Worcester Business Journal

Staples, Office Depot: What's behind the deal? What politics can teach us about leadership 24 Seven ways business executives can learn from presidents and other campaigners for office. Impact of planned $6.3B acquisition reaches beyond firms' market. WBJ >> To Subscribe Q&A with Karen Chapman of Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce, Westborough Shop Talk 8 Our annual look at stories of success and community engagement from the Central Massachusetts business scene. Central Massachusetts' Source for Business News February 16, 2015 Volume 26 Number 4 www.wbjournal.com $2.00 2015 BUSINESS LEADERS O F T H E Y E A R P H O T O S / M A T T V O L P I N I LARGE BUSINESS Doron Kempel, SimpliVity Inc. SMALL BUSINESS/ ENTREPRENEUR Hamid Mohaghegh, Family Pharmacy Inc. NONPROFIT Gail Carberry, Quinsigamond Community College CORPORATE CITIZEN Bay State Savings Bank (Peter Alden, CEO and president) 12 13 14 16 Space missions I nside a 35,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Hudson, circuit board connectors that will be launched into space as part of the Orion spacecraft mission are being prepared to with- stand otherworldly temperatures and pressures. Just minutes away, in Worcester, space suits are crafted by a company that has been making simi- lar gear for longer than the U.S. space program has been around. These two companies – Smiths Connectors in Hudson and David Clark Co. in Worcester - are among a select few Central Massachusetts sup- pliers to NASA that have had a hand in space programs that include the Mars rover Discovery and the International Space Station. "When you know that there is a piece of hardware on Mars roaming around and collecting data and that you proba- bly touched the connector used on the Mars rover, it is pretty impressive," said James Demers, product line manager at Smiths, who described the space con- nection as "the best part" of his job. "It is nice to have a small part in the big picture of space exploration." Smiths, formerly Hypertronics, has been a direct supplier and subcontrac- tor to NASA since the 1970s. The com- pany creates electronic connectors and printed circuit boards that have been BY SAM BONACCI Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y In the birthplace of modern rocketry, Central Mass. firms play a part in space exploration Should EMC stay on its course? Despite pressure to spin off key unit, data-storage leader not leaning toward change BY LIVIA GERSHON Special to the Worcester Business Journal Y ou might call Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. the reigning patri- arch of Central Massachusetts technology businesses. Founded in 1979, the company started out making 64-kilobyte computer memory boards, and it kept on helping firms hold onto data as their demand for stor- age space grew into the terabytes and beyond. Today, the com- pany remains profitable and it's growing, making a $2.7 million profit on sales of $24.4 billion in 2014. But, to some investors and analysts, the mature, multinational corporation needs a bit of a push to compete with the rest of the fast-growing tech world. Hedge fund manager Elliott Management Corp., an investor in the company, has been calling for manage- ment, led by CEO Joe Tucci, to take drastic steps to drive faster growth. Specifically, the firm wants EMC to spin >> Continued on Page 10 >> Continued on Page 11 CEO Joe Tucci has defended EMC's current structure. 4, 29 David Clark Co., which has been making pressurized safety suits in Worcester since 1941, developed this prototype launch-entry suit for NASA in 2010.

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