Wednesday, June 11, 2014

WBJ Family Business Awards: Lauring Construction

JUNE 9, 2014

Four generations lead Lauring Construction into the future

TARYN PLUMB



It may seem trite to say that a construction company was built on a strong foundation — but that's precisely the case with Lauring Construction Co.
The Worcester company, now operated by its third and fourth family generations, has a background spanning more than 90 years.
The keys to its success, family executives say, is its hands-on approach, sole focus on local projects and a good life-work balance.
"We get along well, we work together well, we're a real team," said Mark Lauring, who serves as vice president.
The company, which employs 23 and focuses on large- and small-scale commercial, educational, institutional and religious projects, is now managed by its third generation, a trio of brothers including Mark, president John Lauring, and treasurer-clerk James Lauring.
They all have sons involved in various capacities, too: Tim Lauring (Mark's son) and Dan Lauring (James' son), are project managers, while Michael Lauring (John's son) runs site crews, and Chris Lauring (James' son) performs office and field work.
The emphasis on family has been key from the beginning. Grandfather Anthony Lauring started out as a stone mason in 1922, eventually launching his own company. In the 1940s, his son Raymond joined him; the two worked together as general contractors until 1948, the year they formed Lauring Construction.
At the time, they took advantage of the post-war housing market. By the mid-1950s, they began diversifying into commercial projects.
The third generation started coming on in the 1970s, when the company shifted solely to commercial, offering general contracting, design building and construction management services.
"We grew up through high school and college, summers and weekends, working for the company," John said.
Raymond — now 88 and still active, even involved with a softball team — ceded the business to his three sons when he retired in 1984.
Through the years, family members have worked at all levels of the process, and hold degrees in law, engineering, business management and administration, marketing and finance.
"They're the ultimate family business," said Joe Favulli of Worcester-based Favulli Electric, Inc., a longtime Lauring subcontractor. "They work together very well, and you can tell they respect each other."
Lauring's projects over the years have included a $3.9-million addition to the Campus Ministry Center at Assumption College; a $13.24-million office space renovation for Commerce Insurance Co.; and an $8-million construction of two residence halls at Nichols College in Dudley.
John said they also recently finished work on a student center at Nichols. Other recent and current clients include MAPFRE Insurance in Webster, Our Lady of the Angels School in Worcester, Notre Dame Academy in Worcester, and Anna Maria College in Paxton.
A dedication to local projects is one factor that sets the company apart, the brothers say.
"We're Worcester County people and we do all our work here," Mark said. "That's unusual because most contractors travel all over the place, and we don't."
Similarly, all three brothers are very hands-on, and maintain direct contact with customers.
"They're dealing with the owner of the company, so it's a 'buck stops here' type of situation," said James.
"We self-perform a lot of work on the construction site," John added. "We're there controlling it."
And although the brothers acknowledged that times have been challenging with the various ups and downs in the economy, the company has made careful investments over the years in high-end laser technology and machinery to decrease manpower and costs and increase efficiency and ultimately help withstand the inevitable dips in business.
Now, Lauring reports averages annual sales of $10 million, and has been profitable nearly every year since its incorporation 66 years ago.

Tomorrow and technology
Looking ahead, members of the fourth generation are identifying technology challenges they will face when they take over.
"Everything's going into the cloud, everything's digital," said Mark's son, Tim. "Basically everything we do is less and less paper and more and more computer."
That shift is beneficial for both efficiencies and products, he said, "challenging, but exciting."
With the three brothers ranging in age from 58 to 62 and having "a few good years left in us," as John noted, there are no immediate plans to retire. But, he said, they expect the transition to the fourth generation within five to 10 years, and are slowly moving their sons into more supervisory roles.
"They're smart kids, they're well-educated, they have a strong work ethic," Mark said of his son and nephews.

John agreed, saying, "We're well-positioned with the next generation to move on and keep the business going."

Original story link

WBJ Family Business Awards: Bigelow Electrical Co.

JUNE 9, 2014

Bigelow Electical driven by customer needs for 100 years

TARYN PLUMB



Maintaining a small family business for a century — amid all the economic cycles, financial dips and swings, and potentially dire market changes — takes dedication, ingenuity, the right people with a diversity of talents, as well as a willingness and ability to listen and adapt.
Since its inception in a basement in 1914, that mix of attributes has kept Worcester-based Bigelow Electrical Co. not only up and running, but thriving.
"It's always about the people, at least in the service business," said President Scott Bigelow. "If you have great people and you instill in them the motivation to be trained and make them adhere to professional ethics and honesty, and that goes out in the world, you maintain a reputation."
Now run by its third generation, the brunt of Bigelow's business involves maintaining, servicing and repairing hoists, electric motors, pumps and standby generators through its BigPower division. The company, with 16 employees, also does sales and repairs, and runs a machine shop.
It's a vast departure from its simple beginnings: When Windsor Bigelow Sr. launched the business, he focused solely on maintaining, repairing and servicing electric motors, first in his parents' basement, then in a shop he rented in downtown Worcester.
But decades later, his grandson Scott began to see a seismic shift in that market: The industry of manufacturing motors, hoists and pumps was slowly moving to the South or out of the country.
Around the same time, another opportunity arose: In his travels, Scott was hearing customers express dissatisfaction with their on-site generator service.
"They said, 'I wish you could do this,'" he recalled.
It was a big leap, he noted, as "sending technicians out on site was something completely new for us."
And the customer base expanded to police and fire departments, hospitals, research facilities, sewage plants, academic institutions and assisted living facilities.
Essentially, "everybody that has standby power," he said, adding, "I can't really take the credit (for the decision) — I was just listening to customers."
And today, because so many people work from home or are launching home-based businesses, he sees great opportunity in the residential market.
"Our customer base is very diverse," he said.. "I love talking with the customers, finding out about their business. Very few … get to spend a lifetime doing what they enjoy."
But while he now owns and runs the company, he started out doing what he calls "grunt work."
His grandfather died in 1965, leaving his father, Windsor Bigelow Jr., to run the business. It moved to its current location on 1 Pullman St. in 1973, and eventually expanded from 12,500 to 17,500 square feet.

Learning and bonding
Scott became involved in the business in the early 1970s as a teen, doing anything from mowing the lawn to emptying trash to dirty jobs, like cleaning vents.
He had personal reasons to join the business: he wanted to see more of his father.
"My dad was here so much," he said. "That was one way to be part of his life."
He started taking a keen interest in what the workers were doing, and eventually started asking questions.
"They taught me stuff, then they started taking me out on jobs," he said. "Before you knew it, I felt comfortable enough to talk to customers and facilities managers."
His father retired in 2000, and, in 2006, Scott's wife Nancy came on as clerk. Meanwhile, of their four children — two sons and two daughters — one, Benjamin, is actively involved as a shop assistant.
Before she came on, Nancy recalled she had qualms: she didn't want to put a strain on their marriage.
"It's difficult for a husband and wife to work together ... but the transition has worked out very nicely," she said. "Sometimes we want to bring things up at home (or vice versa), but we don't, we've found that balance."
Scott agreed, married for 35 years, that they have struck a nice harmony by finding like-minded interests outside work, such as water-skiing and swimming.
Much like his father, Benjamin — whose job entails "helping out wherever they need me" — enjoys the learning aspect of the job.
But will he take over as fourth-generation owner?
The soon-to-be University of Connecticut freshman is considering it. "I have a lot to learn before that."

Original story link.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Doing Business In Connecticut: Pez!!

Manufacturing
Industry SPOTLIGHT

CT’s Sweet Tooth
It’s not only jet engines that are produced in Connecticut — it’s candy, too

By Taryn Plumb

They’re an icon of popular culture, world-renowned, instantly recogniz- able and ubiquitous — without even realizing it, you most likely have one or two hidden away in a desk drawer or closet.
And for 40 years, their sweet, tart, bite-sized cargo has been crafted right here in Connecticut. Yes, we’re talking about PEZ and their sig-
nature dispensers, a worldwide phenomenon that has intrigued and amused generations of candy lovers. Since 1974, the beloved rectangu- lar confection — now available in more than a dozen flavors and dispensed from the heads of superheroes, Santa Claus, U.S. presidents and untold amounts of Disney characters — has been manufactured in the town of Orange, just west of New Haven.
People often ask us, ‘Why Orange?’ ” said project manager Shawn Peter- son, a longtime collector of everything PEZ- related. “We like to joke, ‘Because there was no Grape, Lemon or Strawberry, Connecticut.’

Location, location, location
In fact, it was a fateful helicopter ride over the area by the Austrian Haas family — whose patriarch, Eduard Haas, initially invented PEZ as a breath mint in 1927 — that attracted the company here.
The southern part of the state was then largely farmland, and the family saw great op- portunity in the location, according to Joseph Vittoria, who has served as president and CEO since 2004. It provided great ability for growth, was close to several major ports, relatively equidistant from Boston and New York City, provided a “good location for distribution,” and offered a “good diverse workforce,” explained Vittoria, who has also been known to collect PEZ.
So, after initially establishing its American presence in New York City in the early 1950s, PEZ relocated its U.S. headquarters to Orange in 1974. (And, if you ever happen to call there and find yourself on hold, you’ll fittingly be greeted with such sweet hits as The Archies’ “Sugar Sugar.”)
Today, its 110,000-square-foot facility on 10 acres turns out between 1 and 1.2 million rolls of candy a day, according to Vittoria. Using pharmaceutical-grade equipment, the process involves grinding sugar into a fine powder so it can then be recombined with flavors, pressed into its signature tablet form, and finally put through high-speed wrappers. Depending on the season, the plant employs between 160 and 280, Vittoria said.
“All the candy is made in the U.S.A.; all the wrapping is done in the U.S.A.,” he said. Dispensers, meanwhile, first came along in 1948, and are created in factories in Hungary and Austria and by partners in China.
Globally, PEZ has more than $150 million in revenue, Vittoria said, and is sold in between 85 and 90 countries, while its rabid base of collectors gather at numerous independent conventions.
Ultimately, there’s no real way to tell how many dispensers have been released over the years — because some characters, such as Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse, have gone through nearly a dozen iterations — but Peterson estimated it between 10,000 and 12,000 unique characters. “Whenever there was something happening, or something that was a lot of fun, PEZ usually matched it by putting a dispenser out,” said Vittoria.
Besides the clear favorites such as Disney, Marvel and DC superheroes, Hello Kitty and Star Wars characters, recent variations have included The Hobbit ensemble and the salty custom motorcycle builders from the CMT channel’s “Orange County Choppers” (which, Vittoria explained, was a play to attract tween and teen boys, but ultimately drew in women of all ages).
In brainstorming new heads for its wide customer base — unisex and ages 4 to 50 — the company constantly looks to popular culture to stay “consistent and current.”
“Our audience is so broad,” Vittoria said. “We try and stay relevant.”
As part of that, in 2006, the company invested roughly $10 million — including a $2 million loan from the state — to refit its building and upgrade equipment.
It also opened up a visitor center and museum that attracts nearly 100,000 people a year. Much of what’s on display is from Peterson’s own private collection. He’s been amassing items for 25 years and wrote the definitive “Collector’s Guide to PEZ: Identification and Price Guide.”
In 2010, he left his job of 20 years in Kansas City to help establish the museum and ultimately pursue what he called “a dream come true.”
“It’s a fun thing,” Peterson said of collecting. “They’re simple, they’re small, the colors are bright, they’re easy to find, easy to collect. It caters to everyone.”

Read the full magazine here

Doing Business In Connecticut: The state of manufacturing

Manufacturing
Industry SPOTLIGHT

Yankee ingenuity lives on in Connecticut as CT manufacturers get smarter and leaner

By Taryn Plumb

Manufacturing by the Numbers
$24 billion -- Total output of CT manufacturers.
4,700 -- Number of manufacturing firms in Connecticut.
166,000 --Total Connecticut manufacturing employees.

Largest Manufacturers based in CT
General Electric, Fairfield Pitney Bowes, Stamford Praxiar Corp., Danbury United Technologies Corp., Hartford Xerox Corp., Norwalk

For the country’s third smallest state,
Connecticut has a dense and diverse array of manufacturers, from family- owned shops to international trans- portation and pop culture giants. And
while the sector — not just here, but throughout the United States — has suffered losses due to the economy, off-shoring and the ever-changing nature of technology, manufacturers in Con- necticut are optimistic about the future, despite significant challenges still to overcome.
“We are gaining a lot of momentum,” said Douglas Johnson, president of the Smaller Manufacturers Association of Connecticut. “We’re in kind of a Renaissance of manufacturing.”
So what exactly is made here in Connecticut?
All told, the state has roughly 4,700 manufacturers that employ 166,000 people, according to Bonnie Del Conte, president and CEO of the Rocky Hill-based consulting organization CONNSTEP.
Ultimately, manufacturing accounts for slightly more than $24 billion — or roughly between 10 and 12 percent — of Connecti- cut’s gross domestic product, she said.
The state’s largest sector by far is transportation equipment — including jet engines, helicopters and aerospace products manufactured by Hartford-headquartered aerospace and aviation giant United Tech- nologies Corp., and the submarines made by General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton.
They, in turn, have created a sector of feeder manufacturers: Admill Machine of New Britain and Aero Gear Inc. in Windsor, to name a couple.
“There are a lot of businesses that fuel this engine, so to speak,” said Del Conte.

Diversity
The state fulfills a number of other manu- facturing capacities as well: paper (Interna- tional Paper in Middletown and Putnam),electric equipment, machinery, plastics, rubber, furniture, apparel, textiles and food (Frito-Lay in Killingly; Bigelow Tea in Fairfield).“We do quite a bit of everything in Con- necticut,” said Del Conte.
Of course, she acknowledged, the state used to do more. At one point, it had more than 6,000 manufacturers employing around 200,000 people.
“Nationwide, manufacturing obviously has been on a decline,” she said. “There has been job loss and establishment loss.”
But, she and others agreed, things are improving.
“The climate for manufacturing in Con- necticut is better,” said Chris DiPentima, CEO of Pegasus Manufacturing in Middletown, a fabricating and machining company.
He attributed that to “concerted efforts” by academia and policy makers. For example, manufacturing programs have been expanded at state community colleges and industry advisors sit on the boards to those colleges; legislation has been introduced for a $25 million Advanced Manufacturing Fund to provide assistance for the industry, and the state implemented the Small Business Express Program, which pro- vides loans and grants to small businesses.
“We have an administration that is very pro-manufacturing and supports manufac- turing in many different ways,” said Sue Palisano, director of education and workforce development at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology Inc. in East Hartford.
Seymour-based Microboard Processing Inc. knows this first-hand; the 95-employee company, founded in 1983, received a $100,000 matching grant from the Small Business Express Program to renovate parts of its facility to accommodate growth and reduce its carbon footprint, according to Owner and President Ni- cole Russo. The manufacturer of printed circuit board assemblies also secured a $300,000 loan from the program to help cover the cost of what Russo called “the most advanced inspection equipment available in our electronics sector.”
Like many others, Microboard initially settled in Connecticut because of the state’s tal- ent pool, centralized location and supply chain.
She pointed out “the easy proximity to leading edge aerospace customers, as well as telecom, med- ical, high speed server and industrial customers” made the state an ideal location for Microboard.
DiPentima of Pegasus also pointed out Connecticut’s advantages in its experienced workforce, as well as the convenience of having “the complete supply chain located within a 30-mile radius — from raw material distributors, to special processes, to manufac- turers and finishing houses,” as well as United Technologies Corp. and Electric Boat.
As he explained, Pegasus has been able to offset the higher costs of doing business in Connecticut by “making parts faster than our global competitors because we have an expe- rienced workforce to draw from and quicker turnaround times from local suppliers.”

Curbing costs
In addition to offering an experienced workforce, Connecticut also offers programs to help manufacturers lower costs in what traditionally is a high-cost area: energy.
Energize Connecticut, a state program run in partnership with the state’s utilities — includ- ing Connecticut Light & Power as well as United Illuminating — offers a broad array of options to help businesses get control of their energy costs. One of the more popular programs is called PRIME (Process Reengineering for Increased Manufacturing Efficiency). The program takes businesses through the process of getting “lean,” or more efficient. Lean techniques emphasize a system where customer orders pull activity, rather than a business pushing product that’s already been made and sitting in a warehouse.
The family-owned Edco Engineering of Newington began participating in the PRIME program this spring through the help of the In- stitute of Technology & Business Development (ITBD) at Central Connecticut State University. Edco, which makes components used in fluid transfer for engine and airplane makers, is using the lean training to help expand its assembly and tube-bending division. The training is inten- sive. It included having a lean expert on site for nine days who reviewed Edco’s manufacturing process and then made very specific recommendations on ways to save time and therefore energy. The cost for the training was more than $15,000, a majority of which will be covered through the PRIME program.
The lean training “is going to make us more competitive in a global economy,” said James Boryczewski, vice president of Edco. His sister, Dina Palmese, also a vice president at the firm, added, “In the end, what we’re hoping to do is improve product flow, minimize our environ- mental impact and reduce the amount of energy we use.”
Local roots
Like Edco, many of the state’s small manufac- turers are multi-generational and family-owned, meaning they’re deeply invested in Connecticut.
Johnson of the Smaller Manufacturer Association — whose membership includes 138 companies — works at the third-gener- ation Marion Manufacturing Co., located in Cheshire since 1946.
“There’s a strong desire to stay here,” he said. “Connecticut’s a great place to live.”
This is where the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology’s “Connecticut. Dream It. Do It.” program is working to make a difference.
A coalition of manufacturers, associa- tions, educational institutions, economic development and workforce organizations, it was launched in December 2010 to address workforce shortages.
Since then, it’s reached out to 14,000 mid- dle and high school students through special events and various programming, according to Palisano. They get hands-on experience that replicates the manufacturing process — from concept, to design, to fabrication, to quality control — and they meet with manufacturers and their employees.
The organization’s biggest challenge: Replacing “the tarnished image of manu- facturing as dirty, dark and dangerous,” said Karen Jarmon, senior communications advi- sor for the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology.
“Misinformation is one of our key chal- lenges,” Palisano agreed. “It’s changing the image of manufacturing and challenging stereotypes.”
As she pointed out, jobs are well-paid, more secure than perceived, and cover a huge breadth.
“There are a wide variety of kinds of careers that you could have,” she said.
DiPentima agreed that roles range from “operators, to sales, to human resources, to finance, to quality control, to logistics, and much more. No other industry offers such a diverse range of job opportunities.”

PROFILE
Chip Bottone
CEO, FuelCell Energy

By Taryn Plumb

Back in college, Chip Bottone worked at a coal-fired power plant – tending to precipitators (which re-
move dust from gas), and dealing with the inevitable
hitches and quirks of steam valves and boiler pumps. Thirty years later, he’s on the opposite end of the
energy spectrum: He heads the clean power company Fu- elCell Energy, which conceptualizes, manufactures, installs, manages and services fuel cell power plants.
“The value of that, frankly, is that I understand both sides of the equation,” said Bottone, who has served as presi- dent and CEO of FuelCell Energy since February 2011.

Distributed plan
The publicly-traded company — with roughly $188 million in revenue — is headquartered in Danbury in northern Fairfield County and has manufacturing op- erations in Torrington. Its Direct FuelCell plants have generated more than 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity without burning or combustion, utilizing such fuels as renewable biogas, propane and clean natural gas.
“What we’re trying to do is build power plants around the world, megawatt size and above, and help transform the utility industry from a centralized form of power to more of a distributed form of power, and make sure that affordable, clean energy adds to the resiliency of the grid,” said Bottone.
He’s long had an interest in the energy industry, going back to his time at the coal-fired plant in Cartersville, Ga., where he landed through a co-op program in college.
“It was a great correlation between work and school,” said Bottone. “They were teaching us all this stuff in the classroom, and it was a great way to see it in action.”
After earning his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Geor- gia Institute of Technology, Bottone went on to a robust, 25-year career at Ingersoll Rand. Throughout his diversified tenure there, he was involved in sales and acquisitions, innova- tion, global business development, commercialization of technology, and power generation project development. Eventually, he became president of the manufacturer’s Energy Systems business, which further piqued his interest in the industry.
“I wanted to get into the energy sector, specifically clean energy,” he said, noting his particular interest in the great potential of fuel cells.
In February 2010, he joined FuelCell Energy as senior vice president and chief commer- cial officer; just a year later, he was promoted to his current position. The company, which was founded in 1969 as Energy Research Corp., now employs roughly 620 people between its two Connecticut locations, Bottone said, and more than 95 percent of its revenues are derived from out of state.
“It’s good for Connecticut, and, frankly, Connecticut has been good for us,” he said.
Goals moving forward are to address the broader energy markets, he said, and to build larger and larger plants around the world. He noted that patience is a virtue when working with well-entrenched utility companies; utilities often tend to be slow to change, because they’re risk adverse.
“We’re making progress,” Bottone said. But “we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

View full magazine here.


Doing Business In Connecticut: The history of innovation

History & Culture
of Innovation
Bright ideas are nothing new to the Nutmeg State

By Taryn Plumb

The cutting edge products that come out of Connecticut companies today owe a debt to the inventors that helped established a culture of
innovation here more than 200 years ago. “Connecticut is a place where entrepreneurs, inventors and enterprise have flourished like nowhere else in the world,” said historian and consultant William Hosley of Enfield.
Out of the state came the first revolver and the first cotton gin — and by the mid- 1800s, Connecticut was dominant in the production of typewriters, watches and various brass and silver commodities.
But just as important as the products — perhaps even more so — were the processes developed in the state.
Most notably: The concepts of interchange- able or standardized parts, and incorporating machines into the manufacturing process.
“That’s the way all production is done now,” said state historian Walter Woodward, whose office is located on the University of Connecticut’s Greater Hartford campus. But, he stressed, it was an “extraordinarily innovative idea then.”

A land for experimentation
Woodward attributes the foundation of the state’s inventive spirit to an unexpected source: Alchemy, the form of philosophy and chemistry that involved transmutation of basic substances into great ones. Think turn- ing lead into gold.
John Winthrop Jr., son of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was a practitioner, and he traveled the world to recruit people to create a “New London” in southeastern Connecticut.
Winthrop, who later served as Connect icut governor, saw alchemy as cutting edge and believed science was a godly pursuit. His recruits were of all different denominations, and he had a “progressive vision of using science and innovation to create a new world, a perfected world, in Connecticut,” said Woodward. “He instilled into Connecticut a culture of innovation and collaboration.”
One of the prime examples of Connecticut ingenuity is Eli Whitney — most recognized as the man who invented the cotton gin, but whose contributions to history are far greater: In the late 1700s, he figured out how to manufacture muskets by machine so their parts could be interchangeable.
Samuel Colt, whose firearms were used in many of the nation’s wars — including by both the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War — built upon this idea by patent- ing firearms with interchangeable parts and by creating an assembly line on which they were made.
Meanwhile, Elisha Root is credited with an invention that further revolutionized manufacturing: die casting. He eventually went to work for Colt, helping to mechanize his operations with advanced drop hammers, boring machines, gauges and fixtures.
Today, that inventive spirit lives on in Connecticut, as evidenced by the number of patents generated here every year.
Connecticut secured 130.6 patents per 100,000 workers in 2012.
That ranks the state eighth in the nation and exceeds the national per capita average of 92.7 by 41 percent.

View full magazine here

The power of music

At Lawrence General Hospital, youth musicians help patients heal

By Taryn Plumb | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
JUNE 05, 2014



MARK LORENZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

In a room on the telemetry unit at Lawrence General Hospital, there came a quiet knock at the door.
A petite 17-year-old entered with a violin, and was heartily welcomed by two patients watching television.
The band is here!” one quipped as Esha Bansal raised her bow and proceeded to play a lively Irish jig.
The two men smiled, clapped, and tapped their feet clad in hospital tread socks.
That’s the best thing that’s happened since I’ve been here,” one of the patients, Joseph Vernile of North Andover, said after her song. “It’s uplifting, gives you something to think about instead of just laying here.”
A hospital may be the last place you would expect to hear live music, but, according to MusicMDs, it should be one of the first.
It brings a new dimension to patient interaction — removing traditional barriers of language, education level, culture, race, and socioeconomic status,” said Bansal, a junior at Phillips Academy in Andover. She and her brother started the nonprofit, all-volunteer musical outreach program in Florida — where their family lives — in 2009.
Music has long been considered a holistic form of healing; it’s believed to promote well-being and happiness, reduce stress, boost immunity, alleviate pain, enhance memory, promote physical rehabilitation, and reduce depression, fatigue, and blood pressure, among other benefits, according to the nonprofit American Music Therapy Association.
Bansal and her older brother, Varun, both musicians from a young age, became intrigued by the idea after seeing how their violin playing affected their grandmother as she was fighting cancer.
“We noticed changes in her mood and her outlook,” recalled Bansal, who started playing violin and piano at age 7.
That inspired the siblings — just 13 and 15 at the time — to form MusicMDs, starting with a pilot program at Holmes Regional Medical Center in their hometown of Melbourne, Fla.
Since then, the program has broadened to three hospitals in Florida, as well as one in Houston, with music provided by high school and college students. Bansal started up the Lawrence General Hospital chapter, which now has seven members (all Phillips Academy students), in December 2012.
Lawrence General volunteer coordinator Brenda LeBlanc said Bansal approached her about the program just as the hospital started exploring ways to incorporate music.
In the 17 months since then, students have given 35 performances in eight areas of the hospital, according to Bansal.
And, as she and her fellow performers noted, the reactions and feedback have been overwhelming. On a hospital testimonial page, patients, staff, and family members have expressed gratitude and encouragement, called them angels and treasures, and said their music has been like a cure, offering them a new lease on life, turning their days around. Many have even been moved to tears.
All the practice I’ve ever done, all the lessons and rehearsals, all that effort is worth it when you’re able to bring joy to someone through the simple act of playing,” said 17-year-old violinist Evelyn Liu. It “not only brings entertainment and joy to the patients, but also allows musicians to share their love of music with others in a way that is constructive and beneficial.”
Plus, it provides an unusual space for the young musicians to sharpen skills and learn about life.
Besides becoming a better musician, I have learned how to communicate better,” said violinist Alphonse Le, 17. Performing for the hospital patients has “helped me gain a deeper sense of understanding about the human connection.”
The hope is to expand the program; because it’s free and volunteer-based (and there are no shortages of musicians in any given city), it can easily be replicated, Bansal said.
I get a lot of gratification,” she said. “I enjoy talking to patients and their families, playing for them. I’ve gotten to interact with thousands of wonderful people.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon, with violin case and collapsible music stand in hand, Bansal headed up to Lawrence General’s fifth-floor telemetry unit, which is for patients requiring heart monitoring.
Polite, polished, and dressed in black, she stopped at the nurse’s station, then set up her stand and removed her violin from its case.
She started with Violin Concerto in G major by Joseph Haydn, playing for Lebanon native Nazek Chatila, seated outside her room with a walker.
Chatila’s daughter, Ferial Blaik, stood beside her mother, rubbing her hair as Bansal played, encouraging her with, “You like that?”
Nice, very nice!” Chatila exclaimed when Bansal finished.
It’s wonderful,” said Blaik, of Salem, N.H., noting that her son played piano for her when she was going through an illness. “It’s great for the patients.”
Bansal continued through the roughly 40-bed unit, lightly knocking on doors and asking whether patients would like to hear some music. Most agreed, greeting her performances with claps, smiles, and sincere thanks. (And a few family members even took video of her on their smartphones.) On more than one occasion, she relied on her Spanish to converse, and ended each piece with a bow and a wish: “I hope you get well soon. Have a great day.”
For patient John Michaud of Lawrence, she launched into the sprightly fiddle song “Devil’s Dream.”
You were very good!” Michaud, with long white hair and matching beard, dressed in a hospital johnny, said when she was done.
Eager to talk, he told her he started drumming at age 7, and was in a band as a teenager. “I was the youngest drummer in Lawrence,” he said proudly.
Music is very special,” he continued. “Music is beautiful for everybody. It makes you feel good; you make other people feel good too.”
That sort of interaction beyond the music is an integral part of the program, LeBlanc explained.
She’s not just playing, she’s talking to them,” LeBlanc said. “It’s a wonderful gift she’s giving the patients.”
Meanwhile, down in the lobby, 15-year-old pianist Tim Ossowski was set up next to floor-to-ceiling windows as the Saturday afternoon light streamed in.
As he played some Chopin etudes on a Yamaha electronic piano, patients, nurses, and visitors coming in and out stopped, if only for a moment or two, to listen; others sat for a bit to watch him play. As he finished each piece, he was met with a small round of applause.
He’s doing a great job,” one nurse remarked as she wheeled a patient outside. “He’s relaxing me.”
That’s pretty much all I’m going for, is to cheer them up a little,” Ossowski said during a break. “It sets up a nice atmosphere in a hospital.”

Original story link

Additional photos by Mark Lorenz for the Boston Globe. 







© 2014 BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA PARTNERS, LLC