Category Archives: Business News

Ballston Spa National Bank President/CEO Chris Dowd continues his term as Chamber of Southern Saratoga County chair for 2021, as well as being a member of the Capital Region Chamber Executive Committee.
The Chamber of Southern Saratoga County (CSSC) affiliated with the Capital Region Chamber in 2020. Officials said CSSC spent the year offering support to those in the local business community who needed it the most, while tapping into the regional chamber’s advocacy, education, business growth resources and communications abilities.
Dowd has been with BSNB for 20 years this coming July. He was named its president/CEO in 2004.
CSSC said his role greatly helped the organization retain its local influence and impact while providing expanded programs, services and resources to members and the community at-large.
“Given how challenging 2020 was for most, I’m so pleased that the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County had the added resources and clout of the Regional Chamber to support our businesses and communities,” said Dowd. “Through hard work, innovation and determination, our county and region will emerge from the pandemic with strength, as our Chamber continues to be an essential partner in the recovery process.”

By Jill Nagy
Will Schrade plans to open a GEICO Insurance Co. office at 506 Broadway in Saratoga Springs around March 1.
However, he first needs a change of occupancy from the city Building Department, from business to business/office use. His impression is that the department “is overwhelmed and understaffed,” so the process is taking longer than he anticipated.
The GEICO office will serve Saratoga and the North Country area. Schrade said the only other GEICO office in the area is in Albany. They will be selling all the lines of insurance GEICO sells: auto, homeowners, renters, motorcycle, sailboat, RV, and more.
While GEICO is the biggest automobile insurer in New York state, according to Schrade, the company prefers to have its offices handle relatively large territories. There are only 250 offices in the entire United States, he said.
The local office will employ between 10 and 15 people, about the same size as the Albany office.
“We are hiring as many people as we can,” Schrade said, and have already brought some on board.

By Susan Elise Campbell
Global freight networks— needed to get the goods from manufacturers to customers—are complex and challenging. And when the COVID-19 pandemic came along, it threw a wrench into things.
Manufacturing was cut back, ports closed, truckers stayed home and delays increased, affecting the dynamics of an industry that consumers and businesses rely on.
“It was a total nightmare, but we have pivoted to adapt to the changing environment,” said Jake Oswald, an account executive with Trans-Border Global Freight Systems Inc. in Round Lake.
Trans-Border is an award-winning, licensed U.S. customs broker specializing in transportation logistics. Oswald said the firm manages goods as they travel throughout the supply chain by land, sea or air. They do so as safely, efficiently and cost-effectively as possible and in accordance with a litany of changing regulations and financial considerations.
The company has a staff of 65, as well as remote sales reps and independent reps sprinkled across the country. But it takes about 590 international partners, developed over the past 25 years, to manage the importing and exporting needs of companies, according to Oswald.

By Christine Graf
Rochester-based Flaum Management Co. Inc has secured its first tenant for Malta Grove, the former State Farm Operations Center located off Northway Exit 12 in Saratoga County.
The building sat empty for approximately two years before being purchased at auction by John Senese in March. Senese sold the building to Flaum Management for $2 million.
Flaum Management owns office, retail, and industrial properties throughout the state. In addition to the State Farm building, the company’s Capital Region holdings include Latham Farms and Queensbury Plaza. Pyramid Brokerage Co./Cushman & Wakefield has been enlisted as the building’s leasing agent.
The New York Unified Court System, 4th Judicial District, will be Malta Grove’s first tenant. The court is currently located at 65 South Broadway in the Lincoln Baths in Saratoga Springs. The 4th Judicial District is the state’s largest and includes Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Montgomery, Saratoga, Schenectady, St. Lawrence, Warren, and Washington counties.

By Susan Elise Campbell
When Neal Sandin conducts research, he says he is seeking to interpret “the voice of the consumer” who will inform the next steps of a client company’s marketing.
Sandin’s company, 643 Research, is a qualitative research firm he started in 2014 and moved to Malta in November 2019 when he and his wife relocated from New Jersey.
Sandin said he “fell into” focus group research when the moderator of the firm he worked for double booked and was unavailable for one of the clients, who at the time was en route from out of town to observe his company’s session.
“After about 30 minutes of training I jumped in, conducted the group and was good at it,” said Sandin. “The client continued to use me as a moderator.”
He launched his own firm seven years later.
His clients come from various industries and have a range of goals and challenges. Sandin develops the techniques to reach conclusions and recommendations for advancing a client’s brand and improving customer loyalty. In his toolbox are such qualitative methodologies as ethnography, home visits and focus groups, among others.

By Jennifer Farnsworth
With the pandemic altering people’s lives, some forms of entertainment in the area are seeing a spike, particularly video games. It might not always be the ideal circumstance for an increase in business, but Dan Shevlin, owner of Insane Games, said trading in his 1,100-square-foot location for 9,000 square feet of space in the Wilton Mall proved to be a smart and timely move.
Shevlin moved his business from the smaller space in the mall into larger confines that used to house the Victoria’s Secret and Pink stores. He said the parent company for the two had put a lot of effort into maintaining the space, so he didn’t have to make structural upgrades. He did, however, have to start with one major change: the pink paint.
“It was very pink and our colors are green and black, which you would think would easily cover up pink, but it didn’t. It took a lot of coats of paint,” said Shevlin.

Corinne Moss-Racusin, associate professor of psychology at Skidmore College, has been awarded the 2021 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology for her innovative research on gender-based discrimination.
Awarded to just a handful of researchers each year, the prize honors early-career scientists for exceptional work conducted in the first decade following completion of their doctorate.
Moss-Racusin leads the social cognition and intergroup dynamics lab at Skidmore.
She received the prize for her work in the area of social psychology.
“I’m honored to be recognized by the leading professional organization in my field,” Moss-Racusin said. “One of the major things I try to do in my work is to see how we can use the tools of science—the robustness of the scientific method and experimentation—to tackle really thorny social problems, including gender bias.”
Moss-Racusin completed her doctorate in social psychology at Rutgers University in 2011 and was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University from 2011 to 2013. Since joining the Skidmore faculty in 2013, she has received grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Smithsonian Institution, among other organizations, for research focusing on the impact of gender bias in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.

By Jill Nagy
Dan Marchese, co-owner of Marchese Ford of Mechanicville, may be the new guy in town, but he is an old hand at the automobile business.
The Marchese brothers, Dan and Joe Jr., were long-time owners of J&J Auto Sales, a used car dealership in Troy founded in 1956. They purchased the former Jack Byrne Ford dealership at 1003 Hudson River Road in Mechanicville in November.
Dan Marchese said they kept most of the Jack Byrne staff and brought the J&J staff from Troy to Mechanicville. Their used car operation was closed. They also own Goewey Ford in New Lebanon, N.Y., which they are keeping.
In Mechanicville, they increased inventory, service capacity and advertising, Marchese said. Otherwise, they did not make changes.

By Christine Graf
Motorcycle helmet manufacturer Kirsh Helmets launched its first product, the CHM-1 half shell helmet, in December. The company has also expanded its network of independent agents throughout the country.
“Our agents are working to get our helmets into stores—primarily motorcycle dealerships,” said Donald DeVito, president and chief operating officer. “We have 18 agents right now and would like to add a few more.”
Manufacturing and assembly is in full swing at the company’s 5,000-square-foot facility in Queensbury. The space is leased from Seeley Machine Work and opened one year ago with support from Warren County Economic Development.
“You launch motorcycle products the same way you do in the automotive industry. You start out of the east coast and west coast and then work your way into the interior. That’s how we are approaching it right now.”

Saratoga PLAN has conserved the Drumm Farm, 170 acres of farmland in the Town of Saratoga.
The land is now permanently protected from development and will forever be accessible for agricultural use. The process was completed in November. Partial funding for the project was provided by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
The property, located near the Saratoga Monument and Victory Woods, is owned by Ruth Drumm. Saratoga PLAN said it consists of primarily fertile soils for farming, as well as some forests and wetlands that provide wildlife habitat.
“It was my husband’s wish to protect this land and I have finally succeeded in doing it,” said Drumm. “I love the farm, I love farm life. A conservation easement is the only way to see that the land stays this way.”