HOSPITALITY
The Brook casino in Seabrook has opened Lucky’s, a restaurant with a diverse menu. The restaurant offers breakfast all day with a centerpiece bar that features everything from coffee to cocktails. Menu selections range from burgers, wraps and sandwiches to shrimp cocktail, chicken alfredo and steak tips.
REAL ESTATE
Torrington Properties, a real estate and development and investment firm headquartered in Boston with offices in New Hampshire, has hired Mike Norris as its new chief financial officer. Most recently, Norris served as chief compliance officer and director of accounting at Marcus Partners in Boston, where he worked as part of the finance and accounting team for 12 years. In that role, he assisted in the acquisition, disposition, development and financing of over $2 billion in real estate.
Taylor Saulnier of Mansard Commercial Properties recently completed the $725,000 sale of the 10,300-square-foot building at 77 Turnpike St. in Allenstown. The building, which sits on a 1.93-acre corner lot on Route 3, is configured as an openconcept retail store with a warehouse/storage area for inventory. The building was 100 percent leased to Aubuchon Hardware at the time of sale.
CBRE has hired Rob Byrne as an executive vice president in the firm’s Boston office. He will focus on industrial leasing. Prior to joining CBRE, Mr. Byrne was an executive with Cushman & Wakefield, for whom he led the Boston industrial team.
BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS
The NH Automobile Dealers Association has named Marshall Jespersen as chair of its board of directors. Jespersen is dealer principal of ICL, a retail group with six locations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He succeeds John Sawyer Jr., current vice president at Portsmouth Ford.
Charlene Huard Marcoux of Home Base Transportation, Manchester, has won the Center for Women & Enterprise’s Andrea C. Silbert Rising Star Award. She was honored at the organization’s annual auction and gala at the Omni Parker House in Boston. The award is presented to an individual who has been economically empowered by her relationship with CWE and celebrates her representation of women who are lifting up the world.
Ledyard National Bank has been awarded the 2023 Business of the Year Pinnacle Award by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce. The annual award celebrates a business, small business, nonprofit and business leader that have demonstrated professional excellence and worked to make a positive impact on the Capital Region.
NONPROFITS
Lauren Wool has joined the NH Women’s Foundation as director of grantmaking. She joins the foundation from United Way, where she spent nearly 20 years, most recently as senior area director for the Seacoast region.
Families in Transition has added two new members to its leadership team: Daniel Kern, chief financial officer, and Kerry Pellerin, chief human resources officer. Kern has worked most of his career in the nonprofit and government sectors, most recently for community action programs during the pandemic. Pellerin has over 25 years of experience in all areas of human resources in various industries, including manufacturing, renewable energy, food service and nonprofits.
Swim With A Mission has announced Christina Young has been hired as director of development. SWAM is dedicated to boosting resources available to area efforts to support veterans and their families.
The NH Business Committee for the Arts has added three members to its board of directors: Janet Ackerman of Bedford, commercial lending senior relationship manager at TD Bank; Bob Carey of Concord, as a shareholder at the Orr & Reno law firm; and Jeff Gendron of Litchfield, senior portfolio manager and investment strategist at Ledyard Financial Advisors.
Bar Harbor Bank & Trust has donated $2,000 to Cornucopia Project, a nonprofit organization focused on nutrition education in New Hampshire. The donation will be used to support the organization’s Scholarship Fund so that high school students from low- and moderate-income households can learn about food production from the ground up while gaining valuable job skills.
The Manchester Historic Association has announced that four new members have been named to its board of directors: Ami D’Amelio, CEO and president of Just Flow Events & Marketing; Michael Duffy, director and secretary with the NH Preservation Alliance; Patricia Meyers, former executive director of education, health and human service organizations in Washington, D.C.; and Peter Richard, general manager of XMA Corp.
Newburyport Bank has donated $1,000 to the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire as an Iron Sponsor of its 2023 Juneteenth Celebration. Events will take place from June 10 to 19 to honor early African settlers and their descendants for their extraordinary contributions to the growth of the region. The complete schedule can be found at: blackheritagetrailnh.org. The Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $11,000 to New Hampshire nonprofit organizations, libraries and schools. They are: Carroll County Adult Education, Tamworth; Gorham Public Library; Fuller Public Library Project Lift, Hillsborough; and the YMCA of Greater Nashua.
Meredith Village Savings Bank has donated another $25,000 to support Humble Grunt Work and its capital campaign to build a new Meredith Veterans Memorial. MVSB made an initial $25,000 donation to the project in early 2022.
BUSINESS SERVICES
WORK Lakes Region LLC, a co-working and event space being developed by Lakes Region entrepreneur Jodie Gallant of JMG Business Strategies, is set to open in the fall at 51 Elm St. in Lakeport in the fall. WORK Lakes Region will be a membership-based co-working space offering opportunities by the day and week with flex desks, a private meeting space for two to eight people, one- to three-person private longer-use offices, and an event center that holds up to 100.
Goodwin Recruiting, Exeter, has been recognized for the fourth year in a row as one of Forbes “Best Executive Recruiting Firms in America” and “America’s Best Professional Recruiting Firms.” The magazine selected the top 2023 recruiting companies by surveying over 5,200 external recruiters and HR professionals who recently worked with a recruiting firm.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Robin Abbott, CEO of the NH Society of CPAs, has joined NBT Bank’s New England advisory board.
Savings Bank of Walpole has announced the promotion of Jeff Smith to vice president, corporate treasurer and investment officer for NH Mutual Bancorp, the umbrella organization for SBW, Meredith Village Savings Bank and Merrimack County Savings Bank.
Shawn Foley has joined Bar Harbor Wealth Management, a subsidiary of Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, as senior vice president, senior portfolio manager. He previously served as senior vice president, portfolio manager at Berkshire Bank.
NH Mutual Bancorp and its affiliate banks — Meredith Village Savings Bank, Merrimack County Savings Bank and Savings Bank of Walpole — has been recognized as having the top loan originators in New Hampshire for 2022 by the Warren Group, publisher of the Registry Review. Originators are ranked by number of loans and loan volume statewide, and by the institution with which they are most closely affiliated. Among those ranked at or near the top were: Lori Borrin, MVSB; Matt Thomas, Merrimack County Savings; Sarah Rosley, Savings Bank of Walpole; Kelly Beebee, MVSB; Marcy Dembiec, MVSB; Samantha Monson, Savings Bank of Walpole; and Elizabeth Brothers, MVSB.
Merrimack County Savings Bank has hired Silvia Croteau as assistant vice president, branch and development manager of its new branch in Windham. She has over two decades of experience in the banking industry, and before that completed four years of undergraduate studies in infant psychology at Universidad La Salle in Mexico. Florida-based FCCI Insurance Group has begun writing contract and commercial surety bonds in the six New England states. Phil Shepard is heading the New England regional effort from his office in Keene. He has more than 30 years of experience in the financial industry, including extensive experience in contract and commercial surety.
David J. James has joined NHTrust as a financial advisor. He is based at NHTrust’s Concord office at Merrimack County Savings Bank, at 89 N. Main Street. Before joining NHTrust, James spent over 11 years working as a financial advisor at Rise Private Wealth Management, a division of Ameriprise Financial, as well as with Citizens Bank.
ENERGY
ReVision Energy has named Fiona Wilson, director of the Sustainability Institute and deputy chief sustainability officer at the University of New Hampshire, its board of directors. She is the company’s first external director.
GOVERNMENT
The Mascoma Valley Regional School District is among 25 districts nationwide to be awarded $100,000 to establish, train and support energy managers in their schools, according to an announcement from the state’s congressional delegation. The Energy Champions Leading Advancement of Sustainable Schools Prize (Energy CLASS Prize) grants are funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The NH Department of Education has selected College Guidance Network to provide support services to students, families and school counselors to navigate the pathway to post-secondary education opportunities. The department said the initiative will empower school counselors to better support their college and career-bound students in navigating the college admissions process.
Philip A. DeVincent, administrative officer at the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Hampshire, recently earned a Director’s Award for his service. He won the Superior Performance in Administration award for his leadership in managing staff and providing excellent customer service through the pandemic.
HEALTHCARE
Cheshire Medical Center has added three new providers to its medical staff: Kathleen Clark, who was most recently a nurse practitioner at Ludlow Health Center in Ludlow, Vt.; Kathryn Hynes, who most recently worked as a registered nurse in the Dartmouth Health Children’s PainFree program at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon; and Evan Thompson, who recently earned his master of physician assistant studies degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Manchester.
Hackett Hill Center, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Manchester, has earned the American Heart Association’s Skilled Nursing Facility Heart Failure Certification. The certification provides a framework for evaluating skilled nursing facilities against the association’s requirements for heart failure patients, including program management, patient and caregiver education and support, care coordination, clinical management and quality improvement.
PRINTING AND PUBLISHING
PINE, Printing Industries of New England, has announced that Polaris Direct, a direct marketing services and printing company in Hooksett, was recently honored at the association’s New England regional Awards of Excellence competition. Polaris received the Pinnacle Award for its Cross Media Promotion Division III 2022 Recruitment Campaign for CareFree Insurance Services.
TRANSPORTATION
Merchants Fleet, the Hooksett-based management company, has won the 2023 SEAL Environmental Initiative Award for its Electrify Fleet program.
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Montagne Powers hires veteran comms. strategist
Manchester-based Montagne Powers has announced that veteran communications strategist Clark Dumont, a Public Relations Society of America fellow, has joined the firm and will serve of counsel. Dumont, a native Granite Stater, started his communications career in broadcast journalism with radio stations in Keene and Manchester. Since then, he has served in a variety of communications and public affairs positions with leading Fortune companies in the healthcare, aerospace, hospitality and travel, and gaming sectors as well as a wide array of community nonprofit agencies and programs.
