The Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts has received a $10,000 grant from the TD Charitable Foundation in support of On Your Own: Financial Literary for Girls. The grant will provide a free badge program to all Girl Scouts designed to empower them to control their financial futures.
All participants complete age-appropriate activities to gain real-world money management skills. Girl Scouts develop leadership skills and self-esteem as they build a greater understanding of becoming responsible consumers, creating and living by a budget, building and managing credit, increasing their income, and saving and investing for whatever’s next.
On Your Own: Financial Literacy for Girls is available to all members in grades K through 12. Not a current member? Learn more and sign up at www.gscwm.org.
Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts serves nearly 5,000 girls in grades K-12 with the strong support of over 3,000 adult volunteers in 186 towns and cities in central and western Massachusetts.
NORTHAMPTON — Attorney Lisa L. Halbert has joined the Northampton office of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy, P.C., of Springfield.
Halbert brings over 30 years of experience in representing clients throughout western Massachusetts. She has an extensive background in elder law and estate planning; estate and trust administration (including estate tax return preparation); special needs trusts; asset protection planning; residential real estate; and preparation of personal and fiduciary income tax returns.
Halbert is available to assist clients in Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties. Since 2016, she has served on the board of directors for Lathrop Community located in Easthampton and Northampton, and currently serves as its secretary. She is a member of the National and Massachusetts Associations of Elder Law Attorneys, the Massachusetts Bar Association, Hampshire County Bar Association, and the Pioneer Valley Estate Planning Council.
HADLEY — HadLeaf Holistic Greens Dispensary, which opened in September at 251 Russell St., is getting all of its power needs through renewable energy. The business is receiving all of its electricity from area solar farms via Eversource.
Compliance Manager Matt McTeague said HadLeaf is taking advantage of Community Solar, a Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources program that connects electricity users with solar farms that already exist. These farms, all in Massachusetts, are looking for customers to avail themselves of the uncommitted energy they are producing. The program features a 10% reduction in the monthly cost of the electricity.
HadLeaf is one of the first cannabis dispensaries in western Massachusetts to take advantage of the Community Solar program.
EASTHAMPTON — bankESB has announced four recent promotions: Shelley Bongiovanni to underwriting officer; Devon Bunger to closing and post-closing officer; Bryan Fleury to secondary and system support officer; and Madison Kinney to assistant branch manager, Amherst office. Bongiovanni, Bunger, and Fleury’s promotions coincide with the launch of Hometown Mortgage, the newly formed residential lending division of bankESB.
Bongiovanni, of Easthampton, joined bankESB in 2013 as loan specialist/underwriter and was promoted to senior loan specialist and underwriter in 2020. She is responsible for underwriting and approving loans, mentoring and training new underwriters, and monitoring construction loans through the disbursement phase at Hometown Mortgage. Bongiovanni has 26 years of experience in the banking industry and holds an associate degree in business administration from Holyoke Community College.
Bunger, of Belchertown, joined bankESB in 2018 as disclosure desk specialist/closer. As closing and post-closing officer, she is responsible for managing the daily operations of the residential lending closing and post-closing/funding department at Hometown Mortgage. Before joining bankESB, Bunger was employed by Dwyer & Sanderson as a real estate paralegal, Florence Bank as a loan closer, and Greenfield Savings Bank as a post-closing quality control specialist.
Fleury, of South Hadley, joined bankESB in 2013 as loan processor and was promoted to mortgage systems administrator and then secondary/post-closing manager. In his new role as secondary and system support officer, Fleury is responsible for supporting the secondary market and all lending software at Hometown Mortgage. Fleury holds an associate degree in business administration from Holyoke Community College and is the president of the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials Board 28.
Kinney, of Northampton, joined bankESB in 2017 as a teller and most recently held the title of teller supervisor. In her role as assistant branch manager, Kinney is responsible for assisting with overall branch management of bankESB’s Amherst office, as well as applications for consumer and home equity loans, and the employee hiring process. Kinney holds a certificate in Human Resources from the Center for Financial Training.
AMHERST — The Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been named the world’s top-ranked postgraduate sport management program by SportBusiness magazine, which has compiled and published its global rankings for the past 11 years.
McCormack offers both a two-year Master in Business Administration and Master of Science in sport management dual degree and a one-year Master of Science in sport management. The department returns to the top of the overall global rankings for the first time since 2019.
Student feedback is one of the primary metrics in the rankings. Annual initiatives like the Graduate Mentor Program (in which every graduate student is provided a year-long industry mentor), frequent professional development trips, and many hands-on experiential learning–based projects with industry clients help ensure a positive response from the students who participate in SportBusiness’s annual survey.
In addition to the global recognition, the surveys ranked McCormack as the top sport management postgraduate program in North America, and as graduates’ top choice.
SPRINGFIELD — A new initiative to promote the development of a diverse cybersecurity workforce and improve local cyber resiliency in the commonwealth will bring nearly $1.5 million to Springfield. The award was recently announced by the Baker-Polito administration, the MassCyberCenter and Congressman Richard E. Neal at the MassTech Collaborative.
The funding will allow Springfield Technical Community College to establish a security operation center at Springfield Union Station that will provide threat monitoring and other cybersecurity services for commonwealth municipalities and small business/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 available to local companies, universities and other cyber-focused organizations.
The facility will be overseen by a Steering Committee of public, private, and academic stakeholders, which will include the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA), the owners of Union Station.
The project will serve western Massachusetts and beyond. STCC will staff and operate the facility in partnership with a consortia of area higher education institutions, including UMass Amherst, 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.
HOLYOKE — For the second year in a row, Holyoke Community College has been named one of the top women-led businesses in Massachusetts by the Boston Globe Magazine and The Women’s Edge, formerly the Commonwealth Institute, a nonprofit that supports top female executives.
HCC and its president, Christina Royal, were ranked number 61. Jeffrey Hayden, HCC’s vice president of Business and Community Services, nominated HCC and President Royal for the award.
Royal has been the president of HCC since January 2017. She is the fourth president in HCC’s 75-year history and the first woman to hold that office. In August, she announced that she will retire from HCC after the 2022-2023 academic year.
Also making the Top 100 list at number 59 was HCC alum and Westfield-native Linda Markham ‘83, president of Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines, based in Hyannis, Mass.
To compile the list, The Women’s Edge examined revenue or operating budgets for each organization as well as other variables, including number of full-time employees in the state, workplace and management diversity, and innovative projects.
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