Age 29: Owner, Minuteman Press
Michael Weber knows a secret about how to succeed in business.
“It’s such a cheesy statement,” said the 29-year-old, who owns and operates Minuteman Press in Enfield, Conn. with his wife Lindsey. “It’s the more you give, the more you get. Givers gain. If you want to succeed, you have to help out and contribute something.”
The formula has worked — the Webers have increased sales by 450% in the five years since they purchased the business.
Weber takes his volunteer work seriously. He is vice president of the North Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, a director of the Young Professionals Society of Greater Springfield, and a member of the Home Builders Assoc. of Western Mass. and the Affliliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield.
He joined these organizations immediately after moving from Boston to Connecticut and taking over the Minuteman franchise. His motivation was to make friends, make a difference, and form relationships that would result in business accounts.
Although his approach has worked, Weber’s intent is always focused on the greater good. “I want to do my part by helping people out and genuinely contributing,” he said, adding that he has supported beneficial initiatives even when they were not good for his business.
Many of his volunteer activities involve working with people who are much older, so Weber especially enjoys his affiliation with the YPS.
“It’s refreshing to be on board with so many like-minded people. I truly have good intentions and try to contribute,” he said.
His background is in information-management systems, and his wife was an assistant buyer for Filene’s Corp. prior to their venture with Minuteman, but both know the value of networking.
“We don’t wait for people to come in,” said Weber. “You have to get to know people. We set quality standards, volunteer, and participate on committees. You have to get involved, and if you show up to help, you get to know everyone.”
—Kathy Mitchell
But he had other goals in mind, and in 2001 he came to the U.S. and settled in Ludlow, where he has family, to open a school.
To support his literary efforts, Maroulis took a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “I started off as a security guard and wound up working in the Operations department as an exhibitions assistant,” he said. The job fueled a passion for art and introduced him to the woman he would later marry. The couple settled down in Pelham, where Maroulis continued to work on his novel while staying home to raise their first child (they now have two).
After all, she and her brother remembered the humble beginnings of J. Stolar Insurance Agency in Three Rivers — a business their father launched from his basement in 1980.
“In law school, I started to gear myself toward elder law and estate planning because I’ve always been someone who wants to champion the underdog, and protect individuals who often — not always, but often — need a strong advocate on their side,” she said.
What happened next was sort of a happy accident in moonlighting.
But she’s more proud of the feedback she’s getting for her work within the community, and how it seems to be generating momentum and more energy for causes and organizations ranging from Best Buddies to the Northampton Chamber of Commerce; from Clarke School for the Deaf to Northampton Area Young Professionals.
“Information is power, and I have valuable information to give people about the political world,” she said. “I know how to move things forward and know where the levers and push points are in the political world.”
The fuzzy friends are part of a program called Second Step, which Moore, a guidance counselor, uses to coach young children on how to deal with frustrating emotions that can occur in certain situations, such as two kids wanting to play with the same toy at once.
Chris Thompson has a large collection of hockey memorabilia in his office at the MassMutual Center, from assorted pucks and sticks to a framed copy of that famous photo of Bobby Orr flying through the air as he scored the winning goal to cap off the Boston Bruins’ dramatic charge to the Stanley Cup in 1970.
The Wayfarers, as the band was called, played in venues all over Springfield, with frequent appearances at the downtown club Theodore’s. Bessette, who earned a degree in Business Administration at UMass Amherst, managed and promoted the band, while his brother, a graphic artist, designed the outfit’s eye-catching posters, which became the envy of all the other bands in town.
He should know, having spent four years in active service and another five in reserve duty. Earning the rank of major, Murphy knows something about leadership — a trait he employs as president of First American Insurance Agency in Chicopee, a job he grew into.
“I was beginning to research what I would get into,” said Tur, one of the youngest-ever 40 Under Forty honorees. “I knew I didn’t want a typical job coming out of college. I wanted to go out on my own. And I came across a great opportunity.”
She’s been to India and the Far East, all around Italy, to several cities in the U.S., and, last summer, to Iceland. It was a great trip, but frustrating in one respect. A budding photographer, Calvanese wanted a nice shot of an Icelandic sunset. The problem was, she went there in the middle of summer, when the sun was out 24 hours a day.
“I was standing on my couch screaming,” he said while describing his viewing experience of the championship game against Miami of Ohio, during which BU, his alma matter, stormed back from two goals down late and went on to win in overtime. “Coach [Jack] Parker pulled the goalie with three minutes left. There was a lot of time left to be doing that, but the strategy paid off — they came back and tied it.”
For example, at Bay Path College earlier this decade, she developed the college’s Entrepreneurial Program, not only mentoring students in how to start their own businesses, but also forging educational partnerships between the college and area companies.
s a patent attorney, Chadwell works with and for people who come to her with vague ideas, sophisticated plans, and everything in between.
As it turned out, Ludlow-based Studio99Creative — which assists businesses with not only Web design but also total branding efforts — helped this client open up new opportunities in corporate and industrial photography. “So she came back to me to build a Web site for that side of the business, too.”
Ciriello, who was named after her grandmother, gets a similar satisfaction from helping others. “I guess it’s in my genes or something,” she told BusinessWest. “It’s what makes me feel connected to others and gives me a sense of satisfaction in my work.”
He started early by coaching. When he was only 18, Collins and his father organized a traveling AAU basketball team for youths, coordinating games throughout the states. “Sports can motivate young people to want success,” he told BusinessWest. “I know — it had that impact on me.” 
“I’m in the stock market, and the bull and bear are always going at it. The chips are not always stacked in your favor, so you have to work through adversity and go forward,” he said.
It’s a mission for his father, Mychael Connelly Sr., who had long had entrepreneurial urges, and experienced the sweet smell of success one day when his older son, Mychael Connelly Jr., walked into the room and announced, “I did stinkies.”
“They determined that I was the most effective match, better than either of his sisters,” said Reale when discussing how she was the chosen to be the donor, thus giving her another date to circle on the calendar.
“I decided this was nuts,” said Demers, who proceeded to start what amounted to his own landscaping business. Later, after getting a job as a DJ at 13 years old, he took some seed money from his father and started another business spinning records, and did that for a dozen years before a series of events put him at the helm of a mobile-phone franchise that he has since expanded into the 11-store chain known as Family Wireless.
When she finally took that bold step last fall with friend and now-partner Amy Griffin Munnings, she did so with nearly equal doses of confidence and trepidation.
The owner of two Northampton stores, Glynn’s mission is to reduce risk in every arena a child enters, and coax parents back to natural practices such as breastfeeding. The graduate of Smith College spent seven summers and about 18 months working with New York preschoolers with emotional and behavioral special needs before settling in Western Mass.
“You could see all three states from the house where I grew up,” she said, adding, in a voice tinged with diplomacy, that people are “more neighborly” there than they are here in the Northeast.
“I thought, if I could do this for myself, I could do it for others, and help other people change,” he said.
It was Sadowsky’s grandfather who started the beer-distributing company 50 years ago. But make no mistake, the office and the title are no hand-me-downs. Sadowsky worked hard to earn his place in the family business. 
He’s exaggerating of course, but not to any great degree. “Just when you think you have a Saturday night off, something comes up — something always comes up,” he told BusinessWest.
“I came back here after college because of the quality of life. Eveything is fantastic about this region, and I want to see it thrive and be the best place it can be,” he said.
Through the Florence-based company she created called Raising Change, LeMay says she builds bridges between philanthropists of all kinds and nonprofit agencies that can benefit from their generosity. She’s become quite accomplished at this bridge-building, raising more than $100 million in the fields of women’s human rights, hunger, and poverty relief, and also directing another $100 million in philanthropic dollars to organizations working to make a difference. Meanwhile, she just completed her first book, The Generosity Plan, which contains the stories of several dozen people, most of them non-millionaires, and their acts of charity.
