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Colleges, Organizations Strive to Advance Women in STEM

By Kayla Ebner November 12, 2019

Education

Breaking Down Stereotypes

A mom of two young children, Alysha Putnam strives to be a mentor for women of all ages in the PVWIS.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs have historically been labeled careers for men. Those stereotypes, along with unfair treatment of women in STEM, have dissuaded many from beginning or furthering such careers. Luckily, women in STEM are becoming less of an exception, and thanks to the hard work and dedication of many colleges and organizations, women now have more resources than ever to follow their STEM dreams.

Wearing many hats is a common theme for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.

Parent, teacher, student, and scientist are only a few that Alysha Putnam can name off the top of her head.

When speaking about her journey, she recalls it was a bumpy road, and says several female mentors helped her become the successful woman she is today.

“It was because of various key people — particularly women, actually — who believed in me despite the life challenges that I was going through, that I was able to be successful despite all the chaos,” she said.

One of these women was her master’s adviser, Paulette Peckol, who, as Putnam recalls, was very accepting of the fact that she had two young children and was flexible with her schedule.

Now, as a teaching and research assistant at UMass Amherst in the organismic and evolutionary biology Ph.D. program, she teaches classes while pursuing her research-focused doctoral degree. Throughout this journey through education, Putnam said, she has developed a strong passion for giving back in the same way she was supported.

Unfortunately, women in STEM, including moms like Putnam, have historically faced backlash, oftentimes driving them away from pursuing a career in these fields or even discouraging them from continuing to climb the ladder once they are established. But Putnam and other women in Western Mass. are using their own personal experiences to try to improve the lives of other women who are hoping to make it in these fields.

That’s why Putnam wears yet another hat: co-founder of Pioneer Valley Women in STEM (PVWIS). She and fellow co-founders Melissa Paciulli, Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh, and Michelle Rame dedicate much of their time to being a support system and connector to women either already in STEM fields or pursuing such a career. Putnam is an alumna of Holyoke Community College (HCC), Paciulli serves as the director of the STEM Starter Academy at HCC, and Rame is an HCC graduate and current engineering student at Western New England University.

One of their biggest goals is to squash many of the stereotypes that surround both women in STEM, at community colleges specifically.

“Stereotypes in STEM as a whole exist,” Paciulli said. “I think it’s important to really recognize that all people belong in STEM — people of all abilities and all races and all sexual orientations. We at PVWIS really believe in inclusivity, and through the community colleges we can provide access to a wide, diverse population for STEM, and we can really tackle that issue of diversity in STEM through our work within the region and within the community colleges.”

And they are not the only women in the area making it their goal to help women pursue and excel in these fields.

Gina Semprebon, founding director for the Center for Excellence in Women in STEM (CEWS) at Bay Path University, notes that her own experiences inspired her to start this program to help women pursuing STEM careers.

“I had a really hard time trying to break into the STEM field when I did,” she said. “It was so clear, even as a student for my graduate work, that there was bias. The males were breezing through, and the few women that were in there were not getting the help or support they needed, or were actually being thwarted.”

Fortunately, programs like PVWIS and CEWS are providing access to resources and educational opportunities for these women to follow their passion and climb the STEM ladder.

Turning Experience Into Expertise

When Susanna Swanker walked into the first day of her college internship, the women’s restroom had to be cleaned out for her because it was being used for storage.

Susanne Swanker

At S.I. Group (formerly Schenectady International), she was a chemist working on a pilot project. Aside from the secretary (whom Swanker bonded with very well), she was the only woman in her area. She remembers going to work in a hardhat and jeans while her other friends in accounting or social-services positions were getting dressed in business professional attire.

“It’s a different field, so you have to be willing to do those things,” she said. “I think sometimes maybe that’s a little off-putting or it’s not so attractive for people. But if you love the work, and I think that’s maybe where the challenge is, you get past that.”

Now dean of the School of Business, Arts, and Sciences at American International College, she is working toward refining STEM programs at the university to better fit students’ interests.

Being the only woman in a STEM room is not limited to the workplace. McGinnis-Cavanaugh said it is not unusual for her to be the only woman in the room while she is teaching engineering courses at Springfield Technical Community College.

While the percentage of female faculty in STEM programs at STCC is healthy, she said, the female student population is not so great.

Melissa Paciulli says the events hosted by the PVWIS are intended to make connections and build relationships among fellow STEM women.

Being a woman who went to community college and experienced many of the same struggles her students now face is one of the main reasons why she co-founded PVWIS and continues to teach at STCC.

“I see myself in my students,” she said. “I don’t care what anybody says — community colleges still have that stigma attached to them. ‘Oh, you go to a community college, you couldn’t get into a real college,’ that type of thing. That really bothers me because I went to a community college, so that resonates with me in a big way.”

These stigmas, she said, are an issue of equity in the community-college world, and the everyday issues women in STEM often face come back to one word: access.

Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh

“There should be no difference between the opportunities that men and women have,” McGinnis-Cavanaugh argued. “We kept coming around to the same thing, that our students needed access. That was the word that we kept coming back to. We were trying to think of ways that we could expose them to professional women, to professional situations and professional networks.”

Bay Path’s Leadership Exploration Analysis Development program has similar goals. This 100% online initiative under the CEWS umbrella provides a certificate to early- to mid-career women in STEM fields, giving them the leadership skills they need to advance in their career.

Michele Heyward, founder of PositiveHire and CEO of Heyward Business Consulting, acts as an industry expert for the program, and says this certificate provides women with the tools they need to continue to move up the ladder in their career.

From left: Gina Semprebon, Michele Heyward, and Caron Hobin.

“Men are generally promoted based on potential, while women and people of color are promoted based on the proof that they know what they’re doing,” she said. “It is truly essential to have programs like this that are in place, active and engaging for students who are generally going to go out into a workplace where they may be the only one.”

Caron Hobin, vice president of Bay Path, partnered with Semprebon on CEWS and says stereotypes and stigmas faced by women in STEM made it a no-brainer to kick-start the program in 2013.

“I was moved by the statistics that would scream loud and clear that women were just not advancing at the same level as men,” she said. “You’re surrounded by really sharp women, and you look around and say, ‘why is this?’”

Toward a More Equal Future

The statistics speak for themselves.

According to Million Women Mentors, 75% of STEM workers are male. In addition, only three out of 12 women who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field still work in a STEM career 10 years after graduation.

That is why programs and organizations like CEWS and PVWIS exist, and these stigmas are slowly being squashed.

“We see ourselves as being the connecting point of all these different women across the Valley and bringing them together to support each other, to share knowledge, to encourage, to uplift, to make connections, to empower,” Putnam said. “As we interact with our community-college students here in Western Mass., we are seeing incredible women of all ages coming through the community-college system who are very capable and smart and just need the support and encouragement to say, ‘yes, you can do it.’”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Sustainable Design Moves Further into the Mainstream

By Joseph Bednar November 12, 2019

Architecture

Living with the Land

Environmentally friendly ideas are nothing new in the architecture and design world, but advances have come at a rapid pace — not just in how green a project can be, but how effectively the long-term cost savings justify the upfront expense. Clients want to do the right thing, design professionals say, but they’re much more willing if they can see an economic justification. Increasingly, they’re able to achieve both goals.

Sometimes design decisions bring unexpected benefits, Rachel Loeffler says.

Take a project her firm, Berkshire Design Group, designed for East Meadow School in Granby.

“Cost was a big factor, so we looked at using a meadow feed mix instead of traditional bluegrass, which saves the school 100 gallons of gasoline in mowing, as well as the labor,” said Loeffler, a principal and landscape architect with the firm.

“But then, what happened was, some birds moved in almost instantly, including some orioles.”

Orioles, by the way, are among the hundreds of bird species most at risk from climate change and destruction of meadow lands due to development, so creating a healthy habitat for them is significant, she said. “Sometimes, delightful surprises happen.”

When Northampton-based Berkshire Design Group, one of the region’s leading firms in the realm of sustainable design, opened its doors in 1984, its founders might have been equally surprised to see how common green ideas would become a few decades later.

“Back then, we were experimenting with stormwater standards, alternatives that then became state standards,” Loeffler said. “That creative approach is something that was part of us from the beginning.”

C&H Architects, headquartered in Amherst, can track a similar trajectory, emphasizing green and sustainable architecture since its launch in 1989.

“Nobody was trying to do that 30 years ago — it wasn’t even part of the lexicon,” said Thomas Hartman, partner and principal architect. “Over the years, it’s really been interesting to see how what might have been an odd-duck type of client become the norm.”

In those early years, he said, forward-thinking clients would seek out C&H specifically for this expertise, while today, green design isn’t surprising at all. “It’s gone from the occasional project to where, if this isn’t part of the conversation, you’re not really practicing in the mainstream anymore.”

In fact, he noted, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has basically shifted its organizational philosophy to suggest that, if a project isn’t environmentally conscious, if it’s not sustainable, then it’s just not good design.

“Climate change requires a holistic approach, addressing the interdependencies among people, buildings, infrastructure, and the environment,” AIA President William Bates said recently. “Our training allows us to look for solutions and ways to mitigate climate change comprehensively and creatively, which we do every day.”

At their most basic level, Hartman explained, buildings protect individuals from the elements and provide texture to people’s lives. Buildings, however, are also one of the largest contributors to global warming, accounting for nearly 40% of all greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide — a statistic expected to double by 2050. In an effort to mitigate these impacts, there has been a steady increase in sustainable architecture — the design of buildings that work in harmony with the environment.

Installing a meadow instead of grass at East Meadow School in Granby reduces gasoline use and provides a habitat for endangered birds.

C&H Architects has been at the forefront of this effort for three decades. For example, it designed the fifth-ever certified Living Building Challenge project in the world (and the first in New England) for Smith College’s MacLeish Field Station, the most rigorous performance standard for buildings available.

“It’s the most difficult standard — net-zero water, net-zero energy, avoiding certain materials and chemicals,” he said, noting that net zero means producing as much of that resource as one takes from the environment.

The firm has followed similar standards with other commercial and academic projects, and has designed more than 10 homes that boast net-zero energy, the most recent of which won the top honor at AIA Rhode Island in 2018, and includes a solar array that powers both the house and the car of its occupants.

That’s an especially cutting-edge standard, Hartman said, but it may become mainstream as well in the coming years, just as many sustainable practices in building and landscape design have become the norm, not the exception.

Holistic Approach

Loeffler said there are two ways to craft a sustainable philosophy for a project. One is to simply create a checklist of energy-saving or environmentally conscious features.

The other way of thinking actually takes cues from ecological thinking and the way all organisms are interrelated. On the simplest level, she cited the example of humans and trees — plants give off oxygen, while we breathe it in and give off carbon dioxide.

“There’s an understanding that each entity has a need for resources to consume, and has a waste product,” she said. “What sustainable thinking allows us to do is look at a project and look at ways to tie resources and waste together in a project or adjacent use somewhere else.”

Tom Hartman takes meter readings at a mill renovation in Lawrence — part of his goal to make sure energy-saving projects are performing as they are designed to.

One example is a dog park she recently worked on, during which time she approached a company that specializes in taking dog waste and turning it into energy. “Farms are taking waste from grocery stores, and any sort of organic waste products, and generating electricity. These are waste products that are being taken out of the waste stream instead of being shifted to a landfill somewhere.”

Hartman said architects, including those at his firm, are also starting to think about reductions in embodied carbon, which are the emissions associated with building construction, including extracting, transporting, and manufacturing materials.

“What that means is that we’ll be making low-carbon buildings, so we’re not adding to the carbon issue,” he said, adding quickly that this, like all new initiatives, comes with a learning curve. “In the evolution of our practice over 30 years, as soon as we get competent in one thing, we’re going to the next thing.”

Clients in the education sector have been particularly receptive to innovative ideas around sustainability, he noted, but those projects often come with time barriers.

“When you’re doing academic work, doing renovations on an existing building, they’re occupied, so you may have just a couple of weeks to do your job and have a limited budget, so how do you address environmental design and sustainable design on these types of projects?” he asked. “It comes down to the materials you’re choosing and what opportunities are available. For example, if you’re renovating a dormitory, you may only have 12 weeks, so you probably won’t renovate the exterior envelope of the building.”

“Nobody was trying to do that 30 years ago — it wasn’t even part of the lexicon. Over the years, it’s really been interesting to see how what might have been an odd-duck type of client become the norm.”

But all projects must consider their long-term impact on users, said Leon Drachmann, a principal at Payette Associates in Boston, who recently talked about sustainability on the U.S. Green Building Council website.

“The green-building initiative will have a deeper impact by expanding its scope — by shifting its focus to areas outside of building design, such as real-estate economics, zoning regulations and land use, while concentrating on the human experience and societal well-being,” he noted, adding that “sustainability should be considered not as an independent, separate process, but as an integral part of design itself.”

Dollars and Sense

One impact that can never be overlooked is the financial one, Hartman said. After all, while clients want to do the right thing, they’re still focused on the bottom line.

“I’ve never met a client where, if we could provide the economic case for doing good in sustainable design, they wouldn’t do it,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s rarer to find a client who will do the feel-good of sustainable design if it doesn’t pass the economic test.”

So part of his service to clients is actually visiting the site after completion, monitoring elements like energy use, waste production, and the overall costs to make sure the promised efficiencies have come to fruition.

“It has been really important for us to do that,” he said. “Most of the time, we want to maintain a relationship with the client in the future anyway. We will ask for energy bills. We’ve never met a client who doesn’t want us to follow up. That’s probably the most important thing for the profession — to make sure it all works, and if it doesn’t work, figure out why. Otherwise, you’re just waving your arms.”

Loeffler noted that clients that have a long-term vision are much easier to convince of the benefits of green design.

“If an organization’s economic-benefit analysis focuses on a one-year plan, they’re going to make a decision based on that — and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that,” she said. “But if their vision centers around a 20- or 50-year plan, they might be inclined to make different decisions.

“In a homeowner’s situation, with solar panels, there are upfront costs in that initial year. Over a certain amount of time, you’ll recoup those costs, but if you’re only looking at one year, you’re not going to budget for solar panels. If you’re looking at the long term, the cost makes more sense.”

The tipping point for much sustainable design and technology will come when those costs approach those of traditional methods across the board — and many in the industry say those days are getting closer. “When green materials become cheaper to acquire than previous materials, we project there will be a huge increase in the desire for this type of technology,” Loeffler said.

Until then, “we try not to push the issue too hard. We engage every client in the discussion, but they have different comfort levels. At the end of the day, we’re there to meet their needs and goals, and we work with them.”

Hartman is happy he works in a state which saw the value of renewable-energy credits and green standards well before most other states did.

“Massachusetts has been progressive, and they did those things so we wouldn’t be so reliant on fossil fuels from other countries,” he said. “It’s really exciting nowadays.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Women of Impact Speaker Says People Need to Find It in Their Work

By BusinessWest Staff November 12, 2019

Features

‘Passion and Purpose’

Lisa Tanzer says it took her a while to find work she was truly passionate about. But it was well worth the wait and the effort.

“It took me a long while to get here, but I learned along the way that I need to be working every day on something I’m excited about and passionate about,” she said. “You need to do what you love every day and find a way to put passion into what you do.”

This, in a nutshell, is the message Tanzer, president of Life Is Good — a lifestyle brand that now generates more than $100 million in annual revenue and also operates the Life Is Good Kids Foundation — intends to leave with attendees at BusinessWest’s second annual Women of Impact luncheon on Thursday, Dec. 5 at the Sheraton Springfield.

In a phone interview, Tanzer told BusinessWest that Life Is Good provides her passion and purpose not merely because of what it sells or how much it sells, but because of how it spreads the “power of optimism,” as she put it.

Elaborating, she said ‘Life Is Good,’ the slogan placed on a T-shirt along with a smiling face by brothers Bert and John Jacobs as a last-ditch effort to stay in business, has received a great reaction from the public.

“People from all sorts of demographics started resonating with the brand,” she explained. “In the early days, they started to get letters from people who were wearing ‘Life Is Good’ who were facing terrible adversity — illness or loss of a loved one.

“They connected with the positive message of Life Is Good and realized there was more depth to the brand than ‘hey, life is good, enjoy the beach, enjoy the outdoors,’” she went on. “People really needed optimism in their lives and started to understand the power of optimism. So the company became more mission-driven.”

Tanzer’s keynote address will be one of many highlights at the second annual Women of Impact Luncheon, which will honor eight women who are making an impact in different ways. They are:

• Tricia Canavan, president, United Personnel Services;

• Carol Moore Cutting, president, CEO, and general manager, Cutting Edge Broadcasting;

• Jean Deliso, principal, Deliso Financial Services;

• Ellen Freyman, partner, Shatz, Schwartz & Fentin;

• Mary Hurley, Massachusetts Governor’s Councilor;

• Lydia Martinez-Alvarez, assistant superintendent, Springfield Public Schools;

• Suzanne Parker, executive director, Girls Inc. of the Valley; and

• Katherine Putnam, managing director, Golden Seeds.

Tanzer, who speaks to a wide variety of audiences on many topics each year, will bring a broad range of corporate experience to the podium at the Women of Impact event. Indeed, she has more than 25 years of consumer brand experience, working for powerhouse brands such as Hasbro, Staples, Gillette, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Fast Facts

• What: The Second Annual Women of Impact Gala
• When: Dec. 5, 11 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.
• Where: Sheraton Springfield, One Monarch Place
• Keynote Speaker: Lisa Tanzer, president of Life Is Good
• Tickets: $65 (tables of 10 available)
• For More Information: Visit HERE or call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

Starting very early in her career, though, she started working with nonprofits, especially one founded by a high-school classmate called Project Joy, which helped homeless children find purpose and connection through play.

The talk Tanzer will give at the Women of Impact Luncheon concerns how she determined long ago that she wanted to blend work in the corporate world with “making people happy and providing joy in people’s lives.” And while it was a rather circuitous route and there was a good deal of serendipity along the way, she found all of what she was looking for at Life Is Good.

To hear the full story, you’ll need to be at the Sheraton on Dec. 5. And you should be there to salute the eight outstanding honorees who make up the Women of Impact class of 2019.

The Women of Impact program is sponsored by Country Bank and TommyCar Auto Group (presenting sponsors), Comcast Business and Granite State Developing (supporting sponsors), New Valley Bank & Trust (speaker sponsor), and WWLP 22 News/CW Springfield (media sponsor).

For more information, or to order tickets, call (413) 781-8600, or go HERE.

Western Mass. Offers More than Presents Under the Tree

By Kayla Ebner November 12, 2019

Holiday Gift Guide

The Gift of Stepping Out

Picking out the right gift for a loved one, partner, friend, or child can be a stressful experience. There are many different factors to consider, and there’s always the worry they won’t like what you pick out. Luckily, Western Mass. has a wide variety of places that offer great experiences you can all share together. Whether it be a go-karting adventure, having dinner at a great local restaurant, or visiting an art museum, there are plenty of experience-based options out there for you and a loved one to share. Save yourself the stress of buying material things this year, and try out one of these experiences for the holidays.

For Adventurers and Adrenaline Seekers

Berkshire East Mountain Resort

66 Thunder Mountain Road, Charlemont, MA

(413) 339-6617; www.berkshireeast.com

This resort is Southern New England’s year-round outdoor destination. With everything from whitewater rafting to skiing and snowboarding — and the resort’s signature mountain coaster — there are plenty of options for all types of adventure seekers. Whether you want to celebrate the holidays now or save it for a warm, summer day, a trip to the mountains is the perfect getaway.

Nomad’s Adventure Quest

100 Bidwell Road, South Windsor, CT

(860) 290-1177; www.nomadsadventurequest.com

With more than 65,000 square feet of space, there is something for people of all ages at Nomad’s. The facility has laser tag, glow-in-the-dark black-light mini golf, thunderbowl bowling, a climbing wall, more than 80 arcade and redemption games, two full-size basketball courts, a billiard room, conference and banquet rooms with overhead projection screens, a full bar, a full service café, and more. There is no admission price to enter; activities are individually priced.

Pioneer Valley Indoor Karting

10 West St., West Hatfield, MA

(413) 446-7845; www.pioneervalleykarting.com

Conveniently located just over the Northampton town line right off I-91 exit 21, Pioneer Valley Indoor Karting is perfect for the adventurous family that loves a good adrenaline rush. The facility opens daily at 11 a.m. for ‘arrive and drive’ high-speed gas go-karting. All pricing is per person, and the facility offers high-speed junior karts specifically designed for junior racers ages 8 to 13 who are taller than 48 inches and weigh less than 180 pounds.

Springfield Thunderbirds

MassMutual Center, 1277 Main St., Springfield, MA

(413) 787-6600; www.springfieldthunderbirds.com

If you’re a sports lover, this is the event for you. The Springfield Thunderbirds are the American Hockey League’s minor-league affiliate of the Florida Panthers, now playing their fourth season in Springfield. The Thunderbirds play their home games at the MassMutual Center. Tickets start at $10 depending on seating and game night.

For History and Art Lovers

Clark Art Institute

225 South St., Williamstown, MA

(413) 458-2303; www.clarkart.edu

The intimate scale and the wide variety of the galleries at the Clark makes for the perfect family trip, no matter what age a person may be. This institution also offers special programs and events throughout the year that are catered to families specifically, such as gallery talks, art making, and related entertainment.

Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

125 West Bay Road, Amherst, MA

(413) 559-6300; www.carlemuseum.org

The Eric Carle Museum is a nonprofit organization seeking to inspire a love of art and reading through picture books. The Carle houses more than 11,000 objects, including thousands of permanent-collection illustrations, three art galleries, an art studio, a theater, educational programs for families, and more.

Connecticut Science Center

250 Columbus Blvd., Hartford, CT

(860) 724-3623; www.ctsciencecenter.org

Only a half-hour from Springfield, the Connecticut Science Center boasts more than 165 hands-on exhibits in 10 galleries and live science demos daily. There is a state-of-the-art 3D digital theater, four educational labs, and daily programs and events. General admission for members is free, youth (ages 3-17) tickets are $16.95, adults (ages 18-64) are $23.95, and seniors (65+) are $21.95.

Norman Rockwell Museum

9 Glendale Road, Stockbridge, MA

(413) 298-4100;

www.nrm.org

The Norman Rockwell Museum houses the world’s largest and most significant collection of Rockwell art. It presents, preserves, and studies the art of illustration and is a world resource for reflection, involvement, and discovery inspired by Norman Rockwell and the power of visual images to shape and reflect society. The museum is open seven days a week, year-round. Admission for members and youth ages 18 and under are free, adult tickets are $20, seniors (65+) are $18, veterans are $17, and college students with an ID are $10.

Shaker Village

1843 West Housatonic St., Pittsfield, MA

(413) 443-0188; www.hancockshakervillage.org

Shake Village boasts 20 authentic Shaker buildings, rich collections of Shaker furniture and artifacts in rotating exhibits, a full schedule of activities and workshops, a mile-long hiking trail and hundreds of acres of additional land with a variety of trails for all skill levels, picnic areas, a store and café, and a working farm with extensive gardens and heritage-breed livestock. Admission for adults is $20; seniors and active/retired military are $18; youth (ages 13-17) are $8; children 12 and under are free. From Nov. 16 through Dec. 22, the village is open weekends only. It is closed for the season Dec. 23 through April 10 and reopens for the spring season April 11.

Springfield Symphony Orchestra

1441 Main St., Suite 121, Springfield, MA

(413) 733-0636; www.springfieldsymphony.org

The SSO is the largest Massachusetts symphony outside of Boston, featuring more than 80 musicians from the New England region of the U.S. and Canada, and holding many performances each season. A Holiday Celebration concert on Dec. 7 will feature guests conductor Nick Palmer, the SSO Chorus directed by Nikki Stoia, the Young@Heart Chorus directed by Bob Cilman, cantor Elise Barber, and soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine. Tickets are available online starting at $25.

Yankee Candle Village

25 Greenfield Road, South Deerfield, MA

(877) 636-7707; www.yankeecandle.com/south-deerfield-village

This is more than just a candle store. The Yankee Candle Village provides everything from make-your-own-candles to irresistible food, and has plenty of options for the kids and the parents to enjoy — as well as a year-round Bavarian Christmas village.

For the Foodies

Capri Pizza Shop

18 Cabot St., Holyoke MA

(413) 532-3460;

www.capripizzashop.com

Capri has been in the family since 1966 and is now owned and run by Fiore Santaniello and managed by his two sons, Salvatore and Gennaro. Though Capri’s look has changed over the years, it has maintained the quality of its food, even earning the People’s Choice Award from Best of Mass Pizza.

Esselon Café

99 Russell St., Hadley, MA

(413) 585-1515; www.esselon.com

Esselon is an award-winning café featuring fresh roasted coffee, rare and exotic teas, and a full menu. Centrally located between Amherst and Northampton on Route 9 on the Common in Hadley, this café offers outdoor dining during the spring, summer, and fall months and a casual atmosphere indoors.

La Fogata

770 Tyler St., Pittsfield, MA

(413) 443-6969; www.lafogatarestaurante.com

La Fogata (Spanish for ‘the bonfire’) offers traditional Colombian cuisine. Owner Miguel Gomez moved to Pittsfield from Colombia in 1993 and realized there were no Latino restaurants in the area, so he decided to open his own. Items on the menu include everything from carne asada to pechuga apanada.

Johnny’s Tavern

30 Boltwood Walk, Amherst

(413) 230-3818;

www.johnnystavernamherst.com

Johnny’s Tavern is a contemporary American restaurant nestled in the heart of the community of Amherst, priding itself on using organic produce, sustainable seafood, and hormone-free meat and poultry whenever possible. Items on the menu range from pizza to a pulled duck sandwich.

Munich Haus

13 Center St., Chicopee, MA

(413) 594-8788; www.munichhaus.com

The Munich Haus gives customers a taste of Germany, no passport required. A family-owned restaurant that opened in 2004, this restaurant prides itself on its authenticity, right down to the food, beer, and décor. The comfortable, laid-back atmosphere paired with popular menu items like its wide array of schnitzels and a plentiful selection of beer and wine make the Munich Haus a place where anyone can find something to enjoy.

Nick’s Nest

1597 Northampton St., Holyoke

(413) 532-5229;

www.nicksnestholyoke.com

This is the perfect place to go for those who want to spend quality time over some great food on a low budget. Founded in 1921 by Nick Malfas, Nick’s Nest started as a roadside popcorn cart. Now serving much more than popcorn, it continues to be a hot spot, featuring hot dogs, homemade potato and macaroni salad, ice cream, and much more.

For the Adults

Abandoned Building Brewery

142 Pleasant St., Easthampton

(413) 282-7062; www.abandonedbuildingbrewery.com

This brewery began in March 2013 when owner Matt Tarlecki transformed this abandoned mill building into what now stands as Abandoned Building Brewery, complete with a walk-in cooler, a 15-barrel brewhouse, two 30-barrel fermenters, and one 30-barrel bright tank. Its ales include a combination of year-round, seasonal, and collaboration beers.

MGM Springfield Topgolf Swing Suite

One MGM Way, Springfield

(413) 273-5000;

www.mgmspringfield.com

Located outside on the Plaza next to Indian Motorcycle, Topgolf Swing Suite is a perfect option for couples or a group of friends looking to have fun and enhance golfing skills. The experience offers a comfortable lounge to hang out in while enjoying food and drinks.

Northampton Brewery

11 Brewster Court, Northampton

(413) 584-9903;

www.northamptonbrewery.com

The Northampton Brewery brews fine ales and lagers, served with outstanding food and a friendly staff. The brewery is conveniently located in downtown Northampton and is an ideal place to go for a delicious meal and a couple beers in front of the fireplace on a chilly winter evening. The destination has been around for 35 years and continues to be one of the area’s most popular breweries.

The Quarters

8 Railroad St., Hadley, MA

(413) 429-4263;

www.hadleyquarters.com

The Quarters, located just off Route 9 and directly on the Norwottock Rail Trail, is a destination for those seeking a place to enjoy some creative food, excellent drinks, and a selection of more than 20 vintage arcade games — perfect for a group outing or a date night.

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Wilbraham Looks to Revive Key Parts of Town

By Kayla Ebner November 12, 2019

Community Spotlight

Jeff Smith and Sue Bunnell say one of the biggest projects going on in Wilbraham is a renovation of Route 20.

Revival by its very definition suggests an improvement in the condition or strength of something. It means giving new life to what already exists, an upgrade of sorts.

This is what elected officials in Wilbraham plan to do in several places around town, for a number of reasons.

One of the most valuable assets the town of Wilbraham has to offer both residents and visitors is the array of businesses and attractions on Route 20, and Jeff Smith says that artery is getting a serious upgrade.

“We have a lot of real estate that could be developed,” said Smith, chairman of the Planning Board. “We’ve got a lot of opportunities for businesses to locate here.”

And some already have.

What was known as the Wilbraham Light Shop many years ago was closed up until recently, and friends of the previous owner are reopening it as a new and improved light shop, something that came as a bit of a shock to Smith and other town employees, seeing as it was vacant for about 20 years, but good news for the town nonetheless.

Sue Bunnell, who chairs the Board of Selectmen, added that Wilbraham boasts an excellent track record when it comes to bringing businesses into town.

“Wilbraham has a good reputation of being business-friendly and among the easier places to get a business up and running,” she said.

Part of this is due to zoning flexibility, Smith said. “We have boards and committees that are willing to not only work within the existing zoning laws, but present new zoning laws to the town to ratify so that new businesses can locate here.”

This has happened recently, when Iron Duke Brewing was looking to move from Ludlow Mills to Wilbraham. Zoning laws were changed, and Iron Duke is now one of two breweries in town.

Still, there is work to be done. And at this point, the Route 20 renovation plan is at 25% completion, which marks the start of public hearings.

“We’ve seen preliminary drawings,” said Bunnell. “Those will be made available to the public, and they will be going from the Friendly’s corporate location to the Palmer line with that redo of the highway.”

What was once meant to include solely road work has become a much more involved process, and town officials recognize the need for all the work being done to make this project happen.

“It started off as what we thought was a repaving, but it really seems like it’s expanding now to more of a redesign,” said Planning Director John Pearsall.

Wilbraham’s town officials hope this redesign, coupled with a progressing marketing strategy and few other things on the agenda, will continue to make it a place people want to live and spend their money.

Driving Momentum

Like Pearsall said, what was supposed to be a fairly simple project has now turned into a plan to revive Route 20. This includes making adjustments to some of the problematic intersections, widening driving lanes, adding sidewalks and bike lanes, and more.

Wilbraham at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1763
Population: 14,868
Area: 22.4 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $21.80
Commercial Tax Rate: $21.80
Median Household Income: $65,014
Median Family Income: $73,825
Type of government: Board of Selectmen, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Baystate Wing Wilbraham Medical Center; Friendly Ice Cream Corp.; Big Y; Home Depot; Wilbraham & Monson Academy
*Latest information available

Most importantly, town officials hope to capitalize on the space and buildings available along the road, and are already taking some options into consideration, including mixed-use developments.

Actually, while the term ‘mixed use’ has been thrown around a lot for Route 20, Pearsall said, a better phrase would be ‘multiple use.’

Recently, Delaney’s Market opened in a building that was redeveloped into a multiple-use project. In addition, a proposal for a Taylor Rental property that has been vacant for a while is under review. Also in the works for that property, a Connecticut developer recently filed an application to create another multiple-use development on those grounds.

“I think pedestrian access to a lot of these businesses is going to increase because they’re talking about running proper sidewalks up both sides of Route 20,” Smith said. “It will be a huge help to the existing businesses and future ones.”

The bigger picture of Boston Road is that it was, at one time, all exclusively zoned for commercial activity. But over the years, the town has been trying to introduce residential uses there, including the Woodcrest Condominiums and a new active-adult community that’s being developed off Boston Road.

Route 20 isn’t the only part of town that will be utilizing mixed-use communities. Smith noted that they also hope to revive the town center.

“In our town center, there are a few buildings that are slated for demolition, and we’re working on redevelopment of the site,” he said. “We recently decided at a town meeting at the beginning of this year to allow a mixed-use development on this site.”

For this specific development, the term ‘mixed use’ is appropriate. According to Smith, there will be retail and commercial establishments on the first floor and living quarters on the second floor. This, he said, is part of a bigger picture concerning town redevelopment being worked on behind the scenes.

Another development in the works is part of a ‘community compact’ to identify and explore the potential for expanding municipal fiber along Boston Road to determine how that might impact business opportunities.

“Our expectation is to identify someone to explore how delivering fiber along the Boston Road corridor could create opportunities for businesses,” said Bunnell.

Using Entry Point, a company that has worked with other municipalities to develop and build out their own fiber networks, Wilbraham hopes to give businesses along the Route 20 corridor this opportunity.

Smith is also a business owner of New England Promotional Marketing alongside his wife, Amy, and has been a guinea pig of sorts for the fiber network.

“It was critical for our business; it’s a great system,” he said. “If you’re choked down by your internet, it just becomes slow and difficult to do, and it can really put a damper on your business. Opening up to that fiber-optic pipeline was huge for us, and we want to provide that opportunity all the way down Route 20.”

Welcome Mat

With quite a few items on the to-do list, it’s safe to assume there will be no shortage of excitement in Wilbraham in the coming months and years.

“There are a lot of older buildings that have been kind of run down for a long time, and they’re being turned around,” said Smith. “There are a lot of properties that have been dormant or underutilized, and there’s a big push to rehabilitate these and find new uses or, in some cases, existing uses.”

As for any new businesses looking to make Wilbraham their new home, they can sleep well knowing this is a top priority in Town Hall, Bunnell said. “I think the goal is to make Wilbraham even more attractive and accessible to businesses that are looking to come into town.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Healthcare-reform Legislation Seeks to Build on Past Reforms

By Columnist November 12, 2019

Features

Another Step Forward?

By Jodi K. Miller, Esq.

Jodi K. Miller, Esq

Massachusetts has been a leader in healthcare system reform.

In 2006, Massachusetts passed a first-in-the-nation, comprehensive healthcare-reform law that sought to achieve near-universal coverage for all individuals in the Commonwealth. The 2006 reforms became a model for the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. In 2012, after making significant gains in healthcare coverage, Massachusetts enacted additional reforms, with a key aim of controlling healthcare costs.

Among other things, the 2012 reforms set statewide benchmarks to limit the growth of healthcare costs and created a new agency, the Health Policy Commission, which is responsible for monitoring increases in healthcare spending and market activity.

Last month, seeking to further overhaul the healthcare-delivery system in Massachusetts and build upon past reforms, Gov. Charlie Baker introduced new healthcare-reform legislation, titled “An Act to Improve Health Care by Investing in Value.” The legislation seeks to tackle challenges in the current healthcare system by improving access and care delivery, further containing costs, and protecting consumers from high out-of-pocket costs.

As a former healthcare executive and former Massachusetts secretary of Health and Human Services, Gov. Baker has a particular interest in healthcare. According to the governor, his “legislation supports holistic approaches to care, provides consumers and employers with affordable care options, promotes behavioral-health parity, and ensures everyone has access to the services they need.”

Preventive Measure

The governor’s proposal prioritizes investment in primary care and behavioral-health services with the goal of keeping patients healthier and avoiding more expensive services, like emergency-department visits. Specifically, the legislation requires that providers and insurers increase spending on primary care and behavioral-health services by 30%, while at the same time staying within spending-growth limits required by the 2012 healthcare-reform law. The new legislation introduces new penalties for failure to stay within those limits.

As a means to increase access to primary care, the legislation reforms the requirements for mid-level practitioners, such as nurse practitioners. States like California that have expanded the scope of practice for nurse practitioners have seen an increase in the use of, and access to, primary-care services. The new legislation would allow nurse practitioners and psychiatric nurse mental-health specialists to prescribe medications without a supervising physician.

“The governor’s proposal prioritizes investment in primary care and behavioral-health services with the goal of keeping patients healthier and avoiding more expensive services, like emergency-department visits.”

Similarly, the bill creates a mid-level dental-provider position to provide basic dental services, and expands the scope of practice for optometrists and podiatrists. To address the shortage of nurses in Massachusetts, the legislation makes it easier for nurses to move to the Commonwealth by allowing nurses licensed in another state to practice in Massachusetts without having to obtain a new license.

The bill also seeks to expand access to, and coverage of, mental and behavioral-health services through various measures, including provisions to encourage behavioral-health providers to accept insurance and to develop and grow the number of providers. The legislation establishes a Board of Registration of Recovery Coaches — a recommendation of the Recovery Coach Commission formed as part of the opioid legislation enacted in Massachusetts last year — which will credential recovery coaches who provide addiction-recovery services.

The legislation includes new consumer protections to manage healthcare spending and reduce consumers’ out-of-pocket costs. For example, it seeks to curb the practice of ‘surprise billing’ that consumers receive for emergency and unplanned services from out-of-network providers by establishing a default, out-of-network rate for such services. The bill also imposes limits on when a hospital can charge a fee for services delivered at an outpatient or satellite site and prohibits such fees for certain types of evaluative and diagnostic services.

The legislation also seeks to contain healthcare costs by addressing the high costs of prescription drugs. In addition to requiring pharmacists to inform consumers about the lowest cost options for the drugs they purchase, the legislation creates a review process for certain high-cost drugs and imposes financial penalties on manufacturers for increases in drug prices that exceed certain set percentages. Drug manufacturers also would be required to participate in annual cost-trend hearings before the Health Policy Commission.

Relatedly, the legislation imposes new oversight authority over pharmacy benefit managers, companies that negotiate contracts with drug manufacturers and manage pharmacy benefits and payments for health plans. Pharmacy benefit managers would be required to be certified with the Mass. Division of Insurance and report financial data to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis.

In addition to cost controls, the legislation includes provisions aimed at improving access to appropriate, coordinated healthcare, including access to urgent-care centers and telemedicine services. According to a 2018 analysis by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, there has been a sharp increase in the use of urgent-care centers, where services are less expensive than those provided at hospital emergency departments.

The governor’s proposal seeks to improve access to, and to eliminate confusion regarding, urgent-care centers. For example, the names of clinics operating as urgent-care centers would have to include the term ‘urgent care’ or otherwise suggest that urgent-care services are provided. The bill also requires urgent-care centers to be licensed by the state Department of Public Health, and, as requirements of licensure, such centers must accept MassHealth (the Massachusetts Medicaid program), provide behavioral-health services, and meet standards for coordinating with patients’ primary-care providers.

The legislation also seeks to expand access to care by improving and increasing the use of telemedicine (healthcare services provided via telecommunication services such as videoconferencing). Telemedicine can be a cost-effective form of care, and it eliminates the requirement of travel, which can be significant for individuals living in rural areas. In an attempt to increase the use of telemedicine in the Commonwealth, the legislation creates a regulatory framework for such services and requires insurance-coverage parity for such services (i.e., if there is coverage for the services if provided in person, there must be coverage if the services are provided via telemedicine).

The legislation seeks to support community health centers and hospitals by investing in the Health Safety Net Trust Fund, which pays hospitals and community health centers for services provided to low-income residents who are uninsured or underinsured. The governor’s proposed investment – $15 million – constitutes less than 5% of the total amount paid out by that trust fund to hospitals and community health centers in 2018. The legislation also provides for additional funding to the Community Hospital and Health Center Investment Trust Fund through the penalties that the legislation imposes on drug manufacturers and providers for failing to meet cost-containment requirements.

Along with efforts to control healthcare spending, the legislation also seeks to control the price of insurance premiums, particularly those paid by small and mid-size employers and their employees. An October 2019 report from the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis found that premiums and cost-sharing obligations for private-sector employees in Massachusetts are continuing to increase at a faster rate than wages and inflation. Among other things, the legislation includes provisions which are designed to give small employers (50 employees or fewer) greater access to health-plan options.

Finally, on Oct. 18, the same day he filed his healthcare-reform bill, Gov. Baker issued an executive order to create a commission to study the combined individual and small-employer group health-insurance market. This unique market — known in Massachusetts as the ‘merged market’ — was established in 2007 with “the intention of increasing and stabilizing its risk pool to provide greater access to affordable health-insurance coverage,” according to the governor’s executive order.

The commission is tasked with analyzing the merged market in light of the legislative reforms and changes to the healthcare market that have occurred over the past 12 years and reporting recommendations to the governor by April 30, 2020, with the objective of “ensuring that all residents have access to affordable health-insurance coverage.”

Bottom Line

Gov. Baker’s proposed reforms are just that — proposals. Lawmakers at the State House are working on their own healthcare-reform legislation, including bills supporting a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. What will follow are negotiations among legislators and the Baker administration, with the goal of passing comprehensive healthcare-reform legislation in Massachusetts before the Legislature’s formal session ends on July 31, 2020.

Jodi K. Miller, Esq. is a partner at Bulkley, Richardson and Gelinas, LLP, in Springfield, where she represents clients in commercial and other civil-litigation and regulatory matters, with a focus on health law.

Springfield’s Educare Facility Is State-of-the-art in Every Respect

By George O'Brien November 12, 2019

Education

Center of Attention

Nikki Burnett, seen here in one of the Educare center’s outdoor play areas, says the facility is a showcase of what early education should be — and what all young children deserve.

Nikki Burnett says Springfield’s Old Hill neighborhood and those surrounding it certainly need the gleaming new $14 million Educare facility constructed next door to the Elias Brookings Elementary School on Walnut Street.

More to the point, though, she told BusinessWest, they deserve this facility, which can only be described with that phrase state-of-the-art when it comes to everything from its programs to its play areas to its bathrooms.

“Mason Square, Old Hill, McKnight, Bay, all those neighborhoods … they’re so rich in history, so they’re rich in great success stories that have come out of here and are still coming out of here,” said Burnett, the recently named executive director of the 27,000-square-foot facility, who should know; she grew up there herself. “People like Ruth Carter, who just won an Oscar for the costume design in the movie Black Panther — she’s from Springfield.

“We have to celebrate those things, and we have to model those things for our children so they can see that they have greatness in them,” she went on. “One of the very important things about Educare is that it aligns potential with opportunity. I believe all children are born with immense potential, but many do not have the same opportunity to realize that, so Educare will give them that push — it will help readjust their trajectory.”

That’s why this area of the city, traditionally among the poorest neighborhoods in the state, deserves this Educare facility, just the 24th of its kind in the country and the only one in Massachusetts, she continued, adding quickly that this building, and the Educare model itself, were designed to show decision makers and society in general what all young children deserve and what has to be done so that they can all enjoy a similar experience.

Mary Walachy, executive director of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, which spearheaded efforts to bring the Educare facility to fruition, agreed.

“The message being sent here is that it costs money to do this work well,” she said. “It costs money to fund quality at the level that children in this community and others deserve, and we can’t expect outcomes that we want from children if the investment is not there at the front end.”

Considering those comments, Educare is certainly much more than a building, and those who visit it — and many will in the weeks and months to come — will come to understand that.

Indeed, the facility set to open later this year, supported by the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and to be operated in partnership with Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, is, for lack of a better term, a standard — or the new standard when it comes to early-childhood education.

And it is, as Burnett and Walachy noted, a model — hopefully to be emulated — that incorporates everything science says young children need to flourish. This includes data utilization, high-quality teaching practices (three teachers to a classroom instead of the traditional two), embedded professional development, and intensive family engagement.

All this and more will come together at the much-anticipated facility, which will provide 141 children up to age 5 (already enrolled at a Head Start facility in that neighborhood) and their families with a full-day, full-year program that Burnett projects will be a place to learn — and not just for the young children enrolled there.

The Educare facility in Springfield is just one of 24 in the country and the only one in Massachusetts.

“Educare is going to be a demonstration site; we’re going to be able to bring in students of education, social work, counseling and therapy, and other areas from across the state and have them observe and learn our model,” she explained. “We understand that 141 children is not every child; however, what we learn here, we’re going to be able to send out — others can do what we’re doing. And on a policy level, it’s my hope that legislators can see the success of this and realize that, when they’re making out the budget, it needs to be funded so everyone can enjoy Educare quality.

“Educare is not going to be on every corner,” she went on. “But that doesn’t mean that the quality of Educare cannot be beneficial to all children.”

For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest toured the Educare facility and talked with Burnett and others about what this unique early-education center means for Springfield and especially those young people who walk through its doors.

New School of Thought

Janis Santos, the longtime director of Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, recalled that, when she toured the Educare facility recently as construction was winding down, she became quite emotional.

“I have to be honest, I started crying,” said Santos, honored roughly a year ago by BusinessWest as one of its Women of Impact for 2018. “One of the construction-crew members said, ‘why are you crying?’ and I said, ‘because I’m so happy.’

“Educare is going to be a demonstration site; we’re going to be able to bring in students of education, social work, counseling and therapy, and other areas from across the state and have them observe and learn our model.”

“This is a dream come true,” she went on, adding that the facility provides dramatic evidence of how far early-childhood education has come during her career — it was considered babysitting when she got her start — and how important it is to the overall development of young people.

Tears of joy have been a common emotional response among those who have toured the site, especially those involved in this initiative from the beginning, but there have been others as well. Indeed, Burnett told BusinessWest, when the staff members assigned to the Educare center visited the well-appointed teachers’ room, many of them started clapping.

These reactions provide ample evidence that the six-year journey to get the facility built and the doors open was certainly time and energy incredibly well-spent.

By now, most are familiar with the story of how an Educare facility — again, one of only 24 in the country — came to be in Springfield. It’s a story laced with serendipity and good fortune at a number of turns.

It begins back in 2014 when an early-childhood center on Katherine Street in Springfield closed down abruptly, leaving more than 100 children without classroom seats, said Walachy, adding that the Davis Foundation began looking at other options for early education in that building.

One of them was Educare, she went on, adding that officials with the Buffett Foundation and other agencies involved, as well as architects, came and looked at the property. They quickly determined that it was not up to the high standards for Educare centers.

“Their model is ‘make it a state-of-the-art, unbelievable building to send a strong message that this is what all kids deserve,’” said Walachy, adding that, after those inspections and being informed that a new facility would have to be built at a cost of more than $12 million, the Educare concept was essentially put on the shelf.

And it stayed there for the better part of two years until an anonymous donor from outside the Bay State who wanted to fund an Educare facility came into the picture.

“This individual pledged to pay for at least half the cost of building an Educare somewhere in the country, and she was willing to do it here in Springfield,” she said, adding that the donor has written checks totaling more than $9 million for both the construction and operation of the facility.

With this commitment, those involved went about raising the balance of the needed funds — the Davis Foundation and another donor committed $2 million each, and state grants as well as New Market Tax Credits were secured, bringing the total raised to more than $20 million — and then clearing what became another significant hurdle, finding a site on which to build.

Indeed, the Educare model is for these facilities to be built adjacent to elementary schools, and in Springfield, that proved a challenging mandate. But the tornado that ravaged the city, and especially the Old Hill area, in 2011, forcing the construction of a new Brookings School, actually provided an answer.

Indeed, land adjacent to the new school owned by Springfield College was heavily damaged by the tornado, making redevelopment a difficult proposition. Thus, the college became an important partner in the project by donating the needed land.

But while it’s been a long, hard fight to get this far, the journey is far from over, said both Burnett and Walachy, noting that another $500,000 must be raised to fund an endowment that will help cover operating expenses at the school.

And raising that money is just one of many responsibilities within Burnett’s lengthy job description, a list that also includes everything from becoming an expert on the Educare model to attending regular meetings of Educare facility directors — there’s one in New Orleans later this year, for example.

At the moment, one of the duties assuming much of her time is acting as a tour guide. She even joked that she hasn’t mastered the art of walking backward while talking with tour participants, but she’s working on it. To date, tours have been given to city officials, funders and potential funders, hired staff members, like those aforementioned teachers, and, yes, members of the media.

BusinessWest took its own tour, one that featured a number of stops, because items pointed out are certainly not typical of those found in traditional early-education centers.

“I literally cannot wait to see the children in there — that will be a special moment.”

Starting with what Burnett and others called the “outside-in” of the building’s design, which, as that phrase indicates, works to bring the outside environment into the school to provide continuity and the sense that the school is part of the larger world. Thus, green, grass-like carpeting was put down in the entranceways, and green carpet prevails pretty much throughout the facility. Meanwhile, the brick façade on the exterior is continued inside the building.

Throughout the building, there are generous amounts of light and state-of-the-art facilities throughout, from the well-equipped play areas inside and out to the two sinks in each of the classrooms — one for food preparation, the other for hand washing — to the restrooms designed especially for small people.

In addition, each classroom is equipped with small viewing areas with one-way mirrors so that so-called ‘master teachers’ and others can see and evaluate what’s happening.

In all, there are 12 classrooms, seven for infants and toddlers and five for preschool. As noted earlier, they will be places of learning, and not just for the students.

Model of Excellence

Returning to that emotional tour of the Educare facility she took a few weeks ago, Santos said that, as joyous and uplifting as it was, she’s looking forward to the next one even more.

“I literally cannot wait to see the children in there — that will be a special moment,” she told BusinessWest, putting almost a half-century of work in early childhood behind those words.

She can’t wait because students will be learning and playing in a facility that really was only a dream a few years ago — a dream that came true.

It’s a facility that those students truly need, but as Burnett and all the others we spoke said, it’s one they deserve — one that all students deserve.

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

Corey Murphy, President, First American Insurance

By George O'Brien November 12, 2019

Veterans in Business

Retired Marine Corps Major Stresses Teamwork, Accountability

Corey Murphy, third from left, with several First American Insurance employees during a Toys for Tots campaign the company helped launch.

Corey Murphy knew he was no longer on active duty with the Marine Corps when he walked into his first staff meeting at his family’s business — Chicopee-based First American Insurance — with the accent on when he walked in.

Indeed, that meeting was scheduled for 8 a.m., and from his years as a Marine officer, Murphy translated this to mean that he should arrive no later than 10 minutes before the hour.

“You never, ever walk into a meeting if the boss is already there; you just don’t do that,” he told BusinessWest, referring to life in the Marine Corps. “So I show up at 10 of 8, because … if you’re on time, you’re late. I’m looking at my watch, and I’m the only one sitting there. I look at my watch again at 8, and I’m still the only one sitting there, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘what’s going on here?’ I couldn’t comprehend the idea of having an 8 o’clock meeting and have it not start by 8 o’clock.”

This wasn’t a serious wake-up call, but simply a reminder that life in the business world is not exactly like life in the Corps. He would get other lessons to this effect, he went on, adding that he once asked someone to get him something by the ‘close of business.’

“Two of the biggest similarities between the military and the business world are teamwork and accountability.”

“The military interpretation of that is that is ‘when you’re done, then you can close your business day,’” he explained. “As opposed to ‘it’s 5 o’clock, and I’m going home.’ They didn’t get it done by 5 and went home, and I said, ‘wait, I said close of business.’”

So there was certainly a period of what Murphy called “transition and adjustment” from life in the military to work at the office on Front Street. But, overall, many of the tenets, if you will, of life in the service do carry over to the workplace, often creating a more focused, more efficient, more sustainable workplace, he said, listing everything from an emphasis on teamwork to the need to keep up with — and take full advantage of — ever-improving technology, to stepping up when the need arises.

But there are other, perhaps even more important takeaways (if that’s the right term) from the military, he said, citing both the company’s philosophy of continuous education and training, and its commitment to the community.

There is a heavy emphasis on the former in the military and especially the Marine Corps, he noted, adding that there is now a similar degree of importance attached to it at First American.

“This is something I have tried to instill with everyone; training is very critical,” he said, adding that an even heavier emphasis on community involvement — one existed already at this company— stems from his experiences with the Marines is such places as Okinawa, the Philippines, and Korea.

“Coming home, I realized we have resources that we can use to try to make a difference, and so we try to help where we can,” he said, mentioning, as just one example, the company’s visit to a nearby elementary school on Halloween to distribute candy to the students.

Overall, Murphy spent 20 years with the Marines, on active duty and with the reserves, and retired as a major. He said joining the Corps was something he “always wanted to do,” although he couldn’t pinpoint a reason for this. He said his uncle served in the Marines during Vietnam and took part in the prolonged siege of Khe Sanh, but doubts whether that was a motivating factor in his decision.

Murphy went into the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Va. while attending Virginia Military Academy, and, after gaining his commission, was stationed in Hawaii and, later, Korea and Okinawa.

In the fall of 1998, he finished his four-year tour of duty and joined the family business. He would eventually buy it from his father in 2014.

After only six months of being home, he joined the Reserves, and would continue to serve — he did take a break at one point to earn his MBA — for another 16 years, before retiring in 2016. The last five years were spent with Marine Forces Pacific, leaving First American for stretches lasting several weeks on average to take part in exercises across that vast theater.

To be able to take part in such assignments, Murphy said he knew he needed a capable team behind him, one he knew he could trust to carry on without him — although, with technology, he was able to keep in touch.

And this is one of the many aspects of military service that has carried over to the workplace, he said, noting that teamwork and doing what’s necessary are some of the guiding philosophies at First American.

“Two of the biggest similarities between the military and the business world are teamwork and accountability,” he said, adding that they are necessary in both settings, and he has worked to instill these attributes in his team of nearly 20 employees. “If someone’s out sick or if we’re down a person or things get busy, there’s an expectation that people are going to pitch in and do whatever they need to do.”

Overall, Murphy said what he’s brought back from the Marine Corps is a philosophy of “adapt and overcome,” which is a big reason for the success the company has enjoyed.

“You adapt to the situation, and you overcome,” he explained, adding that this what happens in the Marines. “You go in with aplan, but the enemy has a plan, too. So you have to adapt to the situation you’re presented with and come up with a new plan.”

Murphy said he’s adjusted well to the business world and how it differs from the military, right down to what time people are expected at meetings and what ‘close of day’ means in this setting.

But the two worlds are actually more similar than they are different, he added, and those basic tenets of teamwork and accountability are the cornerstones on which success is built.

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

Dorothy Ostrowski, President, Adams & Ruxton Construction

By George O'Brien November 12, 2019

Veterans in Business

Her Afghanistan Tour Brought Many Lessons for Life, Business

Dorothy Ostrowski is seen here during her tour of duty in Afghanistan with Gen. Karl Eikenberry (center) and fellow military police officers (from left) Ryan Stone, Dominic Cirillo, and Jeffrey Botcher.

Dorothy Ostrowski was only 17 when she joined the Army National Guard.

She needed her parents’ consent to do so at that age, and she got it, because they knew — and, more importantly, she knew — that this was something she needed at that critical junction in her life.

“I didn’t have probably the best circle of friends at that time,” she told BusinessWest, turning back the clock more than 23 years. “I was looking to get some direction in my life.”

To say she found some through her seven years in a military police company, serving in locations ranging from Italy to Panama to Afganistan, where she became a chase driver for Gen. Karl Eikenberry, would be a huge understatement.

Indeed, she said, during that time of service, she gained invaluable lessons in teamwork, trusting those you’re working beside, being ready for essentially anything, taking nothing for granted, and taking good care of team members.

And they have served her well since, in positions ranging from emergency-room nurse to president of the company that she and her husband, Mike, purchased at the start of this year, West Springfield-based Adams & Ruxton Construction.

“There are many ways in which what you learn in the military impacts what you do in life and in business,” she noted. “There’s the teamwork dynamic, the attention to detail, and the mindset of taking care of the troops — your troops eat first. It’s about taking care of the people around you, because they’re the ones who are going to pull you through things. And that directly impacts where I am now.”

“There would be times when you were out on convoys and there would be explosions, or you’d be out on a mission … and you’re not really thinking that you might not come back at the end of the day.”

Afghanistan was essentially the final stop in a lengthy stint with the National Guard that, as noted, took Ostrowski to several other countries and working situations. She told BusinessWest that her first ambition was to be a police officer. But, as she said, she needed to bring direction to her life, and so, while still enrolled at Chicopee Comprehensive High School, she made the decision to join the Guard with the stated goal of becoming a military police officer. Boot camp was the summer after her junior year.

Looking back on her time in Afghanistan, Ostrowski said it wasn’t until that tour of duty was over and she was back in this country that she could really put those experiences into their proper perspective.

“When you’re there, you’re just doing your job,” she told BusinessWest. “There would be times when you were out on convoys and there would be explosions, or you’d be out on a mission … and you’re not really thinking that you might not come back at the end of the day.”

Her Guard unit was there to be part of the efforts to train the Afghan national army, she explained, adding that her specific role with the Military Police was to protect Gen. Eikenberry, an assignment that often put her at the wheel of the chase car that rode close behind his Chevy Suburban.

“We would ensure that no one tried to drive into him or drive him off the road,” she noted. “Our mission for those several months was to get him where he needed to go safely, whether that meant chase-driving him or accompanying him in Blackhawks or Chinooks to different villages in Afghanistan.”

When that tour of duty ended, Ostrowski enrolled at Holyoke Community College, with the goal of joining the law-enforcement field, but instead took a different career path — into healthcare. She eventually became an emergency-room nurse after gaining her degree at Springfield Technical Community College, and later, while seeking work that would allow her to spend her time with her family, joined Sound Physicians, a medical process-improvement company. Along the way, she earned a dual master’s degree in nursing and business administration at Elms College to better position herself for new opportunities and, ultimately, a leadership position.

Dorothy Ostrowski says she won’t hesitate to do anything she asks her team members to do.

She created one for herself by acquiring Adams & Ruxton, a move she categorized as part of a lifelong pattern of continually seeking out new challenges and raising the bar when it comes it comes to her career ambitions — something else she took home from her time in the military.

Today, she leads a team of 25 people and boasts a broad job description, everything from meeting with clients to coordinating the subcontractors to handling the financials. And she brings her experience in the military to the workplace seemingly every day, especially those lessons in teamwork and working as a unit to achieve a mission, whatever it may be.

To get her points across, she referenced a cartoon a friend sent her that effectively illustrates — literally and figuratively — the difference between a manager and a true leader.

“In one panel, there’s a picture of a boss sitting up on a rock with all his employees pulling him,” she recalled. “And then, in the other, there’s a picture of a leader, the one at the front of that rope helping all his people pull that big rock; that’s the kind of leader I am, and I think a lot of it comes from my time with the Guard.

“It’s about not being afraid to do anything that you ask the people you’re surrounded by to do,” she went on. “But I think it’s also about recognizing the qualities of the people around you and being humble enough to say, ‘hey, I don’t know how to do this,’ and allowing those that know how to do it to teach you to do it.”

“In the military, you rely on each other,” she said in conclusion, adding that this mindset has helped enable her to be a driving force in business, long after she was a driving force in Afghanistan.

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

Andrew Anderlonis, President, Rediker Software

By George O'Brien November 12, 2019

Veterans in Business

His Time in the Navy Provided an Education on Many Levels

Andrew Anderlonis says his time in the Navy helped him become an effective, people-oriented leader.

Andrew Anderlonis laughed as he noted that one of the Navy’s better selling points is that, no matter where you’re stationed, you’re certain to be close to be a beach.

And that was certainly the case when he was assigned to the destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69), which was based in San Diego; there are lots of fine beaches there.

But Anderlonis said he didn’t join the Navy to sit in the sun. No, he did so to get an education — in every sense of that term.

Indeed, through the Navy, he was awarded a full scholarship to attend George Washington University, earning degrees in international business and management information systems. But that’s just one aspect of the education he received. Later, serving on the Milius and then the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush, he was put in situations where he could lead people, develop management skills, test himself, and grow as an individual.

And he credits those experiences — everything from work on nuclear reactors to missions to thwart pirates in the Middle East — with helping him become an effective, people-oriented leader at Rediker Software, which he now serves as president.

“I call my time in the Navy the ultimate leadership experience,” he told BusinessWest. “The experience that the Navy gave me, from an early stage, right out of college, put me into some really tough, really challenging situations that helped build my confidence, helped build my humility, and helped make me the kind of manager I am today.

“There’s different styles of leader out there,” he went on. “Through the Navy, I found out I was a people-first person. Taking care of people, taking care of the sailors under me really became how I was successful. I knew that if I took care of them, they would do their jobs and take care of me, and thus we would accomplish the mission — and I carry a lot of that same methodology to how I lead and manage today.”

“I call my time in the Navy the ultimate leadership experience.”

Before elaborating, Anderlonis flashed back a few decades to his decision to commit to the Navy.

As he noted earlier, this was, as they say in the military, a tactical decision. He knew that beyond a beach — somewhere — the Navy would help provide him with both a college education and invaluable work and life experience.

And it delivered all that and more.

“The Navy was really appealing to me, and I liked the opportunities that it offered — you’re given a lot of responsibility as soon as you graduate, especially as an officer,” he recalled, adding that, after graduating from the ROTC program as a midshipman, he started his career on the Milius, a guided-missile destroyer.

There, he wore a large number of hats, as he put it; he served as a gunnery officer, a legal officer, and was the ‘vessel-boarding, search-and-seizure officer.’

After two years in San Diego, he moved on to Charleston, S.C. for a year and switched gears, becoming a nuclear engineering officer. He earned his qualification to work onboard an aircraft carrier, and was later assigned to one of the reactors on the George H.W. Bush.

All told, he served more than five years of active duty that included those two ship tours and several deployments, including (while on the Milius) some anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and in the central and southern Arabian Gulf, previously known as the Persian Gulf.

“I was the vessel-boarding, search-and-seizure officer … I had an 18-person crew that was under me,” he recalled. “We would board ships and look for pirates; I was out there in my desert camos climbing up the side of tankers.”

Those were among the myriad experiences that, in total, helped prepare Anderlonis for his transition to the business world, specifically Rediker Software, a venture started by his wife’s father that specializes in integrated school-management systems.

And that preparation involved everything from technology and how to make the most of it, to management and how to handle just about anything that can be thrown at the leader of a small business.

Elaborating, he returned to that mindset, or philosophy, of being a people-oriented leader, a methodology that has worked at Rediker in the same way it did on the George H.W. Bush.

“I make sure that I take care of them,” he said, referring to his team of 95 employees. “I make sure their needs are met and that they’re happy. And I know that, in the end, they’ll take care of me and work as a team to accomplish the business objectives that we’ve laid as we move forward.”

Another tangible benefit from his years in the Navy, he said, is how it has helped him with the broad realm of crisis management and what falls into that category of ‘crisis.’

“It puts everything into perspective when you’re in a war zone and there are actual casualties or something happens and your training kicks in,” he explained. “That’s helped me decide here what’s a true emergency and what’s not. It’s also helping me to maintain a level head and manage stress. And while others are panicking or might be having a really difficult day, I’m able to help them keep a level platform and get through what they might be going through from a leadership perspective.

“At a young age, I was put in a lot of stressful situations, and there were a lot of challenging moments early in my career,” he went on. “And I think those really helped define who I am as a manager and a leader today.”

Meanwhile, there was certainly some beach time in the Navy as well, especially in San Diego. But that’s another story.

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

Cheryl Clapprood Leads Springfield Police Through a Time of Challenge, Controversy

By George O'Brien October 29, 2019

Features

Driving Force

Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood with Mango.

A few years ago, Cheryl Clapprood was thinking about retirement. But a love of the work and opportunities for advancement kept her in uniform, and with the abrupt resignation of Commissioner John Barbieri, she was put on a path to lead what has become an embattled department, one dealing with fallout from scandals, controversy, and staffing issues.

His name is Mango.

He’s a 1-year-old German shepherd who carries a badge.

Legend has it — and he’s already becoming legend — that he lacked the temperament or concentration needed to be to be a medical alert dog, like his parents — a highly trained canine that can sense when its master is about to have a seizure, for example. And he wasn’t (and still isn’t) aggressive enough to be a true police dog.

So … he has become a comfort dog for the department (more on that later) and an ambassador of sorts — his business card (yes, he has one) reads ‘Comfort K9’) — visiting area schools, showing up at various events, and becoming a face of the Springfield Police Department.

He joined the force, if that’s the proper term, in June, and he is getting comfortable in his new role and seemingly enjoying it more every day.

Those are sentiments are shared by the person he shares an office with — Springfield Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood, who dropped ‘interim’ from her title and was officially sworn in to her new position a month ago.

But she has been leading the force for roughly nine months now, since the abrupt resignation of John Barbieri amid a growing number of scandals involving the department. These include the arraignment of 13 current or former police officers on allegations that they either participated in or helped cover up the alleged 2015 off-duty police beating of four men outside Nathan Bill’s Bar & Restaurant, and also federal indictments stemming from alarming video showing Officer Greg Bigda threatening two juvenile suspects arrested for stealing an unmarked police car, among other recent incidents.

“When a couple of incidents happen, it sets you back, and people tend to lump us all together — it’s a profession where, when one officer does something, the rest of us pay the price, and that’s nationwide.”

In the wake of these scandals, Clapprood said, all those in the department are being painted with the same broad brush as those accused of abusing their power, and this is unfortunate, because the vast majority of officers don’t.

“When a couple of incidents happen, it sets you back, and people tend to lump us all together — it’s a profession where, when one officer does something, the rest of us pay the price, and that’s nationwide,” she said. “They treat us all the same, as if we had all committed these crimes. The video got out of Bigda in the cell block, and a lot of people were appalled and shocked at the behavior, but now, people think, ‘oh, that’s how the Springfield Police Department treats prisoners, that’s how they treat juveniles; it’s like we were all in that cell block with him.”

Still, the culture of the department needs to change, she said, adding that these scandals are just one of the challenges facing a department of roughly 500 officers. She told BusinessWest that police work is not as popular and glamorous as it was years ago, and it is, by almost all accounts, more dangerous. That means there are fewer people looking to enter law enforcement, she went on, and when you couple this with the number of officers currently on suspension and those planning to retire early next year, the department is facing a potential staffing crisis.

“We cannot recruit, and we cannot retain,” said Clapprood, adding that Springfield is certainly not alone when it comes to this challenge — other departments are facing the same issues. “We’re having a very difficult time recruiting and retaining officers, and every city in Massachusetts, and, from what I hear, every major city in the country, is facing the same problem.”

Despite these pressures and challenges, the department is, by most measures, creating progress when it comes to the incidence of many types of crimes, and in improving the perception of the city when it comes to public safety, especially in a downtown that is drawing ever-larger numbers of visitors since the opening of MGM Springfield.

Cheryl Clapprood, see here being sworn in as police commissioner, says the Springfield Police Department must change its culture to regain the confidence of the public.

“Violent-crime numbers are down, in large part because there are a lot of officers in the downtown area now,” she said, adding that the department’s relatively new Crime Analysis Unit, which crunches the numbers when it comes to what types of crimes are being committed and where, is also helping make the streets safer.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Clapprood about the state of public safety in the City of Homes and her efforts to change the perceptions of, and the culture within, the department she has been part of for four decades.

Out of the Blue

Clapprood told BusinessWest she recently met up with a woman she attended elementary school with a half-century or so ago. “She gave me a hug and said, ‘do you remember in the second grade when you said you wanted to be a cop?’”

Clapprood didn’t remember actually making that specific comment at that time, but she did recall always being drawn to that type of work.

“I was the crossing guard, I was in school security — I was in all those things,” she recalled, adding that her family lacked the money to send her to college, so she joined the Air Force, where she also gravitated toward the security side of the equation, and fully embraced it.

“It’s going to take some time. I knew we would not win back a good reputation in a short amount of time. It’s going to take some years to build this back up again. But you do it slowly; you show the community that you have officers who are professional officers who have integrity and do a good job.”

While stationed at Westover, she read in the local paper about the upcoming Springfield police cadet exam.

“I was 19, and I said, ‘that sounds really interesting,’” she recalled. “I took it, I passed, and became a police cadet in April 1979. And it’s just followed a course from there — I love the Springfield Police Department; it will be 41 years next April.”

Most police officers retire long before getting to 41 years — a fact of police work that is contributing to the staffing issues we’ll get to later — but Clapprood said she loved the work, and opportunities to advance continued to present themselves.

Fast-forwarding through four decades with the force, she said she gradually moved up in the ranks and eventually reached captain and eventually captain of the Community Action Division, which includes traffic, canine, C3 Policing (or what Clapprood calls “community policing on steroids”), and other programs. And that experience inspired her to stay on for a few more years.

She then took the assessment test for deputy chief, thinking it would be a good experience for her. She would soon discover that everyone else on the list for that post had retired, and with more retirements pending, she decided to hang in still longer.

It was a decision that would eventually propel her to the commissioner’s office, first as interim in February, and then on a permanent basis earlier this fall.

Since taking the helm, she has made it a point to get out in the community and meet with as many constituencies as possible, learning of their needs and concerns and letting them know what the department is doing to address them.

She’s also brought Mango into the department, giving him a role that is new to the force — comfort dog.

Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood says one challenge facing the police department — and all departments — is recruiting and retaining new officers.

“I don’t think people realize what the police officers go through on a daily basis, the things they see, and how it affects them,” she explained. “And he’s been a home run; I bring him to roll calls and the report room, and so far, everyone loves him. He makes trips around the station every day and goes to community events and meetings.

“Sometimes people come in here and they can be jacked up a little bit — they have problems and complaints,” she went on, referring to both members of her department and the general public. “I always ask, ‘are you all right with a dog?’ By the time they’re done petting him and him kissing them, they’ve come down to a level that’s very amicable for me.”

Arresting Developments

But there are a number of issues and problems that can’t be solved with a visit to or from Mango, and these are the matters currently absorbing most of Clapprood’s time.

The department’s scandals and the image problems they’re creating are at the top of this list, she said, adding that she knew changes needed to be made even before she became commissioner.

“You can’t waffle, and you can’t wait for problems to go away — that tends to cause you more problems than you had before,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she is taking a proactive approach to the issues facing the department and bringing about a change in the culture.

“It comes back to instilling discipline, it comes back to training, it comes back to accepting responsibility,” she explained. “That’s what I preach at the staff meetings and with the officers, and you have to lead by example.

“When I was a young police officer here, you’d have to force people out at 65; they were fighting it, calling it age discrimination and threatening to file suit. They didn’t want to go at 65. But it’s a tough job now, and I can’t blame people for wanting to retire earlier.”

“And it’s going to take some time,” she went on. “I knew we would not win back a good reputation in a short amount of time. It’s going to take some years to build this back up again. But you do it slowly; you show the community that you have officers who are professional officers who have integrity and do a good job.”

Meanwhile, another matter is keeping the department staffed, a considerable challenge given the fact that many officers are retiring at an earlier age than a generation ago and fewer young people are looking to enter what was once a proud profession.

“They go early now,” she said, referring to officers and retirement. “When I was a young police officer here, you’d have to force people out at 65; they were fighting it, calling it age discrimination and threatening to file suit. They didn’t want to go at 65.

“But it’s a tough job now, and I can’t blame people for wanting to retire earlier,” she went on. “There have been a few on-duty deaths in recent years, and the last one [Officer Kevin Ambrose] shook up a lot of people.”

Clapprood told BusinessWest that the staffing challenges will soon force some hard decisions on which programs it can continue to operate. For the long term, she worries that such issues will force her department and others to lower their standards when it comes to who can eventually wear a badge.

“In time, lowering standards can cause more problems,” she said, adding that, while once the department desired a bachelor’s degree and later an associate degree, it will now accept a GED. “You might see people here who maybe are not mature enough or didn’t want it for the right reasons; it will bring about a host of other issues.”

As she noted, there are positive things happening within the department and across the city from a public-safety perspective, but these developments are getting lost amid the scandals and negative press.

In an effort to shed some light on them, Clapprood has gone on radio talk shows and writes a regular column for the Republican in an effort to get the word out.

This month’s offering is typical of the submissions: there is commentary on timely topics — October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so she discussed the department’s team of domestic-violence advocates — as well as relevant updates, specifically one on the pending decision on which vendor will supply the department with body-worn cameras.

“Cameras aren’t perfect, but they will be beneficial both to our officers and our residents,” she wrote, echoing comments she offered to BusinessWest on this subject. “Just about every department to which we’ve spoken said complaints about officers nearly disappear once they implement a body-worn camera program.”

She also shares news about the department — this month there was mention of how Bill Schwarz, the department’s Crime Analysis director, was recently presented with the International Assoc. of Crime Analysts membership award — as well as another warning about scams and a reminder that photos of she and Mango for the police officers’ ball book can be seen on Mango’s Facebook page.

“I’m trying to get out a lot of good and a lot of the things that we do here,” she said. “And it’s been received very well.”

Paws for Effect

Like most dogs, Mango now has the run of the house — well, Clapprood’s office, anyway

There’s a dog bed not far from the commissioner’s desk, and she likes that he recently developed an affinity for the couch that sits in the corner.

“No one else likes to sit there, so I guess it’s Mango’s,” she said, adding that she and the department’s comfort dog are both growing into their jobs — and they both have a detailed job description.

Clapprood’s can be boiled down to putting her department and all its officers in a position to succeed while also changing the culture within the department, and, at the same time, making the city a safe place to visit and for those who live and work here.

There is considerable work to be done and challenges to be overcome, but Clapprood believes the department can get where it wants and needs to go. It won’t happen overnight, as she said, but it can happen slowly but surely.

Leading those efforts has been a life-long ambition, or at least since the second grade, according to at least one account.

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

Restaurants, Banquet Facilities Cater to Different Holiday-party Preferences

By Kayla Ebner October 29, 2019

Holiday Party Planner

Many Ways to Celebrate

Lynn Kennedy says the Log Cabin, Delaney House, and Log Rolling catering services have something for every business during the holiday season, no matter their size.

Companies have long celebrated the hard work they’ve done over the course of the year with a holiday party. Whether hosting a small gathering or a large corporate bash, plenty of restaurants, banquet facilities, and caterers in the Western Mass. area are willing to get the job done each year. Although these parties have been popular for decades, owners and managers say trends are always changing in how people want to celebrate the year and ring in a new one.

Lynn Kennedy says one of the most common things she hears from employers booking holiday parties is that they want to do something special for the people that work for them.

“This is something people don’t want to do halfway,” said Kennedy, director of Sales and Marketing at the Log Cabin. “They want to go all in because they realize it’s the best way for them to show their employees the appreciation they deserve for a lot of hard work that they put out there.”

While end-of-the-year holiday parties have long been a tradition for companies of all sizes, employers are finding new ways to show employees their appreciation this season.

Aside from the traditional but enjoyable small group parties and restaurant reservations, companies are going above and beyond to make sure all employees are able to join in the celebration, no matter how big the organization may be.

The Log Cabin offers a wide array of options for holiday parties, including small-group holiday parties that are always a hit. Indeed, the facility is hosting a total of six this year, as opposed to the usual four or five, because of how popular they are.

“This is something people don’t want to do halfway. They want to go all in because they realize it’s the best way for them to show their employees the appreciation they deserve for a lot of hard work that they put out there.”

The Starting Gate at GreatHorse is another popular venue for small-group holiday parties, including a Breakfast with Santa, a Holiday Dinner Dance with the Clark Eno Orchestra, and the annual Holiday Luncheon with Dan Kane & Friends.

Cathy Stephens, director of Catering Sales, says these events are affordable options for small to mid-sized companies looking to enjoy a festive night.

“It is cost-effective for the smaller and even the mid-size companies to host their holiday celebration at venues that are providing live entertainment and a festive menu that satisfies just about everyone,” she said. “It also provides the opportunity to network with other local businesses.”

In addition to Center Square Grill, Bill Collins recently opened another restaurant, HighBrow, in Northampton.

There is no shortage of businesses in the Western Mass. area, and all have their own preferences as to what kind of gathering will appeal to their employees. This encourages restaurants like Center Square Grill to expand their options and accommodate unique requests.

Owner Bill Collins says he does his best to work with any request, no matter how big or small, and often does so himself to make sure everything goes smoothly.

“What makes this restaurant stand out is that the owner is on deck,” he said, adding that General Manager Kim Hulslander is also frequently involved with booking parties. “If you want to call and work with me, you’re going to get me on the phone. You’re in ownership’s hands when you’re booking an event with us, and we see it through to the end.”

The holiday season poses a strong business opportunity for restaurants and banquet facilities, but it is also a great time for caterers.

“We have people who book at the end of the prior year. Once their holiday party finishes, most people, within a week or two, are booking already for the next year.”

Nosh Restaurant and Café in Springfield may be fairly small on the inside, but its catering business is booming, and uses creative food and elegant edible centerpieces to stand out from the competition.

“I think our food is super creative, and we present it beautifully,” said owner Teri Skinner. “It’s important to be creative in how you present the food, the taste, and the flavors. It’s really what a catering company is built on.”

These caterers are seeing a lot more business around the holidays over the past few years for a number of reasons. For this year’s holiday party planning issue, BusinessWest spoke with local restaurants and caterers about these changing traditions and how they strive to stand out among local competition.

Teri Skinner, owner of Nosh, says it’s important to be creative when it comes to food presentation.

Keep Them Coming Back

When Missy Baker at Arland Tool e-mailed Skinner to set up the company’s annual party, she sent just five short words: “all set for the 24th?” Skinner responded, “yes, we’re all set.”

That’s because this is the seventh or eighth time Skinner has hosted Arland’s annual party, and she knows exactly what they like and need.

“It’s great for the customer because they know I’m going to be there, they know the quality of food, and it’s great for me because I know how much they eat and how long it takes,” Skinner said. “It’s a very precise job that we can control very well.”

SEE: List of Banquet Facilities

These kinds of relationships are not uncommon for restaurants and caterers, and it’s often the unique experiences customers have that keeps them coming back year after year.

Collins noted that a loyal clientele books parties at Center Square Grill every year.

“For us not being a big corporate chain, I just try to go above and beyond for the customer,” he said. “It’s worth it for me to do that to try to build in the business year after year.”

Some sites, like the Log Cabin, are so popular that regulars will book their next annual event just weeks after they enjoy their party this year.

“There are a lot of companies where their business is heaviest during this season, and it doesn’t make sense for them to actually have the celebration before Christmas, so they do it as a type of new-year celebration.”

“We have people who book at the end of the prior year,” Kennedy said. “Once their holiday party finishes, most people, within a week or two, are booking already for the next year.”

This mainly includes the larger parties that rent out big rooms at the Log Cabin for 300 to 400 people, like Tighe & Bond, Florence Bank, and PeoplesBank.

Because of the desire for a smaller, more intimate setting, Kennedy says the company’s Delaney House, where several rooms can fit 15 to 50 people, is also jam-packed during the holidays. Whatever the booking party’s size, she has seen an increase in catering over the last few years, which she credits partly to a changing workforce schedule.

“A major component of that is work schedules because you have first and second and third shifts of people,” she said. “Heads of businesses are really trying to figure out a way to incorporate their entire workforce in a holiday celebration and not just limit it to a particular time.”

These multi-shift businesses include news crews, manufacturers, and even hospitals, where it is nearly impossible to get everyone in the same room at the same time. This is where Log Rolling, the catering service for Log Cabin and the Delaney House, comes in handy.

“They’ll come in and ask us, ‘can you set up a breakfast for our morning crew? Can you set up a lunch for our afternoon crew? Can you set up a dinner for our evening crew?’ so everyone is kind of being hit at a different time and everyone gets to enjoy that holiday experience,” Kennedy said.

Making Spirits Bright

Caterers aren’t the only ones bringing unique styles to holiday celebrations. At Center Square Grill, Collins says customized packages are available for parties of any size, including both food and décor.

The restaurant offers packages for private dining that start at $20 and typically go up to $45 per person, although that isn’t the limit. Lower packages might offer unlimited alcoholic beverages with an entrée choice and a salad. With the $45 packages, everyone is greeted with a glass of champagne and gets an appetizer, salad, entrée, and dessert.

Collins also said he can arrange rooms in a variety of ways, with everything from decorated tables for a sit-down dinner to cocktail tables for a more casual night out.

“What’s unique about us is that you can come here casually, or you can come here dressed up, and you’re not going to feel bad in either direction,” he said. “We want you to be comfortable coming in for a burger and a beer or filet, oysters, and a bottle of champagne.”

Perhaps one of the most important parts about a holiday party is the quality and presentation of food, Skinner said. From everything from the plate the food goes on to the way the food itself is presented itself, Nosh puts together each “edible centerpiece” with with care.

“We call them edible centerpieces because they’re so beautiful when they go out,” she elaborated. “That’s how we build things here. We want them to look gorgeous and taste great, so that’s our goal at the end of the day.”

Cathy Stephens says events at Great Horse, including the holiday dinner dance and holiday luncheon, are perfect for businesses with a smaller budget.

More recently, Nosh catered a Halloween party for Northwest Mutual and provided edible centerpieces, appetizers, and a bartender dressed up for the spooky season.

Skinner agrees that catering has become more popular over the years and thinks a lot of people just want to feel comfortable and laid-back. “I think having it at home or at an office is relaxing,” she said.

Perhaps one of the most relaxing options all these restaurants have seen is the decision to hold off on a holiday party until the beginning of the following year to avoid the craziness of booking during peak season.

Kennedy says people normally book parties at the Log Cabin through the first few weeks of January, but some even book all the way into February.

“There are a lot of companies where their business is heaviest during this season, and it doesn’t make sense for them to actually have the celebration before Christmas, so they do it as a type of new-year celebration,” she said.

This happens frequently at restaurants in the area as well, and it’s the reason why Center Square keeps decorations up well into the new year so customers can still feel the holiday spirit even after the holidays are over.

In short, whether businesses are going with a new tradition or sticking with an old one, there is no shortage of options for holiday parties in Western Mass. — and banquet halls and restaurants say they’re happy to oblige.

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Manufacturers Face Higher Costs, Global Uncertainty from Trade War

By Joseph Bednar October 29, 2019

Manufacturing

Tight Squeeze

President Trump has made no secret of his hope that a series of tariffs on goods from China and other countries will eventually force a more favorable balance of trade for the U.S. But in the meantime, the escalating trade war has posed very real, often negative impacts for manufacturers, particularly in the form of higher costs and a general sense of uncertainty that makes it difficult to pursue growth. And no one seems to have any idea when the situation will ease up.

A trade war can hurt business in more ways than one, Kristin Carlson says.

For example, as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, her manufacturing company, Westfield-based Peerless Precision, doesn’t buy a lot of foreign materials, like steel and aluminum — in fact, she buys about 95% domestic — so she hasn’t been subject to the direct cost increases on imported goods resulting from the volley of back-and-forth tariffs posed by President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“As a result of tariffs and increased pressure on domestic supply, we’ve had supply and demand issues. We’ve been seeing pricing going up 25% to 40% from what we have historically paid.”

But those increased costs of Chinese products have pressured the domestic supply chain, so she is, indeed, paying more.

“As a result of tariffs and increased pressure on domestic supply, we’ve had supply and demand issues. We’ve been seeing pricing going up 25% to 40% from what we have historically paid,” she said. “Costs are a big issue.”

Peerless Precision, which makes parts for the aerospace and defense industries, employs 32 people and has generated strong revenue in recent years, but profits are being squeezed by the trade war.

Kristin Carlson says manufacturers are dealing with price increases and supply-chain disruptions due to the recent tariffs.

Lead times are also affected, she added. “Because of this supply and demand issue on the domestic supply chain, companies are stocking up to make sure they’re getting the prices they need. When times are normal, we’ll get material in one to three business days, and that’s turned into one to four weeks.”

Trump’s trade war, now about 18 months old, has had a ripple effect on the global supply chain of many products, driving up the price of imported raw materials and finished goods. It’s not just manufacturers feeling the heat — for example, farmers have lost lucrative markets as well.

NPR recently reported that cranberry growers worked for years to develop a market in China, and sales of dried cranberries to China increased by more than 1,000% between 2013 and 2018. But after the White House approved tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods in July, China immediately retaliated with tariffs on dozens of U.S. goods, including dried cranberries, and now growers — many of them in Massachusetts — are faced with a serious glut of product.

That’s just one example of the impact of tariffs, but for manufacturers, the equation can have even more moving parts (pun intended). Many shop owners say the uncertainty of the situation is causing them to hold off on hiring and expansion because they’re not sure how or when a deal will take shape.

“The imposition of 15% tariffs on $112 billion worth of Chinese goods on Sept. 1 underscores the uncertainty facing employers, particularly manufacturers, who do business in overseas markets,” Raymond Torto, chair of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Board of Economic Advisors, wrote last month. “At the same time, employers are beginning to see evidence from both customers and suppliers of a slowdown in the U.S. economy.”

Stirring the Pot

Robert Lawrence, professor of International Trade and Investment at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, recently told the Boston Globe that, while U.S. strategy over the past century has been to use protectionist measures like tariffs sparingly, Trump has a more aggressive outlook.

“This is at odds with the entire thrust of our policies over the post-war period,” he said. “We’re acting unilaterally. We’re bullying the Chinese by putting these tariffs on them.”

The Trump administration has taken aim at China for a variety of economic reasons, from the nations’ trade imbalance to accusations that Chinese companies steal intellectual property from American companies. But, as Carlson noted, China isn’t the only affected supplier.

“When we submit a quote for a customer purchase, we’re locked into the price we quote them. If our cost changes, we have to suck it up. We can’t go back to the customer and say, ‘oops, materials went up 50%, so we have to raise the price.’ We don’t do that.”

“Tariffs weren’t just slapped onto China, but onto Canada, Mexico … maybe three to five countries in the entire world don’t have tariffs on them.”

Not all manufacturers see the impact the same way. Eric Hagopian, who owns Pilot Precision Products in South Deerfield, told the Globe that, while the price of domestic steel he buys has gone up 43% this year, the tariffs are boosting American industry as many companies are moving to American products as a result of tariffs on products from Pilot Precision’s Chinese competitors. “It actually helps our business,” he said.

Rick Sullivan, president and CEO of the Economic Development Council of Western Mass., said he has heard from members with differing perspectives on the impact of the trade war.

SEE: List of Largest Manufacturers

“Some people, I think, are really impacted; they feel there are some pretty serious impacts on cost and competitiveness,” he told BusinessWest. “Then, if you go to someone like Eric Hagopian, he’s a little less adamant that it’s a big issue.”

MassBenchmarks, an initiative of the UMass Donahue Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, reported on economic trends in Massachusetts this week, pointing out that the economy is doing well overall, with low unemployment, but employment and output growth are decelerating.

“Growth in the global economy is slowing, and labor-supply constraints, softening demand, and rising international geopolitical uncertainty all signal concerns for the economy going forward,” the report notes.

Rick Sullivan says manufacturers — and other businesses — have differing takes on the pros and cons of a trade war, but no one likes the uncertainty it generates.

Board members focused on a number of broad sources of uncertainty in the economic and geopolitical environment and what they could mean for the Massachusetts economy. One board member said the current environment is characterized by “considerable internal and external disharmony,” which includes ongoing trade conflicts, as well as continued tension around Brexit, the apparent impacts of climate change, particularly as it relates to agricultural production in various places around the world, and increasing instability in global markets among advanced economies. Against that backdrop, Trump’s ongoing impeachment inquiry is yet another wild card.

But there’s a reason MassBenchmarks placed trade conflicts at the top of that list.

“I think they create an uncertainty, and they increase costs,” Sullivan said. “Certainly, costs are a concern, and competitiveness is a concern.”

Cost and Effect

Those costs aren’t easily passed on to customers, Carlson said, and manufacturers, by and large, would rather not do that.

“When we submit a quote for a customer purchase, we’re locked into the price we quote them,” she explained. “If our cost changes, we have to suck it up. We can’t go back to the customer and say, ‘oops, materials went up 50%, so we have to raise the price.’ We don’t do that.”

AIM releases its Business Confidence Index every month, gauging exactly that — how member businesses are feeling about the economic outlook of the state and their own businesses. The overall Index, which is scored on a 100-point scale, has lost 3.7 points since a year ago but remains within optimistic territory.

“For a long time, a lot of us have been eating the material cost increases. Everything I hear is there’s not really an end date. We’ll see what happens.”

However, September’s reading was weighed down by weakening sentiment among Bay State manufacturers. The Index’s manufacturing component dropped 2.4 points in September and has lost 7.9 points for the year. Non-manufacturers were more confident than manufacturers by a 6.5-point margin.

The results mirrored the national Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index, which fell to its lowest level since 2009 last month. A separate report by IHS Markit showed that the manufacturing sector suffered its worst quarter since 2009, though activity increased during September.

“Manufacturers are bearing the brunt of both actual and threatened tariffs against goods imported from China,” Torto wrote. “Many Massachusetts companies have also become caught in retaliatory tariffs and are seeing significant weakening of their overseas business.”

Michael Tyler, chief investment officer at Eastern Bank Wealth Management and a BEA member, noted that the gaps in confidence between manufacturing companies and other businesses appear to be growing.

“Manufacturing has been hit by the steady increase in tariffs imposed by the United States, China, and other nations since 2018,” he noted. “The World Trade Organization estimates that the flow of goods across borders will increase by just 1.2% this year, and manufacturing companies are feeling that downdraft.”

Carlson is feeling it, for sure, and as president of the Western Mass. chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Assoc., she knows others are, too.

“For a long time, a lot of us have been eating the material cost increases,” she told BusinessWest, conceding that the uncertainty around the trade war has been equally vexing. “Everything I hear is there’s not really an end date. We’ll see what happens.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Whalley Computer Associates Marks 40 Years of Growth

By Joseph Bednar October 29, 2019

Technology

High-tech Harvest

Vice President Paul Whalley

From its humble beginnings in a Southwick basement 40 years ago, Whalley Computer Associates has become a technology company with remarkable reach, providing a host of services to more than 3,000 business clients, ranking WCA in the top one-tenth of 1% of all computer resellers by sales volume. That growth has come through constant evolution in response to industry needs and trends, but also simply by making life easier for clients, who increasingly demand no-fuss solutions to their network needs.

Paul Whalley knows his company might have a larger brand presence in a larger city.

“Our biggest challenge, marketing-wise, is being in Western Mass. — because you know what they think of us in Eastern Mass.,” he said. “And then we’re in a town called Southwick, and if you look up Southwick, you see a farming community, and the name of the company is a family name. So I think people have an image of my brother and me with pitchforks, milking the cows in the morning and feeding the chickens when we get home, and maybe selling one or two computers.

“But that perception isn’t what people get when they walk through here,” he quickly added, and for good reason.

Out of its 62,500-square-foot headquarters in Southwick — it also maintains facilities in Westfield, Milford, and Providence, R.I. — Whalley Computer Associates (WCA) has grown to be the 175th-largest computer solution provider in North America. That’s among more than 200,000 such companies, placing Whalley squarely in the top one-tenth of 1%.

What started as a software-consulting firm is now an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), building computers and other devices for 25 brands, a few of them major national names. In so doing, WCA is the largest reseller of Lenovo products in the U.S. and has been the top reseller for Dell in the Northeast many years.

“I think people have an image of my brother and me with pitchforks, milking the cows in the morning and feeding the chickens when we get home, and maybe selling one or two computers. But that perception isn’t what people get when they walk through here.”

Initially, the firm served customers mostly based in Massachusetts and Connecticut. However, in the past decade, it has expanded its range, providing technology products and services across all of New England and Upstate New York.

It’s not easy to pin down what WCA does in a few words. Early in its history, it focused on imaging and configuration, delivery and deployment, and maintenance and repair. But today, services include pre-sales consultation, system design and implementation, infrastructure, data storage and management, client and server virtualization, disaster recovery and business continuance, VoIP, wireless cloud computing and cloud infrastructure services, server, storage, and network health checks — and more.

The company provides services to more than 250 school systems, 50 colleges, and 3,000 businesses, while continually expanding its range of offerings as the technology world continually evolves.

“It’s the full life cycle,” said Whalley, WCA’s vice president. “We’re consulting on what they should buy, selling them what they should buy, preparing what they bought, delivering what they bought, taking care of what they bought, managing what they bought — perhaps even remotely — and then, at the end of its life, gathering it back and disposing of it or returning it to the leasing company or giving it to a school, whatever the customer wants.”

Up from the Basement

Like many high-tech success stories, WCA grew from humble beginnings. As a part-time programming consultant in the Agawam school system in the 1970’s, math teacher John Whalley — Paul’s brother — purchased a small software-consulting firm. Working after school and during the summer from his Southwick basement, he built a small customer base.

Then, in 1979, incorporating his experience teaching his students programming on the school’s new computer, he started Whalley Computer Associates. He moved to new quarters in Southwick twice, all the while trying to convince his brother to come on board.

Paul started helping out part-time, and in 1985, they both dove in full-time, with John (still the company’s president) leaving his teaching job and Paul resigning from his position as a programmer at MassMutual, in the process becoming WCA’s fourth employee. The acquisition of customers such as Northeast Utilities, United Technologies, General Electric, and Cigna helped drive the company’s rapid growth.

Dean LeClerc says WCA’s engineering training lab helps keep the team on top of current technology.

That growth necessitated several moves in Southwick, from John Whalley’s cellar to a former hair salon, to a 1,500-square-foot office, to an 18,000-square-foot building on Route 202, to the current headquarters on Whalley Way, in the industrial-park section of town, built in 1999.

Through all that growth, Whalley said, the idea has always been to make life easier for customers. For example, the Southwick facility has hundreds of linear feet of ‘bench space’ where computers and other devices are not only built, but tested by connecting directly with the client’s network.

“The benefit for the customer is they can just walk to the desk, unplug the old one, plug in the new one, and walk away. Otherwise, they’d have to go the desk and spend 15 minutes with the product and get it fully configured on their network. It’s much more efficient and cost-effective, and allows them to work on more strategic things. Their IT staff doesn’t really want to be doing this. They’re certified at a pretty high level and want to be doing more challenging things.”

Dean LeClerc, director of Engineering, pointed out one bench that was being used to test Chromebooks headed to a Holyoke school.

“They leave here as if it had already been brought to Holyoke and connected with their network and tested,” he explained. “So they’re opening a box they already know works on their network.”

LeClerc added that Whalley can even set up each device for the individual student who will be using it, and a WCA representative will often visit sites to hand them out to specific users.

Early in BusinessWest’s recent visit, LeClerc showed off one of the facility’s newer features, an engineering training lab outfitted with WCA’s most commonly sold storage devices, switches, and servers — a half-million-dollar investment in making sure the engineering team stays on top of technology.

“Our engineers are doing it for the second, third, or fourth time before they’re getting to a customer’s environment,” he explained. “They’re not doing it for the first time at a customer’s live environment.”

In addition, if a customer is in a bind with equipment going down that could affect the flow of business, the lab might loan a piece of equipment for a day or a week to get the customer up and running again immediately instead of having to wait for shipment of a new product.

“If you listen to anybody in technology, they’ll tell you the majority of problems come when people aren’t being vigilant and open e-mails they shouldn’t be opening.”

“So we try to balance it,” he said. “This is our lab for our engineers, but if we have a couple extra pieces of equipment that we know we can bring out to get a customer back up and running, we can do that.”

Safe and Secure

WCA has evolved in other ways as well, Whalley said, mostly in response to changing industry needs and trends. Take security, for example, in the form of building security, surveillance cameras, access-control cards, and other products and services.

“We weren’t even thinking about that stuff 10 years ago, but it’s becoming a bigger piece of our business now,” he said, adding that WCA has a contract with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an ITC71 vendor for security systems.

Cybersecurity is another growing niche, he noted. “We’ll do assessments, look at the network, and help them prevent someone from attacking them. Even the biggest companies get attacked. We’ll build up a robust system with a lot of redundancy so if something does happen, whether it’s ransomware or malware or a virus, they experience no — or very little — downtime.”

He recalled two incidents, one involving a customer of WCA’s managed services, who had invested in a needs analysis and network cybersecurity protection and monitoring. “Within seconds of a ransom attack, we shut everything down, isolating the problem to one desktop, and brought the whole network back up, so they were down for only minutes, and then worked on clearing out that one bad desktop where the ransomware came in.”

Meanwhile, another local company, not a customer of those managed services, got attacked, and it took three weeks and 100 hours of engineering time to get it back up and running, Whalley noted.

“One computer down for an hour, versus the entire network down for three weeks. One did the preparation and the engineering ahead of time to have a robust defense of their system, and because it was monitored at the point, we immediately knew there was a problem and could quarantine it and get the rest of the company working again. That’s the power of having the combination of the managed-service group and Dean’s engineers.”

WCA also sends a trainer to conduct security-awareness trainings for clients, because so many breaches result from human mistakes, he noted.

SEE: List of Computer Network/IT Services

“If you listen to anybody in technology, they’ll tell you the majority of problems come when people aren’t being vigilant and open e-mails they shouldn’t be opening. So we offer a very affordable service, coming into a company and going through a two-hour presentation on how to stay out of trouble and how not to make those mistakes that put your company in jeopardy.”

Staying atop such trends and others is critical, which is why WCA presents the annual Foxwoods Technology Show, the biggest technology event in the region solely for IT professionals. Every year, it attracts more than 1,000 attendees, including 300 representatives from 60 different manufacturers.

“We’re in an industry where you either change or you die,” Whalley told BusinessWest. “Everything’s moving so fast now. You either change and embrace the change — and try to lead the change — or you go out of business.”

Growth Pattern

In a business market where 80% of computer companies fail in less than five years, WCA employs more than 150 computer professionals and continues to grow its client base. It’s not exactly a small company, but tries to maintain a small-firm spirit, through events like monthly breakfasts, lunches, and birthday parties, as well as kickoffs of baseball and football season, where employees wear their favorite teams’ jerseys. Just this month, employees gathered to celebrate WCA’s best September ever.

“We pride ourselves on being a family business,” Whalley said, with the concept of family extending beyond the company’s founders, reflecting a general spirit of camaraderie in Southwick as well as the other sites.

At the same time, its work is serious business — and a long way from milking cows and feeding chickens.

“Our challenge is to stay as ahead of the curve as we can, but provide the stability and assurance to our customers that we’re not just jumping onto the new shiny penny and abandoning our core business,” LeClerc said. “We’re large enough that we can afford to do that. We have enough resources to stay ahead of the curve but still deliver traditional services to our customers until they’re ready for a change.”

Whalley agreed. “We try not to jump around from one thing to the other; we just try to add additional capabilities and continue to be exceptional at the legacy of services and products that we provide.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate

By BusinessWest Staff October 29, 2019

Commercial Real Estate

For Sale, for Lease

A listing of available commercial properties October 2019

Enfield Is Well-positioned for Economic Growth

By Joseph Bednar October 29, 2019

Community Spotlight

Mike Vezzola says the North Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce’s new headquarters at Enfield Square has given the organization greater visibility.

If a long-discussed tribal casino takes shape in East Windsor, Conn., the town of Enfield would find itself in an intriguing geographic spot between two destination casinos — which could bring benefits in a number of ways, Mike Vezzola says.

“It’s still going through a large permitting process, but if the casino does wind up coming to East Windsor, we’re right smack dab in the middle of MGM Springfield and that proposed East Windsor site, so the hope here is that Enfield can become a little bit more of a destination,” said the executive director of the North Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce during a recent conversation at the chamber’s office in the mall known as Enfield Square.

“It’ll certainly create a lot of runoff for hotels and restaurants,” he went on. “We have a plethora of great restaurants, stores, and activities right at our fingertips. We need to build on those things and make sure the right pieces are set in place, and certainly the town is doing its part to try and see that through. We’re excited for what’s on the horizon over the next five to 10 years.”

As a border town that may eventually be flanked by two casinos, Enfield is, in many ways, at a crossroads — one that town officials hope will be bolstered by a new train platform in the Thompsonville neighborhood.

Earlier this month, the Town Council unanimously voted to transfer $670,000 from the general fund into a separate fund for the development of a train platform in Thompsonville, a project that has been 15 years in the making and is expected to attract traffic to town and give residents and businesses more reason to relocate or stay there.

Other financial hurdles need to be cleared, as the total cost of a platform would be around $2.5 million. A full train station could follow down the road, at a cost of tens of millions; Enfield is just one of several train-stop communities in the Nutmeg State waiting for DOT action on such projects. In Enfield, town officials say any upgrade will bring a number of economic benefits, particularly for Thompsonville itself, which has been the focus of a planned revitalization project for some time.

The town implemented a tax increment financing (TIF) plan in Thompsonville and the Enfield Square area earlier this year. TIF is an economic-development tool that allows municipalities to use tax revenues generated from new capital investment to assist in a project’s financing.

“We have a plethora of great restaurants, stores, and activities right at our fingertips. We need to build on those things and make sure the right pieces are set in place, and certainly the town is doing its part to try and see that through.”

Patrick McMahon, CEO of the nonprofit Connecticut Main Street Center, who was hired by the town as a consultant in January to help revitalize Thompsonville, told legislative and business leaders at a recent economic-development breakfast that Enfield leaders envision significant private investment in new business ventures, redevelopment of historic properties, and new public infrastructure.

“Hopefully, the new TIF project will bring some revitalization to that specific area, especially with the commuter rail between New Haven and Springfield,” Vezzola told BusinessWest. “We’re one of the primary stops on that rail, and they’re hoping to get the platform built in the next couple of years.”

Pipeline to Progress

At the same time, Enfield has seen growth in recent years in its manufacturing, distribution, and warehousing sectors, while Asnuntuck Community College (ACC) — which hosted the recent breakfast — has built a reputation as a manufacturing-education leader through its Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center (AMTC).

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and other guests toured the space, speaking to students and taking in the 11,000-square-foot machining lab with its 90 CNC and manual machines, the state-of-the-art additive manufacturing lab, and other high-tech training areas.

Enfield at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1683
Population: 44,654
Area: 34.2 square miles
County: Hartford
Residential Tax Rate: $34.23
Commercial Tax Rate: $34.23
Median Household Income: $67,402
Median Family Income: $77,554
Type of Government: Town Council, Town Manager
Largest Employers: Lego Systems Inc., MassMutual, Retail Brand Alliance, Enfield Distribution Center
* Latest information available

With programs that get students working at good-paying manufacturing jobs in two years or even one in many cases, ACC — and, by extension, its town — has become a promising answer to workforce needs at area plants, which have long lamented persistent skills gaps.

Asnuntuck has forged partnerships and talent pipelines with area manufacturers and businesses including Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Eppendorf, and Stanley Black & Decker, among others, contributing to a 98% job-placement rate for AMCT graduates.

“With more than 25,000 skilled workers needed in the next two decades, the advanced manufacturing technology centers at Connecticut community colleges offer the opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to find a rewarding career in our state,” said Connecticut State Colleges and Universities President Mark Ojakian, who participated in the tour.

The rise in Enfield’s manufacturing reputation coincides with retail struggles, particularly in Enfield Square, where the only remaining anchor is Target. However, numerous small stores still call the property home, and Party City made a major investment there two years ago.

“The mall is very open to interpretive ways of using their retail space,” Vezzola said, the chamber’s presence there being just one example. “We get a lot of foot traffic in here, community members looking for referrals to some of our members or just information about who we are and what we do and how that benefits the community. Certainly, we’re here and excited to help facilitate any potential new clientele the mall might see in the future.”

While Enfield hasn’t attracted many new large retail establishments over the past year, the community continues to be a haven for sole proprietors, he noted.

“With more than 25,000 skilled workers needed in the next two decades, the advanced manufacturing technology centers at Connecticut community colleges offer the opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to find a rewarding career in our state.”

“These are folks who have their own businesses and work from home, whether it’s social-media development or graphic design, things of that nature,” he said. “A lot of young people are starting these businesses — and we’re excited that they want to put their talents and work skills to use right here.”

So excited, in fact, that the chamber is hoping to launch a young professional networking group next year as a subsidiary of the chamber.

“We want to encourage other younger folks who might not necessarily know how to navigate creating their own business or are looking for a new opportunity to learn and develop, so it’ll be a bit of an educational piece as well as a networking piece,” Vezzola explained. “That’s a big focus of what we do; we’re continuing to encourage our businesses to help each other, utilize each other, and benefit each other the best way they can.

“We peg ourselves on changing with the times, and certainly the scope of what a chamber does is completely different now than it was 20 years ago,” he added. “We’re just trying to stay relevant and active and evolve with the times.”

Life on the Border

Vezzola understands, too, the potential for his chamber and its members to make connections across the state line as well.

“Being a border town, I think it helps us get some exposure over the border in Massachusetts for our businesses and vice versa, and we’re considering some partnerships with chambers in Western Massachusetts to maybe do some cross-border development with each other, with networking groups,” he said. “Again, it’s about always evolving and just trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got here.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Azaya Evolves into a One-stop IT Solutions Company

By Kayla Ebner October 29, 2019

Technology

Bit by Bit

From left: Patrick Fortunato, business development manager; Jitu Changela, CEO; and Marc Solomon, director of Operations.

While growing his business and keeping his employees busy at all times is Jitu Changela’s primary goal, his mission in business is to keep his clients’ employees busy and help those companies grow.

He and his team at the IT solutions company Azaya believe this is one of the best ways to measure success in this highly competitive, still-evolving field. Indeed, companies can’t grow and prosper, and their employees can’t be highly productive, if their IT systems are down. Or if the equipment is old and obsolete. Or if a business isn’t making the most of its investments in IT.

Azaya, a 25-year-old managed-service provider based in Palmer and founded by Changela, helps clients maximize their IT systems and ensure they are reliable and sustainable, thus enabling employees to work better and smarter. It does this through a philosophy of putting the client first and continually learning from each customer experience.

“You can never know everything; we’re always learning,” said Changela, leader of this six-person tech company that provides essential technology components and service to many different types of businesses. “The best way we keep up with what’s happening in this industry is by having a variety of different clients. They’re all from different industries, so working with each one of those clients in a different industry forces us to look at all the different hardware and software solutions that are out there.”

The company’s overarching goal is to become what a provider must be in this changing industry — a one-stop shop. And it is well on its way to becoming just that.

The company offers something it calls eZ Virtual IT, which creates a team of IT professionals available at a client’s disposal and capable of handling a variety of services, including customized systems, security, website hosting, data protection, and server system setup and maintenance.

It also provides eZ Voice, a complete solution to business phone-line needs, and eZ Projects, help with specific IT projects, which, as Changela puts it, enables the company to “audition” for the client for future partnerships.

“With our model of one fixed cost, we’re there as many times as we need to be without it being any extra expense to them. Being able to be preventive solves a lot of their problems before they become problems.”

But the company’s ongoing success and continued growth is due not only to what it provides clients, but also how — specifically a fixed-cost model that is somewhat unique in the industry and provides a number of benefits for clients.

“That’s our core focus today, providing fixed-cost services,” Changela said, adding that most companies still charge hourly rates. “What we do is very unique; it’s a win-win partnership. Clients pay us a fixed cost, and our goal is to make sure we maintain their infrastructure at a very high level.”

Overall, the company preaches to its clients to be proactive, or preventive, and not reactive, when it comes to technology, investing in it and ultimately making the most of it, said Marc Solomon, Azaya’s Director of Operations, and the fixed-cost system helps them do just that.

For this issue and its focus on technology, BusinessWest talked with the team at Azaya — that word means ‘shelter, refuge, and support’ in Sanskrit — as it celebrates 25 years in business and looks ahead to what the future can bring for this forward-looking company.

Tech Talk

Before looking forward, though, Changela first flashed back a quarter-century or so to when the internet was young and he was looking for work.

With a strong background in electrical engineering, he knew he wanted to do something computer- or electronics-related but was unemployed and couldn’t find a job. That’s when he decided to make his own luck.

“I just decided that I had some experience in purchasing high-level computer equipment, and I found clients that needed stuff like that,” he told BusinessWest. “At that time, the internet was very new, so they had to go through some channel to get the high-level computer equipment, and I had the source.”

So, he provided that equipment to them. Then, the fledgling venture grew from what is called “reselling” to the next phase, which focused on providing a variety of needed services to local clients.

“We then became internet service providers in town here in Palmer,” Changela said, adding that the company continued evolving into a multi-layered IT solutions provider.

Solomon joined the team after an internship while he was attending Southern New Hampshire University. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and has been with the company for three years.

“I’ve always been interested in technology,” he said. “After I graduated, Jitu brought me on board and has really shown me the ropes of the managed-service-provider industry.”

More recently, Azaya added Patrick Fortunato as its Business Development Manager to lead the sales of IT managed-services support, digital and VoIP business telephone systems, and cutting-edge security surveillance technologies, and he has plenty of experience in the technology industry.

“I used to replace telex machines with fax machines,” he said with a laugh, adding that technology has certainly evolved even more since then, and all three men emphasized the importance of keeping up with the changing times.

This means finding ways to stand out within a deep and talented pool of competitors, bringing more services to a wider array of customers.

Indeed, Changela said he realized years ago that Comcast was going to take over some of Azaya’s internet business, so the company knew it had to change something up. That’s when it evolved from being an Internet service provider to a managed-service provider,

And one that features what it calls a guaranteed network uptime policy — essentially a promise to keep clients up and running all the time.

“It’s all about being preventive over being reactive,” Solomon said. “A lot of times, with billable hours, which is the other side of the coin of fixed cost, it’s difficult to be preventive when you’re working on a limited source of hours. With our model of one fixed cost, we’re there as many times as we need to be without it being any extra expense to them. Being able to be preventive solves a lot of their problems before they become problems.”

“Downtime is obviously not cost-effective. It costs a lot of money when employees cannot work. We want to work smart, not hard, and they want to see their network up and running all the time. Everybody is winning at that point.”

This policy, said Changela said, puts pressure on Azaya as a vendor and partner, but ensures that each party involved is happy.

“Downtime is obviously not cost-effective. It costs a lot of money when employees cannot work,” he said. “We want to work smart, not hard, and they want to see their network up and running all the time. Everybody is winning at that point.”

Overall, Azaya focuses on efficiency and security, bringing the technological support a business needs for greater effectiveness to internal business processes. Changela also says they customize services based on what the business needs, and guides companies through the process.

This is what the team’s leaders mean when they say the company works in partnership with its clients, another key to its success.

“We’re constantly talking to our clients and trying to figure out what technology they can utilize to best serve their needs,” he said. “We have to do some research and figure out what’s out there that can help them.”

For Adaptas Solutions, for example, a phone system that could handle all its needs throughout multiple offices was something it lacked. Azaya installed the Cisco BE6000 in five of its locations, giving Adaptas the ability to connect all its locations seamlessly, providing the phones, servers, and phone lines all throughout the entire operation, creating a one-stop solution.

Bottom Line

While this model seems to be working well for the tech company, Changela says the team has big plans for where they want to be in the future.

“Our biggest goal is to become that one-stop-shop,” he told BusinessWest. “Anything that is connected to the network, whether it’s printers, cameras, security cameras, or phone systems … we should be involved in it.”

Fortunato said the future of technology is related to security and speed, and Solomon added that becoming a specialty leader in multiple industries is also at the top of Azaya’s list.

“We have clients from architects to veterinarians, so our range is quite large,” he said. “To be able to pick a vertical and become the dominant leader in that vertical is something that is on the business plan. We want to be viewed as equals in the industry, against the companies that have a little more exposure.”

Changela added that one main thing that separates Azaya from competitors is the culture of the company, with a focus on honesty and integrity.

“It’s not always about making money, it’s about helping our clients become successful,” he said. “And at the end of the day, if they’re successful, we’ll make money anyways.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

BusinessWest Publication to Spotlight Careers, Opportunities

By BusinessWest Staff October 29, 2019

Features

Time to ‘Level Up’

“To gain enough points in a computer game to enable a player or character to go up to a higher level.”

That’s one of the dictionary definitions of the term ‘level up,’ a verb that is becoming increasingly popular with Millennials and savvy employers in tune with what this generation is seeking in life and in a career.

Another definition is to “increase one’s stature in life.”

It is with both of those definitions in mind that BusinessWest chose “Level Up” as the title of a special publication it will be printing later this year, a publication devoted to informing young people across this region about job opportunities that exist in manufacturing and the trades — fields they may not be thinking about for various reasons but should be — and the skills one must possess to earn such a job.

This interactive publication and flipbook are being created in response to what is inarguably the most pressing economic-development issue in this region — creating a workforce that is large enough and skilled enough to meet the demands of employers in an economy that is increasingly driven by technology.

At present, employers in virtually every sector of the economy are facing a very stern challenge when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers are retiring in ever-greater numbers, exacerbating this challenge, especially for manufacturers and the trades.

“Companies of all sizes and across all sectors say they’re having trouble finding good help — it’s their biggest concern,” said Kate Campiti, associate publisher of BusinessWest. “And with good reason; when business owners and managers say their employees are their best asset, that’s not a cliché; that’s a fact.”

In manufacturing, and within the trades, the problem is compounded by a general lack of information — or misinformation — about these fields, Campiti went on, adding that the perception is that sectors are dying when, in fact, they are thriving.

“Many of the parents of young people today remember when manufacturing jobs started leaving this area and venerable employers closed or downsized,” said Campiti. “Many are not aware of the many thriving companies in this region doing very exciting things.”

“Level Up” is being produced to generate such awareness, she said, adding that the profiles printed in this special publication will essentially tell a company’s story — from its history to its product line to current job opportunities — and let young people (and their parents) understand how they can become part of that history.

The magazine will be distributed to trade and technical high schools, middle schools, guidance counselors, community colleges, state college career-counseling offices, regional workforce-development groups, area manufacturers, non-manufacturing employers, and BusinessWest subscribers.

The stories inside should provide ample inspiration for young people to learn about the opportunities now presenting themselves across the region, and to level up — as in gaining enough points to move up a level when it comes to the job market, or ‘increase one’s stature in life.’

For young people, the publication represents an opportunity to learn; for those in manufacturing and the trades, it’s an opportunity to build awareness and reach out to your workforce of tomorrow.

Companies interested in being profiled and thus put under a bright, regional spotlight can call (413) 781-8600.

Healthcare Heroes 2019 Celebration

By BusinessWest Staff October 18, 2019

Event Galleries Features Healthcare Heroes

Scenes from the October 2019 Gala

[Show slideshow]

The 2019 Healthcare Heroes

There were eight winners in this third class, with two in the category of Lifetime Achievement, because two candidates were tied with the top score. The Heroes for 2019 are:

• Lifetime Achievement (tie): Katherine Wilson, president and CEO, Behavioral Health Network Inc.; and Frank Robinson, vice president, Public Health, Baystate Health;

• Health/Wellness Administrator/Administration: Emily Uguccioni, executive director, Linda Manor Assisted Living;

• Collaboration in Health/Wellness: Carol Constant, convener, Dementia Friendly Western Massachusetts; and director of Community Engagement, Loomis Communities;

• Community Health: Amy Walker, certified nurse midwife, Cooley Dickinson Health Care;

• Emerging Leader: Tara Ferrante, program director of the Holyoke Outpatient Clinic, ServiceNet;

• Innovation in Health/Wellness: Cristina Huebner Torres, vice president, Research & Population Health, Caring Health Center Inc.; and

• Patient/Resident/Client Care Provider: Shriners Hospitals for Children – Springfield.

Photography by Dani Fine Photography

Presenting Sponsors

Partner Sponsors

Supporting Sponsors

Celebrating the Super 60

By BusinessWest Staff October 15, 2019

Super 60

Recognition Program Marks 30 Years with Oct. 25 Event

Now in its 30th year, the Springfield Regional Chamber’s Super 60 program celebrates the success of the fastest-growing privately-owned businesses in the region. Businesses on the Total Revenue and Revenue Growth categories for 2019 represent all sectors of the economy, including nonprofits, transportation, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, retail, and hospitality. Some have been named to the Super 60 once or many times before, and some are brand-new to the list.

This year’s Super 60 Celebration event will take place on Friday, Oct. 25 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Chez Josef in Agawam. Sheila Coon, founder of Hot Oven Cookies, will be the keynote speaker at the event, which is presented by Health New England and sponsored by People’s United Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, the Republican, MassHire Hampden County Workforce Board, and Zasco Productions.

Hot Oven Cookies began in 2015, when Coon started baking cookies for her children while she was in culinary school. She started her business as a cookie-delivery service. With business education from Valley Venture Mentors and SPARK EforAll in Holyoke, the delivery business expanded to a food truck, from which Coon began selling cookies from her repertoire of more than 100 recipes, inspired by her children, at farmers’ markets and other events. When her food truck constantly sold out of cookies, Coon knew there was potential for more.

Coon is also a graduate of the first cohort of RiseUp Springfield, a seven-month, intensive, hands-on program for established and small business owners, powered by Interise’s StreetWise ‘MBA’ curriculum in collaboration with the city of Springfield, the Assoc. of Black Business & Professionals, and the Springfield Regional Chamber.

In just four short years, Coon has found sweet success with Hot Oven Cookies. In 2018, she and her husband, David, opened the brand’s first retail location at 1597 Main St. in Springfield. She has plans to open a production facility in Agawam to accommodate her current business as well as plans for a wholesale business and an online store with national shipping of Hot Oven’s uncooked frozen cookie dough.

“Hot Oven Cookies is an example of a true entrepreneurial story about how an idea, a passion, or a hobby can become a thriving business with dedication and taking advantage of the small-business resources available in Western Massachusetts,” said Nancy Creed, president of the Springfield Regional Chamber. “We are thrilled to have a graduate of the first cohort of RiseUp Springfield take the stage at Super 60 to share her success story.”

The event costs $60 for chamber members and $75 for general admission. Reservations may be made for tables of eight or 10. The deadline for reservations is Wednesday, Oct. 16. No cancellations are accepted after that date, and no walk-ins will be allowed. Reservations must be made online at www.springfieldregionalchamber.com or by e-mailing [email protected].

Total Revenue:

1. Whalley Computer Associates Inc.*
2. Marcotte Ford Sales Inc.
3. Tighe & Bond*
Arrow Security Co. Inc.
Baltazar Contractors
Bob Pion Buick GMC Inc.
Center Square Grill (Fun Dining Inc.)
Charter Oak Financial
Commercial Distributing Co. Inc.
Con-Test Analytical Laboratory (Filli, LLC)
Court Square Group Inc.
David R. Northup Electrical Contractors Inc.
The Dowd Agencies, LLC
E.F. Corcoran Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc.*
Freedom Credit Union
Governors America Corp. / GAC Management Co.*
Haluch Water Contracting Inc.
Holyoke Pediatrics Associates, LLP
JET Industries Inc.
Kittredge Equipment Co. Inc.
Lancer Transportation / Sulco Warehousing & Logistics
Louis and Clark Drug Inc.
Maybury Associates Inc.*
Paragus Strategic IT
Rediker Software Inc.
Rock Valley Tool, LLC
Skip’s Outdoor Accents Inc.
Tiger Press (Shafii’s Inc.)
Troy Industries Inc.
United Personnel Services Inc.

Revenue Growth:

1. The Nunes Companies Inc.
2. Brewmasters Brewing Services, LLC
3. Christopher Heights of Northampton
A.G. Miller Co. Inc.
Adam Quenneville Roofing & Siding Inc.*
American Pest Solutions Inc.
Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
Burgess, Schultz & Robb, P.C.
City Enterprise Inc.*
Courier Express Inc.
EOS Approach, LLC / Proshred Security International
Gallagher Real Estate
GMH Fence Company Inc.
Goss & McLain Insurance Agency Inc.
Greenough Packaging & Maintenance Supplies Inc.
Kenney Masonry, LLC
Knight Machine Tool Company Inc.
L & L Property Service, LLC
Ludlow Heating and Cooling Inc.
Michael’s Party Rentals Inc.
Oasis Shower Doors (EG Partners, LLC)*
Pioneer Valley Financial Group, LLC
R.R. Leduc Corp.*
Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
Springfield Thunderbirds (Springfield Hockey, LLC)
Summit Careers Inc.
United Industrial Textile Products Inc.
Villa Rose Restaurant (Tavares and Branco Enterprises Inc.)
Webber & Grinnell Insurance Agency Inc.*
Westside Finishing Co. Inc.*

*Qualified in both categories

Total Revenue

1. Whalley Computer Associates Inc.*
One Whalley Way, Southwick
(413) 569-4200
www.wca.com
John Whalley, President
WCA is a locally owned family business that has evolved from a hardware resale and service group in the ’70s and ’80s into a company that now focuses on lowering the total cost of technology and productivity enhancement for its customers.

2. Marcotte Ford Sales Inc.
1025 Main St., Holyoke
(413) 536-1900
www.marcotteford.com
Bryan Marcotte, President
The dealership sells new Ford vehicles as well as pre-owned cars, trucks, and SUVs, and features a full service department. Marcotte has achieved Ford’s President’s Award multiple occasions over the past decade. It also operates the Marcotte Commercial Truck Center.

3. Tighe & Bond*
53 Southampton Road, Westfield
(413) 562-1600
www.tighebond.com
Robert Belitz, President and CEO
Tighe & Bond is a full-service engineering and environmental consulting firm offering myriad services, including building engineering, coastal and waterfront solutions, environmental consulting, GIS and asset management, site planning and design, transportation engineering, and water and wastewater engineering.

Arrow Security Co. Inc
124 Progress Ave., Springfield
(413) 732-6787
www.arrowsecurity.com
John Debarge Jr., President
This company provides security for all types of clients and issues, including industrial plant security, patrol services with security checks for homeowners, free security surveys, and more provided by a management team that consists of a diverse group of professionals with law enforcement, private-sector security, and military backgrounds.

Baltazar Contractors
83 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow
(413) 583-6160
www.baltazarcontractors.com
Frank Baltazar, President
Baltazar Contractors is a family-owned construction firm specializing in roadway construction and reconstruction; all aspects of site-development work; sewer, water, storm, and utilities; and streetscape improvements in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Bob Pion Buick GMC Inc.
333 Memorial Dr., Chicopee
(413) 206-9251
www.bobpionbuickgmc.com
Rob Pion, General Manager
Bob Pion Buick GMC carries a wide selection of new and pre-owned cars, crossovers, and SUVs, and also offers competitive lease specials and a full service department.

Center Square Grill (Fun Dining Inc.)
84 Center Square, East Longmeadow
(413) 525-0055
www.centersquaregrill.com
Michael Sakey, Bill Collins, Proprietors
Center Square Grill serves traditional American food, with hints of classically prepared French sauces, Latin-inspired fish dishes, and standard Italian repertoire. The facility also has a catering service and hosts events of all kinds.

Charter Oak Financial
330 Whitney Ave., Holyoke
(413) 539-2000
www.charteroakfinancial.com
brendan naughton, general agent
Charter Oak’s services include risk management (including life insurance, disability income insurance, and long-term-care insurance), business planning and protection, retirement planning and investments, and fee-based financial planning.

Commercial Distributing Co. Inc.
46 South Broad St., Westfield
(413) 562-9691
www.commercialdist.com
Richard Placek, Chairman
Commercial Distributing Co. is a family-owned business servicing more than 1,000 bars, restaurants, and clubs, as well as more than 400 package and liquor stores. Now in its third generation, the company continues to grow by building brands and offering new products as the market changes.

Con-Test Analytical Laboratory (Filli, LLC)
39 Spruce St., East Longmeadow
(413) 525-2332
www.contestlabs.com
Tom Veratti, Founder and Consultant
Con-Test Inc. provides industrial-hygiene and analytical services to a broad range of clients. Originally focused on industrial-hygiene analysis, the laboratory-testing division has expanded its capabilities to include numerous techniques in air analysis, classical (wet) chemistry, metals, and organics.

Court Square Group Inc.
1350 Main St., Springfield
(413) 746-0054
www.courtsquaregroup.com
Keith Parent, President
Court Square is a leading managed-services company that provides an audit-ready, compliant cloud (ARCC) infrastructure for its clients and partners in the life-sciences industry.

David R. Northup Electrical Contractors Inc.
73 Bowles Road, Agawam
(413) 786-8930
www.northupelectric.com
David Northup, President
This is a family-owned, full-service electrical, HVAC, and plumbing contractor that specializes in everything from installation and replacement to preventive maintenance, indoor air-quality work, and sheet-metal fabrication.

The Dowd Agencies, LLC
14 Bobola Road, Holyoke
(413) 538-7444
www.dowd.com
John Dowd, President and CEO
The Dowd Agencies is the oldest insurance agency under continuous family ownership, and one of the most long-standing, experienced insurance agencies in Massachusetts.

E.F. Corcoran Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc.*
5 Rose Place, Springfield
(413) 732-1462
www.efcorcoran.com
Charles Edwards and Brian Toomey, Co-owners
E.F. Corcoran is a full-service plumbing and HVAC contractor. Services include 24-hour plumbing service, HVAC system installs, design-build services, energy retrofits, system replacements and modifications, gas piping, boilers, and more.
Freedom Credit Union
1976 Main St., Springfield
(800) 831-0160
www.freedom.coop
Glenn Welch, President and CEO
Freedom is a full-service credit union serving a wide range of business and consumer clients. Freedom has its main office on Main Street in Springfield, with other offices in Sixteen Acres, Feeding Hills, Ludlow, Chicopee, Easthampton, Northampton, Turners Falls, Greenfield, and Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy.

Governors America Corp. / GAC Management Co.*
720 Silver St., Agawam
(413) 786-5600
www.governors-america.com
Sean Collins, President
GAC is a leading provider of engine-governing and system controls to a worldwide list of equipment manufacturers and power providers. The engine-control products are used in a wide range of industries, including generator set, material handling, marine propulsion, mining, locomotive, and off-highway applications.

Haluch Water Contracting Inc.
399 Fuller St., Ludlow
(413) 589-1254
Thomas Haluch, President
Haluch Water Contracting’s main lines of business include sewer contracting, underground utilities, and water-main construction.

Holyoke Pediatrics Associates, LLP
150 Lower Westfield Road, Holyoke
(413) 536-2393
www.holyokepediatrics.com
Kathy Tremble, Adair Medina, Care Coordinators
HPA is the largest pediatric practice in Western Mass., providing primary-care services as well as lactation counseling, behavioral-health services, and patient education. HPA has a medical laboratory drawing site and also provides in-hospital support for new mothers.

JET Industries Inc.
307 Silver St., Agawam
(413) 786-2010
Michael Turrini, President
Jet Industries manufactures aircraft engines, parts, and equipment, as well as turbines and turbine generator sets and parts, aircraft power systems, flight instrumentation, and aircraft landing and braking systems.

Kittredge Equipment Co. Inc.
100 Bowles Road, Agawam
(413) 304-4100
www.kittredgeequipment.com
Wendy Webber, President
Kittridge Equipment is a $57 million equipment and supply giant. It boasts 70,000 square feet of inventory and warehouse, handles design services, and has designed everything from small restaurants to country clubs to in-plant cafeterias.

Lancer Transportation & Logistics / Sulco Warehousing & Logistics
311 Industry Ave., Springfield
(413) 739-4880
www.sulco-lancer.com
Todd Goodrich, President
Sulco Warehousing & Logistics operates a network of distribution centers. Lancer Transportation & Logistics is a DOT-registered contract motor carrier providing regional, national, and international truckload and LTL delivery services.

Louis and Clark Drug Inc.
309 East St. Springfield
(413) 737-2996
www.lcdrug.com
Skip Matthews, President
Louis & Clark provides prescriptions for individuals and institutions and helps those who need home medical equipment and supplies. The company also provides professional pharmacy and compounding services, medical equipment, independent-living services, and healthcare programs.
Maybury Associates Inc.*
90 Denslow Road, East Longmeadow
(888) 629-2879
www.maybury.com
John Maybury, President
Maybury Associates has more than 80 employees and is a distributor for about 1,300 manufacturers. The company designs, supplies, and services a wide variety of handling equipment throughout New England, and provides customers in a wide range of industries with solutions to move, lift, and store their parts and products.
Paragus Strategic IT*
112 Russell St., Hadley
(413) 587-2666
www.paragusit.com
Delcie Bean IV, President
Paragus has grown dramatically as an outsourced IT solution, providing business computer service, computer consulting, information-technology support, and other services to businesses of all sizes.

Rediker Software Inc.
2 Wilbraham Road, Hampden
(800) 213-9860
www.rediker.com
Andrew Anderlonis, President
Rediker Software has been providing school administrative software solutions for more than 35 years. Rediker Software is used by school administrators across the U.S. and in more than 100 countries, and is designed to meet the student-information-management needs of all types of schools and districts.

Rock Valley Tool, LLC
54 O’Neil St., Easthampton
(413) 527-2350
www.rockvalleytool.com
Elizabeth Paquette, President
Rock Valley Tool is a precision-machining facility housing both CNC and conventional machining equipment, along with a state-of-the-art inspection lab. With more than 40 years of experience, the company provides manufactured parts to customers in the aerospace, commercial/industrial, and plastic blow-molding industries.

Skip’s Outdoor Accents Inc.
1265 Suffield St., Agawam
(413) 786-0990
www.skipsonline.com
John and Scott Ansart, Owners
Skip’s Outdoor Accents specializes in a wide range of outdoor products, including storage sheds, gazebos, swingsets, and outdoor furniture, offering installation and delivery to sites with limited or no access. Skip’s shed and gazebo delivery is free to most of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Tiger Press (Shafii’s Inc.)
50 Industrial Ave., East Longmeadow
(413) 224-2100
www.tigerpress.com
Reza Shafii, Jennifer Shafii, Owners
TigerPress is a sustainable, eco-friendly printer, using green technology and operating in a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing plant. The company offers digital printing, commercial printing, and custom package printing all under one roof.

Troy Industries Inc.
151 Capital Dr., West Springfield
(866) 788-6412
www.troyind.com
Steve Troy, CEO
Troy Industries is an industry leader that designs and manufactures innovative, top-quality small arms components and accessories and complete weapon upgrades. All products are American-made and designed to perform flawlessly under intense battle conditions.

United Personnel Services Inc.
289 Bridge St., Springfield
(413) 736-0800
www.unitedpersonnel.com
Tricia Canavan, President
United provides a full range of staffing services, including temporary staffing and full-time placement, on-site project management, and strategic recruitment in the Springfield, Hartford, and Northampton areas, specializing in administrative, professional, medical, and light-industrial staff.

Revenue Growth

1. The Nunes Companies Inc.
658 Center St., Ludlow
(413) 308-4940
www.nunescompanies.com
Armando Nunes, President
The Nunes Companies offers services such as sitework, road construction, and roll-off dumpster rentals, relying on leadership, quality, and cutting-edge technology to get the job done.

2. Brewmasters
Brewing Services, LLC
4 Main St., Williamsburg
(413) 268-2199
Dennis Bates, Michael Charpentier, Owners
Brewmasters Brewing Services is a small craft brewery offering a wide variety of services, including contract brewing and distilling.

3. Christopher Heights
of Northampton
50 Village Hill Road, Northampton
(413) 584-0701
www.christopherheights.com
michael taylor, executive director
Christopher Heights is a mixed-use community located in a natural setting that features scenic mountain views and walking paths. Residents and staff each bring their own experiences and talents, which are recognized and often incorporated into social activities and programs.

A.G. Miller Co. Inc.
53 Batavia St., Springfield
(413) 732-9297
www.agmiller.com
Rick Miller, President
A leader in the metal-fabricating industry, the company’s services include precision metal fabrication; design and engineering; assembly; forming, rolling, and bending; laser cutting; punching; precision saw cutting; welding; powder coating; and liquid painting.

Adam Quenneville Roofing & Siding Inc.*
160 Old Lyman Road, South Hadley
(413) 536-5955
www.1800newroof.net
Adam Quenneville, CEO
Adam Quenneville offers a wide range of residential and commercial services, including new roofs, retrofitting, roof repair, roof cleaning, vinyl siding, replacement windows, and the no-clog Gutter Shutter system. The company has earned the BBB Torch Award for trust, performance, and integrity.

American Pest Solutions Inc.
169 William St., Springfield
(413) 781-0044
www.413pestfree.com
Bob Russell, President
American Pest Solutions is a full-service pest-solutions company founded in 1913. With two locations, the company serves residential and commercial customers, offering inspection, treatment, and ongoing protection.

Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
36 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow
(413) 583-4440
www.baystateblasting.com
Paul Baltazar, President
Baystate Blasting Inc. is a family-owned drilling and blasting firm that provides a full range of rock-blasting and rock-crushing services, including sitework, heavy highway construction, residential work, quarry, and portable crushing and recycling. An ATF-licensed dealer of explosives, it offers rental of individual magazines.

Burgess, Schultz & Robb, P.C.
200 North Main St., South Building,
Suite 1, East Longmeadow
(413) 525-0025
www.bsrcpa.com
Andrew Robb, Managing Partner
Burgess, Schultz & Robb, P.C. is a professional certified public accounting firm providing audit, tax, business-advisory, and business-management services to private businesses, trusts, tax-exempt organizations, and individuals.
City Enterprise Inc.*
52-60 Berkshire Ave., Springfield
(413) 726-9549
www.cityenterpriseinc.com
Wonderlyn Murphy, President
City Enterprises Inc. is a general contractor with a diverse portfolio of clients, including the Groton Naval submarine base, Westover Air Reserve Base, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and many others.

Courier Express Inc.
111 Carando Dr., Springfield
(413) 730-6620
www.courierexp.com
Eric Devine, President
Courier Express is committed to providing custom, same-day delivery solutions for any shipment and a courteous, prompt, and professional delivery agent. The company ships everything from a single envelope to multiple pallets.

EOS Approach, LLC / Proshred Security International
75 Post Office Park, Wilbraham
(413) 596-5479
www.proshred.com
Joe Kelly, Owner
Proshred specializes in the secure, on-site information destruction of confidential and sensitive documents, computer hard drives, and electronic media. It is an ISO 9001:2008 certified and NAID AAA certified mobile shredding company.
Gallagher Real Estate
1763 Northampton St., Holyoke
(413) 536-7232
www.gogallagher.com
Paul Gallagher, Owner
Gallagher Real Estate is an independent brokerage that operates in Hampshire and Hampden counties in Massachusetts and Hartford County in Connecticut. The company specializes in both residential and commercial properties and has offices in Holyoke, South Hadley, East Longmeadow, and Springfield.

GMH Fence Co. Inc.
15 Benton Dr., East Longmeadow
(413) 525-3361
www.gmhfence.com
Glenn Hastie, Owner
GMH Fence Co. is one of the largest fence companies in the region, offering fence installations from a selection of wood, aluminum, steel, and vinyl fencing for residential and commercial customers.

Goss & McLain Insurance Agency Inc.
1767 Northampton St., Holyoke
(413) 534-7355
www.gossmclain.com
Deborah Buckley, President
Goss & McLain is an independent insurance agency offering a diverse portfolio of personal and business property and liability insurance, as well as life and health insurance. It also insures homes, cars, and businesses and protects against personal and business liabilities.
Greenough Packaging & Maintenance Supplies Inc.
54 Heywood Ave., West Springfield
(800) 273-2308
www.greenosupply.com
Craig Cassanelli, President
Greenough is a distributor of shipping, packaging, safety, breakroom, janitorial, cleaning, and facility-maintenance supplies. It also offers custom solutions to customers, such as printed bags, cups, and napkins, as well as custom packaging, including printed tape, boxes, stretch wrap, and strapping.

Kenney Masonry, LLC
P.O. Box 2506, Amherst
(413) 256-0400
www.kenneymasonry.com
Sarahbeth Kenney, Owner
Kenney Masonry is a family-owned company with more than 150 years of combined construction experience working with brick, block, stone, and concrete on commercial, institutional, public, and residential projects.

Knight Machine Tool Company Inc.
11 Industrial Dr., South Hadley
(413) 532-2507
Gary O’Brien, Owner
Knight Machine & Tool Co. is a metalworking and welding company that offers blacksmithing, metal roofing, and other services from its 11,000-square-foot facility.

L & L Property Service, LLC
582 Amostown Road, West Springfield
(413) 732-2739
Richard Lapinski, Owner
L & L Property Services is a locally owned company providing an array of property services, including lawn care, snow removal, sanding, excavations, patios and stone walls, hydroseeding, and more.

Ludlow Heating and Cooling Inc.
1056 Center St., Ludlow
(413) 583-6923
www.ludlowheatingandcooling.com
Karen Sheehan, President
Ludlow Heating & Cooling is a full-service energy company dedicated to providing quality heating and cooling product services including new system installation, oil heat delivery, and maintenance to an existing system.

Michael’s Party Rentals Inc.
1221 South Main St., Palmer
(413) 589-7368
www.michaelspartyrentals.com
Michael Linton, Owner
Michael’s Party Rentals operates year-round, seven days a week. Its 9,000-square-foot warehouse holds more than 100 tents of all sizes, tables, chairs, dance flooring, staging, lighting, and an extensive array of rental equipment for any type of party.

Oasis Shower Doors
(EG Partners, LLC)*
646 Springfield St., Feeding Hills
(800) 876-8420
www.oasisshowerdoors.com
Thomas Daly, Owner
Oasis is New England’s largest designer, fabricator, and installer of custom frameless glass shower enclosures and specialty glass, offering a wide array of interior glass entry systems and storefronts, sliding and fixed glass partition walls, back-painted glass, and switchable privacy glass for bedrooms, offices, and conference rooms.

Pioneer Valley
Financial Group, LLC
1252 Elm St., Suite 28, West Springfield
(413) 363-9265
www.pvfinancial.com
Joseph Leonczyk, Charles Myers, Senior Partners
PV Financial helps clients pursue their goals through careful financial planning and sound investment strategy. Services include retirement planning, asset growth, business planning, college funding, estate planning, and risk management.

R.R. Leduc Corp.*
100 Bobala Road, Holyoke
(413) 536-4329
www.rrleduc.com
Robert LeDuc, President
Since its inception in 1967, the R.R. Leduc Corp. has been a family-owned business that specializes in precision sheet metal and custom powder coatings. The company produces a variety of products for the communication, military, medical, electronics, and commercial industries.

Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
1199 South Main St., Palmer
(413) 283-3481
www.sandersonmacleod.com
Mark Borsari, President
From breakthrough brush innovation projects to supply-chain integration, Sanderson MacLeod leverages its experience and know-how in ways that produce high-quality twisted-wire brushes for its customers.

Springfield Thunderbirds (Springfield Hockey, LLC)
45 Bruce Landon Way, Springfield
(413) 739-4625
www.springfieldthunderbirds.com
Nathan Costa, President
The Springfield Thunderbirds are a professional ice hockey team and the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Florida Panthers. Since the team began to play in the area in 2016, it has formed the T-Birds Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity that benefits causes in Springfield and surrounding Pioneer Valley communities.
Summit Careers Inc.
85 Mill St., Suite B, Springfield
(413) 733-9506
www.summitcareers.inc
Bryan Picard, Owner
Summit Careers is a full-service staffing and recruiting firm that provides temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct-hire services for clients in a variety of sectors, including light industrial, warehouse, professional trades, administrative, accounting, and executive.

United Industrial Textile Products Inc.
321 Main St., West Springfield
(413) 737-0095
www.uitprod.com
Wayne Perry, President
UIT is a family-owned manufacturer that has been making high-quality covers for commercial, military, and industrial applications for more than 60 years. Craftsmen at the company specialize in the creation of custom covers that are manufactured to each client’s unique specifications.

Villa Rose Restaurant (Tavares and Branco Enterprises Inc.)
1428 Center St., Ludlow
(413) 547-6667
www.villaroserestaurant.com
Tony Tavares, Owner
Nestled across from the Ludlow reservoir, the Villa Rose offers fine dining in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. The restaurant offers a private room with availability for weddings, receptions, showers, anniversaries, and any other banquet function from 30 to 175 people.

Webber & Grinnell
Insurance Agency Inc.*
8 North King St., Northampton
(413) 586-0111
www.webberandgrinnell.com
Bill Grinnell, President
Webber and Grinnell has provided insurance protection for thousands of individuals and businesses throughout the Pioneer Valley for more than 150 years. The agency is balanced between business insurance, personal insurance, and employee benefits.

Westside Finishing Co. Inc.*
15 Samosett St., Holyoke
(413) 533-4909
www.wsfinish.com
Brian Bell, President
Westside Finishing is a family-owned business specializing in a wide array of services, including pre-treatment/cleaning, conveyorized powder coating, batch powder coating, silk screening, pad printing, masking, packaging, and trucking.

Legislative Action Could Allow Banks to Handle Cannabis Accounts

By Joseph Bednar October 15, 2019

Banking and Financial Services

Going for the Green

One of the more challenging aspects of running a cannabis business is the inability to access banking services because banks are federally regulated, and cannabis is illegal on the federal level. However, change could be coming after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass legislation that would legalize cannabis banking. If the Senate agrees, proponents of the effort say, cannabis operations will become easier, less costly, more transparent, and accessible to a wider range of investors.

Want to start a cannabis business? You’d better have a lot of cash on hand.

However, that equation could be changing after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass legislation that would allow the cannabis industry to access banking and financial services, even as the substance remains illegal under federal law.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act passed the House by a vote of 321 to 103, with nearly half of Republicans joining all Democrats but one in voting in favor of the bill.

Now the bill will move to the U.S. Senate and, eventually, to the president’s desk. Proponents are confident in their chances of passage.

“It would be great for the cannabis industry and great for the banking industry,” said Peter Gallagher, chief financial officer at INSA, a cannabis dispensary in Easthampton. “A lot of banks we’ve talked to are very interested in getting into it, but don’t want the risks associated with it, so they’ve steered clear of it.”

Banks providing services to state-approved cannabis businesses could, in theory, face criminal and civil liability under federal statutes. In fact, only two financial institutions in Massachusetts have taken on the risk, both of them located in the eastern part of the state. So most cannabis companies operate as cash-only businesses.

“The implications of having to handle a lot of cash are pretty profound,” Gallagher told BusinessWest. “A lot of effort goes into counting and transporting it. To the extent that we can move some of this to credit, it would make our operations a lot easier.”

Momentum to legalize cannabis has made the banking issue impossible to ignore at the federal level. Currently, 33 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico have all legalized the use of marijuana to some degree. Yet the possession, distribution, or sale of marijuana remains illegal under federal law, which means any contact with money that can be traced back to state marijuana operations could be considered money laundering and expose a bank to significant legal, operational, and regulatory risk, notes the American Banking Assoc. (ABA).

“The rift between federal and state law has left banks trapped between their mission to serve the financial needs of their local communities and the threat of federal enforcement action,” the association wrote recently. “ABA believes the time has come for Congress and the regulatory agencies to provide greater legal clarity to banks operating in states where marijuana has been legalized for medical or adult use. Those banks, including institutions that have no interest in directly banking marijuana-related businesses, face rising legal and regulatory risks as the marijuana industry grows.”

Gallagher said legalizing cannabis banking across the board makes sense on many levels.

“From a business perspective, it would make banking more accessible and less costly, and it would eliminate the risk of enforcement and regulatory action that banks are worried about, which is what’s leading them to abandon the market.”

Most think they would gladly jump in — making the cannabis industry more accessible to a wider range of entrepreneurs, while bringing down costs — if the SAFE Banking Act becomes law. And that’s what the Senate will have to consider as it begins its review.

Dollars and Sense

Scott Foster, a partner with the law firm Bulkley Richardson who helped establish its cannabis practice, said the law, if passed, would open up the ability of cannabis businesses to use local branches of local banks essentially overnight — if the banks decide to get involved, which seems likely, given the ABA’s advocacy on the issue.

“This is driven not by the cannabis industry, but by the banking industry,” Foster said. “We need clarity in this issue, considering all the non-cannabis businesses affected by this.”

“A lot of banks we’ve talked to are very interested in getting into it, but don’t want the risks associated with it, so they’ve steered clear of it.”

Indeed, in addition to growers and retailers, there are plenty of vendors and suppliers, landlords, and employees indirectly tied to the cannabis industry, thus posing legal risks for banks serving those individuals.

Rob Nichols, ABA president, recently wrote about two such examples: a bank in Ohio was forced to turn down a loan to a fencing company hired to build a fence around a marijuana growing facility, and a bank in Washington had to close an account when a law firm took on a marijuana business as a client.

“If either of these banks looked the other way, they risked violating federal law and facing criminal prosecution,” Nichols said, noting that these examples are far from isolated. An ABA survey found that 75% of banks have had to close an account, terminate a client relationship, or turn away a customer because there was some connection to cannabis.

“What we’re seeing is employees of cannabis companies being turned down for mortgages, and checking accounts closed down because they’re being paid by cannabis companies. That’s the biggest impact that’s actually driving the law,” Foster told BusinessWest. “Senators in states where it’s legal are saying, ‘time out.’ This isn’t about cannabis companies, it’s about the people selling stuff to them, landlords, even W.B. Mason delivering supplies. They’re getting caught up because they’re being paid by cannabis companies, and banks are saying they can’t accept the money. It’s an unintended ripple effect that’s causing a shift in thinking in Congress.”

Furthermore, reconciling the legal divide between state and federal laws would bring benefits to the communities banks serve, Nichols argues.

“The estimated $24 billion in cannabis sales by 2025 in states where marijuana has been legalized could be deposited safely with federally regulated financial institutions, enhancing transparency, public safety, and tax revenue,” he said.

And it’s not just banks asking for lawmakers to take action, he noted. A bipartisan group of 19 state attorneys general last year wrote a letter to lawmakers, arguing that bringing cannabis businesses into the banking system would improve accountability and increase public safety.

“This isn’t about cannabis companies, it’s about the people selling stuff to them, landlords, even W.B. Mason delivering supplies. They’re getting caught up because they’re being paid by cannabis companies, and banks are saying they can’t accept the money. It’s an unintended ripple effect that’s causing a shift in thinking in Congress.”

“Without relief from Congress, even banks that have decided not to serve cannabis businesses will find themselves caught in the financial web created by this booming industry,” Nichols said. “The money from cannabis businesses often goes to vendors, landlords, and employees, while the federal criminal association follows that cash.”

Gallagher agreed, and said it shouldn’t be difficult to build consensus around the need to bring clarity to cannabis finances through the well-regulated banking system.

“If, at the end of the day, what we’re worried about is diversion, or being able to track all that money, it’s easier to do that with electronic payments rather than having people carry large cash balances,” he said. “It’s easier for regulators and everyone else to make sure the industry is healthy and operating compliantly.”

Indeed, that very argument became part of the House debate. Colorado state Rep. Ed Perlmutter argued that keeping cannabis banking illegal is “an invitation to theft, it’s an invitation to money-laundering, it’s an invitation to tax evasion, and it stifles the opportunities of this business.”

Joint Resolutions

Foster said the immediate impact of the SAFE Banking Act would be significant on current cannabis businesses, which would now be able to access local branches of local banks, instead of running a ponderous all-cash operation — and requiring the security that entails — or seeking services from an institution across the state.

“We can’t apply for loans — working capital, construction loans, any lending right now,” Gallagher noted, adding that the handful of banks nationwide that are currently risking the cannabis business are passing on exorbitant costs to customers to do so.

“You’ve had some companies that have been willing to shoulder the risk associated with servicing an operation that’s federally illegal,” he told BusinessWest. “They’ve been able to charge excessive rates for that. As [legalization] happens in this industry, the fees will come down and start to normalize.”

Nichols expects that competition to emerge quickly, saying banks typically respect the decisions made by voters in the states where they operate. “Those voters had weighed the societal and cultural issues that come with legalization, and they made their decision. Instead, the industry is focused on the impact of the gap between state and federal laws on banks and their ability to serve those in their communities.”

The other major impact of a change in the law, Foster said, has to do with the concept of social equity. Massachusetts’ Cannabis Control Commission launched what it calls its Social Equity Program to expedite business applications and provide technical assistance, mentoring, and other resources for individuals from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition — typically poverty-stricken areas.

“Even though Massachusetts law has a social-equity component to it, giving expedited processing to social-equity candidates, the practical reality is, most of the investors are still wealthy, white gentlemen who have disposable income invested in cannabis,” he noted.

By allowing entrepreneurs to finance these operations instead of needing all the money up front, Foster explained, “you’ll have more players at the table, and be able to leverage smaller sums into larger companies. I haven’t heard a lot of talk about the social-equity piece, but to me, that’s a big piece, to help more people be able to engage in this business and apply for a loan if they qualify. That, to me, is a potential game changer.”

A companion bill in the U.S. Senate has yet to be voted on by the Senate Banking Committee, which held a hearing in late July on the issue. While that debate is coming, some lawmakers believe it’s only the start. For instance, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he doesn’t believe the SAFE Banking Act goes far enough.

“This must be a first step toward the decriminalization of marijuana, which has led to the prosecution and incarceration of far too many of our fellow Americans for possession,” he argued.

For now, people like Gallagher are happy the banking issue may finally be resolved.

“We’ve been following this, so it’s not a surprise,” he said. “It’s something that makes a lot of sense from an operations and compliance perspective. We weren’t sure of the timing of it in terms of the evolution of the industry, but it’s something we expected to happen.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Health Officials Grapple with Vaping-related Lung Illness

By Joseph Bednar October 15, 2019

Health Care

Beyond the Ban

Call it a decisive response to a much less clear-cut problem.

While shop owners may seethe, Gov. Charlie Baker says the state’s four-month ban on selling vaping products is a necessary step while the medical community tries to figure out what’s causing a rash of pulmonary illness among e-cigarette users across the U.S.

“We do not know what is causing these illnesses, but the only thing in common in each one of these cases is the use of e-cigarettes and vaping products,” Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said. “So we want to act now to protect our children.”

On Oct. 1, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) reported five additional cases of vaping-associated pulmonary injury — two confirmed, three probable — to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bringing the statewide total of reported cases to 10. (Five of the cases are confirmed, and five are considered probable for meeting the CDC’s definition of vaping-associated lung injury.) At press time, 83 suspected vaping-related pulmonary cases have been reported to the DPH since Sept. 11.

“While no one has pinpointed the exact cause of this outbreak of illness, we do know that vaping and e-cigarettes are the common thread and are making people sick,” Bharel said. “The information we’re gathering about cases in Massachusetts will further our understanding of vaping-associated lung injury, as well as assist our federal partners.”

Some clarity may be emerging, however, particularly concerning the role of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an ingredient found in marijuana. According to the CDC, 77% of the people involved in the recent outbreak reported using products containing THC. In Massachusetts, five of the 10 cases involved THC, while another four vaped both THC and nicotine; just one of the 10 reported vaping nicotine only.

Based on this recent data, CDC recommends people consider refraining from e-cigarette or vaping products, particularly those containing THC.

“CDC is committed to finding out what is causing this outbreak of lung injury and death among individuals using vaping products,” said CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield. “We continue to work with FDA and state partners to protect the nation from this serious health threat.”

More information is needed to know whether a single product, substance, or brand is responsible for the lung injuries, the CDC noted, adding that the investigation is particularly challenging because it involves hundreds of cases across the country, and patients report use of a wide variety of products and substances.

According to the CDC’s most recent national report, of the patients who reported what products they used, about 77% used THC-containing products, with or without nicotine-containing products; 36% reported exclusive use of THC-containing products; and 16% reported exclusive use of nicotine-containing products.

In addition, the report from Illinois and Wisconsin showed that nearly all THC-containing products reported were packaged, prefilled cartridges that were primarily acquired from informal sources such as friends, family members, illicit dealers, or off the street. THC use is legal and regulated in Massachusetts.

“The main theme seems to be illegal THC products. It’s a mix of chemicals in products to sell on the street that just don’t react that well with the lungs,” Dr. Nico Vehse, chief of Pediatric Pulmonology at Baystate Children’s Hospital, told BusinessWest.

He noted that vaping has posed lung issues since it first emerged in the early 2000s. “Back then, we had a recurrence of what they call popcorn lung. If you get fatty lipids into your lungs, your lung tries to fight it like pneumonia, and that causes a lot of lung damage.”

While much of the vaping news surrounds a lung illness, Dr. Nico Vehse says, nicotine addiction remains a persistent danger, particularly for young people.

Whether the current outbreak is a similar phenomenon or something altogether different is the subject of intense study, at the national level but also in Massachusetts. In mid-September, Bharel mandated that Massachusetts clinicians immediately report any unexplained, vaping-associated lung injury to the DPH. Of the 83 suspect cases reported at press time, 51 are still being investigated, with DPH officials collecting medical records and conducting patient interviews. Twenty-two cases did not meet the official CDC definitions, while the other 10, as noted, were reported to the CDC.

Off the Shelf

Baker went a big step further when, on Sept. 24, he declared a public-health emergency and a four-month statewide ban on sales of all vaping products in Massachusetts. The ban applies to all vaping devices and products, including those containing nicotine or cannabis.

The decision generated some pushback, and not just by retailers. Shaleen Title, commissioner of the state Cannabis Control Commission, assailed the ban in a tweet, posting that it is “purposely pushing people into the illicit market — precisely where the dangerous products are — and goes against every principle of public health and harm reduction. It is dangerous, short-sighted, and undermines the benefits of legal regulation.”

As someone who works with young people, however, Vehse understands the DPH’s concern. Of the 10 reported cases in Massachusetts, five are under age 20. Even absent concern over the current lung illnesses, many vaping products have a much higher nicotine concentration than traditional cigarettes, and some public-health officials are concerned an entirely new generation of young people may be falling prey to nicotine addiction. He noted that some products use salts instead of oils, which may not cause the same kind of lung damage as the oils, but deliver more nicotine.

“They improved on the perfect delivery system for addiction — cigarettes — and made it even more potent for nicotine addiction,” Vehse told BusinessWest. “Nicotine addiction is probably one of the hardest things to quit. I’ve always said you’ll have an easier time quitting heroin than quitting nicotine. It’s the most highly addictive substance we have, legally or illegally.”

As part of its public-health emergency declaration, Massachusetts implemented a statewide standing order for nicotine-replacement products that will allow people to access over-the-counter-products like gum and patches as a covered benefit through their insurance without requiring an individual prescription, similar to what the Baker administration did to increase access to naloxone, the opioid-reversal medication.

Other health organizations praised Baker’s decision, for a variety of reasons.

“In the absence of strong federal action, especially by the FDA, states are being forced to make decisions to protect the health of children and adults from a vaping-related public-health emergency,” said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Assoc.

“While no one has pinpointed the exact cause of this outbreak of illness, we do know that vaping and e-cigarettes are the common thread and are making people sick.”

“Governor Baker’s announcement reinforces the need for the FDA to clear the market of all flavored e-cigarettes in order to address the youth e-cigarette epidemic,” he went on. “While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local departments of health continue to investigate the hundreds of cases of lung injury from e-cigarettes, the American Lung Association once again urges all Americans to stop using e-cigarettes.”

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Dental Society (MDS) also swung its support behind the ban.

“While vaping is believed to pose fewer health risks than smoking regular tobacco cigarettes — the leading cause of preventable death in the United States — it is by no means harmless,” said MDS President Dr. Janis Moriarty. “E-cigarettes still contain nicotine … which increases the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes. E-cigarettes also can have a significant impact on oral health.”

She cited a study supported by the American Dental Assoc. Foundation that determined that vaping sweetened e-cigarettes can increase the risk of cavities. “Additionally, the nicotine in e-cigarettes reduces blood flow, restricting the supply of nutrients and oxygen to the soft tissues of the mouth. This can cause the gums to recede and exacerbate periodontal diseases. Reduced blood circulation also inhibits the mouth’s natural ability to fight bacteria that can accelerate infection, decay, and other problems.”

Time to Act

The main story, however, remains the recent spate of lung illness. At press time, 805 confirmed and probable cases of lung injury associated with e-cigarette product use or vaping had been reported the CDC by 46 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Those cases included 12 deaths, but none in Massachusetts.

Bharel hopes her department’s reporting mandate will bear fruit in getting to the bottom of what has become a national concern.

“We are beginning to hear from clinicians about what they are seeing in their practice as a result of the health alert,” she said, adding that the mandate “establishes the legal framework for healthcare providers to report cases and suspected cases so that we can get a better sense of the overall burden of disease in Massachusetts. It also will allow us to provide case counts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as they continue to try to understand the nationwide impact of vaping-related disease.”

In 2018, Baker signed a law that incorporates e-cigarettes into the definition of tobacco, making it illegal to vape where it is illegal to smoke and raising the minimum age to buy tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to 21.

Still, the latest statewide data shows 41% of Massachusetts high-school students have tried e-cigarettes at least once. About 20% of them reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days — a rate six times higher than adults. Nearly 10% of middle-school students say they have tried e-cigarettes.

In the past year, DPH has conducted two public-information campaigns to raise awareness among middle- and high-school-aged youth and their parents about the dangers of vaping and e-cigarettes. The department promises to reprise both campaigns in the coming weeks and include resources for young people to assist them with quitting.

Vehse said it’s easier for teenagers to sneak a vape at school than to smoke cigarettes, which may contribute to their use. “It doesn’t smell; it doesn’t stay in the air. It’s completely covert. Now high schools have started to install some vaping sensors in bathrooms. As young as middle school, kids are vaping.”

He had no answer to why the usage numbers are so high among a population that shouldn’t even be able to purchase e-cigarettes, but deferred to the simple psychology of being young.

“Maybe it’s just because you’re a teenager and want to do something you’re not allowed to do. It’s all part of the teenager feeling indestrictible,” he said. “But whether you’re cigarette smoking or vaping, both are addictive, and you’re inhaling stuff you’re not supposed to.”

In many cases, they’re inhaling products flavored and packaged in such a way to appeal to kids, he added. “They pretty much make them look like candy bars on the shelves.”

Following a report from the CDC that 27.5% of kids are using e-cigarettes and that many are initiated with flavored products, the AMA’s Wimmer said, “we also call on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a law prohibiting the sale of all flavored tobacco products.”

For now, Baker, Bharel, and other state officials will continue to assess their most recent moves as the national effort continues to learn more about — and prevent — vaping-related lung disease.

“One of the experts said that, ‘we don’t have time to wait. People are getting sick, and the time to act is now,’” Baker said when announcing the sales ban. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Area Businesses Take Small Steps to Reduce Waste

By Kayla Ebner October 15, 2019

Environment and Engineering

Just Do Something

Monsoon Roastery owner Tim Monson

It’s no secret that the call to action to find more ways to go green is growing every day. With eco-friendly movements like plastic-bag bans and solar panels on the rise, it is easier than ever to find ways to help the environment — and it isn’t just individuals who are making this effort. Small businesses in Western Mass. are doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint — and also saving a little money in the process.

Try to think of a restaurant or business that produces only one 13-gallon trash bag at the end of each week.

Impossible? Not quite. For Tim Monson, owner of Monsoon Roastery in Springfield, this is a regular occurrence.

Admittedly, this is an impressive feat for a roastery that pumps out coffee on a daily basis. One of the first things he and wife, Andrea, started doing when they opened their roastery on Gasoline Alley in September 2018 was collecting coffee compost.

“It’s a great way to reduce waste, because all of a sudden you’re taking 50 or 60 pounds a week and removing that from the trash system and turning that into a renewable resource,” he said.

Food waste can be a difficult process to navigate, but Monson isn’t the only local business owner doing his best to reduce his carbon footprint through methods like composting.

“In this day and age, there’s just no reason not to be making that slight extra effort to do things the right way. It’s also smart from a business sense. You’re going to be a more profitable business if you have less waste. It might be slightly harder in some respects, but only from a logistical point of view.”

For Aimee Francaes, co-owner of Belly of the Beast in Northampton, just one five-gallon bag of trash is produced at the end of each night. With two composting bins in the back of the restaurant, this small business is producing astonishingly low amounts of food waste.

“We try to have as little waste as humanly possible,” she said, adding that part of the business model is not leaving much waste to dispose of in the first place. “Really, getting every little tiny bit we can out of the wonderful animals that come to our doors, and produce as well, that’s a big part of how we go about our business.”

In the U.S., it is estimated that between 30% and 40% of the food supply is wasted. According to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in Massachusetts alone, food waste and other organic material made up about 25% of the total waste stream in 2016.

In addition to composting, Francaes and Monson use other methods to try to reduce this number. For example, Monson says each hot coffee cup sold is compostable. On the restaurant side, Francaes tries to cut down on the number of cups and side plates she serves customers at the restaurant and doesn’t sell bottles of water.

“In this day and age, there’s just no reason not to be making that slight extra effort to do things the right way,” she continued. “It’s also smart from a business sense. You’re going to be a more profitable business if you have less waste. It might be slightly harder in some respects, but only from a logistical point of view.”

Right up the street from Belly of the Beast, the owners and managers of Ode Boutique make decisions that are both business- and environment-smart every day, from where they get their clothes to how they sell them.

Aimee Francaes says her restaurant produces just one five-gallon bag of trash each night.

Manager Jenessa Cintron knows how difficult it is to be environmentally friendly in the retail industry. From the plastic packaging clothing comes in to the plastic hangers on which clothes are displayed, it’s not exactly easy to be green. But the boutique still finds ways to do everything it can to help the environment. This includes looking at the designers it buys from to determine what efforts they are making up the chain.

“It’s so important to so many of our designers and makers — that’s a plus,” she said. “Especially if they’re using natural fibers, biodegradable fabrics, that kind of thing.”

What these small businesses are selling may be different, but they say their desire to do anything they can to help the environment is one that should be adopted by many more companies.

Resourcefully Responsible

For Cintron, this means setting an example for her children (ages 13 and 4, with another on the way).

“I want to try to have the smallest carbon footprint possible, and I want to be an example for my kids,” she said. “Being an example for the community is important, too. I think it’s important as a business to set an example and use your platform in a positive way.”

Jenessa Cintron not only strives to promote sustainable practices, but also looks for that quality in the designers she buys from.

Alison Annes, stylist at Ode Boutique, emphasized the importance of encouraging customers and buyers to know who’s using recyclable materials and why it’s important.

“One of the biggest things is being conscious of it and shopping more and more of the ones that are, and maybe less often of the others until they change their platform on how they recycle their packaging,” she said.

Cintron echoed that packaging is a huge part of the problem, and something she wishes would change.

“A lot of our clothing comes in plastic packaging, and we can’t recycle it,” she said. “We try to recycle as much as we can, all of our boxes and paper and everything, and we encourage our customers to use our reusable bags.”

Monson said he has a similar problem with the plastic packaging coffee comes in, but has not yet found a way to make use of it.

However, Monson and his wife and friends did find a way to use several other materials to create the coffee shop’s decidedly quirky vibe.

“The retail area of our place is mostly made out of repurposed materials, from the barn doors that you walk through when you come in down to the paint on the walls and the floor,” he said. “Even our espresso bar is put together from a used door.”

The desire to be a business that produces as little waste as possible started in college, where Monson earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in green and sustainable business practices.

“Part of our mission from the get-go was, how can we do what normally happens in a business, but a little cleaner and a little better in all areas?” he said. “For us, reducing what we throw in landfills is a no-brainer.”

One Step at a Time

What might be a no-brainer for business owners like Monson, Francaes, and Cintron might not be quite so easy for others to grasp. Luckily, each offered suggestions as to how people can do their part to help reduce their carbon footprint.

Francaes says she used to offer a side dish with cole slaw with every meal, but noticed it ended up in the bus bin because some people didn’t want it. She didn’t want to waste the food or spend the time putting another dish through the washer, so she lowered the prices slightly and added the side dishes as an option on the menu.

“It’s looking at your habits and movements each day and seeing what you can do differently,” she said. “From a personal standpoint, I think it’s a lot about changing habits.”

A habit Cintron and other employees at Ode Boutique adopted is using stuffing from other products when packaging bags for customers instead of buying more paper.

“We also ask customers first if they want all the paper to go along with it,” she said.

Another simple thing to consider is using something old and turning it into something new. At Monsoon Roastery, the entire ceiling is made up of an old fence that was dumped on the property.

“Part of our mission from the get-go was, how can we do what normally happens in a business, but a little cleaner and a little better in all areas? For us, reducing what we throw in landfills is a no-brainer.”

“We broke down the fence, stripped it, stained it, and sealed it, then we covered the whole ceiling with it,” said Monson. “It’s awesome to take a look around you and say, ‘can we give something new life?’”

The overarching lesson emerging from each of these three business owners is that there really are no excuses when it comes to being environmentally friendly, and that, while waste challenges vary from company to company, everyone can find some room for improvement — and those small steps add up.

“There are always little things you can do,” Monson said. “I think, if more people would make a small effort, together it would go a long way. We can all do our part in our own ways. We can’t all do everything, but we can all do something.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

AIM President Urges Caution Amid Concerns on Economy

By George O'Brien October 15, 2019

Features

Warning Signs on the Horizon

John Regan says the state should do what many business owners are doing with a possible recession looming — refrain from taking on too much at once.

John Regan says Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) recently surveyed a cross-section of its members regarding the economy, the direction they believe it will take, and the steps they are themselves taking as a result.

Roughly 75% of those surveyed anticipate an economic contraction before the end of 2020, and a sampling of the gathered remarks hints strongly at an undercurrent of caution, if not outright concern:

• “Scaling back on hiring plans; slowing down certain capital expense/equipment purchases until we get a clearer picture of what the next six months will bring.”

• “Concentrating on expense reduction … evaluating closely the need to replace positions.”

• “Diversifying our service options.”

• “We have temporarily eliminated overtime, which was formerly unlimited.”

Slicing through all that, Regan said AIM’s members are looking at the conditions, gauging how they will effect things short-term and long-term, and, by and large, deciding not to take on too much until the picture becomes much clearer.

And, as the organization’s new president and CEO — he took the helm in May — he is essentially advising the state to do the same.

“A possible takeaway from the survey for state policymakers as they begin considering billions of dollars in new spending is this could be a difficult time ahead for the state economy,” Regan told BusinessWest. “Businesses are assuming a defensive posture, and significant tax increases — beyond the $1 billion for the new paid family and medical leave system — even for worthwhile causes, could harm the overall economy, most especially the manufacturing sector.

“This might not be the time to really go all in on lots of different tax proposals,” he went on, listing everything from new spending initiatives to the so-called ‘millionaires’ tax,’ a step he believes will pose dire consequences for the Commonwealth. “Legislators should do what our members who answered the questions are doing — delaying their ambitious agenda and letting the things they’ve already done take their course and put some away for a rainy day.”

Passing on members’ concerns about the economy and urging caution when it comes to business-related legislation are two of the many lines on the job description for AIM’s president, said Regan, who moved to the corner office after a dozen years as AIM’s executive vice president of Government Affairs and almost two decades with the agency in that realm.

Another line on that job description involves presiding over annual ceremonies such as the one staged earlier this month at Wistariahurst in Holyoke, at which three area companies — MGM Springfield, American Saw, and Peerless Precision — were presented with Next Century and Sustainability awards for their efforts in creating the next era of economic opportunity for state residents.

A few hours before that ceremony, Regan sat down to talk with BusinessWest about a variety of topics, including his appointment, the state of AIM and its 3,500 members, and even his thoughts on how to achieve more balance between east and west in the Commonwealth.

“Businesses are assuming a defensive posture, and significant tax increases — beyond the $1 billion for the new paid family and medical leave system — even for worthwhile causes, could harm the overall economy, most especially the manufacturing sector.”

But the condition of the economy and the results of that aforementioned survey soon dominated the conversation.

Regan noted that, overall, the state’s economy continues to expand, albeit at a slower pace than earlier in the year. Meanwhile, AIM’s Business Confidence Index, generally a reliable barometer of economic conditions, remains in optimistic territory (58.9), although it has lost nearly four points over the past 12 months. Unemployment remains low (2.9%), and private employers created nearly 7,000 jobs between August 2018 and August 2019.

Still, there are some ominous warning signs of a recession, and a number of businesses are already starting to feel the effects of tariffs and other federal and state measures, said Regan, adding that these businesses are starting to play defense — and the state should do the same.

Background — Check

If Regan seems to know his way around the State House — in every sense of that phrase — it’s because he does.

Indeed, before coming to AIM, before serving as vice president of Operations for MassDevelopment and leading its efforts to repurpose Fort Devens, before directing the Massachusetts Office of Business Development (MOBD) for five years, and even before serving as chief of staff to the mayor of Marlboro, he worked in the State House, first as a researcher on the Joint Committee on Banks and Banking, and then as a special assistant to the House Ways and Means Committee.

“I started out on the constituent side, and quickly moved to the policy side,” he said of his work with the Legislature. And, on many respects, he has remained on the policy side ever since.

When asked how he went from working for the state to becoming an advocate for its business community, Regan said there’s a story there. It involves the former Lunt Silversmith (an AIM member) in Greenfield, he recalled, adding that, as director of MOBD, he was asked to help convince the state Highway Department to put up signs that would direct motorists to the company’s new showroom facility. Long story short, he played a big role in getting the signs up.

“AIM was so impressed that state government actually got something done that they asked if I would consider joining the agency and its Government Affairs Department,” he recalled. “At the time, I wasn’t really looking, but I knew AIM from my days at the State House — it was a well-respected group and well-regarded in the building — and I thought this was a good opportunity for me.

“I never wanted to be a lobbyist in that sense that you’re out chasing clients to represent individually,” he went on. “The opportunity to come to AIM represented a chance to use my relationships in the building, but not lobbying for individual clients; at a 3,500-member organization, you’re working on policy, not just individual company issues.”

And over the years, he has advocated for members on issues ranging from unemployment-insurance reform to non-compete agreements; from pay-equity law changes to paid family and medical leave.

Since taking over as president and CEO, Regan said he spent much of the first several weeks focusing largely on internal matters, including membership, marketing, finances, technology, and hiring his successor in Government Affairs — Brooke Thomson, formerly with AT&T.

“I wanted to make sure I understood the parts of AIM I never really had to worry about as head of Government Affairs,” he noted. “And part of what the board charged me with was coming up with an operational plan for the balance of 2019 through 2021.

“It’s not a strategic plan,” he went on, “but just making we’re able to explain what we thought we could do and should do, and get that on paper and in front of the board.”

Reading the Tea Leaves

These days, though, he’s more focused on the Commonwealth’s businesses, the uncertain state of the economy, and policy matters, such as helping to secure a three-month delay in the start of payroll deductions to fund the program.

Returning to that recent survey of members, Regan said it is quite revealing and clearly depicts both the concern felt by business owners and their commitment to act responsibly, and defensively, in such a climate.

“They’re doing the things you might expect,” he noted. “They’re saving money versus investing it, and they’re only doing capital projects that have a very swift return on investment. They’re looking for additional, profitable product lines that might allow them to weather the storm. But mostly, they’re thinking ahead and being ready.”

And this is the mindset Regan believes both the federal and state governments should embrace given both the current conditions and the possibility, if not likelihood, of a recession in 2020.

“Uncertainty around trade, in particular, grows by the day. It seems like every day you wake up and there’s another round of tariffs. One of our longest members is Ocean Spray cranberries, and they’re getting killed by tariffs.”

With the former, Regan noted that tariffs and the trade war are already taking a steep toll — on manufacturing but also other sectors of the economy, including agriculture — and the threat of more such actions loom large over the state and the region.

“Uncertainty around trade, in particular, grows by the day,” he said. “It seems like every day you wake up and there’s another round of tariffs. One of our longest members is Ocean Spray cranberries, and they’re getting killed by tariffs.”

As for the State House, Regan said lawmakers there should consider the current economic conditions and the threat of recession as they ponder additional mandates and taxes, including what is known officially as the Fair Share Amendment, but has been dubbed the millionaires’ tax.

That name conjures up thoughts of rich people sitting on a beach, he told BusinessWest, but the reality is that most of those who would be impacted by this measure, which would impose a 4% income-tax surcharge on annual income beyond $1 million, are business owners, as in the small to medium-sized business owners who dominate the state’s economy and especially the Western Mass. economy.

And recent research, including an in-depth report by Bloomberg News, shows that individuals hit with such taxes often leave for safer havens, taking their income with them, he noted.

“Bloomberg found that Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey face the largest financial drains from the 5 million Americans who move from one state to another each year,” AIM wrote in a recent blog post, citing other states that had passed taxes on high earners. “Connecticut lost the equivalent of 1.6% of its adjusted gross income, according to Bloomberg, because the people who moved out of the Nutmeg State had incomes that were 26% more, on average, than those people who moved in.”

Regan agreed, and said these numbers paint a grim picture and present a competitive disadvantage for the Commonwealth, one the Legislature should consider as it moves closer to joining other states in enacting such measures.

“I love it when elected officials roll out statistics that show ‘30 states do this’ or ‘20 states do that,’” he said. “We can tell them we have a whole list of states that have tried the wealth-tax approach, and it’s bombed, and they say, ‘well, that’s different.’

“How is it different?” he went on. “How are we not going to experience the same things that they’ve experienced?”

Bottom Line

Returning to that survey of AIM members, a few of the business owners polled expressed confidence about riding out what appears to be a storm on the horizon.

“We think we’ll be immune from the contraction,” wrote one, while another said, “our industry is counter-cyclical; when the economy contracts, our industry usually receives a boost.”

Those sentiments don’t apply to most businesses, certainly, and Regan knows that. And that’s why AIM’s new president and CEO is working hard to convince lawmakers to do what his members are doing — what’s best for business and what’s best for long-term economic health.

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

East Longmeadow Seeks Balance, Progress

By Kayla Ebner October 15, 2019

Community Spotlight

Mary McNally says the town’s top public-safety priority right now is taking its ambulance service to the next level.

Balance.

That’s a word you hear quite often in East Longmeadow’s Town Hall these days — and for good reason.

This growing community of roughly 16,000 people on the border with Connecticut has long enjoyed a solid balance of business and industry, attractive residential neighborhoods, and a large amount of agricultural land, although the total acreage has fallen in recent years.

It’s an attractive and fairly unique mix — most towns this size can boast two of those ingredients or only one — and maintaining this balance while also achieving additional growth is the ongoing assignment for town leaders.

Balance and patience are the current watchwords for the community, said Town Council President Kathleen Hill, especially as it takes on several large-scale projects she said will benefit the community in the long run.

These include everything from public-safety initiatives to addressing the need to renovate or perhaps replace the town’s 60-year-old high school, one of many built across the region to accommodate the huge Baby Boom generation; from securing a new use for the large eyesore known to most as the Package Machinery property on Chestnut Street to developing a new master plan (more on these matters later).

At the top of the to-do list for town leaders, though, is hiring a new town manager to replace Denise Menard, who left the position on a separation agreement back in July.

For now, Mary McNally serves as acting town manager for a four-month period. She was appointed by the Town Council on Aug. 22 and will serve through Dec. 21 of this year. Hill is in the first year of her second three-year term.

Hill said finding a permanent town manager is a priority for the council and a crucial step in order to begin moving forward with several projects that are in various stages of progression.

“We hired a consultant about a month ago to conduct a professional search for us,” she said, referring to Community Paradigm Associates, which is also assisting Longmeadow in finding a town manager, and recently completed a search for Palmer.

Hill said the town is still in the early stages of the process, and, at this time, the council is gearing up to advertise the position and proceed in the search for the second manager in the town’s history.

Once this process is concluded and the new town manager is settled into the role, more focus can be put on “progressive projects,” as both Hill and McNally called them. Hill says the goal is to move East Longmeadow toward the future, while also keeping the tight-knit community feel that many residents know and love.

“You have to move with the future,” she said. “The character of the town is something we want to preserve. At the same time, we recognize the necessity of being progressive.”

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest talked with Hill and McNally about the process of maintaining balance while also moving the community forward.

Preservation Acts

‘Progress’ is another word you hear in town offices, and officials are looking to create some on a number of fronts, especially with the hiring of a new town manager.

“Next week, the council will be appointing a screening committee, solely for the purpose of reading the applications that the consultant brings to them,” said Hill, noting that the council will not be involved in any part of the process prior to the final four candidates that come out of the pool.

“We will, for the right reasons, go into the process blind to the candidate pool so that we can be totally unbiased, and we will conduct our own public interviews with the hopes of identifying our next manager by early December,” she said, adding that the worst-case scenario is to have the town manager at a desk in early 2020, depending on the candidate and whether or not the person has to give notice to a previous job.

And there will certainly be a lot on that desk in terms of projects and priorities, said those we spoke with, listing matters ranging from public safety to education; economic development to parks and recreation.

With that first category, the priority is taking the town’s ambulance service to the next level, said McNally.

Currently, the town has one basic life support (BLS) ambulance that can be staffed by an EMT, and she says the Fire Department is pursuing an advanced life support (ALS) ambulance that must be staffed by paramedics.

This request, McNally and Hill said, was prompted predominantly by a growing elder community in town. Indeed, East Longmeadow has a half-dozen senior-living facilities, three nursing homes, and other facilities that care primarily for the elderly.

“Because that need is growing, the Fire Department is ready, willing, and able to meet it,” McNally said. “The firefighters have reached that paramedic level of certification; because of the needs of the community, the fire chief has been quite interested in securing that second ambulance, but it’s a long process.”

A feasibility study is also being contemplated for the renovation or rehabilitation of the East Longmeadow Police Department, which was built in 1974.

About a mile down the road from the police station is the old Package Machine property, which is perhaps the most pressing matter in the economic-development category. The industrial property, which includes a large manufacturing area and huge warehouse, has seen various uses over the past several decades — modular homes were built in the warehouse, for example — but has remained mostly vacant and thus become a topic of controversy and speculation.

Hill said there is an interested party, East Longmeadow Redevelopers, that is working with the Planning Board on conceptual work for a mixed-use district that would include apartment-style living, single-family home-style living, retail, and commercial properties.

Hill and McNally referenced Mashpee Commons, located in the town of Mashpee on Cape Cod and described as “upscale shopping and dining in a charming New England village setting,” as the type of facility that might be built on the property.

“There’s something for everyone,” said McNally. “The idea is to have options for your retail, dining, and housing needs. In terms of economic development, it will bring more tax revenue to the town, and it brings housing options for an aging population.”

Kathleen Hill says the former Package Machine property could eventually see new life as a mixed-use development.

She stressed, however, that the discussions are preliminary, and at present there is no existing mixed-use bylaw to establish the district.

The ultimate goal for town officials, as stated above, is to achieve such growth and add needed commercial tax revenue, while also preserving the town’s rural character. This includes preserving remaining farmland.

“We have some huge tracts of land that the town will protect and keep that way as undeveloped land either for conservation or because you just don’t want to build on every square foot you have for a variety of reasons,” said Hill. “You don’t want the farming areas to go away.”

McNally added that this is often a quality-of-life matter, and a desire to have green areas and oxygenation from the trees.

Speaking of green, a plan currently on the back burner is a vision to “re-image” Heritage Park, Hill said. A rendering shows an amphitheater-type stadium built around the pond where more concerts and local events could be held. In addition, more ballfields would be added, as well as a field house.

“It’s going to be a significant investment, but it will add more value to the town,” she said. “That’s what we want to do — make sure there’s return on investment.”

Adding value to the town also means having a good school system with up-to-date buildings, which means addressing the issue of the aging high school. Hill is a former career educator — she spent 21 years in the East Longmeadow school system — and said she has a hard time not advocating for a better high school.

“The reality is, without a building that is state-of-the-art, it drags your real-estate values down,” she said. “People aren’t going to want to come. My husband and I want to sell our house at some point and maybe get something a little smaller. If we let everything in town fall by the wayside, we’re not going to get the same price point that we would if we keep our town vibrant.”

Slow and Steady

Cultivating an even more vibrant community for the long term will be the underlying goal behind creating a new master plan, work on which began more than a year ago.

“Our planner has convened a master plan committee,” said Hill. “It would be a cross-section of folks in town who want to reimagine the master plan. The last one the town did was in 1976, so it’s time.”

Although this might sound like a long time to go without a plan, she said, this is not unique to East Longmeadow. Many small towns either struggle with their plan or simply don’t have one.

But Hill says the benefits of having one are too great to ignore.

“With an accurate plan, as a community, you are in a better position to attract state and federal grant funding,” she added. “It’s a way to define who you are as a community and understand what your needs are. It’s strategic planning. It’s a vision of the future.”

This vision all comes back to that word mentioned at the very top — balance.

“There’s just so much here in this town, but it still has that small-town, quaint feeling,” said Hill. “The sentiment on the Town Council is to maintain that feeling, spend the tax dollars to not only keep that feeling for folks, but give them as much service as possible with a look toward the future as well.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

It’s Important to Be Realistic About the Value of One’s Company

By Columnist October 15, 2019

Banking and Financial Services

The Business of Selling a Business

By Brendan Mitchell

For business owners looking to sell soon, there is still plenty to be optimistic about.

Capital for purchasing businesses continues to flow thanks to low interest rates from banks and investment portfolios lingering near high-water marks.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts economy has pushed to new highs from Boston to Springfield. Most recent reports show unemployment rates at historic lows, with both sides of the state making improvements. MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor have attracted out-of-state plates. Private equity and public companies, both flush with cash, continue to show confidence in the state through investments in their workforce and current business as well as construction and new business acquisitions. We’ve seen national tax reform increase cash flows to businesses across the country.

These factors have helped to keep buyers engaged as retiring Baby Boomers head for the exits. The timing has been great for some business owners cashing out recently, but buyers have become more selective in some industries. While some businesses are snagged as soon as they go to market, many are aging on the shelf with buyers and sellers unwilling to bridge pricing gaps.

When figuring the value of their business, owners can fall into the trap of including sentimental value in their estimation. Some are relying on what a similar business sold for in a different market or, worse, have a target number they drew up without any real anchor to reality.

For business owners who have dedicated their lives to a business, it can be hard to take a step back and objectively consider what their business is worth. Business owners who are willing to take an objective look at the value of their business can be proactive now instead of reactive when they are ready to retire and list their business for the first time.

The value of a business is dynamic. While there is no way to get a buyer to price sentimental value into a purchase price, there is a potential to make changes to the business that will increase the value over time.

There are three approaches to valuing a business — asset, income, and market approaches. For most privately held companies, valuators rely on either the income approach, market approach, or a combination of the two. The basic formulas for these calculations are widely available online, but what owners can do with this information may be less obvious.

First, it’s important to know that the years leading up to the valuation or sale are the most important. A long history of profits can show stability for a small business; however, only the most recent three to five years are going to be considered in a calculation. Small-business owners with eyes on an exit have a tendency to disconnect from the business during this most important period when they should be pushing in the opposite direction.

Flat revenues or increases in expenses during this period have the potential to erase even decades of growth and profitability. Owners should resist the temptation to ‘pull the parachute’ as they get closer to the finish line. Continue to push for revenue growth and pay close attention to expense control. This is the time to let the numbers showcase the full potential of the business.

Nobody knows the ins and outs of a small business like the owner. Buyers and valuators weigh heavily on the impact the seller’s exit will have on the future of the business. Owners should focus on replacing themselves in the areas in which they are most intertwined in the business to lessen the impact. To identify these high-dependency areas, owners can interview managers and employees, noting issues that cannot be resolved without them.

Key areas of focus generally depend on the industry or business model but usually include sales generation, relationship management, product development, strategic decision making, or day-to-day business management. If continuity can be achieved through process improvement or process documentation, it should be a key focus. Some results can be found through training current employees and empowering them. Consider restructuring tasks and delegating the current owner’s duties to rising managers.

Revisit labor costs. Business owners with family members at above-market wages face a double expense. While they may overpay weekly on purpose, it will cost them a multiple of that annual salary when it’s time to cash out. For hourly workers, be ready to field questions about how the rising minimum wages will impact more labor-intensive businesses.

Finally, clean up the financial statements. For various reasons, including tax motivations, small-business owners have a tendency to let their personal and business lives collide on their company financial statements. Documentation is important for any personal expenses being charged to the business. Owners should be ready to prove which expenses were not necessary for the business so that buyers and valuators exclude the expenses to calculate the value — buyers will not report findings to the IRS.

Performing a financial analysis can also help owners understand how their business compares to the rest of the industry, making them ready to articulate strengths and defend or improve weaknesses.

Overall, the current market remains friendly to someone looking to sell their business. It’s also a great time to be proactive in managing an exit strategy, whether it lies around the corner or several years out. Getting realistic about the value of their business enables owners to take steps to improve it and make informed decisions.

Brandon Mitchell is a certified valuation analyst and supervisor in auditing and consulting for Blumshapiro, the largest regional accounting, tax, and business-advisory firm based in New England, and winner of the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Reader Rankings for Best Appraisal Service and Best Accounting Firm.

Senior-living Communities Need to Become More LGBTQ-welcoming

By Joseph Bednar October 15, 2019

Health Care

Cultural Shift

Michael Taylor and Teresa Weybrew say Christopher Heights of Northampton is striving to be ‘the place’ for LGBTQ seniors.

The average age of a Christopher Heights resident is somewhere in the 80s, says Teresa Weybrew, director of Marketing & Admissions at the assisted-living community in Northampton.

That’s an age group that grew up in a less-open time when it came to gender identity and sexual orientation — and members of that generation often still feel anxiety around their peers. But what’s more surprising, Weybrew said, is that, for many, that fear of being openly themselves is heightened when they move into senior-living communities.

“There’s a statistic that, of people who have come out and lived an authentic life in their sexual orientation, when they come into assisted living or skilled nursing, 86% go back in the closet out of fear,” she told BusinessWest. “They’re in an environment where they don’t know how safe they are because they have some memory loss or physical ailments — they’re already vulnerable because they’re not quite physically themselves — and then they have this added layer of anxiety. We want to help them understand that we get it, and they’re going to be OK here.”

Christopher Heights recently hosted a workshop for staff, residents, and public on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) cultural competency in the senior-living setting. Presented by Rainbow Elders, an arm of LifePath in Greenfield, the event was also part of the process of being credentialed by SAGE, the nation’s largest advocacy organization for LGBTQ elders.

“I want our community to be accepting of other residents,” said Michael Taylor, the facility’s executive director, “but we also want employees to feel comfortable and respected. I see this as making it a welcoming place for both.”

Not all communities are. Angela Houghton of AARP Research writes that three out of four adults age 45 and older who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender say they are concerned about having enough support from family and friends as they age. Many are also worried about how they will be treated in long-term-care facilities and want specific LGBTQ services for older adults.

“I’ve been working with SAGE in a conversation for a couple months,” Weybrew added. “But as I got into it, I realized this isn’t just about having a plaque on the wall. We want to live and breathe and walk the talk and really be the facility that does the work and where people can come in and say, ‘yeah, they really do know what they’re doing, and I feel welcome,’ whether it be an employee or someone who comes to live here.”

Subtle Spectrum

For the recent workshop, Rainbow Elders brought in four people — representing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender perspectives — to talk about gender, identity, orientation, and how none of those categories are black and white, but rather a spectrum.

“It was good educational background. Each talked about their personal story,” Taylor said, noting that Christopher Heights already employs a handful of LGBTQ individuals and aims to create a more welcoming environment for staff and residents alike — which is why hearing these perspectives shared aloud is important.

The demographics speak to the importance of this issue. By 2030, the population of American adults ages 65 or older is expected to surpass 70 million, according the U.S. Census Bureau. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force puts the number of LGBTQ seniors in the U.S. at 3 million and notes that this figure is expected to double by 2030.

However, LGBTQ seniors frequently report concern over the possibility of encountering discrimination from senior-housing staff or other residents. According to SAGE, 48% of lesbian, gay, or bisexual couples experience “adverse treatment when seeking senior housing,” and transgender elders face such treatment at even higher rates.

Meanwhile, a 2016 report from Justice in Aging notes that 78% of LGBTQ residents in nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and long-term-care facilities responded ‘no’ or ‘not sure’ when asked if they felt comfortable being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity to facility staff.

Then there are cases like Mary Walsh and Bev Nance, a Missouri couple whose housing application at a local senior-living facility was denied because of a cohabitation policy that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. They sued the facility, but their lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. district judge in January.

Yes, that’s January 2019, not 1959. Clearly, the work of SAGE and like-minded organizations isn’t done. Cases like this certainly help explain why only 20% of LGBTQ seniors in long-term-care facilities are open about their sexual orientation, according to Justice in Aging.

Yet, attitudes have been shifting — and prejudices hopefully diminishing — over the decades when it comes to this population, and facilities should be welcoming them as an untapped market, notes a report by Sodexo titled “Why ‘LGBTQ-welcoming’ Will Soon Be a Hallmark of the Most Successful Senior-living Communities.”

“Developing a marketing strategy that attracts LGBTQ older adults is the right thing to do,” the report notes. “And it’s good business. Given the opportunity for senior-living operators to advance their growth agenda, developing a strategic plan that attracts and retains LGBTQ older adults and allies is a vital lever to business growth and to improve quality of life.”

To help facilities move in that direction, SAGE launched its credentialing program for retirement communities around the country aiming to create more understanding and resources for these marginalized groups. Its program addresses the specific difficulties LGBTQ older adults face, including abuse, neglect and hurtful comments.

“Most people work with older adults because they have a caring orientation,” said Tim Johnston, director of national projects at SAGE. “We are giving them the tools they need to help older adults feel more comfortable.”

Watch Your Language

In developing a culturally competent and welcoming environment, it is important to address a number of factors, including language, inclusive visuals in company materials, programming, and outreach efforts, according to the Sodexo report.

At Christopher Heights of Northampton, it begins with the application, which used to give only two options for gender — male or female. It may seem like a small thing, but it’s a detail that sets transgender and non-binary individuals on edge right from the start.

“If you’re trans, what do you put?” Weybrew said. “That’s your first exposure to us — and you’re already thinking, ‘all right, they expect me to be a man or a woman,’ when you don’t identify as that.”

She recently asked a resident from the LGBTQ community what might have improved her experience, and she did mention the application form, but she also stressed the importance of respectful communication.

“She said, ‘just ask.’ And we are afraid. We don’t want to offend anyone, and yet, in our fear, we are offending people by not asking them the questions. We want to connect, we need to connect, and that’s what I think this training will offer us — ways to have the conversation. Many people have lived their whole lives feeling either offended or accepted or some awkward in-between. It’s not like we’re going to do something that’s going to shock them.”

Sodexo’s report affirms that idea, noting that “one of the simplest ways to cultivate both understanding and respectful relationships with LGBTQ older adults is through appropriate use of language. Keep in mind, however, that some terms still used by older LGBTQ people may be seen as outdated by younger LGBTQ people. Become familiar with key terminology and pay close attention to how residents use terms and how they refer to themselves and others.”

Indeed, the report continues, “the LGBTQ community is not a monolith. This must be kept in mind when addressing the needs of LGBTQ older adults as well, who have a totally different set of life experiences than younger LGBTQ people. The former grew up in a time that was far less welcoming, when LGBTQ people guarded their sexual orientation and gender identity as a dangerous secret that could cause them to lose their homes, jobs, families, and freedom. They risked being labeled anything from criminal to mentally ill. That generation still carries a lot of this baggage today as they attempt to navigate issues related to housing and healthcare.”

That may be an understatement. SAGE notes that, just a few decades ago, homosexuality was still classifed as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Assoc., not to mention a crime in some parts of the U.S. Housing, employment, and healthcare discrimination were common. As a result, many LGBTQ seniors remain fearful or distrustful of medical and social-service providers.

Weybrew has assembled an advisory board that will continue to meet regularly going forward and bring in educational opportunities for residents, staff, and the larger community.

“It won’t end. It can’t end,” she told BusinessWest. “We have to keep learning, and we have to say, ‘yes, we see you.’”

She knows she’s already dealing with a vulnerable population. “You’re talking about a potential resident who’s scared because they’re leaving their home of 40 years. Their spouse died, they’re losing their health, and they’re coming to a place where they don’t know us. I know what’s like because I did it with both my parents. Now you add that layer of sexual orientation. We want them to know, ‘yeah, it’s cool to be here because we’re going to treat you right.’

“We’re going to have our issues,” she went on. “We might get some pushback from an 88-year-old who says, ‘God says that’s a sin.’ It’s going to happen. And we’re going to learn how to manage that.”

Not Just Seniors

Senior-living facilities aren’t the only ones recognizing opportunities to boost cultural competency among their staffs. For example, Cooley Dickinson Hospital has been recognized as a 2019 Leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality by the Human Rights Commission (HRC), the country’s largest LGBTQ civil-rights organization. CDH is the only hospital in Western Mass. and one of only seven hospitals in the Commonwealth to earn this designation.

Among its efforts, Cooley Dickinson has recruited and trained clinicians who specialize in the care of LGBTQ people; implemented changes to electronic medical records that facilitate the use of the patient’s preferred gender, name, and pronouns; and collaborated with local gender-diverse community members, the Fenway Institute, and researchers from Harvard Medical School on the PATH (Plan and Act for Transgender Health) Project, a study that will inform the expansion of gender-affirming health services in Western Mass.

“This designation affirms Cooley Dickinson’s commitment to providing equitable, inclusive, and affirming care for LGBTQQ patients and their families,” said Cooley Dickinson Health Care President and CEO Joanne Marqusee. “We are proud to receive — for the third consecutive year — this honor and to continue our efforts to ensure that our local LGBTQ community has access to respectful, appropriate care.”

Sure, it’s easier for Northampton-based facilities like Cooley Dickinson and Christopher Heights to make these efforts, which are likely to meet with resistance in less progressive areas of the country. But it’s a start.

“We realize it’s going to be an ongoing process, but we as a company are committed to it,” Taylor said.

Weybrew said Christopher Heights is a corporate sponsor of the Out! for Reel film festival, which focuses on LGBTQ-themed films and recently kicked off its season. “I had a chance to get up and speak. The word is getting out that this is going to be a welcoming place, and it starts with us internally asking, how do we make it that place every day? How do we make people feel comfortable?”

The answer is an evolving one — and begins with asking the right questions of those who have felt marginalized for too long.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

CHD Program Empowers Parents as It Helps Children Grow

By Kayla Ebner October 15, 2019

Health Care

Baby Steps

Rachel Szlachetka, Jazz, and Cindy Napoli play in the kids’ room at the Center for Human Development facility on Birnie Ave in Springfield.

When looking at 2-year-old Jazeilis “Jazz” Jones, she seems like any normal toddler who loves to eat and play. But what you can’t tell from looking at her is that Jazz, born a month prematurely, has overcome several developmental hurdles to get to where she is today.

When Diany Dejesus gave birth to Jazz, she was already fighting her own battle with anxiety and depression. A newborn baby who wouldn’t latch to her breast or drink from a bottle only added to her stress and made it nearly impossible for Dejesus to sleep at night. After talking with her therapist, she was referred to the Early Intervention program at the Center for Human Development.

Today, Jazz could seemingly eat all day if you let her, and Dejesus is exponentially more confident as a mother.

This success story, like others similar to it but unique in some ways, wasn’t written overnight, but rather over time and through perseverance — as well a partnership, if you will, between the parent and the 22 staff members of the Early Intervention program.

Erinne Gorneault, a licensed clinical social worker and program director, explained how it works. She told BusinessWest that each child is unique and grows at his or her own pace. But sometimes a child needs help.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to feed your kid. Everybody should be able to have that joy in feeding, and it can be so stressful for our kids who are developmentally delayed or on the autism spectrum.”

With a caseload of 230 families, CHD’s Early Intervention program works with infants and children from birth to age 3 who have, or are at risk for, developmental delays. A CHD team can assess a child’s abilities and, if indicated, will develop an individualized plan to promote development of play, movement, social behavior, communication, and self-care skills. Staff members work with children and their families in their own environment.

The work is extremely rewarding, said Cindy Napoli, an occupational therapist and program supervisor of Early Intervention, who cited, as just one example, how the program can help give parents the gift of being able to feed their child.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to feed your kid,” she said. “Everybody should be able to have that joy in feeding, and it can be so stressful for our kids who are developmentally delayed or on the autism spectrum.”

For Jazz, her biggest challenge was with feeding. At one point, she was labeled as “failure to thrive,” meaning she was unable to grow or gain weight. Even when Napoli and other CHD staff found a solution by having her drink through a straw, she was still struggling. Now, Jazz is thriving, eating more than enough food to keep her healthy, and speaking in full sentences.

“She’s doing so great, I’m so amazed. At the beginning, it started off so slow, I was really afraid for her. I didn’t know what I was going to have to deal with, but she’s way ahead of herself now.”

Erinne Gorneault says that being receptive to parents’ wants and needs is a critical part of the early-intervention process.

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at CHD’s Early Intervention program and that aforementioned partnership between team members and parents to achieve life-changing results for both the child and the parents.

Food for Thought

Gorneault said parents often contact CHD’s Early Intervention program because they are concerned about their baby or toddler’s development in the areas of speech delays, or delays in walking or crawling.

The experienced team can assess the possibility of a delay and work with parents and their children to help them attain their milestones — essentially, to catch up — if that’s what’s needed.

Program staff members also work with children diagnosed on the autism spectrum, infants and toddlers with feeding concerns, toddlers with sensory issues, and infants and toddlers with medical needs. They support the family by providing education and improving developmental milestones through teaching parents to interact with their infant or child while building strong emotional relationship. In all cases, staffers work with families to connect them with other community services that might be helpful and provide several playgroups for both community members and CHD Early Intervention families to participate in without interactive team members.

Although the 22 staff members in the program may be the experts, Napoli said the most important part of their work is going at the parents’ pace and empowering them to be advocates for their child.

“It’s about enabling and empowering the parents to be the lead person and the specialist,” she said. “We believe the parents are the specialists. It’s about empowering them and teaching them how to be advocates.”

Gorneault agreed, adding that the trans-disciplinary approach used at Early Intervention allows them to guide parents effectively while also keeping them in the driver’s seat.

Diany Dejesus says that one of the most beneficial things that has come out of her participation in the Early Intervention program with daughter Jazz is that it has built up her confidence as a mother.

“We just help; the parents are the ones doing all the work,” she told BusinessWest. “They’re the ones working on the outcomes; they are making the difference.”

With occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists in the program, staff members use a trans-disciplinary approach to work with families and find the best way to help achieve milestones.

“You don’t go in there with blinders on, thinking, ‘I’m only here for feeding,’ or ‘I’m only here for walking,’” said Napoli. “It’s about where the child is at, where do we want them to go, what are the priorities of the family, and how can we all do it together?”

One of the most important aspects of this program, said those we spoke with, is that the specialists work with the families in their most natural environment, usually the home or a day-care facility, in order to get the most successful outcomes.

“Being in the home, you’re able to adapt the environment,” said Napoli. “You’re able to see what they’re cooking. I can’t say enough about the natural environment.”

One of the priorities during the hour-long sessions staged over several weeks is working on what is most difficult for the parents, said Napoli. Once staffers have made their suggestions, their goal — and their hope — is that parents continue to practice the suggested strategies on their own.

“You’re modeling in hopes to encourage the parent to do the same thing,” she explained.

This is important, she said, because while CHD staff see the child for only one hour a week and specialists may visit a family at different times, parents are with the baby daily, almost 24/7.

Gorneault agreed, adding that being receptive to the parents’ wants and needs is a critical part of the process.

“They run the show,” she explained. “We make recommendations, but if they’re not ready for that, we slow down and just stay at their pace and support them and build their confidence as parents.”

A Matter of Confidence

And a confidence boost was exactly what Dejesus needed.

“I started off doubting everything, due to the fact that I have anxiety and depression; it just made it so much harder for me,” she said. “Little by little, with a lot of help from here and from my therapist, I just got reassured more, and it made me that much more confident.”

Dejesus said the people she interacts with at CHD are like another family, and have helped her achieve the confidence she needs to be a great mother.

“Having more people that can help you and guide you, that really did help me a lot,” she said. “Now, I trust myself and my instincts as a mom when it comes to Jazz.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Tons of Trash Removed at 23rd Annual Source to Sea Cleanup

By BusinessWest Staff October 15, 2019

the Connecticut River is no longer the “best-landscaped sewer in the country.”

Environment and Engineering

Now the Real Work Begins

On Sept. 27 and 28, an estimated 3,500 volunteers gathered at more than 125 locations along the Connecticut River and tributary streams in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont for the Connecticut River Conservancy’s (CRC) 23rd annual Source to Sea Cleanup.

Volunteers with work gloves and trash bags got dirty — and some got wet — in their effort to remove nearly 50 tons of trash from in and along the rivers. This massive effort for cleaner rivers included over 50 groups from the Massachusetts region of the four-state Connecticut River basin. Groups included local river and conservation groups; elementary, high-school, and college students; Girl and Boy Scouts; and many employee volunteer groups from local businesses.

Notably, CRC worked with Northeast Paving and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department to remove 650 tires from a tire dump along the Deerfield River in Greenfield. The effort involved manually loading tires into machinery that hauled the tires from the ravine and trucking them to another location where they were hosed off by the Greenfield Fire Department and later removed for recycling by Bridgestone Tires4Ward.

Now, focus shifts to preventing trash in the first place.

“Source to Sea Cleanup volunteers’ hard work and dedication is inspiring and makes a real difference for our rivers,” says Andrew Fisk, CRC’s executive director. “But our work isn’t done until we put ourselves out of the river-cleanup business.”

While the two-day cleanup event is over for this year, CRC continues its work on trash pollution year-round. Via social media, CRC is especially challenging two companies — Dunkin’ Donuts and Cumberland Farms — whose trash is regularly found during the annual cleanup.

“We invite everyone to join us in telling them we expect better,” said Stacey Source to Sea Cleanup coordinator. “We want less single-use plastic and plastic foam, we want more reusable and compostable options, and we want items that are easier to recycle and keep out of landfills.

“We need our legislators, businesses, and manufacturers to see just how bad the problem is and hear from their constituents and customers that we aren’t going to put up with them ignoring this problem any longer,” she added. “We’ve been doing our part for 23 years by cleaning up our rivers. It’s time they finally do their part in helping solve our trash problem.”

Companies like Dunkin’ Donuts and Cumberland Farms have a unique opportunity to make a huge difference for rivers by using more environmentally friendly options, Fisk noted.

“We all have a responsibility to solve this problem — individuals, manufacturers, businesses, and government,” he said. “After cleaning up over 1,100 tons of trash over the course of 23 years, it’s clear that repeated cleaning is not the solution to our trash problem. We need to redesign our economy so there isn’t waste in the first place. These ideas are going to take time, decades even. And we’ll keep at it as long as it takes. But our rivers need change now.”

Final trash-cleanup totals are still being tallied. Volunteers turned out from faith communities, watershed groups, schools, community and youth organizations, and at least 35 businesses and employee service groups.

In addition to the tons of small litter picked up this year by volunteers, CRC’s Source to Sea Cleanup also tackles large trash-dump sites and removes large debris from the rivers. For example, 54 tires were removed from the Connecticut River at the mouth of the Ashuelot River in New Hampshire, and large chunks of metal were pulled from the Ottauquechee River in Vermont.

Eversource, the lead Source to Sea Cleanup sponsor, had three employee cleanup groups — one each in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

“At Eversource, we’re committed to caring for the environment and take great care to promote conservation while carefully managing natural and cultural resources,” said Rod Powell, the company’s president of Corporate Citizenship.

AIM President Urges Caution Amid Concerns on Economy

By George O'Brien October 8, 2019

Features

Warning Signs

John Regan