BUSINESS BRIEFS: Disability & LGBTQ Funding, Greener Refrigeration, Waters-Princeton Collab

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State Sets Aside Funds for Disability, LGBT Contracts

State agencies should aim to spend $18 million with LGBT-owned businesses and $18 million with disability-owned businesses in the new fiscal year that started Saturday, Gov. Maura Healey announced on the final day of Pride Month. bThe Supplier Diversity Office began recognizing those business certification categories in 2015 without setting spending benchmarks. But Healey's office on Friday outlined the new goals for LGBTQ- and disability-owned businesses in a bid to expand diverse contracting opportunities for state agencies and local governments. "Massachusetts is home to so many wonderful diverse and small businesses who are truly the backbone of our communities and our economy," Healey said in a statement Friday. "Our administration is committed to increasing opportunities for them to do business with the state, which will not only help their businesses grow but will also support the state's equitable economic development." Based on the latest data, state agencies will need to ramp up their contracting by millions of dollars to reach the administration's goals. Massachusetts spent about $3.26 billion with diverse and small businesses in fiscal 2022, a 15 percent increase over the prior year, according to a report from the Supplier Diversity Office. That includes about $15.1 million on disability-owned businesses and $9.7 million on LGBT-owned businesses.- Alison Kuznitz/SHNS

State Dollars to Support of “Greener” Commercial Refrigeration

The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced last week that more than $581,000 in Commercial Refrigeration Grant Program funding has been awarded to eight retail food businesses and a food bank in Western Massachusetts. The grant program, administered by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), will support the use of climate-friendly refrigerants in commercial refrigeration equipment. Many commercial refrigeration systems use potent greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), with global warming potential up to thousands of times that of carbon dioxide (CO2). The awarded funding will cover a range of projects, including technology that will retrofit existing stores to use climate-friendly refrigerants. For more information about the MassDEP Commercial Refrigeration Grant Program, please visit the Program’s website.

Tegra Medical Announces New Director of Finance

Tegra Medical, Franklin, a contract manufacturer in the medical device industry, is pleased to announce that Karen Kong is the company's new Director of Finance. Kong will report to Walter Kobler, Chief Executive Officer and Head of SFS Division Medical, and will lead Tegra Medical's worldwide finance and accounting organization. Kong recently worked at Schindler Elevator, where she held various finance and controlling positions. She attended the University of Nottingham in England, where she earned a PhD in Economics and an M.S. degree in Financial Economics.

Waters Corporation and Princeton U Announce Collaboration

Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) announced a multi-year research collaboration with Princeton University that will enable scientists, faculty, and students to work together to bring their diverse skills and backgrounds to solve complex challenges in biochemistry and materials science. "Solving the biggest challenges in science takes collaborations that bring together diversity of thought and expertise. Our partnership with Princeton University seeks to enable powerful research in biochemical and advanced materials engineering," said Dr. Udit Batra, President and CEO, Waters Corporation. "Together our initial work will focus on improving LC-MS workflows and sample preparation to enable our customers to conduct simpler and faster analyses with even greater precision. In turn, this will help biopharma scientists deliver therapeutics that are safe and highly effective for the treatment of disease, such as oncology and autoimmune diseases." Under the new agreement, the Waters-Princeton collaboration will bring together academic and industry researchers to tap into knowledge and expertise from various scientific domains and disciplines to identify and solve problems that matter. One such research project will focus on novel media for purification to help advance drug development and discovery.