SUNY Oswego’s First Start-Up NY Partnership Forged

Oswego’s Designer Hardwood Flooring owners (from left) Joe Marmon, vice president, and Sherry Marmon, president and majority owner, show samples of panelized flooring to SUNY Oswego President Deborah F. Stanley.

SUNY Oswego has partnered with Designer Hardwood Flooring CNY of East Seneca Street in Oswego in a Start-Up NY project—the college’s first—that holds promise for 19 new jobs.

The company will employ local hires as well as talented SUNY Oswego interns and cooperative-education students to participate in engineering, design and manufacture of panelized flooring that uses a patent-pending, first-to-market system, according to Sherry Marmon, majority owner and president of the company.

College President Deborah F. Stanley said Designer Hardwood Flooring’s designation demonstrates that Start-Up NY projects can encourage new local manufacturing while furthering such SUNY Oswego goals as experiential learning, college-to-career support and a strengthened greater Oswego economy.

“The company has pledged to integrate SUNY Oswego students into the business experience,” Stanley said. “It has agreed to use this facility as a training site for management, business administration and concepts such as lean manufacturing, energy conservation and design. This and future Start-Up NY collaborations promise to materially advance the college’s commitment to provide applied learning experiences for our students, share our faculty expertise and state-of-the-art research facilities, and drive economic growth in Oswego County and regionally.”

Start-Up NY enables new and expanding businesses to operate tax-free for 10 years on or near university campuses. The collaborations offer companies such as Designer Hardwood Flooring direct access to advanced research laboratories, experts in business and industry, and a ready pool of talented degree-seekers eager for real-world learning. In turn, the companies promise to deliver jobs—more than 3,600 pledged statewide to date among 128 approved businesses.

The state recently accepted the company’s portion of its Seneca Street site as eligible for Start-Up NY benefits that include, besides decade-long business tax relief, a five-year exemption from state and local income taxes for those hired and certified as new employees and a reduction in those taxes for the next five years.