Change Constant in Business

Winds of change are blowing in one town center in Connecticut. Two vacancies in a village along the Connecticut River may create opportunity for another business . . . or two. And a long-time business stands out as a community resource. See full story, here.

Development, Greening of Brownfields

Five brownfield sites across Connecticut will receive a total of $2.25 million to assist in redevelopment efforts under a pilot program funded through the state Bond Commission.

The Brownfield Municipal Pilot Program was created in 2006 and expanded through legislation in 2007. Under the program, the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) designates five pilot projects in a variety of communities where untreated brownfields are hindering economic development. Two projects must be in cities with populations more than 100,000; one must be in a city with a population between 50,000 and 100,000; and one must be selected from a municipality with a population of less than 50,000. The fifth project is selected at the discretion of the DECD commissioner.

The projects include:

Stamford, $450,000 for the Harbor Point Partnership Project, an 80-acre former industrial site that is being redeveloped for office, housing, hotel and mixed-use development. Pilot funds will be used for remediation at the location of a new 3.25-acre public park.

Waterbury, $650,000 for the clean-up of the Cherry Street Industrial Project. The pilot funds will be used for abatement, demolition and remediation of two vacant industrial buildings. A new, 63,000-square-foot building will be built on the site to accommodate the expansion of Bender Plumbing Supply.

Community between 50,000 and 100,000 in population

Norwalk, $300,000 for remediation of the three-acre South Norwalk train station site, which is targeted for transit-oriented redevelopment.

Community with less than 50,000 in population

The Georgetown Redevelopment Project, Redding, $425,000 for remediation and removal of contaminated soil at the site of the 51-acre former Gilbert & Bennet Wire Mill. On completion, this multi-phase project will include housing, retail, community facilities and a new train platform.

Discretionary community

Shelton, $425,000, remediation of a one-acre site that will be offered for private sale and redevelopment. Adjacent to the Housatonic River, this site was the location of chemical manufacturer Axton Cross. The site is a key component of the redevelopment of downtown Shelton known as Enterprise and Commerce Park.

In related news, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has named the president of Virginia Industries of Rocky Hill, Laura Grondin, to become the new chairwoman of the Connecticut Development Authority (CDA).

Grondin, who lives in Haddam, has led the Rocky Hill manufacturer since 1999 and has been a member of the CDA board of directors since November 2007.

Formerly president of the Hartford Bearing Co., a division of Virginia Industries, Grondin has served on many public and private boards, agencies, and associations. These include: the Connecticut Business & Industry Association; the Children’s Law Center of Connecticut; the Connecticut Women’s Council, and the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce, Arts Council and Jaycees. She also served as a member of state government’s Brownfields Task Force. She received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

The General Assembly established CDA as a quasi-public agency in 1988 to provide debt financing and investment capital to help Connecticut businesses grow.

Grondin succeeds L. Scott Franz, who was elected in November to become the new state senator for the 36th District. Frantz also had chaired Bradley International Airport’s board of directors, from which he resigned recently.

Ted Turner: Go "Clean, Renewable Energy"

"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
- Thomas Edison (1847–1931)

The new "plastics" is clean, renewable energy, according to Ted Turner, entrepreneur, who invented CNN, among a host of other enterprises.

Turner, in a conversational interview at the University of Southern California Center on Communication Leadership, pointed out that in the movie The Graduate, the secret was whispered that "plastics" were the new frontier in business.

That was then, this is now. He strongly advised audience members (including many budding journalists and broadcast students) to shift focus to renewable energy industries. (He himself has invested millions in Dome-Tech Solar of Branchburg, New Jersey, to create DT Solar. And is thinking of harnessing wind on the vast stretchs of land he owns.)

"What tax breaks and incentives there are should go for the new renewable, locally produced energy that creates jobs here in the United States. That keeps the money in our own economy, because we're just bankrupting ourselves, as Boone Pickens says, by spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year importing foreign oil."

Turner deflected a query on where the future was for media, saying that he was no longer paid by the industry to give his opinion (their loss).

Instead, he said, he truly wants to save the world and is working on many fronts, including women's rights, the UN, malaria prevention (by simple means such as vaccinations and netting) and humanitarian venues.

Impassioned, he talked about the destruction of the environment and the folly of propping up (by bail-out) the automotive industry still making huge vehicles (he owns the first Prius).

Then he spoke clearly about the madness of having "hair-trigger nuclear weapons" in both Russia and the United States that were "impossible to recall once fired." He passionately expounded on his efforts to get this leftovers from the Cold War dismantled and disabled. "If Russia fired one at the U.S. and Bush called Putin to say, we unconditionally agree to your terms' - Russia would say 'sorry, you have 15 minutes.' There is no way to call them back or even destroy them in the air."

Talk about food for thought.

"Renewable energy also creates more jobs than other sources of energy - most of these will be created in the struggling manufacturing sector, which will pioneer the new energy future by investment that allows manufacturers to retool and adopt new technologies and methods."

- Jay Inslee, Congressional leader on the New Apollo Energy Project, an effort to make America the world leader in clean energy technologies.

Regarding renewable energy development, the University of Connecticut has hired six top alternative energy researchers associated with the state’s 21st Century Jobs Act – including Prabhakar Singh, a researcher with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., who is now the new director of UConn’s Global Fuel Cell Center.

Some $4 million in state funding has been provided to create a public-private partnership called the Eminent Faculty program, which has enabled UConn to hire national experts in alternative energy technology.

As part of the partnership, UTC Power of South Windsor, the Northeast Utilities Foundation and FuelCell Energy of Danbury, contributed a combined $2 million as an industry match. Other participants at the center include Distributed Energy Systems, CT Clean Energy Fund and national funding agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, DARPA, ONR.

The initiative is also expected to help meet the state’s goal of reducing fossil fuel consumption by 20% and replacing it with clean or renewable energy sources by 2020.

Get It? Got It? Good. Online Innovators

"I agree completely with my son James when he says the 'Internet is like electricity. The latter lights up everything, while the former lights up knowledge.'"

- Kerry Packer
Australian publishing, media and gaming tycoon


Just observe how people now easily use technology married to the Internet - on Christmas - to source an obscure holiday song from childhood to listen that tune once more. Or tell how they found their new dog (a rescue, on Petfinder.com). Or look at the results in the gifts - a personalized calendar, which involved photo uploads and customization online (yup, at WalMart's site). Finding exactly what is desired is becoming second nature.

Most people don't care how it works, they just want to find what they want. (Preferably at a discount when considering a purchase.)

Behind the engines of change that are transforming the globe are some pretty smart people. And powerful search engines.

Curiosity about online corporate leaders led to another kind of search. Most interesting businesses are powered by the people who create them.

Everyone has ideas. The majority of humans talk about them. Leaders work to link concepts to business models and then on to reality. First, try it out in the sandbox, and (in this case) on to growth. Today search engines put the global marketplace at our fingertips. (If you are terrier-like in your research.)

The evolution (think Charles Darwin was right) of business means learning all the time. Blogs (some) are the conversations about change.

So here's the first in a sometimes series about online innovators.

Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has grown up into a full-service media company. The online partnership introduces fresh content to millions of consumers, and indexes millions of blog posts in real time, then surfaces them in seconds.

The company is led by Richard Jalichandra, president and CEO, a veteran Internet executive whose media experience includes leadership roles across the media spectrum. He's been an M&A and strategy consultant for several Internet properties and investment firms, and also served as SVP of corporate development for exponential interactive, Tribal Fusion’s parent company. Previously, he was SVP of business development for Fox Interactive Media, and was the vice president of business & corporate development at IGN Entertainment (acquired by Fox Interactive), where he led the company’s M&A, business development and international activities. Before joining IGN, Richard led national accounts sales at Lycos, was vice president of business development at Neopost Online, served as senior vice president/managing director of Answerthink, and founded K23 Creative Services in Singapore. His early career included management roles for Ford, IBM and Siemens.

Now, where did the concept come from?

David Sifry, founder and chairman of the board, is a self-described "serial entrepreneur" - with more than 20 years of software development and industry experience.

Sifry co-founded and served as CTO of Sputnik, a Wi-Fi gateway company; was co-founder of Linuxcare, where he served as CTO and vice president of engineering. He also was a founding member of the board of Linux International and on the technical advisory board of the National Cybercrime Training Partnership for law enforcement.

His blog is as interesting as he is - called Sifry’s Alerts.

An excerpt -

"On-demand, Personalized Travel Books. Travel books that are tuned just for you, only about the place that you're going, with local information like festivals, events, and concerts that are going on during the dates of your stay. We put in local maps that are tuned to where you'll be, and we even customize the guide based on what we learn about you, like the timezone differences from your hometown, electrical plug differences, embassies and consulates nearby, differences in tipping policies, exchange rates, local weather forecasts, and much more.

"Can I customize it? Of course. You get full control over your guide - so if you already know where you're staying, you can click to deselect all of the information about hotels, for example. You can add customized chapters and fill them with information that you gather from your friends, or from around the internet. And when you're done, you can get your guide in multiple formats . . ."