Columbus : Innovation + Job News

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

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

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

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

The Dayton region may be known as Ohio's sensors corridor, but northeast Ohio's capabilities in sensor technology just got a boost -- and a big one at that.

Last week the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering at Cleveland State University, allocating funds from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative, awarded six grants totaling more than $17 million to universities and other organizations for development and commercialization of sensors and sensor technologies.

The largest of the six grants -- 25 percent of which will be matched by recipients -- went to Lorain County Community College, which will receive $5.5 million to work with R.W. Beckett Corp., Acence and Greenfield Solar Corp., to create a center for sensor commercialization.

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation's Learner Research Institute will receive $2.67 million to lead establishment a new center for sensor and microdevices for biomedical applications, and the Austen BioInnovation Institute is getting $2.6 million to lead development of an advanced instrumentation platform for product development in biomedical areas.

Meanwhile, the Ohio State University is slated to receive $3 million to lead commercialization of terahertz sensors for applications such as medical imaging and homeland security, and the University of Akron will receive $1.66 million to lead commercialization of sensor technologies for clean energy products.

Youngstown State University will also receive $1.66 million, for a collaboration with the Youngstown Business Incubator and M-7 Technologies to create systems for next generation manufacturing and inspection systems.

Some recipients are already predicting new jobs due to the awards.

"Our principal commercial partner, M-7 technologies, is looking to hire an additional 70 employees over five years," says Julie Michael Smith, the Youngstown incubator's chief development officer. "That is the direct employment, and then of course there will hopefully be downstream employment by companies employing this technologies."

She says the grants are good for northeast Ohio and for the Youngstown area, where old-line industries like steel have been battered in recent years.

Sources: The Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering and Julie Michael Smith, Youngstown Business Incubator
Writer: Gene Monteith

IR Diagnostyx is working to develop fast, accurate and painless diagnosis techniques for a variety of functional diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis (painful bladder syndrome) fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Formed last year and based at TechColumbus, the company grew out of Ohio State University's Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Institute at the Fisher College of Business.

Company founders -- OSU graduate students in OSU's Fisher College -- won third place in the 2008 Fisher business plan competition, says president and CEO Gary Smith. Since then, IR Diagnostyx has received a $50,000 TechGenesis grant and is currently under consideration for an additional $250,000 in funding through the TechColumbus Pre-Seed Fund.

While the company is looking for new diagnostic techniques for a variety of ailments, "we're really focused on interstitial cystitis," Smith says. "The technology's based on work done in Tony Buffington's laboratory in veterinary medicine, and that of Luis E. Rodriguez-Saona. Ironically, Luis is a food scientist, but his competency, his research area, is in infrared micro-spectroscopy."

How does that relate to the diagnosis of functional ailments?

"We take a blood sample and we're developing an algorithm, and using some complicated software we can take a look at a serum sample and see a characteristic signal generated from patients with these specific diseases," Smith explains. "And we take that diagnostic information and compare it with others and provide the physician with some feedback on the health of the patient."

The company is still in the early stages of its product development, having completed feasibility work and now preparing to launch regulatory research, Smith says.

"We're going to collect data from about 500 patients to submit to the FDA later this year," he says.

Source: Gary Smith, IR Diagnostyx
Writer: Gene Monteith

Mitch McLeod established ARCOS as a custom software company in 1993 in the basement of his home. Little did he know that a one-off software request would eventually propel the Columbus-based firm into 23 states.

In 1997, Wisconsin-based Alliant Energy approached McLeod about building an application to help manage crews called out to repair lines during power outages. The problem: Dragging line crews out of bed in the middle of the night can be hit or miss without an organized way of doing it.

"In 1999, two more companies came to us and they said 'we want what Alliant Energy has,'" McLeod recalls. "So we built a little more general purpose version of the product."

Unprepared to market the product full-force, "I went to the Ohio Foundation for Entrepreneurial Education and rewrote the business plan," McLeod says.

The market research conducted as part of his plan revealed that most utility companies were using manual call-out processes using notebooks and spreadsheets, or home-grown systems that left a lot to be desired.

With four more utilities in the pipeline for his software, McLeod's company dove headlong into fully developing a marketable product. The resulting solution automates the process for identifying available line crews, contacts utility workers at home and allows them to electronically report into work. It then tracks their work so "we know that they have been called out, we know not to notify them again, and then when they're released from work we know not to call them again."

Today, the Columbus-based firm serves utilities all across the country. Company revenues have been growing at about 20 percent a year during the past two years, and McLeod is projecting 30 percent growth in 2010.

At the same time, the company has nearly doubled headcount in the last year, with 18 employees now compared to 10 in January 2009.

Source: Mitch McLeod, ARCOS
Writer: Gene Monteith

Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel funders and economic development officials will descend on Columbus Sept. 27 and 28 to network and to hear the latest developments within Ohio's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Sponsored by the Ohio Capital Fund and the Ohio Third Frontier, the Ohio Early Stage Summit will focus on the vitality of Ohio's early stage companies and investors, says Paul Cohn, the Capital Fund's vice president and regional director.

While past events have provided an opportunity for a handful of early stage companies to pitch their services and products to potential funders, popular demand has led to an expansion of that portion of the summit on the event's first day.

"For the past two years, we had half a dozen companies make pitches during the conference," Cohn says. "That's resulted in companies actually getting funded. We've expanded that to a separate event -- a half a day leading up to the summit."

Other presentations and panel discussions this year will include the state of the Ohio Third Frontier and what capital needs continue to exist across Ohio.

"Now that the Third Frontier has been investing for a number of years in early stage companies, is there a need for some later stage money as these companies are starting to mature?," Cohn explains.

Another discussion will focus on minority early stage businesses and both the opportunities and challenges they face. And participants will hear about the state of venture capital in Ohio.

Cohn notes that about 350 people from throughout Ohio attended last year's event.

The summit is free of charge, but attendees should register by Sept. 22. That can be done by going here. 

Source: Paul Cohn, the Ohio Capital Fund
Writer: Gene Monteith

While ChumpDump itself may never make its creators rich, the user information it is now pouring into a central data base just might pay off.

The concept for the Twitter-related game germinated during Startup Weekend Columbus 2010, an April event that brought the entrepreneurial-minded together for three days of brainstorming and fleshing out of new ideas for startups, says Dan Rockwell, co-founder of ChumpDump and CEO of Columbus-based Big Kitty Labs.

"I wasn't interested in jumping on another team," Rockwell says of that weekend. But a light bulb went off while chatting with colleagues about a company Twitter managed to shut down for enabling bulk, automatic "unfollows" of Twitter friends.

"We were laughing about that, and we thought we can make something faster and easier than that, and we'll do it nice and novel and wrap it in a game. We'll call it ChumpDump."

ChumpDump debuted for iPhone and Google Android earlier this month. Within two weeks, 500 people were playing. Each day, ChumpDump picks a name randomly from your friends list and scours through a month of tweets. It tells you how many times your friend sent you a direct message, how many times he or she retweeted your tweets, number of replies to your messages and other factors that enable you to answer this question: "Save or dump?"

Three points for saving -- and three points for dumping. More importantly, Rockwell says, players must give a reason why they are saving or dumping a friend.

The free game is unlikely to create much revenue, says Rockwell, but that's OK. The project helped its creators gain new capabilities in game mechanics, leader board design, in-game ads, Android development and in-game purchasing. And, as ChumpDumpers grow in number, the rich information concerning why people choose to save or dump could become a data mine worth its weight in iPhones.

Source: Dan Rockwell, ChumpDump
Writer: Gene Monteith

New Product Innovations (NPI) has been doing business in China for years. Now, it wants to help American medical device manufacturers do more business there, too.

On July 19, the Chinese Medical Device Trade Association (MDTA) announced it had chosen NPI as its official U.S. branch. The association between NPI and MDTA is seen as a way to provide easier access to Chinese markets, particularly Shanghai, where MDTA is based.

NPI designs, develops, engineers and manufacturers new products for client companies. It also helps customers bring those products to market. While the Columbus-based firm serves consumer, industrial and medical clients, it has begun to put more focus on the medical device marketplace, says Mike Billman, managing director for the new MDTA branch and NPI's development manager for new product innovation. As an MDTA branch, NPI will concentrate on medical devices used in non-invasive procedures, he says.

"We've been doing business in terms of manufacturing in China for a long period of time," explains Billman, "A couple of years ago, we realized that since we already have assets in China with three offices," as well as an intimate knowledge of the banking and legal infrastructure, "that we can help U.S.-based medical device companies tap into the growing market in China."

The July 19 announcement piggybacks onto a four-phase process that NPI has been using to assist companies interested in doing business in China, Billman says. The process includes early market analysis, formal due diligence, distribution channel development and, finally, assistance bringing the product to the marketplace..

NPI was established in 1989 as a joint venture of GE Plastics and Fitch, a global design firm. The company has 40 employees in the U.S.

Source: Mike Billman, NPI
Writer: Gene Monteith

Today's insurers are sticklers for making sure medical providers don't prescribe costly medications or treatments that could be substituted by generics or lower cost alternatives.

The result is "prior authorization," a set of rules and procedures that can make for a complicated and paper-intensive process for doctors, pharmacists and other professionals who must deal with a large number of insurers and a large number of forms.

CoverMyMeds has set its sites on eliminating hard-copy paperwork related to prior authorization of pharmaceuticals. The year-old company, based in Twinsburg with operations in Columbus, rolled out its solution last April. Sam Rajan, one of the company's founders, says since then thousands of clients all over the country have embraced the new online procedure that reduces time on task by as much as 75 percent.

Until now, prior authorization has been "a very manual paper process," Rajan says. "Any time there's paper involved, the work flow is disrupted and work stops. There are a couple of studies out there that show patients -- a good number of them -- can go without therapy if these prior authorizations aren't completed. That's primarily due to the provider not knowing where to go to look for the proper forms, the rules and how to get the ball rolling."

CoverMyMeds allows a provider to go online, find the right form, share it with another healthcare professional, fill it out and e-fax it to the insurer -- all in under five minutes, compared the traditional 15 to 25 minutes.

The firm has caught the attention of JumpStart, which recently invested $250,000 in the company. The funds will be used for additional technology infrastructure and personnel as the company further develops its capabilities, Rajan says.

CoverMyMeds has 11 employees and expects near-term growth to push that number up by about 50 percent.

Source: Sam Rajan, CoverMyMeds
Writer: Gene Monteith

With the launch of their new 2.6 Version Remote Backup Appliance, 3X Systems of Columbus is optimistic that the future holds strong growth as their market share increases both in the U.S. and overseas.

3X was founded in 2006 by Alan Arman with the help of a $500,000 grant from TechColumbus. Today, the company has hundreds of clients in countries around the world and saw growth of 74 percent in 2009, says Arman.

Arman's mission when he founded the company was to create data back up that was affordable and reliable. Customers include medical practices, law firms, non-profit groups and small to medium size manufacturing companies, he says. They appreciate one of the key features of the storage back up - which is that they control where the data is stored.

"We allow customers to control where the data back up goes," he says. "They have access to the data. No one else can access it."

Arman says clients choose where the data storage appliance is located, something that is not normally a choice when hiring a data back up service.

As sales continue to increase in the next 12 to 24 months, Arman says he plans to hire up to three new professionals in sales, marketing and software development to add to the 10 employees he now has. He says he expects sales to double this year.

Source: Alan Arman, 3X Systems
Writer: Val Prevish

An electric utility's biggest bane, John Lauletta says, is the power outage. It makes sense that if utilities could predict outages -- or at least when parts of the system were about to fail -- they'd jump at the chance.

Enter Exacter, which over the past four years has grown rapidly by helping to predict how and where overhead power distribution systems might fail.

Lauletta, Exacter's CEO, says the company began to gel in 2004, when he and fellow utilities veteran Larry Anderson (Exacter's vice president of international business) "started talking about this idea of predictive technologies. We started our work with the Ohio State University High Voltage Laboratory, and we opened our company on July 1, 2006."

Today, Exacter has 100 utility customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia and the U.K.

In a nutshell, here's Exacter's approach: As a vehicle drives along the distribution route at regular speeds, a patented sensor in the car detects radio emissions from damaged components. Exacter sends a person into the field to confirm which component is damaged or failing. A digital photograph is taken, latitude and longitude confirmed, and reported to the utility so the problem can be fixed.

While there are other methods for finding bad components, none is as accurate, fast or as comprehensive as the method Exacter uses, Lauletta says.

Lauletta says another growing service for Exacter is helping utilities understand the feasibility of laying "smartgrid" networks over their distribution lines.

Exacter has received support from the Ohio TechAngel Funds and the Ohio Third Frontier Innovation Ohio Loan Fund. Last year, the company received Outstanding Startup and Outstanding Service awards from TechColumbus, and, more recently, a statewide professional engineering award for innovation for small companies.

Source: John Lauletta, Exacter
Writer: Gene Monteith