Incentives

The Berkshire Innovation Center, a $13.8 million facility at the William Stanley Business Park, builds upon the region’s deep experience in life sciences, custom materials (e.g., plastics, paper, textiles), manufacturing and defense industries. The BIC’s collaborative environment brings together design thinkers, entrepreneurs and engineers so that they can have their next “eureka moment.”

Shared cutting-edge rapid prototyping equipment lets members test ideas before committing to manufacturing. The state-of-the-art facility includes large scale 3D printers for digital anatomy and high-performance materials, SolidWorks CAD software with workstations, a wet lab and a planned cleanroom. Companies in the area can elevate their level of precision and analytical power for prototyping.

Classrooms, lecture halls, five conference rooms, and meeting areas foster formal and informal interactions that stimulate creativity and lead to the next big idea.  The BIC plans seminars and programs with leading experts, including those from nearby academic institutions, such as UMass, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and SUNY Colleges of Nanoscale Science & Engineering. Incubator and accelerator space are available for those that want to work in a rich, collaborative environment.

MassHire’s Pittsfield office wants to help you hire qualified candidates, train new and existing employees for your expansion or location. The services, which are provided at no cost, include job advertising, recruitment, interviewing, and pretesting of candidates. Workforce readiness programs and training are available for potential hires.

Training grants of $2000 to $250,000 from MassHire can help to upgrade the skills of employees so that your business is more competitive in the marketplace. Training grants have been given for machine setup and operation, sales, continuous improvement, software skills, customer service, leadership and more. You may use a training provider of your choice.

MassHire also offers an on-the-job training program that pays half of the wage of new hires while they learn new skills for a period of six months. MassHire assists in creating a training plan with the employer with specific measurements in place. The on-the-job training program is targeted at helping companies that have identified potential employees with some of the skill sets, but not all of the skill sets, that they need.  Optionally, the MassHire staff will pre-interview applicants and thoroughly assess skill levels to carefully match applicants to your job requirements. You are not obligated to hire these candidates.

Recruit candidates using 1Berkshire’s The Job Thing, a job portal that hosts only postings for full-time, permanent jobs located in the Berkshires that pay at least $40,000 annually. It’s a major recruitment tool with over 2,000,000 digital impressions in the first year.

Berkshire Community College, located in Pittsfield, offers both credit and non-credit educational programs.  Employees may look to improve their skills in accounting or marketing through credit or non-credit coursework or arrange for on-site education and training.  BCC offers general business classes as well as courses that will improve skills in reading, writing and analytical thinking. Employees can take single courses or enroll in a degree or certificate program.

The college offers programs in advanced manufacturing, health care and hospitality. For example, the technical degree programs for Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) and Phlebotomy were created in conjunction with Berkshire Health Systems. The college will also develop programs for employers with at least 12 employees in attendance. Previous programs have included basic communications skills, workshops in communications and food handling.

The credit courses parallel those that one might find during the freshman and sophomore years of business studies at a four-year college.  BCC students transfer to public and private universities to complete their Bachelor’s degrees in any number of disciplines.

Because BCC is small and community-based, it is optimally positioned to work with business owners to customize programs for themselves or their employees.

Pittsfield Taconic High School and nearby McCann Technical School offer opportunities for internships and co-operative work programs with majors in advanced manufacturing, automotive technology, computer-aided design, health technology, information technology and metal fabrication.  Innovation includes the first-in-the-nation program between Toyota and Pittsfield’s Taconic High School leading to high school students graduating as Certified Toyota Technicians.