Page 71 - BusinessWest August 22, 2022

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area business- es and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.
HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT
Anna Sepanek v. John Doe Corp. Allegation: Negligence; slip and fall causing personal injury: $29,095.20+ Filed: 7/26/22
Patti G. Glenn, trustee of the 1234- 1236 Worcester St. Realty Trust v. Ver- mont Mutual Insurance Group Allegation: Breach of contract: $37,827.08
Filed: 7/28/22
Tighe
Continued from page 55
Tristian Anglin v. Brett William and Pete’s Sales & Service d/b/a Pete’s Sweeper Service Inc.
Allegation: Motor-vehicle negligence causing personal injury: $216,776+ Filed: 7/28/22
Tara Lopez v. People’s Dental, P.C. and David Hirsh, M.D., D.D.S.
Allegation: Medical malpractice, negli- gence: $608,851.38
Filed: 7/28/22
Margaree Robinson v. Dine In Group
LLC and Sam’s Food Stores Inc.
Allegation: Negligence causing person- al injury: $109,389.48
Filed: 7/28/22
Martin Lesser, D.O. v. Holyoke Medical Center
Allegation: Employment discrimina- tion: $50,000
Lacrisha Wise v. Stanley J. Paulauskas, F.P.S. Inc., F.P.S. of Northampton Inc., F.P.S. of Sixteen Acres Inc., F.P.S. of Springfield Plaza Inc., F.P.S. of Spring- field Inc., and Burger King Corp. Allegation: Premises liability, negligent supervision, slip and fall
Flint Herold v. Demetrios Venetis, Jef- frey Struck, Hemant V. Ajbani, and Triseptagon LLC f/k/a Alpha Builders d/b/a Sterling Architectural Millwork Allegation: Breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, intentional misrepresentation
Filed: 7/29/22
Filed: 8/4/22
Song Ja No individually and as per-
sonal representative of the estate of Man Yong No v. Fitness First Inc. and Bragaraus LLC
Allegation: Negligence, gross negli- gence, conscious pain and suffering, wrongful death: $1,000,000
Filed: 8/4/22
“Even during the pandemic, though we couldn’t do some
of those things because of the restrictions, we had a num-
ber of our people volunteer in places like food banks and hos- pitals and places that had the most need during that period of time,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the company’s employee-benefit program has seen additions like a paid- time-off donation program, by which employees can donate hours of unused vacation to co-workers for certain per- sonal needs; and a student-
loan repayment benefit through which the company makes a principal payment to an employee’s student loan. “It shows our commitment to importance of education and our commitment to employees,” Belitz said.
Meanwhile, he added, the firm has made further investments in technology, both internally and with tools like drone technology, 3D laser scanning, and enhanced use of GIS. “We think those are things that enhance the client and employee experience.”
The firm has also increased its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through efforts like the Supporting Women at Tighe & Bond Employee Resource Group and a partnership with the National Society for Black Engineers, which includes two scholarships for students in the engineering field; both efforts aim to increase the diversity of the firm’s talent pipeline.
All these efforts create an environment where peo- ple want to work, Belitz said.
“One area that’s super important for us is our employee ownership and the fact that, even in a cli- mate today where there’s a lot of consolidation and a lot of influence of equity investment in engineering and architecture firms, we’re remaining committed to our employee ownership model,” he added.
“That, combined with the fact that we have all our offices within the Northeast, is a very good model
for us to keep growing, but to grow in a manageable way. Growth creates opportunity for our people, and I think we’ve got a nice growth model in place.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
resulting in personal injury: $38,824.29
Filed: 8/1/22
Court Dockets
Patricia Biela v. Sentry
Uniform Inc., Michael O’Leary, Eileen Pare, and Kyle Pare
Allegation: Minority shareholder’s suit: $850,000
Filed: 8/2/22
Samuel Cartagena v. City of Holyoke Allegation: Tortious action involving municipality: $12,674.68
Filed: 8/3/22
ican Council of Engineering Companies of Connecti- cut honored the project team’s designs with the 2022 Grand Award for Engineering Excellence.
Meanwhile, Belitz said, “one of the emerging regu- latory drivers is what’s called lead service line require- ments, which are requirements for communities to do inventories and replacement plants for the lead service lines. We also do a lot of brownfields cleanup, and that’s been a very significant piece of our growth over the past two to three years, and another example of our well-rounded services.”
Working on the Pipeline
Asked how Tighe & Bond continues to grow its workforce at a time when companies of all kinds are struggling with finding and retaining talent, Belitz said it’s a multi-layered strategy.
“I’m not sure a day goes by when we don’t talk about our hiring and attraction of talent. We’ve beefed up our talent-acquisition function here at the firm to continue to identify and attract candidates to the firm. And once we get candidates to join us, we’ve always done a really good job of investing in their development, in order to retain our latest employees.”
He said the firm’s “very robust” onboarding and training program consists of not only leadership training, but anything people need to do their jobs: project management, quality management, safety and health principles, and more. “We’ve made a very big investment in that area just because we’ve had to, given our growth. We’ve kind of branded it internally as Tighe & Bond University, where new folks come in and meet with their supervisor and figure out what sorts of training they need to be effective in their jobs, and we think that’s key to a successful onboarding.”
Tighe & Bond has purposefully cultivated a cul- ture of mentorship and teamwork as well, particu- larly between the older and younger generations of engineers.
“One of the nice things that we hear all the time from people in our organization is they get to work on all different kinds of projects,” Belitz said. “The other thing we’ve always done, but have made fur- ther investments in, is the ability to work seamlessly across all of our offices. All our offices are fitted with collaboration tools and the technology that people need to work together, and to complement that, we assign people to them when they join the firm so they can get that initial mentoring and that on-the-job
Tighe & Bond recently worked with the town of Southington, Conn. to upgrade its water-pollution control facility.
(Photo by Tighe & Bond)
training that is so important to their success.” The firm adopted a hybrid work model during
the pandemic that has continued to be effective, he added. “We think that allows our people not only
to have some of the work-life balance and work-life integration objectives they’ve always had, but it still affords us ample opportunities to collaborate on proj- ects and have that on-the-job mentoring and train- ing. That’s how we’ve approached the pandemic, with a pretty big investment in technology to make sure that happens.
“From the outset of the pandemic, we were very intentional about saying our main goals are to look after the safety and health of our people, to protect the jobs of our people, and also to maintain our employee benefits,” he went on. “There was a lot of uncertainty at the time. We had some sectors that slowed down for a short period of time, but we had others that ramped up, and now I think some of those sectors that have slowed down have come out of the pandemic ready to work with Tighe & Bond on even more projects.”
Building a Culture
Belitz said Tighe & Bond’s leadership is proud of the firm’s culture, which includes elements like the Make a Difference program, which affords employees time to give back to their communities through ser- vice projects with local nonprofits.
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