Joseph Benincasa, president and CEO of The Actor's Fund, received an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Centenary College, Hackettstown, New Jersey. The Actors Fund is the national human service organization that helps individuals in entertainment and the performing arts. Benincasa serves on the boards of directors of several organizations, including Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Career Transition for Dancers, Times Square Alliance, Bio-Reference Laboratories and the Somerset Patriots, a minor league baseball team. He has been recognized with several honors, including the inaugural Made in New York Awards and Brooklyn's Italian of the Year. Benincasa, a past chair of NYSAE, and 2010 recipient of NYSAE's Distinguished Service Award, graduated from St. Joseph's University, earned a M.Ed. from Rutgers University and attended the Graduate Business School at Fordham University.
Alair Townsend, former publisher of Crain’s New York Business, has been named as president of The Greater New York Councils, Boy Scouts of America, reports Crain’s. Townsend, a current columnist for the paper, is a director of numerous organizations including Lincoln Center and the New York City Independent Budget Office. In September she also became chair of City Center of Music and Drama Inc., the organization that manages the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. A member of the Boy Scouts’ Executive Committee and chair of its Development Steering Committee, Townsend is credited with helping to erase the organization’s $1.7 million deficit last year.
Fort Orange Press has completed its $2million investment in new equipment and facility enhancements, designed to increase efficiency, output, and customer conveniences. "The largest part of the investment is a new six-color plus aqueous coating 40-inch printing press, which provides more stringent color accuracy while achieving production speeds in excess of 15,000 impressions per hour," said Jane Lloyd, sales representative. The company is also in the final stages of a re-design of its corporate offices in Albany, which will include an upscale customer lounged and meeting center with flat screen monitors, wi-fi, and mezzanine glass windows for observation of the production processes.