Archive: Business & Technology

Over a hundred people braved the snow Wednesday for the ground breaking of Transonic Systems new 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Lansing.  Most were employees of the company who were joined by  the architect, press, a county legislator, and the contractor for the project.  The new building will double the size of the building that already serves as the international company's world headquarters.  Over the next five years the company hopes to add 50 new jobs.

"The new building will be 100% manufacturing," says Transonic Systems COO Bruce Kilmartin.  "This present building will be solely for administration, marketing and sales."

Trasnsonic Systems specializes in high-tech flow meters for medical use.  Among other purposes, Transonics meters help measure blood flow during heart or neurosurgery surgery, helping to reduce the risk of vascular complications or strokes during surgery.  The company was founded in 1983 based on company President Cornelis Drost's invention of the transit-time ultrasound flowmeter when he was a senior researcher at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.  The company has offices in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and a facility in Davis, California.


This story revolves around the new Warren Road Sewer project.  Transonics has been ready to expand for some time, but could not because their Warren Road Business Park facility uses a septic system to handle the 100 employees that work there.  Any expansion would have to be built on the large field where the septic system is located.  The choices were to somehow get a municipal sewer to the site or move to a new location.

When the Town's municipal sewer project died in 2007 Kilmartin approached the Lansing Town Board along with Tompkins County Area Development's (TCAD) Heather Filaberto to see if a smaller, limited sewer project would be possible.  Then Councilman Bud Shattuck, who had chaired the town sewer committee worked with Town officials, engineers, Village of Lansing officials, and committee members Andy Sciarabba and Noel Desch to put together a project that would feed off of the Village's sewer system, and run north along Warren Road past the Warren Road Business Park to Farrell Road.


As the project progressed other property owners signed on to hook up to the new sewer, but Transonics officials maintained it was important enough to them that they would have footed the bill even if nobody else wanted to participate.  Meanwhile TCAD helped the company secure low cost financing and a sales tax abatement on construction materials and equipment for the new building.

Ground breaking for the sewer was held in mid-July of last year.  From that point it was just a matter of time before construction could be completed and businesses and apartment complexes could hook up.  Transonics will be the first to do so.  Elmira Structures' Kirk Vieselmeyer says that he is ready to hook up to the sewer as soon as the final permits are issued by the Town.  He estimated that will be within a week, after which the septic field can be dug up and construction on the manufacturing facility begun.

Filaberto credited the Town and Village of Lansing, individual community members, Transonic Systems, the Tompkins County Planning Department, and Cornell Real Estate for working together to make the sewer project happen, ultimately making it possible for Transonic Systems to remain in Lansing.

Kilmartin says that process capabilities can be added now because only water could be processed through the septic system.  With the larger building the company will be able to add equipment that will make manufacturing more efficient, and provide more space for inventory.  The new facility will be open and airy, with no posts and a skylight running the length of the building.

"The inside is laid out for lean manufacturing," he says.  "We had AM&T from Binghamton help us come up with a lean manufacturing design for the inside of the factory.  It's for building and assembling using the most efficient methods as far as placement of equipment, tools, and manpower to make the flow very smooth.  So far we've had good luck in this facility, but we laid out the new building from scratch."


Drost made a point of acknowledging his employees for bringing the company to the point where the company is a strong medical device company, and one ready to expand and grow.    He says the company is a good place to work, and that employees have good jobs and are happy working there.

"We don't have a lot of supervision, and we have flex time, and we have free medical care," he says.  "So the company does a good job of taking care of its employees.  They're all good people, and most of them are long-time employees."

Filaberto noted that that is what TCAD promotes, keeping good jobs in Tompkins County and attracting new ones.


"It's businesses like Transonics that create quality jobs in our community," Filaberto said.  "What we call 'real jobs for real people'...  Manufacturers account for 15% of the wages paid in Tompkins County.  That's the highest sector of wages paid after the educational sector."

Lansing's County Legislator Pat Pryor noted that in addition to benefits to the company, the town, and employees, that thousands of patients benefit from the company's technology, which she called the "gold standard" transit-time ultrasound flowmeter.

"I'm thrilled that in expanding its world headquarters here in the Warren Rd. Business Park, Transonic will be bringing new jobs, good jobs with good benefits, to Tompkins County", Pryor said.  "I can think of few things in the County's present economic situation that could be better news than that this world class; growing company will be making even more of a contribution to our local economy and business climate."

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