Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | April 4, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 5 Worcester nonprofit names interim CEO following sudden retirement RCAP Solutions, a Worcester nonprofit which focuses on affordable housing solutions, appointed Executive Vice President Brian Scales as interim president and CEO, replacing long-time leader Karen Koller. Scales joined RCAP Solutions in 2008 with a background in nonprofit development and strategic planning, according to the March 16 announcement from RCAP. He will replace Koller, who announced her retirement due to health reasons aer serving the company for over 21 years. In 2020, Koller was inducted into the WBJ Hall of Fame. State to grant $50M to help employers with workforce shortage e latest batch of employment data estimated that Massachusetts had about 181,000 unemployed workers in January, a month when the statewide count of jobs stood 131,000 below where it was before COVID-19 hit. Meanwhile, according to Gov. Charlie Baker, Massachusetts has about 200,000 open jobs that businesses and nonprofits are struggling to fill. And so the administration will take a new approach: offering cash injections to encourage employers to look beyond traditional candidate pools. Baker unveiled a new $50-million grant program to incentivize hiring and help defray the costs of onboarding workers who do not yet have skills in a new field. Eligible employers can receive up to $4,000 per employee, capped at a total of $400,000 per organization, to cover training costs or signing bonuses. e program is already accepting online applications from employers, and money will flow on a first-come, first- served basis. e applications are at www. mass.gov/hirenow. Westborough to seek development proposals for vacant movie theater e Town of Westborough has once again begun the process of trying to find a new purpose for its vacant Regal Cinemas movie theater. At Town Meeting on March 19, voters approved authorization for the select board to find a way to dispose of the property. e Town gained ownership of the theater through a tax lien foreclosure aer it closed its doors in 2017. e 29-acre parcel on Route 9, which includes a 12-screen theater, was built in 1997. e Town assesses the property at nearly $2 million. With its renewed authorization, the Town's select board has three options for the property. It can auction it to the highest bidder, identify a municipal use such as a new school or administrative building, or put out a request for proposals from developers. Former Worcester chief diversity officer hired at MWCC Stephanie Williams, who has resigned as Worcester's chief diversity officer, has been hired by Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner to be the school's first-ever chief diversity executive. e school announced her hiring in a press release March 21, about two weeks aer the City of Worcester announced Williams would leave her role. Her resignation earlier in March stirred controversy from advocacy groups about high turnover in the CDO position. City Council is currently considering an external review of diversity issues in City Hall, aiming specifically to understand why three CDOs have le since the role was created in 2016. B R I E FS W BJ has partnered with the Worcester Historical Museum to run a year-long trivia contest in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Worcester's founding on June 14, 1722. Readers should email their answer to the question below by April 14 to bkane@wbjournal.com or visit the trivia page on WBJoural.com to compete for a special year-end prize package. Sponsored by Worcester 300 trivia contest -part 7 And the answer to last edition's question: In 2017 when the 235-year-old hardware store on Main Street originally named aer Daniel Waldo closed, it was named aer Elwood Adams. Fire suppression e Rockwood Sprinkler Co. of Worcester was known throughout much of the U.S. and Canada for its fire-suppressing automatic sprinkler systems. e company was founded in 1906 by George Rockwood, inventor of the type of sprinkler heads you see in almost every public building. At the height of its business, the Rockwood company had 325 employees and annual sales of $1.5 million. In 1930, it became a subsidiary of the Gamewell Co. e factory ceased production in the mid-20th century and has since been converted to new uses. Early testing of Howard Freeman's fog nozzle T H E T I C K E R 251 Apartments planned for a six-story, mixed-use building in downtown Worcester, from developer Anthony Rossi Source: Worcester Planning Board 0% Source: U.S. Census Bureau Acres of Zen Acres Farm in Hardwick, a proposed cannabis cultivation and retail facility from five entrepreneurs, including Weidong Wang, owner of Baba Sushi 360 Source: Town of Hardwick 100 to 7 Source: Clark University Graduate Workers United Growth in the Worcester County population from 2020 to 2021, during which major metropolitan areas nationally had significant population loss, partially due to COVID Vote by Clark University graduate students in favor of joining the union Teamsters Union Local 170 W Karen Koller n Trivia question: What is the name of the Rockwood Sprinkler Co. factory today, which was most recently used as an art gallery? PHOTO | COURTESY OF WORCESTER HISTORICAL MUSEUM

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