MCC Thanks January's Renewing Members

Name	Company	Website
Eric Biderman	Arent Fox	www.arentfox.com
Michael Ackerman	Combustion Systems & Instruments Inc.	www.csinstruments.net
Nagwa Awad	Dawan Global	www.dawanglobal.com
Evan Horowitz	Evan Horowitz Advising	www.EHAdvising.com
Sofia Rafael	FamGroup	www.FamGroup.net
Alan Freedman	Freedman & Son's
Steve Barclay	Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office	www.hketony.gov.hk
Jason Yuen	JPMorgan Chase	www.jpmorganchase.com
Shirley Rossman	Life Planning Group
Benjamin Mihalik	Morgan Stanley Wealth Management	www.morganstanley.com
Jennifer Pautz	New York University	www.nyu.edu/ogca
Anne Bonfiglio	Partnership for Student Advancement	www.psapartnership.org
Manny Guzman	Pestrol, Inc.	www.pestrol.com
Ralph Siciliano	Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP	www.thsh.com
Tamara Nall	The Leading Niche	www.theleadingniche.com
Tim Rowe	UPS Marketing	www.ups.com
Joseph Kirk	Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.	www.wellsfargo.com

MCC Welcomes our New Members from January 2016

Name	Company	Website
Moses Friedrich	A1 Party & Tent Rentals Inc.	www.partybuster.com
Barbara Schwartz	Accu Weight-Loss "The Bead Diet"	www.accuweight.com
Jessica Beck	Agera Energy	www.AgeraEnergy.com
Brandie Engelberger	American Heart Association	www.heart.org
Behnood Gholami	AreteX Systems	www.aretexeng.com
Michael Landewe	Avanan	www.avanan.com
Barbara Stein	Barbara Stein Consulting	www.barbaraestein.com
Daniel Kennedy	Berdon LLP	www.berdonllp.com
Dan Lambert	Board Vitals	www.boardvitals.com
Justin Homkow	Brown Harris Stevens Residential Sales, LLC	www.bhsusa.com/justinmhomkow
Amy	Carter CPA LLC
Tammy Kwan	Cognitive Toybox, Inc.	www.cognitivetoybox.com
Jacob Smith	Common Sensibly	www.commonsensibly.com
J. Alejandro Estrella	Consul Group LLC	www.consulgroupsolutions.com
Maria Hagiwara	Cradle Media LLC	www.cradlemedia.com
Monica Hammond	Davenport Theatrical Enterprises	www.davenporttheatrical.com
Paul Reinitz	Elodina	www.elodina.net
Lowrance Fisher	Fisher Law Group, P.C.	www.fisherstonelaw.com
Gary Marcus	Geometric Intelligence	www.geometricintelligence.com
Teddy Goldstein	German Accelerator	www.germanaccelerator.com
Margaret Lim	Hanmi Bank
Andrew Rowat	Haystack
Joy Passey	JOY Prosperity Coaching, Inc.	www.joyprosperitycoaching.com
Roxanne Spruance	Kingsley	www.kingsleynyc.com
Rachel Law	Kip	www.kipthis.com
Mitchell Draizin	Longview Capital Advisors
Antionio Pellegrin	LSQ
Barbara Macina	Macina & Pietrzak, LLC	www.mplawusa.com
Bruce Segall	Marketing Sense	www.marketingsense2.com
Lee Mandell	Mattlin Mandell	www.mattlinmandell.com
Julie Dorsey	Mental Canvas	www.mentalcanvas.com
Keith Fiore	Miner	www.minerapp.com
Tom Buckley	New York Life Insurance, Co
Nikolay Bey	NNB World, Inc.
Dina Elardo	Notary Public Central, Inc.	www.NotaryPublicCentral.Com
Olakunle Oni	Olakunle Emmanuel Oni
Ishveen Anand	Open Sponsorship	www.opensponsorship.com
Diego Paoletti	PDM construction Group Inc.	www.pdmconstructiongroup.com
Jared Squires	Peel the Apple New York Sightseeing Tours
Sandra Correia	Pelcor USA, LLC	www.pelcor.pt
David Bomke	Personal
Frank Yao	Physiclo	www.physiclo.com
Marie-Eve Poirier	PSL Group
Yiannis Broustas	Rabt	www.rabt.co
Jake Soffer	Rollio	www.rollioforce.com
Bruce Koch	Schmidt LLC	www.schmidt-llc.com
Alex Shulman	Shulman & Hill Workers Compensation Firm	www.shulmanwc.com
Jun Okada	Six Flags Theme Park (Great Adventure)
Nicole Heyman	Soilair Selection	www.soilairselection.com
Jon Graber	Speedpro Imaging	www.speedpronycmtvernon.com
Brian McNeill	Stringr	www.stringr.com
Jade Huang	StyleSage	www.stylesage.co
Asdrubal Hernandez	Suaquia Group	www.sudaquiaps.com
David Renard	The Loadown	www.theloadown.com
Tracey Allard	The Resolution Project	www.resolutionproject.org
Joaquin Rocca	The Scaffold	www.thescaffold.com
Emma Schwartz	TheyCay	www.theycay.com
Jimmy Cuneyt Gurkan	TOA Consulting	www.teamofamerica.us
Brian Raynor	Tri State Office Interiors	www.tristateoi.com
Jennifer Rose	UNO Pizzeria & Grill	www.unos.com
Fergie Kuzucuoglu	Victoria Classics
Melissa Halfon	Vidcode	www.vidcode.io
Katherine Foronjy	Vitamin Enriched Casting	www.vitaminenrichedfilms.com

Announcing the Re-Launch of the NYC Benchmarking Help Center!

Dear Friends of the CUNY Building Performance Lab,

We are excited to announce the re-launch of the NYC Benchmarking Help Center, a partnership of the NYC Mayor's Office of Sustainability (MOS) and the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems Building Performance Lab (CUNY BPL).

As the first of its kind in the nation, the Benchmarking Help Center originally ran from 2011-2013 through a partnership with CUNY BPL, MOS, the NYC Dept. of Buildings, NYSERDA, and the Institute for Market Transformation. The Help Center supported property owners in complying with Local Law 84 of 2009 (LL84), a legislative mandate requiring all buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to annually submit energy and water benchmarking reports. In its first two years the Help Center received over 2,000 calls and helped New York City achieve an impressive 75% first-year compliance rate.  

The re-launched Help Center is a free, one-stop shop for LL84 information and assistance, with dedicated full-time staff supported by CUNY interns, located at the Building Energy Exchange (BEEx) in downtown Manhattan.  If building owners have questions about deadlines, whether or not a property is covered, how to gather energy and water data, or how to use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® tool, the Help Center is available to assist.

The NYC Benchmarking Help Center can be reached at:

EMAIL: questions@benchmarkinghelpcenter.org
PHONE: 212-566-LL84 (212-566-5584)
WEB: www.nyc.gov/ll84helpcenter

The Help Center also supports the  NYC Energy and Water Retrofit Accelerator, which assists property owners with conducting energy audits and retro-commissioning to comply with Local Law 87, and implementing energy and water upgrades in their buildings.  Together, these two programs are direct building-owner engagement efforts of the City's One City: Built to Last plan, which aims at reducing New York City's buildings-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 30 percent by 2025 through initiatives that address GHG emissions from the city's building stock - the largest source of citywide emissions.  One City: Built To Last is in turn one facet of the City's larger overall One New York: The Plan for a Strong and Just City plan for 2050, which envisions how New York City will achieve goals in growth, sustainability, resiliency, and equity.

The Impact of Benchmarking:

Benchmarking energy and water usage is a key element of the City's Greener, Greater Buildings Program (GGBP), and is valuable for improving a building's operations by providing a clear picture of overall energy and water usage. Furthermore, the aggregated public data allows owners and managers to compare their usage to other buildings, while year-over-year comparisons of the data can help identify and prioritize energy saving opportunities and track progress.

Benchmarking and Beyond:

The Help Center's expanded capacity will focus on improving the quality of LL84 report submissions, assisting property owners who have had difficulty complying in previous years, and smoothing the way for properties that may need to conduct benchmarking in the future or want to utilize benchmarking to undertake energy efficiency measures.

Verizon partners with Grind to open cowroking space in historic Lower Manhattan building to support startups, freelancers & creatives

Initiative will create center for innovation; to be operational early 2016

You can find the original article by visiting PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Oct. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon today announced an initiative designed to connect with New York City's tech community, in which it will open a coworking space at its landmark building at 140 West Street in lower Manhattan, across from One World Trade Center.

The space will provide flexible workspace options for startups and entrepreneurs seeking access to a networked community of diverse talent and expertise. Verizon is working with Grind, an experienced operator of premium membership-based coworking communities, to curate the experience.

As part of the initiative, Verizon will convert 10,000+ square feet of an underutilized floor at its iconic, former headquarters building. The space will connect the coworking community to Verizon's advanced Internet services and provide a platform for modern work in the legacy, Art Deco structure. The company expects to be operational in early 2016.

"With a rapidly growing tech sector in New York City, and a desire by those firms for high-speed connectivity, reliability and stability, our building will be getting new life as a center of innovation and collaboration," said John Vazquez, Verizon's senior vice president for Global Real Estate.

The space is being designed by Gensler, a leading architecture and design firm. The objective of the new space is to provide an environment that inspires knowledge sharing and collaboration among members of the coworking community and to enable them to problem solve and co-create with some of the best and brightest in their industries.

"Grind is excited to form this collaborative partnership with Verizon to create a coworking location that will align with Grind's mission to shape the future of work," said Grind co-founder Benjamin Dyett. "Grind's friction-free business model, premium aesthetic, and culture of innovation combined with Verizon's technology and real estate expertise will deliver a powerful workplace experience to users of the space."

With a focus on capturing a target audience of start-ups and entrepreneurs, mentorship will be provided through Verizon Ventures, the venture capital arm of the company.

Verizon has a history of entrepreneur empowerment through The Powerful Answers Award program, which has issued $16 million in awards to date with $6 million more to be awarded later this year. 

The company looks forward to working with a talented and diverse external community of entrepreneurs, technology developers, community leaders and academics. "We expect this location – and possibly others across the country – will be a dynamic work environment where start-up and creative entrepreneurs can form vibrant interdisciplinary communities geared toward collaboration and innovation," said Vazquez.

Members will have access to Verizon's high speed broadband and other platform technologies to boost their development opportunities. The space will include open workspace, team rooms, conference rooms, and meeting spaces, to accommodate around 120 people per day.

Verizon will use the West Street location as a test bed to potentially launch coworking operations with Grind in Verizon locations throughout New York City and other entrepreneurial communities across the country.  Each coworking site will be customized to fit the needs of the particular community it serves.

About Grind

Grind is a premium operator of members-only collaborative workspaces designed for 'people who would rather work in a community than at a company'. It is a professional platform designed to fuel the leap from traditional corporate environments to 'the future of work' by offering not only flexible, beautiful spaces, but also communities of like-minded, hard working entrepreneurs who can share advice and expertise to enhance opportunities. Learn more about the Grind and Verizon partnership at www.grindspaces.com/grind-west-coworking.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, employs a diverse workforce of 178,500 and generated more than $127 billion in 2014 revenues. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with 109.5 million retail connections nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. For more information, visit www.verizon.com/news/.

VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts and other information are available at Verizon's online News Center at www.verizon.com/news/. The news releases are available through an RSS feed. To subscribe, visit www.verizon.com/about/rss-feeds/.

SOURCE Verizon

Wells Fargo: Small Businesses Enter 2016 with More Optimism

Improved cash flow and future outlook boost latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index; survey also captures attitudes about mobile banking, EMV-chip card technology

 

New York, N.Y., Feb. 19, 2016 – Small business owners expressed a level of optimism not seen in a year in the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, conducted January 11-15, as the Index’s overall score rose to 67, a 13-point gain from November’s survey. 

 

The quarterly survey, which measures the optimism of small business owners, had previously declined for three consecutive quarters, falling to an overall score of 54 in November. The January increase was the largest quarter-over-quarter increase since January 2015, when the Index also rose 13 points. 

 

The bounce in optimism benefitted largely from small business owners feeling better about their cash flow, with 60 percent saying their cash flow was very or somewhat good over the past 12 months – a level not seen since the fourth quarter of 2007. Looking ahead, 66 percent of business owners expect their cash flow to be very or somewhat good in the next 12 months, compared to 63 percent in November. Most other Index measures had small increases or were unchanged in the first-quarter survey.

 

“The latest Index scores show that small business owners are more upbeat about their current and future business conditions,” said Joe Kirk, Wells Fargo Region President.   “This suggests small business owners are entering 2016 with greater confidence, and cash flow sentiment is driving that optimism.”

Small business payment trends

The Index also gauged small business owners’ attitudes about EMV chip-enabled debit and credit cards. Beginning Oct. 1, 2015, merchants needed to convert to new EMV-enabled card processing systems or accept liability for any fraudulent point-of-sale card transactions. To meet the October 1 deadline, merchants were encouraged to update their card processing systems to accept chip-enabled cards. Almost half (48 percent) of business owners surveyed in January said that their card processing system is currently chip-enabled, up from 31 percent in August 2015. 

 

Of the business owners who have not updated their card processing system to accept chip-enabled cards, 22 percent plan to do so in the next six months, and 14 percent say within the next 12 months. One in five business owners (20 percent) say they never plan to upgrade.

About the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index

Since August 2003, the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index has surveyed small business owners on current and future perceptions of their business financial situation. The Index consists of two dimensions: 1) Owners’ ratings of the current situation of their businesses and, 2) Owners’ ratings of how they expect their businesses to perform over the next 12 months. Results are based on telephone interviews with 600 small business owners, with annual revenues up to $20 million, in all 50 United States conducted January 11-15, 2016. The overall Small Business Index is computed using a formula that scores and sums the answers to 12 questions — six about the present situation and six about the future. An Index score of zero indicates that small business owners, as a group, are neutral – neither optimistic nor pessimistic – about their companies’ situations.   The overall Index can range from -400 (the most negative score possible) to +400 (the most positive score possible), but in practice spans a much more limited range. The margin of sampling error is +/- four percentage points. The highest Index reading was +114 in the fourth quarter of 2006, and the lowest reading was -28 in the third quarter of 2010.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.8 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through 8,700 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36 countries to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune’s 2015 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories. 

About Gallup

For more than 70 years, Gallup has been a recognized leader in the measurement and analysis of people’s attitudes, opinions and behavior.  While best known for the Gallup Poll, founded in 1935, Gallup’s current activities consist largely of providing marketing and management research, advisory services and education to the world’s largest corporations and institutions.

MCC Testimonial: Mark Cobb, H&R Block

"Just wanted to send a word of thanks for all that you have done for the Block Advisors brand. From participating in our ribbon cutting to making such great events available for me to attend, it really have been a great year so far. Thank you."

Mark Cobb
H&R Block Advisors

MCC Partner News: Con Edison Implements ETIP 2016

As of January 1, 2016, Con Edison’s Energy Efficiency programs have entered a new operating cycle called the Energy Efficiency Transition Implementation Plan (ETIP) which focuses on updated strategies and initiatives for achieving energy reduction. The former EEPS programs; Residential Program, Multifamily Energy Efficiency Program (MFEEP), Small Business Direct Install Program (SBDI) and the Commercial and Industrial Program (C&I) will continue to operate under updated rules and guidelines.

PROGRAM UPDATES

Residential Program

• The eligibility criteria for the Residential Program remains the same; offerings are to customers in residential buildings with 1 to 4 units 
• The program has added new measures and appliances to the Appliance Rebate Program 

MFEEP

• Customer eligibility has been expanded to include all residential buildings with more than 5 units (no longer capped at 75 units) 
• The program will continue to give incentives for gas and electric direct-install and prescriptive measures. Additionally, the program will offer incentives for custom measures 
• The program will no longer be offering free Common Area energy surveys to all building customers. 
• Qualifying low-income customers will be offered additional benefits to participate, in the form of no- cost measures for building common areas. 

SBDI

• Eligibility has been updated to include service class 2, 9 and 51 customers who pay into the SBC with an average peak demand of up to 300kW (no longer capped at an average peak demand of 100kW) 
• The program will continue to offer prescriptive electric measures in lighting and refrigeration; with an all LED offering for various lighting applications 

C&I

• Program eligibility has been redefined to exclude Mulitfamily buildings and lighting projects for commercial buildings with an average peak demand of ≤ 300kW. 
• The program will continue to offer incentives for both gas and electric prescriptive measures as well as custom measures 

TRANSITIONING PROJECTS

Multifamily buildings with greater than 75 units were formerly eligible under the C&I program. SBDI projects with an average peak demand in the 100-300kW range were formerly eligible under the C&I program. As of January 1st 2016, these former C&I projects that were not officially sold to a customer (per a signed  agreement with a customer to proceed with a work scope), will be re-directed to qualify for incentives only in the Multifamily and SBDI Programs respectively, per the new eligibility rules.

Market Partners who have sold projects (i.e. have a signed work agreement with customers under the C&I Program as of Decemeber 31, 2015) will have a grace period to submit paperwork evident of that sold commitment. Such paperwork should be submitted to the C&I program on or before February 15, 2016 for

participation in the former C&I EEPS. Projects that do not meet this criteria (jobs signed on or after January 1, 2016), must be transitioned to MFEEP or SBDI to qualify for incentives. Market Partners are encouraged to do the following to begin the transition process:

For Multifamily projects, reach out to the current implementation contractor for MFEEP (The          Association for Energy Affordability), to initiate “Participating Contractor” status in this program,        and to work under the 2016 MFEEP guidelines.
       Program Contact: Jeff Laino, Program Manager
       Email: jlaino@aea.us.org
       Phone: 718-292-6733

For SBDI projects, reach out to the current implementation contractor for SBDI (Willdan Energy          Solutions) by February 15, 2016 to learn of opportunities to coordinate on projects that are now          incentivized in SBDI.
       Program Contact: Rachel Seraspe, Program Manager
       Email: rseraspe@willdan.com
       Phone: 646-604-4498

C&I Program Contact: Arthur W. Pearson, CEM, Manager, Business Development C&I                          Incentive
       Email: arthur.w.pearson@lmco.com
       Phone: 646 312 8910 x119