Page 34 - BusinessWest July 7, 2021

Shoebox Greetings
Suzanne Murphy Leads UTCA to Continued Growth, Influence
BAy George O’Brien
s she looked back on 30 years in busi- ness — and a very different kind
of business, to be sure — Suzanne
Murphy retold a story she’s recounted prob- ably hundreds of times.
It concerns the conversation one of her clients had with the firm it was leaving to start doing business with Murphy’s Unemployment Tax Control Associates (UTCA) — as related by that client.
“From all we’ve heard, the governor and the Legislature have no intention of revisiting this matter, and I think that’s very shortsighted.”
“He said, ‘I just got off the phone with our cur- rent vendor, and I told them I was moving my business to your company — and they laughed and said, ‘that’s a little shoebox out in Western Mass.,’’” Murphy recalled, adding that the impli- cation was clear — that those in this region are
not on the cutting edge in this realm. “He then said, ‘I was sure to tell them that this was one highly organized, very effective shoebox, and that’s where I was taking my business. And I also told them to think about those kinds of com- ments and how they land out in Western Mass.’”
Murphy said those remarks, which date back to the early days of her venture, and especially those referring to the size of her company and its mailing address, have stuck with her all these years, especially as she continues to add clients — and employees — from across the country.
Indeed, no one is laughing at this not-so-little shoebox anymore — although UTCA is still rath- er small when compared to some of the giants that also handle unemployment matters for busi- nesses, although they do it as one of myriad ser- vices rather than focusing energies on that one area (we’ll get to all that later). In fact, UTCA has emerged as a regional and national leader in this realm.
And most of the reason why is its founder, a thoughtful, enterprising entrepreneur who sat down with BusinessWest recently to talk about everything from her business and how it has evolved to the future of work and where it’s con- ducted in the wake of the pandemic, to the state’s recent decision not to use some of the $5 billion in federal stimulus money coming its way to help
Suzanne Murphy has put UTCA on a path to continued growth and influence — in this region and well beyond.
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34 JULY 7, 2021
EDUCATION
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