Two icons of the East End business community were honored by the North Fork Chamber of Commerce last night at its 5th Annual Snow Flake Gala and Awards Dinner.
The chamber feted WLNG radio with a community service award and W.J. Mills & Co. with a business of the year award before a packed house at Rafael Winery and Vineyards in Peconic.
WLNG has been on the air since 1963, when founder Paul Sidney launched it on AM radio. Sidney was synonymous with WLNG until his death in 2008. Over the decades the top-100 hit format naturally evolved into an oldies format, with the station continuing to play hits from the 50s and 60s — mixing in music of the 70s for good measure.
Gary Sapiane, who has worked full-time on WLNG since 1975, took over as station manager after Sidney’s passing and became president of the company in 2012. He attended the awards gala with marketing director David Kleine and radio personality Lisa Dabrowski.
“We’re really a family at the station. I think our newest employee has been there 20 years,” Sapiane said.
North Fork Chamber of Commerce president Tom Scalia noted WLNG’s history of helping community organizations promote their events and bringing local news to local airwaves even during the worst of storms.
“Your dedication to community is second to none,” he told Sapiane.
Sapiance paid homage to WLNG founder Paul Sidney, who passed away in 2008. Sapiane, a radio veteran who celebrated 50 years on the air Jan. 18, said the WLNG staff still considered Sidney their program director.
“The program hasn’t changed at all,” Sapiane told the crowd. “And it won’t. We’re afraid to ever change anything there. It’s the way radio used to be. It’s fun. On NPR they mentioned us and said ‘It’s a kooky station.’ It is,” he laughed. “And it’s fun.”
Brothers Jamie and Bob Mills of William J. Mills and Company accepted the business of the year award on behalf of the 135-year-od Greenport concern, that started out making canvas sails for ships and has branched out into manufacturing and installing awnings — and even making canvas tote bags that wer featured in Vogue magazine.
Jamie Mills spoke of a business’s need to manage change in order to survive.
Employees are any company’s most valuable asset, he said. “We would not have a business if it weren’t for our employees,” Mills said. Some have been with the company for 50 years.
Mills urged the business community to financially support Eastern Long Island Hospital. “There have ben several times I wouldn’t be here but for that hospital being five minutes away,” he said. “There is no more important organization on the North Fork than Eastern Long Island Hospital.”
He reminded everyone that in business as in life “attitude” is everything.
Reading from a quote he said someone gave him the first time he battled cancer in 1999, he said attitude “is more important than facts, more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure than successes, than what pople think say or do. It’s more important than appearances, than giftedness or skills. It will make or break a company, a church, a home, a life.
“We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the past. We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one strength we do have and that’s attitude.
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.”
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti and Peter Blasl
