Cazenovia College is hoping this year to make multi-million-dollar capital improvements to its Center for Equine Business Development — and recently received assistance of up to $500,000 from the New York State Regional Economic Development Council.
The college’s equine business center, located on Woodfield Road off Route 92, has been earmarked to receive up to a half-million-dollar Empire State Development grant in 2014, the REDC announced last December. The college intends to invest the grant in improving its Equine Education Center science labs, and upgrading the business center’s parking and road access, sustainable energy sources, heating, safe storage, fire suppression and technology/communications.
“This will be used to allow the equine business community to gain better access to our facilities so we can help grow the economy,” said Matthew Clark, executive director for external communications at Cazenovia College. “We are very pleased, very excited to be recommended for this grant.”
The mission of the New York State Center for Equine Business Development at Cazenovia College is to strengthen and sustain the equine sector of the state’s economy by tapping the knowledge of equine experts and a network of national and international advisors, according to its website. The center spearheads a coordinated statewide approach to the equine industry’s needs, including securing grants and other support to organize training programs, hosting clinics with nationally known professionals, organizing industry trade fairs and establishing data banks to assist members of the equine community in accessing the latest and most accurate information related to the management and growth of their businesses.
The center, which operates as a non-academic enterprise under the college’s umbrella, is now entering its third year of programming, Clark said. It benefits both the college’s equine business management students as well as the equine industry throughout the region and the state, and consistently partners with other regional institutions such as Morrisville State College’s equine science program and Cornell University’s equine services program to offer free programming to students and the public, he said.
“The equine industry in New York is bigger than the apple industry and the automotive industry,” Clark said. “We see this as one of the greatest growth potentials in the state.”
The college applied for $2 million from the REDC, and was awarded an Empire State Development grant of up to $500,000, Clark said. The center and the college are currently looking at what information they must provide to the state in order to receive the grant funding. They are also waiting to hear the exact amount of the grant they will be awarded.
The intention of the awards is to assist in the promise of job creation by the entities who receive the grants. Clark said the equine business center sees its job-creating potential as a “ripple effect,’ in that their programs can help small companies stay in business and perhaps hire one or two more people. By helping smaller equine industry businesses succeed grow in general, that could have a large impact across the state Clark said. “We help companies stay in business … we’re not hiring people, just helping businesses who hire,” he said.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
