Innovation + Job News

Zoo Games, Inc. has emerged as a major player in the development, publishing and distribution of interactive software for family-oriented consumers.

The Cincinnati company, which in 2007 sprang from Take Two -- the creator of Grand Theft Auto and one of the top game publishers worldwide -- focuses on more casual games.

"Triple A or blockbuster games like Grand Theft can cost from ten to eighty million dollars to develop, whereas development budgets for our casual games are anywhere from one hundred thousand to one million dollars," says Mark Seremet, Zoo Games CEO. "Casual games don't have steep learning curves and are generally played for short periods of time. The Wii and most iPhone apps are some examples of casual games."

Themes include sports, racing, game shows, strategy, and action-adventure. Zoo develops software for all major consoles, handheld gaming devices, PCs, and mobile and smart-phone devices, as well as the emerging "connected services." Its 100-game library will grow to 150 games by the end of the year.

The company's innovative content creation site, indiePub Games, develops opportunities in digital entertainment. The site, which consists of independent game developers and players, offers the resources to create new games and serves as a venue where enthusiasts can help to create new software. "indiePub is like an American Idol for video games," says Mark Seremet, the company's CEO.

Sales for the first nine months of the year show a 50 percent year-over-year increase compared to last year's sales of $48.5 million. Zoo's games vary in price from about $20 to $40.

Source: Mark Seremet, Zoo Games
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

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

John Rodeheffer and Andrew Lynch were enjoying a beer after a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field a few years ago when conversation turned to work. Both were 20-somethings employed by a Minnesota-based logistics firm and neither saw much opportunity to grow. As they talked, they began to consider what the future might bring if they started their own company.

"We sat down about a month later, and that's when plans began," says Rodeheffer, now a partner in Zipline Logistics, based in Columbus. "And within a year, we left our employer and moved back to Ohio and brought along (Lynch's) roommate and another good friend, Edward Williams, who is our president."

Zipline manages shipments for a number of large customers by employing trustworthy carriers to move loads of a truckload or less to clients across the country. The company reported revenues of $3.2 million in 2009, almost double that of 2008. If all goes as planned, Zipline expects revenues of $4.4 million by the end of the current year. Zipline's quick growth also landed it in the 12th spot among Business First's latest list of the 50 fastest growing companies in central Ohio.

Rodeheffer attributes the company's success to best practices and building trust between Zipline, the customer and the carrier.

"We put their interests first and profits second. And that leads to a relationship that evolves into longevity and a partnership -- versus beating someone up for an extra 25 or 30 bucks."

While the three founders moved back to Ohio to be closer to family -- all are Ohio natives and Miami University grads -- Columbus has proven to be a great place to run a logistics operation, Rodeheffer says.

"There's Rickenbacker Airport, several Fortune 500 companies, and Columbus is a day's drive to 80 percent of the population in the United States," Rodeheffer says.

Zipline employs eight, but hopes to hire three more people in the next three months.

Source: John Rodeheffer
Writer: Gene Monteith

Friends and business partners Jennifer Wexler and Kelly Bucci have poured their money, talent and time into a software company that helps hospitals catch billing errors that lead to lost dollars.

The pair founded Eris Medical Technologies, housed in the Youngstown Business Incubator, to build on more than two decades of personal experience finding those errors.

"Our software looks at patients' claims and predicts where hospitals have inaccurately charged for services, or services that have not been charged for," Wexler said. "For a very long time Kelly and I travelled together across the U.S. and did this work manually. We reviewed claims and showed clients where they were missing money or had charged insurance incorrectly. We thought, There has to be a better way to do this."

Bucci, who has a background in medical coding, believed she and Wexler could develop a better way. So they quit their jobs, borrowed money on their houses and in 2007 started Eris. Three years later they're still going strong, selling two web-based products: erisRx and assess.

The software is based a proprietary engine that boasts over 375,000 algorithms with code pairing capability. Wexler and Bucci developed the algorithms, and subcontracted an outside software firm to complete development.

The software is out on the market, and the company is working to expand its client base and partner with other companies to reach a wider healthcare provider network. The incubator has been crucial in allowing the self-financed company to grow offering free rent in their early years and access to accounting and other business services.

Sources: Jennifer Wexler and Kelly Bucci, Eris Medical Technologies
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

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

Green jobs may well be the key to future prosperity in Greater Cincinnati, says a locally-sponsored study that recommends a Green Jobs Council, among other things, to jump start the region on the path toward growth in the rapidly expanding global green marketplace.

The report, "Pathways and Policies Towards Green Jobs in Cincinnati," was released in October and was sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation and the Blue Green Alliance.

In addition to a Green Jobs Council, the report also recommends:

- Defining green jobs
- Supporting existing companies in their efforts to transition to green jobs
- Developing a strong funding model to support additional investment
- Adding "green strings" to existing government incentives
- Adding, aligning and enhancing existing policies for green jobs

The project was launched in part due to a 2009 study released by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which listed Ohio as having the fourth most green jobs in the nation. Ohio was noted as having 2,800 green manufacturing related jobs, behind Oregon, Minnesota and California, which was the clear front-runner with over 13,000 green jobs.

The state is projected to lose as much as four percent of its traditional manufacturing jobs in the next four years. The report's goal is to intensify efforts to attract green manufacturing to the state to offset the loses of skilled manufacturing jobs in other areas. It also focuses on how to define more jobs as "green," says Shawn Hesse, an architect with Emersion Design and one of the authors of the study.

"If we keep the definition of green jobs too narrow, we'll never get to where we want to be. We should be focusing on 'greening' our existing jobs," he says.

The study concludes that Cincinnati's workers have the right skills to succeed in green manufacturing jobs and that these jobs can mean that manufacturing can continue to be a vital part of the region's economy. To make this happen, it says, governments, businesses, unions, non-profits and education organizations will have to work together to develop an economic strategy and policies.

Source: Shawn Hesse, Emersion Design
Writer: Val Prevish

Northeast Ohio is already a leader in flexible electronics. Now, a number of partners are working to make it the "global epicenter" of the industry.

The goal? To add 1,500 jobs, $75 million in payroll and $100 million in capital to Northeast Ohio by 2017.

Last week, NorTech -- a regional nonprofit economic development organization focused on high tech job growth -- announced a shared vision and action plan to speed growth of the industry in northeast Ohio.

The Northeast Ohio Flexible Electronics Roadmap outlines strategies and initiatives to build global market capabilities in the low-cost manufacturing of flexible electronics -- devices printed on flexible materials. Examples include liquid crystal devices and flexible sensors and circuits.

The Northeast Ohio Flexible Electronics Roadmap charts a path for identifying and pursuing market opportunities; increasing public funding and private investment; strengthening cluster alignment, communication, and partnering; monitoring and reporting cluster growth and impact; and improving visibility and recognition.

"Northeast Ohio's flexible electronics cluster is rooted in the world-renown, breakthrough work of The Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University, the globally recognized advances in polymer science by the University of Akron, as well as a growing number of small, medium and large companies that are producing flexible electronics applications," says Kelly South, NorTech's senior director of communications.

Nortech led development of the roadmapping process in partnership with 23 technology and industry experts representing research institutions, manufacturers, materials suppliers and product developers. The strategies will be executed over the next 12 months, South says, but added that the document will "serve as a living document that will capture technology shifts, changes in market dynamics and new growth opportunities in Northeast Ohio."

NorTech and other partners have branded the northeast Ohio flexible electronics cluster as FlexMatters.

Source: Kelly South, NorTech
Writer: Gene Monteith

Carving $1.5 million for IT out of a $10-million budget is par for the course among for-profit companies, Adam Roth says. For non-profits, where administrative costs are closely monitored, it's a red flag.

That's why so many non-profits have struggled to keep up with leading-edge technology that could help them better manage internal affairs, board business and programs, he says. And it's why Roth created StreamLink Software, a Cleveland firm that has developed two products to help non-profits.

Since StreamLink's first product launch in July of 2008 -- a solution called BoardMax -- the company has attracted more than 100 customers, including Ronald McDonald House, the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland, and the American Heart Association.

Roth, the company's CEO and former chief operating officer for Cleveland's West Side Ecumenical Ministry, began exploring the software landscape in 2006 after being frustrated by a lack of good, economical software programs for non-profits. At the same time, the development of web-based software was growing, giving entities a way to avoid the high infrastructure costs of internal IT programs.

Thus, BoardMax -- a web-based product designed to increase board engagement and organizational compliance with regulations and standards.

"Our tool really helps internal management manage the organization as well as helping board members connect with the organization," he says.

AmpliFund, released earlier this year, "focuses on the whole grant cycle," Roth says. "Everything from trying to understand what opportunities are out there, to creating and personalizing those opportunities for each organization, building a plan, a solicitation strategy around each opportunity, tracking and managing an organization-wide plan that can allow you to create projections throughout the year."

After a program is implemented, the software becomes a management tool to capture data related to performance and expenditure of funds.

Along the way, StreamLink has had help from North Coast Angel Fund ($200,000), the Lorain County Community College Innovation Fund ($100,000) and $400,000 in private investments.

Roth says the company employed two a year ago; today, it employs eight and plans to grow.

Source: Adam Roth, StreamLink
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

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

Some of the nastiest environmental problems have the smallest solutions.

In the case of chemical spills -- particularly where solvents used in dry cleaning or as industrial degreasing agents, and fuel spills where hydrocarbons contaminate water or soil -- a Cincinnati company is making its name offering one of the smallest and most effective solutions.

Cincinnati-based CL Solutions, founded in 1999 out of a local environmental consultancy, is pioneering the use of tiny one-celled microbes to fight contamination. Over millions of years, the naturally occurring microbes have developed the ability to not only survive in contaminated environments, but thrive in them.

"You always read about biologists going all over the world and investigating how various plants and animals can be used to develop medicines," explains Mike Saul, CL Solution's vice president. "Microbiologists do the same thing, though they've found these tiny microbes that break down contaminants. They feed on them."

Behind them, they leave a clean, reclaimed environment, converting the contaminants into harmless, naturally recyclable by-products. They also do the job quicker than conventional methods, completing the job in a matter of weeks or months, rather than years.

To date, Saul says, CL Solutions has been responsible for more than 300 clean-ups across the country. The company's biggest success has been in Denver, where rifle scope and binocular producer Redfield Inc. suffered a huge chlorinated solvent contamination. After a decade of studies and other clean-up attempts, Redfield turned to CL Solutions.

"It was a huge plume, contaminating miles of land and affecting groundwater," says Saul. "There were residential areas included in that plume, and we were able to help protect those residents from the contamination. That's probably the project that we're most proud of."

Source: Mike Saul, CL Solutions
Writer: Dave Malaska

A middle school technology camp and an early PC put Andy Hughes on the road to his own digital development company. Today, Hughes runs the technology camp and his Franklin-based firm, Designing Digitally develops e-learning tools, virtual worlds and websites for clients nationwide.

Hughes, the company's president and founder, says a junior high technology camp run through the Putnam County Educational Service Center (ESC) helped him "learn early on a little bit about technology. And at the same time, my father had brought home a personal computer. And my father said one critical thing to me when I was very young, and he said 'play with it all you want. If you break it we'll figure out how to fix it.' '"

Hughes must have learned well. At 15, he helped build the infrastructure for his local telephone company's first Internet service, and later helped the ESC convert school records from microfilm to digital files.

He says that after earning a digital design degree at Bowling Green State University his freelance work became so robust that, in 2001, he formed his own company.

"We do a lot of e-learning, web-based training," he says. Building virtual worlds for a variety of applications has also been a growth area.

For example, executives at one client company use avatars and computer microphones to meet virtually with one another in place of conference calls or videoconferencing, he says. "They push a button and they're talking to each other and able to virtually meet and have a physical representation of themselves and have that avatar talk."

The company does business with a variety of customers including not-for-profits, corporate clients, educational institutions state and federal agencies -- including a project to develop a virtual world for the Air Force Academy.

The company has eight full-time employees, 16 contractors and consultants, and is hiring.

Source: Andy Hughes, Designing Digitally
Writer: Gene Monteith

As millions of Americans opt for joint replacement surgeries each year, new composite materials and new surgical practices are contributing to more successful outcomes than ever. Still, one complication -- nerve damage -- remains a chief concern for surgeons.

Now, a Cleveland-based medical company has introduced a tool to help doctors choose what tissue to cut during surgery, and more importantly, what not to cut.

The Checkpoint Stimulator/Locator, developed by orthopedic surgeons and biomedical engineers from medical technology incubator company NDI Medical, is a small, hand-held device that allows doctors to electrically stimulate muscles and nerves during the operation, mapping their location and health. Designed to be used with one hand, the single-use device has a small probe at its front that allows the surgeon to highly target specific nerves, or test nerves and muscle tissue at varying depths through regional stimulation.

The result is more complete neurological picture for doctors, and fewer complications for patients.

The stimulator is the flagship product of Checkpoint Surgical, spun out from NDI Medical in August 2009 to market the new device. Checkpoint Surgical was launched with a $1.1-million investment from Cleveland-based venture development organization JumpStart and has since picked up additional investments as the stimulator's potential has become clear. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use last fall, and the company embarked on a pilot launch through select hospitals throughout the country.

"Satisfaction with the Checkpoint Stimulator has been almost 100 percent, which is uncommon for a new product," says Checkpoint Surgical President and CEO Len Cosentino. "Of the 40 surgeons that have used it so far, the overwhelming majority of them have been very happy with the device."

Several of the hospitals involved in the pilot launch have already stepped up with orders for more of stimulators, he adds.

Source: Len Cosentino, Checkpoint Surgical
Writer: Dave Malaska

Wireless technology already helps us with everyday tasks like changing TV channels, making phone calls and surfing the web. Before long, it will help people stay alive, too.

Endotronix Inc. is developing a system that enables doctors to monitor a patient's status remotely and therefore, be able to intervene quicker when life-saving action must be taken due to conditions such as hypertension, abdominal aortic aneurysms and congestive heart failure.

The system uses miniaturized wireless and implantable pressure sensors licensed from Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center in 2008.

The pressure sensors implanted in the patient's body collect valuable data that is sent to a hand-held or wearable device. That device wirelessly transmits the data to the doctor.

The company, which has facilities in Cleveland and Peoria, Ill., got $250,000 from JumpStart Ventures of Cleveland last month.

"We're excited about it," says Michael Lang, of JumpStart, citing the technology's ability to save time and money and extend life.

Endotronix also is a portfolio company of The Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise, a project of the Lorain County Commissioners, Lorain County Community College, and the Ohio Department of Development; and reportedly has gotten $400,000 from a group in Illinois, too.

Source: Michael Lang, JumpStart
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

John Steidley says the smart phone has come of age as a prime tool for just-in-time training. His company, Intelligent Mobile Support, is now trying to prove that vision.

Formed in June of 2009, the Solon-based, company launched its services this past August as a more efficient, less costly and more rapid way to channel information to sales personnel and other mobile workers.

"If you think about how training happened 25 years ago, we'd fly people in, give them a three-ring binder try to teach them everything we knew in three days," says Steidley, the company's CEO and founder. "Three days afterward, 90 percent of the information was gone, it had evaporated from their minds." 

After receiving an iTouch for Christmas a couple of years ago, "it occurred to me that the mobile smart phone was the perfect training device," Steidley says. "It was portable, it was just in time, you could go anywhere , you could catch a couple of minutes of training while you were waiting to go somewhere. And that was the turning point in my mind."

Intelligent Mobile Support, which hosts any type of web-based training material, alerts those in the field to product or software updates, market conditions or competitor data, he says. For example, someone on a sales trip can access new PowerPoint slides while waiting in the airport. The service is synced up in such a way that users can move from phone, to laptop, to PC all while keeping their place using tags, or bookmarks.

Besides mobile personnel such as sales people, Steidley says "we've got a particular focus on the healthcare sector," specifically an application directed at the physical therapy segment that shows patients how to do their exercises, all while tracking the workout for the care giver � and comparing the plan with the actual execution.

The company has three full-time employees, but partners with Youngstown-based Empyra, which has an equity stake in the company and provides software development and hosting services.

Source: John Steidley
Writer: Gene Monteith