CONSTRUCTION

Richard “Dick” Piper, founder and President of R.M. Piper Inc., Plymouth, has been named the winner of the 25th annual New Hampshire Construction Industry Ethics Award, which honors the “individual, business or organization that, through its words and deeds, best demonstrates a commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards in construction.” The award, created by longtime industry public relations expert David “Woody” Wood, is now overseen by Plan NH.

Mechanical contracting firm DECCO Inc., Brookline, has named Edwin Jones as its director of environmental, health and safety, a newly created position. Jones has more than 30 years of experience in the management of health and safety programs. In addition, Dale Cailler has been named corporate manager, another newly created position. He has more than 25 years of experience in account management and leadership. The firm announced two other appointments: Brian Burns has been named a project manager and Molly Reagan has been appointed a project engineer.

ENERGY

Casella Waste Systems, in partnership with Rudarpa Inc., has officially broken ground on a renewable natural gas processing facility at its North Country Environmental Services landfill in Bethlehem. The project, the first of its kind in New Hampshire, Casella said, is designed to capture the landfill gas that is currently being flared and separate it into marketable gases, with primary emphasis on methane and carbon dioxide. Once processed, the RNG will be transported by truck for injection into existing pipeline facilities owned by Liberty Utilities.

ARCHITECTURE

Maugel Architects announced that architect Britni Rotunda has been promoted to manager of the DeStefano Maugel Studio office in Portsmouth. She previously was a project architect at the firm.

Debbie Kane has joined architecture, planning and interior design firm JSA Design as marketing manager. A resident of Exeter, Kane owned her own writing and communications business, Kane Communications, for 14 years.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Bangor Savings Bank has established Bangor Wealth Management of New Hampshire LLC and opened its first office at 82 N. Main St. in Concord. The move follows the bank’s recent branch openings in Concord and Manchester. The team at the newest office is led by Mark A. Paluzzi, senior vice president and New Hampshire market leader; Mike LeBel, vice president and portfolio manager; and Natalya Pearl, vice president and senior relationship manager.

NHTrust has announced that Mary Obara has joined the company as trust administrator, based out of the Concord office at 89 North Main St. Prior to joining NHTrust, Obara worked as a teller administrator at NHTrust’s sister company, Merrimack County Savings Bank.

Northeast Credit Union has named Andrew Odor as branch manager of its office in Lee. He previously was assistant branch manager of the Portsmouth location.

Shannon Ketcham has been promoted to mortgage loan officer at Merrimack County Savings Bank, Concord. She joined the Merrimack in 2011 as a bank teller, and in 2013 was promoted to call center representative, then teller supervisor in 2015, and in 2016 she was promoted to branch services manager at the bank’s Bow Office.

BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS

The Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce has announced the winners of its annual awards: Volunteer of the Year, Deborah Clough, a board member of Dover Main Street; Nonprofit of the Year, SOS Recovery Community Organization; Citizen of the Year, Matthew Mayberry; and Business of the Year, ConvenientMD Urgent Care.

The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce has announced the winners of its 2021 Pinnacle Awards: Small Business of the Year, Constantly Pizza Inc.; Business of the Year, Associated Grocers of New England Inc.; Nonprofit of the Year, Best Buddies New Hampshire; Business Leader of the Year, Nicki Clarke, Capitol Center for the Arts and Bank of New Hampshire StageFinancial Services.

Mark Stasium has been named senior vice president, director of commercial real estate banking at Camden National Bank. For the past six years, he has served as senior vice president, commercial real estate banker at the bank.

Four people have been promoted to be senior vice presidents at Clark Insurance: Deb Wentworth, who manages the account management teams for business insurance and employee benefits; Gregg Ritter, who leads the Maine Business Insurance Sales Team; Bret Cote, who manages the New Hampshire office and sales team; and Mona Freeman Wilkinson, who oversees the Personal Insurance Department’s sales and services across Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Donald Sutherland has joined Bangor Savings Bank as a mortgage loan officer. He has more than 20 years in the mortgage industry, most recently as a loan officer with St. Mary’s Bank.

St. Mary’s Bank was recently named a top 10 lender by New Hampshire Housing for the 11th consecutive year. The Mortgage Center at St. Mary’s participates in New Hampshire Housing’s Home Flex and Preferred Programs, which make homeownership possible for low- to moderate-income households.

LAW

The law firm of McLane Middleton has hired attorney Brian B. Garrett, who joins the firm as of counsel in the Litigation Department and a member of the Education Group. Prior to joining the firm, he was a partner at a boutique law firm handling education and employment matters, and an associate at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP’s Manhattan office.

NONPROFITS

Newburyport Bank has donated $1,500 to Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, and $1,000 to the American Independence Museum in Exeter.

Webster House has named Michelle O’Malley as its new Chief Executive Officer and has promoted Blair Stairs to executive director of operations. O’Malley was most recently associate executive director of the March of Dimes for New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

Meredith Village Savings Bank recently purchased $10,000 in tax credits from the Homeless Center for Strafford County through the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority to support their efforts to build a new shelter building ready for occupancy in the fall of 2021.

Margaret Gillespie, a naturalist at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, Holderness, has been recognized as New Hampshire Environmental Educator of the Year.

The Northeast Delta Dental Foundation has awarded grants of $104,000 to 13 New Hampshire oral health programs, including the dental centers of Concord Hospital and Wentworth-Douglass Hospital as well as Dental Lifeline, the NH Oral Health Coalition, Concord Dental Sealant Coalition, Greater Nashua Dental Connection, Kiwanis Club of Mt. Washington Valley, Aspire Living & Learning, Crotched Mountain Foundation, Gateways Community Services, Lakes Region Community Developers, Lakes Region Community Services and One Sky Community Services.

UpReach Therapeutic Equestrian Center, Goffstown, has announced that Kerry McGrath has joined its board of directors. McGrath is currently senior underwriting specialist and team lead for Acadia Insurance Company.

The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has expanded its Moose Mountains Reservation in Middleton and Brookfield. Now at 2,746 acres, the reservation is part of one of the largest blocks of forestland in the central part of the state.

The New Hampshire Agrarian Commons, a collaboration between Agrarian Trust, Monadnock Community Land Trust, Normanton Farms, Brookford Farm and Vernon Family Farm, is raising $47,000 to support the acquisition of a 63-acre regenerative farm in Litchfield. For more information, visit agrariancommons/support-nh.

Ledyard National Bank has donated $1,000 to Lebanon-based West Central Behavioral Health in recognition of its programming and services, which treat mental illness and substance use disorders in the Upper Valley. Ledyard also recently donated $2,000 as a community partner to Headrest, which supports people affected by substance use disorder, in recognition of its 50th anniversary. The funds will go toward its capital campaign to help cover costs to upgrades at its Church Street location in Lebanon.

Franklin Savings Bank recently presented the Goffstown Junior Baseball Little League with a $5,000 donation to assist the organization with the purchase of a new public address sound system for its ball fields located along Route 114 in Goffstown. The donation also includes a five-year sponsorship of the League along with signage prominently displayed on the press boxes at the fields where games are played for the majors and minor league teams.

Families First Health and Support Center is close to raising the funds sought to expand access to care in a new home in Portsmouth later this year. Donations will fund the conversion of a building on Greenleaf Woods Drive that formerly housed a gym and swimming pool into what Capital Campaign Committee cochair Karin Barndollar calls “a new home that is inviting and welcoming for our patients and is an efficient, purposebuilt work space for our staff.”

Monadnock United Way has named its co-campaign chairs for its 2021 annual campaign: Danya Landis, co-founder, partner and arts director of Machina Arts/Machina Kitchen and ArtBar in Keene; Karen Peterson, development and fundraising coordinator at Monadnock Developmental Services; and Beth Wood, co-owner of 21 Bar & Grill in Keene.

NHTrust has contributed $2,000 to the Harris Center for Conservation Education, Hancock, to support its efforts to reach over 3,000 students in 30 local public schools with environmental science lessons coupled with outdoor sessions in nature.

Step Up Parents has received a $5,000 grant from the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction to provide financial support for kinship caregivers who have stepped up for children of parents with substance use disorder in New Hampshire and to build organizational capacity to keep pace with increased demand for assistance.

GOVERNMENT

The New Hampshire Liquor Commission said it recently completed its most successful sales year in history and has now surpassed $4 billion in total net revenue delivered to the state since its founding in 1934. In the 2021 fiscal year, NHLC said its sales reached $765 million, a 5%, $36.5 million, increase over the previous year. Net revenue reached $155 million.

TECHNOLOGY

Dover-based Kikori has launched a new web app aimed at broadening access to social emotional learning activities by providing educators with resources and evidence-based activities for students. The platform has over 400 team-building activities that can be applied to in-classroom, physical distancing and virtual settings.

Appcast, a Lebanonbased provider of programmatic recruitment advertising technology and services, has been named to Inc. magazine’s 2021 “Best Workplaces” list. Based on employee feedback, the annual list recognizes American companies that have created exceptional workplaces and company culture whether teams are operating in person or remotely. The Inc. survey found that 100% of Appcast employees are engaged, with 95.65% characterized as highly engaged.

SuperDraft Inc. of Salem, which operates a daily fantasy platform, has partnered with Caesars Entertainment Inc.’s Game Play Network Inc. to add casino-style games to its existing daily fantasy sports and free-to-play sports book offerings. GPN is a licensed racing company with a patented B2B platform that enables its brand partners to offer players the immediate ability to offer iGaming for real money in the vast majority of the U.S.

Seattle-based Tegria has acquired Colburn Hill Group, a developer of analytically driven robotic process automation technologies for revenue cycle management with offices in Chicago and Manchester. Colburn Hill’s Ops Center RCM platform is used by healthcare providers. Colburn Hill’s 75 employees will become part of Tegria’s RCM solutions group.

Cartographic Associates Inc. a municipal mapping and GIS services company in Littleton, has acquired MainStreetGIS, a municipal mapping and GIS company that has provided mapping services to southern New England municipalities for more than two decades. Cartographic Associates, which does business as CAI Technologies, said the deal further establishes its place in the municipal mapping and GIS services market in New England.

CRN magazine has named Sara Siddiqui, partner alliance manager at Claremontbased Red River, to its Women of the Channel list for 2021. The list recognizes the strengths, vision and achievements of female leaders in the IT channel.

Stratham-based Position Imaging has achieved Microsoft Gold Partner status. The logistics firm offers computer-based package tracking for delivery and retrieval.

HEALTHCARE

ClearChoiceMD Urgent Care and Littleton Regional Healthcare are teaming up in a joint venture to build and operate a new co-branded urgent care center in Lincoln. The partners say their project ensures a once under-served area will have greater access to medical care options.

HOSPITALITY

XSS Hotels, Hooksett, has acquired a controlling interest in two properties in Portland, Maine: the Portland Harbor Hotel and the Inn At Diamond Cove. The original developer of both properties, Bateman Partners LLC, retains a minority interest, while Colwen Hotels also acquires a minority interest. Portland Harbor Hotel is a 101-room hotel in Portland’s Old Port District.

The Inn at Diamond Cove has 44 guest rooms and suites on Great Diamond Island in Casco Bay.

RETAIL

Outdoor apparel and equipment company Columbia Sportswear has opened a factory store at Tanger Outlets, Tilton.

SPORTS

Jon Hunt has been appointed executive director of Whaleback Mountain in Enfield. Hunt, who previously was major gifts officer at Colby-Sawyer College, overseeing a record-breaking fundraising campaign.

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