A Look Back — and Ahead

What’s Changed — and What Hasn’t — in 40 Years

1984. That’s the title of an epic George Orwell novel, written 36 years earlier, that takes a look into the future and describes a world ruled by a televised ‘Big Brother.’

The real 1984 was a thankfully cheerier year. Ronald Reagan won a second term in office, the Boston Celtics won an epic NBA Finals series over the Los Angeles Lakers, gymnasts including Mary Lou Retton and West Springfield’s own Tim Daggett dominated the Summer Olympics in LA, and the Basketball Hall of Fame was soon to open its doors on Springfield’s riverfront.

That May, a new publication first appeared in businesses across the region. It was called the Western Massachusetts Business Journal, and the monthly magazine was something new and completely different — a publication devoted entirely to the region’s business community.

A few years later, the name was shortened to BusinessWest, which was not the only change to have taken place over the past 40 years. The magazine has since added a second issue each month, a strong digital presence, a daily news blog, a podcast, and several annual recognition programs and accompanying events.

Yet, as BusinessWest turns 40, we’ve dedicated this commemorative issue not to the changes that have taken place here, as significant as they are, but on the sweeping changes that have taken place in the workplace and in our business community.

They have included advances in computer technology that have transformed virtually every sector; a few memorable recessions, including one so profound it was called Great; a pandemic that shut down much of the world for months and may have permanently altered the way people work; a slew of state-of-the-art healthcare projects; a dramatic wave of contraction and acquisition in fields ranging from banking to insurance; a continued focus on entrepreneurship; and even brand-new sectors, most notably cannabis, and still-murky developments like artificial intelligence.

These sweeping, profound changes have impacted just about every sector, from education to law to construction, and have altered how we work, where we work, when we work, and even what we wear to work. In short, it’s been an eventful four decades, which has more than justified Publisher John Gormally’s decision to chronicle all of it on the pages of this magazine.

There’s no way to sum all that up in one issue, but we hope the articles below, brought to life by interviews with some of this region’s most prominent business leaders, at least begins to paint the picture of an economy, and region, ever in flux.

 

In this special section, 40 years of:

Click on each story to read more

or go HERE to view the entire BusinessWest 40th Anniversary issue

Banking

Commercial Development

Construction

Financial Planning

Healthcare

Higher Education

Manufacturing

Nonprofits

Professional Services

Technology

The Workplace