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Syracuse Coworks fills nearly half its space in first half-year
SYRACUSE — Just half a year after opening, Syracuse Coworks has filled about half the available slots it has for entrepreneur tenants and celebrated recently with a free coworking day and reception on May 10. Syracuse Coworks, a venture by Syracuse–based young professionals group 40 Below with support from law firm Harris Beach, opened in […]
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SYRACUSE — Just half a year after opening, Syracuse Coworks has filled about half the available slots it has for entrepreneur tenants and celebrated recently with a free coworking day and reception on May 10.
Syracuse Coworks, a venture by Syracuse–based young professionals group 40 Below with support from law firm Harris Beach, opened in downtown Syracuse’s Tech Garden last October. The Syracuse Coworks space provides a low-cost professional office environment for entrepreneurs.
“The response has been so enthusiastic,” says Jamie White, community manager for Syracuse Coworks. While praise has been lavished on the amenities of the 1,500-square-foot space, which includes wireless Internet access, printing services, and conference rooms, quite a bit of the buzz about Syracuse Coworks has been about the vibe of the space, White says.
Syracuse Coworks is more than just a place to meet with a client or to get some work done, White says. A typical entrepreneur starting a business most likely starts the business at home and often meets with clients at their business or at places like coffee shops, he says. That arrangement can work well in terms of getting business done, but there is something lacking in that arrangement — coworkers.
That’s where Syracuse Coworks really shines, he says, by creating a sense of community between its members and making them, in a sense, coworkers. It’s about connecting with other businesspeople, sharing the entrepreneurial spirit, and maybe even collaborating, White contends.
“You miss a lot of that human interaction you get from the traditional workspace,” he says. Syracuse Coworks helps fill that void.
That has certainly been the case for Troy Evans, a member who has been using the space for several months now. Evans is the owner of his own real-estate investment business, Hometown Communities, Inc., which he was running from his home. But he missed that office environment and thought Syracuse Coworks sounded like a great solution.
Evans describes the coworking space as great, but adds “I go there because there are really smart people there from all different backgrounds.”
“It was a great move for me,” Evans says. In addition to connecting with other entrepreneurs as he brainstorms ideas for another new business venture, joining Syracuse Coworks has already led to another opportunity for Evans, who will volunteer for the summer at the StartFast Venture Accelerator, also located in Tech Garden. Evans will help run the program, which gives participants guidance and opportunity to bring a business idea to fruition.
“It’s a nice little story of networking,” Evans says of how joining Syracuse Coworks led to the opportunity.
Currently, Evans is one of 10 members or tenants utilizing the space, White says. Other members come from a variety of industries including film, health care, social media marketing, web development, and even a coffee shop.
Depending on the needs of members, the space has room for between 20 and 25 members. Syracuse Coworks offers several levels of membership with varying amenities, he notes. For $225 per month, a member can be a full tenant with a designated personal desk and priority access to conference rooms. Syracuse Coworks offers two mid-level memberships — for $150 per month, members have around-the-clock access to the space but do not have their own desk and cannot leave items there, and for $100 per month, members can access the space Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Syracuse Coworks also has a $15 per-day drop-in rate.
White says he’s working to keep spreading the word about the space to attract more members, who also benefit from networking opportunities and workshops organized by Syracuse Coworkers.
“Eventually, the goal is to get these businesses get to a point where they say they’re too big for the coworking space,” White says. Those businesses will then move on, leaving room for a new fledgling company to join the coworking movement.
40 Below, which spent more than a year developing the idea and launching Syracuse Coworks, has more than 3,500 members and focuses on civic engagement, regional marketing and branding, and public arts. The organization partners with other groups such as SKYLO (Skaneateles Young Leaders Organization), the New York State Urban Council, and Ignite Syracuse to catalyze growth.
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Oneonta firm to research ultracapacitors
ONEONTA — Most people don’t think about capacitors, unless they’re talking about the flux capacitor in the DeLorean time machine in the 1985 movie “Back to the Future,” but capacitors help make our modern world go around. Capacitors, which are energy-storage devices, are in just about everything from our cars to our cellphones, according to
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ONEONTA — Most people don’t think about capacitors, unless they’re talking about the flux capacitor in the DeLorean time machine in the 1985 movie “Back to the Future,” but capacitors help make our modern world go around.
Capacitors, which are energy-storage devices, are in just about everything from our cars to our cellphones, according to Thor E. Eilertsen, chief technology officer at Custom Electronics, Inc., a 50-year-old, Oneonta-based company that employs 85 people. “Capacitors are everywhere,” he says. “That’s what excites us.”
The devices are exciting, in part, because Custom Electronics has received $250,000 in cost-sharing seed money from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to develop ultracapacitor technology that provides increased energy-storage potential.
The funding is part of $1.4 million that NYSERDA has awarded to six members of the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST) for projects that will add resiliency to the electric grid or provide increased energy efficiency to products such as hybrid cars, fuel cells, or electronic devices. The five other projects to get funding include companies based in Albany, Peekskill, Ronkonkoma, Manhattan, and Port Washington, according to NYSERDA.
NY-BEST describes itself as “a rapidly growing, industry-led, private-public coalition of corporate, entrepreneurial, academic, and government partners building a vibrant, world-class advanced battery and energy storage sector, from R&D to commercialization, in New York State.” The group says its members include Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, universities, national research centers, and laboratories spanning all parts of the energy industry. Besides Custom Electronics, NY-BEST’s Southern Tier members include The Raymond Corp., New York State Electric & Gas, Binghamton University, Corning Inc., and Primet Precision Materials, Inc.
Capacitors and batteries are both energy storage and discharge devices, Eilertsen notes. Capacitors have the advantage of being able to both store and discharge that energy much faster than batteries, giving them an advantage in certain applications, he says. One example is solar energy. An ultracapacitor, which has a much greater capacity, would be able to receive energy generated from solar panels much faster than a battery system, allowing that energy to be stored up quickly before a rainy day arrives, for example.
The disadvantage of ultracapacitors is that while they have a very long lifespan, they can only deliver power in short bursts. That’s why Custom Electronics will be researching technology to pair ultracapacitors with conventional batteries to capture energy and supplement the battery. One such way this technology could be used, Eilertsen says, is by utilizing capacitors to capture energy generated by a braking vehicle and then using that energy to augment the battery. It’s all about capturing energy quickly while it is available, he says.
“We’re very interested in commercializing it,” Eilertsen says of the ultracapacitor technology. Developing such a product would open up new markets, such as the green industry, to Custom Electronics. The company could add as many as 60 more employees, to its current 85, if it can bring this technology to market, he says. The goal, with the help of the NYSERDA funding, is to have a product ready to commercialize in the next two or three years, Eilertsen says.
They NYSERDA funding, which Custom Electronics will match, will help defray the costs of research including equipment and material expenses. “These grants help us employ people as well,” Eilertsen notes, adding the company recently hired a new scientist to help with the ultracapacitor research.
Custom Electronics must adhere to the milestones it noted in its proposal to NYSERDA and provide regular progress reports, he says.
Company background
Headquartered at 87 Browne St. in Oneonta, Custom Electronics (www.customelec.com) provides commercial and military products including mica paper capacitors, integrated electronic assemblies, and bus bar assemblies. The company does not disclose its revenue figures.
Custom Electronics was founded by Peter Dokuchitz in 1963 and incorporated a year later, according to its website.
Its first product was a reconstituted mica-paper capacitor and it initially focused on developing products for the military. Custom Electronics’ first client was General Electric, for which it produced capacitors for the F-111 aircraft’s ground-surveillance radar system. The Oneonta company’s first production order was for Raytheon, which to this day remains one of its key customers.
Custom Electronics later expanded into providing capacitors for sophisticated oil-and-gas exploration tools and government space satellites. More recently, capacitors that started out for use in military applications began to find a place in commercial applications, according to the company’s website.
Custom Electronics says on its site that it believes its emergence into the power electronics field with its bus bars and snubber capacitor line will help the business gain market share in the military and commercial markets. The company adds that expansion in Europe and Asia are also expected to open up new business opportunities.
Michael Pentaris is the CEO of Custom Electronics.
Contact The Business Journal at news@cnybj.com
Tops completes acquisition of four Big M stores
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Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.