Cuomo announces land purchase for future Binghamton University School of Pharmacy

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JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. — Binghamton University has purchased land in Johnson City that will serve as the home for its future School of Pharmacy and

Mark Tierno, Cazenovia College president, to retire in 2016

Banks & Credit Unions, Construction, Design & Real Estate, Health Care, Nonprofits, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

CAZENOVIA, N.Y. — Cazenovia College President Mark Tierno has announced plans to retire from his position on June 30, 2016. Tierno made the announcement during

New York’s jobless claims rise 4 percent in latest week

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, New York News

The number of people filing initial applications for unemployment benefits in New York state increased more than 4 percent to 18,969 in the week ending

Destiny USA to hold job fair Oct. 2

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Destiny USA will hold its seventh job fair next Thursday, Oct. 2 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the third level

Inficon expanding to handle global demand

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Subscriber Only, Technology

DeWITT — Central New York’s sensor and instrumentation sector is “strong” and “growing.” Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, made the comment in his remarks during the ceremony that formally launched construction on an expansion project at Inficon, Inc. in DeWitt. “The work that Inficon does to connect us to the global economy

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DeWITT — Central New York’s sensor and instrumentation sector is “strong” and “growing.”

Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, made the comment in his remarks during the ceremony that formally launched construction on an expansion project at Inficon, Inc. in DeWitt.

“The work that Inficon does to connect us to the global economy is amongst the best examples we have in this region of companies who understand their place in that economy,” Simpson said.

Nearly 80 percent of the products that Inficon manufactures in DeWitt are sold elsewhere in the world.

Simpson called that statistic “a remarkable thing.”

He spoke on Sept. 23 as Inficon formally started its $20 million, 64,000-square-foot building expansion with a ceremony outside its facility in DeWitt.

The expansion will create 40 new jobs and help to retain the 240 existing jobs at its location at Two Technology Place, just off Fly Road.

“Construction is starting now and will continue throughout next year. We will move into the new space in the winter of 2015-2016,” Peter Maier, company president, said in his remarks during the ceremony.

The Switzerland–based technology firm provides sensor technologies, advanced process-control software, gas analyzers, leak detectors, and portable chemical-identification systems.

“Our technology is used in the production process in making the chips for the very latest generation of smartphones,” said Maier.

The firm’s technology also supports the protection of the environment and helps to keep people safe from “harmful effects” of chemicals, he contended.

Inficon currently employs 250 people in DeWitt in a plant that generates $140 million in annual sales, according to Maier.

Inficon, which has operated in Central New York for nearly half a century, is near capacity in its current 30 year-old building, according to a news release the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo distributed on Tuesday.

The expansion will become part of the company’s existing 140,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

“The facility will not just add space but will also allow us to become more flexible and efficient, and that in turn, will improve our global competitiveness,” said Maier.

The project is described as “the first part of a multi-phase expansion plan” that will enable Inficon to “grow and improve” sales and exports, Cuomo’s office said.

New York is providing Inficon with a $1 million grant and $1.5 million in Empire State Development’s performance-based Excelsior Jobs program tax credits, which are tied directly to job-creation commitments and were critical in the company expanding in Central New York versus other global locations, according to Cuomo’s office.

The Central New York regional economic-development council identified the Inficon expansion project as a “regional priority,” as it aligns with the council’s plan for economic growth by attracting investment in the high-tech industry, according to Cuomo’s office.

Inficon is headquartered in Switzerland and has manufacturing facilities in the U.S, Europe, and China, along with subsidiaries in China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Collections firm is building a new headquarters in Clay, rebranding

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Insurance & Financial Services, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Subscriber Only

CLAY — Work is under way on a new 5,000-square-foot building for Simon’s Agency, Inc. at 4938 W. Taft Road in Clay, across from a Wegmans store. Simon’s Agency is a collections business currently headquartered in a 2,500-square-foot space at 3713 Brewerton Road in Clay. The firm broke ground Aug. 27 on the new building

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CLAY — Work is under way on a new 5,000-square-foot building for Simon’s Agency, Inc. at 4938 W. Taft Road in Clay, across from a Wegmans store.

Simon’s Agency is a collections business currently headquartered in a 2,500-square-foot space at 3713 Brewerton Road in Clay.

The firm broke ground Aug. 27 on the new building that doubles its operating space, according to a news release Simon’s Agency issued recently.

Rich & Gardner Construction Co. of Syracuse is the contractor on the project. Other local contractors will handle additional work, including office layout, furnishings, technology, and security, the release stated.

Simon’s Agency is hoping to move into the new building on Dec. 15.

The firm currently employs 18 people and is the process of hiring three additional employees.

Once the business moves to its new facility, it has plans for additional hiring, as the new facility will allow for “a mixture of at least 50 full and part-time employees.”

Simon’s Agency said it would phase in the new employees over a 30 to 36-month period.

The new office will also provide for an increased capacity to handle more accounts as the firm’s territory expands into downstate New York, Long Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Besides its Central New York office, Simon’s Agency also has a satellite office and a sales representative in Spotswood, N.J.

The last decade has represented “the largest growth” the company has sustained through the years, but it “pales in comparison” to where it is heading in the next decade, Phillip Bova, owner of the Simon’s Agency, said.

“A changing landscape with regard to technology, in particular the Internet, has allowed Simon’s to grow beyond the scope I had imagined possible and now it’s time to reinforce this technological advancement with a new facility that can house the employees we will need to sustain this growth into the future,” said Bova.

Besides the construction on its new building, Simon’s Agency has also completed a rebranding effort with a new logo and website “to better reflect its position as a regional-collection agency throughout the Northeast.”

Besides the new logo, Simon’s also worked with ACS, Inc., a Clay–based web-design firm, to launch a “far more detailed and responsive” website, the agency said.

Simon’s believes the new site outlines its services “more effectively” and provides its clients direct access to its client-reporting system and integrated file-placement system, which it began offering this summer.

Simon’s Agency says on its website that it “has a primary focus of collecting on outstanding debts owed to our clients by executing debt recovery solutions rooted in modernized technology, advanced information architecture, dynamic statistical analysis and focused human-to-human communication with debtors.”

The company also says it offer debt-purchasing solutions, credit reporting, and final attorney litigation as “a last resort.”

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Runnings, set for spring opening in Clay, offers outdoor sporting goods

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

CLAY — Runnings — a Minnesota–based, family-owned retailer that is expanding into Central New York — markets itself as “Your Home, Farm, and Outdoor Store.” It includes outdoor sporting goods among its product offerings. “That is … about hunting, fishing, shooting sports, archery, camping … very much the outdoor lifestyle,” says Dennis Jensen, the company’s

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“That is … about hunting, fishing, shooting sports, archery, camping … very much the outdoor lifestyle,” says Dennis Jensen, the company’s director of marketing and advertising.

Jensen spoke with the Business Journal News Network on Sept. 18. Two weeks earlier, the retailer announced plans to open a store in Clay next spring.

For most of its existence, consumers have known Runnings as a farm-supply store. But, when consumers started requesting clothing, footwear, and sporting goods, the company started adding the products over the past decade, says Jensen.

Besides sporting goods, the retailer also sells items that include clothing, footwear, pet supplies, housewares, tools, farm supplies, lawn and garden supplies, and toys.

Runnings will move into a 117,000-square-foot space at 3949 Route 31 in Clay, the former Walmart location situated next door to Walmart’s new store.

The Clay store is the next step in a broader expansion across upstate New York that Runnings announced in mid-July.

The company opened new stores on Sept. 9 in Rome, Gloversville, and Canandaigua, representing the first “major regional expansion” in Runnings’ 67-year history, the company said in the July news release.

For its Clay store, Runnings bought the property from WalMart’s real-estate business, says Jensen. He declined to comment on the purchase price or disclose how the company financed the property acquisition.

However, Onondaga County Office of Real Property Tax Services online records show that Runnings, under the name JR&R II, LLC, bought the property for more than $4.8 million.

Runnings is still in the “initial stages” of hiring a contractor to renovate the property for a new store, as well as hiring the store’s future employees, according to Jensen.

“Once the contracts are signed and all the paperwork is completed, then we will start the process of hiring contractors to begin renovations in those buildings,” he says, referring to the location in Clay and one in New Hampshire that’s scheduled to open at the same time.

Runnings plans to hire between 60 and 75 employees (a mix of full-time and part-time) to work in the Clay store, Jensen adds.

The Upstate stores that opened in early September hired between 75 and 80 employees each.

When asked why Runnings decided to expand into upstate New York as opposed to any other location in the country, Jensen says it started with the available space.

“We were notified of several properties … that were currently open,” he says, noting the process started about a year ago.

Runnings sent representatives to the Upstate region to conduct “a deeper evaluation” of the landscape, the lifestyle, [and] the people, and decided “quickly” that Runnings stores could work in upstate New York, according to Jensen.

“It’s a very rural area … got a lot of woods. It’s got farm area. It’s got people that love the outdoor lifestyle,” he says.

Founded in 1947, Runnings is a privately held company that the Dennis and Adele Reed family owns. The retailer currently operates 37 stores and employs more than 1,700 workers in its stores in upstate New York and across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

SU’s Maxwell School receives $1 million grant

Health Care, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (SU) will use a two-year, $1 million grant to develop a program connecting academics and policymakers. The Maxwell School made the announcement in a news release Sept. 23. The Carnegie Corporation of New York named the Maxwell School as one of five

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SYRACUSE — The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (SU) will use a two-year, $1 million grant to develop a program connecting academics and policymakers.

The Maxwell School made the announcement in a news release Sept. 23.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York named the Maxwell School as one of five institutional grant recipients through its initiative, entitled “Rigor and Relevance: Bridging the Academic-Policy Gap,” the school said in the news release.

With this funding, the Maxwell School will create the Carnegie International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network.

The group will bring together faculty from international-relations graduate programs to teach and mentor students, scholars, and policymakers, the school said.

The mentoring will focus on preparing graduate students for successful careers in both policymaking and academia and fostering “enhanced” interaction between the two communities.

The program centers on “bridging the gap” between the academic world and the world of practice, James Steinberg, dean of the Maxwell School, said in the news release.

“With this funding, we will develop educational materials and innovative instructional approaches that combine intellectual rigor with the ability to adapt that thinking to the constraints of real-world decision making,” said Steinberg. “Through the Carnegie International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network, we seek to bring an interdisciplinary approach to complex international affairs and to build a network of faculty and students across multiple institutions to pursue these goals.”

Initial consortium members include faculty from Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Indiana University, the University of Virginia, as well as scholars from the Washington, D.C.–based Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Cambridge, Mass.–based American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Besides curriculum building, mentorship, conferences, and workshops, the grant will also support the creation of a “synchronous, distance-learning environment” based at SU called the “distance-learning collaboratory.”

The effort will allow students in international relations and security studies to interact with faculty members and other students in the consortium schools in real time.

The project goal is to improve the communication between academics and policymakers and thereby produce better policymaking and more policy-relevant research and teaching.

The five grant awardees had responded to the corporation’s competition challenging the 22 American–based members of the College Park, Md.–based Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) to present proposals outlining “novel, feasible” ways to “bridge the gap” between academics working on complex foreign-policy issues and policymakers dealing with the same concerns.

Experts in the international-relations field — who Carnegie chose for their understanding of the policymaking process in Washington, D.C.; knowledge of APSIA; and awareness of the administrative challenges of universities — reviewed all proposals, according to the Maxwell School.

Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding,” according to the corporation’s website.

In keeping with this mandate, the corporation’s work focuses on the issues that Carnegie considered of “paramount” importance, including international peace, the advancement of education and knowledge, and the strength of the nation’s democracy.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Syracuse’s Inner Harbor will be home to a SUNY Water Research and Education Center

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Health Care, Manufacturing & Engineering, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) recently completed what its top official referred to as a “24-hour bio blitz.” The school’s faculty and students documented more than 450 different kinds of plants and animals “thriving” in and around the shores of Onondaga Lake, Quentin Wheeler, president

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SYRACUSE — The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) recently completed what its top official referred to as a “24-hour bio blitz.”

The school’s faculty and students documented more than 450 different kinds of plants and animals “thriving” in and around the shores of Onondaga Lake, Quentin Wheeler, president of SUNY-ESF said as he addressed a crowd at the boathouse in Syracuse’s Inner Harbor.

“As we study and monitor and track the restoration of the lake in the years ahead, this news will get only better,” said Wheeler.

He was among the speakers at a Sept. 16 event announcing that SUNY-ESF and Onondaga Community College (OCC) had won a $20 million grant as part of the NYSUNY 2020 program.

The schools will use the funding for a SUNY Water Research and Education Center in Syracuse’s Inner Harbor.

“This SUNY 2020 Challenge Grant investment will make a substantial difference in research, education, and economic development in the lake and region,” Wheeler said in his remarks.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the official announcement during the same event.

The local grant announcement is part of $55 million in state funding that will benefit a total of five projects statewide in the third round of NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant program.

“The competition is basically about what school can come up with the most creative plan to advance their educational agenda, but also create jobs,” Cuomo said in speaking to local reporters after the Inner Harbor event.

As part of legislation Cuomo signed in August 2011, the NYSUNY2020 program “will help New York’s public universities become a leading catalyst for regionally-focused economic development while maintaining affordability and improving academic quality for all students,” his office said at the time.

“It’s a smart, forward-thinking program because in the 21st century, the university is no longer simply a university, it’s a central part of the surrounding economy,” Casey Crabill, OCC president said during her remarks.

About the center
The SUNY Water Research and Education Center will bring research, educational opportunity, tourism, and sustainable development to the shores of Onondaga Lake, Cuomo’s office said in a news release announcing the grant.

Scientists from SUNY-ESF, the DeWitt–based Upstate Freshwater Institute, and the Syracuse–based Onondaga Environmental Institute will monitor changes to the lake ecosystems.

The project is a 34,000-square-foot building that the developer will target for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, Cuomo’s office said. The project is part of the ongoing Syracuse Inner Harbor revitalization initiative.

The state projects the short-term economic impact of upcoming center at $37 million with the creation of 532 temporary jobs.

It also projects the long-term economic impact at an estimated $11 million annually, as the state expects the new center to create and sustain 186 permanent jobs, according to the news release.

The grant award will also include a new tax-free zone through the START-UP NY program.

START-UP NY is Cuomo’s offer to new or expanding companies and business ventures to operate completely tax-free in areas on or connected to SUNY campuses.

“The concept is most of the jobs are coming out of higher-educational facilities, so there’s a partnership between the startup program [and SUNY schools] … this puts it all together,” Cuomo told reporters.

Cuomo’s office contends that companies will be attracted to the center in connection to the START-UP NY program and on-site research allowing for future expansion and job growth.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

OSHA Changes Reporting Requirements for Work-Related Accidents

Business Mentors, Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Subscriber Only

On Sept. 11, 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), announced a final rule (https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping2014/NAICSReporting.pdf) amending its injury and illness recording and reporting requirements. Although the rule has not yet been published in the Federal Register, it has been submitted for publication. The final rule will be effective on Jan. 1, 2015. The

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The most notable change in the rule pertains to the reporting requirement for hospitalizations following work-related accidents. Under the current rule in effect until Dec. 31, 2014, an employer must report an “in-patient hospitalization of three or more employees as a result of a work-related incident” within eight hours. Under the proposed rule, an employer must report an “in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees or an employee’s amputation or an employee’s loss of an eye, because of a work-related incident” within 24 hours. The rule also provides another means (besides calling the OSHA area office or the 1-800-321-OSHA hotline) for reporting a fatality or hospitalization: electronic submission through a web portal at www.osha.gov. There is also one important distinction: “in-patient hospitalization” in the revised rule is defined as “formal admission to the in-patient service of a hospital or clinic for care or treatment”; the preamble to the rule makes clear that if the admission is for observation or diagnostic testing only, it is not required to be reported. The requirement to report fatalities within eight hours remains unchanged under the revised rule.

The rule also amends the list of industries that do not need to keep injury and illness records unless otherwise informed by OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The revised list can be found in the amendment to the Non-Mandatory Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904 in the final rule. Employers with 10 or fewer employees still need not keep injury and illness records unless otherwise informed by OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. All employers, regardless of size or industry, must comply with the 8/24 hour reporting requirements for work-related fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, or loss of an eye as set forth in the rule.

Michael D. Billok is an associate in the Albany office of Bond Schoeneck & King PLLC, a Syracuse–based law firm. He has represented numerous clients during both inspections and the post-inspection citation process before OSHA, as well as state agencies that operate their own OSHA-compliant programs. Contact Billok at mbillok@bsk.com. This viewpoint article is drawn and edited from a Sept. 15 blog posting on the law firm’s New York Labor & Employment Law Report blog.

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