Worcester Business Journal

January 8, 2018

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wbjournal.com | January 8, 2018 | Worcester Business Journal 3 I 'm not gonna lie; this was a tough issue to get out. I'm writing this column – typically the last piece of content pushed over to production before the paper goes to press – at 10:17 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 3 from WBJ's offices on Shrewsbury Street, with little chance of my getting home to my sleeping wife and four kids before Wednesday becomes Thursday. Of course, everyone knows the busi- ness world slows down over the winter holidays, especially in the week between Christmas and New Years, which threw off the timing for this issue. The holi- days, though, were nothing compared to the latest storm of the century – Winter Storm Grayson – which is supposed to shut down most of the Northeast when it hits the region (T-minus 4.5 hours as I write this, or 4+ days ago as you read this). So, instead of sending this issue to press on our typical Thursday afternoon, we are going to press as soon as we can the Wednesday before. Combined with the holidays, it is cutting our normal 10-day production cycle for print issues down to about four days. Typically, this wouldn't be a problem– our production cycle changes all the time – but this edition, our first of the year, focuses on the WBJ Best of Business, our annual reader survey awards. For the second year in a row, we want to start 2018 off right, showcasing this all encompassing feature of the Central Massachusetts companies you want to do business with. Unfortunately for the edi- torial and production teams, though, 49 features about the Best of Business win- ners on top of the typical WBJ issue is a lot to squeeze into a truncated produc- tion cycle. This year, we wanted the awards to read more like a feature, so we broke the winners down into seven detailed group- ings and wrote a longer article about one per grouping. The winners with the lon- ger write-up aren't any different than the other Best of Business awardees; I simply asked the editorial staff members to pick winning companies they thought would make for good stories. In a very short span, 2018 gave us a lot Starting 2018 off on the best note NEWS & ANALYSIS DEPARTMENTS 4 Central Mass. In Brief 5 Flash Poll 12 FOCUS on WBJ Best of Business Awards 28 The List: Top minority-owned businesses 29 The Rainmaker 30 Know How 31 On the Move 34 Photo Finish 36 Business Leads 37 Opinion 38 Shop Talk: Donald Doyle, Webster Five 30 10 THINGS causing and preventing business lawsuits Advice columnist AiVi Nguyen lists the steps businesses can take to avoid ending up on either end of litigation. 37 Economic development is a community process Opinion columnist Meredith Harris says, in order to be successful, municipalities need to embrace development efforts to the benefit of residents and existing businesses. I N T H I S I S S U E to get upset about: taxes, nuclear war, cor- ruption, Winter Storm Grayson, other potential column topics making my blood boil. But instead of all that, we wanted to focus on offering you the best. - Brad Kane, editor Editor, Brad Kane, bkane@wbjournal.com News Editor, Grant Welker, gwelker@wbjournal.com (Real estate, higher education) Staff Writers Zachary Comeau, zcomeau@wbjournal.com (Manufacturing) Emily Micucci, emicucci@wbjournal.com (Health care) Contributors Susan Shalhoub Livia Gershon Research Director, Stephanie Meagher, smeagher@nebusinessmedia.com Research Assistant, Heide Martin, hmartin@nebusinessmedia.com Production Director, Kira Beaudoin, kbeaudoin@wbjournal.com Associate Art Director, Mitchell Hayes, mhayes@wbjournal.com Senior Accounts Manager Matt Majikas, mmajikas@wbjournal.com Custom Publishing Project Manager Christine Juetten, cjuetten@wbjournal.com Senior Special Accounts Manager Mary Lynn Bosiak, mlbosiak@wbjournal.com Marketing & Events Manager Kris Prosser, kprosser@wbjournal.com Events & Marketing Intern Megan Irish, events@wbjournal.com COO, Mary Rogers, mrogers@nebusinessmedia.com Accounting Manager, Valerie Clark, vclark@nebusinessmedia.com Accounting Assistant, Rae Rogers, rrogers@nebusinessmedia.com Collections Manager, Raki Zwiebel, rzwiebel@nebusinessmedia.com Human Resources, Jill Coran, jcoran@nebusinessmedia.com Publisher, CEO, Peter Stanton pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com Associate Publisher, Mark Murray mmurray@wbjournal.com President, Joseph Zwiebel jzwiebel@nebusinessmedia.com Worcester Business Journal (ISSN#1063-6595) is published bi-weeky, 24x per year, including 5 special issues in April, July, September, November and December, by New Engand Business Media. 172 Shrewsbury St., Worcester, MA 01604. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA. Copyright 2017. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Worcester Business Journal, PO Box 330, Congers, NY 10920-9894. Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are available for $54.95. For more information, please email wbjournal@ cambeywest.com or contact our circulation department at 845-267-3008. Fax: 845.267.3478 Advertising: For advertising information, please call Mark Murray at 508-755-8004 ext. 227. Fax: 508-755-8860. Worcester Business Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or materials and in general does not return them to the sender. Worcester Business Journal 172 Shrewsbury Street, Worcester, MA 01604 508-755-8004 tel. • 508-755-8860 fax www.wbjournal.com A division of: Worcester Business Journal WBJ W

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