By Rick Moriarty Staff writer Syracuse Technology Garden, the downtown business incubator opened by the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce nearly six years ago, eliminated its executive director’s job last week in a cost-cutting move to stem financial losses. Paul Brooks, the facility’s executive director since 2006, left the center Wednesday. His departure was not voluntary. Brooks said the...
CenterState is cutting expenses and positions at the Syracuse Technology Garden.Syracuse Technology Garden, the downtown business incubator opened by the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce nearly six years ago, eliminated its executive director’s job last week in a cost-cutting move to stem financial losses.
Paul Brooks, the facility’s executive director since 2006, left the center Wednesday. His departure was not voluntary. Brooks said the chamber’s successor, CenterState Corp. for Economic Opportunity, told him his position was being eliminated. He declined to comment further.
Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState, said Brooks’ job was cut as part of CenterState’s efforts to slash the annual operating losses that dragged down the chamber’s finances in recent years.
“It’s a financial decision for the organization, and it was one, candidly, that needed to be done to provide the Tech Garden with some breathing room to continue the programs that we think are one of the best investments we can make in economic development,” Simpson said.
The chamber’s financial problems have been growing each year, but they did not come into the public spotlight until earlier this year when it told the city it could not pay a $217,000 electric bill owed by the Tech Garden to the city. The city wound up forgiving the debt.
The chamber’s losses totaled $322,000 in 2007 and $353,000 in 2008, according to the group’s tax returns. Simpson said the losses totaled $400,000 last year and were projected to be $380,000 this year before the cost-cutting plan implemented by
CenterState, the organization formed by the merger of the chamber with the Metropolitan Development Association in May.
Simpson said nearly all of those losses were attributable to the Tech Garden, where expenses have persistently exceeded revenues, even though the $3.5 million to build it was paid almost entirely with government grants, including $1 million from Onondaga County. The city leases the site to CenterState for $1 a year.
The chamber had been covering the Tech Garden’s losses by dipping into its cash reserves. However, without reducing expenses, the chamber would have run out of money before the end of this year, said Simpson, who was president and CEO of the MDA before the merger.
CenterState hopes to get the facility to the “break even” point by the end of this year or at least reduce its losses to a manageable level, he said.
He said CenterState plans to bring in more “entrepreneurs in residence,” successful entrepreneurs who work under contract to mentor young businesses.
“We think that’s a really successful way to support businesses within the incubator,” he said. “Instead of professional staff people that may have some background in business, we would actually bring in successful entrepreneurs from various industry sectors with various and specific areas of expertise, whether it be intellectual property law, HR management or access to capital, and having those people provide mentorship on a contract basis to the tenants.”
Brooks had run the center’s daily operations since joining it in July 2006. He previously owned Brooks Communications, a technology-oriented marketing communications firm, and held sales, marketing and administrative positions in both high-tech businesses and financial services organizations.
He had reported to Nasir Ali, who served as the center’s president until Ali resigned in February to launch Upstate Venture Connect, which links Upstate entrepreneurs to sources of talent and support across the region. As part of the cost-cutting, Ali’s post was not filled .
Linda Dickerson Hartsock, vice president of innovation and technology initiatives for CenterState and director of the Center for CleanTech Entrepreneurship, will run the Tech Garden’s operations, Simpson said. CleanTech is a consortium of Upstate academic institutions, research and development centers, investors, industry associations and government agencies. It is funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and is based at the Tech Garden.
Hartsock previously held positions as president and CEO of the Cortland County Business Development Corp. and Industrial Development Agency, and of a Hudson Valley-based nine-county regional planning organization. She was Central New York regional director for Empire State Development Corp., the state’s economic development agency, before joining the Tech Garden in March last year.
The Tech Garden provides inexpensive office space, conference rooms and support services to technology company startups. It was launched as part of the chamber’s efforts to promote the growth of locally owned companies, a reaction to the closing of many of the area’s large manufacturing facilities in the 1980s and 1990s by out-of-state owners.
Contact Rick Moriarty at rmoriarty@syracuse.com or 470-3148.