CORTLAND, N.Y. — The Cortland County Chamber of Commerce has joined the CenterState Chamber Alliance.

The Cortland County Chamber joins CenterState CEO and the Cayuga County and Greater Utica Chambers of Commerce in the Chamber Alliance, “furthering the reach of the already broad regional-business community,” according to a news release the alliance issued on Thursday.

Syracuse–based CenterState CEO — a regional business-leadership, chamber of commerce, and economic-development organization — formally launched the alliance in June 2012.

The four organizations say they will actively market each other’s programs and events and promote cross-member participation.

Under the partnership, the Cortland County Chamber of Commerce will maintain its local identity, management team, board control, member-relations efforts, and services, the Chamber Alliance noted.

The Chamber Alliance offers members access to “even more” benefits and member-to-member connections, according to the news release.

The CenterState Chamber Alliance lists member benefits that include cost savings and access to training programs, regional networking opportunities, inclusion in a printed regional chamber directory, and a “unified voice for advocacy.”

“We are excited to welcome the Cortland County Chamber of Commerce as our newest partner in the CenterState Chamber Alliance,” Jane Amico, vice president of chamber services at CenterState CEO, said in the news release. “This further strengthens the reach of our alliance, and broadens the benefits all of our members receive.”

As a member of the CenterState Chamber Alliance, the Cortland County Chamber will be able to deliver more services and leadership opportunities to its members, and advance opportunities for regional growth,” the alliance contends.

 “As we look to expand the Cortland County Chamber of Commerce’s regional economic-development focus, it makes sense to be part of an organization that can strengthen our members’ connections across the region,” Bob Haight, president and CEO of the Cortland County Chamber of Commerce, said in the news release. “Through this partnership, we have an amplified and more unified business advocacy voice, and can better position our members for future growth.”

The opportunity for “enhanced member-to-member connections are instrumental” as the CenterState Chamber Alliance advances the region’s economic-development strategy, the alliance said in the release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

WATERTOWN — The Watertown City Council finalized more than $9 million in construction contracts after voting, 4 to 1, in favor of a $10.3 million project on April 6 for the reconstruction and expansion of the Watertown Municipal Arena. The city council awarded the contracts on March 30 in a special meeting, but the contracts were conditional upon the approval of the project itself.

The city-owned arena, located at 600 William T. Field Drive at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds, is an enclosed structure used as an ice rink in the winter months. It’s used for concerts and other events, including the Jefferson County Fair, in warmer months.

The general contractor for the project is Bette & Cring, which is based near Albany. It also has an office at 18438 U.S. Route 11 in the town of Watertown. The contract is for $6.27 million.

Sackets Harbor–based Lawman Heating & Cooling, Inc. was awarded nearly $2.9 million total in contracts — $1,229,000 for mechanical work, 

$976,000 for electrical, and $668,000 for plumbing and fire protection.

The City of Watertown received 19 bids in each of the four areas where contracts were granted, according to the minutes of the city council’s March 30 meeting. All contracts were awarded to the lowest bidder that met the city’s specifications.

The arena has been in need of structural work for some time, says Erin Gardner, superintendent of the Watertown Parks & Recreation Department, which manages the facility. “The arena was originally built to be an outdoor recreations arena,” she says. In 1978, three years after the arena was completed, walls were added to enclose it, according to a study paid for by the city and completed in 2009 by Watertown–based BCA Architects & Engineers.

It was never meant to accommodate the level of use it sees now, she says, with student hockey and figure-skating teams, and one minor-league professional hockey team — the Watertown Wolves of the Federal Hockey League — making it their home. Currently, hockey players have to go through the lobby and the concession area to travel between the locker rooms (which are too small) and the ice rink, Gardner says, which has led to interactions between players and fans.

Apart from the design flaws, the structure itself is deteriorating, Gardner says. Tiles are crumbling, restroom and locker room fixtures are in poor shape, and the roof needs work. “The roof leaks on every event when it rains,” Gardner says.

The reconstruction and expansion project will fix the leaky roof, and add locker rooms and restrooms, she says. New bleachers will be back-fed by a new second-story aisle way to prevent player–audience interactions. Another addition will be built to the front of the building for a new lobby, offices, and concessions area, she says.

Thomas Maurer, civil engineer 1 in Watertown’s engineering department, told CNYBJ that additional improvements include a two-story addition on a back corner of the building containing new locker, team, and laundry rooms, as well as office space. A new fire sprinkler system will be installed, as well as a new ice-rink floor and press box.

Because the arena uses bleachers, the exact seating capacity isn’t known, but Gardner estimates it can hold between 1,150 and 1,200 people for hockey games. That number should go up after the renovations, she says.

The project has been in development for several years. In fiscal year 2013-14, the city budgeted $3.6 million for the arena project, reflecting what the city then expected it would cost. In July 2013, the city council approved the hiring of the Albany office of Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., to design the reconstruction and expansion. A year later, the city budgeted $6.3 million for the project after receiving cost estimates from Stantec Consulting, nearly double what was previously expected. That number leapt again this past January to $8.2 million, revealed during a city council meeting.

The city accepted bids for the project from Jan. 29 to Feb. 20. Once the bids were opened, the final cost of the project clocked in at its current $10.3 million amount, which includes the nearly $700,000 that was paid to Stantec Consulting for its design work. How the city will fund the remainder of the cost of the project has not yet been decided.                       

SYRACUSE — The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Boots to Business program has trained 25,000 transitioning service members. 

Maria Contreras-Sweet, SBA administrator, made the announcement on April 21 at Syracuse University’s (SU) Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF).

Boots to Business is the entrepreneurship track of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP). 

It has provided entrepreneurship and business-planning training to members of the U.S. armed forces who are transitioning to civilian life, “giving them the tools to start their own successful companies,” according to an SBA news release announcing the number of those trained.

The SBA wants to “make certain” that the nation’s men and women in uniform “get the support that they need” to transition out into American-civilian life, Contreras-

Sweet said in her remarks at the IVMF.

“Syracuse [University] stood up [with a] really important program that we noted and seized and so they’ve become very important partners for the SBA,” she added.

Contreras-Sweet said she’s “really proud” that SU helped the SBA launch the Boots to Business initiative.

Boots to Business helps veterans “in that transition from their uniformed life into a civilian life,” said Contreras-Sweet.

In the SBA news release, Contreras-Sweet described the program’s purpose.

“Boots to Business helps our service members and their spouses explore careers in entrepreneurship by showing them how to apply their military skills to start and grow their business. Our veterans deserve every chance at success, and our economic future requires that we help them acquire the skills necessary to start the next generation of great American businesses,” the SBA administrator said. 

Boots to Business is now available on more than 165 military installations worldwide, the SBA said in the release. 

The training program provides military service members and their spouses the opportunity to explore business ownership and self-employment; helps them evaluate the feasibility of their business concepts; and connects the aspiring business owners to SBA’s network of resource partners, the agency said.

Initiated as a pilot program in 2012 and expanded nationally in 2013, Boots to Business utilizes SBA resource partners — including the Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOC), Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), Women’s Business Centers (WBC), SCORE, and SU’s IVMF — to deliver entrepreneurship education and training to transitioning service members and their dependents who are exploring or pursuing small-business ownership and self-employment.

Boots to Business is available at no charge on military installations worldwide to service members and military spouses transitioning or retiring from service, the SBA said.

WISE message

Prior to her remarks at the IVMF, Contreras-Sweet also spoke at the 13th annual WISE Symposium at the nearby Carrier Dome.

“The fact that you call the conference, WISE, is a wise move, I must say … this whole notion of women inspiring the spirit of entrepreneurship I think is just that,” Contreras-Sweet said about WISE as she opened her talk at the IVMF.

The event targets young entrepreneurs and anyone active in the business community interested in networking with “smart, savvy” women in business, according to the WISE website.

WISE is short for Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship.

“More and more women find themselves not only wanting to create their own business but in many instances, having to create their own business to provide for their families,” Contreras-Sweet added.

Her message at the WISE Symposium noted that women should also be thinking about “growing companies to scale.”

She noted the recent launch of the SBA program called InnovateHER “because we wanted women to know that they too can create the next Google, the next Microsoft … the next Uber,” said Contreras-Sweet in response to a CNYBJ inquiry at the IVMF news conference.

The SBA started “InnovateHER: 2015 Innovating for Women Business Challenge” in March. It’s a nationwide competition for entrepreneurs focusing on products and services that will benefit women and their families (See story above).

“We want women to get in the game,” she added.

The WISE Symposium featured between 125 and 130 exhibitors, speakers, and breakout session on various business topics, says Lindsay Wickham, event manager for the WISE Symposium.

Wickham also serves as events and communications manager at the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

The conference, which had been held at the Oncenter, moved to the Carrier Dome as part of SU’s One University initiative, says Wickham.

“We want to bring together community with campus, so we decided what better way than to [hold] it up here at the Carrier Dome where we can invite students, faculty, and staff and show the community what amazing entrepreneurial things are happening,” says Wickham. 

The school has been hosting One University events that seek to “bring together small groups of faculty and staff from across a range of academic and administrative units to meet, talk and get to know each other a little better,” according to a Nov. 21, 2014, news release on the SU website.        

SYRACUSE — Businesses change hands for numerous reasons — including illness, death, and retirement — and the best piece of advice from those who have been through the process is to have a plan.

Setting a plan made for a relatively smooth transition at N.K. Bhandari, Architecture & Engineering, P.C. (www.nkbpc.com), even with unexpected bumps along the way, says the firm’s new president and owner Christopher Resig.

When he rejoined the firm in 2010, the business carefully planned for Resig to step into the role previously filled by his brother James. Christopher Resig previously worked for the firm for just more than 12 years until the mid-1990s.

James Resig worked for the company since its founding in 1980, eventually becoming president and owner. When it came to his attention that Christopher, who spent 15 years working elsewhere, wasn’t really happy with his job, he approached his brother and offered him a job with the opportunity to eventually become the owner.

“It took me less than probably two weeks to think about that,” Christopher says. “It just looked like a marvelous opportunity for Jim and I to work together again.”

So Resig, an architect, rejoined N.K. Bhandari, and he and his brother got to work mapping out a succession plan. While they worked hard over the past five years creating that plan with a team of advisers and gradually transitioning responsibilities to Christopher Resig, the process hit an unexpected twist just over two years ago when James learned he had cancer.

“There was nothing unplanned and unorganized regarding the transition, except his health,” Christopher Resig says. While his brother underwent treatment, Resig assumed more responsibilities at the business and allowed his brother to focus on his health. The transition to president took place on Jan. 1 of this year. James Resig, 60, passed away on Feb. 1.

Christopher Resig says he is so grateful he had been able to spend the past five years working side by side with his brother and to be there to support both his brother and the business during the past two years. “The way he and I looked at this situation was that the good Lord put us together,” he says.

Other changes at N.K. Bhandari include the addition of Daniel Heukrath as practice leader, where he will oversee business development and client relationships, and Carl Nordberg as senior project engineer, where he will work with clients, staff, and project managers in the development and delivery of large, complex projects.

Resig credits the firm’s transition team for helping the process go as smoothly as it did. That team included attorney Elizabeth Hartnett of Mackenzie Hughes, LLP; CPA William Killory of Dermody, Burke & Brown CPAs, LLC; and strategic-planning consultant Jan Thirlby of Thirlby Consulting, LLC. “They advised us every step of the way,” Resig says. 

Another benefit to him during the transition process was participating in the Small Business Administration’s 2014 Emerging Leaders Program. The seven-month program covered a range of topics from setting goals to human resources. “Going through the Emerging Leaders Program prepared me for ownership of the firm,” Resig says.

Now at the helm, Resig says he’s continuing to build the legacy started by his brother and firm founder Narindar K. Bhandari. To help accomplish that, the firm has been working for several years on a strategic plan for growth and diversification.

In 2010, about 95 percent of N.K. Bhandari’s revenue came from a single client with a single contract, Resig says. Today, its revenue comes equally from about four or five different sectors and clients. While the firm previously focused on federal-government work before, it now serves several different markets — federal, state, corporate, industrial, higher education, K-12 education, health care, municipal, and facilities.

“We have retooled who we are,” Resig says.

Going forward, N.K. Bhandari will also begin work in the K-12 education field and hopes to soon land a five-year federal contract that would generate “significant” revenue for the firm, he says. Resig declined to disclose revenue totals or projections.

N.K. Bhandari is also looking into a technology initiative that would help design buildings that perform better for clients, he adds.

“We are on the precipice of marvelous things going forward,” Resig says.

Headquartered in just over 5,000 square feet at 1005 W. Fayette St. in Syracuse, N.K. Bhandari provides architectural and engineering services to a variety of markets. The firm has 12 full-time employees, plus it calls in five employees as needed.