Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | APRIL 7, 2025 29 POWE R 50 11 Alan Lazowski A lan Lazowski is the founder and CEO of LAZ Parking, which operates more than 1.6 million parking spaces in over 4,000 locations across the U.S. He's also a key backer and partner in some of the region's largest multifamily housing developments. Lazowski is a part-owner of Lexington Partners, a prominent devel- opment firm that has been responsible for some of the largest apartment developments completed in Greater Hartford over the past few years. Lazowski and Lexington are part of a team of regional business leaders advancing a project to transform East Hartford's outdated Founders Plaza office park into a development mixing about 1,000 apartments with retail, entertainment and other commercial development. Lexington is also advancing plans for the transformation of the West- brook Outlets shopping center into a massive, mixed-use development. In Lazowski's hometown of Hart- ford, he and Lexington have teamed up with Shelbourne Global Solutions – the city's largest downtown office landlord – on a plan to transform a six-story office building overlooking Bushnell Park into a boutique hotel of about 90 rooms. The building at 15 Lewis St. had previously served as 13 Donald Allan Jr. D onald Allan Jr. is president and CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, the New-Britain head- quartered toolmaker with a global reach. Stanley currently employs more than 48,500 employees in 12 Erick Russell E rick Russell has been state treasurer only since January 2023. Over the course of those two years, though, he's instituted reforms that have improved the state's finances. That prompted a prominent critic of past state treasurers to call him "probably the best treasurer we've had in 30 years." Under Russell, the state pension fund has grown. In December, he joined Gov. Ned Lamont and Comp- LAZ Parking's headquarters, before the company's purchase of and move to the Gold Building office tower. Lazowski, Lexington and Shelbourne have also partnered in a multi-phased transformation of a 324,000-square- foot, office-and-retail complex at the corner of Trumbull and Pratt streets. The first phase is a conversion of the top four floors of a building at 64 Pratt St., into dormitory space for roughly 200 UConn students. In terms of his main business, Lazowski recently announced a new partnership with California-based Epic Charging that will deploy electric vehicle charging technology across 50,000 LAZ-controlled parking spaces over the next five years. troller Sean Scanlon in announcing that the state employees retirement system is now 55.2% funded, the highest level since 2003, while the state teachers' pension fund is 62.3% funded, highest since 2008. While Connecticut remains one of just six states with pensions funded below 60%, the improvement is signif- icant. It's due in part to $8.5 billion in additional contributions since 2020, but also to two straight years of strong investment returns — 8.5% in fiscal year 2023, and 11.5% in fiscal 2024 — aided by investment changes Russell put in place. Born and raised in New Haven, Russell got his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. After college, he took a job at law firm Pullman & Comley, where he was eventually elevated to partner in the firm's public and private finance group. Russell represented towns, cities and the state in financing infrastruc- ture projects, managing debt and restructuring pension obligations. 60 countries. Around half of its 100 manufac- turing plants are in the U.S. Stanley's global footprint has put Allan at the forefront of the renewed debate over tariffs. In response to the Trump administration's stance on trade restrictions, he has said the company is continuing to move manufacturing of goods for the U.S. market out of China, although he has stressed that this is an intensification of a policy that has been underway for a long time. "Back seven or eight years ago, 40% of what we sold in the U.S. came from China," Allan said in an earnings call in early 2025. "Now we're down… around 15%." He has also stressed that the company is not shy about its views on global manufacturing. "We continue to engage with the president and his new administration," Allan said. Allan, 60, joined the company in 1999 as assistant controller, previ- ously having worked in financial management with Loctite Corp., and nine years at Ernst & Young. He became an executive officer in 2006 in the company's previous iter- ation as Stanley Works, and helped to shepherd it through the merger with rival Black & Decker. He was made chief financial officer before becoming CEO in 2022. In the corner office, Allan has overseen a $2 billion cost-cutting effort, and championed the simpli- fication of Stanley Black & Decker's portfolio, including leading the divestitures of the security and oil and gas businesses. Allan serves as board chair of the regents for the University of Hartford and is a board member of Hartford HealthCare. Addition- ally, he serves on several nonprofit boards, including Junior Achieve- ment of Southwest New England, Boy Scouts Connecticut Rivers Council and AdvanceCT, Connecti- cut's private nonprofit economic development organization. Allan earned his bachelor's degree in accounting from the Univer- sity of Hartford and is a certified public accountant.

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