Lt. Governor Driscoll discusses future of Mass. with business leaders at Elms College
Tuesday morning, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll visited Elms College in Chicopee to discuss her vision for western Massachusetts and the rest of the Commonwealth for the coming months. Elms College once again welcomed western Mass. business leaders to discuss how to properly move forward for the year. It was for the 6th Annual Executive Leadership…
Thomas Meshako Takes the Helm at Greenfield Savings Bank
Putting the Focus on Community Thomas Meshako acknowledged it was a quite a change moving from the large, regional institutions where he worked the first 30 or so years of his career in financial services to Greenfield Savings Bank. But it’s a change he wanted. “I decided I wanted to get out of the buying…
Girls Inc. providing free programming this summer
Girls Inc. is providing free programming for young girls this summer right here in the pioneer valley. This summer, the organization wants to make sure that every child is able to afford summer camp experiences. Girls Inc. of the Valley serves youth ages 5-18 from the greater Holyoke, Springfield, and Chicopee areas. Suzanne Parker, the…
Boston Fed president visits Western Mass. for first-hand look at economic challenges, opportunities
Working Cities Challenge team focuses on supporting families, students Collins met with Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and West Springfield Mayor William Reichelt Thursday morning. Then, she joined Springfield WORKS for a roundtable discussion on local economic issues. Springfield WORKS is a workforce development effort that began through the Boston Fed’s Working Cities Challenge, part…
Big Y opens first Express Fresh Market at Tower Square
It’s taken several years for the Springfield-based supermarket giant to devise a plan and location for its first small-scale market, according to Colin D’Amour, senior director of Big Y Express, but that time has come. The official opening of the market in the former CVS location at Tower Square was conducted on June 15. The…
MassHire Hampden County awarded $4M to find more than 1,000 youth jobs
The Healey-Driscoll Administration is awarding $34.4 million in state funding grants to support the hiring of 7,655 youth in summer and year-round employment. Of that total, MassHire Hampden County Workforce Board, Inc. was awarded $4,000,240 to hire 1,023 youth. The YouthWorks program provides teens and young adults with hands-on work experience and soft-skill development in…
Springfield Program Strives to Take Dining Option to the Next Level
The Great Outdoors 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…
BusinessTalk with Nicole Polite, CEO and Founder of MH Group
It’s an interesting time, to say the least, in the world of employment and staffing, amid a shortage of talent in many industries and tidal changes in the way people work. Amid all of this, Nicole Polite has built a model at her staffing and recruiting firm, the MH Group, that aims to meet the…
MCLA Receives $1 Million from Executive Office of Health and Human Services
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) awarded Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) $1 million to fund the college’s new bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program. The grant will support the first two years of the program by supplementing its curriculum development and funding the cost of a simulation lab…
Boston Fed chief Susan M. Collins, the goal is to have no one fretting about inflation
The Federal Reserve’s goal, says Susan M. Collins, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, is an economy where no one is thinking about inflation. That’s not the case yet. “Everybody’s thinking about inflation,” Collins said Thursday at a meeting with 18 business and civic leaders convened in Springfield by the Economic…
Western Mass. towns get EPA brownfields cleanup funds
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded 14 communities in Massachusetts to receive grants totaling $8,740,000 in competitive EPA Brownfields funding, including several in western Massachusetts. The money comes from the EPA’s Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (MARC) Grant programs. The effort is part of the Biden administration’s effort to rebuild the…
Franklin County Thrives Through Connection
Northern Exposure Rechtschaffen cited draws like the county’s outdoor recreation experiences and attractions like Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls and Poet’s Seat Tower in Greenfield, but said tourists find much more. “People come for these beautiful experiences, and they’re also finding other cool stuff, from whitewater rafting to restaurants. So the challenge is to…