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

IVMF will use the grant to support its STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum in its national career-skills training program, called Onward to Opportunity-Veterans Career Transition Program (O2O-VCTP), according to a news release the institute issued.

Offered at 10 military installations around the U.S. and also online, O2O-VCTP provides civilian career training, professional certifications, and job-placement support to the nearly 200,000 annually transitioning service members, members of the Reserves or National Guard, veterans, and military spouses.

The Motorola Solutions Foundation awards grants each year to organizations that support and advance public-safety programs and technology & engineering education initiatives. This year, programs that served underrepresented populations, including females, people with disabilities, and veterans were prioritized, the release stated.

“Support of our work through philanthropy and leading Foundations such as Motorola is critical to delivering career training to the nearly 200,000 service members that transition out of the service each year as well as their families,” Mike Haynie, vice chancellor and executive director of the IVMF, said. “The IVMF looks forward to expanding our STEM curriculum offerings across the U.S. with this grant to assist our service members and veterans in their pursuit of employment in high-demand careers within that category such as IT, cyber security, programming and more.”

This year, Motorola Solutions Foundation grants (motorolasolutions.com/foundation) will support programs that seek to help more than 2 million students, teachers, first responders, and community members across the U.S., per the release.

Each participant will receive an average of 186 programming hours from its partner nonprofit organizations and institutions. Programs will support special populations including: females, underrepresented minorities, the LGBT community, people with disabilities, and veterans.          

HASTINGS — Paul Davis Emergency Services of North Country NY, a restoration contractor franchise business owned by a local veteran, is settling into a new headquarters.

It’s located at 22 Gildner Road in the town of Hastings, south of the village of Central Square.

“We moved in here June 1 of this year,” says Scott Colbert, owner and general manager, in a phone interview with CNYBJ on Sept. 26. Paul Davis Emergency Services is leasing the 7,000-square-foot building, he adds.

The business specializes in rapid-response, emergency-mitigation services including board-ups, water and fire damage restoration, and mold removal. 

Colbert cites the local franchise’s growth for pursuing the new headquarters. “We just needed more room,” he says.

The company was previously based in a 3,300-square-foot space it leased at 9670 Brewerton Road in Cicero, which it has since vacated.

The firm also operates a 1,300-square-foot satellite office in Watertown and plans to add another satellite office in Potsdam in the next six months, says Colbert.

The business currently has 13 employees, besides Scott and his wife, Kim, who handles its human resources and accounting functions. 

Colbert opened his Paul Davis franchise in 2010 as a veteran-owned, emergency services and restoration company to serve customers throughout Central New York and the North Country regions. Colbert served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1987 to 1993 with stops at Camp Pendleton, California; Mount Fuji, Japan; and Yuma, Arizona.

Alternate route

Colbert had been looking for a bigger headquarters in the area “for quite a while,” even as the firm operated in its space in Cicero.

While driving home back in May, Colbert had to take an alternate route because of some road construction on his normal route. He ended up traveling on a side road that he had used before. Colbert knew that the building that now houses his company’s headquarters was located along that road. The last time he had driven by the structure, it was occupied. But this time was different.

“I turned the corner and I saw a for-sale or rent [sign] and I thought, okay, maybe we’ve got an opportunity,” Colbert recalled thinking at the time.

A week later, he signed a lease for the building. Tony V. Senzarino LLC is listed as the property owner, according to the website of the Office of Oswego County Real Property Tax Services.

“The building fits our needs right now. We’re still looking to hire new people. We’ve got a lot of growth ahead of us,” says Colbert. 

Open house fundraiser

Paul Davis Emergency Services of North Country NY hosted an open house at its new headquarters on Sept. 27.

At the event, the franchise business helped raise money for Clear Path for Veterans and the Central New York SPCA. Other activities included tours of the facility, raffles, giveaways, a prize wheel, and a “smooch -a- pooch” booth.

About Paul Davis

Paul Davis Emergency Services franchises restore residential and commercial properties damaged by fire, water, mold, storms and disasters, according to its release. Founded in 1966, Jacksonville, Florida–based Paul Davis Emergency Services has more than 375 independently owned franchises in the U.S. and Canada. Rich Wilson is the firm’s CEO.

Paul Davis requires an initial investment of between $64,000 and nearly $189,000, according to the website of Entrepreneur magazine. Other Paul Davis financial requirements include a net worth of $100,000 and a liquid-cash requirement of $55,000. The initial franchise fee is $39,000, but veterans receive a $5,000 discount off the franchise fee.         

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CLAY — Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists (SOS) moved into a new location in a newly constructed, $9 million building at 8324 Oswego Road in Clay on Sept. 18.

SOS jointly owns the building with Family Practice Associates, PLLC (FPA), which plans to open a new office in the same building in October, combining its current offices in the Clay Medical Center at 8100 Oswego Road in Clay and its other office in Lysander.

Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists (SOS) and Family Practice Associates (FPA) share equal ownership of the new 40,000-square-foot building.

“That is brand new from the ground-up construction,” says Michael Humphrey, CEO of Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists, who spoke with CNYBJ on Sept. 12.

Besides SOS and FPA, Crouse Medical Practice-Cardiology and Syracuse Gastroenterological Associates will also have space in the building “later this year,” according to an Aug. 31 SOS news release.

To accommodate the new office space, SOS will consolidate its staff and services of the Baldwinsville, Cicero, and Clay orthopedic offices, and the Baldwinsville SOS Orthopedic & Sports Therapy offices. 

The purpose of the new building is “to be more efficient with our staffing and even with some of the equipment that we need,” Humphrey notes.

The SOS locations that had operated at the Clay Medical Center, the Cicero Health Center, and in the Radisson Health Center in Baldwinsville (town of Lysander) are moving operations to the new Clay building.

The three offices affected are leased locations, and SOS notified the landlords involved about a year ago that SOS would be moving.

Staff from each office, a total of about 25 staff members, will move to the new Oswego Road office. They include office staff, nurses, physicians, and physical therapists.

The consolidation won’t result in any job cuts, says Humphrey. “We’ve got almost everyone coming … and a few people that are not, we have openings for them in other offices,” he notes.

Sharing ownership

SOS has operated offices in Clay Medical Center and the Radisson Health Center, and FPA still does for a few more weeks. 

Both organizations had been thinking about consolidating offices, and they started discussing possibilities about two years ago.

“If we’re both in a similar situation, maybe we could build a building together,” says Humphrey, recalling the general theme of the initial discussions.

SOS will occupy about 16,000 square feet in the new building. The space will include its clinical and medical offices and an area in which its physical therapists will provide therapy services, says Humphrey. 

FPA will also utilize about 16,000 square feet. “We’re downstairs. They’re upstairs,” Humphrey notes.

“The FPA physicians and staff are thrilled about the new location,” Jean Carnese, practice administrator at FPA, said in the SOS release. “Combining our two current locations into the new facility will help us with efficiency and provide a functional space to continue to provide the highest quality care to our patients in an office space that will make them feel comfortable. We are equally excited to share space in a building with other exceptional medical groups like Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists, Crouse Medical Practice-Cardiology, and Syracuse Gastroenterological Associates. It will be convenient for patient referrals and access to receive the care they need in a timely manner.”

FPA will have about 85 employees in the new building, Carnese added in an email response to a CNYBJ inquiry. 

Construction

Hueber-Breuer Construction Co., Inc. was the general contractor on the $9 million project. Paul Huysman of Bennetts & Huysman Architects PC of Manlius designed the new building. M&T Bank provided the financing for the project, Humphrey adds. 

The construction started last fall and continued for a period between 9 and 10 months.

The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency approved $824,000 in exemptions from sales taxes on construction materials, and a $90,000 exemption from the state mortgage-recording tax, SOS said.

The organizations had also applied for $1.24 million in property-tax discounts over a 10-year period, which OCIDA did not approve.         

UTICA — Sivic Solutions Group, LLC (SSG), a Utica–based consulting firm, has recently been acquired by Parsippany, New Jersey–based Solix, Inc. as that firm expands its market footprint and adds several new services

The acquisition closed on June 1 and the integration is still in progress, says Gene King, a spokesman for Solix. The companies are not disclosing financial terms of the deal.

SSG, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Solix, continues to be headquartered in Utica. SSG has 25 employees in Utica, and there have been no changes to the local operations since the closing of the acquisitions, according to King.

Solix, a provider of program and process management, regulatory compliance and customer care services for businesses and government agencies throughout the United States, currently employs more than 800 people, he says. The firm has operations in several states including Texas and Illinois. It provides business-process outsourcing, program management including eligibility determination, and customer-care services for government agencies, as well as utilities, health insurers, and some of the largest telecom companies in the U.S.

Meanwhile, SSG says its offerings include consulting, process management, and systems services to state and county health and human-services agencies, juvenile-justice agencies, and school districts across the U.S. SSG also provides financial management, cost-allocation consulting, and helps implement large complex statewide systems to assist state and local agencies in the recovery of funds from federal programs. 

“The synergies between our solutions and the collective experience and knowledge of our staffs offer government agencies, programs and businesses a source of robust support and extraordinary level of service,” Jack Miller, Solix president and CEO, said in a news release. 

Siva Kakuturi, SSG president and CEO, added, “We are very excited about joining Solix and what this means for our customers with future offerings as we enhance and develop services… While there will be no changes or disruptions for our customers, our collaboration with Solix will enable us to grow and offer additional services to our customers.”

Sivic Solutions Group is based at 414 Trenton Road in Utica. It has additional offices in Chicago; Kansas City; Indianapolis; Washington, D.C.; Tampa; and Albuquerque.         

Thousands of milk producers across the U.S., including nearly 2,500 in the Northeast, will receive surveys from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) as the agency collects information for its 2017 milk-production reports, according to a recent news release. 

“The dairy industry is an important component of the Northeast’s agriculture and it is crucial for us to have accurate data about this key sector,” King Whetstone, director of the NASS Northeastern Regional Office, said in a news release. NASS conducts the milk-production survey in the region, including New York state, every January, April, July, and October. The survey asks dairy farmers to disclose the number of milk cows in the herd, number of cows milked, and total milk production for the first day of the month. New York is the largest milk producer among the Northeast states.

The dairy industry relies on monthly milk-production reports to make decisions about the marketing of milk. By participating in the survey, milk producers can ensure that NASS provides “timely, accurate, and useful data that all sectors of the U.S. milk industry use to make sound business decisions,” the organization contends.

“At NASS, we have a strong commitment to respondent confidentiality,” Whetstone said. “We are required by law to protect the privacy of all responses and publish data only in aggregate form, ensuring that no individual producer or operation can be identified,” he noted.

NASS said it will publish the survey results in its monthly milk-production report on Oct. 20, 2017. All NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications.