Dave Koenig on "Island Assignment" Interviews Peter Goldsmith, Chair, LISTnet

Dave Koenig: The defense industry is not the force it once was here on the Island. With the departure of Grumman, the local economy has needed other industries to come forward to stabilize. One of those industries appears to be the software industry. I recently spoke with Peter Goldsmith, the chairman of LISTnet, an organization created to connect and promote individual software companies here on the Island. Peter Goldsmith tells the story.

Peter Goldsmith: What happened is that LISTnet came out of a project called Project Long Island. Project Long Island started 2 years ago by the Long Island Association when they saw the downturn in the defense industry and the loss of the high tech manufacturing jobs because of that companies like Grumman leaving Long Island, slowly or not so slowly. They said that in order to keep the high level standard of living that we have here on Long Island we had to contain those high level manufacturing jobs and make sure that they stay here on Long Island. So what we did was that a study was done and we found five industries on Long Island that are growing, that are prospering right here on Long Island with all the conditions we have here on Long Island, and one of those industries being the software and computing industry. That's an industry that was growing on Long Island and a lot stronger than anyone even realized.

Dave Koenig: Now, does that coincide with the booming trend in computers, or was that something that all by itself was growing?

Peter Goldsmith: Well, I think what we realized is that not only do we have a company like Computer Associates, which is our anchor company, but we have about 600 software companies on Long Island, you know some as small as one person working out of their house to all different sizes in between, and where people think of Silicon Valley being a stronghold for software, here on Long Island we have Silicon Island, and we are just as strong as anyone, except they just market themselves a little better.

Dave Koenig: So, what is LISTnet doing to help promote software that's coming out of Long Island?

Peter Goldsmith: Well what happened is that one of the first meetings during the spring of this year, we had a committee meeting of Project Long Island software industry and about 70 people showed up. At that time it was very vocal, and a lot of people wanted to do a lot of different things, and we said in order to do that we really have to incorporate and raise some money, and go out and start doing exactly what all the software companies wanted--I'll list a couple of things for you what people suggested and which started it off. This summer we got together and we incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, LISTnet, formed the name and everything else, and to this point, we have well over 100 companies who have joined. We are going to have our big roll-out meeting next week at computer Associates, who was nice enough to say they would host our event. Letters have gone out to over 600 companies and we are getting phone calls continuously asking and showing more interest. To answer your question, more specifically, one of the things that the software companies needed was that if you were a company and you needed a software solution, at this point, you can't really tell by the name of a company what they do or what their expertise is. Software, as you know, is multi-fold, and there are so many different facets to it, and each company has certain expertise. If you look it up in the phone book, and you saw a company name, you would have no idea what their expertise is--you would have to make phone calls, or you would have to ask people. We put together a web site where every member of LISTnet fills out a very extensive questionnaire about their company that was put together by the software companies. This is a searchable web site. Now, if a company needs a software solution anywhere in the world, they can go to this web site that will be well advertised, and they will be able to find what companies on Long Island do JAVA programming, which ones have an expertise in the various databases. Another thing that happened is that companies on Long Island, if you are a smaller company and you see a project, and you only have certain expertise and you want to partner with another company, again there is no way for you to know what the other companies on Long Island do. You can't tell, again, by the name of the company unless throughout your small network you know of some people. Again, you go into this database, you search for various companies, you can now make calls, knowing that companies have this expertise that you are looking for in order to partner and go after bigger jobs that you couldn't go after on your own.

Dave Koenig: So, consolidation and cooperation seems to be a big part of LISTnet.

Peter Goldsmith: Absolutely.

Dave Koenig: But, in terms of competing in what is, I'm sure, a continuously more and more competitive industry, the software industry, you mentioned things like Silicon Valley in California and all the reputation that comes with that name, are there areas where Long Island software is starting to excel, starting to really start to compete?

Peter Goldsmith: Again, Computer Associates is one of the top software companies on Long Island, well known in every facet of software. We have expertise on Long Island in every area of software. Again, getting the word out that if you have a problem and you need a software solution, coming to Long Island and searching the web site, you can find various companies that can help you. This is the nature of what we are trying to do. The only reason that you have heard of Silicon Valley is because they promoted themselves. There's a lot of software companies and they are doing a lot of good things, but there's no reason why companies just as well shouldn't come to Long Island. We have just as much expertise. We have just as many companies located here who can do as well, if not a much better job for those companies, and the idea of promoting ourselves here on Long Island is something that we don't do. This is something LISTnet is starting to push for.

Dave Koenig: Besides promotion of local software companies, are there any other goals that LISTnet has?

Peter Goldsmith: Yes. Number 2; since these companies are growing and getting more business, they need to have talented people. That's one of the strengths that Long Island has in that we have a very talented Work force here on Long Island. But if you look in the ads right now, there is a severe shortage of engineering talent and software people. A career in software is not just programming. If you go to any software company, there is all avenues of careers that you can take besides programming that software companies need. We have to educate students starting in the junior high schools that software is the kind of career that you can make an excellent living, if you want to remain here on Long Island. We have to support schools like Stony Brook University in expanding their engineering and computer science department so that we graduate more students. We have to work with the high schools and with the BOCES and with various different other programs to get more students interested in the kinds of careers we have here. We have to make sure that the students that go off Long Island, we have such a great educational process here on Long Island and many of our students go to the Harvards and the University of Michigan, and schools like that, if these students intern when they come back in the summer, if they intern with companies here on Long Island, so that when they graduate, and they have their family ties here, that they stay here, knowing that they have good jobs with companies that are growing very rapidly.

Dave Koenig: We had the defense industry here, like Grumman, but when that went by the wayside, it took a lot of juice out of a lot of people here on Long Island, and the main industry that a lot of people felt was perpetuating our local economy here, also went with it. So, is the software industry enough to sustain and maybe even someday replace what we had with something like Grumman?

Peter Goldsmith: Project Long Island has highlighted five industries, of which software is one of them. There are four other industries that are part of Project Long Island. What we are saying now is that one time, unfortunately, Long Island was so dependent on one industry that when that industry had a downturn, the Island suffered. We are now saying that there are at least five high tech industries on Long Island that are prospering. So now if there is a downturn in one industry, we have the other four that can maintain that high tech level that is so necessary for us here on Long Island.

Dave Koenig: So, instead of becoming dependent on one particular, we are going to diversify?

Peter Goldsmith: Right. And the other thing is that when Grumman left, everyone thought that 25,000 employees were all engineers. A very small percentage of those people that were being laid off or had to leave were engineers. Many of those people worked in the factories making the planes. A very small percentage of those people were actually engineers. Yes, we have a tremendous high technical talent here on Long Island. That's one of our real strengths. We have to maintain that talent. We have to support schools like Stony Brook University that has one of the premier engineering schools in the world. Stony Brook was picked as the number two R&D public university in the United States, a fact that most people don't know. We have to make sure that we support a college like that and that they get the kinds of funds necessary for the growth of the engineering school that we can supply. If companies grow and expand, but they won't do their expansion on Long Island if they can't get the necessary skilled workers. The other thing that is important is finance. Banks and other lending institutions understand solid products. If you are making a table, if you are making a plane, they understand that and they know whether they want to loan you money, or not loan you money. They don't understand that well software. We have to break down that barrier. They have to understand that computer software today is a product and that companies that are growing and need the funds have to be judged on that product and loans have to be made based on knowledgeable information. We have a sub-committee doing just that, breaking down that barrier, between the lending institutions and the software company.

The other thing is that we created last year, for the first time, the Long Island Software Award, called LISA. Last May we had the first award, awarded to all size companies and all different disciplines, including student awards sponsored by AT&T at high school and college level. Charles Wang, the president, head of and founder of Computer Associates was the keynote speaker, and this year it is going to be the 2nd annual award, and it's going to be even bigger than it was last year. It was very successful, and we want that word to get out. Again, here on Long Island we have companies doing state-of-the-art work in the software and technology field.

Dave Koenig: Our thanks to Peter Goldsmith, chairman of LISTnet. LISTnet will be holding its official launch breakfast on Thursday, September 25 at 8:30 A.M. Demonstrations will be held and the organizations' projects and goals will be discussed in more detail.

For more information, call 224-4400.