Making news
Women Entrepreneurs to hold inaugural event
HOLYOKE — Kate Putnam, president of Package Machinery Co. in West Springfield, will be the featured speaker at the inaugural meeting of the new Holyoke Community College Network of Women Entrepreneurs on Dec. 11 at 6 p.m.
The meeting will be held in room 301 of HCC’s Kittredge Center for Business and Workforce Development, 303 Homestead Ave., Holyoke.
Putnam will talk about marketing strategies.
“The network is for women who are either thinking about starting a business, those who already own businesses and women who just want to network with other women who have similar aspirations,” said Sharon Styffe, HCC dean of workforce and economic development.
Meetings will be held every other week beginning in January. Each gathering will include a guest speaker as well as opportunities for attendees to network.
Preregistration is required. Call 552-2122 and ask to register for course 35552. The registration fee is $10.
Hampshire student gets ‘invention’ grant
AMHERST — Daniel Boucher, a student at Hampshire College, has been awarded a grant from the Timothy Harkness Fund for Invention to help develop a solar-powered clothes dryer. The dryer, which is designed for warm, dry climates, uses solar energy and ambient warm air instead of an internal heat source, meaning that it requires significantly less gas or electricity than a traditional dryer.
A prototype of the dryer has been installed in a residence at Hampshire, where students are tracking their experience with it.
The Timothy Harkness Fund for Invention offers grants to undergraduates and alumni from the Five Colleges to support projects that advance sustainable or renewable energy. Boucher is researching potential commercial markets for the solar dryer.
UMass alum to speak on health care technology
AMHERST — University of Massachusetts Amherst alumnus Christopher Larkin will give a talk titled “Keeping Patients Safe and Healthy with Advanced Technology” at an alumni seminar Thursday from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Gunness Student Center conference room in Marcus Hall on the Amherst campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Larkin is chief technology officer for General Electric Healthcare, a company with more than 10,000 employees based in Washington state. He has created software products for the health care marketplace with a focus on performance solutions and analytics.
Larkin earned his master’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research at UMass Amherst in 1988.
Holocaust center seeks student docents
AMHERST — The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is offering a training session Wednesday from 3 to 4:30 p.m. for high school and college students interested in learning how to lead their student peers through the institute’s permanent holocaust teaching exhibition, “A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany, 1933-1942.”
Led by an experienced docent of the exhibit, the workshop will introduce students to the exhibition and its origins and will encourage further study and training. Student tour facilitators will work under the supervision of teachers.
Upon completing the session, students will receive a certificate of attendance and an invitation to bring their classes and teachers back to the institute for a tour. Students who earn the certificate should contact their school administrators about receiving credit toward community service.
The workshop is free and light refreshments will be served. For inquiries and registration, call 835-0221 or email ihgms@acad.umass.edu.
Teens sought for tobacco compliance checks
NORTHAMPTON — The Department of Public Health is looking for teens ages 15½ to 17 to conduct tobacco compliance checks. Youth will be paid to conduct checks to make sure that stores are following the law by not selling tobacco products to minors.
An information and training session will be held Dec. 11 from 4 to 6 p.m. in Northampton. Dinner will be provided.
Preregistration is required. Contact Evan Wilson at ewilson@hria.org or 617-279-2240, ext. 332. Provide a name, age, town, phone number and email address.
In addition to receiving a $25 stipend, paid after the completion of the first compliance check, participants will also be paid $9 per hour to conduct the checks.
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