People on the Move

Terry Maxey, former interim director of Open Pantry Community Services Inc., has been selected to permanently lead the agency as director. He has served as interim director of Open Pantry since November 2017, and has been with organization since February 2016. As director, Maxey will be responsible for managing all aspects of Open Pantry, which serves more than 18,000 low-income and disadvantaged people annually, with an approximately $3 million annual budget and 40 staff members. Before joining Open Pantry, Maxey served as director of Operations and project manager at Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services in Springfield. There, he helped lead the multi-cultural, multi-service agency dedicated to empowering individuals and families in need. He also held a number of leadership positions within the private sector. He has been recognized for his leadership skills, receiving the 2017 SMOC Housing Team of the Year Award and the MLK Jr. Family Services Employee of the Quarter Award for outstanding performance and leadership. Maxey is invested in the Springfield community and serves with a variety of organizations, including the executive and operational committees of the city of Springfield Health and Human Services, Springfield-Hampden County Continuum of Care board of directors. He holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Virginia State University and a certificate from Leadership of Pioneer Valley.

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Sunshine Village recently welcomed Christine Pollender as the new director of Human Resources. With the organization serving more than 500 individuals, Pollender will oversee employee relations, benefits administration, and procedural compliance for over 260 employees at nine sites across the Pioneer Valley. With an extensive background in human resources in retail and hospital settings, she brings subject-matter expertise to navigate the recent changes to state and federal laws for employers. Pollender received both a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in business administration from Western New England University. She holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification from the Human Resources Certification Institute and is a Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, including the local chapter, the Human Resources Management Assoc. of Western New England, where she serves on its diversity and inclusion committee. 

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Bay Path University announced that Cheryl Sheils has been named program director for its new doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree program. Sheils comes to the university from Elms College, where she taught in the Nursing program for nearly 30 years at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was a founding member and nurse manager for 20 years at Pioneer Valley Free Health Service in East Longmeadow. She has also been project director for an HRSA Health Workforce Diversity Grant and has travelled to Jamaica with nursing students on medical missions for the past several years. She has presented at numerous conferences, and her articles have been published in industry journals and other publications. The DNP program, set to begin in spring 2019, will be offered 100% online, ensuring flexibility for nurses who wish to obtain the skills to become advanced nurse practitioners with a specialization in family practice (FNP).

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Matthew Sosik, president and CEO of bankESB, announced that Michael T. Oleksak has been hired as vice president of Commercial Lending. Oleksak brings more than 15 years of experience in banking, most recently serving as the vice president of Commercial Lending for Westfield Bank, managing a portfolio of more than $25 million. Before Westfield Bank, Oleksak was the assistant vice president, Business Banking officer at United Bank. In his new role, Oleksak’s main objective will be to originate and develop commercial-lending relationships involving construction projects, business-acquisition financing, investment real estate, equipment financials, business lines of credit, and lending relationships for the bank. Oleksak holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in business administration from Southern New Hampshire University. He has a strong commitment to serving the surrounding communities, currently serving on the board of directors for the West Springfield Boys & Girls Club.

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Kelly Bowman was elected to be the 2019 president of the Realtor Assoc. of Pioneer Valley (RAPV), a nonprofit trade association with 1,800 members. A general membership meeting was held on Nov. 8 at the Delaney House in Holyoke for the purpose of electing the RAPV 2019 leadership team. Bowman is the broker/owner of Trademark Real Estate, LLC which has offices in South Deerfield and Greenfield. She has been active in real estate since 1997. As a former co-owner of Upton Enterprises Inc., a custom home-building company, she brings practical building knowledge to transactions with clients. She has served on the RAPV board of directors for four consecutive years and was involved in several committees, including the grievance committee, professional standards committee, and professional development committee.

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Jessica Chapin, American International College’s (AIC) associate athletic director/compliance senior woman administrator/deputy Title IX coordinator, is one of 18 individuals recently inducted into the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame in New York. She played with Honeoye Falls-Lima Central School District. Chapin was a member of the first-team All-State in 2005 with the Class A state champion Cougars. She finished second all-time in Section V girls’ basketball in three-point field goals, with 207. In addition to her success playing for Honeoye Falls, Chapin graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and health, science, and social policy from Brandeis University in 2010. While at Brandeis, Chapin was an All-American women’s basketball player. She earned her master’s degree in athletic administration from Springfield College in 2013. Chapin joined the AIC athletic department in 2014 and works directly with all 22 NCAA varsity programs, as well as men’s and women’s rugby, to ensure that the college is in compliance with all NCAA, Northeast-10, and Atlantic Hockey rules, bylaws and regulations. In 2017, she was appointed to a four-year term with the NCAA Division II Management Council. As part of her commitment, she serves on two committees: the NCAA legislation committee and the Olympic sport committee.

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Robinson Donovan, P.C. announced that Associate Jeffrey Adams recently received two prominent appointments. He became a fellow of the Massachusetts Bar Assoc. (MBA) Leadership Academy and accepted a position on the board of directors at Dakin Humane Society. The MBA Leadership Academy works to develop and nurture future leaders of the bar by teaching fellows how to be compassionate, open-minded, and thoughtful leaders. At Dakin Humane Society, Adams will act as part of the governing body that is responsible for overseeing the organization’s activities. Dakin is a community-supported animal-welfare organization that provides shelter, medical care, spay-and-neuter services, and behavioral rehabilitation for more than 20,000 animals each year.

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Bob Pura, former president of Greenfield Community College (GCC) for more than 17 years, has joined the all-volunteer board of directors of the International Language Institute of Massachusetts (ILI) in Northampton. During his tenure at GCC, Pura oversaw creation of the college’s testing, wellness, advising, and veteran’s centers as well as the GCC Food Pantry and senior symposia. He worked with former U.S. Rep. John Olver and community leaders to develop sustainable-energy, creative-economy, healthcare, and manufacturing initiatives at GCC and oversaw extensive building renovations to the campus. He also worked with the leadership of the Opioid Task Force and the Franklin County Jail and Courthouse to elevate the role education plays in the lives of those in recovery. Under Pura’s leadership, the GCC Foundation raised $14 million and has awarded hundreds of scholarships over several years. The college’s endowment also rose to more than $5 million. Pura has chaired the Massachusetts President’s Council and served on its executive committee. He sits on the Baystate Health board of trustees and was a commissioner on the New England Assoc. of Schools and Colleges Higher Education Commission.

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Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin announced that eight attorneys from the firm were selected to the 2018 Massachusetts Super Lawyers List and three attorneys were selected to the 2018 Massachusetts Rising Stars List. Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a multi-phase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates, and peer reviews by practice area.

• Shareholder Michele Feinstein was recognized for the 12th year in the fields of estate planning and probate;

• Shareholder Gary Fentin was selected for the 13th year in the field of government finance;

• Shareholder Carol Cioe Klyman was recognized for the 14th year in the field of elder law;

• Managing Partner Timothy Mulhern was selected in the field of tax law for the 11th consecutive year;

• Shareholder Steven Schwartz was selected for the 13th time in the field of business and corporate law;

• Shareholder James Sheils was selected for the fourth consecutive year in the field of banking law;

• Shareholder Ann (Ami) Weber was selected for the 15th consecutive year in the field of elder law; and

• Shareholder Steven Weiss was selected in the field of business bankruptcy for the 12th consecutive year.

Additionally, three attorneys have been selected to the 2018 Massachusetts Rising Stars list. To be eligible for inclusion in Rising Stars, a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for 10 years or less.

• Attorney Mark Esposito was recognized in the field of general litigation;

• Attorney Michael Fenton was selected for the fifth consecutive year in the fields of business and corporate law; and

• Shareholder David Webber was honored in the field of closely held business for the seventh consecutive year.

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Florence Bank President and CEO John Heaps Jr. announced the bank has hired three well-known and banking professionals with long-term industry experience in the Springfield area. They will be charged with helping to grow the bank’s Hampden County presence as it expands in that region. Michael Moriarty will serve as senior vice president/commercial team leader, Joseph Kulig will serve as vice president/commercial loan officer, and Candace Pereira will be assistant vice president/commercial portfolio manager. Moriarty, Kulig, and Pereira previously worked at Farmington Bank, a $3 billion commercial bank whose assets were recently purchased by Peoples United Bank. At Farmington, Moriarty was senior vice president and regional commercial team leader, Kulig was a relationship manager, and Pereira was assistant vice president. All three previously worked with United Bank.

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The United Way of Pioneer Valley (UWPV) introduced its new president and CEO, Paul Mina, to the community at a public event on Nov. 9. Mina brings more than 30 years of United Way experience to the Pioneer Valley and has already stepped into his new role. The UWPV board of directors has entered into a management agreement with the United Way of Tri-County, based in Framingham. Both organizations’ boards voted to approve the two-and-a-half-year management agreement, under which two organizations will share a CEO and other management operations, while UWPV still remains under local board oversight. “This is not a merger, but a way to gain efficiencies in the back-end management,” said Steve Lowell, chairman of the UWPV board and president of Monson Savings Bank. “Plus we’ll get some much-needed stability in leadership and the value of Paul’s experience and energy. It’s a great opportunity for us.”

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The board of trustees at Elms College have appointed a number of notable figures to be new members of the board. The new trustees are Beth Anderson, founder and CEO of Phoenix Charter Academy Network; Pascale Desir, chief legal officer of Way Finders; Dr. Jose Fernandez, co-owner of Sunrise Behavioral Health Clinic; Mark Fulco, president of Mercy Medical Center; Steven Gobel, first vice president of Morgan Stanley; Fawwaz Habbal, executive dean for Education and Research and senior lecturer at the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University; and Richard Sullivan Jr., president and CEO of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council.