Harvest Power

DELIVERING A GOOD MEAL — AND DELIVERING SOLAR POWER

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Paule Pachter, CEO of Long Island Cares, on the roof of their facility in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge. (Photo courtesy of The Times of Smithtown.)

Business organizations like HIA-LI largely focus on competitiveness, and promoting the growth of member firms.

That’s why it’s good to remind ourselves how much energy we also devote to community-minded goals and causes.

One example is our relationship with Long Island Cares and its Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank. Since 1980, this organization — situated in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge (LI-IPH) — has been assembling resources to benefit our area’s hungry by providing emergency food, outreach support, and programs promoting self-sufficiency.

Here are two ways HIA-LI joins forces with Long Island Cares:

First, every summer for the past several years, HIA-LI and Long Island Cares have united to conduct the largest small business food drive on Long Island. The organization  has sensitized us to the fact that — amazingly — some 89,000 local children face food insecurity on a daily or weekly basis.

In addition to bringing food to drop-off sites, HIA-LI members can also buy food online for direct delivery to the food bank warehouse.

Second, guided by the HIA-LI Solar Task Force, solar panels are now being installed on the 35,000 square-foot roof of Long Island Cares’ headquarters.

Moreover, all of the renewable energy that roof generates will be sent offsite to provide electricity to approximately 50 households experiencing hardship and food insecurity.

“By taking the entire energy output of this installation and sending it offsite to provide discounted power to homes occupied by our lower-income neighbors,” Paule Pachter, CEO of Long Island Cares, tells us, “these households will have new-found income to address some of their immediate needs.”

The HIA-LI Solar Task Force deserves our thanks for initiating all this. Led by co-chairs Scott Maskin, CEO of SUNation Solar Systems, and Jack Kulka, President of Kulka, LLC, they’re aiming to help LI-IPH achieve 100-percent-reliance on renewable energy by 2040.

Task force participants also include Edgewise Energy, Entersolar, Harvest Power, Empower Solar, Top Cat Consulting, H2M Engineering, and Greenstreet Power Partners.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this visionary project!

Young Professionals Impart Wisdom

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There was a full-house at the June 18 HIA-LI Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs (H.Y.P.E.) Executive Breakfast and Scholarship Awards ceremony.

We all know the challenge of young people leaving Long Island to live and work in other regions. In fact, it is stated by the year 2025 seventy-five percent of the workforce will be millennials who, if they continue to exit Long Island, will create an even larger challenge. We also know the urgent need to create jobs and connect our educational partners. It is the very reason that several years ago the HIA-LI created a Young Professionals Committee (now H.Y.P.E.) that every year creates a young professionals panel to speak to our scholarship recipients.

There were some great takeaways this year from the June 18th HIA-LI Young Professionals Scholarship Awards and Executive Breakfast held at the WizdomOne Group of Companies in Islandia.  Here are a few that stand out:

  • Follow your passion because passion equals excellence. Now is not the time to “settle” or second-guess your dreams.
  • If you’re not sure of your career direction, use college to explore your options. Take classes that interest you . . . one of them might just ignite a ‘spark.’
  • There is no substitute for hard work. (You’ve heard the expression, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.  Well, it’s true.)
  • Look at failures as learning opportunities. You can’t learn to succeed unless you’ve learned to fail.  And when you do fail, fail hard, fail fast, and then get up and continue moving forward.
  • Be present in whatever you’re doing. Put down the cell phone.  Turn off the TV.  Focus on people.
  • It’s important to have a support system. It may your parents.  It may be friends.  It may be extended family.  Or it may be co-workers.  But no matter, surround yourself with people who are positive and supportive.
  • Find work-life balance that makes you happy. It may not look like your parents, friends, or colleagues, but that’s ok.  So long as it works for you.
  • Make your bed every morning! Yes, starting the day in an organized way sets a positive tone for the rest of your day.

Many thanks to the stellar panel of young professionals who helped to impart these insightful pieces of advice.  They were moderators Jason Hershkowitz, Account Manager and Executive Recruiter, Choice Long Island, and Gregg Pajak, Founder and Managing Partner, WizdomeOne Group of Companies. Panelists included Josiah Cheatham, Senior Business Development Representative, People’s Alliance Federal Credit Union; Adam Holtzer, Director of Business Development, Generations Beyond; Lauren Kanter-Lawrence, Director of Communications, Campolo Middleton & McCormick, LLP; and, David Whelan, Director of Development, Harvest Power.

Congratulations to the 12 scholarship recipients, all children of HIA-LI members who chose to continue their post-high school education right here on Long Island.

Want to find out more about HIA-LI’s Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs (H.Y.P.E.) Committee?  Call Connor Robertson at 631-543-5355 or email crobertson@hia-li.org.