OSHA fines Clay contractor for fall hazards

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CLAY — A roofing and siding contractor based in Clay faces $61,600 in fines after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s

Travel business combines storm relief with upcoming trip

Regional News, Small Business

HINCKLEY — When Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast in late October, Carol Buczek wasn’t sure what that would mean for her business, Tours By

Expanded contract creates jobs at CABVI

Manufacturing & Engineering, Regional News, Small Business

UTICA — An expanded contract with a federal agency will lead to 18 new jobs at the Central Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired

GateHouse Media reports Q3 loss

Regional News, Small Business, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

FAIRPORT — GateHouse Media, Inc. a Fairport–based media company that owns The Observer-Dispatch in Utica, reported a bigger loss and lower revenue in the third quarter. Total revenue declined 3.4 percent to $120.8 million, down from $125 million a year ago, even though the company grew its digital revenue by 27.9 percent. The company posted

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FAIRPORT — GateHouse Media, Inc. a Fairport–based media company that owns The Observer-Dispatch in Utica, reported a bigger loss and lower revenue in the third quarter.

Total revenue declined 3.4 percent to $120.8 million, down from $125 million a year ago, even though the company grew its digital revenue by 27.9 percent.

The company posted a net loss of $9.4 million, or 16 cents per share, for the quarter, compared with a net loss of $6.2 million, or 9 cents per share, in the third quarter of 2011.

For the first nine months of 2012, GateHouse lost $25.7 million on revenue of $365.4 million versus a net loss of $28.4 million on revenue of $375 million a year ago.

“We continue to make inroads on our transformational strategy,” GateHouse CEO Michael E. Reed said in a news release. “While the anemic economic recovery creates a challenging operating environment, we continue to invest in our digital and other strategic growth initiatives, grow consumer revenues, reduce overall expenses, and implement new initiatives to stabilize print advertising.”

During the quarter, GateHouse invested $1.5 million in new strategic-growth initiatives focusing heavily on local digital solution services to small- and medium-sized businesses, Reed said.

Advertising revenue at GateHouse dropped from $86 million in the third quarter of 2011 to $80.1 million this year, while circulation revenue grew slightly from $32.8 million to $33.8 million, and commercial printing revenue grew from $6.4 million to $6.7 million.

Reed attributes the circulation revenue growth to pricing initiatives that helped offset volume declines. Sunday circulation saw improving volume trends throughout the quarter, he said.

GateHouse cut operating costs and expenses 2.1 percent to $102.3 million for the quarter. The cost savings came primarily from lower compensation.

“I believe we are developing the right strategies and making the right investments in people and resources to execute our transformational strategy, making GateHouse a truly local multimedia company,” Reed said. “These investments, along with a more efficient operating structure, should position us to take full advantage of the growth opportunities we see as well as improvement we should start to see coinciding with a sustainable improvement in the economy.”

GateHouse Media (www.gatehousemedia.com) publishes 78 daily publications and serves local audiences in 21 states with community publications and local websites. The company’s stock currently trades on the pink sheets for about 5 cents per share. Locally, GateHouse owns The Observer-Dispatch in Utica, The Evening Telegram in Herkimer, and The Evening Times in Little Falls.

Sales increase, earnings slip at PAR Technology

Manufacturing & Engineering, Regional News, Technology

NEW HARTFORD — Sales were up for the third quarter at PAR Technology Corp. (NYSE: PAR), but income was down as the company said it

Impairment slows earnings at Oneida Financial

Banks & Credit Unions, Regional News

ONEIDA — Third-quarter earnings fell at Oneida Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ONFC) thanks to an asset impairment, decreased interest income, and an increased provision for loan

Testing chambers give Air Innovations new selling point

Manufacturing & Engineering, Small Business, Subscriber Only, Technology

CICERO — A pair of cargo containers is helping the environmental control system manufacturer Air Innovations impress clients. They’re not just cargo containers, though. The two 160-square-foot shells have been outfitted as a psychrometric testing facility for analyzing equipment at temperatures ranging from 0 degrees to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. “It goes a long way in

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CICERO — A pair of cargo containers is helping the environmental control system manufacturer Air Innovations impress clients.

They’re not just cargo containers, though. The two 160-square-foot shells have been outfitted as a psychrometric testing facility for analyzing equipment at temperatures ranging from 0 degrees to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It goes a long way in helping high-tech customers get comfortable with what you can do and how you’re going to test,” says Michael Wetzel, Air Innovations’ president and CEO. “We used to not even show our customers our old test cell. It would do nothing to provide value in the face of trying to win contracts or show capabilities. But now this one is state of the art.”

Air Innovations uses the new cells for research and development, testing its heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration designs. They’ve been operational for about a year and are used daily.

The company manufactures its own lines of wine-cellar cooling, refrigerated floral display-case, air purification, and hospital contamination-control products. It also builds climate-control systems for clients in material handling, pharmaceutical manufacturing, injection molding, process manufacturing, laboratories, and archival storage.

Constructing the test cells using cargo containers allowed the company to install them without eating into the floor space at its 40,000-square-foot Cicero headquarters at 7000 Performance Drive. Most of the two cells rest outside of the building — they jut out from the facility’s outside wall, similar to the way a tractor-trailer nests at a loading dock.

Except the test cells have been built into Air Innovations’ facility. They sit on the ground and open onto its factory floor.

“We didn’t want to lose that much floor space inside the facility,” Wetzel says. “And the noise of the machines that drive each of those cells — because there’s two air conditioners and heaters driving each of those — that’s all outside. So that’s not inside the workspace.”

Installing the new test chambers cost approximately $100,000. Air Innovations used its own cash to pay for the work, along with a $30,000 grant from Empire State Development.

J D Taylor Construction Corp. of DeWitt handled site work and permitting drawings. O’Connell Electric Co., Inc., which is headquartered in Victor in Ontario County, was the electrical contractor for the project, while Air Innovations performed much of the setup itself.

“Essentially we were the general contractor,” Wetzel says. “We bought a software package, and then getting it set up the way we wanted, it was our own labor.”

The test chambers allow Air Innovations to test equipment in “inside” and “outside” conditions simultaneously. One chamber can replicate the conditions in which a piece of equipment will be sitting, while the other can challenge its capability to produce the conditions it was designed to produce.

That creates tests that are similar to actual operating conditions, Wetzel says. The new equipment also helps Air Innovations calculate data more quickly and waste less time, according to the company’s director of engineering, Scott Toukatly.

“We’re more confident in the data, so it saves on potential retesting,” he says. “Retesting is usually need-based on suspect data. Retesting is now less of an issue. It’s a time-saver.”

Air Innovations is also open to the possibility of renting the chambers to local companies that need access to an environmental testing facility, according to Wetzel. It has yet to do so, but believes a market for that service exists because such facilities are relatively rare, he says.

The company is on pace to generate about $10 million in revenue in its current fiscal year, which ends on June 30. That’s up about $1 million from the previous year.

The firm employs 43 people, having grown to that level from employment in the “upper 30s” about five years ago, Wetzel says.

“It’s been a slow to steady growth,” he says. “We’re very diversified. It’s not any one category of our business. But because we’re so diversified, we’ve been able to stay strong, even through the recession. We’re not looking at a huge boom of employees, but thankfully we’re continuing to grow and hold the line. It’s not easy in this environment.”

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com

Tech law center aims for permanent funding

Health Care, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Small Business, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The New York State Science and Technology Law Center at the Syracuse University (SU) College of Law is campaigning to gain permanent funding from the state. The center has been funded since 2004 through a series of legislative member items secured by Assemblyman William Magnarelli, says Theodore Hagelin, a professor at the law school

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SYRACUSE — The New York State Science and Technology Law Center at the Syracuse University (SU) College of Law is campaigning to gain permanent funding from the state.

The center has been funded since 2004 through a series of legislative member items secured by Assemblyman William Magnarelli, says Theodore Hagelin, a professor at the law school and director of the center. To date, the college has received $375,000.

The school was re-designated for a third three-year term to serve as the technology law center earlier this year. The center provides education, information, and research and analysis directed at startups and early-stage technology companies.

Its most important effort is preparing detailed technology commercialization reports for companies, Hagelin says. The semester-long projects provide an in-depth evaluation of the potential for a new company’s technology in the market.

The documents are free to companies and also include information on legal and regulatory issues a new business may face. In exchange, the SU students who work on the reports gain invaluable practical experience, Hagelin says.

The center is seeking $2 million from the state for a permanent, annual budget.

“We know it’s an uphill battle,” Hagelin says. “We know this is not a prodigious time to go forward and try to get a new program funded.”

But, Hagelin notes, the state spends more than $100 million a year already on research and development. Facilities like the Syracuse Center of Excellence and others across the state where that research occurs are not going away.

New York won’t ever gain a full return on its research investment unless it spends more on technology commercialization, Hagelin says.

“We tried last year and didn’t make it,” he says, regarding the center’s funding request. “We will try again this year. And if we don’t make it this year, we will try again next year.”

Hagelin says he’s been working with SU students on commercialization reports for companies for 25 years. Since the law center launched in 2004, he’s also worked to spread the concept to other universities.

The center has helped launch technology commercialization clinics at Stony Brook University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Niagara University, Binghamton University, and Clarkson University. Hagelin says he’d also like to see a clinic launched somewhere in the Albany area.

He notes the center at SU and the clinics at other schools have seen an uptick in demand for their services lately.

“I don’t know how much of this is because of the economy or if it’s just people becoming more aware of entrepreneurship and the opportunities it presents,” he says. “I think the message of entrepreneurship is really getting out there.”

The center is currently crafting commercialization reports on a new suicide-prevention technology and a new technology to monitor maternal and fetal heartbeats during childbirth. Staff members at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University developed both concepts, Hagelin says.

He says he’s also working with University College on an online course in law for entrepreneurs. He hopes to launch the program this summer.

The course would provide an overview of key legal concepts like technology transfer and licensing.

Contact Tampone at

ktampone@cnybj.com

Laboratory Alliance opens Cazenovia patient-service center

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Health Care, Small Business, Subscriber Only, Technology

CAZENOVIA — Laboratory Alliance of Central New York, LLC is watching the number of people walking in the door of a patient-service center it recently opened in Cazenovia. “Every week we’re looking at patient volumes,” says Anne Marie Mullin, senior vice president of Laboratory Alliance, which is based in suite 300 at 1304 Buckley Road

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CAZENOVIA — Laboratory Alliance of Central New York, LLC is watching the number of people walking in the door of a patient-service center it recently opened in Cazenovia.

“Every week we’re looking at patient volumes,” says Anne Marie Mullin, senior vice president of Laboratory Alliance, which is based in suite 300 at 1304 Buckley Road in Salina and provides laboratory testing for nearly a million patients per year. “As we get more people, we’re always monitoring wait times of patients. As we see those wait times increase, we may add a receptionist full time, a second phlebotomist.”

Laboratory Alliance does not know if or when staffing increases will be necessary at the patient-service center. One phlebotomist currently works there.

The center opened at the beginning of October at 132 1/2 Albany St. Laboratory Alliance leases about 1,000 square feet of space there from Atwells Mill, LLC.

The location is the 11th patient-service center Laboratory Alliance operates in Central New York. It was also a return to Cazenovia for the independent, for-profit lab company that is jointly owned by Crouse Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, and Upstate University Hospital’s Community Campus.

Laboratory Alliance previously operated a patient-service center in the Cazenovia area on Chenango Street, Mullin says. But it vacated that location to give St. Joseph’s Heritage Family Medicine Center at Cazenovia more space. That family practice recently relocated to 132 1/2 Albany St., drawing Laboratory Alliance back into Cazenovia, Mullin says.

“It was at least three years, maybe four since the previous Cazenovia location closed,” she says. “We gave up that location but didn’t look to immediately identify a new piece of property for us because, in our business, the physicians are our referral source. Even though patients hold their insurance, and it’s their right to choose where they want to go to have their lab work done, so many people defer to their provider.”

About 15 to 20 patients are currently visiting the Cazenovia location per day at this point, according to Mullin. Laboratory Alliance is sending advertisements to Cazenovia residents and expects that number to grow.

Cazenovia is actually the second patient-service center Laboratory Alliance opened this year. On Aug. 1 it opened a location at the Madison-Irving Medical Center at 475 Irving Ave. in Syracuse.

That new patient-service center, which is also about 1,000 square feet, replaces two centers that closed around Crouse Hospital earlier this year, according to Mullin. Laboratory Alliance had centers at Crouse’s PromptCare at 739 Irving Ave. and the Crouse Testing Center at 725 Irving Ave. It closed those branches to give Crouse additional space.

“We couldn’t find any space in 725 or 739 Irving Ave.,” Mullin says. “So we looked in the vicinity and found the location at 475 Irving Ave. down the hill.”

The new Irving Avenue location has one employee and sees about 20 patients a day. Laboratory Alliance will add more employees to the center as more patients visit it, Mullin says.

Laboratory Alliance might not be done adding new patient-service centers this year, Mullin continues. It is looking at opening another location in Madison County by the end of December or sometime in January, although Mullin says she cannot share any more details about that possible expansion.

“It would mean we’ve set up three unbudgeted, unplanned-for patient-service centers in one year, which is remarkable,” she says. “I don’t think we’ve ever set up so many within such a short period of time. We’re looking at who’s sending patients to us, who wants to send patients to us, and we have to be responsive.”

Laboratory Alliance currently employs 440 people, up from about 430 a year ago. In addition to the 11 patient-service centers and its Salina headquarters, the lab company employs workers in rapid-response laboratories at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, Crouse Hospital, and Upstate’s Community General Campus, as well as a 27,000-square-foot building it owns in Salina at 113 Innovation Lane that functions as its main laboratory.

Annual revenue at Laboratory Alliance is in “excess of” $50 million, Mullin says. Revenue growth is typically 5 percent each year, a rate she expects to continue in the future, she adds.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com

BlueRock expands in Buffalo, prepares to launch in Pa.

Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Small Business, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — BlueRock Energy, Inc. is expanding its business in the Buffalo market and is on track to push into Pennsylvania in 2013. The company added a new energy supply consultant, Tim Neal, in Buffalo in October after splitting the market into two territories because of growth. The firm now has two employees in Buffalo

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SYRACUSE — BlueRock Energy, Inc. is expanding its business in the Buffalo market and is on track to push into Pennsylvania in 2013.

The company added a new energy supply consultant, Tim Neal, in Buffalo in October after splitting the market into two territories because of growth. The firm now has two employees in Buffalo full time.

BlueRock is a privately held energy services company. The company delivers electricity, natural gas, and green energy products to all of New York state, except Long Island.

The company targets small to medium-sized businesses says Philip Van Horne, BlueRock president and CEO. Its customer base is about 90 percent commercial with the remainder being residential clients.

Small businesses are being pushed to be more aware of their energy costs because of the continuing weak economy, Van Horne says. It’s an attitude that is driving BlueRock’s business in Buffalo and across the state.

The firm began in Syracuse and so has a slightly higher concentration of clients in Central New York, but Van Horne says customers are spread throughout the company’s footprint.

“We continue to see strong demand for what we do,” he says. “Business owners are very interested in the kinds of services we provide.”

BlueRock is nearing the end of the process to gain a license for operations in Pennsylvania, Van Horne says. Although the company may be able to start some work in the state before the end of the year, it will see the real first results from efforts there in 2013.

The firm will probably start work in central and western Pennsylvania initially, but expects to serve the whole state eventually. Van Horne says the company will have consultants living and working in each of the regions it serves in the state.

BlueRock employs 41 people currently. The company will probably add at least three people in Pennsylvania once it launches there along with two support people at its Syracuse headquarters.

The company is located in 6,700 square feet at 432 N. Franklin St. in downtown Syracuse. It has annual sales of more than $50 million.

“Even though the economy for small businesses remains pretty challenging in New York state and the Northeast … we’re staying very aggressive and we’re definitely on a growth pattern,” Van Horne says.

The firm’s goal is 30 percent growth in its annual revenue.

Van Horne started BlueRock Energy in 2006 as a new corporate direction in the deregulated energy market. In 2003, he had launched New York Energy, Inc. with his personal funds, financial help from family and friends, and investments from two partners.

New York Energy targeted large commercial and industrial companies. BlueRock shifted the focus to selling energy to small- and mid-sized business operations, including restaurants, small office buildings, nursing homes, multi-tenant apartments, manufacturers, car dealerships, and retail operations.

Contact Tampone at

ktampone@cnybj.com

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