Finalists Announced for Lever's Mohawk Trail Entrepreneur Challenge

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Five entrepreneurs have been selected as finalists for Lever's Mohawk Trail Entrepreneur Challenge, which focuses on regional, woodland-based business models designed to create jobs and spur economic activity in the Mohawk Trail region. 

Over the next few weeks, these business owners will work with Lever to refine their business plans and goals. The winner will receive a $25,000 award to advance their business at the final Challenge pitch event on March 11. 

About the finalists

Berkshire Bike Tours, Luke Toritto

Charlemont-based Berkshire Bike Tours will provide guided mountain and road bike tours. Cross-country mountain biking and lift-accessed mountain biking will take place exclusively on Berkshire East/Schaefer property. Road tours will go through the Berkshires, the upper Pioneer Valley, and Southern Vermont.

Adventure East, Brian Pearson

Adventure East brings the experienced eye of luxury eco-tourism leaders to our backyard. The core of its business model is a membership club to ensure a consistent year-round draw to the region, including through partnerships with nonprofit organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club in order to increase equitable access to the outdoors. 

VacationLand, Patrick and Katie Banks

Foolhardy Hill is an off-grid campground being developed in Charlemont. Foolhardy Hill aims to be the ultimate base camp for outdoor enthusiasts. Guests will have access to mountain biking, white water rafting, kayaking, fly-fishing, zip-lining, and hiking within a 3-mile radius. Guests that venture out a few miles further will be immersed in museums, historical landmarks, local eateries, unique shops, concert venues, and more.

Wigwam Western Summit, Lea King

Based in North Adams, the Wigwam Western Summit's core product is the "Wigwam Experience.” With the tagline "Cabins, Cars and Coffee," the Wigwam's owners  were successful at launching antique car shows on Saturday mornings during fall foliage in 2019. The Wigwam is currently a seasonal coffeehouse (May-October) with four cabins, and was fully booked in 2020 by tourists escaping the city life (most from New York, New Jersey, Boston, Connecticut) for a connection with nature. The Wigwam is planning to develop a curated "Wigwam Woodland Experience" with new accommodations, woodland art installations, workshops, and the option to book other Berkshire experiences.

Remote Harvest Sensors, Dave Eve

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts professor Dave Eve, who co-owns a woodland in Conway, has developed a turbidity sensor that can be installed near watersheds and within small ecosystems to monitor erosion control during wood harvesting operations.

Lever has organized more than 15 previous challenges, working with a wide range of business models, and has supported more than 80 entrepreneurs whose companies have created dozens of jobs in the region. 

Funding for the Mohawk Trail Entrepreneur Challenge comes from the Baker-Polito Administration. To mark Climate Week in the Commonwealth, $225,000 in total grant funding was awarded to Lever and eight municipalities in the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership (MWTP) region, with $65,000 going to Lever for this Challenge. Applications were accepted from businesses located in the MWTP region partner towns of Adams, Ashfield, Charlemont, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Conway, Heath, Leyden, Monroe, New Ashford, North Adams, Rowe, Shelburne, Peru, Windsor, and Williamstown. To apply, existing businesses had to be less than one year old with less than $500,000 in annual revenue. 

The MTWP, a grassroots-led program based on conserving forests and supporting their sustainable management in order to advance economic development in rural MA communities along the Vermont and New York border, provides funding to assist 16 member towns in the Commonwealth's most rural and forested region to plan for the care of forests in the face of climate change, prepare forest offset projects, and improve nature-based tourism.

About Lever

Founded in 2014, Lever is an economic development non-profit focused on innovation-driven job creation. Lever supports entrepreneurs with startup expertise, an investment fund, research, mentors, and access to talent. Lever has helped launch dozens of companies that have attracted more than $10 million in equity investment and have created more than 200 jobs. Lever supports existing companies by helping their intrapreneurs “innovate from within” using proven entrepreneurial methods for top-line revenue growth and job creation. Learn more at www.leverinc.org.

Why the Massachusetts Art Community Is Worth Continued Investment

By James BirgeGuest Column
10:41AM / Tuesday, April 21, 2026

How do we quantify the value of art on society and culture? Even eye-popping figures, like the $100 million estimate for the jewels stolen from the Louvre, or the record auction last fall that saw a piece by Gustav Klimt sell for more than $236 million can't fully account for the value of the history, stories, and emotions behind the creations themselves. But beyond that, there is a measurable financial, cultural and social benefit of the arts that is often taken for granted. 

Closer to home, arts and cultural production in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts totals nearly $30 billion annually, representing more than 4 percent of the state's economic output, according to the Mass Cultural Council. All told, more than 130,000 jobs are spread across the commonwealth creating a vibrant and thriving artistic community for us all to enjoy. 

Despite the obvious impact, these figures are under threat. A recent survey by MassCreative compiled recent federal cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and identified 63 grants canceled and $4.2 million in grant funding rescinded across New England so far this year. 

The dollars, of course, are important. But they also only scratch the surface on what they bring to the community. Today, we risk losing part of the culture and identity many now take for granted. 

While others choose to look past these less tangible, but just as vital benefits, we're doing the opposite. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts is all in to ensure the next generation retains their access to works of art, while also being empowered to create themselves. 

Last fall, MCLA officially broke ground on the new Campagna Kleefeld Center for Creativity in the Arts, which will serve as a new hub for the campus and the local community for arts programming. When complete in fall of 2027, our students will benefit, but so will all of Berkshire County and artists in the surrounding area. 

This exciting new facility is just one of the many forthcomings our region can enjoy in the coming years. Just a few miles away, anticipation builds for the Fall 2027 anticipated opening for the Williams College Museum of Art. Years in the making, the museum likewise grows from an enduring commitment to the arts, both in curriculum and in practice. Exciting times are also underway for the Clark Art Institute with the construction of a new facility to house a collection of 331 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works. Their wing is scheduled for completion in 2028. And listeners will no doubt enjoy the sounds and melodies from Mass MoCA Records, the latest endeavor to foster creativity and artistic pursuits through music launched in October as well. Of course, many are also awaiting the reopening of the Berkshire Museum anticipated this summer, after a tremendous renovation process to rejuvenate the experience for visitors. 

So much time, energy, and yes, dollars, have already been invested in taking these facilities from ideas and sketches and making them reality. But they represent much more than new buildings. They represent new opportunities to cultivate and accelerate the thriving arts community in Massachusetts and the northern Berkshires. 

Art, regardless of the medium, is a reflection of who we are, where we've been, and what we aspire to be. It can be inspired by hopes or fears and chronicle collective triumphs as well as tribulations. The goal of art is not only to document history, but to inspire those positioned to change it and to feel something new or even to provoke us to revisit our own assumptions or misconceptions. 

As unfathomable of a number as $30 billion can seem, boiling down the impact to any number inherently discounts the unknowable downstream effects our graduates will bring to the community and the broader world after they leave our institutions. Likewise, rescinding $4.2 million now removes a huge chunk of that growth potential.  

Justification for making these investments today when simply boiled down to dollars and cents still places us on solid ground strictly from a financial perspective that forgoes all of the intangible, but no less valuable, benefits as well.  

The arts are still worth our support. And our community will be richer for it. 

James Birge, PhD, is president of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams.