The fast and the curious: Welcome to Friday, dear readers, and not just any Friday but the very last Friday of a very fast July.
Yes, the Summer of 2023 is certainly speeding by. Let’s throttle back for a few moments, catch our breath and feed our minds – this week-ending innovation extravaganza will help.
Get hip on hep: We begin our July 28 review with a nod to World Hepatitis Day, encouraging prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the infectious liver diseases that annually kill more than 1.3 million people.
Can we talk about this: Careful what you say on National Talk in an Elevator Day.
Choose wisely: Hitting a lighter note (hopefully) is National Talk in an Elevator Day, a last-Friday-of-July tradition that encourages conversations with fellow elevator passengers – even strangers, a hit-or-miss proposition at best.
Lightest of all (and not to be confused with National Chocolate Milk Day, which is guzzled annually in September), today is also National Milk Chocolate Day, celebrating the silky smooth confection every July 28.
Blackout: Slightly darker was the first photo of a total solar eclipse, captured by daguerreotype on this date in 1851.
Nice try: Also fading to black was the Metric Act of 1866, which attempted to import the metric system for domestic commerce and other legal transactions when it was enacted 157 years ago today. (It has not caught on).
Miami heat: “Vice” came later, but Miami went legit in 1896.
Hot topic: Fading more to a neon pink is the City of Miami, which was incorporated on July 28, 1896 (and for the record, while surrounding ocean waters may currently be warmer than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s never been that hot in Miami – except maybe once).
Don’t want none unless you got buns, hun: Pink in the middle and warm on the outside (we’re guessing) was the first-ever hamburger, served up in Connecticut on this date in 1900, according to legend.
Crude behavior: And it was July 28, 1977, when the first drops of oil arrived at the Valdez Marine Terminal via the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an 800-mile funnel from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield to Port Valdez on the Prince William Sound.
Discovered in 1968, the Prudhoe Bay site is the largest oilfield in North America – but there may be only 4 billion barrels of its 20-billion-barrel capacity left to drill.
The burp that roared: American inventor and businessman Earl Silas Tupper (1907-1983) – a bankrupted landscaper, anonymous DuPont cog and relentless tinkerer who made airtight food-storage history – would be 116 years old today.
First in our hearts: Or maybe fifth or sixth … depends on whom you ask.
Also born on July 28 were legendary English children’s author, illustrator and natural scientist Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), whose “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” was only the beginning; American suffragist Lucy Burns (1879-1966), a leading 20th Century women’s rights crusader; American physicist Charles Townes (1915-2015), the Nobel Prize laureate who mastered masers and lasers; Southampton socialite Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994), perhaps America’s most popular first lady; and German mathematician Gerd Faltings (born 1954), the Fields Medal winner counted among history’s greatest mathematicians.
Cat’s meow: And take a bow, James Robert “Jim” Davis! The award-winning American cartoonist, screenwriter and producer – who unleashed lazy, hungry, cynical syndication king “Garfield” upon the world – turns 78 today.
Wish the colossal cartoonist well at editor@innovateli.com, where we love news tips, calendar events and lasagna.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
The IDA (Sun)rises again: The nation’s highest clean-energy designs – and Long Island’s greatest socioeconomic hopes – have been boosted, again, by the Town of Brookhaven Industrial Development Agency.
The IDA has approved a tax-incentives package for Sunrise Wind LLC, which is constructing 18 miles’ worth of on-land transmission capabilities connecting its offshore wind farm to the Long Island Power Authority in Holbrook. Subcontractor Haugland Energy Group LLC, spun off the Melville-based Haugland Group, is projected to create 400-plus construction-phase jobs while installing the underground duct system, with the wind farm – under construction 30 miles east of Montauk – expected to pump enough wind-generated juice to power 600,000 homes by 2025.
The incentives package – the second Brookhaven IDA break of the year for the joint venture of Danish multinational Ørsted A/S and Connecticut-based Eversource Energy – is another example of Brookhaven’s “clean-energy leadership,” according to Industrial Development Agency Chairman Frederick Braun III. “This project will bring new investment to the town and many good-paying jobs,” Braun added. “[We] look forward to seeing this transmission cable providing critical support for the regional development of offshore wind.”
Adieu, venue: Owner John Vitale wants to turn Island Park’s Bridgeview Yacht Club catering hall into 177 rental apartments.
Endless summer: There’s no summer vacation for other regional industrial development agencies, with growth-stimulating tax deals earning approvals across Long Island.
Among them: Preliminary Town of Hempstead IDA approval of an incentives package benefiting longtime Island Park developer John Vitale, who plans to replace his Bridgeview Yacht Club catering hall with a waterfront apartment complex. The deal – which made the first cut July 18, triggering a full IDA review, public hearing and final vote – would assist a projected $56 million project that envisions a four-story building (74 one-bedroom and 43 two-bedroom apartments, all market rate, private garage) built 18 feet above water level to mitigate future storm damages.
Earlier this month, the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency moved the ball with final approval of a 20-year PILOT agreement for Pictor Nassau Logistics Center LLC, which is constructing a 207,237-square-foot warehouse (and 12,400-square-foot ancillary office) on a rehabilitated Hicksville superfund site. “Not only does this project represent an enormous investment into the Nassau community, but it will also allow existing and future Nassau businesses to expand and improve their operations,” noted NCIDA Chairman William Rockensies.
TOP OF THE SITE
Digital upgrades: Stony Brook University and Long Island University are spending their summer vacations improving their already impressive computer-science chops.
Return on investment: Decades of eye-opening work as an attorney, social worker, government operative and fearless activist prepared Laura Harding to rock as president of Syosset-based ERASE Racism – and to elevate the latest episode of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast. Justice is served!
ICYMI
NYU Langone’s tuition-free Long Island medical school has a new name and a reenergized mission after longtime benefactors circled back with a massive $200 million donation.
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: Spokane-based powersports apparel producer 509 races into the motorcycle market with expanded streetwear line.
From Ohio: Minerva-based protection pioneer PH&S Products shields first responders from xylazine, fentanyl, heroin and more with examination-grade nitrile gloves.
From Connecticut: Glastonbury-based reputation-management platform ReviewTree empowers veterinary hospitals with timely (and free) Google Reviews responses.
ON THE MOVE
Heather Banoub
+ Heather Banoub has been appointed assistant vice president of community relations for Stony Brook University and Stony Brook Medicine. She was assistant director of communications for New York University’s Office of Government and Community Affairs.
+ John Hill has been named deputy director for science and technology at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton. The distinguished physicist was director of BNL’s National Synchrotron Light Source II.
+ Tom Gloster has been hired as executive chef at East Meadow-based Eisenhower Park, where he will oversee three separate dining operations. He is the former executive chef at Rustic Root in Woodbury and a 2015 winner of the Food Network’s “Chopped” competition.
+ Paulina Pawlak has been hired as destination sales manager at Hauppauge-based Discover Long Island. She was an events sales coordinator at TPG Hotels and Resorts in Port Jefferson.
+ Sidney Joyner has been promoted to chief diversity and inclusion officer in the Suffolk County Department of Human Resources, Personnel and Civil Service in Hauppauge. He previously served as director of real estate in the Suffolk County Department of Economic Development and Planning.
+ Greg Lavine has been hired as vice president of government affairs at Melville-based McBride Consulting and Business Development Group. He was senior vice president at Mercury Public Affairs in Manhattan.
+ Michaela Weidtman has been hired as an associate at Volz & Vigliotta in Nesconset. She is a recent graduate of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead.
+ Emmeline Mysliwiec has been hired as a graphic design and copy manager at Hauppauge-based Discover Long Island. She was a program coordinator at St. George’s University in Great River.
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 Brandtelling). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Burial At Sea Edition)
Big mouth: The sea’s greatest apex predator is long gone … we hope.
Blood in the water: Science says no, but some believe Megalodon could still exist.
Hot pursuit: Those oceanic temperature spikes are devastating coral reefs – and the race is on to save them.
The day after tomorrow: Think this weather is extreme? Wait until the ocean currents collapse – maybe in the next 24 months.
Sea change: Please continue supporting the amazing agencies that support Innovate Long Island, including Brandtelling, where professional messaging raises all boats – and profound brand transformations follow. Check them out.
