Student-Musicians Selected For Festival

yours as soon as possible. Please call 631-661-6740 for tickets and more information."

Students Manufacture Their Future Career Options

Students from Mr. Burn’s introduction to trades class from West Islip High School were recently invited to CPI Aerostructures to explore various types of manufacturing careers on Long Island. Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter was also in attendance.

Robert Isoldi, director of manufacturing operations and facility maintenance at CPI Aerostructures and a West Islip alumnus, gave students a presentation and facilities tour. He attributes his experiences in the engineering technology classes and involvement in the FIRST robotics team at West Islip High School as a catalyst for his passion in mechanical engineering. Students were gifted shirts that read “Manufacture Your Future.” The hope is this experience will help students pursue a career in manufacturing and engineering at some of the many companies on Long Island. There are career opportunities in engineering design, manufacturing, fabrication, welding, metrology, quality control, distribution, sales, shipping and accounting. The students were very enthusiastic about the opportunity to see how their foundations in school can be applied in the real world.

STUDENT-MUSICIANS SELECTED FOR FESTIVAL - Twenty West Islip High School student-musicians were selected to perform at the 63rd annual Mid-Island Band Festival in Patchogue. These fine musicians represent the top instrumentalists from Suffolk County. Congratulations to the following students: (front row): Leah Gallagher, Nicole Williams, Marley Grover, Lily Locovare, Angelina Buccellato, Kyla Timpug, Sophia Biondo, Daniel Pipitone, Shannon Koerner and Jessica Belle; (back row): Gavin Pollock, Thomas Kerrigan, Sean Koerner, Brendan O’Regan, Jack Agatstein, Nicholas Soulos, Michael Tronolone, Hugo Gomez, Kevin Mauri and Robert Marrali. Photo courtesy of West Islip School District

Do You Have A GPS Plan For 2023?

Last month I wrote about starting the year on a strong note. My advice included reviewing your goals from last year, organizing your business and home, and moving all your correspondence to the digital world.

Today, I want to share something I learned a few months ago; how to write a GPS plan to help you achieve your goals in 2023. To be successful in business, you must continue to learn and grow. The month-long workshop I took helped me create a roadmap for success and identified potential obstacles that I might run into along the way. Here are a few of the key takeaways: equipment, using social media, etc. Once you have everything written down and broken out by month, you have a GPS plan for your business. The key is to follow it! Don’t put it in a filing cabinet.

STUDENTS MANUFACTURE THEIR FUTURE CAREER OPTIONS - Students from Mr. Burn’s introduction to trades class from West Islip High School were recently invited to CPI Aerostructures to explore various types of manufacturing careers on Long Island. Photos courtesy of West Islip School District

1) Have a Strategic Goal for December 31st: Where do you want to be with your business at the end of the year? Write down specific, measurable goals (e.g., revenue, profit, number of items sold). This exercise helped me visualize what success will look like on 12/31/23.

2) Write Your GPS Plan: It’s the same idea as using your phone when you need to drive somewhere that you haven’t been to before. When you get into the car, you don’t put your phone away, you put it on the dashboard and follow every direction. Write your strategic goal at the top of a page, then include everything you will need to do during the year to hit that goal. This includes sales, expenses, finding new customers, opening a new location, buying

3) Identify Obstacles. In my workshop, we played something called the “What If” game. We had to write down 10 things that kept us up at night. For example, what if…my building burned down? What if…my computers were hacked? What if…the housing market crashed? For every question, we had to write a response on how we would handle it. After I was done, I wrote “Emergency Response Plan” on the front of my paper. Now, if something bad happens, I won’t panic. I’ll know what to do.

It helps to have fewer surprises in business, and to know where I want to be at the end of the year. It means a lot less stress and a lot more focus on what I love to do.

Fun Facts About Lefties

Left-handed, lefty, southpaw - these are all terms used to describe people who favor their left hands for writing, throwing a ball and myriad other activities. It is estimated that between 10 and 12 percent of all people are left-handed. Although that makes southpaws an undeniable minority, the number of left-handed people is creeping up.

Left-handers are worthy of notice and recognition. As such, explore these interesting facts and figures about left-handers.

Sports Proclivity

Being left-handed may confer an advantage for athletes. Wayne Gretzky, Sandy Koufax and Martina Navratilova are just a few of the many accomplished left-handed sports legends. Sports scientist Florian Loffing with the Institute of Sport Science, University of Oldenburg in Germany found that in sports where there is a short time constraint, lefties appeared to excel. That could be why he found 26 percent of the top male players in table tennis are lefties. And sports like baseball and cricket are dominated by left-handed players.

Health Risks And Benefits

Lefties should take notice that there may be some side effects to being left-handed. According to a 2010 study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found those who were left-handed had an increased risk for dyslexia, ADHD and certain mood disorders. It could be tied to the hemispheres of the brain and how 30 percent of left-handed people are partial to the right hemisphere or have no dominant hemisphere for language functioning. Conversely, lefties can bounce back from stroke or other brain-related injuries more readily than righties, according to data published in 2015 in Scientific Reports. Also, a study published in Laterality found that lefthanded people are less likely to suffer arthritis and ulcers.

More Creative Lefties are more likely to be artistic or innovative. Research published in the American Journal of Psychology found there is some evidence that lefthanded people are better at divergent thinking, a method of idea generation that explores many possible solutions. The Left-Handers Club, a prolefty advocacy group, also found that left-handed individuals tend to be drawn to careers in the arts, music, sports, and information-technology fields.

Ambidextrous Inclinations

The world is geared towards being righthanded, with buttons on jackets, doorknobs, desks in school, and more designed with righthanded people in mind. Therefore, many lefties become ambidextrous simply because they have to, according to data published in Reader’s Digest.

Presidential Possibilities?

Many notable people have been left-handed, including eight U.S. Presidents. James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all are or were lefthanded.

Even though the world may not have been designed for left-handed people, lefties certainly thrive.