People on the Move

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation announced the following:

• Kate Conn has joined the foundation in a newly-created position as Chief Executive Officer. Together with its founder, Harold Grinspoon, Conn will work to further the Foundation’s philanthropic mission to enhance Jewish and community life in North America, Israel, and beyond, and develop innovative strategies as the organization celebrates 20 years of philanthropy. Conn most recently served as founding Executive Director and President of the Aldo Leopold Nature Center Inc., an educational and entrepreneurial nonprofit in Madison, Wisc. Conn grew the organization into one of the region’s leading institutions as she established regional and statewide cooperative networks and strong national partnerships with community, government, and industry leaders. She is credited with the creation of a groundbreaking interactive museum and learning center and award-winning programs. Conn has served in leadership capacities at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and several cultural organizations, philanthropic endeavors, and policy institutions. In addition to her nonprofit and community work, Conn was a special consultant for an American Girl book series and an author for the Wisconsin Historical Press Badger Biography series. Since its inception in 1993, the foundation has given more than $120 million in philanthropic support of Jewish programs. HGF initiatives include PJ Library, Sifriyat Pijama (PJ Library’s sister program in Israel), JCamp180, Voices & Visions, and Life & Legacy; and

• Arlene Schiff will lead the foundation’s new Life & Legacy Program, a legacy partnership effort that incentivizes Jewish agencies, synagogues, and day schools to secure legacy gifts and steward donors. With widespread recognition that a large transfer of generational wealth is taking place — about $41 trillion by 2020, according to a 1999 Boston Foundation study — the Life & Legacy program aims to assist Jewish organizations with proactively securing endowments through legacy gifts. Schiff will lead the program after a successful tenure as executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, where she worked since 2001. At the federation, she increased the donor base and fund-raising substantially and directed many community initiatives. Nationally, she has been active in Jewish community service with the Jewish Federations of North America. Locally, she has served on the Berkshire Housing Development Corp., the Berkshire Immigrant Center Advisory Board, the Lenox School Committee, and others. The Life & Legacy is a partnership program that invites up to seven communities a year to apply to partner with HGF. The foundation commits funds to the selected program for two years. If fund-raising goals are met, the partner receives a matching grant from HGF that covers 50% of the partner agency’s annual budget, up to $150,000, for each year. In this first year, the partners are the Foundation for the Charlotte Jewish Community, the Jewish Foundation of Memphis, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven, the Orange County Jewish Community Foundation, the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Mercer.

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Three new board members were recently inducted for three-year terms to the Gray House, a Springfield nonprofit that helps neighbors facing hardships to meet immediate and transitional needs by providing food, clothing, and educational services in a safe, positive environment. They are:

• Richard Marcil, owner of Golden Ear Studios and the Minister of Music for the Wachogue Congregational Church. He also conducts the annual Holiday Grand Chorus as part of a benefit to raise money for cancer research;









• Susan Mastroianni, Partner and Director of Media Services at FitzGerald & Mastroianni Advertising in Springfield. She is also a member of the Rotary Club of Springfield and previously served on its Board of Directors; and









• Gregory Schmidt, an Attorney with Springfield-based Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury & Murphy P.C. He also currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Museum at Holyoke Inc. and the Advisory Board of the Scibelli Enterprise Center at Springfield Technical Community  College.



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Royal LLP, the woman-owned, boutique, management-side labor and employment law firm, announced that Attorney Rosemary Nevins has been selected as one of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “Top Women of Law.” The program celebrates outstanding achievements by exceptional women. Each year Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly honors women who have made great professional strides and demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in the legal community. Nevins will be honored at an event in Boston in October.

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Human Resources Unlimited, a Springfield-area nonprofit corporation that helps more than 1,300 people per year with physical and mental disabilities, recently named Kate Campiti to the Board of Directors. Campiti is the Associate Publisher of BusinessWest and the Healthcare News and has extensive experience in management, leadership, and sales. She is a graduate of UMass Amherst with a bachelor’s degree in Communications with a minor in Political Science. Prior to her current position, she served as a Sales Executive with OneStar Communications. Campiti joins Timm Marini, Chairman; Patrick Leary, Vice Chairman; Michael Moriarty, Treasurer; Charlene Smolkowicz, Secretary-Clerk; and board members William Marsh, Thomas Bienkowski, Ed Wytrych, Francis Fitzgerald, Curtis Edgin, Amy Royal, Chester Wojcik, and Alfonso Santaniello.

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Christina Tuohey was recently appointed Director of Annual Giving and Alumni relations at Springfield Technical Community College by the STCC Board of Trustees. A graduate of Georgia State University, Tuohey brings several years of experience working in a variety of development and annual-giving positions. She has served as the Annual Giving Associate and Corporate, Foundations, and Government Relations Associate for the Museum of Science in Boston; Membership Development Specialist and Volunteer Development Specialist for the Girl Scouts of Central/Western Massachusetts in East Longmeadow; and most recently as the Fundraising Coordinator for the Muscular Dystrophy Assoc. located in Glastonbury, Conn.

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Westfield-based Tighe & Bond recently announced professional milestones reached by four employees:

• Page Czepiga, a Land Use Planner in the Westfield office and member of the American Planning Assoc., recently became a Certified Land Use Planner after passing the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) exam. The AICP designation is the most highly regarded certification in the field of land-use planning, and the designation requires an intensive certification-maintenance and continuing-education program to keep certification valid. Czepiga provides planning and permitting support for a wide variety of the firm’s projects, and she regularly performs environmental and zoning analyses for renewable-energy feasibility and land-use/redevelopment studies. Her experience includes brownfields redevelopment, wetlands, and environmental-resource permitting, and she is currently active in the preliminary planning and permitting of the $800 million Hard Rock International hotel and casino complex proposed in West Springfield. Czepiga earned her BS in Community and International Development from the University of Vermont;

• Elizabette Botelho, an Engineer, recently passed her PE exam to become a licensed engineer. Botelho currently provides engineering services for solid-waste landfill projects and has completed hydrologic and hydraulic analysis to assess the flood hazard of more than 40 high hazard dams in Massachusetts. She works out of the firm’s Westfield office and has been employed at Tighe & Bond since 2006, when she graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Civil Engineering;

• Engineer Cynthia Castello also passed her PE exam. She has worked on water and wastewater projects, and has provided construction services in Connecticut and design and construction services in West Springfield. She has five years of industry experience, has worked out of the firm’s Middletown office since 2011, and received her BA in Physics from Colgate University and her MS in Environmental Engineering from UMass Amherst; and

• Christina Jones, an engineer at the Westfield office, also passed her PE exam. She has worked on water-system modeling projects for the cities of Chicopee and Portsmouth, N.H., as well as water-system design projects for Amherst and Connecticut’s Metropolitan District Commission and the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority. She is a member of Engineers Without Borders and is on the New England Water Works Assoc. program committee and the New England Water Environment Assoc. student activities committee. Jones began her career at Tighe & Bond in 2009 after receiving her MS in Environmental Engineering from UMass Amherst.

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Richard Collins, President and CEO of United Bank, announced that Maureen Buxton is the 2013 winner of the President’s Award, the highest honor bestowed by the institution. The annual award is presented to an employee who exemplifies professional excellence through teamwork, integrity, a positive attitude, and a strong commitment to United Bank.  Buxton, the Personal Banker for United’s Chicopee branch, was instrumental in the training and transition of New England Bank employees in Connecticut following that bank’s merger with United last fall. Earlier in her United career, Buxton received the bank’s quarterly Service Excellence Award in recognition of her exceptional job performance. Buxton joined United Bank in 1998 as a Customer Service Representative at the Holyoke branch and was promoted to become the Personal Banker for United Bank’s first Chicopee branch when it opened in 2009.

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Palmer-based Vartanian Custom Cabinets announced the addition of Corey Lomas as the company’s newest Sales Representative. Lomas holds a BA in Visual Arts with a concentration in Painting and Drawing from SUNY New Paltz. He has previous work experience in sales, which, combined with his education in the visual arts, provides an excellent foundation for his new post selling fine kitchen design and custom cabinetry. Lomas is a past winner of the Monson Council of Arts Rising Artist Award, and has exhibited his portfolio of drawings and paintings at the Wilbraham Public Library.