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welcome thank you for joining our webinar how business finds the power to succeed i'm sarah larson with invest buffalo niagara the buffalo niagara regions economic development organization i've hosted a number of webinars that you can find on our youtube channel on various topics in economic development worth diving deeper into with our various partners around the region and i'm very happy to bring you today's topic before we get started i see that we do have a special guest in attendance john cuomo is the chair of naipa the expert organization joining us for today's presentation he is currently and is an advisor for an investor in several early stage businesses based in western new york i'd like to ask a fellow western new yorker and long time great ambassador of the region john cuomo to take a couple minutes and kick us off with a little bit about the region invest buffalo niagara naipa and how economic development partners like these are working to help continue the economic renaissance in western new york john thank you for joining us thank you very much sarah i appreciate the kind words and kind introduction and good afternoon everyone i'm certainly delighted to have this opportunity to welcome you to the webinar featuring the power authority's largest and most wide-reaching economic development program recharge in new york as sarah mentioned i've been honored to chair the power authority i'm now in my ninth year and having lived and worked in buffalo for my entire career it always makes me that much more proud to see the resources of the authority made available to businesses across western new york through partnerships such as this with invest buffalo niagara a couple minutes on naipa we've been fully invested in the growth and development of the buffalo niagara region for many many many years and while our niagara power project in lewiston is our most visible asset be assured the extent of our involvement in supporting many aspects of the economic rebirth of western new york over the last 10 years in particular our participation is otherwise very significant and far-reaching as to recharge new york not only is it our largest program but it's just one of the economic development initiatives and support services that we offer to support dozens of businesses and enterprises across western new york whether that be hydropower and funding incentives energy efficiency improvements electric uh vehicle charging infrastructure clean energy resources or many others further demonstration of the extent and level of commitment we make to the region and the economic vitality thereof and that's why our partnership with invest buffalo niagara is so important it creates real advantages to showcase why the buffalo niagara region is an ideal place for businesses to invest and grow we have a great yet low-cost quality of life uh and incredibly educated and highly skilled workforce very affordable real estate and of course lower cost clean hydropower from nypa which are just some of the reasons that make western new york ideal for expansion relocation or otherwise robust growth and development and with invest buffalo niagara be assured you have an outstanding concierge and advisor a five-star advisor to help you evaluate the myriad of programs incentives and resources available to support your growth and development needs be assured that when you join with invest buffalo niagara and naipa that we're going to work with you hand in hand to provide access to a full portfolio of incentives and resources that are tailored specifically to your business so thank you very much again for joining us today we look forward to working with you in the weeks and months to come and here's to more great partnerships in 2021 thank you very much thank you for your passion for the region thank you for the kind words much appreciated without further ado i'm going to share our presenters today from our nbn offices is vice president of business development kim grant kim has a strong background in business development particularly in advanced manufacturing and the medical device and biotechnology industries she has a strength in cultivating partnerships with the academic space while attracting companies to the region by identifying funding sources we are thrilled to welcome our guest presenter today alana appenzeller with the new york power authority alana and her team have helped numerous western york businesses cut long-term energy costs and alana is going to explain how you might be eligible to do so too also joining us we're pleased to have bob confer with us today he is president of con for plastics located here in western new york con for plastics is one of the leading large part low molders in the world with over 45 years of experience in the industry and holding numerous developed patents through the years copper plastics is a recipient of the recharge new york incentive and bob is with us today to share his success story so now that you know a little bit about us i'd like to actually allow our presenters to understand who our audience is today i'm going to do a couple polls in order to do that so the first one on your screen is is your organization located within the eight counties of western new york outside of west new york but still in the new york state or is it outside of new york state so about 80 percent of our audience today is within the eight counties of western new york which is great great to have this local audience for alana to speak specifically to others are within new york state and then we still do have some attendees from outside of new york state which will be great to hear from kim as well so we have a little something for everybody on the call today one more poll i'd like to understand what industries you may be representing today and so if you can click whether you might be in the manufacturing agri-business food processing industry if you are within advanced business services maybe life sciences if you're a fellow economic developer or if you're not on our list today click other that'll give us a sense too great so we're kind of split by thirds it looks like here a third of our audience is within the manufacturing agribusiness others are those on learning more about the recharge incentives so that they can communicate it to businesses around the region and then we have another third outside of that audience so maybe that's something we'll be able to follow up in the q a or even after on to learn more about so now that we better understand who we are and who our audience is kim i'm going to pass this along to you to get started with our presentation today so just a brief introduction about invest buffalo niagara we are our region's economic development agency we cover the eight western counties if you look at the map you'll see how close we are to such a significant part of the country although we all know it for those of us on the call about our work live and play here in the region it's really a special place when you think of the proximity to the rest of the the country and the uh huge amounts of people that we are near and the opportunity that provides especially given the pandemic where we see people fleeing the urban centers and on shoring and reshoring their product and their supply chain we have a huge opportunity right now invest buffalo niagara is on course to have their best year of attracting businesses and creating new jobs in our region since 2015 we've got a huge uh opportunity in front of us the inquiries that we've gotten are any indication we're on course to do just that so to be sure we recognize that our assets in our region are in advanced business services so think about the back office operations of geico and the banks and the insurance companies advanced manufacturing we have a long history an extraordinary work ethic in advanced manufacturing whether it's tires or plastics agar business you just can't have a bunch of cows in the middle of new york city so we see our yogurt factories and soon to be a spice factory nutrient-rich company is looking at our area so lots going on in the agri-business space and life sciences i had the pleasure of being at the university of buffalo for several years and on the medical campus for almost 20 years it's such a special place and has such extraordinary growth opportunity we've seen it happen already and we're working on a plan to to grow our biotech cluster even bigger and logistics with our proximity to canada it's a huge growing entity for us if you look at all of the warehousing and the access with all of our great roads um logistics is a huge part of the success of our region and so why buffalo niagara i always tell people i'm i'm a business girl i it's it's about business so so why are you on this call today you know we have low cost reliable hydro power we have low cost real estate we have low cost wages and but a skilled workforce ready and a low cost of living and and the reality is that other parts of the country that are also uh booming economically don't have uh the trifecta that we do in all of those areas so for those of you that are here you're experiencing it firsthand for those of you that are outside the region um self-select raise your hand give me a call and i'd be glad to share some of the success stories of the companies that we've brought to this region and that are expanding in this region for all of the reasons that i mentioned i am thrilled to see so many of our industrial development agency partners on the call today um to learn about this because without their assistance and empire state development and our municipal partners we can't get the word out about the incentives that are available and tell the story because honestly if you're sitting in your office or in our home offices as we have been these past few months you just don't know unless you're in the industry all the resources that are available to help your business it costs you absolutely nothing to ask the question so i encourage you all to think about innovation think about expansion think about research and development and think about um recharge and what you could do with your business with a little bit additional resources with that i am going to turn it over to alana she's the real star here and she's going to tell you about recharge thank you so much kim and thank you everyone for being here today i can't tell you how happy i am to be here um my name is alana appenzeller and i work on the economic development team at the new york power authority i have been with nypa for about 12 years and i've spent most of that time working with businesses all across new york state uh so to start i'm going to give you a brief overview of the power authority our wonderful chairman did a great job um with with an overview of all of the things that we do especially in western new york i'll then discuss the specifics of the recharge new york program uh benefits eligibility everything you'll need to know about the program i'll touch on the application of it and then i would like to introduce you to our team at nipah that works on economic development so nipah is the largest state-owned electric utility in the united states our history goes back to 1931 when fdr signed the power authority act and we first began producing power in 1958 our two largest facilities are our hydropower plant the state lawrence fdr power project and our pride and joy the robert moses niagara power project um that came online in 1961 and at the time the niagara project was actually the largest hydropower facility in the western world so today we have about 900 employees across all of our facilities as you can see here on that map we have 17 operating facilities across the state and three administrative offices as as the chairman mentioned we do have an office in downtown buffalo as well as our niagara power project and our my boss actually our director of economic development works out of that western new york uh authors in buffalo so we do have a large presence in the area overall we produce about 20 percent of the state's total electric load we also operate about a quarter of the state's high voltage transmission system 80 of that power is generated at those hydropower facilities that i mentioned at niagara and st lawrence and a big part of what we do is our economic development programs we are a leader in using this electric hydropower for the benefit of the state so overall we have about 400 000 jobs tied to those economic development programs i mentioned and we've invested millions and millions of dollars into clean energy projects so one of these businesses that have benefited from our hydropower and our economic development programs is con for plastics in northeast town wanda you'll see we have bob confer here today and by his testimony you see here withdrew confer to recharge was long-term cost certainty and cost savings these are savings that confer was able to reinvest back into their operations and purchase new machinery we are so happy to have bob confer here today so he can tell you firsthand how he has turned his challenges into opportunities over the past year and how naiva has played a small role in helping him remain competitive in the global marketplace so bob we are so happy to have you here thank you for having me on board glad to spread the word about nipah and everything good that it does for the community and everything it does for con for plastics and just to lay down what we do for those watching the webinar i like to say that we deal in fun at conference plastics 90 of what we manufacture gets people in the water or on the water so we're making con for branded ladders and steps to get people inside swimming pools we're making cabinetry that goes on the outside of hot tubs those are utilized by about 14 different oems in the us and canada outfit their spas with that and then we also make as a custom job kayaks and you see a kayak in that picture right there being manufactured got an assembly crew working on that and it's all been a good business for us and it's good that we see the positive outcome of getting people outside and having fun it's been our call for decades but it's taken on special significance over the past year because we've got a virus that's really compelling people to be away from others but at the same time they've got to be there with family they've got to do something outside they've got to break the monotony of being indoors and being sequestered so having access to that swimming pool and that hot tub and that kayak to do things outside that makes us feel good about what we're doing so when we do all this we're facing a lot of competition we've got the domestic competition and then we've got pretty significant competition coming from overseas where china is usually a daily threat to us from ripoff products to copycat products things like that so it comes down to the issue we have to manage costs in order to compete globally and when it comes to that knife has been a godsend to us when you look at what we use in terms of electricity we're using anywheres on a peak day about three megawatts it's not more sometimes up to four megawatts it's a lot of electricity to melt the plastic extrude the plastic and then finish it into the goods that we have and we've got a very large power bill because of that in a typical year we might be looking at anywhere from eight hundred thousand up to a million dollars so savings are critical to us any place we can get them and nipa fits the bill with that when you look at what we've done with uh recharge in new york and also replacement power you combine all that you look at the savings and then you look at the certainty the savings have been pretty significant right now we're looking at savings somewhere between 15 to 20 000 a year that number is certain to grow and that's why i like the certainty part of this because when you look at the cost of the hydroelectric power water always basically costs the same you're not going to see extravagant increases where there might be a supply issue with gas it might be a pipeline issue or you're going to look at ultimately over time as more and more states get into different aspects of green energy that's going to be a little bit mo e expensive but i know that looking at the hydro energy that goes into this power bill and goes into recharge new york that savings right now it's in that 15 to 20 000 range is actually going to double within the next 10 years and those are huge savings now you combine that with the savings that i have from the replacement power program through naipa we're looking at savings probably right now in the tune of fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year and that's significant so beyond that there's also the messaging that goes with that when you look at this energy coming from clean hydroelectric energy that's a great selling point for me when i know that right off the bat 25 to 30 percent of our power even before going to market and getting that rest of the energy is coming from one of the most respected and uh well-known hydro plants in the northeast if not in the entire country that's pretty significant for us and it's a great selling point as consumers get into this mode of saying we want to go green they want to know green they want to know that i'm using material in-house that can be recycled i'm using material in-house that i've recycled myself from in-house scrap and then it's good for them to know that the energy driving those machines is green now getting involved with the program that was extremely easy a lot of people when they look at a program that's run by a government agency some people might fear bureaucracy there isn't any bureaucracy involved with us with this it's a nice easy paper chain when we applied for it basically we made a commitment to x number of jobs we also made a commitment to make an initial investment and then there was the recurring investment so when you get into this program don't think that your initial cash outly will set the foundation of what naipa would expect you to put out there every single year when they looked at the trends that we have in terms of capital investment we committed to recurring capital investments every year of 200 000 it wasn't pegged to the machine that we invested in which was three and a half to four million dollars which caused this whole investment to take place and for us to pursue recharge new york luckily they look at your recurring trends in annual investment so that way it's manageable for you because you don't want to have that one gigantic sticker item be the thing that causes you to lose that power so this ensures that you keep that power in possession and when we did the documentation on that it was very easy individual named dave thompson who works there at nipah guided me through the process and he manages that process with me on an annual basis just making sure that we're doing well that we're able to uh meet the demand to see if we have other demands in-house and also for any one of you you're going to have to do an annual report indicating that you've met the job standards you've met the investments and it's an easy record keeping it typically we have done in less than an hour so it's not like it's going to be troublesome find the jobs data you find the investment data those of you who use a lot of power should know specifically i would say a manufacturer of our size nine out of ten businesses aren't going to have to focus on this because when you look at the market basket of energy that comes through this program it's going to be half hydro and it's going to be half market power you can decide if you have huge buying power to not pursue the market side of that which is what we decided to do because we can buy in volume when it comes to electricity and we can get into long-term contracts that allow us to have that set rate for years most businesses don't have that buying power so you need the strength of nipa behind you to utilize their power to buy the market power that covers that other 50 percent because they can buy that power and volume and give you significant savings on that and as well so there's a lot to come from that and that's just part of something in that registration process that you'll have to analyze yourself but i would say nine out of ten businesses are going to have to put their trust in nipa and let them get the best rates for you thank you bob how do i follow that um we really appreciate your kind words about naiva and you know just so you know it's a pleasure working with you and to your point um you do work that makes you feel good and hearing you know you talk about recharge new york is what makes my team and all the people that work with you here at night but feel really good uh we want to see businesses like yours doing well and succeeding and growing so to know that we have a small role in that means so much to us and what makes this program so great so we can't thank you enough for being here and for kind of laying the foundation about the recharge new york program um so knife is awarding allocations of hydropower low-cost hydra power to eligible businesses and non-profits across the state so the easiest way to describe it is that you're getting a portion of your electric supply served by naiva at knife's recharge new york rates um bob mentioned these allocations are actually a blend of low-cost renewable hydropower from our facilities um and market power that naiva is purchasing in the wholesale market it is a direct sale arrangement with nypa so you are entering into a contract with naiba you're getting billed directly by nifa everything is straight through us but we still rely on the electric utilities around the state um to to help deliver that power so you would still be getting in essence here bill from free local utility and i say gargini national grid and you would also get a bill from nightbot for the piece that we're giving you there it is a competitive application process we rely on legislative criteria to score these applications um so we're basically looking for things like you can commit to retain or create jobs invest in your facility um and in exchange for these commitments to the state you're essentially getting this benefit from naiva so the beauty of this program is that it's not only for businesses that are going through a major expansion or that are locating to the state while it can be used for business attraction it can be used to incentivize expansions it is open to what we call retention so if you're a manufacturer you operate a warehouse that has refrigeration you're a data center um any a hospital anything like that where you have a high electric load um you can apply just for your current operations so you know we're not looking for you to purchase millions of dollars worth of machinery if you're planning uh over the next five years to get new carpeting or you know replace your hvac system or getting new machineries or even you know getting computer hardware anything that's showing us that you're upkeeping your facilities and you're looking to stay here and keep your employees here that is what we're looking for for a retention customer so you don't necessarily have to do some some massive expansion or even an energy related project let's get into eligibility large and small businesses are eligible to apply for this program manufacturers make up a very large portion of the program we do have warehouses especially ones with refrigeration spaces agricultural businesses things of that nature all participating in the program i know we have the large and small business numbers up there um they may not mean much to you without having your electric bills in front of you but we can we can definitely help you out see which category you fall into um as long as you're not a storefront unfortunately restaurants um hotels gaming entertainment related establishments or if you're a government entity you would not be eligible to apply for this program um but you are always welcome to reach out to us we do have other opportunities to work with nypa and me and my team would be more than happy to walk through it with you and see um what opportunities are there with nipah or with any other agencies that we know of so uh for recharge new york you can apply through the consolidated funding application with that is it's basically a portal for all and the streamlines all sorts of government government new york state programs that you can apply to so recharge new york is one of them um you may have heard may have heard of the celsius program things along that nature you can go in and you can apply for multiple programs all at once through through this portal and we have some handouts at the end of the presentation um from nipah and you can have the link to the the cfa on there and there's also going to be there's also going to be some helpful tips so if you did want to go into the application and look around uh it's basically a list of information you should have available before you start this application uh for nypa we do have a rolling deadline so you can apply at any any point throughout the year uh just one thing to be aware of is not all the programs have a rolling deadline so just be aware of that if you're if you're going into when you're looking to apply from for something besides the recharge program if you've if you've applied in the past there is a cloning feature available so you could actually go in and copy everything you've had in the previous application into a new application which is a really i can't even tell you how great this feature is because it'll save you so much time filling out your name and your address and things things of that nature and the one thing i can't stress enough about really anything in this presentation but specifically about the application is we're here to help my the economic development team at knife this is what we do we will sit with you we will look at your bills we will give you an idea of what your potential award could be what your potential savings could be in the program we will help you determine if it's a good fit for you and we will walk you through this application question by question if need be so please if you are thinking of applying if you have any questions or if you may have started an application already and you're starting to go through it we are 100 here for you and we want to help so please don't be shy um so as far as timing goes we do have a tentative schedule here um our team needs to review all of these applications and they also go to the regional economic development councils for scoring so it does require us a little bit of time to review the application and get those scores all uh all recommendations for applications have to go to napa's board of trustees for approval so the schedule of the approvals really depends on the board schedule the board is meeting this month to approve our next round of awards um and then after that the next uh time we would be approving them is most likely july so if you are interested in applying the date to keep in mind is june 4th that is our our deadline right now it may change a bit so you're going to have all of our contact information so i encourage you to reach out um if you're thinking of applying and we'll be in touch and make sure that you have everything you need and you're all set for your application just because the state is a bit far away doesn't i don't want that to stop you from applying um whenever you can um it does not enter into you it does not eat away at your contract term the seven year term and any investments you make between your application date and the time you start your your award will still count towards your capital commitment so there's really no harm in applying as soon as as soon as you're able to and again it gives us plenty of time to make sure your application is the best it could be um so this is one more testimonial we have here this is from magellan aerospace in they have facilities actually in queens and long island they are another long-term participant in the program and their savings have helped them reinvest in their facilities much like it did fair comfort plastics on the total opposite corner of the state um so you know aerospace in particular a lot of these defense contractors have been having a pretty rough year i would say so recharge new york has definitely been really helpful to them controlling their costs and and remaining viable um over the past past year and since they've been in the program so we're happy to help these these businesses in any way we can program is looking to help businesses control energy costs in the long term and uh you know bob said it said some very kind words and and i'll echo them what really is special about nipah is that there is a team here to help you um as i mentioned my team will help you understand the program understand the benefits of the program uh go through the application and once you are awarded assuming that you apply and get an award um you actually have an account representative as bob mentioned his is dave thompson they're there to help you every step of the way so once once you get that award you're not being sent to a hotline if you have a question about your bill there's an actual person there to help you every step of the way so with that being said i wanted to introduce you to the economic development team at knife so our role is uh to spread the word about the program and assist businesses and understanding if they're eligible if it's a good fit and what the benefits could be we also work really closely i think i mentioned with empire state development local industrial development agencies obviously our partners like invest buffalo niagara they all help us get this program out there and for businesses that really need it here you'll see rich smith is our director of economic development he oversees economic development across the state and he's the lead for western new york and the finger lakes i think i may have mentioned how he is well he is a local he works out of our buffalo office um so if you do reach out to us it'll likely be him or myself that you'll be getting in touch with i manage economic development for new york city and long island and i'm also rich's backup in western new york and we've been seeing a lot of activity in the area so my role has been increasingly prominent there so um i'm very excited about it and hopefully we'll be chatting with a lot of you very soon we have patricia wilson in the north country so i think eastern new york uh from the capitol region up to the canadian border and we have amber sisson who basically oversees any area that i didn't mention uh southern tier central new york mohawk valley middle of the middle of the state i'll say our next slide we'll show you how you can get in touch with us we have our website there that email powering business at nightbit.gov that goes to all four members of our team and like i said it'll likely be richer myself getting back to you we have the link for the consolidated funding application and that is my direct number so if you have any questions please feel free obviously i like to talk a lot so please don't be shy and reach out so that is all i have so i guess we'll take it back to kim so as i mentioned we're all about doing business we want to help you grow your business we want to help you manage your costs and so i asked the question at the beginning of the webinar if you had a chance to be a part of the recharge program what would you do for your business what would you do with that savings click on whether or not you're going to hire more people uh perhaps deploy an e-commerce strategy invest in some of those r d initiatives that could create a new product or a service on your part uh grow your product offering i hope this is getting the the juices flowing and that all of you are going to make our phones ring so that we can explore some of those opportunities you know i'm going to do a little bit of a plug for invest buffalo niagara i literally had no idea the breadth of the things that invest buffalo niagara does in our region to engage companies attract companies to our region to make those investments and generate those new jobs and uh it's all right there on our website free of charge we have newsletters if there's a particular uh industry sector that you're particularly interested in you can register for those we have blogs that are topical about way that other businesses and best practices and things that they're doing to drive uh their industry forward we have the bell ringer podcast uh i have a couple of favorites one is my city smells like cheerios if you haven't listened to that one nick from odu he's another one amazing ambassadors for our region that are talking about why it's so special to have their businesses here and the things that they've taken advantage of in our region that are helping them be successful if you give me a call my team and i will help you identify ways to find the talent that you're going to need to do the work we have professional services whether it be placement agencies utilities lawyers accountants insurance people banks we have all those contacts and they're willing and ready to have those discussions with you and help you identify the ways to grow your business so our contact information is here um but i'd like to turn it back over to sarah okay so let me go and get us started on our q a alana the first one looks like it's for you and if i already received recharge new york the power incentive can i apply for more yes yes you can as i mentioned the awards are based on uh the jobs and investments so if you since the time that you originally applied if your electric load has increased if you are able to commit to additional employment and if you can commit to additional capital investment you can absolutely apply for more recharge new york power so a continuation on that then is every recharge award a seven year contract yes every recharge award is a seven year contract and just to give you a little bit more information about the awards themselves typically for retention you can receive up to 50 of your average electric usage um subject to the scoring model of course but we can award up to 50 of your average electric demand over the past 12 months um as your award and if you're a new business to new york or if you're looking to expand that number actually increases up to 70 so we can apply now you can get a really decent amount of your electric load supplied by niva what it what happens if a customer can't meet the job or capital investment commitment in that contract if you can't meet those commitments we do work with you um we as i mentioned every business has an account wrap that they work with so they'll work with you they'll get an understanding of what was the reason for the shortfall um you know we're realistic here you know not every project that is planned goes forward um things change look at covid so we you know we definitely try to understand what the reason was for the shortfall and the commitments um if the reason is not a great one the worst that can happen is we just take back a portion of your allocation so we're there are no penalties there are no fees we don't back bill you for anything like that you know the whole point of this program is to help you so if a business can't meet their commitments you know our attention is not you to hurt them so um we do actually build into the contract and 90 threshold so if you commit to 100 employees you only get 290 for the year you're actually considered compliant so we do build in that wiggle room for you okay and then this next one alana i think i know the answer to so they're interested in understanding the participation currently and recharge within western new york and i think that number is around 90ish plus yes yeah i believe it was around 90 uh businesses that are currently participating in western new york bob you mentioned increasing a workforce you've increased about 50 through this incentive what buffalo niagara resources have you used to do so and what's your impression of the workforce in buffalo niagara i would say we have an excellent workforce and it's uh quite varied quite diverse one thing that should not be overlooked here in western new york is the access to the refugee and immigrant population and that would hold true for any business i don't matter if someone's in hospitality retail farming manufacturing that workforce is there and it's readily available and uh it's a learned workforce too so some people might think that okay they might be coming from refugee camps and third world countries but you know what these people have excellent work ethics they went through schooling well they're in myanmar as an example and we have a very good workforce that understands the technical implications of what we do and what that means to the consumers beyond just the resource of tapping into immigrants and refugees there's the general american workforce of those who are in their second third fourth generations of being americans we have a very good workforce in that regard in the fact that our region understands blue-collar work we understand how to do things with our hands and our minds to make products to farm products to process products you can't find that in other regions throughout the country it's difficult to find people who are active in blue collar or just one or two generations removed from it so that means we have the intellectual and the physical infrastructure that's necessary to pursue that and we've had a lot of good outlets of making those individuals better one would be an apprenticeship programs that we run on site at the plant we invest a lot of time into making sure that people can be the best they can and they can learn the skills of the trade of the plant but we also rely on a lot of the intellectual resources that are out there in western new york whether it's the high school the vocational trades very strong in orleans niagara boces but also the adult vocational traits orleans niagara boces has a program for adults and you also have programs at gcc and triple c ecc so all those community colleges are doing the things they can to invest in the workforce and create it that's necessary for manufacturing agribusiness and things like that and then also you cannot overlook the university programs we have here whether it's suny system we've got world class university and ub and we have numerous private colleges throughout the region and universities such as alfred university so another one for bob you know we've talked a lot about the low cost of doing business in western new york and you've received the recharge new york incentive what other benefits do you think uh experience doing business in western new york there's an incredible number of them and uh first and foremost since we're talking about electricity and things like that let's talk about the reliability of power there's one thing that manufacturers or any business hates and that's downtime when you look at the inability to trust infrastructure in certain regions because of acts of mother nature when you lose your electrical grid for an extended period of time that's a nightmare especially when it comes to manufacturing because downtime has lost time that you can never get back but when you look at what happens in western new york the worst thing that can happen in western new york is snow or ice and we've been able to weather that in multiple ways you look at the investments that say a national grid is made in terms of the lines crews that can get out there immediately fix the lines and make sure they're up to snuff in the event of an ice storm and then you've got the investments that have been undertaken by naipa to make sure that you have hydroelectric power for those not familiar with the region out there in lake erie there's something called the ice boom that's put in there by the new york power authority that's there to protect the ice flows to make sure that you don't have when you have the spring thaw like you do right now you don't have icebergs coming out of lake erie crashing down the niagara river and then demolishing the water intakes at the niagara power project that ice boom ensures that it melts at a nice steady pace and you get little tiny icebergs half the size of a car going down the river instead of those twice the size of a car because you don't want a natural disaster happening so because of all that we don't experience downtime because of loss of electricity so having that reliable infrastructure is something that i love so that goes into the next portion which is another form of infrastructure which would be the roadways it's really neat to be here in new york state and have an infrastructure that's the interstate system the multiples whether it's the i-90 the 190 the 290. you have all those different ways to get goods into you to get goods out and then also get your co-workers and customers to come to your factory to your business to see things to do things to make things and then from there you have access to the canadian markets we have that infrastructure that takes us across these multiple bridges that can get us into the golden horseshoe and that's a really big business for us and other western new york businesses because you have that immediate access to one of the richest portions in the whole world the golden horseshoe going from the border all the way up to toronto and when you look at the economic impact of that and we look at the benefit that gives us that's pretty significant so those are some of the selling points and one thing that you should look at beyond all of that is we want our homes to thrive too so the quality of life is significant around here that's a major selling point if you're looking to bring your business to western new york you can't overlook everything that we have access to from border to border new york there's a lot of good things that happen there whether you're into fishing skiing going out on the wine trails everything that's out there there's so much out there that you can do kim i'm going to have you wrap it up with this last question if anyone's interested in expansion mode besides recharge new york or looking at other incentives or just going through exploring the expansion process what point would they engage with you there is no wrong time to engage with us wherever you are in that process and that evaluation give us a call send us an email we are glad to have those conversations all day long um and it's constantly changing with the new administration we're seeing more economic development programs coming down the pike so what's available today may be different in another couple of months as things uh sort themselves out um it's a dynamic time in western new york and i hope everybody can take advantage of the prosperity that's going on here thank you everyone for joining us today i really appreciate our presenters joining us today kim ilana bob for presenting and for our special guest john cuomo uh thank you so much for speaking as well on our behalf