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CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM I NOVEMBER 1, 2021
Companies scramble to recruit students
Northeast Ohio movie business is growing
Employers target colleges amid a booming job market
Productions big and small build economic presence in state
BY AMY MORONA
BY JAY MILLER
Kristin Williams, executive director of career exploration and development at Kent State University, noticed an immediate shift in recruitment activity when she and her team returned to campus full time this fall. “Everyone was knocking on our door for every kind of position,” she said. That includes part-time roles, internships and full-time gigs. The bustle isn’t just at Kent, either. Employers are reaching out in droves to Northeast Ohio’s colleges and universities to tap into talent amid the booming job market. Williams said she hasn’t seen anything like this over her 15 years in the industry. Baldwin Wallace University, for example, receives about 250 new job and internship postings on its online platform every day. Recruiting activity is up about 10% compared with pre-pandemic levels. Officials at Lakeland Community College said its job board is “inundated,” too, adding there’s an especially high demand for those in fields like nursing, respiratory therapy and CNC programming. In many ways, the ball now rests in the students’ court, leaving companies to figure out how to differentiate themselves to stay competitive and recruit the talent they need. Part of Williams’ job at Kent State is talking to employers to advise them on how to best connect with the students they’re courting.
and a member of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Drone Advisory committee. “It will get to the point where it’s just a matter of ‘where is the navigable airspace with respect to drones? But in the meantime, you’re going to have all of these little cities passing their own laws.”
After Walmart moved its Cleveland Heights store to South Euclid in 2019, its former store at Severance Town Center stood vacant. But since June, the empty big-box store has been the base of operations for film crews at work on a feature-length movie with the working title “Wheat Germ.” While it’s not going to be a major employer any time soon, the film industry is building a significant economic presence in Northeast Ohio, purchasing goods and services and putting people to work. Bill Garvey, president of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission — the local nonprofit that works to attract the production of movies, television shows, documentaries and even commercials to the region — believes that role can grow. While big budget projects that come along maybe once a year get the headlines, there is more to the local industry. But movies like “Wheat Germ” have an impact on the regional economy. The movie, Garvey said, has a budget of more than $100 million, with much of that being spent in Northeast Ohio. By comparison, the producer of “Judas and the Black Messiah,” spent $20.9 million locally when it was filmed in its entirety in Cleveland in 2019, according to a tally by the film commission. That film hired 118 local crew members and 3,000 extras, as well purchasing goods and services from 60 local businesses and booking thousands of hotel room nights.
See DRONE on Page 33
See MOVIE on Page 32
See STUDENTS on Page 32
Legal skies overcast for drone businesses Vic Moss of the Denver-based Drone Service Providers Alliance is one UAS advocate who thinks the FAA’s rules should govern how airspace is used. | MOSS PHOTOGRAPHY
BY DAN SHINGLER
Learning to fly a drone is easy. Learning to navigate the laws that govern where they can be flown, by whom and for what purposes is the hard part. Even the experts on drones, also known as unmanned aerial systems (UAS), can’t agree on what’s legal
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and what’s not. They do largely agree on one thing, though: There needs to be some consistency before a patchwork of local laws and regulations stifle the UAS industry. “I think it’s going to end up at the federal level and probably before the Supreme Court,” predicts Vic Moss, chief operating officer of Drone Service Providers Alliance in Denver
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10/29/2021 1:57:08 PM