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.
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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
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