Archive: Business & Technology

Evan D. Williams, the principal of Evan D. Williams Fine Art Appraiser & Consultant, LLC, has been granted membership to the Appraisers Association of America, the premier national organization of personal property appraisers who specialize in fine and decorative arts. The AAA’s rigorous three-year-long admissions process and continuing education requirements ensure that its members adhere to the highest standards of ethics and professionalism.

If you dug a hole from your house all the way through the earth it would take about 42 minutes to fall all the way through to the other side of the world.  You would have to be a scofflaw to do that, though -- the law of gravity, that is.  Scientists say that because of the spin of the planet and friction you would slow down quite a bit and you probably wouldn't make it all the way through.


As a kid the conventional wisdom was that if I dug a hole all the way through the Earth I would end up in China.  I thought China would be a cool place to visit, so I thought I might try it one day.  But a unique Web site now shows me that I wouldn't end up anywhere near China.

National Book Auctions hosted a Sunday, June 24th auction that featured a broad range of rare antique books as well as groups of collectible ephemera.  Featured was a large collection of primarily antique works from the fields of geology and paleontology. Also offered was another session from a large nautical library which will be brought to market over a series of auctions this year.

Bringing a hammer price of $861.00 (including buyer’s premium) was an album of antique and vintage Chinese stamps. This collection contained over 800 stamps from inception to 1950, with some regional names and specimens from the early days of the People’s Republic of China.

Cayuga Medical Center has earned a three-year term of accreditation with Commendation for the Cayuga Cancer Center granted by The Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons (ACoS).

CMC’s Cayuga Cancer Center received the Three–Year Accreditation with Commendation following the on-site evaluation by a physician surveyor during which the facility demonstrated a Commendation level of compliance with standards that represent the full scope of the cancer program (cancer committee leadership, cancer data management, clinical services, research, community outreach, and quality improvement).

Light In Winter’s board of director announced they have hired Stephen Kimball as the festivals executive director. Mr. Kimball is a veteran marketing and fundraising professional in Ithaca, NY and the larger Finger Lakes region. Most recently, Mr. Kimball served at Tompkins County Area Development (TCAD) as its Director of Marketing, Communications, and Development and the State Theatre of Ithaca where he was in charge of media, donor, patron, and volunteer relations.

Math and Movement and Mathnasium have partnered for summer and after-school learning. “During the summer, many students lose 2 to 2.5 months of the math computational skills they learned during the school year.” Washington Post, June 15, 2009

Mathnasium and Math & Movement have joined forces to bring students an innovative curriculum that allows for math-movement breaks! Math & Movement combines physical fitness with learning and practicing math, reading and other concepts.

The Tompkins County Workers' Center announced it now has 80 Certified Living Wage Employers, having just added Bridges Cornell Heights, an ‘assisted living’ facility in Cornell Heights, Ithaca. The significance of Bridges Cornell Heights, an employer of 46 workers, becoming a Living Wage-Certified is that it is exceedingly rare in the ‘assisted living’ industry for workers to start making much more than $8.00/hour.

Says Bridges Cornell Heights owner Elizabeth Ambrose: “Our philosophy at Bridges is that for a job to work for our staff people, it has to really work for them:  what they make in terms of ‘pay’, their schedule, their benefits, how they are treated. If it doesn’t work for them, they’re going to become someone else’s employees!”

Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, Inc., (TCAT, Inc.) reported that year‑to‑date ridership was up 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2012, with a record‑breaking total of 1,085,580 trips compared to 1,027,101 trips for the first three months of 2011.

TCAT General Manager Joe Turcotte said 2011 ridership numbers were 'an incredible feat' for a transit agency that serves a city of 30,000 and county of 100,000 people. “We are amazed that we not only sustaining those numbers, but surpassing them.”

Rob LaHood, the Director of Membership and Public Relation at the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, will leave his position on June 22 to pursue other opportunities in the Ithaca area. LaHood has been at the Chamber for three years, and has made great strides increasing event sponsorships, improving the Chamber’s web presence, and increasing Chamber membership despite the economic downturn experienced over the years of his tenure.

LaHood has greatly enjoyed his time at the Chamber managing many events and engaging numerous community businesses and organizations across the many areas of the Chamber’s involvement.

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National Book Auctions hosted a Sunday, June 3rd auction that featured a broad range of rare antique books, as well as a quantity of posters and ephemera. Featured was a large collection of modern first editions, the majority of which retained their original dust jackets. Also offered was another session from a large nautical collection which will be brought to market over a series of auctions this year.

Bringing a collective hammer price of $3474.75 (including buyer’s premium) were three volumes of “Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly.” These were edited and published by Alfred Stieglitz, who was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. “Camera Work” was a completely independent magazine of pictorial photography that was meant to carry forth the same artistic standards of the photo-secessionist movement.

At its annual meeting, the New York State Economic Development Council elected Michael Stamm, president of Tompkins County Area Development (TCAD), chairman for 2012-13. Founded in 1964, TCAD is a private, not-for-profit local development corporation with the primary mission of creating quality employment opportunities and strengthening the local tax base. To support its mission, TCAD manages an Industrial Development Agency, an Empire Zone, and several revolving loan funds.

Scott Bliss has been named Executive Director of Cinemapolis, following the retirement of founders Lynne Cohen and Rich Szanyi. Bliss has been in Ithaca since August 2011, when he was appointed the theater’s first Director of Business Development. In the seven months that followed, Scott worked to expand Cinemapolis’ presence in the community and increase the theater’s marketing, branding and advertising sales.

Bliss’ career in film exhibition began as a part-time employee at a six-screen regional chain while he attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He learned all facets of film projection and assumed a managerial position while in school. He was a regular customer at Liberty Hall, a twin-screen art and independent cinema located in downtown Lawrence. Soon after graduation, Bliss had the opportunity to purchase this business, and subsequently owned and operated the cinema at Liberty Hall for seven years.