wbjournal.com | January 9, 2023 | Worcester Business Journal 3
A lot of great companies are featured in the
Best of Business section, which starts on
page 11.
– Brad Kane, editor
W
BJ's Best of Business
awards are a logistical
and design nightmare.
With 51 widely diverse
business categories, it is
WBJ's award with the most winners. e
challenge, therefore, is to find a way to
provide a meaningful write-up as to why
each winner is worthy of its individual
award, while presenting that information
in a somewhat simple and understandable
way, 51 times over.
e process starts around anksgiv-
ing, when the voting period for WBJ read-
ers closes and the winners are determined,
aer the votes are checked for evidence of
ballot-stuffing or other malfeasance. en,
the research begins for each winner's pro-
file, which centers around a questionnaire
circulated to those organizations in early
December. e questionnaires and the
winners' photos are due back to me short-
ly before Christmas, which gets complicat-
ed as the various professionals in charge
of this effort take much-needed time off
around the holidays, including me.
Once we have all the information
and the profiles are written, the design
challenge begins. I don't want the Best of
Business awards section to look like 51 short
profiles are just thrown randomly into the
issue over the course of 19 pages. So, those
51 winner categories are then sorted into
seven supercategories, and I then pick one
of the winners from each of those supercate-
gories to feature. ose featured winners are
given slightly longer write-ups inside their
supercategory sections, and their profiles
anchor those sections and are designed to
draw the readers' attention to all the profiles
on those pages. Luckily, this issue's prima-
ry designer, Art Director Mitchell Hayes,
shines in bringing order to chaos.
Picking which winners to feature each year
is always tough. One winner isn't more im-
portant than any other, although it can seem
that way when readers look on the pages to
see one winner's profile is twice the size of the
others in that section. e Best of Business
awards feature a lot of repeat winners each
year – 38 of the 51 winners are repeats this
year – so we make sure not to feature the
same winner in consecutive years.
With all these challenges now complet-
ed and nightmares overcome, I hope you
thoroughly enjoy this completed product.
Bringing order to the chaos
W
I N T H I S I S S U E
Editor, Brad Kane,
bkane@wbjournal.com
Staff Writers
Timothy Doyle
tdoyle@wbjournal.com (Real estate,
higher education)
Kevin Koczwara
kkoczwara@wbjournal.com
(Manufacturing, energy & environment)
Isabel Tehan, itehan@wbjournal.com
(health care, diversity & inclusion)
Contributors
Giselle Rivera-Flores, Laura Finaldi,
Monica Benevides, Alan Earls, Susan
Shalhoub, Livia Gershon
Photgraphers
Matt Wright, Edd Cote
Research Director,
Stephanie Meagher,
smeagher@nebusinessmedia.com
Research Assistant, Heide Martin,
hmartin@nebusinessmedia.com
Production Director, Kira Beaudoin,
kbeaudoin@wbjournal.com
Art Director, Mitchell Hayes,
mhayes@wbjournal.com
Senior Accounts Manager
Christine Juetten,
cjuetten@wbjournal.com
Senior Special Accounts Manager
Mary Lynn Bosiak,
mlbosiak@wbjournal.com
Senior Account Executive
Yasmin Nasrullah,
Ynasrullah@wbjournal.com
Marketing & Events Manager
Kris Prosser, kprosser@wbjournal.com
Human Resources Manager,
Tracy Rodwill,
trodwill@nebusinessmedia.com
Accounting Manager, Sara Ward,
sward@nebusinessmedia.com
Accounting Assistant, Rae Rogers,
rrogers@nebusinessmedia.com
Account Receivable Specialist,
Patty Harris, pharris@
nebusinessmedia.com
Audience Development Manager,
Leah Allen, lallen@nebusinessmedia.com
Business Office Assistant,
Nicole Dunn,
ndunn@nebusinessmedia.com
Publisher, CEO, Peter Stanton
pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com
Associate Publisher, Mark Murray
mmurray@wbjournal.com
President, Tom Curtin
tcurtin@hartfordbusinessjournal.com
Worcester Business Journal (ISSN#1063-6595) is published bi-weekly,
24x per year, including 4 special issues in May, September, October,
and December by New England Business Media. 172 Shrewsbury
St., Worcester, MA 01604. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA.
Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address
changes to: Worcester Business Journal,
PO Box 330, Congers, NY 10920-9894.
Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are available for $84.00. For
more information, please email circulation@wbjournal.com or contact
our circulation department at 845-267-3008.
Advertising: For advertising information, please call Mark Murray at
508-755-8004 ext. 227. Fax: 508-755-8860.
Worcester Business Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited
manuscripts or materials and in general does not return them to
the sender.
Worcester Business Journal
172 Shrewsbury Street, Worcester, MA 01604
508-755-8004 tel.
• 508-755-8860 fax
www.wbjournal.com
Worcester Business Journal
WBJ
A division of:
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
4 Central Mass. In Brief
11 Focus on Best of Business Awards
30 The List: Largest labor unions
31 Know How
32 Movers & Shakers
33 Opinion
34 Shop Talk: Dismas House
31 What the new Mass. data privacy
act means for business
Know How advice columnist Michelle Drolet
lays out the best ways for companies to
protect themselves if the new law goes into
effect this year.
31 Use empathy when managing
social media
Advice columnist Danny Quinn says the best
tool in the social media manager's toolbox
is the ability to have compassion for people
who reach out to your company.
