Standing, from left: Tim Steele, CEO, Microspec Corp; Dominic Perkins, senior vice president of retail administration, Savings Bank of Walpole; Sara Belletete, vice president of branch development, Belletetes. Seated, from left: Julianna Dodson, deputy executive director and radically rural director, Hannah Grimes Center; Melinda Treadwell, president, Keene State College; Luca Paris, CEO, Greater Monadnock Collaborative; Adam Hamilton, co-founder, Shires Naturals (Photos by Christine Carignan)
The Monadnock Region, nestled in the southwestern corner of the state and named after iconic Mount Monadnock, is home to about 85,000 people who enjoy its picturesque blend of rural charm and natural beauty. The region has a rich cultural heritage with a vibrant economy that includes manufacturing companies like Microspec, a medical technology company; Moore Nanotechnology Systems, which produces manufacturing equipment; and hospitals, Keene State College, and a variety of small businesses.
In September, Businesses NH Magazine hosted a roundtable forum with business and community leaders at Keene State College to discuss some of the challenges the region faces as well as it successes.
According to a 2022 NH Department of Employment Security report, the largest industries in the Monadnock Region are manufacturing, health care and social assistance, followed by retail trade and educational services. Like the rest of the state, the region faces challenges related to finding and retaining workers, energy prices, childcare, and affordable housing.
Luca Paris, a former restaurant owner in Keene, moved to the region. In 2021, Paris became CEO of the Greater Monadnock Collaborative, formerly known as the Greater Keene and Peterborough Chamber. “When I first moved here from New York in 2000, the Monadnock Region was being referred to as the forgotten area. Often, the rest of the state forgets about us,” he says, explaining that a big focus for the Collaborative has been regional marketing and finding the next generation of workers.
Today, Paris says the Greater Monadnock Collaborative has a voice within statewide organizations like the Business and Industry Association, NH’s statewide chamber of commerce. “That was the goal of this. It wasn’t just to network internally and to figure out how to merge Peterborough and Keene, which we still haven’t figured out,” he says, adding, “We’ll get there.”
Next Gen Workers
Meeting the region’s workforce demands is a top priority for the Collaborative. “For some companies it’s cheaper to just walk away and move somewhere else,” Paris says. “That’s what happened at Smiths Medical.”
The region learned it was being dealt a major economic blow when Smiths Medical, a medical device manufacturer in Keene that produces infusion pumps, ventilators, and other critical care equipment, announced in April it would be moving its manufacturing operations out of state starting in December 2025. The company, which was purchased in 2022 by ICU Medical, a California-based medical equipment manufacturing company, employs about 220 people. It cited redundancies in manufacturing operations for closing its NH location and consolidating manufacturing functions to other locations.
Tim Steele, CEO of Microspec, a medical device company in Peterborough producing high-precision medical components such as tubing and catheters, says he heard from peers in his industry that Smiths wanted to expand operations and that a shortage of workers played a role in the company’s departure. “Consolidation could be Smiths reason for leaving but the fact remains that manufacturing workers are in short supply in New Hampshire,” Steele says, adding that finding people to work has been Microspec’s biggest challenge in recent years
“We’re going to need another 50 or 60 people on top of the 100 we employ in the next two years, and I don’t see them out there right now,” Steele says, adding that private equity companies would love to buy Microspec and move the company out of state. “Smiths ran into the same problem. They had a huge project. They wanted to expand and there was no labor in the area. So, now they’re down in Connecticut instead.”
Paris says [Smiths] closure will have a trickledown effect on the region’s economy. “While our largest employers make up only 2% or 3% of the population, they pay 40% of the wages,” he says. “And when they leave, this effects the whole system, including nonprofits.”
Microspec has plans to be a bright spot in the regional economy. Steele purchased a piece of land two years ago on Route 202 in Peterborough and says he hopes to expand Microspec’s current manufacturing facility. He also has plans to build workforce housing as the lack of affordable housing feeds the workforce shortage. “Labor is the big challenge and part of the land that we bought has 110 acres attached to it. The plan is to build workforce housing in there,” he says. “We figure we can get at least 60 high-quality units built that people will be proud to live in.”
Another challenge, Steele says, has been the increasing cost of labor. Microspec competes for workers with other manufacturing companies such as Millipore Sigma in Jaffrey. Millipore, Steele adds, recently raised its wages, “and keeping up has been difficult.”
Keene State College has been trying to create a better workforce pipeline. President Melissa Treadwell says the college has prioritized working with the K-12 schools and the state’s community college system to create pathways to an education at Keene State and eventually to employment in the region. And it is working to retain more of its students after graduation. “Just about half of our 3,000 students come from out of state within 150 miles of this campus,” she says. “We would like to retain some of those students for our future workforce and I don’t think we’re doing it fast enough.”
Keene State is also investing in critical workforce training needed by regional employers. With $1 million in funding from AmeriCOM, Keene State created a one-year certificate program in precision diamond turning. The program, which will begin in fall of 2025, also received $3 million federal grant and funding to create the Kingsbury Center for Diamond Turning.
Student internships also help as Treadwell says they allow students to demonstrate their worth in the workforce and can increase the possibility they will stay in the area after graduating college.
Treadwell says the Keene Area Manufacturing Consortium, a nonprofit organization based in Keene focused on manufacturers in southwest NH, has reported that students often aren’t aware of the workforce demand. “They often need employment, but then they circle back to their primary residence after graduation, or they use those networks rather than leaning into these networks that are available here,” she says, explaining that keeping students here requires getting them immersed in the community. “With our community college partners, our high school partners and technical education centers, we will be training that workforce and doing it as a national leader with the AmeriCOM program.”
Sara Belletete, vice president of branch development for Jaffrey-based Belletetes Building and Supply, which has nine locations in NH and Massachusetts, says more attention needs given to the trades as a viable option for students after completing high school.
She says the chairman of the Northeastern Retail Lumber Association has made workforce development in the trades a priority and is urging businesses to connect with students well before college. “He was saying, ‘Don’t go to the colleges, we need to start younger.’ He’s going to junior high schools primarily to promote the trades. The army comes in and colleges come in. But when do people like us go in and say, ‘Hey, there’s money to be made with trades.’ We need plumbers, we need electricians.”
Part of attracting and retaining workers is creating a circular economy where resources move within the region. Julianna Dodson, deputy executive director and Radically Rural Director at the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship in Keene, says the center is promoting recycling, reuse, and repair to create a continuous loop of materials in the region. “This inevitably involves cultivating more trades businesses because you can’t have a circular economy without the trades,” she says.
It all comes down to retention, says Dominic Perkins, senior vice president of retail administration for Savings Bank of Walpole. “We do a lot to engage our workforce and to make sure there are opportunities for promotion,” he says, adding that engagement includes promoting volunteerism and holding events that employees enjoy. “We try to create an environment that really makes our employees not even think about leaving, because it costs a lot less to maintain staff than it does to bring new people.”
Perkins says the community banking industry is seeing fewer professional bankers, and part of the solution involves reminding employees of their value and getting the word out about the important role bankers play. “Each business does it their own way, but sharing the successes and motivations makes great business sense,” he says.
Addressing Challenges
Treadwell says one of the biggest challenges in the region—particularly at the college—is the high cost of energy. “From FY23 to FY25, including this year’s budget, our energy costs have increased almost 25%,” she says, adding that this is despite burning waste vegetable grease as biofuel to heat most of the college’s buildings. “When you’re a company trying to heat and light and function with comfortable working and living environments, energy costs present a very big challenge.”
But challenges like this can also be seen as opportunities. “When we think about alternative energy and different sources of energy, we might create municipal distribution systems like what Keene is experimenting with now,” Treadwell says. The college, as well as the city of Keene, has committed to 100% renewable energy by 2030. “This is a challenge, but also an opportunity.”
Dodson says addressing energy costs is especially important for nonprofits that have a harder time finding operations funding. “They can get projects funded, but for those costs like energy, we’re just absorbing that and trying to fundraise, and we’re all competing for the same fundraising dollars,” she says.
Dodson says building strong company cultures is a key ingredient for having a healthy regional economy and retaining employees. “Many of the solutions to these challenges are talked about with buzzwords, like culture, and belonging, but these things are big. Hannah Grimes has been working on them a lot over the last couple of years,” Dodson says.
Hannah Grimes is addressing workplace culture with its own employees by raising wages, adding benefits, and creating a strong sense of belonging and autonomy, Dodson says. “These are things that we should all be doing because you can throw all the parties you want, but people want to feel like they belong and that they are trusted. They also want to get paid for what they’re doing and feel valued for what they’re doing,” she says, adding that benefits don’t have to be expensive to be effective. She cites things like flexible spending accounts to pay
for childcare.
Adam Hamilton, co-founder of Shires Naturals in Peterborough, which produces craft plant-based cheese and other foods, says he would like to see more investment in the region through angel investors. When he started the company about 10 years ago, “we set out to prove a couple of things, but one of them was that you can still found, grow, and have a successful business in rural America,” he says.
However, it would have been easier with more local sources of funding. “There isn’t much history here for folks to know how to be angels and what good funders look like in order to go to that next level. I was just talking to someone yesterday about an experiment in Peterborough … an angel group formed and did a good job. But there was a lack of a knowledge base, and I haven’t seen anything in Keene yet.”
Hamilton says many companies in the region, like his own, find themselves, “running the investment experiments rather than benefiting from the experiments.” And this, he adds, “can be rewarding and exhausting.”
Treadwell says the college is working with the city and local landlords on affordable housing and childcare solutions. Keene State has a childcare center and received funding from Congress to improve credentialing for childcare providers. “I’m really proud of the project we’re doing with the United Way, Hannah Grimes, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, called Bringing it Home, that trains and prepares individuals who want to open home childcare centers,” she says.
Dodson says the Monadnock United Way and the Community Loan Fund are working to bring together nonprofits, businesses, government agencies, and community members to find affordable housing solutions. The Monadnock Resource Alliance was formed last year to help solve housing shortages in the region. “One goal is to work on the soft infrastructure in the region including zoning regulations,” she says. “Another area includes education and outreach for existing efforts.”
Perkins says Savings Bank of Walpole has been thinking about the childcare problem at the business level. “I might not be able to open a childcare facility at the bank, but I can offer high quality employment and opportunities for my staff,” he says. “To have time off and be with family produces less stresses. And that produces less stress on kids ages zero to six who have a much better chance at a good life.”
Engaging Young People
With an older generation on the brink of retiring, Belletete says businesses and community leaders need to find ways for the next generation to be more engaged in their communities. This, she adds, can also help with retaining younger people in the region.
“The workforce coming in is entirely different than the generation that’s moving out and there is very little support for them,” she says. “Getting involved in one’s community and thinking of it as home is huge. But how do I convince my 20-year-old daughter that she needs to be on a board with people who are her grandfather’s age? I tell her, ‘You start doing it and then your friends start going to events that you host.’ This is how we’re going to get the younger generation to be part of this community.”
Perkins says he learned more on the first board he served on than during “my first 10 years in banking.”
“That’s because I was next to business owners and business leaders and people in the community, and I was hearing concepts and forming relationships that didn’t happen as a teller in line at Savings Bank of Walpole,” he says. “It is such an eye-opening experience. And it helps with retention and engagement.”
Hamilton says getting people to become more engaged and to stay in the region can be fostered by mentorships. “I’ve had really good mentors since moving to New Hampshire and I’m mentoring someone right now,” he says. “This person has been deciding whether to stay with their startup or go somewhere else. People are more likely to stick around the place where they’re being mentored.”
Dodson says offering people interesting projects to work on can be a more effective way to get them engaged than “overly formalized” committees and boards. “Let’s not just offer people projects to work on,” she says. “Let’s find things that they’re interested in and piece it together. This is much more appealing to young people.”
“Building community involvement takes a generation of people my age who are okay with changing that culture,” Dodson says, adding that she sometimes takes her own daughter to meetings and events. “We need to show kids that things don’t just happen magically.”
At Keene State, Treadwell says the college is engaged in building bridges between students and their community. “Yesterday we had all of our EMS and local service groups here on campus, so our students could meet the leaders,” she says. “These events help students see themselves not as transactional agents over four years, but as people who are here and are part of our community.”
Treadwell says the college has also grown mentorship programs between faculty, staff and students. “Our students really appreciate having someone to call who’s not just their faculty advisor … someone who’s in the business they hope to go to,” she says, adding that Jacob Favolise, a 21-year-old Keene State student, was recently elected to the Keene City Council. “That’s a big deal because it helps create a pathway for leadership and voice.”
Paris says finding the next generation of leaders means promoting the region’s many resources. “Fifteen percent of our county population is 65 or over and it’s going to double by 2040,” he says. “But the solutions are right here. Retaining young people and getting them involved is up to the individual companies, the organizations, to create the culture of the community they want to live in.”
Treadwell says she loves serving as president of Keene State College, her alma matter, because of the relationships she makes with people in the community. “Keene is a centrally isolated community, as the former vice president of finance used to say,” she says. “It’s difficult to get to in some respects but it’s also a very interconnected and exciting ecosystem of people.”
Paris points out while some regions of the state chiefly promote themselves as tourist destinations, the Monadnock Region is focused on attracting businesses. “We’re promoting ourselves as a regional place to start a business, to come live, and that has been a big part of our conversations from the very beginning,” he says.
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