The Chamber started the new year with a Good Day Metro South luncheon at Stonehill College’s Martin Institute featuring an extraordinary business author, school & health program, plus the change to meet new State Rep. Mendes. This program was sponsored by Stonehill College.
Jeff Fuhrer, former senior policy advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Foundation Fellow at Eastern Bank Foundation, presented analysis and updates on today’s economic status. Chaitra Sanders also spoke on Massachusetts Health Connector for Business – offering small employers in Massachusetts unprecedented flexibility, choice, and savings opportunities. Visit https://business.mahealthconnector.org/ to learn more
Thank you to our emcee, Rich Hynes, Barbour Corporation and our interviewer, Mahsa Khanbabai, Khanbabai Immigration Law. Visit https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAqgJt to see more photos from this event.
Couldn’t make the event? Don’t worry – we recorded it for you. Thanks BCA! Slides are available here.
Foundation Fellow
About the Panelists: Jeffrey Fuhrer is a Foundation Fellow for the Eastern Bank Foundation. Jeffrey’s work on racial equity is motivated by the findings of the Federal Reserve’s 2015 “Color of Wealth in Boston” study. He hopes to use his findings to design programs and policies to close the wealth gap in the Greater Boston metro area and surrounding communities. Jeff is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School
of Government. In that capacity, he is conducting research on the Federal Reserve’s new monetary policy framework, and sources of the racial and ethnic wealth gaps.
Jeff previously served as executive vice president and senior policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has been an associate economist of the Federal Open Market Committee and regularly attends this key US policymaking meeting with the Bank’s president. In 1992, he joined the Bank’s research department as an assistant vice president and economist, and from 1995 to 2001 he headed its open economy macro/international section. In 2000, Fuhrer was named senior vice president and monetary policy advisor. In 2001 he became director of research, and in 2006 he was named executive vice president.
Fuhrer began his career at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; he started there as a research assistant and, after earning his doctorate, returned in 1985 as a senior economist. He has been active in economic research for more than three decades and has served as an associate editor for the American Economic Review. Fuhrer has published numerous scholarly papers on the interactions among monetary policy, inflation, consumer spending, and asset prices. He has been married for 35 years and has three grown children. Fuhrer earned an AB in economics with highest honors from Princeton University. He received his MA and PhD in economics from Harvard University. Learn more about Jeff at jefffuhrer.com
Chaitra Sanders joined the Massachusetts Health Connector in 2018 soon after the launch of the new Health Connector for Business online shopping platform for small businesses.
She initially began as Distribution Channel and Account Manager. In that role, she primarily served as the service and sales liaison for direct small employer groups, brokers, and other distribution channels.
As Health Connector for Business membership has grown, Chaitra’s role has transitioned to Associate Director of Health Connector for Business. She currently oversees the direction and coordination of the small business health and dental insurance products, focused on membership growth and retention.
She continues with the Health Connector to implement outreach initiatives that engage and inform potential new small business members and their employees about the changes and opportunities for health insurance coverage available through business.mahealthconnector.org
State Representative Rita Mendes: With both a thriving law practice and a real estate agency, Rita Mendes has become a leading Brazilian-American Attorney on the South Shore. Fluent in Portuguese and Spanish she has led the way for many of our new citizens to become homeowners. As a trilingual attorney focusing on both civil and criminal litigation, she has fast become a go to person for many who have immigration, criminal, divorce, and custody issues in the Brockton area.
Rita Mendes received her Juris Doctorate degree from New England Law/Boston; Undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth; Associates degree from Massasoit Community College and a Brockton High graduate.
Aside from being an attorney and a real estate broker, Rita Mendes is a mother, a homeowner and a wife. She also volunteers her time in the community as an attorney at New England Community Center. In 2019, she ran for the Brockton City Councilor At Large seat. She was sworn into office in January 2020 as the first Brazilian-American to hold office in Brockton.
Rita Mendes was born in Brazil. She came to the United States when she was 12 years old without speaking English. She is an American success story and a shining example of what hard work and diligence can accomplish.
About Stonehill’s Martin Institute: The Martin Institute seeks to prepare the students for leadership positions as active citizens in service to an improved human community. Through rigorous, critical interdisciplinary inquiry, the Institute challenges students to explore the vital issues of public policy and social justice. It is committed to a curriculum and co-curriculum that bridges theory and practice, inviting student curiosity in and engagement with the pressing issues of the day.
The Joseph W. Martin Institute for Law & Society was established in memory of Joseph Martin Jr. (1884-1968), the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. As a Congressman representing a nearby district, Speaker Martin had a close relationship with the College and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1955.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law legislation for the creation of an institute at Stonehill College in Martin’s honor. Joseph W. Martin Institute for Law & Society was constructed by Stonehill in 1990 with Congressional funding.