Crain's Cleveland Business

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VOL. 37, NO. 24

JUNE 13 - 19, 2016

Source Lunch

Business of Life

Museum of Natural History’s Evalyn Gates Executive director and CEO is grateful for a life spent in science. Page 24

Cleveland companies team up with MLB

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The List

Largest privately held companies. Page 27

Page 23

TECHNOLOGY

GOVERNMENT

RNC isn’t welcoming for every business

Nonprofit uses tech to solve community problems

Gateway District firms hurt by work

OneCommunity becomes DigitalC

By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh

By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

Lev Gonick will correct you if you accidentally refer to DigitalC by its old name: OneCommunity.

The nonprofit has become a completely new organization focused on using technology to improve Northeast Ohio — and, eventually, other regions.

Improve those regions how? No, DigitalC will not be laying fiber and selling ultrafast internet service. That was OneCommunity’s main focus until last year, when it sold its forprofit Everstream subsidiary and the vast majority of its fiber network. Instead, the new nonprofit aims to help civic leaders craft digital strategies designed to help solve community problems — while launching a few of its own tech-related initiatives.

Two data-related initiatives are already well underway: The Cleveland-based group is in the process of building a platform that would suck in all sorts of real-time information that organizations could use to solve community problems. And this summer it plans to launch the SmartData Bootcamp, a part-time crash course in data analytics.

The nonprofit also wants to eventually create coworking spaces that feature programming designed to attract entrepreneurs, corporate innovators and even people who need SEE DIGITALC, PAGE 26

MIDDLE MARKET

Meet Christmas Ale’s newest gatekeeper McKinley Wiley

Pat and Dan Conway, the founders of the Great Lakes Brewing Co., have tapped Bill Boor as the brewery’s first CEO. They’ve charged the Harvard grad with orchestrating the brewery’s next phase of growth. FOCUS, Page 15 Get to know Akhia, Page 16 | Brandmuscle’s digital push, Page 17 | Tax Tips, Page 20

Entire contents © 2016 by Crain Communications Inc.

Lisa and Mike Rubin can thank the Republican National Party for the opportunity to take an extended, week-long vacation this summer — their first in more than a decade — instead of their usual long weekends scattered throughout the warm weather months.

They run street-level businesses in the Caxton Building on Huron Road in Cleveland’s Gateway District.

That’s near ground zero for next month’s presidential nominating convention.

Mike has owned Prospect Music for 30 years. Lisa, an optician, owns Jerold Optical, a business her father founded in 1946. The businesses have been in the neighborhood, in one location or another, for their entire lives.

Both are closing for the week of the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday, July 18. The Rubins will spend their time on the beach in North Carolina.

They’re looking forward to the getaway but, like any retailer, they’re not happy about anything that gets in the way of customers reaching the front door. Especially since their neighborhood has seen more than its share of disruptions in the last year.

Things will get better when the Republicans leave town, they say, but downtown businesses like theirs will struggle to thrive.

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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While regional natural gas prices remain among the lowest in the world, Ohio drillers got some promising news this month about the construction of pipelines and, more significantly, a big ethane cracker.

Royal Dutch Shell finally said it has decided to move forward with its $4 billion ethane cracker near the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pa. The massive facility is expected to employ 6,000 during three or four years of construction and 600 to run it afterward. But it has the potential to impact both drillers and Northeast Ohio’s plastics and specialty chemical industries in far bigger ways, which is why economic developers and the oil and gas industry have both seen getting one built here as the ultimate victory in exploiting the state’s newfound shale resources.

The American Chemistry Council was quick to applaud the announcement, which the group’s president and CEO, Cal Dooley, called “another sign that a renaissance in American chemistry is underway. … Our competitive edge will mean new jobs and exports and a stronger manufacturing sector for years to come.”

Shell’s facility would take massive amounts of ethane — the chief product of Utica and Marcellus shale gas wells, aside from methane — and turn it into ethylene. Ethylene, in turn, is used to make polyethylene.

They are two of the chief ingredients of a low-cost plastics and specialty chemical industry.

“Ethane, a natural gas liquid, is the U.S. chemical industry’s main feedstock,” according to the ACC. For places like Akron and other parts of Northeast Ohio, which are laden with businesses and technology institutions dedicated to the chemical and plastics industries, the development of Shell’s cracker would have about the same effect as moving their source of raw materials from the Gulf Coast to a site closer than Pittsburgh, economists say.

Industry backers and government officials in Ohio and western Pennsylvania say the facility will bolster the region’s existing industry and help it expand as more companies and production facilities locate here to take advantage of the new raw materials. And Northeast Ohio is a lot closer to more of the U.S. population than the Gulf region, which helps when these same companies ship their finished products, or so the logic goes.

A little help here For drillers, the facility could be a virtual lifeline.

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Ohio drillers are suffering from having too few pipelines causing their gas to be “shut in” to the region and its world’s-worst prices.

Also problematic is that the gas they do bring up is “wet” with ethane. That’s a good thing, if ethane prices are high and there’s a ready buyer. But with low prices and no large cracker complex nearby, Ohio drillers often have had to pay more to remove and ship their ethane than they get selling it — because if they don’t, they often can’t send their gas through a pipeline without doing so.

Shell’s cracker would take up much of the region’s ethane and turn it into valuable raw materials.

It also could start a chain reaction resulting in other cracker’s being built, once other investors see that the region has a working ethane supply chain and productive drillers.

“It’s a great announcement. By the time the (drilling) industry picks back up and has its feet under it again, it will be built, and that’s a good thing,” said Shawn Bennett, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

“The benefits are going to span across the region,” Bennett predicted. “Just being within the proximity of the ethane cracker is going to spin off huge opportunities in the downstream sector. A number of manufacturing opportunities are going to pop up, as well as the stuff that’s already here.”

But, projects like the one Shell plans to build don’t quickly spring from the ground like gushers. The company said it will begin construction in about 18 months and complete the facility sometime in the 2020s, so drillers are expecting to wait five or six years before they are selling to it regularly and in high volumes. Even Bennett conceded that the industry could go from bust to boom and back again before the new cracker comes online.

In the pipeline Meanwhile, one thing the oil and gas industry hopes will help it in Ohio is the development of more pipelines to take natural gas to markets with prices better than the $1 to $2 per mcf drillers get in Appalachia, and to take their ethane to the Gulf Coast for processing.

On that front, about 175 industry participants got some upbeat updates from pipeline developers last Wednesday, June 8, at the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Midstream conference.

Erika Young, project director for Texas-based Spectra Energy, said her company’s proposed Nexus pipeline is on track to be built and online by the end of 2017. The $2 billion, 255-mile line would be three feet or more in diameter and deliver up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day to Ontario, Canada, as well as to Volume 37, Number 24 Crain’s s Cleveland Bus sines ss (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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customers in Michigan and Northwest Ohio.

The project has met with opposition in places like Green and Medina County, where officials and residents say it will stifle development because nothing can be built along its route, and also present a danger to populated areas.

Young and other Spectra representatives have assured opponents the pipeline will be safe. But many residents aren’t convinced. It didn’t help that another Spectra pipeline in Pennsylvania blew up in April, engulfing several homes in flames and creating an explosion residents said they felt 6 miles away.

Opponents also say there’s no reason the Nexus pipeline needs to go through more populated areas of northern Ohio, but Young said it does. She contends the company has important customers signed up along that portion of the route, though she did not name them.

“Being able to serve these markets is critical to the project,” Young said.

She also said her company has received the important go-aheads it needs from federal regulators to proceed with the project so far and is “marching along on target with our schedule.”

Springing into action The Canton group also got reports that two other pipelines — Marathon’s Cornerstone line and Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline — are moving ahead. Marathon commercial development senior engineer Jason Stechschulte said his company’s line will begin carrying natural gas liquids from processing plants in eastern Ohio to its Canton refinery later this year.

Energy Transfer will begin work on its Rover project late this year.

The company expects the line will begin operating in Ohio by the middle of 2017 and will deliver up to 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Utica and Marcellus shale plays to markets across the United States and Canada.

All of the projects are sorely needed, said Bennett of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. Drilling has virtually stopped in Ohio, with the state only issuing 16 drilling permits in May, down from 40 in May 2015.

Drillers in the state have had to sell their gas on the cheap, at prices far lower than they could receive in other parts of the country.

“What the Appalachian basin has lacked is end-users,” Bennett said.

But he thinks the new cracker and pipelines will help.

“A lot of people looked at oil and gas as the answer to problems in eastern Ohio, in terms of unemployment,” Bennett said. “I’ve always looked at oil and gas more as the springboard. … The long-term effects of the gas and that cracker are going to be multi-generational, in terms of jobs and opportunities.”

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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An expansion for Oswald Cos. of both staff and practice groups has received a jolt from the firm’s acquisition of fellow well-known Northeast Ohio insurance firm The Hoffman Group.

The deal, which closed last week, grows Oswald’s staff by more than 12% and breaks the firm into new service areas — like transportation and health care — that have been on the their radar for some time. The combination also extends new services to legacy Hoffman clients.

Terms of the transaction between the privately held companies were not disclosed.

Hoffman, founded in 1918, has a client base predominantly centered on Northeast Ohio. With a focus on middle market companies, the two have been competitors for some time in this region. Oswald was founded in 1893 and bills itself as one of the country’s largest independent insurance brokerage and risk management firms.

Besides cultural similarities, the merger was attractive because it adds depth to current practice areas, like those in construction, manufacturing and life sciences the firm has been working to grow, while bringing on some new niche expertise, according to Oswald president and chief operating officer Dave Jacobs.

“Transportation and health care

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 RELEASED Fifties Car Wash Inc. 18534 Pearl Road, Strongsville Date filed: April 15, 2015 Date released: Feb. 19, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $163,857 Fifties Car Wash Inc. 18534 Pearl Road, Strongsville Date filed: April 15, 2015 Date released: Feb. 19, 2016 Type: Unemployment, failure to file complete return, corporate income Amount: $32,528

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are areas where Oswald hasn’t built a true large practice. Hoffman has.

And we were looking to break in there,” said Jessica Jung, Oswald’s director of property and casualty.

“Those are big in Northeast Ohio; I look at Northeast Ohio as a health care mecca. And the growth of the aging service industry is an absolute reality that we are now able to capitalize on in a much stronger way.”

Hoffman has about 40 employees, all of whom are joining Oswald in some capacity and bringing their clients along. That will bring the total staff at Oswald to about 355.

At least 50 professionals were hired last year, Jacobs said.

“That was a little heavier year,” he said, “but as we have success in the marketplace, we will be adding even more jobs.”

Hoffman had been approached numerous times about a merger before accepting a deal with Oswald.

“We had actually talked to many equity groups, publicly traded companies, and we felt Oswald offered the best opportunities to our staff and customers,” said Hoffman president Brian Russell, adding he’ll stay on with the company in a consulting capacity.

Jacobs declined to share annual revenues at Oswald, but he said the firm has an annual growth target of 15% that it’s at least met the last several years with the help of some acquisitions. Hoffman, meanwhile, had been growing at a rate of about 12% the last three years, Russell said.

“While organic growth really fuels our engine, we are always looking for opportunities to strengthen the firm,” Jacobs said. “With the level of staff they have in those industry segments, this makes us much stronger.

It’s really additive to our strategy for growth.”

The acquisition marks Oswald’s fifth in the past five years. Its last came with the purchase of Columbus-based Group Benefits Specialists Inc. in May 2014. That merger marked the first expansion of Oswald’s Columbus office.

In addition to the Columbus office and its Cleveland headquarters — which is also growing with the addition of 14,000 square feet of space at Oswald Centre, creating 86,000 square feet of office space across four floors — Oswald has offices in Akron, Cincinnati, Toledo and Detroit.

Hoffman has offices in Medina, which will serve as a new office for Oswald, and Berea, whose operations will merge into the Cleveland space.

Hoffman will be branded as “an Oswald company” through the remainder of the 2016 and take on its new moniker with the first of the year.

Fifties Car Wash Inc. 18534 Pearl Road, Strongsville Date filed: Aug. 15, 2007 Date released: Feb. 18, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $10,303 Harb S. Marathon LLC 8536 Timber Trail, Brecksville Date filed: Sept. 15, 2008 Date released: Feb. 1, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $17,537

Harb S. Marathon LLC 8536 Timber Trail, Brecksville Date filed: June 9, 2008 Date released: Feb. 1, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $8,615 JW Auto Corp.

16917 Euclid Ave., Cleveland Date filed: Oct. 10, 2013 Date released: Feb. 2, 2016 Type: Corporate income Amount: $22,778 JWT & A L L C an LLC 3615 Superior Ave., Suite 1J, Cleveland Date filed: Oct. 8, 2015 Date released: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment Amount: $25,787 JWT & A L L C an LLC 3615 Superior Ave., Suite 1J, Cleveland Date filed: Dec. 11, 2015 Date released: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $19,013 Lakeside Building Services Inc. P.O. Box 470433, Broadview Heights Date filed: May 30, 2013 Date released: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment Amount: $34,831

MDW Hot Tamales Inc. 24600 Euclid Ave., Euclid Date filed: Dec. 1, 2008 Date released: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, unemployment, failure to file complete return Amount: $8,222 MMK Group Inc. P.O. Box 445, North Olmsted Date filed: May 15, 2012 Date released: Feb. 2, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $62,296 Northern Interiors Ltd. 22082 Lorain Road, Fairview Park Date filed: April 21, 2015 Date released: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding Amount: $6,218 Perco Pizza Co. Tiffanys Pizza & Grinders 5035 Turney Road, Garfield Heights Date filed: April 23, 2013 Date released: Feb. 3, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, corporate income Amount: $21,802 P L A N Enterprises Inc. 20898 Drake Road, Strongsville Date filed: Nov. 12, 2015 Date released: Feb. 11, 2016 Type: Employer’s withholding, corporate income Amount: $11,622

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 7

Cleveland ‘winning’ rights to big events

By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps

While speaking with a reporter on Wednesday, June 8, David Gilbert had to think about what day it was for a second.

Once he remembered the date, he said, “In 45 days, everybody goes home.”

Gilbert, the president and CEO of the Cleveland Host Committee, was referring to the Republican National Convention, which wraps up July 21.

It was a light moment for someone who banks on visitors coming back, and bringing friends and family the next time.

Before the convention comes to town, one of the other two organizations Gilbert oversees, the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, will have hosted two major events in a three-week span. The first, the Donate Life Transplant Games, kicked off June 10 and shattered the event’s registration record with more than 6,000 competitors. On June 30, the five-day Continental Cup — a sports commission-owned international youth sports festival that was created after the success of the 2004 International Children’s Games in Cleveland — begins.

“It’s interesting now with the Republican National Committee in town — it’s really the largest event that Cleveland can host,” Gilbert said. “It’s awesome, and what it can do for our community long term is awesome.

“The sports commission,” Gilbert added, “has been proving for the last 15 years that people and organizations are choosing to come to Cleveland. If you go back to the International Children’s Games, they were choosing Cleveland before Cleveland started to change.”

If that sounds like a pitch from someone whose third full-time job is heading up Destination Cleveland, Cuyahoga County’s convention and visitors bureau, that’s because it is. But the sports commission has the facts to back up their leader’s claims.

The Transplant Games, which are expected to produce about $8.1 million in economic activity, is the third large, national multisport event that Cleveland has hosted since 2013.

The National Senior Games, which had almost 11,000 participants and an estimated economic impact of $36.1 million, were here in 2013, and the Gay Games selected Cleveland for its 2014 event. That festival drew about 8,000 athletes and the economic impact was projected at $52.1 million.

“It shows that if you come up with the right business model and approach it the right way, you can win,” Gilbert said.

‘One-stop shop’ That model is bolstered by the sports commission and Destination Cleveland, both housed at 334 Euclid Avenue, working hand-in-hand.

The sports commission doesn’t just host a big event. Its staff of a dozen full-timers (not counting Gilbert), plus its stable of contractors and interns, can provide the logistics, marketing and community programming, and attract sponsors.

Marc T. Riker, CEO of the National Senior Games, said that was crucial for an organization that puts on

$8.1 million

$36.1 million

$52.1 million

the world’s largest multisport event for the 50-and-over crowd.

“You have two organizations that work under one umbrella,” Riker said. “That’s an easy model for an event organization. It’s a one-stop shop. If you have a question, everyone is there in the room, and you can work it out right there.”

The setup was a little different for the Gay Games, since the mammoth festival manages its events. But the games leaned heavily on the sports

commission, even working out of its Euclid Avenue offices for an extended period, said Tom Nobbe, who served as the executive director of the 2014 Gay Games.

“We relied on a lot of their expertise,” Nobbe said. “That’s what they do. We weren’t off somewhere in a storefront trying to get this thing off the ground. David was our board cochair. He was very, very involved.”

Mark Lembke, the sports commission’s senior director of events, said

the Transplant Games, which run through June 15, require nearly 2,000 volunteers to help run the 21 events.

“You have to be able to manage your time and juggle multiple things,” Lembke said. “We’re not just working on these events right now.

Last week (June 2), we were running a USA Wrestling event in Akron.

Once the Transplant Games are done, the Continental Cup starts. We have the (World) YoYo Contest after that (Aug. 3-6). There are six or sev-

Economic impact expected from the Donate Life Transplant Games, which opened June 10.

Economic impact from the National Senior Games, which had almost 11,000 participants in 2013.

Economic impact of the 2014 Gay Games, which had about 8,000 athletes participating.

en events you’re working on at once.”

NeoCycle, an urban cycling festival owned by the sports commission, starts in September. When that ends, a lot of the planning for 2017 really gets going.

In 2018, the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships loom. A year later, the U.S. Corporate Games will come to Cleveland for the first time.

“We are winning,” Gilbert said, after rattling off a few of the large cities Cleveland beat out in bids for the Gay Games and the 2007 NCAA Women’s Final Four. “Those lessons helped in us being awarded the Republican convention.”

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Architects have upbeat reviews of Hilton

By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter

Lots of hits and a few misses.

That summarizes how area architects who were not involved in development of the 32-floor Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel at Cleveland Convention Center describe the results at the recently opened building, the city’s 12th-tallest. The lead architect on the hotel was Cooper Carry of Atlanta.

Jack Bialosky, president of the AIA Cleveland Chapter and chairman of the city’s Downtown Design Review Committee, said, “It is a welcome addition to the skyline. I like the use of the glass exterior. I like the fact it has some unexpected moments where it reacts differently to the sky downtown.”

A ripple on the east side of the building, he said, helps make the building different and exciting.

However, Bialosky, whose firm is based in Midtown Cleveland, said he wished for more illumination of the building and more signage on the tower’s east and west sides as the landmark Hilton side is atop the north side facing Lake Erie.

“The relationship to the (Cuyahoga County Justice Center) is quite a contrast between the formidable building and the glass (hotel),” he said. “Otherwise I think it’s a building that plays well with its neighbors.

The angled top of the tower is a source of much debate. Some worry it’s trendy and may be outdated quickly, but most argue the building would suffer without it.

Robert Bostwick, president and design director at Cleveland-based Bostwick Design Partnership, likes the feature.

“The slight slope conveys a sense the building is addressing the lake; it’s looking north to our greatest asset, Lake Erie,” Bostwick said. He also likes the changeable look of the reflective glass.

“It separates the building from its context in a nice and subtle way,” Bostwick said. “Its slenderness (on the north and south sides) and verticality looks strong on the skyline. It’s a great addition to Cleveland’s architecture.”

Jennifer Coleman, an architect and former chairwoman of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission, said she likes the design for a convention-focused hotel.

“We needed a convention center hotel. We can check that off,” Coleman said. “It’s a simple, classic design that’s not out there in terms of the latest trends in architecture.”

Coleman, senior program officer for the arts at the Gund Foundation, said she prizes the entrance to the restaurant from Mall B. The restaurant is named Burnham’s to celebrate Daniel Burnham, the famous architect who designed the city’s Group Plan in 1903 for a public space, or mall, surrounded by primarily public buildings.

The severest critic is Bill Eberhard, managing partner of Eberhard Architecture LLC of Cleveland. Eberhard boiled over in comments on a Crain’s Cleveland Business photo of the skyscraper posted on Facebook.

“A pastiche of uncoordinated clichés — inside and out — that proves Cleveland’s design culture is worse than weak. And with taxpayer money, no less,” Eberhard wrote.

In an interview, Eberhard said he is most bothered by the “gratuitous plane” in the curtain wall of the building’s east side. The top, he said, does not contribute meaningfully

Clouds are mirrored in the reflective glass facade of the new Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel. (David Kordalski photo) and he feels the building design is not “uniquely Cleveland” despite the multitude of Cleveland-centric decorations inside the property.

However, Brian Fabo, president of Fabo Architecture of Cleveland, sees it differently.

“They really customized it to

Cleveland,” Fabo said. “The large sculptural steel piece in the lobby brings to mind the steel mills. It doesn’t look like every other glass façade skyscraper. They used some interesting horizontal canopies and grill work and put in the angle at the top. It’s pretty impressive.”

The interior design was praised by Paul R. Beegan, president of Lakewood-based Beegan Architectural Design.

“The ballrooms are of a very good scale,” Beegan said. “I like the glass walls in the meeting rooms so that natural light filters through. Normally when you go to conventions the ballroom and meeting rooms are in a big space in the middle. You have no idea what is going on outside.”

Usually, Beegan said, hotel corridors are terrible because of their length. However, the Hilton’s walls are designed to break up the monotony of the Hilton’s corridors and end in windows providing natural light.

“That is refreshing,” Beegan said.

“Overall, it’s pretty successful.”

To a person, the architects are excited about the 32nd-floor bar and restaurant, still getting its final touches, that has a terrace overlooking the lake.

The idea for a public space on the top floor was suggested at one of several public meetings on design that Cooper Carry held in 2013. Before that, Jeffrey Appelbaum, a lawyer and managing director of Project Managements Consultants of Cleveland, which ran the job for Cuyahoga County, said that space would have been an executive lounge.

Dave Robar, a director at the Vocon architecture firm in Cleveland, is enthusiastic about the structure. He said it measures up well against a classic standard of design, the column. Robar said the four-floor podium that houses the lobby and conference rooms serves as a base, the room tower plays the role of the shaft, and the roof’s angle serves as a top.

“If you didn’t have that,” Robar said, “people would say this is an overly simple glass building.”

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THE DISH: Lee Chilcote

Mizestro ‘wizard’ brings unique touch to Brecksville spot Lee Chilcote is a freelance writer and editor who has written for Vanity Fair, Next City, Belt and other publications. He is cofounder of Literary Cleveland.

These days, it’s crucial for restaurants to create a unique dining experience in order to get attention, but Mizestro, a 1-year-old restaurant in downtown Brecksville, has taken it to a whole other level.

In his cozy, contemporary dining room, chef-owner Matt Mize takes childlike glee in science experiments such as whisking up sorbet in cryogenic bowls; making “dragon’s breath” popcorn with dry ice that makes customers giggle as they blow smoke out of their mouths and noses; and even levitating small plates using a superconductor and an electromagnet floating on air.

That’s not all. He also makes tableside lollipops in about 45 seconds using an anti-griddle (customers love the squirt of alcohol when they reach the center). And recently he used a friend’s 3D printer to make glow-in-the-dark coasters that cause Mizestro’s cool cocktails to light up different colors.

“We’re not fine dining, we’re fun dining,” explained Mize, whose interest in the science of cooking was inspired by Spanish-American chef Jose Andres in Washington, D.C. Mize, who worked as the personal chef to the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and did culinary tours of duty with the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and acclaimed restaurateur Stephen Starr in Philadelphia, loves seeing the looks on customers’ faces when he performs. “It’s very unexpected and creates a great atmosphere,” he said.

“Chef Matt” came to Cleveland in

2012 when his wife, Jacquie Thomas, was recruited for a job with the Cleveland Browns under then-CEO Joe Banner. When Banner lost his job in 2014, she was out of work, too.

Yet the couple liked Cleveland so much that they decided to stay.

“The cost of living is low, plus the foodie scene is growing,” said Thomas. “We also knew that what Matt offers didn’t exist here.”

Last year, Mize left his job as executive chef for Bon Appetit Management at Case Western Reserve University to open his own restaurant.

When the couple stumbled on the empty storefront on Brecksville Road near the intersection of Route 82, they knew it was the one.

“I wanted to create my own entity and a reason for people to not have to go downtown all the time,” said Mize. “There’s parking and easy access. You can get here within 20 minutes from anywhere.”

Mize estimates that about 60% of his clientele are from the BrecksvilleBroadview Heights-Independence area, and the rest are from around the region. The unique food coupled with the laid-back atmosphere and must-see amuse-bouches draw customers, he said.

Mize places a premium on customer service. “I talk to every customer, and I think that’s a key part of my success,” he said.

Some of Mizestro’s most popular dishes include the 96-hour short ribs (a long weekend in the Marines is called “a 96,” hence the name), Asian-style chicken wings, and cheese steak egg rolls, an homage to the chef’s time in Philly. Other favorites include the sashimi, misomarinated sea bass, and beet salad.

Mizestro is considered kid-friend-

A

of places outside the city that don’t get enough credit. We wanted to bring this area more attention.”

Ohio Wagyu beef on menu

“We’re not fine dining, we’re fun dining,” says Mizestro chef-owner Matt Mize. (Lee Chilcote) ly, and of course, the families love dragon’s breath popcorn. “They call me the wizard, because I come out with magic,” Mize said.

Business is going strong and Mize hopes that Cleveland’s suburban food scene continues to grow.

“Since Cleveland became a foodie town, people just assume it’s downtown,” he said. “I think there are a lot

Urban Farmer, the farm-to-table restaurant at the Westin Hotel, recently became the first restaurant in Cleveland to offer Ohio Wagyu beef.

Executive chef Vishu Nath said he jumped on the opportunity after learning about Ohio Wagyu Farm in Navarre, Ohio.

“From a taste perspective, it’s the rich marbling that you get,” he said.

In-house butcher shops are all the rage these days, yet Urban Farmer’s extensive program aims to be a cut above the rest. Beneath the sleek, contemporary dining room, there’s a refrigerated room where the tender cuts of meat served to diners are broken down in house.

Vincent Delagrange, Urban Farmer’s butcher, said that the meatcutting facility is one of the few of its kind in the city. “We’re able to do certain cuts that you can’t get at grocery stores,” he said. Francis Pang of Ohio Wagyu Farm started working with Wagyu eight years ago. He bought embryos from a herd in Washington

and live animals. Currently, he sells to Ohio restaurants as well as individuals.

“The thing that makes it taste different is the fact that the fat is unsaturated, like olive oil,” he said. “When bred in Japan, they’re produced to plow the field and they store fat intramuscularly, whereas here they store fat on the exterior to keep warm.”

A single cut of Wagyu meat can sell for up to $70 a plate. Urban Farmer also does all of its charcuterie in house using Wagyu beef.

In addition, Urban Farmer makes its own sausage, and Delagrange uses fat from the animals to make tallow candles, tallow blue cheese butter, and even bearnaise sauce.

Urban Farmer has a special freezer for dry aging and wet aging meats.

The process helps the steak to mature, bringing out additional flavors and making it even more tender.

Delagrange said eating local carries social, environmental and economic benefits, and customers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for it.

“A lot of people don’t realize you can get Ohio Wagyu, and it’s only an hour away,” he said. “To have the quality product here is amazing.”

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Opinion From the Publisher / Editor

Opportunities exist in auto tech shortage

Editorial

Show the way It’s a memorable summer in Cleveland, and not just in ways made obvious by hosting the NBA Finals, the filming of a “Fast & Furious” movie and the Republican National Convention.

Those events are exciting — and potentially historic, if the Cavs pull off a comeback and Donald Trump doesn’t implode before late July — but their impacts on Cleveland largely are short-term. More lasting change, though, could be kicked off by the appointments of new CEOs at two of the region’s largest companies that help diversify the ranks of Cleveland’s corporate leaders.

On June 1, Craig Arnold became chairman and CEO of Eaton, the giant power management company with its U.S. headquarters in Beachwood. (He replaced longtime CEO Alexander M. “Sandy” Cutler, who reached Eaton’s mandatory retirement age.) Arnold is the only African-American CEO of a Northeast Ohio public company, and a prominent one at that; with a market capitalization of nearly $29 billion, Eaton is the largest company in the region.

Mayfield Village-based insurer Progressive Corp. on July 1 will have a new CEO in Tricia Griffith, currently personal lines chief operating officer, who will succeed Glenn Renwick in the job. Griffith will be the third woman at the helm of a public company in Northeast Ohio, joining KeyCorp’s Beth E. Mooney and Jenniffer Deckard of Fairmount Santrol Holdings, a Chesterland-based provider of high-performance sand and sand-based products.

With the additions of Arnold and Griffith to the CEO roster in Northeast Ohio, three of the eight largest companies in the region, ranked by market cap, are led by a woman or a minority. That’s a huge and important development in a region where power traditionally has been held — and let’s be frank, still largely is held — by white men.

Eaton and Progressive have done the region a favor by con-

ducting leadership transition processes that were inclusive and wound up installing CEOs with prodigious skills and strong track records.

When Arnold’s appointment as CEO was announced in June 2015, Brian Hall, the executive director of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Commission on Economic Inclusion, praised Eaton for a “passion and commitment to inclusion” and said, “I hope this appointment serves to encourage other (Northeast Ohio) companies to recognize (that) talent in their organizations should have the opportunity to rise to the highest levels.”

Progressive had that ethos in mind when it announced Griffith’s appointment in May. Stephen Hardis, the lead independent director of Progressive’s board, said the transition was “the culmination of years of planning … based on a timeframe that would ensure continuity of leadership and with an approach grounded in Progressive’s values and evolving business model.”

There’s still so much work to do for Corporate America to take full advantage of the talents of an increasingly diverse workforce.

Catalyst, a nonprofit with a mission to accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion, reported last week that women currently hold 21 CEO positions at S&P 500 companies, or just 4.2% of the top jobs.

There are five African-American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. (Arnold is not one of them, since Eaton technically is based in Ireland.)

Corporate boards, too, remain overwhelmingly white and male, which leaves companies without critical perspectives.

Two new CEOs don’t change the longstanding, deep-seated problem of the lack of diversity at the top of U.S. corporations. But Eaton and Progressive have shown that progress is possible when the problem is taken seriously.

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

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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

I was talking with my neighbor, Jeanine Hein, who lives and breathes the auto industry as the general manager of Serpentini Chevrolet in Strongsville. And her breathing grew a little rapid when she talked about the shortage of skilled auto mechanics and technicians and the impact it’s had on dealerships across the country.

The shortage is real, and it’s a real problem, and so, she told me, she must invest in her staff to ensure they don’t look elsewhere for a better opportunity.

“It’s extremely difficult to find technicians, which is why you want to hold on to them,” she said. “We have a good core of technicians, and we have very little turnover, which is unusual in the industry. I credit that to the fact that we pay extremely well and we incentivize them.”

Hein is not alone in doing what she can to attract and retain quality workers. Across the country, auto dealers and repair shops are facing the same reality: not enough people Elizabeth are in the pipeline to fill the looming gap of McIntyre skilled service workers as people retire.

The serious problem can be a seriously great opportunity for employment, one that dealerships and educators are working hard to capitalize on. It’s a great example of the kind of work that already happens, and needs to ramp up, in factories and foundries across the region.

How big is the opportunity? Crain’s sister publication Automotive News recently reported that more than 237,000 jobs are expected to open up in the automotive repair field between 2014-24, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As vehicles have become more advanced, the skill level of those repairing them has also needed to increase. That skills gap is where the problem starts, said Tim Matrino, vice president of fixed operations at the Bernie Moreno Cos., a chain of luxury car dealerships based in North Olmsted.

“Advancements in powertrains, safety systems and autonomous driving capabilities have created entirely new training requirements, which is a challenge for manufacturers and dealerships,” Matrino said. “Today’s technicians need to be as advanced as the cars themselves. That’s a seriously tall order.”

Compounding that, millennials are not as attracted to the profession as previous generations were.

“It’s difficult to attract young people because there is so much emphasis on, ‘You have to go to college,’ ” Hein said.

“Sometimes people feel it’s not as valuable to be a technician.

But they don’t realize my top technicians make six figures.”

So how do you interest young workers in these kinds of jobs and assure they have the skills to do them?

Hein has had success attracting younger workers in partnership with Cuyahoga Community College, which offers the two-yearlong General Motors Automotive Service Education Program. Students train in classrooms for eight weeks, then work for eight weeks with senior GM technicians at dealerships. Hein, who has used the program for about a decade, currently has two students on her staff. “Most of these students end up working for me,” she said. “I have 23 flat-rate technicians on staff; nine of them came through that program.”

Matrino, for his part, wants training to begin even earlier.

“I’d like to see more community support for vocational training starting at the high school level, including in the guidance offices,” he said. “The automotive sector is a fantastic field for today’s technology immersed young adults.”

He makes a great point, but I’m afraid not everyone saw it. I have a feeling we lost half our readers at “six figures,” when they went out to buy coveralls and a set of wrenches for their teenagers.

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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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 11

Personal View

Big wage hike could be huge issue

By GRANT GOODRICH The proposed legislation before Cleveland City Council to raise the minimum wage in the city of Cleveland to $15 an hour has the potential to be ruinous for the city’s budget and could lead to disastrous job loss within the city. City Council should study the short- and long-term impacts of this proposed legislation with extreme care before taking action, so as to avoid dealing a devastating blow to Cleveland’s economic revival.

Let me start by saying that I support a nationwide increase to the minimum wage. The loss of living wages has been and continues to be crippling to America’s middle and working classes. Today’s “good-paying factory jobs” — the ones that we tout we want to bring back from China and Mexico — don’t pay, in real terms, what they did 20 or 30 years ago. Families now need two or three jobs to make ends meet. This problem is well-documented.

However, an isolated, local solution to fix this problem is fundamentally flawed. Three issues make this a losing effort for Cleveland.

First, businesses have more choice than ever before as to where they locate. Businesses are looking for locations that represent the best place to do business, access to important markets and low cost of business.

If a location doesn’t meet any of these criteria, a company will not choose to do business there.

One of Cleveland’s greatest advantages in attracting companies and jobs during the recent revival has been the low cost of living and competitive wages. It is ironic that just as this legislation went to City Council, Team NEO released a Labor Cost Comparison Guide, showing Ohio’s strengths in the automotive industry due to lower “labor costs and a larger expert talent pool.”

Keeping labor costs competitive with surrounding communities and similar cities and markets is critical to retaining and attracting jobs to Cleveland.

For the first half of 2015, I led Team NEO, a regional economic development organization that attracts businesses to Northeast Ohio and advertises our region’s advantages to the world. I assure you attracting businesses is a blood sport. Cities and communities compete desperately and look for every advantage to attract new jobs.

Companies that may have been considering moving operations to Cleveland or adding jobs to existing facilities here will re-evaluate.

As the news broke that City Council was considering this legislation to raise the minimum wage, I am sure that some Cleveland companies received phone calls from Alabama, Indiana, Pennsylvania and others about moving operations to their states, where they can enjoy lower costs. Frankly, the cities of Elyria, Akron and Mentor probably made calls as well. A local minimum wage higher than that of our neighbors puts us at a significant disadvantage.

Second, many Cleveland businesses cannot afford

such a dramatic increase in payroll.

While there are public, high-profile examples of Fortune 500 companies that could pass profits along to their workers and staff, for most small to midsize businesses, an increase in the minimum wage means they will have to lay off workers.

Yes, people will lose their jobs because of this. Let’s say a coffee shop currently has enough revenue to pay three staff members $10/hour — or a total of $30 per hour for wages. By complying with the new minimum wage and increasing wages 50%, they would have to lay off one staff member. Sure, new businesses will continue to spring up. New coffee shops, too. But in Lakewood or Cleveland Heights, instead of Ohio City or University Circle.

The alternative to laying off staff is passing along the increased cost to the customer. Are we all willing to pay a lot more — as much as 50% more — to buy local? While some of us might be willing to do that in our neighborhoods, those businesses that primarily sell to businesses outside of Cleveland will find it difficult to compete.

The final problem is whether the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County can afford to pay an increased wage to some of its staff. Mayor Frank Jackson just asked City Council this past March to increase taxes in order to cover projected shortfalls to the budget in the next few years, and yet we may need to turn around and spend some of the tax increase on increased wages.

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish has had to cut some programs to keep within the county budget. What would be the impact on the city and county of compliance with this new legislation? While the county could easily move many minimum wage jobs out of the city, that option’s not available for Cleveland. Can we afford this without having to go back to the taxpayer for another increase?

Cleveland’s workers earning minimum wage deserve better. This is an issue that calls for our immediate attention at the national level.

However, Cleveland City Council needs to thoroughly study this matter before moving forward. In addition to analyzing the impact on the city’s and the county’s budgets, City Council members should talk to the businesses with large numbers of minimum wage workers and get their input as to how this law would affect their business and how it would affect jobs.

We have worked so hard to revitalize our city and grow our businesses. A Cleveland-only wage increase would really hurt our city and its residents.

Goodrich served as the CEO of Team NEO, a regional economic development organization, on an interim basis from December 2014 to June 2015. Prior to that, he was the director of regional strategy implementation at the Fund for Our Economic Future.

Web Talk Re: New Fortune 500 list

Re: Keeping peace at the RNC

It’s funny that Eaton Corp., which has its U.S. headquarters in Beachwood but is based in Ireland, and hundreds of other big companies are not listed because of their overseas headquarters. — Time for Tax Reform

Re: UA after Scott Scarborough

I hope the protesters remember that while it IS their right to voice their opinion in authorized areas (thankfully, we still have that right), it is NOT their right to destroy property or to become violent. Any chaos and/or destruction would not only take away any credibility they have but also highlight that they offer no reasonable alternative. — Tom

He tried to save a dying university. Facing $40 million annual deficits, he took his best shot at cutting costs and finding a new and more relevant marketing strategy for Akron. Wonder who would ever take this job next?

— John Mathers

The violence of protesters should be expected, and it appears city officials and police are preparing accordingly. Lawless radicals have been gathering their own riot experience and energy since Occupy Wall Street, and they are well-funded. — Rob

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Cleveland Construction builds base in Charlotte

By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter

Cleveland Construction Inc., the Mentor-based commercial general contractor, has opened a regional office in Charlotte, N.C., which marks its sixth permanent office nationwide and has triggered a change in key positions in the home market for the company.

David Sawicki, previously a vice president of construction here, heads the new Charlotte office for Cleveland Construction. He has been replaced

by Dan Dietrich, who was promoted to vice president of construction from senior project manager.

Sawicki called the move bittersweet because he is moving his family to the booming Charlotte market.

“I can see the effect of projects I’ve worked on in Dietrich downtown Cleveland, and it’s tough to leave,” Sawicki said in a phone interview. “But this offers opportunity for personal growth for me and the company. For us to grow, we have to have a strong foothold in other markets.”

In Charlotte, Sawicki will work to expand the company’s role in the mid-Atlantic states, using as a base

the firm’s 10-person field office. The field office is in place because the company is constructing a 17-story hotel atop an existing five-floor entertainment center in Charlotte.

The new hotel is a Marriott dualflagged AC Hotel and Residence Inn that is rising where a 50-story condo building originally was supposed to go. The first five floors got built in 2005 before construction stopped, only to be curtailed until after the Great Recession.

“A field office gives a sound footing to grow” and plant a long-term presence, Sawicki said.

Jobs Sawicki captained in Cleveland since Cleveland Construction became active in the downtown market in 2006 range from K&D

Group’s Residences at 668, Residences at the Hanna and Residences at 1717 to CRM Cos.’ Schofield Building, which houses the new Kimpton Hotel.

Dietrich has assumed control of a job that Sawicki started earlier this year downtown: conversion of most of the 15-floor Leader Building, 530 Superior Ave., to apartments, also for K&D. In the new job, Dietrich said he will focus more on business development and shift to job oversight from day-today management of construction.

He’ll also be traveling less, as he previously spent about 40% of his time on the road on projects. He most recently helped build the new Tanger Outlet Center north of Columbus, a 370,000-

square-foot shopping center that went up in a year.

Dietrich joined Cleveland Construction in August 2002 after he earned a bachelor of science in construction management and architecture from Bowling Green State University.

Sawicki called Dietrich “the obvious choice. We like to promote from within and (Dietrich) was the natural go-to because he has successfully led big projects around the country for us. He is calm and cool under pressure.”

Cleveland Construction employs about 1,500 building professionals and trades people around the nation. Its other regional offices are its headquarters, which serves Northeast Ohio; Columbus; Cincinnati; Naples, Fla.; and Washington, D.C.

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NEO is crucial to Cortland’s ambitious plan

By JEREMY NOBILE jnobile@crain.com @JeremyNobile

James Gasior wants Cortland Bank to become a familiar name in the Cleveland market.

The roughly $618 million-asset community bank has had a somewhat quiet presence in Northeast Ohio since it was founded nearly 125 years ago in its namesake city in Trumbull County. Its dozen branches are clustered mostly around Trumbull and Mahoning counties, with small operations in Portage and Ashtabula counties as well.

Trumbull offers a solid deposit base, but not so many growth oppor-

tunities, said Gasior, Cortland’s president and CEO. And while there’s some additional potential in its current footprint, the real opportunity is in Cleveland and its outerring communities.

Many community bankers see the potential here, particularly with the market shakeup coming from some notable mergers of banks large and small that create opportunity to draw new customers and even talent.

But even before combinations like that of Columbus-based Huntington Bancshares and Akron’s FirstMerit Corp. were announced, Cortland opened a loan production office in Beachwood, which was preceded by a similar office in Fairlawn. Both opened in the last two years and fo-

cus predominantly on commercial and mortgage loans, respectively.

More than just a dip of the toe in the water, those efforts are precursors to the bank truly expanding in Northeast Ohio’s most competitive banking market.

“One thing we did look at when we were coming into this was whether there would be a hindrance going into the market with an unfamiliar name,” Gasior said. “But people will look at the relationship not by what name is on the door, but the person sitting in front of them. We will brand the name in the marketplace over time. But the key for us right now is bringing on the right people.”

For a century-old community bank that’s never made a full bank acquisi-

tion of its own, it’s an auspicious growth plan that will take time to develop — particularly for a bank whose balance sheet flirted with potential disaster in the last economic downturn.

Cortland has never been a company to rush things, though. And it’s already seeing some interesting strategies pay off.

Gasior has effectively been working to grow the bank since 2009, when he stepped into the CEO role during the bank’s hardest years.

Lending was slow at that time, a function of the prior bank’s leadership focusing more on investment returns than loan development. Its loan-to-deposit ratio was just about 60% then. Now, it’s in the 85% range with loans growing at near double-

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digit percentages since 2010.

“If we were going to survive as an independent bank, we needed to focus on a relationship banking model and adding other products and services,” Gasior said.

That’s when sales teams were assembled, largely with bankers coming from competing institutions in Northeast Ohio. Those connections started making Cortland a more familiar name in its existing markets and predicated the expansion of additional loan producing offices. They also expanded their board with two new faces.

“It’s been both a cultural shift and an identity shift,” Gasior said. “The prior CEO was growing the bank through investment earnings supplemented by lending. Today, we are lending supplemented by investment.”

“If we hadn’t done that, it would’ve been hard to survive.”

They started to diversify, adding a mortgage wholesale group. To grow non-interest income — a necessity for a small bank battling a prolonged lowreturn environment — Cortland added wealth management services in 2012, but ditched that initial partnership for a new one with Tim Clepper.

Clepper had managed Cortland’s retirement plan for about 17 years while at Morgan Stanley and was asked to manage the wealth management group. Clepper would go on to leave Morgan Stanley in 2015 to start his own firm Ellsworth Private Wealth Management in Hudson with support from broker-dealer LPL Financial.

Through a contract partnership, Clepper then became CEO of Cortland Private Wealth Management.

It’s his only true bank relationship.

Clepper’s efforts are adding new clients to Cortland the bank can extend other business relationships to.

While still a program in its infancy, Clepper said he’s added 20 new relationships just through the spring.

“It’s a way of generating new business that has nothing to do with banking,” Clepper said. “Non-interest income is a huge driver of what we’re doing here at the bank.”

Since 2011, the bank’s total assets have grown about 20%. And while $1 billion in total assets would be a nice target to hit, Gasior said, organic growth is the top goal. An acquisition is not off the table, though. Indeed, one would probably be necessary to reach that size in the next several years.

This is where Cleveland comes in.

Merger or not, to continue growing, the Greater Cleveland market is where the most potential lies, Gasior said.

And development here will definitely include a retail operation, Gasior said.

“The difficulty with just having a production office is I can get loans, but the whole basis of banking for us is built on relationships,” Gasior said. “I don’t want just that loan. I want everything that comes along with it. I want that deposit. I want Tim to get in front of them.

“The only way to do all this effectively is with a full retail presence.”

The shakeup from market mergers should provide more clients for banks like Cortland. Gasior is counting on that.

Meanwhile, some possible smaller banks already are on Cortland’s radar as it plots a growth strategy increasingly focused on the Cleveland market.

“I would like to get to $1 billion (in assets). But we have to do it intelligently,” Gasior said. “If we can do organic growth and an acquisition, we can get there quicker. But it’s not necessary to survive.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 15

Focus MIDDLE MARKET

Crain’s Cleveland Business photo illustration by David Kordalski

GLBC uncaps new leadership He’s no Conway, but his passion for the brand is intoxicating

By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com @timmagaw

A

s a homebrewer for 22 years and a beer enthusiast for much of his adult life, Bill Boor said it’s a bit surreal to be serving as the first CEO of Great Lakes Brewing Co., the beloved Cleveland-based microbrewery that has grown steadily since Pat and Dan Conway launched the brand about 30 years ago.

It’s also a welcome change for Boor, having worked in large public companies for the

bulk of his career — including an almost decade-long stint with Cliffs Natural Resources. He wanted to stay in Cleveland, a city his family had come to love, and be closer to the operations of a company for which he worked. A career in microbrewing wasn’t necessarily on his radar until a mutual business contact introduced him to the Conways.

“My first meeting with Pat and Dan, we sat at that table over there and drank for 2.5 hours,” said Boor, 50, during a recent interview at Great Lakes’ brewpub. “And we went from there.”

Boor’s arrival last October is an intriguing development in Great Lakes’ evolution.

Boor, who earned his MBA from Harvard University, said the Conways have used the term “succession planning,” but they have no plans to immediately step away from the business. Instead, they were looking for seasoned business executives to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing the company — namely those relating to capacity. Also last year, the Conways brought in Bridget Barrett, a longtime Starbucks marketing executive, to lead the company’s sales and marketing operations.

“We felt that after three decades, it might be better for the overall growth of the comSEE BOOR, PAGE 18

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MIDDLE MARKET

Content expertise puts Akhia on the map

By JUDY STRINGER clbfreelancer@crain.com

Ben Brugler admits his perspective on the evolution of marketing is not all that unique. Put five of his colleagues into the room, said the president of Hudson-based Akhia, and they would vocalize more or less the same thing: It’s a whole new world for marketers — one in which if content is king, brand is the key to the kingdom.

Akhia, however, may have an edge on its bulkier competitors in the crowded communications landscape. Smaller, more nimble, the agency was able to respond to shifts in the marketplace faster, according to Noel Lavezzi, a Las Vegas-based management consultant who has worked with the firm since 2012.

“Akhia has zigged when they needed to zig and zagged when they’ve needed to zag,” she said.

Perhaps more importantly, Lavezzi and Akhia founder Jan Gusich credit Brugler with recognizing and reacting to industry trends ahead of many of his counterparts.

Long before “content was king,” Gusich said, Brugler spotted the need for content development expertise and created Akhia’s optimization group, which positioned it well once companies began looking for firms with that specialty.

More recently, Brugler has beefed up both the creative and optimization teams and focused Akhia around the idea that having a clear, consistent message elevates every aspect of its client’s businesses.

“Our push is looking beyond tradi-

Ben Brugler (Contributed photo)

“Our goal is that if you have business challenges or opportunities that may be solved or addressed through marketing, we’re your agency.”

— Ben Brugler, Akhia president

tional marketing communications to more strategic planning and business integration, specifically in B-to-B,” Brugler said. “We don’t want to just say ‘If you have marketing communications needs, we are your agency.’

Our goal is that if you have business challenges or opportunities that may be solved or addressed through marketing, we’re your agency.”

Take human resources. HR departments have their own budgets and processes and traditionally have acted independently of the marketing departments. Yet, the HR function by its very nature — attracting and retaining talent — begets a need to communicate effectively with both would-be and existing employees.

“There’s no power struggle there,”

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Brugler explains.

HR wants to portray the right brand for the company from a recruiting standpoint and from an international communication standGusich point, he said.

“Marketing communications can play a real strong role in that.”

One only has to look as far as technology spend projections to see the rising influence of corporate marketing departments. A 2015 white paper

by Menlo Park, Calif-based venture firm Foundation Capital predicts a ten-fold increase in the amount chief marketing officers invest in technology, from $12 billion in 2014 to $120 billion in 2024. Industry watcher Gartner estimates that by next year CMOs will begin to spend more on technology than their CIO counterparts.

“If you look at the amount of money that is funneling into that team in an organization, they are getting more power and more budget than they probably ever have before,” Lavezzi said.

That power is moving marketing conversations well beyond the CMO offices, which is — again — playing to Akhia’s strengths.

“It just so happens we’ve been really focused on this for the last three years and changed the way we work from an internal standpoints — changed even our processes — so when clients kick off with us for example, as a new client or for a planning session or a strategy session as an existing client, we don’t work exclusive-

ly with marketing,” Brugler said.

“We bring in people from HR, from sales, from training, from IT, from customer service — all the different areas of the business, because we are developing a strategy that at some point is going to affect all of them,” he said.

“They should have a say in it. They should have some exposure to it.”

Just ‘Akhia’ The evolution of Akhia itself leaves Brugler a bit tongue tied to describe the company. Gusich started Akhia Public Relations in 1996, launching her business with three six-month contracts after her large advertising agency employer went bankrupt.

Twenty years later, the company has nearly 60 employees — up 25 team member in just the last four years — earns more than $6 million annually and goes by simply “Akhia.”

Brugler said for now he leads with “business integration company” when describing the Hudson firm and lets the work speak for itself. In a market where the average relationship between firms and their organization clients is about three years, Akhia averages a seven-year run.

Many tell him Akhia is the company they call when they don’t know who to call or need to get everyone on the same page — a function that is hard to reduce to a tagline or put on a business card.

If that take more than just a few words to explain, he’s more than happy to accommodate.

“The role of marketing is changing. The identity of marketing is changing,” Brugler said. “That is something that is exciting for anybody in marketing today.”

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Brandmuscle hopes for digital domination

By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder

On its website, Brandmuscle describes itself as “a local marketing automation software company.”

So why is it beefing up its digital marketing services team — a group of non-automated human beings?

Well, Brandmuscle follows what CEO Phil Alexander describes as the “SaaSaafras” business model: It provides “software as a service — and a fricking awesome service.”

Alexander isn’t sure where he first heard that phrase. Nevertheless, he thinks that combining software and services could help Brandmuscle compete with the best digital marketing firms in the world.

Under new ownership, Brandmuscle has the green light, and the resources, to start working toward that ambitious goal.

In December, American Capital Equity acquired Brandmuscle from the Riverside Co., a private equity firm with headquarters offices in Cleveland and New York.

Since then, Brandmuscle — which is technically based in Chicago, even though its largest office is in downtown Cleveland — has hired chief digital officer Paul Elliott and a few other executives tasked with expanding its 4-year-old digital marketing team.

Traditionally, the three companies that merged to form Brandmuscle a few years ago had made their living by selling marketing software and printed marketing materials. In recent years, however, the company has built up a marketing services

“There’s nobody out there who’s got … the integrated pieces who can make it work like Brandmuscle.”

— Paul Elliott, Brandmuscle chief digital officer

team consisting of about 50 people.

That group includes about 20 people in Cleveland who help clients create and execute digital marketing plans (using banner ads, social media, search engines — stuff like that).

The digital team has filled seven new positions so far this year, and five new positions are currently open. The company also aims to expand that team’s size and capabilities through acquisitions.

Brandmuscle has “looked at probably 16 companies,” many of which relate to digital marketing, since American Capital Equity bought the business in December, according to David Steinglass, a partner at the private equity firm who sits on Brandmuscle’s board.

The company — which employs about 660 people, including 210 in Cleveland — has big ambitions: Both Alexander and Elliott said they want to create the best digital marketing firm in the world.

So why might Brandmuscle even have a shot at achieving such a lofty goal?

In Elliott’s view, the company has a significant advantage when it comes to serving companies that want to customize marketing materials for a local audience.

The three companies that merged to form Brandmuscle had complementary capabilities: Founded by Alexander, Cleveland-based BrandMuscle Inc. (notice the capital “M”) offered soft-

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ware designed to help branch managers, franchisees and other affiliates create custom, locally targeted ads without running afoul of corporate guidelines. Centiv Services of Chicago helped companies create in-store marketing materials. TradeOne Marketing of Austin, Texas, built software that gives companies a fast way to reimburse or reward local offices for their sales and marketing efforts.

The combined company’s digital marketing services team can help clients build on those capabilities — which will grow as Brandmuscle buys other businesses.

“There’s nobody out there who’s got … the integrated pieces who can make it work like Brandmuscle,” Elliott said.

Brandmuscle’s desire to invest in digital marketing pushed the company to approach Riverside about selling the business, Alexander said, noting that Riverside was approaching the end of its investment period and wasn’t in a position to make substantial new investments in Brandmuscle.

By that point, employees on Brandmuscle’s “homegrown” digital marketing team were often working 50 or 60 hours a week, said Alexander, who now lives in Chicago. There was clear demand for their services, but capitalizing on it required “real leadership,” he said.

Naturally, he reached out to Elliott, who had recently left his job as

executive vice president of marketing and innovation at Rosetta, another digital marketing firm with a Cleveland office.

They’d known each other for about 15 years. They even shared a parking lot back when Rosetta and the old BrandMuscle were neighbors in Beachwood. Even so, Elliott turned him down because he’d just taken another job at a young company called Kinetiq Digital.

But Alexander kept trying to recruit him. Elliott spent a few months trying to find reasons to reject the offer, but instead he found more reasons to take it, he said, citing the company’s potential.

“We are creating what we believe is the best — by far — digital practice for local advertisers,” he said.

Strong words, for sure, but American Capital Equity certainly sees a lot of potential, too.

For one, Alexander and Riverside pulled off the equivalent of a “triple bank shot” when they successfully merged three companies at the same time, Steinglass said, using a billiards terms.

Steinglass also is a fan of the “SaaSaafras” strategy. A company that offers both software and services will often develop deeper customer relationships than companies that offer software alone, he said.

“They can be stickier. It’s a different business model,” he said.

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MIDDLE MARKET

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 pany to look outside of our four walls and bring in expertise that we thought we could use,” said the 67year-old Pat Conway.

Dan Conway, 55, added, “It’s nice to have some folks like Bill and Bridget step into some roles that we were trying to fill. As you know, with any startup, you’re accustomed to wearing as many hats as you can possibly wear, it’s nice to have a dedicated management team to always have those hats on.”

With annual production now at about 160,000 barrels a year, Great Lakes is the 21st-largest craft brewery in the United States, according to the latest rankings from The Brewers Association, a national trade group. The question on tap, however, is whether Great Lakes needs to get bigger. If it does — and Boor said the company is leaning in that direction — that would certainly necessitate a larger brewing operation beyond its current digs in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood.

Great Lakes’ last major investment in its plant came in 2014, with a $7 million spend that added considerably to its fermentation capabilities. Today, the company’s growth is hampered by the size of its brewhouse. And with little room for additional brewing vessels, the company will likely set its sights beyond its current landlocked confines.

Boor, using the analytical acumen for which he was hired, said the company is in the midst of several market studies to decide the long-term growth potential of the brewery. At the same time, the company has looked at potential sites and done preliminary engineering work to gauge what it would cost to build another brewing facility.

Boor said the company also is interest-

ed in canning some of its beers, which would expand the types of places where Great Lakes beers can be enjoyed, but there’s simply no room for a canning line.

“The big bet in the end is on the market side,” Boor said. “You can know how much it’ll cost to build a facility and know the operating costs, but the market has to be there for you.

While we’re making this decision about the potential to expand, we’re doing so in a marketplace that’s very competitive with a lot of dynamics.”

According to The Brewers Association, in 2015, craft brewers produced 24.5 million barrels and saw a 13% increase in volume and a 16% rise in retail dollar value. Also last year, the number of breweries in the U.S. grew 15% to 4,269 — the most at any time in the country’s history. Meanwhile, the total U.S. beer market was down 0.2% last year, meaning that the bulk of the growth opportunities have been in the craft beer segment.

So given the growing popularity of craft beer and, more specifically, the Great Lakes brand, why so much research into whether additional brewing capabilities are needed?

The world always needs more Christmas Ale or Dortmunder, right?

“A lot of craft brewers have gone and built a whole new amount of capacity and assumed a certain level of sales will happen and that will be used up,” Dan Conway said. “Sometimes they build it and forget how to sell it.”

All the while, megabrewers looking to capitalize on the growing microbrew craze have acquired several regional breweries around the country — something the Conways aren’t particularly interested in at the moment.

“We’re getting calls also, but we’re wary of bringing someone in and losing the culture and what we’ve developed so nicely over these three decades,” Pat Conway said.

Culture fit Of course, with the hiring of Boor came the natural question of whether someone with his background would come in and “corporatize” what has historically been a close-knit, familyrun enterprise that now employs 237 people — 202 of whom are in Cleveland. However, Boor said he wasn’t “being brought into a turnaround situation, so they didn’t need me to start throwing chairs around the room by any means.”

In fact, he’s bought into the culture fairly quickly. It doesn’t take long in an interview for Boor to spout Great Lakes’ philosophy surrounding its triple bottom line the Conways have preached for years — namely, engaging in economic, social and environmental practices that achieve a sustainable yet profitable business. Pat Conway said Boor fits “beautifully, like a hand in a glove.”

Plus, he has a passion for the product.

“Most of the people who started breweries over the last 30 years didn’t do it because they thought it was a good business idea,” Boor said. “There’s such a culture around craft brewing that goes beyond the dollars and cents. That resonates with people.”

One of the perks of working at Great Lakes is that all employees at the end of their shifts can sip on a free beer courtesy of their employer.

Boor’s beer of a choice? That’s tough, he said, but as of late it’s been Chillwave, a double IPA with 9% ABV that, according to its label, “will melt the ice in your beard and never lose its balance.”

“Every time I go down for a shift beer, I say ‘Don’t order a Chillwave.

Don’t order a Chillwave,’ and when the bartender says, ‘What’ya have, Bill?’ I always say ‘Chillwave,’” Boor said with a smile.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 19

Lucky You.

Q & A: Joe Pulizzi CEO, Content Marketing Institute The annual Content Marketing World conference has boasted some big names, such as William Shatner and Kevin Spacey. This year’s, which will welcome roughly 4,000 marketers to Cleveland Sept. 6-9 at the Huntington Convention Center, is no different and will feature none other than Luke Skywalker himself: Mark Hamill. Crain’s chatted with the man behind it all about the conference’s growth and the Content Marketing Institute, which was recently acquired by UBM plc, a London-based business-to-business events organizer and marketing organization. — Timothy Magaw Why do you think the Content Marketing World has become such a huge success?

Even though content marketing has been around for hundreds of years, there has been a resurgence because of the fact that now every consumer controls their own information flow … What that means is our customers can ignore us at will. To combat that, you’ve got brands out there figuring out how to build their own audiences directly … These people also like to come to Cleveland, and we put on a great show.

What’s your approach to securing these keynotes?

We go out with Mark Hamill this year, which is great, and Cheap Trick as the band. But the cool thing is we also have the global director of social media and search marketing at LEGO, the chief marketing officer at GE, the head of content at Visa and another 50 brands talking about they’re doing this thing.

That’s the core: We want to learn from the practitioners that do it.

But we want to have a closing keynote that’s a creative. They liked Kevin Spacey because they wanted to hear his take on storytelling. He had great takeaways. So

did John Cleese, so did Shatner.

They’ve been creating content for 20, 30 years. It’s not too dissimilar.

They struggle with the same issues we do as marketers.

What’s the biggest challenge to putting this event on?

It’s nonstop. It’s 24/7. We have so many things we use to market. We have 200,000 subscribers. It’s not just an event. We have to deliver a valuable piece of content each day — just like brands do — and we have to keep them engaged and motivated to want to come to our event. At first, it was tough getting people to Cleveland. It’s a lot easier today because Cleveland has some positive momentum.

Do you ever foresee this event leaving Cleveland for, say, New York or San Francisco?

I grew up in Sandusky, and I’ve lived in Cleveland for 20 years. My personal passion is to keep this business in Cleveland and keep the millions of dollars we bring in here. We sell out every hotel room in downtown Cleveland that week. … But to be honest, as we get over 5,000 attendees, there will be some logistical issues and may have to go out of the convention center. My ulti-

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mate goal is to keep it here as long as possible.

You’ve mentioned before the event is well-known around the world, but many local companies don’t send people. Still the case?

The first couple years it was tough locally. We had to go build relationships at Progressive, GE, Rockwell Automation. A lot of companies have headquarters or large offices here. But the last few years have been great. I don’t think that the local groups realized this is the largest event in the industry and it’s in their backyard. You don’t have to go to Chicago, New York, Amsterdam or London to do this.

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

MIDDLE MARKET TAX TIPS: Peter A. DeMarco

Recent ruling stirs capital gain tax debate The Ohio Supreme Court recently handed down a taxpayer-friendly decision that finds Ohio’s collection of capital gain tax on certain nonresident taxpayers is unconstitutional.

The decision not only overturns a section of the Ohio Revised Code under which state tax authorities collected capital gain tax on certain business sales by nonresidents. It also suggests nonresidents who have paid the tax in the past might be entitled to claim refunds.

The decision stems from a tax dispute involving Patton Corrigan, a resident of Connecticut who owned a majority interest in Mansfield Plumbing, a producer of sanitary supplies organized as a limited liability company. Corrigan and other investors purchased Mansfield Plumbing, which operated in all 50 states, in 2000.

While Corrigan was a majority owner, his role in the company was more as a passive investor who left the day-to-day operations to be overseen by employees. He and the

other investors then sold the business in 2004 at a handsome gain.

Corrigan recognized capital gain income on his 2004 federal tax return of nearly $28 million, all of it allocated outside of Ohio since he did not live in Ohio.

In 2009, the Ohio Department of Taxation assessed Corrigan for unpaid tax along with a penalty amounting to a little more than $847,000. The state held it was entitled to collect capital gain tax on the sale because Ohio collects tax on every individual residing in or earning or receiving income in the state. Initially, Corrigan paid a portion of the assessment, but then rethought his position and contested the tax.

Ultimately, Corrigan took his appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, which found in his particular case the tax violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He was a nonresident of Ohio and a resident instead of a state that also collected the tax, he contended, so he should not be

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taxed on his non-business income.

The Supreme Court’s opinion parsed out the differences between business and non-business income.

Business income is that earned in the regular course of a business or a trade, but non-business income arises through rents, royalties, and capital gains.

In Corrigan’s case, he was a passive investor not operating the business, so his gain did not arise through business activity. It was an investment gain. The Court said Ohio did not have the constitutional authority to tax Corrigan’s capital gain because he lived in a state that collected capital gain tax on his investment gain, and the gain was not income derived from operating the business.

Tax experts will watch closely to see how this case affects the collection of capital gain tax in Ohio in the future. The Supreme Court did not find that Ohio’s statute is unconstitutional on its face, but it certainly suggests a taxpayer with a similar fact pattern could expect a similar outcome. It means nonresidents probably do not need to claim or pay this tax when they sell their business interests under similar conditions going forward, and it suggests that nonresidents who have paid this tax in the past might be entitled to refunds.

It also raises questions around what will happen to an Ohio-based business owner who retires to another state, for example, and later eventually sells an ownership interest in the business. At what point

Peter A. DeMarco is vice president and director of tax services for the regional accounting and business consulting firm of Meaden & Moore in Cleveland. would that business owner be regarded as a passive investor outside the state whose eventual gain might escape the Ohio capital gain tax?

Time and further case law will likely tell.

For now, it’s clear that any nonOhio resident who owns a passive interest in an Ohio business and lives in a state that collects capital gain tax on investment gain can comfortably skip this line on the Ohio tax return. The Supreme Court has made it clear Ohio can no longer collect this tax on those investors.

ADVISER: Patricia W

Are your com p Are transgender people protected by existing federal civil rights laws? It depends on who you ask.

Even the courts are issuing mixed rulings as to whether prohibitions against sexual discrimination cover gender identity.

Debates over the rights of transgender employees and students have raged for years now, impacting an array of human resources policies.

Most recently, that debate has been taken into the bathroom.

North Carolina sparked controversy recently by becoming the first state to attempt to restrict which public bathroom transgender people can use.

President Obama weighed in with his opinion in mid-May by warning public schools that they risk losing federal funds if they fail to treat transgender students according to their chosen gender identity as soon as a parent or guardian notifies the district that the identity “differs from previous representations or records.” That mandate has already been met with a lawsuit filed by 11 states that oppose the president’s position.

Of greater importance to employers is the fact that, on May 2 of this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a new “fact sheet” on bathroom access rights for transgender employees.

Through this communication, the agency warned employers that discrimination based on an employee’s transgender status is sex

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 21

Cummins

Weisberg

Commercial Real Estate Services, Worldwide.

m pany’s bathroom policies compliant? discrimination under federal law.

The fact sheet reflects the EEOC’s position that employers are prohibited from preventing an employee from using a bathroom corresponding to the employee’s gender identity.

The fact sheet further reflects the EEOC’s position that an employer may not condition the right to use a restroom corresponding to the employee’s gender identity on the employee undergoing, or providing proof of, surgery or any other medical procedure to demonstrate the employee’s gender.

The EEOC further takes the position that an employer cannot restrict a transgender employee to a single-user bathroom unless the employer makes a single-user restroom available to all employees who might choose to use it.

While the EEOC’s fact sheet is not legally binding, it provides employers with a clear indication of the EEOC’s position on this issue and does serve to guide judge’s opinions in courts throughout the country.

Currently, at least one-third of the states (not including Ohio), as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and numerous cities and counties across the United States, have employment laws that explicitly protect private-sector employees on the basis of gender identity.

However, there is no federal or state law or municipal regulation currently enacted that requires employers to make available or install

Patricia Weisberg is a partner in the labor & employment practice group of Clevelandbased Walter | Haverfield LLP.

a specific type of bathroom to accommodate transgendered employees.

Notwithstanding the lack of regulation, employers may find it difficult, if not impossible, to balance employees’ rights to privacy with the equal-access rights of transgender employees without the construction of new or enhanced facilities.

While it will likely take some time for the government and courts to fully figure out this issue and come to agreement, in the meantime, employers need to consider other reasons for resolving bathroom issues at their own sites. This includes

such bottom-line considerations as productivity and employee morale.

Multiple studies have suggested that it is the best interests of transgender people—mentally and even physically—that they be allowed to live in accordance with their internal gender identity and not just their sex identity at birth.

If employees fear that they will be treated differently or restricted in their basic rights, their overall morale is likely to suffer and, along with it, an employer’s productivity and, ultimately, the bottom line.

The concern, however, is that other employees may feel uncomfortable or resentful of the employer’s decision to allow transgender employees to share the bathroom or locker room facilities.

Employers who wish to address both sides of the argument could consider: designating single-occupancy, unisex facilities that are equally accessible to all employees as an alternative to existing genderspecific restrooms; adding enhanced privacy features to existing restrooms and locker rooms; and creating employee focus groups to help devise practical, yet dignified, solutions for transgender employees that help to create a “friendlier” environment.

As is the case with other employment-related policies, employers should work with experienced labor and employment counsel to adopt non-discrimination policies that both meet legal requirements and accord with the particular culture of the workplace.

Tom Fox, SIOR Bob Raskow, SIOR tel 330 535 2661 www.naicummins.com

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20160613-NEWS--22-NAT-CCI-CL_--

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z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

GATEWAY

Security presence is reason for absence

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The Rubin businesses are two of a handful of non-hospitality businesses in the Gateway area that are bearing the brunt of the convention coming to town. Unlike the restaurants and bars, they’re not likely to see any convention business come their way to make the year of disruption and loss of foot traffic worthwhile.

Huron Road and East Fourth Street were torn up last week as crews rushed to smooth out the pavement near the convention site at Quicken Loans Arena. Traffic was a mess, and street parking was in short supply since the roadwork forced the city of Cleveland to put bags stamped “No parking” over many of the parking meters along Huron, Prospect and East Fourth.

In addition, television uplink trucks supporting the media in town for the NBA Finals have commandeered a large parking lot behind the Caxton Building, further limiting parking for the Rubins’ customers.

While that work was underway last week, Ron Rowe, the Secret Service’s RNC coordinator, was assuring Cleveland City Council’s safety committee that businesses along Prospect, even at East Fourth Street, closer to the convention site than the Rubins’ businesses, could remain open, though he did not go into detail about the shape of the security perimeter around The Q. “They are saying, ‘No, we’re not going to force you to close,’ ” Mike Rubin said. “But it’s going to be difficult every day, not only for us but for our clientele, so I don’t see the point of even being here.”

With a variety of guitars and other instruments lining the walls of the small store, Rubin, who plays trumpet in Blue Lunch, a local blues octet, also is a little concerned about security while he’s gone. But he hopes that the heightened security presence will keep his plate glass windows intact On the other side of the entrance to the Caxton Building, Lisa Rubin is less pessimistic about the impact the convention has had on her business.

“You know what I like about having the RNC?” she asked rhetorically about the city’s efforts to polish up the city. “They’re redoing the roads, they’re putting trees in, they are beautifying the neighborhood. They

Lack of details from the Secret Service is incentive to stay away

Roadwork has meant an abundance of “no parking” signs in the Gateway District. (David Kordalski)

Jay Miller

“I know if my name was Dan Gilbert and I had a complaint about the parking meters, they would take care of it.”

— Mike Rubin, owner of Prospect Music never would have done that otherwise.”

As for the business disruption, she was ambivalent. “You know what, our customers find their way here,” she said. “Yesterday, 35 customers came in for exams.”

Still, she’s yielding to her husband’s more pessimistic outlook and closing for the week.

As Lisa Rubin’s comment suggests, the convention-week loss of business actually isn’t at the top of the complaint list of the Rubins and other non-nightlife business owners in the Gateway District that rely on drop-in customers.

Number one on the list of both Rubins would be the difficult, ongoing parking situation along Huron

Road, Prospect Avenue and the few adjacent side streets.

Several other business owners in the district who declined to speak to Crain’s Cleveland Business on the record joined in their parking complaint. One business owner said he couldn’t understand why the city bans afternoon rush-hour parking along the outbound side of Prospect. The traffic volume, he said, didn’t justify the ban.

“I know if my name was Dan Gilbert (owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the JACK casino and other real estate downtown) and I had a complaint about the parking meters, they would take care of it,” said Mike Rubin with a touch of bitterness.

The Rubins and others also brought up the disruption they saw after Gateway streets were closed to accommodate the makers of the movie “Fast & Furious 8.”

Those complaints, and the complaints of other business owners, were mollified after the film company was talked into compensating the retailers financially for part of their loss.

“We just fortunately were able to talk with them and get them to recognize that, yes, they did affect our business adversely for a couple days,” Mike Rubin said. “And we came up with a formula and they gave us some compensation.”

Part of the discomfort Gateway businesspeople have with how their businesses will handle convention week is the way the Secret Service is declining to reveal the details of its security plan.

Ronald Rowe, the Secret Service agent who is coordinating convention week security, has said specific security plans — including the contours of the “Hard Zone,” the streets or parts of streets that will be inaccessible to people without security clearance — won’t be disclosed until a few weeks before the convention.

Naturally, people look to fill an information vacuum.

So a passed-along comment from someone who has worked earlier conventions helped architect William Eberhard decide that he will stay away from his second-floor, Gateway District office during convention week.

Eberhard and attorney Daniel Lindner — Eberhard subleases space from Lindner — can see Quicken Loans Arena from their office windows in the Sincere Building at the corner of East Fourth and Prospect Avenue. Eberhard’s concern isn’t that clients won’t want to fight a traffic snarl to meet with him.

Rather, it’s a response to a comment he and Lindner heard from a news agency representative looking to lease space from Lindner for convention week.

“We heard we can expect three random Secret Security visits a day,” the architect said.

Lindner, too, is going to stay away.

Asked in an email if he will be working in the office that week, he responded: “Very limited. I rented the space, but I’m allowed to still be here.” — Jay Miller

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Business of Life

Fresh Brewed Tees owner Tony Madalone jokes with Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis during a video shoot for Kipnis’ spoof presidential campaign. (Contributed photos)

These campaigns are ruled by fun

By KEVIN KLEPS Evil Plan, a music video Purple Films shot for rapper Tezo in 2011, doesn’t even have 10,000 views on YouTube.

But Chad Kersman, Nike’s global communications director, saw it, and he reached out to the Clevelandbased production company about working on a Kyrie Irving shoot two years later. Last summer, Purple Films was on hand at the University of Akron when LeBron James and Nike launched the global superstar’s latest sneaker line.

“We did a low-budget music video and landed a Nike campaign,” said Dan Gillespie, who started Purple Films with partner and fellow 2006 Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School graduate Jimmy Gall five years ago.

The pair started filming videos for Cuyahoga Community College when they were 18- and 19-year-old freshmen. Once they started shooting music videos with rappers, which meant they “started getting paid with checks,” Gall and Gillespie formed an LLC, the latter said.

In March, Purple Films got another big break when Fresh Brewed Tees hired the company to produce promotional videos for a line of Tshirts featuring Major League Baseball players announcing amusing presidential campaigns.

Fresh Brewed Tees founder Tony Madalone said he’s been working with Purple Films for the last four or five years, and he’s enjoying watch-

Cubs pitcher Jason Hammel tweeted about “running” for president. The Dodgers’ Justin Turner (above) and Robinson Cano of the Mariners (left) also promoted the campaign. ing the company grow.

“They’re kind of my guys,” Madalone said. “I don’t work with anyone else in Cleveland (for video production).”

The spoof campaigns turned into a month-long project in which Madalone and Purple Films toured MLB spring training sites in Florida and Arizona, followed by a quick stop at Wrigley Field in Chicago to work with Cubs pitcher Jason Hammel.

Big-league players such as the In-

dians’ Jason Kipnis and Corey Kluber, and Seattle Mariners All-Star Robinson Cano, filmed videos in which they announce why they should be the next president. And like any good campaign, T-shirts are involved.

Fresh Brewed Tees is licensed with the MLB Players Association, and Madalone used his connections with agents and teams to convince several players to shoot campaign videos. In his, the Tribe’s Kipnis said if he is elected president, “Every

night would be Dollar Dog Night,” and the team would have cheerleaders. Not to be outdone, Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner promises to fix the parking in Los Angeles.

“I’d probably make it free,” Turner said.

Several of the videos went viral on social media, and in each, the player is wearing a Fresh Brewed-produced T-shirt with their name and “FOR PRESIDENT” on the front.

Purple Films has 10 MLB player videos on its website, and more are on the way. There are many more Tshirts than videos — Madalone said there would be 80 to 100 by the end of the baseball season. As of June 7, Fresh Brewed had 61 presidential Tshirts available for purchase on its website. Madalone said other shirts will be sold strictly in team shops.

The shirts featuring Kipnis and Kluber for president have arrived in the Indians’ team shop at Progressive Field, and will be available for purchase soon. Fresh Brewed products

are also available in the team shops of the Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays.

“When the players promote it, it goes heavy in those markets,” Madalone said of the prank campaigns.

“Felix Hernandez is probably the most popular player in Seattle.

When he promotes (his shirt) on Twitter or Instagram, it goes viral for the day. It delivers traffic, revenue and popularity for the brand.”

The players get a cut of the sales.

For Purple Films, it’s another fun production for an up-and-coming company that now has four fulltimers, including the two founders, and three or four freelancers whom Gillespie said Purple Films works with “quite often.”

Madalone said he plans to take Purple Films with him to San Diego for the MLB All-Star Game next month for more promotions he has planned.

Purple Films works out of the Hot Cards space at 2400 Superior Avenue. In addition to Nike and Fresh Brewed Tees, the company counts Time Warner Cable and Mace Brand as notable clients.

Gillespie said his favorite MLB shoot was Hammel, a Cubs righthander whose campaign slogan is “Hell yes.”

“He was pretty excited. He was thanking us,” Gillespie said. “He said, ‘We’re always doing serious stuff. This is a way to change the pace a little bit.’ About an hour after we left, we got word from his agent that he called and said he nailed it.”

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BUSINESS OF LIFE

Source Lunch Evalyn Gates considers herself one of the most fortunate people in the world to have spent a life in science.

“It’s fun, it’s engaging, it’s hard,” said Gates, executive director and CEO of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. And as easy as Gates says it is to get kids excited about science, it’s not always happening everywhere. Through her work at the museum — and its ongoing, $150 million centennial expansion and renovation project — she hopes to nurture a love of science in students. The project will double the number of classrooms and more than double the number of students the museum can serve through programs that build STEM literacy and promote environmental stewardship. Plus, visitors will have direct interaction with the museum’s scientists — a vital connection for students’ understanding of the many applications of a science education. “The curiosity is there,” Gates said. “We just need to make sure we give it a place to bloom.” — Lydia Coutre

Is our education system (both nationally and regionally) doing enough to encourage students to explore STEM career options?

Decades after the recognition that a scientifically literate public and strong STEM education programs are urgently needed in this country, significant progress remains elusive. Efforts to engage students and a broader public in science are too often missing one critical ingredient: real science. In many classrooms across the country, the ideas and artifacts of current science are noticeably absent. Students are presented with the dry facts of science without any exposure to the bigger questions and exciting discoveries of today.

Even if people don’t enter the science world professionally, why is science literacy important?

The decisions we face today — from myriad advanced medical technologies to finding new sources of renewable energy — demand a high level of facility in exploring issues informed by science. Scientifically savvy leadership is essential in every sector. Inspiring and educating the next generation of scientists and engineers is critical, but so (is) engaging and informing the next generation of corporate, government and community leaders.

How can you and others encourage students, especially

women and minorities, to pursue STEM careers?

I remain dedicated to improving science education and expanding science career opportunities for women and minorities. I have championed two local educational programs: the Inspire: Reach Every Child program for second graders in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and Dare to Explore Science for girls in grades five through eight, which have earned accolades for the museum.

On a national level, I serve on the Panel on Public Affairs for the American Physical Society, which addresses these issues. I have also sought out partnerships with other organizations, strengthening existing relationships and in some cases forging new ones. For example, an innovative agreement with Cleveland Public Library allows Cleveland families to use a library card to “check out” a family museum admission pass.

What role does the Cleveland Museum of Natural History play in educating the community about science?

We have a partnership with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, so that the museum, and real science, is now an integral component of formal science education for every second grader in the city.

Our research labs and scientists — over a dozen active researchers, along with their graduate students and postdocs — are moving out of the basement and becoming part of the visitor experience.

Evalyn Gates

Do you see connecting students’ science vocabulary to their real life experiences as one of the biggest challenges in science education today?

A lot of times people say, ‘How are we ever going to get kids interested in science? Science education is hard.’ I don’t think it is hard. I’ve watched these kids.

It’s not hard to get them interested. If you hand them a skull or a mastodon tooth, you show them a real coyote and what it eats, that’s real science and now you’ve got their interest. Not one of those kids is doing anything but totally focused on the snake in front of them or touching the mastodon tooth trying to figure out if it was sharp enough, did it eat meat or plants? … To me, science education, we’re making it harder than it should be. Just as it’s not hard to get kids interested in music; let them start singing and dancing, play the music for them.

If the way you taught music was cut off all access to real music and just teach them the scales because that’s an important part, you’re not going to have any musicians in your society. And we’re doing that with science.

How cool are black holes, right?

Or a coyote? And that’s one of the things that I think is the role of museums going forward.

We’ve got resources. You’re never going to have a dinosaur in a classroom. You can’t. But that has the opportunity to inspire kids.

SCIENCE

FIVE THINGS: WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING IF NOT SCIENCE? If she’d entered her career path 20 years later, she would have gone into the computer tech industry.

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS z JUNE 13 - 19, 2016 z PAGE 25

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DIGITALC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

help joining the digital economy.

“This community needs to be able to hang out a flag to say that this is where innovation … actually lives,” said Gonick, who helped start OneCommunity in 2003 and now serves as DigitalC’s CEO. The organization’s relaunch has been a long time in the making. Gonick filed paperwork with the state to form the new nonprofit last July — before it sold Everstream to two private equity firms that immediately pumped $46 million into the Cleve-

land-based internet services business.

Over the past year or so, the organization has studied tech-related initiatives in other cities and spoken to more than 100 CEOs and civic leaders. The message was clear, according to Jennifer Thomas, chief strategy officer for DigitalC, which has nine employees.

“They said, ‘Help us use technology to solve pressing problems in our community,’ ” she said.

New agenda Their first goal is to help create a “new civic agenda,” as its website states. What does that mean?

Well, DigitalC wants to help the

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community produce more “21st century knowledge workers,” Gonick said. But doing that involves addressing all sorts of challenges.

For instance, the leaders DigitalC spoke to generally agreed that the item at the top of the civic agenda should be helping the Cleveland Metropolitan School District implement its ongoing transformation plan — so it can churn out more students who are prepared to join the modern economy. But achieving that goal in some cases will mean addressing health and wellness issues as well, given that so many students come from poor households led by single parents, Gonick said.

“They’re not coming to school with enough nutrition in their bellies to even be prepared for school,” he said.

DigitalC has formed an informal group of local tech leaders — from corporations, small entrepreneurial companies, nonprofits and public sector organizations — to find ways to address those challenges.

The group was formed with help from the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the Cleveland Foundation.

DigitalC would help implement pilot projects based on those ideas, with feedback and support from the group, Thomas said.

“We are one organization, but they’re the ones who are going to keep supporting it and keep sustaining it,” she said.

DigitalC’s second goal — to help local organizations use data to make better decisions — is a little further along.

Data vs. asthma Though the nonprofit is still designing its data platform, it has already homed in on one way to use it: to help kids with asthma.

DigitalC is working with Dayton Children’s Hospital and a few out-

of-state partners to create a system that could warn doctors and parents when a child is at risk of an asthma attack. Each child involved in the pilot would wear a watch containing a sensor that would feed air quality data into DigitalC’s data platform.

The system also would collect data from air quality sensors and other public sources to help identify when asthma patients are at risk of an attack. The project would start in Dayton, but the organizers want to eventually conduct a pilot in Cuyahoga County as well.

But DigitalC also wants other organizations to take better advantage of data, which is why it’s launching the SmartData Bootcamp. The course will cover everything from basic data literacy to more advanced analytics and visualization techniques. It will be taught by Cal AlDhubaib, who previously ran a health data startup called Triple Analytics and holds a bachelor’s in data science from Case Western Reserve University.

The first course will target students from nonprofits, but DigitalC aims to include businesses soon thereafter, Gonick said.

“Over and over again, they said, ‘This kind of a service, if you can prove to us that it works … we’re prepared to pay,’ ” he said.

Officials from both Eaton Corp. and University Hospitals said they’re interested in the course.

The curriculum is still in flux, but DigitalC appears to be doing things right, said Tom Black, vice president of Eaton’s Business Intelligence Center of Excellence. For instance, the course will cover topics like “exploratory data analysis” and other techniques designed to help people make sense of data and make it more visual, Black said.

“These guys know what they’re talking about,” he said.

All hands on deck University Hospitals could benefit by putting all sorts of employees — not just business analysts — through a quick course in data analysis, said Dr. Marco Costa, chief innovation officer at University Hospitals.

Costa said he’s a fan of Gonick and DigitalC. He says the region needs a group that looks for tech-driven solutions to community problems.

“We don’t have anybody to my knowledge who is pushing a digital transformation to support the community,” he said.

Though DigitalC is interested in finding additional funding, it secured a guaranteed revenue stream last year, when it sold Everstream to M/C Partners and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. It also kept a minority stake in Everstream.

DigitalC still has a few things to figure out. For instance, its plan to create coworking spaces that attract both innovators and those who might otherwise be disconnected from the digital economy is still in its early stages.

Plus, it’s unclear what cities the group might eventually serve. It’s starting with Northeast Ohio, but it believes other regions that historically focused on manufacturing might benefit from the lessons it learns here.

But Gonick is certain that it’s time to “drive the nonprofit back to its core mission” — using technology to solve problems like those faced by the Cleveland school district. Problems that affect businesses and the population as a whole.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” he said of the district’s transformation plan. “… In order to really make it successful, we need all hands working with technology.”

Startup Scaleup now full-day event JumpStart Inc.’s second Startup Scaleup event aimed at helping entrepreneurs, which takes place Tuesday, June 28, is expanding to a full day from a half day and will feature two track options — one for startups, the other focused on growing existing businesses.

The event in Cleveland’s Gordon Square Arts District will feature more

than 40 sessions at 15 venues, according to a news release from JumpStart.

The presenting sponsor is PNC Bank.

Panelists and speakers will include Northeast Ohio entrepreneurs Chris Wentz of Everykey, Laura Bennett of Embrace Pet Insurance, Ethan Holmes of Holmes Made Foods, John Gadd of Hotcards, and

more. The event once again will feature the “Sidewalk to Stage” pitch competition, in which entrepreneurs have a chance to win a share of $15,000 in prize money.

Session presenters will include the following: PNC Bank: “How to Take Your Business From $2M To $10M” Etsy: “Using Etsy to Grow Your Business” JumpStart: “Finding Money for Your Idea” Flashstarts: “Startups & Angels” FIT Technologies: “Women in Tech: How Female Leaders Are Taking Over the Tech Space” MAGNET: “So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur?”

Youngstown Business Incubator: “Funding Strategies for SaaS Tech Companies” The Bit Factory: “Building a Mobile App” Hello LLC: “Bringing Your Brand to Life with Visual Platforms: How to Use Instagram & Snapchat” SEA Change: “More Than Profit: A Social Enterprise Primer” Thompson Hine: “Understanding Your Term Sheet: How to Negotiate a Win/Win Deal” Meaden & Moore: “Win the Crowd: Is Equity-Based Crowdfunding Right for Your Company?”

Burton D. Morgan Foundation: “What It Means to Be a Student Entrepreneur” Full-day tickets for Startup Scaleup 2016 are $20. Half-day tickets are available for $10. To register, go to www.startupscaleup.org.

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The List THIS YEAR

COMPANY ADDRESS PHONE/WEBSITE

LARGEST PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES Ranked by Estimated 2015 Revenues ESTIMATED REVENUE (MILLIONS)

NUMBER OF LOCAL EMPLOYEES

2015

2014

(1)

YEAR FOUNDED

TYPE OF BUSINESS

TOP EXECUTIVE

1

Medical Mutual of Ohio 2060 E. Ninth St., Cleveland 44115 (216) 687-7000/www.medmutual.com

$3,000.0

$3,000.0

1,900

1934

Health insurance

Rick A. Chiricosta president, CEO, chairman

2

Aleris 25825 Science Park Drive, Suite 400, Cleveland 44122 (216) 910-3400/www.aleris.com

$2,900.0

$2,800.0

197

2004

Aluminum rolled products for industries including automotive, aerospace, building and construction

Sean M. Stack CEO

3

American Greetings Corp.

One American Road, Cleveland 44144 (216) 252-7300/www.americangreetings.com

$2,000.0

$2,000.0

1,564

1906

American Greetings is the creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products

Zev Weiss Jeffrey M. Weiss co-CEOs

3

Swagelok Co. 29500 Solon Road, Solon 44139 (440) 248-4600/www.swagelok.com

$2,000.0

$2,000.0

3,917

1947

Major developer and provider of fluid system products, assemblies and services

Arthur F. Anton president, CEO

5

Jones Day (2) North Point, 901 Lakeside Ave., Cleveland 44114-1190 (216) 586-3939/www.jonesday.com

$1,941.0

$1,850.0

626

1893

Legal services

Heather Lennox Cleveland partner-in-charge

6

Westfield Insurance One Park Circle, Westfield Center 44251 (330) 887-0101/www.westfieldinsurance.com

$1,769.1

$1,733.1

1,677

1848

Insurance, banking and related financial services

Edward Largent president, CEO, chairman

7

The Carter Lumber Co. 601 Tallmadge Road, Kent 44240 (330) 673-6100/www.carterlumber.com

$1,109.3

$979.2

612

1932

Building materials retailer

Neil Sackett chairman, CEO

8

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC 901 Cleveland St., Elyria 44035 (440) 329-9000/www.bendix.com

$1,045.0

$1,007.0

525

1930

Leading developer of active-vehicle safety technologies, air brake charging and control systems and components

Joseph J. McAleese chairman

9

Safeguard Properties Management LLC 7887 Safeguard Circle, Valley View 44125 (216) 739-2900/www.safeguardproperties.com

$939.7

$976.6

1,509

1990

Mortgage field services company

Alan Jaffa CEO

10

Squire Patton Boggs 127 Public Square, Suite 4900, Cleveland 44114 (216) 479-8500/www.squirepb.com

$930.0

$870.0

307

1890

Global legal service provider

Frederick R. Nance, regional managing partner; Michele L. Connell, managing partner, Cleveland

11

Shearer's Foods LLC 100 Lincoln Way, Massillon 44646 (330) 834-4030/www.shearers.com

$901.2

$665.3

1,225

1974

Manufacturer of snack foods

CJ Fraleigh CEO

12

The Davey Tree Expert Co. 1500 N. Mantua St., Kent 44240 (330) 673-9511/www.davey.com

$821.9

$789.0

650

1880

Tree services, grounds maintenance and consulting services for the residential, utility, commercial and government markets

Karl J. Warnke chairman, CEO

13

BDI Worldwide 8000 Hub Parkway, Cleveland 44125 (216) 642-9100/www.bdi-usa.com

$750.0

$705.2

167

1935

Global distribution of industrial products and supply chain services

Carl G. James chairman, CEO

14

Emerald Performance Materials LLC 2020 Front St., Suite 100, Cuyahoga Falls 44221 (330) 916-6700 /www.emeraldmaterials.com

$706.0

$751.0

150

2006

Manufacturer of additives, dyes, fine chemicals, silicones, and specialty polymers

Timothy Wessel, president, Emerald Polymer Additives and CVC business group; John Zuppo, vice president

15

Discount Drug Mart Inc. 211 Commerce Drive, Medina 44256 (330) 725-2340/www.discount-drugmart.com

$665.0

$606.0

2,080

1968

Regional drug store chain

Don Boodjeh CEO

16

The Anderson-DuBose Co. 5300 Tod Ave. SW, Lordstown 44481 (440) 248-8800/www.anderson-dubose.com

$546.8

$550.9

193

1991

Distribution of food, paper and beverage products

Warren E. Anderson chairman, CEO

17

The Garland Co. 3800 E. 91st St., Cleveland 44105 (800) 321-9336/www.garlandco.com

$460.9

$374.1

112

1895

Manufacturer of roofing, flooring, coatings, sealants and maintenance systems for commercial, industrial and institutional buildings

David M. Sokol president

18

Fred W. Albrecht Grocery Co. 2700 Gilchrist Road, Akron 44305 (330) 733-2263/www.acmestores.com

$455.0

$421.0

1,538

1891

Retail grocery and pharmacy stores

Jim Trout president

19

Majestic Steel USA Inc. 31099 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 150, Cleveland 44124 (800) 321-5590/www.majesticsteel.com

$400.0

$425.0

225

1979

National distributor of prime galvanized steel coils and sheets

Todd Leebow president

20

Hyland, creator of OnBase 28500 Clemens Road, Westlake 44145 (440) 788-5000/www.onbase.com

$367.0

$317.1

1,542

1991

OnBase enterprise content management (ECM) software suite

Bill Priemer president, CEO

21

Millwood Inc. 3708 International Boulevard, Vienna 44473 (330) 393-4400 /www.millwoodinc.com

$325.0

$285.0

250

1993

Industry leader of pallets, packaging consumables, material handling packaging systems and unit load technology

Lionel W. Trebilcock, Steve Miller, copresidents, partners; Ron Ringness, executive vice president, partner

22

Reserve Management Group 1831 E. Highland Road, Twinsburg 44087 (440) 519-1768/www.reserve-group.com

$318.0

$490.0

200

1991

Scrap metal processor specializing in ferrous and non ferrous metals and scrap electronics

Steve Joseph president, CEO

23

Cleveland Browns (3) 76 Lou Groza Blvd., Berea 44017 (440) 891-5000/www.clevelandbrowns.com

$313.0

$276.0

225

1946

Professional football team

Jimmy Haslam owner

24

Cleveland Construction Inc. 8620 Tyler Blvd., Mentor 44060 (440) 255-8000/www.clevelandconstruction.com

$296.8

$333.8

145

1980

Commercial building contractor, general and subcontractor construction and design build

Jon D. Small president

25

Famous Enterprises Inc. 109 N. Union St., Akron 44304 (330) 762-9621/www.famous-supply.com

$283.0

$277.0

300

1933

Distributor of HVAC, plumbing, PVF, industrial, building products

Marc Blaushild president, CEO

26

Donley's Inc. 5430 Warner Road, Cleveland 44125 (216) 524-6800/www.donleyinc.com

$268.0

$234.0

262

1941

Construction manager, design builder and concrete contractor

Malcolm M. Donley president, CEO

27

The Millcraft Paper Co. 6800 Grant Ave., Cleveland 44105 (216) 441-5500/www.millcraft.com

$238.2

$225.8

70

1920

Midwest-based distributor of fine printing and office papers, envelopes, packaging/packaging equipment, graphic design products

Katherine M. Mlakar chairman, owner

28

Cleveland Indians Baseball Co. (4) 2401 Ontario St., Cleveland 44115 (216) 420-4487/www.indians.com

$220.0

$207.0

209

1901

Professional baseball team

Lawrence J. Dolan, owner Paul J. Dolan, chairman, CEO

RESEARCHED BY DEBORAH W. HILLYER Source: Information is supplied by the companies unless footnoted. Crain's Cleveland Business does not independently verify the information and there is no guarantee these listings are complete or accurate. We welcome all responses to our lists and will include omitted information or clarifications in coming issues. (1) As of May 1, 2016. (2) 2015 gross revenue from The American Lawyer, May 1, 2016. (3) Revenue numbers from Forbes, NFL Team Values, The Business of Football, Sept. 14, 2015. (4) Revenue numbers from Forbes, The Business of Baseball, March 23, 2016 and March 25, 2015.

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