“Successful economic development is about working to provide businesses with the resources they need to be competitive, fostering the education and growth of our workforce, and reducing the cost of doing business – all while being a good partner to communities and the environment.
Big Y has gone to the city with plans for an e-commerce grocery delivery and online-order pickup hub at its store on Memorial Drive. Claire D’Amour-Daley, the company’s vice president for corporate communications, said Monday the new facility is something Big Y is considering, but has not yet fully committed to doing. "If we do explore e-commerce," she said. "We have Instacart right now. But if we do something further, Chicopee makes sense."
Eighteen employees from four different area hotels competed last month in a friendly, Chopped-style culinary competition at the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute designed to enhance their professional development. The participants, all management-level employees from the BK Investment Hotel Group, took part in a new one-day, four-hour program called “Team Building Through Culinary,” offered by Training and Workforce Options (TWO), a collaboration between Springfield Technical Community College and Holyoke Community College.
Finding the right candidate for a job can be a difficult task. In the tech industry, finding someone who not only has the technical skills, but also the right personality for the position, is especially challenging. That’s why FIT Staffing was established — to help companies find the right people to fill these positions, and keep them for the long haul.
Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) plans to open a mobile lab on campus to meet a demand in the construction industry for trained asphalt technicians and inspectors. Students will train in the mobile lab as they pursue certification as hot-mix asphalt plant technicians and hot-mix asphalt paving inspectors. The jet-black lab, which resembles a boxcar without wheels, is located next to a civil engineering technology classroom on the STCC campus. The college plans to offer courses in 2020. The program is designed for students without prior asphalt training
Judy Matt had been tracking the results daily, almost hourly, and then … she couldn’t any longer. So, she’ll have to wait, like everyone else, to see how Bright Nights at Forest Park fares in this year’s USA Today competition to determine the top 10 holiday lighting shows in the country. When she was last able to check the tabulations before the magazine stopped running a count — presumably to build suspense for the Dec. 13 announcement regarding this and some other contests — Matt noted that Bright Nights was running fourth, behind such vaunted displays as the Legendary Lights ...
Westmass Area Development Corp. announced the opening of its new corporate offices in downtown Springfield. Located at One Monarch Place, Suite 1350, the new offices will host all corporate functions of Westmass with capacity to continue regional awareness and growth. The new office location will enable Westmass to continue to brand itself as a regional development company focusing on opportunities in real estate and economic development in Western Mass.
There was a warm, flickering glow Friday when lab technicians dimmed the lights in a burn room at the new Yankee Candle research and development laboratory. After all, there were about 1,000 candles burning, all lined up on stainless-steel lab benches under the latest in climate-control and fire-suppression technology.
Are you ready to become a certified project-management professional (PMP)? Forbes.com lists a PMP certificate as the second-highest-paying IT certification for 2019, and the Project Management Institute (PMI) states that, through 2020, 1.57 million new project-management jobs will be created each year. To help prepare community members to begin the certification process, Bay Path University’s Strategic Alliances division is hosting a three-day workshop on Jan. 6-8 that will prepare participants to take the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) Exam.
Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) Berkshire County is holding an All Ideas Pitch Contest on Wednesday, Feb. 5. The program will be held at the Green at 85 Main St., Suite 105, North Adams from 6 to 8 p.m. EforAll’s first Pitch Contest at the Berkshire Museum in October created a lot of community buzz, with more than 100 attendees and 11 companies competing. The big winner that night was Kaitlyn Pierce of Binka Bear.
The offices have been moved, the child care center is open, and now members can get in shape at the new YMCA of Greater Springfield’s Fitness Center at Tower Square. A ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration was held Thursday, with employees eagerly showing off the shiny new exercise machines and workout space.
Barry Kriger, who has brought the news to WWLP-TV, Channel 22, viewers for nearly four decades, announced his retirement during Thursday evening’s broadcast. At the close of the 6 p.m. news broadcast, Kriger, 69, revealed to Western Massachusetts viewers that he will be stepping down in two weeks. “It’s time for the next chapter. Two weeks from tonight I will be stepping away from the anchor desk,” Kriger announced. “I am not planning to leave the place and the people I love here in Western Massachusetts — my extended family, which is you.”
American Outdoor Brands, the parent company — for now — of Smith & Wesson, reported a $5.2 million profit for its most recent quarter. That works out to 9 cents a share, coming in higher than the 7 cent projection most analysts arrived at prior to the announcement. Profits in the comparable quarter last year were $11 million, or 20 cents per diluted share.
The College of Our Lady of the Elms has hired Sister Deirdre Griffin, SSJ, as its director of International Programs. Griffin will be responsible for supporting the college’s international students, growing traditional and faculty-led study abroad programs, and developing a community of global learning that celebrates diverse cultures and explores current issues.
When the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) launched nonstop flights on Frontier Airlines from Bradley International Airport to Miami on Nov. 14, it marked yet another success in the airport’s goal of expanding destinations for customers, particularly budget, non-stop flights.
Trinity Health Of New England Medical Group-Springfield has achieved Gold Status recognition from the American Heart and American Medical associations for achieving blood pressure control rates of 70 percent or more in the group’s adult patient population with high blood pressure.
AAA Pioneer Valley has bought the assets of Tierney Insurance Agency Inc. Pioneer Valley Auto Club Insurance Agency Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Automobile Club of Pioneer Valley Inc., also known as AAA Pioneer Valley, announced the deal Wednesday. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Problems experienced Wednesday by 40-year-old Orange Line trains are completely unrelated to the new Springfield-built cars meant to replace them, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority General Manager Steve Poftak will give an update Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. at Downtown Crossing Station.
The Young Professional Society of Greater Springfield (YPS) will hold its third annual Santacon in downtown Springfield on Friday, Dec. 6 from 4 to 11 p.m. This year’s event will begin with a bar crawl down Worthington Street where guests can show off their holiday costume best before jingling and jangling down Main Street to catch a Springfield Thunderbirds game. Santacon will wrap up at Nadim’s Mediterranean Restaurant after the game. “We are excited to kick off the holiday season with our Springfield Santacon,” YPS president Amie Miarecki said. “This event is unique in that it brings ...
The Hartford Line commuter rail service attracted record ridership during Thanksgiving weekend, the Connecticut Department of Transportation announced Tuesday. CTDOT said it ran extra CTrail Hartford Line trains on Nov. 26, Nov. 27 and Dec. 1. The commuter rail line serves communities between New Haven and Springfield including Hartford.
Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who tells America about its past, came to his alma mater Tuesday to talk about what he sees as a bright future for Hampshire College. “Even though I am a historian, I am a futurist in this role,” said Burns, who graduated in 1975 and whose thesis was a documentary about Old Sturbridge Village. “I’m optimistic.”
Dr. Simon Ahtaridis has been named chief medical officer of Holyoke Medical Center. Ahtaridis, who earlier in his career served in that position at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, has been national clinical advisor-chief medical officer for Sound Advisory Services where he oversaw the overall clinical performance of onsite and remote advisory services for that health care organization.
Florence Bank was recently recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as the Western Massachusetts Third Party Lender of the Year for loans the bank administers to small businesses in the area. Michael Davey and Erin Couture, both vice presidents and commercial loan officers with the bank, accepted the award on Nov. 8 at an event held during SBA’s annual meeting at Clark University in Worcester. Davey explained that third-party loans, called SBA 504 loans, are offered by the bank in collaboration with certified development corporations such as Granite State Development Corp., Bay Colony Development Corp., and ...
Union Station, the Springfield Public Schools and iHeartMedia are working together to make sure the main concourse at the transportation hub is filled with the sounds of the season. The five-day music series begins in front of the Christmas tree on Monday, Dec. 16, at noon with a performance by the students from The Warner School and concludes Friday, Dec. 20, with a two-hour evening concert courtesy of West Mass Brass .