BusinessWest Staff, Author at BusinessWest

Commercial Market Remains Sluggish, but the Skies Are Brightening

Kevin Jennings, seen in Chicopee at what will be the home of a distribution center, says the market is picking up after two years of relative stagnancy.

Area commercial real-estate brokers say the local market remains in a slump, with vast amounts of inventory and many business owners still reluctant to make investments. Many of the moves being made are upgrades to better space in this region, what one observer called “a game of musical chairs,” but there are some indications that conditions are improving and a healthier 2011 is in the offing.

Kevin Jennings was talking about speed bumps.
He used that term while discussing commercial real-estate deals and, more specifically, how much more difficult they are to consummate than they were before this sector entered its prolonged slump roughly two years ago.
“There are a lot more speed bumps now — everything’s slower and more methodical,” he explained. “Deals that used to take maybe 30 to 45 days to complete are now taking 60 to 90 days.”
And many are taking much longer than that, he continued, adding that there is much more scrutiny of the fine print these days, especially on the part of the tenant-to-be, who is still in the driver’s seat in most respects, and is pushing for every break, or concession, possible.
“Even after the fact, after the deal has been negotiated,” said Jennings, president of Springfield-based Jennings Real Estate, which handles a wide range of properties, but especially industrial and retail, “they still think they can chisel and grind.”
John Williamson, president of Williamson Commercial Properties in Springfield, agreed. “No one’s leaving anything on the table,” he explained, referring to rate or any other aspect of a lease. “And that’s why it’s taking much longer to get deals done. It used to get down to dollars per square foot; now it’s down to nickels and dimes per square foot.”
But the good news is that deals are, in fact, getting done, said brokers who spoke with BusinessWest, while noting early and often that things are still quite slow in this market and will be until more business owners gain the confidence to move ahead with expansion or relocation plans.
Indeed, Jennings used the phrase ‘optimistically cautious’ to describe the current picture, which is a considerable improvement over ‘stalled,’ which is how he would have classified this market a year or even six months ago. “There’s a fair amount of activity happening across the board,” he said. “We’re seeing some improvement.”
Bill Low, a broker with Springfield-based NAI Plotkin, concurred.
He said current market conditions are far from anything approaching what would be considered normal, but there is movement in some sectors and communities. He noted success with efforts to fill several vacant floors at One Financial Plaza in downtown Springfield (see related story, page 58) as one example, and said that there are some retail deals being inked, especially in what he called ‘B’ locations, where there are more opportunities, and transactions, than on the major retail strips such as Riverdale Road in West Springfield, Memorial Drive in Chicopee, and Boston Road in Springfield.
“It’s been a funny market,” he said. “It’s been extremely slow the past 18 to 24 months — the market’s been as bad as I’ve ever seen it. However, over the past year we’ve done a lot of office deals.”
Said Williamson, “it’s not gangbusters, but we’re seeing a steady stream of deals. It’s not the Mississippi River, but it’s at least one of its tributaries; there’s life out there.”
For this issue, BusinessWest takes a long look at the state of the current market and what should be expected next.

The Lease They Can Do
When asked to characterize what’s happening in his sector, Williamson cited a recent deal — actually two transactions — he completed in Hatfield that sums things up very effectively.
This was the sale of the Danish Inspirations complex just off I-91 to some local investors, and the subsequent lease of 10,000 square feet to Lumber Liquidators. Both deals were a long time in the making, and would best be described as ‘complex.’
The lease deal that brought the national retailer to the 413 area code was negotiated over more than 18 months, said Williamson, noting that the Virginia-based corporation wanted a presence in this market and wanted to be in that location. The trick was getting the space to work, which both parties were finally able to do.
The sale, meanwhile, took nearly four years to finalize. The original asking price was $2.8 million and was somewhat inflated, said Williamson, noting that the property finally went for $1.8 million.
Looking at those deals and how they were done, Williamson said they provide evidence of many things. For starters, they show that transactions are being made, and that there are opportunities for both investors and tenants looking to capitalize on a market where prices have come down and sellers are willing to negotiate.
“There are companies out there that are obviously thinking ahead to better times and taking advantage of pretty attractive lease rates and locking them in for seven years,” he said, referencing the term for the Lumber Liquidators lease. “For investors, this is a time to be opportunistic.”
But they also show how much more difficult it is to get signatures on the bottom line, said Williamson, who echoed Jennings when he said, “we’re doing some pretty substantial deals; it’s just taking twice as long to bring them to a conclusion. The kiss of death is when someone says, ‘this could be a quick deal.’ There are no quick deals these days.”
There are no easy deals, either, he continued, adding that both sides in transactions, and especially tenants and potential tenants, are being cautious in negotiations and, on the tenant side, understandably demanding.
“The deals are there; it’s just more difficult, and it takes longer to put them to a conclusion — if there is a conclusion,” he said. “One of the things I always loved about this business is that there’s an enormous amount of creativity involved, figuring out how to get over and around obstacles. These days, it takes even more creativity.”
In most all ways, this remains a tenant’s market, said those we spoke with, noting that this bodes well for business owners looking for more favorable terms to stay where they are — landlords are willing to be flexible to avoid creating more vacant space to fill — or to upgrade.
Indeed, Low told BusinessWest that much of the activity in the Western Mass. office and retail market involves what he calls “musical chairs,” companies already in this market moving to different, usually better, spaces. “I’m not sure the overall occupancy rate is any higher — it might have gone up a little bit,” he explained. “There’s still a lot of people just trading within the market.”
Most of these moves are upgrades, he said, meaning people exchanging Class C space for Class B, or B for A, and often getting rates comparable to what they were paying before, plus much more.
“Tenants are getting a lot more concessions,” said Low. “Tenant-improvement allowances are up, people are getting moving allowances, they’re getting cancellation rights in the agreement, all kinds of things.
“These days, companies want flexibility,” he continued. “They’re willing to pay halfway-decent rates, but they want flexibility, they want build-out, and they want all the amenities.”
On the industrial side of the ledger, Jennings noted that, while large-scale deals are still few and far between — an obvious sign of caution on the part of many business owners and managers — many smaller transactions have been completed “when the price was right.”
They include a 10,000-square-foot building on Doty Circle in West Springfield and a 4-acre parcel of land in one of the Westover industrial parks for a 33,000-square-foot distribution facility.
“There is some activity out there,” he said, noting, as other brokers did, that the region has suffered from a lack of movement from outside the market.
On the retail side, there have been some new arrivals to the region, Jennings continued, adding that this bodes well for a segment of the market has been hit hard by the recession.
“You’re starting to see some small signs of some of the retailers coming back,” he said. “Many of the discounters are expanding right now — the Family Dollars of this world — and that could give the region a boost.”
Looking ahead, the brokers we spoke with were in general agreement that the worst is probably over for this sector, and that, eventually, the pendulum will swing back in favor of landlords and rates will start to climb again.
“I think we’re at the bottom now,” said Low. “Most of the leases we’re signing now are beginning at a rental number that’s discounted to get them in here, but a lot of them go up over time. It’s hard to predict, but within six to 12 months we might be back to a halfway-decent, healthy market.
“Things are starting to turn,” he continued, “but they’re turning very slowly. I think we’ve reached the bottom, though.”

Space Race
In the meantime, though, expect more use of the phrases that have come to define this sector over the past few years: ‘tenant’s market,’ ‘musical chairs,’ and, yes, ‘speed bumps.’
As Jennings and others said, there have been more of them to navigate in the pursuit of deals larger and small. But if their projections for the road ahead are accurate, and the bounce back from the bottom has begun, then the ride ahead will certainly get much smoother.

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

Brick by Brick

GeneralContractors BW10.10

A list of general contractors in Western Mass.

Getting Hammered

Region’s Construction Sector Remains Sluggish

David Fontaine says new schools are being funded, but other construction sectors continue to lag.

The continued weakness of the region’s construction industry has become frustrating and stressful for area builders, who have seen not just a drastic reduction in the pace of available jobs, but a significant influx of bidders on each project, some from far outside the Pioneer Valley. Faint indications point to a recovery starting next year, but right now, contractors are just looking for some good news to build on.

Joseph Marois shakes his head when he sees some of the winning bids in the current, hyper-competitive construction marketplace.
“The bids are normally pretty clustered together, with everything within a few dollars,” said Marois, president of Marois Construction in South Hadley. “You look at it now, and the low bidder is substantially lower than everyone else, sometimes by 20%. It’s incredible. It’s hard to understand how they make a profit on the jobs they’re doing.”
David Fontaine, president of Fontaine Brothers in Springfield, has noticed the same phenomenon.
“The price structure right now is incredible,” he told BusinessWest. “With some of the bids you’re getting beat by, you just shake your head and send the plans back. There seem to be eight to 10 bids on everything, at minimum, and it seems like there’s always one guy with a bid you just can’t understand.”
William Crocker, president of Crocker Building in Springfield, said these days were forecast by the collapse of the housing market a few years ago and the ensuing economic downturn. “The slowdown tends to affect us as general contractors late,” he said.
But while some other industries are reporting cautious optimism, construction work is as scarce right now — and competition as fierce — as Crocker has seen it since the recession began. “You see it in the bidding activity,” he said. “When there’s an open bid, every contractor in Western Mass. shows up.
“The margins are tight, and the numbers are tough,” he continued. “There’s some activity out there, but we’re still holding our breath.”
For this issue, BusinessWest examines why the major trends in building — few of them good — are continuing deep into 2010, and what contractors are saying about the road ahead.

Looking for a Silver Lining
Mark Erlich, executive secretary-treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, recently noted in New England Carpenter magazine that hours worked by union carpenters in New England dropped 38% in the last 24 months, and unemployment in that group has hovered around 30% for much of the same period.
However, he writes, “I believe the worst is over. There are no prospects for a quick or extensive recovery, but I think the bleeding has stopped, and we can begin to think more optimistically about what is next. New England is positioned to rebound sooner than other regions because of the heavy presence of health care, higher education, and life sciences, industries that are more likely to witness future growth.”
That seems to be the case in Massachusetts especially, where the eds-and-meds sectors have been traditional drivers of the economy, and are spurring a significant portion of what activity is occurring right now.
“Look who’s building in Springfield. Look at the North End, and even the work we’ve done in the past few years,” said Crocker, citing projects like a new building for Hampshire Orthopedics in Hatfield. Public works and utilities are relatively active, too; “we’ve got several projects for National Grid substations.”
Others have seen similar trends.
“It seems that a lot of the schools are being funded,” said Fontaine, whose business tends to be about 70% public and 30% private — not a bad ratio in these times. “We recently started the new high school in Wilbraham, and we’re halfway into a new dormitory at the College of the Holy Cross. We’re also just getting ready to start a Transit Authority office in a building up in Greenfield.”
On the other hand, Crocker said, some traditional markets for builders — manufacturing foremost among them — seem to be stagnant. But it pays to be diverse. In addition to the health care and utility projects on his recent slate, Crocker also just completed the framework for Springfield’s Macedonian Church of God in Christ, which burned down a couple of years ago.
It’s good to diversify when things get this slow, he admitted, but even so, there are only so many projects. “We’re not seeing much of the small renovations. Everyone seems to be holding their purse strings rather tightly.”
There’s a little more public work available than private work, Marois said, although neither sector is exactly robust, and some industry watchers fret about the slow pace of infrastructure-investment legislation coming from Washington to help stimulate the pace of progress.
“Some people are busier than others. I think we’ve gotten our fair share of work, although the profit margins are minimal,” Marois said. “We’re just trying to keep our core base of employees. They have families, and they’ve been with us for a long time, so we want to make sure we maintain our relationship with them. I think that’s a common goal you’ll find among my peers.”

Better Days
Marois sees the clouds clearing somewhat, but there’s still a long way to go.
“It seems like there are more projects to bid now than in the past, but that hasn’t eliminated the number of people bidding on each one,” he said. “I’m bidding on a project now with 16 contractors on it. That’s getting to be pretty typical.”
Nationwide, construction employment expanded in 56 out of 337 metropolitan areas between August 2009 and August 2010, according to a recent analysis of federal employment data by the Associated General Contractors of America. More cities added construction jobs during the past year than at any point since September 2008, although Western Mass. has yet to see that sort of rebound.
“With construction employment on the mend in an increasing number of areas, it appears that the worst is finally over,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist, on the national picture. “The fact remains, however, that this industry has a long way to go before we see construction employment back to pre–recession levels.”
That’s especially true in the Pioneer Valley and into Northern Conn. The Springfield market ranked 208th on the list of 337 metro areas with a net construction job loss of 6%. The Pittsfield market held steady, ranking it 57th in the study, while the Hartford market lost 9% of its construction jobs in that time, ranking Connecticut’s capital at 269th. Overall, 11 of 12 Massachusetts metro areas lost jobs.
Fontaine has seen no improvement in the overall picture, but expects things to pick up soon. “We had scaled down a few years ago, and we stayed scaled down,” he said. “But we’ve been talking to some architectural firms, and they’re saying maybe one more year to go. There’s some large work out there — $100 million, $200 million work — but in the marketplace we survive in, not much.”
That’s why he, like so many other contractors, has been forced to look outside the Pioneer Valley for opportunities. “We actually picked up three projects in the last year, but we bid on probably 50 — most in the eastern part of the state,” he said. “Most of the things we’ve chased have been probably 75 to 90 miles from here.”
Marois has been surprised, however, not that builders are roaming outside of their usual geographic territory, but how far afield some are willing to travel to find work.
“I bid a job with contractors from Rhode Island, New York State, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the Boston area,” he said. “That job had 18 bidders on it, and the Rhode Island contractor got the job.
“I don’t understand it — they have to mobilize and set up, and that costs, and they have to know the local economy, the local vendors — it’s not necessarily something I would do to land a job.”
Until the industry picks up significantly, each construction company has to make those decisions to keep their business running.
“This is the time to get ready for the recovery that will come,” Erlich notes. “It may not be coming as fast as we would like, and there will be continued hardships.”
And way too many bidders for too few projects.

Joseph Bednar can be reached
at [email protected]

When Green Is Not the Way to Go

Invasive Plants Can Be a Growing Problem for You or Your Company

John Prenosil

Green isn’t always good — at least when referring to invasive plants.
Take a look in your yard when you get home. Do you see a burning bush? Japanese barberry? Norway maple? Yes, you guessed it. These are all invasives, as they’re called, which means they shouldn’t be there.
First off, let’s define what constitutes an invasive plant. These are non-native plants that share these characteristics: they begin growing earlier in the spring and grow longer in the fall than native plants, are typically more tolerant of poor soil conditions, grow vigorously, produce large amounts of seeds, grow well in disturbed environments, and have no natural enemies. Understandably, many invasive plants were historically chosen for landscaping because they required little maintenance, grew well in poor soils, and were disease and pest-resistant.
Burning bush was popular for its brilliant fall color, Japanese barberry for its durability and attractive purple and red leaves, and Norway maple for its summer-long crimson red foliage. These invasive landscape plants and more than 100 other plant species are currently identified by the Mass. Department of Agricultural Resources as prohibited for sale.
It is important to control and/or eradicate invasive plants in wetlands and forest environments because they disrupt habitats by outcompeting native plants, thereby decreasing biodiversity.
Try this analogy. A restaurant with two items on the menu is not as appealing to consumers as a restaurant with 50 items on the menu. An environment with only two items on the menu has low biodiversity; numerous items on the menu mean higher biodiversity. Animals like menus with more diversity. An environment comprised of multiple native plant species offers a host of food choices and habitat to a wide variety of wildlife. Fewer food choices results in a decreased mix of wildlife.
Invasive plant seeds are spread through birds, wildlife, and construction equipment. Aquatic invasive plants are inadvertently spread by boaters from plant fragments stuck to the hull or floating in bilge water. Many of the invasive plants found in our waterways, ponds, and lakes are a result of aquarium plants being flushed down the toilet.
Because established populations of invasive plants are difficult, costly, and time-consuming to control, early detection is paramount. Smaller populations are easier to monitor and control. Control of invasive plants requires a thorough knowledge of the target species, its biology, and an understanding of the environment in which invasive plants are found. Each situation is unique and requires a custom approach. Although herbicides are important for control of invasive plants, they are not always the best alternative.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) offers a more comprehensive approach to controlling pests, including invasive plants. In addition to simply spraying invasive plants with herbicides, IPM addresses cultural practices and biological controls. An example of a cultural control would be mowing a section of road right-of-way (adjacent to a pond) instead of applying herbicide, which has the possibility of contaminating the water; mowing provides a non-chemical control method to keep the invasive plant population under control. An example of a biological control would be releasing an insect that has been found to eat a specific invasive plant. The goal of IPM is to use the least amount of herbicide to control a population of invasive plants. Eradication is not always necessary. Further, continual use of herbicides on the same plants may result in those plants developing immunity to the herbicide.
Control and eradication of invasive plants typically requires permitting through local and state agencies and application of any pesticides on property other than one’s own requires licensing and certification through the Mass. Department of Agricultural Resources. Licensed and certified professionals should ensure that people are not exposed, groundwater and surface waters are not polluted, wildlife is not be harmed, and damage to non-target plants is minimized.
Resources are available for landowners wishing to improve wildlife habitat on their property. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service offers the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP), a voluntary approach to improve wildlife habitat that includes cost sharing up to 75% and technical assistance. Additional online resources related to invasive plants are available through the New England Wildflower Society (www.newfs.org/
protect/invasive-plants) and numerous other organizations.
The reader should keep in mind that this article is meant only for informational purposes. The author does not recommend that the reader apply herbicides or utilize other forms of control on their properties without first consulting an expert. Permits may be required.

John Prenosil is president of JMP Environmental Consulting Inc., which has completed WHIP-funded and other invasive-plant eradication and control projects throughout Massachusetts. Related services also include initial habitat assessments, invasive species management plans, eradication and control, and long-term monitoring; (413) 272-0111; [email protected].

Life Lessons

inResonance President and CEO Kevin McAllister and Vice President of Global Sales Marlene Marrocco

This Software Company Has Several New Schools of Thought

inResonance President and CEO Kevin McAllister and Vice President of Global Sales Marlene Marrocco say the company provides software to more than 275 private and charter schools, including American schools in Tokyo, Geneva, Singapore, London, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Kevin McAllister has first-hand knowledge of the challenges private schools face.
He spent 17 years as a Geology and Spanish teacher at Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., where he witnessed the nightmare of paperwork that everyone working there had to deal with.
“As a teacher, I had to send reports to parents six times a year. They had to be produced in triplicate through photocopying, then they were stapled together and mailed out,” he said. “I wanted to solve the problem, so I built a very primitive software system to make sending comments to parents easier.”
That was in 1992, and this system, which was expanded to include admissions, worked so well that word about it spread quickly. McAllister began running a sole proprietorship called KJM Consulting, and within a few years, 50 private schools were using his software.
By 1999, he had clients overseas as well as in the U.S. He had served on state and regional IT boards, had contracts as a consultant with schools, and had spoken at conferences across the country. What had started as a small side business was now starting to dominate McAllister’s time and his dreams for the future.
“My two daughters were graduating from high school, and I decided to take the jump,” he said, meaning that he had decided to give up teaching and start a business, one he would call inResonance Inc.
Today, the Northampton-based company provides database solutions and related Web applications that include fund-raising and constituent management, admissions and enrollment, and registrar functions to more than 275 private and charter schools, including American schools in Tokyo, Geneva, Singapore, London, Paris, and Amsterdam.
McAllister’s wife, Susan, is director of client services at inResonance, and together they share a passion for helping others and making a difference, which stemmed from time they spent as Peace Corps volunteers. “Susan was a math teacher in Africa, and I was a university professor in Paraguay. Watching inefficiency drove us to look for solutions,” McAllister said.
The name of their company is a reflection of his mission — to keep everything in tune by providing people with the tools they need to be efficient. “The people we work with are intelligent, dedicated professionals, but they don’t necessarily know the most efficient way to do their jobs,” he said, adding that everyone in an organization should be in resonance with each other. “You want everyone tuned up, singing the same tune, because the business process is only as efficient as the people working together.”

Problem Solving
McAllister says one of the problems private schools face is processing applications. He explained that schools can have several thousand applicants a year and need to rank them as well as keep on top of the process, which includes details such as whether they have received a student’s grades, transcripts, birth certificate, recommendations, photo, and other requirements, such as interviews conducted when the student and parents visit the school.
“It’s a long and complex process because the typical prep schools funnels 3,000 inquiries, which turn into 1,200 applications. They may accept 250 students, but only 125 of them decide to go there because they have also applied to other schools,” McAllister explained. “Then you have to throw in the financial-aid component, which makes it very difficult to fill 125 spots.”
However, admissions is the most critical office in many private schools because 85% to 90% of their income is dependent on it, McAllister said, adding that the remainder typically comes from endowments.
“Schools purchase our admissions systems to provide online applications and to process them in an efficient way, which can save them hundreds of man hours a year. Every school has a customized application, and it’s a complete transformation of the process. What used to take employees hours and hours to process now takes minutes.”
Another of inResonance’s mainstay products is used by registrars’ offices, where challenges include scheduling classes, grading, attendance, and teacher’s reports. The inResonance software system allows parents to go online and see their children’s grades and records, which McAllister considers critical to success.
Everyone who works at inResonance has a background in education. “We are not a bunch of programmers. We are efficiency experts who bring technology tools to the table. That’s our ethos — to empower dedicated professionals,” McAllister said. “We don’t want to work with organizations that don’t want to change. We want to work with people who are doers and innovators. We expect to be in conversation with our clients for many years as part of their strategic planning.”
McAllister said the company’s systems are not built for large public-school systems with rigid rules and that cannot afford variations. “The important word for us is independent. Our schools may run different classes every six weeks and do interesting things educationally, which we can accommodate. We don’t have a cookie-cutter system,” he explained, adding that charter schools are a growing segment of their clientele.
The company’s software also solves problems inherent to lottery systems used to determine which students are chosen to attend a school. “Before this software, people were literally picking cards out of a bowl,” McAllister said.
One of the many benefits of the company’s software is that it can be adapted to suit different needs. “We don’t build a custom solution for every school, but have a solid core that can be customized. Because we are small, nimble, and flexible, we are involved with a lot of factors and can serve a variety of educational innovations,” he said.
Another product, called Generations, helps schools with fund-raising. “It keeps track of constituents, parents, grandparents, trustees, and all their giving by allowing the school to run statistics. It also generates annual reports, including all activities and fund-raisers,” McAllister said. “The product was developed about six years ago and has allowed us to really move into radically different markets.”
Three years ago, the company began working on a new initiative called NodeLinks, with the aim of helping the nonprofit sector. McAllister hopes to launch it soon, and says the basic concept involves connecting clusters of nonprofits into nodes or groups who join and share their resources to generate success.
“We believe that, because of their limited budgets, they need to work together to become efficient,” he said. “We would like to create nodes in every city and link them together.”
Each node would be made up of 10 organizations with partners that include consultants, students, philanthrophists, volunteers, the Web community, and community developers. They would each pay one-tenth of the salary of a shared employee who would help them realize common goals using technology.
“There are 700,000 nonprofits competing for funds, and we believe there is opportunity and possibility for them to work together so they could provide a common front to funders and write more realistic grant proposals,” McAllister said. “We want to pilot this in the Pioneer Valley and are looking for nonprofits and funding agencies to participate.”

Textbook Examples
NodeLinks will be a separate division of inResonance and will satisfy the McAllisters’ desire to help others just as they did when they were Peace Corps volunteers.
“My journey has been very circuitous,” said Kevin. “We have come full circle in what we have learned about making schools and nonprofits efficient. Susan and I both have a common ethos that came out of education and nonprofits. NodeLinks will allow us to come full circle with our passion and love, which is the nonprofit sector.”
If all goes as planned, the two will be adding yet another way for people to accomplish goals without frustration, he continued. “We are creating a structure to link people together so they can also work together in an efficient way.”

The World at Our Fingertips

New Technology Keeps Users Connected 24/7

New Technology Gadgets

It says something about today’s Internet users — that would be just about everyone — that the year’s biggest high-tech gadget story is an electronic tablet that’s not much good at producing media, but spectacular at helping people consume it. From the iPad and smartphones to GPS systems and cameras that upload to the Internet in a flash, today’s devices are all about keeping the world connected, every second of every day. Here are some of the products that led the way in 2010.

Take a bow, Apple. You created the story of the year in technology.
That story, of course, is the launch last spring of the iPad, a device that rode massive waves of hype and garnered, for the most part, positive reviews — with a few caveats. For our annual look at what’s new in the world of technology, that’s the best place to start.
Essentially a wi-fi platform for audio and visual media that’s bigger than a smartphone but weighs less than a notebook computer, the iPad ($499) sold to the tune of 3 million devices in the first 80 days alone, and could sell around 12 million by the end of the year.
New York Times technology writer David Pogue produced perhaps the most novel — and certainly one of the most-talked-about — reviews of the iPad by writing two separate essays, one for techies and one for everyday users.
He gives vent to concerns from the tech-savvy crowd that the device doesn’t offer anything that someone with a notebook computer and a smartphone doesn’t already have, and detailed its lack of multitasking, Flash video, USB ports, and a camera.
But he is more enthusiastic in his “review for everyone else,” praising the iPad’s fast processing speed and impressive presentation of applications (and there are tens of thousands available) ranging from the iBooks e-reader to maps and driving simulators. In short — and to use a line that has appeared in countless writeups of the product — the iPad isn’t good at producing content, but it’s revolutionary as a way to consume it.
“In its current incarnation, the Apple iPad could no more replace your main computing device than could a netbook,” according to tech blog mashable.com. “A decade from now, the iPad will be less useful than the first iPod is today, but it will forever be the face that truly launched tablet computing. For that, it deserves recognition.”
Of course, smartphones have allowed users to access media on the go for a long time — albeit on a smaller scale — and 2010 was the year that the Motorola Droid stole the most headlines. Actually released late in 2009, the Droid (which is distributed exclusively by Verizon Wireless) sold 250,000 units its first week and has emerged as a rival for the Apple iPhone (more on that later).
According to cnet.com, the Droid boasts a gorgeous display, a fast Web browser, the Google Maps navigation app, and high-quality messaging and contact management, as well as excellent call quality, long talk time, and improved speed over previous Android devices. The reviewer did downgrade the device for its clunky sliding keyboard, music and video capabilities that are only OK, and lack of support for Bluetooth voice dialing.
However, Motorola improved on the experience this year with the release of the Droid Incredible ($199), which, cnet.com reports, is faster than its predecessor, upgrades the camera and internal memory, and supports wi-fi, GPS, 3G, and, yes, Bluetooth.
But Apple remained the bestselling name in smartphones and captured strong reviews, with one significant drawback, for its iPhone 4 ($299). According to cnet.com, the newest iPhone offers enhanced performance, a lovely new display, an improved design, and plenty of additional features. However, reception (exclusively through AT&T) is spotty — a longtime iPhone problem.

Notebooks and More
Apple was also busy this year with its MacBook Pro notebook computer ($1,799), which gives users a much faster processor than earlier models, as well as a bigger battery, illuminated keyboard, seamless switching graphics technology, a versatile touchpad, and overall better design engineering, according to PC magazine.
However, the magazine had even better things to say about the Asus U45Jc-A1, which it hails as one of the best mainstream laptops to come down the highway, and a good value at $867. PC praised its high-quality design (both aesthetic and functional), outstanding battery life, graphics, and performance.
As for printing documents, mashable.com placed the HP OfficeJet 6500A Plus ($199) in the category of products that broke new ground in 2010 — a category that includes the iPad and Droid Incredible, so that’s strong praise.
“If your objectives are to reliably print, scan, and fax, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a comparable and viable competitor,” it reports. “The 6500A Plus comes with ePrint, a service that, among other things, allows you to send documents to a special e-mail address to be printed automatically — no drivers necessary.”
Speaking of transmitting documents, digital cameras continue to proliferate, as the rise of social media has individuals uploading images online like never before. Fortunately, the top-rated models for 2010 come in a variety of price points, with a wide range of features, making it easy to find a camera to match one’s photographic needs.
Among cameras, PC World gives high marks to the Canon PowerShot A3000 IS digital camera ($249), calling it a light, compact camera that’s highly automatic, yet takes very clear images. It docked the PowerShot a bit for a subpar shutter button and zoom controls, but overall recommended it for everyday use by amateurs who don’t want to fiddle with too many settings.
For a bit more money ($499), PC World also likes the Ricoh CX4 digital point-and-shoot, which is bigger than most compact cameras on the market, but still rests comfortably in the hand. It’s equipped with a big optical zoom lens, and its LCD screen is one of the best the reviewer has come across on a digital camera. “Unfortunately,” he adds, “it has limited manual exposure features, so you’ll have to let the camera decide the aperture and shutter settings on its own; despite this, it’s a camera that’s a lot of fun to use, and everyone who played with it during our tests loved it.”
A similar sense of fun highlights the latest offering from GPS leader Garmin, whose Nuvi 3790T, according to PC World, is not only “drop-dead gorgeous,” but provides the best overall navigational experience of any GPS unit on the market. The magazine praises its touchscreen, voice commands, traffic updates, safety alerts, and lane guidance, while nicking the device for its glossy screen and slightly slow performance at getting a GPS fix. It’s also premium-priced at $549.

Fun Stuff
When work is over and you’ve navigated home, why not kick back with some TV? Another product highly recommended by mashable.com, the 47-inch Vizio XVT473SV packs all the features most people require in an LCD TV, including full 1080-pixel quality and an especially precise picture achieved through accurate color saturation alongside deep blacks.
The TruLED feature allows the display’s LED backlight to dim and brighten independently, so the picture remains fully dynamic and realistic. But Vizio has also led the way in making its devices Internet-connected. The XVT473SV, for instance, features Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, and more.
If reading sounds better than TV viewing, e-readers continue to make news, and Amazon still leads the way, according to toptenreviews.com, which ranks the Kindle 3 ($139) as the best such product available, boasting size, speed, and picture quality that set the standard, not to mention ease of use.
“Though the Kindle 3 does not offer a touchscreen, the screen provides a high contrast that truly makes users feel as though they are reading text from a sheet of paper as opposed to a handheld computer screen,” according to the review, which also praises the device for eliminating glare, enough memory to store 3,500 books, and a battery that lasts up to one month on a single charge, longer than any other e-reader.
And if you fall asleep while reading, have no fear; even alarm clocks are getting an overhaul. Well, the Sony Dash ($199) is actually a personal Internet viewer, but unlike the iPad or a smartphone, it needs to stay plugged into the wall. “But that doesn’t stop it from being what amounts to an alarm clock for today’s Internet-dominated world,” reports askmen.com, which ranks it among the year’s best new tech devices.
Sporting a 7-inch touchscreen and integrated wi-fi, the Dash packs a slew of useful features into a small package, the reviewer notes. “So if you’re sick of leaning over to grab your phone in bed for social networking updates or to check out the weather, the Dash can provide a ton of convenience and still replace your current, beaten-to-death alarm clock.”
Until it’s time to head back out into an increasingly connected work world.

Joseph Bednar can be reached
at [email protected]

Mine Your Business

This Unique Event Will Put Businesses in Front of Decision Makers

Mine Your Business

In 2008, the Greater Holyoke and Chicopee Chambers of Commerce commenced a search for an event that would be an alternative to the traditional trade show and typical networking event. What has emerged for 2010, and Nov. 4, to be more specific, is Mine Your Business, or what is being described as a networking and sales- building opportunity for companies across the region. Presented by BusinessWest, this unique event will give participants a chance to tell their stories in front of actual decision makers. Here’s a look at how Mine Your Business will unfold, and who will be taking part..

Peter Rosskothen says he gets some of his business at the Log Cabin-Delaney House from referrals, and still more from essentially showing people what he can do — putting on an event that prompts people to think of his venues when it’s their turn to stage a get-together.
But Rosskothen, co-owner of those Holyoke institutions, says that networking remains a big part of efforts to fill the calendars at both locations, and that’s why he does a lot of it. “It’s important to get in front of people, remind them you’re there, start new relationships, and strengthen existing ones,” he told BusinessWest.
For all these reasons, Rosskothen is a participant and strong supporter of Mine Your Business, what is being described as a networking and sales-building event slated for Nov. 4 at the Kittredge Center at Holyoke Community College. He said the gathering, presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by several area companies, including the Log Cabin-Delaney House, will give those involved a chance to not only tell their stories, but tell them to an audience of decision makers.
“And this is the audience you want to be reaching,” he said. “And that’s what makes this event different. At a trade show or a typical networking event, you get some exposure and you meet quite a few people, but you don’t generally get to see the decision makers, the people you need to be seeing.”
Here’s how it works: participating companies will send two representatives to the event — a decision maker and a top sales executive. This team will then meet a series of other teams for eight-minute discussions, or encounters, during which introductions can be made, information can be shared, relationships can be initiated or taken to a higher level, and, down the road, sales can be made.
With this sequence of events in mind, Kate Campiti, associate publisher and advertising director at BusinessWest, said that event organizers have incorporated the slogan ‘it’s where the conversation starts’ into Mine Your Business promotional efforts.
“People tend to do business with people they know and trust, people they have a relationship with,” she explained. “Relationships start when people get to know each other and come to understand their respective businesses can help one another.”
At press time, nearly two dozen companies, representing several business sectors, had signed on to take part in Mine Your Business. The list includes financial-services providers, printing companies, office-supply companies, a Ford dealer, and much more. Profiles of participating companies begin on page 21.
There is still plenty of time for companies to reserve space, however.
In addition to the Greater Holyoke and Chicopee Chambers of Commerce, Mine Your Business is being sponsored by First American Insurance, Holyoke Community College, Marcotte Ford, and Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.
For more information or to reserve space, call the Greater Holyoke Chamber at (413) 534-3376, the Chicopee Chamber at (413) 594-2101, or BusinessWest at (413) 781-8600.

A to Z Moving & Storage Inc.
380 Union St., Suite One, West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 736-4440
www.a-zmovers.net
A to Z can move individuals and businesses, and no job is too small or too large. A to Z can also store excess files — and a customer’s active ones — as well as providing delivery and pickup when needed them. All customers are treated with courtesy and professionalism.

ABC 40 and Fox 6 WGGB-TV
1300 Liberty St., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 733-4040
www.wggb.com
As Springfield’s only locally owned TV stations, a commitment and access to local communities, support of viewers, and strength of programming combine to make WGGB-TV ABC 40 and Fox 6 a valuable partner to create visibility and awareness for local businesses.

BusinessWest
1441 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 781-8600
www.businesswest.com
Founded in 1984, BusinessWest is the region’s premier business publication bringing local business news, trends, and information to nearly 30,000 readers. Published bi-weekly, BusinessWest is read by business owners, presidents, CEOs, senior managers, and professionals throughout Western Mass., and it is committed to the region’s economic health, vitality, and future.

Comcast Business Class
222 New Park Dr., Berlin, CT 06037
(413) 730-4579
www.business.comcast.com
Comcast Business Services offers Western Mass. businesses a one-stop solution for all of their communication needs. With business-class Internet, voice, and TV, companies can leverage the power of Comcast’s fiber-optic network while enjoying the convenience of one provider for all three services and 24/7 customer support.

Deliso Financial and Insurance Services
540 Meadow St., Suite 108, Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 785-1100
www.delisofinancialservices.com
After 20 years in the financial-services industry, Jean Deliso’s passion for finance and strategic planning led to the creation of Deliso Financial and Insurance Services in 2000. Deliso Financial and Insurance Services is a comprehensive financial-management agency.

First American Insurance Agency Inc.
510 Front St., Chicopee, MA 01021
(413) 592-8118
www.faiagency.com
This family-owned insurance agency is proud of its local heritage and committed to its strong principles of personal service. Founded in 1986 by President Ed Murphy, First American Insurance Agency is a proud example of the region’s powerful entrepreneurial spirit, growing to become a leading insurance agency specializing in both personal and commercial lines of coverage.

Hadley Printing
58 Canal St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 536-8517
www.hadleyprinting.com
For more than 100 years, Hadley Printing has provided high-quality printing to a wide range of clients throughout the Northeast. Hadley Printing’s excellent reputation is a result of company values reflecting honesty, integrity, and a strong work ethic. Customers trust and respect Hadley Printing for high-quality work and exceptional service.

Holyoke Community College
303 Homestead Ave., Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 552-2500
www.hcc.edu
Since 1946, Holyoke Community College has been a gateway to quality education and career advancement. Seeking to realize their dreams and aspirations, more than 100,000 students have come through the doors of the college. Today, HCC serves more than 9,000 students annually in more than 100 associate degree and certificate options, and more than 5,500 in non-credit and workforce-development courses.

Holyoke Gas & Electric/HGE.net
9 Suffolk St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 536-9300
www.hged.com
Formed in 1902, HG&E is a municipally owned utility that provides electricity, natural gas, and fiber-optic Internet services to more than 18,000 customers. Its mission to customers is to provide competitive energy rates, reliable service, and excellent customer service.

INK Products
25 Grove St., Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 594-7533
www.inkprod.com
INK Products was established in 1996 with the intent to bring businesses competitive prices on a wide variety of printing and office supplies, and to provide businesses with a source of answers to any questions regarding their supply needs. Service like this is not available at superstores or mail-order companies.

The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House
500 Easthampton Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 535-5077
The Delaney House
1 Country Club Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 532-1800
www.logcabin-delaney.com
Beautiful settings and Old World charm have given the Log Cabin and the Delaney House a reputation as premier banquet facilities and restaurants in the Valley. Attention to detail, exclusive service, and unrivaled menus distinguish the quality options offered to customers.
Marcotte Ford
1025 Main St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(800) 842-0699
www.marcotteford.com
Marcotte Ford is a premier new Ford and used car dealer. With a friendly and helpful sales staff, highly skilled mechanics, and multiple automotive certifications, Marcotte’s mission is to make every customer a customer for life by consistently offering superb customer care, competitive prices, and a knowledgeable staff.

Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.
330 Whitney Ave., Suite 800, Holyoke, Massachusetts 01040
(413) 536-8510
www.meyerskalicka.com
Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. is the largest independently owned and operated CPA firm based in Western Mass. Its mission is to provide professional services of superior quality and value to enable clients to achieve their goals. Every MBK client, from individual proprietorships to multi-million-dollar international organizations, receives the personal attention of one of the partners.

Moriarty & Primack
One Monarch Place, Suite 1300, Springfield, MA 01144
(413) 739-1800
www.mass-cpa.com
Moriarty & Primack, P.C. was founded in 1993 by the late Richard Moriarty and Jay Primack. At that time, each had 18 years of diversified public-accounting experience with Big Four firms. Today, many individuals on the staff have a large-accounting-firm background. The firm and its affiliates have a total professional staff of 28, of whom 17 are certified public accountants.

Northeast Security Partners
33 Sylvan St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 733-7306
www.northeastsecuritysolutions.com
Northeast Security Solutions is a company driven by the goal of achieving total customer satisfaction in everything it does. It’s the only one-stop security company in the area offering mechanical and electronic security integration, saving customers time, money, and ‘buck-passing’ between suppliers.

Ondrick Natural Earth
729 Fuller Road, Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 594-8803
www.ondricknaturalearth.com
Ondrick Natural Earth is the Greater Springfield’s most comprehensive supplier of landscaping and building stone. With an impressive inventory, a knowledgeable sales staff, and a homeowner-friendly store, Ondrick meets landscape, architectural, and building-stone needs, from wall and patio stone to natural thin stone veneers.

Peter Pan Bus Lines
P.O. Box 1776 , Springfield, MA 01102
(800) 343-9999
www.peterpanbus.com
Peter Pan is one of the largest privately owned intercity bus companies in the industry, with the most modern fleet on the road. Its new, state-of-the-art motorcoaches have changed bus travel, offering passengers amenities such as wi-fi, electrical outlets for laptops and cell phone chargers, tray tables, extra legroom, safety restraints, and more.

Telemundo
866 Maple Ave., Hartford, CT 06114
(860) 956-1303
www.zgsgroup.com
This Spanish-language, American television network is operated by ZGS Communication, a Hispanic-owned company with a profound commitment to serving the local communities where it conducts business.

Valley Engraved Gifts & Awards
120 Whiting Farms Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(888) 226-5252
www.signature-engravers.com
Valley Engraved Gifts & Awards, a division of Signature Engraving Systems, is a privately held corporation and an offshoot of United Innovations Inc., an engineering design firm. Now the benchmark for computerized engravers, Signature has evolved to not only develop better tools and systems, but also educate the industry about personalization so they can benefit from increased margins and experience the pleasure of making their customers happy.

United Bank
95 Elm St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(866) 959-2265
www.bankatunited.com
United Bank is a federally chartered stock bank headquartered in West Springfield. The bank has been doing business in the Pioneer Valley since 1882. Today, it has more than $1.5 billion in assets and offices throughout the Greater Springfield area.

Valley Computer Works
84 Russell St., Hadley, MA 01035
(413) 587-2666
www.valleycomputerworks.com
Valley Computer Works has been selling and servicing computers in the Pioneer Valley since 1999. It offers a wide array of services for residential and commercial clients. Fueled by a growing client base and the constant expansion of its staff and facilities, Valley Computer Works has established itself as a premier computer consulting, sales, and service business.

Doing Business in: Southampton

Strong Diversity Makes Up for Town’s Small Size

Tom Bashista took over his family’s farm this past January, becoming the fourth generation to work the land.

If you drive into Southampton along Route 10 out of Easthampton, one of the first signs of commerce to greet you is a Big Y superstore.
But a stone’s throw across the road is the sign and entryway for Red Rock Shops, with 1960s-style letters heralding a strip of mom-and-pop stores. And this lets you know that you’re in Southampton. Primarily a residential community with a population of close to 5,800, the town has a business base that in many cases can be traced back for more than a generation.
Town Clerk Eileen Couture is no longer owner of Mahoney’s Package Store, but with her husband, she ran one of those mom-and-pops for more than 25 years. She said that, in addition to her former store, her husband’s family was owner of the popular Couture Gardens dance hall.
Speaking from personal experience, she said, “quite a few businesses in town have grown up with their families.”
While she sold her store to take up a position in Town Hall, she listed off the names of several Southamptonites who are still business owners: Pure Foods, owned by Don Pusa; the Tarka family’s auto-service station; and Lyman Sheet Metal, a machine shop that has been in that family since 1894.
With his wife, Cheryl, Tom Bashista took over his family’s farm this past January, becoming the fourth generation to work the land. At Bashista Orchards and Cider Mill on East Street, he joked that the only thing that’s different now as owner is the amount of paperwork for which he’s responsible.
But a drive through Southampton’s scenic byways offers a window into a business community that also reflects the cultural underpinnings of this colonial town.
Sage Books is a used bookstore that is housed in an elegant antique home along Route 10. Owner Pete Morin said that it was fate that brought him and his wife to this role, and that, despite the Internet, the written word on paper is still a draw for people. Similarly, Robert Floyd, owner of the eponymous photo gallery next door to Town Hall, said that, after a professional career as a photojournalist in New York City, he made the decision to take this property before he even knew what he wanted to do with it.
Since opening in 2001, the Robert Floyd Photo Gallery has been serving both local and world-renowned artists in the medium, while also providing monthly classes and seminars.
For this installment of its Doing Business In series, BusinessWest finds out how Southampton is very similar to Floyd’s description of his gallery: “It’s many things to many people.”

All in the Family
Couture said that her business flourished through the 1970s and ’80s. “But when the bigger stores started opening in West Springfield or Westfield in the ’90s, everyone would go there for their big purchases.”
Given the tightly knit town, though, she said that people are very much interested in supporting the shops owned by their neighbors.
“You want to give the local people a shot,” she said, adding, “Pure Foods has some very solid local business, even with Big Y right across the street. His parking lot is always full. They have a lot of meat specials, and people flock there for that.
“At the bowling alley,” she continued, “I learned how to bowl there; my kids did, too. It’s nice to have things like that for your kids. That place has been owned by the same family forever.”
It’s a long way, commercially speaking, from bowling lanes to apple orchards, but the sentiment is the same for Bashista.
Working the same farmland his great-grandfather Jacob first owned in 1926, Bashista said that he took over as the latest generation because “I didn’t want houses built on this land.
“It’s sweat equity just to keep the land the way it was when I grew up,” he continued, “so my kids can have that same opportunity. What they do with it is up to them, but it’s my choice to do this.”
But it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. Bashista Orchards has maintained a thriving retail component to the farming, from the days when Jacob had a container by the roadside so customers could make their own change, to the current building, housing the apple-sorting facility, cold storage, a bakery, and shelves lined with the best this farm and other local food purveyors have to offer.
Bashista credits his parents for turning the market into a year-round operation four years ago, and he noted that the 40 varieties of apples he grows are kept perfectly in the decades-old cold storage, to be enjoyed through the following summer.
“And none of this is high-tech,” he added. “This sorting machine here was bought in the 1950s, and it still works as well as the day it was bought.”
The stretch of road out front is in contention for repaving, and Bashista said he’ll wait for that outcome to determine how, if at all, he’ll change things in his time at the farm. A covered porch would be nice, he said, to offer some protection for idling with a cup of coffee and gazing at the view — something he’s not too familiar with, in his busy time on the farm.
“But it would be a great spot for folks,” he said, “like Yankee Candle’s great wraparound porch.
“I want to keep this the way it has always been,” he added, “like people could step back in time when they come here. Other than making things more efficient, I don’t want to change a thing.”

Read All About It
When Morin had been ‘downsized’ in the 1990s, he knew that the time had come to make a life change. And looking around at the number of books he and his wife, Susan Shea, had amassed the solution was right there all the time.
“After collecting for 35 years, we had probably 5,000 books,” he said. “We thought, ‘why not open a bookstore?’”
Having a good idea from their travels of what they wanted, the two decided upon the current location, an old house that had been vacant for 20 years. It wasn’t for sale, but they had bought a few properties already from the owner, a Realtor, and their patience paid off. After building out the inside from basement to second floor, all with his own millwork, Morin said that operations began in 1996.
At one time, the operation specialized in locating hard-to-find and out-of-print volumes, but has scaled back on that service out of necessity. “When we first opened, there were maybe 400 to 500 booksellers using Internet searches. Today I’d say there’s 40,000 to 50,000. There are those local customers who will come to us, though, just not in the numbers that once were.”
Reflecting on the future of the written word, Morin backtracked first and called it “as important an invention as fire and the wheel,” and said that his demographic is decidedly the older generations.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he added, “I love my iTouch, I listen to the radio on it, but it doesn’t ever replace my desire to read on paper. Younger people still are interested, but it’s less than it used to be. When my wife and I used to go to the beach, we’d bring a stack of paperbacks. James Michener, Tom Clancy, you know the type. I can’t for the life of me imagine doing that with a Kindle.”
While his market is in an ever-evolving state, like a true bibliophile he added, “after opening up here, I was offered a very lucrative job, and I just didn’t want to take it. This is a labor of love.”

Picture This
Similarly, when asked what brought him to Southampton originally, Floyd smiled and said, “two words: Linda Emerson.”
Indeed, after forging a career first as an engineer and then as a photojournalist, with clients ranging from the Special Olympics to Morgan Stanley, Floyd said that he moved to town to be with his partner, but kept the clients and an apartment in Manhattan for many years.
“Three years after I was in town, we were walking right along the street outside on New Year’s Day,” he remembered. “As we passed by this building I noticed a ‘for rent’ sign. I decided on the spot that I was going to take it. For nine months, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with it.”
A gallery dedicated to his own work wasn’t the goal, he said, but to exhibit the work of others in that medium was. “My heart is in elevating photography for the general public,” he said, “to learn about photography, and to really view it.”
His studio isn’t the place for the “cute bear in the wildflowers” kind of imagery, he said, explaining that there is a potentially profitable market he’s turning away. But the work does draw people from both the region and far beyond, and Floyd has become known as a gallerist with as good an eye for his exhibitions as his photojournalism work.
Currently showcasing the photomontage work of Julius Lester and infrared landscapes by Betsy Feick, among examples of many others, Floyd said “my photographers tell me they sell better here than any of their other venues. I know we offer more than any photo gallery in Western Mass, what with seminars and classes. And there are great galleries out there, to be sure.”
His concluding remarks about his business are emblematic of the town itself. “People who know about us know how strong a collection we are. We make a lot of noise for a little gallery.”

Opinion

Opinion

Getting the Nation on Track for Jobs

This appears to be a good season for investment in transportation. In September, President Obama proposed to invest $50 billion in the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has already committed $776 million to bring buses and bus facilities into a state of good repair. Combined with the $8 billion investment in high-speed rail that was part of the February 2009 stimulus package, it seems that the nation is finally putting a down payment on a 21st-century transit system.
But these sums are a pittance compared with the need. The U.S. has yet to commit the money needed to create a world-class rail system, or to stimulate a transit-vehicle manufacturing industry that today depends mostly on imports. In reports we released this week in cooperation with the Apollo Alliance and Worldwatch Institute, we estimate that a serious investment in public transit could stimulate thousands of sorely needed manufacturing jobs. To appreciate how far we are falling short, consider the example of China.
China recognizes the economic links between developing rail lines and promoting manufacturing. In 2001, it began a $132 billion rail-construction project, which is scheduled for completion in 2012. During roughly the same period, the U.S. appropriated just $19 billion for rail construction, or about one-seventh China’s level.
As part of its recession-recovery package, China committed $88 billion in 2009 to railway infrastructure, doubling its 2008 investment. The goal: to create much-needed transportation links, to generate demand for 20 million tons of domestic steel, and to create 6 million new jobs overall.
To reach the government’s goal of 1.1 million kilometers (about 450,000 miles) of railroad by 2012, China will spend a total of $292.5 billion. Of this, 13,000 kilometers will be for high-speed rail. A key benefit: China’s two leading locomotive and rail-car manufacturers will employ more than 212,000 people combined to meet domestic goals. If transportation policy is to create domestic manufacturers and permanent manufacturing jobs, a steady and predictable level of investment is needed. The U.S. lost its domestic passenger rail-car industry by the late 1980s not because of high labor costs, but because of erratic demand. Most of the countries that dominate the industry today, such as Germany and France, have wages comparable to the U.S., but they have a comprehensive strategy that allows producers to anticipate stable demand for their products.
Annual domestic demand for production of rail cars in the U.S. bounced between a low of 268 units to a high of 1,067 units during the 1970s, according to Thomas Boucher of Rutgers University. And as demand for transit vehicles waned, U.S. companies couldn’t come up with investment dollars to keep up with state-of-the-art technology.
We analyzed the job-creation potential of investment in rail infrastructure and estimate that the U.S. could gain 79,000 jobs in rail and bus manufacturing and related industries under an investment scenario sufficient to double transit ridership in 20 years. An investment at levels similar to China — $24.4 billion per year over six years — would yield 252,213 jobs, including many well-paid blue-collar jobs of the kind that have been devastated over the past decade.
Reclaiming a domestic rail industry is part of a broader need to revive competitive manufacturing. Even in its weakened state, manufacturing accounted for $1.6 trillion (12%) of U.S. GDP in 2008 — more than real estate, finance, and insurance.
Manufacturing accounts for 60% of U.S. exports and 70% of private-sector research and development funding. Yet the U.S. goods deficit with the rest of the world in 2008 exceeded $836 billion. The annual trade deficit with China alone was $266 billion in 2008, with 75% due to the manufactured-goods deficit.
A high-quality passenger-rail system is a trifecta. It would attract more riders and cut dependence on private cars — in turn reducing the carbon emissions that cause global warming. More than that, a commitment to mass transit could promote the resurgence of a major manufacturing sector that we’ve lost, reducing our trade deficit and increasing domestic jobs.

Joan Fitzgerald is professor and director of the graduate program in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University. Joseph McLaughlin is a senior research associate at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern.

Editorial

Opinion

Patrick Gets Our Nod, but Has Work to Do

This is a critical time for Massachusetts, what most observers would describe as a critical crossroads. The state is still trying to recover from the worst recession in 80 years, while at the same time it is working to stimulate economic development in an ultra- competitive climate in which 49 other states and countless countries around the world are vying for businesses and jobs.
There is also the matter of casinos and whether they are to be part of the economic-development mix, the obvious need to make this state more business-friendly, and the very real possibility that the state’s sales tax will be rolled back to 3%, creating some possible opportunities for retailers but also a potential fiscal nightmare for the Commonwealth and its publicly funded institutions and programs.
For these reasons and others, BusinessWest lends its endorsement to incumbent Deval Patrick in the all-important governor’s race to be decided on Nov. 2. This is a nod over challenger Charlie Baker (Tim Cahill’s candidacy is a joke, and he should do the state a favor and drop out before the election) that comes with some caveats, as we’ll explain. The bottom line, we feel, is that Patrick is the best option for the state at this critical juncture.
For starters, we’ll note that Patrick has made some missteps in his first term. The Cadillac DeVille and office-redecoration exploits were among them, but more important were his steps backward in efforts to downsize government and stem the tide of patronage jobs. His failure to seal a casino deal has also led to questions about his leadership skills and ability to work with the Legislature to get things done.
But Patrick has matured in office and, over the past few years, has managed the deep recession effectively, while also amassing several legislative accomplishments, such as a toughening of pension and ethics laws, consolidation of transportation agencies, expansion of charter schools, and more.
What has stood out for us is his very real — not symbolic or token — support of Western Mass. and some of its struggling cities.
In Springfield, for example, Patrick was personally responsible for Liberty Mutual opening an office in the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College, a facility that now employs more than 300 people. His administration also played key roles in the State Street Corridor revitalization effort, South End redevelopment, efforts to make UMass Amherst a more vital force downtown, the Data Center being built at the former Tech High School site, and other initiatives.
Meanwhile, in Holyoke, another former manufacturing center trying to reinvent itself, Patrick administration played a key role in advancing the high-performance computing center project, an economic-development initiative that could have huge ramifications for that city and the region as a whole.
The wheels started turning thanks to officials at MIT, UMass Amherst, Boston University, and other schools, as well as private industry, but the Patrick administration helped steer this project to a successful conclusion, and in a city that sorely needs an economic boost.
While in the past, governors and candidates for that post have talked about how they represent the entire state and how important Western Mass. is to them, Patrick has backed up the talk, and in a way that hasn’t been seen since Michael Dukakis was in the corner office.
While we believe Patrick has earned another term to see if he can build on these accomplishments and create more progress for this region and the state as a whole, we’ll note that he and everyone else on Beacon Hill still have some serious work to make this state more business-friendly, and this must be one of the top priorities for whomever is governor next January.
Jobs are the real key to making a full recovery from the Great Recession and enabling cities like Springfield and Holyoke to forge new identities. And the key to creating them is making this a state business owners believe they can afford to be in. Right now, not enough people are of that sentiment, and until the reality, and not just the perception, changes, Massachusetts will be at an extreme disadvantage.

Profiles in Business

She Helps in the ‘Upward Climb of Entrepreneurship’

Dianne Fuller Doherty, director of the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network, Western Regional Office

Dianne Doherty remembers the urgent tone in the voice of Bai Qing Li, a client and friend who was looking for some help — and not the kind Doherty was used to offering.
Lee was looking for someone to teach a course in Marketing at Shandong University in Jinan, China. The individual who was slated to take that assignment had to back out of that commitment, and only a few weeks before the start of the spring semester. Lee wanted to know if Doherty could recommend someone with the skills and desire — and flexibility — to step in.
To make a long story short, Doherty wound up recommending herself.
“I was driving somewhere in Vermont with my husband [Paul], and I asked him, ‘what would you think of me taking that job?’” she recalled. “He reminded me that I’d never taught anything before, but then said, ‘if that’s what you want to do, go do it.’”
And she did.
Doherty quickly arranged a leave of absence from her job as director of the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network’s Western Regional Office, obtained a visa, and by early March she was in front of two different classes of 70 students each. She actually wound up teaching Finance 101 — another American woman took the Marketing classes — an assignment that became a learning experience on many levels.
“I learned about the country, the people, the economy — and a lot about myself,” she told BusinessWest, adding that, while she thoroughly enjoyed her stint in Jinan, by the time the semester was over, she was certainly ready to come home.
“I was very happy to be back, happy to be an American, and happy to be back in this job,” she said, adding that, among other things, her time in China provided her with great appreciation for everything she left behind when she got on the plane. Meanwhile, she added, her leave was “very renewing — it definitely recharged the batteries.”
Not that Doherty has ever lacked for energy. In addition to her more-than-full-time duties with the Small Business Development Center, she’s also involved with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s Plan for Progress, sits on the task force for the high-performance computing center planned for Holyoke, and volunteers her time for Digital Divide Data, a social enterprise that provides jobs and training to youths in Laos and Cambodia, among other activities.
And she says she gets the energy for all that from her work and, more specifically, her clients. These are entrepreneurs, or would-be entrepreneurs, who come to the SBDC looking for assistance with everything from writing a business plan to securing financing, to pricing a product or service.
In her 18-year stint with the SBDC, Doherty and her staff have assisted budding entrepreneurs such as Stanley Kowalski, president of FloDesign and its subsidiary, which is working to bring a new wind-turbine design to the marketplace; Suki Kramer, who has developed her own line of cosmetics; Li, who immigrated to this country from China a decade ago and now has several business ventures, including China Access, which arranges visits for transfer students and others interested in that booming nation; and BusinessWest founder and ABC 40/Fox 6 owner John Gormally.
But there are hundreds of other stories, many of which haven’t generated headlines, but that, together, add up to thousands of jobs and some much-needed strength and flexibility for the local economy.
Through her work with several successful businesses, as well as her involvement with the computing center, the WestMass Area Development Corp., the Plan for Progress, and other economic-development-related agencies, Doherty is understandably bullish on Western Mass. She thinks others should share in this optimism, and believes, overall, that one of the things holding this region back is a self-confidence problem.
“There are a lot of exciting things going on in the Valley, and I really believe we need to change our attitudes about Springfield and believe in it again,” she said. “We need to change some attitudes about Springfield and this region, and put our inferiority complex behind us, because there is such great potential for this region, and it’s not just potential — it’s real.”

Occupational Therapy
Doherty told BusinessWest that she wasn’t quite sure what to think or do when a writer for the New York Times called her back in January and asked that she be a subject for an ongoing series called Preoccupations, which is essentially about people and twists and turns in their career paths. The slant for this particular piece was someone working well past what most would consider retirement age — and why.
For starters, Doherty wasn’t sure why she was being considered for this subject matter or how the Times knew about her. And she wasn’t exactly keen on talking about her age or the fact that she was working past 70. Eventually, though, she acquiesced, and in early February, her story, complete with the headline “When She’s Ready to Retire, She’ll Know,” appeared in the Times’ Jobs section.
“If I left now, I think I’d miss the structure and the intellectual challenge of the job and the people,” Doherty told the Times when asked why she was still working. “My feeling is that, as long as I am doing something of value, why not continue doing it?”
It is because of this mindset that Doherty, who told some people a few years ago that she might retire in a few years, doesn’t make any more comments or projections on that subject, other than to say that the Times headline sums it up nicely — and she’s definitely not ready yet.
Instead, she wants to add more chapters to a professional career that began shortly after earning an MBA from Western New England College, exactly two decades after graduating from Mount Holyoke with a degree in Philosophy. By then, her four daughters were all in their teens, and she had the time and the desire to go back to school.
“I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, so I decided on an MBA because it was a versatile degree,” she said. “That was interesting, going back 20 years later and taking classes with people half your age and with professors younger than you.”
She would eventually take a job handling business development for a marketing and public-relations firm in Hartford, and, after doing that for a few years, took a job centered on marketing and promoting downtown Springfield.
“MassMutual, SIS [Springfield Institution for Savings, now TD Bank], and Steigers put up a quarter of a million dollars to do a marketing campaign for the city,” she said. “This was after there had been a lot of bricks-and-mortar investment in downtown, but no one was coming. They wanted to change people’s attitudes about Springfield and downtown.
“What we discovered was that $250,000, while it sounded like a lot, was nothing for a media campaign, so we turned it into a PR campaign,” she continued, adding that she worked in conjunction with current Spirit of Springfield director Judy Matt, then working for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, and others to create programs including the Taste of Springfield, the Big Balloon Parade, and the holiday lighting initiative.
“All of those things brought people downtown,” said Doherty, adding that, 25 years later, the Spirit of Springfield continues many of those programs and has added others. “That was a fun job, and I never worked harder in my life.”
Eventually, though, the entrepreneurial spirit that Doherty fosters at the SBDC prompted her to start her own business. She partnered with Marsha Tzoumas (now Marsha Montori) to start a marketing and PR firm that would take their two names.
Between 1983 and 1992, the firm grew from its two principals to 12 total employees, and handled work for many prominent businesses, including Colebrook Realty Services, SIS, Fontaine Brothers, Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, and others. It was once named Agency of the Year by the Ad Club of Western Mass.

Getting into Gear
Doherty had just entered into some commitments for marketing projects when she saw the job posting for the directorship of SBDC’s western office, so while she was intrigued with the job and its description — she was very familiar with the SBDC, having served it as an advisory board member — she didn’t think she was in a position to pursue it.
“But a friend told me, ‘just apply — you don’t know the university’s search process,’” she said, adding that she did, and her friend was right; the search took several months, and when it was over, Doherty gained the nod.
She thought she would only be in that position for perhaps a few years, but instead it’s been almost two decades and counting, and for the reasons she outlined for the Times; the people and the intellectual challenges keep her coming back for more.
“It’s such a great job, because of the diversity and variety and the great staff I have,” she said, “and because of the great people I have to work with; it’s very rewarding to help people take their dreams and make them reality.”
When she came to the SBDC, Doherty brought with her a wall ornament from the marketing firm — a brass bicycle, almost life-size. She has it hanging in the agency’s front lobby, at an upward angle, and tells everyone who asks (and that’s most people) that this is to illustrate what she called the “upward climb of entrepreneurship.”
Helping people negotiate that climb is the unofficial mission statement for the SBDC, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, said Doherty, noting that, while roughly half of her workload with the SBDC involves one-on-one consultation with clients, the rest involves economic development, a subject she’s passionate about.
This is evident from her 20 years of involvement with the Plan for Progress, a commitment of similar length to the Affiliated Chambers, work with the former Regional Technology Corp., and, most recently, the high-performance computing center, a project she believes has enormous potential to change the business landscape in Holyoke and the region as a whole.
“That’s one of the biggest things to ever come to this region, and I’m really excited about what can come from this,” she said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for our area.”
Overall, Doherty says the region has an enormous amount of intellectual and entrepreneurial energy that has not been adequately tapped, a situation that she says must change.
“Here in the Pioneer Valley, which I think is aptly named, we have so many pioneers in terms of entrepreneurship and small business and good ideas around wind and energy and other things,” she told BusinessWest. “There’s such intellectual capacity in this valley, between the colleges and the businesses we have. We have an enormous amount of intellectual energy, but we have to harness it, package it, and market it, and these are things we haven’t done well.”
Doherty said she has no regrets about putting aside her work at the SBDC, as well as her economic-development exploits, for three months to take that aforementioned teaching assignment, one that gave her a detailed look at how China is growing, both outward and especially upward. Indeed, this was her fourth trip to that country and the first since 1998. She marveled at how the landscape had been altered in a dozen years.
“It was absolutely astonishing the changes that had taken place,” she explained. “As one friend said as we were driving from the airport at night into Shanghai, ‘this makes Manhattan look like a Third World country.’ The lighting is incredible in all the cities, but especially Shanghai. There were clusters of high-rises everywhere.”
As for the teaching assignment itself, Doherty said it was eye-opening, but also challenging. Her students had six years of English behind them, and were both hardworking and disciplined, but trained to essentially learn by memorization.
“It’s very hard to get them to be interactive,” she explained. “If you asked a question generally, there would just be dead silence. If you called on someone directly, they’d stand up very properly and try to answer as best they could. But they just weren’t used to speaking in English, and they weren’t used to dialogue or the Socratic method, which I was naive enough to try to explain to them during the first class.”
She said the Chinese people are very interested in the U.S. and Americans, and, upon learning what Doherty had for a day job, they wanted to know about entrepreneurship and owning a business.
“That’s just starting to happen there, so they were very interested in knowing about American business,” she said. “Meanwhile, the women there wanted to know about the women in America, because they’re going to be the first generation of women in the workplace, and they didn’t have colleagues and mentors and mothers and grandmothers who had been in the workplace.”
She came home with new respect for teaching, greater appreciation for the opportunities people in this country have, and recharged batteries with which to help clients make that upward climb of entrepreneurship.
“I blogged about the experience, and while doing so I talked about the external journey of China, but there’s also an internal journey that accompanies that, and it’s very important,” she said. “You get to see who you are in a foreign environment and who you are in this environment, and it’s an interesting process of introspection.”

Signs of the Times
Doherty told BusinessWest she was pleasantly surprised by the number of people, from this region and far outside it, who read the Times piece and commented to her about it in one way or another.
“I couldn’t believe the response … I had a woman call me, whom I’ve never met, who said, ‘I just want to thank you for that story; I’m going to start my third career now,’” Doherty recalled. “She said she was going back to get a master’s in Education and start teaching because she thought that was the most important thing she could do — something of great value to the community.”
Doherty believes she’s doing many things that are of value to this region, so she has no intention to stop or even slow down. Aside from the occasional break to teach in China, she’s going to keep working on ways to harness all that entrepreneurial energy in the Valley.

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

The Power of Hope

Cover Story

Human Resources Unlimited Has Been Supplying It for 40 Years

Cover October 25, 2010

For four decades, Human Resources Unlimited has been debunking myths about people with disabilities and helping such individuals become part of the local workforce. As the agency marks its milestone, it reflects on a solid track record of success, but, more importantly, looks ahead, toward developing strategies for doing what it does even better.
Like many people across Western Mass., John Gullotti is looking for work — and not having much luck finding it.
But unlike most of those perusing the want ads and sending résumés to companies across the region, Gullotti is confronting much more than a lingering recession and wariness among many employees to make additions to the workforce as he carries out his search.
For starters, he’s hindered by a résumé that shouts that he is overqualified for some of the entry-level, minimum-wage positions he’s seeking; he has a bachelor’s degree and experience, some of it in management, with many national retailers. And then, there’s the 12-year gap on that résumé, which includes a five-year span during which he was simply too afraid to leave the house.
That fear was a byproduct of the deep depression and paranoia that Gullotti was diagnosed with years ago, and has been battling ever since.
And maybe because of his progress in that fight, especially in recent years, Gullotti has something in abundance that many job seekers have all but run out of: hope.
His large supply of that commodity comes mostly through his association with Human Resources Unlimited (HRU) — a private, nonprofit agency — and, more specifically, a program, or facility, called Lighthouse. There, Gullotti and dozens of other developmentally disadvantaged individuals are trying to enter or re-enter the workforce and thus connect with the community around them.
Providing hope and making connections to the community are not the official missions of HRU, but they might as well be, said Don Kozera, its long-time president, noting that, as the agency turns 40, it is not merely celebrating four decades of carrying out those assignments, but also looking ahead, toward creating ways of continuously doing what it does better.
And perhaps what the agency does best, said Kozera, is help debunk many of the myths or misperceptions about people with disabilities, while also helping members like Gullotti realize that they can do things that others say that they can’t, and that they themselves might believe they can’t do.
“It was believed that people with developmental disabilities couldn’t work with equipment or couldn’t work in outside businesses, or could only handle repetitive work, so that became our battle cry,” said Kozera, noting that, over, the years, HRU has accomplished that mission through programs and businesses it has created or acquired, which ranged from a printing shop to a restaurant to a packaging outfit. But it’s also done it by placing members in jobs with area companies.
Created in 1970 to be the vocational training center for Belchertown State School residents and provide employment opportunities for residents of the facility, HRU, known then as the Carval Workshop, has expanded and evolved over the years. It now offers a broad range of services, from assistance for individuals transitioning from public assistance to the workplace to a ‘day habilitation’ program called Pyramid for people with developmental disabilities; from a commercial division known as Custom Packaging to four so-called ‘clubhouses’ (more on that term later) — Lighthouse, Star Light, Forum House, and Trade Winds.
With most all of these programs, there is one common thread that has defined HRU since the beginning — putting people, or members, to work.
Since he first came to Lighthouse, rather reluctantly and with great doubt about whether it would help him in any way, Gullotti has worked in what’s known as a transitional employment (TE) position as a receptionist with the state Department of Mental Health. Later, he worked in a supportive employment position handling calls to First Response from business owners impacted by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Over the past few months, he has continued his search for independent work, and while he’s had just one actual interview, he remains upbeat and believes that, overall, he’s in a much better place than he was when he first walked in the door at 1401 State St.
“I’m able to deal with different situations that I never could before,” he explained. “Hope … that’s been the strongest piece. I have seen results that, even if they’re small, allow me to push on.”
For this issue, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at HRU as it celebrates its milestone, and, while doing so, weaves in in Gullotti’s thoughts and experiences to show what this agency does and how it does it, and maybe quantify and qualify the sheer power of hope.

Unlimited Potential
Kozera was teaching a little, coaching soccer, and working toward his MBA at American International College when he applied for the job of fiscal director of the Carval Workshop in 1980.
“I saw 120 people sitting around with no work in front of them,” he recalled, “and I thought to myself, ‘I can’t mess this up any more than it already is.’”
So he took the job, while going to school at night — but with the expectation that it would be little more than a line on a resume. Instead, it’s become his life’s work — and very much a work still in progress.
And when one visits ETS Career Services and Custom Packaging, two programs that are essentially the current incarnations of Carval Workshop, there are dozens of people with plenty of work in front of them.
Those initiatives and their growth patterns are emblematic of how HRU has expanded well beyond its humble roots and evolved over 40 years, and especially Kozera’s tenure, which started in 1980.
Today, HRU has several components, including:
• Workforce Alternatives, which helps transition individuals from public assistance to the workplace through job-readiness skills, placement assistance, and ongoing support;
• Pyramid, a ‘day habilitation’ program that provides a caring environment in which individuals with developmental disabilities can enhance their physical, mental, and social competencies;
• ETS (Employment Training Support) Career Services, which provides individuals who are disadvantaged or have developmental or other disabilities with opportunities to increase their vocational skills and find meaningful work. Participants handle work ranging from light assembly to sorting gift cards bound for the Final Markdown;
• Custom Packaging, HRU’s commercial division that provides customers, including Olympic Manufacturing and other area employers, with services including hand assembly, heat sealing, shrinkwrapping, folding, collating, and mailing; and
• The four clubhouses, which help transition members, who join on a volunteer basis, to meaningful employment and, hopefully, independent employment.
Kozera said he doesn’t particularly like the word ‘clubhouse’ — he believes it conjures up images of children in tree forts — but he certainly likes the results these facilities have generated over the past half-century, and especially since they became part of the landscape in Western Mass.
The clubhouse model provides members with a supportive environment where they can get assistance with transitioning into the workplace or back into school as well as increasing their participation in the community.
Members work with staff to operate the clubhouse, said Kozera, adding that activities are designed to help members develop and hone critical vocational skills needed to succeed in the workplace. The facilities then help members transfer the skills and capabilities learned at the clubhouse to real jobs in the community. Over the years and decades, a number of area companies have stepped forward to provide such jobs.
That list of more than 120 business partners includes large regional or national retail chains, such Big Y, Friendly’s, CVS, A.J. Wright, Burger King, and others, but also such wide-ranging local businesses as WGBY and Berkshire Service Experts.
Each member of a clubhouse receives a comprehensive vocational assessment that identifies training and job-placement priorities, as well as preferences. Members are also provided with career counseling, interview-skills training, résumé writing, and job-search assistance, as needed.
Once a member is placed in a transitional or competitive employment job, clubhouse staff members continue to provide ongoing support for work-related and personal issues, said Kozera, adding that the goal with most members is to move them into independent employment after a specified period.
It was into this world that Gullotti walked about 18 months ago.

Seeing the Light
He told BusinessWest that it was his therapist who first suggested that he become a member of Lighthouse, thinking that its group setting would help him gain the needed confidence and inspiration needed to move his life forward and gain meaningful employment.
Gullotti agreed to give it a try, but did not share his therapist’s optimism, to say the least.
“I remember that my first impression of the place was that I couldn’t wait to see my therapist again and tell him that I thought he needed more help than I did,” said Gullotti with a laugh, adding quickly that with each visit he was getting more comfortable, while also learning and gaining inspiration from those around him.
Jeff Trant, program director at Lighthouse and Gullotti’s mentor since the day he walked in the door, said he is representative of the people who come to that facility — but also atypical in at least one respect: he wants to work, to be independent.
“He wants to get off of disability benefits,” Trant explained. “Many people are so polarized, they’re afraid that if they go back to work they’ll lose those benefits. John doesn’t want them; he wants to be independent and self-sufficient, and that’s an anomaly these days, because we have such a disability-entitlement culture.”
But it took Gullotti several weeks to get comfortable at Lighthouse, said Trant, adding that, at the beginning, he was overwhelmed by the situation he found himself in, and, in most all ways, simply not ready to join the workforce.
“It took a while for him to get really get comfortable, but once he got past that threshold and over that barrier of going into this place called Lighthouse, he found it extremely liberating,” said Trant. “You could almost see him relax once he got in and saw what this place was.”
A seminal moment in Gullotti’s progression came roughly a month after he arrived, when he was given a transitional employment assignment with the Department of Mental Health as a administrative assistant and receptionist. This was another transition that had some rough moments, but eventually, as he did with Lighthouse, Gullotti found a comfort zone and made it progressively larger.
“I remember having some impromptu counseling sessions with John in the early days when he would come back in tears,” said Trant. “He was so emotionally overwhelmed, and his confidence and his self-perception were so low that he didn’t think he was worthy and able to work.
“But very slowly, as he found his office colleagues were supportive and receptive, he went from doing the simple nuts and bolts of the job — answering the phone, sorting mail, and greeting people as they came in the door — to doing some very high-end projects that some of their more seasoned staffers would handle; he became a go-to person in that organization.”
The confidence he gained at DMH, coupled with ongoing support from family and both staff and members at Lighthouse, gave Gullotti what Trant called the “gusto” to move on to not only the next step employment-wise — a temporary position arranged through Johnson & Hill Staffing handling with Innovations First Notice — but also other platforms through which he could connect with the community.
“Here’s someone who, a few years earlier, wouldn’t leave his room,” said Trant. “Now, John is out speaking in front of Rotary clubs with me. He shares his story of hope and recovery, and he’s spoken in front of groups of more than 100 people. To me, that is so telling about how far he’s come and how much insight he has.”

Forward Thinking
There have been many success stories scripted by Lighthouse and the other clubhouses within HRU, as the walls within Lighthouse attest. There are pictures of members and former members in work settings and wall charts indicating current assignments and who has them.
Moving forward, Kozera said those at HRU want to make this 40th anniversary a time of celebration, obviously, but also a time for introspection, looking at programs, and developing a strategic initiative that will ultimately yield more pictures for the walls and more stories of individual triumph over adversity.
The company has always been focused on continuous improvement and the ‘good to great’ philosophy, said Kozera, but he wants the current milestone to spark an even deeper commitment to reach higher and, ultimately, put more members in jobs and have them thrive in those positions.
“We have a whole new level to get to,” he explained. “We have every accreditation in the world — national, international, state, and we get the highest ratings in all of those. But we don’t feel that we’re even close to the level we need to be at.”
To get to where it wants to go to go, HRU will continue to observe not only similar programs in other parts of the state and the country, but also businesses across myriad sectors and educational institutions, and “steal shamelessly,” as Kozera put it, when it comes to best practices and concepts it can apply.
In other words, the agency intends to be innovative, in the strictest definition of the word.
“Over the years, innovation has rarely been someone creating something brand-new,” he explained. “What they do is, they take a process, product, or system in one industry, and they tweak it and apply it to another system, and all of a sudden, it’s new.
“If you look at the iPhone and the iPad, these are things that are conglomerations of things that already existed; they’re just packaged in a different way,” he continued, adding that he wants HRU to continue innovating in that same fashion, again with the simple, overarching goal of putting people in the workplace.
And to achieve continuous improvement in that realm, Kozera and his staff will be focusing on the two agency’s two core functions — job preparation and job placement.
With regard to the latter, Kozera recently brought in some sales executives and sales-training professionals to work with and motivate those at HRU who are essentially selling job placements to area companies, thus creating opportunities for members like Gullotti.
“Most sales professionals are motivated by money, but the people who end in our industry are motivated by mission,” he explained. “Someone has to tie what your job is to the mission. So what we were able to do is bring in the sales principles, the sales discipline, and the sales structure, but then have individuals who have passion for what they do — because that’s why they’re in this industry and equate that there’s nothing more critical than them making a phone call and ultimately making a sale.
“It doesn’t matter how much you job train,” he continued, “if you don’t have a job waiting for you at the end of your job training.”
Meanwhile, on the job-preparation side of the ledger, HRU is working to make individuals better able to get and keep the jobs sold by the sales team. And at the heart of these efforts will be an initiative to be launched in January called “Changing Habits and Transforming Lives.”
It will take a number of proven principles not typically applied to job training and put them together for that purpose, said Kozera, noting that, collectively, individuals with disabilities mirror society in general, which means that many are obese and do not have the stamina to be employed, while others may lack the work ethic to obtain or keep a position. So HRU will be focused on those areas and others to help members become more workplace-ready.
As just one example, he cited exercise and its ability to help people focus.
“Exercise is really Miracle-Gro for learning,” he explained. “If you have an exercise routine, for up to four hours after that routine, you have the ability to take in information better, faster, quicker.
“There are schools around the country that are implementing this,” he continued. “I traveled to Naperville, Ill., and visited a school where they’re not cutting gym, like everyone else; they’re looking to expand it. Now, whatever your hardest subject is, you have gym right before that. And the results are amazing.”
The challenge for HRU will be to take some of these proven methods and repackage them to benefit members and meet the agency’s primary mission to get people employed, he told BusinessWest.
“The bottom line is get people to fit in,” he concluded, stating HRU’s reason for being in still another way. “That’s the number-one issue to getting people employed and keeping them employed — they get along with others, and they fit in.”

Getting the Message
As part of its 40th-anniversary celebration, HRU will stage a breakfast at the Sheraton in downtown Springfield on Oct. 26. The keynote speaker will be Troy Brown, former New England Patriots wide receiver and integral part of three Super Bowl-winning teams.
His talk is expected to center around his ability to defy the odds and rise to stardom in the NFL when few thought he would.
That message should resonate with an audience of HRU administrators, staff members, business partners, and business and civic leaders, who have helped enable the agency to permit others to beat long odds against them.
People like John Gullotti, who both understand and help create the power of hope.

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

Building Permits

Building Permits Departments

The following building permits were issued during the month of October 2010.

AGAWAM

Cirillo Realty, Inc.
1508 Main St.
$15,000 — Enlarge kitchen and increase seating capacity in restaurant

AMHERST

Amherst College
Orchard St.
$23,000 — Repair exterior stairs at football field press box

Yosrex Limited Partnership
266 E. Hadley Road
$12,000 — New roof

CHICOPEE

Chicopee Housing Authority
165 East Main St.
$94,000 — Install new generator

Knights of Columbus
1599 Memorial Ave.
$25,000 — Structural repairs

Lymtech – John R. Lyman Company
2255 Westover Road
$1,075,500 — Renovate existing commercial building to manufacturing & office spaces

Motel 6
36 Johnny Cake Hollow Road
$155,000 — Strip and re-roof

St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church
27 Streiber Dr.
$100,000 — Extend to exterior walls to create common room

EASTHAMPTON

Kevin Sahagian
228 Northampton St.
$30,000 — Construct a deck with ramp and replace siding at food establishment

EAST LONGMEADOW

Donald Lomasscola
147 Shaker Road
$75,000 — Renovation

East Meadow Realty
30 Shaker Rd.
$15,000 — Tenant fit-up

Family Bike
217-219 Shaker Road
$3,500 — New roof

Hasbro
443 Shaker Road
$44,000 — Modify mezzanine area

GREENFIELD

John F. Conley
1 Cumberland Road
$17,000 — Erect a three-bay garage

One Arch Place
6 Arch St.
$1,000 — Tenant fit-up

The Leonard House, LLC
116 Federal St.
$40,000 — Renovations

HOLYOKE

Holyoke Mall Company, L.P.
50 Holyoke St.
$3,950 — Remodel existing Bath & Body store

John Dafonte
130 Maple St.
$34,000 — Install new roof

Rafael Fernandez
161-163 High St.
$4,600 — Install new staircase

LONGMEADOW

Bailey Center
85 Hawthorn St.
$11,000 — Re-roof and exterior alterations

GPT – Longmeadow Shops
686 Bliss Road
$32,000 — Storefront alterations

Verizon Control Office
450 Longmeadow St.
$89,000 — Cell tower renovation

LUDLOW

David Lavoie
107-117 Center St.
$3,000 — Re-roof

NORTHAMPTON

City of Northampton
80 Locust St.
$175,000 — Install replacement windows at the Smith School

City of Northampton
42 Gothic St.
$202,000 — Remove partition walls and reconfigure classroom spaces

City of Northampton
210 Main St.
$4,000 — Enlarge opening in the city clerk’s office

City of Northampton
139 South St.
$230,000 — Install replacement windows and interior renovations

Coca-Cola Company
45 Industrial Dr.
$1,340,800 — Construct a 16,600-square-foot addition and renovate existing building

The College Church, Inc.
58 Pomeroy Terrace
$5,000 — Install four basement replacement windows

South Hadley

Loomis Village
20 Bayon Dr.
$35,000 — Renovation

SPRINGFIELD

Family Medical
1515 Allen St.
$15,000 — Remodel office areas

Iparty
1552 Boston Road
$1,500 — Bring in fixtures and set up merchandise

WESTFIELD

Industrial Precision
1014 Southampton Road
$22,000 — Construct wall

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Agri-Mark
958 Riverdale St.
$75,000 — Erect 28-foot opening in wall for truck sanitizing

Century Center, LLC
235 Memorial Ave.
$15,000 — Extend facade over store front

Verizon Wireless
120 Interstate Dr.
$12,000 — Install antenna on existing tower

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies Departments

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

Abbott, Gary S.
627 Southeast St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Adams, Christopher B.
Adams, April J.
44 Berkshire Dr.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Alderman, Michael
23 Stony Brook Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Anthony, Aryn A.
a/k/a Breveleri, Aryn A.
40 Fredette St.
Chicopee, MA 01022
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Arbuckle, John J.
Arbuckle, Cecilia S.
7 Buchanan Circle
Southampton, MA 01073
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Bacon, Kevin P.
Bacon, Ellen M.
29 Lori Lane
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Baillargeon, Roxane M.
131 Princeton St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Barber, Paul H.
Barber, Diane L.
281 Chauncey Walker St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Barsalou, Thomas Richard
Barsalou, Cathleen Ann
7 Grove St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Beecher, Paul G.
Beecher, Jennifer F.
120 West St.
Hadley, MA 01035
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Bertuch, Elizabeth A.
21 Pine Hill Road
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Bielunis, Gary Michael
4 Taylor St., Apt.2
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/06/10

Bowen-Wilcox, Edith M.
150 Applewood Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01022-1159
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Bressani, John J.
PO Box 8031
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Bressette, Wendy L.
398 Washington St.
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Brunelle, Jay V.
10 Griswold Circle
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Bunns, Anthony W.
64 Amos Dr.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Burgos, LouAnn
7 Rocky Brook Dr.
Huntington, MA 01050
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Caisse, Helen Alice
169 Royal St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Chamberlain, Robin S.
84 West Orange Road
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Chick, Kenneth W.
Chick, Monique L.
171 State St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Clark, Linda S.
152 So. Shelburne Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Collette, Craig A.
141 White Oak Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Collins, Glenn J.
152 Columbia St.
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Cordeira, Robert E.
Cordeira, Deborah A.
27 Colony Circle
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Crawford, Scott P.
Crawford, Carol A.
405 Church St.
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/03/10

Desmarais, Kenneth A.
Desmarais, Claudette L.
2 Dalton St.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Diaz, Angel A.
Diaz, Sol M. Cedeno
60 Partridge Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Duran, Estervina De Cabrera
a/k/a Tibursio, Estervina
73-75 Keith St. 1B
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Fleck, Daniel P.
Fleck, Jeannine H.
126 Little River Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Flores, Dharma E.
3008 Main St., Apt 6
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Forcier, Randy E.
36 Haviland St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Foskett, Russell S.
P.O. Box 251
Adams, MA 01220
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Fox Motors
Hrycay, Christopher J.
Hrycay, Kristen
118 Thresher Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Frey, Samantha L.
47 Queen St
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Gemelli Flooring
Gemelli, Michael P.
Gemelli, Christina A.
Vadenboncoeur, Christina A.
86 Packard Road
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Glorified Graffiti
Piedra, Karl E.
89 Maplewood Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Gonzalez, Carmen L.
321 Walnut St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Goodreau, Tricia J.
5 Lozier Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Grilli, Michael J.
6 Lexington Circle
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Halloran, Cristin
P.O.Box 2430
Amherst, MA 01004
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Hause, James Elwyn
Hause, Serena Lynn
82 Fountain St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Healey, Patrick Edward
Healey, Megan Frances
47 Olympia Dr.
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Heroux, Brian P.
Heroux, Michelle R.
a/k/a Young, Michelle
52 Fresno St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Hicks, Gina M.
235 Arcebrook Dr.
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Hubeny, Judy A.
PO Box 1714
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Irwin, Tyrone D.
79 Pittroff Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Jedrykowski, Felicia F.
24 Mountianview St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Karr, Tara McWilson
10 Grandview St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Kersey, Vincent A.
66 Chapin St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Kimball, Amy
a/k/a Condon-Kimball, Amy
165 Burnett St.
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Klose, Shannon L.
12 Temple St.
Adams, MA 01220
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Kodess, Jason Levi
Kodess, Angela Jean
45 Sequoia Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Krol, Chet R.
104 Turkey Hill Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

LaBelle, Craig A.
LaBelle, Karen E.
161 West Shaft Road
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/03/10

LaPolice, David T.
LaPolice, Bonnie L.
144 Beauchamp Ter.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

LeBlanc, Darlene A.
40 Sunnymeade Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Lewis, Walter R.
83 Winter St., Apt. 2R
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Lillie, Pamela J.
38 Seminole Dr.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Lopez, Eladio
Mojica Lopez, Lillian I.
281 Lower Sandy Hill Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Lowe, Altobis R.
Jackson-Lowe, Santonya S.
44 Harvey St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Maceyka, Laura M.
10 George Loomis Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Marsh, Nadine A.
Brown, Nadine A.
19 Spring St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/11/10

Maslar, Rebecca L.
a/k/a Lanza, Rebecca L.
47 Forest Ridge Lane
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/13/10

Mazzarino, John J.
PO Box 364
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

McDonough, Jeanne M.
a/k/a Perla, Jeanne M.
65 West St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Mead, Robert A.
Mead, Laurie J.
131 Center St., Apt. 2
Lee, MA 01238
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/03/10

Medina, Jr., Pedro
PO Box 4237
Springfield, MA 01101-4237
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Mendel, Kari A.
94 Winesap Road
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Mott, James M.
Mott, Jill M.
228 Maple St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Murphy, Keitha A.
41 Main St.
Sturbridge, MA 01566
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Nieves, Danny
136 Conway St., Apt. 9
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Olko, Christopher Craig
a/k/a Smith, Christopher
2019 Westfield St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Ouellette, Ernest J.
281 Chauncey Walker
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Ouellette, Jill M.
161 Hardwick Road
Barre, MA 01005
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Parker, Sharalynn S.
25 Glen Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Pelletier, Jeremy J.
30 Chestnut St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Pierce, Tracy C.
12 Temple St.
Adams, MA 01220
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Pocograno, Joseph Edward
602 Amostown Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/09/10

Quinlan, James F.
435 East State St.
Granby, MA 01033
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Racine, Michael Thomas
161 Hardwick Road
Barre, MA 01005
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Ricci, Shawn R.
Ricci, Carey A.
219 Brookfield Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/12/10

Rosario, Vicente
31 Freemont St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Rurak, Phillip P.
Rurak, Linda A.
8 Conifer Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Santana, Nancy M.
34 Beech St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Santiago, Richard
53 Everett St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Setterstrom, Cheryl Ann
6 Randall St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Shakeel, Shirley Ann
168 Left Birch Park Circle
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Shewchuk, Mary A.
331 Pleasant St., #2
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Shumway, Philip W.
25 Mount Pollux Dr.
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Smith, Donna M.
18 Laurel Dr.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Smith, Lori Ann
2019 Westfield St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Smith, Tonya R.
91 Daniels Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/03/10

Sola, Danny M.
1189 Dwight St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/13/10

Strzclecki, Tina M.
15 Union Road
Wales, MA 01081
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 09/15/10

Sullivan, Barbara I.
a/k/a Wilbur, Barbara
128 Grover St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Sullivan, Lloyd Dale
Sullivan, Becky Ann
Schmidt, Becky Ann
8 Wright St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Taubl, Pamela L.
93 Howard St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Tellier, Robert M.
Tellier, Michelle C.
31 Eddy St.
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Thomason, Patricia A.
151 Lindley Ter.
Williamstown, MA 01267
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Tillman, Karen
75 Sheridan St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Timbro, Laurie A.
a/k/a Savio, Laurie A.
30 Meadowbrook Lane
Hampden, MA 01036
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/01/10

Titelman, Claudia J.
a/k/a Jennings, Claudia
601 Meadowcrest Circle
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/08/10

Uhlig, Frederick M.
Uhlig, Maureen E.
112 Main Road
Westhampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/13/10

Vosburgh, Debra J.
P.O. Box 116
Sheffield, MA 01257
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Wieners, Ronald E.
31 Maple St., Apt 3
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/07/10

Wellspeak, Lisa M.
15 Pheasant Way
Chicopee, MA 01022
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/03/10

Wiesenfeld, Ronald E.
39 Walnut St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Wikar, Sandra C.
36 West St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Wilk, Michael L.
31 Sergeant St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/02/10

Zhupikov, Ivan N.
1148 North St.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/14/10

Zuccalo, Jessica A.
118 Tamarack Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/10/10

Zustra, Christina M.
108 Cliff St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 09/03/10

Incorporations

Departments Incorporations

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

AMHERST

Amherst Inn Co., 155 South Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002. Peter Shea, same. Restaurant and Inn.

CAIA Foundation Inc., 100 University Dr., Amherst, MA 01002. E. Craig Asche,
36 Laurel Hill Dr., Leverett, MA 01054. Charitable organization established to promote religious, scientific and literary educational purposes.

BELCHERTOWN

Auction Shipper Inc., 442 State St., Belchertown, MA 01007. Aytac Camdeviren, same. Shipping and receiving.

EASTHAMPTON

Feeding Tube Records Inc., 150 Pleasant St., Suite 235, Easthampton, MA 01027. Edward Lee, same.

EAST LONGMEADOW

Auto Glass Replacement Inc., 119 Pleasant St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028.
Ann Bean, same. Auto glass replacement.

Gutter Protection Systems Inc., 123 Melwood Ave., East Longmeadow, MA 01028.
Michael Gregory Jr., same. Sales, distribution, and installation of gutter systems.

FLORENCE

Bidwell ID Inc., 30 North Maple St., Florence, MA 01062. John Bidwell, same. Strategic marketing and branding design and consultation services.

GREENFIELD

Fisher Express Inc., 331 Wells St., Greenfield, MA 01301. Michael Fisher, same. Trucking company.

HATFIELD

Data Engines Corp., 450 Main St., Hatfield, MA 01038. Walker Lee, same. Software and computation services.

HOLYOKE

Arena Realty Inc., 75 Lyman St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Luis Arena, same. Real estate investment and management company.

IHEG Inc., 47 Jackson St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Eric Suher, 28 Jefferson St., Holyoke, MA 01040. Organization, promotion and conduction of entertainment at musical venues.

LENOX

Guenhwyvar Inc., 55 Pittsfield Lenox Road, Lenox, MA 01240. Michelle Vanallen, 24 Rotermel Lane, Kinderhook, NY 12106. Restaurant and bar.

LUDLOW

Appleton Healthcare Franchising Pro Inc., 185 West Ave., Suite 101, Ludlow, MA 01056. Rebecca Pacquette, same. Franchise health care staffing business model.

East Baking Co. Inc., 220 West St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Danny Serra, same.

Funland Party Rentals Inc., 29 Deerhill Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056. Pedro Almeida, 56 Lillian Ave., Ludlow, MA 01056. Party supply rentals

NORTHAMPTON

Intake Advantage Inc., 355 Bridge St., Northampton, MA 01060. Brigitte Freda, same. Web site development, design, hosting consulting, and other Web-related services to businesses.

PITTSFIELD

A Mind Full of Life Inc., 133 High St., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Randal Williams, same. Mindfullness education and retreats.

SPRINGFIELD

Helaman Inc., 109 Vincent St., Springfield, MA 01129. Harold Wilson, same. E-commerce activities.

Ianello & Brittain, P.C., 55 State St., Suite 201, Springfield, MA 01103. Richard Ianello, 17 Woodside Dr., Longmeadow, MA 01106. Law practice.

JDR Construction Inc., 34 Grant St., Springfield, MA 01105. Jailyn Rosario, same. General contractor.

JRL Construction Inc., 1145 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103. James Lessard, 24 Arcadia Blvd., Springfield, MA 01118. General contractor.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Ares Inc., 387 Riverdale St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Richard Harty, same.

WILLIAMSTOWN

Afghan Youth Initiative Inc., 18 Mill St., Williamstown, MA 01267. Matiullah Amin, same. Charitable and education organization.

Chamber corners: Upcoming Events

Chamber Corners Departments

ACCGS
www.myonlinechamber.com
(413) 787-1555

n Oct. 13: ACCGS October After 5, 5 to 7 p.m. ‘Be Your Best Self’ Table Top Expo, the Mind, Body & Spirit Expo. Hosted by MassMutual Center. Cost: members, $10; non-members, $20. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]
n Oct. 23: UMass vs. UNH Bus Trip to Gillette Stadium, 11:00 a.m. bus departure. Cost: ticket to the game, $20; ticket and bus ride, $40; ticket, bus, and food, $50.
n Oct. 29: Super 60 Awards Luncheon, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Hosted by Chez Josef, Agawam. Keynote dpeaker: Steven Little. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]

Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
www.springfieldyps.com

n Oct. 21: Third Thursday, 5 to 8 p.m. Hosted by the Munich Haus Restaurant, 13 Center St., Chicopee.
n Oct. 23: The Down Syndrome Resource Group of Western Massachusetts ‘Buddy Walk.’ This group provides information about family support, resources, parent training, and social opportunities. Its mission is to discover, encourage, and embrace the potential of all individuals with Down syndrome. Registration for the walk to begin at 10 a.m., with coffee and light refreshments available. Two-mile walk to begin at about 11 a.m., followed by a complimentary lunch and entertainment.

Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce
www.amherstarea.com
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

n Oct. 4: Checkpoint 2010, 7:30 a.m. Hosted by Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, 500 Easthampton Road, Holyoke. Keynote Speaker: U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. Presented by the Chicopee and Greater Westfield chambers of commerce. Cost: members, $25; non-members, $30. To reserve tickets, contact the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce at (413) 594-2101 or www.chicopeechamber.org
n Oct. 20: October Salute Breakfast. Hosted by Summit View Banquet & Meeting House, Holyoke. Guest speaker: political consultant Tony Cignoli. To reserve tickets, contact the chamber at (413) 594-2101 or www.chicopeechamber.org
n Oct. 27: After 5 Business Card Swap – Speed Networking, 5 to 6:30 p.m. Hosted by the Delaney House, 3 Country Club Road, Holyoke. Limited to 24 people; registration ends on Oct. 25. Cost: members, $25; non-members, $35. To reserve tickets, contact the chamber at (413) 594-2101 or www.chicopeechamber.org

Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
www.franklincc.org
(413) 773-5463
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

n Oct. 13: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5 to 7 p.m. Co-hosted and co-sponsored by Nashawannuck Gallery and Harry King Rug & Home, 36-40 Cottage St., Easthampton. Hors d’ouevres by Sunshine Bakery, beer and wine, door prizes. Cost: members, $5; non-members, $15.

Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
www.holycham.com
(413) 534-3376

n Oct. 14: Fall Salute Breakfast, 7:30 a.m., at the Log Cabin, Easthampton Road, Holyoke. Sponsored by Holyoke Medical Center and Comcast. Cost: $18; tables reserved for parties of eight.
n Oct: 20: Chamber After Hours, 5 to 7 p.m. Hosted by Holyoke Children’s Museum, 444 Dwight St., Holyoke. Sponsored by All Sales Consulting, LLC. Cost: members, $5; non-members, $10 cash.

Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Northampton Area Young Professional Society
www.thenayp.com
(413) 584-1900

n Oct. 14: NAYP Party with a Purpose, 5 to 8 p.m., at KW Home. Cost: members, free; guests, $5.

Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce
www.qvcc.biz
(413) 283-2418
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce
www.shchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

n Oct. 12: Speaker Series Breakfast, 8 to 9:30 a.m., hosted by the Willits-Hallowell Center at Mount Holyoke College. Sponsored in partnership with Mount Holyoke College. Speaker: Vincent Ferraro, professor of Politics at MHC, on “Politics of the Global Economic Crisis.” Cost: $15 at the door. Call (413) 532-6451 for more information.
n Oct. 15: Legislative Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m. Hosted by the Courtyard by Marriott. Sponsored by Western Massachusetts Electric Co.
n Oct. 19: Beyond Business, 5 to 7 p.m., hosted by Johnny’s Tap Room, the Village Commons, South Hadley. Hors d’oeuvres courtesy of Johnny’s. Cash bar. Cost: $5 at the door for chamber members. RSVP by Oct. 15 at (413) 532-6451
n Oct. 27: After 5, 5 to 7 p.m. Hosted by Hickory Ridge Country Club. Sponsorships available.

Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce
www.threeriverschamber.org
(413) 283-6425
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

n Oct 13: WestNet After 5 Networking Octoberfest, 5 to 7 p.m. Hosted by East Mountain Country Club, 1458 East Mountain Road, Westfield. Cost: members, $10; non-members, 15. Bring plenty of business cards for exchange, and bring a gift to highlight your business. For more information, e-mail [email protected], call (413) 568-1618, or check out www.westfieldbiz.org
n Oct. 16: ‘Bring Back the 80s’ Dance, 7 to 11 p.m. Hosted by Westwood Restaurant and Pub, 94 North Elm St., Westfield. Featuring Orange Crush, the 80s Dance Party Band. Cost: $20. Prizes awarded for most authentic dressers and raffles.

Agenda

Agenda Departments

Talk on Emily Dickinson
Oct. 14: Biographer Lyndall Gordon will discuss her controversial new book, Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds, in a talk in Johnson Chapel at Amherst College. Gordon will address the limitations of biography and its risks and gains by focusing on several of the story’s principal players. The 7 p.m. talk is free and open to the public. A book signing and reception will follow Gordon’s lecture. For more details, visit www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/events.

Witchcraft Lecture
Oct. 25: Witchcraft and its effects on Europe will be the subject of a lecture by Dr. Donald D’Amato, adjunct professor at Springfield Technical Community College, at 6 p.m. at the Wistariahurst Museum, 238 Cabot St., Holyoke. The title of the lecture is “The Unhappy History of Witchcraft.” He’ll discuss how people tend to misinterpret witchcraft by romanticizing its history and making it exciting. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors. For more information, call (413) 322-5660 or visit www.wistariahurst.org.

NEPM Product Showcase
Oct. 26: NEPM (New England Promotional Marketing) will stage its annual Promotional Product Showcase at Ludlow Country Club. The event will feature products from a number of vendors suitable for holiday gifts, trade-show handouts, or ideas for marketing plans. RSVP is required. For more information or to reserve a seat, call (413) 596-4800.

Developers Conference
Oct. 27: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield will be the setting for the 2010 Springfield Developers Conference, sponsored by the City of Springfield. The conference theme is “Innovate, Grow, Create … Make It Happen,” and will feature opportunities for incorporating new technologies and innovative practices in the building, energy, and information-technology industries to improve one’s business. Exhibitor opportunities are still available. For more information, contact Samalid Hogan at (413) 787-6020.

Get on Board!
Oct. 28: OnBoard, a Springfield-based nonprofit, hopes to connect local organizations with individuals looking to increase their involvement in the community, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The event will take place at Center Court, where attendees will meet with as many as eight or more organizations. The meetings will be orchestrated using the ‘speed dating’ format, with individuals spending a few minutes with an organization of their choice, and, on the sound of the basketball buzzer, moving on to the next. Representatives from each organization will discuss their history, mission, and goals, and what they are looking for in board members. Interested individuals will have the chance to explain what skills and interests they have to make a potential match. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Elizabeth Taras at (413) 687-3144, Brittany Castonguay at (413) 737-1131, or visit www.diversityonboard.org.

EANE Conference
Nov. 4: The Employers Association of the NorthEast will host its annual Employment Law and HR Practices Update Conference from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Publick House in Sturbridge. The conference will be led by professionals in the areas of labor law, safety, employee relations, and unemployment. Conference highlights include up-to-date state and federal employment laws, recent court decisions, agency interpretations, and prospective changes, as well as new compensation, safety, and employee-relations practices. For more details, contact Karen Cronenberger at (877) 662-6444 or [email protected].
Advanced Manufacturing Competition & Conference
Nov. 16: The first highly concentrated, cluster-centric, regional manufacturing conference of its kind will be held at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. The event, called the Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Competition & Conference (AMICCON), is being staged in response to growing recognition among area manufacturers and supply-chain members that there is an urgent need to find and meet one another. “AMICCON was formed to identify who’s here in manufacturing, expose them to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and procurement, and to make these introductions,” said co-founder Ellen Bemben. “The ultimate goal is to be the advanced manufacturing region in the U.S., where exotic manufacturing, such as micro, nano, and precision, meet higher specifications and tighter tolerances, and short runs are the norm.” Industry sectors to be represented at the event will include plastics and advanced materials, precision machining, paper and packaging, electronics, ‘green’/clean technology, and medical devices. Business opportunities in defense and aerospace will also be highlighted at the event. OEMs and their supply chains are being invited personally to participate. “AMICCON is a new consortium on innovation that also delivers manufacturers to innovators and new markets in order to cause new business,” said Gary Gasperack, vice president and general manager (retired) of the Spalding Division of Russell Corp. “We are very excited about introducing it to our region.” The Mass. Export Center has already produced two programs for AMICCON: an Export Experts Panel, and a seminar, “International Traffic in Arms Regulations for Defense and Aerospace Export.” For more information, visit www.amiccon.com.

Company to Watch: Stinky Cakes

This Venture Is About Much More Than Diapers

Mychal and Adrienne Connolly say Stinky Cakes is the ideal baby gift that blends practicality and creativity.

What’s in a name? A perfect opportunity for branding a great entrepreneurial idea, said Mychal Connolly.
After the birth of their second child, Connolly and his wife, Adrienne, fielded the all-too-common question asked of parents — ‘What can we get you?’
“Friends and family always want to help,” he said, “but most everything we already owned from our firstborn. There was stuff we had still in boxes that we’d never used.”
What the pair did want, however, was what all parents do need: diapers.
“Their thought was, well … that’s not really a gift, though,” he remembered. “And sure, there’s a little bit of a stigma about giving a box of diapers as a gift. Some people might even be insulted by it.”
The idea behind Stinky Cakes was to make diaper giving fun as well as practical. “We needed to transform them into gift mode,” Adrienne said. “If you walk in to a party with a Stinky Cake, it’s not about the diapers, it’s about the gift itself.”
The idea of the ‘cakes,’ built from tiers of diapers, baby toiletries, toys, books, and just about anything you can think of, came easily to the pair. What wasn’t so immediate was a good name for the enterprise. “We thought of many different names,” Mychal said, “but none of them seemed to fit well, or they would need so much marketing just to explain what they were.
“At the time,” he continued, “my oldest son happened to come into the room and said ‘Dada, I did stinkies!’ I looked at Adrienne, and our faces lit up. I said, ‘what about Stinky Cakes?’ She said, ‘great!’”
The name is memorable, the pair said, which is good for recognition in the marketplace, but it also lives up to a spirit of whimsy and fun, which is equally important for the company.
Prices start at $24.99, which makes the cakes a good gift that most everyone can afford. But, Mychal said, the sky is the limit as to what the creative forces can conjure up. “We love getting custom orders, because that challenges us,” he said, describing a number of different projects, from a three-foot tall Dr. Seuss cake made for the Springfield Museums to a Japanese-themed cake complete with diaper ‘sushi.’
He held up a smaller-sized confection, what he called a ‘corporate cupcake,’ this for an area lab. “On one hand,” he said, “as a company you show that you care about your employees or your clients. For the business, their logo is on it. If this comes to a baby shower, or a party, it’s one more way to get your company out there. It’s a smart move to give this beyond a generic gift.”
In addition, the Connellys strive for relevance beyond a baby’s immediate needs. Adrienne described a cake based on Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar, which contained a copy of the book, tying in a goal for children’s literacy. In fact, the two said that, while the business might be best-known for making their namesake cakes, they have a commitment to much larger issues.
Advocacy for teen pregnancy and foster care are two of Adrienne’s driving passions, and as a Springfield native, her goal is to be a positive role model for city youth. “Being from here,” she explained, “I hate to see the direction that the city could be going in. There’s a lot of teen pregnancy, and I think that for many, the reality of their being pregnant is never made clear to them.
“There are also a lot of kids in foster care,” she continued, “and they need some form of guidance, or support, or mentoring. They need positive role models in their life, because a lot of what they see out there … well, I think it’s fair to say that they might be exposed to people that aren’t the best influences. They need to know that they, themselves, can have a better path.”
From Mychal’s perspective, becoming an entrepreneur is an excellent way to elevate oneself out of the path of juvenile crime. In that respect, he considers himself a role model and has a message for other young people in the region: “change your product,” he stated. “From illegal activity, put your focus into something legitimate. Change it to anything. I mean, we’re doing it with diapers. There are so many things that you can do to get yourself out of crime.”
The Connollys are currently mentoring a pregnant teen who, at one time, aspired only to public assistance. But under their tutelage, the girl is attending Westfield State University, and Mychal reports that she is thrilled about the communications programs at her school.
“It’s just a matter of putting kids into the right environment, so that they can see a better way,” he said, adding, “if you don’t have any goals or dreams, and if you can’t picture yourself in a better place, it might not happen.”
Stinky Cakes might soon be finding itself in a better place, thanks to a recent $10,000 grant from an online resource called TheCASHFLOW. Mychal said that the money will go into bolstering their marketing efforts, but will also help put Stinky Cakes on the map, quite literally. A city property is envisioned as the new headquarters for the home-based company, which will help when the pair launches their foray into baby-shower planning, called the Stinky Cakes Experience.
“We will be able to do just about any theme you can imagine,” Mychal said, “and we’ll take care of everything.”
If their business grows as planned, the only odor the Connellys will have to worry about is the sweet smell of success.

— Dan Chase

Courting Business

A listing of law firms in Western Mass.

Ranked by Number of Lawyers
LawFirms BW10.10a

Demystifying Death

Steps to Take from the Funeral Home Right Through to Probate

ToddRattner

Coping with the death of a loved one is difficult. Since family members and friends will be experiencing a time of emotional strain, it is important for those involved with the funeral arrangements and estate settlement to have the fundamental information necessary to perform their respective tasks.
This article will demystify the important action steps needed to ensure a smooth process of administrating and settling a loved one’s estate.

Actions Immediately upon Death
Upon the death of a loved one, there are certain actions that should take place immediately. A funeral director should be notified, and an appointment should be made to discuss funeral arrangements. These may include transfer of your loved one to another location and the decision whether to pursue burial or cremation, which has become increasingly popular.
At that time, you should request certified death certificates from the funeral director, and in the event that you require additional ones, they may be obtained through the municipality or town where the death occurred. Notification of your loved one’s death should be made to the post office, especially if the decedent lived alone; the Social Security administration; a retirement plan custodian, if any; investment professionals; an accountant or tax-return preparer; and the attorney for your loved one’s estate, among others.

Duty to Deliver the Will
Massachusetts law requires that any person having custody of a will must, within 30 days of acquiring knowledge of the death, deliver the will to the Probate and Family Court Department for the county in which the decedent lived at the time of death. However, as a practical matter, oftentimes the will is filed more than 30 days after without penalty.

To Probate or Not to Probate the Will?
Probate is the court’s supervision of the process that transfers the legal title of property from your loved one’s estate to his or her beneficiaries. The court appoints an executor as the personal representative of the estate and adjudicates the interests of heirs and other parties who may have claims against the estate.
In short, the probate process proves the validity of the will. This counters the erroneous but widely held belief that, if you have a valid will, you will avoid probate. However, not all estates need to go through the probate process.
Basically, any property held in trust or in joint names is non-probate property, so in the event that all of your loved one’s property passes outside of his or her will, there is no need to go through probate. In addition, property passing by beneficiary designations to anyone other than the estate of the decedent, such as TOD accounts, POD accounts, life insurance, annuities, retirement, and pension accounts, are non-probate property. However, if any asset is owned individually by the decedent, without a joint owner or beneficiary, or is held in trust, the asset is considered a probate asset and must go through the probate process to reach its proper beneficiary.

The Probate of the Will
To start a probate action in Massachusetts, you must petition the Probate Court, asking for the allowance of the decedent’s will and appointment of the executor. Until the executor is appointed, he or she has no authority to pay bills or distribute your loved one’s property.
In the event that the decedent did not have a will, a similar procedure is necessary to appoint an administrator with power to handle the decedent’s property. It is important to note that, if the decedent’s assets are below $15,000, a shortened procedure, called a voluntary administration, may be possible.
An executor, or administrator, as the case may be, typically engages an attorney to prepare and file the petition for probate, as well as the fiduciary bond and other corresponding legal documents. After the petition is filed, the Probate Court will issue a formal notice that needs to be published in a local newspaper and sent to all heirs. This notice alerts any creditors and other interested parties that the will has been offered for probate. If no one objects to the will or to the appointment of the nominated executor or administrator, the attorney requests the allowance of the will, the judge to sign the fiduciary bond, and the appointment of the nominated executor or administrator.
Three months after the judge signs the fiduciary bond, and the executor or administrator is appointed by the court, Massachusetts requires the filing of an inventory showing the probate estate held at date of death. However, oftentimes the executor waits until the estate-tax figures have been established to complete and file the final inventory.
Massachusetts also requires an accounting at the end of the administration of an estate that provides for all probate estate items received and distributed during the administration, income earned, and fees and expenses paid. Accounts are either prepared annually, or a single account called the first and final account is prepared at the end of administration. Typically, once the court allows the account, the executor’s liability for the estate ends.
During the probate process, the executor typically performs the following tasks:
• Identifying and inventorying estate property;
• Paying estate debts, expenses of administration, and taxes;
• Distributing property as directed by a will or state law;
• Accounting to the Probate Court or beneficiaries for the collection and distribution of probate assets; and
• Preparing estate-tax returns if necessary.

Estate-tax Returns
Executors are required to have estate-tax returns prepared if the estate assets (probate and non-probate) reach a certain threshold. Under current law, the threshold for Massachusetts estate tax is $1 million. As of now, no federal estate-tax return is required for a decedent dying in 2010. However, Congress may enact a law during 2010, and if it does, it may be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2010. Federal and state estate tax returns are due nine months after the date of death.
Many people are interested in the distribution of the estate, including creditors, a surviving spouse, government taxing authorities, beneficiaries, and executors of the estate. Individual parties may have competing interests in the probate and estate administration, so sound estate planning during one’s lifetime often facilitates the estate administration upon death and prevents the various challenges and potential disputes that may plague the unprepared.

Todd C. Ratner is an estate-planning, business, and real-estate attorney with the Springfield-based law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. He is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and recipient of Boston Magazine’s 2007, 2008, and 2009 Massachusetts Super Lawyers Rising Stars award; (413) 781-0560; baconwilson.com; bwlaw.blogs.com

A Banner Day for the Unions

National Labor Relations Board Declares Union ‘Shame’ Banners Lawful

Amy Royal

In light of the new Democratic majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), many businesses have braced themselves for the flurry of pro-union decisions likely to come. In fact, in a decision issued in September, the new NLRB confirmed its suspected pro-union stance by significantly expanding a union’s ability to protest against neutral, secondary employers by displaying large stationary banners at their facilities.
In United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local Union No. 1506, 355 NLRB No. 159, the union accused several non-unionized construction contractors of paying substandard wages and benefits to their employees. In order to put pressure on the contractors to change their ways, the union began protesting at companies that utilized the services of the contractors (so called neutral businesses). In doing so, the union displayed large banners at the neutral businesses’ worksites that were three to four feet high and 15 to 20 feet long and contained messages, such as “SHAME ON [neutral business]” or “DON’T EAT RA SUSHI” directed at a sushi restaurant that did business with one of the contractors. Each message was flanked on either side with the words “LABOR DISPUTE” and were held as close as 15 feet from the entrance to the neutral company’s worksite.

Benjamin Bristol

In addition to displaying the banners, union representatives also distributed handbills to the public explaining their underlying labor dispute concerning the contractors who purportedly were not paying their employees enough. The handbills stated that consumers who patronized the neutral customers were “contributing to the undermining of area labor standards.”
The neutral businesses sued the union for unfair labor practices, contending that the union’s conduct by displaying banners at their businesses involved them in the union’s dispute with the contractors and, thus, amounted to a secondary boycott in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Section 8 of the NLRA prohibits secondary boycotts. Indeed, under the NLRA, secondary boycotts are defined as a labor union’s conduct that threatens, coerces, or restrains any person with the intention of forcing that person to cease their business dealings with any other person. The purpose behind the secondary boycott provision is to shield neutral businesses from improper pressure to stop them from doing business with a company with which a union has a dispute.
This issue of whether a stationary banner violated the NLRA had never been addressed before. Picketing at neutral companies, however, had previously been declared unlawful under the NLRA because of the confrontations that could occur between the picketers and other individuals who attempt to cross the picket line.
In a 3-2 decision, the NLRB held that the union’s conduct was not threatening or coercive and, therefore, did not violate the secondary-boycott provisions of the NLRA. In reaching this decision, the NLRB ruled that “the banner displays here did not constitute such proscribed picketing because they did not create a confrontation. Banners are not picketing signs … [and] the banner holders did not move, shout, impede access [to], or otherwise interfere with the [neutral customers’] operations.”
Despite the inherent similarities between picket signs and banners, the NLRB majority reasoned that, even though union representatives held the banners, the banners were not threatening or likely to lead to a confrontation like picketing because the banners were held in a stationary position and placed at a sufficient distance away from the neutral businesses’ entrances, and the individuals passing by could simply ignore the banners.
The NLRB’s decision signifies a considerable expansion of a labor union’s rights under the NLRA. By allowing the display of banners at a neutral party’s place of business, unions have increased their protesting power and access to companies and their employees with which they have no contractual relationship. Beyond these immediate implications, the NLRB’s decision also appears to foreshadow the types of decisions that will come out of the new Obama NLRB. Now that the term of Republican Peter Schaumber has expired, the current NLRB is comprised of only four members, three of which are considered to embrace pro-union views because of their lengthy prior careers as labor-side attorneys.
Pro-union decisions are likely to increase even more due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year voiding nearly 600 NLRB decisions from January 2008 to April 2010 when there were only two members sitting on the board. In response, the NLRB has begun to reconsider those cases.
Because of the new dynamic of the NLRB and because of unions’ increased efforts to organize, non-union businesses should begin assessing their vulnerabilities to any potential organizing efforts and then create strategies, in consult with their labor and employment counsel, for responding to any such organizing efforts.

Amy B. Royal, Esq. and Benjamin A. Bristol, Esq. specialize exclusively in management-side labor and employment law at Royal & Klimczuk, LLC, a women-owned, boutique, management-side labor- and employment-law firm; (413) 586-2288; [email protected]

Set a Date

BanquetFacilitiesBW10.10a

A chart of the area’s banquet facilities

Growth Pattern

Region’s Top-performing Companies to Be Honored on Oct. 29

Super Sixty

Formerly called The Fabulous 50, the Super 60 has become a tradition in Western Mass., a celebration of successful businesses. That tradition will continue with this year’s Super 60 lunch on Oct. 29 at Chez Josef. Individual companies will be honored, but the event will be recognizing the bigger picture — the depth and diversity of the region’s business community.

Russ Denver says the annual Super 60 luncheon has become a celebration of business success in Western Massachusetts.
For 22 years now, nearly 1,000 people have been gathering at Chez Josef not merely to honor the 60 winners in the Total Revenue and Revenue Growth categories (there were 10 fewer in the early days when the program was called the Fabulous 50), but to recognize the depth and diversity of the business community, and the number of success stories being written every year.
“We’re honoring individual companies and the people who manage them,” said Denver, “but we’re also celebrating the sum of what the 60 companies mean for this region, and that is a vibrant, diversified economy — a chain with many strong links.”
The 2010 event, slated for Oct. 29, will be more of the same, said Denver, noting that this year’s 60 companies — and both categories of entries — represent virtually every sector of the economy, from financial services to education; from human services to manufacturing; from health care to retail.
Combined, the companies in the Revenue category recorded sales of more than $850 million in 2009, said Denver, Meanwhile, companies in the Growth column averaged revenue increases of at least 35%.
The top finisher in the Revenue category, Whalley Computer Associates in Southwick, has been a regular at the top of that chart for the past several years. Springfield College, one of two area colleges to make the Super 60 (American International College qualified in revenue growth) placed second, while Sarat Ford in Agawam, placed third.
In the Growth category, Convergent Solutions in Wilbraham, a medical-billing-solutions company, finished at the top of the charts, while FIT (Fallon Information Technology) Solutions LLC, an IT placement-services company, finished second, and Universal Mind, a digital-solutions agency, placed third.
Both categories are defined by diversity, as the accompanying business profiles starting on page 27 clearly show.
The Revenue category includes the Center for Human Development, the Log Cabin, Pinsley Railroad Co., Rocky’s Hardware, Tighe & Bond, and W.F. Young, among others. The Growth ledger, meanwhile, includes Consolidated Health Plans, Adam Quenneville Roofing and Siding, Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start, United Personnel, Valley Communications, and the YWCA of Western Massachusetts.
The Oct. 29 luncheon will be from 11:30 to 1:30. The keynote speaker will be Steven Little, a business-growth expert who will deliver a talk titled “The Milkshake Moment: Overcoming Stupid Systems, Pointless Policies, and Muddled Management to Realize Real Growth,” which is also the title of one of his books. A former president of three fast-growth companies, Little now advises business owners and managers. He is a former consultant for Inc. magazine, and is the author of several other books, including The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth and Duck and Recover: the Embattled Business Owner’s Guide to Survival and Growth.
For more information on the luncheon or to order seats ($50 for chamber members, $70 for non-members), call (413) 787-1555. n

TOTAL REVENUE
(Top 3, then the remaining listed alphabetically)

Whalley Computer Associates Inc.
One Whalley Way, Southwick, MA 01077
(413) 569-4200
www.wca.com
John Whalley, president
WCA is a locally owned family business that has evolved from a hardware resale and service group in the 1970s and 1980s into a company that now focuses on lowering the total cost of ownership of technology and productivity enhancement for its customers. Whalley carries name-brand computers as well as low-cost performance compatibles.

Springfield College
263 Alden St., Springfield, MA 01109
(413) 748-3000
www.springfieldcollege.edu
Dr. Richard Flynn, president
Founded in 1885, SC is a private, independent, coeducational, four-year college offering undergraduate and graduate-degree programs with its Humanics philosophy — educating students in spirit, mind, and body for leadership in service to others.

Sarat Ford Sales Inc.
245 Springfield St., Agawam, MA 01001
(888) 254-2911
saratford.dealerconnection.com
John Sarat Jr., CEO
Founded in 1929, Sarat has grown to become the largest Ford dealership in Western Mass. The third-generation business sells a wide variety of new and used vehicles and boasts a 24-bay service center with a $1 million parts inventory, and has received Ford’s Distinguished Achievement Award for excellent customer service multiple times.

American International College
1000 State St., Springfield, MA 01109
(800) 242-3142
www.aic.edu
Vincent Maniaci, president
Launched in 1885, AIC is a private, coeducational, four-year institution in the geographic center of Springfield. Liberal arts serves as the core in all its academic offerings, and the college is organized into schools of Arts, Education and Sciences; Business Administration; Health Sciences; and Continuing and Extended Studies.

Associated Electro-Mechanics Inc.
185 Rowland St., Springfield, MA 01107
(413) 781-4276
www.aemservices.com
Elayne Lebeau, CEO
Associated Electro-Mechanics Inc. is the largest independent industrial service center in the Northeast, providing industry with services that cover electrical, mechanical, machining, welding, and field services. Its multifaceted field-service crews and a staff of electrical and mechanical engineers complement the departmentalized staff operations.

Center For Human Development
332 Birnie Ave., Springfield, MA 01107
(413) 439-2252
www.chd.org
James Goodwin, CEO
CHD was founded in 1972 on a philosophy of helping people in the community, a major departure from the prevailing system of placing people in institutions. Almost four decades later, CHD is still providing vital support to needy children, people with psychiatric and developmental disabilities, the elderly, and the homeless.

Chez Josef Inc.
176 Shoemaker Lane, Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 786-0257
www.chezjosef.com
Linda Skole, president
Chez Josef has 40 years of experience in culinary and special-event planning, specializing in corporate events, nonprofit fund-raisers, holiday parties, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, and off-premise catering. Executive Chef Marcel Ouimet was recently awarded the “Chef of the Year” honor by the Western Mass. Restaurant Assoc.

CSW Inc.
45 Tyburski Road, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 800-9522
www.cswgraphics.com
Laura Wright, president
CSW Inc. has provided integrated services for packaging since 1937, including brand support, brand visualization, creative services, image engineering, flexographic printing plates, steel rule cutting dies, and workflow coordination. CSW has facilities in Ludlow; Rochester, N.Y.; and Toledo, Ohio to service national and international brands.

Delaney Restaurant Inc.
500 Easthampton Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 535-5077
www.logcabin-delaney.com
Peter Rosskothen, president
The Delaney House restaurant offers 13 private, themed rooms for any special occasion, with seating for up to 260. It offers two dining options — fine dining and the more casual Mick — and has been voted Best Brunch in the Pioneer Valley.

Dimauro Carpet & Tile Inc.
185 Shaker Road, East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(413) 525-1991
www.dimaurocarpet.com
Vincent Dimauro, president
For more than 30 years, Dimauro has been a provider and installer of carpet, tile, and wood and laminate flooring for residential and business customers in Western Mass. and Northern Conn.

Disability Management Services Inc.
1350 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 523-1126
www.disabilitymanagementservices.com
Robert Bonsall Jr., president
Founded in 1995, DMS is an independent, full-service third-party administrator and consulting firm, specializing in the management of individual and group disability products. DMS is headquartered in Springfield, with an additional office located in Syracuse, N.Y., and employs more than 200 professional associates.

Environmental Compliance Services Inc.
588 Silver St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-3530
www.ecsconsult.com
Mark Hellstein, CEO
For more than 25 years, ECS has specialized in environmental site assessments; testing for asbestos, lead, indoor air quality, and mold; drilling and subsurface investigations; and emergency-response management.

Insurance Center of New England
246 Park St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 750-7101
www.icnegroup.com
Dean Florian, president
In operation since 1866, Insurance Center of New England Group (ICNE Group) is a locally owned, independent insurance agency, providing full-service insurance solutions for individuals and businesses.

Joseph Freedman Co. Inc.
115 Stevens St., Springfield, MA 01104
(888) 677-7818
www.josephfreedmanco.com
John Freedman, president
Founded in 1891, the company provides industrial scrap-metal recycling, specializing in aluminum, copper, nickel alloys, and aircraft scrap, and has two facilities in Springfield — a 120,000-square-foot indoor ferrous facility, and a 60,000-square-foot chopping operation.

Kittredge Equipment Co.
100 Bowles Road, Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 304-4100
www.kittredgeequipment.com
Wendy Webber, CEO
Serving a variety of establishments and institutions for more than 80 years, Kittredge is a one-stop, full-service equipment and supplies dealership for the food-service industry, with three showroom locations — in Agawam, Natick, and Williston, Vt.

The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House
500 Easthampton Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 535-5077
www.logcabin-delaney.com
Peter Rosskothen, president
Set against the Mount Tom range, the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House offers quality banquet facilities for events including weddings, showers, anniversaries, engagement parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, business meetings, holiday parties, and more.

Marcotte Ford Sales
1025 Main St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(800) 923-9810
www.marcotteford.com
Bryan Marcotte, president
The dealership sells new Ford vehicles as well as pre-owned cars, trucks, and SUVs, and feature a full service department. Marcotte has achieved the President’s Award, one of the most prestigious honors given by Ford Motor Co., for nine years.

Maybury Material Handling
90 Denslow Road, East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(413) 525-4216
www.maybury.com
John Maybury, president
Since 1976, Maybury Material Handling has been designing, supplying, and servicing all types of material-handling equipment throughout New England. Maybury provides customers in a wide range of industries with solutions to move, lift, and store their parts and products.

Northeast Treaters Inc.
201 Springfield Road, Belchertown, MA 01007
(413) 323-7811
www.netreaters.com
David Reed, president
Northeast Treaters was founded in 1985 as a manufacturer of pressure-treated lumber. In 1996, an additional facility was added in Athens, N.Y. to produce fire-retardant treated lumber and kiln-dried before- and after-treatment products.

Pinsly Railroad Co. Inc.
53 Southampton Road, Westfield, MA 01085
(413) 568-6426
www.pinsly.com
John Levine, CEO
Pinsly Railroad Co., founded in 1938, is one of the oldest short-line railroad companies in the country. Pinsly focuses on acquiring short-line railroads and revitalizing branch and feeder lines of Class I and regional carriers. It now owns and operates numerous railroads and warehouse/distribution facilities.

Rediker Software Inc.
2 Wilbraham Road, Hampden, MA 01036
(800) 213-9860
www.rediker.com
Richard Rediker, president
Rediker Software is used by school administrators across the U.S. and in more than 100 countries, and is designed to meet the student-information-management needs of all types of schools and districts.

Robert F. Scott Co. Inc.
467 Longmeadow St., Longmeadow, MA 01106
(413) 567-7089
Leonard P. Rising III, president
Robert F. Scott Co. Inc. (known as Longmeadow Garage) is a locally owned and operated, full-service gasoline and automotive service station. Its staff includes ASE-certified technicians well-versed in all makes and models.

Rocky’s Hardware Inc.
40 Island Pond Road, Springfield, MA 01118
(413) 781-1650
www.rockys.com
Rocco Falcone II, president
With locations throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, the family-run business founded in 1926 is a fully stocked, convenient source for not only typical hardware-store items but also a line of goods for the home, yard, and garden.

Specialty Bolt & Screw Inc.
235 Bowles Road, Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-6700
www.specialtybolt.com
Alan Crosby, CEO
Founded in 1977, Specialty Bolt & Screw Inc. is a distributor of innovative fastener solutions. The company has engineering resources on staff to help determine the optimum fastener for each application, and utilizes state-of-the-art technology along with more than 30 years of experience to help clients achieve their objectives.

Spectrum Analytical Inc.
11 Almgren Dr., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-9018
www.spectrum-analytical.com
Dr. Hanibal Tayeh, CEO
For more than a decade, Spectrum Analytical Inc. has provided quantitative analysis of soil, water, and, more recently, air samples, as well as petroleum products. Consulting firms, industries, municipalities, universities, and the public sector are among the constituencies that make up the client list.

Sullivan & Associates Inc.
551 East Columbus Ave., Springfield, MA 01105
(413) 733-6100
www.sullivanandassoc.com
Linda Sullivan, executive director
Sullivan & Associates provides individualized residential and day programs for people with developmental disabilities, interfering behaviors, and mental-health concerns. Its programs are based on a philosophy of unconditional positive regard.

Tighe & Bond Inc.
53 Southampton Road, Westfield, MA 01085
(413) 562-1600
www.tighebond.com
David Pinsky, president
Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2011, Tighe & Bond specializes in environmental engineering, focusing on water, wastewater, solid-waste, and hazardous-waste issues, and provides innovative engineering services to public and private clients around the country and overseas.

Titan USA Enterprises Inc.
140 Baldwin St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(888) 482-6872
www.titanman.com
Ralph Colby, CEO
For almost four decades, Tutan USA Enterprises has served industrial distributors as a manufacturer of premium-quality, solid-carbide, high-speed steel, and cobalt cutting tools.

University Products Inc.
517 Main St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(800) 628-1912
www.universityproducts.com
David Magoon, CEO
University Products is a group of companies run by a family with roots in the archiving business that offers products to restore, preserve, and display collectibles, photographs, paper documents, and heirlooms.

W.F. Young Inc.
302 Benton Dr., East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(800) 628-9653
www.absorbine.com
Tyler Young, CEO
This family-run business prides itself on offering a variety of high-quality products that can effectively improve the well-being of both people and horses with its Absorbine brands.

GROWTH
(Top 3, then the remaining listed alphabetically)

Convergent Solutions Inc.
95 Post Office Park, Wilbraham, MA 01095
(413) 509-1000
Arlene Kelly, CEO
A health care billing solutions provider founded in 2006, Convergent Solutions provides hardware and software that help eliminate human error in medical billing processes, thus helping bring down the cost of health care.

FIT Solutions, LLC
25 Bremen St., Springfield, MA 01108
(413) 733-6466
www.fitsolutions.us
Jacqueline Fallon, CEO
FIT (Fallon Information Technology) Solutions provides staffing services for local IT positions. Launched in 2004 and serving both Massachusetts and Connecticut, the company doesn’t focus on the quantity of openings in the market, but takes a personal approach to staffing by focusing on quality.

Universal Mind Inc.
94 North Elm St., Suite 306, Westfield, MA 01085
(866) 429-2481
www.universalmind.com
Brett Cortese, CEO
Universal Mind is a digital-solutions agency specializing in custom, enterprise-grade, interactive applications for the Web, desktop, kiosks, and mobile and embedded devices. It creates engaging user experiences for customers on any device they use, strengthening client relationships, reducing operating costs, and opening new revenue streams.

Adam Quenneville Roofing and Siding
160 Old Lyman Road, South Hadley, MA 01075
(413) 525-0025
1800newroof.net
Adam Quenneville, CEO
Adam Quenneville offers a wide range of residential and commercial services, including new roofs, retrofitting, roof repair, roof cleaning, vinyl siding, replacement windows, and the no-clog Gutter Shutter system. The company earned the 2010 Better Business Bureau Torch Award for trust, performance, and integrity.

The Axia Group
73 Market Place, Springfield, MA 01115
(413) 205-2942
www.axiagroup.net
Michael Long, CEO
Professionals in five offices across the Pioneer Valley provide a variety of personal insurance products for automobiles, homes, and watercraft, as well as commercial lines that range from liability insurance, property coverage, and workers’ compensation to employee benefits and fiduciary and surety coverage.

Benchmark Carbide
572 St. James Ave., Springfield MA 01109
(413) 732-7470
www.benchmarkcarbide.com
Paul St. Louis, president
A manufacturer of carbide end mills and reamers, Benchmark (a division of Custom Carbide Corp.) sells its products to distributors throughout the continental U.S. and Canada. Its extensive line of products includes its bestselling aluminum series and its patented variable-helix end mills.

Braman Chemical Enterprises
147 Almgren Dr., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 732-9009
www.braman.biz
Gerald Lazarus, president
Braman has been serving New England since 1890, using state-of-the-art pest-elimination procedures for commercial and residential customers. The company has offices in Agawam, Worcester, and Lee, as well as Hartford and New Haven, Conn.

Communication Solutions Partners Inc.
One Whalley Way, Southwick, MA 01077
(413) 569-4200
www.csp-net.com
Paul Whalley, vice president
Communication Solutions Partners (CSP) is a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and an affiliated company of Whalley Computer Associates. CSP provides many of the basic services of a telecom company, such as local and long distance, voice over IP, Internet, and data services.

Complete Healthcare Solutions Inc.
1497 North Main St., Palmer, MA 01069
(800) 250-8687
www.completehealthcaresolutions.com
Michael Penna, CEO
Founded in 1994, CHS provides affordable software solutions for small to mid-sized health care practices. The company helps customers with electronic medical records, practice-management software, medical billing, document management, data security, and a host of other services.

Consolidated Health Plans Inc.
2077 Roosevelt Ave., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 733-4540
www.consolidatedhealthplan.com
Kevin Saremi, president
Established in 1993, Consolidated Health Plans is a leader in providing third-party claims administration of medical, dental, disability, flex, accident, and life insurance programs for employees and college students throughout the country.

The Dennis Group, LLC
1537 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 746-0054
www.dennisgrp.com
Tom Dennis, CEO
The Dennis Group offers complete planning, design, architectural, engineering, and construction-management services. The firm is comprised of experienced engineering and design professionals dedicated to excellence in the implementation of food-manufacturing processes and facilities.

FieldEddy Insurance
96 Shaker Road, East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(413) 233-2100
www.fieldeddy.com
Samuel Hanmer, president
One of the fastest-growing independent insurance providers in Western Mass., FieldEddy offers financial services, commercial insurance, personal insurance, and employee benefits. Its family of agencies offers a complete range of services for personal and business needs.

Footit Surgical Supplies Inc.
340 Memorial Ave., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 733-7843
www.footit.com
Marc Lucas, president
Footit Health Care Store has been providing the region with medical and health-maintenance products since 1953. It stocks various styles of walkers, wheelchairs, athletic braces, incontinence products, scooters, access ramps, mastectomy forms and bras, lift chairs, stairway elevators, diabetic shoes, wound-care products, and more.

Gandara Center
147 Norman St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 736-8329
www.gandaracenter.org
Dr. Henery East-Trou, CEO
Focusing on the Latino/Hispanic community, Gandara Center provides substance-abuse recovery, mental-health, and housing services for men, women, children, adolescents, and families throughout the Pioneer Valley.

The Gaudreau Group
1984 Boston Road, Wilbraham, MA 01095
(800) 750-3534
www.gaudreaugroup.com
Jules Gaudreau Jr., president
The Gaudreau Group is an insurance and financial-services agency serving neighboring families and businesses since 1921. It offers a consultative approach to assessing needs and risks and then offering a custom solution.

Haluch Water Contracting Inc.
399 Fuller St., Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 589-1254
Thomas Haluch, president
For 26 years, Haluch has served the region as a water-main construction and excavation contractor specializing in water, sewer, pipeline, and communications and power-line construction.

Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start Inc.
30 Madison Ave., Springfield, MA 01105
(413) 788-6522
www.hcsheadstart.org
Janis Santos, executive director
Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start is committed to providing low-income children and their families with a source of support for a brighter future. It does so by providing high-quality, comprehensive child-development services to enrolled children and empowering families to achieve stability in their home environment.

Jet Industries Inc.
307 Silver St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 781-2010
Michael Turrini, president
Jet Industries manufactures aircraft engines, parts, and equipment, as well as turbines and turbine-generator sets and parts, aircraft power systems, flight instrumentation, and aircraft landing and braking systems.

The Markens Group
1350 Main St., Suite 1508, Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 686-9199
www.markens.com
Ben Markens, president
Markens has guided hundreds of businesses toward excellence since 1988. It provides services in strategic management, profit planning, sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

Mental Health Association Inc.
995 Worthington St., Springfield, MA 01109
(413) 734-5376
www.mhainc.org
Linda Williams, executive director
The Mental Health Assoc. Inc. provides residential and support services to enhance the quality of life for individuals challenged with mental impairments. Affordable quality housing, advocacy, and public education are part of the agency’s dedication to empowering individuals to develop their fullest potential.

Moriarty & Primack P.C.
One Monarch Place, Springfield, MA 01144
(413) 739-1800
www.mass-cpa.com
Jay Primack, CEO
While audit and tax services continue to be a dominant aspect of the accounting firm’s business, practice professionals also provide a wide range of services in the areas of tax-planning and tax-compliance services.

Pioneer Spine & Sports Physicians
271 Park St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 785-1153
www.spinesports.com
Dr. Scott Cooper, CEO
The practice specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of neurologic and musculoskeletal disorders. While best known for expertise in sports medicine and spine care, it treats a wide variety of conditions. In addition to routine non-operative care, the practice also provides the latest in minimally invasive and reconstructive surgery of the spine.

Proshred (EOS Approach Inc.)
75 Post Office Park, Suite 7401, Wilbraham, MA 01095
(413) 596-5479
www.proshred.com
Joseph Kelly, CEO
Proshred is a paper-shredding company providing secure on-site document-shredding and recycling services for safeguarding private information, maintaining legislative compliance, and protecting public image.

Spectrum Analytical Inc.
11 Almgren Dr., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-9018
Dr. Hanibal Tayeh, CEO
For more than a decade, Spectrum Analytical Inc. has provided quantitative analysis of soil, water, and air samples, as well as petroleum products. Consulting firms, industries, municipalities, universities, and the public sector are among the constituencies that make up the client list.

United Personnel Services Inc.
1331 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 736-0800
www.unitedpersonnel.com
Mary Ellen Scott, president
United provides a full range of staffing services, including temporary staffing and full-time placement, on-site project management, and strategic recruitment in the Springfield, Hartford, and Northampton areas, specializing in administrative, professional, medical, and light-industrial staff.

Valley Communications Systems Inc.
201 First Ave., Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 592-4136
www.valleycommunications.com
James Tremble, president
Valley is a diversified communications company serving New England with broadband TV distribution systems, satellite-dish installations, data and voice cabling, computer interactive whiteboards, data/video projection equipment and systems, videoconference room design, telephone systems, sound systems, security systems, and AV equipment.

YWCA Of Western Massachusetts
One Clough St., Springfield, MA 01118
(413) 733-7100
www.springfieldy.org
Mary Riordan, executive director
The YWCA is a worldwide organization seeking to bring women of diverse backgrounds together to work toward a common vision of peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all people. The YWCA of Western Massachusetts is a private, not-for-profit charitable corporation and a certified woman-owned business.

Caring Touch

SkilledNursingFacilities BW10.10a

A list of the region’s skilled nursing facilities

Ethical Wills

Bequeathing Life’s Lessons, Dreams, and Hopes

Gina Barry

There is richness to your life that cannot be measured in dollars and cents, but should be shared with future generations. In fact, some would argue that your emotional wealth — values, ideas, beliefs, and life experience — is worth far more than your financial wealth ever could be.
Yet many times, the wisdom of the generations is lost simply because the questions were never asked and the conversations were never had. Where typical estate-planning documents falter by not conveying this intangible wealth, ethical wills fill the void.
It is likely that you have executed a last will and testament and have possibly even established a trust. You’ve probably protected yourself from times of incapacity by executing a durable power of attorney and health care proxy. By most standards, your estate plan is considered complete, but it seems that a critical aspect is missing. While these documents are crucial to addressing the legal aspects of estate planning, they are very technical and ill-suited for passing on the intangible assets you have accumulated throughout your lifetime.
Ethical wills are the spiritual counterparts to traditional wills and trusts. They distribute blessings, life lessons, dreams, and hopes, as opposed to tangible possessions. As such, the creation of an ethical will often involves serious consideration of your values and morals, advice to loved ones, invaluable memories, and important events in your life. You may also contemplate themes, such as regrets and forgiveness, personal love, mentors and teachers, cultural beliefs, ancestry, or how you would like to be remembered.
There is no set format for an ethical will because it is not a binding legal document. Unlike traditional wills, ethical wills are not written in stone and are often revised to reflect turning points and transitions in the writer’s life, such as the birth of a child, a marriage, or end-of-life planning. Each ethical will is as unique as the individual who creates it, and your personal preferences are the only constraints.
You may choose to develop and impart a family mission statement or provide blessings for future generations. An ethical will can be a letter to loved ones or to children not yet born. It may also be a detailed account of a life journey or even a set of instructions regarding your family business. Your ethical will need not be limited to writing, either. It may incorporate multimedia messages, such as photos, drawings, music, or videos. The possibilities are endless.
While some may choose to keep their ethical will private until they pass away, creating one need not be an individual endeavor. You may share your ethical will with your family, friends, and loved ones during your lifetime. Indeed, by encouraging input from others, an ethical will may serve as a tool to give them insight into your wishes and intentions. Likewise, many a family rift has been healed during the creation of an ethical will, as the process serves to promote a family cohesiveness that can heal old wounds and last well beyond your lifetime.
If the thought of creating an ethical will is overwhelming, there are various resources available to assist you, including professionals who specialize in this area. These professionals may provide an individual consultation or group writing workshops. If you desire to make an ethical will that is oral or videotaped, they can assist you with the production aspects. They can also help you ascertain what is most important for you to express, and then guide you along in the process so that you will be certain to create an ethical will that is a true reflection of you. If you are inclined to work alone on your ethical will, an Internet search will provide a variety of free resources and examples that you may use as you pursue this process.
Although they have recently gained in popularity, the concept of ethical wills is not new. Medieval models of ethical wills have been found in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures. In the days of illiteracy, wills were read aloud so that all concerned may hear. Thus, it became common practice to attach one last communication to a captive audience.
Today, ethical wills are increasingly being created alongside traditional wills as part of the estate-planning process. While traditional wills are filed in probate court and become public documents, ethical wills often become privately treasured family heirlooms.
Throughout their lives, your loved ones can continuously glean wisdom and advice from the life lessons you have bequeathed in your ethical will.

Gina M. Barry is a partner with Bacon Wilson, P.C. She is a member of the National Assoc. of Elder Law Attorneys, the Estate Planning Council, and the Western Mass. Elder Care Professionals Assoc. She concentrates her practice in the areas of estate and asset-protection planning, probate administration and litigation, guardianships, conservatorships, and residential real estate; (413) 781-0560; baconwilson.com/barry

A Culture of Giving

PeoplesBank Moves Up List of Most Generous Companies in Massachusetts

Tom Senecal says PeoplesBank has created a culture of philanthropy, one that has given a boost to hundreds of nonprofit organizations throughout Western Mass.
In the latest Boston Business Journal rankings of the most charitable companies doing business in Massachusetts — unveiled at the magazine’s annual Corporate Citizenship Summit — PeoplesBank ranked 35th, with $705,000 in corporate giving in 2009, a 71% increase from $412,000 in 2007, when it ranked 52nd.
That doesn’t count the $55,000 in donations from employees through payroll deduction, up from $49,000 in 2007, a number that ranks eighth in the state.
“It’s a culture we’re trying to build here at PeoplesBank,” said Senecal, executive vice president. “That’s clearly exemplified by the employees donating their hours and dollars to the communities where we do business.”
Those hours are time spent volunteering for nonprofit organizations; PeoplesBank employees ranked second in the state last year with more than 22 hours per employee, up from eight in the previous survey. And they supported more than 400 different groups, a sharp increase from about 275.
“At PeoplesBank, we like to say we have a passion for what is possible,” President Doug Bowen said. “We base that statement on our longstanding commitment to improving our community. As evidenced by the Boston Business Journal naming us number two in the state for volunteer hours donated, our passion for helping goes well beyond a tagline. It is ingrained in our culture and part of the reason that we are able to draw and retain excellent employees.”
A closer look at the numbers — after all, Senecal said, “I’m a numbers guy” — makes the bank’s charitable ranking even more impressive. With about 240 employees, he explained, far fewer than many of the businesses on the list, PeoplesBank actually gives more on the corporate level per employee than any other company — in a group that includes such big names as MassMutual, Microsoft, Staples, and Cisco Systems, among others.
Paired with the top-10 ranking for payroll-deduction giving, that statistic reflects the culture that Senecal referenced — one which employees have embraced without any incentive beyond the day off everyone gets to take part in the United Way Day of Caring; about 40 individuals used paid time last month to work with various United Way agencies.
“Giving is a philosophy for us,” he told BusinessWest. “We do talk about it and encourage it, but our employees take it upon themselves to contribute their time and money to organizations they believe in. It’s an indication of our employees’ commitment to philanthropy.”
The time can be as significant as the money. He noted that bank employees volunteered 4,900 hours in 2009, up sharply from 1,500 hours in 2007, which provides critical support to organizations that have, in many cases, been stretched by a lingering recession.
“We see our charitable donations and volunteer contributions as significant investments in our community,” said Susan Wilson, vice president of Marketing and Communications for PeoplesBank.
Bay Path College is among the recipients of that assistance, to the tune of a $200,000 pledge.
“PeoplesBank recognizes that education plays an important role in the vitality of our region,” said Dr. Carol Leary, Bay Path’s president. “Their generosity will assist low-income women in pursuing their educational dreams, support professional development of women and men, and help foster dialogue and understanding of critical issues for the members of the Pioneer Valley community.”
That kind of impact — spread among hundreds more organizations — is gratifying for Senecal.
“Especially with the times we’re in right now, as a mutual community bank, we believe in giving back to the communities we do business in,” he said. “That was clearly recognized by the Boston Business Journal.”
But that’s just a start. “The 2010 figures,” he said, “are going to blow all these numbers out of the water.”

— Joseph Bednar

Seeding the Field

Developers Conference Is Designed to Create a Buzz About Springfield

John Judge

John Judge says the so-called Developers Conference initiated by Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno has evolved considerably in its short, 18-month existence.
The first few events staged in 2009 amounted to what Judge, Springfield’s chief development officer, called “dog-and-pony shows” designed to introduce or reintroduce the development community to sites ranging from the York Street Jail property to the Memorial II industrial park near Smith & Wesson, to the former Indian Motocycle complex in Mason Square.
There will still be a chance to see some of those sites and others at the Oct. 27 conference, said Judge, but this event will go well beyond maps, aerial photos of property primed for redevelopment, and guided tours.
“This conference is more about ideas than it is about real estate,” said Judge, adding that the primary goals are to create a buzz about Springfield and help make the kinds of connections needed to bring business owners to the City of Homes or one of its suburbs. “We want to showcase the city and the region, especially to people who haven’t seen it in a few years; we want people to take a new look at us as a place to invest in, start a new business, or come together with an existing business and help it grow.
“I want this to help reaffirm that we want to be the capital of Western New England,” he continued, “and innovation is certainly the key to that — it’s where the job growth is. We want to say to people inside our city and outside it that we want to take the lead on innovation.”
More than 200 people are expected for the conference, which will be staged at the Basketball Hall of Fame and run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. A networking breakfast will kick off the event, followed by some remarks from Sarno and Allan Blair, president and CEO of the Western Mass. Economic Development Council. The latter will provide an orientation of Springfield and the larger Knowledge Corridor, the stretch between Northampton and Hartford.
There will then be a series of presentations and panel discussions, with subjects ranging from “Comprehensive Project Planning: Designing to Achieve Sustainability” to “Transportation Infrastructure in the Pioneer Valley,” to “Financial and Project Support Resources for Clean Energy and Resource Business in Western Massachusetts.”
The likely highlight of the conference, however, will be a keynote address from Stanley Kowalski III, founder of FloDesign Wind Turbine, a Wilbraham-based company trying to bring a radical new turbine design to the market. His talk, like many that day, will be focused on innovation, said Judge, and how the Valley can be home to more of it.
Judge said that while the guest lists for prior conferences were dominated by real-estate brokers and developers, this year there will be more of a mix, with business owners, government officials, property owners, financial-services professionals, and others. The broad goal is have attendees make the connections that will spur economic development.
“There will be some of the usual suspects — the contractors, developers, architects, anyone interested in design and innovation,” he said, “but there will also be some entrepreneurs, owners of small businesses or established businesses that might not have anything to do with commercial real-estate development; they’re just trying to grow their business.”
When asked how he will gauge the success of this year’s conference, Judge said it will likely be some time before one can assess whether the goals were accomplished. He told BusinessWest that his primary objective is to get people taking about Springfield and the region in a way that will generate progress and new economic development.
“The buzz is key — that water-cooler PR, if you will,” he said, “when people go back to their business in Boston or Hartford or New York City and say, ‘hey, I was in Springfield, Massachusetts last week … they’re really re-inventing themselves; there’s some great opportunities up there, and we should consider it.”
Beyond that buzz, he wants to drive traffic to some of the specific sites available in Springfield and the region, and, as he said, acquaint or reacquaint people with the City of Homes.
“We really want people to start thinking of Springfield first,” he concluded, “and bring people together around ideas. We want to seed the field and see what grows.”
And that’s why the 2010 Developers Conference is much more than a dog-and-pony show.
For more information on the conference or to register, call (413) 787-6020.

— George O’Brien

Opinion

Opinion

The Income Gap Is Widening

The term ‘middle class’ is more than an economic distinction. It’s also an appreciation for balance and equity and a national yearning for a strong, cohesive society. Yet a polarizing income gap in Massachusetts and elsewhere is threatening both the class and the concept.
Massachusetts is emerging from the recession ahead of other states, with job creation on the rise. However, the state leads the country (it is tied for first place with Arizona) in having the largest gap between the haves and have-nots, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University; 10% of households in the state earned as much income in 2009 as the bottom 70% combined during that year.
What is driving this widening gap? Economists differ on this, but many point to executive compensation, declines in manufacturing jobs and wages, a corresponding increase in employment in the so-called ‘knowledge economy,’ and changes in household dynamics, such as the rise in single-parent families. Gaining a better understanding of these issues should be a top priority for the next governor and should be at the forefront of the policy debate in the closing weeks of the gubernatorial election.
New data by the MassINC Polling Group suggest an eroding confidence in a cornerstone of the American Dream: the belief that the hard work of one generation opens the door to a better life for the next. Just 22% of Massachusetts parents believe the next generation will do better than they did financially. This pessimism is a new phenomenon. In 2003, when a slightly different question was posed in a MassINC poll, 68% of parents believed their children would be generally better off.
Why the dramatic change in public opinion? Income inequality has been rising for years, but the difference now is that economic growth isn’t lifting all boats. Over the last decade, census figures show median household income fell by between 1% and 8%. Little wonder that the mood of the electorate reflects strong undercurrents of frustration and resentment.
Growing income inequality and its political implications have received increasing attention across the political spectrum since the 1980s. Alan Greenspan had a point when he said in 2005: “a stark bifurcation of wealth and income trends among large segments of the population can fuel resentment and political polarization. These social developments can lead to political clashes and misguided economic policies that work to the detriment of the economy and society.’’
Perhaps we should have listened. The resentment, polarization, and political clashes contemplated by Greenspan have already materialized. The resulting anger is fueling a push for simplistic solutions to such complex problems as deficit reduction, immigration, and a host of other issues. In essence, the middle ground on policy issues is rapidly disappearing, just like the middle class itself.

Greg Torres is president of MassINC and publisher of CommonWealth magazine. Andrew Sum is director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

Cover Story

Casinos — and a Town — Are in Limbo

Cover October 11, 2010

Town Council President Paul Burns says a proposed $1 billion casino casts a big shadow over the town of Palmer, a very big shadow. And this makes the current stalemate on the issue of gaming on Beacon Hill quite frustrating to those who support the initiative and the jobs and tax revenue it will generate. In some respects, the Palmer casino is closer to reality than ever, but in others, resolution of the matter still seems far off amid questions about who will be leading the state come January and whether he can broker a Palmer-friendly casino deal. Ultimately, many believe casinos are simply too big to fail in the Bay State.

“Hopeful frustration.”
That’s the phrase Paul Burns summoned, after a few moments of careful consideration, to describe his mindset these days, a few months after gaming legislation that seemed destined to pass in Boston fell by the wayside instead.
Failure on the part of the governor and Legislature to seal a deal on casinos has left gaming — and the town of Palmer, which Burns serves as town councilor — in a serious state of limbo, one where Mohegan Sun’s plans to build a $1 billion resort casino on a hillside parcel just off the Mass. Turnpike are agonizingly close to becoming reality, yet, in some ways, no closer than they were years ago.
That’s where the frustration comes in.
As for ‘hopeful,’ well, Burns, like many others in this town who support gaming, believes that casinos are essentially too big to fail in the Bay State, and that common sense dictates that if several casinos are approved — or even one — Palmer is the state’s first, best choice.
“It was very frustrating to watch the process — I couldn’t understand why the three groups couldn’t get together on this,” said Burns, noting that he’s become an unofficial spokesperson for supporters of a casino, although he stressed repeatedly that he speaks for himself, not the nine-member Town Council as a whole. “But at the end of the day, I think common sense will prevail and this will get done.”
Whether casinos are indeed too big to fail is still a matter for debate, but there’s no debating that the proposed facility in Palmer is a nearly all-consuming matter there, where the assessor’s office estimates that a casino on the scale being planned could bring the town more than $15 million in total tax revenues annually, nearly double the amount collected now. Meanwhile, there are estimates that the casino will create more than 3,000 jobs (not to mention 1,500 temporary construction jobs) and spur more ancillary economic development, and it will certainly change the landscape of the community in just about every way that word can be defined.
“Let’s just say it casts a very big shadow,” said Burns, noting that, while things haven’t ground to a halt while the gaming issue plays itself out, much of what happens in this town business- and economic-development-wise will be impacted by whether the casino becomes reality. “I want to see a casino project, but everyone wants to see a resolution to this matter.”
These are indeed frustrating, anxious times for Palmer. It has been 14 years, by Burns’ count, since the issue of a casino was first raised here. Over the past few years, gaming bills have come increasingly closer to passage, but have never made it to fruition. In late June, things came apart in an almost maddening way, as Gov. Deval Patrick and leaders of the state House and Senate could not reconcile their differences over how many slot parlors, or ‘racinos,’ as they’re called, the state should license, scuttling legislation that most in Palmer and elsewhere thought would pass — in some form.
Now, there is optimism that a measure can be passed next year or even this fall. But there are also nagging questions, especially about who will be governor come January and what that individual’s mindset will be when it comes to gaming.
Republican candidate Charles Baker has said publicly that he supports one casino to start to see how gaming and the Commonwealth suit one another. If Baker prevails in November, and sticks to that plan, will Palmer be the chosen site?
For this issue, BusinessWest examines the mood in Palmer and the thought processes moving forward as the elephant in the room that is casino gambling grows ever larger in stature.

High-stakes Proposition
It’s called Nostalgia Day.
That’s the name given to the annual community get-together in Palmer that marked its fifth year on Sept. 18. Once staged on Main Street, the event was moved a few years ago to Legion Field behind Converse Middle School. Nostalgia Day pays homage to the community’s past, especially its status as a rail hub; this is known as the ‘Town of Seven Railroads.’ This year, the event included everything from narrated trolley rides to a Wiffle ball tournament to entertainment ranging from polka music to a tribute to Fleetwood Mac.
While taking part in all those things, attendees were also talking about the casino, said Robert Young, president of K.E.Y. Property Services and also president of something called Palmer Businesses for a Palmer Casino. “And they were letting some anger out.”
“The frustration was palpable,” said Young as he described the general mood, at least among casino backers, and they are, according to most all assessments, in the majority in this community. “The issue’s not dead; it’s not moving forward, and it’s not moving backward. It’s in limbo.”
In some ways, it’s always been in that state. Palmer passed a resolution supporting a casino within its borders several years ago, and in 2007, the proposal for Mohegan Sun’s $1 billion facility — complete with a 164,000-square-foot casino, a 600-room hotel, 12 restaurants, and 100,000 square feet of retail space — took shape.
For the past several years, casinos have been the subject of debate on Beacon Hill, with the Palmer facility always taking prominence as one of the lead proposals and essentially the Western Mass. option. Over the past few years, gaming measures have been gaining momentum as the state’s fiscal situation has worsened and the need for additional revenue has risen.
Indeed, in previous years, the players in Boston never really came close to passing a measure, but earlier this past spring, Patrick, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and Senate President Therese Murray were seemingly united in their support for some form of gaming measure.
They just couldn’t agree on the final details, especially those concerning the number of racinos, and once again, the clock ran out on the legislative session.
There is some speculation that the Legislature may return to session and vote on a casino bill this fall, but most consider it more likely that the issue will play itself out again next spring and summer, when there may be a new governor and several new legislators in office.
So this leaves casino backers watching, reading, assessing, and, well, weighing the odds.
Late last month, they read about the New England Gaming Summit, staged in Mohegan, Conn., where Mohegan Sun officials reaffirmed their commitment to a project in Massachusetts — and Palmer. “When Massachusetts is ready, we will be ready,” said Mitchell Grossinger Etess, the company’s president and CEO.
They’ve also read that, while more casinos are being proposed in the states surrounding Massachusetts, and the sector suffers through the effects of the Great Recession, the gaming industry remains bullish on New England, and Mohegan Sun is still focused on the Town of Seven Railroads.
“Palmer is without question the premier site for a casino resort in the Commonwealth,” Etess told the Gaming News late last month. “More than 11 million adults are within two hours of Palmer throughout New York and New England. Its central location makes it ideal to draw significant out-of-state traffic.”
While these signs look positive for casino backers, so, too do many of the comments from those now in the Legislature — and those who wish to unseat them in the November general election, said Leon Dragone, president of the Northeast Resort Group, which owns the proposed casino property and leases it to Mohegan Sun.
“I’ve been watching the legislative contests, from Cape Cod westward,” he said, “and almost everyone running is for casinos; no one is running away from this issue.”
Meanwhile, area legislators, as well as some from outside this region, seem to favor one of the resort casinos being located in Western Mass., said Dragone, adding that such strong support is a relatively new phenomenon and another reason to remain optimistic about the prospects for a Palmer casino.

A Winning Hand?
But while many signs seems to be pointing in the right direction, there are still a number of hurdles to clear and certainly no assurances that last summer’s close call will translate into triumph when the matter comes to the Legislature again.
And this is where much of the current frustration surfaces in Palmer, said Burns, noting that, to many, the casino has become Palmer’s best hope for economic revival after a prolonged slide during which most of the town’s manufacturing plants have closed down or moved out. And there really isn’t a plan B, or at least one that’s being given any real consideration until the casino mattered is settled — somehow.
“In the back of my mind, and for the sake of the town, I have to at least be prepared to say at some point, ‘if this doesn’t happen, what’s next?’” he told BusinessWest. “If it gets to that point, then I guess we’ve failed, and after two or three years of really hard work, that’ll be tough to deal with. But hopefully, we don’t wind up at that point.
“And if it doesn’t come here, the next steps are a little less clear,” he continued. “This helps to solve a lot of economic issues in one swoop. Without something of this magnitude, you’ve got to build in much smaller pieces; you’re not going to have someone come in and pay $9 million a year in property taxes — it’s going to take an awful lot of smaller entities to make up that difference.”
Young agreed. He said he’s watched a number of manufacturing facilities close or move, and only a fraction of the jobs lost have been replaced. The Monson Developmental Center, which is located in Palmer and employs several hundred people, is slated to be closed by the state in 2013, further reducing the base of jobs in the Quaboag area.
“We have to do something to create jobs here,” he said, “and a casino is easily our best option. People are losing their livelihoods here in Palmer, and that’s why this issue becomes extremely important.”
Moving forward, the main priority for Palmer casino backers is to stay visible, especially with regard to lawmakers, and drive home the point that the town intends to remain a prominent player in this realm.
“We’re trying to keep ourselves in the media so the focus stays on Palmer,” said Burns, “and people don’t assume we’ve given up or gone away.”
Young agreed, and said Palmer Businesses for a Palmer Casino is keeping the town’s name, intentions, and status as what he called “the frontrunner” in the casino race in front of people.
“We’re keeping the word alive,” he said, “that this bill is not dead, that Palmer and the business community are still active in pursuing this, and that most people in this town want this to happen.”
Meanwhile, Burns said he’s watching the governor’s race closely and knows who he’ll be voting for, although he’s not saying. He did say that this race poses some tricky questions for casino backers, and an atmosphere where it will be unlikely if individuals or groups like Palmer Businesses for a Palmer Casino will endorse either of the frontrunners, Patrick or Baker.
The latter is a somewhat unknown quantity on this issue, so he is somewhat of a wild card, said Burns. But Patrick, while he supports more resort casinos and essentially authored the legislation that came so close to passing, also gets most of the blame for the demise of this year’s effort.
“How can you go out and support the governor who killed the casino in Palmer?” asked Burns, referring to this year’s close call. “Still, you don’t want to tick off anyone; we need to be able to communicate with whoever ends up becoming governor in January.”
Sizing up the current state in Palmer, at least among casino backers, Burns again came back to that phrase ‘hopeful frustration,’ and said that mindset will likely remain until there is reason to lose either of those two words.
“There’s a sense in Palmer that this is still coming here,” he said. “We may be deluding ourselves, I don’t know; we understand it’s a process and there’s a lot to this process that still has to happen, but we’re hopeful this will work out for us.”

Still on Track?
Mohegan Sun officials have unveiled a new architect’s rendering of the planned Palmer casino. The new concept pays homage to the Town of Seven Railroads by incorporating what looks like a rail trestle into the design of the complex.
Whether this latest rendering actually moves off the drawing board and onto the hill just off exit 8 of the turnpike remains to be seen. Amid the myriad questions still to be answered, there is optimism among casino backers and that aforementioned hopeful frustration.
It may well be at least another nine or 10 months before they know for sure, but casino backers like Burns believe Palmer can and will eventually come out from under that shadow.

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

Building Permits

Building Permits Departments

The following building permits were issued during the month of September 2010.

AGAWAM

Marcell Welton
44 Annable St.
$3,775 — 12’x18’ New England Cape storage building

CHICOPEE

Campanelli Chicopee II, LLC
21 Taxiway Dr.
$1,765,000 — Construct a 31,000-square-foot warehouse

Chicopee Housing Authority
400 Britton St.
$76,000 — Remove old generators and replace with new

GREENFIELD

Gary L. Schaefer
76 School St.
$6,300 — Install new rubber roof

YMCA
451 Main St.
$232,000 — Construction of a spa addition and other renovations

Pushkin, LLC
332 Main St.
$29,000 — Installation of a sprinkler system

United Arc of Franklin & Ham Inc.
111 Summer St.
$2,000 — Install two doors

HADLEY

CBR Realty Corporation
195 Russell St.
$5,000 — Office build out on the second floor

Town of Hadley School Department
131 Russell St.
$11,000 — Replacement of acoustical ceiling tile in cafeteria

HOLYOKE

Holyoke Health Center
230-234 Maple St.
$108,000 — Tenant fit-out of existing space

Holyoke Mall Company, LLP
50 Holyoke St.
$72,000 — Remodel existing Express store

KMART Corporation
2201-2211 Northampton St.
$328,000 — Construction of a new Taco Bell restaurant

O’C Ingleside, LLC
361 Whitney Ave.
$38,000 — Install finishes to existing space

LUDLOW

SMD Properties
90 Center St.
$8,000 — New siding

NORTHAMPTON

Coolidge Northampton, LLC
243 King St.
$9,300 — Construct interior partitions in Suite 239

F. L. Roberts & Company
188 North King St.
$7,500 — New façade

Florence Congregational Church
130 Pine St.
$7,300 — Construct partition wall to create large room

Thornes Marketplace LLC
150 Main St.
$21,000 — Renovate Rao’s Coffee Shop

SOUTH HADLEY

Loomis Community
7 Ivy Lane
$3,500 — Install insulation

SPRINGFIELD

City of Springfield
70 Tapley St.
$96,000 — Renovations on 1st floor

3640 Main St., LLC
3640 Main St.
$188,000 — Office fit up for Valley Medical Associates

3640 Main St., LLC
3640 Main St.
$561,000 — Office fit up for Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition

United House of Prayer
339 Wilbraham Road
$141,000 — Replace roofing and general maintenance

WESTFIELD

Mark Armanti
8 Turnpike Industrial Road
$385,000 – Construct new manufacturing building for cold storage

NEHTS
101 Springdale Road
$26,000 — Renovations

Samaritan Inn
7 Free St.
$18,000 — Re-roof

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Houston Enterprise
91 Riverdale St.
$209,000 — Remodel existing KFC restaurant

Oleg Abramettzer
553 Main St.
$5,000 — Renovate existing office space for hair salon

SBA Communications, Inc.
63 Bridge St.
$20,000 — Install three antennas and two communications cabinets

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies Departments

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

Ali, Hassan R.
115 Bellevue Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Alicea, Patricia
10 Willow St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Arbuzov, Tamara L.
21 Nassau St., 2nd Floor
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Bargalla, Thomas M.
21 Cottonwood Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Barrus, Alan
Barrus, Norma
1467 Barre Road
Gilbertville, MA 01031
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Beaudoin Group Ltd.
Beaudoin, Lawrence A.
Beaudoin, Julie C.
P.O. Box 1473
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Beaulieu, Michael G.
217 Parker St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Bednarzyk, William
29 Parker St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Berthiaume, Rita C.
95 North Westfield St.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Bissonnette, Jon N.
Bissonnette, Tabitha N.
75 Ashgrove St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Boudreau, Edmund A.
Boudreau, Coleen A.
316 White Pond Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Britton, Bruce S.
Britton, Jessica A.
913 Shaker Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Camilleri, Richard P.
P.O. Box 334
Holyoke, MA 01041
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Carr, Tiffany M.
145 Harvard St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Chandler, Robert L.
372 Crescent St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Chartier, Julie
59 Reed St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Chilson, Phillip E.
P.O.Box 48
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Christopher, Kathryn A.
a/k/a Wilkens, Kathryn A.
P.O.Box 2752
Amherst, MA 01004-2752
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Claffey, Mary R.
20 Cross St. Unit D
Pepperell, MA 01463
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Clapper, Ann M.
7 Grant St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/25/10

Claudio, Dorcas
356 Allenpark Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Cone, Kate A.
a/k/a Flanagan, Kate
a/k/a Guthrie, Kate
3 Newton St.
P. O. Box 84
Barre, MA 01005
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Cotto, Jaime
a/k/a Cortez-Cotto, Jaime
42 Thames St.
Springfield, MA 01005
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/29/10

Coville, Diana M.
100 Stafford Holland Road
Wales, MA 01081
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Coyer, Nicole L.
a/k/a Charette, Nicole L.
52 Howard St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/25/10

Croteau, Linda Y.
30 Higgins Circle
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Davis Construction
Davis, Thomas R.
13 Onondaga St.
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/23/10

DeJesus, Beverly M.
161 Main St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Dion, Kathy A.
96 St. James Circle
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Dixon, Virginia L.
14 Herbert Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Dominick, Arthur R.
Dominick, Judith
50 Holy Family Road, Apt. 119E
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Dubilo, Adam J.
Dubilo, Jennifer
Gamache Dubilo, Jennifer E.
7 East Circle Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/27/10

Dubuc, David A.
7 Spring St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/29/10

Dyer, Samuel R.
P.O. Box 362
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/21/10

Enright, Robert D.
Enright, Elaine F.
45 Burke Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Erickson, Thomas A.
1343 Riverdale St. #56
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Fontaine, Gary E.
43 Bray Park Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

George, Helen S.
1384 Barre Road
Gilbertville, MA 01031
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Gravel, Richard A.
3 North Hampshire St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Grise, Christina A.
391 Main St., Apt. 301
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Hall, John J.
Hall, Linda L.
8 Revere Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/25/10

Hall, Noel E.
299 Nottingham St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Hall-Cotto, Jennifer M.
17 Liswell Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/29/10

Harris, Margaret I.
15 Buel St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Hebert, Paul D.
Hebert, Angela M.
120 Glendale Circle
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Hegy, Michael D.
29 Baltimore Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Helenek, James J.
Helenek, April M.
124 State St.
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Howard, Dawn I
a/k/a Ford, Dawn I
40 Briarwood Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Hyde, William D.
Hyde, Judith A.
235 Main St.
PO Box 267
Gilbertville, MA 01031
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/23/10

Karlik, Gregory M.
Karlik, Heather J.
340 Broadway
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/28/10

Keenan, James M.
Keenan, Nancy E.
6 Hawthorne Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Knowles, Michael T.
226 Pearl St., 2R
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Kuschka, Aaron T.
Carey, Mary Ellen
212 Prospect St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Laboy, Juan A.
a/k/a Flores, Juan L.
a/k/a Laboy, Juan A
Laboy, Isabel E.
a/k/a Laboy, Sanchez Isabel
36 Greenleaves Dr. #46
Hadley, MA 01035
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/16/10

LaPerle, Donna D.
a/k/a Melhorn, Donna D.
79 Dana St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Latour, Stephanie A.
a/k/a Pooler, Stephanie A.
50 Hazen St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Laverty, Jason M.
20 Woronoco Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Lawrence, Beverly A.
PO Box 406
Barre, MA 01074
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/23/10

Lewis, George E.
Lewis, Marilyn E
151 West King St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Lopez, Jose J.
Pinto, Julia
a/k/a Pinto-Lopez, Julia
76 Ardmore St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/25/10

Malvezzi, Gina
20 Hampton Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Manfredi, Theresa H.
a/k/a Goodrow, Theresa
332 Lancaster Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/17/10

Martinez, Julia
31 Emily St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

McNierney, Sandra L.
a/k/a Dupuis, Sandra L.
a/k/a Bushey, Sandra
35 Scenic Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/23/10

Mendrala, John M.
Mendrala, Donna
603 Springfield St.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Munro, Stephen P.
Munro, Beverly A.
9 Devils Lane
Brimfield, MA 01010
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Must Love Dogs,
Abbruzzese, Cathy A.
338 Mayo Road
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/20/10

O’Rourke, Shannon L.
83 Bell St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/16/10

Page, Denise M.
30 Higgins Circle
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Parks Enterprise
Parks, Doreen M.
7 Chestnut St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Pate, Susan M.
43 Bray Park Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Peterson, Jean M.
PO Box 1214
Warren, MA 01083
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/21/10

Petrizzi, Robert Charles
810 Fairway Ave.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Picard, Kevin E.
Picard, Barbara J.
96 McKinley Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Pilon, Donald
144 Cabot St., Apt. 10
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Profio, Richard A.
507 Sunderland Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Ramos, Sue Ellen
323 Stony Hill Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Romano, Anthony G.
120 Elizabeth Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Roth, Dorothy W.
15C Highland Village
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Santiago, Maritza
102 Santa Barbara St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Scalise, Joseph P.
32 Charlemont Road
Charlemont, MA 01339
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Schmidt, Mark A.
114 Franklin St
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Schultz, Steven David
1118 St James Ave. G28
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Shattuck, Chester R.
Shattuck, Jean M.
28 Gula Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Sibley, Louis F.
Sibley, Elaine M.
14 Gould Road
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/25/10

Sierra, Victor Armando
134 Union St. Apt. 49
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Skawski, Thomas P.
Skawski, Kristen M
356 Belmont Ave. Apt. 24
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Skillings, Anne Haskell
84 Cross Brook
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Superior Floor Covering
Wood, Jason P.
2275 Palmer Road
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Tanguay, Marie A.
172 Colemore St.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Threlfall, Robert Jason
28R Fairfield Ave.
Haydenville, MA 01039
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/23/10

Tobin, Kyle E.
Tobin, Shawna E.
a/k/a Diemand, Shawna
247 Ryan Road
Florence, MA 01062
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/18/10

Toczko, Gregory P.
162 Nash Rd
Cummington, MA 01026
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Torres, Adilmar E.
136 Allen St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Touponce, Carol E.
44A Russell St.
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/30/10

Tramore Chip Shop
Quaglia, Gabriel
Quaglia, Sara K.
13 Harrison Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/20/10

Varady, Kathleen
5 Alice St.
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Vardakis, Christopher D.
Vardakis, Karen F.
28 School St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Vega, Wanda L.
69 Longhill St., Apt.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Walton, Nelson F.
52 Boucher Circle
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Warzocha, Robert R.
150 Ashland St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/31/10

Williford, Karen Ann
P.O. Box 103
Huntington, MA 01050
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/27/10

Witek, Linda J.
27 Meadow Ave.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/24/10

Woolley, Mason K.
18 Main St., Apt. 3C
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/19/10

Wright, Richard T.
Wright, Carol A.
17 Shepard St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 08/26/10

Incorporations

Departments Incorporations

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

AMHERST

The Sub & Pizza of Amherst Inc., 33 East Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002. Roula Davila, 10 South Maple St., Enfield, CT 06082. Restaurant.

TMD Inc., 1-3 Pray St., Amherst, MA 01002. Thomas Murphy, 109 Wagon Wheel Dr., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Operation of a pub/restaurant.

EASTHAMPTON

Wingspan Woodworking Inc., One Cottage St., Room 105, Easthampton, MA 01027. Gregory Dillard, 34 North Main St., Belchertown, MA 01027. Woodworking shop.

FEEDING HILLS

U.S. Furniture Warehouse Inc., 15 Amherst Ave., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Lubna Basher, same. Retail furniture sales.

LENOX

Your Color Connection Inc., 36 Pittsfield Road, Lenox, MA 01240. Ann Lebier, 80 Navin Ave., Lee MA 01238. Printer, manufacturer, production, and assembly of marketing materials.

SOUTHAMPTON

Western Mass Public Health Association Inc., 146 Valley Road, Southampton, MA 01073. Barry Searles, 73 Russellville Road, Southampton, MA 01073. Organization designed to foster public health by providing service to board of health and related agencies whether public or private by public education, publicity and publication, by advice and appropriate action on legislation and governmental affairs.

SPRINGFIELD

Travis Best Foundation Inc., 55 Maple St., #7, Springfield, MA 01105. Jasmine Turner, 2029 Century Park East, Suite 3000, Los Angeles, CA 90067. To improve the lives of children by character training through sports.

Two Bits Inc., 271 Main St., Great Barrington, MA 01230. Stephan Vilot Jr, 68 Ridge Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Full-service barber shop.

United Auto Sales Inc., 874 Berkshire Ave., Springfield, MA 01151. Joseph Nigro, 21 Grove St., Southwick, MA 01077. Auto sales.

Universal Windows Direct Inc., 192 Berkshire Ave., Southwick, MA 01077. Sales and installation of windows, siding, and doors as well as other home improvements.

VG Construction Corp., 1159 Westfield St., Apt. B2, West Springfield, MA 01089. Victor Gavriliuc, same. Construction, remodeling, and improvement of personal property and associated services.

Worthington Management Inc., 254 Worthington St., Springfield, MA 01103. Margarita Monsalve, same. Property management.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Western Mass Dental Hygiene Services Inc., 226 Belmont Ave., West Springfield, MA 01089. Alice Jalal, same. Dental practice.

Briefcase

Briefcase Departments

Six Vie for Project Manager Services for Union Station
SPRINGFIELD — The City of Springfield recently received six responses to the Springfield Redevelopment Authority’s (SRA) request for owners project manager (OPM) services for the Union Station Regional Intermodal Transportation Center. The services requested also will apply to the transfer of funds from the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority for a portion of the project. The SRA owns Union Station, including the former terminal and adjacent baggage building and the site of the former Hotel Charles, and is retaining the services of an OPM to represent its interests in the design and construction of the proposed transportation center. The firms interested in the project are Arcadis US Inc. of Atlanta, Ga., with a Springfield office; HEERY International Inc. of Burlington; the Louis Berger Group Inc. of Needham; SKANSKA USA Building Inc. of Boston; URS Corp.-New York of Boston; and Western Mass. OPM Services, LLC of Holyoke. Those that meet the minimum qualifications stated in the request will be evaluated and ranked by a review committee designated by the SRA governing board. Top-ranking firms may be interviewed by the committee, which then will submit its list of the top three firms to the governing board. The process is expected to take four weeks. The fee for services will be negotiated between the SRA and the selected firm. Plans call for restoring the main terminal building and using the adjacent site of the former baggage-handling building for construction of a 23-bay bus terminal with a 400-space public parking garage located on the upper levels.

August Retail Sales Up
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $363.7 billion, an increase of 0.4% from the previous month, and 3.6% above August 2009. Total sales for the June through August 2010 period were up 4.7% from the same period a year ago. The June to July 2010 percent change was revised from +0.4% to +0.3%. Retail trade sales were up 0.5% from July 2010, and 3.7% above last year. Non-store retailers’ sales were up 10.5% from August 2009, and gasoline stations were up 9.6% from last year. The Advance Monthly Retail Sales for Retail and Food Services for September is scheduled to be released Oct. 15.

Energy-efficiency Training Courses Set
BOSTON — The Mass. Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) recently announced the second round of weatherization workshops under the MassGREEN Initiative, which provides energy-efficiency workforce training for individuals and contracting firms throughout the state. Four state community colleges will host the program’s course for people with little or no background in weatherization concepts or practices, including entry-level workers and residential construction trades seeking to expand their knowledge and services in energy efficiency. Upcoming local training sessions are planned at Springfield Technical Community College, One Armory Square, from Sept. 30 to Dec. 16; and at Greenfield Community College, Franklin County Technical School in Turners Falls, from Sept. 30 to Nov. 20. Successful graduates of the course will be prepared to take the Building Performance Institute Installer exams for air sealing and dense packing, which are up-to-date insulation techniques. For more information on the class schedule, visit the web sites of the local colleges. For more information on MassCEC, visit www.masscec.com

Company Notebook

Company Notebook Departments

WNEC, Big Y Create Wellness Center
SPRINGFIELD — Big Y Foods Inc. and Western New England College School of Pharmacy have partnered to create a faculty pharmacist-run, patient-centered Consultation and Wellness Center at 300 Cooley St. The facility is one of the largest pharmacy consultation and wellness centers in the region and the first to be located in a supermarket. Patients are able to make an appointment with a pharmacist who will work with the individual and their physician to optimize their care. A grand-opening ceremony was staged Sept. 10. Services offered include education and training programs, blood-glucose evaluations, individualized patient care plans, and medication review. The creators of the center note that the services are needed now more than ever given the aging population and the increasing strain on the state’s health care system. Kam Capoccia, clinical associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, will supervise the center. Capoccia notes that collaborative practice models in other states have already demonstrated the ability to improve the health of their patients and save the health care system millions of dollars. Capoccia added that among the goals of the center’s creators are to decrease visits to the emergency room and the number of hospital readmissions by collaborating with physicians on patient care. For more information on the center, call (413) 782-4606 or (413) 796-2000.

Comcast Donates Supplies to Springfield Students
SPRINGFIELD — Comcast recently donated more than 500 backpacks stuffed with classroom essentials to city students from the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services Afterschool Program, in partnership with Cradles to Crayons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to giving children in need the basic essentials they need to be ready to learn. Comcast and Cradles to Crayons also presented the site with a playground bag filled with essentials including bats, balls, and Frisbees.

NewAlliance, First Niagara Create Top-25 U.S. Bank
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The boards of directors of First Niagara Financial Group Inc. and New Haven, Conn.-based NewAlliance Bancshares Inc. recently announced that the companies entered into a merger agreement, valued on a fixed exchange ratio of 1.10 shares of First Niagara stock for each NewAlliance share. The merger of NewAlliance into First Niagara will be a cash-and-stock transaction creating a top-25 U.S. bank, by assets. The combined bank will have more than $29 billion in assets, including more than $14 billion in loans, as well as $18 billion in deposits. NewAlliance’s 88 branches serve eight counties from Greenwich, Conn., to Springfield. Currently, First Niagara serves communities across Upstate New York, Western Penn. including Pittsburgh, and Eastern Penn. from the Philadelphia suburbs to Allentown. NewAlliance’s Church Street headquarters in New Haven, Conn., is slated to become First Niagara’s New England Regional Market Center.

Law Firm Receives Award
SPRINGFIELD — Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C., has been selected for the 2010 Best of Worcester Award in the local business category by the U.S. Commerce Assoc. (USCA). The firm has offices in Springfield, Worcester, and Meriden, Conn. The USCA Best of Local Business award program recognizes local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies it believes have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. Winners are determined based on both the information gathered internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

MMWEC Upgrades Energy Conservation Web Site
LUDLOW — The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. (MMWEC) recently introduced a redesigned Web site for its Home Energy Loss Prevention Services (HELPS) program. HELPS provides energy education, home-energy audits, assistance with home-energy improvements, and ENERGY STAR appliance rebates to municipal utility customers. In addition, HELPS provides customers with a gauge of their home’s solar energy potential as a standard part of every audit, with turnkey services for solar-system installation available through the program. HELPS is the residential component of MMWEC’s energy-conservation and efficiency services, which also include programs for commercial, industrial, and institutional customer classes. The redesigned Web site is located at www.munihelps.org.

MassMutual: Plan Participants Stable
SPRINGFIELD — MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division has released data for the quarter ended June 30 indicating that participants in retirement plans administered by MassMutual showed no signs of panic despite the decline in the S&P 500 index, with 96% of participants either maintaining or increasing their savings rates. This behavior helps explain why, despite the stock market’s sharp decline for the second quarter with the S&P 500 index losing 11.4%, MassMutual’s average participant account balance declined by only 3.26%, beating the S&P 500 index by 8.14%, according to E. Heather Smiley, chief marketing officer for MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division. Smiley noted that the “substantially better” performance for participant accounts is primarily attributable to the benefits of continued ongoing deposits by participants and an increased percentage of assets allocated to stable value and bond investments. Male participants fared slightly better than females for the quarter (–2.7% compared to –5.5%) primarily as a result of the impact of higher average deferral rates. The percentage of participant assets in equity investments declined from 41.1% to 38.4% during the quarter, with stable value increasing from 26.3% to 28.4%, and investment in bonds increasing from 7.6% to 8.6%. The percentage in asset-allocation investments (target date and target risk) was relatively unchanged. MassMutual’s data covers approximately 1 million participants across more than 6,000 plans.

TD Charitable Foundation Boosts Museum Programs
SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Museums recently received a $10,000 grant from TD Bank through the TD Charitable Foundation for its Weekend Family Fun series of educational programs. Family programs highlight holidays, special exhibitions, cultures from around the world, and topics including dinosaurs and Dr. Seuss. Each program includes a performance, hands-on demonstrations, science activities, and craft workshops. TD Bank, through its foundation, provides financial assistance for a variety of cultural and community events. Holly Smith-Bové, president of the Springfield Museums, noted that, without support from TD Bank, these popular programs would not be possible.

Bolduc’s Apparel Under New Ownership
AGAWAM — Bolduc’s Apparel, a sports and custom-apparel company, was purchased in August by the firm’s former vice president and general manager, Todd M. Adelson of Longmeadow. The firm specializes in custom business, corporate, and leisure apparel, as well as school-spirit wear and promotional products. Bolduc’s employs more than 20 full-time employees, many of whom have been with the company for 15 or more years. Adelson noted that he is looking forward to continuing the firm’s steady growth through daily attention to customer satisfaction and the quality of the locally produced custom products.

Firm Acquires ADNET Technologies Inc.
SPRINGFIELD — Kostin, Ruffkess and Co., LLC recently acquired ADNET Technologies Inc. of Farmington, Conn., according to Richard V. Kretz, managing member of the local firm. ADNET is an information-technology firm that specializes in developing and implementing IT solutions for its clients, with measurable returns on investment. With the addition of the new members from ADNET, Kretz noted that the firm can better serve clients with an expansive set of resources “unlike any other accounting, business-consulting, or information-technology company in the region.” Kostin, Ruffkess and Co. also has Connecticut offices in Farmington and New London.

Friendly’s Adds Another Express Restaurant
WILBRAHAM — Friendly’s Express, a unit of Friendly’s new fast-casual concept, will open in Methuen on Sept. 28. The newest Friendly’s Express, located at the Loop at 90 Pleasant Valley St., will offer a fast, fun way for people on-the-go to get the food they crave. The short service time will make Friendly’s Express perfect for quick office lunch breaks, and easy for moms running errands with their children. While guests will place orders at the counter, food will be delivered to each guest’s table. When guests are ready for ice cream, they can place a numbered tag on the edge of their table, and a food runner will bring them their desserts. The 2,338-square-foot restaurant seats 60 and includes additional seating on the patio for seasonal outdoor dining. The Friendly’s Express design incorporates the signature Friendly’s red elements throughout, along with bright tiles and custom pop-art of Friendly’s ice-cream creations. The restaurant features a limited menu of Friendly’s favorites, including SuperMelt sandwiches, Friendly’s Big Beef burgers, salads, Fribbles, kids’ meals, and, of course, ice cream desserts.

Chamber Corners: Upcoming Events

Chamber Corners Departments

ACCGS
www.myonlinechamber.com
(413) 787-1555

n Oct. 1: Hampden/Wilbraham Golf Classic. Hosted by the Country Club of Wilbraham. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]
n Oct. 6: ACCGS October Business@Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m. Hosted by the Cedars, 419 Island Pond Road, Springfield. Cost: members, $20; non-members, $30. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]
n Oct. 13: ACCGS October After 5, 5 to 7 p.m. ‘Be Your Best Self’ Table Top Expo, the Mind, Body & Spirit Expo. Hosted by MassMutual Center. Cost: members, $10; non-members, $20. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]
n Oct. 23: UMass vs. UNH Bus Trip to Gillette Stadium, 11:00 a.m. bus departure. Cost: ticket to the game, $20; ticket and bus ride, $40; ticket, bus, and food, $50.
n Oct. 29: Super 60 Awards Luncheon, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Hosted by Chez Josef, Agawam. Keynote dpeaker: Steven Little. To register, contact the chamber at (413) 787-1555 or [email protected]

Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield
www.springfieldyps.com
n Oct. 21: Third Thursday, 5 to 8 p.m. Hosted by the Munich Haus Restaurant, 13 Center St., Chicopee.
n Oct. 23: The Down Syndrome Resource Group of Western Massachusetts ‘Buddy Walk.’ This group provides information about family support, resources, parent training, and social opportunities. Its mission is to discover, encourage, and embrace the potential of all individuals with Down syndrome. Registration for the walk to begin at 10 a.m., with coffee and light refreshments available. Two-mile walk to begin at about 11 a.m., followed by a complimentary lunch and entertainment.

Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce
www.amherstarea.com
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Chicopee Chamber of Commerce
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

Franklin County Chamber of Commerce
www.franklincc.org
(413) 773-5463
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

n Oct. 1: Casino Night, 7 to 11 p.m., at One Cottage St., Easthampton. Major sponsors: Easthampton Savings Bank and Finck & Perras Insurance Agency. Cost: $25 in advance; $30 at the door. See www.easthamptonchamber.org for more information.
n Oct. 13: Networking by Night Business Card Exchange, 5 to 7 p.m. Co-hosted and co-sponsored by Nashawannuck Gallery and Harry King Rug & Home, 36-40 Cottage St., Easthampton. Hors d’ouevres by Sunshine Bakery, beer and wine, door prizes. Cost: members, $5; non-members, $15.

Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce
www.holycham.com
(413) 534-3376

Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900

n Oct. 6: Annual Chamber Open House, 5 to 7 p.m. Hosted by the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, 99 Pleasant St., Northampton. It’s the don’t-miss chamber event of the year. More than 300 people regularly attend. Food and drink donated by member restaurants. Cost: $10 for members.

Northampton Area Young Professional Society
www.thenayp.com
(413) 584-1900

n Oct. 14: NAYP Party with a Purpose, 5 to 8 p.m., at KW Home. Cost: members, free; guests, $5.

Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce
www.qvcc.biz
(413) 283-2418
Please see chamber’s Web site for news of upcoming events.

South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce
www.shchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

n Oct. 15: Legislative Breakfast, 7:15 to 9 a.m. Hosted by the Courtyard by Marriott. Sponsored by Western Massachusetts Electric Co.
n Oct. 27: After 5, 5 to 7 p.m. Hosted by Hickory Ridge Country Club. Sponsorships available.

Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce
www.threeriverschamber.org
(413) 283-6425

n Oct. 4: Chamber Meeting, 7 p.m. Hosted by Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce office, Palmer Technology Park, Springfield St., Palmer.
Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

Court Dockets

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT
NES Rental Holdings Inc. v. Alpha & Omega Construction
Allegation: Breach of contract for rental equipment: $2,789.35
Filed: 8/23/10

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
CIT Technology Financing Services LLC v. Billups World Entertainment Inc.
Allegation: Breach of lease agreement: $54,598.34
Filed: 7/16/10

Liberty Mutual Insurance A/S/O Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. v. Kennedy, Gustafson, & Cole Inc.
Allegation: Breach of warranty and property damage caused by fire: $1,982,000
Filed: 7/21/10

People’s United Bank v. La Cucina Di Pinocchio Inc.
Allegation: Breach of several promissory notes: $673,140.77
Filed: 8/11/10

Plaza @ Buckland Hills LLC v. Emanuel Rovithis and Demetia Inc.
Allegation: Enforcement of judgment: $274,582.32
Filed: 7/23/10

Pravin Mathur v. Roy’s Towing Co. and John Burdick
Allegation: Negligence in operation of motor vehicle: $1,600,000
Filed: 8/6/10

NORTHAMPTON DISTRICT COURT
Acadia Insurance Co. v. Bishop Burner Services
Allegation: Balance due for insurance premium: $37,042
Filed: 8/11/10

SPRINGFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Bradco Supply v. Henderson Roofing Co.
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $3,174.35
Filed: 7/23/10

Comcast Spotlight Inc. v. Brockton Fair
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $11,025.72
Filed: 7/22/10

Consumer Auto Parts v. Fini’s Auto Sales
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $5,549.60
Filed: 7/22/10

High Priority Associates Inc. v. Ilmondo Pizza
Allegation: Non-payment of goods sold and delivered: $7,298.91
Filed: 7/22/10

Western Massachusetts Electric v. Springfield Bible Institute & Theological Seminary
Allegation: Non-payment of utility services: $10,243.93
Filed: 7/15/10

WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT
ServiceMaster Assured Cleaning v. Big Family Adventure
Allegation: Failure to pay for cleaning services and breach of contract: $14,270.78
Filed: 7/26/10

Commercial Real Esate for Sale and Lease

A list of available commercial properties
CommRealEstate BW9.10b

Setting Their Sites

A chart of the area’s industrial parks
IndustrialParks BW9.10b

Laying the Groundwork

A list of the region’s engineering firms
EngineeringFirms BW9.10b

It’s Not a ‘Stretch’