Day: September 17, 2021

College of Nursing at UMass Amherst Receives $21.5 Million Gift

By
Daily News

AMHERST — UMass Amherst announced it has received a gift of $21.5 million from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation. The university’s College of Nursing will become the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, named for the late UMass Amherst nursing alumna and bestselling textbook author Elaine Nicpon Marieb.

The gift will advance the university’s innovative nursing engineering center and also provide support for student scholarships, an endowed professorship, and mentorship and research initiatives designed to further access, equity, and excellence in nursing education.

This is the largest cash gift in UMass Amherst history and comes after Marieb had previously made gifts of more than $2 million for campus-wide scholarships, totaling more than $23.9 million given to the university by her and in her name.

“We are deeply grateful for this extraordinary gift from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. “This gift is an endorsement of the vital role that our College of Nursing plays in preparing nurses for leadership in healthcare. It comes at a time when our society is confronted with unprecedented challenges — challenges that we strive to overcome through innovation, learning, and discovery inspired by one of our most distinguished and beloved graduates, Dr. Marieb herself.”

Martin Wasmer, Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation trustee, added that the foundation “is excited to expand the legacy of Elaine Marieb by partnering with UMass Amherst in naming the Marieb College of Nursing. The innovative nursing engineering program currently being launched at the university was clearly the catalyst for capturing the interest of the foundation and is consistent with Elaine’s own spirit of innovation in learning.”

According to College of Nursing Dean Allison Vorderstrasse, “the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at UMass Amherst will shape the future of nursing in bold new ways. We know that, in order to transform care, we must first transform education. As a center of discovery — and true to our namesake — the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing will inspire individual and collective growth as we help prepare tomorrow’s leaders and advance the field. The foundation’s gift is evidence of the stature of our program and the impact we have on our students and the community.”

MassMutual Hit with $4 Million Fine in GameStop Case

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — A subsidiary of MassMutual has agreed to pay a $4 million fine to resolve accusations involving Keith Gill, the former employee who gained notoriety under the name “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube for his astronomical gains during the GameStop stock rally earlier this year, the Boston Globe reported.

MassMutual also agreed to overhaul its social-media policies to better detect whether its employees are in compliance with company rules on social media as part of an agreement with the office of Secretary of State William Galvin.

In an 18-page consent order signed on Tuesday, Galvin’s office portrayed MassMutual as repeatedly failing to detect Gill’s many social-media activities, including more than 250 hours of YouTube videos in which he detailed investment strategy.

Until his termination in January, Gill, a licensed broker-dealer, was responsible for creating educational material used by MassMutual as a marketing tool to attract new customers, the consent order says.

At the same time, Gill, in his spare time, used a half-dozen social-media platforms “almost exclusively” for “discussing, analyzing and promoting GameStop,” a brick-and-mortar video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer, the order says.

“Gill had gained tens of thousands of followers … and his social-media posts were oft-cited as a driving force behind the market volatility surrounding GameStop in late January,” the order continues.

MassMutual prohibits its broker-dealers from discussing generic securities and company business on social media. Gill made at least 590 security-related statements on Twitter, the order says.

According to the Globe, the secretary of state’s office also said MassMutual “failed to monitor or detect nearly 1,700 trades effected by Gill in the accounts of three other individuals,” an apparent violation of company rules, the order says.

In addition, the secretary of state’s office said MassMutual failed to detect that Gill made two transactions in amounts that exceeded the company’s limit of $250,000, the order says. Those two transactions totaled almost $1.5 million.

Galvin, in his office’s press release, noted that “MassMutual was not as diligent as it should have been in supervising its employees. It took the media less than a day to identify the person behind the Roaring Kitty posts, while his own employer took no notice of his online persona.”

$250 Million EPA Loan to Upgrade Infrastructure, Advance Renewable Energy in Springfield

By
Daily News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — At an event with U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Martin Suuberg, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, and other local officials, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox announced a $250 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission. This loan will help improve water quality and reliability by rehabilitating aging infrastructure throughout the system while restoring a hydropower facility that will deliver renewable energy to the Springfield water-treatment plant.

“EPA is proud to partner on this project that will support a cleaner, safer, and greener Springfield while creating more than 1,700 jobs. With EPA’s WIFIA funding, these benefits will be realized years sooner than otherwise possible,” Fox said. “These wins for water quality, air quality, public health, and the local economy illustrate how the bipartisan infrastructure deal will accelerate needed upgrades to revitalize communities across the country.”

Neal added that “an investment in infrastructure is an investment in our future, and today’s announcement reinforces that. I am proud that the Springfield region is the first in the state to benefit from the highly competitive federal Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, receiving one of the largest awards from the EPA in the nation. This unprecedented investment will help build back our region’s drinking water and wastewater systems to be more sustainable and resilient in the face of climate change, protect public health and our environment from the risk of infrastructure failure, and maintain the long-term affordability of these critical services.”

The Springfield Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Renewal Program will increase system reliability and ensure that drinking water is safe and wastewater is safely returned to the environment by rehabilitating, replacing, and upgrading drinking water and wastewater-treatment processes. The program includes 30 integrated water and wastewater infrastructure projects that will support system reliability, resiliency, and regulatory compliance by removing disinfection byproducts and meeting new water-discharge limits. The project also enables the water-treatment plant to be powered by 100% renewable, self-generated energy by rehabilitating the hydropower facility, providing a green power source for the system.

EPA’s WIFIA funding allows the Springfield infrastructure renewal program to accelerate these essential system updates by approximately 15 years.

“We are facing an unprecedented and unavoidable need for reinvestment in our century-old drinking water and wastewater systems,” said Josh Schimmel, the commission’s executive director. “We view the WIFIA program as an innovative means to renew and adapt our utility to 21st-century challenges in an affordable and sustainable manner. The unique and flexible terms of the WIFIA program offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize all of our water infrastructure on an accelerated basis in order to reduce risks presented by 21st-century challenges such as climate change and regulatory compliance.”

The project will cost $550 million, and the WIFIA loan will finance nearly half of that figure. The remaining project costs will be funded by a combination of a $200 million loan from the Massachusetts Clean Water State Revolving Fund and system funds. The Springfield Water and Sewer Commission will save approximately $60 million from financing with a WIFIA loan, which enables the commission to continue to support residents in need through its customer-assistance programs. Project construction and operation are expected to create more than 1,700 jobs.

With this WIFIA loan closing, EPA has announced 59 WIFIA loans that are providing over $11 billion in credit assistance to help finance approximately $24 billion for water infrastructure while creating approximately 69,000 jobs and saving ratepayers more than $4 billion.

Springfield Regional Chamber Partners with MassHire BizWorks on Free Webinar

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Regional Chamber (SRC) will partner with MassHire BizWorks, a division of the MassHire Department of Career Services’ Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, to offer a free educational webinar for businesses. On Tuesday, Oct. 5 from 8:30 to 10 a.m., participants will meet leading authorities and learn how the state’s economic-development programs can be applied to their businesses.

SRC will offer the webinar in collaboration with all chambers throughout Western Mass., including 1Berkshire, Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, Greater Chicopee Chamber of Commerce, Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce, East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce, Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, and West of the River Chamber of Commerce. The webinar will outline the tools and resources that are available through MassHire BizWorks and local chambers of commerce to assist business owners.

Since its inception in 2012, MassHire BizWorks has enhanced and aligned the resources and services available to businesses throughout Massachusetts. BizWorks partners with agencies in workforce development, economic development, and education to help businesses grow and thrive. The BizWorks model offers assistance to employers for every stage of the business cycle. Services are available for business growth, expansion, maintenance, and downsizing.

“In this time of recovery, it’s critical that our business community take advantage of all the resources the Commonwealth has to offer, from job recruitment to hiring incentives; tax credits to workforce training, grants, and money-saving initiatives; and everything in between,” Springfield Regional Chamber President Nancy Creed said. “We’re thrilled to involve our members, along with members from neighboring regional chambers, so they can benefit from several money-saving services that are offered by Massachusetts and free for all businesses. Over the years, thousands of companies have profited, grown, and thrived because of BizWorks’ dedication.”

Ken Messina, of both BizWorks and the Department of Labor’s National Rapid Response Workgroup, will lead the webinar’s presentation. Messina has been with MassHire BizWorks since its inception and has started several initiatives, including the first Regional Rapid Response Summit and the Rapid Response Set Aside Fund program, and he developed the Massachusetts Rapid Response model that ensures consistency is maintained statewide. This model has been recognized nationally and duplicated in many other states. In his 30 years of experience, Messina and his team have served more than 12,000 companies, assisting with closings or layoff events that have affected more than a half-million employees.

To register for the free Oct. 5 webinar, click here.

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