image description — Incoming President Mark Rulison hands Seirra King Watson flowers to thank her for her two years as president of SBCC.

Southern Berkshire Chamber Welcomes New Board

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
01:10PM / Monday, January 12, 2026Print Story | Email Story

The networking event and annual meeting is held at Pittsfield Cooperative Bank's office on Main Street.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce celebrated new members and officers Thursday night at its annual meeting.

Mark Rulison, artistic administrator for Tanglewood, steps into the president's role, replacing Sierra King Watson.

Watson, of Pittsfield Cooperative Bank, has been the president for two years and Rulison has been on the board for three years.

"I'm thrilled with the membership of the board. We have an incredible group of people who are dedicated and committed to the business community that we serve in the area," Rulison said. "I am looking forward to working with all of them and growing that in the future.

"I would love to see the board to continue to do its incredible work in the business, to business space, and also expand more into the business, to people space, helping our local businesses find more customers, keep more customers, bringing people in their doors, through the events that we host, through the events that we sponsor, through the messaging that we do."

Watson said she was excited to pass the torch to Rulison and believes SBCC has come along way in the last year with their partnership with the local app BerkHub, which showcases local businesses.

"We're trying to bring in more like the modern digital platform. Which one of the things we brought in was our new partnership with the BerkHub app," she said. "So I think those type of things we're trying to bring in into 2026 and so on and so forth. So I think definitely trying to keep up with more modern technology is where we're heading."

Rulison thanked the members and especially Watson, who was given flowers during the meeting as a thank you.

"Especially want to thank Sierra for her leadership as board president for the last two years. It's not an easy job. It takes a lot of time. She did it remarkably well," he said. "I think everyone in our community knows her and knows that when she commits to something, she sees it through full force, full throttle, and we're grateful to her."

The board of officers include Vice President Ryan Sears of Common Collab, co-Treasurers Holly Simeone of Berkshire Money Management and Watson, Clerk Oskar Hallig of Only in My Dreams Events, and member-at-large Seth Keyes of Saint James Place.

The new board of directors also includes: Margie Gwozdz of Wheeler & Taylor Inc., Jennifer Connor Shumsky of Greylock Federal Credit Union, Ben Elliott of the Triplex Cinema, Kris Kanter of Railroad Street Collective, Ann Grochmal of the Mahaiwe Performing Art Center, Serena Johnson of the Great Barrington Public Theater and Trish Mead of Kwik Print.

Tags: annual meeting, Southern Berkshire Chamber,

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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