Add 3-D printers to the list of weapons being used in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. Starting at the end of March, the University at Albany began asking for volunteers to help 3-D-print plastic face shields for Capital Region healthcare workers and first responders, who are most at risk of catching the highly contagious virus.
The call for volunteers comes as “essential” manufacturers and universities across the nation are helping mass-produce face shields for hospitals and other medical practices where there have been critical shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) such as face masks and disposable gowns. Leading the effort at UAlbany is Professor Jonathan Muckell from the school’s department of electrical and computer engineering. “It’s incredible, considering we’re coordinating this whole project remotely,” says Muckell about the campaign. Muckell has mobilized around two dozen student volunteers and another dozen community volunteers that in the last two weeks have printed, put together and donated 250 face shields to local hospital personnel and first responders. And Muckell says that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “We’re hoping to make a thousand by the end of the month,” he says. “The operation has grown so quickly, and we’re getting faster and faster, making more every day.”
UAlbany students volunteer to construct face shields. (College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UAlbany)
Muckell’s team comprises both students and community volunteers, who do everything from procuring printer materials and printing face shield parts to constructing the face shields and packaging them up for delivery. “Making these face shields feels like [doing] something that actually matters,” says Diego Silva, a computer science student at UAlbany, who volunteers 10-12 hours a week delivering supplies to printers and reaching out to recruit more deliverers. “Seeing how badly this virus has affected the entire world, I really wanted to do whatever I could to help fight it.”
Indeed, the COVID-19 outbreak has brought out the best in many in the community in a number of ways. Around 20 3-D printers have been loaned from community members to students, who agreed to print face shield parts from home. In addition to this, S.T.E.A.M Garden, a cooperative workspace in Albany, donated all of its high-output 3-D printers to the cause, and there are a number of people in the community who’ve volunteered their personal 3-D printers to crank out the face shields components. Professor Muckell says that it takes about three hours total to print each face shield. “There are some designs that you could do in maybe 40 minutes of print time,” says Muckell. “But we chose three hours because of the quality of the shield; it’s nationally approved, and it can be sterilized and used over and over again.”
Muckell stands in front of a fully-packed box of face shields ready to be delivered. (College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UAlbany)
The assemblage of the face shields takes place entirely at UAlbany, with volunteers wearing gloves and face masks while maintaining social distancing. The university even has an emergency response coordinator to identify which facilities and areas need the face shields the most. “The school was pushing for us to do something and really get involved,” says Anya Ross, an electrical and computer engineering student at UAlbany who, after receiving an email from Professor Muckell, volunteered to build and package face shields. “I was totally in because I was trying to find somewhere to help already.”
Want to volunteer your time to UAlbany’s cause? Contact the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Assistant Dean and Director of Communications and Marketing, Daphne Jorgensen, at [email protected].
“How many people does one person infect?” That’s the rhetorical question that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo asked during his daily press briefing on April 15, which will need to be answered in the coming weeks in order for the state to even think about reopening. “[Figuring that out] is the difference between a manageable situation and a pandemic,” he said. To that end, as of today, Cuomo said he would be signing an executive order declaring that all New Yorkers must now wear a mask covering their nose and mouth when in public.
The idea here is that people would wear the face masks in situations where they were not able to maintain social distancing with others—in other words, if you’re going to be in public and around others—anyone—then you need to be wearing a mask. Cuomo drove the concept home this way: “You’re right to go out for a walk in the park…[but] you don’t have a right to infect me.”
New Yorkers are being given three days to comply with the new executive order, which goes into effect on Friday morning.
This comes on the heels of news over the last two days that the COVID-19 death toll had once again risen into the 700s, with a total of 778 deaths reported on April 13 and 752 on April 14. New York State still has the most active cases of the virus, with more than 200,000, with more than 11,000 deaths to date.
In his April 13 briefing, Cuomo made mention of the potential for reopening the state, but only if the state was able to control the infection rate, have regular testing in place and the ability, 12-18 months down the line, to have a vaccine. (Johnson & Johnson says it could have 900 million vaccines ready for public use by April 2021.)
This past Monday (April 13) was an emotionally charged day for me as both a Saratogian and journalist. It marked the release date of my first issue of Saratoga Living magazine since being promoted to Editorial Director. I’d spent a lot of time bellyaching about what that meant and what people would think of the cover story I’d written. But on top of all of that was the fact that I’d reported an unrelated story on April 9 that hadn’t sat too well with me. In fact, it had sent me spiraling a bit; I’ve written about some pretty heavy subjects in my career, but this one affected me to my core and stayed with me long after I hit “publish.”
I’d learned on the 12th that a classmate of mine from Saratoga Springs High School, Paul “Tucker” Jancsy, now a major in the New York Air National Guard and pilot for Delta Airlines, had been admitted to Saratoga Hospital with the COVID-19 virus, had been put on a ventilator and was fighting for his life in the ICU. I immediately reported a story about the GoFundMe page that had been launched to support Paul and his wife, Sara. It was the last story I’d published that evening, but when I woke up the following morning, it was still with me. So, I decided that I wanted to reach out to Sara and see if she’d be open to telling her side of the story via saratogaliving.com’s “What It’s Like” series, which we’ve been running since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the area. Amazingly, she agreed, and I published the second story.
I can only assume that people were as affected by Paul and Sara’s story as I was, because it immediately went viral and hasn’t slowed down since (it’s quickly become one of our most read stories in the site’s history). And ever since it published, I’ve had Paul and his wife in my thoughts. When I get up in the morning to start my day, when I’m eating breakfast and when I sit down to write and edit. Journalists aren’t normally supposed to “feel”; at least in my area of expertise (general interest), we’re just supposed to do our jobs, report the news and shut up. But I felt compelled, after writing that second story, to donate to Paul and Sara’s fund. And I did.
So, you can only imagine my excitement Monday afternoon, when I received an update from Paul’s GoFundMe page saying that he’d been taken off of the ventilator. I immediately posted on my Facebook page that it had been the best news I’d heard all day. And it had been.
I wanted to give everyone who read that story a reason to smile today. I talked with Sara the morning of April 15, and she shared with me some incredible news. Here’s Sara Jancsy in her own words.
***
Sara started off our conversation by telling me that Paul was up and talking and that she’d read him my story.
So, Paul’s up and talking. I take it they extubated him?
Correct. Coming off of the ventilator, he was able to speak immediately, which was shocking to me, because I know [that some] people that have been on it for 10-17 days [have come] out unable to speak for about three days with speech therapy. So, he came out strong.
That is amazing. Can you give me an idea of what your day was like when you found out that Paul had been taken off of the ventilator? Are you actually going to the hospital to visit, or are you talking with him via FaceTime?
Everything’s been remote; no one’s allowed in the hospital; it’s on lockdown. They didn’t overpromise and underdeliver; they led it with, we’re going to reduce his sedation and we’re going to go from there. The next phone call I got was, we took the ventilator off, and he’s recovering and well, and he’s talking. So, I would say elated with a sense of pride and thankfulness and joy and tears—there were so many emotions.
I assume the news spread pretty quickly throughout your family and friends.
Quickly, yeah. We’ve been trying to protect our privacy, but at the same time, sharing our story to give people a sense of positivity around COVID. We kept it close to tight family and then we released something, as you saw, publicly. Because you know how quick things go viral.
What is the prognosis at the moment? He’s off the ventilator, he’s talking. Is he completely out of the weeds?
You [picked] a perfect day for this conversation. You’re one of the first people to know outside of the family. I just got off the phone with the hospital. He’s recovering and quote-unquote “graduated from the ICU” this morning. So, he’s stable at Saratoga Hospital, recovering. They moved him to the COVID floor but not in critical condition anymore, which is amazing.
What was the first conversation you had with Paul like?
He was coming out of sedation for about two-plus days, so [he was] just in and out of it. Immediately, he knew who I was, who his family was [and] he knew he was in Saratoga Hospital. But he was ready to come home, he said. We were all bawling.
I’m choking up right now. Obviously, he must know, at this point, that life is completely different now than it was when he first entered the hospital. I assume you guys are going to just be social isolating for the foreseeable future.
Yes, we are. They didn’t give us a timeframe for recovery, so we’re in the beginning stages. [He was] moved to a med-floor in the hospital, and they’re taking it day by day. Hopefully, within three days, we’ll have a better idea of a care plan to transition [to]. But, at this time, it’s unknown. But it’s a positive direction.
Can you tell me a little bit about the doctors and nurses that have cared for Paul? How has the staff been at Saratoga Hospital?
They’ve been amazing. Dr. [Numan] Rashid, MD, and Dr. [Hung Dinh] Nguyen, MD, were at the forefront of his care. So many nurses, between the day shift, the night shift. They’ve been in close communication [with us], multiple times a day. They’ve taken the time to really take a breath and understand our perspective—not being able to be there—but giving us all the answers that we’ve asked [for] and reassurance in his condition.
Obviously, this is a completely crazy set of emotions to have over the last several weeks. Do you feel like you’ve learned anything about yourself or Paul from this?
I think it widened our perspective on life. We’ve always been thankful people, but I think [we’re] even more grateful [now]. And then you think about, Wow, we really need to spend more time with our family and make it a point to see our friends. Just being overall grateful. Even more so.
I originally launched SL’s Job Hunters as a sort of stop-gap measure; when it was clear that we could no longer publish a daily calendar on saratogaliving.com that had any worth to the community, with all of the live events in the area having been cancelled or postponed, I racked my brain for the next best thing. A few days later, I landed on the not-so-novel concept of job creation. How was I to know that just a few short weeks later, we would all be working from home full time—and more than 17 million Americans would be applying for unemployment. It’s breathtaking to think of the job losses that have happened in such a short period of time.
My mom was always pushing me to do community service when I was a kid—and I don’t think I listened to her. So, with this column, I’m trying to make up for a little lost time. Call this my duty to the Saratoga community for as long as the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging—and possibly, a little longer than that. Because there are always going to be people in need of (cool) jobs, who might be under-employed or furloughed or are just sniffing around for a juicy side project.
Now, something recently occurred to me that I can neither confirm nor deny, but may be worth your while if you’re ramping up a new job hunt: The fact that we’re all stuck at home right now means that all jobs—no matter if they’re based in Singapore, New York City or Saratoga—are, in essence, “remote” jobs. So, I would suggest widening the scope of your job prospecting beyond those ads that simply say “must work in New Jersey” or something like that. Because, if you’re qualified, you could work any job, remotely, from anywhere right now. Obviously, if you get a job that’s based in New Jersey, you might want to eventually move there to continue working it. And you should always contact employers to see where they’re at on the subject. But it’s worth a shot. These days, you really don’t have an excuse not to “think outside the box.”
Local Job Opportunities
Cool Job Tip (Local)
So, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) confirmed to Saratoga Living that the Saratoga Race Course summer season was still on schedule to begin on July 16. (It did, however, delay the opening of the Oklahoma Training Track, so it’s unclear how that’ll affect the big show.) Either way, what’s a more “Saratoga” job than one in the horse racing world? (I know all about that magnetic pull; I got sucked in to a two-year stint at the Daily Racing Form several years ago.) NYRA is looking to hire a seasonal Coordinating Producer to work on its live TV broadcasts—and given the date range, it looks as though that person will be working at Saratoga Race Course. You’ve gotta have five years of experience in the business, though, so if you don’t know your way around a TV camera or racetrack, don’t apply. But if you’re qualified, you shouldn’t say, um, neigh to it. Find the job posting on LinkedIn Jobs or check it out on NYRA’s careers page.
Cool Job Tip (Local)
I’ve got to say, I’m pretty excited about this position. Mainly because I just wrote a massive feature on the company for Saratoga Living, and I know, from interviewing and writing about its brass—CEO/President Dan Pickett and Dr. Alex Marsal, PhD—that the company’s going to be a mint, if it isn’t already. That would be aptihealth, a digital startup looking to disrupt the behavioral healthcare industry. From my reporting, I know that the company’s looking to scale this year and bump up headcount to anywhere between 50-75 employees by the end of the year. aptihealth is currently looking for a Sales Executive, with just a year and change of experience—perfect for a recent college grad. Check out the job description here.
Cool Job Tip (Local)
It might just be because I’m a journalist—or, possibly, because I’m insatiable when it comes to news-reading and -collecting—but I really, really dig the Albany Business Review. I’ve been a regular reader for more than two years now, and I simply can’t get enough of it. (I don’t really see our three publications as “competing” in any substantial sort of way; sure, we report on some of the same topics, but we’re both in the news reporting business, and the more of that there is out there these days, the better, I say.) I noticed a recent story ABRpublished about “essential” business Quad/Graphics, the OG Saratoga-based printer, potentially creating 74 new jobs in the area, and my ears immediately perked up. If you’re unfamiliar with Quad, it has had major clients such as Time Inc. throughout the years and currently prints magazines such as W and Popular Mechanics (my former editor Andrew Daniels is the How To editor at the latter). For those of you annoyed that you can’t read past the first paragraph of the ABR story, I’ll say this: Everybody’s got to make money someway, right? Buy a digital subscription; it’s super cheap. In any event, it might be a good time to contact Quad. You can do that right here.
National/Remote Work Opportunities
Cool Job Opportunity (Remote)
Ever since a certain so-and-so has been in a certain non-hued house in Washington, DC, the journalism trade has been under attack. Or rather, a lot of vitriol has been spewed in the general direction of some of the hardest-working reporters in the world. One concept that’s been ping-ponged around a lot is that of “fact checking”—in other words, checking the validity of statements made. Some publications have made a cottage industry out of making sure news isn’t deemed “fake” (an actual problem out there still). One longtime digital source that prides itself on the fact-checking sub-trade is Snopes, which reins in tens of millions of unique visitors per month. (With any publication that focuses on a lighting rod issue, there have been a few public controversies involving the company.) And as luck would have it, the company’s looking for a full-time remote Story Editor, who has a minimum of seven years of experience and can handle a high volume of editing work on a daily basis. Take a closer look at the position here.
Cool Job Opportunity (Remote)
As I mentioned above, it occurs to me that all job opportunities these days are “remote,” in the sense that you’ll likely be interviewing for the position via Zoom or FaceTime, and if you land the position, you’ll more than likely be working from your home office (unless, of course, it’s an “essential” business). Keeping that in mind, venerable tome-in-magazine-form The New Yorker is looking for a full-time Web Producer/Copy Editor to begin working remotely, but eventually, once the COVID-19 pandemic eats it, from its offices in New York City. (Translation: You can start off working it from the Capital Region, but you’d have to eventually move down to the city to continue the role.) If you just had designs of writing for the magazine, think again: As the job ad notes, “this role is primarily to copy-edit posts on a wide variety of topics for newyorker.com and may include occasional work on magazine pieces.” The coolest part? You only need two years of experience in the media world. Search for the job on LinkedIn Jobs or check the magazine’s careers page.
Local/National Job, Business And Volunteer Resources
Can You ‘Handle’ It? Yeah, I know. I pun a lot. But it comes with the territory. Given that you’re at home, all day, every day for the foreseeable future, my guess is you’re spending a fair amount of time online—and social media, perhaps. (Yeah, I just caught you looking at Facebook, didn’t I?) Well, make use of your time surfing social media by searching for remote or local jobs on your various handles. LinkedIn is an obvious source, but Facebook now how has gig-job postings on it, and if you’re on Twitter, you can search the hashtags #jobs and #remote for, yes, remote jobs.
Qualifications? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Qualifications! If you’re a recent college graduate who’s grumbling about this COVID-19 thing and how it’s made your post-grad job search even more difficult, you might be onto something. But you might also only be applying for some jobs you think you’re qualified for and nixing others, because you think they’re out of your league. Hint: You should be applying for all of them. According to Art Markman, a professor of psychology and marketing at University of Texas at Austin, you don’t have to be completely qualified for an entry-level position to apply for it. Why? Find out here.
Cool Resources For Kids
Ohm My!
I kind of wish my parents had been bigger hippies when I was growing up. There, I said it. Because it took a work-life adventure out on the West Coast in my 30s to realize the calming power of meditation. And I often wonder what my life would’ve been like had I started meditating earlier in life. I know that I would’ve been a lot calmer, made less rash decisions and probably not thrown that Cobra Commander toy at my older brother’s head. Thankfully, Jaime Amor and her husband, Martin, founded Cosmic Kids in 2012, so that kids in the aughts could get down with mindfulness. The digital series helps make meditation and yoga fun for kids of all ages—and I assume anything to dial your kids’ emotions and stress level back right now could be golden.
Collecting
I know, I know…kids these days just want to plug into their tablet and forget you’re even there. And they loathe physical things like baseball cards, because they’re sooo 40 years ago. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Eight years ago, the Topps Company, best known for inventing the modern-era baseball card in 1952 (see: Mickey Mantle), launched Topps Bunt, an iPhone-based card collecting app (there are soccer, hockey, football, basketball and non-sports versions as well, including Star Wars and The Walking Dead). The basic idea is that you’re allotted a specific amount of valueless e-money per day to “buy” packs of cards, which you open up and find all types of cards in—even “hits,” or cards that are inserted per a pre-stated ratio. Besides just having a collection of cards you don’t really need to ever clean up, the idea here is for kids to get interested in sports, statistics and memorization. Maybe even pop culture. (The brains behind Star Wars have been known to promote upcoming movies via the Topps app.) Plus, it’s an old-fashioned way that parents can connect with kids that’s been updated for the 21st century.
Follow @overheardnewyork on Instagram If you’ve spent any amount of time in New York City, you’ll know that you’re bound to hear some of the funniest exchanges between regular people. I wasn’t immune to it during my 14 years there. One memorable situation stands out: I was actually in a hurry to get to a job interview near Times Square, so I ran full out up the stairs, skipping steps all the way up from the subway platform, and in the process, grazed a gentleman who was walking down the opposite side of the steps. For reasons unknown to me, I stopped, briefly, turned around and looked at the man, who had also stopped, briefly, to look up at me, with a scornful look in his way. At the top of his lungs he yelled, “Well, excuse YOU mother___er!” @overheardnewyork is the Instagram-account equivalent to that interaction. (There are also London, San Francisco and Los Angeles versions of the account.)
Listen to This Song Are you in need of a pick-me-up? I think we all are at the moment. For that dose of inspiration you need to get from point A to point B in your new job hunt, let me direct you to this wonderful song, “The Joke,” by Brandi Carlile. It might even make you cry (I get a little “I’m not crying, you’re crying!” right around the time when the first chorus hits).
By no means was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying at his April 13 press briefing that the state could or should reopen anytime soon—but with the curve flattening, he wanted to look ahead to when that could be a reality.
First, Governor Cuomo reported that the total number of hospitalizations was continuing to trend downward, as were daily ICU admissions and daily intubations. And for the first time in as many days, the total number of deaths dipped below the 700 mark to 671 on April 12. (The statewide total, however, has now exceeded 10,000.)
Piggybacking on the positive data, Cuomo unveiled a plan to reopen the state sometime in the future. (There was no clear date for when this might happen.) The idea would first be to continue seeking the consult of experts, while easing off the social isolation among some of the state’s population—in others, let some people leave their homes and go back to work—to help boost economic activity. The state would then have to “recalibrate” the definition of what an “essential worker” was to help bolster that economic activity. To ensure the safety of the public, COVID-19 testing would continue on a regular basis, with precautions still in place. And the state would, in turn, keep a watchful eye on the infection rate, and if it rose at all, Cuomo would once again shut the process down. (Cuomo later met with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Governor John Carney of Delaware and Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island to further discuss a coordinated reopening, when that ends up occurring.)
Cuomo did have a section of his presentation, which he emphasized was “personal opinion,” noting that the COVID-19 crisis would only be over once there was a viable vaccine available to the public. And that, he said, could be anywhere from 12-18 months away.
If you’ve been following Saratoga Living‘s coverage of the COVID-19 crisis, you’ll know that, on a pretty regular basis, we’ve been updating you on what New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been saying at his daily press briefings. Well, apparently, the rest of the country has been listening, too.
Fifty-three-year-old Rolling Stone magazine—which has had everyone from The Beatles’ John Lennon, pop star Britney Spears and the Boston Marathon bomber on its cover throughout the years—has put Governor Cuomo on its May 2020 cover, along with a sprawling cover feature and Q&A by Contributing Editor Mark Binelli.
A few highlights of the feature interview:
Cuomo on his day-to-day work on the crisis:
“A situation like this is pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you’re going to do it right. Because it’s evolving all the time. So, you work until you can’t work anymore, and then you close your eyes for 20 minutes and then you work again.”
Cuomo on his messaging to New Yorkers during the crisis:
“[Keep] it simple. Tell the truth. Give people facts. Explain what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. I don’t go out to impart confidence. You can appear confident, but you’re not going to fool New Yorkers, right? They’re going to hear what you’re saying and watch what you’re doing. They’ll make their own decision whether or not it makes sense. Here’s where we are, here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I’ve done, here’s what I plan to do, this is why I’m doing it.”
Cuomo on what the hardest thing for him, personally, has been during the crisis:
“I haven’t been able to see my mother. I’m not with one of my daughters. That on a personal level is very taxing. And I constantly say to myself, what else should I be doing? What else could I be doing? People are dying every day, and I don’t know what else to do. And I know that tomorrow more people will die. And I don’t know what else to do. And that is a terrible weight, and just an oppressive burden.”
As an honorary Utican, I know just how important the Boilermaker 15K road race is to that area and surrounding region. (I married a Utica girl.) It’s basically the equivalent of Christmas Day, Mardi Gras and the New York City Marathon rolled up into one. And for the first time in its 42-year history, the race has been postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Boilermaker, it’s been run throughout the streets of Utica since 1978, and has been a popular race for not only high school and college runners in the Capital Region and throughout the Northeast, but also for national runners, wheelchair athletes and internationally renowned athletes. The winners in the various categories of the race have shared up to $100,000 in prize money in past years.) And if you’re thinking, “Oh, 15Ks are sooo easy,” think again: I’ve run it a number of times and have been chewed up and spit out, even with months of training under my belt. It’s hilly as hell, and in the summer swelter, could be near impossible, even for the best-trained runners. (I’ve seen grown men literally weeping, limping and soiling themselves on the course.) The race’s finish line is at the legendary FX Matt Brewery, which produces Saranac beer, and race-finishers are handed cups of beer to enjoy.
This year’s 15K is being presented by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and has been rescheduled for September 13, the second Sunday in September (the race normally runs the second weekend in July). “This very difficult decision was made in concert with our medical support team and with the safety of our community at heart,” the nonprofit organization that runs the event said in a prepared statement.
Race day also includes a popular 5K, which kicks off before the big race; I’ve also run that one—solo and with my mom!—and it’s equally challenging.
Registration for both races has been temporarily postponed but will reopen on May 1st at 12pm. The 15K costs $60 to run and the 5K, $50.
About three years ago, I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to work remotely from my Troy home office for a New York City-based digital startup that I’d helped launch, writing all day, every day. (It’s not lost on me that I’m now, basically, doing the same for Saratoga Living during the COVID-19 pandemic.) As far as I was concerned, I was living the dream, but soon enough, my lack of interaction with the outside world started to adversely affect my mental health. Full disclosure: I’ve battled anxiety and depression for most of my life and have been in therapy, on and off, for about a decade. So, I went to see my new doctor in Troy and told her that I was feeling blue and that I needed a refill of my anti-anxiety medication, which I’d been prescribed years earlier by my doctor in Manhattan. Much to my surprise, she said she couldn’t help me, instead referring me to Troy’s Samaritan Hospital, which put me through a long, arduous psychological evaluation that, arguably, exacerbated my symptoms. To make a long story short, I didn’t get my meds refilled until I changed doctors months later. The whole process left me feeling like a character from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
While I’d like to believe that my experience happened in a vacuum—that, at my lowest and most vulnerable, I made some grave error in judgement, and that’s why my doctor couldn’t help me—the reality is that that kind of uncomfortable interaction happens all the time. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than a quarter of American adults suffers from some kind of “behavioral health” disorder (the phrase in quotes being a catchall that encompasses mental health issues, eating disorders and addictions). And the reason people like me find themselves dealing with roadblocks to the path to good behavioral health care hinges on several interconnected factors, all seemingly working against one another, says Dan Pickett, co-founder and CEO of aptihealth, a new digital platform and mobile app, which has set out to disrupt how patients, physicians and psychologists interact in the health care space—and save all involved boatloads of time and money in the process.
One of those key factors is the stigma attached to behavioral health issues, which keeps people who are suffering from them from getting the assistance they need before they’re struggling (like I was) or potentially, become a danger to themselves or others. That, subsequently, puts a strain on hospitals and emergency rooms, which are woefully underequipped to help people suffering from behavioral health issues, and those visits end up costing all parties involved a lot more money. (Behavioral health currently has a $200-$300 billion stranglehold on the US health care system.) A second factor is the hair-pulling-out madness that is navigating the health care system in the first place and the lack of an easy handshake between your family doctor and psychologist, both of whom have your well-being in mind but often have no way of knowing what the other has diagnosed or analyzed about your state of body and/or mind. Dr. James Aram, MD, who runs a private family medical practice in Troy, and opted in to the aptihealth platform in 2018, says “it’s widely acknowledged, and it’s certainly true for me, that getting behavioral health care is fragmented, it doesn’t happen quickly, and there’s a paucity of providers.” With more than 30 years of experience under his belt, Dr. Aram says that aptihealth is the first time in his career that he’s seen an organized effort to fold behavioral health and primary health care into one unit, systematically working in favor
of a patient.
That do-si-do between behavioral health and primary care doctors gets even more complicated when medication is involved (see: my situation), as patients can’t get prescriptions from psychologists (PhDs), and have to track down or already be the patient of a prescribing psychiatrist or up-to-speed doctor (MDs). Dr. Aram says that he sees this kind of situation all the time, noting that some physicians, like himself, treat patients with antidepressants, while others are more comfortable referring patients out (as my first Troy doctor did). The other important component missing in this scenario is the actual psychotherapy, which many people who are taking antidepressants take part in. To that point, Dr. Aram says he simply doesn’t have the time to sit down with a patient for 45 minutes to an hour to walk them through what they’d need to do to get proper counseling. In short, aptihealth is cutting out the middleman.
Lastly, this all goes nuclear if you simply need a referral to a behavioral health professional. Say you’re having a nervous breakdown, and a doctor tells you that it’ll take six to eight weeks to get in front of someone who can help—and even that’s not a sure thing. Your options are basically to suffer, give up or get lost in a sea of phone calls, paperwork and red tape at your absolute worst. And maybe hardest to grasp might be the strain all of this puts on the minds of the physicians themselves. “You have a world today where the physicians are burned out because of how much behavioral health is part of their medical practice, but at the same time, it’s very difficult to manage and navigate [the behavioral health care system],” says Pickett. And that, ironically, leads to behavioral health issues among many doctors (a study, published within the last three years, concluded that about 40 percent of physicians were reluctant to reach out for mental health treatment for fear of losing their licenses).
So, how, exactly, does aptihealth work? It exists as both a desktop version and smartphone app, and anyone can sign up for it—though, it helps, dramatically, if you have health insurance and/or your provider has opted in to the platform. To get a better understanding of what it does, let’s relive my earlier, not-so-awesome experience at the doctor through the lens of aptihealth. Assuming my original doctor had opted in to the platform, I would’ve said, “Hey, doc, I’m feeling depressed,” and she would’ve pointed me towards the platform, which would’ve been on my smartphone. From there, I would’ve taken a comprehensive, artificial intelligence-driven, multiple choice behavioral health assessment quiz via the app—as well as been given the ability to tell my own story, privately, to behavioral and primary health care professionals. The health care professionals would’ve then been able to create a personalized treatment plan for me and if, say, I didn’t already have a wonderful therapist, they would’ve helped get me connected to an in-network psychologist, whom I would’ve been able to message, in the app itself, and set up in-person appointments with thereafter (Pickett likens the experience to locking down a restaurant reservation on OpenTable). I could’ve even video chatted with my new psychologist right on my smartphone (the message system and video chat are both Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 [HIPAA] compliant). Most crucial, at least for my purposes, would’ve been that the platform enabled my physician to add a prescriber to my “care team,” who would’ve managed and prescribed me my meds.
So, simply using aptihealth would’ve saved me months of headaches and more than a few copays, among other out-of-pocket expenses along the way. But that was all one big hypothetical. Does it really work, though? Last August, Pickett’s business partner and co-founder, Dr. Alex Marsal, PhD, a behavioral health expert and licensed clinical psychologist who’s had a private practice in Troy for 25 years, along with Joe Kelly, a licensed clinical social worker (now aptihealth’s clinical operations director), completed a six-month case study based on aptihealth’s then-nascent platform. The results (based on 75,000 participants) included these astonishing data: After beginning to use aptihealth, patients made 68 percent less emergency room visits; there was a 44 percent reduction in symptom severity among patients; and overall, physicians saw a 100 percent decrease in patient hospitalizations. It’s clear, then, why Pickett sees aptihealth, which is headquartered in Boston and has a satellite office in Troy, as nothing short of a deus ex machina for the behavioral health care industry. And his record in the Capital Region business world should be all the proof anyone needs that this is nothing short of a world-changing idea.
Pickett, who was born in Troy, raised in Mechanicville and graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), is best known for founding Clifton Park-based tech solutions juggernaut, nfrastructure. After building the company into a billion-dollar powerhouse, with clients such as Starbucks, Disney and adidas, Pickett left his post as president late last year to join aptihealth. (nfrastructure was acquired by West Coast IT giant, Zones, Inc., in 2016.) “I really wanted the next 10 years to be purpose-driven,” says Pickett of his shift to aptihealth. “Building networks is great, but it’s not as profound.” Dr. Marsal echoes Pickett’s sentiment. “We’re using technology to enhance care and disrupt the health care industry, and I think that that’s different than companies that are started from a tech perspective; they see a problem and then they apply technology to fix a clinical problem,” he says. Besides having expertise in the behavioral health care industry, Dr. Marsal was an administrator at Samaritan for a decade and himself launched a successful health care-focused digital business, Vanguard Behavioral Solutions (VBS), a patient assessment and treatment platform, which served as the basis for aptihealth. In the early aughts, Pickett invested in Dr. Marsal’s behavioral health research, which included demonstration studies on various practices in the behavioral health care sector. Despite the majority of his time being devoted to nfrastructure, Pickett gained a keen appreciation for his friend’s work and by 2016, when nfrastructure was sold to Zones, Pickett agreed to stay on for an additional three years and then leave in October 2019. So, about a year and a half before Pickett stepped down at nfrastructure, he was on the lookout for his next big adventure. One night, he, Dr. Marsal and their wives were dining at 15 Church in Saratoga Springs. That evening, apropos of nothing at all—and an unintended harbinger of things to come—Pickett had brought along a bottle of Screaming Eagle wine to share, one of the priciest pours around. In their booth, the pair “talked about the fact that the problem that we’d been working on, scientifically, for 10-plus years was getting bigger and bigger,” says Pickett. And that the two men were confident that they had a unicorn of an idea—one that capital markets investors would fawn over, because it hinged on solving a wide-reaching, global problem. Pickett asked his friend to prove to him that the concept could actually work, with living, breathing patients and doctors. Dr. Marsal tracked down seven primary care practices—55 physicians, with about 100,000 patients in their care—and all of them signed up for aptihealth. Talk about proof of concept. Soon after, the two founded aptihealth, and Pickett became the first seed investor in the project, investing millions of his own dollars in the company. The two were then able to secure $2.5 million in additional venture capital funding. “We really started hitting our stride in late 2018,” says Pickett. “We put the initial team together, and last year, we really started to accelerate the pace.”
Likely, you’re assuming that Pickett and Dr. Marsal have hordes of employees at their beck and call by now. But during its launch year and still at press time, aptihealth had just 12 full-time employees, plus a few dozen contractors. (By year’s end, the headcount could be as high as 50-75 employees, per a company rep.) The current aptihealth staff consists of three types of employees: clinical scientists, like Dr. Marsal, who understand all aspects of behavioral health and how to diagnose it and treat it—as well as circumnavigate the health care system attached to it (MDs and PhDs); clinical engineers, who take that knowledge and tech-ify it at the point of care; and top-flight user experience (UX) engineers, who understand how patients and physicians will interact with the aptihealth platform, and can give it an inviting, consumer-friendly format (among other key hires, the company has added Sean Austin, formerly of music streaming service Spotify, to help build out the UX; and Kori-Ann Taylor as its CMO, most recently director of client services and marketing at Saratoga-based 32 Mile Media).
Even with all the excitement involved in having a potential mint of a company now open for business, aptihealth still has a way to go before it can truly scale. Pickett estimates that aptihealth will need at least $100 million in additional investments to go global. There’s also the critical issue of privacy protection and the seeming pervasiveness of major breaches these days, which have been happening at an alarming rate to corporate giants such as Yahoo and Equifax, and even local conglomerates such as Community Care Physicians, where my wife and I share a primary care doctor. But Pickett is bullish on the platform’s Fort Knox-ness. “Our CTO Mike Martin is deeply experienced in multi-stack security, so the whole aptihealth application runs in Amazon’s cloud, and from a multi-factor authentication perspective, we’ve got everything locked down each step of the way,” says Pickett. “We’ve also got a lot of AI tools that are running so if anything out of the norm should happen, aptihealth immediately locks down.”
All of this might sound like pie-in-the-sky thinking for a tech startup, but Pickett’s damned near sure it’s going to succeed. “The opportunity for this company is massive,” he says. (It’s currently only available to patients in the US.) As far as I’m concerned, the next time I go to my primary care physician, I’m going to suggest her practice signs up for aptihealth. Because I can already see how much easier my future health care interactions could and should be.
By no means would I ever compare myself to legendary scribe and father of New Journalism Gay Talese. But as this cover story—on Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer and Director of hit NBC sitcom Friends, Kevin Bright, and his wife, Claudia Wilsey Bright—was coming to fruition during very uncertain times, I had Talese’s tour de force, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” on my mind. Mid-March, even as I took off from Troy on a brisk, sunny morning to interview the couple at their Saratoga area home, it was my battle cry of sorts.
That famous article first appeared in Esquire magazine in April 1966, a once-in-a-lifetime journalistic feat rooted in the notion that, even if you are unable to reach the subject you’ve been sent out to cover—in Talese’s case, it was an uncooperative Frank Sinatra who was in the throes of a throaty cold, feeling his age and by no means in good spirits—you as a journalist have the responsibility to tell the story anyway. Instead of giving up on the assignment, Talese interviewed a number of Sinatra’s acquaintances, inner-circle types and hangers-on—even Sinatra’s own mother!—and weaved it all into a noir-y, third-person omniscient narrative, that weighs in at a respectable 15,000 words.
The Brights are some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met, so I wasn’t comparing them to Old Blue Eyes. But there was definitely, unequivocally “a cold” brewing that came awfully close to making sure I never got to know them at all.
Kevin Bright and his wife, Claudia Wilsey Bright, with their two South Korean rescue dogs, Hope (kissing Claudia) and Oscar. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
At the beginning of March, I’d reached out to the Brights about capturing their story (and photographs) at their rustic, log cabin home for Saratoga Living’s Design Issue cover story—and they almost immediately said yes. But just 10 days later, on the eve of our photo shoot, I received the following note from Kevin (edited only slightly for punctuation and clarity): “Obviously, none of us planned for the world to be in chaos when we booked this photo shoot. I really want as few people here as possible, and I will request people take their temperature before coming in and I will want to know there has been no contact to a known carrier.”
Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic was upon us. Would I arrive at his house just to be turned away? As I write this, I’m quite a few weeks into quarantine, and it’s hard to remember those early days. The day Bright sent me that missive, though, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had temporarily shut down restaurants, bars, casinos, movie theaters, gyms and other communal-gathering-type businesses, and implored employers to let nonessential employees work from home, in an attempt to stop the virus’ spread. Maybe it sounds insane now, but as soon as I received Bright’s email, I made up my mind, then and there, to confirm the next day’s photo shoot. It was Saratoga that had the “cold,” and damn the torpedoes, I was going to tell the Brights’ amazing story.
None of us knew then how much that day would end up meaning to all involved. Beginning that evening, we would all go into indefinite self-isolation, wistfully looking back at that time we spent at the Brights’ house, working and laughing and conversing with other humans (almost) like it were any other day.
Kevin and Claudia Bright on the front porch of their Saratoga home. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
To truly understand the sheer magnitude of the Brights’ Saratoga area estate, one must be intimately familiar with the marvelous mansions of North Broadway, the castle-like Victorians of Union Avenue and even some of the Brobdingnagian new constructions that now dot our city. As a child, I had a number of chances to run around inside some of those palatial homes. Many of them have multiple, cavernous rooms; extravagant interior and exterior designs; and lush, sloping lawns, which are tended to like golf courses during the summer months. In a word, they’re wonders of the design world. The Brights’ property, however—which has been in Claudia’s family for seven generations—makes these residences look like fifth-grade dioramas. In all, it covers, give-or-take, 400 acres in total area. (For privacy purposes, I won’t be disclosing its exact location.) Turning up the Brights’ stone gravel driveway, you’re immediately met by just how vast their property truly is. You pass through a gate with a “Queens Highway” sign on it, and there’s a massive pond to your right, with a floating dock smack-dab in the middle and a silver airstream-like trailer on its shores. Soon, you find yourself in the middle of a lush, verdant forest, before it gives way into a clearing, where you first see the Brights’ breathtaking lawn, which cascades down from their front porch like a river of green. “My ancestors are all here, and I feel the power of them when I’m here,” says Claudia of the property. “My parents lived here, my brother and sister live here, and we would bring our kids here in the summer for a few weeks. One of [my sons] actually now lives in the area, and the other one was just married out there [she gestures towards the front lawn] in September. My connection to this, my upbringing here, keeps me grounded.”
When I referred to it as their “log cabin home,” I wasn’t joking. Claudia procured it from the aptly named Original Lincoln Logs of Lake George building firm, which had several models to choose from. “I wanted something that could go up fast,” she says. “We made a few tweaks—changed doors, pushed out some walls and things.” She then points, chuckling, at the home’s centerpiece, a behemoth fireplace built out of what can only be described as a jigsaw puzzle of boulders, which were craned in in the middle of the winter. “It looked like fragile rock; they had all these tarps up, cutting stone. It’s all Lake Champlain granite,” says Claudia. Kevin quickly interjects, correcting his wife. “She meant Fraggle Rock, not fragile rock; that would be a different danger to contemplate,” he says, tongue firmly in cheek. The couple moved in in 2009.
The rusticity of the home is amplified, tenfold, by its upscale design aesthetic, the majority of which is the handiwork of Edmond DeRocker (see below), who’s worked extensively on the Brights’ home and is currently embellishing other parts of their property, including picking up and moving an entire “party barn” onto another section of it. The main house is filled to the brim with pop culture memorabilia of all stripes, most of which is Kevin’s. There’s an original Janis Joplin concert poster from the Fillmore East’s opening night, framed and adorning the wall closest to the window overlooking the lawn; a tall, absurdist painting by actor/comedian Martin Mull, entitled October, which features a woman in marching band garb, in a rather seductive pose, in front of a quaint home, not unlike the Brights’ home itself; and a tin sign that appeared in the Friends coffeehouse, Central Perk (basically, the show’s Uncommon Grounds). He also has a basement full of pinball machines; ’50s drinking glasses; a photo signed by the late President Ronald Reagan; a felt campaign flag and metal pin from John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign; a black-and-white framed original photo of heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson in Ballston Spa, standing next to what appears to be a Lilliputian; and a mini Farfisa organ that he had me test out (it works).
Save for literally donning a black Central Perk hoodie, with the ‘Friends’ insignia written along its arms during the cover shoot, Kevin doesn’t wear his fame on his sleeve. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
Shortly after the modest Saratoga Living contingent—that would be me, CEO Abby Tegnelia, Senior Photographer Dori Fitzpatrick and two stylists from Complexions Spa for Beauty & Wellness—gingerly walked through the front door of the Brights’ home (we were all trying to avoid touching things), I approached Kevin, who was sitting alone on a comfy red couch, and asked him if he wanted to start our interview. Unlike Sinatra, Bright immediately lit up, looking back fondly on his career and life, which I was there, seemingly, to pry into. I started off with an icebreaker. “When was the last time you laughed really hard?” I asked him. “The Curb Your Enthusiasm ‘MAGA hat’ episode,” he answered. “There were some very, very gut-wrenching laughs in that one.” The irony of his answer won’t be lost on the diehard Friends fan: Curb’s creator and star, Larry David, also was the co-creator of the the wildly popular TV sitcom Seinfeld, which pre-dated the airing of Friends by some five years. Its co-creator and lead actor, comedian Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t minced words about his feeling that Friendsripped off his show. (Bright says that he and co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane were blindsided by the accusation.) I then asked Bright why he thought Friends has become such a lasting hit, and he explained why, vis-à-vis a recent Saratoga anecdote. “I was eating in a local Japanese restaurant at the hibachi counter—where they usually stick two families together—and a little girl, about 10 or 12 years old, came and sat down next to me, and she had a Friends t-shirt on,” said Bright. “So I said to her, ‘I like your t-shirt,’ and she said, ‘Thank you.’ I asked if she watched the show. She said, ‘yes,’ it’s my favorite show.’ ‘Your favorite show?’ I said. ‘You know, that’s an old television show. Why would that be your favorite show?’ She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, ‘Because it’s funny.’ I think the thing about Friends that connects is that the show is about either a time of your life that you’re in or about to enter or have been in and have wonderful nostalgic memories about. It’s your twenties. There’s something real about it.”
Friends premiered in September 1994, averaging tens of millions of weekly viewers and garnering 62 Emmy and 10 Golden Globe nominations (plus a handful of wins) before bowing out in May 2004 in front of more than 50 million viewers. If it’s not entirely obvious at this point, that success, plus its recent resurgence on Netflix, has made everyone involved with the creation of Friends, including Bright, extremely wealthy and influential. But save for literally donning a black Central Perk hoodie with the Friends insignia written along its arms (at our request) at one point during the cover shoot, Kevin doesn’t wear his fame on his sleeve. He’s exceedingly generous, as is his wife, Claudia, and both have given countless hours of their time to worthy causes. “It’s my belief that we’re put in certain places at certain times for a reason, and I’ve been very fortunate in my life, and I’m not naïve to believe, gee, it’s just because I’m so much more talented than other people,” he says, that last part slathered in sarcasm. Kevin’s on the board of Ballston Spa’s end-of-life care organization, Gateway House of Peace, on which his sister-in-law, Patti Veitch, also sits; Caffè Lena, which launched its new music school via a donation from him and Claudia; Emerson College, his alma mater, where he taught for six years (he’s also the founding director of the college’s LA Center); and Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA, where he taught a filmmaking course to blind students (and ended up executive producing a documentary, Best and Most Beautiful Things, about one of the school’s students).
Kevin’s also on the advisory board of the Dogs of Violence Exposed (DoVE) Project, which was co-founded by Claudia. These days, with TV mostly in the rearview, he’s thrown himself headlong into documentary filmmaking, having just completed his latest film, Nureongi (the Korean word for “meat/shit dog”), about the South Korean dogmeat industry. (Another, about Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson bandleader, Doc Severinsen, is imminent; and one about Martin Mull—he of the absurdist painting hanging in Bright’s home—is in production.) Nureongi’s subject-matter is hyper-personal to the Brights, as they are both avid dog lovers; their pups, Hope and Oscar, are both South Korean rescues. In a little less than four years, Claudia and her DoVE co-founder, Tami Cho Zussman, have been to South Korea six times and rescued 700 dogs, while also putting together awareness and advocacy campaigns across the Asian nation. “It’s really important to us to do this without judgement; the animal activism world can be really judgmental,” says Claudia. Although their work has basically ground to a halt due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Claudia’s still bullish on their mission. All of the dogs are adopted either in Korea or the LA area, and each dog is given a lifetime promise of a forever home.
The Brights actually have three homes: one in LA’s Brentwood neighborhood; a penthouse apartment in Boston; and their Saratoga home, which Kevin refers to as their “getaway.” He and Claudia will spend a few weeks here in the winter and more in the summer—but all in all, not a whole lot of time. So, their time here is precious. “What does having a Saratoga home mean to you?” I ask the Brights. “Particularly at this time,” answers Kevin, “it means comfort and safety and…” He trails off, only to have Claudia complete his sentence: “It’s our sanctuary.”
***
Edmond DeRocker, who has been working with Kevin and Claudia Bright on a number of design projects. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
DeRocker ’N Roller
Meet Edmond DeRocker, the Brights’ personal interior design master.
If you’re among the lucky souls who get invited to a summer soirée at Kevin and Claudia Bright’s Lincoln Log pad, you’ll immediately be struck by all of the just-so design flourishes: The general décor is decidedly elevated but cozy; it suits the Brights to a tee. That aesthetic comes courtesy of Edmond DeRocker, who owns and runs DeRocker Design, an interior design firm that specializes in luxury residential and commercial design work.
DeRocker, who’s been in the design business for 35-plus years, first founded his firm in Glens Falls and at one point, also ran one, concurrently, in Nantucket, MA. DeRocker Design’s offices are now based in Ballston Spa, where he also owns Front Street Home, a design center and antique shop. “I’m very proud of the work I’ve done for [the Brights], because they’re a client from heaven,” he says. “And they also let me do anything I want to do.” (That last part he says with a chuckle.) “Besides that, I just adore them; they’re such nice people to work with.”
Despite the reputation of his field, DeRocker says he likes to stay humble. “I’m more of a silent designer; it’s not about me, it’s about my clients,” he says. “I don’t have the ego that should go with my business.”
Despite the COVID-19 outbreak temporarily axing live events of any kind in the Capital Region at press time, one glimmer of joyful hope is coming up on July 18. Actress Kate Flannery (a.k.a. The Office’s Meredith Palmer) will be doing an in-store appearance at Albany’s Heroes Hideout in Colonie Center. Ironically, Flannery, who played one hell of an HR nightmare on the hit NBC show, is a talented singer and dancer who’s been performing on the touring version of Dancing With The Stars (it, too, was postponed). Saratoga Living recently caught up with Flannery, who told us all about her multifaceted career—and the potential for an Office reboot.
You’re doing a meet-and-greet at Heroes Hideout in Albany this July. How’d that come together?
Thanks to the love for The Office, I’ve received some really great invitations. Coming to Albany was another great “out of the blue” offer. Sounds like a great party, and I rarely turn down an invitation to a party.
Have you ever visited Saratoga during the horse racing season?
I’ve never been to Saratoga Springs. I’m excited! I really like this area. I did a movie in Albany and Troy called Fourth Man Out back in 2015. I also played the Palace Theatre in 1994 in a tour of the show The Real Live Brady Bunch. I know that my dance partner from DWTS, Pasha Pashkov, and his wife have danced there many times.
You’re best known for playing Meredith on The Office. Did you base the character on a real-life person? How much of Meredith is actually you? The Office had the best writers on TV. I can’t take complete credit for creating Meredith; however, I am a bar owner’s daughter. My dad ran Flannery’s Tavern in Philadelphia for 45 years. My grandfather opened it in 1933. I waited tables and bartended until I was 41. (Yes, I still had my restaurant job during the first season of The Office!) I waited on a lot of Merediths.
Which of your Office co-stars do you still stay in touch with?
I heard from five cast members this week! Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin), Oscar Nuñez (Oscar Martinez), Craig Robinson (Darryl Philbin), Andy Buckley (David Wallace) and Dave Koechner (Todd Packer). Don’t make me pick my favorite cast member. We are all like family!
What can you tell us about the rumored Office revival?
I don’t know for sure if there will be a reboot of The Office. It was the best nine years of my life, and I would love to do more. So we will see. I was 40 when I got the job on The Office, so I will always speak to the late bloomers. I know I have more gratitude and I am more grounded, but also, I have learned the value of hard work and enjoying every minute. Nothing lasts forever, so smile while you can.
