Tagged: ithaca

Ron Paul’s presidential campaign came to Cornell University Thursday ahead of next week’s all-but-decided New York Republican primary.

Congressman Paul’s speech felt less like a Republican presidential stump speech than half-lecture and half-rally cry.

Since early 2011, Cornell University has been getting almost all of its heat and power from natural gas.

No longer do they have to truck in 65,000 tons of coal from Kentucky and West Virginia. No longer do they buy most of their power from the grid.

The $82 million transition to natural gas has shuttered the soot-covered corner of the plant where coal used to be turned into heat.

A new, natural gas-powered section, with its computerized emissions monitoring, shiny pipes and modern control room, feels like a break from the past as soon as you walk in.

The final public hearing on hydrofracking in New York was held Wednesday in New York City, but an unofficial hearing in Ithaca on Thursday still drew a large crowd.

It started with a small rally outside the State Theater. Commenters lined up around the block, waiting to say their piece. Members of the local Occupy movement gathered in Ithaca's "Commons."

Not a single pro-fracking sign could be found.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says New York is recovering from the great recession - only it's recovering rather slowly.

That's the takeaway from a report DiNapoli released on Thursday, which looks at how New York's economy fared during 2010.

DiNapoli says the findings are definitely a "mixed bag." But overall, he says, "there's good reason to have cautious optimism."

Throughout our Ithaca series it’s become clear that if Ithaca wants to compete with the big guns - like Stanford and MIT - it needs to reach a point of critical mass, in terms of industry, ideas, and entrepreneurs.  Cornell is chasing those front-runners, but it’s a big job for a small place like Ithaca.

Take Charles Hamilton: He’s become a recognizable figure in Ithaca’s entrepreneurial circuit since getting his MBA from Cornell.

As he explains it, “I’ve had some success in the area ... I’ve run companies that have hired a lot of people and raised quite a lot of outside funding.”

As a result, Hamilton gets asked to speak a lot about starting businesses at forums around Ithaca (case in point - here he lays down some wisdom).

“Which is fantastic,” Hamilton says. “I’m happy to talk about it. But it would be great if, instead of calling Charles, they could call someone who could be a mentor to me who has built companies and sold companies.”

“There are a few people like that in the area. There aren’t very many,” he says.

Yesterday we brought you a hard look at Ithaca's employment numbers, and heard from the experts who think the region still needs more job opportunities.

Today in our series about Ithaca's economy we look at one sector the city is hoping will create those jobs: new high-tech companies, spun out of Cornell University research.