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$2.00/DECEMBER 1 - 7, 2014
SOMETIMES, IT’S A ‘DIRTY’ GAME NE Ohio high school coaches and athletic directors attempt to steer clear of the powerful influence of shoe companies By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com
SCOTT POLLACK
Babe Kwasniak has a picture of all the free gear he received for coaching at Stephen Curry’s Under Armour basketball camp in the Bay Area last summer. There are shoes, T-shirts, hats and a carrying bag sprawled across Kwasniak’s hotel room bed. The boys basketball coach at Villa Angela-St. Joseph High School in Cleveland was an instructor at the camp hosted by Curry, an All-Star guard for the Golden State Warriors. Kwasniak had the campers he coached write thank you notes for all of the free stuff they received throughout the four-day camp. “They said, ‘Coach, this is crazy,’ ” Kwasniak said. “I said, ‘No, what’s crazy is getting about $2,000 of free gear and thanking someone hasn’t crossed your mind.’ ” Kwasniak admits his VASJ team, which has advanced to the state championship game in each of the last two seasons (including a Division See GAME, page 21
Magnet, Wire-Net get together to speed up sector IF YOU WANT TO LEND A HAND Companies interested in taking part in the Accelerate Cleveland Manufacturing program can contact: ■ Ethan Karp, vice president of client services at Magnet (216-391-7002) ■ Ed Weston, director of supply chain services at Wire-Net (216-588-1440)
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■ Their local Cleveland Industrial Retention Initiative (CIRI) representative FIRST EVENT ■ When: Wednesday, Dec. 3, 4:30-7 p.m. ■ Where: Magnet, 1768 E. 25th St., Cleveland
By RACHEL ABBEY McCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com
A new collaboration between manufacturing advocacy and economic development groups Magnet and Wire-Net is designed to help manufacturers in Cleveland grow and to increase the number of jobs available in the city. The program, Accelerate Cleveland Manufacturing, will feature what the organizations call “growth workshops” with individual companies, as well as larger learning and networking events about topics such as operational improvements and workforce development. It builds off the strengths of both Magnet and Wire-Net, said Ethan Karp, vice president of client services at Magnet. It also enables the group
to leverage Wire-Net’s relationships with companies in the city with Magnet’s Partnership for Regional Innovation Services to Manufacturers (PRISM) program, which combines the organization’s consulting services with resources throughout the region to foster growth. The planning for the program got underway about a year ago, borne from a desire to work more closely together, Karp said. The two groups have “extremely complementary” services, he said, noting that WireNet is member-based and focused on community-building activities, while Magnet has no membership and provides “heavy-duty services” based on growth. Magnet and Wire-Net have worked together in the past — the group’s roles in the regional “Make
it in America” growth program are one example — but he said this type of client-facing program is unprecedented. The Accelerate Cleveland Manufacturing program has been underway after a soft launch about three months ago, but it will kick off officially with a holiday networking event this Wednesday, Dec. 3, at Magnet.The program is funded primarily by the Cleveland Foundation, which in recent years has put a focus on strengthening the urban core. As such, the foundation no longer is agnostic about where jobs are created and who gets those jobs, said Shilpa Kedar, program director for economic development at the foundation. The foundation has supported Wire-Net and Magnet individually
for decades, Kedar said, and it understands their work in manufacturing. But as the foundation put a stronger focus on the city of Cleveland, leaders were pleased to see the two groups collaborate to do the same. In September, Kedar said, the foundation made yearlong grants of $400,000 to Magnet and $325,000 to Wire-Net for focused efforts in the city and innerring suburbs. About 65% to 70% of that funding is directed to the Accelerate Cleveland Manufacturing program, Kedar said. “It helps by making the city more vibrant and the jobs more accessible,” she said. The more thriving companies a city has, the more jobs they create — an especially important point, Kedar said, if residents See SECTOR, page 22
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Groups are collaborating on program that aims to increase number of available manufacturing jobs
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