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Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Andrew Starkweather and Catherine Westcott v. Circle B Inc. d/b/a Circle B Barn Co.
Allegation: Construction dispute: $25,000+
Filed: 1/8/18

Clifford W. Oakes v. Town of Monroe
Allegation: Violation of overtime statute, breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing: $40,000+
Filed: 1/24/18

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT
Gail Sanders v. DC Property Management, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $24,000
Filed: 2/8/18

Best Tile Distributors of New England Inc. v. Allen & Burke Construction, LLC and John Burke
Allegation: Money owed for goods sold and delivered: $10,339.96
Filed: 2/12/18

Kenneth Malone v. Dunkin’ Donuts
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $8,500
Filed: 2/13/18

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Susan O’Connor v. David Ott, PA; Antone B. Cruz III, MD; and Riverbend Medical Group Inc.
Allegation: Medical malpractice: $82,500
Filed: 2/5/18

Kathleen Schussler v. Home Depot USA Inc.
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $10,868.71
Filed: 2/5/18

Kenneth Hoff v. EP Floors Corp. and Robert Long
Allegation: Misclassification as independent contractor, non-payment of wages, non-payment of overtime wages, failure to maintain proper payroll records, and breach of contract: $25,000
Filed: 2/5/18

Emiddio Botta v. T.J. Welch Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: 106,388.17
Filed: 2/6/18

Jennifer Mauro v. Pride Stores, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $118,104.46
Filed: 2/13/18

Teresa Cruz v. Baystate Health Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $18,936.88
Filed: 2/14/18

J-K-M Construction Corp. v. Saltmarsh Industries Inc. and JAAN Development Corp.
Allegation: Breach of contract and unjust enrichment: $38,385.60
Filed: 2/15/18

HAMPSHIRE DISTRICT COURT
Sera Davidow v. the Transformation Center Inc.
Allegation: Misclassification as independent contractor, non-payment of overtime, violation of payment of wages law, and unjust enrichment: $8,000
Filed: 2/13/18

Marilyn Patton v. Bertucci’s Restaurant Corp.
Allegation: Negligence, breach of warranty, unfair and deceptive acts; injury caused by biting into dinner roll: $7,869
Filed: 2/15/18

HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT
Mary Ingram v. Grill N Chill
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $463,500.26
Filed: 2/12/18

Modern Office Sections

Playing by the Rules

John Gannon

John Gannon says putting a policy in writing isn’t enough — an employer then needs to follow it — but it’s a first step in showing a company takes workplace law and ethics seriously.

Most companies, especially larger ones, have employee handbooks that detail everything from vacation time to reasons for termination. Yet, too many are content to draft a handbook and shelve it for years, never reviewing it for changes in the regulatory landscape or confusing or contradictory language. In the ever-changing world of employment law, those are mistakes that can prove costly in more ways than one.

An employee handbook isn’t a contract, nor is it a legally binding document. But in a legal proceeding, it helps to have one.

Take, for instance, the case of an employee suing a company for allowing a culture of sexual harassment — a particularly timely example.

“In court, the first thing the judge will ask is to see the company’s policy,” said John Gannon, partner with Skoler, Abbott & Presser. “If your response is ‘we don’t have one,’ that suggests the employer doesn’t care about harassment and discrimination in the workplace. And that’s really getting off on the wrong foot in the event you’re sued for harassment or discrimination.”

The #MeToo revolution has certainly sent HR departments scrambling to make sure their policies on that issue are up-to-date, clear, and enforced. But if they’re smart, said the attorneys BusinessWest spoke with, they’re also regularly reviewing all sorts of policies that govern workplace rules and expectations — from disciplinary procedures to time off — and, hopefully, including them in an employee handbook.

“Every company that has employees should have a handbook,” said Daniel Carr, an associate with Royal, P.C. in Northampton. “But we use the term ‘handbook’ loosely; there’s no requirement that they have to be bound in a single document. It could mean whatever collection of policies you have, as long as it’s applied to all employees.”

Even if the employee signs a statement that he has read and understands the handbook, that doesn’t create contractual rights, Carr explained, noting that Massachusetts is, after all, an at-will state when it comes to hiring and firing, and an employee can be terminated for any reason that is not explicitly illegal, such as discrimination.

“I can’t tell you how many cases we’ve seen where the employee claims his termination was a violation of his contract. When asked, ‘what contract?’ they argue the employee handbook is a contract. It’s not.”

Gannon agreed. “One of the nice thigns about a handbook is that you can reaffirm the principle that everyone is an at-will employee,” he explained. “That’s why it’s really important, if you’re going to have a handbook, it should make it clear this is not a binding contract, your employment is at-will, and we can change the terms of the handbook and your employment relationship at any time with or without notice.”

So, if it’s not a contract, what is a handbook, and why should employers have one — and take it seriously?

“A handbook is a collection of policies, an ever-living document that can be changed at any time by an employer with or without notice,” said Mary Kennedy, partner with Bulkley Richardson in Springfield. “The purpose of a handbook is to give information to employees about expectations at work.”

Employers use the policies in an employee handbook as a sort of roadmap to both the treatment of employees and, conversely, expectations for their behavior. They protect themselves from lawsuits, such as harassment claims, wrongful termination claims, and discrimination claims. Employee handbooks generally contain a code of conduct for employees that sets guidelines around appropriate behavior for the individual workplace.

Mary Kennedy says the first goal of a handbook is to lay out clear expectations for workplace behavior.

Mary Kennedy says the first goal of a handbook is to lay out clear expectations for workplace behavior.

Under Massachusetts law, for companies with at least six employees, part of that collection of expectations must be policies reflecting the state’s own guidelines governing sexual harassment, accommodations for pregnant workers, sick leave, and other issues — many of which have changed recently.

Other contents should typically include policies governing discipline, rules of behavior, when and how to take time off, sick-time guidelines, how much vacation and personal time employees get, when they are paid, and what health benefits are available and how to access them.

The contents of any handbook vary from industry to industry, Gannon noted. For instance, the time an employee clocks in may be more important on the manufacturing floor than in an office setting, while safety guidelines for construction workers will be different than those for accountants.

“It’s an inexact science, and obviously no handbook is foolproof, and you can’t account for every possible contingency,” Carr said. “There may be at times you have to deviate from it. Certainly, you don’t want to be hemming yourself in to something you can live up to. As an employer in an at-will state, you have the right to set the policies. The handbook is more about setting expectations than setting hard and fast rules.”

Law and Order

The benefits of having a handbook fall into two buckets, Gannon said: The legal obligations governed by state and federal employment law, and basic HR practices that aren’t necessarily required by the law.

For the latter, written policies must make it clear to the employee what the employer’s expectations are.

“If you do need to discipline an employee, if you need to write them up or suspend them, you never want an employee to turn around and say, ‘wait a minute, I didn’t know I was going to get written up if I was absent more than three times in a month.’ Or, ‘I didn’t know it was a violation of your company policy to raise my voice at a meeting’ — whatever the case may be. A handbook sets expectations.”

It also provides guidelines to managers so they can treat employees fairly and consistently, he added. If the policy is clear, it can be applied to everyone across the board. If not, one supervisor may write someone up for a violation, while another supervisor doesn’t. That leads to inconsistency and, sometimes, hot water in court.

“Inconsistent application of your rules can lead to a lot of legal problems if the employee challenges the reason for his or her reason for separation from employment,” Gannon said, adding that the actual enforcement of the rules is more important than what a handbook says, “but if you don’t have, at minimum, a written policy, you have a big risk of inconsistent enforcement of your work rules.”

Kennedy said having clear policies in the handbook is the first step when defending a claim of wrongful termination in court.

“If you have a no-show policy where, after three violations, the employee is terminated, and it’s in writing and the employee was told it applies to all employees, and the employer can show it was uniformly applied to all employees, then the employer has a better shot at defending itself.

“For example, if a bank teller continually makes mistakes on the line and keeps coming up short, that’s certainly not beneficial for the employer,” she explained, so a written policy outlining the consequences of coming up short multiple times would be reasonable. “Whereas, if the bank said, ‘we don’t like people with red hair,’ well, that’s different.”

Supervisors and managers, Gannon said, typically appreciate a hard-and-fast policy because it’s something they can fall back on. He recalls one client whose employee showed up to work intoxicated, and at first, his supervisor didn’t know what to do. “Fortunately, they had a policy that made it clear, if you detect someone is under the influence, this is what you should do. It helped the supervisor navigate what his options were. Without that, they’re left wondering what to do.”

Communicating the policy to employees is just as important, Kennedy said, whether it’s a physical document passed out, with the employee signing an acknowledgement of receipt, or an electronic document distributed through the company intranet, or, for a larger business, explaining new policies in a meeting and making a list of who attended. “You certainly want to give it out when onboarding people, and then when there are any changes in policy.”

Even progressive discipline can be altered if the employer can prove the action is reasonable, Carr said — again, going back to the at-will concept. “If the handbook says a first violation is a verbal warning, the second is a written warning, third is probation, and fourth is termination, you have the right to revise that if someone commits a terminable offense the first time out.”

Trouble Spots

With all the protections a handbook may provide, Gannon said, some pitfalls do exist. One is trying to put everything in a handbook.

“The more words you have in the handbook, the less likely an employee is going to read it all,” he noted. “Sometimes I’ll see one that’s 120 pages long. I’m not sure any handbook needs to be that long.”

A smarter option, he said, is to include a short, two-paragraph summary of each policy, directing the employers to ask a particular person, maybe someone in human resources, if they need a more detailed explanation.

“Another mistake is not getting it reviewed enough,” he added. “It’s great to have a handbook — most employers do — but sometimes they get stale. You don’t want to have a policy that’s outdated, or you don’t want a handbook that misstates the law, because there are often changes in the law.”

For example, on April 1, Massachusetts employers will be required to have a policy that adheres to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. “You need to review your handbook — it doesn’t necessarily have to be annually, but I would say every two or three years — just to make sure you’re not missing anything and there haven’t been changes in the law that would require rewording a policy.”

In a union shop, Kennedy said, employers want to make sure the handbook gels with the collective bargaining agreement, but even in a non-union shop, certain written policies may run into conflict with rulings from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). A few years ago, several companies made news by terminating workers for complaining about their job on social media — and took their cases to court, where they won.

“Social media has become the equivalent of the so-called water cooler,” Carr said, noting that the NLRB has long protected the rights of employees to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment, even in a public forum. However, the composition of the board has changed under President Trump and may be less willing to side with employees in all such matters.

“A few years ago, handbook provisions that restricted employees’ right to discuss terms and conditions of employment were considered overbroad — that was all the rage for awhile,” Gannon said. “New administration has scaled some of that back. With all the ebbs and flows in the world of employment law, you need to make sure the handbook stays up to date with those changes.”

Kennedy agreed. “Employment law changes on a regular basis, so handbook policies should be reviewed on a regular basis, to make sure they contain up-to-date language.”

Still, amid all the talk of violations and firings, Gannon said, the greatest value of a handbook is in its power to prevent some of those incidents in the first place.

“If an employee knows what can potentially lead to discipline, I think the employee is less likely to engage in that behavior,” he told BusinessWest. “That’s one of the really nice things about a handbook — it sets out what your expectations are. The goal of discipline is not to create a path that justifies termination. The goal of discipline is to correct behavior so that somebody can stay with the company for a long time and be a valued contributor to the group.”

To that end, he continued, “if you do need to discipline, it’s easier to explain why when you can point to handbook and say, ‘look, this is company policy, and you violated it. Sorry, but I have to write you up.’”

Turn the Page

That said, a handbook also helps with a company’s defense is they are sued, Gannon noted.

“If an employee claims they were fired because of a protected characteristic, it’s the employer’s burden to demonstrate to a judge or jury that, no, this is the real reason this person was fired. It’s nice to be able to point to a policy in a handbook that makes it clear this is why the employer took a particular action, that it wasn’t an arbitrary decision one supervisor just came up with. The company considered this particular issue, went to the extent of drafting a handbook putting this policy in place and having the employee sign off on it, and there’s an expectation the policy is going to be followed.”

Carr, who told BusinessWest he has drafted or reviewed “many, many handbooks,” emphasized, however, that a good policy holds up in court only if the employer actually enforces that policy uniformly and consistently.

“Otherwise, it’s just empty rhetoric. Sexual harassment is a perfect example, and a timely one,” he said.

Elaborating, he said virtually every company has an anti-sexual-harassment policy, and one of the tenets of sexual-harassment law is the question of whether an employer knew about, or should have known about, the alleged violations. “If the employee can show the employer was not diligent about enforcing their own policies, it creates the impression they dropped the ball and should have known.”

It’s a lesson many companies continue to learn the hard way.

Simply put, Kennedy said, “what’s bad about having a handbook is if you don’t follow it.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Briefcase Departments

Employer Confidence
Strengthens in February

BOSTON — Massachusetts employer confidence strengthened during February as optimism about long-term economic growth outweighed a volatile month in the financial markets. The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index rose 0.4 points to 64.5, setting another 17-year high. The Index has gained 2.4 points during the past 12 months as confidence levels have remained comfortably within the optimistic range. Enthusiasm about the U.S. and Massachusetts economies, along with a bullish outlook on the part of manufacturers, fueled the February increase. At the same time, hiring remained a red flag as the BCI Employment Index fell 4 points between February 2017 and February 2018. Almost 90% of employers who responded to the February confidence survey indicated that the inability to find skilled employees is either a modest, large, or huge problem. “Fourteen percent of respondents said finding employees represents a huge problem that is hampering their company’s growth. One-third of employers see employee recruitment as a big problem, while 29% see it as a modest issue,” said Raymond Torto, chair of AIM’s Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) and lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Design. “For the short-term, however, the state and national economies remain strong, and the recent announcement by Amazon of a major expansion in Boston indicates that the trend should continue.” The survey was taken before President Donald Trump roiled the financial markets by pledging to impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The AIM Index, based on a survey of Massachusetts employers, has appeared monthly since July 1991. It is calculated on a 100-point scale, with 50 as neutral; a reading above 50 is positive, while below 50 is negative. The Index reached its historic high of 68.5 on two occasions in 1997-98, and its all-time low of 33.3 in February 2009. It has remained above 50 since October 2013. The constituent indicators that make up the overall Business Confidence Index were mixed during February. The most significant gains came in the Manufacturing Index, which surged 3.9 points to 66.2, and the U.S. Index, which rose 2.1 points for the month to 66.9 and 8.0 points for the year. The Massachusetts Index fell 0.4 points to 68.5, but was up 5.3 points for the year and still higher than the national outlook for the 96th consecutive month. The Current Index, which assesses overall business conditions at the time of the survey, rose 2.4 points to 64.1. The Future Index, measuring expectations for six months out, declined 1.6 points to 65. The Current Index has risen 4.2 points and the Future Index 0.6 points during the past 12 months. The Company Index, reflecting employer views of their own operations and prospects, was essentially flat, gaining 0.1 points to 62.4. The Employment Index also rose 0.1 points, to 56.4, versus 60.4 in February 2017. Manufacturing companies (66.2) were more optimistic than non-manufacturers (61.9). Large employers (69.8) were more bullish than medium-sized (62.0) or small businesses (62.7).

Single-family Home Sales
in Pioneer Valley Up in January

SPRINGFIELD — Single-family home sales rose by 17.2% in the Pioneer Valley in January compared to the same time last year, while the median price rose 1.0% to $197,000, according to the Realtor Assoc. of Pioneer Valley. In Franklin County, sales were up 27.0%, while the median price fell 2.1% from a year earlier. In Hampden County, sales were up 26.2%, while the median price was up 8.8%. In Hampshire County, sales fell by 5.6% from January 2017, while the median price was up 1.2%.

Advertising Club Seeks
Nominations for Pynchon Award

SPRINGFIELD — The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts is seeking nominations from throughout Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties for the Pynchon Award, which recognizes citizens of the region who have rendered distinguished service to the community. The Order of William Pynchon was established by the Advertising Club in 1915 to recognize and encourage individuals whose lives and achievements typified the ideals of promoting citizenship and the building of a better community in Western Mass. Past recipients include war heroes, social activists, teachers, volunteers, philanthropists, historians, clergy, physicians, journalists, public servants, and business leaders — a diverse group, each with a passion for the region and a selfless streak. A complete list of recipients since 1915 can be found at www.adclubwm.org/events/pynchonaward. To nominate an individual, submit a one-page letter explaining why the nominee should be considered. Include biographical information, outstanding accomplishments, examples of service to the community, organizations he or she is or has been active in, and the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of at least three people who can further attest to the nominee’s eligibility for induction into the Order of William Pynchon. All nominees will be considered and researched by the Pynchon Trustees, comprised of the current and five past presidents of the Advertising Club. Nominations must be submitted by Friday, March 30 to: William Pynchon Trustees, Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts, P.O. Box 1022, West Springfield, MA 01090 or by e-mail to [email protected]. Pynchon medalists are chosen by unanimous decision of the Pynchon Trustees. 2018 recipients will be announced in June 2018, with an awards ceremony scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke.

Unemployment Rate Holds
at 3.5% in Massachusetts

BOSTON — The state’s total unemployment rate remained at 3.5% in January, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development announced. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary job estimates indicate Massachusetts lost 6,100 jobs in January. Over the month, the private sector lost 4,200 jobs; although gains occurred in professional, scientific, and business services; information; and other services. From January 2017 to January 2018, BLS estimates Massachusetts has added 29,000 jobs. The January unemployment rate was six-tenths of a percentage point lower than the national rate of 4.1% reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Massachusetts continues to experience a low unemployment rate and labor force expansions,” Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rosalin Acosta said. “While the overall health of our economy remains strong, and 2017 marked the eighth consecutive year of job growth, persistent skills gaps remain. That is why our workforce-development partners remain committed to ensuring that those who are still unemployed or underemployed have access to the training resources they need to access high-demand jobs.” The labor force increased by 2,200 from 3,657,300 in December, as 3,900 more residents were employed and 1,700 fewer residents were unemployed over the month. Over the year, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased four-tenths of a percentage point from 3.9% in January 2017. The state’s labor-force participation rate — the total number of residents 16 or older who worked or were unemployed and actively sought work in the last four weeks — remained at 65.3%. The labor force participation rate over the year has decreased by 0.2% compared to January 2017. The largest private-sector percentage job gains over the year were in construction; leisure and hospitality; professional, scientific, and business services; and other services.

Hampden County Bar Assoc.
Offers Two Law-school Scholarships

SPRINGFIELD — The Hampden County Bar Assoc. is now accepting applications for the John F. Moriarty Scholarship and the Colonel Archer B. Battista Veterans Scholarship. The John F. Moriarty Scholarship is available to any Hampden County resident who has been admitted to or is attending a certified law school for the 2018-19 academic year. Applicants must have been residents of Hampden County for at least five years. The application deadline is May 25. The Colonel Archer B. Battista Veterans Scholarship is available to any veteran with an honorable discharge or a current member of the U.S. military who has been admitted to or is attending a certified law school in New England for the 2018-19 year. The application deadline is May 15, 2018. Both scholarships are based on merit and financial need. Both applications and additional information are available by contacting the Caitlin Glenn at the Hampden County Bar Assoc. at (413) 732-4660 or [email protected], or by visiting www.hcbar.org/news/scholarships.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Partners for Community Action Inc. will host “Protecting Your Assets Part III” on Wednesday, April 18 starting at 6 p.m. at Springfield Central Library, 220 State St. The event is in recognition of National Financial Literacy Month and is free and open to the public. Call (413) 263-6500 to reserve a seat.

This year’s panelists include Julius Lewis of the Metrocom Group and the Lewis and Marrow Financial Hour, which airs Wednesdays on STCC radio; and attorney Sara Miller, who specializes in elder law and estate planning. New this year is attorney Martin O’Connor, an authority on tax issues and who helps low-income, non-English-speaking taxpayers understand their rights and responsibilities as taxpayers.

“We have another great panel this year with Julius returning for the third year along with attorneys Miller and O’Connor,” said Paul Bailey, executive director at Springfield Partners. “I am sure there will be something for everyone, along with great information sharing. I encourage the community to come out.”

Added Synthia Scott-Mitchell, director of Community Services, “those of us that are in the Baby Boomer generation and looking toward retirement if not already retired, this is for you. Also, as many of us become caregivers for our parents, this is for you.”

Daily News

GREENFIELD — Last fall, the Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) joined the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance and eight other watershed groups from across Massachusetts to file suit against the EPA and Administrator Scott Pruitt in Boston’s federal district court. Their request of the court is simple: reject EPA’s one-year delay in implementing Massachusetts’ new stormwater permit because stormwater is one of the greatest threats to clean water in Massachusetts.

This lawsuit is part of a growing national trend in suing the EPA in order to protect the environment. The CRC argues that Pruitt and the EPA have been hastily rolling back environmental regulations, but mistakes have been made in their haste and disregard for legal process, such as failing to hold required public comment periods or provide rationale for a repeal or delay. Now, environmental groups across the nation are going to court and using these mistakes to successfully halt environmental rollbacks. For example, the courts have prevented the suspension of rules to curb methane emissions and the delay of tougher standards on air pollutants and lead in paint.

River advocates fear the updated stormwater permit could be delayed much longer than one year. “We think the EPA’s legal case is fundamentally flawed,” said Andrew Fisk, executive director of the Connecticut River Conservancy. “Pruitt and the EPA have asked for this delay while permit appeals are being decided, but then in the same breath also asked the court to delay judicial review of the appeals. It is clear that EPA is looking at every maneuver they can find to stop doing the right thing for the public’s water.”

The river groups are represented by Kevin Cassidy of Earthrise Law Center and Access to Justice Fellow Irene Freidel.

Of particular concern is the public-health issue of harmful bacteria flowing to rivers when it rains. About one in five water samples collected by CRC and partners in 2017 from the Connecticut River and tributaries in Massachusetts showed bacteria levels too high for recreation (swimming and/or boating).

“Delaying the implementation of this updated permit puts our rivers and our water at risk, which also put our citizens and local economies that use and rely on our rivers at risk,” Fisk continued. “The EPA is charged with implementing the Clean Water Act for the benefit of the public, yet it did not weigh the public’s interest when it slammed the brakes on the MS4 Permit.”

That permit regulates stormwater pollution under the federal Clean Water Act. The current MS4 permit was issued in 2003 and was set to expire on May 1, 2008. Instead, it has been administratively continued and remains in effect. A multi-year, multi-stakeholder process for updating the expired permit began in 2008. In April 2016, the EPA issued the updated MS4 permit after many rounds of public comment. The updated permit was set to go into effect on July 1, 2017 but was abruptly delayed by Pruitt and the EPA just two days before that date.

The delay will cause existing stormwater projects to move forward with outdated stormwater controls, forcing costly upgrades in the future rather than the lower-cost option of adding updated controls at the time of construction, river advocates say. The delay also ignores the time and money invested by cities and towns that have already implemented new stormwater protection measures in preparation for the new permit to take effect last July.

Stormwater is generated from rain and snowmelt that does not soak into the ground. Instead, it flows over land or impervious surfaces, such as paved streets and driveways, parking lots, and building rooftops into storm drains. During heavy rains, stormwater can flow directly into rivers. Common pollutants in stormwater runoff include antifreeze, detergents, fertilizers, gasoline, household chemicals, oil and grease, paints, pesticides, harmful bacteria, road salt, trash such as plastics and cigarette butts, ammonia, solvents, and fecal matter from pets, farm animals, and wildlife.

Banking and Financial Services Sections

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

By Sean Wandrei

Sean Wandrei

Sean Wandrei

In December 2017, Congress passed H.R.1, better known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The act is the largest overhaul of the tax code since 1986. As with any new legislation, there are opportunities and pitfalls that one needs to be aware of when trying to take advantage of the new rules and avoid unwanted situations.

There are still many questions related to the act that the IRS will need to issue guidance on. There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s take a look at some items that businesses and individuals should be aware of.

The act reduces the corporate tax rate to a flat tax rate of 21%. This means the first dollar of taxable income is taxed at a 21% rate. This reduction could cause many owners of non-taxpaying entities (e.g. partnerships, limited liability companies, and S-corporations, also known as pass-through entities) to consider switching to a taxpaying entity (i.e. C-corporation). The maximum tax rate that the income of a pass-through entity could be taxed at is 37%.

Business owners could decide that their business should convert from a pass-through entity to a C-corporation based on this. While the reduction of the tax rate sounds great, there could be some issues that could increase the overall tax due if the entity is a C-corporation. If the owner(s) want to take money out of the C-corporation in the form of dividends, it will have to pay taxes on the dividends from the C-corporation at a maximum rate of 23.8% (20% tax on the dividend plus 3.8% net investment-income tax).

This is known as double taxation, which impacts only C-corporations and not pass-through entities. This could reduce or eliminate the overall tax savings of converting the entity to a C-corporation.

While taxes paid are usually a major factor on entity selection, there are some non-tax items to consider. Owners of C-corporations can receive tax-free employee benefits that pass-through entities are not entitled to. Another tax-savings option that was available prior to the act is the exclusions of the gain on the sale of qualified small-business stock (QSBS) under Code Section 1202. This provision was amended in 2010, allowing QSBS acquired after Sept. 27, 2010 to be eligible to exclude the total gain on the sale.  There are a few rules that have to be met to allow for the 100% exclusion. Section 1202 is available only for C-corporations. This means that, when the owner decides to sell his or her stock, the gain from the sale of that stock would be tax-free. The reduced tax rate and non-tax benefits could make C-corporations more attractive to some.

C-corporations are not the only business entities that received a tax break from the act. Pass-through entities are able to take a deduction of 20% on the qualified business income (QBI) earned from the business. Individuals who are sole proprietor and file a Schedule C and individuals with rental activity reported on Schedule E also qualify for this deduction.

On the surface, this deduction seems to be straightforward, but there is a lot to this deduction. Not all businesses qualify, and the deduction could be limited. QBI can be thought of as ordinary income from the business. The catch is that the deduction is limited to the lesser of 20% of QBI or 50% of the total W-2 wages paid by the business. So wages need to be paid to be able to take this deduction.

The 50% of W-2 wages does not apply if the owner’s taxable income is below $315,000 for married filing jointly (MFJ) and $157,500 for other taxpayers. This deduction may not be available to a specified service trade or business (SSTB). A SSTB is a business involving service in many fields, including law, accounting, consulting, and financial services. Engineers and architects were excluded from the definition of SSTB in a last-minute change. If the owner’s taxable income is below $315,000 for MFJ and $157,500 for other taxpayers, the SSTB limitation does not apply.  

The planning that comes into play for this deduction is based on the entity type. QBI does not include reasonable compensation paid by an S-corporation to the owner(s). Similarly, QBI does not include amounts paid as guaranteed payments by a partnership to the owner(s).

Based on this, if the pass-through entity is an S-corporation, reasonable wages are going to be deducted from the QBI, which will reduce QBI and the deduction. A partnership and sole proprietor are not required to take guaranteed payments, so the QBI could be larger for a partnership than an S-corporation based on this. If the taxable income is below the limits mentioned above, the 50% of W-2 wages option does not come into play, and the larger deduction will be had by the partnership and sole proprietor.

If the 50% of W-2 wages comes into play, then the S-corporation will have to pay W-2 wages, and the partnership will have to pay guaranteed payments to owners or wages to non-owners to be able to take this deduction. With this in mind, the owner’s taxable income will need to be monitored.

For individuals, the elimination of exemptions and the doubling of the standard deduction will cause more taxpayers to take the standard deduction instead of itemizing. It is said that only 10% of the population will itemize in 2018 compared to 30% in 2017. If you fall into the 10% of people who itemize, you may have heard that one of the biggest deductions, state and local taxes, is limited to $10,000 per return.

This is the case if you are single or filing as MFJ; the deduction is limited to $10,000. The marriage penalty is back. If the MFJ couple was not married and filed as single taxpayers, then they each would be able to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local taxes.

In the past, the interest from a home-equity loan was deductible. The proceeds from the home-equity loan could have been used for anything. Now the interest from a home-equity loan is no longer deductible unless it is used to buy, build, or substantially improve the taxpayer’s home that secures the loan. Prior to the act, employees were able to deduct unreimbursed business expenses related to their job. This is no longer the case.

As you can see, the act has provided many new things to consider when it comes to taxes. Now, more than ever, your CPA will be counted on to help with tax planning.

Sean Wandrei is a lecturer in Taxation at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. He also practices at a local CPA firm; [email protected]

Banking and Financial Services Sections

Entertaining Thoughts

By Carolyn Bourgoin, CPA

Carolyn Bourgoin

Carolyn Bourgoin

For many businesses, corporate entertainment has long been a means of building relationships with referral sources, vendors, and strategic partners as well as providing networking opportunities for physicians and practice managers to meet new referral sources and industry influencers and to build a presence in the marketplace.

The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has eliminated most deductions for business-entertainment expenses paid or incurred after Dec. 31, 2017. Drawing the line between the portion of an entertainment activity that is business-related versus for pleasure has long been an area of contention between the IRS and taxpayers. Though the TCJA did eliminate most business-entertainment expenses, certain expenditures, mainly those benefiting employees, did survive the tax cut.

Taxpayers need to understand what expenses survived the repeal so that they can properly segregate the deductible costs.

Expenditures Paid or Incurred Prior to 12/31/17

Prior to the TCJA, entertainment expenses and the use of entertainment facilities were deductible only if the taxpayer could establish that the costs were either directly related to a taxpayer’s trade or business or associated with the active conduct of a trade or business for which a substantial and bona fide business discussion occurred either directly before or after the event. In addition to meeting the ‘directly related to or associated with’ test, entertainment-expense deductions had to satisfy strict substantiation requirements, including details on the amount of the expense, the time and place of the entertainment, the business purpose, and the business relationship with the persons entertained. The term ‘entertainment’ includes activities at country clubs, nightclubs, sporting events, cocktail lounges, and theaters. Though not defined by regulations, business-entertainment expenses are to be further reduced by amounts considered “lavish or extravagant.”

Additional cost limitations apply to skybox rentals, sports tickets purchased for more than face value, and attendance at foreign conventions. Country-club dues were (and still are) nondeductible.

Business entertainment expenses that had escaped limitation at this point were then generally limited to 50% of the expense, unless they fell under one of several exceptions, including certain entertainment expenses included as compensation to the recipient and social or recreational entertainment provided primarily for the benefit of employees who were not highly compensated. These business-entertainment expenditures were fully deductible and survived the TCJA repeal and will be addressed later in this article.

Entertainment Expenditures Paid or Incurred After Dec. 31, 2017

Pursuant to the TCJA, expenses related to entertainment, amusement, or recreation that are directly related to or associated with the active conduct of the taxpayers’ trade or business are no longer deductible. As a result, a tax deduction will not be allowed for the following items incurred after Dec. 31, 2017:

• Expenses incurred for the use of entertainment facilities, such as the lease of skyboxes, are no longer deductible. However, businesses should review their lease agreements to see if there may be a component included in the rental price for advertising. This portion of the rental cost would be fully deductible as advertising if properly documented and reclassified;

• Expenses related to the entertainment of a client or prospect at a sporting event, theater, concert, or similar type venue (unless included in a 1099 as a prize) are not deductible under the new rules;

• Expenses for attending charitable sporting events, such as a golf tournament, where the entire net proceeds go to charity, will not be deductible to the extent of the cost of the golf or other goods or services provided. Until further guidance is issued, it is unclear whether the meals offered at an entertainment event are still 50% deductible. To the extent the ticket price exceeds the goods and services received, the taxpayer will be entitled to a charitable deduction; and

• As was the case prior to the tax-reform act, dues paid to any social, athletic, or sporting club or organization are non-deductible expenses.

Business-entertainment Expenses Still Allowed

As discussed previously, there are nine categories of entertainment-related expenditures that were not eliminated by the TCJA, as follows:

• Expenses for recreational, social, or similar activities (including related facilities) offered primarily for the benefit of employees other than highly compensated employees are fully deductible. A holiday party or annual picnic are examples;

• Expenses directly related to bona fide business meetings of stockholders, employees, agents, or directors are allowed. Examples of such expenditures would be refreshments offered to employees at a meeting where they are being instructed in a new business procedure. Food and beverages served at these meetings would be subject to the 50% limitation;

• Expenses directly related and necessary to attendance at a business meeting or convention held by a business league, chamber of commerce, real-estate board, or board of trade are deductible. Meals at these meetings would be subject to the 50% limitation;

• Expenses for services, goods, and facilities made available by the taxpayer to the general public, such as during a promotional campaign, are deductible;

• Expenses for food and beverages furnished on the taxpayer’s business premises primarily for the taxpayer’s employees (i.e. more than half), are deductible. The cost of meals provided for the convenience of the employer, such as when employees must be available throughout a mealtime, are only 50% deductible as of Jan. 1, 2018. Prior to the TCJA, these meals were 100% deductible. In addition, meals provided at an employer’s on-site dining facility are subject to the 50% limitation until Jan. 1, 2026, when meals for the convenience of the employer as well as the meals and cost of operating an on-site dining facility are no longer deductible;

• Entertainment expenses that are treated as compensation to employees, by including the costs in employee wages for income-tax-withholding purposes, are deductible;

• Expenses for entertainment-related goods or services, to the extent they are includible in the gross income of the recipient as compensation for services rendered or as a prize or award, are allowed. The recipient in this case would not be an employee of the taxpayer and must be issued a 1099 to the extent the goods or services received exceed $600;

• Expenses for goods or services (including the use of facilities) which are sold by the taxpayer in a bona fide transaction for adequate and full consideration in money or money’s worth are deductible. An example of this would be the cost of meals sold by a restaurant, and

• Expenses incurred by a professional firm for actual meal expenses that are charged back and reimbursed by a client, where the meals are separately stated in the invoice, are deductible.

De minimis fringe benefits, which are benefits that are so small as to make accounting for them unreasonable, such as coffee, soft drinks, and donuts offered to employees, remain fully deductible through the tax year 2025. In addition, meals associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business are still allowed, subject to the 50% limitation. Until further guidance is issued, it is unclear whether meals purchased at a business-entertainment event, such as after a round of golf or attending a ballgame, are a non-deductible entertainment expense or if they meet the business-related tests and are still deductible subject to the 50% meals limitation.

Classifying sporting tickets provided to clients as business gifts does not provide much relief, as the tax deduction is limited to $25 per item.

Bottom Line

Due to the recent changes in the tax law, it is important for taxpayers to consult with their tax advisors and develop an understanding of the business meals and entertainment expenses that remain deductible and develop a strategy to track them. It would be wise to set up separate accounts based on whether they are 100%, 50% or nondeductible.

Amounts paid to attend entertainment events should be analyzed to see if there are advertising or charitable components to the cost that can be reclassified as fully deductible. Consideration could be given to issuing 1099s to clients or prospects being provided with free tickets to events to make the cost deductible as prizes. Though the TCJA was not favorable to taxpayers that incur business-entertainment expenses, there are still some expenses in this area that remain deductible.

Carolyn Bourgoin, CPA is a senior tax manager with the Holyoke-based public accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.; (413) 322-3483; [email protected]

Departments Real Estate

The following real estate transactions (latest available) were compiled by Banker & Tradesman and are published as they were received. Only transactions exceeding $115,000 are listed. Buyer and seller fields contain only the first name listed on the deed.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

ASHFIELD

70 Buckland Road
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Sandra McArthur RET
Seller: Priscilla L. Phelps
Date: 02/01/18

515 Main St.
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Helen I. Hall LT
Seller: Walter D. Zalenski
Date: 01/31/18

Steady Lane
Ashfield, MA 01330
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Joshua H. Porter
Seller: Norbert J. Salz
Date: 01/31/18

BERNARDSTON

51 Bald Mountain Road
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $168,000
Buyer: Thomas A. Anderson
Seller: David W. Hastings
Date: 01/31/18

126 Northfield Road
Bernardston, MA 01337
Amount: $153,000
Buyer: Gavin R. Cairl
Seller: Wilmer O. Johnson
Date: 02/07/18

BUCKLAND

59-1/2 Prospect St.
Buckland, MA 01338
Amount: $235,800
Buyer: Mia I. Radysh
Seller: Apple RT 3
Date: 02/06/18

CONWAY

South Part Road
Conway, MA 01341
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Franklin Land Trust Inc.
Seller: Janet D. Ryan
Date: 02/05/18

DEERFIELD

6 Lee Road
Deerfield, MA 01373
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Wilmington Savings
Seller: Champion Mortgage Co.
Date: 01/29/18

14 Sawmill Plain Road
Deerfield, MA 01373
Amount: $257,000
Buyer: Orion Becker
Seller: Elizabeth M. Purnell TR
Date: 01/29/18

ERVING

6 Moore St.
Erving, MA 01344
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Thomas N Duffy
Seller: Nicholis F. Lapan
Date: 02/07/18

GREENFIELD

21 Garfield St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $172,000
Buyer: Michael A. Hebert
Seller: Jennifer C. Swartz
Date: 01/31/18

83 James St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $124,400
Buyer: Archelon Properties LLC
Seller: Kathleen G. Ainsworth
Date: 02/09/18

31 Silver St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: Heidi Fortin
Seller: Cameron T. Gray
Date: 01/30/18

87 Thayer Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Meredith C. Lively
Seller: Thayer Road RT
Date: 02/02/18
1 Wheeler Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Parmar Properties North
Seller: Helga L. Schmidt
Date: 01/29/18

18 Wheeler Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Parmar Properties North
Seller: Helga L. Schmidt
Date: 01/29/18

103 Wildwood Ave.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Thomas W. Klansek
Seller: Vladimir Agapov
Date: 02/07/18

MONTAGUE

177-179 Avenue A
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $168,333
Buyer: 177 LLC
Seller: Equity TR Inc.
Date: 02/07/18

14 Letourneau Way
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Luis Moreno
Seller: Mario Moreno
Date: 01/30/18

1 Linda Lane
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $177,000
Buyer: Wilmington Savings
Seller: Blanche T. Koblinski
Date: 02/02/18

95 South Prospect St.
Montague, MA 01349
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Joshua K. Lacosse
Seller: Peter P. Chmyzinski
Date: 02/02/18

NORTHFIELD

692 Pine Meadow Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Anna M. Reid
Seller: Amy S. Biddle
Date: 02/01/18

ORANGE

220 Dana Road
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $203,000
Buyer: Angelo G. Poulos
Seller: North Quabbin Brook RT
Date: 01/31/18

277 Walnut Hill Road
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $189,900
Buyer: Yarelyn Martinez-Haddock
Seller: Maureen S. Desautels
Date: 01/31/18

SHELBURNE

10 Wilson Graves Road
Shelburne, MA 01370
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Mark C. Carlisle
Seller: Michele M. Beaudoin
Date: 02/07/18

SHUTESBURY

15 Hawks View Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $598,875
Buyer: Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin
Seller: Kathleen R. Lugosch
Date: 01/30/18

38 Laurel Dr.
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Christopher W. Cummings
Seller: Philip A. Lemere
Date: 01/29/18

SUNDERLAND

82 Hadley Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $263,900
Buyer: Colleen A. Campbell
Seller: Dzenis, Blanche J., (Estate)
Date: 02/09/18

WHATELY

83 North St.
Whately, MA 01093
Amount: $375,000
Buyer: Paul H. Bordua
Seller: Donald M. Scott
Date: 02/09/18

HAMPDEN COUNTY

AGAWAM

9 Ridgeview Dr.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: Gary W. Peiffer
Seller: Kenneth A. Lindeland
Date: 02/08/18

24 Yarmouth Dr.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: William A. Garvin
Seller: Bobby L. Colvin
Date: 01/31/18

AMHERST

41 East Hadley Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $246,000
Buyer: Gregory R. Haughton
Seller: Lourdes Morales
Date: 01/31/18

133 Flat Hills Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $293,000
Buyer: Albert Y. Kim
Seller: Jones FT
Date: 01/31/18

48 Morgan Circle
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $412,500
Buyer: Steven B. Kurtz
Seller: Arrelle R. Cook RET
Date: 02/01/18

161 Pomeroy Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $284,830
Buyer: Lawrence A. Peltz
Seller: Peter S. Choi
Date: 01/31/18

BELCHERTOWN

35 Clark St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $247,500
Buyer: Caitlin P. Cobb
Seller: Aaron Guimond
Date: 01/31/18

BLANDFORD

6 Blandford Dr.
Blandford, MA 01008
Amount: $615,000
Buyer: James W. Marlor
Seller: Ralph J. Damato
Date: 01/31/18

BRIMFIELD

Blandford Dr.
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $615,000
Buyer: James W. Marlor
Seller: Ralph J. Damato
Date: 01/31/18

42 Champeaux Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $467,841
Buyer: Bank Of America
Seller: Douglas Kirkpatrick
Date: 02/01/18

285 Webber Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: A&B Automotive Properties LLC
Seller: Gregory Reilly
Date: 02/02/18

CHICOPEE

461 Broadway St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $212,000
Buyer: Mahdi Mousali
Seller: East Green Street Properties
Date: 01/30/18

524 Chicopee St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Amat Victoria Curam LLC
Seller: Maddox Realty LLC
Date: 01/31/18

23 Dallaire Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Chun J. Chen
Seller: Alfred J. Labrie
Date: 02/09/18

128 Davenport St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $168,300
Buyer: Pamela B. Davis
Seller: John J. O’Neill
Date: 02/09/18

138 East St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $183,900
Buyer: Daniel E. Perez
Seller: Timothy E. Elliott
Date: 01/31/18

27 Edmund St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Alyssa Stoakley
Seller: Melissa A. Quinn
Date: 02/02/18

78 Lukasik St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Basilio Perez
Seller: Jeffrey S. Sattler
Date: 02/02/18

28 Maple St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Yekaterina A. Alekseyeva
Seller: Tammy L. Audet
Date: 01/29/18

39 Maryland Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $192,500
Buyer: Don Pops-Marks
Seller: Edward J. Polchlopek
Date: 02/01/18

76 Oakwood St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $136,300
Buyer: Laura T. Boone
Seller: Brian M. Geraghty
Date: 01/31/18

51 Shaw Park Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $163,800
Buyer: Anthony Vega-Vargas
Seller: Sead Bajrami
Date: 02/05/18

EASTHAMPTON

282 Main St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $357,500
Buyer: Jared T. Larkin
Seller: Alexandra L. Dodge
Date: 01/31/18

EAST LONGMEADOW

15 Hanward Hill
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $209,900
Buyer: Shirley Montovani
Seller: William H. Craft
Date: 01/31/18

27 Maryland St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Juan M. Garcia-Ramos
Seller: C&M Builders LLC
Date: 02/08/18

68 North Circle Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $330,000
Buyer: Jason M. Noga-McDonald
Seller: Leo M. Lortie
Date: 02/01/18

180 Parker St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Joseph M. Bednarz
Seller: Pearl F. Keinath
Date: 01/30/18

329 Pease Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Donald M. Stevens
Seller: Krista Santaniello
Date: 01/30/18

583 Somers Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Bailey Property Mgmt. LLC
Seller: Virginia S. Blake
Date: 02/07/18

22 Susan St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Daniel S. Burack 2018 IRT
Seller: James M. Evitts
Date: 02/01/18

56 Waterman Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Michael Carabetta
Seller: Aiello, Rosangela, (Estate)
Date: 02/02/18

GRANVILLE

541 Main Road
Granville, MA 01034
Amount: $245,000
Buyer: Robert M. Stephan
Seller: Stanley, Kathleen F., (Estate)
Date: 01/31/18

HAMPDEN

25 Evergreen Terrace
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $121,000
Buyer: Fred Ginsberg
Seller: Robert F. Wells
Date: 01/31/18

722 Main St.
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $157,000
Buyer: George Courtemanche
Seller: Fisher, Arlene L., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/18

138 Mountain Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $246,000
Buyer: Andrew S. Haynes
Seller: Anne W. Collins
Date: 02/08/18

HATFIELD

3 The Jog
Hatfield, MA 01039
Amount: $625,000
Buyer: Richard C. Jones
Seller: Craig Latham
Date: 01/30/18

HOLLAND

21 Dug Hill Road
Holland, MA 01521
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Justin R. Frenier
Seller: Maple Ledge Associates
Date: 02/01/18

HOLYOKE

1 Bassett Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $216,000
Buyer: Luis E. Sumba-Morocho
Seller: Noelle M. Bonnevie
Date: 01/30/18

16 Brightwood Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $135,000
Buyer: Josue Lopez
Seller: Dulude, Lena E., (Estate)
Date: 01/29/18

60 Cherry Hill
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Michael J. Lynch
Seller: Ellen M. Sullivan
Date: 01/31/18

30 Cleveland St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $289,900
Buyer: Joshua S. Beauregard
Seller: Jeffrey A. Trask
Date: 02/05/18

291 Elm St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $640,000
Buyer: Sic Infit LLC
Seller: Nickerson Properties LLC
Date: 02/01/18

47-49 Hitchcock St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $196,000
Buyer: Chevonne Machuca
Seller: Deborah J. Brunelle
Date: 02/02/18

25 Longfellow Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $375,000
Buyer: Charles W. Aurnhammer
Seller: Edmund G. Woods
Date: 01/31/18

10 Merkel Terrace
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $143,000
Buyer: Michael C. O’Connell
Seller: Kevin A. Bodley
Date: 02/09/18

388 Pleasant St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $199,500
Buyer: Juan C. Burgos
Seller: John P. Lecca
Date: 02/09/18

37 Princeton St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $119,000
Buyer: Joseph Rosinski
Seller: MTGLQ Investors LP
Date: 02/01/18

LONGMEADOW

67 Burbank Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $324,000
Buyer: Amanda C. Berry
Seller: Richard S. Baker
Date: 02/01/18

951 Converse St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $749,000
Buyer: Obioma A. Princewill
Seller: Sodi Inc.
Date: 02/02/18

172 Greenacre Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $380,000
Buyer: Joseph J. Cervasio
Seller: Patrick D. Gleason
Date: 01/31/18

68 Hopkins Place
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Emily R. Shotland
Seller: Ann M. Jagodowski
Date: 02/01/18

1214 Longmeadow St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $345,200
Buyer: Dwayne N Joyce
Seller: Melissa R. Sheerin-Bshara
Date: 02/07/18

189 Magnolia Circle
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $505,000
Buyer: Michael P. Landry
Seller: Theodore J. Maresh
Date: 01/31/18

89 Morningside Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $340,600
Buyer: Gabriel A. Radu
Seller: Linda A. Spataro
Date: 02/02/18

16 Shady Knoll Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: Jennifer L. Fijal
Seller: Mary Ricco
Date: 02/08/18

59 Tedford Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Arif Malik
Seller: Michael Izenstein
Date: 02/06/18

LUDLOW

57 Barre Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $153,000
Buyer: Scott A. Theriault
Seller: Wilson, Edna I., (Estate)
Date: 02/05/18

80-82 Center St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Anna S. Rodrigo
Seller: Center Street Funding TR
Date: 01/29/18

106 Church St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Michael J. Tenerowicz
Seller: Gloria J. Vaughan-Dawson
Date: 01/31/18

16 Duke St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $177,000
Buyer: Kevin Brown
Seller: Brandon B. Henry
Date: 01/29/18

80 Hunter Road
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Amber L. Goodreau
Seller: Valda B. Perham
Date: 02/08/18

242 James St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $194,000
Buyer: David Lengieza
Seller: Sandra M. Lengieza
Date: 01/29/18

155 Parker Lane
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $446,400
Buyer: Daniel Coelho
Seller: Armand Deslauriers
Date: 01/31/18

9 Pleasantview St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Evelyn Core
Seller: Amy C. Paquette
Date: 01/30/18

63 Ray St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $128,000
Buyer: Amanda L. Caloon
Seller: Nicholas T. Lopata
Date: 01/29/18

178 Reynolds St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Marsha L. Burek
Seller: Lee Roque
Date: 01/30/18

32-34 Sewall St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Manuel R. Coelho
Seller: Michelle Santos-Nunes
Date: 01/30/18

59 Windwood Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $387,000
Buyer: Miriam N Santiago
Seller: Isidoro P. Fernandes
Date: 02/02/18

MONSON

181 Stafford Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $233,000
Buyer: Chelsea L. Socha
Seller: Beverly M. Harnois
Date: 01/30/18

MONTGOMERY

134 New State Road
Montgomery, MA 01085
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Timothy D. Wolcott
Seller: David S. Wolcott
Date: 02/08/18

NORTHAMPTON

98 Morningside Dr.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $374,900
Buyer: Hadassah Gurfein
Seller: Kathleen M. Lemay
Date: 02/01/18

73 Redford Dr.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $142,885
Buyer: USA VA
Seller: Edward R. Blanchard
Date: 01/31/18

PALMER

Baptist Hill Road #15
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Pedro D. Fernandes
Seller: Thomas K. Topor
Date: 01/29/18

3 Fieldstone Dr.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Matthew E. Blanchard
Seller: Stephen C. Connors
Date: 02/07/18

1317 Main St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: FSG Realty LLC
Seller: Peter V. Scagliarini
Date: 02/09/18

1535 North Main St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $124,740
Buyer: Malgorzata B. Pasieka
Seller: Justin R. Beaulieu
Date: 01/31/18

91 State St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $218,000
Buyer: Brian Rollet
Seller: Olive Kapinos
Date: 02/02/18

RUSSELL

51 Highland Ave.
Russell, MA 01071
Amount: $260,000
Buyer: Robert Escalante
Seller: Corey R. Sampson
Date: 02/09/18

SOUTH HADLEY

5 Burnett Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $193,000
Buyer: Timothy Cote
Seller: Emilio Frattaruolo
Date: 01/30/18

48 Charon Terrace
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $212,000
Buyer: Bryan Pelchat
Seller: Heather L. Putnam
Date: 01/31/18

15 Pershing Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Alberts House LLC
Seller: VanBelle FT
Date: 01/31/18

70 Woodbridge St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: Karen S. Donnelly
Seller: Matthew S. Bertuzzi
Date: 01/31/18

SOUTHAMPTON

36 Gilbert Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: Timothy M. Smith
Seller: Chicoine, Ruth E., (Estate)
Date: 01/31/18

3 Mountain View Circle
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $203,000
Buyer: Vanessa J. Rice
Seller: Lisa M. Murdock
Date: 01/29/18

SOUTHWICK

5 Evergreen St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Tyler Burnham
Seller: Michelle Seelig
Date: 02/05/18

28 Feeding Hills Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: James E. Jannene
Seller: Norman R. Betournay
Date: 02/02/18

138 Feeding Hills Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Miroslav Tkach
Seller: USA HUD
Date: 01/31/18

20 Gillette Ave.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Jesse M. Veprauskas
Seller: James A. Chaffee
Date: 01/31/18

62 Lakeview St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Maureen F. Manfredi
Seller: Donald McCullers
Date: 02/02/18

11 Overlook Lane
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $169,000
Buyer: Brenda Loguidice
Seller: Pinnacle Estates At the Ranch
Date: 01/30/18

45 Pineywood Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Wilmington Savings
Seller: John Wackerbarth
Date: 02/08/18

SPRINGFIELD

200 Allen St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Joseph H. Sasen
Seller: Leo E. Florence
Date: 01/30/18

1554 Bay St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $217,900
Buyer: Jyovani Joubert
Seller: Hedge Hog Industries Corp.
Date: 01/30/18

691 Berkshire Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $135,000
Buyer: Luis Cuevas
Seller: C&K Blue Sky Properties
Date: 01/29/18

148 Bolton St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Diplomat Property Manager
Seller: Sharon A. Jones
Date: 01/31/18

95 Breckwood Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $166,000
Buyer: Simon J. Garcia-Aparicio
Seller: Eagle Home Buyers LLC
Date: 01/31/18

20 Briarcliff St.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Galang Nguyen
Seller: Kha V. Lam
Date: 02/09/18

14 Campechi St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $167,000
Buyer: Jim A. Rivera-Delrio
Seller: Modica TR
Date: 01/31/18

11 Deepfield Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Kenneth J. Wilson
Seller: Carmen E. Arroyo
Date: 01/31/18

193 Corona St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Juan C. Rodriguez
Seller: USA HUD
Date: 02/07/18

32-34 Dunmoreland St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $205,683
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Hallam Scantlebury
Date: 01/30/18

204 East Allen Ridge Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $204,000
Buyer: Kimberly A. Petty
Seller: Brahman Holdings LLC
Date: 02/01/18

60 East Bay Path Terrace
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $162,839
Buyer: Avet RT
Seller: Hampden Homebuyers LLC
Date: 02/07/18

95 Fargo St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $132,000
Buyer: Kianna J. Pressley
Seller: Brahman Holdings LLC
Date: 02/05/18

40 Gardens Dr.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Nicholas E. Duncan
Seller: Angela R. Barnett
Date: 01/31/18

94 Glenoak Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $181,000
Buyer: Tyler P. Ottaviani
Seller: Mary Beard
Date: 02/08/18

65 Glenvale St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $158,000
Buyer: Michael J. McLaughlin
Seller: Danette L. Krushel
Date: 02/08/18

74 Gresham St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $139,900
Buyer: Jazziah Serrano
Seller: Oussama Awkal
Date: 01/31/18

35-37 Hall St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: 35 Hall Street LLC
Seller: WB Real Estate Holdings
Date: 02/01/18

137 Hanson Dr.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: North Harlow 5 LLC
Seller: Champagne, Olive G. T., (Estate)
Date: 01/31/18

60 Harrow Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $161,800
Buyer: Eugene Fisher TR
Seller: Marc Allen
Date: 02/06/18

43 Holly Hill Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Jonathan Vanegas
Seller: Paul W. Suchecki
Date: 01/31/18

66-68 Holly St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Samuel S. Fernandes
Seller: Silver P. Serra
Date: 01/30/18

31 Laurence St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Jared Johnson
Seller: Nu Way Homes Inc.
Date: 02/09/18

17-19 Leete St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $179,900
Buyer: Patricia E. Meshack
Seller: JJJ 17 LLC
Date: 01/31/18

26 Lenn Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $189,900
Buyer: Robert F. Martin
Seller: David F. O’Brien
Date: 01/31/18

18-20 Lombard St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: Valley Castle Holdings
Seller: Silverio Tavarez
Date: 01/31/18

70 Martel Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $195,000
Buyer: Maria E. Leger
Seller: Evelee Acevedo
Date: 02/09/18

163-165 Maynard St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $122,500
Buyer: Nicholas Adams
Seller: Salgo LLC
Date: 02/06/18

190 Middlesex St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $128,000
Buyer: Ferris F. Shelton
Seller: Gerri Fitch
Date: 02/09/18

57 Mohawk Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Morris Reid
Seller: Julie G. Foster
Date: 02/08/18

114 Norfolk St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Lynne M. Malone
Seller: Wayne F. Trahan
Date: 01/30/18

809 North Branch Pkwy.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Westvue NPL T. 2
Seller: Cheryl D. Figueroa
Date: 01/31/18

42 North Brook Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $127,000
Buyer: Donna J. Scibelli
Seller: Rita M. Smith
Date: 01/30/18

33 Oak Hollow Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $183,000
Buyer: Carol A. Ouellette
Seller: Michael P. Meunier
Date: 01/29/18

41 Olive St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $137,000
Buyer: Jose Olique-Ortiz
Seller: Brothers In Law Realty
Date: 01/29/18

31-33 Parkside St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Walkis Figueroa
Seller: William Raleigh
Date: 02/05/18

91 Pineywoods Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $212,000
Buyer: Jennifer E. Vose
Seller: Galen B. Young
Date: 01/31/18

1294 Plumtree Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $140,667
Buyer: Andrew W. Vivenzio
Seller: Mary F. Vivenzio
Date: 01/30/18

75 Pocantico Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $199,000
Buyer: Western Mass. Property Development
Seller: Ryan Lombardini
Date: 02/09/18

148 Spikenard Circle
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $176,900
Buyer: Coralynn M. Burr
Seller: Mark D. Rowe
Date: 02/02/18

17-19 Standish St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $201,000
Buyer: Jose M. Lopez
Seller: Joseph M. Santaniello
Date: 02/09/18

235 State St. #C15
Springfield, MA 01103
Amount: $143,000
Buyer: Fermin Reyes
Seller: Mark A. Pessolano
Date: 01/31/18

45 Steuben St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Mai Vo
Seller: Bernard A. Fish
Date: 01/31/18

1032 Sumner Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Jacob J. McBride
Seller: Filomena Dibenedetto
Date: 01/31/18

111 Talmadge Dr.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Maria S. Ramos
Seller: Joseph Bednarz
Date: 01/30/18

48 Thorndyke St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $156,000
Buyer: Home Equity Assets Realty
Seller: Home Equity Assets Realty
Date: 02/05/18

60 Tinkham Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $172,000
Buyer: Kelly S. Macneil
Seller: Christopher Robinson
Date: 02/01/18

62-64 Watling St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Hosea O. Holder
Seller: Roberto H. Valverde
Date: 01/29/18

22 Windemere St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Jose M. Lopez
Seller: David A. Faita
Date: 02/08/18

250 Winton St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $172,000
Buyer: Margorie Perez
Seller: David C. Bush
Date: 01/31/18

WALES

13 Lake Shore Dr.
Wales, MA 01081
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Michael J. Graveline
Date: 01/30/18

WESTFIELD

10 Laurel Terrace
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $224,900
Buyer: Jennifer Kielbasa
Seller: Jean C. Girardin
Date: 02/09/18

26 Livingstone Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $151,000
Buyer: Anne V. Fisk
Seller: Nancy A. Fehling
Date: 02/06/18

94 Main St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $420,000
Buyer: Polish National Credit Union
Seller: Thomas F. Cusack
Date: 01/30/18

79 Notre Dame St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: JS Sampson Development
Seller: Charlene M. Sampson
Date: 01/30/18

15 Reed St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $225,900
Buyer: Vincent P. Nitri
Seller: Gina Berte
Date: 02/02/18

38 Ridgeway St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Ernest C. Puza
Seller: Janosik Realty LLC
Date: 02/05/18

82 Ridgeview Terrace
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Scott F. Schumann
Seller: Donna M. Edwards
Date: 01/30/18

3 Sibley Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $117,670
Buyer: Bank Of America
Seller: Marretta O. Dyer
Date: 02/05/18

5 Sibley Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $117,670
Buyer: Bank Of America
Seller: Marretta O. Dyer
Date: 02/05/18

29 Sunrise Terrace
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $224,100
Buyer: MTGLQ Investors LP
Seller: William S. Belfar
Date: 01/30/18

5 Sycamore St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $198,000
Buyer: Sofiya Panasyuk
Seller: Ivan Mokan
Date: 02/09/18

WILBRAHAM

23 Brooklawn Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $335,000
Buyer: Brian A. Jalonen
Seller: Stratton Renovation LLC
Date: 01/31/18

8 Brookmont Dr.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $349,900
Buyer: Amy C. Paquette
Seller: James R. Algie
Date: 01/30/18

8 Bruuer Ave.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Daniel T. Corthell
Seller: Matthew E. Blanchard
Date: 02/07/18

15 Old Boston Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $168,000
Buyer: Justin A. Melbourne
Seller: Kyung W. Kim
Date: 01/31/18

3 Sherwin Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $411,500
Buyer: Finlay Oguku
Seller: AC Homebuilding LLC
Date: 01/30/18

3 Russell Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Wilmington Savings
Seller: Michelle Patrick
Date: 02/05/18

237 Springfield St.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Epifanio Sanchez-Vega
Seller: Andrew J. Harrington
Date: 02/02/18

WEST SPRINGFIELD

22 Calvin Circle
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $158,000
Buyer: Heather M. Sliwa
Seller: Kathleen M. Sliwa
Date: 02/06/18

15 Cataumet Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $356,654
Buyer: Ansar Mamedov
Seller: HSBC Bank
Date: 02/08/18

20 Churchill Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $261,000
Buyer: Virginia Dechristopher
Seller: MAA Property LLC
Date: 01/31/18

11 Dale St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $184,900
Buyer: Amber L. Rogers
Seller: Lisa A. Hraba
Date: 01/29/18

19 Heritage Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $251,000
Buyer: William D. Berte
Seller: Thomas J. McNamara
Date: 02/02/18

44 Hummingbird Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $259,000
Buyer: Richard Wentzel
Seller: Michael D. Waldron
Date: 02/05/18

104 Kings Hwy.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $193,000
Buyer: Santonya Jackson
Seller: US Bank
Date: 01/30/18

161 Robinson Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Michael J. Hearn
Seller: Gentile, Mary J., (Estate)
Date: 02/02/18

177 West Autumn Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Essam AlRubaei
Seller: Francoise M. Godbout
Date: 01/30/18

1520 Westfield St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $163,236
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Bernard St.Martin
Date: 01/29/18

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

AMHERST

11 Ladyslipper Circle
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $638,821
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: Felicity Mbanefo
Date: 02/07/18

BELCHERTOWN

144 North Washington St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $267,000
Buyer: Chanya Sae-Eaw
Seller: Sherry E. Bellavance
Date: 02/07/18

35 Summit St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $264,900
Buyer: Deborah O’Neil
Seller: John H. Roberts
Date: 02/09/18

CUMMINGTON

10 Main St.
Cummington, MA 01026
Amount: $309,000
Buyer: Nicole C. Fellows
Seller: Taylor, John R., (Estate)
Date: 02/06/18

EASTHAMPTON

69 Clark St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: David A. Nadroski
Seller: Alfred J. Albano
Date: 02/09/18

GRANBY

407 Batchelor St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Steven M. Wick
Seller: Raymond J. Giroux
Date: 02/06/18

76-R Harris St.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $182,500
Buyer: Anthony Kowal
Seller: Yoeuy Chhung
Date: 02/05/18

HADLEY

2 Comins Road
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $341,000
Buyer: Philip C. Ciccarelli
Seller: William E. O’Neil
Date: 02/09/18

152 Russell St.
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Valerie K. Hood
Seller: Vadas, Edward R., (Estate)
Date: 02/05/18

HUNTINGTON

18 Laurel Road
Huntington, MA 01050
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: FNMA
Seller: Peter Noga
Date: 02/05/18

163 Worthington Road
Huntington, MA 01050
Amount: $395,000
Buyer: Horton FT
Seller: James H. Moore
Date: 02/09/18

NORTHAMPTON

9 Crosby St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $285,000
Buyer: Christopher Karney
Seller: Frank E. Sadlowski
Date: 02/09/18

43 Finn St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $500,500
Buyer: Jaya R. Agrawal
Seller: McCutcheon Development
Date: 02/08/18

16 Winslow Ave.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $127,000
Buyer: Flippin Good Home Buyers
Seller: Arthur W. Pontbriant
Date: 02/09/18

SOUTH HADLEY

515 Granby Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $449,900
Buyer: Brett A. Remillard
Seller: Polish American Citizens
Date: 02/09/18

35 Highland Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $345,000
Buyer: Normand R. Girardin
Seller: Luis Builders Inc.
Date: 02/09/18

53 Searle Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $212,500
Buyer: Jessica Egan
Seller: Thomas E. Kelly
Date: 02/09/18

70 Washington Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $179,900
Buyer: Valley Building Co. Inc.
Seller: Mark R. Plante
Date: 02/06/18

SOUTHAMPTON

4 Fomer Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Jacob E. Gold
Seller: Marc T. Jillson
Date: 02/09/18

4 Nicole Circle
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $332,000
Buyer: Marc T. Jillson
Seller: Mark R. Bonczek
Date: 02/09/18

WILLIAMSBURG

15 North Farms Road
Williamsburg, MA 01062
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Joanna G. Vaughn
Seller: Julie E. Berube
Date: 01/31/18

Departments Incorporations

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

Holyoke

Peoplesbank Charitable Foundation, Inc., 330 Whitney Ave., Suite 740, Holyoke, MA 01040. Thomas Senecal, same. Grants funding programs that benefit low and moderate income and under-served populations focused on the areas of academic excellence, community vibrancy and environmental sustainability.

Longmeadow

Patez Commercial Cleaning Contractors Inc., 187 Westmoreland Ave., Longmeadow, MA 01106. Andreia Patez, same. Cleaning, powerwashing, painting.

North Adams

Save Fort Massachusetts Memorial Inc., 1143 State Road, North Adams, MA 01247. Wendy M. Champney, same. To promote the preservation of the memorial located on Route 2 in North Adams marking the former site of Fort, Massachusetts.

Pittsfield

Scapin Builders Inc., 7 Lebanon Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. Jon Scapin, same. Service: remodel existing residential properties.

Springfield

Onecall Medstaff Corp., 736 Belmont Ave., Apt. 1R, Springfield, MA 01108. Steven B. Kee, same. Staffing services.

Sabella Hogan, P.C., 1350 Main St., Suite 214, Springfield, MA 01103. Edward V. Sabella, same. Law practice.

Puerto Rico Food Industries Inc., 61 Mansfield St., Springfield, MA 01108. Luis Feliciano, same. Wholesale of specialty food products.

Ware

Pablo D. Santiago Ministries, 35 West St., Ware, MA 01082. Pablo De Jesus Santiago, 8 Cherry St., Ware, MA 01082. The purpose of this corporation is to expand the Kingdom of God in humble service to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ through ministry, education, charitable service, contribution, outreach, fellowship and ordination.

West Springfield

Road Star Express Inc., 34 Tatham Hill Road, West Springfield, MA 01089. IlkhomAgayev, same. Long haul trucking company.

Westfield

Om Mobil Mart Inc., 162 Southampton Road, Westfield, MA 01085. Mehar Hamza, same. Gas station.

Wilbraham

Rice’s Fruit Farm Corporation, 757 Main St., Wilbraham, MA 01095. Anthony D. Maloni, same. Preparation and sale for consumption of food products, beverages and other goods to the general public.

Departments People on the Move
Christine Devin

Christine Devin

Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. announced the promotion of Christine Devin, CPA, to manager in its Audit and Accounting department. In her new position, Devin will be responsible for the management of audit and review engagements for the firm’s not-for-profit, commercial, and pension clients. In addition, she will assist with the management of the not-for-profit niche, which encompasses the supervision and training of staff, client relations, firm protocol, and regulatory updates. She rejoined MBK in 2015 as a senior associate. With nine years of experience as a controller of a closely held business and more than eight years of public accounting experience, Devin combines a deep understanding of the operations, financial reporting, and regulatory requirements of the private sector with the technical expertise of a CPA. Devin received her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Elms College. She is a member of the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

•••••

Katie Longley

Katie Longley

Elms College appointed accomplished higher-education finance executive Katie Longley the college’s new vice president of Finance and Administration. Reporting to the president, Longley, who will join Elms on March 26, will be responsible for the strategic oversight and management of the college’s financial resources and operations. She comes to Elms from Abilene Christian University in Texas, where she currently serves as associate vice president of Finance. She held successive positions as controller, tax director, payroll manager, and senior accountant during her tenure with ACU. Prior to her work in higher education, Longley was in public accounting, working as an associate for PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, and then becoming a senior auditor for Davis, Kinard & Co. She holds a master’s degree in accountancy and a bachelor’s degree in business administration, both from Abilene Christian University. Longley fills the position vacated by Brian Doherty, who retired from the college earlier this year.

•••••

Marcie Zimmerman

Marcie Zimmerman

Greenfield Savings Bank (GSB) promoted Marcie Zimmerman to Human Resources officer. In this role, she is responsible for the day-to-day management of HR, including benefits administration, employee relations, payroll, affirmative-action plan, recruiting, orientation, performance management, policy implementation, and employment-law compliance. Zimmerman joined GSB in 2009 and has worked in the field of human resources for more than 12 years. She holds a number of HR certifications, including Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Society for Human Resources Management Certified Professional (SHRM-CP), and Certified Compensation Analyst (CCA).

•••••

Jeanne Kosakowski

Jeanne Kosakowski

The Dowd Insurance Agencies announced that Jeanne Kosakowski has been hired as claims director. In this role, she handles some of the personal-lines claims, all of the commercial-lines claims, and oversees all claims. “Jeanne joins us with over three decades of insurance experience and demonstrated customer relations that will benefit our customers,” said John E. Dowd Jr., president and CEO. Kosakowski came to the Dowd Agencies from Hanover Insurance, where she was a commercial-lines product analyst. She received her bachelor’s degree from Russell Sage College in New York, where she was a Kellas Scholar. She is an Associate in Claims (AIC), a Certified Insurance Service Representative (CISR), and a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), and is currently working on her Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designation. Kosakowski, who was named an “outstanding instructor” for the Worcester County Insurance Institute, will be based in the Dowd Agencies’ home office in Holyoke.

•••••

Elizabeth Dineen

Elizabeth Dineen

The board of trustees at Elms College appointed Elizabeth Dineen, executive director of the YWCA of Western Mass. in Springfield, as a new board member. Dineen has had a long career of community service, first serving as an assistant district attorney for 25 years prosecuting child sexual abuse and rape cases, then entering an academic career as the director of the Criminal Justice program at Bay Path University, and now at the YWCA, whose mission — “eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all” — is consistent with that of Elms College. Her legal career focused on helping the most vulnerable in the community, especially women and children who were the victims of sexually based and personal violence, and that focus has carried over into her work at the YWCA, which serves women and families at critical times in their lives. Dineen has served on the board of directors of Square One of Springfield, which provides early-education programs for children, since 2013. She previously served on the board of Mont Marie Child Care Center in Holyoke, and on the appropriations committee in East Longmeadow. Honors Dineen has earned throughout her career include the Governor’s Award for Service to the Commonwealth, the YWCA Woman of Achievement Award, Top Women of Law from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, the first Justice Kent B. Smith Award from the Hampden County Bar Assoc., the City of Holyoke Mayor’s Certificate of Recognition, the Massachusetts Bar Assoc. Access to Justice Award as Prosecutor of the Year, and the Elms College Alumni Assoc. Distinguished Alumni Award.

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Nicholas D’Agostino

Nicholas D’Agostino

Holyoke Community College recently welcomed Nicholas D’Agostino as its new Affirmative Action officer and Title IX coordinator. D’Agostino comes to HCC after working for nearly 12 years as an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action professional in Connecticut, most recently as the associate in Diversity and Equity at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) and before that as an EEO specialist with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. He started at HCC on Jan. 29. A longtime advocate for equity and social justice with a focus on LGBTQ issues, D’Agostino has been an Anti-Defamation League anti-bullying trainer for more than 10 years and has a long association with True Colors, a support and advocacy group in Hartford for LGBTQ youth, which he has served as board president. He has either led or participated in hundreds of affirmative-action and discrimination investigations during his career. At CCSU, D’Agostino conducted awareness and advocacy programs, promoted social-justice initiatives, engaged the college community in sexual-harassment and assault prevention, and led training sessions on diversity, Title IX compliance, anti-racism, and LGBTQ awareness. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in federally funded education programs. D’Agostino holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Quinnipiac University and a master’s degree in counselor education with a specialization in student development in higher education from CCSU.

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Elizabeth Oleksak-Sposito

Elizabeth Oleksak-Sposito

Jeffrey Sattler

Jeffrey Sattler

The Springfield Technical Community College board of trustees recently welcomed two new members. Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Elizabeth Oleksak-Sposito and Jeffrey Sattler to serve on the board, an 11-member body that governs STCC. Oleksak-Sposito worked as a clinical care manager at Boston Medical Center Health Plan from 2012 until her retirement in 2016. She provided holistic medical-care-management services for plan members with chronic conditions and complex care needs. Prior to joining Boston Medical Center Health Plan, she worked as a medical case manager for Broadspire, a division of Crawford & Co. and provider of claims-management solutions to the risk-management and insurance industry. She previously worked as a sales specialist and account manager at Hill-Rom Home Care in Charleston, S.C. A certified case manager prior to her retirement, Oleksak-Sposito holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from American International College in Springfield and a diploma in nursing from the Cooley Dickinson Hospital School of Nursing in Northampton. Her term ends March 1, 2022. Sattler is senior vice president, Commercial Lending, at Savings Institute Bank & Trust. He is responsible for managing and growing the bank’s commercial-banking business, including lending, leasing, and deposit accounts throughout the Greater Springfield and Enfield, Conn. areas. He has more than 35 years of experience in commercial banking at various institutions in the region. Prior to joining Savings Institute Bank & Trust, Sattler served as president of NUVO Bank & Trust Co. (now known as Community Bank N.A.) He serves on the board of directors of Mason Wright Senior Living Community, Rotary Club of Chicopee, and the Western Massachusetts Boy Scouts of America. He is an associate member of the National Tool & Die Assoc. Sattler graduated from Springfield College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and history, with a minor in business administration. He also graduated from the ABA Commercial Lending Banking School at the University of New Hampshire. His term ends March 1, 2021.

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William Sharp

William Sharp

Freedom Credit Union (FCU), headquartered on Main Street in Springfield and serving members throughout Western Mass. through nine additional branches, announced the recent appointment of William Sharp as the new branch officer in Chicopee. Sharp has worked with financial institutions for 40 years, having held management positions within the banking industry prior to joining Freedom Credit Union in 2013. He is active within his community and has received several recognitions. He currently serves as board chair for the Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee, which awarded him the Dr. Edward Ryan Award for board service in 2016. That same year, the Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce, which he had served as treasurer, named him Ambassador of the Year. He also has served as board chair for the Franklin Hampshire Regional Employment Board and, in 2003, was named Volunteer of the Year by the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce.

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Mary Russell

Mary Russell

The Dowd Agencies, LLC announced that Mary Russell has been hired as commercial lines account manager. “With nearly a decade of insurance experience, Mary’s expertise and commitment to customer service will benefit our customers,” said John E. Dowd Jr., president and CEO. As commercial lines account manager, Russell manages a roster of insurance clients and supports producers with a variety of initiatives. She came to the Dowd Agencies from a local agency, where she was a personal lines account manager. She received her associate degree in psychology from Holyoke Community College.

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Margaret (Meg) Beturne

Margaret (Meg) Beturne

Ruben Arroyo

Ruben Arroyo

The Gray House recently inducted two new board members to a three-year term. They were welcomed at the January board meeting by the president and officers of the board. The new board members are Margaret (Meg) Beturne and Ruben Arroyo. Remaining board officers are Kathleen Lingenberg, president; Susan Mastroianni, vice president; Janet Rodriguez Denney, clerk; and Candace Pereira, treasurer. Beturne is a professional nurse with extensive experience in perianesthesia, surgical, ambulatory and critical-care nursing and is the assistant nurse manager at the Baystate Orthopedic Surgery Center in Springfield. Previous positions include Nursing Clinical Operations manager of the Post Anesthesia Care Unit and staff nurse in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. She has served on several boards of directors, including the Children’s Study Home, the Ronald McDonald House of Springfield, the Elms College board of trustees, and the American Society of Perianesthesia Nurses. Arroyo is the Code Enforcement inspector for the Holyoke Board of Health and president of Arroyo Inc., an HVAC and home-improvement business. He is a deacon at his church, Iglesia Casa de Misericordia, and also involved with Iglesia Apostolica Cristiana Betzaida and the Christian radio broadcast station La Hora Zero 1490 AM.

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Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez

LUSO Federal Credit Union announced the appointment of Jennifer Lopez as its new Marketing manager. She will oversee the credit union’s Marketing Department staff and daily operations, including brand and product promotions, advertising, online activity, and other marketing efforts. Lopez is a seasoned marketing professional with more than 10 years of experience in media and marketing management in Western Mass. Most recently, she spearheaded the marketing and communications initiatives at Pope Francis High School in Chicopee. Prior to that, she was a reporter and editor for Turley Publications in Palmer, and worked as a content writer for Market Mentors in West Springfield. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Western New England University.

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Country Bank President and CEO Paul Scully announced the promotions of Mark Phillips, Andrew Sullivan, Sarah Yurkunas, and Christine Witz. Phillips has been appointed to first vice president of Internal Audit. He has been with the bank for 23 years and is a certified internal auditor and certified bank auditor. He has more than 40 years in the financial-services industry in various positions, most recently director of Internal Audit. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA from Nichols College, and is also a graduate of the National School of Banking. He and his wife, Lisa, actively support the Epilepsy Foundation and the Worcester County Food Bank. Sullivan has been promoted to small-business lending officer and has been with the bank for four years. He began his career as a staff auditor at Wolf & Co. in Springfield, where he worked for two years before joining Country Bank as a credit analyst. He has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and business management along with an MBA with a concentration in accounting from Elms College. In 2015, he started a charity golf tournament, Andrew Sullivan’s Swing for a Cure, to bring awareness to cystic fibrosis. Over the past three years, this event has raised more than $30,000. Sullivan is also a member of the Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield and was recently selected to receive the Best in Bank award from Country Bank. Yurkunas has been promoted to commercial portfolio manager and has been with the bank for 11 years. She began her career at Country Bank in the loan-servicing area and then moved to a loan coordinator position, which inspired her to pursue her career in the commercial-lending area. Yurkunas has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from Bay Path University. She has also taken classes from the Massachusetts Bankers Assoc. and received a certification in Fundamentals of Credit Analysis: Intro to Commercial Lending. She volunteers many hours of her personal time to support the bank’s community programs and enjoys giving back to her community. Witz has been promoted to retail lending officer. She has been with the bank for seven years, most recently as the assistant branch manager in the Charlton office. She serves on the Buy Ware Committee.

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT

Gissel Santiago v. Picknelly Family LP
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $4,828
Filed: 1/31/18

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT

Guillermo Rivera v. Chicopee Property, LLC
Allegation: Window blinds in apartment maintained by defendant fell on plaintiff, causing injury: $5,204.34
Filed: 1/25/18

Reinhart Foodservice, LLC v. AJB Ventures Inc. d/b/a Corner Grill & Pizzeria and Ibrahin Abed
Allegation: Money owed for goods sold and delivered: $6,618.37
Filed: 1/26/18

Nicole Ward v. Yellowbrick Property, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $12,080
Filed: 2/2/18

Gordon Hunting v. Eastern States Exposition and Outdoor Sports Expo Group
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $7,469.17
Filed: 2/7/18

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

Kathy L. Wheatley v. Eastfield Associates, LLC a/k/a Eastfield Mall Associates, LLC and Macy’s Retail Holdings Inc.
Allegation: Slip and fall in Eastfield Mall parking lot causing injury: $91,500
Filed: 1/23/18

Catherine Byrd Clear v. Salema Management Corp.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall at Dunkin’ Donuts causing injury: $21,587.41
Filed: 1/24/18

Mark Pisarczyk, personal representative of the estate of Phyllis Pisarczyk v. Dr. John Romanelli; Baystate Surgical Associates; Jamie Wicks, M.D.; and Baystate Medical Center
Allegation: Wrongful death: $2,524,000
Filed: 1/25/18

The Collins Companies Inc. d/b/a Collins Pipe & Supply Co. Inc. v. the William Powell Co. d/b/a Powell Valves
Allegation: Breach of contract: $428,949
Filed: 1/26/18

Rosemary B. Herberger v. Baystate Medical Center
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $4,144.63
Filed: 1/29/18

Michael Forni v. Kmart Corp.
Allegation: Negligence causing injury: $25,000
Filed: 1/31/18

Christina Mancini v. Haven Plaze East Associates LP and the Stop & Shop Companies Inc.
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $43,845.75
Filed: 2/2/18

NGM Insurance Co. as subrogee of Katelyn M. Ford v. Pioneer Valley Transit Authority
Allegation: Negligence; driver of PVTA bus backed into plaintiff’s vehicle, causing injury and property damage: $14,381.83
Filed: 2/2/18

Henry Favreau v. Craig Schacher, M.D.; Kalpana Mani, M.D.; Timothy Herbst, M.D.; and Jefferson Radiology, P.C.
Allegation: Medical malpractice, wrongful death: $25,000
Filed: 2/5/18

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

Lisa N. Grimaldi v. Tannery Crossing Condominium Assoc.
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $1,975
Filed: 1/19/18

John McCluskey v. Pyramid Management Group
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury at Holyoke Mall: $5,000
Filed: 1/31/18

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Hampden County Bar Assoc. is now accepting applications for the John F. Moriarty Scholarship and the Colonel Archer B. Battista Veterans Scholarship.

The John F. Moriarty Scholarship is available to any Hampden County resident who has been admitted to or is attending a certified law school for the 2018-19 academic year. Applicants must have been residents of Hampden County for at least five years. The application deadline is May 25.

The Colonel Archer B. Battista Veterans Scholarship is available to any veteran with an honorable discharge or a current member of the U.S. military who has been admitted to or is attending a certified law school in New England for the 2018-19 year. The application deadline is May 15, 2018.

Both scholarships are based on merit and financial need. Both applications and additional information are available by contacting the Caitlin Glenn at the Hampden County Bar Assoc. at (413) 732-4660 or [email protected], or by visiting www.hcbar.org/news/scholarships.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield College School of Social Work (SSW) will hold an open house for prospective students on Thursday, March 1 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Brennan Center, 45 Island Pond Road, Springfield, and at Saint Vincent Hospital, 123 Summer St., Worcester.

The SSW offers multiple programs for students, including a full-time, two-year, weekday master of social work program in Springfield, and a part-time, three-year, weekend master of social work program in Springfield and Worcester. There are also options for graduates of Council on Social Work Education-accredited bachelor of social work programs to choose either a four-semester weekend or three-semester weekday advanced standing program. The combined master of social work/juris doctorate is a four-year, full-time program in conjunction with Western New England University School of Law. Students may also work toward a post-master’s certificate in trauma-informed practice with children and adolescents.

“The number of active social workers has been growing steadily. Between 2004-05 and 2014-15, the number of practicing social workers grew by 15.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that social-work jobs will grow by 11.5% between 2014 and 2024,” said Springfield College SSW Dean Francine Vecchiolla. “Our master of social work program offers a single, advanced, generalist concentration, which is ideal preparation for direct practice, group work, community development and organization, and administration in a wide variety of settings, including child and family agencies, schools, hospitals, veterans’ services, senior centers, prisons, mental-health clinics, military-support programs, public social agencies, hospice care, and corporations. The school is student-centered, community-focused, and committed to diversity and cultural competence and to promoting continuous learning.”

At the open house, prospective graduate students will hear from a panel of faculty members, current students, field education faculty, and admissions staff. Refreshments will be served. Advance registration for the open house is available by calling the admissions coordinator at (413) 748-3060, or prospective students may RSVP online.

Daily News

GREENFIELD — Greenfield Savings Bank (GSB) promoted Marcie Zimmerman to Human Resources officer. In this role, she is responsible for the day-to-day management of HR, including benefits administration, employee relations, payroll, affirmative-action plan, recruiting, orientation, performance management, policy implementation, and employment-law compliance.

Zimmerman joined GSB in 2009 and has worked in the field of human resources for more than 12 years. She holds a number of HR certifications, including Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Society for Human Resources Management Certified Professional (SHRM-CP), and Certified Compensation Analyst (CCA).

Daily News

CHICOPEE — The board of trustees at College of Our Lady of the Elms has appointed Elizabeth Dineen ’77, J.D., executive director of the YWCA of Western Mass. in Springfield, MA, to be a new member of the board.

Dineen has had a long career of community service, first serving as an assistant district attorney for 25 years prosecuting child sexual abuse and rape cases, then entering an academic career as the director of the criminal justice program at Bay Path University, and now at the YWCA, whose mission — “eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all” — is consistent with that of Elms College.

Her legal career focused on helping the most vulnerable in our community, especially women and children who were the victims of sexually based and personal violence, and that focus has carried over into her work at the YWCA, which serves women and families at critical times in their lives.

“I am fortunate to have had a life and career of public service, all of which springs from the values of integrity, compassion and social justice that were fostered in me throughout my education at Elms College,” Dineen said. “The engaging classes challenged me intellectually and gave me a superb foundation for the study and practice of law.”

Dineen has served on the board of directors of Square One of Springfield, MA, which provides education programs for children, since 2013; she previously served on the board of Mont Marie Child Care Center in Holyoke, and on the appropriations committee in East Longmeadow.

Honors Dineen has earned throughout her career include: the Governor’s Award for Service to the Commonwealth; the YWCA Woman of Achievement Award; Top Women of Law from Massachusetts Lawyers’ Weekly; the first Justice Kent B. Smith Award (2010) from the Hampden County Bar Association; the City of Holyoke: Mayor’s Certificate of Recognition (2004); the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Access to Justice Award — Prosecutor of the Year (2003); and the Elms College Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Features

Storm Surge

Rosa Espinosa

Rosa Espinosa, director of Family Services at the New North Citizens Council

What happens when a family arrives in the Springfield area from far away, with no job, transportation, or living arrangements? What happens when hundreds come? That was the challenge — and certainly still is — wrought by Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico last fall and sent a flood of evacuees to the Western Mass. region. Efforts to help them find relief have been inspiring, but the needs remain great, and the path ahead far from clear.

When Holyoke High School opened its Newcomer Academy in August — a program that helps non-English speakers access classes taught in Spanish while getting up to speed on English — administrators had no idea just how timely the launch would be.

“Holyoke, for many years, has looked for alternative types of bilingual-education models, and even before the hurricane, we were seeing a lot of newcomers who needed time to build up their English-language skills,” said Ileana Cintrón, chief of Family and Community Engagement for Holyoke Public Schools.

‘The hurricane,’ of course, is Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico in September, prompting a mass exodus of displaced families seeking relief on the U.S. mainland. Western Mass. was a natural landing spot, with Puerto Rican cultural roots running deep in Greater Springfield; Holyoke, is, in fact, home to the largest percentage of Puerto Rican residents of any city outside the island itself.

That’s why 226 students whose families evacuated Puerto Rico in the wake of the hurricane enrolled in Holyoke schools shortly afterward; nearly 200 are still attending, with many families contemplating a permanent relocation to the Pioneer Valley. In Springfield, the number is close to 600.

“It was difficult at the height of it, but in the last few weeks it’s really dwindled down,” Cintrón said, noting that the school district was fortunate that HHS saw the most enrollees of the city’s 11 schools.

Ileana Cintrón


Iileana CintrÓn

“It was beneficial to us that Holyoke High School had opened the Newcomer Academy in late August and is able to provide students coming to the high school with Spanish-speaking support and access to content in Spanish,” she said. “It gives them hope they won’t lose a year. That’s what happened before — try to learn English and see where you’re at by the end of the year. Now they can keep up with math and science while still learning English, where before, it meant lost time and a lot of frustration.”

‘Frustration’ is an understatement when it comes to the needs of hundreds of families that have flocked to Greater Springfield since October, seeking housing, jobs, education, and, in many cases, the basic necessities of life that they suddenly could not access when Maria knocked out power, infrastructure, and key services throughout Puerto Rico.

“Many came with the bare minimum,” said Wilfredo Rivera, a volunteer with Springfield-based New North Citizens Council, one of the regional organizations busy receiving evacuees and connecting them with resources to find temporary relief in Western Mass. or, in some cases, start a new life.

He noted one family with a newborn who had medical records and discharge papers from the hospital, but were unable to procure a birth certificate — which is typically needed to access benefits here — before fleeing. “That’s just one example of what happens when people leave the island but don’t have time to gather their documents, or they don’t know what they’ll need here.”

New North Citizens Council meets advocacy and human-services needs on a daily basis, said Rosa Espinosa, director of Family Services, but its role — along with Enlaces de Familia in Holyoke — as one of two major ‘welcome centers’ for people displaced by the hurricane has been a challenge, albeit a gratifying one.

Wilfredo Rivera says each displaced family has its own story and unique set of needs.

Wilfredo Rivera says each displaced family has its own story and unique set of needs.

“We have our regular clients who come in every day,” she told BusinessWest, “but when the hurricane happened, that was an outrageous number of people coming in. But we were pretty resourceful, and some of the evacuees themselves were pretty resourceful; we learned from them as they learned from us.”

Rivera ticked off some of the more challenging cases, such as children and adults who fled with oxygen supplies, dialysis machines, or chemotherapy needs, and others who landed in an area hotel or motel — paid for by FEMA, but only for a limited time — without much money and no transportation, family in the area, or job prospects.

“The majority of services they needed were services we already provided — SNAP, MassHousing, employment resources, access to computers — so those things were in place,” he said, “but we were suddenly doing it on a much larger scale.”

The way they and others have done so — aided by a flood of donations to area organizations providing some of those resources and attention from local businesses looking to hire evacuees — has been a regional success story of sorts, but the work is far from over.

A Call Goes Out

Jim Ayres, president and CEO of the United Way of Pioneer Valley, said his organization was meeting very early on an evacuee-assistance strategy. Early on, Springfield and Holyoke designated the welcome centers as places to go to find out how to enroll a child in school, meet nutrititional needs, and get immediate health services. “Then there’s the underlying trauma piece and mental-health needs people may have. It takes a lot of coordination, a lot of logistical management.”

Rivera noted that every individual or family that comes to New North is handled on a case-by-case basis. “We don’t group people into categories. Every individual is assessed individually based on what their needs are.”

For example, “there’s a large group of people here for medical reasons — dialysis, cancer treatments, the types of things that require electricity,” he explained. “A lot of families did not want their kids to lose out on education, and that’s why they chose to come. Others lost their jobs. The majority who came have family here or know someone in the area; others were born here but grew up on the island, so they had some connection.”

Many are looking to stay for the long term, if not permanently, he added. That’s especially true of the families with children enrolled in school or those who needed critical medical services and prefer the treatment they’re getting in Western Mass. over what’s available right now on the island. “Those are the two biggest factors keeping people here. And a lot of them are employed already; they’re working and want to keep their jobs.”

Recognizing that critical needs exist both in Western Mass. and back in Puerto Rico, the Western Massachusetts United for Puerto Rico coalition, which came together shortly after the hurricane struck, has collected $180,000, with $80,000 going to the Springfield and Holyoke welcome centers, and $100,000 being divided equally between 10 organizations that do relief work directly on the island.

“My sense is a lot of them want to go back to their own homes,” Ayres said of the displaced families. “Whether that means six months, one year, five years, no one really knows at this point.

“This is in some ways more of a Western Mass. challenge than statewide. The state has been receptive as a whole, but it’s hitting Hampden County more than anywhere else,” he added, noting that the situation poses some unexpected budgetary dilemmas, particularly in the school systems. “The state compensation method is driven by your enrollment in October 1, which was just a few days before people started coming, so they’ve asked the state to look at the formula in a different way.”

Indeed, the Holyoke school system has hired more teachers and paraprofessionals to handle the surge, including five from Puerto Rico.

Jason Randall says many evacuees already have the skill sets MGM Springfield is looking for.

Jason Randall says many evacuees already have the skill sets MGM Springfield is looking for.

One challenge has been the arrival of families without school records in hand — a particular challenge for students with special-education needs, Cintrón said. Another is the requirement that seniors must have passed the MCAS exam to graduate, when the 10 seniors at HHS who transferred in because of the hurricane might been studying a much different curriculum on the island.

“The district is waiting for guidelines from the state about that,” she said, noting that one of those students was already accepted to Harvard while living in Puerto Rico — but will now need to pass the MCAS before enrolling there.

Another challenge is the emotional stress the new students are dealing with — Cintrón said it can take two years, in some cases, for such trauma to manifest outwardly — yet, she suggested school may actually be a bright spot in their lives.

“The major sources of stress deal with the lack of housing and the feeling of impermanence — stay at a hotel for a week, then stay with a grandmother for two weeks in public housing, but then find you can’t stay longer than that, and not always eating three meals a day. School may provide some sense of stability and normalcy — or, at least, we try.”

She was quick to note that the district took in 75 students from Puerto Rico last summer because of non-hurricane factors like economic hardship on the island, “so we’re used to getting those students. It was just more in the fall.”

Some students are also eligible for a dual-language program at the elementary level, said Judy Taylor, director of Communications for Holyoke Public Schools. “When students arrive at school, they’re given a language assessment test, and based on the results of that test, they’re given the supports they need.”

Living Wage

For most families, however, no support is more important than job-finding resources.

With that in mind, New North Citizens Council arranged a meeting in January with human-resources leaders at MGM Springfield, which is in the unique position, among area companies, of currently staffing up a 3,000-employee operation. Attendees were given an introductory presentation (in Spanish) detailing the company’s needs, followed by skills assessments and meetings with HR staff.

“We want to share our message about career opportunities, because 3,000 positions is a lot of roles to fill,” said Jason Randall, director of Talent Acquisition and Development. “So when New North came to us about these displaced families from Puerto Rico due to the hurricane, we wanted to share the opportunities that we have. Puerto Rico has a large hospitality industry, with casinos and resort properties, and a lot of individuals from the area who were displaced have the skill set and the commitment to service that we’re looking to provide here.”

The company is hiring for roles ranging from culinary services to hotel operations to gaming operations, and many evacuees have those skills, or the ability to learn them quickly, Randall added.

“Basic English is a requirement for all our positions — you have to be able to communicate in the event of an emergency — but certainly, through our partners, English as a second language courses are offered to prepare people for that.”

It can be tough to find a job without a car, and nigh impossible to afford a car with no income, but some evacuees are arriving with neither — and often no place to stay. Espinosa said getting them set up with housing and job prospects can be a challenging, step-by-step process, one beset with roadblocks that have the welcome-center staff thinking on their feet.

One client, for example, walked from the South End to the New North Citizens Council — more than two miles — with her children to access resources. But she needed to come back the following day, so the staff dipped in their pockets to buy her bus fare in both directions. The next day, Espinosa reached out to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority for more passes to give to other families, and the PVTA was happy to donate them.

Employers have heard of the needs, too. Pride Stores had four openings at its West Street location in Springfield. “We were told, ‘I don’t need them to speak English; I just need them to bake,’” Rivera recalled. Other companies, from J. Polep Distribution Services and CNS Wholesale Grocers to businesses needing barbers, mechanics, and caregivers, have reached out with information about openings.

Companies have contributed to the relief cause in other ways as well, such as the 7-Eleven that recently opened at Wilbraham and Parker streets, far from the North End of Springfield, but decided nonetheless to donate raffle proceeds from its grand-opening event to the welcome center. Meanwhile, organizations like the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute are providing free legal services.

In addition, “there’s a huge group of volunteers helping to feed these families dinners,” Cintrón said. “Some are staying in hotels with no access to a fridge or microwave, so there’s a whole network of volunteers, restaurants, and soup kitchens delivering meals to the hotels.”

Espinosa is grateful for all of it. “Throughout this journey, we have met a lot of caring individuals, and it’s refreshing to hear from someone, ‘hey, I heard about the welcome center, and I want to do this for you.’ It’s a good feeling.”

And the clients who need help are grateful in return, she added. “They’re not a number to us; they’re a family in need, with medical needs, or with children with medical needs. And we’ll go the extra step; if we have to pick up furniture and bring it to a family over the weekend, we’ll do that.”

Looking Up

Rivera is clearly passionate about making a difference, in whatever way he and the other volunteers and staff can. “It’s good to know you were one tiny part of getting somebody stable.”

Espinosa takes it all in stride, understanding that New North’s work didn’t dramatically change with the influx of hurricane evacuees — it just got a little (OK, a lot) more hectic. But she knows her team is making a real impact on the lives of Puerto Rico’s evacuees.

“One told me, ‘there is God, and there are angels, and then there are you guys,’” she recalled.

Rivera simply smiled. “I’m good with that,” he said.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Employment Sections

The New Pay-equity Law

By John S. Gannon, Esq. and Amelia J. Holstrom, Esq.

John S. Gannon, Esq

John S. Gannon, Esq

Amelia J. Holstrom, Esq

Amelia J. Holstrom, Esq

This summer, Massachusetts will enact what many believe to be the most stringent pay-equity legislation in the country.

Back in August 2016, Gov. Charlie Baker signed “An Act to Establish Pay Equity,” which amends the state’s existing equal-pay law and goes into effect on July 1, 2018. The intent of the legislation is laudable; it is aimed at strengthening pay equity between men and women in the Commonwealth.

Studies show that, despite more than 50 years of pay-equity laws being on the books, a significant wage gap between men and women still exists. In order to try and narrow that gap, the new Massachusetts pay-equity law imposes rigorous equal-pay obligations on employers. The new law also prohibits certain pay-related conduct by employers, including asking applicants about past compensation.

With July 1 just around the corner, employers need to take a careful look at the law, its requirements, and what they should be doing right now to limit their legal liability.

What Is Comparable Work?

Employers have been prohibited from discriminating in the payment of wages between men and women who perform comparable work for decades. The current version of the law, however, does not define what ‘comparable’ means. As a result, the Massachusetts courts defined ‘comparable’ in a way that made it very difficult for employees to succeed on a pay-discrimination claim.

Specifically, the employee had to establish that the jobs “did not differ in content” and entailed “comparable skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.” Many employers were successful defending pay-equity claims by showing that jobs “did not differ in content.”

The new pay-equity law defines ‘comparable work’ in a way that eliminates this “differ in content” requirement. This means that jobs may now be comparable for pay-equity purposes even though the job duties are different. The new law defines comparable jobs as those that involve “substantially similar skill, effort, and responsibility” and are performed under “similar working conditions.”

This language is broader than the test previously set forth by the courts, so it will likely lead to more favorable results for employees who file lawsuits under the amended act.

What If Employees in Comparable Jobs Are Paid Different Wages?

Some pay differences are permitted under the amended act, but they are very limited. Pay differences between persons performing comparable work are only acceptable if based upon: (1) a seniority system; (2) a merit system; (3) a per-unit or sales-compensation scheme; (4) geographic location of the job; (5) education, training, and experience, or; (6) the amount of travel required.

However, because the statute does not define these terms, employers have little guidance on how they might be interpreted and applied.

Employers who need to correct pay disparities may not reduce the salary of an employee in order to comply with the new law. Employers who have unexcused pay differentials will need to ‘level up’ and bring the pay of the lower earners up to the pay of the highest earner doing ‘comparable work.’

From Pay Equity to Pay Transparency

The amended act also prohibits employers from engaging in a common pay-related practice. Starting July 1, employers may not ask job applicants about their salary or wage history. Employers similarly cannot seek an applicant’s pay-history information from a current or prior employer.

As a result, employers must remove all questions regarding previous salary and wage-history information from their applications and train hiring managers not to ask prohibited questions.

Defense for Those Who Evaluate Pay Practices

There is one silver lining for employers. The new law provides an affirmative defense to employers who complete a “good-faith” self-evaluation of their pay practices and demonstrate “reasonable progress” toward eliminating any wage differentials.

This means employers who adequately audit their pay practices may avoid liability under the new law, but only if the employer’s self-evaluation is “reasonable in detail and scope in light of the size of the employer.”

Businesses should take advantage of this defense by formally auditing their pay practices before July 1, 2018, to ensure compliance with the new law. Employers who conduct an audit with an attorney can assert the attorney-client privilege with regard to all or some of the audit, which would protect it from disclosure during a lawsuit if the employer so desires.

With July 1 roughly four months away, employers need to begin making necessary changes to comply with the statute and strongly consider performing an audit to identify and address any already existing pay disparities. Attorneys may be eager to assert these claims due to the relaxed definition of comparable work and the potential for liquidated damages, attorney’s fees, and costs. So businesses need to be ready.

John S. Gannon is an attorney with Skoler, Abbott & Presser, LLC, one of the largest law firms in New England exclusively practicing labor and employment law. He specializes in employment litigation and personnel policies and practices, wage-and-hour compliance, and non-compete and trade-secrets litigation; (413) 737-4753; [email protected]. Amelia J. Holstrom joined Skoler, Abbott & Presser in 2012 after serving as a judicial law clerk to the judges of the Connecticut Superior Court, where she assisted with complex matters at all stages of litigation. Her practice is focused in labor law and employment litigation; (413) 737-4753; [email protected]

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT

Brenda Guiel v. Hollister Jewelers, LLC and Archibald D. Moe Jr.

Allegation: Breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, conversion: $24,999

Filed: 1/22/18

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT

Mayela M. Pizarro v. Pride Convenience Inc.

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $3,566.89

Filed: 1/9/18

Capital Candy Co. Inc. v. Nafees M. Niazi f/d/b/a Shaw’s Mart

Allegation: Money owed for goods sold and delivered: $5,002.63

Filed: 1/9/18

Frank DeLuca d/b/a Porter Royal Sales v. Sterling Architectural Millwork Inc.

Allegation: Breach of contract: $10,000

Filed: 1/11/18

Anthony Kulukulualani v. Best Value Movers, LLC

Allegation: Breach of contract, negligence: $24,000

Filed: 1/12/18

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

Terry M. Chenaille v. Cinemark USA Inc.

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $41,834.53

Filed: 1/2/18

Judith A. Welch v. Big Y Foods Inc.

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $34,839.70

Filed: 1/2/18

Jane McClure v. St. John’s Lutheran Church, Chairman of Trustees Mark Baldyga, and Church Council President Bill Schneeloch

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $69,712.82

Filed: 1/3/18

Michelle Moser v. DB Properties, LLC

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $20,000

Filed: 1/8/18

Denise Pepe-Walker v. NP Home Improvement Inc.

Allegation: Negligent entrustment; plaintiff’s vehicle struck by vehicle operated by employee of defendant, causing injury: $50,000

Filed: 1/9/18

Cherie Quirici v. Home-Like Apartments Inc.

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $114,651.80

Filed: 1/10/18

Glenn Hauer and Rebecca Hauer v. Baystate Medical Center Inc., Baystate Health Inc., and Colebrook Realty Services Inc.

Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $2,799,350.11

Filed: 1/16/18

Brian Lindley, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated v. Max’s Grill, LLC and Richard B. Rosenthal

Allegation: Non-payment of minimum fair wage, non-payment of earned wages: $25,000+

Filed: 1/22/18

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT

James St. Pierre v. Quik Foods III, LLC d/b/a Burger King

Allegation: False, misleading, and deceptive business practices; slander, defamation, and libel: $1,200

Filed: 1/12/18

Evan Baez, a minor, by and through his mother and next friend, Amanda Bermudez v. SCB, LLC

Allegation: Fall causing injury when stair broke on back steps of apartment: $2,258.68

Filed: 1/18/18

PALMER DISTRICT COURT

John Czuber v. Olde Hadleigh Hearth & Home Center Inc.

Allegation: Breach of contract and breach of express warranty in sale of high-end patio furniture: $4,038

Filed: 2/1/18

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Bulkley Richardson announced that Seunghee Cha and Jodi Miller have been promoted to partner, and Mary Bonzagni has joined the firm as partner as well.

In her comprehensive estate-planning practice, Cha assists individuals and families from all walks of life, with a particular focus on special-needs planning for individuals living with intellectual, developmental, and age-related disabilities; conservatorship and alternatives; estate settlement; and trust administration.

Miller focuses her practice on commercial and other civil litigation, including class actions, as well as regulatory matters. She has a particular expertise in the area of health law and also represents public and privately held corporations, financial institutions, schools and universities, nonprofits, and individuals in a range of litigation matters.

Bonzagni has an established reputation in the field of intellectual property. Her work involves prosecuting, defending, and licensing patents for a wide variety of inventions, as well as challenging the patentability of both pre-grant and post-grant patents in a number of countries and regions. In-depth experience as a chemist has equipped her with a unique perspective and allows her to provide clients with both legal and scientific strategies. She also advises businesses on strategic aspects of trademark, copyright, and trade-secret protection.

Daily News

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College recently welcomed Nicholas D’Agostino as its new Affirmative Action officer and Title IX coordinator.



D’Agostino comes to HCC after working for nearly 12 years as an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action professional in Connecticut, most recently as the associate in Diversity and Equity at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) and before that as an EEO specialist with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. He started at HCC on Jan. 29.



“I’m grateful for the opportunity to join the HCC team,” said D’Agostino. “Taking the leap to leave one institution to join another is never easy, but I believe HCC was the right choice for me. I look forward to building upon HCC’s strong foundation and hope to contribute in a meaningful way to the future of the college and our community.”



A longtime advocate for equity and social justice with a focus on LGBTQ issues, D’Agostino has been an Anti-Defamation League anti-bullying trainer for more than 10 years and has a long association with True Colors, a support and advocacy group in Hartford for LGBTQ youth, which he has served as board president. He has either led or participated in hundreds of affirmative-action and discrimination investigations during his career.



At CCSU, D’Agostino conducted awareness and advocacy programs, promoted social-justice initiatives, engaged the college community in sexual-harassment and assault prevention, and led training sessions on diversity, Title IX compliance, anti-racism, and LGBTQ awareness. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in federally funded education programs.



D’Agostino holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Quinnipiac University and a master’s degree in counselor education with a specialization in student development in higher education from CCSU.


Class of 2018 Difference Makers

The Bike Man’s Story Has Been a Truly Inspirational Ride

032_charlandbobmain-diff2017Bob Charland was already having enough trouble fitting everything on his plate into a 24-hour day.

He had his full-time job, as an auto mechanic at the Lyndale Garage in Springfield, and he was also teaching what he calls “deaf automotive” for students attending Willie Ross School for the Deaf. There were also his many endeavors within the community — primarily his work repairing bicycles and putting them in the hands of underprivileged children across the region, but also his latest venture, what he calls “safety bags” for the homeless and other people in need.

And then, there were also a growing number of medical appointments and tests as he grappled with a brain disorder that remains officially undiagnosed but is considered terminal.

With all that, he admits he was only getting maybe three hours of sleep each day, something he’s learned to live with. But then, the schedule got even more crowded.

He had to start making room for the media. Lots of room.

The local television stations were calling regularly as his donations of bicycles and other endeavors escalated; community newspapers wanted his time to talk about his work in their cities and towns. He’s been on Ludlow public television and a radio station in Boston. Then, the national news networks, including CNN and Fox News, picked up the story. Ellen DeGeneres’ people called. And, yes, BusinessWest wanted a few hours to discuss his selection as a Difference Maker for 2018.

Most time-consuming, however, was a documentary, titled My Last Days, on his life and deeds undertaken by the CW Network and due to be aired this month. The company had already demanded several hours from Charland for the project, and then it came asking for more.

But the ‘Bike Man,’ or ‘Bicycle Bob,’ as he’s called by different constituencies, told them they couldn’t have it. They repeated the request, and he again told them ‘no.’

So they went around Charland to his employer at the garage, told him they would compensate the company for his time lost, and finally locked him in.

And it was certainly worth it to get him out for that additional taping session, as as we’ll see in a minute.

Meanwhile, there’s a reason why Charland now has to make so such time for the media. As they say in the business, this isn’t just a story; it’s a great story.

The individual pieces are themselves compelling — the bicycle program and how it’s grown; his new work within the community, his terminal illness, and his decision to not only go on living but ramp up his work across the region; the press; and the response from that same community to all of the above. But the package … it’s captivating, and, far more importantly, inspiring, which is what really drives Charland in everything he does.

Indeed, he said people have responded to his story in ways he might have hoped, but probably couldn’t have imagined. It has left people compelled to find their own ways to help, to live life to the fullest, and, in many cases, to simply meet the Bike Man.

“I got an e-mail from a guy who wants me to come out and meet his mom,” Charland said as he reached for his phone so he could quote it directly rather than paraphrase, which he did.

“He says ‘Rob, thanks for being such an inspiration with all you’re doing. I have followed your bike story for about a year now. My stepmom, who is basically my real mom when my mother backed out and left us, is terminally ill with stage-4 bone cancer. You give a different, great, positive outlook on things. My stepmom appreciates all you do; you’re an inspiration to all. Thank you.’

“So I told him I’d come out and meet her,” he went on, adding that this was another thing he would gladly make time to do.

Maybe the most compelling part of this story is that his illness hasn’t slowed him down one bit. In fact, it has made him more determined — if that’s actually possible — to cram even more into each day.

“I’m not going to let it slow me down,” he told BusinessWest with tangible conviction in his voice. “Every day that I get up, I can make a difference in someone’s life, and that’s what I’m going to do; that’s what drives me.”

Those few words, more than any that would follow or that came before, make it abundantly clear why the Bike Man will be at the podium at the Log Cabin on March 22 to accept a Difference Maker plaque.

Chain of Events

As noted earlier, those documentary makers had a very good reason for being so persistent in wanting Charland back for another round of filming, or still photos, as they told him. But as things turned out, he didn’t really spend too much time in front of the camera.

For an explanation, well, as they do in a good documentary, we’ll let him do the talking.

“They told me to bring a couple of changes of clothes with me because they wanted to get some photos in a few different places,” he recalled. “We took my truck and ended up in Bernardston, a beautiful little town.

Bob Charland says his terminal illness has inspired him to try to pack even more into each day and find new ways to give back.

Bob Charland says his terminal illness has inspired him to try to pack even more into each day and find new ways to give back.

“Going back to when we first started with this, they asked me a lot of questions, and one of them was, ‘what’s one thing from your childhood that you regret not doing?’ And I said, ‘me and my dad, who’s really my stepdad, but he raised me, always said we were going to go camping together — just him and I — and it never happened,’” he went on. “So we’re there in Bernardston, and I have no idea where we’re going. The next thing you know, we go across a wooden bridge out in the woods to a cabin right on a lake. I didn’t think anything of it.

“The guy told me the camera crew would be there in a while, and that I should just get out, walk around, and check out the place,” Charland continued. “I look around … there’s a nice dock that went out on the water; I saw a guy sitting on the end of the dock. It turned out to be my father. I was shocked that he was there, and I didn’t know why. He just turned to me and said, ‘are you going to give me a hug, boy, or not?’”

The two would spend the next week having that camping trip they never went on decades ago, expressing as much emotion — and talking to each other more — in that short time than they probably had in all those years leading up to that moment.

The documentary producer left the two there with a camera operator, who would shoot a little footage and then leave them alone for the week. More importantly, though, he left them with some thoughts about why they were there.

Put simply, the two had done so much for others throughout their lives; now it was time for someone to do something for them.

And with that, it might be best to tell more of the story of how that documentary — and that bonding between father and son — came to be. We begin, again, like a good documentary, at the place where the story starts to come into focus.

For Charland, that was when his daughter, now 23, was raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was 9.

“At that point, I was given full custody,” he explained. “The courts and the counselors had told me to get her involved in as many things as possible because of what happened to her. So she got involved — and I got involved.”

Indeed, when the leader of the Girl Scout troop his daughter joined decided she couldn’t continue in that role, Charland took over. Not for a little while, but 10 or 11 years, by his count.

“I was cookie coach — I have all the T-shirts from all the years I did it,” he said, adding that, as you might have guessed, he was one of the first male leaders of a Girl Scout troop in this region.

He also started coaching girls softball at Holy Cross Parish School in Springfield — another assignment that lasted a decade or so — among other work in the community, usually alongside his daughter.

“I was afraid to leave her anywhere as a result of what happened to her,” he went on, adding quickly that, because he had no child support, he was also working several jobs — the one at the shop, as a bouncer at an area club a few nights a week, and as a chef at A Touch of Garlic restaurant.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno says Bob Charland has become an inspiration and a role model at a time when the world — and Springfield — need more of such individuals.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno says Bob Charland has become an inspiration and a role model at a time when the world — and Springfield — need more of such individuals.

Eventually, his daughter grew out of Girl Scouts, softball, and other activities, and this development left a void of sorts and something Charland’s seemingly never had much of — spare time.

He filled the void and the hours in the day in various ways. Teaching automotive skills to deaf children — after learning sign language — become one outlet (students are bused to the Lyndale Garage). And eventually there was what he came to call simply “the bike thing.”

Into a Higher Gear

It started, sort of, when his daughter was in middle school. One of her guidance counselors was a nun who would bring Charland a few bikes to fix up for some of her students. And it grew from there.

As most everyone in the region knows by now, thanks to all that press he’s been getting, the bike thing has become not only a Springfield phenomenon, but a regional one as well. Charland has given away bikes in several area communities, including Hartford, and to nearly a dozen schools. To organize it all, he created a nonprofit called Pedal Thru Youth.

In the beginning, Charland would pay for bikes out of his own pocket, but as the news spread, the donations started to flow in, even from some of the neurologists who have treated him. So did other forms of support; AAA donates a helmet for every bike donated, local police departments and the Sheriff’s Department are heavily involved (with bike-safety instruction and other initiatives), and the city of Springfield and Columbia Gas have both donated space to warehouse bicycles while they’re being fixed up and readied for beneficiaries.

“We target the most poverty-stricken areas throughout Western Mass., and they see the worst of the police departments,” Charland said while explaining that there’s much more to this than a child getting a bike. “If these kids see a cop down on their level fitting them with a helmet and helping them adjust their seat or the handlebars, they’re going to look at these officers in a more positive light.”

It’s a great story, but what makes it more remarkable is that it doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It plays out amid — and largely because of — a worsening medical condition that has left Charland quite unsure of how much time he has left and what his quality of life will be.

Back in 2011, around when the bike thing started picking up some speed, Charland suffered what he called a minor stroke. An MRI discovered an arachnoid cyst in his left cerebellum, which specialists would attribute to a concussion he suffered when he was struck in the back of the head by someone wielding a baseball bat after leaving the club following his bouncing shift.

“The cyst grew to protect my brain, and they noticed a lot of dead spots,” Charland explained. “Over the years, things got progressively worse. There were times I would get extremely dizzy, I would stutter, other times my hands would shake. I was having tremors … and the right side of my body was shaking a lot.”

Doctors have never given him an official diagnosis, but they suspect Charland has CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the condition that has affected dozens, if not hundreds, of pro football players and other athletes.

“They say they think that’s what it is,” he told BusinessWest. “But they can’t give me 100% diagnosis until post-mortem. So I jokingly said to them, ‘call me when I’m dead and let me know.’”

After that diagnosis, or non-diagnosis, as the case may be, Charland went to Vermont, one of three states in the country to enact a death-with-dignity law, and quickly put his affairs in order, deciding, among other things, what to do with his five trucks.

What brought him back to Springfield early last year was a request from a Springfield school administrator for bicycles he might be able to donate, one that he fulfilled.

And that donation became a news story, one that fueled others and also took the bike thing to new heights.

026_charlandbob-diff2017

By Easter morning, Charland had 25 to 30 bikes repaired and ready for distribution. He called a friend who was also a Chicopee police officer and suggested the two go to one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods and donate the bikes.

“We started knocking on doors and handing bikes out,” he said, adding that the local TV crews were tipped off and came to report the developing story.

More press led to more requests for bicycles, which led to more donations, which led to more press, which led to … you get the idea. Soon, the story had traveled literally around the world.

Braking News

And then, remarkably — or not, considering the individual in question — the story got even better. Indeed, Charland kept looking for new ways to give back and pack more into his typical day.

Which brings us to those safety bags mentioned earlier. They’re also called ‘necessity bags,’ and that might be a more accurate description, because that’s what they contain — hats, gloves, scarves, toothpaste, a toothbrush, some toiletries, protein shakes, granola bars, and more.

He started with the Massachusetts State Police, who would give them to homeless individuals and others deemed in need of such a package. And it spread from there. The Springfield Police even have a name for it — Operation Basic Necessities — and Charland has outfitted each cruiser with two bags, each gender-specific; once a bag is given out, he replenishes it. He’s also donated bags to the Connecticut State Police and the Hampden County’s Sheriff’s Department. Last fall, he attended the National Police Chiefs Assoc. convention, and fielded requests from more departments for the bags.

The bags were intended to meet a recognized need, to fill a void, he explained, adding that he has always been driven to step in and address such deficiencies.

With all the press he’s been getting, Charland started keeping a scrapbook of sorts. Actually, it’s just a manila folder with some press clippings, letters and notes from elected leaders (U.S. Rep. Richard Neal sent him one, state Rep. John Velis did as well, and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno has corresponded on something approaching a regular basis), a proclamation or two, and some certificates from groups ranging from the Springfield Thunderbirds to the Center for Human Development.

There’s also a handwritten note, source unknown, that says, in large capital letters, “THANKS BOB FOR ALL YOU DO.”

Collectively, the contents of that manila folder speak to probably the best part of this remarkable story — the manner in which Charland is connecting with people, inspiring them, and, in some cases, getting them involved as well.

Sarno spoke about it as he talked with BusinessWest about one of his now-best-known constituents. Specifically, he discussed how the Bike Man replied to one of his correspondences wishing him good luck and good health.

“He called me and said, ‘mayor I need a little help … I just wanted to help some kids with bikes, but this is really blossoming,’” Sarno recalled, adding that he helped arrange some storage space.

Overall, Sarno said Charland’s work with children and the police is a positive development, but more important is his emergence as a role model at a time when society sorely needs some.

“At this time of reality TV, when negativity sells, and ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ this story resonates with people,” he told BusinessWest. “He’s like the Energizer bunny; he keeps going and going and going, and he never says, ‘woe is me.’ His attitude is so positive — it’s not about himself, it’s about making a better opportunity for these kids and showing that people do care. He’s a one-man wrecking crew.”

Charland’s ability to inspire others and enrich their lives with more than a two-wheeler is perhaps best summed up in the words on the latest addition to that scrapbook, a plaque declaring him the winner of the Citizen Award in conjunction with the Safe Neighborhood Initiative. It reads, in part:

“You have taken a learned skill and turned it into an everlasting blessing for children. They will carry the value of giving back to the community into adulthood and will in turn help nurture the development of our community, making your work immortal.”

The Ride Stuff

Sarno is known for being prompt and prolific with correspondences of thanks and support to individuals and groups over the years, and Charland is no exception.

The mayor has written him several times, as noted, usually after another press report of his work. The typical missive is part thank-you letter, part note of encouragement. Here’s the one sent last June, prompted by little more, it seems, than a desire to stay in touch:

“Thinking of you and just wanted to drop you a note of good health, encouragement, and thanks. So heartwarming what you are doing for our kids. You’re making their dreams/miracles come true. You’re in my thoughts and prayers … that a miracle can and will happen for you.”

With those words, he essentially spoke for an entire region about someone who truly defines that phrase Difference Maker.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Class of 2018 Difference Makers

A Unique Nonprofit Meets Some Very Special Needs

Craig, Will, and Maria Burke.

Craig, Will, and Maria Burke.

Kim Schildbach says she and her husband bought the trampoline on Craigslist back in 2013.

The price tag was only $60, and that number spoke volumes about its condition. “It was in decent shape, but … we knew it had a little life left in it, but not a lot,” she told BusinessWest, adding that, not long after they brought Anelia, the young girl they adopted, to their home in Leverett from her native Bulgaria a year later, that trampoline’s life had pretty much run its course.

And giving it some new life became important, because Anelia is blind and has other developmental challenges, and bouncing on a trampoline is one of many forms of therapy for her.

Replacing the unit was simply not in the Schildbachs’ considerably tight budget, so they turned to a unique but somewhat obscure nonprofit they had heard about called the WillPower Foundation for some help.

They were told that families of special-needs children, or ‘children with different abilities,’ as this nonprofit prefers to call them, could apply for small grants — $500 is the limit — for items like, well, trampolines, that are needed but not covered by insurance, and certainly not in the category of ‘necessity.’ So they often fall through the cracks.

To make a long story a little shorter, the Schildbachs were somewhat dubious about applying for another grant — they had filled out the forms for several as part of the exhausting process of adoption — but did anyway, found it took just a few minutes online, and wound up getting a grant to resuscitate their trampoline, among other things.

“They paid to replace the bouncy floor part and the thing that goes around the outside,” said Schildbach, who didn’t know the technical terms for what WillPower paid for, but certainly does know how important that grant was and is to the quality of life for her daughter.

Just listen to this.

“I put a milk crate by the side of the trampoline,” she explained. “Anelia has learned to get up on the milk crate, put one leg up over the side of the trampoline, and push herself up. Anie is very globally delayed, but she has some superpowers, as we call them, and one of them is navigation; she uses her cane, and amazingly she has an awareness of the space around her in a way that … I can’t do when I’m walking around the house at night and the lights are off.

“She gets on that trampoline and bounces away,” Schildbach went on. “It’s so good for them to move their bodies, the endorphin release is good, and then there are these things called vestibular stimulation, which is any kind of movement that is soothing to kids who come from traumatic places.”

The Schildbachs have two blind children from traumatic, or ‘hard’ places, as Kim calls them — they adopted Mabel from China in 2016. And they have now received two grants from the WillPower Foundation to pay for everything from that trampoline to what are known as sensory toys.

And this is just one of dozens of families across the region to benefit from that nonprofit, which was inspired by and named for another young person with at least one super power, Will Burke. His is the ability to inspire others to live life to the fullest, to move above and beyond the many obstacles life can throw at someone, and to give back.

Born with a rare brain malformation and adopted by Maria and Craig Burke, Will underwent a number of surgeries and procedures early in life at the Shriners Hospital for Children.

His parents, desiring to find a way give back to the Shriners, started with a three-on-three basketball tournament, with the proceeds going to that institution. While the tournament thrived, the Burkes and a growing corps of supporters wanted to do more and also do something quite different.

Four of the Schildbach children: from left, Anelia, Mabel, Jericho, and Olive.

Four of the Schildbach children: from left, Anelia, Mabel, Jericho, and Olive.

After considerable thought, they created a foundation that would put money directly in the hands of families that needed it.

The foundation is approaching two important milestones — its 10th year of operation and the $200,000 mark when it comes to grants awarded to families across the region. Actually, it will mark three milestones in 2018, with the last one coming in March when Will Burke will make his way to the stage at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House to accept the Difference Maker plaque from BusinessWest.

That plaque is in the shape of a butterfly, which, as most of you know by now, was chosen as a nod to the so-called ‘butterfly effect,’ whereby small and seemingly innocuous events like a butterfly flapping its wings can have a huge impact.

Perhaps no award winner in the program’s 10-year history better exemplifies the butterfly effect than the WillPower Foundation. The grants it issues are for only a few hundred dollars, but no one who receives one would ever use that word ‘only,’ because they are literally life-changing in nature.

Just ask Kim Schildbach.

Allowing Spirits to Soar

As she talked about WillPower and its importance within the community, Kim said the families of special-needs children, or, again, ‘those with different abilities,’ have lists of things they have to pay for.

Long lists, usually.

A $60 pair of cordless headphones for music-loving Anie (that’s another form of therapy for her)? Well, that would usually have to wait for “another week,” said Kim, adding that it might be many of those before the family, living on one income, could fit them in, if it ever did.

But through those two grants received from the Willpower Foundation, the family was able to get those headphones, as well as a rocking horse for Mabel, something called a “sensory backpack,” and some fidget toys, as they’re called — all things that insurance would not pay for and that would have had to wait for ‘another week.’

Missy Roy tells a similar story. Her daughter, now 7, has Down syndrome and needs a host of services and special equipment. But she also needs (and her family also needs) someone to advocate for her when it comes to school and other matters.

And insurance won’t cover the services of such a professional, which is unfortunate, said Roy, because some of these matters are technical in nature.

“When you’re just a parent, you don’t know all the ins and outs of school and what the law says,” she told BusinessWest. “You need an advocate, but insurance won’t pay for it.”

Such advocates charge $50 an hour for their services, and the $500 grant from the Willpower Foundation covered roughly two-thirds of her total bill. Likewise, another grant helped pay for a device to help’s Roy’s daughter communicate. Insurance covered 80% of the cost of a device known as an Accent 1000 (sticker price: $7,000), but Roy had to cover the rest. Her load was lightened appreciably by a second $500 grant.

Life-easing episodes like these are the kind the Burkes and the board they would assemble had in mind when they took the Willpower Foundation off what amounts to the drawing board and made it the truly unique nonprofit that it is.

And as they did so, they drew on their own experiences early and often. Will was born prematurely and was adopted by the Burkes when he was just seven weeks old. The couple had what they described as a huge support system of family and friends, and they relied on it.

Jeff Palm says the WillPower Foundation strives to be as “unbureaucratic” as possible as it helps parents pay for equipment and services that fall between the cracks.

Jeff Palm says the WillPower Foundation strives to be as “unbureaucratic” as possible as it helps parents pay for equipment and services that fall between the cracks.

“We had a lot of support from our families, but as we went along, we knew we had to get some help,” said Craig Burke. “And while Marie is so awesome at making things work, a lot of things were not accessible to us financially or just available at all.

“So we vowed that, someday, once we got through all this, we would try to do something to do give back,” he went. “We received a lot of support early on, but there were a lot of out-of-pocket expenses, and we knew others were facing the same challenge.”

So, in essence, the Burkes created a different kind of support system in the form of a nonprofit that would help with those expenses. In the beginning, Craig recalled, one of the early concepts discussed was to create something approaching a ‘make a wish’ format involving parents, whereby, through $1,000 grants, they could take some time off for themselves, something that is often very difficult to do, and their children would be cared for by a professional.

What they found, said Maria Burke — and they already knew this from experience — is that the parents of special-needs children don’t ever want to leave them. So the model for the nonprofit evolved into providing grants for items families need but that insurance won’t cover.

And when it came time for affix a name to this nonprofit, well, that was probably the easiest part.

Indeed, Will has been inspirational in many ways as he confronts, and overcomes, the many challenges he faces, said Maria, adding that his spirit and tenacity actually empowers others to reach their full capabilities.

A huge fan of video games and Rob Gronkowski, and an even bigger fan of blue cheese — the first thing the Burkes do when they arrive at a restaurant is ask if it’s on the menu — Will is involved with the nonprofit on many levels and enjoys being part of efforts to give back.

“I like to help people,” he said in a somewhat slow voice that is difficult to understand at first. But he gets his points across. “I like to help them by getting them what they need.”

Getting a Lift

Jeff Palm, chairman of the foundation’s board and a long-time supporter of the Burkes’ efforts, said the goal at the beginning — and it has persisted to this day — is to make the awarding of grants as “unbureaucratic” as possible. That’s not a word, and he acknowledged as much, but you certainly get the point.

If ‘unbureaucratic’ was a word, it would be synonymous with simple, which is what the foundation works very hard to make the application process. Just ask Kim Schildbach. She’s filled out hundreds of forms in the process of adopting their first two and now a third child.

“We make sure that we’re crossing our ‘T’s and dotting our ‘I’s and that we’re not just throwing people’s trusted money out the door,” Palm explained. “But we try to make it simple; we put money in the hands of families, and we fund really interesting and unusual things that make a child’s life easier and, as a result, make a family’s life easier.”

Elaborating, he said WillPower enables families to acquire equipment and services that essentially fall through the cracks.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, this is a big list. It includes everything from therapeutic horseback riding to the services of a speech-language pathologist; from electrical outlets with the proper voltage needed for a ventilator to the percentage of an Accent 1000 not covered by insurance.

To explain the importance of such grants, Palm used the example of that electrical outlet.

“The child had a ventilator that would plug only into a 220 plug, like a dryer plug,” he explained. “Every time that respirator needed to be on for the child, they had to wheel him over to that corner of the house and plug it in.

“They applied to us for a grant, and we found an electrician to put that plug in a place that was much more convenient for the family, and the child could be part of the family unit when the ventilator was needed,” he went on. “You just wouldn’t find an insurance company that would pay for something like that, and there are a lot of stories like that.”

Sarah Aasheim, interim executive director of the foundation, agreed, and noted that the nonprofit fills gaps that most people not in the situations these families find themselves in couldn’t appreciate.

Sarah Aasheim says the WillPower Foundation helps to close gaps that those on the outside looking in might have a hard time understanding.

Sarah Aasheim says the WillPower Foundation helps to close gaps that those on the outside looking in might have a hard time understanding.

“These are things that you often don’t think about,” she told BusinessWest. “The ventilator was covered by insurance, of course, so from the outside looking in, it looks like that family would be all set. But when you understand the nuances of these situations, you realize that there are a lot of unmet needs.”

As another example, she noted the kind of assistive technology that Will uses to help him communicate, called a ‘talker.’ One child who relied on such technology faced another of those funding gaps that might be hard for others to grasp.

“This child used a wheelchair, and while the insurance company paid for the device, it didn’t pay for the mount that goes on the child’s wheelchair, which costs an additional $300, which is a financial hardship for this family,” she explained. “The child had a talker, but he couldn’t access the talker because he didn’t have the motor skills to hold it and it didn’t work with his wheelchair, so we supplied the funding for that. Sometimes it’s just a bridge or a connection to meet a larger need.”

By filling these gaps, the foundation is empowering not only individuals, but their families as well, said Emily Albelice, former executive director and now a board member.

“That child’s ability to communicate better serves the entire family unit,” she said referring to the device mounted to a wheelchair. “And that’s something that’s important to us; it’s not just about the individual, but their family, their friends, their community.”

Fortuitous Bounce

Stories such as these make it easy to understand why the WillPower Foundation is far less obscure than it was years ago. Indeed, word of mouth has served as a very powerful marketing vehicle for the organization, because the word being spread — and it has spread quickly and effectively — is just how unique and game-changing the foundation’s work is.

“When families that are experiencing financial hardship find out there’s a resource that gives them cash — albeit a small amount — for something they determine they need, the word spreads very quickly,” said Aasheim, adding that, as word spreads and the volume of grant applications grows, the challenge then becomes raising more money to fund more of those requests.

Fortunately, just as this nonprofit resonates with those it helps through grants, it also resonates with those who recognize the uniqueness of the mission, the level of need, and the fact that many of these families don’t have many other options, if any at all.

Thus, support is growing, and the foundation’s board is looking to increase annual grant awards to $30,000, an ambitious goal made possible by the help of individuals and businesses that, as noted, and in very simple terms, can relate.

“The more we spread the word, the more information about what we’re doing gets out, the more the local community as a whole wants to support families like ours,” said Maria Burke. “Honestly, almost everyone you meet knows someone with a disability, and every business has an employee with a family member with a disability. Everybody can say they know someone who is facing these challenges every day, and that’s why they embrace our mission.”

The foundation stages fund-raisers, solicits donations, and benefits from the support of several primary sponsors — the law firm Alekman DiTusa, Orthotics and Prosthetics Labs, and LePage Financial Group.

Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners at the law firm, said it is active in the community in a number of ways, and that the work of the WillPower Foundation dovetails nicely with its overall philosophy when it comes to giving back.

“We can see our money doing a lot of good with a smaller organization, as opposed to putting the same amount into a giant nonprofit,” said Alekman, adding that the firm prefers to support nonprofits and initiatives where the results are visible and tangible, and the WillPower Foundation certainly fits that description.

DiTusa agreed, and said the foundation produces these kinds of visible results with families that are truly in need and often have no other recourse.

“There are so many gaps in insurance, and most people really don’t understand that,” he explained. “They figure ‘that family has health insurance, those kids must be fine, they’re taken care of.’

“But if you have a disabled child, there’s a ton of things that they’re going to need that are not covered by insurance,” he went on. “The gaps are enormous, and if have a nonprofit like the WillPower Foundation that steps in and fills those gaps, that can make an enormous difference in a child’s life.”

Just ask Kim Schildbach. Or Missy Kim. Or Will Burke.

Reaching New Heights

Maria Burke remembers talking with the young mother of a child with special needs at a recent gathering of such parents. The conversation came around to how insurance often doesn’t cover the cost of many seemingly small but nonetheless significant services, leaving families scrambling.

And the woman mentioned that she heard about this unique nonprofit called the WillPower Foundation that actually awards small grants to the families of such individuals so that these gaps could be closed, and that it was certainly worth checking it out.

Burke quietly took those comments under advisement — without letting on that this was her baby, as they say.

That’s because her real baby is the inquisitive guy in the wheelchair with those superpowers mentioned earlier, especially the ability to inspire and empower others to do what they might have thought was beyond their reach.

Will’s been setting the bar higher and then clearing it his whole life, and the foundation created in his name is enabling individuals of different abilities and their families to do the same.

And thus, it’s truly worthy of that plaque shaped like a butterfly and the designation ‘Difference Maker.’

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Law Sections

Positive Prognosis

healthlaw-184399153The field of law that focuses specifically on healthcare is diverse, challenging, and constantly changing, and that presents growth opportunities at a time when some fields of law are seeing job stagnation. But many law students aren’t aware of these possibilities, which run the gamut from malpractice litigation to end-of-life planning; from medical-records compliance to helping people navigate the complexities of the mental-health system. And those opportunities are only expected to keep expanding.

Barbara Noah says she took a winding path to her career as a law professor, one who specializes in the rapidly changing world of health law.

“When I graduated from law school, I was thinking more of the style of practice and the sort of things I’d like to do,” said Noah, professor of Health Law at Western New England University (WNEU) School of Law, during a recent panel discussion about health-law careers.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1990, she wasn’t interested in litigation, and instead went to work for a Washington, D.C.-based law firm with a strong focus on regulatory compliance.

“Our role was to counsel clients, which were mostly pharmaceutical and medical-device companies, on how to keep in compliance with the regulations issued by the Food and Drug Administration,” she explained. “It wasn’t about getting new drugs approved; these were already-approved products, and we were making sure clients were following appropriate safety rules.”

She found the field so interesting that she eventually transitioned into a long career, first at the University of Florida and since 2005 at WNEU, teaching the many facets of health law.

To name just a few of those, healthcare lawyers interpret the complex healthcare regulations and statutes that govern the administration of health services, advising hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, and other providers on issues ranging from licensing, reimbursement, and risk management to malpractice litigation and general corporate management.

One panelist at the WNEU event, Judith Feinberg Albright, who works for Devine, Millimet & Branch in Manchester, N.H., started her career as a paramedic before enrolling in law school and taking a particular interest in health law. She developed a secondary interest in litigation through moot-court experiences during those years, and now defends healthcare providers against malpractice claims in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

“I see many people in health law with non-traditional pathways, people with some previous career in healthcare — like you see engineers and architects in intellectual-property law,” she noted. “It’s a pretty diverse group of folks.”

Some jobs are more unique than others. Deb Grossman, another panelist, serves as general counsel with Physician Health Services, an arm of the Massachusetts Medical Society that helps physicians deal with personal and behavioral-health issues and navigate their way back to work.

“Doctors don’t really like lawyers much; they see them as a threat of some kind,” Grossman said. “But I want to be supportive. I’ve been in different roles that were not always supportive, but now I’m in a very conciliatory position.”

After working for a large law firm earlier in her career, she explaned, she went looking for a lifestyle change, and took a job with the state handling the licensure of medical professionals, before taking on her current role.

“I became a much better lawyer,” she said, telling students gathered at the panel discussion that, yes, she made less money working for the state, “but what I gained in experience and autonomy as an attorney, I think was really invaluable.”

It’s just one example, Noah told BusinessWest afterward, of how a shifting healthcare field is cultivating many opportunities for lawyers that students might not hear about on a regular basis during their law-school years — which is why the panel was assembled.

“What’s included in the sweep of healthcare law is broader than people initially think; they think of medical malpractice or something to do with health insurance, but it’s a much broader field than people typically understand,” she said. “And a number of these aspects of health law are in flux right now, and they might be areas of growing demand for the purposes of careers.”

A Different World

One of those changing areas of the law is healthcare compliance — for example, how hospitals are complying with the privacy rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.

“Although HIPAA has been around for quite a while, every hospital of any size has a compliance office that makes sure medical privacy requirements are being met,” Noah said. “And now with the switch to electronic medical records, it’s created a whole new set of questions for HIPAA in information sharing, and I’m hearing that data security is a big issue which impacts compliance.”

The second growth area concerns the overlap between elder law and health law, driven mostly by the aging of the Baby Boomer population. Not only are older Americans making plans for their estates, Noah said, but they’re becoming more keenly aware of their own mortality, and considering issues like advance care directives, healthcare proxies, and end-of-life preferences, such as do-not-resuscitate orders and decisions on nutrition and breathing assistance.

recent panel discussion at WNEU School of Law

From left, Barbara Noah, Judith Fineberg Albright, Deb Grossman, and Dylan Mawdsley talk about their very different health-law careers at a recent panel discussion at WNEU School of Law.

“There are all sorts of questions, and more attention is being focused on them,” Noah said. “But there’s still a real reluctance to do much advance care planning until faced with a bad diagnosis. That’s an issue that’s going to need more well-trained attorneys in the future to reach this large and aging Baby Boomer population.”

The third big shift that could affect health law is, of course, the ever-changing Affordable Care Act, which has been threatened by the recent federal tax law that repeals its individual mandate.

“We’re keeping on top of how the Affordable Care Act is being changed, amended, and manipulated, and how that impacts the system of healthcare delivery. It’s a moving target,” Noah explained. “Without the individual mandate, if healthy people aren’t buying in anymore, the pool is sicker, and that drives up prices.”

According to Nick Sumski, an LSAT teacher for Kaplan Test Prep, health law is a compelling area of law because everyone has to touch the healthcare system at some point in their lives.

“Health law is such a big growth field with an incredible amount of opportunity, especially in the coming years,” he noted last month on the Kaplan website. “No one knows how it’s all going to work moving forward, and there is going to be a big demand for lawyers to help figure it out.”

Dylan Mawdsley, another panelist at the WNEU event, is assistant general counsel for the state Department of Mental Health, advising DMH staff in their decision making and compliance with laws, and representing the agency before probate and family courts.

He originally went to college as a political science major, but pivoted to law school afterward, starting his career in estate planning — right when the Great Recession hit, which was a bad time for that area of law. The work he does now, often serving as a liaison between doctors, patients, and the court system, is gratifying and presents a great deal of autonomy.

“I really feel like the work we do is good work,” he said, “helping people get treatment and services they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”

Meaningful Work

When Grossman was in law school, she recalled, she learned a lot about corporate law and litigation, but not much else, and certainly not what she’s doing today.

“This niche of work is very, very satisfying, it’s important work, and the schedule allows me to raise my kids,” she said. “Law students should know there’s a whole world of jobs out there, that aren’t typical law-firm, corporate types of jobs.”

Sumski said students shouldn’t feel like they have to pick any kind of specialization right away.

“Keep an open mind in those first-year classes; you might be surprised by the area of law that ultimately interests you,” he noted. “If you are interested in health law, however, you should take some introductory classes in the subject matter and see if a particular aspect of the field interests you. Health law is an incredibly broad field that touches on many different aspects of law. There’s a lot of opportunity in the area. The job market for lawyers is getting better, but it’s not great, so it makes sense to go into an area that is in demand.”

That demand, Noah said, is driven partly by the fact that health law is so interconnected, with so many moving parts.

“Any student who goes into health law is going to need a deep knowledge of the particular area they’re focusing on,” she noted, “but also a broad, contextual understanding of how the whole healthcare finance and delivery system works in this country — and it’s a very messy, complex, and inefficient system.”

And one that’s constantly changing, presenting plentiful opportunities for law students and career changers willing to think outside the jury box.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

DBA Certificates Departments

The following business certificates and trade names were issued or renewed during the month of January 2018.

AMHERST

Amherst Welding Inc.
330 Harkness Road
Darrin Brown

Pria Music Marketing
27 Montague Road, #36
Kara Kharmah

Sandy’s Barber Shop
96 North Pleasant St.
Stacy Kelliher

CHICOPEE

Design and Machine Services
31 Broad St.
Craig Goebel

Gerry Ruel Remodeling
29 Arcade St.
Gerald Ruel

Millie’s Pierogi
129 Broadway
William Kerigan

Stop & Run
1057 Montgomery St.
Amir Paracha

DEERFIELD

Deerfield Design
101 North Main St.
Paul Patterson

Deerfield Pharmacy
45 Main St.
Robert Fydenkevez

The Washboard
5A Tina Dr.
Robert Fydenkevez

EASTHAMPTON

Advanced Business Solutions
54A Northampton St.
Paul Backholm

Worghy Creations and Creator Goods
9 Briggs St., Apt. 1
Brittany Graves Shoup

EAST LONGMEADOW

Duets Salon
42 Harkness Ave.
Shelly Cotton, Sharon McLean

H & N Home Improvement
40 Waterman Ave.
Nhac Truong

Lek’s Spa
13-15 Gerrard Ave.
Somchai Daniels

Stephanie LaBelle, LMMC
280 North Main St.
Stephanie LaBelle

GREENFIELD

Absolutely Fabulous Hair
305 Wells St.
Tereia Ivantchev
Adam & Eve
18 Main St.
Scott McGregor

Cathy’s Cutting Edge
30 Mohawk Trail
Cathy Flood

Common Ground Fitness Center
368 High St.
Hannah Mosher

Early Bird & Stuff
44 Smith St.
Rachel Yong Ung

Jeanne Mietsche
30 Mohawk Trail
Jeanne Mietsche

Sidewalk 167
144 South Shelburne Road, Apt. 3
Stephanie Gerulimatos

Sheperd Masonry & Slate
32 Forest Ave.
Peter Sheperd, Justin Sheperd

Smoke Haven
239 Main St.
Shahid Habib

HADLEY

Flayvors of Cook Farm
129 South Maple St.
Gordon Cook Jr.

Greggory’s Pastry Shop
195 Russell St.
Greggory Thornton

McDonald’s
374 Russell St.
Gomex Enterprises III, LLC

Olde Hadley Flea Market
45 Lawrence Plain Road
Ray Szala

HAMPDEN

TSMA Auto Trade, LLC
484 Main St.
Talal Mhanna

HOLYOKE

El Cherufe
43 Chapin St.
Sara Orellana

Highlands Cards & Gift
903 Hampden St.
Earl Dandy III

Mister Bluster
46 Elmwood Ave.
Thomas Lund

A Taste of Mexico
50 Holyoke St.
Armando Chaires

LUDLOW

John Quill Automotive
542 Holyoke St.
John Quill

NORTHAMPTON

The Dish Collective
10 Aldrich St.
Rachel Rice

Coles Meadow Music
470 Coles Meadow Road
William Hunt Jr.

Northampton Athletic Club
306 King St.
Perry Messer, Judy Messer

Northeast Painting Associates Inc.
881 North King St.
Christopher Hellyar

Patrick Bella Game Studio
15 Orchard St.
Patrick Gaughan

Pinocchio Pizzeria
122 Main St.
Oscar Saravia

Robyn Brokos LMT Massage
16 Center St.
Robyn Brokos

The Vault
135 Main St.
Adam Hazel

PALMER

Lady Solstyce Designs
P.O. Box 183
J. Danusia Lokee-Braese

Seven Rails Auto Sales
1316 South Main St.
David Muir

Talbot’s Landscaping
54 Mount Dumplin Road
Ryan Talbot

SOUTHWICK

Susan’s Sanctuary Social Daycare
68 Powder Mill Road
Susan Drapeau

Tina Vieu-Zalowski
610 College Highway
Tina Vieu-Zalowski

SPRINGFIELD

Benson’s Bagels
598 Sumner Ave.
Yousef Hamedah

C.L. Cleaning Service
103 Spring St.
Elijah Lyles

Denail Music Group
44 High St.
Denail Group, LLC

The Home Team
1294 Worcester St.
Jesus Cedeno

Knots Indeed
63 Lakevilla Ave.
Rita Bartholomew

La Faverita Mini Mart
179 Walnut St.
Shazia Nizam

PITC Products
76 Palo Alto Road
Brandon Behnk

Plink Plunk Play
63 Lakevilla Ave.
Rita Bartholomew

Preferred Property Management
34 Seymour Ave.
Melissa Santiago

Prostar Courier Services
22 Healy St.
Luis Rodriguez

Tranquility Day Spa & Salon
1655 Boston Road
Charles Tran

Viera Thrift Shop
2625C Main St.
Noel Viera-Alejandro

Wonderland Cleaning Service
277 Frenbank Road
Amanda Vega

Worship Clothing
16 O’Connell St.
Sean Chaez

WARE

Hillside Farm
219 Babcock Tavern Road
Joseph Knight, Irene Kulas

Shop Motherhood Defined
167 Osborne Road
Kimberly Fox

Timeless Treasures
4 Woodland Heights
Barbara Rolla

WESTFIELD

Alo Saigon
116 Elm St.
Alo Saigon

Crafty Teachers
643 Holyoke Road
Crafty Teachers

EMN
19 Oakdale St.
Nadia Mocan

Floors for Less
22 Country Club Dr.
Floors for Less

Journey Massage & Wellness
33 Phillip Ave.
Jean Fisher

Law Office of Robert Walker
146 Elm St.
Bay State Title & Escrow, P.C.

Lifetime Tilers Inc.
565 North Road
Lifetime Tilers Inc.

Moylan’s Snow Removal
62 Janis Road
Ian Moylan

New Home Improvement
12 Conner Ave.
Anatolii Federiuc

TLC Social Strategy Corp.
29 Morningside Dr.
Jessica Gottsche

White Oak School
533 North Road
Massachusetts Foundation for Learning Disabilities

Willey Landscaping, LLC
260 Prospect St.
Dylan Willey

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Metal Craft Manufacturing
54 Myron St.
Peter Urbanek

Pillar to Post
109 Morton St.
Kyle Steinbock

R and D Marine, LLC
1654 Riverdale St.
Harold DeMarco Jr.

Super 8
1500 Riverdale St.
Dilip Rana

Supreme Brass and Aluminum
210 Windsor St.
Domenico Rettura

TJ Maxx #648
239 Memorial Ave.
Kristin Adams

VN Home Improvements
27 Craig Dr.
Vadim Botezat

Wicked Salon
338B Westfield St.
Arthur Hawk

WILBRAHAM

4L
19 Pearl Lane
James DeForest Jr.

A.C.T. Cleaning
207 Mountain Road
Marshall Robar

King
920 Stony Hill Road
Michael Matuszczak Jr.

Neighborhood Pizza
2421 Boston Road
Arvind Treyan, Ilyas Yanbul

Upland Farm
583 Main St.
Nancy Schechterle

Departments Incorporations

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

AGAWAM

K2C2 Inc., 76 Pembroke Lane, Agawam, MA 01001. Scott Leven, same. To operate a bar restaurant.

EAST OTIS

Kti Restaurant Associates Inc., 1898 East Otis Road, East Otis, MA 01029. Peter D Sullivan, 9 Moreau Road, Tolland, MA 01034. Own and operate a restaurant and banquet facility.
LENOX

Leenies Paninis and More Inc., 17 Franklin St., Lenox, MA 01240. Darleen Zradi, same. Restaurant.

LEVERETT

Jamrog Hvac Inc., 481 Long Plain Road, Leverett, MA 01054. Nicole Zabko, same. HVAC service, repair, sales and installation.
PITTSFIELD

Integrastone Landscaping Inc., 21 Spadina Parkway, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Anne L Dunham, same. Landscaping.

SPRINGFIELD

Kitchen Counsel Inc., 270 Maple St., Springfield, MA 01105. Michael L Talmadge, same. Kitchen and bath renovations and installations.

Law Office of Coreen Goodwin Limited, 64 Donbray Road, Springfield, MA 01119. Coreen D Goodwin, same. Provide free and low cost legal services to low income clients.

Lucky Auto Sales Inc., 93-97 Wilbraham Road, Springfield, MA 01104. Robinson Betances, 91 Mooreland St., 2nd Floor, Springfield, MA 01104. Sale & repair of automobiles.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Lilly’s Lodge Inc., 9 Norman St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Dominic Pompi, 12 Laurel Ridge Road, Southwick, MA 01077. Bed and breakfast.

LSS Trucking Inc., 58 Lathrop St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Serghei Mineev, same. Transportation services.

WILBRAHAM

Lakay Building & Remodeling Inc., 749 Ridge Road, Wilbraham, MA 01095. Jason F. Pecoy, same. Construction, building and remodeling.

Agenda Departments

Book Discussion with Judge Michael Ponsor

Feb. 5: The Hampden County Bar Assoc. invites the public to a reading and book talk with New York Times bestselling author Judge Michael Ponsor from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Fort, 8 Fort St., Springfield. Ponsor will discuss his first novel, The Hanging Judge, released in 2013, and his new novel, The One-Eyed Judge, a fast-paced and thought-provoking legal fiction. This event is a fund-raiser for the newly established Hampden County Bar Foundation. There is no fee for attending this event; however, a donation for the foundation is encouraged. Ponsor will be donating a portion of the sales of his books at the event to the foundation.

Heart Health Symposium

Feb. 6: Springfield College will welcome health experts from Baystate Medical Center, the New England Center for Functional Medicine, and the Springfield College Nutrional Sciences Program for a Heart Health Symposium in the Cleveland E. and Phyllis B. Dodge Room inside the Flynn Campus Union starting at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Led by Springfield College Department of Exercise Science and Sport Studies Chair Dr. Sue Guyer, a panel of experts, including Baystate Medical Center Cardiac Rehab and Wellness Manager Heidi Szalai, New England Center for Functional Medicine Medical Director Dr. Christopher Keroack, and Springfield College Nutritional Sciences Associate Professor Donna Chapman, will discuss topics ranging from risk factors for heart disease to the benefits of healthy living, and stressing the importance of good nutrition for a healthy heart. The symposium is a continuation of the Springfield College Exercise Is Medicine Speaker Series that is part of Guyer’s on-campus initiative while serving as the 2017-18 Springfield College Distinguished Professor of Humanics. Earlier this academic year, as part of the humanics project, Springfield College was officially registered as an Exercise Is Medicine on Campus institution. The mission of this is to foster collaborative relationships and leadership on campus between exercise, health, and other disciplines. The vision is to see all campus and community members across multiple disciplines discover, share, and adopt principles that will change the culture of chronic disease prevention and management. If you have a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to fully participate in this event, contact Laura Feeley as soon as possible at [email protected] or (413) 748-3178 to discuss your accessibility needs. Springfield College is a smoke- and tobacco-free campus.

Free Legal Help Hotline

Feb. 8: The Hampden County Bar Assoc. will hold a Legal Help Hotline in conjunction with Western New England University School of Law from 4 to 7 p.m. at Western New England University School of Law, 1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield. The volunteers will provide legal advice on a variety of topics, including divorce and family law, bankruptcy, business, landlord/tenant, and real estate. Additionally, in light of recent immigration developments, attorneys with immigration-law experience will be available to answer questions. Spanish-speaking attorneys will also be available. Individuals needing advice should call (413) 796-2057 to speak to a volunteer.

‘Ethan at 21’ to Screen at Film Festival

Feb. 10-11: A film 12 years in the making features an Amherst family dealing with autism. Ethan at 21 is the showcase film at a film festival hosted by Pathlight, Whole Children, and Five College Realtors, with two showings and locations. The festival also features three short documentaries from the renowned Sprout Film Festival. All of the films feature individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Ethan at 21 is a challenging film that explores whether society is equipped to care for the growing population of young adults with disabilities, including autism. Shot over 12 years, it is also a funny, poignant, truthful, portrait of one family. “I began making this film when I was 26 and single,” said filmmaker Josephine Sittenfeld. “Over the past 11 years, I met my husband, married, and became a mother of two. I was always inspired by Ethan and his family, but making this film gained additional importance for me after I became a parent. Ethan’s parents are my heroes. Through their example, I’ve continually been reminded what good parenting is — and that, above all, it includes letting your child carve his own path.” This is a sneak peek screening of a film in progress, and will be shown on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2 to 4 p.m. at Mills Theater in Carr Hall at Bay Path University in Longmeadow; and on Sunday, Feb. 11, (4:30 to 6:30 p.m.) at Hadley Farms Meeting House in Hadley. The filmmaker is eager for audience feedback as she looks toward festival distribution and broadcast later this year. Sittenfeld, Ethan, and his family will be on hand for a question-and-answer period after each screening. The film festival also includes three short films from New York-based Sprout Film Festival, whose mission is “to inspire audiences, promote inclusion, and support transformative filmmaking as an integral part of social change.” Admission to either showing is $10 and includes a post-film reception as well as a panel discussion with the Ethan at 21 filmmaker. To learn more about Pathlight and Whole Children or to register for the film festival, visit www.wholechildren.org.

Talk with Journalist Linda Greenhouse

Feb. 11: Kimball Farms Life Care in Lenox will host Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse at 2 p.m. Greenhouse covered the U.S. Supreme Court for the New York Times for 30 years, and her talk will focus on current issues facing the court. Greenhouse is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, and writes a biweekly op-ed column for the New York Times as a contributing columnist. Her latest book, “Just a Journalist,” an autobiographical essay on the practice of journalism, was published this fall by Harvard University Press. Greenhouse was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism (Beat Reporting) in 1998 “for her consistently illuminating coverage of the United States Supreme Court.” In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. She was a Radcliffe Institute Medal winner in 2006. Those interested in attending are asked to RSVP to (413) 637-7043. Seating is limited. Kimball Farms Life Care, located at 235 Walker St. in Lenox, provides a continuum of care, including independent living, assisted living, memory care, short-term rehabilitation, and long-term skilled-nursing care.

40 Under Forty Nomination Deadline

Feb. 16: BusinessWest magazine will accept nominations for the 40 Under Forty Class of 2018 through the end of the work day (5 p.m.) on Friday, Feb 16. The annual program, now in its 12th year, recognizes rising stars within the Western Mass. community, which includes Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties. This year’s group of 40 will be profiled in the magazine’s April 30 edition, then toasted at the June 21 gala at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke (see below). The nomination form, which can be found online HERE, requests basic information and can be supported with other material, such as a résumé, testimonials, and even press clippings highlighting an individual’s achievements in their profession or service to their community.

Inclusive Sports Sampler for Young Adults with an IDD

Feb. 17: For parents of young adults who have an IDD (intellectual or developmental disability), there is one challenge shared by all: identifying inclusive and accessible recreational experiences in their local community that offer opportunities for peer connections and fun, at low cost. Best Buddies, CHD Disability Resources, and Extra Innings understand this challenge firsthand and have combined resources to offer a solution. These organizations are teaming up to present the Young Adult Sports Sampler. This event gives members of the community who have an IDD, ages 14-22, an opportunity to sample several activities at once, in one location. The Young Adult Sampler takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at Extra Innings, 340 McKinstry Ave., #250, Chicopee. A wide range of accessible and inclusive activities will be offered, including dance and movement, martial arts, intro to sled hockey, Wiffle ball, baseball simulator, and intro to adaptive bikes. There is no cost to attend, but an RSVP is appreciated. Contact Jessica Levine at [email protected] by Saturday, Feb. 10. The snow date is March 3.

Difference Makers

March 22: The 10th annual Difference Makers award program, staged by BusinessWest, will be held at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House. The winners will be announced and profiled in the Jan. 22 issue. Difference Makers is a program, launched in 2009, that recognizes groups and individuals that are, as the name suggests, making a difference in this region. Tickets to the event cost $75 per person, with tables of 10 available. To order, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100 or go HERE. Sponsors to date include Sunshine Village, Royal, P.C., and Health New England. Sponsorship opportunities are still available by calling (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

40 Under Forty Gala

June 21: BusinessWest’s 12th annual 40 Under Forty Gala is a celebration of 40 young business and civic leaders in Western Mass. The lavish cocktail party, to be held starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke, will feature butlered hors d’oeuvres, food stations, and entertainment — and, of course, the presentation of the class of 2018. Also, the third Continued Excellence Award honoree will be announced. Tickets will go on sale soon at $75 per person (tables of 10 available), and the event always sells out quickly. For more information, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or e-mail [email protected].

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT
Arnold’s & Eddie’s Foods Inc. v. Pasquales Associates, LLC; Michael Chagnon; and Joseph Santaniello
Allegation: Breach of contact for goods purchased: $11,020
Filed: 12/22/17

Natasha Wheeler v. Wilbraham Common Associates, LP; SHP Acquisitions II, LLC; and SHP Acquisitions V, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $7,000
Filed: 1/5/18

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Theresa Gibson, executrix of the estate of Lillian Sydlo v. Genesis Healthcare Co., LLC d/b/a Heritage Hall
Allegation: Medical malpractice: $100,000+
Filed: 12/20/17

John Stagnaro v. J.F. White Contracting Co.; Schiavone Construction Co., LLC; and White-Schiavone Joint Venture
Allegation: Negligence; failure to maintain safe worksite, causing fall and injury: $783,750
Filed: 12/22/17

Kristine Greco v. Delivery Express Corp. and Michael Greco
Allegation: Unjust enrichment: $27,300
Filed: 12/29/17

Michael Devine and Donna Devine v. W & I Construction Inc. and Mansion Woods Condominium Trust
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $161,501.86
Filed: 12/29/17

HAMPSHIRE DISTRICT COURT
Wanda Deitnet v. Elijah Thompson and Performance Food Group Inc.
Allegation: Motor-vehicle negligence causing injury: $6,793.06
Filed: 12/28/17

HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT
Edwin J. Scagel v. Brian A. Corriveau individually and d/b/a AML Construction Services, et al
Allegation: Breach of contract; money owed for services, labor, and materials: $123,000
Filed: 12/20/17

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Michael A. Herbert v. South County Emergency Medical Services, Town of Deerfield, Town of Sunderland, and Town of Whately
Allegation: Employment disability and sex discrimination
Filed: 1/8/18

PALMER DISTRICT COURT
K. Sacco Electric Inc. v. Mr. Home
Allegation: Failure to compensate for services rendered: $7,758.12
Filed: 12/22/17

K. Sacco Electric Inc. v. Decosmo Construction, LLC
Allegation: Failure to compensate for services rendered: $4,500.52
Filed: 12/27/17

K. Sacco Electric Inc. v. Shaha Food and Fuel, LLC
Allegation: Failure to compensate for services rendered: $16,197.14
Filed: 12/29/17

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Bacon Wilson announced that Meaghan Murphy has joined the firm as an associate attorney. A member of the firm’s litigation department, her practice is focused on labor and employment law.

Murphy is a graduate of Western New England University School of Law, and received her bachelor’s degree from Amherst College. She works primarily from Bacon Wilson’s Springfield location, and is licensed to practice in both Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Founded in 1895, Bacon Wilson, P.C. is one of the largest firms in the Pioneer Valley, with 44 lawyers and approximately 60 paralegals, administrative assistants, and support staff. The firm’s offices are located in Springfield, Amherst, Hadley, Northampton, and Westfield.

Daily News

HARTFORD, Conn. — United Financial Bancorp, Inc., the holding company for United Bank, announced results for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017.

The company reported net income of $9.5 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017, compared to net income for the linked quarter of $15.2 million, or $0.30 per diluted share. The company reported net income of $14.6 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016. Net income for the year ended Dec. 31, 2017 was $54.6 million, or $1.07 per diluted share, compared to net income of $49.7 million, or $0.99 per diluted share, for the year ended Dec. 31, 2016.

On Dec. 22, 2017, President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which, among other things, lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Companies must recognize the effect of tax-law changes in the period of enactment under the generally accepted accounting principles. This tax reform resulted in a $2.8 million negative net-income impact in the fourth quarter of 2017. Of the $2.8 million impact, $1.6 million flowed directly through the provision for income taxes, and was primarily related to a re-measurement of the company’s deferred tax asset.

Additionally, there was a $1.2 million pre-tax adjustment related to the write-down of legacy United limited partnerships due to the aforementioned tax reform. Other significant events during the quarter included the company surrendering $32.8 million of under-performing bank-owned life insurance policy value, resulting in a $2.4 million negative impact to the provision for income taxes. The company subsequently reinvested $30 million into higher-yielding product in early January 2018.

“The United Bank team delivered strong loan and non-interest bearing deposit growth in the fourth quarter of 2017. Asset quality, capital, and liquidity remained strong and stable,” said William Crawford IV, CEO and President of the ompany and the bank. “I want to thank our United Bank teammates for their steadfast focus on serving our customers and communities.”

Assets totaled $7.11 billion at Dec. 31, 2017 and increased $137.7 million, or 2%, from $6.98 billion at Sept. 30, 2017. At Dec. 31, 2017, total loans were $5.34 billion, representing an increase of $134.2 million, or 2.6%, from the linked quarter. Changes to loan balances during the fourth quarter of 2017 were highlighted by a $76.7 million, or 4.3%, increase in investor non-owner occupied commercial real-estate loans; a $24.9 million, or 9.3%, increase in other consumer loans; a $21.4 million, or 3.8%, increase in home-equity loans; and a $18.9 million, or 2.3%, increase in commercial business loans. Loans held for sale increased $24.7 million, or 27.6%, from the linked quarter, as the company increased the held-for-sale portfolio for delivery to third-party investors at the end of the quarter. Total cash and cash equivalents decreased $9.8 million, or 10%, from the linked quarter.

Deposits totaled $5.2 billion at Dec. 31, 2017 and increased by $45.2 million, or 0.9%, from $5.15 billion at Sept. 30, 2017. Increases in deposit balances during the fourth quarter of 2017 were highlighted by a $53.4 million, or 7.4%, increase in non-interest-bearing checking deposits, as well as a $77.3 million, or 4.5%, increase in certificates of deposit. Offsetting these increases was a $75.5 million, or 3.4%, decline in NOW checking and money-market deposits, largely due to seasonal withdrawals in municipal funds that are experienced during the fourth quarter.

Features

All the News That’s Fit to Hear

Pat Duperre

Pat Duperre, a longtime volunteer with Valley Eye Radio, says she was inspired to read by the challenges of her son, who lost his sight after a heart attack.

For more than 40 years now, a nonprofit known as Valley Eye Radio has been bringing more than news, obituaries, supermarket ads, and Little League scores to those who have lost the ability to read. It has been bringing these individuals hope that their disability will not impact overall quality of life.

Pat Duperre was getting ready to retire. And as she recalls those days and her plans for the ones to come, she remembers thinking — actually knowing — that she would be doing a good deal of volunteer work within her community. In fact, she was already working to find something meaningful to do with her time.

Instead, something meaningful found her, as she put it, and she wound up volunteering in a way she could not have imagined just a few months earlier.

“My son suffered a massive heart attack, and as a result, he lost his sight,” she recalled. “And I saw what he went through, the struggles that he went through to adapt to one day having sight and the next day having nothing.”

These observations coincided with a picture she saw in her local newspaper of Barbara Loh, executive director of Valley Eye Radio (VER), receiving a check from the East Longmeadow Lions Club to help continue that organization’s intriguing mission.

To make a long story a little shorter, Duperre soon become a part of that mission, which is to bring news stories, like the one that inspired her, to the blind, visually impaired, and those not able to read for themselves due to a disability.

These days, she reads the Republican live every Wednesday morning from 9 to 11, delivering all kinds of news — from front-page stories to the obituaries (they have their own time slot, 10 a.m., due to their significance for many readers) to notes on blood drives — and with what she called “a little bit of humor.”

But Loh told BusinessWest — another one of the many publications read on the air — that dozens of volunteers like Duperre bring much more than the day’s news into listeners’ homes.

There are a lot of events going on with some very important information for people, and if you have that kind of disability, you’re reliant on someone to bring you someplace, and it’s often not possible to get to some things.”

“We want to help people, bottom line, to have better lives once they have challenges they never anticipated,” she explained, adding that this assistance begins with the day the special radio that delivers the Valley Eye Radio signal is delivered to one’s home by still another volunteer. “We’re giving people hope that their lives will not be in significant decline because of the impact of this disability.”

VER has been providing this hope for more than 40 years now, said Harold Anderson, programming coordinator for the nonprofit organization, noting that, while the basic mission hasn’t changed over that time, many things have, and VER has adjusted accordingly.

There are new publications, such as BusinessWest’s sister publication, Healthcare News, to read, he said, adding that, in recognition of significant demographic changes within the region, Spanish-language magazines and newspapers are now read as well.

Meanwhile, the need for the program’s services is growing. Indeed, as the population ages, more people are suffering from visual impairment, said Loh, adding that Valley Eye Radio is responding by being more aggressive in its efforts to tell its story and thus gain more of the many forms of support it needs — from financial contributions to additional volunteers — to carry out its mission.

From left, Harold Anderson, programming coordinator for VER; Barbara Loh, executive director; and volunteer reader David Manning.

From left, Harold Anderson, programming coordinator for VER; Barbara Loh, executive director; and volunteer reader David Manning.

As for those volunteers, they are, in most respects, the lifeblood of the organization, said Loh, adding that many, like Duperre, have a personal connection to its mission.

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at VER and the vital service it prides to its listeners. This article might be too long to be read over the airwaves — readers prefer stories that can be digested in 10 minutes or less — but that can’t be helped. It takes more than a few column inches to properly convey the importance of this work and especially the passion of those who volunteer and thus make it all happen.

Hear All About It

While growing up in rural Maine, Eileen Richard didn’t get to watch much television.

“My mother didn’t believe in it,” she recalled, adding quickly that she did believe in books, and this was a passion soon shared by her four daughters, who literally couldn’t wait for the next visit from the bookmobile.

And it’s a passion that has never left Richard, who began reading for the blind in various capacities some four decades ago. She has worked and volunteered in many settings since, and actually came back to reading for the blind (at VER) because, in her previous role as a volunteer at Baystate Children’s Hospital, the patients were so absorbed by their electronic devices that there was no call for Richard to read to them.

So she started reading the Daily Hampshire Gazette on VER and thoroughly enjoys every minute of it, especially the small items on animals up for adoption.

“I call it my pet project, and I have a tendency to read them as if I am the animal involved,” she explained. “If it’s a male dog, I might lower my voice and say, ‘hi … boy, you really need to meet me; I’m a wondrous pet, and I’m friendly, but not too friendly — I won’t jump all over you.’

“I really try to put my personality into whatever pet it is, be it a rabbit, a cat, or a dog,” she said, adding that she reads to people as if she were sitting in a room with them. “I like to read with personality.”

And the listeners like that personality, apparently, said Loh, adding that Richard has many fans, especially Larry Humphries, a long-time VER board member who insisted on having Richard attend the gathering marking his retirement from the board because he wanted to meet the woman behind the voice.

“You feel like you are so cared for, even on the radio, when you are listening to Eileen,” said Loh. “It really is amazing.”

The same can be said of the more than 50 people who volunteer in various ways for VER, and especially those who take to the mic to bring the news — and some companionship — home.

It has been this way since 1977, said Anderson, noting that the station is now part of a network of six stations throughout the Bay State operating under the name Talking Information Center (TIC).

Volunteers now read a number of daily weekly and monthly publications that cover Hampden and Hampshire counties, he said, adding that the service is vital because newspapers are usually the only source of what would be considered very local news.

By that, he meant everything from obituaries to church outings; from Little League scores to letters to the editor; from the daily horoscope to service-club gatherings (yes, like that photo of Loh receiving a check from the Lions Club).

That kind of news isn’t available on traditional radio or television, and one couldn’t get it on their cell phone, either, Anderson noted, adding that VER brings it to those who have lost their sight or seen it diminish to the point where they can’t read anymore.

And it delivers much more than the daily or weekly news, he went on, adding that, over the past few years, VER has been taking its act on the road, if you will, and, by doing so, it is taking its listeners to various events through that special radio that sits in their home.

“We’ve been going out into the community more, and I’ve been doing more interviews and recordings at various events to try to bring people even more than just the newspapers,” Anderson explained. “There are a lot of events going on with some very important information for people, and if you have that kind of disability, you’re reliant on someone to bring you someplace, and it’s often not possible to get to some things.

“So I’ve been going out and doing those kinds of things,” he went on, adding that he has taken VER and its listeners to everything from elder-care conferences to the recent Thrive After 55 Fair at Western New England University, to a senior symposium at Greenfield Community College.

When the Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., came to West Springfield, VER was there, with Anderson interviewing a number of veterans to capture their reflections on the experience.

Volunteer Chip Costello has been a long-time reader of BusinessWest.

Volunteer Chip Costello has been a long-time reader of BusinessWest.

Such outreach, as Anderson calls it, is a win-win for VER in that it provides additional services to listeners while also giving the nonprofit invaluable exposure at a time when many still don’t know about the station or its mission.

And that’s critical, because all this programming requires resources, said Anderson and Loh, adding that VER relies on a number of funding sources, including the state (although it hasn’t received any money from the Commonwealth since last summer), grants from area foundations such as the Community Foundation and Beveridge Foundation, individuals, and area businesses and civic groups — for example, the Lions Club underwrites the obituaries, A to Z Movers underwrites sports, and the law firm Shatz, Schwartz and Fentin underwrites elder-law news.

The Latest Word

Chip Costello, another volunteer, also has a personal connection to VER and its mission — actually, several of them.

While he was studying for his MBA at Western New England University, the nonprofit became the subject of a project involving several of the students.

“The point of the exercise was to go over and study it as a nonprofit organization, so we looked at it from that perspective,” he recalled. “I thought their mission was very interesting.”

Much later, while working at MassMutual as a national sales manager for the annuity product line, a different, much deeper connection was formed.

“My mother, who was a voracious reader, developed macular degeneration, and it got to the point where she just couldn’t read anymore,” he explained. “So I would go over there and read things to her. That’s why this is such a natural fit, especially when you can see the kind of impact such a condition can have of someone, when novels or stories or essays are so important to them, and suddenly they don’t have access to that. And it’s so easy to help.”

Costello shows up at the Valley Eye Radio studios on Hampden Street in Springfield (generously donated by WGBY) at 8 a.m. each Wednesday to prerecord the reading of stories in BusinessWest.

With his background in business, he finds that subject matter interesting, and understands that the stories he’s reading resonate with individuals who worked at a specific company or in a certain field. And the work enables him to give back to the community — something his former employer always stressed — in a way that he knows, from personal experience, can improve quality of life.

“I like the idea of working with nonprofits,” said Costello, who also teaches Gaelic and volunteers at his church now that he’s ‘retired.’ “I enjoy this and continue to do it because I feel it’s important.”

David Manning agreed. He’s a very recent addition to the corps of volunteers — he’s only been doing this for roughly two months — but he can already see how he’s changing lives by reading the Chicopee Register and other material.

Eileen Richard reads the Daily Hampshire Gazette live on VER, and will often take the role of an animal up for adoption.

Eileen Richard reads the Daily Hampshire Gazette live on VER, and will often take the role of an animal up for adoption.

Like Richard, he was drawn to the organization by the kind of local news content — in this case an editorial on VER and its mission that appeared in the Gazette and the Amherst Bulletin — that he would later be reading on the air.

“It rang a bell with me because, many years ago, when I started working, my interest was in working with deaf-blind children,” said Manning, adding that he has a deaf son and that the original plan for his career was to train at the Clarke School for Hearing and Speech to work with deaf children and later go on to the Perkins School in Boston to work with deaf-blind children.

However, he liked the work at the Clarke School so much, he stayed there 45 years. He retired and did ‘old-man things,’ as he called them, got sick of that, and decided that he needed to get back to do something meaningful. Those thought patterns coincided with his reading of that editorial on VER.

Today, he reads “anything and everything,” as he put it, a collective that includes everything from the Chicopee paper to the grocery inserts, with the latter running neck and neck with obituaries as perhaps the most popular segments on VER.

“I’ll tell people how much roast beef is a pound,” he told BusinessWest, adding that the service provided by VER resonates with him because he’s seen how his son, now in his 50s, can lose a sense of connectivity through his disability.

“I’ve seen how disabilities can affect people,” he noted. “I’ve seen how my son can sit in the middle of a crowd and not know what’s going on because he can’t hear what they’re talking about. That has helped sensitize me to the position a person with a disability finds themself in.”

Sound Reasoning

Upon wrapping up her interview with BusinessWest, Richard left for the studio and commenced reading some news from the Gazette.

Before long, she was taking the role of a cat up for adoption and putting on what could only be described as a hard sell.

Or maybe it was a soft sell, because, as advertised, she was talking to the audience in a calming voice and as she would if she was sitting with someone in her living room.

As Loh put it earlier, you have to feel like you’re cared for, even on the radio.

This is the magic of Valley Eye Radio, which brings its listeners all the news that’s fit to hear and, more importantly, provides those most precious commodities — companionship and connectivity.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

DBA Certificates Departments

The following business certificates and trade names were issued or renewed during the month of January 2018.

AMHERST

Pizza House of Amherst
17 Montague Road
Francisco Perez

Sev Kolysko
48 North Pleasant St., Suite 205
Seweryn Kolysko

Small Batch Books
493 South Pleasant St.
Fred Levine

TR Designs
43 Wildflower Dr.
Natasha Friedman

CHICOPEE

Alansari Auto Sales & Repair
926 Front St.
Abdull Whab Mustafa

Springfield Automotive Partners, LLC
295 Burnett Road
Peter Wirth

Yankee Glass Inc.
450 New Ludlow Road
Roy Sabourin

DEERFIELD

Brookside Cemetery
10 South Main St.
William Leno

Deerfield’s International Market
261 Greenfield Road
Tenzin Bhuti Rinchen

River Bend Farm
44A South Main St.
Richard Wysk

EASTHAMPTON

Beaudry Home Improvement
117 Ferry St.
Matthew Beaudry

Suite 3
180 Pleasant St.
David DelVecchio, Brian Scanlon

Tech Cavalry
180 Pleasant St.
David DelVecchio, Brian Scanlon

EAST LONGMEADOW

A.B.E. Chimney
111 Millbrook Dr.
Michael Ardrukonis

All Things Metal
15 Ainslie Dr.
Bruce Mackechnie

JB’s Ice Cream
622 North Main St.
Jeffrey Buzzelle

GREENFIELD

Arising Embodiment Healing Arts
50 Chapman St., Suite 2
Karla Muise

Beijing Restaurant of Greenfield Inc.
45 Main St.
Hui Chen

Doggie Dips & Clips
278 Federal St.
Karen Baker

Elizabeth Home
5-7 Congress St.
7 Congress St. Inc.

Fitness Through Cycling
306 High St.
Patricia Clements

Harper’s Store
404 Colrain Road
William Valvo

Namaste Nepalese/Indian Restaurant
286 Main St.
Saphal Singh Rana Magar

OCR, LLC
166 Federal St.
Marc Houlihan

HADLEY

Candy Stand
367 Russell St.
Syed Ali

Moe’s Southwest Grill
379 Russell St.
Sagar Shah

Panera Bread
351 Russell St.
PR Restaurants, LLC

Western MA Family Golf
294 Russell St.
Hollrock Engineering Inc.

HAMPDEN

A to Z Auto Sales Service
83 North Monson Road
Rebecca Paquette, Anthony Paquette

HOLYOKE

Executive Vending
154 Rock Valley Road
John LaRose

Fun Star
50 Holyoke St.
David Leichus

Onix Landscaping
329 Beech St.
Onix Gonzalez

Tri State Golf Marketing
72 Old Jarvis Ave.
Jerome Nomakeo

LUDLOW

Jeffrey’s Suit Rack
287 East St.
Jeffrey Clemons Sr.

NORTHAMPTON

Alchemy Healing Center
17 New South St., #104
Leta Herman, Jaye McElroy

Born Perfect
17 New South St., #104
Leta Herman, Jaye McElroy

Criminal Defense Northampton
94 King St.
Kevin Kelley

Karuna Center for Yoga and Healing Arts
25 Main St.
Paul Menard

Northampton Tire and Auto Service
182 King St.
Kurt Zimmerman

Somewhere Is Here
17 New South St., #104
Leta Herman, Jaye McElroy

Toward Harmony Tai Chi & Qigong
16 Center St., Suite 527
Charles Ryan

PALMER

CKS
46 Wilbraham Road
Kevin Kolakowski

County Corner Citgo Inc.
5 Springfield St.
Peter McKearney

Mass Biofuels Co.
15 Old Farm Road
Joseph Turek

SOUTHWICK

57 Hair, LLC
610 College Highway, Suite 12A
Adam Oliveri

Southwick Computer Repair
4 Island Pond Road
Robert Cranston

SPRINGFIELD

350 Grill
350 Worthington St.
Sherri Lynn Via

AAW Removals
94 Grover St.
Anthony Alonzo

AGS X Press
15 Crow Lane
Kavon Smith

Alcogen Engineering Solutions
12 Steuben St.
Amir Hasan

AMG Retail I, LLC
707 Dickinson St.
AMG Retail I, LLC

Elegant Barbershop
135-137 Boston Road
Pedro Genao

Express Auto Sales Inc.
1103-1107 State St.
Amjad Hussain

Fancy Nails
1655 Boston Road
Thi Tai

Gemini Property Management
127 Carnavon Circle
Rickford Fraser

Love Nails Inc.
1349 Allen St.
Chun Ri Zhao

Michelman Law Offices
1333 East Columbus Ave.
Jay Michelman

Milliam Jewelry & More
92 Fieldston St.
Milliam Bermudez

Monsoon Roastery
143 Main St.
Timothy Monson

Red Oak Properties
66 Cumberland St.
Alexandre Pazmandy

Renee’s Visuals Three
55 Marengo Park
Renee’s Flowers

Sprint
1300 Boston Road
Sprint Spectrum, LP

Tiny Tykes Daycare
77 Fisher St.
Rosany Santiago

WARE

Apex Automotive
96 West St.
Jason Thomas

Jackson Hewitt Tax Service
352 Palmer Road
Jay Benge

Ware Built Timber Frame
19 Sheehy Road
Eric Moulton

Ware Service Center
290 Palmer Road
Joe Pocai

WEST SPRINGFIELD

A2 Business Services
5 Sunnyside St.
Jeanette Brennan

Balise Mazda
635 Riverdale St.
Balise Motor Sales

Bliny Crepes Tea House
261 Union St.
Arturas Ribinskas

Ezee Mart
622 Kings Highway
Ezee Shop Inc.

Girard LP
1343 Riverdale St.
Charles Mercier

Jason Freitag Electrician
355 Lancaster Ave.
Jason Freitag

Joe’s Landscaping
62 Worthen St.
Joseph Schmidt

Kelly Bouchard, DMD, PC
103 Van Deene Ave.
Kelly Bouchard

WILBRAHAM

Battlefront Pro Wrestling
15 Bartlett Court
Daniel Gore

The Bilberry Salon
2141 Boston Road
Laura Grondin

Hypnosis for Life
14 West Colonial Road
David Preto

Life Care Center of Wilbraham
2399 Boston Road
Dennis Lopata

State & Bond, LLC
215 Stony Hill Road
Steven Barton

Chamber Corners Departments

1BERKSHIRE
www.1berkshire.com
(413) 499-1600

• Jan. 27: BYP Winter Ball, 7-11 p.m., hosted by Country Club of Pittsfield. Let’s take an evening to dress up and enjoy a ball together. It’s an inexpensive way to enjoy an elegant evening with music, heavy hors d’oeuvres, elegance, and an excuse to dress to the nines — and much more — with friends. Cost: $25 for members, $35 for non-members.
• Feb. 27: Entrepreneurial Meetup, 8-10 a.m., hosted by Dottie’s Coffee Lounge, Pittsfield. Join us for networking and share what you’ve been working on in an open-mic format. 1Berkshire’s Entrepreneurial Meetups are free events that gather entrepreneurs together to network, learn, and engage. They provide small-business owners, or people interested in starting a business, opportunities to have casual, organic conversations with peers and resource providers.
• Feb. 28: Good News Business Salute, 4:30-6:30 p.m., hosted by Zion Church, Pittsfield. Come celebrate Jacob’s Pillow, IS183, and more. This event recognizes major milestones, including anniversaries, expansions, and new product lines of Berkshire businesses, and gives us a chance to come together to applaud their efforts. Member cost: $35 for individual, $140 for table of four, $280 for table of eight. Non-member cost: $45 for individual, $180 for table of four, $360 for table of eight.

AMHERST AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.amherstarea.com
(413) 253-0700

• Feb. 8: After 5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Bistro 63, 63 North Pleasant St., Amherst. Sponsored by Greenfield Savings Bank.

GREATER CHICOPEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

• Jan. 23: B2B Roundtable, 8-9 a.m., hosted by Polish National Credit Union, 923 Front St., Chicopee. Sponsored by CHH Engraving Inc. An opportunity to connect and increase your contacts, generate leads, and establish relationships with other businesses. Cost: free to chamber members, but limited to one representative per business industry. Call Sarah Williams at (413) 594-2101, ext. 103, for more information or to sign up.
• Jan. 31: ChamberMaster Training, 9-11 a.m., hosted by Hampton Inn Chicopee, 600 Memorial Dr. This is a brief presentation on how to use ChamberMaster for chamber members. This is a great tool for all chamber members for some free advertising. Cost: free to chamber members. Sign up online at chicopeechamber.org/events.
• Feb. 9: Business After Hours, 4:30-6:30 p.m., hosted by Berchmans Hall Rotunda, Elms College, 291 Springfield St., Chicopee. Network with chamber members at this annual event. Meet with students who are learning about the importance of networking and share your insights with them. Hors d’oeuvres, cash bar, and raffle prizes. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members.
• Feb. 15: CEO Power Hour Luncheon with Spiros Hatiras, 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., hosted by Collegian Court, 89 Park St., Chicopee. Sponsored by Westfield Bank. Come enjoy lunch and listen as Hatiras talks about his journey as president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center. Cost: $30 for members, $35 for non-members.
• Feb. 21: February Salute Breakfast, 7:15-9 a.m., hosted by Castle of Knights, 1599 Memorial Dr., Chicopee. Sponsored by Insurance Center of New England. Cost: $23 for members, $28 for non-members, $250 monthly sponsor.

GREATER EASTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

• Feb. 8: Networking by Night, 5-7 p.m., hosted by the Boylston Rooms, 122 Pleasant St., Suite #112, Easthampton. Sponsored by Tanya Costigan Events. This is a great networking opportunity and an opportunity to tour the new Boylston Rooms.
• Feb. 27: Strengths-based Leadership, 7:45-10 a.m., hosted by Innovative Business Systems, Mill 180, 180 Pleasant St., Easthampton. In the first of a two-part series, Colleen DelVecchio, a certified CliftonStrengths coach, will lead us into our strongest selves as leaders via our personnel Gallup StrengthFinder assessment and insight reports. For more information, visit www.easthamptonchamber.org or call the chamber office at (413) 527-9414.

GREATER HOLYOKE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.holyokechamber.com
(413) 534-3376

• Jan. 24: Candidate & Elected Officials Reception, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Gary Rome Hyundai, 150 Whiting Farms Road, Holyoke. Sponsored by Dowd Insurance, the Republican, Marcotte Ford, Comcast Business, Holyoke Medical Center, and Ferriter Law. Join the Greater Holyoke business community in congratulating newly elected officials and rubbing elbows with local legislators. Featured keynote speaker: U.S. Rep. Richard Neal. Guest speaker: Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center. Cost: $40, which includes appetizers, food stations, and an open bar. Sign up online at holyokechamber.com.
• Jan. 31: ACE, Ask a Chamber Expert: Social Media Strategic Plan, 8:30-10 a.m., hosted in the executive conference room of the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, 177 High St., Holyoke. The chamber welcomes chamber expert Heather Turner, chief log roller at Forfeng Designs and Media, who will share her expertise on how to design a winning social-media strategy. Cost: free for chamber members, $15 for non-members.

GREATER NORTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900

• Feb. 7: February Arrive @5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Christopher Heights, 50 Village Hill Road, Northampton. A networking event. Cost: $10 for members.

GREATER WESTFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

• Feb. 5: Mayor’s Coffee Hour, 8-9 a.m., hosted by Holiday Inn Express, 39 Southampton Road, Westfield. Join us for our monthly Mayor’s Coffee Hour with Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested at (413) 568-1618 so we may give our host a head count.
• Feb. 13: After 5 Connection, 5-7 p.m., hosted by ReStore Westfield (Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity), 301 East Main St., Westfield. Bring your business cards and make connections. Refreshments will be served. A 50/50 raffle will support the chamber’s Scholarship Fund. Cost: free for chamber members, $10 for general admission.

SOUTH HADLEY & GRANBY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.shgchamber.com
(413) 532-6451

• Jan. 23: Annual Meeting, 5:30-8:30 p.m., hosted by Willits-Hallowell Center, Mount Holyoke College, 26 Park St., South Hadley. An opportunity for chamber members to socialize with old friends in the business community and make new ones. A cocktail hour will be followed by dinner. The brief meeting will introduce the board of directors, describe the chamber’s various committees and their functions, and open discussion of 2018 calendar/plans/suggestions for the coming year.

SPRINGFIELD REGIONAL CHAMBER
www.springfieldregionalchamber.com
(413) 787-1555

• Jan. 23: C-Suite Conversations & Cocktails, 5-7 p.m., hosted by CityStage, One Columbus Center, Springfield. Members-only event. Cost: $25 in advance, $30 at the door. To make a reservation, visit www.springfieldregionalchamber.com, e-mail [email protected], or call (413) 755-1310.

WEST OF THE RIVER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.ourwrc.com
(413) 426-3880

• Feb. 7: Wicked Wednesday, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Carrabba’s Italian Grill, West Springfield. Wicked Wednesdays are monthly social events, hosted by various businesses and restaurants, that bring members and non-members together to network in a laid-back atmosphere. For more information, contact the chamber office at (413) 426-3880, or register at www.westoftheriverchamber.com.
• Feb. 13: Lunch & Tour at the Bistro LPVEC – West Springfield, noon to 1:30 p.m. Join fellow members and non-members for a networking lunch at the Bistro at Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative, followed by an informative discussion on the value of gaining skills in the trades industry and how we can promote to fill local jobs. Sponsorships are available for this event. Register online at [email protected].

Agenda Departments

Retirement and Elder-care Planning Seminar

Feb. 3: A retirement and elder-care planning seminar will take place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Church in the Acres, 1383 Wilbraham Road, Springfield. Presenters include David Fedor, certified financial planner, practitioner, and chartered retirement planning counselor from Commonwealth Financial Network; Sharon Connor from Choices Elder Support; Mary-Anne Schelb from JGS Lifecare; Jennifer Kinsman from Acti-Kare; and Lisa Beauvais, estate-planning attorney. This event is free and open to the public. Call (413) 726-9044 to RSVP.

Free Legal Help Hotline

Feb. 8: The Hampden County Bar Assoc. will hold a Legal Help Hotline in conjunction with Western New England University School of Law from 4 to 7 p.m. at Western New England University School of Law, 1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield. The volunteers will provide legal advice on a variety of topics, including divorce and family law, bankruptcy, business, landlord/tenant, and real estate. Additionally, in light of recent immigration developments, attorneys with immigration-law experience will be available to answer questions. Spanish-speaking attorneys will also be available. Individuals needing advice should call (413) 796-2057 to speak to a volunteer.

40 Under Forty Nomination Deadline

Feb. 16: BusinessWest magazine will accept nominations for the 40 Under Forty Class of 2018 through the end of the work day (5 p.m.) on Friday, Feb 16. The annual program, now in its 12th year, recognizes rising stars within the Western Mass. community, which includes Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties. This year’s group of 40 will be profiled in the magazine’s April 30 edition, then toasted at the June 21 gala at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke (see below). The nomination form, which can be found online HERE, requests basic information and can be supported with other material, such as a résumé, testimonials, and even press clippings highlighting an individual’s achievements in their profession or service to their community.

Inclusive Sports Sampler

Feb. 17: For parents of young adults who have an IDD (intellectual or developmental disability), there is one challenge shared by all: identifying inclusive and accessible recreational experiences in their local community that offer opportunities for peer connections and fun, at low cost. Best Buddies, CHD Disability Resources, and Extra Innings understand this challenge firsthand and have combined resources to offer a solution. These organizations are teaming up to present the Young Adult Sports Sampler. This event gives members of the community who have an IDD, ages 14-22, an opportunity to sample several activities at once, in one location. The Young Adult Sampler takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at Extra Innings, 340 McKinstry Ave., #250, Chicopee. A wide range of accessible and inclusive activities will be offered, including dance and movement, martial arts, intro to sled hockey, Wiffle ball, baseball simulator, and intro to adaptive bikes. There is no cost to attend, but an RSVP is appreciated. Contact Jessica Levine at [email protected] by Saturday, Feb. 10.

EMT Training Program

March 5 to June 20: Holyoke Community College, in collaboration with the Quaboag Valley Community Development Corp. and Emergency Medical Training Solutions, is offering an EMT training program at the E2E: Quaboag Region Workforce Training and Community College Center at 79 Main St., Ware. The EMT-B Emergency Medical Technician Basic course meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 10 p.m. and on select Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The 13-week program consists of more than 170 hours of in-class lectures and additional online study, training, field trips, and workshops designed to prepare students for the state EMT certification exam. The course covers all aspects of emergency care, including patient handling, extrication, communication, working with law enforcement, legal issues, ethics, medical equipment, and safe transportation of patients. The course fee is $1,099 plus $200 for texts. For more information or to register, contact Ken White at (413) 552-2324 or [email protected], or visit www.hcc.edu/workforce.

Difference Makers

March 22: The 10th annual Difference Makers award program, staged by BusinessWest, will be held at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House. The winners will be announced and profiled in the Jan. 22 issue. Difference Makers is a program, launched in 2009, that recognizes groups and individuals that are making a difference in this region. Tickets to the event cost $75 per person, with tables of 10 available. To order, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100 or visit HERE. Sponsors to date include Sunshine Village and Royal, P.C. Sponsorship opportunities are still available by calling (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

40 Under Forty Gala

June 21: BusinessWest’s 12th annual 40 Under Forty Gala is a celebration of 40 young business and civic leaders in Western Mass. The lavish cocktail party, to be held starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke, will feature butlered hors d’oeuvres, food stations, and entertainment — and, of course, the presentation of the class of 2017. Also, the third Continued Excellence Award honoree will be announced. Tickets will go on sale soon at $75 per person (tables of 10 available), and the event always sells out quickly. For more information, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or e-mail [email protected].

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

CHICOPEE DISTRICT COURT
Eduardo Carattini v. Sargeant West II Apartments and Mount Holyoke Management, LLC
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $1,949
Filed: 12/13/17

Carmen Esquilin-Campos v. Sahara & Sahara, LLC
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $6,362.20
Filed: 12/18/17

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT
EP Floors Corp. v. District Cider Co. Inc.
Allegation: Breach of contract; failure to pay contractually required down payment for agreed-upon services: $19,742
Filed: 12/27/17
HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Antonia Rodriguez v. Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, et al
Allegation: PVTA bus negligently struck plaintiff’s vehicle, causing injury: $8,969.95
Filed: 12/11/17

Linda Mansur v. 270 West Street Ludlow Realty Trust, Frank Arduino, and Holly Arduino
Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $60,890.60
Filed: 12/12/17

Alton E. Gleason Co. Inc. v. Ed Speight & Co. Inc. and Edward T. Speight
Allegation: Money owed for services, labor, and materials: $74,700
Filed: 12/13/17

HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT
A.J. Virgilio Construction Inc. v. Town of Ware through its selectmen Nancy J. Talbot, Alan G. Whitney, Tracy R. Opalinski, John E. Carroll, and Michael P. Fountain
Allegation: Breach of contract; money owed for labor, materials, and equipment: $15,705.55
Filed: 12/19/17

Robert Shover v. G4S Secure Integration, LLC; Adesta, LLC; and John Doe as agent/manager
Allegation: Failure to pay prevailing wages, failure to pay overtime wages, fraud and misrepresentation: $100,000
Filed: 12/19/17

FRANKLIN SUPERIOR COURT
Michael J. Duda v. Hulmes Transportation Services Ltd. and Michael Silva
Allegation: Negligence; failure to use shoulder belt to strap in plaintiff on Hulmes bus and failure to slow down at flashing yellow lights, causing injury when bus hit bump and plaintiff lifted out of his wheelchair and slammed back down: $152,106.75
Filed: 11/14/17

HOLYOKE DISTRICT COURT
Pedro Perez and Travelers Insurance Co. v. Gilberto Rivera d/b/a Gil’s Auto Repair & Performance
Allegation: Negligence; failure to perform motor-vehicle inspection properly; plaintiff injured when vehicle’s suspension failed and wheel collapsed on the highway: $24,999
Filed: 12/14/17

PALMER DISTRICT COURT
Robert A. Staniewicz v. Riverview Auto Sales, LLC
Allegation: Fraud in sale of goods; breach of warranty: $10,000
Filed: 12/22/17

WESTFIELD DISTRICT COURT
Krysten Gasparrini v. Massachusetts Willows Limited Partnership d/b/a the Willows Apartment Home
Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing injury: $2,400.84
Filed: 1/5/18

Columns Sections

Finance: A Primer on the TCJA

By David Kalicka

David Kalicka

David Kalicka

It is important to note that, although many business changes are permanent, the individual changes are temporary. The changes in tax rates, standard deductions, and personal exemptions will expire in 2025, unless extended at some future date.

Individual Tax Changes

Tax rates: Lower individual income-tax rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and a top rate of 37%. (The current rates would be restored in 2026, i.e. 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, and 39.6%).

Standard deduction: Single $12,000, increased from $6,350 (2017). Married filing joint $24,000, increased from $12,700 (2017).

Personal exemptions: Eliminated. Under prior law, exemptions would have been $4,150 each for 2018.

Child tax credit: Temporarily increased to $2,000 per child under 17 (was $1,000) and new $500 credit for dependents other than child.  These credits phase out for higher-income taxpayers.

Itemized Deductions: Deduction for taxes (income taxes and real-estate taxes) limited to $10,000 per year.

Mortgage interest: For mortgage debt incurred after Dec. 15, 2017, interest deduction limited to acquisition debt of $750,000. Acquisition debt incurred prior to that date is still subject to the $1 million limit.

Home equity loan/line of credit interest deduction eliminated beginning in 2018, regardless of when the home-equity loan originated.

The deduction for contributions of cash to public charities will be limited to 60% of AGI beginning in 2018 (prior limit was 50% of AGI).

Miscellaneous itemized deductions have been eliminated. This category included unreimbursed employee business expenses and investment expenses. Under prior law, these were deductible to the extent they exceeded 2% of AGI.

• In view of the elimination or limitation of certain deductions and the increase in the standard deduction, fewer taxpayers will be itemizing. To maximize the benefit of deductions, you should consider bunching allowable deductions in alternating years. For example, a married couple with no mortgage and state and local income taxes and real-estate taxes of at least $10,000 will need an additional $14,000 to exceed the standard deduction. Combining multiple years’ charitable contributions in one year may be a way to benefit from itemizing in a particular year. One technique for doing this is a donor-advised fund.

Elimination of other deductions: The moving-expense deduction has been eliminated.

Alimony: For divorce agreements executed after Dec. 31, 2018, alimony will no longer be deductible by the payer or taxable to the recipient. If anticipated, any such agreement should be reviewed in light of the new law to determine the effects of timing.

Alternative minimum tax: The individual AMT has been retained, but the exemption has been increased. With the limitation on taxes and the elimination of miscellaneous itemized deductions, fewer people will be subject to AMT.

Section 529 plans: These plans can now be used to pay up to $10,000 per year for private elementary or secondary school tuition.

Casualty and theft losses: The itemized deduction for casualty and theft losses has been suspended except for losses incurred in a federally declared disaster.

Estate and Gift Taxes

For decedents dying and gifts made after Dec. 31, 2017 and before Jan. 1, 2026, the federal exclusion has been doubled to roughly $11 million per person. Keep in mind that this expires in 2025 and then reverts to about $5.5 million per person.

Taxpayers with large estates should consider the benefit of making large gifts now to take advantage of this temporary increase in exemption.

Business Tax Provisions

These provisions have been made permanent in the new tax law unless otherwise indicated.

C-corporation: Flat corporate tax rate of 21% (old law 15%-35%). This low tax rate is attractive; however, keep in mind that there is a second level of tax when the corporation pays dividends or is liquidated. Also, C-corporations have additional potential penalty taxes (personal holding company tax and accumulated earnings tax).

Pass-through entities: Many S-corporation shareholders, LLC members, partners, and sole proprietors will be able to deduct 20% of their pass-through income. This seems like a simple concept. Unfortunately, there are some very complex rules depending upon the individual’s taxable income and whether the business is a professional service business or real-estate business. It is not practical to try to explain these rules in this communication. Therefore, you should consult with your tax adviser to discuss the optimal entity choice for your business and how you can plan to take additional advantage of some of these rules.

DPAD repealed: The new law repeals the domestic production activities deduction for tax years beginning after 2017.

Entertainment expenses: No longer deductible (50% deductible under prior law). Business meals remain deductible subject to the same substantiation rules and limitations. The 50% disallowance is expanded to cover meals provided via an in-house cafeteria or otherwise on the employer’s premises

Section 179 expensing: Annual limit increased to $1,000,000 (previous limit was $500,000). Also, the expanded definition of assets eligible for section 179 includes certain depreciable tangible personal property used predominantly to furnish lodging or in connection with furnishing lodging. The definition of qualified real property eligible for expensing is also expanded to include the following improvements to non-residential real property after the date such property was first placed in service: roofs; heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning property; fire protection and alarm systems; and security systems.

Bonus depreciation: increased to 100% (from 50% under prior law) for property placed in service after Sept. 27, 2017 and before Jan. 1, 2023, and expanded to include used tangible personal property. After 2022, it phases down by 20% each year until Jan. 1, 2027.

Luxury auto depreciation limits: Under the new law, for a passenger automobile for which bonus depreciation is not claimed, the maximum depreciation allowance is increased to $10,000 for the year it’s placed in service, $16,000 for the second year, $9,600 for the third year, and $5,760 for the fourth and later years in the recovery period. These amounts are indexed for inflation after 2018. For passenger autos eligible for bonus first-year depreciation, the maximum additional first-year depreciation allowance remains at $8,000 as under pre-act law.

Business interest deduction limitation: For businesses with gross receipts in excess of $25 million, interest-expense deductions will be limited to 30% of adjusted taxable income. For years beginning before 2022, adjusted taxable income is computed without regard to depreciation and amortization. Any excess interest expense is carried over to future years. Real-estate businesses may elect out of this limitation. However, the election requires use of ADS depreciation, which results in longer depreciable lives and loss of bonus depreciation.

Net operating losses: There is no longer a carryback provision; however, the carry-forward period is now unlimited (previous law provided that NOLs could be carried back two years and forward 20 years). In addition, any losses incurred after Dec. 31, 2017 can offset only 80% of taxable income.

Excess business limit: The new tax law limits the ability of a non-corporate taxpayer to deduct excess business losses. After application of passive loss rules, the deduction of business losses is limited to $500,000 per year for taxpayers filing jointly and $250,000 for others. The excess loss is carried forward as part of the taxpayer’s net operating loss. This provision applies to tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2017 and prior to Jan. 1, 2026.

As you can see from this brief summary, the new law is extremely complex. You should consult with your tax adviser to fully explore how to take advantage of the opportunities and to minimize the impact of the negative changes.

David Kalicka, CPA serves as partner emeritus for the Holyoke-based public accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.; (413) 536-8510; [email protected]

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Robinson Donovan, P.C. promoted former law clerk Kailee Wilson to the role of associate attorney following her admission to both the Massachusetts and Connecticut bars.

Wilson is a 2017 graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law. While attending law school, she also interned with the school’s Tax Clinic, gaining skills and insights that have proven invaluable to her current business practice. In addition, she is now a member of the Massachusetts Bar Assoc., the Hampden County Bar Assoc., and the Connecticut Bar Assoc.

“Kailee had a very successful year at Robinson Donovan, P.C., and we are thrilled that she is expanding her role at our firm,” said Partner James Martin. “Kailee has been a real asset to our firm, and we look forward to her having a successful career here.”

Wilson assists clients in the areas of business and corporate counseling, commercial real estate, and estate planning. Outside of work, she channels her passion for advocacy into her role as a volunteer coach with the Special Olympics and in the Alumni in Admissions program for her alma mater, Bates College.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Hampden County Bar Assoc. will hold a Legal Help Hotline in conjunction with Western New England University School of Law on Thursday, Feb. 8, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Western New England University School of Law, 1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield.

The volunteers will provide legal advice on a variety of topics, including divorce and family law, bankruptcy, business, landlord/tenant, and real estate. Additionally, in light of recent immigration developments, attorneys with immigration-law experience will be available to answer questions. Spanish-speaking attorneys will also be available. Individuals needing advice should call (413) 796-2057 to speak to a volunteer.

Daily News

AMHERST — Theresa Curry has been named executive director of Planned Giving at UMass Amherst. Curry, an attorney, has extensive experience in business and organizational development, nonprofit giving, and gift administration.

“We are delighted that Theresa Curry will be joining UMass Amherst’s development team,” said Vice Chancellor of Development and Alumni Relations Mike Leto. “She brings deep expertise in estate planning to this role, as well as her considerable impact and success in fund-raising for higher education.”

Curry comes to UMass Amherst from the University of New Hampshire Foundation, where she held several senior management positions in gift planning since 2012. Most recently, she served as assistant vice president for Gift Planning and Administration at UNH. She established UNH’s gift-planning program and played a major role in its recent $275 million fund-raising campaign.

Previously, Curry established gift-planning programs as regional director of Philanthropy at the ALS Assoc. and as the capital campaign manager for Merrimack College. She has worked as an employee, consultant, volunteer, and lawyer in gift planning since 1998. She holds a juris doctor degree from the William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minn., and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Minnesota. She is also a triathlete and distance runner.

Features

Engaging Work

JC Schnabl

JC Schnabl

The UMass Amherst Alumni Assoc. has been in business since 1871. Its informal mission — to engage alums and begin (and continue) a dialogue concerning the importance of giving back to the institution, hasn’t changed over the past 147 years. But like the university itself, the alumni association has been expanding, elevating its game, and developing new strategies for inspiring graduates to invest in their alma mater.

JC Schnabl’s office in Memorial Hall is decorated with something approaching a nautical theme. There are several large framed paintings of sailing ships, including the U.S.S. Constitution.

When asked about it, with the expectation of an acknowledged personal fondness for ships, sailing, or both, Schnabl, assistant vice chancellor of Alumni Relations and executive director of the UMass Amherst Alumni Assoc., said there was some of that. But there was much more to these choices for his walls, he admitted.

Indeed, he was looking for something that said ‘Massachusetts’ or ‘New England’ — sort of … maybe. But he was also looking for something that didn’t just say ‘Massachusetts’ or ‘New England,’ and would appeal to a broader audience.

“I didn’t want to put something up that was Boston-specific,” he explained. “Old Ironsides is kind of a national emblem, and it’s broadly applicable to our alumni audience.”

And in many ways, his job, and his office’s mission, is much the same. There is a local focus to it, obviously, because there are so many graduates of the university living and working in Massachusetts, with the largest concentration (nearly half the total) being inside the Route 128 beltway around Boston. But the reach, and the message, has to be broader, because there are alums — 265,000 of them, according to the latest count — in every state and dozens of countries.

And that message is, in a word, ‘engagement’ with UMass Amherst, with engagement being an immensely broad term that is generally synonymous with ‘involvement,’ which can obviously come in many forms and flavors, said Schnabl.

For These Alums, Engagement Has Become a Passion

Vinnie Daboul remembers how it all started, and he tells the story often, because he says it’s important.

It was back in 1995, when Daboul, now a partner with Sage Benefit Advisers, was working for Phoenix Home Life. He was invited by someone at the Isenberg School of Management, which he attended a decade earlier, to speak to students about his work and his industry. Read More:

Financial support is perhaps the most obvious and important. It is the elephant in the room and the key to almost every one of the university’s ongoing efforts to climb higher in the rankings of the nation’s top institutions, he noted, adding that there is a significant, and in many ways needed, blurring of the lines when it comes to the work done by alumni-relations offices and development offices, as we’ll see later.

But engagement — and involvement — come in many other forms as well, said Schnabl, from support of athletic teams to mentoring of students, soon-to-be-graduates, and alums; from networking to efforts of all kinds to help build the university’s brand.

“We’re the mechanism that the university employs to engage alumni — and students who are going to become alumni  —in the future of the university,” said Schnabl, summing up the overarching mission of his office. “In an environment where universities across the country are trying to turn their alumni associations into a broad fund-raising arm of the university, our chancellor has a belief that our strategy of engagement is equally important.

“We don’t want a scenario where the first time someone hears from the university, we’re asking for money,” he went on, adding, again, that money is vital to the school’s success. “Frequently, it’s ‘how can we help? How can we help with your career goals? How can we reconnect you with the university, a place where you spent four or five years and absolutely loved? How do we engage you with alumni who are doing things you like to do?’”

Put simply, the alumni office wants graduates to become involved in what he called a ‘lifelong relationship’ with the university, and certainly not one that ends when the diploma is received at that huge ceremony in the football stadium.

Schnabl, who came to the university from a similar post at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), said he considered a number of potential landing spots as he commenced a search for jobs on the East Coast in early 2012 to be closer to his daughter as she attended school in North Carolina.

In UMass Amherst, he said, he saw a school on the rise, one that was building new facilities and building momentum at the same time. And he decided he wanted to be part of that.

And since arriving, and partly through his own lobbying efforts, UMass has elevated its game in the broad and ‘quirky’ (Schnabl’s word) world of alumni relations. Indeed, since his arrival, the alumni office has swelled from 16 full-time employees to 25, and has become more aggressive in its efforts to get alums involved in their alma mater.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Schnabl about this quirky business of alumni relations and how the university is committing more resources, and more attention, to the work of engaging its graduates.

School of Thought

There’s a large, framed map on a wall just outside a suite of offices in Memorial Hall. It details just where the university’s alums reside these days, and it’s colored, with dark red identifying the most heavily populated areas, white indicating the least populated regions, and progressively darker shades of pink showing those in between.

As might be expected, the Northeast, and especially Massachusetts, is dark red, as is much of Florida and some pockets of Arizona, the Carolinas, and California — the popular retirement spots, but also, in the case of the Research Triangle and Silicon Valley, where many graduates are finding jobs. Meanwhile, also as expected, huge swaths of the Midwest and South are white. Not many residents of those states go to UMass, and not many graduates go there to live or work.

Such information is obviously valuable, said Schnabl, but knowing where the graduates are is just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting alums involved or engaged.

Communicating with these individuals is a much bigger piece, as is sending a message that will inspire as much as it keeps the recipient informed.

Other pieces include events such as homecoming and reunions (there’s a large one on campus for each class marking its 50th anniversary, for example), as well as programs to get alums involved in their school, like a job-shadowing initiative in a few weeks that will involve several companies in the Bay State and beyond.

All this and more comes under the purview of the UMass Amherst Alumni Assoc., which operates, as most similar operations do, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency.

JC Schnabl says the broad mission for the alumni association is to engage alumni — and students who are going to become alumni — in the future of the university.

JC Schnabl says the broad mission for the alumni association is to engage alumni — and students who are going to become alumni — in the future of the university.

Around since 1871, nearly as long as the university, the association was created to engage graduates, said Schnabl, and, as he put it, “begin the dialogue concerning the importance giving back — of both their time and their money, and also being advocates for the university.”

That mission hasn’t changed in 147 years, but the manner in which it is carried out, at UMass and elsewhere, and the vehicles for doing so, including LinkedIn and Facebook, certainly have.

Schnabl has been in the alumni business, if you will, for more than 20 years now (after starting his professional career in law enforcement), and he’s seen a number of changes and emerging trends. Mostly, he’s seen forward-thinking colleges and universities become more serious about this business of alumni relations because of its importance to brand building and development.

So serious that schools, especially large public institutions, will now hire the best applicant they can find to lead such efforts, not the best applicant who is also an alum, as has been the case historically. Schnabl is an example — he did undergraduate work at the University of the Redlands just outside Los Angeles, and earned his MBA at the University of California at Irvine.

He stayed in California, and after working in law enforcement, “stumbled” into alumni relations, as he said most people working in this business do, by taking a job in that office at Long Beach State. He later took the lead job at Stanford.

As noted earlier, the UMass job was one of many he was considering when he decided he wanted to work close, but not too close, to his daughter. And it was one that intrigued him on a number of levels.

“UMass Amherst was poised for great things, and the alumni association was as well,” he said, adding that, when he interviewed for the position, he saw a school with considerable momentum and an alumni office with potential and an administration ready to make a bigger commitment to it.

Grade Expectations

As noted, there are several aspects to the work of all alumni offices, including the one at UMass, ranging from the writing, printing, and dissemination of magazines and newsletters to the staging of homecoming and other gatherings, to efforts to bring alumni from various academic programs, regions, and backgrounds together.

But at its core, the office’s primary focus now, more than ever, is to promote the value of philanthropy and thus increase constituent giving, and also to expand and promote available volunteer opportunities to broaden and diversify alumni support of the school’s students and its initiatives.

In other words, the office works to get people involved and — this is important — keep them involved, with involvement meaning writing checks to the university, but also much more.

When private universities graduate students, that’s not the first those students hear that it’s important to give back to the university. They hear it, starting not on the day they show up, but before they’re even thinking about going to that campus. They’re being indoctrinated into the notion that their support of the institution is going to be a lifelong commitment.”

It’s a process that needs to start early, and there must be constant reinforcement, said Schnabl, who talked about the need to instill what he called a “culture of philanthropy,” and notable progress with that assignment.

“When private universities graduate students, that’s not the first those students hear that it’s important to give back to the university,” he explained. “They hear it, starting not on the day they show up, but before they’re even thinking about going to that campus. They’re being indoctrinated into the notion that their support of the institution is going to be a lifelong commitment.

“Being a large public university that hadn’t really had that as part of our DNA, there was a lot of groundwork to lay,” he went on, adding that considerable work has been done in this regard. He started with a reference to the Commencement Ball.

As that name suggests, this is a gathering that takes place in the weeks leading up to commencement. Over the past several years, the event has seen explosive growth, from 700 attendees at the Student Union to more than 2,500 at a packed Mullins Center.

There is a fund-raising component to the ball, said Schnabl, noting that a portion of the ticket price is a donation to the university, hopefully the first of many.

“That makes them a donor to the university, which means we can communicate to those who participated and explain to them the importance of being a donor to the university,” he noted, “and how that money is going to help do everything from boost the rankings of the university to help other students come here and afford their time at UMass.”

There’s also the award-winning Multicolor Mile Run/Walk. This is an annual event at which participants — there’s a solid mix of students, alumni, faculty, and staff — traverse a one-mile loop through the campus while getting sprayed with liquid paint — hence the name. It’s fun event, but there’s a giving component here as well.

“They pay money to participate, and they take a ball that symbolizes their money and drop it in the bucket where they believe it should most effectively go in support of the institution,” he explained. “It usually winds up in the scholarship bucket.”

Yet, while working to stress the importance of philanthropy and giving back financially, the alumni association has also developed programs to engage graduates in other ways that build the brand.

One is the upcoming job-shadowing program, said Schnabl, adding that this is a new initiative designed to involve graduates in various fields with current students with an eye toward introducing them to potential job opportunities and giving them exposure to various business sectors.

“It’s an opportunity for a student to see what it’s like working for that industry in a way that being on campus doesn’t necessarily show them,” he explained, adding that it’s scheduled for January so that students can visit businesses near their homes while on winter break. “They get a day in the life at a particular business, but they also have exposure to an alum, to a professional field, and to a particular company so they can engage and potentially come through with jobs and internship possibilities.”

Several corporations, including Liberty Mutual, Target, Novartis, Genesis Health Care, the Pyramid Hotel Group, and others, are participating, he said, adding that more than 40 businesses, most of them in the Boston area, are hosting students.

Other initiatives include a mentoring program that also matches alums with current students, as well as affinity groups representing everything from various regions to the LGBT community. There’s also something called the Almuni Advisors Network, an online platform similar to LinkedIn.

“If a student or a young alum, or even an alum in transition, were looking to find out more about an industry or a career, they can tap into this wealth of information from people across the country and in a variety of different industries and set up an appointment to talk with them,” Schnabl explained. “They can take those career discussions and turn them into career opportunities.”

Meanwhile, volunteerism comes in many forms, from those in various industries advising the deans of specific schools to professionals advising individual students.

“Yes, their financial contributions are important, but their advocacy on behalf of the university is as important, if not moreso,” he noted, adding that alumni have been invaluable in communicating the importance of the university to economic development in the Bay State to the Legislature and the public at large.

Bottom Line

When asked how to measure success in his business — a question that’s being asked by many in that sector and in college presidents’ offices as well — Schnabl said there are a number of yardsticks.

They include everything from the number of hits on websites and clicks on specific articles in the magazines to attendance at the Commencement Ball, to the number of companies taking part in the job-shadowing program. The most important, obviously, is the level of donations to the school in question.

Ultimately, though, the greatest measures of success involve what is done with the dollars that are donated — new facilities, new programs, new opportunities for students to attend the university, and an upward trajectory in those all-important rankings of universities and individual schools within them.

Thus, some results are not visible, or measurable, for years.

For now, though, Schnabl believes UMass Amherst is making great strides in this business of alumni relations, and with building those lifelong relationships between graduates and the university that lie at its core.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Opinion

Opinion

By Rick Lord

The first half of the 2017-18 legislative session in Massachusetts was dominated by the issue of healthcare costs and the role employers should play in helping to close a budget gap in the state Medicaid program.

But larger battles await during 2018 as progressive activists seek to place three questions on the Massachusetts election ballot that would together impede economic growth for a generation. The initiatives would impose an 80% surtax on incomes more than $1 million for pass-through businesses, establish a $1.3 billion-per-year paid-leave program, and increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The three potential ballot questions would represent an unprecedented potential policy crisis for Massachusetts.

The constitutional tax amendment would raise from 5.1% to 9.1% the levy on income of more than $1 million per year, including income generated by subchapter S-corporations, LLPs, LLCs, partnerships, and other pass-through entities. The $1.9 billion tax increase would be paid by roughly 19,500 filers, 80% of whom are anticipated to file with some business income.

The paid-leave question would mandate 16 weeks of paid family leave and 26 weeks of paid medical leave for employees for a total projected cost of $1.3 billion.

The minimum-wage question would raise the wage from the current $11 per hour in annual $1-per-hour increments starting in 2019 until it reaches $15 an hour in 2022. That amounts to a projected increase of 36%.

Supporters of the paid-leave and minimum-wage questions filed the requisite number of signatures last month to move a step closer to the ballot. Massachusetts lawmakers now have until the end of April to consider and pass the initiatives. Any initiatives that are not adopted must gather and file an additional 10,792 signatures by July 3 to make the 2018 ballot.

The income-surtax constitutional amendment qualified for the ballot in 2016. In October, I joined four other prominent business leaders in filing a suit challenging the validity of the proposal, asserting that the amendment is riddled with constitutional flaws and would make the new tax essentially permanent and unchangeable.

“It is impossible to overstate the potential threat that these three ballot questions pose for Massachusetts employers.  The advocates supporting the questions are well-funded and are prepared to spend millions of dollars to get their message across to voters,” said John Regan, executive vice president of Government Affairs at Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

The ballot battle will take place just as employers begin to comply with the new Massachusetts Pay Equity Law on July 1. The law prohibits employers from discriminating based on gender in the payment of wages and other compensation for ‘comparable’ work. Many employers are already undertaking the internal wage studies that provide a safe harbor from litigation under the statute.

Rick Lord is president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.