The event is hosted every year towards the end of the school year to prepare high school seniors for real life interview scenarios. The sit down interviews including resume critiquing and feedback from local businesses on the students interview results. Also, some students can express interest in positions with local companies. The interview critique included professionalism, dress attire, resume design and functionality as well as overall performance.

After the event was over they brought all of the businesses, government and local school superintendents together for lunch and a meeting to discuss the results and feedback for next year’s event.  We are looking forward to attending again next year. We have already received a few resumes from interested students for internships and jobs. It is truly a great way to help the local community.

Picture on the right is Matthew Maroun, Operations Supervisor.

Our agents are put through 2 weeks of classroom training which includes customer service, technical training, specialized brand training and real life experience in the contact center. They are then put through one week of shadowing with agents on the Operations Floor. This gives them that ability to see how the calls are handled by our best and tenured agents. After the first week of training those agents then begin reverse shadowing. This technique allows them to have a whole week with a tenured agent, who is there to answer questions and provide coaching as needed.

We are very excited to have these new agents on board with us. We are also planning to bring on many more agents, as more valued clients are brought into the Fused Solutions family. This has been a very exciting start to the New Year for us. Thank you to all of our clients and the members of our team.

Helping our local community has been a tradition for many years. This year Fused Solutions donated to the Potsdam Holiday Fund. This money goes into a fund that provides needy families in our area gifts and food for Christmas. There is much excitement surrounded by this time of the year and many people in Northern New York are struggling to provide the basic necessities. This fund each year allows for many people to enjoy this otherwise stressful holiday. We look forward to helping for many years to follow.

Program Overview Provided by the Holiday Fund

The Potsdam Holiday Fund, Inc. provides new toys, clothing, boots and food to families and senior citizens in need in the Potsdam area. The Potsdam Holiday Fund, Inc. is a 501 ( c ) 3 organization; thus contributions to the fund are tax deductible as allowed by the IRS.

Who Benefits:
Last year we served over 296 needy families with more than 450 children as well as 100 senior citizens in the Potsdam area.

Communities We Serve:
Generally we serve families in these communities: Potsdam, Madrid, Hopkinton, Nicholville, Brasher Falls, Chase Mills, Fort Jackson, West Stockholm and Winthrop.

How We “Find” These Needy Families:
We advertise in the local media and on the campuses that applications for assistance are available. (College students with children are eligible to apply.) Families are required to fill out an application for the program to show that they are in need, in order to avoid abuse of the program. We use the income guidelines established by the Potsdam Neighborhood Center. We ask for children’s social security numbers, or some ID, to keep track of who’s living where.

How We Get Funding:
Nearly all of our money is raised through a direct-mail solicitation mailed to Potsdam residents in October. We are also the primary beneficiary of the Hobble Gobble Prediction Run-Walk, coordinated by Derry Loucks and held in November each year. In 2010 the Potsdam Holiday Fund raised a total of about $46,000. Also, local businesses such as the Big M sell “Holiday Happiness” tags for $1 that are personalized by the donor and displayed at the business. Our cost to raise a dollar is about five cents.

How We Spend It:

1. Usually we spend about $15,000 on food basket items that we purchase. Also in their food basket is a voucher (gift certificate) to be used to buy food at a local grocery store, the amount depending on the size of the family ($25-$35). Senior citizens also receive food/fruit baskets. The Potsdam Rotary Club coordinates the food basket program.
2. 2. We give out vouchers for a local department store. In 2010, the vouchers were redeemable at Walmart in Potsdam. Parents can spend up to $40 per child on warm winter clothing.
3. 3. We sometimes buy new toys and other gifts as needed.

NOTE: The Holiday Fund is ran entirely by Volunteers! The only “Administrative Cost” we have is the cost of our maillings.

Other Gifts for the Children:
About 48 local businesses (many restaurants) set up Giving Trees with tags labeled for boys and girls ages 1 to 17. People pick off tags, buy a gift, wrap it and put it back under the tree. Each year we collect about 1,000 gifts from Giving Trees. The Potsdam Kiwanis Club coordinates the Giving Tree program. In addition, we receive many toys from the Toys for Tots program in St. Lawrence County, coordinated by Ray Cutway of Ogdensburg.

How We Distribute the Toys and Food:

• Toys: Once we decide who is eligible to participate, we set up appointments for the parents to come to the church to pick out their children’s gifts.  We call this “Santa’s Workshop.” All of the gifts are set on tables in the basement of the Methodist Church in Potsdam, and volunteer “elves” help parents find the right gifts.  We also give them vouchers if they still need boots or jackets.
• Food: Families and senior citizens may pick up their baskets in Potsdam, or we have volunteers who deliver to homes that day if the family can’t make it into town.

Using funds secured from the New York Power Authority (NYPA), SPEC has committed to invest $1 million in SpiceCSM, LLC, a new venture whose other investor is Fused Solutions, a world-class, multi-tenant customer care call center in downtown Potsdam.

Over the past eight years, Fused Solutions developed a proprietary call center management platform that it has used to manage its own operations. SpiceCSM will further refine and sell the solution in a “hybrid” OpenSource/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Cloud computing model to technology companies and other call centers. OpenSource/SaaS/Cloud Computing is the fastest growing segment of the software industry.

The open source functionality of SpiceCSM will allow users to install basic “call center in a box” functionality on their own computer servers. This allows companies to try the software and configure it to their needs. As part of the license, the users are required to share any and all enhancements with the community. Additionally, these users often pay a fee for installation, customization, and maintenance support. Alternatively, in the SaaS model, SpiceCSM will host and manage the complete application on its own servers and do all the background work to maintain and expand it for the customer.

“Although Spice is developing great software, as open source, it has no intellectual property protection on the portions of the software released to its community,” said SPEC President Tony Collins, who is also president of Clarkson University. “But by constantly improving the software, and building a network of users, the uptake of the solution is expedited and revenue model is accelerated. Given the expertise of all four universities in the area, as well as the significant developer community in St. Lawrence County, we have the potential to create many new jobs here. Jobs will come from those working in the call center, to positions developing the software, and sales and marketing positions, as well.”

Spice expects to create an estimated six to ten new high-level, professional jobs in Potsdam during its first year of operations. In addition, Fused Solutions will add up to ten new positions in order to support new inbound and outbound call center activities in support of Spice.
Seaway Private Equity Corporation 65 Main Street, Suite 101, Potsdam, New York 13676
In short, the creation and funding of SpiceCSM will result in the creation of 16-20 new full time positions within 12 months.

The Spice investment was brought to SPEC by Mike Ryan, who created a St. Lawrence County-based firm called North Bay Technology Development (NBTD) in order to develop tech-based companies in St. Lawrence County.
The Spice investment is the fifth that NBTD has brought to SPEC, three of which have already been closed on. Ryan, who is also one of the principals of Fused Solutions said: “Spice needs Fused to market and service its products, and Fused needs Spice to expand its business. This is a marriage made, if not in heaven, then in Potsdam.”

Ray Fountain, the CEO of the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency and SPEC’s Treasurer, said he was happy that “…the initial loan from the IDA a number of years ago to assist in the start-up of Fused Solutions was paying off as the company was growing and diversifying.”

State Senator Joseph A. Griffo repeated his praise for NYPA and SPEC for their flexibility, saying, “When SPEC made its Vertuous investment, I said that public investors had to adopt new rules of engagement to attract internet-age companies to communities like Potsdam. What makes this one fortuitous is that it’s a company that’s already here.”

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava said, “Three Internet-based companies in eight months — it sounds to me like we have some momentum in establishing St. Lawrence County as a place that Internet-age companies can do business.”

Karen St. Hilaire, SPEC Secretary and St. Lawrence County administrator, has had a long-term interest in Internet commerce that at least dates from her days as CEO of the County Chamber of Commerce. She said that this investment was “…right in line with what the Chamber has been doing with its Adirondack Trading Cooperative – to help local businesses capitalize on the Internet.”

With plans for more growth, the new Utica office will initially employ eight, including two supervisors and six technical support representatives, who began training and facility staging this week. The expansion in Utica comes after recent and significant growth at the main facility in Potsdam, NY, which has grown from approximately 30 to over 60 employees in the past 12 months.

“As a 24 X 7 operation, business continuity planning is a key aspect that our clients are looking for,” says COO Mark Cornett. “In case of a natural disaster or other business interruption causing an outage at our primary location in Potsdam, the Utica venue will be able to seamlessly take over. This need coupled with our forecast of continued expansion made establishing the second site a strategic imperative.”

“We were glad to keep the business right here in New York State, and more importantly the North Country,” says Fused Solutions CEO Michael Ryan. “After a thorough analysis of all the options, we couldn’t find a better location than Utica,” “The strong local workforce, the excellent secondary and higher education institutions and ‘near-but-far-enough’ proximity to our Potsdam corporate headquarters makes Utica an ideal fit for our needs.

“We are also thankful for all the support and encouragement from local officials and agencies like St Lawrence County IDA, Mohawk Valley Edge and the Oneida County IDA. While we were considering different options, we received critical support from the offices of Utica Mayor Roefaro and NYS Senator Joe Griffo. We look forward to expanding our business in Utica, and cannot say enough about the support and encouragement we received.”

A Fused Solutions spin-off, SpiceCSM, which both the Seaway Private Equity Corporation (SPEC) and Fused Solutions have invested in, will benefit from the new Utica call center. The Utica site will use the SpiceCSM call center management platform. SpiceCSM continues to prosper and has now grown to 6 employees at its St. Lawrence County headquarters.

About Fused Solutions - Originally opened in 1998, Fused Solutions has grown from its inception into a world class, multi-tier customer service and support organization with clients throughout North America. Fused Solutions provides 24/7 outsourced technical support services for technology based organizations, including Internet service providers, application service providers, software development companies, and manufacturers of network security solutions.

Link to full story and video on News 10 Now

All parties to the transaction are in agreement regarding the benefits and opportunities it represents. According to Mark Cornett, COO of Fused Solutions LLC, new ownership will facilitate substantial growth opportunities through its strategic and financial relationship with North Bay Associates. Per Cornett, “North Bay has expertise in helping small, technology-based companies grow. As such, they are a good complement to the strong operational
organization that Fused has become.”

Speaking on behalf of Nicholville Telephone Company, President and CEO Andy McAdoo comments, “This transaction not only enables Fused to more aggressively grow the business, but also allows Nicholville Telephone, and its subsidiary Slic Network Solutions, to focus on their core competencies of provisioning advanced telecom services over state-of-the-art fiber networks.”

According to Michael Ryan, CEO of North Bay Technology Development and a 1985 Graduate of Clarkson University, “North Bay is a growth-oriented business development firm with a long-term commitment to Potsdam and St. Lawrence County. The combination of North Bay’s expertise in business development, Fused Solutions’ focus on outsourced customer service for technology based companies, and the growth positive business climate
here in St. Lawrence County make for a compelling story on why it makes sense to locate knowledge based businesses here in the North Country.”

For additional information, contact Mark Cornett or visit www.fusedsolutions.com.

About Fused Solutions - Fused Solutions provides 24/7 outsourced technical support services for technology based organizations, include Internet service providers, application service providers, software development companies, and manufacturers of network security solutions.

About Nicholville Telephone – Nicholville Telephone, and its subsidiary Slic Network Solutions, provide
advanced telecom services to commercial and residential customers in St. Lawrence County. Learn more at
www.nicholville.com and www.slic.com.

About North Bay Technology Development – With offices in both Potsdam, NY and Marlborough, MA, North Bay offers outsourced business development consulting to growth-oriented technology firms. Recently, North Bay Technology Development was approved as a qualified business development company by Seaway Private Equity Corp., (SPEC). Learn more at www.northbaytech.com and www.specinvest.org.