Home Grown and Growing

Before the October 2003 announcement by United Technologies that its Carrier unit would shed 1,200 jobs in its birthplace of Syracuse, the metro area was leading the state in job growth. The

Homegrown self-insurance company POMCO will invest up to $5 million and add 110 jobs to its payroll of 245 as it unites seven proximate properties on this corner in downtown Syracuse.

community's pride may have taken a hit, but its citizens are also looking forward to new expansions from POMCO, Tessy Plastics in Elbridge and Sensis Corp. in the Collamer Business Park in Dewitt. Is there anything in common among those projects?
        "They're locally owned," says Don Western, director of economic development for Onondaga County. "They've grown here, managed themselves, and there's some inclination to look where you are, because you're familiar with the processes."
        Tessy President Roland Beck and his father Henry will see their homegrown company – which supplies parts to companies like Welch Allyn (see below), Duracell and Xerox – invest $6 million in a 60,000-sq.-ft. (5,574-sq.-m.) facility adjacent to its current 150,000-sq.-ft. (13,935-sq.-m.) facility in Elbridge. The choice of Onondaga County over Lynchburg, Va., will mean the retention of 393 jobs and the creation of 100 more. It's also the second expansion in the past four years for the injection molder, which will benefit from a $400,000 capital grant from Empire State Development for use in purchasing new equipment.
        Sensis is investing $12.6 million in a 69,000-sq.-ft. (6,410-sq.-m.) R&D facility for further development of its air-traffic, radar and surveillance equipment. It's also bumping up employment from 350 to 600 over the next three years. One reason cited for the project's location and design is support of engineering talent recruitment and retention, especially in software development.
        In an economy that has business owners pleading for a level playing field, POMCO is seeking to share the playing field – or at least the field's parking lot. A unique facet of the self-insurance company's agreement with the city of Syracuse is that, in exchange for paving part of its property adjacent to Cummings Field, home of the Northeast Little League, POMCO will allow participants in that field's activities to park in the joint lot during evenings and weekends.
        POMCO will spend between $1 million and $5 million on a 44,000-sq.-ft. (4,088-sq.-m.) expansion that will add 110 jobs to its payroll of 245 and bring together seven proximate properties. Robert Pomfrey, president of POMCO, says the company was ready to grow right where it was planted, especially with annual growth of 15 percent
        "Six months to a year ago, we started looking at different opportunities," he told Site Selection in October 2003. "What the city of Syracuse has done for us has been phenomenal."
        That package included a special city council vote conferring Empire Zone status, as well as money from the state. But none of the economic development amenities would have meant a thing without the primary thing Syracuse had already done for the company – develop a labor pool that Pomfrey calls "quite good."
        "For a lot of reasons, the employees wanted to remain here too, so that was a big incentive also," he says, although that wealth has been brought about in part by the downsizing of others. In fact, it might be said that the company's product itself – self-insured employee benefit plans for large organizations – is also doing well because of attrition in more traditional (and increasingly costly) benefit plans.
        "It's been universal across the state – there is a lot of stress in businesses about the rising cost of healthcare," says Pomfrey. "A lot of times, delivery of employee benefits is very regionalized. When we go in, it's like a breath of fresh air for people. The alternative hasn't been explained to them by the insurance industry. We help make them more cost-effective."
        In other words, in a state thought of as "high-cost," POMCO both delivers and takes delivery of the antidote, fostering internal growth and savings for its regional clients. Pomfrey – whose firm operates offices in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Watertown and White Plains – sees positive signs for the service economy especially, and likes the increasing level of involvement he sees from the state. But the really good vibes come from the locals.
        "So many people come up to me and are so proud of the effort everybody's making," says Pomfrey. "It's a good feeling – everybody wants to see this kind of thing."

Syracuse Loses Part of Past,
But Focus Is On Future

One thing many observers want to see to make sure it's real is the retail magnum opus called DestiNY USA, a $2.2-billion project which plans to have its commercial tenants be served by a cluster of environmentally friendly service providers in a 300-acre (121-hectare) clean-energy research and manufacturing area. Another 600 acres (242 hectares) of commercial space will be located nearby.
        But first the project needs to gain further support in both Albany and the nation's capital. Some state legislators are questioning the high costs cited by Pyramid Cos. to develop it, saying those may be inflated in order to gain tax breaks worth some $630 million.
        "DestiNY still needs a big lift from the state legislature, and they have been working to get that kind of project in the federal energy bill as eligible for tax-exempt financing," says Onondaga County's Don Western.
        One of the synergistic pieces in place for the environmental component of DestiNY is Syracuse's Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems, which was funneled toward the city because of one major corporate presence, now leaving town.
        "The reason we have this is it was modeled and talked about vs. other centers because we had Carrier," says Western. "Meanwhile Carrier ducks out the side door."
        The Carrier announcement was not unexpected, as Connecticut-based UTC has been conducting an evaluation of all operations for some time, against a background of booming Asian business. At press time, the company's Otis Elevator division announced that it would end manufacturing at its 38-year-old Bloomington, Ind., plant and move that work to China, leaving behind a logistics/engineering hub.
        In Syracuse, the decision was made to move manufacturing activity to Georgia and to Singapore, albeit with a similar possibility of increases in R&D-type jobs. Carrier will still employ some 1,600 people in Syracuse.
        Hope was still alive after the announcement, as the state and the sheet metal workers union quickly cobbled together a package worth some $210 million over five years, including loan breaks, lower power bills and further property tax and training concessions from the county. But the corporation rejected the offer, and on Nov. 2, the union reluctantly agreed to a new contract that included the job cuts.