National face of Cazenovia College is final commencement speaker

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CAZENOVIA, N.Y. — John Robert Greene, a high profile and long-time member of the faculty at Cazenovia College, will be the speaker at the school’s 198th and final commencement on May 13. Cazenovia College announced in December that it plans to close prior to the start of the fall 2023 semester due to financial problems. […]

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CAZENOVIA, N.Y. — John Robert Greene, a high profile and long-time member of the faculty at Cazenovia College, will be the speaker at the school’s 198th and final commencement on May 13.

Cazenovia College announced in December that it plans to close prior to the start of the fall 2023 semester due to financial problems.

Greene served as the Paul J. Schupf professor of history and humanities at Cazenovia College prior to his retirement back in January. Greene was known as “the national face of Cazenovia College,” exemplifying its ideals, goals, and mission, the school contended in a release.

Greene marked his 42nd year of teaching at Cazenovia College in 2022. He began at the school as a part-time instructor in September 1979 while also serving as manager of the campus radio station. He became a full-time faculty member in 1984, was tenured in 1987, and was named a distinguished faculty member in 1993.

Cazenovia awarded Greene the school’s first endowed chair, the Paul J. Schupf Chair in History and Humanities, in 2000 and a distinguished service award in 2021. Upon his retirement in January, Cazenovia awarded Greene the title of professor emeritus, the school said.

Known nationally as a leading scholar of the American presidency, Greene has edited or written 20 books. They include works on Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

The school also noted that Greene is a sought-after subject matter expert for national and local print and broadcast media outlets and appeared for 17 years as a regular faculty panelist on WCNY-TV’s “The Ivory Tower” political and public affairs talk show.

“Dr. Greene has been a teacher and mentor to students as well as colleagues,” David Bergh, president of Cazenovia College, said. “He encompasses so much of what Cazenovia College has stood for and his dedication to the College made it most fitting that he be the one to address the College and our graduates in the last commencement ceremony.”

ConnextCare implementing new telehealth platform

Health Care, Subscriber Only, Technology

PULASKI, N.Y. — ConnextCare says it will be implementing a new telehealth platform across all of its locations in Oswego County. The work will continue throughout the month of March. Telehealth enables a provider to see a patient remotely, regardless of their ability to physically come to the office. ConnextCare’s Pulaski office started using the

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PULASKI, N.Y. — ConnextCare says it will be implementing a new telehealth platform across all of its locations in Oswego County.

The work will continue throughout the month of March. Telehealth enables a provider to see a patient remotely, regardless of their ability to physically come to the office.

ConnextCare’s Pulaski office started using the platform on March 2. All other sites and the school-based health centers will transition to the platform throughout the coming month.

ConnextCare will now be using its Greenway electronic medical record (EMR) to “ensure a more efficient telehealth experience for patients,” per its March 3 announcement.

The health-care provider will send patients a text message or an email on the day of their scheduled telehealth visit. The text or email will include a link to a video chat that patients can click on. They’ll be automatically connected to the telehealth virtual waiting room for admittance to their visit with the ConnextCare team.

ConnextCare says it became acutely aware of the need for telemedicine at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within days of the pandemic, the ConnextCare information-technology team was able to secure the resources and training to be able to offer this service to patients.

“As we begin to transition back to a level of normalcy in healthcare, the benefit of a telehealth connection has proven to be both effective and convenient for our patients,” said Ken Martin, director of information services at ConnextCare. “With now over one quarter of all healthcare visits being of a virtual nature, ConnextCare looked to streamline the process for both our staff and patients by adopting a single platform. The Greenway telehealth package works seamlessly with our EMR, this eliminates the need for a third party application which increases the time to create and distribute the virtual appointment.”

Since the beginning of 2020, ConnextCare has used telehealth for more than 58,000 appointments and continues to use telehealth for 85 percent of its scheduled weekly mental-health appointments.

Besides Pulaski, ConnextCare operates health centers in Central Square, Fulton, Mexico, Oswego, Parish, and Phoenix. It also operates eight school-based health centers located in APW, Mexico, Pulaski, Fulton and Sandy Creek school districts.

ConnextCare was previously known as NOCHSI, or Northern Oswego County Health Services, Inc.

Eligible OCC faculty have until April 14 to decide on early-retirement incentive

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ONONDAGA, N.Y. — Some faculty members at Onondaga Community College (OCC) have until April 14 to decide if they will accept a voluntary early-retirement incentive. Citing declining enrollment, the OCC board of trustees on Feb. 28 voted to offer a voluntary early-retirement incentive to eligible faculty members. About 50 faculty members are eligible to take

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ONONDAGA, N.Y. — Some faculty members at Onondaga Community College (OCC) have until April 14 to decide if they will accept a voluntary early-retirement incentive.

Citing declining enrollment, the OCC board of trustees on Feb. 28 voted to offer a voluntary early-retirement incentive to eligible faculty members.

About 50 faculty members are eligible to take the incentive, OCC tells CNYBJ in an email.

In its announcement, OCC said its enrollment has dwindled from its peak of 13,018 in 2012 to 7,032 in 2022.

Faculty members who turn 55 during this calendar year and have a minimum of 10 years of full-time faculty experience — or are regular part-timers at OCC — are eligible, the school said.

As for how OCC intends to fund the retirement incentive, the community college says its leaders have been “continuously” saving money in reserves despite the enrollment decline. The funding in those reserves will fund the packages.

“We are proud to recognize our faculty who have served so well and are interested in transitioning to retirement,” John Sindoni, chair of the OCC board of trustees, said in the school’s news release. “We thank them for their service and are confident this voluntary early retirement incentive package will go a long way towards helping them meet their future plans while also strengthening the college’s future.”

Taxpayer, student impact

The OCC announcement, which was set up in a question-and-answer format, explained why the development is “good for taxpayers.”

OCC says it will realize fiscal savings in the next budget year, which begins Sept. 1. For example, if 15 faculty members take the voluntary early-retirement incentive package, the savings will be between $1.5 million and $1.7 million.

Over the course of five years, those savings would total between $7.5 million and $8.5 million, OCC said. Those dollar amounts include savings in both salary and health-insurance costs, the college added.

As for why the school believes this is good for students, OCC says savings from the voluntary early-retirement incentive package will allow it to invest in student-success initiatives which will “help attract, support, and retain students.”

OCC’s current full-time tuition is $2,595 per semester, which ranks near the bottom third of SUNY’s 30 community colleges. Savings from the voluntary early-retirement incentive package will help OCC “continue to be one of the most affordable SUNY community colleges,” per its announcement.

“Thanks to the leadership of our Board of Trustees, we are fortunate to be in a strong financial position,” Dr. Warren Hilton, president of Onondaga Community College, contended. “We have financial reserves, we have a great campus thanks to our partners in County and State government, we have tremendous faculty and staff, and we are continuing to create new programs in conjunction with our partners in the workforce. Today’s action by the Board of Trustees will help us invest in the success of students.”

Syracuse names new dean of the College of Arts & Sciences

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse University this week announced Behzad Mortazavi as the next dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (A&S). His appointment, which

New donut shop serves up sweet treats to the North Shore and beyond

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PAR reports nearly 26 percent revenue rise in 2022

Manufacturing & Engineering, New York News, Regional News, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only, Technology

NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. — PAR Technology Corp. (NYSE: PAR) says it closed out 2022 with increased revenue that helped the company reduce its losses and end the year ahead of its 2021 performance. For the full-year 2022, the company reported revenue of $355.8 million, up 25.8 percent from $282.9 million in 2021. PAR posted a

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NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. — PAR Technology Corp. (NYSE: PAR) says it closed out 2022 with increased revenue that helped the company reduce its losses and end the year ahead of its 2021 performance.

For the full-year 2022, the company reported revenue of $355.8 million, up 25.8 percent from $282.9 million in 2021. PAR posted a net loss of $69.3 million in 2022, an improvement over a net loss of $75.8 million the year before.

“I’m pleased to report that our growth momentum continues as we aggressively expand our unified experience to new and existing customers,” company CEO Savneet Singh said during a March 1 conference call with investors and analysts.

That unified experience includes a bundle of operator solutions, guest-engagement, and back-office operations products for the restaurant industry. While some clients have had to scale back their marketing dollars in the current economy, the combination of inflation, labor, and supply-chain issues are creating a demand for PAR products as clients look for tools to help them control food and labor costs, Singh contends.

PAR Technology is continuing initiatives in 2023 that should help hold the line on costs while it continues to push its products, he says. “We’ve been able to continuously grow revenue while not increasing overhead,” he notes.

A recent change in the sales department with each client having a designated account manager and sales team is already showing benefits, Singh contends. The company recently landed Zaxby’s, a fast-casual restaurant chain, as a new customer with its Brink point-of-sale and Punchh customer-loyalty products.

PAR reported revenue of $97.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, a 19.7 percent increase from $81.6 million for the same period in 2021. PAR’s restaurant/retail segment produced revenue of $70.9 million in the latest quarter, up from $62.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. The company’s government segment posted revenue of $26.7 million in the fourth quarter in 2022, up from $18.8 million a year earlier.

While PAR reported an adjusted quarterly loss of 26 cents per share for the fourth quarter, that amount was well below the 51-cent loss projected by Zacks Equity Research’s consensus estimate.

PAR has surpassed Zacks’ consensus earnings estimates twice over the last four quarters. Revenue also beat the Zacks estimate by 6.14 percent and beat the consensus estimate four times over the past year.

“We are pleased to have finished the year with positive momentum and believe our strong results and achievements in a macro-challenged environment reflects the successful execution of our growth strategy,” Singh said in the PAR earnings report. “We have delivered strong year-over-year growth from our unified experience from our unified experience offerings as our customers continue to embrace the idea of a unified partner to help align their data and drive real return on investment. We expect to continue to scale our subscription revenues for enterprise restaurants in 2023, while simultaneously maintaining operating expenses at current levels demonstrating strong operating leverage.”

In its report, Zacks forecasts PAR to post a 33-cent loss on revenue of $90.7 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2023 and a loss of $1.02 per share on revenue of $386.01 million for the full year.

PAR’s stock price was up more than 40 percent year to date, through March 6.

Headquartered in New Hartford, PAR provides point-of-sale, loyalty, and back-office software solutions along with hardware products to more than 100,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries.

New York egg production rises more than 2 percent in January

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New York farms produced 149.9 million eggs in January, up 2.25 percent from 146.6 million eggs in the year-prior month, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reported. The number of layers in the Empire State averaged 5.73 million in the first month of this year, off 0.3 percent from nearly 5.75 million in the

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New Thruway service area buildings include green features

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The new buildings at 23 of the New York State Thruway’s 27 travel plazas are more than just home to new partner restaurants like Popeye’s and Starbucks. The buildings are also made of a polymer cement developed by a Canadian company that not only makes the buildings faster to build — it makes them greener.

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Announced in 2018, work on the service areas began in July 2021. The $450 million project with Empire State Thruway Partners is funded through a public-private partnership. Along with planning different-sized service areas, the state included several environmental initiatives including LEED Silver rating principles, solar arrays integrated into roofing systems, rainwater harvesting, and irrigation-free landscaping.

However, the core of the green efficiencies at the 23 new buildings comes from the building itself, says Dave Perez, senior VP of business development with Nexii, the Vancouver, British Columbia–based company constructing them.

Nexii uses a polymer cement to produce a building envelope — in the form of panels that are installed and connected on site — in a manufacturing setting in Pennsylvania, he says. This process nearly eliminates construction waste, the first big environmental improvement, he adds. Nexii produces the panels which are erected by another company on site, “They do go up a lot faster than a traditional building,” Perez says.

The company’s panel system also makes it easier to adapt to the different building sizes — which range from 6,400-14,800 square feet — planned for each Thruway service area.

On top of that, the panels are well insulated, contact 63 percent less “embodied” carbon than precast concrete, and don’t contain “red list” materials, which are regulated materials that may pose a risk to human health. Nexii’s panel design uses about 60 less water during manufacturing than a concrete tilt-up envelope equivalent. The buildings use about 33 percent less energy overall and about half the heating energy of a standard building.

“It’s a 100-year expected life span, and everything in it is recyclable or reusable,” Perez notes.

So far, 10 Nexii-produced buildings are complete and open at four Thruway travel plazas — Indian Castle in Herkimer County, Chittenango in Madison County, Junius Ponds in Seneca County, and Iroquois in Herkimer County — as part of the first phase of the project. This phase also includes the Ardsley, Clarence, Plattekill, Clifton Springs, New Baltimore, Pembroke, Seneca, Oneida, Pattersonville, Sloatsburg, Scottsville, and Ulster travel plazas. These are Nexii’s first buildings erected in the United States.

Nexii will produce 13 more buildings for the Schuyler, Ontario, Malden, Guilderland, Port Byron, Warners, Ramapo, Angola, Dewitt, Mohawk, and Modena Thruway service areas.

“You will start to see buildings up as early as April,” Perez says. The second phase will take 12 to 14 months to complete.

The service areas are utilized by the about 250 million vehicles that travel on the Thruway each year. Service areas are open 24 hours a day, offering food and retail options along with restroom facilities and fueling for both passenger and commercial vehicles. As part of the upgrade, electric-vehicle charging stations will be installed at all 27 service areas.

Founded by Michael and Ben Dombowsky, Nexii uses Ben’s invention of Nexiite cement alternative to produce its lightweight, low carbon, fire- and water-resistant panels. Headquartered in Vancouver, the company’s completed projects include a Courtyard by Marriott hotel, Starbucks, and Scotiabank in Canada.

Clarkson professors awarded 3-year project with Micron

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Manufacturing & Engineering, New York News, Regional News, Subscriber Only, Technology

POTSDAM, N.Y. — Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) has awarded a project to two Clarkson University professors that seeks to drive an industrywide shift toward sustainability in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) consumable manufacturing. Clarkson University Jihoon Seo, assistant professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering and Alan Rossner, associate director for education, are the instructors involved,

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Clarkson University Jihoon Seo, assistant professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering and Alan Rossner, associate director for education, are the instructors involved, per a Feb. 22 Clarkson release.

CMP is one of the essential steps in the production of integrated circuits and other microelectronics devices. However, Clarkson says many new materials are not designed with environment, health, safety, and sustainability (EHSS) in mind.

To address these challenges, Seo and Rossner will perform research and analysis on the environmental sustainability of CMP consumable manufacturing. In particular, they will assess CMP processes regarding sustainability, highlighting gaps related to the manufacturing of CMP consumables, and then develop an EHSS-impact analysis for CMP consumable manufacturing by incorporating life-cycle assessments of inputs/outputs and their relevant impact categories, the release stated.

“Clarkson University has a strong reputation as a leading research institution in the field of CMP,” Seo contended. “The CMP research team at Clarkson University has extensive experience in the development of novel CMP processes and materials development as well as in the characterization and optimization of CMP performance.”

“In addition to our cutting-edge research in the CMP field, we are also highly active in collaboration with industry partners,” Rossner added. “We work with leading semiconductor manufacturers and equipment suppliers to develop and implement advanced CMP processes and materials in real-world semiconductor applications.”

Seo and Rossner’s project comes just months after Boise, Idaho–based Micron announced it would invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years on a semiconductor manufacturing campus at the White Pine Commerce Park in the town of Clay. The upcoming facility will be a less than three-hour drive from Clarkson’s campus in Potsdam in St. Lawrence County.

“This is just a wonderful trend to see companies come back and bring advanced manufacturing back to the states and to have our students be part of creating those products,” William Jemison, dean of engineering at

Syracuse, Binghamton airports to use federal money for projects

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The federal government has awarded a total of $25 million in funding for renovation work at upstate New York airports serving Syracuse, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Albany. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded the money. It comes from the airport terminal program, created by the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs law, U.S. Senate

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The federal government has awarded a total of $25 million in funding for renovation work at upstate New York airports serving Syracuse, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Albany.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded the money. It comes from the airport terminal program, created by the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs law, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) announced.

The Syracuse Regional Airport Authority will use $8.6 million for a project that will replace the terminal HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system, windows, and siding with more energy-efficient materials. Syracuse Hancock International Airport has started a sustainability initiative to increase energy efficiency and cut emissions of the terminal building, Schumer’s office noted.

“Keeping Syracuse Hancock International Airport performing at its best requires continued investment in terminal facilities,” Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said in a Schumer news release. “Replacing the HVAC system, siding and windows with more energy efficient materials and systems is good for travelers and employees, as well as for sustainability and resiliency. I thank the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand for their work in securing these resources and ensuring Hancock stays a world class operation.”

At the same time, the Greater Binghamton Airport will utilize a $7 million grant to help fund improvements to reconstruct the passenger hold room; replace the aging HVAC equipment with reliable, energy-efficient units; install two passenger-boarding bridges; and expand the exterior canopy.

“This grant award will help us transform our airport to create a modern flying experience travelers have come to expect,” Broome County Executive Jason Garnar said in the lawmakers’ release.

Albany International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport will also use federal awards for similar projects.

“From Buffalo to Albany to Binghamton to Syracuse, the Bipartisan Infrastructure & Jobs Law is giving our Upstate airports the lift they need fly higher than ever before. This major, nearly $25 million federal investment will help these much needed renovations for modern airport terminals take off,” Schumer said.

Schumer and Gillibrand explained that the Infrastructure & Jobs law provided $5 billion in competitive grants for airport-terminal development projects that address the aging infrastructure of the nation’s airports. This announcement represents the latest round of the funding.

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