NYCB LIVE, home of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, announced that its virtual panel discussion, “The Importance of a Team,” which explored effective business practices with local business leaders, is now available to view at nycblive.com/businesspanel. The discussion features critical insight from several local business leaders and influencers, including president and CEO of Discover Long Island Kristen Jarnagin, developer and operator of Orangetheory Fitness Long Island Nick Galanis, director of brand development of Hal’s New York Stephanie Reda and co-founder of Pipeline Coffee Co. Patrick Tighe.
“Teamwork is essential to running any successful company,” said Nick Vaerewyck, the senior vice president of programming and business operations at NYCB LIVE. “This discussion with local business leaders, all of whom are also building partners of ours, will enable us to explore ways to make teamwork more effective and be a resource for other businesses in the region. It’s imperative, especially now as many businesses adapt to function to meet new demands, to have these discussions.”
The panel discussion zeroed in on technology concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly embracing new apps and platforms while also utilizing existing resources. And the need for organizations to rapidly embrace and utilize all technology has led to innovation that wouldn’t have been possible months ago. “People are diving into new technology and stepping out of their comfort zones and taking existing technology that was used in one application and really amplifying its priority,” said Kristen Jarnagin, president and CEO of Discover Long Island, who oversees the official regional organization charged with furthering Long Island’s $6.1 billion tourism economy. “I can tell you from Discover Long Island, we have a platform on our website where every one of our partners gets a 360-degree virtual reality tour and it goes on your Google page as well. It’s a great benefit for our partners, for sure, but it was a feel-good accomplishment for our team and our website. And thank goodness we learned to embrace and make the most of the virtual reality tours, because during this time it has completely transitioned to become our number one feature. Now, we have virtual tours at museums and virtual tours of the restaurants offering delivery. If a meeting planner wants to book a meeting, we can send him or her virtual tours of the hotels they can book it if they can’t travel here. And if we didn’t have the technology infrastructure in place already, we wouldn’t have been able to unlock any of these features. You can’t get it, and we feel very privileged to have that technology that we’re putting on the forefront.”
For Nick Galanis—an area developer and operator for several Long Island and NYC businesses including Orangetheory Fitness Long Island—video conference technology has been extremely impactful for connecting with existing customers and the public who are invited to free at-home workouts through the Orangetheory app. “We were prepared and had an existing Orangetheory Fitness app in place,” said Galanis, describing how at-home physical activities can still be tracked during this time using the app and a heartrate monitor. “We’re staying engaged with our members, and the engagement has been incredible. We’ll have a coach set up a Zoom workout and have all these people sign up—we’ve had a few hundred people sign-up to be with a particular coach at a particular time, which is pretty remarkable to see. We want to make sure we do it the right way, so for us as a fitness industry, we’re not charging for these workouts—everyone can go on and try the workout no matter where they are.”
Adapting to technology makes life easier for both businesses and customers and utilizing apps as a means to further engage with consumers and employees allows a business’s culture to shine through.
Pat Tighe dreamed of taking on the service industry before building the business and brand that bloomed into what is now Pipeline Coffee Co. As the co-founder, he can attest firsthand to how the pandemic has led to changes. Recently, after launching Venmo as a payment option for customers who may want less physical contact during a transaction, the company was moved when customers began donating money via the app to fund coffee and food for frontline workers who may come in for coffee. What began as a simple act of kindness has blossomed into a full campaign called #poweredbypipeline. With the generosity of the greater Pipeline Coffee Co. community, Tighe and his partner have fueled over 20 different hospitals and civil service departments across Long Island and even into parts of the city with deliveries. With that kind of close-knit connection to both customers and his employees, the culture established has remained a guiding pillar for employee loyalty, despite the need to still cut back hours.
“We’ve created a team here, where even though hours haven’t been what people wanted, they understand what is going on. We put it out there from the beginning that this is unprecedented, and we are trying the best we can to create our new normal during this time,” said Tighe. “I think sometimes it takes something catastrophic to happen before people realize the culture and take to it, but its what kind of happened to us and we didn’t sit back and throw the towel in, we kept moving forward and had to adapt. I couldn’t be happier with how my team has responded.”
The same theme of culture is a big part of Hal’s New York as well. For Stephanie Reda, director of brand development, she has grown and expanded her career within the company but has also assisted in expanding the brand significantly, making it the household name it is today. For Reda, the mission and leadership from the top-of-the-chain has made all the difference.
“I think in a time like this it’s so easy to just give up and be negative and give in to your emotions. It takes a strong leader to be able to get up every day and make a conscious decision to be positive, be there for their employees and their teammates and see what they’re able to do,” explained Reda. “I think I was always loyal to the brand, but this has definitely taken it that much further. What we’ve been able to do and give back to the community, those are some things that have really stemmed from our top leaders in terms of looking out for their own employees but also the community. Our slogan for Hal’s is, ‘New York Born, New York Made.’ We’ve always been so proud to be part of New York, from before this happened, after this is over with, especially right now we are just trying to be there for our community.”
To stream the entire panel, read the panelists’ full bio’s or to learn more about NYCB LIVE, please visit at nycblive.com/businesspanel.
