George O'Brien, Author at BusinessWest

A Matter of Speculation

‘What happens now?’

That’s the question that was on the minds of many as Hampshire Mall was sold at a foreclosure auction last month — to the company that holds the mortgage on the property, and for far less than half its assessed value.

Actually, people have been asking that question for a while now, as the fate of the mall becomes less clear after years of struggle, even after its former owner, Pyramid Management Group (which also owns Holyoke Mall), started doing the things malls are supposed to do in these changing times, especially shifting gears and devoting far more square footage to entertainment-related venues — everything from a large gym to escape rooms to taekwondo.

Apparently, all that simply wasn’t enough, said John Benoit, a principal (with his two brothers) of Vantage Point Retail in Longmeadow, which leases and sells retail properties and finds locations for a few national chains, such as Five Guys, Advance Auto Parts, and 99 Restaurant.

“Zoning is complicated, to say the least, and sometimes, when people hear about an effort and there’s a lack of specificity surrounding it, they can draw conclusions that are not appropriate.”

He noted that Hampshire Mall, located near the Amherst line in Hadley on busy Route 9, is just one of many malls across the U.S. that are suffering and destined for new life; others in this region include Eastfield Mall, which has already been demolished, to be replaced by a large power center, and Enfield Square, which is also awaiting its fate. Meanwhile, the retail sector itself is a state of flux.

John Benoit says Route 9 is a retail destination, but he wonders how much more retail can come to that busy thoroughfare.

“Retail has been undergoing change for a long time, and I don’t know if it’s settled,” Benoit told BusinessWest. “There was a time when online was a new world in retail and the discussion in the trade journals and at the trade association meetings going back 10 to 15 years was about whether brick-and-mortar locations would go away — would people just do business online?”

What has emerged, he went on, is the concept of multi-channel retail that includes online as well as bricks-and-mortar elements, with some consumers using one or the other for research, buying, returns, or some combination of the above.

“It changes every year,” he added. “Some of the statements I just made … I don’t even know if they’re current.”

Nothing is expected to happen at Hampshire Mall for a while, as the new owner, Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas and Wells Fargo Commercial Mortgage Securities Inc., which, as noted, held the mortgage on the property, figures out what it wants to do. The bank foreclosed on the mall after Pyramid defaulted on its mortgage.

Shardool Parmar, a more-than-interested observer at the auction — that’s because the Pioneer Valley Hotel Group, which he serves as president, owns three hotels on Route 9 in Hadley and is building a fourth — said it will likely be years before the fate of the property is known.

“It’s a big unknown what will happen to the mall property,” he said. “That’s because it’s difficult to say what the future market will be when it comes to whether this will remain retail or become residential. There are a lot of unknowns.”

The most obvious future uses are more (and perhaps different) retail — because of the emergence of the Route 9 retail corridor as one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in the region, rivaled perhaps only by Memorial Drive in Chicopee, said Benoit — and housing, mostly because of the size of the parcel and the huge need for more housing in that region.

But both of those options come with question marks. Indeed, while Route 9 is a retail hub, there are vacancies — actually, several of them — along that corridor, Parmar said. Meanwhile, Benoit added, while successful retail and especially grocery stores (and there are lot of them on this corridor) attract more retail, most of the major players, from Walmart to Home Depot, are already there.

“They did what people said what malls could do and should do, and they did it early — and that’s entertainment, as compared to shopping. They had the shopping, but they also had an entertainment component.”

As for housing, a zone change would be required, said Hadley Select Board member Molly Keegan, noting that the town will likely pursue creation of what’s known as a 40R, otherwise known as a smart growth zoning overlay district, which, according to the state’s website, “seeks to substantially increase the supply of housing, and decrease its cost, by increasing the amount of land zoned for dense housing.”

“The Planning Board has been working with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on researching and potentially bringing a zoning change to town meeting in either the spring or fall of 2025 that would allow for additional types of development, specifically using Chapter 40R,” Keegan explained, noting that the intent of 40R is to encourage municipalities to create dense housing or mixed-use zoning districts.

Such a proposal would require educating town residents about just what such a zone is for and what could happen if one becomes reality on that corridor, she noted, adding that, if a vote comes to fruition, it will Hadley’s first attempt at creating a 40R.

Molly Keegan says information and education will be the keys to passing a needed zone change to permit dense housing at the Hampshire Mall site.

“There’s an awful lot of education that needs to go along with this,” Keegan said. “Zoning is complicated, to say the least, and sometimes, when people hear about an effort and there’s a lack of specificity surrounding it, they can draw conclusions that are not appropriate. So the most important thing the town can do right now is educate.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, we take an in-depth look at Hampshire Mall and what might come next for this retail and cultural landmark.

Landmark Decisions

Hampshire Mall is one of the several area spots that gets some exposure in the recently released Janet Planet, a coming-of-age movie set in Western Mass. in the early ’90s.

In a recent Boston Globe article intended to help readers understand just what ‘Western Mass.’ is — and how the movie helps explain that geography — it is noted that the mall became a solid locale for the movie because … well, with a JCPenney and a rollerskating rink, it looks the part of an early-’90s mall.

In the larger scheme of things, that’s probably not a good look, even though, as noted earlier, the mall has made some significant changes in recent years to make it more viable, especially that shift to more entertainment-related venues. Indeed, in most respects, it doesn’t look like an early-’90s mall, with tenants that include FunHub Action Park, All In Adventures, LaserBlast Ancient Adventure, Planet Fitness, and PiNZ, a bowling alley.

“They did what people said what malls could do and should do, and they did it early — and that’s entertainment, as compared to shopping,” he explained. “They had the shopping, but they also had an entertainment component.”

This shift helped, but it certainly hasn’t stemmed the mall’s decline, said Benoit, theorizing that habits changed during the pandemic — people didn’t want to be indoors around a lot of other people — and they haven’t really changed back.

This reality, coupled with the many changes in retail — and the proliferation of other retail on Route 9 — conspired to all but seal the fate of Hampshire Mall, he noted, adding that similar stories have been written at malls around the country. The ones changing the narrative for the better have embraced reinvention.

“Malls are really struggling, and that struggle didn’t just start — it’s been going on a long time,” Benoit said, emphasizing that word ‘long.’ “Malls are big, complicated financial and physical arrangements.”

Using Eastfield as an example, he said talks about converting it to a large power center with a housing component have been going on for at least 15 years, by his count. Advancing those plans have been complicated by everything from the Great Recession to the pandemic; from ownership of some footprints by the anchors themselves, which slows and adds more layers of complexity to the equation, to the fate of existing tenants.

“The more information people have, and the earlier they have it and have time to ask questions and digest it, the better they’ll understand what they’re voting on what they get to town meeting.”

That question of what might come next at Hampshire became an assignment — “Reimagining the Hampshire Mall: Exploring Opportunities for Intergenerational Housing and Community Development” — for 40 juniors in the architecture and landscape architecture programs at UMass Amherst.

Teams of five students presented different concepts for the mall property. Each one included 350 to 700 new housing units, designed for young professionals, working families, and seniors; site amenities for residents and visitors; parking for tenants and shoppers alike; and some portions of the existing mall. Many of those elements are likely to be included in whatever the mall becomes next, said those we spoke with.

Getting back to a possible 40R zone at the Hampshire Mall site, Keegan said the Planning Board has formed a smart-growth subcommitee that is specifically working on the next steps in the process of creating such a zone. Informational sessions will be scheduled to help inform the public of what is involved and what it means for the community moving forward.

“The more information people have, and the earlier they have it and have time to ask questions and digest it, the better they’ll understand what they’re voting on what they get to town meeting,” she added, noting that, while there is a recognized need for more housing in the community, 40R and its emphasis on dense housing is a new concept for Hadley.

What certainly isn’t a new concept is retail on Route 9. With five colleges only a few miles away and several smaller communities without their own retail centers, the stretch between the Coolidge Bridge and the center of Amherst has been a retail destination for more than 50 years now, one that has consistently added new regional and national brands to the portfolio, becoming what Benoit called a ‘super-regional trade area.’

As a measuring stick, he pointed to all those aforementioned supermarkets. As he commenced counting them, he started with Big Y and Stop & Shop and ended with Maple Farms, a smaller, independent outlet, and listed eight in all. And he was quite sure there was a ninth that he couldn’t recall.

In any case, all those supermarkets attract other retail, he said, adding that there may still be room for more on Route 9, including at a reshaped Hampshire Mall property, where a power center, at which “every store has a front door,” as he put it, could — that’s could — be part of the equation.

History Repeats?

That’s what happened at Mountain Farms Mall, which opened in 1973 and, ironically enough, became known as the ‘dead mall’ after its precipitous decline and the closing of all but a few of its 35 stores.

Converted to an open-air mall and anchored by Whole Foods Market and Walmart, it is now thriving — so much so that Benoit wondered out loud if there is, in fact, room for more retail on that stretch.

“I’m not sure retail is that strong anymore,” he said. “And with the Mountain Farms Mall thriving, a lot of tenants that are in business are already in that market. Between there and the Stop & Shop center, there’s already a lot of retail. The anchors are there — Home Depot, Lowe’s … there’s no one left.”

Parmar concurred, noting that, whatever comes of the site, it will be costly and probably complex.

“There are a lot of variables, including the cost of construction,” he told BusinessWest. “To bring something to light there is not going to be cheap, and will there be a return on investment? There is a lot to investigate before someone can say ‘this will work’ or ‘that will work.’”

Westfield Gains Entrepreneurial Momentum

By George O'Brien July 5, 2024

Mayor Mike McCabe, left, presents Westfield G&E General Manager Tom Flaherty with a proclamation marking the utility’s 125th anniversary.

Mike McCabe isn’t sure how or why Westfield hasn’t really been part of the discussion when it comes to stops on the planned — most believe we’ve moved past using the word proposed — east-west rail line.

But the city’s mayor is intent on changing that.

He’s been talking with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and stating the city’s case for being a stop on the line, which is being touted as a way to level the playing field between the eastern and western portions of the state. And he believes it’s a strong case that involves everything from geography and the city’s size (roughly 40,000 people) to the fact that it already has a historic station that could turn back the clock and serve in that role again.

“We have an existing train station that Amtrak goes past every day, so I’m trying to encourage some real talk about getting Westfield on the east-west rail plan,” he said, adding that it’s been probably a half-century since a passenger train stopped in the city. “I don’t know why we weren’t in the game in the first place, but I don’t think it’s too late to get in the game.”

McCabe, re-elected to a second two-year term last November, believes a rail stop would bring more people, and more vibrancy, to a city that has been seeing progress on many fronts.

That includes its long-suffering downtown, which is seeing new life, as other area urban centers have, through a wave of entrepreneurship that has brought new businesses and especially restaurants specializing in everything from burritos to coffee to crepes, with more on the way.

“We’re not the old drive-through that we once were,” said Peter Miller, the city’s director of Community Development, noting that, in addition to new businesses, the downtown now has a new gathering place, or plaza, in the heart of downtown.

Located on the site of the former Newberry’s department store, which was destroyed by fire nearly 40 years ago and never replaced, the venue, named Elm Street Plaza, complete with a stage, will host concerts, food trucks, and other programs and happenings, making the downtown more of a destination while also going a long way toward solving that area’s biggest problem — a lack of parking, Miller noted.

Amanda Waterfield, who recently marked a year as executive director of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, agreed.

“One of the problems we’ve had in town has been parking,” she said. “And this park has added a lot of convenient parking in the downtown. And I know many of the merchants and businesses downtown struggled with that a little bit because the on-street parking is limited.”

Meanwhile, there is progress on many other fronts as well, from efforts to build a new police station to the highly anticipated arrival of the F-35 fighter jets, the next generation of planes to be flown and maintained by the Air National Guard’s 104th Tactical Fighter Group, based at Barnes Municipal Airport. Other developments include early-stage talks about replacement of the now 50-year-old Westfield High School; emerging plans for revitalizing the area just off Turnpike exit 41 (formerly exit 3); new, affordable housing in the old City Hall; and creation of new athletic fields and a track-and-field stadium at the high school, a $11 million project that will be funded essentially through larger in-lieu-of-tax payments by the city’s municipal utility, Westfield Gas & Electric.

Amanda Waterfield

“This park has added a lot of convenient parking in the downtown. And I know many of the merchants and businesses downtown struggled with that a little bit because the on-street parking is limited.”

The G&E, as it’s known, is marking its 125th anniversary this year, a milestone it is celebrating in many ways, from a fireworks celebration at a recent Westfield Starfires baseball game to an event with retirees in May to a blood drive in cooperation with Baystate Noble Hospital, something that will become a monthly happening.

It’s also marking the occasion with continued growth of what has become an intriguing business success story — Whip City Fiber.

The high-speed internet division of the G&E, which was formed 10 years ago, now boasts more than 17,000 customers in more than 20 communities across Western Mass., with more being added to the portfolio, said Tom Flaherty, general manager of the G&E.

Indeed, West Springfield, East Longmeadow, and Southwick are in the later stages of development of their networks, which will be built out by the G&E, which serves as their internet service provider, he said, adding that the G&E’s track record for success has led to communities from the other end of the state, such as Falmouth and Bourne on Cape Cod, reaching out to tap into that expertise.

For this latest installment of our Community Spotlight series, we turn the lens on Westfield, where progress is taking center stage downtown and elsewhere — figuratively, but also quite literally.

A New Flavor to Downtown

McCabe, as most locals know, served in the Westfield Police Department for 36 years, rising to the rank of captain, before deciding to change gears and seek the corner office in 2021.

He told BusinessWest he enjoys being the city’s CEO and most aspects of the job, especially work to conceive projects and bring them to fruition.

The new Elm Street Plaza, which will host concerts and other events, is one of many new additions to the downtown Westfield landscape.

There have been several such projects in recent years, including the creation of Elm Street Plaza, which, as noted, brought a successful end to talk that began in 1985 about what to do with the rather large hole in the downtown created by the loss of Newberry’s.

Funded with ARPA money, created at a cost of $1.2 million, and officially opened last fall, the plaza is already paying dividends, said the mayor, noting that, in addition to bringing people downtown for various gatherings, the space has created much-needed off-street parking in an area that has seen several new businesses open over the past few years — businesses that need parking.

“Downtown seems to be coming back together again — it seems more vibrant than in the past,” said McCabe, noting the addition of several restaurants that have brought a new flavor to the area — actually, several of them.

“There’s a lot of young entrepreneurs, a lot of new-American entrepreneurs, a lot of women entrepreneurs who are really taking a chance to pursue their passions and their businesses downtown, and it’s been inspiring.”

“We have an incredible variety of international flavors, whether it’s Polish pierogies or Ukrainian crepes or kabobs,” he said. “You can get any flavor you want downtown.”

The growing list of eateries includes everything from Ray Ray’s Café on Main Street to Two Rivers Burrito on Elm Street; from Crave Café, specializing in crepes, which recently opened at the corner of Elm and School streets, to Circuit Coffee, on the other corner of Elm and School.

Another important addition to that portfolio, Tribeca Gastro Bar & Grill, an upscale tapas bar, is set to open soon (a specific date has not been set) on the ground floor of the historic Lambson’s Furniture building on Elm Street, directly across from the plaza.

“They’re crediting the plaza project with their decision to locate downtown,” said Miller, adding that entrepreneurial gambits like Tribeca are fueling a resurgence downtown, one that has been decades in the making.

“It’s been a slog, certainly, and we can’t take credit for what’s been happening,” he said of efforts to breathe new life into a downtown that, like most others in the region, has been forced to reinvent itself over the past few decades amid dramatic changes in the retail landscape.

Crave Café is one of many new restaurants that are, collectively, making downtown Westfield more of a destination.

“The small-business community has been much more creative over the course of the past six to eight years,” he went on. “There’s a lot of young entrepreneurs, a lot of new-American entrepreneurs, a lot of women entrepreneurs who are really taking a chance to pursue their passions and their businesses downtown, and it’s been inspiring.”

Miller said he expects the downtown to benefit greatly from another ongoing initiative — a bid to create a cultural district in that area.

“We’ve applied to the Mass. Cultural Council for the designation of a cultural district on Elm Street, which we hope will provide us with a collaborative that will help to better market the downtown,” he explained, noting that the city had a business-improvement district doing some of this work, but it disbanded several years ago.

“We’ve seen these districts be successful in places like Easthampton, Great Barrington, and communities as small as Cummington, and we’re hopeful that putting together a group that’s focused exclusively on the downtown will help us to better market what we have here.”

Elaborating, Miller said this was the first time the city and its leadership have felt comfortable applying for creation of a cultural district, and the decision was sparked by the work of several nonprofit groups, including ArtWorks Westfield, formed five years ago, which has committed to an eight-week, Friday-night concert series in the new plaza, among other initiatives, including several art-walk events.

A New Gig

It was a desire to be part of this resurgence that prompted Waterfield to put aside work in print journalism — she was the owner and publisher of West Springfield Lifestyle magazine — and pursue the job as director of the Greater Westfield Chamber, which also represents Southwick and the hilltowns to the west of the city.

“It was a position that checked a lot of boxes for me,” she explained. “I’ve been a long-time Westfield resident, I love communications, I love community development, I’ve been an engaged member of the Kiwanis Club here, so I have a lot of interests here and decided to make the switch. And I’m very happy that I did.”

Westfield at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1669
Population: 40,834
Area: 47.4 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $15.97
Commercial Tax Rate: $31.39
Median Household Income: $45,240
Median Family Income: $55,327
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Westfield State University, Baystate Noble Hospital, Mestek Inc., Savage Arms Inc., Advance Manufacturing Co.
* Latest information available

Since arriving, she’s been focused on building membership (she’s increased that number to roughly 235), meeting each member (she figures she’s about halfway there), developing a new strategic plan, and putting in place an ambassador program to help members, especially the newer ones, make the most of their membership.

Overall, she sees renewed vibrancy downtown, momentum that’s measured in various ways — from the steady number of ribbon cuttings for new businesses to the growing roster of events in the new plaza downtown.

“I love those ribbon cuttings because, to me, that shows an investment in our community,” she said, adding that the growing number of such ceremonies shows that more are willing to make that investment and thus become part of an ongoing story of revitalization.

The G&E has long been part of that story, providing comparatively lower-cost energy and, more recently, reliable, gigabit internet service to a growing mix of residential and commercial customers.

“We’ve seen these districts be successful in places like Easthampton, Great Barrington, and communities as small as Cummington, and we’re hopeful that putting together a group that’s focused exclusively on the downtown will help us to better market what we have here.”

As the utility marks 125 years, the emergence of Whip City Fiber has become one of the utility’s better success stories. As noted, it began 10 years ago with service to the Route 20 corridor in Westfield. Today, the business has expanded to communities near the Quabbin to the east and to the hilltowns and well beyond to the north and west.

“Whip City Fiber has diversified the Gas & Electric to not just be focused on natural gas and electricity with essentially zero growth other than potentially a handful of residential customers each year and a few new commercial customers,” Flaherty explained, adding that it has become a solid business that continues to grow each year.

The success of the venture can be attributed to manner in which the G&E becomes full partners with the communities it serves, he added, providing turnkey operations.

“We’re the network operator, which means we handle soup to nuts, everything involved with their network, from billing customer service to tech customer service,” he said. “We don’t touch their money; it goes right into the town’s account, but we physically do all of the management of their department for them.”

He noted that there is considerable competition, not just from the major players such as Comcast and Verizon Fios, but also from other municipal utilities, including those in Chicopee and South Hadley. The G&E’s main competitive advantages are size and proven capabilities, he went on.

“We’ve built out 20 communities outside of Westfield, so we know the process; we know what that takes,” he told BusinessWest, adding that this track record for success has helped bring on new partnering communities, including Southwick and East Longmeadow.

Bottom Line

Getting back to east-west rail, McCabe acknowledged that the city is somewhat late to this party, but hopefully not too late.

If he can manage to gain the ear of the state and make Westfield a stop on that line, that would bring another dose of momentum to a community that is seeing large amounts of it — on many different fronts.

MassHire Career Center Responds to Changing Landscape

Employment Special Coverage

Hire Expectations

Kevin Lynn, executive director of the MassHire Springfield Career Center.

It was the spring of 2022, and Kevin Lynn was starting to think the job fairs conducted three times a year at the Basketball Hall of Fame by MassHire Springfield Career Center — which he serves as executive director — had run their course.

Attendance among job seekers, which had been running at roughly 300 pre-pandemic, had dropped to maybe 100, even though employers across the region and in virtually all sectors of the economy were seeking help — many of them desperately.

As for the job seekers themselves … the very generous unemployment benefits awarded at the height of the pandemic, when millions of jobs disappeared almost overnight, were all but gone. Yet, many people were still sitting on the sidelines, not at all anxious to enter the workforce.
“I didn’t know what was going on — nothing made any sense, really,” said Lynn, who has spent more than 20 years with the entity now known as MassHire Springfield Career Center, 10 as its director. People were still hunkered down, and people like me were asking, ‘how can these individuals not afford to work?’”

While waiting for an answer to that question — one that never really came — two things happened. The first is that the picture started righting itself with regard to people getting back to work. The second is that MassHire Springfield, in Lynn’s words, “started acting more like a business.”

By that, he meant the agency started to more aggressively market itself and its services, especially through digital platforms.

“We had to get our name in front of people and remind them of exactly what we do and how we do it,” he recalled. “Also, we had to pull in what I’ll call a new generation because we’d been on pause for the better part of four years. That natural flow that we had established since 1997 had been disrupted, so we needed to prime that pump again with our core constituency.”

Those efforts have succeeded in bringing the customer base back to pre-pandemic levels, as we’ll see. And roughly two years after he was thinking about retiring the job fairs, attendance is pretty much back to where it was pre-pandemic, said Lynn, adding that the program will actually be expanded this year from three fairs to four, with the fourth likely to take place at the agency’s facility on Liberty Street in Springfield.

“We had to pull in what I’ll call a new generation because we’d been on pause for the better part of four years. That natural flow that we had established since 1997 had been disrupted, so we needed to prime that pump again with our core constituency.”

“We think we need a fourth because of the demand,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

As for the job market itself … Lynn said things have not exactly returned to normal — whatever that is — although he is seeing an overall softening of the job market, with many challenges remaining for those needing skills, older workers (over age 55), and other constituencies.

Most employers are still struggling to find good help, he said, adding quickly that, while some are willing to train and shape candidates who may not have the full package, others are holding out for the “fully formed” applicant, and sometimes losing out in the process.

Meanwhile, on the wage front, many employers are still not fully embracing the need to move the needle higher. Instead, they’re focusing on what they think they can afford, and not the proverbial big picture — meaning what they spend to hire, and then to hire again when someone brought in at a comparatively lower wage leaves after a few months, or a few weeks, because he or she can secure a dollar or two more an hour elsewhere (more on this later).

These are just some of the observations made by Lynn as he talked about his agency, the job market, and what could, and likely will, come next.

The Job at Hand

“Blocking and tackling.”

That’s what Lynn said MassHire Springfield is back to focusing on these days after what can only be called a turbulent period that includes the pandemic and its aftermath.

By blocking and tackling, he means work with both employers and job seekers to put people in jobs. Such work with job seekers includes training available through the agency’s upskilling program, workshops on everything from handling tough interview questions to helping mature workers prepare for today’s job-search process, job fairs, connecting individuals with resources, and much more.

Kevin Lynn says the job fairs conducted in partnership with Audacy Springfield and the Basketball Hall of Fame are back to pre-pandemic numbers.

As for the pandemic and its aftermath, this was a difficult, stressful time, when the agency’s mission — connecting job seekers with employers and helping those job seekers garner the skills needed to not only land jobs, but secure careers — didn’t really change. But the overall need for it did — sort of.

“COVID killed our customer base,” he said matter-of-factly. “Customers weren’t coming in, and they weren’t even using us virtually.”

Quantifying the matter, he noted that, in fiscal 2019, prior to COVID, the agency served roughly 11,500 people over the course of the year. For fiscal 2020, which included the first several months of the pandemic, the number fell to 8,500. And for fiscal 2021, a full and very traumatic year of COVID, the number of customers tumbled to 4,300, roughly a third of the pre-pandemic total.

Why? There were several reasons, Lynn recalled. First, many were content to collect those generous unemployment benefits and not enter, or re-enter, the workforce, he said, adding that, during those times, people not actively seeking employment could receive unemployment benefits, something that wouldn’t happen in more ‘normal’ times. Meanwhile, many of those who had jobs were content to stay put given the large amounts of uncertainty that accompanied that environment — and a desire to work remotely.

“It was the devil you knew versus the one that you didn’t know,” he recalled. “Also, people were desperate to get working-at-home arrangements set up; everyone wanted to be remote. And if you were in a remote situation, and it was solid, you weren’t going to risk that by going to a new employer.”

Meanwhile, with the pandemic came the loss of day-care services for many, he went on, adding that some people had no choice but to quit their jobs — or not seek a job or a better job — so they could be home with their children. It was the same for many of those caring for elderly parents.

“A large section of the labor market just literally pulled back and chose not to work,” he said. “And that impacted us greatly.”

Indeed, the phone started ringing at a much slower pace, and there was a considerably quieter atmosphere at the career center, Lynn recalled, adding that, by the end of 2022, as the number of customers served rose slightly to more than 5,000 (still less than half the pre-pandemic totals), the agency responded by being proactive.

It launched a six-month advertising campaign, much of it digitally with Audacy Springfield (the agency’s partner on the job fairs), designed to raise awareness of the agency, its services, and those fairs.

“A large section of the labor market just literally pulled back and chose not to work. And that impacted us greatly.”

And for fiscal year 2023, the customer base jumped to more than 9,300, a 56% increase, he went on, adding that this was a byproduct of both those aggressive efforts to prime the pump and what he considers a softening of what had been a very attractive market for job seekers, with employers struggling to replace retiring Baby Boomers and simply handle the turnover that was impacting almost every sector.

Searching … for Answers

As Lynn explained, “if you have skills, you’re in a good spot in terms of being able to find job opportunities and get offers. But the job market has softened over the past few months; it’s not as strong as it was prior to this.”

Elaborating, he said the market remains challenging for many subgroups within the workforce and those looking to join it, including older workers, many of whom have skills but struggle to find employers willing to recognize and pay for them.

“They continue to have problems breaking through and getting jobs simply because of their age,” he told BusinessWest. “We see it all the time; you look at people, and they have a solid résumé, and you think, ‘this person is at least worth a conversation.’”

But often, they aren’t part of the conversation.

“Maybe the person isn’t right for the organization; I get all that,” Lynn went on. “But when you have people who have come to us, and they’re working very diligently and a lot of times working with our job developers even, and they’re trying to find work … it can be a tremendous struggle to come out on the other end.”

For those older workers who do come out on the other end with a job, their search will have been much longer than for those who are younger, as many employers are hesitant to look past someone’s date of birth and instead focus on what they might be able to bring to an organization.

Overall, and as noted earlier, Lynn said many employers are still looking for the full package, the “fully formed” applicant, as he called it, when hiring.

“They’ll vocalize that they’re not,” he said, noting that many will say or hint that they are willing to train. “But that’s not the case. They’re holding out for the fully formed applicant, and that’s a problem for the job seekers.”

Another problem is what he referred to as “ghost postings,” which are, well … what that phrase indicates they are: postings that aren’t exactly real.

“They may not have the opening, but they’re posting the job on the anticipation that they may have an opening,” he explained, adding that such phantom postings are prompting him to question the actual level of demand in certain fields and for certain jobs. Meanwhile, they are bringing new forms of stress to job seekers, who are investing time, energy, and emotion in pursuit of a job that may or may not exist.

Meanwhile, for those pursuing work, or a better job, the bigger challenge may not be finding a job, but finding one they can live on.

“It takes more diligence to find the right job,” he said. “Anyone can find a job; the issue is finding a job with a living wage — pay and benefits that you can live on. We see companies that post jobs that do not pay a living wage.

“My staff has conversations with employers on this topic; they’ll say, ‘we can post this job for you, but at the wage you are offering, you are not going to get any applicants,’” he noted. “If you’re at $17 or below, you’re going to have a tough time — a very tough time.”

He said most employers fully understand that a lower wage number shrinks the applicant pool. What they may not fully appreciate is that, even if they do hire someone, that lower wage serves to further increase turnover, bringing costs that will likely exceed a higher wage.

As for those job fairs, they certainly provide a window into what’s happening with the job market, he said, noting that the one in May drew more than 300 job seekers and 54 companies, a growing number of which were represented not by recruiters, but by decision makers — even the CEO.

Such was the case with Conval Inc., a Connecticut-based valve manufacturer. The president of the company was behind the table at the job fair and managed to not only talk with an applicant for a machinist’s position, but hire him on the spot.

“That made his night because he can’t find machinists anywhere,” said Lynn, adding that, while such on-the-spot hirings are quite rare, the goal of these fairs is for employers and job seekers alike to make connections, and these are, indeed, happening.

In short, the clock hasn’t been turned all the way back to 2019, but it’s looking and feeling more like those times.

Recent Nursing Graduates Look Forward to New Challenges

Healthcare News Special Coverage

Achieving the Dream

Clockwise from top left: Kristen Racine Melendez, Faith Ackerman, Roxana Toledo, and Abby Candee.

For every individual who enters the nursing field, there’s a story. Sometimes, several stories.

They involve everything from the people and circumstances that inspired them to choose this profession to the challenges that had to be overcome on the way to earning their degree and then starting their first shift; from how the dream of becoming a nurse is often deferred, for any of myriad reasons, to how those dreams were kept alive and eventually fulfilled.

These storylines, and many others, are captured in the profiles of four recent nursing graduates presented in what is now our annual salute to nurses.

The profiles below, both intriguing and inspirational, involve women who got into nursing somewhat later in life, after experiencing other professions — everything from the military to paramedic work — and raising children.

Their stories are all different, but there are some common denominators, especially the ability to overcome challenges and make the dream of becoming a nurse reality — at a time when an influx of young nursing talent is more needed than ever.

Read Their Stories:

Kristen Racine-Melendez

Faith Ackerman

Abby Candee

Roxana Toledo

Kristen Racine-Melendez

Her Son’s Strength in Battling Cancer Has Helped Her Persevere

Kristen Racine-Melendez

As she talked with BusinessWest on a Tuesday morning late last month, Kristen Racine-Melendez was on the road, heading to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

She had her GPS on because she was taking a different route this time, hoping to cut the travel time by a few minutes. She knows the regular route by heart, having made it dozens of times since her son, Chase, was diagnosed with leukemia on Aug. 12 last year.

That’s a date, and a discussion, that Racine-Melendez won’t ever forget. And it came just a few weeks before she was due to start her second year in the nursing program at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC). She thought about putting her studies on hold and devoting all of her time, energy, and emotion to Chase, but with some words of encouragement from her husband, Carlos Melendez, she decided to press on.

“Once we got of the ICU and started to get more answers about what was going on with Chase, my husband and I sat down and talked about it,” she recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I should take this year off.’ And he told me, ‘no … you need to stay in now, more than ever. This is for our son now.’”

It goes without saying that her second year of nursing school — a challenge under any circumstances — become exponentially more difficult as she confronted a situation that no parent wants to face.

“Once we got of the ICU and started to get more answers about what was going on with Chase, my husband and I sat down and talked about it. I said, ‘I don’t know if I should take this year off.’ And he told me, ‘no … you need to stay in now, more than ever. This is for our son now.”

But she persevered, graduated in May, and is preparing to start work in the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center, a setting she knows well because she spent seven years as a tech there before deciding to fulfill a long-held dream and follow her grandmother and aunt into the nursing field.

She told BusinessWest that she was able to make it to the commencement ceremonies because of the support she received from Carlos, but also from faculty and other students at STCC. But mostly, she persevered because of the inspiration provided by Chase as he battled leukemia with strength that astounded all those involved in his care and treatment.

“He amazes me every single day,” she said. “He always has a smile on his face; he’ll throw up one second, and the next second, he’ll say, ‘mom, I want to do this, I want to eat this.’ He gives me my strength.”

And while the past 10 months have been extraordinarily difficult, they have also provided learning experiences on many different levels, said Racine-Melendez, adding that these have made her stronger and, by her calculations, better able to handle all that will confront her as an emergency-room nurse.

Kristen Racine-Melendez holds her son, Chase, in a family photo with her husband, Carlos Melendez, and daughter, Kira.

Flashing back to last summer, Racine-Melendez said Chase, 4 at the time, started experiencing some problems. She eventually took him the ER, where a series of tests were undertaken to determine just what was wrong.

“They told me his bone narrow wasn’t working properly, and right from there I knew, and my heart just sank,” she recalled. ‘It was a very unexpected outcome; I didn’t really expect them to come out and say he had cancer.”

Chase’s diagnosis and subsequent treatment added several layers of challenge to her plans to enter the nursing field, the latest chapter in a career that saw her go from a seven-year stint with the National Guard to an equally lengthy run as a tech at Mercy.

Looking back on this past year, she said she powered through, caring not only for Chase but his twin sister, Kira, and persevered with the support of many others, starting with her husband. But the faculty and fellow students were also very supportive, she said.

“I decided to stay in and give it a try, and we made it work,” she said, adding that, following classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, she would travel to Boston Children’s Hospital, where Chase was admitted for two months, to relieve Carlos, who was with him the other days of the week.

“I feel like I was just in survival mode; I had my moments where I was knocked down, but I’d just get up and keep going,” she said of her last two semesters at STCC. “I got through it … somehow.”

She said Chase, who is in remission and receives evaluations and treatment at Dana-Farber three Tuesdays a month, is doing well.

“This week was a really good week,” she said. “His numbers were up; he was able to run and around and be a kid. It was nice to see him actually enjoy a little bit of childhood.”

As for Racine-Melendez, she said she’s doing well, too, looking forward to starting at Mercy, and also looking forward to putting the learning experiences of the past two years — all of them — to work.

“I feel like I was just in survival mode; I had my moments where I was knocked down, but I’d just get up and keep going.”

Indeed, she said caring for Chase gave her experience that went beyond what she encountered in the classroom and even her clinical rotations. Meanwhile, she learned first-hand what it’s like to be a parent getting devastating news about a child’s cancer diagnosis — and then experienced everything that comes after that diagnosis.

“I think this will help me; I can empathize with my patients and understand the aspect of the other side — what the parents are going through,” she explained. “I definitely would have preferred not to go through this, but I believe that everything happens for a reason. Everything I’m going through is just making me a stronger mother, a stronger person, and a stronger nurse.”

Inspired by Her Grandmother, She’s Found Her Calling

Faith Ackerman

Faith Ackerman says her grandmother, Jean Ackerman, who worked as a psychiatric nurse well into her 70s and only stopped because she fell and broke her wrist, long encouraged her to enter that rewarding profession.

But until recently, she “just wasn’t ready” to start down that path, she told BusinessWest, noting that, instead, she first went into the military (more on that eye-opening experience later) and then worked as a technician in a few area veterinary hospitals in efforts to perhaps find what she wanted to do with her life.

Ackerman was helped in that decision, and ultimately became ready to follow her grandmother into nursing, when she became involved in her grandmother’s care as she battled everything from diabetes to an attack of shingles, with Ackerman becoming somewhat frustrated by the decisions made by some of the doctors.

“I stepped in and helped my grandmother as much as humanly possible and took care of her,” she recalled, noting that she became sick during COVID, needed home care, and died in the fall of 2020.

Inspired by these experiences, and also by her grandmother’s career, Ackerman enrolled in Holyoke Community College’s LPN (licensed practical nurse) program, worked as an LPN in hospice care, and recently completed her RN program at HCC.

“There was something that bothered me about having guns and being in dangerous areas and being sort of locked and loaded all the time. I was very sensitive to that, and I felt that my calling was elsewhere.”

In her last clinical rotation, she worked in a surgical trauma unit at Baystate Medical Center and “fell in love” with that type of nursing.

“It’s so hands-on, and these people are so beyond ill that they can’t even life-function,” she explained, noting that patients in this unit are the victims of car crashes, shootings, stabbings, and other traumatic incidents. “They’re very, very, very sick people.”

In many respects, Ackerman’s story reflects those of many people getting into nursing today.

Indeed, some are finding the profession after careers, or at least jobs, in other fields. And many have found inspiration from others in their lives — and from a genuine desire to help those in need.

Meanwhile, her story is indicative of how, sometimes, it takes years, maybe a decade or two, to find one’s true calling.

Ackerman wasn’t exactly expecting the military to be her calling, but her father and grandfather served, and there was a desire to follow suit. Meanwhile, in high school, she suffered from a lack of direction in her life, a rather large chip on her shoulder, and a shortage of money for college.

“I decided to join the military and thought that maybe I could straighten my life out a little bit,” she recalled, adding that she enlisted in the Army and served for 10 years in the Military Police.

Faith Ackerman says her experiences caring for her grandmother, who died in 2020, helped make her ready to pursue a career in nursing.

This was a learning experience on many levels.

“It wasn’t what I thought, and policing has changed. It was a difficult job, and I went to a couple of countries that were very poor, and it was very depressing and devastating,” she said, adding that a tour of duty in Panama was particularly disheartening.

“It was more that I didn’t like guns anymore,” she went on. “There was something that bothered me about having guns and being in dangerous areas and being sort of locked and loaded all the time. I was very sensitive to that, and I felt that my calling was elsewhere, especially when I was in Panama, where the children were sick, very poor, and there was no healthcare.”

After leaving the military, she found work as a tech in a few different veterinary clinics. She enjoyed that work and thought it might become a career. But then, as noted earlier, her grandmother became sick. And as Ackerman stepped in to help, her career aspirations changed again.

She thought she would make home care the focus of her career in nursing, until that last clinical rotation while completing the RN program at HCC, which opened her eyes to a different kind of care.

“I felt that this was my calling,” she told BusinessWest. “I loved home care, but I really loved taking care of very sick people, just like I loved taking care of very sick animals in the veterinary field.

“I like people and animals to feel safe, and I want them to feel cared for,” she went on. “I have a very genuinely caring heart, so I’m able to keep people calm and feeling that they can trust me. And I know how vulnerable the patients are, so it’s really important for me to build trust with them so I can care for them.

Elaborating, she said many of the patients in the surgical trauma unit, an ICU step-down unit, are on ventilators. Many have had major surgery or have multiple broken bones.

“They’re very task-oriented patients, and there’s a staffing ratio — one nurse to three patients — that I feel very comfortable with,” she noted. “And I’m also able to work with the families of the patients; a lot of them are very involved in the patient care because these patients are so sick, and I like that aspect of this work as well.”

She’s expecting to start at Baystate in July and is very anxious to launch this next chapter in a career that has taken her to many different work environments.

If there is a common denominator to her work to date, it is compassion and a desire to help those in need.

That’s especially true of that time during COVID when she was providing home care to her grandmother.

It was a time of challenge, but also a time of learning, as much as any she spent in the classroom or clinic. And a time to become ready to follow her grandmother into the nursing field.

Abby Candee

She’s Taken a Winding Road to the Nursing Profession

Abby Candee

“Heavy.”

That was the one-word answer provided by Abby Candee when she was asked to describe her work as a paramedic in Springfield and also with the Longmeadow Fire Department.

“Really, really heavy,” she went on, adding the twin adverbs for emphasis before elaborating.

“It was too heavy — it was starting to affect me personally,” she told BusinessWest, noting that she handled more than her fair share of shootings, stabbings, cases of abuse, and more. “I had a lot of calls that have personally affected me and deeply affected my colleagues as well. Some of them are things that I still have to work through.”

These experiences riding the ambulance helped influence Candee’s decision to make a career change and get into nursing, by enrolling in the accelerated BS nursing program at UMass Amherst. She graduated in December and started a much different chapter, in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Baystate Health, in March.

“Prior to going into nursing, I was both a paramedic and a firefighter,” she said. “While I loved what I did, I wanted the opportunity to practice more medicine and have more than a transient connection with my patients. In EMS, I saw people at their worst, never knew what happened to them after I dropped them off at the ED, and never had the power to advocate for them to get preventive care so that they wouldn’t end up in those situations in the first place. As a nurse, I can advocate for the gaps in care that I see.

“I also really like the complexity of my patient population,” she continued. “Pretty much every patient I work with … they’re all puzzles. Everyone has some pretty complex medical needs, and my brain is always working.”

Candee has taken a winding road to the nursing profession. She started her career in healthcare as an EMT, which was a means to pay her way through college.

“I was pre-med, and I needed a way to get patient-care experience,” she noted, adding that she took the EMT licensure course the summer after her freshman year in college and found a job working overnights in downtown Springfield.

“I also really like the complexity of my patient population. Pretty much every patient I work with … they’re all puzzles. Everyone has some pretty complex medical needs, and my brain is always working.”

Much of her early work in EMS fell into the ‘transit’ category, she explained, adding that she would discharge patients back home or take psychiatric patients from the ER to other treatment settings, for example. Overall, it was far less stressful than the paramedic work that would come later.

“I got to meet people from every walk of life, people I would never have interacted with previously,” she said. “And I also met a lot of nurses; I interfaced with them a lot because they were the ones I was getting reports from.”

Through this interfacing, she started thinking about joining the nursing ranks.

“From spending that time on EMS, I thought, ‘you know, I kind of like what nurses do more than what doctors do,’” she recalled. “My initial vision of what healthcare was leaned more toward the nurse’s role — I just hadn’t realized it. I wanted to be more bedside than I did making the decisions and supervising. I liked being the boots on the ground.”

But as she was acknowledging this, she was also of the opinion that she needed more “life experience and maturity” before embarking on nursing school. So she enrolled in paramedics training and then commenced that phase of her career.

Abby Candee with her good friend, Jamie Allen, one of the people who inspired her to go into nursing.

As she noted earlier, some of the calls she handled as a paramedic affected her personally — and they’re still affecting her years later.

“There are places in various towns that I avoid driving by, and there are people who I still think about and wonder what happened to them because … you don’t know,” she explained. “Maybe you find out by word of mouth, and sometimes you get a good follow-up from the hospital, but most of the times you don’t know. And it’s a very difficult thing not to have closure.”

In the Cardiac ICU, closure is much easier to come by. “Especially when we’re dealing with something like death, we’re usually the last stop for someone — so we’re the ones who get closure,” she said, and this is just one of many things she likes about the unit.

She arrived there quickly; the accelerated BS in nursing program at UMass Amherst takes the traditional four-year nursing program and allows students to earn their degree in just 16 months.

The Cardiac ICU was the setting Candee desired as she worked her way through the program, and she has been rewarded with not just a job, but the day shift — although she’s worked nights most of her career and would have been fine with that, too.

“I lucked out,” she said, referring not just to the hours, but to the broad scope of the work.

Those assigned to the Cardiac ICU handle both medical and surgical patients, she said, meaning those who have suffered heart attacks or end-stage heart failure, and also those recovering from bypass surgery, heart-valve procedures, or any other kind of open-heart surgery.

And there are many rewards from working in this setting.

“I like seeing people’s successes — that’s something I get to see a lot of, especially on the surgical side,” Candee explained. “These people come in for their surgery, they come out of the OR, we get them extubated, we get them up in a chair, and we are their cheerleaders through being able to get up and walk, through learning what meds they have to take, being able to get them home and through recovery. I love being that cheerleader, being that educator — it’s a role I haven’t been able to take on before in the past, but it’s a role I really like.”

She also loves being part of the team in the Cardiac ICU.

“I work with incredible, wonderful people,” she said. “And I would not be the nurse that I am right now without the nurses and techs I work with here.”

Roxana Toledo

She Never Let Go of Her Nursing Dream

Roxana Toledo

Roxana Toledo says she always wanted to be a nurse.

But when she became a mother at 19, she knew she had to put that dream on hold for a while.

She probably wasn’t thinking that a while would turn out to be 20 years, but that became the reality. Over those two decades, she raised a family, found a career in healthcare — including the past several years as an emergency room tech at Mercy Medical Center — and, most importantly, she never, ever let go of the nursing dream.

Indeed, she enrolled in the nursing program at Elms College in Chicopee and graduated in May. She is still in Mercy’s ER, but now as a nurse, a job with different responsibilities — and somewhat different rewards.

And one that … well, was worth that 20-year wait.

“I love it … it’s what I always wanted to do,” Toledo said, referring not only to the role of a nurse, but the ER setting itself. “I like helping people; this work gives you a sense that you’re doing something good.”

As for that setting, it is one that she has always found intriguing, one with many different kinds of challenges and opportunities to provide both care and comfort.

“You see different things every day, you learn new things every day, and that’s what I like about it,” she said. “I could be a pedi nurse one day and an OB nurse another day; it’s all different kinds of nursing in one place.”

Toledo joked that she wasn’t the oldest nursing graduate in the Elms College class of 2024. In fact, a few were her senior.

“We try to take away that sense of panic so that they can hear what we’re saying.”

Those stats help show that nursing is a field that some are finding later in life, after trying some other professions. Or after finding some inspiration from somewhere or someone or some experience. Or after life, as it usually does, has offered up some challenges and obstacles.

In most cases, the aspiration, the dream, to be a nurse was always there. But pursuit of that dream couldn’t happen until the time was right.

So it was with Toledo, who told BusinessWest that the rigors, and expense, of nursing school were not something she could take on while raising three young children.

But she was always passionate about healthcare and serving others, and has worked in the field since she was 19, mostly as a medical assistant, including lengthy stints at clinics within the Baystate Health umbrella.

“I had all three of my kids by the time I was 24, and I wanted to focus on them first,” she told BusinessWest. “And then, I decided that, when I got older, I would realize my goal, which was to be a nurse, and go back to school.”

Roxana Toledo says the team at the Mercy Emergency Department is like a family.

Nursing school was certainly a balancing act involving her studies, her night-shift work at Mercy, and being there for children, who were now in high school and college.

“There was a lot of running around, to be sure,” she recalled. “My youngest played volleyball, and my oldest was in college.”

Toledo persevered and started as a grad nurse in the Mercy ER in January, continuing her training since then and taking on a new role and new responsibilities in a setting she knows well.

As she talked about it, she said the ER is like most settings in healthcare — where teamwork is critical and members of the team have each others’ backs. But it is somewhat unique in that every day really is different, and those providing care to patients and their families are caring for them in a setting that can be intimidating — even, to use her word, “scary.”

“We try to take away that sense of panic so that they can hear what we’re saying,” she explained, referring to both patients and their families, who are coping with perhaps the worst day of their lives, or at least one of them.

As for the families of patients, they are certainly a critical part of the equation, she added.

“You’re there to care for their loved ones and provide them with that sense of safety,” she explained. “You’re there to help them also, not just the patient; you’re there to help them understand what’s going on with their loved one and give them that sense that we’re doing everything we can.”

Speaking of family, that’s a word Toledo used in a different context — to describe the large team that works there, how they work together, and, most importantly, how they support one another to provide high-quality care.

“In the ER, we’re kind of like a family — we’re always helping each other out,” she explained. “Without each other, it doesn’t work. I’ve been there for a long time, so they know me, and they always have my back. And it’s very helpful, as a new nurse, for them to have my back.

“I can ask them anything — I feel comfortable going to anyone,” she went on, “because they’re like family.”

East Longmeadow Is Building Momentum

By George O'Brien June 21, 2024

The new ownership group at Shaker Bowl (from left, Paul Thompson, Brendan Greeley, Amy Greeley, Marc Murphy, General Manager Justin Godfrey, Adam Oliveri, Kim Oliveri, Jordan Healy, and Andrew Robb) is making changes to make the facility even more family-friendly.

Gordon Smith became superintendent of schools in East Longmeadow in 2010.

Not long after, the ‘journey,’ as he called it, to build a replacement for the high school built in 1960 began.

It’s a been a long, difficult, often frustrating road, said Smith, who summed up the early years of the long fight and approval process by saying, “we would get close, but we were never invited in.”

Finally, the last of myriad hurdles — a vote of town residents to approve the $180 million school project and another $19 million for the accompanying natatorium — was cleared last November, and Smith’s already busy schedule became even more so, but in a fulfilling, even exhilarating way.

Indeed, he’s part of the building committee that has been finalizing plans for the school, and as he talked with BusinessWest, he was working with the construction company Fontaine Bros. and other parties on plans for the ceremonial start of preparation of the ground for construction of the new high school (that took place on June 17).

While doing all that, Smith has been reflecting on how the project will impact this town of roughly 16,500, starting with a likely rise in that number because of what a new high school means to a community that has all the other ingredients for growth — land; a strong, diverse business community; vibrant neighborhoods; and high quality of life.

“It’s exciting to really shape the future for a number of years,” he said. “This moves the community as a whole forward, and we’ll have a building that’s current in terms of how it not only engages students, but how it engages the community.”

The long-awaited start of work on the new high school is one of many developing stories in East Longmeadow. Plans to construct a large warehouse on the former Package Machinery complex on Shaker Road have been turned down by the Planning Board and are now in litigation. Meanwhile, town leaders are in early-stage work to address concerns about affordable housing stock in the community.

Town Manager Tom Christensen said town leaders are exploring creation of a Center Town District featuring mixed-use development including housing options, such as apartments or townhouses, that would enable more people to come to East Longmeadow, or continue living there, at a time when most new homes being built there come with price tags approaching $1 million.

“This is a desirable community, but most of the housing stock is detached single-family,” Christensen explained. “With the new high school, and thinking about the cost of living, we’re trying to see if an affordable-housing component makes sense in the downtown area, with some kind of density housing.”

Timm Marini, seen here with staff members during a recent employee-appreciation day at HUB, says East Longmeadow has always been desirable, and a new high school will make it even more so.

Several new businesses have opened in the community as well, including a Chase Bank branch in the center of town; a lingerie, bra-fitting, and swimsuit store called Gazebo Too; and Raspberry Records.

There are also new owners (a large group, in fact) of one the town’s older and perhaps better- known institutions, Shaker Bowl, located, as that name suggests, on Shaker Road.

Brendan Greeley, one of those new owners, said the group saw an opportunity to not only continue a more than 60-year-old tradition, but make some needed improvements and additions to make the facility even more family-friendly and more of a destination.

“We came at it like entrepreneurs; we wanted to make the facility better and more accommodating for families and more accommodating for businesses to come in and have their corporate events.”

“We came at it like entrepreneurs; we wanted to make the facility better and more accommodating for families and more accommodating for businesses to come in and have their corporate events,” he said, adding that improvements have included renovations to the party room, new lighting, new bowling software that allows young people to knock down a castle instead of pins, and more. “For kids coming in for a party, there are a lot more options now.”

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on East Longmeadow, where many forms of progress and momentum are evident.

Classroom for Improvement

As he talked about the high-school project and all that goes into it, Smith said this is more than a generational undertaking. We’re talking about several generations.

“The goal is for this building to last equally as long as the last one,” he said, adding that the facility will be state-of-the-art in every way, especially with regard to technology.

“We think it’s going to be a building that firmly puts East Longmeadow into the 21st century,” he told BusinessWest. “This will be a building that students can come into and use the most current technology available — classrooms designed for how the 21st century student learns, a setting that’s much more interactive. It’s not about a teacher standing in the front of the room and presenting all day; it’s a setting that’s much more conducive to hands-on learning, no matter what the subject matter might be.

“And from a safety standpoint, we won’t have to worry about leaking roofs and power outages and things of that nature,” he went on, adding that there have been many of both during this long fight for a new school.

Plans call for the new school to open its doors for the start of the 2026-27 school year, said Smith, who, like others we spoke with, said the impact of the new facility should be felt long before that.

Indeed, in many respects, a modern high school has been the one ingredient missing from a community that has a lot of other things going for it, including land on which to build new homes and businesses and a large commercial base that has helped keep residential tax rates lower than in surrounding communities like Longmeadow and Wilbraham.

“With that investment in a new high school, I think you’re going to see more families moving into town,” said Timm Marini, president of Personal Lines Insurance at HUB International New England, which has an office on Shaker Road near the center of town. “The new schools really draw people — young people — which is what we need.

“We’ve seen several other area communities make investments in new high schools,” he said, listing Longmeadow, Wilbraham, West Springfield, and others. “East Longmeadow is a little behind the times in that respect, but now, town residents are putting their money where their mouth is, and it will benefit the community.”

Christensen, who grew up in town, returned to it several years ago, and then took an intriguing route to his current post — moving from deputy director of the Department of Public Works to deputy town manager to town manager — noted that the strong vote in favor of the debt exclusion (nearly 70%) spoke volumes about the need for the project and its importance to the community.

“The ‘yes’ votes were an indication that this could really jump-start our community,” he said, adding that while the town has recorded both residential and commercial growth over the past few decades, there is certainly room for more.

Indeed, there are two subdivisions (one with 23 lots, the other with 15) now in development, and there is ample land for more, he said.

But there are other needs in the community, he went on, noting that, like many communities in this region, there is a growing need for housing options, especially inventory that would fall into the ‘affordable’ category.

This need has led to ongoing efforts to create that aforementioned Center Town District, a mixed-use development with an affordable-housing component.

Christensen said the goal will be to create this district in the downtown area — not the surrounding residential neighborhoods — on commercially zoned property and parcels in need of redevelopment.

“We have some people in town who may not be able to afford to stay in their home, but want to stay in town, so it’s incumbent on us to provide an option,” he explained, adding that town leaders have engaged the public in the process, asking them what they want and don’t want from such an initiative.

Enthusiasm to Spare

Greeley told BusinessWest that, while he didn’t grow up in East Longmeadow, he spent plenty of time at the bowling alley on Shaker Road.

“I remember Thanksgiving and Easter … my family would get together, and we would always go bowling,” he said, adding that he has many fond memories from what can only be called a landmark.

And it is a desire to create memories for some new generations of area residents that prompted a group of investors (including Greeley’s wife, Amy) to acquire the bowling alley when it came on the market roughly a year ago.

Tom Christensen says a desire for housing options in the community has inspired efforts to create a Town Center District with an affordable-housing option.

Retelling the story, Greeley said he and Adam Oliveri, a close friend and over-30 hockey teammate, were looking for businesses to buy and, while driving by Shaker Bowl one day, brought it to the top of their list of prospectives. The owner wasn’t interested in selling, however, so they started looking in other directions, only to return to their original target when it eventually came on the market in early 2023.

They added partners to the group and closed that summer. Since then, they’ve been making improvements aimed at taking advantage of steady — and, by most estimates, growing — interest in bowling, while also making the facility a destination for all kinds of functions.

From September through April, leagues bowl there every day of the week, he explained, adding that league bowlers don’t take all 28 lanes, but they do provide a strong, steady source of revenue. Meanwhile, beyond the leagues, interest is strong among all age groups.

Shaker Bowl is part of a business community that is, as noted earlier, large and diverse, featuring everything from a solid mix of restaurants to a full roster of banks, with Chase being only the latest; from service businesses like HUB to a large number of distribution and manufacturing facilities in the town’s large industrial park.

There are many intriguing stories of entrepreneurship, including the Coating House, a 44-year-old business owned in recent years by Kim Casineau, who has written an inspiring story of growth, diversification, and giving back.

The company manufactures specialized coated and uncoated fasteners and fittings for several sectors, including industrial, medical devices, aerospace, automotive, and the military. But that’s just part of the story.

Indeed, Casineau, who benefited from services provided by the YWCA of Western Massachusetts earlier in her life, has committed herself to giving back not only to that agency (she currently serves as its board president), but also the young women it serves.

Working with board member Dawn Rodgers and YWCA staff, Casineau is part of an effort to implement a new educational program with high-school students called Healthy Empowering Relationships and Education. She’s also working to provide women served by the YWCA with mentoring and, eventually, job opportunities.

“I purchased this company with the intention of growing it and offering job opportunities to the women who are residents at, and receive services from, the YWCA, because I thought I could offer them entry-level jobs and mentorship at a safe place that is welcoming,” she said, adding that the mentoring initiatives and job opportunities remain a work in progress. “I want to offer them a place to learn and grow and feel safe.”

Overall, East Longmeadow is business-friendly, said Grace Barone, executive director of the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, which counts East Longmeadow among the five communities it represents.

She noted that, with the arrival of Christensen and Rebecca Lisi, deputy town manager, there are now stronger lines of communication between Town Hall and the business community, which brings benefits for both sides.

“They’re fantastic, they’re out in the community, they’re listening to what the members need, and they’re engaging with them,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s very refreshing, and it’s great to work with them.”

Like Marini and others we spoke with, Barone said East Longmeadow boasts a strong location, near Springfield, but also Connecticut, Longmeadow, Wilbraham, and other vibrant communities, making it an attractive address for restaurants and certainly banks, but also retail outlets.

“We’ve had several ribbon cuttings,” she said, listing Gazebo Too, on North Main Street, and Raspberry Records, on Shaker Road, among them. “A business might go out, but you see new businesses coming in right away to fill those spots, and that’s very exciting.”

V-One Owner Charts Aggressive Course of Expansion, Growth

By George O'Brien June 20, 2024

Features Special Coverage

At a Tipping Point

Paul Kozub with his children, from left, Weston, Ela, Augustin, and Vincent, at the distillery in Kamien, Poland, that he acquired in 2019.

When asked about all that has changed since he first started finalizing plans for creating his own vodka label 20 years ago, Paul Kozub chose to start with the personal side of his life.

“Back then, I was a single guy living alone with not many cares in the world; now, I’m married with four kids under the age of 10,” he said, adding that this reality explains why he only visits the distillery he owns in Poland maybe once a year instead of three or four times, as he did earlier, and why he presides over maybe 20 in-store tastings a year instead of the 50 or 60 he was averaging a few years ago.

As for the business side of the equation, there have been equally significant changes. He started with one flavor in one region of the Bay State, the 413. Now, there are 10 flavors, including a lemon that changes colors and a hugely popular double espresso. And they are now available in eight states — the six New England states as well as New Jersey and Texas — although they can be shipped almost anywhere, as we’ll see.

And there’s that distillery in Poland, which Kozub now owns a 51% share in. He made that investment in 2019 in a critical step that saw him move from outsourcing production to overseeing (officially if not literally) every step in the process.

And while there have been huge leaps in overall growth — from 700 to 1,000 cases produced and sold per year early on to more than 20,000 today — there have been myriad challenges as well, everything from a global pandemic to the war in Ukraine (the distillery is only a few miles from the border); from huge swings in the cost of getting containers from Poland to the U.S. ($4,200 per shipment to $16,000 back down to $4,200) to the burgeoning cannabis industry (in states where cannabis is legalized, there is an accompanying decline in alcohol sales, Kozub reported).

But while looking back — and then ahead — Kozub chose to focus mostly on what hasn’t changed. The goal, then and now, has been to become a national and then international vodka label, and in some respects, that’s already been accomplished; he does sell some vodka in Poland, but not much, as V-One’s prices are higher than other brands because of how it’s made.

And while the original goal was to make a living selling vodka, something he could do when he was selling 1,000 cases a year, the overriding ambition has been to continually grow the label by taking it to more markets in more states and, eventually, more countries.

While that hasn’t changed either, this desire to grow has morphed into a critical need — because of that distillery and the importance of keeping it busy.

Kozub summed it all up directly, and poignantly.

“For me, V-One is at a crucial tipping point,” he explained. “We’re either going to stay small — a Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island business — or we’re going to get bigger, and a lot bigger, as a national brand or even an international brand.

“For me, V-One is at a crucial tipping point. We’re either going to stay small — a Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island business — or we’re going to get bigger, and a lot bigger, as a national brand or even an international brand.”

“And the decision has kind of been made for me because of the distillery purchase — the capacity that facility has and the need to keep it busy on a daily basis, which it is not right now,” he went on, adding that, with this decision — and a subsequent capital raise involving local investors — Kozub is moving forward aggressively with plans to more than double his current sales force and move into more states, starting with Florida, then New York, then other states on the East Coast.

It’s an intriguing next chapter in a story that has featured a number of plot twists and turns but a continued focus on the proverbial big picture and how to make it become reality.

V-One now boasts 10 flavors, and Paul Kozub hints that more additions to the lineup may be coming soon.
(Photo courtesy of Chris Marion)

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Kozub about the latest, quite significant adjustments to the V-One business plan and how they provide more proof — yes, that’s an industry term — of how those original plans haven’t exactly changed. They’ve just been supersized.

Proof Positive

By now, most people around here know at least the basics of the V-One story.

With a small, $6,000 inheritance from an uncle and some entrepreneurial vigor that ran in the family (his father started Janlynn Corp.), Kozub put aside a career in banking — he was a commercial lender with TD Bank — to fulfill a long-held dream to launch his own vodka label.

That was in 2005. He started with a small still in his basement and soon made his way to Poland to meet with a world-renowned vodka expert for advice, but also inspiration. He made the critical decision to become the first producer of vodka made exclusively from organic spelt wheat (most other vodkas are made from corn).

Over the next 19 years, V-One has grown and evolved, adding new flavors, winning several awards, expanding its reach across New England and beyond, and increasing the number of cases sold each year. Along the way, there have been several milestones — from the opening of V-One’s world headquarters in the former St. John’s Church on Route 9 in Hadley to a rebranding that saw a new look to the bottles, to the acquisition and subsequent expansion of the distillery in Kamien, Poland, a multi-million-dollar investment fueled by a desire to take more control of the process.

“I’ll make this analogy … instead of buying milk from the store, we now own the cow. We need to keep the distillery busier, and we need to essentially double the business that we’re doing now.”

BusinessWest has chronicled the story, and along the way, Kozub has earned two of the magazine’s awards — inclusion in the inaugural 40 Under Forty class of 2007, then being named the magazine’s Top Entrepreneur for 2016.

As he noted at the top, he now has four young children — “life has gotten a little more complicated” — so that means fewer trips to Poland, although he was recently there for some end-of-fiscal-year matters, and more Zoom calls with his master distiller there.

“He has things handled pretty well as far as production goes, so I don’t need to go as much as I used to,” Kozub said, noting, again, that the critical to keep that distillery busy — at optimum output, the facility could increase production 10-fold — has prompted the latest adjustments to the business plan, capital raise, and plans to aggressively move into other states.

Paul Kozub says the need to keep the distillery in Poland busy — busier than it is now — is fueling the company’s aggressive plans for continued growth.

“Before, it was a case of wanting to grow; now, it’s kind of like we have to grow,” he told BusinessWest. “I’ll make this analogy … instead of buying milk from the store, we now own the cow. We need to keep the distillery busier, and we need to essentially double the business that we’re doing now.”

Elaborating, he said he has no real desire to produce other vodka labels in Kamien, only V-One. Which means producing more of it.

“And to do that, we need to put more people, more salespeople, on the street, and tell the V-One story,” he said, adding that this need to hire and ratchet up marketing efforts — although the company still relies heavily on social media — was the impetus for the recent capital raise.

“My next goal is to get V-One in at least five more states in the next 12 to 24 months,” he said, adding that Florida will be the next target.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

The Sunshine State should be a natural next step, Kozub went on, noting that, while consumption of vodka in Poland is higher during the colder months of the year — primarily because people there drink it straight — in the U.S., vodka is generally mixed with other ingredients that are put over ice, making it a warmer-weather choice.

“A place like Florida has great, year-round weather for vodka drinking,” he said. “And there’s obviously a lot of vacationing, a lot of people by the pool. You really don’t want to drink heavy drinks when you’re by the pool; you want lighter drinks like a vodka soda or mojito.”

As he noted earlier, entering new states and new markets is difficult — and expensive. With immense competition in the vodka aisle, there is a strong need to build brand awareness and gain a foothold. And this requires boots on the ground, he said, adding that, while V-One works with distributors, those large companies represent literally thousands of different labels.

“You have distributors in each market, but you also want to have someone talking to those bars and restaurants and liquor stores,” he told BusinessWest. “You need to have someone else telling the story because these distributors are selling 3,000, 4,000, maybe 5,000 other items, and they’re pushing the big brands, so the smaller brands just get left by the wayside.

“So you have to put someone in each market to tell your story,” he went on, adding that he is looking to bring on several additional salespeople in the coming months to do this storytelling.

While Florida is the next primary target, the goal, as he mentioned, is to be in a handful of other states within the next year or two.

New York is another primary target, he said, adding that the plan after making some headway in that all-important state is to move down the East Coast, perhaps into Virginia, Delaware, and North and South Carolina.

“We want to keep things on this side of the country for now,” he said, adding that the ability to ship products to different states (35 of them at present) enables V-One to expand its presence in that fashion. It’s a small but nonetheless meaningful arrow in the quiver, but one that is growing steadily and has potential to continue the growth trajectory.

Overall, expansion into a new state comes with a price tag of $100,000 to $250,000 for marketing, additional salespeople, and other expenses, he said, adding that this is just part of the cost of doing business.

And it’s a critical aspect of being at this important tipping point for V-One, as Kozub called it. As he noted, the company has progressed from wanting to grow to needing to grow.

“For me, it’s time to take that next big step,” he said, adding that he’s approaching this next phase for his company the way he has all those that have come before it — with a focus on that original dream of creating a vodka label and then taking it around the world.

Developer for Clocktower Project Brings Impressive Track Record to Springfield

By George O'Brien June 20, 2024

‘We Love Real Estate’

Architect’s renderings of the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block (below).
(Images courtesy of Pickard Chilton)

Colonial Block

When Ed Woodbury was encouraged by close friend Tim Brangle, president of Chicago Consultants Studio, to closely consider the Clocktower Building project in Springfield, he immediately challenged him to back up that request.

“He said, ‘Ed … you should take a look at this,’” recalled Woodbury, president of Chicago-based McCaffery Interests, which has a wide and deep portfolio of urban development and redevelopment projects, many of them clustered in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia, and the Windy City, and considers hundreds, if not thousands, of requests for proposals each year. “And I said, ‘why? Why do you think this is for us?’

“He spoke very highly of the city and its leadership, pointed out the inherent attributes of the Basketball Hall of Fame and the casino, and then gave a brief history of how Springfield had turned the corner from previous down times, if you will,” Woodbury said of Brangle, who has consulted with Springfield officials on the design of the casino and economic development surrounding it. “Naturally, none of that was familiar to us, so we looked at it, and the story happened to be true. And we liked that story.”

That’s a brief synopsis of how the Clocktower initiative, which involves three properties owned by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority — the Clocktower Building (113-117 State St.), the Colonial Block (1139-1155 Main St.), and a smaller building on Stockbridge Street — came to be part of that impressive portfolio.

On the McCaffery website, the project is listed among others like in size and character, including 1600 Smallman, the historic renovation of a 1921 structure in the Strip District of Pittsburgh into office spaces with views of the downtown skyline and the Allegheny River, and the Cork Factory project, an award-winning restoration and redevelopment of the Armstrong Cork Factory, also in Pittsburgh (more on that later).

In many ways, the Springfield project, which will add more than 90 units of market-rate housing to the mix, fits right in with these others, said Woodbury, adding that it involves redevelopment of historic properties, but also represents economic development and efforts to revitalize that area of the city.

“This will require multiple sources — you don’t just make one or two phone calls and someone says, ‘yeah, I like that project; I’ll fund it with you. It’s going to take more than a village — it’s going to take a little city.’”

“It’s a neat little project — it’s not big in our world,” Woodbury said of the Springfield initiative. “But I think we’re adding something to the downtown, both by the restoration but also through our development approach and how we look at projects and think about them.

“We don’t look at the buildings themselves,” he went on. “We look at the context of the buildings and where they sit — in this case, across from the casino and across from the MassMutual Center.”

From what he’s heard and seen himself — he’s now visited Springfield a few times — the city is in what he called the early stages of a rebirth, and this project could help bring it to the next stage.

“One of the things that adds to a rebirth is, in some cases, retail, but in a lot of cases, it’s getting people to live back downtown,” he said, “rather than working there, leaving there, and going back to their home in another part of town or one of the suburbs.”

While there are opportunities with this project, with a projected price tag of $55 million to $60 million, there are challenges as well, especially when it comes to funding, said Woodbury, listing the current economy and rising interest rates among those challenges, factors that will require more creativity when it comes to what he called the ‘capital stack,’ or the blend of resources that will be needed to make this project reality.

“This will require multiple sources — you don’t just make one or two phone calls and someone says, ‘yeah, I like that project; I’ll fund it with you,’” he said. “It’s going to take more than a village — it’s going to take a little city.”

Ed Woodbury says restoration of the Armstrong Cork Factory in Pittsburgh is one of several projects in the McCaffery Interests portfolio similar to the Springfield undertaking.
(Photo courtesy of Ed Massery)

The company has vast experience assembling needed funding, he went on, adding that he’s confident that the ‘little city’ he mentioned can come together, and that this project will play a significant role in Springfield reaching the next stages of a rebirth.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked at length with Woodbury about McCaffery Interests, the Clocktower building project, and how this Springfield initiative fits the company’s mission — “to transform underutilized urban assets into dynamic destinations that serve modern lives as they intersect at work, home, and play.”

Landmark Decisions

Woodbury said McCaffery handles a broad range of work, from development to property management. And in that first category, it focuses on both redevelopment of existing (again, usually underutilized) properties to new construction.

But the common denominator, if you will, is that essentially all this work is carried out in cities.

“The focus has always been in urban areas,” he told BusinessWest. “We like the life, the vitality, and even the grit of cities.”

Most projects are in larger cities, including Pittsburgh, Chicago, D.C. and the surrounding area, and, most recently, Denver, where the company has several projects in various stages, including T3 RiNo, a mixed-use, 250,000-square-foot office project in that city’s burgeoning River North (RiNo) District.

“The focus has always been in urban areas. We like the life, the vitality, and even the grit of cities.”

Formed in 1991 by Dan McCaffery (Woodbury said he joined him “almost immediately”), the company’s first signature project was the revitalization of a former Saks Fifth Avenue store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

“We renovated it, leased it out, and put in Nike, Sony, and Cole Hahn; it was the height of what we call Main Street retail,” he recalled, adding that the project set the tone for other initiatives to come.

These include restoration of another historic property, 400 Post St. in San Francisco’s Union Square, that was destined to be torn down. “It was a great piece of real estate that had been overlooked for years,” Woodbury recalled. “We said, ‘heck, this is a cool, old building; let’s restore it.’ We put in a Disney store and a Borders Books.”

Restoration and redevelopment of the Reliance Building in Chicago, now home to the Hotel Burnham, is another project in the McCaffery portfolio similar to the one in Springfield.

As he cited those names, he noted that retail has certainly changed over the past few decades and especially the past several years; thus, the company now focuses mostly on mixed-use projects, be they new construction or renovation of existing structures, with retail on the ground floor and residential in the floors above — which is what is proposed for the Springfield project, as we’ll see.

And while McCaffery does most of its work in larger metropolitan areas, the company considers projects in communities across the country.

“We’re opportunity-focused — we search for unique opportunities and chase them,” Woodbury said. “The other thing is, we love real estate — old buildings, new buildings, it doesn’t matter; we love real estate.

“For us, it’s about finding high-quality real estate and exploring and seeing what we can do — with the land or existing properties,” he went on, adding that, with Springfield and its Clocktower Building initiative, what it can do — what it wants to do — is bring that aforementioned mix of uses, specifically retail on the ground floors and residential on the upper floors.

Lofty Expectations

Indeed, architect’s renderings of both the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block portray well-lit shops with sidewalks crowded with passersby, elements certainly missing from the current picture — and missing for the past several years, in fact.

To make those colorful images become reality, McCaffery Interests will call on 34 years of experience with dozens of projects in several different cities and high levels of creativity with putting together a needed funding stack.

As he talked about the Springfield initiative, Woodbury said there are several projects in the portfolio that are somewhat similar — maybe not in terms of overall size and scope, but certainly in terms of restoring landmark properties, using historic tax credits to finance the work, and creating higher levels of vibrancy in downtowns or other key districts.

These include restoration and redevelopment of the Reliance Building in Chicago, now home to the Hotel Burnham, which was built in 1895 and is listed among the 100 most historically significant skyscrapers in the world.

“It’s one of the original high-rises in Chicago and one of the first places where an elevator was utilized in high-rise construction,” he explained. “We renovated it, but didn’t return it to an office building; we converted it to a hotel with restaurants on the ground floor.”

His short list also includes restoration of the Armstrong Cork Factory in Pittsburgh, originally constructed in 1901, and converted into 297 loft apartments, a project that earned several awards, including an Award for Excellence in 2009 from the Urban Land Institute and a Western Pennsylvania Golden Trowel Award in 2007.

“We took a building that was old and abandoned and invested side by side with a great partner in Pittsburgh and put the property on the historic register,” he said, adding that the project is one of the key contributors to growing vibrancy in the Strip District.

Springfield’s Clocktower Building and Colonial Block are similar in that they both boast considerable amounts of history — and have been largely vacant for several years now.

And, in Woodbury’s estimation, they have a future that can be as significant as their past.

“The Clocktower Building has great bones to it, and it’s the same with the Colonial Block,” he said. “The Clocktower Building is older, and some of the renovations over the years have unfortunately disrupted its historic character, but it adds a nice scale to the street — State and Main — which is fun to say, because it’s literally State and Main.

“And the Colonial Block was originally residential on the upper floors, which lends itself nicely to converting it back to that,” he went on, adding that, overall, Springfield is “looking forward being optimistic about what a city can and should be — and those are the kinds of places where we like to work.”

As for the challenges ahead, especially funding, Woodbury returned to that notion of this project needing not a village, but a small city of resources contributing to the capital stack.

“Federal and state tax credits are going to be a big source — they will be the lead bell cow in our funding stack,” he explained. “But there will be some funding needed from the State House, there might be some funding needed from the city, and then there’s obviously some private monies to be put in place as well; all of those food groups will come into play.”

The overall goal is to start construction late this year or early next year, he said, adding that it will be 24 months from when the company submits final drawings until the first tenants — residential and commercial — can move in.

Woodbury is confident this goal can be met, and equally confident that this initiative can do what so many other projects in the McCaffery portfolio have: revitalize not only real estate, but entire neighborhoods and cities.

Meghan Rothschild

By George O'Brien June 7, 2024

President and Owner, Chikmedia

Meghan Rothschild today (above) and as a 40 Under Forty winner in 2011.

Meghan Rothschild started speaking in public when she was just 20 years old.

She had become a survivor of melanoma, a common and deadly form of skin cancer, and she began speaking out about her diagnosis as an advocate for sun safety and cancer prevention, turning a negative into a positive.

Over the ensuing two decades or so, she would become a natural behind the microphone, addressing subjects ranging from skin cancer to social media to leadership skills and how to build them. She would also become a sought-after presenter and media host, including red-carpet coverage on behalf of Explore Western Mass. (the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau) for Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement, as a panelist for the RISE Women’s Leadership Conference, and regular media-outlet contributions including The Rhode Show, Mass Appeal on WWLP, iHeart Radio, and more.

It wasn’t until recently, though, that she delivered what she called her first ‘keynote address.’ It came at the Pioneer Valley Women’s Conference staged last month at the Marriott in downtown Springfield. The conference’s theme was Unleashed, and the unofficial title of her address was “Living Authentically Unleashed.”

“These were my tips for how to live an authentically unleashed life,” she told BusinessWest. “Being authentic, unleashing your emotions, unleashing your power, bringing empathy back into the workplace and acknowledging that people are human beings and not machine — things like that.”

When asked if she lived her own life authentically unleashed, she said, “I would certainly say that, yes. It means being free of of concern over how others view you, finding your true authentic mission and purpose, not being afraid to speak your mind, using your voice to set boundaries, knowing your own self-worth, all of those things,” she added.

Building an impressive portfolio of public speaking engagements and living her own life authentically unleashed — in all those ways she described — are just two of the many ways Rothschild has grown and evolved, personally and professionally, since she became a 40 Under Forty honoree in 2011 while serving as Development and Marketing manager for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

The most obvious is the creation and continued growth of the marketing and public-relations business she founded called Chikmedia, a full-service, boutique firm that provides clients nationwide with graphic design, social-media management, public relations, expert positioning, event management, and more.

But there is more to this story, including involvement within the community that takes many forms, from a Girls & Racism town hall created in collaboration with Girls Inc. to a Campaign for Healthy Kids PSA designed to help raise funds for the children and families that rely on Square One and were severely impacted by COVID, to her creation of the Chik of the Future Scholarship, designated for a young woman of color pursuing a degree in a marketing-related field.

The sum of these accomplishments has made Rothschild a repeat finalist for the Alumni Achievement Award. In fact, this is the fourth time that panels of judges have made her one of the top scorers.

It’s easy to see why, starting with her success in business.

She told BusinessWest that, while she considers herself an entrepreneur at heart, she never anticipated growing an agency to where it would have several team members and more than 40 clients at any given point.

“I started this to really take a calmer approach to my career, and it’s been the exact opposite,” she said. “Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, but the business has just blossomed.”

Indeed, it now boasts clients ranging from TIZO, a national skin-care line, to local businesses and nonprofits ranging from the Log Cabin to Girls Inc. to the recently opened event venue 52 Sumner.

But she is perhaps more proud of the work that she and the agency are doing in the community. She is involved with the Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts as a board member, for example; runs in several 5Ks, like the one staged recently to support Dakin Humane Society; and brings added value to the many nonprofits within the client portfolio as another way to give back.

“I do influencer marketing myself, so on social media, I’m constantly talking up my clients and sharing their events and throwing myself in the hat as a marketing tool for them — because I find that’s sort of a seamless way for me to give back,” she said.

And then, there are initiatives like the Chik of the Future Scholarship, which has grown in scope and monetary value over its five-year history thanks to the support of several local businesses, as well as the She Votes campaign spearheaded by the team at Chikmedia in collaboration with Girls Inc. The goal of the campaign was to pre-register as many teen girls to vote as possible and to raise $21,000 for the She Votes curriculum. Voting pre-registrations were outstanding, Rothschild said, and the fundraising campaign concluded 3% above goal.

“I started this to really take a calmer approach to my career, and it’s been the exact opposite. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, but the business has just blossomed.”

Maybe the best indication of how far she has come, and how her impact has grown, is her increasingly crowded schedule, filled with various speaking engagements that reflect her many areas of expertise.

Last year, for example, she was in Dallas to appear at a major beauty conference to share her personal experience with skin cancer and talk about TIZO. She also addressed the Bradley Chamber of Commerce this month and hosts a series of workshops for Head Start programs across New England.

Overall, she’s speaking four to six times a month on average, with the subject matter ranging from skin-cancer prevention to entreprenership; from social-media training to talks that would be considered motivational in nature.

She said it’s taken her the better part of a decade to “get into a really good groove,” as she called it, developing a style that makes heavy use of humor and that engages the audience in whatever it is she’s talking about.

“When the topic is something outside my comfort zone, like a motivational speech, that fuels me,” she said. “It makes me take a moment and really think about what I’m going to say. I can stand up and talk about social media for six hours and not even bat an eye, but motivational-style speaking is completely different.”

There are many things that fuel Rothschild today, everything from working with her team to grow Chikmedia to providing scholarships to girls of color looking to enter the marketing field, to … well, living life unleashed.

All that explains why she is an Alumni Achievement Award finalist. Again.

—George O’Brien

Lenox Continues to Be a Destination Community

By George O'Brien June 7, 2024

Shakespeare & Company’s 33-acre campus in Lenox is open to the public for picnics and exploration of its grounds.

Becky Piccolo says the Olde Heritage Tavern is the ‘Cheers’ of Lenox.

It’s a place where … well, most everyone knows your name. Indeed, while it’s a popular hangout for locals, those in town for a concert at Tanglewood, a play at Shakespeare & Company, or a massage at one of the spas might well stop in for a burger and a brew as well.

“It’s a gathering place for all the locals,” she said of the tavern, which has been called both a second home for area residents and a home away from home. “It’s really a big family and a big part of the community; it’s way more than just a bar.”

Piccolo and her sister, Rachel, have been managing the tavern for more than 20 years now, but through a series of transactions and changes in ownership, including a time when the U.S. government took possession (we’ll get into all that later), they can now call the establishment theirs.

“The Airbnb phenomenon has certainly impacted us, as it has almost every community in the States and overseas as well. A lot of the modest homes have been purchased by owner/investors that have crowded out the younger families and empty-nest households perhaps looking to downsize to more modest homes.”

And when asked what might change with this latest change in ownership, Piccolo was proud to say, “nothing, really — we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done.”

This is certainly good news for the town and its business community, and this change of ownership at the tavern is just one of many developing stories in this community of 5,000 people that is perhaps the tourist mecca in a region built largely on tourism.

Other stories include, on the municipal side, movement toward a new public-safety facility and new wastewater treatment plant, and, perhaps most importantly, steps forward in the development of two new housing projects, which will, according to Select Board member Marybeth Mitts, make a meaningful dent in what has become a serious shortage of affordable housing.

That’s a problem common to communities of all sizes and across Western Mass., said Mitts, adding that it is perhaps even more acute in Lenox because of its wealth of tourism and wellness facilities and an accompanying trend that has seen many properties in — or close to — the ‘affordable’ category converted to Airbnbs.

“The Airbnb phenomenon has certainly impacted us, as it has almost every community in the States and overseas as well,” she noted. “A lot of the modest homes have been purchased by owner/investors that have crowded out the younger families and empty-nest households perhaps looking to downsize to more modest homes.”

Lenox at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1767
Population: 5,095
Area: 21.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $9.07
Commercial Tax Rate: $12.85
Median Household Income: $85,581
Median Family Income: $111,413
Type of Government: Select Board, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Canyon Ranch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kimball Farms
* Latest information available

This development, and the overall lack of affordable housing, has many side effects and has made it even more difficult for the town’s rich stock of restaurants and tourist attractions to find enough help, said Mitts, adding that many restaurants are able to open maybe five days a week instead or six or seven because of staffing issues.

“It has impacted the ability of our village shops and eateries to have the summer staffs that they’ve enjoyed the past several decades,” Mitts explained. “Kids grow up, and they start busing in the restaurants and working in the local retail establishments in the summertime to help with seasonal employment needs. And now, those kids are becoming fewer and far between, and it’s harder for those restaurants to be open seven days a week in the summer because they just don’t have the staff.”

The two new housing projects — a 65-unit, mixed-income development that should break ground in the next 90 days, and a 68-unit project in the earlier stages of development — should bring some relief, but more new housing is needed.

Meanwhile, on the business side, Lenox continues the process of making a full recovery from COVID. The pandemic obviously hit this community hard, and in the years immediately after the height of COVID, when people could go back out and do things, many took their time getting back into that rhythm.

But Piccolo said the town is primed for a big year in 2024.

“Lenox has been hopping; last year was a great year, and Tanglewood’s lineup for this year looks even better,” she said. “I think this summer is going to be a record-breaking summer.”

Jaclyn Stevenson, director of Marketing & Communications for Shakespeare & Company, was similarly optimistic.

A member of the Lenox Cultural District, she said the community’s many attractions are working together — perhaps more than ever before — to promote the sum of all that’s going on (the busy season started Memorial Day weekend, builds through the summer, and peaks in August) and generate some intrigue.

“The cultural organizations in Lenox, including some of the retail spaces, have been working together more than they have in previous years,” she said, citing as reasons everything from the pandemic to turnover, both in Town Hall and in those retail spaces. “That spirit of collaboration is starting to come back.”

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on Lenox, a community that continues to build on its long legacy of being a true destination community.

At Home with the Idea

Mitts isn’t from Lenox — she was born in Hartford, Conn. and subsequently lived in many different places, from Washington, D.C. to Detroit to Manchester, Conn., and then back to West Hartford — but came to this picturesque community just south of Pittsfield in 2001 and has raised a family here.

While doing so, she’s made a point of getting involved. Indeed, in addition to serving on the Select Board, she’s been involved with the Cultural Council and was, until recently, chair of the Affordable Housing Trust, and is currently running for state representative as an independent.

Marybeth Mitts

“We have a pretty robust rooms and meals tax here in town that keeps us very well-situated so that we can maintain a consistently conservative tax rate.”

She said the town’s business community is top-heavy with tourism and wellness institutions, including anchors such as Canyon Ranch; the Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa (formerly Cranwell Resort); the Mount (Edith Wharton’s home); Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the Mass Audubon Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary; Shakespeare & Company; and many others.

“We have a pretty robust rooms and meals tax here in town that keeps us very well-situated so that we can maintain a consistently conservative tax rate,” Mitts noted. “We’re able to stick to the Proposition 2½ restrictions, and we’ve never had to go for an override; we’re not anywhere near our tax limit.”

This strong fiscal balance sheet will be a real asset as the town faces some needed infrastructure projects, she said, starting with a new, $25 million public-safety facility she described as “hugely necessary.”

“That’s because our Police Department is located in the basement of our town hall, and our fire trucks constantly have to be modified to fit our inadequate and tiny fire station,” she said, adding that a new facility that will bring both departments together will be built at the corner of Housatonic Street and Route 7, a somewhat central location outside the village center.

Also planned is a new wastewater-treatment plant, she said, adding that this project, with a projected $40 million price tag, is due to commence over the next 12 to 18 months.

Another huge issue for the community is housing, Mitts said, adding that there was already a shortage before the Airbnb crush made things considerably worse.

Indeed, she said many modestly priced smaller homes and also several multi-family homes have been converted into Airbnbs.

“Some of the two- and four-unit homes that had either smaller families in them or people who want to stay in town but don’t have large families anymore have been converted to Airbnbs,” she said. “I know specifically of the case of a fourplex that was purchased; there were two small families and two individuals who were living in apartments in this fourplex, and they were essentially evicted so that this person could rehab it and turn it four Airbnbs and charge $3,000 a month for those units.

“One of those individuals was someone who worked in the arts in town and was able to affordably live in town and maintain their livelihood,” she went on. “But now, the need to pay an additional amount of rent and try to find an affordable rental unit … it’s become difficult to impossible, and other people who were essentially evicted and had children in the school district were now looking for places to live so their children could stay in the school district, and I believe one of them wound up living with their mother in another town because they couldn’t find a place to live.”

There are many similar stories, Mitts said, adding that the planned new housing developments — that 65-unit project, to be called Brushwood Farms, and the 68-unit complex currently working its way through the funding and approval processes — may enable more young families to come to Lenox and more empty nesters to stay.

“If that project gets approved, we’ll be adding 133 units to our affordable rental housing stock,” she said, adding that eight of the Brushwood Farms units will be for families, with three bedrooms, in addition to 28 two-bedroom units and the rest with one bedroom.

Bar None

Tracing her long history at the Olde Heritage Tavern, Becky Piccolo said she has managed it for several different owners.

That includes John McNinch, who acquired it in 2000 and later sold it to FTX digital bitcoin magnate Ryan Salame, who would eventually enter guilty pleas on two criminal counts — making an estimated $24 million in unlawful political contributions and conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

As fallout from those charges, the U.S. Marshals Service took possession of the 12 Housatonic St. property, as well as some other properties Salame owned in Lenox, and Piccolo essentially managed the tavern for the federal government while it arranged an auction.

“We’re operating normally; it’s business as usual, the staff is happy, so it’s ‘keep on trucking’ here,” she told the Berkshire Eagle the day after the U.S. Marshals Service took possession.

And those same sentiments apply today, after Annie Selke, serial entrepreneur and founder of the Annie Selke Companies, prevailed at that aforementioned auction in April and in turn sold the tavern to the Piccolo sisters.

Indeed, when asked what it felt like to own the landmark instead of managing it for someone else, including the government, Piccolo said, “I run it the same. It’s just kind of like who I am; I’ve been here for so long.

“It’s a huge part of my life, and it continues,” she went on. “It’s like nothing changes; it’s like I never skipped a beat.”

Elaborating on what she said earlier, Piccolo said she is planning just a few small changes, but is largely invoking the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy, and in most all respects, the tavern isn’t broken.

Instead, it has grown from being purely a place for locals — a dive bar, by many accounts — to a destination for those coming to Lenox to take in its many attractions.

That list includes Shakespeare & Company, which has an intriguing season planned for 2024. It includes a few traditional Shakespeare plays — The Comedy of Errors and The Winter’s Tale (in this case, an ‘enhanced reading.’ But it also features other offerings, including a world premiere of The Islanders, starting July 25; a regional premiere of Flight of the Monarch, described as a “darkly comic play that explores how siblings’ lives are intertwined”; the world premiere of Three Tall Persian Women, a “comedic and touching play about generational differences, grief, control, and learning to let go, but more than anything it’s a love story to immigrant mothers”; and Shake It Up: A Shakespeare Cabaret.

That eclectic lineup is part of what should be another summer and early fall of building more momentum in Lenox, said Stevenson, who returned to that notion of collaboration among the tourism institutions at this pivotal time for the community.

“We do a lot of art walks, art weeks, and music; Lenox loves music. These are things that happen year-round and are held at different locations, different venues, year to year,” she said, adding that Shakespeare & Company recently staged a Community Day (an open house of sorts with events that also showcased area nonprofits), and other venues have staged similar gatherings.

Collectively, they build not only awareness, but a sense of community, hence the name, said Stevenson, adding that the cultural district works to call attention to all different kinds of artists, promote diversity in the arts, and, in general, celebrate and promote the community’s rich inventory of restaurants and things to do.

The Crisis Might Be Over, but Challenges Remain on the Healthcare Workforce Front

Healthcare News Special Coverage

Progress Report

Jason Pacheco doesn’t like using that phrase ‘new normal’ any more than anyone else these days.

It’s more than a little tired, and in most settings, it’s been retired.

But when it comes to the workforce issues facing healthcare providers these days, it ultimately works. Four full years after the height of the pandemic and maybe a decade after some not-so-subtle shifts in the workforce landscape, especially the retirement of Baby Boomers, there is what appears to a new normal, and one that will continue for the foreseeable future.

It’s no longer a crisis, in the true sense of that word, although there are certainly many challenges, said Pacheco, director of Workforce Planning, Analytics, and Compensation for Baystate Health.

He noted that Baystate and other providers are no longer using large numbers of very expensive travel nurses, and there is no longer a sense of desperation over if and how vacancies will be filled. But in this new normal, there are still many open positions at any given time — more than before the pendulum started to swing.

“Baystate has implemented several key training programs … for example, we’ll go out and recruit a cohort of medical assistants. Instead of people having to go to school to become a medical assistant, we’ll hire them, and we’ll pay them to train to become a medical assistant.”

There is also a greater need to be competitive with compensation, benefits, and other perks; added emphasis on retention and the many elements of that equation; many more pay-to-train programs, education-assistance efforts, and other inititiatives to get individuals into healthcare and then provide them with the skills to succeed at one job and then advance to others; greater collaboration with area colleges to train existing employees and help them advance; and an ever-growing need to listen to employees and create an environment they want to be part of.

Dr. Robert Roose says a focus on culture has helped to “reset” the workforce crisis.

“Baystate has implemented several key training programs … for example, we’ll go out and recruit a cohort of medical assistants. Instead of people having to go to school to become a medical assistant, we’ll hire them, and we’ll pay them to train to become a medical assistant,” said Pacheco, adding that the system is partnering with Holyoke Community College to deliver a medical assistant training course, just one of myriad examples of how providers and systems are being proactive, and getting creative, when it comes to recruiting talent and retaining it.

Dr. Robert Roose, chief administrative officer for the Springfield market of Trinity Health Of New England, overseeing Mercy Medical Center, Johnson Memorial Hospital, and the affiliates of both, said both elements of the equation are equally important.

And as he acknowledged that the workforce crisis in healthcare has eased — or “reset,” he said — there are many reasons for this, including, at Mercy and elsewhere, a healthy emphasis on culture.

“Our colleagues have found that culture is what has ultimately compelled people to come to a system and stay within a system and continue to engage in the wellness professions,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re looking at how we better redesign work to attend to the ways that healthcare delivery has changed and will continue to be changing, and looking at ways to reinforce what matters to people to retain them in our hospitals and healthcare systems, while recruiting more individuals.”

Emily Davis, senior director of Human Resources at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, concurred.

“From a retention standpoint, it comes down to … how do we provide an environment where employees feel not only appreciated, but where, in every position, they can understand and feel the impact they’re having on patient care?

Emily Davis says it’s important for employees to feel they are appreciated — and to feel the impact they have on patient care.

“Also, how does the environment they work in every day contribute positively to not just their livelihood, but their lives?” she went on, adding that providers’ ability to answer those questions in a positive fashion will go a long way toward determining their ability to retain the employees they have worked so hard to attract and invested so much in terms of onboarding and continued training and professional development.

For this issue and its forcus on the healthcare workforce, we’ll get back to those questions, how systems and individual providers are answering them, and how they are looking to make additional progress in living with this new normal.

Hire Power

As he talked about the workforce issues still confronting healthcare providers — but also about the progress made on some levels — Pacheco used numbers to help get his points across.

He said the system has been averaging 1,600 to 1,650 job vacancies at any given time, a number that is more than double what the system was averaging (maybe 700 to 800 vacancies) before the pandemic, but a significant improvement over the more than 2,000 vacancies at the height of COVID.

Meanwhile, more than 600 individuals are currently in the onboarding process at Baystate, including more than 200 nurses, many of them recent graduates of area colleges, he said, adding that these numbers are one indication of the system’s ability to bring more individuals into postitions, an improvement over a few years ago.

“We’re looking at how we better redesign work to attend to the ways that healthcare delivery has changed and will continue to be changing, and looking at ways to reinforce what matters to people to retain them in our hospitals and healthcare systems, while recruiting more individuals.”

“We are making significant progress in terms of bringing people in,” he said. “For example, we’ve implemented a number of new training programs — we’re training medical assistants, patient care technicians, and our newest one is a sterile process technician; we’re teaching folks how to clean and work with surgical instrumentation. However, all of that requires a significant investment in orienting people.”

Meanwhile, when it comes to retention, while there has been some progress in bringing those vacancy numbers down, “we have not yet returned to a normal place, like what we experiencing pre-pandemic, for turnover levels,” said Pacheco, adding that the system is averaging roughly 19% turnover, with much of it coming in the first year of employment.

Michele Anstett says competition for workers in the home-care arena is fierce, and there is little loyalty to employers.

“So, are we making headway in terms of bringing people into healthcare? Absolutely,” he went on. “Do we still have a long way to go? You bet.”

Roose agreed, adding that, at both Mercy and Johnson Memorial, there has been recorded progress in both hiring and retention, with a roughly 40% reduction in turnover the past two years — 50% at Johnson Memorial and 35% at Mercy.

“Reducing those that are leaving the organization to levels that are under 20% has been very stabilizing,” he said. “And while reducing turnover, we’ve also, over the past several months, seen that the number of people coming into Mercy and Johnson Memorial has outpaced the number of those leaving, so the balance has shifted.”

This is true across many professions, especially nursing, where there has been reduced turnover and improved recruitment, he said, adding that other realms, such as transport, food and nutrition, and others, have recorded less progress.

Indeed, while things have stabilized somewhat, building and maintaining a workforce remains quite challenging for most healthcare providers.

Michele Anstett, president of the West Springfield-based home-care provider Visiting Angels, said conditions have improved somewhat since the height of COVID, when people were afraid to enter others’ homes. But competition for workers is intense, and the biggest problem is retention.

Indeed, there is comparatively little loyalty to employers, she said, adding that workers will often chase an additional dollar an hour in wages or some other benefit. She stays ahead of the game, if can be called that, first by “hiring, hiring, hiring,” as she put it, and then taking steps to try to hang on to some of those she brings in.

“People tend to fly more; because of the economy, because of society and everything being on the move, and people being really strapped, they go where they can best provide for their family,” she said. “So I’m going to hire faster than they go; I’m hiring about five a week. How many go a week? Maybe two. That’s how we’re adjusting to this new reality.”

“For a mom in the workforce, the most important thing is her family and making sure she can get them to doctors’ appointments, she can get to school functions, she can make sure that if they’re sick, they’re taken care of without repurcussions from the employer. And those are things that we find are intangible and so important to our workforce, so we do our best to make sure that their family needs are met.”

When it comes to retention, Anstett says she has what she calls a magic formula — a focus on the work-culture factor.

“It’s about how they’re treated, how we respect them, how all those different qualities that they find in an employer make them want to say,” she said, adding that working in such an environment often weighs more heavily with employees than an additional dollar an hour.

“About 95% of our employees are women, and I would say 80% of those women are moms with dependent children,” she went on. “For a mom in the workforce, the most important thing is her family and making sure she can get them to doctors’ appointments, she can get to school functions, she can make sure that if they’re sick, they’re taken care of without repurcussions from the employer. And those are things that we find are intangible and so important to our workforce, so we do our best to make sure that their family needs are met.”

Staying Power

Addressing the broad subject of retention, those we spoke with said there is strong need for being creative and showing employees at all levels that they are valued and part of something larger than their own job.

And it all starts with listening, Davis said. “A lot of it is really paying attention to our workforce — what they’re telling us, but also what we’re learning from paying attention to them, not only in their words, but what we see them struggle with and what we see them strive in doing.”

Another key to retention is effective recruitment, she said, attracting people who understand — and value — the environment they’ll be working in and the team they will be joining, and want to be part of all that.

“The key to successful recruiting is agility,” Davis said. “It’s changing our strategies as we see what’s happening outside our walls, what’s happening in our area from the standpoint of where we have people that we can attract, and how we attract them.

“What we’ve been doing recently is getting back into what I call the ‘milk and cookies’ of in-person recruitment,” she went on. “We’ll have a team of talent-acquisition partners, along with leaders, and have a day when people can come in for a given position. They can fill out the application, they can interview with the talent-acquisition partner, interview with the manager, and have a decision about their hiring right on the spot. And then they can meet with the onboarding coordinator. So before they even leave the building, they have an answer, and they’ve started on their journey.”

Elaborating, she said this strategy was recently deployed for the successful hiring of several environmental-services personnel, but it can be used — and has been — for other positions as well, including nurses.

Another key element in the equation is compensation, said all those we spoke with, adding that systems and individual providers must continue making the investments needed to remain competitive — to the extent they can, given the hard reality that reimbursement rates for care provided by those facilities continue to lag far behind the cost of providing that care.

Davis agreed, but said providers who want to retain talent have to go beyond compensation. And this brings her back to that notion of making employees at all levels feel valued.

“Compensation matters,” she said. “But what matters when you get your foot in the door is … how do I feel about the place that I work at? Am I valued? Am I making a difference? Am I treated well? Do I feel like I belong?”

There are many factors that go into how employees will answer those questions, she went on, listing everything from wages and benefits to flexibility in schedules to the willingness of leadership to listen to employees and repond to what they are hearing.

At Cooley Dickinson, there are surveys, said Davis, but the more important strategy is the rounding conducted by members of the leadership team and the visbility of those leaders.

“The staff needs to understand that there is someone there that they can check in with, someone that will get back to me, whether it’s an answer I want or an answer that I wish was different,” she said, adding that rounding, an ever-evolving practice that takes place on many different levels, is key to all-important visbility as well as the listening process.

Roose agreed, noting that Mercy and Johnson Memorial have placed additional emphasis on listening and responding to what is heard through initiatives such as a ‘new-colleague culture experience,’ to start later this month.

“We’ll provide every new colleague that enters our organization with an opportunity to really focus on what about the culture they do identify with and how we can best attend to that during the early period of their orientation and work with us,” he explained. “We find that most people who are going to leave the organization leave within the first year, and a lot of that has to do with expectations around work and whether they’re able to connect with what brought them there.”

Bottom Line

But there are other strategies as well, including educational assistance that will help existing employees seize other career opportunities.

At Baystate, the system has essentially doubled the amount allowable per year for tuition assistance, said Pacheco, adding that the new ceilings went into effect in January, and the investment (probably an additional $300,000 to $400,000) is already showing signs of paying off.

“We have people studying to become nurses, we have folks working on various lab occupations … it varies,” he said. “As long as there is a connection to the healthcare system, we’ll support them with educational assistance.”

Returning to the subject of pay-to-train initiatives, Pacheco said that, in addition to the program for medical assistants, there are others for patient-care technicians (another partnership with Holyoke Community College) and other positions, as well as apprenticeship programs, including one that trains individuals to read heart monitors.

All these initiatives are part of a broad response to a new reality — yes, a new normal — one that should prevail, and test healthcare providers across the board, for the foreseeable future.

Craig Swimm

Senior Vice President, Audacy Springfield

Craig Swimm today (above) and as a 40 Under Forty winner in 2007.

Craig Swimm was in the very first class of 40 Under Forty honorees.

That’s was 2007, for those who don’t know the history. And for Swimm, who would turn 40 just a few months later, he acknowledged that this would be his only shot at attaining that honor.

As he reflected on all that has changed since he received his plaque on the stage at the Log Cabin that spring, Craig paused a second, said “wow,” and then paused again as if deciding where and how to start.

Indeed, there have been momentous changes, in his own life and career obviously, and in radio and with his broadcast group, which now includes 94.7 WMAS, sports station 105.5 WEEI, and a new Spanish station, Nueva 98.1 WHLL. And in general, with the Great Recession, other economic ups and downs, a pandemic and its aftermath, the emergence of social media, and so much more.

As for radio and the changes that have come to the industry and his group in particular, Swimm had to do some counting.

“Let’s see — there’s been one, two, three mergers, two bankruptcies, and a lot of other changes,” he said while giving the Readers Digest version of the progression from Citadel Broadcasting, which he served as sales manager when named a Forty Under 40 honoree, to the entity known as Audacy, a huge group with a presence in more than 100 markets, including Greater Springfied.

But what he chose to focus on more is what hasn’t changed over all that time — the team at Audacy Springfield, which has remained largely intact over those years, even through mergers and downturns in the economy; the fact that station WMAS remains live and local, at a time when far fewer stations can make those claims; and especially the stations’ commitment to the community.

That commitment, through Swimm’s direction, now includes everything from book drives to job fairs to the hugely successful radiothon to benefit Baystate Children’s Hospital, which, in many ways, eptoimizes the station’s commitment to the community and Swimm’s own desire to use its impresssive reach to make an impact.

“Success to Craig is watching his team become better versions of themselves.”

“We’ve raised more than $4 million since we started this,” he said, adding quickly that the station’s efforts have also yielded books, winter coats, bike helmets, and much more.

Those who nominated Swimm for the Alumni Achievement Award — and there were several from Audacy Springfield that did so — described him as a caring and effective manager, but also a mentor.

Craig Swimm (center) with Dina McMahon and Chris Kellogg from the WMAS Kellogg Krew.

“Success to Craig is watching his team become better versions of themselves,” wrote Chris Duggan, an account executive. “That can be said for current employees, but also past employees who have gone on to new careers. They all will say that they owe their success to Craig for the type of manager and mentor he was.”

Dina McMahon, an on-air personality and member of the Kellogg Krew, agreed, and talked about something she called Swimm’s ‘1% philosophy.’

“Craig has strongly supported many local organizations, but he is always looking to make something bigger, better, stronger,” she wrote. “His philosophy is always do 1% better today than the day before, and he lives by that motto.

“One of our biggest community efforts is the 94.7 WMAS Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Radiothon for Baystate Children’s Hospital,” McMahon added. “Each year, Craig spearheads the station’s effort, encouraging more sponsors to support the cause, coming up with new and innovative ideas to encourage donations and volunteers. And he is the first to say after the event, ‘OK, let’s meet and come up with new ideas for next year.’”

Lucie Rubba, sales planner and administrator at Audacy Springfield, had this to say: “Craig possesses an exceptional resourcefulness, consistently navigating through challenges with adeptness and resilience. His ability to improvise effectively when faced with obstacles underscores his leadership prowess, demonstrating fairness and astuteness in all his endeavors. He embraces every challenge with open arms, whether it’s a 3K run/walk, a food drive, or particularly an event for children. He is invariably present, ready to lend his support in any capacity needed.”

For his part, Swimm said his job comes down to leading Audacy Springfield through the myriad challenges now facing all radio stations and groups — and all media outlets, for that matter — and also making sure that Greater Springfield, one of the smaller markets in the huge Audacy portfolio, is heard loud and clear. And while doing that, he’s always looking for new ways to make an impact within the community.

“Every day is a little different,” he acknowledged. “But I’m always focused on our two clients — the listeners and our advertisers. Every one of my decisions involves making sure we’re putting out a good product and that we’re connecting to the community.”

He points to numerous success stories, but especially the CMN radiothon and the job fairs, conducted in conjunction with MassHire Springfield, that are staged at the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The job fairs have changed and evolved as the economy has, he told BusinessWest, noting that, most recently, they’ve become a way for employers struggling to fill openings to become visible and tell their stories to those looking to enter the job market or take their next career step.

“We started during the Great Recession, and I think we’ve found jobs for 10,000 people since we started this,” he explained. “Back then, we had three companies and 5,000 people show up; now we have 40 companies and 300 people show up. I’m super proud of it because we’ve found so many people jobs; people have walked out of these expos who were hired on the spot. They’re walking through the Hall of Fame, and they’re saying, ‘I got hired.’ They’re happy, there’s tears, and … you’re part of that.”

He’s been part of a great many things since he joined the 40 Under Forty club 17 years ago, and he’s continously looking for ways to add to that list, while continuing to be an effective manager and mentor. This is the very definition of the Alumni Achievement Award and the reason why Swimm is now a finalist for that honor.

—George O’Brien

Payton Shubrick

Founder and CEO, 6 Brick’s LLC

Payton Shubrick today (above) and as a 40 Under Forty winner in 2019.

Payton Shubrick joined the region’s 40 Under Forty club in 2019, when she was serving as ‘Innovation and Design Thinking manager’ for MassMutual.

That was one of the years when the honoree profiles consisted of answers to questions designed to provide some real insight into whom these individuals were and, well … what made them tick.

In Shubrick’s case, they certainly did.

Indeed, when asked how she defines success, she said, “living a life of intentionality — one that allows you to smile unwittingly with excitement because of what you do, understand that hard times are a necessary evil to get to good times, and live a life that the ones you love are proud of.”

When asked what three words best describe her, she replied, “innovative, tenacious, visionary.”

And when asked what she’s passionate about, she wrote, “I am passionate about challenging the status quo. It is not easy, nor it is ever comfortable, but one fearless choice at a time, one brave decison at a time, one courageous action at a time … you can change the world. In the end, some of life’s best moments are on the other side of fear.”

These answers explain the motivations for Shubrick’s subsequent career move — a bold entrepreneurial venture, a cannabis dispensary she would call Six Brick’s, a nod to the six people in her immediate family, many of whom are involved in this operation. And the words and phrases she used in those answers almost eerily portend what an extreme challenge this venture would become. Indeed, the cannabis industry has changed profoundly over the past few years as prices have fallen and the herd of players has been subsequently thinned; nearly 40 dispensaries in the Commonwealth have gone out of business over the past few years.

“The days of ‘if you build it, they will come’ are long gone,” Shubrick said simply when asked to describe the current state of the industry, casting new light and reflection on the answers to those questions five years ago and references to being innovative and visionary, and also hard times, brave decisions, courageous actions, and, yes, challenging the status quo.

“The business is definitely competitive, and prices continue to compress, but I’m extremely grateful for the team that I lead and the customer base we’ve been able to grow, and hopefully will continue to grow.”

In many ways, that’s what she was doing when she desired to take a leap, leave the relative comfort of corporate America and Mother Mutual, and not just start a business, but a cannabis dispensary — becoming a “legal drug dealer,” as she put it — at a time when many large multi-state operators, or MSOs, as they’re called, were eyeing Springfield, in a way that Shubrick, who had seen them come to the City Council first-hand while she was interning for that body, found more than a little disturbing.

“Hearing these multi-state operators talk about Springfield more as a profit center rather than as a place with people really became a catalyst for me wanting to get involved in this industry, especially acknowledging that I was a political science major and African studies major, so I understood and knew first-hand the horror that cannabis had done prior to its legalization in communities like Springfield,” she told BusinessWest. “And I really didn’t like the idea of having dispensaries owned and controlled only by wealthy white men who had no real community ties to Springfield or any real desire to see Springfield be able to leverage this industry and do better and provide not just jobs, but career paths for people.”

Inspired by this desire to challenge what could be considered the status quo, and further inspired by entrepreneurial family members — and especially her grandfather, Hercules Shubrick, who got into the recycling business long before that became meanstream and also owned two convenience stores — she launched Six Brick’s in some of the underused space in the Springfield Republican building nearly two years ago.

“Perhaps it was through complaints and the support of my family or a combination of the two, but I found myself in the process of starting up an adult-use dispensary,” she went on, “wanting to set the tone that those in the community could participate in the legal cannabis community and have authentic representation from the community, as opposed to some performative notion of hiring someone who is a person of color, but isn’t actually an owner/operator.”

Since opening, there has been success and recognition, for both Shubrick and her venture. She has been named to another 40 Under Forty list, this one compiled by Marijuana Venture, and was also named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the New England Cannabis Assoc. Six Brick’s, meanwhile, was named Best Adult Use Dispensary in the state by that same agency.

But there have been challenges as well as the industry has retreated from its strong start of a few years ago.

“Ignorance is definitely bliss; I did not know nor fully understand all that I was getting myself into,” she said. “The business is definitely competitive, and prices continue to compress, but I’m extremely grateful for the team that I lead and the customer base we’ve been able to grow, and hopefully will continue to grow.”

In other words, and to recall those answers from her questionnaire five years ago, nothing is easy, nor is life in this industry anything approaching comfortable. But she is determined and, yes, tenacious, in her quest for both continued success in this business and opportunities to help people victimized by old cannabis laws and non-violent convictions — crimes that are no longer crimes under current state law. Indeed, she has helped many get professional legal guidance to expunge their records and clean their CORI records so they can move on in life.

To sum up her accomplishments to date and her outlook on the future, we return to that questionnaire one more time, and Shubrick’s answer to the question ‘what goal do you set for yourself at the start of each day?’

“I remind myself of the words of Maya Angelou,” she replied. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

She has certainly done all that, and this helps explain why she is not only a success in an extremely challenging business, but why she is a finalist for another honor — the Alumni Achievement Award.

—George O’Brien

Andrew Melendez

Founder, Latino Economic Development Corp.

Andrew Melendez today (above) and as a 40 Under Forty winner in 2015 .

“How has the candidate been able to inspire others through his or her work?”

That’s a question that was added to the nomination form for the Alumni Achievement Award a few years back, with the goal of gaining some additional insight into why a certain candidate is worthy of the prestigious award — beyond the positions and titles on a résumé or a list of contributions when it comes to community involvement.

And in many cases, that question has provided some keen insight into not just what someone does for a living, but the impact of what they do.

Such is the case with Andrew Melendez, founder of the Latino Economic Development Corp. and a driving force in helping aspiring business owners get a venture off the ground or to the next level.

“He serves as an inspiration by demonstrating that, with access to the right resources and support, individuals from any background can achieve prosperity and success,” wrote Edna Rodriguez, director of Behavioral Health for Trinity Health Of New England. “His work highlights the transformative power of empowerment, education, and community support in overcoming barriers and realizing one’s full potential.”

And she had more to say on that subject.

“By championing inclusivity and providing opportunities for all, Andrew exemplifies the belief that everyone deserves a chance to thrive and contribute meaningfully to society,” Rodriguez went on. “His story serves as a beacon of hope and encouragement for those striving to build a brighter future for themselves and their communities, regardless of their starting point.”

Melendez’s story is, indeed, an intriguing and inspiring one, with several interesting chapters. These include everything from a short stint as coordinator of an early-literacy initiative led by the mayor of Holyoke to work managing and supervising about 500 substitute teachers for Springfield Public Schools; from a stint as executive director of the short-lived Agawam YMCA Family Center (he was in that role when he joined the 40 Under Forty class of 2015) to a turn in the private sector as operations director for CVS Health, where he was responsible for the efficient operation of multiple locations. There was also a stint as Western Mass. director for Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

“He serves as an inspiration by demonstrating that, with access to the right resources and support, individuals from any background can achieve prosperity and success.”

During that time with AIM, the pandemic hit, providing Melendez with some real insight into the reach and power of business assocations.

“They had an HR hotline; you could call and ask questions of a lawyer,” he recalled. “I said to myself, ‘this is amazing — all these multi-million-dollar companies are getting all this support.’ And I was thinking that, if all these large companies are getting support, we need to be giving support to our minority micro-businesses.”

This led to brainstorming, conducted with other leaders from the Latino community, such as state Sen. Adam Gomez, Springfield City Councilor Orlando Ramos (himself a past AAA finalist), and others to create the Latino Economic Development Corp.

The agency is unique in that it is not a chamber of commerce, nor a business incubator, although it serves as both in many ways. The LEDC provides support to entrepreneurs for all demographic groups (despite its name) in many ways and on many levels. That list includes everything from direct financial support through grants to a pool of coaches — experts who can assist entrepreneurs with everything from writing a business plan to marketing and public relations to support with coping with the huge amounts of stress that come with having one’s name on the business.

And over the past 30 months or so, the agency has made some real strides.

“We’ve brought close to 15 new businesses to downtown Springfield, we’ve given out $200,000 in mini-grants, and we’ve started a new cohort called the Latino Economic Development Institute, and we’ve just graduated 40 people in that cohort, and we have another 15 graduating this week … I could go on and on,” he said. “We have 12 different coaches doing one-on-one coaching; we’re leading the charge in micro-business support.”

Melendez, who was has been instrumental in getting the LEDC off the ground, shaping its unique mission, and running its operation, told BusinessWest that the work is impactful — and inspirational on many levels — although nothing about entrepreneurship is easy, so some of the conversations are difficult.

“Almost every day, I’m talking with someone who has this great idea that they want to bring to the table; they want to talk about creating a business plan, and I walk them through the process,” he said. “But small businesses and micro-businesses do fail; just this morning, I was talking with someone … they’re having a hard time, they’re not sure what to do, and don’t know whether to close their doors or not.

Whether it’s those first conversations — the ones about taking a bright idea to market and developing a business plan — or the harder ones, about whether to keep the doors open, the goal is the same, he said: to provide the business owner with support and a plan for moving forward.

“There are exciting conversations, and there are hard conversations,” he went on. “And I love the environment we’ve created, which is in many ways the first of its kind in the Bay State.”

For Melendez, this latest work is the culmination of everything that came before it career-wise, steps where he developed a passion for others and cultivated myriad skills, especially when it comes to organization, building teams, developing relationships, making connections, and getting things done.

All of this has come together at the LEDC, where not all dreams come true, but all dreams are given their best chance to come true.

And Melendez, through his work and the example he has set, is a huge part of the agency’s success.

As Rodriguez noted, he serves as an inspiration “by demonstrating that, with access to the right resources and support, individuals from any background can achieve prosperity and success.”

This has made Melendez a leader, a 40 Under Forty honoree, and now, an Alumni Achievement Award finalist.

—George O’Brien

Hadley Is on the Road (Route 9, That Is) to Progress

By George O'Brien May 24, 2024

Molly Keegan says the Route 9 project is just one of many ongoing issues in Hadley.

There is no official countdown clock on the massive project to widen and reconstruct roughly 2.5 miles of Route 9 in Hadley.

But there might as well be.

Indeed, many business owners and residents alike are counting down the months, weeks, and days until this important undertaking, launched in 2021, is in the books; April 2026 is the projected date. Everyone agrees that, when finished, the project will be well worth the trouble and inconvenience it is creating. But getting there … well, that is an ongoing challenge and topic of frustration for many.

“Yes, it’s a disruption, especially for some of the businesses along Route 9 that have had more disruption to date than others,” said Molly Keegan, a principal with Curran & Keegan Financial, a Select Board member in town and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Hadley Business Council. “But, ultimately, I think it’s really going to serve the business community well once it’s completed.”

The Route 9 project is one of many ongoing issues in this community of just over 5,000 people, said Keegan and Town Administrator Carolyn Brennan. Others include a growing need for a full-time planner, the advancement of plans for a new Department of Public Works facility, and ongoing work to maintain the town’s dikes, a costly but necessary initiative.

But it’s a housing problem — which mirrors what’s happening in many other communities but is perhaps more acute because of the surging cost of real estate in Hadley — that has perhaps taken center stage, Brennan said.

“Ultimately, I think it’s really going to serve the business community well once it’s completed.”

As in many other communities, she noted, a shortage of affordable housing is certainly impacting seniors and young families. The former want to stay in town but don’t have any place to go except the large homes they no longer want or need, and the latter are finding it increasingly difficult to come to Hadley because there is very little that they can afford.

“If you do any search on housing in Hadley, at any given time, there’s maybe five or six houses, and they’re extremely expensive,” Brennan said. “There are a lot of parents who have raised their kids here — and those kids can’t afford to raise their own children here.”

Keegan agreed. “It’s very difficult for people on either end of the spectrum to buy in,” she said. “If you look right now and see what’s for sale in Hadley, you’ll find houses for $900,000 to $1 million. Young people looking to start a family are not going to be able to afford that.”

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Hadley, a community known for its asparagus, but also a lively, diverse business community that continues to take advantage of the town’s unique spot on the map.

Location, Location, Location

As she relayed the story of how Curran & Keegan relocated from Northampton to Middle Street in Hadley, in the center of town, in 2021, Keegan explained, rather succinctly and effectively, why this community has become such a popular mailing address for businesses of all kinds.

In short, it’s that oldest and most absolute of commercial real-estate values: location, location, location, in this case between two college towns and two of the most popular destinations in the region — Amherst and Northampton — a spot that has made Hadley a destination itself.

Carolyn Brennan

“If you do any search on housing in Hadley, at any given time, there’s maybe five or six houses, and they’re extremely expensive. There are a lot of parents who have raised their kids here — and those kids can’t afford to raise their own children here.”

“We had been renting and were looking for a property to purchase,” she explained. “This particular property we’re in had been a residential property, but given its proximity to Route 9, it happened to be zoned commercial. We fell in love with it; it’s a wonderful location for our clients on both sides of the river, and also those coming down from Franklin County. We’re in the perfect spot at the crossroads of Route 47 and Route 9.”

Business owners in virtually every sector can say essentially the same thing, which is why Hadley, and especially that Route 9 corridor, is home to everything from hotels and restaurants to big-box retail stores; from car dealerships to cannabis dispensaries; from tech companies to the world headquarters for V-One Vodka.

All or most of them are taking full advantage of the 100,000 or so cars that pass along Route 9 every day, although there are certainly fewer these days as the construction project continues and many bypass the thoroughfare — if they can. And those that are on it are moving more slowly because of that work.

Hadley at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1661
Population: 5,325
Area: 24.6 square miles
County: Hampshire
Residential Tax Rate: $11.39
Commercial Tax Rate: $11.39
Median Household Income: $51,851
Median Family Income: $61,897
Type of Government: Open Town Meeting, Board of Selectmen
Largest Employers: Super Stop & Shop; Evaluation Systems Group Pearson; Elaine Center at Hadley; Home Depot; Lowe’s Home Improvement
* Latest information available

But, by and large, businesses along the road are getting by, said Keegan, adding that project was one of the motivations for creation of the Hadley Business Council, and it has certainly become a priority for the agency, which meets on the last Friday of each month.

The council has helped generate ongoing communication among the business community, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and Baltazar Contractors, the general contractor handling the Route 9 project, which has in some ways eased the disruption.

“They recognize the negative impact on businesses, and they’ve been doing everything they can to make sure that there’s signage to indicate that businesses are still open and that they’re not blocking people from entering those businesses,” Keegan said. “So we’ve established a good working relationship.

“That said, there has been an impact on certain businesses,” she said, listing ventures ranging from Hillside Pizza to Wanczyk Nurseries to Exotic Auto, which had to be relocated to another spot on Route 9 because of the project.

As noted, the road work is one of the main focal points at present for the business council, which was formed, she explained, to improve communication between the town and its business community — “in both directions.”

One of the council’s priorities is educational opportunities, she said, adding that the town’s building inspector has appeared before the group to talk about the permitting process. Meanwhile, the council serves as a voice for the business community if it wants to bring something to the attention of town leaders, such as the need for specific bylaws and zoning on food trucks.

“I think we’ve done remarkably well for a long time, but there is so much out there in terms of grant opportunities, especially around housing — the state is really promoting housing construction — and it’s difficult to take advantage of those opportunities when you don’t have someone focused on it on a full-time basis.”

One of the issues moving forward is a heavy reliance on volunteer board members, said Keegan, adding that, for some time, the town has looked at hiring a full-time planner but hasn’t been able to fit such a position into the budget. Money remains tight, but the need for a planner continues to grow, she told BusinessWest.

“I think we’ve done remarkably well for a long time, but there is so much out there in terms of grant opportunities, especially around housing — the state is really promoting housing construction — and it’s difficult to take advantage of those opportunities when you don’t have someone focused on it on a full-time basis,” she explained. “So that’s something we will continue to take a look at; ultimately, a position that like that will pay for itself over time.”

Housing, Housing, Housing

As she talked about Hadley’s housing challenges, Brennan referenced a recent project undertaken by students in the architecture and landscape architecture programs at UMass Amherst.

As part of a studio course, the students were asked to develop potential plans for re-envisioning the Hampshire Mall, a 33-acre property on Route 9 that, like many malls, has suffered from the growing popularity of online shopping and other sea changes in retail and has lost of many businesses.

The course, “Reimagining the Hampshire Mall: Exploring Opportunities for Intergenerational Housing and Community Development,” yielded a proposal to convert the space into 40 rowhouses and 150 apartments with recreational areas.

“It was really fascinating; we sat and listened to the students, who showed us the design and engineering of what the mall could look like by bringing housing and commercial together, and that was very interesting,” said Brennan, noting that the audience included many from the business community and Hadley’s Economic Development Committee, as well as representatives of the mall. “There is definitely some potential for something like this in Hadley.”

While she acknowledged that this was a course project and such an initiative is a long way from reality, Brennan said it will require some real imagination and, most likely, creative reuse of properties like the mall to ease the town’s housing shortage.

“It was a good visual for people on those committees to see what the opportunities are in Hadley,” she said, adding that, like other cities and towns in the region, Hadley is finding it challenging to interest the development community in affordable-housing initiatives, which is the type of project most needed at the moment.

Indeed, Keegan noted that the town’s senior population continues to grow each year, and there is a huge shortage of housing for that constituency.

She offered hope that town officials might be able to take advantage of state Chapter 40R, which encourages the creation of dense residential or mixed-use smart-growth zoning districts, including a high percentage of affordable-housing units, to ease the crunch.

“40R could go a long way toward helping us increase the housing stock,” she said. “But like anything, whatever changes are made are done thoughtfully and over some period of time.”

Housing is one option being considered for the iconic, 129-year-old Russell School, said Brennan, noting that the landmark has been vacant since 2015. A reuse study has identified several alternatives, including keeping the property as a municipal building and renovating it and creating a public-private partnership, she noted.

“The study is going to determine what the market might be for various uses and what it would cost to renovate the Russell School,” she said, adding that housing is certainly a consideration. “We’re hoping that we’re going to get some options to put in front of the voters to see how they would like to proceed with the school.”

Bay Path Goes All In with Acquisition of Cambridge College

By George O'Brien May 23, 2024

Education Special Coverage

A Bold Step Forward

Bay Path University President Sandy Doran

As she talked about how Bay Path University’s acquisition of Cambridge College came about — and, more importantly, why — Sandy Doran, Bay Path’s president, turned the clock back almost a year to when the university undertook a ‘strengths and opportunities’ analysis to understand where its growth opportunities might lie.

This led to creation of a cross-disciplinary leadership task force to conduct an analysis of strategic growth opportunities, building on the things the school does well while also focusing on ways to amplify those traits.

This task force eventually identified five opportunities for growth — everything from graduate programs to business-to-business corporate sponsorships; from expansion of its online American Women’s College to growth in enrollment among Latino populations.

As it considered these opportunities and how to seize them, Doran said Bay Path, its leadership, and its board could “do some things around the edges” with all or several of them, as she put it, or “do something bold and think about our future in a transformational way.”

Given Bay Path’s recent history — one that has seen it achieve dramatic growth and rise from a two-year college to a four-year university with a growing slate of degree options and national recognition in fields like cybersecurity — the latter course was essentially a given, said Doran, now in her fifth year as president of the college, adding quickly that the question became what this bold move would be.

“Outside of Puerto Rico and New York City, Western Massachusetts has the largest Hispanic population in the United States. We knew that, in order to meet the needs of that population, we needed to grow our student services, we knew we needed additional support, and we identified it as a potential growth opportunity.”

As different opportunities were considered, the answer became an acquisition of Cambridge College, a Boston-based, private, nonprofit institution established in 1971, a move that should enable Bay Path to double its overall enrollment; gain a presence in other markets, including Boston and Puerto Rico, which Cambridge as a campus; and, overall, achieve growth in all those areas identified by the task force.

This includes enrollment among Hispanic populations, she said, noting that this is one of the fastest-growing constituencies in this region.

“Outside of Puerto Rico and New York City, Western Massachusetts has the largest Hispanic population in the United States,” Doran told BusinessWest. “We knew that, in order to meet the needs of that population, we needed to grow our student services, we knew we needed additional support, and we identified it as a potential growth opportunity.

“We wanted a partner that had experience serving this Hispanic market,” she went on, adding that Cambridge College, which is a designated Hispanic-serving institution, has this experience, among many other qualities.

Indeed, overall, Bay Path and Cambridge share a number of other strengths — everything from online programs (locally, Cambridge, which had a location in Springfield’s Tower Square, now offers programs only online) to meeting the needs of first-generation college students, said Doran, adding that the schools also share missions and values.

Much of Bay Path’s growth is taking place beyond the borders of its Longmeadow campus.

“Those cultural aspects — of serving the same student populations, of thinking about our values and joining together with another organization and making sure that their values were compatible and strengthened ours — are key; we just knew that, without that shared mission, those shared values, we wouldn’t be able to move forward,” she said, adding that this merger represents the latest in a series of bold moves for Bay Path.

The ones to come before have taken it to levels that might not have been imagined 25 years ago. This latest one will build on those efforts and take the university to different places — quite literally, in the case of Puerto Rico and the Boston market — and figuratively when it comes to needed size and higher status among the region’s and country’s higher-ed institutions.

For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at this intriguing merger — how it came about and what it means for Bay Path as it continues its recent history of taking bold steps.

Course of Action

Sounding much like area bank presidents, which have been harping on the need for size in a changing financial-services environment for years now, Doran said growth is perhaps more important than ever for institutions of higher education.

Given the spiraling costs of doing business and the many challenges facing colleges and universities, including demographics in the form of smaller high-school graduating classes, growth in overall enrollment is critical.

“To be a financially sustainable institution, it’s important to have 5,000 students or more,” she said, adding that Bay Path now surpasses that number. “Five thousand students gives you the resources, it gives you the financial strength, the revenue streams — all those things that are essential to a sustainable institution.”

And, as in the banking industry, there are different ways to achieve growth in higher education. One method is organic growth, through everything from more aggressive marketing to creation of new degree programs, especially at the graduate level, a course taken by many schools locally, including Bay Path.

But there are also opportunities to partner with other schools and, increasingly, to acquire them, especially as more struggle with enrollment, face uncertain futures, and, in some cases, even close their doors.

Doran said Bay Path has been looking at many growth strategies, including acquisition, and had looked at several different institutions.

“We talked to some colleges in the Southeast, we talked to some in the Southwest, we talked to some in the middle of the country, and ultimately, we were very fortunate to find a partner here in Massachusetts,” she said, adding that Cambridge College emerged as the option that made the most sense, for many reasons, especially those shared traits and values, as well as areas of focus — particularly online programs and service to Hispanic students — that would provide Bay Path with avenues for growth. “They had so much of what we were looking for in a partnership. What they have to offer lines up beautifully with what we were looking for.”

Doran said she didn’t know if Cambridge was looking to be acquired, but did know that it was looking to partner, as many schools are in these challenging times. Elaborating, she said Cambridge certainly suffered during the pandemic — again, as many schools did — but coming out of COVID, its enrollment has been increasing over the past few years, with much of that growth coming in online programs.

“It’s not a just a checklist of how you communicate with students and families whose first language is Spanish. Are we offering all the right supports? Do we understand the cultural nuances of how to serve the Hispanic market, which is very much growing in Western Mass.?”

And while talks with other potential acquisition candidates progressed to different degrees, Bay Path eventually crossed the finish line with Cambridge College because the ‘fit’ — the word you hear so often in these transactions — was right for both sides, and especially Bay Path.

“It’s one thing to read about mission and culture and values on a website and talk about it with people inside an organization,” Doran said. “But it’s really when the boards sit down, the leaders sit down, and you have a chance to meet with students that you get a true picture. I had the chance to meet with students at Cambridge College, and that is really what convinced me, the board, and others that this is really the right fit.

“And that’s because their students are our students,” she went on. “Half are students of color, half are first-generation students, 60% of their students are in graduate programs, and 60% are online.”

Class Acts

Getting back to the growth-strategy exercises of a year ago and the establishment of a matrix to determine whether a potential partner might be right for Bay Path, Doran said several necessary common threads were identified, with shared mission and values being just one.

Others include everything from a strong culture of innovation to an opportunity to “expand our reach,” as she put it; from a commitment to workforce development to strong business-to-business partnerships.

When it comes to expanding reach, this is a broad term that covers considerable ground, said Doran, encompassing everything from expansion into new geographic regions to reaching new populations to expansion of online and graduate programs.

Merging with Cambridge College allows the university to do all of that, she said, adding that the acquisition brings with it a number of huge growth opportunities.

As one example, she returned to the Hispanic population and Bay Path’s desire to better serve — and, yes, capture more of — that market, explaining why this acquisition makes sense for the institution.

“We have here a limited experience in terms of fully serving the Hispanic market,” she explained. “We’ve developed some student supports; we’ve given them some academic supports. If you peruse our website, you’ll see that many of our web pages are now in Spanish, so we can speak directly to students whose native language is Spanish and to their parents.

“But we knew that we didn’t know enough because there’s a huge cultural component,” she went on. “It’s not a just a checklist of how you communicate with students and families whose first language is Spanish. Are we offering all the right supports? Do we understand the cultural nuances of how to serve the Hispanic market, which is very much growing in Western Mass.?

“We really wanted to reach into that marketplace because we knew how important it was for Western Mass., and for the nation, for that matter,” she continued. “This is the fastest-growing population in the country, and as an institution, our job, our mission, is to serve those students with equally robust and dedicated resources.

There are other benefits to be gained from this acquisition, obviously, said Doran, who listed Cambridge College’s portfolio of graduate programs as another of them.

Elaborating, she explained that developing new graduate programs and bringing them to market is a costly, very involved process that can take years, when time is a luxury few institutions have.

“To bring a new program to market can take two to five years,” she explained. “So the opportunity to grow graduate programs by acquiring another college was absolutely essential to what we were thinking about, and with Cambridge, we’re acquiring about 30 new graduate programs.

“So if you think about it, even taking two years to bring a program to market, it would have taken 60 years,” she went on. “That’s a long time, even for me.”

Grade Expectations

Doran said full integration of Cambridge College into Bay Path will take 18 to 24 months, and over that time, several issues will be settled, including whether — and in what ways — the Cambridge College name will live on.

That name has some value in various markets, she said, adding that she hopes the brand lives on in some form.

Meanwhile, she’s more certain about other aspects of this acquisition, especially the part about it being a bold, decisive step at a time when such actions are required of higher-ed institutions looking to fully emerge from the challenging pandemic and post-pandemic periods in a position to not merely survive, but grow and thrive.

“I will credit our board with being such strong partners,” he said. “They’ve always been bold, they’ve always been strategic — we were the first in the region to have online education — and that kind of support is very critical.”

And it’s yet another example of how a school with a rich past is focused, as Doran put it, on thinking about the future in a transformational way.

Brendan Greeley Charts a Course for the Family Business

By George O'Brien May 23, 2024

The Next Chapter

Brendan Greeley, president of the R.G. Greeley Co.

Growing up, Brendan Greeley never thought much about going to work for his father at the commercial real-estate firm he started the same year Brendan was born — the R.J. Greeley Co.

But as his undergraduate work was wrapping up at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, his father, Robert Greeley, asked him to start thinking about it.

And there was a lot to think about. Brendan didn’t really know much about this business, or business in general, and his college work didn’t exactly prepare him for that industry.

“I was a sociology and anthropology major with a minor in religion,” he said. “I was a singer in a band … and I never really thought much about my career.”

After telling his father he’d think about his invitation, Brendan sought the advice of one of his uncles, who told him, among other things, that commercial real estate was a good business for meeting … well, all kinds of people in many different businesses, exposure that could lead to different types of career opportunities.

“He said, ‘at the very least, you can go work for your dad for a little while, get a snapshot into different kinds of businesses, and see what you like,’” he recalled, adding that he went to work for his father for more than a little while, and eventually determined that commercial real estate was something he liked.

Fast-forwarding a little (we’ll go back and fill in some details later), Brendan learned a lot from his father, gradually assumed more responsibilities for running the business, and eventually became its president in 2017. After what he described as a somewhat difficult transition process, he bought his father out in 2019 and steered the company through the difficult COVID years and their aftermath.

Now, just over a year after his father passed away at age 73, the younger Greeley is writing new chapters in the history of the 43-year-old company. The firm is smaller now, with a staff of just two, but “doing more with less,” as he put it.

He is continuing to build on the portfolio of properties the firm handles, which is anchored by the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College in a collection of buildings that were once part of the Springfield Armory and later home to a massive Digital Equipment Corp. operation.

“My father always impressed upon me, from the beginning, that you have to go out and establish your network, the people you’re going to be doing business with — the people, as my father used to say, that you’re going to be in the trenches with.”

The Tech Park, as it’s called, has been around about as long as Brendan Greeley has been with the family business (which calls the park home itself), and it has been a career-long focal point and passion, he said, adding that the company has successfully filled most of the space vacated by a Liberty Mutual call center and continues to work to fill remaining vacancies in the sprawling complex.

“We had a great year last year — we brought on the Department of Developmental Services with a lease for just under 30,000 square feet for 10 years,” he said, adding that the state agency and other signed tenants now fill most of the 55,000 square feet once occupied by Liberty Mutual.

Meanwhile, the R.J Greeley Co. continues to respond to changes and trends within the market — everything from growing inventories on the office side of the ledger (a byproduct of remote work and hybrid schedules at businesses in virtually every sector) to an extreme tightening of the industrial and distribution markets, a byproduct of rising interest rates that have produced an environment in which it is far more advantageous to buy or lease than build new.

Brendan Greeley continues to build on his firm’s portfolio of properties, which is anchored by the Technology Park at STCC.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Greeley about the market and what the future might bring, and about what might come next for the company that was started by his father and still bears his initials, but is now being steered by his youngest child.

Right Place and Time

As he talked about his time with the company, and especially about life in a family business, Greeley spoke for everyone who has ever had that experience when he said, “it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, that’s for sure.”

Elaborating, he described his father as a great real-estate broker, teacher, and mentor — “I wish I had his ability to mentor people and bring them along” — but not the easiest person to work with or for, and someone who didn’t think much about succession planning, didn’t really want to think about it, and did so only when the matter was pressed.

Indeed, when asked when his father first started talking to him about succession planning, Greeley laughed and said, “never.”

“That was a painful process,” he recalled. “Succession planning was really hard for him. He never really thought about wanting to retire, it seems, and he was pretty reluctant to think about it.”

So much so that Greeley admitted to thinking about perhaps doing something else because of that reluctance.

“I had to impose some timelines to move things along,” he went on. Eventually, a successful transition was achieved, made easier by some very strong years leading to that changing of hands, punctuated by the brokered sale of the former Westinghouse property to one of the players trying to bring a casino to Springfield.

Flashing back further, Greeley recalled that, as he entered the business, he certainly learned a lot from his father, especially when it came to the all-important work of getting in front of people building and maintaining relationships — duties that he referred to collectively as the “grunt work.”

“Those first few years, I was going out and getting to know people,” he told BusinessWest. “My father always impressed upon me, from the beginning, that you have to go out and establish your network, the people you’re going to be doing business with — the people, as my father used to say, that you’re going to be in the trenches with.

“So the first few years were filled with inserting myself into circles of attorneys, accountants, bankers, insurance people — those we work with often — and just making friends with them and creating a network,” he went on.

“There was a lot of driving around, pulling up to businesses, knocking on doors and saying, ‘I’m Brendan Greeley with the R.J. Greeley Co. — I just want to let you know that we’re out there and that, if there’s anything you need with commercial real estate, give us a call.’ There was a lot of going to lunches, playing in golf tournaments, and just … being out there.”

This grunt work has certainly paid off over the years, as the Greeley company has continued its run of success, even during times of stress and duress for the commercial real-estate industry, which is still coping with many lingering effects from the pandemic.

“When I came into the business, a manufacturing building was $50 a square foot, and now, it’s commonly $100 a square foot or more. To build new would be $200 a square foot.”

Foremost among those is the sea change in the office market, which has definitely slowed since the pandemic and has seen vacancies increase as remote work impacts whether companies will renew leases, as well as how much space they take if they do renew.

“Firms are creating opportunities for people to work at home, and that has certainly created some shifts in the office market,” he said. “We have some big chunks of office space that are available or coming available; as leases expire, people are renewing for less space, and that adds up to more inventory.”

This shift is certainly countered by a tightening on the industrial and distribution side of the ledger, where fewer properties are coming on the market and those frequented by ‘for sale’ or ‘for lease’ signs are not on the market for long, and for obvious reasons.

“There are far fewer construction projects taking place in this market because of higher interest rates, and this obviously helps with the value of existing inventory,” Greeley said, citing the laws of supply and demand. “The alternative is to build new, and building new is going to be very expensive.

“When I came into the business, a manufacturing building was $50 a square foot, and now, it’s commonly $100 a square foot or more,” he went on. “To build new would be $200 a square foot.”

As for the value of commercial properties — a huge issue in most major markets and communities of all sizes in the wake of COVID — Greeley said that, by and large, most properties in the region are holding their value, but this ability is being sternly tested by rising interest rates.

“Someone can afford to pay less for an investment property if they’re financing some portion of the transaction,” he explained. “So I would say that investment real estate has deflated some, although the quality inventory seems to be holding value better than the lesser-quality inventory.”

Bottom Line

Looking ahead, Greeley said his company will continue to do more with less in terms of office staff, but continue to look for growth opportunities.

This could include hiring an additional broker or perhaps more, he said, adding that he is always looking for good fits. Meanwhile, the firm is looking at opportunities on the property-management side of the ledger and on the development side as well.

“I have an open mind for opportunities that may present themselves in the future,” he said. “I’m always looking at ways to grow.”

Not bad for someone who never gave much thought to working at the family business growing up — and is now the owner of the family business.

Bulkley Richardson Celebrates a Century of Commitment to the Community

Law Special Coverage

Firm Resolve

Sean Buxton was talking about why he chose to join the Springfield-based law firm Bulkley Richardson, and what he’s found since he came on board not quite a year ago.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” said Buxton, who handles general commercial litigation and is currently doing a lot of work in the firm’s new office in Greenfield, referring specifically to being around — and being mentored by — seasoned attorneys with decades of experience.

“Just in the Litigation department alone, we have Sandy Dibble — I can’t even tell you how long he’s been practicing — and Mike Burke, too; they’re such valuable asssets,” he said. “In the legal field, you get this feeling sometimes that the problem you’re coming on is something you’re seeing for the first time and that no one’s ever dealt with this before. To have someone to go to and have them say, ‘that same exact circumstance hasn’t happened to me, but here’s what my instincts say’ and ‘here’s what I’ve experienced,’ that is so valuable.

“You can bounce ideas off so many people here and make sure that your decisions are informed not only by you and what you’ve learned, but by the instincts and experience of everyone around you,” Buxton went on. “And they’re just fascinating people; we have Judge [John] Greaney here, who sat on the Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court, and Sandy as well; the stories they tell and the experiences they can relate … they’re great mentors.”

While the names of the older lawyers and mentors may have changed, and the exact words used to describe their impact may have changed as well, generations of lawyers who have worked at the firm have been saying pretty much the same things as Buxton.

“You can bounce ideas off so many people here and make sure that your decisions are informed not only by you and what you’ve learned, but by the instincts and experience of everyone around you.”

And that’s just one of many things the firm is celebrating as it marks its centennial this year in what could be described as quiet, poignant fashion (we’ll get back to that in a bit).

It’s taking place at a time of change in the business landscape, such as the rise of the cannabis industry, and at a time when many firms are smaller or have been merged into larger entities. Meanwhile, the firm’s ongoing commitment to the community has become a focal point of the centennial, said Managing Partner Dan Finnegan, who came on board in 1992.

“We wanted to celebrate all of the amazing work that has gone into supporting, celebrating, and engaging in the communities in which we live, work, and play through initiatives such as helping to feed the hungry and addressing food insecurity, supporting arts and culture, contributing funds to lifesaving healthcare and research organizations, and providing pro bono legal services to those in need, among many, many others,” he explained. “Members of the firm have contributed time, resources, and finances to help so many worthy causes over the past century, and we plan to continue that legacy.”

Dan Finnegan says the firm’s commitment to the community has become a focal point of its centennial celebration.

Elaborating, he said the firm has launched a new campaign called ‘Be the Change.’ It will connect lawyers and staff with opportunities to engage with organizations in Western Mass. and beyond so they can act together to bring positive change.

The campaign was launched last fall, with a team of 50 from the firm taking part in the annual Rays of Hope breast-cancer walk. Other specific initiatives include a YMCA clean-up day on May 3, when attorneys and staff rolled up their sleeves and helped prepare Stony Brook Acres, a YMCA camp in Wilbraham, for a June opening; partnering with Greater Springfield YMCA to assist area boys and girls attend summer camp (the firm will send 16 youth campers to a YMCA-run camp this summer for one week); and a $10,000 donation to Baystate Health to purchase infusion chairs.

“Giving back to the community is one of the core values that differentiates us,” said Peter Barry, who joined the firm in 1982 and preceded Finnegan as managing partner, adding that this is one of many qualities and traditions that essentially go back to 1924.

For this issue and its focus on law, BusinessWest takes a look at 100 years of tradition, expansion, innovation, entrepreneurship, and giving back — and at how these traits will continue to define the firm moving forward.

Making Their Case

When asked how Bulkley Richardson intends to celebrate its centennial — beyond ‘Be the Change’ — Finnegan suggested that the annual holiday party “might be a little more robust this year.”

In most respects, though, it will be business as usual.

And it has been this way since 1924, when R. DeWitt Mallary became associated with the law firm of Frederick Wooden and Harold Small, located in an office at 387 Main St. in Springfield, several blocks south of where the firm is headquartered now, in Tower Square. Eventually, the firm would become Wooden, Small & Mallary.

Peter Barry says the firm has had a noticeable impact on Springfield and surrounding communities over the years.

Mallary would later partner with Morgan Gilbert to form Mallary & Gilbert, and in 1934, J. Bushnell Richardson, a graduate of Springfield’s Central High School, Amherst College, and Harvard Law School, would join them, and in 1947, the firm became Mallary, Gilbert & Richardson.

In 1950, the firm was reorganized, with the law practice conducted in collaboration by two separate partnerships — Mallary & Gilbert, and Richardson Dibble & Atkinson, adding Norris Dibble and Robert Atkinson as partners. The firms practiced together in shared office space.

Fast-forwarding through the middle of the 20th century, Richardson Dibble & Atkinson merged with the firm of Gordon, Bulkley, Godfrey and Burbank in 1956, and the firm was renamed Bulkley, Richardson, Godfrey and Burbank. A year later, Robert Gelinas joined the firm, and in 1964, Godfrey left to form a partnership with Edwin Lyman. Matthew Ryan Jr., elected as district attorney, a part-time office in those days, joined Bulkley, Richardson, Godfrey & Burbank soon thereafter. And with Burbank’s departure in 1972, the firm was renamed Bulkley, Richardson, Ryan, and Gelinas.

In 1978, the district attorney’s role became full-time, and Ryan left the firm, whch was renamed Bulkley, Richardson, and Gelinas. By 1983, the firm consisted of 27 attorneys and was occupying a suite of offices at Baystate West, which later became Tower Square.

It is still there and recently renewed its lease, said Finnegan, so it will be there for a long while to come. Meanwhile, the firm recently opened a Greenfield location (it also has one in Hadley), and now consists of 40 attorneys and more than 30 staff.

“We work hard, and we provide quality service, but we’re pretty good at work-life balance and understanding that folks have to have lives outside of the office.”

That brings us to today, when the firm is marking what have remained constants through all those changes to the letterhead over the past 100 years — especially quality service to a wide array of clients across dozens of different specialities, and an environment where generations of lawyers have, as Buxton noted, worked together and mentored those new to the profession.

It is also marking change, including the contunuing expansion of its practice areas — there are now 32 of them, Finnegan noted.

“We’ve always been a full-service law firm, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in the area,” he said. “And we’ve always been able to provide a wide array of services to clients.”

Within those 32 practice areas there have long been specific strengths, such as health law, said Barry, noting that the firm has long represented many of the region’s larger providers, as well as education, representing several colleges and universities.

Bulkley Richardson’s leaders say the firm was built on excellence and has maintained it through the decades.

But there have been important additions to the portfolio over the years as well, he went on, citing the broad realm of cyber law and service to the growing, changing cannabis industry as just two examples.

Continuing a Legacy

Barry, who has been with the firm for 42 of its 100 years, joined it just before it relocated from State Street to Tower Square, a big move and a rather large risk for the partners at the time, he said, adding that downtown Springfield was a much different place at the time.

And the firm has been involved in many of the changes that have taken place since, representing entities ranging from the Basketball Hall of Fame, which built its new home just over 20 years ago, to the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, which presided over the renovations that brought Union Station back to productive life after nearly 40 years of dormancy, to the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, which operates the MassMutual Center.

“It’s nice to be able to drive around and say, ‘we were involved with that,’” Barry said, adding that the firm has also represented the Westover Metropolitan Development Corp. in its many endeavors in Chicopee and Ludlow and countless other clients as well.

Like Finnegan, Barry said many changes have come to the field of law and the firm over the past few decades, let alone the past century — everything from the demise of law libraries, with all that material now online, to the advent of depositons and other legal functions via Zoom.

What’s probably more important is what hasn’t changed — and won’t change, they said, especially the firm’s commitment to excellence as well as the environment that Buxton described earlier, one where lawyers and staff with wide ranges of experience and knowhow work together to generate positive results for clients while learning from each other.

In fact, both Barry and Finnegan used similar words and phrases to describe those who mentored them when they arrived four and three decades ago, respectively.

“I’ve had a lot of great mentors here,” said Barry, noting that he and others now serve as mentors to the younger atttorneys.

Finnegan said the firm has created a strong culture, one that has promoted many lawyers (he’s one of them), and staff members as well, who then spend their entire careers at Bulkley Richardson.

“That’s a testament to the culture of the firm,” he said. “We work hard, and we provide quality service, but we’re pretty good at work-life balance and understanding that folks have to have lives outside of the office.”

Looking ahead, Barry and Finnegan said the business plan is rather simple. It calls for continued growth and building upon the solid foundation laid in 1924.

“We’ve made a commitment to growth. Within the past few years, we’ve hired quite a few young lateral attorneys, as well as several attorneys right out of law school,” said Finnegan, adding that the firm has what he calls a rather robust summer associate program (he was one himself) that has served to help keep talent flowing through the pipeline. “We have a lot of young lawyers that we’ve hired over the past few years.”

“Overall, the firm has long managed to maintain an important mix of older attorneys, those in the middle of their careers, and those just joining the profession,” said Barry, adding that such a mix is critical to the ongoing success of any law firm.

Finnegan agreed, noting that this quality is one of many that have defined the firm since Warren Harding was in the White House, and will continue to do so moving forward.

“When I got here, the word I always heard was ‘excellence’ — this firm was built on excellence,” he said. “The firm has always been a collection of exceptional lawyers providing top-quality legal services to our clients. I don’t think that’s ever changed over the 100 years the firm has been in existence, nor is it going to change moving forward.”

40 Years of the Workplace

The Pendulum Has Shifted — Maybe for Good

Allison Ebner recalls that, when she first entered the workplace just over 30 years ago, the overriding question still concerned what the employee could do for the employer.

Over the years, and especially over the past decade, the pendulum has certainly shifted to where it’s now more about what the employer can do for the employee.

Indeed, while there have been cycles with the economy and the job market — and, thus, times when the employer and employee have alternated when it comes to having the proverbial upper hand, if you will — the employee has been in control for a while, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future.

“It’s been flipped on its head, and I don’t think it’s necessarily going to flip back that much moving ahead,” Ebner said. “As employers, we’re constantly trying to figure out ways to retain top talent, and I think that is something we’ll see continuing into the future.”

This is just one of many changes that have come to the workplace over the past four decades, and especially the past four years, as the pandemic created a new paradigm. Others involve everything from how people work and where to dress codes; from technology and the emergence of AI to how to maintain a company culture when people are all together maybe, as in maybe, a day or two a week.

Drew Andrews, managing partner and CEO of the accounting firm Whittlesey, touched on many of these trends and issues as he flashed back almost exactly 40 years to when he started with the firm in June 1984.

“There was one computer in the corner of the office; it was a desktop that no one knew how to use. I was the bright, young kid who came out of college and somehow took a course my senior year on how to use that software, Lotus 1-2-3,” he recalled. “I was the only one who knew how to use it, so they had me start to train people on how to do spreadsheets on it. It was so slow and so ineffective that I can remember partners saying, ‘we’ll never be using this … I can do in 10 minutes what you just did in an hour.’”

Meanwhile, he was doing this work in a three-piece suit. “My first day, it was about 85 degrees out, and I’ve got this suit and tie on, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘why am I doing this?’” he recalled. “I was thinking that I should have taken the summer off and worked at the beach.”

Flash ahead to late last month, and he was doing this interview with BusinessWest via Zoom, from his home, wearing an unbuttoned collared shirt, and marveling at just how much things have changed — not just since he was that kid fresh out of school, but since the start of this decade.

And he’s certainly not alone.

Indeed, one of the common threads running through the stories in this 40th-anniversary issue is the dramatic changes that have come to the workplace in recent years, what they mean, and what might come next.

Allison Ebner

“It’s been flipped on its head, and I don’t think it’s necessarily going to flip back that much moving ahead.”

Many of those we spoke with have been working for three or four decades and referred to themselves as ‘old timers’ or even, in one case, a ‘dinosaur.’

And while some admit to being a bit stubborn when it came to those changes that have come in realms from relaxed dress codes to remote work, in almost every case, reason — driven by many factors, but especially the need to attract and retain talent — has won out over stubbornness.

“I’m a suit kind of guy,” said Tom Senecal, chairman of Holyoke-based PeoplesBank. “And it’s taken me a while, but the pandemic changed things. People wanted to go to casual; I said ‘no,’ but finally acquiesced. Then they wanted jeans on Friday, and I acquiesced. And then they wanted jeans every day, and I acquiesced, and it hasn’t really changed.

“I acquiesced on all of them,” he went on, “because who wants to go work at a stodgy, old-perceived institution versus one that’s flexible? I’m competing against tech companies and insurance companies and financial-services companies. You want to wear jeans? You want to work at home? I have to compete, so I have to acquiesce to what the market is doing.”

Moving forward, Ebner and others are seeing some slight movement toward returning to the office, or at least strong efforts in that direction. What they don’t see is the pendulum (meaning that upper hand) swinging back to the employer any time soon.

Is This Work in Progress?

As he talked about all the changes that have come to the workplace, Andrews put things in poignant perspective when he said he would prefer to visit his firm’s three offices, scattered across Northern Conn. and Western Mass., on Monday or Friday, because there are noticeably fewer people on the road those days courtesy of hybrid work schedules and a desire to be home those days.

His own employees are among those who fall into these categories. “So, if I went on Monday or Friday, I’d be visiting myself,” he said with a laugh.

Drew Andrews

“I was the bright, young kid who came out of college and somehow took a course my senior year on how to use that software, Lotus 1-2-3. I was the only one who knew how to use it, so they had me start to train people on how to do spreadsheets on it.”

So he winds up visiting toward the middle of the week, when people are around — at Whittlesey and most other larger places of business across sectors and jobs in which hybrid schedules are feasible.

And that’s a large list, said Ebner, noting that, while profound changes have come to the workplace since the pandemic arrived in 2020, there were already shifts in those directions years before COVID. The pandemic simply accelerated the process, and on many levels.

Also, the period just after the height of COVID became one of the most competitive in recent memory when it came to talent, the shortage thereof, and the lengths that employers would go to attract talent and then retain it.

“Employers pulled out all the stops to keep their people and attract talent, in terms of raising wages, enhancing benefits, and working on ways to keep their people happy,” she said. “It’s settling down just a little bit; we’re seeing a little bit of a cooling on wages — increases for 2024 were not predicted to be as high as they were in 2023 — and benefits are scaling back, especially in terms of employers sharing the increased cost of healthcare. And some of the other benefits around wellness have gone away.

“We’re trying to find that next normal,” she went on, acknowledging a dislike of the phrase ‘new normal.’ “And we’re still settling into that; we’re trying to find the right balance of productivity expectations for employees versus what we’re offering — the employee value proposition. What does that look like?”

Meanwhile, the workplace has changed in other ways, again mimicking society in many respects.

Today, Ebner said, it’s a less tolerant place than it was years ago, with co-workers becoming seemingly less willing to accept points of view — on a wide of topics — other than their own.

“There’s a lack of respect in our workplaces today for ideas, thoughts, basically anything that someone has that differs from yours,” she explained. “There’s a very confrontational undertone in our workplaces today.

Tom Senecal

“You want to wear jeans? You want to work at home? I have to compete, so I have to acquiesce to what the market is doing.”

“The congenial tone of our workplaces where we were more accepting of people who don’t think and do things like us has really diminished, and it’s causing a lot of chaos for employers trying to manage a respectful workplace,” she went on, adding that this chaos has manifested in everything from microaggressions — stealing coworkers’ lunches and messing with their workstations — to sharp rises in requests at EANE for conflict-resolution training and coaching for people who can’t get along.

Remote Possibilities

Certainly, the biggest change to come to the workplace involves fewer people being in the workplace day in and day out.

We all know what happened. COVID forced most people to work remotely, and over the course of weeks that eventually turned into months, people found they liked it, and they were, by and large, just as productive. And when it came time to go back to the office, many weren’t ready to do so. At least not every day.

Over the past few years, remote work and hybrid schedules have ceased being a perk, if that’s even the right word. They became a demand, or an expectation.

As noted earlier, this was not the first preference for the old timers, who came into a world where everyone worked 9 to 5, or something close, and couldn’t work remotely even if they wanted to, because the technology wasn’t there.

It’s certainly there now, and in recent months, two camps have seemed to develop, at opposite extremes.

“There’s a camp on one side that says everyone has to be in the office, and there’s no remote work, and they don’t want to offer any flexibility. And then, you have the other group that says everyone should be virtual, and if you’re not virtual, you’re not a modern employer,” said Ebner, adding that there is room in the middle and one size (or two) does not fit all.

Meanwhile, many of those who recognize this middle ground still believe something important is missing when people are not in the office, even a few days a week.

Dave Glidden, president and CEO of Middletown, Conn.-based Liberty Bank, said his institution has largely solved the issues involving productivity when it comes to remote work. But he worries about culture and the overall development of younger team members.

“When I came up, I don’t know how many times I sat in the conference room and listened to grizzled veterans talk about problem commercial credits and about how you go to market,” he recalled. “That learning was invaluable to me as I came up, and there are now fewer opportunities for young people coming up to experience that.”

As a result, the bank puts great emphasis on ways to maintain culture when people are not in the office every day, because of its importance to the institution’s overall well-being. Initiatives include everything from professional-development programs to outings where teammates can come together, such as a recent ‘bring your kid to work day’; from food trucks and ice-cream trucks to an all-employee gathering at Mohegan Sun.

“I’ve always said that if a company has no culture, it has no soul, and it takes years to build a good culture,” Glidden told BusinessWest. “But you can lose a culture in minutes or 30 days, you really can.”

Andrews agreed.

“Going back to 1984, my seat was outside the boss’s office; just listening to how he talked to clients … I learned so much,” he recalled. “I was a 21-year-old kid; all I knew how to talk to was other 21-year-old kids. Listening to how that person was interacting with clients and handling situations … I just learned from that.

“I’ve been saying this for a while … we as leaders need to get people back into the office more, and for the right reasons — not just to sit there and talk with people who are remote,” Andrews went on. “We have more fulfilling days when we’re together.”

40 Years of Professional Services

In Law and Accounting, It’s a Different World

When Rudy D’Agostino entered the accounting profession back in 1985, there was what they called the ‘Big 8.’

These were the very large firms that dominated the industry at the time — Arthur Anderson, Arthur Young, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte Haskins and Sells, Ernst & Whinney, Peat Marwick Mitchell, Price Waterhouse, and Touche Ross.

“Everyone wanted to work for the Big 8 firms, and there was enormous competition for those jobs,” said D’Agostino, a partner with Holyoke-based Meyers Brothers Kalicka, who got his start at Coopers & Lybrand.

After a series of acquisitions, the Big 8 is now the Big 4 (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler, and PricewaterhouseCoopers), fewer accounting graduates want to work for those giants, and … well, there are fewer accounting graduates in general, a challenge for firms of all sizes.

These are just some of the many changes that have come to the sector, and professional services in general, said D’Agostino and many others we spoke with, who highlighted everything from the way people work to the way people dress to the way firms market themselves — something they couldn’t do in the legal profession, other than the phone book, until 1977. And in accounting, getting Fridays off during the summer, or at least Friday afternoons, has become the norm as firms’ staffs look to recover after a long, seemingly never-ending tax season.

Overall, the biggest change is in how people communicate and a resulting faster pace to the work, said Amy Royal, founder and principal with the Springfield-based Royal Law Firm. She noted that, when she broke into the field in 2000, most correspondence was still by mail. Now, the postage machine sees less use seemingly every month, and very little is actually done by mail.

Instead, much more is being done by email and phone, specifically the cellphone.

Indeed, Royal remembers walking into the office once maybe 15 years ago, and noting, with alarm, how infrequently the office phone had been ringing of late.

“I said to my office manager, ‘do we have a problem? — our office phone isn’t ringing as much,’” she recalled, noting that, after some perspective, she was simply recognizing a trend — people were finding other ways to reach out. And they were doing so at seemingly all hours of the day and night.

Indeed, modern communications technology allows people to reach their accountant or lawyer at any hour, said Jeff Fialky, managing partner of the Springfield-based law firm Bacon Wilson, and, increasingly, they’re doing just that.

Meanwhile, there have been other changes in these fields, including consolidation, especially in accounting, said Patrick Leary, a principal with the Springfield-based firm MP CPAs, noting that many of the smaller firms doing business in the ’80s, ’90s, and earlier this century have been merged into larger firms, a reflection of a broader trend in business.

Jeff Fialky

“We’ve seen substantial consolidation in the banking environments. We have larger and larger and fewer and fewer banks, and the same consolidation across the service industries.”

There are several reasons for this, including the rising costs of technology and retiring Baby Boomers, he noted, but one of the biggest is something that probably couldn’t have been imagined in 1984 — the deepening challenge of finding and retaining talent.

Accounting was never a ‘sexy’ profession, and modern technology has only made it slightly more so, said Leary, adding that this reality, coupled with the fact that a fifth year of college is now required to become a CPA, is leaving fewer people interested in entering the field, at the same when most Baby Boomers are on the doorstep of retirement, if not there already. This has led to firms boosting salaries and sending more work overseas.

Efforts to recruit more students into the field have become a topic of conversation and concern among CPAs and industry groups, said D’Agostino, and greater reliance on internship programs as feeder initiatives.

It’s the same with clerking programs in the legal profession, said Fialky, adding that, overall, law-school enrollment is down, and many firms face challenges with keeping talent in the pipeline.

Case in Point

It’s not exactly what you would call a pressing matter — not like some of those other challenges mentioned above — but one of the challenges facing law firms today is deciding what to with their libraries.

Once an important part of any firm’s operation, they are now all but obsolete, used by only the occasional old-timer now that every piece of information available in those books and journals can be found online, said Royal, adding that, at most firms, law books are decoration — and an enduring background for photos.

Fialky agreed, noting that the demise of libraries is just one of many changes to the profession. Others include the now-24/7 nature of the work, the desire among clients for information immediately — not the next day or even in a few hours, as was once the case — and even the work that lawyers are doing, work that reflects shifts in the market and also movement toward lawyers being more generalists than they are specialists.

Amy Royal

“For a long time, I resisted putting my cell phone on my business card. Post-COVID, that became a necessity, and now people will just call me on my cell or text because they know they can get me.”

“I’m a transactional attorney; 25 years ago, transactional attorneys were not handling M&A transactions and purchases and sales and private equity,” he said. “That’s something we’ve seen become more prominent, especially in our market, over the past 15 years or so, as we’ve seen these maturing, multi-generational companies that have contemplated their outcome being that it’s a matured asset, and their contemplating sale to, in many circumstances, a private-equity-funded purchaser.

“And this has certainly changed the marketplace,” Fialky went on. “We’ve seen substantial consolidation in the banking environments. We have larger and larger and fewer and fewer banks, and the same consolidation across the service industries — not only in law, but in accounting, architecture, landscape architecture, and other sectors.”

But perhaps the biggest change to come to this sector involves technology and how it has changed the pace of work.

Royal noted that lawyers have never exactly been 9-to-5 professionals, and now, they are far less so, with calls, texts, and emails coming at all hours of the day, and with those on the other end expecting an immediate reply.

“For a long time, I resisted putting my cell phone on my business card,” she said. “Post-COVID, that became a necessity, and now people will just call me on my cell or text because they know they can get me.”

Fialky agreed. “The pace has increased precipitously; the volume of correspondence has increased exponentially. In the course of a day, it’s not uncommon, at least in my experience and in my practice, to receive hundreds of correspondences, and those are texts, calls to my cell phone, calls to my hard line, and more, and a lot of that is transferred direct to attorney.”

Adding Things Up

As he talked about his profession, Leary said it was never just about adding up numbers and being a proverbial ‘bean counter.’

There was always a consulting component to the work, he said, adding that now, there is much more of this kind of work, as software has taken over some of the tasks handled with the old calculator that still sits on his desk but is rarely used.

Patrick Leary

“It’s fascinating what you can get involved with in public accounting today, whether it’s forensic accounting or foreign taxation issues and so forth.”

“Today, most businesses, regardless of size, have some accounting software, so you’re getting information from them that’s already compiled and put together, so they’re relying on us for more strategic analysis of those numbers,” he explained. “You’re not questioning whether two plus two equals four; now it’s ‘let’s see what four means.’

“It’s a higher level of skill than what you needed before,” he went on, adding that this shift is one of many to come to the industry.

Another is how the work is done. Indeed, years ago, said D’Agostino, much more time was spent with the client, in person. Today, there is still some face-to-face interaction, obviously, but much more is done by Zoom or over the phone. And those face-to-face meetings are much different.

Leary agreed.

“If we were going to audit ABC Company, we’d back up last year’s paper files and head over there,” he said. “You would spend a couple of weeks with a client, meeting with them, going through their records, pulling invoices, and doing reports. You’d spend a few weeks there — which I really liked, being out of the office, meeting with clients — and building that relationship. And you got a workout because you’d be hauling loads of paper. Today, you’re going out with your laptop, and you’re not necessarily going out to see clients.”

Still another change to come to this field, as noted earlier, is the fact that fewer people are choosing to enter it.

“The accounting field has been experiencing a decline nationally because people who are driven by numbers are leaning more toward the software industry,” Leary said. “And the profession is certainly looking to change that; you can have an excellent career in accounting, because it goes well beyond simple bookkeeping. It’s fascinating what you can get involved with in public accounting today, whether it’s forensic accounting or foreign taxation issues and so forth.”

Rudy D’Agostino

“It really hit home during COVID, and it has only continued since — there are just not enough professionals coming into the workforce.”

D’Agostino agreed. He noted that the required fifth year of college, compensation that is less competitive than some other fields, and a general interest among young people for something sexier than what they perceive accounting to be has led to what is becoming a critical problem for the industry.

“It really hit home during COVID, and it has only continued since — there are just not enough professionals coming into the workforce,” he told BusinessWest. “So accounting firms have to think outside the box to get things done — and also to keep professionals here, which has necessitated being creative, compensation increases, and, with some firms, outsourcing work to other countries.”

One initiative that has helped put young professionals in the pipeline at MBK is an internship program, D’Agostino went on, adding that the firm has four or five interns that come on board annually, and maybe one or two of these will join the firm when they graduate.

“That’s a way to introduce students to the work they will be doing and get them into our firm,” he said. “And we have a pretty good success rate.”

Despite this success, workforce issues will continue into the future, said those we spoke with, creating a greater reliance on technology, automation, and, increasingly, AI to get the work done, leaving accountants with more time to do analysis and consulting.

“There are routine tasks that will get taken over by AI, such as data entry, which can be automated to some extent,” Leary said. “And that provides the time and the tools to analyze data for clients much better. Rather than spending your time keying in data, you’re taking a hard look at it and understanding what those numbers are telling you.”

Bottom Line

When asked to look ahead and project what might happen next within the legal sector, Royal started by saying that, if she was asked that question 25 years ago, she could not possibly have predicted what her world would like today.

That’s a world where most meetings are conducted by Zoom, where lawyers and accountants work remotely in some cases and wear jeans to work when they’re not in court or visiting clients, where the office phone doesn’t ring nearly as much, and where clients’ names come up on cellphones at 10 p.m. — and even 3 a.m.

This is the new reality for those in professional services, she said, joking that maybe what will come next is a shift back to the way things were.

That is certainly not likely. What is likely is that law libraries and those old-fashioned adding machines will become more obsolete and more office decoration than anything else.

40 Years of Manufacturing

Companies Still Find Ways to Make It Here

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

That’s not an adjective he would likely have used 40 years ago, not when the region and many of its communities were dominated by large individual manufacturers or clusters — like GE’s massive transformer complex in Pittsfield, American Bosch and other major players in Springfield, and a still-sizable paper-making sector in Holyoke.

But it works today.

Indeed, while there are still some large manufacturers employing hundreds of people (as opposed to thousands 40, 50, or 100 years ago), this sector is now dominated by smaller players employing maybe a few dozen people each.

And what they’re making has changed as well. While local manufacturing was dominated by firms making tires, matches, paper, and, before that, arms for the U.S. military (at the Springfield Armory) and even monkey wrenches and ice skates, today, they’re making parts for stealth fighters, infrared goggles, medical devices, and other sophisticated products. And soon, in Holyoke, one will be making what is billed as ‘green’ concrete.

“I say invisible backbone because the manufacturing sector in Western Mass., for the most part, is made up of small- to mid-sized manufacturers that are in the supply chains of the larger companies,” said Sullivan, president and CEO of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council and formerly the long-time mayor of Westfield, one of the region’s manufacturing hubs. “And many of those companies are not situated in Western Mass. or Massachusetts, for that matter; they’re in Connecticut or worldwide.

“And they make important parts for the industry,” he went on. “Back when I was mayor of Westfield, there was $100,000 worth of parts of on every single commercial airplane that went through the city of Westfield, and that has only increased.”

These are some of the shifts that have come to this important sector over the past four decades. Others include a seismic shift in how such jobs are perceived, one that has contributed to a lingering workforce problem, and one that has led to a sea change in how hard companies must work to attract and retain talent — and some initiatives that probably couldn’t have been imagined 40 years ago.

Like ‘Barbecue Friday’ at Boulevard Machine in Westfield.

Susan Kasa, president of that company, which makes parts for the military, aerospace, and outer space, among other sectors, said Boulevard feeds its workers breakfast and lunch each day, and, as that name suggests, it devotes Fridays to barbecuing.

“People will take turns being the chef,” she explained. “We’ll do a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers, but sometimes we’ll go all out and do chicken and other meats; our people really enjoy it. You know it’s Friday because you can smell the barbecue.”

Rick Sullivan

“I say invisible backbone because the manufacturing sector in Western Mass., for the most part, is made up of small- to mid-sized manufacturers that are in the supply chains of the larger companies.”

This new tradition is one of many efforts that fall in the broad category of attracting and retaining talent, she said, with others including everything from advertising open positions in church bulletins to programs to introduce young students to manufacturing and the opportunities in this field — starting with middle school.

“We’re not your grandfather’s shop,” Kasa said, adding that the machinery is both more complex and cleaner, and one ongoing challenge is educating not only young people but their parents about this new reality.

Mark Borsari agreed.

He’s president of Sanderson MacLeod, a Palmer-based maker of twisted wire brushes. That’s not as sophisticated a product as infrared goggles or parts for artificial knees, but is an example of how traditional manufacturing is still making it in Western Mass., although it’s challenging — when it comes to everything from competition for orders to competition for people.

“It’s a different world, a different environment than it was 40 years ago and even 20 years ago,” Borsari said. “It gets down to the perception people have and the pride people have in making things and the importance of community; it’s just different.”

Susan Kasa

“Young people have such a bright future in manufacturing, and without incurring all that college debt.”

Like others we spoke with, he said technology, automation, and lights-out manufacturing, where machines run unattended at night, will play ever-larger roles in this sector. But it will always need people, and finding them will continue to be a challenge, especially as the Baby Boomers continue to retire in large numbers.

Tradition of Innovation

As he talked about this important sector, Sullivan stressed what hasn’t changed in 40 years or 250 years, and hopefully won’t change moving forward — that manufacturing is a source of what economic-development leaders have long called ‘good jobs at good wages.’

That is, the kind of jobs every region and every community wants and compete tooth and nail to get — and retain.

This region has always had a strong tradition of manufacturing and innovation — Sullivan said those words are essentially interchangeable — that goes back to the Springfield Armory and even before that. And it continued with the production of everything from firearms to toys; from automobiles and trolley cars to textiles; from home appliances to buggy whips, products that even gave some area communities their nicknames.

Many of these items are no longer made here (although trolley cars are again with the arrival of CRRC). In their place, manufacturers are making parts for jet liners, lunar landers, and the SpaceX rocket. But they also making timing chains for automobiles in the case of U.S. Tsubaki in Holyoke and Chicopee, and fasteners for the roofing industry in the case of OMG in Agawam.

“The manufacturing base in the region still runs the gamut,” said Sullivan, adding that this diversity is certainly a positive, with communities no longer dependent on one company or one sector (Westfield, for example, once home to several buggy-whip manufacturers, suffered greatly with the invention of the automobile).

Mark Borsari

“You can’t have culture when you have people transitioning every two or three years to chase the latest and greatest thing.”

Overall, the sector is smaller and much more invisible, a trait that emerged as many jobs in manufacturing went south or overseas — Bosch closed in 1986, for example — movements that prompted many to question the sector’s viability, contributing to today’s workforce challenges.

Those we spoke with said there has been some progress from efforts to introduce young people to the field, from initiatives like Barbecue Fridays to the rising cost of higher education and a willingness to look at fields that don’t require advanced degrees.

“Young people have such a bright future in manufacturing, and without incurring all that college debt,” Kasa said. “That debt is getting way out of hand, and rising interest rates aren’t helping. These kids going to vocational schools, and they can be an entrepreneur; they can make six figures and be an integral part of the community. So we’re really working to educate parents about this.

“Not every student is cut out for a college degree, and meanwhile, four years is getting them nowhere in this day and age,” she went on. “Having the vocational education does so much more for these kids, and there’s such a future in it.”

She said showing young people where the parts made at Boulevard are going — into the SpaceX rocket, for example — generates enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, valuing employees and cultivating a strong sense of team are also important, she said, not just with breakfast and barbecues, but by creating a culture, building camaraderie, and even grooming the next generation of leadership for the company.

Borsari agreed, noting that building a team and creating a winning culture are some of the things that haven’t changed over the years.

“Years ago, a good business realized they had to have talented people who could add value to their business feel well-compensated to stay with them,” he explained. “It’s the same today, but the difference is that, a lot of times, the high compensation and all those things need to be there before people can demonstrate that they have value.

“And you see that everywhere,” he went on. “You see that in companies with very little longevity; there’s no culture left. You can’t have culture when you have people transitioning every two or three years to chase the latest and greatest thing.”

Overall, Borsari said the culture he and his team have created — one where people enjoy working well together — is perhaps the company’s greatest competitive advantage because such a culture is less common than it was years ago.

“It’s pretty simple stuff, really,” he said. “It’s a refusal to take the cheap way out and at the end of the day, and it’s doing right by the people who count on us to treat them like we would want them to treat us.”

Bottom Line

Looking ahead, Sullivan repeated his oft-stated view that this region needs a growth strategy, one that will emphasize both the lower cost of living here and the strength and diversity of the local economy in an effort to convince more young people to stay — and more people from outside the region to find the 413.

And manufacturing is a big part of that story, he said, adding that the innovation that has defined the region for hundreds of years lives on in this sector.

You can’t look up a passing jet fighter out of Barnes and see the parts made here, said Sullivan, but they’re there. Just like this all-important component of the region’s economy.

40 Years of Financial Services

Technology, Immediacy Have Changed the Game

When she first started working for Merrill Lynch in 1985, Pat Grenier had a desk, a phone, a phone book, and a street directory. And there was a lot of cold calling.

“I picked a street, and I would call everyone on that street; you can’t do that anymore,” she said, adding that it goes without saying that there’s no phone book anymore. And there’s nowhere near as much cold calling — in this sector and most others. And the desk and desk phone are not used nearly as much as they were even five years ago.

These are just some of the changes that have come to the broad financial-services sector, said Grenier, president of Grenier Financial Advisors, noting that, back when she started, and until maybe a few decades ago, this was what she called a ‘transactional’ business. Now, it’s far less about making transactions — especially the buying and selling of stocks — and more about partnering with the client to secure lifelong financial security.

“Now, our business is far more planning-oriented, and advisors are working more as a part of a team,” she said, adding that, instead of buying and selling stocks for clients, professionals like her will advise clients on everything from retirement planning to the specifics of a senior-living facility contract, to helping family members find bookkeepers or companions for their parents. “All that is not transaction work.”

Barbara Trombley, president of Trombley Associates, agreed, noting that the word advisor has come into popular use only over the past two decades or so.

Years ago, she said, individuals would have called someone who did what she does a stockbroker or even ‘my guy’ — a nod to how few women ventured into this field.

“It’s not just us putting together a portfolio — it’s how do you spend your money? How do you make it last? How do you leave money to your kids? And it’s a lot more personal,” she told BusinessWest. “I don’t get upset about the market going up and down on a day-to-day basis because I’m not trading stocks.”

Much has changed, and the same is true in another branch of the broad financial sector — insurance.

Indeed, when Sam Hanmer, president of Rush Insurance and a nearly 40-year veteran in this field, first started, he used “manuals, microfiche, the fax machine, and a dot-matrix printer,” he recalled. And customers were OK with getting answers to their questions in a few days.

Now, everything is stored in the cloud, and those same customers want this information instantaneously.

“The expectation is that they call, and they want the answer,” he said. “It’s on-time delivery in just about any setting, including insurance.”

Lisa Johnson, chief operating officer of Amherst-based Encharter Insurance, agreed, and said this business has changed in many other ways as well. Maybe the biggest has been consolidation brought on many different factors, ranging from the higher cost of doing business in a far more technology-driven field to retiring Baby Boomers looking for an exit strategy.

Pat Grenier

“Now, our business is far more planning-oriented, and advisors are working more as a part of a team.”

“It just became too difficult for small, independent businesses to survive given the amount of technology needs required to run an agency these days,” she said. “Human resources has changed so dramatically; you almost can’t run a business without having a human-resources expert to turn to. A lot of this has driven many of these smaller agencies to decide that this is the time to sell.

“What used to be your neighborhood agency is now likely owned by a much larger entity,” Johnson added, referring to a trend that covers not only insurance but many any business groups as well, from banks to accounting firms to law firms.

Meanwhile, another trend impacting almost every sector — challenges with finding and retaining talent — is also prevalent in this field, she said, using understatement when saying, “young people are not turned on by insurance.”

This has led to ever-greater amounts of automation and use of AI, she said, adding that these trends will only accelerate in the years and decades to come.

Money Never Sleeps

Flashing back to when he started in financial services nearly 40 years ago, Mike Matty, president of St. Germain Investment Management (which is celebrating its own milestone: 100 years), started by talking about technology and how it has profoundly changed this business and financial services in general.

“I always say that people have more information available to them today, on the internet and on their phone, than I had available to me as a mutual-fund manager back in the ’80s,” he told BusinessWest.

Barbara Trombley

“It’s not just us putting together a portfolio — it’s how do you spend your money? How do you make it last? How do you leave money to your kids? And it’s a lot more personal. I don’t get upset about the market going up and down on a day-to-day basis because I’m not trading stocks.”

“There wasn’t even CNBC back then,” he added. “If you wanted to know what happened with the stock market back in those days, you turned on the 6 o’clock news and waited for the business segment. The world is so different right now.”

That goes for everything from the Dow, which was at or around 2,000 in the late ’80s (except for that fateful day in October 1987, when it lost 25% of its value) and is now at 38,000, to the way information is available instantly.

Too much information in some respects, said Matty, noting that the 24/7 nature of CNBC and other outlets creates higher levels of anxiety among those watching their wealth.

“Everything becomes an immediacy that they need to do something about,” he explained. “They’ll say, ‘the opening bell in seven minutes’ or ‘the most important hour of the day, the closing bell.’ They try to create anxiety and news out of a clock.”

This anxiety, and need to do something, certainly contributes to the wild fluctuations that have defined the markets in recent years, he said, joking that people might be better off if they waited for the 6 o’clock news.

They are certainly better off with today’s financial professionals, who do far more advising than their predecessors did 40 years ago.

“In 1984, most folks on this side of the table were more asset managers than financial planners,” Matty explained. “Now, the term we use is ‘wealth managers,’ because with that term comes the financial planning and the estate side of things; it’s a holistic approach as opposed to just managing a slice of your assets, which is more the way the business was years ago.”

Grenier agreed and described a typical day, and typical customer interaction, 40 years ago this way: “We focused on … ‘well, we have A, B, and C for you to buy because we think it’s going to do this, that, or the other thing.’ We didn’t look at the entire person, whereas now we are looking at the entire person, as well as their family.

Sam Hanmer

“The expectation is that they call, and they want the answer. It’s on-time delivery in just about any setting, including insurance.”

“And we’re talking with them about transitioning wealth and protecting wealth,” she went on, adding that financial-services professionals are coaches, counselors, caretakers, and mediators — even if these words aren’t necessarily printed on business cards. “‘If you have a trust, is it titled properly? Are your beneficiaries up to date?’ I talk to them about all of that, whereas, when I first started, it was, ‘OK, I have this municipal bond,’ or ‘I have this stock.’”

This represents a dramatic change in this field that is still ongoing, said Matty, adding that today’s financial advisors serve in the same way Google Maps does.

“We guide people,” he said. “We need to know where you are, so let’s find out where we’re starting from. Let’s then figure out where you want to go and look at the options for getting there.”

Meanwhile, some important things haven’t changed.

“Oftentimes, you’ll have these conversations with people, and they’ll say, if I die…’ And I say, ‘let’s back up a minute. There is no if, there’s only going to be a when, unless you know something that I don’t, so let’s talk about what you want to do with your money between now and then to help you accomplish your goals.’”

In other words, death and taxes are still the only certainties in this business.

Policy Makers

Turning back the clock to to 1985, when he got his start in the insurance business, Hanmer, who has been with several agencies over the decades and unretired a few years ago, said there are certainly more players in this sector, primarily because the business was in many ways easier and less costly.

Mike Matty

“People have more information available to them today, on the internet and on their phone, than I had available to me as a mutual-fund manager back in the ’80s.”

“When I started in the agency, your personal lines and your automobile insurance, specifically, had what they called ‘fixed and established rates,’ and that was all set by the state; the insurance companies didn’t set the rates,” he explained. “And that allowed you to have a mom-and-pop agency on just about every corner because it was more of a convenience buy then ‘I need to go shop my insurance to see if I can get the best deal,’ because every agency would provide you with the same number when it came to auto.

“All this allowed for what I call a lifestyle business,” he went on. “You could make a pretty good living with two, three, or four people in your office, and there would be one right down the street and another right down the street from that.”

It’s much different now, Hanmer said, adding that, when the state changed to competitive rating a quarter-century ago, that changed the dynamic in the industry. Prior to that time, and because the state set the rates, most direct writers didn’t have a presence in the state.

Lisa Johnson

“Businesses look to cut down on the vulnerabilities they have. And a big vulnerability for all of us in insurance over the past decade, and I’ve really seen it accelerate, is personnel — trying to get people who are well-trained and understand that the insurance business is just really difficult.”

“They didn’t want to play that game,” he said, adding that the Progressives, State Farms, and Liberty Mutuals of this world now have a huge presence in the state, and its residents are subject to their endless TV commercials.

“With that competition, agencies had to work a whole lot harder because they had to shop everything,” he went on. “A lot of them said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and that started the consolidated process.”

And it has continued unabated, said Johnson, noting that private-equity funds have discovered the insurance industry, and now, many of the mergers are driven by aggregators backed by private-equity funds.

All this consolidation is in some ways good for consumers because larger agencies provide them with more choice, she said, adding that this is countered by perhaps not knowing the person behind the counter — or on the other end of the phone — as well.

Meanwhile, the players left in the industry now find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain talent (yes, you’ll read these same words in just about every story in this 40th-anniversary issue), which is prompting many to outsource tasks and turn to virtual assistants based in other states or, increasingly, other countries.

“A lot of quoting of business is now automated, as are some aspects of claim handling, billing, invoicing, those types of things,” Johnson said. “Anything repetitious is now likely to be automated, and that’s not unique to the insurance industry.

“Businesses look to cut down on the vulnerabilities they have,” she went on. “And a big vulnerability for all of us in insurance over the past decade, and I’ve really seen it accelerate, is personnel — trying to get people who are well-trained and understand that the insurance business is just really difficult.”

40 Years of Commercial Development

The Landscape Has Changed — in Many Ways

When Jack Dill, president of Colebrook Realty Services, arrived in downtown Springfield in the mid-’70s, it was a different world and a much different city.

The still-new mixed-use complex on Main Street, then called Baystate West, complete with a 28-story office tower, was crammed with retail on two floors (much of it migrating from storefronts elsewhere in the downtown), everything from a Friendly’s to a sporting-goods store to a men’s clothing shop.

It was connected via airwalks to two major department stores, Forbes & Wallace and Steiger’s, the latter of which was also connected via airwalk to an even more recent addition to the landscape, the new home of Springfield Institution for Savings, which Dill helped conceptualize and build as an employee of the bank. It, too, had retail and restaurants on two floors.

By 1984, the scene had started to change, with retail experiencing a sharp decline in Baystate West with the opening of the Holyoke Mall in 1979. Forbes & Wallace was soon demolished to make way for what is still known as Monarch Place, even though the namesake tenant and partner in the project, Monarch Capital Corp., filed for bankruptcy in 1991, and the property was subsequently sold at auction to Peter Picknelly.

By the mid-’90s, Steiger’s was demolished as well. In its place was built a park dubbed “a little park for a little while.” It’s still there. Meanwhile, at what is now Tower Square, there is very little retail (although Big Y is now a tenant), but two colleges (UMass Amherst and Cambridge College) and the YMCA of Greater Springfield call it home. And at what is now the TD Building, which Dill now co-owns, there is just a single restaurant, but the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, United Way of Pioneer Valley, and the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council and its many affiliates are based there.

This quick history lesson helps show the many ways the landscape has changed over 40 years and continues to change, said Dill, adding that downtown Springfield is not unlike many other downtowns that suffered losses in retail to the malls and, later, internet shopping, and other properties — from the offices of banks that no longer exist to long-closed mills, to most of the Springfield Republican building — given over to new uses ranging from housing to breweries; from cannabis dispensaries to co-working facilities.

And we haven’t even mentioned the new, $1 billion casino complex built a few blocks south on Main Street.

“And now, the internet and that kind of distribution model is creating real problems for the large, enclosed malls,” said Dill, citing the ongoing demolition of the Eastfield Mall, the first such facility in the region, and the start of work to transform it into a mix of retail, housing, and other uses, as an example of how the scene continues to shift and change the landscape in the process.

Jack Dill

“The internet and that kind of distribution model is creating real problems for the large, enclosed malls.”

Evan Plotkin, president of Springfield-based NAI Plotkin, agreed. He said the landscape has certainly changed from a commercial real-estate perspective, and it continues to evolve due to powerful forces ranging from malls to consolidation of the financial-services sector to, most recently, the COVID 19 pandemic, which introduced the world to remote work and hybrid schedules that left many to ponder the fate of office facilities in communities of all sizes.

He has seen, and been part of, movements to create dedicated facilities for healthcare practices (something that was novel four decades ago when such businesses would be next to accountants and lawyers) and to rethink downtown office towers, such as the one he owns, 1350 Main St. in Springfield.

Plotkin said the rise of remote work will certainly impact demand for office space, but he sees a partially offsetting force in east-west rail, which has the potential to put some area communities on the map, drive development in areas near the rail stops, and even prompt some businesses to realize they don’t have to be in Boston anymore.

“It could be transformative; in Springfield, for example, it could drive development in the Union Station area and make that area much more attractive,” he said, adding that he’s already seen more interest in properties there. “If east-west rail is successful, and I think it will be, and it becomes a reliable way to get to Worcester or Boston, it changes things dramatically.”

Space Exploration

Overall, the real-estate sector has seen a number of ups and downs over the past 40 years, from the boom times of the mid-’80s to the bust that came later that decade; from the surge provided by the arrival of the cannabis industry — which impacted most communities, but especially Holyoke — to the most recent turmoil resulting from the pandemic. And there have been headwinds of different strengths, from the tornado in 2011 to the Great Recession of 2008 to Springfield’s being placed in receivership 20 years ago.

Evan Plotkin

“If east-west rail is successful, and I think it will be, and it becomes a reliable way to get to Worcester or Boston, it changes things dramatically.”

Overall, compared to other regions, the scene in Springfield and surrounding communities has remained relatively flat, said those we spoke with. There has been some new building and notable renovation projects — Springfield’s Union Station tops that list — but, overall, little movement of new businesses into the region (MGM Springfield being a major exception) and large amounts of what Plotkin called “musical chairs,” tenants moving from one location in the region to another.

“I’m seeing a lot of businesses move from property to property, but not really much new growth,” he explained. “We really need to look at how we can bring new businesses here.”

Meanwhile, the landscape has certainly changed on the retail side — everything from the departure of Johnson’s Bookstore, a watershed moment in the history of downtown Springfield, to the ongoing redevelopment of the site of the massive GE transformer complex in Pittsfield; from the successful conclusion of decades-long efforts to convert the former Court Square Hotel in downtown Springfield into a mix of retail and market-rate housing (the first tenants have started moving in) to the massive, ongoing effort to redevelop the massive Ludlow Mills property. That undertaking, a mix of brownfield and greenfield development led by Westmass Area Development Corp., is already more than a decade along, and will likely take another decade.

At present, with interest rates high and questions about the economy (let alone who will occupy the White House) moving forward, new building has been mostly stagnant, said those we spoke with, creating a white-hot market for manufacturing and distribution facilities. Meanwhile, cannabis is starting to retreat, with some of the properties turned over to that use (or intended for that use) now back on the market, especially in Holyoke.

But the biggest area of concern moving forward is the office market. Remote work and its impact on how much space companies will need is a huge factor, but there are other considerations as well, said Plotkin and Dill, noting that the continued consolidation of many sectors (a thread running through these 40th-anniversary stories) is an issue as well.

And it has been for decades now.

“Coopers & Lybrand had a large presence here, and they consolidated and moved to Hartford,” said Dill, citing just one example of this movement from years ago. “There are fewer banks, fewer head offices … fewer players in many sectors, and it has certainly impacted the market.”

“Having access to Boston that’s walkable from your downtown … that will have a big impact. You can live in downtown Springfield and, in an hour and a half, be in Boston. It takes longer than that to drive to Boston from Sudbury.”

As for remote work, Dill preferred to remain somewhat optimistic about its future and, thus, its overall impact on the real-estate market, despite growing concern, if not outright panic, in larger cities such as Boston and San Francisco.

“It’s taken some time, but we’re starting to see a return to the office,” he said, noting that several major corporations are ordering workers back, or trying to. “Work is kind of a social activity — there’s a reason we were all together in the first place as opposed to being out tending our own field.

“The joys of working at home, working in your pajamas, gets old after a while, I think,” he went on, leaving room for a measure of compromise in the form of a four-day workweek.

Plotkin is not quite as optimistic. He sees more permanence to remote work and hybrid schedules, and noted that Zoom has greatly reduced the need for people to be in their offices and for consumers to visit these offices.

This leaves questions about existing office towers and other facilities and their futures, he said, adding that conversion to residential use is an option that should be explored.

There is a huge need for housing in the region, he went on, and the need may grow if east-west rail becomes a reality, which he believes it will.

“Having access to Boston that’s walkable from your downtown … that will have a big impact,” Plotkin said. “You can live in downtown Springfield and, in an hour and a half, be in Boston. It takes longer than that to drive to Boston from Sudbury.”

Bottom Line

Flashing back 40 years, Dill said that, in many respects, downtown Springfield still looks a lot like it did then, at least from the street.

But a closer look — one inside the buildings on either side of Main Street — reveals large amounts of change, especially in Tower Square and the TD Bank building.

It’s very difficult to project what might come next given all that has happened over the past four decades, from the rise of malls to the demise of many of them, said Dill, adding quickly, and forcefully, that the only constant is change.

40 Years of Banking

The Environment Has Shifted Profoundly

Tom Senecal used some hard numbers to detail what is perhaps the biggest change in the banking industry over the past four decades.

“In 1985, there were 18,400 banks in this country,” said Senecal, chairman of Holyoke-based PeoplesBank. “We are now down to 4,600; we’ve lost 13,000 banks in those 40 years. Credit unions … there were around 12,000; now they’re down to 4,200, so they’ve lost more than 7,000. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, there were 230 banks in 1985; I think we’re down to 130, and we expect to be down to 80 by 2030.”

That consolidation, brought on by many factors, but especially the higher cost of doing business and shrinking margins, has changed the local landscape in all kinds of ways, including commercial real estate, with dozens of former bank buildings and offices given over to new uses, from jewelry stores to cannabis dispensaries.

Indeed, it would take quite a bit of space in this story to list all the banks that were here 40, 30, or 20 years ago that aren’t here anymore. Just a partial list would include, on the larger-institution side, Bank of New England, Springfield Institution for Savings, and BayBank (names and letters that were once on office towers in downtown Springfield), and also Shawmut, Fleet, and BankBoston. On the smaller, community-bank side, Hampden, Heritage, Chicopee Savings, United, Woronoco, and Westbank are just some of the names that have disappeared from the landscape.

All of this is reflected in the large collections of business cards amassed by some bankers in this area, sometimes without actually leaving their office — it was only the name and logo on the card that changed.

But consolidation of the industry (and we’ll get back to it later) is obviously just one of many changes in this sector since Ronald Reagan was running for a second term in the White House. There have been huge changes in technology and how people bank, in how many non-bank entities are now vying for market share in this industry, and also in how people work, where, and even what they wear to the office.

Indeed, Lauren Duffy, executive vice president and COO of UMassFive College Federal Credit Union, is one of many officers at the institution that do not have their own office anymore. She works remotely a few days a week, and for the days she’s in, she reserves a desk online.

“I try to make sure I get one with a good window,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she usually does. And this sea change is only one of many in the world of credit unions, which four decades ago might have served the employees of one company or institution (like UMass Amherst or Mercy Hospital) and now have memberships that are much larger and more diverse.

There have been other changes as well, said Glenn Welch, president and CEO of Freedom Credit Union, who has almost exactly 40 years of experience in the industry and is one of those who saw his business card change repeatedly, but not the location of his desk. He said the business is, well, less formal now, reflecting trends across business.

“When I started out back in the ’80s, you had to wear a suit and tie every day,” he recalled. “If you left the floor you were working on, you had to put your suit jacket back on; you couldn’t walk through the lobby without being very formal.”

Dan Moriarty

“Over my career, people have always been talking about how branches were dying or how we wouldn’t need anymore. But for small community banks or community banks in general, a physical presence will always be a necessity.”

Getting back to technology, it is a thread that runs through each and every story in our 40th-anniversary edition, and for good reason. In banking, the changes have been profound, with paper and old-fashioned bankbooks giving way to automated tellers and mobile banking, greatly reducing the need to visit the local branch and generating discussion and debate about whether banks will need such facilities moving forward — and, if so, how many.

Senecal said PeoplesBank plans to add three branches just this year as the institution plots an organic growth strategy while also looking hard at mergers and acquisitions. Meanwhile, Dave Glidden, president and CEO of Middletown, Conn.-based Liberty Bank, can see a day, not far ahead, when the bank will make net reductions in the number of branches in its portfolio. And Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank, like others we spoke with, noted that, while the branch is visited less often today than before, and this trend will likely accelerate in the future, there will always be a need for face-to-face, in-person service.

“Over my career, people have always been talking about how branches were dying or how we wouldn’t need anymore,” Moriarty said. “But for small community banks or community banks in general, a physical presence will always be a necessity.”

By All Accounts

As he talked about the changes that have come to this sector since he entered the business more than 30 years ago, Senecal reflected on the building, and the office, he was sitting in.

This is the inverted-triangle-shaped office tower off I-91, across the street from the Holyoke Mall. It was once the headquarters to Heritage Bank, which famously failed amid excess and scandal in 1992, a time when many institutions were failing and the banking industry was in a state of turmoil.

Lauren Duffy

“When I started working in credit unions almost 20 years ago, our financial services were fairly simple. It was a savings account, a checking account, and, most commonly, a car loan, a mortgage, or a personal loan. We’ve evolved with the economy and with the region, and it’s so complex now, the many things that we can offer.”

“The top floor here, the eighth floor, is much larger than the second floor, because of the shape of the building,” he explained. “Heritage had four offices on the eighth floor; we have maybe 30 on the second floor now. The eighth floor was extremely opulent. Joe Lobello, our president at the time, was pretty adamant that he did want the negative association of a failed bank; we were looking to move our headquarters, but he did not want to buy this building because of that negative association.

“Joe realized how inexpensive it would be to buy this building as opposed to building something new, so he finally acquiesced,” Senecal went on. “But my office is on the second floor because Joe did not want to be associated with the opulence of the eighth floor. Twenty-five or so years ago, Joe’s office was on the second floor, and today, my office is still here.”

Perhaps, but very little else about this sector is the same as it was a few decades ago. As noted earlier, institutions have disappeared, and many others have changed their name, in many cases dropping the word ‘Savings’ from the sign over the door because that word did not accurately reflect all that an institution could provide for its clients.

“When I started working in credit unions almost 20 years ago, our financial services were fairly simple,” said Duffy, speaking for other credit unions and banks as well. “It was a savings account, a checking account, and, most commonly, a car loan, a mortgage, or a personal loan. We’ve evolved with the economy and with the region, and it’s so complex now, the many things that we can offer — all the many things that we can do with cards and mobile apps, and all the ways we’re trying to be more accessible to people and really innovating around the idea of financial wellness.

Glenn Welch

“There’s not necessarily that loyalty now, especially when people can go online and see what others are paying on accounts or charging for fees or charging for loan rates. So you have to be more competitive.”

“That’s what credit unions were founded to address all those years ago,” she went on. “But we were addressing it in a more simple way 40 years ago than we are today.”

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts/Connecticut border, which wasn’t crossed by institutions based on either side years ago, is now readily crossed, with PeoplesBank advancing south, for example, and Liberty marching north.

The biggest change, though, has come in how people bank and the technology they use. It brings convenience, obviously, with people able to do almost everything by phone now.

This convenience brings expectations, on the part of consumers and commercial clients alike, Glidden said. “Everyone is trying to deliver that Amazon experience, and it’s of great importance today for a bank to stay up with what the consumer’s expectations are — and that’s higher, probably, than what banks have historically delivered.”

But this convenience also brings the ability to change banks quite easily, said Welch, which is forcing institutions of all sizes to pay even more attention to what the competition is doing and adjust to remain competitive.

“At the touch of a button, people can move their money anywhere, within seconds or minutes,” he said. “It used to be that you would have to go into the bank and have them draw up a cashier’s check, go down the street, sit down with someone to open a deposit account, and then move money over. Now, it can be done in an instant.

Dave Glidden

“Everyone is trying to deliver that Amazon experience, and it’s of great importance today for a bank to stay up with what the consumer’s expectations are — and that’s higher, probably, than what banks have historically delivered.”

“So there’s not necessarily that loyalty now, especially when people can go online and see what others are paying on accounts or charging for fees or charging for loan rates,” Welch went on. “So you have to be more competitive.”

Senecal agreed, noting that this is just one of the many pressures facing financial institutions today.

“Banks used to have 4% margins; getting out of bed, they had 4% margins — they didn’t have to do anything,” he explained. “Margins are down to 2.5% now and struggling to get to 3%. No banks in this country are enjoying those 4% margins we used to enjoy because information is so readily available that consumer behavior can change in an instant. You can move your money so fast, and that sort of competition drives attractive prices — it drives mortgage rates down, and it drives savings rates up, which squeezes margins.”

Points of Interest

This simple math explains why size is more important than ever before in this industry, and thus why the current pattern of mergers and acquisitions will continue into the future, with both banks and credit unions.

“It’s a consolidating industry, and we’ll continue to consolidate,” said Glidden, adding that, for a number of reasons, ranging from rising interest rates to the current administration in the White House, the pace of such transactions has slowed somewhat in recent years.

But consolidation will continue, he said, and especially on the community-bank level.

And while the number of banks continues to shrink, it is likely that there will be fewer of the traditional branches that have come to symbolize the industry, said Glidden, who worked for many of those institutions no longer here — Shawmut and then Bank of Western Massachusetts., for example — before arriving at SIS (which was later acquired by Banknorth, which was subsequently acquired by TD Bank), before moving on to Liberty.

He made it clear that branches are still critical to any institution’s success, and they provide great visibility. But there is no denying that use of these facilities continues to decline.

“Many of our younger generations have never been in a branch and probably never will be in a branch and are fine with a totally digital banking experience,” he said. “And this has really changed the dynamic of how we as bankers and financial advisers have to respond and engage our customers.

“Years ago, you might have gone to the branch once a week, or, if you were a small-business owner, you might go five times a week,” Glidden went on. “The reality now is that you might go the branch every two or three weeks, or you might go to it when you really have a question or problem you want resolved and you don’t want to do it through the call center or any of the other channels.”

As a result of these trends, banks are looking to maximize the visits that do happen, he said, while also thinking hard about consolidating their branches. He can see a day a bank with maybe 20 branches in an area like Greater Springfield might want to get down to 10.

Moriarty agreed that fewer people are visiting branches and those that do visit them less often, but he stressed that there will always be a need for such facilities.

“I feel that customers still want to come in and talk to someone, either to better understand a product or get advice or just get that face-to-face interaction because trust is a big part of the equation,” he told BusinessWest. “Down the road, we’ll still see that kind of interaction because people want and need it.”

Whether they will still need cash is another story, he went on, adding that, given the pace of change and the emergence of debit cards, he wonders how long consumers will still need coins and currency.

That might be the next chapter in the ongoing evolution of banks, credit unions, and the entire financial-services industry.

Amherst In a Constant State of Change

By George O'Brien April 26, 2024

Jacob Robinson took the helm at the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce earlier this month.

After relocating to Belchertown a few years ago, Jacob Robinson found himself a frequent visitor to nearby Amherst and admits to falling in love with its downtown — as many do.

He confided to BusinessWest that, on more than one occasion, while walking along South Pleasant Street and passing the building that houses the town’s chamber of commerce, business improvement district, and visitors’ center, he thought to himself, “how cool would it be to work in a place like that?”

And now … he gets to answer that question.

Indeed, late last month, Robinson was named executive director of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, and he took the helm on April 1.

“No joke,” he said in reference to his start date, adding that what he likes about the job, and what prompted him to seek it, besides its mailing address, is that it involves high levels of collaboration and the fostering of partnerships, which he believes are personal and professional strengths gained from more than 15 years of work with various nonprofits, most recently the West Roxbury Main Streets program, which he served as director.

“There’s a special energy to this town,” he said when asked what attracted him to the position. “And I wanted to be part of it.”

Robinson’s arrival is one of the many converging storylines in this community, known for its liberal leanings; college-town character; rich mix of museums, restaurants, and other tourism and hospitality businesses; its reputation as a great community to retire to; and a bustling, ever-changing downtown.

“There’s a special energy to this town.”

Others include a nearly $50 million expansion and renovation of the Jones Library; a $2 million renovation of the North Common adjacent to Town Hall; new businesses, such as the Aster & Pine Market, a specialty store, which cut the ceremonial ribbon on April 20; and a number of ongoing residential and mixed-use projects that will address a perpetual need for more housing while also, in many cases, bringing more vibrancy to the downtown.

These include several being developed by the Roberts Group, including a much-anticipated re-imagining of the property (just a few doors down from the chamber) known as the Hastings Building, because it was home to the legandary office-supply store for more than a century, and new construction on adjacent property.

An architect’s rendering of the planned mixed-use development at the Hastings Building and adjoining property on South Pleasant Street.

Barry Roberts, president of the Roberts Group, said plans call for six units of market-rate housing on the upper floors of the Hastings Building and the Amherst College bookstore on the ground floor, with work on the latter already underway, with the goal of that facility being open for commencement. The adjacent 55 South Pleasant St. will be torn down, as well as property that served as cold storage for Hastings, with a five-story property to be built on that site that will feature 16 units of market-rate housing.

Meanwhile, another, much larger project is being planned for the former Rafters sports bar property at the corner of University Drive and Amity Street, most recently home to Pleasantrees, a cannabis dispensary that closed after operating for only a year. The site will be transformed into 85 units of housing in two five-story buildings, as well as retail and office space (more on this later).

There are also some ongoing stories, such as the Drake, the live-event space that brings hundreds of people to the downtown for shows each week; White Lion Brewing Co., located in the same building as the Drake, which is still acclimating to doing business in Amherst six months after opening (more on that later as well); and the largest of these ongoing stories — continued recovery from the pandemic, which devasted a business community that is largely dependent on the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents from the surrounding colleges.

For this latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on Amherst, a community that is in a seemingly constant state of motion — and change.

What’s on Tap?

Ray Berry has been in business with White Lion, launched in Springfield, for several years now, but he told BusinessWest that his location in Amherst amounts to a learning experience on several levels, with new lessons every day.

Indeed, he said the intriguing nature of this community — it’s not just a college town, but a three-college town with two more just a few miles away — presents challenges and opportunities that are unique and require some … well, getting used to.

“As a business, we continue to learn from the ebb and flow of the Greater Amherst community; every day is a learning process.”

“As a business, we continue to learn from the ebb and flow of the Greater Amherst community; every day is a learning process,” he said. “Whether it’s the population coming and going or special events in the town, we continue to learn and appreciate; it’s all new to us.

“In Springfield, we have pretty much 24/7, 365-days-a-year activity — there’s plenty of activity, and we don’t have to incorporate the university population that’s close by,” he went on. “But in Amherst, we have to be very mindful of how the university and private-college student activity, and faculty activity, impact the day-to-day business community.”

Elaborating, he said White Lion, now proudly serving Marcus Camby New England IPA, which is especially popular in Amherst, has operated through winter break, spring break, St. Patrick’s Day, March Madness, and other annual happenings, but the learning process will continue when the colleges shut down, or mostly shut down, for the summer and then reopen in September.

Learning these ebbs and flows is part and parcel to doing business in Amherst, noted Robinson, who is on a learning curve himself. Indeed, while already quite familiar with the town, he will now take his knowledge to a much deeper dive, while also getting further acquainted with the other six towns represented by this chamber, all with their own distinct personalities: Belchertown, Hadley, Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury, and Sunderland.

Since arriving, Robinson has been busy with everything from staging one of the chamber’s signature networking and fundraising events, Margarita Madness, to planning the next events, including After-5s, workshops, and a new-member reception coming up in May, as well as early-stage work to hire a new marketing and events coordinator for the chamber.

“I’ve had to hit the ground running,” he said, adding that the chamber position presented a unique opportunity for him to continue what he calls “community work,” as both a volunteer and a nonprofit leader, most recently with Main Streets program in West Roxbury.

Amherst at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1759
Population: 39,263
Area: 27.7 square miles
County: Hampshire
Residential Tax Rate: $18.51
Commercial Tax Rate: $18.51
Median Household Income: $48,059
Median Family Income: $96,005
Type of Government: Select Board, Town Meeting
Largest Employers: UMass Amherst; Amherst College; Hampshire College
* Latest information available

He was commuting to that job from Belchertown — though also working remotely, to a large degree — when his brother-in-law brought the posting for the executive-director position at the Amherst Area Chamber to his attention. He applied with the intention of enthusiastically taking part in building on what he saw, heard, and experienced during all those visits to downtown Amherst — its restaurants, coffee shops, and theater.

“There is so much charm here; there’s the connection to the universities, the energy that comes from all those students, and the vibrancy of a town that’s connected to the college communities,” he said. “There’s a healthy mix of businesses and services, and that’s very telling of a dynamic and strong community here in downtown Amherst.”

Building Momentum

Long-term, the obvious goals are to continue building partnerships and creating collaborative efforts to promote the community, attract new businesses, and continue the ongoing recovery from the pandemic, which, as noted, hit this community perhaps harder than any other in the region because it shut down the Five Colleges and removed from the business equation tens of thousands of people and countless gatherings, from sporting events to commencements.

“It was very tough on everyone — it was shocking. Who would ever have imagined that the universities and the colleges would be closed for that length of time?” recalled Lisa Johnson, president of Encharter Insurance, the latest name on an Amherst institution that has been around since the late 1800s. “It was shocking to be on the streets and have them be so quiet.

“But the bounceback has been strong even though it took a while before people started coming out again, even the students,” she went on, adding that, perhaps because of the hard lessons learned during the pandemic and its aftermath, she believes the town and its business community are devoting more time and energy to attracting visitors while being slighly less dependent on the colleges.

Which is why she is encouraged by projects like the ones planned for Amity Street and the Hastings Building, initiatives that will bring more residents, but also opportunities for new businesses to settle in the community.

Roberts agreed, telling BusinessWest that, by and large, his ongoing projects are simply taking the names of their street addresses. Like ‘422 Amity.’

This is the the mixed-used project at the old Rafters property, and one that has the potential to change the landscape, in all kinds of ways.

The 85 units of housing will help meet an enormous need in that realm, he said, adding that the complex will bring new retail and new office tenants — and, therefore, more vibrancy — to that area just a few hundred yards from the UMass campus and a few blocks from downtown.

“It will even provide the town with the opportunity to apply for a Community Development Block Grant to put a roundabout at that crazy intersection there,” said Roberts, whose company has been, in a word, busy over the past few years.

Indeed, it has been involved in a number of initiatives, from the Drake project to bringing new tenants to several properties downtown, to another ambitious housing project, this one called 180 Fearing St., or simply One Eighty, which is in its final stages of construction and is fully rented through 2026.

The complex of duplexes features 22 versatile units ranging from studios to four bedrooms, said Roberts, adding that it has succeeded in attracting a wide range of tenants, from students and young families to professionals to retirees, which was the goal when it was put on the drawing board several years ago.

“This is an exciting project, and it has attracted an intriguing mix of tenants that really reflects the Amherst community — students, professionals, and retirees alike,” he said, adding that the same is expected from the project on the Hastings site, as well as another initiative in its early stages: the razing of a building across South Pleasant Street from the Drake — home to the former McMurphy’s bar and the Knights of Columbus — and construction of high-end condos (with accompanying parking) and commercial businesses on the street level.

“We’re still working on getting the permitting,” said Roberts, adding that this hurdle should soon be cleared, and another endeavor to bring more people, and vibrancy, to the downtown will be underway.

Development Associates Calls on Experience at a Challenging Time in Real Estate

Development Associates President Ken Vincunas

Going by the Book

Development Associates President Ken Vincunas

Ken Vincunas says he’s long kicked around the idea of writing a book, one that would call on nearly 40 years of experience in the broad realms of development and commercial real estate.

He even has a working title: What’s the Rent?

That’s a simple question, one that property owners and leasing agents probably get asked every day, and hopefully several times a day, said Vincunas, president of Agawam-based Development Associates, which has a broad portfolio of office, retail, and industrial properties across Western Mass. and into Connecticut. But coming up with an answer is usually anything but simple.

“There have to be 20 subjective factors and no objective factors that go into this, and every time one of them comes up, you have to hope that you have the experience to know your market, know your tenant, know your building, know your rates, and try to make a deal that’s fair to everyone and keep the place leased,” he said, adding that COVID and its aftereffects, including the strong movement toward remote work and hybrid schedules, have only further complicated this equation, as we’ll see.

While addressing the rent question, Vincunas said his book — if and when he ever gets around to writing it — would also include some case studies, and there are many he can piece together involving the myriad scenarios he and others in this business face regularly.

“There are things that can’t possibly happen, but they do,” he explained. “Like this … you get no one for a space for six months, and then, you have two people. The one you want is slow and can’t quite figure out, but they’re a better prospect; the one you don’t really want is champing at the bit — ‘let’s go, we’re ready.’ What do you do? That’s probably happened 15 times to me; it’s really something.”

“There have to be 20 subjective factors and no objective factors that go into this, and every time one of them comes up, you have to hope that you have the experience to know your market, know your tenant, know your building, know your rates, and try to make a deal that’s fair to everyone and keep the place leased.”

As he talked about this book waiting to be written, Vincunas said he’s always calling on the years of experience that would go into it, especially at this time of challenge in commercial real estate and development, one he summed up quickly and effectively by saying, “we would look to acquire things if prices were fine or if we had a tenant lined up, but we’re in no hurry, and we’re going to hope for better times in the next seven to eight months.”

Elaborating, he noted that, on the development side, this is mostly a time to hit pause, noting that several colliding factors — from higher interest rates to the still-climbing costs of materials; from supply-chain issues to mandates for electric heat — are making this a difficult time to build.

And on the leasing side of the equation, it’s a time to tough out those aforementioned challenges, try to keep buildings full, and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. He’s doing all that at the Greenfield Corporate Center, where a large (as in 55,000-square-foot) vacancy, left by the Greenfield District Court when it moved back to downtown Greenfield and a new facility there, has been mostly backfilled.

The StubHub Building in East Granby, acquired by Development Associates in early 2020, is still vacant, but the company is optimistic this will soon change.

“We had counted on them staying — government contracts never come in on time,” he said with a laugh, referring to the construction of a new courthouse, which did come in on time, adding that the vacant space has been largely filled by an allergist, a CPA, the Sheriff’s Department, and other tenants, and the two buildings on the property are mostly occupied.

And Vincunas and his team are doing it at other properties as well, which are seeing those colliding forces from COVID, including businesses eyeing less space, in many cases, with fewer people coming to the office to work, but also different space as it comes on the market and deals can be made.

Meanwhile, DA, as his firm is called, is pushing ahead with some new projects, including a 55,000-square-foot office building in East Granby, Conn., known as the StubHub Building, which it acquired just prior to the pandemic in 2020, and nearby property — a five-acre parcel and a larger 19-acre parcel — that awaits development.

“The industrial market is exceedingly tight — purchase prices have doubled, at least. No one can afford to build with the high interest rates and the high cost of construction. Those who had industrial space in place could rent it for much more than they could have years ago.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Vincunas about everything from the state of the market, and the many factors that go into the current picture, to the manner in which he’s calling on all of his experience in these different — and challenging — times.

The Next Chapters

As he talked with BusinessWest about the Development Associates portfolio of existing properties and what might come next, Vincunas got up from his chair and retrieved a piece of paper thumbtacked to a board hanging next to his desk.

It was a timetable of sorts for the project in Northampton that has come to be called the Atwood campus. And he marveled that it has been 13 years since the former Clarion Hotel & Conference Center was demolished to make way for the office complex that sits there now.

The Atwood campus in Northampton is one of the many success stories scripted by Development Associates.

The Atwood campus is one of many success stories in the DA portfolio. The three buildings on the property are full, with tenants ranging from Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Clinical & Support Options to several professionals. And while the success of the complex would seem to welcome development of another office building on the remaining space within the footprint, current conditions, including ongoing questions about the long-term strength and resiliency of the office market, but also the soaring costs of building, dictate caution, Vincunas said.

“We’d love to do it, but you have to have some pre-leasing,” he told BusinessWest. “And how much is the rent a year and a half from now? When you commit to someone today, you say, ‘you’re going to take 30% to 40% of the building.’ Sure, we’ll start building it, hope we get some others, and carry on with you until we get them. But what’s the rent a year and a half from now? It’s not easy to know.”

These sentiments reflect the high levels of challenge and uncertainty, but also opportunity, that define the commercial real-estate market at present, he said, adding that some segments of this market are doing very well, especially industrial — again, because building new is not an attractive option, and also because the work done at these facilities, be it manufacturing or warehousing, can’t be done remotely.

“So the industrial market is exceedingly tight — purchase prices have doubled, at least,” he said, noting that the same is true of lease rates. “No one can afford to build with the high interest rates and the high cost of construction. Those who had industrial space in place could rent it for much more than they could have years ago.”

Meanwhile, the office market is certainly slower, but there is movement as leases expire and business owners mull options, which bode well for properties like the StubHub Building, which remains vacant but may soon be landing a federal agency, said Vincunas, adding that DA acquired the property knowing it would take some time to lease it out, and COVID only exacerbated that challenge.

Development Associates has been successful in backfilling space at the Greenfield Corporate Center.

“It’s a very solid, very attractive building, and we know it’s going to work based on the price that we paid,” he said, adding that those same sentiments apply to the five-acre parcel just down busy Route 20, where DA is envisioning a a retail complex at that location, as well as the larger, 19-acre parcel. In both cases, the company can afford to be patient.

“I’m bullish on that whole area,” he said. “There are 400-plus apartments being built within three miles, so that whole area, in our estimation, is going to take off.”

The Plot Thickens

As he assessed the current office market, Vincunas said that, despite the convictions of many in this business that workers will eventually return to the office because companies function more efficiently if people are all in one place, the reality is that remote work and hybrid schedules are very likely here to stay.

That means most of those same businesses have decisions to make as leases expire, about how much space they need and where they want to be. And for those trying to keep buildings full, or as full as possible, it means working hard with both existing tenants, to keep them in some capacity, while also trying to attract those using their own expiring leases to explore the many other opportunities presenting themselves.

He’s seeing that at several of the DA properties, including Greenfield, where that successful backfilling is ongoing, and also 200 Silver St. in Agawam, where the company is trying to fill a vacancy left by a departing fitness center.

“Overall, you have to know your market and try to strike a balance. People don’t want to move, and people have options. And each situation is different. If you know the people love the location and the building, they might feel more strongly about staying where they are, and you work with them to make that happen.”

“We’re entertaining two companies in the insurance business; one wants to get out of Springfield, and one wants to consolidate its offices,” he said, adding that these are some of the forces impacting the market at present, ones that create uncertainly and volatility, but also opportunities, especially in smaller communities and smaller office facilities.

But there are risks everywhere, he added quickly, noting that, across the broad office market, the trends toward consolidation and putting fewer people in smaller spaces cast long shadows over the market.

To manage these sea changes, real-estate firms must call on their experience and handle each case individually.

“Overall, you have to know your market and try to strike a balance,” Vincunas said. “People don’t want to move, and people have options. And each situation is different. If you know the people love the location and the building, they might feel more strongly about staying where they are, and you work with them to make that happen.”

Returning to that aforementioned book he’s looking to write and its unofficial title, he reiterated that each case is different and each time is different, and companies like Development Associates must adjust to the conditions at that moment in time.

“When it comes to office space, you’re either in a strong position or a weak position, and you have to respond accordingly,” he said. “It’s the same as ever.”

Laura Shaw

Tax Collector, City of Holyoke: Age 39

Laura Shaw acknowledged that few people, if any, would list ‘tax collector’ as a career objective.

And she certainly didn’t.

Indeed, growing up, she studied criminology and law and aspired to join the FBI, before working in airline security and later as budget director for the Hampden County Registry of Deeds.

When she saw a posting for tax collector in Holyoke, she thought it would be something she’d be good at, and perhaps even enjoy. And why not? After all, it’s in her blood; her grandfather, William Burns, held this same position through much of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

And from what her parents, her many aunts and uncles, and a colleague hired by her grandfather tell her, Shaw brings many of the same attributes to the job that her grandfather did.

These include patience, diligence, being direct but fair with those who owe the city taxes, and even having a sense of a humor about the job and its responsibilities. Indeed, she described a tax collector as “an accountant who gets yelled at,” and wondered out loud, while marching in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, if she should wear the sash with ‘Tax Collector’ written on it and risk being booed — or worse.

Jokes aside, tax collecting is serious business, she said, adding that property and excise taxes and other assessments are the lifeblood for any community, especially one like Holyoke.

“I like going to work every day, even if a lot of it is dealing with unhappy people,” she said, adding that many of the harder questions she gets are for the assessor, and she is essentially the “bearer of bad news.”

In addition to her work at City Hall, Shaw is very involved in her community, especially with its pride and joy, the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round. She serves on the board for the landmark attraction and chairs its fundraising committee, spearheading, among other initiatives, a golf tournament that raised $20,000.

She also serves as a member of the city’s patriotic events committee, assisting in efforts to honor veterans; she started a push-up challenge at the 2023 Memorial Day celebration and has facilitated art contests for Girls Inc. of the Valley and the Holyoke Boys & Girls Club in which young people depict what Veterans Day and Memorial Day mean to them.

For Shaw, serving the city and its people is a passion, something she takes as seriously as collecting taxes — and serving faithfully as that accountant who gets yelled at.

—George O’Brien

Kayla Sheridan

Marketing Director, TommyCar Auto Group: Age 37

While acknowledging that it sounds somewhat cliché, Kayla Sheridan said the broad scope of her work with TommyCar Auto Group constitutes not a job, but a passion.

“It’s important to me because it allows me to combine my love for marketing with my desire to make a positive impact in the community,” she said of her role in marketing and public relations, which also involves being the driving force behind virtually every aspect of the Tom Cosenzi Driving for the Cure Charity Golf Tournament staged by the company each year. “Every campaign, event, or initiative is an opportunity for me to connect with people, inspire change, and drive success.”

A graduate of the University of Connecticut with a degree in communication sciences and business administration, Sheridan said she knew little about the auto industry when she joined TommyCar as social-media coordinator a decade ago. But she quickly immersed herself in it to better understand how to get the TommyCar message across and help position the company for continued growth.

“I’ve grown to love the dynamic and ever-changing nature of the automobile industry,” said Sheridan, who gradually took on more responsibilities and, eventually, the title of marketing director. “And one of the challenges in this industry is the need to adapt to changing trends and technologies; digital marketing, in particular, has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, and my role has been to navigate these changes and incorporate new strategies into our marketing campaigns.”

Today, she handles everything from media buying to managing the websites for the dealerships; from coordinating events and sponsorships to helping set a tone for the auto group’s philanthropic giving.

While doing that, she has become a force in the Driving for the Cure event, which has now raised more than $1.5 million for cancer research, handling everything from the securing of sponsorships to decorations in the hall; from the menu to organizing on-course activities.

“It’s been an honor to play such a pivotal role in an event that supports such a worthy cause,” she said, adding that giving back the community is one of her core values, and she does so in many ways, from participating in the Hot Chocolate Run to benefit Safe Passage to spearheading the Sip and Shop Galentine’s Day event at the TommyCar dealerships to showcase and support women-owned businesses.

The mother of two young children, Sheridan is very active in their lives, especially their many sports, including motorsports, where she can once again use that phrase ‘driving force.’

—George O’Brien

Media Sehatzadeh

Chief Dam Safety Engineer, FirstLight: Age 39

Media Sehatzadeh has worked on four continents and several different countries, from Norway to Malawi. She’s thrived in all those settings, she said, because she speaks a common language she encounters everywhere: engineering.

“The engineers are the same, and they speak the same language,” she told BusinessWest. “The language of the countries may be different, but the mathematical language and the way that you approach a problem and the way you design something and make improvements … it’s heartwarming for me to see how similar it is and how much we have in common.”

Her latest work with this common language is taking place in the Northeast, as chief dam safety engineer for FirstLight, a clean-energy power producer, developer, and energy-storage company serving North America. Sehatzadeh is responsible for overseeing critical infrastructure that serves communities across Western Mass., ensuring their safety and functionality.

Her responsibilities extend to managing the overall safety program for all dams at the company’s hydroelectric facilities across New England, including the Northfield Mountain Pumped Hydro Storage Station, the largest pumped-storage asset in New England, capable of storing 8,700 megawatt-hours of electricity, sufficient to power more than 1 million homes.

Sehatzadeh said she always wanted to be a civil engineer, and after earning a bachelor’s degree in that realm in Iran, she completed a master’s program in environmental geology, hydrology, and geohazards at the University of Oslo in Norway.

“Hydrology is something within the overlap of civil engineering and geosciences,” she explained, adding that dam safety became her specific area of focus.

She started her career in Norway, but would later work on projects in different corners of the globe, including the detailed design and construction of the Kamuzu Barrage on the Shire River in Malawi in East Africa. She came to the U.S. in 2018 and eventually became a U.S. citizen.

Since arriving, she’s been part of several projects locally, including the ‘dewatering’ of the Northfield Mountain reservoir and subsequent inspection and monitoring to ensure the safety of the mountain’s dam and dikes — critical structures that “generally don’t see the light of day,” as she put it.

While proud of her work, Sehatzadeh is equally gratified by her mentorship role through Women in Hydropower and her work to encourage women to enter STEM fields.

And when not working, she enjoys art, hiking, snorkeling, and pretty much anything else that will get her outdoors.

—George O’Brien

Jennifer Sharrow

Associate Attorney, Bacon Wilson, P.C.: Age 39

Jennifer Sharrow can’t remember the name of the book she read back in middle school. But she does recall it was about a judge, that it made a deep impact on her, and that it inspired her to want to be a judge herself.

She would later adjust that career goal slightly — with a focus on becoming a lawyer — while maintaining a strong desire to enter the legal profession because she saw it as way to help people and positively impact lives.

And she’s essentially proven herself right during a wide-ranging career to date, one that started at the height of the Great Recession — when most law firms stopped hiring — with a job at AmeriCorps, a semi-volunteer position doing organizational development for a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Manchester, N.H.

She then went on to be a civil-rights investigator with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, commuting from New Hampshire to Boston on Amtrak, and then something she described as “more holistic that got me more involved in the community” — a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and then the Small Business Administration in the broad realm of community development, assisting small businesses with everything from loans to recovery after natural disasters.

Sharrow continues to work with small businesses in her current role as an associate attorney with Springfield-based Bacon Wilson, handling everything from initial business formation to employment agreements; from leasing of commercial properties to sales of business assets.

She is her department’s authority on women-owned businesses, helping clients work with the state Supplier Diversity Office to give marginalized business owners access to additional opportunities. And recently, she spearheaded Bacon Wilson’s response to the new federal requirements for businesses under the Corporate Transparency Act.

“I like working with the business owners,” she said. “It’s the variety of businesses I enjoy, even when they’re starting out. Entrepreneurs amaze me; their spirit and enthusiasm in starting these businesses is inspiring. And it’s the same with the people who have been working in these businesses, building them up and putting in their time and sweat and stress. I’m just so impressed by them.”

Active in the community, Sharrow is chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals in Belchertown and a member of Springfield Women with a Purpose, the Hampden County Bar Assoc., and the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Assoc. An avid runner, she participates in many area 5Ks, especially those supporting shelter animals.

—George O’Brien

Shavon Prophet

Founder and Principal, BroadLeaf Advisors: Age 36

Shavon Prophet is a big believer in employee ownership of businesses.

“It’s a way that we can ensure that legacy businesses can continue on into the future and create more wealth for more people,” she said. “In the studies of employee-owned businesses, they have performed better on every outcome — recruitment and retention, employee engagement, and the stark contrast when it comes to how much wealth people have been able to build when they have an ownership stake in where they work.”

Long story short, she has made employee ownership a big part of her life’s work, the latest manifestation of which was the founding of BroadLeaf Advisors to help more businesses become owned by their employees.

Prophet has taken an intriguing path to this place in her life and career.

“I’ve always been really motivated by social impact — doing good for the world — ever since I was a child,” she explained, adding that her undergraduate degree was in environmental studies, and she started her career at green building firms.

But she ultimately felt pigeonholed by such work and eventually earned a social impact MBA and learned about social enterprise and designing businesses that were not only successful for their owners, but lasting in the community. And she would eventually focus on “democratizing the workplace,” as she put it.

As an advocate and educator of employee ownership, Prophet — a proud Filipino-American, hence the flag in her photo — has presented at several national conferences and led educational sessions for business owners and economic-development professionals across the Northeast. She has helped hundreds of business owners explore succession planning and employee-led buyouts, with a special focus on worker cooperatives and democratic business models.

In 2023, she was appointed by Gov. Maura Healey to serve on the MassCEO advisory board for a four-year term following passage of the act that enabled the organization. That same year, she was appointed to the advisory board of the Center for Women & Enterprise for the Western Mass. region. A strong supporter of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Prophet has also mentored entrepreneurs through local business accelerators, such as EforAll Pioneer Valley and Valley Venture Mentors.

And as a social entrepreneur herself, she co-founded All Good Cooperative, a multi-stakeholder cooperative made up of farmers, healers, and artisans in Western Mass. that won first place last year at the EforAll Pioneer Valley pitch contest and sold produce and goods from nine small businesses at local farmers markets.

—George O’Brien

Vilenti Tulloch

CEO, Academic Leadership Assoc.: Age 36

Vilenti Tulloch It’s difficult enough to start a new business or nonprofit at any time and under any circumstances. But to do so at the height of a pandemic … well, that’s another story.

But that’s what Vilenti Tulloch did with the Academic Leadership Assoc. (ALA), a program with a mission to empower young people to make positive changes within themselves and in the community through mentoring literacy and self-advocacy while addressing their social and emotional needs. ALA has also developed a professional-development component called Equity in Action.

It was a step Tulloch thought he needed to take at that time in his career and with that much need within the community, and he has never looked back, capitalizing on an ability to relate to young people and, even more importantly, inspire them to set goals and then reach them.

As he explains how he started, Tulloch — who earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Westfield State University and then a master’s degree in educational psychology at American International College — flashed back to when he was a teacher at an elementary school in Southbridge. “One of the administrators came to me and said, “the kids really like you; they gravitate toward you. I think it would be great if you started a mentoring program.’

“That wasn’t even on my radar back then — I was just trying to learn how to be a teacher,” he said, adding that his mentoring efforts turned into something called the Young Gentlemen’s Club. The students had to wear ties once a week, and there both check-ins and follow-ups that helped keep young people on the right path.

Tulloch would later become an adjustment counselor and then an administrator at the school before deciding to also launch his own initiative. He credits his wife, Yeselie, with coming up with the name, while he finalized a mission and a strategy for fulfilling it.

In his role, Tulloch trains mentors, leads school-based mentoring, and provides professional-development programs to nearly a dozen schools in four districts across Western Mass., including Springfield, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, and Holyoke.

“We’re growing, and we’re building systems that are really having an impact on the students and staff in the schools we’re working with,” he said, noting that, in 2021, he decided to devote all his time to the ALA.

Tulloch has earned several awards and accolades over the years, from a Game Changer award from the Springfield Thunderbirds to an NAACP award for community service. And now, he has another one: Forty Under 40.

—George O’Brien

Kate O’Brien Scott