Category Archives: Economic Development

Development Officials In Glens Falls Region Await State Decision On Grant Spending Plan

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This portion of downtown Glens Falls, looking across South Street, with South Street in foreground and School Street on left, is a portion of the Glens Falls Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI).

By Jill Nagy

Glens Falls planners and city officials have had the job for the last few months of deciding how to spend $10 million. The money comes in the form of a grant from the state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

They came up with more than a dozen programs and initiatives ranging from a year-round farmers’ market to a “race for space”  contest.

Plans were presented to the public at a Feb. 23 meeting. The final wish list will be reviewed by a statewide committee and then passed along to the governor, according to Ed Bartholomew, president of EDC Warren County.

Each proposed project will be reviewed. Bartholomew said the proposals total more than $10 million. If all 14  of them are approved, the city will seek other funding to make up the difference.

A decision is expected from the state in late summer.

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Job Retention Is As Important As Job Creation When It Comes To A Strong Local Workforce

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Martin Vanags is president of the Saratoga Prosperity Partnership.
Courtesy Saratoga Prosperity Partnership

By R.J. DeLuke

A huge component of economic development is helping existing businesses, looking to expand, find a local solution that meets their needs, and also connecting the right dots so that businesses looking to come into Saratoga County can do so with relative ease.

A key part of both of those situations is having a workforce that meets the needs of the employer, said Marty Vanags, president of the Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership.

The Prosperity Partnership, along with the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce and Chamber of Southern Saratoga County, announced less than a year ago a business retention and expansion initiative dubbed Business First Saratoga.

It is intended to serve local business owners by developing relationships to better understand the opportunities and challenges of doing businesses in the region. An area that the program tries to assist businesses with is  workforce development.

“Employers are having a difficult time finding employees to work at their facilities,” he said. “I hear it all the time.”

Some of the need to find employees comes as the work demographic changes, he said. Baby Boomers are getting to the point of retirement those jobs need to be filed.

Skills that are required today are different as technology put a stronger stamp on how things are accomplished.

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SUNY Adirondack Has $2M To Help Students Complete Degrees, Make Higher Ed Attainable

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SUNY Adirondack has been awarded nearly $2 million to expand completion initiatives and to establish an Educational Opportunity Program to aid more students in completing their desired degrees and graduating on time, in addition to making higher education obtainable for more students.

Earlier this month, the State University of New York announced a $4.6 million award from the Investment and Performance Fund benefitting North Country campuses. SUNY Adirondack is set to receive $1.8 million of that funding to be used towards three projects–the creation of a Student Success Advisement Center, the expansion of the Adirondack Completes initiative and the development of a web-based student tool called Adirondack Experience.

College officials said Adirondack Completes is an expansion of existing completion efforts providing additional academic support in math and other subjects, advisement and leveraging the degree works program to increase the number of graduates. The Adirondack Experience will be developed as a tool to help students plan and monitor their entire college experience, from application to graduation.

“The Investment and Performance funds will help SUNY Adirondack scale up its efforts to support student success and move us closer to our goal of increasing the number of graduates by fifty percent by 2020,” said SUNY Adirondack President Kristine D. Duffy. “We are excited about sharing our best practices with our North Country colleagues and will continue to work in collaboration to support the vitality of this great region of New York.”

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Economic Development In Saratoga County Has Its Success Stories, But Work Never Stops

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Development story - global Hc.jpg

The GlobalFoundries Fab 8 plant in Malta is one of the economic development success stories in Saratoga County in recent years. It has spawned other businesses and education initiatives.Courtesy GlobalFoundries

By R.J. DELUKE

Improving the economy of a community touches individual lives. It brings jobs. It brings in new people and families that spend money. It brings companies that spend money.

Those dollars are spent at store and shops, restaurants and via business-to-business relationships that turn the economic wheel and generate incomes vital to people’s lives.

A great deal of time is spent by professionals to enhance development by bringing in new businesses and new jobs. Those groups–development agencies, business and professional associations, chambers of commerce–also help existing businesses stay afloat, expand and thrive.

Professionals in the field, like Marty Vanags president of the Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership, know their work is never done.

Even large successes, like landing the international microchip manufacturer GlobalFoundries, doesn’t mean a community lives happily ever after.

“We’re always working on projects. We’re always working on opportunities,” said Vanags. “A mistake that many economic development groups around the country make is they get one big project and think they’re done.

Economic development groups can’t rest on their laurels. “You have to constantly push the ball forward,” he said, using a basketball analogy. “Be happy about our wins, but try to score as often as we can and use every opportunity to do that.”

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Recruitment And Talent Retention Assistance Is Goal Of New Program Rolled Out By CEG

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The Center for Economic Growth (CEG) has a new program offering to regional employers who are in need of comprehensive support in recruitment and retention of valued talent.

Talent Connect will provide several different services to address the challenges that face today’s relocating professionals in a variety of innovative ways, including pre-hire consultations, dual career support, community integration and cultural transitioning, said CEG officials.

“Talent Connect provides a crucial piece to the puzzle for both employers seeking the right candidates as well as employees looking to relocate for work, and we are excited to add the program to CEG’s service offerings,” said Michael Hickey, CEG’s interim president and CEO. “Not only will this program benefit our investors, it ties into the region’s Capital 20.20 talent strategy, focused on attraction and retention of a qualified workforce for our local companies.”

The program will enhance recruitment and retention of professional talent for area employers, and break the personal and professional isolation often associated with transitioning professionals to a new location.

CEG officials said Talent Connect will provide substantive support, enabling professionals to integrate more quickly into a professional network, take root in their new communities, and connect to what’s important to them. It will also enable employers seeking talent with a competitive edge by giving them visibility to relocating talent.

While the Talent Connect program is a new offering at CEG, the concepts had its roots out of Tech Valley Connect (TVC), officials said. Tech Valley Connect was an innovative initiative that originally started as a pilot program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009 and soon after transitioned into an independent non-profit.

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GlobalFoundries $500M Program Looks To Boost Ultraviolet Technology In Manufacturing

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SUNY Polytechnic Institute and GlobalFoundries announced plans to establish a new Advanced Patterning and Productivity Center (APPC), which will be located at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) in Albany.

The $500 million, five-year program will accelerate the introduction of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technologies into manufacturing. Officials said the center is anchored by a network of international chipmakers and material and equipment suppliers, including IBM and Tokyo Electron, and will generate 100 jobs.

“This advanced new partnership between SUNY Poly and GlobalFoundries demonstrates how Governor Cuomo’s strategic investments in SUNY are bolstering the system’s research capacity, leveraging private dollars, and creating exciting new opportunities at our campuses for students and faculty,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher.

“SUNY Poly’s nanotechnology expertise coupled with the governor’s innovative public-private partnership model has positioned New York as a global leader in computer chip research, development, and manufacturing.”

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