Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARy 20, 2023 33 2023 POWER 50 more attention to customer service, cooperation and collaboration. Neil O'Leary Over a decade in office, Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary has used political charisma and clout to make strides turning the city's heavy burden of brownfields into redevelopment assets. He courted allies in Washington, D.C., and Hartford, securing tens of millions of dollars to begin clearing away some of the city's most prominent abandoned industrial complexes. Once engines of Waterbury's pros- perity, these have become fire traps and eyesores that occupy potentially prime development sites. But turning brownfields into produc- tive use is enormously expensive and it can take years to see a payoff. O'Leary's political capital gained him the outside support, as well as the local leeway to pursue cleanups with unpredictable timetables. Some of those results have already manifested, while others are still pending. A portion of the former Chase Brass and Copper Co. along Thom- aston Avenue was renovated into the Waterbury Industrial Commons, allowing the city to hold onto key tenants, including semiconductor wire manufacturer Luvata. Chemi- cals manufacturer King Industries is building a manufacturing complex on 11 acres that were cleared and carved away for sale. The city has spent heavily upgrading streets and underground utility infrastructure around the Freight Street industrial corridor, aiming to put dozens of sleepy and abandoned industrial acres back to use. The city recently bought a six-acre portion of the former Anaconda American Brass complex along Freight Street. Taken together with 14 acres the city already owns – and had largely cleared of buildings – that purchase will yield 20 acres for devel- opment in a prime location at the heart of the city, by the crossroads of Interstate 84 and Route 8. The O'Leary administration has also made strides clearing a 17-acre site that once hosted the Anamet industrial complex. The administration is currently in negotiations with a potential user. Randy Salvatore Randy Salvatore is one of the most active apart- ment developers in down- town Hartford. But that doesn't mean those efforts have been without challenges. In that capacity, according to the governor's office, Dach worked with commissioners, legislators and others on several important policies, including the new paid family and medical leave program, refining the unemployment insurance system, and aspects of the state's COVID-19 preparedness, response and recovery. Prior to joining the Lamont admin- istration, Dach clerked for Judge Rowan D. Wilson of the New York Court of Appeals and served as a senior policy advisor to the ambas- sador-at-large for global women's issues at the U.S. Department of State. A Washington, D.C. native and longtime New Haven resident, Dach earned a bachelor's degree in ethics, politics and economics from Yale College in 2008 and a law degree from Yale Law School in 2013. Michael Walsh East Hartford planted some big seeds in 2022 under the leadership of business-friendly Mayor Michael Walsh, laying the ground- work for projects that will eventually add millions of dollars to the tax rolls, create thou- sands of jobs and change the trajectory of parts of town that had fallen to blight. The biggest project pending by far is the development of two massive logistics centers near Rentschler Field. Massachusetts-based National Development paid $78.47 million for 300 acres on the site in early January. The town subsequently agreed to push off tax bills in 2024 by six months, giving the developer time to recruit paying tenants before taxes are due. National Development's plans call for two logistics warehouses of 1.3 million and 1.2 million square feet, followed at some point by two smaller research and development buildings. Elected in November 2021, Walsh has been supportive of development and has marshaled public support and internal staff energy to further the town's redevelopment prospects. Having served as East Hartford's finance director from 1998 to 2019, Walsh came to leadership with an intimate knowledge of the inner work- ings of Town Hall and its finances. Before that, Walsh spent 11 years in accounting at insurer Cigna. After leaving town employment, Walsh spent two years as undersecretary of strategic initiatives and accountability in the Office of Policy and Manage- ment under Gov. Ned Lamont. Speaking to a Capital Region Development Authority committee on Jan. 14, Walsh said the town in 2022 worked to upgrade its image, paying director of the tournament and CEO of the Greater Hartford Foundation Inc., has helped make Travelers Championship one of the high- est-rated tournaments on the PGA Tour among players, and that quality will be rewarded in 2023. The PGA Tour awarded the tour- nament a new elevated status this year, which will guarantee top-ranked players attend the event and provide a higher purse. Elevated-status tournaments are the PGA Tour's response to a new competitor, the Saudi-backed LIV Tour, which has recruited some well- known U.S. golfers by guaranteeing them millions of dollars. Grube has led the Travelers Championship since 2005, during which time the tournament has raised more than $20 million for charity. In addition to receiving the "Players Choice" award in 2017 and 2018, the Travelers Championship was named "Tournament of the Year" by the PGA Tour in 2017. Grube has long ties to the game of golf. After graduating from Auburn University in 1996 with a degree in mass communications, he worked for the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Academy of Golf as an instructor through 2001 while playing professional golf on various tours throughout the Southeast. He then went to work for the Bruno Event Team from 2001 to 2004, where he was the executive director of The First Tee of Greater Birmingham in Alabama. He also worked on all four major professional golf tours in the United States, including serving as tournament director for the Southern Farm Bureau Classic. In 2022, the Travelers Cham- pionship generated $2.5 million to benefit more than 130 charitable organizations. Jonathan Dach The governor holds the highest elected office in state government. His chief of staff may be one of the most powerful unelected officials in state government. Holding that title right now is Jona- than Dach, who was named Gov. Ned Lamont's chief of staff in November. Dach is advising Lamont through the 2023 legislative session, where issues including budget spending, affordable housing, tax policy, energy and healthcare costs, early childhood education, gun control and mental health are being debated. It's an arena familiar to Dach, who prior to being named chief of staff served as Lamont's policy director, a position he held since the start of the governor's first term in January 2019. He's also involved in the commu- nity, serving on the board of the Hartford Public Library. Dr. Bruce Liang Dr. Bruce Liang has been UConn Health's interim CEO and executive vice president of health affairs for just over a year and he's played a significant role in boosting the orga- nization's research funding. Previously he was dean of the UConn School of Medicine, where he helped the school achieve record-breaking research grant funding of over $100 million year after year. His success in that role landed him the interim CEO title at UConn Health, the parent of John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington. This year he will likely find out if he will keep the job on a permanent basis. It's a challenging position over- seeing an academic hospital that often operates in the red and is in need of extra state funding to balance its books. Liang has been associated with UConn Health since 2002, when he first joined as a physician-scientist faculty member. Liang oversaw the school's imple- mentation of a new team-based, patient-centered, four-year curriculum that aims to better prepare future physicians for the constant changes in health care. During Liang's tenure, UConn was also the first medical school in the nation to eliminate lectures, while continuing to offer early, hands-on clinical care exposure. Also, under Liang's leadership, the medical school has helped train more than 100 postdoctoral fellows and 100 Ph.D. students. It also has one of the nation's largest Master of Public Health programs, gradu- ating more than 1,000 students with MPH degrees. UConn Health has about a $1.6 billion budget, including $418.9 million in state funding. Prior to joining UConn Health two decades ago, Liang was an associate professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for 13 years. Nathan Grube The Travelers Champion- ship is arguably Connecti- cut's most high-profile annual sporting event and leading it for the last nearly two decades has been Nathan Grube. Grube, executive 32 34 35 36 37 33 Dr. Bruce Liang Jonathan Dach Michael Walsh Neil O'Leary Nathan Grube

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