Business Success, Storm Clouds Highlighted at 1Berkshire Annual Meeting
Cheshire native JD Chesloff of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable delivers the keynote address on Thursday.
The vice president of maritime and strategic systems strategy and business development at General Dynamics shared news of a major expansion at the Pittsfield plant.
"We plan to hire over 200 employees in Pittsfield over the next 12 to 14 months," Chris Montferret said. "Business is booming. And of those 200 employees, over 200 will be engineers."
Currently, General Dynamics employs more than 1,600 people in Pittsfield, up from a low of 500 in 1997, Montferret said, reminding the 1Berkshire membership of the importance of growth for an anchor like his firm.
"As you all know as employers, the multiplier of economic development when you bring a full-time employee in is amazing for the entire community," Montferret said.
1Berkshire is dedicated to advancing the local economy by advocating for and serving local businesses while helping attract visitors to the region.
The development organization's president and CEO used the annual meeting to talk about 1Berkshire's economic development team, which averages more than 100 consultations per year with local entrepreneurs — over 40 percent with businesses owned by women, members of minority groups or immigrants.
"Our economic development team wanted to highlight one feel-good story for us, and that's Red Shirt Farm," Jonathan Butler said. "For three years, we've been working with Jim and Sarah [Schultz] on their farm store project on Route 7 [in Lanesborough], helping kick off the project with an economic development site visit some years ago, giving direct technical assistance, helping with crowd funding and planning and execution.
"And after three years, Red Shirt officially opened its farm store this summer. It's a testament to the often long runway it takes for meaningful success in the small-business world. But we're proud to have been a part of that."
The meeting itself was held in another 1Berkshire success story.
Yina Moore, the founder and artistic director of the Adams Theater and now a member of the 1Berkshire board, told her fellow members about the role that the organization had in the success of her enterprise.
"I'm very grateful to the technical, marketing and networking assistance that the 1Berkshire team has added to my various projects throughout the years," Moore said.
"In the summer of 2021, 1Berkshire held an entrepreneurial meetup meeting right here, inside the Adams Theater, on this stage. At that time, the building had no lobby, no plumbing, no walls — just a concrete slab and a few chairs and a group of people willing to imagine what might be possible down the road."
Today, the Adams Theater is a "vibrant cultural and community hub" hosting nearly 50 events and performing arts residencies and bringing nearly 5,000 visitors to downtown Adams in 2025, Moore said.
One of those visitors was Cheshire native JD Chesloff, now the president and chief executive officer of the Boston-based Massachusetts Business Roundtable.
Chesloff was the keynote speaker at Thursday's meeting and shared that he last set foot in the building that houses the Adams Theater when it was a Hallmark store in the 1980s.
He complimented Moore and her team on transforming not just the building but the town and the region.
But his 15-minute talk gave a decidedly mixed assessment about the state of the economy in the commonwealth.
While Massachusetts still ranks second only to New York in gross domestic product per capita ($89,000 in 2024), it ranks 42nd in the U.S. in GDP growth between 2022 and 2024 (1.3 percent), according to a Business Roundtable analysis.
And while the Bay State continues to be a national leader in areas like education, health care and innovation, it "faces strong headwinds to retain businesses given cost of living and doing business," Chesloff's organization reported.
"When I talk to our members and ask them, 'How are you doing? What are you thinking,' these are some of the quotes I've heard: 'Nothing makes any sense,' … 'Chaos is becoming the norm,' 'Uncertainty is everywhere,' and, 'We're heading off an economic cliff,' " Chesloff said.
"There's a lot of concern out there."
The business group's survey of business owners found that from 2021 to 2025, concerns about "cost of living" and "cost of doing business" have emerged as the leading challenges to keeping those businesses in Massachusetts, Chesloff reported.
In 2025, 74 percent of business owners said housing costs negatively impact their efforts at hiring and retention of employees.
That said, Chesloff offered four steps that business people, including 1Berkshire's more than 700 members, can take to improve their own chances for success and the business climate in Massachusetts: seek out new partnerships and collaborations; engage in policy conversations; invest in workforce and digital capacity; and stay focused on value proposition and mission.
"Honestly, policy makers don't want to hear from me," Chesloff said. "They want to hear from folks like you. They want to hear from folks on the ground who are impacted by their decisions. If there are folks here who are not part of 1Berkshire, join 1Berkshire. That's what they do. If you are a member, go find friends to join 1Berkshire.
"It's super important right now for us to be engaging with public leaders on policy."
Tags: 1Berkshire, annual meeting,
