wbjournal.com | December 15, 2025 | Worcester Business Journal 3
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
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Worcester Business Journal
WBJ
A division of:
Editor, Brad Kane,
bkane@wbjournal.com
Managing Editor, Eric Casey,
ecasey@wbjournal.com (real estate,
manufacturing)
Staff Writer
Mica Kanner-Mascolo,
mkannermascolo@wbjournal.com
(health care, diversity & inclusion)
Editorial Interns
Jill McSorley, jmcsorley@wbjournal.
com; Charlotte Powers, cpowers@
wbjournal.com
Contributors
Sloane M. Perron, Giselle Rivera-
Flores, Emily Micucci, Livia Gershon
Photographers
Matt Wright, Edd Cote, Christine
Peterson
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
General Manager
Kris Prosser, kprosser@wbjournal.com
Senior Accounts Manager
Christine Juetten,
cjuetten@wbjournal.com
Accounts Manager
Timothy Doyle
tdoyle@wbjournal.com
Human Resources Manager,
Tracy Rodwill,
trodwill@nebusinessmedia.com
Director of Finance, Sara Ward,
sward@nebusinessmedia.com
Accounting Clerk, Rae Rogers,
rrogers@nebusinessmedia.com
Event Coordinator,
Patty Harris,
pattyh@wbjournal.com
Director of Audience Development
and Operations, 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
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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
4 Central Mass. In Brief
12 Focus on Workforce Development
17 List: Largest employee-owned
companies
18 Guest column: From crisis to
comeback
19 Advice
20 Movers & Shakers
21 Opinion
22 Shop Talk: Green Meadows
10 A rural migration
Low-income residents are being priced
out of Worcester, as healthcare providers
and social service nonprofits struggle to
reach them.
19 101: Incorporating new graduates
into your workforce
Advice columnist Jill McSorley offers
three tips for employers to ease their new
younger hires into the company culture.
I
n preparation for a panel discussion
at WBJ's Champions of Health Care
Awards & Forum on Dec. 16, Rozan-
na Penney told me the most pressing
issue for the long-term financial
stability of hospitals is the hollowing out of
America's middle class. As president and
CEO of Heywood Healthcare, Penney led
the Gardner-based organization through a
bankruptcy last year.
Heywood – like all other hospitals – is
losing its paying customers. Legally, the hos-
pital can't turn away patients who cannot
afford to pay, so Heywood has to eat the
costs of caring for those who can't afford it.
Even if a patient has government-provided
insurance like MassHealth, the reimburse-
ment rates are typically below the cost of
providing care. To make up for this, hospi-
tals rely on patients with private insurance,
in order to consistently operate in the black.
Yet, more people are moving into the
lower bracket, as costs rise and wages
stagnate. And there's not enough high-in-
come customers to make up the difference.
is problem goes way beyond Heywood
and health care. As the middle class fades,
businesses who rely on people having at
least some expendable income – or at least
enough income to cover all their basic
needs – will not have the necessary cus-
tomer base to thrive.
e widening income disparity between
rich and poor is illustrated in vivid terms in
Staff Writer Mica Kanner-Mascolo's story
"Poverty wages" on page 14. e median
employee compensation at Framingham
retail parent company TJX is $15,0002,
below the federal poverty level. e main
reason for this low median wage is a sizable
chunk of TJX employees are part-time in a
corporate system designed to keep benefit
costs low and discourage unionization.
Meanwhile, TJX President and CEO Ernie
Herrman is the highest-paid public compa-
ny CEO in Central Massachusetts, having
brought home $23 million in fiscal 2024.
An economy only truly works if it works
for everybody, from birth to death. A cap-
italist system will always have high earners
and low-income people, but if a rising per-
centage of people work their entire careers
to only live at a subsistence level, be unable
to afford a retirement, and die prematurely,
then the system is not sustainable.
We all must work jointly to reverse this
An economy without a middle class
I N T H I S I S S U E
trend. Or we can keep closing hospitals and
other businesses that rely on the middle
class, which is basically all businesses.
– Brad Kane, editor
W
CORRECTION: The Champions of Health Care story "Penney's
dedication, honesty, and transparency led Heywood out of bank-
ruptcy" in the Dec. 1 edition incorrectly stated Heywood Hospital
had 34 beds in the summer of 2023. The hospital actually had 134
beds at the time.
