An Electronic Publication of the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce
Inside this edition, you’ll discover the latest Chamber initiatives and success stories from across our region. From economic development projects and upcoming networking events to policy updates and workforce training opportunities, we’re keeping you connected to what matters most for your business and North Central Massachusetts.
June 2026
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Confidence in the Massachusetts economy dipped slightly in November among employers, the fourth straight monthly decline recorded by Associated Industries of Massachusetts as fears of COVID-19 and continued supply chain disruptions dimmed corporate views.
One economist said the recent passage of legislation to spend $4 billion in American Rescue Plan Act and state surplus money should give the economy some momentum, but AIM CEO John Regan noted that Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision not to seek a third term will inject some uncertainty into the marketplace.
Employers registered a confidence score of 57.9 on AIM’s monthly business confidence index for November, down half a point from October and from 65.6 in July. The index is based on a survey of 140 employers across Massachusetts, with 50 being a neutral score. Since 1991, the index has gone as high as 68.5 and as low as 33.3.
The November index score is the lowest recorded since March, but is still 8.6 points higher than a year ago. The score has taken a recent tumble as a rise in COVID-19 cases, fueled by the Delta variant and now the arrival of the Omicron variant, have increased anxiety over the pandemic, and employers continue to struggle with supply chain delays and labor shortages.
Michael Goodman, a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, said the ARPA spending bill on Gov. Baker’s desk and the new federal infrastructure bill “will add momentum to a state economy that slowed to a 2 percent annual growth rate in the third quarter.”
“In addition to boosting growth in the near term, these federal funds will allow Massachusetts to address longstanding and critical challenges including job training, transportation, housing and education,” Goodman said in a statement.
Regan, however, said the unfolding race for governor in 2022 should be watched closely now that Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito have decided not to seek reelection and there will be a new governor 13 months from now.
“Any change in the corner officer on Beacon Hill affects the confidence on Massachusetts employers,” Regan said. “Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito will leave a legacy of disciplined fiscal management and policies that have allowed Massachusetts to remain a pre-eminent center of technology and commerce.”
While employer views of the state’s economy remain optimistic, opinions on the U.S. economy turned pessimistic for the first time since January with a score of 48.8. Employers’ confidence in their own companies was essentially flat at 61.1, and the employment index was the only indicator to rise by three-tenths of a point to 56.2.
A regional confidence score for Central Massachusetts came in below the statewide number at 56.3. AIM intends to add regional indexes for Springfield and the North Shore.
New England power grid operators detailed their forecast for the winter of 2021-22 on Monday, saying they expect to be able to meet the region’s demand for electricity but also describing the issues that make them a bit concerned about reliability should the winter be colder than anticipated. [Screenshot]
Electric grid operators expect to be able to keep the lights on in New England this winter. But having come close to a major problem during a costly cold snap here four years ago and watching the recent struggles of power systems in California and Texas, ISO-New England is also doing more to highlight the risks the region’s power system faces as temperatures drop.
ISO-NE expects that demand among the 14 million electric customers in New England will peak this winter at 19,710 megawatts under average winter weather conditions of 10 degrees and as high as 20,349 MW if average temperatures drop below 5 degrees. The winter demand forecast, which is about 2 percent lower than the forecasted peak demand for last winter, is based on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration outlook that projects a milder than average New England winter.
Demand peaked last winter at 18,756 MW on Dec. 17, 2020, and the all-time winter peak demand is 22,818 MW, set on Jan. 15, 2004. The highest peak demand on the grid, regardless of time of year, was 28,130 MW on Aug. 2, 2006.
Gordon van Welie, president and CEO of ISO-NE, said the severity of the cold weather is one of three main variables that could put the region in a more precarious position than in previous winters, along with the global availability and price of oil and liquified natural gas deliveries into New England and constraints on natural gas pipeline capacity at times of simultaneous demand from heating customers and electricity generators.
If those risks come to pass and threaten the reliability of power for the region this winter, van Welie said, it could “force the ISO to take emergency actions up to an including controlled power outages.”
“I’m not saying this to cause undue alarm at this early stage. Rather, by identifying and sharing the conditions under which the power system would be most challenged, we hope to prepare the region,” van Welie said during a briefing with New England reporters Monday afternoon. “If a worst-case scenario develops, the ISO, utilities and government officials will need to act quickly to avoid an overall power system collapse. Steps such as asking for conservation of electricity and natural gas usage throughout the cold snap could help minimize or avoid the possibility of more drastic actions.”
If an emergency situation develops this winter, ISO-NE has a handful of options available before it would have to resort to controlled outages, including importing emergency power from neighboring regions, calling on power system reserves, and urging businesses and residents to voluntarily conserve energy.
Four years ago, amid a brutal cold snap, the New England grid came within days of catastrophe. During a frigid stretch between Christmas 2017 and Jan. 9, 2018, regional power generators burned two million barrels of oil — more than twice the amount of oil they burned during all of 2016 — in order to produce sufficient electricity.
The two-week event “nearly pushed the bulk power system to the brink,” ISO-NE said, but the severity of the situation did not come to light until after the fact.
“There were many sleepless nights during that two-week period … because we realized we were getting close to the edge but we didn’t have an effective way to communicate on how close we were and we didn’t want to panic people,” van Welie said Monday. “As luck would have it, we made it through to the following week when the weather broke and the supply chain could catch up with us. But given how close we came to being literally within two days of an energy deficiency within the region, we said never again will we want to communicate that way.”
After that 2017/18 incident, ISO-NE began preparing and publishing an energy adequacy forecast on a rolling 21-day basis with the aim of identifying potential shortfalls with enough time to take corrective actions. The forecast is based on the weather outlook, projected fuel supply inventories and deliveries, expected production from wind and solar resources, and consumer demand expectations.
“We’re going to give people much more time. Time for us actually to go out and ask for conservation days in advance before we actually get into the energy situation and hopefully be able to head it off,” Vice President of System Operations & Market Administration Peter Brandien said.
Brandien mentioned an August 2020 heatwave that hit California and led the grid operator there to order two days of rolling blackouts and the lessons that ISO-NE learned from that. After the operator began load shedding and was public about the tough situation it was in, he said, it was able to secure about 3,000 MW of additional capacity it had not realized was available.
“And then when people really understood the situation, they got a lot better conservation than they had leading into the event,” Brandien said. “So part of what we’re trying to do here is really educate everybody on where we are, give them a heads up and understand that when we do go out for conservation, we’re going out for conservation to try to keep everybody with electricity.”
In February, millions of electric customers in Texas were without power for days after a series of winter storms brought unusually cold and icy weather to the state and basically froze its natural gas-fired power generators. More than 200 people died during the emergency.
During his briefing with reporters Monday, van Welie stressed that “New England is not Texas” but reiterated his concerns about what could happen if LNG and natural gas supplies are limited and seriously cold weather hits.
“Our system is better winterized, meaning the power plants, transmission lines and other equipment needed to produce and deliver electricity can better withstand cold temperatures,” he said. “However, as I noted earlier, we are concerned about the fragile energy supply chain to the region during extreme weather.”
van Welie also touched briefly on the recent setback, possibly fatal, delivered last month to the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project in Maine, which was intended to connect Canadian hydropower to the New England grid as a way to relieve the pressure of other fuel sources and fulfill part of a 2016 Massachusetts law.
“Closer ties and stronger connection with Quebec is absolutely part of the solution. We just shouldn’t think that it’s going to solve everything for us,” he said, noting that he expects New England to become a “winter-peaking” power system around 2030 as more homes switch to electric heat and electric vehicles become more widespread.
He added, “With regard to this specific project in Maine, I’m disappointed about the outcome there. If it doesn’t go ahead, I think we will find other paths and I think maybe the one thing we can have to do is recognize that you’re going to have to spend more in order to get these transmission lines sited because part of the objection … is people don’t want to see these lines. And so if you bury them then you remove that objection, but of course you then incur a much higher price tag.”
Nationwide economic growth in 2022 might slow a bit from the “surprisingly strong 2021 underlying business conditions,” but state and local governments can still expect steady gains in tax revenues and should be able to continue to focus on building up reserves, the economists at Fitch Ratings said.
The credit rating agency published its 2022 outlook for state and local governments last week, predicting that the economy will not grow quite as fast as it has in 2021, but will “remain strong relative to the pre-pandemic trends, supporting steady gains in personal income, consumer spending and tax revenues” for Massachusetts and other states.
“Economic growth above trend and a significant boost in resources from federal stimulus will keep states and local government finances on a positive path in 2022,” Fitch Senior Director Eric Kim said. “Rising inflation and supply constraints will remain challenges.”
The outlook bodes well for the rest of fiscal year 2022, which ends June 30 and is already outpacing expectations for state tax revenue. It also suggests a positive start to fiscal year 2023, which is about to become a focus of attention on Beacon Hill.
State budget writers and Baker administration officials will huddle Dec. 21 to start mapping out what fiscal year 2023 might look like for state tax collections and spending during the annual consensus revenue hearing. The hearing typically includes testimony and projections from a variety of sources, like the Department of Revenue, Mass. Taxpayers Association, the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts and the economic analysts at MassBenchmarks.
Trying to forecast economic conditions and tax collections more than a year in advance is always a challenging and risky enterprise, but lawmakers and the executive branch now have to factor in the implications of a pandemic that waxes and wanes, the fundamental changes to the way people work and spend money, and the impacts of historic levels of federal aid.
The dire predictions that state revenue could be short by as much as $8 billion never came to pass and economic performance has greatly outpaced state expectations, at least as measured by tax receipts. Fiscal year 2021, which began about four months into the pandemic and ended as the economy mostly reopened, instead generated a surplus of about $5 billion for state coffers.
Now five months into fiscal year 2022, the Department of Revenue has collected approximately $13.612 billion from residents, workers and businesses — more than $2 billion more than in the same period of fiscal 2021 and $914 million more than what was expected to have been collected at this point in the budget year.
On top of the growth in tax collections, the federal government has sent approximately $113 billion in aid to Massachusetts state government, businesses and residents in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including $4.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds.
“Enormous federal policy support from the ARPA and widespread, rapid vaccination rollout boosted economic growth in the first half of 2021, and drove strong tax revenue collections,” Fitch said in its 2022 outlook for state and local governments. “While growth slowed in the third quarter, underlying business conditions for state and local governments remain solid. Job growth is picking back up, consumer spending continues to increase well ahead of pre-pandemic levels and household savings are historically high, suggesting ample liquidity.”
That third-quarter slowdown was “surprising,” Fitch said, but was driven by the same factors that remain the key risks for state and local governments going into 2022: supply chain challenges and a renewed COVID-19 surge fueled by a mutated variant of the virus.
“COVID-19 remains influential and unpredictable as transmission rates and hospital caseloads can shift rapidly. This makes the new Omicron variant a potential area of concern as a new pandemic surge could cause another economic setback, complicating governments’ budget outlooks,” Fitch said.
If there are economic or public health setbacks in 2022, Fitch said that states will be able to lean on their remaining pots of federal money to take some pressure off tax collections.
“The largely unspent infusion of federal aid in 2021 provides some fiscal cushion,” the outlook said.
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Michael Rodrigues said last week that about half of Massachusetts’ ARPA money ($2.3 billion) remains in the segregated account the Legislature controls, but that no timeline has been established for taking “another bite at this apple.” ARPA money must be committed by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026.
The credit rating agency also made clear that it will be watching as state governments put their one-time federal stimulus money to use, calling it “a key topic of 2022 state and local legislative sessions.”
“Sustainable deployment will be important to credit quality,” Fitch said. The firm added, “Rating implications will depend on whether governments can avoid fiscal cliffs — budgets built around non-recurring federal aid should be sustainable once it expires — and whether the aid can make material improvements in economic growth potential, such as through repairing or replacing critical infrastructure or acceleration of pandemic recovery.”
Join us for Connect North Central
Friday, November 20, 2026
8am-9am View
Event
Joint Mayor's Meeting
December 4, 2026
Chamber members are provided with the opportunity to engage with the Mayors of Fitchburg, Gardner, and Leominster who provide updates on projects and other things happening in their Cities. These events are by invitation only, please contact Travis Condon for more details. View
Event
Future Leaders of North Central: Annual Holiday Party & Ugly Sweater Competition
December 8, 2026
Bull Run Restaurant
215 Great Rd. Shirly, MA View
Event
Chamber members are provided with the opportunity to engage with the Mayors of Fitchburg, Gardner, and Leominster who provide updates on projects and other things happening in their Cities. These events are by invitation only, please contact Travis Condon for more details. View
Event
The MWCC’s Portrait of a Graduate initiative in conjunction with community partners Gardner CAC, Growing Places, HEAL Winchendon, LUK, Inc., Making Opportunity Count (MOC) Inc., and Pathways for Change, announce the second annual Healthy Minds Virtual Youth Conference, scheduled for April 13, 2022 from 10 am to 1 pm.
The 2021 event was a tremendous success, with over 1,700 students across North Central Massachusetts participating in the live virtual event, and over 2,200 registered to access the session recordings, which addressed topics requested by students that fall outside of the realm of traditional academics
This year’s Healthy Minds event brings health and real-world skill-building to K-12 schools across the region with a theme of “Curiosity and Connection”. Teachers and students will be able to select from breakout sessions that spark personal interests, satisfy curiosity, and help them plan for their future.
“Local organizations have so many great resources to share,” states Fagan Forhan, MWCC Dean of K-12 Partnerships and Civic Engagement. “This event extends our classrooms into the communities and broadens our students’ horizons.”
Speakers include educators and community members covering topics ranging from physical and emotional health and self-care, STEM topics, interpersonal relationships, financial intelligence, and even how to rent an apartment. Healthy Minds event organizer and HEAL Winchendon Coordinator, Miranda Jennings states, “The last couple years have been incredibly difficult for students and educators—we see Healthy Minds not just as an youth-centered learning opportunity, but also as a gift to learners and their teachers from the many community organizations supporting them and rooting for their success.”
The Healthy Minds: Curiosity and Connection event will be held virtually on Wednesday, April 13, 2022, from 10 am to 1 pm. The conference is free and open to any school and student to participate. Event preview and registration information will be available at uwyv.mwcc.edu.
Current sponsors are the Barr Foundation, Reliant Foundation, and United Way of North Central Massachusetts. Organizations or individuals interested in sponsoring should contact Donna Toothaker, UWYV Program Manager at 978-630-9138 or .
Virtual seminar to help plan for retirement, maximize Social Security benefits
WHAT: Fidelity Bank is offering a Social Security Workshop, “The Keys to Unlocking Social Security and Making Your Benefits Work for You.” In this workshop, participants will learn when to start to collect Social Security, how your benefit is calculated, the impact of working in retirement, and several strategies to maximize Social Security benefits.
The Central Mass Chapter of The Women’s Caucus for Art will launch a battle of ideas and aesthetics in Shirley on March 5, playing realism off against abstraction and representation off against pure imagination.
The most realistic work is probably one by Joanne Stowell of Ashburnham. Her oil paintings capture snapshots of reality that are not typically the subject matter of conventional art. In “Rust and Eggs,” a wheelbarrow is turned over and a squad of chickens dance around the scene of the accident. In “Lived In,” the house is littered with bits and pieces of the artist’s childhood. The cushions on the brown sofa are crushed. A black dog lies on the floor. Comfort in this house is much more important than order. In this work, Stowell walks a fine line between the chaotic and the mundane of everyday life. Every object has its own story.
Joanne’s work employs fine, dark lines that outline and solidify the main forms. Susan Wadsworth, from Rindge, N.H., also uses dark lines in her work. Here the black ink is on a bed of colorful pastel. The lines provide the energy of the piece as well as the outer contour of the forms. “Pool Pond, Early Fall” shimmers with red, yellow and green from the peak of the autumn colors. “Devil’s Mountain, Temagami, Ontario” also displays black accents. Yet here we also see Japanese calligraphy etched into the stone of the cliff. Branches of red pine accentuate the texture of the foreground.
Abstraction makes a glorious stand in the photographic work of Ruth Nelson of Watertown, Mass. “Lace Curtains (Rusty Flashing)” is not what one would expect from the title — the red rust accumulates in striking patterns on the flashing metal roof. Seen close up, it is hard to discern what the forms are. The artist’s perspective forces the viewer to see this in a new way. The line between abstraction and realism is also evident in her “Vulcano (Rusty Wheelbarrow).” In a small JPEG, this looks like stunning autumn foliage, but up close the black lines break the red rust apart, and we feel absorbed into the texture of this disintegrating wheelbarrow.
In her new series of smaller canvases, C.M. Judge from Fitchburg pushes the forms of her recent “Risen” series into strong bands of blue, purple and pink upon a yellow background. The forms shoot upward and outward, ambiguous in their play of positive and negative space. This is her cheerful response to the transition between winter and spring. In her painting, “So We Meet Again,” the shapes conjure the feeling of coming together in a moment of affinity and affection.
Shara Osgood, also from Fitchburg and the newest member of the group, moves from realism to visionary work. She visualizes lines and rays of energy projecting from her portraits and her animals. In Stag in the Mist, the animal in question has a starry glow between his antlers in the calm blue-purple of a winter’s evening. The lines of distant trees echo those of the antlers and the rays of light between the stars.
This exhibition at the Bull Run Restaurant opens on March 5 and will run until March 31. The Bull Run is at 215 Great Road, Shirley, Mass. It is open for dinner Wednesday to Sunday; the restaurant also serves brunch on Sunday. For more information, visit bullrunrestaurant.com or call 978.425.4311.
Miembro Destacado
Custom Cleaning Service of Peabody
When the workday ends and the lights go down, Custom Cleaning Service of Peabody, Inc. gets to work. “We operate as our clients’ silent partner after business hours,” says Adam Paicos, of Templeton, who now serves as Director of Operations and oversees the company’s expansion into North Central MA. “We are not often seen, but we ensure facilities are clean, secure, and ready for business each day while serving as the eyes and ears for our clients when they are not on site.”
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Shara Osgood, also from Fitchburg and the newest member of the group, moves from realism to visionary work. She visualizes lines and rays of energy projecting from her portraits and her animals. In Stag in the Mist, the animal in question has a starry glow between his antlers in the calm blue-purple of a winter’s evening. The lines of distant trees echo those of the antlers and the rays of light between the stars.
