Crain's Cleveland Business

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VOL. 37, NO. 18

MAY 2 - 8, 2016

Business of Life

ARTS: Key supports museum Bank sponsors wildlife center for $2M

Learning made fun

P. 3

Snapology turns Legos into kids’ lessons: P. 19

GOLF: Back in the swing Hawthorne Valley reopens its doors P. 4

Q&A

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

HEALTH CARE: On their toes Medical improv is valuable experience P. 6

Monique Wilson of Tri-C chats about coding P. 18

Tests could help find hidden talent CPA firms Companies join TalentNEO pilot project

BY CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

Good help is hard to find — especially when that help is required to write software or run a CNC machine.

The struggle to find skilled employees has pushed 12 local companies to consider a new factor when sifting through resumes: Test scores.

Workforce development groups are working to get more manufacturers and information technology companies to join the TalentNEO pilot project, which was created to help companies find employees who have talents that wouldn’t appear on a traditional resume.

The organizers are encouraging the jobseekers they work with to take an aptitude test designed to highlight those talents. As of March 31,

roughly 300 Northeast Ohio residents had taken the WorkKeys test through the TalentNEO program.

Those who take the test can hunt for positions that match their skills at OhioMeansJobs.com, which automatically assigns suggested WorkKeys scores for all kinds of job openings throughout the state. For example, an engineering position might ask for applicants with a high score in applied math. On the other hand, a paralegal position might request a good score in the reading for information category.

Companies also can search for candidates that have the scores they want. Of course, some businesses that aren’t part of the pilot project probably won’t pay much attention to how well someone did on the test, which is offered by the company behind the ACT college admissions exam.

But Rebecca Kusner, who is helping manage the TalentNEO project, said the project is gaining momentum in the business community. For instance, she noted that two of the companies are thinking about SEE TESTS, PAGE 7

HIGHER EDUCATION | Pages 13-18

How you gonna teach them down on the farm?

Old-time farmhouses and barns grow into classrooms at CWRU’s 400-acre property

Case Western Reserve University’s Squire Valleevue Farm in Hunting Valley is used for research projects in a wide range of fields. (Ken Blaze)

target younger recruits

BY JEREMY NOBILE jnobile@crain.com @JeremyNobile

There’s a war being waged in the accounting world.

Firms of all sizes grapple continuously for market share. Today’s battles, however, increasingly take place on college campuses, as companies attempt to grow their ranks with the new CPAs they think will lead them to corporate success.

Internship programs are ubiquitous. They’re the best feeder systems for any firm’s talent pool. But companies that once did fine seeking out students in the latter years of their college education are now targeting students as early as their freshman and sophomore years in college.

Some even are getting into the high schools.

“We’re having to go younger and younger into the talent pipeline,” said Eileen Connor-Costilow, director of human resources for Akronbased Bober Markey Fedorovich, who first started recruiting for CPA firms in western New York.

“The Northeast Ohio market is just so saturated with accounting firms,” she said. “It’s quite an eye opener for me to understand all the firms we’re actually competing with.

I didn’t have the same challenges in Buffalo.”

Bober Markey is launching some programs with this year’s recruiting season. At its Summer Leadership Experience in Akron this June, college sophomores and juniors with an eye on public accounting could receive their first professional job offers — years before they hold their diploma.

“The idea is to start planting the seed of Bober Markey Fedorovich and the opportunities a regional firm offer early on,” Connor-Costilow SEE FIRMS, PAGE 22

Entire contents © 2016 by Crain Communications Inc.

Artist makes rain barrels come alive | Page 3

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FORTY UNDER 40 TH 25 ANNIVERSARY

Celebrating 25 years of NE Ohio’s Rising Business Stars Now in its 25th year, Crain's Forty under 40 program has honored over 900 individuals for their professional success and civic contributions. Do you know a mover and shaker who is younger than 40 and has made their mark on Northeast Ohio?

Let us know!

CrainsCleveland.com/40u40 - NOMINATION DEADLINE JUNE 13 CO-PRESENTED BY

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Award Gala Save the Date: November 21, 2016 Questions about nominations or the event? Contact Kim Hill at kehill@crain.com or 216-771-5182.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available! Contact Nicole Mastrangelo at nmastrangelo@crain.com or 216-771-5158.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z MAY 2 - 8, 2016 z PAGE 3

Seeing sunshine in the rain barrel

BY RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

Linda Zolten Wood is passionate about water conservation — and about making things beautiful.

The Collinwood Painted Rain Barrel Project brings both of those passions together.

Zolten Wood officially started the project in 2012, but the idea for it came the year before, when her family received one of the 55-gallon rain barrels the city of Cleveland gives out to residents. Zolten Wood, who serves as the director of the project, had long had an interest in conservation. She saw the need for it over and over again — during a trip to India, while talking to her sister in California about a drought, after seeing basements in her neighborhood flooding.

But the barrel she received was, in her words, ugly. So Zolten Wood decided to do something about it.

The Cleveland Institute of Art graduate is always painting something, so turning that rain barrel into a work of art was second nature. She said “skepticism in her neighborhood abounded” at first, but once the barrel was complete, people started to ask her to paint one for them.

Zolten Wood started writing, and winning, grant applications to fund her work and the work of other local artists. That first year, Zolten Wood hired artists to paint a set of rain barrels to be exhibited in different locations all over Cleveland, paired with information about the benefits of rain barrels to individuals and to the lake. She also paints or prints covers for rain barrels on commission and runs low-cost workshops to show people how to decorate their own rain barrels through the project. The workshops can be targeted to special groups like the Girl Scouts or a corporate office.

Being a proponent of rain barrels led Linda Zolten Wood to turn them into works of art. (Ken Blaze photos)

On a warm morning in April, Zolten Wood was on her porch in Collinwood, painting a barrel for Memorial school. The students had drawn pictures about why they want clean water for the barrel, which she said will be installed before the end of the year. Having the studentdrawn pictures on the barrel will help them “own it,” Zolten Wood said. The project is being funded with a $2,000 Neighborhood Connections grant.

Other financial supporters since the organization’s founding have included the Northeast Shores Development Corp. and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. So far this year, the project is being supported by a $5,000 grant from the sewer district and a $15,000, sixmonth grant from the Collinwood Ballot Box Project, she said.

Jenn Elting, spokeswoman for the sewer district, said Zolten Wood’s work indirectly helps the district with its outreach, as she’s “passionate” about what she does. Elting said the district and Zolten Wood have been working together for three or four years, and she expects that to continue going forward. Later this year, Elting said the district plans to incorporate Zolten Wood and her work into some workshops on rain water credit.

Zolten Wood is a proponent of the different benefits rain barrels can offer communities and individuals. It can help lower people’s bills, give them extra water to use in gardens or for washing cars and keep trash out of the storm sewers. And that last point is critical to the health of the lake. If everyone in Cleveland kept just a little bit of rain water on their property, it would help keep dog waste, cigarettes and other trash from washing into it, she said.

“If everybody conserved, everybody would help the lake get cleaner,” she said.

Key backs ‘signature’ space at museum

BY LYDIA COUTRÉ lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

KeyBank will be the presenting sponsor of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s new outdoor wildlife center, slated to open late this summer.

KeyBank recently approved an eight-year, $2 million presenting sponsorship to secure naming rights.

The Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center & Woods Garden — Presented by KeyBank is a part of the museum’s centennial expansion and renovation project. The new Perkins center is just one piece of the first phase of the museum’s $150 million renovation and expansion project.

“We are so delighted to work with them,” said Evalyn Gates, executive director and CEO of the museum.

“Perkins is one of the signature spaces in the museum where we’re able to engage people of all ages in learning about science, about conservation, about nature and some of the incredible animals and ecosystems right here in Northeast Ohio.”

A rendering of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s wildlife center, which will cover two acres. (Contributed photo) Designed by Thinc Design of New York, the two-acre outdoor gallery highlights five Ohio ecosystems and will give visitors a chance for upclose encounters with native Ohio animals and plants.

“We have a long and rich and

steep tradition in supporting the arts and culture community,” said Margot Copeland, chair and CEO of the KeyBank Foundation. “We’re so excited about what’s going on in University Circle and most especially with the natural history museum.”

Gates said the transformation, which also moves the center from the east to the west side of the campus, completely reimagines the space to make it more engaging and enriching for both the visitors and the animals. One of the signature spaces of the new center will be elevated walkways for both the visitors and animals to explore.

“What we were trying to do was take a wooded hillside that’s here in Wade Oval and create an experience where both the people and the animals will be moving through this wooded hillside in unexpected and, I think, very exciting ways,” Gates said. “For example, the bobcats will be able to move from their enclosure into an overhead enclosure that takes them through the trees and at times right over the pathway where people are.”

In addition to the new pathways for animals to explore, their enclosures are enlarged from their current space.

“I think it’s going to come to us in such a powerful and magnificent way when children begin to understand the natural habitats of the en-

vironment, juxtaposed around splendor of what University Circle offers,” Copeland said. “It’s jawdropping. I’m kind of like a little kid myself. I can’t wait to be involved and see the exhibit firsthand.”

Also part of the first phase of the museum’s expansion, expected to be completed this summer, is a new, 300-space parking garage and the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears Garden along MLK Drive.

The second phase will include some demolition and the construction of a new two-floor exhibit and research wing, which includes a new lobby, cafe, store and nine new major exhibit galleries. It also integrates research labs, collections and the science done at the museum into the visitor experience. The third phase focuses on renovating existing spaces.

Gates said the new space will be a “one-of-a-kind signature experience for every visitor.” She doesn’t know of any other wildlife center that focuses on all native animals in such an immersive, interactive way.

“I can’t think of a better partner for us on this than KeyBank with their focus on education,” she said.

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Hawthorne Valley Golf Club in Solon shut down in February, but it recently reopened. (Contributed photo)

Davey-led Hawthorne Valley back in business

BY KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps

It didn’t take long for Hawthorne Valley Golf Club in Solon to reopen its doors to the public.

Davey Golf, a division of the Kentbased Davey Tree Expert Co., struck a deal with club owners Fred and Peter Rzepka in mid-April, about 2½ months after the club closed.

Fred Rzepka said the groups agreed to a three-year contract in which Davey will lease the 90-yearold club from the owners. Davey will manage the facility and hire a food vendor for the 204-acre property, which is the largest piece of privately owned land in Solon.

“This was a case of perfect timing for both parties,” said Davey Golf regional manager Ben Cavey. “Davey Golf was looking to grow our portfolio, and the owners were looking to retain this golf course. We were able to accomplish both pieces.”

Doing so gave new life to a Donald Ross-designed course that is considered a hidden gem by some in the Northeast Ohio golf community.

“It happened very quickly,” Fred Rzepka said of the deal.

Rzepka, who operates TransCon Builders with his brother, said he “didn’t know anything about” Davey Golf as recently as March.

Davey approached the owners about the club, and the agreement allows Rzepka to retain ownership and not have to pursue a sale or develop the property — two possibilities he’s said he’d prefer to avoid.

“I’m happy with it,” Rzepka said.

Ideal pairing At the conclusion of the 2015 season, Hawthorne Valley started a membership drive that asked

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prospective customers to pay $2,500 for unlimited golf with a cart, a private locker, and use of the club’s shower and workout facilities. The goal was 300 members — a number at which the club would still lose money, Rzepka said.

When the Jan. 31 deadline came and went, Hawthorne was barely past the halfway mark of its target number.

The club closed, much to the chagrin of some of its most loyal patrons.

“You can’t binge by yourself,” Rzepka told Crain’s in February.

“You gotta have a partner.”

He found one in Davey Golf, which has about a dozen courses in its portfolio, including Rosemont Country Club in Fairlawn. Cavey, Davey Golf’s regional manager, said the company has been providing golf course maintenance for decades, but recently expanded its golf division to include management and consulting services.

Though Northeast Ohio is said to have a saturated golf market, with too many courses and too few playing the game, Cavey said he believes “there is a market for good public courses in the area.”

Davey is close to completing negotiations with what it called “an experienced food and beverage provider” for Hawthorne Valley. The company said it won’t reveal the choice until the agreement is signed.

Welcome back The club reopened on April 22, after a whirlwind of a week in which the deal between Davey and the owners was finalized. That afternoon, Brian Solitario, Hawthorne Valley’s new general manager, said the list of available tee times for the weekend had just been posted online the night before.

“It’s been great,” Solitario said.

“The phone has been ringing off the s Cleveland Bus sines ss Volume 37, Number 18 Crain’s (ISSN 0197-2375) is published weekly at 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 441131230. Copyright © 2016 by Crain Communications Inc. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio, and at additional mailing offices. Price per copy: $2.00. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Crain’s s Cleveland Bus sines ss, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48207-2912. 1-877-824-9373.

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hook. People have been calling and saying it’s the best news they’ve heard all week.”

Hawthorne’s former office staff, including general manager Bob Zeman and head golf pro Tim Hess, departed when the club closed, Cavey said. Hess told Crain’s he’s now the director of golf operations at The Tanglewood Club in Chagrin Falls. In December, Zeman said the club has 30 full-time employees in the summer.

The greens crew stayed on through the transition. Otherwise, “very few employees stayed,” Rzepka said.

Without giving specifics, Cavey said Davey hopes “to transition all qualified employees to our staff as per Davey’s pre-employment process.” For the time being, the club will operate without a head pro.

Davey Golf is based in Lake Orion, Mich. In addition to its two Northeast Ohio partners, the company also operates Denison Golf Club outside Columbus, and has a deal with Kenton County to run three Cincinnati-area public courses.

“It’s a small portion of our business, but it’s growing pretty rapidly,” Solitario said.

As of April 25, Fred Rzepka, who has owned Hawthorne Valley since 2000, hadn’t stopped by the club since the deal was finalized. And while he admitted he didn’t know Davey Golf well, he said those he’s dealt with “seem like fine, decent, honorable people.”

And once he gets a round in, he’ll be checking to make sure the course is in its usual pristine conditions.

“I will eventually go through,” Rzepka said. “It’s still my property.

I’ll have a round of golf, I’ll look at the bridges, I’ll see the fairways and greens. Hopefully they keep it up as well as I did.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z MAY 2 - 8, 2016 z PAGE 5

Deal seals big tenant at Gallo Building

BY STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter

Heat Seal LLC, a Cuyahoga Heights-based maker of packaging and processing equipment for the food processing and industrial packaging businesses, has sealed a deal for a new location that will turn the lights back on at the former Gallo Displays building in the suburb.

Heat Seal will occupy about 85,000 square feet of the building at 4922 E. 74th St., about the same amount of room as it has at its current location at 4580 E. 71st St. However, it will gain efficiency through reorganizing its production line, said Ron Zieske, the company’s president.

“As a manufacturer, you want to minimize the amount of movement between operations,” Zieske said.

“Over 25 years, we have added parts to the process that may not be in the best location. When we go to the new plant, steel and other materials will go in one end, be fabricated and exit at the other end.”

The machinery-maker estimates it will gain about a 25% increase in efficiency, primarily through reducing production time, when it sets up shop at the empty Gallo Building.

Zieske said the company will add a second laser cutter when it moves, and it has invested over the past 10 years in modernizing equipment that it will move to the new site.

The other benefit of the new location is that it’s a multitenant structure that may allow Heat Seal to add space if it needs to expand. There is no room to expand at its existing building on East 71st, Zieske said.

Heat Seal is the first tenant to lease space in the almost 300,000-squarefoot Gallo Displays building that Spencer Pisczak and Kevin Callahan, principals of Premier Development Co. of Cuyahoga Heights purchased through 4922 East 71st St. LLC last year, two years after the prior occupant shut down.

“One of the huge things for us and Heat Seal is that they are staying in the village of Cuyahoga Heights,” Pisczak said. “We worked closely with the mayor (Jack Bacci) to make this happen.”

Heat Seal considered other locations outside Cuyahoga Heights before settling on Gallo, said Simon Caplan, a principal of Cushman & Wakefield Cresco brokerage who represented Heat Seal in its search.

“One thing I heard loud and clear is that they wanted to stay near the current location to retain their employees,” Caplan said.

Zieske added, “We’ve got this great workforce we’ve developed over 25 years. We did not want to dislocate any employees.”

The new plant Heat Seal will occupy by July 1 is three miles from its existing location. Zieske said the company’s move will coincide with the expiration of its lease at its current home. Mayor Bacci said he is relieved Heat Seal is staying in his village, which has a population of about 600 residents.

“You’re always worried when someone says their lease is up and they want to get out. I’m always humbled by a company looking at leaving,” Bacci said. “We said, ‘Anywhere you go, property taxes won’t be as low as here.’ We sit over a cup of coffee and work it out — pointing out (Pisczak’s) got space. It’s an advantage of

being a small village. It’s not a beautiful rural area. It’s an industrial parkway with beautiful homes.”

Bacci said the owner of Heat Seal’s home is in talks with a prospective tenant for about half the building, so it may not be vacant long after Heat Seal exits. Thomas Dougherty, principal of Cuyahoga Heights-based Daugherty Capital, owns the company’s current property. He did not return a phone call by last Thursday, April 28, from Crain’s.

Heat Seal serves food processing industry and manufacturers with machines to shrink-wrap food and products. For example, Zieske said, it produces equipment that manu-

facturers use to wrap a box with a puzzle so it can’t be opened until the consumer takes it home.

Heat Seal sells its machines primarily to customers in the U.S. and only manufactures its equipment here, Zieske said. He declined to disclose revenues of the privately held company. None of the parties would disclose terms of the new lease.

Pisczak said Heat Seal will occupy the front of the building, which will be divided up to serve multiple tenants.

The building ownership is in talks with another company — which neither Pisczak nor Frank Black, a vice president of Premier, would identify — for the balance of the building.

Heat Seal LLC makes packaging and processing equipment such as supermarket wrappers. (Contributed photo)

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Medical improv putting physicians to the test

BY LYDIA COUTRE lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

The core principles of improvisation — equality, collaboration, flexibility, responsiveness, differing perspectives — can be applied to anything from comedic theater to a hospital room.

Dr. Carolyn Chan, a first-year resident at University Hospitals, was looking for a research project last fall when a mentor suggested she combine her long-time hobby of improv with her medical work — something she hadn’t thought to do before. Soon, she began using improv as a tool when something was going wrong in a conversation with a patient.

“With patients who are really angry at me for whatever reason, I’ll try to calm them down by trying to find something to actually agree on,” Chan said. “So that’s the first rule of improv: ‘yes, and.’ It’s hard to argue with someone if you find something to agree on.”

She worked to develop a curriculum and in February began teaching her fellow residents how to apply improv to their work. So far, she’s trained about 30 of her peers at UH and Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.

The Cleveland Clinic has also incorporated “medical improv” into its communication training. The Clinic created sustainment courses to build upon an initial eight-hour communication course all physicians take. In order to practice and expand on those skills, the Clinic wanted to offer a fresh, engaging and fun course that was also highly educational, said Katie Neuendorf, director of the Clinic’s Center for Excellence in Healthcare Communication.

Improv fit the bill and is now incorporated as a part of those refresher courses, including the “yes, and” exercise, in which participants have three conversations, each with a rule of starting every sentence with either “yes, but,” “no” or “yes, and.”

It gets people thinking about what it feels like if every time they say

Speaker Amy Windower of the Cleveland Clinic. something, they’re met with a “no” or “yes, but” response, which can feel adversarial and dismissive. The alternative “yes, and,” feels collaborative.

Staff brought these techniques back to the Clinic to teach others after attending a workshop led by Katie Watson, an assistant professor in the medical humanities and bioethics program in Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Watson coined the term “medical improv” in 2002 when she created a seminar to combine those two parts of her life.

“I realized that in many ways, physicians are being asked to do some similar things that improvisers have to do,” said Watson, who is also an adjunct faculty member of Chicago’s Second City Training Center, a school specializing in improv and sketch comedy. “A patient comes in, (physicians) don’t know who that ‘character’ is or what they’re going to say, and they have to collaborate to create a shared story and direction for that encounter.”

Seeing her students struggle to do that, Watson brought in some of the principles and training techniques of improv theater: affirming your scene partner’s reality; seeing each other as equals in collaboration; recognizing each has something different to offer; and under-

standing a joint responsibility for the outcome.

Learning to listen is just as important as the core communication skills, said Chan, who hopes to continue teaching improv to more residents and possibly med students.

The techniques encourage physicians to think about whether they’re really listening with their body and to the patient’s words and body language, she said.

“All the clues are right there, but sometimes when our pager’s going off, we just don’t have time,” Chan said. “So it’s a nice reminder to just sit back and listen to your patients or your teammates or your nurse.”

Dr. Jane Wey, assistant professor in surgery at the Clinic, has taken a couple of the refresher courses the Clinic offers. When working on the improv part of that course, there were some puzzled looks in the class as people wondered where the exercises were going, she said, but it becomes clearer.

The class paired up for one exercise, in which one person was of present times and the other played the role of a Rip Van Winkle character who was waking up after being asleep for 200 years.

“So we had to put ourselves in that position of someone who had no comprehension of cell phones, for example, or televisions,” Wey said. “The analogy then would be trying to put yourself in the position of a person with no medical experience and trying to explain a complex procedure or a complex diagnosis.”

Plus, she said, taking yourself completely out of the medical world adds some new perspective.

Watson said this new angle combined with the simple fact that it’s a fun activity makes improv an effective teaching tool. It also helps break down communication and allows people to focus and hone skills in small pieces.

“I think of it as working muscle by muscle, like today we’re doing biceps. Tomorrow we’re doing glutes,” Watson said. “We’re going to isolate muscle groups and make sure each is strong before we’re going to put the body in motion.”

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softening the requirement that IT employees have a bachelor’s degree.

“I’ve been in workforce development for a long time. You don’t frequently get companies coming to the table willing to rethink how they’re doing hiring,” said Kusner, who is director of strategic planning and policy for New Growth Group LLC, a consulting firm that’s helping Cleveland-based Towards Employment coordinate the TalentNEO project.

Towards Employment is implementing the program in Cuyahoga County and Conexus, which used to be called Summit Workforce Solutions, is focused on Summit County.

Manufacturers and IT companies have a particularly strong motivation

to think about hiring people who have the raw talent to do a job but not all of the skills: Companies in both industries for years have been telling Crain’s reporters that they struggle to find skilled employees.

Take SGS Tool Co. in Munroe Falls.

The company has a hard time finding people who can run the CNC machines that SGS uses to make drill bits and other cutting tools. So new employees are trained by colleagues with more experience. That training process can take a year, and during that year, the trainers are less productive than they otherwise would be, said Gary Miller, director of training and occupational development at SGS. So it makes sense that the company wants to at least start with people who have a knack for the job. Thus, for years, SGS has been administering other tests designed to gauge a job candidate’s abilities.

Then why did SGS join TalentNEO?

For one, it doesn’t enjoy spending the time and money required to administer tests independently.

Plus, the TalentNEO program could help companies connect with job candidates who otherwise wouldn’t have even considered putting in an application, said Peter Analore, vice president of operations at FormFire.

The Cleveland company, which makes software for insurance brokers, has a constant need for IT talent, Analore said.

The need is so great that FormFire is willing to spend money to send employees to local software development bootcamps that train people to become entry-level coders in just a few months. It has already done so for two employees.

FormFire could put more employees through that process, if they really want to become coders and have the right problem-solving skills, Analore said. The WorkKeys test could help the

company find those kinds of people.

But like Miller, Analore has yet to hire someone who took the test, given that only a few hundred people have taken the test through TalentNEO. That could change. For one, TalentNEO is still in pilot mode. Once it has ironed out the kinks, “then we’ll really be focusing on growing the pipeline,” Kusner said.

Plus, the number of people throughout Ohio who take the test could grow significantly in 2018: That’s when the state — which is phasing out the Ohio Graduation Test — will start accepting WorkKeys test scores as an alternative.

TalentNEO, which is being funded by a long list of philanthropic groups, isn’t wedded to the WorkKeys test.

The organizers could choose an alternative or add supplemental tests.

Over time, the plan is to broaden the TalentNEO program to include other industry sectors, such as

health care, said Sue Lacy, president of Conexus. Organizers also are trying to figure out what else they can do to help test-takers land jobs.

Those who need help passing the WorkKeys test can take online and in-person “upskilling” courses designed to help them do better. But even those who get high scores will often still need to gain additional skills before starting a job. Thus, organizers are working with local software bootcamps, colleges and other education-related organizations that could help fill those skills gaps.

In some cases, however, jobseekers already have more skills than employers might think. Lacy described how one man who did really well on the WorkKeys test was doing engineering work at his current job, even though he wasn’t considered an engineer.

“It’s the skills that are most critical — even more so than the occupation itself,” she said.

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z MAY 2 - 8, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Cleveland studio has global appeal

BY JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

It was late at night — he doesn’t remember the time — on April 21 when Todd Mesek got an email from a producer for CNN’s early morning show, “New Day.” The producer wanted Mesek, vice president of marketing and communications at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, on the air at 6:45 a.m. to talk about the career and musical impact of Prince, the 2004 Rock Hall inductee who had died that day.

The next morning, at 5:30, Noel Salwan, a partner in Global Broadcasting Services of Cleveland, was waiting at the front door of the Keith Building on Euclid Avenue in Playhouse Square to escort Mesek to Global’s eighth-floor studio — a space no bigger than the waiting room of a small law firm, which it may once have been. He sat on a chair with a video image of the Cleveland skyline behind him. In front of him, he could see only a cluster of lights that nearly obscured a small camera.

Then, at 6:32 a.m., the camera’s red light flashed on and Mesek was on the air. With the Terminal Tower behind his head, his image appeared on television screens across the country next to a video of a Prince solo during a performance of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Rock Hall induction ceremony.

“That was such a powerful moment …” he began.

“It was great,” Mesek said later.

“To the viewer, it’s pretty seamless.

But I’m sitting in an office building in Cleveland that’s been converted into a studio.

Top, Todd Mesek appears on CNN. Above left and right, Pierre Woods and Mary Kay Cabot talk on ESPN and Fox Sports. (Contributed photos) “That’s a great little studio, especially to have it downtown. We need those things,” Mesek said. “At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in Cleveland, we have news that is of interest to people around the world, and it’s important to be able to react quickly. And CNN knows that (the Global Broadcasting studio) is downtown, is flexible and has a high-quality connection.”

Mesek is only one of dozens of celebrities, reporters, politicians and experts who have used the Global Broadcasting studio to promote their latest book, comment on the latest political dogfight or discuss one hot topic or another.

Among them are political guru Karl Rove, syndicated columnist Star

FIND YOUR RHYTHM

Parker and Fox News analyst KT McFarland, who were visiting Cleveland when news broke, as well as locals like attorney Avery Friedman, syndicated Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, and MSNBC stalwart Nina Turner, a major supporter of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Live news remotes from around the globe have become commonplace.

And getting a story, or an expert who can comment on a story, on the air first is important in the highly competitive world of television news.

Large institutions like hospitals and universities have live shot studios. Broadcast television stations, too, will often rent their facilities for live shots.

But Salwan and his partner, Jim Giganti, believe their two-person Global Broadcasting is growing because of their willingness to be on call 24/7 — a service that can be difficult for large institutions with chains of command and work rules can’t always match — as well as their perfectionism and the high quality of their equipment and uplink.

“I remember when they got the studio fixed up and we went live for the first time at (the Keith Building), and I’ve got an IFB (the earpiece that connects him to the distant control room) in my ear and I hear the directors and the managers at CNN saying, ‘Wow, what a great look,’ which is the ultimate compliment,” Friedman said.

Friedman, who is a longtime CNN legal analyst, has been working with Giganti and Salwan for more than a decade, first when they used studios at local hospitals and then when they opened the Keith Building studio in 2013. He does his weekly “Legal Briefs” show on CNN from there.

“We’re essentially a TV station with a satellite uplink,” Salwan said.

“This is as high quality as HD can get,” added Giganti in a joint interview, noting that their connection uses the same gear as the uplinks for Quicken Loans Arena and Progressive Field.

Behind their small studio, in their even-smaller shared office, Giganti and Salwan have screen grabs from their shoots with more than a halfdozen television networks, including ESPN, Fox Business, Fox Sports, MSNBC, Newsmax TV and the nowdefunct Al-Jazeera America.

Giganti and Salwan, Cleveland natives, met as video production contractors for the Cleveland Clinic, which had its own studio. They eventually took their talents to University

Hospitals of Cleveland. In both cases, they rented the studios from the hospitals for their own work, which is how they connected to Friedman.

Three years ago, they decided they wanted their own studio. As contractors, they already had their own lighting and cameras. They just needed a studio and an uplink.

“We really wanted to be downtown, because there was no one else downtown,” Salwan said. “A network can call us an hour, a half-hour before a live shot, and we can get them on the air.”

The studio handles anywhere from eight to 30 live shots a month.

“The networks care about how fast you can get someone in the chair, because TV is so immediate,” Giganti said, adding that they can also bring in a makeup artist on short notice when needed.

Giganti and Salwan consider themselves video freelancers who can shoot at any location. For example, Salwan said, Global Broadcasting will go out and do live internet broadcasts for companies that want secure links.

“We have this uplink studio just to augment what we do,” Salwan said.

“We’re just scratching the surface,” added Giganti, about their future plans. The pair is optimistic they will be busy in July, when the Republicans come to town, even though every major news organization in the country will have its own satellite trucks in town.

“When the NBA Finals came to town last year and there were 50 live trucks over by Quicken Loans Arena, we thought, ‘We’re not going to get any work,’ ” Salwan said. “Well, we got just as much work that week as in the earlier playoffs, like 10 live shots a week.”

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U.S. Steel presses Chinese import ban

BY RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

It’s nothing new to see domestic steelmakers rallying against Chinese producers — many, they say, are able to keep their costs low because of government subsidies, making it difficult to compete, and continued production is overwhelming the market.

What is unusual is the complaint United States Steel Corp. filed April 25 with the U.S. International Trade Commission. The complaint is asking the commission to open an investigation against China’s biggest steel producers — and their distributors — under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The complaint contends that the producers have used “unfair methods of competition,” a news release said, and is asking for the commission to exclude all unfairly traded steel products from China in the U.S. Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel in the complaint said that unfairly traded Chinese steel has caused it to lose sales and profits, as well as scale back production and lay off employees. That’s been ap-

parent in Northeast Ohio, as its Losaid, in a case alleging predatory rain plant has struggled mightily in pricing against Japanese stainless recent years. The plant is currently steel tube makers. Section 337 cases operating on a limited basis. on patents and copyrights are com“This industry has been under asmon, but those on allegations of unsault for a while,” said Debbie Shon, fair competition and importation of partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart products are not. The trade commis& Sullivan LLP in the D.C. office. sion has about 30 days to decide Shon, who used to whether to take work at U.S. Steel, the case, and that is representing the timeline can be company in the extended if U.S. complaint.

Steel amends the The complaint complaint or adds alleges that Chiparties to it. nese producers, Though U.S. like the Hebei and Steel is going at Baosteel groups of this complaint companies, have alone, its success conspired to fix would have a prices, stolen wide-reaching im— Debbie Shon, partner at trade secrets pact on the do(namely for admestic industry, as Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & vanced, highthe complaint exSullivan LLP strength steel) and tends to all Chiavoided trade dunese carbon and ties by falsely laalloy steel prodbeling where their products are ucts. The United Steelworkers have from. The complaint said that alalready released a statement supmost all of the proposed responporting the petition, in which Interdents are state-owned. national President Leo W. Gerard The last time the steel industry said it “clearly lays out the array of used Section 337 was in 1978, Shon actions China has taken to steal

“This industry has been under assault for a while.”

In search of ‘Who to Watch in Finance’ candidates Know someone’s who is great with numbers and got a story to tell?

The second “Who to Watch” section of 2016 — “Who to Watch in Finance” — is scheduled for publication on June 27. It will highlight up-and-comers and innovators in Northeast Ohio’s finance sector, and we’re looking for suggestions.

We’re profiling individuals who are, of course, good with numbers but also have a passion for their work, their clients and the Northeast Ohio community.

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If you think you know who will be among those leading Northeast Ohio’s finance space in the future, drop an email to sections editor Timothy Magaw, tmagaw@crain.com, or call 216-771-5359.

Send your suggestions no later than noon on Monday, May 23. Please include the person’s name, position and a paragraph explaining why he or she stands out.

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market share and jobs.”

And companies with local ties, like Canton-based TimkenSteel Corp. and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, which has sizable operations in Cleveland, have been outspoken about the negative impact Chinese steelmakers have had on their businesses.

In an April testimony before the Congressional Steel Caucus, ArcelorMittal North America CEO Jim Baske said it is “easy, and correct, to point to China as the main culprit,” though he also named countries like Korea and Russia among those challenging the U.S. market. He said the situation isn’t “sustainable” and that there’s a need for the government to enforce trade remedy laws.

When asked about U.S. Steel’s complaint, TimkenSteel sent a comment via email, saying excess global steel capacity and soft Asian and European demand is affecting the domestic market.

“We believe manufacturers and the government both should be using every tool available to combat the steel import crisis,” the statement said.

Scott Paul, president of D.C.-

based Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of manufacturing, said more traditional anti-dumping and countervailing cases for specific products are like “playing whack-amole,” and that this petition gives manufacturers another tool to create a level playing field. He said he hopes the complaint will lead to more aggressive trade enforcement efforts.

Section 337 allows for a public evidentiary hearing under an administrative law judge, Shon said. That hearing is essentially a trial, in which depositions can be compelled and individuals can be questioned under penalty of perjury, which is not an option in the countervailing and anti-dumping cases.

McDonald Hopkins member Jim Giszczak, who helps lead the firm’s trade secret and data privacy groups, said this petition is a “novel and creative approach” to get government to work with industry, as lawsuits in China can be difficult to enforce. If this complaint is successful, it could serve as another avenue for industries to look into. The remedy being asked for is extreme, but so are the actions, he said.

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z MAY 2 - 8, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Opinion From the Publisher / Editor

Helping small businesses to soar higher

Editorials

Ready for takeoff?

By most accounts, Shaker LaunchHouse has raised the profile and vitality of entrepreneurship in Shaker Heights since 2011. The prospect that the city might put the LaunchHouse building under new management is complicating life for about 60 companies and individuals, from a variety of disciplines, who rent space at the facility.

As Shaker Heights City Council contemplates the next move for the building, it should be mindful of what has made the facility valuable to tenants — and by extension to Shaker Heights itself. The city, which to date has bungled some of the communications related to LaunchHouse, also should act quickly and decisively in setting up and explaining the new structure.

At present, the lease on the city-owned building is held by Goldstein, Caldwell and Associates, which does business as LaunchHouse and owns the name. LaunchHouse doesn’t pay rent, and maintenance costs often have fallen on the city — an arrangement Shaker Heights no longer finds acceptable.

Shaker Heights Development Corp. in mid-April issued a news release stating that it was “finalizing a master lease agreement” with the city that would put it in charge of managing the Shaker LaunchHouse building on June 30. However, the city soon thereafter said the release was premature, as council had not voted on the issue. At its meeting last week, council did not vote on a plan to put the LaunchHouse building under new management, with Mayor Earl Leiken noting, “We’re not ready. We’re in discussions.”

The city now is slated to consider the Shaker Heights Development Corp. lease proposal at council’s meeting on May 9 or May 23. There can be no more delays if the June 30 transition target is to be met.

In comments online and at the council meeting last week, tenants have raised concerns about the transition to management by the Shaker Heights Development Corp. and have expressed admiration for the efforts of CEO Todd Goldstein —

who draws no salary in his position — and the three-person LaunchHouse staff. Their worries are understandable, given the uncertainty that has been created over the past few weeks.

Some tenants have said that they aren’t attracted to the space for the location or the amenities. They’re there for help with the mundane needs of a startup — securing desks, offices and workshop space — as well as the support of fellow entrepreneurs and a staff that understands their needs. Shaker Heights Development Corp. officials would do well to keep in close contact with tenants to make sure they’re prepared to keep the facility relevant to entrepreneurs. Should the city end the LaunchHouse partnership, it also should give tenants more specifics about the reasons that drove it to make the decision.

Goldstein has raised the prospect of going off on his own at a new location. If he does that, we wish him well. The Cleveland area needs to do as much as possible to nurture new generations of entrepreneurs ready to give more oomph to our still-tepid economy.

Carrie on The Gordon Square Arts District is one of Cleveland’s real success stories, with a mix of retail, restaurants and cultural organizations creating a vibrant West Side neighborhood.

Many parties deserve credit for this, including Judi Feniger, the arts district’s just-retired president and executive director.

The district last week made a terrific choice to succeed Feniger: Carrie Carpenter, who most recently served as senior vice president, regional director of public affairs for Citizens Bank.

Carpenter has been civically active in organizations including the Cleveland Foundation, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and the Cleveland Public Theatre. She’ll bring passion and commitment to an arts district that already has plenty of both, but will need more as it matures.

PUBLISHER AND EDITOR: Elizabeth McIntyre (emcintyre@crain.com)

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

MANAGING EDITOR: Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com) SECTIONS EDITOR: Timothy Magaw (tmagaw@crain.com)

Joni Fedders has seen business owners from all walks of life come through the doors of Aileron, a small business training institute outside of Dayton.

The people — and the types of companies they run — differ wildly. Small manufacturers, landscapers, retailers, consultants. The diversity — as in all aspects of business and life — is a real benefit. Once all of these small business operators get into a room together, they realize the problems they face aren’t unique to them. And all face the same challenge: How do I grow my business?

That’s a question business owners have grappled with for generations. Running — and growing — a business is never easy. And looking beyond the day-to-day can be difficult, and scary.

“We focus on what it takes to scale and grow a business so a community has strong businesses,” said Fedders, who grew up in Lorain Elizabeth County and serves now as president of Aileron.

McIntyre Clay Mathile, the former owner of the pet food company Iams, founded the nonprofit organization and named it after the part of an airplane wing that provides lift. That’s what Aileron aims to do for private business owners and entrepreneurs with its classes and coaching, Fedders said — lift small business.

Fedders captured the reason small businesses are important, because they contribute to the health of our communities.

There’s no better time to reflect on that than during Small Business Week, which starts May 1. These companies — from the mom-and-pop stores to family businesses and startups — power our economy. More than half of Americans either own or work for a small company.

To borrow a word, they are the ailerons that lift our economy. And their value should not be underestimated. Over the past 15 years, small businesses have generated more than 60% of net new jobs.

But they face challenges. Small businesses have been slow to recover from the worst economic downturn in recent history. A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland shows that job creation by small businesses has lagged in this region.

Aileron and many small business advocacy and support organizations in Northeast Ohio have the right idea. Learning from other business owners. Benefitting from the wisdom of business advisers. Focusing.

One big change over time has been what it takes to retain great talent.

“Culture has become the No. 1 reason people stay. That’s different than pay. It’s scary because it’s a soft topic,” Fedders said. “People want more out of life today. They are not willing to come in at 7 and still be at work at 7.”

Small business owners worry 24/7 about how to evolve, to grow and to serve their customers. But they need to let go of their fear to assure their long-term success.

“When small business owners have problems, it’s often because they are leading from fear,” Fedders said. “They think, ‘I gotta do things the way I have been.’ They are not challenging themselves or their people.”

The recession certainly put a lot of fear into small business owners. It’s understandable, but it’s also unhealthy. But as Small Business Week 2016 dawns, Fedders said, there’s reason for optimism.

“We’ve gotten out of the fear mode. They are emerging,” she said of small businesses. “People are growing.”

WRITE US: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited. Send letters to Crain’s Cleveland Business, 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 44113, or by emailing letters@crain.com. Please include your complete name and city from which you are writing, and a telephone number for fact-checking purposes.

SOUND OFF: Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com. Please include a telephone number for verification purposes.

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Web Talk Re: Cleveland Heights eyes ‘Top of the Hill’ development While the top of Cedar Hill is an important future goal, of prime consideration should be the redevelopment of Severance Town Center. Also of prime consideration is how to keep longtime residents in this community. There is very little adequate housing for downsizing seniors who currently occupy some of the most established properties in Cleveland Heights. The city can combine the Severance problem with providing Cleveland Heights seniors with affordable, yet desirable condos or townhouses. Severance Town Center can be an example of what a progressive city can provide.

— Sue Nigro IF this is a good idea, a developer will fund this project on its own. This project should NOT be incentivized with public dollars. — StopBackRoomDeals I wish that were the case, but unfortunately, rents in this region aren’t high enough to justify new construction and to offset the incredibly high construction costs. That said, this region needs to keep up with the times and to keep developing urban sites with highest and — Brandon best-use projects.

Re: Reopening Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls to cars Cars don’t make places a “vibrant, mixed-use environment.” They kill such places. The reason downtown areas struggle is because of giant placeless strips of big box stores that are easy to drive to, but don’t do much good for anyone who doesn’t drive. With most of the cities in the country trying to reinvest in the downtown, with a push for pedestrianization and traffic calming, it just seems a bit sad to see Cuyahoga Falls moving backward.

— Walter Haim

Personal View

Baseball love does community good

BY ALEX DUKE A question I am always asked is, “Why do you volunteer?” My answer is, “Why don’t you volunteer?” Giving your time is one of the simplest, kindest gestures that anyone can do for others.

I started my volunteer journey five years ago. As a freshman at Brunswick High School, Dawn Thompson, a 12th grade Language Arts teacher, introduced me to a whole new world: the world of community service. I became a mentor in the Big Brothers Big Sisters’ school-based program and did this throughout my four years of high school. After graduating, I wanted additional ways to connect to volunteer opportunities, and I found the Volunteer Center at BVU. BVU has an online database of community volunteer opportunities that allowed me to connect to opportunities based on my interests. They had a partnership with the Cleveland Indians and were providing free Indians tickets for volunteers. It combined my love of service and my love of baseball!

The Indians Volunteer Challenge took my passion for volunteerism to a whole new level. The individual who logged the most volunteer hours during the Challenge would be honored as the Cleveland Indians Volunteer of the Year. Not only could I receive this honor for doing something I loved, I could throw out the first pitch at a Tribe game.

I continued volunteering for organizations and events at Relay for Life (American Cancer Society), Pedal to the Point (National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Ohio Buckeye Chapter), Volley for the Cure (Susan G. Komen for the Cure), Halloween Spooktacular, PTA/PTG events, Brunswick middle and elementary schools, and Camp Quality (Summer camp and year round support for children with cancer and their families).

I was determined to throw out that first pitch. Finally, in my fourth year of participating in the Indians Volunteer Challenge, I was named the Indians Volunteer of the Year. It took determination and drive to achieve that goal, but the ultimate result has an amazing impact not only for me but also the community.

Currently, I am a student at Cleveland State University. When I graduate, I know that volunteering will provide me with transferable skills needed in today’s competitive job market.

This year, BVU and the Indians will select two Indians Volunteers of the Year — one youth under the age of 18 and one adult.

This is a great motivator for our youth to give back to the community and grow as an individual.

I only hope this inspires a new generation of community volunteers. Please visit Indians.com/volunteer for more information.

Duke is the 2015 Indians Volunteer of the Year.

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TAX LIENS The Internal Revenue Service filed tax liens against the following businesses in the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office. The IRS files a tax lien to protect the interests of the federal government. The lien is a public notice to creditors that the government has a claim against a company’s property. Liens reported here are $5,000 and higher.

Dates listed are the dates the documents were filed in the Recorder’s Office.

LIENS FILED P A T Services 2000 LLC 24050 Commerce Park, Suite 100, Beachwood Date filed: Feb. 19, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $49,267 JL Associates Inc. 23775 Commerce Park Road, Beachwood Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment Amount: $44,133

The Best Thai Inc. Lemon Grass Thai Cuisine 2179 Lee Road, Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 19, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment, failure to file complete return Amount: $40,548 Dr. Anthony M. Johnson, M.D., Inc. 7550 Capilano Drive, Solon Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Corporate income Amount: $40,467 443 Broadway LLC 11111 Broadway Ave., Garfield Heights Date filed: Feb. 1, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $36,033 Mic Ray Metal Products Inc. 9016 Manor Ave., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $31,698 A Bar & Kitchen LLC 850 Euclid Ave., Suite 110, Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $22,513

Birawee Inc. 15387 Pearl Road, Strongsville Date filed: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, corporate income Amount: $20,710

Seamus Marotta Corp.

Marottas Pizza 2289 Lee Road, Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $17,289

Will Repair Inc. 2901 E. 65 St., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $20,655

Seamus Marotta Corp.

Marottas Pizza 2289 Lee Road, Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 2, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $16,444

JHG Inc. 1337 W. 10th St., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment Amount: $19,025 Nida Enterprises Inc. 17480 Lorain Ave., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 1, 2016 Type: Corporate income Amount: $18,650 MRSO Elite LLC Elite Answering Services 20800 Center Ridge Road, Suite 205, Rocky River Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $17,902

TP Fitness LLC World Gym Cleveland Heights 3640 Mayfield Road, Cleveland Heights Date filed: Feb. 19, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $11,903 Canvas Specialty Mfg. Co. 4045 Saint Clair Ave., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $11,815

Continental Industrial Inc. 2324 Lakeside Ave., E., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: NA Amount: $16,186 A K Carpet Inc.

Agresta Landscaping Inc. 11425 W. 130 St., Strongsville Date filed: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $11,682

17819 Baldwin Place, Lakewood Date filed: Feb. 1, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment Amount: $14,677

State Machine Co. 30400 Solon Industrial Parkway, Solon Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $10,701

Renato Ltd LLC 1620 Leonard St., Cleveland Date filed: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $12,145

Search Circus Inc. 12181 State Road, North Royalton Date filed: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $10,567

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Matt Burtonshaw, food production associate, works in one of the greenhouses at Case Western Reserve University's Squire Valleevue Farm. (Ken Blaze)

A farm fresh education

CWRU’s sprawling 400-acre property offers students the opportunity to find inspiration in the natural world

BY RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

Case Western Reserve University is an urban school, nestled firmly among the medical and cultural institutions on Cleveland’s East Side. But just about 10 miles away in Hunting Valley, the university maintains a set of sprawling farms filled with gardens, green houses and open space.

Visitors to the 400-acre property find a scene preserved in time, at least on the surface.

Old-fashioned farmhouses, barns and other agricultural buildings have been converted into offices and classrooms. The majority of the farms was given to the university in the 1930s by the Squire family and in the 1970s by the Wade family. The structure of the historical buildings has been maintained.

“The idea is to respect the history,” said director Ana Locci.

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HIGHER EDUCATION

KSU aims to increase research — again Former Cleveland Clinic exec DiCorleto helps university craft a new plan

BY CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

The man hired to help Kent State University double the amount of research it conducts knows that some faculty members are skeptical about whether the university is actually serious about achieving that goal.

After all, they’ve heard similar plans in the past — plans that didn’t come to fruition. In fact, the amount of research funding flowing into Kent State has decreased in recent years.

But Paul DiCorleto says the university is taking real steps to turn the situation around.

Case in point: Last year, when Kent State hired the Cleveland Clinic veteran to lead the effort, it gave him two offices. One is right where you’d expect it to be, in the Research and Sponsored Programs office.

But the other is on the second floor of the library — just down the hall from university president Beverly Warren. Today, the vice president of Research and Sponsored Programs is a cabinet-level position.

“She’s really committed. That’s why I took the position,” said DiCorleto, who previously spent 13 years as chair of the Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute.

Granted, the university has yet to decide exactly how much funding DiCorleto will have to implement a plan that involves launching five new centers of excellence, starting

with a center focused on brain health. But the university has verbally committed to increasing its investment in research, according to Doug Delahanty, associate vice president for research and faculty development.

Delahanty added that he’s noticed a “mindset change” among the faculty. They seem to have confidence in the university’s plan and in DiCorleto himself.

“There’s a palpable feeling of excitement. Paul’s coming here added to that substantially,” he said.

Though his budget isn’t set, DiCorleto is about to begin hunting for a “rising star” researcher who could serve as the director of the brain health center.

The director could end up recruiting a few additional faculty members, but he or she wouldn’t be starting from scratch: All five of the proposed centers will be built off of existing strengths at Kent State.

A center focused on material science would include Kent State’s storied Liquid Crystal Institute as well as researchers with expertise related to sensors, nanoparticles, advanced energy and other technologies. Meanwhile, the proposed center for environmental science and design could include faculty who study topics like water, architecture and business.

But Kent State isn’t limiting itself to the hard sciences. The population health center would take advantage of at least three colleges on campus: Public health, nursing and podiatry.

Paul DiCorleto And the center focused on global understanding would pull in researchers from the humanities, including those who study politics, diversity and conflict resolution.

Get the minds to meet Why start with brain health? Kent State arguably has the most strength — and the most diverse set of strengths — in that area, DiCorleto said. The university already has “as many of 40 faculty” conducting research in areas like neuroscience, neurodegenerative diseases and psychology. There also is “significant funding” available for brain research, he said.

The new brain health center director will serve as “a mentor and role model” to other researchers, DiCorleto added. The new director

also will be tasked with getting them to work together. Though the other centers won’t immediately have dedicated directors, DiCorleto said the university may end up appointing internal directors who can play a similar role.

DiCorleto said he wants to recreate the environment he experienced at the Lerner Research Institute, where researchers were always bumping into colleagues with different areas of expertise.

That’s easier said than done, given that Kent State researchers work in different departments and buildings scattered all over campus. But it’s important to try: When a researcher talks with a colleague who studies something different, new ideas emerge, he said.

“They have a completely different perspective, and they raise some questions that the people around the table wouldn’t have thought about asking,” said DiCorleto, who already has organized a speaker series where researchers from across campus give quick presentations about their work.

Collaboration also can help researchers win funding: Federal agencies that fund research often prefer to give grants to teams that bring together researchers with different areas of expertise.

Dollars drop Kent State researchers will need all the help they can get. The university attracted a total of $25.4 million

in external research funding during fiscal year 2015, which ended on June 30. That’s down from nearly $32 million in fiscal 2011. What caused the drop? Kent State officials pointed to flat federal budgets and increased competition. The number was even higher in previous years because of a one-time state grant and a boost in research funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But Delahanty expects to see some “major achievements” coming from Kent State researchers in the future.

Why? For one, attendance at research-related symposiums and workshops on campus is rising. And the university’s Institutional Review Board is receiving a growing number of applications for new studies, said Delahanty, who is chair of the board.

Faculty members were surveyed about the university’s research strategy as it was being created. Judging by their feedback, they appear to believe that DiCorleto is “going in the right direction,” said Sonia Alemagno, dean of the College of Public Health.

She noted that the university was more focused on growing enrollment and improving its facilities when Lester Lefton was president, and those were important goals.

Now, however, Kent State is in a better position to grow research. And DiCorleto has the experience to make that happen, said Alemagno, who was on the search committee.

“This is a person who has been there and done that,” she said.

Public safety gets funding boost at Tri-C

BY DOUGLAS J. GUTH clbfreelancer@crain.com

Let Nesco work for you.

Employment projections for Northeast Ohio illustrate a critical need for protective service personnel, and Cuyahoga Community College is trying to fill that gap.

And a recent $1.4 million grant from the KeyBank Foundation is expected to buoy those efforts. The funding is earmarked for students pursuing careers as law enforcement officers, firefighters, paramedics and other in-demand public safety occupations in Northeast Ohio, said Clayton Harris, vice president and dean of public safety and criminal justice at Tri-C. Under the grant, program leaders expect to increase the annual number of graduates from Tri-C’s Public Safety Training Center by 35% over the next four years. An influx of talent is required for the nearly 1,500 protective service job openings expected yearly through 2022. Much of this need is created by a retiring worker base, particularly in the area of law enforcement, Harris said.

“These numbers are expanding nationwide,” he said. “We have to produce more people capable of going into these jobs.”

In particular, affording employment to minority and female candi-

dates will be a focus moving ahead.

The grant initiative is set to recruit underserved demographics for firstresponder jobs through increased training and scholarship opportunities. In law enforcement, bringing more highly-trained women and minorities into the force can help curtail negative attitudes toward police in urban areas, Harris said.

“One of the best ways to enhance community policing efforts is to ensure individuals working in these fields mirror the population they’re serving,” he said. “That’s going to increase the buy-in from individuals in the community.”

The KeyBank grant also will fund outreach programs to U.S. military veterans as well as the creation of a youth-focused Summer Academy.

Through the academy, Tri-C intends to expose high-school students to public safety career pathways that could lead to college credentials, job placement and long-term job retention. Classes start in June, with officials expecting to graduate 60 students from the program by year’s end.

High-profile cases involving police have soured some youth from considering law enforcement as a career, making the newly founded academy’s mission all the more important, Harris said.

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“We’ve got to work hard to change those feelings, or the next generation won’t be the ones we want taking these jobs,” he said.

The Public Safety Training Center opened at Tri-C’s Western Campus in 2014. Located on a 10-acre site, the facility includes a two-story burn building, an indoor shooting range, a paved driving area and an aboveground trench to practice confined space rescues. To better connect public safety grads with employers, Tri-C will create an outreach specialist position to oversee student, employer and community engagement.

KeyBank and its grantmaking arm are longtime Tri-C partners, having provided the college with about $5 million in strategic grants. Educating a workforce dedicated to preserving Cleveland neighborhoods is more than a worthy cause, said foundation chair and CEO Margot Copeland.

“Our community continues to get better and stronger,” Copeland said.

“Public safety is a crucial element for us going forward.”

Shondor Colin Thomas Jr. attended Tri-C’s police academy three years ago, working security gigs before being sworn in as a Stark County deputy sheriff in 2013. Now a patrolman in Shaker Heights, Thomas said his Tri-C training prepared him

for the rigors of police work.

“The first thing I heard at the cop shop was they were going to be building on everything I learned at school,” said Thomas, 25. “They knew Tri-C has a really good academy.”

During training, Thomas was taught firearms, defensive tactics and driving techniques. Just as critically, he learned these skills from instructors with policing experience in urban and suburban neighborhoods.

“Cleveland police get a bad rap, but people in my — Margot Copeland, training proKeyBank gram knew Foundation chair what they were talking and CEO about,” Thomas said.

“Tri-C gave me a great foundation.”

KeyBank’s financial support will continue to keep would-be protective service workers engaged in a profession that very much needs them, said Harris.

“The only way to solve this (personnel) problem is to grow your own,” he said. “It’s about finding youth in the community and building opportunities with them.”

“Public safety is a crucial element for us going forward.”

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FARM CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Case uses the farms for a variety of undergraduate and graduate research projects, for courses in fields ranging from biology to photography and for events like orientation.

Visitors can also go on hikes, play softball or volleyball or just enjoy a picnic. The Squire Valleevue and Valley Ridge farms are almost like the library, Locci said: everyone gets to use them.

And, appropriately, the farms are also used to provide fresh, local produce for the community in and around the university.

The Farm Food Program started with one pound of spinach in 2011, after the university president called for more local food in the dining halls, Locci said. To date, the program has produced more than 70,000 pounds of produce, with the numbers increasing each year, she said.

Much of it goes to the local locations of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Bon Appétit Management Co., which provides the food on Case’s campus, but some is sold to area restaurants such as Trentina and Coquette Patisserie. The program tries to cater to higher-end restaurants, said Chris Bond, horticulturist and Farm Food Program coordinator. This helps with the program’s income, as it’s mainly supported by sales and donations. It also gives the program a higher profile, Bond said.

The Farm Food Program also supports the CWRU Farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, through which individuals can

Anna Osvaldsson works on an experiment at Case Western Reserve University's Squire Valleevue Farm. (Ken Blaze) subscribe to buy bags of produce, Locci said the program doesn’t use any inorganic chemicals, and relies on the traditional growing season.

This helps the community learn more about the challenges of farming, as well as when particular types of produce grow.

“It’s all about teaching,” she said.

The farm has eight full-time staff, supplemented with interns and students. Food is grown in a few different locations: the high-tech greenhouse that Locci described as the “brain of the operation” and its smaller counterpart, the hoop

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house, as well as the traditional, fenced-in field and smaller gardens throughout the grounds.

Farm associate Sharon Halkovics said the greenhouse is used to grow plants before they go into the field, as well as to grow herbs like basil, oregano and thyme for Bon Appétit

and Trentina. When herbs are being harvested, the farm gets about a pound a week, Halkovics said.

There’s also tobacco being grown for research, as well as plants that are sold for a low cost to students so they can learn about growing things at home.

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Ana Locci tends to the bee enclosures at the farm. (Ken Blaze)

Locci said the greenhouse also serves as a teaching opportunity.

When the staff gets students who may not have a good sense of where their food comes from, they can have them try the herbs and see the lemon and coffee trees that wouldn’t survive outdoors — in Ohio’s climate, at least.

“The greenhouse is a perfect lesson for us,” she said.

The Farm Food Program continues to grow and evolve. For example, when Crain’s visited last month, a farm staff member and an intern from Lorain County Community College were busy converting last year’s strawberry field into an herb garden. Locci said animals kept eating the strawberries, so it was time to try another type of plant.

Case also raises bees for honey and grows mushrooms, food items they can produce year-round, on the farm.

Aside from the food program, the farm is also a place for students to conduct research.

Just recently, Anna Osvaldsson was working in a field of not-yet blooming flowers. The Ph.D. student is studying how climate change affects spring ephemerals, like trilliums and geraniums, which grow early in the spring. The flowers make up a vast majority of what’s found in a forest, she said.

Locci said having the farm available for research is beneficial to students. The fact that it’s private gives them “peace of mind,” she said, because they have room to experiment.

Without the farm, students would have to do traditional fieldwork, but with it, they have a place to go that’s near the city and that’s equipped with electricity and Wi-Fi. “We really dedicated a lot of time to making sure they have the tools,” she said.

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HIGHER EDUCATION Q & A: Monique Wilson

Dean and executive director, Information Technology Center of Excellence, Cuyahoga Community College Just recently, Cuyahoga Community College and Cleveland Codes launched a 16-week software development academy aimed at residents of Cleveland’s low-income neighborhoods.

OhioMeansJobs is taking care of tuition for the program, and Tri-C’s foundation is offering workforce scholarships. Participants also received a laptop, lunch vouchers and a bus pass. Crain’s chatted with Tri-C’s Monique Wilson to learn a little more about the program and how it could grow in the coming years.

— Timothy Magaw Where did the idea for this program come from?

Tri-C’s Workforce Advisory Board had expressed significant interest in developing a fast-track training program for software development, particularly for individuals that did not have a formal programming background.

We were finalizing the curriculum when we had a collaboration meeting with Matt Fieldman from Cleveland Codes following his winning presentation at Cleveland Leadership Center’s Accelerate 2015 competition. At that point, we realized both organizations had a shared commitment to provide an apprenticeship approach to software development training and make it affordable for those with the necessary aptitudes.

Why is the ability to code such a sought-after skill by employers?

Northeast Ohio is experiencing a tech renaissance, which has created a boom for emerging startups and fueled “disruptive innovation” in the region’s established manufacturing and health care sectors. Industries look toward technology as they seek ways to apply transformational changes to their products and services. Growth is often directly related to IT infrastructure and a skilled workforce. That’s why Northeast Ohio companies posted nearly 8,700 job openings — yes, 8,700 job openings — for software developers in 2015. At Tri-C, we’re working to train the talent to meet those workforce needs and continue the region’s economic momentum.

In what ways is the program based on the EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute training model?

Matt Fieldman wanted to provide an on-ramp to careers with familysustaining wages for those who did not necessarily have the financial resources or the luxury of being able to pursue a degree fulltime. He saw from his success with EDWINS that those who had the drive and aptitude — but not the financial resources — sometimes needed a boost to help propel them toward a successful career. This boot camp can literally transform someone from poverty to middle-class in six months.

What sort of support does Tri-C offer the students during the program to ensure they’re successful?

In addition to the wrap-around services mentioned earlier, the College provides students a success coach who is available to them on an individual level to help them monitor their progress, provide additional technical assistance and point them toward additional resources when necessary. We want to ensure that the students have the necessary resources to stay on track since this is a rigorous program.

Following the training, students take part in a 12-week paid internship with a local company. How can companies get involved?

Interested companies may call 216-987-4770 or email Mark Holiday at Mark.Holiday@tri-c.edu.

How is it different from other coding boot camps?

The first cohort of 15 students started in March, with another planned for the fall. Do Tri-C and Cleveland Codes plan to expand the program to serve more students?

This boot camp differs from other coding camps in that it is designed for those with a high aptitude for coding (measured via assessment tests) who would not normally have the financial resources to attend some of the for-profit boot camps. We provide wrap-around services to ensure the students have the necessary supports to be successful, including career development workshops, laptops an RTA bus pass and a food allowance.

Our goal is to grow Cleveland Codes: The Tri-C Software Developers Academy to open this opportunity to more people in our community. We have applied for grants to increase capacity and are in discussions with Cuyahoga County to expand the training.

This program represents a gateway to a thriving industry, livable wages and a vibrant future. Everyone can see the possible benefits.

The key is to deliver on that potential, and we’re well on our way.

Local schools looking to hire more full-timers

BY RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

Several of Northeast Ohio’s universities are looking to decrease their reliance on part-time faculty and boost the number of full-time educators on their payrolls — even if those new faculty members aren’t on the coveted tenure-track career path.

The reason for doing so, they say, is that full-time faculty members can build better relationships with students, although part-time educators, many of whom are still entrenched in their respective industries, can bring much-needed professional expertise to the classroom.

The local hiring push comes amid a national debate over the treatment of part-time or adjunct faculty. Critics argue that many have trouble earning a living wage and don’t receive health care coverage from their employers. In Northeast Ohio, the numbers show that trend toward fewer part-time educators is already underway, though unions would like to see that shift happen faster.

Bill Sledzik, spokesman for the Kent State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said there’s been a lag in getting people replaced after they leave the university, causing more of a reliance on part-time faculty members. But those teachers often don’t make a living wage, Sledzik said, and they’re not on campus to help students like full-time faculty.

“This is a national problem,” Sledzik said.

However, Kent State has already increased its full-time faculty in recent years, with a focus on nontenure-track educators.

The non-tenure-track, full-time faculty are part of the union and get health care coverage, so Todd Diacon, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, said it was a more humane way to deal with the university’s needs — increased enrollment coupled with decreased funding — than relying on part-time faculty. The number of non-tenuretrack, full-time faculty increased from 509 in 2013 to 554 in 2015 for the entire university system.

Kent State, however, is in need of the research produced by a tenured faculty and those on the tenure track, so the university is looking to hire about 50 more in the next five to 10 years. Also, Diacon said Kent State’s regional campuses, where enrollment has slipped as the economy has improved, will be asked to share more of their tenure-stream faculty.

Part-time faculty numbers have been stable at the regional campuses and decreasing slightly at the Kent campus, and they still have a place in the university’s strategy.

Some professional programs such as law, flight technology or journalism benefit from part-time faculty members, who have expertise in the in-

dustry, Diacon said.

“We try to be very strategic in our hiring of part-time faculty,” Diacon said.

Different approaches Cleveland State University relies on different groups of educators to support the different parts of its mission. The university relies on tenure and tenure-track faculty to conduct research and teach graduate-level and upper-division courses, so there’s still a need for a group of faculty members to focus solely on teaching, primarily at the undergraduate level, said Jianping Zhu, the university’s interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

“We try to be very strategic in our hiring of part-time faculty.”

— Todd Diacon, Kent State senior vice president for academic affairs and provost Teresa LaGrange, Cleveland State’s vice provost for academic planning, said the old model of universities with a single mission no longer applies, “if it ever did.” The university needs different types of teachers to create an adaptable, “well-rounded” faculty, she said.

The number of so-called lecturers — full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members — at Cleveland State has increased, said William Morgan, vice provost for faculty affairs. The teachers, who are part of the union and earn an annual salary, have played an increasingly vital role at the school. Non-tenure-track faculty increased from 99 to 124 from 2013 to 2015. In 2011, there were only 67 non-tenure-track faculty members.

Robert A. Krebs, president of the Cleveland State chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said his big push has been to hire full-time employees who can become “career faculty.” That means teachers who are fully engaged with their departments and with whom students and alumni can develop relationships.

Krebs said the university had yet to reduce its reliance on part-time faculty, but that the trend is starting to move in the right direction. The part-time numbers had increased in recent years, but fell from 608 to 595 last year.

Baldwin Wallace University has made the hiring of more full-time faculty part of its ongoing strategic plan, which was introduced last year.

It’s a “measure of quality,” said provost Stephen Stahl. The universi-

ty has good adjunct faculty, he said, but it’s after the relationship that fulltime faculty can build with students.

The long-term goal is to have 75% of undergraduate sections, including lectures, studios and labs, taught by full-time faculty. That goal doesn’t apply to lessons, many of which are music-related and benefit from someone with professional expertise.

Already, the university has moved that percentage from about 56% last year to about 63% this year, he said.

“We’re making progress quicker than I thought we’d make progress,” Stahl said.

Righting a wrong?

Starting next year, the University of Akron is looking to hire more fulltime faculty, as it looks to right something of an emergency measure it took a few years ago.

When the Affordable Care Act was implemented, the university opted to move a number of its long-time, part-time faculty into the category of full-time visiting faculty, a change that allowed those former part-time faculty members to have benefits.

Rex Ramsier — the university’s interim senior vice president and provost, senior vice provost — said it was viewed as the right thing to do at the time to deal with changes in health care requirements, but now, the school wants to make sure there’s not a perception that it’s using the full-time visiting faculty instead of hiring bargaining unit faculty. The visiting faculty members are supposed to be used as temporary employees who fill in when someone retires or takes leave. The school went from about 60 visiting faculty in 2013 to 107 in 2015.

Next year, the University of Akron is going to open roles filled by visiting faculty to those in the bargaining unit, both tenured and non-tenured, based on department or school needs. The number of visiting faculty will go down by about half, Ramsier estimated.

“We are trying to hire as many full-time faculty as we can, but we have to be mindful of the cost,” Ramsier said.

John Zipp, president of Akron’s American Association of University Professors chapter, said the union has been having a good discussion with the university about the role of visiting faculty and the plans to replace them with tenure and nontenure-track faculty. The union wanted the university to commit to a percentage for each, which didn’t happen, Zipp said, but the conversation is ongoing. The union is concerned with having an appropriate mix, especially as a research university with a need for tenured faculty.

The part-time numbers will also likely decrease as full-time stays steady. Enrollment has been dropping, and part-time faculty is needbased, though it can also bring professional expertise to the classroom, Ramsier said. The number of parttime faculty has fallen from 1,022 in 2013 to 849 in 2015.

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Business of Life

Snapology Lego classes promote creative fun

BY CHUCK SODER Thanks to Snapology, Jack is now a Lego maniac.

His mom couldn’t be happier.

At age 4, Jack was a pretty shy kid. He didn’t even like birthday parties. And he was more likely to watch his parents put together a Lego set than do it himself.

Then, just over a year ago, his parents dropped him off at his first Snapology class in Shaker Heights.

Today, he’s programming Lego robots, putting together sets designed for 9 year olds and describing his creations in front of other kids.

Catherine Levy credits Snapology for helping her son, now 5, come out of his shell.

“He’s blossomed. It’s been an extraordinary situation,” she said.

That’s the kind of impact Gina Cuffari wants to have on kids who attend Snapology’s classes, workshops and parties.

Some of Snapology’s events are just for fun.

Others are designed to get kids interested in topics like engineering and computer programming. For instance, a child who attends the engineering course will learn about a different mechanical principal each week, according to Cuffari.

“Kids are creating catapults and windmills and cars, but they’re all learning about simple machines,” she said.

But every Snapology event — even a superhero-themed birthday party — encourages kids to think creatively and work together, Cuffari said. And before they go home, the kids get to practice their public speaking skills by telling the group about whatever they just built.

“It’s building confidence because they’re talking about something they’re interested in,” she said.

Cuffari started the Shaker Heights branch of Snapology in 2014. At the time, she was looking to open a business that would also allow her to spend time with her sons, Mylo, 8, and Nico, 4. She liked the idea of a Lego-related business: Back in 2014, Mylo was just getting into Legos, and she “could absolutely see him learning through play.”

Plus, an old colleague of hers had already opened a Snapology branch in Texas, so Cuffari decided to learn more about the Pittsburgh-based company, which has 23 locations listed on its website. She was sold after she met the owners, sisters Laura and Lisa Coe, who have backgrounds in math and science.

“They were so genuine in their desire to make an impact with the program,” she said.

Now Cuffari is organizing an average of 10 to 12 events per week in Shaker Heights and nearby communities. They’re led by instructors who all have some sort of experience in an educational setting, she said, noting that they’re private contractors.

She’s hoping to become her company’s first full-time employee within two years, Cuffari said. And she eventually hopes to expand to the west side.

“It’s going great. I think there’s plenty more to do. ... There’s a whole lot of opportunity for growth,” she said on April 5, just before a class was about to begin.

About 10 kids gathered in the party room at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop near John Carroll University. There, they built all sorts of structures — a baseball stadium, a jail, a zoo — while using two giant bags of Legos. And they imagined elaborate scenarios for each (at

Kids are encouraged to get creative with Legos at classes, workshops and parties organized by Snapology. (McKinley Wiley photos)

Alex Messeloff talks with Gina Cuffari, who started the Shaker Heights Snapology branch.

Scarlett Lehner pulls a wheel from a giant bag of Legos.

the stadium, superheroes and security guards were working together to stop the Green Goblin, by the way).

Jack’s team built what he described as a “super city” complete with landing pads and radio towers that can spot “bad guys who are coming into the city.”

His 3-year-old sister Nell didn’t make the presentation for her team, but she has in the past. That surprised her mother, who noted that her daughter also has struggled with shyness.

“I thought, ‘You presented? You can hardly get off my shoulder sometimes,’ ” Levy said.

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Source Lunch The 2016 Bridgestone Invitational will be Don Padgett III’s 10th as executive director.

His father, Don, started as the head pro at Firestone Country Club in Akron in 1980, and eventually became general manager. A little more than a quarter-century later, his son was running an event that is one of the PGA Tour’s premier showcases.

The 41-year-old Padgett said he grew up on the course. He left Northeast Ohio for a job with the PGA Tour in Jacksonville, Fla., for six years, but returned home when he landed his current role in 2007. It’s safe to say he was thrilled with the opportunity.

“To be able to come back and have that be your job, I’m very fortunate and have a lot of fun with it every day that I go to work,” he said.

Don Padgett III GOLF

— Kevin Kleps

What’s tournament week like for you?

Honestly, I just try to spend as much face time as I can with our supporters. Thank them for being there. They’re the reason that we have the success for the tournament and we’re able to give back the charity dollars. So if I can go around and shake their hands and personally thank them, kinda give them the inside scoop of what’s going on that week — they enjoy that and they like that. It’s really just taking care of our clients. Our season is five days (the Wednesday practice round, followed by the four days of competition). That’s the touch point that we have when everything’s going on with them. So I would say probably 80% of it is that.

What’s your proudest accomplishment at the Bridgestone?

I’m proud of the dollars that go back (to charity) — that running tally of the dollars that go back (more than $24 million entering 2016). May 11 at the Bridgestone Akron Technical Center, we’ll have that charity celebration. That’s when we announce it to the community, and we’ll have some of the charities there and they can tell you how they’re using those dollars. That’s kinda when it hits home. It makes you think about what really matters.

How many times did you play against Tiger Woods in the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship?

Once — in 1991 at Bay Hill. You play the first two rounds and you qualify for match play. I won my first two matches, and so did he. We met in the round of 16. He beat me on the last hole, so I’m one of the thousands that he’s beat. I was 16 and he was 15. Long time ago.

But you feel like you should’ve beaten him?

I putted out of my mind that day. I made a lot of putts over 20 feet, which any golfer will tell you if you do that in one round, there’s some skill and there’s some luck involved.

But we had a good match. We didn’t say much to each other after the second hole. It was like, “Game on.” I remember him shaking my hand afterward and saying it was a hell of a match, and I said, “Well, good luck the rest of the way.” And he went on to win. He went on to win a lot after that.

The PGA Tour is obviously trying to get more kids interested in golf. What do you think has to be done?

My kids are all in the First Tee program (which promotes life and leadership skills through golf). I think they’ve done a great job of making golf fun for my kids. And they’ve also had some healthy habits

worked into that. I think the game as a whole has to just continue to think about how to make it more convenient for the golfer, with time being important and valuable to everybody. Whether that’s more nine-hole rounds, whether it’s figuring out ways for people like me who like to find ways to play very early so the rest of their whole day isn’t eaten up … It’s continuing to cater to the customer. As many ways as they can figure out how to do that, and it’s not easy, is what needs to happen.

How much more important is fan experience now?

I think it’s very important. Everybody likes that special experience. At times, it’s challenging to figure out how to do a special experience for 25,000 people. We look at how you do that. The food is extremely important. We’ve seen it in our surveys. A lot of people that come to the tournament, you have that big golf fan, that hard-core golf fan, they just want to come out and see it. And then you have that person along with them, whether it’s a spouse, a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

They enjoy the tournament, but we’ve found that the food experience for them is even more important. If they have a good lunch or they get into that, they’re like, “Yeah, I’ll go back a second day.

Let’s go back next year.”

FIVE THINGS: NUMBERS GAME The Bridgestone Invitational recently increased its full-time staff from five to six. An army of 1,100 volunteers is the key to it all.

FULL HOUSE Padgett and his wife, Kellie, have three children between ages 7 and 10.

“Never a dull moment,” he said.

GOLF HABITS Padgett plays a round every Saturday morning “no matter what.” When the Bridgestone ends, he sometimes is able to squeeze in a second game each week.

FAVORITE COURSE TO PLAY Pinehurst No. 2

STAYING PUT

Padgett’s father and grandfather both worked at Pinehurst, a luxury resort in North Carolina. Is he next? “No, no,” he said, laughing.

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The bill $36.72, plus tip

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said. “The philosophy has to do with exposing students to those opportunities. By their freshman and sophomore year, they might’ve heard about the Big Four, but maybe not the regionals.”

The early bird …

Competition for talent is certainly nothing new.

With the accounting industry in a growth spurt right now, though, regional firms in particularly competitive markets like Northeast Ohio’s are striving to attract the brightest young students as they vie for staff against not only their peers, but the largest national firms.

For smaller firms, competing with giant counterparts with recognizable brands, massive staffs and deep pockets can be an uphill fight. That’s why earlier exposure is so critical today.

“It’s about getting in front of candidates early due to the number of opportunities presented to accounting students,” said Hallie Sly, human resources manager for Clevelandbased Cohen & Co. It’s not just CPA firms battling each other anymore. Accounting majors are in demand for a variety of other sectors, from traditional investment banking to more modern data analysis and anti-money laundering industries. Some of those jobs simply didn’t exist several years ago.

“There’s definitely a battle for people,” said Jim Rollings, partnerin-charge of the Cleveland-based Meaden & Moore’s assurance and tax service group who also leads recruitment efforts.

Rollins said he’s not sold on the notion that finding people is necessarily harder, but it undoubtedly

takes more effort and more resources, and it’s generally “more important” today.

“We’re spending a lot more time on that compared with five years ago,” he said. “If you’re not getting in front of these people early, you’re not going to get the best students.”

“If you’re not doing these things, if you’re not forward looking, you’re going to fall behind.”

— Mark Ross, PwC Lake Erie market managing partner

Talent is so important that it even has become a leading strategic driver in firm mergers.

When Illinois-based Sikich LLP announced its acquisition of Brockman, Coats, Gedelian & Co. last week, the latter firm’s cofounder cited the perk of joined staff. In an internal presentation about the deal, the opening slide read “talent, talent, talent,” said BCG co-founder David Brockman.

“Especially with the baby boomer generation retiring, there’s going to be a huge void to fill,” he said.

“Firms able to recruit the best people and develop and bring them along quickly are the ones who are going to be the most successful.”

Bigger isn’t always better While it seems larger firms might have an advantage in recruitment, that’s not always the case.

Large firms here say they feel the competition just the same. In Northeast Ohio, big corporations may lack appeal to the more personal and hometown feel of a locally based regional firm. The professional opportunities can be inherently different, too.

Industry reports in recent years do, in fact, single out talent acquisition as the No. 1 challenge facing companies.

According to a June 2015 report by the Journal of Accountancy, as recently as 2011, firms were most concerned with signing new clients.

2013 saw a shift to concerns for long-term growth strategies.

Today, attracting and retaining top talent is far and away the top concern for firms of all sizes — other than small and solo outfits.

That’s not only putting upward pressure on wages, but pushing some of the largest companies into offering lucrative bonuses and creative incentives.

It’s even reshaping corporate cultures. Take Pricewaterhouse Coopers, for instance.

One of the firm’s newest — and most popular programs, besides an annual three-day trip to Disney World for new hires coming out of their internship program, — just started this year. The firm now may offer to help pay down a new hire’s college loan debt to the tune of potentially $1,200 a year until they make manager (which might take six years).

It’s something PwC Lake Erie market managing partner Mark Ross helped champion because it underscores a corporate mission of addressing wider economic and societal issues, he said. And that’s something of increasing importance

to the millennial crowd, which Ross said comprises nearly 80% of the entire PwC workforce.

Beyond that financial incentive, the notion of corporate devotion to broader issues in the world — like addressing historically high levels of student loan debt — resonates with young people. Work-life balance, volunteer opportunities and the ability to move through different company roles are other desires surfacing with that crowd.

“A company’s success today has to involve more than the bottom line,” Ross said. “And I’m convinced that delivering sustainable profit requires a clear and consistent linkage between a firm’s purpose and the strategy for people.

“At least, that’s the way we look at it,” he said.

Joe Matuszewski, Ernst & Young’s campus recruiting partner for Northeast Ohio, said between the Cleveland Akron operations the firm intends to hire some 100 professionals off campus for entry-level positions alone.

“Developing the right recruiting strategy is critically important because the war for talent is real and because for some of our practices, demand exceeds supply,” he said.

“We have more openings than we do people to fill them, so it’s vital for our continued growth that we’re able to identify the right candidates with the right skills and experiences.”

He added that locally, competition is still fierce because “we’re competing with companies with a strong legacy in the region” and those other sectors seeking out accounting majors. EY offers its own multiyear internship program and has been targeting first-year accounting majors to propagate that pipeline.

“If you’re not doing these things, if you’re not forward looking,” Ross said, “you’re going to fall behind.”

Ben Venue complex could come back to life Xellia Pharmaceuticals has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that could allow the company to bring the former Ben Venue Laboratories complex back to life.

Xellia and the FDA reached an agreement on how to modify a consent decree that currently prevents the Danish company from making pharmaceuticals at the site.

A news release from Xellia stated that the Modified Consent Decree “sets out the process with which Xellia must comply in order to commence manufacturing activities at the site.”

The massive complex was put under a consent decree in January 2013, when it was owned by Ben Venue Laboratories Inc. Ben Venue closed the plant at the end of 2013, after spending years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fix problems identified by regulators.

In the release, Xellia stated that it “is investing significantly in the facilities to commence manufacturing of sterile injectable anti-infective products by the end of 2017.” By then, the company aims to have 170 employees at the site.

“We are making considerable progress at the site and have already established an experienced team of more than 50 employees,” CEO CarlÅke Carlsson stated in the news release.

The complex was purchased by Hikma Pharmaceuticals, a British company, in 2014. Hikma sold “substantial parts of the site” to Xellia in November 2015.

— Chuck Soder

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