The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has applied to the state Public Service Commission for permission to rebuild 86 miles of the transmissions lines in Northern New York.

“These transmission lines have been consistent workhorses in the Power Authority statewide transmission and generation power network,” Gil C. Quinones, NYPA president and CEO, said in a news release. “After the Public Service Commission’s review, we hope to give these transmissions lines new life so they can continue to provide New York with cost-effective, clean electricity.”

NYPA says it is looking to rebuild transmission lines from the St. Lawrence to the Adirondack substation in Croghan, connecting hydropower from NYPA’s St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project as well as power from newly constructed renewable energy sources, the authority said.

NYPA estimates the entire project will cost about $670 million.

Work will be done on the existing rights of way and will include 78 miles of lines that were built by the federal government in 1942 and acquired by NYPA in 1950. 

NYPA said it expects to get approval from the PSC for the work within a year. It says the project is expected to support hundreds of jobs.

SYRACUSE — Started with $25,000 and three partners in 2001, Bankers Healthcare Group (BHG) has reached a valuation of $1 billion, according to its top executive.

Along the way, the three partners have sold 49 percent of the business, but held onto the remaining 51 percent, explains Chairman and CEO Albert (Al) Crawford.

The company’s growth was underlined in 2015 when Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville, Tennessee–based bank with more than $20 billion in assets, bought 30 percent of BHG for $75 million, effectively valuing the company at $250 million.

Just one year later, Pinnacle bought another 19 percent for $114 million, more than doubling the company’s value to $600 million.

Sitting in his office on Solar Street in Syracuse, Crawford explains that in the three years since, BHG has continued to grow, hitting a valuation of $1 billion on annual revenue between $160 million and $170 million in 2017.

And he sees much more growth on the horizon.

BHG has gotten where it is by supplying loans to health-care professionals — doctors, dentists, and veterinarians from the start, adding nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physical therapists, and physician’s assistants more recently.

The loans, which average about $100,000, but can be as much as $500,000, are then sold to banks. 

The company’s loans have been attractive to those in the health-care field because BHG makes it easy. Borrowers don’t have to take time to go to the bank, they don’t have to dig up old financial records, and they don’t have to answer a lot of questions, Crawford contends.

Instead, they can go online and apply without leaving the office, give BHG permission to access the necessary financial records, and hear back about the loan in 24 to 48 hours. If they choose to go forward, they get the money within a week — and can get it in as little as 72 hours, Crawford says.

Demand for BHG’s loans is driven in part by the fact that health-care professionals often start out burdened with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, sometimes hundreds of thousands in student loans, Crawford notes. 

“Society puts them in a very tough space,” he says.

Those debts leave some health-care providers with low credit ratings, credit scores far below what one might assume, Crawford says. BHG has been actively developing financial technology to be able to ascertain the real risk presented by these types of borrowers, he says. It has hired credit analysts from some of the largest banks to help it better understand which borrowers are better risks.

The company’s 15 credit analysts look to see what differentiates someone who has struggled with debt but ultimately works through it, from someone who files for bankruptcy. And they look to see who may have filed for bankruptcy but is rebuilding their credit and has earned an opportunity.

Then, Crawford says, the interest rate is set to reflect the risk and leave room for BHG to profit. 

To reach health-care professionals, BHG markets heavily across all sorts of platforms. A doctor may hear from BHG two dozen times before clicking on the company’s website, Crawford notes. 

Clients who go forward with loans, and those who don’t, may be offered BHG’s credit card, offered through Pinnacle Financial Partners, a product BHG has had since 2014. The card has more than 17,000 users, Crawford says.

From the start, funding the loans made by BHG has meant building relationships with banks. Crawford traveled the country meeting with bankers whose balance sheets needed to be diversified. Early on, he found strong demand among banks that had too large a percentage of total lending tied up in agricultural loans. Taking on loans to medical practitioners gave these banks a more diversified mix of assets.

Over the years, BHG built up a network of banks to which it could sell the loans. Today, Crawford says BHG has more than 850 banks it turns to, auctioning off somewhere between $2 million and $3 million in loans each day. “We don’t need Wall Street,” Crawford says. “We developed our own Wall Street.”

Further, Crawford says BHG has never stuck the banks with a bad loan. If worse comes to worse, BHG can collect on the loan with its in-house operation.

BHG’s network of banks plays a role in Crawford’s plans for future growth. He says the banks could be turned to as buyers for all sorts of loans. “It’s a marketplace,” he notes.

And, it’s a marketplace BHG expects to engage as it expands its product offerings. BHG is moving toward providing loans for medical procedures. These are loans not to health-care providers, but to their patients. It is a $400 billion-a-year market, says Crawford, and he wants BHG to be the No. 1 player in the space within five years.

Handling growth has been a continuing challenge for BHG. Crawford says the company has hired 100 people in the past six months, 60 just since Jan. 1. Today, the company has 367 employees. Of those, 167 are in Syracuse, 34 in New York City, and the remaining 166 at the company’s corporate headquarters in Davie, Florida.

While Crawford works from the Syracuse office at 201 Solar St., his fellow original founders, Robert T. Castro and his brother Eric R. Castro, work from the Florida headquarters, handling loan origination, and funding, human resources and IT. The Syracuse office is the company’s financial headquarters, handling credit underwriting, accounting, collections, bank sales, and marketing.

Locally, BHG has been forced to spread out to find space for its growing number of workers. They can be found at the Solar Street headquarters, at a former fire station across the street, and at a converted mill within walking distance.

The work spaces are modern and the local headquarters is airy with windows throughout to make the most of natural lighting. Crawford notes that Central New York’s often short days and cloudy skies make windows a practical choice.

He adds that the darkness and cold weather are, in some ways, a plus: “You might as well be working.” In turn, when the weather is lovely on a Friday in the summer, the company urges managers to let people leave early, he says.

Added perks for workers include a snack and coffee bar in the main office and a 2,500-square-foot gym with a high-tech golf simulator. The dress code is casual most days and on an early spring day, Crawford worked in shorts and a T-shirt, coming directly from the gym.

Intertwining his discussion of the company with business philosophy, Crawford says he and others in the company read a great deal. Recently, they’ve been reading Daniel Coyle’s “The Culture Code.” It’s about what it takes to keep companies performing at the top level.

For Crawford, part of the culture that has driven BHG’s growth and that he expects with continue to drive its success is an overriding sense that there is more that needs to be done, challenges that need to be faced now. “Urgency,” he says, “from Day One we’ve worked with a sense of urgency.”      

In late May of next year, the world’s best professional golfers who are age 50 and over will gather near Rochester for the 2019 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Names like Bernhard Langer, Vijay Singh, Steve Stricker, Colin Montgomerie, Kenny Perry, Jerry Kelly, and Miguel Angel Jiménez are expected to be there.

The PGA of America announced almost a year ago that it had selected Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford to host the 80th edition of the tournament on its famed East Course, the site of many past spectacles of golf.

The 2019 Senior PGA Championship is expected to draw 50,000 to 60,000 spectators, including more than a few Central New Yorkers, and generate a more than $40 million economic impact on the greater Rochester region, according to the Greater Rochester Enterprise (GRE), a regional economic-development organization.

While on the surface May 2019 seems a long way away, it’s not for Bryan Karns, championship director. He’s been on the ground in Rochester since last August, working on the massive logistical puzzle that is organizing a championship golf tournament. He works out of an office at Oak Hill.

Karns, an Oklahoma State University graduate, stopped by the CNYBJ office in Syracuse on Friday, April 6, to discuss the event and all that goes into planning it.

“I think when you imagine what goes into having you know, 50,000 to 60,000 people on a golf course, that 99 percent of the year is meant to be kind of private and reserved … That’s a tremendous undertaking,” he says. “The primary reason we’re on the ground is to build the relationships with people in the community.” 

The logistical tasks include figuring out how many concession stands to put on the ground, where to put the corporate hospitality tents, and setting the bus traffic plan and parking plan with the Monroe County Sherriff’s Department. “Even though we have a blueprint there from running events at Oak Hill in the past, things change,” Karns says.

This will be the second time that Oak Hill will present the four-day Senior PGA Championship — it’s a nearly weeklong event including practice rounds. In 2008 at Oak Hill, Jay Haas, of the United States, claimed his second Senior PGA Championship in three years by a single stroke over Germany’s Langer. 

Oak Hill’s East Course has also staged three previous PGA Championships (2013, 2003, 1980) and will do so again in 2023 for a record-tying fourth time, according to the PGA of America.

Taking on the task of selling corporate sponsorships, including all the hospitality tents, is another big focus now for Karns and his team.

“Because a lot of them have a big price tag, we like to give companies the ability to spread [the payments] out,” he says. “People aren’t going to do that a week out and say. ‘Oh yeah sure, we’re going to drop 25-grand on a hospitality venue.’ So, we start those relationships now and try to walk people through that.”

Recruiting volunteers to staff the tournament, including scorers, course marshals, and people to staff the spectator stands, concession stands, and merchandise tents is another key task. 

“Even though the support is tremendous, and we feel it’s not going to be a big struggle for us… to get 1,500-1,600 volunteers, that’s a lot,” Karns says. He noted the 2013 PGA Championship at Oak Hill had close to 3,500 volunteers.

Regional approach

Karns and his staff of three other PGA of America employees currently in Rochester are taking a regional approach to marketing the Senior PGA Championship.

“Traditionally it is kind of a drive-in event. It’s a regional thing. People in Syracuse will come to Rochester just like lots of folks in Rochester will come to Syracuse [University] games,” Karns says. He did it himself last fall, taking in the Syracuse-Clemson football game, his first trip to the Carrier Dome.

Karns and his staff will start outreach efforts in Rochester, then build out. They have an extensive database, about 75,000 to 100,000 people who bought tickets, bought corporate hospitality services, or volunteered at a past PGA Championship event at Oak Hill.

“Probably the large majority of the corporate sponsors will be from Rochester, but we have a lot of interest in Buffalo, and we’ve talked to a number of companies in Syracuse,” he says.

“It’s an easy drive over. It’s a great opportunity to see the greatest golfers in the world,” Karns says in his pitch for Syracuse golf fans to make the drive to Rochester for the tournament.

On Monday morning, April 9, the PGA of America sent an email to its database of 75,000 to 100,000 people offering an exclusive window from April 9 to May 29 to buy tickets and to sign up to volunteer for the 2019 Senior PGA Championship. On May 29, they open it to the general public. 

The PGA’s marketing efforts will pick up this summer and build into next spring.

The logistical lift will also increase. As the tournament approaches, Karns’ staff will grow to 10 and more PGA of America staffers will fly in for the tournament starting two weeks out.

Then there’s the vendors. “The folks that do the tent building, the bathrooms. They’re all from independent companies that we contract with for the event. And usually that’s another 150 or 200 [people] starting roughly six weeks out that will show up in Rochester. And probably by the event week, you’re up closer to 500 people” including caterers and concession stand operators, Karns explains.