Light touch: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and not just any Wednesday but the official first day of Summer 2023 – our Northern Hemisphere’s annual summer solstice, when the North Pole has its maximum tilt toward our warm, bright Sun and we enjoy the year’s “longest day.”
For the record, sunrise occurred today on Long Island at 5:20 a.m. and sunset is scheduled for 8:27 p.m. – that’s 15 hours and 7 minutes of sunlight, give or take an hour on each side for residual dayglow.
Bend, don’t break: Reconfiguring things out on International Yoga Day.
Strike a pose: With all this daylight and maximum polar tilting, it must be June 21 – and besides kicking off summer, we’re hurdling the hump of another busy workweek.
Hurdling is no problem for limber folks like you – especially on International Yoga Day, a worldwide salute to flexibility in body, mind and spirit.
Strike a chord: Speaking of global harmony, it’s also World Music Day, encouraging listeners of every culture to tune up their old favorites – and branch out to new genres.
For dessert, you’ve got two sweet choices: seasonal favorite National Peaches and Cream Day and less-healthful, more-sinful National Cookie Dough Day, also battering the senses every June 21.
Bountiful harvest: Sweet rewards awaited inventor Cyrus McCormick, who altered small-grain harvesting forever when he patented his famous McCormick Reaper on this date in 1834.
Try, try again: His first five-and-dime failed in upstate Utica, but fearless entrepreneur Frank Woolworth opened a new store in Pennsylvania on June 21, 1881 – foothold of a retail empire that would ultimately peak at more than 1,000 stores.
First spin: George Ferris’ original 1893 construction reached amazing heights.
“A vast orbit in a bird cage”: Also brave were the first customers to board inventor George Washington Gale Ferris’ revolutionary Ferris wheel, which debuted in Chicago on June 21, 1893.
No salt added: Other revolutionary machinery associated with this date include the nation’s first saltwater conversion plant, a Dow Chemical Co. desalination facility (in Texas) ceremoniously activated in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy (from the White House).
One for the books: And SpaceShipOne became the first crewed civilian spaceship to leave the Earth’s atmosphere 19 years ago today.
With pilot Mike Melvill at the stick, the spaceplane piggybacked to 46,000 feet aboard Mojave Aerospace Venture’s specially designed mothership, then rocketed to a sub-orbital altitude of 62.5 miles.
Photography in spaaaaace: German astronomer Maximillian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (1863-1932) – an asteroid and comet hunter credited with putting astrophotography on the map – would have been 160 years old today.
Greens keeper: Scheffler currently sits in first place, according to the PGA Tour.
Also born on June 21 were American physician and pioneering geologist Charles Thomas Jackson (1805-1880), who made a few enemies: Italian architect and structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979), renowned internationally for his dramatic flair; French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, activist, biographer and literary critic Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), a leading figure of existentialism; Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi (born in 1947), the first Iranian Muslim woman to earn a Nobel Prize; and American actors Meredith Ann Baxter and Michael Gross, TV parents Elyse and Steven Keaton on 1980s sitcom “Family Ties” (both born in 1947).
Great Scottie: And take a bow, Scott Alexander “Scottie” Scheffler! Fresh off a third-place finish at last week’s U.S. Open in Los Angeles, the world’s current No. 1 golfer – as ranked by the PGA Tour – turns 27 today.
Wish the swinger well at editor@innovateli.com, where you tee up the news tips and your calendar events always find the green.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Getting out in front: Baylis 495, centerpiece of Long Island’s “most ingenious” real estate deal of 2022.
Fast forward: From the Ahead of the Curve File comes the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island’s 2022 Most Ingenious Deal of the Year, presented last week to forward-thinking commercial real estate kingpin CBRE.
Last summer, with an outdated Melville office building set to be transformed into a state-of-the-art, 103,500-square-foot warehouse/distribution facility, CBRE – represented at the Association for a Better Long Island’s 26th Annual Long Island Real Estate Dinner by Senior Vice Presidents Paul Leone and Martin Lomazow and Vice President Matt Manoogian – pre-leased the entire coming-soon Class A facility, located off Route 110 just a mile south of the Long Island Expressway, before the older structure was even demolished.
Noting tough market conditions, CIBS Co-president David Pannetta congratulated the CBRE team “on their well-deserved recognition” – a true “testament to teamwork,” according to Leone. “It was essential that we set this property apart from the competition and leverage its strengths,” the senior VP added. “Together, we were able to accomplish that and reach a mutually beneficial agreement for both the tenant and the landlord.”
Powerful friends: A pioneer of Long Island energy efficiency has continued its annual tradition with thousands of dollars in college scholarships for dozens of regional high schoolers.
Caithness Long Island – which first gifted Caithness Long Island Energy Center Scholarships in 2007, two years before it sparked its 350-megawatt, natural gas-fired power plant (currently producing 10 percent of Long Island’s electricity) – has awarded $25,000 in scholarships to 28 graduating seniors in the Bellport, Longwood and Patchogue-Medford school districts, which surround the Yaphank-based energy center. The high academic achievers are all planning science, engineering and/or environmental studies.
A staple of the power provider’s deep community-engagement portfolio, the scholarship program has now gifted more than $450,000 to 415 graduating seniors. “We … are pleased to help provide financial support for the next generation of engineers, scientists and related professionals,” noted Caithness Long Island President Ross Ain, adding those future innovators will “develop solutions to help address some of the most challenging issues that we face today in terms of climate change, energy and the environment.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 30: Elaine Gross, full erasure.
A whirlwind of past, present and future innovation … a breakdancing legend turned iconic hip-hop DJ … Season 4 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast is off to a spectacular start, with more insightful one-on-ones on the way. Catch up with all the greats!
TOP OF THE SITE
STEAM power: The not-always-compatible worlds of competitive videogaming and scientific education collide – in surprisingly constructive ways – at Samanea New York.
Making it official: For the first time ever, a region long defined by mindboggling engineering innovation has a reigning Engineer of the Year.
No bother: Make sure to thank whomever forwarded you this resource-rich newsletter – then get your own always easy, always free subscription so they’ll stop bothering you.
VOICES
Voices historian Tom Mariner, executive director of Bayport-based Long Island Bio, cheers on the Long Island Association, where a century’s worth of strong leadership has set the strong socioeconomic tone.
STUFF WE’RE READING
No class: Why every generation thinks people used to be nicer. Vox minds its manners.
Working class: Low wages and long hours – behold the taskers, underclass of the emerging AI economy. The Verge glorifies the grunts.
Class warfare: Even with the third-most high school graduates in the nation, New York ranks among the nation’s least-educated states. World Population Review issues report cards.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Beekeeper’s Naturals, a California-based Health-and-wellness startup, raised $14 million in funding co-led by Devonshire Investors and Cavu Consumer Partners, with participation from Vibrant Ventures and Muse Capital.
+ Blackbird.AI, a New York City-based, artificial intelligence-driven narrative and risk-intelligence innovator, raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Ten Eleven Ventures, Dorilton Capital and Generation Ventures.
+ Unspun, a California-based robotics and apparel manufacturer, raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Lowercarbon, SOSV, Climate Capital, Signia Ventures and MVP Ventures.
+ Invirsa, an Ohio-based clinical-stage pharmaceuticals company, raised $7.7 million in Series B funding led by CincyTech, Rev1 Ventures, JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund and JumpStart Ventures.
+ Majority, a Florida-based mobile-banking specialist for U.S. migrants, raised $9.75 million in funding led by Valar Ventures and Heartcore Capital.
+ Beaconcure, a Massachusetts-based clinical data technology and automation pioneer, raised $14 million in Series B funding led by NewVale Capital and existing investors.
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 SUNY Old Westbury). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Across The Animal Kingdom Edition)
Thar she blows: Aerial footage of a suspected white whale heading north off Queensland.
(Don’t) shock the monkey: British investigators bust a global monkey torture ring.
Don’t fly off: Footage of an unmoving bird stuck in the sky is freaking people out.
Don’t be a Dick: A famous white whale may have surfaced off Australia.
Do you: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support innovate Long Island, including SUNY Old Westbury, where small-college aesthetics and big-system resources combine for truly individualized education experiences. Check them out.
