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The LOCATE Finger Lakes website was launched Wednesday to promote the Finger Lakes Region as a great place to locate business enterprise. The new website was produced by an initiative begun last summer, and today that initiative also announced it is changing its name to coincide with a new brand and logo, LOCATE Finger Lakes.
The LOCATE Finger Lakes website highlights many strengths of the Finger Lakes, and focuses attention on the region's attractiveness for locating businesses and new career opportunities.
Combining with the new website, the LOCATE Finger Lakes initiative will also utilize Facebook and other social media to assist established economic development efforts to promote the region and help recruit business to the variety of sectors which comprise the region's diverse economy.
"The LOCATE Finger Lakes website showcases the region's tremendous natural beauty, hundreds of miles of waterfront, wonderful communities, world-class high-tech scientific research, abundant resources, a long history of creativity and business innovation, and as a great place to start and grow a family and a business," said Jack Bisgrove founder of the LOCATE Finger Lakes initiative. "It is our hope this new website and our continued work at LOCATE Finger Lakes will assist those individuals and organizations who are working diligently to enhance the development of positive business opportunities in our region."
Leading the LOCATE Finger Lakes initiative and the development of its website and other projects is former New York State Senator Mike Nozzolio, who represented the region for over three decades, and is a partner in the Harris Beach law firm. "It was a labor of love to work together as a dedicated team, who cares deeply about our region, to develop the LOCATE Finger Lakes website and promote our wonderful region to the national and international business community," added Nozzolio.
"LOCATE Finger Lakes is especially grateful to our many partners, whose collaboration was invaluable as we worked together to structure our message saluting the Finger Lakes as the region of the future, so beautiful, livable and located in the middle of a high-tech triangle with significant university-based research, innovation, skilled scientific training and product development."
"LOCATE Finger Lakes extends special gratitude to Teresa and Dennis Angelo, owners of InHouse Design of Geneva and laud their creativity and hard work in developing the website. InHouse Design, with Teresa and Dennis at the helm, is emblematic of the great small businesses of the Finger Lakes. The InHouse team is dedicated to their clients, and bring an innovative and creative approach to their projects."
The LOCATE Finger Lakes Initiative plans to sponsor a variety of additional projects that showcase business and entrepreneurship in the region. "Continuing collaboration with our partners is essential as LOCATE Finger Lakes further refines its website and develops other projects. LOCATE Finger Lakes seeks to reflect our partners' needs as we work together to promote our wonderful region,"Nozzolio concluded.
- The LOCATE Finger Lakes website is a resource that provides the reader with a host of links to its Finger Lakes partners, including county and state economic development offices, business improvement districts, chambers of commerce, many local communities, tourism promotion organizations and wine trails, and the community colleges and four year colleges and universities within the region.
- LOCATE Finger Lakes graphically displays the interconnectivity of the eleven majestic Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario, and provides links to Lake Associations dedicated to protecting each watershed, the region's most important natural resources.
- Locations and links are provided identifying technology parks, job-related training services, and an economic development handbook comprehensively cataloging virtually all state and local economic development programs.
- Focus is placed on the high-level scientific research in agriculture, food and technology conducted within and centered in the Finger Lakes. A world-class "Food and Tech Research Triangle" of university-based scientific research, the territory geographically forming the shape of a triangle, extends through the Finger Lakes, bordered by Syracuse, Ithaca and Rochester. Highlights the variety of colleges and universities in the Finger Lakes, that boasts one of the Nation's largest concentration of students per capita.
- The LOCATE Finger Lakes website displays a number of videos, some produced by Empire State Development, and others produced locally that highlight some of the Finger Lakes region's magnets for economic development: world class university based research, shovel-ready development sites, a deep rooted culture of innovation, its beautiful lakes and livable communities. Featured in the videos are Dr. Kathryn Boor, Dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture, and prominent Finger Lakes resident and businessman, Chairman of Wegmans Foods, and former chair of the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council, Danny Wegman.
- LOCATE Finger Lakes highlights an inspirational prescription for economic success in small towns, outlined by Jack Schultz in the book he authored, Boom Town USA: The 7 1/2 Keys to Big Success in Small Towns.
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