Home Posts tagged Sections (Page 2)
Opinion
The Curse of I-91 Continues

Call it the ‘curse of I-91.’
Since about 20 minutes after it opened — and well before it was constructed, actually, when elected officials decided to build it on the east side of the Connecticut River rather than the west, as was originally planned  — this road has been a problem for the city of Springfield.

It slices through the downtown, effectively cutting it off from the river. It essentially destroyed much of the character and cohesiveness of the city’s South End neighborhood. And while it has helped this region promote itself as the ‘crossroads of New England’ — I-91 and the turnpike intersect here — the highway seems to have become more efficient at enabling people to pass through this area than stop here.

And now, the curse continues.

Indeed, at perhaps the most pivotal time in recent memory, a time when Springfield seems ready to shake off decades of stagnation and experience some real growth, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has decided that the highway’s viaduct section must undergo a massive repair and reconstruction project (see story, page 32).

When we say massive, we mean it. At $260 million, this repair project will cost more than the entire highway when it was built in the late ’60s. That price tag is several times higher than the next-largest public-works initiative in the region’s history — the Great River Bridge project in Westfield.

And massive is also the word that will undoubtedly be used to describe the negative impact that will result from what the DOT says could be two or three constructions seasons of work, but will more likely be more — perhaps much more.

Anyone who lived through the reconstruction of the Memorial Bridge, the I-91 ramp project that coincided with the opening of the new Basketball Hall of Fame, or the South End Bridge repair initiative knows that projections about how long and painful such undertakings will be are generally well off the mark.

For this latest project, the DOT is touting the virtues of something called ABC, or accelerated bridge construction, practices. This involves use of pre-cast concrete sections of road, work that continues something approaching 24/7, and other steps designed to reduce the duration, and therefore the headaches, of this project.

For those tempted to be skeptical — and to borrow from the famous line in that old movie — ‘be skeptical … be very skeptical.’

This project has the potential to make the Memorial Bridge project look like a minor inconvenience — and that took six years to complete after construction crews started tearing up the deck and discovered that practically the entire bridge had to be reconstructed, while it remained open.

The I-91 project will lead to ramp closures and the funneling of traffic to East and West Columbus avenues, roads that cannot handle much more traffic than they’re already handling. And portions of the I-91 North and I-91 South parking garages will be closed, creating more inconvenience for people trying to get to downtown office towers, Symphony Hall, and especially the Hampden County Hall of Justice, which is due to be replaced, but certainly not in time for this project.

There’s also the matter of MGM Springfield, the $800 million casino planned for the South End. If all goes well — meaning the attempt to ban gaming via a statewide referendum fails — construction on those facilities should start just around the same time work begins on the highway. This means that two of the biggest construction projects in the region’s history will be going on simultaneously — and within a few hundred feet of one another.

And then, there are those 17 days in September when the Big E opens its gates. I-91 is already bumper to bumper through many days of the fair, especially the weekends. Now imagine the situation when two of the six lanes of traffic are shut down and ramps off the highway are closed.

But there’s another aspect to this curse. On top of all this uncertainty and inconvenience, the repair project, deemed necessary and not to be delayed, will essentially end any and all talk of doing something more dramatic with the highway, such as taking it underground or to street level.

Those who say that federal and state governments won’t do anything with a road they just spent at least $260 million to repair are right on the money with their analysis. If (it’s more like when, the way things look now) this project proceeds as scheduled, this city will have to live with the viaduct for probably another half-century.

And that’s why you could certainly call this the ‘curse of I-91.’

Features
Difference Makers to Be Feted on March 20 at the Log Cabin

BizDiffMakrsLOGO2011You might call this the ‘Home Depot class.’

Indeed, there are some notable building, or home-restoration, stories involving this year’s roster of Difference Makers, as chosen recently by the staff at BusinessWest.

For example, there was the massive effort 30 years ago to restore and repurpose an old Victorian on Sheldon Street in Springfield, a structure — and a nonprofit — that have both become known as the Gray House. There was also the extensive work needed to convert the former School Street School in Springfield into the Youth Social Educational Training (YSET) Academy, created by Paula Moore to help keep young people off the city’s streets and out of trouble.

And then, there’s the ongoing work being carried out by Colleen Loveless, the first executive director of the Springfield chapter of Rebuilding Together, a national organization committed to helping low-income homeowners stay in their homes.

But beyond these literal building projects, the Difference Makers Class of 2014 has been figuratively building momentum in a number of realms — everything from early literacy to vital support for low-income residents, to high-quality healthcare for young people — and thus giving this region a stronger foundation on which to build for the future.

These stories will be told — and the Class of 2014 will be celebrated — at the annual Difference Makers Gala on March 20 at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House in Holyoke.

Tickets for the event are $60 each, with tables of 10 available. For more information, or to order tickets, call BusinessWest at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or visit here.

The Difference Makers program was launched by BusinessWest in 2009 as a different kind of recognition program. It was created to show the many different ways that groups and individuals can make a difference and improve quality of the life for the residents of Western Mass., and it has, by all accounts, succeeded in that mission.

Past recipients have been honored for work across many spectrums, from fighting crime in Holyoke to creating a hugely successful fund-raiser to combat breast cancer; from tireless work on behalf of the homeless to a 40-year effort to keep professional hockey alive and well in Springfield; from a creative initiative to give residents of Springfield’s North End their streets back, to inspiring work to fill the shelves of area school libraries.

This year’s class, as profiled in the Feb. 10 edition of the magazine (viewable here), certainly adds to that legacy of stepping up and giving back.

The honorees are:

The Gray House, which, for three decades now, has provided a range of services — from food and clothing to adult education programs — to not only residents of Springfield’s North End, but those who live in other sections of the city and other communities as well;

• Colleen Loveless, who, as the first executive director of the Springfield Chapter of Rebuilding Together, has put that organization on the path to continued growth, and positioned it to have a deep impact on both individual homeowners and entire neighborhoods within the city;

• The Melha Shrine Temple, the first fraternal organization recognized as a Difference Maker. It is changing lives in many ways, but especially through its efforts to fund the many Shriners Children’s Hospitals operating in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada (including the one on Carew Street in Springfield), and also by raising awareness of these facilities and thus bringing more children and families in need to their doors;

• Paula Moore, who started Youth Social Educational Training (YSET) Academy as a way to keep at-risk youths off the streets. And when the church that hosted the program decided it couldn’t do that any longer, she personally secured a loan and purchased the former School Street School to keep the initiative alive. Today, it provides a host of services, from preschool to after-school workshops on a wide variety of subjects; and

• Michael Moriarty
, an attorney, current director of the Olde Holyoke Development Corp., and now-former school committee member, who has been at the forefront of efforts to improve early-literacy rates in one of the Commonwealth’s poorest and most challenged communities.

The March 20 gala will feature entertainment, butlered hors d’oeuvres, lavish food stations, introductions of the honorees, and remarks from the honorees. Over the years, the gala has become one of the region’s best networking opportunities, and an event not to be missed.

This year will be no exception.

Law Sections
Make Sure Your Heirs Can Access Your Online Information

Todd C. Ratner

Todd C. Ratner

As a society, we have become more reliant on the Internet as a mechanism to keep in touch with family members and friends, share photographs, pay bills, and store other personal types of information. Digital assets are emerging as a new category of personal property.
They include digital images, electronic bank and investment account statements, e-mail records, and associated passwords, as well as social-media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. The use of digital assets will only continue to grow and evolve, and estate planners must recognize the emergence of digital assets when advising clients relative to their estate plans.
Many people erroneously believe that their spouse or next of kin may automatically step in to administer digital assets upon their incapacity or death. Although discussions have increased among legislatures regarding administration of digital assets, federal privacy laws prohibit service providers from knowingly divulging the contents of electronically stored documents, and only seven states (not including Massachusetts) have enacted statutes relative to the administration of digital assets. The validity of these state laws is unclear, since they sometimes conflict with federal law. In most cases, the user and their estate will be governed by the service-provider agreement provided by the online site.
Service-provider agreements play a large role in determining what happens to a decedent’s digital assets. Many times the user is made aware, or at least has the opportunity to be made aware, of these policies upon registering for an online service, typically by clicking a box signifying that they agree to the provider’s terms of use. However, these agreements greatly vary:
• Yahoo! explicitly provides within its agreement that the account may not be transferred, and Yahoo! retains the right to delete the content within the decedent’s e-mail account upon receipt of a death certificate.
• Gmail has a policy for potentially releasing e-mails to the personal representative of a decedent’s estate, but the agreement makes it clear that there is no guarantee that the e-mail content will be released, and a court order may be required.
• In April 2013, Google became the first service provider to offer a solution to obtaining access to a user’s account upon their death or incapacity. The feature, called the ‘Inactive Account Manager,’ may be accessed by the user during their lifetime on the user’s profile page. The Inactive Account Manager will become ‘activated’ after the user’s account is inactive for a period of three, six, nine, or 12 months, as determined by the user. The user may also determine what will happen to their data upon becoming inactive. For instance, the user may elect to delete the data, or some or all may be sent to a specific individual.
• Facebook, upon receiving notice that the user has passed away, will place the user’s profile in a ‘memorial state’ so that certain profile sections are available for viewing. That is, only the decedent’s confirmed Facebook friends may locate and post on the decedent’s profile. Facebook will also remove a decedent’s account from the site upon request by verified family members.
• Twitter will remove the decedent’s account from its ‘Who to Follow’ suggestions upon verification of death. And family member can contact Twitter to delete the decedent’s account entirely. However, Twitter will not allow family members access to a decedent’s account.
• YouTube will allow a power of attorney to access the decedent’s account.
• LinkedIn prohibits transferring a LinkedIn account to another party and provides that California law will govern all disputes.

Steps to Take
A personal representative has the fiduciary responsibility of administering a decedent’s estate, which includes discovering, protecting, and facilitating the transfer of all of the decedent’s property. Even in the event that the personal representative takes possession of a decedent’s tangible technology device, the personal representative may still face the challenge of accessing the digital assets. Therefore, it is recommended that the following steps be undertaken to facilitate access by your loved one to your digital assets:
• Create a list of your digital assets, including related account numbers, user names, and passwords. It is imperative to continually update this list every time you create a new digital asset or change a password.
• Keep that list in a secure place. There are a number of paid service companies that will retain this list for you and, upon your demise, provide the list to your designated beneficiaries. You may also use your own computer or a secure cloud-based service, such as Dropbox, to store your list. Just make sure that your decedents know where it is and how to access it. You do not want to place any passwords within your will, since a probated will becomes a public document. However, you may, alternatively, request that your estate-planning attorney retain this list within your estate-plan file.
• Leave deailed instructions regarding your wishes regarding how to use, terminate, or distribute your digital assets.
Our world has evolved. Instead of sending letters and keeping photo albums on a bookshelf, people are increasingly sending e-mails and loading pictures to social-media accounts. Currently, privacy laws and limited government interaction are hindering families of decedents from gaining access to a decedent’s online assets without prior planning, as the laws have not yet caught up with the practical issues and values that we now face relative to our digital assets. As such, proper planning and contemplation of digital assets in an estate plan will help your personal representative successfully administer your estate.

Todd C. Ratner is an estate-planning, elder-law, business, and real-estate attorney with the regional law firm Bacon Wilson, P.C. He serves as co-chair for the Alzheimer’s Assoc. Tri-County (Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin) Partnership and is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the Estate Planning Council of Hampden County. He is also a recipient of Boston Magazine’s Super Lawyers Rising Stars distinction from 2007 to 2012; (413) 781-0560; baconwilson.com/attorneys/ratner_2

Class of 2014 Difference Makers

Executive Director of the Springfield Chapter of Rebuilding Together

This Administrator Is Certainly a Momentum Builder
Collen Lovelace

Colleen Loveless

The large whiteboards in the conference room/kitchen of the Springfield office of Rebuilding Together are mostly clear at the moment.

The period from the holidays through the first few weeks of the new year are comparatively quiet at this agency — which touts itself as the “nation’s leading nonprofit working to preserve affordable homeownership and revitalize communities” — so there are only a handful of jobs, or projects, listed on the boards.

But that will change soon, said Colleen Loveless, executive director of the Springfield office, which is ramping up for what she expects will be another huge year. And as the calendar inches closer to the last Saturday in April, or National Rebuilding Day, as it’s called, those boards will be filled from top to bottom with projects, sponsoring groups, volunteer units, and other pertinent information.

It was that way last year, when the agency marked the occasion with a tightly coordinated campaign, aided by an army of 1,000 volunteers and 70 sponsors and donors, that changed the face of Tyler Street in Springfield’s Old Hill neighborhood. This ‘cluster rebuild’ — also called a Green-N-Fit project because of its focus on ‘green’-related initiatives such as converting heating systems from oil to natural gas — featured efforts to renovate, repair, and refurbish 25 homes on that street, most all of which were close to a century old, tired, and energy-inefficient.

The rebuild brought a new look to Tyler Street, but also new enthusiasm, new hope, and some unexpected consequences.

“One positive outcome from last year that we hadn’t anticipated was that neighbors who didn’t really know each other — everyone kind of sticks to themselves — did get to know each other,” she said. “And they’re now looking out for each other; there’s much more of a sense of community.”

The crowded whiteboards in the conference room have become one indicator of what Loveless has accomplished since she became the first executive director of this office more than four years ago and promptly began taking it to another, much higher level. But there are many others.

The Rebuilding Together brand

The Rebuilding Together brand, not to mention its reach, have been taken to a new level under the leadership of Colleen Loveless.

Most are to be found in the office’s front lobby. There hang collections of photographs chronicling last April’s cluster rebuild, as well as a recent project to rehab a transitional facility for 12 homeless veterans on Maple Court, and another to repair and refurbish 25 homes damaged by the June 2011 tornado that tore a path of destruction through the city. There’s also a shot of Loveless being presented with the Booze Allen Hamilton Management Excellence Award in 2012 as the top affiliate among the more than 200 chapters nationwide.

Beyond the photos, though, there are numbers, and many of them, to quantify what Loveless has accomplished in her tenure. She has grown the affiliate from being the 149th largest of the agency’s chapters to the 18th largest, and from nine home projects and a $130,000 budget to a high of 71 rebuilds (in 2012) and a $612,000 budget. Using a formula of leveraging an additional $4 in monetary and in-kind donations for every dollar spent, that adds up to an annual investment of more than $3 million in Springfield’s housing stock, which has made the City of Homes more deserving of that historic moniker.

But if current events and those of the recent past have prompted generous amounts of optimism, enthusiasm, and energy, one could make a strong case that the future looks even brighter.

Indeed, Loveless and her staff are putting the finishing touches on an ambitious strategic plan for the organization. It has a long name — ‘Rebuilding Together: Green-N-Fit 10 in 10; Maximizing Cluster Builds to Benefit the Old Hill Neighborhood, the State Street Corridor, and the City of Springfield’ — but a broad, yet simple, objective.

This endeavor will continue the work started last April for the next nine years, revitalizing contiguous blocks from Tyler Street to Hickory Street (see map, page A12) thus changing the look — and, in many ways, the fate — of what is statistically one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country.

Green-N-Fit 10 in 10

This map shows the battle plan for Green-N-Fit 10 in 10, which will change the face of several blocks within the Old Hill neighborhood.

While building on the impressive set of numbers compiled in her first four years at the helm of the agency, Loveless has some other work to do in the months and weeks to come, especially in the realm of awareness and telling the nonprofit’s story.

Indeed, there are many who are not aware of what Rebuilding Together does, how, or why, she noted, and there is also considerable confusion with regard to other agencies with like-sounding names — DevelopSpringfield and Rebuilding Springfield are just a few — and other nonprofits with housing-related missions, such as HAPHousing and Habitat for Humanity.

“Our brand is resonating, but we have to work harder to get the word out. We don’t build new houses, and we don’t do extreme makeovers,” she said, referencing the missions of other nonprofits (or TV networks). “Our goal is to preserve existing home ownership and help people stay in their homes.”

And because of the effective manner in which she has articulated, communicated, broadened, and carried out that mission, Loveless is clearly worthy of the designation Difference Maker.

Board Meetings
Photographs of the massive National Rebuilding Day effort last April certainly help tell the story of how this agency has evolved and grown over the past several years, and changed the landscape in Springfield — figuratively and quite literally — in the process.

One aerial shot (see below) conveys the scope of the effort, the high level of coordination, and the large amounts of energy, camaraderie, and good will that were generated by convening so many volunteers and supporting businesses to bring new life to one small but significant corner of the city.

“It was truly a community effort — many different groups and individuals were involved with making it all happen,” said Loveless, who spent much of the day choreographing the production, which was compared by many to a movie set because of the sheer volume of people, not to mention the drama that was unfolding, on site.

It was a world — or several worlds, to be more accurate — apart from what the local affiliate of Rebuilding Together was doing back in the early ’90s, when the national agency was called Christmas in April.

That’s because it only did projects on that one day each April, said Loveless, adding that the organization was launched locally by three banks — SIS (now TD Bank), Hampden Bank, and BayBank Valley — and had no paid staff, just a volunteer board that would work on perhaps a half-dozen houses a year, focusing on painting, landscaping, and other small projects.

As the nonprofit expanded into a year-round initiative, a name change was obviously necessary, she went on, and Rebuilding Together, which accurately and succinctly sums things up, was chosen.

It was in 2009, she said, that the board decided that the Springfield affiliate needed to respond to consistently growing need within the community and expand its mission and scope. Demographics played a big part in that decision, she told BusinessWest, adding that the population of Springfield, as in all cities, was aging, and individuals were finding it more difficult to remain in their homes and keep them properly maintained.

“Many of these people had lived in their homes for dozens of years, decades and decades,” she said. “Now, they’re on Social Security, and they want to stay in their home. So we would build them a handicap ramp or fix their leaking roof.

“The board saw this growing demand and decided it was time to open an office, hire staff, and make it a year-round program to serve more people in need,” she went on, adding that the opportunity to manage that office appealed to her, professionally and otherwise.

At the time, Loveless was operating her own category-management company, called Popmax (short for point-of-purchase maximization) International, which she launched 15 years earlier, while also venturing into commercial real estate with a small portfolio of rental properties. She also built her own home.

“I really enjoyed what I was doing, and it was a successful business, but I was looking for something different,” she said. “And this was a good match for me, because I could use my marketing, sales, and business skills; after all, a nonprofit is a business as well. I love doing this more than running my own business, and not many people can say that.”

Loveless first set up shop in the Scibelli Enterprise Center (now the Business Growth Center) in the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College, but quickly outgrew that space and moved into the Colonial Block on Main Street in Springfield, just a block or so from where the tornado tore through the South End on that fateful June day.

Bringing It Home
Over the past few years, Loveless has expanded the agency in a number of ways, from the number of projects to the types of endeavors to the work done on the houses chosen as projects.

“When it was an all-volunteer organization, it was just painting and landscaping,” she explained. “Now, we’ll do anything to a house — mold issues, pest control, lead abatement, roofs, energy-efficiency … anything that focuses on safety, health, and the well-being of the owner.”

She related the story of one individual who pressed the agency for a fence, something that would ordinarily fall outside its purview because it doesn’t meet those criteria listed above.

“He said, ‘those crackheads are cutting through my backyard, and I really don’t feel safe; I really want a fence so I can lock up the gate and they can’t cut through,’” she recalled. “It was a safety issue, and our mission statement says ‘a safe and healthy home for everyone,’ so we did it.”

Funding from the agency comes from a number of sources, said Loveless, listing national retailers such as Sears and Home Depot, which target funds for specific constituencies, as well as regional and national foundations, corporations such as MassMutual and Columbia Gas, and a number of area banks.

Meanwhile, volunteers come from all corners of the community, she said, adding that individuals and groups have found the work rewarding because they can not only see where their money, time, and energy is going, but they meet the people they’re assisting and see how they’re making a difference.

“You’re transforming someone’s life,” she said. “And that’s the best feeling at the end of the day.”

The budget for the local affiliate has swelled in recent years simply because the need has grown, and for reasons ranging from weather calamities to a still-lingering recession that has kept many out of work, to the simple graying of America, she said, adding quickly that, while the agency has broadened its reach, it can serve only a fraction of those who qualify and request assistance.

“That’s the hardest part of this job,” she said of the decisions about which projects to undertake, a process that involves matching requests with funding, available volunteers, and other tangibles. “There has been such a huge need, and the economy has made it worse for families with children and people who have been out of work.”

Therefore, the agency works diligently to allocate its resources in ways that will maximize their impact and improve quality of life for those who are served.

Tyler Street

Many have compared the scene at last April’s cluster rebuild on Tyler Street to a movie set.

Tornado victims comprise a constituency that clearly falls into that category, she said, adding that the agency responded to obvious need with a project that repaired and rehabbed 25 homes across the damaged sections of the city in five days.

But there are other, usually smaller examples of how Rebuilding Together is putting resources to work in different and far-reaching ways, everything from work to renovate a playground at a Square One facility to that aforementioned project at the facility for homeless veterans.

“We did extensive work inside and out — we invested $150,000 in that one house,” she explained, adding that the project was funded in part by a grant from Sears and its Heroes at Home program, which assists veterans. “We had volunteers from Westover and Barnes … there wasn’t a part of that house that we didn’t touch. We put in new floors, paint, a new roof, a new kitchen and baths, carpeting, curtains. At the end of the day, Bob’s Discount Furniture brought in all new furniture.

“It was incredibly rewarding to see the veterans come in at the end of the day and see that transformation,” she went on. “Moments like that make this the best job in the world.”

And it is with the goal of maximizing resources that the agency focused all of its National Rebuilding Day efforts on one street last April, and also why the plan for the next decade is to continue focusing on the Old Hill neighborhood, even while there are many areas of the city that need assistance.

“To really, truly revitalize a city, you have to take it block by block,” she told BusinessWest. “Yes, it’s house by house, but to have a large, profound, sustainable impact, it has to be block by block.”

“We’re going to go block by block for the next 10 years,” she continued. “And we believe it will have a profound impact on the Old Hill neighborhood.”

The next block will be Pendleton Street, she said, adding that she expects that the agency will be able to duplicate the intensity — and the results — recorded last year, in large part because of the momentum generated that day and the positive energy created by a collaborative effort that involved church groups, several businesses, the roughly 100 people involved with the Western New England College football team, and especially the people who live on Tyler Street.

Finishing Touches
After Pendleton Street, moving southwest, Green-N-Fit 10 in 10 will focus its resources and energy on Pickett Place, King Street, Lebanon Place, Nelson Avenue, Prince Street, Merrick Avenue, Lebanon Street, Monson Avenue, Green Place, Greene Street, Alden Street, Manhattan Street, Searle Place, Marshall Street, Crosby Street, Walnut Street, Melrose Street, Hickory Street, and Eastern Avenue, said Loveless, conceding that, to those not from Springfield, those are merely words on a map.

But to the families who live on those streets, it’s home, and it’s been their home for more than 20 years, on average. And they want it to be home for many years to come.
Helping them accomplish that goal has been Rebuilding Together’s ongoing mission. It’s a broader, more impactful mission now, and because of that, this agency, and especially its first executive director, are truly Difference Makers.

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

Employment Sections
Website Offers Information on Healthcare Careers in Western Mass.

Peta Gaye Portee

Peta Gaye Portee says www.westernmasshealthcareers.org is updated frequently, making it an invaluable resource for people accessing the healthcare job market.

When most students think about jobs in the healthcare industry, they imagine working in a hospital.
But the reality is that only 30% of healthcare employees in Western Mass work in a hospital setting. The rest are working in the community — in nursing homes, doctor’s offices, diagnostic labs, home-care businesses, or ambulatory healthcare services.
“Most students can only name about five healthcare careers — there are a lot of positions they aren’t even aware of,” said Kimberly Slepchuk, academic and career advisor for the Foundations of Health program at Holyoke Community College, as she listed jobs that range from medical assistants in doctors’ offices to pharmacy technicians and sales representatives who specialize in medical equipment and supplies.
“And although many people cite nursing as a career, there are 110 different types of nurses, which range from camp and school nurses to neonatal nurses, which is why it’s really important to delve into the possibilities,” Slepchuk added. “Most of these jobs came about after World War II and are team-oriented. For example, surgical technologists assist in the operating room, and one of the newest jobs is a sterile processing technician.”
And opportunities continue to grow. In 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that by 2018 there would be 3.2 million new wage and salary jobs in the healthcare field — more than any other industry.
It’s possible for people interested in a career change to discover these positions by perusing national websites, but there has always been a missing link, as these sites don’t provide information about the local job market in Western Mass. — what types of jobs exist and how much the average person here is paid. They also fail to provide a listing of local schools with programs that lead to specific healthcare careers.
But, thanks to a newly launched website, www.westernmasshealthcareers.org, all that has changed.
“The new website is very, very helpful and important, because while students could get data about jobs in Massachusetts before, there is a huge difference between what is available in the eastern part of the state and here in Western Mass. in terms of jobs and salaries,” Slepchuk said.

Supply and Demand
The website was developed as a result of a collaborative effort. It is an initiative of the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County (REB), which teamed up with members of the Healthcare Workforce Partnership of Western Mass., with the goal of strengthening the region’s healthcare workforce and enhancing the quality of patient care.
“The idea for the website was generated by employers, educators, and community-based organizations with the express desire of letting people know what types of healthcare jobs and careers are available in the Pioneer Valley and where they exist on the continuum of care,” said Kelly Aiken, director of Health Care Initiatives for the REB. “Employers want people to know what kinds of skills they are looking for as well as the places where people receive healthcare. The website tells them about the positions that exist in different types of job settings, as well as the education and training needed for a wide variety of occupations.”
She added that it’s important for people to be aware of the rapid changes occurring in the healthcare field and the requirements needed to enter or stay current in different jobs. “For example, the language in medical coding is changing, and people who are interested in moving from a job as a medical biller to a medical coder need to know this.”
In addition, having a regional resource helps parents, career advisors, and people interested in making a career change determine whether investing in education for a specific position is worthwhile.
“The idea is to provide people with a regional resource about our community; there are jobs that exist across the continuum, and we want people to know what is going on here,” Aiken said. “It’s especially important because there are jobs going unfilled because employers can’t find qualified job seekers. Our employers have told us this time and time again.”

Kelly Aiken

Kelly Aiken says jobs are going unfilled because employers can’t find qualified workers, and the new website will provide the kind of information needed to close that gap.

The website reflects an extraordinary amount of research.
“We hired Six-Point Creative Works in Springfield, and they interviewed myriad people in one-on-one sessions to find out what they were looking for,” Aiken said, adding that the interviewees ranged from high-school students to immigrants who had worked in healthcare in their countries and wanted to get back into the field, to adults looking to make career changes.
“Employers were also engaged in the website’s development,” she continued. “It was a very collaborative effort, and our partners have been very involved.”
The final result is a site that contains detailed information in sections that include ‘local careers,’ ‘career planning,’ ‘education and training,’ ‘news,’ and ‘partnerships.’
For example, a click on the button labeled ‘local careers’ gives people a choice of then clicking on more specific fields, including medical and dental, office and research, lab work and imaging, therapy and pharmacy, vision, speech, hearing, and diet.
Slepchuk said these groupings make it easy for people to learn about occupations available locally that match their interests, along with what the work involves and the time and/or money and education required for the positions.
A click on ‘medical, dental, and nursing careers’ shows that the highest rate of job growth is in home healthcare, that many of these positions involve working with the elderly, and as this population grows, medical, dental, and nursing professionals will need to understand the basics of geriatric care. It also highlights a growing focus on preventive and primary care and a move toward more patient-centered care.
Visitors also learn that strong science, math, and technology skills are needed to work in this career cluster and that it is becoming increasingly important for people in these positions to be able to relate to people of different cultures.
Aiken says this information is critical for students and job seekers.
“In addition, employers are telling us that they expect applicants to show a degree of professionalism,” she added. “Healthcare is all about customer service, compassion, and professionalism.”
The website also contains links to employer listings. “The idea is not to replicate resources, but to help people access career-planning tools,” Aiken said.
There are also ideas and information about how to finance education and where programs are offered.
“We just updated the medical-coding page to reflect current standards, and we also updated the medical-billing section to let people know about a new program being offered at Holyoke Community College,” said Peta Gaye Portee, program coordinator for the Healthcare Initiative Workforce program. “There is also information about foundation grants, state grants, Pell grants, and scholarships.”
Meanwhile, the news section keeps viewers up to date with breaking developments, such as a new partnership between Greenfield Community College and Endicott College, which will allow nurses with an associate’s degree to earn their bachelor’s degree without leaving Greenfield, as well as a new public health degree program being offered at American International College in Springfield.
There is also a ‘fast facts’ section, which Slepchuk says students find useful. For example, it states that there is a need for sterile-processing technicians and surgical technologists in this area.
Another facet of the website contains links to nationally recognized assessment tools and tests that people can take if they are exploring the idea of a career in healthcare.

Future Outlook
Aiken reiterated that the purpose of the new website is to introduce people to the types of jobs that exist, which ones are going unfilled in the area, and the training and education that local employers expect job applicants to have.
“People need to realize that healthcare is a 24/7 industry and understand the realities of jobs in the field,” she told BusinessWest, adding that logging on to www.westernmasshealthcare.org will give people a “flavor of what is going on in the region.”
Which is good news for anyone who wants to keep up with occupations, salaries, training, scholarships, and other opportunities in healthcare throughout the region.

Features
McGovern Adjusts to a Greatly Changed District

Rep. Jim McGovern, left,

Rep. Jim McGovern, left, speaks with some of his new constituents in Amherst.

Congressman Jim McGovern was talking about how to spur economic development and job creation in some of the Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester County communities that are now part of his territory — a significantly reworked Second District — and he started by going back to a speech he gave before the Worcester Chamber of Commerce roughly a year after he was first elected to the House in 1996.
This was to be a candid talk — one he feared might be a little too candid.
“I thought I’d get booed out of the hall,” he recalled with a laugh, adding that he was essentially telling those assembled that they were wandering aimlessly in their pursuit of progress, and thus underperforming. “I said, ‘economic development here reminds me of my then-3-year-old son’s soccer team; if someone kicks the ball to the left, they all run to the left, and if someone kicks it to the right, they all head to the right — no one knows what their position or assignment is.’
“I said there was no logic behind what we were doing here — we’re simply not connecting the dots,” he went on. “And a number of people came up to me later and said, ‘we agree — there’s no plan here; there’s no thought being given to economic development.’”
Over the next several years, Worcester and its officials put some thought into it, he told BusinessWest, adding that, as a result, progress has been made in several areas, from significant growth of sectors like the biosciences and medical-device manufacturing to reinvigoration of Worcester Airport, which will be a stop for JetBlue starting in the fall (more on all of this later).
It all happened through creation of plans and establishment of partnerships with a host of constituencies, from local colleges and universities to private developers, to make them reality, he said, adding that he will work to take some of the lessons learned in Worcester and other communities he’s served, and apply them in cities and towns he might have needed Mapquest to find before late last year.
Indeed, McGovern was probably the congressman most impacted by last year’s massive statewide redistricting effort, facilitated, in some respects, by the retirement of John Olver, whose old First District was essentially parceled out to McGovern and Richard Neal, who formerly represented a much different Second District and also added a host of new communities to his territory.
2nd Congressional District Map

2nd Congressional District Map

McGovern’s former district (the Third) included Worcester, his birthplace and political base, near its west boundary, and swept like a giant apostrophe to the south and east, all the way to Fall River. Now, Worcester is near the eastern end of a district that winds through five counties, the Quabbin Reservoir, and 63 cities and towns (he formerly had only 28), including ones that border Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
“It’s quite a change — I have a lot of learning to do,” he said, adding quickly that this is an ongoing process that has really just begun.
His said his assignment going forward is to continue visiting those 63 communities, learning about both common and specific challenges, and then create some plans — as he helped draft in Worcester — to address matters such as bolstering the agriculture and tourism sectors and finding new uses for the millions of square feet of idle old mill space in Athol, Orange, Palmer, Ware, and many other communities.
But perhaps his overriding mission, he went on, is to disprove some comments from an anonymous reader posted at the end of a story in one of the local papers announcing the results of redistricting. McGovern didn’t have the exact wording on that missive, but he could effectively paraphrase.
“‘We got screwed,’ this person wrote,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he or she went to to say, “‘what the hell is a big-city Worcester politician going to care about what goes on here in the Pioneer Valley?’”
To prove this individual wrong, McGovern, consistently ranked among the most liberal congressmen in the country, said he knows he has to be visible and accessible — and he’s already doing that, through numerous visits to the area and the opening of a district office on Pleasant Street in Northampton — but he also has to be active and accountable, and create progress on the most overriding issue facing every city and town in the Commonwealth: jobs.
For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with McGovern about what he’s learned through several months of discussions with his new Western Mass. constituents, and how he plans to incorporate lessons learned in Worcester, Fall River, and elsewhere to his work in the 413 area code.

Progress Report
It’s called Gateway Park at WPI.
That’s the name put on ambitious project in downtown Worcester that speaks, in general terms, to the progress made after McGovern’s aforementioned speech to the city’s Chamber of Commerce.
Originally developed as a joint venture with the Worcester Business Development Corp., the park is now solely owned by Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Now in stage 2 of development, its flagship complex is the 125,000-square-foot Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, which opened in 2007 and is fully occupied with graduate research laboratories, life-sciences companies, state-of-the-art core facilities, and WPI’s Corporate and Professional Education division. The strategic plan eventually calls for five buildings on this site.
The park is perhaps the most significant of the many positive steps Worcester has taken over the past 15 years, said McGovern, adding that it exemplifies the basic approach he embraces when it comes to economic development and job creation. Summing it up, he said it comes down to putting a firm strategic plan in place — in this case, Worcester’s commitment to building its life-sciences sector — and creating partnerships to make it reality.
The same pattern was followed in Fall River and a property now known as the Narrows Center for the Arts, he said, referencing the 280-seat facility, built on the top floor of an old mill building, that hosts national and local performing and visual artists, musicians, writers, and performers.
“They took an abandoned factory and turned it into a spot where some of the top musicians in the country come to play,” he said. “People from all around the region come to attend these concerts, and when they do, they eat at the local restaurants, sometimes they spend the night, they might go shopping beforehand, they attend the local festivals; it all helps out.”
Successes of this magnitude will be difficult to replicate in rural Hampshire and Franklin counties, but McGovern believes he can take the same basic approach and spur economic development in some of the communities he’s now representing.
Getting to know and understand these communities — while also disproving that anonymous commentary mentioned earlier — is the latest career challenge for McGovern, who described his 1996 victory over Republican incumbent Peter Blute as “surprising.”
It came two years after his first bid for Congress while working as a senior aide to long-time Rep. Joe Moakley, in which he lost a crowded Democratic primary. He’s faced only sporadic opposition since, while cementing himself as one of Washington’s most liberal lawmakers and making a mark in areas ranging from transportation to education to nutrition. He currently serves on the powerful Rules Committee, and also on the House Committee on Agriculture.
Since last fall, McGovern has been spending significant amounts of time getting to know his new district and the people who call it home. “Trying to learn all that I need to learn and know all that I need to know is like drinking water from a fire hose — it’s a lot of stuff, and every community is unique.”
He said it’s been a learning experience on many levels.
“People out here take their politics seriously,” he said, referring specifically to the Hampshire and Franklin County portions of his district, which also includes one precinct in Palmer, which is in Hampden County. “They care passionately about the issues, and I’ve had some of the most candid and interesting conversations ever in this part of the district.”
He said his previous district was created to benefit a Republican (Blute), and was therefore more conservative than this new Second District, which includes, in Amherst and Northampton, some of the most liberal communities in the entire state, but also has many conservative pockets as well.
“There’s a little bit of everything — moderate, liberal, Tea Party,” he said with a laugh. “Between Worcester and Franklin County, there are pockets of everything, which keeps life interesting; every day is a learning experience.”
One thing McGovern said he’s already learned is that this region is, by his estimation, “a hell of a lot more coordinated than Worcester was 10 years ago.” Elaborating, the said the Economic Development Council of Western Mass. the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, and other agencies have identified challenges and opportunities, and have undertaken a number of coordinated initiatives to spark economic development.
“There are good things happening here,” he said. “The challenge for me is to plug into what’s going on and figure out how I can help.”

The Job at Hand
With such a large, spread-out district (compared to everyone but Neal, who represents all of Berkshire County and all but the Palmer precinct in Hampden County), McGovern said he has to maximize his time and carefully plan out his schedule.
He explained that, if he has three days to spend in the district, for example, he’ll spend one in each area: west (Northampton), east (Worcester), and northeast (Leominster).
And while visiting Western Mass. cities and towns, McGovern said he’s learned that the challenges and concerns are pretty much the same as they are across the state. Specifically, the main priority is jobs, and in many communities that were former manufacturing centers, this means reinventing themselves into something else, while also looking at new kinds of manufacturing, different from the paper and textile making that once dominated the scene.
“The one common thread I see and hear in all parts of my district is people worried about their economic security,” he told BusinessWest. “They’re worried about jobs. There’s a good deal of support for reinvigorating our manufacturing base and also support for training programs for displaced workers in the region, because a number of people have lost their jobs in this difficult economy. There’s also a lot of talk about energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects.”
In Worcester, the process of creating that proverbial something else would never be described as easy, and it is very much still ongoing, said McGovern, but it was greatly facilitated by planning and the many colleges and universities that call that city home, including Assumption, Clark, Holy Cross, Worcester State University, WPI, and UMass Medical School, among others. These collaborations have involved from biosciences to renewable energy.
“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in Worcester — we’ve established some collaborations that have made a difference,” referencing projects ranging from Gateway Park to a revitalized Union Station and the Canal District surrounding it; from the airport to reinvigoration of depressed neighborhoods. “A friend of mine who hadn’t been to Worcester in seven years visited recently and couldn’t believe how much had changed and how much new construction was going on; we’re building every day.”
The many colleges in the Amherst/Northampton area, and especially UMass Amherst, can play a similar role, said the congressman, adding that one of his goals is to continue to expand the relationship-building efforts between the university and the communities that surround it to stimulate new business opportunities — and jobs.
“In some states, the natural resources are the minerals in the ground,” he said. “Here, the natural resources are the educational institutions, the colleges. We have all these knowledge-based institutions in the Pioneer Valley that complement and coordinate very well with the schools we have in Worcester. There are opportunities for collaboration that would benefit both areas.”
Meanwhile, in the more rural areas of Hampshire and Franklin counties, agriculture remains a key component of the economy, and McGovern said this makes his seat on the Agriculture Committee more relevant and important. And while working to sustain and perhaps grow agriculture-related businesses, he wants to examine new business opportunities in some of these rural communities, including different options in manufacturing, reuse of the old mills still dominating the landscape, and bolstering tourism, much as Fall River has done through efforts to revitalize its waterfront district.
“It all begins with vision and thinking outside the box,” he said, referring specifically to finding new uses for old mills, but also to economic development in general. “There is a need for housing across the state, and maybe some of these old mills can be redeveloped for that purpose, but also for business development, a supermarket, light manufacturing, and more.”
When it comes to tourism, awareness of what this region and others have to offer, or lack thereof, is part of the problem — and the challenge moving forward, he said, adding that most other sections of the country do a much better job of promoting their tourism assets.
In each community, and with each initiative, the key is to have a plan, or specific strategic direction, said McGovern, returning once again to Worcester and Gateway Park.
“With that initiative, we all sat in a room together, had a conversation about what we were going to do, and then took assignments,” he recalled. “It takes a plan, and what Worcester was lacking was a vision; the ingredients were there to make incredible things happen — what was needed was vision and a plan.”

Summing Up
Those same ingredients are needed in many of the Western Mass. communities that McGovern now counts within his district. Helping put them together is one of the primary items on his to-do list, along with taking initiatives already in progress and moving them forward through partnerships.
“Most all of the challenges we’re facing are not going to be solved by the federal government alone, or the state government alone, or the local government alone, or the private sector alone,” he concluded. “It’s going to involve partnerships and collaborations, and I think I’ve been pretty good at those things.”
But perhaps the most pressing matter is to disprove the comments from that anonymous reader concerned about what a Worcester-based Congressman can do in the Pioneer Valley.
If he can succeed with the former, McGovern said, he knows that the latter will essentially take care of itself.

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

Restaurants Sections
Steaming Tender Mixes Hearty Food and Railroad Culture

Robin Lamothe says the Steaming Tender is a destination.

Robin Lamothe says the Steaming Tender is a destination.

Robin and Blake Lamothe like to dig through history — literally. And 26 years ago, they came across a historical project they couldn’t pass up.
“My husband was a general contractor; he restored historic homes and buildings, and he was also an antique restorer of Model A cars,” Robin Lamothe said. One day, while driving through Palmer, he discovered a Romanesque-style train station, built in 1884 based on a design by renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson.
In 1987, the run-down station was “a hodgepodge of businesses — a diner, a pool hall, a judo studio, a mechanic shop,” she told BusinessWest. “It didn’t look too pretty, but, being a restorer, he could see the inner beauty of the building and its potential. Then he saw the for-sale sign.”
So they purchased the building, intending to convert it to an antique co-op. “We had done our research, and because this was a historical property, we thought we could get some grant monies,” Lamothe said. “But in the late ’80s and early ’90s, those programs were getting cut, so we were left to do it ourselves. That’s why it took so long.”
She referred to the 17 years it took to restore and reopen the station — not as an antique store, but as the Steaming Tender restaurant, a railroad-themed eatery tucked alongside an active rail line.
“Neither one of us has a restaurant background,” she said. “As I said, my husband is a general contractor, and my background is in the marketing and advertising business; I was an event planner and coordinated events.”
Those backgrounds, however, meshed well for their current endeavor. The restaurant, which opened in 2004, is a mix of hearty American food and rail culture; train-related artifacts and antiques line the walls throughout, from the large bell overhanging the bar to a stack of century-old luggage near the entryway — not to mention the vintage train cars sitting outside.
“We’re consistently trying to reinvent ourselves, so that our customers come in and always find something new,” said Lamothe, who runs the day-to-day operations at the Steaming Tender. “We’re always being creative. If we find antiquities that we feel would fit with the restaurant, we bring them in.”
It’s all part of what the Lamothes hope will be not just a meal for patrons, but an experience. “People travel in from Boston, New York … they make it a trip. We’re a destination restaurant.”

Training Their Sights

The restored 1909 parlor car

The restored 1909 parlor car on the property is used for special events, from company meetings to bridal showers.

It was a destination of sorts for the couple as well, who lived in the Worcester area when they discovered the property in 1987.
“We lived in Spencer at the time, commuting back and forth, and that was getting hard, so we found a house and moved here,” Robin said.
The property they bought was filled with antiques — much of which she characterized as “junk” — but it had potential. So they started selling items out of the old station to help fund the restoration. “It was flashlight shopping, and we had no water line. And it rained in here more than it rained outside.”
As the restoration progressed, including major roof and structural work, they intended to continue the antique sales as a business model. “But it slowly evolved into a restaurant,” Lamothe said. They first planned to lease the property to a restaurateur, “but nobody could envision the dream we had, so we ended up doing it ourselves.”
But the journey to that point was a long, 17-year slog. “We didn’t want the work to interfere with the integrity of the building,” she said, noting that Blake preserved much of the original floors and original brickwork. That’s the kind of pace that might turn frustrating, but Lamothe said they didn’t get discouraged.
“We always had a goal. It was taking a lot longer than we thought, but we never gave up,” she said. “Today, sitting in the dining room, I still can’t believe we’ve done this. It’s amazing. People come in and say they appreciate all the hard work we’ve done. This was a blank canvas for us. We did as much research as we could.”
That research left some gaps. But when their design choices — a style of window used in the interior, a paint color — later turned out to be historically accurate, the Lamothes considered it a sign that they were destined to take on this project.
The first iteration of the restaurant, in 2004, was an outdoor-seating, counter-service-only model, which allowed restoration work to continue uninterrupted inside. “It was a little kitchen with fried seafood, pub-style food,” she said. In the fall of 2005, the Steaming Tender converted to an indoor, sit-down establishment.
Lamothe described the cuisine at the Steaming Tender as “American flair” with a few ethnic styles mixed in, adding that “I’m open to anything that tastes good.” Baked lobster macaroni and cheese is a house favorite, a dual nod to the extensive pasta and seafood sections of the menu. Diners will also find a broad selection of salads, sandwiches, steaks, pork, and poultry, as well as plenty of appetizer and dessert options.
The highlight of the latter is the whiskey bread pudding, a staple from the early days that customers keep coming back for, Lamothe said. “We like watching their expressions: ‘oh my God, this is the best.’ It’s a phenomenal dessert. We sell pans of it around the holidays, and it’s becoming a tradition for some of the families.”
The key to the food quality, she said, is freshness. “We’re open five days a week, and we have seafood delivered three of those days. I’m always bringing in new product, keeping it fresh. I get trucks in every day, so I can keep the meats and produce fresh.”
Cleanliness is important too, she said. “We close on Monday and Tuesday, and those days are for maintainance, rethinking, cleaning, inventory, everything else … I probably work longer hours on Monday and Tuesday than when we’re open.”
And the bathrooms are not only clean, but works of art in their own right; each is adorned with hundreds of antique photos, mounted like a timeless, room-size scrapbook.

Off the Rails
Every aspect of the establishment, however, is dominated by trains. “Everything is railroad-themed,” Lamothe said, from the setting amid active rail lines to the antiques inside, to the overalls and red bandannas worn by the waitstaff.
With about 40 trains passing by each day, the Steaming Tender prints a schedule each morning, and Lamothe said the long, windowed wall parallel to the track is considered choice seating. “People want to know the schedule, so we have it on our website and give it as a handout. The peak time is between 1:30 and 3, when Amtrak passes, and the conductor gets off and does the track switching and maneuvering … it’s good for the rail fan.”
The Lamothes are always looking to buy old locomotives and cars to add to the ambiance outside the station, she added. “We bought a 1915 Porter steam locomotive as a marketing piece, and we bought a 1909 parlor car to hold private events and meetings. We do a lot of company meetings, bridal showers, and wedding rehearsal dinners in there.”
The restaurant’s location isn’t the most visible, at the terminus of the dead-end Depot Street off Route 20. “Many people still don’t know where we are, and we’re always tapping into new customers. That’s where my marketing background comes in. We’re always trying to get our name out there.”
Those efforts include a plethora of special events every month, from comedy shows to educational programs involving working trains. “Last week, we had a meet-the-engineer event. People got up close and touched the engine — we had about 60 people for that event. Another event, coming up on May 7, is a presentation my husband and I do on the history of the station. We have about 100 people signed up for that.”
The Lamothes have landed the occasional high-profile coup, like the day Good Morning America stopped by to film there. Other media outlets have done stories as well over the past decade. But mainly, marketing the Steaming Tender means constantly building buzz and positive word of mouth.
“We’re still getting the word out — about the architecture, the trains, the food,” she said. “There are a lot of positive things going on for us, and we play up all the components and build on that.”
For example, “we do holidays right here. Christmas is huge,” Lamothe said of the extensive decorations the staff puts up. “People have compared us to Disney World; we have music pumping out of the engine, and people feel like they’re coming somewhere special.”
Last year, that atmosphere included hundreds of nutcrackers on the tables and throughout the building, most purchased at Christmas Tree Shops, where store employees must have wondered who these shoppers were clearing out the entire stock, she recalled with a laugh.
This summer will feature a new draw to the old station: the restoration of the park and grotto originally designed by noted 19th-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
“We’re down in an industrial area. This will never be manicured gardens, but we’re almost there,” Lamothe said. “We did some research and found out it was a Frederick Olmsted park buried in gravel. After about 20 years, we finally bought the piece from the railroad, and three years ago, we began excavating and restoring this park. We’ve uncovered the grotto, and we’ve got some granite curbing to shape the park, and we’re in the midst of laying topsoil now so we can get some nice grass.”
It’s a natural progression, she said, from the fact that locals already come out on the weekends to sit along the roadway and watch the trains pass. “Having a park will enhance that whole concept here.”

Rolling Along
Even as she recognizes the Steaming Tender’s somewhat nondescript location, Lamothe said she’s pleased that new customers are continually coming on board.
“Starting from nothing, being on a dead-end road, it’s amazing how much awareness there is out there,” she told BusinessWest. “And once people find us, the next thing you know, three days later, they’re back with a whole group of friends, wanting to show it off to people. People come in and say, ‘I can’t believe I’m in Palmer.’”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Women in Businesss
Unity First’s Janine Fondon Mixes Diversity and High-tech Savvy

Janine Fondon

Janine Fondon says she’s always managed to stay atop trends in communications.

In the spring of 1946, Irene Morgan, a black woman, boarded a bus in Virginia headed to Baltimore. She was ordered to sit at the back of the bus, as Virginia state law required, but she objected, saying that, since it was an interstate bus, the law did not apply. Morgan was arrested and fined $10.

Attorney Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP took on the case … and won, thus striking down Jim Crow laws in interstate travel. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused a bus driver’s order to move for white riders on a city bus, which initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott and eventually a precedent-setting win in the Supreme Court.

Irene Morgan — whose bravery and tenacity paved the way for Rosa Parks to become an icon of the Civil Rights movement — was Janine Fondon’s aunt.

Fondon is now the successful president and CEO of Unity First Direct Inc., a marketing and public-relations consultancy business, which she founded with her husband, Tom Fondon, in 1996. That business was soon followed by its website counterpart, UnityFirst.com — a national distributor of diversity-related e-news — that grew, as the world grew, with the explosion of workplace computer technology and the burgeoning Internet.

Her ability as a young African-American woman to forge a career in what are mostly male-dominated industries stems from that same bravery and tenacity that her Aunt Irene demonstrated more than 65 years ago. With each new position, all involving communications of some form, Fondon has deepened her public-relations and communications abilities, while picking up emerging technology skills.

Looking back at her family history and career, she noted that, somewhere along the road, she realized she’d been ahead of the curve at almost every point. A persistent focus on the future and an ever-growing skill set that she acquired in various positions — and a particular interest in computers, which she repeatedly referred to as ‘fun’ — ensured that she showed up at the doorstep of each new opportunity with confidence.

For this issue’s focus on women in business, BusinessWest spoke at length with Fondon about her intriguing background. Her keen eye for concrete workplace skills, mixed with an awareness of different cultures and human behavior, has enabled her to launch a small consultancy group that has evolved into a growing, diversity-focused web destination targeting African-Americans and others seeking information of interest to multicultural communities.

 

Right Time, Right Place

Straight out of Colgate University, young New York native Janine Fondon landed her first job with ABC-TV New York in the public relations department as a broadcast analyst. In that position, she would hear viewer responses about programming content, news personalities, and sports analysts, and report back to the network.

“Working for ABC Sports … every time they mentioned things like ‘Hail Mary’ passes, the Catholic Church would not be too happy,” Fondon laughed. But strong miniseries like ‘The Winds of War’ and docudramas with controversial topics were great introductions to a broad variety of perspectives — and watchdog groups that were concerned about how the network was representing women, culture, or some specific issue, Fondon said. WJLA in Washington, D.C. helped expand her work in large metropolitan areas, especially the promo coverage she did in January 1987 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded after takeoff, just one of the milestones that helped her hone her writing skills.

“Those days of writing good stories, getting to the heart of the message … it was really exciting figuring out what the real story was,” she explained. “Those positions made me think how I might pursue something else in the communications field, and honestly, that field has changed every two years since I’ve been involved in it.”

A move to Boston for a PR job with the Unitarian Universalist Assoc. wasn’t a great fit, but with the New England area going though high-tech growth, she was thinking, as always, of the future. She targeted Digital Equipment Corp. and landed in its Corporate Communications department as the associate editor of Digital’s worldwide internal publication, Decworld.

“At Digital, we were communicating internally and with the world, much like we do with Facebook and other forms of communication today, but we were doing it before the mainstream,” Fondon told BusinessWest.

The jump from religion to technology wasn’t an issue. “This was a global company, and I would be able to see what it was like to build this global effort,” she said. Later, with the eventual demise of Digital, her communications and technology skills made her a solid fit in the financial industry which was entering a new age of online sharing of highly confidential financial information.

Working for BankBoston, she was writing not only for the internal print magazine but online vehicles as well — the early development of online communications for the masses. People were using WordPerfect, and everyone still wanted hard copies, and her co-workers were resistant to online bulletin boards and new computer programs. Fondon thought they were great. “I don’t know about you, but IBM Selectric was not my idea of fun, so anything that made it easier, I was all for it,” she laughed.

“Everybody was asking, how are we going to deal with all this change — change in management, change in technology, and the efforts to bring more women into the workplace?” she continued. Meanwhile, she was experiencing major changes in her own life — a husband who came from the world of IBM, and a baby daughter, had her reevaluating her path.

 

Worldwide Change

Fondon can remember people saying that newsrooms weren’t diverse. “I said, ‘if you think newsrooms aren’t diverse, you should enter into corporate communications!’”

Merging her past positions, her skills, and what she saw as a need in all workplaces, Fondon created a small consulting company that she named Unity First Direct. Her husband, Tom, with his IT skills, joined her soon after. She kept busy with magazine writing, brochures, reports, and the like, and within that same year, she and her husband noticed that diversity really was becoming a buzzword, and more venues for community outreach were needed.

So she launched the Unity First newspaper and built a small following, but discovered a growing need for different avenues of diversity awareness. Through e-marketing, outreach, and public relations, Fondon could help clients engage new audiences and build their brands with diverse, emerging markets, including people of all backgrounds, experiences, and geographic locations.

“As we moved from being a print publication to online, and more diversity consulting,” she said, “we saw companies had all the pieces, so we would work to help them connect the dots.”

Eric Gouvin, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Western New England University, has worked with Fondon on many occasions, having used her as an expert panelist and through co-sponsored events. “We’ve had diversity events that focus on inclusive management,” he said. “Your workforce has its own sets of traits and properties: the way you manage young folks versus old folks, women versus men, people of color versus other races … there are ways of handling all that, not heavy-handed, but sensitively.”

As Fondon described this aspect of her work, “if a company has a project and they want to develop it to meet this 21st-century approach through demographics, content, and tone, then we can help them shape that project.

She explained what she means by ‘tone.’ “Companies that are trying to position themselves in today’s workplace need to reflect diversity inclusion in their internal communications, external communications, community relations, and media approach, and they need people like us to help them sharpen those skills.”

She prefers to not spend energy on the negative, which includes all the things that can happen when a proper approach to tone is ignored — everything from diminishing one’s culture to lawsuits — but to focus on positive outcomes, the companies that make a respectful and educated difference and, thus, enhance their own success.

Today, UnityFirst.com is a growing voice on the Internet and one of the most in-depth resources for connecting with diverse communities and press across the U.S. and beyond. Engaging more than 2 million readers from corporations and boards to cross-cultural business leaders striving for new bottom-line success, the site is a content driver of news, with more than 4,000 national press members, including top mainstream business publications; television, Internet, and radio sources; and press from the African, African-American, Caribbean, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American communities.

In addition, UnityFirst.com delivers content to ForbesDiversity.com, an outgrowth of Forbes.com that offers special sections with comprehensive subject matter from different perspectives.

 

Driven to Success

In addition to a multitude of speaking engagements, Fondon is an adjunct professor at Baypath College and Westfield State University. She and Tom are also targeting young local middle- and high-school students through two projects, the Digital Ambassadors Program and the Common Ground Leadership Forum and Awards.

“It’s our initiative to work with young people around the technology and diversity topics,” said Fondon. “Both programs emphasize the importance of digital learning, inclusion, and leadership.”

Part of her work with students is to keep the dialogue applicable to young people’s interests. Considering the speed at which technology and young people’s interests evolve, Fondon said, “as a teacher, when you think you’re making it relevant and interesting, revisit what that means, because either you got it right, or you didn’t.”

Gouvin agrees, and praises Fondon’s ability to consult with employers. “If you want to be effective, you’ve got to find a way to connect with the people who are working for you,” he said. “It’s not a matter of being PC [politically correct], or doing it because that’s what everyone’s doing; there is sense to it. Janine has always made a case for diversity that is compelling.”

Along with her tenacious and pioneering qualities — like those that spurred her Aunt Irene to such groundbreaking action — Fondon will continue to assist clients with marketing, educate communities about diversity awareness through digital, print, and verbal communication, and help individuals and corporations realize their full potential.

In short, she’s keeping them ahead of the curve.

 

Elizabeth Taras can be reached at [email protected]

Features
42 design fab Puts on a Display of Entrepreneurship

Todd Harris, left, and Jack Kacian

Todd Harris, left, and Jack Kacian look over one of 42 design fab’s many creations, this one an ‘alien life form’ for the company’s booth at a trade show.

It’s called the “walk-in tree,” and that name pretty much explains what this exhibit would be.

“This is a tree that people could literally walk inside,” said Todd Harris, co-owner of 42 design fab in Indian Orchard, who came up with the concept while working as a consultant for a company called the Holbek Group on a master-plan project for the Harry C. Barnes Memorial Nature Center in Bristol, Conn. “People could learn about a tree from the inside out — how the tree works, the insect life, and much more.”

The Barnes Center hasn’t created the walk-in tree yet — it is still exploring funding options for this and many other items in the plan — but it has contracted with 42 design fab, the company Harris started with model builder Jack Kacian (formerly with the Holbek Group), on several other projects, from outdoor signage shaped like a broken tree to the gift shop.

And these items have become part of a growing portfolio that includes everything from displays for the Basketball Hall of Fame (such as the ‘vertical leap’ exhibit and a tribute to Bob Cousy) to trade show booths for Fortune 500 companies. Expanding and diversifying that portfolio are the top priorities for Harris and Kacian as they look to take this unique design-and-fabrication company — hence the name — they started together in 2010 to the next level.

And to do so, they’ll attempt to maximize their own talents and those of the six other team members now working in a large space on the fourth floor of the Indian Orchard Mills.

Harris, who was a CAD program instructor at Holyoke Community College years ago, has extensive background in strategic planning and project management, working as an independent consultant for nearly two decades on everything from SAP implementation to a large Y2K initiative, to the building of a few chemical plants in Saudi Arabia. Kacian, meanwhile, is an artist and designer who has been involved in several signature projects in the area, including the so-called Money Tree in Greenfield — an ATM built into a 25-foot-high artificial tree that was designed and fabricated by the Holbek Group for Greenfield Savings Bank — and the model of a GeeBee airplane, built in Springfield in the late ’40s, that now sits in the Springfield History Museum after residing for years in the Visitors Center near the Hall of Fame.

Todd Harris

Todd Harris stands beside one of the many exhibits 42 design fab has created for the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Together, the two partners look to shape a winning business strategy grounded in finding solutions for clients and creating new and different ways to convert their imagination and skills into reliable revenue streams.

“We want to be the most creative, most versatile design-fab shop around,” Harris said, “whether it’s custom furniture or trade-show items, restaurant interiors, or corporate offices.”

For this issue, BusinessWest goes behind the scenes — both literally and figuratively — at a company that certainly has designs on continued growth and an international reputation for imaginative solutions.

 

In the Right Mold

As he talked about some of the work 42 design fab has done for natural-history museums and facilities like the Barnes Center, Harris went over to a bookcase filled with some of the sculpted flora and fauna that have become part of various dioramas and exhibits.

There’s a giant slug that’s much larger than what actually appears in nature, a centipede (again, much larger than real life), the top half of a chipmunk (this one was coming up out of the ground), and a large eel built for the Shelter Island Nature Conservancy on Long Island, which went to great lengths to make sure the item was anatomically correct.

“They actually brought up a dead eel and said, ‘we want it to look just like this,’” said Harris, adding that the company was able to comply with that request, which is one of the keys to earning the repeat business and referrals that are the lifeblood of the business.

How Harris and Kacian joined together to design and fabricate eels, insects, trees, and Hall of Fame exhibits in this business venture is an intriguing story that blends elements of entrepreneurship, timing, and market opportunities.

Harris told BusinessWest that he enjoyed his consulting work, but certainly not the long hours and time away from home that his assignments demanded. “It was tough being a road warrior … you lose a bit of yourself with every job,” he explained, adding that, on the positive side, his consulting work introduced him to what he called “the museum world,” largely through work with Tor Holbek, an exhibit designer and former student of his at HCC who eventually started the Holbek Group and hired Kacian as his art director.

“Over the years, as a consultant, designer, and engineer, when I was between other gigs, I would stop and stay in touch with Tor,” said Harris. “I’d help him out with design projects here and there. It was interesting work — you never think about where things come from in a museum, but someone has to design and build them.

“Museum work fascinated me, and I got to know Jack over the years … and one thing just led to another,” he continued, fast-forwarding through some intervening years during which he worked on some project-management initiatives at museums and art galleries, and became increasingly drawn to that little-understood business.

When asked if his consulting work was lucrative, Harris joked, “more lucrative than starting a design and fabrication company in the middle of a recession.”

What propelled him forward, despite those challenges, was that aforementioned fascination he had with the museum realm, as well as confidence that he and Kacian, with whom he had worked on several projects, and who had by then won acclaim nationally for his model-building exploits, could mold an effective business model.

The Money Tree project in Greenfield helped shape Kacian’s reputation — it earned headlines in many different kinds of publications — as did the GeeBee initiative, undertaken by the city of Springfield. Kacian remembers working on a shoestring budget and stretching his imagination to make the model as authentic as possible while also controlling cost.

“That was a great job for me because it involved something I was really interested in,” he explained, adding that he did extensive research on the plane, which included a few trips to the attic of the widow of the man who built the original plans and blueprints. “The challenge was to build it as realistic as possible, and I used every trick in the book I could think of to fabricate it.

“I used a lot of foam, including with the wings,” he explained. “We sanded them and covered them with craft paper soaked with white glue, which gave it stiffness and a nice, smooth finish. The fuselage itself was built like a big model airplane.”

Kacian remembers installing the 400-pound model in the Visitors Center, taking instruction from a city official driving back and forth on I-91 via cell phone. “She kept saying, ‘pull it up a little in front,’ or ‘take it down a little in the back,’ trying to get the angle just right so people could see it from the road.”

Eventually, Harris, who desired a second career, and Kacian, who was looking for a setting in which he could better flex his design muscles, came together in a venture they called 42 design fab, with 42 being “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Since the start, their hope has been to make their company the ultimate answer for a wide array of museums and companies who need something visual — and educational — to inform people and promote themselves.

The Shape of Things to Come

More than two years later, a team is in place, and a game plan is coming together.

It calls for the company to exploit its uniqueness as a firm that handles both design and fabrication (most do one or the other), and create the portfolio diversity that is necessary to maintain steady cash flow and survive fluctuations in the economy.

A look at one wall in the office area of the company’s facilities at the mill reveals that it is making solid progress with those goals.

On it are images from various projects, both completed and in progress.

That latter list includes some recent initiatives undertaken for the Basketball Hall of Fame, including new exhibits to tests visitors’ rebounding skills and gauge their wingspan — the distance between the fingertips when one’s arms are spread apart.

Over the past few years, the company has undertaken a number of projects for the Hall of Fame, including the Cousy exhibit, the display dedicated to Dennis Rodman after his enshrinement in 2011 — one that showcases one of the many dresses he’s worn over the years — and a large display called the “MAAC Experience,” which tells the story of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

There’s also work for former Boston Celtic Ray Allen’s Rays of Hope Foundation — specifically, his ‘Wall of Hope,’ a display of his sneakers meant to inspire young people to realize their full potential — as well as contributions to a Department of Homeland Security campaign.

A few photographs capture projects undertaken for various natural-history museums, such as a diorama chronicling the life of an acorn. Meanwhile, there are drawings for a new trade-show booth for the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Overall, projects have been undertaken for a host of museums and institutions, ranging from the Puget Sound Naval Museum — one of the company’s first clients — to to the Quadrangle in Springfield.

The Basketball Hall of Fame and the Environmental Learning Centers of Connecticut (ELCCT) are both good examples of the type of client the company wants to attract and add to its portfolio, said Harris, noting that, in each case, there is an ongoing relationship and opportunities to handle a wide range of work.

The ELCTT operates two facilities — the Barnes Nature Center and the Indian Rock Nature Preserve, both located in Bristol. For the former, 42 design fab has created designs for many potential new exhibits — with names like “Interactive Wetland Diorama,” “Everything About Beaks and Feet,” “Nest and Egg Educational Module,” and the aforementioned walk-in tree — and has already completed several interior and exterior projects, including the signage and new gift shop.

And for the Indian Rock facility, it has a created, among other items, a waterfall that essentially camouflages an elevator shaft. Built in three sections, the waterfall reaches the top of the 18-foot ceiling in the center’s Great Hall and comes complete with fish, turtles, and seats for visitors.

 

Imagination — on a Large Scale

The projects undertaken for both the hall of fame and the ELCTT are also good examples of how 42 design fab works with the client to help it achieve specific and long-term goals, said Harris, returning to the Barnes Center once again, and the desire among administrators there to create learning opportunities on a number of levels.

“They balance funding availability with educational objectives,” he said, adding that the company works in partnership with the center to maximize its resources and create a number of different learning experiences.

As an example, he cited a planned magnetic wall within the center that would have several teaching curricula on it.

“An educator would stand there and work with a class of students on subjects like water cycles,” he explained. “They might put clouds up here to show how rain comes down and flows here. They can show what happens next, or what results if the rain doesn’t happen. There are many things you can do with a wall like this.”

Looking forward, the two partners say their primary objectives are to build their portfolio through strong word-of-mouth referrals while also diversifying, in terms of both the type of project and the size.

And they see some potential opportunities on the horizon for accomplishing both.

One is the casino industry, which will, in all likelihood, be coming to the Bay State and, more specifically, Western Mass., within the next few years. Harris said casino builders are known for incorporating elaborate designs into everything from their main entrances to their themed restaurants, which could add up to opportunities for the company.

“If there’s any casino action, we’d like to get a piece of that,” he said, “whether it’s the tree or rock work, or, if not, the retail and dining areas. Maybe they’ll want a western-themed saloon or restaurant; that’s something we could get into.”

Another potential source of new business is a different kind of gaming industry — the video-game sector, which is also known for creating imaginative workspaces.

“We’d like to see some of those kinds of projects through,” he said, “where you have a successful, fast-paced, super-creative startup that wants a custom space.

“If someone comes in and says, ‘I want my office to look like a submarine interior,’ we can do that,” he continued, citing an actual case he heard about in California, adding, “we’re just dying to find the clients out here who will do it.”

One of the company’s broad goals is to optimize its design-fabrication workflow through digital fabrication, said Harris, thus quickening the pace of taking something from the drawing board to the museum floor or trade show floor, bringing benefits for both the company and its clients.

“The faster we can go from a digital model in the computer to the CNC routers and efficiently fabricate the core of the components, the better it will be for us,” he explained. “We need to get better at that game because that lets us free up the high-value artistic labor to do the final touches.

Another broad goal is to create steady revenue streams — perhaps year-round or at least steady production of various lines of furniture — to smooth out some of the ebbs and flows that are part and parcel to the kind of project work the company handles.

“We’re looking down the road at ways to manufacture inventory,” he explained. “There has to a be a mix, because when you’re a project-oriented company, it’s either feast or famine. As one of our colleagues in the industry says, ‘you’re exactly one of two sizes in this business — you’re either too big or two little; one project coming in is not enough to keep the lights on, and three will kill you.”

 

Numbers Game

When asked to describe their transition to business owners, both Harris and Kacian used the phrase ‘learning experience’ to describe their first few years.

There’s irony there, because that’s exactly what the company also creates, whether it be for Hall of Fame visitors looking to measure how high they can jump, or grade school students paying a visit to something approximating the forest floor at the Barnes Center.

It all comes back to that number that’s now on the company’s letterhead, said Harris, referring again to a host of literary and cultural references.

“While we don’t know what your challenge is,” he told BusinessWest, “we know the answer is 42.”

 

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

Manufacturing Sections
Instrument Technology Inc. Has an Eye on the Future

ITI

ITI has found a number of military and law-enforcement uses for its scopes.

Walk inside the Westfield headquarters of Instrument Technology Inc., and the first thing you’ll notice is the totem pole. It’s kind of hard to miss, rising dramatically up two levels of the front atrium.

In fact, an abundance of Native American art graces many of the walls and offices of the facility. ITI President Greg Carignan says there’s a good reason for this, and it has to do with a hobby his father, Donald, stumbled upon by accident decades ago, shortly after founding the company.

“He was on the road, in very remote areas of the United States, calling on nuclear power plants that were usually out in the boonies,” Carignan said. “Usually, there was nothing around except Indian reservations. So, when he had time on his hands, he’d visit these reservations and meet artists, and he started growing an interest in Indian art. He started collecting it, and when his house overflowed, it started coming here. It’s quite a collection.”

Why nuclear power plants? When he launched ITI in 1967 as a manufacturer of optics equipment, the elder Carignan got heavily involved in the nuclear-energy market; “he started building underwater periscopes and wall periscopes to look at the spent fuel rods being stored underwater.”

Greg Carignan explained that, after a period of time, a nuclear fuel rod’s energy is spent, but it’s still radioactive, which has led to debate over the years about establishing a national repository for those spent rods in the Southwest, but bureaucracy and public opposition have made that all but impossible.

“So nuclear plants are required to store spent rods at their facility, mostly underwater, and they’re required to be inspected periodically,” he said. “Dad developed a large-diameter periscope that could go down underwater and look at those spent fuel rods and make sure they’re in good condition. He built quite a few of those scopes in the late ’60s and early ’70s.”

Greg Carignan

Greg Carignan says the company’s diversity has allowed it to thrive during societal changes, such as a shift away from nuclear power plants.

Today, Carignan, who, along with two siblings, took over the company from their father in 1990, oversees a 47-employee workforce designing and building cutting-edge optical equipment for a wide range of purposes, from peering around corners in war zones to helping doctors navigate inside the human body.

For this issue’s focus on manufacturing, BusinessWest pays a visit to Instrument Technology, which has been scoping out new opportunities in an intriguing field for the last 45 years — and shows no signs of slowing down the pace of innovation.

 

Solo Act

Donald Carignan, his son recalled, had a background in optics and worked as a project engineer for American Optical from 1960 to 1966. He then took a job with Kollmorgen Electro-Optical; “that’s where he got his experience building borescopes and periscopes.” Just a year later, he was ready to strike out on his own, launching ITI in Southampton.

“My dad was a pretty driven individual; he worked hard to make it a success,” Greg Carignan said, noting that the company was a bit gypsy-like during its first two decades, moving from Southampton to West Springfield, then to Westfield, and finally to the current facility on the other side of the city in 1985.

“We specialize in the design and manufacturing of remote-viewing instruments,” he explained, noting that the company employs designers and engineers, as well as a full machine shop and assemply department to build the products it designs.

“What is remote viewing? It’s the ability to view a photograph or video-record any area that’s inaccessible or hostile, as well as the ability to view covertly,” he explained. “We added that last portion over the past 20 years because, before that, it hadn’t been used for covert operations.”

But he backed up a bit to describe how ITI has branched into so many diverse fields.

It began with the nuclear-power plants, for which the company developed not only those underwater-viewing scopes, but wall periscopes that allowed workers to see past thick concrete walls into the ‘hot cells’ where radioactive materials were handled. But societal changes that impacted the nuclear-power industry would force ITI to shift its focus — and not for the last time.

“During the Carter years of the late 1970s,” Carignan said, “the nation saw a drastic decline in the number of nuclear facilities being built. And most facilities had our equipment in them. My dad was in need of business, so he looked elsewhere to try to continue moving ITI forward.

“He looked at the industrial market and saw that it was being served by medical endoscopes at the time, and nobody was building industrial borescopes,” he said, noting that the two words are essentially interchangeable, with ‘endoscope’ typically referring to a medical instrument and ‘borescope’ a non-medical one.

“Endoscopes for the human body came on the scene about 40 years ago, but it wasn’t until later on that people figured out they could use the same scopes to look into jet engines, castings, pipes, and other things in industry,” Carignan said. “My dad started working for companies like Pratt & Whitney and General Electric to build delicate industrial borescopes to inspect their engines. They called it the ‘jetscope.’”

Many years ago, he explained, the airline industry had to take apart engines to conduct inspections required by the Federal Aviation Administration — a very costly, time-consuming process. But the development of a flexible borescope that could be inserted into each end of the engine was a revolutionary and cost-saving change.

“Designers started designing points along the engine so they could look in the middle, too,” he said. “You take out a plug and stick in the scope to look at the different sections of the engine.”

During the ’80s and ’90s, the industrial market grew for ITI, and the scopes became more complex, with flexible shafts and articulated tips allowing for more flexible movement.

 

A Time to Kill, a Time to Heal

Dawn Carignan Thomas

Dawn Carignan Thomas holds one of ITI’s scopes used for medical applications.

Throughout this expansion, ITI hadn’t done anything in the medical market. “But that changed in the 1990s when a company on the West Coast — Accuscan in Mountain View, Calif. — knocked on our door and asked us to make what they called a gastroscope for them,” Carignan said.

“They didn’t want to see through it; they didn’t want fibers in it or optics of any kind,” he continued. “They were going to put a transducer in the tip and use it as an ultrasonic device for an esophageal probe down the throat to scope the heart, which is much easier than to try to do it externally and look through the rib cage and all the muscle and fatty tissue.

“We worked with them for a year and a half, and that’s when we started in the medical business,” he continued — a shift that has seen the company produce rigid arthroscopes, ureteroscopes, otoscopes, spine scopes, and laparoscopes; flexible gastroscopes, bronchoscopes, and colonoscopes; as well as equipment for video intubation.

“After 20 years, we’ve become a lot more selective about who we decide to work with,” Carignan said regarding the ideas potential customers pitch to ITI. “If it sounds like a very high risk, or a low chance of successfully bringing it to market, we may not get involved. If it’s a startup company or doctor/inventor that’s asking us to do it on our dime and pay for the development costs, oftentimes we’ll say no.

“The model we’ve come to develop,” he continued, “is companies that have some success already and are willing to share the developent costs of the product.”

Eventually, ITI expanded its offerings even further by getting involved in the law-enforcement and military markets, with products such as telescopic cameras that can see around corners and in darkness, under-door scopes, and scopes that see into rooms using tiny (as small as 2.6 mm) holes in the wall.

“We also needed non-conductive probes that could look into a package or parcel to check if there was anything explosive,” Carignan said. “You don’t want to stick in something metallic that could short the device and cause an explosion.”

The original models used infrared light to expose images, and “that was very successful — then the bad guys figured it out,” Carignan said. “So we were asked to find out new ways of seeing. So we developed a blue-light diode, with different characteristics that wouldn’t trigger detection devices. We always want to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.”

ITI also built a pole camera to look into second stories of buildings, down stairwells, into ceiling tiles, and even underwater. “This was a scope we sold quite a bit of to special-ops groups in Iraq, to clear buildings, streets, and neighborhoods, to look around corners and into rooms where the bad guys might be before clearing out a room. They were eventually used in caves to hunt down Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

The wars and Iraq and Afghanistan saw a surge in the production of such devices. Carignan showed BusinessWest a chart breaking down sales from 1999 through 2008, and while medical devices tend to make up the biggest percentage of the company’s sales in a typical year, the law-enforcement and military division took that spot from 2003 through 2006. Meanwhile, sales of industrial scopes have fallen off somewhat over the years, but are rebounding.

 

Next Generation

The three siblings — Greg, Controller and Purchasing Manager Dawn Carignan Thomas, and Manufacturing Manager Jeff Carignan — admit their devices don’t allow a clear view into the company’s future. With six kids among them, third-generation ownership is always possible.

“We’re wondering where the next generation might take us,” Greg Carignan said, “but it’s still early for that.”

For now, they continue to grow and innovate, scoping out new ideas to help people — manufacturers, surgeons, and soldiers alike — see a lot more clearly.

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at  [email protected]

40 Under 40 The Class of 2012
Massachusetts State Senator, First Hampden District

Welch-JamesThe tornado that roared through Western Mass. last June passed through several communities and neighborhoods. A common denominator for many of them is the fact that they lie in the First Hampden District.
That’s Sen. James Welch’s district, only he would never call it that. He contends that such positions belong to the people, not those who occupy them for two terms or even 20. And this is the attitude he’s taken with him through a career in public service that has also included stints as West Springfield city councilor, state representative (6th Hampden District), and as aide to former state Sen. Stephen Buoniconti before succeeding him in that role.
And while he’s seen and done a lot in public service, nothing fully prepared Welch for what transpired June 1, 2011 — although every career stop helped make him ready to effectively serve his constituents that were affected. And there were many of them. Indeed, the First Hampden District includes all of West Springfield, a community that was hit hard, as well as Springfield’s South End, Forest Park, and other sections that fell in the tornado’s path.
Welch said the twister and its aftermath provided many indelible images of devastation, but also innumerable — and inspiring — examples of people rising to the occasion and working together to help communities overcome adversity. And while he’s proud of the work he and others in the Legislature have done and continue to do to help people get back on their feet, he says his focus is always on the day-to-day aspects of his job description.
“What probably keeps me going every day is the interaction and constituent service,” he explained, adding that it’s been this way since he was a legislative aide. “And when I first got into public service, I didn’t necessarily understand what constituent service was. I’ve learned that it means being as accessible as possible to people when they do have an issue or a problem.”
Succeeding in that mission has made him an effective leader on Beacon Hill — and a member of the 40 Under Forty.
— George O’Brien

Class of 2012 Difference Makers

Officers, the Springfield Corps of the Salvation Army

Majors Tom and Linda-Jo Perks Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Majors Tom and Linda-Jo Perks
Photo by Denise Smith Photography

Tom and Linda-Jo Perks were hardly novices when it came to disaster response last June 1, when tornadoes plowed through several communities in Western Mass.

Indeed, Tom, commanding officer of the Salvation Army’s Springfield Corps, was in Lower Manhattan only a few days after 9/11, working to provide relief to the survivors of the terrorist attacks. And his wife, Linda-Jo Perks, co-commanding officer, was in Biloxi, Miss. just after Hurricane Katrina barreled through in 2005, doing similar work.

But both told BusinessWest that there was a dissimilar feel to the relief efforts in Springfield after the twister changed thousands of lives in a matter of seconds that fateful Wednesday afternoon, a phenomenon Linda-Jo summed up quickly and effectively when she said, “it’s different when it’s your disaster.

“We were used to people telling us what to do, and we’d respond,” she continued. “But when it’s your disaster, you’re in charge, and the next morning, we just knew that the people who were isolated needed food and care — and we moved.”

Elaborating, Tom said there was a far-greater personal connection to the human side of the devastation, because responders knew some of the people who were impacted, as well as that much greater sense of ownership of the relief efforts. This sensation would, unfortunately, be repeated a few months later when a hurricane swept across Western Mass., and again in October, when a freak snowstorm cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people.

Effective disaster response in a tumultuous 2011 is only one of many reasons why the Perkses, or “the majors,” as some call them, have become part of the latest class of Difference Makers. Most all others involve issues and problems that are with the region on a constant basis — and for which the Perkses and the team they direct have crafted results-driven responses that have stood the test of time.

There are seasonal programs such as Coats for Kids, Toys for Joy, and a summer literacy program, as well as ongoing initiatives including a family reading program, tutoring services involving students from Springfield College and area high schools, teen violence and gang-prevention efforts, food pantries, and clothing assistance.

And then, there’s a groundbreaking endeavor called Bridging the Gap.

Now 15 years old, BTG, as it’s called, was created to help teenage first-time offenders become one-time offenders and get their lives back on the right path.

It does so through a 12-week program (classes are conducted three days a week for three hours a day) focusing on life skills ranging from communication to money management; from building self-esteem to goal setting.

Those who successfully complete the program and do not commit another crime within a year of that accomplishment have their criminal records expunged, “which can have a serious impact if you’re talking about college or getting a job when you’re 15,” said Tom, noting that BTG has enjoyed an 89% success rate. It has won a prestigious honor — the National Justice Department Outstanding Youth Program of the Year Award — and is now a model for many other organizations serving young people, with an average of eight to 10 groups coming to Springfield each year to see how it works.

BTG is an example, said Tom, of how the Salvation Army earns attention and headlines for its response to tornadoes and hurricanes, but the bulk of its work is “with people who come through the door each day with their own disaster.”

Reflecting on their quarter-century of service to the Salvation Army, the Perkses noted that they took different paths to the organization. Linda-Jo said her parents were Salvation Army officers, and she essentially grew up with the institution knowing she would one day be a part of it.

Tom, meanwhile, said his route to the Springfield Corps’ Pearl Street facility was more a matter of circumstance than destiny. He was 4 years old when, to try to get along with a gang of boys in his Warren, Ohio neighborhood, he let the air out of the tires of dozens of cars before he was eventually caught in the act. He remembers the police officer who escorted him home telling his mother, “you better do something with him, or he’s going to be mine.”

“She heard that the Salvation Army was a church and that it had a boys program, and we started attending, so I grew up in the Salvation Army,” said Perks, adding that, despite this, he still wandered down the wrong path. He had become involved in drugs and alcohol and was a young man without much direction or purpose in his life when another incident provided him with both. Not long after graduating from high school, he and a good friend were in a serious automobile accident. Perks was left with a fat lip, while his friend, the driver (and the straightest-laced guy in the world), was left in a coma.

“I said, ‘this is not fair; I should be the one who’s hurt really bad, not him,’” Perks recalled. “God said it wasn’t the first time it was someone else when it should have been me, and that I needed to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I considered the Salvation Army, and when other doors closed and that one opened, I walked through it.”

The Perkses met on the first day they were in seminary, and have been together virtually every day since that moment. Their pending 25th wedding anniversary and 25th anniversary of graduating from the seminary were only a few days apart.

They started their careers with the Salvation Army in the Worcester corps, and made subsequent stops in Greenfield and Pittsfield before coming to Springfield, the third-largest corps in the state.

When asked what constitutes a typical day for them, they said there is no such thing, which is what they like most about their work.

“There’s never what I would call a normal day,” said Linda-Jo. “Each day is different; you could be counseling a runaway, giving a bus ticket to a transient, helping someone whose loved one has died and needs to get to the funeral, performing a marriage, helping a child to read … you never know what you’re going to see when you come in the door.”

This was especially true in 2011, when one weather-related disaster followed another, with many families impacted by two or even three of them.

The Perkses were at their home in Agawam when the tornado carved its path through Western Mass. It missed them, but they knew from watching on television that it didn’t miss many sections of Springfield. They couldn’t get into Springfield right away, but immediately started mobilizing the organization’s resources, staff, and volunteers for a multifaceted response.

It involved everything from bringing food directly to families in the impacted areas to getting necessities to families displaced by the disaster and living temporarily in the MassMutual Center, to coordinating collections of items ranging from bottled water to diapers.

But beyond supplies, staff and volunteers from the Salvation Army also delivered counseling, support, and, quite often, a literal shoulder to cry on.

“People were trying to clean up, and they were crying,” said Linda-Jo. “It was sad, it was hard, it was moving. People just appreciated the fact that we thought about them, and it was really neighbor helping neighbor; it was people from Cape Cod sending tractor-trailer loads of supplies to the area and a Christian school taking a trip here and saying, ‘can we help you?’”

Tom has similar memories, and summed them up by saying that perhaps the most precious commodity the Salvation Army brought to victims was hope, and that’s something that’s supplied to all those who come through the door — literally or figuratively — with their own disaster.

For providing that hope, in whatever form it takes, the majors, and all those who work with them, are certainly Difference Makers.

— George O’Brien

Commercial Real Estate Sections
Springfield’s Rebuilding Effort Comes at Intriguing Time for Urban Centers

Dave Dixon

Dave Dixon says there is a surge in interest in urban living, which presents huge opportunities for cities like Springfield.

As local officials, hired consulting firms, and city residents combine forces to craft a rebuilding plan for Springfield in the wake of the June 1 tornado, they do so at a time of change and opportunity for many urban centers. Officials with the firms contracted to lead efforts to blueprint a revitalization strategy say there is a rise in the popularity of urban living, a trend that could facilitate the recovery process in many ways.

Dave Dixon was understandably wary about incorporating the phrase ‘silver lining’ into any statements he made concerning the June 1 tornado and its aftermath.
But he nonetheless put it to use as he talked about the efforts to rebuild Springfield and, more specifically, the work to revitalize the downtown and South End sections of the city. And that silver lining is all about timing and emerging trends in urban centers, he explained.
“If this tornado had struck 10 years earlier, let’s say, I think this would be a much grimmer task, because we’d be rebuilding in the face of continuing disinvestment in the city,” said Dixon.
He’s the principal in charge of planning and urban design at Goody Clancy, the Boston-based architecture, planning, and preservation firm now co-leading the efforts to blueprint a rebuilding plan for Springfield with New Orleans-based Concordia (see related story, page 62).
Elaborating, Dixon said that, over the past several years, there has been a discernable upswing in the popularity of urban living. Spawned by a number of factors, including a desire among aging Baby Boomers to live in places where they can walk rather than drive to most required destinations, the trend has helped transform a number of urban centers, many with the same social and economic challenges as Springfield’s central business district and South End.
“Ten years ago, the world didn’t look like this,” said Dixon, who has seen or helped orchestrate revivals in cities ranging from Baltimore to New Orleans to Wichita, Kan. “This disaster in Springfield, like the one in New Orleans, happened at a time when cities are changing and have opportunities that they haven’t had for 40 or 50 years.
“What has gone on, particularly over the past decade, has been a profound transition in demographics, in the way real-estate markets work, in the values that the folks who bring investment with them because they attract employers, have all undergone,” he continued, adding that there are more single individuals or couples (as opposed to families) than was the case a decade ago, and income levels for such people are higher. “There are simply more people that could decide they want to live in an urban environment. They may have wanted to in the past, but it didn’t work for them. And now they’re looking to make it work.”
Indeed, the real silver lining for Springfield, said Dixon, is an apparent, and growing, pent-up demand for downtown mailing addresses. To illustrate, he took out a piece of paper and sketched a simple chart showing the rising popularity of urban living.
The line moves upward at a steady clip, he explained while drawing, but the recession of the past several years has restricted the angle of ascent because, among other factors, homeowners looking to relocate to urban centers are still having trouble selling their homes, and market-rate housing builders are still being challenged in their efforts to finance such endeavors.
Like a dam holding back water, these factors are effectively bottling up demand, he continued, adding that, when conditions improve and that figurative dam breaks, cities properly positioned to capitalize on the trend could benefit significantly.
And in many ways, the tornado has helped put Springfield in such a position, he went on, acknowledging that the city still faces a number of challenges in this regard — including crime, the perception of same, and a concentration of subsidized-housing projects in both the downtown and South End — and that progress certainly won’t occur overnight.
But the city has many of the key ingredients to join the list of other success stories, he said, listing a decent “walkability index” — more on that later — a solid existing inventory of buildings that can be converted into market-rate housing, and, thanks to the tornado, some vacant acreage on which to build such housing, as well as businesses to sustain an urban population.
Dixon acknowledged that many are skeptical that such urban living could help transform Springfield’s downtown area, but he’s seen enough evidence of the trend in other parts of the country to believe it could certainly happen here.

Walking the Walk
As he talked with BusinessWest, Ron Mallis, a senior planner with Goody Clancy, was using his iPhone to see how well several downtown Springfield addresses fared on a Web site called walkscore.com. The site essentially assesses a location based on one’s ability to walk to amenities ranging from coffee shops to entertainment venues to banks, and gives it a score from 1 to 100, with the latter being the best.
The DevelopSpringfield office at 1182 Main St. earned an 89, while the Red Rose restaurant just a few blocks south notched an 82. Those statistics are not to be discounted, said Mallis, because many constituencies, from young artists to aging Boomers to business owners, are looking at such numbers with greater interest.
“People are more health-conscious than they were years ago,” he explained. “People have woken up to the fact that walking and health have a direct correlation, and that certainly plays a part in the decisions people are making about where they want to live.
Dixon agreed. “If you look at surveys about how much people want to drive, it used to be that, the younger you were, the more you liked getting in the car and driving; now it’s the reverse, and some of it is health-driven; it’s viewed as unhealthy to be in a car a lot.”
But there’s more to this trend than exercise, he continued, adding that many individuals within different age groups, when queried about what they want from a residential address, put that intangible ‘community’ high on their list. “And people think of urban areas as offering much more opportunity for community — to run into each other and meet each other.
“When you look at the top-10 criteria that people listed for where they wanted to live, from the ’60s up until probably 2003, or at least through the ’90s, it was golf courses, near golf courses, on a golf course, and as far away from work as possible,” he went on. “None of those are on the list in 2011. Surveys now show it’s proximity to Main Street, diversity, the ability to walk to work … and even telecommuters are much more interested in living in denser, walkable areas, perhaps because they spend the day by themselves.”
Dixon and Mallis have seen such trends emerge as they’ve helped Goody Clancy compile an extensive portfolio of work in older urban areas. The firm has taken part in a number of downtown projects, from guiding 12 million square feet of mixed-use development around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to revitalization plans for communities as such as Baltimore, Akron, Ohio, Jamestown, N.Y., and, locally, Greenfield.
To illustrate his point on urban living and add a measure of credibility to the argument, Dixon pointed to Wichita, a city of about 900,000 and a downtown still fighting its way back from decades of disinvestment and an out-migration of people and businesses.
“Even the lawyers moved out of the downtown, which is unusual,” he said. “Compared to many parts of downtown Wichita, Springfield’s South End would look cool — it would look like an arts district. But downtown is beginning to take off; there are several hundred units of new, cool lofts — they’re rentals right now because the condo market isn’t there yet; one was rented out before it was finished, and another, more expensive building is almost rented out.
“Meanwhile, there’s another, more conventional project with larger, more expensive units that’s just sitting there because that’s not what the market’s going to come back to,” he went on. “The market’s about cool, urban, walkable living spaces. It’s more about living near a cool bakery than it is about giving a view.”
In Springfield, the firm has been assigned the task of coordinating efforts to develop strategic initiatives focused on the downtown and South End, one of three areas, or districts, of concentration involving neighborhoods impacted by the tornado. Since being hired in September, the firm’s representatives have undertaken a general inventory of this sector’s assets and liabilities, said Dixon, adding that there are more of the former than many people might think, and some could help the city take advantage of the pendulum moving back toward urban living.
And in many ways, the city is already making some strides, said Mallis, noting efforts to attract artists to the Morgan Square apartment complex (see BusinessWest, Aug. 29), and other initiatives to create more market-rate housing at several downtown-area properties.
As for the South End, Dixon said it has the potential to be “a hip place,” given its diversity, solid walk scores, proximity to many restaurants and cultural attractions, and decent inventory of properties that could, with some imagination, entrepreneurial flair, and requisite demand, be retrofitted into housing units.
As he walked with BusinessWest down Main Street, Dixon pointed out several such buildings near an already-thriving market-rate complex, the Willows, created from the former Milton Bradley manufacturing complex off Union Street. He gestured to everything from office and retail properties with large vacancy rates to abandoned or underutilized manufacturing and warehouse structures.
“You can just look at those properties and see that, if the market is there a half-block away,” he said, “it can be at those sites as well.”
There are also several currently vacant parcels, including the former Gemini site and some others created by the tornado, which provide opportunities for developers with vision.
Beyond vacant lots, though, the tornado has provided a spark for the city, said Dixon, when pressed about why market-rate housing and related developments haven’t happened sooner.
“As horrible and painful as the tornado has been for many people,” he said, “it has sort of galvanized the moment; it has the community focused, the city focused, everybody focused on how to rebuild better.”

Building Momentum
This combination of focus and determination has arrived at the intersection of rising interest in urban living and pent-up demand. It’s an intriguing situation that could make Springfield’s downtown the right place at the right time.
“Put all these things together, and Springfield, like many cities, has opportunities that it hasn’t had for a very long time,” said Dixon. “They don’t happen automatically, though. Cities have all these problems — fragmented land ownership, zoning, tax structures — which are not necessarily geared to the kind of development you want, and crime and the perception of crime.
“But there are lot of cities that have been very patient over the past 10 years, looking at what’s happening, removing the obstacles, investing in downtowns, and getting tremendous payoffs. Springfield has that opportunity; something like the tornado is a kind of wakeup call that it’s not just time to change, but to take stock. And when you take stock, you can take advantage of these opportunities.”
In other words, this could a silver lining that makes Springfield a shining example of how urban centers can be revitalized.

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

Involvement, Strong Leadership Called Keys to Rebuilding Effort

Bobbie Hill

Bobbie Hill says plans and process are important, but involvement and leadership are the keys to revitalizing a city.

Bobbie Hill was asked about process, plans, and potential projects.
And she said there will be all three when it comes to the task of rebuilding Springfield in the wake of the June 1 tornado. However, none will be the real key to a successful effort.
Instead, the most vital component — and she says she’s learned this from considerable experience — is getting the residents of the community in question to take a real ownership stake in the recovery initiatives.
“It’s the relationship-building, the community-capacity-building, the taking-ownership piece,” said Hill, a consultant with the New Orleans-based planning and architecture firm Concordia, which is heading the team of companies coordinating Springfield’s rebuilding-plan process. “Those are the keys; it’s ownership, and holding yourself, your neighbors, elected officials, and developers accountable to doing it and doing it right.
“That engagement component, that people component, is as important if not more important than individual concepts,” she continued. “This can’t just be about development projects; that’s not what transforms a community.”
What does, she stressed again, is a willingness on the part of residents to get involved and stay involved, and not give in to the theory, or temptation, that government will take care of things. And it comes through leadership, she went on, noting that, in most every community where the 11-person firm has lent its disaster-response, planning, and design expertise, leaders from the community have emerged.
The process of getting the community involved in the rebuilding effort began earlier this month with neighborhood meetings in the three identified sectors involving areas of the city damaged by the tornado. Sector 1 is the metro center (downtown) and the South End, while Sector 2 is composed of Six Corners, Upper Hill, Old Hill, and Forest Park, and Sector 3 includes Sixteen Acres and East Forest Park.
Those neighborhood meetings were followed up with a city-wide gathering a few days later, and two more sessions of neighborhood meetings and another city-wide session are scheduled for November and December, said Hill, adding that the four firms collaborating on the endeavor will present an implementation and financing plan to a community congress on Jan. 5.
That’s the process, in simple terms, she said, adding that it’s too early to discuss specific potential redevelopment projects, although plenty of suggestions — from a supermarket to market-rate housing projects to reforestation proposals — have come forth at the neighborhood sessions.
In subsequent neighborhood meetings, the suggestions will be discussed at greater length, and eventually priorities will be established, and consultants will “put numbers” to potential recommendations in an effort to determine which ones make sense and which ones don’t.
More importantly, though, the initial sessions have yielded evidence of the requisite level of involvement, leadership, and community spirit that will be necessary for a successful recovery effort.
“I was really encouraged by what I saw and heard the other night,” she referring to the neighborhood meeting in Sector 2. “There was definitely a strong sense of community, people really caring for other and celebrating diversity — that really came across.”
There are four firms involved in the process of coordinating the neighborhood meetings and compiling the report to be completed Jan. 5. They are:

• Corcordia, which, among other projects in its portfolio, led coordination for the Unified New Orleans Plan after Hurricane Katrina that included selection and management of 12 national, regional, and local planning firms that created plans for 14 planning districts and an overall city-wide recovery plan;

• Goody Clancy, a Boston-based urban planning and design firm that has coordinated revitalization efforts in a number of major cities (see related story, page 60);

• Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh McDowell Inc. (BNIM), considered the most experienced firm in the country when it comes to helping tornado-impacted communities engage in a transformative recovery planning process; and

• The Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a nonprofit planning, design, and educational organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public places that build stronger communities.
For more information on the process or to submit ideas online, visit www.rebuildspringfield.com. The schedule for future neighborhood and citywide meetings is as follows:

• Six Corners, Upper Hill, Old Hill, and Forest Park: Nov. 15, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the J.C. Williams Center, Florence Street;

• Sixteen Acres, East Forest Park: Nov. 16, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Holy Cross gymnasium, Plumtree Road;

• Metro Center, South End: Nov. 17, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Gentile Apartments Community Room, Williams Street;

• Metro Center, South End: Dec. 6, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Gentile Apartments Community Room, Williams Street;

• Sixteen Acres, East Forest Park: Dec. 7, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Holy Cross gymnasium, Plumtree Road;

• Six Corners, Upper Hill, Old Hill, and Forest Park: Dec. 8, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the J.C. Williams Center, Florence Street;

• City-wide: Dec. 10, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the MassMutual Center; and

• Community Congress: Jan. 5, 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the MassMutual Center.

— George O’Brien

Sales and Marketing Sections
Seven Steps to Using LinkedIn to Promote Yourself Effectively

Christine Pilch

Christine Pilch

Have you Googled your name lately? When you do, you’ll likely find that your LinkedIn profile is near the top of the results. That’s how powerful this social network is. So why would you fail to take it seriously and neglect its potential as a mighty self-promotional tool?
Statistics published by Quantcast Corp. in October show that nearly 17 million U.S. LinkedIn users visit the site at least once weekly, 70% of them are age 35 or older, 75% of them have undergraduate or graduate degrees, and 68% have incomes exceeding $60,000. This proves that LinkedIn users are generally affluent and well-educated.
So what are all these people doing on LinkedIn? Another study by Lab42 in August said that top-level executives use it primarily for industry networking and promoting their own businesses, while mid-level executives use it for keeping in touch and industry networking. Entry-level people use it primarily for job search and co-worker networking.
Unfortunately, some people join LinkedIn simply because they were invited by a colleague and felt obligated to do so. They entered the minimally required information, and bam, their profile was created. From that point on, their account remains neglected, and they demonstrate that they’re not serious about this social network and perhaps convey the message that they’re a luddite who isn’t up to speed on contemporary networking techniques.
How can you use LinkedIn to your best advantage?

Determine Your Goals
Perhaps your goal is to find a new job. You may feel stagnant, undervalued, or bored in your current situation. If you want to find a new job, LinkedIn can be your golden ticket. Recruiters and human resources personnel have become adept at utilizing LinkedIn to search for and find qualified candidates, and they are reaching out directly to people who indicate that they are open to job inquiries. Two key components to successfully leveraging LinkedIn to land a new job are having a complete and impressive profile and making sure that your profile is open to accepting messages from everyone, not just your connections.
Perhaps you want to promote your services or company. LinkedIn is the professional standard for online networking these days, so it is the perfect venue to promote yourself. But a word of caution: beware promoting your company at the exclusion of yourself within your profile. Your profile is the place to show what you personally bring to the table. Even if you’re a consultant and you are the company, make sure that viewers know what you can do for them with action words that speak in terms of ‘you’ instead of ‘I.’ The tenants of basic marketing messaging apply here, so if you don’t understand how to craft a proper marketing message, find someone who is good at it to help you.
Perhaps you are unemployed. LinkedIn is a no-brainer if you’re in this situation. It’s usually the first place most recruiters and hiring managers go to check someone out, so it is imperative to have a 100% complete profile. Take the time to create a summary that sells you on your merits, draft descriptive narratives for all your past experience, and list your complete educational history, so people from your past can find you. Remember that, when people search, their results come from their expanded LinkedIn network only, not all of LinkedIn, so it is also especially important for you to expand your network, because everyone is a potential job-referral source for you.

Enhance Your Profile
LinkedIn is not the place to be humble. Provide concrete proof of the value you can bring to a new organization by listing past key accomplishments. For example, don’t just say that you can save an organization money; demonstrate it by listing specific actions you took, the positive results they generated, and the timeframe in which all this occurred.
Use a current photo that shows you dressed the way that people see you in your employment environment. Bankers and accountants should be in suit and tie if that’s how people see them. A chef should be in her coat. If in doubt, dress for the position you aspire to rather than the position you currently have. Remember that this is a professional network, so unless you’re a baseball player, don’t display a photo of you in a cap.
Use the line under your name to highlight the benefit you can bring to an organization. Surely, “experienced leader with 15 years developing top-notch sales teams and growing businesses an average of 30% per year” will gain more attention than “sales manager.” Use this prime real estate to tell a prospective employer or client what you can do for them rather than simply listing a boring job title.
Your status is another easy way to remind people about your core competencies and remain top of mind. Whatever you put in that box lands in your connections’ newsfeed and in their e-mail digest, so make sure that it demonstrates your professional capabilities. “Cleaning my desk” is an irrelevant and improper message here, while “drafting an updated will for a newly divorced mother” lets people know specifically what you do.

Use Add-ons
LinkedIn has sections that you can add to highlight awards, additional languages, patents, projects, certifications, and test scores, in addition to other things. There is now a section where you can list your charitable and volunteer experience. You can add videos, presentations, reading lists, and articles. You also have the ability to customize your LinkedIn profile by rearranging the sections so that your most important credentials appear at the top. This can be helpful, for example, for a recent grad with little work experience to highlight relevant courses.

Get Recommendations
Few professionals are hired these days without a reference check, so consider the upfront benefit to a prospective employer when your peers or employers sing your praises on LinkedIn. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about how wonderful you are, but when someone else says it, there is extra credibility. Recommendations are also a point of distinction, as many LinkedIn users don’t bother to solicit them.

Engage
LinkedIn is, after all, a social network, and being social means engaging with others, not just lurking or broadcasting. LinkedIn provides plenty of opportunities to communicate with other members, so read your news feed, and comment on and like connections’ statuses. Reach out with a congratulatory note when someone gets promoted or changes jobs. Join and participate in Groups. This means reading the discussion items, posting relevant topics, and participating, not just collecting logos to decorate your profile.
You should also check out the Answers component. You can find it under ‘More’ in the site’s primary navigation. Once there, you can ask and answer questions posed by your network. This is a great way to demonstrate expertise and solicit advice, and it helps to raise awareness of you within the LinkedIn community.

Fact Check and Update
Spelling errors and improper punctuation and grammar on LinkedIn make you look bad, so carefully proofread everything before posting it, and correct any errors promptly. If writing isn’t your strong suit, make sure you have an editor review your profile for problems. LinkedIn allows you about 15 minutes to change your discussion entries, too, so use this time wisely. Also, be sure that all referenced dates, accomplishments, and facts are accurate. Toot your own horn, but don’t lie.
Keep your profile updated, and remain an active participant within the network. The value of LinkedIn lies in its innate ability to connect people, so if you don’t participate, you’re not adding value to your network. In addition, keep your profile updated. Review it regularly, compare it against competitors or people who have the job you want, and continue to refine it.

LinkedIn Don’ts
Along with all the good suggestions above, it is also easy to damage your reputation on LinkedIn. Here are a few things to avoid:
Don’t spam your network. Unsolicited communication is considered spam by most recipients. Don’t be the guy who interrupts his network with unwanted promotional messages. Everybody is on LinkedIn to sell something, but overt sales are generally not welcome. It’s better to demonstrate your expertise and generate desire for your skills via engagement.
Don’t use a logo or graphic for your photo. This is prohibited in LinkedIn’s terms of service. LinkedIn wants real faces of actual people connected to its membership.
Don’t argue, abuse, attack, or use foul language anywhere on LinkedIn. Such activity is not tolerated, and you can be reported and kicked out of the network. Can you afford to be ostracized from the largest and most influential professional network online today?
LinkedIn is too powerful for professionals at any level to ignore these days. There is a general expectation that you are there, and if someone is looking to fact-check or gauge your credibility and ability to perform in a particular capacity, you’d better have a strong presence there, or LinkedIn makes it really easy for them to find your competitors and move on down the line.

Christine Pilch is a partner with Grow My Company and a social-media marketing strategist. She trains businesses to utilize LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging, and other social-media tools to grow, and she collaborates with professional-service firms to get results through innovative positioning and branding strategies; (413) 537.2474; linkedin.com/in/christinepilch; growmyco.com

Commercial Real Estate Sections
Historic Building Has a New Lease on Life

Opal Real Estate Group and city officials want to turn a neglected space into a vibrant, mixed-use facility.

For the partners at Opal Real Estate Group, the historic block in Springfield known as Court Square is more than just another real-estate redevelopment opportunity. Before the passage of years, they say the building and its surroundings were one of the most vibrant developments in the city. The Springfield Redevelopment Authority, which owns the site, is hopeful that the players, funding, and vision are in place to return Court Square to that status once again.

Hanging on the wall behind Demetrios Panteleakis’ desk is a large painting of 31 Elm St. in Springfield, a building that most know simply as Court Square.
This historic block across from City Hall and Symphony Hall has remained vacant for decades. While the city has been diligent in keeping the property secure, time and nature have taken their toll on the elegant structure. Two other smaller buildings, Byer’s Block and the brownstone on the corner of Elm and Main known as the Chicopee Bank Building, are also part of a larger project that in recent months has city officials excited for the future of Springfield’s center.
Panteleakis is the managing partner of Opal Real Estate Group, the preferred developer for the site. The company, owned by Peter Picknelly, was one of the finalists back in 2008 to redevelop the property, but lost the bid to Connelly and Partners from Boston.
However, when that developer’s plans fell through, only a couple months old and a fast and furious victim of the economy, Opal was asked if it would like a second chance at bat.
The property is owned by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA), and in June of this year, Opal was named the preferred developer at Court Square. It was granted 120 days to come up with plans for funding and redevelopment, by all accounts a comprehensive and laborious process which examines every system of the structures, their history, and their potential future.
It’s an interesting moment of happenstance how Panteleakis came upon that painting, by the same artist responsible for the murals in the elevator lobbies of the very same building. Because, in many ways, the chance encounter with that work of art in an antique store is a metaphor for the larger forces now underway in the revitalization of the property. It’s a story of the right people in the right place at the right time.
Recently, BusinessWest had a chance to sit down with both Panteleakis and Brian Connors, the city’s point person for the property from the Office of Planning and Economic Development. The story they told is not one that has an easy answer. As Connors said, “if this project were a simple fix, it would have been done long ago.”
The difference this time is that, for Picknelly and his partners at Opal, the building is more than just another real-estate redevelopment opportunity. “Court Square was once the most vibrant part of the city,” Picknelly told BusinessWest. “Today, this is the best of New England — the grandeur of the historic buildings married to the modern structures nearby. Springfield is our home, and this building is at its core. In order for our city to be revitalized, this building can’t be abandoned.
“I believe, if done correctly, Court Square can be an important part of our city’s future,” he added. “Springfield simply cannot completely rebuild itself with this grand building left vacant.”

Center of Attention
Connors called the location “one of the most significant civic spaces in the entire Commonwealth,” and of the Court Square buildings themselves he simply said, “buildings that look like this just aren’t built anymore.”
The SRA also owns Union Station just a few blocks away, and he called both these sites key properties for Springfield’s future. Opal had been committed to the Court Square project for months before their preferred status, he said, and meets with city officials on a weekly basis to hammer out the ongoing issues that arise with a project of this scope.
“You don’t just hand over the keys and start construction,” he said. “It’s really a lot of due-diligence work. Opal, meanwhile, is getting all their applications in, their historic tax credits, their financing. We’re very excited to have a private partner advancing this as quickly as they can, with the best of all their expertise. They know Springfield, and they’ve worked on historic redevelopment.”
Patting his hand on a ream of Opal’s paperwork, only a fraction of the documents and reports that will chart the project’s course, Connors added, “this is already making far more progress than ever before.”
But he acknowledged the hard work ahead for both his office and the people at Opal. Between environmental and structural assessments, neither of which is tossing any unforeseen obstacles, and the funding sources, all parties involved will be kept busy before a hammer or shovel hits the site.
Funding is a crucial piece of the puzzle. “A project like this requires every sort of alphabet soup of incentives that are possible — federal, historic, and state tax credits,” he said. “And these are all competitive funds, so those applications are going in now. In a financial environment like there is today, funding is difficult. Banks aren’t loose with their money. City governments don’t have a lot of money.”

Family Ties
Although Connors said that Opal’s preferred 120 days ends in November, if the SRA board is satisfied by the developer’s efforts, the agreement will be extended.
“I can say from our experience, on a staff level we’re working with Opal on a weekly basis, and we’re very satisfied with the progress that’s been made,” he added.
Right now, Panteleakis said, the biggest obstacle his office faces is time.
“We’re in a race to take all the knowledge we’ve accumulated and verify it,” he said. “Because there’s been an RFP for the last ten years, there’s been a lot of study on the building. But for our grant purposes we need to go back and reassess all of it — mechanical, electrical, environmental.”
Opal is no stranger to historic redevelopment; currently it is at work on an historic property in the center of Westfield destined to be student housing for the state university there. At Court Square, Panteleakis said that a careful look at the past success of the buildings can indeed map out a bit of their future.
“You have to look at it less than conceptually,” he said, “and realize that, 25 to 30 years ago, this building had a viable commercial population. And that has a lot to do with location, location, location.”
The plans as they exist now aren’t to reinvent the uses of the building. Although the top floor is presently envisioned as market-rate housing, with apartments of up to four bedrooms, the first floor will remain retail- or service-oriented, with amenities that would cater to a residential or professional population that lives and works in the area. Middle floors are to be mixed commercial use, and there has been great interest in that space, both Panteleakis and Connors said.
Panteleakis, in fact, said the response has been “tremendous.”
“The development process that takes place in a building this size clearly has a point before hammers start to swing where you get a minimum level of commitment in order to have an economically viable project,” he explained. “We are in those conversations now, and we’re trying to firm up some of those commitments by January.”
Responding to criticism of what some may perceive as a surfeit of vacant office space in the city, Panteleakis waved off the possibility to naysay. “There’s a larger philosophical issue that needs to be examined. Anyone can say, ‘there’s too much office and retail space already,’ but it’s the quality of the product that brings people to the downtown. The bottom line is that, when you improve the quality of the product and create competition in that product, it forces everyone to get better.”
Here, he credited the redevelopments that the Dennis Group has made downtown, and how they raised the bar for those sections of Springfield where their historic buildings have been renovated.
Like Picknelly, Panteleakis said that Court Square resonates in his own remembrance of Springfield’s history. And that connection to the past is an important aspect to rebuilding for the future.
“If you have any commitment at all to the city of Springfield, or if you’ve been in the real-estate business and owned property in Springfield,” he said, “you’d know how important this location is. To come to what is probably the most architecturally significant building in the heart of the city, and to see it in disrepair, it makes an immediate statement to visitors to the city, and that has to be reversed.”
This is the type of project that comes along once in one’s career, he said.
“This is Springfield’s legacy,” he went on. “If buildings like this aren’t preserved, future generations are only going to see them in photographs.”
Pointing to the painting over his head, he added, “this is one that will be saved.”

Opinion
The Glass Is More Than Half Full

There have been a lot jokes lately about people seeing a plague of locusts coming down State Street in Springfield — or what they would do if they did see one.
Likewise, there’s been more attempted humor concerning the notion that adversity builds character. If it does, most in this region would say we’ve got more than enough character, thank you.
Indeed, it’s been quite a year, and it’s far from over. The winter was long and brutal. The recovery … that should be put in the form of a question, as in ‘what recovery?’ Gas prices soared back up over $4 a gallon, and although they’re down a little, they remain a challenge to progress. Meanwhile, debt crises here and abroad have sent the stock market reeling in recent weeks and raised the specter of the dreaded double dip.
Then came the natural disasters: first the tornado, from which full recovery will take years, then the minor earthquake (no damage, but it shook people up, literally and figuratively), and then the tropical storm, which didn’t hit with full fury, but try telling that to many people in Franklin County.
So as 2011 heads for the three-quarter pole, many people are looking for the locusts, figuring they have to be next. However, while being pessimistic and cynical in this climate — both economically and meteorologically —  there is room for a little optimism. In other words, yes, things could be much worse, and they are in many parts of this country and other nations as well. Why see the glass as at least half full? Consider these reasons:
• Adversity does, indeed, build character, and out of the trials and travails of 2011, some positive energy and new sources of resiliency have been found. The tornado turned many sections of Springfield, West Springfield, and other communities upside down, but now there is a chance to rebuild and perhaps create momentum from new initiatives. Meanwhile, the sum of the natural disasters and other forms of turmoil (and survival of all of that) could create more needed confidence in the region — an ‘if we can make though all this, we can make it through anything’ mentality.
• The jobs market, while not robust, or anything approaching that description, is at least holding steady, with signs of progress. The cutbacks at Baystate Health and Milton Bradley have been the only real setbacks, while companies such as Smith & Wesson, Big Y, and others have been adding workers, and many businesses are seemingly on the cusp of having enough confidence to move forward with new hiring.
• The region continues to foster entrepreneurship through incubation efforts and mentorship programs that will eventually pay huge dividends for the Greater Springfield area. As we’ve said many times before, while it’s great to lure corporations that will bring hundreds of jobs to an area, the more likely scenario for growth is through small-business development, and this region is making great strides in efforts to encourage entrepreneurial thinking and help companies survive those ultra-challenging first few years.
• The ‘eds and meds’ sectors remain strong and show promise to become even greater forces in the local economy. Baystate’s Hospital of the Future is on schedule to open soon, and most all area health care providers have survived the recent economic upheaval more or less intact. The pace of hiring has slowed, but it is still solid. On the higher-education side, schools like American International College have enjoyed strong growth (see story, page 10), while all the institutions in the region have contributed critical resources — especially their student populations — to help spur economic development in many forms, both in individual communities such as Westfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, and across the region as a whole.
We haven’t even mentioned the high-performance computing center in Holyoke, the emerging ‘green’ business sectors, and the strong possibility that a casino will be built in Palmer or Holyoke over the next several years.
Add it all up, and there is indeed reason for optimism, not merely cause to look over the hill for locusts.

Sections Supplements
Amherst Construction Company Has a Solid Foundation

Donald Teagno, left, and Louis Gallinaro

Donald Teagno, left, and Louis Gallinaro say the majority of the work handled by Teagno Construction is in residential settings.

When Donald Teagno was young, he never dreamed he would preside over an award-winning construction firm that would weather three recessions, employ 20 people, and specialize in historic renovations, museum work, and other niche services.
In fact, when the founder and president of Teagno Construction Inc. (TCI) in Amherst graduated from the UMass School of Education in the early ’70s, his plan was to teach English.
“I taught for six months at the junior-high-school level,” he recalled. “But I was in a fairly conservative school district, and I couldn’t use the creative techniques I had been taught at UMass.”
After that experience, he decided to embark upon an entirely different pathway that would allow him to utilize his natural talents. “I had always been pretty handy, and I started working as a carpenter for a developer in Amherst,” he said.
While doing so, Teagno became acquainted with a few local architects who needed work done on their own homes. He accepted one job at a time that included making custom furniture for some of his clients. By 1974, word of mouth had spread, and he began operating under the business name ‘Donald Teagno Building Contractor.’
“I was a lone carpenter and a sole proprietor,” he told BusinessWest. “When I became busier, I took on a partner. And little by little, the jobs got larger until I had three or four people working for me. But I had no preconceived notions that I would end up where I am today.”
However, by 1985, the company had grown substantially, and he incorporated under the name Teagno Construction. But he continued working in the field alongside his employees until it became necessary for him to remain in the office to give estimates and keep up with up with his payroll and other paperwork.
Leaving the construction sites to do office work was not an easy transition for the craftsman. “There are certain times during our company’s history when we made major leaps, and his was one of them,” Teagno explained. “But it was very difficult for me to delegate work to other people; I wanted things done in a certain way with a certain quality. Little by little, I was able to relax, once I was sure my reputation was being supported by my employees. But it was a slow process.”
In the early years, he worked almost exclusively with homeowners, putting on additions and doing interior renovations. “It was almost all negotiated work, but in 1985 I started doing larger jobs and branched out into multi-family work and the competitive market. And after about 10 or 15 years, I had built a reputation by doing unique projects,” he said. “We are not famous for it, but we have jacked up buildings to replace foundations, which we started doing in the ’80s.”
One of those jobs resulted in some recognition. TCI is certified by the state as a historical contractor, and its work on an 18-unit row house on South Street in Northampton won an award for historic preservation.
“We did a total renovation and extensive structural repairs there,” he explained. “The building was sliding down, and we had to pick up the foundation, level it, then pour a new foundation underneath it, which can cause some of the plaster inside to crack. These jobs are especially challenging, as it is really hard to figure out their cost. In the process of picking up a house, you find its weak points, so you have to look at it carefully to determine any problems that may arise. In the worst-case scenario, a project will become cost-prohibitive.”

On the Home Front
TCI’s portfolio is diverse and includes work in museums and local colleges. “We even built a ski lodge — the Swift River Inn in Cummington — which is now a school,” said general manager Louis Gallinaro. “And our marquee project on the industrial side was building All Saints Church in South Hadley.”
But the majority of the company’s projects have always been in the residential setting. It is in this realm where the business began and the reason TCI remains so sensitive to its customers’ ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
“Our residential work all started with my reputation for quality work and attention to people’s needs,” Teagno said.
In fact, almost 90% of his work comes from customer referrals. He does little advertising and relies mainly on word of mouth.
Teagno says he has been able to weather three recessions, two of them quite severe in nature, due to his company’s diversity, his commitment to listen closely to what customers say they want, and his quality work. In fact, these are core values that are adhered to during every project, although, on commercial jobs such as restaurant renovations, timing sometimes takes precedence.
“When you listen to people closely, you are able to do what they want in the way they want it,” Gallinaro explained.  “Most homeowners have never done this type of work before, and they want to be educated about the entire process.”
Teagno says his employees take the time to inform and explain exactly what they are doing each step of the way, which helps clients feel comfortable.
“Each customer is a whole new experience. We don’t just build things, we have relationships with our customers. And you can’t put a price on a relationship,” he said.
“We want them to have a good experience, so we do the absolute best job we can. Listening to our customers is not lip service for us, and it’s not always in our best financial interest. It would be easier to cut corners to save money, but we don’t do that.”
He says most homeowners are more concerned about quality workmanship than the length of time a project will take to complete.  Working in the industrial/commercial arena is a different story, however, as venues such as restaurants have opening dates and tight timelines.
Competitive bidding for such jobs makes up about 25% of TCI’s portfolio, and results in added benefits for residential customers. “It keeps our pencils sharp and allows us to give more value when we negotiate work with homeowners,” Teagno said.

Making History
TCI Inc. has done a considerable amount of work in local museums. Its most noteworthy project was a renovation made to the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst.
It was built as a private residence around 1856 and is the site where Dickinson composed the majority of her 1,800 poems. “We helped create the visitor’s room within the structure. One section was renovated extensively, but we left portholes in some of the wall sections so people could see how the building was initially constructed,” Gallinaro said.
He told BusinessWest that it was a privilege to work in such a historic setting. “We got to walk on hallowed ground in a building that is on the state and federal register.”
However, working on such old structures presents a stern set of challenges.
“Historic buildings were not built to the same standards we have today; in order to do the work, you need a good foundation, which is how the whole thing started,” Teagno explained, alluding to his firm’s diverse specialty work and the first time he had to raise a building to lay a new foundation. “I was brought in to make some repairs when I was on my own, and the jobs I got after that became increasingly challenging.”
The company is also responsible for renovating the Words and Pictures Museum in Northampton, which has since closed its doors. “The building had all kinds of structural issues. It had been renovated many times and was compromised over the years,” Teagno said.
TCI has also done work at local colleges, which runs the gamut from dormitory renovations to building new science labs and structures, such as an 18,000-square-foot classroom and administration building for the Bement School in Deerfield. Another noteworthy project was the construction of a 10,000-square-foot day-care center for Mount Holyoke College.
“We have also done a number of renovations for medical and dental facilities,” Gallerino said. “Nine years ago, we converted the gas station across the street into a successful practice. The building had been closed for years before we started the work.”
In addition, the company has built and renovated many area eateries, sometimes working in the same building more than once. “Restaurants are usually complicated because they involve a lot of equipment along with special heating and plumbing requirements and fire-safety issues,” Gallinaro said. “And the people we work with all have different needs.”

Plane Speaking
But no matter who their client is, their approach remains the same.
Teagno’s employees go in with an ear to the ground, making sure they understand the meaning behind a customer’s words so they can transform their dreams into reality.
It’s an interesting way to do business and perhaps not that far afield from the creative teaching methods Teagno wanted to employ long before he started his unique construction company.

Sections Supplements
New CORI Measure Impacts Employers’ Hiring Processes

Amy Royal

Amy Royal

Prior to hiring a prospective employee, many businesses opt to conduct background checks, some of which include checks into an applicant’s criminal history. Indeed, obtaining information about an applicant’s criminal records and general background can be quite helpful for verifying the veracity of an applicant and in learning more information about an individual who is otherwise an unknown commodity.
The ways in which businesses can obtain and use criminal-offender record information (CORI) during the hiring process was limited by the state’s CORI-reform law, which Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law last summer. CORI records include information and data related to the nature and disposition of a criminal charge, arrest, pre-trial and other judicial proceedings, sentencing, incarceration, rehabilitation, or release.
The impetus for the new law was to make it easier for individuals to secure employment. In fact, in supporting the law, Patrick announced that “the best way to break the cycle of recidivism is to make it possible for people to get a job.” The first piece of the new CORI law went into effect on Nov. 4, 2010; other sections will not take effect until early next year.
Under the portion of the CORI law that took effect last November, it became unlawful for employers to ask job applicants about their criminal-offender record information, including information about arrests, criminal charges, and incarceration, on an “initial written application.”
Benjamin Bristol

Benjamin Bristol

The new CORI law created this prohibition by amending Mass. General Laws Chapter 151B, Section 4, our state’s anti-discrimination law. Before this new amendment, employers could ask job applicants about felony convictions and certain misdemeanor convictions that were not protected from disclosure. The only exceptions to the conviction-question ban on initial job applications occur when federal or state law disqualifies an applicant for that position because of a conviction or where an employer is subject to an obligation under federal or state law not to employ an individual who has been convicted.
Unfortunately, the term ‘initial written application’ was not defined in the new law, so it remains unclear whether the new CORI law was intended to prohibit job interviewers from asking about criminal-offender record information later on in the application process, such as during an interview. The Mass. Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), the state administrative agency that enforces our state’s anti-discrimination law, has taken the position that a job interviewer may inquire about convictions in very limited circumstances. Indeed, the MCAD has indicated that questions about convictions are permissible as long as the interviewer does not ask about any of the following:
• An arrest that did not result in a conviction;
• A criminal detention or disposition that did not result in a conviction;
• A first conviction for any of the following misdemeanors: drunkenness, simple assault, speeding, minor traffic violations, affray, or disturbance of the peace;
• A conviction for a misdemeanor where the date of the conviction predates the inquiry by more than five years; and
• Sealed records and juvenile offenses.
Without question, this list presents more problems than it does solutions for employers. Since interviews usually consist of broad and open-ended questions, it is very likely that the interviewer who asks about an applicant’s past convictions will erroneously lead the applicant to disclose conduct that the MCAD deems protected, which could ultimately result in litigation. This is true even if a question is well-intentioned; it could still be seen as a violation.
To avoid this problem, employers should train their interviewers on the proper questions to ask applicants, and provide their interviewers with a written set of questions to help steer the discussion away from unlawful inquiries.
In addition to the initial-application piece of the new law, another provision, slated to take effect on Feb. 6, 2012, will further restrict an employer’s ability to obtain criminal conviction history. While employers will still be able to obtain criminal information from the CORI database, they will no longer be able to receive felony convictions that have been closed for more than 10 years or misdemeanor convictions that have been closed for more than five years. Currently, employers may receive information about felony convictions occurring up to 15 years earlier and misdemeanor convictions occurring up to 10 years earlier.
Another provision that takes effect on Feb. 6, 2012 will require employers to create and implement a written policy if the employer annually conducts more than four criminal background investigations. This written policy must include language notifying applicants of the following: that the employer will give copies of the policy and the information obtained during the criminal background investigation to the applicant; that there is a potential for an adverse decision based on the criminal background investigation; and the steps applicants can take to correct their criminal record. Employers must then make sure that the applicant receives a copy of the policy and the information obtained during the investigation.
Also effective Feb. 6, 2012, the new law will prohibit employers from retaining a terminated employee’s CORI information for more than seven years from the last day of employment. The same rule will also apply to job applicants; thus, employers will be prohibited from retaining an unsuccessful applicant’s information for more than seven years from the date of the decision not to hire.
However, Feb. 6, 2012 will bring some good news for employers. Specifically, under another section that takes effect that day, the new law will protect employers from claims of negligent hiring when relying solely on CORI records and not conducting additional criminal background checks prior to hiring an applicant. This provision will also protect employers who fail to hire an applicant because of erroneous information on the applicant’s CORI.
In this ever-increasingly litigious society, employers should routinely gather all available information regarding a prospective employee before deciding whether or not to hire them. In light of the new CORI law, employers who are currently using criminal-record information in their hiring process should review their current policies and practices to ensure compliance with the new law.

Amy B. Royal, Esq. and Benjamin A. Bristol, Esq. specialize exclusively in management-side labor and employment law at Royal LLP, a woman-owned, boutique, management-side labor- and employment-law firm; (413) 586-2288; [email protected]

Features
Textbook Example of Business in a College Town

Amherst

Amherst

In October of 2009, Reza Rahmani and Arash Hashemkhani opened a Persian/Mediterranean restaurant in Amherst named Moti. It was a dream come true for Rahmani, who fell in love with the town during his years at UMass Amherst and had always been intrigued by the idea of opening a downtown eatery.
He was living in Phoenix, Ariz. when he finally found a site that suited his needs. “Two summers ago, I made the trip to Amherst four times to look for property,” he said.
So, when the space Moti now occupies became available, he and Hashemkhani rented it, then proceeded to gut it and renovate the entire interior.
Their restaurant has been so successful, they are expanding into space next door which recently became available. They are also gutting a large property on Boltwood Place with plans to turn it into a restaurant/lounge for working professionals.
“The rents here are equivalent to those in the back bay of Boston, but I love the demographics of this town; Amherst has a flavor you don’t find in many small towns, let alone bigger cities. There is a little bit of Europe here, especially uptown where our restaurant is located,” Rahmani said, adding that businesses are so supportive of each other that other restaurant owners have told customers to try Moti. “Within a year, we have built so many relationships, we almost feel we have been here our whole lives.”
Tony Maroulis, executive director of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, says the restauranteurs’ experience is in line with the Chamber’s motto: “The Amherst area is a perfect place.”
“The student population of UMass, Amherst College, and Hampshire College are right in our backyard. We have a vibrant downtown and interesting village centers in several sections of town,” he said. “Thousands of people come here each year because of the colleges and cultural institutions. There are eight museums in town, and we also have a wonderful year-round population that is engaged with the community, which makes for a fertile business environment. These are just some of the reasons why Amherst is a terrific place to live and work.”
Robert Green agrees. Since 1976, he has owned and operated Amherst Typewriter and Computer, which is a few doors away from Moti.
“Amherst is a well-educated community, which is compatible with the services I perform,” he said. “There are many poets, writers, and artists as well as liberal arts students here who use typewriters because their senses are greater than that of the average person and the typewriter becomes an extension of them. To me, there is more than a monetary reward in owning a business here, because I serve several generations.”
For this, the latest installment of its Doing Business In series, BusinessWest takes a comprehensive look at Amherst and at why its chamber’s slogan is on the money.

Schools of Thought
Jeremy Austin moved J. Austin Antiques from Boston to Amherst in 2005. Since then, he has combined his business with J. Austin Jewelers, which his mother owns.
“This is a good, family-oriented community, but also a very intellectual, sophisticated community,” he said. “People who visit here are looking for things to do, which results in a lot of business potential because there is a steady influx of students and their parents as well as people from all over the world who come to Amherst to see the Emily Dickinson Museum.”
Amherst has 50 working farms, and Austin says the combination of a walkable downtown surrounded by land is another bonus. “People tend to pigeonhole this as a college town, but there is also a lot of open land here and good proximity to Boston and New York, as well as high-end restaurants,” he said.
Town Manager Larry Shaffer says town officials have done a remarkably good job of using resources offered by the Preservation of Agricultural Land Program to keep the rural landscape intact. In addition, the town recently adopted a new master plan with a goal of concentrating development in specific village centers.
“We want to preserve agricultural land by not encouraging traditional urban sprawl,” Shaffer said. “The village center concept is new for Amherst and is an attempt to compact development while retaining areas of conservation and open space.”
New development will be concentrated in pockets located throughout the town. They include Atkins Center, Cushman Village, Pomeroy Potwine Village Center, the intersection of College Street and South East Street, and Main Street and North East Street. “New zoning is being crafted and will be brought to the town meeting to be voted on,” Shaffer added.
Maroulis believes the changes will make make the town more sustainable. “It is a really exciting time to be here,” he said.
Shaffer agrees and adds that Amherst is a great place to do business. “It is virtually recession-proof, because the community is based on education. The university is a center of excellence in a number of academic disciplines and has one of the best engineering schools in the country, which offers businesses a splendid opportunity to work with them for complementary activities,” he said. “We are a small town, but absolutely committed to getting projects underway that are consistent with our zoning regulations and are in the best interests of the town.”
The town and its colleges have forged strong relationships, which are evident in many projects they have completed together. Currently, Amherst College is undertaking a $15 million restoration of the Lord Jeffery Inn, which will include a pub and an upscale restaurant.
And in recent weeks UMass signed over a piece of property to the town. The transaction, called the Gateway Project, involves a collaboration between the town and the university to redevelop a 1,500-foot stretch of North Pleasant Street. It will connect the northern end of the town center with the UMass campus and contain its own center that will include private student housing, private commercial development, lodging, parking, and space for UMass functions.
Jeffrey Guidera also sees potential in Amherst. In January 2008, he and contractor Rus Wilson formed Hills House LLC, a real-estate development venture established to restore a cluster of historically significant homes on the property of the Henry Hills mansion, which was the former home of the Boys & Girls Club of Amherst. “There is interest and demand for living space downtown. People like to have services that are concentrated in one area. So, we are saving these old homes and providing new ones for people,” said Guidera.
He believes there is real opportunity for business growth in town. “This is due to the combination of the regulatory environment, zoning changes, and the mood of the population, who realize they need a more diversified tax base,” he said, adding that greater housing density will help promote growth.
Kyle Wilson and David Williams are about to break ground for a new, five-story structure situated directly behind the popular Judie’s restaurant on North Pleasant Street. The new building is slated for mixed use, with a dozen high-end residential apartments on floors two through five and retail/professional space on the first floor along with storage space for the residents.
Wilson said a large number of professionals have already moved to Amherst because of the quality of life there and the culture. “Almost all of the interest in our building is coming from the Boomer generation who want to sell their ranch-style homes and move downtown to a building with an elevator and access to the colleges and movie theater,” he said, adding that they will break ground this fall and expect residents will be able to move in by September 2011.
A Class Act
“We think Amherst has amazing potential,” said Wilson. “UMass is looking to grow by 3,000 students in the next 10 years, and if they and Amherst College hope to attract top researchers, faculty, and students, there needs to be an active and lively downtown,” Wilson said.
Maroulis wants people to understand how attractive Amherst is.
“We are not in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “There is always something happening here. As our slogan says, we are the perfect place to live, work, and play. We have a creative economy, and the economic landscape is quite diverse. It is a wonderful and interesting place to be that is on the rise, and the next five to 10 years will be really exciting.”

Sections Supplements
Tech High Project Is a Complex — and ‘Green’ — Undertaking
An architect’s rendering of the new data center

An architect’s rendering of the new data center, which will incorporate the façade of the old Springfield landmark.

The recently initiated work to build a data center at the site of the former Technical High School in Springfield is unique in that the façade of the 105-year-old building will be incorporated into the design of the $110 million facility. But beyond this challenging assignment, the project will incorporate a number of energy-efficient systems that will make it truly state of the art. Thus, this is a project that brings the past, present, and future together in one bold initiative.

Transforming the old Springfield Technical High School into a new and secure data center to house the state’s electronic records and serve as the backup for its primary data center is a complex construction and engineering feat.
A tremendous amount of planning has gone into the design of the new facility. It involves erecting a state-of-the-art 149,000-square-foot, energy-efficient building that will be connected to the front and side sections of the school’s historic façade. But the result will be something that not only serves a critical need; it will also put Springfield on the map.
“When it is complete, it will be one of the most energy-efficient buildings of its kind in the world,” said Kevin Flanigan, deputy director for the Mass. Office of Finance and Administration Division of Capital Asset Management. “It is a challenging project that involves a great deal of coordination and quality control due to its complexity.”
Although other data centers are being built across the nation, preserving the front of an old building and three window bays on its sides that measure about 30 feet in length, then incorporating them into a new building design is highly unusual, said Henry Cence, the on-site project manager for Skanska USA Building Inc., which was awarded the contract and has made data centers a specialty.
“It is something you don’t see very often,” he explained as he stood near the school, where water was being sprayed out from an upper-story window to keep the dust down.
Flanigan says the $110 million project is a major investment the Commonwealth has made to revitalize the State Street corridor. “It represents a critical component of our overall effort to bring new life to this part of Springfield,” he said. “This is a highly anticipated project for the city that will also fill an important need.”
The construction will take two years to complete and is expected to create about 200 full-time jobs in addition to 35 information technology positions that will be filled after the project is finished.
“In addition to the economic benefit and revitalization, this will address the state’s need for a highly secure facility that will provide a critical backup for systems used by state workers who need immediate access to information to carry out their jobs,” said Flanigan.
The offices in the building will be housed against the existing brick façade, while the computer rooms and computer systems will be contained within the modern, new two-story structure.
For this issue, BusinessWest gives readers an inside look at what it will take to preserve the exterior of the old brick school and attach it to a building that will become a model for green construction.

School of Thought
Ethel Macleod is the senior associate of architecture for TRO Jung Brannen, and project manager for the data center. She said the exterior of the old high school sits in the historic Quadrangle/Mattoon Street district, but the land behind it, where the new building will be constructed, does not. After several meetings with both state officials and Springfield Historic District members, they agreed that the new construction could take place as long as the front of the old school and sections of both sides were preserved, she explained.
“It was a real challenge to incorporate the old façade with the new addition, which needed to be distinct and not replicate what is already there,” Macleod noted, adding that the design had to include a fence to meet security specifications. “Our original plan had to be modified to preserve the historic character of the exterior.”
The final plan calls for a steel fence that will resemble wrought iron to reflect the neighborhood’s character.
The windows also had to considered. “We removed them, but have taken care to save them so the manufacturer will be able to match the sizes and create identical windows that are energy-efficient replicas of the old ones,” said TRO Jung Brannen Principal Sandy Smith.
Part of the building was demolished several years ago to make room for the new federal courthouse. But removing the remainder of the building is no easy task, and cannot be done without a great deal of preparation.
Steve Eustis, senior vice president of Skanska USA Building, explained that a temporary steel skeleton must be built to provide support for the existing façade. “Structural steel will be anchored to the footings at the front of the building near the sidewalk on Elliot Street during the first phase of the project. Once the skeleton is installed, it will support the new masonry work that needs to be done on the inside of the façade,” Eustis said.
The next step will be the demolition of most of the building, followed by excavation of a new foundation that will be larger and deeper than the old one. The remainder of the old foundation will be filled in, and the temporary skeleton will remain in place until a permanent steel skeleton is put up and the roof is finished. In order to maintain authenticity, however, the old bricks will be salvaged and reused to infill the basement windows that line the front of the façade.
Smith said the new building will have aluminum-framed glass curtains of walls in the building’s two glass stair towers, as well as at the front entrance to the lobby. The remainder of the building will be made up of terra cotta panels clipped to a substrate.
The preliminary underground infrastructure work will begin this fall, and the project is expected to reach completion in the summer of 2012. The facility will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will contain many sophisticated systems that will provide backups to the primary systems, so operations can continue even if electricity or water power is lost.

Down to a Science
Since data centers consume a tremendous amount of energy, Smith said the goal of the design process for the Springfield Project was to create a structure that would serve as a showcase for green technology.
“Many strategies were incorporated that are sustainable and energy efficient,” she said, adding that when the building is complete, the state plans to seek a USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification.
“The design included selecting materials that are energy and water efficient and will sustain the environment in the building,” said Smith. “There are a number of ways to achieve this, but among the more unique is daylight harvesting, which will be done using sensors in the lighting system. When there is enough daylight, the lights will go off. Plus, 90% of the occupants will have daylight views.”
Stormwater will also be collected and used in the cooling towers. “Another strategy that is very innovative is the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system, which will allow us to take advantage of free cooling in the spring and fall; we are using very energy-efficient plumbing fixtures and also reducing the heat-island effect, which occurs when surfaces soak up sun and become too hot,” Smith said. This will be accomplished by installing a white, reflective roof and reflective paving in the parking lot, sidewalks, and driveways.
The fact that the computer systems will run continuously creates a challenge, because they generate a lot of heat, she continued. “Computer equipment is very sensitive to heat so there is a tremendous need to generate cooling to keep the center at the appropriate temperature, along with the problem of what to do with the waste heat,” Macleod said. “Some systems expel it, but ours will capture it and reuse it, which is part of our HVAC strategy.”
Energy star equipment and servers will be installed in the computer areas, and the designers are working with Western Mass. Electric Company to maximize utility rebates. “They are helping to identify energy-efficient equipment, which allows us to install more than we would without the program. We are optimistic that the project will benefit greatly from the rebates,” Flanigan said.
Energy-saving measures are also being taken during the construction process. “We are diverting waste from the demolition and construction activity and will recycle 75% of all the waste,” Smith explained. In addition, designers are using carpet, ceramic, acoustical tiles and other products from companies within a 500-mile radius to reduce transportation costs.
Eustis said Skanska has done several billion dollars worth of work on data centers throughout the world, including one that is almost finished in Utah.
“The information age is exploding and creating a tremendous demand for data centers in both the public and private sector,” he said. “Businesses are much more dependent on information sharing. But this design is among the most efficient you will find anywhere with today’s technology.”
It will also stand as an intriguing example of how architects and construction firms can work together to create new history in an old building and change the face of a neighborhood with environmentally friendly measures.

Sections Supplements
Five Star Building Corp. Enjoys Taking On Tough Challenges

Kevin Perrier

Kevin Perrier says Five Star Building Corp. welcomes difficult and challenging projects.

It’s not often that a construction company’s work is so impressive that a church service is held to say thanks.
But First Churches in Northampton did exactly that to recognize the difficult restoration work done in their nearly 200-year-old cathedral by Five Star Building Corp. in Easthampton and its subcontractors. The project, which earned Five Star several awards, stands as a testament to the company’s willingness to tackle complex projects and achieve desired results.
Five Star’s focus is on commercial and public work, with an increasing presence in health care, often performing construction very close to where patients are being treated (more on that later). “What sets us aside from other companies is that, when we see difficult and complex projects, we say that we can complete them on time and do an excellent job, even though other companies may not want to take them on,” said President and CEO Kevin Perrier.
First Churches is a good example. The church had been closed for a year when Five Star was hired by Architects Inc. of Northampton to replace sections of the 70-foot-high plaster ceiling that were collapsing. The height, coupled with the fact that the church pews and ceiling are curved, made erecting and working on scaffolding a difficult and complex undertaking.
But that was only the first obstacle Five Star encountered. The firm quickly discovered that the walls of the church, built in 1826, were in very poor condition and needed to be replaced.
“The walls had plaster medallions with gold-leaf painting and stenciling on them set high in the peaks of the ceiling which dated back 100 years,” Perrier said.
Five Star began its task of historic preservation with the utmost of care. In order to preserve the 24-inch bands of artwork on the walls, workers photographed them, made plaster imprints of the medallions, and created molds. After casting new plaster replicas, artists had to hand-paint them with gold leaf before they could be mounted on the new drywall that had been installed.
A sand finish was painted over to resemble plaster, and a team of artists recreated the elaborate bands of stenciling that ran along the top and lower sections of the walls. “We had local artists there for a month. Everything had to be painted by hand,” Perrier said. “We also had the artists chip away the original paint to uncover the original colors, so when the parishioners came into the church, it looked the way it had in the 1900s. They were so taken aback that they held a ceremony to thank us.”
Although the project involved more than double the amount of work initially anticipated, Five Star completed it six weeks ahead of schedule. “It was a really touching moment when they thanked us,” said Perrier. “This is the type of project you can walk into and feel very proud of. This represents what we do . . . the level of detail and the talent of our staff and subcontractors. We may not be the cheapest company around, but we are competitive, and our quality is impeccable.”

Healthy Spaces
Just as challenging, however, is the work taking place on a medical office building on Locust Street in Northampton which houses a plastic surgeon’s office, operating room, and thriving obstretrician/gynecology practice.
“The area we are actively pursuing now is health care,” Perrier said. The work is exacting, and the standards are even more stringent, because the work is often done in hospitals or buildings where patients are receiving care.”
The Locust Street building is another example, like the cathedral, of a project that became bigger than origianlly anticipated.
“We were called in to do a small repair because a window was sagging,” Perrier explained. “But once we began, we realized the building was rotting from the inside out. The flagships had been improperly installed when it was built 25 years ago, and water had poured in behind the windows for years. All of the casing and framing was completely rotted and had to be replaced, so the project went from being very simple to very complicated.”
The cosmetic surgeon uses the operating room in the building, and a constant stream of patients come and go from the gynecology office, whose needs must be taken into account by Five Star’s staff. “At one point, we were literally hanging drywall while, two doors down from us, an individual was having facial plastic surgery in the operating room,” Perrier said.
He explained that, in order to make sure the medical practices didn’t suffer as a result of the renovations, Five Star worked seven days a week, doing some of the labor after hours and on weekends.
Maintaining the quality of the air in the building is another vital consideration. “We were there at 6 a.m. today doing air sampling,” Perrier said. “We have worked on one section at a time, setting up containment and negative air systems. Dust and debris control is crucial in any type of health care environment, and there is zero tolerance for any type of particulate to escape from the air containment area.”
Perrier said that encountering obstacles and producing quality work in difficult settings is an area in which Five Stars excels. “Our projects that really stand out have occurred when we thought we were going in to do a straightforward job, and it ended up being completely different,” he said. “That is where our staff really shines. They can handle the challenges.”
Five Star recently hired a construction superintendent with an extensive health care background to oversee new projects. “You are held to very, very stringent standards when you are working in health care settings, and having staff with that experience is vital,” Perrier added.
But hiring the best people he can find is a practice Perrier has adhered to since he opened his business, shortly after graduating from Easthampton High School. “I always liked building things,” he said, adding that he worked in the construction field during high school.
The name of his company came about because his father, Mike Perrier, already owned a business called Five Star Entertainment. Since Kevin was short on cash, he talked his father into answering the phone with just the words, “Five Star,” which covered both businesses. “The name has stuck because we really try to pride ourselves on quality,” he said.
At first, Perrier worked alone, building decks and renovating small kitchens. “But within eight months, I was so busy I hired a laborer, and by the end of my first year I hired a second carpenter. By the second year, there were five of us, and we continued to grow,” he said.

Building a Legacy
Much of the company’s work involves interior buildouts for commercial space in existing buildings. “We do renovations to suit the client’s needs,” said Perrier. “Two years ago, we completely remodeled the interior of the former Ames store in Southampton, which became a tractor supply store. We also built them a loading deck and did some exterior work on the building.”
Other recent undertakings include building a fire department substation in Orange and a LEED-certified library in Westhampton. Five Star is currently working on a number of projects that are nearing completion. It is almost done renovating the Southampton Town Hall, which was a former school. “We gutted the entire interior,” Perrier said, adding that all town offices and the senior center will be housed in the building.
The company is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and Perrier attributes that feat not only to quality workmanship, but to his aggressive stance. “I wasn’t one to sit back and wait for the phone to ring,” he said. “I got involved with the Chamber of Commerce and other community events. The first three years, I took my profits and sunk them back into the company with advertising and equipment. It ended up really paying off.”
Although Perrier’s initial focus was residential construction, about five years ago he began phasing out of that arena. “I wanted to grow, and it was difficult to grow a residential market, especially since I saw a downturn coming,” he said. “We had started to do more commerical and public construction work, and I found that was where my passion is. We enjoy complex challenges and timelines. It’s not even remotely close to the residential world, because it takes more highly skilled contractors.”
This year, the company expects to do about $10 million in business.
At the same time, Perrier believes in giving back to the community. His company hosts an annual golf outing to benefit Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society. He is vice president of its board, and of the Easthampton Chamber of Commerce. “We care about others and about the work we do,” he said.
He added that he takes pride in the skill of the people who work for Five Star. “We hire the best of the best,” he said. One of those individuals is project manager Bud Korza, who joined the firm in 2007.
“It’s a young, aggressive company, and we take pride in our work and in customer satisfaction,” Korza agreed. “The whole construction business is a challenge, but we have been successful at the most challenging projects, which is due to a combination of everyone’s experience and efforts.”
After all, whether it’s preserving a nearly 200-year-old church or improving the environment for patients receiving medical care, there’s usually more at stake than just a building.

Company Notebook Departments

Bay Path Receives HSF Business Award

HOLYOKE — Bay Path College recently received the 2010 Human Service Forum Business Award from the Human Service Forum for its commitment to the community and specifically Girls Inc. Girls Inc. of Holyoke nominated Bay Path for its ongoing board involvement, financial support, and expertise in various subject matters, according to Suzanne Parker, executive director of Girls Inc. Parker added that the college provides “transformational opportunities” for Girls Inc. participants. For the past decade, the Human Service Forum has honored area businesses and organizations that have played a significant role in supporting the human services of the Pioneer Valley.

ReStore Expanding in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD — Next summer is the target date for the ReStore Home Improvement Center to move into a 32,000-square-foot complex at 83 Warwick St. The warehouse was formerly owned by the Kavanagh Furniture Co. The expanded facility will provide a retail experience featuring sections of recycled appliances and environmentally friendly products for the home, as well as seminar space designed for builders and homeowners. ReStore’s inventory includes used and salvaged materials and surplus stock from the building industry. Items are accepted from homeowners, contractors, manufacturers, retailers, and municipal collection centers. ReStore officials note that, by shopping or donating materials, area residents can save materials from disposal and make home improvement more affordable for more people. With the move, ReStore expects to hire five additional employees, as well as deconstruction crews that would be needed to collect inventory. As part of the overall project, ReStore secured $900,000 in federal stimulus money through the Mass. Department of Energy Resources to make the new building more energy-efficient. ReStore is currently located on Albany Street in the Gasoline Alley complex.

Mercy Recognized as Community Value Provider

SPRINGFIELD — Mercy Medical Center was recently recognized as a top-ranked Community Value Provider by Cleverley + Associates of Columbus, OH. Cleverley + Associates, a health care financial consulting firm specializing in operational benchmarking and performance enhancement strategies, released the findings as part of its new publication, State of the Hospital Industry – 2010 Edition. Dr. William Bithoney, interim president and CEO of the Sisters of Providence Health System and chief operating officer of Mercy Medical Center, said Mercy is proud to be identified as one of the highest-scoring facilities in the country in measures of quality of care and costs. He noted that these awards serve as “independent validation” that Mercy’s quality scores exceed those of its peer hospitals while charges and costs are significantly lower than peer hospitals. Health care value and value-based purchasing of health care services are increasingly important concepts driving health care reform, and Mercy continues to prove that high-quality hospital care can cost less, added Bithoney. The State of the Hospital Industry reports selected measures of hospital financial performance and discusses the critical factors that lie behind them. The publication focuses on the U.S. acute-care hospital industry during a three-year time period (2006-08). For the seventh year, the 2010 State of the Hospital Industry reports an exclusive measure developed by Cleverley + Associates: the Community Value Index (CVI). The CVI is a proprietary index created to offer a measure of the value that a hospital provides to its community. The book outlines the data used to calculate the CVI as well as provides a list of the Top 100 and all Five-Star (top-quintile) hospitals. The Community Value Index was created to provide an assessment of a hospital’s performance in four areas: financial strength and reinvestment, cost of care, pricing, and quality. Fundamentally, the CVI suggests that a hospital provides value to the community when it is financially viable, is appropriately reinvesting back into the facility, maintains a low cost structure, has reasonable charges, and provides high-quality care to patients.

MassMutual Hosts ‘Way to Win’ Conference

SPRINGFIELD — MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division recently hosted a conference titled “Way to Win,” showcasing its commitment to helping its select network of third-party administrators (TPAs) grow their business by leveraging the resources provided by MassMutual to TPAs on behalf of sponsors and participants. MassMutual has been working with TPAs for more than 30 years, according to Hugh O’Toole, senior vice president of sales and client management. O’Toole noted that each TPA channel has unique strengths and resource needs, and each brings a “unique value” to the sponsor and the participant. More than 60 TPAs nationwide attended the conference. O’Toole added that the response from the participants was “phenomenal.” The common view expressed throughout the event was that MassMutual understands the TPA business and the value TPAs bring to plan sponsors and participants, said O’Toole. For more information on MassMutual’s TPA Alliance, call (866) 444-2601.

Opinion
Region’s Colleges Are Economic Engines

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno calls it “playing to our strength.”
That was his way of conveying the manner in which area colleges, including all those that call his city home, are becoming more powerful forces in local economic-development efforts.
It’s not exactly a recent phenomenon — colleges have always played an important role in the region’s economic health and well-being, from their local purchases to their huge payrolls to seemingly constant new construction. But in recent years, and especially over the past 18 months or so, area schools have been front and center with initiatives that can, and probably will, have enormous benefits for area cities and towns.
Sarno was responding to news that American International College has been granted preferred-developer status for a project involving three key pieces of the Mason Square neighborhood — two sections of the massive former Indian Motocycle building and the long-vacant fire station next door. The college is looking at everything from a cyber café to a new home for its radio station in the fire station, and everything from housing options to incubator space in the Indian building.
The project is still very much in the due-diligence stage, and the college will move forward only if several funding sources can be tapped. But even if the vision for the properties doesn’t become reality, area colleges will clearly continue to be huge forces in economic-development efforts.
Start with the state university, which is playing a lead role in the efforts to bring a high-performance computing center to downtown Holyoke, a project that could change the face, and the fortunes, of the Paper City. UMass Amherst is also making its presence felt on Court Street in downtown Springfield. The university will be moving one of its departments into a building in that historic area — a project, conceived with generous amounts of encouragement and help from the city, that is expected to be the first of many that will increase the school’s visibility and impact there.
Meanwhile, Westfield State College is eyeing major investments in that city’s still-struggling downtown. WSC President Evan Dobelle helped change the landscape of some neighborhoods in Hartford when he was president of Trinity College through the creation of several public-private partnerships, and he is looking to do the same in the Whip City through a plan to put more student housing in the urban core, and thus boost existing businesses and attract new ones to the Elm Street corridor.
There are countless other examples:
• Springfield Technical Community College created a technology park in the former Digital Equipment Corp. complex across Federal Street from the campus, a gambit that has succeeded in bringing nearly 1,000 jobs to that complex of buildings. A few years later, the school opened a facility now known as the Scibelli Entreprise Center, that is both an incubator and home to agencies that help small businesses get off the ground and to the next level.
• Holyoke Community College is a partner in a project that will not only bring a learning center to a former fire station in the city’s downtown, one that will help give adults skills to succeed in the workforce, but also become another cornerstone in the revitalization of that city.
• Springfield College has, for many years, undertaken programs to improve quality of life in the neighborhoods surrounding the school, which are some of the poorest in the city, if not the state.
• Bay Path College has, for 15 years now, organized a women’s leadership conference that has imparted key lessons on life and business, and it has initiated a number of programs to help spur entrepreneurship.
• The Five Colleges in Hampshire Country have contributed in innumerable ways to the cultural and economic health of the Amherst and Northampton area.
The list goes on. Every school has stepped up, and the involvement is becoming deeper and more imaginative.
“Playing to our strength.” The mayor got it right. The area’s colleges represent perhaps its greatest strength, and cities and towns must collectively work to help find and nurture new ways to tap into that strength.

Uncategorized

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno calls it “playing to our strength.”

That was his way of conveying the manner in which area colleges, including all those that call his city home, are becoming more powerful forces in local economic-development efforts.

It’s not exactly a recent phenomenon — colleges have always played an important role in the region’s economic health and well-being, from their local purchases to their huge payrolls to seemingly constant new construction. But in recent years, and especially over the past 18 months or so, area schools have been front and center with initiatives that can, and probably will, have enormous benefits for area cities and towns.

Sarno was responding to news that American International College has been granted preferred-developer status for a project involving three key pieces of the Mason Square neighborhood — two sections of the massive former Indian Motocycle building and the long-vacant fire station next door. The college is looking at everything from a cyber café to a new home for its radio station in the fire station, and everything from housing options to incubator space in the Indian building.

The project is still very much in the due-diligence stage, and the college will move forward only if several funding sources can be tapped. But even if the vision for the properties doesn’t become reality, area colleges will clearly continue to be huge forces in economic-development efforts.

Start with the state university, which is playing a lead role in the efforts to bring a high-performance computing center to downtown Holyoke, a project that could change the face, and the fortunes, of the Paper City. UMass Amherst is also making its presence felt on Court Street in downtown Springfield. The university will be moving one of its departments into a building in that historic area — a project, conceived with generous amounts of encouragement and help from the city, that is expected to be the first of many that will increase the school’s visibility and impact there.

Meanwhile, Westfield State College is eyeing major investments in that city’s still-struggling downtown. WSC President Evan Dobelle helped change the landscape of some neighborhoods in Hartford when he was president of Trinity College through the creation of several public-private partnerships, and he is looking to do the same in the Whip City through a plan to put more student housing in the urban core, and thus boost existing businesses and attract new ones to the Elm Street corridor.

There are countless other examples:

• Springfield Technical Community College created a technology park in the former Digital Equipment Corp. complex across Federal Street from the campus, a gambit that has succeeded in bringing nearly 1,000 jobs to that complex of buildings. A few years later, the school opened a facility now known as the Scibelli Entreprise Center, that is both an incubator and home to agencies that help small businesses get off the ground and to the next level.

• Holyoke Community College is a partner in a project that will not only bring a learning center to a former fire station in the city’s downtown, one that will help give adults skills to succeed in the workforce, but also become another cornerstone in the revitalization of that city.

• Springfield College has, for many years, undertaken programs to improve quality of life in the neighborhoods surrounding the school, which are some of the poorest in the city, if not the state.

• Bay Path College has, for 15 years now, organized a women’s leadership conference that has imparted key lessons on life and business, and it has initiated a number of programs to help spur entrepreneurship.

• The Five Colleges in Hampshire Country have contributed in innumerable ways to the cultural and economic health of the Amherst and Northampton area.

The list goes on. Every school has stepped up, and the involvement is becoming deeper and more imaginative.

“Playing to our strength.” The mayor got it right. The area’s colleges represent perhaps its greatest strength, and cities and towns must collectively work to help find and nurture new ways to tap into that strength.

Features
Marox Corp. Brings Surgical Precision to Medical Manufacturing
Instruments of Progress

Brad Rosenkranz says innovation in spinal surgical components has increased at a rapid pace — as has competition among designers and manufacturers.

Brad Rosenkranz keeps a model of the human spine in a corner of his office at Marox Corp. in Holyoke. If nothing else, it’s the best way to demonstrate exactly what the manufacturer’s products do.

At one point, he held a cervical plate, formed from titanium, to the front of the spine, showing how it provides stability in the neck area when it’s used by surgeons in the treatment of traumas or degenerative spine conditions.

He also produced a few titanium pedicle screws, which hold in place the rods used to repair and connect the vertebrae; and talked about an organic polymer thermoplastic called PEEK, a lightweight, biocompatible substance used as a spacer between vertebrae. It’s radiolucent, meaning X-rays can pass through it, which is a benefit to doctors.

“Surgeons like it because they can see,” said Rosenkranz, Marox’s vice president of sales and marketing. “There are usually three titanium markers we assemble into PEEK, and on an X-ray they show up as three dots, showing surgeons how the implant is positioned.”

Other Marox products include spinal hooks, components for the hip and knee joints, and even some dental products and small parts for endoscopes, all of which contribute to the 59-year-old company’s reputation among the region’s leading manufacturers of medical implants.

Marox’s customers are OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers, which supply medical practitioners with surgical and other types of devices. “We work with large OEMs, medium-size OEMs, we even work with startups — the whole spectrum,” said Rosenkranz.

“With spines, the industry has come out with more and more products that are vastly improved,” he noted. “The spine was a grossly underserved market, but now a lot of companies are entering the field, trying to take on the big spine companies, and now I think the industry has become saturated with OEMs.”

Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has become more stringent about approving new medical devices, particularly for technology that is similar to anything already on the market. “It’s difficult,” he said of the increased competition to design products. “But it’s pretty good for patients now.”

Testing Their Metal

When Manfred Rosenkranz and his three sons acquired Marox in 1988, it manufactured a variety of items, ranging from small-arms components for Colt and Smith & Wesson to commercial hardware products.

Soon thereafter, Marox started becoming heavily involved in the aerospace industry. Meanwhile, its production of an angioplasty product became its entry into medical manufacturing. One of those niches would not survive.

“After years of seeing volatility taking place in aerospace,” Brad Rosenkranz said, “and having more and more opportunities presented with medical implants, we realized that, in order to capitalize on the opportunities in medical, we had to phase out all other industries, including aerospace. And the growth in the spinal-implant market worked out very well for us; we rode that wave.”

He stressed that Marox isn’t a design firm, but does contribute in some ways to the design process — specifically, taking the design a customer has developed and providing input on manufacturability.

“We might say, ‘if you change this component here, it will make it a lot easier to produce.’ They’ll say, ‘yes, we can make that change,’ or ‘no, we can’t; that’s a critical dimension.’ Ultimately, with our feedback and theirs, we agree on a design that works for them, that meets their needs and also meets our production needs.”

Rosenkranz explained that the medical-machining industry is in many ways beholden to regulatory decisions. For example, a technology known as motion preservation, which allows joints to fully articulate instead of being fused together, wasn’t being covered by public payers, and the momentum of development in that area slowed down as a result. It’s now being overtaken by something known as dynamic stabilization.

“It looks like the industry is moving more toward dynamic stabilization,” he said, explaining that the technique connects two sections of the spine and reduces the prevalence of adjacent level disease, which is a pathology that develops in a vertebra adjacent to a fused bone.

“Dynamic stabilization allows some movement — not a lot, but a little bit,” he explained. “Kind of like a shock absorber, it allows the rod to bend and move, and allows adjacent bones a little movement. It’s better for bones to have that flexibility and movement because, if you don’t have that, you tend to have some negative effects. This dynamic stabilization creates the movement the bone needs and helps a lot with adjacent level disease.”

Rosenkranz said it’s tough to predict where the next breakthroughs will come, a forecast partly clouded by uncertainty surrounding health care reform and how any change in the health care system will impact peripheral industries, like medical manufacturing.

“Nobody really knows, with the current administration, where this is all going to end up,” he said, adding that he expects innovation to continue whatever the structure of health care. “This is a very progressive industry, and they’ve come a long way in terms of technology.”

However, while components and tools for spinal surgery have consistently become more sophisticated over the years, he added, some products have stayed relatively unchanged over the past decade — notably certain components for major joint replacements — simply because they do their job so effectively.

“The designs on hips and knees haven’t changed too much over the years,” he noted. “They work really well, so it’s the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ type of thing.”

Room to Grow

Marox — with its emphasis on lean, efficient manufacturing and its pristine facility — is, like many modern plants, a far cry from the old stereotype of the dirty, chaotic factory floor.

But not everyone knows that, Rosenkranz said, and it’s a challenge to make sure people understand what today’s manufacturing floor is like, and to raise the prestige of what are often very high-tech jobs — which is why he conducts tours of the facility for trade-school students.

“We want to show kids that, hey, there is something to manufacturing,” he said. “I think it may have gotten a bad rap, that it’s not glamorous, and people have jumped to computers, software, and IT because they’re the glamour jobs, and manufacturing got left in the dust.

“But we’re showing kids that this is high-tech, precision work, making really sophisticated components — and, on top of that, for a good cause,” he continued. “Some people hear ‘manufacturing’ and think of a dirty foundry, a dark, gloomy, grungy place. But it is very clean and high-tech. We’ve been told our facility is reminiscent of a European facility, with lab coats, where everything is clean and neat.”

Rosenkranz is excited not only about the work that Marox performs, but for the whole umbrella of burgeoning bioscience applications, from synthetic bones and stem-cell products to bone-growth stimulators and other technologies that fall outside Marox’s metal-machining specialty.

Economic-development experts have long pegged Massachusetts as a hotbed for such cutting-edge industries, and Rosenkranz doesn’t doubt that this region could be a growth sector, at least for high-tech precision machining.

“I think there’s good talent here in Western Mass.,” he said. “Finding skilled workers is a problem that everyone faces nationally, but here in Western Mass., I think we’re just as well-off if not better-off than anyone else in terms of a skilled workforce. Around here we have a lot of manufacturing, and a lot of colleges having more awareness in terms of what’s available in manufacturing.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth over the past several years,” he added, “and it looks to be so in the future as well. It’s a great industry to be in.”

For anyone, that is, with the spine to take on some high-tech challenges.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at[email protected]

Departments

MassMutual Honored for Benefits to Working Moms

SPRINGFIELD — Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) has been named one of the 2009 Working Mother 100 Best Companies, a recognition of its commitment to provide programs and services to help ensure the retention and advancement of working mothers. The Working Mother 100 Best Companies is a 24-year-old research initiative by Working Mother Media that has become one of the most important benchmarks for work-life practices in corporate America. Profiles of the 100 Best Companies are in the October issue of Working Mother magazine and will be available at workingmother.com. Companies were selected based on an extensive application with more than 500 questions on workforce, compensation, child care, flexibility programs, leave policies, and more. For this year’s 100 Best, particular weight was given to benefits, flexibility, and parental leave. According to Working Mother Media, MassMutual and the other companies on the list are leading the way in pioneering programs that support families, with 100% of the companies on the list offering flex time, on-site lactation areas, and telecommuting; and 98% offering job-sharing and wellness programs. Financial programs — including tuition reimbursement, retirement planning, and pre-tax flexible spending accounts for child care — available to employees of the 100 Best are on the rise, a much-needed boost for families in today’s economy, according to Working Mother Media.

Atlantic Fasteners Receives STAR Award

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Lockheed Martin-Electronic Systems formally presented the STAR Supplier Award recently to officials at Atlantic Fasteners. The award recognizes high-performing suppliers of electronic systems and Lockheed’s other three business areas. Atlantic Fasteners met the quality, delivery, and other business requirements set and evaluated by Electronic Systems for at least 12 months. Of the Lockheed division’s 4,625 vendors, only 36 received the award, placing Atlantic Fasteners in the top 1% of suppliers. Companies are re-evaluated annually to ensure they remain worthy of keeping the STAR Supplier status. Marc Dionne, military-aerospace division leader at Atlantic Fasteners, noted that the award is an honor and a great motivator for all employees in the aerospace division. Atlantic Fasteners is a worldwide, ISO 9001:2000-certified supplier of commercial and military-aerospace fasteners.

Foundation Awards $80,000

WEST SPRINGFIELD — The United Bank Foundation recently awarded grants totaling $79,535 to a variety of initiatives designed to enrich life in communities served by the bank. Several of the awards were directed to education-related endeavors, including a $5,000 grant to Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts to fund economic education and financial literacy programs for youngsters in East Longmeadow, Agawam, and Northampton; and $5,000 to the Science, Math and Reading Tutoring (SMART) program offered by the Springfield School Volunteers. Holyoke Community College received $10,000 for its ENLACE program, which promotes the increase of high-school-graduation and college-enrollment rates among Latino students in Holyoke. Also, education services provided by the Gray House Inc. in Springfield for adults living in poverty will benefit from a $7,500 grant. The Foundation awarded $2,000 to Westfield High School for the high school and middle school science fair, and $1,000 to Homework House Inc. for tutoring low-income families in Holyoke. The Foundation also supported efforts underway to improve the physical infrastructure of organizations that deliver vital services in the community. A $10,000 grant was made to American International College for capital improvements to the Schwartz Campus Center and renovation of the school’s athletic stadium and fields. Forum House, Human Resources Unlimited Inc.’s Westfield-based program for adults with mental illness, will use its $5,000 award to install new, energy-efficient windows and lighting. A $15,000 award to support renovations in the Emergency Department of Noble Hospital will be made over the course of two years.

Bay Path Ranks in Top Tier of Report

LONGMEADOW — Bay Path College earned the #31 spot among Best Baccalaureate Colleges in the North in the 2010 edition of “America’s Best Colleges” by U.S. News & World Report. This is the sixth year in a row that Bay Path has been included in the top tier. The exclusive rankings were published in the magazine’s September issue. The annual rankings represent the most comprehensive look at how schools stack up based on a set of 15 indicators, and help consumers evaluate and compare data compiled from more than 1,400 accredited four-year schools. For more information on the magazine’s rankings, visit www.usnews.com/sections/rankings..

Features
Surveillance System Brings Crime, Safety Concerns into Focus
Chris Castellano

Chris Castellano keeps on eye on Springfield from the monitoring room.

They’ve been in place only a few months now, but the cameras positioned in downtown Springfield are already showing enormous promise as a vehicle for making the area safer and more attractive. The surveillance system currently boasts more than 15 cameras, and there will be 25 within a few weeks and 40 by the end of the next year. They’re capable of picking up license plates from a few hundred yards away, and they’re giving Springfield officials and police some much-needed eyes in the sky.

Chris Castellano zoomed in on a stretch of Harrison Avenue near the Civic Center Parking Garage.

There had been a rather high incidence of motor vehicle break-ins of the so-called ‘smash-and-grab’ variety in that area, and Castellano, operations manager of the Springfield Business Improvement District (BID), wanted to show BusinessWest exactly where all this was happening.

He did so by manipulating a camera — installed atop the back of the TD Banknorth Building that sits on the corner of Main and Harrison — now sending images to a command post of sorts at the Springfield Guides offices within that office tower. This is one of about 15 cameras that have been installed in the downtown area, with another 10 to be put in place over the next few months, and a total of 40 by the end of 2009.

With his Nintendo-like joystick, Castellano, staring at a bank of computer screens in the so-called ‘monitoring room,’ could zero in on that aforementioned area along Harrison Avenue, pan across to other sections of that busy quadrant, and even get in tight enough to read license-plate numbers and identify features on passersby, such as their style of dress and the color of their pants.

And with all that capability, he and others involved in a broad surveillance program involving the downtown and other areas of Springfield hope — and expect — to be able to use the past tense much more often when it comes to describing crime and patterns of it in the City of Homes.

This was the overall motivation behind a $175,000 state earmark for cameras and monitoring equipment, the first several of which were installed a few months ago, with new additions coming regularly since.

Indeed, as he talked with BusinessWest, Castellano discovered that another camera had been activated since the last time he was in his chair — this one a few hundred yards down Harrison Avenue. Perched on a light pole, it provides great views of the corner of Chestnut and Mattoon streets, which has been identified as a trouble spot in some ways.

“This is going to be interesting,” said Castellano as he maneuvered the camera and developed a feel for its range of motion, noting, as he did so, that the street corner in question and the surrounding area have seen larger-than-desired volumes of loitering and panhandling, much of it in front of a liquor store at the intersection. The new camera should help the Springfield Guides, a small group of individuals who patrol the 26-block area under the auspices of the BID and assist the police with keeping order, to reduce such activities and thus better protect visitors, workers, and residents in the downtown.

“A lot of the complaints we get — and the reason we put this camera here and put cameras in the positions they’re in — involve loitering and people who make others feel unsafe,” he explained. “With this camera, we can zoom in, and if we see anybody, we send out one of our patrols and ask them to move along. If they refuse to move, we contact the police, and they tell them to move along.”

This isn’t exactly what would be called serious crime, said Castellano, but it falls under the categories of quality of life and perception of safety, and the surveillance program should improve both.

“And when we cut down on those types of things, people will see that downtown is not a bad place to live or work in,” he continued, adding that the surveillance program is as much an economic-development tool as it is a public-safety initiative.

If the bad guys don’t yet know there are cameras on them — “it’s been all over the news, and if they read the press release we sent out, they’d know where the cameras are located,” said Castellano — they may well find out the hard way.

“It’s amazing what we’ve been able to see and do in just a few weeks — we’ve caught some people doing things they wouldn’t do if they knew there was a camera on them,” he continued, adding that he believes the cameras have helped police identify some wrongdoers, and will undoubtedly contribute to taking many such individuals off the streets, while giving law-abiding individuals more peace of mind.

For this issue, BusinessWest spent some time in the monitoring room to gain an understanding of the new surveillance system and how it should impact some of the big-picture issues in the region’s largest city.

Zoom Service

As he clicked through the menu of cameras currently installed, Castellano stopped at the one aimed down Worthington Street by what’s called Duryea Park.

“This is a fun one,” he explained. “With this camera we can see all the club action — we can see all the petty things kids do when they’re drunk and heading in and out of all the clubs.”

‘Fun’ was a word Castellano used more than a few times, but this surveillance program is serious business with a hard purpose — making a large dent in the twin issues of crime and the perception of same, which have been identified as some of the keys to revitalization of the city.

Such programs have been instituted in several other metropolitan areas, and even some much smaller communities — all as part of a broad program funded mostly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. While officials in the Boston suburb of Brookline recently made headlines for threatening to reject cameras amid concern from residents about a “surveillance society,” hundreds of cities and towns have embraced them.

That list includes New York, which has cameras in several areas of the city, Chicago, Atlanta, and Wilmington, Del. Business-improvement districts have been involved with the surveillance efforts, Castellano explained, and Springfield BID officials checked out several other cities’ systems to gain insight into their capabilities — and performance.

In downtown Atlanta, cameras were installed roughly a year ago, said BID Director Jeff Keck, adding that, according to one account, development officials in that city noted a significant drop in crime over the past six months — and the surveillance system has been given some of the credit.

A comprehensive surveillance system has been talked about in Springfield for the better part of a decade, said Castellano, adding that, while cameras had been approved and money earmarked, the cameras were not actually funded by the Legislature until very recently. In fact, lawmakers had to override Gov. Patrick’s budget veto to bring the first cameras to the downtown in early October.

There are now cameras spread across the 26-block section handled by the BID — an area that stretches from East Columbus Avenue to Edward Street, from Frank B. Murray Way to Bliss Street — and some locations outside that zone, including two in Mason Square.

The surveillance system is still a work in progress, said Castellano, with some kinks being worked out, new cameras being added regularly, and software upgrades pending that will significantly improve overall performance. In addition, the BID is exploring opportunities with Springfield Technical Community College to create classes that would train individuals to use the technology.

As an example of what this technology can — or soon will — do, Castellano paused to watch a pedestrian moving past the MassMutual Center. Soon, a software upgrade will enable individuals monitoring images sent from the cameras to essentially click on such an individual and follow their movements — all hands-free.

There is a certain Big Brother-like nature to this kind of surveillance that concerns some, Castellano acknowledged, but polls show that a majority of Americans support such activity as a way to reduce crime and keep streets safer.

Frame Work

Running through the scope and capabilities of the system, Castellano said the cameras are perched on buildings and streetlights, and have been strategically placed (with significant input from city police) to help reduce the incidence of crime. Images are monitored from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. each day.

The cameras have a 360-degree range of motion, are equipped with night-vision technology, and can bring license plates into focus from several hundred feet away. The accompanying software, meanwhile, enables those monitoring the images to zoom in and out, play back any incidents, break them down frame by frame, and review them using slow-motion and freeze-frame technology.

“We can see things much better than we could with the naked eye,” said Castellano, noting, for example, that a frame-by-frame review of some images from one camera revealed how an individual was able to determine which cars to break into.

“He had a scout working ahead of him, checking out the cars,” he explained. “That’s how he could tell one car was unlocked. We used the tape to see that a guy was using a torch to break into cars; it turned out to be the same guy.”

As he focused in on another pedestrian seen in a recording of events captured by a camera at 1648 Main St, near the federal building, Castellano showed how the system could detect such details as a red hooded sweatshirt, brown pants, and sneakers. Sometimes, this is all police need to further an investigation.

Indeed, while most of the cameras have only been in place a few weeks or even a few days, Castellano said it’s certainly not too early to state conclusively that the surveillance system should help reduce the incidence of crime in Springfield.

“The cameras are proving themselves extremely effective in showing us all that’s going on and helping to make the streets safer,” he explained. “We’re still working the kinks out; once we’re at 100%, this system is going to be able to catch everything. It’s amazing what it has caught already — and sometimes we don’t even realize what we’ve caught.”

Castellano was careful not to reveal information that could hinder ongoing police investigations, he did say the cameras have helped achieve what he would term “progress” in some trouble spots.

These include Stockbridge Street, and specifically the area behind the Community Music School — site of several motor-vehicle break-ins — and the area by Gridiron Street and the Hippodrome.

Meanwhile, Castellano said he and others who monitor the images are finding their work intriguing — and ultimately quite rewarding.

“It’s work, but I have some fun with it, and my guys have some fun with it, too,” he explained. “They get really pumped up trying to catch someone committing a crime, and they love working with police; it’s exciting to them. We’re the eyes and ears for the police.”

Eyes in the Sky

Returning to the images provided by the camera positioned on Worthington Street, Castellano said that, in addition to the antics of club-goers, those monitoring the images have witnessed a few minor fights, all of which were broken up by police or bouncers.

Overall, he said the cameras have revealed something he pretty much knew already as a BID official and downtown resident — that Springfield has crime, but nothing more than most cities its size.

The surveillance system will make this known, he said, and also let residents, workers, and visitors understand that the city is focused on public safety, quality-of-life concerns, and, in general, making downtown a place to be, not a place to avoid.

In other words, big-picture issues.

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

Departments

Hampden Bank Opens Second Longmeadow Branch

SPRINGFIELD — Hampden Bank will soon open its ninth full-service branch office at 916 Shaker Road, and officials are planning a grand-opening celebration in early 2009. The branch office is the bank’s second office in Longmeadow. The 2,400-square-foot facility will have a modern look and will offer customers several state-of-the-art conveniences, including drive-thru banking services, a drive-up ATM, and two teller stations with cash recyclers for speed, accuracy, and security. In addition, the facility will have an after-hours conference room available for local community organizations to use for meetings and events. For information, visit www.hampdenbank.com. Hampden Bank has office locations in Springfield, Agawam, Longmeadow, West Springfield, Wilbraham, Indian Orchard, and Tower Square in downtown Springfield.

MassMutual Pledges Fuel-assistance Grants to Salvation Army

SPRINGFIELD — Local families will be getting some much-needed help in paying their heating bills this winter since the Salvation Army of Greater Springfield and Enfield, Conn. will each be receiving a $15,000 fuel-assistance grant from MassMutual Financial Group of Springfield. MassMutual’s contribution will enable the Salvation Army to help nearly 400 area residents keep the heat on in their homes. The Good Neighbor Energy Fund provides energy assistance to residents in temporary crisis who are struggling to pay their energy bills and do not qualify for federal or state energy funds. Trish Robinson, senior vice president of strategic communications and community responsibility, and deputy head of government relations for MassMutual, noted during a press conference that MassMutual was pleased to assist the Salvation Army to help families who are in need. She added that, since some area residents have never had to ask for assistance before, MassMutual was honored that it could help with this cause.

Silvana.Net Designs Web Site for Holyoke

HOLYOKE — The City of Holyoke recently unveiled a comprehensive municipal Web site that makes it easy for residents, visitors, and businesses to access information about the city and its services. The new site was designed by Silvana.Net, a Northampton Web-design firm. Located at www.holyoke.org, the site has been completely revamped to keep pace with Holyoke’s expected growth, according to Mayor Michael Sullivan. The new site is part of a three-year commitment by Sullivan and the City Council to significantly upgrade the city’s information-technology infrastructure. Additionally, a customized content-management system allows city departments to easily update pages. Silvana.Net trained approximately 60 city employees on how to update information about their departments on the Web site. The site also features sections on every municipal department, along with information about tourism attractions for visitors. Among other useful features is one that allows snow days, changes in trash collection, and parking bans to be easily and quickly posted on the home page.

Bank Gives Hospital $40,000

WARE — A $40,000 gift from Country Bank for Savings has enabled Baystate Mary Lane Hospital to purchase a sterilizer for the Surgical Services Department, allowing staff to use the sterile processing area more efficiently. The Steris washer/disinfector has made the cleaning and processing of surgical instruments more cost-efficient by allowing staff to process larger amounts of instruments at one time, which in turn decreases one’s exposure to contaminants, according to Norma Berthiaume, manager of Surgical Services. Donations from Country Bank for Savings over the years have assisted the hospital in purchasing state-of-the-art mammography and X-ray technology and orthopedic equipment, as well as renovating the hospital’s Surgical Services Suite.

Sovereign Consulting Opens Office in Open Square

HOLYOKE — Sovereign Consulting Inc., a growing environmental consulting and remediation company, announced recently that it has relocated its Amherst office to space in Holyoke’s Open Square. Sovereign will lease 3,500 square feet of space at suite 307 in the redeveloped former mill complex. Sovereign, which was recently ranked by ZweigWhite as No. 35 among the top 200 fastest-growing environmental businesses, provides environmental assessment, investigation, design, and construction services throughout the Northeast.

Sections Supplements
The Rules Are Changing, So Beware of Costly Non-compliance Penalties

As spring draws to a close and attention turns toward picnics, barbeques, and ballgames, the clock continues to tick down — to Dec. 31, 2008.

While many people associate New Year’s Eve with parties and revelry, 2009 will not be a happy year for employees or employers if the non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements and/or plans to which they are a party do not comply with section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. All businesses — big and small, public and private, non-profit and for-profit — as well as the workers they employ, may be affected by the requirements of and penalties imposed by 409A.

Section 409A was added to the Internal Revenue code as a result of the enactment of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. The impact of this addition is far-reaching and not yet fully appreciated. In fact, if you or your employees participate in a deferred compensation agreement or are a party to an employment or severance agreement that provides for deferred payments, you may be subject to the consequences of non-compliance.

What, you may ask, are the consequences of non-compliance? The penalties are as straightforward as they are harsh. If a plan, arrangement, or agreement does not meet the exacting standards of 409A, the amount deferred will be included in the employee’s income immediately, even if the employee is not currently eligible to receive that amount. In addition, a penalty tax of 20% will be levied on the amount included in the employee’s income.

Finally, an interest payment equal to the IRS underpayment rate plus 1% will be applied from the date when the amount was first deferred to the date when it is includable as income to the employee. Taken together with the income taxes you currently pay, these penalties and interest may equal a 50% tax on your income.

Perhaps the best way to explain the application of 409A is to discuss the plans it does not apply to. For instance, the provision does not apply to qualified retirement plans, such as plans promulgated under Internal Revenue Code sections 401(k), 457(b), and 403(b), nor does it apply to defined benefit pension plans, employee stock option plans, vacation pay, sick pay, death and disability plans, or compensatory time off, and other similar plans. While this may seem like an exhaustive list of retirement plans and benefits, it does not include supplemental employee retirement plans, employment agreements, severance agreements, some split dollar arrangements, stock option plans, and other similar plans.

To further complicate matters, non-qualified deferred compensation that was vested prior to 2005 is not subject to 409A because of its ‘grandfathering’ provisions. Employers with plans that contain compensation deferred prior to 2005 can choose one of a number of options to preserve the grandfathered status of these deferrals. These options include:

  • Freezing the existing plan;
  • Grandfathering past deferrals while ensuring compliance of new deferrals; and
  • Amending the plan in its entirety so as to ensure compliance.
  • Generally, in order to comply with 409A, a plan and/or arrangement must:
  • Place limitations on when an employee may choose whether or not to defer compensation, if applicable;
  • Clearly identify when an employee may receive deferred compensation; and
  • Place limitations on when a change may be made to the payment date.
  • Elections to defer compensation for services performed during a taxable year must be made by the end of the year immediately preceding that taxable year. This election must include the time and form of payment to which the employee is eligible.

    The limits imposed by 409A on when deferred payments can be received dictate that, in order for a plan or arrangement to comply, it must provide that payments under the plan or arrangement be paid (1) on a date certain; (2) pursuant to a set schedule; and (3) upon the occurrence of a ‘triggering event.’ These triggering events include separation from service, death, disability, change of ownership, or unforeseeable emergency. If your plan is subject to 409A and doesn’t contain the aforementioned conditions, it is now time to begin your 409A compliance program.

    The best way to avoid running afoul of the rules set forth under 409A is to put a comprehensive plan in place as follows:

    • Identify those plans, agreements and/or arrangements that are subject to 409A;
    • Determine who within your organization is responsible for 409A compliance. If your organization does not have an in-house compliance coordinator, you should contact your accountant, attorney, tax advisor, or human resources professional;
    • Evaluate those plans, arrangements, and/or agreements subject to 409A in order to determine whether they are compliant as currently written; and
    • Formulate a plan of action to ensure compliance. Steps may include amending, terminating, or adopting new non-qualified deferred-compensation plans.
    • Section 409A compliance is a complicated and far-reaching endeavor. In order to avoid running afoul of the regulations set forth by 409A, employers should consult with professionals. Several IRS guidance notices have already been written, and more are sure to follow as the effects of 409A are further understood.

      The issues addressed here are merely a sampling of the plans affected by 409A and the options available to employers in order to ensure compliance with its rules. As such, do not wait until summer turns to fall before evaluating the deferred compensation plans to which you are a party. Dec. 31 is the deadline to comply with 409A, and non-compliance is going to result in costly fees and penalties in 2009.

      Dennis G. Egan Jr. is an associate with the regional law firm of Bacon Wilson, P.C., specializing in business and corporate law;[email protected]; (413) 781-0560.

      Sections Supplements
      The Colonial Reinvents Itself as a Pittsfield Gem

      With a clear plan for the future and some help from its friends, the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield staged a rebirth at the start of this decade, and today continues to grow as the Berkshires’ ‘community theater.’ The story is one of success after a long wait, and audiences are both buying tickets and taking cues from the little venue that could — and did.

      From the stage of the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, a performer has a clear view of nearly all of its 800 seats.

      That was one thing a local performer of some note liked about the venue. Folk hitmaker James Taylor, a Berkshire County resident, factored the intimacy and the acoustics into his decision last year to record his CD/DVD One Man Band at the theater, which is now in its second year of business following an extensive restoration and rehabilitation project.
      In the liner notes, Taylor writes, “the Colonial Theatre in my hometown of Pittsfield just managed to escape the wrecking ball. … People have invested time, money, and themselves resurrecting the old girl. And along the way, they have found a new sense of belonging: a sense of place; a place called home.”

      But the events surrounding Taylor’s rare appearance (he usually commands audiences in the thousands) are also an illustration of what’s still in store for patrons of The Colonial. A live performance? No problem. An upscale party or event? They’ve got the space and the staff to pull it off. And a screening of a film, be it a silver-screen classic or One Man Band itself? Bring on the popcorn.

      What’s more, David Fleming, executive director of the Colonial Theatre, said those offerings aren’t reserved for summer travelers by any means. Rather, he said the landmark is currently enjoying a new heyday not just as a tourist attraction in the Berkshires, but as the local community’s theater of choice.

      “The most important thing I can say about the theater today is that when we opened, there were a lot of skeptics out there who weren’t convinced we were here to serve the Berkshires,” said Fleming. “But we’ve been embraced by the community — to the point where we’re recording some of our biggest audiences in January and February.

      “That’s been the most satisfying aspect of our work,” he added. “We’re trying to continue to be responsive to people’s needs and wants, and with everything we do, we try to deliver a message of welcome.”

      Road to Restoration

      The road from renovation to fully operational venue has been a long one, noted Fleming, which nevertheless has been marked by a number of positives.

      The Colonial was a movie theater until 1952, when the owner of a paint and wallpaper store acquired the property through an auction, installing a drop ceiling and using just a portion of the space with the hope that one day, the theater could be restored to its former glory.

      That day didn’t come until this decade, but Fleming said his vision and that of the Colonial’s staff and supporters was not far off from its former owner’s.

      “We restored the theater to exactly its 1903 condition,” Fleming said of the so-called ‘gilded-age’ theater. “Some people remember when the theater was a movie house, and others only remember it as a paint store. But either way you look at it, this building has a past. Now, it has a future, too.”

      Restoration was completed in August of 2006, after a two-year period refurbishing the theater building itself and also retrofitting an adjacent building formerly used as a car dealership. Fleming said the total project cost of $21.5 million included acquisition, hard and soft construction, and design, with $1 million of that total coming from a $10 million economic development fund established for Pittsfield in the 1980s by General Electric, after the company left the region and some staggering unemployment numbers in its wake. The Colonial was the first entity to receive such a large lump sum.

      However, Fleming added that the project was identified as eligible for funds through the Save America’s Treasures federal program in 1998, and also received federal and state historic tax credits amounting to $7 million. Another $7 million was collected through government and foundation grants, and the final third of funding was raised through private contributions.

      That leaves the Colonial in good shape to move forward, with the bulk of the renovation work now completed and paid for.

      “The money to restore the building was not enough to take care of the ongoing shopping list,” he said, “and we’re going to be applying for grants for years. But our focus now is on annual support, and we’re currently operating at a rate of 60% earned revenue. Most theaters with 1,000 seats or fewer operate around 30% or 40%, so we’re ahead of the game there.”

      Fleming added that the Colonial requires about $600,000 a year to cover general operations and programming needs, and part of that amount is gleaned through membership drives that collect donations from $50 per patron well into the thousands.

      One development Fleming said he’s even more excited about, though, is the success of the venue’s sponsorship and advertising programs.

      “In the beginning, we were timid about asking people to buy ad space in our programs, on tickets, and to become sponsors,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we were targeting the right people — the businesses that could really benefit from having their name on our materials — and that we were working well with the community and their needs. But now, we can’t keep up with the requests — people are coming to us and asking for space, and that is just a fantastic feeling. They want their names tied to the Colonial because they see us as a success story.”

      Some of these advertisers and show sponsors are retail or hospitality businesses that benefit directly from the exposure, said Fleming, noting, however, that a new group of companies, larger outfits that may not have a storefront or a specific service to offer patrons, still want to be involved.

      “Some just want to be a part of what we’re doing,” he said, citing Lyon Aviation Inc., the Commonwealth’s largest private charter operator based at the Pittsfield airport, as a prime example. “This is a large, family-owned company that doesn’t stand to gain a lot of customers from having its name in our brochure, but the owners are fans, and wanted to help.”

      The New Song and Dance

      Performance-wise, the Colonial is in full swing, offering stage shows, concerts, films, and opportunities to rent the space for a variety of events, ranging from wedding receptions to community fund-raisers.

      Fleming said the theater’s first two years in operation were largely experimental, staging a wide variety of options to best gauge what kinds of performances would resonate with local audiences and best use the space.

      “Now, we’re beginning to narrow things down,” he said. “Singer-songwriters love the space for its acoustics, and theatrical comedy has been a good fit for our audiences.”

      Still, the 2008-09 schedule of performances is nothing if not diverse. It includes that singer-songwriter component (Marc Cohn, Arlo Guthrie, Kate Taylor, and Livingston Taylor) and the theatrical comedy aspect (Jewtopia, Steve Solomon’s My Sister’s an Only Child), but also presentations by Tibetan monks; the Machine, a Pink Floyd tribute band; and the National Acrobats of the China Celtic Crossroads. The theater is also equipped to show films and documentaries, and that programming is in the process of expanding.

      The Colonial’s schedule is actually broken into 10 key sections: Great Nights Out, the Singer-Songwriter Series, Just for Laughs, International Discovery, Holiday Cheer, Guest Presentations, Family Time, and Berkshire County Collaborators — performances by the Berkshire Opera Company and Pittsfield City Jazz Youth Orchestra are examples of these — round out the live performances. There’s also a film series and a Sunday opera series, at which broadcasts of performances by the internationally acclaimed La Scala Opera are shown.

      Jessie Virgilio, director of public relations and education for the Colonial, said these film offerings are a new foray for the theater and as such constitute a learning experience. But they are bringing in new visitors and more walk-in traffic.

      “Film is still relatively new for us, so our challenge now is to really sell it,” she said. “Walk-up sales aren’t something we’ve typically depended on; we’ve always been very pre-sale-oriented. Since this is a whole new animal, we’re looking at new and different ways of advertising.”

      Some of these initiatives include partnerships with local eateries to offer ‘dinner-and-a-movie’ specials — Virgilio said the theater is finalizing just such a relationship with Pittsfield favorite Patrick’s Pub. This is an example of making inroads in the community to integrate the Colonial into its landscape, both literally and figuratively, but Virgilio said there are many other projects underway aimed at the same goal.

      Setting the Stage

      “We’re really focused on education,” she said, noting that her title is one sign of that commitment. “Part of my job is to work with schools and families to create opportunities for children to expand their learning experiences.”

      The theater has already worked with upwards of 7,000 children as part of this outreach, Virgilio added, welcoming them either to special performances that fit into their classroom’s curriculum or to performing arts classes, where they can learn the ropes themselves.

      “Most of these children are from the Berkshires, but we’re pulling from Vermont and New York, too,” Virgilio said. “The education piece is a good fit for us for a few reasons. For one, many grants tend to give funds to educational efforts. Plus, I’ve learned a lot in the past two years about how small school budgets are and what teachers do to work around that. We work closely with the teachers to match their curriculum because they can’t justify taking their class to a show unless it matches a lesson.”

      That said, the International Discovery performances the Colonial hosts often blend well with world history, and a recent circus-arts performance taught some of the basics of physics.

      “We’re offering students a chance to take what they’re learning and see it played out for them on a stage,” Virgilio said. “It’s an excellent way to reinforce what they’re learning, while at the same time making theater attainable to them at a young age.”

      I Always Thought That

      I’d See You Again

      These programs all go back to that larger goal of creating a “message of welcome,” as Fleming says. This message has become an integral part of the Colonial’s overall mission to create a community theater, seen in all parts of the venue both large and small.

      “A theater becomes a people magnet, and a symbol of something people can be proud of. That alone drives property values and leads to more effective recruitment of residents, and the creation of more high-paying positions in the area,” Fleming said. “A whole chain cascades from something like a successful historical restoration of a theater downtown. Performance centers spark creativity and move themselves forward, but anything can spark the enthusiasm and open-mindedness in a community, whether it’s a facility or a person.”

      A person like James Taylor, who returned to his coffeehouse roots somewhat through his recorded performance last year, singing many of his hits and taking his time telling the stories behind them.

      “I’ve lived and worked in New York and Los Angeles, London and Paris, Sydney and Rio,” he wrote for the subsequent DVD. “But the Berkshires are home at last. And somehow the Colonial Theatre, that plucky survivor, is at the heart of the place.”

      Features
      Federal Tax Credit Program May Help Build Some Momentum in the Valley
      Capital Ideas

      Capital Ideas

      They’re called New Market Tax Credits, a federally funded economic development vehicle designed to spur activity in low-income urban and suburban areas. Few developers and business owners in the region know they exist, and fewer still know (or want to know) how they work. But they’ve been used to bridge financing gaps needed to bring projects like the River Valley Market in Northampton (below) to fruition, and could be a useful tool in the broad effort to revitalize neighborhoods in Springfield and other area communities.

      Austin Miller has been involved with commercial and residential development for more than 30 years now. To bring various projects to fruition, he’s tapped clients into a number of government-funded programs, and through those experiences has come to one of those ‘death-and-taxes-like’ conclusions:

      “When you’re dealing with government programs, two things always get you in trouble,” he explained. “The first is trying to use logic, because the government never uses logic, and the second is to try to think simply, because nothing is ever simple. If you keep those two things in mind, you might get there.”

      All this goes double, maybe triple, for something called New Markets Tax Credits, a relatively new, U.S. Treasury-funded method for spurring development in lower-income, underserved areas across the country. This is a complex product, so much so that, when asked what language he uses to explain how they work, Miller said simply, “usually, I don’t even try.”

      Instead of focusing on what these tax credits are and exactly how they work, Miller, a principal with Springfield-based MBL Housing & Development, which has consulted on a number of area projects, prefers to talk about why developers might want to consider them as a viable option for closing gaps in project funding, and when and where they might be applied.

      Locally, this includes ventures like the Holyoke Health Center and, more recently, the River Valley Market now taking shape on King Street in Northampton, a unique venture described by those involved as a “locally grown food cooperative” that’s member-owned.

      The 17,000-square foot marketplace, which will sell locally produced foods and other products and is nearly ready to open its doors, has received nearly $7.5 million in funding from a variety of sources, both traditional and non-traditional. The former includes debt financing from Bank of Western Mass. and several subordinate, or secondary, lenders, including the Western Mass Enterprise Fund (WMEF), a nonprofit community loan fund, which made $300,000 available in working capital.

      The WMEF has also partnered with Portland, Maine-based Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI) and its associate, Trans Capital Investments, to bring $2.03 million in new markets tax credits to the project, a key development in making the venture possible, said Chris Sikes, executive director of the WMEF.

      Sikes and Miller, who served as a development consultant for the River Valley project, both told BusinessWest that NMTCs can help spur development efforts in Springfield — several sections of the city meet income guidelines spelled out by the Treasury Department for the program — and many other communities in the Pioneer Valley. The challenge, they say, is to make developers and nonprofit groups aware of the tax credits, the benefits they bring to borrowers, and how they make projects like the River Valley Market ultimately doable.

      “The tax credits provide about a 30% discount on a project,” said Sikes, noting that this is the percentage of the loan amount (roughly equal to the tax credit given the investor) that is essentially forgiven. “If you had a $1 million project, at the end of seven years, it’s down to roughly a $700,000 project, depending on how the deal is structured.

      “It’s a tremendous opportunity for this region,” he continued, “we now have access to these tax credits, and we need to take full advantage of that opportunity.”

      Taxing the Imagination

      To help explain how NMTCs may help with financing projects in Springfield, Sikes, in a presentation to city officials several months ago, offered a PowerPoint synopsis he called “New Markets Tax Credits Lite.”

      Like Miller, he found himself moving quickly through the math portions of the exercise that explain why the credits are an attractive option for investors — debt and equity investors earn a federal income tax credit, calculated on the amount provided, over seven years: 5% for each of the first three years and 6% for the next four years — and focusing instead on how they might help revitalize neighborhoods.

      “Our mission at the enterprise fund is to create economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income communities in Western Mass., and the way we do that is to bring capital into the region, whether it’s our own or others’,” he explained, noting that, while the WMEF provides loans ranging from $500 to $300,000 and other types of financing, the more important numbers concern the amount of capital its activities leverage. “What matters is that the right kinds of capital get into the region to help it grow.”

      And the NMTC has become a new and potentially powerful tool for meeting that mission.

      The program was created in 2000 by the Community Tax Relief Act of 2000, for the purpose of leveraging capital from investors to spur economic development in urban and rural low-income communities. Roughly $3 billion in tax credits are made available each year, and there is mounting competition for them, said Sikes.

      Language provided by the Treasury Department’s Community Affairs Division and its Insights publication provides ample evidence that Miller is right about government programs not being simple. In describing NMTCs, Insights serves up an alphabet soup of acronyms to describe who can use the tax credits and how.

      “With the Treasury Department, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) and the Internal Revenue Service (through Section 45D of the Internal Revenue Code) jointly administer the program,” it starts.

      “A prospective recipient of new markets tax credits must be certified by the CDFI Fund and a qualified community development entity (CDE) before submitting an application for a tax credit allocation. An NMTC application is evaluated by the CDFI Fund on the basis of the CDE’s business strategy, capitalization strategy, management capacity, and projected community impacts.

      “The NMTC process works as follows: The CDFI Fund allocates NMTCs to CDEs which, in turn, offer them to investors in return for equity capital. The proceeds from investors are referred to as Qualified Equity Investments (QEIs). CDE allocatees and other parties such as equity fund managers, market the availability of NMTCs to prospective investors at the institutional and individual level.

      “Using the QEI proceeds, a CDE makes its financial assistance available to eligible businesses known as Qualified Active Low-Income Community Businesses (QALICBs). ‘Substantially all’ of the QEIs, defined as 85%, must be deployed by the recipient CDE within one year in Qualified Low Income Community Investments (QLICs). The QLICs comprise a host of financial and technical assistance to eligible businesses: investing in or lending to these business enterprises; investing in or lending to CDEs; purchasing loans from CDEs; and providing financing counseling and other services (FCOS) by the CDE to organizations, including nonprofit and organizations, to assist with business plan development, financial analysis, financing, and similar activities.”

      That’s the simple explanation. There are another 20 pages of dizzying text outlining various models — ‘bank-operated’ and ‘third-party’ — as well as financing structures (leveraged and non-leveraged), key risks, regulatory issues, and other considerations.

      All developers and business owners really need to know, at least at the outset, is that the tax credits can be used to help support a wide array of ventures that share common challenges — especially the fact that many don’t easily qualify for traditional financing to cover all or part of their need.

      This was the case with the River Valley project, Sikes recalled, noting that discussions between backers of that venture, which eventually became a QALICB, and the WMEF began nearly three years ago.

      It took some time, he said, to piece together a complex financing collaborative that would eventually include seven lenders (led by the Bank of Western Mass.), one investor, and 26 guarantors.

      “This was not only a very complicated deal, but it involved the entire Northampton community to put it together,” he explained, noting that the NMTCs were pivotal, and the project became eligible because that one small area off King Street is the only one in Northampton that meets the definition of ‘low-income community’ or ‘New Markets Tax Credits Zone’ as set by the Census Bureau — a poverty rate of at least 20% or median income of up to 80% of the area or statewide median, whichever is greater.

      This was the first foray into the Pioneer Valley for Coastal Enterprises, said Sikes — the $30 million Holyoke Health Center project was supported by Boston-based Mass. Housing Investment Corp. — and it took some time to materialize. He expects that there will be many more, and that they will come together more quickly and easily.

      Developing Interest

      A look at CEI’s New Markets Tax Credits portfolio, assembled by its subsidiary, Capital Management LLC, shows the many diverse ways the credits can be put to use. CEI has been awarded nearly $250 million in credits to date and has put them to work in ways ranging from sustainable forestry initiatives to marine businesses; from tourism ventures to manufacturing companies. Projects include:

      • Katahdin Forest Management: $32.5 million of NMTC capacity to finance 300,000 acres of sustainable working timberlands in North Central Maine, part of the financing needed to reopen the Great Northern Paper Company mills, preserving or re-activating 620 jobs;

      • Gulf of Maine Research Institute: $4.1 million of NMTC capacity used to provide long-term debt financing for the institute’s marine research/education laboratory in Portland, Maine, with a principal mission of supporting the fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine;

      • Fralo Plastech Manufacturing: $6.2 million of NMTC capacity used to facilitate an equity investment in an early-stage manufacturer of engineered plastic septic tank systems located in Upstate New York and utilizing recycled plastic; and

      • Ingraham Community Services: $4 million of NMTC capacity to allow Ingraham, a community-based nonprofit that provides crisis response, residential, and support services to purchase a building in downtown Portland to consolidate disparate operations into one location so it can reduce its rental costs and take advantage of greater operational efficiencies.

      These examples show how NMTCs can be put to work in the Pioneer Valley, said Sikes, noting that, while there are limitations on how and where they may be applied — they cannot be used for affordable housing projects, for example — they can be a practical tool for economic development in this region.

      He pointed to Court Square in Springfield — where a boutique hotel was planned, then shelved, but still remains a viable option — and the so-called State Street Corridor, as examples of where they might be effectively utilized.
      “The State Street area was made for these tax credits,” he explained. “They could play a large role in generating investments in that corridor.”

      Overall, Coastal weighs requests for tax credits based on several criteria, the first being that a project must make economic sense, said Sikes, adding that there must also be tangible benefits for the community or specific neighborhood.

      “Coastal wants its projects to have an impact,” he explained. “They want the money to mean something. This isn’t about building a few McDonald’s; that’s not what this is for.”

      As the benefits to be derived from the tax credits — for both the investors and the borrowers — become known and understood and developers and business owners become more savvy with regard to them, competition for NMTCs continues to mount, said Sikes. “Coastal Enterprises has put out about $200 million of credits, and they probably have another billion-and-a-half in the pipeline, because as people find out this, they want to get involved.

      “That said, Coastal Enterprises wants to do more deals in this market,” he continued, adding that he projects that $50 million or $60 million could be brought into the region, as long as CEI continues to receive its current allotment.

      We need to get some projects together, and we can do that if more people become aware of the tax credits and what a great opportunity they represent.”

      The Bottom Line

      Like Sikes, Miller said more investors and borrowers are becoming more savvy about NMTCs, because they add up to attractive, relatively low-risk deals for both sides of the transaction.

      These deals are not simple, in keeping with Miller’s thoughts on government-funded programs, and sometimes the rules pertaining to them are not exactly logical. But in many ways, these deals make sense — and they make for intriguing possibilities for future economic development.

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

      Sections Supplements
      Giclée of New England Is Helping Turn Artists into Business Owners
      Nancy Bryant

      Nancy Bryant, owner of Giclée of New England, said her trade allows artists to thrive, not starve.

      Nancy Bryant snapped her first photo with a digital camera at the start of this decade, and now has become one of the eminent digital artists in the region.

      Her work has won awards, including one from the International Assoc. of Panoramic Photographers, and also earned her respect from a growing number of artists.

      However, those artists, as well as several business owners, are increasingly seeking out Bryant to take advantage of the unique venture she incorporated in 2003 — Monson-based Giclée of New England, which is using still-emerging technology to lessen the accuracy of the term ‘starving artist,’ one piece of original artwork at a time.

      It’s a term that some have trouble pronouncing, but many, especially creatives, hope to learn more about. Giclée (pronounced jee-clay) is an art and photograph reproduction process, which uses digital technology and archival inks, canvas, and papers to create long-lasting, high-quality images.

      The process borrows its name from the French verb ‘to spray,’ as inks are sprayed onto paper or canvas by specific, commercial-sized digital printers. The archival nature of the prints the process creates (they last for 100 years or more, instead of just a few), as well as the color management it allows, are what make giclée prints unique, and also some of the best reproductions of artwork available for sale, in terms of resemblance to the original and longevity of the print.

      From French to Folk

      Giclée has an intriguing history; first developed in the early 1990s, one of its pioneers was Graham Nash, a fine art photographer better known for his musical career with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. His company, Nash Editions, honed the method, and continues to offer it to photographers and artists from around the world.

      But Bryant’s story is an interesting one, too, and it began with a yearning to make a living as an artist, one since expanded to help others do the same.

      She graduated from Springfield Technical Community College in 1975 with a degree in graphic arts, and immediately began working in that field, pausing after a few years to start a family.

      Bryant returned to college in 1988, this time at Westfield State, to complete her bachelor’s degree in fine arts. But upon completing her coursework in 1990, she realized that time and technology had made her previous job as a paste-up artist obsolete.

      “My job no longer existed, and I had no computer skills,” she said, adding that she found a job working in the state’s former welfare system, where she stayed for 10 years, while becoming what she calls ‘a weekend artist.’ “It was a good, solid job, and I kept trying to create on my own time, but that’s a very frustrating thing for an artist.”

      The tide began to turn, but without Bryant truly realizing it, in 2001, when her son bought her a small digital camera as a gift. The possibilities surrounding the new technology intrigued her, even though this was her first foray into the digital age.

      Still, she stuck to family photos and snapshots until another development pushed her further into the digital art world. Her brother became ill, and when she went to visit him, she brought her new camera and began documenting his final days.

      These portraits, titled Peter’s Journey, found their way into a local art show, and garnered some praise from other artists. One fan in particular caught Bryant’s attention, though, when he said as beautiful as the portraits were, they would soon fade, because she’d printed them on a standard desktop printer with commonly used inks.

      “That’s when I realized that image permanence is an issue,” she said, noting that from that point, her immersion in the digital imaging world became nearly all-encompassing. Just months after receiving her first digital camera, she completed a course in PhotoShop, began researching long-lasting printing methods, and, like Graham Nash before her, stumbled upon giclée.

      “I also finally told myself, ‘life is short. If you’re going to do it, do it now,’” she remembers. “So, I mortgaged the house, set up shop, and here I am.”

      Art and Parcel

      Since its start, Giclée of New England has grown each year and is now, says Bryant, a profitable operation doing a little bit better all the time.

      She owns two of the massive giclée printers needed for the process, and has also expanded her services to include framing and large format printing of banners, posters, and signage (up to 44 x 40 feet). She also handles graphic design; business services including logo, letterhead, brochure, and business card design; image capture (creating a digital version of original artwork and photographs); and offers a sales and shipping service for reproduced artwork, used most frequently by working artists who reproduce their original work and sell prints, often limited edition sets, for additional profit.

      The business has also grown to include the GoNE Inc. Gallery on Main Street in Monson, which displays a number of both original and giclée prints on a rotating basis.

      “There are a lot of things going on,” said Bryant. “It really is a full-service shop, especially for artists. Since we can handle everything from the image capture of a piece of art to its sale, we’re helping artists make a living at what they do.”

      What’s more, the very option of reproducing art is a new one for many artists, and that alone is causing business growth at Giclée of New England as the word spreads.

      “A lot of artists are just beginning to discover reproduction,” she said, “as well as the idea that they can hold onto their original work longer, selling giclée prints for a few hundred dollars and getting more mileage out of it, while at the same time still being able to sell the original artwork, often for thousands.”

      Image is Everything

      Bryant said that as an artist herself, she also has a certain sensitivity for staying as close to the original creation as possible. In the early days of giclée, she explained, fading was an issue, but today’s inks, printers, and special canvasses and papers have largely negated that problem.

      Later, there was the issue of metamerism, or the effect of various light sources on a print. Sunlight, for instance, could bring the pinks and reds out, while fluorescent lights cast a yellow or green hue. The newer printers, one of which Bryant owns and uses exclusively for artwork and so-called ‘critical jobs,’ have addressed this problem as well. The older printer at Giclée of New England won’t be put out to pasture, though, says Bryant — it’s perfect for banners and other non-critical orders.

      But even as technology continues to improve, there is still a very strong human component to quality control at Bryant’s shop. She’s begun to develop a reputation around New England as one of the most accurate fine art reproducers in the region, due to meticulous study of her craft and attention to detail.

      “I have spent countless hours learning my trade,” she said, noting that it doesn’t begin with feeding a digital file to a printer and pushing ‘start.’ Rather, Bryant must first capture the image, using a scanner mounted vertically on a hydraulic table. She then reproduces the original artwork, often in sections due to size, and readies the art for printing in PhotoShop. The method is called ‘scan and stitch,’ and amounts, in layman’s terms, to just that — piecing the image together to create a seamless product.

      From that point, the image can be printed, but color correction still falls to Bryant’s eyes on many occasions, as she carefully compares the reproduction to the original.

      “Sometimes, I get it on the first try. Other times, it can take 50 passes or more to get it right,” she said.

      Either way, the finished print is close to indistinguishable from its original, and in the GoNE Gallery, Bryant has taken to noting which pieces are original, and which are giclée prints.

      As she moves ahead with the business, Bryant said there are plenty of new plans brewing. She’s currently searching for a new home for the gallery, and is also planning to upgrade some of the equipment that is integral to the shop.
      This could mean an investment of upwards of $50,000 — equipment includes digital cameras or camera backs, scanners, copy tables, and copy stands — but Bryant said a faster process will also translate into lower prices for her customers.

      A Very Fine Art House

      She’s also begun teaching courses, including adult education classes such as ‘how to read your camera manual’ and digital coaching for artists who hope to do some of the work she does on their own.

      “I want to keep expanding to help artists market their work,” she said.

      And as she does so, she’s helping the arts community thrive, printing her own creations more than ever, and perhaps giving Graham Nash a run for his money.

      Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

      Features
      Springfield Chamber Leader Promotes Action, Not Talk
      Victor Woolridge

      Victor Woolridge has seen some inspiring turn-around stories in his travels, and he believes Springfield can be added to that list.

      Victor Woolridge was busy gathering up the material he wanted to read on his flight to Buffalo, which was scheduled to leave in a few hours.

      “I’ve had a lot of practice at this,” he told BusinessWest, noting that his job as managing director of the Real Estate Finance Group at Babson Capital Management LLC forces him to travel frequently. Name a city and he’s probably been there — often.

      And in the course of all that travel, amassed through 27 years of work with MassMutual and its subsidiary, Babson, Woolridge has seen some inspiring turn-around stories.

      “I’ve been to a lot of places that people had pretty much given up on,” said the Springfield native, listing sections of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and other, smaller cities. “Years ago, people had nothing good to say or think about Harlem, but now it is the place to be. It’s the same with the inner harbor in Baltimore and on 13th and 14th streets in Washington. Not long ago, you wouldn’t walk down those streets; now, there’s a real renaissance going on there.”

      Exposure to such success stories is one of the reasons why Woolridge, the recently elected chairman of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce, is optimistic about the prospect of adding the City of Homes to that list he offered. But he admits that there is much work to be done in a community that is recovering from near-bankruptcy, political scandal, and lots of bad press, and is just starting to see some momentum.

      And as he assesses the challenges ahead for Springfield, Woolridge started by telling BusinessWest that he can see some direct parallels between what he does for a living — assessing high-yield investment opportunities for Babson — and his work with the Chamber and other groups trying to achieve progress in Springfield.

      “In both cases, it’s about moving the ball forward,” he said, adding that, roughly translated, this means moving beyond the talk and actually getting things done.

      “There is such a thing as analysis paralysis,” he said, referring to both the investment opportunities he and other members of the Real Estate Finance Group must weigh — and the many recommended plans of action for Springfield. “If you sit there and analyze all day long, you’re never going to get the deal. You have to get in there and put something on the table and advance the ball.”

      And Woolridge says he’s seeing signs of that happening in Springfield.

      Indeed, he told BusinessWest that, in recent months, he’s observed a change within both the Chamber and City Hall — a movement from talk to action that he intends to continue and accelerate.

      Woolridge referred often to the recently completed Urban Land Institute (ULI) study of the City of Homes. The report lists a number of priorities, including downtown and the Court Square area, the South End neighborhood of the city, and the soon-to-be-vacant federal building on Main Street. As he begins his two-year stint as chairman of the Springfield chamber, Woolridge said one of his priorities is to help ensure that the ULI report becomes much more than good reading.

      “Oftentimes, these reports sit on a shelf and gather dust,” he said. “We can’t let that happen in this case; there’s too much at stake for Springfield.”

      In a wide-ranging interview, Woolridge talked about the Chamber, Springfield, some of those turn-around stories he’s witnessed, and what it will take to write one in his hometown.

      Progress Report

      Woolridge recalled one of his first meetings as an officer with the Springfield Chamber, and some comments he made then.

      “I said, ‘everyone has obvious sympathy for the leper, but no one is willing to touch him,’” he remembers. “But every physician knows that for the sick patient to get better, someone has to touch him.”

      Springfield was in many ways a sick patient at that time, he continued, noting that there was perhaps too much watching on the part of the Chamber and other groups in the city in the past, and not enough direct involvement, or touching. But this is a pattern he’s seen change.

      “I’ve seen much more energy when it comes to the matters facing the city — not just talking about it, but strategizing, and saying ‘what do we do about it?’ and becoming a more active force in seeing these things happen,” he said. “On top of that, we’ve been discussing — we’re not there yet — how we can be better stewards or watchdogs over not just implementation of these things, but standards for how things get done so we don’t slide back into the kinds of problems we’re experienced over the past several years.”

      Woolridge told BusinessWest that this greater willingness to touch the patient in recent years, an attitudinal change encouraged by his immediate predecessors on the Chamber, Mary Ellen Scott and Carol Baribeau; Mayor Charles Ryan; Economic Development Director David Panagore; and others, bodes well for the city.

      That’s because direct action, not talk, is the only way to achieve progress with the many issues facing Springfield, including poverty, homelessness, public safety, economic development, workforce development, zoning, and creating a more business-friendly City Hall.

      “We decided it was important to take a look at our zoning and procedures to make sure that they were competitive, streamlined, and that people understood them,” he said, adding that he helped initiate discussions with developers who compared and contrasted Springfield’s model with others to create a qualitative database for action. “Hopefully, at the end of the day, we’ll have a comprehensive set of zoning procedures so that people can track from A to Z how to get a transaction done in the city of Springfield.

      “Our process was deemed to be not as friendly as other neighboring communities as well as other cities,” he continued, adding that he and others visited other cities to see how they handled things. “It just makes sense to try to fix the system, because if you save people time and money and make it a pleasant experience, then that gives you an opportunity for more business.”

      Streamlining zoning codes and the overall development process is just one example of how city and civic leaders are progressing from talking about the patient to touching him, said Woolridge, adding that the ULI is certainly another.

      The process of preparing the report gave people an opportunity to listen, exchange ideas, and, in many cases, vent, he said, adding that with the report in hand, the city and its leaders must do something with it, or else risk losing some of the momentum that’s been achieved.

      “Some of the recommendations in that report need to be pursued,” he said, returning to his warnings on overanalysis that can stifle action. “This is an outline, a framework, that provides a direction; the best way to move is to take a step forward, do something, and do your analysis on the way to building a new city.

      “You can’t analyze ad nauseum,” he continued. “You have to work the problem and figure it out along the way.”

      Agenda Items

      Woolridge told BusinessWest that he’s thankful for having two years as chairman at the Chamber; one is simply not enough time to finish some of the work started by others, let alone start and advance new initiatives.

      Assessing priorities for the city and the Chamber, he said there are specific and general goals for both. With the Chamber, he wants to increase membership, improve visibility, and make the organization more directly involved with key issues. Also, he wants to continue working with the state Legislature on business-related measures, and with the Finance Control Board on its ongoing efforts to bring fiscal stability to the community.

      As for the city, priorities include everything from poverty and homelessness to devising ways to make the community’s great ethnic diversity more of a cultural and economic asset.

      “That diversity should be fully embraced and seen as a clear positive for the city,” he said. “Right now, it isn’t.”

      Another issue to be addressed, he said, is the preponderance of affordable and subsidized housing in the city, at the expense of market-rate units that could attract more professionals to many neighborhoods and breathe life into the city’s downtown. There has been some quality single-family home construction in outlying areas of the city, he noted, adding that the next step is to continue this trend into the core of the community.

      “We have to stabilize our economy by bringing in higher-quality real estate that attracts higher-income people to help lift the entire economic boat of the city,” he said. “If you continue to build poor-quality housing, then ultimately you end up with a city that’s full of poor-quality housing. And how then do you attract people of better means, if you will, into a community like that?

      “It’s a domino effect,” he continued. “The tax base gets impaired because you don’t have a good balance between affordable and market rate, and when the tax base gets impaired the infrastructure is impaired, and your school buildings and other municipal facilities can’t get repaired; it’s a spiral downhill because you can’t generate enough tax base.”

      Achieving a balance between affordable and market-rate housing is easier said than done, he acknowledged, adding quickly that he’s seen it done — in cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, and also smaller communities like Greenville, S.C. In those cities, developers have created 80/20 mixes that attract professionals (the market-rate component is the ‘80’) but without, in his words, “casting aside” lower-income constituencies.

      Housing is one of those areas where there has been mostly talk in Springfield, said Woolridge, adding this isn’t getting the job done.

      As with other issues, the city needs to move on the housing dilemma or, as he said many times, move the ball forward.

      “We’re never going to know all the answers, and no matter how hard you search, the target keeps moving,” he said. “You have to move with it, and you have to get things done; you learn along the way, you make mistakes along the way, but that’s all part of the process.”

      Plane Speaking

      As he prepared to shuffle off to Buffalo, Woolridge took a minute to show BusinessWest one of his group’s latest investment gambits — a high-rise office tower in what might be his favorite destination: Chicago.

      “It’s a wonderful city, and it’s transformed itself into a European-style city,” he said, adding that by this he meant an attractive mix of arts, green space, and architecture. “What I like most about Chicago is that there’s an overall vision for the city and its neighborhoods.”

      And by advancing the ball, that city is turning vision into reality, he said, adding that the same can happen in Springfield if talk can be turned into action.

      “There are some who maybe have given up on Springfield,” he continued. “But you never know … this could someday be the place people want to be.”

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

      Features
      Business Survey Designed to Give a Snapshot of the Knowledge Corridor

      Jason Giulietti says that, while the brand Knowledge Corridor is gaining some traction among legislators, site selectors, and business groups, those representing agencies that serve businesses in that cross-border region have little hard data to work with when it comes to those companies, their relative fiscal health and well-being, and the challenges they’re facing.

      This is a situation that economic development leaders hope to rectify with something called the 2007 Hartford/Springfield Regional Business Survey. It contains 33 questions, the answers to which (due March 7) should be enlightening, said Giulietti, a research economist with the Conn. Business and Industry Assoc. (CBIA), which represents about 10,000 businesses in that state.

      He is one of the authors of the business survey, the first of its kind for the Knowledge Corridor, which is designed to shed some light on the businesses within that region stretching from Northampton to New Haven. It will do so with questions on subjects ranging from transportation to telecommuting; from hiring patterns to exporting.

      “This is the first time we’ve done something like this,” he said, noting that a similar study was conducted involving Connecticut’s Litchfield County and New York’s Westchester County, and the results were compelling enough to prompt officials in Hartford and Springfield to undertake one. “I think we’re going to get some data that will help us better understand our region and the businesses in it.”

      Russell Denver, president of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield, agreed. He said there are some assumptions about businesses in the Corridor and the challenges that are part and parcel to doing business in both states and often well beyond, but no hard data.

      “The Census Bureau doesn’t offer information on that region,” he said. “This survey will give us a better understanding of the requirements needed for businesses to operate on both sides of the border.”

      The survey was sent to thousands of area businesses via the CBIA, the ACCGS, the East of the River Chambers of Commerce in Northern Conn., and the Metro Hartford Alliance. The responses will be analyzed and the results unveiled at a May 18 event at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield. A formal report will then be printed and distributed.

      Giulietti said answers to all 33 questions could prove insightful, but there are some he will monitor closely. These include the first three, which amount to essay questions (most of the rest are multiple choice):

      • What do you think is the greatest challenge to operating a business in the Hartford-Springfield region?
      • What do you think is the greatest benefit of running a business in the Hartford-Springfield region? and
      • What do you believe will be the biggest concern facing your business in the next five years?

      “Those three should give us the best gauge of what’s going on,” he said. “Because they’re open-ended and we don’t give people any options, you get a true look at what people are thinking, and oftentimes, the responses are similar.”

      Giuletti said he’s anxious to also see the results from a series of questions on workforce issues. These include queries on when workers are expected to retire, the types of positions filled over the past 12 months, the skill sets new employees will need to succeed in their jobs, and the reasons why employers may be having trouble finding qualified workers.

      Another key section deals with transportation, a key issue for legislators and economic development leaders, said Giuletti. Questions were structured to gauge transportation needs, methods to pay for improvements, and even the percentage of employees who cross state lines to get to their jobs.

      Officials on both sides of the border are advancing plans to improve commuter rail service between Springfield, New Haven, and New York, he said, and the survey will hopefully yield insight into how valuable such a resource could become.

      Other sections deal with energy, international trade, housing, demographics, and the region’s business environment.

      Giuletti said there has been good response to the survey to date, with nearly 400 questionnaires returned by late February. At least 600 would be needed to get an accurate read on the issues facing the region.

      Denver said surveys have been sent to roughly 400 businesses in Western Mass., a cross-section that includes board members of several area chambers, as well as agencies such as the Economic Development Council of Western Mass., the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Regional Technology Council, the Small Business Development Council, and others.

      Surveys can also be downloaded from the CBIA’s Web site:www.cbia.com

      Departments

      Branching Out

      Representatives of the Springfield-based law firm Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy P.C. recently joined Mayor Mary Clare Higgins in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of the firm’s new Hampshire County office at 60 State St. in Northampton, the location of the former Growhoski & Callahan. Thomas M. Growhoski, Esq., a well established Northampton attorney, has joined the practice of Doherty, Wallace Pillsbury and Murphy, P.C. Pictured, from left, are attorneys Gary P. Shannon, Bernadette Harrigan, Paul S. Doherty, Mayor Higgins, and Attorney Thomas M. Growhoski.

      A Breakthrough at CDH

      Last month, workers broke through the existing wall on the ground floor level into the new $50 million Patient Building and Kittredge Surgery Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Workers used a diamond-tipped saw to cut through an 18-inch-thick concrete wall. They divided the segments of wall into 16 sections that each weighed approximately 500 pounds each. Break-throughs on the first, third and fourth floors will occur during January.

      View to a Prize

      Awarding the raffle grand prize plasma TV at the Springfield Technical Community College holiday party are Ray Turrini, of the STCC campus police, as Santa, Raffle winner Kevin Sullivan, and Jason Ahlam of TheaterXtreme. The TV/DVD package was donated by TheaterXtreme of Springfield. The raffle generated $1850, which was donated by STCC to the Food Bank of Western Mass.

      Easy Cell

      Recycling no-longer-used cell phones throughout Berkshire County just got easier with the support of Berkshire County law enforcement. District Attorney David F. Capeless has launched a countywide partnership with Verizon Wireless for the company’s HopeLine program. HopeLine facilitates an environmentally friendly way to recycle phones from any carrier in any condition. Phones are refurbished or sold for parts, with proceeds going to non-profit domestic violence shelters and the families they serve. Working phones with service and voicemail are given to women in dangerous living situations while transitioning out of violent relationships. The Elizabeth Freeman Center, the Pittsfield-based domestic violence services agency, recently received a $1,000 grant from the Verizon Wireless HopeLine program as the direct result of the phone donation and recycling program. Pictured are, left to right, Capeless, Berkshire County Sheriff Carmen Massimiano, Elizabeth Freeman Center Director of Clinical Services Randall Fisher and Verizon Wireless Pittsfield store manager Jonathan Nadler. In addition to the District attorney’s offices in both Pittsfield and North Adams, the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Office and various Police Departments throughout Berkshire county have joined the effort and will also serve as drop-off sites. The Pittsfield Verizon Wireless Communications Store on Hubbard Avenue is another drop-off point for HopeLine phones and accepts phones year-round seven days a week.

      Top of the City Party

      Enjoying the Springfield Technical Community College Foundation’s recent annual Top of the City party are, from left, Michael J. Oleksak, regional president of Berkshire Bank, Brian P. Tuohey, president of the STCC Foundation and president of Collins Pipe & Supply Co., Nancy D. Mirkin, STCC Foundation Board member and vice president of Hampden Bank, and Fran Mirkin, an attorney with the Springfield firm Bacon & Wilson, P.C.

      Holiday Happening

      Springfield Technical Community College student leaders brought a holiday party to brighten the season for families at the Open Pantry Shelter. STCC student Fernando Sanchez was Santa for the visit, which included presents for the resident families and staff, a pizza lunch, and a tricycle to be kept at the shelter for future children to enjoy.

      Opinion

      The countdown to the start of the Deval Patrick era continues, as does the speculation about what will happen once he assumes office.

      While some in the Bay State are wary about a Democrat in the corner office (there hasn’t been one for 16 years) and the loss of some brand of checks and balances, we see an opportunity for some actual progress on issues, not the posturing for higher office that defined the Mitt Romney administration.

      It’s up to Patrick, who invited weary voters to “check back in” during the campaign, and earned their support by pledging a different kind of leadership, a communal undertaking he announced with his campaign slogan Together We Can. Time will tell if the rhetoric translates into effective, shared leadership, but for now, there’s hope.

      Here are some priority items for the Patrick administration, areas that need attention if the state and this region are going to achieve the kind of prosperity everyone desires.

      • The Control Board: Leave it alone. As we’ve said on a few occasions, while much of the hard work has been done with regard to balancing the budget and negotiating labor contracts, the Finance Control Board’s work is far from finished. Changes in the way the city is run need to be institutionalized, and progress must be made on several economic development projects. An intact control board, operating for at least a few more years, represents the best hope for getting these assignments done.
      • Pay Real Attention to Western Mass.: While campaigning in the region in 2002, Romney offered the obligatory ‘I’m bullish on Western Mass.’ He then proceeded to largely ignore the area, sending out the lieutenant governor to deliver a check once in a while and showing up (finally) at the Big E. Patrick is also ‘bullish,’ and offered similar campaign pledges. We hope he backs them up with policies and funding that will make the area more competitive and able to attract the kind of real economic development that has come to other sections of the Bay State, but not the Pioneer Valley.
      • The Brain Drain: It’s real, not imagined. While tens of thousands of people still come to Massachusetts to be educated, the number is, in fact, declining. Part of the reason is that some people can’t afford it. The private schools will always do well, but the public schools have been forced to raise tuition and charge higher fees because the state’s commitment to public higher education has fallen, and is now among the lowest in the nation. State and community colleges are viable options for many residents — sometimes the only option — and they drive economic development because a large percentage of their graduates stay in the region. Patrick should make efforts to increase the Commonwealth’s commitment to public higher education a real priority.
      • Push the University: Speaking of public high education, the state also needs to make a bigger, better commitment to UMass, on all campuses, but especially in Amherst. Perhaps this region’s best hopes for real job creation comes from research at the school. Research centers are built on facilities, faculty, and overall reputation, and thus the Commonwealth must continue to make significant investments in the state university.
      • Lower the Cost of Doing Business: This was another of Romney’s priorities, or so we were told. But today, the state is more expensive, in terms of doing business, than ever before. Part of it is taxes, fees, and red tape (although some of those numbers have actually gone down) but there are other issues, especially the cost of living, commuting, and heating one’s home or business. If the state is to remain competitive with other regions of the country, especially warmer climates, its leaders must take steps to ensure that fewer business owners and individuals are forced to say, ‘I can’t afford to be in Massachusetts.’

      Patrick can’t do all this by himself — and according to his campaign rhetoric, he wouldn’t even try. By forging partnerships with the Legislature, local governments, and the business community, he can bring real progress on these issues and more.

      And that’s critical, because the Commonwealth is at a crossroads, and needs to take the right path.

      Departments

      Firm Earns National Award

      GREENFIELD — Crocker Communications Inc. has been honored with the 2006 ATSI Award of Excellence, presented annually by the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI), a trade association for providers of telecommunications and call center services. If a company scored 80% or better in all categories of call-handling skills such as courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients, they were presented with the Award of Excellence. Crocker has received the Award of Excellence seven times in the past 10 years. In addition, this is the second time the company received the Bronze Award for two consecutive years of excellent service.

      Berkshire Bank Opens Mortgage Center

      PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Bank recently established a mortgage center for the Springfield/Pioneer Valley region at 41 Court St., Westfield. The office will conduct all mortgage origination services in the market area. The center’s staff includes three mortgage originators, David M. Clark, Jodi A. Colter and Matthew T. Manganelli. In other banking news, Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc. has opened a full-service branch at 20 Mall in Guilderland, N.Y.

      Bank Opens Northampton Branch

      WEST SPRINGFIELD — United Financial Bancorp Inc. recently opened a branch in Northampton at 180 Main St. Patricia Covalli serves as personal banking officer, and is assisted by a team of experienced banking professionals. Residential mortgage and commercial lending personnel are also available at the branch. In addition, the bank will serve the financial service needs of its clients through its Financial Services Group which also has an office in Northampton, located at 14 Main St. United Financial Bancorp is the parent corporation of United Bank.

      STCU Credit Union Opens Westfield Branch

      SPRINGFIELD — STCU Credit Union has expanded to Westfield with a branch location at 453 East Main St. in the Westfield Shops. The office features five teller positions including one for handicapped individuals, a night depository, ATM facilities, a conference room, loan service office, and member reception area. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. STCU Credit Union first opened its doors in Springfield in 1929 and is based at 145 Industry Ave., Springfield.

      Business Teams Up With ‘Habitat’ to Benefit Families

      SPRINGFIELD — W.F. Young Inc. employees recently teamed up with Greater Springfield Habitat for Humanity® and donated a full day’s work helping restore a house on Cambridge Street. The company shut down operations on May 25 to allow all company employees to participate in the voluntary endeavor. In addition to the team donation of labor, the company is also a corporate donor to the local Habitat for Humanity organization.

      CDH Receives Kresge Foundation Opportunity, Challenge Grant

      NORTHAMPTON — The Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich., recently announced it awarded Cooley Dickinson Hospital with a Capital Challenge Grant of $900,000. The grant will support the hospital’s Caring for the Future campaign for the new patient building and Kittredge Surgery Center, and the grant will be awarded in September 2007 if CDH succeeds in raising $4 million. The grant has been made on a challenge basis, according to Diane Dukette, CDH’s executive director of development. She explained that the Kresge Foundation has challenged the hospital to meet its campaign goal of $10.8 million by Sept. 30, 2007. Dukette added that CDH is being challenged to raise an additional $4 million to secure the $900,000 challenge grant. The Kresge announcement represents an opportunity for community members to show their support of the CDH campaign, according to Dukette. “Every gift, regardless of the amount, will help bring us closer to the $900,000 grant,” she said. To date, $7.1 million has been raised in support of the CDH campaign.

      Students Benefit from STCC, City Partnerships

      SPRINGFIELD — A new collaboration between the Community Music School of Springfield and Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) will bring new options in music courses this fall. “Hip-Hop Culture” and “History of Jazz” are the first course offerings, and discussion of private music lessons for college credit is also in the works. A second partnership, with teachers from the Springfield Public Schools, will allow STCC to add Chinese language courses to its offerings starting this fall.

      Chamber Has New Web Site

      NORTHAMPTON — The Northamp-ton Chamber of Commerce launched its new Web site with a new address, www.explorenorthampton.com, in June. The updated site features a section for Chamber members, as well as sections for visitors and the community. In addition, the Web site now offers a calendar that will generate a ‘Coming Soon in the Northampton Area’ listing that will be automatically updated daily.

      Holyoke Mall Lands The Sports Authority

      HOLYOKE — The Sports Authority will open a 46,000-square-foot store in early 2007 in the space that was once occupied by Kahunaville. A.C. Moore is also expected to move into the former Kids ‘R Us space on the lower level of the mall to accommodate the space needed by The Sports Authority. Approximately 30 to 40 people will be employed at the new store. In other mall news, two recently opened stores are Bakers Fashion Footwear Boutique and Sadie’s, a photography studio.

      Two Law Practices Merge

      SPRINGFIELD — Raipher Pellegrino PC, based in Springfield, recently announced a merger with Denner Associates, a Boston-based firm that specializes in murder defendants in Boston and out of state. The firm is now Denner Pellegrino LLP and will serve the Hartford and Berkshire areas. Denner Associates has offices in Boston, Providence and New York. Raipher Pellegrino, a former Springfield city councilor, said the merger will help cut costs and also put together a powerful group of lawyers.

      Westfield Financial Looks Toward 100% Public Ownership

      WESTFIELD — Westfield Bank’s board of directors recently voted to complete a second step conversion to 100% public ownership of its stock by the end of the year. The stock price and when it will be sold will be determined at a later date. When the bank went public in 2001, the company sold 4.9 million shares at a $100-a-share subscription price, which raised approximately $48.1 million after costs. At press time, company officials said there are no specific plans for using the money that will be garnered during the stock offering.

      Lia Group to Build New Toyota Dealership in Northampton

      NORTHAMPTON — The Lia Auto Group has announced it will break ground soon for a new Toyota dealership on King Street, just down the road from its Honda dealership that opened in 2005. To make room for the Toyota store expansion, Lia recently closed its Chrysler Jeep dealership. In addition, the Albany-based group closed its Lincoln Mercury franchise in May. Company officials expect the new Toyota facility to cost approximately $4 million.

      Elms College, Diocese Creating Academic Programs

      CHICOPEE — A series of academic programs for lay leaders and ministers in the Springfield Diocese will soon be offered through a collaborative effort with Elms College. Areas of study will be designed for Catechetical leaders, adult and youth ministers, pastoral and music ministers, and parish administrators. Certificate courses will cost $120 per course and a diocesan subsidy will be available to participants. Certificate and master’s programs will be offered.

      Choice One, CTC Finalize Merger, Complete Acquisition of Conversent

      Choice One Communications, CTC Communications, and Conversent Communications recently announced the completion of their previously announced combination. The merged organization will be called “One Communications” as of July 24 and will serve businesses in 16 states within the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwest regions. With revenues of more than $800 million, One Communications is the largest privately-held competitive local exchange carrier in the United States. “This transaction transforms three telecommunications companies that were strong in their own right into a single broadband IP-based telecommunications powerhouse,” said Thomas J. Casey, CEO of One Communications. “We will offer a unique combination of advanced telecommunications solutions and exceptional customer service. Businesses throughout our target markets will benefit from a new competitor that is large enough to make substantial investments in enhanced services while being nimble and focused enough to serve every customer with exceptional support provided by accessible and friendly experts.” The One Communications network spans from Maine to West Virginia and the eastern seaboard to Wisconsin. The company will maintain substantial operations centers in Rochester, N.Y., Waltham, Mass., Marlborough, Mass., and Charleston, WV. In addition, One Communications will maintain dozens of regional offices in local business communities to serve small and medium sized business customers. Financing for the transaction includes a $75 million additional equity investment by both Columbia Ventures Corporation (the sole shareholder of CTC Communications), and Choice One shareholders (backstopped by Camulos Capital LP and Värde Investment Partners LP), and a $590 million credit facility arranged by Goldman Sachs Credit Partners LP. The credit facility includes $30 million in revolving credit, a $435 million first lien term loan, and a $125 million second lien term loan. Proceeds from the debt and equity offerings enabled the company to refinance existing debt, purchase 100% of the outstanding shares of Conversent and fund transaction and merger integration costs and provide additional working capital.

      Sections Supplements
      Physician Assistant Students Take a Tour of Duty in Battered New Orleans
      Springfield College physician assistant students work to clear debris in the Ninth Ward

      Springfield College physician assistant students work to clear debris in the Ninth Ward

      Six months ago, Ashley Cary of Ithaca, N.Y., a physician assistant student at Springfield College, settled into winter break after weeks of intense study and long hours at school.

      It didn’t take long for the cabin fever to hit her.

      “As a PA student, you’re always busy, you don’t have time to be bored,” she said. “I was sitting at home stir crazy and I said, ‘this is not for me.’ I knew I had to find something worthwhile to do during spring break.”

      But Cary bypassed traditional options of tropical vacations and road trips, instead researching volunteer opportunities for college students online. Soon, she’d located an agency willing to work with her during a free week in mid-March, and a locale in desperate need of some help – New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, the site of the first levee break and the hardest hit section of the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

      With a background in medical care, Cary knew she’d be an asset to the clean-up efforts, but she needed more hands on deck to make a significant impact. She approached her classmates, and soon a troupe of seven Springfield College students, all enrolled in the physician assistant program, had signed on with ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). ACORN is a FEMA-funded agency, located in several metropolitan areas, which devised a new program after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita called the Home Clean-out Demonstration Program, one of many community-service and rebuilding efforts across the country.

      Tearing Down Walls

      One of the trip’s participants, Mike Russo of Chicopee, explained that plenty of work remained to be done in New Orleans. Physician assistants (PAs) are trained to provide diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive health care services, as delegated by a physician. They also treat minor injuries, by suturing, splinting, and casting. But as soon as they entered some of the most ravaged neighborhoods of the city, he said the specific nature of the work they’d be doing became less important.

      For five days, the students worked alongside fellow volunteers, hurricane survivors, and paid contractors to essentially rip out unsalvageable property and make way for new structures.

      “Even as future PAs, not as much medical work was needed from us,” said Russo, “but we were called on to do what needed to be done. We gutted houses, cleaned up trash … that’s where the city is right now in terms of need — demolishing homes so they can be rebuilt.”

      What’s more, the volunteer work was not so far off-track in regard to the students’ course of study. According to the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), which profiled the Springfield College project in its professional publication and Web site, all PAs and PA students are encouraged to seek ways to enhance the lives of individuals in their local communities and beyond, as part of their overall professional responsibilities. The AAPA even developed a formal campaign, the Joint Efforts campaign, centered on increasing involvement in national health-related and community-based initiatives.

      Clearing House

      Russo, who lived for a week in a tent city with his classmates and 400 other people, said the level of destruction in the Ninth Ward was quickly evident.
      “It didn’t take long to realize that the pictures you see and the news stories you hear do no justice to what is going on,” he told BusinessWest. “Everyone is complaining that not enough is being done, but this isn’t small, this isn’t localized … essentially, there is no good place to start.”

      He said the bulk of the students’ work was centered in the upper portions and the east side of the Ninth Ward, on the outskirts of the most badly damaged areas.
      “Where we were, there were water lines six feet up the walls and beds flipped over in every room,” he recalled. “There were clothes everywhere and mold on everything. We took everything out of the houses, then we ripped the houses right down to the frames, the studs. That was all we could do, the damage was so extensive.”

      But closer to the center of the ward, Russo said the outlook was even more grim.

      “Directly inside the Ninth Ward, nothing was salvageable,” he said. “When we were there, bodies were still being found in attics. There was no work to be done – just bulldozers coming in, pushing everything away.”

      Cary echoed Russo’s description of the city in its most badly hit sections.

      “I hope that anyone who has extra time will schedule a trip to contribute to the relief efforts,” she said. “It’s amazing that this is part of our nation, and it looks like a third world country.”

      Recharge and Rebuild

      After seeing the devastation and the number of workers and volunteers contributing to the clean-up, Cary said she’s mulling another trip to New Orleans, this time in a more formal medical capacity. Both she and Russo graduated this May, and are now entering clinical rotations that will last a year. After that time, they’ll both likely be certified physician assistants, and more able to provide comprehensive medical care to disaster relief workers.

      “The damage that the hurricanes created is indescribable,” she stressed. “The clean-up won’t be done in five years; it won’t be done in 10. I’ll enter my rotations this year, and when I graduate I want to go back to New Orleans. For my next trip, I’m hoping I can provide health care for the workers.”

      But Cary said she’s not averse to again abandoning her stethoscope in favor of a sledgehammer.

      “We did nothing but demolish wrecked houses this spring,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind going back to help rebuild.”

      Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at[email protected]

      Sections Supplements
      $13 Million Facelift Will Change the Look — and Character — of State
      Courthouse

      The $13 million improvement project for State Street is being touted as an effective way to leverage the $67 million federal courthouse now under construction.

      Kevin Kennedy calls State Street in Springfield an ‘educational corridor’ — there are three high schools with that mailing address and two colleges, AIC and STCC, border it.

      But it’s also a religious corridor, said Kennedy, senior aide to U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, noting that several churches and the headquarters for the Archdiocese of Greater Springfield are on or just off the road. And it’s a business corridor — MassMutual’s sprawling headquarters lie near its east end — as well as an historical corridor; Shays’ Rebellion was waged near the Springfield Armory, now home to the STCC campus, and the street is considered part of the famous Boston Post Road.

      “It’s a very important road that thousands of people use every day; it winds its way through several neighborhoods in this city,” said Kennedy, noting that for these reasons and more — specifically, a $67 million federal courthouse now taking shape near the former Technical High School — State Street is getting a facelift.
      It’s a $13 million set of upgrades, to be more specific, with work slated to begin early next year and end, hopefully, around the time the new courthouse opens its doors in late 2007.

      Kennedy, who is coordinating many aspects of the project for Neal, who helped to secure $11 million in federal transportation funds for it (the state is providing the rest), told BusinessWest that the improvement initiative is one effective way to leverage the courthouse project, seize the momentum generated by it, and broaden its overall impact.

      Elaborating, he said that while the work will make the road more attractive, safer, and easier to navigate — plans call for 600 new trees, 250 new street lights, 125,000 square yards of asphalt, 44,000 linear feet of curbing, sidewalks, crosswalks, and some reconfigured intersections — it will also spur economic development.

      “It is everyone’s hope that this project will encourage people to invest in their own property,” he said, adding that there is a mix of privately and publicly owned property in need of re-investment. He listed the remaining portion of the former Tech High School (most of the structure was demolished to make way for the courthouse), the old fire station at Mason Square, and some shuttered businesses, such as the former Byron Funeral Home, as landmarks that may see new life from the improvement project.

      David Panagore, the city’s economic development director, agreed.

      He told BusinessWest that investments in such things as lighting, sidewalks, and intersections do, indeed, spur private investment. He’s seen it happen locally, in Turners Falls, and in Boston, where improvements made to Washington to Shawmut Streets generated increases in property values and investments to protect those assets.

      “If you look at downtown Turners Falls, the investments in the streetscape have had a big impact,” he explained. “Projects like that raise the level of expectation in the public space.

      “With State Street, the outcome is going to be tremendous in terms of changing the character and tenor of that area and bringing it out,” he continued. “Our goal is not to create a greater sense of place.”

      BusinessWest looks this issue at how the ambitious project — a blend of engineering and economic development — will do just that.

      Concrete Examples

      As John Bechard worked his way through a PowerPoint program outlining specific aspects of the State Street project, he stopped at slides 18 and 19.

      The former is a photograph of a stretch of the road near the west end of the STCC campus, while the latter is a computer-generated rendering of what that same block will look like after a median, complete with new trees, is added to State Street between Spring Street and Federal Street.

      The median and its trees will make the road more aesthetically pleasing, said Bechard, managing director of Transportation Engineering for Watertown-based Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. (VHB), the firm hired to design the State Street improvments. He noted that specific species of trees have yet to be chosen, but they will provide several months of color. But the median will also make the road safer and improve traffic flow, he continued, adding that it will prohibit motorists traveling west from making turns onto Byers Street, thus preventing tie-ups.

      There are similar dual benefits to many of the other specific aspects of the so-called State Street Corridor Improvement Project. Bechard said other initiatives, including new entrance patterns for Wilbraham Road and steps aimed at improving the tangled intersection of State Street, Magazine Street, and St. James Avenue, will blend aesthetics with traffic and safety enhancements.

      “Our basic goal is to improve travel for pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles alike,” said Bechard. “We’ve received a lot of feedback from people, and while not everyone is happy with all the changes, we feel we have a plan that will make the road safer and provide better traffic flow.

      Bechard told BusinessWest that the project has been in the planning stages for more than two years. The process of finalizing specific improvements and the designs for each has involved everything from pedestrian and traffic counts (roughly 17,000 to 25,000 cars per day) to a series of neighborhood meetings, at which project coordinators have sought to identify both “opportunities and constraints.”

      While the city does not have a financial commitment for the project, said Bechard, it will have the responsibility of making sure the improvements are implemented as designed, and that public input is gathered and weighed before those designs are finalized. These tasks require a high level of organization and the cooperation of departments ranging from the DPW to the Historical Commission; parks to housing.

      What has emerged to date is a multi-faceted plan, to be administered by the Mass. Highway Dept., that involves roughly four miles of road between East Columbus Avenue and Berkshire Avenue. This stretch passes through several neighborhoods, including McKnight, Six Corners, Old Hill, Upper Hill, and Pine Point.

      Nine intersections will be modified, improved, and beautified, said Bechard, adding that traffic signals will be upgraded to improve synchronicity. Sidewalks will also be reconstructed, with many sections to feature brick inlays. Work will also include the removal of cobblestones and decaying trolley tracks that lie under many sections of the street.

      The project will unfold in three phases,said Bechard; the first will be stretch from East Columbus Avenue to Federal Street, while the second will wind from there to Roosevelt Avenue, and the third, including the section by MassMutual, ending at Berkshire Avenue. There is no set timetable for the order in which the work will be undertaken.

      Main elements to the plan include the median, the intersection at Magazine Street and St. James Avenue, and a new entrance for Wilbraham Road and enlarging the park at that intersection near Mason Square.

      Motorists traveling east on State Street have simply veered right onto Wilbraham Road, he explained. When the intersection is redesigned, they will continue on State Street to Catherine Street and take a right-hand turn there. The adjacent park will be lengthened and widened, with additional trees planted.

      Beyond the engineering elements to the plan, however, there is an economic development component to the project, said Kennedy. He told BusinessWest that the enhancements could and should prompt additional investments (MassMutual has already put $45 million into renovations at its building) and help move some stalled projects forward.

      Panagore agreed, and said the state is currently studying the Tech High School site as the possible location of a data center, similar to the one the Commonwealth built in Chelsea (another fiscally challenged city) several years ago.

      Meanwhile, the city is looking at undertaking work to make the old fire station more ready for development, he said. The long-shuttered landmark, challenged by a lack of parking, is in an advanced state of disrepair, Panagore said, adding that with some investment in the property the city could generate some interest in a request for proposals.

      As for private investment, Panagore said city officials will seek to assemble financing vehicles to help property owners with façade work and other improvements. Officials will make use of federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money, while also trying to create a loan, or mortgage, pool.

      “We’ll look to focus the resources we do have on buildings that are outdated or vacant, and work with owners on bringing them back on line,” he said, adding that discussions are taking place on a loan pool. “We want to work with business owners to help them build on the momentum that will be created by the project.”

      Exit Strategy

      By doing so, city will indeed, be changing State Street’s look and character, said Panagore, noting that many neighborhoods will be touched by what he calls an ‘impact project.’

      “We don’t consider this to be $13 million worth of macadam and work to tear up old cobblestones,” he explained. “This is $13 million worth of important investments in many sections of this city.

      “We’re not just putting in pavement,” he continued. “We’re making a capital investment that will spur private investment.”

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

      Uncategorized

      Since Janet Wanczyk arrived at Springfield Technical Community College four years ago and started signing the checks in her capacity as vice president for Administration and chief financial officer, she has been on a mission to reduce the school’s enormous fuel bills.

      “We’ve been scouring the Earth looking for ways to cut our expenses,” she told BusinessWest, noting that the campus, housed partly in former Springfield Armory buildings, occupies some 1 million square feet — perhaps three times the space of a more-modern school with similar enrollment — much of it very inefficient when it comes to heating and cooling.

      The dire need to reduce fuel and electricity bills, which will reach $2 million for the fiscal year that ends next June 30 (a 33% increase over a year ago) has prompted the school to look at alternatives ranging from co-generation to windmills and to take steps that range from installing more energy-efficient exit signs to shutting down most buildings for two weeks during winter break.

      And it also inspired a sequence of events that led to the installation of what is being called the largest photovoltaic (PV), or solar energy system in Western Mass. on one roof in the Technology Park that sits across the street from the STCC campus.

      Installed in January and unveiled to the public late last month, the $255,000 system is comprised of 108 PV panels that effectively convert sunlight into electricity — roughly 33,000 kilowatt hours of it per year. That production rate will save the Technology Park, administered by the STCC Assistance Corp. (STCCAC) about $6,000 per year, making only a small dent in the park’s $1 million budget for fuel and electricity in FY ’06.

      But the current system, which is expandable, is considered merely a “starting point,” said STCCAC Chairman Brian Corridan, who told BusinessWest that phrase refers to much more than the generation of electricity.

      Indeed, he said the PV installation is expected to spark a number of academic initiatives, entrepreneurial ventures, and public-private partnerships in the broad realm of renewable energy. Looking down the road — and not very far down it — Corridan said he envisions developments in PV and other renewable energy products involving virtually every aspect of the college and its technology park.

      This includes the training of individuals who will work in this field, the creation of new businesses focused on renewable energy, which could be nurtured in the Scibelli Enterprise Center within the tech park, and the emergence of a renewable energy business cluster, possibly at the tech park. Eventually, the STCC complex may become a teaching and demonstration center for photovoltaic energy in the Northeast.

      “I think we’ve just taken the first steps in what will be a long journey,” said Corridan, adding that the ambitious expansion of the park’s focus into renewable energy, building on its base in telecommunications, is a natural progression — literally. “This is the kind of thing that a technology park should be doing.”

      BusinessWest looks this issue at how the installation at the tech park came to be, and what it could eventually mean for the college and the region.

      Shedding Light on the Subject

      Chris Derby Kilfoyle became involved with photovoltaic energy pretty much out of necessity.

      He had acquired a cabin in Vermont that was not served by the electric grid, and needed some way to light the place. He turned to what was then a technology still very much in its infancy. Indeed, in the early ’80s solar power was both less efficient and more expensive than it is now, but for some, it is essentially the only option.

      Inspired by his own experience, Kilfoyle, a philosophy major in college but knowledgeable in the sciences, attended one of the first conferences on solar power in 1985 and later that year started Berkshire Photo Voltaic Services, which has installed more than 130 solar power systems (most of them residential) over the past 20 years, and was chosen to handle the project in STCC’s tech park.

      He said the initiative is an intriguing one not merely for its size and cost-cutting capacity, but also for its ability to generate awareness for photovoltaic energy and to help that industry grow. And it comes at a time when President Bush is challenging the nation to reduce its dependency on foreign oil by expanding the use of alternative sources of energy.

      “I get calls all the time from people who want to know about opportunities in this field … they’re excited about getting it, said Kilfoyle. “I believe it has a bright future, and what’s happening at the college is an exciting development.”

      And it came about because Wanczyk was at wit’s end in her quest to do something, anything about the college’s staggering fuel and electricity bills.

      Those bills and the need to reduce them eventually brought school administrators to the Mass. Technology Collaborative (MTC), a public agency and administrator of the Renewable Energy Trust, in search of grants to study photovoltaic systems and other forms of renewable energy.

      The college was turned down in its initial bid for a $50,000 grant three years ago, said Wanczyk, but the tech park (STCCAC) later partnered with Appleton Corp., the management company for the park, and Western Mass. Electric Co., a park tenant) in a grant application that was eventually approved by the MTC.

      The $123,000 awarded by the agency was essentially matched by STCCAC, she explained, and the project commenced last fall.

      The 108 photovoltaic panels are placed at a 6-degree angle and positioned in rows at the southwest corner of what is known as building 111. Each cell contains 216 silicon semi-crystalline solar cells that produce power with no moving parts.

      As Kilfoyl explained, electricity is produced as photons of sunlight penetrate the silicon, bumping electrons into a flow. This photovoltaic effect, as it’s called, produces direct current (DC) electricity, which is converted to alternating current (AC) to match the American standards of AC frequency and voltage.

      Over the course of its 35-year lifetime, the PV installation at the tech park will replace the energy equivalent of 150 tons or coal or 31,000 gallons of gasoline, and avoids 756 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, it will save the park an estimated $5,800 in annual energy costs, and will help WMECO more easily manage peak usage periods in the summer.

      Current Events

      The installation covers only a small percentage of the roof space at the tech park, noted Kilfoyle, adding that it can be expanded onto both flat and angled sections of roof. The pace of expansion will be determined by economics, the availability of grant money, and a current worldwide shortage of poly-silicon, the main ingredient used in the production of solar cells, and also computer chips.

      “That shortage will definitely limit the availability of product,” he said, adding that there are no real estimates on how long the shortage will last.

      In the meantime, a small (10 kilowatt) photovoltaic installation is being planned for the college, said Wanczyk, adding that, like the tech park installation, it is environmentally friendly and another step being taken in the effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

      And the benefits to the college and the tech park will far exceed cost savings, said STCC President Ira Rubenzahl. He told BusinessWest that the school has plans to revive its Environmental Technology associate degree program, with a focus on clean water or wastewater management, and will likely include options to that program in renewable energy.

      Rubenzahl said the college offered an academic program in solar power in the’80s, but at that time, the field was not as technically advanced not as economically feasible for homeowners and smaller scale corporate applications. Now that the energy is more affordable and the technology more efficient, the school will look to take a lead role in the field.

      “There are opportunities for initiating workforce development partnerships and training within the renewable energy industry,” he said, noting that the school’s Center for Business and Technology (CBT) is already talking with the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners, which offers a certification exam for PV installers. CBT is working with industry experts to develop a certification exam preparation course, which could be offered as early as the fall.

      Meanwhile, for the tech park, the PV installation provides a foundation on which to build a renewable energy cluster to complement one in telecommunications that includes such tenants as Choice One Communications, CTC Communications, Northeast Optic Network Inc., WilTel (Williams Communications), Verizon Business, and MAP Internet.

      “What we saw was an opportunity to draw companies that are in this field to the tech park,” he said, referring not only to photovoltaic energy, but also wind power, hydro, and other types of renewable energy. “These companies could use the college as a reservoir for talent that they need to grow.

      “This would be a first step in that direction,” he continued, adding that as more companies in this broad field locate in the park, the environment will logically create a larger critical mass of businesses. “Telecommunications breeds more telecommunications, and renewable energy will breed more renewable energy.”

      Watt’s Happening?

      Wanczyk’s fight to reduce the school’s energy bills continues. The photovoltaic installation in the tech park, as well as the one soon to be installed at the college, will bring only minor relief.

      But they are, as she and Corridan said, just the start of something bigger, and offer the promise of much more than some help with the bottom line.

      They could help the school — and the renewable energy field itself — take steps toward a brighter future.

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