Deep in the Galactically Underrated File sits Adelphi University, a 125-year-old private institution that is routinely overlooked on an Island heavy with world-class universities and laboratories – though not by U.S. News & World Report, which ranks Adelphi a top college for veterans, nursing students, career guidance, social mobility and other key categories that define the nation’s best schools.

Keeping Adelphi, it’s roughly 8,000 students and its impressive academic staff ticking is Dr. Christine Riordan, an internationally acclaimed leadership-development expert who in 2015 became the first woman to serve as the Garden City-based university’s president. A former University of Kentucky provost, one-time University of Denver Business School dean and enormous proponent of diversity, Christine brings lengthy experience to the job, and a savvy that served the school well during the COVID crunch.

In today’s conversation, the president joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss Adelphi’s post-pandemic renaissance, including new programs, new student-housing plans and a host of COVID-era pivots and lessons that will help Adelphi grow now and in the future.

The Long Island Association has a new leader – but the LIA is hardly new to Matthew Cohen, the freshly minted president and CEO who’s already logged a decade with Long Island’s largest business and networking organization, primarily as its government relations director.

Matt takes over at a touch-and-go time for the 95-year-old association, with the nation emerging from the COVID pandemic and socioeconomic stakeholders jockeying for position in the so-called “new normal.” He’s uniquely suited to the job: The new head honcho has also directed government relations for the Long Island Power Authority and spent years as Sen. Chuck Schumer’s right-hand man on Long Island, and while helping the LIA win billions of state and federal economic-development dollars, he’s become quite familiar to rainmakers from Long Island to Albany.

In today’s conversation, Matt joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss his LIA ascension and the association’s near- and long-term plans – with greater small-business outreach and the introduction of new technologies topping a very long list.

Exciting socioeconomic winds are blowing across the nation, and nowhere do those forward-looking gales blow harder than Long Island, where offshore wind-generated electricity is foremost on the minds of private corporations, local governments, top universities and national laboratories, all jockeying for position in the clean-gen power play of the next century.

Among those surfing the winds: Eversource Energy, a New England-based utility (and Fortune 500 company) with about 4 million retail electricity, natural gas and water-service customers on land and some serious ambitions at sea. Partnering with Danish multinational power company Orsted, Eversource is developing three offshore-wind farms in the Northeast, including two projects off the Montauk coast: South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind, with commercial operations slated to begin in 2023 and 2024.

In today's conversation, Kenneth Bowes – Eversource Energy’s vice president for offshore wind siting and permitting – joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss the heavy-duty science and major-league lobbying behind the nation's growing offshore-wind industry, and Long Island's critical role in that burgeoning infrastructure.

The Angels had Charlie, that time-traveling dude in Quantum Leap had a Dean Stockwell hologram, Spider-Man has his best buddy Ned and here on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, we are absurdly lucky to have Arthur Germain as our “man in the chair.”

An innovator, entrepreneur and a bona fide genius, Arthur is cut from the classic ink-stained writer/editor mold, with a modern-day finish. He launched Communication Strategy Group in 2005 as an experiment combining boutique-firm intimacy with folksy storytelling; flash forward 16 years, one drawn-out Great Recession and a corporation-clobbering global pandemic, and CSG is still going strong, refining its “brand storytelling” capabilities and assembling an impressive client list, with customers lining up for key services including website development, video production, all manners of marketing collateral and, of course, podcasts.

In today's conversation, Arthur joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss how COVID-19 has changed everything in the marketing world -- and how, for CSG and its innovation mission, the song remains the same.

constant voice for economic and environmental balance. Mitchell Pally has been the cornerstone institute’s chief executive since 2010, adding another important and influential role to a curriculum vitae that’s absolutely packed with them.

A former New York State senator, Mitch held numerous positions in the State Legislature throughout the latter 20th century, helping to draft a first-in-the-nation seatbelt law, among other progressive legislation. For 14 years, he masterminded governmental affairs for the Long Island Association, the Island’s largest business and civic organization, after directing the LIA’s legislative and economic efforts for seven years. From 2005 to 2019, he was Suffolk County’s representative on the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and now he’s more than a decade in as CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute.

In today’s conversation, Mitch joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss the socioeconomic issues laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and other monumental challenges facing Long Island and its myriad construction-related trades in the rapidly evolving 21st Century.

Ann-Marie Scheidt is a one-woman economic engine, one of the most vital cogs in Long Island’s entire socioeconomic apparatus. A relentless innovator and supporter of innovators, she is personally responsible for more than $25 million in federal and state funds flowing into regional economic-development proposals she herself authored or co-authored.

And that barely scratches the surface for this Yale University graduate and Stony Brook University PhD, now the director of economic development at the university where she earned her PhD in History of American Foreign Relations. Occupying too many director’s board and advisory board positions to list here and a slew of past and present executive roles at organizations ranging from Women Economic Developers of Long Island to the New York State Business Incubator Association, the self-described “godfounder” of the Long Island Angel Network is a true champion of new enterprise development.

In today’s conversation, Ann-Marie joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss SBU’s comprehensive commercialization ecosystem and her thoughts on Long Island entrepreneurship during the pandemic, and beyond.

Debra Markowitz is a study in innovation – personally, technologically, even economically, as in, the Nassau County economy, which now benefits from $169 million in annual economic activity from local film and TV production, a number that grew steadily (and dramatically, wink) during Debra’s 33 years as Nassau County Film Commissioner.

Now home to multiple Hollywood-grade production studios, Nassau boasts more production days than any other New York county except Manhattan, with regional support businesses of every size and type along for the ride. Behind all that economic mojo: Debra, who retired earlier this year from the Nassau County Film Office she founded, and is now producing and directing her own feature films through her 2014 Long Island startup Intention Films and Media.

In today’s conversation, the ex-commish joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to dish on A-listers, entrepreneurism and the unique challenges of turning the Island’s westernmost county into a moviemaking mecca.

Regular Innovate Long Island readers know this name – Rosalie Drago has long energized regional workforce and socioeconomic initiatives, previously as Long Island director of the nonprofit Workforce Development Institute and now as the Suffolk County commissioner of labor, licensing and consumer affairs.

As the head of a busy and influential 160-person Labor Department in the nation’s 26th most-populated county, the rookie officeholder has faced many unique challenges – pandemic-related and otherwise – since her March 2020 swearing-in. As the first woman to fill the office, she senses an important opportunity to influence impressionable young women on Long Island and beyond.

In today’s conversation, Rosalie joins Spark host Gregory Zeller for a trip through time, from her days as a struggling college dropout to her arrival as Suffolk County’s brightest self-starter – plus the immense responsibility of ensuring every supermarket scale and gas pump in the county is up to snuff.  

As COVID-19 circumnavigated the globe, scientists representing many disciplines rose to meet it. Among them: James Hayward and the incredible minds at Stony Brook-based Applied DNA Sciences, where long experience and a unique technology set the pace.

A molecular biologist by trade, Hayward brings decades of biotech and consumer-product experience to his roles as chairman, president and CEO. Applied DNA cut its teeth as a DNA-based supply chain authenticator – creating forgery-proof DNA markers and next-generation tracking technology – and is now a primary supplier to worldwide laboratories and researchers keen on COVID and other scientific challenges.

In today’s conversation, James joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss his standout science and his biotech’s unique role in the global COVID struggle – and to reveal some of the secrets of modern innovation.

If you’ve ever seen a protest or press conference advocating for Long Island environmental justice, you’ve seen Adrienne Esposito, at the microphone, way out in front of the politicians and philanthropists, dispensing wisdom and cracking wise.

Now in her 17th year as executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Adrienne is a lobbying and public-education force across Long Island and Connecticut, with groundwater protection, carbon reduction, coastal fortification and a host of other critical issues in mind, and an alternative-energy future – including Long Island’s promising position in the nation’s offshore-wind infrastructure – in her heart.

In today’s conversation, Adrienne joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss the Citizens Campaign for the Environment’s post-pandemic priorities – and the galactic challenge of changing minds, and public behaviors, in a hyper-political world.