Executive Institute provides insight to Saratoga County business leaders

CLIFTON PARK — The Saratoga County Executive Institute, which held its inaugural session in 2007, links young executives and senior management with the leaders of some of the Capital Region’s most successful businesses.

“The idea was to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the businesses work, how they developed,” said Peter Aust, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.

In one case this behind-the-scenes look took the 13 institute participants into the pathology department of Ellis Hospital in Schenectady. “I told them that was a night they would never forget,” said Wendy Rosher, vice president of clinical services at Ellis.

Rosher, who is also an institute graduate, had the hospital pathologist show her fellow institute members what actual body parts looked like, including a heart, kidney and liver.

James W. Connolly, president and CEO of Ellis Hospital, also talked about the hospital and how different a not-for-profit organization, such as Ellis, is from a for-profit business.

The institute was held on nine evenings over 14 weeks from September through December.

A session included touring a local business, hearing from the leaders of this business and also enjoying a dinner at the venue.

“We reached out to businesses, asking if they would host and tell how they grew and became successful,” Aust said about the institute.

Aust said many of the companies were excited about the idea, asking: “When do you want to do it?”

others as models

Aust said the Southern Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, which is headquartered in Clifton Park, did not create the successful institute on its own.

Aust said he modeled the institute on similar programs he has encountered when attending chamber of commerce conventions.

For example, Aust said he borrowed some of the institute’s concepts from a long-running and successful initiative of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, which is headquartered in Saratoga Springs and serves the northern part of the county.

That chamber’s Leadership Saratoga program celebrated its 25th year in 2007.

The program places young, up-and-coming community business people in touch with nonprofit organizations in the region. In months of attending various meetings, the “students” learn about community service and public service before they graduate.

The key to this program and the new Saratoga County Executive Institute is “building strong relationships” among members of the business community, according to Aust.

The new institute started in early September at the Saratoga National Golf Club on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs.

Aust said a tour was taken of the nationally ranked golf course and clubhouse and a meal followed at the club’s Sargo’s Restaurant.

A week later, the intrepid 13 institute students attended a session at the Saratoga Polo Association fields in the town of Greenfield.

Aust said James Rossi, one of the polo association owners, gave the group a tour of the historic Whitney polo field and discussed a proposed $80 million Saratoga Polo Retreat, a resort and conference center built around the sport of polo. The evening included a gourmet meal at the polo clubhouse.

Then, about a week later, it was on to Albany International Airport in Colonie where airport CEO John O’Donnell and spokesman Doug Myers gave the institute members a behind-the-scenes tour of the region’s premier airport and its recent renovations.

“It was comprehensive,” Aust said about the airport tour and presentation given by the airport executives.

Other venues included the new Starfire Systems complex in Malta’s Luther Forest.

The new company creates advanced ceramic materials.

The company supplies “cost-effective engineered ceramic systems, components and finished products” that are used in everything from motorcycles to the space shuttle.

Aust said Starfire was launched in 2003 and has already become one of the leading companies in its field.

warm hospitality

Michael Relyea, the new executive director of the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta, is an institute graduate.

Relyea said he was impressed at how some of the major businesses hosted the students and showed such warm hospitality.

“They really opened their doors to us,” Relyea said.

He said he got to know some of the most successful businesses in the community in a way he would not otherwise have been able to.

For example, when the institute visited Prestige Services, a Clifton Park company that provides food services to many regional and statewide organizations, he was amazed at the company’s commercial kitchens.

“Their kitchen is an asset to the community,” Relyea said.

For Relyea, the institute was a way to introduce the Luther Forest Technology Campus — a 1,300-acre space for new, emerging businesses and their office staffs — to regional business leaders.

“I was able to network with different businesses,” Relyea said. “I was able to apply the personal connections and the extended business connections to what we do every single day.

“It was a convenient time, after work,” Relyea said about the sessions. “It was not rushed, we got to interact with each other and understand the businesses.

“I would love to do it again,” Relyea said about the Saratoga County Executive Institute being developed for 2008.

Aust said the nine sessions culminated with a “graduation” and holiday program Dec. 18 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Saratoga Springs.

Each of the 13 business people participating paid $799 for the nine sessions, which included nine high-end dinners.

Aust said the program is limited to 20 executives. For the first year Aust hoped for at least 12 people and got 13.

“Every one of the people who attended plan on sending another person [in 2008],” Aust said.

“We are already planning our second year,” Aust said.

helping others

He said the Southern Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce is planning to get the alumni from the first institute to share their experiences with the new class of institute students when they gather for the first time in September.

“I just thought it was a fabulous program,” said Rosher, of Ellis Hospital.

“It was not just a network with a group,” she said. “We spent weeks together in visiting these different venues.”

“We visited places where we had never been before,” Rosher said. “We gained a wealth of knowledge.”

Rosher also said she was proud to help the hospital staff give the institute members a tour of Ellis Hospital, including the hospital’s new intensive care unit, the new state-of-the art “64 slice” CT scanner and the hospital’s new digital X-ray storage and display systems.