CORTLAND — The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has named Beau Harbin, a Cortland County legislator, to participate in the inaugural class of the Appalachian Leadership Institute.

 As a fellow, Harbin will participate in the Appalachian Leadership Institute (ALI), a nine-month program of skill-building seminars, best-practice reviews, field visits, mentoring, and networking. The curriculum will be anchored by six multi-day seminars around the Appalachian Region with the first sessions taking place in Morehead, Kentucky Oct. 21-24, according to a news release Harbin sent CNYBJ.

“Cortland County is fortunate that Beau has been named to the ALI,” Garry L. VanGorder, executive director of the Cortland County Business Development Corporation and Industrial Development Agency, said in the release. “He’s astute, hard-working, and has the best interests of the community in mind. I’m looking forward to the fresh perspectives he will bring to our collective efforts to grow the community and the local economy.”

 As part of the ALI, Harbin will work directly with public policy, community development, education, investment, and other professionals who live and/or work in the region. That includes working to design effective economic-development project proposals, locate and access investment capital from public and private sources, prepare competitive applications for public grant opportunities, and other efforts. 

Upon completion of the program, Harbin will automatically become part of the Appalachian Leadership Institute Network, a peer-to-peer working group committed to Appalachia’s future.

Harbin was selected via a competitive application process. The ARC received 180 applications for the 2019-2020 Appalachian Leadership Institute class, resulting in an acceptance rate of 22 percent, the release stated.

 The Appalachian Leadership Institute is a comprehensive regional leadership training program developed by the Appalachian Regional Commission. The ARC is an economic-development agency of the federal government and 13 state governments, focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian Region. 

Harbin is a Democrat representing Cortland County’s 2nd legislative district.

SYRACUSE — When Bankers Healthcare Group (BHG) held the groundbreaking for its new building near the Syracuse’s Inner Harbor, Al Crawford, co-founder, chairman, and CEO, asked the gathering to think about the number 5,000. 

“5,000 is a number to me that represents the number of employees that I think BHG can bring to the Inner Harbor and [the] Syracuse landscape in the future,” he said.

Acknowledging that he’s been cautioned about mentioning employee-count numbers for his company, Crawford also noted, “That’s my dream. That’s my personal dream. I think it’s a doable one, though.”

BHG, which currently employs 256 people in Syracuse, on Oct. 11 broke ground on the construction project for its future, new $35 million financial headquarters located on property at 300-324 Spencer St.

“The building [is] going to be an addition to our financial headquarters that’s already here,” Crawford, said in his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony. “It will be five stories. We will have a garden environment rooftop on the top of the building.”

BHG — which is headquartered in Davie, Florida — currently has its financial headquarters at 201 Solar St. in Syracuse’s Franklin Square area. The company will relocate and consolidate several of its local operations into the upcoming facility.

“We would not have been able to do this without the support of the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York State, and CenterState CEO,” Crawford said. 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo first announced the expansion during an Oct. 9 appearance at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown, the former Hotel Syracuse.

Project details

Spencer Street LLC will construct and furnish a 100,000-square-foot facility at 300-324 Spencer St. in Syracuse to house Bankers Healthcare Group and its Capital Collection Management unit.

The project will include the demolition and remediation of the existing property, and the construction and full equipping and furnishing of the new facility. The combined initiative will result in the creation of 330 new jobs. 

During construction, BHG employees will remain at their current office locations in Franklin Square and Armory Square, and Capital Collection Management employees will continue working from the company’s Armory Square location. 

BHG expects construction crews from Salina–based Parsons-McKenna Construction Co. Inc. to complete the project by the end of 2023. Crawford also credited King + King Architects of Syracuse, along with his wife, Michelle Crawford, for the building’s design.

New York is contributing $11 million for the project, including a $4 million capital grant and $7 million in Excelsior Jobs tax credits. 

Randy Wolken, president and CEO of MACNY, the Manufacturers Association, said those gathered for the ceremony were celebrating what he “just learned is the Uber of loans.”

“It is high tech. It’s transformational. It’s why we’re here [and] so excited, and that’s why I do believe there’s going to be 5,000 jobs, because if you look at those companies like Uber, like Airbnb, they started as software platforms that transformed businesses … Great software is necessary to do that, but more importantly, great people are necessary to do that and that’s what’s here at BHG,” said Wolken.

Founded in 2001, Bankers Healthcare Group provides loans and financing to health-care practitioners and other licensed professionals. The firm surpassed $4 billion in total funded loans in 2018, according to its website.

Besides its corporate headquarters in Davie, Florida and its financial headquarters in Syracuse, BHG also operates a research and development office in New York City. 

“At BHG, we set goals every day. We set goals every week. We set goals every month. We set goals every quarter, and we set goals every year. Consequently, I find that people really go after those goals, so one of the numbers we’re going to have written down is 5,000,” said Crawford. “It’s a big number, but it’d be a fun number to see Syracuse continue to grow, to get back to the days when these areas here were filled with factories and companies that were producing great products.”