Lisa Eckelbecker

Business reporter, Worcester Telegram & Gazette

United States

Award-winning journalist in central Massachusetts. Author of "Flea Market Felony," published in "Murder Ink 3" by Plaidswede Publishing.

Portfolio

Business

telegram.com
Trade policy slaps Central Mass. companies with price hikes

WORCESTER - The letter from Canada brought unwelcome news. ArcelorMittal, a steel manufacturer, announced it was hiking the price of steel it sells to Riverdale Mills Corp. of Northbridge by 25 percent starting June 1 to cover the cost of a new U.S. tariff.

telegram.com
Worcester lacks adequate buildings, space for manufacturers

WORCESTER - Businessman Steven Rothschild knows what potential commercial and industrial tenants want in a work space - 22- to 30-feet-high ceilings, docking bays, column-free interiors, truck access and modern electrical wiring.And too many times he has had to tell those who contact him about space in his older properties that no, he cannot offer those features.That is why he's building a new 22,000-square-foot industrial property on Canterbury Street that will be called the

telegram.com
Worcester Regional Airport adding flights, but still operating in red

WORCESTER - When the Massachusetts Port Authority invited local business and government leaders to Worcester Regional Airport nearly three weeks ago, it planned for a celebration.Breakfast pastries, balloons, a list of dignitaries to speak - it all went into announcing that American Airlines Inc., the largest U.S.

telegram.com
After long, slow recovery, construction industry revives

WORCESTER - Construction jobs are back in Massachusetts.Six years after employment in the sector bottomed out, and bolstered by the development of everything from apartments to casinos, construction has recovered enough that some employers say they are having trouble finding enough qualified trades workers to staff the projects ahead.

Telegram
Jobs go wanting as pipeline goes unfilled

SOUTHBRIDGE - Six men seated at tables in a yellow classroom hunch silently over sheets of paper, scratching out answers to a pop quiz covering the basics of reading, English and math. At the front of the room, part of the Workforce Central Career Center, Leslie Parady waits.

Telegram
Nurses are delaying retirement. Why, and what it means.

WORCESTER - Kathleen E. Wilson has worked in a hospital intensive care department for newborns, consulted for an intravenous therapy company and supervised nurses who make home visits to patients. And at age 63, she's not ready to retire.

Telegram
Agency tries to help get a grip on ER 'frequent utilizers'

WORCESTER - Nicholas S. Adkins lost part of his intestine to cancer, and to a stabbing that he said occurred when he tried to break up a fight. He lost a toe, he said, to amputation after he neglected injuries caused when a motorcycle ran over his foot while he worked a security job at a Connecticut casino.

Telegram
Blackstone debate goes beyond dollars

Millions of plastic pods that look like honeycomb-shaped cereal bob in tanks of frothy wastewater alongside the Providence River. It's a cold, sunny day at the Field's Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in Providence, the second-largest sewage treatment plant in New England and one of the final shoreline landmarks on a waterway that starts in Worcester as the Blackstone River and flows some 48 miles into the Seekonk River, the Providence River and, ultimately, Narragansett Bay.

Telegram
Impact of dams weighs on Blackstone

Just a few miles below the point where the region's major sewage treatment plant pours treated wastewater into the Blackstone River, the broken remains of an unwanted dam stretch across the waterway in Millbury. Engineers, regulators and even its owner, National Grid, want the Millbury Dam to come down so the Blackstone can once again run free through its channel.

Telegram
Food of the woods

Leobardo Mondragon strides into the woods on a trail he has cleared of trees, passing thousands of hardwood logs stacked five high in a zig-zag formation. It's a strange autumn scene. We're behind Mondragon's Petersham house, which sits on four acres of rolling land near a branch of the Swift River.