Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/719295
10 Worcester Business Journal • August 29, 2016 www.wbjournal.com 40 Under Forty FOCUS L ike all our features and awards, the 40 Under Forty is meant to be informative and help our audience successfully navigate the Central Massachusetts business community. Yet, because they are young and enthusiastic to show off their accomplishments and drive to succeed, 40u40 winners are more willing to be creative in showcasing themselves. This year's class went above and beyond. Selected from a record 181 nomi- nations, these winners fully embraced the concept of showing how their youthful exuberance is infusing new energy and ideas into the region's economy. To this end, I'd like to bestow a couple of (completely made-up) awards of my own to the winners who really helped WBJ take this year's feature to the next level. • Amadeus Finlay gets the Life of the Party Award, who in his photo shoot and profile was the embodiment of youthful exuberance. • Nicole Zea gets the Great Builder Award for showing up three hours early to her photo shoot to build the center- piece block structure, which we promptly toppled to get an action photo. • Christof Chartier gets the Good Sport Award for spending several hours at a supplemental photo shoot – since he couldn't attend the main event in June – to have us not be able to use those photos on his profile page (although we did drop his image in on this intro page). • Caitlin Sargent Lubelczyk gets the Drama Club Award for using her trade- mark flair to set the tone early for at the EcoTarium photo shoot in Worcester. • Kola A. Akindele and William E. Aubuchon, IV each get the Brevity Award for responding with effective, hilarious and insightful answers in their profile Q&As. • Jasmine Jina Ortiz gets the Bravery Award for overcoming her fear of heights to climb out on the EcoTarium's tree can- opy walkway for what turned out to be one of my favorite photos this year. In addition to the regular awards to be given at the 40u40 event Sept. 14 at Mechanics Hall, WBJ will honor five members of this year's class who most add to the conversation surrounding this year's feature. Follow that conversation at WBJournal.com and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with #WBJ40Under40. - Brad Kane, editor P H O T O S / E R I K A S I D O R #WBJ40Under40: Behind the scenes