Crain's Cleveland Business

A COMPLICATED

Real estate for $1, $50?

BY MICHELLE JARBOE

Since late September, more than 60 investors have signed up to purchase a stake in the company that owns the Washington, a new shortterm rental property in downtown Sandusky.

ey’re buying in for as little as $1. at investment model — designed to make real estate accessible to everyday people with a swipe on a smartphone screen — is the brainchild of Rhove, a Columbus-based startup. e company is one of a growing crop of players in the fractional ownership sector, which gives investors access to a piece of a property instead of the whole thing.

What you need to know about JACK’s sportsbooks

BY JOE SCALZO

On Wednesday, Oct. 5, as Europe’s “ e Final Countdown” played overhead, Matt Anderson stood inside the un nished sportsbook at the JACK istledown racino and started talking about its March Madness potential.

“We’re hoping for a full house,” said Anderson, a Medina resident who serves as the director of design and construction at JACK Entertainment. “We’ve got 76 total seats in here, and when it comes to the big games, we want this area to be populated, with everyone placing bets and having a good time.” at day is fast approaching. JACK’s leadership expects the sportsbooks at istledown and the downtown casino to be ready ahead of Jan. 1, when legalized sports gambling arrives in Ohio. (To that end, e Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me

Down” also played during Anderson’s tour.)

A handful of reporters got an early look at both sportsbooks, which will display the same odds as the ones found on the company’s “betJACK” mobile app.

Here are three things to know:

The downtown casino is bigger, and further along.

e 6,000-square-foot JACK Cleveland casino will be located on the rst oor, just o the Prospect Avenue entrance.

It will have 99 seats, including 45 theater-style recliners with phone chargers. ere also will be seven low-boy tables with four swivel chairs each; two small banquette-style seats with room for four people each; one large banquette-style table with six seats; and a 12-seat poker bar.

Block of 296 Akron apartments up for sale

DAN SHINGLER

A block of nearly 300 apartments in 46 di erent buildings has been put up for sale in Akron.

Akron’s SVN Summit Commercial Real Estate Advisors has listed the properties in two blocks, one with 231 units at 32 sites, the other with 65 units at 14 locations. No price has been list ed, but SVN is asking for o ers to be submitted by Monday, Oct. 17, said se nior adviser Nichole Booker.

e properties have been bundled together by two Akron investors, whom Booker declined to name, who have acquired them since the 1980s.

“Both of these guys are Akron through-and-through, born and raised,” Booker said.

e investors, two men, have known each other since high school and have pursued parallel paths in terms of buy ing multifamily properties around town, renovating them, and then hold ing them and having them profession ally managed, Booker said.

“ ey look at gems in Akron that are kind of rundown or need some love and invest in them, invest in the ten ants and in the communities that they own stu in. ey’ve rehabbed all these properties,” Booker said. “ ey’re in great shape.”

ere’s a group of 231 apartments

that all are within about a 3.5-mile ra dius in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood and are 95% occupied, SVN’s listing states. ey are in 12 apartment buildings with between ve and 45 units, and a mix of 20 other smaller buildings with between one and four units apiece. irteen are rented as Airbnb locations, most often to nurses and other visiting medical professionals, according to the listing.

e package of 65 units is in Akron’s West Hill neighborhood, between downtown and Highland Square. Its 14 properties include 12 buildings with 57 units on the south side of the neighbor hood overlooking downtown from an area known as Oak Hill, with the re maining eight units in two buildings on West Street, according to SVN’s listing.

ose buildings have some opportuni ties for investment updates, Booker said, and their rents are about 22% be low the prevailing rates.

Among the larger buildings for sale are the Alcazar, a 41-unit apartment building at 627 W. Market St., and the 44-unit Avalon Apartments at 214 N. Portage, both in Highland Square, ac cording to SVN’s listing.

e sellers aren’t putting a price on the packages and are instead asking for o ers, Booker said. If they don’t get a high-enough o er, they don’t need to sell, she said, but they’re hoping to use

the proceeds for real estate invest ments in other sectors.

is deal likely will be closely watched. It’s not only a large group of apartments and apartment buildings in one listing for Akron — the most Booker said she’s ever put into one deal — but it’s coming to market at an inter esting time. Demand for apartments in Akron and other Midwest cities has been high recently, and real estate pro fessionals have reported seeing a lot of out-of-state interest, even in Akron and other second-tier cities that were once ignored.

But recently, interest rates have been moving up quickly, increasing the cost of borrowing for many buyers

and possibly putting downward pres sure on pricing.

On the other hand, for many inves tors from the coasts, property in Akron is cheap, so just about anything, or nothing, could happen.

Booker anticipates interest and pos sibly a cash deal.

“ is kind of portfolio has attracted investors from all over the country, so there’s de nitely a possibility it will be a cash o er and interest rates won’t have as much of an e ect,” she said. “We have a realistic target range, I’ll say that, compared to what you’re seeing other properties go for.”

Investor Bhavin Patel, a principal at Green Harvest Capital in Bath, said

he’s not pursuing these properties but is familiar with them and owns invest ment rental properties near some of them in Highland Square.

He predicts the quality of the build ings and current market demand will work in favor of a sale.

“ is is a portfolio put together by some individuals who are local. ey’re not from out of town,” Patel said. “ ey’re undervalued, and rents are appreciating in our market. ... Lending is tight, and sourcing capital is more di cult, but these de nitely should attract investors.”

Dan Shingler: dshingler@crain.com, (216) 771-5290

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The Alcazar is one of the Akron apartment buildings being o ered for sale in a large block this month. | CONTRIBUTED

Owner calls it quits at troubled Westlake shopping center

STAN BULLARD

Losing the Stein Mart store when the department store chain shut down in 2020 and being unable to sign up replacement tenants prompt ed the owner of a Westlake neighbor hood center to surrender the proper ty to the lender.

“It killed me to give it back,” said Brian Burton, the manager of former owner Westlake Home Improve ments Associates, in a phone inter view.

Burton in 1974 led the develop ment, along with a dozen partners, of the neighborhood shopping center at 25001-25099 Center Ridge Road.

“We were short about $15,000 ev ery month,” Burton said. “We carried it for two years until we ran out of money.”

e new owner of the plaza is Rial to Capital Management, a special servicer that handles distressed properties for lenders, particularly those issued through the CMBS mar ket. Rialto on Sept. 26 gained owner ship of the property through an a li ate called RSS CFCRE2-6-C4-OH WHIA LLC, according to Cuyahoga County land records. Rialto, which is handling the property through its Mi ami o ce, also serves as its asset manager.

CoStar, the online realty data pro vider, reports the loan, originally $4 million, has $3.5 million remaining

to be paid. CoStar said the loan was 90 days delinquent.

A public giveaway to the giveback is that a di erent brokerage, Cush man & Wake eld Cresco of Indepen dence, has started marketing the empty spaces with a sign that just went up on the site. It hopes to lease the 51,000-foot space that Stein Mart occupied since 1998 and another 9,000-square-foot space. Another seven tenants, three of them leased as o ces, occupy the remainder of the center.

Ryan Fisher, a senior vice presi dent at Cushman & Wake eld Cres co, declined comment on the proper ty.

e plaza has two big issues that make it problematic. One is that the Stein Mart space is so huge there are few mainstream retail prospects for it, and the smaller space is too deep for most small retailers. e other is that its location on Center Ridge Road is remote from primary retail locations.

David Bruening, a principal of Stamford Properties of Beachwood, which handled leasing at the proper ty in the past, said, “It’s between Clague and Columbia roads, which both have I-90 access. But it is also between the Fairview Park and North Olmsted retail districts.

“ en you had Crocker Park devel

oped in Westlake,” Bruening said of the big mixed-use center. “You just couldn’t compete.”

Tori Nook, principal of the Anchor Cleveland retail realty and invest ment brokerage, called it a “su per-secondary location. Unless someone like the Cleveland Clinic (emerges) with a special need, you’re in a pickle.”

She said if the available spaces were smaller, it would be possible to re ll them. e retail market as a whole is healthy in terms of occupan cy.

“We have some national tenants who can’t get into a place on Crocker Road,” Nook said. “Most of the (shop ping center) landlords I work with have better occupancy than ever. If this were small shop space, it would be lled.”

An example of that is nearby. e smaller King James Plaza, across the street from Stein Mart Plaza, is fully stocked with tenants.

e plaza changing hands through deed-in-lieu was a surprise to Mi chelle Boczek, Westlake economic development manager.

“I’ve tried getting other retailers interested in the (Stein Mart) plaza, but I’ve not been able to get their at tention,” Boczek said.

e space occupied by Stein Mart for 20-plus years was large for a rea son.

Burton said it originally housed a

former furniture store. Burton said the city had blocked some prospects for the space, such as a child care center and a ri e range.

Jim Bedell, Westlake director of planning and economic develop ment, said the suburb in most in stances does not permit child care centers in shopping centers for safety reasons.

Bedell said he was not familiar with the bid for a gun range. Howev er, he said adding such a use would require changing the city’s law for bidding individuals from discharg ing a rearm inside its borders.

ere is no indication whether Ri alto might sell the center, especially since it is on a 10-acre site in a sub urb with diminishing vacant land.

“ ey’ll sell it. e question is when,” said Alec Pacella, president of the NAI Pleasant Valley brokerage in Independence. Like other ex perts, he sees it as a good property due to a uent nearby neighbor hoods.

“ e question will be what it be comes next,” he said. “I don’t see it being back- lled with other retail tenants.”

Rialto did not return two calls about the property or respond to an email on its corporate website by 1 p.m. ursday, Oct. 6.

Stan Bullard: sbullard@crain.com, (216) 771-5228, @CrainRltywriter

The role of the ‘ nancial neutral’ in a collaborative divorce case

By Robert M. Nemeth, Principal and department head, Apple Growth Partners

Collaborative divorce is a form of alternative dispute resolution in which the spouses reach settlement without resorting to litigation. This process involves interest-based discussions as opposed to the traditional position-based bargaining.

In addition to the spouses and their respective attorneys, a collaborative divorce team often includes jointly retained third-party coaches as well as a nancial professional.

The nancial professional is often referred to as a “ nancial neutral” due to their impartiali ty toward both parties in the process. The participation of a nancial neutral offers several distinct advantages. Financial neutrals are not advocates for either party and they may not be engaged by either party in any subsequent litigation. This restriction promotes the free ow of information among all parties. There are no dueling experts in this process. The primary role of the nancial neutral is to educate all participants in the collaborative process as to the nancial implications of the divorce.

As part of the process, the nancial neutral can also help couples articulate their nancial interests. These interests often include saving for children’s college education, buying a new home, saving for retirement or simply having the suf cient cash ow to meet future expenses.

The interests of the couple form the foundation for all future nancial conversations.

Quali ed nancial neutrals should have signi cant training in the collaborative process as well as mediation training. Financial neutrals will hold various professional designations in their eld and spend signi cant hours each year in continuing education. They may be certi ed public accountants, business appraisers, certi ed fraud examiners, certi ed divorce nancial analysts or nancial planners. Each offers a distinct skill set that should be matched to the complexities of the marital estate. Additionally, quali ed nancial neutrals must have strong listening skills and must be able to explain complicated and confusing nancial concepts in layman’s terms.

Depending on the situation, the nancial neutral can offer a wide range of services. Typically, the nancial neutral will be the depository of all nancial information. Having one professional gather and organize the nancial information avoids duplication of efforts and ensures that both parties will receive copies of the identical nancial documents throughout the process. Since transparency is critical to the collaborative process, the nancial neutral can help identify missing nancial documents and potentially overlooked assets and debts. Often, the nancial neutral will meet with the spouses separately as well as jointly to gather as much nancial information as possible.

In addition to gathering and organizing the pertinent nancial information, they will often work with both spouses to create individual

budgets and cash ow analyses for their lives post-divorce.

Using a nancial neutral on the collaborative team will help the divorcing couple make informed nancial decisions throughout the collaborative process.

The collaborative divorce form of alternative dispute resolution offers couples the opportuni ty to create a nancial settlement that meets the interests of both spouses without resorting to traditional positional bargaining techniques. Financial neutrals can be valuable team members in the collaborative divorce process. Their role as non-biased nancial educators will help divorcing couples make informed nancial decisions when concluding their marriage and planning for the next phase of their lives.

Robert M. Nemeth is a principal and the department head in the Business Valuation and Litigation Support Group of Apple Growth Partners, an award-winning accounting and business advisory rm. He is a CPA as well as a Certi ed Valuation Analyst, Certi ed Divorce Financial Analyst, and a Certi ed Fraud Examiner. He can be reached via email at rnemeth@ applegrowth.com, or at 216-674-3800.

This advertising-supported section/feature is produced by Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland, the marketing storytelling arm of Crain’s Cleveland Business. The Crain’s Cleveland Business newsroom is not involved in creating Crain’s Content Studio content.

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The original developer of this Westlake shopping center said he turned it over to the lender rather than continue carrying it nancially.

STAN BULLARD/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

NOV

The Center for Health A airs develops workforce solutions

BY LYDIA COUTRÉ

e Center for Health A airs, the nonpro t advocate for Northeast Ohio hospitals, has developed a suite of workforce solutions to help address the regional and national shortage of health care workers.

Over the summer, it launched an online job board dedicated to health care, o ered hospitals a nurse retention tool and expanded an existing partnership to roll out specialized health care education and development opportunities.

“For us, it’s taking a look at the whole ecosystem of a workforce,” said Endrit Meta, the center’s director of technology and data. “Because we’re looking at all the di erent challenges from the employee’s perspective, all the way to the employer’s, and then retaining and keeping employees once they’re matched in their optimal positions.”

e United States could have a gap of between 200,000 and 450,000 nurses available for direct patient care by 2025, according to a report from consulting rm McKinsey. e U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a need for 1.1 million new registered nurses nationwide by 2030.

e rm Mercer projects a shortage of 3.2 million within the next ve years among “critical, albeit lower-wage, health care occupations,” such as medical assistants, home health aides and nursing assistants.

Worker shortages aren’t new for the health care industry, but these gures would have been far lower had it not been for the pandemic, said Brian Lane, president and CEO of the Center for Health A airs (CHA).

“ e need has become so great that you’ve got to come to the table with these types of o erings, and we feel that we’re in a very good spot, because we’re neutral,” said Lane.

e rst o ering CHA announced was the Career Center, an online job board for employers and job seekers in the health care industry aimed at

erence checking, career coaching, resume writing, LinkedIn pro le development and resume distribution.

e Career Center is focusing rst on hospital employers — which the Center for Health A airs has the strongest connection with — but leaders hope to create a place for all health-care-related jobs with a broad array of employers participating, said Christine Dodd, the center’s executive director of member services.

ey’re also beginning regionally with a plan to extend across Ohio.

“We are focused, initially, on sort of building a critical mass in Northeast Ohio in the Career Center,” said Michele Fancher, senior director of corporate communications for CHA.

“In terms of both job seekers and employers, that’s where our promotional efforts right now are focused on getting participation. It is open to the whole state.”

And the state has plenty of need.

It’s been taking nearly two months to ll a nursing position in Ohio in the rst half of this year, according to the 2022 Q2 Health Care Jobs Report from the American Hospital Association. While most states in the Midwest saw declines in job postings from the rst to second quarter this year, Ohio saw a 6.8% increase and has seen increases every quarter for the past year, according to AHA data.

CHA also created educational opportunities through health care workforce development company Dignity Health Global Education (DHGE), which o ers professional

tions (such as the Healthcare Leadership certificate, the Mini-MBA in Healthcare program and RN to BSN Completion).

The Center for Health Affairs and DHGE first began working together last year before expanding their partnership to offer educational programming at a discounted rate to member hospitals, sponsor and community organizations, and members of the center’s business affiliate, CHAMPS Group Purchasing.

The classes are also available more broadly, which is part of Lane’s vision — providing services not just to hospitals, not just to members, but to the overall community.

For the past 30 years or so, the center has been geared more narrowly toward its membership, but a recent alignment with the community’s economic leaders — such as the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Team NEO, JobsOhio and other chambers of commerce — has “really fostered a strategic focus on making an impact within the overall marketplace,” Lane said.

“We’ve had the DNA for 100-plus years of looking at the situation, creating a solution, solving for an actual problem, right?” he said.

Shortly after announcing the education options, the center announced that in partnership with analytic software provider Pegasus Knowledge Solutions Inc. (PKSI), it would connect hospitals with a solution designed to support nurse retention.

member hospitals and the Northeast Ohio community at large. To develop this hub, the center partnered with Naylor Association Solutions, a Virginia-based provider of engagement, software, management and non-dues revenue for trade and professional associations.

Employers can post positions (including internships for free) and browse quali ed candidates and explore additional available enhancements, such as banner ad rotation, network distribution, social recruiting and more. In addition to viewing open positions, the hub o ers services for job seekers, including ref-

development and higher education courses speci cally created for health care.

“They have classes on leadership or classes on social determinants of health — that’s a big space,” Dodd said. “So there’s certificates and ways to advance yourself in your career without having to go get an MBA or a law degree.”

They’re currently offering more than a dozen online courses, including eight-week certificates (such as Social Determinants of Health and Healthcare Project Management) and 12-week op-

PKSI’s Advanced Workforce Analytics (AWA) solution offers critical insights to reduce nurse turnover, using human resources data models, machine learning analytics and other technology. AWA is designed to help hospitals with a slew of things, including, according to a news release from the center: identifying employees at a potential risk of leaving, addressing reduced employee engagement, creating plans for workforce and succession planning, using behavioral analytics to match candidates with positions, helping better understand employee experience with surveys and appraisals, understanding the traits of high performers and identifying workforce training needs.

The workforce programs are the “building blocks that we’re going to keep adding to, you know, our base, to provide member value, community value, and then address a national as well as a global problem,” Lane said.

Lane

Meta Dodd Fancher

“FOR US, IT’S TAKING A LOOK AT THE WHOLE ECOSYSTEM OF A WORKFORCE. BECAUSE WE’RE LOOKING AT ALL THE DIFFERENT CHALLENGES FROM THE EMPLOYEE’S PERSPECTIVE, ALL THE WAY TO THE EMPLOYER’S, AND THEN RETAINING AND KEEPING EMPLOYEES ONCE THEY’RE MATCHED IN THEIR OPTIMAL POSITIONS.”

—Endrit Meta, the Center for Health A airs director of technology and data

‘Cleveland feels like home’

New ‘Cavaliers Live’ studio host excited about return

JOE SCALZO

A few days after working her last broadcast in Houston — a fourhour, 11-inning game with a 46-minute rain delay on Sunday, Sept. 25 — Cayleigh Griffin packed up all her belongings and spent the next 19 hours with her dad inside a U-Haul driving to her new home.

For some daughters, this ar rangement can be tricky, because it’s hard to find a radio station your dad likes, too.

Fortunately, they didn’t have that problem.

“The U-Haul was so loud, we couldn’t even play music,” she said, laughing. “It blew our ears out, so we sat in almost complete silence the whole time, which made it even funnier.”

The craziest part? She did this so she could cover the Cavaliers. In Cleveland. During the winter. When it’s cold.

“It is cold, but it is so darn hot down there (in Houston),” said Griffin, who will replace Jeff Phelps as the host of “Cavaliers Live” preand postgame shows. “It’s proba bly 98 right now, but with the hu midity, it feels like 110. It’s so disgusting. You just sweat nonstop.

broadcasting.”

To fill in the gaps, she pursued every outside opportunity she could find, running up the type of resume that requires a stapler. Since graduating high school in 2010, she’s held 13 different broad casting jobs or internships — seri ously, 13! — including stints with Fox Sports, NBC Sports, the Big East conference and the San Anto nio Spurs.

Along the way, she befriended legendary sports broadcaster Doris Burke, a Providence alumna who has served as a mentor “and helped me navigate what I’m doing,” Grif fin said. “And she continues to do so. She’s been tremendously help ful.”

Griffin’s experience and talent make her a natural fit for “Cavaliers Live,” where she’ll work alongside former Cavalier Campy Russell and, periodically, “Mr. Cavalier” Austin Carr, former Cavs coach Mike Fratello and sideline reporter Serena Winters.

ing my perspective and hopefully have fun doing it.”

As for the cold? Pshaw. How many palm trees do you think they have in Connecticut?

“I’m more accustomed to this weather, although I’m pretty sure my blood did thin out down there,” she said. “Cleveland feels more like home to me. And it’s closer to home. It’s closer to friends and family. The community reminded me of being back in the Northeast. The fans are so passionate about all the sports here.

“The Cavs are a very appealing team, but it’s not just about that team. I love the team I get to work with. Dan (Sevic), our producer, and all our talent — these people made it so easy for me the first time I was here. Now I get to work with them again. It’s going to be great.”

Joe Scalzo: joe.scalzo@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @JoeScalzo01

“I LOVED THE CITY. YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO WALK AROUND TOWN AND FEEL THE COMMUNITY, WHICH IS SOMETHING I’VE MISSED TREMENDOUSLY THE LAST THREE YEARS.”

—Cayleigh Gri n

“I can’t tell you how many times I walked out of the ballpark think ing, ‘Am I going to make it to my car?’”

She’ll have the opposite problem here — you haven’t lived until you’ve asked yourself, “Have I de frosted enough of the windshield to start driving?” — but Griffin knew what she was getting into. Before she was hired as the court side reporter and studio host for Rockets games on AT&T SportsNet, she spent the 2018-19 season as a digital host and reporter for Fox Sports Ohio. She also served a number of roles for the Cavs that year, including as a sideline report er on the Cavs radio network and a reporter for Cleveland Monsters hockey and the Canton Charge.

“I’m so excited to get back to Cleveland,” she said. “I was here for a year before and I feel like I didn’t even get the whole experi ence. I loved the city. You have the ability to walk around town and feel the community, which is something I’ve missed tremen dously the last three years.”

Griffin grew up in Connecticut and knew at any early age she wanted to go into sports broadcast ing, but she also knew she wanted to go to Providence College, her mother’s alma mater. Because Providence didn’t have a commu nications major, she made the best of things, majoring in English with a minor in film on the philosophy of, “Heck, these skills translate to

“We are thrilled to welcome Cayleigh back to Cleveland and are confident she will be a great fit as the Host of Cavaliers Live,” Bally Sports Ohio SVP/GM Randy Ste phens said in an email. “She re turns with NBA broad casting experience in a number of different roles and, as someone who’s been here before, under stands the unique oppor tunity and responsibility of presenting Cavs basket ball to a large and devoted fan base.”

Unlike the ill-fated 2018-19 season — the Cavaliers’ first without LeBron James following four straight Finals appearances — Griffin arrives in Cleveland at a cool time, basket ball-wise. The Cavaliers were al ready on the rise following a sur prising 44-38 finish last season, then created more excitement with last month’s blockbuster trade for former Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell.

“I think there’s so much to be ex cited about,” Griffin said. “Dono van Mitchell is the oldest of a young core, and he just turned 26, so there’s much to be said about that and how much success they had last year, which was a real sur prise. I don’t think anyone saw them making that step so quickly.

“Truly, the sky’s the limit for them. The expectations obviously have risen for them with Donovan in the mix, but they’re really fun. They seem to really enjoy playing with each other. It’s great from a broadcasting perspective when the players around you enjoy each oth er. It makes for fun basketball, and it makes them fun to talk to.”

She also said she loves the studio format, which allows her to lead a conversation and bring some of her own insight to the table.

“One of the traits that has made me successful so far in the NBA is that I really go all-in on the job I’m hired to do,” she said. “That’s what I’m planning to do here. I’m all-in on the team, on hosting the shows, and I’m looking forward to provid

Cayleigh Gri n interviews then-Rockets guard Russell Westbrook on AT&T SportsNet in Houston. CONTRIBUTED

In ation continues to be the top concern for Ohio’s small businesses

BY KIM PALMER

In ation remains the biggest concern facing small-business owners, nationally and in Ohio, with 96% of those owners saying pricing pressures are continuing or have increased since June, a recent Goldman Sachs survey found.

In Ohio, 79% of small-business owners who responded to the survey said in ationary pressures have increased over the past three months, compared with 77% nationally, according to the nationwide survey conducted at the end of August and in early September and featuring responses from 1,479 participants in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.

Capital constraints

Fledgling companies such as Chagrin Falls-based Your Healthy Spaces, founded in 2019, are particularly vulnerable to the economy’s continuing in ationary pressures.

e company, which o ers a disinfection service for facilities using electrostatic sprayers to coat surfaces with a topical antimicrobial solution that kills germs and pathogens, saw a boom during the pandemic but now is grappling with the reality of higher transportation costs and wage growth.

“We were doing phenomenally well during the pandemic, which I know a lot of companies were not, but our company was geared toward the pandemic,” said Fred Suppes, founder and president of Your Healthy Spaces. “Now we are struggling. I would say we’re probably doing about $250,000 less in sales this year, and right now we are trying to retool ourselves to reach the clients that we need to reach.”

In 2020, Suppes had contracts with large local facilities including the Nestle’s Stou er plant in Medina, and he traveled for business to Indiana, Texas and Florida, taking advantage of low gas prices and empty highways.

As COVID infections wane, so has the pressing need for his company’s service, leading Suppes to look at diversifying from a business-to-business service and transitioning to selling consumer-based antimicrobial laundry detergent, alcohol- and bleach-free hand sanitizer, and other topical products.

Around half of Ohio small-business owners, according to the Goldman Sachs survey, reported a decline in customer demand over the past few months. Of those businesses that have experienced revenue losses, 47% also are pausing any expansion plans, and 31% reported di culty raising capital and/or higher borrowing costs.

So far, Suppes has absorbed the rising costs of gas, materials and wages as a move to compete with larger companies that he said are moving away from smaller companies like his and consolidating cleaning and cleaning supply contracts to save money and time.

“ ese companies have less sta now to deal with multiple smaller contracts,” Suppes said. “ ey tell us they don’t have the time or the sta to even talk to us.”

Hiring has been a main barrier to

the company’s expansion, according to Suppes, who said he o ered what was considered a competitive wage for workers during the pandemic that now is not enough to retain or bring in employees.

Nearly three-fourths of Ohio small-business owners included in the Goldman Sachs survey said they are experiencing hiring challenges.

ey cite competition with larger employers on pay and bene ts as their biggest impediment.

“ e labor pool out there doesn’t care that you are small — they just want to know what you’re o ering,” Suppes said. “ ey all just ask me, what are your bene ts?”

Supplier problems

For many small businesses, in ationary pressures, plus higher shipping and raw material costs, are leading to higher prices for their customers. e Goldman Sachs survey found 68% of small businesses have raised prices on goods or services.

Paula and Dan Hershman of Storehouse Tea Co. in Ohio City’s Hildebrandt Building were forced to raise prices for their custom-blended, organic loose-leaf tea by 15% at the beginning of the year.

“We can’t absorb lower margins like a bigger company,” said Paula Hershman, who is the founder and president of Storehouse Tea. “We can’t just change our packaging — print new packaging and labels — so that we are actually giving out less product but keep the price the same, like some larger companies do.”

e Hershmans were transparent about the price changes to their customer base. ey noted they were struggling with delays based on how they believe suppliers prioritized smaller orders.

“We have over 40 di erent ingredients and 20 di erent kinds of tea that we blend with di erent herbs, spices, fruits and owers, so we don’t buy pallets or 800 pounds of one kind of ingredient,” said Dan Hershman, vice president of Storehouse. “Because of that, we have to spend the time and be very diligent about having conversations with our suppliers so they don’t forget about us.”

With higher international ship-

ping and domestic transportation costs on the rise, the Hershmans could use extra capital to help buy packaging equipment and diversify their supplier base.

“We are trying to order things more domestically with all the supply chain delays,” Paula Hershman said. But she said she struggles to nd other small suppliers that have the capital to invest in the equipment to process the ingredients she requires.

Banks, however, do not traditionally tend to lend for food-based purchases, Dan Hershman said, because they shy away from smaller companies with equity that is perishable. Businesses like Storehouse also lack large amounts of expensive equipment that can be leveraged as collateral, or multimillion-dollar contracts than can back equity loans. is combination of factors is holding Storehouse Tea from accessing capital and competing with larger tea companies, Dan Hershman said.

November elections

Both Suppes and the Hershmans are looking for programs and policies tailored for the issues their companies are facing.

With November’s midterm elections coming up, more than 85% of Ohio small-business owners say they de nitely plan to vote, with 87% saying a candidate’s small business policy positions will play an important role in whom they choose to support.

e survey also found that 78% of small-business owners in Ohio are more likely to support a candidate who pledges to reauthorize and back the modernization of the U.S. Small Business Administration — something the Hershmans and Suppes support.

“If we want to expand, it requires capital, and with the rise in interest rates coupled with rising costs, small businesses are having trouble accessing traditional lending,” Suppes said. “If the SBA could modernize to o er small business health care programs and more borrowing options, that would be important to us.”

Located in Ohio City, Storehouse Tea ships its certi ed organic and Fair Trade tea sachets throughout Ohio and across the country.

CONTRIBUTED

HNTRESS creator wants customers to look, feel good

In June, Lauren Tamir received her rst patent.

It wasn’t an easy process, and she had to argue for her product’s uniqueness after initially being de nied. But she was ultimately able to convince the U.S. Patent and Trade mark O ce that her hooded cowl product was worthy of patent protec tion.

Tamir might not be in a business that people think of rst when they think patents. She’s the CEO and founder of small apparel company HNTRESS, the maker of the patented cowl product.

Very small businesses have been part of the country’s “DNA” since the start, said Roger Geiger, executive di rector of Ohio’s National Federation of Independent Business chapter.

e signers of the Constitution? Al most all small-business owners, he said. Today, there are more than 700,000 self-employed individuals in Ohio alone, Geiger noted.

About 88% of Ohio’s businesses employ 20 or fewer people. And that includes everything from family farmers to self-employed plumbers and electricians to small apparel businesses like HNTRESS.

“Without question, the smallest of small businesses are a very import

ant part of the overall fabric, if you will, of the business community,” Geiger said.

During COVID, there were record numbers of startups or small busi nesses ling with the state, Geiger said, reaching about 200,000 in 2021.

ose numbers included HN TRESS, which Tamir started working on in early 2020.

HNTRESS grew out of tough times for Tamir. e 31-year-old had faced a variety of health challenges over the years, starting with migraines at age 12. She was diagnosed with ev erything from bromyalgia to Lyme disease, which took a toll on her mental health, as well. While attend ing Ohio State University for busi ness, Tamir decided to focus on her healing, a journey that lasted beyond graduation.

During that process, which took longer than Tamir had expected, she wanted something that could serve as a physical reminder of strength. Tamir said she was inspired by the character of Katniss Everdeen “tak ing on the world” in “ e Hunger Games,” and found a crocheted cowl similar to her costume online.

“ at’s what I need,” she said. “I want to feel like this even though I feel so hopeless some days.”

And it helped. e cut of the gar ment made her feel “like a warrior,”

Tamir said, but it was also warm and comforting. And she liked the way it looked.

But Tamir saw room for improve ment. She wanted to improve the de sign, making it less bulky and warm er, closing up the holes inherent in a crocheted product. And she wanted something machine washable and dryable.

“And I was like, I bet I can make this better,” she said.

Tamir started sourcing materials

and working with a pattern maker to get the product just right. She found two manufacturers — one in Cleve land and one in Columbus, as a back up — and launched the product o cially last September.

In Cleveland, Tamir is working with SEAM-Sewing Experts Assem bly Manufacturing Ltd.

SEAM owner Paula Pedaci in an email said HNTRESS is a good exam ple of what the company likes about its clients: e company is “passion ate, hardworking, willing to learn and easy to work with,” she said.

Small clothing and product de signers account for most of SEAM’s business, Pedaci said. Before taking on a client, Pedaci makes sure com panies are a good t, willing to go through appropriate procedures and commit to order minimums.

In an email, American Apparel and Footwear Association president and CEO Steve Lamar noted that small apparel companies have been “facing crushing burdens,” from tar i s to counterfeit products. Brand protection is particularly expensive for small companies, he said.

Tamir said that hasn’t been an is sue for her yet, but it’s a concern.

at’s part of why she sought a patent for her product. So far, her biggest challenge has been educating people on her product, showing them how it’s worn and what niche it might ll in their wardrobe. She’s been active on Instagram and attending vendor events, and she starting promoting it more after receiving her patent.

Tamir said she always had an “en trepreneurial spirit.” And HNTRESS isn’t her only business venture. She

also runs a pair of real estate-related companies with her husband: Pre mier Cleveland Investing and Pros pera Ventures.

HNTRESS is a home-based busi ness in Pepper Pike. Currently, Tamir and her husband are the sole em ployees, but she’d like to see it grow.

e cowls now are designed for women, but she’d like to add prod ucts for men and children, as well. And the product currently is made from sherpa eece and comes in four colors, but she’d like to expand those o erings, too.

In her rst year, Tamir said she’s sold 100 to 150 cowls. And she’s built philanthropy into her business mod el. e goal, Tamir said, is to donate one cowl for every 10 sold to organi zations like women’s shelters, though she went above that and donated about 120 through a church in Parma when the war in Ukraine broke out.

Tamir said she had support during her healing journey, but she still felt alone. (After trying medication and diet changes, Tamir found that tend ing to her mental and emotional health made the biggest di erence. Today, she still su ers from occa sional migraines.) She wants other women to have a physical show of support during challenges of all kinds.

“I just wanted women to have something tangible that they can use and wear and feel that might just help them even just a centimeter,” Tamir said. “So that was really im portant to me.”

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“ First Commonwealth made us feel that they were investing in our growth. You don’t get that from everybody else.”

Rachel Abbey McCa erty: (216) 771-5379, rmcca erty@crain.com

RACHEL ABBEY

Lauren Tamir is the founder of HNTRESS. | KATIE LOGSDON CREATIVE

Ronanye for County Executive

Let’s take a moment to appreciate something increasing ly rare in politics today: a substantive, respectful cam paign.

at’s what we’ve seen, for the most part, in the race be tween Democrat Chris Ronayne and Republican Lee Weing art for Cuyahoga County Executive. ey’ve debated, focused on real issues, put forward detailed plans and engaged with voters. You might or might not like their diagnoses of the county’s problems or their proposed solutions, but they have communicated in a way that has raised the quality of dis course. Well done. Keep it that way until Election Day.

Our preference is Ronayne, 54, who in previous jobs as planning director and chief of sta in the city of Cleveland and as leader of University Circle Inc. established a track re cord of working collaboratively, bringing the public, private and nonpro t sectors together, and getting things done. If voters go the other way and select Weingart, 56, a former Cuyahoga County commissioner who runs a successful lob bying rm, it will still be an upgrade from the failed leader ship of the o ce’s current occupant, Armond Budish. What ever promise the shift to the County Executive-led form of government once held has been lost, and change at the top can’t come soon enough.

We believe Ronayne is the person better-positioned to cre ate a more transparent, responsive county government that complements changes happening in the city of Cleveland and to work with other leaders to address major economic and social challenges.

He would come to the County Executive job with a wealth of experience and eyes open to what is — and all too often, isn’t — working in county government.

In a recent interview for our podcast, e Landscape, Ronayne gave county government a grade of C-, trending to ward an F. “Right now, we’re failing,” he said. (You can nd interviews with both Ronayne and Weingart at crainscleve land.com/Landscape.)

At present, Ronayne said, the sum of our parts in Northeast Ohio is greater than the whole. We’re not getting the most out of the available assets, and we’re underachieving economi cally and on various social-welfare metrics. “I think the di er ence has been public sector leadership,” Ronayne said, in re

sponse to a question about why peer regions have been more dynamic than Cuyahoga County. Leading “collaboratively” and working closely with mayors and city managers in the county is the best way to improve education, job training and skills development to create an “all-in economy,” Ronayne said.

His work at the city and at UCI received strong grades and suggests he has both the policy know-how to bring innova tions to county government and the administrative experi ence to avoid getting bogged down in the loop of task forces and committees that can prevent big change. One example: his call for the region’s two biggest nonpro t health care pro viders, Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, to make voluntary payments on their tax-exempt property to create a Community Health Equity Fund. Weingart has criticized the plan as unrealistic. But it suggests to us a candidate who’s not afraid to take a big swing and rethink the status quo. Ronayne’s Healthy Cuyahoga plan o ers fresh thinking on issues involv ing the workforce, preparing development-ready sites, envi ronmental protection, transportation, housing, crime and more.

It’s a good thing that both Ronayne and Weingart have op posed the Budish administration’s plans for an expensive new jail and said they would change directions if elected.

ey’re both on the record, too, as opposing the strategy that has had the county continue to throw good money after bad at the Global Center for Health Innovation, known more widely to the people who pay for it as the Medical Mart.

Weingart also has been an idea-generator in the campaign, most notably with his plan to replace municipal income taxes with a uni ed county income tax. He would need a change in state law to do that, and there’s more work to do to work with municipalities to determine the full impact of such a change. But he has kicked o a worthwhile discussion of tax reform and its role in making Cuyahoga County more economically competitive and growth-oriented.

In a City Club debate, Ronayne noted, “I’m your candidate who’s been there.” e experience, he argued, puts him in a position to lead “a realignment of resources to meet the mod ern needs in our county.” We agree and urge a vote for Ronayne on Nov. 8.

Executive Editor: Elizabeth McIntyre (emcintyre@crain.com)

Managing Editor: Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com)

Contact Crain’s: 216-522-1383

Read Crain’s online: crainscleveland.com

VIEW

Computer science teachers need better pay to avert crisis

LOGAN KOLAS

Ohio currently ranks in the bottom half of the country in nearly every rele vant computer science metric. at abysmal showing must change — and quickly — to give today’s students a ghting chance as tomorrow’s employ ees in the 21st century economy.

Businesses across the state need em ployees with computer skills, and the signi cant gap between available com puter-skilled workers and employer de mand is only expected to widen over the next decade. To help meet that demand and prepare students for the digital workplace, Ohio elementary and sec ondary schools need to dramatically im prove their computer science curricula.

Kolas is an economic policy analyst with the Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center.

Studies show that computer science classes help with cre ative, cognitive thinking and complement math and science coursework. Reforming policy so students can more easily access computer science education would help them per form better in traditional school subjects like math, while preparing them for the jobs of the future that will require computer science skills.

Fortunately, the State Committee on Computer Science recently released 10 recommendations for improving Ohio’s computer skills training and education. Among other proposals, the com mittee suggests requiring high school students to complete at least one com puter science course be fore graduating, changing occupational licensing laws for computer science teachers, and directing ed ucation funds to support more computer classes.

STUDIES SHOW THAT COMPUTER SCIENCE CLASSES HELP WITH CREATIVE, COGNITIVE THINKING AND COMPLEMENT MATH AND SCIENCE COURSEWORK.

All commendable. And if adopted, these recommended steps would improve upon the status quo and further improve on Ohio’s revised model curriculum for computer science — which was recently up dated to help students apply the skills learned in the class room to jobs in the workforce.

Unfortunately, the State Committee on Computer Sci ence stopped short of proposing the one change that might improve Ohio’s K-12 computer programs the most: attract ing more computer science teachers statewide by allowing schools to pay them more.

Collective bargaining agreements negotiated between teachers’ unions and local school districts determine teach er pay in Ohio public schools. ose agreements — de signed to ensure fair compensation for teachers — have in stead contributed to a computer science teacher shortage by preventing computer science teachers from being com pensated relative to their private-sector value and employ ment alternatives.

Akron Public Schools, for example, has already been bit ten by the teacher shortage bug across many subject areas and has turned to long-term substitute teachers and social media campaigns to ll the void. ese shortages will only become more acute as more students are required to take computer science before graduating.

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 ClevEdit@crain.com. Please include your complete name and city from which you are writing, and a telephone number for fact-checking purposes.

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We should all cheer the return of company pro ts

Trying to forecast in ation is a hazardous occupation when there’s so much volatility in markets, supply chains and energy prices. But we can get some sense of where in ation is likely to go by tracking the pro t mar gins of companies that make goods and services that go into the consumer prices basket.

Back in February, pro t margins were getting squeezed as companies absorbed cost increases be cause prices for commodities, labor and freight were rising faster than they could be passed along to custom ers.

Conditions have changed over the course of the year. As food giant General Mills showed in its recent quar terly earnings report, companies that were hit hardest by higher costs have made progress on stabilizing pro t margins, creating a pathway toward more normalized in ation at places like the grocery store over the coming months.

e way to think about this is by looking at companies that make products like cereal, ketchup and bleach as middlemen between providers of raw materials, labor and transportation services on one side of a transaction, and consumers on the other. In normal times when things are stable, if their costs go up a little, they increase prices a little and they make their pro t — textbook cap italism stu .

at’s not what happened last year.

Supply chains got jammed up. Commodity prices soared. Transportation prices soared. Labor was in short supply as the economy ramped up after being par alyzed by the pandemic. But because it wasn’t clear how long this would last, or how much the cost increases might reverse over time, the price hikes that consumers paid lagged the higher costs absorbed by companies, and pro t margins plunged at the end of 2021 and early 2022. at was the impetus for a column I wrote in Feb ruary, with Clorox saying at the time that to restore its pro t margins overnight would require increasing pric ing by 15% in one fell swoop, a move that it intended to space out over a number of years.

AND WHILE THERE REMAINS A LOT OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE SUPPLY CHAIN SITUATION, MOST COMPANIES ARE NOW SAYING THAT CONDITIONS HAVE IMPROVED AT LEAST MODESTLY.

And so 2022, particularly over the last six months, can be seen either as the time when in ation really acceler ated, or as the time when the economy began to regain its equilibrium, depending upon your perspective. e acceleration story is easy to show in something like food as measured in the Consumer Price Index — in August it accelerated on a year-over-year basis to 13.5%, its fastest growth rate since the 1970s.

is is where digging into the data behind company earnings and commentary is useful to see what’s going on. In its quarter ending in February, the gross pro t

TEACHERS

From

But better pay will yield more quali ed computer sci ence teachers, and a model for allowing higher pay al ready exists under state law. Ohio currently authorizes school districts to increase compensation for some teachers when local school boards determine that the teachers’ subject area su ers a shortage.

Instead of waiting for individual local school districts to recognize the computer science teacher shortage, Ohio lawmakers should proactively expand this author

margin of cereal maker General Mills was at 31.4%, its lowest level in over a decade and almost 3% below where it was at the same point in 2019. Prices were going to have to rise to get back to those pre-pandemic pro t margin levels. And we know that prices did rise over the past several months. But in the quarter ending in Au gust, gross margins had ticked back up to 34.8%, only a little below the 35.2% level attained at the same point in 2019. Responding to an analyst about how the company felt about pricing and pro t margins at this point, Gen eral Mills chief nancial o cer Ko Bruce said, “We have taken some additional steps to address cost of goods. ... I think we are in a place where we feel comfort able we have got this sort of bounded.”

And while there remains a lot of uncertainty about the supply chain situation, most companies are now saying that conditions have improved at least modestly. Freight costs, whether by ocean or by truck, continue to fall. Commodity prices have fallen, as well; they are maybe the area where the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases have had the greatest impact.

ird-quarter earnings results will start coming out over the next few weeks, and what I expect to hear from the companies that were hurt the most by supply chain in ationary pressures is that pro t margins are up, thanks to a combination of price increases on their end and supply chain improvement. In a way, the negative outlook from FedEx a couple weeks ago is good news to the extent that it means supply chains are healing and there’s less need for expensive rush shipping.

If freight and commodity costs surge again in the months ahead, or if wage pressures remain sticky enough that they put downward pressure on pro t mar gins, then all bets are o . Otherwise, these signs that pro t margins are returning to normalized levels means we’re nally at a place where in ation should start to slow.

ity statewide. Acknowledging a statewide computer sci ence teacher shortage and allowing all public school districts to raise salaries for computer science teachers as needed would help attract and retain more quali ed teachers, avert a looming crisis in the classroom, and better prepare Ohio students for successful careers in the digital age.

Taking bold preemptive action now to help our schools hire the teachers they need to teach will help our businesses hire employees with the knowledge and skills they need to do the job. Computer science in school today really will determine the Ohio we have to morrow.

THE LAND SCAPE

A CRAIN’S CLEVELAND PODCAST

General Mills Inc. brand Progresso soup arranged in a store in Dobbs Ferry, New York. | BLOOMBERG

Employee-friendly nance consultancy has surged to a bustling 240-person business with more than 20 locations in four countries.

Mortgage lenders rethink workforces

amid rising interest rates and

he dynamics that supported a hot housing market for several years and a booming re industry — especially amid the COVID-19 outbreak, when interest rates dropped to near zero — were expected to take a turn this year as the Federal Reserve ramped up rates to combat surging levels of in ation.

While the rate hikes were expected in 2022, and a spike in consumer rates along with them, how fast those rates would rise, and how quick ly the residential mortgage industry would actually cool, was not.

“I sat in circles earlier this year where we were thinking we’d see mortgage in terest rates in the (mid-5% range) by the end of summer. We are well into the (7% range) now,” said Drew Alurovic, secre tary for the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Asso ciation and a Northeast Ohio sales man ager for Union Savings Bank. “We didn’t see this coming. We knew rates were coming up. We just didn’t know they’d come up this quickly.”

e good times couldn’t last forever. e mortgage business is cyclical. Lend ers knew rates had to eventually run back up and that 2022 would be tougher for

them than years past.

But the pace of change has been jar ring, experts say. As such, lenders are bracing for an even steeper downturn in the residential mortgage business this year and, in many cases, restructuring their workforces accordingly to rein in costs as revenues slow.

“Even if rates were not going up a ton, we knew it was going to be hard to dupli cate last year’s results with the massive re boom, the construction boom and proper ty values increasing,” said Scott Siefers, a senior research analyst with Piper Sandler who follows some of Northeast Ohio’s

Mortgage originations drop after 2021

most prominent banks. “Coming out of the boom years, we knew it would be tough. But it’s unfortunately been a lot tougher than we even anticipated.”

e re market may be dried up for a long time.

ere’s also weakening demand in the purchase market amid a slowing economy and rising in ation. ese factors create a ordability issues for a segment of potential homebuyers that are further exacerbated by rising rates and increased loan costs.

“It’s kind of a perfect storm in terms of things that have gone wrong with that industry,” Siefers said.

Market shift

Bank and nonbank lenders alike grew their workforces to take advantage of a busy market these last couple of years.

But for a large segment of the industry, the pendulum is swinging the other way in the wake of this downturn.

According to the most recent forecast by the national Mortgage Bankers Association, total mortgage originations (by both dollars and volume) for one- to four-family homes in the U.S. are expected to drop by approximately 50% this year compared with 2021.

According to a September report from Ohio REALTORS, Ohio home sales were down in August by 6.4% compared with the same month last year, while the average sales price had increased 6.9% to $267,659 versus August 2021.

News about sta reductions at Strongsville-based Union Home Mortgage started to come out this spring.

e national lender has declined

to detail the extent of its local or companywide layo s.

However, according to Crain’s data, UHM reported a local workforce of 589 people as of June 30, marking an annual decrease in its workforce of more than 14%.

“ e residential housing market has turned quickly due to historically low inventory of homes for sale and a rapid rise in interest rates due to ination, and we, like other companies in our industry, are temporarily adjusting sta ng levels to accommodate rapidly changing marketplace conditions and business needs,” UHM spokeswoman Cindy Flynn told Crain’s earlier this year.

During Q2 earnings, Huntington Bank CEO Steve Steinour reported that the Columbus-based bank had released at least 158 mortgage underwriters and processors because of a market shift, though only four of those were in the local market at the time.

As much as possible, companies will shift workers from one focus to another to avoid layo s. Alurovic said his company has been moving some folks in areas like procurement and underwriting to servicing, auditing or quality control as market dynamics shift.

But reducing the workforce is a natural lever for companies to pull when lending volumes slow, and it’s a clear sign of the impact rising rates are having on the mortgage lending business.

Rocket Mortgage’s Detroit parent company Rocket Companies Inc., the nation’s largest mortgage lender, has not had a massive layo event, said spokesman John Perich.

However, the company has been o ering voluntary buyouts this year in a bid to reduce its sta .

Rocket reported a quarterly drop in pro ts of 94% in Q2 compared with the same period last year as rising in-

terest rates eat into lending volumes.

Other large players in the mortgage lending business are feeling the pains as well.

As reported by Bloomberg, Wells Fargo & Co. has sent out warnings about an expected drop in mortgage-lending income, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. has laid o or reassigned workers in its division for home lending. Meanwhile, real estate brokerages like Compass Inc. and Red n Corp. have laid out plans for reducing their sta s.

Banks are not expected to be quite as negatively impacted by this downturn in the mortgage business because of their diversi ed business models and stricter credit standards. ose have been baked into the lending business since the 2008 nancial crisis, when low interest rates and loose underwriting standards fueled a housing bubble.

But time will tell how far layo s might go.

“We all have di erent infrastructures, because people have di erent businesses. But the layo s are fairly common throughout the industry and certain business channels,” said Don Gri ths, president of the Ohio MBA and vice president of national operations for UHM. “If rates continue rising, companies will have to continue rightsizing.”

Growth opportunity?

On the ip side, some lenders spin these changing dynamics as an opportunity.

Gri ths said M&A could increase as lenders stare down decreased revenues and potential buyers look to scoop up their businesses to gain scale.

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Crain’s is now in the app

Clearsulting dives deep into CFO suite talent, technology

e iconic “if you build it, they will come" adage is generally considered a fallacy when it comes to startups.

But Clearsulting founder Marc Ur sick appears to have located a sweet spot in the logic with his employ ee-friendly nance consultancy.

“If you’re a consulting executive, especially on a large scale, you typi cally meet and say, ‘How do we max imize revenue? How do we maximize margins? How do we maximize numbers, right?’” he said. “Our ap proach has been and con tinues to be, ‘How do we position our people to get the best growth experience possible?’ — and in the long term, that impacts numbers and nancials and whatnot more than any revenue-based strategy can do.”

Ursick left Ernst & Young to start Clearsulting, where he serves as CEO, nearly seven years ago. e ve-person, one-o ce operation in 2016 has surged to a bustling 240-per son business with more than 20 loca tions, including additions in the U.K, Ireland and Canada.

“In the last year alone, we’ve more than doubled in size, adding some thing like 133 team members,” he said.

Big Four recruits are part of that mix, which also entails nance pro fessionals with “deep subject-matter expertise” from private industry and smaller consultancies, according to Ursick.

“We are always opportunistic about talent, because we’re a peo ple-driven business; that’s what real ly drives our growth,” he said.

And that drive is evident.

While the rm does not disclose revenues, sales momentum has landed Clearsulting on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fast est-growing private compa nies list for the third year in a row, with three-year growth rates ranging from a whopping 977% in 2020 — when it ranked among the list’s top 10% — to an im pressive 319% this year.

e Playhouse Square

rm recently quali ed as one of only 26 businesses named to Consulting Magazine’s 2022 fastest-growing ros ter. e o cial rank order, which in cludes consultants of all sizes and sectors, will be revealed later this month.

Clearsulting also completed its rst two acquisitions within the last six months. e roll-up of small Ca nadian rm WorkOps Consulting in April and the purchase of Cleve land-based PBC Global earlier this

month, Ursick said, are further evi dence of its growth mindset.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a core strategy of ours to grow heavily through ac quisitions. I think 90%-plus of our growth will be organic, but we will fold in acquisitions where it makes sense,” Ursick said.

Going deep

Ursick, as noted earlier, is quick to attribute much of Clearsulting’s suc cess to its culture- rst attitude.

Along with aiming to provide a “fun workplace,” he said the compa ny places a high value on profession al development, investing, for exam ple, in advanced training and certi cation before assigning new consultants to billable accounts and ensuring individual career goals are well understood and nurtured.

“If you enjoy the people you are working with and you have every op portunity possible to grow your ca reer, I think that leaks into your per sonal life as well,” Ursick said. “I’m a better dad and a better husband be cause I like my job, and that kind of sums up what our overarching mis sion is as a company.”

Focus, however, is the company’s other secret sauce.

During his eight years at Ernst & Young, Ursick specialized in helping Fortune 500 CFOs automate and

streamline various reporting and ac counting work ows and move those processes to the cloud. He launched Clearsulting to capitalize on the booming cloud adoption market by aligning his startup with “leading digital nance software providers.” It has seven such partnerships to date.

“WorkOps is very well-known across the Workiva ecosystem, so the acquisition helped us catapult our credibility within the Workiva space much faster,” ompson said. She also noted that COVID has contributed to the company’s mo mentum, speeding up planned cloud migration by nance teams that had to take a closer look at their clunky — often man ual — systems as reporting on liquidity and business outlooks became more fre quent and more critical during the pandemic.

“We have gone deeper into the of ce of the CFO, but we really don’t go outside of it. at’s our bread-andbutter o ering,” he said. “We are working with some of the largest com panies on Earth, Fortune 500 organi zations, Fortune 20 organizations, and the reason that we are able to land into these companies is our focus.”

Marketing director Elizabeth ompson added that the spring purchase of WorkOps ts into this strategy. While the company itself was small — ve employees — the acquisition was “big,” she said, be cause it enhances Clearsulting’s pro le on the Workiva compliance re porting platform.

“We saw a lot of organiza tions realizing that that trans formation piece was highly necessary,” ompson said, “especially when you couldn’t have everybody in the o ce together working to close the books or stay on top of all those re quired nancial tasks.”

“We understand as companies scale and get bigger, growth rates de crease,” Ursick said. “But this year has been a tremendous growth year for us. e talent we’ve been able to bring on has been phenomenal. e clients we’ve been able to add to our portfolio have been signi cant. I ex pect that heavy growth to go into next year as well.”

Contact Judy Stringer: clbfreelancer@crain.com

Consumers feeling pinch of in ation, shifts in lending rates

A look at the current rate environment and ways to navigate the choppy economy

By Annie Zaleski Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland

If you’re feeling like it costs more to buy food or gas, it’s not your imagination. Thanks to in ation, the current rate environment is squeezing consumers where it hurts: their wallets.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that consumer prices were up 9.1% for the year ending June 2022, the largest increase in 40 years. Average mortgage rates on a 30-year xed mortgage also rose above 6% in September for the rst time since 2008.

like this so quickly, it can be somewhat paralyzing for both banks and consumers. You have to bake in more cushion.”

“What that means is, they need to lower demand for things,” he said. “The more money and the more demand there is, coupled with less supply in many cases, the higher the prices are going to go for those products.” Unfortunately, in the short term, that means some people might have to alter their home buying plans.

“A rst time homebuyer may say, ‘Okay – before, we could have stretched for a bigger house because the rates were lower and it was the same payment. Now, maybe we’re looking for a smaller house,’” Mudrak said. “Or they may choose to rent. People just need to weigh out the cost-bene ts of what they’re looking to do.”

Michael Mudrak, Cleveland market president, Farmers National Bank

“That really affects affordability, especially for new, rst-time home buyers,” says Michael Mudrak, senior vice president and Cleveland market president with Farmers National Bank. “If a monthly house payment is up $200, then that might mean the difference between whether they can afford it or not.”

It’s not just in ation contributing to this challenging rate environment. According to Mudrak, the fact that certain rates are increasing more quickly than they have in the past is also causing a ripple effect, particularly when banks are issuing loans.

“We need to be able to show that applicants can repay the loan and with some cushion,” he said. “And the loan payment is based on the interest rate, and how much and how long to repay the loan. And when you have the rates moving higher

The supply chain slowdowns many industries experienced during the coronavirus pandemic continue to affect supply and demand. Increased demand for goods that are still scarce is also contributing to higher prices; for example, Mudrak noted there’s still a shortage of cars due to a lack of chips for computerized systems.

“During COVID, you quickly saw meaningful increases in the prices of things that were affected by both more demand and less supply.” Mudrak said. “And coming out of COVID, we knew there was going to be increased demand for fuel. People wanted to go on vacations and drive and y on planes because they didn’t do a lot of that and so there’s more demand.”

What’s next?

Mudrak said the Federal Reserve is looking to combat in ation by slowing the economy down—and that will most certainly mean more interest rate hikes.

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On the upside, Mudrak sees the supply-and-demand challenges smoothing out in the next year at least where cars are concerned, since chip production will be ramping up. And although many fear that interest rate hikes also might trigger a recession, Mudrak said things are different from the Great Recession. That’s partly because many of the challenges we’re facing can be tied to the pandemic.

“The scary part in 2009 was we couldn’t see the bottom and didn’t know where it was going to end,” he adds. “But this doesn’t feel like that.”

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“I’M A BETTER DAD AND A BETTER HUSBAND BECAUSE I LIKE MY JOB, AND THAT KIND OF SUMS UP WHAT OUR OVERARCHING MISSION IS AS A COMPANY.”

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A COMPLICATED EQUATION

Enrollment declines + robust job market + high college costs = A turning point for higher education

AMY MORONA

The choice was all but made for Amy Pinkerton roughly 35 years ago.

“Everybody around me went to college,” she said. “So it wasn’t really like a ‘go to college or not go to col lege’ kind of decision. It was more like, that’s what you do.”

Now 52 and living in Cleveland Heights, Pinkerton is thinking more and more about the journey that decision launched. Maybe that’s because her podcast feed is loaded with episodes about how to navigate the college search. Her daughter is a senior at a pri vate high school in the city who’s eyeing the next chapter. A 13-year-old son isn’t far behind.

e landscape is now much di erent for them than it was for Pinkerton.

Higher education is at a turning point, a situation bolstered as the pandemic intensi ed an enrollment crunch many colleges already were confronting. Many factors contribute to this, including a bustling job market and high college costs.

Changing demographics in Ohio mean fewer high school graduates.

ere are also far more post-secondary options now. is all comes at a time when attitudes toward higher education are changing and public trust in the in stitution is eroding.

And there are still the reverberating e ects of the pandemic, which dispro portionately impacted people of color and women. Enrollments at many insti tutions, especially two-year public col leges, plunged during COVID-19.

More than 710,470 students enrolled at Ohio’s private, public and for-pro t institutions in 2010. at number would fall to less than half a million a decade later. e state’s public institutions saw about a 30% drop over that time. is is a big deal for plenty of reasons. e region’s nearly 30 nonpro t higher education institutions are huge eco nomic drivers. Many colleges here de pend on tuition as a major income stream, and fewer students bring in few er dollars.

Getting a degree can in uence all kinds of things that matter to a commu nity, such as how civically engaged citi zens are and people’s life expectancies. And those with a four-year degree make more money than those who don’t: a re ported $900,000 more in median life time earnings for men and about $630,000 for women.

Changing demographics

One of the biggest problems col leges are staring down is Ohio’s de mographic decline. High school graduation rates are projected to drop 11% from the class of 2019 to the class of 2037, a number that includes both public and private schools.

Some of the area’s less selective in stitutions have been looking to lure out-of-state students. A new Univer sity of Akron commercial is set to air for 12 weeks in western Pennsylva nia, as well as the central and north east regions of Ohio.

Kent State University has a “long-standing partnership that helps students in western Pennsylva nia discover all that’s great about Kent State” with the Pittsburgh Pen guins professional hockey team. e university’s website mentions that 371 rst-year students from the state enrolled last fall.

But making substantial inroads into di erent markets can take a while. And, of course, those who are graduating from Ohio’s high schools might not want to stay around, though the majority of people who do enroll in college end up staying close to home. One estimate found the median distance was about 95 miles.

St. Martin de Porres High School senior Terrell McCann doesn’t plan for that to be him. One of the schools topping his list is Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta.

“I’ll be very honest, I want to go,” McCann, 17, said. “I’m ready to be on the rst ight to Georgia now.”

He visited his dad, who recently moved to the state, over the summer. His father is encouraging him to ex perience life outside Cleveland, may be even outside Ohio. And when Mc Cann left Cleveland for that summer trip, he said, he felt like there was a weight lifted o his shoulders.

Attitudes shift

The Great Recession was years ago — about 15 years, in fact. But Jonathan Wehner, Cleveland State University’s vice president and dean of admissions, enrollment management and student success, still thinks about it a lot, specifically the impact it had on people’s evolv ing attitudes about higher educa tion.

He points to a national survey of first-time, full-time students that’s been conducted for more than 55 years.

In the 1970s, people identified several of their top reasons for go ing to college. One was to get a bet ter job. Another was to gain a gen eral education and appreciation of ideas. A third was to learn more about things they found interesting. Each occupied a similar slice of the pie.

By 2009, the top reason changed to getting a job. Wehner believes that the economic distress people were feeling contributed to the piv ot.

“To me, that data suggests that there was a time where, at some point, people went to explore new ideas and meet new people and

18% of Democrats tend not to trust the country’s colleges, compared to 33% of independents and 43% of Republicans surveyed.

Other choices/work

Maggie McGrath, executive direc tor for the Higher Education Com pact of Greater Cleveland, said there are signi cant challenges to helping some families and students under stand the long-term value of a post-secondary degree or credential.

McGrath said the hesitation seems to stem from students not feeling ac ademically prepared or family con cerns over costs. College, in some places, can be expensive.

e total cost of attendance at an average public four-year institution here in Ohio is about $22,390 for instate students, according to the Edu cation Data Initiative. Nearly $10,000 of that is estimated to go toward tui tion and fees. And as costs have gone up at four-year public schools over the past three decades, the amount of federal support provided has not.

ere’s two camps of tradition al-aged students McGrath said the compact is seeing: the rst is set with their post-secondary plans, while the second has more questions or doubts.

“I feel like where we were sort of tipping the scale with those students, they’re not going anymore,” she said.

Many, she said, are choosing to go into the workforce. at was a com mon refrain during the past two years at places like Cuyahoga Community College.

e enrollment crunch hasn’t been felt equally across the board during the pandemic. Highly or more selective institutions came out far less slammed. e not-as-selective institutions could face credit pres sures into the future, per a Septem ber 2022 release from Fitch Ratings.

Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University, for example, saw about a 6% increase from fall 2020 to fall 2021. During that same time, Tri-C’s enrollment fell roughly 8%. Enroll ment at two-year public colleges has been the hardest hit.

THE TOTAL COST OF ATTENDANCE AT

AVERAGE PUBLIC FOUR-YEAR INSTITUTION

A full-time job as a warehouse as sociate at Amazon’s North Randall facility recently advertised rates of up to nearly $18 an hour. Jobs at some local fast food restaurants currently highlight hourly pay ranges from $14 to $18. Target is advertising a cashier/ front of store attendant role at its West 117th Street store with a starting rate of $15 per hour.

vate school near Dayton in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he said.

“We loved debating things in class and learning stuff,” said Dix on, who lives in Cleveland Heights. “We had speakers come to campus. We were up all night, arguing and debating over their philosophies. Kids today, most of them are not like that.”

Bridgette Gray, chief customer of cer at the national nonpro t Oppor tunity@Work, is seeing a similar trend with recent high school gradu ates and young adults. ey want something quick that will allow them to make money faster, or maybe they want to get a degree but can’t a ord it.

Opportunity@Work, per its web site, focuses on working toward a fu ture where “employers hire people based on their skills rather than their pedigree.”

learn,” he said. “And then, after that recession, it seems like it shifted to be people went to college to get a better job. That was their reason ing.”

That seems to align with the ex perience Michael Dixon, 61, recalls. He and his peers at Wittenberg Uni versity “were in love with aca demia” when they attended the pri

Some of those “kids” — members of Gen Z, to be precise — are losing trust in higher education. A report released in August 2022 from Morn ing Consult found that generation has higher rates of distrust com pared to other age groups.

Trust differs between party lines, too. Those same findings point out

“ e way we talk about post-sec ondary hasn’t always been equal across the board,” said Gray.

To be clear, earning a degree from a four-year institution isn’t the best — or only — option for everyone. Some companies have reportedly eased up on degree requirements for applicants as of late.

Jonathan Wehner outside his o ce in Berkman Hall. Wehner is the vice president and dean of admissions, enrollment management and student success at Cleveland State University.

The Cuyahoga Community College slogan is on display in the form of a metal sculpture on the Metro campus.

Trinity Cathedral looms large outside the third oor window of Cleveland State University’s Student Center.

GUS CHAN

CRAIN’S

But Ohio has stated a goal for 65% of residents to have a degree, a certif icate or a marketable skill by 2025 to meet labor demands. Northeast Ohio is falling far short of that number. Just 37% of the region’s residents have a two- or four-year degree, per a report issued late last year.

Alternative options

Rochelle Wolfe didn’t know what to do after high school. e now 31-year-old recalls that, back then, she wasn’t exposed to much in the way of post-graduation options. She decided to go into nursing, following the path of an aunt. It felt like a safe choice.

“I had a very limited idea of what was out there and what I might be in terested in,” she said.

She liked her microbiology and chemistry classes at Stark State Col lege, a two-year public school. But when it came to her nursing classes, she found she couldn’t open a text book without crying. And at the hos pital where she worked as a nurse’s aide, she said, it seemed like all of the nurses hated their jobs.

It all led Wolfe to drop out of col lege. She had just three semesters left before graduation.

e years that followed included a few di erent gigs. ere were stints as a traveling farmer in Montana and Oregon. Later, back in Ohio, she worked at the U.S. Post O ce. Even tually, she enrolled at a local tech bootcamp. She now works as a soft ware developer at a law rm in Cleve land.

It’s a switch. ough she likes her job, waves of imposter syndrome still occasionally roll in. A colleague who works next to Wolfe earned a mas ter’s degree.

“ e idea that maybe I should have some more formal education, it crosses my mind sometimes,” she

said. “But I can’t do online school ing. I don’t have the discipline for it, so it’s probably not going to hap pen.”

Plus, she still owes student loans from that dropped nursing program. Lots of people are in a similar boat. It’s estimated more than 45 million Americans hold a collective $1.6 tril lion in federal student loan debt alone.

Boot camps, like the one Wolfe at tended, provide an alternative route to a four-year or two-year degree. Tech giants Google and Amazon have gotten into the space, too, o er ing their own short-term credentials. Both credit and non-credit certi cate or credential programs are aplenty at two-year public schools, too.

Finding solutions

ere’s seemingly no “one size ts all” solution. But aside from any indi vidual attempts institutions may be working on, there are some bigger picture solutions gaining more atten tion.

Dual enrollment is one. Ohio’s College Credit Plus allows high school students to take some college courses for free. Research nds stu dents who take this route are more likely to enroll and nish a four-year degree. But a recent report from the state auditor’s o ce found the o er ings in Ohio don’t reach as many stu dents, especially those of color and those who are economically disad vantaged, as they could.

e region’s institutions — don’t forget, there are nearly 30 nonpro t colleges and universities here — are working together, too. Five private colleges announced they’d join a statewide initiative in 2021. It o ers more streamlined pathways for stu dents at local community colleges to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor’s degrees in English, psychology and biology.

Another partnership is the Ohio College Comeback Compact. All of the four-year public universities in Northeast Ohio — Cleveland State, Kent State, the University of Akron and Youngstown State — are partici pating. e local two-year institu tions are, too: Cuyahoga Community College, Lakeland Community Col lege, Lorain County Community Col lege and Stark State College. Com munity partners like College Now, as well as the nonpro t Ithaka S+R, are part of the work, too.

The goal is to reach 15,000 local residents who have completed some college classes at one of those institutions but never earned a de gree. That group also holds what is known as “stranded” credits, mean ing their transcripts are being with held over unpaid institutional debts.

e partnership would work to wipe away up to $5,000 of those bal ances — at Tri-C, for example, the average amount is about $1,000 — and release the transcript. at al lows the student to re-enroll at any of the participating colleges.

Turning around enrollment trends isn’t as simple as, say, turning on a faucet or ipping a light switch. But it’s clear from e orts like this that leaders believe collaboration could be key.

Terrell McCann and Markia Wynn, seniors at St. Martin de Porres High School, in the commons area of the Catholic high school in Cleveland.

Let’s make higher education ‘worth it’ for everyone

I think it was Carl Jung who once wrote, “To ask the right questions is already half the solu tion of the problem.” e challenges facing high er education institutions in Northeast Ohio ex tend beyond the typical “Ivory Tower” concerns we often read about, including faculty gover nance issues, operating budgets and student en rollment.

ere is a growing collective sentiment that a college degree is not worth the cost, e ort and debt — a sentiment fueled by persistent ques tions about higher education’s value proposi tion.

It’s a sentiment hard to ignore when we expe rience exponentially rising educational costs and seemingly insurmountable debt. In terms of outcomes, in Ohio, only 66% of students com plete their degrees in six years (not four), which means it takes longer to nish a degree and, by default, likely costs more — which, again, fuels the idea that completing higher education is not worth the e ort. Not to mention, once graduat ed, our Black, Latino and/or rst-generation col lege graduates (who complete degree programs at even lower rates) often face underemploy ment and lower wage earnings compared to oth er groups, which suggests that higher education might even sustain or exacerbate disparities rather than produce equitable outcomes.

I recognize my bias as a higher education profes sional and a disciple who spreads the gospel of the positive impacts of in creased educational attain ment. at bias aside, the question, “Is college worth it?” is too simplistic and does not e ectively prob lematize the real issues we should be considering. We can see that post-secondary education is “worth it” — decades of evidence and research demonstrate that, in general and more often than not, increased educational attainment is the closest thing we have to achieving equitable health, economic and social mobility outcomes. I would argue that our higher education institutions are the primary vehicle through which this attainment has been and should continue to be achieved.

But because I am one person with a biased opinion, I know that a more nuanced discus sion of thoughtful questions must take place in a way that brings together the community — the people, the businesses, and the robust edu cational ecosystem that are players in this work. College may be worth it, but that does not mean the current post-secondary system is as e ec

tive as it could — or should — be. is conver sation should be informed by what we know are a host of factors that contribute to our current context (spoiler alert: racism, poverty and im mediate workforce needs top that list of fac tors). Doing this allows us to create a shared pool of meaning from which tangible, realistic and just solutions can emerge.

So, then, what are the questions we should ask?

We should question our collective values,

assumptions and beliefs about the purpose of post-secondary education. What are the best ways for educational attainment to be achieved, and toward what end? As population demo graphics continue to shift along many dimen sions, most notably race and ethnicity, the edu cation sector should account for signi cant equity gaps in access to higher education, per sistence through higher education and success

Scott Taylor is the chief program o cer of College Now Greater Cleveland.

Students talk in lounge at Cuyahoga Community College’s Campus Center. | GUS CHAN FOR CRAIN’S

What Ohio can do to make education accessible, equitable

PIET VAN LIER

All Ohioans deserve to go as far as their dreams and abilities take them — no matter the circumstances of their birth. Today, for many Ohioans, that dream in cludes education or train ing after high school, which many of the best-paying jobs in the state now re quire.

Ohio policymakers set the ambitious goal that, by 2025, 65% of Ohioans aged 25 to 64 will have a degree, certi cate or other post-secondary workforce credential of value.

With just over two years to meet our goal, only about 50% of Ohioans have reached this level of education. Part of the reason is that state policymakers continue to underfund Ohio’s public colleges and universities and are holding back aid to students from low er-income families.

Right now, Intel is building huge facilities in central Ohio that will offer high-paying jobs requiring post-secondary education or training. We’ll miss out on the benefits that project could offer if Ohioans can’t afford to

pursue the training they need to secure those jobs.

Higher education in our state is rated ninth worst for affordability among states, with a gap of more than $8,300, calculated as the difference between the net price of a public university education minus income from working 10 hours a week.

In the 2022-23 state budget, funding for the State Share of Instruction, Ohio’s main support for public higher education, remains well be low 2006 levels when adjusted for in ation. SSI is directly tied to the cost of tuition, which means tuition rises when policymakers cut funding.

Ohio provides need-based aid through the Ohio College Opportunity Grant, which is es sential to helping students with low incomes continue their educations after high school. Al though lawmakers increased funding for OCOG in the 2022-23 budget, it still hasn’t reached pre-2008 recession levels.

National comparisons tell an even more troubling story. In 2019-20, Ohio provided an estimated $246 in need-based aid for each fulltime undergraduate student, ranking it 36th among states. e top state, New Jersey, provid ed an estimated $1,668 per student.

What can we do to change course?

First, the people of Ohio should push our

elected representatives to assess whether the more than $8 billion in tax breaks and loop holes they grant to corporations and wealthy individuals bene t all Ohioans.

en we should call on our lawmakers to re allocate some of that revenue to policies that will make Ohio a place of real opportunity. In creasing funding for public post-secondary ed ucation and need-based aid for lower-income students will make our state stronger.

But it’s not just about more money. OCOG, for example, should be restructured so that stu dents attending community colleges, Ohio’s most a ordable and accessible post-secondary option, can get need-based aid to cover educa tion-related costs beyond tuition and general fees, which is all OCOG currently covers.

Right now, these students don’t qualify and often struggle to cover costs like housing and transportation, which are essential to help them reach their education goals. ese stu dents are more likely to be Black or brown or older, to come from families with modest means or to study part time while holding down full-time jobs.

Meanwhile, students attending much more expensive for-pro t schools, which are expert at milking their students’ grant funding dry while providing questionable education bene ts, can access much more OCOG funding. is

gap hits low-income and Black and brown stu dents the hardest.

Also holding back our state is Ohio’s punitive approach to debt owed by students and former students to public colleges and universities. State law requires schools to turn debt over to the state attorney general for collection. Fines, interest and fees collected by debt collectors quickly mount, trapping too many Ohioans in a cycle of debt, unable to get their transcripts or work toward their goals. In the long run, to move the needle on wages and opportunities for Ohioans, lawmakers need to change their approach to debt collection and transcript withholding so an unpaid parking ticket or li brary ne won’t derail someone’s career aspi rations.

Lawmakers can also resume stronger sup port for the State Share of Instruction to reduce the cost of higher education and boost and im prove need-based aid — as earlier General As semblies intended — on a bipartisan basis.

While it’s not the only way policymakers can ensure all Ohioans can live good lives, strong funding to help Ohioans get the training and education they need after high school will go a long way toward making Ohio a state where ev eryone has the tools and opportunities to suc ceed. Let’s make sure state policymakers do right by all of us.

Knocking down an a ordability barrier to returning to college

MARTIN KURZWEIL

Discussion of college af fordability tends to focus on the tuition and fees stu dents face going into a term and the federal student loan debt most have when they leave. But there is an other type of educational debt a ecting millions of people that rarely gets as much attention: owing money to a college they previously attended.

is little-known but common type of debt has stood in the way of many adults trying to return to college. Now, Northeast Ohio’s new College Comeback Compact is attempting to knock down that barrier for returning students across the region.

In Ohio, as well as at 95% of all U.S. colleges, owing money to a former school means three things: 1) you’re in collections; 2) you can’t re-enroll at the same school until you pay what you owe; and 3) you can’t get an o cial copy of your transcript, which means you can’t receive credit for the courses you’ve already taken if you enroll at a new school. In other words, for people with this kind of debt, their college cred its are “stranded.” At least 6.6 million Ameri cans and 220,000 Ohioans have stranded cred its because they owe money to their former school.

Stranded credits are a lose-lose-lose situa tion. Students lose because they are unable to return to the same school or transfer credits to continue their education, in addition to bear ing the signi cant burden of debt collection. Colleges lose because they typically only re coup pennies on the dollar when balances are sent to collections, and many students give up on furthering their education, reducing en rollment. And our communities lose because these administrative impediments sti e adult education and training needed to ll in-de mand jobs, which hinders economic develop ment.

My colleagues and I at the nonpro t Ithaka S+R are working with all eight public colleges and universities in Northeast Ohio to pilot a

rst of its kind e ort to turn this lose-lose-lose situation into a win-win-win.

e Ohio College Comeback Compact, which launched in August, builds on promising existing policies and practices in Ohio to create a regionwide opportunity for former students with stranded credits to settle their debt and continue their education. It has three core fea tures:

other than their previous institution, to cover the foregone collections from settling the debt.

thrive as more individuals are better prepared for a wide variety of jobs.

`

Compact institutions will forgive up to $5,000 of institutional debt and release transcripts for former students who re-enroll in their own or any other participating institution.

` rough proactive outreach and student-cen tered advising, former students learn about the opportunity and are enabled to create a re-en rollment plan that works for them.

` A modest cross-institutional revenue share accounts for students who enroll somewhere

e eight participating institutions are Cleve land State University, Cuyahoga Community College, Kent State University, Lakeland Com munity College, Lorain County Community College, Stark State College, the University of Akron and Youngstown State University. For mer students who owe those schools $5,000 or less, left school at least a year ago, and main tained at least a 2.0 GPA before they left may be eligible to return to any of the Compact institu tions to continue their education.

e entire Northeast Ohio region stands to bene t from the Ohio College Comeback Com pact: more students will reduce their debt and be back on track to earn a degree or certi cate; colleges will gain tuition revenue through in creased enrollment; and the local economy will

In just two months since launching, the Compact schools and our nonpro t outreach partner, College Now Greater Cleveland, have contacted almost 8,000 eligible individuals about the opportunity to re-enroll at any of the participating schools in the spring. For these individuals and more in Northeast Ohio, insti tutional debt and stranded credits no longer stand as a barrier to achieving their educational goals.

Ithaka S+R is a not-for-pro t research and consulting group, where Kurzweil leads a team dedicated to improving post-secondary student access and success. He and his team developed and coordinate the Ohio College Comeback Compact.

Kurzweil is vice president, educational transformation at Ithaka S+R.

Van Lier is a senior researcher for Policy Matters Ohio.

A student makes her way down the staircase at the Campus Center of Cuyahoga Community College Metro campus. | GUS CHAN FOR CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

College Credit Plus could be serving more students, report nds

College Credit Plus, the state-sup ported dual enrollment program of fering Ohio’s students a chance to earn college credit while still in mid dle or high school, saved those young people and their families a reported $163 million in tuition costs last year.

ose who complete these pro grams have a higher likelihood of graduating from high school, as well as eventually pursuing a post-sec ondary degree or certi cate pro gram. at’s important, especially as many colleges and universities in Northeast Ohio have struggled with enrollment-related fallout ampli ed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet a 142-page performance audit recently released from the Ohio Au ditor of State’s O ce found some students, especially students of col or and those from economically dis advantaged backgrounds, aren’t ac cessing the program as much as their peers. e report found the program could be serving far more young people across the state.

“Despite the enormous advantag es of the program, the fact is a wide disparity exists among school dis tricts in how well this program is em braced,” auditor Keith Faber said in an August press release.

Supporters tout those “enormous advantages,” including saving stu dents money as they earn college credit. e courses are o ered for lit tle to no cost to students. Plus, taking a class at a higher level helps young people start to gure out what post-secondary route they might want to take.

It provides colleges with another pipeline of prospective and engaged students, important as the state’s de mographics shift in addition to other enrollment challenges. Colleges can try to recruit and retain those partici pants to become permanent students at their campuses after high school.

e program isn’t new. College Credit Plus, typically known by its ac ronym CCP, launched in 2015, though a similar program existed for roughly 25 years before. Statewide participation rose to more than 76,601 students participating in CCP during the 2020-21 academic year, up about 42% from four years prior.

Many of the partnerships allow students to choose between taking their higher level courses online, on a college campus and/or at their own high school. And yet, though K-12 districts are required by law to give information about the program be ginning in sixth grade, Faber’s report found some aren’t.

at’s not the case at Akron Public Schools, according to Caitlin Castle, the district’s college access program manager. Amid the pandemic-in duced shift to virtual learning, the

school made some of its annual CCP information sessions available online.

e district was also intentional at in-person sessions, hosting the meet ings at di erent times and locations in an attempt to provide information to “a larger, diverse group of students accessing the program,” Castle said.

e district added to the state-sup plied information, too. It invited for mer students who took CCP courses while enrolled at the district to share what they learned with current stu dents. Castle chose a representative group made up of those enrolled at both four- and two-year colleges, as well as public and private institu tions.

“ ey said, ‘hey, we had to take to tal ownership of our learning when we do College Credit Plus courses,’ so then they felt that it was bene cial in their transition to college full-time,” she said.

e district enrolled 778 students in 3,415 classes in 2018. After falling during the height of the pandemic, the number ticked up to 788 students taking 2,530 classes in the 2021-22 academic year, according to Castle.

She attributes that, in part, to more students taking on-site classes o ered in the district’s buildings. It also helped that a change at the state level now means students don’t necessarily have to take some exams to partici pate in CCP as long as their grades hit certain thresholds.

Akron is an urban district. It sees the same disparity between low-in come and/or students of color the state auditor’s o ce noted. But some areas of the city and some of the dis trict’s schools are utilizing and ac cessing CCP o erings “a little bit more than others,” Castle said.

at group of students “have been shown to enroll in college at higher rates after participating in dual en rollment programs, they also tend to have better outcomes while in col lege — such as: higher retention rates, higher GPA and higher gradua tion rates,” the auditor’s o ce noted in its ndings.

“Certainly the state and education providers can build o these out comes and do more to ensure that every Ohio student and family has real and meaningful access to this program,” Faber wrote in a letter in troducing the audit.

Preliminary statewide gures pro vided by the Ohio Department of Higher Education show a 5% increase in CCP students at Ohio’s main pub lic university campuses, as well as its community colleges, this fall com pared to last. Lakeland Community College, for example, reported a dou ble-digit increase.

Jennifer Collis, associate provost for strategic educational programs and retention initiatives at the Kirt land campus, said the school worked to better address students’ and dis

tricts’ needs, trying to eliminate po tential barriers such as transporta tion issues and o ering classes that t young peoples’ interests, as well as local workforce needs.

Many students think of CCP as a way to get general education classes completed, and it can be, she said. But others are interested in earning a workforce-ready credential to use af ter they graduate.

She pointed to an example of a CCP student who earned an associ ate of science degree and a health technologies certi cate at Lakeland while in high school.

e student transferred the credits “ awlessly” to a four-year science de gree at the University of Akron, Collis said, and that certi cate allowed the student to work in the medical eld while continuing studies at UA. e student is now in medical school.

Sometimes, she said, families get confused over AP courses o ered at a district versus CCP programs o ered by a college. Collis stresses the im portance of communication between the partner districts, high school counselors, students and families to make sure everyone is aligned.

ere are lots of people involved with CCP at various levels, but the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Higher Edu cation have speci c responsibilities outlined by law. Yet there’s no clear

understanding of which is ultimately responsible for the overall program, per the auditor’s ndings. e report called for establishing appropriate program oversight.

“ODHE, ODE, and the CCP adviso ry committee should work with the General Assembly to clarify and strengthen the management, over sight and compliance monitoring functions necessary to allow CCP to reach its potential,” o cials wrote in the audit.

ere’s currently no “distinct, pro gressive, measurable program goals supported by routine data analysis and evaluation” for CCP, according to the report. O cials said the rele vant data collected focus on output, or the number of annual courses tak en. ey thought it should focus on outcomes, such as whether students spent less time completing their de grees or certi cate programs.

Randy Gardner, chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Educa tion, said he isn’t sure the adminis tration of the program is an impedi ment to its success. Ultimately, he said, the goal is “to support low er-cost pathways to achieve a degree or credential for high school stu dents.”

“Whether we should have speci c, articulated percentages or numbers in terms of a goal, that’s a fair question,” said Gardner. “But I can tell you that

our goal is always to get stronger and better. And I think the record shows that’s what’s happened in Ohio.” e report detailed other potential improvements to increase participa tion.

e list includes having the De partment of Education require all districts to comply with the distribu tion of information as is current law. e statewide education depart ments should collaborate on a coor dinated marketing plan, as well as creating standard enrollment forms. One college o cial noted in the re port the biggest barrier to participa tion is a lack of information.

Another option: O ering more classes on-site in K-12 district build ings could get additional students in volved more easily. And instead of high schools picking up the tab for text books, CCP courses could base their curriculums on free learning materials or split the costs of students’ textbooks between both participating districts and colleges.

ODHE’s Gardner said he found the audit to be positive for the program, saying it provided welcomed support and direction. He added o cials will be looking at a “number of those things” to propose via the next state budget.

Not all high schools are following the law, giving students the information they need

Lakeland Community College is one of the public colleges participating in the College Credit Plus program. COURTESY

1 GREAT LAKES CHEESE, Hiram 440-834-2500/greatlakescheese.com

2 MEDICAL MUTUAL OF OHIO, Cleveland 216-687-7000/medmutual.com

3

DIRECTIONAL AVIATION, Richmond Heights 216-261-3000/directionalaviation.com

4 DEALER TIRELLC, Cleveland 216-432-0088/dealertire.com

5

THE CARTER-JONESCOS.(CARTER LUMBER), Kent 330-673-6100/carterlumber.com

6 KEN GANLEYCOS.(GANLEY AUTO GROUP), Broadview Heights 440-584-8202/ganleyauto.com

7 JONESDAY, Cleveland 216-586-3939/jonesday.com

8 WESTFIELD, West eld Center 330-887-0101/west eldinsurance.com

9 CROSSCOUNTRY MORTGAGE, Brecksville 440-845-3700/ccm.com

10 FIRST BRANDS GROUPLLC, Cleveland 248-371-1700/ rstbrandsgroup.com

11 SWAGELOKCO., Solon 440-248-4600/swagelok.com

12

THE KENAN ADVANTAGE GROUPINC., North Canton 800-969-5419/thekag.com

13 ASSOCIATED MATERIALSLLC, Cuyahoga Falls 330-929-1811/associatedmaterials.com

14 LEAF HOME, Hudson 800-290-6106/leafhome.com

15 THE DAVEY TREE EXPERTCO., Kent 330-673-9511/davey.com

16 AMERICAN GREETINGSCORP., Westlake 216-252-7300/americangreetings.com

17 SHEARER'S FOODSLLC, Massillon 330-834-4030/shearers.com

18 OHIOCAT, Broadview Heights 440-526-6200/ohiocat.com

19 SQUIRE PATTON BOGGS, Cleveland 216-479-8500/squirepb.com

20 THE GARLANDCO., Cleveland 800-641-7500/garlandco.com

21 COVIA HOLDINGSCORP., Independence 800-255-7263/coviacorp.com

22 GEON PERFORMANCE SOLUTIONS, Westlake 800-438-4366/geon.com

23 MAJESTIC STEEL USAINC., Pepper Pike 800-321-5590/majesticsteel.com

24 HYLAND, Westlake 440-788-4988/hyland.com

DRUG MARTINC.

$3,725.6$3,795.1-2%2,233Health

$3,200$2,390.434%840Private

company

fractional,

DanZagzebski, president,

StevenGlass, president, CEO

card, charter,

KennethRicci; MichaelRossi, principals

$2,700 1 $2,400 2 13%—Distributor of tires and automotive parts ScottMueller, CEO; DeanMueller, president

$2,565$1,75047%637Building materials retailer

$2,453.2$2,017.622%2,250Auto dealership group

$2,446 3 $2,226.4 3 10%596Law rm

$2,400.7$2,143.112%1,509Property and casualty insurance and nancial services company

$2,400$2,2208%1,128Retail mortgage lender

$2,100

$2,000$2,0000%4,830Manufacturer

NeilSackett, chairman, CEO

KennethGanley, president, CEO

JohnSaadaJr., Cleveland partner-in-charge

EdwardLargent, president, CEO, board chair

RonaldLeonhardtJr., CEO

PatrickJames, CEO; GuyAndrysick, president

ThomasLozick, chairman, CEO

$1,903.7$1,572.121%1,000Tank truck transporter and logistics provider CharlieDeLacey, CEO

$1,600$1,30023%997Manufacturer of exterior building products JamesDrexinger, CEO

$1,425.4$1,068.833%853Direct-to-consumer provider of home solutions Je Housenbold, president, CEO

$1,378.1$1,287.67%908Tree services, grounds maintenance and consulting services rm PatrickCovey, chairman, president, CEO

$1,300 4 $1,100 5 18%895Celebrations company — cards, gift packaging, party goods and digital celebrations JoeArcuri, CEO

$1,214$1,272-5%1,248Manufacturer of snack foods BillNictakis, chairman, CEO

$1,150$1,028.812%621Service, sales and rental for Caterpillar equipment and engines KennethTaylor, president

$1,137$1,0429%—Law rm

MicheleConnell, FrederickNance, co-global managing partners; SteveAuvil, managing partner, Cleveland o ce

$1,107.7$890.524%166Manufacturer of roo ng, ooring, coatings, sealants and maintenance systems DavidSokol, president, CEO

$1,100$1,00010%120Supplier of mineral and material products AndrewEich, president, CEO; ShawnWilliams, executive chairman

$1,060 6 $579 7 83%—Manufacturer of polymer products TracyGarrison, CEO

$1,030$465122%258Steel service center; distributor of prime at rolled steel ToddLeebow, president, CEO

Medina

DAY IMPROVEMENTSLLC, Macedonia

Aided by blockchain technology and changing regulations, these startups all promise to unlock previ ously unattainable assets, from luxe vacation homes to modest invest ment properties. But their business models are far from uniform.

Some, building on the time-share template, o er stakes in second homes that owners can use for part of the year. Others provide a platform for trading shares of single-family rental houses, which are divvied up by hundreds or thousands of buyers wield ing cash, credit cards and cryptocurrency. And then there’s Rhove, which aims to democratize ownership, $1 at a time.

“Imagine a world where everyone’s an owner,” said Calvin Cooper, Rhove’s 34-year-old co-founder and CEO. “Imagine if every renter was an owner. Imag ine if Africa’s middle class could hedge in ation by in vesting in New York real es tate. Imagine if Colombia’s rich weren’t the only ones who could protect wealth by investing in Miami real estate during times of polit ical turmoil. … Today’s real estate market, it leaves too many people out.”

Traditional real estate investing re quires up-front cash, risk tolerance and education — plus the patience to navigate lengthy acquisition and de velopment processes. Cooper and his peers believe there’s a better way, particularly at a time when home prices are soaring, putting ownership of any sort — let alone portfo lio-building — out of reach for many Americans.

e premise is intriguing, said Jon athan Ernest, an assistant professor of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case West ern Reserve University. ese start

ups could broaden the pool of real estate investors by reducing barriers to entry. ey’re also o ering sin gle-asset alternatives to buying shares in real estate investment trusts, companies that already own and operate a basket of properties.

But, depending on the deal struc ture, fractional ownership also raises some red ags, Ernest said.

Far- ung owners who buy stakes in rental houses at $50 or $100 each, for example, may be motivated by the possibility of swift gains — and less inclined than local, more traditional landlords to spend money to x up or maintain the real estate.

“ e worry is if there’s 100 or 1,000 people invest ed in this one property that doesn’t do well, it’s really hard to go after all of them, get mad at all of them … and shame them out of town,” he said. “You end up with less potential recourse to make sure that things get moving forward and that properties get repairs.”

Rhove’s model leaves the developers and existing owners in control. Investors agree to buy non-voting shares in the companies that own the real estate. e business launched in 2018 but did not unveil its app and begin advertising spe ci c properties until this year, according to an o ering circular led with the U.S. Securities and Ex change Commission.

So far, Rhove is trying to raise rela tively small sums — between $214,000 and $535,000 — to replace existing ownership equity in four apartment or hospitality properties in Columbus; Sandusky; Silvis, Illi nois; and Kapolei, Hawaii. e app lists a handful of potential future deals, and Cooper said he’s prepar ing for announcements about some major partnerships.

For property owners, Rhove o ers an avenue to free up cash. It’s also a marketing play.

“I don’t care if we get a dime at the

end of the day,” said Brent Zimmer man, a Cleveland developer and en trepreneur whose family owns the Washington.

Zimmerman believes that frac tional investing will encourage more people to educate themselves about real estate. He also sees a chance to attract a nity investors, people who have an attachment to Sandusky and are motivated by more than returns from rental income or property sales.

Part of Rhove’s pitch is the idea that apartment-dwellers and travelers can own a piece of the places where they live or stay.

“ is is about recreating how com munities are built, how neighbor hoods are built, how cities are built,” said Brett Kaufman, a Rhove co-founder and investor who also is the CEO of Kaufman Development, a Columbus-based developer of apart ments and mixed-use projects. “I think this is the future of real estate,

and it’s going to become what the consumer demands. … ey don’t want to just live in an apartment and have nothing to show when their lease expires. ey want to have an experience that is making their lives better.”

e prospect of building genera tional wealth is part of what drew Jer ry Chu, a 29-year-old techie living on the West Coast, to the fractional own ership industry. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Lofty, a Miami-based startup that lets investors buy $50 stakes in single-family rentals.

Since launching in early 2021, Lofty has facilitated sales of more than 124 homes, nearly half of them in Northeast Ohio, through a process called tokenization. Basically, the company converts ownership stakes into tokens that are traded and re-traded on a blockchain, a digital, public ledger that records transac tions and tracks assets.

Sellers list their houses on Lofty, and buyers pay $50 per token toward the asking price. Once a deal is fully funded, the rental changes hands. A group of decentralized investors then is responsible for voting electronical ly on everything from plumbing re pairs to the hiring and ring of third-party property managers. Lofty makes its money on transaction fees.

Chu owns shares in roughly 40 properties traded on Lofty, including some homes in the Cleveland area. e company was drawn to the Mid west because of existing relation ships with real estate investors and the combination of relatively low home prices and stable rents.

at price-to-rent dynamic has made Cleveland a mecca for out-oftown landlords, a trend that worries public o cials and policy research ers who are trying to improve life for renters, boost homeownership or simply gure out who owns what.

ent and we have a di erent seating layout downtown. ey both have their own challenges.”

e sportsbook’s main video wall will be 35 feet by 10 feet, with the ability to show one game or multiple games. ere also will be a 16-footby-7-foot odds board and 14 85-inch TVs.

e sportsbook will have ve bet ting windows, 20 self-serve betting kiosks and a table pit with 11 table games.

“We want to activate the rst oor (of the casino),” said Gino Del Pup, JACK’s VP of design and construc tion. “Traditionally, this oor has not been as busy, but with all the pedes trian tra c we get, this is the perfect spot for it (the sportsbook). And once we bring the table games down here, it’ll have a lot more energy. More Ve gas-style.”

Although JACK is o cially target ing a “late fall” opening, casino o cials want the downtown sportsbook to be open before the Nov. 26 Michi gan-Ohio State game, so that fans can get used to the setup and start using the free-to-play betJACK app, which will convert to real bets on Jan. 1.

“We want it busy, we want butts in seats watching the game and down loading the app,” Del Pup said.

Who’s going to win that game?

“Of course Ohio State is going to win,” said Del Pup, a Detroit native.

The Thistledown sportsbook is smaller and a little more out of the way.

e 4,200-square-foot sportsbook will be located at the former Slush Bar & Patio, which is near the back of the racino oor. Some of that is practical — it was istledown’s best spot avail able — but some of that is because the racino doesn’t get as much casual foot

tra c as the downtown casino.

“It speaks to the di erence be tween the two properties,” said Alek sandra Breault, JACK Entertain ment’s director of public relations and communications. “ ere’s a lot more intentional crowd at istle down.”

istledown’s sportsbook will have 76 seats, including 28 recliners; sev en low-boy tables with four swivel chairs; and ve high-boy tables with four barstools around each.

e main video wall and the odds boards will be slightly smaller than downtown — 30 foot by 8 foot and 12 foot by 5 foot, respectively — the same number of 85-inch TVs (14) and self-serve kiosks (20) and one fewer betting window (four). istle down’s sportsbook will also have an 86-foot-by-5-foot ticker featuring scores and odds.

“Both have similar aspects,” An derson said. “When it comes to some of the wood nishes, it’s a little di er

They’re designed to look like Vegas sportsbooks, but smaller.

JACK calls the sportsbooks “Vegas light,” designing them to be big enough for March Madness or the Super Bowl, but small enough not to feel cavernous on slow days.

“It’s a similar concept with video walls and tickers and those elements, but with a space more conducive to Northeast Ohio than a city that gets thousands and thousands of visitors speci cally for sports betting,” Breault said. “We want it to be excit ing, and we want there to be energy, and we want to accommodate as many people that want to place bets. But we don’t want you hearing your own echo as you’re watching sports.”

To ful ll those goals, JACK Enter tainment worked with a design rm based out of Las Vegas that specializes in sportsbooks. But 80% of its actu al workforce is made up of Cleveland vendors, Del Pup said.

“ at’s one of the things we’ve tried to push, investing in the com munity that you’re a part of,” he said. “We’re excited (to open). It’s been a long wait, and we can’t wait to get this thing rolling on Jan. 1.”

“Are they going to cover (the spread) is the question.”

A 35 feet by 10 feet video wall is under construction for the sportsbook at JACK downtown casino. JOE SCALZO/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The Washington is a short-term rental property in Sandusky. | SETH MYERS PHOTOS

Zimmerman

Cooper

But Chu believes that the identity of the property manager matters much more than the landlord. And he sees single-family homes as an asset class that everyday investors can grasp much more easily than of ce buildings or shopping centers.

“Anyone in the world, despite their educational background, un derstands what a house is. ey un derstand they can collect rental in come,” he said.

Investors on Lofty earn daily rental income and stand to bene t if the houses grow in value. Buyers own the homes through limited lia bility companies, though Lofty is shifting away from traditional LLCs and into emerging entities that al low for collective governance. Last year, Wyoming became the rst state to grant legal company status to such entities, called DAOs, or de centralized autonomous organiza tions.

Consultant Rob Hahn said many of these startups sound like real es tate investment trusts, repackaged as part of the “hype train” around blockchain technology and to ken-based investing. e managing partner of 7DS Associates in Las Ve gas, he spoke about the disruptive forces rattling the real estate indus try during the Ohio Realtors con vention in Cleveland last month.

He’s also a member of the indus try advisory board for Pacaso, a San Francisco-based startup focused on shared ownership of second homes. None of Pacaso’s listings are in Ohio.

Fractional ownership of vacation homes makes a lot of sense, Hahn said, since such homes often sit empty for part of the year. e legal complexities around selling shares in investment properties to regular people — not just accredited inves tors — seem much more cumber some and fraught with peril, he said.

But that just might be the way the industry is headed.

“I want to say it’s a novel niche, but I’m afraid it might be a more permanent direction,” he said during a phone interview. “I just don’t know how this generation is supposed to buy houses. … Ohio, as I mentioned at the conference, is one of the bright spots where homes still remain pretty a ordable. But even in Ohio, unless we see a dra matic increase in wages, I just don’t see how some 31-year-old couple is supposed to buy a house.

“Having said that, if you don’t want to rent for the rest of your life, you have to get on the property lad der somehow,” he said. “Maybe the way to do that is through some sort of fractional ownership model.”

Michelle Jarboe: michelle.jarboe@crain.com, (216) 771-5437, @mjarboe

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Meanwhile, sta cuts will natu rally leave some otherwise good loan producers in the lurch. And that is where companies like Inde pendence-based Nations Lending Corp. and Brecksville-based Cross Country Mortgage say they want to catch what shakes out.

“I really don’t think anyone is im mune to the current environment right now. We are looking at a down turn in business, and that is natural for everyone. We’re down from a huge peak even six months ago,” said Nations Lending spokesman Zach Pardes. “But we knew the tide would turn, and we are in a position to capitalize on that and hire some top talent that, through no fault of their own, is in the market again. We’re looking to pounce on that.”

According to Crain’s data as of June 30, Nations Lending’s local workforce had increased over 2021 levels by 46%, to 438 people. e company attributed this growth to sta ng increases in 2021 and the rst couple months of 2022.

CrossCountry’s workforce is cur rently still larger this year as well compared to last. According to Crain’s data, CrossCountry reported 1,128 local employees in Northeast Ohio as of June 30, a 27% increase

over 2021.

“In the last downturn, we grew signi cantly as a company,” said CrossCountry spokeswoman Alicia Gauer. “2022 will go down as a tough year in the industry, but we’ve used it as an opportunity to invest in making our business even stronger for the long-term.”

Despite company revenues trending down this year, Pardes said Nations Lending is also looking to further expand its workforce, not downsize it, so as to be in an even better position to take advantage when market conditions turn more

favorable once again — whenever that is.

“Say someone is laid o who does $50 million a year but who is maybe having a slide right now,” Pardes said. “What we recognize is the numbers may not look great right now, but it won’t stay like this forev er. We want that $50 million produc er on our team because the sun will come out again, and we can support that person through this more di cult time.”

Jeremy

A “sale pending” sign hangs in front of a house in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood in August. MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Rhove is o ering an equity stake of up to $374,500 in the property through its app, where investors can buy in starting at $1.

WORTH

PEOPLE

ACCOUNTING

Corrigan Krause

Corrigan Krause CPAs and Consultants is pleased to announce the promotion of Alexis C. Burch, CPA, to Senior Manager in the Assurance Services department. Alexis works on compilations, reviews and audits in a number of industries, including manufacturing, professional employee organizations, healthcare and construction. She also helps to enhance the rm’s risk-based audit approach to ensure the most ef cient audits for our clients. Alexis is deeply appreciated by everyone at Corrigan Krause.

ARCHITECTURE

Dimit Architects, LLC

Dimit Architects has promoted Matthew Sommer to Associate Principal and Director of Operations. Mr. Sommer joined Dimit Architects after graduating from Kent State University with his Bachelor of Science degree in 2007. In his time at the rm, Mr. Sommer has designed singlefamily residential projects and is currently leading a team in the design of several concurrent market-rate multifamily projects with a national developer.

ARCHITECTURE

Dimit Architects, LLC

Dimit Architects has promoted John Tellaisha to Associate Principal and Senior Technical Director. Mr. Tellaisha joined the rm in 2016 after a long career in the Cleveland area, focused on corporate interior design. In his time at Dimit, Mr. Tellaisha has led efforts on of ce design and additionally has taken on multifamily, LIHTC and Historic Renovation projects. Mr. Tellaisha received his Bachelor of Science degree from Kent State University and his MBA from Cleveland State University.

NONPROFITS

Cleveland Ballet

ACCOUNTING

Corrigan Krause

Corrigan Krause CPAs and Consultants is happy to share the promotion of Alex M. Ferrara, CPA, MBA, to Senior Manager in the Assurance Services department. Alex specializes in construction, manufacturing, and service clients. With a background in collegiate football, Alex values and truly enjoys using a team approach to help clients accomplish their goals through compliance and consulting services. Alex is a key member of the Corrigan Krause team.

ARCHITECTURE

Dimit Architects, LLC Dimit Architects announces the promotion of Kristi Howard to the newly created role of Director of Affordable Housing. In this capacity, Ms. Howard will lead the organization’s efforts in both new-build affordable housing and low-income housing tax credit renovation projects. Ms. Howard joined the rm in 2020 and holds her Bachelor of Science degree from Kent State University. Dimit Architects has designed affordable housing projects throughout the country since its founding in 2004.

ARCHITECTURE

Dimit Architects, LLC

Dimit Architects has promoted Ted Singer to Associate Principal. Mr. Singer joined Dimit Architects in 2017 after returning to the Cleveland area from Philadelphia. In his time with the rm, Mr. Singer has worked on projects including market-rate multifamily, adaptive reuse and mixed-use residential. Mr. Singer received his M-Arch degree from the University of Virginia and his B-Arch from the University of Cincinnati.

ACCOUNTING

Corrigan Krause

Corrigan Krause CPAs and Consultants is delighted to announce the promotion of Douglas R. Rames, CPA, CCIFP, to Senior Manager in the Assurance Services department. Doug focuses on construction clients and assists the rm with its employee bene t plan audit niche. He volunteers for not-forpro ts in his community, including Empower Sports in Westlake, and uses those coaching skills to guide his clients on the path to reach their goals. Doug is truly valued by everyone at Corrigan Krause.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

PNC Private Bank

Tai Ranallo has joined the PNC Private Bank team as a Banking Advisor. In her role, Tai provides a differentiated experience and executes seamlessly to assist in delivering insightful banking solutions, providing individuals and families nancial peace of mind. A University of Toledo graduate, Tai has 21 years’ nancial services experience and serves as treasurer on the board of Stacey’s Purple Daisy, a foundation for families affected by cancer through random acts of service and support.

LAW Hahn Loeser & Parks

The Firm is pleased to announce the promotion of Aaron Chimenti to rmwide Manager of Digital Communications. Chimenti joined HLP in 2021 as a member of the Marketing & Business Development team. He interacts with the Firm’s specialized vendors for website applications, SEO capabilities, and social media presence, providing direction to enhance visibility for the Firm’s 140 attorneys, online platforms, multiple practices, and six of ces across the country. He is a graduate of Baldwin Wallace.

Cleveland Ballet is pleased to welcome Howard Bender, Vice President of Development, and Timour Bourtasenkov, Director of Rehearsals, to the company’s roster. Howard Bender joins from Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra where he served as Executive Director. Having enjoyed a lifetime of being steeped in philanthropic best practice, he has assembled and stewarded boards and development staffs, engaging them in building communities where all are welcome.

in program completion of historically underrepresented groups. How might we, as a community, work to eliminate these glaring gaps in outcomes leading to underemployment, depressed earnings, staggering student debt and lack of a “skilled” workforce? How might we destroy structural and institutionalized barriers that make our higher education institutions perpetrators and sustainers of educational inequities?

Bender

Here is my take on solution-orientated prompts for a community conversation to truly make college “worth it”:

Clarify the purpose, full value

Bourtasenkov

Timour Bourtasenkov, a distinguished dancer and choreographer, joins from Cary Ballet in North Carolina. Originally from Moldova, he began his professional education with the Moldovian Opera House and the Bolshoi Ballet.

Our community should collectively prioritize the purpose of higher education to what Dr. King noted: “A utilitarian and a moral function” or, as stated in a 2015 Washington Post article, “Education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.” We know that the unemployment rate for college grads is half of what it is for those with just a high school diploma. No one should disagree that the number of positive health, economic, social and quality of life outcomes generally increase with increased attainment. Higher education institutions serve as a vehicle for increasing educational attainment. e purpose then for higher educational attainment is not a singular end game, but a purpose that serves many means to social and economic well-being.

Deliver on mobility promise

COMPANY’S

e demographics of the United States and Northeast Ohio are changing, with current minoritized populations growing. Higher education must reform programs, policies and practices to meet the needs of students who are more likely to be Black and Latino, rst generation and/or from lower-income backgrounds. e higher education community must acknowledge that it was not designed to serve these growing populations and that drastic changes are needed.

Support core pillars

We must reimagine the pathways for success that include robust career education, planning and development as the core pillars of higher education, in addition to the academics and support services that institutions provide. We must work deeply with partners invested in helping students think about the education and skills needed for a career pathway over the course of students’ lives. e traditional structures where students must proactively seek assistance from career centers and/or career ofces don’t have the impact that we need for students to realize and navigate the complexities of employability, particularly of rst-generation students, Black and Latino students.

I know my higher education colleagues seek to have positive outcomes for all students. I think asking the right questions might lead us to more authentic answers and solutions. As an organization that serves as the nexus between high school and college, we are ready to have these conversations and, more importantly, serve as a meaningful partner in implementing e ective solutions.

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