foot machining lab with 90 computerized numeric control (CNC) and manual machines, an additive-manufacturing lab equipped for both plastic and metal 3D printing, a metrology lab featuring computerized measuring machines, state-of-the-art computer labs — and a whole lot more.

But the center’s most impressive offering may be its partnerships with area manufacturers, who have guided ACC in crafting its certificate program as a way to get skilled workers in their doors quickly — typically at salaries starting around $50,000 or higher.

The program has created work opportunities for both young people and career changers, and addressed what has been a persistent lack of qualified employees these companies need to grow. Normally, advanced manufacturers are looking for people with three to five years of experience. But ACC students are interning during their second semester and being hired for jobs immediately after, at good salaries. The reason is that the curriculum is customized according to industry needs.

Companies can then build on that training, hiring certificate holders, further training them up, and often providing additional education opportunities along with that full-time paycheck.

“People are always thinking about four-year degrees, but if your pathway is through community college, your debt can be so much less,” Bidwell said. “That’s such an opportunity: to start a career and have someone else pay for it.”

Even though the pandemic has temporarily slowed demand for workers at some companies, Bidwell and her team — and the industry in general — believe that’s not likely to continue, especially with an aging workforce in many corners.

“You still hear about the silver tsunami,” she said. “We need to have people ready when they’re needed.”

 

Working Through It

The pandemic has slowed the pace of business in industries like aerospace and at regional anchor companies like Sikorsky Aircraft, mainly due to supply-chain issues dating back to last spring, but students in all three of ACC’s advanced-manufacturing areas — welding, machining, and robotics/mechatronics — are finding jobs, Bidwell said.

“It seems like the staffing agencies have been a source lately that, at times in the past, we didn’t use as much because of our direct contacts,” she said. “But students are getting placed; they’re still going into companies we’ve always worked with.”

Enrollment in the program is about 60% what it usually is, she added. “We did lose students because people just don’t want to go online at all — they want to get back on the ground. Hopefully we’ll see that return for the fall and definitely next spring as vaccines roll out further.”

The numbers aren’t really a problem, though, because of capacity and social-distancing rules on campus. Students have engaged in a hybrid model this year, with some remote instruction and the necessary hands-on training on campus. As expanded vaccination hopefully leads to herd immunity, Bidwell is confident that those limits can be lifted next year, but the college will plan for all contingencies, including more hybrid learning.

The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center at ACC has 50,000 square feet of space devoted to robotics and mechatronics, machining, and welding.

The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center at ACC has 50,000 square feet of space devoted to robotics and mechatronics, machining, and welding.

“We’ve proven we can do it, and people have been successful,” she said, adding that the marketing message has been, “people wear their mask and social distance, and you don’t have to stop your education. We’re here for you, and jobs are waiting. As we head into summer and fall, people who want to go to school and get that education, they can.”

While student ages can range from 18 to 65, the average age at the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center during the Great Recession, when many more people were looking to switch careers, was around 45. Today, it’s under 30, but no matter the age, the idea is to equip students with a strong foundation from which they can grow into any number of careers.

That foundation begins with a hands-on approach to learning the machinery and techniques, from 3D printers, lathes, and surface grinders to welding and robotics labs — a healthy mix of manual and CNC machines.

Mary Bidwell with one of the center’s 3-D printers.

Mary Bidwell with one of the center’s 3-D printers.

Even in a healthy economy, the program still attracts a good number of mid-life career changers who see opportunities they don’t have in their current jobs. Meanwhile, high-school students can take classes at ACC to gain manufacturing credits before they enroll, and a second-chance program gives incarcerated individuals hands-on experience to secure employment once they’re eligible for parole.

It all adds up to a manufacturing resource, and an economic driver, that has attracted plenty of public funding from the state and from private foundations, such as the Gene Haas Foundation, which aims to build skills in the machining industry, and recently awarded the program a $15,000 grant to use for student scholarships for tuition and books.

 

Mind the Gaps

The program has also attracted attention of other kinds. The center was recently featured in the new book Workforce Education: A New Roadmap, written by MIT Professors William Bonvillian and Sanjay Sarma. The book explores the gaps and problems in the U.S. workforce education system, while also spotlighting how programs, including ACC’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology program, help to mitigate deficiencies across the country to build a stronger workforce.

“We spent time visiting and learning about apprenticeship programs, about new employer training programs, and visiting lots of community colleges,” Bonvillian said. “We found that our community colleges are our critical, not-so-secret weapon in educating our workforce, so we spent time at many.”

While the two were researching programs, they learned from an MIT friend, who grew up in Enfield, about Asnuntuck’s program, and Bonvillian set up a visit to the college.

“I was very impressed by the programs they presented in advanced-manufacturing skills that reached not only community-college students, but students from area high schools and incumbent workers at area companies,” he said. “In the book, we called this the ‘trifecta’ — Asnuntuck was using its flexible programs, its year-round schedule, and its new advanced-manufacturing center with its up-to-date equipment to reach three groups: workers and high-school students, as well as more traditional community-college students.”

That outreach is a constant challenge, Bidwell said, noting that, while outdated perceptions about today’s manufacturing floors — which many older people believe are dirty and unsafe — are changing, they do persist, and work needs to be done to get young people interested.

“I think it’s better than it was, but we’re not there 100%,” she said of the perception problem, adding that many companies market themselves online with videos taken on their clean, high-tech floors. “We are getting a younger population than we did years ago, but we’re still going around the state, trying to educate as much as we can. Guidance counselors are a big piece in high school. We need guidance counselors talking up manufacturing, and they have to understand it themselves. We’ve definitely made strides in that.”

Educating parents about what these careers really entail is part of the process as well, she added.

ACC has had students on campus part-time in a hybrid model since the fall.

ACC has had students on campus part-time in a hybrid model since the fall.

“There’s a big push in high school now, but we want to get the middle schools, to get young people aware of manufacturing and create those career pathways. We’re looking at the inner cities, where there’s a lot of population, and the message is, ‘these are viable careers where you can sustain a family and have a good, livable wage.’”

Bonvillian believes Asnuntuck and similar programs can help satisfy the demand for educating a workforce that has been impacted this past year, and not just in manufacturing.

“The COVID crisis is hitting hard at some important sectors like retail and hospitality, and workers there may well need to find new work,” he said. “The U.S. needs to prioritize training more workers more quickly than the country’s current disconnected approach to workforce education allows.”

 

Opportunity Awaits

The connection that First Lady Jill Biden has to community colleges — and her advocacy for them — is important, too, in changing perceptions and helping people understand college and career opportunities they might not have considered, Bidwell said.

“We want more people to take advantage of all that community colleges have available. We see it in manufacturing, but also IT — there’s a big need for IT professionals, and for healthcare professionals.”

And she doesn’t expect any dip in opportunity for students — young or older — who want to explore the modern manufacturing world.

“There’s really a lot of energy in Connecticut, and in Western Mass., right over the border,” Bidwell said. “The plan is to get out of this [pandemic] and keep growing, and be ready for the demand when things turn around.”

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Business of Aging Special Coverage

Taking Shots

Rob Whitten, executive director of the Leavitt Family Jewish Home

Rob Whitten, executive director of the Leavitt Family Jewish Home, gets vaccinated in January. For the public, the process has been thornier.

February was the month all seniors in Massachusetts would finally be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Instead, it was a month of frustration.

“It’s simply inexcusable, in a state with the healthcare infrastructure and high-tech reputation we have, that the vaccine rollout was allowed to fall behind every other state so quickly,” state Sen. Eric Lesser told BusinessWest, calling the state’s scheduling website “an obstacle course with all these links and hoops to go through, instead of making it simple, like Travelocity or KAYAK or Open Table.”

That’s when it wasn’t crashing altogether, like it did two weeks ago, when the state opened up vaccine appointments to all individuals 65 and over, as well as individuals age 16 and older with two or more co-morbidities, from a list that includes asthma, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other conditions.

Later in phase 2, access will roll out to workers in the fields of education, transit, grocery stores, utilities, agriculture, public works, and public health, as well as individuals with one co-morbidity. Phase 3, expected to begin in April, will include everyone else.

Lesser hopes the process — not just to schedule a vaccination, but to get one — improves well before then. One positive was the establishment of a 24/7 call center for the many people who lack internet access (see related story on page 30), something he and dozens of other state lawmakers demanded.

Before that, with online-only signup, “you were locking out whole categories of people,” he noted. As for the website, “it is improving, but it’s still far too confusing and far too hard for people.”

In an address to the public last Thursday, Gov. Charlie Baker acknowledged the frustration around scheduling appointments, but noted that most of it comes down to supply and demand.

“I know how frustrated people are with the pace of the vaccine rollout and how anxious they are to get themselves and their loved ones vaccinated,” he said, but noted that about 450,000 requests for first-dose vaccines arrive each week from hospitals, community health centers, and other entities, but the state receives only 130,000 first doses of vaccine weekly from the federal government.

“We’re putting every dose we get to work each week,” Baker said. “But we don’t receive anywhere near enough vaccine each week from the feds to provide our existing vaccinators with what they request, or to work through most of the currently eligible population that wants a vaccine now. We want people to get vaccinated. We want people to be safe.”

In a hearing with legislators that day, the governor noted that residents have been able to book more than 300,000 appointments through the system despite its flaws, and that Massachusetts is first state in the nation in first doses administered per capita among the 24 states with more than 5 million residents.

While she understands the supply-and-demand issues, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia says the state’s website troubles have still been “a bit of a disappointment.”

While she understands the supply-and-demand issues, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia says the state’s website troubles have still been “a bit of a disappointment.”

State Rep. William Driscoll, the House chairman of the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management, was having none of it. “I just really want to stress that I think you’re missing how broken the system is right now,” he told Baker, “and the approach is not working for the citizens of the Commonwealth. It needs to be addressed.”

Baker’s hopes for more vaccine entering the state may get a boost from Pfizer and Moderna both annoucing plans to double production in March from February’s levels, and by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine nearing emergency authorization.

“They have some very good efficacy data, and they said they’ll deliver another 20 million doses. That’s a one-dose vaccine, so that’s 20 million more people, hopefully, immunized by the end of March,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, infectious-disease physician and medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center, in a Facebook Live conversation with state Sen. Adam Hines, also on Thursday.

Bhadelia understands Baker’s frustration with supply … to a point. “Demand really outweighs supply, still. But last week’s challenges with the website were kind of drastic,” she said. “That was a bit of a disappointment.”

She and Hinds agreed that a waiting list for a vaccine is one thing, but a waiting room just to get on the site is understandably frustrating for people.

However, she also noted some positives, like a movement at the state level toward delivering more doses to pharmacies and local clinics, after perhaps over-emphasizing the mass-vaccination sites (of which Western Mass., to date, hosts only one).

“I’m glad the governor is going back to clinics. We have to get them where people can access them,” Bhadelia said, adding that distribution through doctors’ offices and pharmacies is a tougher organizational challenge, but worth the effort to help people go to providers they trust.

She didn’t deny the website problems, however. “If they try and can’t access it, one day they will give up.”

 

Confidence Boost

And if there’s one thing healthcare professionals don’t want, it’s for people to lose their enthusiasm for getting vaccinated. That’s why the state and various health organizations have rolled out public messaging around the benefits of the vaccine, especially targeting people who might be skeptical of its benefits.

“We recognize it’s a journey, and folks might not feel comfortable with it today, but maybe you’ll feel comfortable tomorrow,” said Lindsey Tucker, associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). “We want to be sure that, when you’re eligible for the vaccine, you can access it when you’re ready for it.”

“Even though you’re vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, stay six feet apart, avoid crowds, and wash your hands frequently.”

Tucker said those words during a webinar held last month by the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, which also featured input from Dr. Sarah Haessler, lead epidemiologist and infectious-disease specialist at Baystate Health, who has emerged as a leading local voice in public information around COVID-19.

Haessler detailed the amount of data that emerged from clinical trials for the vaccines, and noted that the FDA will approve one only if the expected benefits outweigh potential risks.

“The FDA reviewed all the data — it’s pages and pages and pages of data — around every single thing they did in these clinical trials to be sure of the safety and efficacy of the vaccination,” she said, noting that multiple mechanisms are currently in place to track instances of side effects.

While significant side effects are rare — anaphylaxis is one, which is why individuals receiving the shots must remain at the vaccination site for 15 to 30 minutes — most people experience nothing more than arm soreness, fever, chills, tiredness, and headache; most symptoms fade after a day or two, although they last longer in rare cases. Many people feel no effects at all.

“It’s certainly a lot safer to get the vaccine knowing there are just minor side effects than to take your chances getting infected with COVID-19,” Haessler added. “The more people we vaccinate, the closer we get to herd immunity, and the closer we get to going back to life, where we can see our family and friends and return to pre-pandemic activity.”

Also in February, during the Massachusetts Medical Society’s monthly COVID-19 conference call with DPH physicians, State Epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown talked about the DPH’s public vaccine-confidence campaign.

“The campaign recognizes that there are particular populations, especially people of color and other minority populations, that may have understandable increased concern about receiving the vaccine,” Brown said, noting that Public Health Commissioner Dr. Monica Bharel considers health equity to be a primary priority. “Therefore, DPH is having additional, ongoing conversations about the best ways to try to improve vaccine confidence among some of these groups that are harder to reach.”

At the same time, Haessler was quick to note that the vaccine is not a license to stop doing the things that slow the viral spread. It takes about 10 days for someone to begin developing immunity after the first dose, and full protection doesn’t arrive until about 14 days after the second dose. But it’s still unknown how easily vaccinated individuals can spread the virus to others.

“The bottom line is, even though you’re vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, stay six feet apart, avoid crowds, and wash your hands frequently,” she explained, noting that vaccination is the last layer of protection, but far from the only one.

It is, of course, a critical one, and that’s a message she continues to spread to those who might be anxious about making an appointment.

“Educate yourself about vaccine safety and talk to trusted sources — your own personal healthcare provider as well as people you know who have been vaccinated,” Haessler said. “Many, many healthcare workers in our community are vaccinated now because we went first.

“I think a lot of our healthcare workers were anxious at first, but as they saw their colleagues getting the vaccine and doing fine with it, they were excited, because now there’s a light at the end of the tunnel — there’s some hope that helped bolster confidence in it,” she went on. “The more we know about this, the more people will feel comfortable with it. Knowledge is power.”

 

Better Days?

Bhadelia, who is also an assistant professor at Boston University School of Medicine and has spoken on CNN and MSNBC about the pandemic, said she’s optimistic about the fact that COVID cases in Massachusetts have been trending down, while acknowledging that testing has also gone down in the Bay State during the vaccine rollout.

Still, she added, “there is a general consensus that it’s not only the testing that’s gone down; it seems there is truly a drop in cases.”

Concern lingers about the COVID-19 variants, which are currently circulating in Massachusetts, particularly the South African variant, which may affect the efficacy of vaccines. But she noted that, even against that variant, vaccination will reduce the risk of severe hospitalization and death.

Taking a federal perspective, Bhadelia also praised the Biden administration’s approach to the vaccine rollout, which she said is science-based and features regular briefings. “The science is always changing, so it’s really great to stay on top of it instead of just guessing at what’s behind the curtain.”

Most Americans, of course, just want to know what’s down the road. So does the governor.

“We want people to turn the corner on COVID, and I can’t tell you how much we would like to see that happen faster,” Baker said. “But to put to work all the folks who are available today to vaccinate our residents and dramatically increase the number of people able to get vaccinated each week here in the Commonwealth, we’re going to need to see a dramatic increase in federal supply coming to Massachusetts.”

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Business of Aging

Building Momentum

Pat and Craig Sweitzer

While their workload is like a typical year, Pat and Craig Sweitzer say, the way facilities are designed in the age of COVID-19 is not.

Ryan Pelletier says that, while it was “scary at times,” he believes life has returned to something approaching normal — although ‘normal’ is certainly a relative term — when it comes to construction within the broad and all-important healthcare sector in Western Mass.

And he should know. He’s project manager for Houle Construction in Ludlow, a family-run operation (his father, Tim, is president) that does the bulk of its work within the healthcare sector, including projects for most area hospitals and a number of private practices as well.

He told BusinessWest that things were busy just after COVID-19 arrived in the 413 almost exactly a year ago, as a number of hospitals and other providers needed some retrofitting of sorts and other types of work to do battle with the pandemic, but then, things got quiet in a hurry and stayed that way for a while, before starting to revert to something akin to pre-pandemic conditions.

“We were very busy for a few weeks, and then … it just died,” said Pelletier, referring to the early months of the pandemic, and noting that hospitals and private practices simply didn’t want more people on site than absolutely needed to be there. “But in the last several months, things have started to come back. There’s a comfort level now — the hospitals and private practices are getting back to business as usual, or as usual as they can.”

But that word ‘scary’ was used in reference to much more than the number of projects in the pipeline. Indeed, it also referred to everything from the daunting task of keeping employees — and everyone else on a job site — safe to the cost and availability of materials.

And he was not alone in that assessment, especially when it comes to the price hikes.

“We’ve seen steel and lumber costs rise exponentially — they’ve almost doubled within the past year.”

“We’ve seen steel and lumber costs rise exponentially — they’ve almost doubled within the past year,” said Dan Bradbury, director of Sales and Marketing for South Hadley-based Associated Builders, which works within a number of sectors, including healthcare. He noted that these rising costs could, and probably will, impact everything from decisions on whether projects move forward in the near term to what kind of construction takes place — new or renovation of existing space (more on all that later).

As for now and the immediate future, those we spoke with said that, after going mostly and then almost completely silent in the weeks after COVID hit, the phones are starting to ring again with greater regularity — in general, and within the healthcare sector in particular.

Pat and Craig Sweitzer, co-owners of Monson-based Swietzer Construction, which specializes in healthcare construction and especially dental offices, said they have a number of projects in progress and on the books, including three new dental offices, a medical building with a dental office as part of the lineup, two new medical spas (including one in East Longmeadow, adjacent to an Ascent Dental office they built), a cannabis dispensary, and work at Adaptas Solutions in Palmer, which is now making parts for COVID testing.

Ryan Pelletier stands in the atrium at Mercy Medical Center

Ryan Pelletier stands in the atrium at Mercy Medical Center, one of the many projects within the healthcare sector undertaken by the company in recent months.

Noting how he needs to be at a number of different sites on a weekly of not daily basis, Craig Sweitzer joked, “I need to buy an airplane.”

Those sentiments express just how much the market has rebounded — if that’s even the right word — and how the outlook has brightened since the darkest days of the pandemic.

Bradbury agreed. “Especially in this new year, 2021, there’s been a more positive outlook, and we’re starting to have the phone ring more and see more potential jobs in the pipeline for this year and for next,” he said, adding that this sentiment applies, again, to construction in general and healthcare construction more specifically.

But there are still many question marks about just what the future will bring, and for this issue, we talked with these experts about what can and likely will happen, both short- and long-term.

 

Concrete Examples

Rewinding the tape on the past 12 months of COVID, those we spoke with echoed the sentiments of business owners and managers in every sector when they said the changing landscape brought with it both challenges and opportunities, and certainly more of the former.

Indeed, some construction projects in the healthcare sector were put on the shelf because of the way the pandemic impacted the client in question financially. Meanwhile, and especially in the beginning, it brought about some new work, as Pelletier explained.

“When COVID first hit, the hospitals were scrambling to get prepared for potential overflow — spikes and surges — and they wanted us to help them with that, whether it was installing plexiglass shields or building out existing spaces in their facilities to house incoming patients,” he explained. “We had to work around the clock, and it was a little nerve-wracking at first because no one was quite sure what COVID was and how dangerous it was — and they were asking us to send our guys out there not knowing exactly what they were getting into, and the crews had mixed feelings.”

Again, opportunities and challenges.

The challenges came in waves and in different forms, from meeting the many new regulations and protocols regarding when and how work can be done to handling new and different employee needs — from more sick time, if needed, to PPE, to working in settings that were often the front lines of the COVID crisis.

The opportunities have come in various forms as well, and sometimes unexpectedly. That was certainly with the case with Adaptas Solutions.

“They’ve kept us quite busy through all this because they’ve been ramping up and needed construction facilities to accommodate the work they were doing,” said Pat Sweitzer, adding that the company has some projects ongoing there.

“When COVID first hit, the hospitals were scrambling to get prepared for potential overflow — spikes and surges — and they wanted us to help them with that.”

Meanwhile, the airplane the company doesn’t have yet would also be going to several other projects across the region, the sum of which adds up to what Pat described as a fairly typical year, volume-wise.

What isn’t as typical is the nature of the work being undertaken, said Craig, noting that COVID has changed the way facilities are designed and operated, with additional emphasis on HVAC and, more specifically, air movement and air quality.

“Dental offices are ground zero — these are individuals working in a patient’s mouth, which is the means for transmitting COVID,” he explained. “These doctors and their hygienists are at ground zero as far as risk is concerned, so we’ve paying a lot of attention to our design/build criteria.

“And the lion’s share of that goes back to HVAC, so we’ve redesigned our standard operatory,” he went on, adding that, with these redesigns, instead of air being drawn up from the patient’s mouth past the doctor, it is drawn down to the floor, into the ductwork and away from the doctor’s face.

The company is also installing UVC systems, which kill COVID; additional air changers; larger, tighter air filters; and, increasingly, washers and dryers so staff can wash their clothes during the day.

“We’ve really been refining how we lay these design/build projects out,” Pat said, noting that the modern dental office now resembles a hospital operating room in many respects.

Looking ahead, those we spoke with said COVID will likely continue to impact the healthcare construction scene, even if the pandemic eases, as most project that it will.

Indeed, there is general uncertainty about when or even if the rising prices on materials will start to ease, and this uncertainty could play a role in whether some projects move forward or not.

Berkshire Facial Surgery facility in East Longmeadow.

Among the many healthcare sector projects undertaken by Associated Builders in recent months was the construction of this Berkshire Facial Surgery facility in East Longmeadow.

Bradbury told BusinessWest there is inclination among some in healthcare (and in other sectors, obviously) to try to wait these increases out with the hope that prices will start coming down.

“But there is no guarantee that prices will come down,” he said. “One thing I always tell people is that, while they think they can wait out the increases in materials costs, there are never any guarantees that they will, so we encourage people to move forward with projects — if it fits their timeline and their budget, because there are no guarantees.”

Meanwhile, COVID will likely impact the healthcare construction market in another way, said those we spoke with, specifically the lasting impact it seems destined to have on the real-estate market. Even when COVID eases, they said, it seems almost certain that some companies will settle into smaller spaces as more people work at home, bringing more commercial real estate onto the market, which will, in turn, impact new construction.

“Renovating existing space is almost always less expensive than building new, especially when you consider those amazing price increases we’re seeing,” Bradbury said. “A lot of our business is new construction, and we’re contending with a lot of empty office space; long-term, there will be more available office space to lease on the market, which, across some industries, will tamp down new construction, but it will bring an opportunity for more build-out and renovation of existing space.”

 

Bottom Line

Looking back, and ahead, those we spoke with said a sense of normal — or a new normal (there’s that phrase again) — is returning to the healthcare construction scene.

But there are many question marks still looming over the scene and a number of variables that could impact how much work and what kinds of projects move into the pipeline.

There has been a great deal of pivoting over the past year — for the construction firms and their clients as well — and there is certainly more to come.

But for now, momentum is building in a number of ways.

Features

Work After the Pandemic

By John Graham

It’s been a year now since we came under the relentless domination of the coronavirus. After all this time, the picture isn’t pleasant. The end is uncertain, and the implications for the future are far from clear.

McKinsey reports that “75% of employees in the United States and close to a third in the Asia-Pacific region report symptoms of burnout. European nations are reporting increasing levels of pandemic fatigue in their populations. The number of those who rate their mental health as ‘very poor’ is more than three times higher than before the crisis, and mental-health issues are still likely to rise.” In spite of their severity, such figures should get our attention, but do they?

Perhaps the most dangerous part of the coronavirus is its divisiveness. More often than not, outside attacks — wars, famines, and natural disasters — bring us together to slay the dragon. But the pandemic has driven us further apart. Who would have thought life could take such a painful turn?

Overnight, workers were told to leave their jobs and work from home. Not only did they do it, they liked it. Now, many are ready to refuse to go back to claustrophobic cubicles or vacuous open spaces where they lacked privacy. To express their pleasure at working from home, they remodeled their bedrooms, kitchens, and basements; upgraded their internet connection; purchased all sorts of digital devices and office equipment; and didn’t miss a beat.

They’re choosy, too. “You want me in the office? I don’t think so.” Some moved to Boise or some other place in the middle of nowhere that welcomed them with open arms and lower living costs. They donned their sweats, popped open a laptop, jumped on virtual meetings, adjusted the lighting, turned on a monitor or two, and went to work in their new, $999 office chair, or decided to stay in bed and make it their office that day. To the utter surprise to everyone, productivity went up.

That’s just the first chapter. The McKinsey report also notes that “there is a veritable flood of new small businesses. In the third quarter of 2020 alone, there were more than 1.5 million new-business applications in the United States — almost double the figure for the same period in 2019.” That’s not all. The fourth quarter found Apple ripe for success with the highest revenue in its history — and the company wasn’t alone.

 

Four Lessons

All this adds up to an amazing, but totally counter-intuitive, story. But what does it mean to all of us who must live it? Literally, what in the world is going on? Even more to the point, what’s the message about the future — our future? Here are four thoughts about that.

“Overnight, workers were told to leave their jobs and work from home. Not only did they do it, they liked it. Now, many are ready to refuse to go back to claustrophobic cubicles or vacuous open spaces where they lacked privacy.”

The genie is out of the bottle. It’s finally happened. To put it another way, like no other phenomenon in modern history (perhaps in all of history), the pandemic released a level of momentum sufficient to turn the world and everything in it upside down in an instant. It may also be the catalyst that changes everything, from politics, government, and public policy to health and medicine, education, work-life balance, business, entertainment, culture, industry, and science. When Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, steps back, we can be sure profound change is in the air.

 

Far more people have seats at the table. We talked for so long, but nothing changed. Then, suddenly, we became keenly aware of those who had long been invisible to us. We raised our hands and called them ‘heroes’ but never raised their wages. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve finally figured out that when everyone has a seat, we have better healthcare, better jobs, stronger families, and happier communities. Could it possibly be that it took a painful pandemic to make more room at the table?

 

Everything is under a microscope. Again, counter-intuitive but nevertheless true: the number of applications for fall 2021 at the University of California are breaking all records. It’s happening at the same moment when millions of young Americans are questioning the value of a college education, particularly if it will take decades to free themselves from the sobering shackles of student debt. Those who went before them, the Millennials, are dogged in determining their own way in the world. Don’t be surprised. The lens of the microscope may never rest.

 

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. There are dangers in the tension-filled, stressful times in which we find ourselves. Someone has aptly described it as “hitting the pandemic wall,” and it’s felt at home and at work. It’s when we reach out for relief so we can get our lives on a better path. Simple, quick, and easy answers are what sell in turbulent times: “buy this or do that, and your problems vanish, and your dreams come true.” We’re too resilient to do that to ourselves.

 

Bottom Line

Now, go back to where we started, the original question: “Who will have the upper hand after the pandemic: employers or employees?

All this leads to the final question. Through the pandemic frenzy, who will come out ahead, the workers or employers? The way it looks at the moment, it just may be the workers. But, as we all know, things can change. u

 

John Graham of GrahamComm is a marketing and sales strategy consultant and business writer. He is the creator of Magnet Marketing and publishes a free monthly e-bulletin, “No Nonsense Marketing & Sales Ideas”; [email protected]

 

Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

 

Aaron Vega

Aaron Vega says Holyoke lost considerable momentum to the pandemic, but it has a solid foundation on which to mount its recovery.

When he made up his mind roughly a year ago not to seek re-election to the state House seat he had held for four terms, Aaron Vega had an informal list of things he would like to do next when it came to his career.

Working in Holyoke City Hall certainly wasn’t one of them. But … things changed, in many ways, and in a profound way.

For starters, the COVID-19 pandemic limited some of the other options he was thinking about professionally, especially those in higher education, economic development, and workforce development. More importantly, though, Marcos Marrero, the long-time director of Planning and Economic Development in Holyoke, decided that he, too, wanted a change. And as he went about looking for someone to fill his rather large shoes, he started talking to Vega, someone who obviously knew the city, was heavily invested in its future, and was looking for work.

“Working for the city wasn’t really on my shortlist — and not in a negative way,” said Vega, the former Holyoke city councilor who started his five-year appointment just a few weeks ago. “Marcos reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in taking the position; it came out of the clear blue sky. I was honored that he saw me as someone who could take the reins and keep going.”

He takes the helm in economic development when Holyoke, like most communities, and especially the urban centers, are looking to regain momentum lost due to the pandemic.

And, in the case of the Paper City, it’s a large amount of momentum.

Indeed, over the past several years, Holyoke had made great strides in a number of areas — downtown revitalization, with its cultural economy, with entrepreneurship and new business development, and, most recently, with cultivation (pun intended) of a new and potential-laden industry sector: cannabis. Indeed, with Mayor Alex Morse — who will not be seeking re-election in November and has been offered the the job of town manager of Provincetown — putting out the red carpet for the cannabis sector and the city blessed with millions of square feet of vacant mill space that is in some ways ideal for cannabis growing and other aspects of this business, Holyoke has become a destination for companies looking for a home.

The pandemic has certainly slowed the pace of progress in most of these areas, though. It has certainly impacted the cultural economy, most notably with the news that Gateway City Arts, the multi-purpose arts venue, has closed, and its owners are looking for a buyer. But signs of lost momentum are everywhere. The Cubit Building, once a symbol of downtown revitalization, is still humming on its residential floors, but the Holyoke Community College MGM Culinary Arts Center has been all but shut down by the pandemic. Meanwhile, there are still a number of vacancies on High Street and other downtown throughfares. And the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade, a significant economic engine for Holyoke and the region as a whole, has been canceled for the second year in a row.

“A lot of the groundwork is sort of done, and in some ways, this office how has to be more proactive and outward-facing — how can we go out to private industry and market Holyoke better? We need to go door-knocking and tell people, ‘think about Holyoke as a place to set up shop.’”

“That’s been a huge financial hit to the restaurants and many other kinds of businesses,” Vega said of the parade. “The trickle-down impact is severe.”

Even the cannabis sector has been slowed a little by the pandemic, but in most all respects, it remains a powerful force in Holyoke, with more than 30 ventures currently at some stage of progression and perhaps 300 new jobs coming to the city with the slated opening in the next few months of Florida-based Truelieve’s facility on Canal Street.

The company, which has more than 2 million square feet of cultivation facilities and more than 70 dispensaries across several states, will operate a multi-faceted, vertically integrated operation that will include cultivation, production, and office operations in a 145,000-square-foot facility formerly occupied by Conklin Office.

“We understand scale, we understand supply chain, and we’re going to be bringing that experience to Massachusetts as we build out our cultivation here,” said Lynn Ricci, director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for the company, adding that the company expects to begin operations by the third quarter this year and employ between 250 and 300 people from the Holyoke area when fully operational.

For this, the latest in its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on Holyoke, an historic city that has bounced back from its decline in the ’60s and ’70s, and must now, in some ways, bounce back again.

 

Growth Opportunities

Vega is certainly no stranger to the large office he now occupies on the third floor of the City Hall annex building.

When he was a state representative, he would meet with Marrero there every month so he could keep pace with what was happening in the city where he grew up, spent most of his childhood life, and still lives.

Gateway City Arts is just one of many Holyoke businesses

Gateway City Arts is just one of many Holyoke businesses in the arts and hospitality sectors to be devastated by the pandemic.

“We had a standing meeting with him in this office to keep up to date on all the projects that were going on, particularly around cannabis, because I was on the Committee on Cannabis Policy,” he explained. “So I was familiar with most of what was going on in this office, and I knew everyone in this office.”

Today, he’s having those same meetings with Patricia Duffy, his former legislative aide who successfully ran for his House seat last year.

“We just met a few days ago,” he said with a laugh. “We have a standing monthly meeting. It’s interesting being on the other side of the table — I spent the last eight years fighting for funding for all these programs, and now I’m actually utilizing them, and that’s kind of fun.”

Offering a similar update of sorts for BusinessWest, Vega focused on the momentum that has been lost in the city and the need to turn the clock back, in some respects, and put Holyoke back on the intriguing path it was on before March 2020.

“If you look at Gateway City Arts … the pandemic just took the wind out of them, it took the momentum away; it’s like someone slammed the door in their face.”

Before getting to that, though, he was asked to elaborate on the circumstances that brought him to his current post.

“I wanted to focus more,” he said simply when asked why he wanted to move from his House seat. “One of the great things about being a state rep is all the different topics and issues that come across your desk. But, that said, you don’t really get to focus on anything; the best description of my job as state rep was that I was in a permanent liberal-arts education — and there were certain topics that I just wasn’t passionate about.”

He is certainly passionate about Holyoke, and his goal now is built on what had been achieved in the years before the pandemic.

“What Alex and Marcos did was change the conversation about Holyoke, they changed the direction of a lot of the development, and they helped usher in a plan — the urban-renewal plan,” he explained. “A lot of the groundwork is sort of done, and in some ways, this office how has to be more proactive and outward-facing — how can we go out to private industry and market Holyoke better? We need to go door-knocking and tell people, ‘think about Holyoke as a place to set up shop.’”

The story the city can tell is a good one, although, as noted, it was better before the pandemic.

“Things were happening in this city; the momentum was happening,” Vega said. “It took a while to build that momentum, and hopefully we can get it back soon.”

The loss of Gateway City Arts, however, is a serious setback for the community.

“It was firing on all cylinders,” he said, referring to everything from its event venue to its popular restaurant. “And it’s ironic because we’re six or seven months away from having 200 to 400 more people working in downtown Holyoke in the cannabis industry — people who will be looking for a place to go eat or have a beer or listen to music after work. The irony is that we don’t have that right now.

“The biggest hit has been with momentum,” he went on. “Our restaurants took a hit, just like Northampton and Springfield; the housing developments, especially if they were dealing with state incentives, have been pushed out — everything’s taking longer now.”

Overall, Vega said, the pandemic has made it difficult for some small businesses to survive, and it’s made it more difficult for all of them to operate as they would like.

“If you look at Gateway City Arts … the pandemic just took the wind out of them, it took the momentum away; it’s like someone slammed the door in their face,” he said, adding quickly that there is interest in some of the components of that business, and, likewise, the phone is starting to ring, and more interest is being shown in Holyoke within the development community.

“There’s a couple of key projects where, if we can get them online, we can regain some of that momentum,” he told BusinessWest, noting that one such project is a large housing initiative downtown, a 92-unit project being undertaken by WinnDevelopment at the former Farr Alpaca mills that has been slowed by the always-complicated process of applying for and receiving historic tax credits.

Truelieve’s massive facility on Canal Street

Truelieve’s massive facility on Canal Street is ramping up for opening, and is projected to employ between 250 and 300 people when fully operational.

Meanwhile, some projects that were “percolating,” as Vega put it, before the pandemic and back-burnered to one extent or another are perhaps poised to be revisited and moved off the drawing board. These include some indoor agriculture that is not cannabis-related.

“The biggest price-point stuff that they’re talking about right now is lettuce and herbs,” he noted, “because there’s a quick-growing cycle; you can turn lettuce around in 30 days. So many restaurants want locally grown, hormone-free lettuce … there’s real potential there, and they can grow other vegetables, too. The price point is not as good as cannabis, but we’ve been talking about urban farming for a while, and we’re trying to create opportunities.”

 

On a Roll

Speaking of cannabis, while the pandemic has slowed some aspects of that sector, the industry is poised for additional growth, especially in the Paper City. The next important chapter looks to be written by Truelieve, which just received its occupancy permit. But there are many companies with plans in various stages of development.

Indeed, Vega said, there are two growing facilities now online and three dispensaries, but, overall, there are 40 host agreements and 40 provisional licenses at the state level.

As for Truelieve, its story touches on many of the opportunities and challenges that Holyoke and its old mills present, said Ricci, who started by noting that the company was mostly in Florida before last year, when it started expanding aggressively into other states, including a cultivation facility in Pennsylvania (added through acquisition) and dispensaries in Connecticut and other states.

“We really see 2021 as a big year for national expansion and being a true multi-state operator,” she explained, adding that, when looking for places in which to broaden the portfolio with new facilities, Truelieve focuses on cities and towns with large minority populations, communities that clearly need the jobs and everything else these ventures bring to the fore.

“Investing in a majority minority community was important to us,” she said. And upon concluding that the Bay State would be a good market to enter, Holyoke soon came onto its radar.

Holyoke at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1850
Population: 40,135
Area: 22.8 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $19.04
Commercial Tax Rate: $39.74
Median Household Income: $33,030
Family Household Income: $36,262
Type of government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Holyoke Medical Center; Holyoke Community College; ISO New England; Hazen Paper
* Latest information available

“We wanted to make sure, going in, that we were revitalizing and adding to the community and providing jobs; those kinds of things are important to us as a core value of the company,” she noted. “When we found this location in Holyoke, an area that had certainly seen better times, we thought, ‘we could invest here and provide the jobs.’”

As for the site in Holyoke, renovating the historic mill has been “a huge undertaking,” Ricci said, adding that the company entered into a sale/lease-back arrangement in order to secure the nearly $40 million required for this project (cannabis operations cannot obtain traditional bank financing, because the product is illegal on a federal level).

The actual buildout was an involved process that began more than a year ago and was slowed by state mandates that shut down many types of construction during the early months of the pandemic.

“The property is beautiful in its own way — there’s big, wide staircases and beautiful brickwork, but … it needed a lot of work,” she told BusinessWest. “It has been a challenge, and not just to set up different rooms, but to make sure everything was set up properly.”

Staffing is the next challenge to be overcome, Ricci said, adding that final inspections of the facility are expected sometime this quarter, with growing due to begin, as noted, in the second quarter.

Other facilities are in various stages of the pipeline, said Vega, who told BusinessWest that, while the city is welcoming all types of cannabis businesses, the larger cultivation facilities hold the most promise for jobs and overall impact on the city and the region, and he can envision the day when perhaps eight to 12 such ventures are operating in the city.

And, like his predecessor, he sees opportunities not merely for the growing and selling of cannabis, but also encouraging businesses that can provide needed products to those ventures.

“A lot of the products used by these businesses are made in Texas and Florida, the simple things like the planters — we should be making those here in Holyoke,” he noted. “I equate it to the ‘green’ industries. It’s great seeing solar fields — we have some in Holyoke — but we should be building solar panels in Western Mass., not just installing them.”

 

Bottom Line

Making progress in that area is just one of the ways Holyoke will be looking to regain the considerable amount of momentum it lost to the pandemic.

The city that had come so far in the past decade has the foundation that Vega mentioned in place. It has the building blocks, and it has a cannabis industry hungry for the open spaces, low energy prices, and other amenities that this city can provide.

The pandemic certainly slowed the pace of progress, but Vega and other officials are confident that the Paper City can soon regain its stride.

 

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

Home Improvement

Fueling Interest

By Mark Morris

EcoBuilding Bargains

EcoBuilding Bargains, celebrating 20 years this year, has been a trendsetter in repurposing reclaimed and surplus building materials.

John Majercak likes to say the Center for EcoTechnology (CET) has been successful for 45 years because it’s willing to try out approaches to saving energy that in time become a normal way of doing business.

“We helped invent the energy audit in the 1970s, and now it’s a routine thing that lots of people have done, and it’s having a huge impact,” said Majercak, president of CET.

In 2021, the organization marks several noteworthy milestones. In addition to CET’s 45th birthday, Majercak celebrates 30 years with the organization, serving as president since 2010. In his time there, he has seen a growing mainstream awareness of the connection between the community, the economy, and the environment.

“It used to be that environmentalism was thought of as a fringe thing or a nice thing to have,” Majercak said. ”But the work we do in saving energy and reducing waste helps people live better lives, as well as addressing the urgent issue of climate change.”

CET also runs EcoBuilding Bargains, the largest reclaimed and surplus building-materials store in New England. Launched in 2001, the reuse store celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. When it opened, the store was one of only a few of its kind that existed. Today, thousands of stores sell reclaimed building materials.

From the beginning, people liked the idea of saving money and helping the environment by giving a second life to used cabinets, lighting, plumbing fixtures, and hundreds of other items. Through the years, awareness increased as EcoBuilding Bargains was featured on several home-improvement TV shows, most notably This Old House.

Located in Springfield, EcoBuilding Bargains sells products in all 50 states and several other countries thanks to the internet. Once reusing materials became fashionable, Majercak said, interest in the store exploded.

“When reusing materials became stylish, it allowed people to bring their own character to a piece,” he noted. “On top of personal creativity, it’s an inexpensive purchase that helps the environment, so it’s a home run.”

Majercak pointed out that the current boom in home improvement — fueled by the pandemic and people being in their homes much more than would be considered normal — has created both a supply and a demand for items at EcoBuilding Bargains.

“It used to be that environmentalism was thought of as a fringe thing or a nice thing to have. But the work we do in saving energy and reducing waste helps people live better lives, as well as addressing the urgent issue of climate change.”

“All the home improvement that’s going on means more materials we can capture for donation and reuse,” he noted. “Then, when people renovate with these materials, they can save lots of money, help the planet, and make their homes look super-cool.”

Likewise, the pandemic hasn’t slowed business for the store. EcoBuilding Bargains is open for people who want to shop in-person and also offers virtual appointments so people can shop over the phone. With video calls, Majercak said, staff can show items, and customers can ask more specific questions about a piece.

Other parts of CET’s business have also adopted a combination of in-person and virtual interaction. Energy audits, for example, have a whole new feel that creates opportunities and challenges.

“We have people who are happy to get on a Zoom call and show us around their home or business for an energy audit,” Majercak said. “On the other hand, those who wanted an in-person visit are on a waiting list until after the pandemic is over.

“After the pandemic, I’m sure we’ll be doing plenty of things in person again, but we will continue to go virtual for those who prefer that approach,” he went on. “In that way, it opens more opportunity for mission impact.”

 

Cool Ideas

With a stated mission to “research, develop, demonstrate, and promote those technologies that have the least disruptive impact on the natural ecology of the earth,” one of CET’s goals involves reducing carbon emissions equal to removing 100,000 cars off the road for a year by 2022.

There are many ways people can reduce their carbon footprint, all of which use less energy without compromising comfort. Converting to LED lights and adding insulation are two easy ones.

John Majercak says a central focus for CET over the years has been pursuing technologies with the least disruptive impact on the environment.

John Majercak says a central focus for CET over the years has been pursuing technologies with the least disruptive impact on the environment.

“Weatherization is a good example because installing air-sealing insulation in the home increases the comfort dramatically and uses less energy — and, therefore, less carbon,” Majercak said. “We’ve been doing these programs for years, and they save lots of energy and carbon.”

He cited a recent effort in which CET has partnered with colleges in the Community Climate Fund, which provides support for local carbon-reduction projects. By investing in the fund, colleges support the community, as well as creating learning opportunities for students who conduct research and gather data. Projects range from recovering used building materials or helping a homeowner get a heat pump to providing loans to farmers so they can make energy improvements to their operations.

“The Community Climate Fund is a great way to extend the impact of our programs and get even more done,” he told BusinessWest.

Massachusetts recently unveiled a plan to achieve a 45% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Majercak has reached out to utilities to encourage them to align their energy-efficiency programs with these climate goals. CET is currently working with a municipal utility company to test an energy-efficiency program that measures carbon reduction, as opposed to just energy savings. It’s one of the first programs of its kind in the country.

“Anytime you save energy, it reduces carbon, but the kind of energy you save and the kind of energy you use also affects carbon,” he said, noting that the car you drive and the lawnmower you use can also make a difference in changing your carbon footprint. “For the foreseeable future, we will be studying energy issues by looking through the lens of carbon reduction.”

CET is also working with utilities on promoting the use of air-source heat pumps for houses. While they have existed for years, Majercak said heat pumps were primarily used in warmer climates. With recent technology improvements, they can now withstand the sustained cold temperatures of a New England winter. Unlike traditional heating systems, heat pumps take heat from outside air (yes, even frigid cold air has heat in it) and move it into the home.

For cooling, the heat pump does the reverse and removes heat from the house to the outside. Instead of using oil, natural gas, or propane, heat pumps run on electricity. As long as renewable energy becomes a larger part of the grid, he said, electric power is the logical choice.

“This is good from a carbon perspective because, as the power grid gets greener and as more people use heat pumps and drive electric cars, the more carbon reduction we’ll get,” Majercak noted, adding that heat pumps are just catching on, and we will see a lot more of them in the coming years.

And they represent only the latest cutting-edge technology that CET has helped establish in its 45 years.

“I’m very proud of the people at CET because they’ve always been real innovators and have helped change the way things work,” he said. As one example in the realm of waste and recycling, CET helped to establish the Springfield Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), which serves 65 communities in Western Mass. Back when recycling was a new approach, CET worked with towns to help them prepare their recycling programs for the Springfield MRF.

In the 45 years since CET has been in operation, energy conservation has hit peaks and valleys in politics and policies on the national level. Majercak noted that the state and regional levels have been more consistent, and asserted that CET has never been, nor ever will be, a political organization.

“We’re a solutions organization; we work with everyone,” he noted. ”As long as we keep that focus, we will be successful.”

Elaborating, he said the key is to meet people where they are and help them either solve a problem or achieve a goal.

“If you’re a small business, your goal may be to save money and have your business perform better. Energy efficiency, as well as waste and recycling management, can help you reach that goal,” he said. “A homeowner might want to be more comfortable or lower their electric and fuel bills. We can do that for you, and it doesn’t matter what you think about climate change.”

“All the home improvement that’s going on means more materials we can capture for donation and reuse. Then, when people renovate with these materials, they can save lots of money, help the planet, and make their homes look super-cool.”

For all the energy-saving opportunities out there, Majercak understands that spreading the word about what CET does and how it can help is essential. “Even when people are aware and want to do something to save money or save the environment, we still do a lot of hand holding to get it done.”

Spreading the word through workshops and social media definitely helps to engage people. Majercak pointed to one effort in which EcoBuilding Bargains runs a “Reuse Rockstar” contest on social media that encourages people to post the creative ways they have used items from the store.

“It’s inspirational to see how people apply their creativity and elbow grease to make beautiful houses and rooms for a fraction of what they would normally cost,” he said.

 

Going for the Green

Because climate change is a global problem, it’s easy for people to feel overwhelmed and doubtful they can make a difference, said Majercak, who assures them that they do not have to solve climate change all by themselves, and shows them different ways they can have an impact.

“When someone switches out their lightbulbs, buys an electric vehicle, or installs used cabinets, these are not overwhelming actions,” he told BusinessWest. But when CET helps tens of thousands of people do these little things, they start to add up.

“Consider that people across the state, the country, and the world are doing similar things, and it’s easier to see how each effort contributes to making a real difference. We are firm believers in little things with big payback.”

In addition to turning new approaches into normal processes, Majercak looks forward to the growth potential for EcoBuilding Bargains as it sells more products to people through eBay and, soon, through its own e-commerce site.

When he considers CET’s 45-year history, he appreciates how far the organization has come, but he’s even more excited about the near future.

As much as we’ve done, I think we will really accelerate and see much more progress in the next 10 to 15 years,” he said. “It’s an exciting time to be doing the work we do.”

Technology

Learning on the Fly

Kimberly Quiñonez says her professors

Kimberly Quiñonez says her professors encouraged her to overcome the challenges of online learning and succeed.

Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) had a long-term plan to ramp up online and digital learning.

But then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced staff working at STCC’s Center for Online and Digital Learning to move faster than they ever imagined. The staff includes instructional designers who assistant faculty in online teaching methods they incorporate into the classroom experience.

To maintain the safety of students, faculty, and staff, STCC moved classes to remote instruction last March. Instructional designers worked with faculty over the summer to prepare for fully online teaching in the 2020-21 academic year.

Faculty and administrators acknowledge the abrupt change to remote learning created great challenges and, for some, led to a less-than-ideal learning environment last spring. The sudden need to vacate campus resulted in the use of a slew of digital tools to communicate with students, including e-mail, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and teleconferencing by phone and Zoom.

“Many faculty had been using online tools for the delivery of their face-to face classes. However, for those faculty who were not familiar with the digital space or whose courses required hands-on instruction, the ‘lift’ to online was great,” said Geraldine de Berly, vice president of Academic Affairs at STCC. “Since the summer, STCC invested in tools and training to assist faculty in developing the best truly online experience possible, including the hiring of a third instructional designer. Today, all online instruction occurs in a single platform, supplemented by class discussions using tools such as Zoom.”

The college anticipates spending nearly $800,000 through May 2021 helping faculty develop hundreds of online classes and labs, de Berly said. Today, more than 80% of the credits are offered online, a jump from 12% prior to the pandemic. Over the coming year, STCC also expects to expand its online-only options in addition to its existing in-person and hybrid degree programs.

STCC English Professor Denise “Daisy” Flaim has years of experience teaching students on campus in classrooms, so converting to the online experience was a big adjustment. But she worked closely with the online team at STCC to prepare for the transition, and now feels confident.

“We’re learning technology, just as the students are learning technology,” Flaim said.

Daniel Misco, an STCC alumnus and faculty member in the Digital Media Production program, said he’s well-versed in the online teaching world. Today, he teaches most of his classes online, but misses the face-to-face interactions with students in a classroom.

“I considered myself a face-to-face instructor,” Misco said. “I always excelled in the classroom. I liked being there with students to build a rapport with them.”

The adjustment to online learning can be challenging for some students, but Misco said faculty try to do all they can to help.

STCC student Kimberly Quiñonez, who is studying social work, expressed gratitude for the support from faculty over the past year.

“My experience as an online learner has really been amazing, although there were times I felt like quitting,” she said. “During those times, my professors would reach out and check in with the class. In the very beginning, I must admit that it was quite challenging transferring from an actual classroom to a computer. The classroom brought security to most students because questions were answered immediately. With online learning, you may have to wait for a response through e-mail.”

Aminah Bergeron, a mechanical engineering technology student at STCC, said she found benefits to online learning, noting she has “gotten the hang of it” after a year of studying from home.

“It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. It was for sure different, but a ‘good’ different,” she said. “I didn’t have to worry about getting ready, or making sure my house doors are locked, or even thinking in the back of my head, ‘did I leave the faucet running?’ I just had to open my laptop and start my schoolwork, whether at my own pace or scheduled Zoom meetings. I also had much more time to research and not worry about calculating the time I’d lose on commuting from one location to another.”

STCC will return to face-to-face, on-campus instruction when it’s safe to do so, de Berly said, but will continue to offer online options and apply digital tools to enhance the classroom experience.

Manufacturing

Keeping Pace

Both the immediate and long-term future of the manufacturing industry will be defined by the development of a number of ever-evolving and prominent trends, according to the Assoc. of Equipment Manufacturers. These trends are poised to have a significant impact in 2021 (and, in many cases, beyond), so it’s critically important for manufacturers to develop a keen understanding of what they are, how they will grow over time, and how they will impact the industry and the customers it serves.

 

COVID-19 and Employee Safety

It almost goes without saying that workplace safety and compliance with CDC guidelines and OSHA regulations (along with local safety measures) will remain front of mind for manufacturers as 2021 gets under way. With COVID-19 cases on the rise in many parts of the world, organizations will need to continue to be vigilant in their efforts to protect employees. Doing so, however, requires a significant investment of time, effort, and resources on the part of company leaders.

While an efficient rollout of an effective vaccine for COVID-19 would bode well for an eventual return to normalcy for the manufacturing industry, the impact of such a rollout won’t be felt for some time. In the interim, organizations will need to continue practicing social distancing in the workplace, restricting visitors to facilities, encouraging the practice of good hygiene, and ensuring employees are healthy and fit for work before allowing them on the job.

It’s been nearly a year since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the U.S., and it remains a major challenge for manufacturers across the country and around the world. While companies do have plans and protocols in place to combat the virus, adhering to them and ensuring the health and well-being of employees is — and will continue to be — no small task.

 

Connected Workforce

The desire to equip workers with technology capable of allowing them to connect and collaborate from a distance has long been on a trend on the rise within the manufacturing industry. As older generations continue to leave the workforce and are replaced by younger employees, and the rise of the big-data era in manufacturing takes shape, finding tools and technologies to make an increasingly spread-out and remote workforce as productive as possible is a top priority for companies today.

As a recent article from McKinsey explained, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased reliance on digital collaboration to establish and maintain a connected manufacturing workforce. An increased emphasis on safety and changes to work processes, in an effort to maintain social distancing and minimize physical contact, has led organizations of all types and sizes to adopt cutting-edge ways to allow for workers to communicate and interact virtually.

While the widespread impact of the pandemic has caused this trend (and the adoption rate of related tools and technologies) to grow, it remains critical for manufacturers to provide training and resources to employees as they try to maximize productivity from afar. Why? Because doing so is poised to pay off over time. According to McKinsey, “by digitizing processes to improve equipment management and optimize physical assets, digital collaboration tools give manufacturers ways to boost productivity while enhancing quality.” And those who do it first — and well — will achieve a significant competitive advantage.

 

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has long been a trend to watch in manufacturing, and this year is no different. As it continues to grow in prominence and becomes more and more widespread over time, IoT technology will drive value for the industry by allowing organizations to make measured, informed decisions using real-time data in an effort to increase efficiency and positively impact their bottom lines.

According to a recent study conducted by the MPI Group, approximately 31% of manufacturing production processes now incorporate smart devices and embedded intelligence. Furthermore, more than one-third of manufacturers have established plans to implement IoT technology into their processes, while 32% plan to embed IoT technology into their products.

IoT technology offers both remote-monitoring and predictive-maintenance capabilities, making it even more valuable for organizations looking to maintain visibility of equipment performance from afar. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to impact the industry in 2021, IoT technology will continue to be a go-to for manufacturers looking to maintain efficiency and productivity.

 

Localized Production and Near Sourcing

The rise of customization and personalization has given way to large opportunities for manufacturers willing — and, perhaps more importantly, able — to succeed in a localized economy. By rethinking the way products get out to the public, organizations can craft an ecosystem of smaller, flexible factories located near existing and prospective customers.

Manufacturers are used to thinking on a global level. However, shifting their focus to a local level, they may be better able to meet the ever-changing needs, wants, and preferences of the markets they serve. Consumers are making it abundantly clear that authenticity matters, and a localized approach to manufacturing is proving to be among the most effective ways to for organizations to respond accordingly.

The impact of COVID-19 also cannot be discounted. The pandemic has led manufacturers to re-evaluate and reconsider sourcing, largely due to supply chain disruptions (especially in the earliest days of COVID-19). As a result, manufacturers have made a concerted effort to bring their operations closer to where their offerings are sold, and there has been an increasing desire on the part of many companies to source raw materials from domestic suppliers. All this is being done in an effort to avoid pandemic-related disruptions and support the U.S. economy during these uncertain times.

 

Predictive Maintenance

It’s no secret that the ability for manufacturers to predict impending equipment failures and — more importantly — prevent equipment downtime is incredibly impactful to their bottom lines. Advancements in technology now allow organizations to do just that (and much, much more).

The benefits, according to a recent blog post from EAM-Mosca Corp., showcase why predictive maintenance (PM) is so valuable to organizations today. PM helps companies reduce costs, decrease failures, minimize scheduled downtime, and optimize parts delivery

Effectively conducting predictive maintenance is no easy task, however. Adopting a (successful) predictive maintenance model requires manufacturers to gain insights into the variables they are collecting and — more importantly — how often those variables present themselves on factory floors. Therefore, it’s imperative for manufacturers to possess accurate and relevant knowledge about their equipment. They must know what previous failures have taken place, and they need to make decisions around lead time — becausem the closer to failure a machine is allowed to go, the more accurate the prediction will be.

 

This article was written by the Assoc. of Equipment Manufacturers.

Opinion

Editorial

In some ways, it seems like it just yesterday. In other ways, it seems like years ago.

That’s what the last 12 months of COVID-19 — 12 months unlike anything any of us have experienced before — have been like. They’ve gone by fast, but it’s been a long, as in long, year.

As with the Kennedy assassination (for those of us old enough) and with the morning of 9/11 for those who are younger, everyone remembers where they were and what was happening when the governor put his stay-at-home order in effect. For many, it meant packing up (if they hadn’t already packed up) and leaving the office for what we all thought might be a few weeks, or a few months at most.

We soon learned that those projections were way off base and that we would be living with the pandemic and all the hardships that came with it for a long time.

In the months that followed, we would learn much more, as our roundtable discussion with six area business leaders (see story on page 6) reveals. We learned that we didn’t have to be in the office, necessarily, to get our jobs done. We learned new ways of doing things. We learned to embrace technology — well, because we didn’t have a choice. And we all wondered why we didn’t embrace it earlier.

We learned some other things, as well. We learned that life is hard, and not just during a pandemic. But COVID, by exacerbating things, made it clear that work/life balance isn’t just a buzz phrase; it is a serious, serious challenge and something that employers now understand better than they ever did before.

As our panelists indicated, we all learned to listen a little more than we used to, and we learned how to more empathic to the needs and challenges of employees. Many of us learned how to be better managers because, in short, that’s what had to happen. We learned that making sales quotas, hitting deadlines, and reaching quarterly goals are not the only things that keep people up at night.

We also learned how to pivot — again, because we had to — and look for new ways to carry out our missions, make payroll each week, keep people employed, and keep the doors open.

In short, we’ve learned a lot — about pandemics, business, life, and ourselves. This is not a silver lining to this horrible crisis — there are none of those. It’s simply reality.

What’s also reality is that the hard decisions and the myriad challenges are not over — not by a long shot. Now, we have to determine how we’re going to execute all these things we’ve learned when life and work go back to normal, or something approaching it.

We have to decide how our businesses will function when it’s safe for everyone to come back to the office or the classroom or the restaurant. We’ve learned that people can work from home, but is that the best place to work — for the company and the employee? And there are other questions, including those related to how we can continue to listen, understand, and be empathic when we’re no longer in crisis mode.

These are just some of the things we need to think about as we mark a dubious milestone — a year of coping with a global pandemic.

It’s been a year to learn, reflect, adapt, and change. And we’re far from being done with any of those things.

Opinion

Opinion

Make no mistake about it, when it comes to the tragic COVID-related deaths at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke almost a year ago, there are no silver linings. There is nothing that can fill the void left by lost loved ones, and nothing that can relieve the anguish visited upon staff members who had to endure that catastrophic sequence of events that led to the deaths of at least 76 veterans.

But sometimes, such tragedies eventually lead to progress, to improvements, to new and better ways of doing things. And it appears that this may well be the case with the Soldiers’ Home.

Indeed, out of the ashes of the calamity of last spring have emerged plans for a new, eight-story Holyoke Soldiers’ Home that will replace the 70-year-old facility that is, in many ways, inadequate and obsolete. Last week, the Baker-Polito administration filed a $400 million bond bill to move forward with the construction of the new home, the next big step in the process of making a new facility reality.

While the need for a new Soldiers’ Home has long been understood and embraced, there is no doubt that the events of last spring — when the virus overran the facility amid a series of questionable decisions that ultimately led to resignations and, later, indictments for criminal neglect — have helped pave the way for a proper, modern, 235-bed facility that will serve veterans for generations to come.

This project still has a long way to go before it becomes reality. There are stern deadlines to meet and more important votes to take place in the state Legislature. But there certainly appears to be sufficient momentum to see this initiative to the finish line. It has been generated by caring people who want to do right by future generations of veterans — but also, we believe, by a deep desire to “make things right” for the families of those who died last spring and the for the staff members who have long endured inadequate facilities, said the chairman of a coalition of former Soldiers’ Home administrators, families, and veterans advocates who have embraced plans for a new home.

Truthfully, nothing will really make things right. But this is huge step in the right direction.

Picture This

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

 


 

Paws in the Workday

Monson Savings Bank recently arranged to have a certified and trained therapy dog, Rose, visit all locations to give a little comfort, relief, support, and — of course — cuddles.  Rose and her owner, Tammy Warren, visit with Nicole Shea, customer service associate at the bank’s Hampden branch.

 


 

 

Community Support

Throughout December, Freedom Credit Union partnered with its members and the local community to raise funds online to benefit the Pioneer Valley USO. Freedom matched total donations up to $2,500, helping to raise a grand total of $7,500. Pictured: Freedom President and CEO Glenn Welch, holds the check with Vice President of Retail Administration Kara Herman. (Photo courtesy of Market Mentors)

 

 


Art of the Matter

 

After retiring from her career as professor and Communication Department chair at American International College in 2018, Mary Ellen Lowney, who also works part-time as the Communications and Community Relations manager for the Springfield Housing Authority, decided to add watercolor to her world. “I started painting in March 2019, more or less on a lark,” she said. She has developed her talent under the tutelage of Joan Nelson, who has a studio in Indian Orchard. “Painting is a fairly new hobby for me,” Lowney said. “I am finding it to be relaxing, creative, and very rewarding.”

 

 

 

Agenda

On the Move Forum to Advance Women

March 8: In honor of Women’s History Month in March and International Women’s Day, Bay Path University, Springfield Museums, and UnityFirst will present the fifth annual On the Move Forum to Advance Women from 10 to 11:30 a.m. This year’s theme, “Women in Leadership: This Is What Change Looks Like — Past, Present, and Future,” offers virtual attendees an intergenerational, cross-cultural, gender-inclusive, and history-infused conversation focused on women. Now in its fifth year, the event has engaged more than 1,000 women in community conversations and presentations on women’s history, empowerment, and advancement. This year’s event aligns with the priority theme of the 65th session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women, “Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.” According to Catalyst, in 2020, women of color represented only 18% of entry-level positions, and few advanced to leadership positions. While white women held almost one-third (32.8%) of total management positions in the U.S. in 2020, Asian women (2.2%), black women (4.1%), and Hispanic women (4.5%) held a much smaller share. The 2021 On the Move Forum will feature an opening perspective by Ariana Curtis, director of “Content: Race, Community, and Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past” at the Smithsonian Institution. The keynote presentation will be given by On the Move’s inaugural scholar, Laura Lovett, associate professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and author of With Her Fist Raised: Dorothy Pitman Hughes and the Transformative Power of Black Activism. This event is free and open to the public and is hosted in collaboration with a range of organizations, including Springfield Museums, Women Innovators and Trailblazers, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, Girls Inc. of the Valley, Arise for Social Justice, the African American Female Professors Assoc., NAMIC New England, Creative Futures, LLC, and others. Registration is required. To register, visit baypath.edu/onthemove.

 

WMAS Radiothon to Benefit Baystate Children’s Hospital

March 9-10: Six-month-old Celine Grace Stewart spent the first 11 days of her life inside the Davis Neonatal Infant Care Unit (NICU) at Baystate Children’s Hospital. Hattie Avigliano also spent the first months of her life in the NICU at Baystate Children’s Hospital, arriving in the world 3½ months early and fighting for her life. These children and their families will share their miraculous stories of surviving and thriving during the 20th annual 94.7 WMAS Radiothon to benefit Baystate Children’s Hospital. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will not be held at the hospital this year, but broadcast live from the WMAS studios for two days from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. WMAS on-air personalities, led by the Kellogg Krew of Chris, Dina, and Lopez, will fill both days with encouraging stories, and listeners will get to know the professional team from Baystate Children’s Hospital who care for their kids, their grandkids, and their neighbors’ kids. To donate, the public can call the Lia Auto Group Phone Bank at (413) 794-1111, visit wmaskids.com, or text WMASKIDS to 51555. This year’s Radiothon will be held in remembrance of Jim Raimo, 94.7 WMAS team member and Radiothon supporter, who showed great dedication to Baystate Children’s Hospital.

 

Pynchon Award Nominations

Through March 19: The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts is seeking nominations from throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties for the Pynchon Award, which recognizes Western Mass. citizens who have rendered distinguished service to the community. To nominate an individual, submit a one-page letter explaining why the nominee should be considered. Include biographical information, outstanding accomplishments, examples of service to the community, organizations in which the individual is or has been active, and the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of at least three people who can further attest to the nominee’s eligibility for induction into the Order of William Pynchon. The Pynchon trustees reserve the right to eliminate nominations from consideration due to insufficient information. Qualifying nominees will be considered and researched by the Pynchon trustees, who are the current and five past presidents of the Advertising Club. Nominations must be submitted by March 19 to William Pynchon Trustees, Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts, P.O. Box 1022, West Springfield, MA 01090-1022, or by e-mail to [email protected]. The 2021 recipients will be announced in June, with an awards ceremony tentatively scheduled for the fall.

 

Ubora, Ahadi Award Nominations

Through March 31: The Springfield Museums is seeking nominations for the annual Ubora Award and Ahadi Youth Award. These prestigious awards — conferred by the African Hall Subcommittee — are awarded to African-American people from Greater Springfield who have gone above and beyond in demonstrating commitment to the fields of community service, education, science, humanities, and/or the arts. The nomination deadline for both awards is March 31. The Ubora and Ahadi awards will be presented at a ceremony at the Springfield Museums in the fall. True to the Swahili word that comprises its name, the Ubora Award recognizes an adult of African heritage who exemplifies excellence in their commitment to creating a better community through service. In 2020, the Ubora Award was given to Rep. Bud Williams. Named for the Swahili word for promise, the Ahadi Youth Award is presented to a young African-American who excels in academics and performs admirable service to the Greater Springfield community. Eligible candidates must be age 19 or younger, live in or have strong ties to the Greater Springfield area, and be currently enrolled in grades 10, 11, or 12. In 2020, the Ahadi Award was given to Kareem Wedderburn. Nomination forms can be downloaded by visiting springfieldmuseums.org/ubora. Nominations may be e-mailed to [email protected] or mailed to African Hall Subcommittee, c/o Valerie Cavagni, Springfield Museums, 21 Edwards St., Springfield, MA 01103.

 

Fundraising Walk in Remembrance of Dave Stawasz

April: Western New England University (WNEU) faculty, colleagues, family members, and students are invited to participate in a commemorative event in memory of Assistant Vice President of Marketing Communications Dave Stawasz, who passed away peacefully on Jan. 28, surrounded by his family, after a courageous two-year battle with stage-4 colorectal cancer. Stawasz was a graduate of South Hadley High School and Syracuse University. His early career was as a news producer at WWLP and then later at WFSB. He joined the university in 2004. Steps for Stawasz is a virtual walk taking place throughout the month of April in his honor. Participants will log as many virtual steps as they can during the month by either walking or running while collecting donations along the way through friends and family sponsorships. By signing up, participants will receive a link to share on social media. From there, participants can create a personal giving page to collect donations and update progress. Details and instructions can be found at runsignup.com/race/ma/springfield/stawasz. Interested individuals can also make a direct donation on the website without participating in the walk. All proceeds will go directly to the Stawasz family.

 

Institute for Trustees

Starting April 7: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (BTCF) announced it is partnering with the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) in presenting the 2021 Institute for Trustees, an annual conference inviting nonprofit leaders to gather together for educational workshops and networking opportunities. Building on the success of BTCF’s 2018 Board Leadership Forum and designed for board leaders and executive directors, the event features 24 virtual workshops from leading nonprofit experts and opportunities to connect with hundreds of peers equally committed to their leadership roles. This partnership is part of a broader effort between BTCF and ECCF to leverage resources in support of building capacity and leadership within the nonprofit sector, given the challenges facing organizations due to the pandemic and its economic consequences. The Institute for Trustees kicks off on April 7 with a keynote address by Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, titled “Leading for Nonprofit Impact Amid Unprecedented Challenge.” Beginning April 9, workshops and opportunities to connect with fellow attendees through topic-driven, informal peer discussions will be spread over the course of four weeks. Workshop topics include racial equity, endowment building, crisis planning, governance, advocacy, finance, and much more. To register for the program, visit eccf.org/ift. Registrations will be accepted at a discounted early-bird rate of $110 until March 7. After that, registration will cost $130 and will close April 7.

 

Springfield Partners for Community Action Scholarships

Through April 23: Springfield Partners for Community Action announced it will award a number of $1,000 scholarships that can help recipients with tuition and alleviate the cost of going back to school and investing in bettering themselves. All applicants must be Springfield residents, and income-eligibility guidelines may apply. Scholarships will be awarded to those attending accredited/licensed schools in Massachusetts. Applications must be received by April 23. Late entries will not be considered. If selected, recipients must be available to attend an awards event (most likely virtual) in June. Visit www.springfieldpartnersinc.com/whatwedo/scholarshipsprogram for the application form and information on how to apply.

People on the Move
Brendan Cawley

Brendan Cawley

Garrett Welker

Garrett Welker

Susan Stebbins

Susan Stebbins

Lisa White

Lisa White

Joseph LeMay

Joseph LeMay

Kara Graves

Kara Graves

Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. (MBK) recently welcomed Brendan Cawley and Garrett Welker to the firm. Cawley is a senior associate in the firm’s Taxation department. Prior to MBK, he worked on a variety of clients and industries as a manager at one of the Big Four national firms. He brings to MBK nearly 10 years of public accounting experience and a strong commitment to helping clients. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from Boston College and is an enrolled agent with the Internal Revenue Service. Welker is an associate in the Assurance department. He served for seven years in the U.S. Air Force and went on to become a finance manager at a privately held business in Western Mass. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management with a concentration in accounting from Westfield State University. MBK also announced four promotions: Susan Stebbins, CPA to senior manager; Lisa White, CPA to senior manager; Joseph LeMay, CPA to manager; and Kara Graves, CPA to employee benefit plan niche leader. Stebbins, who has been with MBK since 1997, focuses on taxation. In her new position, she will be preparing and reviewing returns, as well as managing several professionals within the firm’s taxation department. A CPA licensed in Massachusetts and Maryland, she is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA). She holds a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from Bentley University. With more than 20 years of public accounting experience, White focuses primarily on federal and state income-tax compliance and planning within the construction and real-estate industries. In her new role as a senior tax manager, she will continue to mentor staff as well as manage the delivery of services directly to many clients. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Middle Tennessee State University and is a member of the AICPA and the MSCPA. She is a CPA licensed to practice in both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and in 2011 was named among the 40 Under 40: Members to Watch by the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs. LeMay joined MBK in 2015 and works with organizations throughout Western Mass. in industries such as manufacturing, distribution, healthcare, and other service organizations. In his new role as a manager, he will manage a team in the firm’s Accounting and Auditing department. In addition, he leads initiatives to provide the department with tech updates, serves as a mentor in the firm’s formal mentorship program, and is the leader for the firm’s wellness program. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Westfield State University and a master’s degree in accountancy from Westfield State University. He is a CPA and certified valuation analyst in the state of Massachusetts and is a member of the AICPA and the MSCPA. Graves, who has been with MBK since 2011 and has more than 14 years of experience in accounting and auditing, specializes in employee benefit plans and commercial audits. In her new position, she will be overseeing all of the plans, scheduling teams and field work, researching changes on standards for pension audits, implementing any necessary updates, and facilitating training and annual planning for pension audits. She is a licensed CPA in Massachusetts and holds a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from Roger Williams University and an master’s degree in accountancy from Western New England University. She is a member of the MSCPA and CPAmerica. She serves on the audit committee for the United Way of Hampshire County.

•••••

Dawn Fleury

Dawn Fleury

Miriam Siegel

Miriam Siegel

Tom Wolcott

Tom Wolcott

Country Bank recently announced three executive promotions within the bank’s senior management team. Dawn Fleury, CPA, has been promoted to first senior vice president of Corporate Risk. Before joining Country Bank in 2012, she had a 21-year career with the FDIC as a commissioned senior bank examiner. In her current role, she oversees the bank’s comprehensive risk-management programs, including compliance, corporate risk, internal audit, BSA fraud, commercial credit, commercial loan workout, and residential collections. Miriam Siegel, CCP, CBP has been promoted to first senior vice president of Human Resources and chief diversity officer. When she joined Country Bank in 2018, she brought 26 years of professional experience as the senior vice president of Human Resources for United Bank. In her current role, she oversees all aspects of the bank’s human-resources initiatives, as well as driving talent-management strategies to lead the bank’s learning and development team. She serves on the board of Behavioral Health Network in Springfield and the Wilbraham Personnel Advisory Board. Tom Wolcott has been promoted to first senior vice president of the Commercial Lending and Business Banking divisions. He joined Country Bank in 2019 after a previous career in the financial-services industry that spanned more than three decades, including senior vice president roles at People’s United Bank, United Bank, Citizens Bank, and Fleet Bank, primarily in the Connecticut, Springfield, and Worcester markets. He has extensive expertise in managing diverse and complex commercial clients as well as assisting small businesses with creative solutions to help them achieve their financial goals.

•••••

Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems, announced the appointment of Dean Vitarisi as chief financial officer (CFO) at Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems. Vitarisi’s prior experience included executive-level finance positions with Essen Health Care, Trinity Health Of New England, Yale New Haven Health, St. Mary’s Health System, and St. Raphael Healthcare System. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from Bryant University. He then completed an MBA from Quinnipiac University, followed by a master certificate in healthcare leadership from Cornell University School of Human Ecology.

•••••

The Valley Blue Sox announced that an alumnus of their 2016 season, Hezekiah (Hez) Randolph, will take over for John Raiola as head coach. Randolph has had a successful career in both high-school and collegiate baseball. He was a designated hitter and second baseman for the University of New Orleans Privateers, where he was named a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American in his freshman year and All-Louisiana First Team during his senior year. He joined the Blue Sox as a player in the summer of 2016, where he was selected for the New England Collegiate Baseball League All-Star Game, in addition to earning second-team honors. He then went on to join the Blue Sox coaching staff as a hitting coach in 2018.

•••••

Peter Morales

Peter Morales

Country Bank announced that Peter Morales has joined its Innovation & Technology Division as senior vice president. Morales has held several technical leadership positions, most recently as vice president and chief information officer for an international educational organization supporting more than 45,000 students in more than 40 countries worldwide. He also held positions at New York University, (leading technology at the Law and Engineering schools), and the New York and American stock exchanges. Morales began his career developing diagnostic systems for the F18, the jet the Blue Angels currently fly. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, a master’s degree in engineering management, and a doctorate in computer science and information systems. He continues to teach in two master’s programs at NYU and is on the board of directors for several incubator startups and nonprofits.

•••••

Caitlin O’Connor

Caitlin O’Connor

Monson Savings Bank announced the hire of Caitlin O’Connor as vice president and marketing officer in the bank’s Marketing department. In her new role, she will oversee all aspects of the bank’s brand and business-line marketing, advertising, public relations, and communications efforts. She will also be responsible for establishing and implementing an effective, innovative, and comprehensive marketing plan that aligns with the bank’s vision, mission, values, and strategic goals. O’Connor has been in the banking industry for 13 years and has 17 years of experience in the marketing and design industry. She is a graduate of Mount Ida College in Newton, now a campus of UMass Amherst. Prior to joining Monson Savings Bank, she held the role of vice president and marketing manager of North Brookfield Savings Bank.

•••••

Jeff Liguori, co-founder and chief investment officer at Napatree Capital, announced the addition of Matt Landon as a partner. With more than 26 years of broad investment experience, Landon began his investment career at MassMutual Financial Group, rising to the role of managing director after a series of promotions. He was later recruited to senior positions at investment-industry leaders Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price. He also founded Intelligent Portfolio Services, an early mover in the robo advisor space. Most recently, he held senior advisor roles at Commonwealth Financial Network and LPL Financial, helping families and business owners pursue their financial goals. Landon has earned a reputation as a skilled investment practitioner and trusted advisor to his clients. As a dedicated student of the financial markets and lifelong learner, he has been awarded the prestigious chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation. Locally, he serves as a trustee at Veritas Prep Charter School and is a member of its finance and investment committees. As a lacrosse fan and enthusiast, he also serves on the board of the Longmeadow Boys’ Lacrosse Assoc. and still suits up for an occasional over-40 lacrosse game.

•••••

Alex Bennett

Alex Bennett

Pearson Wallace Insurance (PWI), with offices in Pittsfield, Amherst, and Boston, announced that Alex Bennett has been promoted to partner within the agency. Bennett has been with PWI from the beginning, most recently holding the position of vice president of Sales. He will continue to spearhead the growth of sales as well as become involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing from Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I., and started his insurance career at Liberty Mutual in personal-lines direct sales in the Greater Boston area.

•••••

Margaret Mack has joined Bulkley Richardson as a member of the law firm’s real-estate practice group. she earned her juris doctor degree from Suffolk University Law School in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from the Catholic University of America in 2016. Prior to joining Bulkley Richardson, Mack was an attorney at the Global 200 law firm of Fragomen, Del Ray, Bernsen, and Lowey in New York City and a law clerk at Seyfarth Shaw in Boston, ranked 75th and 74th, respectively, among all law firms globally. She was also a research assistant for Suffolk University Law School and a legal associate at Integreon, a global provider of alternative legal solutions to leading law firms, corporations, and professional service firms.

Company Notebook

Health Partners New England Acquires Providence Hospital

HOLYOKE — Mercy Medical Center announced it has sold Providence Behavioral Health Hospital to HPNE, which will operate the facility under the name MiraVista Behavioral Health and resume operations of the Acute Treatment Service (detoxification), Clinical Stabilization Service (post-detoxification), and outpatient services, including the Intensive Outpatient Program, court-ordered services, and the Opioid Treatment Program without interruption of service. Additionally, HPNE plans to establish inpatient psychiatric services at the facility, and is currently working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to acquire licensure to provide up to 84 inpatient beds. The timeline for the opening of these inpatient beds is still being determined. Mercy Medical Center will assist colleagues who are affected by the sale, where possible, with Trinity transfers, statutory benefits for employment loss, referrals for alternative employment, and further educational opportunities, and through cooperation with MiraVista for those seeking employment with the new owner. Brightside for Families and Children will continue to provide services to the Western Mass. community under the umbrella of Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health Of New England. Offices will remain in the former Providence Behavioral Health Hospital building under a lease agreement with HPNE.

 

State Files $400 Million Bond Bill to Rebuild Holyoke Soldiers’ Home

HOLYOKE — The Baker-Polito administration recently filed “An Act Financing the Reconstruction of the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke,” which would provide $400 million in capital authorization for a major project to reconstruct the long-term-care facility at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. This bill provides the capital authorization that would allow the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) to construct a new facility on the site of the current Soldiers’ Home that would meet the needs of the veterans of Western Mass. and their families. The capital project is on an expedited timeline, necessitated by the April 15 deadline for the VA State Home Construction Grant Program, which would provide 65% matching federal funds. To meet that deadline, DCAMM must have this authorization available by April 1, which requires this bond bill to be enacted by mid-March, with a terms bill filed and enacted soon afterwards. The design-development phase must be completed by Aug. 1 to be eligible for this cycle of the grant program.

 

Happier Valley Comedy Offers Free Happiness Program

HADLEY — After the year nonprofit organizations have had, who couldn’t use more happiness? On March 1, Happier Valley Comedy launched its Free Happiness Program, through which nonprofits serving underrepresented, marginalized communities can apply for a free Happier Valley Comedy event. Organizations can apply for the local comedy theater to provide a free improv show or a personal/professional development training session, either online or in person, when it’s safe to do so. Happier Valley Comedy developed the Free Happiness Program as part of its ‘green-lining’ efforts, which aim to provide some balance for the historic, unjust ‘red-lining’ of BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) individuals in the greater worlds of comedy, personal and professional development, and beyond. Applications open on March 1 and will be awarded by Happier Valley Comedy’s board of directors on a rolling basis through the Free Happiness Program page at happiervalley.com. Organizations must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to apply. Preference will be given to local organizations serving underrepresented, marginalized, and/or BIPOC individuals.

 

Shakespeare & Company Plans to Open 500-seat Amphitheater

LENOX — Shakespeare & Company hopes to open a 500-seat amphitheater on its grounds this summer. Founded in 1978, the theater company attracts more than 40,000 patrons to Lenox annually. “We’ve been considering this particular location on the property for a long time as part of our strategic plan,” Artistic Director Allyn Burrows said. Demolition has already begun on the buildings occupying the space where the new performance space, currently known as New Spruce Theatre, will sit. The theater company hopes it will be completed in time for the opening of King Lear this summer. The open-air theater comes after a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to suspend all of its in-person activities.

 

Elms College, Big Y Partner on COVID-19 Vaccinations

CHICOPEE — Elms College and Big Y Supermarkets have formed a partnership to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to eligible residents in Western Mass. In coordination with the Elms College School of Nursing, Big Y has established two COVID-19 vaccination clinics. One clinic site is in the former Staples store located in the Big Y Plaza at 443 North Main St. in East Longmeadow. The second is located in the Big Y Plaza at 237 Mohawk Trail in Greenfield, in a space formerly occupied by a mattress store. More than 200 Elms College School of Nursing students — sophomores, juniors and seniors — are participating in this joint effort with Big Y to administer and schedule COVID-19 vaccinations. While some nursing students are administering the vaccines, others help monitor patients after the shots are administered. Elms nursing students also help patients schedule appointments for their second vaccine shot. For more information on the clinics, to see if you qualify, and to schedule an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination, visit www.bigy.com/pharmacy/covid19-vaccine-faq.

 

Girls Inc. to Receive Proceeds from Sen. Warren’s Children’s Book

HOLYOKE — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced that a portion of the proceeds from Pinkie Promises, her new children’s book debuting this fall, will go to Girls Inc. of the Valley, as well as several other Girls Inc. chapters in Massachusetts. The book features illustrations by Charlene Chua. “We are completely blown away by this incredible act of generosity from Senator Warren,” said Suzanne Parker, Girls Inc. of the Valley’s executive director. “For the senator to think of Girls Inc. in this way is so special, and we are humbled to be among the Massachusetts Girls Inc. affiliates to receive this honor.” Girls Inc. of the Valley aims to inspire all girls to see themselves as leaders with the skills and capabilities to improve and influence their local communities.

 

Bradley International Airport Named in USA Today Readers’ Choice Awards

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — The Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) announced that USA Today has named Bradley International Airport a winner in its 2021 10Best Readers’ Choice travel contest in the “Best Small Airport” category. Bradley placed seventh out of 15 airports that were selected by industry experts as the best across the nation. In response to COVID-19, the CAA has continued to enhance services at Bradley International Airport over the past year, aimed at providing a safe, clean, and comfortable travel experience. More information about the safety measures undertaken and what travelers can expect can be found at www.bdlcares.com. On its website, USA Today noted that Bradley International Airport “ranks as the second-busiest airport after Boston Logan, yet it remains a convenient option with on-site parking, lots of charging stations, free wi-fi, and proximity to both New York and Boston.” Bradley was chosen by a panel of industry experts for inclusion in the USA Today contest, which was followed by four weeks of public voting nationwide. This is the airport’s second national recognition within the year after placing as a top-10 airport in the 2020 Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice survey.

 

GCC Introduces Scholarship for Frontline, Essential Workers

GREENFIELD — In response to the ongoing economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greenfield Community College (GCC) has introduced a scholarship to support frontline and essential workers in their education. The award allows recipients to attend GCC tuition- and fee-free for up to three years of full- or part-time study. The Frontline & Essential Workers Scholarship was conceived last summer in conversations among GCC President Yves Salomon-Fernández; Regina Curtis, executive director of Institutional Advancement and the GCC Foundation; and Linda Desjardins, director of Financial Aid. The expenditures for the scholarship for this academic year are $16,227, and the total cost over three years will be approximately $50,000. The scholarship is primarily funded by GCC’s financial-aid resources, with the help of Big Y World Class Markets. Four students received the Frontline & Essential Workers Scholarship in the 2020-21 academic year: two Big Y employees, one ETM, and one Target employee.

Incorporations

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

NORTH ADAMS

Fatih Corp., 315 Asland St., North Adams, MA 01247. Avni Elevli, 41-43, 43rd St. Sunnyside, NY 11104. Restaurant.

NORTHAMPTON

Alecho Inc., 84 Round Hill Road, Northampton, MA 01060. Gerardo Alicea, same. Sales.

SOUTH BARRE

BullGod, Inc., 21 Grove St., PO Box 60, South Barre, MA 01074. Michael Radesky, same. Lawn care services and landscaping.

PITTSFIELD

Element 7 Massachusetts Inc., 82 Wendell Ave., Suite 100, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Robert Divito, 7936 Hillside Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90046. Consulting.

Garden Management Inc., 4 Eastbrook Lane, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Muhammad Khurram Zia, same. Real estate.

H and S Investigations Group Inc., 75 South Church St., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Howard C. Siegel, 56 Brookside Dr. Pittsfield, MA 01201. Private investigation and security corporation.

SOUTH HADLEY

Chase Realty Holdings Inc., 95 Main St., South Hadley, MA 01075. Stephan C. Chase, 53 Griswold Rd. Ellington, CT 06029. Property ownership and management.

Coreseka Inc., 2 Linda St. South Hadley, MA 01075. Kathryn A. Hannon, same. Online retail and media.

SOUTHWICK

Designers Edge AA Inc., 549 College Highway, PO Box 450, Southwick, MA 01077. Ashley Augustus, 11 Beach Road, Southwick, MA 01077. Cosmetology and any other lawful purpose.

SPRINGFIELD

CZBW Inc., 102 Thompson St., Springfield, MA 01109. Calvin Samuel Rose, same. Full-service restaurant.

Garden Holistic Center Corporation, 441 White St., Springfield, MA 01108. Donovan Haywood Ma, same. Health, wellness, nutrition, fitness.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Atlantis Transport Corp., 22 Allen St., Floor 1, West Springfield, MA 01089. Adbi Mamedov, same. Trucking.

Bory’s Corporation, 36 Guy Place, West Springfield, MA 01089. Borys Andriychuk, same. Construction.

Community Developers Inc., 940 Westfield St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Wilfrid J. Bourque Jr., same. Real estate development corporation.

WILBRAHAM

Baystate Forktruck Inc., 2 Crane Park, Suite B, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Shawn Summers, same. Road mechanics.

EddBros Co., 60 Chilson Road, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Ketlyn Depaula, same. Shades installation.

Bankruptcies

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

Craigg, Kirk D.
122 Avery St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Harry, William A.
160 Point Grove Road, Apt. 25
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Hawrylow, Christopher L.
4 Division St., West
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/20/2021

Kotright, Joe J.
Kotright-Gonzalez, Joe
39 Green St., Apt. 1
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/29/2021

Leaper, Michelle Y.
25 High St., Apt. 3R
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/26/2021

Logan, Ashlee L.
a/k/a Logan, Ashlee Lavonne Renae
165 Lebanon Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/30/2021

McAlister, Stephen E.
3 Warren Ave.
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/30/2021

Morgan, Gordon Samuel
86 Lake Villa Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 13
Date: 01/19/2021

Ocasio, Migdalia L.
12 Trafton Road
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Pala, Serap
134 College Hwy., Apt. D-5
Southampton, MA 01073
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Seward, Wallace L.
43 Froman St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Somes, John Davison
50 Village Hill Road, Apt. 107
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/25/2021

Turan, Arzu
96 Bluebird Circle
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Date: 01/21/2021

Walsh, Elizabeth Anne
a/k/a Santanello, Elizabeth
185 Allen St
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Date: 01/25/2021

Real Estate

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

FRANKLIN COUNTY

ASHFIELD

536 Bellus Road
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $720,000
Buyer: Richard E. Rubin
Seller: Kathryn C. Precourt RET
Date: 01/29/21

812 West Road
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Michael McDonnell
Seller: Richard P. Fitzgerald
Date: 01/29/21

BERNARDSTON

27-A Eden Trail
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $325,500
Buyer: MTGLQ Investors LP
Seller: Stuart R. Provost
Date: 01/29/21

179 Shaw Road
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $154,875
Buyer: Steven Walter-Kubisch
Seller: Bank New York Mellon
Date: 02/05/21

267 Turners Falls Road
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $385,000
Buyer: David J. Harris
Seller: David C. Lewis
Date: 02/05/21

CHARLEMONT

2065 Route 2
Charlemont, MA 01370
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Lawrence T. Shaw
Seller: Terri J. Peters
Date: 01/29/21

COLRAIN

8 Christian Hill Road
Colrain, MA 01340
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Zachary Starr-Powell
Seller: Joan A. Powell
Date: 02/05/21

CONWAY

46 Delabarre Ave.
Conway, MA 01341
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Sophie P. Michaux
Seller: Amanda L. Nash
Date: 02/05/21

859 East Guinea Road
Conway, MA 01341
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: Jacob Arnold
Seller: Richard G. Laroche
Date: 01/29/21

155 Sabans Road
Conway, MA 01341
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Jacob R. Coates
Seller: Scott M. Doneilo
Date: 01/29/21

DEERFIELD

299 Greenfield Road
Deerfield, MA 01373
Amount: $146,500
Buyer: STS Properties LLC
Seller: Blaise P. Berthiaume
Date: 01/27/21

24 Pleasant Ave.
Deerfield, MA 01342
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Pervez Hai
Seller: Carrington Mtg Services LLC
Date: 02/02/21

ERVING

22 Prospect St.
Erving, MA 01344
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Melanie C. Breor
Seller: Philip R. Kavanaugh
Date: 02/05/21

58 River Road
Erving, MA 01344
Amount: $294,300
Buyer: Jesse J. Taylor
Seller: Nancy S. Hammond
Date: 01/29/21

GREENFIELD

9 Cherry St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Jeffrey W. Whitney
Seller: Carmela Semonelli
Date: 01/26/21

139 Conway St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $179,000
Buyer: Shimon Ben-Shir
Seller: Paul A. Interlande
Date: 01/29/21

20 Ferrante Ave.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $227,500
Buyer: Seth Rosenbloom
Seller: Kimberley G. Scammon
Date: 02/05/21

450 Green River Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $425,000
Buyer: Peter C. Perkins
Seller: R. B. & Tessa S. Taylor LT
Date: 02/05/21

145 Hope St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Dovrah Plotkin
Seller: Katryn V. Turk
Date: 02/01/21

117 Main St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Cohn & Grader LLC
Seller: Ross D. Gorman
Date: 01/28/21

112 Maple St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $186,000
Buyer: Eli Liebman
Seller: Meghan S. Carroll
Date: 01/27/21

22 Riddell St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Mark A. Abraham
Seller: KWC 22 Riddell LLC
Date: 02/05/21

MONTAGUE

60 Central St.
Montague, MA 01349
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Samuel P. Gido
Seller: Andrew H. Killeen
Date: 02/05/21

94 Federal St.
Montague, MA 01349
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: William P. Freeman
Seller: Raymond P. Denkewicz
Date: 02/04/21

20-1/2 G. St.
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Marc Guillaume
Seller: David W. Collings
Date: 01/29/21

29 Greenfield Road
Montague, MA 01351
Amount: $335,000
Buyer: Samuel I. Baker
Seller: Jarad Weeks
Date: 01/26/21

17 West Main St.
Montague, MA 01349
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Yaritza Fuentes
Seller: Marilyn C. Watroba
Date: 01/29/21

ORANGE

54 Abbott St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Virginia Realty Inc.
Seller: Laurence P. Vallee
Date: 01/28/21

67 Logan Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Elwyn C. Hayden
Seller: Anne J. Hayden
Date: 01/27/21

77 Pleasant St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $217,000
Buyer: Brandon M. Coy
Seller: Jay Guilmette
Date: 02/05/21

241 Walnut Hill Road
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $245,900
Buyer: Agbenyo Dika
Seller: Jason A. Zanga
Date: 01/26/21

92 Wheeler Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $224,000
Buyer: Thomas W. Donahue
Seller: Teresa Richards
Date: 01/29/21

SHELBURNE

95 Main St.
Shelburne, MA 01370
Amount: $162,500
Buyer: Noble Home LLC
Seller: Kara Ballentine
Date: 01/27/21

SHUTESBURY

338 Locks Pond Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $859,900
Buyer: Isaac M. Goldstein
Seller: Alan J. Lesser
Date: 02/02/21

Locks Pond Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: KJS Realty Inc.
Seller: Historical Enterprises
Date: 02/03/21

SUNDERLAND

267 River Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $316,500
Buyer: Wo Q. Zhu
Seller: James A. Kudrikow
Date: 01/29/21

WENDELL

143 Locke Hill Road
Wendell, MA 01379
Amount: $211,000
Buyer: Rachael Bean
Seller: Linda G. Bean
Date: 02/01/21

44 Wickett Pond Road
Wendell, MA 01379
Amount: $261,000
Buyer: Jonathan E. Skellie
Seller: Amie M. Keddy
Date: 01/28/21

WHATELY

202 River Road
Whately, MA 01373
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Leah R. Herd
Seller: John J. Symanski
Date: 02/04/21

HAMPDEN COUNTY

AGAWAM

38 Depalma St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $279,900
Buyer: Olga Arbuzov
Seller: MAA Property LLC
Date: 01/28/21

28 Doane Ave.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $216,000
Buyer: Andrea Efantis
Seller: Clifford M. Larsen
Date: 02/05/21

17 Duclos Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $322,000
Buyer: Lisa Crabtree-Kelliher
Seller: Dian D. Curran
Date: 02/05/21

263 Elm St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Natalia P. Trznadel
Seller: Simard, Charles F., (Estate)
Date: 02/03/21

71 Florida Dr.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $299,900
Buyer: Stephen A. Bennett
Seller: Alicia Horning
Date: 01/29/21

82-84 High St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Agawam Rentals LLC
Seller: Samantha Gelinas
Date: 01/28/21

91 Liberty St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Christopher Deuso
Seller: Joslyn J. Luginbuhl
Date: 02/05/21

238 Maple St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $4,000,000
Buyer: Malka Apts. Equities LLC
Seller: Dow Realty Management LLC
Date: 02/05/21

41 Monroe St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Kevin R. Hill
Seller: Richard C. Gingras
Date: 02/05/21

483 North Westfield St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $245,051
Buyer: Deborah A. Senk
Seller: McCausland, Randy E., (Estate)
Date: 01/26/21

28-30 Orlando St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Zhi Q. Tan
Seller: Ali B. Kitchell
Date: 02/05/21

81 Pleasant Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Christine Croteau
Seller: Anthony F. Manzi
Date: 01/28/21

39 Robin Ridge Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $335,888
Buyer: Jennifer Mason
Seller: Kimberly Brantley
Date: 01/29/21

178 School St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: Fabio J. Desousa
Seller: Dmitriy Brutskiy
Date: 02/02/21

22 Silver St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Papaoutai RT
Seller: Top Notch Service Provider
Date: 01/29/21

562 Suffield St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $182,900
Buyer: Rosa F. Contrino
Seller: Brenda Gooch
Date: 01/29/21

55 Wilbert Ter.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $410,000
Buyer: Delanie Sapelli
Seller: Susan E. Smith
Date: 01/28/21

CHICOPEE

20 Alfred St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Anabel Vargas
Seller: Christina R. Hemond
Date: 01/29/21

206 Bridle Path Road
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $420,000
Buyer: Todd M. Diederich
Seller: Adam D. Corcoran
Date: 01/29/21

168 Britton St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Vyacheslav Pisarenko
Seller: Bernard G. St.George
Date: 02/02/21

295 Britton St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $189,900
Buyer: Samet Ozturk
Seller: Clark E. Matthews
Date: 01/29/21

544 Broadway St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Carlos J. Martinez
Seller: Noreen B. Candon
Date: 02/05/21

59 Carriage Road
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $520,000
Buyer: William R. Wisniewski
Seller: Melissa Dawn-Laflamme
Date: 01/29/21

725 Chicopee St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $172,000
Buyer: Mark Tefft
Seller: Timothy J. Driscoll
Date: 02/05/21

21 Depot St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Round 2 LLC
Seller: Michael Breor
Date: 01/29/21

6 Duncan St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Chelsey M. Kelley
Seller: Nicole E. Desrosiers
Date: 01/29/21

48 Edgewood Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $216,000
Buyer: Alisha L. Lugo
Seller: Stephanie A. Pelland
Date: 01/26/21

23 Francis St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $249,900
Buyer: Daniel R. St.Cyr
Seller: Cynthia A. Conklin
Date: 01/26/21

63 Fredette St.
Chicopee, MA 01022
Amount: $405,000
Buyer: Jonathan R. Ash
Seller: N. Riley Development Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

310 Front St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $819,000
Buyer: PAF IRT
Seller: KV Properties LLC
Date: 01/29/21

318 Front St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $819,000
Buyer: PAF IRT
Seller: KV Properties LLC
Date: 01/29/21

339 Front St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $819,000
Buyer: PAF IRT
Seller: KV Properties LLC
Date: 01/29/21

43 Grace St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $257,500
Buyer: Michael Bogdanovich
Seller: Student Builders Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

181 Granby Road
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Giovannie Luna
Seller: Lussier, Don E., (Estate)
Date: 01/27/21

33 Grattan St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $425,000
Buyer: Kenney Commercial Group LLC
Seller: John W. Walz
Date: 01/28/21

37 Greenleaf St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $207,000
Buyer: Julio Vazquez-Roman
Seller: Emtay Inc.
Date: 02/05/21

57 Laramee St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $123,000
Buyer: Caleb P. Kabaniec
Seller: Steven C. Switalski
Date: 02/03/21

6 Lombard St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $260,000
Buyer: A. Tia Lexandre-Taylor
Seller: Kevin Boisselle
Date: 02/05/21

52 Marlborough St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Jared J. Krause
Seller: Alzira Costa
Date: 01/29/21
132 Maryland Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $243,800
Buyer: Elsie Texidor
Seller: German Garcia
Date: 02/04/21

77 Meadow St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Nawar Tifour
Seller: Victoria Tokarev
Date: 01/29/21

930 McKinstry Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Eugene V. Shevchuk
Seller: Mariya Borisik
Date: 02/01/21

327 New Ludlow Road
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $335,000
Buyer: German Garcia
Seller: DGL Properties LLC
Date: 02/04/21

9 Post Road
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Lisa Munoz
Seller: Lori J. Page
Date: 01/27/21

48 Rimmon Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Janet T. Brewster
Seller: Thomas A. Conroy
Date: 02/05/21

100 Saint James Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $223,000
Buyer: Fermin R. Rivera-Mercado
Seller: Steven M. Jimmo
Date: 02/05/21

563 Springfield St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Pierre J. Saintilus
Seller: Oleksandr O. Barynov
Date: 01/29/21

581 Springfield St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Duncan Daviau
Seller: Daviau, Richard G., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/21

48 Sycamore Lane
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Eric A. Ciecko
Seller: Grandview Development Assocs. LLC
Date: 01/29/21

153 Vadnais St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Patricia Hart
Seller: Amber L. Diederich
Date: 01/29/21

West St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Nicholas Ayala
Seller: Michael Lopes
Date: 02/05/21

EAST LONGMEADOW

8 Auburn St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $376,500
Buyer: Marisa H. Anthonis
Seller: John J. Kelly
Date: 01/25/21

131 Dwight Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01108
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Suzette Santiago
Seller: Luke Paull
Date: 01/29/21

87 Gates Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $299,900
Buyer: Jebuotao F. Lemont
Seller: Kelly Osada
Date: 02/01/21

64 Merriam St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $214,000
Buyer: Aaron L. Duncan
Seller: Thomas R. Reilly
Date: 01/26/21

51 Scantic Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: Samuel Wheaton
Seller: Angela R. Tassinari
Date: 01/28/21

126 Westwood Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Brittanie L. McGregor
Seller: HSB Investments LLC
Date: 01/28/21

61 Wood Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Janet P. Hemond
Seller: Brandy Magdalino
Date: 01/27/21

GRANVILLE

75 Old Westfield Road
Granville, MA 01034
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Jeffrey C. Maceyka
Seller: Thomas A. Laptew
Date: 01/25/21

HOLLAND

33 Leno Road
Holland, MA 01521
Amount: $179,900
Buyer: James W. Leaming
Seller: Jennifer Nardone
Date: 01/27/21

HOLYOKE

5 Adams St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $1,100,000
Buyer: 33 34 Van Cort LLC
Seller: Riverdale Equities LLC
Date: 01/28/21

341 Appleton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $187,000
Buyer: Patalano Property Mgmt. LLC
Seller: Anthony Patalano
Date: 02/01/21

Bullard Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $515,000
Buyer: Albert R. Axe
Seller: Steven Tenenbaum
Date: 02/01/21

121-123 Clemente St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $1,350,000
Buyer: 121131 Clemente Holyoke
Seller: Posiadlosc LLC
Date: 01/25/21

1000-1002 Hampden St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $262,650
Buyer: Allan E. Nolan
Seller: Amer Ahmed
Date: 01/25/21

35 Holy Family Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $2,000,000
Buyer: Holyoke Realty Investments LLC
Seller: Sisters of Providence
Date: 02/03/21

46 Magnolia Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $258,000
Buyer: Javier A. Villa-Hernandez
Seller: Damaris S. Martinez
Date: 01/28/21

12 Montgomery Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $515,000
Buyer: Albert R. Axe
Seller: Steven Tenenbaum
Date: 02/01/21

5 North Canal St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $365,000
Buyer: Paul D. McBride
Seller: Henry Varick-Pelton
Date: 01/29/21

1736 Northampton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: Naomi Henderson
Seller: Charles Haluck
Date: 02/04/21

2010 Northampton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Vanessa R. Farrell
Seller: Douglas J. Fountain
Date: 01/29/21

41 Queen St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $286,000
Buyer: Jared A. Herman
Seller: Karen L. Kleszczynski
Date: 01/28/21

79-81 Taylor St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $232,000
Buyer: Biano D. Thiombiano
Seller: Kevin J. Godek
Date: 02/01/21

348 West Franklin St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Amer Ahmed
Seller: US Bank
Date: 01/25/21

LONGMEADOW

122 Ardsley Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $835,000
Buyer: Raymond L. Adams
Seller: Richard E. Spencer
Date: 01/25/21

214 Captain Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $380,000
Buyer: Rebecca S. Reiff
Seller: Christina Ly
Date: 01/29/21

158 Edgewood Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $257,500
Buyer: Teresa C. Reppucci
Seller: Hession, Lee C., (Estate)
Date: 01/27/21

133 Lawnwood Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Zachary Kushner
Seller: Kaaren M. Maloney
Date: 01/29/21

447 Longmeadow St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $375,000
Buyer: Brian E. Chiesi
Seller: Athena P. Pappas
Date: 01/29/21

14 Riverview Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $266,000
Buyer: Vinod Hareendrannair
Seller: Albina M. Belisle
Date: 01/29/21

24 Roseland Ter.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $308,111
Buyer: David Freeman-Evans
Seller: Annette M. Scheidecker
Date: 02/05/21

41 Roseland Ter.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $393,000
Buyer: Gerald M. Foley
Seller: Deeba A. Zaher
Date: 01/29/21

93 Wheel Meadow Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $560,000
Buyer: Anthony W. Bunn
Seller: Howard A. Goldberg
Date: 01/29/21

LUDLOW

695 Chapin St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: Antwain Bridges
Seller: Richard A. Thibeault
Date: 01/26/21

71 Crest St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Jennifer L. Castro
Seller: Jose Alves
Date: 01/29/21

23 Focosi Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $385,000
Buyer: Mike I. Imbale
Seller: Platinum Homes LLC
Date: 02/04/21

64 Kirkland Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $252,000
Buyer: Edward J. Rondeau
Seller: Eurico F. Ferreira
Date: 02/01/21

55 Manor Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Tyler Redzko
Seller: Roger P. Ledoux
Date: 02/05/21

614 Moore St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $259,000
Buyer: Jorge Jimenez
Seller: Markez F. Cotto
Date: 01/29/21

76 Rood St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $291,500
Buyer: Nikolaus K. Schloesser
Seller: Carvalho, Alfred M., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/21

287 West St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: GJL RNL NT
Seller: Ryan J. Pazcoguin
Date: 01/27/21

MONSON

10 Hilltop Dr.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Jarett K. Greene
Seller: Thomas M. Greene
Date: 01/29/21

275 Lower Hampden Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $292,000
Buyer: Paula M. Aversa
Seller: Michael J. Stacy
Date: 02/04/21

14 Main St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $242,000
Buyer: Lauri Aliengena
Seller: James P. Moran
Date: 02/03/21

308 Main St.
Monson, MA 01036
Amount: $239,900
Buyer: Cynthia Gleason
Seller: 4 Season Realty Development LLC
Date: 01/29/21

113 Thayer Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Richard Keefe
Seller: Christopher P. Tranghese
Date: 01/26/21

3 Woodridge Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: David A. Robitaille
Seller: Property Advantage Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

PALMER

53 Commercial St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $174,900
Buyer: Keith S. Karrmann
Seller: Brandon T. Moser
Date: 01/29/21

2187-2189 Main St.
Palmer, MA 01080
Amount: $260,000
Buyer: Andres Camacho
Seller: Waseem Ahmad
Date: 02/05/21

58 Olney Road
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: Branden P. Cavanaugh
Seller: Patrick J. Cavanaugh
Date: 01/29/21

34 Shearer St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $253,000
Buyer: Maurice L. Young
Seller: Laurie A. Lafleche
Date: 01/25/21

RUSSELL

146 Huntington Road
Russell, MA 01071
Amount: $325,000
Buyer: Frederick Fopiano
Seller: Marie A. Fisk
Date: 01/29/21

21 Main St.
Russell, MA 01008
Amount: $176,400
Buyer: FHLM
Seller: Edward M. Donnachie
Date: 01/26/21

SPRINGFIELD

53 Abbott St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Reinaldo J. Rivera
Seller: Golden Gates Realty Assocs.
Date: 01/29/21

92 Acushnet Ave.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Adriana B. Bello
Seller: Global Homes Property LLC
Date: 02/01/21

80 Alden St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $204,000
Buyer: Julianny Ortiz-Diaz
Seller: Hector E. Lorenzo
Date: 01/28/21

600 Alden St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Travis M. Orszulak
Seller: Clinton R. Stonacek
Date: 02/01/21

60 Aspen Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Barbara Racine
Seller: George W. Andrews
Date: 01/29/21

55 Bellevue Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Genevieve Construction Development Group
Seller: John Piekutoski
Date: 01/26/21

19 Birch St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $252,000
Buyer: Jenoy Barnett
Seller: Thomas P. Hanifan
Date: 02/03/21

47 Bither St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Nichole M. Bourke
Seller: Jordan Gilliam
Date: 01/29/21

55 Blodgett St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Samantha Clinton-Aimable
Seller: Blythewood Property Mgmt. LLC
Date: 01/29/21

178 Boston Road
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Shelby Real Estate LLC
Seller: 180 Boston Road LLC
Date: 01/26/21

73 Canton St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $142,000
Buyer: Rhonda M. Soto
Seller: Anne E. Welz
Date: 02/05/21

1542-1548 Carew St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $259,900
Buyer: Wahid Uddin
Seller: Shaw, William D., (Estate)
Date: 01/26/21

39 Cedar St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $270,750
Buyer: Brett H. Albert
Seller: Antonio Aro
Date: 01/26/21

240 Centre St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Donny Taimanglo
Seller: Miles Alden Bus Agency
Date: 02/02/21

11 Chase Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $164,850
Buyer: PHH Mortgage Corp
Seller: Campagnari Construction LLC
Date: 02/01/21

282 Commonwealth Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $138,000
Buyer: William M. Collins
Seller: Jerine Blissett
Date: 01/25/21

235 Connecticut Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Jade V. Lebel
Seller: Andrew Barcomb
Date: 02/02/21

259 Cuff Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Rebecca M. Feist
Seller: Renata J. Peloquin
Date: 01/29/21

124 Donbray Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Tam T. Le
Seller: Binh T. Le
Date: 01/26/21

62-64 Dunmoreland St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Frank Ofori-Boateng
Seller: Salim Abdoo
Date: 01/26/21

131 Dwight Road
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Suzette Santiago
Seller: Luke Paull
Date: 01/29/21

3 Elaine Circle
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Evandro Dessani-Gomes
Seller: Juan Esteves
Date: 02/01/21

81 Emerson St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Yamary Vazquez-Salgado
Seller: Dawn P. Moriarty
Date: 01/29/21

52 Euclid Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Nguyen T. Tien-Pham
Seller: Son Vo
Date: 01/28/21

74 Forest Park Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $228,000
Buyer: Reginald V. Patterson
Seller: Carmen Reyes
Date: 02/05/21

141 Forest Park Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $197,999
Buyer: Jillian K. Rexford
Seller: Thomas Vuong
Date: 01/28/21

94 Fort Pleasant Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Jasmin Vazquez
Seller: Deniz M. Kan
Date: 01/28/21

372-374 Franklin St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Carol Pennant
Seller: Andrew J. Witman
Date: 01/29/21

281 Gilbert Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $405,000
Buyer: Jullisses A. Perales
Seller: Bretta Construction LLC
Date: 01/26/21

77 Gillette Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Sarah E. Cagan
Seller: Susan S. Cagan
Date: 02/04/21

50 Glencoe St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Milagros Rivera
Seller: Therese S. Hastings
Date: 01/27/21

195 Glenoak Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Loretta Heady
Seller: Plata O. Plomo Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

256 Gresham St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Marcia Johnson
Seller: Basile Realty LLC
Date: 02/01/21

386 Hancock St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $147,000
Buyer: Farrah Quiles-Mason
Seller: Miguel Otero
Date: 01/26/21

88 Jardine St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $194,900
Buyer: Alefe M. Phakos
Seller: Abigail Rodriguez
Date: 01/29/21

121-123 Jefferson Ave.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Kamlesh Mistri
Seller: William S. Duggan
Date: 02/05/21

67 Jeffrey Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Ashley M. Rodriguez
Seller: Christopher J. Behnk
Date: 02/02/21

105 Joan St.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $171,000
Buyer: Mario Tascon
Seller: Bank New York Mellon
Date: 01/27/21

119-121 Johnson St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Nelson Dela-Cruz
Seller: Anelson DelaCruz
Date: 01/29/21

28 Kazbeck St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Louis R. Bortolussi
Seller: Roginski, Joseph S., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/21

101 Larkspur St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Karla Wilder
Seller: Deacon, Frank J., (Estate)
Date: 02/03/21

11 Laurelwood Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $266,500
Buyer: Narad M. Adhikari
Seller: Barry S. Cady
Date: 01/28/21

44 Leland Dr.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Huiqing Zhu
Seller: Michael R. Leblanc
Date: 02/04/21

31 Leyfred Ter.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Carol Pennant
Seller: Natalya Pavlichenko
Date: 01/29/21

1114-1116 Liberty St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Christopher D. Malone
Seller: Kandice Boyd
Date: 01/28/21

34 Lorimer St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Emely Figueroa
Seller: Xaver A. Sierra
Date: 01/25/21

49 Merida St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $198,000
Buyer: Carmen N. Nater-Valentin
Seller: Emtay Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

253-255 Mill St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Charles R. Burgess
Seller: Mark A. Pease
Date: 01/29/21

24 Montgomery St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $273,000
Buyer: Ana M. Alvarado
Seller: Augusto G. Crespo
Date: 01/26/21

90 Mooreland St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Lewis G. Grant
Seller: Emely Figueroa
Date: 01/25/21

238 Newhouse St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $217,000
Buyer: Isannette Gomez
Seller: Juan Adorno
Date: 02/02/21

25-27 Nye St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $153,000
Buyer: Joejoe Properties LLC
Seller: Gilda M. Garcia
Date: 01/29/21

253-255 Oak St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $169,027
Buyer: Deutsche Bank
Seller: Alfredo Garcia-Escalera
Date: 01/29/21

104 Old Lane Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $196,000
Buyer: Sandra A. Fraser
Seller: Rondeau, Rose, (Estate)
Date: 02/01/21

14 Parkside St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Omar Martinez-Albaladejo
Seller: 613 LLC
Date: 01/25/21

97 Parkside St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Enid Y. Liberato
Seller: Dambrosio, Kathleen A., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/21

97-99 Prospect St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $222,000
Buyer: Einer A. Argueta
Seller: H&P Investments LLC
Date: 01/29/21

8 Putnam St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Brital 1987 LLC
Seller: Plata O. Plomo Inc.
Date: 02/05/21

586 Roosevelt Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Judit I. Duran-Castillo
Seller: Karla A. Ardolino
Date: 01/26/21

28 Rutledge Ave.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: A. R. Stallworth-Cummings
Seller: Edwin Ortiz-Gonzalez
Date: 02/03/21

1129 Saint James Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $182,000
Buyer: Edward Hernandez
Seller: Michael S. Banks
Date: 01/29/21

53 Seneca St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $189,500
Buyer: Mary Lynn R. Metivier
Seller: Jennifer L. Castro
Date: 01/29/21

22 Sewell St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Gogri Inc.
Seller: Gail Green
Date: 02/04/21

17 Skyridge Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Jennifer Germain
Seller: Jason Pressey
Date: 02/03/21

101 Stuart St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $161,999
Buyer: Short 4U RT
Seller: FHLM
Date: 01/25/21

95-97 Suffolk St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Cristian G. Ortiz
Seller: Round 2 LLC
Date: 02/01/21

42 Terrence St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $116,500
Buyer: Emilio Figueroa
Seller: Victor M. Colon
Date: 02/05/21

22 Thornfell St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $118,500
Buyer: Alex Owusu
Seller: Nasser Zebian
Date: 02/01/21

25 Tourigny St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Callie Kazalski
Seller: Lisa J. Russell
Date: 02/02/21

40 Tulsa St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: William Sanchez
Seller: Diane Markham
Date: 01/28/21

293 Tyler St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $121,500
Buyer: Raul O. Gomez
Seller: Myrna Oquendo
Date: 01/28/21

87 Whittier St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $117,000
Buyer: CIG 4 LLC
Seller: Frank C. Agiato
Date: 02/03/21

43 Winding Lane
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Michael Poole
Seller: Jeffrey W. Cramton
Date: 02/01/21

SOUTHWICK

5 Evergreen St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Tyler D. Simmitt
Seller: Tyler Burnham
Date: 01/29/21

47 Lexington Circle
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $518,000
Buyer: Jennifer L. Knoop
Seller: Angela M. Whitcher
Date: 02/04/21

38 Mort Vining Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $369,900
Buyer: Rachel M. Maxton
Seller: RM Blerman LLC
Date: 01/25/21

10 Sawgrass Lane
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Hamelin Framing Inc.
Seller: Doreen Dargon
Date: 01/27/21

WALES

80 McBride Road
Wales, MA 01081
Amount: $357,000
Buyer: Dinis S. Martins
Seller: Tracey Robertson
Date: 02/04/21

WEST SPRINGFIELD

79 Bear Hole Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $375,000
Buyer: Brian W. Farnsworth
Seller: William Lyons
Date: 01/27/21

29 Field St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Mumtaz B. Shah
Seller: Jonathan S. McFadden
Date: 01/26/21

55 Fox St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Robert G. Bedard
Date: 01/27/21

30 Hanover St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: G&C RE Investments LLC
Seller: Kenneth B. Kimball
Date: 01/27/21

207 Labelle St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Paul C. Hoover
Seller: Kurt C. Hoernig
Date: 02/01/21

670 Main St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $217,000
Buyer: Rebecca A. Wise
Seller: TM Properties Inc.
Date: 02/04/21

57 Maple Ter.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $237,000
Buyer: Raynna S. Crump
Seller: Cynthia Capella
Date: 02/03/21

131 River St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $5,250,000
Buyer: Imperial Apts. Equities
Seller: Dow Realty Management LLC
Date: 02/05/21

155 River St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $5,250,000
Buyer: Imperial Apts. Equities
Seller: Dow Realty Management LLC
Date: 02/05/21

39 Sunnyside St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $320,000
Buyer: Sue Ann Hilton
Seller: Jullisses A. Perales
Date: 01/25/21

60 Terry Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: Micheal Parrish
Seller: John L. Dowd
Date: 02/03/21

WESTFIELD

23 Green Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $384,000
Buyer: Mejias LLC
Seller: Woodsville Realty Inc.
Date: 02/03/21

25 Green Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $384,000
Buyer: Mejias LLC
Seller: Woodsville Realty Inc.
Date: 02/03/21

27 Green Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $384,000
Buyer: Mejias LLC
Seller: Woodsville Realty Inc.
Date: 02/03/21

20 Jefferson St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Nicole L. Anderson
Seller: Patrick G. Smith
Date: 01/25/21

11 Knollwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $263,000
Buyer: Peter A. Rocca
Seller: Michael F. Crow
Date: 01/29/21

5 Magnolia Ter.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $472,000
Buyer: Marisa Masciadrelli
Seller: David L. Haight
Date: 02/01/21

282 Montgomery Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Antonio F. Basile
Seller: Diplomat Property Manager LLC
Date: 02/05/21

124 New Broadway
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Karen Kleszczynski
Seller: Vladimir Andrusiv
Date: 01/28/21

27 North Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Peter Sychev
Seller: William W. Boisseau
Date: 01/28/21

9 Parker Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Priscilla A. Lysak
Seller: Anita L. Huckins
Date: 01/28/21

297 Russell Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Westfield Baptist Church TR
Seller: Christian & Missionary
Date: 02/02/21

50 Sackett Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $260,000
Buyer: Stephen Harland
Seller: Michael E. Fregeau
Date: 02/05/21

1082 Shaker Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Kenneth J. Bassett
Seller: Gloria J. Hunter
Date: 01/25/21

34 Squawfield Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $219,000
Buyer: Ryan M. Fanion
Seller: Ingalls, Glenice H., (Estate)
Date: 02/01/21

375 Steiger Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $349,900
Buyer: Joan Ascolese
Seller: Shana Dubay
Date: 01/28/21

WILBRAHAM

2773-2775 Boston Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Landmark Partners Inc.
Seller: Jose A. Andre
Date: 01/29/21

12 Delmor Circle
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $252,000
Buyer: Christopher J. Behnk
Seller: Near, Michael A., (Estate)
Date: 02/02/21

5 Edgewood Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $132,264
Buyer: Bank New York Mellon
Seller: Eddie E. Owens
Date: 01/28/21

4 Oakridge Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Kara L. Rice
Seller: Mary M. Danio
Date: 02/05/21

555 Ridge Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $276,000
Buyer: Rakeshkumar V. Patel
Seller: Mark Bates
Date: 02/05/21

791 Ridge Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $832,000
Buyer: Timothy Marini
Seller: Lorrijane Massa
Date: 01/29/21

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

AMHERST

236 Aubinwood Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $615,000
Buyer: Kyle Busacker
Seller: Paul Dibenedetto RET
Date: 01/29/21

12 Cranberry Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $367,700
Buyer: Rolla S. Herman
Seller: Brian P. Hayes
Date: 02/05/21

6 Evening Star Dr.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $1,380,000
Buyer: Bouton RET
Seller: Pollin, Irene S., (Estate)
Date: 01/28/21

76 Stony Hill Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $321,000
Buyer: Kevin M. Boissonnault
Seller: Rebecca Hull
Date: 02/01/21

30 Ward St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $420,000
Buyer: Emmanuel N. Cheo
Seller: Ellen T. Middleton
Date: 02/01/21

BELCHERTOWN

9 Chartier Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Santos Rosario-Gonzalez
Seller: Newell, Gordon A., (Estate)
Date: 01/28/21

6 Jackson St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Costas Mathews
Seller: Redwood Properties LLC
Date: 01/25/21

16 Maple St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Marc B. Moro
Seller: Belchertown Historical
Date: 01/29/21

57 Magnolia Lane
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $449,900
Buyer: Allen H. Brainerd
Seller: JN Duquette & Son Construction
Date: 02/02/21

5 Woodhaven Dr.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Seth Lakso
Seller: Seth Lakso
Date: 02/05/21

CHESTERFIELD

62 Willicutt Road
Chesterfield, MA 01012
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Amber L. Spiess
Seller: Thomas E. Dawson-Greene
Date: 01/26/21

EASTHAMPTON

19 Deerfield Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $283,000
Buyer: Charles W. Dunham
Seller: Shirley N. Lavalley
Date: 01/29/21

53-55 Emerald Place
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $370,000
Buyer: Zoe M. Johnson
Seller: Herman R. Copen RET
Date: 01/29/21

177 Ferry St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Nicholas D. Duprey
Seller: F&H Property Funding TR
Date: 02/01/21

168 Northampton St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $1,088,871
Buyer: 906-908 Belmont RT
Seller: Aubuchon Realty Co. Inc.
Date: 01/29/21

50 Overlook Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $309,000
Buyer: Mikena L. Wood
Seller: Ronald D. Bishop
Date: 01/28/21

11 Union Court
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Michael P. Keeney
Seller: John M. Fish
Date: 01/27/21

 

GRANBY

56 Harris St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Anne Marie Smith
Seller: Alfred L. Martin
Date: 01/27/21

76 Kendall St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $320,000
Buyer: Andrew Chagnon
Seller: Rebecca L. Barlow
Date: 02/05/21

108 Maximilian Dr.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $428,900
Buyer: Megan Yee
Seller: Kevin D. Mahoney
Date: 02/05/21

158 Taylor St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $212,000
Buyer: Mark Jackson
Seller: Patricia Miller RET
Date: 01/26/21

70 West State St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $2,922,600
Buyer: Aubuchon Realty Co. Inc.
Seller: Pride LP
Date: 02/03/21

HADLEY

118 Bay Road
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $306,000
Buyer: Joseph F. Cebula
Seller: Kathleen M. Iles
Date: 01/29/21

45 Old Mountain Road
Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Rosemund LLC
Seller: Sidney B. Simon T
Date: 01/25/21

HATFIELD

151 Elm St.
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Richard J. Ross
Seller: Jeffrey C. Zgrodnik
Date: 01/28/21

43 Straits Road
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $502,000
Buyer: Paul Satriano RET
Seller: Paul M. Kelly
Date: 02/01/21

NORTHAMPTON

38 Franklin St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $1,100,000
Buyer: Katherine A. Markelz
Seller: Anne West-Church
Date: 02/05/21

21 Mountain Laurel Path
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $425,000
Buyer: Cordelia C. McKusick TR
Seller: Hermit Thrush LLC
Date: 02/05/21

North King St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: Damon Lane LLC
Seller: Lane Construction Corp.
Date: 01/28/21

451 Rocky Hill Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $311,800
Buyer: Jessica Hertzberg
Seller: Sean P. Carroll
Date: 02/01/21

267 South St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $325,000
Buyer: Good View LLC
Seller: Joan M. Hart RET
Date: 02/05/21

91 South St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $1,110,000
Buyer: Kalyan Kari LLC
Seller: Yarland Properties LLC
Date: 02/01/21

Sylvester Road #2
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $152,000
Buyer: Andrew R. Burque
Seller: Judith L. Snyder
Date: 02/01/21

PLAINFIELD

296 Main St.
Plainfield, MA 01070
Amount: $360,000
Buyer: Matthew B. Marotte
Seller: Joan A. Bianchi
Date: 02/01/21

SOUTH HADLEY

30 Alvord St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Brian J. O’Toole
Seller: Richard W. Adams RET
Date: 01/29/21

3 Eagle Dr.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $485,000
Buyer: Kristen S. Gardner
Seller: Dorothy J. Ross
Date: 01/28/21

431 East St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Timothy Trombley
Seller: Emtay Inc.
Date: 02/05/21

99 Lyman Ter.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $470,000
Buyer: Dean R. Riel
Seller: Russell F. Degenza
Date: 01/29/21

334 North Main St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $274,000
Buyer: Jennifer B. Jarrell
Seller: Elizabeth A. Grant
Date: 02/05/21

56 Old Lyman Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $445,000
Buyer: Christopher Kleeberg
Seller: Kyle J. Levreault
Date: 01/28/21

Riverlodge Road #3
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Anthony R. Witman
Seller: Patrick J. Spring
Date: 02/03/21

33 Spring St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $500,000
Buyer: DS Group Investments LLC
Seller: RGS Realty LLC
Date: 01/29/21

8 Sunrise Circle
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $663,000
Buyer: April S. Grudgen
Seller: Michael C. Bean
Date: 02/05/21

10 The Knolls
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $193,000
Buyer: Lena Dohlman-Gerhart
Seller: Lisa Uyehara
Date: 02/05/21

SOUTHAMPTON

106 Clark St.
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $445,000
Buyer: Kelly J. Light
Seller: John & Clarie Martin RET
Date: 01/29/21

10 Fitch Farm Way
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $685,000
Buyer: Christopher M. Buell
Seller: Thomas Quinlan
Date: 01/25/21

5 Strong Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Wendy Snape
Seller: Paul E. Truehart
Date: 01/28/21

WARE

321 Beaver Lake Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Michael Sanuita
Seller: Gary B. Barnes
Date: 01/27/21

246 Belchertown Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Michael Hackett
Seller: Randy J. Wessels
Date: 01/27/21

77 Coffey Hill Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $254,000
Buyer: Jorge A. Marrero
Seller: Coffey Hill Property LLC
Date: 02/01/21

31 Homecrest Ave.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Erin E. Letourneau
Seller: Gerard D. Demers
Date: 01/29/21

45 Old Poor Farm Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Hua Z. Zhao
Seller: Sam Zhao
Date: 02/05/21

17 Smith Ave.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $208,000
Buyer: Christy M. Batungbacal
Seller: Donna Brunelle
Date: 01/25/21

WESTHAMPTON

Main Road
Westhampton, MA 01027
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: William H. Truswell
Seller: Philip J. Norris
Date: 02/04/21

WORTHINGTON

16 Old North Road
Worthington, MA 01098
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Mercedes Zavala
Seller: Byrnes, Michael P., (Estate)
Date: 01/27/21

32 Old Post Road
Worthington, MA 01098
Amount: $440,000
Buyer: Leigh P. Tutka
Seller: Norman S. Stafford
Date: 01/25/21

 

Building Permits

The following building permits were issued during the month of February, 2021. (Filings are limited due to closures or reduced staffing hours at municipal offices due to COVID-19 restrictions).

CHICOPEE

Andrew Bardon
234 Exchange St.
$2,500 — Remove wall, sheetrock, rehang drop ceiling, paint, ceiling tiles, flooring

LEE

Vaishali, LLC
170 Housatonic St.
$58,000 — Relocate breakfast room and alter interior for new exercise room

LENOX

Hillcrest Educational Center
349 Old Stockbridge Road
$12,500 — Install fencing and gate on existing fire escape

MRG CRW Holdings, LLC
55 Lee Road
$19,200 — Selective demolition within guest-room bathrooms on second floor

MRG CRW Holdings, LLC
55 Lee Road
$229,600 — Renovate existing guest-room bathrooms on second floor; replace existing tubs with showers, replace existing sinks, finish upgrades

Town of Lenox
18 Main St.
$10,000 — Construct two catwalks in attic space above dome room

NORTHAMPTON

Gretna Green Development Corp.
118 Conz St.
$3,500 — Non-illuminated wall sign

Gretna Green Development Corp.
118 Conz St.
$2,400 — Non-illuminated ground sign

Gretna Green Development Corp.
118 Conz St.
$1,500 — Non-illuminated ground sign

Sunwood Builders
117 Olander Dr.
$30,000 — Two carports in north parking lot

PITTSFIELD

A. Leo Nash Realty, LLC
99 Hawthorne Ave.
$5,000 — Remove interior sheetrock and framing

Allendale Shopping, LLC
898 Crane Ave.
$24,990 — Alter existing fire, burglar, and camera system

Boys and Girls Club of Pittsfield Inc.
16 Melville St.
$15,000 — Remove and replace frame and four doors

City of Pittsfield
70 Allen St.
$45,000 — Remove existing roof drain pipe and patch hole

City of Pittsfield
200 West Union St.
$45,000 — Replace ceiling tile throughout Conte Community School

Hillcrest Educational Centers Inc.
400 Columbus Ave. Ext.
$40,000 — Install HVAC and acoustic drop ceilings in two rooms

Pittsfield Masonic Assoc.
116 South St.
$5,570 — Add emergency lighting for new egress

Pittsfield News Co. Inc.
180 South St.
$80,000 — Demolish existing structure

Pittsfield News Co. Inc.
184 South St.
$50,000 — Demolish existing building

Stop & Shop
1 Dan Fox Road
$90,000 — Create online fulfillment area inside supermarket

SPRINGFIELD

Baystate Medical Center Inc.
280 Chestnut St.
$268,000 — Roofing

Baystate Medical Center Inc.
759 Chestnut St.
$17,609 — Build an IT closet on sixth floor

Baystate Medical Center Inc.
380 Plainfield St.
$179,600 — Roofing

Frank Erricolo
737 Liberty St.
$40,000 — Repair fire-damaged unit previously used as beauty salon; remove and replace insulation, sheetrock, and drop ceiling

Tim Farina
1600 Boston Road
$64,800 — Remodel Citizens Bank in Stop & Shop to install ATM kiosk

Derrick Hatwood, Dana Hatwood
50 Chapel St.
$30,000 — Remove and replace three antennas and three remote radio units on telecommunications tower

Sumner Avenue 473-477, LLC
473 Sumner Ave.
$57,685 — Remove and replace roof on former Goodwill