SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV), plans this spring to move its local office to a new, smaller facility in the Salina Meadows office park in Salina from its current home in the Galleries of Syracuse, a Travelers spokesman confirms. 

The employees will move to the new facility, located at 301 Plainfield Road in the office park, in May, says Matt Bordonaro, Travelers’ head of media relations, based in Hartford, Connecticut.

 “We are relocating to a nearby office building that better suits the employees,” he says. “We continue to be committed to the community there.”

The new office, which will have nearly 70 employees, will focus mainly on business insurance, Bordonaro says.

The move comes after Travelers reduced its Syracuse workforce — at the Galleries of Syracuse at 440 S. Warren St. — by about 70 percent in the last two years, eliminating about 160 local positions in its personal-insurance line of business, which includes auto coverage. The move, which was first announced in July 2013, was part of a broader effort to cut nearly 450 positions nationwide in personal insurance.

The company completed the last major portion of the Syracuse job reductions by September 2014, according to formal notices filed with the New York State Department of Labor.

“We made a decision to reduce expenses for personal insurance, including staffing at the location,” Bordonaro says,  “… [to] “improve our competitive position and pricing.”

He declines to provide square footage for the firm’s current and future offices.

The Travelers Companies on Jan. 22 reported total revenue of nearly $27.2 billion in 2014, up 4 percent from 2013. The insurer generated net income of nearly $3.7 billion last year, up 1 percent from 2013.        

SYRACUSE — The Central New York Sales & Marketing Executives (CNYSME) has chosen Robert Daino, president and CEO of WCNY, the area’s public broadcaster, as the 2015 recipient of the Crystal Ball Award. 

The organization annually bestows the award to a local businessperson who has contributed to the sales and marketing profession and has worked in community development and support.

CNYSME will present Daino with the Crystal Ball Award on April 16 at the 39th annual Crystal Ball and Sales & Marketing Excellence Awards (SMEA) ceremony at the Holiday Inn Syracuse-Liverpool on Electronics Parkway in Salina.

Michelle Fontaine, who serves as the co-chair of the Crystal Ball and SMEA ceremony, says CNYSME liked Daino’s investment in the Central New York community.

“He’s very engaged with the community,” she says.

Fontaine also cites WCNY’s education center, which includes Enterprise America, a “hands-on co-curricular program for middle-school students” in which they learn how to operate a city and its businesses.

Fontaine calls the student program “huge [from] a sales and marketing perspective.” 

Besides her role with CNYSME, Fontaine is also a sales coordinator for Visual Technologies at 1620 Burnett Ave. in Syracuse.

In an email message to CNYBJ, Daino said he is “personally humbled” that CNYSME selected him as the 2015 recipient of the Crystal Ball Award.

“But I am also proud to share this honor with past and future recipients, to be one of many who strive to make Central New York an outstanding community,” said Daino.

Daino has served as the top official at WCNY-TV/FM since June 1, 2005.

“It’s been energizing to be part of a community of people who consistently come together with commitment and passion, working together to create, revitalize, and reinvent the place we call home,” he added.

Daino will join a list of past Crystal Ball winners that includes the 2014 recipient, Howard Dolgon, owner, president, CEO, and team governor of the Syracuse Crunch minor league hockey team; and the 2013 winner, Peter Belyea, president of CXtec and TERACAI. 

Other past winners include Debbie Sydow, former president of Onondaga Community College in 2012; John Stage, founder and CEO of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in 2011; Peter Coleman, the publican of Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub in 2010; and Edward (Ed) Levine, president and CEO of Galaxy Communications, LLC in Syracuse in 2009, according to the CNYSME website.

Accomplishments

Among his accomplishments, Daino helped lead the organization in its recent move to a new location on Syracuse’s Near Westside.

WCNY, Central New York’s public-broadcasting company, on Oct. 30, 2013 formally opened its new, 56,000-square-foot broadcast and education center at 415 W. Fayette St. in Syracuse.

WCNY moved into the new facility earlier that year, after having previously operated at 506 Old Liverpool Road in Salina.

The project’s construction and capital costs totaled about $20 million, according to a WCNY fact sheet on the project. The organization used both private and public funding to finance the project.

Two buildings make up the campus, including the refurbished 30,000-square-foot former Case Supply building, and the new 26,000-square-foot technology building that includes studios and the space leased to Centralcast, LLC that provides television-content delivery services for all stations in New York and New Jersey, WHYY in Philadelphia, WTVI in Charlotte, and several other stations.

The facility also includes WCNY’s 10,000-square-foot education center, which occupies the third floor. The center features education programs including Enterprise America, described as a hands-on learning program for high-school students to learn about entrepreneurship in a “simulated city,” the organization said. 

About WCNY

WCNY is a private, nonprofit organization and member-supported PBS affiliate that employs close to 70 people, according to the organization.

Its broadcast area encompasses about one-third of upstate New York and reaches more than 1.8 million people in 19 counties, the organization said.

WCNY broadcasts five digital television channels, including WCNY, Create, World, Plus, and HowTo. 

It also broadcasts three primary radio channels, including Classic FM (91.3 in Syracuse, 89.5 in the Utica–Rome area, and 90.9 in Watertown and the North Country) and its ReadOut channel, which delivers content for the visually impaired. 

Its Classical, Jazz, and Oldies formats are available in high-definition (HD) via online streaming, according to WCNY.               

Manufacturing activity in New York posted a big rebound in January after plunging the month before.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Jan. 15 that its Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business-conditions index climbed 11 points to 10. 

That’s a big bounce back from December when the index had tumbled 14 points to its first negative reading in nearly two years.

The January report found 33 percent of New York manufacturing respondents felt that conditions had improved, while 23 percent reported that conditions had worsened. The survey also showed “modest” growth in new orders and shipments, according to the New York Fed.

The new-orders index rose six points to 6.1, and the shipments index rose seven points to 9.6.

The unfilled-orders index moved up after a sharp decline in December, but remained negative at -8.4. 

The delivery-time index was -5.3, pointing to shorter delivery times, and the inventories index was -7.4, suggesting a decline in inventory levels.

Labor-market indicators were mixed. 

The index for number of employees climbed five points to 13.7 in January, suggesting that employment levels “continued to increase.” 

The average-workweek index, however, remained below zero and, at -8.4, pointed to a decline in hours worked for a fourth consecutive month.

The prices-paid index was little changed at 12.6; for a fourth straight month, it showed a modest increase in input prices. 

The prices-received index rose for a second month, a sign that selling prices were “increasing at a faster pace.” 

Indexes assessing the six-month outlook conveyed “considerable optimism” about future business activity. 

The index for future general-business conditions rose nine points to 48.4, with nearly 60 percent of respondents expecting conditions to improve. 

The future new orders and shipments indexes both advanced to levels just above 40.

The index for expected number of employees rose 11 points to 31.6, “its highest level in nearly three years,” indicating that respondents anticipate a “significant” expansion in employment in the months ahead.

The capital-expenditures index was “little changed” at 14.7, while the technology-spending index fell five points to 12.6.

The New York Fed distributes the Empire State Manufacturing Survey on the first day of each month to the same pool of about 200 manufacturing executives in New York. On average, about 100 executives return responses.