Final heat: Welcome to Friday, intrepid innovators, with another muggy workweek conquered and another sun-splashed weekend calling.
It’s July 15 out there, and before we chill out, we’ve got to sweat out one more workday – fortunately, your super-cool Friday innovation recap is here to release some steam.
Away team: Give it up for Give Something Away Day.
Give and take: We begin on National Give Something Away Day, a generosity-flavored counterpoint to the rampant materialism of this week’s Amazon Prime Day shop-fest – or maybe you just need space for your new stuff.
Balanced diet: Just make sure you save space for dessert – a real challenge on Orange Chicken Day, but a necessity on National Tapioca Pudding Day. (We believe in you.)
Like butter: Speaking of believing – or not believing, as the case may be – not-butter margarine was patented on July 15,1868, by French chemist Hippolyte Mege-Mouries.
Mege-Mouries invented “oleomargarine” for a contest seeking worthy butter substitutes to feed French armed forces.
Taking flight: Also spreading nicely was the Boeing Company, founded on this date in 1916 (as Pacific Aero Products Co.) by tinder merchant William Boeing.
Post script: Among Boeing’s bigger fans was pioneering aviator (and C.W. Post College namesake) Wiley Post, who took off from Brooklyn 89 years ago today on the first round-the-world solo flight.
Pretty big deal: The Boeing 707 changed everything.
Big ol’ jet airliner: Completing today’s aviation-a-thon is the Boeing 707, the first workhorse of the jet-travel age, which made its maiden test flight on July 15, 1954.
Tales of an ancient Mariner: And it was this date in 1965 when NASA’s Mariner 4 space probe made its closest approach to Mars.
The 228-day journey to the Red Planet provided humanity’s first-ever pictures of another planet taken from space, among other historic achievements.
Bank it: Maggie Lena Walker (1867-1934) – a teacher, businesswoman and civic leader who became the first African American woman to charter a bank and the first to serve as a bank president – would be 155 years old today.
Don’t know much: But we know Ronstadt is an all-timer.
Also born on this date were master Dutch innovator Rembrandt (born Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669), an all-time visual artist; American virologist Thomas Francis Jr. (1900-1969), the first U.S. physician to isolate the influenza virus (and detect mutated strains); American microbiologist Carl Woese (1928-2012), who redefined life as we know it; American singer Linda Ronstadt (born 1946), a multiple Grammy-winner who topped rock, country and Latin music charts, among others; and Greek-American author and publisher Arianna Huffington (born 1950), who emboldened liberalism – and redefined 21st Century journalism – with HuffPost.
Finger on the pulsars: And take a bow, Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell! The Irish astrophysicist – credited with discovering pulsars as a University of Cambridge postgrad, historically graceful when she was screwed out of the resulting Nobel Prize – turns 79 today.
Wish the dignified genius well at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events are like rotating neutron stars with intense magnetic fields that emit radioactive pulses at regular intervals. (Actually, we’re jazzed whenever they come.)
About our sponsor: St. Joseph’s University has been dedicated to providing a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. Independent and coeducational, the university provides strong academic and value-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare students for lives characterized by integrity, intellectual rigor, social responsibility, spiritual depth and service. Through its Long Island, Brooklyn and online campuses, the university offers degrees in 60 majors, special course offerings and certificates, and affiliated and pre-professional programs. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
What a steel: The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency has struck again, executing a fresh tax-incentives package promising dozens of new jobs and a socioeconomic payoff nearing three-quarters of a billion dollars.
The IDA has approved a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal for Steel K, a Bethpage-based LLC aiming to purchase and renovate an 188,000-square-foot commercial building in Greenvale currently owned and occupied by heating equipment manufacturer Slant/Fin. The Nassau agency projects the $38.6 million purchase/renovation project will create 12 construction-phase jobs and create/retain nearly 250 full-time slots, with the 20-year PILOT deal generating more than $14 million in “net tax benefits” for the county – and an “overall economic benefit” nearing $760 million.
That’s a big-time ROI for a moderate PILOT deal, according to Nassau County IDA Chairman Richard Kessel. “While it is unfortunate that Slant/Fin moved their operations elsewhere, Steel K’s plan to renovate the building … will once again turn this property into a job-creating, tax-generating facility,” Kessel said this week. “The market for quality industrial space … remains at record highs, so we’re excited to see what type of tenant or tenants this new product will provide, and the opportunities it will create for our residents.”
So you think you can act: Things get intensive at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio Summer High School Program.
All the camp’s a stage: Two aspiring Long Island actors are among 10 high-schoolers taking the stage this summer in an intensive acting program at a prestigious Brooklyn studio.
Leanne Lily Lazo, a junior at Hicksville’s Holy Trinity Diocesan School, and Wantagh High School senior Trinity Bokelmann have received full scholarships to the Terry Knickerbocker Studio Summer High School Program. The scholarships for the 10-week program, featuring award-winning actress Jurnee Smollett and other high-caliber instructors, were included with the Nassau County students’ New Faces Awards, presented by the Broadway Education Alliance to high school-aged performers across Greater New York.
The program is slated to include core classes in the Meisner Technique, voice, movement, clown-work and creative theater, along with master classes in singing, auditioning and “staying grounded,” according to the renowned NYC acting school. “I developed a lifelong interest in theater when I was in high school, and the program that we are offering to high school students this summer is the one I wish I could have attended,” noted studio founder Terry Knickerbocker. “It’s a chance for high school students to study with distinguished professionals, explore their own talents and dreams, and acquire vital skills that will benefit them always.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Transformation: Google Cloud will help propel Northwell Health to the digital front lines of healthcare innovation.
Conversation: Season 3 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast welcomes Paule Pachter, CEO of Long Island Cares-The Harry Chapin Food Bank, a busy innovator on a life-or-death mission.
ICYMI
Part campaign promise, part forward-focused investment, all good for Long Island.
BEST OF THE WEST (AND SOMETIMES NORTH/SOUTH)
Innovate LI’s inbox overrunneth with inspirational innovations from all North American corners. This week’s brightest out-of-towners:
From New York City: Venture capitalists, technologists and the U.S. Department of Defense unite to form the National Security Innovation Network.
From Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh-based dog food developer Tailored Pet simplifies summertime nutrition for our furry friends.
From Oregon: Portland-based ice cream advancer Salt & Straw smells a winner with the “most innovative ice cream topping ever.”
ON THE MOVE
Peter Igarashi
+ Peter Igarashi has been named dean of Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine, effective in September. He currently fills the Nesbitt Chair at the University of Minnesota Medical School, where he is a professor and head of the Department of Medicine.
+ Matthew Simon has joined the Manhattan office of Garden City-based Moritt Hock & Hamroff. He is counsel in the Real Estate Practice Group.
+ Brian Schneider has been hired as a program development specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Center in Coram. He was previously deputy Nassau County executive for parks and public works.
+ Paul Pagano has been hired as labor counsel at the Council of Administrators and Supervisors in Hauppauge. He is managing partner at the Law Office of Paul A. Pagano in Hicksville.
+ Francesca Conte has been hired as an environmental engineer in the Water Supply Division at Woodbury-based D&B Architects and Engineers. She is a recent Stony Brook University graduate.
Like this newsletter? Innovate Long Island newsletter, website and podcast sponsorships are a prime opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives you need to know (just ask St. Joe’s). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Strange Brew Edition)
Brew-ha-ha: Pat’s light touch.
Tastes great, less vulnerable: Finland introduces NATO beer (with a “taste of security”).
Expiration date: A lost 19th Century “beer cave” has been rediscovered beneath Iowa.
End run: How Pat Mahomes dodged NFL rules about appearing in beer commercials.
Dry wit: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including St. Joseph’s University, where kindness outranks keggers and personal progress always paces academic achievement. Check them out.
