WBJ Staff

Carolyn Jackson has been at the forefront of the fight against the powerful Massachusetts Nurses Association union, which has been trying for years to raise the nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.

What hasn’t Eric W. Dickson done in the past year to show his influence as the leader of the largest employer in Central Mass., with 14,000 workers?

As the CEO of the 500-employee, $38-million Family Health Center, Lou Brady’s energy, personality and ability to get people to buy into what the health center is all about is a key part of his job.

Winfield S. Brown leads the largest employer between Fitchburg and I-91, as CEO of the health system with both Heywood and Athol hospitals, two facilities with a combined 1,200 employees and $170 million in annual revenues.

Led by Tina Yu, Mevion Medical Systems was the first to launch proton therapy in Europe in 2018 with its Dutch offices, and has moved into China, Taiwan and Spain. Today, Mevion has offices in China, and Japan, and has positively impacted the lives of more than 6,000 cancer patients.

Worcester has a cluster of colleges and population density unlike anything else in Massachusetts outside Boston and its immediate suburbs, so it’s only natural that Worcester’s been making a long push to build a life sciences-based startup culture to keep those college graduates or others drawn to the city to stay and build a new ecosystem in Worcester.

For decades, towns and developers in Central Massachusetts have tussled with what to do with the aging mill buildings peppered around the region. Although housing and mixed-use developments have become popular in recent years, Joseph Villatico has another idea, at least in Dudley: reviving one mill’s past life as a local manufacturer by using it to grow, process and sell cannabis in a massive 175,000-square-foot facility.

Mahoney has kept Boston Scientific moving ahead, including with a $1-billion purchase of Lumenis LTD, an Israeli firm developing and commercializing energy-based medical solutions, with which Boston Scientific had a long working relationship.

For a company nearly 140 years old, Polar Beverages is by no means resting on its laurels.

After years of planning, building and navigating the license process, Ross Bradshaw finally opened the doors to his Worcester cannabis dispensary, New Día on March 1.