Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.
The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) selected Richard Cook as its new chief operating officer. “Rick is a welcome addition to our senior
Area colleges form vets’ consortium
SYRACUSE — Colleges and universities throughout a 13-county region around Syracuse are joining together to support military personnel during their reintegration to civilian life in
Advion brings new distributor on board
ITHACA — Advion, Inc. of Ithaca has a new distributor agreement in place that will bring its products to Russia. Valtex International Corp. will be
Annese shifts HQ from Herkimer
HERKIMER — Annese & Associates, Inc. has relocated its headquarters from Herkimer to the Albany area, although the move doesn’t affect the company’s presence in
Madison-Oneida BOCES to develop online AP courses
ONEIDA — The Madison-Oneida Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) won a $1.35 million grant to develop online advanced placement courses. The grant came through
A look back at 2012 in Mohawk Valley business news
UTICA — The year 2012 brought a mix of business happenings across the Mohawk Valley ranging from expansion projects to plant closings and layoffs. The
Cayuga County Chamber joins CenterState Chamber Alliance
SYRACUSE — The addition of the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce to the CenterState Chamber Alliance gives the region an even stronger voice on state and national issues, chamber leaders say. “Now we’ve got a cumulative voice of 3,000 plus, 3,500 members and that says something,” says Andrew Fish, executive director of the Cayuga County
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
[bypass-paywall-buynow-link link_text=”Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article”].
SYRACUSE — The addition of the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce to the CenterState Chamber Alliance gives the region an even stronger voice on state and national issues, chamber leaders say.
“Now we’ve got a cumulative voice of 3,000 plus, 3,500 members and that says something,” says Andrew Fish, executive director of the Cayuga County Chamber.
The alliance announced the Cayuga County Chamber, with more than 400 members, as its newest member Nov. 26. Syracuse–based CenterState CEO, with 2,000 members, and the Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce, with 900, formed the alliance in June.
The partnership allows members of each chamber of commerce access to services and benefits across all three organizations.
That includes networking programs, education and training sessions, and member discounts. The three groups remain independent with their own local identities, management teams, board control, member-relations efforts, and services.
The groups will cross-promote their services and events in addition to partnering on advocacy. CenterState will also handle some back-office operations, such as financial bookkeeping, for the Cayuga County Chamber.
The move will allow the Cayuga County Chamber (www.cayugacountychamber.com) to provide interim executive-director services for the Cayuga Economic Development Agency, Fish says.
“There are so many ways we are looking for this to continue to grow,” Fish says of the CenterState Chamber Alliance. “This is not the culmination of these discussions. This is the beginning.
“How do we help the businesses in Central New York and the CenterState 12-county region grow and become more successful? That’s really what we’re trying to do,” Fish says.
Alliance leaders say Cayuga won’t be the last chamber of commerce to join.
“We’ve been trying to build a broader sense of regional identity, regional collaboration for the better part of a decade now,” CenterState CEO President Robert Simpson says. “The CenterState region is looked upon throughout New York state and increasingly across the country as a model for how that kind of collaboration takes off.”
The mutual benefits offered by the partnerships naturally draw interest from chambers around the region, Simpson adds.
Members are expecting their chambers’ leaders to learn from peers and share best practices, he notes. They want to see efficiency and cost-effective solutions to problems.
CenterState had a relationship with both the Cayuga and Mohawk Valley chambers of commerce for a long time prior to forming the alliance, says Jane Amico, vice president of chamber services at CenterState CEO. Formalizing those bonds makes sense.
“This just broadens our pool of businesses that benefit from the networking and training and education programs and cost savings,” she says.
The relationships with the other chambers will also allow for the annual CenterState Business Showcase to become a more regional event, Amico says. This year’s event in October drew thousands to the Convention Center at Oncenter in downtown Syracuse.
The showcase featured talks from Syracuse University football legend Floyd Little and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. David Faber, a journalist at CNBC, delivered the keynote at the Economic Champions Luncheon, which was combined with the showcase this year.
Partnerships with other chambers will allow the event to grow further, Amico says.
Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com
GKG honored for best practices
NEW HARTFORD — For the sixth year in a row, Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy, Inc (GKG) is among a select group of insurance agencies identified by the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA) and Reagan Consulting as employing the best business practices in the industry. The selection means that GKG’s operations including procedures,
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
[bypass-paywall-buynow-link link_text=”Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article”].
NEW HARTFORD — For the sixth year in a row, Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy, Inc (GKG) is among a select group of insurance agencies identified by the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA) and Reagan Consulting as employing the best business practices in the industry.
The selection means that GKG’s operations including procedures, growth, productivity, profitability, and financial stability have not only been reviewed but serve as best-practice models for other insurance agencies to adopt for their own success.
“We benchmark ourselves against the very best independent insurance agencies around the country,” GKG CFO Donald Polczynski says of the honor. “It says that you are amongst the very best.”
The honor is an important one, he says, because it assures clients and employees alike that the agency is a sound one. “It’s a symbol of a well-run organization,” he cotends.
While GKG won’t necessarily share its best ideas with the local competition, Polczynski says it will share its best practices nationally with other agencies with which it does not directly compete. It benefits the industry as a whole, he says, to share because it helps elevate the entire industry.
Every year, IIABA and Reagan Consulting study the country’s leading insurance agencies in six revenue categories. Agencies in the study groups are selected every third year through a comprehensive nomination and qualifying process. This year ended the current three-year study cycle which included more than 1,200 independent insurance agencies across the country. Only 224 agencies qualified for the best practices designation by being among the top 40 performers in one of the six revenue categories.
To stay at the top, GKG works to always be a step ahead of its clients’ needs as well as trends in the industry, Polczynski says. That means staying up to date on “hot topics” such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare) changes set to begin this January.
“We’re on top of that,” he says.
Headquartered at 201 Clinton Rd. New Hartford, GKG (www.gkginsurance.com) is an independent insurance agency offering risk-management products and services to businesses and individuals. Products include commercial insurance, employee benefits, and personal insurance. The firm, which does not disclose revenue information, employs 35 people and represents more than 80 insurance carriers.
Contact DeLore at tdelore@tmvbj.com
Oncenter gets new general manager
SYRACUSE — SMG, the company that runs the Oncenter in downtown Syracuse, named a new general manager for the conference and event facility this week.
Through Auspicium, Lorenz “puts skin in the game”
DeWITT — “Creating value using liquid management.” That’s the tag line on Michael J. Lorenz’s business card and on his company’s home page. Lorenz is the principal who, in 2008, founded Auspicium, LLC, a consulting firm headquartered in the town of DeWitt. The company moniker is taken from Latin, meaning to “move forward.” Auspicium offers
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
[bypass-paywall-buynow-link link_text=”Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article”].
DeWITT — “Creating value using liquid management.” That’s the tag line on Michael J. Lorenz’s business card and on his company’s home page.
Lorenz is the principal who, in 2008, founded Auspicium, LLC, a consulting firm headquartered in the town of DeWitt. The company moniker is taken from Latin, meaning to “move forward.” Auspicium offers a wide variety of consulting services including general-business transactions, financing, mergers and acquisitions, public-private partnership projects, real-estate development, and startups.
Lorenz says that liquid management is his term for “… delivering high-impact, senior-executive leadership into a situation on an as-needed basis. Under the principles of liquid management, [Auspicium] takes responsibility for both developing the strategy [of a project] as well as leading the execution to deliver the desired results using a hands-on approach. We [Auspicium] can increase or decrease key resources as needed to accomplish the goal, hence the term ‘liquid.’”
Auspicium leverages its experience, relationships, and reputations to create new value in each project it undertakes. Lorenz insists “… first on a critical assessment of the project and second, an agreement by the client to make Auspicium a team member.” Convinced that there is a good fit, Lorenz then aligns his efforts with that of the stakeholders’ interests by putting his own investment at risk. Most of his compensation is based on the value Auspicium produces.
So how does Auspicium address the issues of fee and method of payment? Lorenz says he “… determines his return based on the value his firm can create. The payment method varies depending on the client’s preference … Auspicium generally offers multiple-payment options.”
An 8-K filing with the SEC on Feb. 10, 2009 illustrates the flexibility of Auspicium to craft a consulting agreement. Patient Portal Technologies, Inc. (OTC: PPRG) — a publicly held corporation based in the town of Lysander that provides communications systems to hospitals — entered into a consulting agreement with Auspicium. Patient Portal Technologies, owned by a hedge fund in Boston, managed the operation and rental of in-room, patient phone and television systems in hospitals and was “experiencing operating losses,” according to Lorenz.
Lorenz became the interim president of Patient Portal Technologies and says he turned a $1.3 million loss into a $2.3 million gain. In return, the agreement granted him 2 million shares of restricted common stock and compensation equal to 3 percent of the gross proceeds raised as part of a planned capital transaction. Auspicium also received a monthly retainer and a minimum compensation amount in the event the financing transaction didn’t close on time.
Armory Square hotel project
Auspicium is currently working on a hotel project with Syracuse executive Richard Sykes, the former CEO of RMSCO. In 2008, Sykes, a principal in RHS Holdings, undertook to build a $31 million, 180-room Marriott hotel in downtown Syracuse, but the ensuing recession made it difficult to finance the project. Lorenz then joined Sykes “ … to restructure the deal, redesign the hotel to control costs and to increase room availability, raise the capital, negotiate the operating-partner agreements, and oversee the design and construction.”
The Inns at Armory Square project, which will combine a 78-room Residence Inn and a 102-room Courtyard by Marriot, secured funding from M&T Bank and is currently scheduled for a grand opening in the spring of 2013. Auspicium put most of its compensation at risk by becoming the second largest shareholder in the venture behind Sykes, with only a modest retainer and performance bonuses, according to Lorenz.
Auspicium is also working with Ephesus Technologies, LLC, based in Syracuse. Ephesus, which employs 12, describes itself as a lighting-innovation company that designs, engineers, and manufactures LED lighting. Lorenz has joined the business as the interim COO and as the CFO. His associate, Andrew Sussman, is the firm’s general counsel.
Auspicium is also pursuing the development of the Riverview wastewater-treatment plant located on the site of the abandoned Miller Brewing Co. plant in the town of Volney, just outside the city of Fulton.
Lorenz estimates that an “… investment of $6 million to $8 million is needed to make the plant operational. The facility, which has the capacity to produce 10 million gallons of water a day, could serve a city of 350,000.” The project offers the potential for substantial economic development in the region and for being environmentally beneficial, all at a low cost.
Auspicium is not confining its efforts only to Central New York. It has worked with clients, or is now exploring projects, in Portland, Maine; Boston; Miami; Oakland; and San Diego.
This is not Lorenz’s first rodeo. He has a long track record of transforming companies into profitable, growth enterprises. A native of Yonkers and Carmel, N.Y., Lorenz graduated from SUNY Binghamton with a degree in accounting and joined PriceWaterhouse in 1979, where he worked with emerging companies. Lorenz’s record includes his role as president or CEO of Blount Lumber, the Galson Corporation, CXtec, and Destiny USA, before launching Auspicium.
At 55, Lorenz is just getting warmed up. He reviews a growing list of projects to determine whether he wants to be involved, and is simultaneously working on a book about innovative thinking. He also continues to find time for volunteering in nonprofit work. As the name Auspicium suggests, Lorenz will move forward focused on value-creation for his clients and on innovative thinking, which includes a new consulting model that “puts skin in the game” and relies on “liquid management.”
Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com
Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.