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Cybersecurity Center at Springfield Union Station Nears Opening

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The main entry of the new Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.
Cybersecurity Special Coverage

Training Ground

The main entry of the new Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.

The main entry of the new Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.

 

There are plenty of ways to learn about cybersecurity, Gene Kingsley said, but none better than actually doing it.

“It’s a huge advantage to be immersed in an environment where you’re undergoing what you’re learning about. You’re not just learning coding; you’re actually applying coding. You’re not just reading a book; you’re applying knowledge that you can replicate on your next job, having had this experience.”

Kingsley, cyber range manager for the Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, was describing the value of the center, which will open later this summer, to students studying cybersecurity — but also to an industry that desperately needs an influx of talent.

The project, housed at Springfield Union Station, is just one component of a multi-million-dollar series of investments, announced in 2022, to bolster cybersecurity resilience — and the related workforce — across the state.

These awards included a $1,086,476 grant to support the launch of CyberTrust Massachusetts, a nonprofit that works with business and academia statewide to grow the cybersecurity talent pipeline by increasing career pathways for underrepresented groups, while promoting security operations to address the day-to-day needs of resource-constrained municipalities, nonprofits, and small businesses.

“It’s a huge advantage to be immersed in an environment where you’re undergoing what you’re learning about. You’re not just learning coding; you’re actually applying coding. You’re not just reading a book; you’re applying knowledge that you can replicate on your next job.”

The state also awarded $1,462,995 award to Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) and $1,200,000 to Bridgewater State University to establish a security operations center (SOC) and cyber range in each city. The Neal Center at Union Station, managed by STCC, also benefited from $500,000 in ARPA funding from the city of Springfield.

Springfield’s 6,000-square-foot center — a collaboration between STCC, the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, and CyberTrust Massachusetts — aims to be a hub for advancing cybersecurity awareness, education, and innovation while battling global security threats. Its cyber range is a simulated, hands-on training environment, and its SOC is envisioned as a support service for Massachusetts municipalities, as well as regional businesses, to detect cybersecurity events in real time and respond quickly.

“Springfield Union Station has re-established the city of Springfield as the crossroads of New England, and it will soon serve as home to a state-of-the-art cybersecurity training center that will greatly benefit our region,” U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said during a walk-through earlier this year.

Now that it’s set to open, Mary Kaselouskas, vice president and chief information officer at STCC, is excited to see its applications for students; three STCC classes will conduct work there this fall.

“Any of the students involved in the cybersecurity courses will have the cyber-range experience embedded in that,” she told BusinessWest, “and other classes will use the range as well.”

The facility’s security operations center

The facility’s security operations center will be a support service for municipalities and businesses to detect cybersecurity events in real time and respond quickly.

And not just STCC students; other institutions partnering on the project include Bay Path University, UMass Amherst, Western New England University, Elms College, and Springfield College, each of which offer a range of certificate and degree programs in cybersecurity, computer science and programming, digital forensics, criminal justice, and more.

“This is a very important initiative,” said Doug Keevers, program director of the School of Management and Technology at Bay Path. “It definitely benefits all students in the region by providing them with a facility where they can gain practice and hands-on experience. They’re going to be exposed to mentors, professionals in the field, real-life situations, different types of things — even competitions.

“We are very focused on knowledge, and taking the intangible and making it more tangible — giving students more hands-on, real-life experience. That’s what we’re all about,” he went on. “This will not be just for Bay Path and the partners involved, but any schools who want to use this facility as a resource. That’s very important in a field that can change dramatically on a daily basis.”

 

Essential Components

Essentially, the Neal Center will provide threat monitoring and other cybersecurity services for Commonwealth municipalities and small-business and nonprofit customers. The SOC will be able to monitor, detect, and respond to cyberthreats 24/7/365, protecting organizations’ assets.

Meanwhile, the cyber range is a testing lab that mirrors real-world IT environments to provide hands-on training opportunities to local companies, universities, and other cyber-focused organizations. It will allow both students and employees of companies and municipalities to experience simulated threats in a virtual environment, including hands-on training in live-fire attacks, blue-team/red-team events (in which one team attacks a system and the other defends it), and other training models, potentially leading to certification in security fields for students.

“We are very focused on knowledge, and taking the intangible and making it more tangible — giving students more hands-on, real-life experience. That’s what we’re all about.”

CyberTrust Massachusetts CEO Pete Sherlock called the center a critical piece of the Commonwealth’s overall effort to grow and diversify the cyber workforce and address the security needs of municipalities, nonprofits, and businesses. “With its state-of-the-art cyber range, educational facilities, and security operations center, this cyber center of excellence is a world-class resource to serve the region’s people and institutions.”

For its part, CyberTrust was launched to address four key imperatives for the state:

• Boosting security, as organizations across Massachusetts are challenged to find affordable resources to defend themselves against growing cybersecurity threats and maintain resiliency in the digital world;

• Underemployment in cybersecurity, with almost 800,000 cybersecurity job openings in the U.S. — a number expected to grow — and more than 20,000 in Massachusetts alone. The center also puts a particular focus on women and communities of color, which are underrepresented in the cybersecurity workforce and frequently overlooked for employment due to a lack of opportunity to obtain hands-on experience;

• Employee training, as businesses across the Commonwealth typically do not have a location to send their employees to receive such training at an affordable rate; and

• Business and economic development, specifically a need to convene regional hubs for business development where cybersecurity entrepreneurs can establish and grow startups, or where specific industry segments, such as defense contractors, can receive specialized support.

Gene Kingsley

Gene Kingsley says the new center could be an economic boost for downtown Springfield as well as benefiting the cybersecurity workforce.

Students who train at the center will have access internships and industry partnerships that help them build experience and career networks, research opportunities that establish best practices combined with emerging technologies, and community outreach and education forums to raise awareness about cybersecurity risks and solutions.

Kingsley said it could also be an economic booster for downtown Springfield. “Obviously, more traffic downtown is ideal. The idea is bringing people from the community to upskill them. And this is a growth field; we’re looking to get people into the field right now.”

Kaselouskas agreed, noting that the new center could be a way to boost the security workforce by creating training opportunities in an easy-to-access location.

“What’s nice about the center is that it’s a centralized location available by train and bus and it’s very easily accessible,” she said, adding that the city is interested in using the center for training its own employees. “It offers them an economy of scale. It’s cost-prohibitive to buy the platform or services on your own.”

Businesses can also use the center to upskill employees, Keevers said.

“Cybersecurity permeates every industry, every field, every department. I’ve heard advisory-board members say, ‘we have an employee who has an affinity for cybersecurity; they just need some upskilling.’ So it’s an opportunity to do that.”

 

Creating a Hub

Kaselouskas said the state’s recent focus on cybersecurity investments is intended not just to buy tools and give them to businesses to fight cyberthreats, but to train the future workforce.

“Bridgewater’s center is on campus, and ours is at a different location, but the vision and goal are the same: to train students to allow them to get jobs.”

Combined with MassReconnect, the program that now makes community college free for Massachusetts residents age 25 and up — and which has boosted enrollment at STCC and other colleges — the Neal Center promises to draw more talent into a field that needs it.

“My personal passion is for Massachusetts to become a cyberhub. And I think this is an opportunity to do that,” Keevers added, noting that, while some young people are hesitant to enter what they feel is an overly technical field, cybersecurity jobs span a wide range of skills and expertise.

“It’s not one size fits all. The biggest threat in cybersecurity is people, and the best way to stay safe is to educate and train people.”

The Case for a Receiver

By Contributor
Law Special Coverage

Such a Move Could Bring Order to Cannabis Control Commission

By Scott Foster, Esq. and Johannah Huynh

For business and civic leaders in Springfield, the appointment in 2004 of the Springfield Control Board remains a watershed moment in the city’s fiscal history.

Regardless of how one felt about the city being plunged into receivership by the Legislature through the appointment of the Control Board, the results were unmistakable, as the city went from having an annual budget deficit of $41 million in 2004 to having cash reserves of $34.5 million when the Control Board was disbanded in 2009. Springfield has continued to enjoy the fruits of the newfound fiscal responsibility with an ever-increasing bond rating since 2009.

Bruce Stebbins, a longtime resident of Western Mass., but then a recent resident, was elected to Springfield’s City Council in the midst of the Control Board’s tenure and had a ringside seat to the Control Board’s temporary reign over the city. He continued to serve on the council through the end of the Control Board and then became become Springfield’s Business Development administrator, reporting to the city’s chief Development officer.

Scott Foster

Scott Foster

Johannah Huynh

Johannah Huynh

Stebbins’ experience engaging with the Control Board and helping bring the city to financial stability may prove immensely valuable if the Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the top watchdog agency in Massachusetts responsible for preventing fraud and waste and abuse of public funds, get its wish.

In a recent six-page letter addressed to the Commonwealth’s top elected officials, the OIG strongly urged the Massachusetts Legislature to immediately appoint a receiver to run the day-to-day operations of the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) while the Legislature concurrently reviews the CCC’s statutory governance structure.

Over the past two years, the CCC has been plagued by internal turmoil, which the OIG suggested is partially a result of the CCC’s enabling statute failing to clearly define or delineate the duties and responsibilities of the leadership hierarchy. The OIG’s recommendations for the Legislature to overhaul the governance structure seek to address the root of the CCC’s problems.

“Not only might the temporary appointment of a receiver allow the Legislature to resolve the CCC’s governance structure, but it could also better promote the efficiency of a regulatory body, which would be a welcome development for the hundreds of businesses that rely on the CCC’s oversight.”

Since the enabling statute is, according to the OIG, “unclear and self-contradictory with minimal guidance on the authority and differing responsibilities of the CCC’s commissioners and staff,” it’s surprising that the CCC has been able to oversee $322 million in tax and non-tax revenue in the most recent fiscal year.

The OIG was also concerned that, despite spending $160,000 on mediation services since May 2022 to draft a governance charter, the commissioners have yet to release meeting minutes relating to the discussion of the charter, publicly release a draft charter, approve the new charter, or even provide assurance that the mediation process is complete. Even if a governance charter were adopted, the OIG emphasized, such a charter would not have the force of law — only binding the CCC to the extent the commissioners agree.

 

Internal Strife

Acting CCC Chair Ava Callender Concepion has pushed back on the call for a receivership by citing the commission’s recently proposed blueprint of a governance structure in its final stages of legal review subject to a public meeting.

The ongoing lack of an official chair of the CCC was also cited by the OIG as an area of concern. Amidst the suspension of CCC Chair Shannon O’Brien by the treasurer since Sept. 14, 2023, the commissioners have disagreed on who held the appropriate authority to appoint Callender Concepcion to the role of acting chair. Just last month, the CCC voted to relieve the acting executive director, Debbie Hilton-Creek, of her day-to-day responsibilities, leaving the CCC without a duly appointed leader to oversee the operations of the agency.

Even in the absence of clarity on who has authority to do what, the OIG notes that compliance with the Open Meeting Law, which prohibits two or more commissioners from discussing matters outside of a publicly posted meeting, is simply impractical with respect to a large state agency overseeing day-to-day operations.

With such decentralization of management and ambiguous authority at the CCC, the OIG has stressed the urgency of appointing a receiver with the authority to manage the day-to-day operations of the CCC. Specifically, the OIG recommended that the receiver should be expressly authorized to both carry out the daily administrative functions of the CCC and carry out said functions notwithstanding any assertion of by the chair, acting chair, or commissioners under Chapter 76.

If the Legislature were to heed the OIG’s findings, the appointed receiver would have unchallenged authority to carry out the CCC’s administrative operations until the Legislature has resolved the CCC’s governing structure.

In this context, for an agency responsible for bringing in approximately $322 million in tax and non-tax revenue in FY 2023 alone, a receiver that was statutorily authorized to do what the CCC cannot, per the OIG, would be in the best interests of the cannabis industry, its consumers, and ultimately the constituents.

Not only might the temporary appointment of a receiver allow the Legislature to resolve the CCC’s governance structure, but it could also better promote the efficiency of a regulatory body, which would be a welcome development for the hundreds of businesses that rely on the CCC’s oversight.

 

Scott Foster is a partner at Bulkley Richardson in Springfield, and Johannah Huynh is a summer associate at the firm.

Peter Pan Rolls into Its Fourth Generation

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Melissa and Peter A. Picknelly (far left and right) with fourth-generation company leaders
Cover Story Features

Staying True to Their Routes

 

Melissa and Peter A. Picknelly (far left and right) with fourth-generation company leaders

Melissa and Peter A. Picknelly (far left and right) with fourth-generation company leaders Lauryn Picknelly-DuBois, Alyssa Picknelly-Dube, and Peter B. Picknelly. (Staff Photo)

The past five years have brought a raft of challeges to the world of tourism and transportation.

The biggest one? Survival.

“The worldwide pandemic was tough on our industry, and many other industries,” Peter A. Picknelly, chairman and CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines, told BusinessWest. “For three years, we had the government using our tax dollars to tell people not to use our service.”

There’s a bit of edge in his voice as he brings up topics like shutting down travel, and then restrictions like social distancing that accompanied its gradual return.

“But we survived, and we’re thriving now. We’ve invested $25 million in new equipment in the last couple of years. We’re modernizing our fleet, which is what our consumer wants; they want a nice, clean, modern bus. And we’re continuing to expand our route structure,” he said, noting that Peter Pan serves about 100 locations in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

“We listen to our customers — where they want to go — and we expand where it makes sense. We recently expanded to Newark, New Jersey, and a suburb right outside of Baltimore called White Marsh. And we’ve added service on Cape Cod. We’re always looking at new areas.”

But the company is also looking to the future in other ways, most notably some emerging leadership from the fourth generation of this family business launched by Picknelly’s grandfather in 1933.

“You just don’t see workers commuting to work, and if they do, they’re not working Mondays and Fridays. I mean, the full-time office worker is just not rebounding. It’s better than it was, and it will eventually come back, I think, but some businesses are just going to thrive on people that work remotely.”

“I kind of grew up just learning from him and wanting to work here,” said Peter B. Picknelly, one of three children of Peter A. and Melissa Picknelly (the company’s vice president) now working at Peter Pan. A fourth is still in college and mulling career goals.

“I had no doubt in my mind that this is what I wanted to do,” added the younger Peter, who is the company’s director of Safety & Security. “I grew up going to school and trying to better myself so I could then come into the business. That’s what I always wanted to do.”

That’s a story his father can relate to. “I’m the third generation; Peter and his sisters are the fourth,” he said. “But I never forced them into it. When I grew up, some kids wanted to be baseball players or football players. All I wanted to do was follow my father and grandfather. And I can’t tell you how proud I am that our kids chose to do that — but it was their decision.”

Peter A. Picknelly

Peter A. Picknelly, standing before some portraits of his predecessors, says there are very few family-owned bus companies in the U.S. today.
Staff Photo

Other fourth-generation leaders at Peter Pan include Lauryn Picknelly-DuBois, who was promoted two years ago to controller, and Alyssa Picknelly-Dube, who is involved with the Maintenance division. (A fourth child is still in college and mulling career goals.)

“There are very few family-operated bus companies in the United States anymore,” their father said. “Here, the fourth generation is already set, and they’re still in their 20s. I think it assures our employees and our customers that we will be around for a long time. They are doing an amazing job.”

 

All Aboard

They’re doing it at a time when public-transportation demographics might be changing, but bus travel clearly remains important.

Peter Pan specializes in travel that’s longer than a typical work commute, but within 200 miles — a distance that can be covered as quickly as flying, once the airport time is factored in, the senior Picknelly explained.

These days, most travelers are between 18 and 35 years old or over 50, he added. “They may have an automobile, but the bus is more affordable. We go city center to city center. And parking can be extremely expensive in some areas, and hard to find.”

He added that the pandemic hit the work-commuter customer base hard, and it’s still struggling, at around 60% of pre-pandemic volume.

“You just don’t see workers commuting to work, and if they do, they’re not working Mondays and Fridays. I mean, the full-time office worker is just not rebounding. It’s better than it was, and it will eventually come back, I think, but some businesses are just going to thrive on people that work remotely.”

That said, the longer-distance service — say, Boston to New York or New York to Philadelphia — is booming, especially as gas prices have remained high and cities have gone to congestion pricing.

And gas prices do make a difference, he added. “You can instantly see it when gas prices go up. Our cost of operation goes up when fuel goes up — it’s our third-largest cost. But it’s outweighed by the fact that more people seek an alternative. When fuel hits $3, $4 a gallon, you can see an instant surge.”

That said, today’s buses are much more fuel-efficient, Picknelly said, and feature an anti-idling function that shuts them off when they idle at a gate or while parked for more than five minutes (but not while in traffic).

“There are situations when the idling won’t turn off — say it’s middle of winter and it’s freezing, and you want to heat up a little bit. That will override the five-minute idle shutdown,” Peter B. Picknelly said. “Same thing if it’s too hot — to keep the bus cool, it’ll override it.”

Other features of a modern bus include better-designed seats, video and Wi-Fi, and cameras that capture a 360-degree view of the bus for safety purposes.

Peter B. Picknelly

Peter B. Picknelly, director of Safety & Security, is one of three fourth-generation family members so far to have chosen Peter Pan as a career.
Staff Photo

As for those who drive the buses — the current fleet is about 200 vehicles — the younger Picknelly said the workforce crunch was severe a couple of years ago, but hiring has picked up considerably since. “We get a lot of applications every single day, so we’re able to be a little bit more picky when it comes to the driver force.”

His father noted that hiring is easier in some areas than in others. “We’re constantly hiring. But while Cape Cod and Boston are difficult locations, with our driver forces in New York and D.C., we have plenty of applications.”

Peter Pan has been receiving more applications these days from younger people, and the company has brought on employees in the process of getting their commercial driver’s license, and even reimbursed them for it.

“It’s a very good job if you like to drive and you want to deal with people,” Picknelly said. “Our drivers choose what routes they want to operate and when they want to work. Our position is, if you like doing what you want to do, you’re going to do a better job.

“But you’ve got to like to drive, and you’ve got to like to deal with people,” he added. “We can train just about anybody to drive a bus. But you can’t train someone to have good customer-service skills. And wanting to drive is just something you’ve got to have a passion for. Because that’s what we do.”

The younger Picknelly agreed. “It’s good getting these young people on board because most of the time they’re pretty loyal, and they want to stick with the company for a long time. We have people who have been here for so long because they came on when they were younger and were extremely loyal to the company, and that’s what we’re hoping to get now.”

 

Shifting Gears

Looking to the future, Peter Pan continues to find more ways to be the transportation mode of choice for its customers, especially younger riders, and that means making their travel plans easier.

To that end, the company recently announced a new strategic partnership with Trailways, extending its network of destinations, as well as a strategic alliance with Amtrak.

“So you can take a train somewhere, and then they’ll connect to a bus, and we can take you right to the city center,” Peter A. Picknelly said, and from there, rideshares can take over. “We’re also forming alliances with Ubers and Lyfts where you can coordinate being picked up wherever we drop you off, and instantly getting in an Uber and taking it to your final destination. Because of this coordination, more and more people are saying they don’t need to drive, particularly young people that live in the big city.”

“We can train just about anybody to drive a bus. But you can’t train someone to have good customer-service skills. And wanting to drive is just something you’ve got to have a passion for.”

Statistics bear that trend out. Last year, driver’s license applications actually went down, reversing a 50-year upward trend, he noted.

“It’s so convenient. If you go to Europe, taking public transportation is always involved, and you’re seeing more of that here. It’s way more convenient, and with the amenities in the vehicle, you can work or entertain yourself while you’re traveling. You can’t do that when you’re driving.”

Peter Pan also maintains a model of managing terminals — another one of Peter B. Picknelly’s roles — in its destination cities, with amenities like food, restrooms, a service counter, and a pickup area, instead of the model of picking up and dropping off on unattended corners.

“We don’t like picking up on a street corner like some of these other bus companies,” Peter B. added. “We like going into a terminal or a specific designated area, so they can have that one-on-one personal experience with our employees if they have an issue or have any questions or concerns. We’re a customer-driven business, so we like pleasing the customers.”

About 15% of Peter Pan’s business, meanwhile, is charter service to destinations not on the regular route plan.

“Charters are very big, and in the summer, it picks up a lot. There are people who go out to Saratoga Race Course on the weekend; that’s a very popular place. We’ll take them wherever.”

One shift that occurred over the pandemic years has been a move toward online booking, his father added.

“Prior to COVID, about 50% of our riders would buy their ticket a half-hour before departure, in person. Now, 90% of our sales now are in advance. Most people are booking within three days of their trip, online.”

But, as mentioned up top, the biggest story of the pandemic for Peter Pan was … well, simply surviving it, and coming out stronger on the other side, with plans for the future and a band of 20-something Picknellys ready to evolve into stronger leadership roles.

“We’re really proud of all of our staff,” their father said. “Listen, 40% of all bus companies didn’t make it through the pandemic. We did, and we’re thriving. We’ve had to change our focus on longer-distance trips, less commuter-related, more group travel, but we’re doing well.”

Peter B. Picknelly agreed. “In hindsight, COVID was horrible, but it made us think about how we could run things differently here, and it’s been beneficial.”

Developer for Clocktower Project Brings Impressive Track Record to Springfield

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Architect’s renderings of the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block (below).
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

‘We Love Real Estate’

Architect’s renderings of the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block (below).

Architect’s renderings of the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block (below).
(Images courtesy of Pickard Chilton)

Colonial Block

Colonial Block

When Ed Woodbury was encouraged by close friend Tim Brangle, president of Chicago Consultants Studio, to closely consider the Clocktower Building project in Springfield, he immediately challenged him to back up that request.

“He said, ‘Ed … you should take a look at this,’” recalled Woodbury, president of Chicago-based McCaffery Interests, which has a wide and deep portfolio of urban development and redevelopment projects, many of them clustered in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia, and the Windy City, and considers hundreds, if not thousands, of requests for proposals each year. “And I said, ‘why? Why do you think this is for us?’

“He spoke very highly of the city and its leadership, pointed out the inherent attributes of the Basketball Hall of Fame and the casino, and then gave a brief history of how Springfield had turned the corner from previous down times, if you will,” Woodbury said of Brangle, who has consulted with Springfield officials on the design of the casino and economic development surrounding it. “Naturally, none of that was familiar to us, so we looked at it, and the story happened to be true. And we liked that story.”

That’s a brief synopsis of how the Clocktower initiative, which involves three properties owned by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority — the Clocktower Building (113-117 State St.), the Colonial Block (1139-1155 Main St.), and a smaller building on Stockbridge Street — came to be part of that impressive portfolio.

On the McCaffery website, the project is listed among others like in size and character, including 1600 Smallman, the historic renovation of a 1921 structure in the Strip District of Pittsburgh into office spaces with views of the downtown skyline and the Allegheny River, and the Cork Factory project, an award-winning restoration and redevelopment of the Armstrong Cork Factory, also in Pittsburgh (more on that later).

In many ways, the Springfield project, which will add more than 90 units of market-rate housing to the mix, fits right in with these others, said Woodbury, adding that it involves redevelopment of historic properties, but also represents economic development and efforts to revitalize that area of the city.

“This will require multiple sources — you don’t just make one or two phone calls and someone says, ‘yeah, I like that project; I’ll fund it with you. It’s going to take more than a village — it’s going to take a little city.’”

“It’s a neat little project — it’s not big in our world,” Woodbury said of the Springfield initiative. “But I think we’re adding something to the downtown, both by the restoration but also through our development approach and how we look at projects and think about them.

“We don’t look at the buildings themselves,” he went on. “We look at the context of the buildings and where they sit — in this case, across from the casino and across from the MassMutual Center.”

From what he’s heard and seen himself — he’s now visited Springfield a few times — the city is in what he called the early stages of a rebirth, and this project could help bring it to the next stage.

“One of the things that adds to a rebirth is, in some cases, retail, but in a lot of cases, it’s getting people to live back downtown,” he said, “rather than working there, leaving there, and going back to their home in another part of town or one of the suburbs.”

While there are opportunities with this project, with a projected price tag of $55 million to $60 million, there are challenges as well, especially when it comes to funding, said Woodbury, listing the current economy and rising interest rates among those challenges, factors that will require more creativity when it comes to what he called the ‘capital stack,’ or the blend of resources that will be needed to make this project reality.

“This will require multiple sources — you don’t just make one or two phone calls and someone says, ‘yeah, I like that project; I’ll fund it with you,’” he said. “It’s going to take more than a village — it’s going to take a little city.”

Armstrong Cork Factory in Pittsburgh

Ed Woodbury says restoration of the Armstrong Cork Factory in Pittsburgh is one of several projects in the McCaffery Interests portfolio similar to the Springfield undertaking.
(Photo courtesy of Ed Massery)

The company has vast experience assembling needed funding, he went on, adding that he’s confident that the ‘little city’ he mentioned can come together, and that this project will play a significant role in Springfield reaching the next stages of a rebirth.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked at length with Woodbury about McCaffery Interests, the Clocktower building project, and how this Springfield initiative fits the company’s mission — “to transform underutilized urban assets into dynamic destinations that serve modern lives as they intersect at work, home, and play.”

 

Landmark Decisions

Woodbury said McCaffery handles a broad range of work, from development to property management. And in that first category, it focuses on both redevelopment of existing (again, usually underutilized) properties to new construction.

But the common denominator, if you will, is that essentially all this work is carried out in cities.

“The focus has always been in urban areas,” he told BusinessWest. “We like the life, the vitality, and even the grit of cities.”

Most projects are in larger cities, including Pittsburgh, Chicago, D.C. and the surrounding area, and, most recently, Denver, where the company has several projects in various stages, including T3 RiNo, a mixed-use, 250,000-square-foot office project in that city’s burgeoning River North (RiNo) District.

“The focus has always been in urban areas. We like the life, the vitality, and even the grit of cities.”

Formed in 1991 by Dan McCaffery (Woodbury said he joined him “almost immediately”), the company’s first signature project was the revitalization of a former Saks Fifth Avenue store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

“We renovated it, leased it out, and put in Nike, Sony, and Cole Hahn; it was the height of what we call Main Street retail,” he recalled, adding that the project set the tone for other initiatives to come.

These include restoration of another historic property, 400 Post St. in San Francisco’s Union Square, that was destined to be torn down. “It was a great piece of real estate that had been overlooked for years,” Woodbury recalled. “We said, ‘heck, this is a cool, old building; let’s restore it.’ We put in a Disney store and a Borders Books.”

Reliance Building in Chicago

Restoration and redevelopment of the Reliance Building in Chicago, now home to the Hotel Burnham, is another project in the McCaffery portfolio similar to the one in Springfield.

As he cited those names, he noted that retail has certainly changed over the past few decades and especially the past several years; thus, the company now focuses mostly on mixed-use projects, be they new construction or renovation of existing structures, with retail on the ground floor and residential in the floors above — which is what is proposed for the Springfield project, as we’ll see.

And while McCaffery does most of its work in larger metropolitan areas, the company considers projects in communities across the country.

“We’re opportunity-focused — we search for unique opportunities and chase them,” Woodbury said. “The other thing is, we love real estate — old buildings, new buildings, it doesn’t matter; we love real estate.

“For us, it’s about finding high-quality real estate and exploring and seeing what we can do — with the land or existing properties,” he went on, adding that, with Springfield and its Clocktower Building initiative, what it can do — what it wants to do — is bring that aforementioned mix of uses, specifically retail on the ground floors and residential on the upper floors.

 

Lofty Expectations

Indeed, architect’s renderings of both the Clocktower Building and the Colonial Block portray well-lit shops with sidewalks crowded with passersby, elements certainly missing from the current picture — and missing for the past several years, in fact.

To make those colorful images become reality, McCaffery Interests will call on 34 years of experience with dozens of projects in several different cities and high levels of creativity with putting together a needed funding stack.

As he talked about the Springfield initiative, Woodbury said there are several projects in the portfolio that are somewhat similar — maybe not in terms of overall size and scope, but certainly in terms of restoring landmark properties, using historic tax credits to finance the work, and creating higher levels of vibrancy in downtowns or other key districts.

These include restoration and redevelopment of the Reliance Building in Chicago, now home to the Hotel Burnham, which was built in 1895 and is listed among the 100 most historically significant skyscrapers in the world.

“It’s one of the original high-rises in Chicago and one of the first places where an elevator was utilized in high-rise construction,” he explained. “We renovated it, but didn’t return it to an office building; we converted it to a hotel with restaurants on the ground floor.”

His short list also includes restoration of the Armstrong Cork Factory in Pittsburgh, originally constructed in 1901, and converted into 297 loft apartments, a project that earned several awards, including an Award for Excellence in 2009 from the Urban Land Institute and a Western Pennsylvania Golden Trowel Award in 2007.

“We took a building that was old and abandoned and invested side by side with a great partner in Pittsburgh and put the property on the historic register,” he said, adding that the project is one of the key contributors to growing vibrancy in the Strip District.

Springfield’s Clocktower Building and Colonial Block are similar in that they both boast considerable amounts of history — and have been largely vacant for several years now.

And, in Woodbury’s estimation, they have a future that can be as significant as their past.

“The Clocktower Building has great bones to it, and it’s the same with the Colonial Block,” he said. “The Clocktower Building is older, and some of the renovations over the years have unfortunately disrupted its historic character, but it adds a nice scale to the street — State and Main — which is fun to say, because it’s literally State and Main.

“And the Colonial Block was originally residential on the upper floors, which lends itself nicely to converting it back to that,” he went on, adding that, overall, Springfield is “looking forward being optimistic about what a city can and should be — and those are the kinds of places where we like to work.”

As for the challenges ahead, especially funding, Woodbury returned to that notion of this project needing not a village, but a small city of resources contributing to the capital stack.

“Federal and state tax credits are going to be a big source — they will be the lead bell cow in our funding stack,” he explained. “But there will be some funding needed from the State House, there might be some funding needed from the city, and then there’s obviously some private monies to be put in place as well; all of those food groups will come into play.”

The overall goal is to start construction late this year or early next year, he said, adding that it will be 24 months from when the company submits final drawings until the first tenants — residential and commercial — can move in.

Woodbury is confident this goal can be met, and equally confident that this initiative can do what so many other projects in the McCaffery portfolio have: revitalize not only real estate, but entire neighborhoods and cities.

Community Bank to Expand Its Presence in Springfield

By
Community Bank’s branch inside Tower Square
Banking and Financial Services

Doubling Down

Community Bank’s branch inside Tower Square

Community Bank’s branch inside Tower Square will be complemented later this year by a second Springfield location on Boston Road.

 

 

 

When Community Bank expanded in 2017 with the acquisition of Merchants Bank, it gained a large network of branches in Vermont … and one in Massachusetts.

That office is located in Tower Square in downtown Springfield and had been NUVO Bank before hanging the Merchants banner. Located far from any other Community location — the organization has a strong presence in Pennsylvania and New York as well as its newer footprint in Vermont — it wouldn’t have been surprising had Community shed it altogether. But the bank saw value in a Springfield presence.

And now, seven years later, it’s doubling down, planning to open a second Springfield location on Boston Road later this year.

“It’s a market that’s not too far from Albany, but far enough where it’s a very distinct market by itself. And because it’s one branch, it’s been a little bit under the radar,” President and CEO Dimitar Karaivanov said. “But it’s a good market with good opportunities, and we have a really good team in the market, and the level of energy and activity in Springfield has been very hot.

“So almost a year ago, we decided we hadn’t given Springfield its rightful chance to succeed,” he went on. “We’re just one branch and have a good team, but we’re somewhat limited by the fact that it’s only one branch downtown. So we decided to kind of invest in the team and the opportunities that we have in the market, and we’re going to double our presence.”

The bank is doing so, he said, in locations that make strategic sense, and also, in some cases, investing in lower-income areas. “We’re looking at communities that offer opportunity from an economic perspective, but we also consider it our responsibility to invest in communities and bring them along in terms of growth. That’s how we’ve been selecting some areas that we’re going into.”

While Greater Springfield has been called overbanked, Karaivanov said Community Bank sees plenty of potential in expanding.

“We’re just one branch and have a good team, but we’re somewhat limited by the fact that it’s only one branch downtown. So we decided to kind of invest in the team and the opportunities that we have in the market, and we’re going to double our presence.”

“There’s no lack of competition in Springfield — there are a lot of banks, a lot of mutuals, a lot of credit unions,” he said. “But the reason that we feel like we can be successful is our team. So we’re really investing in our team. That’s how we look at expansion; it’s really people-based. Obviously, the market needs to be sizable enough for another entrant, but we feel like we’ve got a team that we have basically under-leveraged over the past several years. And now we’re trying to give them more runway and opportunity to be successful.”

 

Branching Out

As Community Bank expands in Springfield and other markets, it’s doing so, the organization explains, by reimagining the in-branch experience with clean, modern designs that encourage customer and banker collaboration, local community tie-ins, and staff that can handle a wide array of financial needs.

“Branches are still pretty important, and I think they will continue to be important,” Karaivanov said. “If you look at where most accounts, especially new accounts, are opened, it is still predominantly in the branch. People still get their mortgages predominantly in the branch. That initial contact with a financial institution is mostly in the branch.

“Now, when you open your second account, or if you are already a customer of a bank, you might go online to apply for a mortgage and other things. But to get into the ecosystem, usually the average person still starts in the branch.”

He cited the example of JPMorgan Chase launching an online-only bank six years ago, “and no one’s heard of it since,” he noted. “Instead, you’re seeing JPMorgan open branches all over the place. It’s hard to be just online. You need both parts.”

To that end, modern branch designs are different than the old, traditional model of counters and lines, he added.

“Today, the branch is really more advisory and consultative than transaction-based because transactions are easy to do on your phone, and you don’t need to go into the branch for a specific transaction anymore. But people do go to the branch for advice and for questions and when they have a problem. So spaces in the branch are designed in a much different way.”

Dimitar Karaivanov

Dimitar Karaivanov

“Transactions are easy to do on your phone, and you don’t need to go into the branch for a specific transaction anymore. But people do go to the branch for advice and for questions and when they have a problem.”

Community Bank currently boasts 28 branches in New England, all but one of them in Vermont, and its current expansion plans include the first New Hampshire branch in addition to the second Springfield location.

“Community Bank is not just expanding, but deepening our roots in New England,” said Matthew Durkee, regional president for New England. “Our branches are the cornerstone of our retail business, and each one allows us to support the community and deepen our relationships with our customers as we partner together throughout their financial journey.”

Those community relationships involve philanthropy and volunteerism in communities where the bank has a presence, Karaivanov added.

“We do a lot of that, led by our branch staff most of the time,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s in our name, right? So we live by it. Our people are involved, they’re on boards, they’re in the Rotary Clubs, they know their neighbors, they’re supporting the local schools, teams, and everything else. It’s how we distinguish ourselves. Those are our neighbors, they’re our friends, and being part of the community is just as important as being a financial institution.”

With its commitment to Springfield affirmed, he added that Community Bank could look to expand further in Massachusetts where it makes sense.

“Hopefully, as we are successful in this expansion, we would like to do more. I’m a big believer in getting behind your success. So if we continue to be successful in Springfield, we’re going to continue to grow.

“Again, this has been a little bit of an outpost for us. Meanwhile, the team’s been doing a great job. And now is the time for us to empower them to do even more.”

 

One-stop Shop

Earlier this month, Community Bank System Inc. — which encompasses four key businesses: banking, benefits administration, insurance, and wealth management — changed its name to Community Financial System Inc. to better reflect the company’s reach.

“The new name allows us to emphasize the evolution of our capabilities, solutions, and focus,” Karaivanov said. “In aggregate, over 39% of our revenue is comprised of diversified fee-income businesses, well over twice that of industry peers. Bringing all of that under the new name, Community Financial System, underscores our mission and drives our inclusiveness as one company.”

It’s a different model, he said, than financial-services organizations in which banking is 90% of the pie.

“We’re a bit of a unicorn because we have four different businesses, and the way we run the company, the bank is our largest business, but it’s not the whole business. With our benefits business, we help people with their 401(k) plans; we administer those all over the country. Or, if you’re an individual and you’re coming for a mortgage from us, we can directly give you a quote for the homeowners’ insurance as well.”

Meanwhile “if you have amounts in your banking accounts that clearly can be invested in better outcomes for you, we’ve got the wealth-management side of the house, or the trust capability. And on the commercial side, especially for small to mid-sized businesses, we can provide everything from capital to insurance to managing their benefit plans, actually helping them with HR consulting.

“It gives us a real leg up when we talk to customers because we’re not just a one-widget shop,” Karaivanov added. “We can provide comprehensive solutions.”

The Urban Food Brood Thrives with a Unique Model

By
Andrea and Tim Monson
Restaurants Special Coverage

Good Vibrations

Andrea and Tim Monson

Andrea and Tim Monson, owners of Monsoon Roastery, are two of the original partners who brought the Urban Food Brood to life.

Almost a decade ago, Tim and Andrea Monson started a small business roasting and selling coffee, which grew to the point where they opened a retail and operating space on Albany Street in Springfield in 2019.

Not long after, the owners of Monsoon Roastery began talking to the owners of two other small businesses — Nosh, a downtown Springfield eatery, and Urban Artisan Farm, which specializes in hydroponic food production — about a concept that has now become one of the city’s most unique food-centric success stories.

“It started after COVID when small businesses were struggling to survive,” Andrea said. “We already did business with Nosh — we would carry her food products, and then they would carry our coffee. So that kind of social capital started very early on. We actually did that with a lot of small businesses. So we started to think … what if we were a small business corporation — a bunch of us kind of fighting together?”

That’s how the Monsons, Nosh owner Teri Skinner, and Urban Artisan Farm owner Jack Wysocki launched their concept, envisioning a place where small businesses could support each other in a shared space with a common kitchen and other amenities, and people could come stop by for lunch or a coffee and bring home some fresh produce, meat, or other items.

“We started to think … what if we were a small business corporation — a bunch of us kind of fighting together?”

“It took us three years to get financing and to get organized,” Monson explained. “This was an office building. So we had to transform it into food-manufacturing collaborative, which cost a lot of money. In the middle of COVID, there were a lot of shortages, a lot of delays. But we kept fighting for this dream and investing our own funds and sacrificing a lot of time and a lot of sweat equity, and it finally came together in July of last year.”

Skinner recalls collaborating with the other founders on ideas, looking into grant funding to turn the building on Albany Street — a stretch of road known as Gasoline Alley, due to the giant fuel tanks that line it — into a collaborative workspace that eventually became known as the Urban Food Brood.

“The three of us sort of came together, wanting to expand our businesses,” she said, adding that the project ran into a lot of infrastructure and renovation issues that weren’t expected, and cost more money than expected. “But now it’s flourishing,” she added.

Nosh is actually the latest — and largest — operation to move into the space, which, along with Monsoon and Urban Artisan Farm, also includes Corsello Butcheria, Happy Man Freeze Dried, Wicked Whisk, and Rocka Docka Foods.

Vincent Corsello

Vincent Corsello says the Urban Food Brood offers fresh options amid a food desert.

“Happy Man had a certified home kitchen, but he was expanding tremendously. He needed a kitchen, so he ended up taking a room here,” Skinner said. “Wicked Whisk acquired a food truck, but she also needed a commercial kitchen so she could produce her products, as she was growing as well.”

Vincent Corsello, who runs Corsello Bucheria, an Easthampton business that has expanded into the Urban Food Brood, said he took part in a pig roast on Albany Street a few years ago and was struck by the uniqueness of the setup.

“This place is magic. There’s such a vibe here,” he remembered thinking. “So I started coming — I don’t know to what end, exactly, but they were open to a collaboration. They got a grant to do a community kitchen, and I said, ‘can I be a part of it?’ And they said ‘yes.’ And then we went from there.”

 

Creating a Vibe

The building, with its community spirit and that creative vibe — the walls are lined with works from local artists, which are displayed on a rotating basis and available for sale — is a stark contrast to its surroundings, Corsello said.

“It’s in the middle of a brownfield, essentially. They call it Gasoline Alley for a reason; we’re surrounded by a million gallons of gasoline.

“I have a big window, and I did a brick facade outside the bakery so you can look through the window and see the bakers cooking.”

“But it’s easy to get to, and there’s plenty of parking, so it’s a good location,” he was quick to add. “And the vibe really attracted me to this this campus; it’s like a modern-day boys’ club, only it includes all different types of people.”

Indeed, Monson noted that she’s seen people of different backgrounds, experiences, and even religious persuasions enjoying the welcoming vibe of the space together.

“We have students, we have professionals, we have the police, we have the firefighters, we have EMTs, social workers, teachers … we have so many different people that come in here to enjoy the food or the coffee or the environment. Everybody’s here.

“The one thing I hear over and over again — unfortunately — is, ‘wow, I can’t believe this is in Springfield,’” she went on. “I both love and hate that. As a Springfield resident, a Springfield business owner, someone who grew up in Springfield, I feel like Springfield always gets the short end of the stick. There’s a lot of negative perception about Springfield. And we’re trying to disprove that. We’re saying, ‘hey, look, we built this thing, and people are coming.’

“I’ve heard, ‘this feels like I stepped into Northampton,’ which is, I guess, a compliment. But we’re not Northampton; we’re Springfield.”

Teri Skinner

Teri Skinner, seen here at her downtown Nosh location, is the most recent of the original Urban Food Brood partners to move to Gasoline Alley; she will continue to operate at both sites.

Corsello said the uniqueness extends to the business model, with the various tenants sharing one register, and the businesses sharing their products.

“So when I make sandwiches, I use Teri’s bread, and I use Jack’s vegetables. We use each other’s products to create. So you not only have an opportunity to get something for yourself, but if you like what you taste, you can buy any of those components here at the market. Plus, a lot of Springfield is kind of a food desert, and we’re small businesses offering locally created food products.”

He said patrons appreciate being able to eat or drink something on site, then bring something home to prepare.

“Anybody can come in here and get a cup of coffee, they can shop, they can get some vegetables, they can get some meat, they can get something freeze-dried. For us, it’s a model that doesn’t come without its challenges, and we’re still figuring some of that stuff out, but it’s very unique. People like a one-stop shop.”

Skinner, whose downtown Nosh location has long had an artistic, funky décor, appreciates the way the Urban Food Brood prioritizes art as well.

“People come here, and they’ll pick up some sausage and go, ‘you know, let me get a kombucha, let me get some mushrooms, let me get some spinach.’ And you go home, and you have all of this really good product that’s manufactured here in Springfield.”

“We have lots of artists that come in and display their work on a monthly basis, and then people can purchase their artwork. They’re in a rotation; if the art is there for too long, it seems like it’s just part of the décor. So it moves in and out, and there are some super talented artists that provide works for us.”

Monson said many artists have sold works in the space, or even gotten commissions based on their displays. “So it’s very cool that we can provide that.”

Skinner appreciates other elements of the Urban Food Brood vibe, like how it feels like the center of a town, only indoors and on a smaller scale, with each of the businesses acting as a storefront of sorts.

“I’m super happy with how it all came out,” she said. “I have a big window, and I did a brick facade outside the bakery so you can look through the window and see the bakers cooking. Vincent has the same idea; so do the others. That’s kind of neat.”

The complex, which is open Tuesday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., also hosts regular events, such as food truck Fridays and Thursday farmers markets from 4 to 8 p.m., which have already begun for this season.

“It’s early in the season for farmers markets, but hopefully, as the season progresses, we’ll have more and more items. We’re also going to try to do music,” Skinner said.

A sign outside the Urban Food Brood

A sign outside the Urban Food Brood lists the businesses currently operating there.

“The thing that’s great about the nighttime market is that all of our downtown Springfield markets have always been during the day, when people are at work. What are they going to do with their products after they’ve purchased them? Are they going to put them in the car or bring them back to the office? So this is kind of nice. People can just stop on their way home.”

 

Fueling Growth

Andrea Monson said the partners in the Urban Food Brood have been pleased with the organic growth of the Gasoline Alley complex.

“We don’t actively market; we rely on word of mouth,” she told BusinessWest. “And I have to say that the people who come here are very cool. They’re great customers. They’re great to my staff, they’re great to all of us, and they’re very supportive. They tell people who tell people who tell people, and now we have this amazing group of people that come here to support us.

“The cool thing is, we all have our own following. Wicked Whisk has their own following. Nosh has their own following. People come here, and they’ll pick up some sausage and go, ‘you know, let me get a kombucha, let me get some mushrooms, let me get some spinach.’ And you go home, and you have all of this really good product that’s manufactured here in Springfield.”

And it’s not just people from the city, Corsello said. Urban Food Brood has been drawing from all the surrounding towns, steadily developing a reputation … not as something vaguely Northampton-ish, but something uniquely and vibrantly Springfield.

“We’re really excited about it,” he said. “It’s only the beginning.”

STCC Creates Career Opportunities for Non-traditional Students

By
Academy’s Pathway to Cybersecurity program at STCC.
Special Coverage Technology

Inside the IT Academy

Academy’s Pathway to Cybersecurity program at STCC.

April Bellafiore teaches the IT Academy’s Pathway to Cybersecurity program at STCC.

The IT Academy at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) is a “life changer” for Juan Burgos.

Echoing comments from other students enrolled in the IT Academy at STCC, Burgos said he’s excited to be working toward certifications that are tickets to good-paying jobs in the cybersecurity industry. Students in the first cohort, held this spring, are enrolled for free, supported by a grant.

“This opportunity came up, and I jumped on it,” Burgos said one Wednesday afternoon at STCC, where he was seated in a classroom with the other students. “This is a life changer. This is going to change everything.”

Launched on March 12, the IT Academy’s Pathway to Cybersecurity program at STCC supports non-traditional students who are new to information technology (IT) and computer technology. They are learning skills that set them up for entry-level IT careers. Students also have the option of moving into the two-year Cybersecurity program, which can lead to an associate degree.

The comprehensive curriculum combines theoretical knowledge with practical, hands-on experience. The program includes a part-time option running classes three evenings a week for nine months. A summer and winter boot camp will be offered that runs for 10 weeks (full-time day program), which allows students to attend classes five days a week.

Eventually, students who follow the cybersecurity track will use the Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Springfield, scheduled to open later this year. The facility will serve as a dynamic hub for advancing cybersecurity awareness, education, innovation, and battling global security threats.

“This opportunity came up, and I jumped on it. This is a life changer. This is going to change everything.”

The 6,000-square-foot facility will include a cyber range, which is a simulated training environment, and security operations center, which is envisioned as a support service for Massachusetts municipalities, as well as regional businesses, to detect cybersecurity events in real time and respond quickly.

STCC offers a number of training opportunities through its Workforce Development division, from a free program that prepares students to be paraeducators in Springfield to the Hampden Prep program, which provides basic computer skill training.

“We are excited to offer a wide range of training programs that help non-traditional students pursue their dream careers,” said Gladys Franco, assistant vice president of Workforce Development at STCC. “Our goal is to make it easier for people looking to get started in a career. We’re particularly excited about the IT Academy, which provides a pathway to build a career in IT and cybersecurity. It’s a growing field with many opportunities.”

 

Immersive Education

Students in the Pathway to Cybersecurity program are learning in person in a classroom taught by April Bellafiore, Cruz Antonio Pagan, and Andrew Collins, a professor for the Cybersecurity program at STCC.

Students also participate in interactive computer training labs focused on obtaining CompTIA certifications, which are industry standards that IT professionals can use to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to potential employers.

The training is “beginner-friendly,” Bellafiore said. The course provides students with skills to be successful in the Cybersecurity program and in the workforce.

Students enrolled in the course come from a variety of backgrounds. Shelby Kiendzior graduated from STCC with a degree in dental hygiene and worked in the field, but plans on changing her career.

“We are excited to offer a wide range of training programs that help non-traditional students pursue their dream careers.”

“I will be getting four certifications in different IT-related courses,” Kiendzior said. “This course will set me up for where I want to go in IT or tech.”

Luz Padilla, who hails from Puerto Rico, called the IT Academy “the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She added, “I love computers. I love troubleshooting, and I would like to work in homeland security someday. The class is amazing. The teacher’s great. I got a lot of encouragement from everybody here, especially Miss April.”

She was referring to Bellafiore, an instructor who has taught in-person and online courses for more than 20 years.

“I am excited to work with the IT Academy students to prepare them for a dynamic and exciting industry,” Bellafiore said. “We also encourage students to continue their education and apply for the STCC Cybersecurity two-year degree program. In today’s digital age, every industry relies on IT expertise. It’s a growing field with many rewarding and diverse job opportunities.”

Thunderbirds Continue to Soar with Sellouts, Economic Impact

By
sellout crowds at Thunderbirds home games this
Sports & Leisure

Net Positives

sellout crowds at Thunderbirds home games this

Adam Gaudette, the AHL’s leading goal scorer, has entertained a record number of sellout crowds at Thunderbirds home games this season.
Photo by Lucas Armstrong

 

When Nate Costa spoke with BusinessWest recently about the Springfield Thunderbirds’ 2023-24 season, the team was in a pitched battle for the final playoff spot in the American Hockey League’s Atlantic Division, a fight that could go either way as the campaign winds down this month.

But in many ways, this season has already gone the right way. Very right.

Start with attendance, which, at press time, had produced a franchise record-tying 15 sellouts, including nine in a row.

“The year has been really successful, especially on the business side,” said Costa, the team’s president since its inception in 2017. “We’re right in the thick of the playoff hunt, and we’re trying to stay in contention for the playoffs. But beyond that, the business side has been tremendous. Our staff has done a really fantastic job.”

Start with group sales, which topped $1 million this year, and more than 1,500 season ticket holders; the previous hockey franchise in Springfield, the Falcons, would typically put up around $400,000 in group sales and 400 season tickets. Both elements are critical, Costa said, in selling out the MassMutual Center each night. “When you’re trying to sell 7,000 tickets, you can’t just sell them on a game-by-game basis.”

On some sellout nights, he said, group sales — which typically involve organizations providing an experience for clients, employees, or area young people — account for more than 50% of the tickets.

“We’ve seen the growth and impact. We know what we’re doing internally, but we wanted to be able to quantify it.”

“So we’re getting a ton of kids here who maybe aren’t into hockey, and they’re checking out what we’re doing. And at the end of the day, they have a great time coming out to the games, feeding off the experience in the building. We’ve played really well at home this year and had some really exciting games.”

Part of that experience, he was quick to add, has been a slate of promotions mixing new offerings with growing traditions like Pink in the Rink (a fundraiser for Rays of Hope), Pucks N’ Paws, Mayflower Marathon Night, Springfield Ice-O-Topes Night, Throwback Night, Hometown Heroes Night, and Military Appreciation Night.

“These are staple nights now that we’re going to continue to build on year after year, with new giveaways,” Costa said. “Fans gets a custom experience — and then, oh, by the way, it’s the second-best hockey in the world happening on the ice.”

Having worked in the AHL for a long time, Costa believed from the time he took the reins in Springfield that a first-class experience at the games, coupled with the hard work of his sales and marketing staff and an ambitious slate of community outreach (more on that later), the franchise could see the success it’s experiencing now.

“I remember saying we can be a standard bearer for the American Hockey League, that we can get to 6,000 a game. And the general feeling when I took over was that it would be challenging to reach that number. But I knew we could get there.”

And now, well beyond.

 

Meeting Their Goals

The team’s impact has been felt far beyond the ice. Last fall, the Thunderbirds released the results of a comprehensive economic-impact study conducted by the UMass Donahue Institute that shows the team’s operations had generated $126 million for the local economy since 2017.

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

Nate Costa

Nate Costa says many were skeptical of his initial goal of drawing 6,000 fans to the MassMutual Center each night, but most home games now attract around 7,000.

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

“I can’t say enough about the Thunderbirds,” said Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau. “They keep downtown hopping in the dead of winter. I happen to live downtown, and I know when it’s gameday downtown because the streets are busy.

“I think they’ve really made Springfield a hockey town,” she added, before noting some of the direct economic impact. “They drive hotel room nights. You have people coming in from Wilbraham, Longmeadow, Northampton, whatever, they’re probably going to grab a bite to eat downtown or maybe grab a drink after the game. So there’s a huge impact on our economy when the Thunderbirds play.”

Costa agreed. “We had a feeling we were making a significant impact when you come downtown on one of the game nights and seen the city traffic back up on Columbus, people walking around downtown, all the activity and life downtown. They’re coming to the game, but going out to dinner first, then having a drink afterward.”

Part of the reason the team wanted to quantify the impact with the Donahue Institute study was to show the city and state that the team — and its home, the MassMutual Center — are worth further investment.

“It’s a little challenging that we don’t control the product, but at the end of the day, we’re controlling the experience.”

“We’ve seen the growth and impact. We know what we’re doing internally, but we wanted to be able to quantify it,” Costa said, adding that the team is a main reason why the dilapidated parking garage next to the arena was torn down and is being rebuilt.

“Without the bodies at the games and this much activity, it was more of a risk, but there was a lot of confidence on the city and state side that what we were doing as the main tenant in this building was tremendous.”

The T-Birds’ economic impact also translates into jobs throughout the region. Since the team’s inaugural season, it has doubled the number of jobs created from 112 in 2017 to 236 in 2023. The study estimates that income per job created by the T-Birds is approximately $76,000 for the Pioneer Valley and that each job at the Thunderbirds creates or supports 3.28 other jobs elsewhere in the Pioneer Valley.

Costa said he, Managing Partner Paul Picknelly, and the rest of the ownership group always believed this success was possible.

“We knew what we were taking on. We knew we’d have to set up the business the right way and invest the right way, and I have to give credit to the ownership who allowed me to invest the right way, staff up, do the game promotions and theme nights.”

 

Community Assist

In addition to supporting local businesses, the Thunderbirds have been dedicated to making a difference in the community. In 2018, the team established the nonprofit T-Birds Foundation to support local initiatives in the areas of health and wellness, youth enrichment, and civil service.

To date, the foundation has made more than $300,000 in contributions to organizations and charitable events throughout the Pioneer Valley. Meanwhile, team players, personnel, and mascot Boomer have combined for more than 1,700 appearances since 2016.

“This year, we’ve done over 200 appearances by Boomer. And the players are out every day,” Costa said, through efforts like a reading program and youth hockey initiatives. A couple weeks ago, the team even made its first appearance in the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “So there are still things we’re unveiling that we haven’t been doing, really good stuff to continue to build on our visibility.”

Wydra praised those efforts to engage the community, both on and off the ice.

“I think Nate and his team have done a great job of making that team all about family entertainment, and it’s more than just the product they put on the ice. I mean, when they’re winning, it’s a great thing; everybody loves to support a winning team. But they’ve been so creative, the way they interact with the community and the different types of game events they do, the promotions.”

The 2023-24 season has been an up-and-down affair, marked by injuries and, of course, a number of call-ups to the NHL St. Louis Blues, including the head coach, Drew Bannister.

“Almost half the [opening-day] roster is now playing meaningful minutes in St. Louis,” Costa said. “That part of the connection is really positive. It’s a little challenging that we don’t control the product, but at the end of the day, we’re controlling the experience. And the Blues have done a good job sending us a team that’s exciting.”

Indeed, center Adam Gaudette leads the entire AHL in goals scored, and the team, in general, has been high-scoring and fun to watch, Costa added. The team also ranks third in the league in percentage to capacity, meaning the percentage of total seats in the arena that are sold each night.

“That’s a real barometer for our success, and it’s probably creating some urgency and demand in the marketplace,” he said. “Our building size is perfect for the American Hockey League market. We see the dichotomy in Hartford. They’ve got a big building, and they’ve done a nice job this year; they’ve taken a look at what we’re doing in Springfield and adopted some best practices that we do here. And that’s helped their attendance. But they’ve got a 15,000-seat building, and it’s not as easy to create the atmosphere.”

An energetic fan experience, robust community support, quantifiable economic impact, and soaring ticket sales — that’s a recipe for success for any hockey team, whether it makes the playoffs or not.

BusinessTalk with Sarah Tsitso, executive director of the Forest Park Zoo

By
Business Talk Podcast

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

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 205: March 18, 2024

Editor Joe Bednar talks with Sarah Tsitso, executive director of the Forest Park Zoo

Today’s zoos — the best ones, anyway — have come a long way from what they used to be, and the Zoo in Forest Park and Education Center is a prime example, honing over the years its focus on education, conservation, and rehabilitation, and bringing much of that education into the community through its programs. On the next episode of BusinessTalk, BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar talks with Sarah Tsitso, executive director of the Forest Park Zoo, about her passion for animal welfare, the challenges of funding a year-round operation that’s open to the public for only five months, and how the organization is helping to cultivate the next generation of animal-care professionals — not to mention the next generation of families making new memories together. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

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A Risk Well Worth Taking

By
Opinion

Editorial

 

Springfield will play host to a Division 1 men’s regional hockey final on March 28 and March 30, an event that comes with a degree of risk, but also presents a great opportunity to showcase the region and show that it can host more events like this.

Landing the D1 hockey regional has been a collaborative effort between UMass Amherst and American International College, two local schools with surging hockey programs (UMass won a national title in 2021) and the MassMutual Center, now managed by MGM Springfield. Individually and collectively, these entities saw an opportunity and essentially said, in unison, ‘why not Springfield?’

Why not, indeed? The city has hosted collegiate sporting events before — a D1 basketball regional back in the ’70s, when that tournament was on an exponentially smaller scale than it is now, and, more recently, D2 basketball. It has also staged the old Tip Off Classic for D1 basketball and its current-day counterpart, the Hall of Fame Classic.

Meanwhile, with the emergence of the UMass Amherst and AIC hockey squads, as well as the unqualified success of the Springfield Thunderbirds, the 413 has become a hockey hotbed of sorts — at least as much as, if not more than, Providence, Worcester, Bridgeport, and other cities in New England that have hosted D1 hockey regionals.

And for UMass Amherst, a regular in the tournament the past several years, the event represents a chance to play in its own backyard rather than traveling across this state or to another state in the Northeast, or even the Midwest to play in a regional. (AIC does not have that same opportunity because it plays its home games at the MassMutual Center.)

All of these contributing factors make it simple common sense to bring a regional to Springfield, and now that one is coming, we’ll have a chance to see whether the area will support such an event and what kind of impact it will make.

Expectations are certainly high, but there is risk, especially when it comes to which teams might land here for the games in late March. While the D1 standings are crowded with good teams from the Northeast, one recent projection for the Springfield regional has UMass, Boston University, Cornell, and Denver coming to Springfield. BU and UMass would be great draws. Cornell is a question mark, and Denver is a much bigger question mark.

But quality hockey is assured, close to 1,000 hotel rooms have been blocked off, and thousands of tickets have already been sold, so this has the makings of a great addition to the region’s hospitality landscape, one that brings people to Western Mass. at an otherwise very slow time on the calendar. And already, bids have been submitted for a number of other collegiate sporting events, from hockey and basketball to volleyball and wrestling.

It is our hope — and our expectation — that this will prove to be a risk well worth taking, and the first of many sporting events that will bring more people, more visibility, and more vibrancy to the region.

And as the saying goes — and it applies here — if some is good, more is better.

PDC Inc. Continues to Broaden Its Scope of Work

By Contributor
PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry
Building Trades

Beyond Four Walls

By Emily Thurlow

The Newman Catholic Center

The Newman Catholic Center at UMass Amherst is among PDC’s notable recent projects.

One of Nick Shaink’s earliest memories with Professional Drywall Construction Inc. was working as a laborer for the buildout of the Target store at the Holyoke Mall. As a teenager, he worked with the Springfield-based commercial drywall contractor on weekends and on summer breaks.

Now, more than two decades later, the firm is undertaking larger-scale projects, like a 900-room dormitory at the University of Connecticut, and Shaink is co-owner and vice president of PDC Inc.

While the company’s name reflects its origins in drywall, PDC offers services in structural metal framing, finish carpentry, acoustical ceilings, wood framing, plastering, toilet partitions, and more. Most recently, the company landed a job that solely involves installing metal panels on the exterior of a building.

“We’re starting to get work that’s not our traditional scope of work — it’s our expanded scope of work,” co-owner and President Ron Perry said.

Founded in 1994 by John Kendzierski, PDC has been affiliated with the local carpenters’ and laborers’ unions since 1997.

Over the course of Shaink’s career with PDC, he’s held nearly every job — from carpenter and general superintendent to vice president of Operations. A native of Connecticut, he had aspirations of running his own business and eventually relocated to Hampshire County.

Perry, who has been with the company for eight years, was previously a construction manager for two decades. In that prior capacity, he often hired PDC for construction projects, which is how he met Shaink. Over time, Perry learned that they shared similar ambitions. After Shaink approached Perry about going into business together, the pair purchased the company in 2018.

“I’ve always wanted to own a business; that’s always been a dream of mine,” Perry said. “So when this opportunity came up, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.”

Since then, the business has expanded its footprint into Connecticut, opening an office in Norwalk in 2018, and into New York, with an office in Malta in 2021. The multiple locations support each other, Perry said.

While PDC’s Springfield headquarters is handling some of the larger projects, such as the interior framing, insulation, and drywall for UConn’s hockey arena, its Malta location is currently working on a Starbucks at Rivers Casino & Resort Schenectady. For now, the decision remains to take the growth pattern a little slower at the company’s newest office.

“I’ve always wanted to own a business; that’s always been a dream of mine. So when this opportunity came up, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.”

“We want to make sure that we build the right team. We want to make sure that we have the right manpower, instead of taking the giant job out in New York where we could potentially fail,” Perry said. “We’re starting a little slower and trying to grow responsibly there.”

 

Piecing It Together

Over the years, PDC has built a name for itself in renovation and new, large-scale construction projects for retail, medical, and educational organizations in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The company also has a bonding capacity of up to $100 million.

Notable structures that PDC has had a hand in include the Bone & Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital, Baystate Medical Center’s Hospital of the Future expansion, Taconic High School in Pittsfield, and Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton.

PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry

PDC owners Nick Shaink (left) and Ron Perry say they want to keep growing the company gradually and smartly.

The company has also worked on more than 30 projects at UMass Amherst in the last 15 years, Shaink said, from its striking design of Isenberg School of Management to the UMass Design Building and the Newman Catholic Center.

At the campus’s Old Chapel, the company installed pre-fabricated, structural cold-formed metal framing, sheathing, and roof blocking on the building’s exterior, and installed framing walls and drywall on the interior. Workers also installed soffits, which is the underside of part of an architectural structure like an arch.

Work also included the installation of wood stairs, acoustical ceiling tiles, and acoustical plaster systems.

“Our goal is to try to do as many of the things we’re good at under one contract. It gives us more control over costs. It gives us more flexibility … it gives us more work on that job, as contracts are a little bigger,” Perry said. “We’re able to do more work with less — that’s why we want our jobs to be bigger. We want to do a bigger scope of work.”

Drywall — a staple in modern homes and buildings in the U.S., also referred to as wallboard or plasterboard — is made of two paper boards with gypsum, a gray or white soft sulfate mineral, in the middle.

The prototype for the invention was patented by Augustine Sackett in 1894, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. However, it wasn’t widely accepted as a building material until the 1940s.

Taking the art of drywall a step further in customization, PDC uses a unique method to mill a perfect corner, called ‘origami.’ Much like the Japanese art of folding objects out of paper, PDC’s approach enables its employees to shape a piece of drywall to fit a space more efficiently at the Springfield shop beforehand. Instead of using three separate pieces of drywall to make a column, they can use one piece of drywall, fold it, and glue it together in the desired angle, then install it in one piece.

By using this method, Perry explained, the drywall is not only a durable solution, but it is also a more efficient one, as the profiles are pre-fabricated in the shop. “It makes our lives in the field less complicated. It’s efficiency in the field.”

And, as with most contractors, time and scheduling are of the utmost importance.

 

Leveraging Growth

About a decade ago, the annual drop in temperature also meant a drop in projects. But for the past five years, PDC hasn’t really slowed with the changing of the seasons, Perry said. “It doesn’t ever stop.”

In the months leading up to COVID-19, the company secured a number of jobs, which helped carry it through what were some trying times for other organizations. Despite the uncertainty, Shaink said the company’s workload never really slowed down.

Fortunately, even as businesses across all sectors, especially in the construction realm, have battled persistent workforce shortages, labor has not been much of an issue at PDC, as the company continues to fluctuate between 280 and 300 employees.

The main obstacle during the pandemic — and it’s still an issue — is supply-chain issues for materials. The variety of metal studs the company uses for projects has traditionally been available within a week or two. But in the post-pandemic world, those same metal studs are taking up to eight weeks to arrive. That delay impacts the schedule, which in turn impacts the company’s ability to forecast as accurately as it would like.

“When that lead time is eight weeks and you’re buying material that’s eight weeks away, and it comes, and it turns out you don’t have enough — that’s eight more weeks,” Perry said. “And guys standing around is what costs us the most amount of money.”

One of the hardest-to-get products has been insulation. At one point, insulation, which was typically available within a few weeks, took up to nine months to arrive. In an effort to overcome such delays, Perry said PDC purchased multiple truckloads of insulation in advance and then had to find a place to store it all, hoping the job would still come to fruition.

“It’s complicated to forecast,” he said. “It’s a risk of where to put so much money.”

As for future projects, PDC has been awarded the construction of the new Holyoke Veterans Home. The 350,000-square-foot facility will include a chapel, outdoor gardens, and a pavilion for physical and occupational therapy, as well as outdoor events.

PDC will be tackling the interior and exterior framing, installation of medical headwall systems, drywall installation, and finishing. Once completed, the $483 million project will house 234 long-term-care beds for the medically vulnerable veteran population. Work is slated to begin in the fall of 2024.

In the meantime, both Shaink and Perry still have their sights set on growth, and they’re not getting hung up on a particular volume of work, but rather focusing on sustainability.

“We want to grow the business to be as big as we can and as profitable as we can,” Perry said. “I’d rather do a little bit less work, and make the margins that we need to be sustainable, than to try to take on additional risk and maybe not make as much money. We’re finding that balance between growth and profit.”

Springfield Program Strives to Take Dining Option to the Next Level

By
Nadim Kashouh
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

The Great Outdoors

 

Nadim Kashouh

Nadim Kashouh has long offered outdoor seating at his downtown Springfield establishment.

 

The term ‘parklet’ isn’t exactly new.

Larger municipalities like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Chicago, and others have been using it, officially or unofficially, for at least a few years now to describe efforts to repurpose and reimagine parking spaces for recreation, dining, retail, and other uses.

It’s starting to be heard more in Springfield, and it will certainly become a part of the lexicon in the future thanks in large part to $2 million worth of grants being awarded to area establishments and properties to take outdoor dining in the city to at least the next level.

Indeed, there will be at least a few parklets created through these grants, including one at Granny’s Baking Table on Bridge Street.

Todd Crossett, co-owner of the bakery, said he’s been researching the concept and, working with a local architect, has come up with a plan to bring the popular eatery, which features pies, pastries, beignets, and sandwiches, out into a large parking space originally meant for a van — 8 feet by 20 feet — and a few feet of the adjoining sidewalk, and thus bring something new and different to the city.

“We’re going to do something a little funky and take over a parking space,” he explained. “I think it will be the first of its kind, and it will be great for the city because it will generate more revenue than a parking space, because the space is free.”

Elaborating, he said Granny’s, drawing inspiration from what has been created in Evanston, Ill. and other communities, will create a tented, three-season dining deck that will include three tables and chairs as well as an awning, which can all be easily removed for the winter.

“We’re going to do something a little funky and take over a parking space.”

Beyond the parklets, though, the outdoor dining grants, funded by ARPA money awarded to the city in the wake of COVID, are expected to change the landscape in many different ways, from reactivating properties, such as the small park across Main Street from Tower Square, to changing the look and feel of other properties, such as the TD Bank building next to that park. It doesn’t have a restaurant at present — a pizzeria closed down during COVID, and a replacement has yet to be secured — but Jack Dill, who purchased the property in 2021 with a few partners, believes it will happen soon, and the option to serve patrons outdoors will likely help in the process of securing one.

Granny’s Baking Table

Granny’s Baking Table plans a tented, three-season dining deck outside.

While the grants have become the subject of some controversy — a few city councilors have essentially accused Mayor Domenic Sarno of using the grant program as a way to reward supporters and perhaps create more of them during an intriguing and potentially challenging election year — most of the focus has been on what they might mean for individual businesses and sections of the city, especially downtown.

Tim Sheehan, the city’s chief Economic Development officer, said that, while there weren’t too many positives to come out of the COVID pandemic, especially when it comes to the hospitality industry, the emergence of outdoor dining — not just as a preference for patrons, but also as a catalyst for business growth and economic development — is certainly one of them.

“The restaurant businesses recognized that this is what patrons were looking for all through COVID,” he said, adding that, while the pandemic is officially over in most all respects, there remains a focus on public health and safety within this industry and thus a continued focus on providing outdoor dining opportunities.

Nadim Kashouh, owner of Nadim’s Downtown Mediterranean Grill on Main Street, agreed. He has long offered outdoor dining at his establishment, which abuts the office tower 1350 Main St. office tower and now extends to that property with outdoor seating through a lease arrangement, and said it has become an increasingly popular option for his patrons.

“The restaurant businesses recognized that this is what patrons were looking for all through COVID.”

“People feel more comfortable sitting in an open space in the open air,” he said, adding that, with his $100,000 grant from the program, he intends to add more seats, from the current 60 to 100, as well as industrial-strength umbrellas, fire tables, heaters, a tent, and a grill that will allow him to bring what he calls a “a different kind of dining experience to the area.”

“People can come up, select their meat, and we’ll cook it for them right there and then,” he explained, adding that he expects the initiative to bring more people to his eatery and the downtown in general.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Sheehan and several restaurateurs and property owners about the outdoor dining grants and what they might mean for individual businesses, locations, and the proverbial big picture in the City of Homes.

 

 

Food for Thought

Crossett told BusinessWest that, as those at Granny’s were preparing their application for the outdoor dining grants, which they were encouraged by city officials to pursue, they did so with a specific mindset.

“We just didn’t want to give the city a reason to say no to us,” he explained, adding that this sentiment is reflected in everything from architect’s drawings and multiple bids on construction that accompanied the application to the very specific dollar amount requested.

Indeed, while most applicants rounded up, Granny’s requested $46,160. And that’s how much the city awarded the business.

Overall, 21 establishments applied for the grants, and 17 were awarded funds. Some of the awards matched or came close to what was requested, while others were a fraction of what was sought. And it was a diverse list of recipients, to be sure, with awardees ranging from the Student Prince Restaurant and the Fort to the John Boyle O’Reilly Club; from Two Guys Pizza on Page Boulevard to Uno Chicago Grill near the Basketball Hall of Fame.

park area outside 1441 Main St

Activating the park area outside 1441 Main St. could be a key element in bringing more dining options to the building.

Dollar amounts awarded ranged from $250,000 (City Line Café, the John Boyle O’Reilly Club, and White Lion Brewing) to $35,000 for the Springfield Business Improvement District to build on its improvements on Duryea Way.

There were scoring criteria, said Sheehan, listing everything from an initiative’s ability to encourage foot traffic and improve walkability in a neighborhood business district to whether an applicant had previously received ARPA money. And there were some broad goals behind the awards, but mostly an effort to promote outdoor dining and create more and better opportunities for the concept to spur growth and bring more diners to establishments.

The grant program, which was conceived just a few months ago and undertaken in aggressive fashion, recognizes that the landscape has certainly changed in this realm. In 2019, he explained, the city initiated a one-year pilot program for outdoor dining that did not garner much interest within the industry, with just a handful of applicants. In 2020, the City Council approved that pilot becoming permanent, he went on, adding that the broad objective was to activate commercial districts in specific neighborhoods.

But it wasn’t until the pandemic that the industry fully recognized the need to move to outdoor dining, he continued, adding that the grant program was initiated to help individual businesses and properties move into that realm, or move more aggressively, through initiatives ranging from parklets to White Lion’s reactivation of the Steiger’s park.

Speaking in broad terms, Sheehan said outdoor dining does more than provide an attractive alternative to the traditional experience.

“It heightens people’s engagement with the public realm that’s around them,” he explained. “And it begins to elicit the conversation of ‘how do we make the public realm better for everyone, not just diners, but also pedestrians? And how do we make the streets more accessible to all of the needs that we have relative to public rights of way?’ Because there’s growing competition for that space, whether it be bicyclists or pedestrians or outdoor diners.”

As he talked about his grant and what will happen with it, Crossett first went back in time, to the start of COVID, when many cities were gearing up for outdoor dining and providing assistance to establishments looking to enter that realm. He said he encouraged city leaders to do the same, but recalls that the response was somewhat lukewarm — ‘pusillanimous’ was the word he used.

Eventually, some money was made available, and Granny’s used it to put a few tables and chairs on the sidewalk, which was not a good fix, he said, because there simply isn’t much room on the sidewalk. The outdoor-dining grants come three years after most cities moved aggressively in this realm, he said, but they are at least a step in the right direction.

And while Crossett would prefer a cutout — similar to what the city has done on Worthington Street in front of Theodore’s and Jackalope because of the way they have slowed traffic down on those streets and enhanced outdoor dining opportunities — Granny’s will start with a parklet that he hopes to have ready for the Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival, slated for next month.

 

Designs on Growth

Meanwhile, other grants that were awarded will be used in different ways to introduce outdoor dining or enhance and expand already-existing outdoor facilities, Sheehan said.

At Nadim’s, for example, the grant will enable the restaurant to almost double the capacity of the outdoor dining that exists now, generating what Nadim believes will be more business overall, amid a growing preference for that dining option.

He acknowledged that outdoor dining has its limits — there’s essentially a five- to six-month window, from May to October — but it has become an important component of most restaurants’ business plans. And with more and better outdoor options, the city, and, especially its downtown, become more of a destination.

At 1441 Main St., the TD Bank building, Dill said he’s looking to essentially turn back the clock at that office tower, which once had a much larger retail and restaurant component (what he called a ‘mall’) on its first and second floors — the latter was actually connected to both the Steiger’s department store (now that aforementioned park) and Tower Square via airwalks — while also taking full advantage of the growing popularity of outdoor dining.

“People feel more comfortable sitting in an open space in the open air.”

He said the new ownership will be re-envisioning the former mall portion of the property and applied for a grant through the outdoor-dining initiative to lay the groundwork for such a facility at the property.

“We’re in early design now, but what we’re trying to do is position those underutilized parts of the building in ways that will more effectively address some non-traditional uses,” he said, adding that the plan is to find “the right operator” and then the right location within (and outside) the property for a dining operation.

“We have some flexibility,” he said, adding that there is space on more than one side of the building for an outdoor facility, including the area by the park. “We’ll want to work with the operator on what they want to accomplish from a design and operational standpoint.”

Dill said a restaurant would serve tenants in the property and neighboring office towers, obviously, but also be another key addition in a downtown that, by most accounts, needs more options for the people who come to the area for hockey games, concerts, gymnastics and dance competitions, and other gatherings.

“This is a logical place for part of that expansion to take place,” he said, adding that, while the number of office workers downtown has declined since the start of the pandemic, people are returning to offices, and he expects that trend to continue in the months and years to come.

Dill praised the entrepreneurs taking risks and opening new venues downtown, such as Jackalope and Osteria, two ventures on Worthington Street that are bringing more vitality, and people, to the area. And he said he hopes to add to the growing inventory of restaurants with an addition at 1441 Main St.

Such additions are part of the motivation behind the outdoor-dining grants, which, while small in size and scale in most respects, have the potential to have a big impact in terms of changing the landscape — figuratively and perhaps literally — and adding new words to the lexicon, like ‘parklet.’

Tower Square Owners Add Neighboring 1550 Main Building

By
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Building the Portfolio

 

Vid Mitta acknowledged that the emergence of remote work and its impact — still to be determined in many respects — on the region’s inventory of office space was certainly a consideration when he and business partner Dinesh Patel were deciding whether to submit a proposal for the purchase of the 1550 Main building in downtown Springfield.

But ultimately, this was just one of many considerations, he told BusinessWest, adding that the others — as well as his firm belief that business owners and managers will always see value in having people working together in one place — convinced the two serial entrepreneurs to move forward and answer the request for proposals sent by the property’s now-former owner, MassDevelopment, early last year.

Mitta and Patel eventually prevailed in the bidding to acquire the property — formerly occupied by the U.S. Federal Court and currently home to tenants ranging from Baystate Health to the Springfield School Department — for $6 million.

As he talked about its prospects for the future, Mitta focused on those other considerations that played into this decision, especially that age-old axiom when it comes to commercial real estate — location, location, location. Beyond that, though, the current tenant mix, the timeline on current leases, and the good overall condition of the building also played a factor in generating a green light.

“These properties are connected, and they are the two best buildings in Springfield’s downtown for class-A space.”

“Remote work is the main thing that comes to anyone’s mind when we talk about office spaces today,” he acknowledged. “But look at the location — this is what we were looking at, as well as the maintenance and good condition of the property. These factors led us to see this as a good investment. When vacancies arise, people have choices, and they’re going to move into the best building possible.”

Thus, another chapter has begun in what would have to be called a developing story, in every sense of that phrase. That would be the expanding portfolio of properties now owned by Mitta and Patel, either individually or collectively.

That list includes Tower Square and its recently renovated hotel, which has re-earned the Marriot flag, as well as several other hotels, 99 Restaurant & Pub locations, a Walgreens, three McDonald’s franchises, adult day-care facilities, early-education facilities, and more. These collective investments and entrepreneurial gambits earned Patel and Mitta BusinessWest’s Top Entrepreneur award just a year ago.

Mitta told BusinessWest that 1550 Main St. was a common-sense addition to the portfolio, one that gives the partners a property that is essentially full (97% occupancy), with a stable tenant base that also includes the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, regional offices for U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, the law firm Alekman DiTusa, and an attractive, well-maintained property in the heart of the central business district.

“These properties are connected, and they are the two best buildings in Springfield’s downtown for class-A space,” he said of 1550 Main and Tower Square. “With these properties, we’ll be well-positioned to attract new tenants looking for quality space.”

The property that has come to be known as 1550 Main was acquired by MassDevelopment from the federal government in 2009. At that time, it was roughly 70% occupied, said a spokesperson for MassDevelopment, adding that, after achieving all its stated goals for the property, the agency decided to put the property up for sale through a disposition process to allow it to refocus its efforts on other projects.

Dinesh Patel, left, and Vid Mitta

Dinesh Patel, left, and Vid Mitta, who together orchestrated a stunning turnaround at Tower Square, believe 1550 Main St. is a logical addition to their growing portfolio of commercial real-estate properties.

That includes an initiative in Greenfield, where MassDevelopment is partnering with the city and the Community Builders in the acquisition and redevelopment of the former Wilson’s Department Store property in the heart of the community’s downtown. The redevelopment will create roughly 65 mixed-income rental units and reactivate prominent first-floor and basement retail spaces through the relocation and expansion of Franklin Community Co-ops’s Greenfield store, Green Fields Market.

Referencing 1550 Main, MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera said, “working with tenants, partners, and the city of Springfield over the years allowed us to cultivate this property to its best and highest use. This type of focused teamwork is how long-lasting redevelopment takes root. It is what makes converting an old federal courthouse into a stunning multi-tenant office building possible.”

The property went on the market in the spring of 2022, and the request for proposals issued by MassDevelopment attracted a number of bids.

Moving forward, Mitta said several of the leases of current tenants will be expiring over the next several years. He expressed optimism for renewals, but also for new tenants looking to take advantage of the property’s location and other amenities.

“Tenancy is not a permanent thing — tenants come and go; we know that,” he said. “Some leases are going to expire over the next few years, but we know how to market, and we have a very strong team here.”

“Even those working at home still go to the office — businesses prefer the hybrid model. They need a place where people can collaborate, meet, greet, that kind of thing. That need is still there, and I don’t know if it will ever go.”

Elaborating, he said this team is hoping to attract some current occupants of class-B space to properties that are not much more expensive but bring a number of amenities that class-B properties do not, including parking garages, lighting safety, and that aforementioned location in the heart of downtown.

The property at 1550 Main differs from its neighbor, Tower Square, to which it is connected by a skybridge, in many respects, said Mitta. He noted that Tower Square required significant investment and “re-imagining,” a word he and Patel use often, such as with new tenants that include the YMCA of Greater Springfield. The newer 1550 Main will not require much of either, he said, which is another of those considerations that prompted interest in the building.

As for the trend toward remote work and hybrid work schedules, Mitta acknowledged that there is likely permanence attached to these trends, but, ultimately, he anticipates that there will still be strong demand for office space, especially in the class-A category.

“Even those working at home still go to the office — businesses prefer the hybrid model,” he explained. “They need a place where people can collaborate, meet, greet, that kind of thing. That need is still there, and I don’t know if it will ever go.”

For evidence of this, Mitta points to Tower Square, where he acknowledged that the number of people in the office tower on any given day may be lower than it was prior to the pandemic. But overall, space needs have not changed to a great degree, and new leases continue to be signed.

“Overall, rent is a comparatively small item on the P&L statement,” he said, adding that, for this reason, he has seen few if any tenants at Tower Square downsizing.

Bob Bolduc’s Next Chapter Is a Focus on Helping Others Achieve Sustainability

By
Cover Story

Building a Foundation

 

As he talked about the foundation he created with some of the proceeds from the sale of Pride Stations and Stores — the business he started more than 40 years ago — and the many difficult societal problems it will address, Bob Bolduc summoned an often-paraphrased quote from John F. Kennedy.

It went this way:

“The great French Marshal Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and wouldn’t reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshal replied, ‘in that case, there is no time to lose — plant it this afternoon!’”

Bolduc recalled the story to drive home the point that the country, and Kennedy’s administration, faced some stubborn, deep-rooted problems, and because they would take a long time to resolve, no time should be wasted in addressing them.

Bolduc, the hugely successful entrepreneur also known for his high level of involvement in the community, and especially Springfield, struck those same tones while talking about the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation, launched earlier this year, and its broad mission.

“Helping youth and families achieve sustainability is the ultimate goal, and that’s not going to happen overnight,” he told BusinessWest. “It starts with the youth, and it’s going to take time to get them from pre-kindergarten into a career. So we’re looking at a long-range plan.

“And along the way, a lot of things have to be done right,” he went on. “So it’s absolutely a long-term, major project.”

Even before Bolduc launched the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation, back when he was planting the seeds and talking in broad strokes about its mission and how it would be carried out, he stressed repeatedly that this endeavor was not about writing checks — although it would undoubtedly write some.

“Helping youth and families achieve sustainability is the ultimate goal, and that’s not going to happen overnight.”

Instead, it was about creating a foundation that would be — and he would use these three words early and often — a convener, a facilitator, and a catalyst.

Shannon Mumblo, who became executive director of the foundation — and its first employee — just a few months ago, agreed.

She said the foundation’s mission statement — “to work within under-resourced communities, create alliances, and find solutions in all aspects necessary to help youth and families achieve sustainability” — speaks to the work it will carry out and how it will go about this work.

Indeed, as they talked about the new foundation and how it will go about its work, both Bolduc and Mumblo noted there are many other foundations, individual agencies, and major institutions already doing good work in this region. The goal moving forward is not to duplicate such work, but build on it, forge new alliances, and create more momentum with the many issues involved with creating sustainability.

And the foundation has already launched several new initiatives, everything from a Trauma Institute — born from the knowledge that trauma is one of the lead social determinants of health and a key contributor to many challenges facing youth and families — to an ‘Inspirational Speaker Series’ at which students will learn about career opportunities in various fields.

The Trauma Institute, which will provide training and consultative services to area agencies and nonprofits serving youth and families, is an early example of those at the new foundation listening to others and responding to identified needs.

Shannon Mumblo

Shannon Mumblo says the Hope for Youth and Families Foundation will, through its Trauma Institute, put a focus on providing trauma-informed services and training.

“We’re not here to replicate anything that’s already being done — we’re here to add value, and to meet needs where they arise,” Mumblo said. “We heard there was a need for something like this, and it has been very well-received within the community.”

For this issue, one that includes its annual Giving Guide, BusinessWest talked with the team at the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation about its broad mission and the long, challenging, and rewarding work that lies ahead.

 

Listening and Learning

There’s a box of tissues on the conference-room table at the foundation’s new office in Springfield.

It was added several months ago, and it’s now a permanent feature, said Bolduc, adding that many of the topics discussed — and stories heard — at the table have prompted those assembled to reach for the tissue box.

This process of listening is a big part of the early work being done at the foundation, said those we spoke with, adding that all those involved are still in the process of learning, identifying issues and ways in which the foundation can become involved, and then developing strategies for this involvement.

Summing it up, Bolduc and Mumblo called it the “Sustainability Challenge,” noting that it has both foundational building blocks — funding, alliances both local and national, data collection, and tracking of progress are just some of them — and a number of initiatives and programs ranging from foster care and supportive housing to summer camps, mentoring and tutoring programs, and scholarships.

The foundation’s work on the Sustainability Challenge is still very much in its infancy stage, said Bolduc, adding that, while he has been talking about his new foundation for the better part of a year now, the sale of the Pride chain was quite complicated, and it took several months to “unravel a lot of complicated issues,” as he put it.

Mumblo, the foundation’s first employee, did not come on board until July, he said, adding that this hire was an important initial step.

For Mumblo, the offer from Bolduc to lead the foundation, extended about a year ago, came somewhat out of the blue. When Bolduc called, she was serving as executive director of Christina’s House in Springfield, a nonprofit focused on providing transitional housing for women and their children, work that earned her status as one of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact for 2021. And she was quite happy in that work.

“I thought Christina’s House was going to the place where I retired eventually,” she said, adding she asked for time to think about this opportunity, and was given it. Her career plans changed when she learned more about the new foundation and the initial roadmap for how it would carry out its mission.

“Bob’s vision and values in the world really aligned with mine,” she noted. “And the bottom line for me was that it was not about handing out checks; it was about doing work — not just talking, but being immersed in the community and listening to what the community really needed and then building the foundation around that need. That’s what brought me here.”

She’s now leading a foundation that has that broad mission statement — and was inspired by all that Bolduc saw, heard, and learned about area communities and specific neighborhoods, and the many kinds of challenges they are facing.

“Because, over my career, I’ve had stores in all the different neighborhoods, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the populations in these neighborhoods, and I saw the need in the inner cities to help youth and families,” he explained. “When our family decided to start a foundation, we made that our mission — to work with youth and families in the inner cities.

“We had to define the problem and set goals,” he went on, adding that this work is in many ways being shaped by some interviews with 15-year-old girls conducted several years ago.

“When sustainability becomes the goal, we then need to look at what we have to do to make this happen. And we found that we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work — in all the ways.”

“We asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up,” he recalled. “And when the question came, ‘do you think you’ll go to college?’ every one of them said, categorically, ‘no, I could never go to college.’

“That became one of the points in our mission, and that is to help youth to be sustainable and find a job,” he went on. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be college, but to have a better life, be sustainable, stay in the city — which is a great city — and to ultimately give back, like we want to do.”

Sustainability is the identified goal, or mission. Attaining it is, of course, a challenge, and it has been for decades, he continued, referencing JFK’s famous quote and the need to plant the tree and get started.

“When sustainability becomes the goal, we then need to look at what we have to do to make this happen,” Bolduc told BusinessWest. “And we found that we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work — in all the ways.”

 

Addressing Needs

This ‘getting to work’ has taken many forms thus far, but much of it has involved meeting with the many agencies working on issues involving sustainability, listening to what they have to say, and thinking about ways to partner with them.

“Over the past few months, we’ve been meeting with every agency and nonprofit that fits into this plan — and we have a few more to go,” Bolduc said. “And we’re finding great people and great programs already in place; unfortunately, we’re finding some silos, and lots of problems. But those problems … we’re calling those opportunities to improve.”

And while listening and learning, those at the foundation have already launched several new initiatives aimed at addressing the needs conveyed to them.

One of these steps is creation of the Trauma Institute, which has its own mission statement — “to provide trauma-informed and responsive support services to youth and families and those who work with them in under-resourced communities.”

And it carries out that mission in many ways, including training and consultation focused on serving youth and families and those who work with them in under-resourced communities, partnerships, and policy and advocacy.

“We’re focused on helping to create pathways to graduation and then on to careers or college. We’re starting young and getting students involved in their education, wanting to go to school, and wanting to further their education or career goals.”

“There is a lot of work being done in mental health, specifically in trauma, but there are gaps because the need is so great and there aren’t enough resources to meet the need in the community,” said Mumblo, noting that she became well aware of these needs and gaps while leading Christina’s House and convinced Bolduc that work to address trauma needed to be a primary focal point of the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation.

“In my previous work with mothers and their children, I came to understand that their trauma is great, and it has many levels and many layers,” she explained. “You can teach life skills and provide a lot of education to help move someone from a point of homelessness or near-homelessness into independent living and stability and success. But until you really reach the root of the issue — which, for me, I saw time and time again, was the trauma that they had experienced and the severing of trust on so many levels and inability to feel loved — until that work really began to happen, the process to change had started, but there was only so much change that was going to happen until you peeled away the layers of that trauma, built that trust, and provided a loving and safe environment.”

Elaborating, she said the need for trauma-informed support and services extends to individuals in the community, obviously, but also to those working in the agencies that provide such services.

“There are many organizations who are serving youth and families in this area and doing a tremendous amount of work,” she said. “But the vicarious trauma that comes from that as providers is great, and a lot of times we’re not great at taking care of ourselves.”

Overall, the foundation’s work with trauma is in its early, formative stages, said Mumblo, adding this is true of other initiatives as well, including the Inspired Speaker Series, which kicked off recently with an event at Springfield Symphony Hall, where students from several area high schools had the opportunity to hear about careers in the military.

Future gatherings, and there will be many of them, will focus on different career paths, said Mumblo, including STEM, healthcare, law and government, law enforcement, and business. The broad goal is to introduce students to careers, inform them of what it takes to forge a career in these fields, and help put them on a path that will take them where they want to go.

There are several initiatives, most all of them still in the formative stages, that fall into this broad realm, said Alison Schoen, director of Administration for the foundation, listing mentoring and tutoring services, as well as after-school and summer programs, as other examples.

“We’re focused on helping to create pathways to graduation and then on to careers or college,” she said. “We’re starting young and getting students involved in their education, wanting to go to school, and wanting to further their education or career goals. We’re working with local organizations that already have established mentoring and tutoring programs and helping to create ties that will bind them and enable them to learn from one another.”

This is just one example, said Bolduc, of those guiding principles he mentioned for this foundation — to be a convener, a facilitator, and a catalyst for positive change.

 

Bottom Line

Such change, as noted earlier, will not come quickly or easily.

That’s why, like that gardener mentioned at the top, those at the Hope for Youth and Families Foundation aren’t wasting any time planting that tree — or, in this case, trees.

The problems related to sustainability are deep-rooted, and addressing them will involve time, patience, persistence, imagination, and more.

Bolduc had those qualities in mind when he began the next chapter of what has been a remarkable career in business and in giving back to the community.

He knew that they would be needed to build a foundation — figuratively, but also quite literally.

 

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

New Cybersecurity Project at Union Station Could Have Broad Impact

By
future site of the SOC and cyber range
Special Coverage Technology

Defense Mechanism

future site of the SOC and cyber range

STCC’s Mary Kaselouskas tours the future site of the SOC and cyber range with U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and other stakeholders.

 

By now, Mary Kaselouskas says, the vast majority of people understand the importance of cybersecurity.

“Everyone is fully aware of the threats out there, how people become victims of cybercrime and the impact on an organization that’s involved in a breach,” said Kaselouskas, vice president ands chief information officer at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC).

What they might not know, she added, is the critical shortage in the cybersecurity workforce, with an estimated 20,000 more professionals needed in Massachusetts alone, not to mention about 1 million in the U.S. and 3 million around the world.

That’s why she, and other officials at STCC, around the state, and across the region’s IT sector are celebrating a new initiative to promote the development of a diverse cybersecurity workforce locally, with the goal of improving cyber resiliency in the Commonwealth.

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, state and academic officials, and IT industry leaders were on hand at Union Station in Springfield on Oct. 31 to announce $1,462,995 in state funding will allow STCC to establish a security operation center, or SOC, at Union Station that will provide threat monitoring and other cybersecurity services for Commonwealth municipalities and small business and nonprofit customers. The funds will also establish a cyber range, a new testing lab to mirror real-world IT environments to provide hands-on training opportunities to local companies, universities, and other cyber-focused organizations.

“We’re seeking to establish Massachusetts as the national leader when it comes to cybersecurity infrastructure. We’re bringing together leading academic partners and businesses to support cyber resiliency and workforce development in the Commonwealth.”

“I have been involved with this for quite a while, and a steering committee was established many years ago, looking at how to address a shortage of cybersecurity workers in Springfield and the Pioneer Valley,” Kaselouskas said, noting that partners on the project include the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, a new entity called CyberTrust Massachusetts, the MassCyberCenter, and local colleges and universities, among others.

As the grant recipient, STCC will staff and operate the Union Station facility in partnership with a consortia of area higher-education institutions, including Bay Path University, UMass Amherst, Western New England University, Elms College, and Springfield College, each of which bring a range of undergraduate certificate and degree programs in IT/security, cybersecurity, computer science and programming, digital forensics, and criminal justice.

The SOC, Kaselouskas explained, is “a physical location at Union Station that monitors, detects, and responds to cyber threats 24/7/365, protecting organizations’ assets. A lot of companies don’t have the resources for a fully operational SOC, or can even afford to have managed SOC operations.”

The center will have full-time employees but also offer training opportunities for students at area colleges by way of internships and work-study programs, she added. “This will operate as a business once the grant money is gone. We haven’t discussed fees, but we will have an employee working in business outreach to get customers on board that will utilize the facility.”

Meanwhile, the cyber range will allow both students and employees of companies and municipalities to experience simulated threats in a virtual environment, with hands-on training in live-fire attacks, blue-team/red-team events (in which one team attacks a system and the other defends it), and other training models, potentially leading to certification in security fields for students.

“That’s the training part of this,” Kaselouskas told BusinessWest, noting that area colleges and universities will incorporate the cyber-range software into courses. “If a student is enrolled at STCC in the cybersecurity program, they may take a few courses that use the cyber range — so it’s not a whole course, but a component of a course.”

STCC President John Cook

STCC President John Cook says the cyber project at Union Station will be transformative for the region and higher education.

The grant to STCC will cover renovation and construction of the Union Station space, which is estimated to open in the first half of 2024. The facility will include a classroom and a conference room for up to 60 people, able to accommodate those cyber-related events and to serve as a space for collaboration, in addition to separate classroom space, workstations for use by academic partners, offices for facility staff, a tech-support area, a kitchen, and storage.

As part of a site-based service arrangement, STCC will provide administrative oversight for the facility, including all human-resources functions for employees and hiring of key personnel, plus the establishment of electronic-systems management. The facility will also be overseen by a steering committee of public, private, and academic stakeholders, which will include the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, the owner of Union Station.

 

Dollars and Data

The Union Station project is just one component of a more than $3.7 million outlay to bolster cybersecurity resilience — and the related workforce — across the state. The announcements were made during the sixth Massachusetts Cybersecurity Forum at Bridgewater State University, which brought together 100 executives from companies, municipalities, and leading universities.

The awards included a $1,086,476 grant to support the launch of CyberTrust Massachusetts, a new nonprofit that will work with business and academia statewide to grow the cybersecurity talent pipeline by increasing career pathways for underrepresented groups, and promote security operations to address the day-to-day needs of resource-constrained municipalities, nonprofits, and small businesses.

The Commonwealth also announced the $1,462,995 award to STCC and $1,200,000 to Bridgewater State University to establish SOCs and cyber ranges in the two cities.

“We’re seeking to establish Massachusetts as the national leader when it comes to cybersecurity infrastructure,” Gov. Charlie Baker said during the announcement event, adding that “we’re bringing together leading academic partners and businesses to support cyber resiliency and workforce development in the Commonwealth.”

CyberTrust Massachusetts was launched to address four key imperatives for the state:

• Undersecurity, as organizations across Massachusetts, especially municipalities, small businesses, and nonprofits, are challenged to find affordable resources to defend themselves against growing cybersecurity threats and maintain cyber resiliency;

• Underemployment, highlighted by the aforementioned 20,000 cybersecurity job openings in Massachusetts, and the fact that communities of color and women are underrepresented in the cybersecurity workforce and are frequently overlooked for employment due to a lack of opportunity to obtain hands-on cybersecurity experience;

• Employee training, as businesses across the Commonwealth typically do not have a location to send their employees to receive cybersecurity training at an affordable rate; and

• Business and economic development, specifically a need to convene regional hubs for business development where cybersecurity entrepreneurs can establish and grow startups or where specific industry segments such as defense contractors can receive specialized support.

“This first-of-its-kind collaboration among business, higher ed, and government through CyberTrust Massachusetts could transform our cyber education and training, growing our workforce and creating new opportunities statewide while helping to make our communities more cyber resilient,” said Pete Sherlock, CEO of CyberTrust Massachusetts.

“No organization is successful 100% of the time when it comes to defending against cyberattacks. With the new monitoring capabilities, organizations can increase awareness, detect intrusions faster, and respond more quickly to an incident.”

In February 2022, the MassCyberCenter released a request for responses seeking interest from entities interested in establishing an SOC and/or cyber range to support the dual missions around cybersecurity workforce development and for protection against cyber threats. Seven expressions of interest were received, including the proposals from STCC and Bridgewater State.

“We see these as the initial investments in a cyber-secure future, important investments to build out our plan for a cyber-resilient Massachusetts,” said Stephanie Helm, director of the MassCyberCenter. “The key word is ‘resilient,’ as no organization is successful 100% of the time when it comes to defending against cyberattacks. With the new monitoring capabilities, organizations can increase awareness, detect intrusions faster, and respond more quickly to an incident.”

STCC President John Cook agreed, noting that “this cybersecurity award will be transformative for our region and higher education. As one of the most pervasive liabilities for our businesses and communities, these funds ensure a regional center that will be a nexus for the cyber workforce with hands-on learning, in addition to establishing a resource for protecting our community partners against cybersecurity threats.”

 

Statewide Strategy

The grants are part of the Commonwealth’s ongoing investment in cybersecurity resiliency and workforce development. The award to CyberTrust Massachusetts is from the Massachusetts Cybersecurity Innovation Fund and will support the organization’s operating expenditures for a period of six months and will fund a contract for cyber-range services for one year.

“Leaders in the state’s cybersecurity ecosystem have been contributing to the establishment of CyberTrust Massachusetts because they see the imperative to help protect the undersecured and are passionate about training the next generation of our cyber workforce, including those from currently underrepresented populations,” said Jay Ash, chair of the CyberTrust board of directors and president and CEO of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership.

Meanwhile, the grants to STCC and Bridgewater State were generated by “An Act Relative to Immediate COVID-19 Recovery Needs,” which provided $15 million to the MassCyberCenter to incentivize the creation of regional SOC services and expand the cyber workforce in the state, including a focus on “underserved and underrepresented populations.”

“Springfield Union Station is a world-class transportation hub that will now be home to a world-class cybersecurity training and security-management center,” Neal said. “The Baker-Polito administration has worked hand in hand with the city of Springfield, the STCC team, and my office to make this a reality.”

Kaselouskas believes the new SOC and cyber range can help Greater Springfield become a key region for the cybersecurity sector in the Northeast.

“Union Station obviously has a long history in Springfield, and the location is really centralized, and we’re hoping it will be a hub,” she said, adding that the facility could also bring in guest speakers for training — IT experts who hail not only from the area colleges and universities, but from large employers such as Baystate Health, MassMutual, and even the military.

“STCC is well-known and right around the corner, with 200 students in these programs right now,” she told BusinessWest. “We’re hopeful this will also boost interest in coming not only to STCC to explore these programs, but also to the other colleges we work with, which have strong programs as well.”

At STCC, she pointed out, many students hail from Western Mass. and then stay here, so any effort on the college’s part to train the future cybersecurity workforce will strengthen the sector locally.

“We’re hoping to make an impact in this area, to give back to local communities by educating students and keeping them close,” Kaselouskas added. “This program is going to be pretty big because not a lot of states do this. We expect to see this grow around the state and for Massachusetts to become a leader in cyber education.”

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Super 60 to Be Celebrated After Two-year Hiatus

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Special Coverage Super 60

A Tradition Returns

The Super 60, the Springfield Regional Chamber’s annual celebration of thriving companies in Western Mass., was riding high in 2019, when the program marked its 30th year.
Since then … well, you know the story. A pandemic and a wave of economic impacts not only curtailed live events in 2020 and 2021, but created anything but a festive environment for local businesses.
But the program is back this year, and chamber members are ready to celebrate success — and each other.
“It’s super exciting that we’re returning to in-person events in general, and we’re very excited to get back to Super 60,” said Diana Szynal, executive director of the Springfield Regional Chamber. “That’s an award that recognizes the success of local businesses, and it’s going to feel really good to be in person, celebrating business success.”
The Super 60 program celebrates the success of the fastest-growing privately owned businesses in the region. Businesses that rank in the top 30 of the Total Revenue and Revenue Growth categories for 2022 represent all sectors of the economy, including nonprofits, construction, insurance, finance, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, and more. Some have been named to the Super 60 once or many times before, and some are brand-new to the list.
 They are profiled below, with the top five in each category ranked and the rest listed alphabetically.

The Super 60 Luncheon

The annual Super 60 luncheon will be held on Thursday, Nov. 10 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. The keynote speaker will be Myke Connolly, the serial entrepreneur behind the successful marketing venture known as Stand Out Truck.

Szybnal said she first connected with Connolly when she was leading the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and noticed the breadth of his activities in Western Mass.

“I was fascinated by his story, his energy, and his presence on social media and locally, and I thought he would be perfect to talk to all of us about his success,” she told BusinessWest. “And what better time than when we’re celebrating local success stories?”

The cost to attend the Super 60 luncheon is $60 for members and $75 for general admission, and reserved tables of eight or 10 are available. Visit myonlinechamber.chambermaster.com/eventregistration/register/6186 to sign up for what promises to be an inspiring afternoon.

TOTAL REVENUE

1. Fontaine Brothers Inc.
2. Whalley Computer Associates Inc.
3. Marcotte Ford Sales Inc.
4. Tighe & Bond
5. Springfield Automotive Partners LLC
American Environmental Inc.
Andrew Associates
Appleton Corp.
Axia Group Insurance Services Inc.
Baltazar Contractors
Bart Truck Equipment LLC
Baystate Blasting Inc.
Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
Chicopee Industrial Contractors Inc.
City Enterprise Inc.
The Dowd Agencies LLC
E.F. Corcoran Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc.
Freedom Credit Union
Hogan Technology Inc.
Keiter Corp.
Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc.
L & C Prescriptions Inc.
M. Jags Inc.
Market Mentors LLC
Maybury Associates Inc.
Paragus Strategic IT
Pioneer Valley Financial Group LLC
Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
Springfield Hockey LLC
V & F Auto

REVENUE GROWTH

1. Vanished Valley Inc.
2. Monty’s Motorsport LLC
3. Campora Construction Co Inc.
4. City Enterprise Inc.
5. Fontaine Brothers Inc.
Axia Group Insurance Services Inc.
Bart Truck Equipment LLC
Baystate Blasting Inc.
Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
Chicopee Industrial Contractors Inc.
The Dowd Agencies LLC
Embracing The Creative Child LLC
FIT Staffing
Keiter Corp.
Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc.
L & C Prescriptions Inc.
L & L Property Service LLC
Ludlow Eye Care P.C.
M. Jags Inc.
The Markens Group
Market Mentors LLC
Maybury Associates Inc.
Northeast Security Solutions Inc.
Pioneer Valley Financial Group LLC
Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
Seaboard Drilling Inc.
Springfield Automotive Partners LLC
Springfield Hockey LLC
Tavares and Branco Enterprises Inc.
V & F Auto

Total REVENUE

1. Fontaine Brothers Inc.
510 Cottage St., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 781-2020
www.fontainebros.com
David Fontaine Sr., President
Fontaine Brothers offers services such as general contracting, with a focus on K-12 schools, higher education, commercial properties, historical renovations, municipal work, and green buildings, as well as construction management. The firm has been family-owned and operated for 89 years.

2. Whalley Computer Associates Inc.
One Whalley Way, Southwick, MA 01077
(413) 596-4200
www.wca.com
Michael Sheil, President
Whalley Computer Associates offers data-center services, cloud backup, managed services, training, desktop services, network services, and staff-augmentation services. The company focuses its work in the corporate, finance, healthcare, K-12, higher education, retail, and SMB industries.

3. Marcotte Ford Sales Inc.
1025 Main St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 650-9041
www.marcotteford.com
Mike Marcotte, President
Marcotte Ford Sales is a car dealership selling and financing new and used cars, trucks, and SUVs. The dealership also offers a wide range of parts and services, such as tires, brakes, oil changes, repairs, and alignment checks.

4. Tighe & Bond
53 Southampton Road, Westfield, MA 01085
(413) 562-1600
www.tighebond.com
Robert Belitz, President and CEO
Tighe & Bond offers engineering, design, planning, and environmental-consulting services, with focuses in building, transportation, water and wastewater engineering, coastal and waterfront solutions, environmental consulting, GIS and asset management, landscape architecture and urban design, civil engineering, and site planning.

5. Springfield Automotive Partners LLC
295 Burnett Road, Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 624-4100
www.mbspringfield.com
Peter and Michelle Wirth, owners
Springfield Automotive Partners is the parent company of Mercedes-Benz of Springfield. With a showroom in Chicopee, the dealership sells new and used cars, as well as financing and buying back cars. The location offers service, parts, and tires for all maintenance needs, and provides roadside assistance and vehicle inspections.

American Environmental Inc.
18 Canal St., Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 322-7190
www.amerenviro.com
Charles Hughes, President
American Environmental is a family-owned business providing services like asbestos abatement, structural demolition, boiler removal, commercial lead abatement, concrete cutting, floor preparation, interior demolition, water-jet blasting, roll-off service, and shot blasting. It has worked with property managers, schools, universities, hospitals, churches, stores, industrial sites, and public facilities.

Andrew Associates
6 Pearson Way, Enfield, CT 06082
(860) 253-0000
www.andrewdm.com
Tina Bazarian, Owner and CFO;
Graeme Bazarian, President
Andrew Associates is a printing and mailing service that makes signage and graphics for businesses, nonprofits, and government, with services including bindery, kitting, insertion, and postal presort. It also specializes in data security and analysis to better target viewers.

Appleton Corp.
800 Kelly Way, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 536-8048
www.appletoncorporation.com
Matt Flink, President
Appleton Corp., a division of the O’Connell Companies, provides property, facilities, and asset-management services, along with accounting and financial services, to managers and owners of commercial and residential properties across New England.

Axia Group Insurance Services Inc.
84 Myron St., Suite A, West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 788-9000
www.axiagroup.net
Michael long, CEO
Axia Group Insurance Services is an independent insurance agency that provides personal lines of insurance, business insurance, and employee benefits, as well as group insurance plans. It represents numerous insurance companies, such as Liberty Mutual, MAPFRE, MassMutual, and Progressive.

Baltazar Contractors
83 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-6160
www.baltazarcontractors.com
Paulo Baltazar, President
Baltazar Contractors is a heavy civil construction company with services in utility construction, roadway construction, site work and development, culvert/bridge construction, earth support and shoring, and trenchless technology. It was started 29 years ago and has remained family-owned.

Bart Truck Equipment LLC
358 River St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 737-2766
www.barttruckllc.com
James DiClementi, President
Bart Truck Equipment is a heavy-duty parts and trucking service company, offering different bodies (dump, platform, utility/service), snow plows and other winter removal equipment, truck-mounted generators, hook lifts and roll-offs, and more. It also custom-builds and fabricates parts for clients. It serves contractors, landscapers, fleets, municipalities, utility companies, and homeowners.

Baystate Blasting Inc.
36 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-4440
www.baystateblasting.com
Dinis Baltazar, President and CEO
Baystate Blasting offers services in ledge and rock removal, rock blasting, and rock crushing. It performs large and small construction-site preparation, road and highway work, line drilling and trench work, quarry shots, and residential work such as foundations and inground pools. It is federally licensed as both a dealer and user of explosive materials.

Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
83 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-7856
Dinis Baltazar, President and CEO
Baystate Crushing and Recycling is a family-owned drilling and blasting firm that provides a full range of rock-blasting and rock-crushing services, including site work, heavy highway construction, residential work, quarry, and portable crushing and recycling. A federally licensed dealer of explosives, it offers rental of individual magazines and is a sister company to Baystate Blasting Inc.

Chicopee Industrial Contractors Inc.
107 North Chicopee St, Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 538-7279
www.chicopeeindustrial.com
Carol Campbell, President and CEO
Chicopee Industrial Contractors is a woman-owned industrial contracting firm that specializes in rigging, heavy lifting, machinery moving, machine installation, millwrighting, machine repair, heavy hauling, plant relocations, concrete pads, foundations, and structural steel installations. It is celebrating its 30th year in business.

City Enterprise Inc.
52-60 Berkshire Ave., Springfield, MA 01109
(413) 726-9549
www.cityenterpriseinc.com
Wonderlyn Murphy, President and CEO
City Enterprise is a minority- and woman-owned design, build, and renovation construction firm specializing in government, municipal, and commercial projects. It has performed work on the Springfield Armory, various UMass locations, the Northampton VA Medical Center, and the Donohue Federal Courthouse. This is its eighth consecutive year on the Super 60 list.

The Dowd Agencies LLC
14 Bobala Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 538-7444
www.dowd.com
John Dowd Jr., President and CEO
The Dowd Agencies is an insurance agency that provides personal (automotive, renters, home, and condominium) and business (liability, commercial auto, liability, and more) insurance, as well as employee benefits. It also offers group packages for personal and business plans. The Dowd Agencies has been family-owned since 1865, welcoming its fifth generation in 2019.

E.F. Corcoran Plumbing & Heating Co. Inc.
5 Rose Place, Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 732-1462
www.efcorcoran.com
Brian Toomey, President
E.F. Corcoran Plumbing & Heating is a full-service plumbing and HVAC contractor, offering 24-hour plumbing services, HVAC installation, gas piping, boilers, heat recovery, and more. It serves the commercial, industrial, medical, and institutional industries and has performed work for Baystate Noble Hospital, Springfield College, UMass, Mercy Medical Center, and Stop & Shop.

Freedom Credit Union
1976 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 739-6961
www.freedom.coop
Glenn Welch, President and CEO
Freedom Credit Union is a credit union that offers banking and loan services to businesses, the cannabis industry, and individuals. It also offers insurance plans for individuals and an investment-services division. The institution is celebrating its centennial in 2022.

Hogan Technology Inc.
81 East St., Easthampton, MA 01027
(413) 585-9950
www.teamhogan.com
Sean Hogan, President
Since 1986, Hogan Technology has offered a range of technology services to businesses, which now include audio-visual installation, cable installation, digital signage, and network infrastructure installation. Now run by Sean and his brother Andy, Hogan offers business clients value-added benefits including a trained team of certified installation and support professionals.

Keiter Corp.
35 Main St., Florence, MA 01062
(413) 586-8600
www.keiter.com
Scott Keiter, President
Keiter Corp. is a construction-services company working with clients on residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional projects of all sizes. The firm is divided into four divisions: Keiter Builders, Keiter Homes, Hatfield Construction, and Keiter Properties. The company has performed work for Amherst College, Bacon Wilson in Northampton, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Look Park.

Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc.
1 Industrial Dr., South Hadley, MA 01075
(413) 532-2507
www.knightmachine.net
Gary O’Brien, President
Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc. specializes in machine and inspection equipment, such as head lathes, grinders, drill presses, calipers, and gages. It also offers turning, milling, round and flat lapping, EDM wire cutting, wet surface grinding, assembly, plating, and more. The company is ITAR-registered and ISO-certified.

L & C Prescriptions Inc.
155 Brookdale Dr., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 781-2996
www.medibubble.com
Dr. Kara James, President
L & C Prescriptions, the parent company for Louis & Clark Pharmacy, provides medication solutions to individuals, healthcare providers, and assisted-living, independent-living, and memory-care communities, and offers online prescription refills, MediBubble pre-packaged pills, blister packs to manage daily medications, vial synchronization, consultations with registered pharmacists, and a delivery service.

M. Jags Inc.
197 Main St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 781-4352
www.taplinyardpumpandpower.com
Martin Jagodowski, President
M. Jags, also known as Taplin Yard, Pump and Power Equipment, is a supplier of water pumps, water conditioners, pump-repair services, and yard and garden power equipment. It offers new and used parts and services for repairs, as well as financing options and a parts finder on its website.

Market Mentors LLC
155 Brookdale Dr.,
Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 787-1133
www.marketmentors.com
Michelle Abdow, President
Market Mentors helps other businesses with marketing, advertising, public relations, graphic design, and website design. It serves the automotive, educational, energy, banking and finance, healthcare, insurance, industrial and manufacturing, legal, nonprofit, retail, political, services, sports, and entertainment sectors, and has worked with multiple companies on the Super 60 list, like the Dowd Agencies and Freedom Credit Union.

Maybury Associates Inc.
90 Denslow Road,
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(888) 629-2879
www.maybury.com
John Maybury, President and CEO
Maybury Associates is a material-handling equipment company that provides parts and services, warehouse design, rentals, and products for sale to businesses big and small. It offers forklifts, cleaning equipment (sweepers, scrubbers, industrial and commercial vacuums, etc.), racking, conveyors, dock equipment, modular office construction materials, and more, and has been awarded with the MHEDA Most Valuable Partner award 12 years running.

Paragus Strategic IT
112 Russell St., Hadley, MA 01035
(413) 587-2666
www.paragusit.com
Delcie Bean IV, CEO
Paragus Strategic IT is an technology provider for small to medium-sized businesses in Western and Central Mass., offering both outsourced and co-managed IT experiences, allowing the client to choose what their preferred IT management looks like. Paragus serves the legal, manufacturing, medical and dental, cannabis, veterinary, insurance, and nonprofit sectors, among others.

Pioneer Valley Financial Group LLC
535 East St., Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 589-1500
www.pvfinancial.com
Charles Meyers, Edward Sokolowski, and Joseph Leonczyk, Founding Partners
Pioneer Valley Financial Group is a financial-planning service, offering services in retirement planning, business planning, asset growth, college funding, estate planning, tax planning, and risk management. It serves retirees, professionals, service members, young adults, and small and medium-sized businesses.

Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
1199 South Main St., Palmer, MA 01069
(866) 522-3481
www.sandersonmacleod.com
Mark Borsari, President and CEO
Sanderson MacLeod innovates, manufactures, and sources wire brushes, stylets, and assemblies. It serves the medical, cosmetic, firearms, and OEM industries. The company invented the twisted-wire mascara brush, the ZTip, and multiple other patented designs.

Springfield Hockey LLC
1 Monarch Place, Springfield, MA 02110
(413) 746-4100
www.springfieldthunderbirds.com
Nathan Costa, President
Springfield Hockey LLC, better known as the Springfield Thunderbirds, is the local affiliate of the St. Louis Blues and and the American Hockey League’s 2021-22 Eastern Conference Champion. The team gives back to the community in multiple ways, like the Thunderbirds Foundation, Stick to Reading school programs, Hometown Salute, Frontline Fridays, and more.

V & F Auto
443 Springfield St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-2181
www.vfauto.com
Frank Palange, President
V & F Auto is an automotive repair company that offers vehicle sales and financing as well as auto services, including brake repairs, alternator repairs, oil changes, engine repairs and maintenance, radiator and cooling system maintenance, and more. It has been family-owned since 1988.

REVENUE GROWTH

1. Vanished Valley Inc.
782 Center St., Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 610-1572
www.vanishedvalley.com
Mike Rodrigues, Restaurant Owner;
Josh Britton, Brewery Owner
Vanished Valley Inc. is a small-batch brewery that is family- and pet-friendly and holds events in its taproom and beer garden. The restaurant menu includes appetizers, pizzas, burgers, sandwiches, and barbeque. On tap, the brewery offers IPAs, seltzers, lagers, ales, and stouts, as well as wine and spirits.

2. Monty’s Motorsport LLC
1 Arch Road, Westfield, MA 01085
(413) 642-8199
www.montysmotorsports.com
Monty Geer, Owner
Monty’s Motorsport is a parts, sales, service, and gear store for motorsport vehicles, such as four-wheelers, dirt bikes, motorcycles, electric bikes, street bikes, and more. It offers new and used vehicles, with financing options available, as well as services such as winterization, battery inspections, accessory installations, chain adjustments, oil and filter changes, and full engine rebuilds.

3. Campora Construction Co Inc.
43 Owens Way, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 610-1660
www.camporacc.com
Mario Campora, President
Campora Construction specializes in full-scale building construction and sidewalk, patio, and driveway installation for residential, commercial, and governmental projects. Services include custom home design and construction, complete home rebuilds from fire damage, home additions and sunroom installation, concrete demolition and infills, and commercial office fit-outs.

4. City Enterprise Inc.
52-60 Berkshire Ave., Springfield, MA 01109
(413) 726-9549
www.cityenterpriseinc.com
Wonderlyn Murphy, President and CEO
City Enterprise is a minority- and woman-owned design, build, and renovation construction firm specializing in government, municipal, and commercial projects. It has performed work on the Springfield Armory, various UMass locations, the Northampton VA Medical Center, and the Donohue Federal Courthouse. This is its eighth consecutive year on the Super 60 list.


5. Fontaine Brothers Inc.
510 Cottage St., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 781-2020
www.fontainebros.com
David Fontaine Sr., President
Fontaine Brothers offers services such as general contracting, with a focus on K-12 schools, higher education, commercial properties, historical renovations, municipal work, and green buildings, as well as construction management. The firm has been family-owned and operated for 89 years.

Axia Group Insurance Services Inc.
84 Myron St., Suite A, West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 788-9000
www.axiagroup.net
Michael long, CEO
Axia Group Insurance Services is an independent insurance agency that provides personal lines of insurance, business insurance, and employee benefits, as well as group insurance plans. It represents numerous insurance companies, such as Liberty Mutual, MAPFRE, MassMutual, and Progressive.

Bart Truck Equipment LLC
358 River St., West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 737-2766
www.barttruckllc.com
James DiClementi, President
Bart Truck Equipment is a heavy-duty parts and trucking service company, offering different bodies (dump, platform, utility/service), snow plows and other winter removal equipment, truck-mounted generators, hook lifts and roll-offs, and more. It also custom-builds and fabricates parts for clients. It serves contractors, landscapers, fleets, municipalities, utility companies, and homeowners.

Baystate Blasting Inc.
36 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-4440
www.baystateblasting.com
Dinis Baltazar, President and CEO
Baystate Blasting offers services in ledge and rock removal, rock blasting, and rock crushing. It performs large and small construction-site preparation, road and highway work, line drilling and trench work, quarry shots, and residential work such as foundations and inground pools. It is federally licensed as both a dealer and user of explosive materials.

Baystate Crushing and Recycling Inc.
83 Carmelinas Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-7856
Dinis Baltazar, President and CEO
Baystate Crushing and Recycling is a family-owned drilling and blasting firm that provides a full range of rock-blasting and rock-crushing services, including site work, heavy highway construction, residential work, quarry, and portable crushing and recycling. A federally licensed dealer of explosives, it offers rental of individual magazines and is a sister company to Baystate Blasting Inc.

Chicopee Industrial Contractors Inc.
107 North Chicopee St, Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 538-7279
www.chicopeeindustrial.com
Carol Campbell, President and CEO
Chicopee Industrial Contractors is a woman-owned industrial contracting firm that specializes in rigging, heavy lifting, machinery moving, machine installation, millwrighting, machine repair, heavy hauling, plant relocations, concrete pads, foundations, and structural steel installations. It is celebrating its 30th year in business.

The Dowd Agencies LLC
14 Bobala Road, Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 538-7444
www.dowd.com
John Dowd Jr., President and CEO
The Dowd Agencies is an insurance agency that provides personal (automotive, renters, home, and condominium) and business (liability, commercial auto, liability, and more) insurance, as well as employee benefits. It also offers group packages for personal and business plans. The Dowd Agencies has been family-owned since 1865, welcoming its fifth generation in 2019.

Embracing The Creative Child LLC
55 Deer Park Dr., East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(413) 525-1500
www.embracingthecreativechild.com
Sarah Gale, Owner
Embracing The Creative Child offers applied behavioral analysis (ABA) programs for children and young adults with developmental disabilities. Programs are geared towards the individual’s needs. Programs include at-home ABA programs, social skill groups, school consultations, and professional development for educators.

FIT Staffing
9½ Market St., Northampton, MA 01060
(413) 733-6466
www.fitstaffingsolutions.com
Anthony Ciak, Division Manager
FIT Staffing is an IT recruitment agency for both the employee and employer that serves all of New England. The agency offers a job search board similar to Indeed, and is affiliated with Maraton Staffing, ASA Recruitment, and the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast.

Keiter Corp.
35 Main St., Florence, MA 01062
(413) 586-8600
www.keiter.com
Scott Keiter, President
Keiter Corp. is a construction-services company working with clients on residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional projects of all sizes. The firm is divided into four divisions: Keiter Builders, Keiter Homes, Hatfield Construction, and Keiter Properties. The company has performed work for Amherst College, Bacon Wilson in Northampton, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Look Park.

Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc.
1 Industrial Dr.,
South Hadley, MA 01075
(413) 532-2507
www.knightmachine.net
Gary O’Brien, President
Knight Machine Tool Co. Inc. specializes in machine and inspection equipment, such as head lathes, grinders, drill presses, calipers, and gages. It also offers turning, milling, round and flat lapping, EDM wire cutting, wet surface grinding, assembly, plating, and more. The company is ITAR-registered and ISO-certified.

L & C
Prescriptions Inc.
155 Brookdale Dr.,
Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 781-2996
www.medibubble.com
Dr. Kara James, President
L & C Prescriptions, the parent company for Louis & Clark Pharmacy, provides medication solutions to individuals, healthcare providers, and assisted-living, independent-living, and memory-care communities, and offers online prescription refills, MediBubble pre-packaged pills, blister packs to manage daily medications, vial synchronization, consultations with registered pharmacists, and a delivery service.

L & L Property
Service LLC
582 Amostown Road, West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 732-2739
Todd Lapinski and Eddie Lapinski, Owners
L & L Property Service is a locally owned company providing an array of property services, including lawn care, snow removal, sanding, excavations, patios and stone walls, hydroseeding, and more. It is a family-owned business.

Ludlow Eye Care P.C.
200 Center St., #1, Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 583-3600
Dr. Catarzyna Babinski, Owner
Ludlow Eye Care is a practice specializing in optometry and offering eyeglass fittings, adjustments, repairs, sunglasses, and contact lenses. It also offers specialty glasses, such as blue-light glasses, computer glasses, kids’ glasses, reading glasses, and rimless frames.

M. Jags Inc.
197 Main St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 781-4352
www.taplinyardpumpandpower.com
Martin Jagodowski, President
M. Jags, also known as Taplin Yard, Pump and Power Equipment, is a supplier of water pumps, water conditioners, pump-repair services, and yard and garden power equipment. It offers new and used parts and services for repairs, as well as financing options and a parts finder on its website.

The Markens Group
1350 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103
(413) 686-9199
www.markens.com
Ben Markens, President; Jennie Markens, Partner
The Markens Group is an association management group that provides outsourced professional services including strategic leadership, financial management, event planning, member services, marketing and communications, program management, website and social-media services, and general administration to trade associations, membership societies, and not-for-profits.

Market Mentors LLC
155 Brookdale Dr., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 787-1133
www.marketmentors.com
Michelle Abdow, President
Market Mentors helps other businesses with marketing, advertising, public relations, graphic design, and website design. It serves the automotive, educational, energy, banking and finance, healthcare, insurance, industrial and manufacturing, legal, nonprofit, retail, political, services, sports, and entertainment sectors, and has worked with multiple companies on the Super 60 list, like the Dowd Agencies and Freedom Credit Union.

Maybury Associates Inc.
90 Denslow Road, East Longmeadow, MA 01028
(888) 629-2879
www.maybury.com
John Maybury, President and CEO
Maybury Associates is a material-handling equipment company that provides parts and services, warehouse design, rentals, and products for sale to businesses big and small. It offers forklifts, cleaning equipment (sweepers, scrubbers, industrial and commercial vacuums, etc.), racking, conveyors, dock equipment, modular office construction materials, and more, and has been awarded with the MHEDA Most Valuable Partner award 12 years running.

Northeast Security Solutions Inc.
33 Sylvan St., #1, West Springfield, MA 01089
(413) 732-8748
www.northeastsecuritysolutions.com
George Condon III and David Condon, Co-owners
Northeast Security Solutions supplies security products and services within Western Mass., Northern Connecticut, and Southern Vermont. It offers door hardware, key control, locks, safes, burglar alarms, fire alarms, surveillance cameras, access control, and fire-extinguisher testing and inspections, and has been family-owned for the past 30 years.

Pioneer Valley Financial Group LLC
535 East St., Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 589-1500
www.pvfinancial.com
Charles Meyers, Edward Sokolowski, and Joseph Leonczyk, Founding Partners
Pioneer Valley Financial Group is a financial-planning service, offering services in retirement planning, business planning, asset growth, college funding, estate planning, tax planning, and risk management. It serves retirees, professionals, service members, young adults, and small and medium-sized businesses.

Sanderson MacLeod Inc.
1199 South Main St., Palmer, MA 01069
(866) 522-3481
www.sandersonmacleod.com
Mark Borsari, President and CEO
Sanderson MacLeod innovates, manufactures, and sources wire brushes, stylets, and assemblies. It serves the medical, cosmetic, firearms, and OEM industries. The company invented the twisted-wire mascara brush, the ZTip, and multiple other patented designs.

Seaboard Drilling Inc.
649 Meadow St., Chicopee, MA 01013
(800) 595-1114
www.seaboarddrilling.com
Jeffery Campbell, President and CEO
Seaboard Drilling is a geotechnical and environmental drilling services firm. It offers geotechnical and environmental borings, installation of standard and small-diameter monitoring wells, peizometers, geotechnical instruments, remedial recovery wells, and direct-push soil probing and sample retrieval.

Springfield Automotive
Partners LLC
295 Burnett Road,
Chicopee, MA 01020
(413) 624-4100
www.mbspringfield.com
Peter and Michelle Wirth, owners
Springfield Automotive Partners is the parent company of Mercedes-Benz of Springfield. With a showroom in Chicopee, the dealership sells new and used cars, as well as financing and buying back cars. The location offers service, parts, and tires for all maintenance needs, and provides roadside assistance and vehicle inspections.

Springfield Hockey LLC
1 Monarch Place,
Springfield, MA 02110
(413) 746-4100
www.springfieldthunderbirds.com
Nathan Costa, President
Springfield Hockey LLC, better known as the Springfield Thunderbirds, is the local affiliate of the St. Louis Blues and and the American Hockey League’s 2021-22 Eastern Conference Champion. The team gives back to the community in multiple ways, like the Thunderbirds Foundation, Stick to Reading school programs, Hometown Salute, Frontline Fridays, and more.

Tavares and Branco
Enterprises Inc.
1428 Center St., Ludlow, MA 01056
(413) 547-6667
www.villaroserestaurant.com
Tony Tavares, Owner
Tavares and Branco Enterprises owns and operates the Villa Rose Restaurant, lounge, and banquet hall, specializing in Portuguese and American cuisine. With a capacity of 150, the facility caters for parties, funerals, and weddings of 30 people or more. Villa Rose also offers breakfast and brunch for those who are looking to book a shower, seminar, business meeting, corporate functions, and more.

V & F Auto
443 Springfield St., Agawam, MA 01001
(413) 789-2181
www.vfauto.com
Frank Palange, President
V & F Auto is an automotive repair company that offers vehicle sales and financing as well as auto services, including brake repairs, alternator repairs, oil changes, engine repairs and maintenance, radiator and cooling system maintenance, and more. It has been family-owned since 1988.

Reflecting on the Big Picture

By
Opinion

Editorial

The scaffolding has come down from the five-story wall on Worthington Street facing Stearns Square after a lengthy process of restoration and completion of a new mural undertaken by artist John Simpson.

So now, people can see what they have. And what have is much more than art, although it is certainly that.

It is bridge from the past to the present — and the future — as a well as a conversation piece and another important effort to ‘activate’ property in the City of Homes, and especially in its downtown.

We’re seeing that word ‘activate’ quite a bit lately in reference to downtown properties — everything from the old Court Square Hotel, now being renovated into apartments, to the parking lot adjacent to the soon-to-be-demolished and replaced Civic Center Parking Garage (that property will become an extension of the MassMutual Center and used for various gatherings). It’s also been used to describe restoration work at Stearns Square, Pynchon Park, the riverfront, and other landmarks.

Overall, it is used to describe efforts to take something that was once dormant, or underutilized, and bring it back to useful life.

It’s understandable that the phrase would be used in reference to buildings or parks or even vacant lots. But a wall — in this case, the east wall of the Driscoll Building, built in 1894 and on the National Register of Historic Places?

Yes, a wall.

The wall has been there for 125 years or so, and the advertisements for cameras and related equipment that adorned the wall and sold by the company, Bloom’s, which occupied the structure, have been there for nearly 70 years. But they had become faded and easy to overlook.

Now, the wall is impossible to overlook. It features those same ads, carefully restored to what they were in the 1950s, as well as other images depicting people, businesses, products, and culture that help tell the story of Springfield — everything from a Dr. Seuss book to an Indian motocycle to a depiction of Milton Bradley.

In short, the wall is no longer a wall. It’s a piece of art, but it’s more than that. It’s a window to the past and a vibrant, colorful part of the present and future of the city. It’s also an attraction. People stop, they look, they take pictures, and they marvel at what once was — and still is. You don’t often see 50-foot-high ads for camera equipment.

Even more importantly, this wall is another piece of the city that has been activated, or given a new life. With each triumph like this — and it is a triumph — Springfield takes another important step forward in its efforts to become more vibrant and more livable.

BusinessTalk with Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno

By
Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

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

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 125: August 15, 2022

George Interviews Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno

BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien has a lively discussion with Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The two discuss everything from the city’s new parking garage, to COVID-relief efforts, to a number of new developments — in the city’s downtown and its many neighborhoods. It’s all must listening, so join us for BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest  and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

Sponsored by:

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A New Vision Is Emerging for the Eastfield Mall

By
This Google Earth image of the Eastfield Mall shows how, with the closing of its main anchors, its vast parking lots are almost empty.
Features

Thinking Outside the Big Box

This Google Earth image of the Eastfield Mall shows how, with the closing of its main anchors, its vast parking lots are almost empty.

This Google Earth image of the Eastfield Mall shows how, with the closing of its main anchors, its vast parking lots are almost empty.

The emergence of online shopping giants like Amazon and changing shopping patterns have spelled doom for giant retailers while also hastening the demise of indoor shopping malls across the country. The Eastfield Mall in Springfield is part of this trend, and so is the ambitious plan for its next life — as a so-called ‘community within a community.’

Chuck Breidenbach says the term ‘de-malling’ — or the verb ‘de-mall’ — while still not officially in the dictionary, has been part of the business lexicon for quite some time now.

That’s because, ever since they started building large, enclosed shopping malls more than 50 years ago, some have occasionally failed and had to be repurposed. This region has witnessed the phenomenon a few times, starting with the so-called ‘dead mall’ in Hadley, which went silent more than 30 years ago, and the Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, which succumbed at the start of this century.

But the pace of de-malling has picked up in recent years, as everyone knows, thanks to Amazon and other online retailers, as well as changing shopping habits, especially among the younger generations. And with those trends, old shopping malls have found new lives as everything from homeless shelters to apartment complexes to mixed-use facilities blending residential, retail, and entertainment elements.

Which brings us to the Eastfield Mall in Springfield, near the border with Wilbraham. The facility is historic, sort of, because it is the first enclosed mall in the region, opened in the mid-’60s. But it is also typical of recent trends, because most all of its big box stores — Sears, JCPenney, and Macy’s — have closed, leaving hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant retail space looking for a new purpose.

Finding one has been Breidenbach’s day job (or one of them) for some time now, in his role as managing director of MDC Retail Properties Group, a division of New Jersey-based Mountain Development Group, which has owned the mall since 1998.

Mountain Development recently hired the real-estate brokerage firm Cushman and Wakefield to market a joint-venture partnership opportunity for the property’s mixed-use development. The solution taking shape on the drawing board — a work in progress, to be sure — is called Eastfield Commons, a $200 million, mixed-use development that Breidenbach likes to call a “community within a community.”

That’s because it will be just that, a community, a place where — theoretically, but also realistically — if all goes as planned, someone can live, work, shop, eat, take their children to daycare, go to the gym, see a movie, and more, all while walking a few hundred yards at most.

“You want to develop this as a tightly knit, walkable community,” he explained, adding that just what shape this community will take remains to be seen.

At many converted malls, the inclination is to go vertical, with multi-story developments. But at Eastfield, the tact may well be to go horizontal, with one or two levels.

The concept plan taking shape (see rendering on page 8) calls for 450,000 to 500,000 square feet of commercial space (remodeled and new construction) and 23 residential buildings with 12 units each (276 total units). The cinemas will remain, as will the existing food court.

“The idea is to open it up and take it from an enclosed mall to an open-air concept with a lot of public space, a lot of green space … very much the opposite of what you get in an enclosed mall,” he said, adding that this has been the trend nationally, by and large.

“Our vision is to put in a number of restaurants of different types and price points so people have their choice,” he went on. “And to also have some specialty retail, a mix of national and local, so we can give this center its own local flair.”

Flair of any kind has been a missing ingredient at the sprawling site off Boston Road, but as the art and science of mall conversion continues to mature — and Springfield continues its economic recovery — there is considerable optimism that Eastfield can do what it did 50 years ago and get the region buzzing about something new and different.

“The idea is to open it up and take it from an enclosed mall to an open-air concept with a lot of public space, a lot of green space … very much the opposite of what you get in an enclosed mall.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Breidenbach about mall redevelopment in general, and repurposing Eastfield in particular. He noted that, with these projects, the market will dictate what can be done, but imaginative, outside-the-box — or in this case, outside-the-big-box — thinking is always needed.

Setting Sale

Breidenbach has had a long career in retail — long enough to have seen malls come to what amounts to full circle, meaning from being in demand to being in serious decline.

“I’ve seen a lot of things come and go; I’ve lived through the golden years of shopping centers, when you couldn’t put them up fast enough,” he told BusinessWest. “And now, we’re in the gray years of shopping centers, where you can’t redevelop or convert them into something else fast enough.”

The latest cycle — of conversion, or de-malling — began early in this century, he went on, adding that, as was noted earlier, Fairfield Mall, now the site of a Home Depot and other retail outlets, was part of that early wave.

But the pace of conversion really picked up roughly a decade ago, he said, as the Great Recession, coupled with the emergence of online retailers and some changing shopping patterns, took a huge toll on traditional retailers, a trend that continues today.

“There was a change in generations,” he explained. “The Baby Boom generation was and still is, in many ways, a very shopping-oriented culture. The Millennials and Generation-X folks are not.”

Some facilities — Breidenbach calls them super-regional malls, or fortress malls (the Holyoke Mall is one of them) — have been more resilient to the forces of change, because of sheer volume of stores, location (the Holyoke Mall certainly has that), and other factors.

“Holyoke has multiple levels, multiple anchors, parking decks … it’s made to do a massive amount of business,” he explained. “And retailers have pulled back into those fortress malls really as a means of protection.”

Meanwhile, those same retailers are leaving smaller facilities such as Eastfield, he went on, adding that the handwriting was pretty much on the wall for many of these malls years ago. And major real-estate companies, such as the Rouse Co., which developed and owned Eastfield for many years, saw that handwriting and sold off many of those properties.

Today, Eastfield’s huge parking lots fronting Boston Road are barren wastelands. Cars, and not many of them, are clustered near one of the main entrances where a few retailers still do business, such as Old Navy, the 99 Restaurant, O’Donnell’s Restaurant, and others.

Changing this landscape is an involved process, said Breidenbach, adding that, when it comes to how malls are converted these days, it’s generally a function of what the market in question wants, needs, and will support. In other words, while there are models that be studied and perhaps borrowed from, each property is unique, and so is its conversion.

Opened in 1967, Eastfield was the region’s first enclosed mall.

Opened in 1967, Eastfield was the region’s first enclosed mall. Today, it is part of an ongoing trend that is seeing these facilities put to new and imaginative uses.

“Your market studies will lead you to specific strategies and different amounts of space devoted to different types of uses,” he explained. “Those studies will determine how much you need for multi-family rental, multi-family condominium-style properties, retail uses, restaurant uses, entertainment uses, personal services, medical uses, health and fitness — it all depends on what the market will bear, what’s missing in the area, and what people are leaving the area to try and find because they’re dissatisfied with what they get, or it’s not being supplied.

“We have to follow the numbers very closely,” he went on, adding that market studies are followed up with surveys of various constituencies (including residents, small-business owners, and restaurateurs) in the area in question asking people what they want to see and what they’ll come to that location for.

At Eastfield, the emerging solution is a what Breidenbach calls a ‘live, work, play’ atmosphere, one that is seemingly internet-resistant.

This rendering shows the proposed components of Eastfield Commons.

This rendering shows the proposed components of Eastfield Commons.

In other words, one can’t live on the internet, or eat a meal there, or have their haircut there, or take dance lessons there.

And that’s the general idea as one goes about repurposing a mall, he went on, adding that the goal is to create a destination that will hopefully appeal to all generations, but especially those who seem to like this model — empty-nesters and the younger audiences that are less inclined to shop than their parents or grandparents.

“These younger generations would much rather pay for an experience than an expensive pair of jeans,” said Breidenbach, adding that ‘experience’ is a broad term that covers everything from a movie to a meal out to laser tag.

And these sentiments are reflected in some of the statistics relayed to attendees at the latest Shopping Center Convention in Las Vegas, a massive gathering Breidenbach has attended religiously for decades now.

“We heard that restaurant sales in the U.S. had surpassed grocery stores for the first time in history,” he said. “That means more people are eating out — they’re spending their time and money in that direction, as opposed to eating at home and then buying things.”

The Shopping Center Convention, staged annually in May, has seen discussion gravitate in recent years toward the internet and, more specifically, how to survive it, with a big focus being on just what to do with traditional malls, like Eastfield, that have been marginalized (Breidenbach’s word) by the fortress malls and online shopping.

Mixed-use developments — vertical and horizontal alike — have become the answer in many cases, with individual components varying, as stated earlier, with identified need and demand.

Breidenbach believes there will be a need for housing at that site, particularly the multi-family variety, because there haven’t been any new developments of that type in that area in decades, and there is apparent need for such a product.

“We see a huge a huge opportunity there for up-do-date multi-family housing,” he told BusinessWest. “And we also see a need for up-to-date, current retail space, meaning junior anchors, stores up to 20,000 to 25,000 square feet; this is an opportunity to think differently.”

Registering Results

Or to think outside the box — the big box, he said in conclusion.

Such thinking is necessary at Eastfield, a once-vibrant shopping area that has become part of an ongoing trend in this country — one that is seeing the enclosed shopping mall turned into a relative ghost town.

Now, Eastfield wants to be part of another trend — bringing new life to these deserted or nearly deserted areas.

If things go as planned, a property that made some history a half-century ago can make some more.

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

Garvey Associates Helps Clients Navigate a Rapidly Changing Landscape

By
The team at GCAi
Sales and Marketing

Putting the Focus on Innovation

The team at GCAi

The team at GCAi: from left, John Garvey, Quinn Garvey, James Garvey, Mary Shea, and Darcy Fortune.

John Garvey isn’t shy about noting that he never worked for a large ad agency, or a ‘traditional’ ad agency, as he calls them.

In fact, he’s rather proud of that background — as are the rest of the members of the team at the agency he formed more than 30 years ago known as Garvey Communication Associates Inc., who didn’t work for a traditional agency either.

They’re all fond of saying they didn’t follow any model in creating and then shaping the firm known as GCAi, but instead created their own model.

“None of us come from an agency background,” Garvey explained. “So we put this together on our own; we didn’t throw away the book — we just didn’t really know the book was there; so we invented our own book.”

“There’s a lot of misconception out there about how Facebook works, especially with regard to advertising.”

As they talk about this book, the company’s main players — Garvey; his son, James, the social-media marketing analyst; Mary Shea, vice president of Digital Strategy; and Darcy Fortune, digital PR analyst — collectively wear out the word ‘innovation’ as they discuss evolving technology, what the company can do with and for clients with regard to this technology and using it to reach targeted audiences, and, perhaps most importantly, how they do all that.

Indeed, they’ve all become involved with MassChallenge Boston, the group that helps accelerate startups, and they’ve also assisted Valley Venture Mentors (through donations of money and expertise) in its efforts to mentor startups and expand its mission. And such work has fostered a true spirit of innovation within GCAi itself as it partners with clients to help them navigate a changing landscape within marketing and with everything from understanding and maximizing social media to corporate reputation management.

“Innovation is a stick that you have to sharpen continually,” John Garvey explained. “You literally cannot be innovative unless you have your eyes wide open and you’re looking and you’re learning and you’re challenging yourself. Being around startups … that entrepreneurialism, that innovation, is absolutely contagious. So we find ourselves thinking and acting in new and different ways.”

Such an operating mindset is necessary for a marketing firm today, said Shea, because change is constant, it’s coming from every direction, and the pace of change is only accelerating. Also, in this era of conversion, marketing firms are increasingly being judged not on their ability to garner exposure, but on sales generated by a specific campaign or strategy.

Which brings Shea to the subject of data and access to it.

“One of the most profound changes to come to marketing is marketers’ ability to use data,” she said, while summing up how the landscape has been altered by technology and why innovation is important. “It’s a seismic change in terms of our ability to get our work done.”

James Garvey, seen here presenting at a MassChallenge event

James Garvey, seen here presenting at a MassChallenge event, says companies have more access to data than ever before, and they must take full advantage of that opportunity.

Elaborating, she said Google AdWords, Facebook, and other vehicles enable marketers to send specific messages to targeted audiences in ways that simply weren’t possible decades or even a few years ago.

James Garvey agreed.

“It’s a fascinating time to be involved in social-media marketing since Facebook is in the headlines daily,” he told BusinessWest. “There’s a lot of misconception out there about how Facebook works, especially with regard to advertising. We develop messaging for clients, and we use Facebook as a means of delivering the message in a way that people can consume it, but also delivering it directly to the audience we need to reach — meaning very specific groups of people.

“For example, you can reach men or women ages 25 to 35 who live within two miles of downtown Springfield who are interested in home ownership,” he went on while elaborating. “That’s how specific you can get.”

GCAi, which boasts clients across virtually all sectors of the economy, including financial services, healthcare, transportation, and more, is a certified Google Partner (the only firm in the region to gain such status), and its qualified AdWords professionals are independently tested and certified in several different aspects of online advertising each year.

Meanwhile, the company specializes in what it calls the ‘ideation’ approach to working with clients to identify needs and challenges, map out a marketing strategy, and determine the most effective methods of getting a message across.

To explain, Shea and Fortune pointed to the whiteboards on all four walls of the GCAi conference room. Over the course of an ideation session, they will become covered with writing in the form of answers to questions asked and thoughts about what to do, strategically, with that information from a marketing and branding standpoint.

For this issue and its focus on sales and marketing, BusinessWest talked with members of the GCAi team about marketing, technology, and social media — but mostly about innovation, and how it enables the company and its clients to stay on the proverbial cutting edge of progress.

Data Driven

On the day BusinessWest visited GCAi, the whiteboards in the conference room were covered with what amounts to a bullet-pointed chronology of the firm.

Noted milestones included everything from the elder Garvey’s first work in public relations, back in college for the U.S. Youth Games, to the arrival of each staff member (Shea started as an intern in 2004, for example); from the reminder that Garvey needed a loan from his grandmother to stay afloat after the dot-com bubble burst at the start of this century and business dried up, to his self-proclaimed 15 seconds of fame when he captured a dramatic photo of the tornado that tore through downtown Springfield on June 1, 2011, an image that went viral within minutes after it was taken.

“What social-media marketing and Google AdWords has done is essentially democratize the use of data for businesses across the board. So it is a seismic shift. This is profound data; it’s not just likes and clicks.”

Mostly, though, the walls tell the story of a company responding to rapid, constant change in technology, especially within the realm of digital marketing, and using innovation to help clients make sense of it all — not an easy task in any respect — and make the very most of their marketing budgets.

Indeed, the team likes to say that GCAi, unlike many businesses today, has social media figured out, and it has created a niche of sorts as it specializes in helping clients large and small figure social media out and put all that data that is now available to good use.

“There is a lot more data available today, there’s easier access to it, it’s instantaneous, and you can use it quickly and easily to make adjustments to a campaign,” said Shea, adding that, not long ago, companies would have to spend a lot of money to access such information, which essentially limited that access.

“What social-media marketing and Google AdWords has done is essentially democratize the use of data for businesses across the board,” said John Garvey. “So it is a seismic shift. This is profound data; it’s not just likes and clicks.

But having access to data is just part of the equation. Knowing what to do with it and how to present a message to the audience being targeted … that’s the other side. And the team at GCAi has become specialists in such work, handling both aspects of this work — creating content and a message (work that falls more to Fortune and John Garvey), and devising the most efficient, cost-effective means of disseminating it, work assigned to Shea and James Garvey.

And the watchword in all aspects of this work is relevance.

“That’s the church we go to pray at,” said John Garvey, referring to that team. “If the message isn’t relevant, meaning the target audience we spoke of doesn’t react to it in a positive way, find it useful, and find it interesting, then we get penalized as marketers; it’s the modern-day equivalent of hanging up a bad ad that no one gets.”

To keep clients and their messages relevant, the GCAi team focuses on innovation, said Fortune, adding that the company’s involvement with Valley Venture Mentors and MassChallenge has helped it in a number of ways, from getting in touch with what’s happening within specific business sectors to sharpening presentation skills, to mentoring startups on the best ways to reach their audience.

“We sit with them and talk with them for maybe 10 minutes, and you can see the light go off,” said Fortune. “They’re excited to have that tidbit of information from us on how to reach people. And you get to meet people from around the world; it’s very exhilarating.”

John Garvey agreed, and noted, again, that when you hang around entrepreneurs all the time, there is a trickle-down, or rub-off, effect.

“We’re much more attuned to new and different ways of getting results,” he explained. “Our secret sauce is comprised of ingredients like energy, innovation, and ideas, and the cake that we’re trying to make is to create really meaningful and measurable results, and the only way that’s possible is through a continual search of the means and methodologies of these platforms, but also an appetite for data, the ability to digest it, break it up, understand it, and make it relevant to the client.”

James Garvey agreed, and said his technical background — he’s a graduate of BWM of North America’s STEP program and has worked for both BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the Boston and New York City markets — has helped him, and thus the firm, grasp the importance of data and measuring results.

“Having that engineering background, or training, and working with data are very similar,” he explained. “They’re very precise, measurable, and granular.”

Together, those involved with content and those focused on dissemination work together to create an overall strategy, said Shea, adding that, collectively, the team works to find the right channels to get the message across.

“You can’t fit a round peg into a square hole,” she said, adding that each platform, or channel, is different, and it’s critical to devise content that is appropriate for each one and not ease into a one-size-fits-all mentality.

John Garvey agreed. “All those platforms are arrows in our quiver, and Mary and James help us figure out the right means and methodologies to take this to market.”

And finding the right ones is now critical, said James, noting that marketing firms like GCAi are now more accountable, if that’s the proper term, when it comes to sales — or the conversion of leads into sales — than ever before.

“Marketing firms are more responsible further down in the sales funnel than we were even a few years ago,” he explained. “Before, we were measured by our ability to generate top-of-mind awareness; now, our clients hold us responsible for a full and trackable conversion, meaning that we can prove that our campaign led to a particular conversion. That responsibility totally changed.”

The Last Word

There’s been a recent addition to the décor at the GCAi suite of offices in Monarch Place — an old manual Underwood typewriter that the senior Garvey found “somewhere.”

It’s an example of where technology and this industry were a long time ago, said Fortune, and therefore a reminder of how quickly and profoundly things change.

So quickly and profoundly that trying to project a few years, or even a few months, into the future is a largely futile exercise. There’s no better way to explain why an effective marketing firm today must, or should, have an operating philosophy grounded in innovation — in constantly finding new and better ways to do business and help clients succeed.

And there’s no better way to explain why GCAi continues to grow and prosper.

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

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