WATERTOWN — Skewed Brewing Co., a brewpub and restaurant located near the entrance of the Regal Cinema at Salmon Run Mall, opened its doors last October and generated $360,000 in revenue in its first three months.

  Ryan Chaif, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife Cheryl Chaif, and business partner Mark Crandall, said the start exceeded his expectations.

  The owners are projecting Skewed Brewing will generate $1.5 million in revenue in 2014. Chaif says the brewpub will achieve this goal by “paying attention to the marketing, adjusting accordingly, and giving customers what they want.”

  Skewed Brewing’s eclectic menu items include its signature microbrews, self-build cocktails, house-made skewed beer mustard used on sandwiches, and burger bacon jam. The eatery recently unveiled its winter menu, adding dishes such as Korean Pork Pops and Haddock Toscana. And now, the business has begun brewing craft beers on-premise, starting with a Pale Ale and a Baltic Porter, Chaif says.

The 2,400-square foot eatery, which seats about 90 patrons and currently has 48 beers on tap, always welcomes hungry diners after they finish a long movie at Regal Salmon Run. Chaif says big movie releases increase traffic to Skewed Brewing. Chaif hopes to further capitalize on movies by naming his brews after movie titles.

What’s in a name? Chaif says the inspiration for “Skewed Brewing” came from the idea that doing something out of the norm is skewed and “It also comes from the math term for when a graph shows skewed distribution, or when something is not the norm,” he notes. Crandall designed the interior of the 40-foot long stainless steel bar inside the restaurant.

The owners helped finance their venture though New York Business Development Corporation (NYBDC) funding, and personal savings, Chaif says. But he declined to disclose dollar amounts.

Part of the personal savings comes from the first venture of the Chaifs and Crandall — The Hops Spot, which opened in June 2011 in Sackets Harbor. Chaif and Crandall had tried “a lot of different beers” to select the most suitable products for the Hops Spot. Then the two partners decided to make their own home-style micro-brews.

The house-made beer was at first only served on Sunday. Its popularity, however, made it a daily offer at the bar and finally drove the Chaifs and Crandall to open Skewed Brewing.

According to Chaif, Skewed Brewing’s target audience is generally 25 to 50 years old. And Chaif doesn’t think his two restaurants are competing with each other since “They are similar, but different,” he says, noting that the smaller Hops Spot generally draws a younger crowd.

Before starting the Hops Spot, Chaif had spent two years in South Korea teaching English and travelled all over Asia. Prior to his trip to the Far East, he worked in business sales.

Chaif’s plan for the future is to start an off-site brewery in five years to support his two eateries and other local restaurants.

Bette & Cring Construction Group, which is headquartered in Latham and has an office in Watertown, handled the construction of the Skewed Brewing as general contractor.

Skewed Brewing currently employs 43 people — a mix of 8 full time and 35 part time, Chaif says.

Contact The Business Journal at news@cnybj.com

American consumers have boosted their expectations for earnings this year, according to new survey results the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released on Feb. 10.

The New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations’ results for January show that earnings-growth expectations over the next 12 months rose from 1.8 percent in December to 2.4 percent last month, with income and spending growth expectations also increasing slightly. Meanwhile, consumer expectations for inflation fell slightly, the results show.

The survey provides insight into Americans’ views on inflation, prices, the labor market, and household finance, the New York Fed says.

Other results from the January survey findings include:

Inflation

·      Consumer inflation expectations fell slightly in January to 3 percent for both one year ahead and three years into the future.

·      Consumer expectations for most commodity price changes stayed stable in January, with health-care cost expectations reversing the increase observed in the last two months, according to the New York Fed.

Labor market

·      Earnings-growth expectations rose from 1.8 percent (annual rate) in December to 2.4 percent in January. One fourth of respondents now expect earnings growth of at least 4.4 percent over the next year, the survey found.

·      Respondents’ average expected probability of leaving their current job (both voluntarily and involuntarily) remained essentially unchanged in January, the New York Fed said.

·      Survey respondents have become more confident about finding another job, with 49 percent expecting to find a job in three months if they were to lose one today, up from 46 percent in December.

Household finance 

·      Household income and spending-growth expectations increased slightly by 0.2 percentage points from December to 2.2 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, the survey found

·       Perceptions of current credit access relative to one year ago and future credit access relative to today remained flat in January, with a slight decline in the share of consumers expecting easier financing conditions.

Each month, the Survey of Consumer Expectations interviews about 1,200 people who are part of a rolling panel, on which each respondent participates in the survey for up to one year, according to the New York Fed.

Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com

“It’s not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin

UTICA — Darwin’s theory applies equally to organisms and enterprises. Just ask any business person today wrestling with the rapid pace of change. To some it’s a threat; to others it’s an opportunity.

Gerard T. Capraro sees opportunity as he adapts Capraro Technologies, Inc. (CTI) to the new economy. “In 2011, CTI generated half its sales from government, the other half from commercial [sources],” says the company president and senior scientist. “With the Department of Defense cutbacks beginning in 2011, it’s now 90/10 [in favor of commercial].”

Capraro, majority stockholder in the operating company, just completed 20 years in business. CTI, located in a 5,000-square-foot, former SBU branch bank and GVH building at 401 Herkimer Road, is an engineering, information-technology (IT) firm that employs 10 and generates $1.5 million in revenue annually.

“We have expanded our commercial business by focusing on IT infrastructure and on software development,” notes Capraro. “Our technology experts act as our client’s IT department or as an extension … [of the client’s department]. CTI’s state-of-the-art data center benefits companies of any size with their hosting, cloud computing, disaster-recovery, or surveillance systems and offers a range of support for the medical community, including HIPAA compliance and meaningful-use EMR solutions, for example, OpenEMR.”

Capraro Technologies also helps its clients develop and improve their web offerings. “On the development side, our engineers can maximize your search-engine-optimization capabilities, transform your website, and develop custom apps (applications) using open-source tools to reach the … [public because] everyone wants to be mobile. Our ‘intelligent mobile proxy’ can transform a website and customize it for virtually any mobile device. We also developed a product called ‘PocoDoc,’ which reduces the size of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files while maintaining their original format. This lets our clients shrink their documents, store, and transmit the files without the need for standard compression.” Capraro also cites security as a growing market for the company’s expertise.

Capraro next turns to CTI’s government work. “We have performed R&D for the military for many years,” the company president avers. “Our strengths lie in data and information management and in signal processing.”

Capraro’s government research dates back to 1966 when, as a civil servant, he joined the Rome Air Development Center (RADC), where he spent 18 years as a project engineer and then as a task manager for the U.S. Air Force. He garnered his signal-processing experience working on the Space Defense Initiative and worked in other areas such as artificial-intelligence, electromagnetic compatibility, and high-power microwaves. Capraro has a B.A. in mathematics from Utica College of Syracuse University, and M.S. and PhD. degrees in engineering from Syracuse University.

In 1984, Capraro left RADC and joined Kaman Sciences, headquartered in Colorado Springs. Capraro and John Spina jointly set up a Utica office, which served as a think-tank for the company in upstate New York. The office, located at 258 Genesee St., grew to 55 people over the next nine years. After Capraro left in 1993 to start his own company, Kaman sold the Kaman Sciences subsidiary to ITT for a reported $135 million. The ITT office is currently located at Griffiss Business & Technology Park and employs 150.

To take advantage of the rapidly changing business environment, Capraro is assisted by another principal, James D. (Jim) DeLude, the company COO and a minority stockholder. DeLude met Capraro at Kaman Sciences, where he worked with him from 1991-1993. He joined CTI 10 years ago.

“We have been able to adapt quickly, because we focus on our strengths,” says the COO. “Unlike our competitors, CTI is a consulting business, not a VAR (value-added reseller). We’re not pushing hardware or bound by quotas from manufacturers … Second, we have unusual depth in our engineering talent … Third, we leverage our government research, looking for applications in the commercial field. We know that one size doesn’t fit all solutions, so we’re good at listening to our clients and responding to their needs.” CTI competes regularly with Annese [and Associates, Inc.] and M. A. Polce on the commercial side and M. A. Polce [Consulting, Inc.] and Total Solutions for hosting and cloud services.

DeLude also notes that all of the intellectual property (IP) of CTI is owned by CTI. “We have the potential of scaling software that we have developed and applying it to other situations,” he says. “CTI is currently working with a marketing company to convert its inventory of IP for use in alternative areas. While our marketing efforts are focused primarily on Upstate, we have clients in New York City, Tennessee, and Boston. CTI is not limited [geographically] in supporting new clients or current clients who want to expand.”

CTI, like many area companies, finds it difficult to recruit new employees. “We reach out to universities like Drexel, RPI, SUNYIT, and Utica College to identify candidates to join the company,” says DeLude. “It’s getting harder to find them. Our best options … [lie] with those who grew up in the Mohawk Valley and have family here. We have tried using a variety of techniques for attracting candidates, including online and social media, but we have met with limited success.”

Capraro Technologies relies on local professionals to help steer the company’s success. “Our banking is [done] through NBT, our legal work is handled by Levitt & Gordon of New Hartford, and Vincent J. Gilroy, CPA is our accounting firm,” says Capraro.

Part of adapting is ensuring the business succession. “Jim [DeLude] will step in and run the company. We don’t have a formal plan or date yet, but the direction of the company is … [assured],” says Capraro, who is age 70.

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@tmvbj.com

SCHROEPPEL — SAM North America, LLC, a supplier of converting machinery for package printing, specialty coating, and extrusion coating and laminating, is operating in a new, 10,000-square-foot headquarters.

It’s located in the Oswego County Industrial Park at 31 County Route 59 in the town of Schroeppel.

SAM North America is a subsidiary of Sung An Machinery Co., Ltd., which is headquartered in South Korea.  It also has a European subsidiary, according to the SAM website.

The new Oswego County facility includes an extrusion-technology center, for which the firm held an inauguration ceremony on Jan. 21.

The extrusion-technology center specializes in the development and evaluation of materials and process techniques to improve flexible packaging and industrial coated and laminated products.

The company in 2010 formed SAM North America in Granby as a sales and support organization, says Edward (Ed) Lincoln, vice president of sales at SAM North America.

As the business started growing in the region, the firm’s customers began asking for more and more product development and process support, says Lincoln.

“At that point in time, we decided to buy a big building. Stop renting, [and] buy a building of our own and install an extrusion-technology center in that building,” he added.

SAM North America bought a building in the Oswego County Industrial Park in Schroeppel.

“The value of the building and the machine is close to $3 million,” Lincoln says, noting the figure also included the cost to acquire the land.  “We bought additional acreage for future expansion.”

It houses SAM’s new extrusion coating, lamination, and cast film pilot machine, he added.

The firm closed on the building in July 2013 and the renovations started soon after.

SAM North America self-financed the project, but it also has an established line of credit through KeyBank, Lincoln says.

The Oswego County Industrial Development Agency also provided tax incentives for the effort, he adds. 

SAM North America currently has six full-time employees, Lincoln says. The firm also hopes to add between two and four additional full-time workers in the next six months.

The firm generated “double-digit growth” in each of its first three years in North America, according to Lincoln, who projects similar revenue growth in 2014.

He declined to name any of the firm’s customers, saying the company is tied in to “so many confidentiality agreements.”  But he described them as multi-national coating and laminating companies.

“They’re big,” he says.

When asked if any of the firm’s customers have operations in Central New York, Lincoln indicated the region has companies to which SAM North America would sell products, but they’re not customers yet.

Product line

SAM, a machinery manufacturer, focuses on three product areas. They include extrusion coating and laminating machines, solution coating and laminating machines, and rotogravure printing machines.

Extrusion coating and laminating machines produce the flexible packaging for products such as croutons and potato chips.

“We take the paper, the films, the foils and then we melt different various polymers and laminate those to give it some sort of functional structure,” Lincoln says.

Its solution coating and laminating machines are used to apply coatings on masking tape, wall-covering paper, and window film.

Lincoln also discussed their printing presses.

“Those would be the machines that we manufacture that do all the printing and put the nice graphics on the package on most of the flexible packaging lines, flexible packages you see in a grocery store,” he says.

Citing continued growth in the plastics industry, Lincoln said SAM’s customers had a need for focusing on product development to enhance their goods.

“So, we decided to build this machine to help them in their R&D efforts for their packaging requirements, but also to promote the sales of our machines,” he says.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com