The CEO of the state”™s largest biotechnology employer and the Hudson Valley”™s longest-serving college president will be in Albany Tuesday to make their case for the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council”™s strategic plan in a statewide competition for project funding.
At stake is $40 million that will be awarded to each of four regions judged to have the top five-year plans to create jobs and spur economic development. An additional $40 million in capital grants and employer tax credits will be split among projects proposed by the other six regional councils appointed last summer by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Representing the seven-county mid-Hudson region are Dr. Leonard S. Schleifer, president and CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Greenburgh, and Dennis J. Murray, president of Marist College in Poughkeepsie. They co-chair the 21-member volunteer council.
The regional plans will be judged by a recently named review committee that includes:
- Dall W. Forsythe, senior fellow at New York University”™s Wagner School of Public Service and former vice president for finance and operations at The Atlantic Philanthropies;
- Walter D. Broadnax, professor of public administration at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University;
- Bruce J. Katz, vice president at the Brookings Institution and founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program; and
- Joan McDonald, state Department of Transportation commissioner and former chairperson of Connecticut Innovations, an authority providing venture capital to high tech startups.
New York Secretary of State Cesar Perales will serve as a technical adviser to the committee as it analyzes, scores and ranks each region”™s plan. Their results are expected in early December.
The mid-Hudson council has proposed three priority projects for funding in the economically diverse seven-county region. They are a biotechnology incubator lab and research center at New York Medical College in Valhalla, a cloud computing center at Marist College that builds upon the school”™s existing Institute for Data Center Professionals and will be partly funded by IBM Corp. and a high-risk assessment clinic for autistic children at the private, nonprofit Center for Discovery, Sullivan County”™s largest employer.
Council member Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council of Westchester and co-leader of the regional council”™s strategies work group, said the priority projects represent three of the region”™s leading industry clusters for jobs creation and economic growth ”“ biotech, information technology and health care.
The council also received and ranked more than 300 project applications for state funding from businesses, nonprofits and municipalities that will be processed in Albany through the state”™s new consolidated funding application system. The streamlined interagency review process will route applications to appropriate state agencies and programs whose available grants, loans and tax credits and incentives total about $800 million.
