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Stanford vs. NC State Preview: Will Cardinal Keep Momentum Rolling?
Coming off a 34-7 win over Elon, the Cardinal host the Wolfpack on Friday night, looking to keep their bowl hopes alive.
Netflix’s latest cliff-hanger? Where it’s headed as a business.
The streaming giant has shaken up its staffing and is looking to compete in an evolving entertainment landscape.
Netflix’s latest cliff-hanger? Where it’s headed as a business.
The streaming giant has shaken up its staffing and is looking to compete in an evolving entertainment landscape.
Palmetto Sports Daily: Bryce Young gears up for 50th career start
PSD returns with a preview of the Panthers looking to stay hot against the Buccaneers.
Something smells different as scientists send aromas over the internet
One day, you may be able to easily smell what you are looking at when browsing online. Sending smells over the internet has long been a dream, and while it may seem far-fetched, researchers have now taken ...
Tennessee football looking to end losing streak at South Carolina
Revisiting Tennessee's loss at South Carolina in 2022.
New Coros Dura 2 Solar features ultra-modern design and huge battery life, but it's the smaller bevel I love
Hands-on with the sharp-looking new bike computer from Coros
Introspection required if EU Inc fails, says start-up lobbyist
European start-ups have a new voice in Brussels. Startups for Europe, created from the merger of lobby groups Allied for Startups and the European Startup Network, is hoping to harness the momentum behind EU-Inc, a campaign that united start-ups and investors behind demands for a new pan-European company regime.At a launch event for the new association in Brussels on October 1, the mood was remarkably upbeat compared to a typical Eurobubble gathering, more Silicon Valley than Schuman roundabout.When asked whether this reflects a feeling that Europe is on the right track, chief executive Serena Borbotti-Frison said it’s a “scary” moment as the continent looks to boost its competitiveness amid a new technological arms race.“What is at stake is quite intense, and the way we can answer is by delivering, but also with hope,” she told Science|Business. “It’s what our industry does. It’s not about identifying a pain point and then saying it’s too hard.”For many in the start-up community, that sense of hope is dwindling. In March, the European Commission presented its proposal for EU Inc, naming its initiative after the grassroots campaign.EU Inc was meant to be a gamechanger: the ability to incorporate within 48 hours for less than €100 and scale up across Europe; a harmonised stock option regime enabling start-ups to compete for talent; and simplified insolvency procedures for innovative start-ups to reduce the cost of failure.However, haggling by EU governments has raised concerns that EU Inc will be stripped of the very features, including stock option harmonisation, that are meant to make it attractive for companies.“I fear we are proving to ourselves that the model doesn’t work,” Borbotti-Frison said of the policymaking process. “Everyone agrees we should have EU Inc. Everyone agrees it’s hard to scale and we need to scale to answer the competitiveness [challenge], and still we cannot deliver? [. . .] What does that say about ourselves?”The Commission has made EU Inc a cornerstone of its single market reform, and has agreed with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to target an agreement by the end of 2026. However, several points are currently holding up an agreement, including national rules around employee participation in management decisions, and the provision that employee stock options always be taxed at the point of sale. Some EU governments have reportedly pushed back on the Commission’s choice of legal basis, contending that anything related to taxation requires unanimity in the Council.Trade unions have also protested against EU Inc, fearing it will be exploited by companies looking to undermine workers’ rights.“If this doesn’t work, it’s introspection time, on the way our institutions work, maybe the way our lobbies work, and maybe the way the cooperation between them works,” Borbotti-Frison said.“Is it in the national interest? Is it a gap between political will and technical ability to operate? Is it speed? I don't know, but something needs to be fixed.”Ahead of last week’s European Council meeting, EU-Inc campaigners tried a new strategy: appealing directly to EU presidents and prime ministers. In an open letter, they urged EU leaders to “step in and give your negotiating teams a clear mandate to change course and reverse their objections to the Commission’s original proposal.”Lessons from EU-IncLike its predecessors, Startups for Europe will represent national start-up associations, but it is also targeting investors. The founding sponsors are venture capital firm Atomico and EQT, the investor selected earlier this year to manage the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund.It also wants to harness the knowledge and cross-border experience of European success stories. “Take the list of the 100 biggest unicorns in Europe. We are speaking to all of them,” Borbotti-Frison said. The association plans to publish a full list of supporters following the Slush tech conference in Helsinki in November.Andreas Klinger and Simon Schaefer, two key figures in the EU-Inc campaign, are both on the board of the new association, and Startups for Europe wants to take the lessons from their campaign.What was unprecedented about EU-Inc was “how rooted it was, and how strong it was in bringing everyone on board behind one clear pain point and solution to fix it,” Borbotti-Frison said. “This is an inspiration for us, and then we need to turn it into something more systematic, more bridged in Brussels, more connected to the policymaking game, and to scale it.”If it’s possible to unite such a broad coalition, it’s because the European start-up ecosystem is now mature, she said. “Maybe it was not ten years ago. Maybe it was not five years ago. But now, it’s mature to speak with one voice.”Open and liberal EuropeThe association plans to campaign on files related to three “pain points,” Borbotti-Frison said: “start and scale in Europe, fundraise and invest in Europe, and making Europe the most innovative continent.”As well as EU Inc, she cited public procurement, the EU’s simplification push, the Savings and Investments Union, and files related to AI adoption and technological sovereignty as priorities for the coming months.What these files have in common is that they relate not to subsidies but to the framework conditions influencing the availability of mostly private, or in the case of procurement, public, funding.Related articlesEmployee participation disagreement delays MEPs’ vote on EU IncCommission urges EU governments not to water down EU IncEU’s ‘ultra-fast’ €5B scale-up fund is set up to win, says its fund managerThe budget dispute over the next Horizon Europe programme will also impact start-ups, which are supported notably through the European Innovation Council. But EU innovation funding is a drop in the ocean compared to venture capital and public procurement budgets.“If competitiveness and innovation are a priority, then the [EU budget] should reflect it,” Borbotti-Frison said. However, she added that the main question is not how much public money is invested, but “how do we create the right conditions for the market to solve the problem?”The Scaleup Europe Fund mixes both approaches, using €1 billion in EU funding to crowd in private investors and address Europe’s lack of large-scale, late-stage growth funds. “It’s a proof of concept. Ideally, then the market will do it itself,” Borbotti-Frison said.Startups for Europe is also focused on bringing an alternative political narrative. Amid competing visions for open, global markets on the one side and a protectionist Europe on the other, it wants to offer “a third voice, to say we can be proudly European and build a strong continent in a liberal economy, open to the world, and global.”It can be tempting, when thinking about how Europe can better support innovation, to look across the Atlantic. But while it’s important to compare statistics to see where Europe needs to catch up, that’s where the comparison should stop, Borbotti-Frison said. “On everything else, we need to do it our own way. We don't have the same history. We don't have the same political model. We don't have the same way of life.”Many of the key files that could benefit the start-up community, including EU Inc and the Savings and Investments Union, rely on closer integration within Europe, making it easier to operate across borders.While the Commission has made deepening the single market a political priority, support at national level is more precarious. The coming months will see pivotal elections in Spain and France, while the German government has also been coming under pressure domestically. In each country, far-right parties have been gaining ground.When asked if she was concerned the political situation could jeopardise this progress, Borbotti-Frison responded: “Of course. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.” However, she continues to believe that cooperation is the only way forward. “Doing it alone is not the solution. It’s also not who we are, it’s not the model we are building, and it’s not the scale we need.”
Health insurance through work is under strain. What comes next?
Employers are struggling with rising premiums. Some are looking for a different model.
Purdue leaders connect with NYC alumni to discuss the future of business
Two hundred New York City-based Purdue alumni and friends gathered Oct. 13 for a reception at the New York Athletic Club overlooking Central Park. Dubbed “Boilermakers in the Big Apple…
Roma looking to make two signings in January
Roma is already looking ahead to the January transfer window with the goal of expanding Gian Piero Gasperini’s options. The Giallorossi intend to make the squad more competitive and equipped to tack...
Kaiser Permanente’s Risant Health moves to add third system: Analysis
Risant has signed an agreement to acquire INTEGRIS Health in Oklahoma. Kaiser Permanente has said Risant is looking to add more community hospitals.
AC Milan XI vs Bournemouth – Predicted lineup and team news
AC Milan are set to face Bournemouth in their third UEFA Europa League fixture on Thursday, with Ruben Amorim’s side looking to maintain their winning momentum in Europe.AC Milan arrive in England w...
The Herald's weekly entertainment picks
Looking to be entertained from Thursday, Oct. 22, through Wednesday, Oct. 28? Check out the Skagit Valley Herald’s weekly recommendations.
Independent filmmakers finding ways to protect work from AI
As the use of artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry continues to grow, indie filmmakers are looking for ways to protect their work
Detroit Lions Initial Week 7 Injury Report
The Detroit Lions' initial Week 7 Injury Report just dropped, and things are looking up!
Packers Urged to Go After DeForest Buckner Amid Trade Rumors
The Packers should be looking to make some additions on defense.
Chicago Bears spotlight ‘That’s Caring’ in Small Business All-Pros campaign
The Chicago Bears are highlighting MVPs in the community with their small business all-pros and this year, the campaign features 'That's Caring' which creates curated gift boxes for companies looking to recognize its workers and clients.
Florence Regional Airport
Florence Regional Airport is a small airport looking to yield big growth for its surrounding area & communities.
Hoffenheim vs. Lyon preview: Team news & predicted lineups
After a much-needed 2-1 win over fellow Bundesliga strugglers Borussia Mönchengladbach ended their four-game losing streak at the weekend, TSG Hoffenheim will be looking to build on that result when ...
10X Health Launches Metabolism Genetic Test
A saliva-based test provides genetic insights to help inform personalized nutrition and weight-management plansSCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 10X Health, a leader in personalized health optimization and performance-driven wellness solutions, today announced the launch of its Metabolism Genetic Test. For individuals looking to optimize their wellness routines, 10X Health’s Metabolism Genetic Test gets at the root of why and how your body responds to food, exercise and appeti
New Arrivals in the ER? Georgia Gears Up To Solve Rural Maternal Health Crisis
Most of Georgia’s counties are without a labor and delivery unit. To fill the gap, the state is looking to equip emergency rooms to handle obstetric emergencies. Advocates and doctors worry, however, that the ER is being used as a stopgap.
Jen torches GOP’s ‘vile brand of politics’
MS NOW's Jen Psaki breaks down how Democrats are looking to expand the map while Republicans are falling back on personal attacks.
Apple is looking for a cellular modem engineer as it eyes 6G
Apple is looking for an experienced cellular modem systems engineer to help develop its next generation of cellular modems as the company transitions toward 6G.
Cattle futures higher ahead of direct cash business
At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, live and feeder cattle were higher, optimistic about the week’s direct business and looking ahead to Friday’s On Feed report from the USDA. December live cattle closed $2.15 higher at $230.17 and February live cattle closed $2.17 higher at $233.10. November feeder cattle closed $2.37 higher at $346.30 and January […]
TRAIL OF BLOODY FOOTPRINTS | Employee killed woman at Dauphin County business after complaining about hours, court docs say
Woman killed at Dauphin County business | Police looking for suspect
New travel book spotlights restaurants across the state
For anyone looking to explore the region or take a trip up north, a newly released book could serve as the travel guide for some of the most unique food
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
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Toppenish School District receives $7.5 million federal grant to expand mental health services for students
The BriefThe Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for students.District officials say the funding will help address identified gaps in services, particularly drug and alcohol counseling at the high school level, and will allow the district to build capacity for long-term mental health support.TOPPENISH, WASHINGTON — The Toppenish School District has been awarded up to $7.5 million through Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a federal grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), to expand mental health services and substance use prevention for students.District officials said access to mental health resources has been limited, making it difficult for some students and families to get the support they need. The federal Project AWARE grant will help address those challenges by bringing schools and local healthcare providers together to better support students.The grant will provide up to $1.5 million annually over five years to expand mental health services, strengthen substance use prevention and intervention, and improve access to support for Toppenish students. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jeff Camero said the district is focused on coordinating with service providers in the area to work as a unified team."We made the awareness with the grant. But looking at all the service providers in the area and how can we all together work as a team?" Camero said.Camero said the district wants to use those resources to reach students earlier and provide more support for those struggling with their mental health. The district plans to address a range of mental health challenges, from anxiety and depression to youth suicide risk. Camero emphasized the importance of supporting students in grades eight through twelve, where suicide rates are a particular concern."Making sure from anxiety to depression, making sure that we can help support our students at those levels, but also the youth suicide risk, looking at that as a top in this area, in our grades, you know, eight, for example, eight through 12, looking at suicide rate and looking at how whether we look at the ACES or whatever program we're looking at, that's federal, how that connects and how we can better serve our students with this extra funding," Camero said.The funding will allow the district to bring in additional staff, including mental health and substance use specialists, to work directly with students and connect families with community resources. The district is already posting positions, including a director role, with additional positions expected to follow.District officials are also thinking beyond the grant's five-year timeline. Brittany Kaple, Director of Public Relations for the Toppenish School District, said the intent is to build capacity and establish connections that will sustain mental health services even after the grant funding ends."We do have the director position already posted, with some of our other positions following really close behind that. But the intent is to, you know, it's a five-year grant, so those positions would be funded for that five years. But there's also the intent to build capacity and make those connections so that at the end of the grant, when that money, you know, if that money is not renewed," Kaple said.As student mental health needs continue to evolve, access to drug and alcohol counseling has become an important priority for the district. Kaple said teachers and staff have been raising concerns about the need for more support, especially at the high school level."And that was something that was also an identified need by our high school staff when the superintendent met with them last school year. They said that that was a really great need, something that they felt was a gap in services that we were providing for our students. And so this is going to be one way to help support that need," Kaple said.The Toppenish School District says its goal is to ensure students and families have access to the support they need, both now and in the years ahead. Additional positions, including drug and alcohol counselors and family engagement specialists, are expected to be posted in the coming weeks. News Sunnyside City Council navigates 2027 budget planning Monique Garcia News "Dancing with the Stars" champion J.R. Martinez shares message of resilience during Central Washington visit Tyler Wargo News Toppenish, Mattawa educators honored at state Educator of the Year Awards Erin Wencl News Kennewick educator named 2027 Washington Teacher of the Year Erin Wencl News Voters to decide the next Yakima County Sheriff Monique Garcia COPYRIGHT 2026 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
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Streaming’s Biggest Show Returns…and a Buzzy Genre Struggles
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Obviously, the big news of the week (if not month) is Netflix letting go of executive Bela Bajaria, their chief content officer. I’m going to cover this in my next “Most Important Story of the Week”, but I also have a data angle that I might publish before then. (Too much news this month, am I right?) But first, I have a bonus Streaming Ratings Report issue for you. Today’s article is a bit of a grab bag of topics I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t squeeze into the (already very long) Streaming Ratings Report issues. The NFL drives huge viewership numbers, so I’ve got a look at that. A whole bunch of TV shows returned to the traditional broadcast channels, and I have thoughts. And I have a quick look at adult animated shows, since a couple flopped earlier this month. Plus, the Emmys aired earlier this month, and we got some fun data bout how popular those nominated shows are and why I’m not optimistic about the show’s future. That’s a lot, so let’s dive right in. Subscribe Sports - Football Remains the King of Streaming Over the last two Streaming Ratings Reports, I sorta ignored the biggest “show” each week. (I was tempted to say “piece of content” but I know that word bugs folks.) In my database, I call these “specials”, and they sure are special. I speak of the king of American TV: football!!! Streaming football is back and, unlike some other sports, it routinely dominates all viewership. Probably the best way to show this is to update one of my favorite graphics, the “40 Million Hour Club”1 since football games have joined that club each week they’ve premiered: (Yep, that’s the data through 28-Sep, the first four weeks of the season. As a reminder, I take the average minute audience provided by Nielsen, factor out a percentage of linear TV viewers in home markets, and multiply the run time by the three-hour runtime.) Again, the numbers are huge. Let’s start with Netflix. They grabbed the rights to the bonus opening week NFL Kickoff game (which was on YouTube last year) and it put up 18.5 million viewers on average. That nets out to 47.4 million hours of estimated streaming hours. That’s good! Though, notably, it’s well below Christmas Day games from previous years. Compared to other streamers/broadcasters, that’s a bit of a mixed result. On one hand, Netflix’s 18.5 million average is about what YouTube claimed last year, though Nielsen used a bespoke methodology at that time, so I trust this viewership figure more. So that’s good. (The game also shifted from a Friday to a Thursday and that could have helped the viewership as well.) And Netflix continues to best Prime Video in total viewership—as you’ll see next—though Netflix has had much higher-profile (opening week and Christmas Day) games. NBC/Peacock’s opening game the night before averaged 25.1 million average viewers, which is just much bigger than Netflix (or Prime Video). That’s the big caveat to all streaming viewership records: even in success, they can’t compete with traditional linear TV. Previously, I called this my “hierarchy of viewership”, and the data keeps supporting that thesis. The downside for NBC is that this game’s viewership was down compared to previous years, though it may be a counting issue. Here’s a great chart from Sports Media Watch: Indeed, looking at all the opening week games across all windows, Netflix still lags the other primetime windows, but does well compared to the afternoon games: I saw a few folks make the case that streamers still lag traditional broadcasters in reach, and I’d add they really lag compared to “broadcast plus streaming” options like NBC/Peacock, ESPN/Disney+ and CBS/Paramount+. The best data I saw for this came from Samba TV, who charted reach through the 2025 season, and, wow. (Samba TV’s numbers are historically lower than Nielsen’s, so don’t compare their household figures to Nielsen’s hours, but use them as a proxy for the relative reach of the streamers.) The good news is Prime Video is NOT having a down year. Their opening Thursday Night Football game reached 18.6 million viewers (about what Netflix got), but that’s a high for Prime Video on Thursdays and the biggest Thursday night game since 2015. The TNF games the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep continued this streak, getting 43.1 (16.8 million average viewers) and 42.5 total hours (16.6 million average viewers), which were both up from last year. Still, that continues the (typical) season slide: (For those new-to-streaming-football-numbers folks, the viewership declines for Thursday Night Football as the year goes along.) Overall, it appears as if Prime Video is now part of the “football habit”, be it for customers at home or out at places like bars and restaurants. And its viewership is slowly catching up to broadcast. One last chart shows this. Last season, Nielsen started adding out-of-home viewership to the charts, so I try not to do season-to-season comparisons as I did for the first few years. And while Nielsen added Big Data viewing this year, I’m going to compare the last two seasons. Here’s that chart, which shows the season-over-season gains: When it comes to streaming football, we have to keep a few seemingly contradictory thoughts in our head… First, streaming doesn’t come close to matching broadcast’s reach and, thus, viewership. Second, even with that gap, football is still the biggest “thing” on streaming. It’s very, very popular. Third, while some methodology changes have likely helped Prime Video’s numbers, their viewership does appear to be growing. Lastly, yeah, the NFL started the season off poorly, with week one dragging down the numbers in year-over-year comparisons. However—and again, methodology changes may have helped this—the viewership grew compared to previous seasons over the next couple of weeks. So football is still king. On streaming and off. Television - Adult Animation Continues to NOT Make the Streaming Charts In the last two reports, two adult-animated shows whiffed: Netflix’s animated comedy, Dang! Paramount+’s Sega-video-game-inspired fantasy/comedy, Golden Axe. Neither made the charts, but that’s usually the case for animated shows. I mean, here’s literally every animated show that’s made the Nielsen Original charts since the start of 2025: And one of those shows is G_abby’s Dollhouse_! A kids show! The problem with charts like this is that they don’t give you a sense of how many shows miss the charts. Netflix had at least eleven animated flops, including comedies like Big Mouth (a show everyone assumed was popular in the pre-Streaming Ratings Era), Long Story Short, Haunted Hotel, Mating Season, Strip Law, and Alley Cats, and action shows like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Prime Video had at least six animated misses, two in the same universe (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), three more comedies (#1 Happy Family USA, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy and Kevin) and an action show (The Mighty Nein). Disney+ had MCU and Star Wars animated misses (Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars: Visions, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld) but I can’t tell how many of those shows were geared towards adults. HBO Max had Harley Quinn and Hulu had Solar Opposites. None of these shows made the charts! That’s a lot of misses! If I remade the chart with all those misses, here’s how it would look: Listen, I know the counter arguments. First, it’s cheaper to produce animated shows than live action. Fair enough, but with viewership this low, even that cheaper price point starts to not matter. Second, just look at the acquired charts. Hit animated comedies can generate viewership for years! Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers do really, really well. Fair enough, but streaming has failed to recreate the dynamic that Fox has mastered so well. That’s a problem for streaming still. Television - Emmys! The annual Emmys broadcast was a few weeks ago, and I’ve got data on how the nominees performed on streaming, plus hot takes on this year’s viewership (and the big news about the broadcast’s, er, streamcast’s future). We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The top Emmy-nominated shows… ...why I’m worried about the future of the Emmys telecast... ...the pros of broadcast television ...and the cons... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue (since the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep were so light), but then I’ll be all caught up after a deluge of streaming ratings data from Nielsen in September. In the meantime, I’m going to try to take a look at Netflix’s stats to explain why Bela Bajaria is out. But even light weeks give me plenty to talk about. The Great British Baking Show returns to Netflix and Apple TV has a buzzy new star-studded comedy. And Netflix has a controversial-but-appears-to-be-popular new game show. Plus big films like Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner head to streaming. And is East of Eden a hit? After that, The Kardashians return to Hulu, Prime Video has a reboot of Carrie, and Netflix has a horror show, Below. Disclosure Day heads to Peacock, The Housemaid heads to HBO Max_,_ a new Ben Affleck film, Animals, lands on Netflix, and Apple TV has a new John Cena action film based on, checks notes, Hasbro’s Matchbox toys. Okay. Longterm, some interesting TV production news. HBO Max ordered How to Survive Without Me, starring Kaley Cuoco, Joshua Jackson, Ray Romano and Rita Wilson, for fifteen episodes! I love that some streamers (or, at least, HBO Max) are finally ordering TV shows with more than eight episodes. In less wise production news, Landman does not appear to be coming back this year, since it just started production. Frankly, I don’t love this (get your shows out on time) but Landman is so popular, I doubt it matters.
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Americans with commercial insurance are generally told they have access to a strong network of mental health providers. But when researchers called providers listed in those networks, securing an appointment was usually difficult or impossible, according to a new study.Researchers, posed as “secret shoppers” looking for appointments for issu...
Registration is open for high school winter sports
Registration is now officially open for high school winter sports for the City School District of Albany! Any student in grades 9-12 who is interested in trying out for boys' basketball, girls' basketball, bowling, cheerleading, boys' indoor track, girls' indoor track, spirit team, boys' swimming and diving, boys' wrestling and girls' wrestling is invited to register via Final Forms. Important: please note that registration for winter sports ends on Friday, Nov. 13. Practices and tryouts for winter sports begin on Monday, Nov. 16. FINAL FORMS Each season, the following must be done prior to the first day of tryouts and practices: A parent or guardian must initiate the registration process for their student-athlete in Final Forms, filling out the required forms such as Interval Sports Health History and the Athletic Consent Form. The student-athlete must sign and complete their required forms. A reminder that all students who would like to play an interscholastic sport need to have a current physical conducted within a year on file. PHYSICALS A physical conducted within the last 12 months is mandatory for any student interested in trying out for an athletic team and must be uploaded into the Final Forms platform. Families are encouraged to get a completed physical from their child's physician. If you are unable to get a physical from your child's physician, you can schedule a free physical with Whitney Young's school-based health center by calling (518) 573-2556. Additionally, the district physician will also be available to facilitate sports physicals at Albany High in room 4253 on the following dates: Thursday, Nov. 12 from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13 from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sports physicals on Nov. 12 and 13 are free and no appointment is necessary. ACADEMIC ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS Please note that students must have a good attendance record and be in good standing academically to be eligible to participate in an athletic team. Eligibility is determined based on quarterly grades, and interim progress reports will serve as an important academic checkpoint for all student‑athletes. For additional details about academic eligibility, please see our Athletic Code of Conduct. For our winter teams, academic eligibility to start the season will be based on final first-quarter grades. The first marking period ends Nov. 13. Albany High offers free tutoring facilitated by Albany High teachers Monday-Thursday from 3:30-5 p.m. for students who need extra help with their academics. See this flyer for additional details. IMPORTANT DATES Seniors, please mark your calendars for Senior Media Day for winter sports, which will take place on Monday, Nov. 30. All student-athletes playing winter sports will also participate in our winter sports picture days, which will take place Tuesday, Dec. 15–Thursday, Dec. 18. Specific dates and times for each team will be shared once rosters are finalized. OPEN GYM SESSIONS Student-athletes are encouraged to check out our open gym sessions as they prepare for upcoming sports seasons. We’re looking forward to a rewarding winter sports season this year! If you have any questions, please contact the Athletic Department at (518) 475-6310. Go Falcons!
Science Missed the Giraffe’s Only Relative Until 1901
Science ignored the okapi for centuries while Indigenous communities in the Congo knew it well, and even after a skull reached London in 1901, researchers struggled to explain what they were looking a...
Science Missed the Giraffe's Only Relative Until 1901
Science ignored the okapi for centuries while Indigenous communities in the Congo knew it well, and even after a skull reached London in 1901, researchers struggled to explain what they were looking at. Today, this elusive giraffe relative faces threats that make it harder than ever to find, count, or protect.
Hawks' Controversial Zaccharie Risacher Trade Is Looking Better Already
Zaccharie Risacher's rough Mavericks preseason offers little reason for Atlanta to second-guess its decision to trade the former No. 1 pick.
Which 2026 Cubs’ Pitchers Are Entering Free Agency?
Chicago's offseason is underway, and the Cubs' free agent pitchers could tell the story. Multiple key pitchers are set to enter free agency. Looking at the Cubs' players with options, the list gets longer. However, since that is hard to predict right now, we will focus strictly on the pitchers entering free agency. Minor League …
Park Tower penthouse once asking $15M heads to auction with bids starting around $3M
The auction is more evidence that the penthouse condo market is looking for where prices should be.
Maryland football vs. Rutgers preview
The Terps are looking to snap a four-game skid with their first Big Ten win.
A St. Louis plant scientist discovers a trail first blazed by his grandma’s cooking
Antonio Brazelton used to think of himself as a trailblazer in the plant science field, following in the footsteps of George Washington Carver. But years ago, the St. Louisan realized he was overlooking his own lineage of Black plant scientists.
IP Saves the Day On Streaming
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get started, I wanted to highlight a new idea I saw from Real Good AI, proposing a ratings system for AI use. (H/T to Anthony Kaufman’s article highlighting this.) It would look something like this: In general, I think that this is a solid, middle-ground solution that should appease both the pro-AI camp (who love AI) and the anti-AI camp (who wants to know if what they’re watching didn’t come from humans). Regardless of your feelings on AI/LLMs—I’ll never use it for my writing—transparency is often the best solution to many problems. In general, I think way more media outlets need to be using way more AI disclosures. My quick “Yes and...” to this idea: what about ads? In particular, I hate it when I see or hear ads that are obviously AI-generated, but a person or voice says, “I used this product”. AI doesn’t use products! Just today, I watched a YouTube ad where a “person” said they use some sort of rain wind chime...but that’s not a real person! They didn’t use this product. (Especially since the video of the wind chime itself also appeared to be AI-generated...) I believe most traditional advertising already has standards like this anyway.1 Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re covering the week of 14-Sep, and then next issue, I’ll be fully caught up with Nielsen’s new release schedule. In the future, I plan to put out Streaming Ratings Reports each Monday after Nielsen’s Thursday releases. Overall, we had some big new shows this week, like Prime Video’s Reacher spinoff_, Neagley_, which is off to a big, big start, and Netflix’s latest in its Monster anthology, which is their largest opening since June and the second-largest since One Piece came out in March. All that, plus Slow Horses returns, the trio of returning shows (Lioness, Reacher and Ted Lasso) continue to dominate the top tens, Paramount+’s latest crime drama, a big whiff for a Netflix original film and a precipitous drop for Netflix film charts, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to September 20th 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - IP For the TV Win Can I use the dirty word of entertainment journalism right now? IP. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I said it. But IP works at the box office, and we’ve seen some evidence it works in TV too. Not as well, and not all the time—no absolutes here!—but often enough. And glancing at the Nielsen top ten…it worked this week! Take Prime Video, who has a monster hit in the crime drama Reacher. Would a spinoff work for that show? Yep! They binge-released Neagley, about a detective from the original Reacher series, and its eight episodes debuted to 29.6 million hours. Here’s how it stacks up to Reacher, one of Prime Video’s biggest shows: That’s great. Nearly as strong as Reacher’s opening! (Both shows started with eight, binge-released episodes, so this comparison is apples-to-apples.) Notably, Prime Video scheduled the debut of Neagley to overlap with Reacher’s most recent season, to help drive tune-in. Obviously, I love smart release strategies like that. And even though I wrote “obviously”, it’s not really that obvious, since streamers don’t often take advantage of natural overlaps like this_._2 Other data backs how well Neagley performed. It opened at second place on Samba TV for two weeks and got 51.7 million hours on Luminate. That’s the eleventh biggest opening on Luminate since May of 2024 and tied with Bridgerton’s third season opening. That’s a huge opening! Its IMDb is solid too, a 7.7 on 24K reviews. Netflix’s latest edition in the “Monster” series—which started with Jeffrey Dahmer and comes from Ryan Murphy—did well too, opening to 24.7 million hours. That’s the biggest opening for Netflix since I Will Find You in June, and second biggest since March. Unlike the Reacher series, this franchise is trending downward, though. The first Monster show—Dahmer - Monster—was giant. More than anything, I think this reflects that Netflix running out of extremely popular—if that’s the right word?—serial killers to feature. Still, the data says this is a very good opening. It made it to third place on Samba TV for two weeks. It also opened to 40.0 million hours on Luminate. That’s not quite as elite as Neagley, but still very, very strong. I’ll be honest: my priors coming into any given week are that IP works to help drive buzz for new shows, but TV shows need to stand on their own even more than movies, so they will succeed or fail based on their quality. But these two spinoffs definitely worked. Quick Notes on TV The top show, film or special this week? Football, again. Specifically, Prime Video’s season opener of Thursday Night Football. The games run long (three hours) but mainly a lot of people watch each game. That adds up to a lot of viewership. Paramount released the second season of MobLand on an unusual day for that service, a Friday! Often, they put their new shows out on a Sunday, as they did last year with a run of shows (Lioness, Tulsa King and Landman). MobLand didn’t make Nielsen in its first week, but on Samba TV it got to eighth and seventh place. Luminate had a smaller opening too, only 5.3 million hours. MobLand missed the Nielsen charts for its first eight weeks, so this season is off to a stronger start. (Bonus note: the first season streams on both Prime Video and The Roku Channel, but I only have it as Paramount+ on those charts.) I’ve mentioned a few times that foreign-language originals do lower numbers than English-language originals on Netflix most of the time. But I don’t usually emphasize what country those originals come from, and observationally, they tend to be from Western or Northern European countries, in general. So credit to Not a Stranger, a Turkish Netflix original, for breaking through on Luminate, getting to 7.9 million hours in its first full week on those charts. As I mentioned last issue, Crew Girl ended up making the Nielsen charts in its second week. That’s still a soft performance compared to many shows, but again this, one looks affordable. And if you’re curious, here’s how it stacks up to some other sports romance shows: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… …about a new data source and how it drives streaming viewership… ...what reality show is struggling in its latest season…. ...what Netflix film bombed…. ...How Reacher, Ted Lasso, and Lioness are doing on the charts… ...what obscure sport put up great viewership numbers… …how far streaming films are falling… …all the flops, bombs and misses for the last week… …and more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue, then we’ll be all caught up with Nielsen’s data. Yes! The goal is to have my report out on the Monday after I get Nielsen’s data. So next issue, I’m looking at East of Eden, The Great British Baking Show, a Willy Wonka game show (that people are upset uses AI, but viewers might not care), and a Cosby show spinoff reboot on Netflix, and Brothers on Apple TV (starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey). That’s about it for TV, but who’s going to win the streaming week, The Breadwinner or Backrooms on streaming? Answer: Toy Story 5. Plus Netflix has a Unabomber film and a new Tyler Perry film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma tries to repeat The Substance’s run on MUBI, and Paramount+ has Jackass: Best and Last. Long term, Netflix is remaking Lonesome Dove. I love this choice, but man, there are a lot of westerns on TV right now. And they’re making Sega TV shows, including a Crazy Taxi TV show and Sonic show with an “edge”.
Ravens face familiar foe in Browns coach Monken
Baltimore star quarterback Lamar Jackson remains questionable with a left ankle injury but the Ravens will see a familiar face when they visit the Cleveland Browns in the NFL on Sunday.If Jackson cannot play, the Ravens are looking at another start for Tyler "Snoop" Huntley, who led a comeback victory in Atlanta last Sunday.
Cashman Field prepares for historic farewell
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — After decades of memories, Cashman Field is coming down and this morning Good Day Las Vegas’ JC Fernandez was live inside the historic stadium looking back at its past and previewing Saturday’s Las Vegas Lights FC match, the final event ever at Cashman Field before the site makes way for redevelopment. […]
Louisiana rapper Kevin Gates, friends hit the Cajundome and other live music in Acadiana this week
Looking for live music?
Troy Aikman responds to reported MNF contract tensions with Joe Buck: 'I'm looking forward to … where my next landing spot might be'
Former Angels' Pitcher Jose Soriano Nominated For Gold Glove Award
Hurler who was traded from Los Angeles to the Toronto Blue Jays looking to win coveted award after posting sparkling defensive numbers in 2026.
Computational Models as Liminal Models in Neuroscience, a Cognitive Science Speaker Series Presentation | Events
Speaker: Danielle Williams, Ph.D. Title: Computational Models as Liminal Models in Neuroscience Short Bio: Danielle is a philosopher of mind and science whose research examines the role of computation in our theories and explanations of the mind and brain. Her work brings together philosophy of mind, cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, with particular interests in computational theories of mind, computational modeling, and the relationship between different explanatory and modeling strategies in the mind sciences. She also investigates philosophical questions raised by contemporary AI, including the nature of opacity in computational models and its implications for explanation in cognitive science. Alongside this work, she is a historian of cognitive science and AI, examining how the development of computer technology has shaped our conceptions and models of the mind and brain. Abstract: Scientists rely on various types of models to make sense of their phenomena of interest. This has led philosophers to take up a range of semantic, ontological, and epistemological questions about how models represent, what kinds of things models are, what we learn from models, and how they explain. One type of model that has been of particular interest to philosophers is the computational model. Computational models are commonplace in the mind sciences in general and neuroscience in particular, with many asking how computational modeling can help us understand the nervous system and its contribution to cognition and behavior. These questions are particularly pressing in neuroscience, as computational models have become a dominant framework for making sense of cognition. Thus, old questions about model-based science have re-emerged within the context of neuroscience, with many philosophers looking to established frameworks to understand how computational models represent, explain, and contribute to theory development in neuroscience. These established frameworks, however, characterize computational models as a homogeneous type which cannot capture actual modeling practices in neuroscience. In this talk, I argue that computational models in neuroscience are best typed as a kind of liminal model, a type I introduce to capture how the status of a computational model is determined by the epistemic context in which it is deployed. Indeed, the category to which a computational model belongs shifts according to the role it plays within a given context. ASL-English interpreters have been requested. Light refreshments will be provided.
Is the EU research budget actually increasing?
Is a Horizon Europe budget of €158 billion a 10% cut or a significant increase to the EU’s support for research and innovation? What would seem like a question of fact has divided opinion in Brussels since the Irish presidency of the EU Council presented its negotiation box on October 10. The answer depends on factors such as how you adjust for inflation, whether you account for increases in overall EU wealth and if you care about absolute or proportional figures. The €158 billion budget in current prices, proposed by the Irish presidency of the EU Council, was quickly criticised by university lobbies and rejected by the high-level expert group led by former Portuguese science minister Manuel Heitor. It was also decried by the four pro-European political groups in the European Parliament. “How can Europe close its competitiveness gap while cutting the European Competitiveness Fund by 13% and Horizon Europe by nearly 10%?” asked a joint statement by the European People’s Party (EPP), Renew Europe, the Socialists and Democrats and the Greens/European Free Alliance. Together, these parties hold 63% of seats in the Parliament.In stark contrast, Irish foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee said that the proposal “significantly increases investment in competitiveness, research and innovation,” Meanwhile, a presidency press release said that, compared to the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the proposal would “double the volume of competitiveness related programmes.” So, who is right? That depends on how you make the calculation.Compared to the Commission figure or the previous budget?The first thing to notice is the difference in baselines. When the MEPs say the Irish presidency will cut Horizon Europe by “nearly 10%” they are using the European Commission proposal for the MFF from July 2025, which allocated €175 billion in current prices to Horizon Europe. However, when the Irish foreign affairs minister said the research and competitiveness budget is increasing significantly, she is comparing it to the 2021-27 MFF, which had a Horizon Europe budget of €84.9 billion in 2018 prices.Her point holds when accounting for inflation. Applying a 2% annual inflation rate, the calculation method used by the Commission, the 2021-27 Horizon Europe would have a budget of €97.5 billion in 2025 prices. In comparison, the Irish presidency’s €158 billion figure in current prices translates to €140 billion in 2025 prices. Does the ECF count?But there is more to the dispute. In its statements, the Irish presidency lumped the research budget in with the overall budget for competitiveness. The Parliament statement, however, kept the two separate. This matters because the next MFF includes plans to add a new European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) to fund programmes meant to boost the continent's competitiveness. The Irish negotiating box allocated €245 billion in current prices to this programme.When this is added to the €158 billion for Horizon Europe, as well as programmes such as the EU education programme Erasmus+, the total for “competitiveness, prosperity and security” in the Irish proposal becomes €514 billion in current prices. But it is still uncertain how big a share of this competitiveness budget would go to research. The Commission proposal of July 2025 for the MFF included clear links between the ECF and Horizon Europe, indicating some ECF money will go to research. At the same time, the structure of the ECF is still being negotiated, and a substantial part of its budget is expected to support non-research activities such as defence manufacturing, decarbonisation and digital infrastructure. Related articlesCouncil floats 9.6% budget cut to next Horizon EuropeResearch community to appeal to national governments over planned EU budget cutEU own resources ‘essential’ for future research budget, says leading MEPSo, it is by looking at competitiveness rather than research, or combining the two, that the Irish presidency can claim that its proposed budget will significantly increase investment in competitiveness, research and innovation.According to the Irish presidency proposal, Horizon Europe and other competitiveness-related programmes in the current multiannual budget received €221 billion in current prices. However, since this money is being distributed from 2021 to 2027, it is not directly comparable to the €514 billion in current prices which will be distributed from 2028 to 2034.Research as a proportion of the MFFBut the relative rise in competitiveness-related programmes points to another important distinction: whether you look at the research budget in absolute terms or as a share of the overall MFF. Here, too, the size of the research budget has risen, although only slightly. In the 2021-27 MFF, Horizon Europe accounted for 7% of the total budget. In the Irish presidency’s proposal, it amounts to 8.7%. The share for the total competitiveness envelope went from 17.7% in the current MFF to 28.1% in the Irish presidency proposal.This proportional share may seem irrelevant to universities looking for research funding, but it is becoming significant as budget negotiations between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council begin. On October 2, a group of 17 southern and eastern European countries sent out a statement calling for the EU agriculture and cohesion budgets to be protected. The Parliament’s co-rapporteur on the budget, Siegfried Mureșan of the EPP, has also said that the research envelope is likely to be cut disproportionately as the budget is slimmed down during negotiations.
Here Is Why Bargain Hunters Would Love Fast-paced Mover AMC Entertainment (AMC)
If you are looking for stocks that have gained strong momentum recently but are still trading at reasonable prices, AMC Entertainment (AMC) could be a great choice. It is one of the several stocks that passed through our 'Fast-Paced Momentum at a Bargain' screen.
Justin Champagnie Looks For Consistent Role on Washington Wizards
After proving to be a productive piece in 2025-26, Justin Champagnie is looking to find a consistent role on an upgraded Wizards roster in 2026-27
Oilers’ Vasily Podkolzin On Fire, Makes Canucks Trade Look Baffling
Two years ago in August 2024, the Vancouver Canucks traded Vasily Podkolzin to the Edmonton Oilers for a 2025 fourth-round pick, one that was used on David Lewandowski. The Canucks would surely take that back now. Podkolzin is off to an incredible start to the 2026-27 season, looking like a guy who might finally be […] The post Oilers’ Vasily Podkolzin On Fire, Makes Canucks Trade Look Baffling appeared first on HEAVY.
Cover to Cover: ‘Hollywood, Ending’ offers a witty, compassionate critique of the entertainment industry
In his long-awaited return to fiction, John Green tackles art, love and celebrity culture with his signature empathy and humor in his new novel, “Hollywood, Ending.” Published Sept. 22, “Hollywood, Ending” is Green’s first adult novel after a career of primarily writing teen classics like “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Looking for Alaska.” The...
The Herald's weekly entertainment picks
Looking to be entertained from Thursday, Oct. 15, through Wednesday, Oct. 21? Check out the Skagit Valley Herald’s weekly recommendations.
Warriors Could Trade For Draymond Green’s Longtime Rival
The Golden State Warriors will be looking for ways to improve via the trade market, and Rudy Gobert could emerge as an option. A new report claims that the Minnesota Timberwolves will look to trade Gobert due to his contract ending soon. Paying big money to an aging NBA player can hurt the franchise, especially […] The post Warriors Could Trade For Draymond Green’s Longtime Rival appeared first on HEAVY.
Your Business Probably Has More Data Than Insight by Nathan Tayloe
Most businesses know more about themselves than they ever have. Leaders have access to financial reports, sales pipelines, customer data, employee metrics, website analytics, and dashboards for almost every part of the organization. CRMs track every stage of the sales process. Marketing platforms report results in real time. AI can analyze and summarize enormous amounts of information in seconds. Yet I've sat in plenty of meetings where all of that information is available, and some of the most important questions are still surprisingly difficult to answer. What's actually working? Why are customers choosing us? Where are we losing opportunities? What should we do differently? Having the data and understanding what it means are two very different things. More Information Doesn't Always Create More Clarity Over the past decade, businesses have invested heavily in visibility, and that's a good thing. We can understand performance with a level of detail that would have been unimaginable not long ago. But there's an unintended consequence. The easier something becomes to measure, the easier it is to assume it must be important. Website traffic goes up, so that looks positive. Leads increase, so marketing appears to be working. Sales activity climbs, so the pipeline looks healthy. Maybe. The numbers tell us what happened. Understanding why it happened, whether it matters, and what we should do next still requires judgment. Not Everything That Matters Fits on a Dashboard Consider a customer who ultimately contacts your company through Google. The data may attribute that lead to search. What it may not show is that the customer heard about you from a colleague six months earlier, saw your company mentioned in an industry publication, followed one of your employees on LinkedIn, and read several reviews before finally searching for your company. Google may have produced the click. It didn't necessarily create the decision. This happens throughout a business. Some of the things that matter most are difficult to reduce to a single metric: Why your best customers stay Why talented employees choose your company Why a prospect trusts one provider over another Why one service is gaining momentum while another isn't Why the market perceives your business the way it does Data can help answer those questions, but it needs context. Better Decisions Start With Better Questions One of the easiest traps for leaders is starting with the information in front of them rather than the decision they're trying to make. Instead of opening a dashboard and asking, "What does the data show?" it can be more useful to start with a different set of questions: What are we trying to understand? What decision are we trying to make? What would we need to know to make that decision confidently? That changes the role of data. Instead of looking at every number available and searching for meaning, you're using information to understand something specific about the business. Information Still Requires Judgment More sophisticated analytics and AI will continue to give leaders access to better information, faster. That's valuable, but I don't think it reduces the importance of experience and judgment. If anything, it increases it. Someone still has to decide which numbers deserve attention, which patterns matter, what context might be missing, and when the data isn't telling the whole story. The goal isn't to know more about your business simply because you can. It's to understand your business well enough to make better decisions. Good data can tell you what happened. Good leadership has to decide what it means. — Learn more about how we help organizations turn business, customer, and marketing insights into smarter strategies at tayloegray.com, or reach out directly at nathan@tayloegray.com.
Toronto Blue Jays' Yariel Rodriguez Makes Important Offseason Decision
The right-hander is looking ahead toward 2027.
Lawrenceville Arts Center launches intimate live music series featuring rising artists
Music fans looking to discover their next favorite artist can find their next live music experience in downtown Lawrenceville with the launch of The Preview, a new intimate concert series
Kansas State Looking For More Offensive Explosion Entering Kansas Matchup
The Kansas State Wildcats have struggled to make big plays on offense this season, a trend they hope ends in Saturday's game against the Kansas Jayhawks
Tap & Tees brings indoor golf and entertainment to Southwest Florida
Looking to work on your golf swing without worrying about the Florida heat? Tap & Tees Golf Lounge is bringing the golf course indoors with a high-tech experience that combines
PROFILE: Ben Sio
New President of CenterState CEO Brings Nearly Two Decades of Experience to Drive CNY Growth By Stefan Yablonski Ben Sio serves as president of the CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity — or CenterState CEO. The independent Syracuse-based nonprofit is committed to creating inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic growth in Central New York. “I started in this position in March, so it has been six months. I’m in my 19th year with CenterState,” he said in August. As president, he is responsible for overseeing the organization’s administration and governance, while leading and executing its vision to be an effective advocate, exceptional employer and a force for positive outcomes for the community. He previously served as chief of staff and senior vice president of strategy, policy and planning, overseeing the organization’s long-term strategic planning, consulting, corporate governance, fundraising and development, land-use planning and government relations. In his years with the organization, Sio has led or supported many high-profile strategic initiatives including the creation of the CNY Rising Plan, the launch of the NUAIR Alliance and the region’s UAS strategy, the creation of the Micron-enabled Community Priorities Document and the recently awarded NY Smart I Corridor Tech Hub. “When we decided to split Rob’s [Simpson] role into two positions, he has the CEO title and I got the president title. Rob remains focused on forward looking vision strategy for the organization and I’m more focused on the day-to-day operations,” he explained. “I’m also responsible for building consensus around strategic needs and priorities and managing the change necessary to drive execution. It’s an eventful job. “The experiment that we call CenterState is always evolving and shifting and addressing where we see market demand and market failure. “If we see something in our economy that isn’t going the way we think it should go, then whether it is housing development or workforce development or something else, we are always figuring out how to step into these situations and address those challenges.” “We are the largest ever in terms of staff that we have ever been. We are no longer the 20-person organization we were when we started out many, many years ago,” he said. “There are more day-to-day things to take care of. But also there is just so much happening in the community right now that is pulling CenterState and our expertise in so many directions. I tell people if we were bored and not busy, then I’d be really concerned about what we are doing. But we are not bored. We’ve certainly got our hands full — and that is a good thing.” CenterState has now approximately 63 employees on its staff, according to recent nonprofit database records. It’s involved in myriad programs, ranging from Genius NY, a business accelerator competition for uncrewed systems, IoT and robotics startups, to CenterState Up Start, a collaborative business development program that connects local, service-based businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs to the tools and networks that help them thrive. CNY Guy Through and Through A Central New York guy through and through, Sio was born and raised in Skaneateles. “My mom was a teacher, an art teacher. My father worked for many, many years with National Grid. He was there through the transition from Niagara Mohawk to National Grid,” he said. “Neither of my parents were touched by cutbacks and job loss. But I grew up going through that transition and being concerned that there were rounds of layoffs. My childhood connection to the economy here in Central New York … years ago it was on the decline. There were people that lived here that were concerned about losing their job. They were thinking they lived in a place that didn’t show much promise.” That narrative translated to his generation, he added. “The kids that grew up in the ‘90s in Central New York were very much told, directly or indirectly, by their parents, that they had to go somewhere else to find economic opportunity. That is what I grew up thinking,” he said. “I only went a few miles down Route 20 for college — in Geneva, New York; I graduated from Hobart and William Smith College with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and political science. “I got real interested in regional economies; because what makes regional economy is what makes the economy successful. And when I graduated, I had an opportunity to move to Washington, DC and work down there at a nonprofit doing this work.” However, he decided to stay in Central New York. “I got hired two weeks after I graduated. I got hired by the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce. At the time it was one of two entities doing economic development in Central New York — [the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Development Association] — and it eventually became CenterState CEO,” he said, referring to 2010 merger between the two organizations. During his time at CenterState, Sio has also split time at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he supported communities developing export and foreign direct investment (FDI), a long-term cross-border investment where an individual or company from one country buys a lasting stake or control in a business located in another country. The program — known as Global Cities Initiative — was designed to help leaders in major U.S. and international metropolitan areas reorient their local economies toward global markets. “Early on in my tenure at CenterState, we had done a lot of work with the Brookings Institution, just regional planning stuff. We worked with them on developing a regional export plan, to export more products out of Central New York and a larger business plan for the region. They hired me on to help replicate those plans in different parts of the country,”Sio explained. “So, I worked there for three or four years. I worked for CenterState, but I was technically loaned to Brookings for a period of time to help them do this work elsewhere.” Family ties “My wife is Carly. We have been married 14 years. We have two kids, a 3-year-old and a 7-year-old. “With a 3-year-old and a 7-year-old, fun is a relative term these days. We do a lot of hiking. The kids this summer got very interested in waterfalls. We’ve hit every waterfall we could in a short hike — we’ve done Skaneateles and some others.” “I do woodworking and wood turning — it’s a branch of woodworking; you use a wood lathe. My big thing there is making wood bowls. I do that in most of my free time, which is not much,” he quipped. “I like to get into my woodshop and make a bowl and decompress and turn off the rest of the world for a little bit. I usually do it late at night when the house is quiet. It is definitely my escape from the day to day. I make a lot of bowls; all different sizes, all different species of wood. It’s a fun thing to do for me.” He gives away many of his creations. “They are mostly gifts — I don’t really sell them. I really don’t have time to go set up a booth at a fair or craft show. I usually give them away. I donate them to different things. If you are in my periphery, you’ve likely received a salad bowl from me as a gift. I just need to find something to do with all the stuff that I create,” he said. Lifelines Name: Benjamin Sio Position: President, CenterState CEO Birth Date: Not provided Birth place: Syracuse Residence: Westvale Education: Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes Affiliations: Member of the boards of Skaneateles Festival, Greccio Foundation, Interfaith Works, CNY Community Foundation Personal/family: Married with two kids Hobbies: Woodworking and woodturning
ON THE JOB: ‘Where Do You See Your Career or Business in 3 to 5 Years?’
“For the next three to five years, I am looking to grow Oswego County Opportunities’ support for the county’s economic development to fight poverty and take advantage of the major investments that are coming to the area.” — Kevin Dean, Executive director, Oswego County Opportunities, Fulton “I love what I’m doing. I’m trying to do this as long as they let me. It’s so exciting to walk the floors at the various factories, talk with community leaders and be part of the solutions to their business problems. As we do this work with manufacturers and community members, we are helping the next generation have these great jobs in skilled manufacturing. I’d like to have the same job title for years to come. I’ve watched the last five years with awe and it makes me proud and excited to be from Upstate New York. I want to keep being part of the conversation that, yes, we can do it in Upstate New York.” — Randy Wolken, President and CEO, Manufacturing Association of Central New York (MACNY) “I oversee the Rochester and Syracuse offices. We’re seeing continual growth as there are more and more job seekers and companies that are looking to fill positions as the economy grows. I’d like to have another Upstate New York office in our region to help promote people under me. I want to see that happen. With an increase in the job market, that is what the end goal is here for sure. We currently have offices in Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany, among more than 300 worldwide.” — Briana Calabrese, Marketing director and vice president of finance & accounting and administrative & customer support, Robert Half Recruiters & Employment Agency, Syracuse “Hopefully, we’ll continue to grow by word of mouth. I just took over a couple of years ago. I was an employee for 27 years. Business is great and we’re up on sales from where we were last year and I’m hoping that continues to happen. I get an overwhelming response from people who say they want to support local businesses. It’s my objective when people walk out the door that they want to come back. In a small town like this, it’s crucial. I see myself in five years doing exactly what I’m doing now: sticking with it and trying to grow Fulton Screen Printing.” — Tim Stone, Owner, Fulton Screen Printing, Fulton “I am 85 years old and teach four fitness classes a week and swim four times a week. I hope to live to be 90 — if I can do that, I won’t complain. The older I get, the less afraid I am of dying. What I don’t want to do is get some sickness where I’m lingering and I’m in pain and it just goes on and on. I expect to be exercising as much as I can and I hope I will know when I need to back off to accommodate different problems I may have when I’m older. For a short time, I got up at 6 a.m. to jog for a half hour every morning. But I had to avoid dogs, so I quit jogging. I hope to be able to swim for life. When I swim for half an hour, whatever problems I have wash away. I will still be working in exercise in five years. I also write research articles. It challenges my mind. You have to challenge your mind and body and have some kind of goals and reasons to go on living. My wife died three and a half years ago, so I try to go out and do things, even though she’s no longer here.” — Fred Wilson. Certified personal trainer at Fitness After 50 and leader of senior fitness classes, Syracuse “I expect to continue working as a local financial adviser professional for the next several years. I really enjoy working with my clients and consider it a privilege to come to work every day, helping my clients reach their financial goals.” — Randy L. Zeigler, Certified financial planner practitioner, chartered financial consultant and private wealth adviser, Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC, Oswego “I see myself doing something with young people. I want to open an after-school program as a safe space for high schoolers where they can get tutored, behavioral health, get something to eat. I want to do something with policy. I have thought of doing something with neurodivergent kids where kids can run some kind of business. I want to do anything with community like therapy and psychotherapy. I want to still be able to offer those services to people. At 55, I’m not sure how much I will do. I will see what happens after graduation from Keuka College.” — Della Joyce Smith, Master’s student, Syracuse “I think the core of the gym is in personal training. I don’t see that changing. People will still need a gym and personal training will stay. There may be some loss to AI as there is in just about every industry, but there’s always been the ability to go online and get a workout. I don’t think AI will cut into business any more than the internet has. I think the class structure is shifting. Large group classes might be fading away for a while. I see more people going to specialized classes like Pilates. I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe the traditional classes like boot camps started to fade away. It’s important to adapt. Maybe someday I’ll need to get some new kinds of classes. Everything tends to go in cycles.” — Ryan Vollmer, Certified personal trainer and owner Edge Strength and Conditioning, Syracuse “I have been growing my firm at 24% a year. In five years, we may be purchasing or building a new office building to accommodate the new growth. Right now, our focus is on growth and adding team members, mostly financial advisers and administrative staff.” — Terri Krueger, Chartered financial consultant and senior financial adviser with Orla Wealth Management in Syracuse “Over the next three to five years, I see TDO continuing to experience steady, sustainable growth as new industries establish and expand their presence across Central New York. These investments will create new opportunities throughout the regional manufacturing supply chain, and TDO will continue evolving our capabilities to help both existing manufacturers and emerging industries grow, compete, and succeed.” — Jim D’Agostino, CEO and executive director Central New York TDO (Train, Develop, Optimize), Liverpool
BUSINESS UPDATE: A 138-year-old New York Manufacturer Gets Another Life in Fulton
E.J. Willis Co. was founded in New York City in 1888 and for generations it has made ship’s bells and other equipment for the U.S. Navy and American shipbuilders. This summer, the new owner moved the company’s equipment to Fulton By Stefan Yablonski E. J. Willis Co. cast brass ship’s bells — handcrafted in the United States since 1888. Ship bells, “built to last a lifetime at sea,” are now manufactured in Fulton. E.J. Willis Co. has moved its operation and manufacturing business to Fulton. They are currently operating out of N.E.T & Die. The company is now under the ownership of Jonathan Hyatt. He recently acquired the company after seeing a for sale note on Craigslist. [caption id=attachment_11110 align=alignright width=400] Entrepreneur Jonathan Hyatt is the new owner of E.J. Willis Co. He bought the business this summer after finding a listing on Craigslist by chance.[/caption] “I had been looking for something to do. I had been 20 years in corporate America and I was just tired of building someone else’s empire, you know what I mean? I was in consulting, pretty much a jack of all trades. I wanted to do something that I could call my own,” he explained. “I’d been on this path of trying to find a business to buy for about a year. One night I am on Craigslist about 11:30 in mid-April searching for something completely unrelated. At the bottom of Craigslist was a ‘things you might be interested in from outside of your area.’ There was an ad that said 138-year-old bell manufacturing company for sale. So, I clicked; why not, right? I wasn’t looking to buy a manufacturing company, but I went down the rabbit hole, absolutely fell in love with the history and ended up buying it.” He read the ad and responded. “I called and I am talking to the owner of the business for about two hours. We ended with, let’s have another chat and then come on out here and have a look. I figured, well I might wind up getting kidnapped and getting murdered or there is a real business here. But I gotta see it through,” he quipped. “And sure enough, there is a big machine shop operation there. The gentleman who owned it was retiring and in the corner of this shop is a little room where they make bells and they have been doing this ever since the company had started.” That’s the one constant thing that has survived the changes of the business. [caption id=attachment_11061 align=alignright width=300] Sales 1929 general catalog published by E. J. Willis Co, listing all the merchandise it sold. It’s like the Sears Roebuck and Co. catalog for marine parts.[/caption] “I drove home and told my wife, ‘This is what I am doing for the rest of whatever we are calling this — mid-life crisis.’ And she said, ‘absolutely you got to do it.’ I took out a loan and off we go.” He put in an offer on the business and they closed on July 1. He didn’t disclose what he paid for the company. “In terms of price, the seller and I have agreed to keep those terms private.” “I am finding that I am a business owner, an archeologist, opening files and cabinets that haven’t been opened in 100 years. It’s just amazing, just cool things that I am finding,” he said. “I want to build the business back. I want to be able to sell the bells to outsiders. I think they are beautiful. “It’s really a wild story about a company that started in lower Manhattan, exploded in the automotive space, sold parts to the Wright Brothers, moved into the aeronautical world and then landed in marine. The cool thing, I have been digging around and the gentleman who owned the company prior to me was not a digital guy. There is nothing out there. “Now I am sitting here with all the art from like the 1930s, the E.J. Willis boat catalog it’s like 250 pages of things this company used to make. It’s like the Sears-Roebuck and Co. catalog for marine parts. We are modernizing, we are staying true to the heritage of the business. It’s exciting to be the next steward of the whole business.” Initially he thought he’d move everything from the company’s plant in Middleville, Herkimer County, to Boston, out of convenience. “Then I thought let’s keep the foundry where it is. Let’s not move anything right away,” he said. “I want to get a good sense of what we’ve got, what works and what doesn’t. “I went to the foundry and met with the people there, lovely people, and said here is my position — I am buying a company where everyone is retiring. There is machining and polishing to be done, who would you work with around here? Without hesitation they said, ‘you need to go to NET Tool & Die and talk to Michelle [Shatrau]. She is a third-generation machinist and she runs the company now.’” So, he drove to Fulton. “I knocked on the door, they let me in. And she said, ‘how’d you get in here?’” he said with a laugh. “We became fast friends. I told her what I am doing. It must have struck a nerve. She has a very entrepreneurial background. I must have said something right because she came out and she said, ‘I’d love to help you. Why don’t we move the equipment that you have into my large building and I will give you a space to work at and use my team?’” [caption id=attachment_11058 align=alignleft width=300] Bell in progress awaiting assembly[/caption] It’s a great relationship so far. “We are bringing the business into the modern world. It’s been a lot of stuff all at once. But it has been very exciting,” he said. “We moved in a month ago [in July]. We closed on the business July 1. We moved a couple weeks later. We had all our equipment set up, electrical being run, everything. [caption id=attachment_11059 align=alignright width=300] Bell attached to a lathe going through the machining process[/caption] “We’re working with NET Tool & Die to rebuild production and preserve manufacturing processes that, in some cases, existed mostly in the heads and hands of the people who had been doing them for decades. We’re currently working on several 200-pound ship’s bells and bringing an old two-way manual bilge pump back into production.” He said he will be working with NET employees for the time being, adding, “I’d love to get to a point where I have so much growth that I need to hire people.” No one wakes up and says, ‘I am buying a bell today,’ Hyatt admitted. [caption id=attachment_11060 align=alignleft width=225] Bell after receiving a custom etching toward the bell mouth[/caption] “Everyone does wake up and has things that deserve acknowledgment and remembering — a promotion, a marriage, the birth of a child,” he said. “These are the things I feel like if there was something that could capture a particular moment in time and will literally outlast the person that bought it, a bell is that. We can engrave a bell if you get married or the birth of a child. We can put anything on a bell. “I have orders, yes. I am working on several orders right now. We have a little bit of busyness. But there are still some things to work out. I want to make things consistently and continue to move forward.”
A Major Labor Boom in CNY? Not Here Yet
With so many major projects going on — Micron, I-81 viaduct and others — job growth is predicted to increase. But so far the number of jobs in the region has declined By Aaron Gifford [caption id=attachment_11065 align=alignright width=350] Amy Stage, deputy director at the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY): “For us, the conversation isn’t just about filling jobs. It’s about creating sustainable pathways that help people see a future for themselves in manufacturing.”[/caption] The I-81 viaduct project in Syracuse and Micron facility construction in Clay are expected to create a major labor boom for Central New York. But for the time being, the number of jobs here has actually decreased in the past year. The New York State Department of Labor reported that, for the annual comparison of June 2025 to this past June, private sector jobs decreased by 2,200 or less than 1% to 260,000. Job gains were concentrated in leisure and hospitality (+700), private education and health services (+400) and other services (+300). Job losses for that annual period were reported in the areas of trade, transportation and utilities (-1,500); professional and business services (-1,000); financial activities (-500); mining, logging and construction (-300); manufacturing (-200); and information (-100). The public sector job count rose over 12 months, with most growth concentrated in education, the state Department of Labor reported. Looking ahead, the Central New York economy is expected to benefit from both the Micron and I-81 viaduct projects over a period of several years. Initial job growth is foreseen in construction and computer and electronic manufacturing. Spin-off jobs will be created in the areas of professional and business services, health care and education, the state Department of Labor said in an email response to Oswego County Business magazine. “Population growth tied to the buildout of Micron Technology semiconductor complex in Clay is also expected to bring more workers and residents to the region, increasing demand for transportation services,” the agency said. New York Department of Labor highlighted current or projected job growth trends in various sectors. An increase in defense-related contracts at local high-tech employers has continued to support employment growth in the computer and electronic product manufacturing sector and Micron is expected to generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs as the project progresses. This sector paid an annual average wage of $117,500 in 2025 and employment in the sector is projected to grow by over 60% through 2032, making it the fastest-growing industry in the region. Typical occupations in this industry include electrical, electronic and electromechanical assemblers, software developers and industrial engineers, the state agency reported. Specialty trade contractors include several different types of tradespeople — electricians, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) mechanics and installers. Many of these positions are trained through apprenticeships, the state Department of Labor reported. The Interstate 81 construction project is generating local jobs, including construction laborers, projected to grow at a 6.4% rate, and operating engineers and other construction equipment operators, projected to grow at a 7.3% rate over the next several years. Construction of the Micron Technology facility is also “creating thousands of job opportunities that will continue over the next two decades,” the state agency reported. The specialty trade contractors sector paid an annual average wage of $86,200 in 2025. For Central New York, the challenge isn’t creating jobs, it’s filling them. Amy Stage, a deputy director at the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY), said meeting this unprecedented growth is a much larger task than just replacing retirees. “We’re seeing workforce gaps at every experience level,” she said. “Companies need entry-level employees, experienced technicians, supervisors, engineers and skilled trades professionals. The opportunity is tremendous, but we need more people entering these career pathways.” Employers are looking for people who can troubleshoot, read technical information, use computers and learn new processes, not just perform repetitive production work, Stage said. To address this demand, the MACNY created the Manufacturers Talent Institute, which aims to connect students and job seekers with meaningful career pathways while helping employers build their workforce. Twenty-one companies have so far signed up to provide opportunities for more than 800 students. “For us, the conversation isn’t just about filling jobs,” Stage said. “It’s about creating sustainable pathways that help people see a future for themselves in manufacturing.” Several manufacturing facilities in the region are in the midst of expansion: • TTM Technologies, a leading U.S. manufacturer of advanced electronics and interconnect solutions for aerospace, defense and high-technology markets, which has a plant in DeWitt, completed its buildout of an additional facility, adding 400 jobs and expanding production of high-tech circuit boards for defense and critical electronics applications. • In Cortlandville, the Byrne Hollow Crossing Plant, a dairy manufacturing and processing facility, is increasing its operations, creating 100 new jobs. • The Chobani yogurt company is building a 1.4-million square foot dairy processing facility in Oneida County. This will create more than 1,000 good-paying jobs and double Chobani’s New York state workforce, Stage said. Stage noted several ways that local, state and federal governments can help spur manufacturing job growth in this region. Elected leaders and public agencies could work with industry representatives to create pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs seeking to upskill workers and improve employee retention. New York state has a variety of grants, tax incentives and financing programs to support site preparation, infrastructure, workforce development and capital investment. The U.S. Department of Labor has a pay-for-performance incentive program that provides employers $3,500 per new apprentice hired and retained for 90 days. MACNY was previously awarded an $87,000 federal grant that will cover 25 apprentices at nine companies. The manufacturing skills gap in the United States, at its current rate, could result in 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, according to a study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute. In New York state, that gap is on pace to exceed 100,000 unfilled positions within six years. Manufacturing companies will be counting on more women to help fill that gap. While women make up half of the overall U.S. workforce, they only account for 29% of the manufacturing workforce in this country, Stage said. “Pre-apprenticeship programs like Real Life Rosies help to bring awareness to the manufacturing industry to fill some of the gaps, but we have a long way to go and it starts with educating people at younger ages about careers in manufacturing and earn-and-learn opportunities,” she said. As for Micron, that $100 billion-plus project, considered the largest private investment in New York state history, is expected to eventually create up to 50,000 jobs throughout the region, factoring in the spin-off opportunities for construction and supply chains. The plant’s foundation was poured on July 9. “As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, data and memory are foundational to the modern economy — and Micron is increasing our U.S. investments to more than $250 billion through 2035 to meet that moment,” the company’s president and CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, said in a news release. Bechtel, Micon’s construction partner in the project, reported that 4,500 people will be employed to help build the facility, including skilled craft professionals, local union members representing various trades and apprentices. The Syracuse-based CenterState CEO organization tallies the regional labor force at 397,582 workers (Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, Madison and Oswego counties). Job growth isn’t limited to the Central New York region. For the larger area covering portions of the Mohawk Valley, the North Country, the Southern tier, and the western part of the state, there are 155,601 employees in the advanced manufacturing sector, and 155,275 construction workers. The agency’s 2026 Economic Forecast report noted that 41% of community and business leaders surveyed said a shortage of skilled workers in this area remains a problem, though 77% shared a positive economic outlook for the year ahead. Beyond the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing areas, local business leaders also see growth in small manufacturing companies, storage businesses, housing, unmanned flight technology and general construction. “Productive reuse of property,” the report said, “will hopefully continue to preserve unique architecture while driving business.” The report identified several challenges for economic growth in the region, including an aging workforce, outdated equipment, the rising cost of raw materials and “the disconnect between the speed of business needs and the pace of talent readiness.”
Daldrop Opens for Business in Southern Oswego County
$10 Million Facility in the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park marks the largest expansion outside of Germany in the company’s 73-year history By Stefan Yablonski [caption id=attachment_11076 align=alignright width=450] Daldrop SBB CEO Jens Daldrop addresses attendees at the 2025 groundbreaking for the project. Daldrop also chairs the advisory board of Germany-based Daldrop Group.[/caption] A new era of cleanroom technology is underway in Central New York. The Daldrop Group’s advanced manufacturing facility and U.S. headquarters is physically built within the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park. This industrial park is located in the town of Schroeppel. It marks the largest expansion outside of Germany in the company’s 73-year history. Daldrop SBB is based in Neckartailfingen, Germany. It is a global supplier of cleanroom technology, primarily to the pharmaceutical industry. It designs and builds advanced cleanroom environments for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology industries. It nvested $10 million in the new project. “We broke ground in 2025; we were under construction all winter. We just opened this spring, early spring,” said Benjamin Morrow, operations manager and control. The company consolidated sites in Salina and DeWitt into the industrial park in Schroeppel, Morrow added. “The next move here is to maximize every square inch of this facility and then we are already looking at the expansion. So, it is more capital investment on equipment — definitely higher-end automation in additional equipment so we can produce more components and then to support the ever-growing base in North America,” Morrow continued. “We are the headquarters for service, maintenance and spare parts. So as Daldrop has more and more installations, they need more and more service, maintenance and spare parts. So that will come out of this facility as well — it already is.” “As a global leader in GMP (global manufacturing support) pharmaceutical cleanrooms for decades, I am very proud to bring manufacturing jobs to Upstate New York,” said Mike Sullivan, president of Daldrop US operations. Key to choosing Southern Oswego County [caption id=attachment_11077 align=alignright width=450] Daldrop SBB at the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park when the company announced the start of construction.[/caption] Sullivan said that the selection of the Schroeppel industrial park was mainly due to the help of Operation Oswego County and two people in the organization. “Prior to being purchased by Daldrop International from the Stuttgart region of Germany, Vince Bongio was a founding partner in SBB Inc. as well as our head of engineering. We based out of Syracuse due to Vince’s skills in HVAC and the manufacturing capabilities found in Syracuse,” said Sullivan. Bongio moved to Syracuse from California in the 1970s to work in Carrier’s Industrial Division of Large-Scale Petrochemical Refrigeration. Next, he advanced to General Electric’s TV Tube Plant where he got into cleanrooms ,leading to his role of head of engineering for Clestra Cleanrooms where he met Sullivan, their New England distributor. “Vince Bongio is a phenomenal engineer. Formerly of Carrier, he grew up in California and went to Cal Poly,” Sullivan explained. “Carrier hired him right out of college and he moved to Syracuse. He is the reason we are in Syracuse today. He is retiring this year. We are very proud and his legacy is having brought Daldrop to Syracuse.” In 2000, Sullivan, Bazinet, Bongio Inc (SBB) was formed with engineering and manufacturing, based in Syracuse, and sales and construction based in Massachusetts as it is today. “SBB Inc. started in Syracuse. I had a design–build contracting firm out of Massachusetts that was primarily doing all the new technologies coming out of MIT,” Sullivan said. “I started a manufacturing side. A big thing for cleanrooms is the HVAC. Most cleanroom suppliers are architecturally focused people. The strength in Syracuse is HVAC. So, SBB developed with me running sales and construction out of Massachusetts and manufacturing out of Syracuse.” “Daldrop wanted to have a relationship in the States and of those who approached us, they were the only ones who really understood HVAC. So, we were the right fit for them. We did a joint venture focused out of Massachusetts from 2012 to 2018 leveraging their technologies,” Sullivan explained. “The commitment was if we brought their product to the States, we would do that if they built it here. “The pieces that had to be in place to make the investment, they wanted to acquire us, we were great with that. If you looked at business recommendations the general guidance was to build in a low labor area — something like North Carolina — but Syracuse had a strong background in HVAC and we chose Syracuse and Oswego County to be our headquarters in the States. So, it is built off of history, technology and the existing supply chain — bringing jobs back to the area.” During the initial discussions with Daldrop about coming to the U.S., SBB agreed to sell under the conditions Daldrop would manufacture in the U.S. There are many areas that offer incentives and economic packages, but the strength of HVAC expertise and skilled manufacturing was a big part of the discussions for site selection. Coming home [caption id=attachment_11078 align=alignright width=451] Construction moves forward in March at the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park.[/caption] The second key person to building in Oswego County is Ben Morrow, Sullivan added. “Ben has been working with Daldrop SBB for more than 12 years and has advanced to COO of manufacturing and engineering. Ben grew up in Phoenix, so building a factory for the Germany company in Phoenix is a strong success for both his community and the appreciation of Ben’s skills as a team leader,” Sullivan said. “I went to high school in Phoenix. So, this is like full circle for me. It’s a small world,” Morrow said. “I hadn’t been back to Phoenix since graduation. This is one of the properties that John Trimble of C&S, he is the former president of C&S, he just retired, suggested. He and I were very good personal friends. John was from Mexico and I was from Phoenix. We knew each other from high school. And the architect of this building, Ed Smart of smartDESIGN Architecture in Batavia — I went to high school with him. So, this was a project that’s full circle a coming home kind of thing. The three of us knew each other — kind of like it was meant to be. Very serendipitous.” Schroeppel was one option for Daldrop to consider; the original intent was just to get a warehouse to store some product, he added. The facility is Daldrop’s largest outside of their native country. Total payroll at the facility will be approximately $2.4 million once fully staffed. “Here is 32,000 square feet and we plan to expand and put in an additional 10,000 square feet,” Morrow said. “We have 17.5 acres. We can put at least three more facilities here, just on this property. The master plan submitted for the current building is the first of possible three buildings on the campus.” “If we can find the right people and advance the production according to the plan, we should be able to grow for the next decade. One of the first jobs we filled was our new HR manager, with a primary focus posting and filling new positions,” Sullivan said. Stop the exodus, start hiring [caption id=attachment_11080 align=alignright width=452] Principals at the local Daldrop SBB headquarters, from left: Ben Morrow, Mike Sullivan and Jens Daldrop.[/caption] “I have been coming to Syracuse for 30 years. One of the things I had a hard time watching was the exodus of factories. One of the toughest things is to watch it with my partners’ kids who had to move away for jobs. It is important for us to give opportunity where people’s kids don’t have to leave the area to get work,” Sullivan said. “My responsibility is to find people who have skill sets that want to work and then I have to build opportunity for that work to happen. “After years of watching companies and Vince’s three sons all move out of the areas to get jobs, it is important to us to provide opportunities for the Syracuse region and help grow our company. We have been hiring for our new factory and will continue for the next few years.” “We are hiring and will continue to hire. Currently we have about 19 on staff right now,” Morrow said. “We expect to grow that by about 10 to 15 in the next 12 to 18 months or so. We are at 19 currently — one in the wings. It’s been great being able to hire locally. All these folks that we’ve been hiring, they all live within a few miles from here.” “We hired someone this past week (end of August). She grew up in the area, raised a family and is working down in Florida. She just took a job with us so she can move back and be with her family. We will be moving her back and she should be starting in October. We are very happy to see this happen,” Sullivan said. “I feel strongly about having a spot for the kids to not have to move out of the area. It is better to have people moving into the area.” Currently, Daldrop SBB has openings for finance manager, COO of construction and delivery, as well as mechanical, electrical designers and Revit modelers, construction managers, commissioning agents and many other skills that are needed. Along with Daldrop’s reputation in life science cleanrooms, there is a strong history in semiconductor, electronics, glass, photonics, aerospace and other markets. This may be helpful with any new technologies building in the market such as the Micron expansion and the support network, Sullivan said. “We acquired this property and closed on it two months before any announcement from Micron. It is serendipitous that they’re right down the street from us,” Morrow added. “Everybody started thinking ‘you guys are supporting Micron.’ We were here first. That is not a goal of ours. We may or may not … they are talking to us; it is an opportunity.” The long run [caption id=attachment_11079 align=alignright width=450] Benjamin Morrow, operations manager and control at Daldlrop, speaks during a recent ribbon-cutting event in Schroeppel.[/caption] “Long term, we will expand the Phoenix facility,” Sullivan said. “We built our facility with a campus approach. Sustainability is big. We designed our rooms to be more sustainable. Our building has no gas lines for heat. We put geothermal wells in the ground. We put heat pumps in for heating and cooling out of those wells and we put a large layer of solar panels up on the roof. We worked with National Grid for metering. Our building is a high efficiency model. We upgraded all the instillation and the glass filtering. So, it is a very green building. We will have a very minimal carbon footprint. It also adheres to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) construction standards.” “We are a bunch of HVAC engineers. We did a large scale geothermal and spent the money up front because we knew it made sense in the business sense in the environmental sense and sustainability,” Morrow said. “We have insulated metal panels on walls and roof; we are an envelope from the exterior.” Daldrop, as a global player, has a strong culture of sustainability that is found in all its products including the new facility. The building has been designed with (sixteen) 400-foot deep geothermal wells, high efficiency construction methods, approximately 70 kilowatt solar photovoltaic panels, electric vehicle chargers and 26% recycled content. “Daldrop thinks of long-term investing,” Sullivan said. “On the roof, photovoltaic panels supplement our power. Over half the energy that I use is coming from the sun. We have chargers up front for employee electric vehicles. This place is built to last. This slab that we are walking on, normal buildings are four inches, some go to six inches, we are nine inches all the way through — except where the heavy equipment is — that is 10 to 12 inches thick, solid concrete. It allows us to reconfigure for whatever type of equipment we want to bring in,” Morrow said. “We are authorized by Underwriters Laboratory to self-certify so we don’t need to have an inspector come out and recertify. We get audited often, but we certify our own electronics. The control system in this building is rather high-end. Our thermostat in every room is zoned, independent. We analyze the data; incorporate it with our solar panels.” “There is a lot of competition for people to work. It’s not just about how much salary they are going to make — it’s about the work environment, the ability for stability. We want to make sure our employees have the best environment to work in,” Morrow added. Similarities “One of the reasons I believe why Daldrop chose this area, Phoenix in particular, is because it is a village, a river-based village. Neckartailfingen in Germany where Daldrop is based is also a river-based village, manufacturing community. So, there is a lot of similarities — that smalltown feel,” Morrow said. “We have a lot of connections through multiple employees that lead back to Carrier, also. Everything came together, the timing everything.” “We are thankful for all the economic development support. Everyone has been helping make this happen. So, keep it up, it is working, that is all I got to say, Sullivan said. “If you look at historical industrial manufacturing, this region has skills that have been un-utilized. The northern industrial region has a lot of skills that if we can tap before they go away, we can leverage them. That is what we are trying to do. You’d be surprised at the supply chain left behind from Carrier — that supply chain is still there.” “Operation Oswego County has been fantastic,” Morrow added. “I can’t say enough good things about that group.” What Is Cleanroom Technology Cleanroom technology is a system of specialized engineering, filtration and operational controls used to maintain an extremely low concentration of airborne particles, microbes and chemical vapors. How It Works • Air Filtration: Uses HEPA or ULPA filters to remove 99.97% of tiny particles down to 0.3 microns. • Airflow Control: Directs air in a steady, unidirectional (laminar) or filtered turbulent pattern to push dust away from work areas. • Environmental Regulation: Maintains precise control over temperature, humidity and positive air pressure to block outside air leaks. • Specialized Attire: Requires personnel to wear full-body garments (“bunny suits”), gloves and masks to stop human shedding