By Rob Thrasher and Girard Plante

Utica College is also very near and dear to my heart. That's where I went to college and had a wonderful experience. After I graduated from Utica College, I wanted to get an MBA at night from Syracuse University, so I looked for a job locally and there was a job at Marine Midland bank in their training program in 1965. I went to work for Marine Midland, and took graduate courses at night, and then began a long career in the banking business. was with Marine nine years. I left Marine and headed up the Bankers Trust operations. Bankers Trust was moving into the area and had bought a small local bank and was looking to expand to Syracuse. I headed the expansion into Syracuse for them. As a matter of fact, one of the old Bankers Trust branches, Adirondack Bank, which I'm associated with, just opened up in North Utica. ... main office of Adirondack Bank is, we actually have two main offices one in Saranac Lake and Utica.

Q: How are you associated with Adirondack Bank?
A: I am chairman of the board, and have made a pretty substantial investment. Of course my main business is McDonalds.

Q: McDonald's was first, before Adirondack Bank?
A: Yes. In 1978 I left the banking business looking for a business to buy in this area. I had financed the last McDonalds operator, a person by the name of Jim Fotos (sp?) years before when the first McDonalds came into the area. That was when I was with the bank he had sold it back to the company. They thought at one point that they could run the stores better than the operators, but what they found is that the backbone of the McDonalds business is the entrepreneurial spirits of the operators that run the stores, at that point they were looking to sell a number of stores. I knew they were for sale I called Ray Crock{sp?} one thing lead to another and I bought a couple of franchises and it lead to the number I have now which is 19 locations. So basically our territory now covers Herkimer, Old Forge, Rome, all of Utica, Clinton, Camden, Oneida, Canastota, Cazenovia, the three Wall Marts, etc. it's been a lot of fun it's a great business and I love it very much. We're in the Head Quarters of that operation right now in the here in the 15th floor of the Adirondack building.

Q: What was your childhood like?
A: My father was a hard working person and a good role model and I had a wonderful mother who eventually worked with my father in his insurance agency. Great sisters and a brother, a happy family life, very happy remembrances of my childhood. I have nothing but fond memories of the Mohawk Valley region and maybe that's why I do the kinds of things I do for the various service agencies and whatever in this area.

McDonalds is a 25 million-dollar operation and employs around eleven hundred people. Its headquartered in this building. That's a whole different story on why I did that. {He's referring to purchasing and revamping the building} Adirondack Bank itself has had a great run, started in 1991 as a 37 million-dollar operation and it's now approaching 150 million dollars. We added 5 locations in the Utica area. We're in Plattsburg, Lake Placid, Old Forge, Saranac Lake and we'll be in a number of new areas in the next 12 months. I'm involved in a number of other things on a limited partnership basis. Business has always been fun to me and that's the way I look at it.

Q: How much and why have you donated to Utica College?
A: They have had some ongoing needs. I was chair of the board of the Utica College Board of Trustees until last July. That was the end of my stint. Although I'm still on the board, I've given well over a million dollars to the school but at one point they really needed an addition to the athletic facility to be competitive to recruit students. They needed racquet-ball courts, a work-out room, a dance studio and the whole facility needed a face lift. So I gave a substantial amount of money for that. Recently, I gave $125,000 tied into their young scholars program. The young scholars program is one in which disadvantaged youth are brought to the college from time to time. It's a wonderful program. As a matter of fact, we've been in it now for 4 years. Our first students are going to college, these are students that might not even have graduated from high school and here they are graduating and going to college. It's very exciting.

The most recent gift was to start the Michael Simpson Scholarship Fund so these kids would have money available for them to go to college. Although I'm not a Mormon, I do subscribe to their philosophy by giving away 15 % of what I make on a yearly basis. Some years it's greater and some it's a little less than 15%. Many people have asked: "Why do you do it?" Obviously, I do it because it makes me feel good. That's the bottom line. I did make a substantial contribution to the Rescue Mission to help them build that facility.

I gave money to St. Lukes in memory of my grandmother Clark when they were building the new home. One reason I did that was because my grandmother years ago was what they called the matron of the St. Luke's Home, which used to be on Whitesboro Street. She was basically the administrator of the home. She did that for about fifteen years, but the last 4 or 5 years she did so as a blind person. Which is quite amazing. They were building a new home and approached me and I wanted to do it in memory of her. I try to confine my philanthropy to children related issues. Very happy to be associated with House of Good Shepherd, and we've done a great job there, re-doing all their cottages. And have done many other things regarding children.

Q: Can you tell me about the Oneida County EDGE realignment.
A: I think its very exciting. Basically the private sector is going to drive the business revival of the Mohawk Valley. And heaven knows we certainly need a revival. We have a fantastic force put together and our goals are very simple. First, we're going to create 1500 net new jobs per year for the next ten years. Second, we're going to increase the population of the area one percent a year for the next ten years. Basically, what we're saying is we want the 25,000 people back that have left the area the last 10 years. We want to bring the area's population from 238,000 to 263,000. That's going to be difficult but we really have some solid ideas to get people back to the area. Third, we want to increase inflation-adjusted real wages by one percent a year for the next 10 years. We want to bring in jobs that improve the economic climate of the area.

Q: New York State Senator Ray Meier's philosophy is to grow pre-existing local businesses. Do you share that view?
A: That is one of the areas we're concentrating on. I believe that at least one-half of the job growth will come from existing local facilities. We're going to call on every business in Oneida County that employs more than 25 people and see what their barriers to growth are. Whether its financing a new building or people development, we'll try to grow existing businesses. Look at ConMed; Par Technology; Utica Mutual, to name a few.

Q: Has the Oneida County EDGE lost its focus?
A: I'm one to always look forward and I really don't like to look back, and the present situation is such where the public and private sector have really come together and were really moving ahead and to debate the past and sit around and figure out who was to blame isn't going to server a purpose.

Q: But you will admit that business people had to get involved. It could not just be a government entity?
A: (laughing) I guess you could get me to say that...

Q: What is your desk made of?
A: The desk is made of a piece of a ship along with several other office furnishings, tables. I mention my love for Big Moose Lake, I collect antique Chris-Crafts and Century {Both types of boats} and this desk is the back-end of a 1947 Chris-Craft. It was made by the person who does all my restoration work. Forest Port Boat Company. Parker Sneed from Forest Port Boat Company. He also made the end tables and coffee tables out of the same wood. When I come to work here I can think of big moose. Here it is in January and we're looking at the snow and all I can think about is that picture right there which is a picture of my summer place and if you look closely you'll see a flagpole there at the end of the lake and this picture was taken with a rainbow coming right over the flagpole. And the gal who is over here {Closest to us} on this side of the lake is a real photographer and if you look closely you'll see the boathouse and you can't see the camp its in the woods there but that's the flagpole at the end of the lake.

Q: Rehabilitation of the Adirondack Bank Building (formerly Bankers Trust Building in Downtown Utica) was a massive job.
A: It's an ongoing cost. One thing I learned about rehabilitating a building is that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, especially when a building has sat for so long. I would not have done it without the help of Utica Mayor Edward A. Hanna. He's has the area's best interest at heart . He was very encouraging. I've said to him many times I can't believe you got me to buy this building for a dollar. (We both laughed). Millions of dollars will go into this building by the time it's fully occupied. The elevators are all new. The roof is rebuilt, the roof drains are rebuilt, the plumbing has been changed and the electrical too. The boiler was able to be rebuilt, we didn't have to put a new boiler in. The parking lot is being finished. A number of the floors are done and a number are under construction. It's done to start the revival of downtown Utica. If the region doesn't have a viable business hub then we don't have a region at that point, we become a suburb of Syracuse. You look around and see buildings being spruced up and people moving back to downtown, and that's really why I did it. If I moved the Hotel Utica project ... we ran into a few road blocks. If we get that restored and running, downtown will really be something again.

Q: What's going on now with that?
A: I can't layout the whole program, but the idea is to get the building restored and get it open again.

Q: You're a partner in that?
A: Let's just say I'm kind of putting it together. I'm not going to be the owner. I'm not going to be running it.

Q: It will be a hotel?
A: There's a great need for hotel space. We've had 250 hotel rooms close within the last year. If we had the Radisson and a hotel that has 250, coupled with the new convention center with the old Boston Store as a convention center, we could bring some convention business in here. I think that will happen.

Q: Future of the Mohawk Valley?
A: We've bottomed out in the Mohawk Valley. There's nothing but good things down the road. We've got very low real estate prices, which means people can come here and buy a house and pay less than what they would in Philadelphia or Hartford, Conn. Coupled with the low crime rate, the quality of life, we've got a lot to sell here. We've got the business community driving the business development effort. Things look bright.

I have a 30 year-old son and a 30 year-old daughter. Computer are an integral part of their operation. I find myself surfing the web, and I never thought I'd do that.

Business is changing so rapidly. When we get to the year 2010 and look back at 1998, we'll say how did they ever operate, and how was this ever done. I leave it to your generation to take the torch and bring all of us older people along. With the Internet coming in on the TV and I mean who knows where this thing is gonna go.

And if you take it another 7 years after that I don't even want to think about what it's gonna be. In terms of technology in the Mohawk Valley, Rome Lab is on the cutting edge of so many technologies. I think we can create a technology hub. With Rome Labs being the center of the hub. We have a bright future.