Lynn Chamber honors its ‘champions’

LYNN – The Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce presented its 2007 Business Excellence Awards to six of its champions at a breakfast meeting Wednesday morning.Traditional Breads owner and founder Fitzroy Alexander was named Businessperson of the Year. He shared with Chamber members comments about his path from his youth in Grenada to realizing the American dream here in Lynn.Traditional Breads at 161 Pleasant St. employs more than 70 people and continues to grow its line of wholesale artisan breads. Alexander said he had opportunities to move his business to another city, but said, “Lynn is where my heart is.”Project COPE in Lynn was named non-profit business of the year. Accepting the award was Project COPE Executive Director Mark Kennard, who moved the crowd to a standing ovation with his comments about the evolution of COPE (Concern of People Everywhere), which is now in its fourth decade of helping those battling drug and/or alcohol addiction find their way to better lives.COPE’s facility at 117 No. Common St. currently houses 25 women, some of them young mothers.Kennard, noting that most everyone is in some way is affected by a family member or friend coping with addition, accepted the award on behalf of the thousands of people Project COPE has helped through the years, and those now in the program.Kennard is also director of the Lynn non-Profit Business Association and noted that non-profits in Lynn, combined, comprise the city’s second-largest employer.Other award recipients were Richard J. Rehal, a retired banker, past LACC president and active volunteer with the Community Minority Cultural Center, who received the ‘Buddy’ Fennell Hall of Fame Award for community service; Marc Paster, who received the Richard J. Rehal President’s Award for his volunteer work with the Chamber; James ‘Jamie’ Marsh, winner of the City Pride Award for his efforts as chief of staff to Mayor Edward ‘Chip’ Clancy to restore the Veterans Memorial Auditorium as well as the High Rock Observatory; and Dr. Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College and chairman-elect of the North Shore Chamber of Commerce, winner of the David J. Solimine Sr. Community Service Award.