Published in the Current; co-written with Brendan Moran
A house next to the Blue Point Elementary School on Pine Point Road in Scarborough was advertising itself on the Web as a swingers club known as Club Vision until February, when the owners of the home and police found out about it.
Once the club closed, it began using its web site to encourage patrons to use other clubs in the area, including another home-based club called Wildflower’s in Scarborough and a commercial lounge in Lewiston.
The owners of the home at 170 Pine Point Road, Philip and Kathleen McKay, have filed eviction proceedings against the former tenants, identified as Adam Goodwin and Jen Kole, who have moved out. According to court documents, no one appeared on behalf of the tenants to contest the eviction. The Current was unable to find phone numbers for Goodwin and Kole, who have apparently moved out of Scarborough. A toll-free number listed on the web site was disconnected. An e-mail to an address on the site didn’t get a reply.
Police began investigating activity at the home after the McKays reported it to them. They later dropped the investigation after the tenants moved out.
Police Chief Robert Moulton said his department would only be interested in possible criminal activity, such as the illegal sale of liquor or prostitution, and none was found. “We haven’t had any information come forward that there was any big violations,” he said.
Activity occurred at night, and the principal of the Blue Point School, Susan Helms, said she didn’t know anything about the house next door and hadn’t heard any complaints from parents.
The police and owners were unaware of a web site devoted to the club, www.clubvisionmaine.com, and another swingers club in Scarborough that the site refers to. Swinging is commonly known as partner swapping.
The site, which is registered to Goodwin, says the club is closed and looking for a new location to expand. It says the club plans to re-open in late spring. While the club was closed, the site recommended patrons go to another club in Scarborough known as Wildflower’s and a club in Lewiston.
E-mails on an Internet group for swingers indicated Wildflower’s was located at an address on Broadturn Road. But a woman who answered the door at the residence denied the home was being used as a swingers club.
The club in Lewiston and the two clubs in Scarborough are the only clubs in Southern Maine, according to e-mails on Internet groups for swingers.
According to its website, “Club Vision is Maine’s premier couples club, located near Portland.”
The web site reads, “We are a full on premises club that is very discreet and professional. We are a BYOB club, so you don’t have to worry about expensive drink prices. There will be a hot and cold buffet served,
non-alcoholic drinks will be provided.”
It also cautions guests to be courteous and understand they have the right to say “no” at any time. “Do not allow yourself to become sexually involved with anybody that you are not interested in. You are in the lifestyle to enjoy yourself, so only do what you want, when you want and with whom you want.” The site goes on to advertise a hot tub, pool table, private rooms and a lounge area.
The McKays, who live in New Hampshire, confirmed that they found out about the swingers club from a neighbor and alerted police.
But they declined to comment because of their ongoing eviction suit, which was filed on Feb. 20.
The suit alleges Goodwin and Kole, who moved into the house in October, broke the rental agreement by making unauthorized alterations to the house and running a business in the home.
According to court documents, Goodwin and Kole allegedly installed a gas heating system, new flooring and a hot tub in the garage.
In the McKays’ complaint they allege, “Defendants have breached Maine law and local ordinance by construction of alterations to the premises and the conduct of a business in the premises…Defendants are operating a nightclub/singles bar and facility in the home,” the suit read.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified said he had heard the neighbors working in the garage late at night and saw them bringing furniture in and out of the house. He never met Goodwin or Kole and said he assumed they had made arrangements with the landlord to renovate the house.
During the fall and winter, he said the tenants were throwing parties four or five nights a week. He would often hear music coming from the home until late at night. One night during the winter, he looked out the window and saw two women in negligees carrying what looked like two bottles of wine walking from the garage to the house. “They weren’t going to bake cookies. That was for sure,” he said.
The Current first learned of neighborhood concerns when a woman who identified herself as the mother of a Blue Point Elementary School student called to say there was a swingers club being operated next to the school.
Robert McGinley, the founder of the National Swing Club Association, estimated there are 400 active swing clubs and many more private homes that have swinging parties nationally. He also estimated there are 10,000 swinging couples in the U.S. The association defines swinging as sexual contact with someone other than a person’s partner or spouse, with that partner’s consent.
“The lifestyle is a rapidly emerging economic powerhouse,” said McGinley, with events like the July 2001 Annual Lifestyles Convention in Las Vegas, which was sponsored by major resorts and airlines.
“It attracts couples that really have it together as a relationship,” said McGinley, who also has a degree in the psychology of human sexuality.
Partners who swing are typically open and honest with each other, which is “not typical of a so-called traditional marriage.”
“Swinging is not just sex. It’s the freedom to be with people you enjoy,” he added.
Thursday, April 25, 2002
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Cancer survivor says diet saved her life
Published in the Current
When asked how she has managed to remain alive, Meg Wolff just smiles. In 1990, she lost a leg to cancer, and in 1997 she underwent surgery for aggressive breast cancer that doctors told her would return within a year.
But the cancer has not returned, and Wolff, who lives on the ocean in Cape Elizabeth, thinks she may have come up with a cure for cancer: macrobiotic eating.
“I really believe you can cure cancer with diet,” Wolff said.
The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is doing a study on alternative ways of dealing with cancer, and is exploring macrobiotic eating too.
“So much of modern food (production) is about promoting growth,” Wolff said. And, she said, cancer is really just a group of cells that grow too quickly.
Now 44, Wolff has studied at the Kushi Institute in Massachusetts, and teaches macrobiotic cooking at the Cancer Community Center in South Portland.
She also teaches classes at several locations in the Bethel area, where she lives during the school year to be able to cook for her children, who went to Cape schools until they decided to pursue skiing more seriously.
Her son is now a sophomore at Gould Academy and her daughter is in sixth grade at Hebron Academy.
“I’m committed to cooking for my kids as long as they are in high school,” she said.
“I try to offer them healthy choices at home,” she said. “I think hopefully they’ll make good choices when they go elsewhere.”
When she was sick a few years ago, she read a book by a doctor who had cured himself of an incurable form of cancer with macrobiotic eating, and began to look into it.
“I was just thinking diet for health,” Wolff said.
Her first challenge was to find out what macrobiotics really is. Rather than a specific set of dishes, macrobiotics prescribes diet as a ratio of ingredients.
According to macrobiotics rules, 50 to 60 percent of the food should be whole grains, including brown rice, barley, millet and quinoa; 25 to 35 percent should be vegetables. Five to 10 percent should be beans and bean products, including tofu and tempeh.
Five percent should be nuts and seeds and other “supplementals,” Wolff said, and 5 percent should be soups.
“They suggest that you eat foods that are grown in your climate,” Wolff said. “Organic is what’s really stressed.”
She suggests buying local at places like farm stands and the farmer’s markets in Portland.
It’s not quick and easy. Making meals can be time-consuming, she said, and can require work.
“It just takes motivation and patience,” she said. And a rearrangement of priorities. “Now different things are important to me,” she said.
Part of the success of the diet, she said, is that it’s “food like our ancestors ate,” grown naturally and unprocessed.
“If you’re eating all this stuff that’s filled with life, then they’re going to give you life,” Wolff said. It’s a big contrast to modern diet. “Nutrition-wise we’re pretty poverty-stricken,” she said.
“It’s lifestyle too,” Wolff said. “I really think that diet is a foundation for good health.”
So why don’t more people eat this way?
“I think people just don’t believe that food can make them feel that way,” Wolff said, adding that more people are starting to eat better food, but still want meals that are quick and easy to prepare. “I think people want a magic bullet or pill,” Wolff said.
Despite her diet and her dedication to eating well, she is easygoing on others.
“I try not to be the food police,” Wolff said. “It’s not an all-or-nothing thing.” She encourages people to eat even one macrobiotic meal each week, to begin adapting their diets.
She says it can help, and talks about her own experience.
Her doctors didn’t know what to do with her breast cancer, fearing it could return at any moment.
“I felt like every doctor looked at me with a really sad face,” Wolff said. They recommended a bone-marrow transplant, but she had a gut feeling it would kill her.
“Kind of a light bulb went off in my head,” Wolff said. “I needed to play all my cards.”
So she learned about macrobiotics and made the change, initially cooking macrobiotic meals for herself and other meals for the rest of her family. But she phased them into it, giving them small side dishes of what she was eating.
Eventually the whole family started eating macrobiotics. It keeps her healthy, and her kids as well. “When everything’s going around, they never get sick,” Wolff said.
Her advice for introducing healthy cooking into family life sounds a lot like her approach to cancer. “Don’t be overwhelmed by it,” Wolff said.
When asked how she has managed to remain alive, Meg Wolff just smiles. In 1990, she lost a leg to cancer, and in 1997 she underwent surgery for aggressive breast cancer that doctors told her would return within a year.
But the cancer has not returned, and Wolff, who lives on the ocean in Cape Elizabeth, thinks she may have come up with a cure for cancer: macrobiotic eating.
“I really believe you can cure cancer with diet,” Wolff said.
The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is doing a study on alternative ways of dealing with cancer, and is exploring macrobiotic eating too.
“So much of modern food (production) is about promoting growth,” Wolff said. And, she said, cancer is really just a group of cells that grow too quickly.
Now 44, Wolff has studied at the Kushi Institute in Massachusetts, and teaches macrobiotic cooking at the Cancer Community Center in South Portland.
She also teaches classes at several locations in the Bethel area, where she lives during the school year to be able to cook for her children, who went to Cape schools until they decided to pursue skiing more seriously.
Her son is now a sophomore at Gould Academy and her daughter is in sixth grade at Hebron Academy.
“I’m committed to cooking for my kids as long as they are in high school,” she said.
“I try to offer them healthy choices at home,” she said. “I think hopefully they’ll make good choices when they go elsewhere.”
When she was sick a few years ago, she read a book by a doctor who had cured himself of an incurable form of cancer with macrobiotic eating, and began to look into it.
“I was just thinking diet for health,” Wolff said.
Her first challenge was to find out what macrobiotics really is. Rather than a specific set of dishes, macrobiotics prescribes diet as a ratio of ingredients.
According to macrobiotics rules, 50 to 60 percent of the food should be whole grains, including brown rice, barley, millet and quinoa; 25 to 35 percent should be vegetables. Five to 10 percent should be beans and bean products, including tofu and tempeh.
Five percent should be nuts and seeds and other “supplementals,” Wolff said, and 5 percent should be soups.
“They suggest that you eat foods that are grown in your climate,” Wolff said. “Organic is what’s really stressed.”
She suggests buying local at places like farm stands and the farmer’s markets in Portland.
It’s not quick and easy. Making meals can be time-consuming, she said, and can require work.
“It just takes motivation and patience,” she said. And a rearrangement of priorities. “Now different things are important to me,” she said.
Part of the success of the diet, she said, is that it’s “food like our ancestors ate,” grown naturally and unprocessed.
“If you’re eating all this stuff that’s filled with life, then they’re going to give you life,” Wolff said. It’s a big contrast to modern diet. “Nutrition-wise we’re pretty poverty-stricken,” she said.
“It’s lifestyle too,” Wolff said. “I really think that diet is a foundation for good health.”
So why don’t more people eat this way?
“I think people just don’t believe that food can make them feel that way,” Wolff said, adding that more people are starting to eat better food, but still want meals that are quick and easy to prepare. “I think people want a magic bullet or pill,” Wolff said.
Despite her diet and her dedication to eating well, she is easygoing on others.
“I try not to be the food police,” Wolff said. “It’s not an all-or-nothing thing.” She encourages people to eat even one macrobiotic meal each week, to begin adapting their diets.
She says it can help, and talks about her own experience.
Her doctors didn’t know what to do with her breast cancer, fearing it could return at any moment.
“I felt like every doctor looked at me with a really sad face,” Wolff said. They recommended a bone-marrow transplant, but she had a gut feeling it would kill her.
“Kind of a light bulb went off in my head,” Wolff said. “I needed to play all my cards.”
So she learned about macrobiotics and made the change, initially cooking macrobiotic meals for herself and other meals for the rest of her family. But she phased them into it, giving them small side dishes of what she was eating.
Eventually the whole family started eating macrobiotics. It keeps her healthy, and her kids as well. “When everything’s going around, they never get sick,” Wolff said.
Her advice for introducing healthy cooking into family life sounds a lot like her approach to cancer. “Don’t be overwhelmed by it,” Wolff said.
Denial adds to drug problem in Cape Elizabeth
Published in the Current
While anecdotal evidence and a two-year-old survey confirm that Cape teens are keeping up with national statistics when it comes to drug and alcohol abuse, local police, counselors and educators says it’s tough to get parents concerned about the problem.
“The kids like to party, just like they do in other communities,” said police Detective Paul Fenton. He has no hard data, but senses that half of the students at the high school have used marijuana or alcohol.
He gets his numbers from anecdotes and interviews of teens he catches with drugs or alcohol. But kids don’t talk much. “They don’t want to rat their friends out,” Fenton said.
He said marijuana is used more than alcohol, because it is easier to get. And, he said, in the past six months the town has seen a “huge influx” of other drugs, including OxyContin, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and abuse of
Ritalin.
“Heroin is in Cape Elizabeth. It’s a fact,” Fenton said.
There are teens who are doing heroin in town, and it’s not just school drop-outs. It’s kids who are doing well, Fenton said.
All the kids in town have a lot of pressure, to work hard in school and do well in athletics, Fenton said. When they go out, they want to escape. So drug users are not just kids you might stereotypically expect to be on drugs, he said.
“There are the kids that are, quote-unquote, the perfect kid,” Fenton said.
As a result of the drug problem, crime has increased a bit, including a Jan. 6 spree of vehicle, garage and shed break-ins in the Scott Dyer Road and Brentwood area. There is even some small-scale drug dealing in town, Fenton said. Some kids come to Cape to buy drugs, while others from Cape go elsewhere, like Portland.
If parents want to find out if their kids may be drinking, Fenton suggested a quick look at their kids’ wallets. Many kids in town, he said, carry fake IDs right next to their own real IDs.
A survey of sophomores done two years ago – the most recent numbers available – back up what Fenton says.
According to the “Monitoring the Future” survey, done by the University of Michigan, nearly 80 percent of the respondents had taken at least one drink in the previous 12 months, and one-third had consumed alcoholic beverages 10 or more times.
Further, nearly 37 percent of the respondents had been “drunk or very high from drinking alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days.”
Ninety-three percent of students felt alcohol was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
And while 59 percent of the students had not used marijuana or hashish in the 12 months preceding the survey, 19 percent had used the drug 10 or more times in that period, and 24.8 percent had used marijuana in their lifetimes, with 85.8 percent of the students thinking marijuana was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
As for other drugs, 27.7 percent had used at least one illicit drug other than marijuana. And 39.6 percent of students said someone had offered to sell or give them an illegal drug while at school, in the previous 12 months.
But surveys can be a challenge to undertake and when the results come back.
“There’s this denial of any issues,” said Terry Johnson, co-chair of the Cape Community Coalition, which works to help teens feel more connected to the community, through group discussions and student-tostudent mentoring programs.
“Doing these surveys can be very problematic for the schools,” he said, pointing to schools in other states that have been sued for doing a survey.
“Fear drives people to not do these things,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to admit there’s a problem.”
But sticking the town’s collective head in the sand, he said, is not a good idea.
“That whole denial piece is really contributing to the problem,” Johnson said. That’s true not just in Cape Elizabeth, but throughout Maine and the nation.
Parents often know
Parents play a big role in enabling teen drinking, according to both kids and police. This poses problems with the law, responsibility and behavior modeling.
Some parents prefer that their children drink at home, presuming that their houses are safer than other places kids would find to drink. But police say parents sometimes come home to find several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry or other possessions missing.
And even if parents are away when a party occurs, liability for accidents—including car crashes after people leave the party—rests with the homeowner.
“You are responsible, even though you’re not present,” said Officer Paul Gaspar.
If parents leave kids at home, they should come to the police station and sign a form giving police permission to enter their homes if there is anything suspicious going on.
Without that authorization, police who get turned away at the door to a house by a partying teen-ager can’t break up the party.
Parties in the woods can be hard to track down without help from the neighbors who call to report them. When police do find and break up a party, parental cooperation is necessary but sometimes hard to get.
When the police call and say their kid has been caught with alcohol, parents will try to get a summons dropped, saying they teach their kid to “drink responsibly,” Fenton said.
But when the same kid gets a speeding ticket, he said, parents don’t try to get their kid out of trouble by saying they teach their kids to “drive responsibly.”
It’s a double standard that is dangerous for parents and for kids, he said.
When cops tell parents what the kids are doing, parents don’t believe it. But, Fenton said, they should. “I have no reason to lie,” he said.
When he warns parents, he’s helping them catch a problem before it becomes big, not criticizing them for being bad parents, he said.
And parents who fight back against drug and alcohol use among kids become a minority. “There seems to be some social stigma with doing the right thing,” Gaspar said.
They get in bickering matches about who actually brought the bottle of booze the kids were caught with. That misses the point, Gaspar said. “They don’t say, ‘One of our kids had booze and they both hang out together.’”
Parents not stepping up to the plate can be a big problem, he said. They don’t always ask questions or call other parents to verify their kids’ plans.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t trust your kid,” Gaspar said.
And, he pointed out, kids do lie. They follow the example adults set for them. When they see their parents lie, or encounter some parents who use drugs and alcohol with kids, the ethical picture becomes cloudy.
The bigger picture, Gaspar said, is that there is a cultural desensitization to teen-age drinking. Adults set an example, he said. They drink at the office Christmas party and then drive home.
Wanting kids to have friends and be part of the “in crowd” can also take its toll, especially if parents reinforce cliquish behavior. “Even the parents will buy into that,” Fenton said.
Cape teens, according to Johnson of the Cape Coalition, have problems feeling valued if they’re not in sports or on the honor roll, but Johnson said it’s easy to help. “Know the kids in your neighborhood. Say ‘hi’ to them on the street,” he said.
And develop a support structure for parents who will report incidents to police.
“You need to develop accepted codes of conduct for parents,” Johnson said. Parents are sometimes nervous to create tension between neighbors or friends by calling the police.
“A parent doesn’t want to take action because of how other kids will treat their kids at school,” Johnson said.
School efforts
Adults in the schools also struggle with drug and alcohol use. It is less obvious in Cape schools than in other communities, but no less a concern.
At other high schools where Principal Jeff Shedd has worked, he would walk down the hall and now and again smell marijuana on a student. That hasn’t happened so far to him in Cape, he said.
“It’s less overt here,” Shedd said.
But with a high-pressure school environment and expectations that this is to be “the best times of their lives,” he said, drugs and alcohol can be a way to escape.
“Some kids can use alcohol or marijuana and seem to be able to function,” Shedd said.
Though some of the kids are good at hiding their use when at school, if students are caught red-handed, parents tend to cooperate with the schools, Shedd said.
Even then, the law is not very clear. The legal consequences for smoking a cigarette on school grounds are “more certain and severe” than with marijuana, Shedd said. And the consequences for having paraphernalia are greater than for having a drug itself, or for being under the influence of the drug.
One of the causes of drug and alcohol use can be the stress students are under, including pressure to be involved with a lot of activities. Health teacher Andrea Cayer said involvement in extracurricular activities is one way to help kids stay off drugs, but too many activities, with a lot of pressure to succeed, can end up doing more harm than good.
“Our culture doesn’t support a lifestyle of moderation,” she said, suggesting students and parents alike be kept busy but not over-committed.
Many colleges, she said, are more interested in an applicant doing a few activities well for a long period of time, a change from the mid-1980s when colleges rewarded students who were involved in many different activities.
Whatever the cause, Cayer said, the problem of abuse has to be addressed at home.
“I don’t know how much more school can do,” she said, laying responsibility at the door of parents, whom she said don’t always listen before reacting to drug and alcohol use.
Adolescents are in the process of figuring out who they are, separate from their parents. That means they will challenge values, rules and boundaries, Cayer said. They need risk and adrenaline highs, but in safe environments.
“Kids want to be listened to without judgment,” Cayer said. She suggests parents keep communication lines open, so kids don’t have to hide. That can be hard, especially if parents disagree strongly with what kids are saying.
Cayer noted that family can also be a source of stress from which students seek to escape with drugs and alcohol.
Parents, she said, should resist the urge to solve problems for their kids, opting instead to keep them safe while they figure out things on their own.
Cayer reminds parents that good kids can do bad things. “Separate behavior from who the person is,” she said. “Our children aren’t perfect.”
“Kids want to be able to make it through their teen years in a safe environment,” she said. The burden is on parents, teachers and others to provide that.
One of those efforts is the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education, or DARE, program. It is a regular feature in Cape’s elementary and middle school classrooms. But its effectiveness is limited.
Officer Gaspar, who coordinates the DARE program in Cape schools, said it’s a matter of expectation. With 50 minutes one day a week, he said, “what do you hope to achieve?”
He compared that to the hours of television and movies and music that kids have access to, and in which they hear and see messages indicating that drugs and alcohol are acceptable, if not desirable.
That message even makes it into the schools: Gaspar has heard references to drug use in popular music played at high school and middle school events.
DARE also addresses the consequences of individual actions. People make bad choices and make mistakes, he said. “It’s how you deal with that.”
Adults play into the dynamic of avoiding consequences, Gaspar said, protecting their kids by paying fines for them or otherwise deflecting blame from the kids.
“Everybody shares a part in it,” Detective Fenton said. Neighbors who don’t report the destruction of mailboxes or gardens are a part of the problem, he said, because they allow people to get away with misbehaving.
Cayer suggested people take the focus off kids who make bad decisions and instead ask, “what does it take to be a healthy adolescent?”
Community-minded adults
Some adults in town are working on the problem, but they say it is hard to get parents interested.
Norm Boucher, a prevention educator at Day One, a Fort Williamsbased statewide organization helping young people between the ages of 16 and 24 deal with drug and alcohol use, said the biggest weapon in the fight is information.
Boucher makes awareness and education presentations in schools and communities around the state, but getting the word out isn’t easy.
“It’s a tough battle,” he said. “Very few people show up to awareness nights. Parents don’t show.”
Parental support is important when dealing with teens, he said. The law is black and white, but, Boucher said, “the community doesn’t back (the laws).”
“The grown-ups aren’t encouraging (drinking) but they’re certainly not discouraging (it),” Boucher said. “The biggest enablers are the parents,” he said. “The kids don’t use (drugs) in a vacuum.”
“If parents really meant their threats, it could work,” Boucher said. And parents must back up the police when they get involved.
“Most of the affluent communities want to believe that the problem is in Portland,” Boucher said. But he pointed to the recent deaths of three Portland teenagers on Tukey’s Bridge. They were northbound on I-295 and heading out of the city.
“The Portland kids who want to party go to the affluent communities because that’s where the best drugs are and the best parties and the best booze,” Boucher said.
While Day One is a statewide organization, the Cape Community Coalition focuses on teen issues in town.
Co-chair Johnson agrees that keeping the interest of parents is a sizeable challenge.
“After a crisis you’ll get lots of people. That’ll last a couple of weeks,” he said.
But now, the turnout is small and usually involves one or two new people, and the regular folks who show up at all the coalition events.
“If we get 15 people, we consider it a success,” Johnson said.
The focus, Johnson said, is working on developmental assets that relate to kids’ success and good choices in behavior.
In addition to community conversations, in which a larger audience splits into small discussion groups to address certain issues, the coalition has two student-to-student mentoring programs, one for high school students to help middle schoolers, and the other for middle school students to work with students at Pond Cove.
The coalition also sponsored the climbing wall at the high school, as an activity that challenges kids and allows them to take risks in a safe environment, Johnson said.
The focus is on high school and middle school students. Getting the attention of middle school and elementary school parents has been “a lot harder than we thought,” Johnson said.
What teens think
Teens also think parents have a hard time with the issue of drugs and alcohol, but admit students can have an even harder time dealing with use among their peers.
“I see a lot of risky behavior and I see a lot of naïve parents,” said Cara Jordan, a senior at CEHS who joined the Cape Coalition as a freshman.
Alex Weaver, a senior and the coalition’s co-chair, said he sometimes feels “helpless” when facing drinking and drug use among his peers.
He said adults are often in attendance at coalition meetings, but students are rarer.
“It’s the kind of thing that a lot of kids know about,” Weaver said, but their schedules don’t always allow them to attend. “I don’t think they look at the meetings and don’t want to go,” Weaver said.
Though attendance is small, the programs work. “I think definitely the people who come have been affected,” Weaver said. Parents who attend, he said, go home and talk to their kids about the issues raised at coalition meetings.
Parents do want to get involved and help. “Parents just don’t know what to do,” Jordan said. She offers a suggestion, one the coalition is already doing: “Get kids and adults together and start talking about drinking.”
Parents can find themselves in a strange position, Jordan said. Knowing that kids are pretty likely to drink, should they let their kids drink at home, where the environment may be safer?
Another problem, Jordan said, is “they know what kids do but they don’t want to believe it’s their kids doing it.”
Some adults are especially concerned, she said. “A lot of parents of younger children want to hear what the high school students have to say so they can be prepared,” Jordan said.
Weaver said, “A lot of kids do (drugs or alcohol) because they don’t have anything else to do.”
Others find activities to keep them busy, and the users and the nonusers tend not to mix, he said. “The kids who do (drugs or alcohol) don’t tend to associate with the kids who don’t do it,” Weaver said.
The coalition will hold a community dialogue in early May about parents and drug and alcohol abuse in teen-agers, asking, “What are the things that we do that help create the problem?” Johnson said.
While anecdotal evidence and a two-year-old survey confirm that Cape teens are keeping up with national statistics when it comes to drug and alcohol abuse, local police, counselors and educators says it’s tough to get parents concerned about the problem.
“The kids like to party, just like they do in other communities,” said police Detective Paul Fenton. He has no hard data, but senses that half of the students at the high school have used marijuana or alcohol.
He gets his numbers from anecdotes and interviews of teens he catches with drugs or alcohol. But kids don’t talk much. “They don’t want to rat their friends out,” Fenton said.
He said marijuana is used more than alcohol, because it is easier to get. And, he said, in the past six months the town has seen a “huge influx” of other drugs, including OxyContin, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and abuse of
Ritalin.
“Heroin is in Cape Elizabeth. It’s a fact,” Fenton said.
There are teens who are doing heroin in town, and it’s not just school drop-outs. It’s kids who are doing well, Fenton said.
All the kids in town have a lot of pressure, to work hard in school and do well in athletics, Fenton said. When they go out, they want to escape. So drug users are not just kids you might stereotypically expect to be on drugs, he said.
“There are the kids that are, quote-unquote, the perfect kid,” Fenton said.
As a result of the drug problem, crime has increased a bit, including a Jan. 6 spree of vehicle, garage and shed break-ins in the Scott Dyer Road and Brentwood area. There is even some small-scale drug dealing in town, Fenton said. Some kids come to Cape to buy drugs, while others from Cape go elsewhere, like Portland.
If parents want to find out if their kids may be drinking, Fenton suggested a quick look at their kids’ wallets. Many kids in town, he said, carry fake IDs right next to their own real IDs.
A survey of sophomores done two years ago – the most recent numbers available – back up what Fenton says.
According to the “Monitoring the Future” survey, done by the University of Michigan, nearly 80 percent of the respondents had taken at least one drink in the previous 12 months, and one-third had consumed alcoholic beverages 10 or more times.
Further, nearly 37 percent of the respondents had been “drunk or very high from drinking alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days.”
Ninety-three percent of students felt alcohol was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
And while 59 percent of the students had not used marijuana or hashish in the 12 months preceding the survey, 19 percent had used the drug 10 or more times in that period, and 24.8 percent had used marijuana in their lifetimes, with 85.8 percent of the students thinking marijuana was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get.
As for other drugs, 27.7 percent had used at least one illicit drug other than marijuana. And 39.6 percent of students said someone had offered to sell or give them an illegal drug while at school, in the previous 12 months.
But surveys can be a challenge to undertake and when the results come back.
“There’s this denial of any issues,” said Terry Johnson, co-chair of the Cape Community Coalition, which works to help teens feel more connected to the community, through group discussions and student-tostudent mentoring programs.
“Doing these surveys can be very problematic for the schools,” he said, pointing to schools in other states that have been sued for doing a survey.
“Fear drives people to not do these things,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to admit there’s a problem.”
But sticking the town’s collective head in the sand, he said, is not a good idea.
“That whole denial piece is really contributing to the problem,” Johnson said. That’s true not just in Cape Elizabeth, but throughout Maine and the nation.
Parents often know
Parents play a big role in enabling teen drinking, according to both kids and police. This poses problems with the law, responsibility and behavior modeling.
Some parents prefer that their children drink at home, presuming that their houses are safer than other places kids would find to drink. But police say parents sometimes come home to find several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry or other possessions missing.
And even if parents are away when a party occurs, liability for accidents—including car crashes after people leave the party—rests with the homeowner.
“You are responsible, even though you’re not present,” said Officer Paul Gaspar.
If parents leave kids at home, they should come to the police station and sign a form giving police permission to enter their homes if there is anything suspicious going on.
Without that authorization, police who get turned away at the door to a house by a partying teen-ager can’t break up the party.
Parties in the woods can be hard to track down without help from the neighbors who call to report them. When police do find and break up a party, parental cooperation is necessary but sometimes hard to get.
When the police call and say their kid has been caught with alcohol, parents will try to get a summons dropped, saying they teach their kid to “drink responsibly,” Fenton said.
But when the same kid gets a speeding ticket, he said, parents don’t try to get their kid out of trouble by saying they teach their kids to “drive responsibly.”
It’s a double standard that is dangerous for parents and for kids, he said.
When cops tell parents what the kids are doing, parents don’t believe it. But, Fenton said, they should. “I have no reason to lie,” he said.
When he warns parents, he’s helping them catch a problem before it becomes big, not criticizing them for being bad parents, he said.
And parents who fight back against drug and alcohol use among kids become a minority. “There seems to be some social stigma with doing the right thing,” Gaspar said.
They get in bickering matches about who actually brought the bottle of booze the kids were caught with. That misses the point, Gaspar said. “They don’t say, ‘One of our kids had booze and they both hang out together.’”
Parents not stepping up to the plate can be a big problem, he said. They don’t always ask questions or call other parents to verify their kids’ plans.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t trust your kid,” Gaspar said.
And, he pointed out, kids do lie. They follow the example adults set for them. When they see their parents lie, or encounter some parents who use drugs and alcohol with kids, the ethical picture becomes cloudy.
The bigger picture, Gaspar said, is that there is a cultural desensitization to teen-age drinking. Adults set an example, he said. They drink at the office Christmas party and then drive home.
Wanting kids to have friends and be part of the “in crowd” can also take its toll, especially if parents reinforce cliquish behavior. “Even the parents will buy into that,” Fenton said.
Cape teens, according to Johnson of the Cape Coalition, have problems feeling valued if they’re not in sports or on the honor roll, but Johnson said it’s easy to help. “Know the kids in your neighborhood. Say ‘hi’ to them on the street,” he said.
And develop a support structure for parents who will report incidents to police.
“You need to develop accepted codes of conduct for parents,” Johnson said. Parents are sometimes nervous to create tension between neighbors or friends by calling the police.
“A parent doesn’t want to take action because of how other kids will treat their kids at school,” Johnson said.
School efforts
Adults in the schools also struggle with drug and alcohol use. It is less obvious in Cape schools than in other communities, but no less a concern.
At other high schools where Principal Jeff Shedd has worked, he would walk down the hall and now and again smell marijuana on a student. That hasn’t happened so far to him in Cape, he said.
“It’s less overt here,” Shedd said.
But with a high-pressure school environment and expectations that this is to be “the best times of their lives,” he said, drugs and alcohol can be a way to escape.
“Some kids can use alcohol or marijuana and seem to be able to function,” Shedd said.
Though some of the kids are good at hiding their use when at school, if students are caught red-handed, parents tend to cooperate with the schools, Shedd said.
Even then, the law is not very clear. The legal consequences for smoking a cigarette on school grounds are “more certain and severe” than with marijuana, Shedd said. And the consequences for having paraphernalia are greater than for having a drug itself, or for being under the influence of the drug.
One of the causes of drug and alcohol use can be the stress students are under, including pressure to be involved with a lot of activities. Health teacher Andrea Cayer said involvement in extracurricular activities is one way to help kids stay off drugs, but too many activities, with a lot of pressure to succeed, can end up doing more harm than good.
“Our culture doesn’t support a lifestyle of moderation,” she said, suggesting students and parents alike be kept busy but not over-committed.
Many colleges, she said, are more interested in an applicant doing a few activities well for a long period of time, a change from the mid-1980s when colleges rewarded students who were involved in many different activities.
Whatever the cause, Cayer said, the problem of abuse has to be addressed at home.
“I don’t know how much more school can do,” she said, laying responsibility at the door of parents, whom she said don’t always listen before reacting to drug and alcohol use.
Adolescents are in the process of figuring out who they are, separate from their parents. That means they will challenge values, rules and boundaries, Cayer said. They need risk and adrenaline highs, but in safe environments.
“Kids want to be listened to without judgment,” Cayer said. She suggests parents keep communication lines open, so kids don’t have to hide. That can be hard, especially if parents disagree strongly with what kids are saying.
Cayer noted that family can also be a source of stress from which students seek to escape with drugs and alcohol.
Parents, she said, should resist the urge to solve problems for their kids, opting instead to keep them safe while they figure out things on their own.
Cayer reminds parents that good kids can do bad things. “Separate behavior from who the person is,” she said. “Our children aren’t perfect.”
“Kids want to be able to make it through their teen years in a safe environment,” she said. The burden is on parents, teachers and others to provide that.
One of those efforts is the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education, or DARE, program. It is a regular feature in Cape’s elementary and middle school classrooms. But its effectiveness is limited.
Officer Gaspar, who coordinates the DARE program in Cape schools, said it’s a matter of expectation. With 50 minutes one day a week, he said, “what do you hope to achieve?”
He compared that to the hours of television and movies and music that kids have access to, and in which they hear and see messages indicating that drugs and alcohol are acceptable, if not desirable.
That message even makes it into the schools: Gaspar has heard references to drug use in popular music played at high school and middle school events.
DARE also addresses the consequences of individual actions. People make bad choices and make mistakes, he said. “It’s how you deal with that.”
Adults play into the dynamic of avoiding consequences, Gaspar said, protecting their kids by paying fines for them or otherwise deflecting blame from the kids.
“Everybody shares a part in it,” Detective Fenton said. Neighbors who don’t report the destruction of mailboxes or gardens are a part of the problem, he said, because they allow people to get away with misbehaving.
Cayer suggested people take the focus off kids who make bad decisions and instead ask, “what does it take to be a healthy adolescent?”
Community-minded adults
Some adults in town are working on the problem, but they say it is hard to get parents interested.
Norm Boucher, a prevention educator at Day One, a Fort Williamsbased statewide organization helping young people between the ages of 16 and 24 deal with drug and alcohol use, said the biggest weapon in the fight is information.
Boucher makes awareness and education presentations in schools and communities around the state, but getting the word out isn’t easy.
“It’s a tough battle,” he said. “Very few people show up to awareness nights. Parents don’t show.”
Parental support is important when dealing with teens, he said. The law is black and white, but, Boucher said, “the community doesn’t back (the laws).”
“The grown-ups aren’t encouraging (drinking) but they’re certainly not discouraging (it),” Boucher said. “The biggest enablers are the parents,” he said. “The kids don’t use (drugs) in a vacuum.”
“If parents really meant their threats, it could work,” Boucher said. And parents must back up the police when they get involved.
“Most of the affluent communities want to believe that the problem is in Portland,” Boucher said. But he pointed to the recent deaths of three Portland teenagers on Tukey’s Bridge. They were northbound on I-295 and heading out of the city.
“The Portland kids who want to party go to the affluent communities because that’s where the best drugs are and the best parties and the best booze,” Boucher said.
While Day One is a statewide organization, the Cape Community Coalition focuses on teen issues in town.
Co-chair Johnson agrees that keeping the interest of parents is a sizeable challenge.
“After a crisis you’ll get lots of people. That’ll last a couple of weeks,” he said.
But now, the turnout is small and usually involves one or two new people, and the regular folks who show up at all the coalition events.
“If we get 15 people, we consider it a success,” Johnson said.
The focus, Johnson said, is working on developmental assets that relate to kids’ success and good choices in behavior.
In addition to community conversations, in which a larger audience splits into small discussion groups to address certain issues, the coalition has two student-to-student mentoring programs, one for high school students to help middle schoolers, and the other for middle school students to work with students at Pond Cove.
The coalition also sponsored the climbing wall at the high school, as an activity that challenges kids and allows them to take risks in a safe environment, Johnson said.
The focus is on high school and middle school students. Getting the attention of middle school and elementary school parents has been “a lot harder than we thought,” Johnson said.
What teens think
Teens also think parents have a hard time with the issue of drugs and alcohol, but admit students can have an even harder time dealing with use among their peers.
“I see a lot of risky behavior and I see a lot of naïve parents,” said Cara Jordan, a senior at CEHS who joined the Cape Coalition as a freshman.
Alex Weaver, a senior and the coalition’s co-chair, said he sometimes feels “helpless” when facing drinking and drug use among his peers.
He said adults are often in attendance at coalition meetings, but students are rarer.
“It’s the kind of thing that a lot of kids know about,” Weaver said, but their schedules don’t always allow them to attend. “I don’t think they look at the meetings and don’t want to go,” Weaver said.
Though attendance is small, the programs work. “I think definitely the people who come have been affected,” Weaver said. Parents who attend, he said, go home and talk to their kids about the issues raised at coalition meetings.
Parents do want to get involved and help. “Parents just don’t know what to do,” Jordan said. She offers a suggestion, one the coalition is already doing: “Get kids and adults together and start talking about drinking.”
Parents can find themselves in a strange position, Jordan said. Knowing that kids are pretty likely to drink, should they let their kids drink at home, where the environment may be safer?
Another problem, Jordan said, is “they know what kids do but they don’t want to believe it’s their kids doing it.”
Some adults are especially concerned, she said. “A lot of parents of younger children want to hear what the high school students have to say so they can be prepared,” Jordan said.
Weaver said, “A lot of kids do (drugs or alcohol) because they don’t have anything else to do.”
Others find activities to keep them busy, and the users and the nonusers tend not to mix, he said. “The kids who do (drugs or alcohol) don’t tend to associate with the kids who don’t do it,” Weaver said.
The coalition will hold a community dialogue in early May about parents and drug and alcohol abuse in teen-agers, asking, “What are the things that we do that help create the problem?” Johnson said.
Students take PATHS toward careers
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins
Dustin Perreault, a senior at Scarborough High School, wants to be a diesel engine technician. He already has a job waiting for him after graduation in June and credits the auto body program at the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) for getting him ready.
Perreault is among 26 Scarborough students and nine Cape Elizabeth students attending PATHS this year. These students are learning trades from video production to fashion merchandising to commercial art. Other programs include dance and music, horticulture and masonry.
Students at SHS have the opportunity to learn a skill or trade by attending either PATHS or the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. “These two schools offer our students 27 different programs that we would not be able to produce locally,” said Scarborough schools Assistant Superintendent David Doyle. No students from Cape attend Westbrook Vocational.
Both Scarborough and Cape students attending vocational classes still earn their core credits in English, math, social studies, science and physical education at their hometown high schools.
Value for the dollar
Scarborough pays $140,533 for students to attend these vocational programs. The amount each sending school is assessed is based on a percentage of the average number of students that have attended over the past two years. “The amount we spend is less than one percent of the overall operating budget,” Doyle said.
Cape Elizabeth pays $84,124 for students to attend PATHS. “It’s really a bargain,” said Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney, who is also chair of the PATHS general advisory council. “PATHS offers a huge number of programs,” Sweeney said. In the fall, the school will add a biotechnology program, in response to demand from Maine’s growing biotech sector for qualified workers. None of those programs, Sweeney said, could be offered in Cape. CEHS Principal Jeff Shedd wants students to consider PATHS more frequently. “I think our guidance counselors would like more students to go to PATHS,” Shedd said.
“It’s such a huge bargain for the buck,” Cal Chaplin, PATHS director, said. “Kids come here thinking they’re not students. At this school, they begin to see themselves as smart,” she said.
Westbrook offers programs in such trades as business and computer technology, driving commercial vehicles, automotives and the culinary arts. Westbrook has a restaurant that is open to the public and marketing students run the school store which brings in around $50,000 a year, said Westbrook Vocational Principal Todd Fields.
“We also offer medical occupations and students can graduate with a minimum of a certified nurse assistant’s training,” Fields said.
Student choice
PATHS serves 544 students from 23 high schools in Cumberland County and the town of Kennebunk in York County and was started in 1976. Westbrook Regional Vocational first opened its doors in 1963 and went through a renovation and addition project three years ago.
“Students at Scarborough self-select one of the two vocational schools to attend, depending on their talents and interests. Students are given a chance to tour each school and meet with perspective teachers,” Doyle said.
“This is a school of choice, which makes a big difference,” said PATHS guidance counselor, Frank Ingerowski. “The numbers are up in each program. We’re seeing a significant push towards learning a trade.”
“We do encourage our students to get a post-secondary education, mostly at the technical college level. We also have a number of students who do go into the work force after graduation and others choose the military,” he added.
“We encourage them to be in the business world,” Chaplin said. She is concerned that parents and students don’t think of PATHS when considering high school courses. “I think there’s a lot of educating we can do to attract more students,” Chaplin said.
Each of the school’s 24 programs has four or five business partners, who help make sure the skills students are learning are the ones they will use in the marketplace. Some businesses also offer internships or job-shadowing experience to PATHS students. “We’re constantly connected,” Chaplin said.
Learning skills
A food program also trains special education students to work in food service. “We cook here, we prep here,” said Cape Elizabeth student Paul Sandberg, gesturing to different sections of the kitchen. For the Thanksgiving harvest meal, the food workers served 700 people.
“I like it a lot. It’s more hands-on,” said Eddie Robbins, a junior at Cape Elizabeth High School in his third year at PATHS. He completed horticulture, and is now working on video production. The two and a half hours go quickly, he said. “It feels like a half-hour,” Robbins said.
“You get to really get involved with what you’re interested in,” said Derek Danie, a Cape sophomore in his first program, working with computers.
Scarborough senior Perreault would recommend the program at PATHS to others. “This is a great program if you like working with cars, especially restoration or collision work,” Perrault said. Perrault admits to missing some things at Scarborough High, but most of his friends are at PATHS.
Josie Hastings is a junior at Scarborough and is in the fashion-merchandising program at PATHS. She intends to go to Brooks College in California after graduation. “There’s more freedom here. I like it a lot better than Scarborough,” Hastings said.
Scarborough junior Joe Ellis is in the video technology program and is learning how to create professional video productions such as commercials and documentaries. “I love this place. I wish that I could take some of the basics here too,” Ellis said. “It was a little strange at first, traveling between the two schools, but now it’s easy. I would definitely recommend it here,” he added.
Dustin Perreault, a senior at Scarborough High School, wants to be a diesel engine technician. He already has a job waiting for him after graduation in June and credits the auto body program at the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) for getting him ready.
Perreault is among 26 Scarborough students and nine Cape Elizabeth students attending PATHS this year. These students are learning trades from video production to fashion merchandising to commercial art. Other programs include dance and music, horticulture and masonry.
Students at SHS have the opportunity to learn a skill or trade by attending either PATHS or the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. “These two schools offer our students 27 different programs that we would not be able to produce locally,” said Scarborough schools Assistant Superintendent David Doyle. No students from Cape attend Westbrook Vocational.
Both Scarborough and Cape students attending vocational classes still earn their core credits in English, math, social studies, science and physical education at their hometown high schools.
Value for the dollar
Scarborough pays $140,533 for students to attend these vocational programs. The amount each sending school is assessed is based on a percentage of the average number of students that have attended over the past two years. “The amount we spend is less than one percent of the overall operating budget,” Doyle said.
Cape Elizabeth pays $84,124 for students to attend PATHS. “It’s really a bargain,” said Cape School Board member Kevin Sweeney, who is also chair of the PATHS general advisory council. “PATHS offers a huge number of programs,” Sweeney said. In the fall, the school will add a biotechnology program, in response to demand from Maine’s growing biotech sector for qualified workers. None of those programs, Sweeney said, could be offered in Cape. CEHS Principal Jeff Shedd wants students to consider PATHS more frequently. “I think our guidance counselors would like more students to go to PATHS,” Shedd said.
“It’s such a huge bargain for the buck,” Cal Chaplin, PATHS director, said. “Kids come here thinking they’re not students. At this school, they begin to see themselves as smart,” she said.
Westbrook offers programs in such trades as business and computer technology, driving commercial vehicles, automotives and the culinary arts. Westbrook has a restaurant that is open to the public and marketing students run the school store which brings in around $50,000 a year, said Westbrook Vocational Principal Todd Fields.
“We also offer medical occupations and students can graduate with a minimum of a certified nurse assistant’s training,” Fields said.
Student choice
PATHS serves 544 students from 23 high schools in Cumberland County and the town of Kennebunk in York County and was started in 1976. Westbrook Regional Vocational first opened its doors in 1963 and went through a renovation and addition project three years ago.
“Students at Scarborough self-select one of the two vocational schools to attend, depending on their talents and interests. Students are given a chance to tour each school and meet with perspective teachers,” Doyle said.
“This is a school of choice, which makes a big difference,” said PATHS guidance counselor, Frank Ingerowski. “The numbers are up in each program. We’re seeing a significant push towards learning a trade.”
“We do encourage our students to get a post-secondary education, mostly at the technical college level. We also have a number of students who do go into the work force after graduation and others choose the military,” he added.
“We encourage them to be in the business world,” Chaplin said. She is concerned that parents and students don’t think of PATHS when considering high school courses. “I think there’s a lot of educating we can do to attract more students,” Chaplin said.
Each of the school’s 24 programs has four or five business partners, who help make sure the skills students are learning are the ones they will use in the marketplace. Some businesses also offer internships or job-shadowing experience to PATHS students. “We’re constantly connected,” Chaplin said.
Learning skills
A food program also trains special education students to work in food service. “We cook here, we prep here,” said Cape Elizabeth student Paul Sandberg, gesturing to different sections of the kitchen. For the Thanksgiving harvest meal, the food workers served 700 people.
“I like it a lot. It’s more hands-on,” said Eddie Robbins, a junior at Cape Elizabeth High School in his third year at PATHS. He completed horticulture, and is now working on video production. The two and a half hours go quickly, he said. “It feels like a half-hour,” Robbins said.
“You get to really get involved with what you’re interested in,” said Derek Danie, a Cape sophomore in his first program, working with computers.
Scarborough senior Perreault would recommend the program at PATHS to others. “This is a great program if you like working with cars, especially restoration or collision work,” Perrault said. Perrault admits to missing some things at Scarborough High, but most of his friends are at PATHS.
Josie Hastings is a junior at Scarborough and is in the fashion-merchandising program at PATHS. She intends to go to Brooks College in California after graduation. “There’s more freedom here. I like it a lot better than Scarborough,” Hastings said.
Scarborough junior Joe Ellis is in the video technology program and is learning how to create professional video productions such as commercials and documentaries. “I love this place. I wish that I could take some of the basics here too,” Ellis said. “It was a little strange at first, traveling between the two schools, but now it’s easy. I would definitely recommend it here,” he added.
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
Hyperwave funding to expand U.S. sales operation
Published in Interface Tech News
WESTFORD, Mass. ‹ Knowledge management company Hyperwave ‹ with headquarters in Munich, Germany and North American offices based outside Boston ‹ has secured its targeted $18 million in second-round funding, and plans to expand its sales force in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and California.
Its flagship product, eKnowledge Infrastructure, is aimed at government, media firms, financial businesses, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies, according to company spokesman Chris Gregoire. In November 2001, the company released a major upgrade to the software package, which integrates document management, e-learning, and employee collaboration applications.
"Collaboration for us is the big thing," Gregoire said, citing work within companies and between firms and clients.
Founded in 1997, Hyperwave does not expect to pursue a third round of financing, but instead, is planning for an IPO at an unspecified future date, Gregoire said.
That may be a way off, according to senior analyst John Hughes at Delphi Group. Hughes has been following Hyperwave for several years, and said the company is doing well in its market niche, but is suffering ‹ along with its competitors ‹ in economic conditions that are less than optimal.
Hughes expects the company to remain ahead of the curve and bounce back more quickly than some of its competition, due primarily to its strength overseas.
"They've got some real respect and a notable following in Europe," Hughes said.
He went on to say that Hyperwave's task now is to get some success stories in the U.S., so it can point to real dollar savings when courting new customers.
"They just need to get that value statement out there to people who control budgets," Hughes said.
That is exactly what Gregoire claims the company plans to do.
"We know that we need to put the U.S. market on the map," he said.
WESTFORD, Mass. ‹ Knowledge management company Hyperwave ‹ with headquarters in Munich, Germany and North American offices based outside Boston ‹ has secured its targeted $18 million in second-round funding, and plans to expand its sales force in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and California.
Its flagship product, eKnowledge Infrastructure, is aimed at government, media firms, financial businesses, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies, according to company spokesman Chris Gregoire. In November 2001, the company released a major upgrade to the software package, which integrates document management, e-learning, and employee collaboration applications.
"Collaboration for us is the big thing," Gregoire said, citing work within companies and between firms and clients.
Founded in 1997, Hyperwave does not expect to pursue a third round of financing, but instead, is planning for an IPO at an unspecified future date, Gregoire said.
That may be a way off, according to senior analyst John Hughes at Delphi Group. Hughes has been following Hyperwave for several years, and said the company is doing well in its market niche, but is suffering ‹ along with its competitors ‹ in economic conditions that are less than optimal.
Hughes expects the company to remain ahead of the curve and bounce back more quickly than some of its competition, due primarily to its strength overseas.
"They've got some real respect and a notable following in Europe," Hughes said.
He went on to say that Hyperwave's task now is to get some success stories in the U.S., so it can point to real dollar savings when courting new customers.
"They just need to get that value statement out there to people who control budgets," Hughes said.
That is exactly what Gregoire claims the company plans to do.
"We know that we need to put the U.S. market on the map," he said.
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