Work out: Way to push it, intrepid innovators – another heavy-lifting workweek under your (weight) belt, another weekend pumped up.
Just one more workday (and a few more reps) to go. You keep outworking the competition, we’ll exercise our right to present you with another awesome innovation review.
Shout out: Before we begin, a quick bang-zoom to old pal Peter Crescenti, the Long Island Cares food bank media relations ace who literally wrote the book on the classic sitcom “The Honeymooners” – and reached out to thank us for highlighting star Audrey Meadows’ birthday in Tuesday’s newsletter. You’re a riot, Pete… a regular riot!
Truth be told: But not by this person, nor many other factually challenged “journalists” on both sides of the national fracture.
Look out below: It’s Friday, Feb. 10, and we’re ending the week on a high (and dry) note with National Umbrella Day, honoring an ancient invention that’s useful rain or shine.
Look out, period: Today is also All the News That’s Fit to Print Day, less an ad for The New York Times than a celebration of truth in journalism – more important than ever, in this day and age.
If you’re a little peckish, today is also the fairly specific but very tasty National Cream Cheese Brownie Day, waiting in the fridge every Feb. 10.
Flame out: If cream cheese brownies don’t light your fires (you sicko), this might spark some innovation – Virginia inventor Alanson Crane patented the first U.S. fire extinguisher on this date in 1863.
Belt it out: Maybe a snappy song to get you going? A new musical note emerged 90 years ago today, when the Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. tuned up the first singing telegram.
Cat out (of the bag): Animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were singing a happy tune on Feb. 10, 1940, when they introduced forever frenemies Tom and Jerry in the theatrical short “Puss Gets the Boot.” (For the record, Tom was known first as “Jasper”).
Miller: Boogie woogie golden boy.
Sold out: Speaking of musical interludes, the “gold record” became a thing on this date in 1942, when label RCA Victor congratulated big-band leader Glenn Miller for selling more than 1 million copies of “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
Far out: And other famous radio waves associated with this date include the radar beams bounced off Venus on Feb. 10, 1958, by researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories.
The scientists waited about five minutes for the signals to complete the 56-million-mile round trip – and may have miscalculated that distance a wee bit.
Lassies in spaaaaace: Irish astronomical writer Agnes Clerke (1842-1907) – who was not a practicing scientist but compiled voluminous facts into “A Popular History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century,” considered the authoritative work on the subject – would be 181 years old today.
Sound check: West co-developed the transformative foil electret microphone.
Also born on Feb. 10 were Russian poet, novelist and translator Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), who was forced to decline his Nobel Prize for “Doctor Zhivago”; American comedian, singer and jazz pianist Jimmy Durante (1893-1980), remembered for decades of entertainment and charity work; American physicist Walter Brattain (1902-1987), the Nobel laureate who co-invented the transistor; American soprano Leontyne Price (born 1927), the first African American soprano to gain international acclaim; and The Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger (born 1951), who slashed 7,000 jobs this week, but did announce “Toy Story 5.”
Sound logic: And take a bow, James Edward Maceo West! The American inventor and acoustician – a former Bell Laboratories researcher who earned more than 250 foreign and U.S. patents while transforming how humans hear and transmit sound – turns 92 today.
Wish the microphone master well at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips come through loud and clear – and we like the sound of your calendar events.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Career trajectory: Amazon has named Suffolk County Community College as the first Long Island partner for its national Career Choice program.
The designation opens SCCC’s doors to Amazon’s non-professional employees, providing a fast track to admittance and new higher-education opportunities – including full tuition reimbursement – beginning with the Fall 2023 semester. The $1.2 billion Career Choice program, which launched in 2012, aims to upskill more than 300,000 nationwide Amazon employees by 2025, qualifying them for higher-paying, in-demand jobs within the vast e-commerce empire and elsewhere.
The Selden-based college joins hundreds of national Career Choice education partners, marking an “important opportunity” for the school and the region, according to Suffolk County Community College President Edward Bonahue. “Amazon’s Career Choice program is in keeping with Suffolk’s core mission to provide outstanding and affordable educational opportunities for all county residents,” Bonahue noted. “Partnering with Amazon will allow us to connect a new audience of working students with either traditional college courses or career-oriented training for in-demand jobs.”
Dan Lloyd: Sands partnership is a sure bet.
Minority leader: A Nevada-based high roller continues to enlist local allies on its quest to develop a Long Island hotel-casino.
Sands Las Vegas, currently pitching a multibillion-dollar resort for the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum site in Uniondale, is trumpeting a new partnership with Uniondale-based not-for-profit Minority Millennials, which cultivates socioeconomic opportunities for young people of color. Designed primarily to create a local talent pipeline, the partnership follows a similar collaboration with Nassau Community College that Sands Las Vegas announced last week.
The developer “understands the importance of creating and fostering opportunities for young Long Islanders of color,” according to Minority Millennials founder Dan Lloyd. “We are preparing to roll out an extensive campaign to ensure that when these jobs open, our local students, young professionals and emerging entrepreneurs are ready,” Lloyd added. “The types of jobs and careers that the Sands proposal aims to unlock … can create real generational wealth within our communities and drive economic growth, equity and prosperity for Long Island.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Greens fees: A Nassau County IDA tax-incentives package could help developers bring the PGA Tour back to Eisenhower Park.
Traumatic event: The debut of its state-of-the-art Trauma Unit completes Phase 2 of Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital’s ambitious $400 million renovation plan.
Listening post: Sponsored by Huntington-based content king Brandtelling, Season 3 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast was one for the books (and the ears), adding another dozen inspirational conversations with true innovation-economy superstars. Hear here.
ICYMI
Career Conversations for Long Island’s future engineers; virtual animals for LIU’s future veterinarians.
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 Washington State: Seattle-based flavored-water frontrunner Talking Rain Beverage Co. develops new products inside cutting-edge testing laboratory.
From Virginia: Richmond-based baby-gear guru Larktale refreshes its product line with innovative stroller/wagons for on-the-go families.
From Canada, eh: Ottawa-based North Kanata Technology Park, Canada’s largest innovation hub, welcomes Bahamian ambassadors for an intensive three-day trade mission.
ON THE MOVE
Carla DeFrancisco
+ Carla DeFrancisco has been hired as vice president and chief financial officer at Garden City-based Family & Children’s Association. She was CFO at Syosset-based MercyFirst.
+ Michael Letter has been hired as senior vice president/COO at Gurwin Healthcare System in Commack. He was an administrator at Huntington Hills Center for Health & Rehabilitation in Melville.
+ Rockville Centre-based Molloy University has added two new Board of Trustees members: Lanier Mason, a CPA and audit manager at Ernst & Young, and Kristy Uneva, vice president of consumer business growth marketing at Altice USA.
+ Sandeep Mallipattu, a professor of medicine in Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine, has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He is the chief of the Renaissance School’s Division of Nephrology and Hypertension.
+ Bettina Fries has been named a 2022 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a professor of medicine, microbiology and molecular genetics and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine.
+ Cate Carbonaro has been hired as director of the William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center and Public Interest at Touro University Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Central Islip. She was a public defender in the Legal Aid Society’s Bronx and Queens offices.
+ Vanessa Lopez has been hired as an immigration paralegal at The Odierno Law Firm in Melville. She was a paralegal at the Manhattan office of attorney Thomas T. Hecht.
+ Meagan Nolan has joined Ronkonkoma-based Campolo Middleton & McCormick as an associate in the Litigation Department.
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 New York Tech). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Super Bowl LVII Edition)
Back to the shack: Serena Williams tees off in Michelob Ultra’s “Caddyshack” spoof.
Winging it: Shocker – Buffalo wings are New York’s favorite big-game snack.
Spoiler alert: Here are some of the coolest commercials you’ll see Sunday.
Down time: Punt your troubles and get into “leisure mode” before kickoff.
Super humans: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the New York Institute of Technology, where the playbook focuses on your future – and it’s always first-and-goal. Check them out.
