Columbus/Central Ohio : Innovation + Job News

Algaeventure Systems believes it has found a better way to separate algae from water and dry it -- a key step in making algae an economical biofuel as well as a lower cost product for industries such as nutrition and pharmaceuticals.

Spun off from packaging company Univenture in 2008, the Marysville company relies on innovations developed by CEO/inventor Ross Youngs that simplify the harvesting, dewatering and drying process while keeping algae's cellular integrity, says Raouf Solaiman, marketing/sales associate.

The Solid Liquid Separation process, or SLS, uses a belt separating and drying system to avoid traditional technologies like centrifuging, which can degrade algae, Solaiman says. The company has licensed more than 10 of its machines and is further refining the technology with a $6-million U.S. Department of Energy grant.

"The SLS dramatically reduces the energy input as opposed to spinning a gigantic drum at very high velocities to do the dewatering," Solaiman explains. "We dewater the same amount of algae to an even dryer state with about 98 percent less energy. That's a big deal."

The company's industrial scale model should be fully commercialized later this year as the technology is advanced, Solaiman says.

Meanwhile, Algaeventure is tackling an environmental problem close to home: toxic algae in Grand Lake St. Marys. The company is using two new processes to learn how to pull algae from the lake using as little energy as possible and to boost the growth of "good" algae to crowd out the bad.

Algaeventure Systems currently has about 30 employees, and Solaiman says the company is growing.

Source: Raouf Solaiman, Algaeventure Systems
Writer: Gene Monteith

Can man mimic nature to improve health?

Maybe. That's what a University of Akron polymer engineering expert is researching at the Ohio Supercomputer Center in Columbus.

Hendrik Heinz is using advanced modeling and simulation techniques to more precisely understand biomineralization, nature's ability to form complex structures, such as bones, teeth and mollusk shells, from peptides; and organic photovoltaics. The work could advance knowledge of how organic materials bond to inorganic materials. Ultimately, the results of Heinz's efforts could affect the making of materials used for things like bone replacement and sensing systems -- and even disease treatment and energy generation.

Heinz has noted previously that advances in materials science such as in biomedical and energy conversion devices increasingly rely on computational techniques and modeling. In particular, work at the nanoscale level -- such as charge transport mechanisms in solar cells, the formation of biominerals, and self-assembly of polymers in multi-component materials -- is difficult to observe. Model building and simulation are critical, he says.

The Air Force Research Laboratory/Office of Scientific Research in Dayton; Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, the National Science Foundation; and ETH Zurich  and Sika Technology AG , both of Switzerland join UA and the Supercomputer Center in supporting Heinz's activities.

Heinz is "just one of scores of researchers" who are doing "amazing work" on the computational and storage systems of the Supercomputer Center, says spokesman Jamie Abel.

The Ohio Board of Regents established the center in 1987 as a statewide resource. The state's universities, businesses and others use it for an array of educational and business purposes.

Sources: Jamie Abel and Kathryn Kelley, Ohio Supercomputer Center
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A community partnership has provided a one-stop portal for central Ohio startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses since 2007.

But CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org thinks it could reach more central Ohio business leaders if they knew more about the site, says April McCollum.

McCollum, the website's business librarian and primary interface with site users, says more than 1,600 distinct visitors have used the website since May, when the website began keeping stats. But she says the resources available on the site to plan, start and grow a business have the potential to reach many more.

The website is a collaboration among TechColumbus, the Small Business Development Centers, the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, the Columbus Metropolitan Library and OCLC.

"The SBDC is our newest partner, and we are collaborating with the SBDC to reach out to entrepreneurs," McCollum says.

Financed and led through TechColumbus -- a Columbus-based technology business incubator -- the site is geared primarily to central Ohio businesses in the TechColumbus and Small Business Development Centers regional service areas, McCollum says. But, she says, much of the information on the site is helpful to any new or emerging small business in Ohio.

While the partners serve as information points, the site lists a host of other resources, including federal and state contacts for everything from obtaining licenses and grants to tax resources, regulations, and government contracting.

"I've seen other Ohio websites that are directories, but have never seen one that is as robust as this," McCollum says, noting that CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org provides both a human component (McCollum) and extensive information directories.

Source: April McCollum, CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org
Writer: Gene Monteith

A three-year-old Columbus firm is forging a new path in branding by developing browser themes that fans can download for their favorite sports teams, news sites or other entities.

Brand Thunder, founded in 2007 by former AOL/Netscape marketer Patrick Murphy, has provided themes -- or skins -- to more than 250 brands, including 60 NCAA universities.

"Brands are looking for new ways to engage their audience," says Murphy, the company's CEO. "Great brands are building these destination sites . . . but we all know people are getting their content elsewhere. So, how do these brands embrace their users, no matter where they are on the web?"

RSS feeds, Twitter feeds and Facebook updates can be built into brand themes, providing users with up-to-the-minute information about the goings on of their favorite brands -- and driving them to that organization's website, Murphy says.

"The Huffington Post one was one of our first clients. The average reader maybe visits their site three times a day. But we found if they were using our browser, usage was about 20 times a day."

The company shares advertising and merchandising revenue with clients based on clicks from within browser. But the principal revenue comes from the search function, enhanced by a recent partnership with Bing, which becomes the default search engine when a skin is downloaded (Murphy says users can easily change to a different engine afterward).

"As soon as that person clicks a sponsored link, Bing just made a buck or two,"  Murphy says -- and Brand Thunder earns a percentage.

Two and a half years ago, Brand Thunder received $350,000 from TechColumbus, and more recently received $1 million from the Third Frontier's Ohio Innovation Loan Fund. The company is closing on a second round of investment from North Coast Angel Fund and Ohio TechAngels.

Brand Thunder currently has seven employees -- three outside of Ohio -- but expects to add up to a dozen more in the next three to four years.

Source: Patrick Murphy, Brand Thunder
Writer: Gene Monteith

ButylFuel believes bio-butanol may be the best green replacement for gasoline or diesel -- but first, it has to bring the price down.

The Columbus company is using a new strain of bacterium developed by Shang-Tian Yang, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, to turn feedstock into butanol, bypassing the petroleum refining process through which the product is now made.

ButylFuel is currently running a pilot plant in nearby Gahanna to prove its technology and find new ways to make the fuel commercially viable, says Tom Grote, ButylFuel's chief financial officer. Grote, whose family owns Donatos pizza and Grote Company, says his family bought ButylFuel because "we're very interested in green initiatives."

Founded by Dave Ramey as Environmental Energy in the early 1990s, the company says butanol has big advantages over ethanol. Ethanol is corrosive and can't be shipped through a pipeline. It must be mixed with gasoline to be used in current engines, while butanol can be used in a blend or by itself. And butanol has about the same energy content as gasoline, while ethanol has only about a third.

But commercially produced butanol, used primarily as an industrial solvent, costs between $3.50 and $7 a gallon using today's production methods. Grote says the company is at least a year a way from building a demonstration plant that would produce a commercial product using cleaner, cheaper processes.

Grote credits Ramey, now the company's chief technology officer, with helping to educate consumers (he showed butanol could be used as a drop-in substitute for gasoline by filling his '92 Buick with the fuel) and lawmakers, who wrote butanol into the 2007 federal energy bill as part of the nation's renewable fuels standards.

The company, in tandem with Yang, has benefited from Ohio Third Frontier funding, but "we're aggressively partnering with folks to try to accelerate development," Grote says. "We are definitely willing to take on a strategic partner who would be willing to invest as we grow this."

ButylFuel currently employs six.

Source: Tom Grote, ButylFuel
Writer: Gene Monteith

Joelle Rubcich, along with partners Erica Krumlauf and Dave Michels, started Leading EDJE three and a half years ago when a competitor purchased the IT company they were working for.

Today, the company is gaining recognition not just for its IT services, but for its growth and business philosophy.

Recently, the 15-employee firm was named one of the fastest-growing companies in central Ohio, coming in 13th in Business First's recent Fast 50 rankings. Last week, Rubcich was honored as one of 11 women business owners to receive the Ohio Department of Development's 2010 Keys to Success award. And also last week, Business First included Leading EDJE among the region's best places to work for the second year in a row.

Leading EDJE, located in the village of Galena north of Columbus, develops custom software for a who's who of central Ohio customers, including universities, retailers, fast food restaurants and healthcare organizations, says Rubcich, the company's president.

"We partner with clients of all industries and help them custom build software solutions to allow them to gain a competitive edge," she explains.

Revenues were up more than 60 percent last year over the previous year, and employment has been rising steadily, she says. While growth is important, Rubcich says doing it the right way is paramount.

"The real focus of our company is providing extraordinary technical talent with high positive energy, and creating fun in the workplace," she says -- explaining why she holds the Best Places to Work award above the others in importance. "We're not going to compromise our business plan for the sake of growth. If it gets to the point where we're focusing on anything but enjoying what we do, we've broken our business model. We're concentrating on having a blast being excellent geeks."

Source: Joelle Rubcich
Writer: Gene Monteith

A few years ago, Yosry Attia, who had long been looking for new uses for an old technology, mentioned his latest work to his neighbor, Thomas Hubbell, and the hope that it could hold the key to better cancer treatments. Attia was investigating the use of aerogel -- a low-density porous solid material that some call "frozen smoke" -- and its ability to improve the targeting of cancer cells. Hubbell encouraged his friend to continue his pursuit, then joined him.

Two years later, their company, Delaware-based BioAerogel, is poised to change cancer treatment forever.

"The problem is, in order to get chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells, you have to immerse the body in the drugs," explains Hubbell. "That means you have to use much bigger doses than will ever reach actual cancer cells, and more healthy cells will be damaged."

Through the use of aerogel, a gel in which the liquid component has been replaced by gas, the pair have found a way to bind cancer cell-targeting proteins with chemotherapy drugs. When injected into a patient intravenously, the proteins within their gel attach themselves to the cancer cells at the molecular level, then deliver cancer-killing drugs. Better targeting means smaller doses of chemotherapy drugs, less damage to healthy cells and fewer side-effects.

Because each cancer has a special structure, aerogels with different properties must be designed for each kind of cancer. Attia and Hubbell started by tackling lung cancer cells, with lab results already showing great promise. Earlier this year, the duo got a TechColumbus start-up grant to continue their work while looking for new investors.

"Right now, we're working on perfecting the science and process, and then we have to go through the FDA approval process," says Hubbell. 

In the meantime, they'll start designing treatments for other cancers and investigating whether their aerogel delivery platform could be used to treat other diseases.

Source: Thomas Hubble, BioAerogel
Writer: Dave Malaska

Putting a solar system on your house is expensive and you might not see the payback for 20 years. But if you're a school or a business, a Columbus start-up says it has a way to help you tap into solar power, benefit as a "green" operator and do it for no money down.

Thomas Van Cleef, principal of Shine On Solar, says he launched the company earlier this year because "there are ways that businesses looking at this correctly can make it pay."

His approach hinges on power purchase agreements. Shine On's plan is to enlist third parties to own and operate each solar energy system as a limited liability partnership, thus qualifying for federal and state energy tax credits. The building owners would then purchase the power at affordable rates -- and the system owners could realize additional revenue from the sale of renewable energy credits to utilities.

"I'm going to put together an LLC for that particular power plant," Van Cleef explains. "And I'll bring investors to it and in some cases it could be wholly owned by the company that owns the roof. But it could also be you, me and our neighbors wanting to put solar on the school down the way."

Van Cleef, who helped found Solar Vision -- a similar company operating in central Ohio -- says he's working on four such projects currently and preparing to hire four employees in the next 60 to 90 days.

In the meantime, "what's really taking off for me right now are people saying what can be done?" to take advantage of advanced and alternative energy." He says the consulting side of the business is focused not just on solar, but on any energy source that makes sense for the customer.

Source: Thomas Van Cleef, Shine On Solar
Writer: Gene Monteith

Battelle Memorial Institute, one of the world's leading research and technology development organizations, is ready to shed its relative anonymity.

In a new effort to publicize the scope of its research, Battelle has added a searchable catalog to its website for those seeking licenses on its intellectual property and patents.

"We've always licensed technology. We've always done contract research for clients, and our industrial and government partners," says Spencer Pugh, Battelle's VP and manager of industrial and international markets. "We just never bragged about it much, or made it public."

The initial catalog of more than 60 patents ranges from medical and industrial system advancements, to advanced materials technology, consumer product innovations and green technologies. Metal-air batteries that increase efficiency in hearing aids and cell phones, cell therapy manufacturing systems, tankless cutting torches and thermal water treatment systems dot the list, which is just the tip of Battelle's research, Pugh explains.

Because it licenses some of its research to clients, they'll never be able to publicize the full range of the company's work.

The company, with headquarters in Columbus, has 130 locations worldwide with 22,000 employees. Battelle also co-manages seven national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security, and a nuclear energy lab in the United Kingdom.

But, at its heart, Pugh says, Battelle is a charitable trust with an emphasis on furthering math and science education. With additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the company is a founding partner of the Ohio STEM Learning Network and one of the corporate leaders of the Change the Equation Initiative, a CEO-led effort dedicated to inspiring STEM students. It also continues to work with today's youth through its Battelle for Kids, Battelle Engineering Experience and Project Mentor programs, and sponsors numerous grants for education programs.

Source: Spencer Pugh, Battelle Memorial Institute
Writer: Dave Malaska

Cursed to endure amputation after contracting meningitis as an infant, Patrick, 13, now is blessed to be bionic.

He has an amazingly functional prosthetic arm and hand made by Touch Bionics of Hilliard.

And he's not alone. Mechanical wizardry that seemed the stuff of sci-fi not long ago is helping thousands of people affected by medical conditions, industrial and agricultural accidents � even war veterans.

Touch Bionics develops advanced upper-limb prosthetics. Its flagship product us the i-LIMB Hand, which has five individually powered digits.

The company relocated from Scotland to the U.S. in 2009. The Hilliard site consists of about 11,000 square feet of space used for offices, fabrication and a clinic.

"�We started with about four employees (in Hilliard). Today, we currently have about 15. The office is composed of fabrication, clinical, customer service, marketing, finance, admin support, the reimbursement team, and A/P," says spokesman Lisa Prasad.

A New York site is used for the company's LIVINGSKIN division, acquired in 2008, which specializes in "aesthetic restoration solutions" � passive prosthetic devices designed to match exactly to a person's natural skin tone.

Touch Bionics began as a spinoff from the national health system in Scotland. It's many awards include "The Most Innovative Company of the Year in Europe".

Sources: Lisa Prasad and Linda Forrest, Touch Bionics
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Wyndot Inc. may be the biggest company you've never heard of.

Nestled within a 250,000-square-foot plant in Marion, the company is a major player in the snack food industry. Only confidentiality agreements with its customers � retailers, like grocery stores, and brand-name snack food companies that contract with Wyandot � have prevented its name from spreading.

Hoover and Ava Brown founded the company in 1936 in an old Wyandot County schoolhouse, says Rex Parrott, the company's executive VP of operations. Wyandot Popcorn Company, which only sold un-popped popcorn, grew dramatically in the 1950s when a customer asked the company to expand into popped popcorn.

"And so they came to Marion, and rented some space and bought some poppers and started making popcorn-related snacks," Parrott says.

The company grew even more quickly in the 1960s when one of the founders' sons took over the snack portion of the business, Parrott says. Small chip makers, who didn't have the capabilities to make the all-corn products consumers demanded, flocked to Wyandot to fill their needs.

Today, the company makes nothing under its own name, but cranks out plenty of product for others � including the tortilla strips found on Southwestern Salads at Wendy's and McDonald's. The company will make about 50 million pounds of snacks this year, almost all of them corn based, Parrott says.

"About half of those are tortilla chips, and the other half are a variety of different products," Parrott says. "That equates to about 100 million bags of snacks. We handle about 140,000 cases of product every week and we handle either loading or unloading about 150 semis a week."

Wyandot is still family-owned and currently employs 350. It also has been hiring � about 30 new employees this year alone, Parrott says.
"Regardless of the economy, people still eat," he notes.

Source: Rex Parrott, Wyandot Foods
Writer: Gene Monteith

For the last 10 years, Green Energy Ohio has been promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies in Ohio.

One of its hallmark programs � the annual Ohio Solar Tour � was held Oct. 2-3, with 242 green homes and businesses opening their doors to the public.

"The tour that we just completed was the eighth year that we participated," says Jack Clock, the non-profit's southwest Ohio coordinator. The national event, sponsored by GEO's parent organization, the American Solar Energy Society, gives the public an opportunity to see how others are making use of renewable and sustainable energy practices � not just solar, Clock says.

"I think we had more sites this year than any state in the country," Clock says. "It was all done in Google Maps, so you could go in, put in your address, the technologies you wanted to see and how far you were willing to travel, and it would spit out everything within that mile radius."

The organization is divided into five regions and is run by Executive Director Bill Spratley, Ohio's first Consumers Counsel. GEO's main offices are located in Columbus. The organization not only advances the use of advanced and alternative energy, but provides education and assistance to homeowners and businesses interested in clean energy. GEO also encourages volunteer clean energy projects and has helped train solar system installers.

GEO will have a hand in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' "Lean to Green" conference scheduled Oct. 26th-29th in Columbus. As part of that conference, GEO will hold its own business-to-business workshop Oct. 26th to showcase Ohio companies using clean energy systems.

Source: Jack Clock, Green Energy Ohio
Writer: Gene Monteith

That timeshare in Myrtle Beach seemed like a good idea at the time. A week's beach vacation in your own place every year.

But last year, the kid came down with pneumonia just before your vacation in the sun. This year, a business trip got in the way. You tried to trade your weeks with other timeshare owners -- but it never worked out.

Bottom line: You didn't quite get what you paid for.

If VacationView has its way, that dilemma will be solved. The young company, which formed last year and launched its Resort Rentals By Owner (RRBO) service in June, has built a web environment that will let you rent out your timeshare when you can't use it.

Think of it as StubHub for timeshares, explains co-founder Bob Kington.

"We started down this path of building a trading platform where owners could find each other online and do a swap between themselves," Kington says. "As we got into it, we said there's a better solution, and that's rental. If you could just rent your unit out and get cash for that asset and then use that cash to go somewhere else on vacation or put it in your pocket or whatever, it's a much better solution."

Unlike similar services, which bring renters and owners together to hash out deals on their own, RRBO takes care of both the transaction and fulfillment, Kington says.

Formed by former CompuServe and AOL alumni -- including former ShareThis CEO Mike Blackwell -- RRBO has raised about $800,000, including $225,000 from TechColumbus, and is working on an additional $300,000 to $500,000 round. The additional funds will allow the company to make a full-fledged marketing push, Kington says.

RRBO has seven full-time and three part-time employees.

Source: Bob Kington, VacationView
Writer: Gene Monteith

A $5-million federal grant is aimed at revving up the skills of Ohio's displaced auto and other workers, training them for jobs in the growing bioscience world.

The grant was awarded to BioOhio, a nonprofit, Columbus-based bioscience accelerator, for its Ohio Bioscience Industry Workforce Preparedness Project. BioOhio doled grants to Cincinnati State Technical and Community College,  Columbus State Community College,  Cuyahoga Community College, Lakeland Community College,  Owens Community College and Sinclair Community College.

The initiative will take place over three years, and more than $2.8 million of grant has been set aside for tuition reimbursement and trainee scholarships

The dollars will be used to create new programs or build on new ones at the colleges, which are partnering with employers and labor, workforce development and non-profit organizations to develop programs to retrain and identify workers in Ohio's auto and other declining industries.

The program is focused not just on education and training but moving people into jobs through the public and private partnerships says Dr. Bill Tacon, Senior Director, Workforce & Education at BioOhio.

"We will help them find a job. We're not simply training and just letting them go. Each has an industry advisory board, and when we got the grant the industry advisory board signed a letter of commitment saying they are looking at new potential hires," Tacon says.

The program has a goal of retraining 660 displaced or underemployed workers in declining industries

Northeast Ohio is leading the charge, because the region's colleges have several programs in place that likely will spread to other campuses, Tacon says. For example, Cuyahoga Community College and partners have a medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing program that could be implemented across the state.

Source: Bill Tacon, BioOhio
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Founded in 1995, Dovetail Solar and Wind began modestly, installing solar systems for rural-Ohio residents seeking to go off-the-grid. Solar panels were incredibly expensive � but still a substantial savings for many who could not afford to have a utility company run power to their homes.

A little federal and state legislation changed everything. For the better.

"Prior to 2006, it was almost all residential," says Dovetail vice president Alan Frasz. "The (Energy Policy Act of 2005) offered a 30 percent tax credit. Businesses took notice."

Then, a second tremendous boost for the company, Frasz says, came from the renewable portfolio standard bill that Ohio approved in 2008, requiring 25 percent of the state's energy to be generated from alternative and renewable sources.

"We doubled our business," he adds. "We've been growing quite a bit in the last in few years."

A member of the University of Toledo Clean and Alternative Energy Incubator, Dovetail now provides energy systems for solar electric, solar thermal and wind � and has installed 175 systems such across Ohio and its neighboring states.

"We expect to finish the year between six and seven millions dollars in sales," Frasz says. "In a worldwide economy, the beauty of renewable energy is that the wind and sun are free. They don't put out any pollution � and renewable energy creates clean, green jobs in Ohio, as opposed to other places."

There are now offices in all corners of Ohio: Athens, Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 2006, there were just a handful of people employed with the company. There are now 32 full time employees, but Frasz says that number could hit 50 by the end of 2011.

"Rather than having this money going out of the state and burning in a smoke-stack, let's take some of that and put it into renewable energy," Frasz says.

Source: Alan Frasz, Dovetail Solar
Writer: Colin McEwen