PUTNAM — Alyson Davis was named Putnam Bank’s Employee of the Month for September. Alyson has been with the bank since October 2001, and is currently the CSR Supervisor at the Main Office in Putnam.
Davis said, “I’m honored and grateful to receive this award. You’re only as good as the people around you and I’m fortunate to be part of a great team. While I appreciate the individual recognition, this could easily be a team award.”
She is an avid runner and active in the community having participated in the Walk & Run for NECT Cancer Fund, Northeast Opportunities for Wellness, Inc 3.5ish Mile Road Race, and Quinebaug Valley Community College Foundation Tackle the Trail. She lives in Putnam with her sons, Elijah and CJ.
“Aly is a highly competent, caring, and enthusiastic employee of Putnam Bank, and I’m not at all surprised that she received such glowing reviews from staff and customers alike. She excels in her position. She demonstrates excellent customer service and still finds the time to participate in community activities which is at the core of Putnam Bank’s mission.” said Thomas Borner, Putnam Bank president and CEO.
Then
The Civil Defense boat sits in front of the former telephone company building after the Flood of 1955. Putnam Town Crier file photos.
& Now
This is the same building today. A second story was added.
WOODSTOCK — For Brenden Ostaszewski, life couldn’t be much different than it is now.
The first-year, full-time strength and conditioning coach at Woodstock Academy grew up in a Philadelphia row house.
He could walk to the supermarket or hop a bus or train to get where he had to go.
There are, obviously, no such amenities in his new surroundings.
The sights, sounds and smells that now comprise his new atmosphere are foreign to him, but he’s getting used to life in rural America.
“I’m enjoying my time. It’s different, but I like it. It’s quiet, nothing like the city, which is nice in some ways,” Ostaszewski said.
Ostaszewski is breaking ground, like so many others, at Woodstock Academy this year.
The first-ever public high school/prep school combination in the State of Connecticut created the need for a person with Ostaszewski’s qualifications.
“I was amazed,” Ostaszewski said of his first impressions of the school, now housed on two campuses with on-site dorms.
“It’s a mini-university, a small college. I feel comfortable here. I work with a wide range of students from freshmen who are 13-years-old to those who are 19 and playing for the prep team. I’m used to that,” Ostaszewski said.
Ostaszewski enjoyed a variety of sports in his growing years, but trended toward basketball. He played as a freshman for Keystone College, a Division III school, in northeastern Pennsylvania.
But it was training to play the sport that began to interest him more than actually getting on the court.
He transferred to Temple University and studied Exercise in Sports Science and Kinesiology.
“I fell in love with exercise physiology: How the body works, how it adapts to resistance training and different variations of training,” Ostaszewski said.
But there were few outlets for a strength and conditioning coach outside of a college atmosphere so Ostaszewski took a job as a full-time physical education teacher at a Philadelphia Catholic school.
In his free time, he volunteered as a strength coach at Temple and the University of Pennsylvania.
It was that association which eventually led him to Woodstock.
The strength and conditioning coach at Temple asked if he wanted to work an NBA Pro Day. Ostaszewski thought it would be interesting and agreed. There, he met Lamont Peterson, a Golden State Warriors scout, who also happened to serve as an assistant coach to Tony Bergeron at Commonwealth Academy.
“He liked my dynamic warmups and wanted to know what I wanted to do in life. I told him I wanted to be a full-time strength and conditioning coach,” Ostaszewski said.
Bergeron was in the market for just such a person and brought Ostaszewski with him when he relocated to Woodstock Academy to begin the prep school program.
“I’m surprised to see this at a high school level. Not too many high schools nationwide have a full-time strength and conditioning coach,” Ostaszewski said.
He has been a popular guy.
“It’s great to see so many of the teams taking advantage of Coach O and what he’s bringing to the table. They’re getting stronger, faster and it’s showing on the fields. Our performances have never been better,” Woodstock Academy athletic director Aaron Patterson said.
Patterson said his No. 1 concern is safety and he is always nervous when a coach, who may not have the necessary knowledge of strength training and conditioning, attempts to do so with student-athletes.
“He’s an expert at what he does,” Patterson said.
Ostaszewski said he is starting at the training age of zero for most including, a bit surprisingly, most of the prep school basketball players.
“A lot of the inner-city schools, which many of our players come from, do not have a strength and conditioning coach on staff. Basketball players are, generally, not big on lifting either. So, it’s probably a little intimidating at first, but they’re starting to enjoy the process and they’re seeing how strength and conditioning can help their game,” Ostaszewski said.
Ostaszewski added that since most Woodstock Academy student-athletes are all in the same boat, starting from scratch, many will see results quickly.
“They’re going to get stronger quicker than advanced lifters. That’s how exercise physiology works. When you are new to resistance training, the body adapts quicker,” he said.
There are also different training methods.
For instance, since football involves power, he will focus on that with explosive lifts. Cross-country runners, meanwhile, are more about endurance and those athletes will do more circuit training.
“It’s OK to fail in resistance training. If someone messes up a repetition, they can always get better the next week and accomplish it, they get stronger week-by-week. I tell them that it’s OK to fail (in the weight room), do their best, and, eventually, they will get better,” Ostaszewski said.
Ostaszewski currently works with most student-athletes and teams after-school hours, but if he has his way, he would like to introduce a weight-training class during the school day as well.
“(The athletes) come to all the lifts. I’ve never seen anyone missing one. They come to all the workouts. I’m getting good feedback from all the coaches and (the athletes) seem to be enjoying themselves,” Ostaszewski said.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
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caption:
New Life
The former Kmart on Rt. 44, closed in 2016, will open in the spring as a Runnings outdoors/farm store. Linda Lemmon photo.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Runnings, a retail chain from Minnesota, will open a store in the former Kmart in the spring.
Dennis Jensen, marketing director, said the Putnam area was the perfect fit for the company.
He said the company caters to customers who love the outdoors and animals (pets and farm), hunting and fishing, farming. “We gear products to fit that lifestyle,” he said. Because the 105,000 square foot former Kmart building will be one of the larger stores in the Runnings stable, Jensen said it will run the full gamut of offerings including: Ranch and farm, lawn and garden, home and food, home improvement, tools, pet supplies, sporting goods, clothing, footwear, automotive and batteries, toys and games and more.
“It’s one of the larger stores. Whenever we’ve got the space, we fill it,” he said.
Currently the company has 41 stores and will have 43 soon.
Jensen said back in 2014, when the company was planning expansions into the Northeast, they checked Putnam area. “We feel good about the match,” he said.
He added that the company is very integrated into local communities, helping local organizations such as Future Farmers of America and more.
Most of the Runnings stores are in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. They expanded into New York and New Hampshire, starting in 2014. Newly opened stores generally employ about 80 people.
Many new Runnings’ locations are in shuttered big box stores, such as Walmarts and Kmarts.
Kmart Corporation of Michigan sold the property on Rt. 44 to JR&R II, LLC of Minnesota on Sept. 29.
The purchase price was $1.9 million.
JR&R II, LLC was represented by Dan M. Herrmann, CFO of JR&R II, LLC. Herrmann is also COO of Runnings.
Kmart was closed in the summer of 2016.
Jensen said company officials are starting an evaluation of the amount of work needed for the building.
“It’s a nice building for us,” he said. He did not believe there was a lot of work to be done but some work will bring the building around to the Runnings look.
Runnings began in 1947 when founder Norman “Red” Running opened his first store, an automotive supply store, in Marshall, Minn. It expanded to sell farm and fleet equipment and supplies, according to the company’s website. In 1988 a group involving Dennis and Adele Reed bought the company and Runnings grew from eight stores in two states to 41 in six. The site says: “We work very hard to offer a fair price on quality, durable and trusted merchandise including clothing, footwear, automotive, sporting goods, farm supplies, lawn and garden, toys, housewares, tools, pet and animal supplies and more. In addition, 22 stores sell firearms.” It is a home, farm and outdoor store.