David Hill

They’re called “clamshells.” They’re the clear-plastic often standing between us and our newly purchased electronics. Sometimes annoyingly hard to open, they serve the seller’s purpose of protecting their product yet allowing it to be displayed for…

Where once cartons of cigarettes would have been stacked on the still-shiny hardwood floors now stand shelves lined with Lego boxed sets wrapped tightly in glistening clear plastic. The air has a tangy tobacco scent as workers pick the boxes off the…

Southern Tier companies, universities lead in getting patents but small companies have role, too dwhill@gannett.com | @NY_newsguy_Hill He’s listed as the inventor on more than a dozen patents, but don’t expect Paul McCabe to bring them up in a social…

Southern Tier aims to capitalize on beverage tourism If you step into the unassuming tap room at the Farmhouse Brewery in Owego and order Taste of the Farmhouse, you get 15 sample-size glasses containing a baker’s dozen of beers brewed on-site, a…

dwhill@gannett.com | @NY_newsguy_Hill Perhaps there was a time when most anyone applying for a job at a factory already knew how to use tools like torque wrenches. Young people worked on their cars or took care of the tractor on the family farm, and…

dwhill@gannett.com | @NY_newsguy_Hill If there is one commodity in steady supply in the Southern Tier, it’s college and graduate-school students. The region’s colleges and universities educate more than 60,000 students annually and graduate more…

dwhill@gannett.com | @NY_newsguy_Hill HOMER — The future of vegetable farming in upstate New York might be under plastic. Behind a century-old yellow farmhouse on Route 11, an electric water pump bubbles away beneath translucent plastic sheeting on…

dwhill@gannett.com | @NY_newsguy_Hill The Common project will cost at least $15 million, up from the original plan of $9.5 million.Construction won't be complete until the middle of next summer, a year behind schedule.Poor records and…