Cowls to Close Manufacturing Division
AMHERST — Citing diminished customer demand for custom-sawed lumber, W. D. Cowls Inc. will close its sawmill, one of its four divisions, this month. The ninth-generation family business will focus its future on its timberland and real-estate-management services, and Cowls Building Supply’s retail lumberyard and design showroom, according to Cinda Jones, president of W. D. Cowls Inc. Cowls’ core business, since 1741, has been sustainably managing timberland in Western Mass. from its home farm in North Amherst. Over the past 268 years, the family business enterprises have also included onion, corn, tobacco, and potato farms. Jones noted that family businesses have to innovate and change over time to survive and thrive, and her family is excited about the future. She added that this latest endeavor “is not about a business closing, but about a business evolving.”
NTS Moving into Springfield
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — New Technology Systems Inc. (NTS) will expand its presence into Western Mass. with a business service and sales office in the Monarch building beginning Feb. 1. NTS is a privately held, enterprise IT company that has been servicing Connecticut and Massachusetts for more than 28 years, according to Barry Kelly, vice president of NTS. Kelly noted that NTS specializes in the assessment, design, supply, and implementation of cost-effective technology solutions. NTS is headquartered in East Hartford.
Bell & Hudson Insurance Recertified
BELCHERTOWN — Bell & Hudson Insurance Agency Inc. has achieved full recertification as a Five Star insurance agency by the Mass. Assoc. of Insurance Agents. The Five Star Award of Distinction is earned by agencies that pass a comprehensive fitness review based on model best practices in customer focus, management, leadership, human resources, processes, products, and services. Once the designation is achieved by an insurance agency, the agency must be recertified every three years to retain it. The Five Star certification team, which conducts the fitness review, made note of the agency’s outstanding leadership, positive employee morale, and the staff’s commitment to the agency’s customers and the community as a whole. Bell & Hudson Insurance Agency, a full-service independent insurance agency, is located at 19 North Main St.
Auto Distributorship Transformation Brings Awards
WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — The University of Hartford’s new Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center has been honored repeatedly as an outstanding example of ‘adaptive reuse’ of an old industrial facility. The project transformed the former Thomas Cadillac distributorship at the corner of Albany Avenue and Westbourne Parkway in Hartford into a 55,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility for dance and theater instruction and performance for the Hartt School. The $22 million facility includes five dance studios, four theater rehearsal studios, three vocal studios, and two black-box theatres, as well as faculty offices, a café, a bank branch, and a community room. The architects of the arts center received a 2009 Design Award on Dec. 7 from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in the category of ‘preservation.’ The center was designed by Smith Edwards Architects of Hartford with the goal of preserving the unique character of the original facility, which was created in 1929 by pioneering industrial architect Albert Kahn. The center also received a 2009 Hartford Preservation Alliance Award for its rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of the former Cadillac building. Other honors for the project include a Connecticut Real Estate Exchange Award for adaptive reuse, a 2009 Connecticut Preservation Award from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, and a Connecticut Main Street Center 2009 Award of Excellence for adaptive reuse.
