After returning from service with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Lynn Stearns settled in the Cazenovia area where he had been born and raised. He worked as an accountant at a local CPA firm for 38 years, helping small-business clients navigate their tax obligations and manage their finances, when he discovered an opportunity to volunteer as a mentor for small businesses.

Besides their selfless service to our nation’s military, veterans share a love of country, tradition, and drive to succeed. These honorable characteristics alone make veterans a valuable asset to their communities. One of the most common motivations that veterans cite is to be part of a greater purpose, an intrinsic desire to serve others first. The desire to give to better our country paired with leadership qualities that are honed while serving in uniform creates veterans who are well-suited to continue serving their communities long after their military careers have ended.

For Stearns, his path to giving back to his community started when he began volunteering at the Syracuse SCORE Chapter as a mentor in 2010. Three years later, he became the vice-chair of the chapter, and then served as the chairman for a two-year term. Today, he continues to manage the business workshop programs for the chapter, teach several of the accounting workshops, and counsel individual clients. 

With workshops and individual counseling from Lynn Stearns and other SCORE counselors, entrepreneur Eileen Collins was able to take her virtual administrative assistant company to a full-service business in 2013. Collins is just one of Stearns’s many success stories that caused the 2017 national SCORE client engagement survey to recognize Stearns as the top counselor in the Syracuse SCORE Chapter. With more than 240 businesses started and jobs created during his eight years of mentorship, his level of counselor achievement has earned recognition as a community leader. Stearns looks forward to continuing to serve small-business owners as they start, grow and succeed. 

If you are looking for a way to continue to serve your community after your military service, I strongly encourage you to consider volunteering for a SCORE Chapter near you. Funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), SCORE has chapters in Auburn, Binghamton, Syracuse, and Utica. It’s your opportunity to share your knowledge and life experiences as a mentor with small-business owners. Whether you are sharing your expertise through business counseling or as a class instructor, there is no shortage of entrepreneurs who could benefit. For additional information on how you can give back as a part of SCORE’s network of 10,000 volunteer business experts, please visit www.score.org, click on Volunteer, complete the volunteer application and submit.                         

Bernard J. Paprocki is district director for the SBA’s Syracuse district office. He is responsible for the delivery of SBA’s financial programs and business-development services for a 34-county region in upstate New York.

UTICA — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats from New York state, announced that the Utica Fire Department has received $500,000 in federal funding. 

The money was allocated through the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program and will be used to purchase a new fire truck. The department’s current truck is 30 years old. 

Schumer said he wrote to DHS to support the Utica Fire Department’s application for the grant. “It is essential that we provide our firefighters with the equipment they need to stay safe on the job,” Schumer said in a release. 

“This funding is great news for the Utica Fire Department, which will now be able to purchase a new fire truck. Up-to-date equipment is critical for our local fire departments, and the new fire truck will help our first responders better respond to emergencies and remain safe as they protect their our communities,” Gillibrand said. 

The AFG Program is administered by DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in cooperation with the department’s United States Fire Administration. The grants are awarded on a competitive basis to the applicants that most closely address the program’s priorities.demonstrate financial need, per the release. 

St. Lawrence and Jefferson counties rank among top 5 New York counties for milk cows

New York state’s farms generated $4.8 billion in revenue in 2017, with 15 agricultural products ranked in the top five nationwide, according to a report issued Sept. 20 by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. 

“Agriculture is a crucial piece of the state’s economy, with farms contributing nearly $2.4 billion to the state’s gross domestic product,” DiNapoli said in the report. 

New York has more than 35,000 farms covering 7.3 million acres, nearly one-quarter of the state’s land area. The farms produce a variety of crops — 15 of which place highly in national rankings for production, including cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt, apples, and grapes. The report found New York’s U.S. rankings rose in 2017 compared to 2011 in milk, snap beans, and maple syrup. 

Milk is by far the state’s largest agricultural commodity, with $2.7 billion in sales in 2017, more than half of the total for all agricultural products. The state’s production of milk and other dairy products relied on about 620,000 milk cows in 2017. Five counties were home to nearly 30 percent of the state’s milk cows, with Wyoming County leading the way, followed by Cayuga, St. Lawrence, Genesee, and Jefferson counties.

New York vineyards covered 35,000 acres in 2017, producing 187,000 tons of grapes, surpassed only by California and Washington. The state’s 57,000 tons of wine grapes ranked No. 3 in the nation and its volume of concord grapes for juice ranked second, with production nearly doubling from 2012 to 2017. 

Farmers in New York face a number of on-going challenges, including unpredictable weather and long working hours. For dairy farms that make up the largest proportion of the state’s overall agricultural production, falling milk prices have cut revenues sharply, in some cases threatening family businesses, the comptroller’s report contended. Tariffs, including those imposed recently on agricultural products by the nation’s trading partners in response to those imposed by the U.S. government, have increased financial uncertainty for many farmers in New York and nationwide. Federal policies on visas for migrant workers and other immigration programs have increased restrictions on such workers, who play an “important role” in the state’s agricultural workforce, the report stated. Such steps may add to the challenge of planting and harvesting on a timely basis. 

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.