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40 Worcester Business Journal • www.wbjournal.com 25 YEARS: CRASHERS & BURNERS Quietly but purposefully supporting over 3,800 children and adults in 110 communities throughout Central and Southeastern Massachusetts with Autism, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities through a variety of innovative programs in school, at work, at home and in the community. "HMEA – THE best kept secret in your community" • WE ARE e Autism Resource Center of Central Massachusetts – our West Boylston-based location provides the vision and resource referrals to support families with children diagnosed with Autism empowering them to raise their children to be full members of their communities and become as independent as possible, so that they are valued as gi ed people. • WE ARE Students for Higher – a partnership with Assumption College, where we provide employment and education for college students to work with children with autism in an effort to help reduce the number of families waiting for in-home therapy services and respite for children with autism in Central Massachusetts • WE ARE Cloud4Causes – a provider of cost-effective IT services to other area non-profits as a way to defray overhead expenses and maximize the amount of funding available for direct services. "And, WE ARE right in your own backyard" Find out more at: www.HMEA.org (508) 298-1100 Attleboro Bellingham Douglas Fall River Franklin Gardner Grafton Holliston Hopedale Hudson Littleton Medway Millbury Millis Norfolk North Attleborough Northbridge Northborough Norton Oxford Plainville Sterling Sutton Swansea Taunton West Boylston Worcester Towns We Serve "Be afraid to die until you have won some victory for humanity" - Horace Mann • 700 staff • 3800 supported individuals • 110 Communities William Hanley, Galileo Evergreen Solar U nder William "Bill" Hanley, Galileo, by the mid-1990s, had become one of the companies symbol- izing the Tri-Community area's fiber- optic industry. As that decade drew to a close, Hanley — the Worcester Business Journal's Business Leader of the Year for 1996 — had resigned from Galileo's board and lost his job as president and CEO, agreeing to stay on as a consul- tant for another year. Hanley's departure followed the Sturbridge company's most difficult year at that time. Galileo, freshly recov- ered from the 1997 loss of Xerox as its biggest customer, had embarked on a bankruptcy-reorganization plan that trimmed 85 jobs. But that wasn't enough. In its next quarterly report, the pub- licly traded Galileo posted losses from federal restrictions on certain foreign technology imports. The firm also ceased to invest in its endoscope and telecom businesses, restated the results for its previous two quarters, and became the target of three shareholder suits. Before 1998 came to a close, Hanley had gotten the boot. Hanley now serves as chair and CEO of Optical Alchemy in Nashua, N.H., after serving in C-level roles at Millitech (which he bought) in Northampton and Hanson Group in Ludlow. W ith Michael El-Hillow at the helm, Evergreen Solar closed its Devens manufacturing facility at the beginning of 2011, a move that impact- ed 800 employees. Later that same year, the publicly traded maker of photovol- taic wafers for solar panels filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Evergreen stated the Devens plant was "no longer economically feasible" to operate in a "high-cost market in a period of rapidly declining prices." El-Hillow said the U.S. will "continue to be at a disadvantage from a manufac- turing standpoint" because of govern- ment subsidies for solar manufacturing in China. The company announced its intent to maintain its operations in Midland, Mich., and Wuhan, China. The news came as Evergreen was reshuffling more than $300 million of its convertible debt. It was also prepar- ing to expand its Chinese operations by more than fivefold. The company's stock had just been booted off the major NASDAQ trading exchange and was trading on a smaller NASDAQ market because the price per share was below $1. The company had also done a 6:1 reverse stock split. In 2012, the sun stopped shining on Evergreen and several other solar com- panies amid a solar-industry down- turn. The company's Chapter 11 liqui- dation plan received federal Bankruptcy Court approval. The plan, according to the company, allowed for an economi- cal wind-down that provided creditors with a superior alternative to a conver- sion to Chapter 7 liquidation. After Evergreen's 2011 bankruptcy protection filing, it was joined in Bankruptcy Court in Delaware by two other solar-panel makers, Abound Solar and Solyndra — whose contro- versial shutdown cost U.S. taxpayers $500 million — as well as plant devel- oper Solar Trust of America and its German parent, Solar Millennium.