Dayton : Innovation + Job News

One year after TeraView opened its first U.S. office, the UK-based imaging company is finding its niche within Dayton's vibrant, high-tech business sector. Dayton was the logical locale for TeraView's U.S. office because the region is a center for aerospace engineering and the development of advanced sensor technologies.

TeraView’s Dayton office is housed within the the Institute for the Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology (IDCAST), a facility established by the University of Dayton with a $28 million Third Frontier grant in 2008. The company develops technologies using Terahertz light for imaging and spectroscopy that have pharmaceutical, biomedical and military applications.
 
“We have had a long relationship with Dayton and with a number of the excellent Universities in the state,” says TeraView spokesperson Alessia Portieri. “There is a now a strong Terahertz network in the area. This was one of the key reasons why we selected Dayton to create our base.”
 
Over the past year, Teraview has conducted two Terahertz techonology training sessions through IDCAST, a facility that has over 30 companies and eight universities as its partners and is considered one of the most prominent advanced sensor research and development centers in the U.S.

“These have been well attended by people from across the U.S. and helped to raise the profile of Terahertz, Teraview and the capabilities of Ohio,” says Portieri. TeraView’s Dayton location supports Terahertz technology projects in surrounding states, including an ongoing project in Indiana.
 
TeraView has just raised $5.5 million of new investment, and more training events are in the works, including one aimed at the pharmaceutical industry. “We’ve just moved additional equipment into the facility and are starting to offer contract analytical services,” says Portieri. The company hopes to eventually see U.S. interest for TeraView applications rise to the level of its European demand.
 
As the Ohio-based operation shows progress in the US market, TeraView plans to add more jobs in the Dayton facility. Meanwhile, the company plans on subcontracting existing work to IDCAST teams.
 

Source: Alessia Portieri
Writer: Kitty McConnell

To spur economic development and create jobs in their communities, several Ohio cities have created new, hyperlocal funds that offer attractive financing to entrepreneurs that may have the next great business idea, yet lack the actual cash to implement it. The catch? They must be willing to put down roots and grow their businesses locally.

One example of a growing Ohio business that recently took advantage of such hometown love is ManuscriptTracker, a Wooster-based firm that sells web-based software that automates the peer review process for academic journals. Co-founder Brian Boyer says a $35,000 deferred-payment loan from the Wooster Opportunities Loan Fund made it possible for him to bring his product to market last year.

“We saw lots of potential to grow our business, but funding is very hard to come by for start-up software companies,” says Boyer, a Wooster native. “Thanks to receiving funding last year, we were able to develop a market version of our software, as well as sales resources such as a database, marketing collateral and potential client list.”

ManuscriptTracker’s software organizes and automates peer review tracking for busy academics that don’t have the time or resources to manage the process themselves. The stringent nature of the peer review process, particularly with scientific journals, often necessitates involving as many as 20 individuals in a single review.

“To be published in an academic journal, your work must be vetted by the research of your peers, but that means asking top researchers to set aside their time,” explains Boyer. “We simplify and organize the process and provide helpful reporting forms. We also help academics to track who in their network is quick and knowledgeable.”

With the assistance of the economic development nonprofit Jumpstart, similar hyperlocal funds have also been created in Barberton, Canton and Mansfield.

As the New Year kicked off, ManuscriptTracker had already secured one new client, and Boyer says he’s hopeful that the new software will attract additional clients soon.


By Lee Chilcote

Tight budgets have become a way of life for school districts, and many businesses that work with schools have felt the pinch of those pennies.  But one Dayton company is enjoying steady growth with a long list of school clients by helping them save money.

Energy Optimizers USA was founded in 2009 by Greg Smith and has grown from a two-man operation then to 15 employees today.  The company designs and implements energy systems that utilize renewable energy and conservation measures to help cut the power bills for their customers.

“We’ve grown pretty rapidly,” says Smith, who formerly worked for Trane in Dayton.  “There is a strong demand for this type of thing right now.”

 Energy Optimizers’ primary customers are K-12 schools and government buildings throughout Ohio and the Midwest.  

“I like working with education,” says Smith, who says he formed his own company because he wanted to expand the type of work he was doing with Trane.  “It’s nice to help out the people that are there to help kids.”

Smith’s company implements plans that usually save his customers about 20 percent a year on power bills and include everything from new light bulbs to solar panels and wind mills.  “If it uses energy, we’ve got it,” he says.

Energy Optmizers works with partners in all areas of energy use -- HVAC, solar, lighting and more.  They handle project development and installation and will even manage the system afterward.

“We really do it all, A to Z,” says Smith.  “As I like to say, ‘people understand it when they have one throat to choke,’” he says with a laugh.

To date, they have already implemented systems for at least 100 school districts and they expect that number to double in the next year.  When a client is paying about $500,000 per year for energy, saving $100,000 on their bill is a big deal.  

Smith says he is looking to hire two more employees right now, and expects hiring to continue over the next year.

Source: Greg Smith, Energy Optimizers
Writer: Val Prevish

The next generation of Ohio entrepreneurs is in good hands, according to a prestigious ranking of college and university entrepreneurship programs.

The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine surveyed more than 2,000 entrepreneurship programs, and ranked three Ohio universities among the top 25 undergraduate programs in the U.S. The University of Dayton's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program is ranked no. 12, followed by Miami University's Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at no. 15, and Xavier University's Sedler Family Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at 25.

The survey covered the 2010-2011 academic year, and ranked schools based on features inside and outside of the classroom. That included academics and requirements, percentage of students enrolled in entrepreneurship programs, and percentage of graduates and faculty had run, started or bought a successful business. The survey also looked at schools' partnerships with other institutions to allow access to the entrepreneurship program, and budgets for clubs and organizations that support entrepreneurship.

The results put the universities in the company of number one-ranked University of Houston, as well as Baylor University, Syracuse University and Brigham Young University.

At the three universities, there are a total of 865 students enrolled in entrepreneurship programs, who have access to 21 entrepreneurship organizations and clubs and 14 mentor programs.

Sources: Debora Del Valle, Director for Public Relations Xavier University; and University of Dayton communications
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

New technologies are worthless if people and businesses can't easily use them. Sometimes it takes an outsider's view to take an innovation from a theory to its best practical use.

NoBull Innovation has been helping entrepreneurs and companies in Ohio and beyond develop new science and technology-based products, services and processes for more than three years. The owners have at times invested in some of these new technologies and helped launch startups in the process.

The Dayton firm works as an innovation catalyst creating new products through physical science, biology, electronics, and engineering. It works with clients who are early in the innovation process or who are trying to solve specific problems through technology.

NoBull was founded by former veteran Miami University chemistry professor Gilbert Pacey, former Procter & Gamble product developer and scientist Wolfgang Spendel and Todd Dockum, director of the Miami Heritage Technology Park. The company has two employees and is applying for federal grants that could allow them to hire two-to-three more in the next 12 months.

"People come to us who have a technology-based idea but need some help. We provide experience in developing technologies and help them get their idea to the next level. We also have people who have a good technology but are naive on the business end, and we can help them as well," Pacey says.

The company often helps clients discover multiple and new uses for their ideas beyond their preconceived notions.
"Sometimes people get tunnel vision and Wolf is really good at helping them see beyond that," Pacey adds.

Among the companies NoBull has worked with are Algaeventure Systems, Inc., a clean energy tech company in Marysville, and Applied Nanoinfusion and VCG Chromatography, both in Dayton. NoBull is partial owner of VCG.

NoBull is located in a facility of The Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology, (or IDCAST).  IDCAST, is a research and development accelerator established through a $28 million Ohio Third Frontier grant.

Source: Gilbert Pacey, NoBull Innovation
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Christopher Che formed Che International Group, LLC in 2005 with the goal of acquiring and growing subsidiary companies from diverse industries.

Since then, Che's first acquisition -- Hooven Dayton Corp., which he purchased in 2007 -- has doubled its revenues (from $10 million in 2007 to $20 million in 2010) and made an acquisition of its own -- Benchmark Graphics of Richmond, Ind.

On June 27, Che International made its second acquisition -- Akron-based Digital Color Imaging, which was promptly renamed Digital Color International, Che says. Altogether, Che International now employs about 150 and primarily serves Fortune 1,000 customers, Che says.

The acquisition of Digital Color, which provides digital, offset and wide format printing as well as direct mail, warehousing and fulfillment services, complements Hooven Dayton, a Dayton-based provider of high quality prime product labels, flexible packaging, promotional coupons and specialty printing solutions, Che says.

"Our goal is for the Che International Group to have subsidiary companies across industry lines but serving the same customer base," he explains.

Che's success as a small-business leader during a slow economy has been noticed not just in west central Ohio but by the White House. In May, he was asked to host a "listening session" of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. In June, Che was appointed to the council itself. 

"They felt I could bring my expertise to the council as a small business," he says "and help explain what it takes to grow during tough times and what some of our issues are."

How has he been able to grow?

"We focused on really training our people and we did not cut down on marketing budgets," he says."And we developed a very highly impactful value proposition to take to customers -- a value proposition that would make a difference to their bottom line."

Che, who came to the United States from Camaroon in 1980 to attend college, says Ohio has been "a beautiful place for me. It's proven to be very supportive. Whenever I needed them they were there to help me with low-interest loans or training and so forth."

Meanwhile, Che International Group is working on additional acquisitions as well as companies that might merge with Digital Color, Che says.

Source: Christopher Che, Che International Group
Writer: Gene Monteith



 

Flyer Angels may sound like a World War II-era bomber squadron . . . It isn't.

It is the name of a venture investment group managed by a group of University of Dayton undergraduates and endowed by an alumnus.

The new program, launched with a $1-million gift from 1969 alumnus Ron McDaniel, has helped to make the school's entrepreneurship program one of the best in the country. As part of Flyer Angels, about 200 students receive hands-on experience in due diligence, in finding and securing sources of capital, and even decide which business plans to bankroll and which to walk away from.

In March, Flyer Angels made its first investment: Commuter Advertising, winner of the school's 2010 Business Plan Competition.  Commuter Advertising is a high-tech startup that sells ads on board public transportation. The company received $35,000 from the university, after students vetted its business plan. 

"So far we've made six investments, most of them through our collaboration with Ohio TechAngels," says Dean McFarlin, chairman of the university's management and marketing department. "We're looking at a number of companies for possible investment right now. Some of them are through our own sources, and others through our collaboration with OTA." 

McFarlin says all of the companies under consideration are technology-based.

"The main motivation for us is education. Making money and getting a great return is secondary. There are very few undergrad students in the country who can say they were doing private investing or angel-equity types of deals, and making decisions and doing due diligence as undergraduates."

Source: Dean McFarlin, University of Dayton
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Former dermatology resident Keoni Nguyen fully intends to practice medicine someday. But right now, all his time is taken up with his invention: an innovative synthetic skin that has a number of large biomedical companies chomping at the bit.

Dayton-based Dermsurg Scientific is working feverishly to fill orders for the Il Duomo, a model of a human head over which is laid Nguyen's patented, human-like system of synthetic skin, muscles, nerves, fat and cartilage.

Using an assembly team of five, the company is building models for elite clients like the Mayo Clinic, Walter Reed Hospital and Ethicon, Nguyen says. He adds that Johnson & Johnson has asked for a custom model that can be used with a new facelift device the company is planning to debut in Europe later this year.

Heady stuff for the former Ohio University medical resident who got tired of doing sutures on pigs feet.

As students and well into the residency of most dermatologists, getting a chance to to work on real human skin is rare, Nguyen says. Other synthetics are also a poor substitute for real skin, he says. He sees his product as ideal for training the next generation of dermatologists and surgeons.

"I took the last three years off," he says. "The first year I did a lot of research on the properties of the skin and got a provisional patent. But I needed more money because I was running out and couldn't sell any more of my toys."

Nguyen says he financed his patent application by selling his prized carbon-frame time trial bike, and researched and wrote the provisional patent himself because he couldn't afford a lawyer. Eventually, Dr. Thomas Olsen, a Wright State University dermatology professor who also runs the Dermatopathology Laboratory of Central States learned about his work.

"So he gave me a grant to provide me with what I needed to get this thing to where it is today."

Other help has come from the Dayton Development Coalition, which has provided funding to help Dermsurg finish demonstration units, hire employees to evolve its management team, move from its current location to its own space and develop better molds for the Il Duomo. The Coalition also provided funds to embed an entrepreneur in residents to help Nguyen develop a business plan and investment summary.

As for practicing medicine someday, Nguyen says, "that's the whole point, I want to go back. This whole thing started because of my passion for it. If I didn't have the passion for it it never would have been created. My passion is to teach and contribute something to medicine."

Source: Keoni Nguyen, DermSurg
Writer: Gene Monteith

JibeCast was born of frustration after Mark Ford, the company's president, found few commercial solutions to the challenge of securely distributing training videos to new sales representatives of Qwasi, his previous startup.

"I found myself challenged to not sit on training calls every single day to regurgitate the same information over and over again," Ford says. "I found myself sitting on webinars doing a lot of internal activity versus helping my sales team close big deals. I started to think about how we might be able to leverage online video to basically put myself into a cloning machine so that I could distribute that training message consistently and effectively."

The result is JibeCast, a cloud-based service that allows clients to secure their video content, distribute it easily and track immediately who accesses it. Formed in Dayton last year, the company has distributed the product privately and plans a beta launch in the next few weeks.

"Video presents a unique challenge in that most companies infrastructures aren't well equipped to manage online video," Ford says. "The media streaming and encoding aspects of handling video are totally different than putting up a pdf on your website. And then properly formatting it and being able to secure it online is a challenge for most organizations.

JibeCast is targeting small to midsize businesses that either have a sales focus or heavy training component.

"We also have a focus on healthcare market, where they are constantly being mandated to comply to new government standards and they have to continually audit their employees and teams on process and procedure. So anywhere where there are process and procedure requirements for tracking and auditing are also a sweet spots," Ford says.

Ford lives outside of Philadelphia, but -- with the help of the Dayton Development Coalition and $300,000 in Ohio Third Frontier funds -- established the company in Dayton.

"Dayton provides access to affordable talent," Ford explains. We looked at Ohio, Cincinnati, Dayton, as a great hotbed for technology, and we said there's just a tremendous talent pool here and it comes at a significantly reduced cost."

Source: Mark Ford, JibeCast
Writer: Gene Monteith

What began several years ago as a monthly brown bag lunch for entrepreneurs and others to hear about business trends and opportunities has grown into the Dayton-based Entrepreneurial Development Network.

"The idea was that we didn't want anybody to slip through the cracks," explains Ray Hagerman, VP-investments for the Dayton Development Coalition, one of the lead partners. "Somebody might come to one of the group members and have a particular need, and they couldn't necessarily help them but perhaps someone else could."

That informal approach has evolved into a network of 10 to 15 groups that provide entrepreneurs with key resources, including education and strategic planning assistance, organizational development services, funding opportunities, mentoring, professional services, incubation space and trade association benefits.

The luncheons continue, but much of the action is network-based and takes place outside those gatherings.

"We don't have our own website, we're not part of a formalized entity that's separately branded in and of itself," Hagerman says." Whenever people come through he door, if they come to the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce or come to whomever it might be, they usually just start there and those folks will shuttle them over to an SBDC (Small Business Development Center) or they'll shuttle them to us, or if we get a lead where we can't help we'll shuttle them to someone else."

While that makes it difficult to track the number of people who have been helped, the process is working, Hagerman says.

"The EDN concept is a really good way of getting in the know in the area of entrepreneurial services that are out there, funding mechanisms that are out there and just the general knowledge base," he says. "And it's also become a good way for entrepreneurs to connect with potential technology generators. Not everybody that's a researcher or an inventor or a technologist wants to be an entrepreneur, but they sure would like to see their something be done with their gadget."

Source: Ray Hagerman, the Dayton Development Coalition
Writer: Gene Monteith

"If you're told it's impossible to do, we're the right place to come," says Patrick Hood, CEO and president of Dayton-based Cornerstone Research Group.

Started in Hood's basement in 1997, Cornerstone is a research and development organization that takes advanced materials technology from molecule to commercial application -- what Hood calls "a for profit incubator."

Hood says the company, which has as many as 60 projects under way at any one time, bridges the gap between market needs and technology. While the company focuses on advanced materials, its solutions have been applied in virtually every industry segment except for IT and pharmaceuticals he says.

A good example of how Cornerstone works is Spintech Ventures, a Cornerstone spinoff that takes advantage of Cornerstone's patented shape memory polymer technology and innovative tooling to make complex composite parts. The technology was developed at Cornerstone, but the early stage Spintech will give it legs.

Hood says that the typical cost of a complexly shaped carbon composite part is about $1,000 per pound. But the cost of the raw materials is only $25 to $50 per pound. The rest of the cost comes from labor and tooling, he says. Spintech's technology can reduce typical production costs by 85 percent, he says.

Cornerstone recently was one of 44 businesses nationwide that received the U.S. Small Business Administration's Tibbets Award, given to companies and individuals that drive innovation and create jobs through the agency's Small Business Innovation Research program.

In November, the company received the Dayton Business Journal's Business of the Year award in the Community Supporter category for its community involvement.

Over the years, the Cornerstone and Spintech have benefited from awards from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative, Hood says. Together, both companies currently employ about 100.

Source: Patrick Hood, Cornerstone Research Group
Writer: Gene Monteith

A Dayton company is testing a new sensor that will help utilities in their quest to work smarter with technology that enables them to monitor power lines round the clock and keep energy flowing efficiently.

Tom McCann, president of Grid Sentry, says that the company's sensor products, Line Sentry and PQ Sentry, are attached to power lines and help a utility company to identify inefficiencies that might cause it to use secondary generation sources to meet peak demand loads.

Because the sensors can help reduce peak demand loads, they can help the utility save money and more quickly adapt to changing power needs, he says.

"We have talked with 25 utilities, and all but one said they were interested in our product," says McCann. "There are tremendous inefficiencies in the distribution grid. This helps them manage those so they can avoid using secondary generating capacity, which is expensive."

Peak demand for electricity is expected to grow by 19 percent in the next 10 years, he added. Capacity, however, is only expected to grow by six percent. Maximizing current capacity is essential, says McCann.

Grid Sentry was founded about a year ago to commercialize technology developed by Defense Research Associates of Dayton.

Prototypes of the products are now in use at Dayton Power & Light Company and are being planned for more major utilities. McCann says Grid Sentry is hoping to start wide scale sales of its products in the U.S. in May next year.

They currently have six employees and could hire as many as 40 more by the end of 2011, he says.

Source: Tom McCann, Grid Sentry
Writer: Val Prevish

The University of Dayton is getting a new tenant.

GE Aviation announced Nov. 22 that it had chosen a site on River Park Drive for its new Electrical Power Integrated Systems Research and Development Center (EPISCENTER). The $51-million, 115,000-sq.-ft facility is expected to be operational by late 2012 and attract an initial 10-15 jobs.

The facility will make GE Aviation an initial launch partner of the Ohio Hub of Innovation and Opportunity for Aerospace, assigned to the Dayton region in September 2009 by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Jennifer Villarreal, a company spokeswoman, says proximity to the University of Dayton Research Institute and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base -- as well as the Dayton region's designation an aerospace hub -- all contributed to GE Aviation's decision to locate the center on the UD campus. She says that in addition to benefiting the region's and state's economy, EPICSENTER will help GE Aviation attract new talent.

"It's an excellent catalyst for growth with new program and contracts," says Villarreal. "It's a great pipeline for talent from the University of Dayton as far as researchers, technologists, engineers and others, so that's really key to us as far as development and advancing electric power for all kinds of vehicles."

The facility will sit on eight acres and will focus on a number of markets, including electrical power starter/generation, conversion, distribution and load technologies for commercial and military aerospace applications. UD will partner with the CityWide Development Corp. to build the facility, whose construction should be completed by the third quarter of 2012. The Ohio Third Frontier has chipped in with a capital grant of up to $7.6 million.

Villarreal says it's difficult to predict job growth over time, but that some have estimated 100 to 200 "depending on future contracts and programs."

Source: Jennifer Villarreal, GE Aviation
Writer: Gene Monteith

Al Wofford founded CDO Technologies 15 years ago based on a simple "can do" philosophy of business. In fact, if you look closely, Can DO is right there in the name.

Today, Wofford's own name is mentioned among the heavy hitters around west central Ohio. Recently listed among the Dayton Business Journal's regional 10 Most Influential People of the year, Wofford has built a company with 330 employees in Ohio, Illinois, Alabama, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.

CDO is one of Dayton's largest minority-owned firms and an IT integrator with numerous clients in defense, government and private industry.

One of CDO Technologies' core competencies is in asset visibility and management -- think bar codes and radio frequency identification (RFID) systems -- that track inventory accurately and precisely real time.

"We don't build any technology and hardware, but we build software to tie different systems together," explains Bryce Stuckenschneider, marketing coordinator. "Sometimes we're getting calls from the CFOs and CIOs saying we need more accountability (for assets), and we're losing things at a rapid rate, and other times we get calls from the engineer on the line saying I'm being held accountable for this.

"One of the big commercial areas we're diving into are hospitals," he says. "They lose an alarming amount of inventory, and every year they will order four times more than they need because they have no idea what they have."

While asset identification and tracking comprises much of CDO's business, Stuckenschneider says the company can't be pigeonholed.

"Everything we do is focused on creatively applying technology, and sometimes that's auto identification -- RFID or bar coding -- and sometimes the market asks us 'how do you redesign air space over major cities?' which is a huge problem that America has. So we have a couple of industry experts who have recently come on board trying to come up with great ways to retrain air traffic controllers."

About a third of CDO's employees are in Ohio, with about 65 at company headquarters in Dayton.

Source: Bryce Stuckenschneider, CDO Technologies
Writer: Gene Monteith

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is not a new idea; but a Dayton company, Acclimate Supply Chain Solutions, is staying ahead of the curve by creating new software that gives its customers more bang for their buck with this time tested process.

Rob Young, president of Acclimate, says the company is preparing to roll out several new software products that take data collection and transmission further and allow its customers to glean valuable information to help them do business.

"The thing that sets us apart is we want to do more with EDI," says Young. "We think there is a lot of harvestable data in these transactions."

The three new software products target specific business processes: supply chain analytics, manufacturing work flow and shipping details. Each of these new programs is expected to be released widely in the first quarter of next year, says Young.

These are in addition to the company's existing EDI software suite, SimplicIT.

"The power of this new technology is it allows people to stumble across things (data) they never would have thought to ask for," says Young.

In addition, the software is much more user friendly for non-techies than previous software of its type, he says.

Founded in 2004 by Christian Prince, Acclimate has seen year over year growth of 50 percent, says Young. He predicts this trend will continue and even accelerate as the company rolls out these new products to its national customer base that includes industries such as automotive, heavy equipment manufacturing, retail and steel.

Young says he expects to add as many as eight new employees to the company's existing 10 employees next year. The new jobs will be mainly in the areas of tech support and product implementation.

Source: Rob Young, Acclimate Supply Chain Solutions
Writer: Val Prevish