Choose Worcester. It is way too early to tell and we all got to give Choose Worcester a chance but I just went on the website and as a business-owner, the first thing I look at is the "services" link.
Everything listed here are programs offered through the Economic Development Office. Some of these programs, specifically the Storefront Improvement and Facade Program I could spend the next week talking about. Listing National Grid as a reason to Choose Worcester???
Bottom line there is nothing original on this website but merely a compilation of other websites information and links back to these other websites. Again it is early but, for now, very unimpressed.
Same Time Next Year
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It’s been nearly a year since I wrote about the problems that come from
having 11 bosses who are not on the same page about anything, as well as
suggestion...
4 months ago
4 comments:
Bill,
Could you talk a little about the storefront improvement program? As someone who doesn't own a business I wasn't aware that one existed but the when I lived in Baltimore the neighborhood organization of the neighborhood I lived in (Hampden) had a program like this and it certainly gave the main street in Hampden a great look. What does the Worcester one entail?
Here is your next wave of job growth ...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/21/firms_creating_green_collar_jobs/
Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA
For those who couldn't open the link...
Firms creating 'green-collar' jobs
Good business, environment mix
By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | February 21, 2008
Most people hear the word soy and imagine a food product. Peter Strattner thinks insulation.
After spending much of his 56 years making furniture - he once employed 70 workers in his Berkshires factory - the Salisbury entrepreneur quit about a year ago to search for a new career that was "fun and good for the environment."
That mission led to The Green Cocoon, Strattner's month-old company with one other employee, that installs soy-based foam insulation in homes and businesses. The firm is booked, he said, through April, prompting a business plan to triple his workforce.
Strattner's metamorphosis may become more the norm than the exception. Soaring energy costs and a sagging economy are changing the landscape, according to lawmakers and educators. Job one, they say, is to retrain the workforce to match the times, to transform white- and blue-collar jobs into so-called green-collar jobs.
"This is a wonderful moment when activists and capitalists come together," said Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College and chairman of the North Shore Chamber of Commerce.
The college has given its faculty stipends this semester to work environmental training into classes by this fall. Burton acknowledged that they are all on a learning curve.
"We are trying to predict where our jobs are going to be and stake our curriculum accordingly," Burton said. "About 92 percent of our graduates stay in our service area. We are the primary provider of la bor to the North Shore."
Precisely how many green-collar jobs exist in the region is hard to pinpoint. The state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is stumped on a way to measure them.
"It is, to date, too broadly defined. If you look at the definitions, it's everything from bicycle repair people to solar installers," said the agency's Lisa Capone. Yet, a state census last year of just one segment of the green-collar force, the clean energy sector, suggests gangbuster growth. Clean energy includes environmental research, solar panel installation, energy audits, wind turbine maintenance, and weatherizing buildings. The census estimates that there are at least 14,400 workers statewide in 556 companies and it projects annual job growth of 20 percent.
Nearly half of these businesses, the census found, have fewer than five employees.
That description fits many of the nascent companies on display last week at Newburyport's first Green Expo, which featured about 40 New England companies that consult, manufacture, install, or offer planet-friendly products and services.
There was Sustainnovation, a five-month-old, two-person Newburyport consulting firm that teaches companies how to boost profitability and public image by slashing their toxic waste output. It is cheaper, the company advises, to start out with an environmentally sound product, rather than later devise ways to deal with the waste.
"There's a lot more to this than just putting up a wind turbine," said cofounder Rob Howe.
A few tables away was Purely Organic Lawncare, a Maine-based company started three years ago by Jim Reinertson, 41, who had spent most of his adult life tending golf courses. Tired of the mountains of chemicals used in the industry, Reinertson rounded up like-minded colleagues and launched a lawn-care business that now employs 20 workers. The company serves more than 70 customers in Boston's northern suburbs, he said.
But the challenge, Reinertson added, has been retraining employees in an earth-friendly approach.
"They are all trained to apply fungicides, herbicides, and insect controls," he said, "because most people who come out of school with plant and turf management degrees are taught that way."Often when people talk about green-collar jobs, the discussion leads back to training.
Enter US Representative John Tierney, a Salem Democrat and coauthor of the Green Jobs Act of 2007, which was signed into law in December. The initiative anticipates growing labor need for thousands of green-collar workers to install millions of solar panels, build wind farms, and track future green workforce trends. It also authorizes $125 million in annual funding for training and research.
"We put a lot of effort into higher education, the sciences and technology. That will take care of the people who go to college," Tierney said. "But we need jobs of a vocational nature for those who may not go to college.
"We could put 35,000 people to work each year," he said. "We can get in the forefront of this. We haven't had a coherent strategy in this country for how we intend to address this demand."
People talk about win-win strategies. Mark Guay, a lawyer based in Newburyport, envisions a green-green one, in which planet-friendly employment will produce cash. "Most of the fertile ground is the somewhat-green industry. For every pure green industry, there will be 99 somewhat-green industries," said Guay, a board member of the Newburyport Chamber of Commerce. "Companies that are converting over from brown to green is where the jobs will be. That's where you'll find the low-hanging fruit."
Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com.
Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA
Gabe:
Your best bet is to send an e-mail to Paul Morano (MoranoP@ci.worcester.ma.us).
He is a good guy and user friendly. He knows all the ins and outs of the program.
Bill
PS Where is your business located
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