Funding supports national career preparedness training program offered on 16 military installations 

SYRACUSE — The Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University announced it has received a second grant of $20,000 grant from the Motorola Solutions Foundation, the charitable arm of Motorola Solutions, Inc.

The IVMF was first awarded the grant in 2017 in support the organization’s STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, and math) in its national career preparedness training program, Onward to Opportunity (O2O). Offered on 16 military installations and online, O2O provides career training, professional certifications, and job placement support to nearly 200,000 transitioning service members, National Guard members, Reservists, veterans, and military spouses every year, according to a news release the institute issued on Sept. 25.

“Support from leading foundations like Motorola is critical to our mission of ensuring successful post-transition careers to veterans, service members and their families,” Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation at Syracuse University and executive director of the IVMF, said in the release. “With the high demand for STEM training, this grant goes a long way to serve our military and veteran population in pursuit of IT, cybersecurity and programming careers as well as the in-demand data analytics career path.”

Motorola Solutions Foundation (motorolasolutions.com/foundation) says it awards grants annually to organizations that support and advance public safety programs, technology, and engineering education initiatives. This year alone, grants will support programs for more than 2 million students, teachers, first responders, and community members across the U.S. That includes the veteran population.

New York farms are forecast to have produced 102.7 million bushels of corn for grain in 2018, up 31.5 percent from 78.1 million bushels produced in 2017, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service recently reported.

New York farms harvested 630,000 acres of corn for grain this year, up 30 percent from 485,000 acres last year, the agency said.

The estimated total yield per acre in the Empire State, as of Sept. 1, 2018, was 163 bushels of corn, up 1.2 percent from 161 bushels in 2017.  

In neighboring Pennsylvania, corn for grain production was forecast to have declined slightly to  147.2 million bushels in 2018 from 148.1 million bushels in 2017, the USDA reported.

Nationally, U.S. farms produced an estimated 14.8 billion bushels this year, up 1.5 percent from last year’s production of 14.6 billion bushels, according to the USDA.