Sustainability : Innovation + Job News

The United States is awash in water, but our capacity for storing surface water and the demands on it are growing. In fact, 36 states anticipate shortages in localities, regions, or statewide in the next 10 years, according to the U.S. Accountability Office.

While that's bad news for states like Colorado and Texas, the Dayton region sees an opportunity. Sitting on top of one of the largest clean aquifers in the nation, those who market the region are preparing to lure new companies to the area with the promise of 1.5 trillion gallons of H2O.

"We don't have mountains, we don't have oceans, but boy we have water," says Maureen Patterson, vice president of stakeholder relations for the Dayton Development Coalition. "We're seeking responsible water users, like data centers, chip manufacturers, food wholesalers," Patterson says. "Or brewers, or bottlers."

In April, the Coalition placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal as the first volley in its H2Open for Business campaign touting the region's water resources. Subsequently, the coalition sent a bottle of Dayton-area water to site selection officials across the country.

After the first of the year, the coalition will begin distributing marketing materials to site selectors and companies that might be tempted by an almost unquenchable resource. Patterson says the Water Innovations Alliance will hold a convention in Dayton in May. Backed by IBM and Intel -- which Patterson says is "the number one user of water" -- the conference is a perfect forum to highlight Dayton water, she says.

"This is a clean, buried, valley aquifer. You don't have to purify it. And it also remains a constant 56 degrees -- that's perfect for geothermal heating and cooling."

Source: Maureen Patterson, Dayton Development Coalition
Writer: Gene Monteith

Crown Equipment Corp. is putting a new economy spin on an old-economy industry. Already one of the leading lift truck manufacturers in the world, Crown wants to be the industry leader in application of fuel cell technology.

The New Bremen-based Crown began making lift trucks in the late 1950s. Today, the company, with 8,000 employees worldwide, is considered the seventh largest lift truck manufacturer, with 16 manufacturing sites around the world.

Eric Jensen, manager new technology research and development, says fuel cells make perfect sense for customers, who must now recharge lift truck batteries an average of every eight hours.

"Batteries have six to 10 hours of runtime," he says. "Some of our customers have three batteries for each vehicle -- one is in the vehicle, one is cooling and one is being recharged. To change a battery, it can take 20 to 30 minutes," during which time the vehicle is out of service and an employee is tied up with maintenance. Translation: lost productivity.

The hydrogen fuel cells now being applied to lift-trucks do everything a battery does, but can be refueled much more quickly using a hose from a tank, Jensen says.

In 2008, a $977,000 Ohio Third Frontier grant helped Crown with the first phase of a project to study the technical and commercial barriers to the application of fuel cells in Crown lift trucks. A subsequent $1-million grant will allow the company to begin researching the integration of fuel cells into the manufacture of its vehicles, Jensen says.

While qualification will continue over the next several years at the company's Huber Height's research center, the company already has delivered two initial shipments of its fuel cell-equipped vehicles -- one to a grocery chain in Texas and one to the U.S. Air Force in Georgia. Future shipments are planned to a grocery chain in Pennsylvania.

Source: Eric Jensen, Crown Equipment Corp.
Writer: Gene Monteith

GrafTech International has one foot planted solidly in the past and the other in the future. The combination seems to be a winner.

The Parma-based company built its early reputation by supplying arc lights to Cleveland in the early 1900s -- making that city the first in the U.S. with electric street lights. Later, the company made it big in steel-making and continues to be a leading producer of graphite electrodes used in arc furnaces.

While industrial materials -- primarily steel-related graphite products -- constitute 85 percent of GrafTech's sales, the company is emerging as a high-tech innovator in Ohio's new economy.

Beginning in the 1970s, the company began working on products needed to drive a fuel-cell powered car, says Lionel Batty, GrafTech's director of research and product development. Today, 75 percent to 85 percent of all fuel cells -- including one inside the Buckeye Bullet 2, a speed-setting hydrogen fuel cell-powered car designed by Ohio State University engineering students -- have GrafTech components, he says.

But just in case you aren't using fuel cells, let's bring it down to earth. A pioneer in thin-film graphite, which is 50 percent more thermally conducive (meaning cooler) than copper and four times lighter, GrafTech has probably made its way into your home.

"Almost all cell phones have our material in them," Batty says.

And if you have a laptop computer or panel display television purchased in the past two years, chances are it's got GrafTech inside, too.

GraftTech's new economy efforts have attracted the attention of state-funded programs like the Ohio Third Frontier, which has provided funding for both fuel cell development and graphite nanocomposites for next generation electronics.

Source: Lionel Batty, GrafTech
Writer: Gene Monteith

The nation's tough economy has wreaked havoc on both the number of college graduates hired right out of school and on college internships. But there's a bright spot to the picture, at least in Ohio: The Ohio Third Frontier Internship Program, which reimburses companies half the cost of the internships with the hope that students will remain in Ohio and take jobs with some of those companies.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, businesses and others plan to offer 21 percent fewer internships in 2009 than they did in 2008. Employers also told NACE that they plan to hire 7 percent fewer new grads in 2010 than they did this year.

Enter the Third Frontier Internship Program, which places students with companies involved in advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, bioscience, information technology, instruments-controls-electronics and power and propulsion. Interns must be majoring in physical, biological or agricultural sciences; engineering; computer sciences; or mathematics.

"There is a great need, even in the economy we're in," says Julia Hinten, program manager. Hinten says nearly 520 Ohio companies have participated in the program since it was begun in 2002; the program placed nearly 2,000 college students with Ohio firms last year.

Seapine Software, based in Mason, has found the program a way to add talent in an extremely competitive environment, says Chuck Clevenger, Seapine's corporate recruiter. The company has employed more than 25 students in a co-op/internship role, he says, and has hired seven to full-time positions.

"With the assistance of the Third Frontier, Seapine will be able to continue our intern hiring, even in the face of a soft economy," Clevenger says.

Sources: Julia Hinten, Third Frontier Internship Program; Chuck Clevenger, Seapine Software
Writer: Gene Monteith