Reaching New Heights in CNY

On this episode of Talk CNY Season 2, presented by NBT Bank, Empire State Development’s Regional Director for Central New York Dan Kolinski discusses the goals outlined in the recently released Regional Economic Development Council’s 2023 strategic plan. The 2023 plan is updated to include goals that reflect our current regional moment, such as creating a future ready workforce, connecting industry ecosystems, ensuring equitable growth and much more. 

Daniel Kolinski, a graduate of West Genesee High School in Camillus, NY, earned degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies from Hobart College. After graduating, his professional path led him to Washington, DC, where he spent three years working for a political communications firm as an account manager. He returned to Syracuse in 2015, earning a master’s degree in sports management while serving as the Director of Volleyball Operations at Syracuse University.  

Kolinski returned to Washington, DC during the 2016 national elections, but a subsequent return to Syracuse saw him involved in local political races before joining Empire State Development, New York State’s economic development agency. Starting as Deputy Director in the Central New York region, Daniel was recently promoted to Regional Director, a position he proudly holds today after nearly six years of service at the agency 

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Transcript

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This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, a semimonthly podcast by CenterState CEO, Central New York's premier leadership and economic development organization. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. Thanks for joining us for Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, director of communications, here at CenterState CEO and your new host of Talk CNY. Today we're talking about the 2023 strategic plan from the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council. Since 2011, New York State's Regional Economic Development Council Initiative has been empowering local stakeholders to make strategies and plans for their community prosperity. So, Central New York has changed a lot since the first strategic plan was done in 2011. This 2023 plan includes strategies around creating a future ready workforce, connecting industry ecosystems and much, much more. So to break it all down with me and to tell you why it matters here with me today is Empire State Development's Regional Director for Central New York, Dan Kolinski. So, the Regional Economic Development Council Initiative, for those who might not be familiar with it or need a little bit of a refresher, we want to take a step back, give a little history in context. So can you tell me a little bit about what this initiative tries to accomplish? So can you tell me a little bit about what this initiative tries to accomplish? Yeah. So, you know, as you mentioned, (it) began back in 2011 and really at the time was a unique way to do economic development. New York State was really kind of leading the nation in this type of regional approach that was empowering the local stakeholders, business leaders, not for profits, academia, local elected leaders and economic government organizations to come together and create strategies that were specific to the challenges that their region faced. So, as you know, you know, Syracuse, Central New York, the challenges that we face are vastly different than what New York City is facing what the Capital region's facing, what Buffalo's facing. And as a result, it allowed us to come together and bring the experts in each of these different areas around the table to create a strategic plan that was specific to Central New York and then allow us to go back to Albany and say, we want to make investments in these certain strategies because that's what we feel like is going to be the best way to move our region forward. like is going to be the best way to move our region forward. And as we mentioned, 2023 is not the first year that we have done a strategic plan. So, can you tell me some of the projects or initiatives that have resulted from past strategic plans in 2011 and 2015? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the key things that came out of that 2015 plan was taking a look at some of our industry clusters and where do we see the region moving in the next 5 to 10 years. And so a prime example would be the Uncrewed Aerial Systems - UAS. We were able to make significant investments. And now New York State really is leading the nation in our efforts to invest in and create the technologies that will eventually allow us to move products via drone or even eventually people were a lot closer, people think, to moving products, things like the GENIUS New York competition or the Grow NY competition, these these accelerator business accelerators that allowed us to invest in our innovative ecosystem. Before 2015, we really didn't have a strong of an innovation ecosystem as we as we used to. And as people know, Central New York, Syracuse, we were known for creating things. That's back in the early 1900s. That's what we did. We were the Silicon Valley of the nation back in the early 1900s. And we're getting back to those roots. We're able to create companies that are coming out of our higher ed institutions. We are able to attract innovative companies from across the world. And these these business competitions were a strong reason for why we did that. Things like investing in our workforce, Erie 21, LeMoyne College is investing in the future workforce, that's going to take a lot of these jobs and technicians for Micron and engineers, and they're getting kids ready from a young age, middle school on up, and so that they can move into careers that are going to give them opportunities that perhaps their parents and their grandparents didn't have. Agriculture, manufacturing... a lot of our key industry sectors, Green Empire farms out in Madison County, a large greenhouse under glass that's growing strawberries and lettuce. Those types of innovative projects came out of that 2015 plan have laid the groundwork for a lot of the work that's happening today. So it's really powerful to have those local stakeholders and those local voices kind of determining what will make this region prosper. And it's seemed successful so far. 100%. I mean, I think and granted, I've only been here for the last six years, so I was not here during, you know, during the 2015 plan. But I think, you know, we don't see ourselves as separate counties or separate cities anymore. We see ourselves as Central New York and bringing those stakeholders together, bringing the elected leaders and the economic development organizations and the businesses and the entrepreneurs into one room to discuss not what's just good for Syracuse or what's good for Auburn or Oswego or Madison County, but what's good for Central New York as a whole really has led to some of the most collaborative and creative solutions that I think I've seen working amongst separate municipalities in different counties. I really think we believe that is a rising tide raises all boats mentality here in Central New York and across all of Upstate New York. I think what started as a regional approach is almost turning into a super regional approach, where now you're seeing collaboration between even the regions. So working with the north country as they're transitioning veterans from at Fort Drum. How do we get them into some of the jobs that are here available in Central New York? Working with the Mohawk Valley, we created a 50 mile UAS corridor so that you can fly drones beyond visual line of sight. The first in the nation where you can fly 50 miles across multiple regions so that you can do testing of that type of technology. Those types of collaborations beyond just what's happening in Central New York is something I think you're going to see moving forward. So the 2023 plan is titled CNY Ascent, which is an evolution kind of of the past plan, CNY Rising. So how did the CNY Rising plan kind of lay the foundation for not only the CNY Ascent plan, but also just the amount of growth that we're seeing in the region at the moment? Yeah, I think what was great about the 2015 plan is it helped us envision industries that don't even exist today, semiconductors. If you go back to the 2015 plan, we don't mention semiconductors in that plan at all. Who could have thought that Micron would be coming to Central New York? And what an opportunity that would present ourselves. But what the plan did do is, as you mentioned, laid the foundation by making significant investments, key investments that made us an attractive place for a Micron to want to come. An example being, you know, we made a lot of efforts in investing in place, so investing in our downtowns and ensuring that there are places that people want to work, they want to live, they want that they have amenities that they can do outside of work. So making significant investments in our downtowns, and we continue that through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, New York Forward making investments in our businesses so that there are opportunities for people to work, making investments in our workforce development efforts. So all those things laid a key groundwork so that when we moved into 2023, we had a strong foundation to build on. So the CNY Ascent, you know, CNY Rising, that's still our overarching strategy for the region, something we're going to continue to build on. But the CNY Ascent is really taking us from the ground up, and now we're ascending into new heights. And so we're excited to begin implementing. You're going to see a lot of work going into 2024 as as the council kind of rolls up their sleeves to begin implementing a lot of the strategies that came out of that plan. And we're excited to see see a lot of progress as we move into the new year. Yeah, I mean, it is very exciting, very exciting time in Central New York. I mean, I can't be overstated. And I mean, it's really great timing to have this strategic plan come out at the same time as Micron coming here and TTM Technology's expanding and great records with the GENIUS (NY) program. I mean, there's a lot of momentum right now. So how are all of these major projects and investments working with some of these strategic goals that are outlined in CNY Ascent? Yeah. So, for example, one of the biggest goals, one of the main goals that came out of the 2023 plan is is workforce. How do we create a ready workforce for all the jobs that are going to come? And it's not just Micron. We have 50,000 job openings across the region today that are ready to hire if if and when people walk through their door. So we don't just have to prepare for the Micron jobs. We have to prepare for the legacy companies and our existing businesses that are already looking to hire. But it also presents a great opportunity. For so many years, Central New York was kind of a brain drain. People would come here, they'd get an education and they'd move to New York City, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and as a result, we would lose a lot of that, that institutional knowledge that we had here. Now, with the opportunities that are presenting yourselves, I really think you're going to start to see that kind of the script flipped. And we are seeing it. The data shows that we saw over from 2017 an increase in 1% in the region. Onondaga County saw an increase of 3.6% since 2017 in our population. So those types of numbers are going to continue to grow, which is going to allow us to have a ready workforce for some of these future jobs. On top of that, continuing to make investments in place. While we've done a lot of good work in our downtowns, there's still a lot of work to do. We're continuing to partner, you know, through Empire State Development and a lot of the programs that they offer the Restore New York program, as I mentioned, the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, making sure that people have places to live, making sure that they have places where they can they can walk to and feel safe, places where there's amenities available to them. That's going to be crucial. And housing, obviously is going to be one of the main things that we need to accomplish over the next ten years as we as we begin to see that increase in population because of new jobs that are becoming available, ensuring that our innovation ecosystem is continuing to thrive. So how do we continue to invest in those business accelerator competitions and so that the ideas that are coming out of our high rate institutions are staying here. They're creating companies here that are thriving here, and we're on the cutting edge of a lot of the new technologies that are going to be needed to be deployed to do things like drone technology, to do things in the biomedical space. Lotte Biologics is making an extremely large investment at the old Bristol-Myers Squibb facility up in up in DeWitt and that is going to be super exciting because they're going to on the cutting edge of a lot of the biologics, R&D that's going to happen over the next 10 to 20 years. So how do we continue to not only build companies who are doing innovative things here, but how do we also attract innovative companies to come here and call this call this home? And lastly, I think it's a matter of we really focused on the natural resources that our community offers. You know, if you ask a Micron or any other company that was interested in coming here, water resources, the green parks and the green space that we have available, quality of life that we get from having those amenities available to us, were major components to why they chose Central New York and why other companies look to come here. And I think being sure that we're being good stewards of those resources, ensuring that we're we're valuing them and we're protecting them is going to be extremely important in the continued success of the region and something that we made sure we highlighted in this 2023 plan. I mean, there's a lot in the 2023 plan and I mean, just all of the projects and initiatives that you and sort of strategies that you have just listed off is evidence of that. But in the plan, you are able to kind of boil it down to five strategic goals for the region, and that includes workforce, industry ecosystems, equitable growth, place and collaboration. You did hit on a number of those just when we were talking before as well. So can you tell me how the council came up with these five areas, and what these areas say about Central New York's future? Yeah, I mean, these plans do not just appear out of nowhere. They take a lot of dedication. And, you know, the council members, they're not paid to do this. This is above and beyond their day jobs. They really offer a lot of their time and energy to make sure that the work that we do is successful in this region. And that was the case for this plan. So, we were able to host numerous one-on-one interviews, those focus groups with with industry stakeholders and community leaders. We held a survey and we were able to receive feedback from from different business leaders in a survey response. All of that tied into a lot of the data that's available to us as we talked about population changes and who's in the workforce looking at what are the trends in terms of retirements, what are the trends in terms of available workforce to fill some of those open slots? What are some of the key industry clusters that we we anticipate are going to continue to grow. And so combining the data with the outreach and the work of the Council, we were able to come together to create these five strategies that we thought were going to be essential to ensuring the success of the region and continuing the momentum, as we mentioned, that was built upon in the 2015 plan. Yeah. During those interviews and sort of meetings, were there any was there anything that really stuck out to you when you were hearing from members of the business community and broader community as you know, themes or just something that maybe was just something particular that stuck out to you? Yeah, You know, one of the big things that we hear a lot is we're not going to be able to attract enough people to fill every job that is there today. So trying to identify where are those pockets of of individuals that already live in this community, and how do we get them back into the workforce. As we know, there's a lot of barriers that exist today for why people can't get into the workforce. Childcare, obviously a major issue for for why people tend to leave the workforce, maybe not come back into the workforce. It's just it's so expensive. I have an eight-month-old daughter myself, so we know and we made tough decisions on my wife going back to work or not. So a lot of parents are struggling with those decisions today. Transportation, maybe people don't think about this, but if you don't have a car and your work is not on a bus line or that bus line doesn't run during the shift that you're working, you can't get to that job. So how do we come up with strategies to get people to and from work or get them into a vehicle? Or perhaps it is there. They had some legal fees and as a result, their their license was suspended. So how do you get them passes, legal fees? We actually have a lot of organizations doing a lot of good work right now that that with further funding could could continue to do a lot more of that work today. And you'll notice if you if you look at the plan this year, what was unique and I give a lot of credit to Governor Hochul. She really came up with a creative solution to to to engage the councils in a way that they hadn't been engaged in a long time. And they create a challenge competition. So each of the ten regions across the state competed for $10 million to try to implement a way to overcome certain challenges that exist in your region. And one what we focused on was those those barriers to to work for a century. So these strategies, like you said, did not just come out of nowhere. They weren't just like already given to us. There's definitely examples of these strategies already in action in our region. So what are some of those that people can kind of point to or look to as examples of these strategies? Yeah, I think just looking at workforce, and I know we mentioned a lot, but it's obviously one of the key issues. You know, MACNY has a very successful pre-apprenticeship program. Syracuse Builds, which is taking individuals in the city of Syracuse and getting them ready for the construction jobs are going to be coming down the pipeline. A lot of people want to talk about the, you know, the technicians and the engineers who are going to be needed. But first and foremost, we need to build it. And we also have this big thing called I-81 that's about to be a major construction project. So having the construction workers ready to fill those positions is going to be crucial to the success of everything that comes after it. So Syracuse Builds is doing a lot of that good work. You know, in terms of our in our industry ecosystems. Cayuga Milk Ingredients in Cayuga County, one of the largest dairy processors in the state, they're doing an extremely large expansion right now and are going to be able to to, you know, offer new new lines with packaging and they're going to be able to offer new products. So so they're doing large investments in the agribusiness space. I mentioned Lotte Biologics in the biotech. JMA Wireless just built a brand new 5G wireless manufacturing campus on the south side of Syracuse, talking about marrying, marrying your your industry focus with your sense of place and where are we building things, are we building them in places that are accessible to those folks who we want to work out on those lines? That was an extremely exciting opportunity to to see that. And, you know, we know they're going to continue to do more great things on that side of the campus. So a lot of good things that are already happening again, that allowed us to not have to recreate the wheel. And we came up with this strategy. We really were just building on the strong foundation that was laid back in 2015. And a lot of the work that happened, you know, through through the efforts of the council and through the efforts of the state. Now, for someone listening to this and maybe they're like, that sounds really cool. I would like to either engage in that or be a part of that initiative. Is there a way for people in the community, whether it be the business community or community at large, to engage in these strategies and kind of be a part of this moment? Yeah, I think there's a few ways. One is just, you know, attending regional council meetings. They're open to the public. We hold them about quarterly, give or take, depending on what the needs are of the council. So you can find all that information on our website: regionalcouncils.ny.gov. And if you go to the Central New York tab, you'll find the stuff that's specific to Central New York. And we’ll put that in our show notes as well. so for anyone who's interested, easy link, you can also follow us on Twitter or X, if that's what we're calling it. We're at CNY Rising, and we'll we post updates to to that as well for people to follow and some of the things that we're gonna be doing. But as a whole, I would say, you know businesses if you're not familiar with the Empire State Development or the regional councils, reach out to us. We are we want to be on the community, want to be meeting with you, want to be listening to you and what your needs are. My team and the team at the REDC is really focused on getting out into the community this year in a very large way, so that will be very visible. You'll be seeing us, you'll be hearing from us. We want to hear from you. We want to tour your facilities. We want to help you access a lot of the resources that are available through the state. So reach out to us. Also, connect with your local economic development organization, whether it's the county IDA or the county's economic development organization, or if it's CenterState CEO or MACNY or your Chamber of Commerce, reach out to them and let them know that you're interested in a larger collaborative effort. Because at the end of the day, we don't know what we don't know. And if if you have needs and you don't let us know if if you're not doing some of the outreach or if we're not able to to discuss with you, then, you know, we're not going be able to help you. We want to help as many businesses as possible. That's what we do every day. It's what makes me excited to come into work every day is that I get to, you know, help real people who are doing great things in this community. So reach out to us, attend meetings, reach out to your local elected officials, because the end of the day and one of the strategies that we you'll notice in our report is collaboration. Yeah, arguably that is one of the most important strategies that we laid out in that in that plan. So the more we collaborate, the more we listen to one another, more that we work together towards a common goal, the more good we're going to be able to do for the community. We're going to take a quick break here and hear a word from our presenting sponsor, NBT Bank. We'll be back in just a moment. I would recommend NBT Bank to any business. My name is Chris Polimino and I'm the president of Atlas Fence. Chris decided to purchase Atlas Fence from the previous owner. He had previous connections at NBT Bank. NBT Bank provided me equipment financing, doubling our entire production workforce. It's important to me as a business owner that the decisions of our banking relationship are made locally. Welcome back. You're listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, director of communications, here at CenterState CEO. Joining me today is the regional director for Central New York from Empire State Development, Dan Kolinski. Dan, thanks for being with us here today. Thank you. So we've been talking about the 2023 REDC strategic plan, Central New York's strategic plan. And there's a lot in it. Economic development can be scary and lofty for people who aren't kind of looking it in the face every day. So how do you make this more tangible? How do you kind of talk to people about these strategies? Because they're really important and they're helping us grow. But I also understand sort of the apprehension of like, this gets big fast. Yeah, I think at the end of the day it's ensuring that we're out in the community talking to people because while a lot of the problem, the challenges that our community face seem very big, if you look at it from the thousand foot level, when we boil it down, it's really a matter of how do we get the resources in the right place, how do we get people connected to the right supply chains or the right, you know, the right help that they need, whether it's through financial, banks, whatever it might be. So, you know, just getting it down to the smallest of levels and it's about people. So, you know, our goal in 2024 is going to be, as I mentioned, getting out into the community, talking to them about their needs, discussing this plan and what it means for them and their community. We'll also be hosting a series of workshops and resource seminars so that people will know both what's in the plan and what's available to them to help them meet their own goals. And that's bigger than just our businesses. It's our municipalities as well. How do we ensure that the municipalities are ready for some of the changes coming down the board? What are some of the planning grants and the zoning grants and the comprehensive planning grants that are available? What are some of the infrastructure grants that are available? So we'll be doing a lot of that work and connecting with our various partners across the region to ensure that people are aware and that they're able to access those those opportunities. So, what is your personal vision for the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council? How do you see it? I mean, you've mentioned interacting with the community being more present and really listening to people, but looking to five, ten years down the line. How do you see both the REDC playing a role in the community, but also you personally growing the strategies and initiatives that have been laid out? Yeah, I think, you know, we've a lot of work to do and what's great is we have a team that's ready and excited to get to work. So I think the first thing that you're going to see is as we move into 2024 is some working groups created around the specific strategies that are outlined in the strategic plan. So, you know, for example, we'll have probably an industry sector working group that focuses on some of our key industry sectors, like manufacturing in agriculture. We'll probably have a working group that focuses on equitable growth. And what does that mean? Because that means different things to different people. You know, there's growth in urban environments and rural environments. There's growth in, you know, in the cities and there's growth in the suburban areas. There's growth in ensuring that communities that maybe don't have English as a first language, and those that do have English as a first language. So how are we creating strategies to ensure that we're touching on all those different needs across different, different communities? I also think, you know, one of the things that I hope for and I think that the Council's excited about, is just an increased level of that collaboration. So both in the Central New York region, we have a lot of new elected leaders at that that recently were sworn in in the new year, bringing them on board so that they can be a part of this, this rowing of all the oars in the same direction, as I mentioned earlier, rising tide. And I really think that the more people that are a part of that rising tide, the more that people are going to feel the effects of the work that we're doing, but also, again, getting outside of our region, working more closely with our colleagues in the North Country, in the Mohawk Valley, the Southern Tier of the Finger Lakes, all across the state. You know, you're almost seeing Upstate New York become this super region, more so with the federal tech hubs designation that we just received at the end of last year, truly bringing together Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica in a way that you have never seen before. So I think continuing that that that large amount of collaboration, but also just listening at a high level to the needs of our community. You know, we mentioned workforce needs, but what is some of the programing that's working today and maybe what some of the program that could be done a little more efficiently, bringing that feedback back to the state and seeing if there's ways that we can make improvements to the way that we do things. I won't say that we are the fastest of of change agents and that's out there, but at the end of the day, we do listen and as a result we make changes to the way that we do things that best meet the needs of the people who need our resources the most. It really sounds like collaboration and listening are a huge foundation Dan, thank you for joining us here today. Thank you. Dan, thank you for joining us here today. Thank you. It was great to talk to you. Yeah, you as well. Center State CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is available on ClickCNY.com and all major podcast platforms. 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