Crain's Cleveland Business

Capital is outpacing Cleveland and Cincinnati when it comes to population growth. PAGE 9

Enrollment falls at Cleveland-area community colleges as well as institutions across Ohio. PAGE 42

The 2022 honorees are another standout class of dedicated executives, professionals and leaders under 40. These folks are getting things done. And you’re going to be hearing more about them for decades to come. PAGE 12

New plan builds on CSU 2.0

MICHELLE JARBOE

Cleveland State University’s new master plan calls for demol ishing the Wolstein Center, build ing a new arena on Payne Avenue at the northeastern edge of the campus and morphing aging Rhodes Tower into student hous ing.

Principals with Sasaki, a Bos ton-based architecture and plan ning rm, presented the 10-year vision to the university’s board of trustees on ursday, Nov. 17. e designers will spend the next two months putting the plan into writ ing before the board votes on for mal adoption in late January.

“Cleveland State has a unique proposition here, within down town Cleveland, to serve as a campus for all … truly a university in the city,” said David Jewell, the school’s senior vice president of business a airs and chief nan cial o cer, during an interview this week.

Jewell described the plan, with a projected cost of more than $650 million, as a way for CSU to fully embrace its urbanity. Based on input from Sasaki and feed back from students and sta , o cials are trying to make the cam pus feel more energetic, navigable and connected.

e master plan builds on CSU 2.0, the university’s strategy for re covering from the pandemic.

Cleveland a national leader in o ce building conversions

MICHELLE JARBOE

For years, civic leaders and nancing experts have said that Cleveland is a frontrunner in trans forming obsolete o ce space into apartments, hotels and other uses.

A forthcoming national report supports that claim. Since 2016, only Manhattan and Boston have completed more o ce-conversion projects, according to research from CBRE Group Inc.

O ce makeovers are a hot topic across the country as property owners grapple with the fallout from a pandemic-driven shift to ward remote and hybrid work. Ten ants are pruning their footprints and leaving tired buildings for fresh space — and amenities — at high er-end addresses.

CBRE found that the pipeline of potential conversions is growing. ose projects won’t put much of a dent in the nation’s overall o ce

supply, though. Researchers tallied up roughly 86 million square feet of a ected space, between recent conversions, ongoing construction and deals still on the drawing board. at’s about 2% of the total U.S. o ce inventory.

In Cleveland, though, o ce con versions were having an outsize im pact on the central business district long before the pandemic. Just look at Public Square, where renters now call the old May Co. building,

EDUCATION

The evolution of whale brains, ‘clandestine burials’ and ashcards

A look at the varied research happening in Northeast Ohio

RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY

Psychology. Forensics. History. Medicine. Researchers at Northeast Ohio’s colleges and universities keep busy.

e region is home to a variety of higher education institutions, from the large research universities to the small liberal arts colleges. But all have made it a priority to not only teach their stu dents, but to further the elds in which their educators have expertise.

What follows is a sample of the projects happening across Northeast

Ohio. For more, nd part one of this series online.

Learning more at NEOMED about whale brains

Researchers at the Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown — alongside indigenous Alaskans and high school students from Ohio — are working to learn more about the evolution of whale brains.

Whales have the largest brains on the planet; even scaled for body size, whales and dolphins only come sec ond to humans, according to infor mation from NEOMED. And their evolution is of interest because it mirrors that of primates. “ e driving evolutionary force of growth of the whale brain size may be related to in

creased intelligence but may also be the results of improved sound per ception,” the information stated.

Two National Science Founda tion-funded labs at NEOMED are studying this evolution, which exam ines both whale fossils from India and Pakistan and modern whales caught by indigenous Alaskans.

Better learning at Kent State and beyond

One of the goals of Kent State Uni versity’s Science of Learning & Edu cation Center is to help lead evi dence-based reform in STEM, health, literacy and language education at the university and K-12 levels.

Terminal Tower, 75 Public Square and 55 Public Square home. Andrew Coleman, a CBRE rst vice president in Cleveland, attri butes the proliferation of conver sions here to two things: We had plenty of empty space to ll, much of it in older buildings. And we have experts in historic tax credits and other nancing tools that under gird projects.

$650M proposal for university includes new arena, housing in Rhodes Tower

Developers in downtown Cleveland have a long track record of turning empty o ce space into apartments and hotels. In recent years, the conversion pipeline has grown to include mid-century towers and even newer properties. | MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Two labs at NEOMED are researching the evolution of whale brains. Their evolution is of interest because it mirrors that of primates. NORTHEAST OHIO MEDICAL UNIVERSITY

Restaurants continue to grapple with soaring food, labor costs

BY JEREMY NOBILE

Business conditions are not getting any easier for independent restaurants.

“We have been through the worst two years of all restaurateurs’ lives, I think,” Douglas Katz, owner of Cleveland restaurants Zhug and Amba, told Crain’s recently. “We had to pivot the business, change our goals for the future and do all this in a quick timeframe while hoping the public follows us. It’s a super scary time for restaurant owners. And this was all prior to in ation and the war in Ukraine e ecting products and availability. It is becoming more and more challenging for restaurant owners.”

In ation has risen by about 8% in the past 12 months, while groceries are up by roughly 13%.

Higher costs of doing business, labor shortages and supply chain issues are par for the course for the hospitality industry today’s economy.

But as these conditions persist, more restaurants may be reaching their tipping point, according to the Ohio Restaurant Association’s latest Business Impact Poll.

e ORA said that 34% of restaurants surveyed in its most recent poll reported an annual increase of 15% or more in food cost. Another 38% are seeing increases between 11% to 15%. Additionally, 40% of owners and operators report supply costs being up between 6% to 10%.

ere can be some wide variances in how restaurants are performing across myriad sectors the ORA accounts for, which range from fast food to ne dining.

While 30% of restaurants report that their sales are down between 1% to 10%, another 15% said sales are down by more than 10%.

However, 9% said sales are at, and 26% said sales are up between 1% to 10%.

While 30% told the ORA that they anticipate success in the second half of 2022, 54% said they are unsure, and 16% said they are not at all con dent about success through the end of the year — an indicator that they are at risk of closing.

“Independent restaurants are not pocketing gobs of pro t, rather most are less than 14 days away from insolvency, cannot pay their rent, cannot nd sta to operate and cannot keep up with in ation,” said Laurie Torres, owner of Cleveland’s Mallorca and president of the local restaurant coalition Cleveland Independents, in a statement. “Many owners I know have not taken a personal paycheck in months, and some long-term staples in the community are considering closing altogether.”

Katz said he hadn’t taken a paycheck from his restaurants for about two years.

Amid this downturn, Katz has taken some items o his menus, like a popular pastrami short rib dish, for example, because the price point has become too much. A small portion of that, which was about $17 at one time, would now have to sell for about $34 for the restaurant to maintain the same margin.

He’s also holding back on open-

ing what would be his third restaurant right now, the South American-inspired Chimi, because of the uncertain economic outlook.

“We were really excited to do that at the beginning of the year,” Katz said. “But as we see in ation rising, labor still being di cult and other environmental challenges, we really decided to slow down a little bit and make sure what we’ve created (in Zhug and Amba) remain successful.”

Nationally, just 8% of restaurant owners and operators said they expect economic conditions to improve in the next six months, according to the National Restaurant Association’s latest Restaurant Performance Index report from September — that’s the lowest reading in the 20-year history of that NRA survey.

According to NRA research, restaurants with annual sales of $900,000 would need to increase total sales 12.3% above 2019 sales volume to cover additional costs and not su er a loss. To maintain pro tability, restaurants would need to increase 17.3% above 2019’s sales volume. However, in the last 12 months, restaurants nationally have only increased menu prices 8.5% on average.

“(Local restaurant owners) don’t want to jeopardize their relationships with customers and are working to keep prices as low as possible,” said ORA president and CEO John Barker. “However, they’re put into an impossible situation: without raising prices nominally, they may not continue to operate.”

In in ation-adjusted terms, average monthly sales in the third quarter were estimated to be $1 billion

lower than they were during the second quarter. e NRA further notes that 62% of restaurants surveyed reported sales being lower today then they were at the same time in 2019, before the global areup of COVID-19.

While mounting challenges are creating a possibly untenable situation for some, Katz emphasizes that well-run restaurants should be able to survive.

“ ere are so many factors that contribute to a restaurant’s success and failure, and I think we are being hit by so many outside, environmental factors right now that are hard to manage,” he said. “You are either managing your business well enough to survive through di culties or taking chances, crossing your ngers and hoping that all goes well. Times like this are times where we have to really use our tools and information and hunker down and manage our businesses much more conservatively.”

Among other things, that may mean operating as lean as ever and really taking care of the employees a restaurant does have so as not to lose them, which could set a business back even further.

“I’m an optimistic person and excited for our future, and I think we should be able to manage through times like this,” Katz said. “And as restaurant owners all know, we are set up for immediate decision-making and emergency situations. We are good at pivoting when we need to. And I think we may be more resilient than people think.”

Jeremy Nobile: jnobile@crain.com, (216) 771-5362, @JeremyNobile

An assortment of dishes from Amba, one of the restaurants owned by Cleveland chef Douglas Katz. | LIZZIE SCHLAFER

Marc Morgenstern talks negotiating, The Grateful Dead

Marc Morgenstern is a recovering lawyer, veteran dealmaker and experienced venture capitalist.

Among various professional titles, he’s a longtime board member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Grateful Dead-founded Rex Foundation, founder of Blue Mesa Part ners, and a mentor-at-large for e House Fund, the seed ven ture fund of the University of California, Berkeley.

Morgenstern compiled decades of wisdom and maxims in his new book, “ e Soul of the Deal,” which chronicles pieces of his career and lessons learned throughout decades of work as a salesman, investor and negotiator.

e Deadhead also writes about what dealmakers could stand to learn from his favorite band.

Crain’s caught up with Morgenstern to talk about his advice, his new book and what deal jammers — as he likes to call them — may stand to learn from it. Here’s what he had to say.

— Jeremy Nobile

( e following conversation has been edited and condensed.)

 What inspired you to write this book, “The Soul of the Deal?”

Writing and teaching has been a big part of my life. But I’ve never written a book. Through the years, when people would ask me about my approach to dealmaking or negotiation — lots of folks know ‘Morgenstern’s Maxims,’ some have them hanging over their desks — a lot of people said I should write a book. But I never really had the time.

Someone said that there is an organic limit to how many people you can teach if you do it one at a time. I never thought about that because I treasure one-on-one relationships. So, I thought, if they’re right, the only way to amortize all this knowledge and experience in the maxims is to write a book. So that was the immediate genesis of it.

 So what is “The Soul of the Deal” about, and why might people be interested in it?

At one level, it’s a pretty major learning opportunity for people in the deal ecosystem broadly, whether that’s M&A or venture, which I see as intertwined: you make a venture investment for the purpose of getting out of it, and the way you get out of it is usually an M&A deal. But what it’s about on another level is really the human condition. The reason why people, not spreadsheets, are the epicenter of every deal is because there are lots of things that you can read about nancial ratios or metrics or the sort of hard balance sheet, nancial statement part. But the focus is never on people, and it should be. Company A does not make a deal with Company B. Somebody from Company A makes a deal with somebody from Company B.

What I think is important for a dealmaker is what I call sustainable deal empathy. You have to actually think, ‘I’m dealing with a human being. What do I know about them?’ When some people say no, they don’t mean no. When some people say, $10 is my lower limit, what they really mean is ‘I don’t know, try again,’ while some people may mean that literally. So, the key to dealmaking is learning the emotional matrix of your counterparty, what their vocabulary means, what their silence means. And this book is really an attempt to explore what I think is a key to dealmaking, which is not you or your spreadsheet, but your counterparty.

 What’s an example of how you might apply this perspective in the dealmaking world?

From a deal perspective, you will

meet people who, let’s characterize their behavior as aggressive. They will push you. And if you don’t push back, they will keep pushing you. If you do call them on it and push back, they will change their behavior.

If you can’t be run over, they stop trying to run over you. Then they switch gears because you’ve identi ed to them who you are as a human being and what it’s going to take to do this deal. Then they realize, oh, this behavior that works in many circumstances is actually counterproductive in this particular deal. With some people, a whisper is more e ective than yelling, whereas some people will only hear you if you’re yelling. You have to know the di erence.

are lessons to be learned from them that can be applied to the world of dealmaking and negotiating. Can you talk a bit about the connections you’re making there?

The Grateful Dead are 100% about creating community, bringing people together, which if you think about it is a quintessential deal skill. This concept of creating community and its importance is one aspect.

The second piece, which is parallel

to encyclopedia selling, is they are a true improv jam band. In selling, I can’t assume that what worked in house one may work in house two or three. You have to approach each di erently. At Grateful Dead concerts, there were no rules. I would go to see their show three nights in a row in the same city, and each show would bear no resemblance to the other. One night they might play a song for two minutes. The next, they might play for 42 minutes. If you saw them at another venue the next day, the audience was di erent. The vibe was di erent. The acoustics were di erent. They would adapt to that audience and that venue that night. That is what any great seller or negotiator does. You adapt to the situation and the circumstances.

 So it’s this idea of being able to adapt and improvise that can be applied to both an entertaining band and an e ective dealmaker.

And because every Dead song — the length, the shape — is not predetermined, that may be the single most important thing to learn from a deal perspective. If you heard a song one night and thought, that was great, then you hear it the next night, it’s 42 minutes long, and you think,

well that was great, too. It’s not that the song was ever better or worse. Each was di erent and equally valid. And that, to me, is the real art of what I call deal jamming — instead of dealmaking — because inside any deal or venture investment there is a certain amount of stu to happen before a deal can occur.

If parties are 400% apart on the raw economics, nothing is going to happen. That said, if you look at an M&A document, there might be, say, 50 variables inside of a deal. Some people might say they need to win all 50 of those or there is no deal. I would never say that. Maybe I’m good if I get parts 12 and 18 and 20 through 31. I’m also good if I get one, two, four, 19 and 41. But when you’re done, you look at all the circumstances and say, is this a good deal or not? Is this a good song or not? So, you approach it saying, I don’t know what the ultimate deal shape will be. But you could end up with 15 di erent deal structures or terms, all of which may be good deals, and I’d want to do them. And some I wouldn’t. Sometimes you have to say that the best deal you make is the one you don’t make.

See MORGENSTERN on Page 43



In your book, you write about working as a door-to-door ency clopedia salesman and looking for hints or clues on how to connect with someone as you try to steer them toward a purchase. What are some of the early lessons you learned from those experiences?

To me, selling and negotiating have about an 80% overlap. If you think about what makes somebody successful at selling, it’s not just understanding the product, it’s about understanding who you’re selling to. You have to know your customer. So what are some of the lessons? First, if I’m not inside the house, I can’t make a sale. It’s simple. You make a sale by being with someone who is a buyer. And if you can’t get into the same place with a counterparty, no negotiating happens and no sale happens.

You also get one chance and about a millisecond to make your rst impression. And if you make that correctly, you start making a foundation of rapport and trust, and that’s the rst step to even getting inside the house.

Now, in terms of business negotiating, you can’t make an investment sitting in your o ce. You have to be talking with someone and they have to know you in some fashion even in a digital world. And you should see how much you can learn about your counterparty before you even open your mouth. You won’t learn anything if your approach to negotiating or selling is talking.

One of my maxims, which is God gave you two ears and one mouth and the ratio was not an accident, sort of expresses that.

 You write about the Grateful Dead in this book — which you describe in one chapter as ‘America’s musical venture capitalists’ — and how there

CONTRIBUTED

Three things to know about the Tennis in the Land, REG partnership

BY JOE SCALZO

Like a tennis match, Rock Entertainment Group’s (REG) latest partnership started with love.

REG, the umbrella entity of sports and entertainment properties in the Dan Gilbert Rock Family of Companies, has reached a multi-year partnership with Tennis in the Land, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 250 tournament that just nished its second year in Cleveland.

Per the agreement, REG will work with tournament owner and operator Topnotch Management to boost ticket sales, corporate partnerships, hospitality and youth participation for the week-long summer event.

REG CEO Nic Barlage said his company pursued the partnership because it loved what Tennis in the Land brought to the city, and felt REG could help the tournament reach another level.

“We’ve obviously been watching and following and attending Tennis in the Land the last couple years and have incredible admiration for what (Topnotch Management president) Sam (Duvall) and (tournament director) Kyle (Ross) have built,” said Barlage, who also is CEO of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “We think it’s a unique experience. So we said, ‘Hey, we’d love to talk about how we can tie threads and weave synergies between what you’re doing and what we’re doing.’”

Tennis in the Land is one of just ve standalone WTA events in the United States. e event, which takes place in late August at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, has drawn more than 30,000 fans and produced an estimated $4 million in economic impact for the city since 2021.

Here are three things to know about the partnership.

1. It adds a women’s sporting event to the REG properties.

Tennis in the Land touts itself as the largest annual women’s sporting event in Ohio, a state that does

not have a WNBA team or a pro soccer team but does have two LPGA tournament events, the Dana Open in Toledo and the Kroger Queen City Championship in Cincinnati.

( e Western & Southern Open, which takes place annually in Cincinnati, features men’s and women’s tennis players.)

At the very least, it’s the biggest standalone women’s athletic event in Cleveland.

REG’s portfolio includes the Cavaliers, the AHL Cleveland Monsters, the NBA G League Cleveland Charge and Cavs Legion of the NBA 2K League, which solely have men on their rosters. e NBA 2K League does have a handful of women players, but none are on the Cavs Legion roster.

Adding Tennis in the Land diversi es that portfolio for REG, which recently entered into a collaborative partnership with the e-sports brand 100 ieves.

“ e thing that excites me is our ability to make an impact on women’s sports, and the inclusive nature of that,” Barlage said. “We don’t necessarily have a women’s sports platform right now, so this is incredibly exciting.”

2. It should boost ticket sales and sponsorships.

Ross believes Tennis in the Land has a strong foundation and feels good about the tournament’s trajectory, saying it has the potential to become a staple event in the city for decades. But he also knows REG offers more resources when it comes to things like group ticketing, skybox sales and sponsorship sales.

“Truly what they bring is resources both in terms of their experience and the fact that they have analytics and modeling capabilities across their ticketing,” Ross said.

“And they have a database of existing, proven people within the market who love supporting pro events and who attend live events. ey have a oor of folks who can make more calls than we do throughout

the summer. ey bring strategy and expertise as well as product development. ere’s a lot of expertise that we can tap into.”

3. It’ll lead to bigger purses and better players.

More tickets and more sponsors leads to more prize money. is year’s eld included 17 of the top 50 players in the world, “and if we can increase the prize money, we can attract more top 10 players,” Ross said.

But money doesn’t just bene t the players. It bene ts the tournament in a number of ways, from marketing to amenities.

“We can do cooler stu with the event,” Ross said. “Last year we invested heavily in fully digital signage and we had a lot of people in the tennis industry coming up to us and commenting on the fact that we had digital endwalls. at’s something that a higher-pro le event typically has. So we can say yes to that and a dozen other things. It’s things like that will continue to support the attention and awareness and attendance of the tournament.

“A lot of what REG brings to the table here is an acceleration. It gets us to where we want to be more quickly.”

Barlage attended several matches over a two-day period in August, rst as a CEO who saw the tournament’s business potential and then as a father and husband who saw its fan appeal.

It was hard to say which he enjoyed more.

“ e amount of fun my two daughters had was so unique,” he said. “You’re so close to the professional athletes and you’ve got the skyline in your background and the ships and the barges coming into the river o of Lake Erie. You add all that on a beautiful night at the end of August, it’s got an incredible amount of opportunity.”

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

Tennis in the Land held its second tournament in August at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. TYLE GLASENAP

‘We fully expect to climb the ranks’

Four things to know about Kaulig Racing’s consequential 2022 season

JOE SCALZO

Toward the end of a 20-minute conversation about Kaulig Racing’s season — it went well; more on that in a bit — owner Matt Kaulig turned his attention to his other underdog sports team, a plucky little out t known as the Cleveland Guardians.

“ e thing I’m most proud of, and what makes me the most happy for the Dolans and for the Guardians, is the fact that they had a good team this year,” said Kaulig, who earlier this year purchased a minority stake in the Guardians alongside investor David Blitzer. “If they had changed the name — and people were obvi ously upset about that — and then had a bad team and nobody showed up at the ballpark, it could have been a really bad situation. Instead, the best-case scenario happened. A whole group of young players who had never been Cleveland Indians ended up playing the mighty New York Yankees in a playo series and held their own.”

Left unsaid was the fact that Kaulig Racing could have met the same fate.

After six years of success in NASCAR’s X nity Series, Kaulig Racing went from dipping its toe in the Cup Series to jumping in with two feet, purchas ing two of the Cup Series’ 36 charters for the 2022 season, NASCAR’s rst with the Next Gen car.

It could have gone poorly. Instead, Kaulig Racing driver Justin Haley n ished 22nd in his rst full season in the Cup Series, piloting the No. 31 Chevy Camaro to three top- ve n ishes and four top-10s. A.J. All mendinger, Daniel Hemric and Noah Grigson split time driving Kaulig Racing’s other car, the No. 16 Cama ro, which nished 26th.

It wasn’t a scare-the-Yankees per formance, but it was solid.

“Having that success this early is a good sign,” said Dan Pittman, a se nior VP for Kaulig Racing and the new director of partnerships at Kaulig Cos. “We really have a story we want to tell in the next three to ve years. Matt Kaulig makes it very clear

that he wants to take NASCAR over. “Our goal is to win multiple Cup championships.”

Here are four things to know about Kaulig Racing, which nished its sev enth season on Nov. 6 and will open the 2023 season on Feb. 5.

1. It continued its success at the X nity level in 2022.

Kaulig Racing made its seventh

consecutive X nity Series playo , with Allmendinger capturing the reg ular-season title in the No. 16 Cama ro and advancing to the Round of 8 before nishing fth in the standings.

Allmendinger nished the year with ve wins, including his fourth straight at the Charlotte Roval, and 17 top- ve nishes.

“We had one race at Vegas (on Oct. 15) where the pit crew left the lug

nuts (loose) and it really cost us the championship,” Kaulig said. “We n ished (22nd) in that race and just couldn’t recover.”

Hemric, the 2021 X nity regu lar-season champion, also made the playo in the No. 11 Camaro and n ished the year with three top- ve n ishes. He placed ninth in the standings.

At First Commonwealth, our teams know our city and the important role local businesses play in the success of our communities. That’s why we work so hard to be the best bank for the businesses that start and grow here, to help make sure they succeed here.

Talk with our team today about how we can become the best bank for your business.

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In a city like this, it takes a team like ours.

Kaulig Racing owner Matt Kaulig and driver A.J. Allmendinger celebrate after winning the Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 30. ACTION SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Study: About one-third of Cleveland land is publicly owned

Roughly 24.52 square miles, the equivalent of about 506 FirstEnergy Stadium-size plots of land, within the city of Cleveland’s borders are owned by public entities, according to data compiled as part of a proper ty-valuation study produced for a project called Putting Assets to Work (PAW).

Put another way, “about 30% of the land in the city of Cleveland is non-private. It is publicly owned,” said Ben McAdams, senior fellow with the Sorenson Impact Center, which is part of the business school at the University of Utah, and the head of a collaborative of academic and urban planning experts invento rying Cleveland parcels as part of the PAW project.

Cleveland was one of six cities selected, from among 20 appli cants, to be part of PAW, which is modeled after similar programs un derway in Asia and Europe. The PAW incubator is designed to iden tify underused land and property that cities can turn into reve nue-generating assets. The other members of the cohort are Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Annapo lis, Maryland; Harris County (the Houston area) in Texas; and the city of Lancaster, California.

“With all of these cities, we are nding that government owns a lot of land,” McAdams said. “It means there’s an incredible opportunity, through the stewardship of these lands, to generate revenue without raising taxes.”

e non-private property that McAdams and PAW examined in cluded land owned by the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authori ty, the Port of Cleveland and proper ties acquired by land banks, as well as those used by the city, Cuyahoga County, state and federal govern ment agencies.

is land, McAdams said, includes buildings required for government work but also is made up of vacant, abandoned and underused proper ties that either do not bring in tax dollars or in many cases burden cit ies with excessive maintenance and upkeep fees.

City leaders, McAdams said, don’t know the full extent of property “on the books” because public property management often is split among multiple government departments, which makes it di cult to manage those public assets.

‘An inherent public bene t involved’

“Everything from Cleveland City Hall to vacant residential proper ties will be part of the initial data collection and eventual map,” said Ahmed Abonamah, Cleveland’s fi nance director and chief financial officer. “I think people will be sur prised at how much land the city actually owns.”

Abonamah’s office is managing the city’s involvement in the PAW project, which in the first phase of data collection also is assigning a relative monetary value to both the public and private properties. Mak ing this type of quantifiable proper ty information public, he said, helps creates a sense of transparen cy around the city’s public wealth and municipal finances.

“We are thinking of these parcels

in the same way we think about any other public investment — that there is an inherent public benefit involved,” Abonamah said.

The initial findings of the study, according to PAW partner Urban3,

a North Carolina-based firm that specializes in public asset valua tion, found that roughly 3 square miles of the city of Cleveland is dedicated to parks and public green space.

In contrast, nearly 12 square miles is made up of the non-private commercial property currently owned by the city that, as McAdams points out, has “potential commer cial value.”

Another critical element of the first phase of the PAW project as signs each parcel, which in Cleve land averages about 0.15 of an acre, a specific dollar value. Not all land is valued at the same price per acre.

“For example, even though it is not the largest piece of land, the privately owned Key Tower, along with other areas in downtown, were designated some of the most valu able properties per acre,” McAdams said.

There are a number of cityowned properties — things like sur face parking lots or just small par cels of green space, in areas adjacent to high-value, privately owned commercial property — that are ripe for re-evaluation.

Those former or vacant industri al properties, Abonamah said, are part of a drive to identify larger commercial sites for future eco nomic development.

“Often in any kind of develop ment project, obtaining unencum bered property is the hardest piece of the puzzle,” he said.

Next step: strategy and policy

Cleveland is only wrapping up the first stage, focused on property identification and valuation, of the PAW program, which began this summer. The strategy and policy around how the city should take ad vantage of the vast portfolio of pub lic assets is still to come.

No decisions have been made, but in places such as Sweden, mu nicipalities have raised significant amounts of revenue from public property by being more active own ers and creating a long-term reve nue stream rather than resorting to outright privatization.

“Just selling the property would mean a cash infusion, but of course, then the asset is gone,” McAdams said.

For cities like Cleveland that spend millions in annual upkeep funds for abandoned commercial property and vacant residential lots, it can be better to sell proper ties outright, but large-scale afford able housing development also is on the table.

“We are looking at strategies that could tackle pressing issues Cleve land is facing, from rehabilitating or building affordable housing,” Abonamah said.

Cleveland will work with the oth er cities in the cohort to determine strategies for the ultimate policy outcomes, Abonamah said.

“We are all dealing with a similar question: How do we turn the real estate we own into recurring posi tive revenue for the city?” he said

Part of that next phase, Abonamah said, includes engaging Cleveland City Council and the community.

“There is a sense of urgency to really get moving,” Abonamah said. “It’s going to take time. These prop erties are not going to be part of some portfolio put out to the mar ket immediately. We’re doing a lot of brainstorming with our outside partners as part of sort of thinking through what we’ve seen as nation al models, international models, and then seeing how they could fit in the context of our environment.”

Kim Palmer: kpalmer@crain.com, (216) 771-5384, @kimfouro ve

KIM PALMER

From its perch at Cleveland City Hall, a new administration is taking inventory of the city’s real estate holdings and looking at ways to tap their value. | PHOTOS BY MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The city’s holdings range from well-known downtown buildings, like Public Auditorium, to vacant residential lots.

Cleveland’s sprawling Muni Lot, wedged between downtown and the Shoreway, sits largely empty on a Monday afternoon.

BY DAN SHINGLER

People sometimes refer to Ohio as the state of the “three Cs” — Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.

Years ago, they usually meant it in that order, too. Back in the 1980s, when Columbus was still the “little C,” the capital’s 47-story Leveque Tower rose from downtown, and as you approached, it looked like a lone spike sticking out of the ground. Meanwhile, Cleveland and Cincinnati had actual skylines, growing with new skyscrapers. ey were the state’s true major-league cities, as the legacy sports teams that still bear their names attest.

But if you were starting a major-league football, basketball or baseball team today, you’d probably do it di erently.

Columbus has become Ohio’s true major-league city, and while most people probably realize it’s been growing faster than most of the rest of the state, the degree to which the capital has recently run up the score is startling.

A new report from the Greater Ohio Policy Center illustrates the degree to which Columbus is outperforming Ohio as a whole. It’s titled “Ohio + Columbus: A Tale of Two States,” and its authors say state legislators should take note, lest they think the city in which they work is typical.

“I worry that’s a dynamic that’s going on,” said Alison Goebel, Ph.D., Greater Ohio Policy Center’s executive director. “ ey’re going from their district; they may live in a suburb, they may live in Solon. ey go to Columbus and get o at Broad Street and go to the Statehouse. So, it’s hard to see the rest of the state.”

About two-thirds of Ohioans, 64%, live in “legacy cities” such as Akron, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Youngstown or Toledo, the report found. Legacy cities are de ned by the report as cities “that came to prominence in the early to-mid 1900s around a manufacturing economy but experienced signi cant population and manufacturing industry losses in the mid-to-late twentieth century.” e report’s authors identi ed 22 such cities in Ohio.

Only about 18% of Ohioans live in the Columbus metro area, but that’s a number that’s going up, while legacy cities lost population between 2000 and 2020, the report found.

e di erence between how well

Columbus does compared with the rest of the state is stark. For instance, the report found that “Ohio had a population gain of 3% from 2000 to 2020, but when the Columbus metro is removed, the parts of Ohio outside the Columbus area experienced loss of –1%, or net loss of 100,000 residents.”

Perhaps worse yet, Ohio’s legacy cities are aging at a rapid clip. While Columbus experienced gains across all age groups for the 2000-2020 period, almost without exception Ohio’s other cities saw their populations decline for the age groups below 55 and managed gains only among older age groups.

“For me, that’s concerning,” Goebel said. “ e 25- to 45-year-olds are the ones buying homes and starting businesses, and if those populations are decreasing in our legacy cities, it’s going to be more challenging.”

e nonpro t conducted its study because it wanted to document and

quantify trends people were seeing, but might not have fully appreciated.

“We did this because we understood, and we’ve heard from a lot of people that understand intuitively, that these trends were happening, and we really wanted to show what’s going on,” said one of the report’s authors, Erica Spaid. “We have di erent kind of places here, and we need different kind of policies to support them.”

Goebel said some smaller cities tell her they feel like they’re being overlooked.

“Yes, all the time,” she said. “We often hear in Cincinnati, ‘Man, you guys up in Columbus ad Cleveland get all of it.’ en in Cleveland, we hear, ‘You guys in Cincinnati and Columbus get everything.’”

Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan welcomed the report and any impetus it might provide for state legislators to help legacy cities like his.

“ is report encourages policy-

makers to focus on stabilizing populations, addressing the needs of our aging population, promote new housing, and attract and retain higher-wage jobs, which are all areas of focus for my administration,” Horrigan said in email correspondence.

“ ese highlighted areas also need serious attention by state policymakers. ey have to realize that the state is made up of more than just what’s inside the 270 beltway and that’s not to slight Columbus. ey have done an excellent job these past 20 years. It’s a very intentional road map for success statewide and I know many cities and metro areas are doing just what the report recommends, but we need a real partner in Columbus.”

e Greater Ohio Policy Center proposes several steps state lawmakers could take to help legacy cities. ey include providing grants and assistance for cities to update old zoning codes to better foster redevelopment, and supporting low-cost mortgage lending in communities with low housing valuations.

Development tools such as the state’s historic tax credits, or Akron’s abatement on new housing and home renovations, can help, but they need more programs to leverage the assistance, Goebel said.

“We want to stop that spiral (of population loss) and reverse it. Akron’s doing a great job, but how much more could it do if it had these tools in its toolbox?” she asked.

James Hardy, Horrigan’s former

chief of sta , who is currently a senior program o cer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is running in 2023 for the Ward 8 seat on Akron City Council, said he was not surprised by the ndings in the report.

“It’s a really important report,” Hardy said. “I wasn’t surprised. But I’m probably not the average bear.”

Hardy, who studies urban issues in his current role, said other states, especially old industrial states, are seeing similar trends. ey all should pay more attention to their legacy cities, he said.

“ e report does an excellent job of calling into question what should the state of Ohio’s commitment to these legacy cities outside of Columbus be, so that the 64% of Ohioans who live there aren’t left behind,” Hardy said.

One aspect of the report Hardy said he was particularly happy to see was that it highlights some of the assets that legacy cities still have, and which provide value to their states.

“Our legacy cities aren’t coming to the table empty-handed,” Hardy said. “As the report points out, the majority of Ohio’s workforce resides in these regions. ese communities have talent, industry, anchor institutions — especially in health care and education — and natural resources worth protecting.”

Hardy, Horrigan and the report’s authors were quick to point out that they weren’t knocking Columbus. Far from it, they said; Columbus is to be emulated, not envied or resented, for its success.

“I didn’t take the report as saying, nor would I agree, that the state is somehow favoring Columbus and that’s why they’re doing better than everyone else,” Hardy said. “For one thing, that doesn’t give credit where credit is due, because Columbus has done a tremendous job. ... You’d be diminishing many levels of leaders in Columbus who have done a great job over the last several decades.”

He said Columbus should be studied by state policymakers: “What can we learn and how can we leverage that success? And what can the state learn and leverage and use in other parts of the state?” Answering those questions should be a major takeaway from the report, he said.

Shingler: dshingler@crain.

Dan

JULIUS KISSINGER /UNSPLASH

ALDEN/BLOOMBERG

EDITORIAL

Youth movement

Everybody has a favorite anksgiving tradition. Maybe it’s focused on a particular food (or two or three) at the table, a team on the television, an outdoor activity at halftime or a spot on the couch for a nap. Whatever it is, take time this week to enjoy the things that bring you close to the people in your life.

At Crain’s, our tradition this time of year is presenting the latest class of the 40 Under Forty — talented young business, civic and nonprofit leaders who are bolstering the economic, cultural, social and intellectual life of Northeast Ohio. You’ll find their stories in the pages of this week’s print edition, as well as on our website and app. One of the privileges of working in the news business is that you meet a lot of talented people who are doing big things. We’ve been producing 40 Under Forty sections for a long time, but highlighting those helping reshape our community for the better never gets old.

This year’s Forties, and thousands of others in their age cohort throughout the region, are building careers at a pre carious time.

The nature of work is evolving fast, driven by technolog ical advances and the changing expectations of employees and employers. The pandemic and its aftermath scram bled labor markets, leaving many companies short of workers and engaging in fierce competition for top talent. Inflation is taking a bigger chunk out of paychecks. The economy looks ready to tip into recession. It’s never easy to make your way in the work world, but this particular mo ment is especially challenging.

A couple of new studies from research firm Workplace Intelligence underscore some of the unease in the work force — but also point to ways things might get better. Workplace Intelligence conducted a survey of about 3,000 U.S. employees from a variety of industries and com panies and found that most are concerned they lack the skills (78%) and education (71%) required to advance their career, and that pandemic-related disruptions to normal work processes and mentoring are at least partly to blame. As a result, Workplace Intelligence noted, “70% feel unpre pared for the future of work.” (It’s not helping that work

arrangements — remote, hybrid, fully in-person? — re main up in the air for many companies.) at uncertainty is not great. But it’s encouraging that em ployees are focused on remedying this situation. Workplace Intelligence found 89% said they’re “extremely” or “some what” motivated to improve their skills in 2023. It takes e ort on both sides to make progress, though, and the survey found that while 78% of respondents said their company’s learning/ development programs have “signi cantly” or “somewhat” bene ted them over the past two years, there’s still more to be done. Workplace Intelligence reported that just over half of employees say their employer o ers free or partially covered college tuition (51%), training programs in other areas of the business (55%) and networking opportunities (55%) — but more than 80% of employees say it’s important for employers to o er such bene ts.

e big takeaway, Workplace Intelligence concluded, is that in what generally remains an employee-driven job mar ket, “employees feel empowered to seek out an employer that truly supports their long-term career goals and ambitions. Companies who recognize this and provide a high level of support ... are going to stay one step ahead.”

e Bloomberg news service, meanwhile, pointed to data from a study that Workplace Intelligence conducted with think tank Workforce Institute that highlights a di erent is sue: workers who feel “disconnected from meaning or be longing.” at study, Bloomberg noted, “found that 45% of employees across 10 countries don’t want to work anymore, 77% want to spend less time working and ‘more time doing things that matter to them,’ and 46% wouldn’t recommend their company or profession to any young people they care about.”

ese are big challenges, for employers to create condi tions that give their workers the best chance to succeed, and for employees to nd work that’s engaging and more mean ingful than just a paycheck. ( ough a paycheck is import ant.) e stories of the Forties o er examples of that. In this time of year for giving thanks, think about things that make you grateful for your work — and how you can contribute to a stronger workplace in the future.

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

PERSONAL VIEW

Ohio’s death penalty is bad for business

Ohio’s Legislature is currently consid ering strongly bipartisan bills to abolish capital punishment. is is the rst time in decades that such bills have received serious consideration.

e ongoing push to end the death penalty re ects declining support for a punishment that has been shown to be cruel, ine ective and immoral. States across America, both red and blue, are ending it once and for all. As we start to have conversations about the state bud get, the Legislature is going to have to make some tough decisions about where our tax money should go. Repeal ing the death penalty and freeing up those nancial resourc es is an easy call. ere is another salient argument that is more important than ever: e death penalty is bad for busi ness.

ere is no evidence capital punishment deters violent crime. Research has repeatedly shown that states with it have higher murder rates than those without it. For some thing ine ective, it comes at an enormous cost. Ohioans pay approximately $17 million per year on our death penalty, and $1 million per case in Hamilton County alone. Studies have found that capital cases cost up to 10 times more than others. at money could be put to far better use — helping survivors, supporting mental health initiatives and funding measures that actually keep communities safe.

I opened my company here in Ohio in 2011 for the same reasons many others do: e state is a great place to do busi ness. But to keep funneling tax dollars into something that doesn’t work demonstrates scal irresponsibility, with au thorities more focused on outdated notions of revenge than they are on spending wisely.

I’m not alone. Investors everywhere are signaling their opposition to capital punishment — and taking it into ac count when deciding where to send their money. Billionaire fund manager Mike Novogratz wrote that investors should look elsewhere in the face of “such reckless mismanage ment of taxes.”

Our death penalty is also unacceptably arbitrary. Severity of the crime doesn’t determine who gets a death sentence. Location, adequate counsel, and opinion of the prosecutor are far more signi cant. Just ve counties in Ohio are re sponsible for 68% of our cases, and my business is head quartered in one of them — Franklin. Rule of law, fairly and e ectively administered, underpins commerce. If we can’t guarantee that, how can we expect people to do business here?

Our death penalty is also racist in its implementation, and kills innocent people. People of color make up only 15% of our population, but account for 56% of those sitting on death row. For every ve executions in Ohio, one innocent person has been exonerated. Such an appalling error-rate should be unacceptable to any decent human being.

Our use of such a clearly awed system undermines our ability to attract the best workers. We are in the middle of the “Great Resignation,” with people quitting their jobs in re cord numbers. At the same time, we are dealing with an es calating labor shortage, as workforce supply can’t keep up with demand. As an employer of hundreds, I know that we should do everything we can to make Ohio a great place to get a job. Ending capital punishment will help.

Ohio taxpayers deserve better than to be told broken sys tems of retribution protect them. I care deeply about mak ing Ohio a safer place for our families to live; as a CEO I work every day to make Ohio a more prosperous place to do busi ness. Our death penalty accomplishes neither — we should applaud our legislators as they look to end it.

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.

Sound o : Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com. Please include a telephone number for veri cation purposes.

Rush is CEO of Columbusbased CleanTurn International.

JOHN RUSH

JASON

BY CONOR SEN/BLOOMBERG OPINION

If you had to point to one culprit holding back the economy over the past 18 months, it would be the auto industry.

Supply chain problems like the shortage of semiconductors have contributed to weak economic growth, anemic productivity, rising prices and higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve struggles to control in ation.

While the auto industry still is a long way from normal, the data we’ve gotten over the past month suggests it is nally healing, which is going to lead to some surprisingly good economic numbers over the next few quarters. We’re already seeing economic growth accelerate at the same time in ation is coming down.

Seasonally adjusted automobile sales show how far from normal the industry has been since the onset of the pandemic. In the years leading up to the pandemic, new vehicle sales were consistently in the range of 17 million a year. ey plunged in March 2020, recovered later that year into early 2021, but then fell sharply by summer as the semiconductor shortage led to fewer vehicles available to sell. Since July 2021, sales have run at a rate of around 14 million a year, three million below what one might expect.

at de cit has a ected the economy in all sorts of ways. Automobiles detracted 2% from real gross domestic product growth in the third quarter of 2021 due to the sales slump, and as of the third quarter of 2022 has yet to bounce back. e industry’s problems have hurt productivity growth due to the way productivity is calculated — vehicles that would sell for tens of thousands of dollars aren’t counted as output because they’re sitting on factory oors waiting for chips that often don’t cost very much.

And the impact on in ation has been profound. A lack of vehicle production pushed up prices for new and used vehicles alike — when dealers don’t have much to sell, they don’t have to o er discounts to buyers, and a lack of inventory forces buyers into the used-vehicle market, which pushes up prices, as well. ose two categories account for 10% of the weighting in the core measure of the Consumer Price Index in ation report.

And those aren’t even the only categories hit by the shortage. Motor vehicle maintenance costs have surged as the lack of vehicles for sale has forced consumers to hold onto older, malfunctioning vehicles longer than they would like, keeping mechanics busy at a time when that industry is dealing with labor shortages. And when it costs more and takes longer to x vehicles, that costs

auto insurers more money, who then pass those costs onto policyholders. In ation for those two categories, which account for another 4.5% of the core CPI basket, has been more than 10% over the past year.

All of those downstream e ects mean that it’s a big deal for the economy that production is nally normalizing. Earlier this month we learned that new vehicle sales in October jumped to 14.9 million (at a seasonally adjusted annual rate) from 13.5 million, the highest level since January. at’s still well below the pre-pandemic normal, but it’s huge for measures of output like GDP. at’s because if automobile sales in November and December merely keep pace with October’s rate, it will translate to a 10% quarterly jump. And for the purposes of the calculation of GDP growth we annualize that gure — 10% annualized is almost 50%. With automobile sales representing about 3% of GDP, that alone would contribute between 1% and 1.5% to GDP growth this quarter. And sure enough, when the GDP growth tracker that the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta puts out included that October vehicle sales report, its estimate of fourth-quarter GDP growth increased by 1.2%.

In large part because of the boost from auto sales, the Atlanta Fed says fourth-quarter real GDP growth is currently tracking at 4%. at may come down as we get new data, but it also suggests the fourth quarter might end up producing the fastest GDP growth of the year.

is would also be good news for productivity growth, which has been weak for a while. Faster economic growth without a corresponding pickup in the labor market means that productivity accounts for the di erence.

Most importantly, the normalizing of auto production and inventories takes pressure o in ation. Used-vehicle prices are now falling. e growth rate in new vehicle prices has slowed as customers have a little more inventory to choose from. Hopefully that will lead to less pressure on vehicle maintenance and insurance prices. And lower in ation allows the Fed to relax a bit — the soft CPI report of Nov. 10 led to a stock market surge and a sharp decline in mortgage rates, relieving a little of the pressure on the housing market.

is boost from autos couldn’t be coming at a better time. e housing industry has been crippled by high mortgage rates, and layo s and hiring freezes in Silicon Valley have picked up as investors demand better cost control from tech companies. e normalization of auto production and sales could power the economy through the middle of 2023.

ere’s still room to go, but the auto industry is the best reason to hope for an economic growth and in ation surprise over the next several months.

And you’re going to be hearing more about them for decades to come. ey come from a diverse array of elds. ose recognized in 2022

others. is year’s honorees all represent the very best in achievement

JOSEPH AYOUB 36

Vice president, director of engineering | CDM Smith Inc.

Joseph Ayoub likes a challenge, the chance to try something new or to solve a problem.

And he has plenty of opportunities to do that as vice president, director of engineering, for CDM Smith, a Boston-based engineering and construction company.

Ayoub has spent his entire career at what is now CDM Smith, starting as a co-op in electrical engineering at Wadsworth-based Louis Perry & Associates, now a CDM subsidiary. In the past decade and a half, he moved into full-time engineering work and then into supervisory roles for the company.

Ayoub is dedicated and smart, said Jim Calderone, senior vice president and director of design build at CDM. He also has a willingess to learn and a strong grasp of

di erent disciplines.

“Him fully understanding what we do as a company, as a design-builder, made him into that perfect candidate for director of engineering,” Calderone said.

In his current role at CDM Smith, Ayoub is responsible for all the engineering in CDM’s projects, which range from facility expansions to process improvements. ey’re about growing factories, improving air quality and more.

“So all of our projects have an impact, whether it’s on people’s safety, whether it’s on environmental safety or just doing something good for our clients,” he said.

Ayoub said he enjoys the variety of work he gets to take on, and that he’s involved in solving problems for clients. e company’s clients

work in a variety of industries, from power to oil and gas to metals.

rough design build projects, CDM Smith takes a client’s problem, and not only nds a way to solve it, but actually builds that solution.

“I get a lot of satisfaction from doing projects we call from concept to execution,” he said.

Ayoub, who grew up in Lebanon, said he’s always been an “analytical person,” drawn to “math and physics, how things work.” He moved on his own to the U.S. at 18, and that, too, drives him to want to succeed. He wants to know his move wasn’t for nothing, he said. Ayoub said he hopes to continue growing in the organization, and to see the company continue to grow, too.

Photography by Jason Miller/Pixelate Photography

Crain’s Cleveland Business, which began its “40 Under Forty” program in 1991, is proud to present another standout class of dedicated young executives, professionals and leaders under 40. Take some time to get to know the 2022 honorees. ese folks are getting things done.

include nonpro t leaders, educators, scientists, activists and many

and service, and they all are making a di erence in Northeast Ohio.

— Rachel Abbey McCa erty

“If you want to keep progressing, do the work for that next-level position, even before you get that promotion. ... Do the job that you want to be in before you get there.”

CONGRATULATIONS 40UNDER FORTY HONOREES

BRITTANY BARRON 34

Associate general counsel | Cleveland State University

“Growing up, I didn’t know any Black lawyers,” Brittany Barron said. Now, when Barron meets kids who ask about her job, she enthusi astically tells them they, too, can be a lawyer.

“I just love providing access to certain opportunities and resources to people who don’t think they can do something or don’t typically have access to something,” Barron said.

She said she’s dedicated her life to the service of others, and it’s evi dent in the many roles she takes on.

Barron spent more than six years as an assistant general counsel and risk manager for the Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Au thority. ere, she led rental assis tance initiatives and attempted to make complex laws easier to under

stand for low-income residents.

Je rey Wade, CMHA’s chief of sta and special counsel to the CEO, said Barron “is admired for her pas sion, her zeal and her commitment to those that she serves.”

In June, Barron joined Cleveland State University as an associate gen eral counsel. Her busy schedule also includes a decade-plus run as a cheerleading coach for Cleveland Muny Football League and Pop War ner teams, and being a volunteer magistrate for the city of Shaker Heights’ juvenile diversion program.

Barron recently lled the limited amount of free time she had with an event planning business, Glam by Brittany, that she said is “taking o .” She has worked corporate events, hosted gatherings for former NBA standout Charles Oakley during All-

Star Weekend in Cleveland, and been a go-to contact for baby and wedding showers.

She’s done it all without a web site.

“It’s just been crazy,” Barron said. “And it’s all from my personal Insta gram account.”

e Cleveland Heights native’s “most important job” and her “most rewarding commitment,” though, is being a wife and mom. She and her husband, Kevin, have a 3-year-old daughter, Kennedy.

How does she do it all? Well, she doesn’t believe in wasting any mo ments.

“I use every hour and every min ute of every day,” Barron said. “Ev ery hour of every minute of every day is accounted for.”

— Kevin Kleps

BEVIN BOWERSMITH 38

Ohio director | PCs for People

Like all of us, Bevin Bowersmith had no idea in November 2019 that a global pandemic was on the hori zon that would disrupt almost every aspect of life.

at month, she started as Ohio director for PCs for People, a nation al nonpro t that provides low-cost computers and a ordable broad band internet for low-income peo ple and nonpro ts.

Four months later, in March 2020, COVID shut down life as we knew it, forcing us into our homes to work, learn, shop, bank, socialize and more, all via technology.

Never had an organization like PCs for People been more needed, and in Ohio, Bowersmith has been leading the charge to connect people in need to computers and internet services.

e need was real in Cleveland, which in 2019 was named one of the worst connected cities nationwide by

the National Digital Inclusion Alli ance a glaring example of the dig ital divide that keeps a signi cant number of urban and rural resi dents without hardware or stable internet connections.

“It really was a call to action,” Bowersmith said. “We were so busy in all the right ways.”

How busy? In 2021, the demand for computers was so great the orga nization was providing 500 devices a month. is year, that number is up to 800 to 1,000.

ink about how many comput ers your household uses, from school and work laptops to iPads, desktop computers and more. Of ten, in urban areas like Cleveland, a family of four or ve people may all be using a single Chromebook pro vided by the school system.

“Multiple kids, along with adults, in the same household doesn’t work with

one computer,” Bowersmith said.

Beyond rehabbing old computers, and housing and distributing new devices, keyboards, power cords and mice, PCs for People is also provid ing much-needed WiFi hotspots. Households who qualify can pay minimally for WiFi and obtain a desktop for $100 or a laptop for $150.

It’s no wonder Bowersmith has found herself in her current role, and the one she held prior as the work force development program director at the Lutheran Metropolitan Minis try. “I’ve always had a passion for giv ing back and making an impact in someone’s life,” she said.

at passion is no surprise to Bry an Mauk, PCs for People’s chief in novation o cer. “She’s got an amaz ing head for the mission and a real belief that she can communicate to her sta ,” he said.

— Elizabeth McIntyre

RAJ CHATTERJEE 37

Senior nancial adviser | Carver Financial Services

Raj Chatterjee took his rst job as a nancial adviser in June 2007, six months before the Great Recession o cially began.

Not good timing for a 22-year-old who didn’t have a big book of clients to fall back on.

He survived by working hard — and swallowing his pride.

Back then, he was at Wachovia Securities in downtown Cleveland. Some older colleagues noticed the work he was putting in to keep his head above water. So they asked whether he could take on some less glamorous duties, like answering phones and opening accounts, while building his business on the side, Chatterjee said.

But that gave him the change to learn the business from the ground up — and watch more experienced

colleagues navigate the downturn.

“It really was a good foundational block for me,” he said.

Since then, he has done a lot to build on that foundation.

Today, Chatterjee is a nancial adviser at Carver Financial Services in Mentor, where he grew up. Nowa days, he does have that big book of business that would’ve been so handy back in 2007, but he’s also on the company’s leadership team. He heads the rm’s investment com mittee and personnel management e orts.

Nik Wearsch recruited Chatterjee to the rm in 2017 and doesn’t re gret it.

“He’s one of the best hires we’ve ever made,” said Wearsch, who is also a nancial adviser.

Wearsch lived next to Chatterjee’s

cousin, so he got to know him be fore he joined Carver Financial Ser vices. ey talked about stu like sports and the stock market, but what really struck Wearsch was just how warm and welcoming he is.

Chatterjee has a competitive side — he grew up playing tennis and loves golf — but he also knows how to bring the tension level down, Wearsch said.

“He’s the person who makes all the personalities get along,” Wearsch said.

Chatterjee previously served on the board of Cleveland Public e atre and enjoys working with non pro ts through the Carver Cares program. He lives in Concord Town ship with his wife, Heta, and their boys Kalin, 6, and Kavi, 3.

Devoted to Hope, Health, and Humanity

#hopehappenshere

For more information on The MetroHealth Glick Center, scan the QR code or go to metrohealth.org/glick-center

WILLIE COOK 39

Assistant principal | Copley High School

Willie Cook is used to being the big man on campus — and not just because the assistant principal at Copley High School is 6 feet, 3 inches tall and still looks like the o ensive lineman he was when he played for Copley.

Cook is a big man with a big heart and maybe an even bigger brain. He not only played football at Copley, but coached it — and did a stint in engineering at Turner Construction before returning to Copley High to work in administration.

“ e rst thing people notice about me is my stature,” Cook said. “ en they notice there are gears going in that big head of mine as well. If you play offensive line, you have to be intelligent.”

e man who once terri ed defensive players in football, and a few jiujitsu opponents as well, is today a source of collaboration and support, not just to students but to the entire community, said some who know him.

Scott Read, executive director of the Cascade Locks Park Association, got to know Cook by participating in Akron’s Torchbearers program, for which Cook served as president during much of the pandemic. Read credited Cook with guiding the organization through a tough time and keeping it active and growing through COVID restrictions.

“Somehow, Willie pulled people together and made it not just survive but thrive,” said Read. “He’s just a level-headed, everything’s-going-to-beOK kind of guy. … I’m blessed to have him next to me and behind me on so many things.”

Cook credits others for his success, especially his mom.

Originally from Gary, Indiana, Cook and his mother, Veronica Cook-Euell, moved around the Midwest, and she raised him alone, working for the postal service, before nally settling down in Copley. All the while, she instilled in her son the values he said that make him what he is today.

“I’m de nitely very proud of her and the things she’s done," Cook said. "She’s been a great example.”

Now, he gures his duty is to be an example to others and to help Copley’s current students prepare for life. He can be tough when he needs to, he said, but that’s not his rst or preferred approach.

“I hold them accountable, but the most important thing to me is building relationships,” Cook said.

After all, he said, the rst thing you learn as an o ensive lineman is that it’s your job to protect your teammates.

— Dan Shingler

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Spencer Dieken will leave his mark on the world by helping others.

A lifelong learner drawn tonance, Dieken recalls his work at the student-run First Miami Student Credit Union at Miami University setting the path for his future.

e work was unpaid. But he found helping young people with nancial literacy rewarding. A course for a career in banking — where he could make a living helping people nancially — was charted from there out.

Dieken was whisked into the corporate banking development program at PNC Bank right out of college. Meeting unique clients and learning about myriad business issues, he came to nd, was complicated, stimulating and a perfect marriage of his intellectual pursuits and his drive for helping people in his native Northeast Ohio.

An upbringing around sports — his father, Doug, was a longtime o ensive tackle and former color commentator for the Cleveland Browns — shaped him as well as his entrepreneurial mother, Connie, who traded in a career in news broadcasting to launch her own consulting business.

“I have an opportunity to work on real milestones in a company’s life cycle,” Dieken said. “ at, to me, is like being on the eld in that big moment.”

If not a banker, Dieken imagines he’d be running a company of his own.

Pat Pastore, PNC’s Cleveland region president who hired him into the corporate bank, said Dieken was not only known for putting in the extra time at the ofce but also seeking out opportunities for community involvement. It’s a degree of gumption not every professional has so early in their career.

And it highlights the passions

that make him an e ortlessly e ective banker.

“He’s a very value-oriented person, sincere and authentic, and clients love him for that,” Pastore said, noting Dieken has all the qualities to be an e ective leader.

“He lives the PNC values.”

Some groups Dieken volunteers with today include United Way Young Leaders and the Boys and

Girls Clubs of Cleveland. He also helped launch the PNC Grow Up Great program years ago.

Whether in the community or in his professional work, Dieken adheres to a bit of guidance he picked up from PNC’s former Cleveland president, Paul Clark: “Have a bias to act,” he said. “ at’s something I think about a lot.”

— Jeremy Nobile

For nearly a decade, Katie Davis has helped move health care into the community, most notably through her leadership of MetroHealth’s School Health Program, which expanded from two sites in 2013 to 14 the next year and grew from there.

Today, it serves thousands of students with medical care and beyond, o ering things like a new school uniform, books, personal care items or a replacement for eyeglasses.

Davis’ passion, combined with her professional competence and expertise, makes her a dynamic leader and a great peer, said Susan Fuehrer, president of MetroHealth’s Institute for H.O.P.E., which houses the school health program.

“Immediately anyone that meets her, you just immediately know she’s a superstar,” she said.

“She is 1,000% committed to helping kids and families of kids get easy access to health care.”

Davis started her career in residence life in higher education before pursuing her nursing degree, which eventually led her to the community and public health work that she has championed at MetroHealth. is year, she was named MetroHealth’s executive director for the Center for Community and Corporate Health.

“When you can meet people where they’re at, you’re gonna make a di erence,” said Davis, also board chair for the Ohio School-Based Health Alliance. e work of Davis and her team has recently garnered funding for continued expansion. Earlier this year, MetroHealth received a $4.5 million grant to increase its health services in the Cleveland Metropolitan and Cleveland Heights-University Heights school districts.

Davis is also co-principal inves-

tigator of a $3 million federal grant supporting the training of Community Health Workers (CHWs), who connect health and social service providers. e MetroHealth School Health Program has used CHWs within the school ecosystem to identify and address student needs and engage kids and parents to increase access to primary care and other medical/social services.

rough all of her work, Davis focuses on nding upstream approaches to take health care out of the hospital.

“ at will look a lot of di erent ways, yes, but I’m very happy that my role allows me to touch the community in a lot of di erent ways, and actually hear from community members and community partners, because we really are all in it together,” Davis said.

— Lydia Coutré

Danielle Crawford’s tenure at United Way of Greater Cleveland corresponds with a signi cant transition for the 122-year-old organization. Rather than spreading grants among a variety of social causes, the agency has narrowed its focus over the last several years to ghting poverty and, more speci cally, confronting the racial and economic dynamics that hinder upward mobility for people of color.

August “Augie” Napoli, United Way of Greater Cleveland’s recently retired president and CEO, said Crawford was “the” — not just “a” — leader in the strategic pivot.

“She was and is the person on point to make that happen,” Napoli said.

Crawford, a Shaker Heights High School graduate, joined United Way

in March 2019, boomeranging back to Northeast Ohio after spending more than a decade in nearby states. A proud, “blue-and-maizebleeding” University of Michigan alum, she earned a master’s degree in education at Bard College in upstate New York and worked for nonpro ts in New York City and Detroit before returning home to Cleveland.

In her current role, Crawford spearheads grantmaking initiatives for United Way of Greater Cleveland. Under her watch, the agency awarded $2.6 million in anti-poverty grants to 16 local nonpro ts across Cuyahoga and Geauga counties in 2022.

She also built and leads a new investment framework, which is designed to provide grantees profes-

sional and organizational development in addition to money — all while prioritizing communities of color.

“Over half of our grant dollars go to support Black- and brown-led organizations,” Crawford said. “In these cases, the executive director identi es as BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color). And then over 75% of our grant dollars go to support Black and brown communities. So BIPOC-led organizations are able to serve Black and brown communities. e population served also sees people that look like them leading the work.”

Crawford believes storytelling is her secret superpower. She collects extensive data and metrics around the agency’s work but said “telling the stories of the people we impact

is just as important.”

Napoli noted her authenticity and inclusiveness.

“Danielle is not at all shy about changing direction based on other

input,” he said. “ e way she approaches projects and opportunities just makes you want to work with her.”

— Judy Stringer

JESSICA DAUGHERTY 39

CEO | Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital, Beachwood

Jessica Daugherty achieved her goal of becoming a hospital CEO quicker than she thought she would.

Just ve years after joining Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital, Beachwood, as a clinical nurse liaison, she was tapped to lead the hospital, a joint venture with Select Medical.

Geo ery Hall — CEO of Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital, Edwin Shaw — said her progression along the path to hospital CEO was faster than anyone he’s seen and speaks to her talent, ability and potential.

“I don’t think she’s skipped a step,” he said.

She moved through the ranks, working as a senior clinical nurse liaison, a market director (and then senior market director) of business development, and eventually chief operating o cer for the hospital.

As COO, she took the time to shadow every single role in the hospital: environmental services, nursing, therapy, dietary and more. She cleaned toilets, dressed patients, supported therapy, washed dishes and made trays of food.

“How can you have a full appreciation of what they do unless you actually do it?” Daugherty said.

“Maybe that was an unconventional approach, but for me, that was the only true way to really nd out what they did.”

Daugherty’s background as a nurse helps her see how health care can be better delivered and make the road map to get there, Hall said.

“She knows where some of the gaps in the system are, and where some of the team needs to focus and prioritize,” Hall said. “And then using her relationships, she just is

able to connect you to the plan, and then she gives you the support along the way.”

Daugherty knows that she’s a role model to many in the community, the hospital and her family, and she’s eager to nd ways to mentor others developing their health care careers.

“I’m an African American woman, and I’m the CEO,” Daugherty said. “ at doesn’t happen very often, and I think that’s an inspiration for me to keep going.”

She ultimately became CEO this summer and is now thinking about what her next ve-year plan will be.

“ e fact that I started here ve years ago, as a clinical nurse liaison for this hospital,” she said, “and ve years later, I’m the CEO of the same hospital — why would I stop now?”

— Lydia Coutré

“Where I learned the best way to lead people is through my dad. You can’t lead one person the same way you lead another person, because they come with different things and different needs and different expectations, and you have to alter your approach based on what people need. And I think, from early childhood, that’s what I saw. .... And really just being able to, you know, show people grace. I mean, sometimes you do have to be a little bit more, you know, authoritative, but typically, you want to lead with grace and show people grace.”

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VANJA DJURIC 36 NICOLE GUNTER 39

Analytics is integrated into business decision-making, be it around improved performance or a company’s marketing plans. Vanja Djuric has been traveling along this con uence of business and big data her entire career, even if her journey took some turns along the way.

As director of analytics for the University of Akron’s Taylor Institute, Djuric is tasked with curriculum-development duties as well as directing projects with corporate clients. Typical workdays might nd her supervising a graduate research project or meeting women angling for a tech-based career.

Djuric, also director of Akron’s Suarez Applied Marketing Research Laboratories, began her own career as an analytics consultant at Intel. ough her position required worldwide travel, she kept in touch with the professors at Akron’s College of Business who guided her on the path to a degree.

After three years on the road, Djuric knew it was time to come home, even if academia had never been on her radar.

“It’s special connecting with students on a daily basis,” said Djuric. “Bringing my business and academics experience into the classroom is something my students really love.”

Curriculum includes website usability studies along with research projects where learners don’t just have their nose stuck in a book. Experiential learning has always been crucial to Djuric, whether in the classroom or when bridging

the gender technology gap.

As a founding member of Girls Who Code, Djuric provides free after-school computer science programs to sixth- to 12th-grade girls. Shepherding this demographic into a male-dominated eld is a joy for the rst-generation college student.

“We’re putting together hackathons and competitions, which I didn’t have as a girl,” Djuric said. “ is is important not only for gender equality, but as a society we need more diverse thinking around problem-solving.”

“Vanja is a unique combination of intellectual understanding and an outgoing, creative personality,” Owens said. “She is not only an excellent teacher, researcher and project facilitator, she also nds time to give back to her community.”

— Douglas J. Guth

Curator of invertebrate zoology | Cleveland Museum of Natural History Adjunct assistant professor, Department of Biology | Case Western Reserve University

Nicole Gunter, Ph.D., started o as a nature lover, collecting bugs and spending “a lot of time in tide pools” as a child in her native Australia.

“I look back on my life now and it makes perfect sense,” said Gunter, who has made the natural world — both researching it and making it more understandable to Cleveland Museum of Natural History visitors — her life’s work.

Gunter is an entomologist whose expertise is in the biology and evolutionary history of beetles — and most particularly, dung beetles.

e nomination submitted by the museum’s chief science o cer, Gavin Svenson, noted that Gunter is “a proli c researcher whose published ndings have changed what we know about relationships, taxonomy and evolution of numerous beetle groups including scarabs, weevils, checkered beetles, click beetles and more.”

One piece of research on which Gunter was lead author presented the rst evidence dating dung beetle diversi cation to the Lower Cretaceous period, before the mass extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. at was signi cant, the nomination noted, because it “challenges the assumption that dung beetles evolved in tandem with the onset of rapid mammalian radiation following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago.”

Gunter’s scholarly interests are accompanied by a lifelong love of museums that set a career arc

combining her research focus with the ability to make science more accessible to the public.

One example of those dual passions came in a project that earned funding from the National Science Foundation. On that project, Gunter partnered with Evans & Sutherland, a Cosm company, to create a software plug-in to display biodiversity data on planetarium domes, immersing guests in the beauty of life on Earth and across the universe. CMNH’s Shafran Planetarium is among 160 facilities worldwide making use of the software update.

Gunter said planetariums represent “an excellent way to display large data sets, and not just for astronomy data, but for teaching Earth and biological sciences.”

Svenson called the NSF funding “a really prestigious grant” and “a big win” for Gunter in her career. “I look at her as a good example of scientists that are taking on the big questions in biology,” he said. “She’s a thinker with innovative approaches.”

Gunter had never been to Cleveland prior to joining CMNH in 2014 as collections manager of invertebrate zoology. She said Cleveland was “really surprising” in its biodiversity and green spaces.

Gunter spends much of her free time outside, visiting the Cleveland Metroparks system, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, gardening and hiking. “My hobbies tie back to who I am,” she said.

— Scott Suttell

University of Akron marketing chair Deborah Owens works with Djuric on adding analytics and data visualization tools to UA’s curriculum. Owens lauds Djuric’s ability to apply her technical skills to real-world business scenarios.

Associate professor | University of Akron

Congratulations to Katie Sheehan and all of the 40 Under 40 Honorees

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A well-deserved spotlight for a job well done.

AMIT GUPTA 39

Division chief, associate professor in radiology | University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Amit Gupta came to Cleveland in 2014 after spending his educational career in the northern portion of India. It was there he completed a radiology residency before landing a fellowship in not one but three specialties at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center: brain radiology, nuclear medicine and cardiothoracic imaging.

Just three years later, he became an assistant professor in radiology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. And over the past several years, he’s been engaged in research in pulmonary hypertension, earning a joint promotion in 2020 to associate professor of radiology, biomedical engineering and internal medicine at Case. At University Hospitals, he’s also division chief of cardiothoracic imaging for the department of radiology.

“With all that enthusiasm and all that positivity, he’s also one of the hardest-working individuals,” Flask said.

Gupta’s hope, outside of the medical rami cations of his research for patients, is to help future doctors adapt arti cial intelligence in their daily work. It’s a scary prospect, ceding some control to a computer and a device whose inner workings you don’t fully comprehend. But it’s the way of the future, Gupta says, with promising outcomes for both patients and doctors.

“I’m trying to empower the future generations, because articial intelligence is a new thing,” he said. “ ere is no curriculum at present. So I’m trying to create a teaching mechanism or a learning mechanism for our future generations.”

What an honor!

Ulmer congratulates Sachin Java, and all of this year’s honorees, for being named to Crain’s Forty Under 40 Class of 2022. You are an inspiration to us all.

Just this summer, he and his colleague Chris Flask, professor of radiology at Case, earned a twoyear grant to study his new MRI technique. ey’ll be embarking on that research together soon, aiming to take Flask’s technique to detect changes in the lungs of children and applying that to an older population.

Flask says Gupta has brought infectious enthusiasm to the project.

Gupta is seemingly swamped in work. His wife is training in internal medicine at Youngstown’s Mercy Health. Somehow, the couple nds time for their two children, ages 8 and 2. In fact, Gupta says his daughters keep him sane.

“ ey keep me busy in my free time, and I always tell everyone that they are my strengths rather than weaknesses,” he said.

— Kristine Gill

“I’m trying to empower the future generations, because arti cial intelligence is a new thing. There is no curriculum at present. So I’m trying to create a teaching mechanism or a learning mechanism for our future generations.”

DOMONIC HOPSON 34 THOMAS JACKSON 30

President and CEO | Neighborhood Family Practice

Growing up with public assistance support in Mississippi, Domonic Hopson learned an early and personal lesson about the importance of accessible health care.

He wasn’t yet old enough to drive when his mother asked him to look at a tooth causing her severe pain.

“My brother and I always had insurance, but my mother wasn’t covered,” said Hopson, 34, president and CEO of Neighborhood Family Practice since May. “I could see straight through the top of the tooth.

ere was no cap. She had no dental insurance, and here was the result.

“I think it had an impact as far as building a path. Certainly my graduate degree aligned with that earlier life experience.”

A master of public health degree from the University of Southern Mississippi led Hopson to a therapist position with the Department of Veterans Affairs and later VA leadership roles in Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi.

Hopson was most recently CEO of City of Cincinnati Primary Care and assistant commissioner of the Cincinnati Health Department, where he quickly developed critical partnerships. One early example was a new community health center in

nearby Avondale. “It was a primary care desert,” said Dr. Nita Walker, who at the time was senior vice president of ambulatory operations at UC Health. “One of the largest African American communities in Cincinnati. It would not have happened without him.”

Walker was impressed with the work of “a young man coming to a new city,” especially because it required Hopson to navigate a complicated political landscape. So impressed that Walker wasn’t surprised when NFP named Hopson as CEO.

“ at was a huge win for (NFP),” Walker said. “He’s an intuitive leader and wise beyond his years.”

Neighborhood Family Practice provides primary and preventative care for nearly 20,000 patients annually from 12 west side neighborhoods. It’s the only provider of health screenings for refugees arriving in Cuyahoga County.

“We don’t turn anybody away,” said Hopson, who lives in Cleveland’s Battery Park neighborhood with his wife, Vivian, a nurse practitioner.

Some career paths are revealed later in life. Hopson’s presented itself early. Full speed ahead has been the operating mode ever since.

— Bud Shaw

Associate | Benesch

omas Jackson is motivated by community rst and his career second.

A native of Mobile, Alabama, Jackson’s approach to life is shaped in part by a tough childhood.

His community struggled with poverty. His mother passed away from health complications at a young age. And his grieving father grappled with addiction and incarceration.

Jackson found a distraction in watching “JAG,” the television courtroom drama with a military twist. He aspired to be a lawyer in uniform and joined the Army ROTC in his hometown.

While he grew weary of military culture after a few years, that interest in law stuck.

After law school, an opportunity to move to Cleveland presented itself. Jackson jumped at the chance to plant roots in another community that he identi ed with and wanted to help.

He lives in the Glenville neighborhood now — he has family nearby — and volunteers in myriad ways, including mentoring young people through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Cleveland and College Now.

“Coming from an environment down South, I went to underfunded schools,” Jackson said. “Cleveland is one of the most segregated cities in America. And when you don’t see other people or diversity and you only see the nightmares of what is happening in a community, I related with that. Being some-

one who has overcome these things, I feel I have a duty to give back.”

His work as a labor and employment lawyer is a means to that end.

It just so happens he excels in the professional world as well.

Gregory Guice, a shareholder at Reminger and a mentor of Jackson, said the young lawyer was known for coming early, staying late and reliably doing whatever was necessary to complete a project.

“I don’t know that you nd that as much in this day and age,” Guice said.

“He’s someone to count on. And big picture, I think he’s going places.”

When asked about the future, Jackson tends to pivot to what could be done next to help the less fortunate around him. It’s what drives him on a daily basis.

“I’m not really sure where life will take me,” Jackson said. “But if I can sit back one day, and people can note I was a good person who also happened to be a decent lawyer, well, that is what I want my legacy to be.”

— Jeremy Nobile

Joseph

NOLAN T. JAMES JR. 36

Shareholder | Cavitch, Familo & Durkin

Harvey Nelson chuckles when he talks about the rst time he met Nolan James.

“As usual, Nolan was getting people together,” said Nelson, CEO and founder of Mainstreet Gourmet and now a close friend of James.

e speci c name of the event matters little. What does matter is it illustrates James’ spirit and his boundless energy — from working as an attorney to running his charitable Steak Club to growing up as the son of a single mother to being a husband and father to getting his law degree at the University of Akron.

“And while I was there, I got my MBA,” James said.

As if spending time earning an MBA while going to law school was like going to 7-Eleven for some gum.

“I don’t want to say that every kid who grew up poor has to hustle,” he said. “But being that poor kid who is grateful for everything you’re given, that leads to hustle.”

James’ legal practice is in corporate, real estate, capital nance and estate planning.

He also owns a real estate business and runs a nonpro t while helping coach his sons’ soccer and hockey teams.

James moved around Cleveland

growing up (Glenville, Collinwood, Old Brooklyn, Fairfax), his mother constantly working two and sometimes three jobs to literally keep the lights on for James and his sister.

e moves meant he learned how important it was to make relationships quickly, and with his dad not involved in the family, uncles, friends and grandfathers were the positive role models “of what Christian manhood should be, what fatherhood should be,” James said.

He and his wife, Allison, now live in Strongsville with their four children: Nolan III (aka Trey), 7; Oliver, 4; and 2-year-old twins Dominic and Daniel. Trey plays hockey, lacrosse and soccer and wants to play in the NHL; Oliver plays soccer and basketball and is learning hockey.

e Steak Club grew from six friends getting together for dinner to a charitable e ort that includes dozens of people.

e group has helped organizations as varied as Camp Imagine to the Journey Center for Safety and Healing. It also sponsors three children who want to play hockey but can’t a ord the equipment.

“Every day,” James said, “I wake up grateful for the life I live, while also feeling the desire to do what I can to help others any way I can.”

— Pat McManamon

Congratulations

Domonic Hopson MPH, FACHE

President and Chief Executive O cer

www.nfpmedcenter.org

“All my experiences have been about trusting that life placed me where I was supposed to be.”

SACHIN JAVA 39

Associate | Ulmer & Berne

Sachin Java hit rock bottom a few years ago. His father died back in Dubai in 2016. A few months later, Java was laid o . A few days after that, he shattered his ankle falling on ice as he took out the trash. Java, then a new father, spent the next six months unemployed and grieving as he learned to walk again.

But as a former doctor turned lawyer, he reminded himself he could do hard things. And he could start from scratch.

After healing, he landed a role at Ulmer & Berne, where he works as an associate, focusing on health care mergers and acquisitions and business law with his unique background working for the Cleveland Clinic.

Hitting rock bottom gave him courage in many ways.

“I became comfortable taking more risks,” he said. “I became more and more fearless.”

In fact, Java had been in the midst of a career change when his father died.

“I found out that I had passed the bar at the Boston airport while taking a ight back to Dubai,” he said.

Java began at Ulmer & Berne in 2021, and in many ways that position marked a change in his life.

Coming out of a lull, he got involved in lots of things again the way he had been active while negotiating terms of research projects at the Cleveland Clinic.

“Moving to Ulmer gave me the

comfortability and the base to propel myself into doing the things I used to do,” he said.

Now, he’s a member of several bar organizations and recently returned to Cleveland-Marshall College of Law to appear on an orientation panel.

“I don’t know when the tide turned, and I went from being in the audience to behind the podium,” he said.

His colleagues are taking note of the switch, too.

“ rough his dedication to delivering quality legal service to Ulmer’s health care clients and his community involvement, Sachin has proven that he is becoming a leader in the legal community,” said Raymond Seiler, Java’s practice group leader at Ulmer & Berne.

Java has two children now, and his wife, lonely during the years he spent working at both the Cleveland Clinic and his rst law rm while also taking classes, adopted their rst dog. Gatsby, a rescue boxer, wasn’t too close with Java at rst, but now the two are thick as thieves and, perhaps most shockingly, Java has found himself as a board member for the Cleveland Animal Protective League.

“It’s interesting how people desert you while you’re going through that rock-bottom period, but animals, they’re unconditional love, man.”

— Kristine Gill

from the core

Thomas D. Jackson

We take particular pride in congratulating our associate Thomas D. Jackson

“Never give up. After a setback, it may be easy to stop trying, but the reality is failure is just a part of success. So learn from it, and use the lessons to achieve the goal.”

MENG (LOCKY) LIU 32

manager, audit practice | KPMG

Locky Liu was born in Beijing and spent his whole life there, until he came to Cleveland six years ago on an international rotation from KPMG China.

He had a focus on accounting and audit related to industrial manufacturing, which contributed to the Cleveland assignment.

Liu hadn’t been to the U.S. and spoke little English, but he jumped right in and made himself a key part of KPMG’s operations in Northeast Ohio.

And Northeast Ohio made a fast impression on Liu, who in 2019 made his transfer here permanent.

“I really love the culture of Cleveland, the care and commitment that people have for each other, and the work I’m able to do here,” Liu said.

He’s a CPA in three regions — the U.S., mainland China and Hong Kong — and “serves as the lead audit manager for a multinational Akron-based retail client and a Cleveland-based real estate client,” according to the nomination. He’s also a National Audit Training Instructor and a MidAmerica Audit Technology Professional, helping engagement teams across six o ces implement various technologies.

In support of DEI initiatives within KPMG, Liu serves as colead of a regional chapter of the Asian Paci c Islander Business Resource Group. Within the rm’s Cleveland o ce, he co-leads the Cleveland Employee Council, which focuses on initiatives around strengthening culture and values. He’s also active in employee recognition, recruiting and mentoring programs. In 2018, Liu earned the Cleveland o ce’s Col-

lective Overall Recognition of Efforts (CORE) award, the highest award KPMG gives locally.

“Locky is someone who loves to develop people and thinks about ways to keep people engaged,” said James DeSantis, an audit partner at KPMG. He said Liu works to “an exceptionally high professional standard” and “brings an energy every day, regardless of whether we’re in the busy season or the slower parts of summer.”

Liu as a youth considered career paths that included forensic science and technology elds within law enforcement. Looking back at his pre-college self, he said, “I didn’t really even know what accounting was.” But his aptitude for critical thinking and attention to detail directed him toward accounting, and his subsequent immersion in the details of business practices led him recently to earn an MBA from Arizona State University.

He’s also fully committed to Cleveland. He serves on the board, as well as the nance and DEI committees, of Apollo’s Fire, a Grammy Award-winning Baroque orchestra, and is an associate board member of Pathway Caring for Children.

Jeannette Sorrell, founder and artistic director of Apollo’s Fire, called Liu “super smart” and said he brings “a wonderful purposefulness” to his work on the organization’s board.

Away from work, Liu is a big Cleveland Cavaliers fan. He’s also an avid skier and hiker, and he loves to travel nationwide; Arizona and Colorado are particular favorites.

— Scott Suttell

DANIEL KRACIUN 36

Chief marketing of cer, VP of operations | Trust.med

Daniel Kraciun wakes up, works out and goes to bed at the same time every day. He even has the same thing for breakfast.

That maximum level of consistency is “absolutely everything” to him. The extra measures go back about 15 years, when, not long before his 21st birthday, Kraciun was hospitalized with Crohn’s disease.

Kraciun said he has a “very severe” case of the in ammatory bowel disorder. He’s had “many, many invasive surgeries,” and the disease forced him to leave college for more than a year.

He still graduated from Cleveland State University, and he believes all of the pain he’s endured has had its share of bene ts.

“I don’t think I would be who I am today if it didn’t happen,” Kraciun said of being diagnosed with Crohn’s at 16. “I think that it focused me and it taught me to be relentless in everything that you do.”

In 2017, Kraciun was hired by Second Generation, a Cleveland-based private equity company whose holdings include such top-level internet domains as .jobs, .realtor, .career and .med. It’s the

AMBER LEWIS 38

Owner | New Era Real Estate Group

For Amber Lewis, the past helps drive her sense of responsibility for the future.

e owner of New Era Real Estate Group in downtown Cleveland is the third generation of her family to forge a career in facilitating homeownership.

“It’s in my blood,” she said. “I love serving my community.”

She said she has learned important lessons from her grandfather, father and uncle, who forged the path before her.

Her uncle spurred a habit that she credits with helping her keep her goals on track and make an impact for the people she aims to help.

“He taught me to write down ve things every day,” she said, a check-

list of things to accomplish over the next 24 hours. What isn’t achieved and crossed o carries over to the next day. And the day after that. Eventually, she said, sooner rather than later, she gets tired of seeing the same item repeated and does the work to get it done.

Respect for tradition and history, combined with a millennial’s enthusiasm and creativity, are a big part of Lewis’ success, said friend and colleague Monique Winston, board chair for the Greater Cleveland Realtist Association, where Lewis is a board member and was once president.

“She has a wisdom beyond her years,” Winston said, “and a keen sense of direction.”

Lewis, who grew up in Shaker

for Trust.med, Kraciun is leading the company’s e orts to electronically notify all of the necessary parties when a drug is recalled.

“Drug recalls in the United States today, they are all done by paper,” Kraciun said. “Everything moves FedEx. A manufacturer tells a distributor, a distributor tells a pharmacy, and the pharmacy tells the patient. One component of our software is we’ve electronically revised that entire system and digitized it.”

Now, drug manufacturers can use Trust.med’s platform to “immediately deliver the message” that a drug has been recalled, Kraciun said.

Second Generation chairman omas Embrescia said Kraciun’s “hard work and positive attitude create the con dence, leadership and creativity to dramatically impact our ability to communicate with clients and grow.”

Kraciun also attempts to make a di erence by raising money for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.

“It’s something that I very much care about,” said Kraciun, who has a 7-year-old son, Elijah, with his wife, Amanda.

— Kevin Kleps

Heights, said her primary goals for the future are to help women diversify their income by seeing the opportunities real estate provides as a career and to help more African Americans ful ll their goal of homeownership to build generational wealth.

And her daily work of running a real estate rm, a career path she wasn’t sure she wanted to pursue until a friend urged her that “you have a legacy you have to continue” and she couldn’t resist the pull of family tradition, provides satisfaction along the way.

“It’s not about the end result, it’s about the journey,” she said, and part of that journey is “giving a voice to people who didn’t have one.”

— Stacy Sominski

latter that Kraciun believes has the potential to “impact millions of lives.”

As the chief marketing o cer and vice president of operations

Senior

Jazmin Long knew in third grade what she wanted to be when she grew up — a lawyer. In middle school, she drew up a 12-year plan that eventually had her graduating from Harvard Law School.

en, as a college student studying abroad in Africa, she had an epiphany that would change the trajectory of her life. Law wasn’t her calling; it was advocacy.

at desire for a purpose-driven life landed the Connecticut native in Cleveland to attend Case Western Reserve University. She came here a decade ago without having seen the city, or even the apartment, she would soon call home. “I thought Ohio was nothing but corn elds,” she said, laughing.

Now, after earning master’s degrees in social administration and nonpro t management from the CWRU Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Long is leading Birthing Beautiful Communities (BBC). e Cleveland-based nonpro t is dedicated to achieving positive outcomes for Black families by addressing social determinants of health during pregnancy, labor, birth and through an infant’s rst year of life.

For decades, the infant mortality rate in Cuyahoga County has been

one of the highest in the country. Infant mortality disproportionately impacts Black babies, who are three times more likely to not make it to their rst birthday compared with white babies.

“ e loss of a child before his or her rst birthday is something no parent should have to experience, but in our community, it happens all too frequently,” Long said.

ose sobering statistics motivate Long and her BBC team, which includes community-based, non-clinical birth workers trained to provide physical, emotional and informational support for families before and after birth — all for free.

Founded in 2014, BBC continues to grow. Just this year, it has seen a 50% increase in referrals of expectant mothers, she said. And the organization is turning its eyes to the future, which will include a free-standing birth center on Chester Avenue. Currently, there are fewer than 400 such facilities nationwide, and only 5% represent people of color, Long said. Sta ed by midwives, birthing centers o er a more natural setting than hospitals and also provide wellness care. “ ey transform lives and save communities,” she said.

None of Long’s success surprises Meltrice Sharp, managing partner of CLE Consulting Firm, who describes her friend and former Forest City Realty Trust colleague as “a change agent.”

“Every place she goes is better o ,” Sharp said.

— Elizabeth McIntyre

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Emily Lord has always loved building things, whether she was playing with Legos as a child or working as a eld engineer on massive Air-Force base projects in the scorching sun.

At 32, Lord no longer spends her days sporting a tool belt, a hard hat and boots.

Instead, she’s building up a business, cultivating relationships with clients and chasing leads for the Albert M. Higley Co., a Cleveland-based construction manager and contractor.

e youngest director at the company, Lord sees her experience in the eld as an asset.

“I’m able to understand the nuts and bolts of something. I think I’m able to understand what the technical people are bringing to the table and what they’re saying, and how we can morph that ... to the client’s expectations,” she said.

A Northeast Ohio native, Lord attended Western Carolina University after winning a soccer scholarship. She toyed with studying architecture before landing in the school’s construction management program (with a minor in business administration).

“I was like one of two women in the whole program,” she recalls.

She worked for construction giant Hensel Phelps in Florida before moving home and joining Higley, where she’s risen through the ranks. Lord joined the company as a product controls engineer,

then transitioned into marketing and, a few years ago, business development.

“She’s a future leader here at Higley,” said her boss, Dan Sehlhorst, a senior vice president. “We’re coming up on a 100-yearold company here very soon. And our industry is not exactly a leader in all of the social dynamics, in the way the world is today. People like her really help us.”

Lord is passionate about changing the face of the construction industry by helping women and mi-

norities gain a foothold. She’s a member of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s equity and inclusion advisory board. She also hopes to get involved with local mentorship programs.

“The labor force is tough, because everyone needs more people,” she said. “We’re running about 100 tradespeople in Northeast Ohio, and there are more projects coming in Cleveland. ... It’s going to be a fight to get people everywhere.”

— Michelle Jarboe

STUART MILLER

Chief investment of cer | Geauga Financial Advisors

When Stuart Miller graduated from Malone University in 2011, he wasn’t just looking for a job.

He was looking for a purpose.

“I get passionate when there’s a need in a certain area and I can meet it,” said Miller, the chief investment o cer at Geauga Financial Advisors. “I like it when I can better people’s lives.”

Miller, who majored in psychology and minored in business and theology, irted with going to seminary (his father was a pastor) or attending law school. But a lawyer friend advised him against law school and instead told Stuart about a Geauga County-basednancial adviser named Gary Ostoyic who was nearing retirement without an exit strategy.

Miller quickly realized he not only had a knack for nance, he could ll a void with Geauga Coun-

ty’s Amish community, which can be wary of those in the nance industry. Miller’s grandparents had been Amish, and although they left the group before Stuart was born, Miller’s background and his Christian faith helped him gain inroads. He also has a powerful personal story, having lost his father when he was 12, enduring multiple surgeries while battling a staph infection at 18, and then overcoming stage 3 testicular cancer at 19.

“My upbringing, my heritage, my family and my experience at Malone put me in a unique position to be a resource to the Amish community,” he said.

Miller became GFA’s managing partner in 2019 and has grown the business by 40% over the last four years, while expanding its number of employees by 200%. He is also heavily involved in the community,

President and CEO | Pueblo

Mariely Luengo began nannying shortly after coming to the U.S. mainland for graduate school at Georgetown University in 2009. She joined the Association of DC Area Nannies to meet and support other nannies, and soon the native Puerto Rican was president of the organization and spearheading advocacy and awareness e orts around big issues such as domestic labor and human trafcking.

“ en when I graduated in 2011, the family I was working for said something like, ‘We’re going to re you as our nanny but hire you to run our family foundation,’” Luengo said, laughing. “ at was my beginning in the nonpro t sector.”

It was also any early indicator of Luengo’s innate talent at community building, a skill she has — much to Northeast Ohio’s bene t — perfected in the Greater Cleveland area.

Just this year, Luengo and partner Marcia Moreno launched the Cleveland Hispanic Heritage Hub, an online clearinghouse for information about the region’s Hispanic/Latino community. She said the website was born out of a

desire to funnel the annual September/October excitement and energy around Hispanic Heritage Month into year-round patronization of its many professionals, businesses and causes.

As chair of the Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center in Brooklyn Center, Luengo also is closely involved with e orts to integrate Latinx art into broader discussions about leveraging Cleveland’s vibrant creative assets.

In addition, Luengo, who is both Hispanic and Jewish, founded e West Tribe. e nonpro t was instrumental in the 2021 opening of Lakewood’s Jewish Discovery Center — a space designed to connect west side Jews who tend to be “interfaith and una liated,” according to Luengo — and in the 2020 establishment of a west side food bank.

Even her recently formed company, Pueblo Strategies, aims to support diverse communities by providing better data for companies to understand them and their needs. And, the newly minted board member of Mt. Sinai Health Foundation now sets her sights on bettering the health of Jewish and urban communities alike.

“A lot of people talk about things; Mariely is a doer,” said Enid Rosenberg, a longtime community leader in Cleveland. “And she does all these things by reaching out and gathering people together.”

— Judy Stringer

BEN MORRETT 36

Product manager, ball bearings | Timken Co.

When Ben Morrett isn’t managing major product lines for Canton’s Timken Co., he’s often working to help children, especially kids with Down syndrome.

“I currently serve as the VP of GiGi’s Playhouse in Canton,” Morrett said, referring to the national nonpro t that opened its 44th location, where kids with Down syndrome can gather, be themselves and get support from one another and people like Morrett.

He and his wife, Nicole, are hoping to have a child with Down syndrome join their family soon.

“My wife and I are adopting a little girl from China who has Down syndrome,” Morrett said.

e couple had already been matched with the child, named Ru, when COVID struck in 2020. Since then, it’s been an excruciating wait for things in China to improve so the process can go forward, Morrett said. e girl is now 5, and the Morretts are more eager than ever to get her, he said.

“We had decided to name her Ada Ruth Morrett and call her Rue or Ruey … and her real rst name in China is Ru — so we knew she was our kid,” he said.

As the waiting continues, Morrett is focused on his career, which is not only important to his family but something he loves, perhaps as much as his favorite pastime of shing for muskie. A catch of 46 inches is his personal record, so far, if you’re wondering.

At Timken, Morrett is responsible for one of the company’s major

product lines, ball bearings. He’s involved in virtually every aspect of growing the line’s sales, pro tability and product improvement, developing ve-year plans that intersect with a host of people in-house. He has done it before, but never for a company as big as Timken, he said. And he loves it.

pect and how to grow sales. I like everything about it,” Morrett said.

“I also get to work with people around the world.”

He’s also very good at what he

particularly Berkshire High School.

“As soon as you meet him, you feel like he’s your best friend,” said Tracy Jemison, a former Geauga County commissioner and auditor and the former president of Geauga Growth Partnership. “He’s innovative in the way he approaches his professional life, he has the respect of all the people who know him, and any worthy cause in the area, he’s always somehow involved in

it.”

Case in point: Miller has assisted and funded youth-led suicide prevention programs at Berkshire High School through the Rotary Interact Club.

“If it hadn’t been for a handful of men investing in me, I wouldn’t be in the position I am now,” Miller said. “By investing in young people’s lives, I can repay that debt.”

— Joe Scalzo

PHNA-BC Institute for H.O.P.E.TM Executive Director Community and Corporate Health MetroHealth

Davis, MSN,

For more information, visit metrohealth.org/Institute-for-HOPE

girl in China will get to share that future with him and his wife soon.

— Dan Shingler

Katie’s leadership to improve health disparities in Greater Cleveland has a substantial impact on our community. We are proud of her dedication to hope, health, and humanity.

The MetroHealth System congratulates our own Forty under 40

Katie

RN,

In the school’s 25-year history, Antoine Moss is the youngest and only second Black man to get a doctorate from the College of Urban A airs at Cleveland State University. e school’s rst Black male Ph.D. graduate, Ronnie Dunn, was the person who pushed Moss to follow in his footsteps — after a long drive to Washington, D.C., for a march in 2005.

“Antoine was in the backseat on the phone tutoring a fellow classmate in statistics,” Dunn said. “I was quite impressed not only the information and the manner he was delivering it, but that he was on the phone helping them for more than an hour.”

Dunn recognized right away that Moss had what it would take to complete a Ph.D., which he did in record time, before he turned 30 years old, while also writing his rst business book.

Fast-forward more than a decade, and Moss got another nudge, this time from NASA’s associate administrator who wanted him to lead the diversity and action implementation plan for the o ce of communications, part of the 30 to 40 recommendations from a NASA-wide diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility task force created in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

“NASA decided to create this position opportunity for me to formally lead the task force and do the work of implementing the task

force’s developed plan,” Moss said.

Before he took his new position, Moss had been busy creating an ambassador program for young STEM professionals at NASA Glenn Research Center and building a resume consulting on workforce development for young professionals. He also wrote another book and took an advisory member role with the African-American Philanthropy Committee at the Cleveland Foundation.

During COVID, he got his Real-

tor’s license and in his spare time guides rst-time buyers in underserved communities to purchase houses by overcoming the misconceptions about homeownership, stressing what it means for eventual wealth accumulation.

“I just saw it as an opportunity for me to be able to help individuals acquire wealth and welcome happiness through homeownership,” Moss said.

— Kim Palmer

PASCH 37

After working on Capitol Hill for two prominent senators, native New Yorker James Pasch came to Northeast Ohio to get his law degree at Case Western Reserve University. He was smitten and decided to stay and practice here. Then an unthinkable tragedy sent his career in an unexpected direction.

In late October 2018, a gunman opened re on Sabbath worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation synagogue, killing 11. Pasch had been volunteering with the regional board of the Anti-Defamation League and went to Pittsburgh with other board members to o er aid and comfort to the stunned community.

What he experienced there sparked a major pivot in his life.

“ at experience was harrowing and also life-changing,” he said.

“Just a few months after that trip, I decided to join the ght against hate and anti-Semitism full time and became the director of this re-

gion,” which covers parts of four states.

Much of the work ADL does is in education. “It’s one of our focal points,” Pasch said. “We are in a record number of schools in our region. We were in under 20 schools when I started as regional director in 2019, and we are going to be in over 70 schools this school year alone.”

Andrew Gotlieb, who nominated Pasch, takes note of that drive for accomplishment: “James takes a unique and sophisticated approach to leadership. He sets a goal and focuses on it and mobilizes so many within any organization to make it happen.”

Despite his NYC bona des, Pasch remains sold on Northeast Ohio; he and his wife and two children live in Beachwood. “I think Cleveland has all the bene ts of New York without many of the hassles,” he said. “It’s a tremendous place for professionals and for families.”

KENDALL PERKINS 37

Vice president of distribution | McMaster-Carr Supply Co.

Kendall Perkins has made a career out of being adaptable and exible.

Perkins has spent her entire career at industrial supplier McMaster-Carr Supply Co., though her day-to-day has hardly stayed the same. McMaster-Carr intentionally exposes its management team to di erent areas of the company as part of their development, Perkins said, a fact that initially drew her to the company, as it meant she didn’t have to pick just one path.

“I really enjoy being challenged,” she said.

She began in the Chicago-area company’s products, publishing and nancial segments. In 2013, Perkins was o ered the chance to become the director of customer service for the company, a promotion that came with a move to Northeast Ohio. She took it, staying here when her role shifted to the distribution side of the business. is fall, she took another promotion, becoming a vice president of distribution, overseeing distribution in the company’s Cleveland location. In addition to her primary role, Perkins also helps oversee McMaster-Carr’s expansion e orts and the company’s initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion.

Perkins took on her newest title from Traci Rourke, who has seen Perkins grow throughout her career. Perkins is strong at both balancing ideas and implementation, Rourke said.

“And that always feels like a wonderful thing, to take somebody that you like a lot, that you know is smart, that you know is going to do wonderful things and let them continue the good things that you tried to do over your career here,” said Rourke, who will serve as vice president and work on projects of interest as she approaches retirement.

Perkins sees important commonalities throughout the work she’s taken on in her time at McMaster-Carr. Customer service and distribution aren’t exactly the same, but they’re both “operational in nature,” Perkins said. She enjoys being able to continuously make things better.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got a task, whether it’s getting all of the packages out the door, answering all of the phone calls, and you want to make sure that you have the right number of people to do it, and that those people have everything that they need to be able to do the job to the best of their abilities,” she said.

— Rachel Abbey McCa erty

Even so, he adds, “the trends of anti-Semitism in Northeast Ohio and throughout Ohio, they’re what we are seeing nationwide. It’s an alarming increase over the last several years,

with no sign of it slowing down.

“It’s crucial for everybody to stand up and say, ‘Not now. Not on our watch.’”

— John Kappes

SEAN SAARI 38

Partner, Advisory Services | Marcum

e bible in Sean Saari’s area of expertise at Marcum LLP is a book called “Valuing A Business: e Analysis and Appraisal of Closely Held Companies.”

Not exactly light summer reading.

“It’s 1,250 pages,” Bob Ranallo said. “In my 42 years, Sean is the only one I know who’s read it cover to cover. And that includes me.”

Ranallo was at Skoda Minotti (which merged with Marcum three years ago) when Saari came aboard as an intern in 2004. Saari distinguished himself immediately, and not just as the only college sophomore o ered an internship.

“He was viewed as a bona de superstar,” Ranallo said. “I remember saying then that our biggest challenge will be to make sure he wants to come here after graduation.”

No problem there.

Saari, 38, who played football on a state championship team at Lake Catholic in 2001 and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2006, started an accelerated master’s program at Case Western Reserve University a few days after leaving South Bend, Indiana.

“I was wide open to giving accounting a try, but as it turned out, there were a lot of happy accidents,” Saari modestly said of a career in which he became the youngest partner in company history at age 30.

“I always wanted to come back to Cleveland (after graduation),” said the father of four. “My wife’s family was here. My family was

here. I never saw myself anywhere else.”

While college classmates chased Big 4 accounting jobs, Saari sought diverse experiences to decide “what I liked and didn’t like.” He eventually found his niche in valuation and litigation, publishing and lecturing extensively on the topic.

Ranallo early on saw in his protege “creative thinking skills that went far beyond taxes and auditing.” To-

day, Saari is the partner in charge of Marcum’s Valuation, Forensics and Litigation Services Group throughout the Midwest region.

“He’s sought-after to speak at national conferences,” Ranallo said. “I’m a mentor, right? Well, I’m 67, and he makes me better at what I do with the way he goes about his work. He’s the best combination of humility and ability.”

—

KIMBERLY PINTER 39

Partner | Calfee

Kimberly Pinter is a partner with Calfee’s intellectual property practice, a department representing over 23,000 patents and trademarks for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.

Pinter counsels clients on drafting, ling and prosecuting patent applications. Evaluating IP portfolios is also part of her dayto-day, a process that includes guiding companies through product launches and entry into new technology spaces. is work is tricky, as corporations must ensure their products do not overlap with competing IP.

Medina native Pinter whose educational background combines science and law works closely with companies to better understand the nuances of their technologies.

“What’s interesting about Calfee is that we see clients as partners,” Pinter said.

“We’re working to make sure our clients are staying within the bounds of their competitors’ IP while carving out a space for themselves.”

versity School of Law, which allows her to navigate clients through a thicket of regulations.

“Innovation is not repetitive there’s always something di erent with every project,” Pinter said. “I’m constantly being introduced to new ideas. I have to learn and be able to protect those ideas.”

Pinter is open to new adventures as well, having switched from pre-med to law school in the mid-aughts. Blending science and law provides a business advantage when large amounts of complex information are at play.

Georgia Yanchar taught Pinter while an adjunct professor at Case Western law school, later working with her at Calfee.

e pair worked together on patent studies and license agreements, where Yanchar saw rsthand her colleague’s deep knowledge of the law.

“Kim is a joy to be around,” Yanchar said. “She always worked hard for her clients to ensure they had the best possible results.”

Bud Shaw

Pinter meets with inventors and their business counterparts, tapping into personal expertise that includes a bachelor of science degree from Baldwin Wallace University. Further bolstering Pinter’s bona des is a J.D. from Case Western Reserve Uni-

When not safeguarding company IP, Pinter helps protect wildlife as a board member for the Cleveland Zoological Society.

Aside from professional work and community service, Pinter enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.

— Douglas J. Guth

MATT PORATH 37

Managing director of investor relations | Citymark Capital, Cleveland

Matt Porath owns a home in Tremont with his wife, Katie, and sees it as a great base. He works at apartment investment fund Citymark Capital’s o ce in One Cleveland Center, coached basketball at his old high school, St. Ignatius, and enjoys downtown pro sports and the city’s restaurants and bars.

“What I really enjoy is that we are building a Cleveland-based company as well as a national platform,” Porath said. “I have experienced other cities (Boston and Chicago). It’s rewarding to live and work in Cleveland. It’s an incredible city built by great people and great companies. I feel there are more opportunities for young people to make an impact here than in other cities.”

At fast-growing Citymark, Porath manages all aspects of fundraising and relations with investors, from recruiting investors to handling communications with them. Investors range from Fortune 500 insurance companies, pension plans and family o ces to high-net-worth individuals.

Dan Walsh, Citymark CEO, said in an interview that during the pandemic, when many things stopped for a time, the company was in the middle of raising an investment fund.

“He showed a lot of grit,” Walsh said. “He was able to gure out how to close the fund. He didn’t get frustrated. He’s un appable. He stayed calm and kept working. He’s a natural leader and helps create the culture at Citymark.”

Citymark was launched in 2015. Porath joined in 2018 when there was a sta of three. It is now 11, and its fundraising has hit $350 million. Porath, Walsh said, is also an active member of Citymark’s diversity, equity and inclusion/ESG committee.

Of that Porath said, “We all believe in it. As a growing company, we are incredibly mindful that we are practicing what we preach.”

Chris Salata, chief operating ofcer of Industrial Commercial Properties of Cleveland, and Porath grew up on the same street in University Heights.

“He’s always been a hard-working guy, with a strong personal drive,” Salata said.

Before joining Citymark, Porath was vice president of institutional sales at Zelman & Associates of Beachwood and New York, the housing investment research rm. He also prized the job because it gave him a way to work for a national rm and return home from a job in Chicago.

— Stan Bullard

“He’s un appable. He stayed calm and kept working. He’s a natural leader and helps create the culture at Citymark.”

— Dan Walsh, Citymark CEO

Congratulations to Matt Porath and all honorees in the class of ’22

SHALEETA SMITH 33

Director of family health | Summit County Public Health

Shaleeta Smith’s father told her that whatever she did with her life, she needed to “build a legacy and make a lasting impact.”

As a college student and throughout her career, Smith has taken her father’s message to heart.

“At the University of Toledo, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I got out of school, but I knew I wanted to make a drastic impact and be able to build that legacy that would be around after I was not,” Smith said.

Armed with a bachelor's degree in biology and a master of public health in epidemiology, Smith is making her mark as the director of family health for the Summit County Public Health department.

e gravity of her position, coupled with the recent global health crisis, meant Smith had to learn how to handle a lot of new challenges rather quickly.

“I had to learn how to be patient and listen and to have professional resilience,” Smith said.

“I like to say public health found me. And now I found myself within public health.”

Part of her mission is to go

“above and beyond” in her work, according to her former boss Tonya Block, who just recently retired as assistant health commissioner for the Summit County Public Health department.

“She is so very in uential and good at nding funds to support women and families who are in need,” Block said. “She has also taken time outside of work to become a subject-matter expert and now gets a lot of calls to do presentations and to advocate on family and maternal health because she knows what she is talking about.”

In order to satisfy the more social and entrepreneurial side of her personality, in 2018 Smith started her own photo booth company, which has her renting, dropping o and maintaining a photo booth for about 15 to 20 weddings and other social events a year. And when she is not crashing weddings professionally, she spends her extracurricular time as the president of the Akron Urban League’s Young Professionals and as an active member of the Cleveland chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

— Kim Palmer

JAMIL SANDERS 37 KATIE SHEEHAN 37

Relationship manager, senior vice president | Key Private Bank

Katie Sheehan’s life is about relationships in both her professional and personal worlds.

Jamil Sanders is a father of ve.

He started a new job in June, has several key board positions in Cleveland and is three years removed from getting his master’s degree.

“I’m telling you, I live by a calendar,” Sanders said.

Sanders had just turned 20 when his daughter, Skylar, was born. He took what he describes now as “not the most traditional path,” but he was determined “to make the most of it.”

He became the rst person in his family to get a bachelor’s degree. By 2020, he was a vice president at KeyBank. Five months ago, he became a strategic relationships manager at Deloitte, the largest professional services rm in the world.

Sanders said his day job is “project-management-based, where I’m helping organize, structure and inspire other practitioners and consultants to pour back in.”

It seems like a tting role for someone who prides himself on giving back, motivated by those who have helped him in the past.

“Jamil is an individual who I’ve seen professionally and civically shine bright as a young leader,”

said David Reynolds, Key Private Bank’s national director of channel management and client acquisition. “ e amazing part is that he continues to mentor others trying to grow and navigate their career.”

Sanders is on the board of directors at Karamu House, where he serves as treasurer, and is an assistant treasurer for the NAACP’s Cleveland branch.

Giving back is “super important to me because that’s the way we all bene t. at’s the way the region wins,” he said.

Sanders and a business partner are scoping out potential real estate investments — he calls it a “passion project outside of my daytime work.” He also enjoys being outdoors and attending sports events (he’s a big fan of the Cavaliers’ acquisition of Donovan Mitchell).

As for his busy schedule, Sanders said it’s all about being in the moment — and checking his calendar.

“When I’m with them, I’m with them. No other distractions,” he said. “When I’m working, I’m highly engaged. Everything is intentional with me.”

— Kevin Kleps

Sheehan’s title at Key Private Bank is relationship manager/senior vice president. At home, Sheehan’s focus as a single mother is all about developing her relationships with her daughters Emma, 6, and Peyton, 3. “ ey are so much fun,” she said. “Dance parties, going on new adventures and playing school are a few of our favorite things.”

Sheehan began her new role in May 2022, which allows her to properly focus on the way she approaches and interacts with clients the emphasis on building trust and understanding individual needs.

“It’s important to get to know somebody really well before you can tell them what to do with their money,” she said. “You have to build that trust so that it’s a good t for both sides.”

Her background was as a portfolio strategist; her people skills made her a t.

“I was asked when I was inter-

viewing, ‘Are you a salesperson?’”

Sheehan said. “I said, ‘No, I’m really not.’ I really believe if you are doing the right things for the client, the rest will follow.”

Key senior market leader Michelle Perez said Sheehan has a rare combination of technical investment and business skills along with relationship-building skills.

“ at makes her a rst-rate advis-

er and advocate,” Perez said.

Sheehan is involved in the community as a board director for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, where she serves on the Finance Committee and the Racial Equality Committee. She also is president of the YWCA Greater Cleveland Advisory Council.

She grew up in Brook Park and went to Berea High School before earning her undergrad and MBA from Cleveland State University. She reads a lot — ction along with nonction work-related books runs 5Ks and crochets when she can nd the time. She recently created an amigurumi (3D crocheting) bison for Peyton and a unicorn for Emma.

Sheehan’s keys to relationship building would seem to apply to work and family equally: Don’t take yourself too seriously. Be open-minded. Listen. And make sure people feel they have been heard.

“ en,” she said, “respond accordingly.”

— Pat McManamon

I employ and mentor Y.O.U. youth “because it is my passion to help teens explore their career interests and map out their path to success through experiential learning. It's a great feeling to witness the youth grow their skills, develop a professional mindset, and determine what they value in a career. ”

Tim Hatfield

Manager

Strategic relationships manager | Deloitte

“Speak out and speak often. Speak out — if you have a great idea, share it.”

GELISE THOMAS 33

Assistant director of strategic DEI and health disparities

Case Western Reserve University

For health care leaders, one of the greatest pandemic lessons has been the need to do better much better when it comes to closing gaps in care that, over decades, have resulted in higher rates of illness and death among people of color.

Gelise omas is at the forefront of this mission, charged with helping Cleveland medical researchers understand their role in narrowing health disparities.

“I am the lead that ensures that our researchers across our partner institutions, MetroHealth, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans A airs Medical Center, have access to resources that can help their research be more diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible,” she said.

Since taking on her role in March, omas launched a oneto-one consultation service aimed at constructing research programs and studies that re ect diversity, equity and inclusion principles and values.

“One of the things we emphasize through the consultations is the fact that we don’t want researchers to just do it for the grant or for this particular study,” she explained. “We want it to be ingrained in the fabric of what they do from this point forward.”

omas also spearheads a health equity educational series that spans across the ve institu-

tions and fosters collaboration and/or participates in events with community partners, such as the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, the Cleveland Public Library and the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

e Bedford native graduated from Ohio State University with a political science degree and earned a law degree from Cleveland State University. She worked in economic development roles at MidTown Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission before joining University Hospitals and transitioning to health care in 2019.

omas’ peers in the Cleveland

Bridge Builders Class of 2022 nominated her for one of two David J. Akers Leadership Awards at the culmination of the 10-month program.

Such recognition does not surprise Margaret Bernstein, director of advocacy and community initiatives at WKYC, who said omas was a “standout” and “self-starter” even as a teen participating in the Urban Journalism Workshop.

“Gelise really doesn’t have a blueprint or even a role model. She’s out here blazing her own trail,” Bernstein said, “and she’s just getting started.”

— Judy Stringer

KATHLEEN VALDEZ 33

Administrative hearing of cer, Of ce of Child Support Services | Cuyahoga County

A lifelong resident of Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood, Kathleen Valdez noticed the area changing several years ago. Families who lived in Tremont and Ohio City would leave shortly after settling down in their upscale neighborhoods, in search of better educational opportunities for their kids.

“ e moment they had a child, all of a sudden it was time to get up and move to the suburbs or, if they could a ord it, put their child in a private school, because the Cleveland schools were not good enough for their kid,” Valdez said.

“ at didn’t sit right with me.”

So Valdez, then running her own law rm, decided to run for school board and do what she could to improve the district. She was unsuccessful the rst time, but was appointed to the board in 2019, in time for her own daughter to start school in the district.

Getting appointed meant she could no longer represent parents in school-related issues at her law rm.

Since then, she’s pivoted her

role as an attorney, with an undergrad from Case Western Reserve University, to a position with the Cuyahoga County O ce of Child Support Services as an administrative hearing o cer.

“She has done an exemplary job in her role as a hearing o cer thus far, learning an entirely new area of the law quickly and thoroughly,” said her supervisor, Maria V. Copetas.

Valdez was instrumental in the district’s new live broadcasting of board meetings during the pandemic for viewers who could no longer attend in person. When she joined, she was the only board member with a child currently in the district, which gave her unique insights into the workings of the schools. She wants to continue improving the district in ways she hopes will retain future students, she said.

“I knew there had been a lot of improvements made to the schools, and I wanted to be a part of this, and I wanted my daughter to be a part of this,” Valdez said.

— Kristine Gill

JEFFREY T. VERESPEJ 37

Chief of staff and operations | Cleveland Neighborhood Progress

Je rey Verespej brings a di erent bent to rebuilding Cleveland than many colleagues at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, the city-focused intermediary for corporate and foundation neighborhood investments and capacity building in the community.

As chief of sta and operations at the nonpro t with a mandate for important things, he minds the details of the organization and itsnances. It is the realization of an approach he took when he chose to get an MBA at Case Western Re-

serve University after earning a BA there in political science.

Tania Menesse, president and CEO of Neighborhood Progress, said, “His training as an MBA is a gift for us. We do a lot of complex legal transactions and operate a nancial arm. So, his love of nancial documents is really important to us.

ere are few people who literally love their community like Je does.”

A practical politics class at Case led him to where he is. e assignment was to follow a municipal initiative for a year. Verespej chose to follow

A decade ago, Kenny Torres was working in banking — and miserable.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in poverty on Cleveland’s West Side, he wanted to give back to the community where he grew up. So he leftnancial services, went back to school and, over time, found his way to a job building a bridge between Hispanic neighborhoods and the construction trades.

Now Torres, 38, is a eld operations manager with Gilbane Building Co., a major player in the industry. And he’s still helping to train young talent, with the goals of addressing a labor shortage and creating pathways to careers.

“I never thought I was going to end up in construction. at was the last thing on my mind,” said Torres, who fell in love with the business and now dreams of launching his own company.

Before joining Gilbane in 2019, Torres was the program director for the Spanish American Committee, a nonpro t social services agency that helps low-income clients nd their nancial footing. at’s where he helped to launch — and oversaw — the Latino Construction Program, a six-week pre-apprenticeship course.

Graduates helped build the MetroHealth System’s new hospital tower in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood. Since 2017, the program has placed close to 150 people in the trades.

“Kenny really held these people’s hands, just making sure they had a coat or bus tickets or meals, because these folks worked during the day and then in the evening, they came directly to class without eating,” said Adrian Maldonado, a mentor and the owner of a Bereabased construction-services company.

“People trust him,” Maldonado added.

Torres still teaches. He’s planning classes to help Latino entrepreneurs start construction businesses. He’s also a board member for a union job-readiness program; a founder of Rising Hispanic Professionals, a new group focused on elds including architecture and engineering; and a champion of Gilbane’s e orts to broaden access to the industry.

“I saw my family struggle. I saw my parents struggle. I saw my close friends struggle,” Torres said. “And I think the only thing that really separates us is education.”

— Michelle Jarboe

and ignited my passion.”

He worked for the Ohio City Inc. community development corporation and spent eight years as executive director of the Old Brooklyn CDC. His family had lived in the neighborhood until he was 7, when they moved to North Royalton.

Darrell Young, a longtime Cleveland-area builder, owner’s rep and real estate developer, met Verespej while the younger man was at Ohio City.

“He demonstrated a very strong work ethic,” Young said. “He’s bright. He’s a good motivator. He loves the community and brings a creative lens to nding solutions for its issues.”

the lakefront plan that was developed in the Jane Campbell mayoral administration. e initial public hearing provided a life-changing spark.

“Citizens would stand up and say, ‘Why don’t we have better jobs?’ ey would dress down the experts,” Verespej said. “It lit my brain on re

Menesse said Verespej is distinguished by his a ability.

“He can talk to anyone,” she said.

Fun for this guy, he said, is sharing a glass of wine at the end of day with his wife, Sara, and wrestling with his sons, one who is 5 and twins who are 3. — Stan Bullard

Field operations manager | Gilbane Building Co.

DEMETRIUS WILLIAMS 38 VERONICA XU 37

Executive director | Beat the Streets Cleveland

Demetrius Williams grew up in a home with blind parents, disabled siblings and several disabilities of his own, including vision and hearing impairments and a speech impediment.

“I had a lot of challenges growing up,” he said. “I struggled physically, mentally, socially and emotionally.”

Two things changed his life. One was his involvement with the Cleveland Sight Center, “which empowered me and gave me the opportunity to help others in need.” e other was wrestling, a sport he took up at age 15 and has been lifting him up ever since.

“It made me into the person I am today — hard-working, persistent, (with) the ability to overcome obstacles, and more importantly the ability to bounce back after a loss or a bad experience,” he said.

Williams uses wrestling to teach those same lessons to kids in the city through his role as the executive director of Beat the Streets Cleveland, a nonpro t youth wrestling organi-

zation that has chapters in 37 cities. e Cleveland chapter began in 2016.

“We have a saying at the Cleveland Foundation — are you leading with your heart or are you leading with your head?” said Leon Wilson, the chief of digital innovation and chief information o cer at the Cleveland Foundation and one of Williams’ mentors. “Demetrius is de nitely leading with his heart and passion. ... It’s not just about the sport, it’s about life-enrichment, it’s about positive reinforcement and self-development. at’s what makes him special — his commitment to o ering his time and talent to the next generation.”

Williams has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from John Carroll University and has worked for several organizations in the city, including Smart Strategic Business Solutions, the Vision of Angels Youth Foundation and Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. But his heart is with Beat the Streets, where he is ex-

pected to impact 1,200 kids this year.

“Ever since I was an adolescent, my goal was always to be able to be in a position to help others reach their full potential and goals in life,” Williams said. “ rough youth development, mentorship and the sport of wrestling, I get to see daily growth from our kids, academic growth, health and wellness improvements, and leadership development.”

Joe Scalzo

Chief compliance of cer | Saber Healthcare Group

Veronica Xu understands that regulatory requirements in health care is not the world’s most easily digestible topic. To that end, Xu writes fairy-tale like blog posts that illustrate the subject in what she hopes is an engaging manner.

Writing the grandma from Little Red Riding Hood into a senior care facility is a fun exercise, but Xu takes very seriously the laws that support her organization. Cleveland-based Saber is a liated with more than 120 skilled nursing and

assisted living facilities in seven states, with Xu bringing clarity around complex laws to residents and team members alike.

Trained as an attorney, Xu now gives that expertise to one of the nation’s largest health care providers. A typical day may nd her studying HIPPA regulations in anticipation of new privacy rules on the docket for next spring.

“We are a large organization, so we have challenges when talking to vendors, residents and family

AMY WILLEY 37

Member | McDonald Hopkins

As a political science major at Yale, Amy Willey planned to “change the world through policy.”

Life’s twists and turns have led Willey to change the world one day at a time.

“If I make a positive di erence on any one day, I can go to sleep happy at night,” said Willey, an attorney and member in McDonald Hopkins’ Business Department and chair of its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practice area.

Willey has been at McDonald Hopkins since January 2018. Her primary practice is in mergers and acquisitions. Her work in these sophisticated transactions includes representing privately held companies and private equity rms in various industries that include health care, manufacturing and solar energy.

Willey advocated for and developed the rm’s ESG practice, which

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launched in February 2021. Willey said she believes when corporate clients create and follow an ESG practice, they can reduce risk and strengthen returns. In advocating for the practice area, she provided metrics and statistics that show businesses strong in ESG help their bottom line.

“I feel like I can be in the middle of a Venn diagram,” she said. “Helping people succeed and be more pro table while also thinking about the bigger picture, the world at large.”

At Yale, Willey ran an umbrella organization focused on community service and social justice. After graduation, she taught inner-city kindergarteners and in grade schools in Phoenix while working for Teach for America, a program designed to help disadvantaged youth.

Willey remains committed to civic engagement and serves as board

members,” Xu said. “Compliance can be a scary or boring word, so how can we make those messages more appealing while our teams provide care?”

Repurposed fairy tales are one way to make those appeals stick. Leadership built on empathy and open-mindedness is equally crucial in getting this vital work accomplished, added Xu.

“My mom always said that smart people listen and learn, and stubbornness equals stupidity,” Xu said.

“A good and e ective leader has the ability to listen.”

Odell Guyton, a legal and compliance professional based in Seattle, is a fellow member with Xu in a diversity, equity and inclusion working group.

Guyton said Xu’s commitment to leadership, coupled with “a strong sense of duty,” will continue to serve her well.

“As a practicing attorney and compliance professional for over 40 years, I consider Veronica to be a true professional,” Guyton said in an email. “She possesses a seriousness of pur-

pose and valuable insight, and most importantly is an interested listener who is eager to learn.”

Part of that learning process for Xu is mentoring people of color and other underserved populations. She tells her young high school and law school charges to never lose faith, no matter the obstacle blocking their path.

“It’s easy to quit, but success belongs to those who keep trying,” Xu said. “Don’t lose sight of who you are and where you want to go.”

— Douglas J. Guth

member of Starting Point and YaleCLE. She also is president of Conscious Capitalism Northeast Ohio.

In April 2022, she married omas Willey and spent a week on what she called a mini-moon driving a camper-van around Utah, then hiking its natural beauty. e couple have their “real” honeymoon in Vietnam planned for January 2023.

Willey was elected a member, or partner, of McDonald Hopkins in October 2022, a selection that fellow member Dave Gunning said was a unanimous decision.

“She’s a great lawyer,” Gunning said. “A super nice person. Works her tail o . Fits well within the culture. She’s committed to being a good lawyer and to helping bring the ESG mindset to the legal world.”

— Pat McManamon

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Landon Cassill, in his rst year with the team, nished a career-best 13th in the X nity standings with ve top- ve nishes and 12 top-10s.

“ is was our rst year with three full-time X nity teams and two fulltime Cup teams, and we knew it would be a challenge going into it,” Kaulig said. “Having ve teams driving all over the country with ve pit crews, ve crew chiefs and ve car chiefs … it’s a pretty big operation. I think our organization as a whole really handled that extremely well.”

Cassill and Hemric will return in their cars in 2023, while Chandler Smith will drive the No. 16 car in his rst X nity season after driving in the NASCAR Truck Series the past two seasons.

2. It will have two full-time Cup drivers in 2023.

Haley will return in the No. 31 car for next year’s Cup Series, while Allmendinger will pilot the No. 16 car full time. It will mark the rst full-time Cup Series season for the 40-year-old Allmendinger since 2018, when he parted ways with JTG Daugherty Racing.

“He’s having fun doing whatever we want him to do,” Kaulig said. “If we literally asked him to race three races a year, he would do that. If we wanted him to go back to the X nity Series, he would do that for us. I think the best thing for our organization, and what gives us the best chance to make our Cup cars better, is for him to go to a Cup car full time.

“A.J. is one of the better drivers in the Cup series, but he’s also a great friend and a great mentor to the younger drivers. … I think he elevates the whole organization.”

3. It’s not looking for sponsors. It’s looking for “partners.”

While Pittman has known Kaulig for 30 years and has informally helped the team since its inception, he o cially joined the team in the newly created position in September. In past years, Kaulig Racing paired with some outside agencies to nd partners and sponsors, but Kaulig felt it was important to have someone ll that role internally — and that the

person “bleed Kaulig Racing,” Pittman said.

Kaulig also felt it was important for that person to be based in Hudson (where Kaulig Cos. is located) and not North Carolina (where Kaulig Racing is located). Although NASCAR is based in the South, Kaulig’s leadership believes there are plenty of Northeast Ohio companies (Progressive, Sherwin-Williams, etc.) and Midwest companies that can bene t from racing partnerships.

“Partnership” is the key word, Pittman said. His job involves a lot more than going up to businesses and saying, “If you give us money, we’ll put your logo on our car.”

Improving nancial wellness through education, innovation and community

By Laura Hennigan, Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland

Cardinal Credit Union has been providing nancial services in the Greater Cleveland area for more than half a century. Initially established in 1953 to support the employees of the Mentor Public School System, the organization now serves 28,000 members across Ohio.

Unlike a traditional bank, Cardinal Credit Union is a member-owned nancial cooperative that is owned, managed and utilized by its member-owners. The board of directors is elected from and by the general membership, and members are both the stockholders and the customers. With this structure, any pro ts the credit union gains are returned to the member-owners in the form of lower loan rates, higher savings rates and lower fees.

Membership is available to anyone. Also, membership is instant at account opening with any product – only a $5 savings account is required – and there are no ongoing subscription fees to maintain membership. This simpli ed membership system provides instant access to a wide variety of products and services. With its latest and improved technology, Cardinal offers online access to funds through a

mobile app, shared branching, a network of transaction-free ATMs and convenient telephone and electronic banking.

In addition, it provides an array of nancial solutions, including savings and checking accounts, money market accounts, IRAs and loans. Cardinal’s goal is summed up succinctly in its mission statement: “to brighten our members’ nancial future.”

Cardinal’s passion for nancial health expanded even further in 2012, when it launched its Financial Education Wellness program and opened one of the very rst student-run branches in Northeast Ohio on the campus of Lake Catholic High School. This innovative partnership provided a disciplined nancial education program designed to help high school students develop responsible money management skills while helping them avoid costly nancial mistakes in the real world. Cardinal added ve additional branches at Notre Dame Cathedral Latin, Eastlake North, Willoughby South, Northern Career Institute, and Mentor High School.

“The instruction we offer teaches positive money management, including thrift, smart spending, informed use of credit and the bene ts of regular savings,” said CEO Christine Blake. “Regular use

“We want to work with them, we want to share their vision and their values for what they want their company to be in three to ve years or 10 years,” he said. “We want our leadership team to work with their leadership team on some collaborative leadership ideas and some value-added relationships.

“When we partner with someone, it’s not just about how they’re helping us. It’s about helping them. e more we make them successful, the more successful the entire group becomes.”

4. The team is optimistic about the future.

Although there are some new Cup

Series teams that have had immediate success — most notably Trackhouse Racing, which was formed in 2020 and had two top-10 cars this year — most of NASCAR’s best teams are established blue bloods like Team Penske (founded in 1965), Hendrick Motorsports (1984) and Joe Gibbs Racing (1992). ose three teams combined for seven of the top eight spots in this year’s Cup standings.

Kaulig Racing has been around for seven seasons, but it’s still more like a startup, NASCAR-wise, one that needs momentum and money in equal measure. With both on the upswing, the team is not only able to attract (and keep) better drivers, but better mechanics, better team members and better back-o ce talent as well, Kaulig said.

“As you get bigger as a team and get more credibility within NASCAR, you get better people,” Kaulig said. “And they trust that they’re going to have a job. So, the talent level in the whole organization gets better with time, and they want to work for your organization.”

Kaulig Racing proved in 2022 that it can compete at NASCAR’s highest level.

In 2023, it wants to contend.

“You can see every week that the team is improving,” Kaulig said. “We fully expect to climb the ranks just based on experience.

“Our goal is to make the playo s, to make the 16-car eld. at’s a really, really big deal, but we also expect to contend for wins.”

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

of the branch is coupled with signi cant opportunities for nancial education through group presentations in the classroom and individual conversations with branch staff.”

Since its original formation 10 years ago, the Financial Education Wellness program has expanded to include ve additional high schools and one college student-run branch at Lakeland Community College. All students are encouraged to open and use the free checking account offered by Cardinal Credit Union at these school branches, as well as take advantage of opportunities for nancial education in group presentations in the classroom and in individual conversations with branch staff.

“Our intent is to immerse students ‘in a culture of thrift,’ putting sound money-management skills into practice as they learn by doing in a controlled environment,” Blake added.

Cardinal and its member-centered approach

shows no signs of slowing down, with a May eld branch opened in late 2021 and plans for a Mentor Avenue branch in December of this year. Cardinal also plans to continue supporting local communities through philanthropic efforts, including free monthly homebuyer seminars, quarterly nancial counseling workshops, faculty events at partner schools, and various community events.

“Cardinal is all about people helping people,” Blake said. “Every day, we strive to improve our members’ lives through education, attractive products and services, and smart nancial planning and management.”

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

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CEO Christine Blake

A.J. Allmendinger celebrates his win in the Drive for the Cure 250 in Concord, North Carolina, on Oct. 8. LOGAN T ARCE/ACTION SPORTS

FALL 2022/ 2021% CHANGE STUDENT: TEACHER RATIO

RANKCOLLEGE/UNIVERSITY

1

2

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY

800 E. Summit St., Kent44242 330-672-3000/kent.edu

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

10900 Euclid Ave., Cleveland44106 216-368-2000/case.edu

CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY

3

4

5

2121 Euclid Ave., Cleveland44115 216-687-2000/csuohio.edu

UNIVERSITY OF AKRON 302 Buchtel Common, Akron44325 330-972-7111/uakron.edu

YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY One University Plaza, Youngstown44555 330-941-3000/ysu.edu

CUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

6

7

8

700 Carnegie Ave., Cleveland44115 216-987-6000/tri-c.edu

STARK STATE COLLEGE

6200 Frank Ave. N.W., Canton44720 330-494-6170/starkstate.edu

LORAIN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

1005 N. Abbe Road, Elyria44035 800-995-5222/lorainccc.edu

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

ASHLAND UNIVERSITY

401 College Ave., Ashland44805 419-289-4142/ashland.edu

BALDWIN WALLACE UNIVERSITY

275 Eastland Road, Berea44017 440-826-2900/bw.edu

OBERLIN COLLEGE

38 E. College St., Oberlin44074 440-775-8460/oberlin.edu

JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

1 John Carroll Blvd., University Heights44118 216-397-1886/jcu.edu

LAKELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirtland44094 440-525-7000/lakelandcc.edu

THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER

1189 Beall Ave., Wooster44691 330-263-2000/wooster.edu

UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT UNION

1972 Clark Ave., Alliance44601 800-992-6682/mountunion.edu

WALSH UNIVERSITY 2020 E. Maple St. N.W., North Canton44720 330-490-7090/walsh.edu

BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY — FIRELANDS One University Drive, Huron44839 419-433-5560/ relands.bgsu.edu

NOTRE DAME COLLEGE 4545 College Road, South Euclid44121 216-381-1680/notredamecollege.edu

LAKE ERIE COLLEGE 391 W. Washington St., Painesville44077 440-296-1856/lec.edu

MALONE UNIVERSITY 2600 Cleveland Ave. N.W., Canton44709 330-471-8100/malone.edu

NORTHEAST OHIO MEDICAL UNIVERSITY 4209 Ohio 44, Rootstown44272 330-325-2511/neomed.edu

HIRAM COLLEGE 11715 Gar eld Road, Hiram44234 330-569-3211/hiram.edu

URSULINE COLLEGE 2550 Lander Road, Pepper Pike44124 440-449-4200/ursuline.edu

CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OFART 11610 Euclid Ave., Cleveland44106 216-421-7000/cia.edu

25 CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC 11021 East Blvd., Cleveland44106 216-791-5000/cim.edu

UNDERGRADUATE TUITION (FIRST YEAR, IN STATE)/ ROOM AND BOARD

% ENROLLMENT UNDERGRAD/ GRADUATE

TYPE OF INSTITUTION/ OPERATING BUDGET (MILLIONS)

ENDOWMENT (MILLIONS) 6-30-2022TOP LOCAL EXECUTIVE

25,794 26,979 -4.4%19:1$12,471 $12,676 87% 13% 4 year $661.3 $158.9 ToddDiacon president

11,513 11,397 1%11:1$61,040 $17,040 49.3% 50.7% 4 year $1,302.8 $2,188 EricW.Kaler president

11,313 11,873 -4.7%17:1$12,034 $11,573 69% 31% 4 year $316.9 $107.5 LauraJ.Bloomberg president

10,010 10,884 -8%17:1$11,880 $11,220 88% 12% 4 year $338 $275.9 GaryL.Miller president

8,673 9,031 -4%14:1$10,410 $10,016 87.26% 12.74% 4 year $171.7

JamesTressel president

8,229 9,063 -9.2%15:1 $3,343 1 100% 0% 2 year $218.5 $86.3 MichaelBaston president

5,292 5,631 -6%19:1$3,036 $5,722 100% 0% 2 year $66.5 $9.8 ParaM.Jones president

4,702 4,844 -2.9%14:1$4,004 100% 0% 2 year $70 $56 MarciaJ.Ballinger president

3,200 3,267 -2.1%12:1$23,000 $11,440 76% 24% 4 year $105.7 $58.7 CarlosCampo president

2,998 3,069 -2.3%11:1 $36,250 2 $12,796 85% 15% 4 year $128.6 $181.9 RobertC.Helmer president

2,986 2,930 1.9%9:1 $61,106 99% 1% 4 year CarmenTwillieAmbar president

2,777 3,040 -8.7%14:1$45,490 $13,200 83% 17% 4 year $88 $271.2 AlanR.Miciak president

2,596 2,729 -4.9%11:1$3,183 100% 0% 2 year MorrisW.BeverageJr. president

1,958 1,960 -0.1%11:1$57,050 $13,500 100% 0% 4 year $87.1 $374.9 WayneP.Webster interim president

1,889 1,873 0.9%12:1$34,000 $11,200 89% 11% 4 year

RobertGervasi

1,872 1,823 2.7%12:1$31,420 $11,610 67.5% 32.5% 4 year $70.8 $33.7 TimothyJ.Collins president

1,160 e 1,221 e 5% e 17:1 3 $5,906 4 100% 0% 2 year and 4 year AndrewKurtz dean, BGSU Firelands

1,085 1,142 -5%12:1$31,250 $11,600 96% 4% 4 year $24.1 $9.3 J.MichaelPressimone president

1,028 1,008 2%13:1$33,588 $10,514 81% 19% 4 year $21.5 $33.4 BrianD.Posler president

1,003 1,083 -7.4%12:1$33,595 $10,800 82% 18% 4 year $21.5 $21.7 GregMiller president

1,000 1,030 -2.9%11:1 5 $10,140 0% 100% 4 year $74.4 $28 JohnT.Langell president

806 6 984 -18.1%10:1$25,500 $10,600 98.4% 1.6% 4 year $31 $61 DavidP.Haney president

788 875 -9.9%10:1$36,390 $12,042 65.8% 34.2% 4 year $31 $51 ChristineDe Vinne president

572 561 2%10:1$43,380 100% 0% 4 year $21 $29.7 KathrynJ.Heidemann president, CEO

340 343 -0.9%7:2 $40,000 59% 41% 4 year

president,

interim president

Community colleges see enrollment fall 43.5% since 2013

BY CHUCK SODER

Local community colleges are much smaller than they used to be.

Enrollment plummeted 43.5% at the four biggest community colleges in Northeast Ohio since 2013, judging by local, full-time equivalent gures submitted for the Crain’s Colleges and Universities list over the years.

By comparison, the other colleges on the list saw their combined local enrollment fall 22.2% during that time, according to data from 18 schools that provided Crain’s with data for both 2013 and 2022.

Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic is a big reason why, but it’s not the only reason.

Colleges across the United States have endured enrollment declines over the past decade or so, and the pandemic accelerated that trend.

e acceleration was particularly dramatic for the local community colleges on the list. eir combined full-time equivalent local enrollment fell by 12.6% in 2020, 7.1% in 2021 and 6.5% this year.

Crain’s has previously documented a few reasons why this happened. e pandemic has had a disproportionately large impact on people of color and women, who make up a disproportionate number of students at community colleges. It also had an outsized impact on parents, who otherwise may have enrolled in classes were it not for child care challenges brought on by COVID.

Factors like those have pushed Tri-C to look harder at how people use their time, according to Angela Johnson, Tri-C’s vice president of access and completion, who spoke with Crain’s in July.

“People are thinking di erently about their time and the use of the time, in terms of having shorter programs, getting a credential and getting into the workforce,” she said at the time.

But even before the pandemic, community colleges were bleeding students faster than their four-year counterparts.

Colleges across the nation saw

big increases in enrollment in the years following the Great Recession as students turned to higher education to improve their job prospects and wait out the downturn. Naturally, those numbers came back down as the economy improved. On top of that, Ohio has seen a decline in high school graduates in recent years, and national surveys suggest people have growing doubts about the value of higher education.

Community colleges saw the biggest increases following the recession and then saw the biggest declines. efouronourlist—Cuyahoga Community College, Stark State College, Lorain County Community College and Lakeland Community College — saw their combined fulltime equivalent local enrollment drop 25.6% from 2013 to 2019. e decline was just 11.8% for other local colleges.

Tri-C and Lakeland Community College have seen the biggest enrollment declines since 2013, both about 48%. Enrollment dropped by roughly 30% at both Stark State and LCCC during that time.

Enrollment continued to decline for most schools this year: The combined drop for all 25 schools on the list was 4.3%. Kent State University remains in the top spot by a large margin, despite a 4.4% decline, but the school in the No. 2 spot might come as a surprise: Case Western Reserve University, which saw enrollment grow 1%, is now the second-largest school in Northeast Ohio by full-time equivalent enrollment, slightly ahead of Cleveland State University at No. 3, which saw a 4.7% decline. The University of Akron, No. 4, saw enrollment fall 8%, continuing a long streak of declines.

Historical data from the list going back to 2007 is included in the Excel version of the list, which is available to Crain’s Data Members. To learn more, visit CrainsCleveland. com/data.

Chuck Soder: csoder@crain.com, (216) 771-5374, @ChuckSoder

MORGENSTERN

Going back to the Dead, an analogy is, they might start a song and not know where it’s going. They play for two minutes, look around and say, you know, this song is going no place. Let’s stop this song and start the next one. There is no problem with that, just like there is no problem with stopping a deal. And that is the sort of exibility you need to be a deal jammer. You have to always be prepared to stop in the middle.

 Do you play any instruments yourself?

I play keyboard, and I played in college bands. Not surprisingly I play a lot of Dead songs, Allman Brothers, blues. I have an electric piano in my office and an electric guitar. Downstairs is a baby grand piano, African tongue drums. There are instruments every place in my house. And my wife is a vocalist. Music is an important bond in our life and our children’s lives, and now we’re working on our grandchildren. But I haven’t played in a band for maybe 10 years at this point, and I miss it.

 Do you think learning to play music, especially with other people, is a meaningful skill for dealmakers?

I do. You know, when I was in college, I had a friend who was classically trained on a string instrument, nationally recognized. He asked if I could teach him to play blues and improv stu . I would say, here’s a way to think about it. He’d start and in total frustration stop because, he said, he was playing a wrong note. I’d say there are no wrong notes. But he’d say, well, when I play the rst two notes, I know in my head what the third note should be. And that is a real limit.

One of my maxims is: structure unexamined is scripture. And that is what he ran into. He knew classical so well and that this kind of bar is followed by this kind of bar. He couldn’t break out of that. So instead of being helpful boundaries, it was a wall that was caving in on him.

Music and math and nance have a lot of commonalities. And you do see the trap of, what (Jerry) Garcia called the familiarity auto trap, where it’s normal to fall into patterns — patterns that worked and so we repeat the behavior. What you try to always do with music or anything else is force yourself to be uncomfortable. You want to know, especially in the deal world, what the norm is because it’s

important to know what the normal rules are. But you also have to know that they’re just guidance. Picasso commented that you have to learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

 Any nal thoughts?

I think the world — the corporate finance and business worlds are a subset of that — desperately needs to be learning to listen like musicians and not lawyers.

I am a recovering lawyer, and I did manage a law firm. So that is obviously no disrespect to lawyers. But the point is, lawyers are trained to advocate fiercely for a single position. When they are listening, they tend to be listening to rebut what a person is saying, to distinguish what the person is saying from the position they want. That is what you do in a courtroom, but that is not how you do a deal and that is not how you have a civilized society.

Learn to listen like a jam band musician who is focusing on the other person’s hands, what the other person is saying or playing. Try to listen to what is being said for the purpose of finding commonality in what is occurring. I think the world could use a very big dose of listening like a jam band musician, not like a lawyer.

Jeremy Nobile: jnobile@crain.com, (216) 771-5362, @JeremyNobile

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Cuyahoga Community College

am lawyer, and I did manage

“The Soul of the Deal,” the new book by Marc Morgenstern. | CONTRIBUTED

at road map, released in March 2021, calls for increasing enrollment by 4,500 students and adding 200 faculty members by 2025. It also emphasizes investments in research, new academ ic programs, workforce development and heightened support for students.

Sasaki worked with CSU for more than a year to study the university’s 85-acre footprint. e master plan pushes growth toward the fringes of the campus, but it does not contem plate additional land acquisitions. CSU has plenty of room to recon g ure in place, through a blend of dem olition, new construction and reno vation, Jewell said.

If the board signs o , the university could start the rst construction proj ect — a building on the north side of Euclid Avenue near East 22nd Street — in late 2023 or early 2024. Described as a “corporate connector,” the ve-story building could house counseling and academic advising services, o ces and interview rooms where local em ployers can meet with students.

“I like to think of it as a talent and workforce-development front door,” Jewell said.

State legislators appropriated $21 million for that building as part of the biennial capital budget approved in June. Funding for other projects would draw on a mix of sources, including ad ditional state capital budget appropria tions, borrowing and bonds, Jewell said. CSU also is interested in exploring broad public-private partnerships, particularly around investments like the arena, which he described as a mini Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

“ is is a doable plan that we can get started on,” Jewell said, adding that projects will be nanced one-by-one between now and 2033.

Overall, the plan includes nearly 750,000 square feet of new academic buildings, most of them slung between Euclid and Chester avenues. Sasaki also proposed an expanded central quad, with a land bridge that will cross East 21st Street from an existing court yard in front of Rhodes Tower and touch down on a podium over a single level of parking. at project will re quire razing CSU’s oldest garage, a 600-space structure, and adding new parking elsewhere on campus.

e university hopes to add 2,245 new beds, spread across new resi dence halls north of Chester, a hybrid academic-and-residential building at the southeast corner of Chester and East 18th Street and Rhodes Tower. CSU controls just over 2,200 beds today, including the Edge and Langston apartments that the uni versity purchased earlier this year.

Jewell said CSU’s existing resi dence halls are at capacity. e uni versity has no intention of abandon ing its identity as a exible commuter school, with evening and weekend classes and opportunities for nontra ditional students. But more on-cam pus housing will allow CSU to serve more students from the broader re gion and neighboring states — stu dents who can’t necessarily a ord a

typical downtown apartment.

At the northern end of campus, the master plan creates an athletics and recreation hub, with a roughly 150,000-square-foot arena, an indoor eld house and covered tennis courts. e new residence halls will rise on the site of the existing tennis courts, and nearby parking lots. e new development will remake the frontage along Payne, where the campus runs up against the fast-changing Superior Arts District. To the north, CrossCountry Mortgage is moving into a new headquarters, the centerpiece of a multi-building preservation project that also will bring more apartments, dining and entertainment to the neighborhood.

Mark Lammon, executive director of the Campus District Inc. neighbor

hood group, said the master plan will strengthen or create north-south pe destrian corridors through the cam pus at a critical time, just as invest ment pours into the Superior Arts District; as planners explore the idea of razing Cuyahoga County’s former juvenile court building and capping the Inner Belt to create new green space at East 22nd; and as St. Vincent Charity Medical Center reimagines its property in the wake of ending in patient and emergency services.

“ is creates multiple new gate way points in which to interact with the campus,” said Lammon, who ex pects growing pains as CSU expands but also sees potential for partner ships around parking and other neighborhood needs.

As for the Wolstein Center, the mas

ter plan contemplates more than 780,000 square feet of new buildings on the 10-acre site, between Prospect and Carnegie avenues and East 18th and East 21st streets. ose won’t be academic facilities, Jewell said, and they aren’t part of the plan’s estimated $650 million price tag.

Sasaki earmarked the site as a “partnership district,” a place where the university might work with com panies on research and development and other endeavors. e plans are vague now, but they could include a hotel, restaurants and retail, in addi tion to a central public space.

e fate of the Wolstein Center has been a topic of conversation for years. With Sasaki, CSU explored renova tions but determined that the build ing is far too big — and too expensive to operate and maintain, long-term.

Tyler Patrick, a Sasaki principal and the rm’s chair of planning and urban design, said the plan is meant to be exible. It’s about nding ways to improve the campus in concert with other downtown development e orts. And it’s about nding a bal ance between renovations and ground-up construction projects.

“We just saw a campus, and still do, that is ripe with opportunity,” Pat rick said during an interview. “And the really interesting thing, when we think about implementation, is that the university doesn’t have to do it all on its own. … Cleveland State will play a lead role in that, but there are many other actors at the table.”

Michael Deemer, president and CEO of the Downtown Cleveland Al liance, views CSU as a key anchor in stitution for the center city and an asset for downtown employers and residents alike. e master plan, which also emphasizes improved safety, enhanced streetscapes and new bicycle and pedestrian infra structure, will better knit the districts together, he said.

“I think it’s important for the city, for downtown from the river to East 30th, to really be a seamless urban fabric that connects to the surround ing neighborhoods, as well,” he said. “I think the direction that Cleveland State is going in, it’s exactly the direc tion that the city and downtown need right now.”

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

“The conversion statistics and trends help stabilize downtown,” he said.

The CBRE analysis identified 16 conversions completed in Cleve land since 2016, with eight more on the way. Almost all of them are downtown, or in the Flats.

Pending projects include the Rockefeller Building, at West Sixth Street and Superior Avenue, and 700 Prospect Ave., the former head quarters of the United Church of Christ. Both buildings are set to be come housing, with ground-floor retail.

CBRE still is fine-tuning the data, which originally was set to be re leased early Thursday, Nov. 17.

Between completed, ongoing and pending projects, the compa ny’s list spans more than 6 million square feet of conversions in Cleve land. That’s about 7% of the square footage covered by the global real estate company’s findings, based on CBRE’s data and Crain’s re search.

Other active markets for conver sions include San Diego, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Minneapolis-St. Paul. ere are 34 completed proj ects in Manhattan, with ve more pending; and 22 nished redevelop ments in Boston, with 36 looming, CBRE said.

Across the country, the properties developers are targeting tend to be old — an average of 85 years. e typical size of a conversion project is 177,150 square feet, researchers found.

Most buildings are nding new life as apartments, though some are being reincarnated as hotels. In ro bust life-sciences markets like Bos ton and San Diego, developers also are turning traditional o ce space into labs to capture strong demand and much higher rents.

“It is certainly a national trend, and one that I only see increasing in the coming years,” said Peter Ketter, director of historic preservation for Cleveland-based Sandvick Archi tects, a rm that specializes in com plicated adaptive-reuse projects.

Sandvick is working with Texas developers on the remake of 45 Erieview Plaza, a nearly

493,000-square-foot tower that once served as the headquarters of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. e build ing will hold 367 apartments, with retail and o ce uses downstairs.

At East Ninth Street and Lakeside Avenue, it sits in the recently estab lished Erieview Historic District — one of 10 downtown-area districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places. at location en ables developers to pursue federal and state tax credits for preserva tion.

Ketter also is working with the Millennia Cos. on plans for the Cen tennial, the ambitious overhaul of the vacant Union Trust Building at East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue. Totaling 1.3 million square feet, the mixed-use redevelopment project is one of downtown’s most challeng ing. Millennia is striving to start con struction during the second quarter of 2023.

Ohio’s competitive historic tax credit program has been an acceler ant for conversions, which also are tapping preservation easements, loans and grants for remediation and a new tax credit aimed at cata lytic mixed-use projects. The state

also was an early adopter of the alter native building code, written to sup port rehabilitation of historic build ings, Ketter noted.

“It is not traditionally what is taught in architecture schools,” he said of turning longtime o ces into apartments or hotel rooms that need much more plumbing, lots of natural

light and revamped mechanical sys tems. “Many times, you’re working counter to the prevailing wisdom or the accepted way of doing things in order to make the new use work in the existing space.”

CBRE warns that conversions ar en’t a one-size- ts-all solution. And they’re not a cure for the broader of

A motley group of buildings currently sit on Payne Avenue at the northeastern end of Cleveland State University’s campus.

A rendering shows a proposed arena on Payne Avenue. The multipurpose facility, for sports, entertainment and dining, would be about half of the size of the Wolstein Center. | COURTESY OF CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY

Work being done by professor John Dunlosky, director of the SOLE Center, and professor Katherine Rawson aims to help students with studying. e team is looking at how students in introductory science courses can best use ashcards, us ing a web-based model.

“To use ashcards well, they need to answer them all correctly,” Rawson said in a news release, “but then they need to do it days later to refresh. We know that when they do this three or four times the rate of retention dra matically improves.”

Improving forensic investigation options at YSU

Research happening at Youngstown State University on what a news release calls “clandestine burials” has already made an impact beyond university borders.

Youngstown State’s geology pro gram has been using advanced tech nology to research such graves, using hogs as stand-ins for humans. e work aims “to improve the under standing of human decomposition in shallow graves and to use the burial eld as a site to educate students and train law enforcement o cials on the use of geophysics in forensic geolo gy,” the release said.

e work uses Ground Penetrating Radar equipment to examine the graves and capture images in a non-invasive way, equipment that was recently used in criminal investi gations. e equipment is not readily available everywhere, including at FBI Cleveland. e university’s de partment of physics, astronomy, ge ology and environmental science in September received the FBI Direc tor’s Community Leadership Award for its help in this space.

Looking at gender, mental illness and punishment at Lake Erie College

Lake Erie College in Painesville makes student research a required part of its psychology program. One

project conducted in the spring ex amined how mental illness, gender and the criminal justice system inter act.

e research presented partici pants with one of six versions of a sto ry in which someone had committed third-degree felony theft. Half of the stories had a man committing the crime; the other half had a woman as the perpetrator. And the stories var ied by the mental illness disclosed: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or none mentioned. en participants were asked about what would be an appropriate length of prison sen tence, as well as whether time in a psychiatric facility would be a better t. e research found no big di er ences, aside from respondents being slightly more likely to suggest a psy chiatric facility for male perpetrators than female ones.

Walsh working on cancer research

Walsh University assistant profes sor of chemistry Timothy Smith is looking into ways to treat cancer with

fice market’s woes.

“ is isn’t going to be a game-changer,” said Julie Whelan, the company’s global head of occu pier thought leadership, during an October discussion at the National Association of Real Estate Editors’ conference in Atlanta. “It’s going to be a factor.”

With major loans maturing over the next few years, the office sec tor faces a potential wave of dis tressed properties. Landlords who aren’t reinvesting in their build ings will lose tenants and fall be hind, Coleman warned.

But conversions offer promise as additional historic properties go dark.

Medical Mutual of Ohio an nounced this month that it is leav ing the city for the suburbs, in a move that empties out the ornate Rose Building at East Ninth Street and Prospect Avenue. And when the Sherwin-Williams Co. moves to a new skyscraper on Public Square in late 2024, the company will va cate the mammoth Landmark Of ce Towers on Prospect.

Both properties are logical can didates for residential or mixed-

minimal side e ects.

Speci cally, Smith is researching new photosensitizers for photody namic therapy, which information from the North Canton-based uni versity described as a two-step pro cess that uses “light and a chemical photosensitizer” to destroy cancer ous or precancerous cells. It makes use of the oxygen found naturally in human tissue to “create a highly reac tive form of oxygen to destroy dan gerous tissue only in the area being irradiated with light,” not the healthy tissue, the information stated.

Better diagnosing for autism at John Carroll

A researcher at John Carroll Uni versity is studying how to improve the assessment of autism spectrum disorder, which could help better al locate interventions.

omas W. Frazier, a professor of psychology at John Carroll in Univer sity Heights, recently received a Na tional Institutes of Health grant to support his work, the university’s rst. e grant will provide research

use renovations.

“We’ve been able to improve our economics by removing vacant and outdated o ce space and, in stead, creating much-demanded housing — housing that has lled massive gaps,” said Audrey Ger lach, vice president of economic development and chief of sta at the nonpro t Downtown Cleve land Alliance.

e alliance is encouraging more conversions, with an eye on increasing the downtown popula tion from roughly 21,000 to 30,000 by 2030. e organization also is advocating for new incentives, such as low-interest loans, grants and enhanced job creation tax credits, to help owners modernize o ce buildings that aren’t ripe for a change of use.

“But for our ability to success fully convert so many underuti lized buildings to housing,” Ger lach said, “our population may not have been able to reach where it is right now.”

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

training for eight undergraduate stu dents, according to information from the university. Under the grant, Fra zier will assess data on some of the most frequently used tools for autism spectrum disorder assessment and validate their usefulness in the real world.

Working small — very, very small — at Notre Dame College

Researchers at Notre Dame Col lege in South Euclid are exploring how to use nanoparticles to modern ize agriculture. ose nanoparticles could be used as — or as a way to de liver — fertilizers, pesticides or fungi cides, according to information from the college.

“We are continuing to look at the wet chemical analysis but have also been working on growing the capacity of our hydroponic farm and develop ing synthetic strategies to exercise more control over the size and surface chemistry of the nanoparticles that are used,” associate professor David

Kirby said in an emailed statement. Beyond the science, this work will also examine the challenges of con ducting nanotechnology research at a small liberal arts institution.

Exploring the history of Mount Union before it was Mount Union

University of Mount Union stu dents spent the summer of 2021 learning more about the indigenous history of the region around their school in Alliance. e work, led by Niki Johnson, professor of religious studies, and Kelly Stout, assistant professor of criminal justice, ex plored models of similar work at in stitutions across the U.S. and Cana da. A news release noted that students planned to create a display to educate the university community on the “‘incredibly complicated’ in digenous history of the land” where Mount Union is now located.

e project was part of Mount Union’s Sit Lux Initiative for Interdis ciplinary Innovation Projects, which funded projects focused on service, learning and working with the com munity.

The science of relationships at Oberlin

An Oberlin College researcher is looking into how relationships be tween parents and children change as they age.

Nancy Darling, a professor in the department of psychology at Oberlin, specializes in the research of social relationships, particularly during ad olescence. But a recent study looked at how adult children monitor and attempt to protect aging parents. Teenagers and elderly parents “are at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of developing autonomy,” in formation from Oberlin noted, but adult children often start to feel re sponsible for their parents as they age. Negotiating that shift can be tough, and teens and older parents both use strategies like “arguing, avoiding, and lying” in order to make their own decisions, the information said.

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

Notre Dame College students Sarah Friedlander and Rachel Everett are researching nanoparticles in agriculture. | DAVID KIRBY

The 45 Erieview Plaza o ce building, once home to AT&T, is being transformed into an apartment project called the Bell. |

MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

CLA CLA is pleased to announce a career milestone of Theresa Mullen, MT, a professional in our Canton of ce, who is advancing from her role as manager to principal effective January 1, 2023. Theresa specializes in state and local tax issues and has more than 25 years of experience. “Theresa is a valued member of our of ce’s state and local tax practice. This well-deserved career milestone is the result of hard work, dedication, and commitment to the CLA Promise,” said managing principal Dane Mayle.

ACCOUNTING

Corrigan Krause

Corrigan Krause CPAs and Consultants is pleased to announce Sarah D. Price, CPA, MAcc, joined our Assurance Services department as a Senior Manager. Sarah is passionate about helping ensure her healthcare and nonpro t clients have a sound internal control structure so they can focus on their mission. Sarah also helps nonpro t organizations navigate the various nuances of nonpro t accounting and standards. Everyone at Corrigan Krause is thrilled to have Sarah on our team.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

Ancora is happy to announce that Ryan Bartels has joined the rm as an Assistant Vice President and Family Wealth Advisor. Prior to joining Ancora, Ryan was with Fidelity Investments, MAP Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley in Chicago. He also has prior experience with Ancora, serving as an intern during the summers of 2016 and 2018. Ryan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Tom Connick has established a reputation as one of the top litigators in Cleveland, Ohio during the past 15 years. We are now excited to announce the merger of Connick Law, LLC with Schneider Smeltz Spieth Bell LLP. This merger will further expand Tom’s growing practice and will take the rm’s excellent litigation group to the next level by broadening our ability to serve clients with an exceptional depth of talent and expertise in complex, high-stakes litigation, and appeals.

Ancora Cleveland, OH 216-825-4000 ancora.net

ACCOUNTING

CLA

CLA is pleased to announce the career milestone of Kyle Bowers, CPA, a professional in our Canton of ce, who is advancing from his role as manager to principal. “Kyle has had a signi cant impact not only within our rm’s healthcare and nonpro t industry groups, but also amongst our people when it comes to helping others establish their careers; making him well suited and deserving of this career advancement,” said managing principal Dane Mayle. Kyle has more than ten years of experience.

BANKING

ERIEBANK Ohio Board of Advisors

Wesley Gillespie, Regional President of ERIEBANK, is pleased to announce that Darrell McNair, president, and chief executive of cer of MVP Group, has been appointed to the ERIEBANK Ohio Board of Advisors. In this capacity, Mr. McNair will provide community leadership and guidance as ERIEBANK continues to expand in the Northeast Ohio market while serving the nancial needs of the region’s small to middlemarket businesses, commercial real estate, and consumer banking clients.

GOVERNMENT

Cuyahoga Board of Developmental Disabilities

Cuyahoga DD is pleased to announce its selection of Amber C. Gibbs as Superintendent and CEO effective May 1, 2023. Gibbs joined Cuyahoga DD in 2008 and has served in a variety of supervisory and leadership roles, most recently as Chief Administrative Services Of cer, overseeing several key service departments, a staff of 300 and budgets of more than $40 million.

“Amber is the right person to lead Cuyahoga County in serving the needs of our citizens with developmental disabilities,” Cuyahoga DD Board President Cynthia V. Schulz said. “She absolutely stood out in our robust search process. The Board has con dence in Amber’s innovative approach to assisting and including in our community a special population we all care deeply about.”

LAW

Jenna Bird joined

LLP through the merger of Connick Law, LLC. She has experience in all phases of litigation and is adept at assisting clients with their transactional needs and document requirements. She received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, MO in 2021, where she also worked as a family law clerk during her nal year. There, she gained valuable experience that now enables her to help clients navigate their family law disputes.

Ancora announces the acquisition of Alpha Property & Casualty, Inc. (“Alpha”), a leading licensed insurance agency in Westlake, Ohio. Alpha offers a range of property and casualty (“P&C”) and health insurance solutions. They are led by three principals, Brian Spear, Kevin Neitzel and Kevin O’Brien, each with over 20 years of industry experience. Ancora welcomes 22 new employees to the rm, bringing its total to 110.

Ancora is a Clevelandbased nancial services rm, previously with three primary business verticals. As a result of this partnership, the rm looks forward to expanding its offerings to include personal and commercial P&C as well as health insurance and employee bene ts. Visit ancora.net/press/ for additional detail.

LAW Taft

ACCOUNTING

CLA

CLA is pleased to announce the career milestone of David M. Supelak, CPA, MT, a professional in our Akron of ce, who is advancing from his role of signing director to principal. David is the leader of CLA’s northeast Ohio real estate group and has more than 20 years of experience. “David is a tremendous asset to our northeast Ohio team. This advancement is the result of many hours of hard work and dedication to our people, our clients, and our community,” said managing principal Dane Mayle.

BANKING

ERIEBANK

Board of Advisors

Wesley Gillespie, Regional President of ERIEBANK, announced the appointment of Michael Obi, CEO of Spectrum Global Solutions, to the ERIEBANK Ohio Board of Advisors. Mr. Obi provides economic development strategies and implementation services to organizations that are focused on advancing job creation through entrepreneurship and access to capital in the Greater Cleveland area for minority-owned businesses.

LAW KJK

Nathan Studeny joins KJK’s Litigation & Arbitration, Real Estate & Environmental, eCommerce and Student & Athlete Defense practice groups. With nearly two decades of litigation experience, Nathan has built a practice that focuses on matters involving products liability, environmental and toxic injuries, commercial litigation and negligence cases in both state and federal courts.

Joseph Hendlin is an associate in Taft’s corporate and M&A practices. Prior to joining Taft, Joe served as a judicial extern to the Hon. Jonathan D. Greenberg in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and as a litigation assistant in tax law for a well-known law rm in Tel Aviv, Israel. He earned his J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University. He also holds a certi cate in nance from Harvard Business School.

Schneider Smeltz Spieth Bell LLP

Schneider Smeltz Spieth Bell

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