Lorain County Community College : Innovation + Job News

An economic development collaboration in northeast Ohio hopes that more than $2 million in federal grants will help it create more than 600 jobs in northeast Ohio during the next four years.

NorTech, along with Lorain County Community College, JumpStart and MAGNET will work together as one of 20 high growth industry clusters selected by the Obama administration’s Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge.

The Ohio collaboration is intended to accelerate the speed to market for near-production or pilot-production prototypes in the advanced energy and flexible electronics industries. Flexible electronics includes functional films and inks, liquid crystal devices and displays, printed batteries and sensors, OLED lighting and organic photovoltaics.

Rebecca Bagley, President and CEO of NorTech – a regional nonprofit technology-based economic development organization that serves 21 counties in northeast Ohio – says the project will benefit not only her region, but the nation.

“Our national economy is made up of the interconnection of regions across the country,” she says. “This really helps accelerate some important industry areas in northeast Ohio, which then ultimately accelerates growth of the nation.”

The number of northeast Ohio companies in the cluster are growing, with 46 organizations counted within advanced energy and 28 in flexible electronics, says Karen Allport, NorTech’s VP of strategic outreach.

“This represents members of the cluster – that is, companies with which NorTech has a close relationship and are actively engaged in building the clusters in Northeast Ohio. There are many more organizations in these industries but we do not define them as members of the cluster, yet. Our job is to attract them to become a member of the cluster.”

The Ohio partnership, which was selected from among 125 applicants nationally, expects to add 630 jobs, more than $40 million in annual payroll and $38 million in capital attracted during the next four years, Allport says.

Funding to support the Ohio initiative comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration and the Small Business Administration.

Sources: Rebecca Bagley and Karen Allport, NorTech
Writer: Gene Monteith

Lorain County Community College in Elyria is helping cement Ohio's reputation as the home of sensor technology innovation.

The school recently established the SMART (Sensor/Microsystems Advanced packaging and Reliability Testing) Center to help device developers accomplish critical tasks they usually have performed out of state: advanced packaging, reliability testing and advanced life simulation. It received a $5.5 million grant from the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering at Cleveland State University for equipment and technical support for the center.

Four entities are SMART Center partners already: Acense LLC in Twinsburg, which is developing a sensor focused on early fault warning for oil-immersed electrical equipment; R.W. Beckett Corp. in North Ridgeville, which makes commercial and residential oil and gas burners; GreenField Solar in Oberlin, maker of scalable solar power products capable of simultaneously generating electric power and heat; and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Jack W. Harley, founder and president of Acense, says he is enthusiastic about the SMART Center and sees it "being very valuable to us." The center currently is testing packaging concepts for an Acense sensor; later it will test that sensor's long-term characteristics. Harley says that sensor is part of what will be a whole line of products and he expects to use the center for each one.

Harley's not the only executive predicting long-term benefits of the center.

"The SMART Center offers companies affordable access to important services," Kevin Beckett, president of R.W. Beckett Corp., says. Plus, "it raises the visibility of sensor technology overall, which is likely to spark innovation in Northeastern Ohio."

Beckett calls the SMART Center "a huge, huge plus for the area."

Sources: Tracy Green, Lorain County Community College; Kevin Beckett, R. W. Beckett Corp.; Jack W. Harley, Acense
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Rapid Charge Technologies, LLC says its patented technology can charge off-the-shelf batteries in minutes.

The Cleveland-based company, formed last year, is a subsidiary of Potential Difference, Inc. (PDI), Nevada, which designed and built an all-electric car with a top speed over 100 mph and a range of 140 miles. The Acura TL body and chassis has an all-electric drive train powered by 40-kilowatt hours of lithium ion batteries, rechargeable in about three hours.

Results verified by the University of Akron show recharge times as low as 31 minutes for lead acid batteries and 19 minutes for relatively inexpensive lithium ion phosphate batteries in all-electric and hybrid automobiles. RCT is formalizing its go-to-market strategy and identifying potential partners and alliances.

A $2 billion firm, with one third of the forklift market, has evaluated RCT's test data and agreed to test the technology. A distributor for a leading fast-food chain and a battery manufacturer have also agreed to a test.

PDI received a $500,000 U. S. Department of Energy Fiscal 2011 Appropriations grant for work to be done (in part) at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. In July of 2009, RCT received a $25,000 grant from the Lorain County Community College Innovation Fund to develop the initial prototype in collaboration with the University of Akron. PDI received $85,000 for further development and testing from North Coast Opportunities.

At the moment Elliott Small, Jr., president and founder, says he is the only full-time employee, with everyone else being "some kind of a contractor."

"We expect that before the end of 2011 we should have orders for the [forklift] chargers, with hiring beginning toward the end of the year," says Small.

Source: Elliott C. Small, Jr., Rapid Charge Technologies
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney