Realm Spring 2021 - The Journal for Queen City CEOs by Cincinnati Magazine

An economic rebound is going to take energy –

the energy of all of us. We’ve got this, Cincinnati. We’ve got the collective power of our business community, which can help our economy bounce back from the pandemic and emerge stronger. Q

We continue to work closely with REDI Cincinnati to attract new businesses to our region.

We remain committed to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to area businesses.

We lead by example and continue to pursue a strategy that integrates diversity and inclusion.

And we’ve offered extended payment plans to business customers so they can more easily manage their bills.

WHAT WE’RE DOING:

Please join us in taking action to spark our local economy. Something as simple as sponsoring a small business to become a member of the Greater Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber can have a lasting impact on our region.

Learn more and get involved at: duke-energy.com/EconomicDevelopment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CINCINNATI USA REGIONAL CHAMBER 04 LETTER FROM JILL MEYER 08 BY THE NUMBERS

Housing ownership across the region.

THE JUMP

PG. 7

20 TALENT BRIGHT LIGHTS

PRINT PROGRESS

How BLINK attracted attention and visitors in 2019, by the numbers.

MANUFACTURING Clovernook produces almost 30 million pages of braille content every year.

14 PHILANTHROPY GIVING SEASON MacKenzie Scott’s donations surprise and delight three local nonproﬁts.

10 MEET JENNY DARROCH

Dean, Miami University’s Farmer School of Business

PRESIDENT AND CEO Jill P. Meyer EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER Brendon Cull VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Danielle Wilson TRAFFIC MANAGER Tracey Brachle BOARD CHAIR Leigh R. Fox, President and CEO, Cincinnati Bell CHAMBER OFFICE 3 E. Fourth St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 579-3100 All contents © 2021 Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. The contents cannot be reproduced in any manner, whole or in part, without written permission from the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.

22 REAL ESTATE ROOM AT THE INN The hotel industry prepares for business travel to return soon. Very soon.

24 FOOD &

MANUFACTURING

MASKS UP Standard Textile raises its proﬁle with a Cleveland partnership.

BEVERAGE

OPEN DOORS Local restaurants keep plugging away, thanks to community support.

18 FOOD &

26 HEALTH CARE HEALTHY CHOICES

RESCUE MISSION

Marathon Health introduces its brand of patient-ﬁrst care in the Cincinnati market.

BEVERAGE

Jay Woffington reorganizes Cincinnati Beverage Co. to support beloved brands.

PG. 56

DEEP DIVES

PG. 29

OUR NEED FOR SPEED The Cincinnati Innovation District is quickly expanding talent growth and entrepreneurship in the region.

DEVELOPMENT TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK Nestlé Purina chose Clermont County for its new U.S. pet food plant after a coordinated pitch from regional leaders.

HR IN THE TIME OF WFH 56 PHOTO ESSAY: GRAETER’S ICE CREAM Behind the scenes at the Graeter’s production facility in Bond Hill.

62 ASK ME ABOUT Going deeper with Liz Keating of Cincinnati City Council, Eric Kearney of the African American Chamber, and George Vincent of Dinsmore.

64 FROM THE DESK OF

How the pandemic shifted the leadership roles of human resources executives inside local companies.

INSIDE MY YEAR OF COVID UC Health CEO Richard Lofgren, M.D., reﬂects on the region’s journey from pandemic unknowns to vaccination triumphs.

PUBLISHER Ivy Bayer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Fox DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Amanda Boyd Walters ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lauren Fisher DESIGN DIRECTOR Brittany Dexter ART DIRECTORS Carlie Burton, Zachary Ghaderi, Jen Kawanari, Paisley Stone, Emi Villavicencio, Stephanie Youngquist PHOTO INTERN Christopher Pasion SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGERS Maggie Goecke, Julie Poyer ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Laura Bowling, Hilary Linnenberg SENIOR MANAGER, SPONSORSHIP SALES Chris Ohmer PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Vu Luong EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING Email cmletters@cincinnatimagazine.com Website cincinnatimagazine.com Phone (513) 421-4300 Subscriptions (800) 846-4333

James Zimmerman, Taft Law. O N T H E C O V E R : P H O T O I L LU S T R AT I O N BY P E T E R C R O W T H E R

C O U R T E SY ( T O P ) M I A M I U N I V E R S I T Y - J E F F S A B O / ( M I D D L E ) 1 8 1 9 I N N O VAT I O N H U B / ( B O T T O M ) P H O T O G R A P H BY C H R I S V O N H O L L E

SPRING 2021 REALM 3

WELCOME

ver the past year, each of us has experienced personal challenges, changes, shifts in worldviews, successes, happy times, struggles, adrenaline rushes, fatigue, fear, discoveries, losses…. The list goes on. I hope the beginning of 2021 has brought you new optimism, new sources of energy, and hopefully a vaccination. In this issue, you’ll read a ﬁrst-person narrative about the year of COVID from Dr. Rick Lofgren, CEO of UC Health. How lucky we are that an experienced physician with expertise in public health and epidemiology happened to be leading our region’s largest academic health institution when the pandemic arrived. You’ll also read about the Uptown Innovation District, where the greatest concentration of innovators, inventors, dreamers, and doers in our region is coming to life. What happens Uptown will deﬁne our future. You’ll also see data about our region’s housing needs, a story about a collaboration that led to hundreds of new jobs in Clermont County, and a look at the enormous economic impact of the 2019 BLINK festival, an event that now seems so long ago. This quarter’s Realm is chock full of content that will have you thinking about leadership, about the resilience and brilliance of this region, and about what is to come. After a long year, please join me in shifting focus to the future and all that we can do together.

JILL P. MEYER jill.meyer@cincinnatichamber.com

4 REALM FALL 2020

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THE JUMP

CLOVERNOOK’S BRAILLE PRINTING HOUSE WILL PRODUCE 30 MILLION PAGES IN 2021. P H O T O G R A P H BY D E V Y N G L I S TA

Get a jump on news about Standard Textile, Cincinnati Beverage, and Marathon Health. Learn about the economic impact of MacKenzie Scott’s donations and BLINK’s light shows. Meet new Miami business school dean Jenny Dorrach.

SPRING 2021 REALM 7

THE JUMP

SNAPSHOT OF THE REGION’S HOUSING OCCUPIED

VACANT

92.4%

7.6%

OWNER OCCUPIED

RENTER OCCUPIED

66.9%

33.1%

THE COST TO OWN MEDIAN OWNER-OCCUPIED HOME VALUE

$186,100

The 16-county Cincinnati region created about 30,000 new housing units between 2010 and 2019, just a 3.3% increase, for a total of 951,069 units. Warren and Boone counties had the largest percentage increases, while Hamilton and Pendleton had the smallest increases. The region’s median home value remains below the U.S. average.

National median home value $240,500; Ohio $157,200; Kentucky $151,700; Indiana $156,000.

MEDIAN MONTHLY HOUSING COSTS FOR OWNER OCCUPIED UNITS WITH MORTGAGE

$1,380

Statistics provided by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s Center for Research & Data.

INDEX OF RENT, HOME VALUE AND HOUSEHOLD INCOME

HOUSING STOCK LESS THAN 15 YEARS OLD 15 TO 30 YEARS OLD

AVERAGE OBSERVED MONTHLY RENT AVERAGE OF TYPICAL HOME VALUE

30 TO 60 YEARS OLD MORE THAN 60 YEARS OLD

18.3%

$181,567 $1,228 $61,820

125%

THE COST TO RENT MEDIAN MONTHLY GROSS RENT (RENT + UTILITIES)

115%

$854

110% 105%

HOUSEHOLDS WITH GROSS RENT ABOVE 30% OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME (COST BURDENED)

100%

36%

2014

OCCUPANCY STATUS BY RACE & ETHNICITY

$171,197 $1,166 $59,484

120%

SOURCE: Cincinnati Chamber Analysis of Zillow Observed Rental Index, Zillow Housing Value Index and U.S. Census Bureau 2014-2019 ACS 1-Year Estimates

23%

$150,869 $161,385 $1,080 $1,121 $59,390 $59,484

130%

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

4% 37%

$139,528 $144,379 $1,000 $1,039 $55,729 $56,728

HOUSEHOLDS WITH MORTGAGES AND OWNER-OCCUPIED COSTS ABOVE 30% OF HOUSHOLD INCOME (COST BURDENED)

WHITE, NON-HISPANIC

2015

2016

BLACK OR AFRICAN AMERICAN

2017

2018

43.5%

2019

HISPANIC OR LATINO

ASIAN

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME 26.6%

33.3%

TOTAL HOUSING UNITS BY COUNTY

$66,825

47.9% 56.7%

66.7%

73.4%

OWNER RENTER

43.3% 52.1%

National median HH income $65,712; Ohio $58,642; Kentucky $52,295; Indiana $57,603.

OHIO

KENTUCKY

INDIANA

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau 2020 Population and Housing Estimates

FRANKLIN COUNTY

OHIO COUNTY

UNION COUNTY

20,178

9,552

2,770

3,239

6,386

20,679

9,878

2,882

3,270

0.8%

2.5%

3.4%

4.0%

1.0%

BROWN COUNTY

BUTLER COUNTY

CLERMONT COUNTY

HAMILTON COUNTY

WARREN COUNTY

BOONE COUNTY

BRACKEN COUNTY

CAMPBELL COUNTY

GALLATIN COUNTY

GRANT COUNTY

KENTON COUNTY

2010

19,326

148,367

80,733

377,283

80,902

46,260

3,841

39,552

3,793

9,951

69,003

6,338

2019

20,554

153,241

84,146

380,769

89,763

50,589

3,882

40,857

3,961

10,318

69,894

6.4%

3.3%

4.2%

0.9%

11.0%

9.4%

1.1%

3.3%

4.4%

3.7%

1.3%

% CHANGE

8 REALM SPRING 2021

PENDLETON DEARBORN COUNTY COUNTY

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THE JUMP

PROFILE

BUSINESS OF LEADERSHIP JENNY DARROCH BRINGS FLEXIBILITY AND TEAMWORK TO MIAMI AS THE NEW BUSINESS SCHOOL DEAN.

— BILL THOMPSON

The Farmer School of Business at Miami University is listed among the country’s topranked undergraduate programs in multiple categories by multiple sources. That might have been intimidating to Jenny Darroch, who became Dean in July, had she not led the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles for four years before moving to Ohio. Drucker, the Austrian known as the “father of modern management,” is credited with helping build the corporate world’s philosophical and practical foundation. “When I looked for my next opportunity, I was looking for a school that had a distinct point of difference from Drucker, and I found it at Farmer,” Darroch says. “Miami does undergraduate education really, really well. It has phenomenal data points, so we can quantify it. If I ask, Could you build a Farmer School from scratch and have it look like it does today? the answer is probably not. These things come about through the history and the way the resources have been deployed.” One of the resources Darroch deploys is Scott Farmer, Chairman and CEO of Cintas Corp., whose parents, Richard and Joyce, provided the cornerstone gift to create the school. “I have a monthly call with Scott Farmer, who is so supportive and engaged in what we’re doing,” she says. Darroch quickly learned to care about the school, although not in the way she envisioned when she interviewed in February 2020. The pandemic skewed her onboarding, like it has so many things over the past year. “The Farmer School building was designed as a place for students to come to in the morning and stay all day,” she says. “That builds community peer-to-peer and community with their professors and staff. But I speak of my perception of the building when it’s full of students, which I’ve 10 REALM SPRING 2021

only seen that one day when I interviewed. So we’re juggling, but I think we’re doing quite well with hybrid teaching. I’m grateful for the people I work with and how much we’re rowing in the same direction for the success of our school, which really means the success of our students.” Darroch, who is the first New Zealand native in addition to being the first woman to lead the business school, is quick to praise others while deflecting credit. That might be traced to her upbringing as one of five children, or it might have to do with geography. “I come from a country that is quite egalitarian, and by personality I don’t do hierarchy very well,” she says and laughs, a sound that, like her words, has a charming lilt. “I’m just not built that way. Students sometimes say I want to call you Dean Darroch or Professor, but I say, Just call me Jenny. I’m fine with that.” After the pandemic fades—when students, faculty, and staff return to the Farmer School of Business in person—it’s likely they’ll also call Darroch the perfect person for the job.

“I’m grateful for the people I work with and how much we’re rowing in the same direction for our school and our students.”

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THE JUMP

MANUFACTURING

CLOVERNOOK FILLS A PRINTING NICHE The Clovernook Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired has produced books for the blind since being gifted a unique printing press in 1910, before braille became the national standard. Today, its Braille Printing House in North College Hill is the world’s largest supplier by volume, with plans to produce 30 million pages in 2021.

PAPER ROUTE The Braille Printing House produces textbooks, magazines, calendars, menus, business cards, instruction manuals, and medical documents. Religious materials and children’s books are the most popular genres.

WORKFORCE TRAINING Roughly 50 percent of Braille Printing House workers are blind or visually impaired. More than 43 percent of staff throughout the Clovernook Center organization have visual impairments.

SUPPORT THE ARTS Clovernook helps improve accessible graphics and guides for museums and public spaces, from Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, and Cincinnati Museum Center.

SIGN OF THE TIMES A collaboration with The New York Times in July 2020 to mark the Americans with Disabilities Act’s 30th anniversary included printed and digital braille versions of the newspaper’s commemorative section.

12 REALM SPRING 2021

P H O T O G R A P H BY D E V Y N G L I S TA

THE JUMP

THE POWER OF PHILANTHROPY HOW FAR WILL $39 MILLION GO HERE?

Organization leaders are still processing the news of MacKenzie Scott’s donation, but it’s clear the impact on the Cincinnati region will be vast. PHILANTHROPY

OUT OF THE BOX MacKenzie Scott’s historic and surprising donation to local organizations will help push “transformational change.” — SARAH M. MULLINS

magine receiving an unexpected phone call announcing an unsolicited donation for millions of dollars and it’s a secret. Cincinnati YMCA CEO Jorge Perez says that’s how he learned about a once-in-a-career donation from novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Over a four-month period, Scott donated more than $4 billion and penned the Medium blog post “384 Ways to Help” explaining her massive pledge. “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,” she writes. “Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty.” Scott’s team evaluated 6,490 organizations across the U.S. and eventually donated to 384, including a total of $39 million to three in this region: Cincinnati YMCA, Meals on Wheels Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, and United Way of Greater Cincinnati. Scott says she focused on organizations with strong leadership teams and results, particularly those battling food insecurity, racial inequity, and poverty. “We do this research and deeper diligence not only to identify organizations with high potential for impact,” she writes, “but also to pave the way for unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached.” Perez says Scott’s approach was revolutionary for the YMCA. Most donors present stipulations about how a gift is to be used, but with unexpected events like a global pandemic or with evolving innovation goals, he says it’s often hard to maneuver around set guidelines. “Sometimes you have to be supported out of the box if you’re going to, in fact, go out of the box,” says Perez. “That’s what this gift and its ﬂexibility allows us to do.”

14 REALM SPRING 2021

United Way, $25 million, CEO Moira Weir “We want to do things that are having transformational change long term. We want to build on the programs that are going well and look at being open to new innovation. Just thinking strategically, What’s the new, modern day United Way? How are we transforming our current structure? And how do we engage the community?” Cincinnati YMCA, $10 million, CEO Jorge Perez “Some funds will strengthen what we already do with our seniors, our kids, our pools, and our camps. We’re trying to ﬁgure out how to provide more food to people who need it, trying to give more access to tutoring to kids who need it, and trying to do better at connecting seniors to our work.” Meals on Wheels Southwest Ohio & Northern Kentucky, $4 million, CEO Jennifer Steele “We’re looking forward to being able to build additional partnerships to maximize our impact on the community at large. One we formed is with a company called Food Forest, which provides home-delivered groceries to underserved communities. We’re also going to shore up our infrastructure and capacity for dealing with crises around seniors, especially COVID.”

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THE JUMP

THE COMMON THREAD

Standard Textile’s humble beginnings inform its community spirit and integrity.

—LEYLA SHOKOOHE

People have increasingly sought comfort and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, a reality that led Standard Textile to partner with the Cleveland Clinic to produce a new consumer face mask. The product is a natural extension of the company’s push into retail sales and its history of making the best of bad situations. Standard Textile was founded in 1940 by Charles Heiman, who escaped the Dachau concentration camp in Germany

to launch his own business in a small tenement apartment in Avondale. The privately held company now has a headquarters facility in Reading and 24 textile production locations around the world. “My great-grandfather started the company out of pure desperation, because he couldn’t get a job,” says Alex Heiman, vice president of corporate strategy. “It was pretty dicey there for a few years, but he somehow ﬁgured it out.” Standard Textile

developed its own manufacturing capability in the 1980s, opening a plant in Israel to supply health care industry textile needs. Its hospitality division came next, supplying linens and bedding

to high-end hotels around the world— including Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, and Hilton properties—and locally at Hotel Covington and 21c Museum Hotel, among others. That led to consumers asking to buy these products directly from the manufacturer. “When you stay in a nice hotel, you want to bring that experience home,” says Joshua Staph, vice president of the Standard Textile Home division, which launched three years ago. The combination of health care connections and retail strategy led Standard Textile to design and produce HOPE masks, so named for the Cleveland Clinic’s Hope Hospital. Mask sales launched online in late December (standardtextile home.com), featuring adjustable ear loops, a breathable mesh liner, and an exterior made of 100 percent cotton. A set of three masks costs $39 and includes a removable nose

piece and a ﬁlter pocket. “We’ve seen tremendous response from all types of customers,” says Staph. “I think the fact that the majority of proﬁt goes to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases research at the Cleveland Clinic is a driving force, because people aren’t necessarily in need of a mask but they want a better mask that goes to a good cause.” No stranger to good causes, Standard Textile has partnered with Cleveland Clinic in the past. What is new is the broader

hometown name recognition. “We’re a little bit unknown in Cincinnati, and I think part of that’s because our roots are in a B2B approach and our founding culture has been one of humility,” says Heiman. “When it comes to putting our name out there and seeing our products on shelves, neither of those things were true during the company’s early history. We’re privately held and family-owned, so it has a bit of a different feel working at our company versus a large public company.”

Standard Textile’s concept development labs helped create the HOPE mask. 16 REALM SPRING 2021

P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E SY S TA N D A R D T E X T I L E

CVGairport.com/EnterCVG

Propelling Community and Business Forward

REGIONAL AIRPORT LEADER Lowest average airfare and most nonstop destinations — Pre-COVID and during pandemic

LOGISTICS LEADER 7th largest cargo airport in North America, home to DHL Express Global Superhub and Amazon Air Hub

SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC IMPACT $6.8 Billion in 2018

DIVERSIFIED BUSINESS FOCUS Aviation and non-aviation growth and land development

BUSINESS GROWTH Expanded international clearance capabilities with new general aviation facility at CVG and added management of OXD Airport (Miami University) operations

ACHIEVED GLOBAL AIRPORT HEALTH ACCREDITATION

THE JUMP

hristian Moerlein has long been synonymous with hometown staples like Graeter’s, Skyline Chili, and LaRosa’s. But when Cincinnati’s craft beer scene boomed in the 2010s, Moerlein couldn’t keep up with brewing’s trendy newcomers. The company’s brands, which had been brought back to Cincinnati by Greg Hardman, were on the brink of extinction by early 2019. That’s when Jay Woffington got the SOS call. At the time, he’d been executive director of Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for eight years, having bolstered its operations and spearheading a new $17.5-million theater in Over-the-Rhine. That tenure followed his previous stint, catapulting Possible from a $5-million marketing agency into a $100-million powerhouse. Along with former Possible colleagues Michael Graham and Jodi Woffington, his wife, he accepted the challenge to salvage the Moerlein brands, which included Little Kings, Hudepohl, and Burger. “These are real legacy brands that hold so much value and are part of the fabric of the city,” says Woffington. “We couldn’t envision that they’d just go away.” Rescue plans commenced in July 2019. The most urgent issue was raising equity capital to stabilize the company’s financials, followed by an effort to re-launch national darling Little Kings with two new flavors. The parent entity was renamed Cincinnati Beverage Company (CinBev), and the final deal closed on March 16, 2020—the first day Gov. Mike DeWine shuttered bars, restaurants, and stadiums. “I felt like the guy who started a distillery right on the eve of Prohibition,” says Woffington. Undeterred, the team pivoted. To protect their new shareholders from an impending cash flow drought, they purchased the company’s building and land assets, which were then sold to developer Northcrown Property. On the product side, the team paused the new Little Kings flavors and instead re-launched the original cream ale product with new branding. Sales grew 60 percent in 2020, proof that demand wasn’t dead. The latest wrinkle emerged in December, when CinBev outsourced brewing operations and dismissed about 20 employees, including Hardman. The optics were unsavory, but the decision wasn’t as callous as media reports made it seem. “It was really the only option to keep these brands in existence,” says Woffington. Moerlein’s production facility, built in 2004, was significantly less efficient than premium standards and unsustainable. Keeping production local was nonnegotiable, and Impact Brewing Company (the contract manufacturing arm of Taft’s Brewing Co.) fit the partner bill. As for a silver lining, Woffington and his partners connected almost every ex-CinBev staffer to new employment, many with local brewers. At the risk of romanticizing a comeback, Woffington suggests the business is still in distress and an uphill battle remains. “In the startup world, we used to say a business has great aura when the reputation is greater than its reality,” he says. “And this business has great aura.”

LEADERSHIP

KEEPING MOERLEIN AFLOAT Jay Woffington describes his rescue mission to take Cincinnati’s most iconic brewery off life support. —ELIZABETH MILLER WOOD

18 REALM SPRING 2021

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THE JUMP

BLINK’S IMPACT HERE’S A NUMERICAL SNAPSHOT OF THE WEEKEND OF OCTOBER 10–13, 2019. WHERE

interactive installations and

murals across

city blocks in Cincinnati and Covington.

WHO

1.25 million total attendees TALENT

BLINK BROUGHT THE BLING —SARAH M. MULLINS

LINK’s outdoor installations took over the Cincinnati skyline with interactive light sculptures, animations, and murals in 2017 and 2019, making typically stagnant objects and buildings come alive with optical illusions. The most recent weekend also brought the region alive ﬁnancially, according to a new impact report, with 1.25 million attendees and an $87 million combined economic footprint. BLINK’s success demonstrates that the arts are a cultural and economic cornerstone of the region and not just nice luxuries to have, says Jill Meyer, president and CEO of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, which conducted the impact study. “We know that a typical arts patron will spend about $31 in addition to whatever they spend on their ticket on dining, lodging, parking, babysitters, shopping,” says Alecia Kintner, president and CEO of ArtsWave. “So when you think about the million-plus people who came out for BLINK, that ripples through the economy.” With a vibrant arts scene, says Meyer, Cincinnati companies can attract top talent and remain competitive with larger cities by offering incentives outside of the workplace. People are relocating more and more to places they want to live, not just places they want to work, she says, and groundbreaking events like BLINK help grab attention around the country. While the fate of BLINK’s 2021 iteration is still unknown, Meyer says no one wants it to happen more than the Chamber, ArtsWave, and their partners do. “You can’t talk about BLINK without underscoring the impact of celebrating who we are and what is unique about us,” she says. “It’s key to our vision of the future city Cincinnati is and can be.”

20 REALM SPRING 2021

$86.7

MILLION

total economic impact, including $22 million at restaurants and $9 million at retail locations. VISITORS 28 percent of attendees were non-local.

HOTELS

33%

Downtown hotels saw between 87 percent and 99 percent occupancy over the weekend’s three nights, an overall 33 percent increase in occupancy from BLINK’s 2017 weekend. ENGAGEMENT 12.5 million social media impressions from BLINK Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other accounts.

P H O T O G R A P H S BY ( C LO C K W I S E , F R O M T O P L E F T ) R O O T E D M E D I A / B E R G E T T E P H O T O G R A P H Y / S T O C K . A D O B E . C O M

A new study shows the innovative arts weekend had an $87 million economic impact.

SPENDING

Some entrepreneurs may be born, but with the right education and employment policies we can do more to encourage entrepreneurship. ey.com/betterworkingworld #BetterQuestions

Born entrepreneur? Made entrepreneur?

THE JUMP

REAL ESTATE

HOTELS ARE STILL IN LIMBO The local hospitality sector hopes to welcome business travelers back soon. Very soon. —SARAH M. MULLINS

Crippled by COVID-19 and its economic downturn, U.S. industries have slowly started to bounce back, including restaurants, gyms, and schools. The travel industry, however, continues to struggle, especially companies relying on business travel. According to TSA Checkpoint data, less than half the typical daily travelers are currently flying. Aviation data firm Cirium reports total airline capacity was down by 70 percent in April 2020 compared to the year prior, an astounding statistic when compared with other financial crises; travel dropped 19 percent after 9/11, for instance, and 11 percent during the 2008 financial crisis. With most businesses heeding safety recommendations, travel restrictions, and stay-at-home orders, few are reopening offices and so business travel has practically disappeared. Bimal Patel, president of Rolling Hills Hospitality, operates 12 hotels in and around Cincinnati that are reliant on business travel, and business at each location is hovering around 35-40 percent of a typical year. Now that the virtual world is a new reality, will 22 REALM SPRING 2021

travel bounce back? “Our ecosystem was nev- pandemic, but once travel returns the hotel exer meant to survive even a year without sig- perience might look different. “I think you’re niﬁcant travel,” says Patel, a member of the going to see a lot more automated kiosk checkregion’s RESTART Task Force. “In a city like ins like you do at the airports,” he says. “I think Cincinnati, with a number of Fortune 500 room service and hotels may come back a little companies, where there’s a ton of travel for stronger because people don’t have to interact.” Additionally, in recent years various projects and consulting, open spaces and communal tables that’s really hurting the hotel “Our became popular in new and renobusiness.” vated hotels—creating a welcomWhile traditional business ecosystem ing environment and encouraging travel halted, the hospitality was never socialization—but the pandemic industry has shifted. Airbnb’s meant to business rebounded after milmight scale that back. lions of dollars of lost revenue survive Despite the economic turmoil, at the start of the pandemic, a year Patel is hopeful. “I think there are a the unexpected boom caused lot of Fortune 500 CEOs and vice without by travelers taking advantage of presidents who probably realize that it isn’t a productive environnew home/work ﬂexibility and travel.” taking vacations in more remote ment to continue to operate off of areas within short and drivable distances just to Microsoft Teams or Zoom,” he says. “A large get out of the house. But Patel says casual travel amount of communication is nonverbal. And isn’t a main driver of success for his company. to hold people accountable and to get things Patel predicts these new trends will even- done in a substantive form, we believe that tually reach the business travel sector as well. people have to be back together and be faceHotels kept high cleaning standards before the to-face.” I L LU S T R AT I O N BY E D M O N D E H A R O

THE JUMP

FOOD & BEVERAGE

OPEN DOOR POLICY Grant funding helps restaurants navigate the pandemic’s winter challenges.

—LEYLA SHOKOOHE

Opening a restaurant is already a stressful, time-consuming endeavor, and operating a small business during the global pandemic is a challenge, to say the least. Combine the two, and the journey becomes mind-boggling. But local restaurateurs—including a handful of new ones—gained support during the peak of COVID’s winter surge from the City of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s partnership to provide $4 million in grants through the Taste of Cincinnati All Winter Long program. “We wanted to be able to drive trafﬁc to the restaurants, whether that was carryout or delivery,” says Cynthia Oxley, the Chamber’s director of sponsorship and community events. “The idea was to help keep people employed or for them to buy equipment and heaters to serve outside, or really whatever they needed to keep their business open.” Grants were split into two categories for food service outﬁts within the city of Cincinnati limits: $17,000 to full-service restaurants and $8,500 to bars and limited-service restaurants. A total of 272 businesses received funding, including newly opened Rebel Mettle Brewing and MashRoots Mofongo Bar. “ We signed a lease in June 2019, and our hope was to open in spring 2020,” says Guillermo Vidal, co-founder of MashRoots, a Puerto Rican-inspired fast-casual restaurant in College Hill. “And then the apocalypse happened.” 24 REALM SPRING 2021

MashRoots

Started as a pop-up outﬁt in 2017, MashRoots’ primary focus is on mofongo, perhaps Puerto Rico’s signature dish, featuring fried plantains seasoned and mashed in a pilon (mortar and pestle) and accompanied by meat. By the time the pandemic hit, MashRoots was already far into the opening process, so they pushed ahead and opened up. They received a $17,000 grant. “We’re using it for paying employees and for paying our initial inventory we had to get and small kitchenware items,” says Vidal. “It’s been super helpful.”

Each restaurant that received grant money is also required to offer a special deal that the Chamber then promotes. MashRoots is offering a free dessert or side with every bowl purchased. At Rebel Mettle Brewery downtown, they’re offering happy hour pricing on Wednesdays and a merchandise discount. The brewery, opened in September 2020, received a $8,500 grant. “I’m very grateful,” says Mike Brown, president and CEO. “All of our full-time employees have health care that we do on a 75/25 split, so those funds helped us offset the cost of medical coverage for the month of January.” Both men are confident their new ventures will succeed. “It’s exceeding our expectations so far,” says Vidal. “This is worst-case scenario, so we’re optimistic that when things get better we’re only going to do better.” “We’re deﬁnitely getting a following, there’s no question,” Brown says. “When COVID lifts and we can start to normalize, business will snowball.” Rebel Mettle Brewing

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THE JUMP

HEALTHCARE

A NEW PATIENT-FIRST APPROACH Marathon Health brings convenient, preventativefocused care to the Cincinnati market.

—SARAH M. MULLINS

Going to the doctor can be a daunting and expensive task, especially for unexpected treatments. Instead, Marathon Health is hoping to get employers to re-focus on a preventative, patient-first approach to healthcare coverage as it launches in the Cincinnati region. Marathon is opening offices across the area to provide client employees with convenient online scheduling, virtual visits, and services like on-site lab work. There’s a health coach on staff to help with lifestyle changes, and many prescriptions are stocked in the office. If the doctor has to refer someone to a specialist, he or she takes the time to find a provider offering the best value mix of cost and quality. 26 REALM SPRING 2021

According to Eric Neuville, Marathon vice president of business development, the average number of patients a doctor sees in local health systems is between seven and eight per hour. “If you went to a restaurant and had to wait 20 minutes to get in and another 20 minutes for a waiter, you had to eat and leave in eight minutes, and you didn’t know the price and whether the quality was good or bad, would you go back?” says Neuville. “The experience with our providers is phenomenal. No waiting in the waiting room or in the exam room, and you get to spend 20 to 60 minutes with the provider. That’s unheard of in today’s healthcare system.” Marathon doesn’t take the place of traditional employer-supported health insurance but is an addition to existing plans, focusing on prevention and primary care. Neuville says client employees report fewer specialty and emergency room visits as well as reduced chronic illness, adding up to $1 billion in total savings. Employers often see results within a year, he says, but significant savings start once employees switch their primary care physician to Marathon. “The employers who make this investment have wellness incentives,” he says. “They want you to go to Marathon at least once a year to get your biometric screenings.” Healthcare’s general lack of time efficiency and lack of price transparency can deter patients from going to the doctor. If they do schedule a visit, they often leave with more questions than answers, a trip somewhere else for lab work, and a stop at the pharmacy. Marathon focuses on using patients’ time more efficiently by having multiple services in one site and providing more time with the doctor. “We block out time to allow for patients to be seen,” says Bill Klein, M.D., Marathon’s Ohio medical director and a family physician. “More focus on spending time to get to know the patients and their challenges and barriers. Diabetes often takes a multi-step process to get under control, for instance, and that extra time with patients is key.” Marathon Health entered the Cincinnati market in October and operates four clinics in this region. Other markets include Columbus, Indianapolis, and Charlotte, North Carolina, with expansions announced into Las Vegas and Orlando. I L LU S T R AT I O N BY M Y R I A M WA R E S

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80+ Startups $70 million+ in direct investment $1 billion+ in co-investment from 130+ venture and strategic investors

Î The Cincinnati Innovation District: Where else would we call home? Our work happens in the 1819 Innovation Hub in the Cincinnati Innovation District, created to accelerate collaborative innovation throughout the community. Here, we work among the region’s leading research institutions, corporate innovation groups, investors, and thousands of students and faculty. Thanks to the University of Cincinnati, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the City of Cincinnati, Jobs Ohio, REDI Cincinnati, and the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber for creating a vibrant new neighborhood of innovation that will drive regional economic vitality for decades. Come and feel the energy.

For more information about CincyTech, visit www.cincytechusa.com

DEEP DIVE

THE CINCINNATI INNOVATION DISTRICT PUSHES ONWARD AND UPWARD UPTOWN. P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY O F 1 8 1 9 I N N O VAT I O N H U B

Innovation Speeds Ahead

Teamwork Lands Purina

HR in the Time of WFH

UC Health’s Many Pivots SPRING 2021 REALM 29

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The Need for Speed

he nation’s first innovation district was, arguably, Silicon Valley. The global high-tech center dates its origins to the 1950s and the development of transistors by Fairchild Semiconductor and the beginnings of the personal computer by a couple of guys named Hewlett and Packard. A culture of invention developed there, which jelled with the presence of Stanford University and was fueled partly by government defense spending. It would attract venture capital and brainpower from around the world. The evolution of Silicon Valley illustrated the importance of attracting talent and funding to develop and sustain a vibrant business community. It’s the idea behind the Cincinnati Innovation District, a zone of jobs and research targeted for exponential growth and investment by the state of Ohio, the city of Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati, and other stakeholders. The aim is to bring together and coordinate the elements needed to keep and attract smart people and accelerate the development of new technology to keep businesses, and the entire Cincinnati region, competitive. Silicon Valley developed organically over many years. Here in the 21st century, Cincinnati and other cities are focusing energy and investment to capitalize on their existing strengths and create centers of growth and innovation in much less time. “We’re working to aggressively build something in years that has typ30 REALM SPRING 2021

THE CINCINNATI INNOVATION DISTRICT IS BEGINNING TO ANSWER THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY’S CALL FOR MORE AND FASTER DEVELOPMENT OF TALENTED ENTREPRENEURS WITH FRESH AND DIVERSE THINKING. BY DAVID HOLTHAUS ILLUSTRATION BY PETER CROWTHER P H O T O G R A P H BY T K T K T K

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ically taken decades,” says David Adams, UC’s chief innovation officer and architect of the Cincinnati Innovation District. “We want to stem the tide of our highly skilled talent moving to other cool places and also strengthen the businesses we have today.” Major new elements of the district are now under construction around the Interstate 71 interchange at Martin Luther King Drive, but the project’s scope has been expanded to include the main campuses of the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State, the medical practice and research centers of UC Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Med-

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ical Center, and federally funded research at the local office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That area, now collectively known as Uptown, is home to more than 50,000 employees; a collection of healthcare, research, and academic institutions; and a heavy concentration of M.D.s and Ph.D.s. Leveraging the brainpower already there could help attract more talent, jobs, and investment to the region. “You want to connect to talent and create a place where you can do this,” Adams says. “It’s also connecting with one another, the ability to work together on like-minded problems.”

WHERE IDEAS GO TO GROW

HE CINCINNATI INNOVAtion District’s nerve center is the 1819 Innovation Hub, once a 1920s-era Sears store that UC overhauled, expanded, and retrofitted to create a space for business leaders, students, teachers, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate, share ideas, pool their expertise, solve problems, and create businesses. Renee Seward took her idea to the UC Accelerator— before it was absorbed into the 1819 Hub—and eventually launched an education tech company with its help.

Seward is an associate UC professor and graphic designer who wanted to help people struggling with reading. She has a close friend with a son who labored in school because of dyslexia, the learning disability that makes it difficult to interpret words and letters. He was failing tests, he complained, because he had a hard time comprehending the way the printed exams were laid out and organized on the page. As a graphic designer, Seward was aware of the strategies design professionals use to communicate ideas and capture and to hold the attention of readers and viewers. Maybe similar techniques could be used to help struggling readers. “That sent me on a long journey,” she says, to try to marry her ideas with available digital technology. She met with Dorothy Air, associate senior vice president of entrepreneurial affairs at UC, who suggested she take her idea to the accelerator. The 1819 Hub features a seven-week pre-accelerator program on starting a business, but just as importantly it’s a forum for students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders to connect with new ideas emerging from UC, evaluate those ideas, and possibly help bring them to the marketplace. It connects innovators who may lack business knowledge to experienced entrepreneurs. As Seward says, “It helps you know whether you want to do this or don’t want to do this.” She definitely wanted to move ahead with her plan, and at the 1819 Hub she met Nancy Koors, one of 60 entrepreneurs-in-residence who share their experience, know-how, and savvy in maneuvering through the startup process. Koors has corporate tech experience, was president of a branding agency, was an executive at Cintrifuse, and is on the board of several young companies.

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As Koors did, the entrepreneurs-in-residence typically become cofounders and chief executive officers when it’s time for an idea to be turned into a business. “Her knowledge of what it takes to turn an idea into a product and ultimately into a company and to help find the resources we need to make the business is incredible and valuable,” Seward says. “And her connections are invaluable.” The duo formed See Word Design, and their team developed two products targeted to parents and teachers of preschoolers and first graders. They’re now working on a beta version of a web browser extension. “My biggest goal is to help people all around the world who are struggling to read,” Seward says. See Word Design is the kind of tech-focused company the 1819 Hub was set up to produce. Another is Peel9, whose leadership team includes two retired police officers working in UC’s well-regarded criminal justice department: Tim Sabransky, a retired Cincinnati police lieutenant, Loveland police chief, and senior research associate at UC; and Daniel Gerard, a retired Cincinnati police captain and operations director of UC’s Institute of Crime Science. The two of them, along with Murat Ozer, a UC information technology professor, had developed a system to manage and analyze the reams of information that police gather every day. They designed software to connect the millions of dots that officers record and use that information as a way to prevent crime rather than merely catch criminals. In the 1819 Hub program, they met entrepreneur-in-residence Todd Levy, who cofounded and ran a software company for 20 years. They formed a partnership, with Levy

GROUP EFFORT

The 1819 Innovation Hub provides local businesses with “the ability to work together on like-minded problems,” says David Adams.

providing the business and marketing expertise and the law enforcement professionals providing the development expertise. The software enables police agencies to share data that can better link people, places, and vehicles involved in crime; allows greater insights into how officers and police staff are being utilized; and permits officers to complete reporting in the field on any internet-connected device, Levy says. A dozen police agencies in the region—including Greenhills, Sharonville, Blue Ash, and Evendale— are using the software under three-year agreements. “Our goal is to expand in Southwest Ohio, then around the state, and then to other states,” says Levy. The pace of startup creation at UC has increased dramatically, with 45 companies created in the last two years, Adams says. “Before that, it was one or two a year.” Since the 1819 Hub opened, there’s been a 135 percent increase in technology disclosures from UC-affiliated researchers, an initial step in commercializing technology, and a 185 percent increase in issued patents. Corporations have established formal partnerships with UC and the Hub. Microsoft joined in the past year to support curriculum development in computer science and expansion of STEM programs at the university. Other formal partners include Kao USA, Procter & Gamble, Fifth Third Bank, Kroger Co., Cincinnati Insurance Companies, Kingsgate Logistics, Hillman Accelerator, and CincyTech— all of whom have established a physical presence at the Hub in order to gain access to student tech talent. “By partnering with the Cincinnati Innovation District, organizations know that they have a direct pipeline to highly skilled talent,” says UC President Neville Pinto. “And our students have the opportunity SPRING 2021 REALM 33

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to gain experiences working in highly innovative environments on great projects with real impact.” Pinto created UC’s Office of Innovation in 2017, hoping “to focus on connecting our innovation assets— students, researchers, and education resources—to our community to strengthen it.”

CREATIVE INSTITUTIONS, FIRMS, AND WORKERS CRAVE PROXIMITY SO THAT IDEAS AND KNOWLEDGE CAN BE TRANSFERRED MORE SEAMLESSLY.

BUILDING THE INNOVATION CORRIDOR

HE 1819 INNOVATION Hub is the focal point of a district still in its infancy. Its genesis was the decision to build an interchange off of Interstate 71 at Martin Luther King Drive where Avondale, Evanston, and Walnut Hills meet. “As soon as we knew the city and the state had funded the new ramps, our board recognized that we needed to get ahead of this and plan the land use around the interchange to make sure the development resulted in community growth for everyone,” says Beth Robinson, president and CEO of the Uptown Consortium.

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The organization was created in 2004 by the leaders of UC, UC Health, Children’s, the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, and TriHealth, all of whom had an interest in improving the neighborhoods they work in, generally Avondale, Clifton, Clifton Heights, Corryville, Fairview, Mt. Auburn, and University Heights. The interchange announcement began an 18-month planning process on how to make the most of the Martin Luther King corridor by creating jobs and connecting the neighborhoods. The Uptown Consortium, with some funding and assistance from city hall, began acquiring property around the interchange site, which evolved into a plan to create an innovation corridor along Martin Luther King Drive, Robinson says. “Across the country, there was a big thrust in economic development to reinvent how innovation is done,” she says. “That’s how it started.” Other cities have been developing innovation districts, some of which consortium members visited. St. Louis has been developing Cortex since 2002, pushed forward by Washington University. Atlanta launched Tech Square in that city’s Midtown neighborhood, driven by Georgia Tech. Boston’s innovation district was created out of the restoration of its South Boston Waterfront peninsula. Detroit formally launched an innovation district in 2014, and Pittsburgh has created one around Carnegie Mellon University. These efforts, as well as Cincinnati’s, have been influenced by a 2014 Brookings Institution report, “The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation on Ameri-

ca,” which noted that the location of innovation was shifting to the urban cores of cities, where people from research institutions, mature corporations, startups, and incubators could collaborate. “Our most creative institutions, firms, and workers crave proximity so that ideas and knowledge can be transferred more quickly and seamlessly,” wrote the authors, Bruce Katz and Julie Wagner. “Our diverse population demands more and better choices of where to live, work, and play, fueling demand for more walkable neighborhoods where housing, jobs, and amenities intermix.” In 2012, Uptown Consortium members commissioned an economic impact study of the proposed new interchange, as well as an MLK corridor market assessment. They engaged GBBN architectural firm and planning and urban design firm Sasaki to complete a corridor study. A steering committee of more than 30 Uptown stakeholders and community leaders began meeting regularly. Cincinnati City Council adopted the MLK plan, and in 2015 the consortium engaged urban design firm MKSK to do a series of land use studies to guide real estate investments. The four corners around the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Reading Road became the heart of the innovation corridor, with its master plan anticipating $2.5 billion of investment; 3.5 million square feet of research, office, clinical, residential, hotel, and retail space; and 7,500 new jobs. The corridor landed a big tenant when the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) decided to consolidate about 550 area employees from three 1950s-era sites to a new campus at the northwest corner of MLK and Reading.

The $110 million project needed 14 acres of land to house laboratories and offices for the chemists, biologists, engineers, and others who will eventually work there. Funding for the construction was threatened in the 2016 federal spending budget, and again in 2018, when a “rescissions package” proposed in Congress would have taken back federal dollars intended for a range of projects, including the NIOSH construction, Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office says. The spending cuts narrowly failed in the Senate, and since then, Brown and Sen. Rob Portman have lobbied the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services, NIOSH’s parent agency, to continue funding the project, which is expected to be completed in 2023. “Construction of this new state-of-the-art facility will mean more jobs for Ohioans,” Brown says, “and the work done there will help us maintain our state’s leadership on innovative health and safety research.” At the southeast corner of Reading and MLK, Terrex Development and Construction and Messer Construction are building a mixed-use project called the Digital Futures Complex. UC, the major tenant, plans to use the space to bring together researchers, students, and

businesses to develop new ideas and projects in artificial intelligence, sensors and other hardware devices, data analytics and informatics, education, and the creative arts. The southwest corner, former site of a gas station and a nursing home, has Queen City Hills as the designated developer. It’s led by former Procter & Gamble executive Edwin Rigaud and David Foxx, founder of d.e. Foxx and Associates, one of the region’s largest minority-owned businesses. The group is working on preliminary concept plans now, Robinson says. The developer of the northeast quadrant is MLK Investors, a part-

REA

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL CLIFTON

The re-branded Cincinnati Innovation District stretches from I-71, Martin Luther King Drive, and Reading Road to Cincinnati State in the Uptown area.

DING

CINCINNATI STATE

BULL’S EYE

UPTOWN INNOVATION CORRIDOR

UC ACADEMIC HEALTH CENTER UC HEALTH EPA

NIOSH

MLK

DIGITAL FUTURES COMPLEX

1819 INNOVATION HUB UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

71 TAFT

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TAKEAWAYS FASTER, STRONGER U.S. innovation districts, like Silicon Valley, usually develop organically over decades, but the University of Cincinnati and regional business leaders are aggressively building a new innovation hub around existing Uptown corporate, medical, research, and academic centers of excellence. LOCATION, LOCATION The Cincinnati Innovation Corridor, and now District, was spurred by development of the I-71 interchange at Martin Luther King Drive. Most new construction is taking place around the MLK/ Reading Road intersection. TALENT GROWTH JobsOhio’s $100 million investment will help the Innovation District meet a 10-year goal of creating 20,000 new jobs and generating $3 billion in annual economic impact.

nership between Neyer Properties and Kulkarni Properties. The roughly 20-acre development, known as “The Node,” is expected to include research and office space, a hotel, apartments, and retail and restaurant space. The pandemic has delayed the start of the project, which may get under way in 2022, Robinson says. Last fall, Sasaki and the Uptown Consortium completed plans for greenspace in the district, much of which will run through The Node. Currently called the Innovation Greenway, the multi-acre property likely will include water, a bike path that connects to Wasson Way, and event and festival space. “The design intention is to improve physical, social, and cultural connectivity between this site with adjacent neighborhoods such as Avondale and Corryville,” says Fred Merrill, a partner with Boston-based Sasaki. “It is intended to be an outdoor place of convergence.”

and generating $3 billion in annual economic impact. “We see this as a tremendous opportunity to transform the future of this region,” Pinto says. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, in announcing the state investment, said the opportunity is now. “Great ideas must find a way from the lab to the marketplace if they are to improve the quality of life for the public and create jobs and economic opportunity,” he said. “This innovation district will make this process faster and more effective.”

THE INNOVATION DISTRICT IS “A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY TO TRANSFORM THE FUTURE OF THIS REGION,” SAYS UC PRESIDENT NEVILLE PINTO.

MAKING THE PROCESS FASTER AND MORE EFFECTIVE

N M A RC H 2 0 2 0 , T H E I N novation Corridor took a major leap forward by expanding and re-branding as the Cincinnati Innovation District, with a pledged investment of $100 million over 10 years from JobsOhio, the state’s lead economic development organization. Along with funding from UC, CCHMC, and other institutions, it’s meant to accelerate a 10-year goal of developing 15,000 STEM graduates, hosting $2 billion in commercialized research, creating 20,000 new jobs,

In the current tech-for ward, knowledge-focused economy, says UC’s Adams, the supply of physical capital—money, buildings, and machines—is no longer the main instrument of growth. “It’s human capital,” he says. “We need more bright, highly skilled minds to help fuel the growth of the innovation that’s occurring.” Pinto agrees. “CEOs tell me talent is a number one need,” he says. “In addition to talent, business leaders say that to thrive they also need fresh and diverse thinking, along with a mindset of innovation.”

TALENT INTERSECTIONS

The 1819 Innovation Hub has begun the process of bringing local business leaders, entrepreneurs, and students together to spark innovation, create new companies, and keep young talent in the Cincinnati region.

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Teamwork Makes the Dream Work NESTLÉ PURINA’S PET FOOD PLANT IN CLERMONT COUNTY ANCHORED A SERIES OF BIG 2020 WINS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT RECRUITING. BY GAIL PAUL

he facts of Nestlé Purina PetCare Co.’s $550-million capital investment in Southwest Ohio tell an impressive story on their own. A new 1.2-million-square-foot dry pet food factory has broken ground on 193 acres in Clermont County’s Williamsburg Township, and by 2024 it will employ 300 in robotics-heavy advanced manufacturing, generate $12.5 million in annual payroll, and include a skills-building innovation center. The backstory is just as impressive. The project site, South Afton Industrial Park, is a former soybean ﬁeld, purchased and improved with $7.8 million in community investment in order to attract manufacturing jobs. Plans are in the works to extend a new 14-mile natural gas pipeline there. It was one of the largest capital investments announced in 2020 in the entire U.S., and it wouldn’t have happened without years

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I L LU S T R AT I O N BY E V E L I U

of cooperation among state and local officials, Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) Cincinnati leaders, and private business interests. The project ’s regional impact on the Cincinnati region is difficult to quantify yet, says REDI CEO Kimm Lauterbach, but it will be a game-changer. “It’s 300 net new jobs, people who will be spending dollars in the region, not just in Clermont County,” she says, pointing to statistics showing every new manufacturing job results in five additional non-primary sector jobs. “Another beauty of the project is it’s a cutting-edge R&D facility. What types of R&D opportunities will spin out of this investment? How many companies will locate nearby because they want to be a supplier? That value is so much greater than the initial announcement of 300 jobs and half a billion dollars of investment.” Nestlé Purina announced the new factory in October, proving that, even amidst the pandemic, large companies are moving forward with location decisions. Both REDI and Northern Kentucky Tri-ED reported solid project announcement and capital investment results for their 2020 economic development efforts. The organizations also took on additional work, jumping in to help coordinate support and outreach efforts and lead new initiatives as part of the massive regional business response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Business as usual went out the window. A hallmark of high-impact regional economic development ecosystems is strong coordination among a variety of public and private partners that rally around shared goals and sell the entire region’s strengths instead of competing against one another’s home turfs for projects. The broader story of Nestlé

Purina’s new pet food factory proves that linking local organizations closely together in recruiting efforts helped draw in the global company as it assessed locations across the country.

L E R M O N T C O U N T Y’ S motivation to own and develop the South Afton property began prior to 2008, when 800 of the last Ford Motor workers in Batavia lost their jobs as the transmission plant closed. The loss long resonated with county leadership and helped inspire their 2016 acquisition and transformation of an agricultural site located at Half Acre Road and State Route 32, about a mile from the Ford Motor site. JobsOhio, the statewide private economic development organization, had worked with Nestlé on at least four previous expansion and relocation projects, including a $16.8-million expansion of a large food operation in Solon, for which it provided grants. JobsOhio also worked closely with Clermont County Economic Development to help guide its rigorous SiteOhio authentication process for the South Afton Industrial Park, certifying the property is construction ready, has utilities in place with adequate capacities, and has identiﬁed and mitigated barriers to development. For Duke Energy, the project was an opportunity to provide analysis and expertise to assist a large, sophisticated manufacturing operation achieve its goals in this region. Amy Spiller, President of Duke Energy Ohio and Kentucky, describes its typical engagement with a relocation prospect. “Our role, ﬁrst and foremost, addresses the different sites in the region that the prospect may be looking at,” she says. “We’ll assemble a Duke Energy team with our large account managers as well as natural gas and electric experts

THE VALUE PROPOSITION

Nestlé Purina’s investment in Clermont County is a game-changer for the entire region, says REDI Cincinnati CEO Kimm Lauterbach.

on our operations side, who can work closely with the prospect to understand their capacity requirements, construction timeline, and production schedule. Then we’ll analyze whether our existing or planned infrastructure will be sufficient to serve their needs.” Lauterbach says REDI Cincinnati encouraged Clermont County to pursue SiteOhio authentication, a process so demanding and time-intensive that it united the team of economic development and site professionals working on it in perfecting a sales pitch. “We did mock site visits over and over,” she says. “We had the pitch down. We knew that site inside and out, forward and backward. I firmly believe the years of proactive work that went into that site, that development, and that partnership were key components of why we were able to sell it.” Gopi Sandhu, Director of Sustainable Operations for Nestlé Purina PetCare, says the company decided in 2019 to expand its footprint of manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and began searching for sites that would meet its needs. Purina’s U.S. sales have risen to $9.4 billion, a 30 percent increase between 2011 and 2019, and were the largest contributor to Nestlé corporate growth by product category in the first nine months of 2020. Sandhu is based at the company’s St. Louis headquarters, where Ralston Purina was founded in the late 1800s and from where the Clermont County project steering team is now managing factory design and construction. “People will start seeing a lot more activity there as we get into spring and summer months,” he says. The factory will be designed with sustainability at the forefront, with a focus on zero waste for disposal, renewable electricity, and water and heat recovery. “We have a ‘make it where you sell it’ model,” Sandhu says. “We want to SPRING 2021 REALM 39

DEEP DIVE

be close to our consumer. That offers a lot of cost beneﬁts, but also environmental beneﬁts. When we look at Earth’s resources as it relates to our operations, we want to source our ingredients responsibly. When we have a new manufacturing facility, we want to uphold our commitments to water and energy use and recovery and to zero waste for disposal sites. This facility will start up that way. We have a path to using 100 percent renewable electricity.”

“UNDERSTANDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE WE NEED TO HAVE IN PLACE IN OUR REGION TO ATTRACT LARGE BUSINESSES LIKE NESTLÉ PURINA IS VERY IMPORTANT,” SAYS AMY SPILLER OF DUKE ENERGY.

Sandhu says that, when Nestlé Purina’s location team began assessing sites in 2019, “it was challenging because it’s very important to maintain conﬁdentiality for a lot of reasons. We like to keep things fairly low-key during due diligence.” When they narrowed the number of sites under consideration to a handful, he says, “we disclosed a little more to key partners with whom we’d established trust over the previous few weeks. They helped us understand the beneﬁts of the local community.” 40 REALM SPRING 2021

He says South Afton’s SiteOhio authentication worked in its favor, although Nestlé Purina has sophisticated needs for the site beyond certiﬁcation standards. “We knew there would be some unique needs that maybe another potential tenant would not have required, but we do,” says Sandhu. “Because we look at this as a very long-term commitment and obviously an enormous investment, it’s important for us to not just validate the [site readiness] work that’s been done but to say, OK, that might be good for a baseline site or for a warehouse, but we’re talking about something different.” Spiller says such infrastructure needs “highlight the signiﬁcance of collaboration, and not just among economic development organizations but also stakeholders. Siting a natural gas pipeline and constructing electric substations to serve our region can span years. So I think understanding the infrastructure we need to have in place in our region to attract large businesses like Nestlé Purina is very important.” She says Duke Energy shared details with Sandhu about its energy projects already in the planning process. “This relationship reminds us,” says Spiller, “that we need to understand and accelerate, where we can, those approval processes that will allow us as a regulated utility to have infrastructure available and ready to serve our clients today and well into the future.”

HE NEW NESTLÉ Purina PetCare factory will join Design Within Reach’s 618,000-square-foot distribution center at South Afton Industrial Park. David Painter, Clermont County Commission Vice President, says the original intent was to have six to 10 companies locate there in order to lessen future impact from any one plant closing, but those plans changed for the Nestlé Purina deal. “That’s a big shift for the county from when they were initially developing it,” Sandhu says. “It was great that they were able to ﬂip their thinking and say, OK, how can we get creative?” Gray Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky, is the project’s design and construction firm, according to Food Engi-

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY E V E L I U

neering magazine, and will provide engineering and automation control services. Tyler Cundiff, President of Gray Food & Beverages, generally discussed the prevalence of automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics as staples in pet food processing facilities in a January Food Engineering podcast. “In pet food manufacturing facilities, there is an interest in how automation can help these customers, certainly around transparency that is required by consumers these days,” he said. “One of the ways is through traceability for incoming ingredients all the way through the process and out the shipping door in the package. Building in systems that can automatically track and trace are technologies that customers are asking about.” Painter believes a key role of local government is to strategically invest in site infrastructure and transportation to create competitive markets for business attraction and to leverage the area’s legacy strengths. Clermont County has a base of skilled manufacturing workers as a result of Ford Motor’s long-time operation in Batavia, for instance, he says, “but you don’t want to exclude alternatives that could benefit the county greatly.” Clermont County had a lot of interest in the South Afton site, says Painter, but worked strategically with a JobsOhio site consultant to attract firms that would provide the highest benefit for the county. “He told us, Look, you have a fantastic place. People are going to pick this site off of our network and are going to want to come here and build a manufacturing facility. One of the things you need to do is be very selective and don’t get too anxious.” Lee Crume joined Northern Kentucky Tri-ED as CEO in 2019 after spending more than five years at JobsOhio. “There were lots of times [at

JobsOhio] where we would bring projects to Clermont County, and they would pass,” he recalls. “Not every community would be so selective, but they had a clear vision of what they wanted to yield from that investment. And they stuck to it throughout the 10 years or so that it took them to get to the Nestlé Purina deal.” Tim Derickson is a Butler County agribusiness entrepreneur and former state legislator who also served as assistant director at the Ohio Department of Agriculture. He joined JobsOhio in September 2020 to lead its Food and Agribusiness sector. “What I learned with this project,” he says, “is not only does it beneﬁt Clermont County but it beneﬁts the entire state. The whole economic development engine is well-oiled there.” Cincinnati business leader Tom Williams, President and CEO of North American Properties, rep-

resents Southwest Ohio as a member of JobsOhio’s board of directors and serves on its executive and investment committees.

E D I ’ S L AU T E R B AC H says 2020 highlights included Samuel Adams’ $78 million investment in its state-ofthe-art facility in Over-the-Rhine and Saica Group’s decision to open its ﬁrst North American presence in Hamilton. “We are so fortunate that we had wins like Purina, but we also had a huge foreign direct investment win with Saica, a Spanish-based paper manufacturer opening on a site in Hamilton Enterprise Park, which had also gone through the JobsOhio site authentication program,” she says. “Who would have thought that in the midst of a global pandemic, when people couldn’t travel, we’d have a large foreign investment project?”

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHERN KENTUCKY During Lee Crume’s time at Northern Kentucky Tri-ED, he’s added staff and prioritized collaborative relationships and strong connections with community partners. He names a litany of organizations—including the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, One NKY Alliance, REDI Cincinnati, Sanitation District No. 1, Boone County Planning Commission, and county judge executives and city/ county administrators—that “we’ve worked very hard over the two years to make sure that we have good and trusting relationships with, so that when we get into the heat of the challenge we can really rely on each other.” Tri-ED recently released 2020

results that cite its support for 27 companies announcing expansions or new locations that represent 1,563 jobs and $268 million in capital investment. Leading through his ﬁrst full year at Tri-ED, after what he assumed would be a short disruption from COVID-19, “we realized, Oh no, this is going to be much bigger and longer after about a week. “We weren’t going to sit on the sidelines, though. If there was an opportunity to go out and make a difference, even if it cost us down the road, we were going to do it right away. The work continued to come in throughout the year, and traditional project volume didn’t drop off.” – G . P.

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TAKEAWAYS TEAM EFFORT Years of proactive work by multiple partners helped create the development-ready site in Clermont County that landed Nestlé Purina’s new $550-million pet food plant, says REDI CEO Kimm Lauterbach.

Lauterbach describes REDI’s role in economic development as generating new jobs and new capital investment for the region. Last year was the organization’s ﬁrst in a new ﬁve-year strategy. “Even when things are ridiculously tough, we’re seeing our strategy work,” she says. “Last year validated how spot-on that strategy was and how all of the effort, all the

partnerships, and all the collaboration were paying off. It only reaffirmed how much opportunity we have going forward because all the building blocks are there. By what we’re seeing in terms of our pipeline and activity for 2021, when businesses have conﬁdence again they can start to make some investment. I think we’re primed for such great things.”

CREATIVE PIVOT Purina operations leaders credit the county’s ﬂexibility in allocating more land to the company than originally envisioned with helping seal the deal. RESULTS ARE IN Both REDI Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Tri-ED recorded a number of signiﬁcant business relocations and expansions in 2020 despite the pandemic’s challenging economic turmoil.

OUTSTANDING IN THE FIELD

Clermont County bought an agricultural site in 2016 and transformed it into the South Afton Industrial Park (pictured at right in December 2020), which attracted Nestlé Purina’s attention. Its pet food plant (rendering above) is expected to open in 2024.

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DEEP DIVE

HR in the Time of WFH

THE ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES LEADERS HAS EXPANDED IN UNUSUAL WAYS DURING THE PANDEMIC. BY AMY BROWNLEE

44 REALM SPRING 2021

uman Resources departments are the motor oil in a company’s engine. From hiring and firing to managing employee benefits to mediating conflicts, HR keeps all administrative business functions moving free of friction. And as obstacles appeared daily courtesy of the current global pandemic, companies have also used HR as a steering wheel to strategically navigate through the crisis—and even develop improved policies in the bargain. “The day-to-day HR activities have not been interrupted,” says Sharon Tunstall, Chief Human Resources Officer at Empower Media Marketing. “In fact, they’ve probably been a little more frenetic.” At the beginning of 2020, Empower, headquartered in Over-the-Rhine, began a longstanding plan of shifting the agency into a more performance-driven mode grounded in measuring employee work and accomplishments. “We better clarified competencies and performance metrics and also I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S T E V E S C O T T, C O L A G E N E . C O M

how people were being assessed,” Tunstall says. It was an ambitious project for any year, but in a challenging time like 2020 it might have stalled out entirely. Under Tunstall, however, Empower committed to carrying on with the plan, even hiring 30 or so new employees to accelerate the shift. “We had a significant number of objectives and KPIs and did not waver from that,” she says. “We had made commitments and didn’t back off. We operated as business-as-usual to the extent that we could. We pivoted when we had to, and we learned a lot.” The decision to change Empower’s cultural fabric—even in the midst of worldwide disruption—has positioned the company to take better advantage of some of the pandemic’s very few upsides. “We’re in a situation now where geography doesn’t necessarily dictate hiring anymore,” Tunstall says. As video conferencing becomes a workable option—and as more people learn to use the available tools intentionally and effectively—the hiring market has evolved and expanded. Businesses can recruit, interview, and hire entirely remotely, which introduces plenty of welcome efﬁciencies into the usually ponderous and often expensive process of ﬁnding and acquiring new talent. Businesses like Empower can now access new pools of potential workers, since working remotely full-time has become a realistic prospect for employee and employer alike. The bulk of Empower workers are still here in Cincinnati, but there’s also a growing network of fully remote staff in Chicago. “Corporate America is going to look very different going forward,” says Tunstall. “There’s going to be a mix of on-site and remote work, with more flexible schedules. The days of the autocratic boss who doesn’t

H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY E M P O W E R

believe someone’s working unless he or she is physically in the office from 9 to 5, that’s gone. And it’s a good thing.” Matt Sheakley agrees that companies should be planning now for future staffing options and preferences. He is President of Sheakley, the Cincinnati-based human resources and risk management advisor for clients wishing to outsource payroll, hiring, and healthcare management services. “You need to be thinking today about what you’re going to be comfortable with,” he says. “And you need to think about competitiveness for talent. If you say You’ve got to be back in the office, then some people might leave you.” Competing for talent in the post-pandemic world has other challenges, says Tunstall. Full-time remote workers may struggle to absorb a company’s culture and may never get to properly know their colleagues or managers, which, in the long run, could inhibit the kind of dynamic creativity that close-knit in-person teams enjoy. “I worry about having people join the organization and never be face-to-face,” she says. “One of the things that keeps me up at night is How do we make sure that these people are welcomed, onboarded, and feel part of the team?” Sheakley says HR clients are seeking advice on how to manage the ramifications of this emerging picture of remote or hybrid-remote workforces. Once COVID-19 vaccinations are widely distributed and the business sector becomes relatively stabilized again, he believes companies that have anticipated upcoming staffing realities will likely be better positioned to recruit and retain talent. “It’s going to be a transition for everybody—employers, employees—to see how businesses will play this forward,” Sheakley says. “And I think the

ROLE CHANGES Sharon Tunstall, Chief Human Resources Officer at Empower Media Marketing, is helping employees manage more stress and anxiety.

ones that figure it out are going to be places that people want to work. They’re going to be more competitive. They’ll have an edge on finding talent.” Tunstall thinks organizational leaders like herself will need to be more flexible and nimble than ever before. “It’s not always been the case that we have been,” she says. “And now, if you’re not, you’re not going to be in the game.” Though Sheakley’s main business is other businesses, he’s given plenty of thought to the future of staffing within his own company, considering the new landscape of remote work. “I think a lot of people have realized they’re just as productive at home,” he says. “But the flip side for an employer is, If I hire you tomorrow and you never come to my office or you come for two days, do you get the culture and the things that we’re trying to do?”

H E PA N D E M I C E R A shift in talent management isn’t just about ﬁguring out how to best work remotely or to carve out space in distant markets. As thousands of workers in critical infrastructure operations know all too well, few essential jobs can be done from home. From healthcare and emergency services to food distribution and manufacturing, many sectors have remained in-person at work despite the complications, risks, and struggles that come with a highly infectious disease on the loose. They and their business leaders have had to navigate a new health and safety landscape of managing contact tracing, quarantining protocols, sanitation procedures, and an evolving list of government mandates. Monti Inc. is a local manufacturer headquartered in Bond Hill, with a second location in Woodlawn and three smaller plants in South Carolina. The company manufactures component parts SPRING 2021 REALM 45

DEEP DIVE

TAKEAWAYS REMOTE CONTROL Companies that quickly integrate work-from-home models into their daily routines will be better positioned to recruit and retain talent once the pandemic ends. IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY Beyond increasing hourly pay and making sure employees have access to a safe and clean work space, business leaders must ensure that workers feel the company’s support. COMMUNICATE YOUR CULTURE HR managers need to ﬁnd creative ways to help remote workers absorb a company’s culture, since a lack of face-to-face connections can inhibit the dynamic creativity enjoyed by close-knit in-person teams.

for the electrical distribution industry (think gigantic switch gears that power entire cities) for large companies like Eaton and Siemens. Monti’s leaders also saw some recruitment potential in the pandemic, since many manufacturing jobs around the country had been disrupted or dismantled due to a breakdown in global supply chains. “We’ve hired four people who were furloughed or dislocated because of COVID-19,” says Vice President of Human Resources Molly Fender. “There’s been some re-shoring of manufacturing jobs that we’ve been able to take advantage of.” The manufacturing work is essential, to be sure, and companies like Monti must continue performing while leveling up their HR procedures to respond to the pandemic’s reality. “When the shutdown ﬁrst started, there were so many new laws,” Fender says. “We were trying to understand the Paycheck Protection Program loan process and trying to navigate through all of these new executive orders, while giving our employees two weeks of additional pay for sick leave. Then we had to become a contact tracer. When we had a positive case in our plant, we had to call the whole department and ask Who’s getting tested, who’s symptomatic, who in the household has tested positive? OK, what are the CDC guidelines? And those were always evolving.” All at once, Fender’s department became responsible for keeping Monti’s employees safe and healthy at a scale never before required of Human Resources—and for keeping Monti in compliance with a suite of new COVID-speciﬁc state orders. “Part of all of that was managing

people’s emotions,” she says. “I would have people coming into my ofﬁce having panic attacks, worried. And I’d have to talk them down, saying, Hey, this is what we’re going to do to keep you safe. That’s been the hardest part of it. And it hasn’t died down. It seems like every time there’s a wave in cases— like when Hamilton County became purple in the state’s rating system— people are scared.”

“THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN MAKE YOUR EMPLOYEES HAPPY, IF YOU DON’T MEET THEIR VERY BASIC NEEDS,” SAYS MOLLY FENDER.

Monti is a family business through and through. It was founded by Fender’s father, Gavin Narburgh, and the next-generation leadership includes her brothers, Chris Narburgh (Vice President of Operations) and Gordon Narburgh (Vice President of Sales). Perhaps this family dynamic is what accounts for Monti’s sense of responsibility for the holistic well-being of its employees. Fender even goes so far as to name-check Abraham Maslow, the father of psychological health studies. “When you think of human psychology and you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” she says, “there’s no way you can make your employees happy—or feel any sort of belonging—if you don’t meet their very basic needs.”

M a s l ow ’s H i e r a rc hy, w h i c h is often applied to educational practices, posits that people can’t learn or otherwise perform if they’re hungry, tired, or scared. Those who are intensely anxious about their personal safety or ability to earn a living, for example, lose the kind of higher-order thinking needed to be creative or productive. Your brain is continually telling you to run away or to fight, not stick around to focus on a task. The day-to-day impact isn’t quite as literal as panicked people fleeing meetings, but the cumulative effect of stress and anxiety on employees creates a massive disruption in productivity. Though they can’t change the larger situation around the pandemic itself, Monti’s leadership is working to run interference on this individual fightor-flight response. Beyond increasing hourly pay and making sure employees have access to a safe and clean workspace, Fender says the company goes to great lengths to ensure that employees feel that support. “That’s where we have to start,” she says. “Some of our employees, their spouses were getting laid off and they were worried about being able to provide for their families. So we need to make sure that ouremployees know that they’re going to be OK. We spend 40 hours-plus a week at work and often are around our coworkers more than our families. It helps if they have your back.” For its part, Sheakley is in a unique position to help mold Human Resources programs across the region with an eye toward humanity and empathy. The firm works with clients to build flexible and forgiving programs that empower employees to care for themselves and their families. During a pandemic, that means watching out for the most vulnerable employees who have contracted COVID-19 and must self-isolate to

H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY S H E A K L E Y

keep other workers safe and who possibly must recover themselves. Sheakley prompts clients not to leave staff hanging without support when they need to miss work. “We’re advising our clients to pay their folks [when they’re on sick or personal leave],” says Sheakley. “I would say the vast majority have agreed with that and are doing that.” These new business considerations—like how to handle potentially large-scale employee leave—have placed HR directors front and center. “And there are safety issues and the policies on top of it,” Sheakley adds. “You might call me and say, Hey, we’ve got account managers who want to go out and see their clients. Should we let them do that? We went through it as a business ourselves, so we knew the issues that were coming up. If you go back to March 2020, when they shut down the schools, everybody was scrambling to figure out what they were going to do with their kids and how that affected everyone. We’re able to counsel people on today’s continuing issues because we went through it in the pandemic’s ﬁrst weeks.” Sheakley pushes this supportive approach because, he says, “it’s the right thing to do.” But it’s also just good business. “At the end of the day, it’s hard to ﬁnd excellent people to work for you as a company leader. When you’ve got good people—and everyone likes their employees, for the most part—you want to do the right thing by them.”

UMAN RESOURCES departments connect businesses to their people and are often a company’s only formal point of interaction with employees regarding major life factors like health, safety,

TALENT SHIFT

Matt Sheakley is helping clients ﬁgure out their post-pandemic staffing approach.

professional development, and succession. As such, HR serves as a ﬂex point for companies to directly impact their employees’ lives for better or worse. And that impact, writ large across an entire organization, can move a business forward or hold it back. As we’ve seen, massive global events can accelerate the friction between company and employees in either direction, for better or for worse. And though it may not feel like it sometimes, 2020 wasn’t just about COVID. Civil unrest combined with a highly contentious presidential election were further magniﬁed by the pandemic, and vice versa. “From a managerial perspective, I believe our challenges are just beginning as we move forward,” says Tunstall. “Managing expectations, stress level, and anxiety for employees is probably more pronounced and falls in many ways not only on the shoulders of HR but HR’s obligation to help company leadership.” HR professionals have had to develop responsive practices while simultaneously guiding their C-Suites to do the same. But the good news is that business leaders can treat this new reality as an opportunity. “I believe it changes how we set priorities,” Tunstall says, adding that HR professionals can work with company executives to double down on original value structures and can make active and visible efforts to take care of their people. There’s no way that a company ’s HR system won’t be fundamentally altered during this chaotic, uncertain, and catastrophic time. As COVID casts into stark relief the myriad ways in which we must do better by each other, many business leaders are seizing on the opportunity to improve their own contribution to that worthy goal.

SPRING 2021 REALM 47

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DEEP DIVE

Inside the Year of COVID A PANDEMIC NO ONE WANTED TAUGHT ME MORE ABOUT LEADERSHIP AND COLLABORATION THAN I EVER COULD HAVE ANTICIPATED. BY RICHARD LOFGREN, M.D. PRESIDENT AND CEO, UC HEALTH

wish I had kept a diary. In hindsight, though, I’m not sure I would have found time to write in it. As “one year later” milestones of the emergence of COVID-19 pass us by and as vaccinations show us the way forward, I’ve tried to set aside moments to reflect on how a global pandemic reared its head in our region, caused immense pain and suffering for many, and surprisingly exposed a side of all of us that should make us proud. I’ve practiced medicine for more than 40 years, and this year was undoubtedly the most demanding. I found myself drawing on nearly every experience I’ve had thus far in my career, pulling together every leadership lesson or quote from women and men I admire, and digging deep to ﬁgure out how to manage, lead, and serve. Leading teams through a pandemic is not a course taught in school. In fact, in its early months, when New York was experiencing a terrible surge, I called a doctor there—I’d taught him as a fellow many years ago—to check in. The ﬁrst words out of his mouth? “Rick, you never prepared me

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P H O T O G R A P H BY RYA N B A C K

PREPARED TO LEAD

Richard Lofgren, M.D., photographed at UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute on March 3, 2021.

for this!” Fair enough. So, in the likely event of another pandemic, I endeavored to collect some thoughts about what we experienced this past year and the leadership lessons that might be valuable to any CEO or team leader facing a crisis.

THE BEGINNING THE FIRST MOMENT THAT stands out in spring 2020 was at the Governor’s Mansion in Columbus. I got there at the wrong time, and I’m fairly certain I went to the wrong house. In my defense, there was a lot we didn’t know in the pandemic’s early days. Governor Mike DeWine gathered a dozen health leaders in a conference room—no masks, since we didn’t know yet that they’d be the single most important weapon against COVID—and we discussed the pandemic’s impact on Ohioans. Based on that conversation, the governor canceled the Arnold Classic, a big sports festival in Columbus. For many of us, that was the beginning of what became our country’s most trying year. On the way home, I remember thinking about ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), and what it would take to get the systems we needed in place. I’ve always been fascinated by systems. Early on in my training, I learned that good people working in a great system can deliver great results. I studied how to improve processes and how to focus on methods that would improve delivery of care. The faster we can get a drug or lifesaving equipment to a patient, the higher likelihood of a positive outcome. Somewhere along the way, I went from studying systems to leading them. The ﬁrst part of 2020 was almost entirely about building and improving systems to make sure

we were ready for whatever might happen next. In the early days, we saw models saying we’d need to take on 5,000 COVID patients in the Cincinnati region. This was more than double the region’s capacity. Each of our hospital systems had solid plans, well intentioned and well thought out, but they weren’t coordinated. Gov. DeWine was on a Zoom call with Cincinnati health care leaders, and I could see he clearly wasn’t pleased with our approach. We heard about it afterwards. The governor ﬁrmly said we needed to do better to meet the community’s needs. Then the local health care CEOs got on the phone with each other. Michael Fisher, CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said we needed three guiding principles: “We will protect our own workforce. We will ensure that everyone in the Cincinnati region has access to quality care. We will work transparently, sharing data and learnings.” It was a monumental moment I’ll never forget. From then on, and to this day, the COOs, CMOs, and leadership teams of all area health care systems meet regularly. We were no longer competitors; we were collaborators.

REASSURING AN ANXIOUS PUBLIC IN THESE MOMENTS OF CRIsis, I’ve thought a lot about what people need from leaders. Mainly, what they need to hear is, We got this. As a visible leader of the region’s academic hospital system, my responsibility to the community was to convey that we weren’t panicked. At one point, we met with the media to discuss our plans to serve the community during the pandemic. I sensed some tension,

as the media asked breathless and pointed questions. I thought it was the right time to say what was, in fact, true and what became a mantra: We are prepared because we have prepared. You might not think about these things, but we do. This was a novel coronavirus, but the crisis situation wasn’t novel to us. Leadership in these moments, especially public leadership, is about offering reassurance, but not false reassurance. We leveled with people about what we knew, what we didn’t know, and how we were working to prepare. Perhaps it’s my personality, but my communication style was calm and fact-based. Eventually, my colleagues “volun-told” me that I’d be the primary public spokesperson for COVID updates from the region’s hospital systems. I reminded myself every day that I needed to speak truth, communicate transparently, and remain calm.

PUBLIC HEALTH IS A SECURITY IN THE EARLY DAYS, SOURCing PPE was beyond disorganized—it was more like the wild west. It felt like we were sourcing PPE from “a guy who knew a guy.” We had shipments diverted at ports. We had supplies bought away from us at the border by a foreign government who paid cash. Ultimately, our experiences exposed the weaknesses of the country’s public health systems. The health industry, like many others, relies on “just-in-time supplies,” often from China, and we learned that the stockpiles we thought the U.S. government had didn’t exist. In the case of this new existential threat to our society, we weren’t well-positioned to respond as a naSPRING 2021 REALM 51

DEEP DIVE

tion. I believe our country must now recognize that public health is a fundamental American security, just like our military, intelligence, and safety systems. We keep our country safe by maintaining an army, and so we must invest in public health systems in order to be ready for any future event that threatens our security.

WE HAD TO ENGAGE AND LEAD ON EVERY PART OF THIS TUMULTUOUS YEAR: THE PANDEMIC, RACIAL RECKONING, ECONOMIC RECOVERY, AND MORE.

RELATIONSHIPS AND CREDIBILITY AT U C H E A LT H , W E ’ V E worked over the years to engage policy makers in the work we do so they understand our operations, our people, and our needs. Over the past year, though, I’ve had more contact with elected officials than at any time in my life. I served on the Governor’s Task Force related to COVID, and throughout the process I had personal calls with dozens of officials formulating a government response. Relationships matter, and credibility matters more. Here’s an example: Early on in 2020, our region had almost no testing capability, and we were flying blind. In February, we ordered equipment to test for COVID, but it kept getting rerouted by the U.S. De-

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partment of Health and Human Services to hot spots across the country. We reached out to Senator Rob Portman, who is deeply familiar with our institution and our role in the community. He helped resolve the issue and got us the testing equipment, but ﬁrst he wanted to know one thing: Would we use it in a collaborative or competitive manner? We had the credibility with him to say that we’d use the equipment to do testing collaboratively for the entire region and for every patient. It was a critical moment in our region’s overall preparedness efforts. One more note about our elected leaders. I’ve worked closely with Gov. DeWine for the past year, and his leadership has been admirable. His decisions are driven by his unwavering faith and by his sense about the sanctity of life, free of any judgment. He considers the prisoner, the disabled, and the aged all equally. He’s guided by a true north. To his credit, the governor didn’t follow what was politically expedient but what he believed would save the most lives. I’m quite certain he feels the responsibility every time an Ohioan dies from the coronavirus. I’ve been proud to work with him and other Ohio leaders, and I think his actions saved lives.

SHARING INFORMATION AND DATA AS WE BUILT UP SYSTEMS to manage the pandemic, we also had to gather as much information as we could. Leaders today seemingly have access to more information than they often need. That wasn’t the case in 2020. As a colleague said to me, “We

just met this virus, and we’re still getting to know him.” One meeting was particularly important in this effort. At 6:30 a.m. one morning, my counterparts at Ohio State University and the Cleveland Clinic were on conference calls with Dr. Amy Acton, then the Director of the Ohio Department of Health. This became a mutual learning and collaboration forum that continues to this day. No agenda, just sharing what we’re learning, seeing, and hearing. During this particular meeting we discovered, after Ohio State tested an entire prison population, there were asymptomatic carriers of the disease. That was a watershed moment for how we responded. On those early morning calls, we were literally in the dark, but sharing information even informally helped us see our way forward. The Ohio Hospital Association and the Greater Cincinnati Health Collaborative rose to the challenge to help us see what was happening on the ground. They helped us see disease activity, how much PPE we had on hand in the region, and where we had patient capacity. They helped us track data, which in turn helped us move quickly and make better decisions. Though no data would be perfect, we had to try to get a better sense of what was happening here and across the world each day. Internally at UC Health, we already had an existing huddle system that worked, but we needed to improve it to manage information flow considering the gravity of the pandemic. Evaline Alessandrini, M.D., our Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, quickly formed and mobilized our COVID-19 Response Team. We created tiered huddles throughout the organization that reported learnings

and challenges up until problems were solved or new knowledge was shared widely. These translated into reports that were delivered at 4:30 p.m. each day; I still get them. This process of organized information ﬂow worked throughout the year and so, when the real surge hit, we were ready.

TEAM LEADERSHIP ONE DAY, UC HEALTH’S AS sistant Vice President of Communications, Kelly Martin, said she wanted us to think about new ways to communicate with our employees. We all know the old adage that leaders must be present, and that’s true—but being present during a global pandemic is a unique challenge. You can’t just show

up in a lab and ask how things are going when reducing physical interactions is a primary way to prevent disease spread. She had great ideas for ways we could stay in touch with people without being physically present, many of which we’ll keep in place even when we return to normal. In that conversation, Martin offered sage advice that will stick with me forever. She said that, in a crisis, your teammates will remember two things about you: How you communicated and how you treated them. As we learned with our external communications, we needed to be calm, transparent, and truthful with our internal team as well—even when we were delivering news of staff reductions, pay cuts, or frightening updates about

the disease. Communicating with the brilliant team at UC Health was an imperative. How we treated people mattered as much. We checked in on people, acknowledging the latent anxiety of living and working amidst a dangerous disease, and made sure they were cared for as best as we could. With those guideposts, it’s worth noting how leaders at UC Health and across our region performed so brilliantly in 2020. My friend Dustin Calhoun, M.D., is a great example of how people on our team were able to create systems and structures to make decisions, develop scenarios, and lead others. Not only does Calhoun teach the emergency preparedness program through UC’s medical college, but he leads our health system’s emergency

STEPPING UP

Health care leaders and staff across the region performed brilliantly during 2020, including colleagues at the UC Health Precision Medicine Laboratory, where COVID-19 tests are processed.

P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY U C H E A LT H

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DEEP DIVE

TAKEAWAYS WE GOT THIS Early in the pandemic, health care and government leaders needed to reassure a panicked public. My message was: We are prepared because we have prepared. We’re ready to lead. COLLABORATION IS KING Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine brought together Cincinnati’s health care systems, normally competitors, to ﬁght COVID and connected the state’s top research hospital leaders. The local business community also came together to advise and assist us. SECURING FUTURE PUBLIC HEALTH The pandemic showed how unexpected shortfalls in public health care can scramble the U.S. economy and national security. We must invest in health infrastructure to get ready for the next health crisis.

preparedness efforts. He did double duty in 2020, keeping us ready and prepared while helping others be better prepared in the future. I was fortunate to have a team of leaders that brought their best to every effort this year.

MANAGING MULTIPLE CRISES WHILE MOST OF THE news was rightly focused on health and COVID, our organization was weathering another major crisis. UC Health must be a sustainable organization, after all, and we were hemorrhaging cash. For hospital systems, 2020 was the equivalent of the 2007-2008 financial crisis in terms of magnitude. Hospitals were empty for long stretches of time as nonessential treatment was delayed, meaning operational revenue evaporated. It was devastating. I would leave a meeting to determine if we had enough ventilators and go to another meeting to determine if we had enough cash on hand. This financial crisis existed for every hospital, and to manage through it we relied on a resourceful team that took their responsibility as seriously as our doctors did their patients. Federal government support helped us, of course, but without every member of our team focusing on the crisis, the results could have been very different. Then came the tragic death of George Floyd last summer. Our organization, beset by a global pandemic and a financial crisis, now confronted a racial reckoning that exposed significant disparities in health outcomes. We had to engage, and I’m glad we did. Our team benefited from the steady and astute leadership of our new Chief Diversity Officer, Jeanetta

Darno. She started in January 2020, and we were immediately thankful for her experience and expertise. The most important tactic we employed? Listening. We listened intently and let people express what they were feeling and thinking. As with so much over the past year, we learned about what we needed to do by listening ﬁrst. There might have been a tendency to say, We don’t have time to focus on this or that when we’re in the middle of a pandemic, but leaders don’t get to choose what crises they face. Our team and our community had a responsibility to engage and lead on every part of this tumultuous year— the pandemic, racial reckoning, economic recovery, and much more. We aren’t through any of this yet, and it may be a while before we are, but it would have been a mistake to say that any of these issues could wait until another was handled.

PERSONAL PREPAREDNESS A FEW THINGS HELPED ME personally throughout the past year. I extracted myself from my office and took daily midday walks outside when I could. This helped from a mindfulness perspective and kept me physically prepared for what was each day brought. I’ve preached this for years, but leaders should think of exercise and activity as much a part of their work schedule as anything else. And I’ll admit, like everyone else, I needed a night of doing nothing but watching basketball on TV every once in a while. Surrounding yourself with people who care and matter to you is extremely important. My wife, my family, and my friends were outlets and critical sounding boards, both to

TIME FOR HOPE

tell me what I was missing and to aler t me to when I needed to recalibrate. I kne w who knew me the best, and I surrounded myself with them in my personal time. Dr. Lofgren stops by UC Health’s drivethrough vaccination clinic to visit with staff and patients.

A UNIQUE LOCAL RESPONSE I ’ V E WO R K E D I N FO U R states over my career, and I’m grateful I was in Cincinnati in 2020. The community here rose to a challenge in a way that deserves praise and acknowledgement. The Health Collaborative, a unique organization in the U.S., was a standout, helping bridge the fragments between health care and health delivery. The Test & Protect program, in partnership with Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati, created a regionwide standard and message that drove home the importance of testing. The way the business community leads in Cincinnati is one of our key assets as a region. Its RESTART Task Force helped connect hospital and medical leaders into a conversation about maintaining an economy and helped us focus on both lives and livelihoods. Corporate leaders like David Taylor at Procter & Gamble leaned into the challenge of ﬁghting the pandemic by urging mask-wearing and sharing global learnings with all of us. The coordination we had with business leaders was stronger than in many other communities.

MOMENTS OF JOY EV E RYO N E W I L L H AV E A story about COVID because this

P H O T O G R A P H S BY RYA N B A C K

year has been so universally disruptive. There are, though, moments that stand out to me. Many of us saw in the summer the tremendous potential of COVID vaccines. Thanks to the work of Carl Fichtenbaum, M.D., with HIV treatments, UC Health was able to secure one of nearly 90 Moderna trial sites. This really amped up my understanding of how the vaccination process worked; it was hopeful and encouraging. The efficacy of the vaccines is incredible. This is a knock-it-out-of-the-park ending. And I believe you will see more scientific breakthroughs based on this mRNA vaccine technology. I will forever be able to tell you exactly where and how I was standing when the first vaccine shot was delivered to UC Health in December. The room broke out in applause, and surprisingly I found myself getting emotional. This was the moment when all the pain and suffering of 2020 started to go away. Our Pharmacy team, led by Vice President for Pharmacy Services Shelly Wiest, has done an outstanding job administering vaccinations to healthcare workers and community members. We’ve vaccinated nearly 30,000 people in three months, and not a single dose has gone to waste. Now that I’m vaccinated, I occasionally stop down to the drivethrough area at our main Clifton hospital to talk to patients receiving their vaccines. For them, this is liberating—a bigger moment than when they received their driver’s licenses! Indeed, these have been my favorite moments of the past year, moments of breakthrough scientific discovery and moments of joy. I’m optimistic there will be many more to come.

SPRING 2021 REALM 55

PHOTO ESSAY

YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO GRAETER’S The 150-year-old family-owned company is deliberately old-fashioned and more popular than ever. –JOHN FOX

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS VON HOLLE

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Charles Reece (left) and Valentin Gonzalez are part of the production crew who hand-make and handpack nearly 35,000 pints of Graeter’s ice cream per day.

SPRING 2021 REALM 57

PHOTO ESSAY

A GREATER GRAETER’S

Graeter’s opened its new production facility in Bond Hill (above) in July 2010, but demand for the ice cream continues to strain capacity. The company made 1.47 million gallons here in 2020, working around the clock ﬁve to six days a week.

FRENCH POTS STILL RULE

Graeter’s famously makes all of its ice cream in 2.5-gallon French Pots, which are ﬁlled with pasteurized liquid ice cream (right) and mixed for 15 minutes until ﬁrmer and frozen (middle bottom).

FAVORITE FLAVOR

No surprise, but Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip is Graeter’s best-selling ﬂavor, accounting for roughly one-third of all company sales in neighborhood shops, grocery stores, and online.

58 REALM SPRING 2021

HERE’S HOW THEY DO IT

Graeter’s produces an average of two different ﬂavors each day, rotating mixes (left and below left) to create nut and non-nut ﬂavors at separate times for allergy reasons. The facility runs two 10-hour shifts Sunday night through Friday, with a four-hour break every day for cleaning and maintenance.

MAKING AND BREAKING THE CHIPS

Graeter’s ice cream is known for its odd-shaped and occasionally giant chocolate chips, created when workers (below) stir liquid chocolate into the French Pots and break it up by hand as it freezes. The same process is done with other added ingredients like cookie dough, peanut butter, and fruit. The ﬁnal product is loaded into buckets (bottom) for packaging.

SPRING 2021 REALM 59

PHOTO ESSAY

HANDS ON ATTENTION

Now in its fourth generation of family leadership, the company stubbornly keeps to two traditions established 150 years ago by Louis and Regina Graeter: making the ice cream in individual French Pots and packing it by hand. Jason Kuper (left) follows in his father’s footsteps at Graeter’s: Paul Kuper has worked for the company for almost 35 years.

A TOUCH OF THE MODERN

Some modern machinery now aids those company traditions, though every pint is still checked and wiped by hand (Jacquelin Hernandez above right) before being packed and shipped (below right).

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SHIP SHAPE

Cincinnati isn’t the only region in love with Graeter’s ice cream. The production facility’s temperature-controlled warehouse (below) supplies more than 4,500 grocery stores in all 48 states in the continental U.S. and ships more than 300,000 pints each year to consumers.

A LOCAL TRADITION

Graeter’s operates 55 stand-alone “scoop shops” in ﬁve states, including 22 in the Cincinnati region, as well as outposts at the Cincinnati Museum Center, Great American Ball Park, and other locations. Hyde Park Square is its oldest continuously operated store, and Cherry Grove (Anderson Township) is the busiest. Last year, Graeter’s was named the country’s #3 tastiest ice cream by the Travel Awaits website.

ASK ME ABOUT

ERIC KEARNEY PRESIDENT AND CEO, GREATER CINCINNATI AND NORTHERN KENTUCKY AFRICAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ASK ME ABOUT The economic beneﬁt of supporting Black-owned businesses.

LIZ KEATING INTERIM COUNCIL MEMBER CINCINNATI CITY COUNCIL

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO RESTORE THE PUBLIC’S FAITH IN CITY GOVERNMENT? We need to put politics aside and work together to address the real issues our city faces. Transparency and accountability are essential to creating a relationship with the public that allows us to accomplish positive change for ev-

ery Cincinnati community.

WHAT ARE THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES CINCINNATI FACES IN 2021? The economic recovery from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is going to be critical for our future. Our small businesses are hurting right now, and we need to create an environment that will allow them to survive to-

62 REALM SPRING 2021

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES OF ACQUIRING AN INDIANA LAW FIRM AMID A PANDEMIC?

ASK ME ABOUT How to restore faith in city government.

day and thrive tomorrow. That means working to attract new business and job growth and also addressing affordable housing options and racial inequalities.

HOW CAN THE PUBLIC PARTICIPATE IN OPTIMIZING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE FUTURE? We should never let a crisis go to waste.

There are many ways citizens can contribute: join public comment at our Council meetings, get involved with your community council, support your local small businesses, volunteer for an organization you care about, engage in civil discourse, speak up when you see injustice.

IF ELECTED TO YOUR OWN TERM THIS FALL, WHAT IS YOUR MAIN GOAL? We need Cincinnatians to believe in their government again. Without that, more tangible goals like creating jobs, keeping our city safe, and generating economic opportunity become much more difficult to achieve. — ELIZABETH MILLER WOOD

This is not a process that can easily be done virtually. Face-to-face contact is important as you’re getting to know your potential new partners. By the end of 2020, we were conﬁdent enough regarding the future to complete the merger with Wooden McLaughlin and add offices in Indianapolis, Evansville, and Bloomington. In the sharp economic downturn of 2008, Dinsmore took opportunities to strengthen itself for the future, and we feel we did the same thing this time.

WHAT WERE THE DRIVING FACTORS BEHIND THE ACQUISITION? We are expanding Dinsmore’s reach as a national ﬁrm and always looking to grow our footprint. Indiana was an area of opportunity. We were

P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E SY ( C LO C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T ) L I Z K E AT I N G / E R I C K E A R N E Y / G E O R G E V I N C E N T

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CHAMPION OUR LOCALLY OWNED BLACK BUSINESSES? The African American Chamber recently announced the results of a groundbreaking study, in partnership with the UC Economics Center, showing that the region’s Black-owned businesses directly employ 8,680 people with $540 million in earnings throughout the Cincinnati Metropolitan

also impressed by the skill and caliber of the attorneys at Wooden McLaughlin, and we found their ﬁrm to be a cultural match in terms of prioritizing quality of client service and collegiality.

HOW DOES THIS ACQUISITION ADVANCE THE FIRM’S MISSION? It’s important to be geographically positioned to properly service our clients. We identiﬁed a strong need in Indiana, as we did in Tampa, Florida, when we opened our office there at the beginning of 2020, so it made sense to look for opportunities to align with trusted and established attorneys to expand our service capabilities. — E.M.W.

Statistical Area. Additionally, earnings by Black-owned businesses generate approximately $6.2 million in sales tax to Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio and an additional $1.2 million to the ﬁve Ohio counties in the Cincinnati MSA.

IN ADDITION TO PATRONAGE, HOW CAN THE PUBLIC SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES? Through membership, partnership, or sponsorship

with the African American Chamber. You don’t have to be a Black business owner or person to collaborate with the Chamber. We need and want the beneﬁts that come from having diverse membership, diverse partners, and diverse sponsors.

WHAT EFFECT HAS THE PANDEMIC HAD ON OUR REGION’S SMALL BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES?

40 percent of Black-owned businesses across the U.S. have closed their doors. The Biden/Harris presidential campaign assured voters of a Build Back Better program to regrow small businesses and bolster the nation’s economy. We’re hopeful the new administration will keep their commitment to enlist, engage, and energize Black businesses in particular. — E.M.W.

Approximately

GEORGE VINCENT MANAGING PARTNER AND CHAIRMAN OF DINSMORE ASK ME ABOUT Why we’re expanding in an uncertain economy.

SPRING 2021 REALM 63

BACK PAGE

LAW

A GOOD PLACE

James Zimmerman, partner-in-charge at Taft Law, says the ﬁrm is “fortunate to be in a good place” as the pandemic heads into its second year. Its 600 attorneys have continued serving clients in 12 offices—from Phoenix to Washington, D.C.—while embracing virtual court dates and video conferences. He says 30–40 percent of the staff are back in person at Taft’s downtown headquarters, including him. – J O H N F O X

Taft Law was a founding tenant of the US Bank building across from Fountain Square, and its long history of service goes back to 1885.

64 REALM SPRING 2021

Zimmerman laughs when realizing the family memorabilia in his office is at least 10 years old. “Your kids are stuck at a certain age in your mind.”

Zimmerman and his wife Mary have four teenage children (Sarah and triplets Andrew, Elizabeth, and Megan), despite the photo evidence.

The Cincinnati Bengals are a longtime Taft client, leading to a signed Andy Dalton photo. Zimmerman says he probably should update that art as well.

P H O T O G R A P H BY RYA N B A C K

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