Ayer

If you are looking for the true economic and political power in Central Massachusetts, you should start by walking into the Worcester city manager's office at 8:30 a.m. every Friday.

MetroWest Medical Center is another hospital in the region that's seen a stark financial improvement, and leading the ongoing turnaround is Barbara Doyle, the president and CEO of the Tenet Healthcare-owned hospital, with a main campus in Framingham and another in Natick.

Fostering a business-friendly atmosphere takes a village, but leading the charge in Marlborough are two key players: Mayor Arthur Vigeant and Susanne Morreale Leeber, president and CEO of the Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Inside Route 128, incubators for early-stage companies are numerous, but in MetroWest and Greater Worcester, the options are far more limited. But two local nonprofit leaders, Kevin O'Sullivan, president and CEO of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives in Worcester, and Barbara Finer, CEO of TechSandBox in Hopkinton, have been pioneers on the incubation frontier and are leading ongoing efforts to increase resources to help local startups thrive.

Power comes in many forms, but from power derives influence; and how people use that influence is ultimately reflective of the power they hold.

After staging a picket in August amid stalled contract negotiations with Steward Health Care System, registered nurses at Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer have ratified a contract with Steward — their first since they voted to unionize with the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) in July 2014.

Westborough-based eClinicalWorks is a company near the top of its field. It's one of the top vendors of electronic health records systems for U.S. doctors' offices and a big player in the development of mobile tools that let patients track their vital signs and communicate with doctors.

HEIDI M. LANDERS and REBECCA LYNCH were hired by Worcester social service agency The Bridge of Central Massachusetts. Landers is director of nursing. A resident of Barre, she is a graduate of Worcester State University, with a bachelor's degree in nursing and earned a master's degree in healthcare administration from Salem State University. Lynch was named director of development and marketing. Before joining The Bridge, she worked for Natick Visiting Nurse Association and The Price Center in Newton. Lynch has a bachelor's degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., and a master's degree from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif., both in English.

Millbury Federal Credit Union opened a new branch at 117B Stafford St. in Worcester. The credit union has assets more than $300 million and more than 50,000 members.

As president and CEO of the North Central Chamber of Commerce, Roy M. Nascimento hears a lot from local businesses about the cost of electricity.