Innovation + Job News

There's no doubt today's economy is challenging, and there's no guarantee that a plum job (or any job for that matter) will be awaiting college grads.

A trio of University of Dayton students knows just how hard it can be to find a great job opportunity. So they've launched a new company, Brain Rack, that matches creative students with companies through the emerging crowd sourcing problem solving model.

Two UD grads and a one senior launched BrainRack this spring. Here's how it works: A company or organization poses a challenge, basically a question seeking an innovative answer, to college students. Students submit answers to the question for company review. The company awards a cash prize to the best, and then has the opportunity to interview these students for a job. The challenges also are open to recent college grads.

"It's a way to link interesting companies with creative students," said Brain Rack co-founder Senay Semere. "What we are doing is giving a voice to students who may not be able to be heard by companies. This is also a great way for companies to market themselves and get prospective employees at an early age."

This year BrainRack won second place in the University of Dayton's Business Plan Competition and $10,000. It also took second place honors in the Midwest pool at the winner-takes all Harvard Business School Alumni New Venture Competition.

BrainRack also has a big social media component. Students can easily share the sites, and challenges by Facebook and Twitter. BrainRack is advertising on Facebook and spreading the word about the site via several social media sites.

"In addition to that we are working on a grass roots campaign with student reps on 18 campuses (across the U.S. and Europe) who are physically promoting us," said Matthew Veryser, who directors BrainRack's social media campaigns.

Sources: Senay Semere and Matthew Veryser, BrainRack
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Cincinnati's first-ever consumer marketing startup accelerator wants to make a deal with you entrepreneurs out there: $20,000 in startup funding in exchange for a 6 percent equity stake in your brand new company.

The Brandery is offering funding, mentoring and partnerships to local consumer marketing businesses. The Brandery's founders are Cincinnati digital marketing executive David Knox and serial entrepreneur J.B. Kropp, vice president of channel development at social media branding firm Vitrue.

The Brandery is now accepting applications for its 12-week program that will include that 20K grant upon completion. The founders also will set up meetings between entrepreneurs, potential partners and customers.

Once the program ends, the real works starts with a demo day that gives companies the chance to pitch to the press, angel investors, brand marketers and leading venture capitalists.

"The power of The Brandery is the collaboration between people and companies in our community," says Knox, brand manager of global branded entertainment at Procter & Gamble. "Entrepreneurs will benefit from a wide range of talented people in consumer marketing here as well as globally."

The Brandery is looking for tech-based, consumer businesses including Internet, media and entertainment companies. Companies can begin applying for the accelerator program immediately at Brandery.org. Deadline for submissions for this first session is Aug. 11, 2010. Five companies will be selected for the first session which will begin in late August.

CincyTech, a public-private venture development group, is funding those $20,000 grants through its Imagining Grant funds aimed at growing companies through the investment stage.

"Our hope is to create a whole new pipeline of startup companies that focus on consumer marketing, to complement our portfolio of companies in information technology, bioscience and advanced manufacturing," says CincyTech President Bob Coy. "Our mission is to grow jobs in thriving industries."

Source: CincyTech
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

The Cleveland HeartLab is taking its life-saving technology to heart. A real heart, that is.

The company � affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic � has developed a profile of tests focused on managing and reducing inflammation, a root cause of heart disease.

Using an enzyme immunoassay (a biochemical technique used to detect the presence of an antibody in a sample), CHL uses its CardioMPO technology to test for myeloperoxidase in human plasma.

The product received its FDA approval in May of 2005 for use on the market. Cleveland HeartLab purchased that technology in Nov. 2009 from Cleveland-based PrognostiX.

Cleveland HeartLab, located on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic, bills itself as a specialty clinical laboratory and disease management company focused on novel molecular biomarker technologies and the creation of proprietary diagnostic tests.
But the company doesn't stop there. CHL also runs a research and development laboratory where next-generation cardiovascular disease biomarkers are being developed for use in the clinical community.

CHL has a significant pipeline of tests protected by exclusive intellectual property and target large, under-addressed markets. In addition, an agreement with the Cleveland Clinic provides the company access to intellectual property developed at the Clinic in the areas of cardiovascular and inflammatory biomarkers.

The company is keeping itself busy. In August 2010, the HeartLab hosted the summer symposium "Where Inflammation Meets Lipids," with doctors attending from all over the world.

"Things are going great," says CHL spokeswoman Rachele Rhea. "We are super swamped right now."
 
Source: Rachele Rhea, Cleveland HeartLab 
Writer: Colin McEwen

You don't have to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind turbine business is blowing.  You just have to know that better models are on the way, thanks to companies like ADI Wind in Sheffield Village.

Basically, the parts of a wind turbine gearbox have to be lightweight and long-lasting. About two years ago, while developing automation equipment for a major wind turbine manufacturer, leaders of Advanced Design Industries Inc. realized they had a way to overcome some problems known in the industry.

Support from a Lorain County Community College Innovation Grant and the Defense Metals Technology Center helped the company design and build a 125 kW prototype gearbox as well as a test bed. ADI Wind now is an offshoot of Advanced Design specializing in the new unit.

"Many gearless wind turbines weigh even more than their geared counterpart. Our gearbox is six times or more lighter than conventional units. This is accomplished by the unique gearing and reaction configuration which allows us to reach high gear ratios with significantly fewer parts and a much smaller size. With room to spare on the weight side, we can 'beef-up' our components and increase the safety factor," according to Kurt Lauer, ADI vice president.

ADI Wind is also developing an integrated generator, which will be placed directly with the same gearbox housing. The company foresees a mobile wind turbine � one that can be transported by semi or helicopter anywhere in the world, erected and producing 100 kW in hours.

"�We see these mobile units going up at schools, shopping malls, county fairs, on farms and everywhere that people want to make electricity," Lauer says.

ADI Wind is finalizing designs and working on a demonstration model to show potential investors.

Source: Kurt Lauer, ADI Wind
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A nonprofit corporation leading efforts to establish a 20-MW offshore wind project in Lake Erie says the new wind farm could result in 600 new jobs by 2012.

But that's just a short-term scenario. Expanding the wind farm to 1,500 MW of wind energy would create or maintain 3,000 jobs in Ohio -- and increasing it to 5,000 MW would generate as many as 8,000 new jobs.

The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) released the numbers Aug. 5 as part of an economic impact study commissioned by NorTech, a nonprofit technology-based economic development organization.

The study examined the economic effects of two scenarios for deploying wind turbines in Lake Erie. Both scenarios assume an initial offshore installation of 20 MW by 2012 and are based on the estimated costs for installation, operations and maintenance of hypothetical 5-MW turbines as well as estimated costs of specialized vessels necessary to install them.

Besides the creation of jobs, the study projected that:

-- Expenditures through 2014 for deployment and operation of the 20-MW project would total $63.4 million. Sales are estimated at $81.6 million, with $34.2 million in wages and $47.7 million in public revenues.

-- Installing 5,000 MW of offshore wind energy would generate $7.8 billion in wages and salaries, $22.6 billion in sales, and $586.5 million in public revenues by 2030.

-- Deploying 1,500 MW of wind energy would generate $2.2 billion in wages, $6.5 billion in sales, and $171.5 million in public revenue (state and local) by 2030.

LEEDCO is part of a four-year effort to explore the potential for offshore wind energy on Lake Erie. NorTech created LEEDCo late last year in partnership with the Great Lakes Energy Task Force and the Cleveland Foundation.

Source: LEEDCo.
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

What began as an Internet service provider in 2001 has blossomed into one of the fastest growing tech companies in the country.

CentraComm, based in Findlay, is an IT security and service provider with clients throughout the U.S. Despite a tough economy, CentraComm has managed to land on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies three years running; it's been on the CRN list of fastest growing technology companies four years in a row.

CEO Daniel Bemis attributes that success to smart employees with a passion for customer service -- and to staying focused.

"We know what we do very well and we try to stay focused on that," Bemis says. "We don't try to be all things to all people. Another key is that we're very customer-focused. It can be a clich�, but in several cases we're literally a four-digit extension on a company's phone."

Bemis, a Monroeville native, returned to Ohio last year when he took the helm of CentraComm after serving stints at Vonage, Adelphia and CRN. At Vonage, Bemis oversaw all customer operations and inside sales as the company became the fastest growing startup in the country.

While he says the company won't add significantly this year to its 25-employee headcount, a few jobs likely will be added. At the same time, the company is taking advantage of the Ohio Third Frontier Internship Program, which helps pay the freight for students participating in the program.

"We see that as a great way to attract young talent in school and get them on-boarded at a cost that you can sustain," he says. "The other thing we believe is that as the Third Frontier helps fund existing manufacturers moving to more high tech manufacturing, that will create opportunity for us because we support those kinds of companies."

Source: Daniel Bemis, CentraComm
Writer: Gene Monteith

Every culture starts with a story about its creation. The story of Hyland Software's culture started in 1991 with a determined, young Packy Hyland Jr. who refused to fail.

Hyland visited a bank in Wisconsin in 1991 to learn about what kind of records-management technology the bank was looking for. The bank's president asked his opinion of a competitor's product.

"I could write it better and cheaper," Hyland told the president while the competitor looked on. The president (not knowing that Hyland had never written a line of computer code) gave Packy two weeks to come up with what he promised � a better and cheaper solution.
Hyland deilvered.

Today, Cleveland-based Hyland Software enables a broad spectrum of organizations to become operationally more efficient and effective, using OnBase, the company's award-winning enterprise content management. Customers include the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, Antares Management Solutions (subsidiary of Medical Mutual of Ohio) and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Revenues keep growing, and Westlake-based company recently received a NorTech business expansion award.

Hyland has since retired. His younger brothers, A.J. Hyland (who is now the CEO) and Chris Hyland (now the CFO) have taken over the company's operations.

In Oct. 2009, Hyland Software moved into a new $5 million, 28,000-sqare-foot facility across the street from the company's headquarters. The company also has offices in Lincoln, Neb.; Irvine, Calif.; S�o Paulo; London; and Tokyo.

The company employs almost 1,000 around the world � 750 of them are in Northeast Ohio, says company spokeswoman Kaitlin Maurer. She adds that with the company's (the Hyland family's) roots, there are no plans to move.

"It makes sense for us to stay in Northeast Ohio," she says. "That's something that's important to the founders of the company."

Source: Kaitlin Maurer, Hyland Software
Writer: Colin McEwen

In a competitive industry where it's hard to keep your footing, MilAIR has developed and manufactured cooling units for military use since 2006.

Revenues at this built-from-scratch company have jumped annually, from $233,000 in its first year to a projected $5 million in 2011, says Director of Sales John Lyons. The company currently employs 45 and plans to add new workers at a rate 10 percent each year as revenues continue to climb, Lyons says.

MilAIR manufactures heavy duty air conditioners, dehumidifiers, chillers, heat exchangers, generators and power converters for the military market. MilAIR moved to Milford, just northeast of Cincinnati, shortly after being broken from its parent company Burtek, Inc., in Michigan, which modifies trucks and other transportation equipment for the military. Burtek's former owner Bruce Burton also owns MilAir.

The company relocated from Michigan to Ohio largely on the strength of the area's workforce, Lyons says.

"There are a lot of people in the greater Cincinnati area that are very experienced in military air conditioning. So I thought, we should locate close to the people we want to hire," says Lyons, who is from the Cincinnati area and a 1977 graduate of Miami University College of Engineering. "Clermont County did give us some incentives and there is an ample supply of manufacturing space here, but workforce was the primary draw."

The company's innovation was recently recognized by Cincy Magazine with a 2010 Manny Award in manufacturing excellence. The magazine recognized the company's use of 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) to better design refrigeration components in the desert.

Source: John Lyons, MilAIR
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

One of alternative energy's best hopes is the solid oxide fuel cell, a century-old invention that produces electricity directly from oxidizing fuel within a closed environment. Long used as power source in practically every NASA mission since the 1960's, the technology has never been widely used because the inherent high costs.

That is, until now.

Refractory Specialties Inc., a Sebring-based company that has a 40-year history of supplying insulation and other products for high-temperature manufacturing processes, has emerged as a solution to lowering the cost of making the cells, while increasing their quality. RSI has developed kiln products from an existing company line and a new coating that ensure very exact production of ceramic parts used in SOFCs, which in turn, should boost production of the high-efficiency energy source.

The company developed this new product line, Sinterlyte, with the help of a $400,000 grant from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative.

"To make the ceramic parts, you have to fire them at a very high temperatures � we're talking in excess of 1,300 degrees Celsius, and as high as 1,400 degrees," explains Suhas Patil, RSI's head of engineering. "We were able to take our T-Cast material that we already had and put a coating on it, which allows you to deal with these very high temperatures without contaminating the ceramic piece you're making. I tell people it's like baking cookies. We make the cookie tray. You don't want anything from the tray to ruin the cookie."

Sinteryte also allows for precise molding of the ceramic pieces, which is also important to the long-term dependability of SOFCs that normally operate at high temperatures while in use. RSI's advance means the fuel cells can finally be a financially viable alternative to fossil fuels.

The company had been working on Sinteryte prior to getting the Third Frontier grant in 2008, and brought it to market this year. Revenue projections for the line are expected to surpass $25 million within four years. That means expected growth for RSI as well, which currently has more than 100 employees at two sites, and services over 30 major and hundreds of smaller clients. SinterLyte's success could earn RSI a large share of the global market, including overseas clients like Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited in Australia to Wartsilla in Finland among others.

Source: Suhas Patil, Refractory Specialties Inc.
Writer: Dave Malaska

Sensus President Dan Wampler put his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University and a 15-year career in the flavor industry into his own company, which extracts flavors, colors and health properties from natural products for use in food and drinks.

Wampler founded Sensus in 1999 with the goal of delivering high-quality natural flavor ingredients and health benefits from natural products to the food and beverage industry. The Hamilton-based company pulls flavor from raw materials like coffee, tea herbs and tomatoes to deliver extracts, concentrates and essences that other companies use in their products. Sensus employs 35 people in manufacturing, research and development and quality control.

Sensus works with leading tomato ingredient processor The Morning Star Company in Woodland, California to provide industry leading tomato essences.

Sensus is currently working on a joint project with Ohio State and Wyandot Inc. in Marion. The trio is working on a snack chip that will use a purple corn extract made from Ohio-grown corn. It would be a full-grain corn meal snack that is purple in color.

"We want to develop the corn so it can be grown in Ohio and it can be put into a healthful snack. There is a big demand by consumers who still want to snack but want snacks with more health benefits," Wampler says. "It's a research project that we hope leads to commercial product."

Source: Dan Wampler, Sensus
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

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

The Ohio River laps the shores of the Buckeye and Bluegrass states, and a project involving both is creating a renewable energy source for the city of Hamilton.

American Municipal Power in Columbus in June broke ground on a hydroelectric plant at the Captain Anthony Meldahl Locks and Dam in Willow Grove, Ky., in northeastern Kentucky. The plant will add 105 MW of new, renewable generation to the region. Hamilton will own 51 percent of the plant, as well as the license for the facility. AMP, a nonprofit conglomerate of 128 power companies in six states including in Ohio, will own the remainder of the plant.

"With the Meldahl project partnership, Hamilton continues its goal of providing cheap, green, renewable energy to Hamilton citizens," said Hamilton Mayor Patrick Moeller.

It's estimated that the half-billion-dollar Meldahl project will employ 200 to 400 construction workers and create up 20 permanent operating positions. The plant is expected to go online by 2014, and will generate about 70 percent of Hamilton's electricity. The city owns another plant in near Portsmouth.

"The hydroelectric generation currently being developed by AMP is a large part of a coordinated effort to reduce our members' over-dependence on the volatile wholesale market and create a balanced power supply. At the same time, this development effort is creating jobs and economic development in the region," AMP President/CEO Marc Gerken said.

Source: American Municipal Power
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

LSI Industries doesn't want you to light a candle or curse the darkness. Rather, it wants to illuminate the world in an energy-efficient way.

Founded in 1976 in a 1,200-square-foot facility, the Cincinnati-based company began with four employees determined to provide good lighting for service stations. Today, the company employs 1,400 at 14 facilities in the U.S. and Canada and specializes in solid-state LED (light-emitting diode) technology for indoor and outdoor lighting and graphics. 

LSI combines integrated technology, design, and manufacturing to supply lighting fixtures and graphics elements for applications in the commercial, retail and specialty niche markets. Its major markets are in commercial/industrial lighting, petroleum/convenience store, multi-site retail (including automobile dealerships, restaurants and national retail accounts), sports and entertainment.

LEDs, generally, are considered superior to traditional lighting because they generate less heat, fewer greenhouse gases, and last longer. LSI's award-winning, flagship technology is called SmartTec; it's used in a product line called Crossover.

"In less than three years, over 100,000 and growing Crossover LED fixtures have been installed in both new construction and retrofit applications, reducing energy consumption by 40% � 80% (depending upon the Crossover fixture) when compared to the traditional lamp alternatives," according to the company.

Source: LIS Industries
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs