LI Business News articles from July 2007

LI Business News archives from July 2007

Uniondale law firm of Rivkin Radler to stay at 926 RexCorp Plaza.
July 2, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg The Uniondale law firm of Rivkin Radler signed a 15-year lease with RexCorp to stay at 926 RexCorp Plaza, according to a statement from William M. Savino, Rivkin Radler's managing partner. Rivkin Radler currently...

There is about 3.3 million square feet of empty office space on Long Island.
July 2, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg There is about 3.3 million square feet of empty office space on Long Island, representing a 10.8 percent vacancy rate, according to second quarter statistics released by Cushman & Wakefield. Nassau County...

Stony Brook University names leaders for energy center.
July 2, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly Backers of the planned Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center at Stony Brook University named leaders for the effort and announced a groundbreaking for early October. Robert Catell, chairman of KeySpan and...

Long Island elder care facilities announce staffing changes: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Our Lady of Consolation Nursing and Rehabilitative Care Center in West Islip named Mark Wedell director of rehabilitation services. Wedell had been supervisor of occupational therapy for Parker Jewish Institute in...

Long Island engineering firms announce staffing changes: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Babylon-based Greenman-Pedersen named William Stroh project manager for civil and transportation design services. He has been responsible for numerous highway and urban street design and planning projects for a...

Long Island health care facilities announce staffing changes: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson named Marta Maczaj co-director of the Sleep Disorders Center. Maczaj will continue in her role as clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University and adjunct...

Long Island law firms announce staffing changes: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The Garden City law firm of Moritt Hock Hamroff & Horowitz named Michelle E. Espey an associate in its tax, trusts and estates practice group. Espey concentrates her practice in the resolution of federal and New York...

Girl Scouts of Nassau County elects Sarah Lansdale to its nominating committee.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The Girl Scouts of Nassau County elected Sarah Lansdale to its nominating committee. Lansdale is the executive director for Sustainable Long Island.

HJMT Communications in Westbury promotes Lori Alexy to supervisor of event planning.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo HJMT Communications in Westbury promoted Lori Alexy to supervisor of event planning. She had been senior event planner of the company.

Brooklyn native acquires rights to build out Extreme Pita brand throughout NYC and Long Island.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Laura Theis Steve Haddad is betting on the power of the pita. And he is hoping the recipe for success is already cooked - in Canada. The Brooklyn native has acquired the rights to build out the Extreme Pita brand throughout New...

Long Island hospital units expand off their campuses.
July 6, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg When Dr. Xenophon Damianos opened his family medical practice in Stony Brook in the 1960s, he worked out of offices in a private home. He wasn't alone. Even if physicians wanted to have space of their own,...

In a very competitive market, Long Island real estate brokers look to home staging experts.
July 6, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Any salesman knows it's tough to sell from an empty wagon. The same applies to selling houses, and that's where Valerie Alloco comes in. Alloco is a house stager, one of a growing number of interior designers...

Long Island Business News Follow Ups: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: LIBN Staff Shooting stars The hits just keep on coming for Arrow Electronics. In May, LIBN reported on the stellar start to Arrow's year with strong growth in sales and profits. Now the Melville-based distributor of...

Long Island-based Rivkin Radler to stay at RexCorp Plaza.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly Like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," Rivkin Radler came to realize, "There's no place like home." After a two-year search, the Uniondale law firm has decided to remain at RexCorp Plaza, inking a 15-year lease for...

Commentary: Out East: July 7, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Jeff Miller Golf in the rough, but Pascucci plays straight through Many years ago a Scottish shepherd was minding his flock when he got bored and started smiting stones with his cudgel. He didn't know it at the time but he'd...

2 minutes with Carmine Calzonetti, President, Tuesday's Children.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Laura Theis Carmine Calzonetti brings a personal understanding to Tuesday's Children, which offers support programs to 9/11 families. A former securities broker, he left his partnership at Cantor Fitzgerald in 2000. One year later,...

Commentary: See you there.
July 6, 2007... Byline: LIBN Staff New York has lost another 225,000 residents to what the Census Bureau calls "internal migration" - the movement to and fro between states. That's more than the population of Rochester, the state's third-largest city and...

Commentary: Border battle goes well beyond Suffolk.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Alfonse D'Amato Political pollsters from around the country are racing with lights and sirens to Suffolk County. They seek to track whether the approval ratings of County Executive Steve Levy rise or fall following a fierce...

Commentary: President Bush can't vanish fast enough.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Jerry Kremer Presidents come and go, and whether they are good or bad, the nation will carry on. During my lifetime, I have never heard voters count the days until an incumbent president was going to leave office. George W....

Commentary: In 2008, we need Ike.
July 6, 2007... Byline: James L. Larocca There are 18 candidates for president, with one or two more in the wings. Out of this field, I like Ike. Yes Ike, as in Dwight David Eisenhower. In the early 1950s, Americans were fighting and dying in an...

Commentary: Labor ready to be part of solution.
July 6, 2007... Byline: John R. Durso The Long Island Federation of Labor was built to provide a collective voice for union organizations, enhancing the core values of family and middle class stability. Our mission is to advocate for the best...

Turano takes Long Island's title insurance by storm.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Ambrose Clancy In 1983, Sal Turano developed a plan that would downsize the large title insurance company where he served as New York regional manager. His effort wasn't exactly building his own scaffold, but it did focus his mind...

McGuire joins C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The College of Information and Computer Science at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University named Patrick P. McGuire associate dean and associate professor of library science. In this newly created role, he...

Long Island accounting firms announce staffing changes: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Lee Peretz, marketing coordinator for the Lake Success accounting firm of Grassi & Co. received the Rising Star Award from the Public Relations Professionals of Long Island. Peretz also was named Rookie of the Year...

How to ... Keep jobs in America.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Bernadette Starzee Outsourcing certain business activities, such as computer help desk, telemarketing, or software development, can help a company concentrate on its core-competency areas while reducing costs. Over the past decade,...

Owner of Stony Brook-based pta Technologies engineers escape, strikes out on his own.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Ambrose Clancy Thank Manfred Lampl for that new swimsuit that came in the mail in time for the Fourth and the box of sweet oranges Aunt Julia sent that arrived just before Christmas. Lampl doesn't own factories in China or...

Even parents need help: Q&A with coordinator of Long Island's Parenting Resource Network.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Ken Cerini Between the sleepless nights and Potty Training 101, any mom in the grocery store toting a toddler on her hip will tell you that the job of parenting should come with a warning label and a user manual. Luckily, with the...

Long Island Non-profit Briefs: July 6, 2007.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Get a leg up Pal-O-Mine Equestrian in Islandia received a $143,600 grant from RTS Family Foundation to help support their pilot program, "LEG UP." The three-tiered program includes a curriculum specifically...

'Big change' as private firms catch a little Sarbox.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik Private companies have come down with a touch of Sarbanes-Oxley. No, a full-blown case of accounting and governance oversight like that at publicly traded companies hasn't completely infected the private sector. ...

Forty-five years later, Quality King still reigns supreme on Long Island.(Company overview)
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik Quality King, the Ronkonkoma-based distributor of health and beauty products, has grown into Long Island's largest private company. Long Island Business News and Newsday have both bestowed that rank on the firm...

Succession planning at family-owned businesses.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik The family business nearly sparked a family feud. A father and daughter running a cosmetics manufacturing business has reached a crossroads. The father was ready to retire and wanted to sell the company; he even had a...

Longevity is an asset for Long Island's oldest law firm.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik A lawyer's annual compensation can easily exceed $100,000. Lawsuit settlements routinely land in the millions. But what's the value of a law firm's history? In an increasingly marketing-savvy world, law firms are...

A one-shot deal to avoid the estate tax?
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik "The year to die," says Mike DeSautels, "is 2010." Desautels, a partner in the private company services operations of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is only partly joking. It would be better, of course, to live on, but...

Ones to watch: Long Island businesses.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik Thomas J. Douglas Jr. Managing partner, Cullen & Dykman A specialist in banking and real estate law, Douglas has been with the firm for 30 years, helping it grow from about 35 lawyers to about 135. As managing...

Sex in the suburbs: Long Island sex industry sees sales and rentals decline.
July 6, 2007... Byline: Ambrose Clancy The Long Island sex industry has performance problems. Hobbled by free Internet pornography, tough community standards and a sluggish general economy, the prurient product sector is having a bad run. Nationally,...

In Glen Cove, eyeing destiny with caution.
July 6, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg While some of its marshy waterfront still stews in polluted industrial waste, developers are finding that other parts of Glen Cove provide ideal locations for their mixed-use projects. Chartered in 1918, the...

Fresh faces stoking Long Island's hot real estate market.
July 6, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg As the era of local family-owned portfolios comes to an end, large national investors are beginning to snap up Long Island's commercial real estate. In recent years, families such as Tilles, Chasanoff and Lever...

L.I.-based Marcum and Kliegman to buy Manhattan-based CBIZ/Mayer Hoffman McCann.
July 9, 2007... Byline: Laura Theis Marcum and Kliegman said Monday it signed a letter of intent to acquire the accounting and tax practice of Manhattan-based CBIZ/Mayer Hoffman McCann. The business Marcum & Kliegman plans to acquire brings in about...

Metro Door to move headquarters to Great River.
July 9, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Metro Door Inc., a leading supplier of security closures for retailers, signed a long-term lease to move its headquarters to 17,544 square feet at the Sunrise Business Center in Great River. The company plans...

Long Island oil terminals sold.
July 10, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg A Massachusetts oil and gasoline distributor said Tuesday it will buy two refined-product terminals on Long Island for $34.7 million. Global Partners LP, one of the Northeast's largest oil product wholesalers,...

Long Island bank executive John Kanas quits.
July 10, 2007... Byline: David Reich-Hale John Kanas, perhaps the best known bank executive on Long Island, has resigned from his post as the head of Capital One's bank unit. The surprising announcement was made Tuesday morning by the Virginia-based...

Crowded house: Hempstead mayor postpones public hearing on $2 billion downtown revitalization plan.
July 10, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Hempstead Mayor Wayne Hall postponed a public hearing on a $2 billion downtown revitalization plan after more than 200 people jammed into a dangerously packed Hempstead Village Hall. The mayor said a hearing on...

Navy and Nassau County close to making deal to transfer 105 acres in Bethpage to the county.
July 11, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg After much haggling between the Navy and Nassau County, the deal to transfer 105 acres of the former Grumman property in Bethpage to the county is almost done, according to county officials. Part of the delay...

Huntington extends its building moratorium on golf courses.
July 11, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg The Huntington Town Board voted to extend its building moratorium on golf courses in the town, but also exempted 41 acres in Dix Hills, the proposed site for 30 single-family homes. The House Beautiful Civic...

Huntington Terrace in Melville bought by New Jersey-based Brandywine Senior Living.
July 11, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg New Jersey-based Brandywine Senior Living has acquired two area senior communities, the Huntington Terrace in Melville and the Savoy at Little Neck in Queens. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ...

Westbury-based PL Development promotes Joe Catalano to sales operations manager.
July 12, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Westbury-based PL Development promoted Joe Catalano to sales operations manager. He will be responsible for overseeing the internal sales, analytics and customer service departments. Catalano joined the company in...

Assembly deal for Edgewood-based CPI Aerostructures.
July 12, 2007... Byline: David Reich-Hale CPI Aerostructures said Thursday it was awarded a $755,000 contract to provide Hill Air Force Base with 75 assemblies for the horizontal stabilizer for the A-10 Thunderbolt attack jet. Edgewood-based CPI has...

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Massage Envy to open clinics on Long Island.
July 12, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg CB Richard Ellis wants Long Islanders to relax. CBRE brokers Jayson Siano and Gregg Carlin will be the exclusive leasing agents for Massage Envy, a national massage service chain, which said it plans to open 40...

Long Island Association's chief economist says home sales slump will continue.
July 12, 2007... Byline: David Reich-Hale The Long Island Association's chief economist panned a National Association of Realtors' prediction that home sales will recover in 2008, calling the outlook "overly optimistic." Pearl Kamer of the LIA said...

Riverhead Resorts ups offer for 755 acres in Calverton.
July 12, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Riverhead Resorts LLC, the group that wants to build a multi-themed entertainment complex on 755 acres in Calverton, has upped its bid from $100 million to $110 million. The Resorts group have proposed an...

Long Island education institutions announce staffing changes: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Suffolk County Community College promoted George Gatta Jr. to executive vice president. He will serve as the college's chief operating officer responsible for the planning, policy development, implementation and...

Citi Private Bank names William J. Porter managing director and senior private banker of L.I. office.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Citi Private Bank named William J. Porter managing director and senior private banker of its Long Island office. He had been manager for U.S. Trust's Long Island office.

Long Island medical facilities announce staffing changes: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson named Richard Scott Russell to its medical staff. He specializes in ophthalmology. Mather Hospital also named Lev Lubarsky to its medical staff. He specializes...

Long Island insurance firms announce staffing changes: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Suffolk County named Michael Romeo of Industrial Coverage in Medford president. Also, John K. Mulvey of Seigerman-Mulvey Co. in East Setauket was named president-elect...

Long Island law firms announce staffing changes: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The Garden City law firm of Ohrenstein & Brown named several new associates: Kimberlee Abraham rejoins the firm after a brief hiatus in which she assisted The American Red Cross in their efforts to help Hurricane...

Long Island not-for-profits announce staffing changes: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo The Long Island Children's Museum in Garden City named Hillary Olson director of education. She had been the museum's director of programs. The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association named Cynthia Shor executive...

President of Roosevelt-based Parabit Systems receives service award from technology group.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Kathy Lombardo Rob Leiponis, president of Roosevelt-based Parabit Systems, received the Community Service and Leadership award from Advancement for Commerce, Industry and Technology.

Commentary: The legacy of the Roberts Court.
July 13, 2007... Byline: E. Christopher Murray As the dust settles from the second full term of Chief Justice John Roberts' leadership of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is clear that there is a working majority of justices who are aggressively implementing a...

Commentary: Out East: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Jeff Miller Vintage Riverhead, the governmental 'Gong Show' Some government jobs are boring. Third undersecretary for the Bureau of Statistics comes immediately to mind. But one of the most stimulating government jobs these...

Long Island Technology Briefs: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly LISTnet looks to unite tech firms in training effort With technical training, sometimes the numbers don't add up. Companies large and small face the choice of sending their employees off-site for instruction, or...

Long Island Real Estate Briefs: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg On the waterfront, some new senior housing grows It would have been hard to find any signs of life around this abandoned Port Washington sandpit a decade ago, unless it was someone dumping trash. The...

Long Island Legal Briefs: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly A winding road from biology to law and the SCWBA Linda Toga, the new president of the Suffolk County Women's Bar Association, has followed a twisting path. The New Jersey native attended college in Maine before...

Judge rules against Huntington School District's attempt to block sale of Touro College building.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly The Huntington School District's attempt to block the sale of a Touro College building to a Flushing-based church group hit a snag this week when a judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order. Touro's law...

Non-profit group 100 Black Men files $15M lawsuit against Nassau County, Village of Hempstead.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg As the Village of Hempstead mulls the future of its downtown, at least one landlord is fighting off the wrecking ball. The group called 100 Black Men owns and leases the building at 100 Main St. and has been...

Dramatic rise for Long Island foreclosures.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Foreclosures continue to rise on Long Island, as the lure of sub-prime mortgage rates puts more homeowners behind the eight ball. There was an increase of nearly 35 percent in scheduled auction sales over the...

N.Y. Court of Appeals cuts county power over college tabs.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly New York's highest court has lessened local governments' ability to control community college budgets, but Suffolk County thinks it's exempt. In late June, the Court of Appeals unanimously rejected an attempt by...

Time for a change: Some Long Island companies offer more benefits for valued employees.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ambrose Clancy Friday afternoons this summer, you'll find Caroline Nunez with her daughter Nicole, 12, wiggling their toes in the sand, strolling a mall or catching a movie. All day long on Fridays this summer, Mary Beth...

For a change, YIMBYism wins the day in Huntington.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Look out NIMBY - here comes YIMBY. As in, "yes, in my back yard." Instead of fighting a proposal to build 30 single-family homes in their neighborhood, Dix Hills residents have chosen development over an...

Long Island Business News Follow Ups: July 13, 2007.
July 13, 2007... Byline: LIBN Staff Keep it down up there! Forget fireworks, outdoor parties and hordes of cicadas... when it comes to annoying summertime noises, Long Islanders apparently dislike helicopters above all else. There are plenty of...

Brokers beginning to offer user-owned properties through online, password-protected 'books'.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg Not all commercial real estate sales are strictly by the book. It hasn't been that long since a formal printed-and-bound tome was the only way to sell an investment offering. But with the advent of new...

Ambitious, expanding Lake Success-based Grassi & Co. snags four rival partners.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Laura Theis If perfection is a road and not a destination, Grassi & Co. is enjoying the ride. Managing Partner Lou Grassi has committed to doubling his Lake Success-based company's revenue and employee base over the next five...

Long Island Association's Kamer disagrees with cheery home-sale predictions.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Reich-Hale The Long Island Association's chief economist has panned a National Association of Realtors prediction that home sales will recover in 2008, calling the outlook "overly optimistic." Economist Pearl Kamer of the...

2 minutes with Linda Armyn, vice president, Bethpage Federal Credit Union.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Laura Theis Linda Armyn is a one-of-a-kind executive: With a title all her own, she oversees corporate strategy, corporate business development, community development and government relations for Bethpage Federal Credit Union. As...

Commentary: Get thee to work.
July 13, 2007... Byline: LIBN Staff The state Legislature headed back into session this week with a long list of measures that might have been already passed into law, had anyone bothered to check their egos and partisanship at the door. A revamp of...

Commentary: Suffolk tax flap sets a dangerous precedent.
July 13, 2007... Byline: John Kiernan As you may have read, Suffolk County failed to get a fairly routine sales tax bill through before the state Legislature adjourned its regular session. The bill, which easily passed the state Senate but was hung up...

Commentary: Shades of Weinberger pardon in Libby fiasco.
July 13, 2007... Byline: John Kiernan Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have more in common than you might think, especially when it comes to pardons and reprieves. Back in 1992, weeks before leaving office, H.W. pardoned six men involved...

Commentary: Ratepayers turn to the PSC for justice.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Martin Cantor Ever wonder why there is such a rush by the Public Service Commission to approve the $11.8 billion acquisition of KeySpan Corp. by National Grid, even with environmental and economic considerations looming on the...

Trade confidential: Nationwide iincrease in trade secret-related litigation.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik It had all the elements of a Cold War espionage story by John Le Carre, except the secrets belonged to Coca-Cola, not the Central Intelligence Agency. This was a Cold War being fought between soda makers and soda...

Attorney advertising rules put new spin on sales pitch.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik New advertising regulations are changing the way attorneys make their case in the court of public opinion. The new rules, which went into effect in February, restrict what law firms can say and how they say it in...

Lack of estate planning can lead to family blowups.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik The high divorce rate, the growing number of second marriages, longer life spans and the fear of discussing death and writing wills have led to a big increase in the number of family feuds being played out in the...

The Long Island Rail Road and the case of the exploding package.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ross Daly Helen Palsgraf got her day in court, again, in the case of the exploding fireworks on the Long Island Rail Road. Unfamiliar with the case? Perhaps you also don't know that Lenin has died, Washington is plagued by the...

Ones to watch: Long Island law firms.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Claude Solnik Stephen A. Aschettino Partner, Nixon Peabody A litigator focusing on commercial, insurance, products liability, toxic tort and professional liability, Aschettino became a partner at the firm's Long Island office...

Inside out: Office-as-open-campus style catches on in Long Island.
July 13, 2007... Byline: David Winzelberg More office workers are thinking outside the cube. And they won't have to look too hard to escape their cubicles at some Long Island buildings, where open space has now become office space. The same way wireless...

The American dream in cheese and tomatoes for a Long Island business empire.
July 13, 2007... Byline: Ambrose Clancy Yard work, a willingness to take risks, keeping it in the family, stressing quality above everything else, staying on top of trends. That's the 20-strong Lombardi family's saga in a nutshell, a three-decade...