Showcasing the Region’s Young Talent
When BusinessWest started its 40 Under Forty recognition program in 2007, there were some cynics who wondered out loud just how many good classes of winners this region had in it. Indeed, there were many who had doubts about just how deep the pool of talent is in the Pioneer Valley.
Maybe these individuals were reading too many stories about brain drains and how young people have to leave Western Mass. to find fulfillment professionally and personally. Or maybe thats just another indicator of the Valleys large and often-disruptive inferiority complex.
From out vantage point, there seems to be no shortage of young talent in this region, and the 40 Under Forty program serves as a way to communicate this fact to the region as a whole. Read the 40 profiles and, as with the first classes of winners, you should be impressed, and maybe a little surprised (still) at the core of young talent in the 413 area code.
Thats because the 40 winners are not simply successful in business, whether they are lawyers, accountants, technology-sector entrepreneurs, or managers of nonprofits, but because they are leaders who are also contributing to quality of life in this region, be it through work for Habitat for Humanity, serving as a Big Brother or Big Sister, being a mentor to one or more young students, or rescuing basset hounds.
It is this balance of work in the office (or plant) and in the community that makes the class of 2010, and the ones who came before it, worthy of much more than their day in the sun.
Some of the credit for this work within the community goes to the companies that members of this class are working for. Many, such as Big Y, PeoplesBank, Meyers Brothers Kalicka, and others, have long and impressive track records for urging employees at all levels to give back. But some of the credit should also go to the regions two young-professional organizations, based in Springfield and Northampton.
Indeed, while networking has been a primary focus for these groups, they have also instilled in their memberships the need to be active within the community and to find ways to put their talents to use to improve quality for life for people in area cities and towns. This message is clearly resonating.
Weve said this before, but it bears repeating. The 40 Under Forty initiative is not merely a recognition program designed to honor the top scorers with their pictures on the cover of BusinessWest, a plaque received at the June gala, and a line on a résumé that conveys excellence and accomplishment. No, the program was, and is, intended to shine a light on all the young talent in the region not just those who won, but also those who were nominated, and even those who were not, and many fall into those latter categories.
The 40 members of the Class of 2010 are simply spokespeople, if you will, for the hundreds, make that thousands, of talented young professionals and entrepreneurs in this region.
Each year, those of us at BusinessWest tell those who judge the 40 Under Forty contestants to enjoy the process, and that the experience will, indeed, make them feel good, or at least better, about the Western Mass. region and its prospects for growth and prosperity. And they invariably tell us that were right.
And we think well be saying that for many years to come.
