BINGHAMTON — McFarland Johnson, Inc. (MJ) — a Binghamton–based planning, engineering and construction administration firm — announced that its Aviation and Bridge Design Group in Binghamton has grown with the recent addition of six employees in newly created positions.

The staff additions were needed to meet an increased volume of projects in the aviation and bridge sectors of MJ’s practice, Ruthanne C. Bulman, human resources manager at McFarland Johnson, tells CNYBJ. “This growth is a result of MJ’s innovative and dynamic approach to airport planning and application software development; accelerated bridge construction capabilities on bridge replacement projects; and proactive support to clients with grant application process, project planning and engineering design, all the way through to construction administration,” she contended in an email.

MJ, which was founded in 1946, has a total of 145 employees in nine office locations. In Binghamton, its Bridge Design Group currently has six employees, while the Aviation Group has grown to 15 workers, according to Bulman.

The new employees are:

Joshua Fletcher, airport engineer, a recent graduate of SUNY Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering technology, and emphasis in structures. Fletcher previously worked as a transportation construction inspector with the New York State Department of Transportation and served in the Navy for five years. 

Zachary Gregg, airport engineer, comes to MJ from BME Associates in Rochester, where he worked since graduating from RIT in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering technology and a minor in mechanical engineering. Gregg is originally from Johnson City, where he now resides again.

Nathaniel Skelding, airport engineer, received his bachelor’s in civil engineering technology from RIT, and previously worked as a site development intern for Wegmans. Skelding recently moved to the Scranton, Pennsylvania area, where he is currently assisting MJ with inspection of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport Taxiway project.

Salvatore (Sam) Paolini has joined the firm as a software developer. Paolini joins MJ’s growing IT/ software development applications and projects. A long-time resident of the Binghamton area, he graduated from Binghamton University.

Rileigh Genung, bridge engineer, is a recent graduate of Clarkson University with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, and a concentration in structural, architectural & construction engineering management. Genung comes to MJ after having previously interned with Delaware Engineering, D.P.C. in Oneonta. 

Tammarra Kutz has joined as a project coordinator. Kutz comes to MJ from the Riordan Management Group (RMG) and will facilitate project-management support and assistance to MJ’s Airport and Facilities groups. 

Besides its Binghamton headquarters, McFarland Johnson has additional offices in upstate New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, according to its website. 

ITHACA — CFCU Community Credit Union plans to open its first office on the Ithaca Commons in the Bank Tower office building at 200–204 E. State St. in Ithaca early next year.

The Ithaca–based credit union is calling the location a “transformation center,” which will include additional space for its administrative offices, according to an Aug. 8 news release.

McPherson Builders Inc. of Ithaca will serve as the general contractor for the fit-out of CFCU’s first Commons office. The credit union will occupy the entire first floor and a portion of the second floor with retail-branch services and administrative offices. 

The new office is scheduled to open in the spring of 2019.

CFCU’s transformation center will include “the latest in banking technologies” to serve members. They include new service-delivery systems, such as “intelligent” teller machines. Employees can use those machines to teach members about depositing checks without getting in line, part of what CFCU calls the “electronic banking experience.” 

CFCU’s executive leadership team will be located at the Commons facility, along with commercial lenders, mortgage lenders, business-development officers, and wealth-management advisors.

“We’re excited to bring our brand of service and value to downtown Ithaca and offer a contemporary and efficient way of banking for our members,” Lisa Whitaker, president and CEO of CFCU Community Credit Union, said. “On any given day, over 5,000 people pass this location, so it’s a good place for us to be. Plus, the additional office space eases some of the space pressures we’re incurring at our administrative buildings at 1030 and 1050 Craft Road due to steady growth.”

CFCU has an administrative office at 1030 Craft Road in Lansing and a mortgage office at 1050 Craft Road, according to its website. It also operates a mortgage office at 140 Seneca Way in Ithaca, along with several branch and ATM locations in the Ithaca area.

Bank Tower was originally built in 1932 and is described by CFCU as “one of the most prominent buildings in downtown Ithaca.” 

The credit union contends that its new space will be modern, but the renovation work will maintain the building’s “original splendor in accordance with historic preservation standards.”

CFCU Community Credit Union was chartered in 1953 and currently has about 190 employees, over $1 billion in assets, more than 69,000 members. CFCU serves members in Tompkins, Cortland, Cayuga, Ontario, and Seneca counties and their family members, along with any business or organization located in these counties. 

They were not chosen, Falcone recounts, “but it did give us an opportunity to meet a lot of folks.” Among them were people from a Kentucky business called GenCanna.

Falcone was so impressed, he invested in the company and now serves on its board of directors. “In the last four years I got to see the business grow and flourish,” he says.

Falcone is applying GenCanna’s lesson to Southern Tier Hemp as the new company utilizes protocols and standards for growing and processing the crop. “Gencanna is a strategic partner,” he says.

The goal isn’t simply to grow the crop and then process it at harvest time, he explains. Southern Tier Hemp aims to stagger planting and harvesting so that the company has a “large and sustainable supply so we have CBD in the building at all times.”

Southern Tier Hemp is not alone in its interest, explains Kaelan Castetter. His company, Castetter Sustainability Group, consults with farmers and processors starting in the industry. The firm organized the Southern Tier Hemp Summit at the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator in downtown Binghamton. It drew 150 attendees, including experts, those already in the business, and local individuals looking to get their own businesses involved in the field. “It was not just hippies showing up saying, ‘I want to grow hemp!’” Castetter says.

While farmers are learning to grow hemp, processors are just now buying the equipment needed to process it. Falcone says they are starting small, having just planted the first plants in Endicott last year. “We don’t want to go out and spend money foolishly.”

Processes are similar, but not identical to handling other crops. The hemp will need to be dried, in a way similar to how tobacco is dried, Castetter says.

Extracting oil, Falcone says, will be similar to the way oils are processed from other plants, such as soybeans.

Falcone sees the industry growing rapidly in the Southern Tier and, with support from the state and local universities, being a hotbed of development. “We want this to be a center of excellence for the hemp industry.”

As for Southern Tier Hemp, “I see us in three to four years having up to 100 employees.”    

“FuzeHub is pleased to be working with our partners to educate New York state energy-technology entrepreneurs about manufacturing their products, and to help ensure that more of those innovations are ultimately produced here in the United States,” Elena Garuc, executive director of FuzeHub, said in a mid-June news release.

About NY MEP

FuzeHub is part of the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NY MEP), a network of organizations that provide growth and innovation services to small and mid-sized manufacturers across the state. 

The 11 nonprofit organizations that comprise the New York MEP assist companies all over New York, providing affordable services in the areas of technology acceleration, product development and prototyping, process improvements, innovation strategies, quality control, manufacturing scale-up, supply chain assistance, and new market strategies.

NY MEP says it annually helps nearly 1,000 manufacturers “create and retain jobs, increase profits, and save time and money, by providing affordable services ranging from technology acceleration to product development to manufacturing scale-up.”

NY MEP is supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology & Innovation (NYSTAR).

“Utilizing the expertise and long-standing manufacturing networks of the NY MEP system, we can collectively address the [U.S.] Department of Energy’s goal of helping energy-technology innovators close the manufacturing-readiness gap,” Matt Watson, NYSTAR director, said in the FuzeHub release.

To provide the Build4Scale training to clean-tech hardware startups and “ensure that they receive support on their pathway to domestic manufacturing,” FuzeHub is working with its regional NY MEP counterparts, including the Alliance for Manufacturing & Technology, based at 5 South College Drive on the SUNY Broome campus in the town of Dickinson. 

Additionally, FuzeHub “frequently” partners with business incubators across New York. It’ll be collaborating with the Southern Tier Clean Energy Incubator, located at 12 Hawley St. in Binghamton, to identify young companies that can “benefit most from the training.”

OWEGO — As the owner of an independent insurance agency with many local individual and business customers, Jennifer Welch has her pulse on the area’s progress. And, she says right now is a tremendous time in Owego. 

“We have a lot of exciting things just in the village of Owego. We have the new Gateway Building being built. I’m seeing growth. It’s an exciting time right now,” says Welch, owner of the Tom Ash Agency, based at 185 Main St.

The nearly $3 million Gateway Building project is transforming a hole in Owego’s historic downtown business district on Front Street into a mixed-use structure of apartments on the upper floors and commercial space on ground level.

Welch also points to the growth in new housing in the Owego area. “I’ve been writing new homeowners’ insurance policies. People are buying new homes. I am seeing growth and activity.”

It’s also an exciting time for Welch’s business. The Tom Ash Agency recently expanded into Broome County with a new office in the hamlet of Endwell.

The business held a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Tioga County Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 15 to formally open the new office at 519 Hooper Road in Endwell (town of Union).

Welch tells CNYBJ that she decided to open a second office because “we were ready to expand. And we do have current clients this way.” It was the first time the agency had opened an additional location.

She says the Endwell office first opened to customers in late April and adds that the ribbon cutting had to wait until she secured a new sign for the storefront.

“This is a great location here, nice central location… Sits in a nice shopping plaza here,” Welch says. She leases her space from Fishs Eddy IV, LLC, which owns the plaza. She wasn’t sure of her square footage. The one-story shopping center, which was built in 1970, encompasses more than 6,400 square feet on 2.4 acres of land, according to Broome County’s online property records. 

Welch adds that there was also a “bit of nostalgia” behind her decision to select the Hooper Road site for her insurance office. “I grew up on the north side of Endicott, not too far from here. Across the street now is a Best Bagels in Town. But it was a Carvel ice cream shop when I was a kid and my dad would take me there a lot,” 

The Tom Ash Agency has operated at 185 Main St. in Owego since 1975. Tom Ash started the insurance agency in the early 1970s, at first from his home, and led the business until retiring at the end of 2014. Welch says she worked for Ash for 12 years as a licensed agent before buying the agency’s book of business and Owego building upon Ash’s retirement.

When asked why she decided to buy the business, Welch says, “I loved the way Mr. Ash treated customers. I loved being in that office… Mr. Ash treated clients as family. We knew their names. Many of the customers would come into the office just to have a cup of coffee and hang out… I loved his sense of community… It was the right move for me.”

The Tom Ash Agency has one employee in Endwell and two employees in Owego, for a total of three staff members for the business, including Welch. Two of the employees are licensed insurance agents, she says.

Welch says she spends three days a week in the Endwell office and the other two days in Owego.

The Tom Ash Agency offers home, auto, and business insurance. It also provides specialty lines of insurance, including personal umbrella, boat, ATV, motorcycle, snowmobile, travel trailer, golf cart, and workers’ compensation. The insurance carriers whose products it offers include Progressive, Travelers, Utica Mutual, and Eastern Mutual.       

Dallas, Texas–based Skyven Technologies, the 2017 winner of the 76West competition, has completed the first shipment of what the company calls an intelligent mirror array.

The product was manufactured in Horseheads and described as “one of the world’s first solar solutions for industrial steam,” the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) said in a July 30 news release.

Skyven, has been working with Cameron Manufacturing & Design in Horseheads to finalize the technology and manufacturing specifications. The first order of panels has been completed, according to NYSERDA. 

Skyven is also working with the Radiant Store, based in Troy, to install the system at Copses Farms in Valley Falls in Rensselaer County. “Due in part” to Skyven’s technology order, Cameron has expanded its operations, the authority said. 

Skyven works with its customer to reduce its carbon footprint and save it money, Arun Gupta, founder and CEO of Skyven, contended in the NYSERDA release.

“We’re extremely happy to see our first commercial production and deployment take place in upstate New York and look forward to continuing our work with our partners in the Southern Tier to install many more systems throughout the state,” said Gupta.

Cameron is “always looking” for growth opportunities and partners, as the firm has been “manufacturing the future” since 1983, Michael Chevalier, account executive at Cameron Manufacturing & Design, said in the release. 

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Skyven Technologies on their unique renewable system that will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and provide a healthier environment for industrial buildings,” said Chevalier. 

“This is ground-breaking technology that focuses on a market that is currently under-served. This system has a lot of potential to create opportunities for both manufacturers and installers and I look forward to helping Skyven integrate its technology in New York State,” Terry Moag, owner of the Radiant Store, added.

Skyven says its mirror-array technology is a “unique,” renewable product for industrial steam that a customer can use to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial boilers. It uses panels — which are similar to solar panels — that magnify the sun’s heat by concentrating sunlight, which can then be used to provide energy to industrial buildings at reduced costs.

Skyven Technologies captured the $1 million grand prize in last year’s 76West competition in Binghamton. 

As a condition of the award, companies must either move to the Southern Tier or establish a direct connection with the Southern Tier, like a supply chain, job development with Southern Tier companies, or other “strategic” relationships with Southern Tier entities that increase wealth creation and create jobs, according to NYSERDA. 

BINGHAMTON — Renovation work is underway on the Ansco Camera Factory building in Binghamton in a nearly $30 million, mixed-use development project that started in early July.

The project will redevelop the former factory into 100 market-rate lofts, including 85,000 square feet of commercial space.

Hueber-Breuer Construction Co. Inc. of Syracuse is the construction manager on the project, says Matthew Paulus, president of Syracuse–based Paulus Development. 

Paulus Development is “very comfortable” with historic preservation and looked for “underutilized assets” in Binghamton.

“… and preserving their history, preserving the actual structural and architectural integrity of the building and using those to be catalysts for change in the community,” says Paulus.

Dalpos Architects & Integrators of Syracuse is the designer on the project. Paulus owns the building under the entity Freewheelin Ansco, LLC.

“[Broome County] had owned the building and they were marketing the building for sale,” he added. He spoke from Syracuse in a phone interview conducted July 27.

Paulus Development acquired the building for $350,000 and the purchase closed at the end of June.

Empire State Development (ESD) on June 14 announced its support for the project, providing up to $2 million for the building’s adaptive reuse through the “Southern Tier Soaring” Upstate Revitalization Initiative. 

The Syracuse office of the Community Preservation Corp. (CPC) provided the construction loan for the project. On its website, the CPC describes itself as a “consistent source of capital to underserved housing markets throughout New York City and in communities across the state.”

“Eighty percent of the hard construction costs were financed through the [close to $20 million] construction loan. The remainder was financed through private equity,” says Paulus. The project is also eligible for historic tax credits, he adds.

“Anchor development”

The nearly $30 million project will serve as the “anchor development” for the first-ward district in the city of Binghamton, ESD said. It’ll connect the central business district, Westside, and Southern Tier Health Sciences and Innovation Park in Johnson City.

The state expects crews to complete the project in late spring 2019, ESD said.

The four-story factory, located along Emma St. in Binghamton, is “historically associated” with the cigar-manufacturing trade and the camera and film industry, “two of Binghamton’s most important industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” ESD said.

The building was originally designed and built in 1927 for the General Cigar Company. However, it was the “nationally prominent” Ansco Camera and Film Company that ran its manufacturing operations in the building from 1937 until the company closed its doors in 1977. 

The building is a “significant” landmark in Binghamton with its prominent water tower a “long-time feature of the skyline,” ESD said.

Commercial tenants in the Ansco Camera Factory include E&M Power, a power-electronics technology company that designs and manufactures AC and DC advanced power emulators and custom power electronic products; Glowa Manufacturing Inc., a manufacturer of cable assemblies; Crystal-lyn Chemical Company, which develops and manufactures “custom, specialized high value fine chemicals,” its website says; and All Phase Electric & Maintenance Inc., an electrical contractor.

“We have our commitments for the commercial space [in] the project,” says Paulus. 

In addition to the Ansco Camera Factory, Paulus Development similarly repurposed the former R.E. Dietz Lantern Factory in Syracuse, a project that features loft style market-rate apartments and commercial space. 

The Preservation League of New York State selected the Dietz rehabilitation project for its “Excellence in Historic Preservation” award, ESD said. The Preservation League presented the award in a ceremony held in New York City last month.

Paulus Development started operations in October 2015 and has four employees as of Aug. 3. Its office is located at 225 Wilkinson St. in Syracuse in the Dietz Lantern Factory. 

BINGHAMTON — Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of New York (RLHINY) and its sister company Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of America (RLHICA) have formally opened a permanent location of the Renaissance New York office at 2 Court St., Suite 102 in Binghamton. 

The insurer held a ribbon-cutting event in early August with the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, to commemorate the new office and “celebrate strategic growth” at the company. Renaissance says it is a multi-line insurance provider, offering dental, vision, life, disability, and accident coverage to groups and individuals nationwide.

The 8,700-square-foot office, which opened to employees in May, houses Renaissance’s group life, disability, and accident insurance services.

The office is the company’s first in Binghamton and comes after Renaissance acquired the Security Mutual group life and disability division late last year. Following that purchase, “the decision was made to relocate the legal address and headquarters of RLHINY to Binghamton at our new 2 Court St. location,” Robert P. Mulligan, president and CEO of Renaissance told CNYBJ in an email response provided through a spokesperson. 

Before that, RLHINY had a legal address in Manhattan that was unstaffed. Prior to the acquisition, RLHINY contributed just 1 percent of total Renaissance revenue while Indianapolis–based RLHICA, licensed in the other 49 states, provided the remaining 99 percent, according to Mulligan. Now, RLHINY represents 9 percent of overall Renaissance revenues. 

Renaissance’s acquisition of the group insurance division of Security Mutual Life was finalized in December 2017. “The primary value of this transaction to Renaissance is the personnel and their expertise in life and disability products, as well as the systems and processes that support these products,” Mulligan said. As a result, Renaissance planned to keep as much of the existing workforce as possible by locating its new office in Binghamton. It retained all 34 of the Security Mutual employees in the transition. The employees’ average length of insurance experience is 17 years.

“As a part of the transaction, we made arrangements to lease office space owned by Security Mutual Life and located across the street from their main headquarters until such time that we finalized the build-out of our permanent location at 2 Court Street,” he said. Renaissance moved into its new location in May. 

The office features an open concept with glass walls and space for up to 60 employees. It underwent a complete renovation costing about $750,000, according to Mulligan. Renaissance has a 10-year-lease agreement on the space.

The Binghamton office is Renaissance’s main operations center supporting its group life, disability, and accident policies for both New York state and national clients, he said. Services provided at the location include underwriting and administrative support in claims processing, policy issuance, and customer service. New group sales and account-management staff also work at this location. 

“The primary role of the office currently is to support our national group ancillary sales division, for life, disability and accident coverages, serving various brokers and groups across the country. Longer term, this location will also become a regional support center for our group dental and vision products as well,” Mulligan said.

Local economic-development officials welcomed Renaissance’s decision to make downtown Binghamton the home for its New York office.

“We are so thrilled that Renaissance has chosen Binghamton to expand their business and has created a strong partnership with an existing business as a strong foundation,” Jennifer Conway, Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, said in a news release about the ribbon-cutting event. “We are confident that Renaissance will find great success here. This is exactly the kind of business investment that we are looking for in Broome County, and we look forward to the future as we grow together.”

Donald J. Smith, VP of the Renaissance Binghamton operation, said his firm is pleased to be a part of the changes talking place in the Binghamton area.

“We’re excited about the momentum and being a part of the growth at Renaissance as well as the revitalization in downtown Binghamton,” he said in the release. Smith is a graduate of Binghamton University.

Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of America and Renaissance Life & Health Insurance Company of New York are part of a family of companies collectively operating under the holding company Renaissance Health Service Corp. Founded in 1957, the family of companies has offices in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. Collectively, the Renaissance companies cover 13.1 million people with annual paid claims of nearly $3 billion.

Renaissance has produced seven consecutive years of top line growth and profitability, growing from about $45 million in revenue in 2011 to more than $200 million projected for 2018, Mulligan said.