Otto named president of Long Island Forum for Technology

ASSOCIATIONS

There are not many positions in Long Island's aerospace and defense industries that Frank Otto has not held. He was a vice president for years at the old Edo Corp., now a part of ITT Corp. More recently, Otto was a top executive at Comtech Telecommunications Corp. of Melville.

Now, he has a new hat: president of the Long Island Forum for Technology, a 30-year-old organization that includes many of the Island's largest defense contractors as members. Otto replaces the late C. Kenneth Morrelly, LIFT's longtime president who died unexpectedly Oct. 1. Otto, of Wading River, had been serving as LIFT's chairman.

LIFT has just moved its offices from Bay Shore to the new Applied Science Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security, a refurbished building at the Northrop Grumman Corp. complex in Bethpage. Otto said his main task will be making sure the new center is successful. "We now have a 70 percent commitment on the occupancy" of the building, Otto said. "By the third quarter of this year we'll be fully occupied."