People on the Move

Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. (MBK) announced that Melyssa Brown, CPA, MBA, has been accepted into the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Leadership Academy. She was previously honored with a Women to Watch Emerging Leader Award from the Massachusetts Society of CPAs. Brown’s induction into the Leadership Academy took place over the course of a four-day program held earlier this month in Durham, N.C. The prestigious invitation-only program featured interactive dialogue with the profession’s top leaders designed to build on the foundational knowledge perspective of each individual. Attendees were immersed in experiential exercises and self-examination of leadership and how a new strategic vision will positively impact their personal life, career path, and the CPA profession. “We’re very proud of Melyssa’s achievement,” said MBK partner James Barrett. “It’s not her first honor, and it certainly won’t be her last. She started here as an entry-level staff member and quickly went on to become the youngest senior manager in the firm’s history. We look forward to more amazing things from her.” Brown received her bachelor in accountancy degree from Elms College and her MBA in accounting from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. She is vice president of the Girls Inc. board of directors and is active in the UMass Family Business Center and the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield. She was also a BusinessWest 40 Under Forty honoree in 2013.

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Baystate Health has appointed Ben Craft to the new position of Senior Director of Government and Public Affairs. Craft, who has served as the organization’s director of Public Affairs since 2012, is assuming the additional responsibility of government affairs to support Baystate’s needs for strong connections with local, state, and federal government amid continuing rapid change in the healthcare environment. Craft returned home to Western Mass. to join Baystate in 2008, having worked previously at the United Nations and the Wall Street Journal in New York City. His work at the UN included communications and policy advocacy with government, nonprofit, and civil-society partners. He will report to Jennifer Endicott, Baystate’s chief strategy officer and senior vice president of Strategy and External Relations. “With his deep understanding of the challenges facing healthcare providers today and a strong network of relationships in the community and across Baystate Health, Ben is well-positioned to serve as point person for our local, state, and federal government partners,” said Endicott. “He is committed to finding ways to improve the dialogue between our dedicated elected officials and Baystate Health, the largest provider of safety-net services and largest private employer in Western Massachusetts. Ben’s previous experience, particularly at the UN, will be invaluable in achieving this goal.” Craft grew up in East Longmeadow and is a 1996 graduate of UMass Amherst.

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Three new board members have been elected to the Bay Path University board of trustees. Mary Bushnell, Martin Caine, and Andrew Davis will each serve a three-year term which began in June.
• Bushnell is a 1974 graduate of Bay Path. She and her husband, David, have been generous donors to the university for 30 years, with their philanthropy having a particular focus on student scholarship. In 2005, she served as co-chair to kick off the Carol A. Leary Endowed Scholarship Fund for First Generation Students. Their support of Bay Path’s “Charting New Paths” campaign was instrumental in launching the American Women’s College, Bay Path’s online degree-completion program. Currently, their support involves providing funds to underwrite a data-based campus study being done to determine which in-school factors contribute to Bay Path graduates’ personal, professional, and/or family success upon graduation. She has served on many boards for the past 30 years, recently completing her tenure of eight years on the board of the Overlook Foundation, which raises funds for the Overlook Medical Center in Summit, N.J.;
• Caine is a principal at Wolf & Company, P.C. in Springfield. He has more than 25 years of experience as a certified public accountant, providing audit and advisory services to business owners, executives, and boards of directors. His advisory services include consulting on internal control compliance, acquisitions and divestitures, due diligence, and compensation matters. His industry experience encompasses financial institutions, manufacturing and distribution, and not-for-profit entities. Caine is a frequent speaker on financial topics, particularly in his areas of expertise, accounting and auditing. He is a 1986 graduate of Western New England College and is a CPA in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants, and serves on the board of advisors at Valley Venture Mentors Inc.; and
• Davis is president and managing partner of Chestnut Realty Management, LLC in Springfield. He is responsible for the underwriting and financing of new transactions for the firm’s investment strategies. Prior to forming Chestnut Realty Partners, Davis spent three years with Wallace Capital, managing underwriting in its Florida office and originating bridge real-estate loans; six years at PVI Capital, LLC, a private commercial lender specializing in short-term bridge financing; and five years managing residential acquisitions for GFI Partners, a production builder and real-estate development company. A 2001 graduate of St. Michael’s College, he is a former board member of HAPHousing and serves as chapter forum officer for the Young Presidents’ Organization.

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Berkshire Bank announced the following:
• Gregory Lindenmuth has joined Berkshire as executive vice president, chief risk officer, reporting to the bank’s president, Richard Marotta. Lindenmuth joins Berkshire Bank from the FDIC, where he worked for 24 years, most recently as a senior risk examiner for the Division of Risk Management Supervision. Through this position, he has gained expert understanding of capital markets, including investments, derivatives, securitizations, market risk, liquidity/funds management, and mortgage banking. He also excels in modeling profit plans, establishing budgets, and setting strategic objectives. In his new role, he will lead the loan workout, credit, and enterprise risk management teams. Lindenmuth holds a bachelor’s degree in operations management from the Plattsburgh State University of New York and an MBA in corporate finance from Clarkson University. With the FDIC, he was a capital markets, mortgage banking, and fraud specialist and a member of the National Examination Procedures Committee. He also co-developed and co-presented the FDIC’s technical-assistance videos on interest-rate risk and has been an active speaker at New England Directors’ Colleges;
• Mike Ferry has been promoted to the position of Senior Vice President, Commercial Regional President, for Berkshire County and Vermont. Ferry brings more than 37 years of industry experience, 30 of which have been spent with Berkshire Bank. Leading the Berkshire and Vermont regions for the bank since 2012, his primary focus is commercial lending and ancillary products and services. He also serves as president of the Berkshire Bank Foundation. Ferry holds a bachelor’s degre from Saint Michaels College in Colchester, Vt. Dedicated to his community, he is currently a board member and Treasurer for Berkshire County ARC, board president of the Berkshire Housing Development Corporation & Berkshire Housing Services Inc., board member and chair of the finance committee for Berkshire United Way, committee member for the Dalton Development and Industrial Commission and a volunteer coach with the Special Olympics Massachusetts; and
• Jim Hickson has rejoined the bank as SVP Commercial Regional President for the Pioneer Valley and Connecticut markets. In his new role, he will focus on growing the commercial-lending business, as well as expanding relationships with products and services offered through the bank’s other business lines, including wealth management, private banking, insurance, and retail banking. Hickson brings to the bank more than 26 years of financial experience. His previous roles include commercial banking team leader for People’s United Bank and SVP ABL relationship manager at Berkshire Bank, and he also held positions within TD Bank, KPMG Consulting, and Fleet Capital. Hickson holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and an MBA from Boston University. He is board chair and president of the board of directors for Common Capital, a board member for New England Certified Development Corp., and serves on Wilbraham Friends of Recreation.

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Bacon Wilson announced that five attorneys have been named to the 2016 Massachusetts Super Lawyers list of top attorneys in the Commonwealth, and three have been named to the 2016 Massachusetts Rising Stars list. Both rosters appear in New England Super Lawyers magazine. Only 5% of New England’s lawyers are Super Lawyers, with attorneys selected for background, professional experience, achievement, and peer recognition. The following Bacon Wilson attorneys were honored for 2016:
• Gary Fialky – Business/Corporate, Banking, Real Estate;
• Michael Katz – Business/Corporate, Business Bankruptcy, Consumer Bankruptcy;
• Paul Rothschild – General Litigation, Employment and Labor, Personal Injury;
• Hyman Darling – Estate Planning & Probate, Elder Law, Tax; and
• Gina Barry – Estate Planning and Probate, Elder Law, Residential Real Estate.
Rising Stars are under 40 years of age, or have been practicing law for less than 10 years. Fewer than 2.5% of New England lawyers are named as Rising Stars, including the following Bacon Wilson attorneys for 2016:
• Adam Basch – Construction Litigation, Business Litigation, Personal Injury;
• Benjamin Coyle – Business/Corporate; State, Local, and Municipal; Estate and Trust Litigation; and
• Thomas Reidy – Land Use/Zoning.

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Bolstering its commitment to reach consumers on their terms, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has appointed longtime financial-services branding and marketing executive Jennifer Halloran as head of Brand and Advertising. Halloran, who is based in Boston and reports to MassMutual Chief Customer Experience Officer Gareth Ross, will oversee the collaborative development and implementation of the company’s initiatives in brand marketing, community responsibility, digital content, and social engagement. She will also be responsible for managing the deployment of the MassMutual brand strategy throughout all channels, as well as in the company’s community-engagement efforts. “We are excited to have someone with Jennifer’s track record of experience in the financial-services industry and business acumen on board to further enable us to drive the MassMutual brand in a way that is consistent with our strategy, and create a consistent experience within the marketplace and with our customers,” said Ross. “Her experience, creativity, and passion for collaboration — underscored by her successes throughout her two-decade career — will be invaluable as we move forward as a company.” Halloran was most recently with Fidelity Investments, where she spent a total of eight years in a variety of leadership roles in marketing, communications, and branding. These responsibilities included managing and executing the redesign of web, digital, and content programs for Fidelity’s Innovation Lab, as well as many other cross-channel digital customer-experience programs. She also held various marketing, communications, and brand-strategy positions with both Mobiquity Inc. and Putnam Investments. She began her career in 1996 with integrated advertising agency Digitas (now DigitasLBi). A graduate of Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science, Halloran earned her MBA in marketing/marketing management from Babson College’s Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

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Royal, P.C., a woman-owned, boutique, management-side labor and employment law firm, announced that Amy Royal, principal and founding partner of the firm, has been honored with selection as one of New England’s Super Lawyers and has been included in the 2016 issue of New England Super Lawyers magazine. Super Lawyers consists of attorneys throughout New England who are nominated by their peers as outstanding lawyers; the nomination then goes through an extensive selection process. With more than 16 years of experience, Royal has successfully defended employers in both federal and state courts as well as before administrative agencies in a variety of areas of employment law, including employment discrimination and sexual harassment, unfair competition, breach of contract and wrongful discharge claims, workers’ compensation, and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) violations, with a special emphasis in wage-and-hour class actions. Royal regularly advises non-union clients on maintaining a union-free workplace and performs other preventive work such as wage-and-hour law compliance, record-keeping audits, drafting of employee manuals and affirmative-action plans, and management training. In addition, she assists unionized clients during contract negotiations, at arbitrations, and with respect to employee grievances and unfair-labor-practices charges. Royal’s accolades also include Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s 2012 Top Women of Law award recognizing her as a top female lawyer in Massachusetts, as well as BusinessWest’s prestigious 40 Under Forty award, recognizing her for outstanding leadership in the Pioneer Valley business community.