WESTFORD, Mass. - A 44-year-old Groton man was listed in fair condition today at Massachusetts General Hospital after surviving a snowmobile crash on Forge Pond Saturday afternoon.
Brian J. Brule, 45, was traveling on the snow-covered ice in the mid-afternoon when his yellow and black snowmobile became airborne.
Police speculate that Brule hit ice ridges while traveling at a high rate of speed.
“It looks like he went airborne at one point and came off the snowmobile,” said Captain Victor Neal of the Westford Police Department.
Neal said Brule’s helmet flew off his head in the accident.
Brule was transported off the ice and taken to the Stony Brook School where he was air lifted to Boston.
State Environmental police who had been on the pond earlier that day to monitor an ice fishing tournament were on the scene investigating the accident, and determined the vehicle was not registered, said Neal.
An investigation is ongoing, he said.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
SNOWMOBILE ACCIDENT ON FORGE POND
LOCAL IBM WORKERS TOLD TO LOOK FOR NEW JOBS
By Joyce Pellino Crane
WESTFORD, Mass. – An undisclosed number of IBM employees were told on January 21 and 27 to begin looking for new jobs, according to a company spokesperson, who declined to call the action a layoff.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Doug Shelton said some North American employees were informed “about the need to remix our resources and skills to better match our client requirements.”
He denied the action was related to a plummeting global economy that has caused companies across the nation to lay-off hundreds of thousands of employees over the past two quarters. IBM operates in 170 countries with 69 percent of its workforce outside the US, and employs 121,000 domestically, according to its 2007 annual report.
IBM did not publicly announce the workforce reduction. Shelton responded to phone calls seeking comment after rumors of a local layoff surfaced.
“All I can confirm is that we talked to employees in North America,” he said.
The action did not trigger the Worker Adjustment and Notification Act passed in 1988 to prevent large plants from closing up shop with no warning. To help workers prepare for a layoff, the federal law requires companies employing at least 100 people to notify state officials 60 days in advance if more than 500 workers are being let go.
Shelton declined to specify how many jobs or which IBM locations were impacted.
In October IBM spokeswoman Beth Friday told the Boston Globe that the company expected to employ about 3,400 in this region by 2010. She said the company was in the process of upgrading two former Hewlett Packard buildings on Route 110 in Littleton, which neighbors Westford, and would be relocating software professionals there beginning in January. Other employees would be relocated to IBM’s existing Westford campus on Technology Park Drive, just off Route 110.
According to published news reports, IBM laid off unspecified numbers of workers in Vermont and New York last month without reporting the event.
Shelton said all the workers have the option of searching for new jobs within the company. In some states workers will get fulltime salaries for 30 days, and in other states, for as long as 90 days, he added.
The company “reassesses” the skills of its employees on a quarterly basis, Shelton said, and the number employed by the company balances out by each year-end.
In December the company employed about 400,000, globally, as compared to about 386,000 at the end of 2007, he said. But worker reassessments are taken on a quarterly basis, he added, suggesting that further shifts in employee numbers will take place.
“We have a process that is ongoing throughout the year,” he said. “We don’t do one-time events like other companies where they announce thousands and thousands of employees.”
Shelton said that employees leave the company with a severance package of one week’s pay for each fully completed six months of service, up to a maximum of 26 weeks. IBM subsidizes medical and life insurance premiums for up to a year, he said. It provides financial planning services by an outside consultant for up to four months and outplacement services for up to a year. Reimbursement for re-training is provided for one year after departure, he said.
Joyce Pellino Crane can be reached at joycepellinocrane@gmail.com.
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