Final Weeks for Governor Patrick to be Marked by Wind Energy Auction

  By , ,

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is not resting on his laurels for his final weeks in the corner office. On the contrary, he is advocating for a large auction for offshore wind development.

Patrick has reportedly told public relations executive Helene Solomon that the federal government would be auctioning off a substantial area south of Martha’s Vineyard. Once developed, this location could potentially provide power to as much as 60 percent of Massachusetts homes.

Along with federal officials Sally Jewell and Walter Cruickshank, Secretary of the Interor and Acting Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, respectively, Patrick announced in June that there will be approximately 742,000 acres off the shore of Massachusetts that could be up for lease for commercial wind energy use. This is expected to be one of the largest offshore wind projects in federal waters.

Massachusetts Environmental Affairs Secretary Maeve Vallely Bartlett has recommended that the federal agency lower the minimum bid from $2.00 per acre of the tract to just $1.00 because these areas are quite large and quite deep, which could be a deterrent to developers. She has also recommended other cost savings, such as lowered rent and fees for operating the site.

Support of wind energy projects such as this one is not new for Patrick, who also supported the Cape Wind energy project that was planned for an area in the waters of Nantucket Sound. Unfortunately, that project, while still ongoing, still faces opposition and has not gained much traction.

Eight Tips About Holiday Networking

  By , ,

As the holiday season approaches, professional holiday parties will also begin sprouting up. This is the perfect time to begin perfect your networking skill set.

Here are a few ways in which you can master holiday networking and take new connections with you into the new year!

 

17737-business-man-hand-pv1. Go empty-handed. Your hands need to be free for handing out business cards, taking down notes and phone numbers, and shaking hands. Leave your cell phone, coat, and brief case somewhere else.

Office+Mate+Wall+Clock2. Arrive early. The earlier you can communicate with people, the better. Keep in mind that people don’t want to talk business when that’s all they’ve been doing for the past few hours.

free_corporate_business_card_3_by_pixeden-d45d0ua3. Remember your business cards. There’s no reason not to have a stack of business cards on hand at a networking event. Don’t forget them.

2722635443_177dae870b_b4. Keep the name badge to your right side. Because you will likely shake hands with your right hand at all times, you want your badge to stay on that side. It will be more noticeable when you extend your hand!

8220357873_2f0af0ce6d_z5. Don’t stay with the same people. No matter how intense or interesting the conversation is, move on to new people every so often.

6970660314_f9a835f9f0_b6. Stay interested. Rather than spending your time answering questions, try asking them. Maintain eye contact and don’t let your eyes wander around the room during a conversation.

326205483_138ba5f747_z7. Lay off the alcohol consumption. It might seem obvious, but keep the drinking to a minimum. Even though alcohol might be present at the party, you must still remember you’re making a lasting impression on many of the people there. Avoid drinking altogether, but if you must do so, alternate water or other non-alcoholic beverages between drinks.

Cisco_phone8. Follow up! What’s the sense in going to a holiday business party if you don’t follow up? Catch up with your new connections on LinkedIn or shoot them an email within two days after the party.

Above all, remember to have fun at your holiday event! If you’re having fun, the chances are high that other people are too.

Shire Moving Headquarters to Lexington

  By ,

Pharmaceutical company Shire, PLC says its plans to make Lexington, Massachusetts its U.S. operational headquarters and will begin the transfer of more than 500 jobs there from its Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania, site.

The drugmaker is headquartered on the British island of Jersey and currently has about 5,000 employees around the world, including 1,300 in Lexington and about 970 in Chesterbrook.

Shire said Wednesday that the transition is part of a larger effort to increase efficiency and streamline its business globally through two principal locations – Massachusetts and Switzerland – with support from a number of regional and country-based offices around the world.

According to company representatives, condensing operations into two principle locations will save $25 million annually and is expected to strengthen collaboration and research. Shire plans to move the employees in several phases, beginning in the first quarter of 2015 and projecting completion by the first quarter of 2016. Employees who are directly impacted but do not relocate will be offered severance, outplacement service and other employee assistance.

James Bowling, interim chief financial officer, will leave the company in February and Jeff Poulton, its head of investor relations, will assume the role of interim CFO in January.

Shares of Shire traded in the U.S. slipped $1.22 to $208.78 in afternoon trading, in line with broader market activity.

Great Wolf Water Park May Lose $17M in Tax Incentives

  By ,

The possibility of rescinding a $17.2 million tax incentive package on a deal with Great Wolf Resorts is now being considered by Massachusetts’ Economic Assistance Coordinating Council (EACC) after it was discovered that the company selected subcontractors who didn’t use union labor for their water park’s  recently-completed renovation. The resort opened in Fitchburg earlier this year.

After purchasing the former Holiday Inn in Fitchburg for $66 million, Great Wolf began construction on its water park. Last March, the company was awarded $16.5 million by the EACC in municipal property tax credits, along with an additional $700,000 for related issues.

However, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters had previously complained during construction of the subcontractors using non-union laborers who were not covered by workmen’s compensation, a violation of Massachusetts state law. The union was able to obtain a brief stop-work order, but the project was completed and the facility opened its doors this past spring.

The union’s main argument is that since the company was in violation of state law prior to the awarding of the multi-million dollar tax package, the tax breaks earned by the company should be voided.

The furor has caused the EACC to create a special subcommittee to focus specifically on this controversial conflict. That subcommittee met last Tuesday to see if the tax credits should be taken away, as well as exploring whether or not state oversight of such programs should be revamped. They will then offer a recommendation to the full committee, which reconvenes on December 17.

In previous cases asking for revocation of tax credits, the issue has usually been not reaching agreed-upon job targets. The EACC’s out-of-the-ordinary move raises the possibility that they might indeed take away the company’s credits.

When asked for comment, Great Wolf says that they spend approximately $6 million with subcontractors in the state each year. They also pointed out that they employ roughly 200 full-time staffers at the resort as well as 300 on a part-time basis.

THE CHALLENGE: Keeping Our Graduates Closer to Home

  By

The dearth of graduates from Worcester-based colleges who remain in the area recently served as the main topic of the day for the Worcester Regional Research Bureau at Assumption College.

Hosting a panel discussion entitled, “Degrees of Separation: Retaining College Graduates in Greater Worcester,” the group looked at the results of a survey from graduates of the Class of 2014 that offered discouraging results about keeping graduates in the area.

Just 18 percent of those graduates said they planned to live in Worcester, the second lowest percentage mentioned, coming just ahead of the 15 percent who stated they would reside elsewhere in the region. Central Massachusetts was the choice of 33 percent, while the metro Boston area was the option for 23 percent of the graduates.

Students have negative perceptions toward Worcester with regard to potential job opportunities, along with not seeing it as a somewhere they want to live. Others simply noted an interest in being closer to family and friends, so the panel focused on the first two issues.

The Director of Career Development at Assumption College, Nikki DiOrio, felt that a lack of information about the companies in Greater Worcester might be part of the problem, suggesting that engaging students regarding opportunities as well as offering internships would be a step in the right direction.

Another action taken within the past year has been the work of area schools’ career services professionals. A new committee that was established has made a greater effort to have businesses and students connect with each other.

Another panelist, Assumption graduate Nicholas Guerra, noted how his internship with Rep. James McGovern eventually developed into a full-time job as a McGovern aide. Guerra, who was joined on the panel by UMass Memorial Medical Center CEO Patrick Muldoon, believes that better marketing of the area will contribute to greater success, citing the area’s bustling nightlife.

Aaron Portnoy to Speak at Worcester Economic Club

  By

World-renowned computer security expert Aaron Portnoy will be the featured speaker at the Worcester Economic Club’s 533rd meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, November 19th, 2014 at the Hogan Campus Center at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Portnoy graced the July 21, 2014 cover of TIME Magazine’s “World War Zero: How Hackers Fight to Steal Your Secrets.”

Portnoy, vice-president and co-founder of Exodus Intelligence, started on his career path while still in high school; he successfully hacked the network of his school, the Massachusetts Academy of Math & Science in Worcester. Today, rather than using his prodigious skills to disrupt and cause mischief, he now uses his expertise to do good as one of the world’s foremost experts in reverse engineering for vulnerability discovery, and has identified major vulnerabilities in the systems of multiple institutions.

Attendance for this event is restricted to club members and special pass holders. The annual membership fee is $200 and single-event special passes are $75. (Supply of special passes for this event is extremely limited.)  Both can be purchased here.

About the Worcester Economic Club

Founded in 1903, The Worcester Economic Club remains one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind in the country. Comprised of professional men and women from the Worcester County area, we are dedicated to providing a forum for the open discussion of economic, civic, educational, and sociological subjects that are of interest to our members. Membership in the Worcester Economic Club is $200 per year with guaranteed access to all events and speakers hosted by the Club. All meetings are networking opportunities with a cocktail hour and formal dinner followed by a speaker. Speakers have included well known public officials, economists, educators, journalists, and business leaders. For more information visit their website.

 

Clark University Receives $542K in NASA Grants

  By

Clark University will receive $542,098 in grants from the National Atmospheric and Space Administration (NASA) to explore the carbon uptake and release in forests across the United States. The recipient is Christopher A. Williams, an associate professor in Clark’s Graduate School of Geography.

Williams is the head of a research team that received a previous grant from NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CSM) to study how much carbon U.S. forests release and absorb.  The team will use new remote-sensing products to document these carbon exchanges.

Williams is working with another research team that received a previous NASA grant to study forests in the Southeast U.S. Clark reported that this team is studying forest dynamics and will issue the information from the study to be used along with data collected from agricultural, transportation and energy sectors.

The CSM study will use the new remote-sensing products to study forest carbon absorption and release across the U.S. on regional and national levels. This study will use a reporting framework to forecast the carbon balance in forests after experiencing destructive scenarios, like forest fires and logging.

These studies help to determine how much carbon a forest releases into the atmosphere. Williams explained that when harvested or burned, the carbon a forest releases oxidizes with air and turns into carbon dioxide, a contributor to global warming. According to Clark, the clearing of forests has released about one-third of the carbon emissions caused by humans, with two-thirds resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels.

New Wristband Claims to Shock Users Out of Bad Habits

  By ,

A company in Boston called Behavioral Technology Group has created a wristband called Pavlok that shocks people with 340 volts of electric current. After putting the product on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo, the company has raised three times the amount of their original goal of $50,000.

That’s largely because the company claims the wristband will help people break bad habits. Co-founder Maneesh Sethi explains during the promotional video created for Indiegogo, “Now I know that electric shock sounds crazy, but sometimes crazy works.”

The campaign garnered enough attention that more than 1,000 funders have pledged money to help fund the product. With their goal met, the company plans to start shipping the wristbands in March or April, 2015. The electric bands will retail for about $150, but they are being offered for $99 on the Indiegogo campaign page.

Sethi was inspired by the idea that led to Pavlok when he observed the Pavlovian impact of shock collars on dogs. The effectiveness of the wristband on humans, however may vary widely depending on the user, user’s bad habits, and the level of addiction.

In the medical journal Frontier, a 2012 research article addressed Pavlovian responses in humans. “The mechanisms modulating the impact of Pavlovian responses on instrumental [habitual and goal-directed] performance are largely unknown, both in human and non-human animals.”

In the Indiegogo video, a man who has tested the Pavlok wristband states that he lost seven pounds after using the band for approximately two months. He does not reveal specifically how the wristband helped him achieve that goal.

Sethi, who is backed by an undisclosed number of investors, says that when wearers begin to go back to bad habits, “Pavlok jolts them out of it.”

Pavlok’s Indiegogo campaign ends Nov. 29.

UMMS Receives Grant of $7.5M to Fight Ebola

  By

In an effort to help fight the spread of Ebola, The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) announced last Thursday that it received an award of $7.5 million to provide much needed resources to fight Ebola in Liberia. The generous endowment will help provide immediate assistance to the West African country by supplying disaster relief and management teams, disease specialists and physicians.

UMMS currently has existing programs that provide training, education and medical supplies to Liberia. With this new grant, it will expand and help to further the institutions objectives and ongoing efforts for much needed health care services for Liberian citizens. Since the crisis began, UMMS and their clinical partners UMass Memorial Health Care, have managed to send two shipments to West Africa of personal protection equipment that they managed to collect in response to this serious outbreak.

Faculty members of UMMS applied for this grant through the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation who had already donated $100 million to the Tackle Ebola non-profit campaign recently. The funding is desperately needed and will provide for proper training, larger facilities and medical personnel that can respond adequately to this epidemic. The relief efforts will be directed and overseen by associate professor of pediatrics, Dr. Patricia McQuilkin, and Dr. Michelle Niescierenko, an emergency pediatrician and a director at Boston Children’s Hospital for the Global Health Program.

Through a collaboration of efforts from institutions like UMMS, non-governmental organizations and other partnerships, the resources needed to combat Ebola can continue to be supplied to this economically disadvantaged country. With the virus reaching over 4,900 deaths and an anticipated 20,000 reported cases by November, according to the World Health Organization, the disaster relief funding comes at a much needed and crucial time.

New Massachusetts Energy Chief Says State Can’t Rest in Push for Renewable Energy

  By , , ,

Bespectacled Maeve Bartlett stood behind a glossy black podium at the DCU Center and made a bold claim: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is, she said, the national leader in meeting the challenges of climate change and adopting renewable energy technologies. Numero uno. The criteria: megawatts.

In 2007, Massachusetts had 3 megawatts of solar capacity and 3 megawatts of wind capacity. Operating at full power, these renewable energy plants could power 3,000-5,000 modern homes – small peanuts in a state with 6.7 million people.

But then Governor Deval Patrick and his administration passed three clean energy laws: the Green Jobs Act, the Green Communities Act, and the Global Warming Solutions Act. Businesses came a-dashing. Today, the state boasts 643 megawatts of solar capacity and 103 megawatts of wind capacity, and in 2014, Clean Edge ranked Massachusetts the leading state for clean energy policy and eco-energy investments per capita.

Barlett, formerly the agency undersecretary, was recently appointed to lead the final seven-month charge as head of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. She hopes to implement such plans like the Cape Wind project, secure hydroelectric contracts and construct more than 300 urban parks.

During her speech at the DCU Center as part of the eighth annual Massachusetts Energy Summit, Barlett said that the state could not rest in its push for renewable energy. The state hopes to eventually secure 30 percent of its power from clean energy sources.

Such grandiose plans represent big bucks. The Massachusetts clean energy sector is a $10 billion industry, with employment expected to surpass 100,000 jobs in early 2015. The sector has seen double-digit job growth for three consecutive years. At the recent Clean Energy Annual Jobs Report, Governor Patrick reported, “We have long believed that a strong commitment to investing in clean energy would not only provide significant environmental benefits, but would also serve as an economic catalyst in the Commonwealth.”

It is for megawatts – and megajobs – that Massachusetts is “taking the first, crucial steps to leaving a cleaner and more secure energy future,” said Bartlett, “for the next generation.”