FAIRFIELD COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL July 27, 2015 | VOL. 51, No. 30
2 | SIKORSKY SALE
11 | UNCORKING HOSPITALITY westfaironline.com
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TOWN APPROVES REDEVELOPMENT PLAN BY DANIELLE BRODY
WESTPORT BURNISHES ALREADY LUSTROUS DOWNTOWN
Dewey Loselle points to the west side of Westport. Photo by Danielle Brody
dbrody@westfairinc.com THE GOAL OF WESTPORT’S DOWNTOWN master redevelopment plan is not to attract growing businesses, large retailers or new residents, said Dewey Loselle, the town operations director. Rather, the recently adopted plan will improve what’s already there and prepare the affluent town for what’s coming. “A lot of towns are doing this because they have to, because they’re in trouble,” he said, adding that Westport is doing well and at about full-business capacity. “This is a downtown enhancement plan. We don’t necessarily need more business.” After a year and a half of planning between the town and residents, the Westport Board of Selectmen accepted the plan this month. The plan will improve
mobility, transportation, parking and aesthetics, take better advantage of the waterfront and maintain the core values of the town, Loselle said. The historic town, which developed “haphazardly,” has had sporadic updates but never a comprehensive plan, Loselle said. Some sidewalks are brick and some are pavement. The sidewalk street lamps are meant for highways. Residents joke the cars have the best view of the water because there is parking along the river, which is potential green space, Loselle said. Some of these “holes” will be repaired in the short-term, with bigger infrastructure changes happening over the next several years. Loselle said the plan is a way for Westport to shape its future, rather than to let it happen passively. » WESTPORT, page 4
Vertex builds on unchanging ‘pillars of marketing’ STAMFORD COMPANY THRIVES ACROSS 33 YEARS
BY BILL FALLON bfallon@westfairinc.com RONALD AND BARBARA OCCHINO, both 57, have witnessed the media tsunami from the catbird seat as principals of Vertex Marketing Communications in Stamford, which handles marketing, advertising and direct mail. Their first project — 33 years ago, printed on heavystock yellow paper for less than $100 and called The Phone Card — predated 911 emergency calling and became a fixture taped beside the phones of countless regional homes with listings like police, fire and poison control. “For the convenience of Westport citizens,” read one phone card, preserved in a plastic sheath like the relic of a distant age in the com-
pany’s 992 High Ridge Road offices. Today, a typical contract for the firm is a bilingual transportation or health campaign for the state’s Department of Health or Department of Transportation, both of which are clients. The company employs 26, but that number includes three spun-off businesses: two driving schools and a junk-removal service. Ronald Occhino is CEO and account director managing the sales and business aspects of the agency, developing marketing concepts and budgets, managing accounts and billings, implementing direct mail and advertising campaigns and consulting clients. Barbara Occhino is president and creative director, developing and managing campaigns from concept to implementation.
She also conducts and moderates focus groups. Vertex client sectors include government, automotive, medical, educational, Fortune 500, retail, startups, transportation and entertainment. Its success has been helped by a business ethos that features basic tenets like burning shoe leather, answering the phone and — a point that Ronald said is increasingly lost — knowing the business. A marketing major at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where the couple met, Ronald began in corporate sales, boosting his territory for a national food company at a rate the company, American Frozen Foods, had not seen in years. But, he said, seated in a bright office rich » VERTEX, page 6