Innovation + Job News

When Dr. William Mars started his company, battle tank treads were the last thing on his mind. These days, they're at the forefront of his thinking.

For the next two years, Endurica LLC -- the company Mars started in 2008 to help companies predict the fatigue life of their materials -- will be focusing on the tank parts after landing a $730,000 Small Business Innovation Research award to help the U.S. Army examine the rubber components involved. The company, based in Findlay, has developed a patented system that can predict weaknesses in rubber products, their expected life spans and how to avoid failures in rubber parts.

The system, which Mars developed, allows clients like the Army to accurately predict these attributes without having to go through the repetitive process of having a prototype made and tested. It involves several numerical formulae that Mars says took 10 years to develop.

Now, clients can use a computer program to predict the performance of rubber and synthetics, and shave time and cost from their research and development budgets.

"Those processes tend to be extremely costly, producing a prototype and testing it over and over," says Mars. "We allow them to model their product in a huge range of operating conditions, and streamline that process."

For the Army, that could mean eliminating steps along the way that could run into the millions.

Endurica will be examining the track system on the Abrams tank via a two-year, $730,000 grant. Eliminating traditional testing steps could save the military millions, Mars explains.

"For something that big, testing means producing the prototype, putting it on a tank and running the tank for about 2,000 miles. Then, doing it again once you've made an adjustment. That's $2 million every time they test a new version," Mars adds.

While the Army contract allowed Mars to take Endurica from a "nights and weekends" operation to a full-time gig, Mars also expects it to be a springboard for his company. He's already adding full-time staff, and expects to expand further in the coming years with potentially vast client pool ranging from the automotive and aeronautical industries to biomedical companies.

"The Army contract is a validation of our technology, and the value it offers. It's brought us a lot of attention," adds Mars.

Source: William Mars, Endurica
Writer: Dave Malaska

“Not many companies want to do what we do,” says Adel Mikhail, CEO of Phylogeny, Inc., in Columbus.

What Phylogeny does, according to Mikhail, is “help accelerate the discovery of new therapeutics and diagnostics for human health by enabling scientists to achieve excellence in functional genomic research.”

Phylogeny provides a range of expertise to help scientists at companies and institutes understand key biological processes about how genes function, he explains.

“Our clients in the corporate sector include most biotech companies and all the top-tier pharmaceutical companies,” he notes.

Scientists can outsource certain aspects of discovery research and development to Phylogeny instead of performing the studies in house themselves.

“Our experts perform the complicated research studies that are important for biological discovery,” he says. ”The type of research we provide requires a tremendous amount of experience and expertise and is difficult and costly to perform.”

Phylogeny was established in 2002 by Adel Mikhail and Craig Mello. Mello shared  the 2006 Nobel Prize in physiology for the discovery of RNAi, a long chain of nucleotide units that can turn genes off.

“By using RNAi, we explore the function of genes,” Mikhail explains. “RNAi can be used therapeutically to regulate genes involved in a disease process. It’s just one of the ways to study the biology of specific genes.”

Phylogeny’s scientists have been instrumental in bringing important drugs in the areas of cancer, obesity and osteoporosis to clinical trial.

According to Mikhail, their top three scientists have collectively authored more than 800 publications and can provide very quick insight to their clients.

The company has 21 employees, numerous contractors and part-time staff and received funding from Ohio’s Third Frontier initiative in both 2004 and 2010.

Source:  Adel Mikhail, Phylogeny, Inc.  
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

Summit Data Communications marks its inception from March of 2006 when “the last of the founders quit their ‘day job’ at Cisco Systems and went all-in at Summit,” says CEO Ron Seide.

Since then, the Akron-based company has shipped more than 1.4 million units of its product and is poised for further growth.

The company produces industrial and medical grade Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules for embedding into mobile devices that operate in challenging environments like factories, warehouses and hospitals. Unlike the “consumer-grade” wireless modules of its competitors, Summit’s modules are hardware and software optimized for optimal connectivity under the most difficult conditions.

More than 70 customers, half of which are in Asia, choose from among seventeen products. Revenues swelled from $7 million in ’07 to $15.2 million last year, a three-year increase of 115 percent. The company’s 2010 percentage growth rankings looked better because they were working off a smaller base, Seide explains.

Summit’s employees have grown from the original five founders to more than 20 full-time equivalents.

“We focus mostly on software developers and technical support people. I estimate we’ll add 6 to 9 people next year. We also employ an extensive number of remote software developers who work out of their homes. We use this flexibility to attract and retain talent that would often be beyond the reach of a small enterprise like ours,” says Seide. 

“We’re 100 percent bootstrapped, which is to say we’re self-funded.”

Source: Ron Seide, Summit Data Communications
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Advanced materials manufacturer entrotech has built a strong and thriving business doing something few others do, says President and CEO Jim McGuire: creating advanced materials solutions from concept to marketplace.

The company develops film-based materials used to create and improve products in the electronics, biomedical, transportation and aerospace industries. Unlike many larger advanced materials companies, entrotech takes these solutions from the research and development stage to marketing and manufacturing. The company's chemistry-based approached allows it to innovate and meet real needs in the industry in a cost-effective way, McGuire says.

McGuire, an Ohio State University grad with a background in chemistry, founded entrotech to fill a need in the advanced materials market.

"I felt there was need for a chemistry-based advance materials company. Very few people create their own solutions from the ground up," McGuire says.

The company develops, manufactures and sells its own branded products and sometimes works with other companies to get products to market.

Among companies that have used entrotech's materials are Avery Dennison, Medline, Hewlett Packard, Western Digital, Dell, Microsoft, Gillette, Jaguar, Daimler Benz and Honda.

The Columbus-based company employees 90 people – and recently hired three employees -- with offices in Ohio, Southern California, San Francisco and Singapore, Malaysia. About 40 percent of those employees work in Ohio, he says.

The company got its start at OSU's Business Technology Center before moving to nearby office space in Columbus. It was founded through a mix of angel investment and self-funding, but has received some state support. Last year the company received $2 million from Ohio Research and Development Investment Loan Fund to purchase equipment that allows it to expand its research and development capabilities.

Source: Jim McGuire, entrotech
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

A central Ohio-wide effort by businesses, universities and public-private partnerships is needed to bridge the gaps between business needs and the IT worker competencies needed in the next five years, says a new study released late last week.

TechColumbus and Columbus State Community College, with funding from the Ohio Skills Bank, worked in partnership with Wright State University and Community Research Partners in a four-month analysis of businesses, contractors, consultants, IT workers and universities. The objective was to identify the growth rate for IT jobs, the replacement rate for jobs and the mix of needed jobs and skills.

The study found that between 2006 and last year, 9,000 new IT jobs were created in central Ohio, but that an additional 23,500 IT workers will be needed by 2016. The problem is, there currently aren't enough skilled workers to fill those slots.

The study found:

-- A shortage of workers with required technical skills
-- A need to develop the current workforce in areas relating to soft skills, critical thinking skills and business acumen
-- A shortage of relevant worker training programs
-- Difficulty retaining students in Central Ohio after graduation
-- Increasing worker competition and poaching among local firms
-- Difficulty attracting and retaining talent from outside the region and state
-- Changing relationships and processes between IT contractors and buyers that contribute to the worker shortage.
-- Structural changes in the workforce due to increasing number of “free agents” and aging baby boomers moving into retirement

The report recommends short-term actions that include training programs for high demand jobs, a greater emphasis on internships, innovative collaborative practices among educators, business and public/private partnerships, innovative career and retention practices and regional marketing and recruiting initiatives.

Long term, the report suggests actions ranging from a collaborative system to exchange supply and demand across business and university communities, to marketing central Ohio as a “cool” community.

Tim Haynes, VP of member services and marketing for TechColumbus, says the study was launched based on growing perceptions of the IT environment during the past three to four years. He says the results should provide additional impetus for those affected by the skills gap to work together.

“We believe that many organizations in a position to mitigate the issue will act on this opportunity purely because it’s in their business or program’s best interest,” Haynes says. “In other words, sharing this information will be a catalyst. At the same time, more funding may become (available) to accelerate improvements.”

Source: TechColumbus and Tim Haynes
Writer: Gene Monteith

Technical students at Stark State College could be blown away by America’s first R&D center for large wind-turbine gearbox systems.

The Timken Company, Stark State and the Stark County Port Authority are building a Wind Energy Research and Development Center, the first of its kind in the U.S. Timken will use the facility to develop ultra-large bearings and seals on sophisticated equipment that replicates the operating environment of large multi-megawatt wind turbines. 

The $11.8 million research and development center will anchor Stark State’s new Emerging Technologies Airport Campus on 15 acres of property adjacent to the Akron-Canton Airport.

“We are very pleased to launch such an important project for the wind energy industry,” said Douglas Smith, Timken’s senior vice president of technology and quality at the center's groundbreakign in August. “Being able to simulate real-world conditions at full-scale puts us in a unique position to rapidly assess and qualify new solutions for the industry.”

According to Timken, the 18,000-square-foot center will secure 65 jobs directly, while creating a unique research practicum and technical certification program for Stark State students, offering them critical experience conducting research, developing new designs and testing large wind-turbine bearing systems.  It will also provide critical training for current and future technicians required by today’s wind turbine manufacturers and operators.

Joint funding for the project combines more than $6 million invested by Timken, $2.1 million from the Ohio Third Frontier, and $1.5 million in loans from the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority's Advanced Energy Jobs
Stimulus Program.

Source: The Timken Company

Knotice is the poster child for early stage funding, taking an initial half-million dollar investment and using it to fuel an innovative product that's getting -- well, knoticed. 

Founded in 2003, the Akron-based company helps marketers maximize their direct digital marketing through process automation. CEO Brian Deagan says the product has been so well received in the marketplace that sales have grown at least 50 percent since 2003.

"Knotice started this year with 55 employees, and today employs nearly 90, with several positions still available," says CEO Brian Deagan. "Current openings include account executives with mobile experience, software engineers, sales professionals, creative talent, finance and administrative staff . . . We're opening a Seattle office in November, so we're excited to see what the future holds."

The company's technology lets marketers access customer data across all channels. Concentri, its on-demand direct software platform, unites mobile marketing; email marketing, the Web and direct display within a Universal Profile environment, letting marketers manage all their digital touchpoints from a single log-in.

"Other less advanced solutions require the user to move data back and forth between disparate systems � which can be a real pain," Deagan says.

"The company has fully re-paid an investment of $500,000 from JumpStart: "The investment helped us to launch our product and hire a variety of very talented people � most of them are still with us. In an industry that normally relies on outside funding for success, Knotice has been able to mostly self-fund its growth," explains Deagan.

Deagan says Knotice also tries to make the company a good place to work.

"We celebrate people's interests in sports, music and the arts. Employees are reimbursed for yoga classes which they can take at any time [flex time] . . . that, and we have one of the best marketing platforms out there," Deagan boasts.
 
Source: Brian Deagan; CEO and co-founder
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

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

Look out, Silicon Valley! One day Lorain County could be the MEMS capitol of the world, thanks to the new SMART Commercialization Center for Microsystems on the campus of Lorain County Community College (LCCC).

MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) employ mechanical and electrical properties that can measure or actuate a response that is easily managed by conventional electronics.

The Richard Desich SMART center -- named for the Lorain native, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist -- is a multi-user, shared-source facility for commercializing sensor products, including packaging, reliability testing and inspection of Microsystems and sensors.

Scheduled to open in January of 2013, the center will offer business opportunities and job creation in high-growth industries, as well as training for LCCC students. Worldwide, MEMS constitutes a $100-billion industry. Sensors and the Microsystems incorporating them enable technology in the biomedical, alternative energy, manufacturing, aerospace and defense industries.

The center is the result of economic development initiatives and partnerships, including GLIDE, which was created by the Lorain County Commissioners, Lorain County Chamber and LCCC, and the Innovation Fund. Last fall the college received a $5.5 million Ohio Third Frontier grant through Cleveland State University’s Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering.

“The college [LCCC] created something called GLIDE, the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise, which is a suite of services for small businesses and startups . . . In the high-tech sector you often get people with great ideas who lack the business savvy to wrap the correct structure around those ideas,” says Daniel Ereditario; operations coordinator for the SMART  Center.  

The three-story, 46,000-square-foot facility will offer class 100, class 1,000 and class 10,000 clean rooms, general lab space and customer incubation areas. It will be connected to LCCC’s Entrepreneurship Innovation Center.

So far, fifteen companies have plans to utilize the center.

Source: Daniel Ereditario; Operations Coordinator
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney       

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

Founders Justin Spring and Danielle Walton had small businesses in mind when they developed BringShare. The Columbus-based start-up is an Internet-based tool geared toward meeting the online marketing needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses and marketers.

BringShare provides clients with an integrated platform from which they are able to see all of their online marketing data in a single dashboard. The overall goal of the service is to help users make informed marketing decisions that are more efficient and cost effective.

"BringShare does what other data aggregating services don't," says Spring. "It compiles all online marketing initiatives and presents the data in a way that is consistent and makes it simple to identify which efforts provide the best return on investment, which approaches need to be modified, and those initiatives that aren't paying off."

The site was built to be user-friendly. BringShare users can easily generate reports and evaluate which of their marketing efforts are generating growth, and which aren't.

"The amount of time marketers and small businesses spend gathering data from different channels, developing marketing reports and analyzing the results can add up to 20 to 40 hours of time each month. BringShare simplifies that process to a matter of minutes," Spring says. He estimates that BringShare's average monthly cost is less than one hour of a marketing professional's time.   

BringShare currently has five full-time employees. Each of these positions were created within the last year, and the company anticipates future hiring.
 
TechColumbus, which provides OhioThird Frontier support to emerging businesses, provided BringShare with a $50,000 TechGenesis development grant.  Additionally, TechColumbus provided BringShare with $250,000 in pre-seed funding and $150,000 from its Co-Investment Fund. Investors include the Ohio TechAngels.

Source: Justin Spring, BringShare
Writer: Kitty McConnell

When entrepreneurs go in search of capital, a common mantra is "go big or go home." One company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., and suburban Columbus, is helping them do just that -- find the funding to launch their businesses.

Go BIG Network, which has offices in Powell, is an online service that help connects people with ideas with that funding. Started in 2004 by Wil Schroter, a self-described "serial entrepreneur" with eight start-ups to his name that have generated over $2 billion annually, the service helps its clients navigate the fund-raising process, prepare pitches to prospective investors and even identify its own capital streams.

Its services run from a $59 monthly fee for access to its pool of thousands of those investors to $300 guided searches and consulting to reach the right angel investors, venture capitalists and private investors.

"We have a rolodex of investors that we've worked with and that we know, and we steer our clients to those investors that are the best fit," says Ilya Bodner, Go BIG's senior vice president of business development. "What we do exceptionally well, though, is help people prepare for that 'magic phone call.'"

According to Bodner, that is where most entrepreneurs fail, translating their ideas into a cohesive plan that attract the attention of those investors.

"Thinking you are prepared and actually being prepared are two different things. It leads to a lot of false hope, going into a pitch thinking you have everything lined up, then falling short," he explains.

The website also offers plenty of free information, explaining the investment process, pitfalls to avoid and other tips. It also offers a live chat for quick, one-on-one advice.

According to the company, to date more than 300,000 subscribers have used the service — both investors and those seeking funding -- to spur millions in economic growth.

"All we can say is that it works," says Bodner. "Our track record proves it."

Source: Ilya Bodner, Go BIG Network
Writer: Dave Malaska

Materials giant Dyesol Inc. and Ohio-based glass manufacturer Pilkington North America, both with a strong presence in northwestern Ohio, have teamed up to form DyeTec Solar. The venture, they hope, will become a truly transformative one.

"We like to say we'll be turning buildings into power plants," says Dyesol CEO Mark Thomas.

The partnership, funded with a $950,000 grant from the Ohio Third Frontier, will meld the glassmaker's expertise with new technology hatched in the Dyesol labs -- dye-sensitized solar cells. The materials, applied to common building materials, can turn any surface into energy-gathering solar panels.

Dye-sensitized solar cells (or DSCs) consist of film-like layers of an electrolyte and dyes. Like any solar cell, DSCs convert light into electrical energy. Unlike traditional solar cells, however, DSCs don't need direct sunlight. They're also comparatively inexpensive to produce and can be applied to any surface.

"It's a technology that has endless potential. Because its can be integrated into products that already exist and are already used, it's very cost-effective. But instead of a building just being a building, or a window just being a window, that building or that window can generate power and augment energy requirements," adds Thomas.

Dyseol had been working on the technology for the last 15 years, Thomas says. Three years ago, they moved beyond the research and development phase, striking a partnership with British Steel (NOW) to produce DSC-enhanced steel commercially available. DyeTec, the partnership between Dyesol and Pilkington, has just started manufacturing process for glass applications. The partnership expects to add almost 100 high-tech jobs as production nears.

When products using that glass hit the commercial markets in the next three to five years, consumers could charge car batteries by parking in the sun, charge their cell phone by setting it on their desk or see their electric bills drop when their windows are contributing to the power grid.

"We're very excited about the possibilities, and have very strong commitments from our partners," adds Thomas. "The potential is very clear, and very promising."

Source: Marc Thomas, CEO/Dysol
Writer: Dave Malaska

An Athens-based company is primed to make a dent in the billion-dollar high performance cooling product market using an engine that's been around for almost 200 years.

Global Cooling LLC, a 16-year-old former engineering firm, is now producing ultra-low freezers for use in the biomedical field not only is based on green technology, but also promises huge savings.

The high-efficiency freezers, which keep its cargo as cold as -121 degrees Fahrenheit, are the first of their kind.

"If you go into a large bio-repository, or a hospital or a large pharmaceutical facility, you'll see a large number of ultra-low freezers employed for long-term storage of biological samples," explains Bill White, the company's director of marketing. "In some cases, you can find 400 or 600 of them at one place."

Global Cooling's new freezers perform the same task more uniformly, more quietly and at a fraction of the energy usage. They also use no oil, unlike traditional cooling products.

"Depending on the kilowatt-per-hour rate, it takes from $1,200-$2,000 a year just to operate (traditional units). What our ultra-low freezers do cuts the cost of that by about half. That's a serious benefit that is going to land on someone's bottom line."

Started in 1995 in Athens as an engineering firm, the company was primarily focused on patenting cooling technology that helped slow ozone layer depletion. Soon after, it determined Stirling engines, a 19th-Century invention that had been employed in steam engines, could be modernized as an improvement over the current technology.

The company began producing its own cooling products, culminating in the most recent model, which is now rolling off production lines. With investment from Ohio Third Frontier's Entrepreneurial Signature Program and TechGROWTH Ohio, it expanded its facility in Athens earlier this year. Its first three coolers off the new production line were delivered to Ohio University's Innovation Center last week, for use in its laboratories.

"It came full circle -- the university was involved in the early stages, helping with the business planning, and now they turned around and purchased the first three units off the line," says White.

Orders are already pouring in from bio-science companies both here and worldwide, and Global Cooling has a big future thanks to the innovation, he adds. The company expects to add 70 jobs over the next couple of years, most of them on the technical side.

Source: Bill White, Global Cooling LLC
Writer: Dave Malaska

Tucked away in Clifton on the medical side of UC's campus, researchers at the nation’s first Center for Environmental Genetics continue groundbreaking work, but with a new twist.

Their latest research game-changer involves decades worth of carefully documented biological samples now available for use by their peers all over the world.

If you have never heard of the Center for Environmental Genetics, you are not alone. Housed within the largest department of UC’s College of Medicine, the Department of Environmental Health, the CEG funds research on genetic (your personal script, already written at birth) and epigenetic (beyond genetics – how what you are exposed to today may impact your children’s genes and even further down the line) levels.

Conducting epigenetic studies can be particularly challenging, since multiple generations and variations of exposures are involved. That’s where a long-term human cohort study, started years ago as part of a $78 million settlement at the Fernald Feed Materials Processing Center, comes into play.

For years, residents around the Fernald plant had no idea that their neighbor was manufacturing uranium, not livestock feed. The long-term drama that ensued as the plant was shut down became the stuff of class action lawsuit history. What many residents wanted as much as restitution for their poisoned property was medical help and advice about how their homes might have made them, and their children, and their children’s children, sick.

So the settlement included an important stipulation: the largest medical monitoring project of its kind. From 1990 until 2008, residents were monitored and samples collected from all ages and all backgrounds. The cohort included multi-generational families, with sample collections coded to reflect their relationships.

At the end of the monitoring period, 160,000 biological samples from more than 9,500 participants are now stored at UC’s CEG. Not only can they be used to help examine and improve the lives of the participants and their families, but they can also be sent to researchers around the world who need stable, high-quality samples for their own genetic and epigenetic research.

Locally, doctors found evidence of increased cancer risk among residents, but they also were able to suggest opportunities that might help lower residents’ other risk factors, including the incidence of diabetes and heart disease.

As researchers and community members gathered on UC’s campus last month to discuss the decades-long project, participants and researchers agreed that, when done correctly and comprehensively, medical monitoring leads to both better health and better research.

Source: University of Cincinnati
Writer: Elissa Yancey

This story originally appeared in sister publication Soapbox.