[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Business Steps Up, a presentation of Hiali, one of the recognized voices in Long island business. We'll focus on cutting edge topics important to the bi county region and beyond. So sit back, relax and listen to some of Long Island's most influential business leaders here on Business Steps Up.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Hiali Business Steps Up. My name is Terry. Lisa Micelli. Excited about this episode. Today we'll be talking about the Long island and certainly how the Suffolk Industrial Development Agency, Suffolk IDA really lends itself to them and what's going on, what they're doing here on Long Island. You know, it's interesting that Business Steps up in particular started. We started it through Covid and we understood that there were just so many companies that were reaching out and doing such wonderful things to help out the Long island business community through that pandemic.
And we began to highlight them because that's all we could do, right, Is some things virtually we continued it, continued it. It's been wildly successful. So I'm really excited today to have Kelly Murphy, who's a very good friend. She's an API ally, board member and the CEO, executive director and CEO of ida. Thanks, Kelly. Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. So we had on Hunter Brodman, he's the head of operations for Casanova Meats. Thank you, Hunter, for joining us. Of course. And Steve Griffith, who is the president of nationwide 360. So both of these organizations are in the Long Island Innovation park at pop hog. And we'll talk a little bit more about that as well. But I'm going to start with you, Kellan. So Suffolk IDA does tremendous work all over, you know, in Suffolk county with 20 talk about what you do. I'm. I'm always amazed with people that I meet and I know we meet them sometimes together that really don't know what you do.
I think we just lost Kelly.
I think we just lost our. So we'll wait till she comes back on. There you go. We got you back. That's what happened when we. When we're live.
So tell us what the Suffolk IDA does. Did you hear the question? You want me to repeat it?
[00:02:19] Speaker C: I did not hear the question.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Sorry.
So what I said was I'm always amazed at how many people don't necessarily know what the Suffolk IDA does.
So tell us about some of the wonderful things that you do. What do you do for organizations?
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Oh, great. So the Suffolk IDA Industrial Development Agency.
We are economic developers and we work with the county and our, our main mission, our main goal Obviously, is to help businesses grow and expand and remain in the county.
We help them and in return they increase employment, retain the current employees they have. And all of this adds to the quality of life for the folks here in the county.
We do that a variety of different ways. You know, we can get into that, further into the program, but the main mission is just really supporting economic development growth through financial incentives that we offer to businesses.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Right. So you know what? More important now than ever before. Right. As we see many organizations, the good news is they're expanding like these two. Right. And yes, wonderful things. So Steve, I'm going to start with you. Tell us, tell us about what nationwide 360 guys.
Those who don't know. Sure.
[00:03:43] Speaker D: Nationwide 360. We, we do, we do live events, we do exhibition trade shows and brand experiences and stuff. The company was started in the mid-50s. Two gentlemen started out as window trimmers, which evolved into exhibition, which ended up in different types of live events, activations, pop up shops and stuff of that nature.
And Long island, we've. We've been based here in Long island for over 50 years because we originally was started in Brooklyn.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Right. So that's quite the transition. They started, as you said, window.
[00:04:23] Speaker D: Window trimmers. Yes.
[00:04:25] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker D: And the story goes that a company was looking for somebody to build an exhibition stand, a trade show booth. And of course being two entrepreneurs, seeing that they could do anything, said absolutely.
And after doing some research, they figured out what a trade show exhibit was, they developed it and they realized what a big market, big opportunity it was for the company to grow.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Talk about. You're right. Being an entrepreneur. I'm just saying. That's great. It's a great story. How about for you, Hunter, Tell us about Casanova Meats. I love the name by the way. Can you tell us what name started? Casanova Meat, definitely.
[00:05:03] Speaker E: So Casanova Meats now is a wholesale food distributor with meat, seafood and dry goods. The name actually comes from being on Casanova street in the Bronx.
And then once we moved, it was actually my grandpa that opened up retail stores in Freeport. And at first we had just a butcher shop along with my dad who helped expand that into multiple butcher shops until we moved into wholesale around 15 years ago. And then since this transition and over the last five years, we've grown tremendously in the restaurant manufacturing for cutting of meat, portion cut and anything food service related. And we've grown over the last five years leading up to getting the new facility in Hotpag where we service around 700 restaurants in the tri state area.
And we've kind of just continued to grow from a small butcher shop into a wholesale distribution department that carries a full line of products.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Right. So Hunter, what do you, what do you attribute that growth to?
[00:06:10] Speaker E: It definitely comes down to the people we work with and what we consider family.
We've been family run and operated since 1945 and we continue to be family run.
So like my dad has taken us to the next level from working with his grandpa. I have myself, my brother and my sister that work alongside me as well, along with a great staff that have been with us forever. There's people that have been with the company for 40 years now that used to work for my grandpa. And even moving into this new building, we've already added on 24 new jobs for employees to help grow with us. So every employee that we hire, we try and have the ability to grow within the organization and we like to develop people within the company and give everyone a chance to grow in the company. And that's how we've had what we think is a great employee base and keeps the retention of our employees pretty much as long as they want to be with us. We give them a good chance and we've really seen the growth of our own employees that way.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Great. That's great. So you're doing what we're all attempting to do and not necessarily you're in a family owned business. We're not, but really helping employees feel like family, but they really are family, which is gay.
So Kelly, I'm going to go back to you to talk a little bit about. So these two gentlemen, these two companies decided to move into hot pot, which is wonderful on, on Long island, right? Yes. We've done a lot of work together.
So for those of you who are watching who don't know, we partnered in 2019, I think it was right to do a liquidity analysis that the Suffolk Industrial Development Agency funded for this, what was then called the Hop Hog Industrial park, now renamed the Long Island Innovation park at Hop Hogs where we'll look at its economic output. So Kelly, can you talk a little bit about that, why you decided to do that with us and what was the benefit of it?
Sure.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Happy to. So we began about a decade ago working with Regional Plan association, which is a not for profit planning group to support and assist and foster growth in the different towns throughout Suffolk County.
So aside from just helping businesses with the financial incentives, you know, we like to believe that we, we do a whole lot more with regards to thought leadership and planning and really looking forward to opportunities to continue to. To encourage this growth and innovation.
So we were providing these planning services to municipalities that were desiring them. For starters. They're, you know, communities that really were looking to grow and expand and find ways to increase the tax base, which is improves the quality of life for everybody in Suffolk County. So we were doing that in a lot of different places. And as you recall, Terry, you know, we started talking and it occurred to me, I said, you know, 50% of the business that we do is in the innovation park at Hopawk. And so I said, why don't we look at what the possibilities are or how we could kind of move into the 21st century. And that's when I think our first meeting we met with your board of directors and of course you and just did a simple SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. You're from that one little meeting, it kind of morphed into a variety of reports, of course that you did with and without us to really look at the possibilities and opportunities. And I think a lot of the stats and of course I'll let you do that, that came from that study to really educate people about what the park is up to and including the fact that there's really little signage kind of pointing it out.
And. And I'll just steal one if I could. You know, always so impressive to hear that it's the second largest park in the United States and second only to Silicone Valley. And when you tell people that, they just kind of. It's that wow effect really.
But this is a perfect lead to you to. To add the other stats that came as a result of those studies.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: So. Yeah, and, and listen, that statistics study really was. Was the catapult for us as an organization to look at not only the name change, but certainly advocating for signage and electric vehicles and many, many other things that are happening right now as we're painting number one.
But the sex were astounding. I grew up in hot fog and you know, genuinely wore my bicycle pinking. I rule there was know about the park and 55,000 employees, 1300 companies, an economic output of 13 billion. I mean a major economic engine which has led us to get other monies and other things, as I said. So thank you. Thank you again, gentlemen, for cleansing your companies here. I mean, that's important. So Steve, talk to us a little bit about not only nationwide 360, and I want to thank you also. I know you guys were a major supporter of Our trade show in 2025. So thank you for that. I mean, our members really got to know who you are and what you do, but also talk about why.
[00:11:53] Speaker D: Well, you know, post pandemic, our business really elevated because people were ready to get back to face to face.
And we were working out of two facilities, which was serviceable, but we needed to be under one roof. And it be known I bid on three buildings in Haupaud over the past 15 years. And I guess the third time is a charm.
And we were successful in having our bid accepted for where we are now at 40 Adams, but with the support of Kelly at a Suffolk county ida. You know, David Hunt, my real estate broker, had introduced me to Kelly and Kelly outlined the process, which seems so sensible because we did look elsewhere. I mean, we did look at a state, I'll be honest, we looked with the Carolinas, we looked at Georgia from expenses and labor and stuff. But this is our home. Long Island's been our home for over 50 years. And hop Hog is a location that is ideal for us. You know, there's a lot of customers of our own within the park, but it gives us a lot of ability and credibility to grow. And when we were, when we were able to, to pursue this opportunity, we just forged ahead. And again with Suffolk County IDA support Kelly's team and Terry, the support of the HIA even during the recent trade show was a huge hit. Just to introduce nationwide 360 to the. To the business community.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Right. So you're all set. You're both settled in? Yes. You build in so far.
[00:13:26] Speaker D: I'm sorry you broke up there.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Settled into the building now. And you are.
[00:13:31] Speaker D: We are.
We're at that point where we could say all the boxes are in and just about unpacked. And our next step will be to do our own internal build out. But we've been successful in staying busy. So we're looking to do our internal build out for the actual offices and stuff to give it our own personal touch. And we will be doing, as I mentioned to both you and Kelly, an open house. And we love to share the opportunity to have you, to have you all visit. And we're very excited to show on your spouse.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah, we sure do.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: You know, you both mentioned at some point family owned business. I mentioned on up to 12. We have a lot of members that or either started out as a family owned business, continue to be that and or have gone through some sort of transition where they might not be a family owned business now, but couple got the closing fund not for the saints of heart. I know I've been a family business for many years.
But Hunter, I'm going to start with you. What do you feel is the probe to being in a family, Andrew? Being a family never hear.
[00:14:41] Speaker E: Yeah. I think the most important part of being in a family run business is everyone really has a little bit of skin in the game. So there's a little more care that comes from that because it is your own reputation, your family name and your own bottom line as well. So I think that's the biggest strength and weakness there. There becomes a lot more stress that comes involved. It's not like you're at a different company that you could leave at 4 o' clock and then there's no more regard to the job per se. It's, it's a kind of 247 game of being in a family run business. But I think ultimately it's, it's the most important part of our success and also gives us the opportunity to continue to grow with kind of having our own control and not having to talk to a board per se when it's within the family business.
So I think that's definitely helped us and the way we've kind of handled it is each individual family member handles a different department.
So it's allowed us to grow on our own and also help grow the company where everyone could kind of help out in their different strengths that they could help the business grow.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Right.
So any, any cons to that?
[00:16:02] Speaker E: Not necessarily. I think just the added stress of having it be your own business and be family run that could become challenging of just kind of being on 247 versus working for a company or where it's a group, group owned I think is the biggest stress, especially in regards to financials. And with the IDA's help, that was kind of how we were able to afford this building with all the tax incentives. So stuff like that, that made it a little more palatable to get such a big building over here.
We moved from 12,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet.
So it was a big jump.
But that again was something that we wanted to.
What we needed to do and what we wanted to do and it happened to be Hotpot was the perfect place for that. We looked for three or four years before we decided to make the jump on this building. So that was kind of the, the end goal and we still have some work ahead of us. We're USDA inspected facility out of our West Babylon facility currently. And once we're transitioning over, which should hopefully be in the month of October, everything will be ran out of this facility. So we just curated our own 7,000 square foot USDA cutting facility in here as well.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Great. That's great. So Kelly, I'm going to hop back over to you just to begin a discussion of what you're seeing right now in the economy in terms of what you see businesses biggest challenge.
What are you hearing? I mean, we're hearing a lot. We continue to hear a lot about, you know, workforce and finding the right people to put in the right spots. Confirm, you know, the position can take yourself not easy.
But what else do here?
[00:17:54] Speaker C: So aside from workforce, which of course you can't really talk about workforce unless you talk about the lack of affordable housing and housing choices.
I think that's a huge challenge for the community, for the region.
It's something we're trying to address and it's made harder by the cost of doing business on the island and some of the challenges that we face.
But the quality of life here on Long island is such that thankfully if you live here and you raise your family here, you are fiercely loyal to the quality of life that you get to enjoy here. Right. So I think housing is something we all really need to continue to focus on. And you know, also with workforce just really developing career pathways and reaching back into the schools as early as high school and in college to especially with manufacturing. And for both gentlemen on the call, you know, they're not just fast factory workers anymore, right. These are highly skilled workforce that work in, you know, technological, you know, warehouses and automation, that sort of thing. So I think that's part of it too.
I do think we're, we're seeing now an ex. More of an expansion with manufacturers that are here with industry that is here.
We still A big challenge that we have is attracting new business to the county from outside of New York.
So we are fiercely protective of the companies that are here, which is why we do what we do, which is providing financial incentives to help them grow and remain and stay here. And we, we have stories about mayors and governors from South Carolina and Pennsylvania flying in and walking in and out of buildings all the time. I'm sure both Steve and Hunter can speak about, you know, being recruited by other places. So, you know, as economic developers, that's something that we battle. But retention is really so important for all of us. So they'll, you know, there's often misunderstandings about the work that we do in terms of financial incentives. So with, with both Good meats and nationwide 360, we provided them with sales tax exemptions, in some cases the mortgage recording tax exemptions, but most importantly, the pilots, the payment and loan.
And what we do is provide, you know, short term savings to companies for a long term gain. So in return for that, because we're a public benefit agency, they have to commit to keeping all of the jobs that they currently have, creating new jobs and making private capital investment here in the county, and spending their money here in the county, doing their best to hire local labor, doing their best to source all of the burials or as much as they can here in the county.
I want to note Hunter said early on that They've already created 24 jobs in this new location. Well, when they came to us, they committed to creating 22.
And that was just earlier in the year and they had two years to do that. So that speaks a lot to the work that they're doing. And I visited both.
The best part of the job is I get to go and meet with the principals and CEOs and tour their facility and see what they do and see how they interact with their employees, which always tells me a lot about them, by the way. It's kind of interesting. But, you know, when I went to West Babylon, I was, I. I drove by it a few times, like, where.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: In the world is this place?
[00:21:56] Speaker C: So they're in like a strip mall, literally. And you have to pull in behind the building. They had trailers, he had these two. Every single inch of the space was taken.
So bursting at the seams was an understatement for them. And the same for Steve, you know, his warehouse there isn't, there wasn't.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: I don't know about now, but there.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Wasn'T an inch of space that wasn't being utilized.
So it's, you know, I think the challenges and it takes, it takes a village, right? I work in a huge team of people. It's not just the Suffolk county idea, it's all the ideas.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: It's the state.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Empire State Development has benefits they offer the utility companies. So we all partner together.
So when Steve and Hunter's family came to us, we said, listen, not only can we help you, but we can introduce you to a bevy of other resources and you can have the full suite. And all of those things together are meaningful, right? To help them grow and create deeper roots here in stupid county.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And listen, that's the beauty of it, right? You're entering into partnership where you're saying not only these two gentlemen, but other organizations that you Work with will partner but in exchange right you will be adding X amount of jobs and you will be adding X amount of whatever that you know revenue which is beautiful. We could get gifted right back into the the economy. So congratulations down me really you know to end this. It's. It's actually almost 230. I can't believe it. But I'm going to ask you both I'll start with you Steve. Talk about expansion but talk about what you see at nationwide360 within the next three to five years.
[00:23:45] Speaker D: Even that Butchain looks like so you know with the. With the help of self accounting idea giving us the capability to have a larger facility.
You know we foresee the growth factor. You know exhibition's always been our primary. But creating those experiences for customers allows us to go through other avenues. You know from doing corporate events. We just did the US Open with fire yogurt. We're doing PGA events to expand our portfolio and not only in construction but also adding the services and marketing services that would include attribute to our clients programs. So it allows us we. We have the infrastructure to expand and most importantly to retain and invest in our most important asset. Which is. Which is my employees, our team members.
And that's really with the. You know I think Hunter you would said it you were able to to. To take the opportunity to buy the building but with the incentives it allows us to support our team and grow up and keep our roots here which was most important.
And just with that our growth pattern. You know I feel the next five years should be 50% higher than what we're doing now. And without that you know where we were we would not be able to do so.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. And listen that's what we hear over and over again with organizations that are thriving and expanding successful is they understand how book with people and folks. Right. It's worry about your people and it's all about customer service as well.
Well, how bad for you Humphrey?
Where do you see casting over needs? What does that look like?
[00:25:25] Speaker E: Yeah, I think similar to Stephen it It's definitely kind of the same aspects in regards to continue our revenue growth with now being able to based on the facility that we're in now going from one and a half loading docks to now having nine loading docks. Not only will it help us continue to grow our revenue, it's now allowing us to once we get settled in to help reduce some of our costs and make us more efficient being able to load trucks at a faster rate get deliveries out to our customers. Earlier. So that's some of the things that we've been really looking forward to to moving in. And we already have started that which we've seen a tremendous difference.
And also just being in this location itself, we've definitely had troubles hiring people in the past and recently just putting pretty much two signs on our lawn out of our new hotpot facility. We have like 200 applicants in the first month of people just driving by and dropping off resumes. So it's that. That part has been a big surprise for us and has been really helpful for us as we have more employees that we're looking for, especially with the loading of the trucks, stocking of products. So that's been extremely helpful. And we just continue now to kind of like you mentioned before, we were went from a place that we were hidden on purpose or not to now being in a state of the art facility that will be able to bring in clients, give them a tour of the facility. They know they're buying from a powerhouse now versus what they previously thought could have been a butcher shop. So we have the infrastructure to show off what we do and why we're so successful and we'll be able to continue our business that way as well.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: That's great. That's great. And you know, it's interesting you bring up that point about because this park is so dense and walkable. That is what we see. We see people. We had some people walk in the other day and ask for jobs. They're constantly walking and just seeing like an opportunity. So I'm glad that's what you do. Understand how difficult sometimes it can be to find the right people and fit them in the right seats. Right. That's a big challenge for business.
So thank you again for being with us. I'm just going to sign off in the escrow or.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: Yes, Billy, can I just jump in for a second? I just do want to mention that through the incredible leadership and support of the county executive Ed Vermain, we've really come up with some amazing initiatives and his support has just been something that's so noteworthy. I have to bring it up between you know, the solar policies and supporting us in so many different ways as far as helping companies grow and, and his directive. So I just want to thank him for that.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we just did a. As you know, helly because you were in it. We just did a promotional video. Well the fark a new box he would want to follow.
Yeah, he really is a huge support in what we do is.
[00:28:19] Speaker E: Great.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: So thank you again I am going to ask just for the viewers to tell them how I can reach your company will tell you for you.
Tell us what the website is or how.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Sure we can be
[email protected] you can call us at the office and talk to us live any day.
631-853-4803 or you can email
[email protected] Great.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: How about for you Steve?
[00:28:51] Speaker D: Absolutely and thank you Terry and Kelly. You can reach nationwide360 at nationwide360.com or call us 631-467-2034 and or hello at nationwide360.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: What the world will pass on the phone.
[00:29:13] Speaker E: Yep. I'll start with the phone number. Then we have 631-789-5130 would be the office number.
By email you could reach us at or me
[email protected] and our website would be Casanovameatswholesale.com Great.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: And thank you again. Really two great examples of companies not only expanding but believe so strongly in their people. Well, thank you for being here and giving back to the economy. What can I say about Kelly? You're missing the work you do is instrumental not only in the park but you know, all over Long Island.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Thank you. It's my pleasure and passion.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: For those of you watching, stay tuned again for Business Steps Up. They'll be back in probably about a month. I'll lighting some other companies. So thank you again and have a great afternoon and weekend.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Business Steps up is a production of Hiali, one of the recognized voices for business on Long island and a powerful voice and economic engine for regional development. Check back for more interesting thought provoking episodes with some of Long Island's most influential business leaders. For more information call us at 631-54-33-5355 or log on to hia-li.org.
