Business updates

Greylock Federal Credit Union re-elected three board members during its 88th annual meeting, which took place recently at the Proprietor’s Lodge in Pittsfield.

The organization also honored outgoing board Chair Stanley Walczyk, and recognized Williamstown branch manager Anna Flynn’s 40th anniversary of service.

Gerard Burke and Sheila LaBarbera were each reelected to three-year terms on the board of directors and Kelly Krok to a one-year term.

Burke is the retired president and CEO of Hillcrest Educational Centers; Krok is the senior advance human resource business partner for General Dynamics Mission Systems; and LaBarbera is executive director of the Berkshire County Retirement Board.

Immediately following the meeting, the board of directors held a special organizational meeting to elect officers. Those elected were: Peter Lopez, chair; Kelly Krok, vice chair; Krystle Blake, secretary/financial officer; and JamieEllen Moncecchi, assistant clerk/ recording officer. Allison Bedard was also re-elected to the supervisory committee for a three-year term.

The MassHire Berkshire Workforce Board will hold a workshop for employers and organizations that are interested in working with high school interns. at Berkshire Health Systems Hillcrest Campus, in Pittsfield on May 12. The hours are 9 to 10:30 a.m.

The workshop will provide tips, guidance, and strategies for providing internships to high school students. It is open to professionals interested in starting an internship at their company or looking to enhance their current internship program.

Information/registration:Youth program specialist Kat Toomey, Kat@ masshireberkshire.com, 413-442-7177 ext. 120.

Berkshire Regional Planning Commission’s recently completed 2023-27 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy is featured on a website maintained by the National Association of Development Organizations Research Foundation to recognize exemplary economic planning work. The website is known as “CEDS Central.”

BRPC’s focus on resiliency is recognized as a best practice, as well as its efforts to make resources available in Spanish. In the coming months, the Berkshire County report will also be the subject of a longer case study published on NADO’s website.

The 2023-27 plan is the third consecutive five-year strategy developed by BRPC and approved by the federal Economic Development Administration.

Maintaining a current development strategy for the region provides context for business owners, nonprofit organizations, municipal leaders, and economic development practitioners, helping to guide decision-making and prioritize needs. Information: tinyurl.com/3s45mf64.

SolaBlock Inc., one of the Berkshire Innovation Center’s member companies, has reached an agreement to sell its solar masonry unit in Israel once operations commence.

The company, which recently moved its headquarters from Easthampton to Pittsfield, is expected to become operational with its first assembly facility in Pittsfield this spring.

The climate-and-construction startup has signed a memorandum of understanding with a partnership headed by Israeli businessman Eran Harish for the exclusive rights to sell the firm’s product in Israel.

Harish has vast experience in fields such as renewable energy, digital health, agritech and cleantech. He has been operating in Israel and the global arena for more than 25 years and has a wide network of business partners and colleagues both locally and internationally.

SolaBlock’s solar masonry units combine premium solar technology with the familiarity of standard masonry bricks and provide renewable energy for customers seeking green energy alternatives. The company also has an office in Troy, N.Y.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending almost $1.4 million to the commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse Berkshire Medical Center for the cost of testing the public and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The $1,390,865 public assistance grant will reimburse the private 302-bed teaching hospital in Pittsfield affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School for the cost of contracting to administer 22,968 COVID-19 tests between September 2020 and January 2021.

The hospital also purchased supplies such as lab coats, masks, gloves, and propane for the testing tent, and contracted to provide security and cleaning services.

So far, FEMA has provided more than $1.6 billion in public assistance grants to Massachusetts to reimburse the commonwealth for pandemic-related expenses. Information: tinyurl.com/4w7tfvxh.

Southwestern Vermont Health Care has reached an agreement to sell the former campus of Southern Vermont College to a New York-based real estate developer that once owned a significant retail property in Pittsfield.

The health care agency has entered into a purchase and sales agreement for the property with Alfred Weissman Real Estate of Harrison, N.Y., which owned the former Pittsfield Plaza shopping complex on West Housatonic Street from 2007 to 2016.

Weissman Real Estate plans to turn the former college campus into a highend lodging destination. SVHC had purchased the 371-acre former college campus in December 2020.

Weissman Real Estate purchased the former Pittsfield Plaza for $2.8 million in 2007, then sold it nine years later for $1.2 million to an Arizona-based real estate developer that turned the property into a U-Haul storage/rental/retail complex.

Numerous Berkshire-based organizations are among the 740 cultural projects, programs and festivals that have received a combined $1.85 million in grant funding from the Mass Cultural Council.

The Cultural Council’s Festivals & Projects program awards $2,500 grants to support publicly available cultural activities taking place between July 1, 2022, and June 30. The program is often an entryway for organizations who have not previously received Mass Cultural Council funding; 52 percent of the fiscal 2023 program’s recipients are receiving a Mass Cultural Council grant for the first time. Eligible projects, festivals, or activities for funding are primarily focused on promoting access, diversity, or education in the arts, humanities, or interpretative sciences and are available to the public in Massachusetts.

The 26 Berkshire-based groups that received funding are located in Adams, Alford, Becket, Cummington, Great Barrington, Lanesborough, Lee, Lenox, Monterey, North Adams, Pittsfield, Sheffield and Windsor.

A THC-infused muscle gel made by The Pass in Sheffield finished first in the topicals category at the recent New England Cannabis Convention in Boston.

The convention is the second largest business-to-business cannabis industry event in the country and the largest in New England.

The NECANN Cup is the second product win for The Pass — its muscle gel also placed third in the topicals, tinctures and capsules category in the High Times Cannabis Cup Massachusetts: People’s Choice Edition event in late 2022.

The Pass is a vertically integrated cannabis and hemp company, producing and processing its own flower locally, offering Pass-branded products at its retail location, and wholesaling those products to cannabis dispensaries across the commonwealth.

Berkshire Community College and Sonoco Plastics of Chatham, N.Y., have formed a partnership to encourage those interested in a career in mechatronics to apply for an apprenticeship at Sonoco, which is one of the Berkshire Innovation Center’s member companies.

Apprentices will receive full tuition at BCC for its associate degree in mechatronics program provided they complete the apprenticeship.

Mechatronics is a growing field that combines technologies of mechanics and electronics. An interdisciplinary field of study, it encompasses sought-after skills in electro-mechanical systems, machine operation, computing, automation, robotics and advanced manufacturing.

The apprenticeship at Sonoco is a fourto five-year program with extensive onthe-job training and competency requirements for each year.

Participants work 20 to 30 hours per week, with a flexible work schedule, while pursuing an associate of science degree in mechatronics degree at BCC. The degree may be earned in as little as two years.

Information: Rick Sayers, Sonoco Plastics engineering manager, rick.sayers@ sonoco.com.

Berkshire Camino LLC of Lee, an outdoor adventure tour operator that curates walking and hiking tours of the Berkshires, has released its 2023 programming calendar.

The firm will hold eight multi day hiking journeys and over 200 day-hike tours across the Berkshires that are open to the general public from May to October. Thirteen curated day-hike tours are also planned.

Information: berkshirecamino.com.

Integrated Eco Strategy of North Adams has formed a partnership with the Health Product Declaration Collaborative to help owners, architects and builders recognize and avoid toxic chemicals in thousands of building materials and products.

The project combines HPD data with IES software to help reduce the use of these “red list” ingredients like vinyl chloride, which is used in PVC pipe. Vinyl chloride is one of the chemicals that were spilled in the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

The collaborative, the nation’s leading nonprofit health information reporting organization, is now continually uploading all HPD information directly to Red2Green, IES’s materials management platform.

HPDC, a nonprofit, 360-plus member association based in Wakefield, represents architects, designers, building owners, manufacturers and others seeking to improve the transparency of building product materials information

IES was founded in 2010 to provide client-focused, high-value, green building services.

The Mass Cultural Council has approved a cultural district for the town of Cummington, which has fewer than 900 residents.

Cummington Center, one of the town’s three villages, is the focal point of the cultural district. Main Street, a preserved and primary point of interest, is one of the district’s most important physical assets. The district is primarily made up of the section of Main Street that runs parallel to the Westfield River and intersects with Route 9 at Fairgrounds Road.

The former Berkshire Trail Elementary School, which was part of the Central Berkshire Regional School District, is located at a key entrance to the district. Municipal leaders are currently conducting a feasibility study to determine a new purpose for the space, including arts and culture.

Berkshire Natural Resources Council has been accredited by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, joining a network of over 450 accredited land trusts across the United States that have demonstrated their commitment to professional excellence and to maintaining the public’s trust in their work.

BNRC, which owns over 12,000 acres that are now protected for public use, was subject to a comprehensive third-party evaluation prior to achieving this distinction. The Land Trust Accreditation Commission awarded accreditation, signifying its confidence that BNRC’s lands will be protected forever. Accredited land trusts steward almost 20 million acres of land — the size of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode

Island combined. BNRC is one of 1,363 land trusts across the United States, according to the Land Trust Alliance’s most recent National Land Trust Census. A complete list of accredited land trusts and more information about the accreditation process and benefits can be found at landtrustaccreditation.org.

Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing in Lee is planning to install nearly 1,500 solar panels on the roof of its 102,000-square-foot facility on Route 102 in Lee to offset 20 percent of the company’s energy consumption.

The project is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2023.

The company is installing a new roof on its Lee facility with a new TPO membrane and improved insulation to reduce energy waste and prepare for the installation of the solar panels.

BSM’s fill, finish and development site houses several cleanrooms, laboratories, office spaces, an onsite daycare, and a warehouse. It was once the site of a toy warehouse.

BSM is purchasing the panels from Dynamic Energy and working with Eversource to gain interconnection approval by demonstrating that the grid and existing infrastructure can support the new panels.

The company’s day-to-day operations involve significant energy consumption to maintain cleanrooms, operate sterilization equipment and isolators for drug manufacturing, and to keep the lights and heat on for the 112 hours the plant is open each week.

Brightway Insurance, a national insurance chain with 300 franchises in 35 states, opened an office in Pittsfield on April 3.

Brightway, the Joe Lyman Agency, is located at 100 North St., suite 400. Lyman, 47, who lives in Medford, is the youngest son of a franchising family from the greater Boston area that operated The Village Apothecary pharmacies in Billerica and Wilmington for more than 30 years.

A 1994 graduate of the Matignon School in Cambridge, Lyman spent a decade in health insurance before forming his own agency.

He also holds a bachelor’s degree in communication and advertising from Emerson College and a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. He is a member of the Boston Ironsides, a team within the Mark Kendall Bingham International Rugby League.

Based in Jacksonville, Fla., Brightway Insurance was founded in 2008. It is one of the largest privately owned property/casualty insurance distribution companies in the United States.

Julianne Boyd and Anne Nemetz-Carlson will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires at the sixth annual Berkshire Nonprofit Awards on May 23.. Boyd is the founding artistic director of Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, and Nemetz-Carlson was the longtime head of Childcare of the Berkshires in Williamstown. Both women retired last year.

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the accomplishments and dedication of the people who work in the nonprofit sector.

Other 2023 Berkshire Nonprofit Award-winners include: Board Leadership, Susan Crofut/Sandisfield Arts Center; Executive Leadership, Leigh Doherty/ Literacy Network; Rock Star, Tyeesha R. Keele-Kedroe/18 Degrees; Samya Rose Stumo Youth Leadership, Florence Afanukoe/Bridge; Unsung Hero, Sheila Dargie/ Berkshire Area Health Education Center; Volunteer, Shirley Edgerton/ROPE/Women of Color Giving Circle/Lift Ev’ry Voice Festival.

Berkshire Health Systems is partnering with the Berkshire Running Foundation to expand the annual Fourth of July road race in Pittsfield with an enhanced community health focus.

The 5K race, which has been held annually since 1985, takes place before the city’s Fourth of July Parade. The Berkshire Running Foundation, an extension of the Berkshire Running Center in Pittsfield, manages and directs running

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