Workforce Training Center

Celebrating Long Island Businesses and Embracing Opportunities

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One of HIA-LI’s primary missions, as most of you know, is to advocate for the growth and sustainability of the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge (LI-IHP), formerly the Hauppauge Industrial Park.

With the Park in mind, I’m pleased to share this upbeat progress report.

Some context: The Park’s enormous economic potential

The HIA-LI cooperated with the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency, the Regional Plan Association, Stony Brook University, and the Town of Smithtown to produce a 160-page “Economic Impact Study and Opportunity Analysis” that reported on the Park’s remarkable magnitude and impact and set forth a vision for further growth.

With 1,300 companies employing 55,000 people, LI-IPH is, amazingly, America’s second-largest industrial park. Delivering $4 billion in annual payroll and $14 billion in overall economic output, the Park accounts for one in twenty Long Island jobs.

58 percent of park tenants fall into the essential “tradeable” category: their exports and services bring new net dollars into the region. This figure contrasts with only 23 percent Island-wide and 36 percent nationally. LI-IPH’s wisest strategy is to help nurture and build out these competitive tradeable industries.

HIA-LI is advancing strategies for attracting the necessary facilities, amenities, talent pool, and knowledge base for further firm clustering – and we’re working to elevate the Park’s brand as Long Island’s premier hub for growing businesses.

Sign up for upcoming virtual events

To help shine a spotlight on the businesses at the LI-IPH, HIA-LI is hosting several virtual events. During these difficult times, we’ve waived attendance fees for these events:

  • Tradable Sectors and How They Impact the Long Island Economy
    Monday, September 14. 9:00am – 10:30am. Click here to register
  • Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge Update: Current and Future Growth
    Tuesday, September 22. 9:00am – 10:30am. Click here to register
  • HIA-LI Business Achievement Awards
    Tuesday, September 29. Networking at 11:00am. Event at 12:00pm. Click here to register
  • HIA-LI Annual Trade Show & Conference
    Wednesday, October 7 and Thursday, October 8. Attendees can click on virtual exhibit booths to schedule live appointments, “walk” the floor, and more.  Click here to register 

Workforce housing is coming to the Park  

To attract a competitive workforce, communities must offer housing for young professionals. To help fulfill the vision set forth in the “Opportunity Analysis” cited above, the Town of Smithtown recently and laudably voted to create a “zoning overlay” district within the Park, allowing for multi-use development, including workforce housing. The Town acted in response to advocacy by HIA-LI and other business and civic interests.

Providing health and safety education for the Park’s workforce 

As you may be aware, many production workers employed in the Park come from communities experiencing high rates of COVID-19. In many instances, workers would benefit by obtaining disease prevention information in their places of work. 

To make this happen, HIA-LI is coordinating with the Suffolk County Department of Labor to introduce workplace-based, COVID-focused health education programming. To learn more, contact: Angela.Ramos@suffolkcountyny.gov

We’re working to help create a workforce training center

In conjunction with the Long Island Regional Planning Council and the Suffolk IDA, HIA-LI is pursuing creation of a regional workforce training center to help businesses at the LI-IPH and elsewhere fill skills gaps among their employees. While the center’s location and syllabus are yet to be determined, its establishment stands to help boost the profitability of LI-IPH firms.

HIA-LI won an international marketing award

A 30-second video promoting the LIIPH has won an internationally recognized Telly Award, which honors achievement in the non-broadcast video industry. Watch the video at www.LI-IPH.org

HIA-LI delivers masks for member businesses

HIA-LI recently teamed up with Governor Andrew Cuomo and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone to distribute thousands of reusable masks for use by employees of firms at the LI-IPH and elsewhere across Long Island.  

Become a member

If your company isn’t currently an HIA-LI member, we’d love you to join! We offer vital, real-time information to help your business through this recovery – and to let the business community know you’re open for business. Contact Anthony Forgione at (631) 543-5355 or aforgione@hia-li.org to learn more.

During these unprecedented times, it’s more critical than ever to celebrate Long Island business – and to embrace opportunities to help us connect and do business.

Please join us!

By Creating Jobs, Suffolk IDA Gets the Job Done

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Suffolk-IDA-logo-2Everyone knows the importance of teamwork when it comes to getting things done. In this spirit, I’d like to devote this blog to recognizing one of HIA-LI’s most valued partners, the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency (IDA).  

Across the state, IDAs support business growth, relocation, and expansion by lowering the cost of capital investment. They offer tax incentives – and provide access to various business resources and technical assistance opportunities.

And we’re fortunate to have one of the state’s highest-performing IDA’s right here in Suffolk County.

According to Newsday’s report on an analysis by the State Comptroller, tax incentives provided through Long Island’s industrial development agencies – for four years running – had helped to create more jobs as of 2018 than IDAs in any of the state’s nine other regions.

And here on the Island, the largest number of new jobs – 12,881 – were created by 137 projects supported by the Suffolk County IDA.

HIA-LI regularly works cooperatively with the Suffolk IDA to help fortify the regional economy and trigger employment growth. For example, we collaborated with the Suffolk IDA in April 2019 on a 160-page Opportunity Analysis that helped us identify ways to better link the future success of the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge (LI-IPH) to Long Island’s long-term economic revitalization.

In the Opportunity Analysis, James Lima Planning + Development and the Regional Plan Association concluded that the Park’s future success would be maximized by nurturing the growth and agglomeration of competitive, tradeable industries.

Among other projects, we’ve also joined forces with the Suffolk County IDA and the Long Island Regional Planning Council to advocate for creation of a new, regional workforce development center, possibly situated within the LI-IPH. The center would match its training curricula to the specific workforce needs of our region’s fastest-growing businesses.

The public sector and the private sector need to work cooperatively to help maintain the strength of our local economy. Along these lines, HIA-LI is proud of the successful, long-term partnership we’ve enjoyed with the Suffolk County IDA.

Under the leadership of Chairperson Natalie Wright and Executive Director Anthony Catapano, the Suffolk IDA has been a steadfast partner in promoting job growth and business growth on Long Island. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the unwavering efforts of the Suffolk IDA’s Deputy Executive Director Kelly Morris and former Associate Director John McNally who, with their hard work and dedication, helped to make it all happen.

I hope you’ll stand with me in applauding the Suffolk IDA on its many accomplishments. We look forward to working with them on future joint initiatives.

New Workforce Training Center Takes a Big Stride Forward

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Group shot at LIRPC.
At the July 11, 2019 LIRPC meeting, from left: Richard V. Guardino, Executive Director, Long Island Regional Planning Council; Joe Campolo, Board Chair, HIA-LI, and Managing Partner, Campolo Middleton & McCormick, LLP;  Carol A. Allen, Second Vice Chair, HIA-LI, and President & CEO, People’s Alliance Federal Credit Union; Terri Alessi-Miceli, President & CEO, HIA-LI; Kelly Morris, Deputy Executive Director, Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency; and, John D. Cameron, Jr., P.E., Chair, Long Island Regional Planning Council, and Managing Partner, Cameron Engineering & Associates, LLP.

Let’s overcome two big challenges at the same time:

First, Long Island obviously needs our most promising companies and business sectors to grow and thrive here.

And second, equally obvious, is that our region needs our most talented, young workers to stay here, build their careers here, and raise their families here.

So, what if a single strategic initiative were able to take on both of these challenges at the same time?

What if we could create a new competitive asset that would function along the lines of a skills “matchmaker” at a strategic level? This entity would view Long Island’s talent needs through a supply-and-demand lens. It would align the skills of our regional workforce with the specific capabilities demanded by our most-promising companies.

Everyone would win.

Well, the good news is that such a facility is now taking shape right here at the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge, until recently known as the Hauppauge Industrial Park.

As part of a strategic initiative spearheaded by HIA-LI, the Long Island Regional Planning Council (LIRPC) has just signed a consulting contract advancing development of a new workforce training center – to be located right here.

Under the contract, New York City-based James Lima Planning + Development (JLP+D) will implement some initial steps to facilitate the launch of such a facility.

JLP+D will analyze industry categories and ecosystems, and match them against regional demographic trends. They’ll produce a “skills gap” analysis that will help shape the future center’s curriculum, its organizational and physical structure, and an action timeline.

The Lima team will also examine ways to unify the energies of government agencies, business organizations, and academic institutions to help ensure that the new center achieves its vital mission.

JLP+D is superbly qualified for such an assignment. Last April, they worked together with HIA-LI, the Regional Plan Association, and the Suffolk IDA to complete a comprehensive, 160-page “opportunity analysis” setting forth a strategy for maximizing our Park’s potential as a regional economic powerhouse.

LIRPC Chairman John Cameron, its Executive Director Richard Guardino, Suffolk IDA Chair Theresa Ward, IDA Deputy Executive Director Kelly Morris, and HIA-LI Chair Joe Campolo all deserve credit for their leadership on this important workforce initiative.

The new training center is destined to deliver benefits to our members and to Long Island as a whole for decades to come. Let’s all do everything we can to make it a success.