WBJ Staff

Tim Garvin’s value as a nonprofit leader in and around Worcester has long been known.

At MAWOCC, Celia Johnston Blue pushes hard on the city and state levels to get better representation of women – and particularly women of color – in high-level government and business positions, in order to be more reflective of the communities they serve.

Developers, companies, and industries interested in setting up shop in Worcester often talk about how business-friendly the city government is: willing to make the right connections, offering tax breaks, and navigating through any regulatory process.

A quarter century after Fort Devens closed as a military base, ambitious plans by MassDevelopment for remaking the site as an economic development hub are being realized.

It’s no secret the construction industry skews disproportionately male, but that hasn’t stopped Jody Staruk over her 18-year tenure at Consigli Construction Co, Inc., in Milford, where she is the first female project executive in the company’s 116-year history and the first woman to win its Builder of the Year award.

For more than 30 years, Philip O. Shwachman has held the fate of Hopedale’s downtown district in his hands.

Over the past 15 years, the projects from O’Brien’s Galaxy Development have created more than 2,500 jobs in Central Mass., as he has churned out properties like the Trolley Yard retail plaza in Worcester.

For what seemed like forever, Table Talk Pies’ piemaking facility on Kelley Square in Worcester felt right about where it belonged: in a neighborhood still largely in its industrial days. Things have changed.

It’s a dollar amount worth emphasizing: $500 million. That’s how much King Street Properties, a Boston development firm co-owned by Stephen D. Lynch, plans to spend on a life sciences biomanufacturing facility in Devens.

More often than not, when you hear about a developer planning a new project in Greater Worcester – particularly on a long-stagnated property – the invisible hand of WBDC worked behind the scenes to get the deal done: prepping properties for development, connecting the right people, securing local and state incentives, dealing with utilities, and so on.