DeMartino Named Pittsfield 4th of July Parade Grand Marshal

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Pittsfield Parade Committee announced Tuesday that Mario DeMartino will be the Grand Marshal for July 4th Parade.

DeMartino was chosen because of his high level of volunteerism.

DeMartino is the chairman of the Pittsfield Ethnic Fair and organizes the bucket brigade for the Fourth of July Parade. He is a member of: Order Sons of Italy Lodge 564; Italian American Club of Pittsfield; UNICO of Pittsfield; CIAO of the Berkshires; Faccioli Club of Pittsfield;  and the Wahconah Country Club.

He started his career in the Berkshires in 1964 after graduating from Ithaca College the year before. He was the director of physical therapy at Berkshire Rehabilitation Center and later director of physical and occupational therapy. He then was the director of physical therapy at Berkshire Physical Therapy before opening his own DeMartino Physical Therapy, which he ran until his retirement.

During those years, DeMartino was a consultant for various nursing homes. He was chairman of the Western Massachusetts Health Planning Council of the Berkshires from 1976-1980 and also chairman of Berkshire County Association of Allied Health Professionals.

DeMartino has served on the City of Pittsfield Commission on Disabilities and was a former board member of Pittsfield General Hospital, Pontoosuc Lake Advisory Committee, and the Pittsfield YMCA. He currently serves on the Board at Berkshire Healthcare and Hospice Care of the Berkshires.

He is married to Sandra DeMartino and is the father or five children and nine grandchildren.

He was awarded the YMCA G. Fred Lincks Award in 2007 and the Berkshire Health Systems Francis X. Doyle Award in 2013.

The Parade Committee also announced that the late Joanne Hayes will be an  honorary grand marshal.

The Parade Committee chose to honor Hayes because of her years of service as a parade organizer. She served as the secretary of the Pittsfield Parade Committee for more than a decade.

Hayes also volunteered much of her time with the Sacred Heart Parish Council and organized their Holiday Gift Bizarre. She was employed by Berkshire Health Systems until October of 2013.

BCC Trustees Vote to Hire Hara Charlier as Next President

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:23AM / Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Catheryn Chacon Ortega, the alumni appointment, liked how Hara Charlier easily connected with students faculty; Melissa Myers, alumni representative, also noted how comfortable Charlier was with various groups. Charlier, right, was called after the vote and accepted pending negotiations and state approval. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It wasn't hard for BCC's Board of Trustees to elect a new president from Minnesota on Monday.

One by one, during a special meeting at Berkshire Community College, board members expressed their conviction that Hara Charlier was the best candidate to lead after Ellen Kennedy retires. They unanimously recommended Charlier as the next president of BCC to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.

"We're not trying to hire a replacement for Dr. Kennedy; We are trying to hire our next leader," Chair Julia Bowen said.

Charlier, currently the president of Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minn., was one of four finalists identified by the Presidential Search Committee who visited the campus. She was not on site, but was called after the vote.

Catheryn Chacon Ortega was impressed by how Charlier connected with students and faculty, as well as her passion and breadth of experience.  

"As the appointed alumni, I put myself in the students' shoes when I was thinking about this, and I think I feel very represented by her, like if I come back as a student here, I think she will be a person that will be open doors to me, to my community, to the immigrant community, to everybody," she said.

Danielle Gonzalez feels Charlier has a "very" clear commitment to the community part of community college, and a deep experience of serving underserved populations, "really just with great enthusiasm."

"I think that in addition to having really deep community college leadership experience, she was able to articulate a very thorough understanding of the issues of the college of Berkshire County, of what those opportunities might look like, and how she would connect what her experience has been with how she could drive the school forward," said Julie Hughes, a newer member of the board.