Hartford Business Journal

36 Hartford Business Journal | February 22, 2021 | HartfordBusiness.com efforts to educate and support the next generation of skilled manufacturers. His work amid the COVID-19 pandemic has included working to match manufacturers willing to produce personal protective equipment with healthcare providers in need of it. Gov. Ned Lamont in July tapped Kelli-Marie Vallieres to lead a new state office dubbed the Connecticut Workforce Unit. Under Vallieres — formerly CEO of Sound Manufacturing and Monster Power Equipment in Old Saybrook — the group collaborates with the Department of Economic and Community Development and Department of Labor to advise the governor and other state officials on workforce strategies and initiatives. Ari Santiago is CEO of West Hartford's IT Direct, an information- technology company that serves small and mid-size businesses. But he's better known to Connecticut's manufacturing community for hosting the "Made in America" podcast, which features video conversations between Santiago and some of the state's leading manufacturing CEOs — all aimed at promoting the manufacturing industry. Earlier this year IT Direct was acquired by Florida-based Compass MSP, which relocated its headquarters to West Hartford and named Santiago its new CEO. David Fay Performing-arts venues have taken a beating during the pandemic, forced to shut down amid bans on large indoor gatherings. The Bushnell's CEO David Fay has led the charge in urging state and federal policymakers to provide government aid to the industry. In fact, in December he testified virtually in front of a U.S. Senate committee urging lawmakers to back the Save Our Stages Act, which was subsequently approved and allocated $15 billion in grants to support theaters and other venues nationwide. Fay since 2001 has led The Bushnell, which is arguably one of Connecticut's top arts-and-culture destinations, drawing hundreds of thousands of theatergoers in a typical year to Hartford's Capitol Avenue. Performances like Broadway The Cloud family The Cloud family for decades has made its mark on Hartford. Adam Cloud is currently the city treasurer, overlooking Hartford's finances, which have been on shaky ground for years. During the pandemic, Adam has ably guided the city's Hartford Municipal Employees' Retirement Fund (MERF). In fact, in December he announced that MERF exceeded $1.1 billion, the highest level during his 11- year tenure as city treasurer. Adam has won re-election multiple times, proving some staying power. He was also the first Black man to serve as city treasurer. But the real Cloud family power stems from the patriarch, Sandy Cloud Jr., a lawyer by trade who became the first Black barrister to work at law firm Robinson+Cole. He also served two terms in the state senate, became an Aetna executive and chaired or served on the boards of UConn Health, the Connecticut Health Foundation, Eversource and MetroHartford Alliance. Sandy Cloud is best known today as a developer. The Cloud Co. LLC is currently co-redeveloping Hartford's old, rundown Westbrook Village housing complex, which has been renamed Village at Park River and will eventually include about 400 new rental housing units and homeownership opportunities and retail/commercial space in the city's North End. Occupancy of the project's first phase, which includes 75 apartments, has already begun. Sandy's other son, Christopher Cloud, also works in the family business, is a lobbyist and partner at government relations firm Camilliere, Cloud & Kennedy, and was the former CEO and president of AMISTAD America Inc. Colin Cooper, Kelli- Marie Vallieres & Ari Santiago Galvanizing Connecticut's manufacturing industry and boosting its workforce development are two dovetailing initiatives to which these three power players play essential roles. In 2019, Colin Cooper became Connecticut's inaugural chief manufacturing officer. The former executive chairman of Eastford's Whitcraft Group has a mandate to coordinate state and private-sector Moy's areas of legal practice include product liability, toxic tort and pharmaceutical matters. Mike DeLuca & Wendy Metcalfe State and local news organizations have been on the decline for years, as Facebook and Amazon pilfer advertising revenue and private equity firms work to squeeze more savings out of their media holdings. That's certainly been the case for most Connecticut news outlets, but over the past dozen years, national media giant Hearst Communications has stood out in an otherwise shrinking sector here. Hearst Connecticut Media, led since 2019 by Group Publisher/President Mike DeLuca and Editor- in-Chief Wendy Metcalfe, has grown into the largest news organization in the state since 2008, employing some 200 journalists across eight Fairfield County- centric daily papers, including the Connecticut Post and New Haven Register, as well as a dozen weeklies and various websites. Hearst has a central Connecticut presence with its Middletown Press publication. Hearst Connecticut has made waves in local media circles over the past few years, poaching marquee talent from the state's flagship paper, the Hartford Courant, including columnists Dan Haar, Colin McEnroe, Jeff Jacobs and most recently Mike Anthony, in addition to various editors and reporters. The Tribune-owned Courant last year abandoned its longtime Hartford headquarters, saying its reporters would work remotely instead. The move has created increased speculation about the daily's future, prompting Attorney General William Tong to pressure major Tribune shareholder Alden Capital to disclose more about its plans for the Courant, which is the nation's oldest continuously published newspaper. DeLuca was named Hearst Connecticut Media Group publisher in 2019 and previously was executive vice president of ad sales for Hearst Newspapers. Metcalfe was named editor-in- chief also in 2019. Previously she was with Brunswick News Inc. in Canada, a privately-owned company that operates several daily news organizations, where she oversaw the news departments, marketing, circulation and customer service. coach Jim Calhoun to develop a new men's basketball program in 2018, and longtime TV news anchor Dennis House as a digital media professor last year. After closing the USJ campus in the 2020 spring semester amid the pandemic, Free led a reopening for the following fall and spring semesters, while requiring residential students to complete a seven-day quarantine before returning to in-person classes. Since Greg Woodward became president of the University of Hartford in 2017, he's initiated plans to build a new $58-million, 62,000-square-foot academic building that will provide a state-of- the-art facility for two of the private college's most in-demand and growing majors: engineering and nursing. Amid COVID-19, Woodward was forced to close his campus in March, cancel in-person classes and implement virtual learning for the rest of the 2020 spring semester. UHart welcomed residential students back on-campus last fall and for the spring, 2021 semester. Moy Ogilvie Moy Ogilvie is managing partner in the Hartford office of national law firm McCarter & English. She represents one of the few Black women managing partners in Connecticut and the country and is a leader inside and outside her firm. Ogilvie was appointed by Gov. Ned Lamont to serve on the Connecticut Criminal Justice Commission and she also sits on the board of directors for the Connecticut Bar Foundation, Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity and Hartford Youth Scholars. In 2017, Moy was appointed McCarter & English's Diversity & Inclusion Partner, where she coordinates and implements the firm's initiatives designed to enhance the recruitment, development, promotion and retention of women and diverse attorneys. The firm also recently launched its McCarter & English Social Justice Project, which Ogilvie co-chairs. The initiative combines McCarter's diversity and inclusion and pro bono practice areas to take on cases that combat the impact of racial injustice in local communities. 39 40 41 42 43 Moy Ogilvie Mike DeLuca Adam Cloud Kelli-Marie Vallieres Colin Cooper Wendy Metcalfe Sandy Cloud Ari Santiago Rhona Free Gregory Woodward 2021 POWER 50 38

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