CLINTON — Hale Transportation, a bus-transportation company based in Clinton in Oneida County, has started a project that will quadruple the size of its 5,000-square-foot headquarters.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and Berkshire Bank on April 9 joined Hale Transportation officials to break ground on the $2 million expansion project. 

With the help of an SBA-backed 7(a) loan from Berkshire Bank, Hale Transportation is moving forward on an expansion to the company’s existing Clinton headquarters to create the Hale Transportation Center. 

“The first phase should be done mid-summer. And then second phase, end of September and then the last phase should be complete by Nov. 1,” says Hale, who is the company’s sole owner.

The 7(a) loan will cover the project cost, he adds.

C2C Construction of Utica is the contractor on the design-build project. 

In operation since 2014, Hale Transportation has a fleet of 25 motor coaches and 55 professional drivers and staff. 

This expansion will add 15,000 square feet to the existing 5,000-square-foot Hale Transportation complex and create at least another 20 new jobs over the next immediate years. The expansion will give the company “more capacity to offer additional services to surrounding businesses and schools,” the SBA said in a news release about the project. 

The company has contracts serving colleges for athletic programs and other transportation needs. 

The firm provides transportation services for Syracuse University, Colgate University, Morrisville State College, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and Cazenovia Colleges, says Hale.

It also offers group tours that could involve a senior-citizens group traveling to Pennsylvania for the weekend or a high school marching band traveling out of state for a competition. 

The expansion will also allow Hale to complete state inspections on-site as well as offer a new washing system for buses and large vehicles. 

Besides its Clinton headquarters, Hale Transportation also operates a location in Oneonta, which opened in 2017.   

SYRACUSE — The woman who will speak at Syracuse University’s (SU) commencement ceremony is seen as a “strong advocate for diversity” in leadership roles at the Federal Reserve and in economics. 

Mary Daly, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will deliver the 2019 commencement address at SU’s graduation ceremony on May 12. 

Daly is a former chair of the bank’s diversity council and has focused on building the pipeline of women and minorities entering the economics profession, Syracuse said in a news release. 

“Diversity is essential both as a value and a practice. It ensures that new ideas surface, guards against echo-chambered agreement, and allows all people to have a voice at the table,” Daly wrote in a December 2016 post on the website Medium entitled, “Stop Leaving Talent on the Table: Achieving Diversity with No Excuses.”

Daly earned her Ph.D. in economics at SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 1994.

Syracuse will award Daly an honorary degree during the ceremony, the school said.

Daly took office as president and CEO of the San Francisco Fed on Oct. 1, 2018. She oversees the largest of the Federal Reserve’s 12 districts, as defined by population and size of its economy. She also serves on the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets eight times a year in Washington, D.C., to discuss and decide on monetary policy in the U.S., including interest rates.

“Mary Daly is an outstanding leader in the field of economics and in public service,” Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud said in the school’s release. “Along with her tremendous professional background, Mary has an inspired academic journey. We are pleased to welcome her back to Syracuse University and to hear her message to the Class of 2019.”

A native of Ballwin, Missouri, Daly dropped out of high school and started working at the age of 15. Through the encouragement of a mentor, she completed a general education development (GED) testing process and applied to college. 

She earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a master’s degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before receiving her Ph.D. at the Maxwell School. She also completed a National Institute of Aging postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University.

“Syracuse has always held a special place in my heart because it helped me grow as both a researcher and a person,” Daly said in the release. “To be able to return as a commencement speaker and share the lessons I’ve learned over the years with the Class of 2019 is a tremendous honor.”

More about Daly

A “leading national expert on labor economics,” Daly joined the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in 1996 as an economist, Syracuse said. She rose through the ranks in various research-leadership roles before being named executive VP and director of economic research at the San Francisco Fed. 

In that post, she oversaw key research and supported the development of monetary policy by guiding and providing relevant economic analyses.

Daly worked with then-president and CEO of the San Francisco Fed Janet Yellen — who later became chair of the Federal Reserve System — on a “comprehensive” reform of the Federal Reserve System’s benefit programs, along with issues related to labor markets and monetary policy.

At the San Francisco Fed, she helped increase the percentage of women in its research-assistant program for college graduates through personal outreach to colleges and accepted applicants. 

In other areas of public service, Daly has served on the advisory boards of the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Administration, the Office of Rehabilitation Research and Training, the Institute of Medicine and the Library of Congress. 

She is a research fellow at the IZA Institute in Bonn, Germany, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis and Industrial Relations.

Daly lives in the San Francisco area with her wife, Shelly, Syracuse said.