Washington, DC
Congressman Richard Neal has seen the future of manufacturing and visual arts in South Berkshire County.
The Springfield Democrat on Tuesday toured the Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing in Lee and Stockbridge’s Norman Rockwell Museum, both of which he views as key to a thriving local economy.
Berkshire Sterile is a $10 million start-up in the Route 102 business corridor that in three years has added 50 new jobs to the Berkshire employment base, and will add another eight within the next month, according to CEO Shawn Kinney.
The firm has 32 pharmaceutical and biotech clients from around the world, far ahead of schedule, noted Andrea Wagner, senior vice president of business development.
Those statistics, Neal said, show the company is crucial to meeting the demand for high-tech skilled workers across the country.
“Right now, in America, 6 million precision manufacturing jobs go unfilled, 20,000 of them in New England,” he said.
Later at the Rockwell Museum, Neal praised the museum for plans to convert the former Stockbridge Town Hall into a research, archive and exhibition center.
“Certainly, you are part of the heritage in the Berkshires and the country,” he told museum leaders.
With Congress on summer break, Neal is touring his district highlighting improvements throughout the Western Massachusetts region.
He chose to tour Berkshire Sterile because the 3-year-old firm is on the cutting edge of the biotech field.
Located across another growing manufacturer, Boyd Technologies, Berkshire Sterile uses state-of-the-art equipment and sterilization techniques to address risks associated with drugs manufactured by small companies that lack modern facilities, equipment and rigorous quality control systems. Berkshire Sterile produces samples of clinical injectable drugs and ships them back to the pharmaceutical or biotech firms for testing.
“We’re the new iPhone of sterile manufacturing,” Wagner said.
Berkshire Sterile CEO Shawn Kinney, an eastern Massachusetts native, found Lee a more cost-effective place to do business and attract people to the Berkshires.
“The people we are hiring are buying homes, putting kids in local schools and supporting the local economy,” he said.
Kinney has found some of his skilled labor in Lee and Pittsfield, but primarily from the Springfield area. Since Berkshire Sterile job applicants need at least an associate’s degree in science, Kinney hopes Berkshire Community College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and other regional institutions of higher learning are training grounds for future employees.
Berkshire state Sen. Adam Hinds, who along with state Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli, joined Neal at Berkshire Sterile, hopes the company can be a magnet for related businesses coming to the Berkshires.
“What I love about this company, it captures the sweet spot being near the [biotech industry] of the eastern part of the state,” Hinds said. “In the coming months, I will work with the [governor’s] administration to make this area a hub [for biotech.]”
Neal vowed to help foster more biotech related firms coming to the Berkshires.
The cultural portion of his visit involved a private luncheon at the Rockwell Museum and a guided tour of the latest exhibit, “Inventing America: Rockwell and Warhol.”
Museum Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt discussed the relationship of Rockwell and Andy Warhol works displayed side-by-side.
Moffatt also outlined the museum’s plans to relocate the research and archives from their Route 183 location to Procter Hall on Main Street next to the First Congregational Church. The church owns the building that the town still leases 10 years after the municipal offices and Police Department vacated the building for the new Town Hall at the former Stockbridge Plain School.
Pending a deal between the museum, church and town, museum officials anticipate the project will come to fruition in 2 to 3 years at the earliest.
Moffatt looks forward to Rockwell having a Main Street presence for the first time in 25 years. The original museum established in 1969 at the corner of Elm and Main streets relocated to the larger facility in 1993.
“The Corner House where it all began and the new center will make great bookends to Main Street,” she said.
Neal backed his support for the museum and the arts in general by promising to fight President Donald Trump’s call to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and other federally funded cultural agencies.
Reach staff writer Dick Lindsay at 413-496-6233
