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What Tripadvisor's Steve Kaufer told us this week

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What Tripadvisor's Steve Kaufer told us this week

Could the Mount Ida Campus in Newton offer a path towards addressing the state’s healthcare staffing crisis?
 
It’s just an idea right now. But Watertown state Rep. John Lawn believes it’s worth investigating.
 
The chair of the Committee on Health Care Financing says he came up with idea on his own.
 
In fact, Lawn never even asked UMass Amherst (which operates Mount Ida) how they felt about it before drafting an amendment to study the issue, according to Shira Schoenberg at CommonWealth.
 
Still, a spokesperson at UMass Amherst tells Schoenberg the university is open to the idea and it is believed they have the physical space in Newton to accommodate the endeavor.
 
Good thing too, since Lawn convinced his House colleagues to fund the study this week as part of its just-passed state budget.
 
“In every industry we have workforce challenges but none more in dire straits than our health care workforce,” said Lawn
 
“Having a campus located inside [Route] 128, near our hospital systems, it would be an interesting idea to check and see if it makes sense to try to turn this into an area where we could really invest and start to train a health care workforce outside of what we’re currently doing.” 
 
If Lawn's idea survives the rest of the budget process, UMass Amherst would be charged with completing a feasibility study to establish a “Massachusetts school of health sciences education and center for health care workforce innovation” in Newton by the end of 2022.
 
And with more than 20,000 full-time vacancies across Massachusetts hospitals and health systems, no one doubts there’s a need.
 
Meanwhile just a few miles away ...
 
While the idea for a health sciences school on the Mount Ida campus is in its infancy, a new program in the health care sphere begins in just days just a few miles away at Newton's Lasell University.
 
Lasell is partnering with Newton-Wellesley Hospital to offer a free training program to address a shortage of surgical technologists, the people responsible for setting up operating rooms and equipment, reports Jessica Bartlett at the Globe.
 
The university will provide classroom training. The hospital will provide clinical and simulation training.
 
Interest in the program has been robust, according to Newton-Wellesley President Dr. Errol Norwitz.
 
New website and campaign to promote Wellesley
?
We’ve just launched a new website designed to help promote shopping, dining and visiting Wellesley’s retail districts.
 
Wonderful Wellesley
WonderfulWellesley.com was created in close collaboration with our friends at Wellesley Square, Linden Square, Shop Church Square and the town. 
 
It’s part of a larger “Come see what’s new in Wellesley” campaign created by our partners, with support from a state grant to the town.
 
The collaboration's larger campaign will include social media, video and special monthly events, starting with Color Wellesley Wonderful, scheduled on Saturday, May 7.
 
If you are a retailer or restaurant, we want to include your business. Go here to be added to the free Wonderful Wellesley shopping or dining directories. 
 
Insufficient child care costs all of us
 
Lack of access to childcare is costing Massachusetts $2.7 billion annually in lost earnings for individuals, lower productivity and additional costs for employers, and lost tax revenue for the state.
 
That’s according to a report released yesterday from the Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, which estimates that 35,000 parents with children under five left the workforce during the pandemic.
 
MTF’s annual $2.7 billion estimate breaks down as follows:
 
  • Employers lose $812 million due to lower productivity and turnover/replacement costs.
  • Individuals and families lose $1.7 billion in wages from missing work or reducing their hours.
  • Massachusetts foregoes $188 million in tax revenues due to lower earnings and lost wages.
 
Read the report here.  And the Globe’s coverage here
 
Other need to knows
 
  • Learn firsthand why some are advocating for the removal of the spillway at the South Natick Dam this Sunday (May 1). Charles River Watershed Association’s Robert Kearns will lead the tour. Details. To learn more about dam removals check out A River Interrupted.
   
  • Needham is honoring Dan Matthews, who retired this month from the Select Board after 27 years of service, this afternoon (Friday) from 4 to 6 p.m. at Town Hall in Powers Hall.
 
  • If all goes as planned, the City of Newton could break ground on a new senior center, NewCal, in approximately 16 months, and the construction will take about two years (The Heights).
 
  • Newton Community Pride has awarded community micro grants to The Waban Improvement Society’s Newton Piano Summit, PorchFest, Nonantum Village Welcome Mural and Newton Nomadic Theater’s production of Hidden Shakespeare. Another round of community micro grants will be available Oct. 1. Details
 
 
Arts sector hammered again last year
 
Many in-person arts events resumed in 2021.
 
But those reopenings “did not bring the flood of audiences many institutions expected — and they paid a financial price,” reports WBUR’s Amelia Mason.
 
Cultural organizations reported nearly $193 million in lost revenue in the second year of the pandemic, according to a new report from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
 
Ninety percent of that lost income was ticket and concession revenue that never appeared.
?
“Those who consume art and culture are not coming back in droves as we planned,” Michael Bobbitt, executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council told Mason.
 
MBTA promising a major bus system overhaul
 
The MBTA is gearing up to announce a plan that would boost bus service by 25 percent across its entire network, as part of a years-long Bus Network Redesign overhaul.
 
General Manager Steve Poftak says the project includes reshaping bus routes, boosting frequency (especially on weekends) and launching "a lot of interesting new routes that are getting people to the new places of employment and new places of housing concentration."
 
T officials will present a draft its revamped routes virtually on May 19 at 6 p.m. and will follow that with a series of public meetings.
 
 
Here's what TripAdvisor’s Steve Kaufer told us this week
 
Finally, this morning, thanks to Steve Kaufer, founder and outgoing CEO at TripAdvisor, for spending time with us at the chamber’s annual Needham Night celebration.
 
We covered a lot of ground in 12 minutes -- from when he founded the company 22 years ago above Kostas Pizza -- to the company’s eventual decision to locate its HQ in what at the time was an empty office park in N-Squared District.
 
We also discussed the impact COVID had on travel, as well as Kaufer’s post TripAdvisor plans.
 
You can watch it below. (And the full Needham Night recording is here.)
 
Interview with Founder and retiring CEO of TripAdvisor - Steve Kaufer
 
 
That’s today’s Need to Knows, unless you need to know about the bird found exploring the Charles River some 1,000 miles from its natural habitat.
 
 
Greg Reibman (he, him)
President
Charles River Regional Chamber
617.244.1688
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