BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community and created the Women of Impact awards in 2018 to further honor women who have the authority and power to move the needle in their business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought out as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The eight stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2025 features:
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community and created the Women of Impact awards in 2018 to further honor women who have the authority and power to move the needle in their business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought out as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The eight stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2025 features:
Sarah Rose Stack counts several mentors and influencers in her life — from her sister, Theresa, to her husband, Ryan, who has supported her in everything she’s done, to the accountants at the firm she would work for. But she always starts those discussions by referencing two music teachers — one in middle school and the other in high school.
Both inspired a passion for the arts that lives on today and influences virtually every aspect of her life (more on this later), but they did more than that. In short, they helped convince her that her challenging life — being raised by a single mother at or just below the poverty line, and at times homeless — shouldn’t limit her ambitions.
“They started to make me realize that I could be capable of something beyond just surviving,” Stack recalled, adding that they became surrogate parents in some ways, providing her with everything from quiet space in which to study and escape that home life to invaluable lessons on how teachers need to support their students in any way they can — lessons she applies today as a lecturer of Public Relations at UMass Amherst.
“That’s why there’s food here, there’s drinks here … I have a very, very, very open-door policy,” she said while talking with BusinessWest in her office at the Integrated Learning Center. “I have a student who’s not in any of my classes anymore, but she asked me to help her pick an outfit for an interview and do practice questions … that means a lot to me when students reach out to me like that, and I always try to be there for them.”
Stack has taken a circuitous route to her current position, putting aside music and the arts (at least as a profession) after coming up one credit shy of what she needed to graduate from UMass Amherst with a music degree as she tried to balance school and life, and thus being unable to speak at commencement, as she was chosen to do — although she would go back and do it later when she earned that degree.
This otherwise dark moment ultimately helped shape her in a positive way by taking her down a different career path — working first as an executive for the billion-dollar e-commerce company SHOP.COM, then for the Holyoke-based accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka (MBK) and, eventually, UMass.
Today, Stack balances life at home with work (including the Stack Group, the consulting firm she co-owns with Ryan), the arts (on many different levels), and involvement in the community, squeezing every hour out of every day — except Sunday, which is reserved for family.
Indeed, while providing guidance and support to her younger son, Ethan, with college applications and her older son, Jordan, as he pursues a legal studies degree at UMass Amherst, she teaches three courses at the university (four next semester) while also managing several interns.
“They started to make me realize that I could be capable of something beyond just surviving.”
Meanwhile, she’s teaching dance one night a week; choregraphing a production of Sweeney Todd at the Little Theatre of Manchester (Conn.) set for November; preparing to star in a theatrical performance she couldn’t name just yet, opting only for ‘razzle dazzle’; and laying the groundwork for the return of a program she created called Build a Prom, which provides prom dresses, suits, and accessories to those in need. And that’s just a partial list.
She’s also a consultant to MBK on marketing matters and serves as a role model and mentor to students, young professionals, and artists of all kinds. Katrina Arona, her successor at MBK, is one of them.
Sarah Rose Stack (pictured with her husband, Ryan) says she strives to be the kind of game-changing teacher she had while studying music in her youth. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“She plants the seeds with me, and I sprout from there,” Arona said, adding that advice has come on specific marketing initiatives as well as broad realms of working with people and solving problems. “She’s like that good player on a soccer team that enables everyone around her to play better.”
Sound Advice
When Stack says she couldn’t take anything for granted growing up in New Jersey, she means it.
And that includes having a place to live.
“I probably moved more times before I was in high school than most people do in a lifetime,” she recalled. “I Iived in a hotel for a little while, and in a church for a little while, with family, with friends.”
She said her mother worked three jobs to support her three children and, understandably, wasn’t around much.
Which brings her back to her music teachers. One of them, ‘Mr. Lorreti,’ got her started in music and gave her a euphonium, a close cousin of the trombone and tuba, which she would go on to play in several bands and focus on in her college major. Then, in high school, there was a teacher known to all as ‘Mrs. G,’ who helped her manage those difficult years.
“I consider myself an accomplished artist in music and dance, and I got a lot of my fundamentals from my music teachers with regard to technique,” she explained. “But they were there for everything. I remember being so stressed about getting homework done … the house was crazy, and I was allowed to go to the music room and work on things during off periods; she [Mrs. G] would never tell me to leave. I could go there for a quiet moment and work on an English paper.
“Those arts teachers … they give you so much than the lessons,” she went on. “My mother was a single mom raising three kids and working three jobs, so we rarely got to see her. She worked so hard, and she did her best. But it’s interesting how these arts teachers were like second and third parents.”
Stack had a few music scholarship offers, including one to Rutgers, but chose to pay to attend UMass Amherst for its strong faculty and institutions like its marching band, which she never did play in because she was involved in so much else.
She took on school in aggressive fashion, accruing far more credits per semester than the norm, while also meeting Ryan, also a music major. She became pregnant her junior year, took a year off to be with her son, Jordan, and then returned to school to finish, but, as noted earlier, came up one credit shy due to some challenges with balancing life and school.
“Things were different then — people weren’t so accommodating with non-traditional situations,” she explained. “One of my required classes started at 8 a.m., but childcare didn’t open until 8:30. That was problematic. Two times a week, I would drop Jordan off at 8:30, park in the football lot, and sprint to this class 40 minutes late.”
“They really showed me how to set boundaries for myself. They told me that if I don’t take care of my whole person, I’m not going to be a good employee. That was such a shift for me, and it stuck with me.”
She passed the class but, as noted, couldn’t take the final, in-person exam, and thus couldn’t speak at commencement and had to put aside her dream of playing euphonium with the ‘The President’s Own’ United States Marine Band.
“I took some time off, and that was when I just thought … ‘I hate music, I hate everything,’ and I started working for SHOP.COM,” she said, noting that she started in sales and worked her way up to director of Business Integration.
It was a job that took her around the world, and she enjoyed most aspects of it, but as her children grew older, she desired something more grounded. So she took the job at MBK as director of Marketing and Recruiting, thinking it would be the “the most boring job I ever had.”
But it wasn’t. It was another learning experience on many levels, and one where she would gain more confidence and life skills.
Sarah Rose Stack (in the pink cap) leads one of the many dance classes she teaches weekly.
“They really showed me how to set boundaries for myself,” she noted. “They told me that if I don’t take care of my whole person, I’m not going to be a good employee. That was such a shift for me, and it stuck with me.”
The Next Stage
Always seeking new challenges professionally, Stack found one in the School of Journalism at UMass Amherst. There she teaches “Writing for PR,” “Research & Analytics,” “Social Media for PR,” and other courses while also trying the follow the lead set by the teachers who were so impactful in her life.
While her career has taken her to the corporate world and then academia, the arts remain a huge part of her life — performing, choreographing, teaching, mentoring, inspiring, and also playing in a few orchestras, including one featured in a recent performance of Shrek.
As noted, she teaches dance — everything from ballet and pointe to ‘Broadway jazz’ — one day a week at Nutmeg’s Dance & Theatre Co. in Southwick, where she’s taught for 20 years.
She also choreographs shows for several area groups, including the Little Theatre of Manchester, the Opera House Players, Renbrook Prep School, High Wire Acts, Seat of Our Pants Productions, and the Massachusetts Academy of Ballet. Specific performances include A Chorus Line, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Grease, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Little Mermaid, and many others.
While work and the arts are separate worlds for Stack, they interconnect in many ways, especially with the way in which her training in the arts has made her better in her more recent career roles.
“All of my music and dance training played a huge role in all of my marketing and design choices,” she explained. “When you think about video design or storytelling, writing, or any of that stuff, the cadence of things … where there’s space, where things speed up, where things are longer than they need to be — all of that is very musical to me.
“When I write something, I’ll always read it out loud and say, ‘does this sing? Does it sound monotonous, or does it sing? Are there good pauses? Does it flow nicely?’” she went on. “It’s the same with video design when it comes to how things move, physical space, tempo … all those things play a huge role in how things are visually processed; I do think there are a lot of transferable skills.
“If I were to do a doctorate, this is exactly what my dissertation would be on,” she continued. “Dance and music as a universal language as it relates to behavior change.”
Pausing for a moment, Stack seemed to take that ‘if’ out of the equation, making it sound far more like ‘when,’ as in maybe a few years from now, when there might be a little more time.
That will be the latest challenge for someone who has never shied away from one, and, in fact, always looks for the next one.
That’s just one of the myriad traits that has enabled her to excel on many different stages — both figuratively and literally — and take a bow in December as a Woman of Impact.
Amanda Sanderson says she owes a lot of who she is, what she does, and what drives her personally and professionally to her family, especially her mother.
“She’s a survivor of sexual and domestic violence,” Sanderson explained. “And each time she was in a situation that was unsafe, and her children’s safety was threatened, she had to find this store of extreme resilience to leave, support her children, rebuild her life, and make sure we were all safe.”
Elaborating, Sanderson said she grew up in a blended family with siblings and stepsiblings who had different needs, and she watched as her parents fought for their rights and the various forms of support they needed.
Such experiences — and the desire to help others find within them that same level of resilience her mother and stepfather exhibited — have taken Sanderson to career stops at nonprofits in Birmingham, Ala., Boston, and now Greenfield, where she serves as executive director of the Resilience Center of Franklin County (RCFC), formerly known as the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NELCWIT).
That’s a mouthful, and a name that needed to be changed, she said, to reflect that the organization serves survivors of all gender identities and sexual orientation and puts an emphasis on resilience.
And rebranding has been just one of many items on a large to-do list since she arrived nearly two and a half years ago.
Indeed, she has guided the agency — funded through the Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance — through might be called a period of renewal and transformation, handing internal challenges, enhancing its physical space, and expanding client services (including access to food, emergency assistance funds, and a welcoming visitation center), while also overseeing record-breaking fundraising and increased grant support.
Lainie DeCoursy, a board member with the RCFC who nominated Sanderson to be a Woman of Impact, described her as a “visionary nonprofit leader,” convener, collaborator, and a clear, strong voice when it comes to raising awareness about domestic and sexual violence.
“Amanda has been a key driver of regional coalitions of more than 40 nonprofits, amplifying the collective voice for health and human services across Franklin County and North Quabbin,” she wrote. “She is a strong advocate for the role of community-based organizations in fostering resilience, often emphasizing the ripple effect of nonprofit work — that thriving individuals and families are the foundation of strong communities.
“She combines bold innovation with compassion and authenticity,” DeCoursy went on, crediting Sanderson with providing strong leadership at a time of funding challenges and policy shifts and expanding holistic services to survivors and families by growing access to a basic needs and food pantry, introducing client transportation through a new agency van (helping meet a critical void in the county), and launching several innovative support groups. “A champion of equity, sustainability, and survivor-centered care, she has made services more holistic and more accessible, while engaging hundreds of community supporters.”
“A champion of equity, sustainability, and survivor-centered care, she has made services more holistic and more accessible, while engaging hundreds of community supporters.”
While Sanderson said much has been accomplished over the past few years, she’s looking ahead to the next challenges, both short-term — managing through serious threats to funding at the state and national levels — and long-term, including the need for different types of housing to effectively serve those in transition.
Amanda Sanderson has expanded access to a basic needs and food pantry, as well as other holistic services, at a challenging time for nonprofits. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“I think of it as a three-phase problem — we need emergency short-term housing for people who need two, three, four days for the plan that they have to come to fruition; we need transitional housing, which is one to two years, for people who have left the situation they were in and now need a place where they can rebuild; and we need long-term permanent housing options,” she explained, adding that solutions will not come easily and will require collaboration among the region’s nonprofits.
This drive to keep looking ahead at the next challenges and finding needed solutions helps explain why she is a Woman of Impact.
Lessons from a Tiny Town
When Sanderson says she grew up in a small town in Northern Vermont, she puts extra emphasis on small.
“The town I grew up in was technically a town only because it had a post office,” she explained. “There were no schools, no general stores … we had to go down the mountain to get to the next town, which had a general store, but no gas station; it was 25 or 30 minutes to the nearest gas station, so you had to plan accordingly.
“And it’s still like that, although we now have a stoplight for the first time; we went from a four-way stop sign to a stoplight in 2019,” she went on, adding that, while such small towns have unique challenges, they share problems with communities of all sizes, and it was this knowledge, coupled with what she saw and experienced growing up, that inspired the career path she chose.
“All of those things that I witnessed or experienced instilled a lot of compassion — and a belief that, with the right support, people can accomplish the things they want to accomplish,” she noted. “And I think nonprofits are the glue, a bridge between what the government should be doing for people and what people want and need.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in arts, peace, and justice studies at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, she left the Northeast for Birmingham, serving as a AmeriCorps state volunteer for Impact America, working as a middle school debate coach, providing free vision screenings to children enrolled in daycare across 20 Alabama counties, and serving in the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program as a tax preparer and volunteer tax site manager in Selma and Montgomery.
“Through my studies, it became clear that the best way to learn about the world was to see a little bit of it,” she said. “And Birmingham is an excellent place to go if you’re curious about different parts of the country. And what I learned is that the problems are similar pretty much everywhere, and people are the same pretty much everywhere.”
“Everything we do has to be grounded in serving the survivors of sexual and domestic violence, building awareness in the community, and strengthening the quality of the culture here so people can do trauma work and be OK.”
Sanderson would spend four years in the Deep South, eventually serving as program manager for Impact America’s SpeakFirst program, supervising 17 middle and high school debate coaches while directly coaching 24 high school debaters and also expanding college readiness efforts through innovative programming and support initiatives.
In 2018, she joined City Year Inc., a Boston-based nonprofit focused on helping young people stay on track academically and graduate from high school ready for college. There, she managed and coached teams of six to eight AmeriCorps members who work with Greater Boston high school students.
While earning a master’s degree in higher education administration at Boston College, she served as a graduate resident director and also served as a sexual assault network advocate at the Boston College Women’s Center, working on call for its confidential hotline supporting survivors of sexual assault.
After earning that degree, she saw an opening for the co-executive director’s position at NELCWIT and decided this should be her next challenge. The job opportunity was part of it, and being just a few miles from Vermont and her family was another part.
She applied, got the job, and moved to Greenfield the same day she graduated, and was at work the following day.
Almost immediately, there were challenges that needed to be addressed internally, while also focusing on the mission and creating ways to better carry it out.
Indeed, the person hired to be the other co-executive director did not work out, she noted, and within a few weeks of being hired, Sanderson was named acting executive director, while soon also serving as acting program manager as well.
Amanda Sanderson, center, with Joan Featherman, left, one of the founders of the Resilience Center of Franklin County, and Pam Brown, a long-time director, as the agency recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.
“In the first few months, I was just working on understanding what the staff needs were and understanding what our community relations were, where our priorities lay, and what we were doing to serve survivors,” she explained. “After I got that information, I really started to understand where our areas of improvement were.
“I was lucky enough to have someone on the staff I thought would be an incredible program director,” she went on. “I encouraged her to apply, and I started building a team of people that has the same priorities as I do.”
Building Resilience
When asked about those priorities, she said it comes down to meeting needs within the community, helping survivors tap that reservoir of resilience she believes is in everyone, and supporting staff members, most of whom are survivors of abuse themselves, in every way possible.
“Everything we do has to be grounded in serving the survivors of sexual and domestic violence, building awareness in the community, and strengthening the quality of the culture here so people can do trauma work and be OK,” she explained. “There was a lot of turnover when I started because people were getting burned out from hearing really difficult things and not having the support they needed.”
Elaborating, she said the agency became more thoughtful about pay, time off, and “making sure, if you come to do this work, that we’re being as supportive a workplace as we possibly can be.”
While doing that, Sanderson has been working to strengthen coalitions and collaborative efforts, knowing that, in rural areas, persistent problems cannot be solved by one agency.
In Franklin County, there are many such problems, including transportation, (or a lack thereof), substance abuse, a shortage of jobs and career opportunities, and, in many cases, a lack of understanding of the problems unique to rural areas on the part of many of the judges who come to serve in the county (most are from the Boston area) and even the state police that provide much of the public safety.
“The size of the communities can create more support for people, but it also makes it harder to fly under the radar and operate with anonymity,” she explained, adding that those who file restraining orders are far more likely to run into their abuser in a town with one grocery store than in a big city. “There are safety concerns that people do not consider if they’re not from a rural area.”
And then, there’s the housing issue.
“We need housing options that suit the area, and I’m looking into how nonprofits can work together to create supportive housing to answer some of that need and demand,” Sanderson told BusinessWest. “I’m not seeing any traditional solutions that meet our pipeline issue, and although there’s some backlash against housing-first policies, we’ve seen a lot of success once someone is rooted to a place — they have a place where they can give an address so they can get a job and enroll their children in school; DCF won’t be involved if they have a home. Those are just some of the aspects to the whole healing process.”
She noted that her mother recently earned a bachelor’s degree through Southern New Hampshire University.
“It’s something she always wanted to do,” Sanderson told BusinessWest, adding that her mother was one of the few in her own family to graduate from high school. “She wants to work with homeless youth because she was, at one time, a homeless youth.”
This new chapter in that story adds more emphasis to Sanderson’s comments earlier about how, if given the right support, people can accomplish what they need to accomplish.
It also helps explain why, when Sanderson thinks about the path she didn’t choose — a career in business, probably in a large urban center like Boston — she doesn’t think about it for long.
She’s quite content with the path she did choose, and what she’s done on that path — become a Woman of Impact.
When Angelina Ramirez went to work at Stavros Center for Independent Living as a secretary in 1990, it was supposed to be a transition plan to something else.
Thirty-five years later, she has certainly done plenty of transitioning, but all of it within this organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities achieve independence — with roles including outreach, special programs, community relations, and development … all the way to CEO in 2019.
As for why she never left, it was a matter of simply connecting with a mission.
“I’m a person with a disability myself, and finding a job when you have a disability can be hard, and trying to get through life can be challenging. So the mission of Stavros really spoke to me because it’s making sure that, whatever your goal is, whatever your initiative in your life is, wherever you want to go, we will be there to support you.”
Whether it’s helping people with disabilities access housing, education, and benefits or helping them access personal care management services necessary to stay in their homes, Stavros has impacted countless clients over the decades. But they’re not just numbers; Ramirez can relate many individual stories.
Like young adults who have secured internships through Stavros. “One of my favorites is this kid whose school kept telling him, ‘no, you’re too disabled; you can’t do auto repairs.’ And we talked with an auto repair shop, and they said, ‘well, if he wants to do an internship, we’ll take him.’ And they ended up hiring him because he was so good at mechanical stuff.”
“The mission of Stavros really spoke to me because it’s making sure that, whatever your goal is, whatever your initiative in your life is, wherever you want to go, we will be there to support you.”
Or another client who arrived at Stavros homeless. “The police brought her in and said, ‘we need you to do something because we don’t know what else to do with her.’ And over the years, we helped her get medication, get the services she needed, get her an apartment, and eventually get a job. And now she’s retirement age. I mean, in 35 years, you see someone’s whole life. And when you see that, you say, ‘yeah, I made a difference.’”
Jason Montgomery, Stavros’ director of Development, repeatedly noted that passion for making a difference when he nominated Ramirez to be a Woman of Impact.
“No one in Western Massachusetts has done more to advance disability rights and equity than Angelina Ramirez,” he wrote. “Her leadership is both visionary and practical, driving systemic change while ensuring immediate, tangible results for people in need. She embodies the independent living movement’s core values: equity, self-determination, and community leadership.”
Angelina Ramirez (center) with some of the team at Stavros. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
It’s a measurable impact, Montgomery went on. “Under her leadership, Stavros transitioned hundreds of people from institutional living into the community and provided thousands with durable medical equipment and home modifications. For decades, she has championed legislation ensuring equity and independence for all.”
One well-known Stavros program is called Home Sweet Home, Ramirez told BusinessWest. “Every year, we build around 60 to 80 ramps, depending on funds. That is a phenomenal program that has to raise a whole lot of money to be able to get all that done. But it’s thanks to partnerships in the community and a great team of people here that it happens.”
Another example of creative problem solving is a contract Stavros recently secured with the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to repair wheelchairs. “One of the issues that we have seen over and over is that, for people with disabilities, their wheelchairs will not be fixed in a timely manner, so essentially they’re stuck at home,” she said.
“Her leadership is both visionary and practical, driving systemic change while ensuring immediate, tangible results for people in need. She embodies the independent living movement’s core values: equity, self-determination, and community leadership.”
In all, Stavros serves about 10,300 individuals across Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties at any given time, currently ranging in age from 4 to 89 — and it’s critical work, Ramirez noted.
“When people don’t know about our services, they end up in nursing facilities. Not to say that nursing facilities are not a good thing for some people, but say you’re 25 and you got into a car accident, and now you use a wheelchair. Do you want to spend rest of your life there? The answer is no.
“So one of the things that we do is help people to make sure that they don’t end up in situations like that. But also, a lot of people with disabilities want to go back to work, and they don’t have the resources or the peer support that they need to do that. So one thing we see over and over again is that, because we’re here, more people go back to college, and more people end up working.”
That’s real impact. And it explains why Ramirez, who has dedicated most of her life to this mission, is being recognized as part of the Women of Impact class of 2025.
Sharing the Spotlight
Under Ramirez’ leadership, Stavros has become one of the largest and most effective independent living centers in Massachusetts, Montgomery noted. It was named one of the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts by Boston Globe Magazine in 2022 — the same year the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce presented Ramirez with its A+ Lifetime Achievement Award.
She is quick to deflect such praise, however. “I feel like I don’t do anything half the time — it’s all the team, and I just get credit for all that they do. But it’s really gratifying.”
Angelina Ramirez says the mission of Stavros has always spoken to her — supporting people with disabilities and helping them succeed in life, no matter what their goals are.
Her impact only continues to grow. In 2024, the year she guided Stavros through its 50th anniversary, she secured a $153,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts to expand community-based mental health support across Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. And this year, she launched Rock, Roll & Gather, a regional event blending music, art, and activism to celebrate disability pride, while building community support for access initiatives.
About 80% of Stavros’ income comes from contracts with the state, and many of those contracts originate with the federal government, so there is some long-term anxiety about shifting federal priorities — a concern shared by nonprofits across the U.S. — and short-term worries as well, from a government shutdown that had not abated as this issue went to press.
Still, in the Pioneer Valley, “a lot of the nonprofits help each other out,” Ramirez said. “Every year, we do this small breakfast with our legislators, and we bring in other nonprofits to talk about what issues are of concern right now and how we can address them.
“We have good relationships with the Amherst Survival Center and the Northampton Survival Center and other nonprofits in the area,” she went on. “Sometimes we get employees from them, from the people they serve who are looking for jobs, and they end up working here. And at the same time, our consumers go there and get the services and supports that they need.
“That’s one good thing about working here in the Pioneer Valley — even though there is some sense of competition, because there are not a lot of funds out there, there’s also camaraderie, and the main interest is serving people. That’s very different in this area. I talk with other people in other parts of the state that don’t have that.”
Montgomery noted that Ramirez’s leadership has been especially crucial during periods of crisis. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she oversaw the successful transition of more than 140 individuals from nursing facilities into community living and facilitated the construction of more than 100 ramps for accessibility. She also ensured that Stavros offices were kept open for the duration of the pandemic, and, at the height of pandemic shutdowns, facilitated meal deliveries for clients who couldn’t otherwise access them.
At the same time, Montgomery said, Stavros staff — 80% of whom are women — are empowered to lead, innovate, and serve as peer mentors. “She creates a culture where women’s voices are not only heard, but elevated.”
That’s an especially gratifying part of her job, Ramirez said.
“When people don’t know about our services, they end up in nursing facilities. Not to say that nursing facilities are not a good thing for some people, but say you’re 25 and you got into a car accident, and now you use a wheelchair. Do you want to spend rest of your life there? The answer is no.”
“It is a great opportunity to see people succeed, see people that came in like me as a secretary or as a skills trainer and now see them in supervisory positions or management positions. There’s one person in the building who started coming in here with her mom when she was a teenager, and now she is the assistant director of one of our programs. So there is opportunity for mentorship here. You get to do good while you’re doing good for yourself.”
A True Problem Solver
Ramirez also contributes to civic and professional organizations across the state. She serves on the board of Housing Navigator Massachusetts Inc., which works to expand access to affordable housing through user-friendly, publicly available tools. She is also a member of the Health Equity Compact, a coalition of 85 leaders of color dedicated to advancing health equity and dismantling systemic disparities throughout Massachusetts.
“I remember when the Housing Navigator approached me in 2019 — they had an idea to create this nonprofit to identify housing in the whole state and see where the gaps are. I said, ‘well, I want to be part of that.’ So they created a tool, and now we can see that, here in Western Mass., the availability of housing is minimal to nothing.”
It’s a major problem, especially for an organization trying to keep people in their own homes, but Ramirez is no stranger to tackling problems.
“Anyone can look around and see what is happening and what impact they can have, whether it’s health equity, housing, mental health, whatever it is. If there is a crisis, we need to meet it. That’s what I’m passionate about — when you look at what’s going on with the people that you serve and you start formulating plans. That’s what makes this organization and the teams here successful — they’re always looking forward.”
On its website, Stavros explains that, for the past 50-plus years, it “has worked tirelessly to remove barriers to accessibility and provide essential resources that support independent living. From advocating for disability rights and accessible housing to offering peer counseling, skills training, and vocational support, Stavros has been a trusted ally for thousands of individuals across Western Massachusetts and beyond.”
For Ramirez, the throughline across all that work has been identifying barriers people have to living the life they desire — and then identifying solutions to overcome those barriers. That’s a legacy befitting a Woman of Impact, but, again, she always seeks to share the credit.
“Surrounding yourself with a great team of people that can make it happen is the most important part of it because a lot of this stuff, you can’t do by yourself,” she said. “You have to make sure that the people around you are capable of doing it.”
Two decades before Chelsea Kline took the reins at Cancer Connection, her mother was one of its early participants.
“It was such a relief to me that she had supports here at Cancer Connection that I could not provide,” Kline recalled. “I was young, I was a single mom, and she was going through such a terrible time, so I was grateful to have a place where people really understood and had connections to resources and were able to listen deeply and support in a way that that I couldn’t — which I think is the case for many caregivers. It’s hard to watch someone you love be in pain.”
The organization’s impact on Kline’s mother was so profound that her daughter emptied her piggybank on numerous occasions to donate to Cancer Connection because she knew how much
it had benefited her grandmother. And through her time working there, and especially since becoming executive director in 2022, Kline has come to appreciate that impact even more.
“When caregivers and people with a diagnosis come to us, they don’t have to put on a front; they don’t have to smile or brush it off — they can be real here. I saw that with my mom, that she had a place where she could just be real and honest with her fear or her pain or her anger, whatever it is. There are so many emotions that come along with a diagnosis.”
Kline, who earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and biblical literature at Smith College and a master’s degree in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, spent several years overseeing leadership and organizational studies at Bay Path University before operating Chelsea Sunday Coaching for four years, a consulting business that helped many nonprofits in transition. In between, she ran for Massachusetts State Senate in 2018, garnering 41% of the vote.
But her interest all along was in supporting people who are struggling, and alleviating suffering. She found the perfect outlet for both at Cancer Connection.
During her graduate studies, “that’s where I really dug in with pastoral care and counseling and the whole concept of being present for people in hard times and in transition, and also the whole concept of the third space: we have our home, we have our work, and where’s the third space that we go? Is it a bar? Is it a church? Is it a community center? Is it a barbershop?”
Especially since COVID, she went on, those third spaces have become less robust and well-attended. But Cancer Connection can be a very particular kind of third space for people who need it.
“Our mission is very focused, but it’s a a really important community space where people can come and be held and be heard and feel connected and feel that they belong. And that, to me, is like magic,” Kline said. “That is so beautiful and so important. What could be more important?”
“Our mission is very focused, but it’s a a really important community space where people can come and be held and be heard and feel connected and feel that they belong. And that, to me, is like magic.”
When founders Jackie Walker and Deb Orgera launched the Northampton-based nonprofit in 2000, Kline said, their vision involved a concept known as befriending, which evolved out of the Samaritans model, which is a hotline for people in crisis. Essentially, Cancer Connection is a place to talk to someone, free of expectations or judgment.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit has evolved over the years to include support groups for different types of cancer and aspects of the cancer experience, from caregiving to self-care; integrative therapies like massage, acupuncture, Reiki, and energy balancing to treat cancer symptoms, boost comfort, and relieve stress; and programs that nourish the body, mind, spirit, and creativity, like Qigong yoga, mindfulness in nature, knitting, music and movement, equine therapy, and more.
Chelsea Kline is gratified that so many people find calm and courage during a difficult time in their lives through Cancer Connection. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“If people are hurting,” she said, “if people are feeling isolated, if people are feeling scared and alone, we have these open doors and this beautiful space, and we can say, ‘we understand, we want you to feel protected, we want you to feel cared for, and we’ll do our very best.’”
For her role in connecting people in need with a community that cares for them — and cultivating the support of a much larger community outside its doors — Kline can certainly be called a Woman of Impact.
Calm in the Storm
“I can breathe deeper, feel lighter, calmer.”
“The class was exactly what I needed. Being part of a community of other cancer survivors gave me a such a feeling of connection and courage.”
“I met amazing women at various stages of healing. The beauty and grace that each of them expressed helped me realize I am not alone.”
Those are some of the many quotes the team at Cancer Connection have collected from people who have accessed its services. They speak to a sense of calm in the storm, and that’s exactly what Kline intends.
“Every time someone has a massage or an integrative treatment here, we have a form where they fill out — how they’re feeling before and how they’re feeling afterwards. And it’s so moving to see someone who was in pain, they were exhausted, they were scared, they were uncomfortable, they were feeling like a 1 when they got here, really low on the scale, and after they work with the integrative therapist, whether it’s massage or acupuncture or Reiki, they’re feeling at an 8 or a 9. They’re feeling so much better; they say, ‘I’m feeling soothed. I’m feeling more hopeful.’
“And every time I read those forms, I send them out to the staff and I’m like, ‘look at how beautiful this is. Look at how important this work is.’ It keeps us all grounded.”
They’re doing the work with no federal grants — a comforting model at a time when such funds are being threatened across the nonprofit world. Instead, Cancer Connection relies on local corporate sponsors, a monthly giving program for individual donors, and a variety of events, from the annual Harvest Dinner to a Mother’s Day half-marathon that celebrated its 15th year this past spring. A new event, a ladies’ golf tournament, recently raised $20,000.
Other community groups have helped as well, from Crippled Old Busted Bikers putting on a comedy show to raise funds for Cancer Connection to a drag revue called Camilla’s Extravaganza that has taken the nonprofit on as a fundraising beneficiary, to the annual Bed In for Cancer Connection — launched by radio personality Monte Belmonte as Monte’s Camp Out for Cancer Connection, and how hosted by Greenfield Savings Bank’s Tara Brewster, one of this year’s other Women of Impact.
“We’re just lean and scrappy because the point is caring, and that’s counterculture to capitalism. This organization is kind of punk rock, in a way.”
Then there’s the Cancer Connection Thrift Shop on South Street in Northampton, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary.
“I often joke that the thrift shop is the fun part of Cancer Connection. There’s aways great music playing, friendly people, and treasures to be found,” Kline noted, adding that the shop is also in line with her belief in reusing and repurposing in an effort to have a lighter impact on the planet.
“I am profoundly grateful for the visionaries that came before me that dreamt up the shop and worked so hard to bring it life,” she added. “My oldest friends are all amused by the fact that I landed at an organization that has an awesome thrift shop, given that I am a lifelong diehard thrifter.”
In nominating Kline to be a Woman of Impact, Jean Einstein, co-president of Cancer Connection’s board of directors, noted that, “through her leadership and tireless energies in creative fundraising in the community and her talent to recruit talented development staff and board members to expand funding opportunities, Cancer Connection is well-positioned for the next 25 years to continue making a difference in the lives of with those with cancer, their loved ones, and caregivers. Chelsea Kline’s powerfully positive impact on Cancer Connection, and its ability to continue its legacy as a place to find strength, cannot be overstated.”
When Kline hears that, however, she immediately credits so many others who support the work, from staff to board members to volunteers.
Chelsea Kline (right) with Shelley Daughdrill of Florence Bank, which continues to be a sponsor of Cancer Connection’s Harvest Dinner — one of many examples of how the community supports the nonprofit’s work.
“The thrift store alone has about 50 volunteers a year, people of all ages who show up and give their time to help support our mission,” she told BusinessWest. “The staff at the shop serve as amazing mentors for people of all ages in how they listen deeply and with profound compassion when shoppers and donors share their cancer stories.”
She also has an eye firmly on those who will take up the mantle in the future.
“Working in a nonprofit, it’s really important to think about how we’re going to be bringing in new generations of people who are going to be doing this work. Who are the helpers? How can you be a helper? How can you be a professional helper?
“That’s a really important career track,” she went on. “But it’s a counterculture career track for a lot of people because I think, in a capitalist society, it’s like, ‘money, money, money.’ And what’s so cool about Cancer Connection is we’re kind of outside of that; we don’t take insurance, we don’t charge people. We’re just lean and scrappy because the point is caring, and that’s counterculture to capitalism. This organization is kind of punk rock, in a way.”
Crank It Up
Kline doesn’t use that term lightly; she was deeply involved in the punk scene in Washington, D.C. back in the ’90s.
“I’d to all the shows that were free in D.C., and I was part of the Beehive Collective and zine publishing, and I had a shaved head. And the sweetest people I ever knew were all the punks at the shows. They would look out for each other. I was totally involved in Food Not Bombs. We would make huge meals from donated foods and give it away in the park,” she recalled.
“A huge part of my punk rock upbringing was, how do you take care of people that are hungry? It’s so basic and so essential, and it’s getting lost, and how can that be? How can we have so many hungry people? How can we have so many lonely people? How do we fix it? It drives me crazy.”
“I want people to see this work and grasp it and appreciate it and respect it and want to be part of it.”
She mentioned all that context to explain her listening choice while driving to the Florence Bank Customers’ Choice grant awards this past spring.
“It’s a bank event, right? Like, I’ve got to be buttoned up, to look like a professional lady, but I’m blasting Fugazi on the way. But there’s so much about the punk rock ethos that really does translate to working in nonprofits. It’s about just doing what you can with what you’ve got and living by your values, and not being fake and not being stuffy and not trying to hurt anybody else or try to take advantage. And I’m a little punk rock at heart.”
That punk ethos, she said, means authenticity, anti-consumerism, and helping others whenever possible, which also relates to being a social justice advocate, with an emphasis on anti-racism and LGBTQ+ rights.
And, of course, helping people through one of the most difficult journeys in life: cancer.
“I want people to see this work and grasp it and appreciate it and respect it and want to be part of it,” she said. “So my work is not work, per se; it’s an honor to be able to use my energy and my enthusiasm to bring people along and say, ‘hey, this is really important. Come and be part of this.’”
When asked about her basic approach to life and work — and, later, about her best advice to young people, and especially women — Rania Kfuri said that, in both cases, it comes down to the same two-word phrase: show up.
By that, she meant being ambitious, giving back, supporting others, effectively balancing work and life in a way that would yield success at both, and always reaching higher.
She also meant following a tradition of community involvement set by several generations of her family — on both sides, and especially the women, something we’ll hear more about in a bit.
And she also meant literally showing up, as she does, at gatherings of all kinds, including BusinessWest’s events. Indeed, Kfuri, a proud former introvert, spoke early and often about the power of networking and connectivity, and how, because of that, she counts many of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact, including several from this year’s class, as friends.
She’s joining their ranks … well, because she does show up, and always has, whether while working for the mayor of Chicago; or as an entrepreneur who developed a unique travel bag for young parents; or while working at Smith College, which she served in several roles; or as a Philanthropy officer for Baystate Health; or as a board member for nonprofits that include the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, Stanley Park, Revitalize CDC, and Girls on the Run.
Or in her current role as vice president of Philanthropy, Sales, and Marketing at the Glenmeadow senior living in facility in Longmeadow.
That’s a broad title with many responsibilities that are all connected and represent some of her passions, especially philanthropy, she explained.
“There’s such an intersectionality between these three areas — I wish more organizations would see it that way,” said Kfuri, a first-generation Lebanese-American whose parents came to this country when her father, a physician, did his residency here, and stayed as war continued to rage in Lebanon. “Collaboration and communication are so important for an organization, and all three of these areas are very closely related.
“Sales, marketing, and philanthropy should all be communicating together, using the same streamlined language, and communicating the same mission,” she went on, adding that it’s her job to make sure they do.
But it’s not so much what she does within that broad job title that makes her a Woman of Impact, but how she does it — and what else she does.
“Her energy and positivity are contagious and help us all to see the benefits of collaboration and connectivity,” wrote Kathy Martin, president and CEO of Glenmeadow as she nominated Kfuri for this award. “She puts community first and is a quiet but impactful leader. From her service to a great many organizations and causes, she is often the nexus of an impressive web of overlapping relationships that, taken as a whole, move Western Mass. forward.”
“She puts community first and is a quiet but impactful leader.”
Dawn Creighton, a community outreach officer with Liberty Bank, who also nominated Kfuri, agreed, calling her an inspiration on many fronts.
“She is a beacon of positivity no matter what is happening in the world,” Creighton wrote. “I admire her tremendous balance of work and family life. Rania embodies engaging her girls in all she does so they understand what being a good steward to the community looks like. She is a walking judgment-free zone and will help anyone without explanation, requiring just a smile of gratitude. I love her passion for family, life, and our community.”
She’s far from alone in that sentiment, and this helps explain why Kfuri has been named a Woman of Impact.
Root Causes
Kfuri says she can thank family members for many of the traits she exhibits today.
Indeed, she said it was her brother, Kerim, a successful entrepreneur, who helped her overcome shyness and eventually become a dynamic networker and collaborator.
Rania Kfuri, right, counts Revitalize CDC as one of the many area agencies and causes to which she has donated time and talent.
“This is an acquired skill; I was not like this naturally … I was almost afraid of people when I was younger,” she recalled. “And my brother, who’s an extrovert, said, ‘you’re never going to have any fun, you’ve never going to get anything done if you don’t just go talk to people.’ He made me fearless to be social.”
Meanwhile, she said her parents and other members of her extended family going back several generations have served as effective role models when it comes to everything from giving back and helping others to being entrepreneurial.
“My parents’ home became a community hub for people who were also immigrating to the United States from Lebanon,” she explained. “And the nature of my parents being that way is because of the families they were raised by in Lebanon.
“He really instilled in my mom, who instilled it in me, the importance of being present in your community — being a doer.”
“My great-grandmother on my mother’s side was the head of the women’s group of the Greek Orthodox Church in Beirut,” Kfuri went on. “She was a very strong woman, a community-oriented woman who helped a lot of women who were widowed with employment opportunities and things of that nature. And that is how she identified my grandfather, my mom’s dad, who was also a family medicine physician, to be a great partner for my grandmother — because he also really believed in being a participant in community.
“He really instilled in my mom, who instilled it in me, the importance of being present in your community — being a doer,” she continued. “That’s in the fabric of my family, and the same goes for my father’s side, where my grandmother, in her earlier years in Lebanon … if you didn’t have a table to sit at and have dinner at, you were welcome at her table.”
These qualities, which she is now passing down to her children, helped shaped Kfuri as she grew up in Baltimore, and she eventually graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. with a political science degree and dreams of working in the State Department overseas.
Rania Kfuri continues a long tradition among several generations of her extended family when it comes to getting involved and giving back. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
She entered law school at Marquette University in Milwaukee, but didn’t enjoy that experience and returned to American University to earn a master’s degree in ethics, peace, and global affairs and forge new dreams of returning to Lebanon and doing peace building.
All that changed when she met her husband, then doing his residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, not through a dating website, as she recalled, but a ‘finding your roots in Lebanon’ website.
But that’s another story. Fast-forwarding this one, Rania and her husband eventually came to Western Mass. as he joined Baystate Health (he’s now chief of Gastroenterology there), and she starting writing new chapters in an intriguing career.
One of the first involved entrepreneurship, developing travel bags for parents with young children under the name Free Like Birdie, with Birdie being a nickname for her older daughter. The bags were a huge success — they were sold through Kohl’s, diapers.com, Amazon, and other outlets — but she eventually reached a critical crossroads.
“My younger daughter was about to start preschool five days a week, and my company was in a place where I was talking to QVC, and it either needed to grow, meaning I needed to build out a team, or it should close,” she recalled. “I decided that it had been a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, but it was the right time to close.”
She then took a part-time position as an administrative assistant at the Solidago Foundation in Northampton and later worked at Smith College, first as assistant director of the Annual Fund and then as assistant director of International Alumni Relations.
She enjoyed her time at Smith, but was drawn to healthcare — many family members work in that broad realm — and took a job as a Philanthropy officer with Baystate Health in 2022.
“I wanted to help support the healthcare system because my dad used to teach public health at Johns Hopkins, and I know that regions can become healthcare deserts, and I don’t want that to happen to Western Mass.,” she said. “I’m always a cheerleader for Baystate.”
Connecting the Dots
Kfuri joined Glenmeadow a year ago, taking on a role that makes each day different and presents myriad opportunities to do what she perhaps does best — promoting and building community in all its forms.
“Community grows here, and in many different ways,” she explained, listing everything from the relationships between residents and staff to community gatherings (she calls them cocktail parties), to regular ‘town hall gatherings’ where residents can ask Martin questions and get answers.
Community also refers to connecting residents to the larger community, she went on, be it through trips to area attractions and institutions — there was one recently to the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne — to programs with partners such as the Community Music School and Square One. “We’re always looking to create spaces of joy,” she explained.
Reflecting on her approach to life and work, Kfuri summoned a phrase she attributes to an English teacher at the McDonogh School in Maryland: ‘you should care, you should dare, and you should share.’
“She would say that all the time,” Kfuri said. “And it re-emphasized that you shouldn’t be waiting for someone else to do the thing; you should be doing the thing. And that’s such an important part of whom I am as a person. Between my family and school, the culture was, ‘you have to show up.’
She continues to do so, and thus, there are many parts to who Kfuri is, starting with a strong work ethic and drive to succeed, a collaborative approach to her work, and a willingness to get involved in the community.
“In her work at Glenmeadow, she champions a person-centered approach to the functions she oversees and has transformed our organization by the outcomes and approaches to her work,” Martin wrote. “It’s about more than filling apartments; it’s about welcoming new members of our community in ways that honor the lives they’ve lived already and creating pathways for them to continue to thrive. She has made us better on every level.”
In the community, meanwhile, Kfuri has become involved with a wide range of groups and causes, from Revitalize CDC to Girls on the Run to the city of Westfield, where she served on a master plan committee.
But beyond that, she serves as a convener and a motivator, always seeking to broaden and strengthen the core of women leaders in the region. She hosts an annual dinner at her home, inviting those women leaders to gather and discuss ways to be empowered — and utilize that power to better the region.
“I don’t think that calling yourself an ambitious woman is a bad thing — ambition is not a dirty word,” she told BusinessWest. “I do, though, also believe that, as women, we need to support other women, and I would love to see more women genuinely support other women.”
With those efforts, as with other aspects of her life, it all comes back to where she started this conversation — with showing up … and being a Woman of Impact.
Tracy Friedenberg recalls working for a tech consulting company in Holyoke (the ill-fated Data Profit) not long after graduating from UMass Amherst in the mid-’90s, and quickly discovering what she wasn’t doing — and ultimately needed to do — for a living.
She started as a receptionist and very quickly moved to office manager and then executive assistant, and over the course of that rapid advancement, she made a critical discovery.
“I realized in those moments that I really loved business,” said Friedenberg, who had designs (pun intended) on the fashion industry and being a buyer for a major retailer while in college. “But what I loved more was being on the operations side and making sure that, behind the scenes, everything ran smoothly.
“I knew very early on that sales wasn’t necessarily my thing — I wasn’t that person who was going to go out and get the clients,” she went on. “But I wanted to make sure that the organization and the people in the organization had what they needed to be successful, so the people who were practicing whatever they were practicing could do what they needed to do. And that has carried with me through my entire career.”
Indeed, it has, through a series of jobs at MassMutual, a lengthy stint at the Hartford-based law firm Day Pitney, and, since 2023, for the Springfield-based law firm Bacon Wilson.
There, she serves as executive director, a title that comes with a broad range of responsibilities — everything from day-to-day HR duties to working with other firm leaders on long-term matters, from the impact of AI on the legal profession to where the new courthouse in Springfield might go, and what they will mean operationally — and we’ll get into some of that later.
“I knew very early on that sales wasn’t necessarily my thing — I wasn’t that person who was going to go out and get the clients. But I wanted to make sure that the organization and the people in the organization had what they needed to be successful, so the people who were practicing whatever they were practicing could do what they needed to do. And that has carried with me through my entire career.”
But at Bacon Wilson, and her many other career stops, it’s not the lines on her job description that have made her a Woman of Impact, but how she has carried them out, often going what most would consider above and beyond, while also getting involved in the community at the same time.
Tracy Friedenberg has been described as a selfless, compassionate leader, one who drives organizational success but also champions the growth and well-being of those around her. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“Tracy is the kind of leader who not only drives an organization forward, but also ensures that every individual within it feels seen, valued, and cared for,” said Alayna Anderson, marketing coordinator for Bacon Wilson, who nominated her for this award. “She exemplifies compassion, strength, and service in everything she does. Her heart is always in the right place — committed to making a difference for the people and community she serves.”
Reflecting on what drives her, what she’s been able to accomplish, how she’s been influenced by mentors, and how she now mentors others, Friedenberg credits her parents, Bruce, who passed away last year, and Cecilia, as well as the Springfield school system, for giving her what she’s needed to be successful.
The schools instilled in her a thirst for learning and spawned a passion for everything from business to the Spanish language, with which she can still hold her own, she explained, while her parents, both hard workers, gave her inspiration, a solid foundation, and critical lessons, especially about the need to be accountable for everything one does with and during her life.
“My parents were and are a big part of whom I am,” she told BusinessWest. “They were hard workers. They weren’t necessary knocking it out of the park from a corporate standpoint, but I always learned the value of hard work from them, doing it for yourself, and treating people the way you want to be treated.
“I learned so much from them, and especially my mom,” she went on, echoing what has become a common theme among this year’s honorees. “She made a career out of customer service — she worked for 35 years at Springfield College in the food service department. Watching my mom work and watching her get joy out of serving people and helping them … really resonated with me. She took so much pride in everything she did. It didn’t matter if she was making a coffee or cleaning a counter or counting a cash drawer; having that pride in what she did and doing it well always resonated with me.”
Learning Experiences
Turning back the clock 30 years to her time at Data Profit, one of many tech companies that rose and fell in the ’90s or early 2000s, Friedenberg said it was a learning experience on many levels.
“I was the executive assistant to the number two and number three individuals in charge, and I was privy to a lot of information,” she recalled. “They had filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then it ended up being Chapter 7, and there were a lot of things going on. I would be in these difficult meetings with the leadership team; they were sitting there, and they literally had names on whiteboards, and they had to figure out who was going to be let go.
“It was at this age of 24 and 25 that I started to recognize some of the things that I knew I didn’t want to do or some of the ways I didn’t want to lead or manage,” she explained, adding that she has been shaped by every career stop and, long before that, her time in the Springfield schools and then UMass Amherst.
Tracing her career steps, Friedenberg said she moved from Data Profit to MassMutual, where she worked for nearly seven years, assuming titles ranging from College Relations manager to director of Corporate Human Resources.
“People are people, and, yes, we have work to do, and people have to be responsible and accountable for that, but we all are human, too. You can’t have people working for you and forget that they’re human beings.”
While at MassMutual, she was influenced by several managers and mentors, including one she served as an executive assistant who surprised her with a question she wasn’t really expecting.
“I had been there a few weeks … he came in one day and said, ‘where are you going to go in the company — what area do we need to move you to?’” she recalled. “I was a taken aback by that at first and said, ‘did I do something wrong?’ He said, ‘no, you have the ability to do more than this role requires, and I hired you for the company, not just this role.’
“Throughout your life, you have things that people say to you that stick with you,” she went on. “And that was one of them; that has resonated with me throughout my career. When I’ve been in a position to hire, I take a look at individuals not just for the role I’m trying to fill, which is important, but for their potential in general.”
In 2007, she began a 14-year stint with Day Pitney, a large firm with 13 offices and more than 600 employees. There, she held a variety of titles and had myriad responsibilities while gaining experience in some new realms, including work helping to manage some acquisitions and facility moves, and managing the IT Department.
Overall, she sharpened her skills when it became to being the person behind the scenes giving those around her the tools they needed to succeed.
After 15 years with the firm, she started to get “a little bored,” she said, and took on a new challenge, becoming chief of staff for Odin, a remote role that she wasn’t in long before she realized it wasn’t the right space for her.
Tracy Friedenberg says she’s long been inspired by the strong work ethic demonstrated by her parents. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Ultimately, her position was eliminated, and this led to what she called the “summer of Tracy,” what she described as a period of reflection, taking her time deciding what she wanted to do next, and getting even more engaged in the community — with her daughter’s school as president of its PTO and as president of the Dress for Success Western Massachusetts board.
“I knew I wanted to be in this community again,” she explained. “I was born and raised in Springfield — I’ve lived here my whole life, and I still live here — and working in Hartford all those years, I realized how disconnected I felt from my community.”
Work in Progress
And it was in her role as president of Dress for Success, and specifically while leading efforts to secure a new home for the nonprofit after it was evicted from the closing Eastfield Mall, that Friedenberg ultimately started down the path to her latest career stop.
As she tells the story, she needed an attorney to review the lease for the new space on Lyman Street, couldn’t touch base with the attorney the agency had been working with, and wound up calling former Central High School classmate Dan McKellick, a shareholder with Bacon Wilson, to see if he could help. He did, and while doing so, he mentioned that the firm was looking for a new executive director.
“In her nearly two years at Bacon Wilson, Tracy has transformed our organization into the best version of itself.”
She applied, after realizing how much she missed the law firm environment, was hired, and is now, in essence, focusing on the present and future of this firm while applying lessons learned at the various stops in her career.
Perhaps the biggest of these lessons involve communication, managing change — because it is seemingly constant — and always remembering the human element of the workplace.
“People are people, and, yes, we have work to do, and people have to be responsible and accountable for that, but we all are human, too,” she told BusinessWest. “You can’t have people working for you and forget that they’re human beings.”
A story shared by Anderson in her nomination brings home this sentiment.
“I experienced the sudden and tragic loss of my partner — a loss that shook me and my community,” she wrote. “Tracy stepped beyond the role of executive director and became a source of unconditional support. She cooked meals, helped care for my home and my dog, covered my work responsibilities, managed our marketing and communications, and, most importantly, gave me the space and time to grieve.
“In her nearly two years at Bacon Wilson, Tracy has transformed our organization into the best version of itself,” Anderson went on. “She has fostered a culture of inclusivity, diversity, and warmth, reshaping the way our firm is perceived both internally and within the community. Her leadership has not only elevated our operations, but has changed the narrative of what it means to belong at Bacon Wilson.”
Jeff Fialky, the firm’s managing partner, echoed those thoughts.
“Tracy has been instrumental in continuing to shape our firm’s culture and success,” he said. “She leads with empathy, strength, and brilliance, ensuring that every challenge becomes an opportunity for those around her to grow and flourish. Her influence extends well beyond our walls — she uplifts those around her.”
When asked about her work and how it might generate such comments, Friedenberg said it comes down to keeping one eye on today, the other on tomorrow, and, most importantly, being a good listener as she manages a firm, but also a workforce that spans several generations.
“One thing that I feel so grateful for is that lots of people come and talk with me throughout the day,” she said. “They’ll come to me to talk about a concern they might have — maybe it’s with a client, or maybe it’s just something with their own personal situation in their employment or something in their personal life. Or they’ll bounce an idea off me or bring ideas to me. I feel so honored that they let me into their circle of trust.”
Not everyone gets into that circle of trust. It’s reserved for those who not only listen, but respond proactively and compassionately to what they hear.
It’s reserved, in this case, for a Woman of Impact.
Ayanna Crawford, it needs to be said up front, is the model of a Woman of Impact, who has made her mark — and made people’s lives better — in numerous ways: as a public speaker helping young people find their own voice, as a community leader both locally and in legislative circles in Boston, as a media consultant boosting local businesses and nonprofits … the list goes on.
But it’s an honor she finds both gratifying and a bit humbling.
“It’s not something I look for. I’m just humbled by it, and sometimes I feel, is this really for me? Am I worthy enough? Did I do enough? Is there more that I need to do before I get recognized?” she said.
“That’s always in the back of my mind because I think about so many great leaders in our community, in our world, that have gone unnoticed or not been recognized,” she added. “But I’m grateful for the recognition. I’m grateful that someone has seen the work that I’m doing.”
To be sure, many have noticed, including LaTonia Monroe Naylor, a member of the Women of Impact class of 2024, who nominated Crawford for this year’s honor.
“Ayanna doesn’t seek recognition — she builds infrastructure: programs, relationships, and movements,” Naylor wrote. “She mentors emerging leaders, elevates marginalized voices, and constantly returns to the core question, ‘what did I do for someone else today?’”
Naylor knows Crawford well; the two of them co-founded a nonprofit seven years ago called Parent Villages, which connects families, educational institutions, and community partners to enhance learning and support systems for children. It was born from the sobering statistic that 93% of local children aren’t ready to succeed in kindergarten.
“She thought, ‘what could we do to encourage parents and families, and help their children get ready for kindergarten?’” Crawford recalled about the origins of Parent Villages, which Naylor still leads as CEO. “We did meetups and focus groups around the city at different libraries and community centers to talk to parents and families about how can we help children get ready for school.
“It has grown immensely, to the point where we’ve bought a building, we have over a million-dollar budget, we’ve got staff, we have six or seven different types of programs. It’s just flourishing,” said Crawford, who serves on the board.
But that’s only one of the ways she has demonstrated a passion for helping children. Originally interested in a broadcast journalism career, she switched to an education track at Westfield State University and became a teacher, teaching creative writing in middle school and reading and language arts in elementary school over the years.
“Ayanna doesn’t seek recognition — she builds infrastructure: programs, relationships, and movements. She mentors emerging leaders, elevates marginalized voices, and constantly returns to the core question, ‘what did I do for someone else today?’”
It was in the latter setting that she noticed many children were shy about giving presentations — some so shy, they would cry. So she asked her principal if she could conduct a mini-lesson around public speaking — which turned into an afterschool program, which soon drew middle-schoolers as well, and eventually emerged in the broader community as a still-flourishing initiative called Take the Mic.
Backed by a group of interns and volunteers, Crawford has partnered with colleges, especially Springfield Technical Community College, creating a curriculum within its College for Kids summer program, and also conducted programs in the Springfield Public Schools and an afterschool program at the East Springfield branch of Springfield City Library. In all, the program serves young people from ages 6 to 18. She also conducts workshops for adults who want to improve their speaking skills and confidence.
Ayanna Crawford says some of her priorities in her work with state Rep. Orlando Ramos include education, mental health, parks, and the environment. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“About 75% of the world’s population is afraid of public speaking,” she said. “Even myself, growing up, I was afraid to as well. But there are strategies, techniques, resources, so many different things that you can use. I’ve done a lot of training myself to make sure that I’m on the cutting edge of the nuances of public speaking and making sure that not only the students have what they need, but the adults, too.”
Helping both children and adults achieve what they need — in these ways and others we’ll talk about — is a hallmark of a life of passion and purpose. It’s the life of a Woman of Impact.
Community Champion
When asked when she developed a passion for young people, Crawford said it’s always been there.
“I remember, when I started teaching, having students from all different socioeconomic statuses and wanting to see all of them flourish and thrive. Then, I was always the one at my schools to either help organize the open house or get the parents together, get them excited about events we had with our school, or go out in the community and talk to families about the work that we do in our school.”
Her teaching career was also the fountain from which her business, AC Consulting and Media Services, sprung. Her principal noticed she was doing a lot of community work, so she became the go-to person for connecting the school with community leaders, elected officials, and the media as well. From there, other businesses and nonprofits started asking her for help with press releases, media invitations, flyers, and other forms of marketing, and the enterprise was born.
“Our mission is to provide media and public relations services and supports to nonprofits and corporate businesses to enhance their brand awareness and client base,” she explained. “We simply are a firm that believes in amplifying the message and awareness of our clients in their communities.”
Her foray into politics, culminating with her current role as chief of staff to state Rep. Orlando Ramos, also began with her volunteer service on school PTOs, neighborhood councils, and, eventually, political campaigns. She later became chair of the Democratic City Committee for Springfield’s Ward 8, worked on Ramos’ campaign for the State House, and then joined him in that work, much of which she’s personally passionate about, especially when it comes to issues that affect young people, like education, healthcare, parks, and the environment.
An advocate for neighborhood safety, Crawford spearheaded a local Stop the Speed initiative, a public safety campaign born out of Springfield residents’ concerns about dangerous driving through residential streets. It was born out of an incident in which a vehicle her daughter was riding in was struck by a speeding car. Another passenger was in the ICU for weeks.
Ayanna Crawford took the stage at the MassMutual Center this past June as co-emcee of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty Gala. Photo by Underwood Photography
“It was very traumatic; it was a very serious accident. So I said, ‘what can I do to help curtail it, to stop it? I knew that the East Springfield community had done some Stop the Speed events … so I started them here in Springfield on Boston Road, particularly.”
With Ramos’ backing, she spearheaded monthly awareness events for about a year, and other legislators and community leaders, in 16 Acres and the North End, picked up the cause as well. “So, through my efforts raising some more advocacy around it, other communities decided to start doing them.”
It’s typical of the impact Crawford can have when she has a goal in mind, Naylor said. “Through this work, she’s not just raising awareness — she’s organizing, coordinating with city officials, and pushing for tangible policy solutions. Her leadership reflects a commitment to safety, accountability, and resident-led change.”
Crawford has long been committed to the revitalization of the Indian Orchard community. To that end, she has organized food truck festivals, promoted small business development, and supported entrepreneurial opportunities, creating accessible platforms for local vendors and artisans to thrive.
She also founded the annual Sylvia Barksdale Wilson Scholarship in Nursing Brunch, a program that provides scholarships for individuals going into the nursing field in honor of her mother, who was a nurse. She also founded the Literacy Champion community event held annually at the Brookings Elementary School to promote literacy and showcase local authors, and she is president of the Springfield Women in Business Club, which highlights and provides support to women entrepreneurs and executive leaders.
“Through this work, she’s not just raising awareness — she’s organizing, coordinating with city officials, and pushing for tangible policy solutions. Her leadership reflects a commitment to safety, accountability, and resident-led change.”
“From the classroom to the Capitol, from Indian Orchard streets to statewide strategy rooms,” Naylor wrote, “Ayanna is not just making an impact — she is building one and deserving of finally being recognized for what she has done to contribute to our region.”
Fearless and Impactful
When Crawford takes the stage at the Log Cabin on Dec. 9 to accept the Women of Impact honor, it will cap a busy year of recognition.
This past April, the Springfield Symphony Orchestra chose her as a recipient of its annual Fearless Women Awards, which are given to area women who embody bravery, advocacy, passion, perseverance, and authenticity. And in June, she co-emceed BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty Gala at the MassMutual Center.
Asked to give some perspective on her many roles in the community, she said, “I never know the extent of what I do and how it is really impacting others. I just do it because it’s important to me.” But she said she’s equally proud of her role as a mentor to her now-grown children.
“We have what we call healthy conversations with my adult children, helping them navigate through life and being an example to them. I want them to see what I’ve done, and I want to see what they can do,” she told BusinessWest. “And I have two grandsons, and I want them to also know that this is a legacy that I’m building for our family, for our community, and for folks that are yet to be born.
“Again, I’m not looking for recognition because I’ll do it regardless. I’ll continue to work to elevate voices, to elevate our community, especially women, but men, too, because I have a daughter and a son. I want men to see me as an example too; I’ve mentored young men in my lifetime as well as young women.”
And she aims to continue to be a leader, in all her different roles and maybe some she hasn’t discovered yet.
“My children keep on telling me, ‘mom, you’re getting a little older now. I think you need to slow down.’ But I’m fine. I feel like I’m just hitting my apex, where I can do this work and know I have the tools and the skill set to do it. I’ve got the training; I’ve got the wherewithal and the tenacity and the capacity.”
Tara Brewster has told the story on many occasions about accepting her current job at Greenfield Savings Bank and being asked by John Howland, then then bank’s president, where she wanted her office. She said she didn’t want one.
“I said, ‘I’m good.’ He said, ‘what do you mean you’re good? Everybody has an office.’ And I said, ‘you expect me to be making relationships in the community. You expect me to be having meetings with people. Nobody’s going to want to come into the bank to have a meeting with me in my office. So I’m not planning on being in my office hardly ever because I’m going to be out in the community. And he was like, ‘OK, prove it.’ So for nine years, I’ve never had an office. This is my office.”
By ‘this,’ she meant the restaurant where she sat with BusinessWest for this interview — and not just that establishment, but any number of eateries and other community meeting places where she meets potential clients on financial matters, but also nonprofit leaders, as her title spans the worlds of both business and philanthropy. As does her life.
“We’re not going to fill that gap alone; we’re only one organization. But we need to be intentional and focused about the different times that we’re living in.”
“So many people don’t get out — they work their 9 to 5, they work their desk job, they have their own obligations. I feel privileged that that I’m able to create my own schedule, go where I’m needed, and be really intentional, purposeful, and independent on where I need to go and who needs me. That’s not lost on me.”
She’s especially gratified by her philanthropic role; the bank now gives away about $1 million each year to some 300 nonprofits.
Tara Brewster (center) with four of the valued mentors who have supported her for many years: from left, Chia Collins, Barbara Jones, Sidonia Dalby, and Mark Grumoli Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“We don’t do the big check presentation. That’s not how we roll. I like to send all the contribution checks to all the branch managers and have them make the connection and go deliver them and say hi, because it’s not about my relationship with the nonprofit; it’s about our relationship.”
Since COVID, Brewster explained, the bank’s philanthropic priorities have included healthcare, human services, housing, food security, safety, and children. “We try to look through that lens and meet the needs where we can.”
It’s especially important, she added, at a time when nonprofit funding, already a challenging landscape, is being threatened on a massive scale by federal cutbacks.
“I would like to have a conversation with senior leadership about, ‘OK, who is really being targeted? How can we allocate a little bit more funding to those groups? How can we step up a little bit more to try to support them and fill in the cracks from holes in federal funding and the decimation of their livelihoods?’ We’re not going to fill that gap alone; we’re only one organization. But we need to be intentional and focused about the different times that we’re living in.
“You know, if we didn’t have nonprofits, we would be screwed,” Brewster added, “because government — even in the best of times, with the best of leaders, who have the heart to do it — could never take care of all of the issues that exist and the needs of all the people. They haven’t figured out how to do that. So it makes the role of institutions like banks, foundations, and individuals so much more important, because they do so much.”
Those who know Brewster understand her passion for supporting the community didn’t start with her current job. She currently serves on four nonprofit boards — Cutchins Programs for Children and Families, Riverside Industries, Downtown Northampton Assoc., and Double Edge Theatre — as well as several local committees, including Community Action of Pioneer Valley, Look Memorial Park, North Star Self-Directed Learning for Teens, the David Ruggles Center, and the Treehouse Foundation.
She is also a top fundraiser for numerous regional events, including the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage, Dancing with the Local Stars for Cutchins, and two annual events — the Mother’s Day Half Marathon and the Bed In fundraiser — for Cancer Connection, whose executive director, Chelsea Kline, is also a Woman of Impact this year; see story on page W19).
“Respected equally by business leaders, nonprofit executives, and grassroots organizers, Tara is a force multiplier for good,” wrote Ira Bryck of Helping Leaders Grow, who nominated her as a Woman of Impact. “She is present in every role she plays — mother, wife, colleague, volunteer — leading with an open heart and strategic mind. Western Massachusetts is better because Tara Brewster calls it home, and her impact continues to ripple outward through every organization, partnership, and person she touches.”
Road to Success
This is Brewster’s third BusinessWest honor; she was part of the 40 Under Forty class of 2009, when she co-owned Jackson & Connor, a men’s clothing store in Northampton, and a Difference Maker in 2022.
Since joining Greenfield Savings Bank in 2016, she has generated over $200 million in deposits, loans, and mortgages while shaping and expanding the bank’s annual philanthropy budget — a success on every level. But the road to her current career was a winding one, marked by early tragedy.
As a teenager, she planned on moving far away from Massachusetts and attending college in Montana, with the goal of becoming a pediatrician. But her mother was diagnosed with stage-4 ovarian cancer when Tara was just 15, a turn of events that would not only alter her plans for college, keeping her close to home, but inspire her to reach higher and serve others more purposefully following her mother’s passing.
She eventually graduated from Smith College, majoring in government and anthropology, and found her way into the men’s clothing business. She started at Taylor Men, which had a store in Thornes Marketplace, while she was at Smith, and would later be regional sales manager for seven stores in the Northeast before moving to Manhattan and working for a men’s wholesale apparel company.
Eventually, Brewster returned to Northampton and opened Jackson & Connor with a business partner; they ran the store for eight years before selling it. It was there, she told BusinessWest, that she began to understand the importance of community connections.
“Respected equally by business leaders, nonprofit executives, and grassroots organizers, Tara is a force multiplier for good.”
“I was like, ‘oh, my success is tied to the community’s success. It’s tied to others. It’s tied to me supporting you and you supporting me, and one hand washes the other.’ It was very clear. Before that, when I worked for these larger companies, in bigger cities, they weren’t very philanthropic, and they didn’t really push us to do a lot of charity work. But when your livelihood is dependent on local customers coming in and supporting you, that’s how you eat. That’s how you pay the bills. It’s how you pay your employees. I really got it then.”
After selling the store, Brewster segued into consulting before Mark Grumoli, senior vice president and commercial loan officer at Greenfield Savings Bank — who, years earlier, had helped the partners secure funding to launch Jackson & Connor when he was with Florence Bank, convinced her to become the new vice president of Business Development.
In addition to her dual role at work and her robust involvement with nonprofits outside of it, she also hosts the Western Mass. Business Show on WHMP, a radio interview program with local business leaders that she inherited from Bryck.
“Tara is a creative spirit, an entrepreneur, media mogul, and supports philanthropy,” wrote Tina Champagne, another nominator. “When there is a community need of any kind, Tara knows who to call and how to help raise funds to support those in need. She is brilliant at luring others in with her passion, care, and positive energy.”
Still, Brewster admits there’s only so much one person can do, especially someone who is widely recognized as a go-to helper.
“It’s not about being in all the rooms anymore. When I first started, I felt like I had to be at all these events, I had to meet this person, I had to go to this, I had to go to that, I had to show up. But really, it’s about being more calculated and smart about how I can actually effect change — who are the people that I need to call in, sit at a table with, connect with, strategize with?”
Sue Monahan (left), creator and director of the Mother’s Day Half Marathon, with Tara Brewster, host of Bed In for Cancer Connection.
Especially, as noted earlier, at a particularly rough time for nonprofits.
“A lot of the meetings and spaces that I’m in, people are talking about ‘how are you taking care of yourself in order to be a freedom fighter and a warrior and someone who shows up and has capacity for other people and the work?’ And ‘how do you choose what’s important?’”
For one thing, Brewster would like to see more conversations between nonprofits whose clients have needs that dovetail.
“If we’re having a meeting about federal funding or food security or another need, let’s not just have it be like a siloed meeting,” she said. “Let’s have it be an integrated meeting — who needs to be in the room, who can do what, and how we can get it done? — rather than just thinking, ‘I’m me, and I have these resources,’ and ‘you’re you, and you have these resources.’ We just need to be more collaborative and more strategic than we’ve ever been going into these times.”
Setting an Example
Just as important as who’s making an impact now is who will follow in their footsteps, which is why Brewster values mentorship, both giving and receiving. In fact, she asked to take a photo for this story with four of her mentors, people who have helped shape her path and work.
One of them is Chia Collins, a local small business owner and volunteer. “Tara Brewster is my sister from a different mother, as she has said to me. She is truly a saint in the valley,” Collins said. “I adore moving mountains with her and for her. What nourishes her seems to be her love to connect people and to better the world. Tara is truly a force of nature.”
Brewster, like others honored in this year’s class of Women of Impact, is quick to deflect, or at least share, credit for such accolades, but said the award is still a meaningful one.
“I’m incredibly honored. It’s very humbling, and it makes you want to do more; it makes you want to keep going. To be recognized and acknowledged says, ‘OK, I must be doing something right; I must be helping people, or my impact must be having a ripple effect, so I need to keep doing it,’” she said.
“What are we here for — like, seriously, what are you here for — if not to make a difference, if not to improve someone’s life?” she added. “I want to die having left a mark, having a purpose, helping others, something other than just self-service.”
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community and created the Women of Impact awards in 2018 to further honor women who have the authority and power to move the needle in their business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought out as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The eight stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2024 features:
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community and created the Women of Impact awards in 2018 to further honor women who have the authority and power to move the needle in their business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought out as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The eight stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2024 features:
In More Than One Way, She Draws on History to Help People Heal
Staff photo
“When a patient walks into my room, they expect to have a seat and for me to talk with them about their history, about their journey. I take that information, and I use it to help them heal. I need to look at history. And sometimes patients come in and tell you horror stories, but I can’t discard it because I need it all to help that patient to live.”
Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, a nephrologist by trade — that’s a kidney specialist — shares those thoughts toward the beginning of Ashes to Ashes, a documentary she produced in 2019. And they are apt when juxtaposed against the story she goes on to tell.
The film is actually two intertwined stories, both incredibly powerful. One is related by Winfred Rembert, an avid Star Wars fan and master leatherwork artist.
Clear-eyed but haunted, he relates a life-changing experience in 1967, when he drew the ire of law enforcement in Cuthbert, Ga. because of his work advocating for civil rights. They tossed him in a car trunk, and he emerged to see a noose hanging from a tree. They stripped him, hung him upside down, stabbed him, and made it clear they intended to castrate him, hang him, then burn his body. When one of the men suggested they stop, they moved on, and Rembert, bleeding and deeply traumatized, lived.
“In this country, no one really, genuinely talks about the people who were lynched.”
The other story in Ashes to Ashes concerns the 4,000 people lynched in the U.S. during the Jim Crow era, which, as Rembert painfully reminds us, didn’t end all that long ago. In 2017, Whitaker, a friend of Rembert’s who also grew up in Georgia, organized a funeral in Springfield to honor the many lynching victims who were never buried. As Whitaker explains in the film:
“Sometimes they would lynch people, then put them in the water with weights, so the family would never see them again. Sometimes they would take the bodies and cut them up and sell the pieces. Sometimes they would take the body after they lynched it and burn it up, so the families would not have anything. A lot of these people never got a funeral. It was often too dangerous for the families to retrieve those bodies. And sometimes, there were no bodies to retrieve. It’s not just black history — this is American history.”
At the funeral ceremony, participants read names of many of these unburied individuals, and members of a local theater group read monologues drawn from Whitaker’s historical research. The account of a father forced to choose to die along with his young son or watch the boy drown is especially wrenching.
Ashes to Ashes gained acclaim on the festival circuit and was a finalist for Academy Award consideration.
“In this country, no one really, genuinely talks about the people who were lynched,” Whitaker says in the film. Which is why she produced it — to give those people a voice, get people talking about some too-recent history, and, by grappling with that reality, just maybe start the process of healing.
“I decided to have a funeral for the over 4,000 African-Americans who were lynched in the United States to close that chapter and move forward. America has to do the same thing to help heal this country. You’ll get some pushback from people: ‘why do you want to stir that up?’ But it hasn’t been stirred enough. People were saying, ‘ah, that’s so depressing.’ I say, well, if you think this depressing, try hanging from a tree.”
She then asks, “what can I do? I can’t bring them back, but I can give them a prayer.” For doing so much more, Whitaker is an uncommonly powerful Woman of Impact.
Pain and Promise
As she spoke with BusinessWest in her Amherst home about her multi-faceted life and career, virtually every wall in every room was covered with her paintings — some traditional in medium, some incorporating mixed media, including fabrics and, in a few cases, unprocessed cotton.
“Cotton has this fluffy appearance to it, but just take your hand and squeeze right there,” she said. “Just squeeze. You feel the seeds? Once Eli Whitney got the seeds out, they had more uses for cotton.”
And the slaves who picked it, as the cotton gin essentially rejuvenated the plantation slavery industry.
“The thing is, when you go to pick this, you’ve got to be careful because this is like knives,” she continued, pointing out the sharp wall surrounding the fluffy cotton. “You learn early how to avoid that.”
Rembert, who passed away in 2021, knew that well; he grew up picking cotton on a plantation, and he understood the dark history of the crop in the South.
Whitaker’s path was somewhat different; the seventh child of Eddie and Charlie Mae Jackson from Waycross, Ga., she attended Clark Atlanta University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree with honors and then earning a public health degree at Yale University School of Medicine and undergoing advanced medical training in internal medicine and nephrology at Emory University School of Medicine, where she was the only Black woman in her class.
After some years on the West Coast, she moved to the Pioneer Valley when her husband was hired at UMass Amherst as a professor of Mathematics. For a decade, she worked at Springfield Southwest Community Health Center, where, in addition to bettering and saving lives, she designed a children’s coloring book advising against drugs, created a community-health newsletter, and produced an imaginative ‘puppet opera’ for young people titled “Monsters Among Us.” In 2006, she went into private practice.
But nephrology wasn’t her only interest; to address her concerns about the academic standing of African-American children in Amherst schools, she established the Academic Initiative for Maximum Success, which resulted in a dramatic increase of Black students in AP math programs.
“In addition to caring for her patients’ health, Shirley brings joy and hope. Her contributions to her community through educational programs have provided many with opportunities that would not have been afforded without her initiatives.”
Whitaker has also continued to paint, authored two children’s books, and produced her award-winning documentary. These days, she continues to practice medicine two days a week at the Northampton VA Medical Center.
“When I look back and I think of all these things, and the ripple effect of it all, I’m pleased with that,” she told BusinessWest, adding that her honest, often hard assessments of patients made a long-term difference. “People to this day come up to me and say, ‘I remember what you said, and it changed my life. I changed my diet; I lost 40 pounds.’”
Stories Worth Sharing
Taylor Rees, director of Ashes to Ashes, will certainly never forget her. “Dr. Shirley is a neighbor of mine who lived on the same street as my family in Massachusetts when I was growing up,” he wrote. “In 2015, she asked for help documenting her memorial, and throughout the year, we worked together to also visit with and listen to the personal and lived experiences of Winfred, her friend. The film evolved over time into an homage to both Shirley and Winfred and their work using art to address racial injustices in America.”
Whitaker has also made a powerful impression on Anika Lopes, who nominated her as a Woman of Impact a year after Lopes, president of the Ancestral Bridges Foundation, earned the same honor from BusinessWest.
“Dr. Whitaker is a woman of impact with every step she takes, a tireless giver, sharing all she has with others,” Lopes wrote. “As a medical doctor, Shirley has and continues to dedicate herself to the wellness of others; she goes far beyond expectation and keeps going. In addition to caring for her patients’ health, Shirley brings joy and hope. Her contributions to her community through educational programs have provided many with opportunities that would not have been afforded without her initiatives.”
Lopes added that Whitaker believes we all have a collective responsibility to create a better future, “and she sure is walking her talk.”
She’s doing so at a time when too many people don’t truly comprehend the horrors of slavery or the more recent legacy of Jim Crow, or are actively trying to erase that history. But she’s also hopeful about the future, currently working on a screenplay called Blanket, noting that “a blanket of hate can never cover the resilience, remembrance, and hope.”
As for Rembert, he spent more than 50 years struggling with sleep issues, stemming partly from the trauma he experienced in 1967, as he describes in Ashes to Ashes.
“Even today, now, it’s dragging me down. I can’t rest. I can’t rest. I lie in my bed, and I can’t rest. I’m running for my life every night. Somebody’s after me, and I don’t know what to do.”
And later in the film:
“I don’t think I can be healed. I think I’ll go to the grave with what I got, holding me down and holding me back. Even though those things were done to me years ago, they’re still holding me back. Can I send the message? Can I change this? I can’t change this world. I know I’m not a big enough man to do that, but I can put a dent in it. But you just keep going, and going, and going, and going.”
Whitaker has kept going as well, maybe not changing the world, but impacting her corner of it in profound ways as a doctor, educator, artist, and filmmaker. And she empathizes with the pain of friends like Rembert and thousands of people she never knew, but wanted to memorialize through a unique funeral service and a story that will live on as people continue to watch it.
“I talked to him like two days before he died,” she said of Rembert, “and he said, ‘I just want to know what it’s like to go to sleep.’”
“We’re looking back in history so this patient can live,” Whitaker said during that 2017 memorial service in Springfield, referring not to a nephrology patient, but to a nation with deep, unhealed wounds. “We’re looking back in history so this patient can thrive. We’re looking back in history so this patient can become very strong. But this patient could only live and get stronger if we’re willing to look back. So tonight, we start.”
Kristi Reale says it’s an unofficial assignment. In other words, it’s not written or her business card. In addition to serving as a partner with the Holyoke-based accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka (MBK), she’s also in charge of the ‘fun committee’ there.
She even has a ‘fun drawer’ in her credenza, filled with Easter eggs to be hidden around the office at that time of year, golden coins and shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, material for the ‘decorate your space for the holidays’ competition, and much more.
Fun is an important part of the equation at this firm, she said, adding that there is stress throughout the year, but especially around the many tax-filing deadlines, such as those in April, September, and October, and fun is needed to help take the edge off.
“It’s a hard job, and you want to make it fun,” she said, adding that she tries to do something fun — like a Belgian waffle bar or hot chocolate bar — every Saturday during spring tax season, when many employees are in and trying to dig out.
But fun is just a part of that equation, as evidenced by the sign on top of that credenza, the one that reads, “Work Hard, Play Hard.” Those are words her father, Bill Hurley, a small-business owner who passed away in February, lived by, and Reale does as well, she said, adding that she stresses both elements — to anyone who will listen, but especially to the young women (and men) she mentors.
“Hard work is important, but you also need to have some fun,” said Reale, who is the proud (sort of) repeat recipient of one of the awards given out at the firm annually, this one to the individual “most likely to have squatted” at MBK, meaning you could find her at her desk at almost any hour.
“It’s not an award you really want to get,” said Reale, who has also been awarded a blanket by her colleagues, in part because she’s always, as in always, cold, but also as a nod to the notion that she sleeps in her office.
Hard work — but not necessarily the kinds of hours needed to win the ‘squatter’ award — is what Reale preaches to young people — as well as the need to balance that hard work with fun, to give back to the community in many different ways, and to mentor others on their way up, just as they were mentored.
She does all this, and that’s why she’s being honored as a Woman of Impact in 2024.
Her office helps tell the story: there’s the fun drawer, that aforementioned sign, photos of family (a nod to work-life balance), her 40 Under Forty plaque from 2009, her diplomas and credentials hanging on the walls, and — on this day, parked in one corner in large bags — 60 pairs of kids’ pajamas she had already purchased for an organization called Jammie Jingles, started by a firm member, which contributes new pajamas to children in need.
But comments from those she works with tell it better.
“She’s devoted 100% to the firm, to her clients, and, more importantly, staff,” fellow Partner Rudy D’Agostino said. “What’s great about Kristi is that she’s a mentor to many of our younger staff; she takes the time out of her busy schedule to meet with them, work with them, mentor them, and help them put a plan together.”
“Hard work is important, but you also need to have some fun.”
Howard Cheney, another partner at the firm, concurred. “Kristi has made, and continues to make, a remarkable impact on individuals, businesses, and organizations in Western Mass. The position she holds is a unique one because her job directly enables others to thrive in their own endeavors. The weight of that responsibility is not lost on her, as she goes above and beyond for her clients.
Kristi Reale, right, with Springfield Thunderbirds mascot Boomer and fellow Meyers Brothers Kalicka Partners (from left) Rudy D’Agostino, Kristina Drzal Hougton, Howard Cheney, and Jim Krupienski on the occasion of the firm’s 75th anniversary in 2023.
“Additionally,” he said, “Kristi serves as a role model to a number of young professionals on our staff, and she works hard as a mentor, helping these young accountants to navigate the road to success, as she experienced it herself.”
Firm Resolve
Reale was a student at Assumption College in Worcester, working toward a degree in accounting, when she decided that real world-world experience would be a good complement to what she was learning in the classroom.
Her advisor agreed, suggesting that she pursue an internship. So she did, with a vigor that would reflect her career to come.
“I opened the phone book, and I called every single accounting firm within driving distance of Assumption,” she said, adding that she scored some interviews, including one at a large regional firm in Worcester.
“When I went to interview with this person, he said, ‘how did you find us?’” she recalled, adding that she told him about opening that phone book and calling every accounting firm in Worcester and asking if they had an internship program. “He called me up and said, ‘Kristi, I’m a Bentley guy, and I had a Bentley student pinned for this internship, but I’m going to give it to you.”
She completed that internship in the spring and started with the firm in the fall, she went on, noting that times were different in the broad world of public accounting then; jobs were much harder to come by, and the competition for them was fierce.
“You went to work, you did your job, you did the best you could every day because, if you didn’t, there was a line of people outside waiting to get your job. It was a tough market,” she said, adding that this environment was fine with her because, from a young age, good working habits were instilled in her by her parents and, later, several mentors.
And she is essentially trying to impress that same message on young people today.
“What’s great about Kristi is that she’s a mentor to many of our younger staff; she takes the time out of her busy schedule to meet with them, work with them, mentor them, and help them put a plan together.”
Tracing Reale’s career, she stayed with the firm in Worcester for a few years before tiring of the commute from and a perceived lack of opportunities to advance. So she went to work at a smaller firm but was again stymied by a lack of opportunities, feeling “disposable,” as she put it. Frustrated, she decided in early 2001 that she was done with public accounting.
But she still needed to work, so she called her sister-in-law, an employee at Meyers Brothers, and asked if the firm needed any tax-season help. It did, and she came on board with the intention of making this a very temporary assignment and finding something else to do for a career.
Instead, she saw women in management roles, became inspired, and stuck around, passed the CPA exam, and plowed ahead.
“I knew no one was going to outwork me, and I was just going to do it,” said Reale, who eventually became the second woman to become a partner at the firm (her colleague, Kris Houghton, was the first).
As a partner and CPA, she works hard on behalf of her clients, but also on behalf of those she works with, setting an example and also acting as a mentor — to young people in general, but especially women.
Kristi Reale, right, and Chelsea Russell, manager/CPA at Meyers Brothers Kalicka, display some of the many items collected during a supply drive to benefit the residents of Ruth’s House in Longmeadow.
“What I’m trying to encourage is for this next generation of women to be strong and financially independent, and to succeed. The glass ceiling’s already been broken; why not go for the moon?” she said, adding that most of her mentorship activity is informal, and she works hard to make herself accessible, with some colleagues calling her at 10 p.m. or later.
She Gives of Herself
There is no managing partner at MBK; the six partners essentially split up the workload. Reale’s areas of emphasis include IT and administration.
But, as noted earlier, she’s also in charge of bringing some fun to the firm’s 80 or so employees. That’s a broad assignment that includes everything from activities around various holidays to celebrations when those tax-filing deadlines have passed, to random pranks and other efforts to coax smiles and relieve all that stress.
It’s an assignment she takes … well, seriously.
But in addition to her work with clients and her ‘work’ to supply fun, she is also very involved in the community — and in many different capacities.
She has sat on different nonprofit boards in the past and remains involved with the board at the Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts. She has also been involved at various levels with Habitat for Humanity, Trees of Hope Supporting Ronald McDonald House, Unify Against Bullying, and Dress for Success.
Meanwhile, the firm supports several different nonprofits and individual programs, with initiatives revolving on a monthly basis, and Reale makes a point of stepping up for each one.
Such as with those kids’ pajamas she started buying, with an emphasis on starting.
“I’m at 60, but I could be at 100 soon. This is fun; I enjoy this,” she said, adding that she does most of this kind of giving — including the purchase of pairs of Air Jordans for two teen boys in a family the firm adopted last holiday season — on a low-profile basis. (Since the firm went ‘casual’ at the height of COVID, she often wears Jordans herself; she says it gives her some street cred with the younger employees in the office.)
Overall, Reale is a giving person with an incredibly strong work ethic … and a great sense of humor, a blend of traits exemplified by her donation of a kidney to her husband 18 years ago, and the ultimate timing of that donation.
“I was tested and passed all the testing in late 2005, during the beginning of tax season,” she recalled. “I was cleared to be a donor in March of 2006, and they had an opening, but I told him I had to wait until the end of tax season. I said, ‘you waited like eight years … what’s a few more weeks?’”
All this explains why Reale is a Woman of Impact and why D’Agostino, who knew her father well, says he would undoubtedly be very proud of all she has accomplished and the manner in which she has, indeed, become a role model to so many.
Chief Business Educator, Monroe Naylor Consulting, LLC; President and CEO, Parent Villages
She Has a Passion and Purpose for Helping Others Find Their Own
Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
Mission-rich and Profit-powered.
That’s the title of the book LaTonia Monroe Naylor wrote, and its subtitle — A Guide to Transforming Your Passion Work into a Fully Funded Business — offers further clues to what’s inside.
And to how she helps businesses move purposefully to the next level, through her business, Monroe Naylor Consulting LLC, which seeks to help entrepreneurs build profitable, mission-driven businesses.
But that consultancy, and the book, are just two elements in what has become a life and career of helping others. It’s been a life of a Woman of Impact.
“When I came up with this, the idea was, how do you take your overwhelming passion and structure it in a way that you can be productive?” she explained.
“Most people don’t use the administrative part of their skillset, or they don’t have it, but that was a gift that I’ve always had,” Monroe Naylor told BusinessWest, noting that she was developing business acumen from a very early age, working at her uncle’s store.
While entrepreneurs typically bring the passion and purpose — that’s why they started the business, after all — they don’t necessarily know how to marry that with an understanding of how a successful business works. “Most people are not taught that because they don’t come from environments where people are teaching them that. So I want to teach people that; I want them to be successful.”
At the same time, “I want them to know that starting a business is not the only thing you should be focused on, so how do you sustain what you do and have harmony in your life?” she said, adding that people shouldn’t feel like they need to sacrifice time with their family for the sake of a job that keeps them separated 100 hours a week.
“That, to me, is mission-rich. How do you do the things that you love and embrace the things that you love, but still have enough stability that you can be comfortable and have a nice house?” she went on. “If you can’t have both, then you’re not going to be happy. And who wants to be miserable?”
Essentially, Monroe Naylor works with entrepreneurs, small-business owners, churches, and other organizations on culture, business sustainability, and other key elements of a thriving business. “I provide training on grants, management, strategy, funding, how to start your business, what you need, what kinds of people you need on your team. On the nonprofit side, how do you set up your board, who should be on your board, how do you ensure you stay compliant?
“Then, when I created the book, I literally thought about the last 20 years of my life. What were the biggest challenges and roadblocks that I ran into? And how do I simplify that for people in less than a three-hour read, so that they will actually read it?”
“How do you do the things that you love and embrace the things that you love, but still have enough stability that you can be comfortable and have a nice house? If you can’t have both, then you’re not going to be happy. And who wants to be miserable?”
Ayanna Crawford, president of AC Consulting and one of three individuals who nominated Monroe Naylor as a Woman of Impact, wrote that her story “serves as a testament to the power of resilience and unwavering dedication to making a difference. As a chief business educator, she inspires others to follow her lead and create lasting impact in their communities. She has reached the place she is today by focusing on others and making their needs a priority in light of her own.”
Back to School
Monroe Naylor has long had a heart for the community, which manifested in running for, and winning, a seat on the Springfield School Committee in 2017 — a decision also influenced by a desire to help her young son navigate the challenges of school and life.
“We ran a very grassroots, non-political campaign because we didn’t know any other way to do it,” she recalled. “We just wanted to help our kids. I feel like, if you do things for the right reason, the good will always come back to you. Even though a lot of bad may happen, I focus on the good.”
LaTonia Monroe Naylor says she wants people to be successful in business and happy in life.
Her experience on the committee led indirectly to her establishment, in 2018, of Parent Villages, a multi-faced nonprofit that works to improve educational achievement while also offering assistance for victims of violence, resources for family engagement and parent advocacy, and more.
The educational focus came from a presentation she heard as a School Committee member, about how 7% of kids aren’t prepared for kindergarten.
“I said, ‘70 or 7?’ And she was like, ‘7.’ So I said, ‘so 93% of our kids aren’t prepared for kindergarten.’ She said, ‘yeah,’ and I was floored,” Monroe Naylor recalled. “How can they be successful if they’re not ready for kindergarten? They’re starting off on a bad foot.”
So Parent Villages was born, first through meetings in at places like community centers and libraries.
“At one meeting, about 85 people came, all kinds of stakeholders, to try to understand what it is that we need to focus on,” she said. “And we found there were these disconnects; people just didn’t know about resources or how to access those resources.
“We also learned very quickly that the people who showed up to the meetings were parents like us, who were already in the 7% — our kids were already prepared. So how do we reach the other 93%? That’s when we built the organization and started to get into the schools, started working with Baystate Health and other programs to develop a strategy.”
Now, Parent Villages focuses on youth in grades 6 to 12 and their parents and caregivers — what Monroe Naylor called a two-generation model, which offers educational programming and workshops, but also provides interim support services.
“So if somebody is going through a domestic situation and needs housing, we help them. Over 90% of our folks are dealing with trauma, dealing with some type of violence, and just need help and support. They don’t know how to wrap their minds around where they need to go. We help them to see the end and see the potential they already have and help them grasp hold of the fact that they have a village, and that’s going to help them through it.”
The topic of trauma is personal to Monroe Naylor due to an event during her teenage years that almost killed her.
“I was shot when I was 16, and that changed my whole life,” she told BusinessWest. “I already had trauma dealing with the fact that I grew up in the neighborhood that I did — that was trauma enough. But when I was 16, I found a way to escape my day-to-day through music. I loved music, I used to rap, I used to do poetry; that was my safe space.”
So she’d spent time at local studios, working on her music. One day, while walking out of one, she was struck by a stray bullet from a fight on the street. Recovering from that physically wasn’t as challenging as the emotional aspects.
“It wasn’t just [the shooting] that that haunted me; it was the fear and the trauma after — the fear of going into certain spaces, or the fear of somebody coming after you. Those are the things you live with for the rest of your life.”
Through therapy, self-care, and a commitment to her faith, among other factors, she’s navigated that trauma, but always understood she had a solid support system, while many people dealing with trauma don’t, and need a village to be successful. Hence, the ‘village’ aspect of Parent Villages.
“It was the fear and the trauma after — the fear of going into certain spaces, or the fear of somebody coming after you. Those are the things you live with for the rest of your life.”
“The last couple of years, we’ve helped well over 700 people, and we consistently have about 40 youth that we work with throughout the year, and we have about 80 families that we’re working with, doing case management, throughout the year,” she said. “We have a great staff and a diverse board, and we focus on the important things that matter. We make sure we get what they need.”
An earlier nonprofit Monroe Naylor established in 2006, called VITAL Center, advised several nonprofit startups, sole proprietorships, and small businesses. These days, she’s also an adjunct professor at Springfield College and Worcester State University and volunteers as a mentor to youth and young adults in her church and community, establishing initiatives such as computer learning centers, youth summer programs, and other projects.
Care Starts at Home
Monroe Naylor is no stranger to being recognized. A member of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty class of 2016, she was also named a Massachusetts Commonwealth Unsung Heroine in 2020, won the Commonwealth Black Excellence Award in 2021, and was named Community Builder by the Urban League of Springfield in 2022.
But Woman of Impact may be the broadest and most accurate way to sum up her life, which she says has been profoundly shaped by so many of the people in it, from her mother to her husband, Mah’dee Naylor Sr., a pastor who founded Dwelling Place Church in Springfield earlier this year, and their four kids — not to mention community giants like Dora Robinson, who was impactful in her life in her early years.
And make no mistake: Monroe Naylor aims to be impactful every day, whether on the business plans of a budding entrepreneur, the trauma of a victim of violence, or the well-being of anyone struggling to be all things to all people.
“A lot of women leaders are so heavily focused on everybody else that they forget to take care of themselves,” she said. “We talk about all the great things that happen, but we don’t talk about our own trauma that we have to deal with, our own internal struggles. How do you gather the inner courage and the inner fortitude that it takes to be a person of impact, and be able to do it on a continual basis? That’s something we don’t talk about enough.”
At the end of the day, she said, being there for other people requires self-care, so she can wake up the next day and continue to have that impact on the lives of others.
“The model that I live by is, whatever you do, make sure you can sleep at night. And if I can’t, I won’t do it. That’s how I hold fast to what I do and the decisions that I make.”
Chief of Creative Strategy and Development, MiraVista Behavioral Health Center
Her Career Is a ‘Narrative of Commitment, Innovation, and Compassion’
Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
She called it the “Mom Squad.”
This was a group of mothers recruited by Kim Lee or community service at nonprofits and even a few Springfield city departments. Beyond the good work they were doing, these women were using that community service as a way to earn a voucher for childcare that would enable them to address that challenge and eventually go back to school or join the workforce.
Lee — then working as vice president of Advancement for the child- and family-services provider Square One, previously known as Springfield Day Nursery — read the fine print on the literature pertaining to childcare vouchers, noticed the section on community service, and then did what she’s done throughout her career: she went to work helping those were less fortunate and needed a leg up.
Whatever that might be.
“There are so many women who might not be working, might not be employed, or in school, but they want to be, but there is the major barrier, oftentimes, of childcare for their kids,” she said. “The idea was to use what was available to us in order to help these women get the childcare they needed. Meanwhile, through their volunteerism, they were able to gain skills they could put on a résumé.”
There are plenty of other examples of how, throughout Lee’s career, she has gone well above and beyond her official job description to help others while also advancing the mission of the nonprofit in question.
At the Basketball Hall of Fame, where she worked early in her career, she played a pivotal role in curating the “Freedom to Play” exhibit, a landmark project that not only celebrated the pivotal contributions of African-Americans to the sport of basketball, but also served as a platform for discussing the broader themes of racial equity and inclusion within sports and society at large.
Meanwhile, at the Mental Health Assoc. (MHA), she helped secure the donation of a patio set for a residential program for teens, an initiative that was about much more than outdoor furniture.
“It was not about the table and four chairs and the umbrella,” she said. “It was really about giving young people that place, that space, that medium to just enjoy their time together outside.”
At MHA and now at her current employer, MiraVista Behavioral Health Center, Lee has been an advocate for those with mental-health and substance issues, and a facilitator, if you will, for bringing many individuals into programs of care.
“Each professional opportunity I’ve had has afforded me the chance to reflect my personal values and what I deem to be extremely important, which is to make a difference in the community,” she said in summing up what could be called her life’s work. “I’ve always strived to reach individuals who need support and access to services, and harness the energy and resources of an organization to make an impact.”
“I’ve always strived to reach individuals who need support and access to services, and harness the energy and resources of an organization to make an impact.”
But to understand her commitment to empowering the most vulnerable in society, one needs to go back to when she was only in grade school.
Indeed, at age 10, she organized a carnival for the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Assoc. Telethon, raising significant funds and awareness of muscular dystrophy.
“This early venture into community service was a precursor to a lifetime of advocacy and engagement, setting the stage for her lifelong commitment to harnessing collective energy for the greater good,” wrote Darby O’Brien, president of Darby O’Brien Advertising, in his nomination of Lee for the Woman of Impact Award. “Throughout her career, Kim has spearheaded numerous outreach programs aimed at extending healthcare and support services beyond traditional settings, directly reaching those in urgent need.”
Kim Lee with Springfield Thunderbirds President Nate Costa and some teddy bears donated to the Center for Human Development’s youth-serving programs by the team through its teddy-bear drive.
O’Brien, who has worked with Lee on initiatives throughout her career, including the rebranding of Springfield Day Nursery to Square One, said her career is “a profound narrative of commitment, innovation, and compassion.
“From her early days organizing community events to her impactful work in healthcare and advocacy, she has consistently demonstrated what it means to be a leader who not only dreams of a better world, but takes tangible steps to create it,” he went on. “Kim’s enduring impact on individuals, families, and communities, coupled with her pioneering contributions to healthcare and social justice, make her an exemplary candidate for the Woman of Impact award.”
She’s a Shoe In
When Lee first applied for work at the United Way of Pioneer Valley after graduating from Westfield State University, she received a polite rejection in the mail.
Never one to give up easily on anything, she wrote back and included with the missive a man’s shoe.
“I told him I was just looking to get my foot in the door,” said Lee, referring to then-United Way Director Ty Joubert, who was so impressed with her creativity and determination that he put her on the payroll.
“This early venture into community service was a precursor to a lifetime of advocacy and engagement, setting the stage for her lifelong commitment to harnessing collective energy for the greater good.”
So began an impressive career in the broad realm of marketing, public relations, and development, one where creativity has been just one character trait she has brought to her work, in ways that have benefited not merely her employers, but the community at large.
After several years with the United Way, she was recruited (as she was with all subsequent positions) to the Basketball Hall of Fame, where she served as vice president of Marketing for three years before starting a lengthy stint with what was known then as Springfield Day Nursery.
As noted earlier, she was part of the team that rebranded the agency, but also one of the key players to lead the organization back from a series of unforeseen setbacks, including the 2011 tornado that destroyed its headquarters on Main Street in Springfield, and the 2012 gas explosion that rendered one of its facilities unusable.
In 2015, Lee was recruited to the Center for Human Development, where she served as vice president of Development and Marketing. There, among other things, she negotiated a strategic partnership with the Springfield Thunderbirds and also created and managed the Through Her Eyes Girls Conference. Designed for educators, social workers, and mentors with the goal of improving the lives of at-risk girls and young women, the conference drew 500 attendees annually and featured 21 workshops run by notable professionals.
Kim Lee, center, with groundskeepers at the Country Club of Wilbraham, whom she successfully recruited to collect winter coats for children.
In 2018, she moved to Springfield-based MHA, where, as vice president of Development and Branding, her list of accomplishments included the launch of the You Matter Award program to highlight employees and members of the community committed to making a difference in the lives of others.
Then, in 2022, she was recruited to MiraVista, where, as chief of Creative Strategy and Development, she has helped forge partnerships and strategic collaborations to drive new business, while also propelling enrollment in substance-use recovery programming among providers throughout the region.
All of which makes clear that, at each career stop, Lee has leveraged the opportunity given her and, as O’Brien put it, committed to “harnessing collective energy for the greater good.”
As she did with the Freedom to Play exhibit at the Hall of Fame.
“It was the first exhibit of its kind, and I did it with some phenomenal people in the African-American community,” she recalled. “It gave me a real sense of accomplishment to take that vision that we all collectively had, bring it to reality, and really celebrate those significant contributions.
“That was a great example of harnessing an organization and being able to use that as a platform in order to make an impact,” she went on. “When you think about it, Freedom to Play … yeah, it was about basketball, but it was really about giving voice to a whole demographic, to a whole community of individuals who had not really had a chance to tell their story in that way.”
A Drive to Meet Needs
There have been many other examples, of course, including that table and chairs for the residential program operated by MHA, one of myriad instances where Lee has been able to find things for the nonprofits she’s worked for through outreach, relationship building, and communicating need.
At MHA, she became so good at this that she was labeled a ‘waterfinder,’ meaning that, if something was needed by a group, be it winter coats or backpacks or presents around Christmas, she would go out into the community and find it — often from some outside-the-box sources.
Such was the case when she reached out to the course superintendent at the Country Club of Wilbraham with a request for winter coats.
“From her early days organizing community events to her impactful work in healthcare and advocacy, she has consistently demonstrated what it means to be a leader who not only dreams of a better world, but takes tangible steps to create it.”
I asked if they had any interest in doing a coat drive, and they sure did,” she recalled. “I knew they spent a lot of time outdoors, and I thought that perhaps they had some coats that had been gently worn, or perhaps they’d have some interest in supporting the folks at MHA — and they ended up producing bags of beautiful coats.”
At MiraVista, Lee hasn’t been called upon as much to find things, but she has been effective at linking individuals to needed services.
“I spend a lot of time in the community,” she told BusinessWest. “I’ve had the opportunity to just set up tables in local parks and meet individuals where they are in terms of wanting to address their substance-use addiction.
“It’s extremely rewarding when you meet an individual and they’re ready to step on that pathway to recovery,” she went on. “They say they’re going to come in to MiraVista the next day, and I’ll say, ‘when you get here, let me know that you’re here.’ And, sure enough, they come through the front door and they ask for me; it’s extremely satisfying.”
And it’s just one of many examples of why Lee is a Woman of Impact.
Throughout her career, she’s always done her job, but she has also gone well beyond the job and into the realm of community leader.
“Her leadership style is characterized by empathy, inclusivity, and a steadfast commitment to justice and equity,” O’Brien said in his nomination, noting that it has been this way since she got her foot in the door — or that man’s shoe, to be more precise — all those years ago.
Executive Director, Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity
She Helps Families Achieve Life-changing Stability, One House at a Time
Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
“Timing is everything.”
That’s how Megan McDonough described the circumstances that saw her arrive at Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity in 2013 and take the reins as executive director a year later.
And she’s grateful for that timing — and the experiences that led her to be successful in that role — because of what the organization’s work has meant to so many low-income families achieving home ownership for the first time.
That experience began with a master’s degree in regional planning at UMass Amherst, with a concentration in housing and social issues. “My concentration was part of an overall desire to make a difference in the community and realizing how important housing was in that journey,” she said.
After working at the Center for EcoTechnology (CET) in Northampton for seven years, she joined Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity in 2013 as an office manager and was quickly elevated to the post of Operations manager, working with volunteer build teams and overseeing applications for zoning, planning, and building permits. In 2014, she shepherded the first Women Build project for two net-zero-energy homes — the chapter’s first — in Easthampton.
“Her work has empowered many women and families of marginalized racial identities to achieve the first step in building generational wealth through affordable home ownership.”
Those efforts, among others, caught the attention of Habitat’s board of directors, and when the organization’s executive director stepped down in 2014, McDonough won the job over 30 other applicants.
“It was clear to me after a couple weeks as interim ED that Megan would make a great ED,” said Peter Jessop, then board president. “It was her attention to detail and her can-do attitude that most impressed me during my short tenure at the board helm.”
McDonough told BusinessWest she was confident in her ability to lead the affiliate. “I had previous management experience and a master’s degree in planning and housing, and the board decided I was the best fit to take that leadership role.”
A decade later, that decision has been proven correct many times over, and McDonough has carved out a … well, impactful place helping families achieve stability in life. That’s a word she used a few times during this interview, and for good reason.
Megan McDonough (center) with Charles Roberts and Aelan Tierney of Kuhn Riddle Architects & Designers, which has provided pro bono design services for Habitat for Humanity projects.
“Stability is a word we use a lot because, when you’re a renter, you’re at the whim of your landlord; if they want to sell the building or the house, you’ve got to move,” she said. “Even if you’ve been a perfect tenant, you can still experience housing instability as a renter — whereas, when you own your own home, that gives you certainty to say, ‘OK, I’m putting down roots in this community.’”
She noted that Habitat International has done studies showing improved educational, health, and economic outcomes stemming from home ownership. “I’ve also heard anecdotal stories about our homeowners pursuing higher education or different job opportunities because they have that stability.”
Aelan Tierney, president of Kuhn Riddle Architects & Designers, nominated McDonough as a Woman of Impact, having worked with her during her time at CET, focusing on sustainable and energy-efficient building practices, and, more recently, having provided pro bono design services for sustainable Habitat building projects.
“Over these years, we have been witness to Megan’s unwavering passion and commitment to developing affordable, sustainable homes,” wrote Tierney, a Woman of Impact herself. “Her work has empowered many women and families of marginalized racial identities to achieve the first step in building generational wealth through affordable home ownership.”
“There’s this deep impact that happens with the family that’s selected and becomes a homeowner, but there are also hundreds of volunteers who are impacted as well, and I think that’s often underappreciated.”
Tierney noted that McDonough and her team have especially impacted the lives of single parents, many of whom never imagined home ownership would be achievable. In fact, of the 58 houses the nonprofit has completed, 60% are owned by female heads of household.
“Research reveals that Habitat homeowners go on to achieve higher levels of education, more advanced jobs, and better health outcomes than their non-homeowning peers,” Tierney added, “and as taxpaying members of their communities, they have more voice in and impact on their local towns and neighborhoods.”
Impact that ripples outward into the community and across generations — that’s Habitat for Humanity in a nutshell, and it’s also McDonough’s passion.
Building on a Vision
McDonough was quick to explain what Habitat does — or, more specifically, dispel some common misconceptions, like the notion that the homeowners are getting a free house.
“Habitat for Humanity builds homes for low-income families and then sells it to them with an affordable mortgage. And we do that to build strength, stability, and self-reliance for those future homebuyers,” she told BusinessWest. “We don’t give away homes for free. They do purchase them, but at a price that’s much more affordable than you could find in this area on your own.”
Habitat for Humanity projects bring together a raft of volunteers, both individuals and businesses.
That’s an especially big deal these days, as home prices are soaring. Equally important is the work the homeowners put into the projects.
“That’s the other thing that’s special about Habitat for Humanity: the future homeowners help build their own houses. They put in sweat equity in the construction alongside community volunteers, who also help bring down the cost of building the homes by donating their time,” she explained.
“It’s empowering to know they helped build the house and that they can take care of it themselves,” she went on. “One of the side benefits of sweat equity is they actually learn a lot of construction skills and how to use power tools. They were there caulking and painting alongside the volunteers, so if something needs to be touched up later, they’ll know how to do it.”
A roster of local businesses, from builders and roofers to landscapers and solar-energy installers, offer discounted materials to Habitat and even send workers to help out on a job, McDonough noted, adding that the organization relies first and foremost on volunteer labor.
“There’s this deep impact that happens with the family that’s selected and becomes a homeowner, but there are also hundreds of volunteers who are impacted as well, and I think that’s often underappreciated,” she said. “There’s the college student who learns how to use a hammer for the first time, or the professional carpenter who gets to give back and feels the accomplishment of sharing their skills and knowledge. There’s a lot of social capital building and community building that happens when people work together for a common goal. It’s extremely gratifying.”
“We had almost 80 applications for our last house here in Northampton, so the need couldn’t be greater.”
One of the key evolutions in the organization’s work has been an emphasis on energy efficiency and green building.
“We work really hard on bringing down our costs, selling a home at an affordable price, but if we get someone in there and they can’t afford their utility bill, we sort of missed the mark,” she said. “We’re not building fancy McMansions. We’re building a box, but a nice box — a new one with good insulation and high-efficiency mechanical systems. And we have been getting those homes Energy Star-certified for a number of years, and have added some additional green-building certifications as well.”
That focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy is a way to impact the future, McDonough told BusinessWest. “It’s not cost-effective to build small, simple, energy-efficient homes. They’re just not getting built in the marketplace. So it’s also really unique that we build high-quality but simple homes. We have laminate countertops; these aren’t luxury granite countertops. But we also have extra insulation in the walls to make sure it’ll be a cozy house. We put in air-source heat pumps so it can be all electric and part of the decarbonization of the future.”
At the same time, during her 10 years as the affiliate’s executive director, McDonough has hired and mentored dozens of interns through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s internship program, and a significant number of these interns have gone on to careers in sustainable housing or related industries.
Generational Impact
The application process to be selected for a Habitat home is rigorous, McDonough said, and everyone who meets the criteria is placed into a lottery.
“They must have a minimum income so they can afford that mortgage, and they must good-enough credit so that they don’t have other creditors who are going to endanger their ability to pay their mortgage. And they have to have a low-enough income, under 60% of the median income, so that they have a housing need and couldn’t just go buy a house elsewhere.”
For many such individuals, without Habitat’s help, especially in the current market, home ownership would be simply unattainable.
“There’s a lot of talk right now about affordable opportunities for housing. That’s a huge story, and it can seem overwhelming, and the average person thinks, ‘well, that’s for someone else to deal with. That’s for the politicians or the developers,’” McDonough said.
“One of the things I value about Habitat for Humanity is that we know there’s this huge problem, and we know we have neighbors living in unsanitary, unsafe, or unaffordable housing, and we can’t necessarily solve that whole problem overnight,” she continued. “But can I show up tomorrow and do something to help this one family have a safe and stable place to call home. We take that huge problem and break it down into actionable steps. Someone’s got to go to the store and buy the paint, someone’s got to pick up the paintbrush and put it on the wall, someone’s got to raise a hammer. All these community volunteers come together to make it happen.”
As Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity celebrates its 35th anniversary, McDonough and her team have instituted the Framing the Future Legacy Society, which encourages donors to consider a legacy gift in their estate planning — another way the nonprofit is creating generational impact.
“Some of our volunteers have been here for 20-plus years,” she said, adding that there’s always a need for more. “And that longevity, that investment of time from the community, is what has built our ability to build good houses for these future homebuyers.
“I only see that growing in the future, so we can help as many families as we can,” she added. “We had almost 80 applications for our last house here in Northampton, so the need couldn’t be greater. My hope is that we can continue to navigate the complex systems, mortgages, construction, and fundraising, and increase our impact as we go forward.”
For leading these efforts to create safe, affordable housing and change lives throughout the Pioneer Valley, one build at a time, Megan McDonough is certainly a Woman of Impact.
She Has Long Understood the Importance of Getting Involved
Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
JoAnne Finck grew up in Holyoke in what she described as “modest” surroundings. Her parents, from a young age, impressed upon her the importance of appreciating what one has and assisting those in need.
“They always taught me the value of helping,” she recalled. “One of the things that was really important was that my mother and father would always say, ‘there’s someone who has it worse, so what can you do to help?’”
All through her life, she’s been asking that question — and answering it proactively.
Indeed, throughout a career that has taken her from banking to a leadership role with an insurance company co-owned by her husband, Roger, to serving Friends of Cooley Dickinson (currently as its president), she has always gotten involved, and she has always worked to build a stronger community.
“My goal in life was to always to make a difference — in the community, and in someone’s life,” she said. “And if you can make the change for one person, then you’ve succeeded.”
She’s done just that while serving in volunteer leadership roles for local organizations ranging from the United Way of Hampshire and Franklin Counties to the UMass Fine Arts Center; from Pioneer Valley Symphony to the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce.
And she has especially done that in her role with Friends of Cooley Dickinson, where she has energized the organization and infused it with new members, while also leading several fundraising campaigns for CDH, now part of Mass General Brigham.
Finck chaired the Building Our Future Campaign, a comprehensive campaign that raised funds for the Mass General Cancer Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. She also volunteered on the Caring for the Future Campaign and was pivotal in raising funds for the Kittredge Surgery Center and an addition to the North Building.
The goal for the Building Our Future Campaign was $8.2 million, but $11.4 million was raised, in part due to Finck’s persistence, drive, and ability to communicate the importance of a strong CDH, and a modern, state-of-the-art cancer center, to Northampton and the communities that surround it.
“As a campaign volunteer, she stands out because of her unwavering enthusiasm and commitment; her grace, dedication to community, and persistency were paramount to our success,” wrote Christina Trinchero, Communications director for CDH, in nominating Finck as a Woman of Impact.
As she talked about raising money, be it for a college, a nonprofit, the United Way, or CDH — and she’s done it for all of the above — Finck said it is both art and science, and there is a key ingredient to success.
“One of the things that was really important was that my mother and father would always say, ‘there’s someone who has it worse, so what can you do to help?’”
“No one likes to ask for money, but if you believe in something, that makes it much easier,” she explained. “I don’t take every single cause — I look to how you can make a difference, how we can make a change, and if I believe in something, I will be very passionate, and I ask.”
“The hospital is a core supporter of the area; we are so lucky to have a world-class community hospital here,” she went on, adding that the merger with Mass General has taken the level of care and access to resources, specialists, and options to a new and much higher level. “Cooley will always be special to me in regards to being there for family and friends and giving our community world-class care within a community-hospital environment. Cooley makes a difference in the lives of its patients.”
She obviously knows a little about making a difference, and has essentially spent a lifetime doing what her parents impressed upon her that she needed to do — make full use of her time and talents to help others.
“Because of her expansive commitment to organizations across our community, JoAnne has made a lasting impact in a variety of areas ranging from education and healthcare to fine arts and social services,” said Trinchero, speaking for countless others when she said Finck is certainly a Woman of Impact.
Collecting Experience
Soon after graduating from Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y. and working briefly as a “grunt” on Wall Street, Finck returned to this region — and a tough job market — and eventually found work at Shawmut Bank in Greenfield, in its collection department.
She had a number of responsibilities, including being part of two-person teams that would repossess cars from owners who had fallen behind on their payments. And in the recession years of the early ’80s, there were plenty of cars to repossess.
JoAnne Finck and her husband, Roger, have long been strong supporters of Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
It was not glamorous work, obviously, and not something she recalls with any fondness, but it was a learning experience on many levels, and it reinforced an already-strong desire to help others.
“I got that delinquent rate from over 10% to 0.5% in less than a year,” she recalled. “And I learned that I was very good at working with people and helping them. I would try to work with them and say, ‘this is what you need to do … communicate with me, and we’ll get you on the right path.’”
She would move on the loan office, and as her banking career progressed, her desire to get involved in the community grew. She ran the Sustaining Campaign for Youth for the local YMCA in 1982, a successful initiative that would inspire involvement with the United Way of Franklin County.
“It helped children, it helped people of need, and, being the treasurer, I knew that the money raised stayed in the community, so I got very vested in the United Way,” she said, adding that she volunteered on its board for more than 20 years (including as treasurer and chair), ran leadership giving, and chaired its campaign in 1999.
“I was very vested in the United Way because I saw how it helped so many people,” she told BusinessWest. “We would have people speak to us, people who were homeless, people who had drug issues, and they talked about how this one place, the United Way, helped them. It was so impactful — for me, it was easy to raise the money. I hate asking people, but this was making a difference in people’s lives.”
“As a campaign volunteer, she stands out because of her unwavering enthusiasm and commitment; her grace, dedication to community, and persistency were paramount to our success.”
Finck also handled major gifts for Lilly Library in Florence before getting heavily involved with another institution in that area — CDH. Or more involved, to be more precise.
In the late ’80s, she would take part in phone-a-thons for the hospital’s annual giving campaigns before taking on a larger role with several of its fundraising drives, including the comprehensive Building Our Future campaign as well as the initiative for the cancer center, which started in 2008 and took eight years, largely because the hospital was in the process of being merged into a larger, still-undetermined healthcare group.
Later, she would get involved with Friends of Cooley Dickinson (formerly the hospital auxiliary), which this year is celebrating its 120th anniversary.
The group runs the hospital’s coffee and gift shops, conducts events, places art throughout the hospital (which can be purchased, with some of the proceeds going to Friends), and stages several fundraising events, including an annual Trees of Love event in the Healing Garden and an arts-and-crafts auction.
It has grown and gained new energy under Finck, who was recruited to be its president, as Trinchero explained in her nomination.
“She blends a respect for traditions and history of the auxiliary with a dynamic ability to manage change,” she wrote, “thus keeping long-standing auxilians and volunteers involved, while recruiting new members to reinvigorate the group.”
A ‘Giving’ Person
Finck’s passion for supporting CDH is in many ways personal.
JoAnne Finck has been instrumental in many of the fundraising campaigns that have reshaped Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
To explain, she turned back the clock 20 years to when she arrived home at 2 a.m. after attending an insurance event.
“All the lights were on in the house,” she said. “My husband … I thought he was having a heart attack. He was pale; he was sweating. He said, ‘I sat up, I walked, and something was definitely wrong.’”
She took him to the ER at CDH, where X-rays were taken.
“You know it’s bad when they call you back right away,” she said, adding that tests revealed a huge mass in his chest, which turned out to be the largest bronchogenic cyst that anyone involved with removing it had ever seen. Finck said those at CDH (this was pre-merger days) fast-tracked her husband to Beth Israel Hospital and its head thoracic surgeon.
“We were just average people coming in with a problem,” she said, adding that, around that time, she was doing what she called minor fundraising for the hospital. She was good friends with Mike Kittredge, the founder of Yankee Candle, who passed away several years ago, who offered to make some phone calls on her behalf. She said that wouldn’t be necessary.
“The hospital took us under their wing, shipped us to Boston, and got it squared away. He had a six-month recovery, but he’s 100%,” she went on. “We were no one special, and that’s the point — they treat everyone like that.”
Repeat evidence to this effect has inspired Finck as she has taken on the lead in fundraising campaigns and her work with Friends, both of which she finds rewarding and fulfilling.
Especially the fundraising.
As she mentioned earlier, it isn’t easy asking for money — for anything and at any time — but when the cause is good, the assignment is easier. And when it comes to the campaigns at CDH and their purposes — from the cancer center to the ER to the childbirth center — the impact on the community is enormous.
Getting back to the art and science of making the ask, and getting individuals and institutions to commit, she said it comes down to being honest, persistent, and, above all, a true believer in the cause.
“When taking on a project, you must believe in the project and then research its impact to people and the community,” she explained. “Timing is essential for the ask, as is listening to the people you are talking to. After the ask … follow up, and then even more follow-up is mandatory, but the most important part is a ‘thank you’ — regardless of the outcome.”
Finck has become quite proficient at all of this, and that’s just one of many reasons why she’s a Woman of Impact.
Council Director, Girls on the Run Western Massachusetts
She’s Helping Girls Become More Joyful, Healthy, and Confident
Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
As someone with almost 20 years of experience in the fields of psychology and social work, Alison Berman was no stranger to working with young people. And when she learned about a national organization called Girls on the Run, something clicked.
“I had always wanted to work with kids and families,” she said of her motivation to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in social work from Smith College, after which she ran therapeutic preschools, worked in outpatient, inpatient, and day treatment; and did a lot of work in schools with trauma-sensitive programs.
Then she learned, through a friend of a friend, about Girls on the Run (GOTR), a physical activity-based, positive youth-development program that uses running games and dynamic discussions to teach life skills to girls in grades 3-8.
“There was no council here at that point. And it kind of fit into everything I was passionate about; I used to do a lot of group work, so the curriculum really spoke to me in the sense of the social-emotional life-skills piece, and integrating a physically active component. I guess I always wanted to do something bigger than just the individual impact I felt like I was making.”
Each Girls on the Run chapter conducts two 10-week seasons per year, in the fall and spring. Each session features a life-skills lesson drawn from a nationally distributed curriculum. Meanwhile, each team tackles a community-impact project to give back to their community. Both seasons each year end with a 5K celebration, with the spring event typically being the larger of the two.
The Western Mass. council of GOTR launched in 2015 with 90 girls on six teams. Now, the chapter boasts 80 different teams — more than 1,800 girls in all — and more than 300 volunteer coaches across Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties. The national Girls on the Run organization was formed in 1996 and has since reached more than 2 million girls, with at least one council in every state; three call Massachusetts home.
The national curriculum gets updated regularly to meet the needs of where girls are right now, Berman told BusinessWest.
“A lot of stuff has evolved around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in terms of mobility issues, disability, and then just streamlining the curriculum so that it’s easier for coaches also to deliver, but also making sure it’s meeting the needs of kids today,” she said. “We know there’s a mental-health crisis with kids, so they make sure the curriculum deals with issues that are very relevant to what’s going on.
“The overarching goal is to increase confidence and have kids realize that they can do things that they didn’t think were possible,” she added. “So, yes, that’s the 5K at the end, but to me, the overarching goals are, how can I be a better friend? How can I communicate more effectively? How can I stand up for myself and others?”
“The overarching goal is to increase confidence and have kids realize that they can do things that they didn’t think were possible.”
For helping girls answer those questions and become happier, healthier (in all ways), and more confident, Berman is certainly a Woman of Impact.
Running with a Purpose
Girls on the Run claims to make a stronger impact than organized sports and physical-education programs when it comes to teaching life skills such as managing emotions, resolving conflict, helping others, and making intentional decisions. There are separate curriculums for grades 3-5 and 6-8, so the lessons are age-appropriate. And the girls keep journals to track their personal goals and progress.
Girls on the Run Western Massachusetts has now served more than 10,000 young participants.
That sense of personal growth — Girls on the Run describes itself as developing joyful, healthy, and confident girls — is an attractive quality when so many negative factors are weighing on kids’ mental health these days, Berman said. Specifically, the pandemic exacerbated those issues in ways that have not yet totally resolved.
“We know girls are having hospital visits, suicide attempts, having increased numbers of depression and anxiety. And it doesn’t mean it’s not happening with boys as well, but with girls, it has dramatically shot up, whether it’s related to the pandemic or everything else going on in society.”
In addition, by age 9 or 10, confidence among girls tends to decline rapidly, Berman explained. “They tend to drop out of youth sports or organized sports in those years. So I do feel like this piece is really helping bolster kids’ confidence and giving them some skills they can take with them.”
“Schools don’t have time to do the social-emotional piece. So I feel like their kids are really getting it from this curriculum.”
The changes in girls are noticeable, she added, even to their teachers and coaches back at school.
“They talk about how, in the classroom, they see the kids doing these exact things, like standing up for other kids. They say kids who haven’t been speaking in the classroom, who have been essentially mute, go and do Girls on the Run and come out of their shell, and then are back in the classroom taking a bigger role and speaking.
“So we’re really seeing the transfer of those skills,” she went on. “It’s amazing because schools don’t have time to do the social-emotional piece. So I feel like their kids are really getting it from this curriculum.”
Lisa Queenin, Development & Outreach manager for GOTR Western Massachusetts, who nominated Berman as a Woman of Impact, said it’s hard to overstate the mental-health issues among young people right now.
“Over the past decade, mental-health concerns among youth have escalated, with a notable increase in anxiety, stress, feelings of fear, and isolation. This crisis disproportionately affects girls. At the same time, schools were having to cut back on physical education and social-emotional learning,” she wrote. “Girls on the Run works to negate mental-health risk factors among girls.”
And it doesn’t happen in a vacuum, she added, but is the result of purposeful, compassionate leadership.
“Alison has fostered relationships with school principals and staff, who are an integral part of making the program possible,” she went on. “She works closely with coaches to make sure they feel supported and appreciated — they are the backbone of the program. Girls on the Run inspires girls to build lives of purpose and to make a meaningful contribution to society. I can’t think of anyone more capable of modeling this than Alison.”
Alison Berman says Girls on the Run is capturing girls at an age when they tend to lose confidence and drop out of organized sports. Photo by Focus Ashely Photos
At the same time, the program budget has increased to $432,000, derived from a variety of funding sources. In 2023, GOTR Western Massachusetts served 1,800 girls and provided more than $130,000 in need-based scholarships, roughly 30% of its budget.
“Alison makes sure that no girl is turned away from the program based on financial need,” Queenin wrote. “Her enthusiasm and genuine compassion inspire others to get behind the program and invest in its success.”
It’s a program that has certainly caught on and steadily grown nationwide; data from a national spring 2024 end-of-season survey of coaches, participants, and families showed that 95% of girls reported feeling more confident, and 92% of girls said they learned things at GOTR to help deal with strong emotions.
Life Lessons
Teachers have definitely noticed, which may explain why they make up the vast majority of volunteers in the GOTR Western Mass. council.
“They’re doing this volunteering after they’ve spent a long day in the classroom, because, I think, they get to know the kids in a different way and have a different relationship, but also they see the impacts in their own classrooms,” Berman said. “And principals have told us that they see it reshaping the culture of their school as well. Parents are more involved, and attendance goes up with those kids.”
This aspect of the program — that rippling impact, as it were — delights Berman.
“When we started it, we never realized the impact it would have beyond the girls,” she said. “So when we see the impact on families and schools, I’m amazed by that. I see it as like this web that’s spread out around Western Mass., with the impact it’s had on the coaches and parents and schools.”
Communities are impacted as well; as noted earlier, a big piece of the curriculum is a project where each team does something to give back to their community.
“The Humane Society just gave us an award. We have girls giving to animal shelters or cleaning up their schools, planting gardens, writing notes to veterans. It’s up to the kids to decide, and part of that lesson is learning about compromise and figuring out what’s needed in their community. It’s seeing beyond themselves.”
Girls on the Run continues to see further opportunities as well, like a summer camp that essentially adds a third season to the annual programming. “It’s growing slowly, but we had about 40 girls this summer in camp. And they loved it,” Berman said. “Again, our coaches volunteer to come back and do that, which also shows how much they love the program.”
“Girls on the Run inspires girls to build lives of purpose and to make a meaningful contribution to society. I can’t think of anyone more capable of modeling this than Alison.”
Much of this success builds on early efforts by Berman to get the local council going, Queenin noted. “While the mission of Girls on the Run resonated deeply with Alison, starting a nonprofit organization from the ground up is no easy feat. Working for the first year without pay, Alison assembled a board of directors and drew on their expertise and connections to chart a course. She fundraised enough money from interested community members to attend training and secure the requisite license to create a council. She had to learn many new skills, from fundraising and budgeting to training and vetting volunteer coaches, all in real time.”
And now, GOTR Western Massachusetts has served more than 10,000 participants. With many alums now graduating from high school, the council started a scholarship program to support their further education. “That’s exciting, being able to help support kids to keep going,” Berman said. “And when we had teens apply for the scholarship program last year, they talked about the impact that it had on them.”
That impact has extended, in many cases, to continued athletic endeavors in high school and college, she noted. “Many of them talked about the impact of the values that they learned from Girls on the Run about helping others and giving back to their community.”
So it’s about much more than running, she said, but that end-of-season 5K is still inspiring.
“It brings tears to your eyes. It’s not timed; it’s not about who can run fast, and families show up with their entire extended family, sometimes wearing matching shirts, to support their kid. Parents who’ve never walked three miles are out there walking three miles, so it’s a ripple effect of getting families outside as well. That’s awesome.”
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community, and created the Women of Impact program in 2018 to further honor women who have the drive and ability to move the needle in their own business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The nine stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2023 features:
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community, and created the Women of Impact program in 2018 to further honor women who have the drive and ability to move the needle in their own business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The nine stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, advocates for people in need, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2023 features:
BusinessWest will honor its sixth annual Women of Impact on Thursday, Dec. 7 at Sheraton Springfield. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10 are available.
President, Aero Design Aircraft Services and Fly Lugu Flight Training
She Inspires Her Students and Others Around Her to Soar Higher
“It’s like being in a time machine.”
That’s how Fredrika (Rika) Ballard described flying, a passion she has enjoyed pretty much her whole life and one she now inspires others to pursue.
While you can’t really go back or forward in time with an airplane, you can get somewhere fast — somewhere like Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, she said, offering up just two examples.
She can get to the Vineyard in 30 minutes in her twin-engined Beechcraft Baron, while others, using standard means of transportation — a car and then the ferry — would probably need five, maybe six hours, depending on the traffic and which ferry they took.
“For me, flying means freedom — I’m as comfortable in the air as I am on the ground,” said Ballard, president and lead flight instructor at Aero Design Aircraft Services and Fly Lugu Flight Training in Westfield, who has flown everything from tiny ‘beginner’ planes to a corporate jet.
Lugu, by the way, is an industry term. Well, sort of. It’s what Ballard’s father used to say about the yoke, or control column, of the airplane.
“She is not an instructor who just teaches. She is a coach, a friend, a trusting companion that inspires and helps you flourish.”
“The plane goes where you look,” she said. “If you’re looking down or you’re looking at the ground, you’re subconsciously putting the yoke forward, and the plane starts going down. But when you look up, you subconsciously pull the yoke toward you, and the plane goes up. Look up, go up — that’s what Lugu means; you’re only going up from here.”
Those letters are part of a design for the company she was thinking and dreaming about, starting quite literally with a drawing on a napkin in early 2019 (more on that later), while not really believing that the dream was going to come true.
It has, and the reality has gone well beyond a flight school. Indeed, Ballard now owns a maintenance shop at Barnes Municipal Airport, where she employs four mechanics, and is involved with initiatives to build new hangars at the airport.
As for the flight school, it continues a strong pattern of growth and now boasts nine planes (with more on the way), 10 instructors, 130 students on average, and roughly 24 flights per day — if the weather is cooperating.
As a flier, flight instructor, and serial entrepreneur, Ballard has become much more to those around her. She’s an inspiration as well as a facilitator of sorts, helping others find the freedom of flying, especially women, who are still firmly in the minority when it comes to this pastime, but are, well, gaining ground.
Saba Shahid, one of Ballard’s students, explained things nicely as she nominated her to be a Woman of Impact.
“She is not an instructor who just teaches,” Shahid wrote. “She is a coach, a friend, a trusting companion that inspires and helps you flourish. Rika is someone I consider to be a role model that is standing up for women every day and inspiring us to know that the sky is not our limit.
“Being a female pilot is about shattering stereotypes and showing the world what women are all about,” she went on. “Rika does this each day for the women and men that go to her school.”
Such sentiments explain why Ballard is among the Women of Impact for 2023.
Plane Speaking
The walls of Ballard’s office at the terminal building at Barnes are ringed with photographs of her students beside or in the aircraft in which they stretched their wings — literally and figuratively. Each one tells a story, but collectively they tell a broader story about flying and those who are pursuing that sense of freedom she spoke of.
It’s mostly men in the pictures, but there are many women as well. Some are young, others a little older. A few are retired and looking for a new adventure. And then, there’s the 91-year-old man intent on earning his license.
“It was a bucket-list thing for him, and he’s taken six or seven lessons,” she said, adding that there is, overall, greater interest in pursuing a license these days. A shortage of airline pilots has something to do with it, but there are other reasons as well, including pursuit of that freedom and the ability to get to places like the Vineyard in 30 minutes, as well as pandemic-inspired efforts to draw lines on individuals’ to-do lists, including the dream of learning to fly.
The photos also help tell Ballard’s story, at least the chapter that started with the napkin she drew Lugu on. We’ll get back to that, but first we need to go back much further.
Ballard said she was introduced to flying by her father, a general aviation pilot and engineer by trade.
“I’ve been flying as long as I can remember,” she said, adding that she cut her teeth on an Aerona Champion, known as the ‘Champ,’ and then a Beechcraft Bonanza, both small, single-engine planes.
She soloed on her 16th birthday, at Barnes, and got her license at the earliest age she could — 17. Since then, flying has been a lifelong pursuit: a passion, and then a business. But always a passion.
She and her husband are avid hikers, and they will regularly fly to Mount Washington for an afternoon. She flies to Martha’s Vineyard once a week, on average, to visit family or friends. Sometimes, it will just be for lunch or dinner.
“I like to fly for food,” she said with a laugh, adding that most general-aviation airports like Barnes will have ‘courtesy cars’ to borrow and take into town for a meal or shopping. “It’s always fun to meet new people and see different parts of the country; flying gives you the freedom to do all that.”
It wasn’t until she retired in 2018 from her role as administrator at Facial Cosmetic & Maxillofacial Surgery and then earned her advanced licenses that she started to think about shaping her time machine into a business. With those credentials, she could become an instructor, and a friend offered her an opportunity, and a plane, to do so.
But the plane was poorly maintained, and the opportunity just wasn’t right.
“I just wasn’t feeling it,” she said, adding that, soon thereafter, she was at a bar with a friend, took the napkin in front of her, and doodled out a script ‘Fly Lugu,’ with planes (actually arrows on the first take) on some of the letters for effect.
“I had enough money to buy a starter plane, and my friend, a business person in the area, said, ‘why don’t you just buy a plane and start a school?’” she recalled. “And I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.’”
The Wild Blu
So she started thinking about it, and with no flying school at Barnes at the time and, on her end, the requisite time, capital, enthusiasm, and drive, she decided to take the plunge — or, in this case, the climb, another industry term.
She started in August 2019 with a few students and one plane, a Cessna 172 named Blu — all her planes have names. She didn’t sign the lease for space in the terminal building until February 2020 — yes, a few weeks before the pandemic largely shut down Western Mass.
She persevered, as other businesses did, by getting creative and finding ways to carry on — with Zoom calls, remote lessons, meeting students who could solo on the runway ramp before their flights, and, later, resuming training flights with masks and other PPE.
And when the skies cleared (pandemic-wise), many of those who were home and thinking about items on their bucket list — and things they may have started but never finished — turned their attention to flying.
“When we could start to fly again, I was flying sunrise to sunset every day,” she recalled. “I had another instructor come on because I couldn’t handle it all alone; there was a lot of demand.
And while things have cooled off somewhat, business has remained brisk, with Ballard adding planes and instructors regularly over the past three years.
“When we could start to fly again, I was flying sunrise to sunset every day.”
Aas noted earlier, she has become a serial entrepreneur, acquiring the maintenance shop at Barnes, called AeroDesign, based in a hangar that dates in 1926 and the early days of the airport; becoming a partner in the construction of new hangars at the airport; and also partnering with the New England Air Museum to be its official flight school.
Beyond all these accomplishments and ambitious future plans, Ballard has made it a mission to encourage, and inspire, more women to take to the skies. And she is succeeding in that mission with Shahid and many others, including a former student who is now an instructor at Lugu.
“Rika has been an extraordinary leader empowering women to enter the field of aviation and be confident in their abilities,” Shahid wrote in her nomination. “She is breaking barriers and stereotypes each day to make it easier for women to succeed in this field.”
Blu and the other aircraft in what can now be called a fleet have become the vehicles with which others are experiencing the freedom of flying. For most, this will be at least a yearlong journey — longer if the weather is like it has been this year.
Soar Subject
As a flyer, flight instructor, and owner of a flight school, Ballard is certainly plugged into the weather. She has several weather apps on her phone and is always watching the sky for clues about what’s on the horizon.
“You almost become like an amateur meteorologist, because you’re always looking at the sky, and you get to know the patterns of the weather and what works and what doesn’t,” she said, adding that those who want a reliable forecast will turn to her.
At the moment, the forecast for her business is clear with a strong chance of continued growth. She’s an optimist who prefers to put her faith in what her father said about pulling the yoke — “you’re only going up from here.”
Her ability to breed confidence in others and set their sights higher, whether they’re flying in Blu and coping with the many other challenges of life, explains why Ballard is a Woman of Impact.
She’s a Driving Force in Business and Efforts to Promote Gender Equity
By now, Carla Cosenzi says, the automobile-sales industry should be … well, more welcoming to women, more accepting of women, more … inviting to women.
But, in most respects, and she would certainly know about this, it isn’t.
Overall, this is still a man’s world, said Cosenzi, who notes that, when attending regional or national conferences or dealer meetings, she is the among the few women in the room, and the expectation is for her not to be the owner. Indeed, many of those who don’t know her believe she is the spokesperson for TommyCar Auto Group, or that she works for her father or her husband.
“I get that all the time … people think my husband is involved,” she told BusinessWest, adding that he isn’t, and never has been. (Her husband, Nick Zayac, owns a construction company.)
“It’s still really a difficult industry for a female, especially in this type of position or role,” she went on, adding that this extends to her own company — although certainly not for long after someone joins the team. “Many still don’t fully understand how involved I am in the business and how much I know and how much I have worked through all the different departments here, and how hands-on I am. And there’s always a different dynamic between a male and female in business, versus a male and a male.”
Cosenzi not only perseveres in this man’s world, she works hard to bring women into the business, mentor them, and inspire and empower them to advance. TommyCar Auto boasts many women in roles traditionally held by men — everything from mechanic to parts manager. Overall, roughly one-third of the company’s 150 employees are women, far exceeding what Cosenzi believes is the industry average.
“It’s still really a difficult industry for a female, especially in this type of position or role.”
“I’m obviously proud to have so many women working under the TommyCar umbrella,” she said, “but what I’m most proud of is that so many of those women are working in non-traditional roles, such as service advisor, service manager, technician, body-shop technician, or general sales manager; we have at least one woman in a manager or leadership role at every one of our dealerships.”
This strong desire to inspire, mentor, and empower women to succeed, in their lives and careers — a recurring theme among this year’s Women of Impact honorees — is just one of the reasons why Cosenzi is a member of the class of 2023.
Carla Cosenzi and her bother, Tom, present a check for more than $150,000 — proceeds from the 2022 Tom Cosenzi Driving for the Cure Golf Tournament — to Dr. Patrick Wen of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Her success in business is another. She has greatly expanded the family enterprise started by her grandfather to now include Nissan, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Genesis, Volvo, a collision center, and a towing business. And she is constantly looking for opportunities to expand the portfolio.
She is also credited with creating and nurturing a culture of giving back, a continuation of a strong family tradition. Indeed, with Cosenzi taking the lead, the company is now involved with organizations and philanthropic programs ranging from Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Junior Achievement to Christina’s House and Safe Passage’s annual Hot Chocolate Run.
Then there’s the Tom Cosenzi Drive for the Cure Charity Golf Tournament. Named for Cosenzi’s father, and mentor, who lost his battle to brain cancer in 2009, the tournament has raised more than $1.4 million for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
This impressive résumé of business success, community involvement, philanthropy, and efforts to promote gender equity in the workplace — in the auto industry and well beyond — has earned Cosenzi many awards and accolades over the years, including a handful from BusinessWest. Judges have chosen her to be a 40 Under Forty honoree, an Alumni Achievement Award winner (given to the 40 Under Forty winner who has most impressively built upon their record of accomplishment), and a Difference Maker.
And now, she needs to make room for one more plaque — one that reads ‘Woman of Impact.’
To a Higher Gear
As she talked with BusinessWest at the Nissan store on Route 9 in Hadley, Cosenzi referenced upcoming renovations to the dealership, a project that has been several years in the making, with considerable back-and-forth between the company, the town, and the manufacturer, with firm plans now in place.
They call for redoing the façade, the service lounge, the showroom setup, and more, she said, adding that “we’re way overdue — for our employees, our customers, and the brand.”
Orchestrating this renovation project, as well as the building of a new home for Volvo Cars Pioneer Valley in Northampton, an endeavor still in the planning stage, are among the myriad matters Cosenzi is contending with at any given time.
At this particular moment, she was also attending to specific details of the 2023 edition of the golf tournament, HR matters, hiring (she said she’s “constantly interviewing” for high-level positions), the still-challenging used-car market … and making it home in time for dinner with the family.
“I’m obviously proud to have so many women working under the TommyCar umbrella, but what I’m most proud of is that so many of those women are working in non-traditional roles.”
Most of this was not in Cosenzi’s long-term plans when she was focusing on clinical psychology while earning degrees at Northeastern University and Columbia; while she took odd jobs at her father’s dealership growing up, she had no intention of making it her life’s work.
But her career path took what would have to be called some unexpected turns. Indeed, Cosenzi, as most know by now, started working at the family business after college, not thinking this would be anything but temporary. But she fell in love with the business and everything about it. She attended Dealer Academy (where, again, she was one of the few women enrolled), and immersed herself in every aspect of the business.
Christina’s House is one of many area nonprofits supported by Carla Cosenzi and the growing team at TommyCar Auto Group.
With her father’s illness and subsequent passing, in 2009, leadership of the company transitioned to Cosenzi and her brother, Tom.
In her role as president of the dealer group, Cosenzi is involved with all aspects of the business, as well its philanthropic initiatives and work within the community. And with each, the approach is decidedly hands-on, with a hard focus on “one-on-ones,” as she called them, and giving managers and employees at all levels the tools they need to succeed.
Meanwhile, she’s also focused on long-term strategic planning. The immediate goals are to complete plans to renovate the Nissan store and build a new Volvo dealership — and by that time, the Hyundai store will need renovating, and a separate home will be needed for Genesis — and then focus on adding to the portfolio.
“We’re not desperate to acquire more brands,” she said. “But if the right opportunity came up, we would take it; we’re not just looking to buy to grow our portfolio.”
A Road Less-traveled
Cosenzi joked that, unlike many dealership owners, general managers, and even salespeople, she doesn’t take many of the newer models for weeks or months at a time, as much as she would like to — especially some of the new Genesis offerings.
“I’d love to switch cars, but the problem is … I spend a lot of time in my car, between the dealerships and picking up my kids,” she explained, noting that she’s been driving a Volvo XC90 hybrid SUV for some time now. “If I get in a car that’s a new model, and someone wants to buy it, they have to track me down, get me out of it, and get it ready for the customer. So I try to make sure that if I’m taking a new model, I take it for the short term and don’t move into it.”
What she has moved into are leadership roles — in her own business, within the community, and in the broad fight for gender equality in the workplace. Focusing mostly on her own sector, Cosenzi, as noted earlier, has made it her mission to be a role model and mentor, and also bring more women into the auto sales and service industry and capitalize on opportunities they may have thought were restricted to men.
“If you’re good in business, if you’re a good leader, you’re always trying to better yourself, and you’re always trying to learn, and I’m always trying to learn from other people,” she explained. “So I try to be that same sort of resource that I look for, especially to the women who come into this business.
“I want to be a good mentor to anyone who comes into our company, but especially to women who want to be successful in our industry and just need someone to guide them and give them a path on how to do that,” she went on. “That’s really important to me.”
Equally important is that many of the women now employed at TommyCar are focused on careers in this industry, not jobs, she said, adding that her dealer group is ahead of the curve, if you will, in this realm.
“If you’re good in business, if you’re a good leader, you’re always trying to better yourself, and you’re always trying to learn, and I’m always trying to learn from other people.”
“I believe that, overall, you’re seeing more women getting into the industry, but not to the extent that you see here,” she continued. “We work really hard to attract women here and to support women’s success here; we make it a great place for women to work, and we’re a great support system for all the women working together.”
When asked what makes this or any other business a great place for women to work, Cosenzi said it comes to supporting them, mentoring them, providing opportunities to learn and grow (such as group attendance at Bay Path University’s Women’s Leadership Conference and similar programs), and, perhaps most importantly, recognizing them and their accomplishments.
“We do a lot to support women and to make them feel empowered here,” she said in conclusion. “And I think it’s immediately empowering when you work for a company that has a woman leader; I think it makes a huge difference because immediately, the perception of the company is different.”
The Ride Stuff
Getting back to her thoughts on the auto-sales business and how and why it’s still a man’s world, despite her best efforts, Cosenzi said there has been some progress — just not as much as she would have expected to see in 2023.
“It takes time, it takes conditioning, and it takes more women being involved,” she told BusinessWest. “The more women that we put in powerful roles in an industry, the more conditioned people get to seeing women in those roles.”
Suffice it to say she doing all she can — as an employer, as a role model, as a mentor, and as a leader within the community.
And that’s just one of the reasons why she’s added Woman of Impact to her list of awards and achievements. It’s a designation that drives home all she has done and continues to do — literally and figuratively.
She Helps Women Break the Stigma of Postpartum Depression and Find Peace
Arlyana Dalce-Bowie
Like many new moms, Arlyana Dalce-Bowie’s struggle with postpartum depression was twofold.
First, she fought to get to a place where she could be a caring, loving, and present mother. Then she had to rediscover herself.
The latter was, frankly, a lengthy process, but also a powerful one. And by not only working through the dark times, but sharing that experience with the world through an online community called Moms in Power, she’s making a real impact for women who might otherwise suffer in silence, or think something is wrong with them.
“This is something a lot of women go through, which is why I created Moms in Power,” she told BusinessWest. “Although we’re moms, people need to understand that we’re still women too. Not that motherhood is easy, but it was easier to nurture my baby and to love her and to make sure she’s protected — I just couldn’t do all that for myself. And Moms in Power literally speaks to the woman you’re becoming in motherhood.”
She was able to take six months away from her job at the Department of Children and Families, which allowed her to focus on her mental health — and navigate parenthood — while waiting a frustratingly long time during the pandemic to access therapy for her own healing (more on that later).
“That’s really where Moms in Power was birthed. It was me trying to do the work until I was able to get counseling. And then, of course, with the counselor, finding different ways that I can still navigate my postpartum.”
A licensed social worker and nutritional coach who now works for Springfield Public Schools as a City Connects coordinator, she’s in a much better place — largely because she’s grown through her own difficult experience while helping other women manage theirs.
“It is because of her resiliency, drive, and unselfish commitment to community that I strongly believe that Arlyana Dalce-Bowie is a Woman of Impact,” wrote Arlela Bethel, owner of the Movement LAB, who nominated her for the award. “When a woman is able to share her story with others in a meaningful way to begin to impart change, that is recognizable and commendable.”
Bethel added that “Arlyana’s passion for supporting the healing and recovery process of mothers who have or are dealing with postpartum depression diagnosis is a true testament to her ability to show vulnerability within her own personal struggle and, out of that struggle, create resourceful ways to help others. Moms In Power was born out of hardship and pain, but this amazing resource was designed to give other women the opportunity to feel empowered, to heal, restore, and to find purpose and strength within themselves not only as mothers, but as women.”
Rough Year
Dalce-Bowie’s pregnancy began at a difficult time for everyone, near the start of COVID-19; she gave birth in February 2021, when the pandemic was still raging.
“That was hard to navigate in and of itself. We didn’t know what was going on. And because I was a single parent, I couldn’t have my support system go to my prenatal appointments and things like that. Life was still very uncertain,” she recalled. “So I was kind of separated from my support system, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I was a single parent. And, of course, that just took a toll on my mental and emotional health.”
Even during her pregnancy, Dalce-Bowie was experiencing some depression and anxiety, so it was no surprise when she was diagnosed with postpartum depression six weeks after her daughter was born.
“When a woman is able to share her story with others in a meaningful way to begin to impart change, that is recognizable and commendable.”
“I didn’t see a therapist until she was almost 1; that’s how long the waitlist was. It took a really, really long time to get into counseling, to get the support that I actually needed.”
So, during that year, she started journaling because she felt she needed an outlet to process her emotions and experience some kind of release “so I wasn’t just in my head,” she explained, adding that “journaling has been something I’ve been doing since I was a kid, so I kind of reverted back to it.”
The prompts she has used in her own journaling and then with others, through Moms in Power, include “dismantling me,” which deals with the words women place on ourselves.
“When you have PPD or any other diagnosis, you kind of label yourself that way, saying that ‘I have this diagnosis, and that defines me,’” she said. “‘Dismantling me’ is an activity where we literally dismantle things that we feel about ourselves or that society has put on us or that our support systems have put on us.”
Another writing prompt is “a letter to myself,” she added. “I want you to write a letter, knowing what you know now, to your past self, encouraging yourself for the journey ahead. That’s probably my favorite one.
“Those two are probably our biggest prompts,” Dalce-Bowie noted. “They provoke a lot of tears. But it opens us up and gives us a place to come out of ourselves. I think a lot of us have our own guilt and our own shame, and we don’t like to talk about it openly.”
The writing prompts and the words and emotions that flow from them are intended to bring women to a place of understanding themselves — and realizing that what they’re going through isn’t shameful at all.
Arlyana Dalce-Bowie says the Mommy Moment workshops bring healing because women are connecting over a shared struggle they may not have talked about.
“So many people have this idea that, when you have a mental-health diagnosis, it kind of disqualifies you from some things, or you’re not as great of a parent,” Dalce-Bowie said. “And I know, being a Black and Brown woman, we don’t seek therapy and counseling enough. It’s still kind of taboo in our culture.”
Before she started reaching out to others online, she found herself having to explain her needs to her family and others in her support system — in itself a necessary step in breaking the stigma of mental health.
“I said, ‘this is how I need support. I have a serious diagnosis.’ Because postpartum depression looks very different for many women, and for me, it was very severe. So I had to kind of coach them: ‘this is what I need, and how I need it, in order to get me into a better mental space.’”
The journal was a major part of getting to that better place, and so was aromatherapy, which she came upon while looking for other mental-health resources. “There are so many healing properties with candles; it creates a safe space, a calming space, and it just helps me cope in different ways.”
From there, Dalce-Bowie started sharing her story on her personal website — and found a like-minded community.
“There were so many women who were like, ‘we’re going through the same thing’ — especially those of us with pandemic babies, who didn’t have direct access to services right away,” she noted. “A lot of people were on the waitlist, so we just started reaching out to each other and having these group text messages and Facebook groups.”
On her social-media pages, she shared elements of her journey — “the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between” — and developed a business page for Moms in Power, on which she shares journaling prompts, sells aromatherapy products, and directs women to other resources.
“Journaling has been something I’ve been doing since I was a kid, so I kind of reverted back to it.”
Like the virtual Mommy Moment workshops, which came about because Dalce-Bowie and the moms she was connecting with needed a deeper, more personal outlet.
“We literally come together and have moments as moms. We talk about our postpartum depression; we talk about other diagnoses — because there are a few women that have been here with other diagnoses. We talk about married life and parenting, for those who are married. We talk about the single life and parenting and what that looks like for us.
“And there’s so much healing that comes from it because you’re relating to other women that may not have talked about it out loud, but we’re still going through the same struggle,” she continued. “The outreach part literally came from me sharing my personal journey and women saying, ‘we need more of this.’”
Strong Bonds
Dalce-Bowie said the moms she connects with tend to keep in touch even beyond the workshops, to check in with each other and see how they’re doing; she’ll often help members access therapists when needed.
The connections — and impact — she’s made have been heartening, she said.
“I can’t even put it into words. At the end of every workshop, we’re all so emotionally charged. I know my specific journey, but hearing other women reminds us all we’re not in this alone. So many times in this journey, you feel like you’re alone. So knowing that I’m helping to motivate them — in a way that I felt like I needed to be pushed and motivated at a certain point — is extremely gratifying.
“The fact that we get to come together and we don’t ever have to feel so isolated again is the best part for me,” she went on. “The stories that I hear literally bring me to tears because sometimes the journey feels extremely hopeless, so when you’re in a place where you realize, ‘I helped another woman realize their worth, and I helped another woman understand there is purpose after pain, and I see other women regaining their confidence and finding themselves again and starting their dreams again’ … there really are no words to describe that.”
Tears are not uncommon, she added. “We cry a lot because we’re reaching milestones together. It’s more than fulfilling. It’s really a blessing. It’s awesome to see.”
In a society that seems to demand that women must be great at everything, all the time — at being a mother, but a great woman too — Moms in Power helps redefine who they are as women in motherhood, Dalce-Bowie explained.
“I had to get over my trauma. I had to heal from a lot of things. I had to be present for my daughter. But once I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got the mom thing under control,’ it became, ‘let me start working on myself. Let me start working on my self-esteem again. Let me start working on my own dreams and goals.’ Because they were kind of pushed to the side to take care of my baby girl. So it was important to get back to a place where I’m confident in who I am as a woman.”
For not only succeeding in that journey, but helping other mothers achieve confidence and self-worth during what can be a crushingly lonely time, Dalce-Bowie is truly a Woman of Impact.
She Helps Empower Women for the ‘Long and Winding Road’
Sandra Doran
As she talked about the transition in her professional life — from being a lawyer to serving as an administrator in higher education — Sandra Doran summed it up simply and quite effectively by saying, “careers are not a straight line.”
“You don’t enter a profession or a job now and just do it for 50 years; it’s a long and winding road,” she went on, using her own story as just one example, before quickly noting that, for today’s college graduates, the road will be even more winding, and probably longer as well.
“I think that’s what our students are experiencing now — and our alums, frankly,” she went on. “Many of the people who are graduating from college today will have seven careers. So how are we, as educators, preparing them for this, giving them the skill sets, giving them the growth mindset that says, ‘I can do this, I can learn this, I’m prepared for this — I have the skill set to learn?’”
Preparing and empowering individuals, and especially women, to navigate this winding road and have the confidence and competence to take on, and succeed in, seven or more careers might be an effective job description for Doran, the sixth president of Bay Path University.
Or at least part of that job description. There are many elements to that document, obviously, and she has embodied all of them with a lengthy list of accomplishments during her career, and especially since coming to Bay Path.
At the Longmeadow campus, where she arrived just a few months after the pandemic did, she has brought about change and progress on several fronts, from health education, where she spearheaded a transformation of the school’s master’s in public health program, to cybersecurity — the school’s program is now ranked third nationally by Forbes magazine; from the creation of new programs, such as a master of science in nursing degree, to investments in infrastructure, including new science laboratories; from the establishment of a food pantry to combat food insecurity to a firm commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Meanwhile, she has been a strong supporter of, and advocate for, mentorship, forging a collaborative at Bay Path with the Mentor Collective, a platform that structures mentorships and connects students — those in traditional, on-campus programs as well as online students enrolled in the American Women’s College — with a vast network of alums who can serve as mentors.
She has also, over those three years, become heavily involved in the community, serving on the board of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, as chair of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council’s education subcommittee, and as a corporate ambassador at Glenmeadow, where she engages with and supports a life-plan community designed for older adults.
“Dr. Doran’s journey to the helm of Bay Path University is marked by a profound dedication to women’s education,” wrote Crystal Neuhauser, vice president of Institutional Advancement at Bay Path, as she nominated Doran for the Woman of Impact honor. “She is a tireless advocate for empowering women to emerge as catalysts for change.”
This advocacy, and this work to empower women, are among the many reasons why Doran can add another accomplishment to her long track record of success — being named a Woman of Impact for 2023.
Course of Action
When BusinessWest first talked with Doran, it was at a small table with a few chairs arranged around it (six feet apart) on the lawn behind Deepwood Hall, the main administration building on the Bay Path campus.
“Many of the people who are graduating from college today will have seven careers. So how are we, as educators, preparing them for this, giving them the skill sets, giving them the growth mindset that says, ‘I can do this, I can learn this, I’m prepared for this — I have the skill set to learn?’”
This was the only way to do an in-person interview in June 2020, the very height of COVID, and the scene was symbolic of the extreme challenge and duress that marked the start of her tenure at the university. It was symbolic of something else as well — her strong leadership during that time of turmoil.
Indeed, Doran was one of very few people on campus those days, with Zoom being the preferred method to meet and collaborate. And she made sure those she met with online saw her in her office, specifically in front of a painting on loan from the Springfield Museums, created by Rosa Ibarra, chosen to reflect her commitment to diversity.
Sandy Doran, center, seen here with Bay Path students, faculty, and staff, has become a mentor to many young women.
“It was important for me to be in my office so people could see me,” she recalled, adding that she started staging, via Zoom, what she called “Conversations with the President,” so people — in the college community and beyond — would get the opportunity to know her and she could get to know them.
These are conversations she continues to this day, she went on, because they provide invaluable information and input on what those in the community are thinking about, what opportunities exist for the university and all those it serves, and much more — feedback that has directly shaped some of the leadership initiatives undertaken at the school.
It was, indeed, a long and winding road that Doran took to Bay Path, that interview at the table under the tree outside Deepwood Hall, and those online community conversations. It began, as noted earlier, in roles where Doran put to work the juris doctorate she earned at Syracuse University College of Law.
Going back further, she said she was perhaps destined for a career in both the law and education — what she called the “intersection of things I love.” Her great-grandfather founded a one-room schoolhouse in Colorado, her grandfather was the superintendent of a school system, and her mother was a music teacher.
She can find many common threads among the two professions.
“It was a very natural transition from being a lawyer to being an educator because being a lawyer, if you’re a good one, is a lot about educating clients.”
“Being a lawyer is a lot like being an educator,” she told BusinessWest. “Law is about helping clients understand what their options are and educating them about the law. So for me, it was a very natural transition from being a lawyer to being an educator because being a lawyer, if you’re a good one, is a lot about educating clients.”
After serving as vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Shaw’s Supermarkets Inc. and then as senior counsel at Holland & Knight LLP in Boston, then the fifth-largest law firm in the country, Doran’s transition to higher education began at Lesley University in Cambridge, where she served as chief of staff, vice president, and general counsel from 2004 to 2011.
It continued at the American College of Education in Indianapolis and then Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. and, most recently, Salem Academy and College in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she served as president before arriving at Bay Path to step into the rather large shoes of longtime president — and now fellow Woman of Impact — Carol Leary.
Leading by Example
Getting back to her thoughts on how a career is most definitely not a straight line, Doran said the primary focus of higher education, and one of the “foundational aspects” at Bay Path, is preparing students to learn — in every way possible.
“Whether it’s online, on the ground, from each other, from faculty and staff, from mentors, from alums — that is one of our core aspirations here,” she said, adding that this has been the primary thrust of her leadership efforts at the school.
Sandy Doran, left, with student speaker Diane Almonte Arias at Bay Path’s 2023 commencement ceremonies.
Put another way, she said the school works to “build confidence through competence,” and that both are attained in the classroom, as well as outside it, in all the ways students can learn.
And this brings her back to the broad subject of mentorship, which is a key component of a program at Bay Path called WELL (We Empower Learners and Leaders), as well as the school’s curriculum as a whole, and the heart of Doran’s philosophy about how people (and especially women) learn, lead, and prepare for that long, winding road.
“I have benefited from a tremendous number of mentors — not just family members, who are great mentors, but in every position and every role I’ve been in,” she went on. “I’ve had the benefit of working with great mentors, not just on how to be successful in terms of the work, but in how you build relationships and how you think about that network that’s going to be so important to being successful, because, as we all know, it’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it.
“And the data bears this out,” she continued. “Students who have mentors are more likely to be successful in the workplace, so students who have mentors in college are more likely to be successful in the workforce, particularly first-generation students who might not have that social capital and understand, the way more experienced people do, the real value of that network.”
Elaborating, she said mentorships have become a huge part of the landscape and the operating philosophy at Bay Path, with students enjoying mentoring relationships with alums, employers, faculty, and staff.
Many of these mentoring relationships, not to mention potential career opportunities, take root during internships, Doran noted, adding that these have become another huge point of emphasis at Bay Path.
“A great internship also includes a great mentoring experience,” she said. “And one of the things we know about internships is that, if a student has at least one internship during their undergraduate experience, they are more likely to secure a position, and a higher-paying position, than if they had not had that internship experience. So for us, it’s really fundamental to the education that we offer here.”
And while she still relies on others to mentor her — “there’s always someone who sees things through a different lens or different perspective” — she also mentors many of those around her, whether they are students, staff members, or other members of the community.
And when asked what her best piece of advice is to those who seek her counsel, she said simply, “to ask for advice.”
“That’s because we cannot know all the answers ourselves,” she told BusinessWest. “So getting multiple perpectives, whether it’s on life goals or even weekly goals … that’s important.”
Bottom Line
It’s also important to remember, as her own story makes clear, that careers are not a straight line. There are curves, and many of them.
Handling these curves requires not simply college degrees, although they’re essential in most cases, but the ability to learn, not just in the classroom, but from experiences and from fellow travelers along the journey.
This couldn’t be clearer to both Doran the lawyer and Doran the college president. Helping others understand, and then empowering them to make it happen, is what makes her a Woman of Impact.
Founder, Faces of Medicine and Intentional Health, LLC
She’s Determined to Boost Diversity in Healthcare — and Improve Outcomes
Dr. Khama Ennis loves the ER. She should, having been chief of Emergency Medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital for several years.
“I love the puzzle of it, and I love the immediacy of it,” she said. “The typical thing that comes to mind when people think about emergency medicine is adrenaline and chaos, but it’s never been that for me.”
Instead, “what I loved was the immediate connection, creating a safe space for somebody. You have to forge this immediate bond and ask really invasive, personal questions on what’s probably the worst day of their year, if not their life, and get them to share the things that are relevant so you get the information you need to get them the care they need. I really like that.”
But for most of her time there, Ennis was one of only two Black doctors in the hospital.
“There’s plenty of data that reflects the negative impact of inadequate diversity in teams,” she told BusinessWest. And in the latest chapter of her intriguing career, Ennis is doing something about that.
These days, she practices integrative medicine at a private office in Amherst called Intentional Health. But she also co-founded a nonprofit organization called Diversify Medicine in order to provide support for people from underrepresented backgrounds to gain access to careers in medicine.
She also founded Faces of Medicine, a narrative health-equity project centered on the journeys of Black female physicians — centered around a documentary series and a collection of mini-memoirs — with the goal of inspiring more women of color to enter the field of medicine and diversify the healthcare industry, with the idea that diversity in healthcare teams leads to a measurable and meaningful improvement in outcomes.
“Right now, black women are 2.8% of the physicians in the U.S., which is a little more than a third of what we represent in the population as a whole, so it’s clearly inadequate,” she said, noting that Black men, Latinx people, and Indigenous Americans face similar disparities. “Some groups are just underrepresented in these spaces, and outcomes suffer as a result.”
For her ongoing efforts, Ennis was honored this year by the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) with its Woman Physician Leadership Award, recognizing outstanding leadership and contributions to patients and the medical profession by a woman physician.
Ennis, the society noted, is viewed by her colleagues and the community as a leader in addressing structural racism in healthcare and social determinants of health. In addition to her work with Faces of Medicine, she penned several opinion pieces addressing race in medicine for the Washington Post and created a presentation for the Hampshire and Franklin County districts of the MMS that was selected by the Board of Registration in Medicine as one of three that meets the new licensure requirement for implicit bias education.
“I have continued to be impressed not just by how compassionate and professional a physician she is, but she’s also a tremendous role model for women physicians and for women of color,” said Dr. Kate Atkinson, a primary-care physician in Northampton and Amherst, when the award was presented. “Dr. Khama Ennis has been speaking out constructively and gently to educate and empower us all to do better.”
For that work, Ennis is not only a Woman of Impact, but someone whose impact on healthcare promises to bear fruit for decades to come.
Shifting Gears
Ennis was born in Jamaica; her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was a toddler, and she grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
She graduated from Brown University with a focus in medical anthropology and earned her medical degree at NYU School of Medicine and her master of public health degree at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She practiced at Cooley Dickinson Hospital for a decade and a half, starting in 2006, and eventually rose to chief of Emergency Medicine from 2015 to 2020 and medical staff president from 2022 to 2022.
But as early as 2018, she was looking for a change, for a number of reasons.
“Right now, black women are 2.8% of the physicians in the U.S., which is a little more than a third of what we represent in the population as a whole, so it’s clearly inadequate.”
“What I had come to do was done: the department was stabilized, the wait times were down, and we’d had some real achievements,” she recalled. She had also gotten divorced and found the 24/7 on-call nature of an ER schedule to be incompatible with effective co-parenting.
So Ennis switched gears and went into integrative medicine, opening Intentional Health in downtown Amherst earlier in 2023.
“My training is more allopathic, traditional, conventional Western medicine. But I provide and have received acupuncture, therapeutic massage is incredibly important, physical therapy is important, chiropractic is important. There are different ways to bring all of these different players in to optimize people’s health.”
Even elements like nutrition education is critical to her work. “I like being able to suggest … ‘if you eat that instead of that, you’ll still be full, but your blood sugar will come down.’ If people have a bit more understanding, they can have more control over their own health,” she explained.
Dr. Lynnette Watkins, president and CEO of Cooley Dickinson Health Care, is one of the four physicians profiled in the first episode of the Faces of Medicine documentary series.
“I’m not a primary-care doctor, and I think what’s terrible about our overall healthcare system is that it doesn’t allow primary-care doctors to get to a lot of this,” she added. “It’s structural; they’re given 15 minutes to see a person, and it’s really hard to get into depth in 15 minutes with anybody.”
So, in addition to her acupuncture certification, “I have studied lifestyle medicine, which looks at nutrition and activity, sleep, restorative practices, community, all those things that play huge roles in individual and community health.”
At the same time, Ennis has been hard at work over the past two years on Faces of Medicine, a memoir and documentary project that will have its first public screening on Monday, Oct. 16 at Amherst Cinema, with the first episode telling the stories of four Black women who are making an impact on healthcare locally: Dr. Lynnette Watkins, president and CEO of Cooley Dickinson Health Care; Dr. Thea James, associate Chief Medical Officer and executive director of the Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center; Dr. Valerie Stone, director of Health Equity Initiatives in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Dr. Rose Cesar, a gastroenterologist at Baystate Franklin Medical Center.
“We’re also going to be telling the story of Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black woman to ever earn an MD in the U.S.; that happened in 1864,” Ennis noted.
She plans on interviewing at least 30 physicians for the series, and has conducted 16 interviews so far.
“I reached out to different Black female physicians across the country. Some of them I knew; a lot of them were a friend of a friend or some other connection,” she explained. “But the first episode is all Massachusetts stories. They will be telling their own stories, pulled together from the interviews they’ve done over the last year and a half.”
Faces of Medicine will also arrange virtual screenings for two days after the Oct. 16 event for anyone who can’t make the premiere.
Crafting a documentary, for someone whose training is in a much different realm, was a challenge, she said, but a gratifying one. Her team includes Seth Lepore, who handles day-to-day operations; and Executive Producer Jenahye Johnson of Brooklyn-based Homebase Studios, a production studio and crew-sourcing agency that touts “storytelling through community.”
“I needed a company, so I incorporated a company. And then you need fiscal sponsorships, so I got fiscal sponsorships,” Ennis said. “And then I started fundraising at the very end of 2021. Thus far, we’ve raised about $250,000, which is what’s funded all of the work so far.
Dr. Khama Ennis was also honored this year with the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Woman Physician Leadership Award.
“Ideally, this can go in a couple different directions from here. I either continue grassroots fundraising to get the rest of the episodes funded and completed, or an executive producer with means says, ‘I love this project, and I want to help steward it across the finish line.’ That would be amazing. Or PBS or a streaming service says, ‘this is something that we’d really love to engage with.’”
The initial plan is to complete four episodes that span the breadth of the country, numerous specialties in medicine, and myriad stories and paths. The series could be a template for other underrepresented groups, too, from Latinx and Indigenous Americans to LGBTQ individuals, she said. “The whole goal is to have young people see themselves reflected in these stories and see possibilities they can grab onto.”
Worth the Effort
Faces of Medicine dovetails nicely with Ennis’s work on Diversify Medicine.
“The goal that I have there is to create a short-term database. There are lots of organizations doing great work to try to bring people into this space, but if you don’t know exactly what to search for, you’re not going to find a program that could support you.”
The database is intended to help underrepresented populations find resources to help them access medical careers, and she also plans to create a virtual mentorship network to amplify the voices of professionals of color already working in the space.
“We have concrete data that support the importance of diversity on teams for improving health outcomes,” Ennis noted. For example, one study came out that looked at the infant mortality rate in Florida, which was two to three times higher for black infants than for white infants — and that disparity was cut in half when the pediatrician was black.
“The data that I’ve found most specifically speaks to physicians, but I think it’s true of every player in the healthcare team. Doctors are useless without nurses, and nurses are useless without techs. We all need each other in order to do this work, so I truly believe that every level needs to reflect the population we’re serving.”
Meanwhile, Faces of Medicine holds the promise of inspiring young women of color to pursue the dream of a medical career from an early age.
“There are experiences in elementary, middle, and high school where people can either be encouraged or discouraged,” she said. “Somebody can express an interest in medicine, and somebody else can say, ‘oh, that’s really hard, are you sure?’ Or somebody can say, ‘that’s great; let’s figure out what the next step would be.’”
The women being profiled in Faces of Medicine all figured out that next step, and are able to clearly communicate how and why.
“Say you’re a smart kid, but you just don’t think it’s possible because you’ve experienced homelessness. We can show them somebody who had some real struggles in their family growing up, but they got here,” Ennis said. “I’m not Pollyanna; I don’t want to tell anybody that it’s easy. But I do want people to get that it’s worth it.”
Inspired by Others, She Displays the Awesome Power of One Woman
Dawn Forbes DiStefano never had to be told about how a single woman could be a life-changing force for someone and an influential role model.
She could see for herself starting at a very young age, with her maternal grandmother, Phyllis Arnold Pilbin, who saw her role change in profound ways when her daughter, Forbes DiStefano’s mother, was killed by a drunk driver when she was just 26 years old and Dawn, her first child, was only 3.
“My grandmother somehow had the resiliency and spirit to lend a hand to a very grieving father; she left her day job to care for my sister and me so that my father could work during the day — while she was still raising four other children,” said Forbes DiStefano, adding that she started working nights selling Stanley Home Products. “She changed her life to care for the two of us. As a woman growing up with a woman who persevered through losing her daughter and had the strength to then change her career so she could raise her two young granddaughters to get through this — that had a profound impact on me.”
But there have been plenty of other examples of the power and influence of a single woman, she said, citing the remarkable individual her father would marry several years after that tragedy, Patty, who would adopt Forbes DiStefano and her sister Heather, who is also on this list of life changers, as well as two sisters who would come later, Kelly and Megan. And her aunts as well.
There would be impactful women at the YWCA, where she first went to work as a receptionist and would stay for nearly three decades.
“I’ve always been sort of an impatient, unsettled learner — I’m always looking for something else to learn, something else to do, a problem to solve. And I’ve always had women who responded with ‘go ahead and try it … we’ve got your back; we’ll pick you up if you fall.’”
Then there’s Joan Kagan-Levine, her predecessor as president and CEO of the Springfield-based early-education provider Square One. Like others, Kagan-Levine encouraged her to reach higher, take on risks, and maybe try to do something she might not have thought she could do.
“I’ve been surrounded by women who encouraged me to try things,” Forbes DiStefano said. “I’ve always been sort of an impatient, unsettled learner — I’m always looking for something else to learn, something else to do, a problem to solve. And I’ve always had women who responded with ‘go ahead and try it … we’ve got your back; we’ll pick you up if you fall.’”
With all those powerful leads to follow, she has, in essence, devoted her life to having the backs of others, especially women — being there to pick them up if they fall and being that single woman who becomes a force in someone’s life.
That’s been the case whether it’s the many women in her own family; the 130 or so women, by her count, now working for Square One; or others in the community.
Indeed, she keeps with her what she calls a “secret notebook,” one in which she jots down notes, mostly on women she’s helping through issues and problems in their lives, be it with buying a house or how to move forward in their career.
Dawn Forbes DiStefano says her grandmother, Phyllis Arnold Pilbin, is one of many who have shown her the “power of a single woman.”
But being a mentor and influence in the lives of others only partially explains why she is part of this Women of Impact class of 2023. She is also a dynamic leader, guiding Square One through an important and challenging time in its history — and, yes, there have been many of those.
Today, she is leading a project to build the agency a new headquarters in Springfield’s South End, its home since 1883, while playing a key role in efforts to secure adequate funding for the agency and erase the discrepancy between what the state pays to childcare facilities in the 617 (and other area codes in and around Boston) and what it pays to those in the 413.
As a manager, Forbes DiStefano said she tries to lead by example and do whatever needs to be done, a philosophy captured in comments by Kris Allard, Square One’s vice president of Development & Communication, who first met Forbes DiStefano while they were serving on the Dress for Success board of directors and nominated her to be a Woman of Impact.
“Dawn does not lead from behind her desk,” Allard wrote. “She can often be found sitting on the floor reading stories with a group of preschoolers, chatting with a young mother enrolling in a family-service program, delivering diapers and groceries to families in need of assistance, and even preparing lunch for hundreds of children when the kitchen staff needs an extra pair of hands.”
All that, and much more, explains why she is certainly a Woman of Impact.
It’s All Relative
Forbes DiStefano said her mother, Patty, who is only 13 years older than she is, has often been able to inspire and motivate her words and actions.
She has many examples, but one that stands out is from the days not long after she graduated from UMass Amherst with a teaching degree and landed in a terrible job market for teachers. She was spending a lot of time at the family’s pool and enjoying her summer until Patty pulled her aside one day on the deck.
“She said, ‘Dawn, you’re the oldest of four girls, you’re a college graduate, and I need your sisters to see a college graduate working — let’s go work,’” she recalled, adding that the YWCA was hiring for an office it was opening in Northampton; she knew people at the agency, so she went to work there as a receptionist.
So began an intriguing, and very much ongoing, story of involvement with nonprofit agencies, service to the community, and being a woman and a leader who would certainly make all the women who have ever had her back quite proud.
As a receptionist at the YWCA, she was soon inspired by one of those women to start writing grants, become the agency’s grants manager, and make this work more than a job.
“I immediately fell head over heels in love with the notion that I could make a career out of helping people, and most especially helping women,” she said.
In 2007, she became the YWCA’s director of Resource Development, and would stay in that role until 2015, when she decided it was time for a change. She had lunch with Kagan-Levine, who convinced her to become Square One’s chief Finance and Grants officer. Forbes DiStefano would become executive vice president in 2019, and would prevail in the nationwide search for a successor to the retiring Kagan-Levine in January 2021.
As she talked about her current work and the challenges facing her and the agency, she was quick to note they are far less in scope than those Square One faced in the preceding decade — the tornado that destroyed its old headquarters building on Main Street, the natural-gas explosion that rendered one of its facilities unusable, and the tortuous first nine months of the pandemic, which … well, no explanation needed.
Dawn Forbes DiStefano is leading Square One through a time of challenge and opportunity, including the building of a new headquarters in Springfield’s South End.
Still, there is plenty on her plate, including the work to build a new facility downtown, a $12 million project now moving through the design and fundraising stages, and ongoing efforts to close the discrepancy between what the state is paying for childcare to facilities on either end of the state.
Indeed, she was a definitive voice in a Boston Globe article earlier this year that drew attention not only to the discrepancy between the reimbursement rates, but the need at agencies like Square One to raise money to cover the difference between what is received for a subsidy and the cost of providing care.
The Compounding Effect
At Square One, more than 90% of employees are women, and Forbes DiStefano has committed herself to having their backs and providing the encouragement and inspiration that others have provided to her — all while also being a mother; a strong supporter of agencies that support adult women, such as Dress for Success; and the CEO of a nonprofit.
While doing so, she drives home not just the power of a single woman, but the even more powerful force that emerges when women work together toward common goals and solving problems.
“Someone smarter than me — I think it was in a Forbes article — talked about the power of women and the compounding effect,” she told BusinessWest. “Women, on an individual basis, have power, but the collective impact that women have when they make the conscious effort to support each other in the most inclusive way — it is an exponential change to the world around us.
“When you invest in an individual woman, because the tentacles from the single woman are so vast, whether she’s serving as a sister, a mother, a grandmother, an aunt … if you support her, the exponential improvement and the compounding value of that investment can’t be compared to anything else,” she went on, adding that she is committed to making such investments, whether it’s with her daughters or with her employees. “Invest in a woman; it’s one of the best investments you can make.”
That’s because, she continued, when women struggle and they can’t access what they need, that same compounding effect occurs, but in a negative way. “Her children suffer, and the people around her suffer.”
Which brings us back to that aforementioned secret notebook.
“It’s filled with all the women in my life, so that I can remember who’s buying a home, who’s struggling to care for their aging parents … I can’t remember it all by heart, so I have to write it all down,” she said. “I try to touch one a day; that is always my goal. I either do a handwritten note or a text or a phone call to another woman to let her know I’m thinking about her. I try to connect with women once a day, and in a personal way.”
Getting back to her grandmother, Forbes DiStefano said simply, “she taught me the power of one woman.”
There have been many others who have provided similarly impactful lessons along the way. Together, these individuals inspired her to make providing similar support and inspiration what she calls the “cornerstone of her life.”
So today, as a mother, daughter, employer, mentor, fellow board member, and nonprofit leader, she is the one displaying the awesome power of one woman.
She Impacts Her Community, Her Industry, and the Lives of Her Clients
Amy Jamrog likes to say that she wasn’t raised in Holyoke — she was raised by Holyoke.
By that, she meant the community’s people, businesses, business owners, institutions, traditions, and more certainly influenced her and shaped who she is today — much like a family would.
As an example, she noted her first job, which she took at age 14, at a business called the Party Store, a part of the former Quirk Paper Co., located in the city’s Flats section and owned by Jon and Helene Florio. This was a learning experience on more levels than she could count.
“I worked there all through high school,” Jamrog said. “And I met so many Holyoke residents who wanted to shop locally and support local businesses, and I really came to understand the DNA of Holyoke. I also learned customer service, what it meant to be a part of a community, and the importance of giving back, which they [the Florios] did so much of.
“So many of the things I learned growing up were about community, giving back, volunteering … and all of it happened here,” she went on. “It stayed with me.”
Suffice it to say that Jamrog — who has long had a Holyoke address for the Jamrog Group, the financial-advisory firm she founded and now serves as CEO — has spent a lifetime applying the lessons she learned while at the Party Store, as a candystriper at Providence Hospital, later while working at the Holyoke Mall, and while compiling a record that would earn her the rank of valedictorian at Holyoke Catholic High School.
“So many of the things I learned growing up were about community, giving back, volunteering … and all of it happened here. It stayed with me.”
Indeed, when she started as a financial advisor, she was focused on making a difference for her clients and their families. And while that focus remains, she has broadened and deepened her impact, committing herself to making a difference within her community, meaning the 413, and within her industry, especially with women in the profession or thinking about getting in.
She does this in many ways — through service as a board member to organizations like the Girl Scouts and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts; as a mentor to countless young people in the industry, especially women, who face the same challenges as men and others that are unique to them; as an author, through two bestselling books, Life Savings Conversations and Confetti Moments: 52 Moments to Spark Conversation, Connect Deeply & Celebrate the Ordinary; and, most recently, though her election in June to the board of Finseca (Financial Security for All), a nonprofit organization advocating for the financial-security profession.
Amy Jamrog, seen here with her team at the Jamrog Group, has helped many women enter the field and persevere through the difficult early years.
In 2020, she created a resource for financial advisors called Four Wings Consulting, with a dragonfly as its symbol. Four Wings was formed to help advisors cope with the many challenges they have been facing in recent years, from the pandemic and its many side effects to the wild swings in the stock market; from soaring interest rates to general uncertainty about the economy and what will happen next.
It’s just one of the ways in which Jamrog has become a true Woman of Impact.
Dollars and Sense
As she was cleaning out her office recently while preparing to relocate the Jamrog Group from its former home on Northampton Street in Holyoke, not far from where she grew up, to a small suite in the office tower at 330 Whitney Ave. in that same city, Jamrog came across a note she wrote to herself years ago, when the firm was in Northampton.
It took the form of a 10-year vision statement, something she updates every year, which included the goal to buy a building in Holyoke.
“I wanted to build an office that felt like an extension of home for people,” she recalled. “And I wrote in my 10-year vision that I wanted to own a building on Northampton Street, come back to my roots, be a taxpayer in the community that raised me, and build something permanent — which was the building I ultimately bought. And 10 years later, that actually happened.”
That note, and everything that has happened after she wrote it, speaks volumes about Jamrog and why she is a Woman of Impact — everything from her commitment to long-term planning and her ability to make plans reality to that strong attachment to the Holyoke community, to her understanding that ‘permanent’ is a relative term.
“For people who come into this business specifically wanting to make money, it can be very disappointing because it takes a long time, and you need grit and perseverance and a great work ethic to make it through the first five years. Most people don’t.”
Indeed, 10 years after she moved into the property on Northampton Street, the landscape had changed profoundly. Her team works remotely most days of the week now (everyone is in on Mondays), and clients see their advisors far more on Zoom than they do in the office. These are changes that negate the need for an office that feels like an extension of home.
The moral of this story, if it can be called that, is that planning is important, but revising the plan to meet a changing world is more important.
This is the basic advice Jamrog gives to her clients as a financial advisor, a profession she assumed after taking a somewhat winding career route.
After she graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, she entered the healthcare field, working first for Baystate Health and then for Hospice of Pioneer Valley, as a community liaison between hospice and the physicians in our community.
“My job was to meet with physicians and explain to them what hospice was really about so they could refer their patients earlier in their terminal diagnoses so families could take full advantage of hospice services,” she explained. “It was interesting work; I was 22, 23 years old … I was young, but I learned how to communicate effectively with physicians. Then I was recruited to being a financial advisor; it was a very natural transition.”
As for that recruitment effort, it was undertaken by Andy Skroback, then 62, who became her first mentor in this difficult business. And it was during her first few years under Skroback’s tutelage that she realized the profound impact she could have, as a female advisor, on families.
But over the course of her career, she has broadened her scope when it comes to impact, a pattern that continues today.
Amy Jamrog’s book, Confetti Moments, has made its way onto several bestseller lists.
“That word ‘impact’ has always been important to me,” Jamrog said. “I began my financial-services career really wanting to impact families and my clients, many of whom were physicians. Today, our clients are corporate executives, small-business owners, and nonprofit endowments, where we manage their portfolios. That’s where the shift to having a bigger impact on my community really started to matter. The work we did with nonprofits helping nonprofits manage their endowments really got us grounded in how important philanthropy and our nonprofits really are.”
Risk and Reward
After successfully building her business — there are now nine team members — and becoming actively involved in the community on a number of levels, especially with nonprofits devoted to “women and children as leaders,” such as Girls Inc., Girls on the Run, and the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts — Jamrog added an additional point of emphasis: impacting her profession.
She does this in many ways and through many vehicles, including Four Wings Consulting. Her specific focus is women in the industry, she said, adding that she coaches more than 100 of them across the country.
“Making an impact on women in our business is very important to me,” she said. “The business itself is difficult, but to be female is really challenging. So if I can help shorten their trajectory and become successful sooner, and realize just how much impact and satisfaction this career can have — that’s some of my favorite work.”
Elaborating, she started by saying that financial-security work is much harder than it might look to those receiving such services. The hours are long, the work difficult, and the failure rate is quite high: close to 90%.
“For people who come into this business specifically wanting to make money, it can be very disappointing because it takes a long time, and you need grit and perseverance and a great work ethic to make it through the first five years. Most people don’t,” Jamrog said, adding that, while it’s certainly challenging for everyone, the attrition rate for women is even higher, for reasons she explained in detail.
“Without stereotyping too much, most of my male counterparts — their one job is to be a financial advisor,” she explained. “Most of my female counterparts … one of their jobs is to be a financial advisor; they also have spouse, mom, the prepper of the meals, the taker of kids to school, and all the other things that women tend to have on their plates.
“So I try to really help women figure out the integration of all of the responsibilities and goals that they have and how we manage all of them and be successful in each of them; that’s the ultimate challenge,” she went on. “I often hear women say, ‘if I’m successful as a financial advisor, I’m not being successful as a mom, and if I’m focused on being successful as a mom, I’m less successful as a financial advisor,’ and that, to me, is such a sad statement because it doesn’t have to be the case.”
Jamrog knows because she’s lived that life for 27 years. She says it’s a constant challenge to be successful in the multiple roles women accept, but it is “absolutely doable.” She has shown that one can successfully balance work at home, in the office, and in the community, and succeed in each realm.
And in another realm as well: as an author. Her second book, Confetti Moments: 52 Moments to Spark Conversation, Connect Deeply & Celebrate the Ordinary, a collection of Jamrog’s uplifting blog posts from the deepest months of the pandemic, sits on a number of bestseller lists, including the Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today. It has become popular with CEOs, team managers, and even families as a way to motivate, accent the positive, and even build teamwork.
The Next Chapter
Jamrog is essentially done with her third book, which she described as her college thesis. “The paper copy has been sitting on a shelf for 30 years, and I’m in the process of editing it.”
This is a coming-of-age novel about 12-year-old girls, she told BusinessWest, adding that readers from this area will find that it sounds quite familiar; it’s about growing up in a small town in Western Mass., as she did.
Then again, she didn’t just grow up in Holyoke, she was raised by that remarkable city, and everything she learned growing up there has helped shape her into a Woman of Impact.
She Helps Young Adults with Disabilities Build a Lifetime of Ability
Growing up in South Hadley, Michelle Theroux would ride by the old Skinner family residence on Route 116, just north of Mount Holyoke College, and have no clue what it was.
Or what it would become.
“Wistariahurst in Holyoke was the family’s winter home, and this was their summer home,” she told BusinessWest. “And when the last living Skinner passed away, this property went to Mount Holyoke. But it never had an identity within the campus, so around 1998, they were looking to divest several of their properties.”
Among the interested buyers were the founders of Berkshire Hills Music Academy, which will celebrate a quarter-century next year as a unique, college-like program for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are looking to expand their social, vocational, and music skills in a decidedly music-infused environment.
Theroux came on board in 2013, providing some needed stability. As in much-needed.
“I was the eighth executive director in our 13-year history when I was hired,” she said. “When I spoke with the recruiter, I said, ‘you have to give me the backstory. Am I walking onto the Titanic? What’s going on here?’”
The answer, she decided, was ‘founder syndrome’; the institution had some strong founding families who had competing visions, so there wasn’t one consistent direction, which burned out each director quickly. In fact, when Theroux reached just 20 months on the job, she became the school’s longest-tenured leader ever.
“I was able to get some traction with staff and make changes, as well as with the board. I said, ‘if we’re going to do what we need to do, here’s how we’re going to do it. And you’ve got to let me do my job. I can’t be second-guessed at every turn. We’re going to have to change.’”
It helped that her music background — she began studying tap, jazz, and ballet dance at age 5; added dance instruction when she was just 16; and later toured nationally in a jazz-based children’s show — gave her some “street cred” with the staff.
“I knew what it’s like to be on a gig; things like that allowed me to be a bit more successful than some of the predecessors.”
That success, a decade into Theroux’s tenure, is measurable. The student body was 32 when she arrived, and is past 75 now. “That’s capacity,” she said. “So for us to grow, we would be taking on a new building, most likely off-site and in the community somewhere.”
Which may happen at some point, because the school’s success extends far beyond numbers. It’s all about the total impact on these young adults’ lives.
Berkshire Hills boasts a day program and a residential program. “If they’re residential, they’re most likely living for the first two years in our dorm, and then they can live in the community after that,” she explained. “Our two-year program really focuses on shoring up their life skills — everything from cooking to money management, which includes going to the bank and then going shopping and making sure you have a list of what you need versus what you want.”
The entire program, in fact, is built around preparing students to live independently and successfully in the community.
“We have a whole course on social skills with friends, social skills in the workplace. We teach what language to use and what’s an appropriate hand gesture when you meet somebody: you shake their hand; you don’t give them a hug. Because a lot of times, it’s the soft skills that individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities may struggle with and could lead to potential conflict, say, in the workplace.”
“When I spoke with the recruiter, I said, ‘you have to give me the backstory. Am I walking onto the Titanic? What’s going on here?’”
Speaking of which, students also explore vocational skills and strengths. “We do a lot of volunteer opportunities in the community: at the local food pantries, the Dakin animal shelter, and a few other places, like Share Coffee, to see what their skill sets are, what their interests are. And then, as they go through our program, they match those skills with potential employment later on.”
But what really sets Berkshire Hills Music Academy aside is right there in the name.
“We are known for individuals who have an intellectual or developmental disability, who are highly musical,” Theroux explained. “We’re one of the very few places in the country where they can get lessons and programming, but we also act as their agent, their manager, their accompaniment, their arranger.”
Michelle Theroux says Berkshire Hills Music Academy is at capacity and may need to grow into another building in the community.
In fact, students are provided with opportunities to perform locally, both individually and in a number of different ensembles in different musical genres, and in settings ranging from local schools to Fenway Park, where students have sung the national anthem.
In short, these young adults are living full lives, enjoying and perfecting their music skills, and preparing to live independently after their enrollment at Berkshire Hills. And Theroux’s steady leadership has plenty to do with their success.
The Power of Music
Some gigs can be especially impactful for audiences.
“We have about 15 nursing homes or assisted-living facilities in a rotation that our bands will cycle through each year, and those facilities love having them,” Theroux said. “One reason is our students are super warm and embracing and fun. They’re also very talented.
“And there’s a connection between the aging brain and music,” she added. “For example, somebody with dementia or Alzheimer’s will have lapses in their memory, but they’ll hear a song, and it will bring them right back, and they’ll remember all the words to it. If it’s their wedding song or their prom song, whatever it is, they have a memory that gets triggered by the music. So we are a fan favorite in the local nursing homes.”
The school even has a dance ensemble that’s starting to pick up gigs as well, sometimes accompanied by a Berkshire Hills musician or ensemble, sometimes on their own.
Speaking of gigs, the young musicians earn money for appearances, with just a small percentage deducted to cover the school’s staffing costs, Theroux said. “They know there’s value to their work. Like you and I value our paychecks, so do they. So, yes, these are paid gigs.”
“We’ve really looked at the individual, and instead of just focusing on areas where they need support, because there’s a deficit there, we’ve looked at where their strengths are, where their passions are, where their gifts are, and really build on that.”
And when audiences hear them play, sing, and dance, they understand the value, too.
“When they hear our music, people are like, ‘wait, what? They have a disability?’ Because when you hear the music, you hear good music. You don’t hear a disability.”
That’s why these students have performed at other schools, too, funded by anti-bullying grants, to drive home the message of ability, not disability, Theroux said. “The message is, ‘if I have autism and can sing like this, you might have autism, so guess what? You, too, have skills; you, too, have talent; you, too, have strength.’ Our bands go into some schools, and they’re like rock stars.”
Berkshire Hills students don’t have to be highly musical to enroll, she added. “But if you are, there is a music track for folks where that can be their vocation. We have a secondary tier; we have several bands that gig in the community at a high level.”
These successes — in music and in life — are reflected in words of gratitude from families over the years, Theroux said.
“It’s everything from a parent telling us, ‘I never thought my child would shave his own face’ to becoming highly musical and standing up and performing in front of 200 people, to getting their own apartment,” she noted. “Our goal is to figure out how to make somebody as autonomous and independent as possible. Whatever level of staff support is needed, we will provide, but the goal is really to push the areas where they don’t need support.”
Michelle Theroux says the school’s culture of inclusivity extends to the way the staff treats students, families, and each other.
And when the result is someone who can live on their own, do their own laundry, cook their own meals, hold down a job, handle their banking … and also have outlets to express their musical talent, well, that’s the heart of the Berkshire Hills mission.
“We’ve really looked at the individual, and instead of just focusing on areas where they need support, because there’s a deficit there, we’ve looked at where their strengths are, where their passions are, where their gifts are, and really build on that,” she added. After all, “we all have deficits; we all have things we’re working on and trying to improve.”
Sign Her Up
Away from her day job, Theroux is an example of the mantra that, if you need something done, ask a busy person.
Among the boards she’s sat on and organizations she’s served are Mercy Medical Center and Trinity Health Of New England, the South Hadley/Granby Chamber of Commerce, the town of South Hadley, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, the Human Service Forum, and MicroTek, a Chicopee-based manufacturer that employs people with disabilities.
And she brought a wealth of nonprofit-management experience to Berkshire Hills when she came on board as executive director in 2013 (she took on the CEO role in 2021); those roles include executive director of Child & Family Service of Pioneer Valley, director of Special Projects at Clinical and Support Options, vice president of Clinical Services at the Center for Human Development, and director of Family Networks at the Key Program.
Even right out of graduate school, she found herself working in human services at the Gándara Center, running a behavioral-treatment residence for adolescent boys who had sexual reactive behaviors or fire-setting behaviors. “That’s an interesting population to cut your teeth on,” she said.
All this prepared her to lead Berkshire Hills, and lead she has; soon after arriving, she stabilized all facets of operations, created an operational budget surplus, doubled the operating budget over a two-year period, expanded contracts with the Department of Developmental Services, and exceeded the $3.3 million goal on a capital campaign. She also oversaw the construction of a new music building fully funded by that campaign.
“I’ve worked in several other human-service organizations, and this place has a very different flavor and feel when I walk in — not only the physical campus that we have, but the culture we try to promote around inclusivity, that’s strength-based and person-centered,” she said. “That extends to how we treat our colleagues and how we treat each other as staff. It’s one thing to be client-forward, but how do we make sure that’s all-encompassing in terms of who we are and what we do?”
For answering that question every day, and changing young lives for the better, Theroux is certainly a Woman of Impact.
Author, Speaker, and Child and Mental-health Advocate
By Sharing Her Story, She’s Turned Her Tragic Youth into an Impactful Life
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
Lisa Zarcone brought a book to her interview with BusinessWest, called The Unspoken Truth. It’s a memoir she wrote several years ago.
More importantly — and tragically — she also lived it. And it’s a rough read.
“The Unspoken Truth is my story, of the abuse I went through,” she said. “I was silent for years about it and never spoke of it, and it was so damaging to me. But as an adult, I was finally able to break free and share my story.”
“I tell anybody who reads my book, ‘be prepared.’ It’s a very raw, real look at what abuse is like through the eyes of a child,” she added. “When you read stories of other abuse survivors, they take the point of view of the adult looking back. But I took the child’s perspective, right in the moment. I wanted people to understand what the child really goes through.”
But Zarcone’s story since that childhood — in which she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused for the better part of a decade — has been truly inspiring. It’s a story of coming to terms with a horrific past, of learning to trust others with that story, of surprising depths of empathy.
It’s a story of bravery and vulnerability. It’s the story of a Woman of Impact.
And it starts with her mother. In fact, Zarcone’s current advocacy work around mental health is rooted in her complicated relationship with her mother, who has struggled with mental illness her entire life.
“My mom never got the proper help and support that she needed,” said Zarcone. “And because of that, we both fell through the cracks. Again, the abuse was horrific. And it went on for years. It wasn’t like it just happened in a short period of time, and we were able to move forward from it. This went on for years.”
“I buried my past. I took it all and said, ‘I’m not going to speak of it, I’m not going to think of it.’ And I fought every single day of my life not to bring it up, not to focus on that pain. I was driven by that.”
When Zarcone was 6, her brother died of leukemia, and that’s when her mother’s world — and her own life — fell apart. “My mom never recovered. My dad said the day my brother died was the day she died, and on many levels, that’s the truth, because she couldn’t recover from it. And back then, in the ’70s, mental health was not talked about; it was frowned upon.”
As her mother deteriorated, “the stigma was horrendous. People treated my mother very poorly because she was sick. And nobody wanted to deal with her,” Zarcone recalled. “And because of that, I was left home alone with my mom. My dad buried himself in work and activities, and he was barely around.”
Her father eventually left, and her mother’s abuse, which started verbally, eventually became physical. Meanwhile, she started bringing unsafe people into their home.
“She loved to pick people up off the street, homeless people, hitchhikers — she’d bring them home and wanted it to be like a party at all times; she rode that roller coaster of the highs and lows and the mania.”
When she was only 12, a troubled older boy from the neighborhood claimed Zarcone as his girlfriend, and her mother encouraged the coercive, sexually abusive ‘relationship,’ which lasted a year and a half.
Lisa Zarcone says her book is raw, real, difficult … and a story she needed to tell. Photo by Leah Martin Photography
“Neighbors saw, family saw, the school saw, and nobody stepped in,” she said. “My mother did not hide her mental illness. We never knew what was going to happen next.”
At age 14 — after eight years of this hell — she was able to free herself from the abuse when her grandparents took her in. But there was alcoholism and general chaos in that home, and her mother remained a part of her life. Finally, she rebelled, in a purposeful, even positive sort of way.
“At age 15 or 16, I started thinking a little differently, and I wanted to figure out how to get out. So I engrossed myself in school, and I went from an F student to an A student because I decided I needed to do something to help myself. I worked three jobs while I was in high school. I did anything I could not to be home. And I did whatever I could to get out.”
Eventually, she did. “And I buried my past. I took it all and said, ‘I’m not going to speak of it, I’m not going to think of it.’ And I fought every single day of my life not to bring it up, not to focus on that pain. I was driven by that. I was driven to succeed. And I did.”
Since then, Zarcone has lived a life of purpose. She’s worked with disabled children and adults teaching life skills and writing, and served as a mentor to young women in a locked-down facility teaching journaling, poetry, and art therapy.
She has also done plenty of work advocating for suicide prevention and PTSD awareness, and she’s currently Massachusetts’ national ambassador for the National Assoc. of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, traveling all over to raise awareness and promote change in a system where too many children still fall through the cracks.
Moment of Truth
But she wouldn’t find full healing from her past, and the ability to help others overcome their own trauma, until she began talking about it — to the surprise of her loving, and completely blindsided, husband.
“Lisa has worked hard to overcome her past abuse and turned her pain into purpose,” John Zarcone said in nominating Lisa as a Woman of Impact. “I admire her immensely for stepping up and saving herself, our marriage, and family. We have raised three children together, and she is an incredible mother. It comes naturally for her, caring for others and making sure everyone is safe, loved, and thriving.”
That’s a remarkable quality, considering her youthful trauma — which she kept hidden away from John for more than a decade of marriage.
“After I had my third child, things changed,” she said. “I started having flashbacks and nightmares, and they were horrific. I was living in two worlds at once every single day, and I couldn’t do it anymore. So I went to therapy, and I finally shared what happened to me. At that point, I didn’t share absolutely everything. I couldn’t. But I was able to break the silence by saying I was sexually abused, and I started to work through those things.”
Then came the harder part — when she finally told her husband, too.
“He knew my mom had mental illness. He knew I went through a lot of things, but he didn’t know the depth of what happened to me, especially the sexual-abuse piece. And I blew his mind,” she said.
“I was able to find healing and forgiveness because I put myself in their shoes to understand the best I could.”
“He always knew that I was scarred. And he knew my mom was severely mentally ill; even as an adult, my mother was very damaging toward me. But when I shared my truth with him, he was blown away. Basically, he looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know who you are.’ That was so hurtful to me … but I got it. I knew why he was saying that.”
But they overcame it — Lisa’s unearthed trauma and John’s shock — and eventually grew stronger as a family.
“John is my biggest fan, and he’s been my biggest supporter through this whole process and writing this book,” she said, noting that it took six years to write, and no publisher wanted to touch a memoir by a first-time author telling this extremely raw story in an unusual way. So Zarcone self-published and learned how to market it on her own.
The transition from writer to speaker came naturally, she said, after an author talk in her hometown of West Haven, Conn. after the book was released. About 60 people showed up, and she was nervous, but afterward, it felt … right.
Through much hard work, her husband says, Lisa Zarcone has “turned her pain into purpose.” Photo by Leah Martin Photography
“My husband and my daughter were like, ‘well, I guess a public speaker is born.’ And from that point forward, that’s what I decided,” she said. “I really wanted to get the word out there, to talk about these subjects that nobody wants to talk about.”
As part of her work in the mental-health realm, she became an advocate for her mother, who passed away in 2014. This month, she is releasing her second book, which tells her mother’s life story.
“I started looking through my parents’ eyes, looking at their journey, why they acted the way they did, why things happened the way they did,” she said. “I was able to find healing and forgiveness because I put myself in their shoes to understand the best I could.”
Zarcone understands this level of empathy surprises people.
“It took a long time to get there. For years, I hated my mother. And I feel bad when I say that now, because I didn’t truly hate her, but in that timeframe, I hated what she did to me, allowing these bad people to come into my world and hurt me the way they did.
“But as I grew older, I learned what mental illness really was, and I did a lot of studying and talking to people and understanding what mental illness does to somebody. Every time she would get locked up or every time something else would happen, it was painful to watch, because I did have love and empathy for my mother.”
And as she healed, she was able to separate her abuser from the once-loving mother crushed by mental illness.
“I always feel like a sense of loss because I lost my mother to mental illness,” she went on. “And she lost out, too. She lost out on being a wonderful mother, a wonderful wife, a wonderful grandmother. Those are the things she aspired to be. Family was everything to her. But when she was sick, you wouldn’t even know who she was. It was just mind-blowing to watch.”
The Story Continues
“Embrace the journey.”
That’s one of Zarcone’s personal mantras, and it’s a moving one, considering where that journey has taken her.
But across 37 years of marriage, and especially since she finally opened up to her husband — and the world — about her past, she has found healing by finding her voice: as a writer, a speaker, a blogger, a talk-radio host, and a national spokesperson for survivors of child abuse. In 2021, she received an award from the Mass. Commission on the Status of Women, and The Unspoken Truth won the Hope Pyx Global International Book Award in the category of child abuse.
The road has been long, and healing didn’t come all at once. But it began by telling a very difficult story.
“The healing process comes in stages,” Zarcone said. “People will say, ‘once you share your story, it’s better.’ No, no … that’s when the work really begins. You have to take it piece by piece, and when it gets too heavy, you put it down.
BusinessWest has long recognized the contributions of women within the business community and created the Women of Impact awards four years ago to further honor women who have the authority and power to move the needle in their business, are respected for accomplishments within their industries, give back to the community, and are sought out as respected advisors and mentors within their field of influence.
The eight stories below demonstrate that idea many times over. They detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives — specifically, how they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. The class of 2022 features:
She’s Created a Blueprint for Being an Effective Leader
Aelan Tierney was recalling her search for an internship opportunity while in high school.
This was before the internet, so she used something quite foreign to people of that age today — the phone book. Starting in the A’s, she came to ‘Advertising,’ thought about it for a minute or two, and then continued turning pages until arriving at ‘Architecture,’ and decided that this was a profession she needed to explore.
When asked why she moved down the book from advertising, she said simply, “it was interesting, but it wasn’t three-dimensional.”
Architecture is, and that’s just one of the many things she likes about what eventually became her chosen field.
“Architecture impacts every aspect of our life, whether it’s your home, school, or place of work,” she told BusinessWest. “The experiences you have are shaped by the spaces that you’re in; if you’re in a good space, you do and feel good, and if you’re in a bad space, it can make your life difficult. I like how architecture makes an impact on people.”
As it turns out, that high-school internship spawned more than an interest in architecture. It started Tierney down a truly impactful career path, as an employer (she’s president of the Amherst-based firm Kuhn Riddle), as someone active her in profession and trying to diversify its ranks (much more on that later), and as someone active in her community, as a member of the board of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, for example, and also as chair of the Northampton Central Business Architecture Committee.
“Architecture impacts every aspect of our life, whether it’s your home, school, or place of work. The experiences you have are shaped by the spaces that you’re in; if you’re in a good space, you do and feel good, and if you’re in a bad space, it can make your life difficult. I like how architecture makes an impact on people.”
One internship didn’t inspire all that, obviously. What has is an ongoing desire to get involved (she’s a former Peace Corps volunteer), inspire and mentor others, and, yes, impact everyday lives through her work in architecture.
In all aspects of her life, Tierney would be considered a leader, and to her, that means someone who possesses many skills, but excels at listening and responding to what is heard. This is true when it comes to the relationship between an architect and a client, in the workplace, and in life in general.
“Listening and hearing what people are saying is really important,” she said. “We all come from very different life experiences that shape who we are and how we see and understand the world. Strong leaders try to best understand the goals and aspirations of the people they are leading.
“I think strong leaders also know how to bring the best people to them and then bring out the best in them,” she went on. “They learn the strengths of the people on their team, and they cultivate and support the growth of those strengths while also figuring out how to help them strengthen their weaknesses.”
Aelan Tierney says the past few years brought challenges the industry hadn’t seen before, but Kuhn Riddle was able to ride out the storm.
Tierney certainly fits these descriptions, and her strong leadership skills and ability to change the landscape, in all kinds of ways, makes her a Woman of Impact.
New Dimensions of Leadership
Architecture is one of those fields that is most impacted by the ups and downs in the economy, especially those downs.
And those in this profession feel the impact usually before most others.
Indeed, as the economy starts to decline, or even before that as storm clouds start to gather, building projects large and small are often put on hold or scrapped altogether. Tierney has seen the phone stop ringing, or ringing as often, several times in her career, especially during the Great Recession of 2009, when most building ground to a halt.
Still, the pandemic that started in March 2020, was something altogether different, unlike anything she or anyone else in this profession had seen before.
“Listening and hearing what people are saying is really important. We all come from very different life experiences that shape who we are and how we see and understand the world. Strong leaders try to best understand the goals and aspirations of the people they are leading.”
“It was scary,” she recalled, noting that many of the public institutions Kuhn Riddle has worked for, and it’s a long list, simply shut down and shelved most all construction and renovation work. “We actually started talking about … ‘well, what happens if we have to close the firm?’”
The firm didn’t close, obviously, and it was Tierney’s work with her partners and others at the company to diversify its portfolio — as well as those leadership skills she described earlier — that enabled it to ride out this and other storms.
“During the pandemic, I learned that leaders have to think quickly on their feet; they have to gather as much information as possible about things they never thought they would be dealing with,” she said. “They need to communicate clearly and frequently in an ever-changing and rapidly changing crisis. They need to make tough decisions, and hopefully keep the business and all of the staff afloat.”
Tierney said everything she experienced prior to the pandemic helped prepare her for that moment — as much as anyone could have been prepared. And to understand, we need to go back to that internship. Actually, our story goes back further, to Tierney’s childhood, when she spent considerable time in her father’s woodworking school for fine furniture and watching him craft pieces to meet a client’s specific needs. It was through such experiences that she developed an interest in architecture.
“I thought it was fascinating to take something from paper and transform it into an object,” she said, adding that this interest eventually led her to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she majored in architecture and minored in architecture history.
She graduated during one of those aforementioned downturns in the economy, the lengthy recession of the early ’90s. Unable to find work, she joined the Peace Corps as a community-development volunteer and was assigned to work in Guinea in West Africa — a learning experience on many levels, and one in which she put her education to good use.
“I was a health and community-development volunteer, and I renovated an old warehouse building into a workshop for a women’s cooperative,” she recalled. “It was amazing job to have to have as young woman in a developing country.”
She started her career in architecture at Dietz & Co. Architects in Springfield, led by Kerry Dietz, a member of BusinessWest’s inaugural class of Women of Impact, whom Tierney described as a great mentor. She then joined Kuhn Riddle in 2005 and became president and majority owner in 2016.
As an architect, she works on projects across a broad spectrum, including residential, commercial, education, and nonprofits. Her portfolio includes a number of intriguing projects, including the renovation of Easthampton’s historic Town Hall, the Gaylord Mansion historic renovation at Elms College, the new Girls Inc. of the Valley headquarters and program center in Holyoke, the Olympia Oaks affordable-housing project in Amherst, the Kringle Candle Farm Table restaurant in Bernardston, and many others. While the projects vary in size and scope, a common thread is the partnership between the client, architect, and builder that makes a dream become reality.
The new Girls Inc. headquarters in Holyoke is one of many projects in the diverse portfolio compiled by Kuhn Riddle and its president, Aelan Tierney.
“As an architect, I strive to listen to my clients to learn about what types of spaces would make their lives better, and then, hopefully, we create those spaces together,” she said. “My greatest satisfaction is facilitating the collaboration between the client, design professionals, and builders to realize a client’s vision.”
In her current role, she balances her design work with her leadership responsibilities, which include setting a tone, leading by example, and creating an effective culture for the firm.
“As president of Kuhn Riddle, I strive to make our work environment as supportive as possible for our staff,” she explained. “We love what we do, but we also have lives and families outside of work, and it is important to me that everyone here has a work/life balance. I believe that people will give their best when they feel that they are being given the best possible support and appreciation.”
For Tierney, balance means time with family, but also for giving back to the community. She has been a member of the Amherst Area Chamber board for several years now, and is currently a member of its diversity task force. Formerly, she served on the board of the Enchanted Circle Theatre.
As noted earlier, she is chair of the Northampton Central Business Architecture Committee, and also vice chair of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Architects, as well as a member of the diversity committee of the National Council of Architecture Registration Boards.
“ It was an anti-beauty pageant, because it wasn’t about looks. It was all about owning who you are, being who you are, doing some community service, sharing whatever talent you have … they didn’t have to show up and look a certain way.”
In recent years, bringing diversity to the profession, one historically dominated by white males, has become one of her priorities. She noted that, while there are more non-whites, and many more women, in architecture schools than when she was at Carnegie Mellon, they are not becoming licensed architects at the same rates.
“Diversity is important to me, not only as a woman, but as the mother of a biracial child,” she explained. “I recognize that this profession is lacking diversity, and I believe that architecture is better when all the voices are represented in the design process.”
To create a more diverse mix of voices, Kuhn Riddle now funds a scholarship for UMass Amherst’s Summer Design Academy for high-school students, specifically targeting women and people of color.
“If you get kids interested in high school, maybe they’ll go to college,” she explained, adding that several area firms now contribute to that scholarship, one of many steps she believes will eventually change the face of the profession, literally and figuratively.
Progress — by Design
As she talked with BusinessWest about her life and career, Tierney presented a small card, a marketing piece used by the firm.
On one side is a brief history of Kuhn Riddle, a quick summation of its specialties and client base, and even mention of its own headquarters, an open-design studio with no private offices to promote communication and “cross-fertilization of ideas.”
On the other side, in gray, is a map of Amherst, with properties designed by Kuhn Riddle (either new construction or renovations) in yellow.
“That’s a lot of yellow,” said Tierney as she referenced the card, noting projects in every corner of the community.
Indeed, the firm has certainly changed the landscape in Amherst over the past 32 years, enhancing, improving, supporting, and in some cases changing lives through ‘good architecture.’
Tierney has been changing lives herself, going all the way back to her Peace Corps days, as an architect, an activist, and, most of all, a leader. All of that makes her a true Woman of Impact.
She’s Engineering Opportunities for Many in a Dynamic Field
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
When asked about being a leader and role model in her company and in her industry, Ashley Sullivan sums it up simply: “I like to help people, and a lot of people have helped me.”
And she knows the value of helping and encouraging others. During her college days and into her long engineering career at O’Reilly, Talbot & Okun (OTO) — after 20 years with the firm, she was named president at the start of 2020 — she sometimes questioned whether she knew enough, whether she measured up to her responsibilities, and to her peers.
It’s why events like a recent after-work gathering between OTO and Fuss & O’Neill, another civil-engineering firm headquartered in downtown Springfield, are valuable, she said, in that they help young engineers, and especially young women, not only network, but recognize their place in the field.
“I was intimidated to be in a room with a lot of people who had 20-plus years of experience on me. I always thought I had more to learn; I always thought I didn’t have as much experience as I needed,” she recalled. “But if you put me in a room with my peers, I would have been like, ‘oh, I can do this; I want to get them in situations where they see they’re good.”
“The big thing I stressed was, we all have value, and we’re all part of a team, and we need to be rowing the same way.”
Joining a small, newish engineering firm in 2000, Sullivan didn’t network much outside the company, but she sees the value in it now. “I didn’t know my path, and that’s something that’s true with a lot of people. But once they see you out there and you see yourself in that role, it just happens.”
The passion for inspiring younger engineers is what also drives Sullivan to be a mentor, not only by teaching a civil-engineering capstone design course at Western New England University, where she guides graduating students through a mock building project, but by encouraging OTO’s team members to seek any professional-development opportunities that will help them learn and advance, like she did.
“I think we should be mentors. I think it’s very important to give back to the industry,” she said. “We want to hire, and sometimes you hear complaints that there’s nobody great to hire, but is anyone helping them succeed? I think it’s our responsibility to do it.
Ashley Sullivan discusses a project at One Ferry Street in Easthampton with OTO field engineer Dustin Humphrey and client Mike Michon.
“If you give people a lot of opportunity and the skills to help them move up, I feel that benefits the company itself,” she added. “The company needs to support the development of those skills.”
And hiring and recruitment are definitely a challenge now, Sullivan said, adding that the firm saw some turnover during the pandemic but has hired seven employees since January. “We’ve been able to navigate it so far. That’s why I also think it’s important to be a mentor and reach out to students and to have the kind of culture that appeals to them.”
Sullivan has certainly navigated some transitions over the past few years, from taking the reins at OTO to almost immediately having to steer it through a pandemic. For successfully leading in what is still a male-dominated field, and for being a mentor, role model, and inspiration to the next generation of civil engineers, Sullivan is certainly a Woman of Impact.
Ninth Time’s the Charm
Engineering runs in Sullivan’s family — sort of. She said her grandmother always had a lot of respect for engineers, and her father is one of eight siblings who tried engineering but didn’t stick with it. “My grandmother really wanted one, so I said I’ll try it.”
The truth is, Sullivan had already cultivated an interest in chemistry in high school and was considering studying environmental engineering at UMass Amherst — a place where, again, her insecurity nagged at her.
“I want to set us up to the next transition, and that means giving people the skills to manage and lead — not just engineering skills, but all those other things that have to happen. Communication is a big thing we work on, and so is trust.”
“I did very well in high school, but I was nervous about going to a challenging school, or a school where there were others who would do really well too. That plays into why I like to give people confidence and why I do what I do. On the outside, I did well and came across like I had a lot of confidence. But inside, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea.’”
She had a positive experience at UMass, though she shifted gears toward civil engineering, “mainly because I found that chemical engineering students ended up in a dark lab, and civil engineering students were outside in the quad, and that just looked a lot more enjoyable to me.”
When she graduated in 1998, a lot of the jobs being offered at the time were at the Big Dig in Boston, and she wasn’t interested in heavy construction, so she stayed in graduate school, where she gained the experience she would put to use at OTO two years later.
“I was working for a Mass Highway project where we were installing wells, doing groundwater sampling, modeling groundwater flow, looking at contamination, and two years later I had my master’s in environmental engineering,” she said. “I interviewed at OTO because they were local, in Springfield, and halfway through the interview with Jim Okun and Mike Talbot, I thought I’d like to work there. It was a small firm, everybody seemed very nice, and it seemed to suit my personality.”
OTO’s services over the years have included testing commercial properties for hazardous materials and overseeing cleanup, asbestos management in schools and offices, brownfield redevelopment, indoor air-quality assessments, and geotechnical engineering, a broad term encompassing everything from helping developers assess how much force and weight the ground under a proposed structure can stand to determining the strength of a building’s foundation and surrounding topography.
“I enjoyed working for a small company, working directly with the principals,” Sullivan said, the third being Kevin O’Reilly. “I learned a lot. I also enjoyed working in my own community. It’s been fun over the years driving around the neighborhoods, whether I go to Baystate for a doctor’s appointment or a library, or take my kids to a park, and see projects that I worked on. Rather than working on a high-profile job in another city, I really liked that the jobs were near where I work.”
The other positive experience — one that would later color the kind of president she would be —was being allowed a flexible schedule when she started a family in 2005.
“That was not industry-wide; it’s just not something that was offered,” she explained. “I went down to 24 hours with my first daughter, and I stayed there until they were both in school, then went to 32 hours. But I was still allowed to progress in management.”
That was the key, she said — being able to have work-life balance without sacrificing future opportunities.
“It’s a two-way street. I got some flexibility, but there was accountability and good communication, and I would try to be available when I absolutely needed to; my kids went to some job sites. That was something you couldn’t easily find at other engineering firms. And I also kept progressing; I was allowed to manage projects and manage staff that way. So that kept me going here, to the point where we transitioned.”
Ashley Sullivan performs a phase-1 dam inspection.
In fact, when the three founders started talking about the next generation of leadership, they discussed selling OTO to an outsider, but they preferred an internal transition, and felt they had the right individual in Sullivan.
“We had a good business, we had a good foundation, and I just said, ‘I want to be part of it … I like what I do, I like the people I work with, we have a good company, let’s just try to make this work.’”
Sullivan has taken lessons from her own experience and saw how offering flexibility in different ways to employees could benefit both them and the company, although COVID, admittedly, helped that process along. “I wanted to make sure people, whether managers or other individuals, had the skills and knew the expectations to make that kind of work more widespread.”
She has led her team, she noted, according to the company’s core values, three of which are transparency, respect, and togetherness.
“The big thing I stressed was, we all have value, and we’re all part of a team, and we need to be rowing the same way,” she told BusinessWest. “That was really important, and it was something I learned here but I saw fall away a little bit when we were going through the transition, because when times get hard, it becomes very individual: ‘what does this mean for me? Is this going to be good or bad? I’ve got to fight for my own.’ We needed to come back together.”
So she conducted sessions where she asked employees what kind of culture they want and what keeps them at OTO. “I asked, ‘what are some of the great things we can build upon? What can we do better?’ I think that was important. I like to hear what others want, and then see if I can help make that happen. So, really, one of the big things I wanted to do was to hear from more voices.
“And there was a good foundation,” she added. “My experience here was something I thought I could build upon and then bring to the next level.”
Reaching New Heights
The mission statement posted in the conference room attests that “we will elevate our industry to create and deliver the best solutions for natural and built environments.”
And to elevate an industry, Sullivan believes she must first elevate her people. “I want to set us up to the next transition, and that means giving people the skills to manage and lead — not just engineering skills, but all those other things that have to happen. Communication is a big thing we work on, and so is trust.”
When she talks to young people about a career in civil engineering, she’s quick to explain how much variety and opportunity they will encounter. “You can go into transportation or structural or geotech or environmental. You can do public work at the state or municipal level, or even the federal level. You can work in private consulting or go into technical sales. You can go into a testing lab. You can work for a contractor. That allows for some flexibility because you don’t always know when you’re right out of school and you have to make all these decisions.”
At the same time, “going into a field like civil engineering, you’re going to be needed forever. We do important projects for people. It’s important for people to have that job security and know there are so many different things you can do with that.”
The message is rersonating, especially with young women. A few weeks ago, Sullivan attended a geotechnical conference in Connecticut and was “blown away” by the number of women she saw, compared to, say, five years ago. And on a heavy construction site on Boston Road recently, she walked the grounds alongside a female field engineer and a female quality-control engineer, all from different firms.
“That was something that I hadn’t seen, to see three women working together on a project with a big rig installing ground improvement. It was really neat. Sometimes I think, ‘wow, this is happening.’
It’s happening because of the impact of women like Sullivan, who knows the value of being helped and inspired, and wants to do the same for others.
This Leader Helps Others Achieve a Sense of Belonging
Hilda Roqué was 14 when she and other members of her family arrived in Holyoke from her native Puerto Rico.
It was February, she recalled, noting that the extreme climate change from the tropical Caribbean provided a constant reminder that she was a long — as in long — way from home.
And, unfortunately, weather was far from the only such painful reminder. Language was a considerable barrier, she said, and there were myriad cultural differences as well. Overall, she did not feel included.
“I had no sense of belonging when I came here; when you come from a different country, it’s always difficult, especially when you’re trying to find your own identity,” she told BusinessWest, adding quickly that she worked hard to overcome what would be considered stern challenges to lead the Spanish newspaper at Holyoke High School and become the first recipient of its Latino Leadership honor, a poignant sign of what was come.
Indeed, fast-forwarding to today — we’ll go back and fill in some gaps later — Roqué has become a leader in this community on many levels.
She is the executive director of Nuestras Raíces, a Holyoke-based nonprofit with a broad mission that involves connecting people with the land through agriculture programs, empowering communities, and advocating for food justice.
While doing all that through a process of growth, evolution, and essentially breaking agriculture into two words — agri and culture — the team at Nuestras Raíces, and especially Roqué, have made it part of the mission to make sure that current and future generations of people coming to Holyoke from Puerto Rico and elsewhere don’t have to feel as far away from home as she did all those years ago.
“I had no sense of belonging when I came here; when you come from a different country, it’s always difficult, especially when you’re trying to find your own identity.”
Indeed, they strive to make them feel at home in as many ways as they can.
“It was always my dream to make it easier to transition,” she said. “I went through a lot of bullying and a lot of racism … there were so many barriers, including language, that I didn’t want people to feel like I felt when I came here.
“That’s why I fought so much, and why I’m still fighting, for that to happen,” she went on. “Equality — that’s something that this organization stands for. We are all worthy of eating healthy, we should all be eating healthy, there shouldn’t be so much discrimination when it comes to food; we all have the same rights. This is something that is also my passion; we should live in better places, and we should aim for the stars like everyone else.”
Roqué, who first came to Nuestras Raíces as a volunteer more than 30 years ago and took on several different roles before being named executive director in 2011, is a Woman of Impact for many reasons, starting with what she has done with this nonprofit.
Working with others, she has taken the mission in many different directions, from incubating new businesses to providing an education in financial literacy, to taking an annual harvest festival to new heights as a tradition and celebration of many different cultures.
Nuestras Raíces translates as ‘our roots,’ and the agency, led by Hilda Roqué, connects people with their roots in many different ways.
“People from Puerto Rico thought they were in Puerto Rico; people from Colombia thought they were in Colombia; people from the Dominican Republic thought they were in the Dominican Republic,” she said of that event. “That’s what we celebrate when we separate the word ‘agriculture’ — because it is a great part of what this organization wants to pass on to the next generation, not only safe and sustainable practices in agriculture, but also the love for their culture.”
For Roqué, this is not a job, but a passion, and she sees the agency’s programs as a powerful force for change and empowerment within the community.
“It’s very rewarding when you see that we’re trying to help the environment, that we’re providing socioeconomic opportunities for people in this community so they can live a dignified life, when we can actually have people in the community graduate from our programs and they become business owners,” she said, adding that, while she has seen a great deal of progress made, there is still much work to be done.
But she is also being honored for her mentoring of young people and especially girls, her commitment to improving quality of life for those she touches, and for her various efforts to make all those in Holyoke, but especially those who come from other countries, as she did, feel included, not excluded.
All this clearly explains why she is a Woman of Impact.
Food for Thought
Nuestras Raíces translates neatly into ‘Our Roots.’
It’s a fitting name, and a play on words, obviously. Those two short words hit on both sides of the organization’s mission succinctly and effectively. The agency encourages people to put roots in the ground, both literally and figuratively, while connecting them with their roots.
The agency was born in 1992 by a group of community members in South Holyoke who had the goal, the dream, of developing a greenhouse in downtown Holyoke. The founding members were migrating farmers from Puerto Rico with a strong agricultural background who found themselves in a city with no opportunities to practice what they knew.
“I love teaching kids that there’s a future and that the future holds something good if you actually grasp opportunities and grow as a community.”
Eventually, these community leaders located an abandoned lot in South Holyoke, one full of trash, needles, and criminal activity, and came together to clean the lot, which would become the first community garden, sparking the growth of urban agriculture in Holyoke under the umbrella of Nuestras Raíces.
Today, the agency coordinates and maintains a network of 14 community gardens, including the gardens of the Holyoke Educational System and community partners, and also operates a 30-acre farm, called La Finca, that focuses on urban agriculture, economic development, and creating change in food systems.
Those gardens, and the farm, grow a wide range of crops native to Puerto to Rico, from several different types of peppers to lettuce; from garlic to peas. These are just some of the items made available at a mobile farmers market — a refurbished school bus — created as a grassroots response to address health issues and food access by providing access to produce grown at local farms in neighborhoods across the city, many of which would be considered food deserts.
“To see the foods that we used to grow in our backyards in Puerto Rico be actually grown here … there are no words to really explain the feeling that you get when you get reconnected to your roots,” Roqué told BusinessWest. “And that’s why I feel so passionate and I love this organization so much.”
She joined it as an office manager and developed into a program developer and program manager, and eventually worked her way up to executive director. It’s a broad role with a number of responsibilities, both within the offices on Main Street and across the community, that she summed up this way:
“I don’t sit behind my desk — I go out there,” she said. “I hear; I listen to people. Nuestras Raíces provides programming that is a response to the needs that we hear from constituents. We ask and respond in ways that reflect our mission, which is to connect the agriculture and the socioeconomics and the food-justice piece of it and tie it together in ways that bring opportunities to this community.”
Indeed, over the years, the mission at Nuestras Raíces has been broadened into the realms of education and economic development.
For example, the agency has created what it calls the Holyoke Food and Agriculture Innovation Center (HFAIC), which serves as a food hub for Holyoke in the form of a center of food production, innovation, and education. The agency boasts two industrial kitchens and leases those spaces to community food entrepreneurs.
It also hosts a seven-week educational program focused on providing financial and business-management assistance to community entrepreneurs based in Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield, and other area communities. It offers bilingual lessons covering a wide range of topics including business and property insurance, permitting, bookkeeping, investing, marketing, business planning, and many others.
Beyond these offerings, Roqué and her team strive to help others understand the opportunities and open doors that are available to them through hard work, education, and perseverance.
“I love teaching kids that there’s a future and that the future holds something good if you actually grasp opportunities and grow as a community,” she explained. “If you hold each other’s hand — and that’s what we do here with our businesses and our program participants; we hold their hand — you can help them navigate their way and feel included.”
As the leader of Nuestras Raíces, as a leader in the community, and as a mentor to young people, Roqué says she tries to “teach by example,” as she put it, especially when it comes to treating all people with the respect and dignity they deserve.
“I don’t do unto others as was done unto me,” she said. “I see everyone, and when I see them, I don’t see color or race — I see people as human beings, and I try to instill that in the younger generations; I tell them to pass on the love, not the hate, and treat others the way you would like to be treated.
“I try to be an example to others, especially women, who feel that maybe they didn’t have value or are not being heard,” she went on. “That’s what I’m trying to do with my voice; I’m trying to be someone in this community who is respectable and who respects, and who likes to be heard.”
When asked to assess what has changed and improved since she arrived and the work still to be done, Roqué said there has been considerable progress, and she points to City Hall as just one example. There, Joshua Garcia, the city’s first Puerto Rican mayor, sits in the corner office.
“For a lot of years, Holyoke did not reflect the community that lives here,” she said. “Things have been getting progressively better, but there is still a lot more to do when it comes to navigating through systemic challenges. There’s still work to be done and a lot of effort needed to come together as one community.”
Bottom Line
Roqué will certainly be putting in that effort.
As she has said, and others have said of her, the work she does at Nuestras Raíces is not really work. It is, indeed a passion.
Specifically, a passion to serve, to educate, to inspire, to create opportunities, and to change lives. She does all of that, and that’s why she’s always been a leader and a Woman of Impact.
That name was chosen because it specialized in seal-coating driveways and crack filling, said Laurie Raymaakers, who started it with her husband, John, after work they were doing in property management dried up amid the banking crisis and deep recession of the late ’80s and they needed to find something — anything — to generate revenue and help provide for a growing family.
She joked — only it wasn’t really a joke — that they should have called it ‘We Can Do That,’ because while they seal-coated a lot of driveways across Western Mass., they quickly picked up other skills and took on other assignments related to driveways, landscaping, and small-scale construction.
In many ways, ‘we can do that’ describes not only the company the Raymaakers partners created, but the mindset that has driven them, and especially Laurie, over the past 40 years or so. It sums up her approach to business and life itself — always learning, always evolving, always doing whatever it takes to make ends meet, first and foremost, but also create opportunities and grow a company.
“That was the attitude that I had, that John had, and we’ve instilled it in everyone around us,” she explained. “It’s ‘I can do that’ — you can always learn, you can research, you can read … you can evolve and adjust and do what it takes.”
And she has. Over the course of those four decades, she’s worked two and sometimes three jobs at a time — everything from shifts as a police dispatcher to plowing snow to working at the local Boys & Girls Club — to help support the family and enable their Westfield-based business, now known as J.L. Raymaakers & Sons Inc., to gain a foothold and eventually thrive.
This is a story of perseverance, determination, imagination, and, well … ‘we can do that.’
Laurie Raymaakers and her husband, John, have persevered through a number of challenges to lead their company to continued growth.
Laurie Raymaakers is a Woman of Impact for many reasons, but especially the manner in which she has become a role model and mentor to others, especially women in the construction trades and other male-dominated sectors.
She can remember the early days, showing up with her sister-in-law to seal-coat driveways and finding homeowners, men and women, being indifferent about women showing up to do the work. In more recent years, she can remember being the only woman in construction-management meetings and having the others look at her as if she was there to take minutes or pour coffee. Through the course of her career, she’s been asked more times than she could remember if she worked for her husband, not with him in a leadership role.
One can only overcome such actions and sentiments by proving they are good at what they do, exhibiting large amounts of confidence, and believing in themselves, she said.
And she has always been that person.
Today, the company she leads as president is handling projects with budgets in the millions of dollars. It specializes in excavation and site work, water- and sewer-line installation, snow removal, and more.
Meanwhile, she has been involved in her community in quiet ways, be it lifelong support of the Boys & Girls Club or encouraging those in local trade schools, especially Westfield Technical Academy, that there are real opportunities in the trades, and that they should not be overlooked as one considers career options.
All along the way, Raymaakers has been convincing others that there is nothing beyond their reach if they are willing to work hard for it, make the needed sacrifices, and, as Bill Belichick might put it — ‘do your job.’
She knows, because she’s been there and done that. The sum of her life and work, as well as that ‘we can do that’ attitude and her ability to instill it in others, explains why she is a Woman of Impact.
Sealing the Deal
As she talked about the early days of SealMaster, Raymaakers got up from her desk and retrieved a photo. Actually, it was one of those wooden frames, partitioned off to hold several different photos of various sizes and shapes.
Some of the larger images were of a huge house in Longmeadow, the owner of which commissioned the biggest project the company had taken on to that time, a long, curving driveway. But there were other shots of her moving five-gallon buckets of sealer into position.
“That was the attitude that I had, that John had, and we’ve instilled it in everyone around us. It’s ‘I can do that’ — you can always learn, you can research, you can read … you can evolve and adjust and do what it takes.”
Raymaakers has kept those photos all these years because they serve to remind her of where and how things started — and of how far she and John, and now their two sons, have come since. It’s an inspiring story in many ways, and it serves as a reminder — not that anyone who has ever started and grown a business needs one — that nothing about having your name over the door (literally or figuratively) is easy, and that success only comes to those who have what it takes to ride out the hard days and find ways to create better days.
Our story really begins with Raymaakers, soon after relocating to Westfield from Hardwick when she was 24, taking a job with the Westfield Boys & Girls Club in the early ’80s.
“I knew I wanted to do something that made a difference somehow,” she recalled, adding that she started working at the club part-time, and later, after some grant funding was secured for the facility, was assigned to be program director at a satellite office in a large apartment complex called Powdermill Village.
“It was a great experience … I met some wonderful kids that have turned into great adults,” she told BusinessWest. “And what we did was needed. The kids that lived there needed a place to go after school to empower them, tell them they could make a difference, and just let them be themselves. It was a really good program, and I was there for six years.”
Looking back, she said her work went beyond the day-to-day programming and into the realm of mentoring and helping those young people overcome a difficult childhood.
“I can remember saying to them, ‘you can do it, you can do it — you can do anything you want to do,’” she recalled, adding that she stayed in touch with many of them, standing up for one at her wedding and becoming a godmother to one of her children.
Laurie Raymaakers has become a role model to others, especially women in the construction trades and other male-dominated sectors.
Her time at Powdermill was life-changing in many other respects. It was there she met John Raymaakers, who worked in maintenance at the facility, and “fell in love, got married, and all that goofy stuff.”
‘Goofy stuff,’ in this case, is decades of working together to forge some dreams and make them come true.
After a brief and unfulfilling time in Oklahoma, where John took a job, they returned to Westfield and started working for a property-management company, handling apartment complexes in several area communities, and later opened their own company. As noted earlier, with the sharp downturn in the economy, their portfolio diminished in dramatic fashion.
“We lost 70% of our business in six months,” she said, adding that they soon began looking for something else to do, settled on sealing driveways, and started SealMaster with some grit and an old Chevy pickup.
“I had to put a quart of oil in it every day to drive it down the road,” she said with a hearty laugh, noting that, while there were many tough times, especially when John was severely burned while on a job and out of action for a lengthy period of recovery, the company persevered.
She remembers preparing for the annual home show and sitting at the kitchen table with her children folding marketing pieces that she would load into the family station wagon and put in newspaper boxes across the region.
But John’s accident came at a time when the couple had allowed their health insurance to expire. It was a scary time, and one that convinced her that she needed to take a job that offered health insurance.
“This was a case of ‘when one door closes, another opens,’” she said, adding that the former director of the Westfield Boys & Girls Club, whom she worked with and for, had taken the same position in Springfield, and he hired her to manage three satellite offices — and provide more mentoring and counseling to young people.
“These were rough neighborhoods; there were a lot of gangs,” she recalled. “And I tried to convince them that they didn’t have to do it this way, with the street life, the gangs — I said, ‘you have opportunities out there. You don’t have to be a follower; you can be a leader.’”
She worked at the club from 2 to 10, which gave her the opportunity to work at SealMaster before that, she said, adding that, over the years, she would work several different jobs to help make ends meet.
In 1998, she and John started J.L. Raymaakers, specializing in paving and site work, crack-filling at places like the Holyoke Mall, snowplowing, and more, a venture that has grown over the years to now boast 41 employees. The ‘& Sons’ part of the title came later, as sons John and Joshua, who first started helping out when they were 12, officially joined the company.
While the company has enjoyed steady growth over the years, success has not come easily, and Raymaakers remembers many years when she — and John — would work at least two jobs.
“I worked at the Westfield Police Department for five years, 4 to midnight, as a police dispatcher,” she recalled. “It was exhausting; I’d get up at 6 in the morning and get the kids off to school, and then I’d do company work, and then I’d have to go to work again.
“At night, the boys used to plow,” she went on. “And then they’d come to the police station at night and switch vehicles with me; I would go out and plow all night, and they’d take my car home.”
When asked what she does day in and day out at J.L. Raymaakers, she laughed, as if to indicate that there is little she doesn’t do. The list includes project management, estimating, marketing, and many other assignments.
Summing up what it’s been like for her — and for all business owners, for that matter — she put things in perspective in poignant fashion.
“It’s been a challenge … it’s been a struggle … it’s been rewarding … it’s been frightening,” she said. “But there’s nothing else I’d rather do. Growth doesn’t come easy — it comes at a cost; you have to be willing to pay that cost.”
Concrete Example
Raymaakers recalls a time she visited a job site about eight years ago, with the intention of getting her hands dirty — literally.
“I went to pick up a wheelbarrow of asphalt to patch, just ’cause I wanted to, and I couldn’t pick it up,” she said with exasperation in her voice all these years later. “I was so ticked off … I’m like, ‘I’m out of shape!’”
It was one of the few times over the past four decades when she couldn’t say ‘I can do that.’
Because she was able to say it all those other times, she’s been not only a force in the workplace — whatever that might be — but a force in the lives of those around her, a true Woman of Impact.
Amherst Town Councilor; President, Ancestral Bridges
By Connecting Past with Present, She’s Changing the Narrative of Amherst’s History
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
While showing off her extensive collection of hat blocks in her Amherst home, Anika Lopes explained how they tell a story of her time in New York City, but, more importantly, of generations before her.
“Hats really are a universal connector. You’d be hard-pressed to find any culture in the world that doesn’t have traditions with some sort of headwear, whether that’s a feather, bones, a traditional hat, or just something to keep people warm. It’s a space of universal connection.”
Lopes has dedicated much of her life to making connections, particularly involving the long, often-undertold history of Black and Indigenous communities in and around Amherst. It’s work she took up in earnest after returning to her hometown in 2019.
But let’s start with the hats.
As an artist and sculptor who graduated from the New School University, she found herself interning with Horace Weeks, one of the first Black men to own a hat factory, Peter & Irving, in the Garment District of New York City. “Millinery chose me,” she said, using the proper name for hat design. “I was fascinated by Mr. Weeks, and walking into that space felt like walking back in time. I had always had a passion for sculpting, and hand-blocking hats was very much like sculpting.”
Lopes and an ex-partner eventually took over the factory and revamped it, and she found overnight attention when the R&B artist Usher commissioned a hat from her in 2005 and wore it on a popular MTV show. “Pretty much overnight, that hat was on billboards in Times Square, and I had buyers from all over the world calling in,” Lopes said. “I thought, now what do I do? And I looked at it for the opportunity it was.”
As her profile grew, she made commissioned designer hats for Madonna, Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, numerous films and celebrities, and exclusive boutiques in New York and Japan, including Isetan in Tokyo and Bergdorf Goodman.
“It was a whirlwind experience being in the fashion industry, but I got to the point where my passion for connecting people and wanting to help people, which has always been something in me, made me feel like I needed more,” she recalled. “I was able to reach out and work with different internship programs and different corporations where I was able to merge the business of fashion with having an impact on marginalized communities, with disadvantaged youth, and also with adults coming into second-chance programs dealing with harm reduction.”
When she returned to Amherst three years ago, Lopes began directing that passion for connecting people to a different purpose: to uncover and bring to light the Black and Indigenous history of generations of Amherst residents, including some who played a direct role in the events that were eventually commemorated as Juneteenth.
The Ancestral Bridges exhibit of historical photographs and artifacts will be on view at the Amherst History Museum for two more Saturdays, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Through efforts to “daylight” some of that long-neglected history — through historical events, museum exhibits, her role on the Amherst Town Council, and especially a foundation she calls Ancestral Bridges — Lopes is connecting past with present and providing not just a clearer sense of history, but new opportunities for young BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) individuals today.
“I have to pinch myself,” she told BusinessWest. “There have been few times in my life where I’ve been so excited about something and feel such a connection. Ancestral Bridges is part of my life’s work, part of my purpose.”
Deep Roots
Growing up in Amherst, Lopes said, she was close to her family — parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents — and when she returned, she found herself revisiting spaces and connecting with the past. She looked up to her grandfather, Dudley Bridges, who had launched an initiative in the late 1990s to restore and publicly display Civil War tablets that told the story of Indigenous and Black soldiers.
Due to the efforts of Dudley and his family, important aspects of Amherst’s history were brought to light, she explained. As a board member of the Amherst Historical Society, he worked to obtain National Historic Register status for Amherst’s Westside District of Snell Street, Hazel Avenue, and Baker Street — one of several neighborhoods in Amherst with significant cultural history for BIPOC people.
But, while he funded the restoration of the tablets, they remained in storage when he passed away in 2004. So Lopes took up her grandfather’s mission to bring them into the light.
“The tablets were given to the town in 1893 by the Grand Army of the Republic to honor more than 300 Union soldiers and sailors from Amherst. Many of the names are familiar ones in Amherst: Dickinson, Cowls, Kellogg,” she explained. “Each man and his family made a difficult choice and great sacrifice to enlist — perhaps none so much as the Black soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment and 5th Cavalry who traveled through and to very hostile territory in 1865 to notify residents of Texas that the Civil War had ended and that the Emancipation Proclamation made slavery illegal in the Confederate states.”
“It was a whirlwind experience being in the fashion industry, but I got to the point where my passion for connecting people and wanting to help people, which has always been something in me, made me feel like I needed more.”
Cinda Jones, the ninth-generation president of W.D. Cowls Inc., was inspired by this work, among other things, in nominating Lopes as a Woman of Impact. “Anika Lopes demanded that her ancestors’ names on the town of Amherst Civil War tablets be on permanent exhibit. That they be seen. That the total history of Amherst be seen for the first time. That Black and Indigenous residents, heretofore invisible, be recognized. She asked for inclusivity.”
She got it; the Civil War tablet exhibit is now on display at the Bangs Community Center. The exhibit debuted on June 19, 2021 and served as the inspiration for the first townwide Juneteenth celebration. For the 2022 Juneteenth event, Lopes curated and led a walk of Black historical sites in Amherst.
“For the first time, hundreds of residents saw and recognized where Black history occurred,” Jones wrote. “Coinciding with the walk was a first-ever Amherst History Museum exhibit curated, owned, and presented by Ancestral Bridges. It is still going. It represents the very first time that Amherst’s Blacks and Indigenous people have ever been represented in the Amherst History Museum. Anika Lopes made this happen.”
Indeed, Lopes founded Ancestral Bridges in June 2022 to bring together stakeholders to elevate economic and cultural opportunities and build a more equitable future for regional BIPOC individuals. According to its mission statement, Ancestral Bridges receives grants of money and land and leverages these to celebrate BIPOC arts and culture, enable first-time home-ownership opportunities, and raise the potential of BIPOC and disadvantaged youth. Some of the activities it supports include telling the stories of local ancestors through interactive history walks, art exhibits, and music events; educating about wealth generation and developing internships, programs, and workshops for BIPOC youth and families; and enabling local BIPOC wealth generation by receiving gifts, grants, and other resources to benefit BIPOC futures.
“Ancestral Bridges serves as the bridge between past and present, between elder and youth, between diverse populations, connecting all who seek to learn and grow through meaningful engagements that educate, empower, and nurture long-lasting growth,” Lopes added.
The Ancestral Bridges exhibit of historical photographs and artifacts at the Amherst History Museum features Black and Indigenous families who lived in Amherst for centuries, were integral to the fabric and character of Amherst and surrounding towns, served in the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment and 5th Cavalry Regiment during the Civil War, built and founded the first black churches in Amherst, facilitated the smooth functioning of commerce and institutional education, and provided living quarters for those otherwise denied, including newly arrived Black people from the South.
Anika Lopes’ mother, Debora Bridges (third from right), gives a narrative tour of the Civil War tablet exhibit as a highlight of her 50th Amherst High School reunion.
But that wasn’t the extent of Lopes’ daylighting efforts. “When I came on the Council, one of the first things I noticed was the list of proclamations for celebratory days. Both Indigenous Peoples Day and Native American History Month weren’t on the list. That really floored me, because just about everyone else was there.”
Proclamations, tablets, museum displays, and history walks won’t by themselves reverse the centuries-long trend of downplaying BIPOC contributions in Amherst, but each effort is another positive step — and Lopes is by no means done.
Telling a New Story
The fact that Amherst itself is named after a British military officer who supported the extermination of Native Americans is not lost on Lopes. Rather, it’s perhaps the most glaring example of those whose stories have been allowed to be told and celebrated over the centuries. On display at the museum exhibit, in fact, is a full set of Amherst College china designed by the college’s president in the 1940s, depicting Lord Jeffrey Amherst massacring Indigenous people. Meals were served on that china to Amherst College professors, staff, and students between 1940 and 1970.
That’s not that long ago, so these wounds are still fresh.
“You’re talking about two cultures [Black and Indigenous] that are connected by a certain type of trauma and displacement and erasure,” Lopes said. “In a lot of places, you can’t see and document this history, but we can.”
Which is why she brings to light stories like Christopher and Charles Thompson, direct ancestors of Lopes who were among the black soldiers to arrive in Texas in 1865 to christen the now-federal holiday of Juneteenth. “These Amherst men — the Thompsons, Josiah Hasbrook, James Finnemore — may not yet have streets named after them, but should be remembered for enlisting to advance the belief that all men are created equal,” she noted.
So as she serves on Amherst’s Town Council, where she chairs the town services and outreach committee and sits on the governance, organization, and legislation committee; serves as a board member of Family Outreach of Amherst, assuring that Amherst’s most vulnerable families are safe; and works as a member of the Jones Library building committee, among other efforts, Lopes is putting time and energy into improving her hometown.
But just as importantly, she’s inspiring others to appreciate the town’s history and, more importantly, draw on it.
“We’re able to bring something forward for youth in Amherst who maybe have never heard about the Black history of Amherst, did not know that we had soldiers right here who fought for their freedom, people who were participating in banking before there were banks here, who brought business here … these are all stories that are inspiring for youth to know about,” she said. “They can say, ‘this what my ancestors did; these are the shoulders I stand on — what can I do? I’m empowered. I am going to be able to take this world so much further than they did’ — and really realize that we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
She’s Choreographed a Broader, More Holistic Mission at This Critical Nonprofit
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
Jodi Falk knows what it’s like to be like food-insecure.
For a brief time, she received assistance from the program known as WIC (Women, Infants, and Children). It’s not something she can easily talk about — and, in fact, it was something she couldn’t talk about until very recently, mostly because of the stigma attached to being in the program.
She recalled that time for BusinessWest, however, because, by doing so, she believes she’s helping to address that stigma, while also putting into perspective the feelings of those that she and the organization she leads, Rachel’s Table, serve day in and day out.
“Those were the days when it wasn’t a card you can give to a cashier or put in a machine, but checks to hand to a person who made sure that what you purchased was on their list — and this could take a while, which was embarrassing,” she recalled. “I used to look around the store to see if I knew anyone, and if I did, I would wait until I was sure they had left the store before going to the register.”
Elaborating, she said she is still embarrassed to talk about those experiences, but admits that they made her aware, and understanding, of what others may be going through when they are on government assistance. And she believes her story has given her some perspective that each individual needs to be treated with “dignity and care.”
In short, those experiences have helped in her role as director of Rachel’s Table, a program of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts, and they are not the only chapter from her past that she says has earned that distinction.
Indeed, Falk spent many years professionally as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, both here and abroad. And while her work administering Rachel’s Table might seem worlds removed from those vocations, the skill sets, and her many experiences in those roles, dovetail nicely with her current assignment. In many ways, they inspired it.
“For several of those years, besides working in the professional arts world, I also taught and choreographed in the community dance and arts world, where I worked with various populations, such as young teen moms or young women who were incarcerated and in treatment centers, elders in nursing homes, people in recovery, families in foster-care communities, and more,” she explained.
“I focused on art making as a means of making voices heard and bodies seen that aren’t always heard and seen. I became more interested in the lives of those with whom I was dancing, in their nourishment, and when Rachel’s Table had an opening for a director, I felt that I could serve more people with nourishment from a literal as well as figurative perspective.”
“We live in a world where we sometimes we don’t see the ‘other,’ if you will. How do we learn to live to live together in a much bigger society, a much broader world? We don’t know each other’s story until we really know each other’s story.”
With that, she referenced not only why she took on this new career challenge, but how dance and choreography have made her a better administrator and problem solver. And, in some ways, they help explain why she is a Woman of Impact.
To gain more perspective on why Falk has earned this honor, we need to look at all that she has accomplished since taking the helm at Rachel’s Table in 2019. In short, she has taken the agency “to a new level of food rescue for our very needy community,” said Judy Yaffe, vice president of the advisory board for Rachel’s Table, in nominating Falk as a Woman of Impact.
And she has done this through many new initiatives, including:
• A broadening of the agency’s reach; in the past, it has served only Hampden County, but has expanded into Hampshire and Franklin counties;
• A new program called Growing Gardens, an offshoot of the agency’s gleaning program, whereby constituents focus on growing and harvesting their own food;
• A new partnership with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts to pick up food from Big Y stores and other large donors;
• A new, fully refrigerated van that will enable the agency to deliver larger quantities of food throughout the year;
• Steps that have enabled Rachel’s Table to rescue 50% more healthy produce, meat, milk, and prepared foods for the more than 50 agencies it serves;
• Upgrades to the volunteer-management program; and
• A significant increase in the number of grants received by the agency, and in the amounts of those grants, as well as a surge in the number of donors to the program.
In short, Falk has been instrumental in essentially expanding the mission and taking it in new directions, while also modernizing the agency, making it more efficient, and, yes, guiding it through a pandemic that brought challenges that could not have been imagined.
As we examine all this in greater detail, it will become abundantly clear why she’s been named a Woman of Impact for 2022.
Growing Passion
As noted earlier, Falk brings a diverse résumé to the table.
She has a bachelor’s degree from Brown and master of fine arts and Ph.D. degrees from Temple University, and she has put them to work in several different capacities.
Most recently, she served as founding director of the dance program at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in South Hadley, where she created nationally recognized dance programs for more than 400 students, produced more than 15 original and critically acclaimed concerts, and oversaw a national touring company. Prior to that, she was program director of the Trinity Lasban Conseratoire of Music and Dance in London. There, she directed and developed a program in choreography and community-engaged arts-education outreach for the institution, among a host of other duties.
Earlier, Falk served as chair of SEPAC (Special Education Parent Advisory Councils for the Greenfield Public School District and Franklin County Region), a family-advocacy organization that provides resources, support, and advice on policy for families of children with special needs. Before that, the was coordinator of Community Engagement for the Five College Consortium in Amherst.
As she mentioned, these various assignments, which provided in experience in everything from teaching and mentoring to grant writing and new program creation, helped prepare her for, and in many ways inspire her interest in, the position at Rachel’s Table. It also provided perspective on the need to fully understand the plight and the challenges of others in order to effectively serve them.
“We live in a world where we sometimes we don’t see the ‘other,’ if you will,” she explained. “How do we learn to live to live together in a much bigger society, a much broader world? We don’t know each other’s story until we really know each other’s story.”
As she goes about her work, she doesn’t talk much about her experiences with WIC, for many reasons. Stigma is one of them, but a bigger reason is that she received assistance for only a short time and moved on from her food insecurity. Her story, she said, doesn’t really reflect the true hardships of those in need.
A gleaning program is one of many new initiatives launched by Jodi Falk since she took the helm at Rachel’s Table in 2019.
It is those individuals’ stories that should be told, she said, and their needs that should be addressed.
And this is what she’s been doing since she took the helm at Rachel’s Table, an organization now celebrating its 30th anniversary. Over that time, and especially in recent years, it has evolved and become much more of a holistic agency while still “nourishing people with dignity,” as Falk likes to say.
It carries out its broad mission of battling food insecurity and not only distributing food but first rescuing much of it from restaurants, supermarkets, and other venues in a number of ways and through several different initiatives, including:
• A gleaning program, known as Bea’s Harvest, that works with young people and school groups to engage them in the service of collecting excess produce and donating it to agencies that serve the hungry and homeless in Western Mass.;
• Growing Gardens, which provides the Pioneer Valley with direct access to healthy foods by helping local organizations build gardens to grow culturally appropriate food;
• Bountiful Bowls, a gala staged every two years to raise funds for the agency;
• Outrun Hunger, a biennial 5K run/walk and one-mile fun walk that raises funds to “fill the bowls of those in need”;
• A Hunger Awareness Arts Fest, at which issues of local hunger were highlighted by music and dance performances and art exhibits; and
• A Teen Board, which, partially sponsored by a grant from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, aims to alleviate childhood hunger and educate their peers about local hunger and poverty issues, and then involve them in being part of the solution.
While overseeing all of this, Falk guided the agency through the pandemic while also blueprinting the agency’s response to it, a response that included raising more than $95,000 for food in the agency’s Healthy Community Emergency Fund; purchasing and delivering more than 5,000 pounds of meat and potatoes, 3,000 pounds of fluid milk, and much more; participating with a network of partners in the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program, delivering, at times, more than 140,000 pounds of food a month to families in need; and creating and funding a program to give lunches to first responders in all three counties.
Falk brings to all her work that perspective from being on WIC for a short time, but, far more importantly, decades of experience in leadership, inspiring those she works with to be creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative, and forging the partnerships that are critical to a nonprofit being able to not only carry out its mission, but take it in new and different directions, as Rachel’s Table has.
And she brings even greater emphasis to keeping in mind, always, the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of those most affected by food insecurity.
“This model, which we’ve had for 30 years, helps the planet — food doesn’t go into a landfill; it gets delivered to agencies that support people who are in need,” she explained. “And at the same time, I wanted to make sure that we address, more directly, some of the problems that cause food insecurity.”
She’s done that through initiatives such as the Growing Gardens program, which helps any of those agencies that want to grow their own food in collaboration with those they serve.
“Young kids from Christina’s House are getting their hands dirty in the garden, and they’re making their own salads,” she said, citing the example of the Springfield-based nonprofit that provides services to women and their children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness (and whose leader, Shannon Mumblo, was named a Woman of Impact in 2021).
“To me, that’s a bigger story than how many thousands of pounds of food we can deliver,” Falk said, “because it means there is a dignified approach to food choice, a dignified approach to having a choice about what you want to plant and grow, and we’re helping to teach people — or learn with people, because I think we all teach each other — how to make our own food and not wait for a handout.”
Food for Thought
‘Learning with people.’ That’s something that Falk has been doing throughout her career — and, really, her whole life.
It’s a pattern that has continued at Rachel’s Table, an model that has enabled the agency to expand, evolve, rescue more food, deliver more food, grow food, and, in sum, be much more responsive to agencies serving those in need.
It has enabled Rachel’s Table to do something else as well — to hear those it serves and understand their story and their needs.
That’s what Falk has brought to Rachel’s Table. And her accomplishments, not only there but at other institutions where she has enabled voices to be heard, certainly make her a Woman of Impact.
For Nearly a Century, She’s Been Fighting for Good Causes
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
Sister Mary Caritas, SP has always remembered something that one of the doctors, a cardiologist, at Mercy Hospital told her while she was doing duty on one of the floors as a nursing student more than 75 years ago now.
“He told me, ‘little nurse … when we’re born, we’re born with a certain amount of energy; at the rate you’re going, you’re going to be dead by 40.’”
Turns out, he was wrong. Big time. And an entire region can be very glad that he was.
Sister Caritas was obviously born with more energy to expend than the rest of us, and she’s still proving that at age 99. She’s spent her whole life proving it, in ways large and small, highly visible or seen by only a few.
Space does not permit us to get into all that Sister Caritas has done during her remarkable life and career, at least in any detail. Hitting the highlights, she has been a hospital administrator — she was president of Mercy Hospital for 16 years, and before that was administrator at St. Luke’s Hospital and associate director of Berkshire Medical Center. She’s also been very active with the Sisters of Providence and its broad mission, serving as president from 1960 to 1977, as vice president from 2009 to 2013 and from 2016 until today, and in other roles as well; she is now the oldest member of that order.
She has also been very active in healthcare, serving on the boards of the Sisters of Providence Health System, Trinity Health Of New England, Catholic Health East, the Massachusetts Hospital Assoc., the American Hospital Assoc., Partners for a Healthier Community, Cancer House of Hope, the New England Conference of the Catholic Health Assoc., and perhaps two dozen other local, state, regional, and national institutions and organizations.
And she’s been active in the community, serving in capacities ranging from corporator of the former Community Savings Bank to trustee of the board of the Massachusetts Easter Seals Society, to chairperson (quite famously, by the way) of the Task Force on Bondi’s Island in the mid-’90s.
But it’s not the lines on the résumé — no matter how many there are, and yes, there are a lot them — that explain why Sister Caritas is a Woman of Impact. It’s what you can read between those lines.
It’s the story of an extraordinary individual driven at a young age to learn, teach, serve the community and especially those who are less fortunate, and simply make this region, and the world, a better place.
She has, in fact, said ‘no’ to a few people who have asked her to take on an assignment because there are only so many hours in the day — she tried to turn down the Bondi’s Island Task Force, for example, but those asking wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. But almost always, she said ‘yes.’
And she became known not merely for serving, but for fighting, doggedly, for what she thought was right and just and needed at the time, whether it was a cancer-treatment facility at Mercy Hospital, fairer Medicare reimbursement rates, or, yes, a solution to the odor problems at Bondi’s Island.
Sister Mary Caritas, seen here when she was president of Mercy Hospital, has been a leader in the community and an inspiration to generations of area decision makers.
As one might expect with someone who started working professionally in the mid-’40s, talk of her accomplishments obviously involves the past tense. But she remains a Woman of Impact for the way she counsels, mentors, and inspires others, especially women, in leadership roles today. She didn’t officially coin the phrase ‘no margin, no mission,’ but many area nonprofit managers will attribute those words to her as they strive to live by them.
Meanwhile, her life and career has been marked by being thrust into a series of new and daunting challenges, many of which she considered herself quite unprepared for. She’s proven that, with hard work, energy, and a focus on the best outcome for all, one can thrive despite adversity.
“Every role I’ve had, despite the challenges, was the happiest time of my life,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she made the most of every situation and turned them all into invaluable learning experiences. “Every day is a present, and if I haven’t learned something new in a day, then it wasn’t a good day.”
Energy. Yes, Sister Caritas still has large amounts of that commodity. She doesn’t play golf as much as she used to, not because she has slowed down, but because most of those she played with over the years have slowed down. She drives, and she sets a good pace when walking the halls of Providence Place.
She doesn’t have the same level of energy she did 40 years ago or when she was a nursing student, but she’s still very much involved — and clearly a Woman of Impact.
Small Wonder
Those who know Sister Caritas, who came to be known as ‘little sister’ to some because of her small stature, would say it’s not what she does — whether it’s in healthcare, the community, or with the Sisters of Providence — that makes her a true leader, still, at age 99.
Rather, it’s how she goes about … well, whatever it is she is doing. One hears the word ‘determined’ early and quite often when people describe her, and that word fits. So does ‘relentless.’ And ‘unstoppable’ works as well.
Those adjectives certainly apply to her lengthy battle to win approval from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for a cobalt unit for cancer treatment at Mercy Hospital. She first filed an application in 1978, and it was denied. Applications could only be filed biannually, so she tried again in 1980. And in 1982. And in 1984. And in 1986 … you get the picture.
“There was nothing wrong with the applications, it was just that the Department of Public Health deemed it was not needed,” she said. “But I thought otherwise.”
“He told me, ‘little nurse … when we’re born, we’re born with a certain amount of energy; at the rate you’re going, you’re going to be dead by 40.’”
So she kept on filing applications until finally, in 1993, after she had given notice to the board at Mercy that she would be retiring, the state said ‘yes.’
There are many examples of such determination and perseverance from her lengthy career. Before getting to some, for those who don’t know the Sister Caritas story — and most do — we’ll recap quickly.
Mary Geary was born in Springfield and attended schools in the city. Her parents thought it would be good for her to pursue a career as a secretary, and for a short while, she did, at Commerce High School.
“I was in the secretarial program, learning shorthand and all that … and I was flunking; I hated it every single minute of it,” she recalled, noting that her life changed when she met a girl training to become a nurse at Providence Hospital in Holyoke.
“That absolutely turned my life around,” she told BusinessWest. “I knew … I was so incredibly inspired that I went from Commerce over to Tech [Technical High School], took all my sciences, and eventually went to nursing school.”
Fast-forwarding through the next half-century or so, Geary joined the Sisters of Providence and was sent to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester as a nurse. But upon making her final vows after her fifth year, in 1949, she was sent to Mercy Hospital in Springfield, a move she was thrilled with until she found out that, instead of nursing, she would focus on dietary services, a decision made by the reverend mother.
After receiving a master’s degree in nutrition education at Tufts University and undertaking a dietetic internship at the Francis Stern Food Clinic at the New England Medical Center in Boston, she was assigned to be administrative dietitian at Providence Hospital in Holyoke, an assignment she enjoyed for seven years.
She then got another call from the Mother House, this one to inform her that she was being named administrator at St. Luke’s Hospital.
When she replied that she didn’t know anything about hospital administration, her superior responded with a simple ‘you’ll learn,’ which she did.
After St. Luke’s and Pittsfield General merged in 1969 to become Berkshire Medical Center, Sister Caritas served briefly as associate director of that facility — briefly because she was chosen to lead the Sisters of Providence and take the title superior general, a title that intimidated her about as much as the long list of responsibilities that came with it.
“I was totally unprepared for this,” she said, adding that, as she did with other stops during her career, she learned by doing.
And that ‘doing’ included work to create a new Mercy Hospital, a facility that would replace a structure built by the Sisters of Providence in 1896; it opened its doors in 1974. Sister Caritas would be named president of the hospital three years later, and would serve in that role until 1993.
Highlights during her tenure, and there were many, include an in-hospital surgery center; an eye center; an intensivist program; one of the nation’s first hospitalist programs; creation of the Weldon Center for Rehabilitation, the Family Life Center, the Healthcare for the Homeless initiative; and much more.
Sister Act
As noted earlier, it’s not the lines on the résumé that explain why Sister Caritas is a Woman of Impact, but the determination she showed when there was a fight to be waged, whether it was for the cobalt unit, to solve the odor problems at Bondi’s Island, or to gain needed adjustment in the Medicaid Area Wage Index.
That last fight was one that took her from Springfield to Washington, D.C. with several stops in between. If there’s an episode from her career that best sums up her persistence — her willingness to fight for something important — it is this one. It’s a story she enjoys telling, and she did so again for BusinessWest.
“The change in the rate meant that Mercy Hospital was going to lose $6 million that year, and $6 million then is like $30 million now,” she said, noting that all the other community hospitals in the area, and there were many more at the time, were looking at similar losses. “So I became very involved because I was so upset with what they were doing.”
That is an understatement.
“Richie Neal was a very young congressman at the time,” she said, noting that he secured a revision in the rate on the House side of the budget. “I thought my friend Mr. Kennedy [U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy] had put it in on the Senate side, it had gone to vote, and it was now in conference.
Sister Mary Caritas says “every day is a present, and if I haven’t learned something new in a day, then it wasn’t a good day.”
“We learned that it was in conference and that it had not made its way into the budget,” she went on. “So I was panicked; I called all the other hospital administrators and said, ‘we’ve got to go to Washington; I can’t afford to lose $6 million this year — Mercy will go out of business. They all they felt the same way, but none of them wanted to go to Washington, so I went on my own; I went for all of us.”
Here’s where an already revealing story becomes even more so. She first went to see Neal, who told her that a revision was, indeed, included in the House side of the budget. The problem, he said, was in the Senate.
“So I marched across the Capitol to the Senate side, and Kennedy wasn’t there,” she said. “They told me that he may not be back that day, and I told them, ‘you better plan on me staying here all night; I’m not leaving here. I’m a constituent, I have a right to see my senator, and I will not leave this office until I see him.
“They kept trying to placate me, offering me cookies and tea, and I just kept saying, ‘no, I’m not leaving until I see my senator,’” she went on. “I waited, and waited, and waited, until finally, about 4 in the afternoon, he shows up.
“He tells me it’s in conference, and I said, ‘I know; that’s why I’m here,’” she continued, adding an exclamation point through inflection on her voice. “He said, ‘who do you know on the conference committee?’ I poked him on the chest and said, ‘it’s not who I know, it’s who you know.’”
Sensing that the battle might be lost if she had to rely on the senator, Sister Caritas went to work. She went to the nearest pay phone (this is the early ’90s, remember) and instructed her administrative assistant to call the other area community hospital presidents and have them in her office the following morning. Before that, though, she called the Mercy Hospital print shop and had it print 6,000 postcards that would eventually be sent by area constituents to legislators imploring action on the Medicare issue.
While Kennedy would call Sister Caritas after the vote to revise the wage index a few days later, she believes it was those postcards that turned the tide. And those involved would say that it was Sister Caritas herself who really drove that outcome — again, just one of many examples of her fighting spirit.
Century Unlimited
The last page of Sister Caritas’s résumé has the single word ‘Honors’ at the top. And there is a long list that follows, including honorary degrees from several area colleges, a William Pynchon Award, a Paul Harris Fellowship from the Springfield Rotary Club, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Girl Scouts of Pioneer Valley, and a Woman of Achievement Award from the YWCA — a few of them, in fact.
She’s also won several from BusinessWest and its sister publication, the Healthcare News, including Business Person of the Year in 1992, Difference Maker (awarded to the Sisters of Providence) in 2014, and Healthcare Hero (in the Lifetime Achievement category) in 2018.
And because of all that she did earn these honors, she now has one more line to add to that page: Woman of Impact.
This Writer, Coach, Mentor, Educator, and Motivator is a True Renaissance Woman
Photo by Leah Martin Photography
When asked about her day job, Latoya Bosworth said she actually has quite a few of them.
She’s the program officer for Mass Humanities’ Reading Frederick Douglass Together program. She’s also an adjunct professor at Springfield College’s School of Professional & Continuing Studies. She coaches professionals and especially women. She mentors young people. She’s a writer. She’s a mother and a grandmother. She motivates others to get a mammogram to protect their breast health.
Ok, that last one’s not a day job, but it’s something she takes very seriously, having seen the disease take lives in her family and making a decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy.
Summing up all that and much, much more, Bosworth likes to say that she “helps others transcend limits and transform lives.”
And she does this in many ways, but especially by setting a tone, leading by example, helping individuals discover who they are, and inspiring others to set a higher bar for themselves and then clear that bar.
Jean Canosa Albano, assistant director for Public Services for the Springfield City Library and one of BusinessWest’s first Women of Impact back in 2018, who nominated Bosworth for this award, has come to know her through some of her many initiatives, including an open-mic poetry series for young teen girls at the library. Those experiences made an impression.
“I think of Latoya as a Renaissance woman,” said Canosa Albano, noting that the many accolades, avocations, and interests on Bosworth’s résumé reflect a wide range of interests and expertise. “That phrase also evokes for me that period of history when writing, ideas, discovery, and exploration flourished, centering on humans and humanity.
“Latoya has a tremendous impact on people, especially women and girls in so many ways,” she went on. “Through writing, spoken word, and coaching, she shares her journey. She has motivated many people to get a mammogram to protect their breast health. She has inspired at least five women to go to college, heading to Bay Path University for master’s degrees.”
As she goes about her coaching, mentoring, and even her teaching, Bosworth focuses on an acronym she created: HERS — short for health, empowerment, resilience, and self-worth. These are the qualities she preaches and that she helps others find. Her efforts over the years have earned her a number of honors, from BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty award in 2016 to inclusion in the 2015 100 Women of Color cohort, to the 2014 Eyes of Courage Award for empowering women and girls.
Bosworth spends considerable time and energy helping others, especially younger women and women of color, create and build confidence, with the accent on ‘helping others’ because this is something they ultimately have to do themselves.
“Latoya has a tremendous impact on people, especially women and girls in so many ways.”
“It starts with learning who you are, because you can’t show up and be who you are if you don’t know who you are,” she explained. “And learning how to be authentic — when we show up to our authentic selves, we give people the freedom to do that, and with that freedom comes that confidence.”
When mentoring young women and girls, Bosworth tells them to essentially follow her lead and “pour into themselves.”
“By that, I mean taking time with yourself to figure out who you are, because there are so many outside influences and people telling you what you should be doing, people telling you what it means to be successful, what it means to be beautiful, all of these things,” she explained. “You have to pour into yourself and figure out what’s important to you, what your values are, and how to turn off the noise.”
‘Renaissance woman.’ That’s an apt description of Latoya Bosworth. As we’ll discover, so too is ‘Woman of Impact.’
Impact Statement
“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
That’s the name attached to an iconic Independence Day speech delivered by the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, during which he answers that question by saying ‘…a day that reveals to him, more than all the other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
As program officer for this Mass Humanities initiative, Bosworth schedules public readings of that speech at gatherings of all sizes and many different places.
“And they’re followed by discussions on equity and race and what that speech means today, as an American,” she told BusinessWest. “Sometimes, it’s just children; other times, it’s multi-generational, multi-racial … and it’s all over the state of Massachusetts, so it’s looks different in different communities. Sometimes it’s a small organization; other times, it’s a larger event with hundreds of people at a public square.”
Arranging such readings is just one of many assignments that add up to a very full plate for Bosworth, who also goes by ‘Doc Boz’ to some — a nod to her doctorate in human services she earned at Capella University and the nickname given her grandfather (Bozzie) — and also ‘Brenda’s Child,’ a pen name, if that’s even the right term, she uses to honor her mother, Brenda Kay Swinton, who died from breast cancer at age 23 when Latoya was only 4.
By whatever name she goes by, she keeps her days full. As noted, she’s an adjunct professor at Springfield College, teaching courses ranging from “Race, Culture & Religion” to “Contemporary Issues in Education” to “Communication Skills.”
She also has her own business as a workshop facilitator and ‘speaker/life coach.’ She told BusinessWest that she specializes in “confidence, purpose, and joy,” and facilitates writing and empowerment and educational workshops for women, youth, and youth workers for organizations, schools, and professionals. She also creates and hosts empowerment events under that acronym HERS.
Much of what Bosworth does when coaching is focused on that intangible — and precious commodity — known as confidence. And when asked how she helps individuals, and especially women, find it and build more of it, she said she does this in several ways.
“What I find is that, when people have issues with goal setting or trying to change their lives, a lot of it comes down to some of the things they’ve internalized — from society, from family — that they need to unlearn and reprogram so they can develop that confidence that they need to take the risk,” she explained, “and know that, if they take the risk, it’s going to be OK, no matter what; even if doesn’t work out, there’s going to be something they can learn from and grow from.”
Long before her Woman of Impact award, BusinessWest honored Latoya Bosworth as part of the 40 Under Forty class of 2016 for her work with young people.
Elaborating, she said she tries to help individuals and groups understand that trying and failing — if that’s what happens — should always be preferable to simply not trying at all.
“What happens if you fail? What does that look like? What does success look like to you? What does failure look like to you? And if you fail, what will happen? These are the questions I want people to think about,” she said. “Sometimes, we get caught up in these thoughts — I call it worst-case-scenario thinking. I want people to tell me what would happen if they fail, and then I ask them, ‘is that really a big deal, or are you overthinking?’
“Most of the time, people come to find out that it’s not that big a deal if something doesn’t work out the way they want it to,” she went on, adding that this helps in that process of transcending limits and helping people transform their own lives.
Taking Control
Another focal point of Bosworth’s life and work to help others is breast cancer, and here, she tells her own story to inspire others do to what they can to understand this disease and protect their own health.
That story involves tragedy and overcoming adversity on many levels. Her mother, as noted, died from breast cancer. Her father, a veteran, was injured in a training exercise and left paralyzed from the waist down. She and her siblings were raised by her maternal grandmother, who died of ovarian cancer.
These tragedies led to a profound awareness of cancer and its ability to take lives and impact many others while doing so, she said, adding that this awareness led to a proactive approach to caring for her health and encouraging others to follow that lead.
“As I grew up, I learned how to do breast self-exams when I was 12 or 13 — it’s something we pay attention to in our family,” she said, adding that, over the years, she has seen multiple family members, on both sides, die from breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
“So I did some genetic testing; I was negative, but there was some sort of variant there,” she went on, adding that she made the decision to have a prophylactic double mastectomy in 2015, and also to have her ovaries removed to prevent ovarian cancer.
“I share that experience with other people because I want them to know that, while this wasn’t easy, there are options,” she said. “I tell people that they need to understand about genetic testing, and also the health disparities and the fact that African-American women are twice as likely to die from breast cancer because it’s more aggressive in us than it is in other people, even though we are less likely to be diagnosed.”
“What I find is that, when people have issues with goal setting or trying to change their lives, a lot of it comes down to some of the things they’ve internalized — from society, from family — that they need to unlearn and reprogram so they can develop that confidence that they need to take the risk.”
Health is the ‘H’ in HERS. The ‘E,’ ‘R,’ and ‘S’ — empowerment, resilience, and self-worth — are just some of other qualities she helps others discover, and build, through her coaching, mentoring, and a nonprofit youth program she created called Keep Youth Dreaming and Striving Inc.
The mentoring started when she taught in the Springfield Public Schools earlier this decade, and has continued ever since, with Bosworth staying in touch with those she first counseled years ago.
“As a teacher, I was just getting involved in my students’ lives and showing up outside of school for things,” she said. “And as they graduated, I would stay in contact with them, attending baby showers, unfortunately some funerals … but really just showing up for them. And on the side, I started an after-school mentoring program, primarily with girls.”
Keep Youth Dreaming & Striving, which caught the attention of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty judges and made Bosworth part of the class of 2016, featured a number of initiatives, including a Gifted Diva Showcase, what she calls a “self-esteem exhibition” that followed eight weeks of intensive workshops, trainings, and a discovery process.
“It was an anti-beauty pageant, because it wasn’t about looks,” she explained. “It was all about owning who you are, being who you are, doing some community service, sharing whatever talent you have … they didn’t have to show up and look a certain way.”
Leading by Example
Returning to that phrase ‘Renaissance woman,’ in her nomination of Bosworth, Canosa Albano noted that word comes from the French for ‘rebirth.’
“Her journey epitomizes someone who has faced trauma, great loss, and illness, and has reframed those challenges, learned, and grown from them, ‘rebirthing’ herself as Brenda’s Child and Doc Boz.
Reframing challenges and learning and growing from them — this is what Bosworth helps others do as she enables them to transcend limits and transform their lives.
Thursday, December 9, 2021 • 5- 8 p.m. • Sheraton Springfield
Tickets $85 per person • Call: (413) 781-8600 or Email [email protected]
Honorees to Be Saluted on Dec. 9
Leader. Inspiration. Pioneer. Mentor.
You will read plenty of words like these over the next eight profiles as BusinessWest introduces its fourth annual cohort of a program called, appropriately enough, Women of Impact.
Appropriate, because these women aren’t only business successes and community leaders; they are, indeed, impactful — in ways that reverberate far beyond their office, their sector, and even this present time.
These are compelling stories about remarkable women, and as you read them, you’ll quickly understand why BusinessWest added Women of Impact to its list of annual recognition programs four years ago. In short, these stories need to be told — or told in a different way than you’ve heard before.
These eight stories detail not only what these women do for a living, but what they’ve done with their lives. Specifically, they’ve become innovators in their fields, leaders within the community, and, most importantly, inspirations to all those around them. Crucially, they’re creating a legacy for other women to build upon.
The stories are all different, but there are many common denominators: these are women and leaders who have vision, passion, drive to excel, and a desire to put their considerable talents to work mentoring and helping others.
Individually and especially together, they’re making this a much better place to live, work, raise a family, and run a business.
And they will be celebrated on Dec. 9 at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place Hotel. So, after reading their stories, we invite you to come and applaud some truly impactful women. The 2021 honorees are:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer for the town of West Springfield; and Springfield City Councilor.
Thank You to Our Sponsors!
Presenting Sponsors
Supporting Sponsors
Meet the Judges
Michele Cabral
Michele Cabral is interim executive director of Professional Education and Corporate Learning at Holyoke Community College and director of Training & Workforce Options. She started her career as a CPA for KPMG Peat Marwick, graduated from the Leadership Development Program at CIGNA Insurance Companies, and joined Farm Credit Financial Partners Inc. as CFO and COO. At HCC, Cabral has held positions as an Accounting professor, then dean of the Business and Technology Division, and she currently leads the HCC Women’s Leadership Series.
Dawn Fleury
Dawn Fleury is the first senior vice president of Corporate Risk at Country Bank in Ware. In her current role, she oversees the bank’s comprehensive risk-management programs. Before joining Country Bank, she had a 21-year career with the FDIC as a commissioned senior bank examiner in the Division of Supervision. Fleury serves on the board of Christina’s House in Springfield, which provides transitional housing for women and their children, as well as educational programming as families transition from homelessness to permanent, stable living environments.
Ellen Freyman
Ellen Freyman is a shareholder with Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, P.C. in Springfield. Her practice is concentrated in all aspects of commercial real estate: acquisitions and sales, development, leasing, permitting, environmental, and financing. She has been recognized for her community work and was named to Difference Makers and Women of Impact by BusinessWest, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Excellence in the Law, and the Professional Women’s Chamber Women of the Year. She also earned a Pynchon Award from the Ad Club of Western Massachusetts.
Michele Cabral is interim executive director of Professional Education and Corporate Learning at Holyoke Community College and director of Training & Workforce Options. She started her career as a CPA for KPMG Peat Marwick, graduated from the Leadership Development Program at CIGNA Insurance Companies, and joined Farm Credit Financial Partners Inc. as CFO and COO. At HCC, Cabral has held positions as an Accounting professor, then dean of the Business and Technology Division, and she currently leads the HCC Women’s Leadership Series.
Dawn Fleury is the first senior vice president of Corporate Risk at Country Bank in Ware. In her current role, she oversees the bank’s comprehensive risk-management programs. Before joining Country Bank, she had a 21-year career with the FDIC as a commissioned senior bank examiner in the Division of Supervision. Fleury serves on the board of Christina’s House in Springfield, which provides transitional housing for women and their children, as well as educational programming as families transition from homelessness to permanent, stable living environments.
Ellen Freyman is a shareholder with Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, P.C. in Springfield. Her practice is concentrated in all aspects of commercial real estate: acquisitions and sales, development, leasing, permitting, environmental, and financing. She has been recognized for her community work and was named to Difference Makers and Women of Impact by BusinessWest, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Excellence in the Law, and the Professional Women’s Chamber Women of the Year. She also earned a Pynchon Award from the Ad Club of Western Massachusetts.
