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Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

Episode 201: February 19, 2024

Joe talks to Bill Collins, owner of Center Square Grill restaurant

Bill Collins had worked at all levels of the restaurant business, amassing a wealth of experience, when he decided to open Center Square Grill 10 years ago. The decision proved to be a good one, as the East Longmeadow eatery, specializing in creative American cuisine, was an immediate success — but has still faced plenty of challenges along the way, especially during the pandemic. On the next episode of BusinessTalk, Bill talks withBusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar about what he’s learned over the decades, how to retain a large workforce at a time when many restaurants struggle with that, and what continues to drive his passion. It’smust listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented byBusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

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Class of 2024 Cover Story

Introducing This Year’s Class

For 16 years now, BusinessWest has been recognizing and celebrating the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions through its Difference Makers program, with one goal in mind: to show the many ways one can, in fact, make a difference within their community.

The stories of the class of 2024, like the 15 cohorts before it, are all different, but the common thread is the passion and commitment exhibited by each honoree to improve quality of life for those in this region and make it a better place to live, work, and conduct business.

The stories are inspiring in many different ways, whether it’s Matt Bannister’s deep commitment to area nonprofits or Shannon Rudder’s lifelong pursuit of equity and access for all; whether it’s the work of Fred and Mary Kay Kadushin and the staff of Rock 102 to fight hunger or the ways Delcie Bean and Scott Keiter use their business success to impact others; whether it’s Linda Dunlavy’s hard work on tough regional issues or the significant impact of Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players on the economic and cultural health of Western Mass.

We invite you to read these stories below. All of the 2024 Difference Makers have made an impact — real, tangible, often life-changing impact — in this region that we call home.

You can also help us celebrate the honorees in person on Thursday, April 10 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 each, with reserved tables of 10-12 available. For more event details and to reserve tickets, go HERE

Thank you to our sponsors — Burkhart, Pizzanelli, P.C., Keiter, Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health, the Royal Law Firm, and TommyCar Auto Group — for making this program possible.

Please Join Us for the 2024 Difference Makers Celebration!

Wednesday, April 10 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Tickets are $95 and can be purchased HERE

Thank you to our partner sponsors: Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., Keiter, Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and our supporting sponsors: Springfield Thunderbirds and Westfield bank.

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Class of 2024

They’re Keeping Music Alive in New Ways for Future Generations

SSO

Springfield Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Paul Lambert and Springfield Chamber Players Chair Beth Welty.

 

Beth Welty said the musicians just wanted to play.

With the Springfield Symphony Orchestra’s leadership and musicians locked in a labor dispute in 2021 and 2022, the players were willing to perform under the old contract until a new one was settled, but the SSO wouldn’t agree.

“At this point, the pandemic had subsided enough that all the other orchestras in the Northeast had come back to work, audiences were showing up, and we decided we needed to do something,” Welty said. “We were very worried if there was no symphonic music in Springfield — out of sight, out of mind — people would forget about us. We had to keep this going.”

So the musicians started staging shows on their own — both at Symphony Hall and at smaller venues around the region — churches, the Westfield Atheneum, anywhere they could draw an audience.

“We were playing at all these little places, constantly expanding to new communities and venues, and bringing live chamber music to as many people as we possibly could in Western Mass.,” said Welty, an SSO violinist who headed up the effort known as MOSSO, or Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.

“So many people, including members of my board, have told me, ‘the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra was in school.”

Well, you might know the story after that — the SSO and the musicians’ union struck a two-year deal last spring to bring full symphony concerts back to downtown Springfield, which proved gratifying to SSO President and CEO Paul Lambert, who never considered the musicians his enemies as they worked out their labor differences.

“I grew up in the Actors’ Equity Association. I’m a union member. And I believe in organized labor, especially in the performing arts. You want to make sure that everyone is well taken care of,” he said. “At the same time, I’ve been a businessman for a long time, so I’m very well aware of the economic realities and challenges that the performing-arts business is going through, especially in these eccentric times we’re still living through.”

The relief on both sides, in fact, was palpable. But the return of concerts to Symphony Hall was only part of the story. The other part was the continued existence of MOSSO under a new name — Springfield Chamber Players — and its continuing mission to bring smaller chamber concerts to venues around the region, including schools.

“We’re interested in promoting the voices that don’t get heard as much but are great composers — music by Black composers, composers of color, women composers,” Welty said. “We’re mixing in composers people have some familiarity with, but also bringing them composers they haven’t heard of, even living composers.”

So as the music reverberates around the region once again, BusinessWest has chosen to honor both the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players as Difference Makers for 2024 — not because they settled a labor agreement last year, but because of how important the performing arts are to the region, and how important both entities are to filling that role, hopefully for generations to come.

The Springfield Chamber Players

The Springfield Chamber Players string quartet includes Miho Matsuno, Robert Lawrence, Martha McAdams, and Patricia Edens.
(Photo by Gregory Jones)

“When people come to the concerts, and I may open with remarks, I ask people, ‘just for a couple of hours, turn off your cell phones and let it go,’” Lambert said. “It’s like therapy — go listen to some beautiful music. For a few hours, just relax and drink it in. We just need that so badly right now.”

Welty agreed. “Music is a big part of life, and I want that for everyone. It doesn’t have to be classical — we did a combo jazz-classical concert,” she noted, before citing Duke Ellington’s famous line about how genre doesn’t matter, and that “there are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.”

And good music — good live music — truly makes a difference in a community.

 

Generation Next

Lambert recalled being in the fourth grade and attending a symphony concert; in fact, it’s an especially vivid, formative memory. So he’s grateful for a two-year, $280,000 grant from the city last spring to help the SSO create educational programming for youth.

“We are deeply involved in finding creative solutions, ways to reach out. This is a giant opportunity to reach all kinds of members of our community who might like to learn more about music — classical music, symphonic music, all the various forms of music that we can touch,” he said.

Meanwhile, through a program called Beethoven’s Buddies, people can donate money toward free tickets for those who might not be able to afford one. “Whatever your situation is, we want you to come to these concerts to hear this music and have a wonderful time,” he explained. “We’re excited about that. It’s also another way that we can reach into our community to pull in people as donors and sponsors.”

“You come together, and the concert happens, and it’s magic. It’s that one-time experience of being together in a space where this beautiful thing happens. It’s special.”

A long-time program called the Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra is going strong as well, Lambert said, and the SSO just hired an education director, Caitlin Meyer, who has been engaging with public schools and colleges on everything from internships to educational programming and performances.

“That’s a critical piece in the equation,” Lambert added. “So many people, including members of my board, have told me, ‘the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra was in school.’”

Meanwhile, Springfield Chamber Players recently presented educational outreach concerts at the Berkshire School in Sheffield and the Community Music School of Springfield.

Meeting young people where they are is simply a matter of survival for performing-arts organizations, said Mark Auerbach, Marketing and Public Relations director for Springfield Chamber Players.

“A lot of people who go to symphonies and come to our concerts are on the older side. And it’s partly because the music programs in schools are not what they were 30 or 40 years ago,” he noted. “If we can get family concerts going, educational concerts going, and interest kids and young adults to come to concerts, hopefully they will stay and grow with us.”

Welty is glad the SSO is doing grant-funded youth outreach because the budget for Springfield Chamber Players is limited, so it needs to be a group effort.

“I’ve been with the symphony 40 years, and we used to have a really robust school presence. We’d send a trio or a quartet to play for kids, talk to them, and answer questions. And they later came to Symphony Hall to hear the whole orchestra,” she recalled. “I think they want to bring that back. We have to be developing the next generation of audience members.”

Symphony Hall

Leaders of both Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players are gratified to be bringing music back to both Symphony Hall (pictured) and smaller venues around the region.

Part of the growth and outreach is simply broadening the definition of what an SSO concert is, Lambert told BusinessWest.

“A lot of folks think of a certain type of music from Western Europe, from the 18th and 19th century. And I love that music. I love Mozart. I love Brahms. I love Beethoven. I love Schubert. I’m thrilled to hear that music, personally,” he said. “But I’ve become increasingly aware of the streams of music traditions that exist all around the world in different cultures and different backgrounds that might appeal to all kinds of folks. So we are trying to pull those various streams together in our programming opportunities.”

To that end, the SSO has begun assembling some hybrid concerts that offer a mixture of traditions, like the classical-jazz fusion explored at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration concert in January, and a Havana Nights show earlier this month that featured Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban rythms.

“The MLK concert had a marvelously diverse audience. We are thrilled when we see new people coming in,” Lambert said. “At our Juneteenth concert that we did last year, we had so many people telling us, ‘I’ve never been to one of your concerts before; I’ve never even been to Symphony Hall before.’ It’s thrilling to us to get those folks coming in to hear this beautiful music.

“Our pops concerts do really well, and we’re going to see what we can explore with those, with different genres of music,” he added. “At the same time, we’re never going to lose track of that beautiful, traditional repertoire that people, including me, love so much. That’s the core of who we are.”

 

A Resource of Note

Welty noted that Springfield Chamber Players has brought an eclectic spirit to its offerings as well, such as “Johnny Appleseed,” a composition by local composer Clifton Noble Jr. based on Janet Yolen’s book of the same name. That concert will take place outdoors in Longmeadow — the legendary character’s hometown — on May 12.

Whatever the venue, she is passionate about exposing more people to good music — whatever that means to Duke Ellington or anyone else — and to get them into music at younger ages.

“I wish every kid could take lessons on an instrument for a few years. You really learn so much. Problem-solving, analyzing, listening, observing. Music is very mathematical, too. Music education would boost everybody,” she said.

“I really think of arts organizations — music, a ballet company, whatever it is — as a resource for everyone,” she added. “You can’t just go to work every day and then go home and watch TV. That’s a boring life. You want something more. And kids that see live music get interested. They want to try it themselves.”

A thriving performance culture is also an economic driver, Auerbach noted.

“It’s essential that Springfield Symphony Orchestra survives because it’s the only live, nonprofit performing-arts organization in Springfield,” he said. “Without the arts, we’d have trouble attracting new residents and new businesses. And there’s a lot of economic spinoff — you go out, first you pay to eat, you pay to park, you may go out to drink afterwards. The musicians, if they are local, spend money here. If they’re not local, they have to stay in hotels and eat here.”

Lambert agrees, even though the demographics for this art form are challenging right now — not just in Springfield, but everywhere.

“For a couple of years during the pandemic, folks stayed at home, and they got used to not coming out at night so much. You got used to staying home and being cozy in your armchair and watching Netflix. Coming back from that was always going to be a substantial challenge.”

But the rewards are great, he added.

“I used to think about how people make wine — you grow the grapes, and you tend the vineyards, and you design the bottle, and you do all of this work. And then you get to dinner and someone opens the cork and you drink it, and it’s gone. But it’s a beautiful thing for that moment.

“I often think about our experience the same way,” he went on. “All the work and the rehearsals and the planning and the tickets and this and that. But you come together, and the concert happens, and it’s magic. It’s that one-time experience of being together in a space where this beautiful thing happens. It’s special.”

Class of 2024

President and CEO, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services

She Wants to Galvanize a Community to Effect Positive Change

Shannon Rudder

For her 12th birthday, Shannon Rudder didn’t want a present from her mother; instead, she wanted to redecorate her bedroom.

So she did, and she remembers some of the things she hung on the walls, like the Indigenous Ten Commandments and a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, along with the quotation, “live, think, and act. Be inspired by humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony.”

She remembers that message because she internalized it at a young age, and it has informed every stop along her career journey — and the difference she has been able to make at each one.

“It’s embedded in me,” Rudder said as she sat with BusinessWest in her office at Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services in Springfield. “I feel like I can be a part of creating humanity in my immediate area. I might not be able to change the whole world or the whole city that I’m in, but I’ve always felt compelled to make an impact in a positive way with compassion and love. And I’m responsible for my thoughts because those become actions. Very early on, that idea led me to be a person of integrity, of deep compassion, and of advocacy.”

Perhaps that’s why, after considering a corporate career in college, she eventually embarked on a series of roles at organizations with a social mission, from MotherWoman and Teach Western Mass to Providence Ministries and, now, MLK Family Services, where she stepped a year ago into the very big shoes of the late Ronn Johnson, who steered the ship there for more than a decade (and was also honored by BusinessWest as a Difference Maker in 2020).

Simply put, Rudder said, “I just think I have been called to contribute to important causes, and I go after that.”

Her first nonprofit job was in Buffalo, N.Y., where she grew up, for an organization called Women for Human Rights & Dignity. “It just like cracked me open, like, ‘oh, the skills that I have and the compassion that I have … they can be aligned, and I get paid to do awesome, impactful work?’

“I might not be able to change the whole world or the whole city that I’m in, but I’ve always felt compelled to make an impact in a positive way with compassion and love.”

“That was all about women’s empowerment,” she added. “We did alternatives-to-incarceration programs and domestic-violence support and non-traditional education and housing. I was really young, and I had a little baby, and I was doing this good work, but also learning how to run a business.”

Since then, Rudder has taken care to align with causes that are important to her, moving into work with fair housing and civil rights in the Buffalo region before moving to Western Mass., where her first pathway to organizational leadership was at MotherWoman, a nonprofit focused on maternal health and well-being, where she served as executive director.

Later, she was executive director for Providence Ministries Inc., a nonprofit advocating for and supporting marginalized populations across programs dedicated to food security, addiction recovery, housing, clothing, and workforce development. That role opened her eyes to many types of need and further honed her sharp sense of empathy.

“I remember my grandmother saying, ‘but for God’s grace, there go I’ — meaning, in a blink of an eye, your situation could change, and you could be on the other side of needing services like that,” she said. “We’re all part of the same journey.”

Shannon Rudder

Shannon Rudder with the two youth emcees from last month’s MLK Day celebration.

She also served as deputy director of Teach Western Mass, a nonprofit startup working toward educational equity in partnership with more than 30 schools. Her duties included fiscal and operational oversight, knowledge-management systems, data and impact, communications, equity and belonging, human-resource management, overall team culture, and supervision of cross-functional teams.

“I’ve been really intentional about the causes that make a difference to me, approaching it from the perspective of, ‘OK, this agency’s mission is really clear, the heart and the compassion are here, and I get to make sure it lasts for a long time by building the infrastructure, the operations systems, the fundraising and return on investment, and all the important scaffolding that needs to be in place so that the business aspect of it can thrive.”

The clear thread woven through all these roles has been a focus on equity and making sure everyone has access to the resources they need to live healthy, meaningful lives, she explained. “I picked causes that are doing the important work of amplifying the voices of those that have often been silenced or marginalized.”

By using her own voice, compassion, and business acumen to do so, Rudder has become a true Difference Maker.

 

Lifetime Support

At MLK Family Services, she shares with Johnson, her late predecessor, an approach to the work from a public-health standpoint, considering how the social determinants of health affect all areas of life.

“Sure, we can triage and put Band-Aids on stuff — people are hungry now, so let’s make sure they have food — but let’s dig a little deeper: how do we actually get a grocery store in an area that is in need?” she said.

“I remember my grandmother saying, ‘but for God’s grace, there go I’ — meaning, in a blink of an eye, your situation could change, and you could be on the other side of needing services like that. We’re all part of the same journey.”

“I also want to make sure that MLKFS as a whole, operations and programs, is operating from a trauma-informed place,” she went on, citing a philosophy that takes into account the unique, often traumatic experiences of an individual’s life and how that informs what they need.

“How do we approach our programs and ensure that the people working with our kids are helping to break that, or making sure that those kids have resources like mental-health counseling? How do we make sure we’re helping to embolden and empower them, and then actually building the bridge to get them access to the things that they need?”

The current programs offered by MLK Family Services are many and diverse, and include:

• The Family Stabilization Program, funded through the Department of Child and Family, offers support to families to keep their children safely at home and in the community by advocating for the well-being and rights of all children and ensuring parenting support.

Shannon Rudder’s work at MLK Family Services lifts up children in many ways.

Shannon Rudder’s work at MLK Family Services lifts up children in many ways.

• The MLK Food Pantry provides emergency food services to community members in Hampden County. The program relies on donations from grocery vendors and is a member of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The pantry operates at the MLK Community Center weekly and also hosts the Food Bank’s mobile market twice monthly.

• The Clemente Course in Humanities is a transformative educational experience for adults — an opportunity to further their education and careers, advocate for themselves and their families, and engage actively in the cultural and political lives of their communities.

• The Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Tour helps young people explore their academic journey by visiting multiple college campuses in a single trip. These tours equip participants with a solid understanding of the history, culture, and traditions that have shaped the schools’ collective legacy. In addition, students, parents, and counselors are engaged in a year-long series of workshops.

• The King’s Kids afterschool programs serve up to 130 children at two locations. Programming is aimed at helping students become academically successful by nurturing their character building, critical-thinking skills, and creativity. Students are offered homework help, STEAM enrichment, literacy support, cultural experiences, and recreational and holistic well-being.

• Youth between ages 13 and 22 are invited to participate in the weekly Night Spot program, which empowers them to be critical thinkers and community builders while preparing them for life in high school, college, and beyond. Night Spot offers advocacy services for a variety of needs, including handling life’s complications, navigating the court system, and ensuring safety in a safe, drug-free environment.

• Beat the Odds is a Springfield-based youth mental-health coalition led in partnership with the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. Hosted at MLK Family Services, the program focuses on breaking the cycle of stigma and barriers to youth mental healthcare. In 2023, this program launched a public-awareness campaign called “I Am Not My Mood.”

“How do we make sure we’re helping to embolden and empower them, and then actually building the bridge to get them access to the things that they need?”

• King’s Kids Summer Camp is a full-day camp for children ages 5-12. Meanwhile, a new partnership with Springfield Empowerment Zone schools provides summer enrichment programs to Springfield middle- and high-school students in partnership with agencies across Massachusetts.

• DCR Summer Nights Program is a transformative, statewide initiative that enriches the lives of urban youth ages 13 to 21. MLK Family Services is one of the sites providing safe, inclusive, and fun activities (both recreational and educational) during evening hours. Participants enjoy gaming competitions and tournaments in a variety of sports, enriching arts activities, health and wellness workshops, career explorations through guest speakers, and off-site excursions.

“I can’t wait to jump in with the community and do a strategic plan where they begin to inform us what they need, so we’re not sitting here thinking, ‘oh, I think it would be cool if we created this experience,’” Rudder said. “Does the community need that? We know that the community is ever-shifting and changing. So to really meet the needs of the community, we need to hear from them, and I’m excited about doing that.”

The MLK King’s Kids dance troupe performed at MLK Day this year.

The MLK King’s Kids dance troupe performed at MLK Day this year.

It’s a way to go beyond Johnson’s ‘teach a man to fish’ credo and make sure people are fishing in the right ponds.

“If we say we’re going to listen to the community, then we have to go into the community and say, ‘OK, we heard you. How are we going to work at this together?’” Rudder said. “It’s our job to provide the resources and the tools, but I want them to be a part of that solution, whatever that looks like.”

 

Thinking Ahead

Rudder has plenty of goals for the center, from broading the trauma-informed piece to launching a full capital-needs assessment.

“I want to make sure our center is there for decades to come, so that means a lot of capital improvement. Our food pantry needs a new home; we’re just bursting at the seams.

“I also want to do economic-development training,” she added. “We do a really good job with HBCUs and also college readiness locally, and I want our kids to dream big — but college might not be for them. So how do we equip them to realize their dreams and potential? I want to do some vocational training, some entrepreneurial things, all STEAM-based approaches to things.”

One idea from Providence Ministries she’d like to being to MLK Family Services is ServSafe training. “We can get them certified in management and actually have hands-on teaching of kitchen skills and culinary skills. And then, how do they make money off of that? So, we’ll teach them business acumen and then link them to opportunities for jobs,” she explained. “I’m just excited to hear what our community’s needs are and finding a way — again, through the public-health lens — of making sure that we meet those needs.”

To accomplish all that, Rudder relies not only on the center’s staff, but also about 120 volunteers. And she finds it gratifying that she’s following King’s philosophy of not working solo, but galvanizing an entire community to accomplish positive change.

“One adage I grew up with is, ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’ And I’m really blessed; I’m really fortunate in my life,” Rudder told BusinessWest. “So that’s my responsibility — to leverage those things that I’ve been blessed with into doing good, into impact. This is fun, and it is fulfilling to me.”

Class of 2024

They’ve Made the Mayflower Marathon a Community Tradition

The Staff of Rock 102

 

Mike Baxendale, the on-air personality known to all simply as Bax, says it started as a radio promotion. But it quickly became a community event.

And now, it’s a huge community event, involving individuals, families, businesses, institutions, area schools and colleges, and more.

He was referring, of course, to the Mayflower Marathon, staged each year in the days just before Thanksgiving to benefit Open Pantry. For 30 years now, the event, organized by and staged by the staff at Rock 102, has collected food and monetary donations to help those in need.

It started with one Mayflower trailer — hence the name — and each year, with a few rare exceptions, such as the height of the Great Recession in 2009 and the height of COVID in 2020, it has grown bigger and collected more to combat food insecurity.

And in 2023, the marathon, in its relatively new home at MGM Springfield, shattered all previous records, collecting more than $234,000 in food and monetary donations and filling nearly six trucks.

That number, and the level of support needed to reach it, speak to both the growing amount of need in the region amid higher inflation and growing financial issues facing many in the 413 and the manner in which the staff at Rock 102 have collaborated with others in recent years to take the marathon to new levels, with a comedy night at MGM Springfield and a Mayflower Marathon Night on the Springfield Thunderbirds schedule.

“They’re incredible; they truly have such huge hearts to make sure our neighbors get fed. The Open Pantry would never be able to serve that many people without the Mayflower Marathon.”

“Ultimately, the goal is to raise more and more and more to help those in need,” said David Oldread, vice president and general manager of the Springfield Rocks Radio Group and Northampton Radio Group, which includes Rock 102. He noted that the marathon involves difference makers on many levels, including those who donate everything from the trucks to the portable toilets to the tents; those corporate supporters, many of which have been part of this since the beginning; and the volunteers who help collect the donations and load the trucks.

But it is the staff at Rock 102 that is being honored the Difference Makers award this year, and deservedly so. The station conceived the idea back in 1993, and it has been the driving force in continuing the program and orchestrating its strong growth pattern.

The Mayflower Marathon

The Mayflower Marathon, now staged at MGM Springfield, fills several trucks with donations of food for Open Pantry in Springfield.

And it’s a company-wide initiative, a true team effort, said Oldread, noting that it is “all hands on deck,” especially in the weeks and days leading up to the event, with each staff member making important contributions to the effort, with work starting months before the marathon begins.

Bax and Steve Nagle, morning show hosts, entertain the audience — and inspire it — for 52 hours during the marathon; Erin Buehler, promotions director at Rock 102, plans, organizes, sets up, and executes the event; Alex Byrne, program director, coordinates the entire broadcast; Joshua Smith, engineer, sets up the technical side of the broadcast and keeps the show on the air; Dan Williams and Pat Kelly, on-air hosts, produce the broadcast at the station in East Longmeadow; the sales staff members rally their clients to get donations and volunteer their time at the event … and on it goes.

Overall, the marathon has become a powerful collaboration between Rock 102 staff members and the community to come together for a great cause, said Buehler, adding that this collaboration grows stronger each year.

Nicole Lussier, executive director of Open Pantry, agreed. She’s been with the Springfield-based agency for nearly 30 years, and thus has been involved with the marathon since the beginning. She’s watched it grow and become an increasingly larger force in the agency’s ability to carry out its mission. And she noted that the staff at Rock 102 brings passion to its work of making the marathon happen each year.

“To be able to tell Nicole Lussier what we had just done — and she had been there every minute of the event — to be able to tell her that we had raised at least $217,000, with more on the way … to see her reaction, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I got choked up on the air.”

“They’re incredible; they truly have such huge hearts to make sure our neighbors get fed,” Lussier said. “The Open Pantry would never be able to serve that many people without the Mayflower Marathon; there’s no way we would be able to distribute that much food.”

Such sentiments help explain why the team at Rock 102 is being honored not for putting on the marathon, necessarily, but for rallying a region, a community, around a cause — and, in the process of doing so, becoming a true Difference Maker.

 

Making Waves

He called it the “chicken wing.”

This was the very effective submission hold developed by former pro wrestler Bob Backlund, who administered it to Bax during one of the marathons a few years ago.

“It’s very painful,” he said with a look that conveyed as much, adding that Backlund is one of many colorful guests who have made appearances during the marathon over the years, and his application of the chicken wing is one of the more intriguing ways that the airtime has been filled.

Others in the guest category include mayors, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (a regular each year), comedians, New England Patriots wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster (who stopped by last year), and many others. As for memorable moments, there have been plenty of those as well, as the marathon has persevered through all kinds of weather, power outages, equipment glitches … you name it.

Rock 102 morning show hosts Bax (right) and Nagle talk with Springfield Thunderbirds President Nate Costa (a Difference Maker himself in 2023) at last year’s Mayflower Marathon.

Rock 102 morning show hosts Bax (right) and Nagle talk with Springfield Thunderbirds President Nate Costa (a Difference Maker himself in 2023) at last year’s Mayflower Marathon.

But what is remembered far more are other moments in time — the ones that reflect the generosity, caring, and spirit of collaboration that have come to define the marathon and explain why it was conceived all those years ago.

Moments like the announcement of how much was raised last November.

“At the end of the broadcast, we give an unofficial total, with this year [2023] far exceeding anyone’s expectations — I don’t think anyone expected anything close to this,” Bax recalled. “To be able to tell Nicole Lussier what we had just done — and she had been there every minute of the event — to be able to tell her that we had raised at least $217,000, with more on the way … to see her reaction, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I got choked up on the air, and so did Steve. When you realize where this is going and how many people it helps…”

He didn’t finish that sentence, but didn’t really have to. And this sentiment speaks to how and why the marathon was launched three decades ago.

The idea, said all those we spoke with, was to raise some money for Open Pantry, which today operates several different programs, including am emergency food pantry, holiday meals, the Loaves & Fishes Kitchen, a teen-parent program, and many others.

It’s unlikely that anyone at the time could have imagined that it would grow, evolve, and become, as Bax noted, a community event, said Byrne, adding that the marathon has continually broken through new barriers — be it with trucks filled or the total dollar amount raised — that were previously thought impossible.

And every employee at the station, roughly 25 at last count, is involved on some level in making it happen, said Oldread, noting there are many moving parts with this production.

“There’s an awful lot that goes into this,” he said, “from making sure you have power and internet access to getting trucks and RVs and security, and feeding volunteers, and signage and traffic plans. You have to start around Labor Day in order to get things where they need to be in the days before Thanksgiving.”

“We’ve developed our own little tradition with this game, and we want to continue it and expand it. It’s a testament to the work they’re doing at Rock 102 — they’re driving a huge amount of food to the Open Pantry, which lasts almost an entire year.”

The staff, and the marathon, has persevered through recessions, a pandemic, rough weather, and, most recently, the need to find a new home when the Basketball Hall of Fame informed those at the station in 2022 that it could no longer host the marathon in its parking lot.

In many ways, that search for a home crystalized just how much the community had embraced the marathon and wanted to help it live on, said Oldread, noting that, as the station’s on-air personalities went public with the need to find a new home, there was an outpouring of support and commitments to help take the program to a new, much higher level.

 

Food for Thought

Indeed, Beth Ward, director of Public Affairs for MGM Springfield, said the station received several offers to host the marathon, so many that there was almost a competition for the right to become its new home.

MGM Springfield prevailed, she said, and it has been a privilege to stage the marathon, an event that has become part of the philanthropic culture at the resort casino.

“When we got the call, it was like Christmas morning; we were so excited that we were chosen,” she recalled. “There are so many of us here at MGM that live in Western Mass. and are familiar with this event and have taken part in it and donated to it. Immediately, there were so many people who were thrilled and excited to be there and support it.”

She said MGM Springfield set a record when it comes to volunteer hours donated by employees, and a big reason is the Mayflower Marathon, with many of the casino’s workers on site early (as in 5 a.m. in some cases) to help collect donations and load them into trucks.

“Our employees want to be part of this; they want to help make it successful,” she said, effectively summing up the sentiments of many others we spoke with.

That includes Nate Costa, president of the Springfield Thunderbirds, a Difference Maker himself last year. He told BusinessWest that the team has long had a solid relationship with Rock 102, knowing that its listenership boasts many hockey fans. That relationship was taken to a new level when the event lost its home and then found one with another of the T-Birds’ partners, MGM Springfield.

The team soon dedicated the Wednesday night game before Thanksgiving to the cause, branding it Rock 102 Mayflower Marathon Night. That Wednesday is traditionally a time for family gatherings and “bar gatherings,” as Costa called them, but the pull of the marathon and Open Pantry has brought more than 5,000 fans to the arena the past two years for “one last push” for donations.

“We’ve developed our own little tradition with this game, and we want to continue it and expand it,” he said. “It’s a testament to the work they’re doing at Rock 102 — they’re driving a huge amount of food to the Open Pantry, which lasts almost an entire year.”

Costa, Ward, Lussier, and others credit the staff at Rock 102 — the on-air personalities especially, but everyone that gets involved (and that is everyone) — with bringing a region together behind a cause as few other events in this region have.

“Over the course of the past 30 years, it’s become a full-blown community event, where it almost has nothing to do with Rock 102 or any of us,” Bax said. “It has everything to do with different segments of the community getting involved in something special — collecting food.”

Well … it has something to do with the team at Rock 102. Indeed, they have made this happen, not just when it comes to logistics, but from the standpoint of shaping an event that not only serves a community, but creates a stronger community, Oldread said.

And that’s why the team can collectively share the title of Difference Maker.

Class of 2024

CEO, Keiter

He’s Building on a Tradition of Giving Back to the Community

Scott Keiter

Scott Keiter has made the construction company that bears his name one of the fastest-growing ventures in this sector regionally.

And to position his company to achieve that kind of growth, Keiter (pronounced ‘Kiter’) knew early on that he would have to focus most of his time and energy on business, making connections, developing talent, putting the right team in place, and fashioning a blueprint (yes, that’s an industry term) for success.

“As we built the business, the most precious resource was time,” he said. “Anyone who creates a business knows what it takes — it’s every waking hour, so there’s not much time left behind. And then you introduce a child or two, and there’s even less time.”

But he also knew that, once he had the foundation of his business down and was building on top of it, he would eventually shift some of that time and energy toward the community and start to get involved on a number of levels.

And he has followed that blueprint as well, devoting time and talent to everything from an advisory role at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School’s carpentry program to becoming a trustee at Look Park, to involvement with the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce (GNCC) on many levels, including something called the ‘Keiter Card.’

“He said, ‘I’d like to do something, because we have, fortunately, gained business throughout this horrible period. So I’d like like to do something to support the community.’”

This is an initiative to match the value of gift cards sold by the chamber and accepted in more than 100 businesses — one that has put thousands of dollars back into the Greater Northampton economy in late summer, during back-to-school sales and tax-free-weekend time.

In the beginning, it was called the ‘Double Your Money Northampton Gift Card Promotion,’ but eventually it took the name of the company and the philanthropist behind it, making this both an economic driver and an effective branding initiative.

The program, started in 2021 and expanded each year, allows consumers to purchase a $25 Northampton gift card and receive $50 in actual spending power, said Vince Jackson, executive director of the Greater Northampton Chamber, adding that it has provided a real boost for that region’s many small businesses and become somewhat of phenomenon in Paradise City.

The Keiter Card

The Keiter Card has been described as a ‘win-win-win,’ benefiting the Keiter company, the local economy, and small businesses that accept the cards.

Indeed, as he talked about the card, Jackson referenced everything from how quickly they sold out each of their first three years, to how mothers would bring in their children collectively (it’s one Keiter Card per customer) so they could spend part of their allowance on a card, and then talk about where they would go and what they would spend it on.

But while heaping praise on the card and its impact, Jackson saved some for the company and the person behind it, especially as he recalled the circumstances of how it came about.

Flashing back to late summer 2021, when the economy was really starting to open up again after the pandemic, Jackson recalled a conversation he had with Keiter.

“He said, ‘I’d like to do something, because we have, fortunately, gained business throughout this horrible period. So I’d like like to do something to support the community,’” Jackson recalled. “So he came up with the idea of donating $10,000 to the chamber, and for everyone who bought a $25 gift card, he would match that amount, up to $10,000.”

For year two, Keiter doubled the amount to $20,000, and in year three, he increased it to $25,000, with the chamber donating another $5,000 to make it a $30,000 matching program. For year four … Keiter leaked to BusinessWest that he will again be donating $25,000 to build on the momentum that’s been generated.

Meanwhile, Keiter, working in tandem with his wife, Jill, continue to expand their involvement in the Greater Northampton area while at the same taking their business to the proverbial next level.

Success in both realms helps explain why Keiter will soon have his name on something else: a Difference Makers plaque.

 

What’s in a Name?

Returning to the subject of the Keiter Card, Jackson said it’s an example not only of Scott Keiter’s genrosity and commitment to the community and its small businesses, but also of how he’s developed into a successful business person, refining several talents, including, in this case, branding and marketing.

Indeed, to purchase a Keiter Card, one first has to say that name, said Jackson, adding that, when needed, those at the chamber will help the buyer along.

“Sometimes they need help with the pronounciation — some will say ‘Keeter,’” he explained, adding that, with each transaction and each card, the Keiter business gets some additional exposure.

Scott Keiter with, from left, Evan Latour, Zak Martinez, and Sean Houlihan

Scott Keiter with, from left, Evan Latour, Zak Martinez, and Sean Houlihan, Smith Vocational Agricultural High School graduates now working for the company.

And it has already been making a name for itself in the region as a growing company, now with 85 employees, focused on both residential and commercial construction. With the former, the company tackles new construction, but mostly renovations. And with the latter, it has developed a deep portolio of clients, including many higher-education institutions, including Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Elms College, and Western New England University. It also counts many businesses and municipalities on its client list.

The business recently spun off Hatfield Construction, which focuses on earth work and site work, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Keiter, and last month, it announced that it had appointed Jim Young, a business consultant and former president of Paragus Strategic IT, as president of Keiter, leaving its founder more time to focus on the proverbial big picture instead of day-to-day operations.

“We’re excited to open a new chapter for the company and focus on growth and development and building on the successes that we’ve already had,” said Keiter, who will assume the title of CEO. “Jim will help me leverage my time so I can remain focused on looking forward, being in the role of a visionary, and guiding the direction of this organization.”

The business plan calls for continued, sustainable growth and further expansion into Hampden and Berkshire counties, he went on, adding that the company has established itself in those markets and wants to build on that presence.

As noted earlier, for the first several years he was in business, Keiter had a singular focus, to get that venture on solid footing and put an aggressive growth plan in place.

As the company’s name, reputation, and portfolio of clients and projects grew, he began to shift some of his time to the community, although the main focus has still been his business.

 

Concrete Examples

Keiter has chosen to get involved in realms where he can lend expertise, and also where he can make a difference.

That includes Smith Vocational, where he has served as an advisor to the carpentry department while also bringing a number of its students into the company through its co-op program, with several of them eventually being hired by the firm.

“We try to get them out to do everything that we do,” he explained. “We try our best to get them out on our projects, where they can work side-by-side with our staff. In fact, we’ve hired a number of them; they’re some of our best employees.”

Keiter’s involvement also extends to Look Park, which he described as a “treasure,” one of the city’s best assets.

But it’s with the Keiter Card that he is making a greater name for himself in the community, literally and figuratively.

And he said it came about through twin desires — to help small businesses in the community and build his brand.

“I had an epiphany one day,” he recalled. “We were comtemplating how to allocate some marketing money, and I wanted to find a way to create a win-win, or what Vince [Jackson] calls a ‘win-win-win.’

“What this card does is give Keiter some good exposure, but it’s also supporting our community, and it’s also supporting the local economy and retailers,” he said, adding that the idea was to build on the chamber’s existing gift-card program, which was “keeping the money local.”

Douglas Gilbert, vice president of Commercial Lending at Florence Bank, another of those who nominated Keiter for the Difference Makers award, put the initiative in perspective, noting that “Scott’s generous support of the Northampton gift-card program has been vital to the program’s success and provides purchasers with a significant financial incentive to support participating area merchants.”

Jackson agreed, adding that the program’s impact has grown each year.

“In 2023, the GNCC experienced year-over year growth of 10% in Northampton gift-card sales, 13% growth in gift-card units, and 22% growth in redemptions — all driven primarily by the excitement and impact of the Keiter Card promotion,” he said, noting that the cards have sold out in a matter of days each year. “That growth in redemptions in significant and signals immediate spending, giving an exceptional boost to small businesses during a traditionally slow sales period.”

Summing up Kieter’s involvement in the community, as well as his success in business, Jackson started by saying the chamber no longer refers to those who join its ranks as members. Instead, it calls them ‘investors.’

And some businesses have earned the designation ‘prestige investors,’ he went on, adding that these are the ones creating jobs, getting involved — in the chamber and in the community — and making an impact.

Keiter — both the company and its owner — have certainly earned that designation, said Jackson, adding that his involvement in the region prompted the chamber’s leadership to present him with a Community Service Award in 2023.

“They’re doing all the right things, practicing good citizenship and promoting economic development along the way,” he noted. “They’re sharing the wealth and rewards that they’ve been blessed to have, and that’s admirable.”

 

Playing His Card

Jackson told BusinessWest that Keiter cycled off the chamber’s board of directors recently, and that it’s a tradition to give departing board menbers a gift, usually something of the ‘gag’ variety.

In this case, those at the chamber wrapped up a Keiter Card and presented it to him, imploring him to spend it wisely and spread the wealth around.

While that card was a gift to him, the Keiter Card program has been a gift to the community —both its residents and its businesses. It is a gift that has become, as Jackson said, a true win-win-win.

Class of 2024

Co-founders, Feed the Kids

They Decided to Do Something … and Not Just Write a Check

Dr. Fred and Mary Kay Kadushin

It all started with a story on National Public Radio in 2017, one with some alarming statistics about how many children in this country go to bed hungry — some 6 million of them, according to estimates at that time.

Dr. Fred and Mary Kay Kadushin were in different places when the NPR story aired, but they both had their radios on. And they were both surprised and alarmed by what they heard — enough to want to try to do something about it.

“Both of us were just so blown away by what we heard,” said Mary Kay, a retired graphic artist. “When you think about childhood nutrition, and the lack thereof … you think of other countries, but it’s right here in the United States; it’s right under your nose.”

Fred, a semi-retired neuropsychologist who specializes in toxic disorders, agreed. “We decided we needed to do something, and that we needed to do more than just a write a check.”

They talked at length about possible courses of action and eventually settled on creating a new nonprofit venture that would be called Feed the Kids, a name that says it all. And they would eventually settle on a golf tournament (something they had some experience with from their years helping to fundraise for the Boy Scouts) and accompanying online auction as the way to carry out a simple yet vitally important mission — to help existing local programs that have undertaken initiatives to combat childhood food insecurity.

Specifically, they now support Square One, the Springfield-based early-education and family-support provider that offers breakfast, lunch, and snacks to its preschoolers; Pioneer Valley Power Packs, an all-volunteer program that provides school-aged children with non-perishable food each weekend in Easthampton and Northampton; the HPS (Holyoke Public Schools) Weekend Backpack program; and No Kid Hungry, a national organization that battles food insecurity.

“Both of us were just so blown away by what we heard. When you think about childhood nutrition, and the lack thereof … you think of other countries, but it’s right here in the United States; it’s right under your nose.”

Since the first players teed it up in 2018, the program has raised more than $350,000 to fight childhood food insecurity, and along the way it has garnered the support of several area businesses, including PeoplesBank, Westfield Bank, the accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, the law firm Shatz Schwartz and Fentin, Freedom Credit Union, Monson Savings Bank, Elm Electric, and many others.

We talked with the Kadushins about their work, but we also talked with those at the agencies they support. They describe a couple that is modest, caring, generous, and committed to doing what they can to help others in this region. In other words, Difference Makers.

Dr. Fred Kadushin gets to know some of the young students at Square One in Springfield

Dr. Fred Kadushin gets to know some of the young students at Square One in Springfield, one of the nonprofits supported by Feed the Kids.

“Fred and Mary Kay are selfless in their efforts,” said Mary Bianca, a board member with Pioneer Valley Power Packs, who nominated the Kadushins for the Difference Makers award. “They work tirelessly, and their help and dedication have, and continue to make, a huge difference in the lives of thousands of children in our community.”

Kris Allard, vice president of Development and Communication at Square One, who also nominated them, agreed.

“If there’s a poster recipient for the Difference Makers award, it would be Fred and Mary Kay,” she told BusinessWest. “They are the kindest, most generous family … and there’s a pureness to what they do. They’re just individuals doing this work; there’s no expectation for recognition. They’re just good people.”

 

Impact Statements

As she talked about the Kadushins, Allard started not with Feed the Kids and what it does for Square One, but with a different initiative at the agency — one that collects winter coats for children in need.

“They would donate beautiful coats to the program, and I would always get a note from them that said, ‘make sure they check the pockets,’” she said. “There was always a toy zipped into the pocket — a little Matchbox car or any other kind of small toy that would fit in there — and Fred would always say, ‘have the kids check the pockets; there’s a little something extra there.’”

Doing something extra has been the MO for the Kadushins, she went on, adding that, during COVID, when coat drop-offs were not possible, the couple still wanted to donate. Allard, who lives in Wilbraham, arranged to go to the Kadushins’ home on Lake Paradise in Monson and pick up some coats, and while there, Fred initiated a conversation about what else Square One did.

“If there’s a poster recipient for the Difference Makers award, it would be Fred and Mary Kay. They are the kindest, most generous family … and there’s a pureness to what they do. They’re just individuals doing this work; there’s no expectation for recognition. They’re just good people.”

Upon being told the agency provided breakfast and lunch for children, but that this was ‘deficit operation,’ because funds from the state didn’t fully cover the costs, Fred told her about the golf tournament that he and Mary Kay had started a few years earlier.

So began a partnership that embodies the mission of both agencies, and one that certainly helps explain why the Kadushins are being honored as Difference Makers.

For a more in-depth explanation, we need to go back to that report on NPR.

The Kadushins, as noted, came away determined to help, and not by writing a check. They did considerable research on how best to address the larger problem and started a golf tournament to support No Kid Hungry. Soon, though, they wanted to expand their reach and directly support local organizations with programs to feed children.

There are many of them because the need is great, said Mary Kay, adding that they eventually created partnerships with Square One, Pioneer Valley Power Packs (PVPP), and the HPS Weekend Backpack program, which provides 250 to 500 Holyoke children with a backpack of nutritious food to tide them over until they return to school on Monday.

But some of these programs, and especially No Kid Hungry, provide more than food, said Fred, adding that education is also critically important.

“They have programs that educate parents about making smart food choices because sometimes, kids are just getting the wrong foods,” he explained. “It’s not just that they’re not getting enough; they’re getting the wrong kinds.”

And the need is only growing within the region, said both the Kadushins and those operating the nonprofits they support.

The Feed the Kids golf tournament

The Feed the Kids golf tournament has drawn the support of dozens of local businesses and become a summer tradition in Western Mass.

Indeed, Bianca said Pioneer Valley Power Packs saw a 65% increase in need in 2023, a surge she attributes to inflation, rising rents, an overall softening of the economy that saw more people out of work, and an end to some COVID-related relief programs.

There is a waiting list for students to receive the power packs, which consist of two breakfasts, two lunches, and some snacks, she said, adding that, thanks to the donation from the Feed the Kids tournament and auction, the agency was able to take some young people off that waiting list.

“They’re our largest supporter,” she said. “If not for them, we wouldn’t have a program.”

 

Investment Plan

The golf tournament created to support PVPP and other organizations fighting childhood food insecurity, staged annually at Springfield Country Club, has become a labor of love for the Kadushins and a small army of volunteers that lend support and handle assignments from securing items for the auction to working at the course on tournament day.

Planning for next year’s tournament begins almost immediately after the current year’s edition ends, said Fred, adding that the goal is to keep overhead as low as possible (in this case, almost zero) to funnel as much of the money raised to nonprofits as possible.

The event has grown over the years, at least in terms of the auction and the number of supporting corporate sponsors. (As veteran golf-tournament organizers, they understand the importance of limiting the number of golfers on the course, thus helping to ensure that a good time is had and foursomes come back the next year.)

And its importance has grown as well, said the Kadushins, agreeing with Bianca that, regrettably, the need has only increased in the years since that NPR report.

They view their efforts as an investment in young people and an investment in the future of this region, and the country.

“The payoffs are so high,” Fred said. “Proper nutrition affects physical, cognitive, and emotional development. If you think about it, nutrition affects everything. If you improve concentration, you can improve school performance, and when kids eat properly, they’re more likely to graduate, and the downstream implications of that are huge in terms of improving lives and ensuring that people become productive members of society.

“You decrease things like obesity and improve immunity,” he went on. “So downstream, you’re improving kids’ health, so there will be less drag on the healthcare system.”

Mary Kay agreed. “Our passion is with kids because it’s hard to imagine a child going to bed hungry, and that’s generally through no fault of their own,” she said. “Our heart goes out to that.”

While they’re proud of what they do, the Kadushins, as might be expected given the testimonials above, say the real work being done to combat food insecurity among young people is at the nonprofits addressing the problem and by those on the front lines, many of them volunteers.

“These volunteers are amazing; they pack the food, they get it distributed, and they identify who needs the food,” Mary Kay said, adding that she, Fred, and other members of the golf-tournament team will be joining those in Holyoke to stuff backpacks later this month. “It’s pretty amazing, these people who actually do this work.”

Equally amazing is the devotion that Fred and Mary Kay bring to the efforts to help these agencies and volunteers carry out their missions.

Their work is done mostly behind the scenes, organizing the golf outing, signing up sponsors, and attending to the smallest of details. Their stated goal is to press on, grow their venture, hopefully add a title sponsor, and, ultimately, help local agencies help more people in need.

What else would you expect from a couple that puts small surprises in the pockets of winter coats earmarked for children in need? What else would you expect from a couple that didn’t just listen to a news story on childhood hunger, but committed themselves to doing something about those alarming statistics?

What else would you expect from two genuine Difference Makers?

Class of 2024

CEO, Paragus Strategic I.T.

His Big Goals Promise a Big Impact for Employees, the Region, and Beyond

Delcie Bean

 

Delcie Bean had been repairing computers as a side gig from schoolwork from his early teens, and he was a high-school junior when he started taking his enterprise seriously, with business cards and a company name: Vertical Horizons.

The name would change twice over the next two decades, first to Valley Computer Works, then to Paragus Strategic I.T. The technology would change quite a bit, too, as would his business model (more on that later).

What hasn’t changed is Bean’s initial goal: to know more than his clients.

“When I started, it was residential computer support. A lot of it was just helping senior citizens,” he recalled. “I was just helping people who were less sophisticated than I was set up a computer and learn how to use it.

“I didn’t actually know all that much. I just had to know more than the person I was helping,” he continued. “I didn’t have a car; I didn’t have a license. So people had to come pick me up, bring me to their home, and I’d help them fix their computer. I got paid $10 an hour and fed very, very well; it was a lot of grandmas, so I got a lot of cookies and cakes and got invited to a lot of dinners.”

The company grew steadily over the next few years, first in a storefront in Amherst, then in a converted house on Route 9 in Hadley. By 2008 — still only 21 — Bean had accomplished enough to be named to BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty, one of the youngest-ever honorees. He also earned the publication’s Top Entrepreneur award for 2014 and its first-ever Alumni Achievement Award, given to high-performing 40 Under Forty alumni, in 2015 — both of those recognizing the impressive growth of what was now called Paragus Strategic I.T. and located in a larger building a half-mile east on Russell Street.

“How can we be the sherpas, the guides, for those small businesses and tell them what’s coming around the corner, what they should be thinking about, and what they should be preparing for?”

And now, Bean is a Difference Maker — not necessarily for the company’s still-upward trajectory when it comes to growth and expansion. No, it’s for the impact he’s had on IT workforce development in the region, and also for implementing an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) model that may create dozens of employee-owner millionaires over time.

“We think we can be a $250 million company in 15 years,” he told BusinessWest. “But in order to do that, we’re going to need to grow a lot, and we’re going to need capital. A lot of businesses in our position bring in a private equity group and leverage their dollars, but that means you work for them, and they make a lot of the big decisions, and it isn’t the same company anymore. And we decidedly did not want to do that.”

He also had no interest in selling the company, feeling he has more to give. “So the third option was to do what we did the first time we wanted to grow, and double down on the ESOP. In this case, we’re becoming 100% employee-owned.”

 

Keys to Success

Looking back, one of the biggest decisions in Bean’s career took place after he and a partner (whom he eventually bought out) settled on the name Valley Computer Works and bought the house in Hadley.

By 2011, the client base was about 60% residential (with about 4,000 customers) and 40% commercial.

“We got it running like a well-oiled machine. There was a touchscreen kiosk when you dropped it off — you checked off what services you wanted to get. We had it running like a car wash: ‘do you want this package or this package?’ And the whole thing was really efficient, but we weren’t enjoying it. It wasn’t giving me a lot of excitement,” he recalled. “But I loved the commercial stuff. I loved helping companies and working with businesses.”

Besides its Hadley headquarters (pictured), Paragus has a location in Worcester

Besides its Hadley headquarters (pictured), Paragus has a location in Worcester and ambitions to expand its footprint steadily from there.

So, one day, he woke up and decided his future would be in commercial support — and he made the bold decision to shut down 60% of his revenue at the time and build on the 40%.

These days, Paragus exclusively provides IT support to small businesses in an ongoing contract model, he explained. “We are their outsourced IT department, and we become an extension of their company, managing and taking care of whatever they need.”

Bean describes Paragus’ traditional services in terms of three pillars. The first is the help desk. “Your employees have a problem — they can’t turn their computer on, they can’t get into their email, their phone’s not working — and we’re the help desk. We’re the people you call to get those issues taken care of.”

The second pillar is the proactive part of IT: the backups, monitoring, and security. “Obviously, that has evolved and changed so much in the past 10 years, but the core principle is that you need somebody looking after your network and being proactive and taking care of it.”

The third pillar is strategy, helping businesses figure out what technology they should be using, and how to use it more efficiently.

But about four years ago, a fourth pillar emerged at Paragus, which is AI and automation. “That’s all about using technology to make the business more efficient, more intelligent. How do we access more information to run a better business?”

As technology continues to evolve, especially on that fourth front, it’s critical that businesses have a strategic partner well-versed in IT and current trends, he added.

“AI and automation are changing everything. They’re going to have a huge disruption in the labor force in terms of who’s doing what jobs and how those jobs get done. And we’re going to be able to do things that, right now, we can’t do, either because we’re too busy doing the mundane, repetitive work, or because we just didn’t have the tools to be able to work on those things.

“So, how do we stay one or two steps ahead of our customer base,” Bean asked, “but in a way that we can figure out not only how this is impacting our industry, but how it’s impacting small business in general? Then, how can we be the sherpas, the guides, for those small businesses and tell them what’s coming around the corner, what they should be thinking about, and what they should be preparing for?”

Sensing a need for a stronger pipeline of talent into the IT field, in 2014, Bean created Tech Foundry, an educational nonprofit that provides in-depth training for promising individuals, particularly from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds.

“We wanted to create a program that would take people who are having a hard time finding work, give them a career path, and then we can employ them,” he explained. “It helps us, it helps them, it helps everybody. It seemed very sustainable.”

“About 500 students have graduated from Tech Foundry. And many of them are earning significant salaries, way more than they ever could have imagined.”

Employer partners agreed, and a fundraising campaign brought in $400,000 to launch the program, which continues today — and recently expanded into Tech Hub, a facility in Holyoke where people can learn technology skills to help them advance in an increasingly digital job market.

“About 500 students have graduated from Tech Foundry. And many of them are earning significant salaries, way more than they ever could have imagined,” Bean said. “So it not only impacts that person, it impacts their entire family, because now you’ve just changed this person’s entire trajectory.”

 

Wealth of Information

In the early years of Vertical Horizon and Valley Computer Works, Bean said, it didn’t matter who owned the company because it wasn’t making any money.

“But there came a time when that changed, and the company was suddenly worth more. And that was the moment where it started to feel a little bit inequitable. We had the same culture; we were all working just as hard. Everybody was the first one in and last one out, and there was no hierarchy; we were all just doing what we could to make this company successful and serve our customers.

“But at the end of the day, as the company actually started to gain value, all that value was coming to me,” he said. “So, around 2013, I had this idea that I wanted to spread that value across the employees. We tried a couple of different models and finally settled on ESOP as the way we wanted to do that.”

The plan was to transfer 40% of the stock to the employees, a transaction that was finalized in June 2016.

“That was the first moment where I actually planned on running the business for many years into the future,” Bean said. “Up until that point, it was still kind of a side project; I was still a kid with no responsibilities. But when I made that decision to become an ESOP, I was like, ‘OK, this is actually a business, and I want this business to grow and thrive and succeed.’”

To do that, he needed to attract top talent who would want to stay, and that meant creating a desirable employee culture — with employee ownership as a key part of that. Which is why Paragus is now expanding its ESOP to become 100% employee-owned.

“I will no longer own any more stock than any of the other employees,” he told BusinessWest. “I’ll just be another employee owner. But we will have created the capital that we need to be able to execute on our acquisition strategy.”

That’s the heart of the plan: to continue to acquire companies in new geographic footprints, a strategy that Paragus piloted in Worcester with its acquisition of Comportz Technologies during the summer of 2021.

“The plan is to try to do an acquisition a year for the next five years or so and continue to learn and grow and figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and then continue to execute that strategy for as long as it provides value to the community, to the customers, and to the employees,” he explained. “Each year, we want to look for a new geographic market that we think has the right conditions for us to succeed and thrive.”

Meanwhile, Paragus continues to give back to the community, supporting many local businesses by donating goods and sponsoring nonprofit events and educational initiatives.

“We’re a company that believes companies can be a force for good in the community and in the world,” Bean said. “For us, the world is too big a target, but the community feels really approachable. We serve businesses in the community, and we’re dependent on the community.”

And now it’s serving those businesses as a 100% employee-owned firm, which promises to change a lot of lives.

“I’d encourage businesses that are looking to grow, looking to transition ownership, looking to make a change, to keep that option on the table without just defaulting to selling out to private equity,” he added. “Oftentimes, the impact of that is losing jobs, losing revenue, and dollars leave the area.”

The opposite is happening at Paragus, which continues to benefit clients, employees, aspiring IT talent, and the community in myriad ways.

That’s the story — with many chapters in his young life still unwritten — of a Difference Maker.

Class of 2024

Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Responsibility, PeoplesBank

He Goes Well Beyond the Job of ‘Playing Santa Claus’

Matt Bannister

Matt Bannister likes to say that he has “one of the best jobs at the bank,” although some might consider it the worst.

His title is senior vice president of Marketing and Corporate Responsibility, a position that comes with many responsibilities, including a rather large role in determining and then implementing PeoplesBank’s philanthropic strategy, duties he described this way: “I get to play Santa Claus.”

Indeed, he’s part of the team that essentially determined how the bank apportioned $2.3 million in giving in 2022 and another $1.6 million in 2023, with donations averaging roughly $3,000 presented to more than 500 nonprofits and causes meeting some of the region’s most critical needs, such as food insecurity, housing, economic development, and literacy.

More on all this later, because this work is not why Bannister has been named a Difference Maker for 2024. OK, it’s a small part of the reason why.

The much bigger reason is the manner in which he has gone well beyond playing Santa Claus and well beyond helping decide to whom the bank will write checks — rather, he’s become closely involved with helping to meet some of those needs listed above.

Since joining the bank in 2015, he has served as a board member for agencies including Link to Libraries, EforAll Pioneer Valley, the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, the Springfield 9/11 Memorial fundraising committee, the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, Hilltown Community Health Center; the American Red Cross, and Revitalize Community Development Corp. (CDC), where he is current co-chair.

“You can say that he manages the pocketbook and he helps us disperse funds in the right ways, but when you see that expense report and you see that mileage — that’s not giving out money as much as it is participating and being part of the community.”

Involvement with the health-related agencies on that list continues a pattern to focus his time, energy, and talent on matters related to health and well-being (and he puts Revitalize CDC squarely in that category, as we’ll see).

Before coming to PeoplesBank, Bannister was executive vice president of Corporate Communications and Brand Content for the American Heart Assoc./American Stroke Assoc., and before that, he was vice president and group account director at Arnold Worldwide, working on integrated marketing campaigns with a focus on anti-tobacco efforts for clients including the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the FDA, and the American Legacy Foundation.

PeoplesBank President Tom Senecal, who nominated Bannister as a Difference Maker, says he can quantify and qualify how much of an impact his colleague has made. For both, he turns to statistics the company keeps on just how many hours each employee devotes to volunteer work — with Bannister logging at least twice as many on bank-sponsored activities, in his estimate — and especially the expense reports Bannister turns in.

“I see the expense reports; they’re three pages long with his volunteer mileage — three pages per month,” he said, adding a verbal exclamation mark. “You can say that he manages the pocketbook and he helps us disperse funds in the right ways, but when you see that expense report and you see that mileage — that’s not giving out money as much as it is participating and being part of the community.

Matt Bannister, seen here at the PeoplesBank booth

Matt Bannister, seen here at the PeoplesBank booth at Junior Achievement’s Teen Reality Fair last year in Chicopee, has become actively involved in the community.

“He goes well above and beyond what we ask him to do to represent PeoplesBank,” Senecal went on, adding that this involvement, this commitment to backing up the checks the bank writes with his work on boards and mowing lawns for Revitalize CDC, explains why he’s been chosen as a Difference Maker for 2024.

 

By All Accounts

Bannister loves to tell the story about his participation in career day at his then-9-year-old daughter’s elementary school. It conveys a little about what he was doing at the time — this was when he was with Arnold Worldwide working on ad programs to help curb smoking among young people — and a lot about why he has been chosen as a Difference Maker.

“Kids at that age don’t really have a strong sense for what their father does for a living,” he said, recalling that his daughter introduced him by saying simply, ‘this is my dad … he saves lives for a living.’

“I thought that was really cool,” he told BusinessWest, adding that this description of what he did certainly helped inspire some of his next career steps. “I said, ‘I want more of that,’ and it helped me go from doing the anti-tobacco work at the agency to the American Heart Association.”

“Our philosophy is to give a little to a lot of groups, and not a lot to a few groups. That’s because almost every nonprofit is worthwhile and doing good work.”

Tracing his work history, Bannister said he worked for the ad agency Hill Holiday in Boston and later with Arnold Worldwide, working on accounts ranging from Volkswagen to Puma to Ocean Spray. In the late ‘90s, he was promoted and told he’d be working on the Department of Public Health account.

“I initially said, ‘that doesn’t sound like a promotion,’” he went on, adding that this was at the time when a 25-cent tax was put on every pack of cigarettes sold, with the money going toward smoking-cessation programs and preventing youth uptake.

“Every ad agency had a beer, a car, a fast-food chain … now, a brand-new category was created — a $100 million category because of all the revenue that was being created,” he went on. “And it was untilled, fertile soil.”

In his role, Matt Bannister is often the face of PeoplesBank

In his role, Matt Bannister is often the face of PeoplesBank, such as at this occasion marking the bank’s donation — $250,000 over five years — to the building of a new facility for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

Overall, it was more rewarding work than selling cars or cranberry juice, he said, adding that he changed course, career-wise, and joined the American Heart Assoc., serving eventually as executive vice president of Communications at its national headquarters in Dallas.

“At the ad agency, you’re selling pizza, sneakers, and sugar water — you’re selling a product,” he explained. “In public health, you’re selling behavior change; you’re selling ‘eat right, don’t smoke, exercise more.’ It’s not something you buy, it’s behaviors, and it’s marketing that’s a lot more challenging and rewarding.”

Desiring a return to the Northeast — he was born in Dedham and attended UMass Amherst — Bannister accepted the role of senior vice president of Marketing and Corporate Responsibility at PeoplesBank, a position with a broad job description that includes corporate responsibility but now also includes marketing, media relations, and social-media management.

And when it comes to charitable giving, he said the bank’s goal is to “say yes as often as you can,” he noted.

“Our philosophy is to give a little to a lot of groups, and not a lot to a few groups,” he explained. “That’s because almost every nonprofit is worthwhile and doing good work.”

Elaborating, he said that, while he supports a wide array of nonprofits and causes, within the giving strategy is an emphasis on certain areas, such as economic development, literacy, food insecurity, and public health, which translates into larger donations to some groups, such as the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Girls Inc. of the Valley, and Revitalize CDC.

 

An Involved Process

These have, in fact, become Bannister’s personal points of emphasis as he chooses the organizations and causes to get personally involved with — and there are many invitations to weigh.

As noted earlier, this involvement is the primary reason why he is part of the Difference Makers class of 2024. He said it’s a part of his job, and also a way to see first-hand the work being done in some of the areas listed above, and be a part of that work.

“The more I can roll up my sleeves, the better I feel about who we’re giving to,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he is certainly selective about the groups and causes he gets involved with.

“In the beginning, it was because they asked me,” he said with a laugh. “Now, it’s more the groups that are working boards that have a vibrant cross-section of the community involved, and that I think we can benefit by being involved.”

Since joining PeoplesBank, Matt Bannister has donated his time

Since joining PeoplesBank, Matt Bannister has donated his time, energy, and talents to several nonprofits and causes, including Revitalize CDC.

That includes Revitalize CDC, which undertakes a number of projects that fall into broad category of public health, including critical repairs on homes of low-income families with children, the elderly, military veterans, and those with special needs, but also initiatives involving interventions for adults and children with asthma, nutrition programs, and making home improvements that allow seniors to remain in their homes.

He is active with all those intiatives, but has carved out his own niche.

“My favorite thing is mowing the lawn — no one thinks to do that. It’s the curb appeal,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not a skilled laborer, and mowing the lawn is hard to screw up.”

Turning serious, he said the organization’s work is critical to improving health and quality of life in the region.

“Their work involves prevention more than treating the symptoms, which is what a good public-health person cares about,” he said. “It’s not as glamorous, and it’s harder to quantify, but it’s much more important work.”

As he talked about what he does for a living and within the community, Bannister made sure to thank the bank for giving him the opportunity to be part of a winning team, and to thank his wife, Sharon, for … well, being understanding and tolerant of a schedule that has him on the road a lot, maybe three or four days a week and sometimes for several events on the same day during the busy season.

It’s a big part of the job, he said, adding quickly that the job, the travel, and the events involve two states and a much larger radius now that the bank has made a push into Connecticut, one that promises to involve more zip codes in the years to come.

What’s not necessarily part of the job — and this becomes clear in Bannister’s expense sheets and Senecal’s reaction to them — is his commitment to getting very involved with several of the organizations that the bank ultimately writes checks to.

He admits to gradually learning how to say ‘no’ to those who ask him to serve on boards, but often, the answer is still ‘yes.’

 

Bottom Line

If Matt Bannister had to introduce himself at a third-grade career day, he might start by saying what he often tells people about his role: “I work at a bank, but I’m not a banker. And I absolutely love my job at the bank.”

Others who really know, people like Senecal and Colleen Loveless, president and CEO of Revitalize CDC, might be tempted to borrow the line used by his daughter and say that he saves lives.

Or … they could keep it very simple, yet powerful — and introduce him as a Difference Maker.

That says it all.

Opinion

Editorial

 

Photo by Leah Martin

Fredrika Ballard, founder and owner of Fly Lugu Flight School, one of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact for 2023, was one of three people who died tragically in a plane crash in Leyden, at the Greenfield line, on Jan. 14.

The others killed were William Hampton, a flight instructor, and Chad Davidson, a student pilot.

Their deaths sent shock waves through the region, its business community, and all of us here at BusinessWest, who, in a short time, came to know Ballard as the epitome of the program created by those at the magazine to recognize women who are making a difference in this region.

Ballard, a flyer since her youth and a true entrepreneurial spirit, brought both of those qualities together in Fly Lugu, a name whose origins could be traced to something her father told her about how, when it came to the yoke of a plane, when you look up, you go up — LUGU.

Ballard brought that sentiment not just to flying, but to life in general. To move forward, she said, one had to look up, be positive, and move with confidence.

She did all of that, and she inspired others to do so as well, again, not just with flying, but with their lives and careers.

BusinessWest created its Women of Impact program, and chose that name, not simply to honor successful businesswomen, although several of them have been recognized. It was created to honor women who stand out, women who are true leaders, women who are mentors to others, women who inspire those around them to set a higher bar — in their work and in their lives — and then clear that bar. Women whom others consider powerful forces in their lives.

Ballard was all of these things and more, and this is why she epitomizes that phrase Woman of Impact. She was a success in business and a true entrepreneur, but she was also a teacher, a mentor, and an inspiration.

Opinion

Editorial

In the 40 years BusinessWest has been delivering key business news, trends, profiles, and much more to our readers, the economy has swung back and forth many times, from the downturns of the early ’90s and ’00s to the Great Recession of roughly 15 years ago to the recent, hyper-challenging pandemic years — and, of course, the brighter, more robust stretches in between those downturns.

In most cases over those years, business owners could read the signs and pinpoint what kind of economy they were dealing with — good or bad, promising or worrisome.

The current landscape, though, is mixed in an unusual way, with low unemployment and a soaring stock market on one hand and persistent inflation and too-high home prices on the other, just to name a few competing trends. As the Economic Outlook shows, there’s plenty of concern out there, but optimism, too, as we enter a year of global uncertainty, from what promises to be a wild presidential election in the U.S. to serious geopolitical conflicts overseas.

What is more certain is that BusinessWest will continue to reflect these times, these trends, and these stories from a local perspective — that is, through the eyes, minds, and stories of business owners and economic experts throughout the 413.

In our very next issue, we’ll reveal our 28th annual Top Entrepreneur — an intriguing, outside-the-box choice you’ll be excited to read about. One issue after that, we’ll unveil our 16th annual class of Difference Makers, the first of four very popular recognition programs throughout 2024, along with 40 Under Forty in April, Healthcare Heroes in September, and Women of Impact in October. Please note that BusinessWest accepts nominations for all four programs all year long.

We’re also introducing a few regular features to accompany our town-hopping Community Spotlight and the monthly Professional Development story, which focuses on how area colleges and universities are connecting with the business world to help people access better career opportunities.

The new, quarterly offerings in 2024 will include Where Are They Now? — a visit with a past winner of one of the four awards mentioned earlier, detailing how their life and career have evolved since — as well as Nonprofit Spotlight, a quick look at one of the region’s nonprofit organizations and the important work they do, and our Faces of… series, which will offer thoughtful perspectives from leaders in the worlds of construction (in February), education (May), finance (August), and healthcare (November). That’s, of course, on top of our regular coverage of dozens of sectors.

Oh, and did we mention 40 years? We’ll be celebrating that milestone in a big way in our May 13 issue, with a comprehensive look at how several key industries and sectors have evolved since BusinessWest (then known as the Western Mass. Business Journal) first appeared in 1984, and a celebration of the people who made it all happen.

So, as another uncertain year takes shape (and, really, aren’t they all?) we’re excited to bring it all to you — on the page, at our recognition events, and at businesswest.com. Happy New Year.

Opinion

Opinion

By Ben Brubeck

 

The Biden administration’s final rule, “Federal Acquisition Regulation: Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects,” implements Executive Order 14063, which requires federal construction contracts of $35 million or more to be subject to controversial project labor agreements (PLAs).

The Biden administration’s burdensome, inflationary, and anti-competitive PLA mandate rule will needlessly raise costs on taxpayer-funded construction projects and steer contracts to unionized contractors and workers. Absent a successful legal challenge, this executive overreach will reward powerful special interests with government construction contracts at the expense of taxpayers and the principles of free enterprise and fair and open competition in government procurement.

When mandated by governments, PLAs increase construction costs to taxpayers by 12% to 20%, reduce opportunities for qualified contractors and their skilled craft professionals, and exacerbate the construction industry’s worker shortage of more than a half-million people in 2023.

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) will continue to fight on behalf of quality, experienced contractors harmed by this rule and the 88.3% of America’s construction industry who have made the choice not to belong to a union and want a fair opportunity to participate in federal construction projects, but cannot do so because of PLA schemes.

In addition, ABC condemns Biden administration policies independent of this rulemaking that push PLAs on competitive grant programs administered by federal agencies, affecting nearly $260 billion worth of federally assisted infrastructure projects procured by state and local governments, as well as schemes by the Biden administration to coerce private developers of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of clean energy and domestic microchip manufacturing projects to mandate PLAs. Biden’s PLA policies circumvent congressional intent as none of these policies were passed in funding legislation.

Some background: on Aug. 19, 2022, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued its proposed rule implementing Executive Order 14063. In October 2022, ABC submitted more than 40 pages of comments to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, calling on the Biden administration to withdraw its controversial proposed rule.

ABC’s opposition was shared by more than 50 members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, 19 Republican governors, and a diverse coalition of construction-industry, small-business, and taxpayer advocates urging the administration to withdraw its proposal and additional policies promoting PLA mandates on federal and federally assisted construction projects.

At least 8,000 stakeholders across the country — including 2,500 ABC member contractors — submitted comments opposed to this proposed rule during the 60-day comment period. In a September 2022 survey of ABC contractor members, 98% opposed this proposed rule, and 97% said a construction contract that required a PLA would be more expensive compared to a contract procured via fair and open competition.

ABC plans to challenge this Biden administration scheme in the courts on behalf of taxpayers and the majority of the construction industry. In the interim, ABC will continue to oppose its special-interest-favoring policy using all tools in our advocacy and legal toolbox while educating stakeholders about the negative impact of government-mandated PLAs on federal and federally assisted projects.

 

Ben Brubeck is vice president of Regulatory, Labor, and State Affairs at Associated Builders and Contractors.

Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

Kristine Koistinen

Kristine Koistinen says Enfield’s long-awaited rail stop is creating a great deal of anticipation in the community, as well as growing interest from developers.

 

For decades now, a rail stop in Enfield, Conn. on the line from Springfield to Hartford, New Haven, and points south has been a dream.

Finally, the dream is becoming reality.

Indeed, the Connecticut Department of Transportation made it real several weeks ago when it attached hard dates to the $45 million project to build a train station in the section of Enfield called Thompsonville, in the shadow of apartment buildings created at the sprawling former Bigelow Carpet complex.

Those dates include the summer of 2024 for the final design to be completed, the winter of 2025 for the construction bid to be awarded, the spring of 2027 for accompanying rail and bridge work to be completed, and the fall of 2027 for completion of the station and platform.

While a formal ribbon cutting is almost four years away, there is already a great deal of anticipation and excitement in this community of just over 42,000 — as well as interest from the development community, said Town Manager Chris Bromson, adding that the train stop will be, in a word, “transformational.”

“When you look at any of the other transit-oriented districts in Connecticut, it’s been just a boon to economic development and housing,” he told BusinessWest. “If you look at Meriden and other cities in Connecticut that have gotten a train stop, you’ve seen dramatic growth, so we’re very excited, to say the least.”

Elaborating, he said momentum toward a rail station has prompted developers to take options on several properties near the riverfront in the area near the planned station, including an old Eversource power plant, and he expects such interest to only escalate in the months and years to come.

“If you build it, they will come,” he said. “And two years is going to go by in a heartbeat, and developers … they don’t want to miss the train. They want to get in on the ground floor now because those properties are going to be hot.”

Meanwhile, the rail station is just one of many intriguing developments in this community, said Kristine Koistinen, Community Development specialist and also acting Economic Development director. Others include likely redevelopment of the dying mall known as Enfield Square; redevelopment of the former Strand Theater into housing; revitalization of the historic Hazardville Institute into a mixed-use facility that will become, among other things, home to the North Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce; the recent conversion of the former United Presbyterian Church into the new home for the Opera House Players; and the expected arrival next year of L.L.Bean in the Brookside Plaza.

“It’s back to the future. Today, young people … they really aren’t interested in cars the same way that previous generations were; they want to jump on the train. They want to live in places like Thompsonville and jump on the train and go to New York for the weekend or go to Boston.”

“It’s a very exciting time in Enfield; there’s a lot going on and a lot to get excited about,” she said, adding that there are new developments in many different parts of the community, including Thompsonville, Hazardville, the retail district, and others.

Those sentiments apply to one of the community’s largest institutions as well.

Indeed, Asnuntuck Community College, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, is now known as CT State Community College Asnuntuck. It is one of 12 community colleges, some with satellites, that came together in a merger (creating CT State Community College) that has been years in the making, with the goal of bringing a number of advantages and new opportunities to the colleges, but especially students, said Michelle Coach, Asnuntuck CEO.

“What’s amazing for the students is that they apply once, and they can register on any campus anywhere in the state,” she explained. “In the past, we used to share less than 1% of our students among the 12; we now share about 28% of our students.”

But while the merger is generating new opportunities, Asnuntuck and all the other CT State schools are coping with budget cuts, and more dramatic cuts to come in the future unless the governor and Legislature reverse course and increase their overall commitment to public higher education (more on that later).

As for Enfield Square, it has been in a state of deterioration for several years, with the loss of anchors such as Macy’s, JCPenney, and Sears. It was acquired by New York-based Namdar Realty Group in 2019 amid hopes that there would be investment in the facility and the securing of new tenants. However, it has continued to decline, and there is growing speculation that it may be sold to a developer who will raze all or most of what exists and create a mixed-use facility that may include everything from retail to housing.

planned new housing

An architect’s rendering of the planned new housing to take shape at the site of the former Strand Theater.

A few developers have expressed interest, said Bromson, who declined to name them, adding that Enfield Square may follow the same path as Springfield’s Eastfield Mall, which is currently being demolished in favor of new development following the relocation of several dozen mostly smaller tenants. In fact, Koistinen has talked with officials in Springfield about the Eastfield Mall project and the relocation of tenants there.

For the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest focuses on Enfield, the arrival of rail service, and the many other forms of progress in this community.

 

Train of Thought

Bromson is on his second stint as town manager in Enfield — he held that post from 2019 to 2021, when he resigned, only to return just last month. Overall, he’s spent more than 33 years working for the town in various capacities, including town attorney, Public Safety director, and acting town manager.

For all that time and more, securing a rail stop in town has been a dream and a true priority for the community, for reasons made obvious by looking at similar communities that have a stop. In those cities and towns, development has followed, Bromson noted, adding that there has been significant reversal of the development strategies of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s that focused on the automobile and creating infrastructure to support its use.

“It’s back to the future,” he went on. “Today, young people … they really aren’t interested in cars the same way that previous generations were; they want to jump on the train. They want to live in places like Thompsonville and jump on the train and go to New York for the weekend or go to Boston.”

Elaborating, he said Enfield’s station will be more than a metro stop, bringing people to Hartford to work; it will also be a larger hub for Amtrak for more distant destinations. Coupled with the planned spur off the Windsor Locks stop that will bring people to Bradley International Airport, it’s easy to see why a rail station is generating such enthusiasm.

“You can come down to the Enfield station, park — there will be ample parking here — get on the train, take the spur to Bradley, and get on a plane, and never have to deal with the parking or the congestion there,” Bromson said.

the historic Hazardville Institute

Renovation of the historic Hazardville Institute is one of many developing stories in Enfield.

While the rail plans are generating excitement among residents and officials, they are also gaining the attention of the development community, with more interest certainly to come, said those we spoke with.

Bromson said the rail service will likely generate interest in development of more housing, such as the hugely successful Bigelow Commons, now home to more than 2,000 people.

And if more housing becomes reality — and renovation of the former Strand Theater is already set to move off the drawing board — there will be a need for more retail and service businesses, said Koistinen, adding that such need will likely help fill some of the many vacant storefronts and other properties in Thompsonville, but also other parts of the city.

Enfield at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1683
Population: 42,141
Area: 34.2 square miles
County: Hartford
Residential Tax Rate: $30.56
Commercial Tax Rate: $30.56
Median Household Income: $67,402
Median Family Income: $77,554
Type of Government: Town Council, Town Manager
Largest Employers: Empower Retirement LLC, Town of Enfield, LEGO, Advance Auto Parts Distribution Center, Eppendorf Manufacturing
* Latest information available

“For decades, people have been talking about how we revitalize Thompsonville,” she said. “Having the train come is the first step in all of this; here are several vacant properties there, and having the train station so close — that walkability to the downtown — will provide a real boost.”

Overall, there is a sizable trickle-down effect from the rail service, said Bromson, adding that it will likely extend to places like Enfield Square. Indeed, the station will be an intermodal transit center that will send buses and shuttles to locations such as the shopping areas off I-91.

This includes Enfield Square, he noted, adding that the community is talking to developers about the future of the site, while also working with existing tenants to help promote them and prepare them for eventual transition. “I’m very optimistic that we’re going to have a good result there in the near future.”

 

Course of Action

There have been several good results from the merger of the state’s community colleges, a process that has been in motion for more than seven years now, Coach noted.

The new infrastructure brings benefits for the schools, including additional buying power and greater ability to collaborate and share ideas, concepts, and, yes, students.

Indeed, she said there are students who now attend classes at as many as five different schools, taking advantage of each school’s specialty, such as Asnuntuck’s manufacturing program.

Indeed, Asnuntuck now boasts 1,329 students who call the campus home, and another 886 who call another school home but attend at least one class in Enfield, boosting enrollment and bringing more energy and vitality to the campus.

“If the governor doesn’t give us more money, that’s going to hurt our students — that’s what we’re worried about right now.”

Overall, said the merger has brought about a harmonized processing system across the 12 campuses, while allowing each school to maintain its own identity and culture.

“I’ve always said to the employees, our culture is our people, and we have our people,” Coach said. “We can give our students what they need, and I don’t think we’ve changed. But at the same time, they can now register anywhere, we have some amazing processes, and we just hired a behavioral-health counselor for the first time. We’ve always wanted an in-house counselor, and we haven’t been able to do so. By becoming CT State, every campus is getting at least one counselor.”

The merged system is still only a few months old, she said, adding that it will continue to evolve, hone processes, and bring new opportunities and greater collaboration — something that was missing historically — between the individual campuses and their students.

And greater collaboration will be needed because there are many current budget challenges, and deeper cuts likely to come in the year ahead.

“We are underfunded right now,” she said, noting that the system recently cut $33.6 million for this fiscal year, with Asnuntuck slicing roughly $500,000, in large part because elected leaders would not raise the spending limit for the state.

Asnuntuck was able to avoid personnel cuts this fiscal year, but it may not be so fortunate in FY 2025, when an additional $41.3 million will have to be cut, unless already-intense lobbying efforts succeed in garnering more support from the state.

“If the governor doesn’t give us more money, that’s going to hurt our students — that’s what we’re worried about right now,” she told BusinessWest. “And, of course, these are the students that need the help.”

Features Special Coverage

A Year of Challenge and Progress

By Joseph Bednar and George O’Brien

Way Finder CEO Keith Fairey

Way Finder CEO Keith Fairey says the housing crisis has been years in the making and results from several factors, including a lack of investment in new housing.

One one hand, every year removed from the pandemic of 2020 is a step toward normalcy, and, for the most part, business rolled on in 2023 — but the effects of that pivotal year still linger, through persistent challenges like inflation, workforce shortages, the deepening roots of remote work, and behavioral-health crises.

But other trends have emerged as well, from a harsher landscape for cannabis businesses to actual movement on east-west rail, to positive developments in downtown Springfield.

As 2024 dawns, undoubtedly bringing a new host of challenges and opportunities, BusinessWest presents its year in review: a look back at some of the stories and issues that shaped our lives, and will, in many cases, continue to do so.

 

The Housing Crisis Deepens

One of the more poignant stories of 2023 was a deepening housing crisis that is touching virtually every community in this region, the state, and many parts of the country.

“We got here over decades of underinvesting in housing production nationally, and not tuning that production to the needs and demographic changes of communities,” Keith Fairey, president and CEO of Springfield-based Way Finders, told BusinessWest in an interview this fall, adding that a resolution to this crisis won’t come quickly or easily, either.

“One of the things we have to do is make sure Massachusetts remains a competitive state for years to come. And one of the main indicators of whether you are competitive is ‘can people afford to live in this state?”

The major challenges involve not only creating more housing, because not much was built over the past few decades, but housing that fals into the ‘affordable’ category.

Indeed, state Rep. John Velis, a member of the Senate’s Housing Committee, said there are many side effects from the housing crisis, especially when it comes to the state’s ability to retain residents. “One of the things we have to do is make sure Massachusetts remains a competitive state for years to come. And one of the main indicators of whether you are competitive is ‘can people afford to live in this state?’”

 

Inflation and Interest Rates

The Fed was on a mission in 2023 — to tame inflation but without putting the country into recession, as it famously did in the ’80s. By and large, it was mission accomplished.

Indeed, the latest data on inflation showed a 3% increase over last year in November, a significant improvement on the numbers from late last year and early this year. Meanwhile, the country seems to have avoided a recession, with the economy expanding at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 5.2% in the third quarter, after generating 2.2% annualized growth in the first quarter and 2.2% in the second quarter. In short, the economy actually accelerated, rather than slowing down, due to persistently strong consumer spending.

Efforts to stem inflation by raising interest rates were not without consequences, though, as the housing market cooled tremendously, if not historically. And commercial lending cooled as well, as many business owners took a wait-and-see approach with regard to where interest rates were headed.

 

New Challenges for Cannabis

Is the ‘green rush’ over for the cannabis industry in Massachusetts? If so, the Bay State is simply following the pattern of every other state that legalizes the drug.

According to that well-told story, the first dispensaries on the scene are bouyed by a favorable supply-and-demand equation — and long lines of customers. But as the market is flooded with competitors — not only locally, but from across state lines — not everyone survives, as a series of business closings this year demonstrates. In fact, according to the Cannabis Control Commission, 16 licenses in Massachusetts have been surrendered, not been renewed, or been revoked by the agency.

The heightened competition has caused retail prices to plummet for an industry already beset by profit-margin challenges. Unfavorable federal tax laws surrounding the growth, production, and sale of cannabis, coupled with local and state tax obligations and continued federal roadblocks to financing, transport, and other aspects of business have made it increasingly difficult to turn a profit. On the latter issue, federal decriminalization would ease the challenges somewhat, but progress there has been frustratingly slow.

Steven Weiss, shareholder at Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin

Steven Weiss, shareholder at Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin, says he’s surprised lawmakers haven’t moved more quickly toward decriminalizing cannabis on the federal level.

Workforce Challenges Continue

While many businesses and institutions, including the region’s hospitals, reported some progress in 2023 when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, workforce issues persisted in many sectors, especially hospitality.

Indeed, across the region, many restaurants have been forced to reduce the number of days they are open, and some banquet facilities have been limiting capacity due to challenges with securing adequate levels of staff.

Those are some of the visible manifestations of a workforce crisis that started during the pandemic and has lingered for a variety of reasons, from the retirement of Baby Boomers to an apparent lack of willingness to accept lower-wage positions in service businesses.

The ongoing crisis has led to stiff battles for help in certain sectors, including manufacturing, the building trades, engineering, and healthcare, among others, resulting in higher wages, more benefits, and greater flexibility when it comes to where and when people work, which brings us to another of the big stories in 2023…

 

Remote Work, Hybrid Schedules Gain More Traction

While some larger employers succeeded in bringing everyone back to the office in 2023, most have decided not to even try. Indeed, there was more evidence in 2023 that remote work and hybrid schedules have become a permanent part of the workplace landscape.

In interviews with employers large and small, a persistent theme on this topic has been the need to be flexible when it comes to schedules, and especially where people work. Many businesses, from banks to architecture firms to financial-services companies, have found that employees can be effective and productive working remotely, with many favoring a hybrid schedule that brings people to the office a few days a week. Such flexibility makes employees happier, they said, making it easier to attract and retain talent.

This pattern is causing some anxiety in the commercial office market amid speculation that companies will be seeking smaller spaces moving forward, but the full impact of the shift to remote work and hybrid schedules may not be known for years.

 

Movement on East-west Rail

This story might continue to inch down the tracks, so to speak, for years before the engine really starts moving, but after many years of debate, planning, and crunching the numbers, actual progress is emerging in the effort to connect Pittsfield with Boston by rail, with stops in Springfield, Palmer, and Worcester, among others.

“We can also make progress in breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty by helping residents complete their higher-education credentials so they can attain good jobs and build a career path.”

The big news this past fall was a federal grant of $108 million to Massachusetts for rail infrastructure upgrades, and Gov. Maura Healey also signed off on $12.5 million in DOT funding in the state’s FY 2024 budget toward the effort.

The additional east-west service would complement passenger trains now running north-south through Springfield’s Union Station, offering access to points from Greenfield to New Haven.

“The facts are simple: improving and expanding passenger rail service will have a tremendous impact on regional economies throughout Massachusetts,” U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said. “That is why we will continue to invest in a project whose framework has the potential to serve as a model for expanding passenger rail service across the country.”

 

Free Community College

Almost 2 million Massachusetts residents are over age 25 without a college degree. MassReconnect aims to change that, by offering free tuition and fees — as well as an allowance for books and supplies — at any of Massachusetts’ community colleges for residents over age 25.

Gov. Maura Healey pitched it as a strategy to generate more young, skilled talent in the workplace at a time when businesses are struggling to recruit and retain employees (more on that later). “We can also make progress in breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty by helping residents complete their higher-education credentials so they can attain good jobs and build a career path,” she added.

New HCC President George Timmons

New HCC President George Timmons says “community colleges are, to me, a great pathway to a better life.”

Holyoke Community College President George Timmons called the initiative “an exciting moment for HCC and all Massachusetts community colleges,” adding that “MassReconnect will enable our community colleges to do more of what we do best, which is serve students from all ages and all backgrounds and provide them with an exceptional education that leads to employment and, ultimately, a stronger economy and thriving region.”

 

New Higher-education Leadership

Speaking of Timmons, he was among the new presidents at the region’s colleges and universities, taking the the reins from Christina Royal, who had been at HCC since January 2017. Timmons was previously provost and senior vice president of Academic and Student Affairs at Columbia Greene Community College in Hudson, N.Y.

Meanwhile, Danielle Ren Holley, a noted legal educator and social-justice scholar, became the first Black woman in the 186-year history of Mount Holyoke College to serve as permanent president. Since 2014, Holley had served as dean and professor of Law at Howard University School of Law.

And at UMass Amherst, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy stepped down after 11 years leading the university, to be succeeded by Javier Reyes, who had been serving as interim chancellor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“You’re not coming in to repair something, but to build on the shoulders of giants — and that is a very attractive opportunity,” Reyes said. “You’re not trying to catch up; you’re really trying to move and set the direction and be a forward leader. It comes with more pressure, but it’s more exciting.”

 

Thunderous Impact for the T-Birds

The Springfield Thunderbirds released the results of an economic-impact study conducted by the UMass Donahue Institute that shows the team’s operations have generated $126 million for the local economy since 2017.

The study included an analysis of team operations data, MassMutual Center concessions figures, a survey of more than 2,000 T-Birds patrons, and interviews with local business owners and other local stakeholders. Among its findings, the study shows that the T-Birds created $76 million in cumulative personal income throughout the region and contributed $10 million to state and local taxes.

The impact on downtown Springfield businesses is especially profound. Seventy-eight percent of T-Birds fans spend money on something other than hockey when they go to a game, including 68% who are patronizing a bar, restaurant, or MGM Springfield. The study also found that median spending by fans outside the arena is $40 per person on game nights and that every dollar of T-Birds’ revenue is estimated to yield $4.09 of additional economic activity in the Pioneer Valley. Meanwhile, since the team’s inaugural season, it has doubled the number of jobs created from 112 in 2017 to 236 in 2023.

 

Big Y Opens Downtown

In fact, despite the speed bump posed by the pandemic, downtown Springfield seems to have some momentum again. One of the more intriguing stories of 2023 was the opening during the summer of a scaled-down Big Y supermarket on the ground floor of Tower Square.

The new Big Y Express

The new Big Y Express represents an imaginative use of ARPA funds, addresses a food desert, and contributes to momentum in downtown Springfield.

The development was noteworthy for several reasons. First, it continued the reimagination of Tower Square, which now boasts the Greater Springfield YMCA, White Lion Brewing, two colleges, and other institutions. It also brings a supermarket to what had been a food desert. And it represents an imaginative, community-building use of ARPA funds.

The store opened its doors in June to considerable fanfare, and early results have been solid, with the store becoming a welcome addition to the downtown landscape. Combined with the Thunderbirds’ success, some of MGM Springfield’s strongest revenue months, and the ongoing residential development at the former Court Square Hotel, there’s a lot to be excited about.

 

New Home Sought for ‘Sick Courthouse’

Not all downtown news emerged from a positive place. Another developing story in 2023 was the ongoing work to secure a replacement for the Roderick Ireland Courthouse on State Street in Springfield, whose dilapidated conditions have been under scrutiny for years and have earned it the nickname the ‘sick courthouse,’ because many who have worked there have contracted various illnesses.

Gov. Maura Healey has called for investing $106 million over a five-year period to construct a new justice center in Springfield, and in November, the Healey administration issued an official request for proposals involving a least two developable acres on which to build a new courthouse. Proposals are due Jan. 31.

While redevelopment of the current site remains an option, Springfield officials are intrigued by the possibility of building not only a new courthouse, but also redeveloping the current site, which is right off I-91 in the heart of downtown.

 

Weather Challenges for Farmers

It’s called the Natural Disaster Recovery Program for Agriculture, and it exists because Mother Nature hit Massachusetts — in particular, its farmers — hard in 2023.

The state program provides financial assistance to farmers who suffered crop losses as a result of any of three natural disasters: the Feb. 3-5 deep freeze that impacted a large amount of peach and stone-fruit production, the May 17-18 frost that impacted a large amount of apple production and vineyards, and the July 9-16 rainfall and flooding that impacted a large amount of vegetable crops, field crops, and hay and forage crops.

But the government wasn’t alone in the effort to help farmers sustain this triple body blow. Area banks and other oranizations created funds, as did philanthropist Harold Grinspoon — a long-time and notable advocate for farmers through his foundation’s Local Farmer Awards — swiftly pledged $50,000 toward flood-relief efforts following the July rains, distributing checks to 50 farmers impacted by the floods.

 

Behavioral Health at the Forefront

In August, Baystate Health and Lifepoint Health celebrated the opening of Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, a 122,000-square-foot, four-story facility in Holyoke featuring 150 private and semi-private rooms for inpatient behavioral healthcare for adults and adolescents.

It’s yet another development — the opening of MiraVista Behavioral Health Center in Holyoke in 2021 was another one — that aims to fill an access gap in behavioral health, at a time when the mental-health and addiction needs remain high. The pandemic caused a spike in both, the effects of which are still being felt today.

Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health, said Valley Springs increases the inpatient behavioral-health capacity in the region by 50%. “Until now, about 30% of behavioral-health patients needing care would have to go outside the region. Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital will allow us to provide top-quality care for more patients right here in Western Massachusetts.”

 

Holyoke Celebrates Its 150th

One of the more fun stories of 2023 was Holyoke’s year-long 150th-anniversary celebration. BusinessWest printed a special edition in March to coincide with the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which included stories and photos that celebrated the past and present, while speculating on the future. The many interviews captured the unique essence and character of Holyoke, a close-knit community with a proud history and many traditions.

“There’s been a lot of change over the years, but what hasn’t changed is the spirit of the people,” Jim Sullivan, president of the O’Connell Companies and a Holyoke native, said. “There is a very proud heritage in Holyoke, and it still exists today.”

Said Gary Rome, another native of the Paper City and owner of Gary Rome Auto Group, “there’s a saying … as Holyokers, we can talk bad about Holyoke, but you can’t talk bad about Holyoke.”

Opinion

Editorial

 

Almost from the first puck drop back in the fall of 2017, we have been writing about the importance of the Springfield Thunderbirds — not just to the general psyche of the region (it’s good to have a pro sports team to root for) and to the vitality of Springfield’s downtown, but also to the local economy.

We’ve said many times that the team is a powerful force not just for filling bars and restaurants, and the casino on Main Street, but for job creation and supporting jobs elsewhere in the Pioneer Valley.

And now, we can quantify this broad impact.

Indeed, a recently released report details a study undertaken by the UMass Donahue Institute showing that the team’s operations have generated $126 million for the local economy since 2017.

The study included an analysis of team operations data, MassMutual Center concessions figures, a survey of more than 2,000 T-Birds patrons, and interviews with local business owners and other local stakeholders. Among its most critical findings, the study shows that the T-Birds created $76 million in cumulative personal income throughout the region and contributed $10 million to state and local taxes.

Meanwhile, the report shows that the team has doubled the number of jobs created from 112 in 2017 to 236 in 2023, and estimates that income per job created by the T-Birds is approximately $76,000, and that each job created by the Thunderbirds creates or supports 3.3 other jobs elsewhere in the Pioneer Valley.

Overall, the study concludes that the franchise, which has enjoyed success both off the ice and on it, including a run to the Calder Cup finals in 2022, is having a true ripple effect that extends beyond the walls of the MassMutual Center. Indeed, the study found that 78% of T-Birds fans spend money on something other than hockey when they go to a game, including nearly 70% who patronize a bar or restaurant or MGM Springfield. It also found that median spending by fans outside the arena is $40 per person on game nights and that every dollar of T-Birds revenue is estimated to yield $4.09 of additional economic activity in the Pioneer Valley.

We’re not sure, but it’s unlikely that even those business owners who came together to 2016 to save professional hockey in Springfield could have imagined this kind of impact. The numbers clearly show that they did more than bring a franchise here; they put together a team, led by President Nate Costa, that has put a quality product on the ice, marketed it in ways that are the envy of the American Hockey League, and turned that product into an economic engine.

Over the years, Costa and the team’s ownership group have won a number of awards from BusinessWest, everything from a Forty Under 40 plaque and a Difference Makers award for Costa to the Top Entrepreneur recognition for the team’s owners and managers.

Together, those awards speak volumes about what a success story this has been, not just for hockey fans, but for the entire region. But the Donahue Institute report speaks even louder. It puts numbers behind the words and quantifies what can only be called an unqualified success.

Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 184: October 23, 2023

Joe talks with Jody Hagemann, senior director of Sales Engineering for Comcast Business

Everyone has heard of cybersecurity, but not every business knows exactly what it takes to keep them protected. The most effective defenses not only incorporate the latest technology, but emphasize employee education, training, and plain old common sense to reduce the chances of human error — which is a factor in far too many breaches. On the next episode of BusinessTalk, Jody Hagemann, senior director of Sales Engineering for Comcast Business, talks with BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar about the multi-pronged strategy Comcast relates to its clients, why more companies are taking data threats seriously — and why they should. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

 

Sponsored by:

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Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 183: October 16, 2023

George O’Brien talks with Keith Fairey, president and CEO of Way Finders

The housing crisis gripping Western Massachusetts and most of the Bay State has deep roots and a broad impact, affecting everything from homelessness in area communities to the region’s ability to effectively compete with other states and regions for talent and jobs. On the next episode of BusinessTalk, Keith Fairey, president and CEO of Way Finders, talks with writer George O’Brien about how we got here, how the crisis has impacted area communities, and how the region recovers from decades of underinvestment in new housing in nearly all categories. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

Sponsored by:

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Cover Story Women of Impact 2023

Women of Impact to Be Celebrated on Dec. 7

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.

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Presenting Sponsors

Partner Sponsor

Women of Impact 2023

President, TommyCar Auto Group

She’s a Driving Force in Business and Efforts to Promote Gender Equity

Carla Cosenzi

 

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

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

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.

Women of Impact 2023

CEO, Moms in Power

She Helps Women Break the Stigma of Postpartum Depression and Find Peace

Arlyana Dalce-Bowie

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

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.

Women of Impact 2023

President, Bay Path University

She Helps Empower Women for the ‘Long and Winding Road’

Sandra Doran

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

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

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.

Women of Impact 2023

Founder, Faces of Medicine and Intentional Health, LLC

She’s Determined to Boost Diversity in Healthcare — and Improve Outcomes

Dr. Khama Ennis

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

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

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.”

Women of Impact 2023

President and CEO, Square One

Inspired by Others, She Displays the Awesome Power of One Woman

Dawn Forbes DiStefano

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

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

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.

Not just a woman, but a Woman of Impact.

Women of Impact 2023

CEO, The Jamrog Group

She Impacts Her Community, Her Industry, and the Lives of Her Clients

Amy Jamrog

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

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

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.

Women of Impact 2023

CEO, Berkshire Hills Music Academy

She Helps Young Adults with Disabilities Build a Lifetime of Ability

Michelle Theroux

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

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

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.

Women of Impact 2023

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

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.

Lisa Zarcone has “turned her pain into purpose.”

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.

“And then you pick it back up.”

Opinion

Editorial

 

In 2018, BusinessWest created a new recognition program, one to recognize the contributions of women. We did this … well, because we needed to.

Indeed, while we have other programs that certainly recognize women — 40 Under Forty, Difference Makers, and Healthcare Heroes — a separate program focused exclusively on women and the many contributions they are making to quality of life in this region was clearly necessary.

The reason is that so many of the stories we’ve told since 2018 might not have been told otherwise, and some women worthy of recognition might not have been duly recognized.

We could have called this program ‘Women in Business’ — other business publications have done just that. But we believed this was too limiting. We wanted to recognize all the many ways women can excel and make an impact. Thus, the name Women of Impact was chosen.

And the program has lived up to that title. This tradition of honoring women from across a wide spectrum of professions, pathways, and methods for making an impact continues with the class of 2023.

This class includes business leaders, nonprofit managers, a healthcare provider, an author and public speaker, and even a flight instructor — who is also a business owner.

The stories are all different, but there are many common threads. These women are leaders, they are inspiring, they are mentors to others, and they give back in many different ways.

And there is something else as well. These women all recognize what one of our honorees, Dawn Forbes DiStefano, called the “power of one woman,” especially when it comes to influencing the lives and careers of other women.

And they demonstrate that power, in myriad ways.

Indeed, our honorees have all made it a priority to help empower women and enable them to rise higher, quite literally when it comes to flight instructor and flight-school owner Rika Ballard; or by helping them get into the still-male-dominated auto industry, in the case of Carla Cosenzi; or help them enter (and then persevere in) the financial-advisor industry, in the case of Amy Jamrog; or help them overcome postpartum depression or the trauma of child abuse, as Arlyana Dalce-Bowie and Lisa Zarcone, respectively, are doing; or, in the case of Michelle Theroux, help young people with disabilities thrive in music and in life.

In many ways, our Women of Impact program has become a vehicle for displaying the awesome power of a single woman. Since 2018, our honorees, including those in the class of 2023, have demonstrated the power to lead, inspire, and generate positive change in the lives of not only women, but all those they impact.

It’s a striking, impressive class, and we’re excited to share their stories with you.

Cover Story Healthcare Heroes

Since BusinessWest and its sister publication, the Healthcare News, launched the recognition program known as Healthcare Heroes in 2017, the initiative has more than succeeded in its quest to identify true leaders — not to mention inspiring stories — within this region’s large and vitally important healthcare sector.
The award was created to recognize those whose contributions to the health and well-being of this region, while known to some, needed to become known to all. And that is certainly true this year.
These nine individuals are leaders, and also innovators, collaborators, and, perhaps most important, inspirations. They have devoted their careers to improving the quality of individual lives and the health of entire communities. We find these stories to be compelling and inspirational, and we’re sure you will as well.

Overall, everyone who was nominated this year is a hero, but in the minds of our judges — the editors and management at BusinessWest — eight of these stories stood out among the others. The Healthcare Heroes for 2023 are

(click on each name to read their story):

Lifetime Achievement:

Jody O’Brien,
Urology Group of
Western New England

Health Education:

Kristina Hallett,
Bay Path University

Emerging Leader:

Ashley LeBlanc,
Mercy Medical Center

Emerging Leader:

Ellen Ingraham-Shaw,
Baystate Medical Center

Patient Care Provider:

Julie Lefer Quick,
VA of Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System

Innovation in
Health/Wellness:

Gabriel Mokwuah
and Joel Brito,
Holyoke Medical Center

Community Health:

Cindy Senk,

Movement for All

Tickets on Sale Now!

Healthcare Heroes Awards:

Thursday, October 26, 2023, 5:30 P.M.

Marriott Springfield Downtown,

2 Boland Way, Springfield MA 01115

Tickets $90 per person, reserved tables of 10 are available.

Presenting Sponsors

Partner Sponsors

Opinion

They Help Define ‘Hero’

 

In 2015, BusinessWest and its sister publication, the Healthcare News, established a new recognition program called Healthcare Heroes. It was created to bring much-needed recognition to individuals, groups, and organizations working within the large and vitally important healthcare sector in our region.

There was much discussion then, and it continues today, about just what makes one a ‘hero.’ Clearly, there is not one overriding definition of that word. If we had to try, we would say a hero is someone who inspires us with their actions and their words, compels others to excel, and makes a real difference in the lives of others.

And this year’s class of honorees certainly lives up that definition, as the stories that begin on Page H6 clearly show. Individually and collectively, they stand out for the way that they have dedicated their careers and their lives to helping others and setting an example that others should follow.

Let’s start with Jody O’Brien, a nurse with the Urology Group of Western New England. She’s 87 and still working two days a week and volunteering the other three. But her desire to work well past full retirement age only begins to explain why she is the hero in the Lifetime Achievement category. Through nearly 70 years in nursing, she has been a provider of care, hope, and especially inspiration.

Dr. Mark Kenton, chief of Emergency Medicine at Mercy Medical Center, has been making a difference on many levels — in his ER, on the national stage by bringing to light the staggering cost of EpiPens and the need to do something about it, and, perhaps most importantly, in the lives of individual patients, by utilizing perhaps his best talent: listening.

Cindy Senk, personal trainer and owner of Movement for All, enables individuals to discover the many benefits of yoga. But more importantly, she inspires them to improve their mobility — and their quality of life while doing so. Her philosophy is to not only educate her clients, but empower them.

Gabriel Mokwuah and Joel Brito are patient safety associates (PSAs) at Holyoke Medical Center, and each one has been credited with saving a life in recent months through their quick actions. And while doing so, these heroes have turned a spotlight on the PSA position at HMC, one that takes the traditional ‘sitter’ or ‘patient observer’ position to new dimensions.

Ashley LeBlanc, practice manager of Thoracic Surgery and nursing director of the Lung Screening Program at Mercy Medical Center, is a nurse and administrator with a strong track record for getting things done, especially a program that now screens 250 people for lung cancer each month, and then setting more ambitious goals.

Ellen Ingraham-Shaw, pediatric emergency nurse at Baystate Medical Center, has brought her passions for behavioral healthcare and compassion for children and their families to her work in a busy ER, enhancing care delivery and inspiring others to look at problems as opportunities, not roadblocks.

Julie Lefer Quick, nurse manager of the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System, was looking for a career change and found one at the VA, where she devotes herself to the needs of veterans and finding new and innovative ways to care for them.

Finally, Kristina Hallett, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of Graduate Psychology at Bay Path University, has not only helped myriad clients overcome trauma, anxiety, and countless other challenges, but she’s inspiring and helping to cultivate the next generation of behavioral-health professionals.

They’re heroes, every one. We hope you enjoy their stories.

Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 175: August 14, 2023

Joe Interviews Dr. Andrew Lam, retinal surgeon with New England Retina Consultants

Dr. Andrew Lam has forged an intriguing dual career. The first is in medicine, as a retinal surgeon with New England Retina Consultants, an attending surgeon at Baystate Medical Center, and an assistant professor of Ophthalmology at UMass Medical School. But he’s also turned his lifelong passion for history into four acclaimed books: two in the realm of historical fiction, and two nonfiction works about the often-surprising lives behind modern medical advances. On the next installment of BusinessTalk, Dr. Lam talks with BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar about his latest work, The Masters of Medicine, and how he goes about bringing history to life on the page — when he’s not helping patients salvage and improve their sight, that is. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

Sponsored by:

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Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 170: July 10, 2023

Joe Bednar talks with Craig Della Penna, president of the Norwottuck Network Inc. board of directors and broker at the Murphys Realtors

Rail trails are much more than a recreational option for pedestrians and bicyclists. They also connect communities, promote both personal wellness and a healthy travel alternative to carbon-emitting vehicles, and are increasingly being seen as an economic driver, especially in and around gateway cities. On the next installment of BusinessTalk, BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar talks with Craig Della Penna, president of the Norwottuck Network Inc. board of directors and broker at the Murphys Realtors, about his decades of work promoting progress around rail trails — most recently with efforts to complete the 104-mile Massachusetts Central Rail Trail between Northampton and Boston. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

Sponsored by:

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Opinion

Joe Bednar, long-time senior writer at BusinessWest magazine, has been named editor of the publication, succeeding long-time Editor George O’Brien, who is retiring after nearly 30 years in that role.

Bednar, who joined BusinessWest 22 years ago, said he is looking forward to continuing its long history of being the region’s go-to source for business news and information and building on a solid foundation of excellence.

“BusinessWest has established itself as the clear leader when it comes to being a voice for the region’s business community and keeping it informed of the latest news, trends, challenges, and opportunities,” Bednar said. “I’m excited about the challenge of continuing this track record of excellence and building on everything we’ve accomplished since 1984.

“As the magazine prepares to celebrate 40 years of carrying out its important mission,” he went on, “I want to raise the bar higher and then clear that bar when it comes to the quality of what we do and how we meet the changing needs of the region’s business community.”

Bednar has been a journalist in the region for almost 30 years. A 1991 graduate of Evangel College in Springfield, Mo., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English, he broke into the newspaper business with the Waterbury Republican-American in Connecticut, and later worked as a reporter for the Westfield Evening News.

He was recruited to BusinessWest in 2001 and used his writing and editing skills to help the magazine expand its coverage of area businesses, trends, and issues. He played key roles in the growth and development of BusinessWest’s sister publication, the Healthcare News, and the expansion of BusinessWest from a monthly to a twice-monthly publication in 2005.

Later, as BusinessWest expanded into events, such as Forty Under 40, Difference Makers, Healthcare Heroes, and Women of Impact, he became known for his poignant profiles of honorees and his work behind the microphone at events, especially as one of the emcees for Forty Under 40 each June.

“I grew up believing I’d one day write the great American novel, but eventually accepted that wasn’t in the cards,” Bednar said. “Instead, I’ve developed a passion for telling other people’s stories — several thousand of them, in fact, over the past three decades. I’m so grateful that so many people have taken the time to share their stories with me — how they got into business, their struggles and victories, how they contend with the challenges facing all businesses today.

“And I enjoy going beyond what they do for a living, writing about who they are, what they value, and what their passions are, both at work and outside of it,” he went on. “Their stories inspire me, and I’m beyond proud to keep bringing them to our readers in this new role.”

Kate Campiti, associate publisher of BusinessWest, said that, given his vast experience with the publication, knowledge of the area and its business community, and commitment to taking BusinessWest to the next level, Bednar was the logical choice to become its next editor.

“Joe isn’t just a writer and editor — he’s a trusted source,” she said. “He’s a resource for this region and its business community.”

When he’s not working, Bednar enjoys live music, cryptic crosswords, and spending time with his wife, Jennifer, compliance director at Appleton Corp. in Holyoke; his college-bound son, Nathan; and their three dogs.

He added, “I want to thank George O’Brien, who has been a mentor, example, and constant support in my career for more than two decades. I appreciate him more than he knows. And I told him I’ll start wearing ties, but we’ll see.”

Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 160: May 1, 2023

George Interviews Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau

Tourism has become a huge part of not only the region’s fabric, but its economy, and on the next installment of BusinessTalk, BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien talks with Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, about this critical sector and how things are shaping up for 2023. They discuss everything from the upcoming Hooplandia 3-on-3 basketball tournament to new rides at Six Flags to the prospects for bringing more conventions and meetings to the region. It’s all must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

Sponsored by:

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Class of 2023 Cover Story

Introducing the Class of 2023

It is perhaps the best thing about a 40 Under Forty class. And also the most challenging thing for the judges who ultimately decide its makeup.

Each of the nominees has a different background, a different story, a unique set of challenges to overcome, a different path that brought them to where they are, a distinctive set of accomplishments.

This variety, this diversity, makes it difficult for judges, who are asked to weigh the merits of entrepreneurs, professionals, nonprofit managers, public servants, college administrators, and many more — and some who fall into several of these categories at the same time — and score them against one another.

It’s difficult for them, but for the rest of us … it’s what makes this program so special. It’s a salute to the rising stars in this region, and each year, the list of honorees is both a revelation and a celebration.

And the class of 2023 is no exception. It is diverse in every way imaginable.

Each story is, indeed, different, but there are, as always, some common denominators, including excellence within one’s profession, a commitment to giving back to the community, dedication to family and work/life balance, and a focus on how they can make this region better for all those who live and work here.

The judges for this year’s program — spotlighted below — reviewed more than 120 nominations, a number that speaks to the continued vibrancy of this program and the dedication of the region’s rising stars.

The class of 2023 will be celebrated on Thursday, June 15 at the annual 40 Under Forty Gala at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke. That gala will also feature the announcement of the winner of the ninth annual Alumni Achievement Award, a recognition program that salutes the past 40 Under Forty honoree who has most impressively added to their accomplishments in the workplace and within the community, as chosen by a panel of judges.

Tickets for this year’s 40 Under Forty event are sold out!

Go HERE to nominate a 40 Under Forty for next year.

2023 Presenting Sponsor

2023 Partner Sponsors

2023 Presenting Sponsor Alumni Achievement Award

Meet Our Judges

Raymond BerryRaymond Berry is founder and general manager of White Lion Brewing Company, the first craft beer company post-prohibition to recognize the city of Springfield as its home. Berry, a Forty Under 40 member, class of 2010, is currently a board member at Springfield College and Blues to Green, and an attorney general appointee to the Commonwealth’s Cannabis Regulatory Committee. He also sits on the Basketball Hall of Fame Finance Committee, Diversity & Inclusion Committee for the Mass. Brewers Guild, and Philanthropic Committee for the National Brewers Assoc. Berry earned his BS from American International College, MBA from Springfield College, and a graduate certificate from Tufts University. He was a graduate in the region’s inaugural Leadership Pioneer Valley LEAP class. He has received the Spirit Award from the local housing authority, the Affiliated Chamber of Commerce’s Community Leadership Award, the Assoc. of Black Business & Professionals’ Business of the Year Award, and a Martin Luther King Social Justice Award. He has also been recognized as one of the region’s Top 100 Men of Color.

Latoya BosworthLatoya Bosworth is a life coach, author, and program officer for Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. She worked in Springfield Public Schools for 18 years, first as a special educator and then as a behavior specialist. When she is not facilitating workshops for nonprofit and corporate clients or inspiring others with her speeches and self-published books, she is giving back to her community with through mentoring and collaboration. She was a member of the 40 Under Forty class of 2016, and one of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact for 2022.

Brian CaninaBrian Canina is executive vice president, chief financial officer, and chief operating officer at Holyoke-based PeoplesBank. He has more than 20 years of experience in the finance industry. He is a graduate of Bryant College and is a certified public accountant. He is also a graduate of the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking and is a recipient of the Wharton Leadership Certificate. He is president of the Finance and Accounting Society of New England. He serves on the board of directors for Helix Human Services.

Jessye DeaneJessye Deane is the executive director of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and Regional Tourism Council, and is the owner of two award-winning fitness studios, F45 Training Hampshire Meadows in Hadley and F45 Training Riverdale in West Springfield. She was a member of the 40 Under Forty class of 2021, Franklin County Young Professional of the Year in 2020, and the 2019 Amherst Chamber MVP. She has serves on more than a dozen community-based committees, and is this year’s campaign co-chair for the United Way of Franklin & Hampshire Region. 

Aundrea PaulkAundrea Paulk is the Marketing and Communications director at Caring Health Center. She is also the founder and creative force behind Soiree Mi, LLC, an event-planning and design business. Soiree Mi offers creative and personalized services for private and corporate clients. She is a member of the 40 Under Forty class of 2022. A graduate of Bay Path University, her areas of expertise include marketing, branding, communications, event planning, social media, and website content management.

Alumni Achievement Award

Read about past Alumni Achievers.

Please nominate for this year HERE

Alumni Achievement Award Judging Underway

When BusinessWest launched its 40 Under Forty program in 2007, it did so to identify rising stars across our region — individuals who were excelling in business and through involvement within the community — and celebrate their accomplishments. 

In 2015, BusinessWest announced a new award, one that builds on the foundation upon which 40 Under Forty was created. It’s called the Alumni Achievement Award. As the name suggests, it is presented to the 40 Under Forty honoree who, in the eyes of an independent panel of judges, has most impressively continued and built upon his or her track record of accomplishment. 

Past winners include: 2022: Anthony Gleason II, president and co-founder of the Gleason Johndrow Companies (40 Under Forty class of 2010); 2021: Anthony Gulluni, Hampden County district attorney (class of 2015); 2020: Carla Cosenzi, president, TommyCar Auto Group (class of 2012), and Peter DePergola, director of Clinical Ethics, Baystate Health (class of 2015); 2019: Cinda Jones, president, W.D. Cowls Inc. (class of 2007); 2018: Samalid Hogan, regional director, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (class of 2013); 2017: Scott Foster, attorney, Bulkley Richardson (class of 2011), and Nicole Griffin, owner, ManeHire (class of 2014); 2016: Dr. Jonathan Bayuk, president, Allergy & Immunology Associates of New England (class of 2008); and 2015: Delcie Bean, president, Paragus Strategic IT (class of 2008). 

This year’s program is presented by Health New England; nominees will be weighed by three independent judges, including last year’s honorees. They are: 

 Anthony Gleason IIAnthony Gleason II is the president and co-founder of the Gleason Johndrow Companies, which provides commercial landscape and snow-removal services, property management, real-estate development, and leasing, as well as self-storage. Under Gleason’s leadership, the company has grown into one of the largest snow-removal contractors in the country. It now boasts a number of large contracts, including the city of Springfield (250 locations), UMass Amherst and its 157 parking lots, Western New England University, and many others. Gleason was part of the 40 under Forty class of 2010, and the 2022 recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award. Gleason and his company are strong supporters of Spirit of Springfield and many other local community organizations. 

Ashley BogleAshley Bogle is assistant general counsel and director of Legal Services for Health New England. In these roles, she manages the day-to-day operations of HNE’s Legal Department which includes a wide range of duties, from reviewing contracts to providing regulatory guidance and maintaining licenses and accreditation. A 40 Under Forty honoree in 2021, she is a founding member of HNE’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Committee, which guides the organization toward its goals of embedding DEIB and health equity into its strategic plan, mission, operations, community outreach, and member community. She currently serves as president of Art For The Soul Gallery’s board of directors in addition to working on other community projects. A proud UConn Husky, she received both her juris doctor and her bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Connecticut.

Payton ShubrickPayton Shubrick is a Springfield native and graduate of Springfield Central High School, College of the Holy Cross, and Bay Path University. A member of the 40 Under 40 Class of 2019, she’s an entrepreneur, and started 6 Brick’s, a cannabis dispensary, with the help of her parents and sister. 6 Brick’s opened in September of 2022, and has already garnered ‘Best Massachusetts Recreational Dispensary’ honors at the New England Cannabis Community Awards. Shubrick she is an adjunct professor at American International College, teaching graduate cannabis courses, a coach in the CT Social Equity Accelerator Program, and was recently named Young Entrepreneur of the Year for her leadership and success in her industry. 

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Vice President and Commercial Loan Officer, Greenfield Northampton Cooperative Bank: Age 34

 

Adam BakerAs a commercial lender at Greenfield Northampton Cooperative Bank, Adam Baker led all team members in both number of loans originated and dollar amount closed. Not just one year, but in seven consecutive years, from 2016 to 2022.

Not bad for someone who found himself in an accidental career.

“I took a summer job as a teller and got promoted,” he said, a story that’s not uncommon in the banking world. As in many other cases, Baker found he not only had a knack for the work, but a passion for it, too.

“I’m a commercial lender, so I work with people buying investment properties. I get to help people follow their dreams, start businesses, reach their financial goals, or further their businesses,” he explained. “As a local bank, we know all our customers; they’re not just numbers, they’re people. We get to interact with them on a personal level and give them a higher level of service.”

As a leader of his institution who helped the bank achieve some of its strongest growth and profitability over the past six years, he also came through during challenging times, helping to lead the Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic, and making sure hundreds of local businesses received a needed influx of cash so they could keep their teams employed.

Baker is also a managing member and owner of Alpal Properties LLC, which owns and manages more than $1 million in investment real estate.

Heavily involved in the community, he’s the treasurer and chair of the finance committee, as well as a member of the building committee and board of directors, for Lighthouse Personalized Education for Teens in Holyoke. He’s also on the board of directors for Empty Arms Bereavement Support in Florence and serves on its Syrup Stampede 5K fundraiser committee. He also devotes time to Horizons for Homeless Children in Springfield — volunteering more than 100 hours annually, in fact, with homeless children.

“These things are very important to me because I feel like I get to help these great organizations that do all the hard work,” Baker explained. “For example, Lighthouse is helping children, and I’ve always had a passion for helping kids in whatever way I can. My position as vice president of the bank allows me to be a treasurer at some of these places and make a difference; it’s one of the most gratifying things in my life.”

 

—Joseph Bednar

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Fitness Coach and Owner, BuildEmUp: Age 29

Emily Banerjee

Emily Banerjee

One of the many people who nominated Emily Banerjee for the 40 Under Forty class of 2023 called her “the living model of leading by example.”

That’s because Banerjee grew up in Springfield, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Elms College, then stayed in the area “to motivate and inspire folks of all demographics,” the nominator wrote.

She does so through BuildEmUp, her health and wellness business focused on personal training and group classes. With hundreds of clients, Banerjee’s reputation is growing as a coach and trainer, but also as a compassionate business owner who responds enthusiastically to community needs.

Like a project she spearheaded this past holiday season to collect $13,000 worth of clothes, toys, and necessities and donate them to women and children through the YWCA. She has also spearheaded projects that have resulted in large monetary donations to diabetes organizations, friends with cancer, and other recipients.

But Banerjee doesn’t have to look outside the walls of her fitness center to change lives; she’s doing that every week through a business she started thinking about while working for Baystate Health after graduation, gradually building up a clientele through social media and word of mouth.

“Our model is strong, not skinny,” she said, explaining a model that’s less about weight lost and more about strength — and quality of life — gained. “Being healthy is the bottom line; everyone can understand that.”

During the pandemic, Banerjee offered virtual training to her clients so they could continue living the healthiest life they could. After things started to open back up, she brought clients back to the gym but made sure it was a safe environment for everyone, with individual pods so that members could work out in the same room with confidence.

These days, her average demographic is ages 18 to 50, and most are minority women. She offers about 20 different class times a week, and is already thinking down the road to a possible move out of the ninth floor of 1350 Main St. in downtown Springfield to a larger, more accessible location for clients. After all, they’re what motivates her to be her best self.

“The best part about this is the people,” Banerjee said. “They come to us because they want to; it’s a choice to enter the gym with a positive attitude, and that’s good for me, too. Empowered women empowering women — that’s the goal.”

 

—Joseph Bednar

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Senior Clinician, Behavioral Health, Commonwealth Care Alliance: Age 38

Jennifer BellBy her own admission, Jennifer Bell was born to be a helper.

“While I picked social work as a career, I think it also picked me,” she said. “Even in my personal life, I always want to help people.”

From her high-school days, visiting her Noni, who was receiving care, Bell found herself also interacting with the other patients in the facility. These days, she leads a team at Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA) on an innovative approach to provide medical and mental healthcare to people with non-traditional needs.

“Many of our patients haven’t always had the best experience with the health system in the past,” she said. “We’re here to show that we’re different.”

Using a wrap-around model of care, Bell and her team bring together a patient’s primary-care doctor and therapist to prevent any gaps in treatment. The CCA team is also involved in helping with a patient’s housing and food needs, as well as assisting with tasks such as filling out paperwork.

“My role is to help with the behavioral-health piece, breaking down the barriers that might prevent a person from connecting to mental-health and substance-use-disorder programs,” she said, adding that CCA’s professionals often make house calls for patients who can’t get out.

Trust is an essential part of caring for non-traditional patients, she added, and building that trust starts with showing up. “Sometimes, just having someone consistently show up makes a difference. So, I show up.”

Bell is proud that so many people are comfortable saying, “oh, I can call Jenn,” whether it’s on the job or in her voluntary work.

From serving as a mentor in the Sibling Connections program which reunites siblings placed apart in the foster-care system, to volunteering with her dog, Leila, in a program to help children build their reading skills and confidence by reading aloud to certified therapy dogs, Bell finds helping others to be rewarding work, even outside her day job.

“I have an ability to engage people who have a history of not wanting to be engaged. I feel it’s my main strength,” she said. “I bring a level of energy to the work because I enjoy meeting people from all different walks of life who are on many different paths. I let them know that I’m here for them.”

That’s why so many people know they can call Jenn.

 

—Mark Morris

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Owner, Madison Bull, LMHC: Age 36

Madison BullMadison Bull, as one of her several 40 Under Forty nominators noted, wears a number of hats.

She’s a psychotherapist who opened a private practice in October 2019. She’s also an adjunct psychology professor at Holyoke Community College (HCC); a trainer, speaker, and educator for Pathways for Parents, helping families access mental-health resources for children; and a wife and mother who’s active in her 6-year-old daughter’s life as an elementary-school PTO president and soccer coach.

Bull was working for small group practice before deciding to branch out on her own. She is a certified hypnotherapist and trained in perinatal mental health, but works with a wide range of clients.

“I see a variety of ages, but I mostly focus on girls and younger women. A lot of my focus is on anxiety and OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder),” she said, noting that opening the practice when she did, just five months before COVID turned the world on its ear, was a challenge because of the restraints it put on seeing clients in person.

“I did a lot of Zoom sessions, did it virtually, but I like one-on-one, in-person interaction, when you can really get to know someone’s story. That was a little difficult,” she recalled. “But I found people still needed the services. Everyone was definitely thrown for such a loop.”

She said her mission for her practice is to be completely relatable, and to create a safe, comfortable setting for those who come in. “I want people to know who I am; I want that welcoming feeling and for people to know that I am human too.”

As an adjunct professor at HCC, she has taught there on an as-needed basis for a dozen years. She also volunteers in the community, with a special focus on animal welfare, donating time and resources over the years to animal shelters. “My family and I have always been animal people,” she said.

As for involvement in her daughter’s school, well, it’s important for Bull to make time for that, but it’s also a pleasure.

“There’s so much bad on the news and social media. Let’s find things in the community that get people excited, things that keep people hopeful,” she said, adding that, in the case of the PTO, “planning comes easy to me. It’s not super stressful. Somebody’s got to do it. So why not someone who likes it, who enjoys it, and is motivated?”

 

—Joseph Bednar

 

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Lead Pastor, All Nations Church: Age 39

Robert CarterRobert Carter’s career in IT and robotics has taken him to a number of positions, ranging from 11 years at MassMutual, where he worked his way up to robotics process automation developer — tech lead, to CVS Health, where he currently leads a team of developers as a robotics process automation consultant.

As an immigrant from Jamaica 17 years ago, he’s gratified by all of that. “My life and journey is multi-faceted. I’m very proud of what I do in corporate America, being able to rise up to where I’m leading teams, leading projects that impact many people across the country. I’m proud of those accomplishments.”

But he also has a passion for ministry, and for lifting others up, through his work at All Nations Church, where he transitioned from a congregation member into leadership roles and eventually lead pastor. He oversaw the church’s move to a 20,000-square-foot facility on Leete Street in Springfield when it outgrew its previous, 5,000-square-foot site, while expanding ministry outreach programs.

Committed to life-long learning, Carter is currently working on a doctor of ministry degree at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, with a focus on leadership in a changing church culture. His wife, Rebekah, is All Nations Church’s minister of worship.

Carter has long been community-minded, from his volunteer work on the board of Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, to his work advising, mentoring, and financially supporting young people and budding entrepreneurs. So it’s natural that his ministry leadership would be similarly outward-looking, not confined to within the church walls.

“I’ve recognized that the church has to be a bit more involved in the community — not to go out with a messiah complex, to save the community, but recognizing that we exist within a community and we should engage with the community and be part of that,” he said. “What, specifically, does the 01108 need?”

One issue in the Forest Park neighborhood is food insecurity, so the church has operated a food pantry for the past two decades, distributing close to 400,000 pounds of food. Carter envisions a time when All Nations might create its own nonprofit, a separate entity from the church, to tackle a host of community needs, from drug use to immigration issues to broken homes.

“It’s a low-income area; we don’t want to deal with just the symptoms of hunger, but why is there hunger in the neighborhood? What we’re aiming to do is strategically engage with the community and help them where they are.”

 

—Joseph Bednar

40 Under 40 Class of 2023

Director of Athletics, American International College: Age 35

Jessica ChapinJessica Chapin was a decorated collegiate athlete. In 2010 alone, she was named the University Athletic Assoc. Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, the Brandeis University Female Athlete of the Year, and a State Farm Women’s Basketball All-American; in 2018, she became a New York State Section 5 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.

And then she went to law school, aiming to be an attorney.

But while coaching basketball during that time, she had a realization: that her passion was really in athletics. So, she changed course, enrolled in Springfield College, where she earned a master’s degree in Athletic Administration, and eventually found herself running the Athletics Department at American International College (AIC).

There, Chapin provides leadership for a department of 25 intercollegiate and four club sports, overseeing nearly 45 full-time coaches and another 20 staff members and more than 650 student athletes. She’s responsible for the strategic direction, administration, and supervision of all phases of athletics, including budget management, alumni engagement, fundraising, marketing, enrollment management, personnel management, long-term vision and strategic planning, crisis management and discipline, Title IX and gender equity, facilities, and more.

“Athletics was something I missed, something that was the foundation of my life,” she said of her decision to leave law school, and she’s gratified when student-athletes at AIC make similar journeys of self-discovery. “I love seeing a light go off in the minds of young adults who often come to college not necessarily knowing what they want to do, being able to work with them, seeing the struggles, but then seeing them come out on the other side.”

Chapin also serves with the NCAA on its Division II Management Council, the highest appointment in the organization’s governance structure outside of the President’s Council. In that role, she’s an active participant in the division’s decision making.

She’s also a believer in the value of the athletic experience as a character-building exercise, saying student-athletes possess qualities many others do not, which can serve them well over a lifetime in whatever career they choose.

“It’s definitely gratifying to be a part of all this,” she said. “Sports generally teaches us things that we don’t get to experience otherwise: being on a team, the importance of teamwork, of collaboration, so many things. I feel like, when students are taught by coaches, they learn lessons they might not learn any other way.”

 

—Joseph Bednar