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New York manufacturing index plunges in August
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business-conditions index tumbled 19 points to -14.9 in August, its lowest level since 2009. The index reading indicates
Ascenzi named 2015 Greater Baldwinsville Chamber Business Person of the Year
BALDWINSVILLE — Donna T. Ascenzi, who operates an accounting firm in the village of Baldwinsville, has been named the 2015 Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year. Awarded since 1988, the honor recognizes the contributions of outstanding business people in the Baldwinsville community, and celebrates a businessperson who has demonstrated a
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BALDWINSVILLE — Donna T. Ascenzi, who operates an accounting firm in the village of Baldwinsville, has been named the 2015 Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year.
Awarded since 1988, the honor recognizes the contributions of outstanding business people in the Baldwinsville community, and celebrates a businessperson who has demonstrated a commitment to local economic development, the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber said in a news release. The recipient also embodies exemplary and ethical business practices in addressing quality, customer service, and social responsibility.
Since 2005, Donna T. Ascenzi, CPA, has provided accounting services to individuals and small businesses throughout the Central New York region and beyond. Ascenzi has recently expanded her firm, which is located at 15 E. Genesee St. in the village, by adding Bernie Corbishley as a partner and Mandy Boyce as staff accountant.
An active member of the Accounting & Financial Women’s Alliance, the New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA), and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), Ascenzi has also educated aspiring accountants at local colleges and is currently an adjunct instructor at Le Moyne College, according to the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber’s release. Ascenzi is a member and “enthusiastic supporter” of the chamber, who has helped select its annual scholarship recipient.
Gina Tonello, owner of Gina Tonello Designs, nominated Ascenzi for the Business Person of the Year award. In her letter of support, Tonello wrote, “I hired Donna to be the CPA for my small business last year. As a new and uninformed entrepreneur, I was searching for help with my financials. She calmed my nerves, corrected my books, and became a trusted business partner for me.”
Ascenzi will be honored at the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber’s Business Person of the Year Dinner on Sept. 24 at The Red Mill Inn in Baldwinsville.
The three other people nominated for the award Ascenzi won were: Michael Carr, president of Carr Recruiting Solutions; Pauline Majchrzak, owner of WTM Accounting Services; and Mary Slater, business manager for Friends of Beaver Lake, according to the release.
BioSpherix reorganizes to grow
PARISH — Randy Yerden, CEO of BioSpherix, Ltd., has reorganized the Oswego County–based company into two divisions: BioSpherix Lab and BioSpherix Medical. The change is a response to the growing demand in the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated industries by focusing the divisions’ research, sales, and marketing efforts to align with their respective markets.
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PARISH — Randy Yerden, CEO of BioSpherix, Ltd., has reorganized the Oswego County–based company into two divisions: BioSpherix Lab and BioSpherix Medical. The change is a response to the growing demand in the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated industries by focusing the divisions’ research, sales, and marketing efforts to align with their respective markets.
“BioSpherix designs and builds instruments for optimizing and manipulating critical parameters in the biological environment of cells,” says Yerden. “… [The company] manufactures equipment for the entire cell industry including cell research, cell therapy, cell-based assays, therapeutic modeling, and disease modeling. The business originated by creating unique environments in which the variables such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other parameters were better controlled to ensure optimal cell growth and viability. In the early days, the business exclusively retrofitted customers’ existing equipment. I like to say that BioSpherix souped up conventional, standard products to make them more capable of meeting cell needs. The problem with our industry is that the manufacturers are still people-centric and not cell-centric; what we like to call ‘cytocentric.’ In fact, Cytocentric is our brand and our unique claim of distinction in the global marketplace. In layman’s terms, it simply means a quality approach to growing and handling cells. Upgrading other manufacturers’ standard products is still a significant part of our business.”
Frustrated by the handicaps inherent in standard cell equipment, BioSpherix decided to re-think and re-invent cell incubation and processing. The result was an alternative to conventional laboratory equipment, which Yerden calls the Cytocentric-by-design Xvivo System. “We needed to provide a better option for the cells and a safer option for lab technicians who, knowingly or unknowingly, sometimes use cells infected with dangerous transgenes, prions, and viruses, including swine flu, Ebola, and SARS,” the company CEO says. “Currently, short of P4 bio-safety facilities, technicians work in the same open air as these potentially lethal cells carrying infectious agents. The Xvivo System offers not only an unprecedented level of protection for the cells, but also a new, unprecedented layer of protection for the technicians in any facility. It encloses both the cells and any potential pathogen, creating a safety barrier between them and the technician.
“From another perspective,” continues Yerden, “the completely enclosed nature of the Xvivo System has become an attractive alternative to expensive brick-and-mortar clean rooms for producing clinical-grade cells used in new-cell therapies. Our system is not only 10 times less expensive, but it can also be fully operational within weeks; it’s portable, modular, infinitely adaptable for future needs, and produces better cells.”
The explosion in the use of human cells led Yerden to create BioSpherix Medical.
“We now have this new platform to ensure the best quality-grade, clinical-grade cells safely, but it comes with a catch-22,” laments Yerden. “Unlike the laboratory-research products, which are unregulated and will stay with BioSpherix Lab, regulatory agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce) set strict compliance standards in clinical and bio-safety applications. Without regulatory certifications, customers are discouraged from utilizing the Xvivo System.” BioSpherix Medical received help recently from Congressman Richard Hanna (R–Barneveld) to cut through the bureaucratic red tape of the application process.
BioSpherix serves a variety of cell-industry customers. “Over the years, we have placed our equipment in academic settings, research labs, government agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and biotechnology organizations throughout the world,” asserts Yerden. “Our customers have used our products in the fields of cell biology, stem-cell research, cell therapy, gene therapy, clinical studies, and other FDA-compliant, clinical-grade cell production.”
Growth strategies
In addition to splitting the company in two, Yerden is also expanding sales by synergizing the Cytocentric platform with specialty cell-equipment manufacturers, as exemplified by joining with ACEA Biosciences, Inc., a San Diego–based company that manufactures cellular-assay equipment.
ACEA, started in 2002, is privately owned and has manufacturing operations in Hangzhou, China. “BioSpherix manufactures the cytocentric, sub-chamber culture system which ACEA integrates with its iCELLigence, real-time, cellular-analysis system,” notes Yerden. “This combination product enhances the quality of the data from ACEA’s powerful, label-free and real-time monitoring of cellular processes, such as cell growth, proliferation, cytotoxicity, adhesion, and other dynamics. We created a partnership in manufacturing the product and in co-promoting the marketing and sales of iCELLigence. We are setting up alliances with many other similar partners which offer synergistic potential.”
Repositioning the company for growth also convinced Yerden not to rely just on direct sales, but also to create a global network of distributors.
“Since the beginning, we have only marketed the company intermittently at trade shows, through some direct mail, our website, and inside telephone sales with no consistent advertising, publicity, catalogs, and in some cases no sales literature,” explains Yerden. “BioSpherix is still an industry secret. All that is now about to change. We are creating catalog and other marketing materials, and we are signing up distributors all over the world. In August, we have invited our new distributors to join us for the first of quarterly, three-day events to introduce them to the company and to train them on our products. We plan to use the Tailwater Lodge in Altmar to house our guests and the showroom here at the plant for training.”
BioSpherix, Ltd. is headquartered in Parish. The company employs 50 people, and generates annual revenue of under $10 million, as estimated by The Business
Journal. Yerden is the sole stockholder. The two divisions occupy a 38,000-square-foot facility originally built as the Parish Elementary School. Red Ray Properties, LLC, a real-estate company, purchased the building and property in 2013 for $375,000. Yerden holds the stock in Red Ray. In 2014, BioSpherix moved its operation from a 26,000 square-foot facility in Lacona. Yerden, who started his business in 1982 as a sole proprietorship called Reming Bioinstruments Co., incorporated in 2001 as BioSpherix, Ltd.
Yerden’s background
Yerden grew up in Redfield and attended Syracuse University, where in 1975 he received a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry. His first job was at the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital, working as a lab technician in cancer research. “My day was spent peering through a microscope counting stem cells,” recalls Yerden. “I did clonogenic assays, which meant I chopped up the tumor and marrow samples, worked with enzymes and cell media rich in nutrients, plated the cells, and counted the stem-cell colonies for results. The counting was tedious and prone to error, because stem cells didn’t grow well. I heard that an oxygen-controlled atmosphere might improve the cell growth, but incubators then didn’t control oxygen. So, I built an oxygen controller for my incubator, and the improvement was dramatic. I could actually see huge colonies of vibrant, growing cells, which I could count easily and accurately.”
Yerden moved home to Redfield in 1981 and took a job at Bristol Laboratories in Syracuse. The following year, he left his job at Bristol and decided to spend his time selling the incubator oxygen controller he had created. For the next 19 years, Yerden ran Reming Bioinstruments as a one-man shop and developed many additional tools for leading cell scientists. In 2000, he started to realize that the entire cell industry would eventually need these tools, once the industry focused on the need for quality. At the same time, the demand for cells and the value of these cells, especially human cells, started to skyrocket. “A discussion in 2001 with an insurance salesman, who was trying to sell me disability and life insurance, got me thinking about my mortality,” intones Yerden. “How sustainable was a one-man operation? Accepting the challenge to grow, I at first expanded the company to five employees. Over the past 15 years, patiently building a foundation for growth, we are now a team of 50 and almost ready to continue our growth.”
BioSpherix is serving a market that is growing rapidly. The U.S. by itself currently has more than 8,000 biotechnology companies. In the past decade, the number of drug approvals by the FDA has risen steadily. According to the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics, the global pharmaceutical industry is expected to continue its growth at a 5-percent to 8-percent annual rate. In the decade between 2002 and 2012, the biologics market, which accounts for 11 percent of total drug sales, nearly quadrupled to $169 billion. And cells are considered the next big thing in health care. Already, more than 4,000 active, cell-therapy clinical trials are in progress. Reports of break-through cures have both government and big pharma finally investing billions in cell therapies. With pharmaceuticals and biologics driving the market growth, bio-safety testing using cells is also becoming big business. According to a Mordor Intelligence industry report, the biological, safety testing market is growing at an annual compounded rate of 12.23 percent, prodded by innovations in the biotechnology industry, drug developments, and government regulations. The report also notes that North America is the global leader in biological safety testing with a 37.5-percent market share.
“We are on the edge of a huge opportunity,” opines Yerden. “To compete in this marketplace, we need capital, two complete management teams, and now more visibility in the marketplace. I believe that BioSpherix is the leader bringing the first and only total-quality approach to the cell industry with our Cytocentric product line. We are poised for substantial growth, and our reorganization is the key to advancing that growth.”
Finger Lakes Business Services expands HQ
AUBURN — Finger Lakes Business Services Inc. (FLBS), a firm that operates its answering services for businesses, has expanded its headquarters in Auburn, moving into a space a neighboring tenant had vacated. FLBS also acquired the telephone-answering service operations from Watertown–based S.T.A.T. Communications Inc. and has launched an answering-service call center in Watertown.
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AUBURN — Finger Lakes Business Services Inc. (FLBS), a firm that operates its answering services for businesses, has expanded its headquarters in Auburn, moving into a space a neighboring tenant had vacated.
FLBS also acquired the telephone-answering service operations from Watertown–based S.T.A.T. Communications Inc. and has launched an answering-service call center in Watertown.
The company made both announcements in separate news releases issued in mid-July.
FLBS, headquartered at 42 Westlake Ave. in Auburn, offers answering service, call center, message center, and paging-center services.
FLBS has had “organic growth that results in just the need to have … a few more operator stations, a few more administrative staff,” says Gardner McLean, company president. McLean spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 6.
McLean is the firm’s majority owner, while Ray Schremp, company vice president of operations, is the minority owner, according to McLean. He declined to disclose each man’s specific percentage of ownership.
The company now operates in a 4,000-square-foot space, having added 1,000 square feet with the expansion, he says.
A physical-therapy office moved to a larger facility, creating in the vacancy, according to McLean.
Active Physical Therapy Solutions moved to a new building at 91 Columbus St., according to a December 2014 newsletter posted on its website. The company also confirmed FLBS moved into its space, following an email inquiry from CNYBJ.
A contractor “gutted” the walls and created a new, larger space for our answering-service staff, which FLBS refers to as “agents,” according to McLean.
The work in Auburn enabled FLBS to expand from 11 agent stations to 21, “so we also doubled the agent staff” and constructed four offices, including one that’s used as a conference room, he says.
FLBS and WST33, LLC, which owns the building, handled the renovation cost, which totaled about $90,000.
Fritz Construction of Auburn completed the renovation work, McLean notes. The renovation work started in January and the company has finished “most” of the project.
“The operational side of the business [has] been in there for a couple months now,” says McLean.
FLBS will also move an administrative employee into the renovated space within a month, he added.
Watertown acquisition
FLBS closed on its purchase of the answering-service portion of S.T.A.T. Communications Inc. on Sept. 25, 2014.
“We … jointly operated it until … late May, which was when we converted everything over to our computer system,” he says.
McLean declined to disclose the acquisition cost.
S.T.A.T. listed [the] service for sale with Trout Creek, Montana–based TAS Marketing Inc., a broker that specializes in answering services that are up for sale and one with which McLean has a “connection.”
“So the broker contacted me, asking if I was interested,” he adds.
AnswerWatertown started operations under AnswerUSA on Oct. 1, 2014, even though the staff and management were mixed at that time.
“We started building the customers and marketing under that name,” McLean says.
FLBS first launched its AnswerUSA Group division in 2010, he adds.
FLBS is renting an 850-square-foot space at 44 Public Square in Watertown, where eight of the company’s 70 employees work.
“We chose that because it’s directly above the S.T.A.T offices and made for an easier process of migrating customers to our system,” McLean says.
The firm is looking for a new space “preferably” in downtown Watertown, he adds.
The Watertown location represents the 11th operation that FLBS has acquired.
It has previously purchased New York operations in Auburn, Ithaca, Syracuse, Oswego, and Rome.
FLBS also acquired out-of-state operations in Brandon, Florida; and Steamboat Springs, Greeley, and Hotchkiss in Colorado, according to its news release.
Owners renovating Small Plates, will reopen as Aster Pantry & Parlor this fall
SYRACUSE — The Armory Square restaurant, most recently known as Small Plates Detroit, has closed for renovation work but plans to reopen under a new name and restaurant concept next month. Aster Pantry & Parlor will open in mid-September at 116 Walton St. in Syracuse — a location that also was once home to
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SYRACUSE — The Armory Square restaurant, most recently known as Small Plates Detroit, has closed for renovation work but plans to reopen under a new name and restaurant concept next month.
Aster Pantry & Parlor will open in mid-September at 116 Walton St. in Syracuse — a location that also was once home to PJ’s Pub & Grill and PJ Dorsey’s.
The Small Plates Detroit owners wanted a concept in Syracuse “that really fits the location, the area, the region,” says Jonathan Gregory, VP of operations for Syracuse–based RainDog Hospitality Group, which owns the restaurant. He spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 11.
Small Plates Detroit closed on Aug. 1 and plans to reopen under the new name and concept on Sept. 12, Gregory says.
Gregory contends the Small Plates format “was successful,” but the owners believed they could do “something very special” with a regional flair at the restaurant.
“We all liked Small Plates, but I think that we really had an opportunity in Syracuse to do something very special, and it felt right to take advantage of that situation,” says Gregory.
When asked if the business has any concern about customer confusion with another name change, Gregory says he has no concern about that.
Aster Pantry & Parlor will have a menu that is “regionally inspired with creative flair that is cross cultural,” according to Gregory.
He says Aster will have fine-dining level service and fine-dining level food because the guests “deserve that.”
The renovation work doesn’t involve “knocking down walls” but does focus on “aesthetic things,” says Gregory.
Jacobs Architectural Woodworking and Kingdom Hardwood Floors are two of the companies working on the ongoing renovations inside the restaurant, he says.
When asked about the renovation costs involved, Gregory didn’t provide a specific dollar figure but noted it does involve “a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.”
Owners Todd Wenzel and Patrick Danial started thinking about the change earlier in the year, and hired Gregory as the firm’s vice president of operations in May.
Wenzel is CEO of RainDog Hospitality Group. Besides the restaurant, Danial is also the co-founder of Terakeet Corporation, an Armory Square firm that focuses on “engagement marketing technologies,” according to its website.
When asked about the restaurant’s name, Gregory says Aster comes from the “widely grown” wildflower in Central New York.
The parlor side, where patrons will consume snacks and drinks, will have a “Victorian” theme, he says. The pantry side of the eatery will combine elements of both the urban feel of the city and the rural of its suburbs, he adds.
“We have such a big space that it almost makes sense to … separate them,” he says.
Aster will employ between 50 and 100 full and part-time employees. They include Damien DiPietro, who will serve as the restaurant’s executive chef.
Gregory hired DiPietro, having been familiar with his work through their involvement with the Philadelphia–based STARR Restaurants.
DiPietro, 30, who lives in Philadelphia, has been working with chefs since he was a teenager in New Jersey, he says. DiPietro spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 11.
Gregory grew up in Albany and married a woman from Cazenovia, he says.
He previously worked for about 10 years for STARR Restaurants, which describes itself as “one of the largest multi-concept restaurant companies in the country,” according to its website. STARR Restaurants operates restaurants in the New York City and Philadelphia areas that include Buddakan, Morimoto, The Continental, and Barclay Prime.
Tech Garden Recognized for Expansion and Impact
The Northeastern Economic Developers Association (NEDA) has just recognized The Tech Garden for its growth and impact over the past year. This award is a welcomed acknowledgment for an incubator that is truly a benchmark project for fostering innovation in this region. This has been a year of growth and milestones for the Tech
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The Northeastern Economic Developers Association (NEDA) has just recognized The Tech Garden for its growth and impact over the past year. This award is a welcomed acknowledgment for an incubator that is truly a benchmark project for fostering innovation in this region.
This has been a year of growth and milestones for the Tech Garden. Last winter, it opened 18,000 square feet of new incubation space at the adjacent AXA Towers. Just last month, it celebrated its 10th anniversary. With programs to support entrepreneurs at every stage, from ideation to commercialization and acceleration, the Tech Garden is well positioned to continue growing its programs and offer an even more robust ecosystem for entrepreneurs. As we look to the future of this region and work to create a sustainable economy, there is no doubt the Tech Garden has a key role to play.
We are proud of the Tech Garden and what it has accomplished to date, and are grateful to NEDA for their recognition of this work. In addition to the award received by the Tech Garden, NEDA has recognized several CenterState CEO partners and members for their outstanding achievements in the field of economic development (see the box above for a list of awardees). We extend our congratulations to them and all of this year’s recipients.
Best Practice Award winners
L. Michael Treadwell, Operation Oswego County — Lifetime Achievement Award
Mike Treadwell is honored for his 32 years of service as the executive director of Operation Oswego County, Inc., a not-for-profit, economic-development corporation serving Oswego County.
Brian Anderson, National Grid
— Member of the Year Award
Brian Anderson is recognized for his commitment and service to NEDA over the last three years, serving as both a board member and board president.
M&T Bank — Business of the Year Award
M&T is recognized for its long history of providing financing and investments that impact our communities. Specifically it is honored for its support of CenterState CEO’s “Germinator” regional business competition, the Hotel Syracuse renovation project, and its long-standing reputation as the leading SBA lender in the region.
Marketing Award winners
Mohawk Valley EDGE
— Marketing President’s Award
Mohawk Valley EDGE is recognized for its outstanding overall contributions to economic-development marketing, specifically the EDGE Annual Report, the Marcy Nanocenter website, and the Cyber-NY Alliance Brochure.
Operation Oswego County — Outstanding Marketing of Economic Development Products and Services
Operation Oswego County is recognized for its economic-development newsletter. “OOC E-News” has become a valuable tool to report important information about current economic-development activity to its constituents and for potential business customers to learn about the resources and assets of the Oswego County community.
Robert M. (Rob) Simpson is president and CEO of CenterState CEO, the primary economic-development organization for Central New York. This editorial is drawn and edited from the “CEO FOCUS” email newsletter the organization sent to members on Aug. 6.
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