SYRACUSE — Le Moyne College President Linda LeMura has talked about generating a third source of revenue for the school during speeches she’s delivered “all over the country.”

 

That’s according to James (Jim) Joseph, dean of the Madden School of Business at Le Moyne, noting that liberal-arts colleges, like Le Moyne, are “heavily dependent” on tuition and fundraising as their top two revenue sources.

 

“So, those that can find a significant, third revenue stream … obviously, that bodes well for them as far as their sustainability,” says Joseph.

 

Le Moyne College contends it has now found the revenue source it has been pursuing.

 

SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly), Le Moyne College, and Nectar Partners have announced a partnership to create the Clean Tech Innovation and Commercialization Hub in Onondaga County.

 

Nectar Partners, which operates at the Syracuse Tech Garden, is a sustainable consulting firm that works in the area of “disruptive” clean-tech building sciences, according to a SUNY Poly news release. 

 

In addition to the commercialization-hub project, the partnership agreement calls for Nectar Partners to provide Le Moyne with “a percentage” of its revenue, which the school will use to create endowed professorships, endowed chairs, and create new programs, says Joseph.

 

Their agreement also calls for SUNY Poly and Le Moyne to develop a faculty-exchange program that will “enhance” the academic offerings at both institutions and bring SUNY Poly’s nanotechnology curriculum to the Syracuse area. 

 

Hub location

New York State will make the eventual announcement on the specific location of the upcoming Clean Tech Hub, according to Joseph.

 

 “We are zeroing in on a couple of locations, but … we’re not ready to say where. We have a very good idea. We just haven’t finished negotiating,” says Joseph.

Joseph spoke with CNYBJ on Sept. 24.

 

The project will develop into “hundreds of thousands of square feet” of production, says Joseph. The hub will include “many, many” companies.

 

Joseph could not provide a specific figure, but noted the project will create “a lot” of jobs.

 

“This is a large endeavor,” says Joseph.

 

The agreement represents a “watershed moment” for Le Moyne College, LeMura, said in the SUNY Poly news release. 

 

“This partnership leverages the rich intellectual resources of our faculty and provides entrepreneurial opportunities for our students, while benefiting a sector of the economy that needs attention — clean technology — which is also in line with our Jesuit mission of environmental sustainability.”

 

Hub and academia

Clean tech companies work to reduce energy consumption through efficient new technologies for both commercial and residential uses, SUNY Poly said. 

 

 “This is going to be a significant manufacturing hub that will attract some of the leading companies around the world who produce energy-saving technology,” says Joseph.

 

Some of the companies involved will focus on heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technology; and window-filming technology that reduces heat.

 

“We have 10 companies in our sights right now,” says Joseph. “This is all about significant energy savings and emission reductions.” 

 

The hub will serve as a “magnet for global companies” and as a center for research and development, light manufacturing operations, light-emitting diode (LED) packaging, global distribution, and business operations, SUNY Poly said.

 

The hub will initially focus on LED technology and eventually branch into other areas and applications including HVAC and window technologies. 

 

On the academic side, the schools will work to implement additional degree and workforce-education programs in areas including finance, business, 

environmental science, robotics, and computer science. 

 

The schools also expect the partnership to result in faculty/student research, along with internship and mentoring opportunities for Le Moyne students.

 

“Dr. [Alain] Kaloyeros has chosen Le Moyne as his liberal-arts arm,” says Joseph. 

 

Kaloyeros is SUNY Poly’s president and CEO.

 

 “We are thrilled to expand our presence in Onondaga County and will continue to work with County Executive Joanie Mahoney and our corporate and academic partners to bring more jobs, investment, and vitality to Central New York,” Kaloyeros said in the release.

 

About Nectar

Nectar Partners is a sustainable consulting firm that works “exclusively” in the area of “disruptive clean tech building sciences,” according to the SUNY Poly release. 

 

After identifying, investigating, and testing an emerging energy-saving technology, it provides clean tech companies with access to its “proprietary” list of clients, which include “corporate facility owners and managers at Fortune 500 companies.” 

 

Nectar consults with the facility engineers, architects, building owners and managers to accelerate the adoption and rapid incorporation of these technologies throughout their portfolio. 

 

Nectar also consults with clean tech companies to reduce overhead by re-shoring their manufacturing to the U.S., while scaling their manufacturing production in order to meet the increased demand.

 

“Bringing clean tech R&D and manufacturing jobs to the area has been a vision since our start at the Syracuse Center of Excellence and the Syracuse Tech Garden,” Dusty Billings, CEO of Nectar Partners, said in the SUNY Poly news release. “The region has a tradition of growth through technology, and bringing clean tech companies to grow in Onondaga County builds our economy as a global hub of clean technology innovation, education and manufacturing for generations to come.”     

 

 

POTSDAM — The CEO of LC Drives, a startup firm operating at the Clarkson University incubator center in Potsdam, says the company remains in the development stage as it seeks to help create better electric motors.

 

LC Drives was among 13 upstate New York companies that won funding awards in the 14th round of CenterState CEO’s Grants for Growth program. The organization announced the awards at an Aug. 27 event at the Syracuse Tech Garden. LC Drives will receive $125,000, according to CenterState CEO.

 

“We’re developing the next generation of electric motors. The motors are smaller, lighter, more efficient, and cheaper than conventional motors,” Russel Marvin, the firm’s CEO, tells CNYBJ in a Sept. 28 interview.

 

LC Drives plans to manufacture the motors and ship them to customers and markets “around the world,” he adds.

 

The firm is targeting the oil and gas drilling, wind turbine, industrial, mining, marine propulsion, and electric-vehicle propulsion markets. 

 

“With it being the next generation in electric machines in the larger-size range, there are many different markets that make sense,” says Marvin. 

 

Marvin, the firm’s majority owner, is among five people who founded and own the company, he says. 

 

LC Drives employs 10 people, including six part-time workers. 

 

“There’s … four of us putting full energy into the company,” says Marvin.

 

The name LC Drives comes from the term lightweight commutated drives. 

 

“Our electric motors are lightweight and commutated, so it came off of the technical details of when we formed,” says Marvin.

 

“So we use permanent magna technology to be able to make [the motor] smaller and so … customers can either get more power in the same space, [have it] weigh less, or be higher performance, or some combination thereof. So it’s really something we believe, at least for larger-size motors, to be the next generation in electric motors you’re going to see around the world,” Marvin explained to CNYBJ at the Aug. 27 CenterState CEO event.

 

Besides the Grants for Growth award, LC Drives has also secured funding through federal programs. They include the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense. 

 

It has also secured funding through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the Seaway Private Equity Corp., which is based in Potsdam. 

 

LC Drives has accumulated more than $1 million in funding so far, says Marvin.

 

NYSERDA announced a $75,000 award for LC Drives in April 2014 for its work in reducing the cost of hybrid-bus motors. The Potsdam firm is using that funding as it works with Smithtown, New York–based Unique Technical Services LLC to expand the technology for use in hybrid electric buses.

 

The companies are working to improve motor design to “cut in half” the cost of bus-motor systems.

 

Prior to launching LC Drives, Marvin founded and operated a company called Optiwind in Goshen, Connecticut, which developed wind turbines. The firm no longer operates. 

 

Marvin started LC Drives while living in Connecticut and eventually moved it to the Clarkson incubator center in 2013 “to take advantage of all the resources available,” he says.

 

Marvin earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Clarkson in 1988, according to his LinkedIn page.