Smithtown surgeon hires ex-Playboy Playmate

Doctors normally hire nurses, assistants and secretaries.

Dr. Lloyd Landsman, a Smithtown plastic surgeon, may have broken new ground. He has hired a vice president for business development who is a former Playboy Playmate.

Landsman, who has been practicing for 16 years, said traditional radio, television and newspaper advertising were not doing the job for him. Potential clients, he said, are at spas, gyms, beauty salons and clubs. Last month, he hired Courtney Culkin, 26, of Shirley and gave her a title more suited for a big corporation than a doctor's office.

"Why Courtney and not someone else?" Landsman said. "She is a former [Playboy] centerfold, and whatever qualities made her successful in that pursuit are qualities that she brings to the job she is now doing."

Landsman said about 90 percent of his patients are women who are looking to maintain their youthful looks and figures. Culkin, a 2005 Playboy centerfold, was hired in December.

Culkin, a psychology graduate of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville, said the economy has been a bit of a challenge so far in her job. But, she added, "I'm reaching out to the beauty industry, the fashion industry. That's where I have my expertise."

Linda Adams, a spokeswoman for the New York State Medical Society, said such a hiring by a doctor is unusual. "We've never heard of it before," she said.

Schein exec to speaks at global pandemic conference
Imagine a pandemic that kills thousands and brings government, businesses and transportation to a virtual halt around the world.

To Stanley Bergman, chief executive of Melville-based medical equipment supplier Henry Schein Inc., a worldwide pandemic is highly likely.

Bergman leaves this weekend for Davos, Switzerland, where he will be a panelist at the annual World Economic Forum, an event attended by heads of state and top company executives. Bergman's panel, "Prepared for a Pandemic," will include other health care executives and academics.

Bergman says most companies in the United States and abroad are not prepared for a pandemic.

"The world is more likely to see a pandemic than not," Bergman said before departing. "My sense is that companies are not prepared."

Companies, he said, need to assemble pandemic teams and send them to conferences to learn how to become prepared. Schein, Bergman said, has developed a plan so that if it is hit by mass illnesses, the company could function.

Bergman won't be the only Long Island business executive in Davos.

CA Inc., the Islandia-based software giant, is sending Ajei Gopal, its executive vice president for products and technology, and Mark Thompson, an executive vice president for global sales. Gopal will be on a panel about cloud computing.

One executive who has attended the forum but asked to remain anonymous because she went as a staff member and not a panelist, said security has been extremely tight and is expected to be even tighter this year. The forum starts Tuesday and runs through Sunday. 

LI commercial real estate market expected to struggle
Long Island's commercial real-estate industry remained in the dumps in the last three months of 2009, and it looks to remain that way for the foreseeable future, according to the latest reports from the big brokerage companies here.

"The market is a serious concern for some and it's not going to get better anytime soon," said Martin Lomazow, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis in Woodbury.

The newest CB Richard Ellis report says the percentage of available office space on the Island remains high, at 17.7 percent. The "availability rate" was 14.7 percent exactly a year ago.

Additionally, more space is coming onto the market than is being leased, CB Richard Ellis said. At the end of '09, about 600,000 square feet was on the market, up from about 400,000 square feet in '08.

The latest report by Newmark Knight Frank, another brokerage, in Melville, preferred to see the glass as half full. It said more property came off the market in Nassau County, at least, even though it remained above a 10.6 percent rate reported a year ago.

There was some good news for tenants. "Significant concessions in the form of free rent and higher tenant improvement allowances have become the norm," CB Richard Ellis said.

Brian Lee, executive managing director at Newmark Knight Frank, said the industry is close to hitting the bottom.

"Landlords are making deals that have little or no profit or even losing money," Lee said. "When that happens, you've got to be close to the bottom." A recovery, Lee said, should begin this year.

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