FAIRFIELD COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
October 13, 2014 | VOL. 50, No. 41
Making it
FCBJ this week
MANUFACTURING JOBS ON RISE AS STATE INVESTS IN TECH ED
INSURANCE MENTOR Educating clients is at the root of a fresh Pentegra-Geiger relationship … 2
BY CRYSTAL KANG ckang@westfairinc.com
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BANK MENTOR First Niagara provides money for school programs … 8 CORPORATE MENTOR A road race that’s popular with businesses raises $65K to help students … 13
HELD ACCOUNTABLE – AND LOVING IT … 6 MEDIA PARTNER
Greenwich Hospital CFO Eugene Colucci addresses the guests at Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Nowalk.
Doctors of distinction
MEDICAL ASSOCIATION PAIRS WITH BUSINESS JOURNAL FOR HISTORIC NIGHT BY BILL FALLON Bfallon@westfairinc.com
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or the first time in its 222-year history, the state-chartered Fairfield County Medical Association will partner with a newspaper — the Fairfield County Business Journal — for an awards event. Doctors of Distinction 2014, “Saluting those
who go beyond the diagnosis,” is Oct. 22, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Ave. in Norwalk. It is the first incarnation of the event and the public is invited. Accounting firm Citrin Cooperman is event co-sponsor with the Business Journal. “Citrin Cooperman is very excited about sponsoring the inaugural Doctors of Distinction » DOCTORS, page 4
fter years of decline, manufacturing jobs in Connecticut are now trending upward. As the state takes proactive steps to ensure people are trained for manufacturing jobs, employment numbers are simultaneously rising. In the most recent data, manufacturing jobs increased from 163,500 last year to 164,100 this year. “During the decades of job losses, many parents were losing middle-class manufacturing jobs and (in turn) discouraged their children from pursuing manufacturing as a career,” said Lori-Lynn Chatlos, business services specialist at the state Department of Labor. “The public technical schools were drained of resources because of the lack of public investment.” But for the past few years, the state has been paying close attention to the return on investment in technical and trades education. The state has a sharp focus on preparing its young workforce to take the place of aging baby boomers who are slowly exiting the job market, Chatlos said. It will be difficult to find qualified candidates to fill manufacturing job openings without investing in technical skills training and advanced manufacturing certificate programs. “We’re concerned about the age of our manufacturing workforce,” said Patrick Flaherty, an economist with the state Labor Department. “A lot of them are nearing retirement so there’s a concern we won’t have enough people ready to take those jobs. We need to have a pipeline because a lot of these folks are going to be leaving. Job openings in manufacturing could be huge as retirement happens. We’re already seeing it happen.” The manufacturing industry received a boost when the state passed the jobs bill in 2011, investing money into technical education that » MAKING, page 4
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ELDER CARE
Ten-thousand Americans per day are reaching 65.